Bots farming Australium Weapons

[BlueRaja]

Valve, you're aware that there are bots farming Australium Weapons in MvM, right?

[I am alive!!]

How do you know if they're bots or not?

[Matt]

Farming australium weapons..? Huh?

[bar]

vot?????

[Curry! Curry!]

bots how?

[Alexander]

People using Sniper aimbots along with Heavies, etc.

[Sting]

Lol what is this? Runescape?

[BlueRaja]

We played with a few players who all had the following characteristics:
* They never responded to voice or text, even when we asked them to do something important.
* They were INHUMANLY good - the snipers always ended up with more damage than everyone else COMBINED.
* They all made some distinctly non-human choices, like ALWAYS focusing on the tank until it's destroyed, even if there's a bot about to deploy the bomb right behind them.
* Between rounds, they'd run around and jump on things, and swing/shoot their weapons at nothing, in an attempt to look human. However, after watching them for a while, you realize it's scripted, and can predict exactly where they'll go and what they'll do next. (This was the big, convincing evidence for me)
* They all had almost exactly 80 hours played a week, and dozens of tours completed.
* They'd always choose sniper or heavy. It's very rare for a good, human MvM player to choose sniper.
Given all of the above (especially the 2nd and 4th bullet points), there's no doubt in my mind that they were bots.

Why would they farm australiums?
A tour for australiums cost 4 tickets = $4. The average drop-rate is 10%, so the average cost to earn an australium is $40. Australiums sell for $60-$120 each, with an average of about $80. So the bot will make a profit of $40 per australium, or an average of $4 per tour. If each bot can run just two tours a night (8 games) and you have just 10 bots, that's about $80 profit per day.

How do they make bots?
I don't know, but it's always possible, it's just a matter of some really smart developer reverse-engineering the game. They even had bots for Starcraft 1 (see http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/01/skynet-meets-the-swarm-how-the-berkeley-overmind-won-the-2010-starcraft-ai-competition/ ), and there wasn't even any money to be made there.

[BlueRaja]

Oh yeah, they always joined our game midway through as well. That's not typical for human players (the reasoning is that if someone left, it's probably because that team sucks), but I guess the bot-writers figure the bot can probably carry the team.

[Statisfaction]

Don't worry, VAC will catch them

In 6-24 months

[Nihil]

Originally posted by xG:∇ BlueRaja:

* They'd always choose sniper or heavy. It's very rare for a good, human MvM player to choose sniper.

laughed pretty loud here
but OT: its obviously that bots will play hitscan classes because an aimbot is everythin a bot needs to finish a mission (remember that the sniper automatically collects money too). something that calculates projectile weapons would be way harder to code (and prob still less reliable)

[Munch]

This wouldn't be profitable. The drop rate is actually more like 3% and the cost in tickets >$120. Unless they are also farming pro and spec kits, but how often do you get decent ones of those?

[tN|Serpent]

Who cares? More supply for people to buy from.

[The Creepy Cupcake]

Originally posted by tN|Serpent:

Who cares? More supply for people to buy from.

Then Australiums won't be anything special. Their main draw is that they're rare and hard to get, so if people farm them by the hundreds they become less special and less valuable. Valve then loses money because fewer people will buy tickets to for Two Cities, whcih means fewer updates for the gamemode.

It's a domino effect.

[Botspan]

Like back when canteen glitch was around. Carbo/Diamond price reaches rock bottom because of that.

[Law Abiding Engineer]

Hard to believe but some people are really good as sniper and might not want to talk or anything, and just jump around because they are bored. Eitherway, it sounds like something that is really open to lossing money since they will have to supply tickets for the bot, unless they have found the way to get unlimited tickets.