Player botting is Rampant in co-op.

[Gunther Ultrabolt Novacrunch]

Players abusing the referral system by "referring" bot accounts.
As I'm sure WG already knows, these bot accounts earn rewards for the referring account.

The stats on these accounts can be identified easily by the extremely low kill ratios and match survival rates.

For Example:

I have one player who bots with a Dalian.

1195 co op battles

0.26 kill ratio

Has survived only 548 battles.

He dies more than 50% of the time, and his only kills are chance rams as his the script sends his ship forward in a straight line.


But there is virtually no proper way to report player botting.

The guided questioning when creating a ticket doesn't offer a choice for player botting.

The closest choice you make is "use of forbidden modifications", upon choosing this you're told this:

"If you believe that a player is using forbidden modifications, no need to contact support.

Player Support specialists don't investigate tickets with complaints about forbidden modifications because the project Administration checks all accounts regularly. If a violation is discovered, the perpetrator is punished."

[Jackson]

You can choose a different option. They'll still help you. I doubt anyone cares about botting in coop tho. As far as I'm concerned the more bots the better. It leaves more targets/damage for me. It's still practically impossible to lose.

[christof]

EU support at least actually has a section specifically for "Bots and AFK", but that may be different on other servers, I don't know.

[Gunther Ultrabolt Novacrunch]

Originally posted by Jackson:

You can choose a different option. They'll still help you. I doubt anyone cares about botting in coop tho. As far as I'm concerned the more bots the better. It leaves more targets/damage for me. It's still practically impossible to lose.

I have sent them in on different options and immidately explained in the complaint I have yet to receive even an auto respond that the issue has been addressed (or not) I'll post the results if they come back.

[Gunther Ultrabolt Novacrunch]

HAH. I just had an long conversation in chat...in game with one of the perps. And here is what I found out.

There is a guy(s) selling referral accounts. You pay him money. He creates an account for you, gives you the sign on and password and the new (bot) account. You get the perks of the referral and a bot account that runs as much or as little as you want to earn the additional rewards offered through the refer a friend program.

The problem is, the guy selling the accounts doesn't make a new name. He simply adds a number to the end of the same name. So all these bots have the same name, but aren't the same person. They are all sold to people.

I have the replays and the very long conversation all saved.

[christof]

That is definitely against the EULA. Send it in, I say.

[Gunther Ultrabolt Novacrunch]

Originally posted by christof:

That is definitely against the EULA. Send it in, I say.

I posted all my saved bot replays and the 4 jpg screen shots of the conversation in a DM in the WG discord to Ahskance. He was shown as "online" the entire time. It has been 8 hours and I haven't got a reply.

I did create one ticket through the WG website using an alternate category with a detailed explanation several days ago. The only response I got was a very short survey asking me how satisfied I was with the resolution of my ticket.

[R[e]venge®-uk*]

Originally posted by Gunther Ultrabolt Novacrunch:

Originally posted by christof:

That is definitely against the EULA. Send it in, I say.

I posted all my saved bot replays and the 4 jpg screen shots of the conversation in a DM in the WG discord to Ahskance. He was shown as "online" the entire time. It has been 8 hours and I haven't got a reply.

I did create one ticket through the WG website using an alternate category with a detailed explanation several days ago. The only response I got was a very short survey asking me
how satisfied I was with the resolution of my ticket.

Be aware he usually replies 1 am onward UK time so is probably not even at his PC!!

[christof]

And he may have seen it and relayed it to whoever checks this.

One thing is certain, and I can tell you that as someone who's worked in a GM and Mod capacity for nearly a decade myself: You will never get any answer as to what kind of actions have been taken against the player you reported. That is always basic policy.

[Jackson]

Oh, one account I looked at least night that looked pretty sketch was northsea25. I think it's still sketchy, but both those super ships that guy has could have been bought. no need to grind ships to get them.

[Gunther Ultrabolt Novacrunch]

There are a bunch of "southsea" accounts created in June.

Its really pathetic. Its rampant. There are solid accounts w/ solid Random stats, respectable stats, who simply run thier account in co op at night when they sleep or when they are at work. I mean when you see a highly ranked player, with a 55% or more win rate in randoms... having a lill ration of 0.79 in co op its pretty obvious (besides the obvious botting behavior in game).

I strongly suspect, that there is little motivation for WG to act on these accounts in the face of a declining player base.

[Gunther Ultrabolt Novacrunch]

To paraphrase the WoW team member who did finally respond to me:

"They get so many bot reports and 99% of them aren't bots... so they don't review player submitted bot reports... they do scan for bots"

I have on botter that is on my list that has been botting since January.

I have little faith in what ever they do to scan for bots.

So to me the message is... "botting is tolerated".

[Jackson]

They may not bot enough and that's what they found. Their software is fairly good. It's very rare that I see anyone I think is botting. And they don't bother me if I'm honest. I'm not sure why you're so bothered..?

It's also entirely possible they only scan Random mode. In coop I do reg see people I think are or could be botting, but that's to my benefit so I'd never consider reporting them there.

[Gunther Ultrabolt Novacrunch]

I think your 2nd paragraph rings more true, as I see several every night and they seem to last a very long time.

[Jackson]

Yes, I should have clarified better. I mostly play Random and I rarely see people botting there. I doubt most bots would get anything done in that mode. I also play higher tiers most of the time where bots would just lose money.

But in coop it's a different story. I can't say I often pay much attn. Usually I'm trying to get kills, citadels, or whatever the mission is as quickly as possible and paying almost no attn to those around me other than to see if I can grab what I need first! If I die tho, sometimes I look around before requeueing and some are just so bad they have to be bots.

[Jackson]

I guess I should look at the referral program again. Last I knew it wasn't good enough to hardly bother with. In recent times I've invited two coworkers to play and I forgot the referral both times lol The one time I invited someone who had quit, to come back, I did use it. But they just quit again ;c