I know botting in wild is a huge issue right now as I both experience it every day and see it on reddit, but after experiencing a deathknight that only pressed his hero portrait and hero power, and when it was his turn - the one minion I’m getting increasingly frustrated and tired of this issue.
Is there any kind of fix for the botting issue in sight or will wild just die?
Yea, its gotten pretty bad now. Even shaman, pirate rogue, secret mage bots running rampant. Might see the occasional druid token bot or shadow priest aggro bot.
I play less and less every week because of this.
Wonder if they realize they are slowly killing the player-base they rely on.
There is no fix and Wild is more likely than not on the chopping block. The meta has been toxic for at least the last year and killing Classic and Chinese server made the situation worse by introducing a mass of bots playing braindead aggro decks (mainly even Shaman). Then the supposed “Wild only” expansion turned out to be a cash grab that was supposed to reinvigorate Twist format but in actuality it only ruined Wild meta even more (and made people even less willing to play Twist). And then we have all the signs showing that Blizzard is trying to cut costs on a struggling brand, they kill esports scene, people are leaving the HS team left and right. Considering all of that and how difficult it is to adress the bot problem I would not hold my breath for Wild to get better.
They won’t get rid of Wild, that would essentially negate the vast majority of people’s collections and eliminate their ability to sell cards from old xpacs. Since they virtually never ‘balance’ wild (specific nerfs/buffs just to deal with a bad wild meta) it’s not like it costs them anything for the format to exist. I doubt they have any resources specifically dedicated to Wild.
Even if only 2 people ever play wild there isn’t any reason for it not to continue.
Also the meta being toxic for a year … it’s no more toxic (IMO) than Mecha’thun, or Reno Priest, or Kingsbane Rogue, or Bomb Warrior, or Linecracker Druid
The bots have existed since they introduced the rewards track. They just ran odd warrior, hero powered and roped every single turn to farm gold, and then you had to choose whether to play a 20 minute match or just concede. At least now you can report them even though there’s no way to know if the reports are doing anything.
Don’t be fooled, there are as many bots in standard as there are in wild, the difference is that they don’t hit Legend
Easiest solution for Wild:
Rotate sets like Arena but more often and update the cards like they did for Twist. Yes this would take work, but I bet it would be better than what both are now. Let it be the new Wild and let Twist be the quirky, strange rules, sorta kinda Tavern Brawl.
Botting in wild is crazy right now.
It’s even shaman, pirate rogue, and now I’ve noticed secret mage.
And they don’t have crazy names.
I found a funny new way to check as well. Play the new reno hero. The bot can’t figure out why they can’t play new minions.
I play quest mage in wild recently and it’s easier to tell them apart from real players. Real players won’t sit there and let you endlessly play your rommath loop. Bots sit there. Then once I’ve 100% secured the game with no way to lose I let them play with 1 health left. They play a single 2/1 minion and attack with it against my full board, iceblock, solid alibi full health. Every time.
Incredibly easy to see it’s a bot. And the highlights are all the same on cards and hero power.
In the last 10 games I played at d5 - d4, 6 were bots. 6. It’s out of hand.
Secret mage bots have been a thing for a while now.
They don’t have crazy names because it’s real players botting their account, not some Chinese kid who wants to sell.
Yes they have always been around, but usually the amount of secret mage bots were relatively low compared to even shaman and pirate rogue.
Now it’s completely out of hand. Of my last 30 something matches, a solid 20-25 have been bots. It’s insane. And it’s not like I’m currently in bronze. I’m D5-D4 right now.
Those bots are actually more common in diamond in Legend than bronze because they are good enough for Legend 
They don’t get stuck in the low ranks for very long.
I just played another 8 games tonight. Every single one was a bot. ALL of them.
It’s out of hand.
I wonder if that is because of reducing the XP in Mercs. XP farmers just moved to the next profitable thing. There always will be players abusing the system. No matter what you do. With Mercs they at leaqst didn´t hurt the multiplayer experience…
I think they are more common d5-1 because before then (most) players are being matched by MMR. Once the lose their star bonus and get matched based on rank, in come the bots.
Yeah, something need to be done about 'em.
Yeah it’s so bad. Every match tonight was a bot. I was showing Mallenroh and predicting every movement and highlight and how the game would end and showing how I could manipulate the bot and freeze it up with certain cards.
Literally every single game tonight.
That makes 28 of my last 35 matches bots.
Nope, this is wrong.
Bots have been around before that.
Uhm, did I say bots were not around before that? I´ve assumed Schyla meant bots went out of hand lately. So I´ve speculated about causation of the rise of bots. Of course, my assumption can be wrong…
And I’m saying you’re wrong.
It exploded when they closed the Chinese servers.
Nowadays it’s gotten worse and that was before the merc changes.
True, however regarding wild it didnt really explode until they canned classic. Thats where most of the bots hung out, now they have taken over wild instead.
I never made the connection but that makes a lot of sense.
It’s a combination of all of that.
I recently made a new friend in game who turns out to be Chinese. He pretty much confirmed that botting is really rampant now that they closed down the Chinese servers. Apparently, it’s fairly decent money because it uses very little to no labor.
I’m betting HS is keeping quiet about how many “new accounts” they see on a daily basis.
Personally, I’ve never seen THIS many bots. It’s close to 70% of my matches, approaching 80%.