Sincerely. Since there are so many in all formats, I run into them from time to time. What I find interesting is that they are all so different.
Some have golden heroes, some various card backs. Some golden cards and some not. Some fancy portraits that are brand new! Some play the game and some hero power and rope.
So, I’m genuinely curious about how they work. Are they programmed somehow? Is someone equipping the portraits for them? Equipping card backs? It’s all very interesting how they all behave differently.
Are real people managing them somehow once they farm enough gold?
Yeah, they’re programs ran by players that interact with the game. The programming is crazy but they only play basic decks that are really good so as to minimize time in game and maximizing wins.
Thus, they play Secret Mage, Pirate Rogue and Even Shaman. Those 3 decks are so stupidly easy to play that you can run a program to play them and they will win because the aggro in the deck is so good the deck practically plays itself.
You will find these bots in absurd numbers in the D10-D1 area where they thrive. You find them there because they are so efficient at beating bad decks and are average against great decks.
Last season I had 32 of my 50 opponents in the D5- legend run were bots. This wasn’t a guess number either, I checked to make sure before I beat each one then reported it. Mallenroh can verify as I was showing him how to detect the bot and proved to him they were bots.
I imagine some players don’t know they’re playing against bots, but once you know what to look for it becomes stupidly obvious.
If you’re in D10-D5 range and you’re playing against either of those 3 decks, there’s a very good chance it’s a bot.
I’ll show you in game how to know.
The whole “why?” is another issue. You won’t find bots playing decks that require a lot of thought. As long as dumb, brainless decks are good and competitive, they will exist. Aggro is the king of wild and always will be. It’s too efficient and gets progressively stronger with each expansion.
Sure I am. I don’t k ow how or why they are programmed the way they are. I have no knowledge of such things. It seems like a lot of work and effort go into creating and maintaining these fake accounts for a few measly gold.
This is a widespread issue in China and was typically exclusive to Chinese servers. However, since Blizzard left China 12 months ago, the problem has spread to other servers.
Here’s how it works:
Chinese streamers and their fanbase purchase accounts with overpowered arena decks (either for fame, to donate these decks, or for streamsniping purposes). These accounts are farmed and sold by account sellers who operate a fleet of bots farming 24/7. If you want to see these individuals in action, simply search in Google “Douyu” , a Chinese streaming platform similar to Twitch. Scroll down and click on the Hearthstone symbol. The first thing you’ll notice is a large number of arena streamers. If you check the in-game names of these streams, you’ll observe the same bot names that have been causing issues for almost 12 months.(Most streamers hide their names; just wait until the gold is gone, and you’ll see them logging into a new account.)
The sad thing is its all done in public in front of thousands of people including blizzard and they do nothing ( banning against a automated software is useless).