Also, the one part of the article I THOROUGHLY believe is real is this:
If Hearthstone players had absurd amounts of gold thanks to botting [in Wild], then there would be no incentives to play a run if their drafted decks weren’t insane.
Ranked, at first Classic and now Wild, is obviously infested with gold farming bots, and the owners of these bots use the gold on Arena runs that they only play if the decks are very strong.
What I DON’T believe is that such players make up the MAJORITY of Arena. If Rinse has said that you can’t go above six wins without running into one, that would be more believable.
Feel free to look through the current leaderboards and see the same thing. Also assume LavaMoose, TinyPants, BounceyKnight, and similar accounts are likely bot accounts, too.
You know, if you were the intellectually curious sort, you could do an analysis of past and present leaderboards and see how many accounts are on both lists.
You mean like how there are about 20k more players on the board with 30+ runs in season 39 vs season 40, when the massive ban wave happened? And how that number has crept back up 10k since, where bot accounts outnumber player accounts?
Ya, a guy who was not a complete moron would see enough napkin math to know better, but if you have time and nothing better, knock yourself out with some crazy analysis that you do not need to do to know better.
You came into a conversation and condescended people who knew more than you (again), insulted them as being only slightly better than the conspiracy people, called them racist, and now you are telling me not to be a jerk?
You don’t seem to understand how it works I’m guessing. They don’t “sell the accounts” as you’re imagining. It’s more like “borrow the account for $”. Or, “Here’s my PW, play my arena draft so my account shows up on your stream”.
And it’s a big “IF Blizzard bans the account”. Remember, these people are VPNing, so tracking it isn’t as easy as one might think.
Thus, the streamer themselves don’t buy a bot because they want to keep their account. They use these other accounts.
See above. Above scenarios I laid out just destroy your entire #2.
There’s another thread talking about this and someone literally posted how to see this arena playing via a draft deck in action firsthand.
Not that anecdotal evidence is great evidence, but I literally have friends on my friend list from China that have told me this is exactly what is happening. Not all Chinese players are happy about it.
Do you understand that reporting on facts can still be propagandistic/biased, right? Like if you show a clip of a speech that makes the speaker look bad, and leaving out clips that make them look good?
I stand by my comments that you quoted in reference the article Killuminati linked to. I still have contempt for that kind of “journalism” and I consider it justified. What I did that was wrong was I kinda wrapped you up in that, and for that I am sorry. The article that you linked is significantly better.
You’re kidding right? Please tell me that you’re kidding.
No, you don’t seem to understand what I’m saying. I’m saying that if X let’s Y use their account, a check for matching IPs on accounts to catch a botter won’t work. I was assuming that’s what you thought could happen to catch people sharing or selling accounts.
Also if X logs in at location A and then X logs in at location B within 10 minutes and A and B are 250 miles away types of checks won’t work.
No IP address is required to ban an account. I understand what a VPN is, but it doesn’t do anything because IP addresses don’t matter. The Netflix analogy doesn’t apply.
fuglarg’s article basically explains how easy it is to track them: https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/barcode-accounts-explained-how-cheaters-and-botters-ruin-classic-and-arena/
Go to the Arena leaderboards page and go to the last page. A full list of serial retirers.
Maybe you’re imagining some holy grail of IP banning the botter, but that’s making the perfect the enemy of the good. These bots should be dealt with before they enter the real money exchange part of their lifecycle, not allowed to survive in the false hope that the botter will forget to keep his VPN on so his IP can be snagged.
I don’t believe that you have. You know what would do it? Link me two or more Twitch streams where the draft portion isn’t streamed and they just go right into gameplay.
I think faking the draft (pretending a recording is live) is a key element, if streamers are doing it. But I believe that most of this abuse isn’t streamer related.
As a frequent arena player I’m gonna add my 2 cents.
I faced a few insane decks at 8-9 wins but they are far and wide. most games can go either way with some decks discover/random scumming their way to victory.
truth is, it is easier to determine a strategy because every deck has a legendary in their first pick. You can actually build around certain mechanics now (or be unlucky and forced to retire)
Actually, watching streamers playing good drafts is just a waste of time. I don’t get the appeal but if I really have to watch a livestream, I’d choose a good player playing an average strength deck.
I would argue that the specific driver of this rule change was less about highlander and more about leveling the playing field and reducing the incentives to just retire drafts until you get an outlier.
You understand that I do not care about the speaker’s tax plan if they label everyone they do not like as an enemy of the state? It is not propaganda to focus on facts that are salient over facts that are secondary.
But to put a finer point on this whole thing, instead of just coming out and saying you were owned, you are out here fighting to save face… that you do not have.
You insulted me, got shown the receipts, and then continue to dodge more than accept.
Gonna be honest, this whole thread sounds like skill issue.
I just had my first 12 win run in October, have had multiple 7-10 win runs since and I’m currently on a 5-1 (and I didn’t even think my current deck was that good).
Yeah, I’ve had a couple 1-3 or 2-3 runs mixed in, but it’s RNG, of course you’re bound to get a few bad decks.
I didn’t say they ban IP addresses. I was referring to using it as a tool to catch someone account sharing. You obviously wouldn’t ban the IP address, you’d ban the account. And, I wasn’t suggesting they were doing that, I was merely replying that using that wouldn’t be an easy solution to finding botters because it’s near useless.
its got nothing to do with race, nor nation the players are from, i think there’s more of these bots than you seem to believe. Its either that, or there’s just not many players in arena altogether, which i believe not to be the case.
Just play 10-20 runs of arena if you haven’t already, and you’ll most definitely realise that its not quite a grain of sand in the ocean type ratio that you seem to believe it is…
What i don’t understand, is why you’d play arena on a random account with a high rated deck for, if the rewards from your ‘successful runs’ will only be obtained, on the account that probably has barely any collection, unless its about farming the gold and not the cards/packs, but even then, 1 run and you are back to square one with that obsolete account without a strong arena deck…
maybe its purely for the feel good/success factor of having super successful arena runs, for no other reason than smashing other people with weaker decks… which again, seems dumb and pointless.
In other news, i just crafted a mage deck with like 10 options at drawing secrets and playing secrets for less and secret based minions, to be given not 1 secret, and the only damage dealing spell, a 1 mana 2 damage for a 1/2 elemental.
I’m done with this game lol, or maybe i just waste some stored gold on some solo play expansions, then quit lol… Theres not much fun in just dropping gold on packs and opening, for me anyways
I have legend rank 10time in row but in arena im bad. Arena is RND garbage for me. i have 20 arena ticked pls add buton change to card pack… i dont waste time this RND