Cheater bots doing mining and herbalism

Hello, the issue is: how can it be that Blizzard anti-cheat system is not working? I have seen various times bots that are teleporting from node to node and gathering all mines and herbs. For example:

  1. https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/ztdodm/bots_are_literally_teleporting_from_node_to_node/
  2. Portal to nearby gather node cheats in dragonflight?
  3. How to report players for cheating without having to target them

I don’t think that people buy dragonflight and game time to see a bunch of bots teleporting from node to node. It collapses the auction prices and makes impossible gathering, also making it useless.
Is there any information when it will be fixed?

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As soon as other players stop buying from them, ultimately. Until that happens, there will always be bots, and Blizzard will always be fighting them.

Right-click and report for cheating, leave the rest in Blizzard’s hands. They are often doling out bans in waves of thousands upon thousands.

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Yeah, I know that bots aren’t easy to insta-ban, but now it’s the other thing. They are literally using cheats to do that, which should be prevented by anti-cheat. Just imagine this bunch of bots/cheaters going everyday on arenas and BGs to ruin it. Is it possible? Yes. Should it be this way in a monthly paid game? Absolutely not.

Considering they have been fighting this fight literally every day since this game first loaded up? I’m sure if you’ve got some better solution to how they do their job, they’d love to have you on their staff.

Botting is a multibillion-dollar industry. It does not only exist in WoW, nearly every game has some sort of illegal botting or cheating that goes on. It’s not Blizzard being lazy, it is just that as soon as they’ve got one facet of a bot/cheat cleared up, there are half a dozen more already at work. It is a non-stop battle. I’m sure they’d love to be more instantaneous with their striking down of illegal bots, but how do you do that without hitting some legitimate players too that may seem like they’re a bot, but truly are playing legally within the perimeters?

If people are not complaining about bots, then they’re absolutely raging about what they perceive to be an “automated” banning system when people are caught up in it. You may say collateral damage is acceptable if some bots are taken down, or at least up until you’re the collateral damage.

No matter how Blizzard comes at these things, they’re in the wrong. But it is still a battle they fight every single day. Until stupid players stop feeding these illegal businesses, they are going to exist and they are going to evolve. The problem literally begins and ends with us, the players.

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I concur fully however you’re not seeing the bigger picture. As long as there is a desire to cheat your way to the top whether it be for bragging rights or just because you want to effortlessly face roll your keyboard and become unstoppable in BG’s or arenas. There is always going to be someone out there that is going to find a way to fly under the radar.

So the only thing we as players can do is right click and report anyone we might suspect of cheating. Blizzard will look into the report and see if they are indeed cheating and once blizzard has found a way to break the botting program there will be a massive ban wave and this forum will be filled with people proclaiming their innocence.

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Again, the problem isn’t the bots existing. As I said, I know that the bots on their own aren’t something that can be easily detected by the system. I completely understand that nowadays there is no way to make a system fully protected from bots.
The problem is cheating. The cheats that bots use to teleport from node to node is the other thing. There is no ordinary player that can do this legally. So the cheats are the thing that can be detected and banned by the system without any collateral damage. Otherwise, why they even have their anti-cheat system, if it’s useless and can’t detect cheating?

It’s late, and I missed part of this.

This is literally a game mechanic now. It’s one of the perks of specialization in the gathering trees. If you think you’ve found someone who is potentially a bot, report them. If nothing happens to them, then you’ll know your assumption was wrong and they were playing the game as it was meant to be played.

You do know that all of WoW’s auction houses are joined together for the selling of trade goods, don’t you? You’re not competing with other people on your realm alone. You’re competing with every single other WoW player on both factions who is also listing trade mats. Players and bots alike, I’m afraid.

No. There never is and never will be, because it is never going to be fixed. They will always break a bot and another will rise in its place. Blizzard’s biggest asset is that they don’t discuss how they investigate and all of the specifics because that is exactly the information these illegal companies would kill for.

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Depending on the nodes, they can. It’s a profession skill spec.

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I totally agree with you. That’s why I decided to complain a bit here, in order to make the problem of cheating more visible. Now I just want to know if blizzard noticed it and are working on detecting these cheats, or not. And if there is any planned update to fix that cheat.

If Blizzard are (Which I am sure they are), they won’t tell you what they’re doing about it - that would be counter-intuitive.

But also, ALL botting etc is cheating, regardless how they’re doing it.

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Seems that you didn’t see even the reddit post. They are not using any mount/skill. The portals from dragon skill can be used only when you are on a dragon, and only once in a minute. When the bots are just gathering and teleporting many consecutive times from node to node not being on a mount

Yeah, that’s why cheating bots are collapsing it the most

You are talking about the bots problem, when the problem now is cheating.

Not to be crass but your complaints in this forum in particular will not be seen or passed along to anyone that might have the ear of the dev’s.

You would have to use the feedback option or post in general so the people that do report back to the dev’s can pass it along.

Unfortunately that is information they will not give out bot makers and cheating players alike would love to have insider knowledge of blizzards innerworkings and that is very hush, hush.

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I know, but not this way: https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/ztdodm/bots_are_literally_teleporting_from_node_to_node/

I’d apologize, but it would be a lie. Reddit is not a source worth referencing. So no. I don’t weigh anything from that cesspool.

If it’s something you’re seeing, report it. That is all that you and everyone else needs to do. There have easily been half a dozen threads on this forum alone in the past week or so with people who want to report supposed bots looking for the proper place/method to submit those reports.

Players themselves do it to. That, I have seen. I’ve participated in it back in the day. You have your assumptions they’re all bots. You’re not saying anything that other people have come here parroting. You have your assumption or your belief. Blizzard has their logs. Reports do help pinpoint botters and suspected cheaters, but it is Blizzard’s logs in the end that they work from. Not from what everyone on our side of the field think or know we’re seeing.

All botting is cheating, but not all cheating is botting.

Right-click and report who can in game. If a suspected cheater or botter gets away before you can, that report can be sent in to hacks@blizzard.com.

That is all you need to do. Trying to be the mouthpiece of the people never works out the way people think it may. Reddit rhetoric or people chiming in from General Discussion - the majority of those people are ones who likely haven’t actually come across a true botter and/or cheater. They’re repeating what they’ve seen others post. But if people are only gathering to make noise and not actually reporting suspected botters/cheaters, then they’re just another part of the problem of why things are always an uphill battle.

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So you insist on people doing Blizzard’s job instead of them. Okay, I understood you. But look, there’s a problem with that: people buy the whole game and pay monthly subscription because they want to play after a working/studying day. So it is not normal that they have to be instantly reporting cheaters that bother them. I have already seen myself A LOT of bots. Yes, of course I can constantly send reports of every cheater and bot I see. But it is actually Blizzard’s job to prevent cheating and botting. I pay for the game and subscription in order to PLAY, not in order to be constantly reporting every bot and cheater I see that bother me. If they can’t even make a good anti-cheat system (let the bots be, okay, I understand that they can’t really instatly ban them all), why they monthly take money from people that are playing their game? If they aren’t able to provide people the appropiate conditions to play, how can it be that people even has to MONTHLY PAY for that?

They do a great job with their expansions, updates, etc. But we can’t just let people cheat again and again. That’s not what we are buying and paying. And if you think that this amount of cheaters is normal for THIS LEVEL COMPANY AND GAME, then maybe you are one of cheaters or something. Because Blizzard isn’t some third-rate company. Blizzard is a world-class company. So they and their product should match their level and prices.

Well, would you prefer increased subscription / game time costs to cover all the staff required for Blizzard to pro-actively hunt down cheaters?

No, me neither.

No, the issue is people giving those folks a reason to be here. They don’t do this kind of thing for fun. There are people whom do this has a reason to do this and that would be the money that the people whom play this game want easy gold.

No amount of ‘It’s Blizzard’s job’ would stop people from wanting to get large sums of goal without the work. Until that happens, those people won’t leave.

To be freak; unless you have a magic bullet that’d stop everything like this in its tract, no one would be able to magically stop it. If you did, FF14, WoW, Guild Wars 2, etc., would pay you a king’s ransom for it.

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Oh please… Really?

You underestimate the extent of the botters AND the criminal elements behind them. It’s a multi-BILLION dollar black market, used by highly funded and ruthless criminal groups.

It’s a huge fight that Blizzard fights every single day. It’s also something that is not exclusive to Blizzard. Botters and cheaters have been around for a long time.

You’re getting very hung up on the ‘cheating’. It’s all cheating no matter how it’s performed.

But if you think Blizzard isn’t doing enough, you’re very mistaken. They fight this 24/7. They have dedicated teams just for this.

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And how is this different from any other one? Bots all use cheats/exploits. Since the hackers/botters figured out how to exploit the environment they’ve been doing it. The “fix” would make the game unplayable because it would affect players as well as the bots.

Happens every season. That’s why there is a couple weeks between the end of season and the awarding of titles, etc. It allows Blizzard to finish going over the logs for the ban-wave that happens around the same time as the titles being awarded.

If you have an idea to prevent bots in a monthly paid game, or even a free game, there are a lot of companies that would be interested.

If it were that easy don’t you think it would already be in place. Seeing as the terrain exploits have been in the game since Vanilla. Any “fix” to stop terrain exploits could make it so that your character can’t move.

The problem has always been cheating. Bots are cheating. That’s why they are bots.

So do you not report the cheaters that aren’t bothering you?

Thank you for doing this, but you missed the rest of it. You report, then you move on.

How? Blizzard doesn’t read minds. They can’t anticipate someone cheating. Botting software is a constantly evolving thing. The botting software being used now is not the same software that was used during Vanilla. That’s because as Blizzard patched exploits and detected the bots, the botters upgraded their software. It is impossible to stop cheating and botting.

You’ll need to be a lot more specific about who you refer to as a cheater. We’ve seen players come to the forum saying multi-boxing is cheating. It isn’t. We’ve seen players come to the forum saying someone playing the AH is cheating. They aren’t. We’ve seen players come to the forum and say that someone farming mobs is cheating. They aren’t. We’ve seen players come to the forum and say that someone who can play their class better is cheating. They aren’t.

So why are you giving them money?

You never defined all of what you feel is cheating. I run over 50 characters on my main account. On my main realm I have characters with every profession and gathering on every realm I play. I don’t need to buy your ore on the AH. Does that mean I’m a cheater in your eyes?

Name one game that doesn’t have cheaters or bots. I won’t hold my breath because they all have them.

By the way, implying that people who don’t agree with you are “one of the cheaters or something” is trolling. It’s a passive-agressive move that makes your whole post look weak. Nobody said they think that botters are OK. Nobody said you shouldn’t report them when you see them. In fact, you were given a way to report them if you can’t do it in-game.

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Did the Redddit post happen to mention the way the cooldown on the ability can be reduced to 0?

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