So like most of the time I queue into a BG lately, this is what happens:
I’m switched to Horde (literally 50% of games… Are there no horde players left?)
The enemy team behaves really weird. 90% of their team will form this “blob” for lack of a better word
There’s something unusual about the way the individual players move within this blob that just makes me think it’s a bunch of bots. Intelligent bots, sure, but I’ve played thousands of BGs since 2005, and when the enemy team does this, it just doesn’t feel like I’m fighting actual players.
I mean it could be people doing cross server premades practicing for ranked but there really is just something weird and hivemind about the way they move. Most tellingly is they’ll combo abilities together at lightning speed in such a way that not even people on voicecomm could organize effectively. It’s literal borg zerg hivemind behavior as if they’re all controlled by a single AI or something.
Is this a known thing? Guys messing around with AI bot armies? Or has no one else noticed this in the month or so it’s been happening?
We used to call this a “zerg.” It’s just what players do when they’re doing an activity most of them don’t really care to do. They just turn their brains off and roam around in a zerg.
Blizz doesn’t give af about bots and is currently investing as little resources and time as possible into Classic. People pick up on that and are using Classic to test bots.
I saw this a lot when I BGd a lot over a year ago. For instance, there will be a blob of bots in the middle of the field (Warsong Gulch usually) attacking anyone in range. I started to just avoid the blob, get the flag and straddle the side of the map to bring back the flag unopposed.
I played recently and didn’t really notice this bot blob you are talking of. If you are well out of range, they won’t come for you. But if you are in DK grip range a bot will get you.
I didn’t use “zerg” because it’s different from that. I’ve played thousands of BGs since 2005… I got exalted rep in WSG back in 2020 classic. (Not a brag, just saying I’ve done a lot of BGs.)
When this happens, the way the enemy players move, both as a cohesive blob and individually, it’s uncanny, doesn’t feel like they’re actual players. Like the priests will just stand there lifelessly, spamming spells, not really reacting to your presence if you’re melee.
At the same time, two of them will coordinate CC perfectly in the middle of a large battle, stacking CC within fractions of a second. Even if they were on voice comm, they wouldn’t be able to get that level of accuracy consistency. “Hey, my silence is almost off on that resto sham, who is standing over here to the left of that other resto sham, in the middle of like five other allies, make sure to get a stun on him in 2 seconds k?”
You just don’t see that level of precision with actual players. Unless they’re all R1 gladiators or something? I mean I guess that’s possible?