[Critical Gameplay Issue] Botters on The Twisted Treeline (3v3)

Number 1 Draven··18 votes·2,699 views

Update: October 6th, 2014 6:18pm

I've noticed throughout these past few weeks that there seem to be an abnormal amount of botters on The Twisted Treeline. Now this isn't really a bug, but causes 3v3 to be almost unplayable. Its annoying that players are getting penalties for dodging soloq from botters, and get potentially banned. Its not only 3v3 either, I have heard of other cases resorting to other gamemodes such as 5v5 on Summoners Rift Co-op vs AI, and Blind Pick on lower levels. While I have no proof of these other gamemodes, I can show what I have found so far about these botters on The Twisted Treeline.

  • They use summoner spells Ghost and Heal
  • They take free week champions only in alphabetical order
  • There can be more than 2 botters in one game, on both teams
  • They will instalock their champion
  • They feed :(

This causes a HUGE issue when playing 3v3, as you will more than likely lose your game that goes on your record, unless there is another bot on the enemy team. The bot at the beginning of the match will buy items, I've noticed throughout the game that some will buy 3 Fiendish Codex's and try to build into a Wooglet's Witchcap, regardless of what champ they are playing. They start out the game buy buying their items, like normal. The bot will then proceed to run down to bot lane, towards the bush in the middle of lane, and stand there. When minions come, they will auto attack the minions or champions, and rarely will they use spells. If another champion attacks them, they stand and fight until they die, and repeat the process. Towards the late game, so run so far down in bot lane that they end up to the enemy nexus and die. I have also recently discovered that looking at my match history, they have no Runes, and they use 0 Masteries in every slot. I have some pictures that can prove about the bots and their behavior below.

Now in my match history, you could say I got "lucky," that getting into a game with 4 Bots gave me TONS of information to present people with, so if you see someone that instalocks a free week champion using ghost and heal, I would recommend dodging the game, and go play some 5v5.

  • I also forgot to mention Azir. When I played Azir recently with a Ashe bot, if I were to put down a Shuriman Soldier, Ashe would try to attack the soldier with spells, shooting Her W, and E, to no success of course. Not that that's an issue, but I just wanted to point that out as well, as that might happen with other skillshot champions.

Now I don't know if there is an initial way to fix this, but the only option I can see is Disable The Twisted Treeline until you can sort out this issue. -CyberTech

28 Comments

Lumus Avatar9 votes

The bots are everywhere in every game mode. It's an invasion.

Number 1 Draven1 votes

I have yet to see any in ARAM or 5v5, if you have information of them in other game modes, feel free to list the problems below and I can put them in the discussion -CyberTech

Lumus Avatar5 votes

I have not personally experienced any bots (luck is on my side) but I have commented on every thread I have seen regarding the bots and those threads listed problems in:

Normal and Co-Op vs. AI - Dominion (Crystal Scar) Co-Op vs. AI - Summoner's Rift (Beginner Mode) Ranked 3v3 - Twisted Treeline

Number 1 Draven3 votes

Thanks for telling me this, i 'm going to try to update this discussion to the best of my ability and gather more information tonight, I'm gonna see about the other gamemodes, and I'm sure this is happening in the lower levels too. -CyberTech

Sailor Mint1 votes

The bots are everywhere in every game mode. It's an invasion.

They only play less played game modes (Bot games, Dominion, Twisted Treeline). There's been very few reports of bots in level 30 Normal Blind Pick and ARAMs. Draft and Ranked are completely safe.

Riot knows about them, but it's not something they can eradicate without killing the source.

Lumus Avatar4 votes

As I stated, I haven't seen any bots - I'm level 30 - but they are plaguing the low-level games. It is, and should be, unacceptable that people who are just getting into the game and trying to learn team work should be stuck with IP-farming Smurf bots. How can we grow the community if all the new people see bot-filled games and lose against AI when trying to learn to play.

We have to bring attention to this problem. The sites that provide these programs need to be indicated. The user accounts that run the programs need to be flagged. Penalties for using such devices need to be put in place. No progress can be made if no action is taken.

It's up to us to protect our game. We need to show Riot that this is an important issue so they know there is value in taking action. It's up to us veteran players to look out for the community as a whole, especially the new, inexperienced players.

Sailor Mint2 votes

As I stated, I haven't seen any bots - I'm level 30 - but they are plaguing the low-level games. It is, and should be, unacceptable that people who are just getting into the game and trying to learn team work should be stuck with IP-farming Smurf bots. How can we grow the community if all the new people see bot-filled games and lose against AI when trying to learn to play.

They are leveling and referral bot farms. As long as people buy level 30 accounts, they'll have a reason to keep doing it.

Banning accounts that will automatically get replaced minutes later is pointless. The problem needs to be fixed at the root, banning account buyers.

Lumus Avatar2 votes

And how do you go about doing that? How do you identify an account buyer?

Sailor Mint2 votes

And how do you go about doing that? How do you identify an account buyer?

When the IP switches from a sketchy VPN (that happens to be shared with thousands of other accounts) to a "real IP" and the account starts getting regular activity instead of being online in bot games 24/7.

If Riot can detect and ban people for account sharing, they can do the same with illegally transfered accounts.

Lumus Avatar2 votes

So you've detected it. How do you ban it?

Your IP address can be changed at the drop of a hat, so IP bans don't really work, right? You could talk to the ISP, I guess, but that sounds like more trouble than Riot might go to for one account. MAC address bans only work on people who don't know how to spoof their MAC address (which is like 90% of users, so that actually could be effective).

Sailor Mint2 votes

So you've detected it. How do you ban it?

Your IP address can be changed at the drop of a hat, so IP bans don't really work, right? You could talk to the ISP, I guess, but that sounds like more trouble than Riot might go to for one account. MAC address bans only work on people who don't know how to spoof their MAC address (which is like 90% of users, so that actually could be effective).

Correct, you can't prevent them from making new accounts. That's why you ban accounts after they've been sold.

It's the same way you handle gold farmers. You can't stop them from gold farming, but you can get rid of the gold/ban gold buyers after they sell it. In this case, we're talking about accounts instead of gold.

This is obviously working with the assumption that people will eventually get tired and stop buying accounts.

I personally think the cleanest solution is for Riot to sell level 30 sub-accounts that are linked to you main. It eliminates the need to buy accounts from 3rd parties and low level smurfing issues.

SolidPooh1 votes

I think you have some very good ideas

Bloodest Avenger3 votes

That's true, i seen always 3 botters in the enemy team like 5 or more matches in a row, LOL, looks like i'm playing Coop VS AI instead 3V3

ChemmyCal2 votes

Saw this today in a 3v3 and thought what the hell? Glad someone is talking about it on forums.

Number 1 Draven2 votes

Spread the word if you can, Im sure Riot is aware of this but if we annoy them enough they will get around to a solution -CyberTech

Sailor Mint2 votes

Spread the word if you can, Im sure Riot is aware of this but if we annoy them enough they will get around to a solution -CyberTech

I can't find the post but they did reply that they were aware of the problem, not details but they are working on a more permanent solution that doesn't involve "cutting the heads of a forever regenerating hydra".

Sad fact, the issue became rampant as a result of Riot nuking custom games exp/ip gains and cracking down on referral bot (RP frauds). Account selling is their last bastion, and bot farmers are exploiting it fully.

Number 1 Draven1 votes

Hmmm. Then I guess all we can do is wait unfortunately.

manic pixie grrl1 votes

MissFortune Me and my husband were playing it last night, and we got one bot game after another. First it was someone playing Cassiopeia who would randomly run into turrets and their base without taking down the turret. And the next game was Thresh who would stand in a bush, go back home only to run back into a bush and go back to base again after a limited amount of time. Non-stop. We were able to beat one game just with the two of us doing crowd control but the first game, we didn't notice until it was too late and they were intentionally feeding so we were dealing with OP players on the other team. Thanks for calling attention to it because we were pretty peeved when it happened last night.

Number 1 Draven1 votes

No problem! Although I would recommend playing 5v5 on Summoners Rift until Riot finds a way to sort out the issue. -CyberTech

slippykitten1 votes

and once again, we have someone who thinks riot cares about gameplay. Bots are actually riots perfect players, they feed and never call you mean things, exactly how they like it.

Number 1 Draven1 votes

and once again, we have someone who thinks riot cares about gameplay. Bots are actually riots perfect players, they feed and never call you mean things, exactly how they like it.

I'm sure Riot cares about gameplay, or else they wouldn't fix bugs and wouldn't even have a discussion forum. -CyberTech

SolidPooh1 votes

And wouldnt have a game with gameplay in it lol

its just a difficult and widespread issue to solve

Fyrianna1 votes

Every game within the past few days that my friend and I queue together for in Twisted Treeline has put us with bots.

When I queue alone, it's two bots.

I mean, really, if I had two or more friends, I probably wouldn't be on this game, let's be real here.

Cruz231 votes

I've only had problems with them in TT, but I just played ARAM and had a Leona bot on our team. It's really getting out of hand and destroying the game for everyone. :/

Number 1 Draven1 votes

Are you sure it was a Leona bot? Remember it only will pick champions on free week, and I don't believe that Leona was free this week. It could have been someone who was just really bad.

SolidPooh1 votes

I've seen them in 5's as well, however they are not in abundance as in 3's from my experience.

Chandra Na1aar1 votes

Yeah, I haven't played an actual game of Twisted Treeline in weeks. I quit a while back while my account was level 20~, came back from my WoW binge and now I can't seem to get a legit game going. I don't really like Summoner's Rift since it takes significantly longer to play, so I guess I'm just going back to playing WoW instead of League. :\

DraegonDasPagan1 votes

This account I'm on is level 13 atm and every single ARAM and 3v3 game I play is filled with bots. Most ARAMs have 3 human players MAX at any given time. And I just got done playing another 3s that I was the only human player in saying to myself "wtf if I wanted to play with bots I would have clicked bots." I'm going to start recording footage of the bot games so theres actual evidence to look at because I haven't seen a thread yet that had videos on it.

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