The botting accounts situation at low levels is appalling, especially for new players.
(I believe this belongs in gameplay)
I've been trying to get a few friends into the game, and in both Intermediate bots (where they test out champs) and in Howling Abyss (Rift less so), we're almost
_ teed_ to have bot accounts in our match.
I made a new account just so I could play along side one group of friends without ruining the mmr of everyone's accounts (I'm pretty bad at the game anyway so there haven't really been stomps against other players), and to see how levelling up goes these days (in terms of runes and champ unlocks etc). Now, it's one thing to have to learn a new champ, but it's another to have to fight 3v5 when you're still learning mechanics.
This is seriously impacting the new-player experience in a very negative way.
But how to distinguish a bot from just a new player who's having a hard time? Other than the fact that a bot will never respond in chat to you (which really proves nothing to be fair), here's what we've found.
The bots are characterized by:
- Their naming convention(A normal first name with a series of characters either side) E.g. JohnQwErtY (not a real summoner name dw, made up example).
- Their build will typically consist of them buying boots first, then finishing them (like merc's
or sorc 
boots) before buying recommended items. - They will typically send two accounts midlane on rift and feed the entire game.
- Eventually, if the game goes on for long enough, they will start a surrender vote at approximately 25 mins.
This problem is seriously hurting our urge to play. It's just boring not being able to play against players when that's what you queue up for. ARAM is especially bad, most of our games have had the majority of players be bot accounts. It's pretty hard to learn how to fight real people against bots :/
I'm sure riot is doing what they can, but I never realised the extent of the issue until trying to get new people into the game.
I just hope there's a solution coming soon. 
[zombie-nunu-bummed]
p.s. Just to clarify, I play on OCE, so I don't know if this is as big of an issue in other regions (wouldn't surprise me if this is a bigger deal in OCE though).
