Bots in Dominion

Net56·Dec 22, 2015·6 votes·631 views

I had taken a break from League and I came back a little while ago. Things were exactly as I had remembered them except for the hud, but for the past few weeks now I've been seeing bots. They have no masteries, act strangely, and always feed excessively. The ones I've been seeing tend to have human usernames followed by a few letters and numbers (for example samanthagt321 or seanzd1). Upon researching the issue, apparently it's not as bad now as it was a year ago with 5+ bots showing up at once. However, I just had the same bot show up on my team 4 games in a row. I report them every time I see them regardless of which team they're on, but this is getting grating. There's always the occasional leaver that ruins Dominion games, now there's bots, too?

I know the majority of the community doesn't really care about Dominion, but it gets disheartening if Riot doesn't either.

12 Comments

ModWuksDec 22, 20154 votes

I'm completely serious and wholehearted when I ask this question: what solution(s) would you propose that would solve this problem?

Awkward CouchDec 22, 20152 votes

Well I'm by no means an expert here, and to be honest I've never had a TT game with a bot in it (I played like one game of dominion ever) but I'll give it a shot. We have in place an AFK detection system that can detect if a player is just AFK in the jungle or not. Why not do the same for the bots. If they are anything like PvAI in League itself, bots have very predictable movements.

Think of this, when I play top lane, I usually stay under tower until minions come into lane (unless we are invading, leashing, warding etc.). Bots will usually do the same thing every time. Wait until minions spawn and then go into lane.

I mean Riot also solved the botting problem when everyone kept getting like 40+ friend requests every time one logged in, maybe something similar could be implemented?

I just got up so if anything didn't make sense, feel free to tell me so. XD

ModWuksDec 22, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Awkward Couch,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=I9H9FxE2,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2015-12-22T15:21:49.879+0000)

Well I'm by no means an expert here, and to be honest I've never had a TT game with a bot in it (I played like one game of dominion ever) but I'll give it a shot. We have in place an AFK detection system that can detect if a player is just AFK in the jungle or not. Why not do the same for the bots. If they are anything like PvAI in League itself, bots have very predictable movements.

Think of this, when I play top lane, I usually stay under tower until minions come into lane (unless we are invading, leashing, warding etc.). Bots will usually do the same thing every time. Wait until minions spawn and then go into lane.

I mean Riot also solved the botting problem when everyone kept getting like 40+ friend requests every time one logged in, maybe something similar could be implemented?

I just got up so if anything didn't make sense, feel free to tell me so. XD

But some players might connect late or might be buying items until minion spawn. New players may lack the game knowledge to play like rational, experienced players. The last thing Riot would want to do is wrongfully suspend a player.

Awkward CouchDec 22, 20152 votes

True, and that happens. But if it's consistent (say like 50+ games?) that sort of behavior would be easy to pick up on. I guess my whole point is that there are some sort of predictable movements that bots will always do. The waiting until minions spawn is just the first example that came to mind.

Would play time also be considered in finding bots? I mean I love long gaming sessions, but realistically there is a limit to how long people can do that. Players need to eat, go to the bathroom, get up and stretch. During that time, players will need to get out of que, if nothing else for a couple of minutes. Bots (assuming) would just que right up again no matter what. It would make sense bots would want to que up again right away so they can level accounts ASAP. Let's be honest, no one is going to play League for 48 hours straight without taking some sort of break.

Again I'm certainly no expert here, I'm just trying to give out ideas.

Net56Dec 22, 20153 votes

Create an algorithm with a checklist that automatically bans the player for at least 24 hours if they fulfill all of the conditions. This checklist can be very specific since there isn't any variation in bot behavior.

If it has no keystone, that's one check. If it waits exactly 5 or so seconds past the start of the match to buy and leave spawn, that's one check. If it makes oddly rapid movements that make no sense, that's one check. For example, I saw a Miss Fortune use her W, her E, then fire one shot of her ultimate and then immediately cancel it all within the span of a second. That's combined with the tendency of these bots to move rapidly back and forth in a single spot in a way that's not really possible for a human player to do without at least an autoclicker. One thing bots don't hide is their ability to make instant moves and purchases, which human players are incapable of. The only challenge is getting the bot-protection into the game's code in a way that doesn't break anything else.

I'm assuming these things must be getting banned after a few days anyway, if they go something similar to 0/20/1 every game and everyone constantly reports them. I just want to speed up the process a bit. I'm talking strictly about Dominion, where these things are incredibly easy to pick up on.

after reading the rest of the comments... I reached level 30 a long time ago, that may be why I'm only seeing one bot per game. I'm just seeing the bots that actually made it to level 30, which blows my whole theory about them getting banned after a few days out of the water. I uninstalled the game.

Chaos689Dec 22, 20152 votes

No itś true i never lose TT or CS bc the opposing team, and usually the others on MY team, are just wlaking into death wiht no masteries, no runes, no items, no farm, etc. Itś relly wierd, ad boring af.

Makior72Dec 22, 20152 votes

ive played dominion twice on my smurf in the past month. 1st match i was the only human player. 2Nd match there was me and 1 other guy that were human. My smurf is not lvl 30 yet so maybe thats why, but from a low levels perspective dominion is nothing but bots.

xpolimetralDec 22, 20152 votes

This is a serious issue. Dominion is unplayable, because in every game there are bots. They are easy to identify, since they usually pick heal and ghost as their summoner spells, and instalock early at champion select. I have been reporting them every time, but nothing happens. It has come to an absurd situation where there were only 2 human players in a game, me included.

There should be a serious penalty to players that use bots to farm xp and IP for smurf accounts. This is spoiling the fun for serious dominion players.

Beast FangDec 23, 20152 votes

Ive been in a game or two with a bot in TT. Never played Dom yet but from the sounds of it if the bots are programmed to play specifically Dom, remove it from the game and re-add it or something along those lines to screw with their programming. If there are thousands or millions of bots doing this then itd be a pain for someone to fix it for each and every bot.