reporting ip-farming bots, does it do anything?

Rammus IRL·Aug 11, 2017·1 votes·726 views

I just want some comfort. Playing a brand new smurf, you encounter so many bots. If I report a troll or flamer, often I see the "thanks for reporting a toxic player!" message. It doesn't seem to happen at any rate when I report the obvious ip-farming bots as cheating / using third-party programs.

To be honest, that problem seems way less bad than it was a couple years back, having only one in every other game, but my last game had 5 obvious ip-farming bots (it's triply obvious when you see them in ARAM, there's no question).

I just want someone to tell me I'm not wasting my time and attention by reporting them. These accounts do get flagged and eventually demolished, right?

6 Comments

AeszarckAug 13, 20172 votes

Yes they do get banned. The thing about these bots is that they're banned in a giant wave, so a bot that you reported might play another month then get banned along with all of its other automated friends. You don't get any notification when these bots get banned.

[{quoted}](name=Riot Tantram,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=4ZhxeyVg,comment-id=00020000000200000001,timestamp=2017-04-07T20:57:40.133+0000)

1 - yes, this is normal. You only get notifications on penalties related to your reports for verbal abuse and intentional feeding currently.

2- No, there are no report 'weights' anymore.

3- No, bot reports are used. You are certainly not wasting your time.

YerroFeverAug 11, 20171 votes

They do the 3rd party program bans in waves so typically you won't see them until you hit that ban wave they do.

They do this to keep all of the 3rd party programmers confused as to how their program got detected.

If they banned bots frequently, they'd be able to more easily figure out what detection methods Riot uses because they have more chances at trial and error.

Rammus IRLAug 12, 20171 votes

So as far as you know, does the report do nothing? Or does the report flag them for these waves of bans?

Like can I feel comfortable telling myself that they'll be banned by the time they're level 30? Meeeeh, guess it doesn't matter... I just hate bots -_-

YerroFeverAug 12, 20172 votes

{quoted}

So as far as you know, does the report do nothing? Or does the report flag them for these waves of bans?

Like can I feel comfortable telling myself that they'll be banned by the time they're level 30? Meeeeh, guess it doesn't matter... I just hate bots -_-

I am fairly certain they get banned because when the waves happen, the forums get flooded with "OMG I WAS FALSELY BANNED FOR USING A 3RD PARTY PROGRAM"

A lot of them claim they never used any third party programs and they're showing their ranked games and you see that they're got 300 wins in ranked but still have a Bronze 4 ranking. The only thing I found in common with these people is that a number of them later admitted to purchasing their account.

So although I cannot 100% confirm that the account's original seller was a botter, I am reasonably certain that the account was flagged while leveling, and then someone purchased the account, and then the ban waved happened and the buyer thinks it's due to scripting but based on the pattern of those posts, it seems like they're getting banned for the seller botting up to lvl 30.

Icy Hot ShotoAug 12, 20171 votes

Most likely the report flags them to be checked by the system/Riot. If a program that's not allowed is detected, they get placed on the list to be banned the next wave.