AWs and 3rd Party Bots

_Barabbas_

Bots are getting ridiculous. Wars aren't even fun anymore. I wish Kabam would do a sweep.

Comments

Sabrefencer

File a ticket to report the alliance if you haven't already.

_Barabbas_

I have. A few times. But it is becoming a little too frequent.

Sabrefencer

It's sad that people feel the need to cheat in a free mobile game. Like does it really make the person feel that much better?

arsjum

I’ve heard about players using bots for arenas but how do bots help in aw? Are bots better players than humans?

DNA3000

arsjum wrote: »

I’ve heard about players using bots for arenas but how do bots help in aw? Are bots better players than humans?

None that I've seen so far. It is theoretically possible to make a bot that plays as well or better than a human, but frankly it is easier to just mod the game to get the result you want. You can't bot the game without running it on an emulator platform (unless you literally build a robot that plays MCOC on your phone) and that alone will get you banned. So I don't know what the advantage is of botting your play rather than modding it in AW.

Also, I don't know how any player could possibly know that another alliance was "botting" rather than modding the game. Even if the other alliance claimed to be botting the war in the war chat I wouldn't necessarily believe them.

DNA3000

Sabrefencer wrote: »

It's sad that people feel the need to cheat in a free mobile game. Like does it really make the person feel that much better?

I'm sure it does. The primary rationale for cheating in any game is the notion that everyone would cheat if they could, the fact that I cheat and they don't just means I'm better at it than they are and I should be rewarded for my excellence in cheating.

It is sad, but they usually don't see it that way. That's also why cheaters tend to be so indignant when they are caught. It isn't fair, you see, because everyone cheats but only they are getting punished, so obviously the punishment is unfair. And because it is unfair, they can do anything to try to avoid that unjustice, like, say, lie to everyone and say they didn't actually cheat.

Remember: almost everyone is the hero in their own life story. By definition, that makes everyone else either a useful sidekick if they are helpful, or the villain if they are not.

arsjum

DNA3000 wrote: »

arsjum wrote: »

I’ve heard about players using bots for arenas but how do bots help in aw? Are bots better players than humans?

None that I've seen so far. It is theoretically possible to make a bot that plays as well or better than a human, but frankly it is easier to just mod the game to get the result you want. You can't bot the game without running it on an emulator platform (unless you literally build a robot that plays MCOC on your phone) and that alone will get you banned. So I don't know what the advantage is of botting your play rather than modding it in AW.

Also, I don't know how any player could possibly know that another alliance was "botting" rather than modding the game. Even if the other alliance claimed to be botting the war in the war chat I wouldn't necessarily believe them.

I thought so too. Maybe the OP is talking about modders but not bots.

unknown

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_Barabbas_

Bots, Mods, it's all cheating. I don't mess with them, so what I know is from Bing and Google.

Of course I dont know "for certain" if someone in another Alliance is cheating. However, I have been playing for a while. Long enough to know when something doesn't pass the "sniff test".

I get it. There are people like Seatin, Man of Legends and Professor Skill who can face walk pretty much any content in game with a 2* champ. And, there are a lot out there just like them. But an entire Alliance?

I also get that many Alliances push massive recruitment campaigns to get these big fish. But, even that ratio is watered down.

I can play. I can dodge and parry my way through Quests and Story content very well. But, Wars? The A.I. in wars is deliberately set up to break sequence and fight timing. It keeps you on your toes. I have no problems making it to the Boss Head, even dropping Mini Bosses and Bosses, but I still take damage on the way there. I am not so good as to not time an attack right. I am not so good that the A.I. cant parry me and ring a combo off on me. Right?

So how does 80% or more of an Alliance completely bulldoze a map all the way to the boss, class advantage be darned (lol), and take almost no damage aside from block damage? How does and entire Alliance, even lowbie players, not lose a single champ or only 1. 1 defender kill all the way to boss head? Not just 1 Alliance, but like 3 in a row like that.

Don't they dont make mistakes, dont get parried by our A.I.? Dont they get texts during game play that block their screen causing them to miss a combo? Doesn't just 1 of their member's fingers accidentally slip holding block, opening themselves up to a hit on the chin? Do they accidentally trigger their phone's minimize or AltTab function in the middle of a fight? Let alone, they dont ever time a fight and defend sequence wrong vs A.I. and take some punches. It's crazy. All their players? Even lowbie 4 star (and 3 star from last match)? Its not until late stages of map that you even see death or damage on them.

I may be off my rocker, but it doesn't smell right to me.

DNA3000

Drooped2 wrote: »

Building a robot to play will be really hard to detect if the robot is using my phone.. just saying..

I'm not even sure it violates the terms of service. It depends on whether building an MCOC playing robot counts as "using a robot to [...] provide automated access to [...] the Services." I guess sort of? I mean: who is the robot providing automated access to?

DNA3000

_Barabbas_ wrote: »

Dont they get texts during game play that block their screen causing them to miss a combo?

do-not-disturb-screens-control-center-ios-12-01-copy%20copy.jpg

Donkilla

We had one alliance who used MOD but two off there champions didnt and thats what cost them the victory

Donkilla

I mean players

_Barabbas_

DNA3000 wrote: »

_Barabbas_ wrote: »

Dont they get texts during game play that block their screen causing them to miss a combo?

I know how to do that (I use an Android though, lol). I used that as an example because when I started, I didnt know how to do that, and I didn't bother to figure it out until almost a year later. I still run into people in game that don't have in-app notifications turned off/toggled. What I am saying is, every player in 3 different Alliances all have in-app notifications toggled? 100%?

I listed off several other real world happenings that cause "human error".

Just playing statistics here.

Shrimkins

I've been doing AW since the very beginning when it was in beta, been through over 1000 wars, and I've only ever seen 2 alliances that actually used mods. I'm not saying it doesn't happen I'm saying it's very rare. They are probably just better than you.

unknown

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_Barabbas_

Shrimkins wrote: »

I've been doing AW since the very beginning when it was in beta, been through over 1000 wars, and I've only ever seen 2 alliances that actually used mods. I'm not saying it doesn't happen I'm saying it's very rare. They are probably just better than you.

You may be right. I think I spelled out my argument against that very clearly, though. Statistically, it doesn't smell right.

DTMelodicMetal

Shrimkins wrote: »

I've been doing AW since the very beginning when it was in beta, been through over 1000 wars, and I've only ever seen 2 alliances that actually used mods. I'm not saying it doesn't happen I'm saying it's very rare. They are probably just better than you.

Mods in AW are easy to identify, one giveaway is players clearing miniboss/boss defenders or noded defenders within 30 seconds with weak attackers (e.g. 5* r3 or lower). My alliance lost a war to a modding alliance at the beginning of season 2. Their modding was obvious enough for us to submit support tickets with video evidence that lead to 27 of their 30 members receiving one week bans within 24 hours. More recently a different modding alliance was docked 1-2 weeks ago, you can read about their TOS violations on Reddit.

DNA3000

_Barabbas_ wrote: »

Bots, Mods, it's all cheating. I don't mess with them, so what I know is from Bing and Google.

A bot is something that plays the game for you. A mod is software that tampers with the game client. For example, you could mod the game so you take no damage or you deal enormous amounts of damage in one hit. Both will get you banned. Normally, bots are used in areas of the game where strong play isn't important, long duration grinding is. For example, in the arena it doesn't really matter if the bot plays well or not, if you use it over night that's still a ton of points you're getting basically "for free."

I can play. I can dodge and parry my way through Quests and Story content very well. But, Wars? The A.I. in wars is deliberately set up to break sequence and fight timing. It keeps you on your toes. I have no problems making it to the Boss Head, even dropping Mini Bosses and Bosses, but I still take damage on the way there. I am not so good as to not time an attack right. I am not so good that the A.I. cant parry me and ring a combo off on me. Right?

So how does 80% or more of an Alliance completely bulldoze a map all the way to the boss, class advantage be darned (lol), and take almost no damage aside from block damage? How does and entire Alliance, even lowbie players, not lose a single champ or only 1. 1 defender kill all the way to boss head? Not just 1 Alliance, but like 3 in a row like that.

Well, that's unlikely, but that's also difficult to tell. You can't watch every single fight and a player that looks like they took no damage might have just healed his champs back to full. Many people do that to reduce the chances of dying accidentally on a node.

My alliance is currently in tier 6, and in tier 6 I can generally run my path without dying. I'm not the perfect player and I do die occasionally but in my absolute best recent performance I cleared all of path 6, then downed the miniboss, then soloed the boss at the end. I think that was in tier 7, and I took not much damage either. It was just a really good day. If they were suspicious the other side might have thought I was cheating, but I was just moderately good plus somewhat lucky that day.

I will say this: certain things you say are odd to me. You say the AI in wars is "deliberately set up to break sequences." Not in my experience. I fight in wars more or less the same way I fight in all other hard content, except maybe a little more cautiously. I almost never get parried except if I make a mistake on an autoblocking champ (which is rare, but does happen). And class advantage? I don't pay attention to class advantage. I only have three attackers in the first place, and class advantage doesn't mean anything to me in the second place. Good match ups matter. Class doesn't. Void is my main attacker in AW. If the target is skill, I don't switch to Iceman. I only switch if I think the match up isn't a good one, like if I know it is a Kingpin say, or if I'm about to engage the poison node. On the rare times I die, class disadvantage isn't what killed me.

The best performance I've seen actually happen in an AW I participated in was an alliance that scored 472 (attack bonus) against us. I have no reason to believe that was anything but a legit performance. 472 implies 23 deaths total, about eight per battlegroup. That means even in the worst case scenario seven of the thirty players in that alliance didn't die once. And in our most recent war, two of our three battlegroup bosses were one-shotted with no deaths, and one of them was a 5/65 Medusa. I have no reason to believe that was anything other than just good play. Our strongest battlegroup has managed to score 161 in the last three wars in tier 6. That's just four deaths per war. As far as I'm aware, that's all just good play.

We all know cheating happens, but it isn't common and most things that look like cheating on the surface are probably just very good play. What's possible covers a very wide range of player skill.

_Barabbas_

DTMelodicMetal wrote: »

Shrimkins wrote: »

I've been doing AW since the very beginning when it was in beta, been through over 1000 wars, and I've only ever seen 2 alliances that actually used mods. I'm not saying it doesn't happen I'm saying it's very rare. They are probably just better than you.

Mods in AW are easy to identify, one giveaway is players clearing miniboss/boss defenders or noded defenders within 30 seconds with weak attackers (e.g. 5* r3 or lower). My alliance lost a war to a modding alliance at the beginning of season 2. Their modding was obvious enough for us to submit support tickets with video evidence that lead to 27 of their 30 members receiving one week bans within 24 hours. More recently a different modding alliance was docked 1-2 weeks ago, you can read about their TOS violations on Reddit.

It could have easily been this as well.

_Barabbas_

DNA3000 wrote: »

_Barabbas_ wrote: »

Bots, Mods, it's all cheating. I don't mess with them, so what I know is from Bing and Google.

A bot is something that plays the game for you. A mod is software that tampers with the game client. For example, you could mod the game so you take no damage or you deal enormous amounts of damage in one hit. Both will get you banned. Normally, bots are used in areas of the game where strong play isn't important, long duration grinding is. For example, in the arena it doesn't really matter if the bot plays well or not, if you use it over night that's still a ton of points you're getting basically "for free."

I can play. I can dodge and parry my way through Quests and Story content very well. But, Wars? The A.I. in wars is deliberately set up to break sequence and fight timing. It keeps you on your toes. I have no problems making it to the Boss Head, even dropping Mini Bosses and Bosses, but I still take damage on the way there. I am not so good as to not time an attack right. I am not so good that the A.I. cant parry me and ring a combo off on me. Right?

So how does 80% or more of an Alliance completely bulldoze a map all the way to the boss, class advantage be darned (lol), and take almost no damage aside from block damage? How does and entire Alliance, even lowbie players, not lose a single champ or only 1. 1 defender kill all the way to boss head? Not just 1 Alliance, but like 3 in a row like that.

Well, that's unlikely, but that's also difficult to tell. You can't watch every single fight and a player that looks like they took no damage might have just healed his champs back to full. Many people do that to reduce the chances of dying accidentally on a node.

My alliance is currently in tier 6, and in tier 6 I can generally run my path without dying. I'm not the perfect player and I do die occasionally but in my absolute best recent performance I cleared all of path 6, then downed the miniboss, then soloed the boss at the end. I think that was in tier 7, and I took not much damage either. It was just a really good day. If they were suspicious the other side might have thought I was cheating, but I was just moderately good plus somewhat lucky that day.

I will say this: certain things you say are odd to me. You say the AI in wars is "deliberately set up to break sequences." Not in my experience. I fight in wars more or less the same way I fight in all other hard content, except maybe a little more cautiously. I almost never get parried except if I make a mistake on an autoblocking champ (which is rare, but does happen). And class advantage? I don't pay attention to class advantage. I only have three attackers in the first place, and class advantage doesn't mean anything to me in the second place. Good match ups matter. Class doesn't. Void is my main attacker in AW. If the target is skill, I don't switch to Iceman. I only switch if I think the match up isn't a good one, like if I know it is a Kingpin say, or if I'm about to engage the poison node. On the rare times I die, class disadvantage isn't what killed me.

The best performance I've seen actually happen in an AW I participated in was an alliance that scored 472 (attack bonus) against us. I have no reason to believe that was anything but a legit performance. 472 implies 23 deaths total, about eight per battlegroup. That means even in the worst case scenario seven of the thirty players in that alliance didn't die once. And in our most recent war, two of our three battlegroup bosses were one-shotted with no deaths, and one of them was a 5/65 Medusa. I have no reason to believe that was anything other than just good play. Our strongest battlegroup has managed to score 161 in the last three wars in tier 6. That's just four deaths per war. As far as I'm aware, that's all just good play.

We all know cheating happens, but it isn't common and most things that look like cheating on the surface are probably just very good play. What's possible covers a very wide range of player skill.

Sure, but you're not going to convince me this is normal. Players make mistakes. The A.I. can trip us up. Not every player in an Alliance can be free from human error.

DNA3000

_Barabbas_ wrote: »

Sure, but you're not going to convince me this is normal.

It is you that has to convince someone else that it is abnormal. I'm not required to convince you of anything. My game continues to spin regardless.

_Barabbas_

DNA3000 wrote: »

_Barabbas_ wrote: »

Sure, but you're not going to convince me this is normal.

It is you that has to convince someone else that it is abnormal. I'm not required to convince you of anything. My game continues to spin regardless.

Well, that's what I am trying to do. Here we are...

Look, we all know "a guy" who "scored 472" against us or can do something spectacular in game. Also, we all have had the sweet day where we madenit all the way to the Boss without taking hardly any damage, and then soloed him. But to say it's normal for an entire Alliance to do it is a bit to much for me to swallow. All 20 members, all having that sweet day? Or even 18 of the 20. When you watch it go down, when you experience that 3 times in a row, you don't need convincing that something is off. People (whole Alliances) just dont walk through buffed champs like that in masse.

Batman05

_Barabbas_ wrote: »

DNA3000 wrote: »

_Barabbas_ wrote: »

Bots, Mods, it's all cheating. I don't mess with them, so what I know is from Bing and Google.

A bot is something that plays the game for you. A mod is software that tampers with the game client. For example, you could mod the game so you take no damage or you deal enormous amounts of damage in one hit. Both will get you banned. Normally, bots are used in areas of the game where strong play isn't important, long duration grinding is. For example, in the arena it doesn't really matter if the bot plays well or not, if you use it over night that's still a ton of points you're getting basically "for free."

I can play. I can dodge and parry my way through Quests and Story content very well. But, Wars? The A.I. in wars is deliberately set up to break sequence and fight timing. It keeps you on your toes. I have no problems making it to the Boss Head, even dropping Mini Bosses and Bosses, but I still take damage on the way there. I am not so good as to not time an attack right. I am not so good that the A.I. cant parry me and ring a combo off on me. Right?

So how does 80% or more of an Alliance completely bulldoze a map all the way to the boss, class advantage be darned (lol), and take almost no damage aside from block damage? How does and entire Alliance, even lowbie players, not lose a single champ or only 1. 1 defender kill all the way to boss head? Not just 1 Alliance, but like 3 in a row like that.

Well, that's unlikely, but that's also difficult to tell. You can't watch every single fight and a player that looks like they took no damage might have just healed his champs back to full. Many people do that to reduce the chances of dying accidentally on a node.

My alliance is currently in tier 6, and in tier 6 I can generally run my path without dying. I'm not the perfect player and I do die occasionally but in my absolute best recent performance I cleared all of path 6, then downed the miniboss, then soloed the boss at the end. I think that was in tier 7, and I took not much damage either. It was just a really good day. If they were suspicious the other side might have thought I was cheating, but I was just moderately good plus somewhat lucky that day.

I will say this: certain things you say are odd to me. You say the AI in wars is "deliberately set up to break sequences." Not in my experience. I fight in wars more or less the same way I fight in all other hard content, except maybe a little more cautiously. I almost never get parried except if I make a mistake on an autoblocking champ (which is rare, but does happen). And class advantage? I don't pay attention to class advantage. I only have three attackers in the first place, and class advantage doesn't mean anything to me in the second place. Good match ups matter. Class doesn't. Void is my main attacker in AW. If the target is skill, I don't switch to Iceman. I only switch if I think the match up isn't a good one, like if I know it is a Kingpin say, or if I'm about to engage the poison node. On the rare times I die, class disadvantage isn't what killed me.

The best performance I've seen actually happen in an AW I participated in was an alliance that scored 472 (attack bonus) against us. I have no reason to believe that was anything but a legit performance. 472 implies 23 deaths total, about eight per battlegroup. That means even in the worst case scenario seven of the thirty players in that alliance didn't die once. And in our most recent war, two of our three battlegroup bosses were one-shotted with no deaths, and one of them was a 5/65 Medusa. I have no reason to believe that was anything other than just good play. Our strongest battlegroup has managed to score 161 in the last three wars in tier 6. That's just four deaths per war. As far as I'm aware, that's all just good play.

We all know cheating happens, but it isn't common and most things that look like cheating on the surface are probably just very good play. What's possible covers a very wide range of player skill.

Sure, but you're not going to convince me this is normal. Players make mistakes. The A.I. can trip us up. Not every player in an Alliance can be free from human error.

I would say that is very normal, lots of players go all season with zero deaths. War is the one place in the entire game where everyone knows even one death matters. So people take even more precautions when they are about to fight wars. They check WiFi they make sure they are charged, they turn off notifications, they find quiet places to fight for concentration, they boost them they attack. You don’t get do overs in war so people make sure to not make mistakes. Not every alliance is like this but some are. And it is very common to find whole alliances where every player thinks like this because that’s what drives the alliance forward is everyone on the same
Page. It’s very normal

MaxtheSilent

DNA3000 wrote: »

Drooped2 wrote: »

Building a robot to play will be really hard to detect if the robot is using my phone.. just saying..

I'm not even sure it violates the terms of service. It depends on whether building an MCOC playing robot counts as "using a robot to [...] provide automated access to [...] the Services." I guess sort of? I mean: who is the robot providing automated access to?

I think it's cool if it's one of those robots that feels like in the movies. Of course if it's sentient then I guess it's account sharing? I've got to think about this.

Kabam Porthos

Hey guys, I understand it can be unsettling when you come up against another Alliance which you feel may have an unfair advantage in War. You should keep in mind that what can sometimes appear to be a cheat or hack occurring, such as Opponents skipping Bosses or Nodes, can be due to a display lag in the Alliance War Map. It's also possible that a player or Alliance who seemingly defeats vastly superior Opponents is just really skilful!

With that being said, we're always looking into any possible exploits and really appreciate it when players take the time to report anything suspicious that they notice in The Contest. If you ever suspect another player or Alliance of cheating, please take the time to report this to our Support Team. An investigation will then be conducted to determine if any form of cheating has occurred, and if necessary, appropriate actions will be taken to punish the offending player/Alliance. However, due to our Privacy Policy, we will be unable to provide you with any details regarding the result of our investigation.

You can submit a Support ticket by clicking HERE. Alternatively, from the game's Home screen, click on the gear shaped icon, located in the top left corner. From there, tap the button that says “Support”, and then tap on the option for “Need more help? Contact us”.

When contacting our Support Team to report suspicious behavior, please try to include the following information:

- Date and time that this occurred
- Name of the suspected player/Alliance
- A detailed description of any strange behaviour during the battles and of the Champions used
- Any relevant screenshots or videos

I'll go ahead and close this thread now, but I want to sincerely thank you all for your commitment to keeping The Contest a fair and enjoyable place for all players.