The end of Season 12 is approaching in League of Legends and many players are taking the time to improve their ranking placement. However, more and more bots are appearing that can be in your team or the opponent’s team as well.
Where can you find bots in League? Bots are an integral part of League of Legends to help new players get into the game. You can find them under the “Co-op vs AI” tab, where the bots are divided into different difficulty levels.
- Intro: Is the first choice for new players, where the basics of the game are explained
- Beginner: Here you play in the Summoner’s Rift with 4 other players against a team of 5 that consists only of bots. These can teach the basics of LoL and are a good entry point to play against real opponents.
- Advanced: This is the mode where you play against stronger bots. These bots use their summoner spells and are a real challenge for new players.
For years, you have been encountering bots occasionally in normal games. You hear about them from time to time, but you rarely encounter them. So what’s the deal with this?
Here are our 3 favorite cinematics from LoL:
The rise to a higher division is imminent
The end of Season 12 is in sight: The ranking positions have not yet been finalized. Once you have played the placement matches, you will be assigned to a division in the ranking. There is also a reward for this. The higher your rank, the better the rewards will be.
In the ranking matches, you might notice a player behaving oddly. Due to their monotonous play style, not playing with the team, or simply running around the map without a clear goal.
Such players are often said to “play like bots.” However, recently, actual bots, meaning AI, have increasingly been seen in ranked matches. This is especially true if you play in a lower division.
How to recognize bot accounts? How you can recognize a bot is not entirely clear in advance. Here are three criteria to watch for if you suspect you have a bot on your team and are playing in a low division (Bronze or Iron). While these are not 100% indicators, they can be quite helpful clues.
Pay attention to the following behaviors
- Does the player play as a support?
- Does the player win only about 30% of their ranked matches?
- Does the player not ban a champion during the selection?
The user “Parogarr” writes on reddit: “There’s a small chance it could actually be a real person behind the summoner. But you’re better off leaving the game and losing the 3 points rather than playing with a bot on your team and losing even more.”
What do bots do anyway? The bots are there to train new accounts. They are used in games so that the account’s level increases and they can participate in ranked matches. Afterward, they may be sold or used in other ways.
They thus enter your game and follow the ADC. While the ADC defeats the minions on the lane or plays against the opponents, the bot wanders aimlessly nearby. They sometimes use items or activate their abilities so that the game does not see them as AFK and throw them out of the match.
There are various champions that are seen more frequently as bots. The most common champion is Yuumi. Since this champion does not have to do much once it sits on your shoulder, it’s also harder to detect.
Here you can find a video on how a bot account is analyzed:
What does Riot Games do about it? Riot Games has other games besides League of Legends. In Valorant, there is the anti-cheat tool Vanguard from Riot itself. This has led to absurd situations for some players, such as being kicked out of the game just by connecting their phone.
For LoL, such software was not planned. Vanguard has been around for years and the software is not a requirement for playing. Whether it will come to that in the future, or if Riot Games will do something against cheaters, remains to be seen.
Have you ever had a bot on your team and what were your experiences with it? Let us know in the comments.
If you still have to reach your rank this year, you can read more about it here: LoL makes the favorite champions of the pros stronger – And that just before the Worlds 2022
