Vainglory Forums

I recently have started playing with my sister, who I convinced to try vainglory, and I keep on running into UNBELIEVABLY easy matches. That makes be think that these so called “players” are actually bots. I don’t know if this is common knowledge, or if this has been discussed before, but I feel the need to communicate my observations.
I keep on cheacking the enemy teams builds, and I see that they have bought nothing. For the entire game, they don’t buy anything. At first I thought that maybe I just keep on running into stupid players, but entire teams are like this.
Also, the so called “players” names all follow a common theme. Usually 2 random words put together with the first letter of each word being capitalized, like “RedCowboy” and occasionally some numbers to mix it up, like “starfire101.”
But that is not solid evidence to go on. But something strange I noticed recently after playing several games with my sister is that these do not register as real games on the Halcyonity app, which tracks your last 50 games. Basically, I play a few games alone, they get recorded in the halcyonity app, and soon after I play a few games with my sister, and they do not get recorded as real matches in the Halcyonity app.
That’s fishy.
The only matches that don’t get recorded in the app are not matches or practice matches. So if these are “ real players” I’m fighting with my sister, then why do they not get recorded?
Some may say that it’s crazy and may say things like “why would they put bots in the game? It’s stupid!”
But it’s not. It’s not too far fetched because, if you think about it, vainglory isn’t a very easy game, especially when compared to other mobile games. So if a new player constantly gets dominated by more experienced players, they feel like garbage and have no incentive to keep playing. So how do you remedy this? Do you make the game easier? No, this punishes the loyal and experienced players. Do you restrict new players to only practice matches? No, that is boring, and they do not learn anything. So what they do is trick new players into thinking that they are fighting real players, while in reality they are fighting bots. But how do they learn?
Well they don’t.
The most observant players may learn from their teammates, and some may go out of there way to look up guides and videos online on how to get good, but the majority of players might just quit when they get completely dominated rather then go out of their way and sacrifice time and effort to learn about a game that makes them feel like ****.
And it’s not like SMEC are the first people to think of tricking new players into a false sense of victory using bots. In games such as PUBG mobile (actually that’s the only game I can think of lol) they do the same exact thing. (PUBG mobile also uses bots to fill spots in a server because the game is dying) New players are pandered to, tricked, and so they keep playing. It makes sense from a business standpoint, but I know in my experience that bot matches do not help me learn anything about the game. Also, right now my little sister just got put in a real match after several bot matches and she is getting utterly frustrated because she is 3/17/4. Oof. She is struggling to learn because she has been provided a crutch for her to lean on while she learns to walk on her own to feet, but this just crippled her because without the crutch now, she cannot walk.
This is hard thing to tackle if you are SMEC, because you want to bring in new players, but the game is really difficult, and usually new players will just end up quitting if not given gratification for their actions. I mean, do you give new players a crutch? Or do you just kick them out of the nest and hope the fly or die?
Well I don’t have a real answer because I’m no professional gamemaker, but I have a suggestion.
Also, I don’t know if SMEC is already doing his or not, but do what Splatoon does, and match players in casual matches based on their overall account level. Basically, if the player is a level 5, then match the player with others with similar levels, around the range of levels 1-9 or so. This may make matchmaking take mutch longer, but if you have to, throw in a player or two who are outside of this range of levels. That’s what Splatoon does. Also, when the player reaches a certain level in Splatoon, matchmaking becomes 100% random. So yeah.

If you made it this far, then congrats.
I feel like posing bots as real people for new players is a bad decision, and a way to drive away new plays, as it may keep new players temporarily, but in the long run it will drive them away.
Anyway, what do you think? Do you think that bots are a good thing? Are there any alternatives to having fake players? Sorry for the long post. Sorry if this is common knowledge, and if there are better places for stupid *** posts like this, it would be greatly appreciated if you told me.

See you in the battlefield.

Not sure really... I think that making smarter bots would be a better option, of course I'm not saying that they should be good enough to completely destroy them, but at least provide a challenge. Either that, or do a better job at teaching players how to play.

thanks