Team Fortress 2: Fighting bots

As of late, Team Fortress 2’s casual matchmaking servers have been filled with bots.These bots have gotten so out of hand that Valve has finally decided to take action. In this article I will go over how to identify bots and what to do if you find yourself on a server with bots.

Introduction

In case you didn’t know, Team Fortress 2 is currently being invaded by bots. Valve has decided it’s time to take action and have started to release updates made to combat these bots. As a result, desperate measures have been taken. Free to Play players are no longer allowed to use text chat, voice chat or voice commands. This means, Free to Play’s have been completely silenced.

I don’t completely agree with some of these changes and I hope they are temporary, but since Valve is doing their part, I think it would be best if we did ours as well. So, how do we identify bots?

Identifying Bots

Bots can usually be identified by the way they move. If they are flicking, snapping to a certain position, spinning around or if they have incredible aim and never miss a headshot, they are most likely using an Aim-bot. However, if a player is getting a lot of headshots, don’t be so quick to call them bots, it would be best to observe them and look out for other hints of them being a bot. Once you have identified the bot, it would be best to kick them. To do this, press Esc and click on the Call Vote option. Search for the player you want to kick from the game and give the reason for why you’re kicking them. After this, the other players will begin voting for the bot to be kicked.

Another way to identify a bot is by their username or by reading the games chat. If they have strange usernames (usually a website or a bunch of random letters), or the chat gets filled with the same message, it’s a sign there is a bot on the server.

Now, let’s say for whatever reason, the bot wasn’t kicked. At this point, the best option would be to just leave the game. There is no shame in leaving at this point since you would be at a huge disadvantage against a bot with perfect aim. But, if you really want to show these bots what you’re made of, I have a few tips to help you out.

Fighting Bots

To fight against bots, your team's medic should use the Vaccinator. The Vaccinator reduces the damage from critical hits and can give you a resistance to bullets. It won’t completely negate the damage but it does help. If you want to completely negate the bot’s damage, use the stock Medigun. The Medigun will take longer to charge, but it can be sped up if the person they’re healing is constantly taking damage. A soldier could rocket jump in place to constantly take damage or a scout could use the Boston Basher to damage himself.

As a heavy you have the most amount of health but you are also the slowest, so it would be best if you teamed up with a medic to get close enough to attack the bot. For the heavy I recommend using either the Brass Beast or the Tomislav. The Brass Beast does the most damage out of all the other miniguns and the Tomislav has the fastest revving speed.

The next best class to fight bots is the engineer. As an engineer, place your sentry somewhere where the bot will have to stand in order to kill your teammates. The bot will then walk into your sentries line of sight and won’t stand a chance against your sentry. For the engineer I recommend using the stock weapons with the stock wrench. The Gunslinger’s minisentries won’t have enough health to stand up against the bot and won’t provide you with cover.

Final Words

Team Fortress 2 is going through a rough time. Bots have been in the game for a long time, but this is the worse it's been. Team Fortress 2 has not received an update in 3 years, but with Valve finally starting to pay attention to the game again, many players are still holding on to the hope that an update is on its way. These bots will not bring down Team Fortress 2. With the community fighting alongside Valve, the bots can’t win. Keep your head up and fight against the bots.