Team Fortress 2 – AI Takeover: Bots Launching Sham Votes Against Legit Players

Team Fortress 2 (TF2), once known for its vibrant gaming community, is currently facing a serious threat. Bots, operating with nefarious intent, have begun orchestrating fraudulent voting schemes directed at unsuspecting normal players those who choose to play the game without exploiting unfair advantages.

This guide will help you distinguish between bots and genuine players, enabling you to avoid falling for their provocations.

1. Bots often use the same nicknames:

2. Most often, you can identify a bot by the way it moves. It often looks around and can get stuck anywhere.
3. If you initiate a vote to ban a bot, he will instantly say a template message in chat.
4. As soon as a swarm of bots forms, they begin initiating votes to ban legit players (non-cheaters). Until this swarm is formed, they’re just playing.
5. These bots often use compromised accounts, which is why they may have any items equipped.
6. When one of the bots initiates a vote, a swarm of bots, even across different teams, triggers and says a template message, such as “F1” or “kick bot.”
7. When the bot operator shuts down the server with the cheating bot instances, all the bots immediately leave the server. You can thus see their nicknames in the chat and send them in the comments under this guide.

Unfortunately, this is quite challenging, as it requires vigilant monitoring of each player’s behavior. One potential method entails asking a player a simple math question in the chat, such as ‘What is 5+5?’ (Yes, regrettably, it has come to this).

Additionally, when legitimate players initiate votes, it’s advisable not to use generic chat templates like ‘f1 kick him’, as it may give the impression of bot-like behavior. It’s better to add complexity to the message to differentiate it from bot behavior.

In this video, you can see the inhuman movements of a bot playing as the Heavy class under the nickname “Poop.”

Bots can now play as any class, including Engineer (placing sentries in random locations), Scout, Demoman, and others.

In this screenshot, you can see how the bot “Titanium” initiates a vote and immediately writes the templated phrase “kikc bot” “F1”. They usually do this in a swarm, but this time, something seems to have gone wrong.

Therefore, the good advice when banning a cheater: do not use a templated response; try to complicate the message so that it is distinguishable from that of a bot.

In this screenshot, suddenly, you can see all players disconnected! But it turned out to be a massive swarm of the bots that had taken over the server. Yes, sometimes it happens, unfortunately…

It seemed like I connected to the server for literally 5 seconds, but here’s the problem: a swarm of bots had already taken over the server and was kicking regular players. The most important thing is for legit players not to fall for these votes, as otherwise the game will suffer.