Could This Be a Bot Thing?

I play mostly casual, but play fairly well, so I play a lot of good players because of my MMR.  Out of the last five games I played, three of my opponents we running a legend card back.  That, in itself, isn't too unusual.  Like I said, i usually get matched up with experienced players.  But the unusual thing is that, in all three of the games against the people running legend card backs, each a different player, my opponent didn't play a card.  Sure, this happens occasionally, but three out of five games?

I was wondering if this could be due to bots.  When the new reward system came into effect, the first thing that I wondered was whether we would see bots playing games for XP.  Since you get XP for time played, a bot wouldn't really have to do anything besides just start a game, without even really having to play any cards, and then just start another game when the game is over.  With the New system, this would be a way of getting 150 levels of XP without doing anything at all.

I don't know if bots are an issue, or if they will become an issue, or how good Blizzard is at detecting them and imposing bans, but it makes me wonder.  I've never had so many people, even outside of those few games, just rope without playing a card.  I'm wondering about bots because I just can't see where someone would manually do this type of thing, since the time you would be wasting would be the same amount of time spent if you were actually playing, since XP rewards are based on time played rather than outcomes.

Apart from that, it's a little bit frustrating.  Like i said, you get the same XP per the amount of time spent playing the game, so I'd rather just be playing, instead of watching the rope turn after turn, especially since the win gives me nothing in particular.

I'm thinking much the same as you, although there was one time when I was trying to get an achievement so I wasn't attacking the opponent, and then they turned up on turn 6. Maybe that person was exploiting the system 'honestly' by just starting games and going AFK for them, hopping back every so often to start a new game.

On the bright side, I think you do still get a bit more XP for wins. One day Blizz might tell us how much more...

I faced a DH bot yday on diamond 6, bot just hero powered in the middle of the turn, plus two hovers over portrait, all with the exact same timing each turn. No cards played. This is actually the only time ever I am 100% sure it was a bot.

Free win on ladder, but still very annoying. I hope this won't become a regular thing.

I thought this was an exclusive BG thing, but I guess that stealth nerf to AFK players made xp farmers a little more desperate.

If they didn't do any action it means they aren't a bot, just someone who hit play and went afk on purpose.

You know if it's a bot if they do the same action every turn which is usually just hero power.