"Bots" are an automated cheating program set to "play" as classes in Team Fortress 2. They use "aimbot", and have automatic ai detection of players, the maps, etc. So one could compare it to having "aimbot" and "walls", but in reality, it's worse than that.

"aimbot" is instantly aiming down and shooting at a target the bot/player can reach, using cheats.
"walls" is a term for cheats where exploiting players can see where all enemies are at all times.

They can easily be identified by instantly shooting people can become visible to them from around corners, or past walls, etc. Common bot names such as "omega", common bot profile pictures, lots of points on an only recently started game, etc.

If you go into "Options" and then "Keyboard" in Team Fortress 2, there's actually a bind hotkey option for calling votes, in that menu.
Just try to find the "Call Vote" option under "Toggle Player Ready".




I recommend binding "Call Vote" to F3.

This way, when you're in a casual match, and need to quickly kick someone you 100% know is a bot, you can easily bring up the votekick menu using that key.

CALL VOTES ON BOTS EVEN IF YOU'RE OUTNUMBERED!

Like I said later in the guide under "votekicking bots", Valve recently made a change to votekicking.

It's something like "newer steam accounts" or TF2 just-installs, or something, votes don't count.
So sometimes, a bot can call a vote on someone, and it can get 7 yes votes from bots, and 2 no votes from players, and it still won't pass.

Why this happens isn't entirely clear to me, but I have seen it happen multiple times before.

So your vote to kick a bot can have 2-8+ no votes, and if all of those votes were bot votes, it's actually more than likely going to ignore those bot votes, the vote will pass, and the bot will be kicked.


So even if it seems like you're outnumbered, it's important to try to kick bots if there are at least 3 real players including you, in the server!

You can still kick bots by doing so, even if the server is filled with them!

But if the whole server is bots It's probably better to just requeue and find a new match.

BE AWARE OF WHO YOU'RE KICKING. DON'T BE APART OF THE PEOPLE KILLING TF2.

I recently had a match where I tried to kick a bot who stole my "blank name" so that the players there wouldn't make the mistake of trying to kick the bot and kicking me, instead.

I even said in chat "F1 I called the vote its a bot" right after calling it.

Shortly after saying so, a kid part of the toxic community killing TF2, says "f2". Votes f2, and gets 2-3 other players to because he said that.

He then said in chat that he didn't know the player was kicking the copy bot. Despite me saying it was real in chat.

If you can't read chat, and don't know how bots or kicking works, why are you calling votes or saying in chat what to do with them??

Then another kid part of the community killing TF2 says "anyone with no name is botting. can someone kick him? I'm on cooldown."


Clearly upset because I was upset they voted no to me attempting to kick a bot in a server full of bots.


Then someone with "she/her" in her steam name on the enemy team says "honestly yall should just kick that player now and itd be fine lol"


So now I have at least 3-4 kids that are ruining TF2, against me, just for trying to kick a bot and being upset my team voted no to kicking it, despite me saying "I called the vote, f1" in chat.


I call a vote to kick the kid that said "anyone with no name is botting someone kick him" and it passes, thankfully.

Then shortly after, the kid who said f2 in chat to my original vote to kick the copy bot calls a votekick on me, and there wasn't a single no vote. (server still filled with bots but that's no excuse for these kids to kick a player just cause they didn't like what I had to say)


Please don't be like those children part of the community killing TF2. They are literally worse than bots. They're self-aware. They should know better. That "she/her" saying kick me just cause I was upset they voted no to kicking a bot she was playing against??

And the other kids too. They are truly the worst of TF2.

Countless, COUNTLESS players, probably like 98% of TF2 players, will vote Yes on votes, despite not knowing what the player being voted on has done.

Or even everyone voting No on a vote, when it's a vote to kick someone who's been AFK in spawn for 5 minutes.

They just like to vote, to be able to vote. There is no logic behind it. Please don't be like this.


If you're not 100% CERTAIN THAT THEY'RE GUILTY OF ANYTHING, DON'T VOTE.

because the noob, little child players in the server don't know better; To not vote when they aren't aware of anything going on with it.

They see a vote and vote yes, not knowing a bot is voting to kick a player.



UNLESS YOU'RE 100% AWARE OF WHATS GOING ON WITH THE VOTE, YOU SHOULD NOT BE VOTING.


I've seen innocent players get kicked by exploiters, or seen myself get kicked by disgusting toxic losers who deserve to be kicked, because the server blindly decides to side with him, or sees a vote and doesn't care, they just want to see someone get kicked.


Please be better. Do better. Only vote on votekicks if you're actually aware of what's going on, and fully know if that person deserves to be kicked or not.

Being aware like this will actually ensure that less innocent players are kicked, and more bots are.

It doesn't even need to be with friends you're very experienced with. You could play with players you just met. Just add them, and invite them to your party!

But obviously it's going to go more smoothly if you're with a group of friends, and then you queue up while in a party. The more the better. Then bots pretty much can't kick you, and you can kick any and all bots.

Just make sure each one of your party members are calling votes on bots when they can.

Votekicking is essentially the only current real way for real players to fight the bot crisis.

But it's important to know how important votekicking is, when it comes to kicking bots.
The more bots that are in a server, the harder it's going to be to kick them. So it's important to votekick bots as soon as possible.

However, valve recently made a change to votekicking. It's something like "newer steam accounts" or TF2 just-installs, or something, votes don't count. So sometimes, a bot can call a vote on someone, and it can get 7 yes votes from bots, and it still won't pass.

Or, more importantly, your vote to kick a bot can 2-8+ no votes, and if all of those votes were bot votes, it's actually more than likely going ignore those bot votes, the vote will pass, and the bot will be kicked.

So even if it seems like you're outnumbered, it's important to try to kick bots if there are at least 3 real players including you, in the server!

It is unknown as to why Valve has done nothing about bots.
Many ideas and possible solutions have been given and recommended to them.
Some wouldn't even take much time to implement, and yet they take no action.

It's possible they just don't care about Team Fortress 2 anymore and/or are focused on other Valve games and projects. But, its been years of bots ruining Team Fortress 2.

For examples on solutions they could implement, please scroll down to the "solution examples" on this guide.

I'm not completely educated on this whole part of the issue, but you can easily find many answers to it online.

But from the little I do remember, I believe the drama went something like "someone who worked as a volunteer contributor or something, for TF2, got fired or something.

Then they basically leaked all the code on TF2 to make it easily accessible for the internet, so that degenerate people like himself could use that leaked code to damage the game with attacks.


I'm not sure if that's actually how that whole story went or not, but I believe it's very similar to that.
I'm not sure what happened to that degenerate, or who's hosting bots now, if it's still him, or what.


All I know is that anyone who intentionally tries to hurt Team Fortress 2, a game that has helped make so many community projects, official shows, movies, art, etc.
A game that has formed COUNTLESS communities, who's audio files and more has been used in countless movies, shows, games, etc.
A game that has inspired COUNTLESS people, and is the reason for many of the movies, shows, communities, friends, even FAMILIES, being a thing today, via players just meeting one day on TF2, etc.

Anyone who intentionally tries to harm a game like that? And over some petty being let go from a team working on it, or something? (it really doesn't matter what happened. nothing justifies this)

Anyone who does such a thing is literally living garbage. And I cannot express how much I feel bad for and truly pity anyone hosting bots on TF2. They must really hate themselves and their lives.


They go out of their way to waste money and time and more, on running bots on a classic, amazing game.

These are solutions I personally can think of just on hand, all by myself, and do not understand why Valve doesn't implement, to stop bots.

If you have some ideas on how to stop bots, feel free to comment yours on the guide comments here.
If I agree it's a good idea and should definitely be implemented, I'll put it here on the guide and give you credit.



Solution Idea #1:
Valve could just auto-kick "players" moving around frantically as they walk around and shoot, like these bots. By identifying and keeping track of where the "player" is viewing at all times. bots will be looking at a wall or something as they walk forward, then they suddenly whizz around to look at the player they just instantly headshot after coming around the corner.

Their movement and gameplay is very suspicious in even code, I'm sure. I'm sure Valve could do something to identify that.

The punishment for being assumed a bot, could be a 5 min cooldown to match-making or something.
If it happens again shortly after being on cooldown? 3-hour ban.
Again? 1 week ban. Again? 3-week ban. And so on.

If the system is falsely identifying actual players as bots, they could refine the system to be less sensitive, or identify what movements players do actually make that bots don't, etc.


Solution Idea #2:
Valve could add a punishment system for being kicked too often.
Was a bot just kicked from a match, and now just got kicked in another one in under 5 minutes of being in the match?
10 minute matchmaking cooldown.

Kicked in under 5 minutes in the next match that "player" queued into? 30 minute cooldown.

Same thing next match? 3 hour. And so on.


Solution Idea #3:
Valve could actually look at profiles reported enough using the in-game TF2 report, and if it's obviously a bot, ban it from match-making; And ignore any reports on any players that don't have more than 5+ in 5 days.
And then give an auto-response to anyone who reported that bot, when action is taken on banning it. "Thanks for reporting a cheater! Action has been taken!"

I've actually gotten a message like such before, while playing TF2 and had reported an exploiter, once. No idea if they actually did anything but it was interesting.
Proof screenshot: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1606201634

I'm sure I could easily think up some more solutions Valve could easily impliment or think-up themselves, but honestly I think you get the point.