#had a vs saxton hale round lately where a guy called pregradio kept micspamming bizarre pregnancy meme songs and clips

[zarla-s]

Bot update: a few people reported seeing bots a day or two ago! I've been checking in myself every now and then and I haven't personally seen any, but that doesn't mean they aren't out there. One of the bot hosters apparently was livestreaming himself on youtube cheating and getting bots in to back him up saying that "Valve would never stop him", and he was unsurprisingly banned rather quickly. Some people are like "don't give them attention, that's what they want" but not paying attention to bots is exactly how this crisis started in the first place!! You have to report them!! People need to know!! Other bot hosters have threatened that the minute that Valve stops paying attention, they'll unleash a bot flood on TF2 the likes of which it's never seen. I'd say this is just posturing but they basically did this before already, so I don't doubt they'll do it again if they get the chance. All we can really hope for is that Valve keeps doing its job taking care of the game...

Anyway, since some newer players may not have seen many bots before (sweet summer children, I envy you), here are some things to watch out for. If you see anyone suspicious, report them! Better safe than sorry after everything that's happened.

Similar names, usually with a number after it (Hexatronic [1], Hexatronic [2], Hexatronic [3]). Sometimes a group of real players will just be doing a bit (had a game with a bunch of people with variants on the name "Feral Engineer" who all went Engie) but if you see a lot of the same name, be suspicious.

Names with youtube or discord links in them

No profile pictures or the same profile picture

Usually in groups of 3-6, they don't join a game alone

Almost always picks Sniper (although they do seem to be branching out lately). If your team has more than three Snipers, be suspicious! Watch them and see how they behave, and if the enemy has a lot of Snipers, go Spy and watch them for a while.

Looking straight up and spinning. This is such a classic tell for bots that you'll see it in all kinds of fanart and SFM stuff and such. Number one sign. They're so well known for doing this that Spies imitated them sometimes to sneak past enemy lines.

Erratic, jerky movement. Not like normal lag or bad ping, but weird sharp jerks of the head or spins too fast for a human to make, constantly.

Spams voice commands, usually the "Nice shot!" one. They also like spamming noisemakers like the Birthday one or Winter one.

Never misses a headshot, headshots through walls or shoots invisible Spies. Usually at the top of the scoreboard if they're sticking around. Sometimes has permanent crits on their melee.

Spamming textchat advertising their discord or "bot immunity" services

Spamming voicechat with a lot of awful noise (now that TF2 is healthy again, natural micspam is coming back though, so if someone is playing music or weird sound clips they might not be a bot, just someone being weird or silly. Check for other signs)

No cosmetics, or the achievement based ones like the Pyro goggles, Gibus, or skull hat

Bots are pretty obvious most of the time, so they shouldn't be too hard to spot. Just keep an eye out! A few bots isn't the end of the world, they're inevitable, but we must stay vigilant!

Valve went through and banned a whole bunch of bots yesterday and when I last checked a couple hours ago, the Casual servers are still 99% actual people! If you want to try out TF2 DO IT NOW while you have the chance! Believe me when I say that having matches this clear of bots is RARE. They'll be back in force inevitably in probably a couple days so the window of opportunity here is small. Take the chance to play a normal round of TF2 Casual while you can!