Guild Wars 2

Hi ANet,

Me and my brother got banned yesterday (supposedly for “botting”) for doing the following circuit in Kessex Hills over and over and over again non-stop for around 10+ hours each day:

1. Prevent the centaurs from taking over the bridge
2. Kill the Harathi Lieutenants
3. Kill the Harathi Overlord
4. Go down near the sylvari swamp area and kill the 4 Krait Hypnoss
5. Teleport back to the nearest waypoint near the bridge

The reason I’m posting this in the Dynamic Events forum and not in the Accounts forum is because I’ve already raised a support ticket and my account has already been un-banned (TY SO MUCH GM Kirito for the quick response!!). My brother is checking right now if his account has been unbanned as well.

My question is:

Is it illegal to do these dynamic events over and over and over again? I don’t see any note of this in the terms of service.

Me and my 2 brothers have run this circuit non-stop every waking hour for the past week and we’ve decided to play this way as the level gained was very efficient versus the time we spent. Please note that WE ARE NOT BOTTING or using any macro or automated means of leveling. We’re just doing one event then running to the next as quickly as possible.

This actually also begs the question as to how and why we were flagged and subsequently banned for botting when we were very obviously not botting (unless they’ve started making bots that dance, jump for no apparent reason – which I tend to do a lot when I’m playing, talk to people, party up with people, strategize how to kill Harathi Overlord with less than 5 people, etc. etc). ANet has frequently indicated that it does not use automatic means of banning people but any regular person would immediately notice that we ARE NOT BOTS just by the way we played and moved in game.

An official response would be very much appreciated as this almost ruined Christmas vacation for me and my brothers (the GW2 account of my brother that was banned was a Christmas gift from me – you can imagine how upset he was being banned after barely sleeping for the past week farming Kessex Hills).

Thanks.

Just to add – I’ve never done the Cursed Shore circuit but isn’t that essentially the same thing? Running DE’s over and over again?

Also, my brother has just told me his account is still banned.

This story does not sound very believeable to me. If you believe you got incorrectly banned, please contact the costumer support.

I’ve also run that DE chain a lot (read 4+ hours straight) for exp and crafting materials from the bags. People only report you for botting if your both walking the exact same path all the time. Multiboxers get flagged for botting this way.

@Malediktus – Seriously? Did you even read what I wrote? If you actually read what I wrote, I already contacted customer support and my account ban has already been reversed. The point of this thread is to figure out what is causing me and my brothers’ account to be banned when we are very well within what I perceive to be legal leveling methods which is farming these DE events over and over. Do you think I’d be on this forum asking this question if I was actually guilty of running a bot program? Please have some common sense.

@Xia – Exactly. This is exactly why I am surprised that I even got banned. Given the fact that me and my brothers play independently, our characters are NEVER in the same spot similar to how multiboxers and botters look like in game. I’m a mage so I tend to move all over the place. My other brother is a Warrior, and the other one is a Guardian so they tend to be less all over the place since they alternate as tanks and aggro controllers. Of course when you’re moving from one DE to another, you tend to move together (but not exactly in the same path as multiboxers/botters).

We even party up with some other people who we see are farming the events because most people stop at Harathi Overlord and go back to bridge, and we want to get more people involved in the circuit we’re doing so we can run it faster/more efficiently. What me and my brothers do is run down to the swamp area and clear the Krait Hypnoss or regain/defend the Sylvari settlements if any or both of those events are up.

So again, I still don’t see any reason for getting banned aside from some sick person reporting us as botting and ANet not doing due diligence in really verifying if a person is botting or not.

Running DE chains in low level areas = Players and Anet will think you’re a bot instead of playing the DE cycle because you actually enjoy it!

Running DE chains in High Level areas = Game Design. No need to look for bots here!

Pretty sure you get better rewards (xp, etc.) for farming events in higher level zones.

On my first 1-2 toons I farmed low level events, but I level much, much faster now that I’ve mostly stopped doing that.

There are quite a few zones that you could farm events more effectively in any case. If you’re playing so much that you’re not sleeping, a temporary ban might be good for your health anyway.

I don’t see why this would be a problem. I have several places in the game I do this sort of thing. Like, when i’m in late teens; I’ll go to the town that holds meatoberfest in Dissea Plateau. It has like four or five events around it. You earn great exp, karma, and money if you follow it like a marathon track. do it for a few days.

also, in harathi hinterlands, i like to just follow the events between all hte camps then wait for champions. z

I also do this in Orr. Here, i’m not trying to level up at all. But, I just do it for 1) money 2)drops and 3) because it is actually pretty exciting even if they are the same events and a sort of farming. I love the Plinx chain with it’s three little stops once you get going. I love the arena champion event. the R&D tar elemental spawns. the penintent and shelter event; the temple of melandru.. just… yeah… all of it is really exciting! I do like to follow farming circuits because the way you do it maximizes how much money,karma, drops you earn.

I for one was really glad to see they got rid of close to all the bots in game. I used to get annoyed when i’d walk in at shelter to find a pack of them hiding in the town not even going anywhere.

its not a punishable offense if your even talking to people , it shows your an actual player and not a bot. why this was even passed as a ban raises some serious questions now cause ive been all over the map too farming DEs whenever possible. And yes it is not a punishable offense at all , though like someone else said its not bad to take a break and get some fresh air ;-) , do your brothers make any form of communication in /map chat or /say when other people are near? it might help reduce the chances of being claimed as a bot or multiboxer.

ANet really ought to do the “check if you’re alive” thing (say “hi” with a character, see if they get a response) before banning.

It’s most likely that somebody observed you and your brother running the same events over and over for multiple hours, concluded that you two were bots and submitted a report. I’m not privy to how ANet checks reports to determine if they really are bots, but the length of time you guys were doing the same events over and over (I imagine most players would get bored of doing the same event chain after 2 or 3 passes), perhaps coupled with other factors like a lack of in-game chatting led them to determine that it was likely they were dealing with bots.

@Tarvok: That wouldn’t really work, since bots can be scripted to automatically reply to anyone who whispers them with some generic response like “sry, dont want to talk now”. And what about real players who get freaked out by random people messaging them and decide not to answer?

Yea I would watch behavior for a while before assuming repeated action players are bots. Also I have seen people in map chats bragging about how they report people and I have to wonder if they are really taking the time to be sure, especially if they are getting the kind of ego boost that they sound like when bragging.

Key factors I watch for when deciding whether or not someone is a bot are the following:

1. They teleport to a location/enemy, mine/kill it, then immediately teleport away again. Sometimes you’ll see players appear at merchants (probably to sell loot) and disappear again. If you ever see someone mysteriously appear out of nowhere, quickly click on them and select the report option so you can see their account name. If they have some bizarre account name like “fdghjas”, you’re almost certainly dealing with a bot, so go ahead and report them. If not, observe their behaviour. If they walk/run away afterwards, they’re probably not a bot and may be a player who just happened to log in at that location.

2. Players who move around in the same general area killing enemies over and over. They can usually be distinguished from real players in that the bots will move to enemies in arrow-straight lines or run-paths, instead of taking more direct routes such as jumping up or down cliffs, and once an enemy is dead, they will immediately take off for the next enemy, not stopping to regain health or renew cooldowns. Sometimes you can see the bot rapidly change directions or backtrack (usually because whatever enemy they’ve targeted was killed by another player).

How? Most likely b/c ya’ll spent 50-70 hours doing a low level event loop. I don’t understand why ya’ll would do this….it’s not effective for leveling considering the alternatives.

doing the exact same thing over and over especially in a specific area could be seen as botting, which explains your ban.
You will also encounter diminishing returns.

It is best to keep on the move through several zones.

nethykins.7986:

Running DE chains in low level areas = Players and Anet will think you’re a bot instead of playing the DE cycle because you actually enjoy it!

Running DE chains in High Level areas = Game Design. No need to look for bots here!

Considering he says that he did that ten plus hours every day it is pretty obivous he a bot.

As lvl 80, when I need to kill my daily quick, I go to Queensdale, and am done in about 10 min…I guess if someone was watching me I’d look like a robot because I know where and when the events pop off, and the nodes when they show. I never really thought of that, and now I am given pause.

Dang. But even then, its maybe 10-15 min tops. 10 hours? That would be something else entirely…

Hi everyone,

The topic is now locked.

Thanks for your contribution.