Guild Wars 2

So, I have been playing GW2 off and on since release, this is my second account. Shortly after release there was pretty much an instant botting problem, some zones have become so crowded with botters it became near impossible to play there.

Well it’s not quite that bad now, at least not that I’ve seen. However, I know a bot when I see one, I have been playing MMO’s for a very long time, and watching a character running into a wall for 20 minutes… yes 20 minutes (I watched as I ate my dinner the other night before reporting him/her). If this isn’t an obvious sign of botting, I simply don’t know what is. Watching 2 characters following the exact same path at the exact same time is another very obvious sign, but again, what do I know?

After reading some articles from 2012 and beyond, I am surprised to see any botters at all, but none the less I am fairly certain it’s a still an issue as I have reported at least 5 players a day for the last 5 or 6 days for what I would assume are botters from observing them as I am running along for 100% completion. And recently noticing the red text when reporting someone, fear of my own account being banned due to “abusing the reporting system” has lead me to questions about whether or not botting is an issue, whether or not I should be reporting what I suspect to be a botter, and what is being done about people being reported.

So what’s going on?

I think you might be over analyzing because seeing 5+ a day is rather unlikely. From what I’ve seen botting isn’t a major issue because Anet took away most of the ways that would make botting profitable. Hacking and most likely trading post flipping is another story. But I have no idea how you would be seeing 5+ botters a day.

Also sometimes people auto run then afk so they end up in a wall somewhere. People do this sometimes on purpose but either way I don’t know that I would call that botting. And even if Anet knew the person was doing this, I highly doubt they would take any action.

That guy you reported could’ve been doing auto-run and afk eating like you. I haven’t seen many bots lately even the whisper bots trying to sell gold.

Abusing the reporting system is multiple malicious reports from one or a group of people on the same person to try to get that person in trouble. It’s not one report from one person about another person.

Most bots are traveling underground nowadays. No enemies and harder to spot.

The game will always have botters, for any of a variety of reasons. They were easy to spot when the game launched; they have evolved since and try to avoid spots in which they are likely to get spotted. If you run across such spots, then you’ll probably see more bots/day than in highly-populated areas.

I’ve seen people doing that running into a wall thing. I thought they looked pretty stupid, but I figured they were just trying to avoid being kicked from the game from the AFK timer, or something. No big deal, in my opinion.

I haven’t seen very many bots (or spammers) in this game, particularly in comparison to other games. (ArcheAge, I’m looking right at you…)
I like to think that the difference is that it’s taken seriously in this game. But who knows.

If you honestly think somebody is botting, I say report it. I think the warning is just to prevent abuse/misuse of the system.

Actually the report abuse warning is something pretty good and I hope anet bans people that abuse it.
About botting:
I know what you mean from 2012, haven’t seen any of these ingame since over 2 years.
Currently I would say that we as other real player can’t see any bots ingame. I think there might be no open world bots these days.
So the answer to your question would be: no.

On the other side it seems that there are more and more people reporting others as bots only because they have no idea what someone is doing. Some examples:

- pvp rankfarm arena (Since f2p I saw some people there claiming all others are bots because they don’t play “pvp”…)
- gathering mats with alot char (I have ~15 char standing next to a rich iron node and antoher ~10 at the spinach farm in gendarran. It’s unbelievable how much people stand there and accuse you to be a bot or hacker if you just login for the daily gathering…)
- autowalking (Autowalking is one of the best features, but of course it often happens that you just walk against something in the way. For example if you want to get a coffee or something. Especially in the starting areas I have seen people accusing others/me as bots only because autowalking into a wall or anything else for some minutes.)
- chat (Of course you sometimes spam some guild informations or world informations like a organized triple trouble on chat / multiple maps. It’s one of the funniest things that sometimes people in these cases write that you are a bot…)
- afk/waiting for example at silverwaste (You joined a 90% sw map and the other 10% just seem to take forever. Of course you just go afk, but there are people claiming you are a bot… In my opinion thats the most annoying case.)

There are hundrets of other little things where people might think some real player are bots. So best thing would be, if you suspect someone, just whisper him. If you don’t get an answer, wait some minutes and than maybe report the person. Luckly as far as I see it, anet doesn’t just ban someone for a report, they are looking into it and check it case to case.

I kinda wish there were still farm bots running around. They didn’t really bother me and they kept the mat cost low on the TP. If you remember, the price of mats skyrocketed after anet started mass banning.

Anyways, Anet seems to have a pretty good system for eliminating the bots and spammers, and I don’t know anyone who was permanently banned by mistake or because someone threatened to report them. You hear stories on the forums, but you have to take those with the a grain of salt.

I know people used to autorun circles or run into a wall to avoid being kicked out of wvw… My present server doesn’t have queues so I’ve not seen this behaviour for a while

I’ve spotted a few bots in the last few months. Each one was an underground bot. The only way you can see them is when they come close to the surface to harvest a node. The old style above ground bots, I’m not so sure they are around any more, or not many at any rate. There are too many people in this game who report a bot as soon as they see one and so they have to hide by traveling under the surface.

I’m not sure about botting in the open world, but I still have my suspicions regarding the BLTP. There have been a couple (2) times when I’ve decided to sell something that upon selling at the bid price notice that there is almost an immediate new listing at or just below the offer price.

This was for items that 1) didn’t have a lot of movement and volume (which is why I was selling at the bid) and 2) the spread was greater than 15%.

We already know that there is manipulation of the BLTP…just not sure how much is by a human vs. computer.

Botting never really went away but it’s been more visible after the legendary crafting reveal where most of the farming bots now seem to alternate between Orr maps and Dry Top. They are extremely visible in Dry Top where they stand right in the open next to the prosperity wp placing traps over and over again day in and day out, and have pets out – it’s mostly rangers but also necromancers.

Like the OP I’ve reported around 5 a day since the legendary crafting reveal but have yet to see any action taken against them.

I did notice a new type several times recently, stationary Thief bots spamming autoattack, with the runes that call the parrot pet.

If I’m on my mes I just portal them to a safe place with no mob spawn. Wouldn’t want em to get hurt, ya know

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

I did notice a new type several times recently, stationary Thief bots spamming autoattack, with the runes that call the parrot pet.

If I’m on my mes I just portal them to a safe place with no mob spawn. Wouldn’t want em to get hurt, ya know

That’s interesting. Don’t they have to accept the portal though?

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

I did notice a new type several times recently, stationary Thief bots spamming autoattack, with the runes that call the parrot pet.

If I’m on my mes I just portal them to a safe place with no mob spawn. Wouldn’t want em to get hurt, ya know

That’s interesting. Don’t they have to accept the portal though?

A bot will be spamming F to loot. An actual ATK player.. no.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

I did notice a new type several times recently, stationary Thief bots spamming autoattack, with the runes that call the parrot pet.

If I’m on my mes I just portal them to a safe place with no mob spawn. Wouldn’t want em to get hurt, ya know

That’s interesting. Don’t they have to accept the portal though?

A bot will be spamming F to loot. An actual ATK player.. no.

Hmmmmmm. I wonder if this would work on all the ranger bots people complain about? Until they go in and separate loot from interact that is.

In Final Fantasy XIV, Bots are easy to spot above ground if the botmaster doesn’t physically use the bots, since bots in FFXIV don’t actually input anything, so they stay in AFK Status even when jumping, or using skills. (Using a skill or jumping manually with actual inputs causes AFK Status to be removed.) Would be something if GW2 did something similar.

Iyeru.5240:

In Final Fantasy XIV, Bots are easy to spot above ground if the botmaster doesn’t physically use the bots, since bots in FFXIV don’t actually input anything, so they stay in AFK Status even when jumping, or using skills. (Using a skill or jumping manually with actual inputs causes AFK Status to be removed.) Would be something if GW2 did something similar.

That could be solved pretty easily with an arduino and some legos.

But I imagine most botters don’t care enough to build an actual robot to punch a key every now and then.

I have a friend who leaves himself in game, running. Reconnecting sometimes takes forever for people who aren’t local.

Stop watching other people and just play the game.