Guild Wars 2

Last night (November 13, 2016) and today (November 14, 2016), I saw at least two individuals using a farm bot on Diessa Plateau. I could recognize it because they appeared out of nowhere (teleport) to a node, gathered it, then disappeared (presumably to teleport to a different node). The one last night was gathering soft wood trees. The one today was gathering iron ore.

I am mentioning it here, on the forums, because they teleport too quickly to make it easy to report them. By the time I realized what they were doing, it was too late to report them individually.

Their names appeared to be ordinary names, so I don’t believe they were part of the bot companies.

Thanks for your time.

May not always be bots. I happen to park some of my less used characters near nods too. One of the popular places is in Malchor’s Leap with lots of wood to farm.

I reported this a couple of weeks ago and nobody had any ideas. I’ve submitted a block issue with toon name. Camping on greenwood nodes is pretty unlikely. I’ve seen appear / disappear on green wood nodes. Don’t use the “ex” word or post will be removed.

OP you’re probably going to need to need a bit more evidence to suggest these people were actually cheating. When I was grinding Iron and Platinum for a spree of ascended weapons parked something like twelve characters at major node areas in the game and cycled through them, logging on and off each after depleting veins etc. since nodes are character-bound and respawn while offline.

Sure, Deceiver.. Camping. But, seriously, camping a green wood node in Plains of Ashford. Really? Have you done that a lot? Seems to me that just doesn’t make sense. Camp the ring of Cypress in Malcore’s Leap? See that all the time. But it’s just not worth it to camp greenwood or copper nodes.

You’re assuming they are doing it to sell the mats … there are people out there that will farm their own mats for crafting and those kind of people WOULD camp green and copper nodes.

And before you pursue this, you better be careful … you can find yourself in lots of trouble if you report someone who isn’t doing anything wrong.

You will not get in trouble for reporting someone for botting, even if they weren’t really botting. Don’t spread misinformation.

Anet is aware that they will get false positives in their reporting system. That’s why they investigate these reports (if they actually do). If it turns out that the person wasn’t really botting, they move on. They will not punish you for providing a value service to them.

As long as you are not abusing the reporting system, you will be fine. Teleporting bots and people who camp nodes look enough like that reporting them is understandable.

In fact, I frequently get ready to report any character that I see that didn’t walk up to a node and vanishes after farming it. Unless it’s a well known farming spot (like Malachor’s) or a known permanent position for a rich ore node.

So go ahead and report the bots. Anet will be able to tell whether they are valid or not, but they need your help to find them.

DeceiverX.8361:

OP you’re probably going to need to need a bit more evidence to suggest these people were actually cheating.

It’s not the OP’s job to prove cheating — all the OP has to do is report their suspicions to exploit@arena.net. As long as one provides enough information to research the allegation, ANet will look into it.

Information includes: time, date, map, IP address, a good description of the location. Also a short explanation of the behavior. Ideally, character names and/or screenshots.

It doesn’t matter if you or I think it’s enough to demonstrate cheating; it only matters whether ANet thinks it does and they’ll always need to investigate regardless of what we show them.

Obtena.7952:

You’re assuming they are doing it to sell the mats … there are people out there that will farm their own mats for crafting and those kind of people WOULD camp green and copper nodes.

And before you pursue this, you better be careful … you can find yourself in lots of trouble if you report someone who isn’t doing anything wrong.

You’re assuming they are doing it to sell the mats … there are people out there that will farm their own mats for crafting and those kind of people WOULD camp green and copper node

I sincerely doubt this.

That they would farm green wood and copper, yes. That they would have a char dedicated to log in at one spot for one lumber or copper node to get a measly 3 – 4 mats that’s probably not even be there the next time they log in is grossly inefficient and a waste of time. Parking a char at a spot for the off chance they’ll get 3 mats a day will take them years to get enough for crafting.

And before you pursue this, you better be careful … you can find yourself in lots of trouble if you report someone who isn’t doing anything wrong.

Wrong. They do punish for obvious malicious reporting but honest mistakes are not punished.

If you are under the impression that ArenaNet removes each confirmed bot reported, it may be enlightening to know that bots are removed in waves to help circumvent the bot creators learning which bot features to avoid.

Thus, ArenaNet does give a care. =)

I wouldn’t report it if I thought it was just someone doing alt gathering, which is a valid tactic. I have several alts that I also do alt gathering on. Let me explain the difference.

Alt gathering is when you play as one main character, and leave the alternate characters you are not presently using at a major farming node (usually a daily node, such as the flax farm, or an hourly farm like the Malchor’s Leap elder wood farm). You log in on each alt, gather the farm, and then go to character select and go to the next. When you are done with your alt gathering, you move back to your main character and continue playing.

Bot farming is noticeably different. First, the nodes in question are not a farm node. Second, the character who teleports to the node often appears inside it or next to it in an unnatural way, and then immediately vanishes far faster (the literal moment the gathering is done) than anyone running an alt gathering. Third, if you happen to be farming legitimately on the same map, you may see the same bot at another node, seeing plainly they did not run to it. Frequently, bots also use skills that make no sense in the context, like a healing skill when they’re not being attacked (I saw specifically an engineer using the heal skill potion that grants swiftness. Why, I couldn’t say, but I did see it). While doing the skill, they also walk around in an unnatural fashion.

To clarify, by “unnatural movement” I mean in ways that ordinary, live players do not move. I have played a long time and seen hundreds, if not thousands, of players move, and they do not move like bots. With experience, it’s easy to distinguish them.

After my original post, I saw another bot on Diessa Plateau. They did indeed teleport from iron ore node to iron ore node, in the dredge area in the northwest side of the map. There is no possible way that they used a waypoint and then ran to the other node, to get there before I did. It was plainly bot teleporting, but that one I was able to report in the game.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Obtena.7952:

You’re assuming they are doing it to sell the mats … there are people out there that will farm their own mats for crafting and those kind of people WOULD camp green and copper nodes.

And before you pursue this, you better be careful … you can find yourself in lots of trouble if you report someone who isn’t doing anything wrong.

You’re assuming they are doing it to sell the mats … there are people out there that will farm their own mats for crafting and those kind of people WOULD camp green and copper node

I sincerely doubt this.

That they would farm green wood and copper, yes. That they would have a char dedicated to log in at one spot for one lumber or copper node to get a measly 3 – 4 mats that’s probably not even be there the next time they log in is grossly inefficient and a waste of time. Parking a char at a spot for the off chance they’ll get 3 mats a day will take them years to get enough for crafting.

And before you pursue this, you better be careful … you can find yourself in lots of trouble if you report someone who isn’t doing anything wrong.

Wrong. They do punish for obvious malicious reporting but honest mistakes are not punished.

You sincerely doubt there are people that farm their own mats … well I can’t argue with that nonsense. I mean, what is funny here is that you have assumed lots of things that might not be true themselves. Well, whatever, believe what you will. I mean, the idea that botters are farming green wood is about as stupid as the idea that a single person would camp 4 characters at the same node to get mats for crafting so .. I guess we are both talking nonsense.

who cares? its not like theyre farming ectos in tarir like living breathing real people are doing. who cares if a bot wants 50 stacks of copper ore for cryin out loud

That makes no sense to you that someone camps some nodes for T1 mats, but bots farming green wood and copper … that makes sense to you? OK then. I mean, I guess these bots are trying to make small amounts of gold or something? MAP Ips can stick around for a long time and those non-rich nodes reset every hour … there are more mats there for someone who wants to farm a node than you let on.

But please continue with telling us how bots are farming single nodes for mats that give 1s each but crafters wouldn’t.

Felahr.9830:

who cares? its not like theyre farming ectos in tarir like living breathing real people are doing. who cares if a bot wants 50 stacks of copper ore for cryin out loud

What type of twisted mentality is this?
Do you seriously think it’s ok for somebody to cheat?
And I’ll tell you who cares. ArenaNet and any sensible player.

Apparently a couple of people have missed the fact that it isn’t our job to determine what ANet worries about. It doesn’t matter if any of us think that no one would bot in this location or that; it doesn’t matter if any of us think it’s ok to bot to gather our own mats — it only matters if ANet thinks it’s enough of an issue to research the case.

Accordingly, it’s appropriate for the OP (and anyone worried about bots) to send in a report via email whenever they have trouble selecting a character to /report via the in-game tool. ANet will choose to investigate, file for later, or not to worry about it at all; our discussion here won’t change their policy.

Obtena.7952:

That makes no sense to you that someone camps some nodes for T1 mats, but bots farming green wood and copper … that makes sense to you? OK then. I mean, I guess these bots are trying to make small amounts of gold or something? MAP Ips can stick around for a long time and those non-rich nodes reset every hour … there are more mats there for someone who wants to farm a node than you let on.

But please continue with telling us how bots are farming single nodes for mats that give 1s each but crafters wouldn’t.

You’re really not following the argument.

It’s not that bots don’t farm mats. They do
It’s not that players don’t farm mats. They do

The argument is that bots move across the landscape differently than players and people are seeing chars move across the landscape and and appear at nodes in a way that bots use to farm mats, not the way that players use to farm mats. Bots will appear and disappear at single node sites that give 3-4 mats. Players do not. Players park at rich sites.

Edit: I’m not sure where the green wood/copper crept into the conversation. To go back and correct. The topic is about possible bots in Diessa Plateau, which has iron and soft wood.

It appears there was some confusion at the start of this as to whether I (the OP) was reporting actual players or reporting actual bots. I hope that my second post helped clear up that I DO know the difference, I know what I am talking about, and that I don’t report any player who is gathering or on a farming run. The bots I have been reporting (or attempted to report but missed before they teleported) were CLEARLY bots.

The green wood/copper crept into the conversation because the third poster mentioned seeing similar bots in Plains of Ashford, and then those materials were used as examples for further discussion.

I wanted to clarify one point. In my second post, I talked about how the bots would engage in unnatural movement. I’m going to describe it as best as I can, because I have seen more than one bot do it. Sometimes I see a bot walk in a circle before teleporting. Describing it is difficult, but here goes: they face one direction, then they walk backwards and to the right, the straight backwards, then backwards and to the left, and the whole movement resembles a tight circle. At the end of the circle, they teleport to the next node. It was during this movement that I saw the one engineer bot use the healing elixir. I have never seen a live player do such a precise and odd movement pattern, and even if a live player ever did that, I seriously doubt a live player would do it every single time they gather nodes. By “precise” I mean it’s the EXACT same size and shape of circle every time they do it, which is something live players are rarely able to do.

Now, bear in mind that I can’t remember if the bot went to the right or to the left first when they did the circle, so what I have written is to the best of my memory and may not be the EXACT direction the circle goes in. It was hard to tell because it happened so fast, and I wasn’t behind them so it was harder to tell if they went my right or their right first. I just reported as best as I could, because it was a very peculiar movement pattern, and should be recognizable whichever way it is. And I feel the need to write this last paragraph because there seem to be people who are so nitpicky that they wouldn’t let it go if I was wrong.

Edit: Illconceived Was Na.9781, you mentioned something in your posts in this topic that was very helpful. You said that if I see people do botting, but fail to report them in the game, that I should report the situation to exploit@arena.net, not the forums here. This is correct, and very helpful. The reason I posted it to the forums was because I did not know that. Now that I do, it’s what I’ll do from now on.

I apologize for posting it on the forums when it didn’t belong here.

Agreed on unnatural movements for bots

One thing this recent set of bots are doing that players don’t is to go to a node and then “jitter rapidly” instead of using a harvesting animation. Presumably it’s because they don’t have any harvesting tools and are harvesting without them. So if you see a char appear at a node, stand and jitter for a few seconds then disappear, it’s highly probable it’s a bot.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

And before you pursue this, you better be careful … you can find yourself in lots of trouble if you report someone who isn’t doing anything wrong.

Wrong. They do punish for obvious malicious reporting but honest mistakes are not punished.

I concur. Once when I reported many AFK bots from Dredgehaunt Cliffs I had about 14 lines of ‘Thank You For Your Report’ but I only reported 4 or 5 different characters because it was hard to distinguish the different necromancers. Nothing happened to me about that.

If you suspect there is botting going on, report it and move on. If they are innocent, ArenaNet will know and won’t punish them, or you for being wrong about it. As long as you genuinely thought they were botting (again, they’ll know) then nothing will happen to you.

The obvious question is what are the bots doing with what they are farming?
Metal nodes and trees and plants sell for peanuts on the TP, usually less than 3 S each, so its a really slow way to get rich, if thats the aim.

mauried.5608:

The obvious question is what are the bots doing with what they are farming?
Metal nodes and trees and plants sell for peanuts on the TP, usually less than 3 S each, so its a really slow way to get rich, if thats the aim.

If you have a few hundred bots that are harvesting 24 hours a day, you’ve got yourself a hefty pile of peanuts.

mtpelion.4562:

mauried.5608:

The obvious question is what are the bots doing with what they are farming?
Metal nodes and trees and plants sell for peanuts on the TP, usually less than 3 S each, so its a really slow way to get rich, if thats the aim.

If you have a few hundred bots that are harvesting 24 hours a day, you’ve got yourself a hefty pile of peanuts.

Yep. A number was pointed out earlier, suggesting that “so what if one bot makes 50 copper?”

The problem is that the companies that make the bots don’t have just one bot. They have hundreds of thousands, literally as many as they possibly can. So as an example, let’s say that one bot can make 50 copper a day. It doesn’t seem like much. But if you have 100,000 bots making 50 copper a day, you immediately have 5,000,000 copper per day earned, which is 500 gold. 500 gold per day. That doesn’t seem like “peanuts” anymore, does it? They could buy a legendary off the trading post a week, just as an example.

And that’s just an example number. I’m convinced that even if they can only npc what they harvest, each bot makes more than that per day. Since bots can harvest 24/7 with no breaks, they can gather a LOT more than a single player.

In case anyone is getting the idea that they should start botting to make money, let me explain why it’s a problem.

1) botting, using a botting program or exploit of any kind, is against the game’s Terms of Service. That means that you WILL end up losing your entire account because you botted. Anything you ever got, whether by legitimate means or by botting, will be lost permanently.

2) botting companies try to sell this illegally-earned gold to players for their real money. One of the problems this causes is that it is real money being stolen from Arenanet, meaning they get fewer resources to make the game better, while the bot companies get more resources to bot more and ruin our games more. A second problem this causes is that, any human foolish enough to visit an illegal gold-selling website is opening themselves up to being hacked. That’s right, bot companies have no morals and will do everything they can to steal accounts, so they can do more botting, advertising, etc. And they don’t stop at game accounts; if they can steal your e-mail, your banking information, credit cards, identity, accounts from other games, they will steal it.

There are other problems, too. Thankfully, the security of Guild Wars 2 prevents a lot of other methods that botters use to hack accounts, so we’re already spared a LOT of grief.

If you care about the game, you will report every bot that you get the chance to report. If they teleport away and you are unable to report them in the game, please send an e-mail to exploit@arena.net, with as much detailed information as possible, such as map, time, and any other information about the bot that could help.

If you care about your own account, you will never visit a bot’s site, never reply to their mails or whispers, and never bot yourself.

The only way to make the game a better place is to do something ourselves. Arenanet is doing a dang lot more than any other gaming company I have ever seen, but it’s only possible if we players help out, too. They deserve our support.

Edit: I said that the example of 50 copper was used earlier in this topic, but after going back and reading it again I find that I was mistaken. The person I thought had said “50 copper” had actually said “50 stacks of copper ore” which are two very different things. It doesn’t change my example, I just wanted to point out that I made a mistake.