Guild Wars 2

Mr. Lewis recently wrote that bot reports have dropped dramatically due to his team’s diligent efforts. I have indeed seen fewer traditional bots so thank you for the good work.

However, anyone who plays this game knows that the bots that remain have adapted by running gathering node teleport hacks. They are everywhere. They are impossible to report because they disappear too quickly. So Mr. Lewis, you might not want to tout too proudly the reduced number of botting reports.

Can you modify the reporting feature so it does not cancel itself when a player is out of sight? This would allow your players to help you report this new strain of bots. Your report count will go back up dramatically and I certainly don’t want to rain on your parade but it is the right move for the long term health of the game.

I just now ran into similar frustration in Blazeridge, and came here to start a post about this exact same thing, so instead let me second this. I’ve had the experience that some of these gatherer bots are also untargetable. I cant click on them, ‘target nearest ally’ key doesn’t select them, and they teleport out of sight before I can do much else. Please give us another method or reporting besides right-click context menus; most of the time the “player” is gone before I can even select my choice. On the same token, I’ve been seeing lots of flying players in WvW now as well as ones that ‘stutter-step’ (jerky short-range teleport motions) at a movement rate more than twice that of my character even when I have the swiftness boon. Impossible to report for the same reasons: untargetable.

Does this game even utilize server-side position validation?

What I have done in the past – is if I catch the full name, I will send them a whisper, not saying anything, just a period or something. If the whisper goes through (you spelled the name right), you can then right click on the name and report for botting.

RussellCrowe.8340:

On the same token, I’ve been seeing lots of flying players in WvW now as well as ones that ‘stutter-step’ (jerky short-range teleport motions) at a movement rate more than twice that of my character even when I have the swiftness boon. Impossible to report for the same reasons: untargetable.

It’s possible at least as far as this is concerned that it’s an engineer comboing oil slick, power shoes/leg mods and swiftness or something similar and you’re just lagging a big. Could be hax though, either way, something to be concerned about.

While we’re on the subject, I’d like to add that there are also sites with names not quite like but similar to guildwarshacks.com (not the actual url, not sure if that’s kosher to post) that are all over. Does AreaNet acquire these bots for themselves and reverse engineer them to figure out counter measures? Is that an effective tool for you guys? If so, should we report sites like these to you or what?

if you see 1 of these nod bots pop, rick click on the picture before they disappear and if they vanish, then you can also report them for botting. i have done this when i can catch them.

You guys do realize that bots actually HELP the economy, in this game?

I usually always report bots in any mmo I play… but here, I don’t know…

I have played a lot of games that have botting issues, Fuz, and I can assure you they do NOT help the economy. They mass dump enormous loads of resources on the market, for one, making it impossible for legitimate harvesters to make money. I’ve also seen them engage in crafting, and sell popular end products below cost (healing potions in Aion, for instance), making it again impossible for legitimate crafters to make money.

The worst thing about bots, however, is that very, very often these days, they are hacked account. I saw it happen to a friend only days ago. Suddenly, his main was on another server and not replying to guild chat or tells. When the account was restored, he was in a karka farm location. His ranged weapons were gone and his bank was cleaned out. From previous experiences in other games, I can tell you without the slightest doubt they were sold to generate the gold a lot of people apparently think it’s so harmless to buy.

One time, I was in ventrilo with friends. Some of them were doing an instance. Suddenly, 3 of them went off line and their toons vanished from the instance AND APPEARED OUTSIDE. While the owners were cursing in vent, unable to log back in, guildies followed the toons around and SAW them being stripped. THAT is what you sponsor if you allow botting.

Broom.2561:

I have played a lot of games that have botting issues, Fuz, and I can assure you they do NOT help the economy.

I played a lot of other mmorpgs. I play them since UOL.
I’ll agree with you that in other games they destroy the economy.
But here? It’s totally different. They, in fact, do help containing prices and fight people who abused the TP and the godskull weapon bug thus ending controlling the market.

Well l put several, at least 8 bots in my friends list several weeks ago after l reported them, they dissapeared for a while, but half of them are back on line now.

How does ArenaNet explain that one, they have typical no sense names by the way, and l watched them at the time, naked Rangers, there was no doubt they were botting.

Is it as has been suggested, only a temporary ban for botting ?

And do l keep reporting them ?

Solid Gold.9310:

Well l put several, at least 8 bots in my friends list several weeks ago after l reported them, they dissapeared for a while, but half of them are back on line now.

How does ArenaNet explain that one, they have typical no sense names by the way, and l watched them at the time, naked Rangers, there was no doubt they were botting.

Is it as has been suggested, only a temporary ban for botting ?

And do l keep reporting them ?

Hacked accounts?

Question, if only for interests sake. I was exploring the other day and run into a group of bears and their naked leaders running quickly past me. I managed to report two of them in time, but the speed they move it’s hard to get them all. Are you able to cross link accounts in that situation to get the rest? Or monitor how much time they spend together, as this would hit groups at once atleast.

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

Solid Gold.9310:

Well l put several, at least 8 bots in my friends list several weeks ago after l reported them, they dissapeared for a while, but half of them are back on line now.

How does ArenaNet explain that one, they have typical no sense names by the way, and l watched them at the time, naked Rangers, there was no doubt they were botting.

Is it as has been suggested, only a temporary ban for botting ?

And do l keep reporting them ?

Hacked accounts?

Question, if only for interests sake. I was exploring the other day and run into a group of bears and their naked leaders running quickly past me. I managed to report two of them in time, but the speed they move it’s hard to get them all. Are you able to cross link accounts in that situation to get the rest? Or monitor how much time they spend together, as this would hit groups at once atleast.

Yes probably hacked accounts, but that doesn’t explain why they appearad to be banned for a few weeeks and have started to appear back online.

This seems like the most appropriate thread for this issue.

In addition to the teleporting nodehack bots, I’ve been seeing a lot of bots which log out the moment a player gets too close. I was able to trap one where every time it logged in, it logged right back out due to my presence. It appears that they log out as soon as a player gets within targeting range – meaning that they can sometimes be visible at a distance, but not targetable to right-click and report. You can’t access their player portraits either.

Amusingly enough, when they attempt to log back in, they detect players in proximity before they even visibly display in the world – you’ll see their bears pop into existence, and then vanish almost immediately, but you never see the player.

@CC Eva and/or any other ANet representatives – Any tips on how to report this one? The standard reporting feature is unusable in this case, and screenshots are equally problematic.

A bit more haste on actioning wave of bans for bots would be appreciated. Since the other thread on bots was nuked by a mod I will not elaborate, but simply I am disheartened to see it take so long for action to be taken by ANet (a month in my example since reporting date, and I am not the only one). If I get the feeling that ANet don’t seem to be as interested as I am, why should I continue to report bots?

Solid Gold.9310:

Well l put several, at least 8 bots in my friends list several weeks ago after l reported them, they dissapeared for a while, but half of them are back on line now.

How does ArenaNet explain that one, they have typical no sense names by the way, and l watched them at the time, naked Rangers, there was no doubt they were botting.

Is it as has been suggested, only a temporary ban for botting ?

And do l keep reporting them ?

I keep reporting them, they are still there……………… a couple of them have been in the same area for about 4 weeks now, must be good farming there.

Put bots in your friends list, and you’ll see them keep coming back.

I lost the count of how many days I see the same bots farming corrupted lodestones … or same bots powerlvling each other …

Now tell me, why should I still keep reporting them? -_-

I wonder what it would take for all teleports/zone outs/log-outs to leave a lingering non-combat “cloud” avatar that others can interact with for whatever reason (reporting, whispering, friending, etc etc). Would be very cute if it looked comical like from a Looney tunes cartoon, but a bit more mystical/fanciful to suit the context.
I’m sure it would take a bit of programmatic engineering to make it work without concerns, but it’d eliminate some of the anti-social elements of players being “untraceable”.

Couldn’t you change the way the reports work?

For now the game will just flag the character if you report it, but you usually report him because you saw something suspicious.

So why not think about recording the last 60-120 seconds of the gamestate for every map, including all movements. When a player chooses to make a report, the log will be stored together with the viewpoint of the player so it can be replayed by GMs. Otherwise it will be discarded.

This should be easy to implement, a lot easier to check what the player actually saw and you don’t need to rely on real time observation for detecting bots and cheaters any more. Because there is yet another problem with that: Bots don’t only disappear when they see other players, the also stop using hacks / exploits if the presence of a nearby GM is detected. (GMs are not stealthed properly, they can be made visible.)

The one I came across in the dredge mines (Timberline Falls/Molodets)was actually vibrating like in an earthquake, I couldn’t click on it’s name while it gathered to submit ingame report because of the movement.

Blude.6812:

The one I came across in the dredge mines (Timberline Falls/Molodets)was actually vibrating like in an earthquake, I couldn’t click on it’s name while it gathered to submit ingame report because of the movement.

I had the exact same thing in a mine or a cave somewhere.

It’s getting to be a waste of time reporting them, ArenaNet are not doing anything.

I have bots in my friends list l KEEP reporting, nothing, still botting for weeks.

I won’t report any bots, as I see them as good for driving prices down like they have in all games. I might have been more inclined to report bots had ArenaNet not took such an aggressive approach removing all ways to make gold forcing people to spend RL money to keep up.

Blueshield.6291:

This seems like the most appropriate thread for this issue.

In addition to the teleporting nodehack bots, I’ve been seeing a lot of bots which log out the moment a player gets too close. I was able to trap one where every time it logged in, it logged right back out due to my presence. It appears that they log out as soon as a player gets within targeting range – meaning that they can sometimes be visible at a distance, but not targetable to right-click and report. You can’t access their player portraits either.

Amusingly enough, when they attempt to log back in, they detect players in proximity before they even visibly display in the world – you’ll see their bears pop into existence, and then vanish almost immediately, but you never see the player.

@CC Eva and/or any other ANet representatives – Any tips on how to report this one? The standard reporting feature is unusable in this case, and screenshots are equally problematic.

Oh thats what I saw in the past two weeks…..