Guild Wars 2

Hello.

First of all, I would like to say that I do not intent to troll, flame, whine or spam these forums with unnecessary posts.

Now, to my topic.

Through my journey from level 1-80 I have been seeing some very strange behaviours of player characters.
I have been reading a lot about people using botting programs, and I have seen player characters act as if not being controlled by a player, but how can I know if a player character is being controlled by a player or by a program?

I definitely wish to help ArenaNet remove cheaters from the game, but from what I have seen they do not hestitate to ban people who do so (which I am very grateful for), but I am afraid to report people for botting, due to the fact that I fear reporting players who just play the game differently and then end up being banned myself as a result of abusing the report function.

So at what point is it safe to say that a character is being controlled by a bot and not by a player?
I have seen player characters who run around naked, attacking the same mobs over and over again, when they die they respawn at the nearest waypoint and repeat.
I have seen characters run around in the same paths over and over again.
I have seen characters basically teleport from one mob to another, and the same with gathering nodes such as veins and lumber.

I personally like to take in the beauty of the game, which for me sometimes means trying to climb various different objects to be able to take a screenshot with a very beautiful landscape in the background, but what other people see me doing is wallclimbing or standing in the same spot throughout an event while just doing emotes, which also can seem like a strange activity for a player.

So, when is it safe to report a character for botting?

Below I have attached a screenshot which shows what I mean by the wallclimbing thing. Although it is a vista point, you’ll get what I mean.

I was about to make a post about reporting but saw your thread so sorry if this derails anything. Ive been farming off Southsun cove for the last couple of weeks and been reporting the same bots nearly every day. There still there teleporting away but today another player came along and said “reported them all”

I told him ive been reporting them every second day and nothing happens and he told me “if you keep reporting the same ones you will get banned” Has this happened to others?

It made me for the first time in 2 weeks to hesitate reporting them which is a bit sad.
I was making a bit of gold there selling amoured scales but the last week ive seen 1500-2000 dumped on the tp by a few people. I mean 1500!!! got to be the same botters so it would be pretty amusing if i got banned for excessive reporting while these guys flood the tp with t6 mats.

So is there some limit to reporting the same player?

I recommend just reporting them once. If they are a bot, there is a very good chance that others will report them too, and the bots will be logged as such.

I am 100% sure anet isnt going to ban you if you report an action that you know is against the rules. Even if you report the same person day by day.

They might take action if you spam right click report over and over within seconds of each other, but a day? no.

The ban rule is just a threat to keep people sane with the reporting system. To help avoid people getting reported for spamming while they are just having a casual conversation, just because some individual doesnt like what the conversation is about.

I am not aware of anyone banned or even suspended because they abused the report button.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

So at what point is it safe to say that a character is being controlled by a bot and not by a player?
I have seen player characters who run around naked, attacking the same mobs over and over again, when they die they respawn at the nearest waypoint and repeat.

I’d give this one a 50% chance of being a bot. It could also by smb who really doesn’t like repairs xD

I have seen characters run around in the same paths over and over again.

10%. For it to be a bot, it’d have to run the exact same path, to the pixel. More likely smb gathering or looking for ori(I know I run around in circles like a chicken when I’m missing the last node >.<)

I have seen characters basically teleport from one mob to another, and the same with gathering nodes such as veins and lumber.

If they are teleporting without a skill animation…that’s fishy. If they burst into butterflies, it’s a mesmer.

So, when is it safe to report a character for botting?

The safest bet is when you see a group of chars, some of them lvl 10-40, in a lvl 70-80 area who stand on top of each other, keep attacking mobs and ressing each other from downed without reacting to anything that happens around them.

PS: Why do EU servers have more bots than US servers?

there is no way to safely spot bot. unless the player who created the bot made some horrible mistake in bots behavior programming or is using it in same place excessively (24/7).

but yeah you can still spot poorly made ones ;o

You want to see bots? Go to malachors leap, bottom right of the map. The is an area with risen mobs and earth elementals but there are also 6 cypress trees there right next to each other. Over the course of a few minutes yesterday I reported at least 10 bots, could have been double if I was faster. The teleport from resource node to resource node.

Hi everyone,

Naus, botters usually move using predictive patterns, usually are naked and have wierd names. If you see them feel free to report them using the in game tool. As stated, reporting them only once will sufice as others will do as well and eventually they will be dealt with.

Thanks for your understanding. As the question is answered, we are closing this thread.