Guild Wars 2

ArenaNet is doing all it can to spot evil botters, within Guild Wars 2. However I’ve discovered a few tips on how to spot them, so you can report it and clean the game up for everyone.

If you see a group of 2 to 4 characters who…

• Are all of the same class. Typically rangers and guardians.
• Who all appear of the same default colour scheme.
• Who all are equipped with starting/low level weapons and equipment, of the same type.
• Who all run a repeated lap around the zone, in a tight group.
• Who all attack the same target, at the same time.
• Who all use the same tight sequence of attacks. Usually the auto attack “1” skill, with some type of AoE attack.

…chances are you are looking at what is commonly known as a “bot swarm”.

In which event you are 99% safe in reporting them for botting, since it’s mostly likely a program, or at the very least some poor underpaid Asian dude, two/three/quad boxing the entire group at once.

• [Moderator edit] content against the CoC removed

Finally, if you have any handy hints on how to spot a botter. Leave them here! My list is by no means complete or fool-proof. So the more knowledge we can gather here, the better we all will be in spotting and reporting bots.

I could be wrong but isn’t taking advantage of the botters, against the rules/ToS? Perhaps I’m getting confused with another game…

You also forgot that their names usually consist of random letters as a result of letting their cats prance all over the keyboard.

Best way to spot a bot.

Look 360 degrees. Count the 5-6 rangers with all bear pets running by you. Go back the next day – Rinse and repeat.

As a ranger that uses shortbow and a brown bear, I’m sad I had to name my pet “master is not a bot”

Just a small problem with guide: Report bots seems useless. Im reporting lots of bots but they still there. I made a small test in 2 bots, which im reporting every day, but they keep boting at same place for 72h now. Its annoying when u log on, go to your favourite hunt place, and see theres bots there, even if u reported them long time ago.
This kind of thing removes great part of the fun from game, and of course destroy the economy if not solved fast.
Too bad a new MMO cant solve one of the oldest problems of this kind of game, but i have hope to see something happening

Just throwing it out but in the past few days I have seen clear bot groups that are comprised of multiple classes and even races. Could theoretically be a multiboxer but they were walking around in that same repeated lap (which seems to be the best way to spot them).

Clockwork-me too. I think they’ve changed things up a bit to make it less obvious they are bots. But it’s still pretty obvious. I saw a group of 4 last night in Sparkfly Fen that was 3 rangers and 1 engi. So, yeah, they threw in an engineer to fool everyone, lol. I took a screenshot and reported it.

Best way to spot bots are that they follow set points on the map.
Bots are following a simple path of way points, it is extremely unlikely a human can run over the exact same point on a map over and over again.

if you suspect bots follow them and watch where they turn , bots don’t turn like humans they make sharp turns.

Sit with your cursor on the exact spot they turn and see how many times they all pass the exact spot in synchronization.

some bots are on a long route so may take a bit of time but they will return and hit the exact point on the map every time and turn.

I have removed names from my pics [ mods ]

Lurch.4793:

Typically rangers and guardians.

Sure you don’t mean warriors? Don’t think I’ve seen a single guardian bot yet but plenty of warriors and rangers.

I am certain a-net is doing all they can to get a handle on the botting problem. It is not as simple as dumping the suspicious accounts I suppose, so I am confident that this is a diminishing problem.

I am confident that this is a diminishing problem.

I’m not so sure about that. Supply and demand. I guess demand is high, and as long as these criminals are making real money from it they wont stop, ever. Arenanet needs to come down very hard on the buyers and make an example of them.

Rannug.2731:

I am confident that this is a diminishing problem.

Yeah, maybe it’s just me, at one point I was getting 5/6 mails a day from gold sellers. Now I get that many a week, if that.

High lv bots i see nowadays have normal names. But the low lv ones tend to have random names. Rangers are most common followed by warriors. It is not to hard to tell they are bots from their behaviour. They follow a fixed route. Always the same sequence of attack. On the off chance they are down and don’t get revive, they spam attack instead of heal even if they are no enemies.

Just report them when you see them. Their termination wouldn’t be immediate since there are so many reports and Anet has investigate each case. Maybe 1-2 weeks perhaps. Unfortunately, this is just the window the bots need to earn their keep.

Oh i have only ever received like 6 gold spam mail since the start and i havn’t received anything for a month now. I always report the gold mail spam. It should be easier to ban such accounts since there is hard evidence.

They always run back to the ‘path’ after a kill, instead of taking the shortest route, even when they are no dangers present.

Pull champion event mob into their path = fun.

on Darkhaven a lot of bots have disappeared. A few new ones replaced them but nowhere as many as it used to be. So thanks for getting rid of them, and giving the human players their game back!

Most of them transfer from server to server in 2-3 days so quite hard to catch. Some bots have guilds too.

The first rule of Bot Club is that we don’t discuss Bot Club…

Thats why I gave up playing (one of them), because after reporting the same 20 bots for 2 weeks, not one single bot was removed. It just became pointless so I stopped playing.

OP forgot to mention

- Bots shoot at enemy (on the complete opposite side of the wall) until their pet finishes it off for them
- Bots instantly teleports from one location to another, short and far distance.
- Run toward the wall and keeps running toward it (even though they are stuck) because it is part of their “pathway” and not to mention about 15 others following them onto the wall for another 20 seconds before switching course.
- They all attack at the exact same location, move the same path, and doesn’t Jump. LOL

Usually if I am not sure if they are bots (sometimes they come with sensible names and even with a guild), I will blurt out on the spot “Are you guys bots?” using Say. Any human would probably quickly try to clarify for fear of being reported. If I don’t get any response within 20 sec, I report.

I don’t think the issue here is how you (a human) can find bots, since that’s generally rather easy, but how an automated script can find the bots.
How to make that script fool proof and not banning real people that are farming. Or a guild that for fun dresses up all the same way etc.

I have seen bot packs with 40 rangers. Yes! 40! 40 rangers in the same outfits, similar names, same weapons and 40 brown bears.

In one particular small area somewhere in Cursed Shore, I counted 107 bots farming in a tight small spot. They can even rez each other and auto offload at vendor.

They are there 24/7 for weeks. It will take at least 30 minutes just to report each one of those bots in that small area alone.

There is NO way anyone can confuse a bot with a real human. They are too obvious in many ways.

There’s one other thing by which you can locate a bot train.

They follow perfectly in line with the first. As GW2 doesn’t have an auto-follow feature, this can only be achieved by running a script following a strict path. If the first turns on a certain spot and the second, third, etc turn at exactly the same spot, you will have a bot train…

Tijo.9857:

on Darkhaven a lot of bots have disappeared. A few new ones replaced them but nowhere as many as it used to be. So thanks for getting rid of them, and giving the human players their game back!

On my server Sorrows Furnace it seems to be the exact opposite. It seems to be 2x-3x more bots now than there was a month ago.

CC Meinke.2749:

Hello everyone,

please keep in mind that it’s forbidden to post videos, names and screenshots of possible bots because they will be removed. Feel free to discuss this topic, but please refrain from these actions.

Greetings

I would like to ask something about this. We know that griefing others in game is a violation of the ToS we agreed to, but when we see asdafsds running with his group and each are going from point to point and it is blatantly obvious that they are bots.. Could we actually get in trouble for any type of griefing maneuver on them? I.E. pulling champs on them, dropping purchased enviromental weapons on the ground next to them to pick up and use (personally I like the “peg legs” from the vendor in bloodtide coast), or using mesmer portals to break up the gang and port a few into something it cannot handle?

I’m interested in finding out what Anet does to the botters’ gold selling websites. I consistently see the same website mentioned in Lion’s Arch every single day. Why leave those websites up? Making them spend their money registering and losing domains and accounts all the time seems like a much better option.
I mean, aren’t those considered phishing sites? and shouldn’t they be dealt with too?

I have been rather vocal over the topic of bots in the past, but although there are still bots running around I am not seeing anywhere the numbers that there was, in the last 2 weeks the numbers on my world have dropped sharply. So if that was down to Anet well done.
I am seeing a lot more of the real names, mixed group types these days or ones with guild tags so they are clearly changing tactics.

It is sad that we are left to try and police the game. Why Anet cant clean it up leads me to my tin foil hat. But at any rate I have given up and decided to stop reporting. It doesnt do any good and nothing happens to them. Same groups day after day naked doing their thing.
It is very demoralizing to see them continue without effort while I struggle to try and make money. They manipulate the TP for gain as well.

Hello,

Thank you for your concerns, we really appreciate it. In the meantime, we invite you to keep reporting that kind of issues to our customer support team.

Thank you for your understanding & patience.