Guild Wars 2

I just came across a bot (which I reported of course) that was patrolling in a circle around and through the Village of Butcher’s Block in Diessa Plateau. The bot was running around and attacking random enemies it came close to.

Now setting aside the fact that botting is wrong, if someone was going to risk their account with a bot, why would they possibly choose that area to farm? It’s not like that area gives you any good loot. Why not go for T6 mats or lodestones? There doesn’t seem to be any logic to it at all, which makes the idea that this person is using a bot even more silly.

Diessa is probably one of the less populated zones. With MF it shouldn’t matter much. The bot probably makes up for it with volume.

That is not nearly as bad as the silly person who ran in bot in southsun while the event was going on so there was constant overflows. On top of that they were using the teleport thing which made it so they end up jumping out of the water every time they are near the surface so they are were just doing as much as possible to attract attention while botting.

First of all:
How do you know it was a bot?

It is one of the earlier zones so it is fully possible that it was simply a new player that didn’t know any better.

Secondly:

Most of the bots are created on stolen accounts, thus they are not really risking anything.

Khisanth- That does make a bit of sense, you’re probably right. It seemed strange, it’s the last place I would ever think to go farm at level 80, the only appeal to me of the entire map is Soft Wood. So the fact that it’s the last place you would think of is probably why they picked it.

Lordkrall- I ran through Diessa Plateu around four times over an 8 hour period yesterday to collect Soft Wood, and I ran into this person patrolling Butcher’s Block every single time. They were level 80 (Pearl greatsword and armageddon armor) so they weren’t a new player. The most recent time I saw them (the time right before I posted this forum topic) I said hello to the person and said “I keep seeing you a lot here today!” They ignored me. It then occurred to me how strange it was for me to see the same level 80 in the same desolate map four times in a row. So I followed them around for a little while and that was when I noticed their behavior was off. They were making the exact same clockwise loop around and through the village over and over and over again, with consistent jumps and stops to recalculate direction. They were aggroing every enemy within a particular range and always used the same attack pattern every time. So i asked the person if they were a bot, and still no response.

If anybody wants to confirm or argue my bot claim, the person in question is back in Diessa Plateu on Jade Quarry again, patrolling the same area, same exact path as yesterday. I’m not going to name drop on the forum, but it’s a Guardian with a pearl greatsword and Armageddon armor.

Did you report said bot? Did you post in the Bot thread, where sightings of bots go?

Just followed them around for a bit :P 99% sure it’s a bot. Reported and such.

I consider myself a nice and social person IRL, but I like alone time and unwind time too.

When I’m not in a party, WvW, or guild events, I frequently turn my chat off and play alone. This is relaxing for me. If my guild mates need me, then know to whisper.

A few weeks ago, I was leveling a new alt. So I was running around killing everything. (It’s a frustration reliever )A friend whispered to me saying that someone was accusing me of botting in map chat. Because I was killing everything in sight and not responding to their chat I must be a bot. (facepalm)

Bots are bad, I’m not arguing that at all. But please be very certain before reporting people as bots. I would hate to see legit players have their accounts terminated unfairly.

the owner of Bot’s don’t risk their account. Most/all bot’s are hacked accounts So thats not valid. The amount off effort to hack an account is high compared to the amount of effort it takes to get an hacked account to start botting. So the person behind it wants to minimize the risk off detection. Going to a low populated area makes up for any loss off gold gained.

Mel, I understand your concern, and I assure you I would not report a bot if I wasn’t 100% positive that they were, in fact, a bot. I understand how annoying it is to be accused of doing something wrong when you are clearly not doing it. There is a big difference, however, between running around and killing everything to blow off steam, and running around the exact same path repeatedly for 8+ hours every day for four days in a row. When i say exact same path, I mean it. They were there every single time I ran my Soft Wood path in Diessa Plateu, running that same exact path. They did the EXACT same movement over and over again, with pauses to change direction and a jump several seconds after they start moving forward every single time. I’ve also seen them get stuck in a tree for about a minute, and repeatedly try the exact same method of slightly turning to the right, running foward, jumping, running forward some more and then stopping, just to try again. No human being would be perfect enough to run the exact same motion repeatedly that many times, and yet careless enough to get stuck behind a tree for a minute.

You think that’s bad, there’s a TC bot in *SOS*BL, who hangs around the entrance of TCGate farming Coyotes 24/7. She ignores enemy players, and ignores all interaction from local ones.

You’re free to check it out yourself, just FYI. She’s a a human heavy in draconic armor (Can’t give anymore details for obvious reasons.)

I spotted a bot recently in Gendarran Fields. An Asura Guardian decked out in T3 Cultural that was just running from one wolf mob to another (I expect they picked the wolves because the summoned wolves also drop loot). The key factors that gave it away was that immediately after killing an enemy, they’d make a beeline for the next foe. I then double checked by positioning myself near a wolf that I expected the bot would pick as their next closest target. Sure enough, after killing his current target, he came running. I quickly killed the wolf before he got there, and right as it died, the bot instantly changed direction and started running for another wolf to the side.

Definite bot behaviour, so I reported him.

Softwood and iron. Ascended crafting takes kittenloads of both. And softwood sells for 3 or 4 times what elder wood does. And it ain’t hard to tell a bot. Just gotta watch how they behave. Hell, used to catch em in Gendarran all the time in the water. Let’s just say that I can’t “waypoint” from mob cluster to mob cluster like they could. Nor do I disappear, pop to a harvest node, tap it, disappear, and reappear to tap it again cause it got a bonus gather, just to disappear and appear at the next node.

The hard thing is that ANet doesn’t really care for bots as I see it.

There are some that I reported several times gathering resources on Straits to Devasation’s right upper corner.
I checked for them on many servers. They just guest on one server for few days and then jump to another. I checked for them for days and reported them, but there was just no action from ANet’s Team :/.
Even few days ago I checked them after more than a month and they are in there.

That really saddens me.

Basically bots usually gather resources and sell them on TP and additionally fight some monsters to make them look better. They usually use rangers and necromancers sometimes elementalists. They use their minions to make them almost untouchable. They have on themselves chap exotics probably around 70th lvl to ensure they would survive. When in combat they do few hits and dodge. You can see they dodge often without any reason. and they often use one WP to reset their path.

It’s really obvious, yet they hit economy of the game hard.
I loved to gather some materials to earn some easy money without champion rush, but you just can’t to that thanks to those bots and it kills one side of the game that I guess is not that important.

If you were here at release you would have been fully aware that they do quite a bit about bots.
The amount of bots running around now is MUCH lower than it was back at release, so clearly they have done something about it.
But it takes time. They must investigate, they must try to find a long-time solution and so on.

What would be the point to ban a bot if a new one just pops up a day later?

lordkrall.7241:

If you were here at release you would have been fully aware that they do quite a bit about bots.
The amount of bots running around now is MUCH lower than it was back at release, so clearly they have done something about it.
But it takes time. They must investigate, they must try to find a long-time solution and so on.

What would be the point to ban a bot if a new one just pops up a day later?

I play the game since first beta. I played GW1 also and I know what problems both games faced with bots.

Yet I see they dropped the gun now.
As I told you in my post. I reported most of those bots several times and they haven’t done a thing for more than a month.

When I reported bots before they vanished.
Maybe it was different time or maybe more people reported them.
The fact now stays bots run on many areas and no one does a thing about it as I see it.

I was here at release and a few bots that run together at a certain area which I reported were STILL RUNNING IN THE SAME AREA after 1 year, Anet may have done something about bots but the bot reporting option we have ingame certainly isn’t working.

Also, if you want to see bots just go to FSG or Orr, necro minion bots everywhere, every day, every hour, after every reports.

Septemptus.7164:

The hard thing is that ANet doesn’t really care for bots as I see it.

Trust me they care, for the first 5 or so months of the game being out you would see massive zergs of bots patrolling areas. One big spot for the bots was the farm in the southwest part of queensdale, was nothing but a sea of naked hunters with bears. Every server had them there around the clock, they would never leave.
Now i rarely ever see bots.

Finaldeath.1059:

Trust me they care, for the first 5 or so months of the game being out you would see massive zergs of bots patrolling areas. One big spot for the bots was the farm in the southwest part of queensdale, was nothing but a sea of naked hunters with bears. Every server had them there around the clock, they would never leave.
Now i rarely ever see bots.

Look again, cause they are just now better done, but there are tons of them. In mentioned area I counter over 15 of them. In that little area. They now run solo. Or with minions. It was way easier to see them when they worked in groups but not anymore. They guest, switch servers and have better pasterns, but you don’t have to be an ace to see they are bots. You just need to pay attention to characters around you.

Also I already answered to that in my previous post.
ANet did a great jog before but they dropped the gun already and now bots roam.

The gold whispers are picking up at the moment, therefore I assume that so are the bots. They first need to be there and reported before ArenaNet can act on them. I don’t know what happened that caused their numbers to go up (4 whispers in 2 days where before no whispers for months).

AtriustheGod.6785:

Mel, I understand your concern, and I assure you I would not report a bot if I wasn’t 100% positive that they were, in fact, a bot. I understand how annoying it is to be accused of doing something wrong when you are clearly not doing it. There is a big difference, however, between running around and killing everything to blow off steam, and running around the exact same path repeatedly for 8+ hours every day for four days in a row. When i say exact same path, I mean it. They were there every single time I ran my Soft Wood path in Diessa Plateu, running that same exact path. They did the EXACT same movement over and over again, with pauses to change direction and a jump several seconds after they start moving forward every single time. I’ve also seen them get stuck in a tree for about a minute, and repeatedly try the exact same method of slightly turning to the right, running foward, jumping, running forward some more and then stopping, just to try again. No human being would be perfect enough to run the exact same motion repeatedly that many times, and yet careless enough to get stuck behind a tree for a minute.

Apologies. I didn’t mean for it to sound like I was attacking you. From what you described it does indeed seem like you ran into a bot. I was just throwing my personal experience out there as a cautionary tale so that others would make a careful and informed decision when reporting, instead of jumping to conclusions.

Funny story. After reading this thread I was working on the Hyle slayer and greatsword master achievement yesterday, and I was running in a circle in Cuatl Morass over and over for quite a while. I was thinking, “I hope someone doesn’t report me 0.o” :P

Mel.8769:

AtriustheGod.6785:

Mel, I understand your concern, and I assure you I would not report a bot if I wasn’t 100% positive that they were, in fact, a bot. I understand how annoying it is to be accused of doing something wrong when you are clearly not doing it. There is a big difference, however, between running around and killing everything to blow off steam, and running around the exact same path repeatedly for 8+ hours every day for four days in a row. When i say exact same path, I mean it. They were there every single time I ran my Soft Wood path in Diessa Plateu, running that same exact path. They did the EXACT same movement over and over again, with pauses to change direction and a jump several seconds after they start moving forward every single time. I’ve also seen them get stuck in a tree for about a minute, and repeatedly try the exact same method of slightly turning to the right, running foward, jumping, running forward some more and then stopping, just to try again. No human being would be perfect enough to run the exact same motion repeatedly that many times, and yet careless enough to get stuck behind a tree for a minute.

Apologies. I didn’t mean for it to sound like I was attacking you. From what you described it does indeed seem like you ran into a bot. I was just throwing my personal experience out there as a cautionary tale so that others would make a careful and informed decision when reporting, instead of jumping to conclusions.

Funny story. After reading this thread I was working on the Hyle slayer and greatsword master achievement yesterday, and I was running in a circle in Cuatl Morass over and over for quite a while. I was thinking, “I hope someone doesn’t report me 0.o” :P

Even is someone (or multiple someones) does report a person for being a bot, that doesn’t lead to a ban. It only causes ANet to check the account and look for bot activity. What they look for then is computer evidence of macros. Staying in an area for hours/days/weeks doing the same set of actions, and never going off to do anything else such as run dungeons or do WvW or do events is also probably looked at but I suspect they look for macros primarily.

The main reason to make sure that you are reporting a bot and not a person is so they won’t be wasting their time not because reporting a person wrongly will lead to a ban.

Instead of actively fight bots back, they are trying to make the game unpleasant for botting.

The sad thing is that their strategy impacts players as well… so in order to reduce work on their side chasing bots, we have diminishing returns on loot and very scarce rare drops. Hurray!

I’ve definitely seen trends in this game throughout the year and two months since I started playing. In the beginning, the game was swarmed with bots and gold selling advertisements. Every time I ever posted something in map chat, I would get a mail soon after advertising gold selling. Then it died down for a long while, with only the occasional mail. But during the free weekends, it flared up to a whole new extreme. After those free weekends, it died down for the most part, but not as much as it did when anet first banhammered the mass of bots. Those weekends must have given them a decent supply of accounts to hack, not to mention the 40% off sales caused more advertising accounts to be bought.

Mel, you don’t need to worry on either matter. You were not attacking me, you had a legitamate concern and so I addressed it. I have played this game for around 1500 hours and this is the first time I have ever reported a bot. I don’t assume that someone is a bot, in this particular case I initially assumed they were another player and said hello to them. It wasn’t until afterwards that I followed them around and that was when I noticed their behavior.

Overall, I think it’s wrong to assume that any random player you see is a bot. There are plenty of people that farm, myself included. I make resource runs daily, gathering Orichalcum and Ancient Wood, Soft wood, etc. When I was making my legendary, I farmed Skelk and Sparks for hours. If I do it, there’s no reason to believe that there aren’t other people that also farm and make resource runs. But there are telltale signs of a bot, and if and only if all of the following are true, then I feel it is okay to report.

Signs of a bot: (If all are true, you have a bot. If any one of these is not true, it is most likely a human player.)
1. They are making repeated, robotic movements, over and over again with no sign of human error. This can be reinforced if they then make stupid mistakes like running into an obstacle repeatedly and do not easily remove themselves from the obstacle. (Be aware of the fact that players will occasionally press the auto run and minimize or go afk, so running into an obstacle alone does not make a bot)
2. They patrol the exact same path over and over and over again.
3. You see them in this area performing these actions repeatedly over several days. This is a big sign, because many human players will farm, but very very few will farm the exact same area consistently for 8-10 hours every day. Give it some time, and check back later to see if they are still there.
4. If all of the above are true and you are suspicious of the person, say hello to them (with /s, because many players ignore map chat), wave, jump around in front of them, drop a guild banner, etc. Don’t accuse them of being a bot, just try to get a human reaction out of them. If it is a human, they will give it away somehow. Even if they don’t respond, if they pause to look at you or notice you in any way, it’s a human. A bot will pay absolutely no regard to you as if you don’t exist.
5. If you’re not completely sure they’re a bot at this point, don’t report. Give the person the benefit of the doubt. Only report if you’re 100% sure.

Astral Projections.7320:

Even is someone (or multiple someones) does report a person for being a bot, that doesn’t lead to a ban. It only causes ANet to check the account and look for bot activity. What they look for then is computer evidence of macros. Staying in an area for hours/days/weeks doing the same set of actions, and never going off to do anything else such as run dungeons or do WvW or do events is also probably looked at but I suspect they look for macros primarily.

The main reason to make sure that you are reporting a bot and not a person is so they won’t be wasting their time not because reporting a person wrongly will lead to a ban.

That is why I said that bots are made better these days… So it saddens me they don’t check those reports as good as they should.

Looking at the character in game would show its a bot in minutes, but checking statistics or chat activity is easily done. Just make a script that will write some sentences from time to time at random time and basic bot check thinks that its a real person.

I’m very afraid that ANet kinda dropped the gun on fighting bots.

Really as for gold selling bots yes some of my friends got whispers on WvW lately so they are back also.

Next time you see it try and find out how it reacts to a champ or veteran being lead to it.

zamalek.2154:

Next time you see it try and find out how it reacts to a champ or veteran being lead to it.

Its not that easy to lead it and there is only a veteran in there that is weak.
Besides every few moves bot goes to the same WP so even if he dies he will be up again.

As said, they are well made.

Septemptus.7164:

That is why I said that bots are made better these days… So it saddens me they don’t check those reports as good as they should.

The bots have evolved, and it may make more sense for ANet to collect information about how to combat the new and improved bots and mass ban them, than to tip their hand by banning them the second they’re reported. I wouldn’t expect ANet to waste their time stomping each ant individually when they can take out the ant hill.

zamalek.2154:

Next time you see it try and find out how it reacts to a champ or veteran being lead to it.

Once I reported a bot in Cursed Shore, yet found him again, in the same place, one month later. Result? Bot: 0, Champion Risen Archmage: 20.

any sufficiently advanced group of bots is indistinguishable from a champ train.