Guild Wars 2

Bloodtide Coast area in Fissure of Woe server is invaded by bots. There are partyes of rangers swarmin any mob in the area.
I’m doing what I can reporting them; but, sometimes, I really would like to have a BAN button to use.

Diaspro.8529:

Bloodtide Coast area in Fissure of Woe server is invaded by bots. There are partyes of rangers swarmin any mob in the area.
I’m doing what I can reporting them; but, sometimes, I really would like to have a BAN button to use.

Yes, putting the ability to ban other players in the hands of players couldn’t go wrong in any way!

(I know what you said was a joke! I am joking too!)

It’s simple ANet aren’t doing anything about it. I don’t see how an increase in bots, spam messages, spam mails and totally destroying the DEs is “doing something about it.”

If the DR is the thing that’s supposed to be doing something about it, well it’s not. No botter is ever going to say “What? They have a DR system!? Jeez, we’ll never crack that beast. We better sell the company and become advocates of the Salvation Army.”

They adapt, they use their extreme cunning to change.

That’s exhibiting itself by pouring into my DEs right now, which I really LOVE!

The DR is annoying people, driving the player base away and making bots more cunning and ensuring they affect people in more obvious and irritating ways than just putting dents in the economy.

It’ll get worse when the bots start to outweight the player base.

All the messages I see about reported bots with nothing done is unsurprising.

You need dedicated staff and you need to spend money to get rid of bots. You can’t just roll out a blanket system like DR and expect it to work.

It won’t work. It isn’t working. It’s just irritating people, making them want to leave and driving the bots elsewhere.

Nice one!

We need an option to report also fly hack and speed hack a smore and more players are using them. this is a specific kindof exploitt that would deserve a dediated option when reporting. In the meantime I assume we must report them as botting?

Sounds good but I have seen nothing but an increase in gold sellers and botting. What would help is if you tweaked your afk timer detection some.

Another poster (which I responded to….hope this isn’t considered cross posting), mentioned a captcha system of some sort. While I really hate captchas, I’d still consider it the lesser of the two evils. I could certainly tolerate one an hour or so, especially if they were only triggered by someone reporting the suspected person as a bot.

Blackgate server is infested with bots, and has been for over 3 days now.. what is really going on.. have you guys taken a day off. I have an entire guild that is growing tired of fighting bots for mob kills and de’s I think what ANet really needs is active on the server GM’s to monitor the high bot areas and to be able to instantly see when a person suspected of botting has been reported… you dont have to watch and monitor most of the bots being reported cause it is pretty friggen obvious, especially the ones using the teleport hack… I like that game, but will gladly put it down if this isnt dealt with soon.. Ty tired gamer…

Blackgate has been infested for weeks. I assume it will continue to be infested…no bots…no reason for global DR. No Global DR, No artificial game length and ability to farm legitimately.

SchizoidMetal.9357:

I have an entire guild that is growing tired of fighting bots for mob kills …

What?

Chromie.6947:

SchizoidMetal.9357:

I have an entire guild that is growing tired of fighting bots for mob kills …

What?

I think what he means is that if you farm in the only level 80 zone, CS, the bots rip though the mobs before you even have a chance to tag them. Also, it seems you have to do a certain % of damage to them before it actually counts as a kill. simply tagging once has a tendency not to count.

Fengshua.9085:

Another poster (which I responded to….hope this isn’t considered cross posting), mentioned a captcha system of some sort. While I really hate captchas, I’d still consider it the lesser of the two evils. I could certainly tolerate one an hour or so, especially if they were only triggered by someone reporting the suspected person as a bot.

Oh, nonononono I’ll play another game before justifying myself in such a manner. There are other means to deal with bots without harassing law-abiding players.

Bots indirectly impact my game-play; captcha would directly impact it.

We are actively improving our means of detecting ‘bot’ activity in the game automatically.

bots detect bots?

It’s commendable that Arenanet actually provides ways to report bots and RMT spammers and is actively working on the issues.
It’s a refreshing change to the platitudes offered by NcSoft Aion. They actually removed ingame ways of reporting RMT and bot activity and the game has now degenerated into an RMT/bot fest with world chat continuously spammed by them.

I understand the reservations Rolo. Captchas do suck….but….once an hour or even 2 hours with a pretty large window (15 mins?) wouldn’t be too bad.

The carrot on the stick could be that if they didn’t respond, they could be flagged for pvp so we can smack them down….maybe even take a percentage of the loot they’ve been stealing from the community. The amount of time to respond should be longer than the auto afk log-out so that innocent afk’ers would log off without repercussions.

I honestly don’t think anything like this will be implemented, but I like to offer some suggestions on how to fix things even if they are a bit wacky

Alright I have a near fool proof way to stop bots. If a person gets 2 or more reports saying they are a bot then force that person to answer an in game captcha to keep playing and if they pass they just go on and if not they get temp banned until its investigated. The only problem with it is if a person is afk or logs off but you can put a long timer on the captcha and if they log off its just there when they get back
Not some wussy captcha but one where you put together a few pieces to an image which bots arent going to be able to do or a question
Just harass the person reported to be the bot because most likely they are and if they answer a few random captchas then give them benefit of doubt if its bot then person is still nearby to answer captcha

juiceman.2870:

Alright I have a near fool proof way to stop bots. If a person gets 2 or more reports saying they are a bot then force that person to answer an in game captcha to keep playing and if they pass they just go on and if not they get temp banned until its investigated.

That is a “guilty until proven innocent” mentality that will alienate players. If you don’t believe that, look at the reaction to diminished returns. Besides, you don’t think such a system would be abused for nefarious purposes (PvP/WvW)?

I’ll do one captcha at account creation, no more.

Not really no one needs to know the specifics of how its implemented for that very reason you dont want people to know how it works otherwise the bot guys will adapt. I believe people playing want to stop the bots so I dont think it would be abused.
Guilty until proven innocent is a whole new debate but that happens in all of our society and how is getting reported by a few players innocent? I bet player reports have a very high percent of accuracy especially when its by more then 1 different player
Its just a suggestion they probably wont use anyways I mean maybe it would alienate players I dont know.

The captchas would have to be on a timer though…..you can’t have 2 people spamming captchas on anyone….and people being people….you can bet that is what would happen

The best way of course, is what many have already said….Have a live, living, breathing GM go over and see for himself. I’m assuming that reporting the bot gives Anet the location and server of where the bots are…..I could be wrong though. They seem to be resisting this solution however, which is why I (re) brought up the captchas.

captcha in the game? it also ruins the game for legit players no thanks.

Hello Mike, I sent you a PM regarding my observations of various botting activity.

If anything, I’d like to volunteer my time to be a GM on Jade Quarry. Who do I talk to in order to put in an application for such a position? Come to think of it, it would be nice to acquire a few players willing to volunteer for the job. Even if I don’t get paid for it, at least it would be nice to put on my resume should I ever decide to go deeper into getting an actual paid position in the game industry … I think.

@CC Eva you referred me to this thread and all i read is more and more ppl having same issue and still only a 1600 ban report and nothing after that im sorry i see excuses not solutions,

again 14 days on bot reporting everyday nothing been done how many times we have to report them how many days do we have to report them where is the answers and solutions ??? show us a progress report of ur so called bot banning efforts ?!?!?!?!?!

Thank you, thank you, thank you Arena Net for letting us know you are working on the issue. That’s all I wanted

But seriously, I found the silence more irritating then the bots themselves. The simple acknowledgement of the issue and that you are working on it really helps.

Just so everyone knows:

“Our monitoring of ‘bot’ activity has already resulted in over 1600 account terminations world-wide in the last week alone”

We have 48 worlds. That’s a whopping 33 accounts per world banned. Clearly the ranks of the botters have been decimated.

I don’t believe a word of what was spouted off in the OP. I can show you right now where there are at least SIX botters that have all been reported, all weekend long. These guys’ accounts should not only be removed, but all transactions from players/trader be reversed.

The state of this game in regards to botting is some of the worse I have seen. You can use your words, but I don’t see you stopping any botters. All it takes is a human to log on the game and go look. This isn’t rocket science.

The game is made to be played 24/7. Yet, the support behind it doesn’t support it 24/7.

[Edit]

I just had my post that contained botter screens locked and an infraction notice give – as it’s ‘not the best way to inform them about bots – use the report function. The report function is obviously completely useless as there are bots destroying entire zones and the economy – left to bot 24/7 for days, and days and days. We need ACTIVE in game GMs to respond to these bot reports quickly and effectively, not a once a month ’ooh look we banned .002% of the botters’.

[Edited by CC: Quote removed, included name call-out via video]

So – I provide valued and useful evidence of botting and it’s dismissed instantly as it’s not the approved method of reporting. Well, I’m sorry if I’m trying to improve the game, and the community, for both myself and my fellow gamers. Arenanet needs to take swift and very public action against these botters, as competing with these drones for mobs, events, WvW and resources is turning players off the game. If the same swift response was applied to policing the actions of bots as the rigid adherence to forum guidelines, we’d all be a lot happier.

Keep reporting your suspected bots guys, the more you report the more you are helping get rid of them. That’s the message here. Hopefully by next update/reset they will be gone.
I agree in that they are taking stuff from us, but what good can complaining here do? It won’t speed up the process. What will speed up the process is continuous reporting.

Well I am gonna go ahead and back away from GW2 for a bit until I see something effective being done that doesnt hurt us legit players, This game was made so that you would have to farm to get anything, but since they added this kitten of an idea DR system, It is like pointless now.. Im bored with it already.. servers are in fact becoming slow, only 1 dragon event works on my server, and it has been like this for a week.. nearly 1/2 the events in CS are bugged.. So yah, think it is just time to find something more interesting to do with my time. Good luck Anet at fighting these bots, and I sure hope things dont die off to bad. I would love to play this more in the future, but right now I am tired of killing 50 mobs to get 3 drops.. if I am lucky.. and I have very high MF which DR has made completely useless just about.

report system is really slow and bad, you report a bot and it will be there 24/7 the next few weeks… you will log on and see them in you spot, and you cant do anything about it… the system just make me feel like the bots have the power. I think most of the people want to know the bot got banned, and some GM online banning bots to feel like ArenaNet cares.

NynjaSquirrel.1307:

So – I provide valued and useful evidence of botting and it’s dismissed instantly as it’s not the approved method of reporting. Well, I’m sorry if I’m trying to improve the game, and the community, for both myself and my fellow gamers. Arenanet needs to take swift and very public action against these botters, as competing with these drones for mobs, events, WvW and resources is turning players off the game. If the same swift response was applied to policing the actions of bots as the rigid adherence to forum guidelines, we’d all be a lot happier.

Well said that man!

As Jon Stewart would say… BOOM! BOOM!

The fact is ANet will need to spend money to eradicate, or at least battle this problem.

Nothing other than a dedicated team or task force who monitor the game in real-time is going to suffice. It just doesn’t work this way and never will.

You definitely can’t have an automated system watching out for the automatons. It’s totally ridiculous. It doesn’t even ban them, it simply just moves them to other areas of the game. Normally right in my way.

What frustrates me more is that DR is the mess we’re landed with and is ANet’s alleged attempt at stopping bots from proliferating.

It’s not working and was never destined to work from the start. If you prevent a bot from abusing one resource or one mob or one item or one area, they just adapt and move elsewhere. You have to catch them and remove them from the game entirely.

ANet’s system of checking does not move inline with this and the bots continue to multiply, except now they’re not even being monitored or regulated.

It would take some ANet staff just one afternoon of going on servers and looking at the Cursed Shore’s trinity of WPs. There’s no way they would not be shocked by what they see.

Moreover, the DE system is a botter’s dream. It’s so well designed and catered for them I have a hard time believing it’s not intentional. We’re all aware of the symbiotic relationship developers and RMT companies allegedly have these days.

A DE needs no series of clicks or human intervention to ensure it’s started. It just starts. Ensure your bot is placed in that area and ensure they attack mobs in a given timeframe and you’re set forever.

It’s shocking that a system like this was allowed to be designed. It is so fundamentally flawed.

It won’t last.

Either ANet won’t spend the money to deal with the problem using real people and a real task force.

Or they’ll continue to delude themselves that an automated bot restriction system (DR) is a big enough measure to combat the problem. Which is clearly isn’t.

It’s going to start having irreperable damage soon.

I can’t see how the money’s a problem, hiring a team to deal with serious bot proliferation can’t be difficult after shifting 2,000,000 copies at ~$60 a box.

I make that to be in the region of $120,000,000. Not to mention the in-game store sales.

If ANet haven’t budgeted for bot removal, knowing everything we now know about bots, I’d like to know why.

It’s not like RMT is a new thing. It’s been around for decades.

From my perspective it’s a lazy and ill-conceived attempt at trying to have an automated system that will look after their bot problem for them.

All it has done is make the bots more numerous, push them into other places and force them to become more cunning. That really isn’t what we need as players.

If there’d been real people that could go to a character, once a report threshold had been reached, Turing-test that character and perma-ban them instantly if they’re exhibiting the properties of a bot. The problem wouldn’t be the mess it is now.

And it is a mess and it’s only going to get worse, unless an effective system is introduced to combat it.

captcha if this is implemented I’m done and I’ll be done with ALL Arena Net games in the future I’m sick and god kitten tired of being punished because YOU Arena Net let the botting population become greater then the actual live population!!!!!!!!!!!

Borlis Pass is pathetic events in Cursed Shore are either bugged to all hell or there’s so many bots at the working events with AoE you cant even tag a kittening mob. The mobs are like snowmen running into a 750 degree furnace there none existent!

Botting is ridiculous at this point – I’m not just seeing it in the usual areas, like Cursed Shore, but in the beginning areas as well. Queensdale has an entire crop of bots, including multi-box bots, that are not just making it difficult to participate in dynamic events, but are also destroying any possibility of using the Trading Post to make money in-game.

Between bots flooding the TP and TP hackers pounding it with buy orders, it’s getting to the point where it’s nearly impossible for a human to play the game and succeed. They’re killing your game.

Bots I’ve observed and reported continue, day after day, to show up and perform their repetitive damage. Without quick and decisive action, your game is going to be slowly dismantled, as bots will make it impossible for humans to play competitively – I’ve watched other games grind to a halt for months because of botting, like Aion.

Please, you need to step up your response time. A bot can do significant harm in this game in a matter of hours – you can’t take days to respond.

why did Arena Net ban all the people that bought a lot of that whatever karma item that was selling for cheap for “exploiting the game” when you let bots run rampant this makes absolutely no sense to me….

oh and Storm4718 better watch out posting that information here you’ll get an infraction for not using the in game report PoS system.

The best way to resolve this issue is REPORT all devious activitys, i do all the time every two or three days i usually get someone spamming me to buy gold ect, i just hit report it takes a few seconds then leave it to admins to resolve it. if we all did it who knows we might just beat them..

T o R u S.6325:

The best way to resolve this issue is REPORT all devious activitys, i do all the time every two or three days i usually get someone spamming me to buy gold ect, i just hit report it takes a few seconds then leave it to admins to resolve it. if we all did it who knows we might just beat them..

Wrong in just about every way. That complacency is damaging.

People are reporting and are even telling you in this thread that it’s massively ineffectual.

What. You. Are. Suggesting. Does. Not. Work.

That’s the very point of this thread. If you’d read any of the posts, you’d know that.

They are seeing the same bots they reported (upto) 4 weeks ago. I’ve seen bots on the 3 servers I have been that have been there for over 2 weeks.

There’s no possible way the reporting system works.

Sure reports are sent, but from what I can see, no staff from ANet can be logging into to the game to check on what it’s like.

If they were, they’d be shocked. I can only assume they take the current data on bots based on the reporting we give them.

There’s no way they’ve seen what it’s like. I would not allow for that to stand in my game. Not the kind of infestation I’ve seen here. It’s far worse than any other title I’ve played at this point.

Your average gamer isn’t conscientious with regard to bot reporting like you. Most people are actually apathetic. They don’t care and don’t report.

It doesn’t work and if they proceed with this highly ineffectual system and just ask us what’s happening and don’t actually go in-game to see, well then they’ll only have themselves to blame when the problem gets worse.

Task force with real eyes on the game and the ability to ban on the spot. Or lots of bots.

There’s no middle ground.

A task force takes money, time, effort, hiring. However if you can’t find a budget for this after 2,000,000 box sales and daily in-game store sales then you’re a laughing stock in my book.

RMT is not new to gaming. It’s been here for a long time. To not have any real and effective way of dealing with the problem, in this gaming climate, is a massive oversight on ANet’s part.

Lol, report them. You didn’t even read anything here did you?

The major problem with these delays against banning easy to spot botting is the ban no longer acts as a deterrent. Waiting weeks for a ban means the person (or company) botting is making a profit.

If you aren’t going to deter it (swift banning of bots) then legalize it so players are at least on equal footing.

They are making money with the current report/ban methods and the only people being deterred are the actual players. Word of mouth will kill future sales if this isn’t stopped soon as the botting problem is only going to grow from here as the easy to use bot programs are getting ready to hit wide distribution (they are being tested in the popular exploit groups now).

This game lives or dies off of future box sales and in game purchases… and the botting problem is going to crush that within 2 months when this currently obvious botting problem becomes game breaking for various zones.

Well I was saying only captchas for someone reported as being a bot by multiple people then only that person or bot gets the captcha not everyone. It could be automated since I mean players are really the best defense against bots since we are everywhere.

Interesting thread here. I’ve not been playing many games where I have actually seen a bot…but, I must say the few I have seen in GW2 recently are very obvious.

The one thing I have noticed is that there are a few I have seen being rezzed by players then downed again by the npc enemies in that area. Most of these “botter characters” are in their underwear only…nothing else..so it is quite easy to spot them.

juiceman.2870:

Well I was saying only captchas for someone reported as being a bot by multiple people then only that person or bot gets the captcha not everyone. It could be automated since I mean players are really the best defense against bots since we are everywhere.

To you, juiceman and others calling for the implementation of captchas. There have been automated captcha solutions you can purchase through Google for years.

You send the copy of the image of the captchas to a company in Russia, they read it, send back the code and this is then entered in the required field. All of this is easily automated. I’ve seen them work.

Captchas are not a line of defence against anything.

What you will do by using them is really really annoy people. People hate captchas in the more mundane areas of their life. Let alone while interacting with a game.

Anyway, the whole captcha argument is totally invalid as automated captcha solutions have existed for years.

If you’re having trouble believing this, Google “Antigate Captcha” and be prepared for some sobering edumacation.

It’s a totally flawed premise.

Fact: You’re Not Doing REMOTELY Enough, ArenaNet.

The fact that your community moderators lock EVERY thread that discusses botting = proof that you’re deaf & blind to the effect that these bots are having on your servers.

If you cared and REALLY wanted them gone – they’d be gone.

Let’s not pretend otherwise.

Here is a quote from a popular botting site:

“If you have an 80, you can easily make 10g/day using any of the commercial bots available. (even if you have no manner in which to mitigate the anti-camp code) They all pay for themselves in less than a week if you turn around sell that gold to any reputable buyer, so just buy one as an interim solution until Minion is available.”

You NEED to start banning. People botting aren’t concerned about your current process.

I have invented the best solution agains botting!!!!!
Prepare to be amazed….

Give the players a HUGE BAN BUTTON!!!!!

That was a joke….

But seriously ANet u got to fix this…. otherwise gw2 will crash in a couple of months and nobody will want to play the game anymore = U DIE!

There is actually one good solution = finding active, real and willing players that will have a BAN BUTTON that will send a direct message to ANet and have higher power that the normal players messages. 1 Higher power players message = 100 Not so powerfull players message. Ofcourse the Higher Power Players must prove that they are human and not machine and if they abuse they powers they will be banned.

That’s the ting that will stop botters exept for active GMs that press the huge BAN BUTTON.

Now ANet may still choose to move they eyes away from bots even whith 1+ Higher Power players messages and in that case gw2 will fail…….

Ok now for a joke….

Blizzard is paying ANet HUGE AMOUND OF $$$ so that they wont fix gw2. Blizzard wants gw2 to fail so that they will get even more $$$ for their next expansion:
WoW We Killed Guild Wars 2

Its really crazy, i cant remeber a day when i loged in and didnt have atleast 1 msg from some gold seller i always report them as spamers or should i report them as botters i mean they obviously are botters…
I dont know why every game must be ruined by bots :-/

because people buy gold, if no one bought gold they wouldn’t make money, no money no gold selling business.

Striata.6739:

captcha if this is implemented I’m done and I’ll be done with ALL Arena Net games in the future I’m sick and god kitten tired of being punished because YOU Arena Net let the botting population become greater then the actual live population!!!!!!!!!!!

Borlis Pass is pathetic events in Cursed Shore are either bugged to all hell or there’s so many bots at the working events with AoE you cant even tag a kittening mob. The mobs are like snowmen running into a 750 degree furnace there none existent!

I have this exact experience and I am sick of it, I like getting drops off event mobs too, some of us legit players want salvaged ectos too you know……..

I never said make all players fill out captchas only the bots getting reported by other players do the captchas not anyone else. It does cost money to have a company somewhere do those for you and captchas exist that bots can not do besides those common google ones everyone sticks onto websites
You need an automated solution is a lot cheaper then spending resources constantly fighting it.

as someone pointed out, 1,600 account is like 33 per world. There’s more than 33 on queensdale or kessex hills.

I don’t mean to sound pessimistic, but this is seriously ridiculous. I can go to any number of zones where events spawn and see just swarms of bots. Like Orr’s tunnel outposts that have constant ‘swarm’ events, or the Hirathi Hinterlands event where there’s always 20 bots or so chillin.’ Or just go outside any area with non-hostile mobs and watch the teleporting train of rangers run on by killing everything.

‘It doesn’t effect my game’ is something I see a lot of people say. Really… so if you want to participate in an event and can’t get full rewards because the bot swarm kills everything so fast that doesn’t effect anyone?

You guys need to, and this may sound a bit draconian… get a GM to actually GO TO THESE CONSTANTLY CAMPED AND EXPLOITED EVENTS AND BAN PEOPLE MANUALLY ON THE SPOT. Or just ask the players where they see the bots at in a zone or two… or three or four. It’s completely asinine how long it takes to see any of these bots go away. I’ve seen the same groups of them on a map for days in some cases, and half the time when I’m mapping I see more bots than players! It’s much worse than you guys may realize or are willing to acknowledge openly.

Normally I wouldn’t take the time to complain on the forums about it, but it’s so bad right now that I can’t help myself. I have issued way too many botting reports over the past few days. If it was just every now and then I’d wait it out, but I’m just seeing swarms of them everywhere.

ArenaNet — how about a follow-up to this post with a response from a developer who has actually GONE OUT to the places being swarmed by bots and SEE FOR YOURSELF just how obscene it is.

I swear, if you actually PLAY your game and try to play in these areas, you’ll say, “Oh jeez, maybe we should step up the bans.”

To be fair, according to Xfire the developers are not alone in not playing the game anymore.

Fix botting.