Guild Wars 2

We as customers get banned for saying the wrong thing in chat but bots run rapid day in and out. You can send 1-2 people to each server and run through the areas on each server. Watch and see how many bots you can see and just ban them. Saying you are doing something and actually doing something are two different things. Bots are out in the open and are clear as day. We see them but cant do anything about it but report. You can do something about it but you don’t seem to see it but claim you do. :’( We just want this taken care of please. I understand you are “doing” something but come on. If 5-10 people reported someone for being a bot they should be banned on the spot. Like I said we as customers get banned for nonsense but bots just run rapid.

Is it really that hard for a company like ArenaNet to appoint some GMs as everyone has suggested to actively be on the prowl responding to bot reports and banning them on the spot?

I know you guys are working on a more “permanent” anti-botting solution but players expect something to be done NOW, and for good reason. If ArenaNet is indeed committed to fighting bots and saving their product, then they will have to have both a short term solution AND longer term solution.

6 days ago I reported bots and there still there. I spent $60 on the game and $100 in gems. I am just 1 person im sure there are others who spent more, I can see that your too cheap to hire some one for minimum wage to ban bots real time so i’m done with this game! Send me a email when you decide to do something and i might come back!

Sadly Anet,a normally legit portion of your player base has taken to botting as well,this is what happens with inaction.

If you can’t beat em,join em ?

I kindly wrote a few weeks ago that,DR with a monthly bot ban with zero active server GMs,will not deter botting.It encourages it.

Enough damage has been done in one month to warrant deployment of server character rollbacks,which in turn,again will hit the legit players more so than botters.

Being an ex-botter of games that allow it in some form or another,I follow with interest what the bot community is up to and capable of.And as far as I can see,a whole bunch of hurt is coming GW2 way.

I support live active server GMs banning without mercy,with appeal only to customer support.Paid or volenteer.

i was run 1 hour on 1 farm spot (3 bot run to) in frostgorge… in that 1h i got almost 1g (drop sell on TP, got full exotic traveler set with magic find gem, weapond and accessory magic find) so bot can easy get 10-15g in 1 day… 10g cost in gold seller 17-18$ and how much cost game??? even if they got 10g in a day… 10g x 7 day = couple new account to farm more gold… and you ban give nothing… you need ban like in for exapmle in WoW… they ban regular and they got alot less bot that gw2… so take care of that bot becaus this kill this game… nothing to do except www, spvp and dungeon… craft is only for lvling… bot power in this game… i remember game sikroadonline… many bot… they say “we fight with boot” but all day was running bot more that player… gw2 is same as silkroadonline…

Anets answer to curb bots " DReturn EVERYTHING!!"…

MrQuillen.3014:

“As Mike explained, we’re committed to fighting botters.”

Then explain to them, please, that this word does not mean what you think it means. The current actions seen being taken encourage players to run bots on a second account through a proxy if they want to have enough in game gold to compete in a botting driven marketplace. Botting and being banned every few weeks is still incredibly lucrative and places non botting players at a severe disadvantage in the Black Lion Trading Company.

You can’t claim to be committed when the current actions are allowing the many bots out there to be extremely profitable. That is not fighting them… that is encouraging others to do the same.

If that’s what you believed that go right ahead and start botting too then. But when the banned wave come don’t expect any mercy.

I wont be spending anymore money in this game…. Its plagued with bots, and whats even worse is the developers seem to turn a blind eye and send you around hurdles just to report a bot… i cant even paste pics of the bots i got cause they so may…
Guild wars will start to lose its fan base just like Diablo 3 did if no one adresses this.

Great, so Anet is banning the accounts of legit players with hacked accounts en-mass. Any ETA on when you plan on fixing the problem? IE going after companies like EING that are doing the hacking and are the root cause of the problem?

another week passes and new patch out and still same bots, its pathetic get GM’s in and ban them already while you work on your so called solutions, 3 -4 weeks with same bots in same place is not called fighting them its a blind eye, and why do the moderators only comment on selected post that pose no real issue but ignore the real issue again blind eye is turned, im getting sick of these bots along with thousands of players, we cant compete against bots they killing the game really give us a real answer on what is being done not some random generated bull

I’ve been reporting bots virtually since the game went live. Always the same sort of hacks in evidence, the toon warps around the map like a fly, not responding to tells or named prompting via /map chat. To be honest I initially thought they might be rubber banding, but if you take the time to observe them for long enough it becomes fairly obvious what the difference is between latency and a scripted routine employing an obvious hack.

Initially i seemed to have some success, two bots that had been operating for 24hrs in a zone I have never seen again. But one in particular has been operating in the same zone for 3 days, 24/7 and he’s still going strong.

I urge people to just persist with the report function, both the gold spammers, the mail spammers and the bots. Stick to doing that like glue, its the only direct power we as fans of this game have and it’s our responsibility to each other to actively play our part.

On a whole other issue, I’m a bit slow on the trading post hacks claim. I’ve noticed often that entire lists of materials that I was about to buy have seemingly instantly been purchased then placed back on the TP with sometimes a mere 1 or 2% rise in their cost per piece. Initially I thought this was just individuals playing the market since it’s very easy to buy entire lists of items grouped by their asking price. But I’ve noticed that I can be on at 3am and it happens very often, or 8am, it doesn’t seem to matter when, the trade in raw mats like blood or bone seems much brisker than any I’ve seen in any game before.

All very unsettling really. Hope there’s a good solution that ANet can come up with because it’s really messing things up for us all.

Gideon.2071:

Great, so Anet is banning the accounts of legit players with hacked accounts en-mass. Any ETA on when you plan on fixing the problem? IE going after companies like EING that are doing the hacking and are the root cause of the problem?

Accounts don’t get “hacked” 99% of the time. What happens is people use the same password for every single online activity. Forums, banking, gaming… all the same password. So if your info is compromised somewhere else, then they just try it on all the major games. Your GW2 account needs to have a strong and importantly UNIQUE password.

I hope a GM can clarify this,but is it right to understand that us honest users can get Permbanned if we loose sight on what bots we report and report them several times?
If we ask about whats happening with botting,and if we post links/complaints in the wrong place?

Jnaathra.6549:

Gideon.2071:

Great, so Anet is banning the accounts of legit players with hacked accounts en-mass. Any ETA on when you plan on fixing the problem? IE going after companies like EING that are doing the hacking and are the root cause of the problem?

Accounts don’t get “hacked” 99% of the time. What happens is people use the same password for every single online activity. Forums, banking, gaming… all the same password. So if your info is compromised somewhere else, then they just try it on all the major games. Your GW2 account needs to have a strong and importantly UNIQUE password.

Hacking is gaining unauthorized access to accounts and data. It doesn’t matter if it’s because an idiot made the password or because it’s a script kiddie running blowfish or rainbow tables. The result is the same – these people have an unlimited amount of dummy accounts to throw under the bus, and anet seems content with just banning those accounts without actually addressing the problem.

It’s me checking in again.

Bots are still in Shelter Gate @ Sorrow’s Furnace.

Yours Sincerely,
Rob.

I’ve been observing and reporting bots for a few days now, before I did not see them or worry too much (my bad). I would best describe myself as one of the fans of the GW games, but a casual player, although I have put some hours into both games. I am sorry Arenanet, but it is now time to stop dithering and hit the hackers and botters, HARD! I intend to buy bank slots and extra bag slots, am willing to spend RL money to do so, but not before you at least show willing to counter what is becoming a major problem for your, much vaunted, game. We are giving you some time and believing you are working on it, but do show us some sort of action soon. I am half-way thinking of leaving GW2 for now (prob won’t cause I really like the game and am a hopeless (trusting) optimist and unless I hear from you that all is fixed, I may not come back due to getting interested in other games.

“On Botting and What We’re Doing About It” — Summary: “Basically nothing.”

I have come to the conclusion that they are not doing a friggen
thing! Game is ruined, anything else out there worth playing.. I am tired of trying to compete with the botted economy..

So are we going to be compensated for all the loot were missing out on because of the DR?..

Keep up the good work. Both with bot/spammers and with community communication. Thank you.

I hope you’re also banning the Trading Post html-botters?

So many seem to think there should be 5000 gms sitting at keyboards to perma ban any one they report in 30 seconds when that doesnt happen resort to kittening and caps.

Do you really want to ban a single account only to have the guy back on with another 5 minutes later?

The nasties way has been done before to great effect and to the howls of outrage from the botters, let them run a bit, examine their code record every account running said code, when they have a pile of gold on the accounts, weeks of work acumulating it and the accounts of the people they are sending it to swing the ban hammer.

Then log on to the botting sites listen to the QQ and chuckle

i been with Anet since launch of GW1…saw and whent through all the expansions as well..Anet rocks…they aint no blizard thats for sure…bots own and run all the bliz games to date…go Anet GO!! 8-}..

[Names removed] have been botting in Timberline falls- Guilty tears for 2 days now.
Ive reported the botting twice, yesterday and today and they are still there, not surprised… i may end up getting my account closed for reporting twice before the get banned… what a joke.
Go and have a look all.

[Edited by CC: Bot names removed]

I’d like to just add my voice to the "whatever you are doing its ineffective’ comments here. I guess you all at Anet must know that, it’s saddening.

It really isn’t difficult, you just need to ban botters quicker than they can start up again and earn enough gold to pay for the new account. If it takes longer than that they will proliferate, if you can do it quicker they will go away. Sure it will take some resources but some of these bots are so blatant and un-sophisticated its laughable.

That is the thing that is disappointing, the bots that take scant seconds to identify (for example those that teleport) seem to be operating with impunity. Ban these and at least the ‘casual’ botters will be deterred.

1600 bans means nothing. Bots are proliferating as a casual stroll around Orr will reveal.

Incidentally technical solutions can be helpful against unsophisticated cheats but they are ineffective against those that know what they are doing. Blizzard’s warden is probably the most sophisticated detection code written and MMOGlider still evaded it, without even having to resort to running in ring 0.

As an aside, ‘sticking plaster’ solutions that deal with symptoms (cough DR cough) rather than the underlying problem are likely to be detrimental to the game in the long term.

I know you guys care about your game and I am not going to come up with some hyperbole about this destroying it, but it is clearly hurting it.

i had to be away.. came back and many gold spams in my mail. one i could not even delete.

To play as you mean it is always tarnished by the cheaters.But to make it as a real player is its own reward.

On Gunnar’s Hold It’s getting to the point that Frostgorge Sound has more bots than players.
The center map “gauntlet” with the Grawl village (and a Skill point challenge) is permanently devoid of the should-be fast respawning grawls.
two different bot groups are constantly ravaging the whole place.
The most long standing group is composed by multiple, guildless, semi-undressed dual axe asura warriors with very random-chinese-ish names. They are always there.
They were two at the beginning, then one day they disappeared.
The next day they were 4-5 on it again, semi-undressed dual axe asura warriors with very similar names. They compose a sort of “train” that keeps navigating the same waypoints for the whole day.

It’s impossible for the legit players to get any loot or get anything done, the area is just wasted.

Same for the various “ice canyons” east of that area. Despite the are is very dangerous due to the huge amount of ice mobs, there’s so many bots that you have just to tag along with them and you can go completely unharmed. Yesterday there were like 8-9 bots clustered together, flattening everything they came in touch with.

Also, since ANET “borrowed” several key concepts from EvE Online, what about you also “borrow” their new course against bots? They hired a security specialist and implemented such measures that bots quickly started cry and now EvE is a better place.

On Kaineng I keep seeing huge swarms of bots running around. They’re always rangers with gibberish names and a Juvenile Brown Bear following them. Half the time they have no armor at all. About half an hour ago I was at a waypoint in the Gendarran Fields and within the span of 5 minutes I saw at least 10 bots show up at the waypoint and instantly place several traps before running north to the centaur area. At least a few of those were the same bot, so I think something up there was killing them and they just kept zerging it.

There are three things that can be done together to shut out all the farmers and vastly reduce the bots in the game:

1) Get rid of the socialist gem market. Let people sell gems for whatever they want. The market will balance itself out, and most likely be a lot cheaper than what gold farmers sell for. This means gold farmers can no longer make a profit on the gold they sell.

2) Catch the Sellers. Run a query that tracks gold quantity and trade amounts. Any accounts that are receiving gold infusions from 10 – 20+ other sources, then sending large infusions to random accounts are obviously primary accounts. Taking these out in bulk will get rid of the large quantities of gold being amassed. It seems to be pretty logical math. These companies are selling up to 525 gold in one chunk, so they’re obviously moving a larger quantity than any legitimate player would be capable of doing in a 24 hour period.

3) Punish the buyers. Obviously the random accounts receiving gold transfusions from these known spammers have bought gold. Yank all the gold and give them a 3 day ban. If they do it again, delete their account and move on. The only reason why the farmers and bots exist is because anet is allowing people to throw money at them. No customers = no farmers.

I think ive reported over 20 bots so far, their not hard to spot they keep teleporting all over the place and often work in groups. Some of them have the same name so clearly they are not being banned as quick as one would hope.

Vaerah.4907:

On Gunnar’s Hold It’s getting to the point that Frostgorge Sound has more bots than players.
The center map “gauntlet” with the Grawl village (and a Skill point challenge) is permanently devoid of the should-be fast respawning grawls.
two different bot groups are constantly ravaging the whole place.
The most long standing group is composed by multiple, guildless, semi-undressed dual axe asura warriors with very random-chinese-ish names. They are always there.
They were two at the beginning, then one day they disappeared.
The next day they were 4-5 on it again, semi-undressed dual axe asura warriors with very similar names. They compose a sort of “train” that keeps navigating the same waypoints for the whole day.

It’s impossible for the legit players to get any loot or get anything done, the area is just wasted.

Same for the various “ice canyons” east of that area. Despite the are is very dangerous due to the huge amount of ice mobs, there’s so many bots that you have just to tag along with them and you can go completely unharmed. Yesterday there were like 8-9 bots clustered together, flattening everything they came in touch with.

We also have a 5+ bot operation on the same server, same zone just south of the Troll Champion in the tunnels. Been there for 4-5 days now. Different people report them every day but still they carry on. Prices on Vials of Powerful Bloods also tanked from 18+ down to 10 silver now, same with the lesser bloods

I think I saw another explote last night. I came across a player fighting some centaurs so I helped them out. It was 2 characters with almost the same name. After the fight they ran off together just as a bot would do, then they just disappeared right in mid run. Maybe they logged off, or teleported. but whatever they did the 2 characters did it as the same time.

Just playing at Triskellion Vale. There at the entrance of the village in a small plot of corn a group of about 8-10 Ranger botters with their pets sitting around, waiting for the Tamini attack waves of the DE.
They all attack together in the same pattern, get stuck in the fences of the corn patch, and when the Tamini wave is over or attacks against a Wasp or a Moa, they go back to exact the same point…always, never only one millimeter aside this place…if this isn’t scripted botting, then I really dunno…
Also just met the chain of 4-6 Warrior bots which was running around a fix train line the last 2 or 3 days in Queensdale at the farm near the Champ Troll…now those bots are in Kessex Hills…they leveled up, congratulations…soon they will move to the next zone. Also a way to get them off the players sight.

Whatever you’re doing, it’s not enough and/or seems to be zero. There are more and more bots all the time. There are bots in every zone. At times it feels like there are more bots than players around.

We report bots every day and see the same bots for days/weeks.

There are certain locations and behaviors bots exhibit that are repetitive and common to every zone and still nothing gets done.

One tiny fix for Kessex is nice, and that spot has been a bot haven since day one. But that’s not even the tip of the iceberg, it’s like a spec at the tip of the iceberg.

I think its getting worse. I was questing in Wayfarer Foothills, and litterally, 10 hunters all running around together in circles around Twinspur Haven Waypoint, killing everything. Half were naked of course, and most of their names were just 4-5 letter words that were, of course, random letters.

I reported what i could of course, but it was hard enough to keep up and not get confused by double reporting the same bot.

Little bit annoyed that the one I reported almost 2 weeks ago is still at it.

I spotted Caribsoul again today in a cave in a different zone killing bats. I have decided to make him my personal nemesis.

I spent 2 hours today just pulling extra mobs onto him and vanishing. He would die, resurrect, run back to the cave and carry on only to immediately have me waiting with open arms and another wall of bats.

Eventually he left and I was kinda gutted and bored. I was totally invested in this project so I turned my attention to the 4 ranger train that had been doing the same bot path for the past 12 hours. Bit more challenging but fun none the less. Every now and then one would get too far ahead or too far behind and I took my opportunities well.

I think doing a zone wide GM shout for all players to stay away from a soon to spawn Bot terminator and to watch them all try to respawn at wp’s that are turned off for the duration, kind of turn it into a sit back and watch the botz get stuck good n proper. If anyone(rl plyrs) does get stuck,(coz the wp’s are temp inactive) just have them do an email verification/authentication or summit so they can be up and playing again, and the botz because they are afk will be stuck in a pen say awaiting trial and conviction…maybe turn them into npc bandits for example and let us have our revenge lmao that would make up for the gangerous infecfion currently rotting a game I like a lot atm…just my two pennith worth.

While you say you’re trying to keep out the bots, every major update you make seems to benefit them to an extreme degree. Who are the only people who benefit when you shut down legitimate ways to get items? gold sellers/botters Now you’re even shafting resource collection, can’t even find new materials to make armor anymore need to buy it through the TP skyrocketing prices. I guess it makes sense, botters probably buy more accounts so they’re who you’re aiming to please at this point. We already paid, we got scammed with a bait and switch, whatever. Our fault for assuming you cared at all about your customers after they paid.

I can understand that if the tools are simply not in place to accurately and efficiently detect bots, that DR would be a logical way to slow the bleeding. But who knows if this is the case? Clearer communication on this issue is needed. I appreciate the updates we have received so far, but when I read in a post "In short, we are fully committed to keeping this community free of bots " but see no evidence of this in-game, it’s disheartening to say the least.

I cannot understate how important it is that you please remove DR. I have limited time to play, so I like to do things fast, and the current game does not allow my game style- which is slowly making me dislike the game. It is becoming less about skill, and more about time spent. For example, the current system incentivizes me to play 15minutes then go 15-30min afk and then play 15min more, which feels broken to say the least..

Are you sure you have an economist on hand? Some of the ingame incentives are just silly.

Loke they have a very good economist on hand. People playing the game puts strain on the servers and therefore some cost. By not rewarding people for playing more, there are fewer hours logged and therefore less stress on the server and less cost. Their actions make perfect sense if you look at them from the perspective of the real world economy. We just naively assumed they cared about the game itself or the players.

This is getting ridiculous. The world has become plagued with bots. Literally everywhere i go now. Sometimes i see a controlled player keeping an eye on them, while following along teleporting near them every so often. I assume that’s the one that takes the items the bots harvest. I then assume after they get their booty they sell it all on the trading post at a massively reduced price. Then a clean account buys it seconds later and resells it at normal going prices. Perhaps if Arenanet put a fixed price on everything, which cant be changed, then the gold sellers will struggle to make enough money.

After wandering around Queensdale today, I was very disturbed to see the entire place overrun with bots with all sorts of stupid activities. After observing them for quite some time I started witnessing behaviour similar to what is described by by this poster here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/New-Undetected-Form-Of-Botting-Has-The-Potential-To-Crash-The-GW2-Economy

After asking various friends about the methods they could be employing I came to one conclusion — and that is this is a very serious exploit that I hope Anet can figure out how to stop. It is serious enough that I wrote to the exploit team of my observations — in particular for some of these bots – you cannot click on them to report them directly to Anet in many cases.

Here’s a few suggestions of the top of my head that may or may not help.

1. Put a fixed price, or a less harsh max/min value, on all items that can be sold at the trading post.

2. Limit the number of items one can sell at the trading post within a 24 period.

3. Limit the number of mails one can send within a 24 hour period.

4. Limit how much money one can send by mail within a 24 hour period.

5. Make exotic and legendary items account bound.

6. Reduce costs of all waypoints, repairs, and merchant items to compensate.

Keep up the good work Arenanet.

Stratzvyda.3921:

Loke they have a very good economist on hand. People playing the game puts strain on the servers and therefore some cost. By not rewarding people for playing more, there are fewer hours logged and therefore less stress on the server and less cost. Their actions make perfect sense if you look at them from the perspective of the real world economy. We just naively assumed they cared about the game itself or the players.

I hope you realize your post makes absolutely no sense.

How are 40+ bots per zone putting LESS stress on a server than humans?

There are more bots now, and in more zones now, than when the original post was made.

There’s also more in-game mail spam from gold sellers.

What was it you guys were doing again?

Sorry, in game mail receipt of gold should be eliminated period.

First, there is NO reason at all to use mail between your own alts in the game since you have shared bank space.

Second, if you want to share money between guildies, then utilize the guild bank.

Third, I understand you guys are working on it, and thanks for that. But it isn’t being done fast enough and the economy is already being effected daily, as are legit players enjoyment in the game (Ehmry Bay Cursed Shore is ridiculous at trying to get anything done at all there are so many naked rangers with bear pets and creative names like [Name removed] , running around). When I look at how fast ArenaNet was able to ban players using the Karma vendor exploit (within 24 hours), there is no reason whatsoever the same bots should be running for days and weeks in an area.

Fourth, and I hate to say this, part of the problem for those tempted to use these sellers is the insane pricing on end game stuff right now. Worse, the Cultural Stuff you could once get with Karma has now been changed to gold, so this makes it even worse.

In short, this problem should be treated with even more urgency than the hacking issue you had going on. If it continues much longer, it will have permanent effects on the economy as well as ArenaNet’s own ability to make cash through the cash shop. In other words, your own business is being effected by this as well ArenaNet so I’d figure this would have swifter repercussions than the exploit bans.

[Edit by CC: Name removed]

Just logged in after server reset a 5 am EST on Ehmry Bay. There are more than a dozen and a half botters at both ends of Pentient Path in Cursed Shore. Many of which I have reported before.

Logged out three minutes later.

ArenaNet, you no longer have a problem on your hands, you have a disease. Up until today, I have enjoyed this game immensely and planned on staying for a while. But this, this is killing the game and you aren’t treating it with enough urgency. Jeez, all the chat is about is how many botters are running around wrecking the game for everyone.

Good luck with this. Hopefully you’ll see that if it isn’t addressed very, very soon, it is going to cost you a lot of legit players. The game is almost unplayable now. In all honestly, I have never played an MMO where the botting was this bad and it is getting worse by the day.