"Teleporting" Bots & How To Catch/Report

"Teleporting" Bots & How To Catch/Report

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Posted by: neon.4863

neon.4863

This isn’t a bot report, but rather a post to help people catch those pesky disappeared-before-i-could-click-them gathering node bots. I would’ve liked to post it in the sticky about botting, but that’s been locked. Apologies if this is a duplicate topic.

It takes a bit more effort than reporting bots you can follow around, but if you happen to have some time or are idling waiting for an event chain, you can try it.

  • These bots’ weak spot is that they need to stop and gather – giving you a window of time to click them and report. So the best way to catch them is to sit near a gathering node. Eventually one will come up in almost any node. Personally tested with a copper ore node in Queensdale and in ~20 minutes around 16 bots zapped me by.
  • Rich ore veins are especially good since they can be harvested several times, giving you more time to click them to report.
  • You can add them to your block list before reporting them. That way, you’ll be able to tell if they’re online and where they are (these bots switch areas extremely frequently, they’re easy to spot). You can report them daily that way or forward their names for other people to report.
  • If you can’t catch one before it vanishes you can take a screenshot (Print Screen on PC) while their name is visible on the screen, then add them to your friendslist through their character name, and block/report them from there. Sometimes you can just read their name before they vanish, but most of the time they’re too quick for that, so taking a screenshot helps.
  • They get stuck sometimes and there may be nodes they won’t try to harvest – it’s safest to camp a node you’ve seen one at before.
  • You may get better results immediately after seeing a bot in a specific node. I wouldn’t spend too long camping the node, but from my experience they tend to come up in droves after one pops up at a node, so that’s your best shot at catching one.

It’s a bit of work since you can’t just report them as you run into them while playing, but it’s doable. Some of these may not be bots, but players exploiting – I generally report them for botting anyway since there is no “exploiting” option when reporting.

Hopefully this helps someone with the “they teleport away too quickly” problem. Just camp a rich ore vein – they’ll show up.

(edited by neon.4863)

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Posted by: tigirius.9014

tigirius.9014

Sounds good. I didn’t know they’d be farming everything i thought it would just be like the T6 nodes or what not.

Balance Team: Please Fix Mine Toolbelt Positioning!

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Posted by: neon.4863

neon.4863

I do notice (from watching my block list) that they spend more time in high level zones, but they do zap around low level zones too. I was pretty surprised by the number of them in low level Queensdale areas after I started paying attention. All the bots seem to follow the exact same path, too (you can tell because they pop up in a couple of areas with no nodes too – that farm near Shaemoor Fields is one of them – but they vanish almost instantly, usually the pet takes longer to despawn so that’s how you can tell one was just there).

Edit: By watching my block list, spots that they’ve been to today:

Hoelbrak
Black Citadel
Queensdale
Wayfarer Foothills
Plains of Ashford
Gendarran Fields
Fields of Ruin
Blazeridge Steppes
Harathi Hinterlands
Lornar’s Pass
Dredgehaunt Cliffs
Frostgorge Sound
Iron Marches
Southsun Cove

A lot of them get stuck in Southsun Cove for ages, unsure why (rich ori node perhaps).

(edited by neon.4863)

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Posted by: DoctorOverlord.8620

DoctorOverlord.8620

Very useful tricks! Thanks for posting these. Adding the bots to one’s block list to continue to track them is an interesting twist.

Check my GW2 Comic Dynamic Events http://goo.gl/JyB3J (Short Google Link to Fan Content Forum here)

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Posted by: juno.1840

juno.1840

Ultimately it’s not the Player Community’s job to sit around reporting bots. I will if I can, but I’m definitely not going to camp resource nodes trying to catch some (although at some level it can be satisfying). I say this because personally I have a few hours a week to play and I try to be efficient (i.e. do stuff that’s fun).

I hope that ANet has hired some interns to do this very job. Then use the data from their reporting as “pure” data for bot detection algorithms.

Part of me thinks that someone in ANet was thinking “hey, wanna see something funny? Watch this…”

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Posted by: Snoring Sleepwalker.9073

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073

These hackers sound very easy for ANET to automatically detect. Just keep track of how many nodes per hour each character is mining. Legitimate players will be distributed in a nice curve.

These hackers however will show up as a spike at the high end, all clustered together very tightly. So tag them as known hackers. Then wait some time to:
– Identify the other accounts involved in RMT. Especially the buyers
– Make people think that these hacks are safe. Thus allowing ANET to tag more accounts for termination.
Then get Dhumm to deal with them.

Detecting them may be even simpler than that as tracking their movement throughout the world will show them moving at speeds impossible without hacks.

So I won’t be making any effort to report these bots. The bots that need reporting the most are the ones that aren’t using obvious hacks.

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Posted by: Edge.4180

Edge.4180

Ultimately it’s not the Player Community’s job to sit around reporting bots. I will if I can, but I’m definitely not going to camp resource nodes trying to catch some (although at some level it can be satisfying). I say this because personally I have a few hours a week to play and I try to be efficient (i.e. do stuff that’s fun).

I hope that ANet has hired some interns to do this very job. Then use the data from their reporting as “pure” data for bot detection algorithms.

Agreed.

And I have to wonder what those investigating the reports make of them in the case of these “teleporting” resource node hoppers. Are they just dismissed if they themselves don’t catch them in the act?

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Posted by: neon.4863

neon.4863

You don’t need to report bots if you don’t want to or don’t have the time. I don’t think anyone can blame you for that. You’re quite right in saying it’s not the community’s responsibility to sit around reporting bots.

That doesn’t mean someone else can’t go ahead and do just that, though. I just posted the info for anyone who does want to try it. If you don’t, that’s fine.

Node camping doesn’t always yield results either (for instance, right now 75% of the bots in my list are stuck in Southsun Cove). Personally, when I’m idling in-game for whatever reason (eg waiting for dragon events) I sit near a node and wait. If nothing comes up in 5 minutes or if the event starts, I leave.

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Posted by: Lysico.4906

Lysico.4906

There is one big hotspot I can report..

There is a lemon karma merchant in sylvaria starting area. Directly blow her and due west of the skill point (one with three worms that spawn) is a copper node against the base of a hill.

just stand there and watch them port in, mine and port out. Hard to get the names clicked fast enough, but I got a few.

I know Anet is working on it. The bots are less (the ones running around at least).

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Posted by: Edge.4180

Edge.4180

You don’t need to report bots if you don’t want to or don’t have the time. I don’t think anyone can blame you for that. You’re quite right in saying it’s not the community’s responsibility to sit around reporting bots.

That doesn’t mean someone else can’t go ahead and do just that, though. I just posted the info for anyone who does want to try it. If you don’t, that’s fine.

Point is, I frequently run across several of these hack users in any given play session. That’s without even trying.

Unfortunately, if you’re not sitting there trying to actively catch them, it can be difficult to tell if you’re observing a legitimate player or not until it’s too late. When I suddenly notice someone next to me at a resource node, my first inclination is that I just wasn’t paying attention, or the camera was pointed the wrong way at the wrong time, or whatever. It isn’t until I see them suddenly vanish that I realize a hack user probably just teleported by. And by then it’s too late to do anything about it.

Resource prices on the BLT have been sinking like a stone for the last few weeks as it becomes flooded with hundreds of thousands of excess units per entry. It’s ridiculous. This is clearly not something that can be thwarted effectively on our end.

I made a post complaining about this last week.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Report-tool-ineffective-vs-new-type-of-hacker/

I read the “War on Bots” article that was released today and that infamous image of the Iraqi Information Minister popped into my head. They’re kidding themselves if they think the drop in reports means less botting. All it means is less success at reporting bots as they change their tactics.

(edited by Edge.4180)

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Posted by: neon.4863

neon.4863

Caledon Forest? Interesting, none of the bots in my list have been there recently. I’m guessing there’s a variety of paths they cycle through to avoid detection.

The copper ore node I was camping was in that small centaur camp south of Beetletun where events constantly pop up with the Seraph trying to take it/destroying weapon racks/Tamini trying to retake it. There’s an ore node that sometimes spawns in one of the corridors leading outside the camp and every single bot on my list stopped there.

Another node I saw and remember was an ore node in the area with the spiders near the jumping puzzle in Gendarran Fields. The spiders killed the bot though, that was satisfying…

The rich ore vein was actually a tip I got from another player who was also camping bots, though he didn’t remember where it was. It was a rich iron ore vein, but that’s all he could tell me.

Edit to reply to the above: I don’t spot them as frequently, but I also don’t run around high level areas (highest level character is 50), so that may be why. But yeah, I understand that it’s very hard to tell them from a legitimate player if you’re not actually camping the node (which is why the suggestion is to camp the node if you’re able).

I bother to camp nodes both because I have the extra time (I work at home) and because I know they’ve been sinking the TP prices lately (and it’s ridiculous, as you’ve said).

To be fair, bots will always change their tactics and come back. It’s a game of cat and mice that never ends, not unlike companies who put anti-piracy protection in their products that gets cracked within hours of their release anyway.

When they figure out a way to stop these “teleporting” bots, botters will move on to another exploit. And then another, etc etc – still, it’s important for data like this to be provided so they can be alerted re: the existence of a new type of exploit. As members all we can really do is report them and hope ANet does their part. And then complain if we feel like ANet isn’t doing their part.

(edited by neon.4863)

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Posted by: greg.3792

greg.3792

Is this another mini-game you can do at level 80?

Glad yall have the time and energy.

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Posted by: neon.4863

neon.4863

I’m level 45-50! :p

Botters make me angry, so if I can spare the time to help catch a few, I will. Seems like I have most of the ones on Maguuma (the server) on my list though, haven’t caught anyone new recently. About 5 or so? of them are no longer online all the time, too, so I’m hoping they’ve been banned.

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Posted by: Reverielle.3972

Reverielle.3972

Thanks for the info, neon. Some interesting ideas and techniques here.

I try to report any bot (or anything else that’s in the game that’s bugged) when I can. After all, we’re helping ourselves by helping the game as a whole.

Botters (exploiters too) can end up ruining a game’s reputation and balance, so I think we’re all wise to help out when/if the situation arises.

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Posted by: IsilZha.3608

IsilZha.3608

Now I want to pull the champion karka on top of the rich ori node and have it stomp them all to death.

“To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

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Posted by: Horheristo.3607

Horheristo.3607

I demand to know the age of this thread’s OP.
It cannot be that a sensible mature person with responsibilities in life, will resort to spend his free time in reporting instead of actually playing his game of choice.

I don’t even…

P.S
I’m parking a few of my characters on top of that rich ori for quick cash every day since I barely bother to play lately, you little kitteners better watch who you’re reporting.

(edited by Horheristo.3607)

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Posted by: AkiSakura.1657

AkiSakura.1657

If only the champ karma would stomp first and lay eggs later…

~Yaks Bend~ [OTG][Love]

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Posted by: notebene.3190

notebene.3190

I demand to know the age of this thread’s OP.
It cannot be that a sensible mature person with responsibilities in life, will resort to spend his free time in reporting instead of actually playing his game of choice.

I don’t even…

P.S
I’m parking a few of my characters on top of that rich ori for quick cash every day since I barely bother to play lately, you little kitteners better watch who you’re reporting.

Well, I’m not the OP, but I’m also not 8.

First, regarding your PS, I doubt anyone would. Having seen how this works, you logging a character in, mining, and logging out would look ‘very’ different. You wouldn’t have the speed. There would be a significant amount of time between the time you logged in and started mining.

Furthermore, if they ‘friend’ or ‘block’ you temporarily, it’s easy to then track where you are. Did you really just log out? And bring in another character on a node somewhere and logout 45 seconds later? That’s not what is happening.

These fine, upstanding citizens with 2.4 children, 2 cars (1 a mini van) with responsibilities and day jobs are using a third party hacking program to teleport around the world from node to node, mine, flash out. No, they aren’t millionaires that are using the waypoints. If you ever tracked one, you’d know.

Google on teleport hacking for GW2, you’ll find some. I’m not going to post them here. There’s a great, production quality one that cracks me up. It is actually a hacking tool that does all sorts of things, scaling walls, flying, besides the teleporting. They have a little UI with a list box with saved locations, and they click to go there, and they are there. I’m sure they have a little web site somewhere where they all help each other log the locations of all the nodes after resets so they can share and download on a given server.

Second, I’m a bit curious as to the tone of the first part? Do you believe that someone who uses a program like this is well within their rights to do so?

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Posted by: NinjaKnight.1340

NinjaKnight.1340

You should be careful that you aren’t encouraging the misreporting of legit players who have developed a farming route. You should verify for sure they are bots before reporting. This idea encourages flippant reporting simply because someone teleports in to mine.

I find it very disconcerting that you are encouraging people to make a decision within a couple of seconds on who to report.

I would be very much more angry at being banned or have my DR pushed to max than having a few botters around.

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Posted by: Horheristo.3607

Horheristo.3607

@ notebene.3190

You can conclude whatever you want on me.
This whole reporting business is starting to grow out of proportion, I use tons of alts and many of them are parked at one node or another on either of the 4 maps.
It is not cool at all if someone sees me popping on top of a node and immediately thinks “hacker” while NATURALLY I’ll use a waypoint right away to start my next farming cycle.

Don’t you dare sell me that bs about people being able to tell the difference between logout and teleport because they won’t and they don’t.
Every little kittener here wants to be a sheriff, and there will be very little I can do against it besides telling you to find other creative ways to report hackers.

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Posted by: NinjaKnight.1340

NinjaKnight.1340

Catching botting is Anet’s responsibility. Frankly, it should be easy for them to find the majority just by checking the logs. The pro botters will have heavy active usage and won’t follow a pattern which is typical of a normal player.

Any halfway decent database analyst would be able to shortlist the top 80% of the most likely botting accounts. There really shouldn’t be a need for players to do Anets work and in the process report legit players.

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Posted by: Horheristo.3607

Horheristo.3607

Catching botting is Anet’s responsibility. Frankly, it should be easy for them to find the majority just by checking the logs. The pro botters will have heavy active usage and won’t follow a pattern which is typical of a normal player.

Any halfway decent database analyst would be able to shortlist the top 80% of the most likely botting accounts. There really shouldn’t be a need for players to do Anets work and in the process report legit players.

Exactly.

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Posted by: Xomic.5792

Xomic.5792

We need a bot program to catch bots for us.