Guild Wars 2

There is a ton of afk players at some spots. They do nothing besides spamming healing skill in time intervals. This is against being kicked of course. Those classes are usually ranger and necromancer.

My question is :
Is it legal in eyes of ArenaNet, because for me it is clearly botting and making profit based on activity that doesn’t require your time and just an autoclicker.

The second one:
Will you ban those players or punish them in any way if someone reports them?

Players have been banned for that before.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/Suspended-for-AFK-farming/6159544

Anet tend to issue bans on batches, so there will be a time lag between reporting the afk farmers and thier eventual ban or suspension.

If you suspect someone of AFK farming, report them and let ANet decide how to handle it. They almost never respond directly to questions like this and when they do, they are intentionally vague because the circumstances are always considered before suspending or banning a player’s account.

To report, you have two choices:

• Click on the player, right-click their nameplate, and choose /report. For the reason, choose “botting” (which covers AFK farming as well as botting).
• File a support ticket. That takes more time, of course, with the advantage of being able to include screenshots and an explanation.

This is stupid. Why would you ban/temp ban people for doing that? They legitimately use the game mechanics.

Now I see how some people could have problem with that, someone profits doing nothing while others do the work (sounds familiar btw?), but still I see no point in banning people for that.

You allow to do something and then you ban for it, this are some national socialist techniques of handling the issues. If this is not allowed change the game and create a design where this is not possible. I fail to see why you should be punished for something that is allowed by the game design. Of course anet is the one to decide whether doing something within the game is baneable or not, this is not healthy for the game.

I know it isn’t totally right to ban out of no warning, but srsly.
I wanted to report some of them and did so but everyday there are like 6 players hiding under trees or somewhere.

It is allowed in technical way, but making money on afk actions like this tends to make some items cheaper. With magic you trade for items and then sell them you push the supplies higher. The price might drop, but this isn’t a good thing either. You get more items for the gold, or as many items , and you spend less(gold) so you end up richer. When people have gold and there are supplies of the items there appears a h(0le) in economy. Prices go down, people have gold and then there is no content.

That was my tought, I don’t know what like it might end up it just isn’t fair imo.
With new living story there might appear new farms, but why to break the existing one for people who do it normal and in peace?

vove.2768:

You allow to do something and then you ban for it, this are some national socialist techniques of handling the issues. If this is not allowed change the game and create a design where this is not possible. I fail to see why you should be punished for something that is allowed by the game design. Of course anet is the one to decide whether doing something within the game is baneable or not, this is not healthy for the game.

Botting is the equivalent to going to work in real life, turning your computer/machine on, and then leaving again without actually having worked anything at all and still being paid for it. It is completely unfair to the people who show up at work to actually work. Does this sound even remotely fair to you?

Also, ‘because the game mechanics allow it’ isn’t a good excuse. The game mechanics also allow me to grief and harrass other players just by using the chat function; doesn’t mean that I should – or if I do, that I shouldn’t be punished for it.

vove.2768:

This is stupid. Why would you ban/temp ban people for doing that? They legitimately use the game mechanics.

What is legitimate about having a clicker 3rd party program heal you periodically? IIRC, that’s what they are doing here.

I would believe that even if they use the game mechanics legitimately, they are using them in an unintended fashion.

I don’t agree with AKF farming, but I thought ANet said that they were ok with it at some point as long as you weren’t using a macro?

OriOri.8724:

I don’t agree with AKF farming, but I thought ANet said that they were ok with it at some point as long as you weren’t using a macro?

There is a post by Chris Cleary, the Game Security Lead:

Chris Cleary.8017:

I’ll pitch in on this thread, as there seems to be some confusion about this situation.

The auto-cast feature was never intended to be used as an AFK farming mechanism, and usage of the auto-cast feature while AFK is fine as long as it is not used to facilitate unattended gameplay.

Mastery auto-loot also stopping players from being flagged afk seems like a bug instead of a feature, and I’ll be sure to bring it up today while we have a chat about this internally.

1) Using skill (1 or more) while AFK
2) AFKing in a place where it is beneficial for your character to be at
3) Unresponsive to interaction with GMs

If all 3 of these apply to what you are doing, you may get actioned for it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Please-a-clear-statement-re-AFK-farming/page/6#post6161450

If all they are doing is sending out healing skills I am fine with them. Let them draw argo from the mobs guarding the berry bushes and send some healing to me at the same time.

vove.2768:

This is stupid. Why would you ban/temp ban people for doing that? They legitimately use the game mechanics.

ANet’s servers; ANet’s rules. Let the OP report and ANet might or might not suspend anyone involved.

We don’t know if they are legit using game mechanics or taking advantage of loophole or even botting. We just have the OP’s description of what seems suspicious; we have no idea if there’s anything to be concerned about.

ANet never bans or suspends anyone just because there’s a report; they always investigate. Accordingly, it’s largely better to let folks who are concerned file reports and let ANet take it from there.

Surely, their inventory fills up after a short time, no? It’s not like they can AFK Winterberry farm.

I don’t know. It would not seem worth risking my account for; but, that’s just me.

ANet’s basic stance on AFK farming is this: To be eligible for in-game rewards, they expect you to be present at the computer actively playing the game. If what you are doing is still giving you rewards, even though you are providing no input whatsoever, then it is not permitted and you can face punishment for it.

My main beef with afk farmers is that they tend to scale up the events, making it harder for genuine players trying to complete the event while getting little to no help from the afk players.

If it bothers you just report it and move on. It’s not something I stress about.
If it was significant affecting the game the devs would deal with it. GW2 seems to have much fewer gold sellers and botters than other similar games.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Surely, their inventory fills up after a short time, no? It’s not like they can AFK Winterberry farm.

I don’t know. It would not seem worth risking my account for; but, that’s just me.

Not a short time, I’d guess, running around actively playing it takes quite a while to fill my inventory from empty, if you were just sitting in one spot killing mobs as they respawn it’d take a lot longer.

I think that the reason they’re doing it specifically in Bitterfrost is for the constant drip feed of unbound magic that they can cash in for rares after a hard days AFKing. I suspect that a lot of the people doing this AFK farming are people working from home who occasionally just move their mouses while their necro minions do the work.

I am curious about the kind of returns they can expect though. I considered moving a character to one of those spots and just playing there for an hour, killing whatever an AFK farmer would kill and seeing what kind of loot you get for it, for science (note: I would be actually be playing and not AFKing) but, to be honest, the idea alone bored the hell out of me.

Zaxares.5419:

ANet’s basic stance on AFK farming is this: To be eligible for in-game rewards, they expect you to be present at the computer actively playing the game. If what you are doing is still giving you rewards, even though you are providing no input whatsoever, then it is not permitted and you can face punishment for it.

My main beef with afk farmers is that they tend to scale up the events, making it harder for genuine players trying to complete the event while getting little to no help from the afk players.

You can always lead the mobs over them, then switch through the character select screen to drop aggro. Their pets should have triggered aggression. Repeat until they die, and gain nothing from their time…

The best thing you can do for this is capture video evidence. Arena Net cannot action a simple “you were seen botting” without proof! It’s the same for exploits/hacking. A simple screenshot doesn’t show what the player is doing imo.

I capture at least 60seconds of the player in question. This is enough for me to target them (showing their player name) as well as right-click and report for botting on the video (showing their account name). I also have my chat window up with time stamps, and the minimap showing server time. It’s enough to show this person standing there using a single skill at the same time, and letting their pets/minions kill mobs.

Once I have a few videos uploaded, I compile a support ticket and report them all at once.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

If you suspect someone of AFK farming, report them and let ANet decide how to handle it. They almost never respond directly to questions like this and when they do, they are intentionally vague because the circumstances are always considered before suspending or banning a player’s account.

To report, you have two choices:

• Click on the player, right-click their nameplate, and choose /report. For the reason, choose “botting” (which covers AFK farming as well as botting).
• File a support ticket. That takes more time, of course, with the advantage of being able to include screenshots and an explanation.

^^ This ^^

It is ANET’s call on how to deal with them.

may i add that the design was that of a human ? it will surely have flaws that other ppl will take advantage of hence the botters and the exploiters they cant make the game imune to third party programs or make everything perfect so theres no chance of exploitation.(i think thats the case at least hue) .

Just my 2Cents, but “AFK” farming is okay as long as you’re not truly AFK/botting. Allow me to explain.

According to Chris Cleary:

1) Using skill (1 or more) while AFK
2) AFKing in a place where it is beneficial for your character to be at
3) Unresponsive to interaction with GMs

If all 3 of these categories apply, then ANET will take action.

If you’re just alt-tabbed, working on other stuff in the meantime, kittenposting in mapchat, checking up on GW2 every 5 minutes, then you likely won’t be banned.

Bans should only apply to true-AFK players, and not people who are low-maintenance.

I don’t see why this should be allowed at all! This is exactly the methods that gold farmers would use. Sure it’s not as effective as participating in events etc, but who cares when you have 100 accounts dotted around everywhere running 24/7 free-looting all the time.

If someone is using this ‘dirty’ method to gather mats, I think action should be taken. It’d be nice to give them a warning or two before simply banning them of course, but if they don’t respond or ignore the warnings, then tough luck!

it’s not only in Bitterfrost …it’s everywhere in the game when there is a spot with concentrated ennemies.

This circus needs to stop .. It is a plague

I hope A.net will kill this spot , ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Mount Maelstrom :

I step away from my computer every now and then, and before I do so, I hide in a safe place. You won’t see me doing anything, because I’m not a bot, but I suspect you don’t see the bots you are talking about doing stuff at all times. All I ask is you be very sure you are reporting, and not temporarily afk players.

That said, I really don’t mind them. They don’t affect my game. I haven’t spent a TON of time farming there, but unless they are getting expensive mats, or altering the market in some way, I don’t mind the free boons and heals. Other than the crying about coins being at 1g a piece, I haven’t seen anything about odd market fluctuations or inflations.

Edit for auto correct.

You can only get the berries once a day. I know some people who gather the berries and then after they are done they try to help other by killing the mobs and healing.
You’re thinking too hard about this. Not an issue.

Klowdy.3126:

All I ask is you be very sure you are reporting, and not temporarily afk players.

Why should I be careful? I do not get paid to investigate, let alone to run a turing test on whether someone is a bot or not. That’s ANet’s job. If I suspect a bot, I’ll report it and let them sort it out.

ANet is simply not going to suspend someone like yourself for going AFK to take care a call of nature, a call of baby, or even a call of the wild. They don’t care about 10-40 minutes here or there; they care about people that do it for hours on end, for days and weeks and months.

So please don’t ask the rest of us to try to guess at the motivations or concerns of owners of seemingly-unattended characters. You won’t be “infracted” because someone reported you.

While not nearly as easy as it sounds im sure. if only it were able to be fixed by requiring the player themselves to tag a mob in order to get loot credit rather than pets/minions.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Klowdy.3126:

All I ask is you be very sure you are reporting, and not temporarily afk players.

Why should I be careful? I do not get paid to investigate, let alone to run a turing test on whether someone is a bot or not. That’s ANet’s job. If I suspect a bot, I’ll report it and let them sort it out.

ANet is simply not going to suspend someone like yourself for going AFK to take care a call of nature, a call of baby, or even a call of the wild. They don’t care about 10-40 minutes here or there; they care about people that do it for hours on end, for days and weeks and months.

So please don’t ask the rest of us to try to guess at the motivations or concerns of owners of seemingly-unattended characters. You won’t be “infracted” because someone reported you.

Very self-serving I see. What you should have gotten from that is don’t go report crazy. It doesn’t seem to difficult to notice the first time you see someone afk and the 100th time. Reporting on players that aren’t bots takes resources away from investigating actual bots, making the process take longer to actually ban people. If anet doesn’t have a report for, say, an entire week, they may push forward the act of banning people. There is no need to be defensive about a simple request. In the long run, it makes the banning process take more time to actually happen.

Farming Flats.5370:

it’s not only in Bitterfrost …it’s everywhere in the game when there is a spot with concentrated ennemies.

This circus needs to stop .. It is a plague

I hope A.net will kill this spot , ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Mount Maelstrom :

Really a plague? There are maybe 3-4 spots in the whole game where people do this … a plague it’s not.

I don’t get it .. what are these people farming with auto heals? The mobs odn’t drop much to begin with. Why is this a problem if they want to waste their time farming crap drops from hard mobs?

I am not suggesting that players report everyone they see who hasn’t moved; I’m suggesting that it’s sufficient to observe long enough to be suspicious. It’s just not realistic to expect that the average person can tell the difference between “temporarily AFK for ages” and “deliberate AFK farmers.”

Klowdy.3126:

All I ask is you be very sure you are reporting, and not temporarily afk players.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Why should I be careful? I do not get paid to investigate, let alone to run a turing test on whether someone is a bot or not. That’s ANet’s job. If I suspect a bot, I’ll report it and let them sort it out.

ANet is simply not going to suspend someone like yourself for going AFK to take care a call of nature, a call of baby, or even a call of the wild. They don’t care about 10-40 minutes here or there; they care about people that do it for hours on end, for days and weeks and months.

So please don’t ask the rest of us to try to guess at the motivations or concerns of owners of seemingly-unattended characters. You won’t be “infracted” because someone reported you.

Klowdy.3126:

Very self-serving I see.

And your suggestion isn’t self-serving? You’ve asked someone else to take responsibility for determining that you’re not AFK-farming when all you need to do to prevent that is press [F12] and leave your game in the character select screen.

Klowdy.3126:

What you should have gotten from that is don’t go report crazy. It doesn’t seem to difficult to notice the first time you see someone afk and the 100th time.

I’m not sure why you think it’s “going report crazy” — to suspect someone of AFK farming or botting requires some amount of observation. At the point it seems suspicious, I’m recommending that people leave it up to ANet.

Klowdy.3126:

Reporting on players that aren’t bots takes resources away from investigating actual bots, making the process take longer to actually ban people.

And how am I to know who is and who isn’t a bot?

Klowdy.3126:

There is no need to be defensive about a simple request.

Disagreeing with your recommendation isn’t being defensive. It does sound defensive when it’s not enough to let an argument stand on its merits, and instead claim that one’s interlocutor is “defensive”

Regardless, the request only sounds simple: the fact that someone has become suspicious about the behavior of another character suggests that they’ve already spent time observing. Your suggestion is that the player should continue to observe until they can “prove” something. Since ANet doesn’t accept player “proof” and must investigate regardless, I’m suggesting that players leave it to ANet to sort out.

I’ve been noticing this as well, but in my case, they usually sit atop Koda Braziers, safely auto-spamming short-CD AoEs like necro GS 4 with pets out to tag everything during defense events. I don’t see how this could be considered different from botting, and I count on Anet’s appropriate and prompt action as always.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I am not suggesting that players report everyone they see who hasn’t moved; I’m suggesting that it’s sufficient to observe long enough to be suspicious. It’s just not realistic to expect that the average person can tell the difference between “temporarily AFK for ages” and “deliberate AFK farmers.”

Klowdy.3126:

All I ask is you be very sure you are reporting, and not temporarily afk players.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Why should I be careful? I do not get paid to investigate, let alone to run a turing test on whether someone is a bot or not. That’s ANet’s job. If I suspect a bot, I’ll report it and let them sort it out.

ANet is simply not going to suspend someone like yourself for going AFK to take care a call of nature, a call of baby, or even a call of the wild. They don’t care about 10-40 minutes here or there; they care about people that do it for hours on end, for days and weeks and months.

So please don’t ask the rest of us to try to guess at the motivations or concerns of owners of seemingly-unattended characters. You won’t be “infracted” because someone reported you.

Klowdy.3126:

Very self-serving I see.

And your suggestion isn’t self-serving? You’ve asked someone else to take responsibility for determining that you’re not AFK-farming when all you need to do to prevent that is press [F12] and leave your game in the character select screen.

Klowdy.3126:

What you should have gotten from that is don’t go report crazy. It doesn’t seem to difficult to notice the first time you see someone afk and the 100th time.

I’m not sure why you think it’s “going report crazy” — to suspect someone of AFK farming or botting requires some amount of observation. At the point it seems suspicious, I’m recommending that people leave it up to ANet.

Klowdy.3126:

Reporting on players that aren’t bots takes resources away from investigating actual bots, making the process take longer to actually ban people.

And how am I to know who is and who isn’t a bot?

Klowdy.3126:

There is no need to be defensive about a simple request.

Disagreeing with your recommendation isn’t being defensive. It does sound defensive when it’s not enough to let an argument stand on its merits, and instead claim that one’s interlocutor is “defensive”

Regardless, the request only sounds simple: the fact that someone has become suspicious about the behavior of another character suggests that they’ve already spent time observing. Your suggestion is that the player should continue to observe until they can “prove” something. Since ANet doesn’t accept player “proof” and must investigate regardless, I’m suggesting that players leave it to ANet to sort out.

I’m trying to help out people that need to walk away from time to time, and you by not clogging the report files. I never said you were going report crazy, just to help yourself, and everyone else out by not reporting on every afk player you see. The defensive part was about the overall tone of your posts. It’s a game, you shouldn’t take it this seriously, haha.

So you should always go to char select because some random guy on forums said so or he will report you. Not happening.

Obtena.7952:

I don’t get it .. what are these people farming with auto heals? The mobs odn’t drop much to begin with. Why is this a problem if they want to waste their time farming crap drops from hard mobs?

1.) They needlessly scale up events.

2.) They could be helping to fight instead of being AFK.

3.) It puts a notion in people’s minds that if they can get loot without participating, so can others. That leads to more people searching out more places to AFK farm. It breeds laziness in an already easy to play game.

4.) It’s just bad form and offensive to people who put effort into playing and see’ing dead weight or baggage there and getting loot without effort.

None of that answers my question … What is the benefit for these people to farm in BFF in that spot with Autoheals? Most of them aren’t even going to get loot rights to anything that is killed in the vicinity.

Because they usually do it with pets or minions out, who kill the things then you with your auto loot mastery reap the rewards, and if an event happens then you benefit from the rewards.

They should set it so I you are afk for a length of time you get kicked off the game and have to relog

I know how it works. I also know that if there are dozens of people around with pets, most are unlikely to get loot rights because they won’t get aggro for pets to attack anything … so there isn’t really a big benefit from anything with that many pet classes around AFK farming.

The way I understand ToS and RoC, if you report an afk farmer for botting, you’re putting your account in risk of suspension or termination, not theirs. If you falsely report someone just because you don’t like what they’re doing (even though it is perfectly okay as far as ToS are concerned), you’re abusing the report feature, which is prohibited by ToS and you may be punished for it.

If you’re genuinely suspecting someone from “botting”, which is clearly defined as using 3rd party program to automate gameplay, go ahead and report them, that’s perfectly fine. But if they’re automating gameplay via legit ingame means (such as using your minions and the autoloot feature), they’re not violating any rule.

I’m not saying whether afk farming is healthy for the game and it’s economy, that’s an entirely different discussion. If you want to go ahead and convince Anet to ban such behavior from the game, that’s okay. All I’m saying is that currently, the way ToS are worded, it is perfectly okay to afk farm, and you are putting your account at risk if you falsely report people for botting, even though they are not.

Tarasicodissa.7084:

The way I understand ToS and RoC, if you report an afk farmer for botting, you’re putting your account in risk of suspension or termination, not theirs.

What they’re referring to are instances of people submitting false reports for the sake of trying to get someone banned for personal reasons. For example, if I make up a vague, sketchy report in hopes of getting someone banned out of revenge, then yeah, my account would be at risk. The main problem with all of this is that Anet is really big on not wanting to be held accountable for mistakes, being way to vague when it comes to what’s legit and what isn’t and being liberal when it comes to putting the hammer down.

Let’s face it. Someone that rolls into SW (or any zone for that matter) puts out a minion that can res them, then go afk with an auto attack on is not even a matter of “is this legit?” It’s obvious they don’t want to play the game, put in the effort, but still get loot. It’s kittenty, plain and simple. It’s taking advantage of the lack of foresight on the developer’s part and riding the line. That is the very epitome of what botting is about.

It’s just that there’s no bots, it’s relying on technicalities and legal loopholes. Now this very same behavior; taking advantage of lack of foresight on developers part will get you banned, such as finding a wall in WvW that’s just a texture, with no substance beneath it, then firing through it to kill people while they can’t see you. Continued use of that will get you banned.

So what’s the difference? Nothing. How can it be stopped? Pulling Anet off the fence and nail them to eff’ing cross on rules and enforcing them. And you can only do that by stirring up enough toxicity that they have to.

Obtena.7952:

None of that answers my question … What is the benefit for these people to farm in BFF in that spot with Autoheals? Most of them aren’t even going to get loot rights to anything that is killed in the vicinity.

I don’t know about other spots in the game, but farming mobs in Bitterfrost gives Unbound Magic, which can then be used to buy Magic-Warped Packet. Bitterfrost is so packed with mobs that unless you’re parked in a very safe spot, you’re bound to get attacked pretty much anywhere.

Well, unless you saw the picture that was posted, you would understand why I’m challenging this as a method to get stuff ingame. Even if you are alone in a spot where mobs attack you, you’re not really getting much magic farming these mobs. Still, not really the point I guess. I don’t support it but I can tell you that anyone that thinks they get ahead in the game farming BFF mobs in this manner is fooling themselves.

Obtena.7952:

vove.2768:

This is stupid. Why would you ban/temp ban people for doing that? They legitimately use the game mechanics.

What is legitimate about having a clicker 3rd party program heal you periodically? IIRC, that’s what they are doing here.

I would believe that even if they use the game mechanics legitimately, they are using them in an unintended fashion.

No 3rd party program required to set your heal skill to be automatically used constantly, it’s been in the game since the beginning.

Ezrael.6859:

No 3rd party program required to set your heal skill to be automatically used constantly, it’s been in the game since the beginning.

I can’t believe that Anet would put this in; the use of auto-attacking on any ability, and not expect it or even fathom it to be used to AFK farm. The other notion is that they did, and actually don’t care if people AFK farm, which kinda goes against the whole purpose of playing an MMO…

Shivan.9438:

Ezrael.6859:

No 3rd party program required to set your heal skill to be automatically used constantly, it’s been in the game since the beginning.

I can’t believe that Anet would put this in; the use of auto-attacking on any ability, and not expect it or even fathom it to be used to AFK farm. The other notion is that they did, and actually don’t care if people AFK farm, which kinda goes against the whole purpose of playing an MMO…

I guess you haven’t played Black Desert yet. That game was pretty popular (when I was playing) and it is an afk fest. You can level everything but your combat without playing the game. Make a loop for horse training, or running with a backpack on to level your endurance. Afk fishing for days. If that game is any kind of indication of future gaming, I’m out.

Shivan.9438:

Tarasicodissa.7084:

The way I understand ToS and RoC, if you report an afk farmer for botting, you’re putting your account in risk of suspension or termination, not theirs.

What they’re referring to are instances of people submitting false reports for the sake of trying to get someone banned for personal reasons. For example, if I make up a vague, sketchy report in hopes of getting someone banned out of revenge, then yeah, my account would be at risk. The main problem with all of this is that Anet is really big on not wanting to be held accountable for mistakes, being way to vague when it comes to what’s legit and what isn’t and being liberal when it comes to putting the hammer down.

They are vague because the more clear your rules are, the more people abuse that by pointing out that their abuse was not technically a violation. Which is why, you will find, every single MMO has a clause that is basically “…and if we say you suck for doing it, it’s an bannable offense, no matter anything else.”

The truth is, though, as you say: good faith reports are not going to be a problem for the person doing the reporting. It’s only when they are not in good faith and/or in such a volume that they seem abusive, that it’s gonna be an issue.

Which, in my own experience where running around actively gathering stuff can lead to whispers of “kitten you you kitten kitten kitten afk farmer!!!1!” from people, could actually happen to some of the “everyone bots and afk farms except me” folks.

PS: Yes, I don’t know why it was AFK farmer instead of bot, but hey, I guess they don’t pay them enough to correct the whisper they sent to the last person when they move on to abusing the next target.

The did kindly inform me that being unhappy about what they called me was stupid, and I should be /grateful/ they are doing the service of insulting people via whispers in order to drive away robots though.

Solution:

If you go afk your pets/minions go afk too!

They should just use the afk kick mechanics from WvW/PvP but instead of kicking the player it just makes the minions go inactive
(~after 60 seconds of no player actions and autocast skills dont count)

Doesnt impact active players in any way and doesnt nerf any class but stops this cheesy afk farming method

I know some of these people don’t use macros or 3rd party tools, but the principal is the same! You’re using mechanics to allow you to go afk and continue to play in your absense, it’s NO different than if you were using macro tools or botting.

Here is the official post on this forum regarding the policy on Macros: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/Policy-3rd-Party-Programs-Multi-Boxing-Macros/first#post354869

You will read there…

The best way for a player to kitten whether a specific third-party program could have any impact on another player or a PvP opponent is to ask:

“Does this program allow someone to play faster, better, longer, or more accurately than someone who doesn’t use it?”
“Does this program allow someone to ‘play’ when he/she is not at the computer?”
“Does this program allow the user to gain undeserved rewards?”

If the answer to any of these questions is “yes”—or even “maybe”—then we strongly recommend that you do not use the program because to do so may place your Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2 account in jeopardy.

Saw this in ember bay, 3 characters were standing afk on a platform spamming healing while small mobs died really quickly.

thought it looked strange.

If y’all are serious about this, use the in-game report option to report them for botting every time you see it. That is what gives ANet the information needed to take action on any sort of “not at computer” bad faith play.

You can also be certain that they have metrics and discussions about what people report, and how frequently, and that sort of thing, which are likely given more weight than forum posts — in part because they are a quantitative measure of how widespread the problem is, as far as players are concerned, while forum posts are mostly a dozen people or less.

Finally, don’t expect to see instant action. Usually there will be some delay in the report => review => act cycle, and sometimes companies hold off action to do a big wave of follow-up along with making it impossible to repeat the action.

Don’t like AFK farming? Don’t do it.