Guild Wars 2

As we all know, botters will always be a part of MMO’s. A common goal of mine has always been to report as many as possible. I always inform other players of bots on the Map Chat, so they too can report these a&%*$. Yesterday someone said they didn’t even realize they were bots. This leads me to the title of this thread, How to Spot a Bot.

1. Botters “usually” aren’t in a guild.
2. They usually have nonsense names like jjjklr or tsktdn.
3. Even if no mobs are currently spawned, botters will continue to auto-attack.
4. They very rarely farm alone.
5. They are sometimes naked. (no armor equipped)
6. Most, if not all are Rangers
7. Most, if not all use brown bears as pets.
8. (Addition) Bots will do a short range teleport (20-30 feet) searching for newly spawned mobs. You’ll notice they teleport to the same locations over and over again…following the same path.

That’s pretty much all I can think of off the top of my head. I encourage everyone to report bots when you see them. Anyway, if this helps just 1 person and they report botters, my mission has been accomplished.

Edit: I wanted to point out that a seeing a player matching 1 attribute I listed doesn’t make them a bot. In my experience, a bot will meet most, if not all items listed. That means if you see a group of players matching multiple attributes I listed, they are most likely bots. Also, Noppy is not a bot, so don’t report him/her.

Edit 2: I also wanted to note that I’ll usually send a PM to a player and ask if they are a bot. If I don’t receive a reply in a minute or 2, I report them.

Hey Major,

i do agree with your point on reporting Bot’s as much as possible. But i would say 1 thing about your list. The “Botter usually aren’t in a guild” is a dangerous thing to say.
I for one have been playing a long time in WoW without having a guild. The same for GW2, i just recently joined up and not even sure if i should have done that. So there are some people there that just don’t feel the urge to join a guild, but they are no Bot’s.
And just as a side note, i’m a Ranger with a brown bear pet and i’m also NO bot

PS, once more, i totally agree with the idea to find out who’s a bot and report that to ArenaNet asap

Thanks Noppy. I guess I could have elaborated a bit more on the items on the list. In my GW2 experience, bots meet at least 4 of the 7 criteria I listed. I certainly don’t target Rangers with bears which aren’t in guilds. I target groups of Rangers, with bear pets, who aren’t in guilds, have odd names with no vowels, and are auto casting at nothing until there is a mob spawn…oh, and stand in the same place for an extended period of time without moving:)

they’re usually chain farming the same event over and over

You might want to add that bots love to teleport around the area they are farming, instead of running. I’ve noticed several bots that instantly jump from spawn point to spawn point along their farming path.

I’ve never seen bots teleport. I’ve watched some groups for 30-60 minutes while doing my thing and they just stand there, never moving. I’m not saying they don’t teleport, just saying I’ve never seen it.

I’ve never seen bots teleport. I’ve watched some groups for 30-60 minutes while doing my thing and they just stand there, never moving. I’m not saying they don’t teleport, just saying I’ve never seen it.

I see it all the time, usually daily.

Go to the creek next to shaemoor village where the braken skale are. On my server there is always at least one bot, usually more than one, teleporting up and down the river. I also see them in Curse Shore regularly killing trash outside of many of the outposts. I see them in gendarren and other areas with open spaces full of neutral mobs where events/aggro mobs don’t roam.

I really don’t see how you can play the game and NOT see them but I’m a programmer and life long gamer and I notice stuff that isn’t right very quickly.

Not all bots are rangers, not even close. The only profession I rarely see botting is elementalists since they die if the wind blows, require too much survival movement and precise placement to do any measurable damage. Still, I’ve seen ele bots in gendarran on the orchard bats, naked, due to dying a lot, but still there killing bats with horrific spell selection and inefficiency.

For ex, I’ve never seen an ele bot in cursed shore, it would be nearly impossible due to how easily they die and how sloppy bots are with dpsing.

Sadly I’ve seen plenty of guilded toons that looked like they were botting, even from big guilds on my server. There are outposts in cursed where mobs trickle in and guards fight them, and many of those spots have a small bot army parked at them now, with what appears to be a mix of 3rd party and player bots.

It’s bad enough that botting is so easy and common but in some cases, the game design even helps (like the previous ex). It adds to the feel of orr to have risen constantly throw themself at guards and towns, but due to the tapping nature of GW2 (anybody who hits a mob gets xp and/or loot even if guards do most of the work) but it’s way too exploitable.

How can someone bot? is difficult enough for me to get mats or gold. Lol, what do they get or can get? Plus, thanks for this, maybe is them, the reason the economy in this game “for me” is not good. Thats one reason i left WOW, too many bots.

Elowin.9078:

Okay…I’m a ‘noobie’ and would like to know what these bots are doing? Why are they a bother to you in GW2? If they are farming that doesn’t affect your farming does it? And, how does one ‘report’ them?

Do you see them in PvE and PvP? I’m only playing PvE so far—don’t intend to even try PvP—PC is to slow.

If there are 100 bots in an event constantly attacking everything that moves, how many creatures will you be able to actually hit?

1. Having bots in a zone over populates it, meaning you will have problem rendering mobs until they are very close to you.
2. Having 100 bots in an event will make it almost impossible for you to get your full reward. It makes it harder for you to see the mobs and ‘tag’ them before the bots kill them
3. Bots farm 24/7 making them Rich. Having a high population of rich players makes the economy raise their prices. If a group has many people with a lot of money.. Items will sell at a higher price. Bots are rich, you are poor.. who do you think will afford the good stuff.

I remember seeing a few of the items needed for relics at half the price hey are now. If enough people have 100g to spare, good items will sell at 100g.

To report them, just click on them and right click-report. Make sure its a bot and not just a player that is afk for 3 mins :P

they also blink to 1 spot to a orther fast and there range with bow is very big

Bots= Called bots because they are not controlled by a player. A player used a program to leave the character unatended farming gold/karma for him. This goes against the rules of the game since the player is not actually playing the game and impacting negatively the experience of other players.

They should not have any (or very little ) impact on map completion and personal story completion since they usually appear in events with a lot of mobs.

Red/orange areas are delimiters for an event. it means an even is happening inside it. you get rewards according to your participation. Bots could have a negative impact on it but not necessarily the reason why you got little reward. Blue circles are areas players must step in and defend. Usually blue circles are areas that will be invaded and all players must defend. Feel free to join in all of them, they are for the full community.

As well as creating practical issues as described above—which, honestly, I’m not too worried about—bots do esthetic damage. I remember playing Aion when it was botted up, and there’s something . . . unpleasant, depressing, about encountering these weird nonsense-named twitching macro puppets. It’s like being at a party with a bunch of people who are there to have a good time and a couple of zombies. Bots are skeevy. They’re also a concrete, in-gameplay reminder that this fun thing we’re doing with each other has an unintended seedy aspect.

—and sure, that’s all pretty namby-pamby, and it’s certainly just a matter of esthetics, but this is a game: an impractical esthetic experience.

Gynxz.4079:

Bots= Called bots because they are not controlled by a player. A player used a program to leave the character unatended farming gold/karma for him. This goes against the rules of the game since the player is not actually playing the game and impacting negatively the experience of other players.

Bot or Botting can also apply to people who go AFK in an event spawn area, leaving their auto attack on. The core concept is that the character is not under direct player control- there’s no flesh and blood at the keyboard.

Elowin.9078:

So why doesn’t ArenaNet have any control or see these things. Again…aren’t they tied to an account…to an email? Does hacking figure into it too?

Yep. Just like the gold spammers. Some accounts are hacked and used for purposes like that until they’re banned or recovered.

MajorRocker

I’ve never seen bots teleport. I’ve watched some groups for 30-60 minutes while doing my thing and they just stand there, never moving. I’m not saying they don’t teleport, just saying I’ve never seen it.

If you are gonna put together a ‘how to spot’ a botter PSA you might want to be more receptive to other peoples observations. I’ve seen it a bunch of times too, a player or players will teleport short distances of about 25-50 feet. That is probably worthy of being added to the original post.

Eleri Tezhme.3048:

Gynxz.4079:

Bots= Called bots because they are not controlled by a player. A player used a program to leave the character unatended farming gold/karma for him. This goes against the rules of the game since the player is not actually playing the game and impacting negatively the experience of other players.

Bot or Botting can also apply to people who go AFK in an event spawn area, leaving their auto attack on. The core concept is that the character is not under direct player control- there’s no flesh and blood at the keyboard.

People need to be careful about applying their own definitions, or using their own logic to come up with their own definition of a bot or botter. I’m hoping that’s not how Anet defines botting anyways.

I have never seen an AFK player autoattacking something referred to as a bot, that’s just an AFK player. The ‘core concept’ of every definition of bot i have ever come seen is that the character is under the control of a third party program or software. The fact that there is no control, except for autoattack is not reason enough to be considered a bot. For GW2 specifically, i dont even think it is possible to go into autoattack mode on a mob if it attacks you. So once you kill something then the next thing that comes along will just hit you until you die.

The only thing i see coming close to this situation is an AFK ranger with a pet that is able to kill spawned/aggro’d mobs. AFAIK a profession with no pet will not start autoattacking if they themselves are attacked. But i wouldnt consider this bot behavior. It’s still an AFK player, that is possibly exploiting a game mechanic. And it is up to the GM’s to determine if that action is actually an exploit or not. I dont just go off saying ‘hmm AFK ranger using pet to kill…thats an exploit for sure, time to spread the word’.

cosmatman.9306:

MajorRocker

I’ve never seen bots teleport. I’ve watched some groups for 30-60 minutes while doing my thing and they just stand there, never moving. I’m not saying they don’t teleport, just saying I’ve never seen it.

If you are gonna put together a ‘how to spot’ a botter PSA you might want to be more receptive to other peoples observations. I’ve seen it a bunch of times too, a player or players will teleport short distances of about 25-50 feet. That is probably worthy of being added to the original post.

I didn’t doubt him. I simply said I hadn’t seen it happen. Actually, I thought he was referring to the use of Waypoints and not short distance teleportation…which I encountered this past weekend. I’ll add that note to the original post in a moment:)

i see bots in guilds, non-ranger bots, and solo bots all the time. i wouldn’t say your list is too accurate in those regards.

If you have a level 80 got to Frostgorge sound (where the Claw of Jormag battle happens) go west to where grawls have a small camp (there is a SP there) then watch the 3 asuran ranger bots there, after 5 min watching them you can spot other bots easier.