Guild Wars 2

Last Saturday evening, I was playing my newly created thief in Queensdale, over by where the water pipes/bandit cave are. I’d just finished killing a few bandits on a cliff ledge and decided I needed some coffee. I “parked” my little thief against the cliff wall, where I thought she’d be safe for a few minutes and went to get my coffee.

When I came back, about 3 minutes later, there were a number of players killing the respawned bandits. The closest was maybe 10 or so yards from my little thief, who to my utter shock was blasting away with her pistols. I do use autoattack while playing, but I was truly gobsmacked to see that she’d somehow “engaged” on her own. I had no idea it was even possible.

Now I’m paranoid about parking my characters anywhere while I step away from keys for a couple of minutes, unless they’re in a city. I am now logging out to character selection, though I hate the idea of this if I’m taking a break within a group. If I log out then, I’m likely to be separated from my group when I return because of the overlow thingy.

Can I just toggle off autoattack to prevent my characters from playing without me?

Turnin’ yer basic attack off should stop yer characters from automatically retaliating. I usually play with it off while on my Ranger, as well as set my pet to “Avoid Combat”, and have come back to him just standing there takin’ a beatin’. If you go about it that way you shouldn’t have ta worry about her fightin’ back and lookin’ like a bot.

Yeah, if you mouse over the skill it’ll say something along the bottom of the skill about disabling/enabling auto attack.

Generally it’s not safe to leave your character idling in a field somewhere unless you know the patterns of the area well enough that you’re not going to get attacked. Roads TEND to be safer, and outposts with NPCs in lower level zones tend to be safe. In higher level they are sometimes the focus of events which will make them somewhat less safe.

While it’s probably a good idea to toggle off auto-attack if you’re going to go AFK while in the wilderness, I wouldn’t worry about getting banned for botting if it happens once in a while. Someone who’s parked in a corner and happens to be auto-attacking mobs as they pass by for a few minutes is very different than the real botters who park themselves right in the middle of an event spawn point for hours (even days) at a time.

Thank you all for your most helpful replies.

I’ve parked in what I thought would be safe spots only to return and be defeated
so now I either wait till I’m in an outpost, or I pop into My HOM

Interesting, so some of the perceived bots may very likely not be bots after all. I did not know this until now.

Huh. I play with Auto-Attack on and my characters have never engaged a mob on their own.
Maybe it’s because I have “Double-Click to interact” enabled?

You can tell the difference between a bot and a real player with an auto-attack retaliation because real players stop firing when there are no more targets.

You have to be careful though because there are players that will purposely drag mobs to you. I was roaming around getting map completion done in one of the lower tiers and got a phone call – I was still at my screen, just otherwise occupied, and watched a couple of players running around trying to drop aggro on me so they could harvest some nodes while I fought the beasties (they didn’t have a lot of luck with that tactic – I generally keep my pet on passive because I’m a control freak).

Usually sitting someplace where you have to jump over/up a gap or bit of terrain with a bit of distance between you and any event area works fine. I’ve gotten pretty good at finding parking spots – it’s easier with a ranger because I just look for some place to hop up that my pet doesn’t follow me, then I stow my pet.

Plus bots are pretty easy to spot because of their movement. They tend to move very roboticly, often simple strait lines. For instance I have never personally seen a bot strafe.

If you have a Hall of Monuments stone, carry it with you in your bags. When you need to go AFK in an area that is not a major city, use the stone. It will take you to the Hall of Monuments. You can safely park there while you go AFK. When you are ready to return, go back through the portal and you are taken back to the same spot you were at before.

I use this all the time myself. Outposts are not necessarily safe as there have been events that will pop while you are gone, you come back to find your dead or something else. Major cities are usually safe enough, but if you don’t want the cost of waypointing out and back again, the HoM stone works a treat.

Wait a minute, have I missed something? Your character can actually start auto-attacking a mob which was not targeted by you nor targeting/attacking you? Are you sure the mob had not attacked you and then another player came to save you? I have not experienced something like this even if I am using auto-attack.

If another player causes a retaliation on you, I think you’ll start auto-attacking, iirc.

Also, when I need to quick idle, generally I get on top of something. Not like a hill. There’s always mobs on hills. But in Metrica Province, there’s Asura buildings everywhere. I’ve never been killed on top of a building.

However, if you walk into a fortress and hang out on the ground floor, you might become the unwilling participant in a DE. Which I found out the hard way. Killed by centaurs just as I was about to hit 100,000 EXP without dying. To rub salt in the wound, I happened to be in a very low-level zone when it happened. I had a few choice “kittens” I shouted to the heavens on that day.