Guild Wars 2

Wondering if this is considered legal or illegal (banning) activity?

On Ranger with a trap set to auto-attack with the auto-target option set, while sitting at a DE that props every 30 minutes or so, and never logging out or swapping characters. By doing this a person could effectively mine exp, karma, and gold all day WITHOUT any bot programs. Using all options built into the game, and that fact that the game does not seem to kick idle players.

It would seem like a waste of time for someone that actually was playing the game, but whats to stop a person from doing this when at school, work, or sleeping?

The game kicks after 45-60 minutes of inactivity. Not sure if auto-attack counts as inactivity or not though.

I’ve been kicked due to idle time, not sure how long till it kicks however. If the DE pops every 30min, that might be quick enough to allow this. Not sure.

yeah haven’t tested it myself for that amount of time, but I have yet to be kicked for being idle. If this is so then never mind, they got it covered.

I’ve been kicked many times for being idle (I tend to just walk away for a couple hours to do something else and leave myself logged in). I would like to think auto-casting a skill does not count as “player activity” and you would remain “idle”

it’s still considere botting and it is a plague on this game right now. Just look at the many many threads on the subject already.

How can they claim botting if you are just using the in game mechanics? There is no 3rd party program being used…

because you have automated gameplay. your character is not being controlled by you.

they made auto attacks to help you in the heat of the moment and maybe save some button mashing while you’re sitting at your keyboard. Not so that the game would auto play without input from a person actively playing.

doesn’t matter to me how you try to justify it to yourself. i call it griefing, or an exploit or botting. either way, it isnt they way they meant the game to be played.

I am concerned as well, I have my 4 year old daughter sit in an event and hit 1234, 1234, 1234 over and over – she gets a gold medal everytime but was wondering if it is botting. I don’t think it is because that is how you play the game really.

Atraeus.6718:

I am concerned as well, I have my 4 year old daughter sit in an event and hit 1234, 1234, 1234 over and over – she gets a gold medal everytime but was wondering if it is botting. I don’t think it is because that is how you play the game really.

If you seriously leave her sitting there hitting 1234 for hours on end…well let’s just say I hope you were joking.

As for the original OP and why this is botting. Botting doesn’t require the use of third party programs but if you don’t like the term botting then this would be Exploiting the mechanics of the game to participate in a form of botting (game playing itself)

Yes I am kidding….

I just came back after 10 days away and all I see is botting at events, what scares me is everyone seems to be gone, no overflow anymore as well.

jebidiah ubershiet.2580:

because you have automated gameplay. your character is not being controlled by you.

they made auto attacks to help you in the heat of the moment and maybe save some button mashing while you’re sitting at your keyboard. Not so that the game would auto play without input from a person actively playing.

doesn’t matter to me how you try to justify it to yourself. i call it griefing, or an exploit or botting. either way, it isnt they way they meant the game to be played.

Doesn’t seem to me to be an exploit when you are only using the features they built into the game. If they did not want this to happen, or people to be able to use these features, then why did they build in the auto-attack and auto-target abilities? For that matter the automatic pet use for the Ranger. Seems to me they built in the automation for the player to benefit from, not exploit.

As for the game kicking a person after so much time when using these “features” I do not know personally. I do not condone this game play, nor defend it, nor will I “test” the time frame for doing this.

I noticed the generous kick time too. I recall a few times expecting to get the character select screen when I went back to the keyboard but saw the game where I left off.

As to the question it’s just a clever loophole exploit, but probably not illegal unless Anet’s codes registers it as a bot even if it technically isn’t based off behavior metrics.

Any type of game play with you not physically at the keyboard can get you banned.

This topic was asked a couple days ago. The thread received an official response and was closed.

The official response is that even if you’re using the built-in interface with a standard keyboard and mouse to autofire, if your character is acting while you’re not at the keyboard it IS considered a breach of the user agreement.

We should report it in the same way you report actual bots.

if you really believe you are using the game mechanics the way they are intended and not exploiting something, why even ask?

If you’re so convinced it’s perfectly acceptable, go ahead and do it. Like i said, justify it to yourself however you see fit.

I hardly think it’s intended by design that you play the game without playing the game…but i didn’t design it.

I do however report players I see doing it for botting and leave it up to the designers to decide for sure.

@ Mulch: Thanks for the info, and the official point of view on this matter. Any chance you might have the link to that thread available?

@jebidiah Pretty sure I mentioned in one of my previous posts that I was in fact not trying to defend this game play, or bots in any manner. I am only trying to figure out 1) why they added these features, yet only want them used in certain manners, 2) what those manners of use specifically are.

@InfamousD I’m not a dev but common sense would say to me autoattack to respond to that mob you don’t see attacking you. Ok; Autoattack to keep you alive while you run to the restroom. probably Ok; Autoattack to play the game for me all night while I sleep, all day while I am at work etc. Not Ok

ie a little common sense goes a long way, No dev since the days of UO has wanted you earning skills/rewards/etc while some form of automated play was going on. (unless you count EvE and I think they recently got rid of the whole learn skills in real time while logged off thing)

See Drintar I disagree. Not that you should be able to use the auto attack for cheating the game, but I fail to see the point of using it at all. Why have this in the game? Why have the auto target feature? Why have a pet that I can’t turn off, if not for such game play. Ok so it’s there, what limitations are there for using it? Yes overnight is an exaggeration, but is an hour or two acceptable? 15 minutes? and how do you define away from keyboard. You can use these features while sitting at the keyboard and just hitting the “f” key. Is that ok?
The auto-attack key will make your character automatically use a skill when it is available. Not to attack some mob that is not on your screen when it attacks you. It’s not an auto-response button. This automates casting something continually (heals, buffs make common sense!). As for the Ranger class, well I still do not know why the pet CANNOT be turned off from combat, so it will auto-attack anything that attacks you (unless you tell it to be a kitten).

To me this is playing the game for you, whether you are at the keyboard or not. So my question still stands, if they did not want you to use the automated abilities of the game, why have it? If they do, what are the limits? As Drintar claims, all MMO’s since UO don’t have this, why does GW2?

This is no different than those that are in one spot and put an object on their auto-attack key so it keeps spamming/looking for target – while afk. Most game companies consider this activity illegal as it isn’t really playing the game “by hand”. This is the current flood of “botting”, not seeing as many true bots as I am this activity in the past few days.

InfamousD.1924:

How can they claim botting if you are just using the in game mechanics? There is no 3rd party program being used…

That is exploiting game mechanics and it is bannable per TOS.
I wonder how long before auto-attack is removed from the game, which is fine by me.

Removing auto-attack won’t stop someone from creating a send-keys macro that queues up a key binded ‘target nearest baddy, use skill 1’. The only way to prevent this is when people have stood still for x amount of time, requiring some sort of “answer” or “type in the letters you see on the screen” type deal.

If the coding checks for “standing still, but using skills” over x period of time, that would seemingly catch 80% of them off the get go. And even better, if it put them in a “dungeon” and required an e-mail to get out or something. This worked exceptionally well in a previous MMO I knew of that had a history of botters