Guild Wars 2

I was wondering if afk-ing with a ranger with autoloot (mastery) in a region with hostile mobs is ban-able? i just thought of this today and was testing it and its a really slow income. but is it against the user agreement or clever use of game mechanics?
I would really appreciate a dev answer as i dont want to do something illegal.

No anet said that this is part of the game and not breaking any rules.

Don’t do it. Depending on circumstances, it can get you banned.
Chris Cleary wrote:

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.

FrownyClown.8402:

No anet said that this is part of the game and not breaking any rules.

Do NOT listen to this. So much background information missing here. You can get banned from un-intentional play; AFK farming certainly qualifies.

Urdfexe.9147:

Don’t do it. Depending on circumstances, it can get you banned.
Chris Cleary wrote:

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.

and what happens if you don’t use any skills and only your pet defends you?

and since when is not responding a reason for a ban?

Don’t you get disconnected if you don’t press a key within 5 mins or something, or is there a way to bypass that?

OneHitWonder.5741:

and what happens if you don’t use any skills and only your pet defends you?

and since when is not responding a reason for a ban?

It says if all 3 applies.
Not responding alone is not enough evidence for being punished.

Tragic Positive.9356:

OneHitWonder.5741:

and what happens if you don’t use any skills and only your pet defends you?

and since when is not responding a reason for a ban?

It says if all 3 applies.
Not responding alone is not enough evidence for being punished.

well then it kind of depends on their defenition of " Using skill (1 or more) while AFK". Does Pet AI count as using skill? I’d really like to hear some official clarification on this. Overall it is a accumulation of legal things. I don’t get how an accumulation of legal actions (or non-actions) would lead to a ban.

I also think that trait setups, runes and sigills like the one in the link encourage this kind of gameplay:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBjYDbkSFKYxGWwiFoaxQiQ9BQy+6d6GCfgf6rerXCTCD-TBSDABZp8TPdD7t/wlq/UwTAIgLAghKBB4gAEA4Aw7v/+7v/eXf91Xf91DBwG-e

Clarification would be appreciated indeed.

But pet is not a skill. So if it were me, I’d keep doing this and if they really decided to get to me, I could refer to their own policy.
Pet is not an ability. Pet controllable skills such as F2 are classified as skills. But technically, you can’t even set your pet to passive since that would mean using a skill. And pets are on Defensive by default.

Unless they clarify, you’d have to remove any interactive runes from your equipment every time you decide to go AFK at a beneficial place. Which is just as illogical.
Using just a pet should be fine.

Good rule to follow in general, not just in game: If you have to preface an action with “It’s technically legal because…” then just DON’T.

/technicallynotacrook

Basically, if someone flags/reports you for botting a GM may/will try to contact you, if you respond your good to go, if you dont, they can, have and may ban you. Thats the short and dry of it.

Guys, come on, stop quoting devs.

1. Yes, they said it was fine.
2. Yes, they said it wasn’t fine.
3. If you find it fun to waste electricity to gain like 50s while at work for 8 hours….go for it. I doubt anyone will ever come after you.

Michael Henninger is a Arenanet GM

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Ranger-Pet-Botting/first#post6085601

Michael Henninger.7451:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Tl;dr intentional mechanics that allow pet kills to give experience and loot =/= permission to afk farm.

This is absolutely correct.

If your pets are doing the killing and your mastery is doing the looting; you’re okay as far as GMs are concerned. This does not mean design can’t/won’t/should/shouldn’t update the system as it works today.

There’s no argument and no need to clarify anything. Players have already been banned for exactly what you describe.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/Minion-Farming-with-No-3rd-Party-Programs/first#post6214229

Yeah, when this question was originally asked, and a developer responded, it created all kinds of drama and confusion.

Honestly, I think they did the darnedest to back-track from it while trying to avoid the egg-on-the-face syndrome.

Either way, I wouldn’t do it.

I once reported a ranger for botting. He was standing in the gate at Red Rock Bastion in Silverwastes, with heal on auto-repeat, getting a little damage from his pet and getting ressed by the NPCs whenever he died. He must have completed loads of events with credit — and scaled them up for the other ~2 people who were actually holding the fort. I waited an hour, and whispered him a few times, to make sure I wasn’t imagining it before reporting.

I looked him up later. Temp ban.

I wouldn’t advise it, myself.

FWIW, I understand the GMs mostly investigate this by looking at chat logs. If your combat logs shows “damaged mordrem mender for 237 using Bite”, I doubt they’ll worry about whether it’s by definition a skill or not.

But how would one get around the “you have 60 seconds to move or get logged off” function that GW2 has for afk’ers?

Bigpapasmurf.5623:

But how would one get around the “you have 60 seconds to move or get logged off” function that GW2 has for afk’ers?

I think the auto-loot function once worked as a refresh to being AFK. Just as if you looted it manually.
Not sure if it still works that way.

OneHitWonder.5741:

Urdfexe.9147:

Don’t do it. Depending on circumstances, it can get you banned.
Chris Cleary wrote:

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.

and what happens if you don’t use any skills and only your pet defends you?

and since when is not responding a reason for a ban?

Since Anet decides it is? Their house, their rules … they only need to suspect you to ban you from accessing an account on their server. I suggest if you haven’t, you get familiar with the EULA to understand what it is you are actually paying for because it is important to know that before the “I paid for my account” arguments start flying.