Guild Wars 2

New Undetected Form Of Botting Has The Potential To Crash The GW2 Economy

Today on my mat farming rounds I observed an advanced bot in action. Although at first I didn’t pay any attention because I was busy with my own duties, I later started to notice odd behavior and impossible game mechanics that warranted a closer look.

Please take note that the bot in question is a double sword warrior.

Two videos of the bots actions have been made – one has music, which I apologize for and the other has the music turned off so that you can focus on the bot without being distracted.

During my observation I noticed the following:

• The bot has the ability to warp to various locations far beyond 1200 range.

• Auto-attacks are quit often done hitting only air until an enemy comes within range.

• The bot does not move at all and instead relies on the warp hack for movement.

• Although it may not be in this particular video, I have often seen this warrior stealth in combat.

• Auto looting is taking place.

• The bot has the ability to recognize when it is at low health and use healing abilities accordingly.

• The bot has the ability to use various skills such as signets, giving itself a continuous buff and faster farming capabilities.

• Melee moves often hit far beyond its desolateness range, 1200 range and up which can be observed in video 1.

• The bot is able to distinguish between aggressive and neutral npcs, allowing it to ignore the neutral ones and farm the aggressive ones only.

• Although not always successful, the bot has the ability to distinguish high target enemy npcs and warp to them accordingly.

• Although I am not 100% sure, it seems that this bot is currently undetectable by Anet.

I have seen bots like this one destroy economies within weeks. Just look at what happened to Diablo 3. If Anet does not take swift action to stop all forms of Botting, including afk macroing, then Guild Wars 2 is headed in the same direction.

There is never just one bot running, several are usually running from the same person, all at the same time. Which means the owner of this bot most likely has several setup across the world of Tyria, on multiple accounts – maybe even dozens. Not to mention the fact that other bot teams may be using this same method to farm.

Because a picture is worth a thousand words, here is video proof of the botter in action so that you Anet, can observe its behavior and take action to stop it and others accordingly.

Both videos were recorded today. Time indicated in-game is eastern/server time.

Video One:

http://youtu.be/7IBe9-ZICoQ

Video Two:

http://youtu.be/jtAxhhxURKM

Why would it be undetectable? You seem to only assume that.

Warping would be something that would set it apart from legitimate players on its own, all they need to do is have an automatic alert for movement outside of defined parameters.

But I’m not a game developer so I am just speculating out of my kitten. Just pointing out that it’s no help to assume Anet can’t detect it.

I assume you reported the botters in game? Some people don’t know how to do this, so here it is for anyone else:
1. click the botters character (target them).
2. right click the botters character portrait (target portrait).
3. select report, choose botting or whatever the appropriate option is.

Interesting videos. A guildmate last night, told me he saw a ranger bot doing this very same thing. If I was a botter, I would certainly not be popping around the map like that, it would look a lot more suspicious, than trying to mimic the actions of a legit player.

A lot of those bot features are things that are not too difficult for the average coder to set in place(I’m actually surprised they aren’t more complex). Specifically, the warp hack, applying certain abilities at X hp %, and auto-looting can be done with a third party ‘utility’-like program, not just an automated bot. Bannable never the less.

- “Although it may not be in this particular video, I have often seen this warrior stealth in combat.” If true, this is very worrisome. I’ll admit, I’m not sure how they could achieve this , unless somehow it is placing its position underground, and solely using the warp hack to move. Otherwise, the bot would permanently stay invisible while doing its business.

- “Although I am not 100% sure, it seems that this bot is currently undetectable by Anet.” Hard to distinguish as I don’t know the current methods they have in place. Undetectable though, is fairly short lived to non-existent. Games heavily over-ran by bots are usually the result of the game company allowing it to happen, being understaffed, or being in a business position where anti-bot measures can’t be put into place/afforded. So far Anet has done a fairly good job at keeping the bots dealt with on the server i play on.

If Anet is relying on player reports as their main alarm(I sure hope they aren’t), that will oppose a problem, as eventually the bot’s logic, would merely scan the radius for players, if one was located it would log off, and come back at a certain interval and check again, repeating this process until the coast was clear.

Bluestone this post is simply to raise awareness to the methods botters are currently using nothing more.

Players can indeed report botters in-game but I believe this video post can be of some use as well, and if you read my entire post you would see that I state “Although I am not 100% sure”.

If bots like this one being used were indeed detectable why are they still in-game?

I saw Guardian doing this to the bandits outside Vigil keep on the Crystal Desert server the other day. At first I suspected botting, he was randomly swinging in the air, till a mob got close…then he healed himself after the fight – so I thought it was all good. Then I got overwhelmed by some mobs and died…and this toon stayed right around my area, swinging around randomly. I asked for a rez, no response….then I noticed him warping around. I don’t play a guardian, so I thought that’s a neat ability they have.

But looking at your vid…match!

Now I know what to look for and report.

Shimokawa.9720:

I saw Guardian doing this to the bandits outside Vigil keep on the Crystal Desert server the other day. At first I suspected botting, he was randomly swinging in the air, till a mob got close…then he healed himself after the fight – so I thought it was all good. Then I got overwhelmed by some mobs and died…and this toon stayed right around my area, swinging around randomly. I asked for a rez, no response….then I noticed him warping around. I don’t play a guardian, so I thought that’s a neat ability they have.

But looking at your vid…match!

Now I know what to look for and report.

Glad to see these videos showed you what type behavior to look for in a botter.

You can go ahead and add the video I recorded a few days ago of teleporting bots to that list.

Add your videos to this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Reporting-in-Bots/first#post306201

This is the thread they are watching actively.

I’ve seen a bot like this weeks ago already. He did the exact same “teleporting” or “warping” around thing. He kept attacking the air (with one sword, and he had a shield) constantly and when an enemy came into a certain distance, he just teleported to it and kept attacking until it was dead. Then the bot kept attacking the air and so on…

I reported it for botting immediately after i watched what he is doing.