On botting and what ANet is doing about it

[Fencers]

I'm pretty sure botters are clued into the AFK event farming. Can name several areas from QD to GF/HH and FoR & Orr that have fairly legit looking botters. Complete with the teleport/speedhacks.

I reported a couple last night in Straits [Lone Post DE] and Wayfarer Hills [bear shrine DE].

[Glytch]

Theres a lot wrong with this post.

Mostly all of it.

(god being condescending is easy)

If the changes to farming werent due to botters thats fine, but its still a pathetic system.

please enlighten me about these amazing dungeon botters

[DrakeWurrum]

Stop tryna get your post count up by posting crap, my last posts didnt even have the word dungeon in it...

Weren't you the one who claimed that all the changes that added restrictions to farming was caused by botters?

You're aware the only restrictions on farming they've added have been specifically to dungeons, right?

[DrakeWurrum]

Not true, they added restrictions to how much loot you can get, you cant just sit and farm grubs or something because after like an hour or less you only get greys and whites.

Okay. And you were complaining about that? Stop grasping at straws, because it's pretty obvious that's not how the game is meant to be played.


Also, when was that added exactly? Because I'm pretty sure it's been that way from the start.

[worldalpha]

Botting and gold sellers is a huge problem in GW2 and similar games. Best of luck combatting it. For every 1 they manage to get another 2 or 3 are probably get by...

[DrakeWurrum]

How should I know when it was added? I dont have a comprehensive list of patch notes it just became obviously apparent at lvl 80 when you actually want to do some farming. Maybe it was added at the start even if it was thats terrible game design, you dont tell players how to play an MMO otherwise it might aswell just be a linear quest fest.

Dont act like im alone on this, the forums are flooded with people pissed off about how you cant just farm and 99% of the time those magic find buffs lose their worth before their duration. So dont sit there and tell me im "grasping at straws" when its clearly a major problem in the game. Take a look at the legendary or even just lvl 400 crafting mats if you dont believe me. Farming IS needed yet its prohibited.

Actually, sitting in one area farming the same mobs over and over is pretty linear, when they want players to run around more.

It's not a major problem when you're not sitting one specific area. It's also not true that the forums are flooded with people pissed off about this, because your posts are the first I've ever heard of it, and I look through both MMOC and the official forums pretty frequently.

[Remilia]

Okay. And you were complaining about that? Stop grasping at straws, because it's pretty obvious that's not how the game is meant to be played.


Also, when was that added exactly? Because I'm pretty sure it's been that way from the start.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...ungeon-Updates
Which got removed from the sticky so it was annoying to find.
11 days ago.

So how is the game meant to be played then?

[DrakeWurrum]

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...ungeon-Updates
Which got removed from the sticky so it was annoying to find.
11 days ago.

So how is the game meant to be played then?

That post was talking about the change that impacted dungeon farming, not afk-farming countless grubs for hours on end. Changes which, I should add, I fully agree with. They were changes meant to force people to not leave groups halfway through a dungeon, and to not sit there and farm one dungeon all day for hours on end, when there's eight dungeons out there, each with three different Expo paths.

I'm sorry that this game doesn't allow you to mindlessly walk in circles for hours on end farming respawning grubs. That must be so terrible.

[Remilia]

That post was talking about the change that impacted dungeon farming, not afk-farming countless grubs for hours on end. Changes which, I should add, I fully agree with. They were changes meant to force people to not leave groups halfway through a dungeon, and to not sit there and farm one dungeon all day for hours on end, when there's eight dungeons out there, each with three different Expo paths.

I'm sorry that this game doesn't allow you to mindlessly walk in circles for hours on end farming respawning grubs. That must be so terrible.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/...s-from-events/
If they didn't remove the patch notes from the main site it'd be nice.

[Glytch]

How should I know when it was added? I dont have a comprehensive list of patch notes it just became obviously apparent at lvl 80 when you actually want to do some farming. Maybe it was added at the start even if it was thats terrible game design, you dont tell players how to play an MMO otherwise it might aswell just be a linear quest fest.

Dont act like im alone on this, the forums are flooded with people pissed off about how you cant just farm and 99% of the time those magic find buffs lose their worth before their duration. So dont sit there and tell me im "grasping at straws" when its clearly a major problem in the game. Take a look at the legendary or even just lvl 400 crafting mats if you dont believe me. Farming IS needed yet its prohibited.

the forums are flooding with people who want long term goals (legendaries) after 4 weeks of playing

thats like going to the wow forums and saying "WHY DOES IT TAKE SO LONG TO GET 100k HONOR KILLS??? WHY DO YOU STOP ME FROM FARMING WITH THESE STUPID MAPS LIKE SOTA AND IOC???"

[DrakeWurrum]

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/...s-from-events/
If they didn't remove the patch notes from the main site it'd be nice.

That's also not what we're talking about, and is also a good change. That's diminishing rewards from afk-farming the same event for hours on end (and apparently the change wasn't strong enough, Fencers still does it, among hundreds more). It's supposed to encourage you to run around and actively participate in numerous different events instead of farming the same one over and over, mindlessly spamming 1 for hours on end while the karma rolls in like clockwork.

Tommo was talking about farming mobs.

[Remilia]

That's also not what we're talking about, and is also a good change. That's diminishing rewards from afk-farming the same event for hours on end (and apparently the change wasn't strong enough, Fencers still does it, among hundreds more). It's supposed to encourage you to run around and actively participate in numerous different events instead of farming the same one over and over, mindlessly spamming 1 for hours on end while the karma rolls in like clockwork.

Tommo was talking about farming mobs.

Well you can always ignore Tommo's link.

[DrakeWurrum]

I understand that and its great they want to get people out and about, but I should be allowed to farm for small amounts of time without being penalized. I dont do it very often only when im bored or really need cash.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...ishing-Returns
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...your-game-Anet (a good few posts about DR)
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...he-bots-for-me
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...Future-Content
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...DR-and-Botting

CBF posting more I spent a few minutes scrolling the first few pages to find tons of threads like this some alot better than others.

It is an issue and im surprized you havent noticed it if you scroll the GW2 forums aswell.

All those posts suggest that if they play for 20 minutes, they get penalized.

Pretty sure it's not that severe. "Sky is falling" type complaints really are pointless.

[Rukh]

Wasn't the gem system so ingenious because it was going to let players buy gold with real money through that system and there would be no gold sellers at all? Seems like I remember a few people claiming that.

[Xerra]

Wasn't the gem system so ingenious because it was going to let players buy gold with real money through that system and there would be no gold sellers at all? Seems like I remember a few people claiming that.

Yes and the RMAH in Diablo 3 was letting you buy gold.... it doesn't matter the bots are still going to do it. The dogs don't learn new tricks.

[Deleted]

Yeah but RMAH/Gem system make it much less efficient, as I guess that a large majority of players who used to buy gold go through the legal way now.

The bot/farm ect companies still have leftover hardware and funds left over from other games, they aren't going to stop immediatly, it's only in the long run that we will see if they manage to make enough profit to stay alive and going.

[Remilia]

Wasn't the gem system so ingenious because it was going to let players buy gold with real money through that system and there would be no gold sellers at all? Seems like I remember a few people claiming that.

With the 25% tax tacked on to with regular price. For example 100 gems for the current 37 silver (after tax), or for the receiver about 30silver~. I don't know the price for gold prices for 3rd party sites. If for example it was a $1 to 1g conversion or more. Would you rather pay $10 for 2.4 gold, or pay $10 for 10 gold.

All those posts suggest that if they play for 20 minutes, they get penalized.

Pretty sure it's not that severe. "Sky is falling" type complaints really are pointless.

Killing a mob for 20 minutes straight is really easy, especially if you want to farm materials for crafting. It is pretty severe when all it does is hinder the player.
Botters / bot makers do and always will find loops and methods to continue botting. It is nothing new. Implementing a method to just barely even slow down botters but hurt the player more is a bad method. They should be focusing more on the hacking (teleport) to make it even harder and make bots have to consider terrain value as one variable. Methods to prevent memory scanning and such to make it harder for botters / hackers to identify mobs, locations, etc. Make packet modifying harder to mess with, etc.

[Prepared]

Wasn't the gem system so ingenious because it was going to let players buy gold with real money through that system and there would be no gold sellers at all? Seems like I remember a few people claiming that.

The CEO of ArenaNet didn't directly state there would be no gold sellers, but he did make statements that lead the reader to believe there would be no gold sellers. He gave a fairly complete blog on how ArenaNet understood how gold sellers work and how their system with the purchase of gems and trading to gold would combat against gold sellers.

The irony of all this is not the system that ArenaNet put into the game to combat gold sellers. It's the lack of features in the game that everyone claimed would prevent botters from running in the game. For example, each time someone mentioned on a GW2 fansite (this one included) the suggestion of macros or addons, there was an immediate set of responses that indicated the game didn't need them. There was this fear of bots being run in the game if the it had those things. Well as we know now that is not the case. There isn't any form of /follow or macro or addon in the game. So this leads me to a question.... How do the bots get to the same area? Does the person that runs the bot software run them all to the same place first then turn on the bot software and let it run all night?

I like to multibox but I don't like botters. While multiboxing GW2, I tend to move only if I have to because there is no /follow function. While standing still, I appear to be running a few bots because I'm usually casting all at the same time all together just like the bots are seen in videos and screen shots of players that post them. So what I do now instead of getting into some argument in the game to let the players know I'm there, I just do a /say Hello if I see someone move to me and watch me. I've made it to level 35+ on 12 accounts with no follow system. The game is fun because it has a lot of new things in it, but not that fun without /follow.

My point of this reply is that I don't see the lack of features preventing bots (features such as /follow or macros). These were things that many people claimed without cut down on them. Now we're into a month into the games release and bots all over the place with players up in arms about how to stop them. I would hope there is some development effort to get /follow and some form of macros in the game now that we know they have nothing to do with bots.

[DrakeWurrum]

Killing a mob for 20 minutes straight is really easy, especially if you want to farm materials for crafting. It is pretty severe when all it does is hinder the player.

"Not that severe" meaning "I highly doubt that DR kicks in that early, so stop saying the sky is falling when Arena Net has given absolutely no specifics on the numbers involved."

[Remilia]

"Not that severe" meaning "I highly doubt that DR kicks in that early, so stop saying the sky is falling when Arena Net has given absolutely no specifics on the numbers involved."

If you want to stop botters from proceeding to do something, then they have to proceed to make it so you gain nothing at the very end.
Now anecdotes (yay) generally point out at about 30 minutes is where they see the loots to taper off.
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...ayer-Behavior/

Not to mention that the 'bugged' diminishing return is also in effect.
At the end, the diminishing return will affect you, and bots will and always have become more intricate in being able to avoid such things.
Now the player farming mobs for specific mats become screwed over because they hit the wall, as the bots whom farm gold goes around farming gold and avoids the DR.
Just saying because we don't know the numbers doesn't make it a legitimate excuse for saying that it won't affect legit players. If it affects the bots, if affects the players.