Can we clarify what botting is and isn't?

I am thinking of a very specific SB Ranger in Blazeridge Steppes who has been rooted on a single spot for months now, non-responsive to chat, whispers, and mails. Spamming longbow and heal skills off cooldown endlessly. It is plainly harvesting Radiant Dust, which I totally understand.

Surprisingly, when I bring this guy up, I have gotten pushback from some, saying that "it's just an afk farm, move along." My favorite rebuttal was "bots are good for the economy, don't complain."

This is a toon using a script to spam multiple skills the moment they come off cooldown, motionless and not responding to any external stimulus whatsoever. If this isn't botting, then what is?

Botting is defined as using outside programs, i.e. macros, to perform actions for a character. If they're using a macro to farm radiant dust endlessly, then that's definitely against ToS. The most you can do is report and move on, Anet'll take care of it.

Now, what is acceptable for AFK farming are things like engineers leaving their turrets up and necros using minions since that uses game mechanics to do the farming, nothing else. That's fine, using a macro to use skills while AFK is most definitely not.

Semi afk players are in a gray area but are allowed. If they’re responding to a GM’s messages in a time limit and they’re not using macros or automated skills then they’re not botting and are playing within the rules. The amount of time they spend in a spot isn’t a consideration.

Report them and move on. Anet will then deal with them if they are breaking the rules and leave them be if they aren't

Believe me I have reported a few hundred afk bot farmers, and they're still around, the same chars in the same spots, day after day, week after week, month after month, even one in Frostgorge Sound that's been there on and off for over a year now, so afaik, afk bot farming is considered fair and allowed. Sad but there it is.

Automated actions.

Pull a train of mobs on him and see whether or not he get away. If nobody rez him, he will despawn after a bit of time.

@"darksome.1697" said:Believe me I have reported a few hundred afk bot farmers, and they're still around, the same chars in the same spots, day after day, week after week, month after month, even one in Frostgorge Sound that's been there on and off for over a year now, so afaik, afk bot farming is considered fair and allowed. Sad but there it is.

A few hundreds? You must be "seeing" things and just like to report stuff.

@Deepcuts.9740 said:

@"darksome.1697" said:Believe me I have reported a few hundred afk bot farmers, and they're still around, the same chars in the same spots, day after day, week after week, month after month, even one in Frostgorge Sound that's been there on and off for over a year now, so afaik, afk bot farming is considered fair and allowed. Sad but there it is.

Better believe it. Most of the time they stand in packs of 5-6, so it adds up pretty quick. 30 days a month, 5 bots a day...150 in a month, so it's probably a lot more than a few hundred. I'd post the screenshots, but it would get me banned (unlike the botters).

Sounds more like "reported (the same) a few hundred times", rather than "reported a few hundred botters".If it is the latter, though, sounds like ArenaNet is removing them, and new ones take their place.

Its a bad look for the game.

@Just a flesh wound.3589 said:Semi afk players are in a gray area but are allowed. If they’re responding to a GM’s messages in a time limit and they’re not using macros or automated skills then they’re not botting and are playing within the rules. The amount of time they spend in a spot isn’t a consideration.

@darksome.1697 said:Believe me I have reported a few hundred afk bot farmers, and they're still around, the same chars in the same spots, day after day, week after week, month after month, even one in Frostgorge Sound that's been there on and off for over a year now, so afaik, afk bot farming is considered fair and allowed. Sad but there it is.

darksome.1697, did you even bother to read the post from Flesh...all those players need to do is respond to a GM query within a specified time frame, which we, the players, are not privy to...so it's quite possible all those alleged bots you are reporting are really just AFK farmers that respond to the GM query within that specified time frame.

Also, as was stated by> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

Sounds more like "reported (the same) a few hundred times", rather than "reported a few hundred botters".If it is the latter, though, sounds like ArenaNet is removing them, and new ones take their place.

That is probably the other scenario, not saying a FEW botters get through every once in a while, but I'm sure eventually they get caught.

@Hashberry.4510 said:Its a bad look for the game.It's a terrible look for the game. I hadn't thought to drag a zillion mobs over. I think I'll try that.

@Lydia.7913 said:

@Hashberry.4510 said:Its a bad look for the game.It's a

terrible

look for the game. I hadn't thought to drag a zillion mobs over. I think I'll try that.

Careful though, if there is a real player among them you may get reported for griefing.

@Lydia.7913 said:

@Hashberry.4510 said:Its a bad look for the game.It's a

terrible

look for the game. I hadn't thought to drag a zillion mobs over. I think I'll try that.

That’s potentially a bad idea. If you’ve reported someone before this and nothing happened then it’s a chance that it’s a semi afk farmer. Regardless of how you feel about that, if ANet is allowing it then pulling mobs to that player will be considered griefing and if that player reports you you’ll be the one getting sanctioned.

Report and move on. It’s not the players job to do more.

Simple:Botting is when a character performs an action without the contemporaneous input of a player.Aka, a software that is generating the input, or lines of input on one command.

Can we clarify what botting is and isn't?ANet's defined this and there are plenty of existing threads covering it in detail, so I'll try to clarify it in a different way. In essence:Botting is whatever ANet decides it is, regardless of public perception or our personal views on what's best for the game.

That's why the appropriate response is to report and move on. None of us are going to change ANet's (collective) mind about it, except through documenting what we see. (Most of the time, you can use the in-game reporting tool. When you can't, submit a support ticket, with as many details as you can come up with: names, dates, locations, screenshots, ...)

Specifically ANet has a three step checklist for deciding, which boils down to:

Do they respond when an ANet staff member (not a player) tries to get their attention.There are conditions that must apply before ANet bothers to check and different ways they will check, but none of that really matters to most of us.

There is no need to "clarify what botting is" as we have known for years what is acceptable and what is not in regard to chars standing around in the world, and a char does NOT need to be "botting" to act against the rules.

Although these threads seem to appear every single week, the topic never gets old and every time there are new people who have never heard of what I have been writing and linking for ages.

The clarification happened in 2016 when the lead of the game security department Chris Cleary gave us the following details of actionable behaviour, 2 of which are crystal clear and one is not being explained in detail to protect the methods of ArenaNet from becoming known in detail, which would make it easier to circumvent them). When all three criteria are fulfilled, the behaviour is actionable, which means ArenaNet can and likely will take action against the account according to their own guidelines which include checking the account for previous infractions or warnings.

1) Character must be using skills (it does not matter if he just spams skill 1 or if he uses several skills, it also does not matter if he uses his fingers, nose, toes, the ingame autocast feature or if he stuck something into his keyboard to jam a key. He also does not need to use any bot, macro, mouse software or whatever for this criteria)2) Character must be at a spot where it is beneficial for him (like killing mobs for loot, xp, karma, map rewards, event completion)3) Character is unresponsive to GM interaction (GM interaction has never been defined, and it can in principle be anything that a player who is at his computer and pays reasonable attention to the game would notice and react to. We do not know what exactly are all the possibilities of a GM to try to get your attention, but we know that among them is teleporting your character to another place. GM interaction does NOT mean that he will just whisper you and ask you if you are afk)

My last posts about this were a week ago and you may want to check that thread and the clarifications there, although in the end it comes down to the above three points.Link to thread 1 week ago

Responses here are crazy, sorry.

Botting is simple, a user runs a program where the game/character plays without human intervention.

A user who uses 1 skill, stands in a good spot and does not talk is not a bot. It's just a player performing repetitive actions.

If a character is doing all of that with the help of a program while the user is not controlling the character then it is botting.

One guy taught me a way to gather bots in Orr, especially easy in Cursed Shore since that's where they run them down to for script-based farming (you see new ones every single day running through Orr to Cursed Shore, no mounts): Tag up. See them come to you within a few minutes (it's in the script). None responds or says anything, none is on a mount. The real players that might show up can be counted on one hand. Tag down. See them move away from you after a few seconds and continue on their path. Tag up - see them come to you. Tag down - see them go. It's an eye opener.

And for those of you who said training mobs onto bots is risking being reported, of course you should make sure it's a bot first. I've killed a fair few that way, but it's not worth the trouble since clueless people run past and res them within minutes, no matter what you tell them, and as soon as they stand up they resume the same pattern of actions, exactly the same way they did for hours before.

@Sabas.8431 said:Responses here are crazy, sorry.

Botting is simple, a user runs a program where the game/character plays without human intervention.

A user who uses 1 skill, stands in a good spot and does not talk is not a bot. It's just a player performing repetitive actions.

If a character is doing all of that with the help of a program while the user is not controlling the character then it is botting.

that´s because this thread, like most similar, is not about clarification, but about taking offense and wanting to feel very important over it.