Discussion on Policy: Unattended Gameplay

I worded the title this way so as not to give the wrong idea to some people. Still I find it odd that there are discussion threads on all other Policy topics except for this one.Link to the policy: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/65548/policy-unattended-gameplay

A few things that I'd like being answered:

The use of auto-casting abilities to farm while not at your computer or not actively playing the game.

Although I can understand this not being good for the game, how exactly are you going to find out if a player is doing this? To be honest the "auto-cast" feature should be only available on skills that require targets, that's the only solution to the unattended gameplay problem. Reporting or waiting for GMs to contact the individual so they can then get banned is really slow and judging by the gigantic amount of players doing this at certain places (Timberline Falls and Iron Marches most notably) it's not really working.

Note that this does not mean that you cannot be away from your computer (AFK) while you are online. Idling in a city or even in the open world is not prohibited, though your character should not perform actions, participate in content, or otherwise engage with the world while you are away from your computer.

Enter Ranger with pet, Engineer with turrets and Necromancer with minions, especially with the Ranger since there is no uptime (turrets require re-cast, minions require re-summon if they die): If I go afk in an area with enemies, my "allies" will participate in content and engage with the world while I'm afk. I can understand the policy (unattended gameplay should be punished) but in some cases it does look weird.

Much like the auto-cast above, it's up to the developers to make sure summoned allies are "disabled" if a player goes away from their keyboard (disable turrets, kill minions and put pet on "away" if a player is unresponsive for a set amount of time. These are things up to the developers to fix and not something that requires a policy because from my understanding, they are both very hard to enforce.

Did any of these "afk" farmers negatively inmfluence your experience in the recent time?

I honestly don't care at all what other ppl are doing in the game as long as it doesn't influence myself negatively. What's the bigg deal? It's an MMO. There are som rangers and necros standing around in some places, activating a skill every 30 seconds. Wow, what a massive dealbreaker. Most of them probably earn like under 1g in an hour.

I don't think it has really any massive impact on the games economy. There are many things that happen in the game that have a much greater impact on the economy and prices than some ppl deciding to watch Netflix and run GW2 in the background, farming some spiders or whatever.

So what is this really about and why do you think Anet spending time on "solving" this problem is worth it´?

@"Adenin.5973" said:So what is this really about and why do you think Anet spending time on "solving" this problem is worth it´?

Read the post about their policy on unattended gameplay: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/65548/policy-unattended-gameplayThis part specifically:

As a general policy, any form of unattended gameplay is prohibited in Guild Wars 2 .

If the developers say it's prohibited who are you to disagree and give them a different policy? The impact on the economy doesn't really matter, it's inappropriate and prohibited behavior to earn gold while not actively playing the game, no matter how little it is, because you earn it without playing. That's the important part.

I simply gave them suggestions on how to enforce their own prohibition without the need of a not so useful "we'll punish you if you do it" policy, by using proper programming. Because the policy isn't really working.

@"maddoctor.2738" said:I worded the title this way so as not to give the wrong idea to some people. Still I find it odd that there are discussion threads on all other Policy topics except for this one.Link to the policy: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/65548/policy-unattended-gameplay

A few things that I'd like being answered:

The use of auto-casting abilities to farm while not at your computer or not actively playing the game.

Note that this does not mean that you cannot be away from your computer (AFK) while you are online. Idling in a city or even in the open world is not prohibited, though your character should not perform actions, participate in content, or otherwise engage with the world while you are away from your computer.

Solid suggestions IMO.

I main a ranger and there have been a few times where I had to go afk for an emergency only to come back to find that my pet had earned me gold participation in an event that spawned while I was gone. Having my pet despawn when I am afk would help avoid situations like this.

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Adenin.5973" said:So what is this really about and why do you think Anet spending time on "solving" this problem is worth it´?

As a general policy, any form of unattended gameplay is prohibited in Guild Wars 2 .

If the devs say it's prohibited and they continue doing nothing then how can this be any serious issue?

Do you honestly think they never thought of the idea of removing auto cast for certain abilites? So again, why didn't they do it then?

It's not worth their time. It hasn't been in over 6 years, so why now?

If the devs say it's prohibited and they continue doing nothing then how can this be any serious issue?In fact, they do suspend and sometimes even ban people for unattended gameplay. There is no system that can even theoretically catch everyone (and none that can even avoid catching people who didn't actually violate the policy). And similarly, there is no way that any of us actually know if someone is inattentive or entirely away; they can look the same.

how exactly are you going to find out if a player is doing this?They have various systems that monitor, as well as reports from players. They seem to do a good enough job that AFK farmers complain about getting caught, even in these very forums.

They aren't going to ever give us a precise answer because the more details they provide, the easier it would be for people to try to avoid detection.

To be honest the "auto-cast" feature should be only available on skills that require targets, that's the only solution to the unattended gameplay problem.Why? ANet doesn't see that the problem is that severe.

Reporting or waiting for GMs to contact the individual so they can then get banned is really slow and judging by the gigantic amount of players doing this at certain places (Timberline Falls and Iron Marches most notably) it's not really working.You seem to be confusing "inattentive farming" with "unattended gameplay." There are players who are watching movies or doing homework and set their characters to use non-targeted auto-attacks and they collect a minor amount of loot; this is allowed.

What's disallowed is setting it up and then not interacting with the game at all. I don't see how any of us can possibly determine whether any other player is doing one or the other; they look similar from the outside. ANet says that they can tell the difference, they have an escalating set of tests that they'll run to test if it's the case, and they seem 100% confident that they are catching as many "unattended gameplay" violations as they need to.

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

In fact, they do suspend and sometimes even ban people for unattended gameplay. There is no system that can even theoretically catch everyone (and none that can even avoid catching people who didn't actually violate the policy). And similarly, there is no way that any of us actually know if someone is inattentive or entirely away; they can look the same.

That's not quite correct though. Like in almost every MMO Anet has the policy to kick EVERY afk player from their servers in GW2.

The only thing that is against their ToS is, to circumvent this system, so that you don't get flagged afk by it and you don't get kicked. If you hit spacebar every few minutes and walk away, that's absolutely okay, which we know now for several years btw and nothing has changed so far. But creating other sorts of mechanisms to bypass the already existing system is far beyond what 99% of the "afk" farmers are doing.

Creating bots to play the game, which is also a way to bypass the afk system in the game is then another story.

Everything else is as far as Anet is concerned okay.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:There are players who are watching movies or doing homework and set their characters to use non-targeted auto-attacks and they collect a minor amount of loot; this is allowed.

What does the amount of loot have to do with anything? Please re-read the policy. It's rather clear on the subject:

The use of auto-casting abilities to farm while not at your computer or not actively playing the game.

And of course this part:

Note that this does not mean that you cannot be away from your computer (AFK) while you are online. Idling in a city or even in the open world is not prohibited, though your character should not perform actions, participate in content, or otherwise engage with the world while you are away from your computer.

If you set your character to auto-cast a skill (or have pets, turrets and minions) then go do your homework or watch a movie while your character is collecting loot IS NOT ALLOWED because your character is performing actions, participates in content and engage with the world (killing mobs and collecting loot with auto-loot) while you are away of the computer. When you are away of your computer, your character shouldn't get any experience or loot, the bold part is very clear on that.

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:There are players who are watching movies or doing homework and set their characters to use non-targeted auto-attacks and they collect a minor amount of loot; this is allowed.

The use of auto-casting abilities to farm while not at your computer or not actively playing the game.

Note that this does not mean that you cannot be away from your computer (AFK) while you are online. Idling in a city or even in the open world is not prohibited,

though your character should not perform actions, participate in content, or otherwise engage with the world while you are away from your computer

.

Look, you've read something they wrote sometime ago. You now have posted some basic suggestions on what to do, like they have been posted many times before.

You continue to ignore the fact that Anet themselves did choose to not adress this "afk" issue for ages. You also couldn't come up with any reason why this should change right now, when this apparently has not been any issue they were concerned with for many years. I mean they rather put time and effort into creating chairs that ppl can sit in while being afk, than trying to ban all those nasty afk gold farmers.

So I ask this again, since you haven't provided any answer to the one question that is really important for this topic in 2019. What has changed in the recent times in regards to afk farming, that would now make Anet put in the effort to change skills to get rid of afk farmers? I am sure everyone here would like to hear that.

Unless you can come up with such a reason your suggestions and your thoughts about this will achieve as much as any other suggestions that have been made here before regarding that topic.

@"Adenin.5973" said:Look, you've read something they wrote sometime ago.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/65548/policy-unattended-gameplayThe post was created 2 days ago. It's their revised/new policy. And since Gaile Gray made discussion posts for every other updated policy I made this one for the unattended policy update. It's new.

@Ashen.2907 said:I main a ranger and there have been a few times where I had to go afk for an emergency only to come back to find that my pet had earned me gold participation in an event that spawned while I was gone. Having my pet despawn when I am afk would help avoid situations like this.

Quite some time ago, I suggested a gizmo you could click on, that would put your player in an AFK state while you went to answer the door or whatever. You would be invulnerable and not interact with your surroundings in any way.

I still think it's a good idea, and think it could be implemented better than ever, looking at mounts, chairs, etc. Your AFK form of choice could go in the sixth novelty slot, and the gem store could sell you various options: sleeping in a pup tent, frozen in a crystal, floating in a suspended bubble, sealed in a glass coffin...

The only down side I can think of is people who get angry if a bunch of AFK bodies mess up the scaling of an event. But at least they wouldn't accuse you of AFK farming.

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Adenin.5973" said:Look, you've read something they wrote sometime ago.

Okay, fair enough. Yet I still fail to see what new information was given to us. This has been known since I can remember? What changed? It's the same as ever. What is this, a reminder from Anet?

I still don't see any relevant changes to either the ToS or the situation ingame.

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:There are players who are watching movies or doing homework and set their characters to use non-targeted auto-attacks and they collect a minor amount of loot; this is allowed.

The policy is clear: it is allowed to farm inattentively; the game is not "unattended". The reason that they have chose that policy is that the amount of loot is minor.

The use of auto-casting abilities to farm while not at your computer or not actively playing the game.Inattentive is not the same as inactive. I'm not sure why you insist that it is.

Note that this does not mean that you cannot be away from your computer (AFK) while you are online. Idling in a city or even in the open world is not prohibited,

though your character should not perform actions, participate in content, or otherwise engage with the world while you are away from your computer

.Again, if people are at the computer, but also watching a movie or doing homework, they are still paying attention to the game, just not all that much attention.

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Adenin.5973" said:Look, you've read something they wrote sometime ago.

No it is not the revised/new policy. It was clearly stated that is is exactly the same policy as before, and only the wording/explaining was improved.There have been dozens of threads about this topic for more than two years and the policy has been explained again and again.

People who are AFK are people who are not even there, meaning they are sleeping, at work/school, shopping, or wherever they choose to be else than their PC.People who are not actively playing the game are people who are at their PC, but are paying either no attention to the game at all, or so little attention that they completely fail to notice when a GM tries to interact with them.

If you pay enough attention to the game to notice when a GM tries to interact with you, nothing will ever happen to you. Actively playing the game means you have to be there and actually notice what is happening in the game. You can stand at the same spot for 10 hours with autocast and you will still be "actively playing the game" all that time as long as you are paying attention. Also, you have to do some actions like moving or using additional skills periodically anyways or you will be disconnected after one hour, autocast does NOT prevent characters from being logged out as it did some years ago. I have experienced checks by GMs firsthand several times so they absolutely do checks if a player is playing or not, despite people repeatedly claiming "they do nothing".

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:But they aren't away; I can read a book and glance up at the screen periodically. I can play some mobile games. I can chat on the phone with a friend. All without leaving my computer. All of that is allowed.

If you are reading a book and your character is farming with auto-cast on, just because you are periodically checking your screen, doesn't make you any less "away of your keyboard". In the end it's the exact same thing, you are getting participation in events while not actively playing the game.

If you go to the certain "bot areas", we all know where they are, they are full of engineers and necromancers with skills on auto-cast and minions/turrets. They never move, they never respond to chat. They just keep their characters there farming while not actively playing the game. "Checking my monitor" isn't actively playing the game, if the character is simply there damaging mobs, earning exp/loot while not moving at all, while not using a variety of skills (only their auto-cast) and not responding to any kind of communication, there is no difference if they are reading a book while periodically watching the monitor and being at the cinema watching a movie.

I'm not sure how you make these two being different in any way. You are saying that if I'm periodically checking my monitor but NOT actively playing the game, nor on my keyboard (AFK) it's fine. Just because I'm checking my screen from time to time. Where is that WRITTEN in the policy?

The use of auto-casting abilities to farm while not at your computer or not actively playing the game.

IF I simply periodically check my monitor, I'm not at my computer and I'm not actively playing the game. I don't know where you get the information, from an old developer post maybe of what's allowed, but there is nothing stating this in this policy.

@"Shikigami.4013" said:People who are AFK are people who are not even there, meaning they are sleeping, at work/school, shopping, or wherever they choose to be else than their PC.People who are not actively playing the game are people who are at their PC, but are paying either no attention to the game at all, or so little attention that they completely fail to notice when a GM tries to interact with them.

And this is why I said that their way of enforcing this policy is flawed. Waiting for a GM to interact with a person to figure out if they are paying little attention or no attention is a really slow process. Just go to the "bot lands" and tell me that those players are simply Inattentive and not completely AFK.

I have experienced checks by GMs firsthand several times so they absolutely do checks if a player is playing or not, despite people repeatedly claiming "they do nothing".

Are you NA or EU?

Anet are pretty tight on gold farming and bot use. This is a really minor issue imo.

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:But they aren't

away

; I can read a book and glance up at the screen periodically. I can play some mobile games. I can chat on the phone with a friend. All without leaving my computer. All of that is allowed.

That is your opinion, and your opinion is wrong. Proof for this is that ArenaNet does check people who are standing around for hours using autocast and when they are paying attention to the game and react to the game nothing happens to them.a) If they are afk as you claim they get disconnected after 1 hourb) If they are afk and use some sort of automation or bot to not get disconnected they will not be able to react to a GM testc) If ArenaNet would not take actions on accounts that do not react on their GM checks, they would have no reason to do GM checks

If you go to the certain "bot areas", we all know where they are, they are full of engineers and necromancers with skills on auto-cast and minions/turrets. They never move, they never respond to chat. They just keep their characters there farming while not actively playing the game. "Checking my monitor" isn't actively playing the game, if the character is simply there damaging mobs, earning exp/loot while not moving at all, while not using a variety of skills (only their auto-cast) and not responding to any kind of communication, there is no difference if they are reading a book while periodically watching the monitor and being at the cinema watching a movie.

I know where a few of them are and I have been there on my necro. I have been there for many hours several times, never moving (because I don't have to) and rarely casting anything else than my autocast. There have been tons of people passing and just calling everyone at the spot bot, afkfarmer, cheater. There have been tons of people who passed and just said "reported". There have been tons of people who came and left within minutes. None of them ever stayed for more than a few minutes, much less hours. None saw the people standing there talking to each other from time to time, take breaks, go sell, or ridicule the passersby who called everyone bots after they were gone. When you are one of those people standing there, not being afk, just being lazy, you get tired of "responding to chat" during the first day. You know why? Because it is completely and utterly pointless. Everyone coming up to the spot will not change their opinion, will not acknowledge that they are wrong, and will just keep hating no matter what you say. Saying you are not afk when they call you afk? They will just say you are botting. For everything you say they will just accuse of something else, or make false claims. It is the same as on this forum.

And "being afk" is only the same as "checking your monitor without moving" in your head because you don't like it. You are in denial to the fact ArenaNet will not make rules that force people to move while playing the game, or use skills, or react to the dozens of people that pass them daily and comment on them being bots, cheaters, or afk. Your "arguments" are horribly thought out and full of assumptions. You assume that "actively playing the game" means you have to move around, talk, use all your skills or whatever else you personally consider active. It's all just in your head. ArenaNet never made any rules that forces a player to do any of this. You are actively playing the game as long as you are at your PC and interact with it. That can be chatting, sorting your inventory, or even just looking at your character killing mobs. If you are able to react to a GM testing you, you are not inactive, no matter how much you don't like it when people do not move or answer to you.

As for your other post, I play EU.

PS: Do not confuse what I say with claiming that there are no people who are actually afk. There are, I saw several being moved away from their spot by a GM and then staying there, continuously casting their autocast skill although they had been moved to a spot without any mobs. Those are the people who WILL get actioned on their account, and those are the ones that are the reason that ArenaNet does the GM checks. But you are in no position to know which of the people are afk and which are not.

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:But they aren't

away

; I can read a book and glance up at the screen periodically. I can play some mobile games. I can chat on the phone with a friend. All without leaving my computer. All of that is allowed.

I'm sorry that you don't agree with the policy, but that doesn't change the enforcement protocol that has been repeatedly shared with us.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:But they aren't

away

; I can read a book and glance up at the screen periodically. I can play some mobile games. I can chat on the phone with a friend. All without leaving my computer. All of that is allowed.

It's not a matter if I agree or not with the policy but since it has been updated I'm not sure how valid previous posts on the subject are anymore. What I mean is just like they updated/changed the policy, what developers shared with us through the forums, reddit or anywhere else, might not be valid anymore, since it's not part of the updated policy. Maybe some developer will clarify and those enforcement protocols that they shared with us will get their update too. Until then allow me to express my concerns on the subject.

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:But they aren't

away

; I can read a book and glance up at the screen periodically. I can play some mobile games. I can chat on the phone with a friend. All without leaving my computer. All of that is allowed.

If you were just expressing your concerns, I wouldn't be posting. You are stating explicitly that reading a book while being next to the computer counts as "unattended gameplay" while there is literally nothing in the policy that implies that to be so. That is your opinion about how to interpret the policy, and it seems to be based on what you would prefer to be the rule.

For now, no one from ANet is equating "inattentive gameplay" with "unattended gameplay." They are two different things.

@"Shikigami.4013" said:And "being afk" is only the same as "checking your monitor without moving" in your head because you don't like it.

Periodically checking your monitor, while not doing anything else with the game (pressing other buttons/interacting with the game in some other way) is actually the same as being "away from keyboard".

If you don't believe me, leave your character with an auto-cast skill on and "periodically check your monitor" for some time and tell me if you get kicked for inactivity or not. Spoiler: you will get kicked for inactivity, because having a skill on auto-cast, no matter how much you watch your monitor, is the same as being inactive, it's unattended gameplay and that's why you are kicked by the game when doing so. Just watching your monitor isn't active play.

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:If you were just expressing your concerns, I wouldn't be posting. You are stating explicitly that reading a book while being next to the computer counts as "unattended gameplay" while there is literally nothing in the policy that implies that to be so. That is your opinion about how to interpret the policy, and it seems to be based on what you would prefer to be the rule.

If you read a book while next to your computer, your character will be booted to character selection screen for inactivity. Ever thought about that? Watching your monitor without interacting with the game is unattended gameplay. The game kicks you if you do that, and that's for a reason.

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:But they aren't

away

; I can read a book and glance up at the screen periodically. I can play some mobile games. I can chat on the phone with a friend. All without leaving my computer. All of that is allowed.

Gaile Gray.6029Gaile Gray.6029 ArenaNet ›
January 10, 2019

I will be updating the links, as we've just published updated policy documents. The policies themselves did not change, but we're outlining them in more detail and posting them in the spiffy new Guild Wars 2 and Forum Policies subforum.>

Thus, previous Dev statements would still be valid.

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:If you were just expressing your concerns, I wouldn't be posting. You are stating explicitly that reading a book while being next to the computer counts as "unattended gameplay" while there is literally nothing in the policy that implies that to be so. That is your opinion about how to interpret the policy, and it seems to be based on what you would prefer to be the rule.

I really don't understand why you're going on about this. I've described the scenario: reading a book, while occasionally interacting the game, primarily relying on auto-attacks or pets (including turrets and minions and such). That's inattentive, not AFK. And it's allowed.

To another player, it would be difficult, probably impossible to tell the difference. ANet has a protocol for determining if it's unattended gameplay.