Domain of Istan - Mass AFK Farm - Rising Issue

[Gotejjeken.1267]

16 hours ago, Cyprien.4208 said:

That's slightly wrong as AFK farming doesn't cost anything (other than power/energy) where someone buying gems to covert to gold at least cost real world money. If all your wanting a quick method for in-game gold sure this method is one of the top official methods to do this. I highly don't think it's worth it as the return is awful as you can farm that amount of gold within a week or two. 

 

What if cost isn't a factor? Wouldn't it be more beneficial to just be a whale and drop a couple hundred bucks, get all the gold you need and be done? 

 

That is, a 'week or two' is far too long of a timeframe, when you can get that gold in a couple of minutes with gem conversion...

 

Which is where Anet should draw the line, because 'AFK farmers' do not make them any money.  Gem store converters do, so if we're talking 'ridiculous ways to play the game' they should have gem sales far more often.  

[ClanWars.5746]

44 minutes ago, Rogue.8235 said:

I pointed out an incorrect claim that detracts from your arguements.

 

Afk farming is, in my opinion, a bad thing.  Botting is straight-up a violation of the EULA with harsh consequences.  Also, afk farming does not negatively impact the economy in any noticeable or meaningful way.

It is entirely possible for me to point out that something is incorrect, without dismissing the entire opinion, and without condoning afk farming or botting.

 

If you need me to put it in another way.

• P1: AFK farming does not effect the in-game economy in a significantly negative manner.
• P2: Afk farming is against the spirit and intent of the game.
• P3: botting is a violation of the EULA and is often conducted through illicit means.
• Therefore: Botting is bad and AFK farming, while not negatively impacting the in-game economy in any meaningful way, is bad.

I really do not know how to make this any clearer.  

 

I never dismissed anyone's opinions.  I only pointed out a factually incorrect premise. 

I am not defending afk farming or botting. I only pointed out a factually incorrect premise.

I am pointing out a factually incorrect premise.  This does not invalidate the subjective opinions people have nor does it condone the actions of afk farming and botting.

Again, how do I make this any clearer?

 

 From what I understand it seems u misunderstood me on my first post. I never said botting/afk farm had great impact on the economy, what I clearly said was players who legally and actively farm suffers when mats prices reduces due to bottling/afk farm. People tend to forget these victims.

 When I say most people who defend bottling/afk farm are usually the ones who bot/afk farm, I'm speaking about almost every mmo. This I speak from experience. What can't you understand about this? Defending here means saying botting is fine cause it doesn't affect the economy etc. 

 I understand where you stand. You are the person who is here to correct peoples false argument against bots/afk farm etc, you don't support bot but you only try to correct others and refrain from giving solutions nor improvement. You aren't defending bot/afk farm, you are here to crush the misconception. BUT you do not try to understand what someone says, you just say "you're wrong this is how it is", and ofc what you say is right but what you are correcting (in this case my comments) is not what should be corrected.

Don't be narrow minded.

[Gehenna.3625]

I think there's a jokoe in the Domain of Istan having a "rising" problem.

[Vinceman.4572]

I don't think that people farming mats the usual way are "victims". That's nonsense over 9k. We play a video game here.

People like me are not defending afk farming - which obviously is still different from illegal botting - but I've yet to see a valid argument that those are one of the really important issues here. I won't mind appropriate solutions against afk farming, be it very hard diminishing returns, server kick, time bans unless those do not harm the usual player base which is afk waiting for a world boss to spawn.

The key point for me here is that afk farming already was a thing years ago and never - in any of the cases - anyone was able to prove that this form of playing has had a very negative impact on the game. (Exception: It looks bad when a new player passes by and sees it.). From an economic perspective I have good reasons to think that it's not an issue: Meta events like Tarir are generating so much more loot per player every two hours and one map is full with dozens of those loot goblins. On top of that: The maps have several instances per event. And here we talk about one specific meta. Not to talk about the uncountable groups in fractals and so on. Telling me that afk farming makes other players to victims is bs.

 

So yeah, ban afk farmers because it looks terrible and is against the vision of meeting others but for me tp baroning, using external websites for trading and other stuff is much more of an annoyance. Still, none of that has stopped me from playing.

 

Side note:

Saying electricity cost doesn't affect you because of the prices or due to you still being a teen living at your parents house is very narrow thinking. You'll pay later - climate change will eff us hard.

[Gibson.4036]

In all this discussion over whether AFK farming and bots actually affect the economy, it's important not to dismiss how they affect the atmosphere. This is a game, with rules and structure. If it feels like some are constantly bending or going around the rules, it does change how it feels to be a player who is doing things as intended, so to speak.

I remember running across the AFK minionmasters while doing Difluorite Crystal runs in the Sandswept Isles. Putting in the time toward the long Skyscale quest and seeing players collecting who-knows-what by minion while AFK did chafe a little.

Totally understandable then that at least one guy saw fit to make sure enough mobs wandered into those afkers to overwhelm the minions.

Were those AFKers distorting the economy or even getting something all that great by endlessly killing Inquest by minion? I doubt it. But they were undermining the shared community assumption that we're all playing together by a certain set of rules and design. And that's not nothing.

Edited August 30, 2021 by Gibson.4036

[Xanadrine.4352]

Can I ask whats the difference between me going in there with minons scepter and torch hitting epi to tag all the things and having minions attack , and what you call afk farmers?  For that matter whats the difference between that and me going on on any other class hitting a powerful aoe and finishing them off? I mean most geared people can one shot normal mobs in packs. Now if they are truly AFK they they dont do anything  just sit there and when a mob attacks them the minons attack the mob. That dont seem very productive to me, and rather slow.  But to clear an area I use epi then then focus them down with scepter torch and epi again if needed. But most normal mobs die rather easy.

 

 

Another thing, I have never noticed my minions running amuck without me being attacked or me attacking something. If I make the mistake of going afk in a heavy mob area I come back to the pc dead. So how are they mowing down mobs while afk?

Edited August 30, 2021 by Zuldari.3940

[Xanadrine.4352]

I can see engi turrets being an issue in a way because they fire at will, anything red in their firing range gets shot. But my minions dont attack unless I do or a mob attacks me, and they stop attacking that mob when I swap targets. Either way I have to attack to get them to move their lazy butts around.

 

I suppose there are people that use macro chains with bot software but thats a different issue than just blaming necro and minions

Edited August 30, 2021 by Zuldari.3940

[IndigoSundown.5419]

Thoughts on the topic

 

1) On the argument that one can get a job and buy gems to convert to cold, and get a better return... what stops a player from AFK farming while at her/his day job?

2) I don't lose sleep over it one way or the other.

3) I firmly believe that any system in an online game that can be abused will be abused.  That said, I would have no heartburn if a developer abuse-hardened a given play system.  I have no interest in idle games, and won't use such systems in games that provide them, including GW2.  In fact, I prefer that developers not provide such systems.  While some may believe in a live-and-let-abuse philosophy, I don't.

4) I believe that nothing happens in a vacuum.  Since the game's economy is based on supply and demand, any abuse which creates saleable materials out of "nothing" is going to impact prices. While this may positively impact consumers it is going to negatively impact sellers of such materials who attain them via active play.

5) While there may be other, worse abuses in GW2, I see no harm in adopting changes which would make AFK farming more problematic, unless the amount of developer work involved is too much for the benefits that work would provide.

 

[sewenewes.4176]

I personally don't care how bots affect the economy of games because the individuals pretending they are playing stock market simulator do far more damage. The real damage bots cause is to the perception of the game. Any game *visibly* infested with them gains the reputation of being abandoned.

[T G.7496]

It's ugly.

But it's not illegal.

It has no material effect on the game economy.

And there are no victims associated with it.

There are only fools; those that waste their time doing it, and those that waste their time worrying about it.

[Bristingr.5034]

Thanks for the reminder. I need to create a Necro and farm the Inquest for Karma, Magic, and Spare Parts.

[Rogue.8235]

18 hours ago, ClanWars.5746 said:

 From what I understand it seems u misunderstood me on my first post. I never said botting/afk farm had great impact on the economy, what I clearly said was players who legally and actively farm suffers when mats prices reduces due to bottling/afk farm. People tend to forget these victims.

 When I say most people who defend bottling/afk farm are usually the ones who bot/afk farm, I'm speaking about almost every mmo. This I speak from experience. What can't you understand about this? Defending here means saying botting is fine cause it doesn't affect the economy etc. 

 I understand where you stand. You are the person who is here to correct peoples false argument against bots/afk farm etc, you don't support bot but you only try to correct others and refrain from giving solutions nor improvement. You aren't defending bot/afk farm, you are here to crush the misconception. BUT you do not try to understand what someone says, you just say "you're wrong this is how it is", and ofc what you say is right but what you are correcting (in this case my comments) is not what should be corrected.

Don't be narrow minded.

 

I make conclusions when I am able to, otherwise I avoid drawing conclusions from incomplete information as it's less of a conclusion and more just a guess at that point.

Drawing conclusions from something that is invalid doesn't help anything, as it would be a factually incorrect conclusion.

As for the misunderstanding.  I agree with botting creating victims.  It is illicit and extreme.  It won't crash the economy but it does have a short term impact with long term effects on the direct victims.  

I'm still not convinced that AFK farming has consequences in specific materials being AFK farmed.  Equilibrium price changes have many confounding factors that can't be ignored.  

 

I will just say this as a whole on the topic at hand.  AFK farming isn't in the spirit of the game, which is to actively participate in an online world.  It's just opinion but that's my 2 copper.  Inattentive farming is different, and it is hard for most players (including myself) to judge the difference.  That's because we aren't able to access the specific chats that other players can be engaging in.  

Botting is objectively bad no matter how you look at it.  That's undebatable.  There are many bad things to point out without needing to resort to something that isn't valid.  

The solution is to report and move on.  ArenaNet will develop technical solutions that we, the player base, will not know of because sharing such information will immediately render it obsolete.

[Naxos.2503]

Personally I have problems with it when it becomes such a large operation that it influences the trade post pricing. Let's be clear, we already have gougers and TP barons. The last thing we need is botters creating a gold devaluation and causing inflation. Because then honest players who play the game Normally have no chance to buy anything.

The massive increase in botting is something I also picked up on. And the numbers described by OP are conservative. I saw up to 14 necromancers in Istan alone sharing their names into different parts of the cube.

Let's be honest there too, there is no way that's not multiclienting and thus not illegal.

[Turial.1293]

Bots = bad

There is not really a discussion to be had on that and even if you disagreed it would be against the ToS so it's a moot argument. But back on track, afk farming is really not healthy for the game. This is a story as old as there is online games, we know it causes damage from multiple angles. It doesn't leave a good impression to see the playerbase afk in 1 spot. Other players may feel that it's not worth playing because those people can get 2x, 5x, 100x the profit for a fraction of the time they spend online. Some may even think those players are all bots (impossible to tell). They may just be put off the game because what's the point? The player leaves, anet no longer have them as a source of revenue. The afk people generate enough mats and gold to either flood the market or as some point out convert that gold into legendaries extremely quickly. Those players don't leave a game that lets them generate gold infinitely and easily, they can convert all their gold to gems to buy everything in the gem store. Ergo, anet makes zero revenue from these players despite what the defenders here may try to convince you. It hurts the economy and well-being of the game immensely.

I agree with the comment that "only people who do it are the ones defending it" because really why would anyone who does do it ever try to say it's bad. It's how they make gold in game so why would they nerf their own source of income. Totally illogical. I'm not gonna get into the nitty-gritty of how much gold or what it specifically affects on the TP because it's a domino effect and one some of us have seen for decades in games before Guild Wars. The fact is, it looks terrible and ultimately affects the economy of every player who does not partake in afk farming. However............................ The real problem is lack of communication. Until Anet make a firm definite statement on this it will always be a grey area and that is the issue. Players really don't know if it is ok or not and therein lies the problem with this problem. If we knew one way or the other then players who were upset/confused/curious by it could be pointed to a direct statement. I like that someone defending the afk farmers alluded to the idea of "if you can't beat them, join them" and that's a grand idea. If every player just stops playing and instead afk farms then Anet will most certainly be forced to take a stance.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Turial.1293
typo

[mythical.6315]

I’m not sure if anyone here pays an actual electricity bill but the amount from running a PC is fairly insignificant. You’d see a larger impact on the bill from leaving the lights on when you’re not home or in a room. You’re looking at like four cents an hour to run a PC which is pretty insignificant. 

Edited August 31, 2021 by mythical.6315

[Vash.2386]

Sounds like the OP should be reported in game for harassment and griefing. 
 

Stop playing big brother monitoring how others play and go and enjoy the game. 

[superkaratemonkey.7408]

"rising issue"

 

been around since pof, just stop and move on, waste of energy and they won't fix it, they monitor it and suspend people who use it as a warning, if you get caught again they can perma ban. that's as far as they can go with these kinds of things.

 

you're not going to get rid of bots in this game, you remove the mobs there, they go somewhere else

 

the only solution to not have bots is have a game without content that's farmable, which would make it not a game at all

 

every mmo has issues with bots, and to be honest, most of those games have worse bots than here. it's just a natural cycle.

[Xaxxus.6719]

AFK farming is only breaking the TOS if you use a third party program to do so.

 

If you are sitting by your computer spamming your turrets/aoes using features built into the game. You aren't doing anything to break the TOS.

 

Necros/rev using the auto cast function - not a third party utility

Engi has to sit and recast turrets every 5 min - not even afk at that point

 

Also I think those numbers are vastly overrated. Maybe if you have 10 accounts running at once. But if your a single player just trying to get karma/volatile magic, its hardly the most profitable way to do it.

Edited July 15, 2022 by Xaxxus.6719

[Freya.9075]

Aww. And here I was thinking there was enough necros in istan. Yet here it shines in all its glory 👀