Why isn't ArenaNet doing anything about map bots?

[Mastema.8529]

Why isn't ArenaNet doing anything about map bots? They stand and automatically attack opponents and yet they have Mastery, they have bought an account. Why don't they ban them so people don't want to buy the game and then lose it.

 

In my opinion, Taco Marker is a hack that makes the game easier and spoils the exploration of a map that no longer exists.

Bots on the maps are legally standing and farming even though the players are not at the computers.

 

 

What's next? speed hack? DMG Hack?

 

[ParadoX.3124]

As long as it is just an overlay not pressing multiple keys into the game, I don't see why it would hurt the game

Plus it allows materials to be cheaper on tp, there are no issues on afk farmers

[Mastema.8529]

Yeah, it's cool, you have cheaper materials... Wtf

Programs supporting the game are just hacks ... and you write that it's cool because they make it easier for you to play and you can buy materials cheaper ...

 

 

[vandrefalk.6823]

25 minutes ago, ParadoX.3124 said:

As long as it is just an overlay not pressing multiple keys into the game, I don't see why it would hurt the game

 

The hurt comes through the general opinion and broken windows syndrome staining the game's reputation...

 

"Teleport hackers in WvW"

"Bots and wintraders in PvP"

"Maps are full of afk bots farming materials!"

 

And then you get told in forum posts, support tickets that the correct channel is to report players with the in-game player report... but is there any indication these are ever acted on?

 

So in the end, player base will have a growing opinion of

 

"Oh, Anet aren't doing anything about it... ok, guess it's ok to exploit and cheat then..."

 

And so on; the game needs moderating and it needs Anet to step up their involvement in the daily running of the game... where's community management? moderators?

[vandrefalk.6823]

I'm not saying Pearl Abyss/BDO is perfect by any means, but they do sometimes post about accounts being restricted for violating ToS, etc. and I wish we had Anet be a bit more hands-on.

 

Most recent example from Black Desert:

https://www.naeu.playblackdesert.com/en-US/News/Detail?groupContentNo=5125&countryType=en-US

 

Right now - even with the "Spring update post" back in mid February, Anet seem completely gone... where's the communication?

What happened to Guild Chat? They're holding their cards so close to their chests, not telling us anything.... is it because they're blank, or is it because they just don't want to.

 

It's always refreshing to see a couple of them turn up in MightyTeapot's streams; Grouch, Darkbringer, etc. but that's them as individuals rather than on company representation business... and we need them to become more present in all matters.

[Freya.9075]

Idle farming is allowed as long as you're not afk or use a program to press buttons for you. There is no way for us to know if they are bots or actual players. You can watch movies and have autocast as long as you're able to react if Anet staff checks if you are there. If you reply to them, you're not breaking any rules and will not get a ban. If you see anyone you suspect is a bot, just report them and move on.

[ParadoX.3124]

13 minutes ago, Dondarrion.2748 said:

 

The hurt comes through the general opinion and broken windows syndrome staining the game's reputation...

 

"Teleport hackers in WvW"

"Bots and wintraders in PvP"

"Maps are full of afk bots farming materials!"

 

And then you get told in forum posts, support tickets that the correct channel is to report players with the in-game player report... but is there any indication these are ever acted on?

 

So in the end, player base will have a growing opinion of

 

"Oh, Anet aren't doing anything about it... ok, guess it's ok to exploit and cheat then..."

 

And so on; the game needs moderating and it needs Anet to step up their involvement in the daily running of the game... where's community management? moderators?

No one talked about teleports, bots and hack ; ANet don't care about PvP at all, it's not like it is still alive by now

Map full because of afk farmers ? Create an LFG on another map

[vandrefalk.6823]

1 minute ago, ParadoX.3124 said:

No one talked about teleports, bots and hack ; ANet don't care about PvP at all, it's not like it is still alive by now

Map full because of afk farmers ? Create an LFG on another map

 

I know this is about afk farming bots; but the inaction by Anet extends to all of these issues and is part of the same problem.

 

Unwillingness to address and take action - leading to players simply doing it in greater numbers because nobody ever gets caught.

Edited April 14, 2023 by Dondarrion.2748

[vandrefalk.6823]

5 minutes ago, Freya.9075 said:

Idle farming is allowed as long as you're not afk or use a program to press buttons for you. There is no way for us to know if they are bots or actual players.

 

Come on; we've all passed afk bot centrals and I have on numerous occassions whispered and asked players present in these hubs if they're there or not and stood around for quite sometime before I reported them and then went on my way.

 

We as players should stop excusing these afk farmers as doing idle farming within the ToS because we all know that the majority is cheating.

[Freya.9075]

4 minutes ago, Dondarrion.2748 said:

 

Come on; we've all passed afk bot centrals and I have on numerous occassions whispered and asked players present in these hubs if they're there or not and stood around for quite sometime before I reported them and then went on my way.

 

We as players should stop excusing these afk farmers as doing idle farming within the ToS because we all know that the majority is cheating.

Not excusing afk bots. They should be banned. I have seen Anet staff teleport these farmers and all of them except of a couple players sprung to life and greeted Anet and went back to their spot. They have no obligation to answer you. I would imagine they get tons of people trying to get them to answer them during their farm period. And don't feel like answering you as you're not an Anet staff. They are only obligated to answer Anet.

Edited April 14, 2023 by Freya.9075

[Mastema.8529]

34 minutes ago, Freya.9075 said:

Idle farming is allowed as long as you're not afk or use a program to press buttons for you. There is no way for us to know if they are bots or actual players. You can watch movies and have autocast as long as you're able to react if Anet staff checks if you are there. If you reply to them, you're not breaking any rules and will not get a ban. If you see anyone you suspect is a bot, just report them and move on.

 

Three players who farm so much I met again today, in the same place. 
I reported them yesterday, they are still there today and they are probably not there because I spammed them with messages but none of them write back. 
Let's face it, the administration doesn't give a kitten as much as our applications in the game!

Edited April 14, 2023 by Mastema.8529

[Freya.9075]

9 minutes ago, Mastema.8529 said:

 

Three players who farm so much I met again today, in the same place. 
I reported them yesterday, they are still there today and they are probably not there because I spammed them with messages but none of them write back. 
Let's face it, the administration doesn't give a kitten as much as our applications in the game!

I don’t want to repeat myself. So read my post below that one. They have no obligation to answer you. Like it or not, there is no way for us to know if they are bots or not. 

Edited April 14, 2023 by Freya.9075

[Morticoccus.6540]

2 minutes ago, Mastema.8529 said:

 

Three players who farm so much I met again today, in the same place. 
I reported them yesterday, they are still there today and they are probably not there because I spammed them with messages but none of them write back. 
Let's face it, the administration doesn't give a kitten as much as our applications in the game!

The administration has given us plenty of kittens, just look in the new expansion, they even have cats in the restaurant of the new LW episode.

 

As for our applications in game, if a couple of dozen people who otherwise obviously wouldn't play the game stand around on zero input farming builds, I'm annoyed. But if by banning them we also lose taco and fishing buddy, I say it's less damaging to just let them stand there.

 

Anet should just add some kind of nuisance item that we could use to troll them, such as a novelty rock that you can toss at an immobile player that moves them a tiny increment without doing damage.

If you use it on a random dude it does nothing special, if you use it on an AFK farmer you can move them across the map. They could charge 2000 gems for it and people would pay it gladly.

[Aelin.9317]

When I went to lake dorik for my return to achieve the sheer amount of ppl afk farming... yikes!

I am still newer to the game and I really dislike this. When I was brand new and found ppl afk farming centaurs on one of the starters maps I thought they were just blatantly botting and the devs were just doing nothing, this included rangers using bow 5 on repeat. I really don't believe that people are semi-afk. I think most are fully automated, I spotted an obvious multiboxer (same names one just missing an i) yesterday too again in an early game map. 

Making materials cheaper is not helpful, if I am getting those same materials through active play they are devaluing my time spent. And people making gold through cheesey methods makes playing normally not feel great when you reflect on it. I did reconsider if I wanted to keep playing after I seen all those accounts afk farming. 

That said I am still here so it wasn't a total deal breaker either ^^ It's still depressing to see and I wish they would do something about it. I rather not bring friends over from ffxiv till I see how the game goes over the next few months. Even if the economic impact from afk farmers is not huge, it still feels crappy to see. 

[Mastema.8529]

4 minutes ago, Freya.9075 said:

I don’t want to repeat myself. So read my post below that one. They have no obligation to answer you. Like it or not, there is no way for us to know if they are bots or not. 

Maybe it's time for some security so that the administration can check it. When paying for the game, I wish there were no bots in them.

5 minutes ago, Morticoccus.6540 said:

Anet should just add some kind of nuisance item that we could use to troll them, such as a novelty rock that you can toss at an immobile player that moves them a tiny increment without doing damage.

If you use it on a random dude it does nothing special, if you use it on an AFK farmer you can move them across the map. They could charge 2000 gems for it and people would pay it gladly.

 

Well, here's an idea. We have a solution in a few minutes, and the administration can't do anything... There would be many solutions to this problem, but they don't want to and that's it. Answer that there is no such thing as nonsense

[Morticoccus.6540]

3 minutes ago, Aelin.9317 said:

When I went to lake dorik for my return to achieve the sheer amount of ppl afk farming... yikes!

I am still newer to the game and I really dislike this. When I was brand new and found ppl afk farming centaurs on one of the starters maps I thought they were just blatantly botting and the devs were just doing nothing, this included rangers using bow 5 on repeat. I really don't believe that people are semi-afk. I think most are fully automated, I spotted an obvious multiboxer (same names one just missing an i) yesterday too again in an early game map. 

Making materials cheaper is not helpful, if I am getting those same materials through active play they are devaluing my time spent. And people making gold through cheesey methods makes playing normally not feel great when you reflect on it. I did reconsider if I wanted to keep playing after I seen all those accounts afk farming. 

That said I am still here so it wasn't a total deal breaker either ^^ It's still depressing to see and I wish they would do something about it. I rather not bring friends over from ffxiv till I see how the game goes over the next few months. Even if the economic impact from afk farmers is not huge, it still feels crappy to see. 

 

If I'm not mistaken, in order to make money off the crafting professions in ff14 you basically had to max out all of them ant then sell whatever people were buying at the moment, so I'd say they would find the GW2 "farm mats, sell mats, unless what you're making is ascended or higher you're usually losing money on crafting and selling" style refreshing either way.

 

 

[Freya.9075]

3 minutes ago, Mastema.8529 said:

Maybe it's time for some security so that the administration can check it. When paying for the game, I wish there were no bots in them.

They do. Which was what I saw when they teleported them to check if they were afk of not. I saw them do this, so some security clearly is there. We do not know how often they check them, and Anet doesn’t see it as an issue as long as players follow the rules when they do it. Reporting is all we can do.

I agree with the wish for no bots, but I don’t think there ever will be a game without some bots. Some games are more affected than others. At least in gw2 I never see bots spam the chat which can be way more annoying. 

[Aelin.9317]

Just now, Morticoccus.6540 said:

 

If I'm not mistaken, in order to make money off the crafting professions in ff14 you basically had to max out all of them ant then sell whatever people were buying at the moment, so I'd say they would find the GW2 "farm mats, sell mats, unless what you're making is ascended or higher you're usually losing money on crafting and selling" style refreshing either way.

 

 

Not so! I was making profit with my level 40 culinarian making bubble chocolate ^^ people just need to know what to make and you can keep profit all the way along. And I have maxed my crafters across 3 characters since I have houses on multiple servers. 

Guild wars crafting, at least the levels, feels so mind numbing I truly hated leveling each one. Making legendary stuff is fun! But getting them to level 500 was truly mind numbing and tedious to me. 

 

[Cernoch.8524]

Bots are annoying but they dont really break the game or economy, those 1 or 2 golds they get per hour is nothing, you can get that in 5 minutes of playing or few seconds of trading 😉. I dont see the  issue if the player is there killing mobs, even with spamming the skill and watching the movie or something. I also believe that reporting does absolutely nothing in this game. Many ppl just troll with reports anyway so I think it doesnt even help Anet, people see someone being actually afk for few seconds and they think its a bot right away because he has minions out...

Calling TACO a hack is kitten, it doesnt make you stronger, faster, immortal or anything like that. That it ruins exploration? Depends on player, I would not use it for my first exploration but when I do the same map on 30th character? It just makes it a little bit faster, thats all. It doesnt affect ANY other players in any way.

[Danikat.8537]

1 hour ago, Freya.9075 said:

I agree with the wish for no bots, but I don’t think there ever will be a game without some bots. Some games are more affected than others. At least in gw2 I never see bots spam the chat which can be way more annoying. 

They used to, but I haven't seen it (or anyone complaining about it) for years. It used to be almost every time you went to the PvP lobby or certain other maps you'd get whispers or map chat spam advertising gold sellers. I'm not sure if it stopped because Anet got better at cracking down on them, because it became less profitable and they moved to other games or some combination of the two. (Or maybe they just gave up on advertising within the game?)

Considering the majority of afk farmers I've seen have mastery points, titles, sometimes gem store skins and legendaries, I suspect it's people farming for their own benefit rather than to sell gold for real money. Between the fact that gold selling will get your accounts banned quickly and that the point is to make a real-life profit I don't think gold sellers would waste their time and money unlocking a bunch of stuff on an account they know will get banned.

I suspect Anet think that as long as they're not botting, are at the computer when Anet checks on them and they're not selling gold it's not a big problem. Players may disagree, but we don't get to set the rules on what is and isn't allowed.

[Cernoch.8524]

7 minutes ago, Danikat.8537 said:

They used to, but I haven't seen it (or anyone complaining about it) for years. It used to be almost every time you went to the PvP lobby or certain other maps you'd get whispers or map chat spam advertising gold sellers. I'm not sure if it stopped because Anet got better at cracking down on them, because it became less profitable and they moved to other games or some combination of the two. (Or maybe they just gave up on advertising within the game?)

I believe those gold sellers were new and mostly F2P accounts and Anet changed that they cant whisper or send  mails unless you are mutual friends. So they probably gave up now since they had no way of contacting you, I am not sure about map chat though.

[Gibson.4036]

2 hours ago, Dondarrion.2748 said:

I'm not saying Pearl Abyss/BDO is perfect by any means, but they do sometimes post about accounts being restricted for violating ToS, etc. and I wish we had Anet be a bit more hands-on.

 

Most recent example from Black Desert:

https://www.naeu.playblackdesert.com/en-US/News/Detail?groupContentNo=5125&countryType=en-US

 

Right now - even with the "Spring update post" back in mid February, Anet seem completely gone... where's the communication?

What happened to Guild Chat? They're holding their cards so close to their chests, not telling us anything.... is it because they're blank, or is it because they just don't want to.

 

It's always refreshing to see a couple of them turn up in MightyTeapot's streams; Grouch, Darkbringer, etc. but that's them as individuals rather than on company representation business... and we need them to become more present in all matters.

Agreed.

Afkers in PVE and PvP, bugs that don’t get addressed, and communication drop off are all part of the feeling that this game is sunsetting, whether it is or not.

It’s wild that these forums seem to be the most moderated part of the game.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

27 minutes ago, Cernoch.8524 said:

I believe those gold sellers were new and mostly F2P accounts and Anet changed that they cant whisper or send  mails unless you are mutual friends. So they probably gave up now since they had no way of contacting you, I am not sure about map chat though.

For me, most of the gold-seller chat was prior to Play4Free inception.  So, I'm not sure that was the cause of the absence of gold-seller spam. 

[Vekks.6013]

Unattended gameplay is reportable and against TOS, so I report all these afk farmers/bots whenever I see them, in fact I keep a spreadsheet of account names that I have reported, and when I find an account multiple times and report them again,  I update how many times they've been spotted and reported. So here are some statistics of my fairly diligent efforts to report and track afk farmers from the past year.

Unique accounts reported: 736
Average times sighted/reported per account: 35
Most frequent zone reported in: Domain of Istan (851 Total Reports)

[Durnik Delmore.4528]

Oh look, Another soon to be locked thread.