The new in combat AFK timer is causing me grief

[Arya Whitefire.8423]

For 8-10 years I could go park myself at the Octovine, or similar metas 10-20 minutes early, go attend to real life a bit,  come back before the start, and be ready to go.

Now, I find myself at the login screen because some trash mob put me in combat, probably killed me, and somehow I've magically become an AFK farmer who needs to be punished.

Fix it please.

[Parasite.5389]

solution: don't afk where you can be attacked by trash mobs, i'd assume you have a skyscale by now

Edited August 1 by Parasite.5389

[Andy.5981]

If you're not at your keyboard you are afk and breaking the terms of play. Seems like being booted to the character select screen in the manner you've describe shows that the new code is working exactly as intended.

[Parasite.5389]

Just now, Andy.5981 said:

If you're not at your keyboard you are afk and breaking the terms of play.

thats not exactly true, players are allowed to AFK, as long as they're not engaged in meaningful activity or performing actions while away.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

There are plenty of places to park away from mobs in Tarir.  Or, as suggested above, 'park' on your Skyscale in air.  🤷‍♂️

[Nash.2681]

1 hour ago, Arya Whitefire.8423 said:

Fix it please.

Nothing broken, so nothing to fix here. As already suggested, if you want to retain your playstyle, invest a few more seconds before going afk to park in a save place. If that's too much, well... better get used watching your char selection screen. 

[Dean Calaway.9718]

1 hour ago, Arya Whitefire.8423 said:

I find myself at the login screen because some trash mob put me in combat, probably killed me, and somehow I've magically become an AFK farmer who needs to be punished.

Working as intended.

Also, while some people here are suggesting you hide your character better to avoid the AFK timer, I say stop leeching the pre-events, the Octovine doesn't show up if players don't do them, if you have to "attend to real life" then go do that, otherwise earn your keep.

[QueenKeriti.5176]

39 minutes ago, Dean Calaway.9718 said:

Working as intended.

Also, while some people here are suggesting you hide your character better to avoid the AFK timer, I say stop leeching the pre-events, the Octovine doesn't show up if players don't do them, if you have to "attend to real life" then go do that, otherwise earn your keep.

? Octo hasn't depended on preevents in literal years. It's on a hard timer.

[costepj.5120]

Unless you count kicking down the doors as a pre-event.

[Andy.5981]

4 hours ago, Parasite.5389 said:

thats not exactly true, players are allowed to AFK, as long as they're not engaged in meaningful activity or performing actions while away.

that's not eactly right.

https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014185033-Policy-Unattended-Gameplay#:~:text=Idling in a city or,are away from your computer.

from the above...

"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."

the part "or otherwise engage with the world while you are away from your computer is the pertenent part, if they are sitting in an area and are attacked whilst afk then they are engaging with the world. To be truely ok you have to be in a completely safe area, not performing actions, not participating in content and not engaging with anything in the game world.

Tbh as someone said above. Its working as intended irrespective of anyones interpretation.

Edited August 1 by Andy.5981

[Randulf.7614]

The WP at the top left is completely safe from mobs. Suitable to park and then move to where you want to go later.

[Sobx.1758]

There are safespots everywhere and there were safespots everywhere before we even had the acces to mounts. It's not hard to put your character where the mobs don't spawn.

[Noidea Incognito.9607]

My condolences to the players that are confronted with this new development; but this was bound to happen as people kept reporting on it for how long?  

In the case of the OP and others that had that situation; you are simply the collateral damage, with the irony that the targeted group isn't affected that much(at all?) by this system.

Ive checked some spots with those "players" and took the liberty to watch over them 1 hour.... the method was clearly 1 spot, no/zero movement,  auto-skill attacking/killing.

That's the definition of afk-farming and the system never kicked those players. In the end this implementation of an anti-afk-sytem only annoys the regular peeps?

I tried to get a response from them about the afk-system. "nope, nothing changed" they said.  

Well... lets just say good intend doesn't automatically mean good results o7

 

[AliamRationem.5172]

7 hours ago, Andy.5981 said:

that's not eactly right.

https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014185033-Policy-Unattended-Gameplay#:~:text=Idling in a city or,are away from your computer.

from the above...

"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."

the part "or otherwise engage with the world while you are away from your computer is the pertenent part, if they are sitting in an area and are attacked whilst afk then they are engaging with the world. To be truely ok you have to be in a completely safe area, not performing actions, not participating in content and not engaging with anything in the game world.

Tbh as someone said above. Its working as intended irrespective of anyones interpretation.

Key word "engage".  Engagement requires action taken.  Simply being AFK is not engaging with the game world.  However, summoning pets/objects that then attack enemies in the game world is.

It's neither here nor there, however, as we all have the ability to avoid issues with this by simply not placing ourselves in a position to be attacked.  I'll deal with that minor inconvenience if it's effective at stopping AFK farming.

[Randulf.7614]

2 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Key word "engage".  Engagement requires action taken.  Simply being AFK is not engaging with the game world.  However, summoning pets/objects that then attack enemies in the game world is.

It's neither here nor there, however, as we all have the ability to avoid issues with this by simply not placing ourselves in a position to be attacked.  I'll deal with that minor inconvenience if it's effective at stopping AFK farming.

Agreed, except sadly it isn't having the slightest impact.

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, Randulf.7614 said:

Agreed, except sadly it isn't having the slightest impact.

Well that sucks.

[Quench.7091]

7 hours ago, Noidea Incognito.9607 said:

My condolences to the players that are confronted with this new development; but this was bound to happen as people kept reporting on it for how long?  

In the case of the OP and others that had that situation; you are simply the collateral damage, with the irony that the targeted group isn't affected that much(at all?) by this system.

Ive checked some spots with those "players" and took the liberty to watch over them 1 hour.... the method was clearly 1 spot, no/zero movement,  auto-skill attacking/killing.

That's the definition of afk-farming and the system never kicked those players. In the end this implementation of an anti-afk-sytem only annoys the regular peeps?

I tried to get a response from them about the afk-system. "nope, nothing changed" they said.  

Well... lets just say good intend doesn't automatically mean good results o7

 

That isn't them auto skill attacking. Those people are using macros to attack. They are using attacks every few seconds, even when no NPCs are around them.

The good news is that the people left seem to be the macro bots and the legitimate idle farmers. It is easier to identify the macro players now. The mass-multiboxers have been shaved down by quite a bit, but it seems like a lot of them are picking up macroing.

[Mistwraithe.3106]

3 hours ago, Quench.7091 said:

That isn't them auto skill attacking. Those people are using macros to attack. They are using attacks every few seconds, even when no NPCs are around them.

The good news is that the people left seem to be the macro bots and the legitimate idle farmers. It is easier to identify the macro players now. The mass-multiboxers have been shaved down by quite a bit, but it seems like a lot of them are picking up macroing.

I wouldn't mind betting this was part of Anet's plan. The change essentially forces afk farmers to run macros to avoid being disconnected. Macros are easier to identify and easier to prove that the player is breaching the terms and conditions than someone who is just afk farming (who can try arguing they were just away from the computer going to the toilet when a GM pinged them - it's much harder to argue that you accidentally ran a macro, or were actually pressing buttons manually but somehow didn't see the GMs pings). I'm hopeful that this opens the door for Anet to act more decisively against those who are still doing it.

[Noidea Incognito.9607]

@Quench.7091

Ok, let me clarify; when i said auto-skill attacking i didn't mean something like spamming a weapon skill 1 for example.   That 1 hour i observed that group they weren't moving... just standing there doing nothing at all no weapon attacks, nada , they were under attack the entire time(getting hit clearly), auto-skill attacking in the sense of using some legit class based perma-pulsing aoe skill that killed the enemies endlessly(not even auto-casting some utility to avoid getting logged-off for inactivity). Are those not AFK-farmers then?

You mentioned Idle-farmers; but how is that really different from AFK-farmers? Or are the players that stood there for 1 hour without doing anything(at all), killing/looting mobs, never getting kicked from the game... are those legitimate idle-farmers? Engineers refreshing turrets in some other map; those are more plausible to be semi-afk idle farmers for sure. But what i saw was clearly not that.

Afk-farming... Legit idle farming... is this some unsolvable grey area this new system has trouble to filter out? Also interesting to mention; there was 2 bots clearly spamming weapon skill 1 only but they never got kicked either. there was no pause between their 1 weapon spam either.   Are you really sure its working as intended?

I personally think (for all good intend) its giving Anet headaches; on the one hand they wanna show the people that kept reporting on this "problem" (the farmers would say they bring balance to the economy and its another way of playing the game, the anti farmers would say its bad for the economy and bad for representation of game's image; ill leave that discussion for someone else) that they recognize whats going on and want to do something about it, on the other hand they don't wanna screw players that bought alt.accounts for Multi-box purposes over either + avoid letting such countermeasures seep into the gaming mechanics that also would affect casual/regular non-farmer players. 

Again; Good intend doesn't automatically mean Good results. 

Edited August 2 by Noidea Incognito.9607

[Quench.7091]

1 hour ago, Noidea Incognito.9607 said:

@Quench.7091

Ok, let me clarify; when i said auto-skill attacking i didn't mean something like spamming a weapon skill 1 for example.   That 1 hour i observed that group they weren't moving... just standing there doing nothing at all no weapon attacks, nada , they were under attack the entire time(getting hit clearly), auto-skill attacking in the sense of using some legit class based perma-pulsing aoe skill that killed the enemies endlessly(not even auto-casting some utility to avoid getting logged-off for inactivity). Are those not AFK-farmers then?

You mentioned Idle-farmers; but how is that really different from AFK-farmers? Or are the players that stood there for 1 hour without doing anything(at all), killing/looting mobs, never getting kicked from the game... are those legitimate idle-farmers? Engineers refreshing turrets in some other map; those are more plausible to be semi-afk idle farmers for sure. But what i saw was clearly not that.

Afk-farming... Legit idle farming... is this some unsolvable grey area this new system has trouble to filter out? Also interesting to mention; there was 2 bots clearly spamming weapon skill 1 only but they never got kicked either. there was no pause between their 1 weapon spam either.   Are you really sure its working as intended?

I haven't seen them around myself. There were bugs that were happening during when the new AFK feature was launched, preventing the feature from working, but those should be fixed now. There is a system in place to prevent AFKing if a person is using their in-game chat system. It was an update from 2021, but I'm not certain if it applies to the 2024 AFK combat update. It would be easier to know exactly what they're doing through observation.

The actual idle farmers do exist, but I don't know why. They are an odd bunch. They don't move their characters, but they'll immediately talk if you interact with them. They are actually pressing buttons in the game and watching videos. I don't see how they aren't in a rocker going crazy from doing that for hours.

That said, I do know a lot of the people who are doing this are also using macros and scripts. Many are actually at their computer, but they aren't actually pressing their buttons. Most are on alternative accounts that do not have mastery points beyond that which is necessary to auto collect the loot! It's clear that they are not actively playing, yet they are still multiboxing during combat or using an alternative account to evade being banned on their main account. A person doing nothing wrong wouldn't be on an alternative account doing this stuff. A lot of them are in the same guild or have names telling you not to report them. Most of the current AFK farmers I'm seeing are really fishy.

I don't think that it is an unsolvable issue. There are things I think they should try doing to systematically boot them, but I don't think it will happen. If these macro users had to face off with a Canache Says minigame they'd fail so hard that they wouldn't make it past round 3. I guess it's all up to ArenaNet on how they approach it.

Edited August 2 by Quench.7091

[Skub.8240]

It's really been causing me some issues. Sometimes I'll have to get up and do stuff for work, or just go out and check the mail or something who knows. So I'll mount up, fly high into the air, and for a long time that's worked fine. Keeps me safe, and I'm not usually gone long enough to cause issues. Except now I find it's not uncommon for a random patrol of dudes to like walk vaguely under me, however high I am, and get me kicked. Or for someone to see me idle and lure enemies there and get me kicked, or maybe I just get unlucky and an event spawns near me and I get kicked. It's lame. This doesn't seem to have had any impact on actual AFKers who usually use scripts or third party utilities to stay afk, and it absolutely hasn't had an impact on afk farmers. The only people this has impacted at all, as far as I can tell, are people who just have to get up and take care of stuff for a couple of minutes. And it's wild that they prioritize punishing people who have to take an emergency dump over the people who sit in one place for days at a time, or the people who afk grind for gold and items. And it's not like this is game breaking or anything, let me just clarify that right now. It's just a weird and mild annoyance.

[Parasite.5389]

you have to remember that the new timer isn't there to make AFK farming impossible or remove it completely, but is there to give GMs more tools against infractions

players can no long use excuses like "oh i'm sorry, I stepped away for 10 minutes and didn't see the GM message me" when submitting appeals as that would clearly indicate that they're using automations to bypass the AFK timer.

unfortunately yes, people are going to get hit by this timer by mistake, but at least you're not getting a suspension for it.

[Andy.5981]

15 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

Agreed, except sadly it isn't having the slightest impact.

Are you sure about that?

https://imgur.com/a/JOdF2lD

Top screenshot is the area near to Saidra's Haven in Lake Doric and the second screenshot is the area under the main cube in Sandswept Isles. Both locations are usually heaving with players. These were taken mid morning UK time on an EU server.

Didn't go round any of the others, but it seems to me that is is having the desired effect.

[Randulf.7614]

3 minutes ago, Andy.5981 said:

Are you sure about that?

https://imgur.com/a/JOdF2lD

Top screenshot is the area near to Saidra's Haven in Lake Doric and the second screenshot is the area under the main cube in Sandswept Isles. Both locations are usually heaving with players. These were taken mid morning UK time on an EU server.

Didn't go round any of the others, but it seems to me that is is having the desired effect.

That is good to see, but when I went to that location a couple of days ago in Doric it was heaving with necros. And all the usual spots seemed to be unaffected, although I haven't checked Istan eyt

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

8 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

That is good to see, but when I went to that location a couple of days ago in Doric it was heaving with necros. And all the usual spots seemed to be unaffected, although I haven't checked Istan eyt

I have also seen these groups of necros, but very quickly all disappear nearly at once being afked to character select.