The new in combat AFK timer is causing me grief

[Quench.7091]

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

The istan iboga farm is occupied by macro botters. Most are under mastery level 200, basically alternative accounts. Some are under mastery level 19 and do not have the auto loot mastery, so you can pick them up in a public siege turtle and run them around for a short while, as they spam the interact key. All of them seem to respond eventually, so they are probably at their computers to an extent.

Last night I saw some using multiboxing macro bots, with alt accounts of around 30-50 mastery points.

There is an exploit at the moment for auto-running into walls to prevent AFKing. It is a common trick inside of WvW. If I had to guess, it causes slight changes in the player coordinates to cancel the AFK counter. I saw 1 engineer doing that and he had a low mastery level. I think he was full AFK with no monitoring, but didn't check.

The patch eliminated the pet auto-attack farmers who do not use macros, so it's basically just the ban-worthy macro farmers now.

[Obnoxa.6702]

/sniffs.
I feel like I'm sitting in the middle of a farm right now with all the kitten I smell in here.

Don't tell us you've played 8+ years and haven't mastered how to park your toon so you can afk and not get tapped by trash mobs.
Maybe you did it because you're a cocky ranger/minionmancer and did it just because you could.
Maybe you did it because you weren't stepping on any toes and why not? There's one less totem you have to farm later and it's not like you're those guys in Sandswept Isles just doing it all day long, amirite?
Maybe you're really lazy and don't like to see your digital avatar run... or you have a terrible sense of direction and how the crap did I even end up in Bloodtide Coast for Octovine!? Who knows.
Regardless of your reason, afk farming was never permissible as stated in the TOS - so quit complaining that you can no longer get away with something you were never allowed to do in the first place and go wait in one of the literal hundreds of safe locations until the event pops. 🙄

Edited August 3 by Obnoxa.6702

[Noidea Incognito.9607]

@Obnoxa.6702

That's great and all, but again its a half-baked solution if you truly wanna deal with afk-farming as a whole.

Another poster stated that the goal is not to nerf afk-farming as a at all; I think this statement holds truth. Its an important demography within gw2 community whether people like it or not. The whole afk-farming/bot thing is strongly tied to Multi-account usage which is allowed to some degree. Wouldn't make sense to ban any of those accounts.

I'm gonna say something crude/blunt as an personal opinion now;

Some "good players" kept reporting/barking at the Dev to do something about these "bad players", so the Dev decided to throw them a discount bone; unfortunately ignorant/peace full cats that just wanted to enjoy the ball of yarn got caught in it as collateral damage, but the barking crowd couldn't care less; as long they could have their discount bone to chew on.

Personally i wouldn't be so proud if i was one of those "good players" for such a "good deed":

mmo's like gw2 are centered for most part around getting loot/farming. The complains/reports is mostly about the pve-openworld which is basically a free for all loot/farm fest Valhalla

Make no mistake: gw2 is all about farming; Jp's. dungeons, fractals, whatever you do, you always farm something whether its chests bags currency etc. The end rewards is again... loot.

So by default 98% players in Gw2 are (passive/idle) farmers; it is a fact. deny it all you want and claim you are "different/not like that"... that's impossible. Your total AP is proof how much you already farmed(and this digit will continuing to increase in the future)

To me this doesn't seem like "genuine goodness/justice/the right thing to do",  and it's more about "Those farmers over there are farming more then me; i don't like what I see; let me hide my jealousy/resentful/salty demeanor under the guise of being a good/self-righteous/virtue signaling person and report them and with a bit of luck my witch hunt pays off and i get a good feeling about myself"

The Dev did what it had to do to appeal to some of those players, but its half-baked and the afk-farmers(I thought people had problems with afk-farming but people only talk about bots? So the problem was never really about afk-farming then?) are still working as intended but the regular player/ farmers get a permanent afk-5 min curse upon them for doing absolutely nothing wrong...  but that's not a problem at all right? They are just standing in the wrong place.... right? Since when do players need to worry about such a trivial things? *facepalms*

The Dev holds a Black, White and Grey card on all aspects of this game. As long the Dev keeps using Grey card instead of the Black or White there will never be a truly good solution for this stuff. Its just beating around the bush/band aid.

There.. i said my piece.  o7

 

[Obnoxa.6702]

@Noidea Incognito.9607 Fair enough.
But since you took the opportunity to say something crude/blunt as an personal opinion, allow me to do the same:

I don't care about the fallout of this new rule or how to better implement it.
All of us who don't abuse the fact that you can casually afk kill mobs in pve wont care. There's always been afk farming, there will always be afk farming and I can respect the devs are doing something to answer the call of the community; good on them. Maybe it's a trial and error thing or maybe it's leading to another step, I don't know... and I don't care, because I don't hide in the grey area of whoops-I'm-just-so-OP-I-accidentally-kill-mobs-standing-around afk farming, so this new rule has zero affect on my gameplay.

[Tuna Bandit.3786]

It happened to me too, but due to having an emergency and not had the time to park savely. It happens, you are booted to character select, NOT banned/blocked.
Sure inconvenient on maps that can be full, but that only means one thing: Park with care before you go AFK... That way you are save.

If you want ArenaNet to have the timer on Engaging rather than In Combat, it would be WAY more complex to implement.

There are, specially in Tarir, plenty of high up spots. Or you can park at the portal where you came into Auric Basin from Verdant.
I usually bunny or skyscale up to a high branch.

The new timer, from what I have seen on most known AFK farming spots, really did have a positive impact so please do NOT ask for this to be "fixed"

[slpr.2647]

On 8/1/2024 at 6:58 AM, QueenKeriti.5176 said:

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

true,. it doesnt "depend" on pres being done, But, they DO still pop. 

[QueenKeriti.5176]

3 minutes ago, slpr.2647 said:

true,. it doesnt "depend" on pres being done, But, they DO still pop. 

The quote was 

Quote

I say stop leeching the pre-events, the Octovine doesn't show up if players don't do them

The octo will still show up whether you have done events or ignored them completely. 

[Skub.8240]

9 hours ago, Obnoxa.6702 said:

@Noidea Incognito.9607 Fair enough.
But since you took the opportunity to say something crude/blunt as an personal opinion, allow me to do the same:

I don't care about the fallout of this new rule or how to better implement it.
All of us who don't abuse the fact that you can casually afk kill mobs in pve wont care. There's always been afk farming, there will always be afk farming and I can respect the devs are doing something to answer the call of the community; good on them. Maybe it's a trial and error thing or maybe it's leading to another step, I don't know... and I don't care, because I don't hide in the grey area of whoops-I'm-just-so-OP-I-accidentally-kill-mobs-standing-around afk farming, so this new rule has zero affect on my gameplay.

The entire problem with your attitude though, is that the people you're mad about aren't the ones getting hit by this. Anyone who cares enough to afk farm will know at least one measure to bypass the timer, since it's something as simple as an auto-clicker to make you jump every few seconds, and that's not even getting into more sophisticated things like scripts that don't even require that. By and large the majority of people getting kicked by this are people who are just waiting for an event to pop, or people who had to take care of something irl and didn't fly up high enough before stepping away from their computer. You're being incredibly smug over something that doesn't even work by your own standard solely because it hasn't impacted you while, instead, insisting that everyone who has been hit by it are liars and cheaters.

[Obnoxa.6702]

52 minutes ago, Skub.8240 said:

You're being incredibly smug over something that doesn't even work by your own standard solely because it hasn't impacted you while, instead, insisting that everyone who has been hit by it are liars and cheaters.

Am I though? Am I assuming everyone "getting hit by this" is lairs and cheaters? Or... by the OPs own admission, am I calling them out, that I don't believe they have played this game for 8 years and not know a place to afk that isn't run amok by mobs that they will "accidentally" farm?
I wont apologise or pretend to feel bad for someone getting tossed into character selection; then don't afk in a place where that might happen, it's not exactly rocket science.
I afk all the time.
All. The. Time.
For kitten's sake, I afk'ed while I was writing the response. I have never been tossed into the character lobby; I found out about this whole thing on the forums... but heaven help me, if I ever am (because I didn't bother/have time to get to a safe afk spot) I can promise you I wont come running here clutching my pearls and crying about it like my account was banned. It's a game, catch the next meta and move on.
Kitten. 🙄

Edited August 6 by Obnoxa.6702

[Zebulous.2934]

12 hours ago, Obnoxa.6702 said:

@Noidea Incognito.9607 Fair enough.
But since you took the opportunity to say something crude/blunt as an personal opinion, allow me to do the same:

I don't care about the fallout of this new rule or how to better implement it.
All of us who don't abuse the fact that you can casually afk kill mobs in pve wont care. There's always been afk farming, there will always be afk farming and I can respect the devs are doing something to answer the call of the community; good on them. Maybe it's a trial and error thing or maybe it's leading to another step, I don't know... and I don't care, because I don't hide in the grey area of whoops-I'm-just-so-OP-I-accidentally-kill-mobs-standing-around afk farming, so this new rule has zero affect on my gameplay.

Indeed!  You have convinced me that you do hold the superior position in this discussion.

  I am afraid however that other persons, such as myself, are going to continue this discussion.  I may be a fool, but it bothers me to be wrong.  Your being right does not make me less wrong.

Again, you do seem to be right. I just can't use anything that you have said to my own advantage.

Edited August 6 by Zebulous.2934
An attempt at eloquence

[Gotejjeken.1267]

I still don't understand the purpose of the change.  

If you AFK farm, you are going to be hitting inputs...right? Or is this specifically to target minionmancer, mech, and bearbow rangers (are these still a thing?) where the pet is doing all the attacking and player not moving? 

If it's the latter, wonder why they can't put a timer on the pet itself? So, if you don't have a pet and are in combat...no timeout as you are actually afk, but if you DO have a pet and it is the ONLY thing in combat for 5 min, then timeout.  

[Obnoxa.6702]

@Zebulous.2934

'Kay.
 

[Linken.6345]

4 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

I still don't understand the purpose of the change.  

If you AFK farm, you are going to be hitting inputs...right? Or is this specifically to target minionmancer, mech, and bearbow rangers (are these still a thing?) where the pet is doing all the attacking and player not moving? 

If it's the latter, wonder why they can't put a timer on the pet itself? So, if you don't have a pet and are in combat...no timeout as you are actually afk, but if you DO have a pet and it is the ONLY thing in combat for 5 min, then timeout.  

Yea it is to combat pet necro, engi and rangers.

[Noidea Incognito.9607]

@Gotejjeken.1267

If it holds truth idk, because its called Anti-afk one would think it's about stopping ALL types of afk behavior right?

But the claim(by other players) is being made that this isn't about countering afk-farm in general but rather to lure the Bot accounts that are afk-farming out of hiding. (If this is true then it confirms to indeed be a grey card solution(MAYBE) and not a solid black/white card(YES/NO). 

Because this is a Grey card solution it's also extremely unclear how well it works;  So you need to be motionless + get hit by a mob for the anti-afk system to kick in... a 5 min timer will start then after you get kicked to the character screen. But there is already a problem with that. If you don't move but manage to get credit for the kill/ get loot within that 5-min time frame the anti-afk system will reset the 5 min timer(getting something like loot seems to register as "they are not afk and playing the game". And as many of you know there is plenty of classes that have legit automated aoe skills/ utilities/ pets/ and whatnot to get the job done without moving a muscle/pressing buttons at all.

In other words; as long you manage to get loot from engaging mobs within 5 min the system resets, creating an easy opening to bypass the system for the Afk-farmers. This is what i mean with a half-baked solution; the afk-farmers aren't impacted that much while the rest of the community is. 

Sure you get rid of some bots(But yesterday again some bots spamming skill 1 for 1 hour never got kicked 🤷‍♂️) .

If it was truly about stopping afk-farming then a convoluted hand tailored(pain in the ***) system would be implemented to avoid hitting the entire community, but i can imagine that's way to big hassle so it ended up as a global anti-afk measure. Even Dev's might have been annoyed by this request as well; there is so much other fields that need way more attention.

Can't confirm this, but that's what i personally think how it ended up being like this. If it's only about some global anti-afk solution then i guess it's working as intended. o7

@Obnoxa.6702

I get your Point of View... i really do; at the end of the day this is of course a game and we don't make the rules so why let that bother you? Be flexible about it. A lot of people feel this way.

But aren't you a little concerned that there will come a time that every time we keep looking the other way the amount of Grey card choices will pile up to the point it's making the game unpleasant/unplayable even for you to enjoy? 

Edited August 6 by Noidea Incognito.9607

[Cyninja.2954]

9 minutes ago, Noidea Incognito.9607 said:

@Gotejjeken.1267

If it holds truth idk, because its called Anti-afk one would think it's about stopping ALL types of afk behavior right?

But the claim(by other players) is being made that this isn't about countering afk-farm in general but rather to lure the Bot accounts that are afk-farming out of hiding. (If this is true then it confirms to indeed be a grey card solution(MAYBE) and not a solid black/white card(YES/NO). 

Because this is a Grey card solution it's also extremely unclear how well it works;  So you need to be motionless + get hit by a mob for the anti-afk system to kick in... a 5 min timer will start then after you get kicked to the character screen. But there is already a problem with that. If you don't move but manage to get credit for the kill/ get loot within that 5-min time frame the anti-afk system will reset the 5 min timer(getting something like loot seems to register as "they are not afk and playing the game". And as many of you know there is plenty of classes that have legit automated aoe skills/ utilities/ pets/ and whatnot to get the job done without moving a muscle/pressing buttons at all.

In other words; as long you manage to get loot from engaging mobs within 5 min the system resets, creating an easy opening to bypass the system for the Afk-farmers. This is what i mean with a half-baked solution; the afk-farmers aren't impacted that much while the rest of the community is. 

Sure you get rid of some bots(But yesterday again some bots spamming skill 1 for 1 hour never got kicked 🤷‍♂️) .

If it was truly about stopping afk-farming then a convoluted hand tailored(pain in the ***) system would be implemented to avoid hitting the entire community, but i can imagine that's way to big hassle so it ended up as a global anti-afk measure. Even Dev's might have been annoyed by this request as well; there is so much other fields that need way more attention.

Can't confirm this, but that's what i personally think how it ended up being like this. If it's only about some global anti-afk solution then i guess it's working as intended. o7

The response to bots is always a matter of how much work do you invest for which outcome. It is literally impossible to prevent botting, far larger developers have not succeeded. What can be done though is limit it, move it to be less obvious, prevent the "regular Joe" from botting.

This "solution" was likely easy to implement. Has a limited but sufficient effect, prevents to easy afk farming (which is not allowed by ToS any way). If it's not sufficient there will be more changes to follow. Also just to be clear, the vast majority of "afk" farmers are botters, especially with this change. That's the only way you keep dozens of accounts running without permanent tabing through all of them.

It is pretty clear that with SotO the developers have changed their attention to reward active play more. This is reflected in the Wizard Vault implementation and login changes. This is reflected in the staggered release of content and achievements. Now it is reflected in adjusting how lenient afk timers are.

As far as bots, there was a ban wave not long ago clearing out thousands of accounts, so it';s not like there is not something happening on that front.
 

Quote

 

@Obnoxa.6702

I get your Point of View... i really do; at the end of the day this is of course a game and we don't make the rules so why let that bother you? Be flexible about it. A lot of people feel this way.

But aren't you a little concerned that there will come a time that every time we keep looking the other way the amount of Grey card choices will pile up to the point it's making the game unpleasant/unplayable even for you to enjoy? 

 

Slippery slope fallacy, and so far, players which play the game in a normal fashion have not been affected. This notion that it is impossible to afk somewhere without being brought into combat is hilariously misguided.

[Obnoxa.6702]

18 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Slippery slope fallacy, and so far, players which play the game in a normal fashion have not been affected. This notion that it is impossible to afk somewhere without being brought into combat is hilariously misguided.

Me adding anything more to this statement would be like drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa in an attempt to improve her. /applauds
100% this @Noidea Incognito.9607, I don't fear penalties for crimes I don't commit.

Edited August 7 by Obnoxa.6702

[Luthan.5236]

Anyone knows if jumping counts? Or movement keys and the attacks/skills? 😄 Just was in orr for some weekly risen (last weekly remaining and I did not want to do awakened again). Saw a group of 2 necros standing somewhere with full set of minions and one just jumped. Seemed to me like they wanted to avoid getting kicked but also not move from that spot - therefore using the jump. (Maybe a macro set to do it every 4.x minutes?) Ha ha. Not your classic wall runner.

[slpr.2647]

On 8/5/2024 at 4:43 PM, QueenKeriti.5176 said:

The quote was 

The octo will still show up whether you have done events or ignored them completely. 

i am fully aware of this. i was just stating that even though they dont "need to be done" they are still going to pop .   we can all ignore them and yes Octo still advances, but those pres still happen, they just dont need to be done.  

[LothiaVela.6789]

i just got kick by the game during the 10 min waiting timer after the Chack Regent event to acces to the room behind the wall -> i'v got kick by the game because the game ask me to wait 10 min, 10 forced waiting min that i used to make and drink a coffe and eat something. And don't ask me to run by myself in circle during 10 min to not get kick !

Guys it is a good thing to try to fight the multi-box afk farmer but when the system shoot on the player who actually play the game it is not good and very frustrating !

Edited August 11 by LothiaVela.6789

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

6 hours ago, LothiaVela.6789 said:

i just got kick by the game during the 10 min waiting timer after the Chack Regent event to acces to the room behind the wall -> i'v got kick by the game because the game ask me to wait 10 min, 10 forced waiting min that i used to make and drink a coffe and eat something. And don't ask me to run by myself in circle during 10 min to not get kick !

Guys it is a good thing to try to fight the multi-box afk farmer but when the system shoot on the player who actually play the game it is not good and very frustrating !

The system is not shooting those who actually play the game, because in order for you to be kicked you have to be AFK and in combat. You got kicked because you were in combat and you were in AFK, the system does what is intended to do. Don't AFK near enemies, don't get kicked, people generally learn it pretty early on that they're not supposed to AFK next to enemies.

[Mystflower.7319]

I received the notice that I had to move otherwise I'd be kicked after sitting for ten minutes, in the beach lounge chair while chatting with a friend, within Divinity's Reach. It kinda surprised me because in the past I could sit and chat for way longer without moving. I'm not bothered by it but I do think the timer within cities could be a bit longer, but idk if that is possible. 

[Gorem.8104]

Some of the fondest memories playing this game in the early game area's is coming across people who have died from a mob respawn or pathing while they left to get something and needed me to quickly rez them up after I cleared the area of mobs over their body, to which they replied Thanks and then joined me for the quest I was on in that area and helped me clear it. 

What this does, is hurts active players. Players who are abusing the system already, will not be effected by this. 

They are taking away everything that made GW2 a great game once. Ruining all the fun runes, ruining daily logins, ruining pvp, ruining wvw, and now ruining memories and fun experiences with new players who get kicked for playing the game. 

I'm actually really curious at this point to what they can come up next that makes this game objectively worse then it used to be, they keep coming up with new things to make the game worse like the jade bot which made the game worse and its quite an amusing watch. 

[costepj.5120]

2 hours ago, Gorem.8104 said:

now ruining memories and fun experiences with new players who get kicked for NOT playing the game. 

ftfy

[Ashen.2907]

4 hours ago, Gorem.8104 said:

What this does, is hurts active players

People who are actively playing won't be kicked.

[kharmin.7683]

Had the warning pop up for me to day in Verdant Brink.  Was sitting on the way point at the far south-west corner (before Auric Basin) for a few minutes as I was AFK with work, then I opened the map to see where I wanted to go next.  Got the warning then.  Was probably only 5 minutes give or take and that's not really a spot where one can be attacked (or is it?).  Found it strange.