Need help reporting bots

[Blockhead Magee.3092]

Over a year ago, I also received a suspension notice for running a third party program. They never told me what they suspected me of running because I have never and will never use any program to alter the game, bot or otherwise. My suspicion was that I ran two accounts, one on the main machine and one in a virtual machine. I informed them of that and the suspension was removed. They never told me one way or the other what was really going on.

Anets sweep for bots sometimes catches folks who haven't done anything against the TOS. The saving grace is that they seem to be proactive in correcting that when it happens.

[aandiarie.7195]

What makes you think they are a bot? Some people camp nodes to make money. Like they go back hrs later or a day later because they can sell what they are gathering. O_O

[RoseofGilead.8907]

@aandiarie.7195 said:What makes you think they are a bot? Some people camp nodes to make money. Like they go back hrs later or a day later because they can sell what they are gathering. O_O

There are several comments in this thread that explain the difference between someone quickly logging in to normally gathering a node and a botter hopping around/appearing underground/other odd behavior.

[Kel.9406]

@aandiarie.7195 said:What makes you think they are a bot? Some people camp nodes to make money. Like they go back hrs later or a day later because they can sell what they are gathering. O_O

I saw a teleport bot few days ago. The diff is this bot appeared floating at top of the node and drop down to harvest the node and disappear. Immediately appear at top of a nearby node, drop down, harvest and disappear again.This is diff from someone quickly logging into a node. The normal player do not just appear floating in the air.

[aandiarie.7195]

Some people lag or rubber band severely. Especially if they are from a country with awful internet or on a potato computer.

[aandiarie.7195]

My old computer was so awful I needed my guild's assistance to do basic things. I lagged/rubber banded so badly I had to be portaled in a jumping puzzle or guild puzzle for missions almost every step of the way. I couldn't even run a straight line in dungeons because of it and had to have people portal me there too at the end before I got a new computer. To be honest I'm surprised my 1st guild was so nice about it. Thank god for my newer computers. I did an Ibuypower and then I upgraded again to an Asus i5 with like a 1tb thing and a 960 gaming card something... I just know it works a LOT better. When I used to lag or rubberband people would point out how odd my character looked or appeared.

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

@aandiarie.7195 said:My old computer was so awful I needed my guild's assistance to do basic things. I lagged/rubber banded so badly I had to be portaled in a jumping puzzle or guild puzzle for missions almost every step of the way. I couldn't even run a straight line in dungeons because of it and had to have people portal me there too at the end before I got a new computer. To be honest I'm surprised my 1st guild was so nice about it. Thank god for my newer computers. I did an Ibuypower and then I upgraded again to an Asus i5 with like a 1tb thing and a 960 gaming card something... I just know it works a LOT better. When I used to lag or rubberband people would point out how odd my character looked or appeared.

There a difference between rubberbanding and only appearing at nodes on a map. If you’re rubberbanding you’ll appear to jump between places in a line along where you’re running. You won’t be showing up at a node, harvesting, disappearing, reappearing at the next node, etc. It would show you appearing along the path to the nodes and standing at the node waiting for lag to catch up.

[Nikal.4921]

@Kel.9406 said:

@aandiarie.7195 said:What makes you think they are a bot? Some people camp nodes to make money. Like they go back hrs later or a day later because they can sell what they are gathering. O_O

I saw a teleport bot few days ago. The diff is this bot appeared floating at top of the node and drop down to harvest the node and disappear. Immediately appear at top of a nearby node, drop down, harvest and disappear again.This is diff from someone quickly logging into a node. The normal player do not just appear floating in the air.Before, I was seeing bots appear next to nodes. Now I am seeing them appear on top of nodes, like you're seeing. I see them in Bloodtide Coast and Dredgehaunt Cliffs because that's where I seem to end up gathering most often.

[aandiarie.7195]

Ah I see. What if it is someone on a mount and they aren't loading in all the way for you? At a distance a mount may not appear for a bit.

[aandiarie.7195]

But then again maybe you are right and there are bots. I sometimes try to give people the benefit of the doubt and exhaust all possible explanations 1st.

[artemis.6781]

And most bots log in, swing, log out, and repeat. I can only assume it's so us regular players can not click and report fast enough. I tried this morning with a bot. But they just aren't on long enough to report. All you can do is try to get a screenshot and submit to exploits@arena.net

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

@aandiarie.7195 said:Ah I see. What if it is someone on a mount and they aren't loading in all the way for you? At a distance a mount may not appear for a bit.

If that’s the case then you will see the person sitting on the ground or sitting in the air but they are visibly traveling from place to place. They aren’t appearing and disappearing from node to node.

[Daddicus.6128]

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:You definitely CAN and should report bots through the in-game report system. I just confirmed with the head of the CS Department that in-game reports are read and reacted to, including pulling data, researching game files, etc.

If you have screenshots, you can offer to send them if an agent requests them. It's not necessary or even of value to send them with your first contact, but you can make your report, say you have saved screenshots, and if the agent wants or needs to see them, you then can submit with your response to the ticket.

I can confirm that what Gaile says is correct. I've actually seen a botter logged out in the middle of using a skill, which I presume means it was booted. I had JUST reported it. (Although, it's possible it was someone else's report earlier in the day or in the past.)

[Daddicus.6128]

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@"BloomEngery.1592" said:Yesterday, as I tried to log on to my account, I was shown a message stating that my account was suspended for 2 months due to using a 3rd party program. Needless to say, I was shocked. I have never used a 3rd party program of any sort. I spend 90% of my time in WvW (Mithril Rank), and rarely pve. Even though I have PoF, I have barely gotten out of the starting area. Same for the current Story season. None of my 11 characters have over 40% map completion. In fact, most are far below that in map completion.

I did, however recently purchase the Garden Plot for my home instance and realize that I did not have seeds. Therefore, I finally got around to spending the better part of the other day in pve land harvesting in many of the areas mentioned previously in this thread. I did this mostly by walking and mounting up. There was no teleporting (other than WPs), illegal movement speeds, use of bots, etc. I did not cheat in any way. All I did was play wvw (again, no hacking or cheating), and some very tedious harvesting for my Garden Plot. That is all.

I contacted Support with the above information and was able to clear up the confusion and was able to get my account back as a "one time" exception for doing nothing wrong. Whoever it was that was trigger happy and decided to report me, thank you for messing up my game and leaving a bad taste in my mouth. For those of you who are certain that there are bots "everywhere," please think twice before reporting everyone you see harvesting. Believe it or not, there are actually people out there who are harvesting like a normal person, without any xtra help.

Maybe Gaile could shed some light on this cos I can't see how they could make the error in the first place unless there is more to this than is being said.Such posts have often been cleared up by Gaile with more a more factual account of the issue. If however this is truly an inexcusable error on the part of ANET then that tbh is even more concerning.

Unfortunately, if Gaile explains what they saw, that knowledge could open a hole that hackers can exploit (further). In the security biz (which I've been doing off-and-on for almost three decades), much information has to be kept secret as long as possible.

[Daddicus.6128]

@aandiarie.7195 said:What makes you think they are a bot? Some people camp nodes to make money. Like they go back hrs later or a day later because they can sell what they are gathering. O_O

There are a few dead giveaways. For example, someone running in place against a wall indicates they are at least AFK. Someone repeatedly using a skill, but doing nothing else, can indicate a bot. If they're doing the skill with no enemies nearby, but in a place where enemies spawn ... .

[Bloodstealer.5978]

@Daddicus.6128 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@"BloomEngery.1592" said:Yesterday, as I tried to log on to my account, I was shown a message stating that my account was suspended for 2 months due to using a 3rd party program. Needless to say, I was shocked. I have never used a 3rd party program of any sort. I spend 90% of my time in WvW (Mithril Rank), and rarely pve. Even though I have PoF, I have barely gotten out of the starting area. Same for the current Story season. None of my 11 characters have over 40% map completion. In fact, most are far below that in map completion.

I did, however recently purchase the Garden Plot for my home instance and realize that I did not have seeds. Therefore, I finally got around to spending the better part of the other day in pve land harvesting in many of the areas mentioned previously in this thread. I did this mostly by walking and mounting up. There was no teleporting (other than WPs), illegal movement speeds, use of bots, etc. I did not cheat in any way. All I did was play wvw (again, no hacking or cheating), and some very tedious harvesting for my Garden Plot. That is all.

I contacted Support with the above information and was able to clear up the confusion and was able to get my account back as a "one time" exception for doing nothing wrong. Whoever it was that was trigger happy and decided to report me, thank you for messing up my game and leaving a bad taste in my mouth. For those of you who are certain that there are bots "everywhere," please think twice before reporting everyone you see harvesting. Believe it or not, there are actually people out there who are harvesting like a normal person, without any xtra help.

Maybe Gaile could shed some light on this cos I can't see how they could make the error in the first place unless there is more to this than is being said.Such posts have often been cleared up by Gaile with more a more factual account of the issue. If however this is truly an inexcusable error on the part of ANET then that tbh is even more concerning.

Unfortunately, if Gaile explains what they saw, that knowledge could open a hole that hackers can exploit (further). In the security biz (which I've been doing off-and-on for almost three decades), much information has to be kept secret as long as possible.

Nah didn't mean that... On more than a few occasions ANET have responded to such posts with a more thorough explanation of what they deemed the player in question to of done and why the enforced action was taken.. without going into actual details.. kind of a "busted moment" for the poster.

But as I said.. If ANET are making such errors, that's more concerning for players imo.

If I am honest though, what concerns me most is it appears the game has become a thriving community of haxters, bots and AFK macro farmers.. which is just going on unabated now, and has been for many, many months.

[Friggarn.9451]

I reported over 30 one day (it was obvious they were teleporting under the ground and up to mine the ore) - those accounts were banned within a day or 2. They've never logged back in. Their account names were also just nonsense garbled letters, mostly.

So yes, ArenaNet does in fact take care of this. Keep reporting them.