Originally posted by JeroKane

Originally posted by Fendel84M
How do the bots hurt anybody? What if they were actually a big group of players instead of bots? Would it make you feel better? lol

Because they interfere with your questing, killing all the mobs.

Because they interfere with your harvesting, clearing all the nodes the moment they spawn.

On top of that, they use teleport hacks to instantly go from one spawn point to the other.

 

It was the same with Aion way back after launch. Entire zones were cleared of mobs by huge bot trains, preventing "real" players from questing!  It was absolutely terrible and was the main reason for me to quit that game at that time. As NCSoft didn't do anything to combat it! Bots that were reported were farming on the exact same spots more than a week later.

Just like with Aion, in GW2 bots are just running around in plain sight of everyone to see. Totally fearless.

Sure there were bots in WoW and EQ2 as well, but at least there they were more careful and sought out remote places, because they were actually scared to be banned.

Bots I reported in both WoW and EQ2 actually dissapeared within a couple hours to a day at most.

That's the difference.

They also can f up the economy of the game.

As for the quick response of those other companies, did you report these bots well after the games were released?  That may be part of the reason for the quick response.  They didn't have as many other bugs as a newly released game like GW2 has.  They also weren't nearly as popular in the beginning.

Originally posted by Jyiiga

Originally posted by Connmacart
Oh look another over exaggerating thread about bots. Still have to find my first plain as day bot. I'm sure I ran past a few, but no obvious ones that you and your like keep saying are running rampant throughout every zone of the game. Neither has my girlfriend for that matter.

You are either on a low(est) population server. Play Spvp or WvW primairly or completely and utterly oblivious to everything going on around you. Sorry. 

I can take you into game right now and lead you around and point them out to you. At any time of day, every single day of the week. 

You DO realize that there are only TWO count them TWO US low population servers and ONE of them was not there until last week. right? yeah. ALL of the other ones say full ALL day long. The point he was making and I agree, is it's not anywhere near what people are claiming it to be. I actually saw multiple threads on mmorpg.com that claimed it was in EVERY zone on EVERY server US and EU. THAT's what his point was. 

If people spent more time playing the game and less time wondering what some gold farmer was doing, there might be some enjoyment possibly.

Originally posted by JeroKane

Originally posted by Fendel84M
How do the bots hurt anybody? What if they were actually a big group of players instead of bots? Would it make you feel better? lol

Because they interfere with your questing, killing all the mobs.

Because they interfere with your harvesting, clearing all the nodes the moment they spawn.

On top of that, they use teleport hacks to instantly go from one spawn point to the other.

 

It was the same with Aion way back after launch. Entire zones were cleared of mobs by huge bot trains, preventing "real" players from questing!  It was absolutely terrible and was the main reason for me to quit that game at that time. As NCSoft didn't do anything to combat it! Bots that were reported were farming on the exact same spots more than a week later.

Just like with Aion, in GW2 bots are just running around in plain sight of everyone to see. Totally fearless.

Sure there were bots in WoW and EQ2 as well, but at least there they were more careful and sought out remote places, because they were actually scared to be banned.

Bots I reported in both WoW and EQ2 actually dissapeared within a couple hours to a day at most.

That's the difference.

How about playing the game before you post about it.  You clearly have never played Guild Wars 2 ever.

Nobody can clear the harvesting nodes for you, they are there until YOU MINE THEM.  Same with mobs and quest.   Mobs spawn so fast that there is zero chance of them clearing all of them.  GW2 is built not to allow bots or others to stop you from progressing and it works very very well.   

Harvesting nodes are per your toon, not anybody else's toon.   There can be 500 bots running around mining and I will still be able to mine every node in the zone.  FACT.

GW2 Bots are also removed within a few days.  I reported 3 bots on Saturday morning and by Sunday they were gone.

Please try and play the game before you talk about it.  You clearly have never played GW2.  

Another hater that has never played the game but is some how an expert on the issues we have.  

Botting is an issue but biggest issue is idiot sellers on the trader selling stuff at a lost because of the tax system and screwing the market up for the rest of us.  When an 18 slot bag costs 2 gold to make after mining all the mats and it sells for 2g 20 silver.  That is not a good profit at all for the time it takes to get the mats.

The other thing that gets me about the expectations of the people writing these threads is this.

Just because you report it, doesn't mean they have the manpower to instantly make the botter disappear. It's a new game with bugs and security pains that they are working through. They are actually hiring new support staff, new staff on getting new code to handle detection of bots and macros. They aren't sitting around looking at YOUR report of a bot and clicking the ban button on that one bot report. People who claim this really dunno how this works. I've reported bots in a multitude of mmo's over the years NEVER have i ever seen the botter disappear in the next few seconds much less the same day. smh

Originally posted by itgrowls

Originally posted by Jyiiga

Originally posted by Connmacart
Oh look another over exaggerating thread about bots. Still have to find my first plain as day bot. I'm sure I ran past a few, but no obvious ones that you and your like keep saying are running rampant throughout every zone of the game. Neither has my girlfriend for that matter.

You are either on a low(est) population server. Play Spvp or WvW primairly or completely and utterly oblivious to everything going on around you. Sorry. 

I can take you into game right now and lead you around and point them out to you. At any time of day, every single day of the week. 

You DO realize that there are only TWO count them TWO US low population servers and ONE of them was not there until last week. right? yeah. ALL of the other ones say full ALL day long. The point he was making and I agree, is it's not anywhere near what people are claiming it to be. I actually saw multiple threads on mmorpg.com that claimed it was in EVERY zone on EVERY server US and EU. THAT's what his point was. 

If people spent more time playing the game and less time wondering what some gold farmer was doing, there might be some enjoyment possibly.

Report them and do what my guild does to them.  Train them until they are dead and laugh and go about your business.

We killed a 3 player bot Train on Saturday morning after we reported them.   Waited til they ran to a node and trained all mobs in the area to them and watched them die.  Killed the mobs and left for our dungeon run.

It is condencending post by ANET but truthfully, ALL their responses have the "We know better, you don't know s***" kind of sound to them. Its a bit agitating to me but I'm use to seeing them do it by now.

There is a bot problem and unforuntately their design of the game has made bots that much worst. Teleporting bots only exagerates the botting problem that much more. The fact people can pick out bots so easily and that every player can recall seeing them (don't be ignorant and say you haven't, ignoring they exist makes a game you love worst, not better) is a very bad thing for GW2. 

My biggest issue though isn't bots (I don't really play the game much, it bores me to much now, even trying to level alts) but the attitude ANET seems to posses in their responses. Something about their "we know better then you" attitude just really aggitates me and I feel is the wrong approach to have. I think Trion might of spoiled me though. Its fine if you think your methods are best, but at least be nice about it and don't be so condencending to your player base.

I don’t believe anyone is botting. I suspect there are no botts. What you think are botts are the accounts of under 18 y.o. whose parents have told them not to talk to strangers on the internet. Some of these accounts could possibly be adults who are watching TV as they play, and are playing the game without watching the screen often.

The real problem as I read it, you are playing a game that the typical playstyle can be confused for botting. A game you can play while watching TV, reading a book, or walking on a treadmill. Don’t hate on these players, because the game play is so simplistic.

They have made their way to this higher level content, with or without interacting with other people. Why should Anet or anyone spoil their fun now?



The reason the Anet posts sound like we know better is because they have made contact with the supposed botts. And guess what? They found players at the keyboards. If a GM gets notice of a bot they will send a tell. Some players will not respond to other players tells and may have all tells blocked in options. System messages and GM tells will get through, and may even be answered. In that case a player is found at the keyboard, and it is assumed that the play style in question of being a bot is in fact a player. No harm and no foul. The player reporting the botting on the other hand has a strike against them, for making a false report.

Originally posted by TdogSkal

Originally posted by JeroKane

Originally posted by Fendel84M
How do the bots hurt anybody? What if they were actually a big group of players instead of bots? Would it make you feel better? lol

Because they interfere with your questing, killing all the mobs.

Because they interfere with your harvesting, clearing all the nodes the moment they spawn.

On top of that, they use teleport hacks to instantly go from one spawn point to the other.

 

It was the same with Aion way back after launch. Entire zones were cleared of mobs by huge bot trains, preventing "real" players from questing!  It was absolutely terrible and was the main reason for me to quit that game at that time. As NCSoft didn't do anything to combat it! Bots that were reported were farming on the exact same spots more than a week later.

Just like with Aion, in GW2 bots are just running around in plain sight of everyone to see. Totally fearless.

Sure there were bots in WoW and EQ2 as well, but at least there they were more careful and sought out remote places, because they were actually scared to be banned.

Bots I reported in both WoW and EQ2 actually dissapeared within a couple hours to a day at most.

That's the difference.

How about playing the game before you post about it.  You clearly have never played Guild Wars 2 ever.

Nobody can clear the harvesting nodes for you, they are there until YOU MINE THEM.  Same with mobs and quest.   Mobs spawn so fast that there is zero chance of them clearing all of them.  GW2 is built not to allow bots or others to stop you from progressing and it works very very well.   

Harvesting nodes are per your toon, not anybody else's toon.   There can be 500 bots running around mining and I will still be able to mine every node in the zone.  FACT.

GW2 Bots are also removed within a few days.  I reported 3 bots on Saturday morning and by Sunday they were gone.

Please try and play the game before you talk about it.  You clearly have never played GW2.  

Another hater that has never played the game but is some how an expert on the issues we have.  

Botting is an issue but biggest issue is idiot sellers on the trader selling stuff at a lost because of the tax system and screwing the market up for the rest of us.  When an 18 slot bag costs 2 gold to make after mining all the mats and it sells for 2g 20 silver.  That is not a good profit at all for the time it takes to get the mats.

 

I already corrected myself. Forgot about the shared nodes.

I haven't played GW2 in a while. Just logged in once and again. Got totally bored with it after two weeks.

It doesn't deviate about how destructive bots are for the game!

They feck up ingame economies and they kill immersion. Nothing is a worse sight than seeing bot trains of characters with shitty names warping all over the place!  It just sucks.

Originally posted by JeroKane

Because they interfere with your questing, killing all the mobs.

Because they interfere with your harvesting, clearing all the nodes the moment they spawn.

On top of that, they use teleport hacks to instantly go from one spawn point to the other.

I'm sorry wha?

None of that happens in GW2. GW2 was designed to give players solutions to every major PVE problem we've seen in every lobby style mmo since EQ.

There is no kill stealing

There is no competition for nodes

The only thing they have been able to use is the hacks to teleport and even that is limited to the same zone.

I don't like bots as much as the next guy but cmon, let's stop with the exaggerations.

Originally posted by Purutzil

It is condencending post by ANET but truthfully, ALL their responses have the "We know better, you don't know s***" kind of sound to them. Its a bit agitating to me but I'm use to seeing them do it by now.

 

There is a bot problem and unforuntately their design of the game has made bots that much worst. Teleporting bots only exagerates the botting problem that much more. The fact people can pick out bots so easily and that every player can recall seeing them (don't be ignorant and say you haven't, ignoring they exist makes a game you love worst, not better) is a very bad thing for GW2. 

 

My biggest issue though isn't bots (I don't really play the game much, it bores me to much now, even trying to level alts) but the attitude ANET seems to posses in their responses. Something about their "we know better then you" attitude just really aggitates me and I feel is the wrong approach to have. I think Trion might of spoiled me though. Its fine if you think your methods are best, but at least be nice about it and don't be so condencending to your player base.

How is it condescending to politely say:  Please stop cluttering up our forums with your posts asking when bots will be fixed.  We are aware of the problem and are working on it to the best of our ability.  Please use the in game reporting tool to report bots as you see them, that's why we made that an option in the reporting tool.

So, Arenanet are condescending and arrogant because players are stupid and can't follow simple directions?

Originally posted by Konfess
I don’t believe anyone is botting. I suspect there are no botts. What you think are botts are the accounts of under 18 y.o. whose parents have told them not to talk to strangers on the internet. Some of these accounts could possibly be adults who are watching TV as they play, and are playing the game without watching the screen often.

The real problem as I read it, you are playing a game that the typical playstyle can be confused for botting. A game you can play while watching TV, reading a book, or walking on a treadmill. Don’t hate on these players, because the game play is so simplistic.

They have made their way to this higher level content, with or without interacting with other people. Why should Anet or anyone spoil their fun now?

Now that is total trash and you know it. No human being runs in a circle for 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Look into the evidence before coming here and looking completely ignorant. 

-------------

To everyone else.. Until this game I paid little attention to bots. I put up with them in games as old as Asheron's Call. However, this is the first game where they directly impact my ability to make money and earn gems. Even if that impact is minimal (say 5-10%) it still exists. The more garbage they flush into the economy the harder it is for real gamers to achieve their goals. This may not impact everyone, but it impacts those interested in things like Legendaries and T3 Cultural (to name a few). 

name me 1 tripple A mmo that doesnt have bots OP...i dare you.

The mighty king of mmo's for the last 8 years seem to have given up on banning bots as in each and every battleground you enter you see between 2 or 10 bots depening on time of play.

This is also the 4th post today about bots in guildwars 2....

We know Guildwars 2 have bots, i have seen a few, but come on cry baby's stop blowing this out of proportions man.

There will never be a bot free mmo, but hey keep on mkaing these posts OP seems you feel the need to make it sound worse then it is.

Originally posted by Konfess
I don’t believe anyone is botting. I suspect there are no botts. What you think are botts are the accounts of under 18 y.o. whose parents have told them not to talk to strangers on the internet. Some of these accounts could possibly be adults who are watching TV as they play, and are playing the game without watching the screen often.

The real problem as I read it, you are playing a game that the typical playstyle can be confused for botting. A game you can play while watching TV, reading a book, or walking on a treadmill. Don’t hate on these players, because the game play is so simplistic.

They have made their way to this higher level content, with or without interacting with other people. Why should Anet or anyone spoil their fun now?

That has to be one of the most ridiculous things I've heard in these forums.

From what I understand some easy ways to tell a bot are:

goofy names (ghruskdloo)

teleporting instantly to respawn points as the mobs spawn when other players don't do that

no armor (at least in GW2 because broken armor leaves you naked)

character randomly running around repeatedly using skills even when no mobs are around

Yes, there are bots, especially in Queensdale, at least that's where I've seen them the most.  These are not just kids playing the game.  Nice bridge-guarding post though.

There really isn't anything ANet can do about the bots because botting isn't the core problem. The core problem is that the most efficient way to play the game so closely resembles botting. If you want anything of value in this game then the only way to get it is by grinding. What do bots do? They grind. Hence, players who want things with the least amount of effort will bot.

-If you want gold then the best way to get it is by grinding zerg events. That is why you see tons of bots at these events.

-If you want karma then the best way to get it is by grinding zerg events. That is why you see tons of bots at these events.

-If you want mats for crafting or to sell then you grind node spawns. That is why you see bots teleporting from node to node.

If someone can invent a bot to farm dungeon tokens or WvW honor badges then they will because these are things you need to grind as well. Until ANet fixes the core problem that the entire game is built around grinding various currencies or items then the botting epidemic will never end. I highly doubt this will happen so there isn't much point in complaining.

bots mess up the economy, and make your chances of loot & getting gold credit for DE's in High lvl areas almost impossible for certain classes.

Think not? Head to Orr, to any of the stationary events, try aoeing the mobs when there is 5 bot rangers letting loose. On my mesmer i barely can get silver, i can get gold by changing my entire build around. Its just an annoyance.

Never the less I'm having a blast on my alts, and I accept the fact they will do something about it very slowly, and fans will close their eyes and pretend there is no problem.

The only surprising part of the entire thread is the fact some people still pretend there is no bot problem.

Originally posted by Regomar

I play 2-3 hours a day and I've NEVER seen a bot.  Nobody named kfjhsdfsdkjf, no naked rangers, no bot chains. 

Methinks this 'epidenic' is greatly exaggerated.

I cant go anywhere without seeing them there are naked bots regular bots multi bots in groups of 3-6 some with pets other with not. Ive seen bots with weird names with a bot with a regular name and a guild with them. (Which I think is weird) Maybe you are in denial I dunno. If you close your eyes hard enough guess you wont see anything.

Originally posted by itgrowls

Originally posted by Jyiiga

Originally posted by Connmacart
Oh look another over exaggerating thread about bots. Still have to find my first plain as day bot. I'm sure I ran past a few, but no obvious ones that you and your like keep saying are running rampant throughout every zone of the game. Neither has my girlfriend for that matter.

You are either on a low(est) population server. Play Spvp or WvW primairly or completely and utterly oblivious to everything going on around you. Sorry. 

I can take you into game right now and lead you around and point them out to you. At any time of day, every single day of the week. 

You DO realize that there are only TWO count them TWO US low population servers and ONE of them was not there until last week. right? yeah. ALL of the other ones say full ALL day long. The point he was making and I agree, is it's not anywhere near what people are claiming it to be. I actually saw multiple threads on mmorpg.com that claimed it was in EVERY zone on EVERY server US and EU. THAT's what his point was. 

If people spent more time playing the game and less time wondering what some gold farmer was doing, there might be some enjoyment possibly.

Thank you that was my point yes. Just for the record. I'm on Far Shiverpeaks. I have 2 level 80s one on 99% exploration. Having trouble with the last 1% Since the French basically control The Eternal Battlegrounds constantly. The other above 70% completion. 

You the OP need to realise that just because a few servers are affected doesn't mean all of them are. 

Hi,

Resident GW2 apologist here again. Botting is happening. I've reported at least 12 botters. There are bot trains set up in Sparkfly Fen as I type this. There seem to be a much higher amount of botters (or at least, they're much more noticible or indiscriminate) in this game than in any other MMO I've played.

ANet needs to address this toot sweet. Burying their heads in the sand won't make the problem go away.

Originally posted by Jyiiga

I'm going to take the gloves off here for a minute and generally be flat out rude. I am posting this here, because if I do on the main forums they will delete it and give me an infraction for it. 

As of today the thread on botting is now closed. 

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/On-Botting-and-What-We-re-Doing-About-It/page/12

It is 12 pages long and has 566 replies along with 84,516 views.

This is the final comment before it was closed.

The entire post comes off as condescending. Every hour are you kidding me? Mike (the one in charge of security) has not said a peep about botting since the original post was made on Sept 27th. In that time people have primarily posted screenshots, made comments about reporting bots and made comments on where they are finding bots. 

As of now the problem is worse than it was two weeks ago or even a month ago. The game is saturated with bots at most high lvl events. At this time the botters have zero fear of Anet. They bot openly 24/7 in clear view of all others players. 

I like this game.

I want to enjoy this game.

However, if this continues for another month and they keep their mouths shut about it. I will for the first time.. be encouraging people to leave this game. Both my friends and on the forums that I go to. It is out of control and they SHOULD have been better prepared for it. 

Umm I'm sorry OP but reading comprehension fail.

Both comments you made that I highlighted are answered very clearly in the dev response you posted here.