AFK Farmers

[mercury ranique.2170]

 

Just a reminder here that naming and shaming in public is not ok either. So is advertising an exploit. So talking about details of the alleged bots or where they operate is not very wise. Please use the address exploits@arena.net to discuss these details, but not here.

[MarshallLaw.9260]

> @"mercury ranique.2170" said:

>

> Just a reminder here that naming and shaming in public is not ok either. So is advertising an exploit. So talking about details of the alleged bots or where they operate is not very wise. Please use the address exploits@arena.net to discuss these details, but not here.

 

I don't believe anyone has been named specifically in this thread yet, one of the mods would most likely have picked it up right now.

As for discussing the matter publicly , this, like many other other issue threads on the forums is to raise awareness as it's clearly something Anet have not been responsive **enough** about. Baring in mind that this is not a raging thread created because someone doesn't understand the possibilities of players skills and how they work.

 

Although I appreciate that it is not in the interest of the devs to advertise removal of players breaking the rules as it gives the game negative publicity suggesting bad behavior is rampant (we know this is not a huge problem in the grand scheme of things), I and perhaps others would appreciate some feedback about what has been done to address the issues. So far, many players have not seen a reply from the exploits team so how can we be assured that our concerns are being considered? Maybe botters are being banned fairly efficiently, maybe not at all - we just don't know.

[mercury ranique.2170]

> @"MarshallLaw.9260" said:

> > @"mercury ranique.2170" said:

> >

> > Just a reminder here that naming and shaming in public is not ok either. So is advertising an exploit. So talking about details of the alleged bots or where they operate is not very wise. Please use the address exploits@arena.net to discuss these details, but not here.

>

> I don't believe anyone has been named specifically in this thread yet, one of the mods would most likely have picked it up right now.

> As for discussing the matter publicly , this, like many other other issue threads on the forums is to raise awareness as it's clearly something Anet have not been responsive **enough**. Baring in mind that this is not a raging thread created because someone doesn't understand the possibilities of players skills and how they work.

>

> Although I appreciate that it is not in the interest of the devs to advertise removal of players breaking the rules as it gives the game negative publicity suggesting bad behavior is rampant (we know this is not a huge problem in the grand scheme of things), I and perhaps others would appreciate some feedback about what has been done to address the issues. So far, many players have not seen a reply from the exploits team so how can we be assured that our concerns are being considered? Maybe botters are being banned fairly efficiently, maybe not at all - we just don't know.

 

You can discuss it without describing players or locations where it is happening. I a, not talking about what mods do, should do, or should not do. But what I find behavior that is not ok. This includes someone describing character names and a guild name. It is just bad to do so and not needed for the discussion.

It also includes describing in public how and where to go afk-farm. Someone who is interested in afk-farming techniques can easily pick up very valid tips in this thread on how and where to do it. So it is advertising the thing we want to go.

 

I think it is perfectly possible to discuss the lack of actions by arenanet while avoiding such details,

[juhani.5361]

Ugh, is this thread why everyone keeps dumping monsters on top of me then ditching when I'm trying to run my scourge through the Bitterfrost Frontier map? Compared to every other map in the game I've encountered so far, the lack of civility and manners is awful. At least take care of the trash you've pulled! Some of us are just trying to level up in this GIANT TIGER mastery system and do the hearts.

 

I swear, Bitterfrost Frontier farming reminds me so much of trying to quest on SWTOR's old Harbinger server. The only difference is you might eventually get to harvest your node :#

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

> @"juhani.5361" said:

> Ugh, is this thread why everyone keeps dumping monsters on top of me then ditching when I'm trying to run my scourge through the Bitterfrost Frontier map? Compared to every other map in the game I've encountered so far, the lack of civility and manners is awful. At least take care of the trash you've pulled! Some of us are just trying to level up in this GIANT TIGER mastery system and do the hearts.

>

> I swear, Bitterfrost Frontier farming reminds me so much of trying to quest on SWTOR's old Harbinger server. The only difference is you might eventually get to harvest your node :#

 

Actually no. It's not.

That's a whole different beast.

People dump monsters on you so they don't get hit and get into combat with the monsters while they're farming winterberries and if you're not moving they see you as an easy target to put the things on you.

 

I've had it happen to me while not afk (or I wouldn't know about it).

Most times though they see that I'm trying to fight the stuff or sometimes trying to get enemies off of people (Scourge too so I can just AoE those things to death) and they would help out in killing them before moving on.

 

But... yeah quite a few times I see people take people who are just sitting there a good target to send the enemies their way so they can get away faster,

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

Round and round and round it goes. Whenever it stops, nobody knows.

 

We had the issue in a few maps back in the LS3, Bitterfrost Frontier and the Leather Farm spot in Lake Doric in particular. Those are the two places ANet took real actions against the afk-farming. Although the minion-master necromancers were already farming for months, the first group ANet punished back then were the engineers in Lake Doric for using their turrets at the centaurs. It really looked like this "NO YOU DON'T"-meme. Like the afk-farming was a necromancer-only privilege. This "fix" was the reason for the famous invisible catapults which force us to keep on the run when when entering the centaur-area in Lake Doric. Again this action was taken shortly after the method was discovered. Simply to prevent spreading the problem among the other classes.

 

The 2nd act was done in an afk-hotspot, Bitterfrost Frontier. But this fix was done weeks after the LD nerf, what gave most farmers a good time to finish their work. We have taged a great ammount of them, none was punished so far and I doubt it will ever come this far. Rangers are also capable of this since day one. There have been reports about afk-farming rangers for a long time, but it was never considered a problem until the necromancer-plague. If you take a look on the market, what these afk-farmers do is a rain-drop compared to the Falls in Auric Basin. It is barely noticable. And a positive side-effect for the community: cheaper material prices.

 

Other side-effects from afk-farming:

- purchasable boons like Karmic Retribution on LS3 maps get adjusted

- droprates of certain items from farmable npcs get adjusted

- necromancers claim that their minions disappear after a few minutes (like engineer-turrets since day one)

 

Aside from the huge profit of the ones willing to farm that way, the afk-farm basically ruins the maps. Once ANet starts to do something, the actions are basically face-slaps to everyone else. If the afk-farmers have to move to another map, the reward you can get from normal gameplay is not worth mentioning.

 

On the other hand, we have these extreme farm-meta-events. We have the SW RIBA, Tarir, Mordremoth, Palawadan/Great Hall. Over the time, one gets replaced by another. Our community is great with finding profitable exploits and spreading the information. Thanks to ANet's friends it is a question of hours from the discovery of a new method until it is common knowledge. The afk-farms are annoying, but compared to real farming, not worth mentioning. In most cases the current top-meta-event is a lot more rewardful than parking a character afk in a spot.

 

PS: Whenever I see an afk-farmer I put them on my blocklist with the nick AFK BOT. I do not report them. >Reason< When I check the blocklist once in a while, there are a few interesting things to notice. When I first saw the AP score ... you won't beleive me. See for yourselves.

[Rinn.2375]

There is a simple solution for this issue. When a server detects a bunch of player standing still in an area the server should decrease the spawn or drop rate drastically on that area or for the standing players. Another layer for the already existing drop decreasing system.

[juhani.5361]

> @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > @"juhani.5361" said:

> > Ugh, is this thread why everyone keeps dumping monsters on top of me then ditching when I'm trying to run my scourge through the Bitterfrost Frontier map? Compared to every other map in the game I've encountered so far, the lack of civility and manners is awful. At least take care of the trash you've pulled! Some of us are just trying to level up in this GIANT TIGER mastery system and do the hearts.

> >

> > I swear, Bitterfrost Frontier farming reminds me so much of trying to quest on SWTOR's old Harbinger server. The only difference is you might eventually get to harvest your node :#

>

> Actually no. It's not.

> That's a whole different beast.

> People dump monsters on you so they don't get hit and get into combat with the monsters while they're farming winterberries and if you're not moving they see you as an easy target to put the things on you.

>

> I've had it happen to me while not afk (or I wouldn't know about it).

> Most times though they see that I'm trying to fight the stuff or sometimes trying to get enemies off of people (Scourge too so I can just AoE those things to death) and they would help out in killing them before moving on.

>

> But... yeah quite a few times I see people take people who are just sitting there a good target to send the enemies their way so they can get away faster,

 

Thanks for the clarification :) I'd had something similar happen when I ran my ranger through the map once. Last night, though, seemed a lot worse than usual. If it weren't for the constant small events and the huge XP boost over Ember Bay's hearts, I probably wouldn't even bother. Amazing how having a tight-knit farming loop utterly destroys ANet's "niceness" engineering.

 

I'm trying not to let my bitterness and cynicism destroy my tendency to try to be civil on that kitten map, but it's hard. Two million more XP to unlock Advanced Gliding to go *sigh*

[sorudo.9054]

i just hope ppl don't automatically see necro's as bad, i main a necro but never AFK in groups......

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

> @"sorudo.9054" said:

> i just hope ppl don't automatically see necro's as bad, i main a necro but never AFK in groups......

 

Oh don't worry, people saw you as bad for a long while.

 

> @"HnRkLnXqZ.1870" said:

> This "fix" was the reason for the famous invisible catapults which force us to keep on the run when when entering the centaur-area in Lake Doric. Again this action was taken shortly after the method was discovered. Simply to prevent spreading the problem among the other classes.

 

So it's because of stupid AFKers that I can't even get near that stupid area alone no more?

Sometimes heading there on new characters to try and get the PoI to the point of being forced to find a leather farm squad to join them up there to get it and then leave.

[Faaris.8013]

I report and move on. Filing a ticket and adding screenshots is too much work, I'm not police. The excuse that you were near the screen and sometimes hit a key is BS. If you behave like a bot, expect to be treated like a bot. You don't drive around your town holding an electric shaver at your cheek and be angry when police fines you for using a mobile phone while driving, or do you?

[Rezzet.3614]

Highlight one of em and check their guild name it seems the botter made a QwQ named guild for his or her bots, so if anet checks they might take the main botter instead of banning an expendable bot account

[Biff.5312]

What annoys me more is people who join a world event and just sit there on their mount like they're too good to help the rest of us. They just collect the loot and leave. It's irksome but it doesn't ultimately affect my game so I don't get too worked up about it.

[Burnfall.9573]

> @"TheGrimm.5624" said:

> > @"Burnfall.9573" said:

> > I have a simple solution; Pretend nothing happened and move on. Isn't this the norm action taken when it comes to toxicity in the game? So why not do the same?

> >

> > (Afterall, farmers are bringing in money to the game)

> >

> This shouldn't be ignored since this is also another way for gold sellers to make coin, this is bad for the game. Unattended game play should never be rewarded since it leads us to things like diminishing returns, skill changes because of player abuse and other negative effects.

 

I agree; Toxicity is bad for the game and shouldn't be rewarded because its abusive causing negative effects. So let's take this even further; isn't toxicity a learned behavior? Did you know an abusive environment teaches players to be toxic? Who created the that abusive environment? The players?

 

**The Causality of Toxicity- teaches players to also be toxic**

 

 

 

[Trae.2384]

> @"Biff.5312" said:

> What annoys me more is people who join a world event and just sit there on their mount like they're too good to help the rest of us. They just collect the loot and leave. It's irksome but it doesn't ultimately affect my game so I don't get too worked up about it.

 

Oh totally, that is obnoxious as well. Obnoxious behavior anywhere, be it in game or in life, bothers me but thats much different than why I posted this. Theres a huge difference in my opinion because the people using programs to constantly attack and spawn minions, which prevents the afk auto kick system in place to prevent this trashy behavior, is well beyond the obnoxious line and getting into automated play/botting.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Trae.2384" said:

> The problem with report and move on is the only option that comes close in the report option would be botting

 

Use that option. (That's ANet's suggestion, not mine.)

Generally speaking, it really doesn't matter what we choose: when there's an in-game report, there are a couple of automatic checks that happen and a human checks various logs for the obvious. For the non-obvious, including what's being discussed here, it's better to start a support ticket or email exploits@arena.net. You want to include screenshots etc, which isn't possible via the in-game option.

[Neural.1824]

It's amazing how so many repeat the same tired "report and move on" comment as if it has some sort of cosmic power to actually get Anet to make changes.

From the time I reported one particular afk farming necro in Malchor's Leap at Karst Plains, to the time 6 months later where I finaly stopped seeing the person log in at all, the price of Charged Lodestones dropped drastically.

So yeah, hey Anet, this is affecting the economy.

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

> @"Neural.1824" said:

> It's amazing how so many repeat the same tired "report and move on" comment as if it has some sort of cosmic power to actually get Anet to make changes.

> From the time I reported one particular afk farming necro in Malchor's Leap at Karst Plains, to the time 6 months later where I finaly stopped seeing the person log in at all, the price of Charged Lodestones dropped drastically.

> So yeah, hey Anet, this is affecting the economy.

 

Oh skritt...

What if.... Arenanet is like the 6 gods? Those afkers are the Forged and...

...

 

But yeah you would think after at least a month or two some action would've been taken.

[Bloodstealer.5978]

Jotun Camp at Thistlereed Grove in Timberline Falls... another hot spot that has been plagues by minion master AFK/macro farmers for months and no matter how many reports get sent in, ANET just close their eyes and hope it just all goes away.. meanwhile the same 6-8 players/bots etc farm mats at a stupidly obvious rate 24/7 safe in the knowledge nothing gets done.

Travel a little further round to the south to Rankor Ruins up on the hill .. farming the respawns and then farming one side of the event until it fails and replays unless someone else runs in and defends the other side.. either way the afk famers carry on regardless.

Sometimes it's so thick with minions you cant see anything but black splodges at these locations.

 

But as said before.. nothing ever gets done.. report and move on is such a cop out, but then when you see the effect the report tool actually has it's no wonder that expression is used so much here.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Neural.1824" said:

> It's amazing how so many repeat the same tired "report and move on" comment as if it has some sort of cosmic power to actually get Anet to make changes.

> From the time I reported one particular afk farming necro in Malchor's Leap at Karst Plains, to the time 6 months later where I finaly stopped seeing the person log in at all, the price of Charged Lodestones dropped drastically.

> So yeah, hey Anet, this is affecting the economy.

 

The point of "report and move on" is: that's all we can realistically do.

* File the report so that (a) ANet becomes aware of the specifics and therefore (b) there's a chance that they will do something that is visible to us.

* Move on, because © ANet might not agree that there's botting/AFK farming or (d) they might decide to observe rather than suspend/ban, e.g. to learn how certain bots operate or to follow how coin is laundered.

 

PS A single farmer at Malchor's Leap isn't going to have a noticeable impact on the 8k supply of lodes on the TP.

[Faaris.8013]

For me, the point of "report and move on" is that my time is valuable, and although I want to help Anet to battle botting, any more effort than that is out of my scope as player really. You could spend 10% or more of your time ingame to make screenshots, take the times of when a skill is used, file a record, explain in detail. Out of curiousity, I did check the timing once at a ranger bot, over the course of 3 minutes, the bot always activated the same skill exactly every 21 seconds, no matter if the spiders in DM spawned or not. That, folks, is the GM's job, not mine. He doesn't have to stand there with a stop clock, he can review the log files and see exactly what was happening. Bot behaviour is quite obvious in log files. You cannot do more than simply reporting and moving on, unless you decide to go vigilante and pull a train on the bot. But that way you risk being reported for harrassing. Also, the next kind player will just resurrect the bot ^^

 

My idea is that if the same account is constantly reported by random players, it's a sign that he's doing something wrong and needs attention. It's like driving, if you constantly shout at other drivers and get into dangerous situations, but the other drivers are random, it's probably you who does something wrong. I honestly cannot tell if the same accounts bot for weeks or months, I'm not paying that much attention to them. I do see botting behaviour all the time though, and that means other players see it too. It leads to an environment where botting is just a normal thing to do, and encourages even new players to do it.

 

"Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference."

[sorudo.9054]

> @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > @"sorudo.9054" said:

> > i just hope ppl don't automatically see necro's as bad, i main a necro but never AFK in groups......

>

> Oh don't worry, people saw you as bad for a long while.

>

thanks for the prejudice.....really needed....

[Neural.1824]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

 

> PS A single farmer at Malchor's Leap isn't going to have a noticeable impact on the 8k supply of lodes on the TP.

 

Yes, but several farmers in different instances over 8+ months will.

[usnedward.9023]

Having a Necro I have tried this "farming" on more than one occasion to watch the mechanics. I was kicked on all of those for "not using a skill". Now this was some time ago and sure that that hasn't changed. However When I see this type of farming it makes me curious because many of them are casting and usually on CD casting which means some type of triggering outside of the game and most likely a mouse clicking program or timed macro. SINCE neither involve programming changes I assume it is difficult for ANET to determine if they are present or not. Simply chatting with them cannot be used against them because they "could" have chat off.

 

I remember watching (if I remember correctly) a Guardian casting on CD so I dragged mobs over with my thief, I *poofed* then came back and rez'd until he was naked with broken armor.

 

I think this has moved from a pandemic to epidemic and wish ANET would address somehow but since kill-steal is not a mechanic of the game it doesn't hurt all that much other than these dopes taking advantage of a silent ANET.

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

> @"sorudo.9054" said:

> > @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > > @"sorudo.9054" said:

> > > i just hope ppl don't automatically see necro's as bad, i main a necro but never AFK in groups......

> >

> > Oh don't worry, people saw you as bad for a long while.

> >

> thanks for the prejudice.....really needed....

 

My first character and one of my mains is a Necro (2nd main is a Thief and my possible 3rd main might be Guardian after some testing).

I've seen the talk, heard the stories, seen the stuff in game and on the forums.

 

No shame in trying to hide it when it seems people look down on Necros whether it's their power or their weakness.