Discussion on Policy: Unattended Gameplay

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> Thus, previous Dev statements would still be valid.

 

I guess that makes sense. Anyone has a link to those dev statements?

[Alora.6841]

> Did any of these "afk" farmers negatively inmfluence your experience in the recent time?

 

Every time they are standing in a heart area and steal my kills for heart completion.

[Khisanth.2948]

> @"Adenin.5973" said:

> Did any of these "afk" farmers negatively inmfluence your experience in the recent time?

>

 

Yes. They are responsible for me getting less unbound magic when going around gathering berries in Bitterfrost Frontier.

 

> I honestly don't care at all what other ppl are doing in the game as long as it doesn't influence myself negatively. What's the bigg deal? It's an MMO. There are som rangers and necros standing around in some places, activating a skill every 30 seconds. Wow, what a massive dealbreaker. Most of them probably earn like under 1g in an hour.

>

> I don't think it has really any massive impact on the games economy. There are many things that happen in the game that have a much greater impact on the economy and prices than some ppl deciding to watch Netflix and run GW2 in the background, farming some spiders or whatever.

>

> So what is this really about and why do you think Anet spending time on "solving" this problem is worth it´?

 

I don't appreciate getting punished along with the cheaters when I haven't done anything wrong.

 

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > If you were just expressing your concerns, I wouldn't be posting. You are stating explicitly that reading a book while being next to the computer counts as "unattended gameplay" while there is literally nothing in the policy that implies that to be so. That is your opinion about how to interpret the policy, and it seems to be based on what you would prefer to be the rule.

>

> If you read a book while next to your computer, your character will be booted to character selection screen **for inactivity**. Ever thought about that? Watching your monitor without interacting with the game is unattended gameplay. The game kicks you if you do that, and that's for a reason.

 

On the other hand it takes 2 hours(for open world PvE) of inactivity for that to happen.

[Shikigami.4013]

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> > Thus, previous Dev statements would still be valid.

>

> I guess that makes sense. Anyone has a link to those dev statements?

 

It has been posted dozens of times but here we go once again.

For your account to be actioned (=punished) for "afk-farming" you have to fulfil all of the following three criteria:

 

> 1) Using skill (1 or more) while AFK

>2) AFKing in a place where it is beneficial for your character to be at

>3) Unresponsive to interaction with GMs

 

This means that you can do stand around for 12 hours straight and farm using autocast, as long as you are able to react to a GM checking on you. The statement came directly from Chris Cleary, Game Security Lead. If you want you can check the whole long old thread here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Please-a-clear-statement-re-AFK-farming/page/6#post6161450

 

 

We also have a newer statement by GM Dornsinger on Reddit who told us the following about suspensions for unattended gameplay, in this case a guy multiboxing in the halloween labyrinth and quite obviously paying so little attention to his game windows that he missed being checked by a GM on all of his accounts.....

>[...]I will not be able to give you minute details. What I can tell you, however, is that every day we investigate users to check if they are actively playing, and every day users react to us. There is ample time to react, there's never any problem is a user does react. [...]

https://old.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/9rje2l/just_got_banned_for_2160_hours_for_using_gw2/e8hovze/

 

So like I wrote earlier: actively playing is not what you seem to want it to be. It does not mean "you move around, you cast all your skills, you talk to random strangers who come to afk-check you". You are actively playing as long as you react to a GM, that is all. Like he said, there is never any problem as long as you react to being investigated.

 

 

[System]

This thread is for discussion of [Policy: Unattended Gameplay](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/65548/policy-unattended-gameplay "Policy: Unattended Gameplay").

[Biff.5312]

 

> I main a ranger and there have been a few times where I had to go afk for an emergency only to come back to find that my pet had earned me gold participation in an event that spawned while I was gone. Having my pet despawn when I am afk would help avoid situations like this.

 

You could just dismiss your pet while you go afk. I really don't see why this is would matter though. Lots of times I get accidental credit for being in the vicinity of an event that is completed by someone else. It's not intentional and the benefits are minimal. The policy is in regards to people deliberately cultivating gains by going afk, so it's very unlikely anyone's going to complain about you in the situations you describe.

[Shikigami.4013]

As soon as the character is damaged a ranger pet will pop back out and defend the character, so dismissing it is not an option. You can prevent the pet from defending you by setting it to passive, but this is not even needed. **If the pet kills in absence of the player, this is perfectly fine as long as the player character is idle.** In order to have your account actioned the three criteria I layed out in the post before have to apply. If the pet kills a mob on its own, criteria 1 (using a skill while afk) does not apply.

 

Pet kills do not count as action that a character performs, nor does it count as skill being performed. For that reason, pet kills have been explicitly labled as being exempt from the afk-farming scenario by Michael Henninger, Game Support Lead. The post is in the same thread I already linked and can be found here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Please-a-clear-statement-re-AFK-farming/6161098

 

The fact that pet kills without participation of the player character are exempt from qualifying as "unattended gameplay" was so important that it was repeated three times in this post, and once again in another post some hours later.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"Shikigami.4013" said:

> The fact that pet kills without participation of the player character are exempt from qualifying as "unattended gameplay" was so important that it was repeated three times in this post, and once again in another post some hours later.

 

I'm curious why wasn't that included in the policy post? I'm sure this topic will appear again in the future, for whatever reason, and searching for such forum posts from 2016, or waiting from players that have them bookmarked or stored to post them, isn't very practical. And this really goes for every policy as they've made clarifications on nearly all of their policies, yet those (very important imo) clarifications aren't in their policy threads. It's a bit weird to have this information yet not make it more readily available.

[Shikigami.4013]

Agreed, I very much welcome the effort to clarify the policies, however it feels like they left out a few important parts that people have been asking about often. Some other clarifications seem to have been added though, like the one in the macro policy that says using an autoclicker to open a stack of items is allowed. I didn't know that.

 

 

[Bollocks.4078]

First, let's stop using terms like "Unattended" and "Inattentive" and call it what it really is. It's Automated Game Play. It's using in-game mechanics to automate farming. It baffles me how anyone can think that's OK. The unfortunate truth is that it's too difficult to detect if someone pays just enough attention that they can respond to GM interaction. Seems ANET has been very careful about how they word things so as not to be on the hook for stopping something they can't reliably detect.

 

Also, seems to me that ANET felt it was worth rewording things. Even if the policy didn't change, they had some reason to update the wording. That opens the possibility that previous discussions may have been based on misunderstandings or misinterpretations of the policy's previous wording. It's not unreasonable to consider if that might apply to previous conversations.

 

Let's consider the 3 rules. They say all three have to apply to be actioned.

So, that means someone can park a necro with minions and go AFK as long as they want as long as they aren't auto-casting? If no skills are being auto-cast then rule #1 doesn't apply.

If someone parks an Engineer, drops turrets and walks away with no auto-cast, is that a bannable offense? In 5 minutes or less the turrets will be gone and the Engi is just AFK, no benefit at all. Plus, rule #1 doesn't apply. In order to keep the farming going someone would have to interact with the game every 5 minutes or less. Does that mean that an Engi should be able farm free and clear, as long as no skills are auto-cast, since the farm ends without interaction every 5 min or less? That would definitely be more interaction than someone just glancing at the screen every 5 minutes while reading a book just in case they need to reply to a GM.

 

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

 

> ANet has a protocol for determining if it's unattended gameplay.

 

How much do we actually know about this protocol you keep referring to? I now there's plenty we don't know because it would facilitate circumventing the protocol.

 

 

 

 

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Bollocks.4078" said:

> First, let's stop using terms like "Unattended" and "Inattentive" and call it what it really is.

How about if we use the same terms that ANet does?

 

> That would definitely be more interaction than someone just glancing at the screen every 5 minutes while reading a book just in case they need to reply to a GM.

That's about exactly the amount of interaction I'd manage if I were farming while watching a movie or reading a book. (I should state that I don't actually do this -- I'd enjoy neither the farming nor the reading if I tried to multitask that way. And I'd rather min-max my fun, rather than earn every possible copper I can.)

 

> > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

>

> > ANet has a protocol for determining if it's unattended gameplay.

> How much do we actually know about this protocol you keep referring to? I now there's plenty we don't know because it would facilitate circumventing the protocol.

You know the same things I do about it. Someone watches a suspect first, the GM will move them around the map to see how they respond, and the GM will whisper them. ANet's definition allows for autocasting and leaving "pets": so long as people are responsive (and not otherwise violating the rules), it's fine.

 

> It baffles me how anyone can think that's OK.

How anyone can think that ... what is okay? If ANet isn't concerned about the amount of wealth earned, then I'm not either; they have access to the data which I'd need to have an informed opinion about that aspect. I'm concerned about the perception that people might be botting (since there's no way for me to tell the difference), but again, I have to defer to ANet: if they claim it's not a problem for the game, I can't in good conscience gainsay that, because I lack any sort of data other than my own impression.

 

I'd certainly prefer that leeching be entirely impossible, but I'm a lot less bothered by "free riders" earning rewards for less work than I am about "costly riders" (trolls and people who otherwise block people from enjoying the game). Leechers in PvP hurt the game mode by changing the nature of the competition; in PvE, leechers rarely have that big an impact _except_ that some of us (including myself) just don't like the idea that some earn something for nothing.

[TallBarr.2184]

I have heard different interpretations from people and would like to get the official, some people say it means you need to be responsive, and some say you need to walk around or use all skills.

The word "actively playing" is used alot in the updated policies, if they have said somewhere what it means please direct me, but i have yet to find anything.

 

Thank you

[Blude.6812]

Search for AFK farming --- many threads that quote from Chris

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/25253/finally-is-the-afk-farm-ok-or-not/p1

 

[Forum Moderator.2781]

Merging threads

 

[Shikigami.4013]

> @"TallBarr.2184" said:

> I have heard different interpretations from people and would like to get the official, some people say it means you need to be responsive, and some say you need to walk around or use all skills.

> The word "actively playing" is used alot in the updated policies, if they have said somewhere what it means please direct me, but i have yet to find anything.

>

> Thank you

 

I have answered that in detail to **you** specifically two months ago in the thread that Blude.6812 linked.

Just reread my post here: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/739649/#Comment_739649

 

There is no interpretation to be done in what GM Dornsinger wrote. He clearly stated that they do "_investigate people to check if they actively play_" every day, and that "_when they react, there is never any problem_". I explained that to you back then. If you react to a GM checking you, that means you are active. By the way, GM Dornsinger is one of the three Lead Gamemasters in the company (LGM). It is the highest tier of authority for the GM. How much more official do you think it needs to be?

[TallBarr.2184]

Someone told me yesterday it meant you could not autoattack on 2 accounts simultaneously which sounded ridiculous. They updated their policies so wanted to make sure their interpretation still was the same. Thank you.

[Tiviana.2650]

> @"Ashen.2907" said:

> > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > I worded the title this way so as not to give the wrong idea to some people. Still I find it odd that there are discussion threads on all other Policy topics except for this one.

> > Link to the policy: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/65548/policy-unattended-gameplay

> >

> > A few things that I'd like being answered:

> >

> > > The use of auto-casting abilities to farm while not at your computer or not actively playing the game.

> >

> > Although I can understand this not being good for the game, how exactly are you going to find out if a player is doing this? To be honest the "auto-cast" feature should be only available on skills that require targets, that's the only solution to the unattended gameplay problem. Reporting or waiting for GMs to contact the individual so they can then get banned is really slow and judging by the gigantic amount of players doing this at certain places (Timberline Falls and Iron Marches most notably) it's not really working.

> >

> > > 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.

> >

> > Enter Ranger with pet, Engineer with turrets and Necromancer with minions, especially with the Ranger since there is no uptime (turrets require re-cast, minions require re-summon if they die): If I go afk in an area with enemies, my "allies" will participate in content and engage with the world while I'm afk. I can understand the policy (unattended gameplay should be punished) but in some cases it does look weird.

> >

> > Much like the auto-cast above, it's up to the developers to make sure summoned allies are "disabled" if a player goes away from their keyboard (disable turrets, kill minions and put pet on "away" if a player is unresponsive for a set amount of time. These are things up to the developers to fix and not something that requires a policy because from my understanding, they are both very hard to enforce.

> >

>

> Solid suggestions IMO.

>

> I main a ranger and there have been a few times where I had to go afk for an emergency only to come back to find that my pet had earned me gold participation in an event that spawned while I was gone. Having my pet despawn when I am afk would help avoid situations like this.

 

A better suggestion is to do what other games do, if the player controlled AI kills something without the player damaging it you dont get credit. Because there are going to be times you have an emergency or have to leave the keyboard for a bit. Despawning the pet is kind of a punishment for those times, and rather not see that implemented. Much rather you just not get loot or credit if your pet kills something without your character contributing in damage. Because honestly its still exploited by people with pets and minions that they let the pet tag everything and never have to enter the fray in events themselves. So my idea that has been used successfully in other games works to put an end to pet farming without the player actually contributing.

[Tiviana.2650]

Oh another thing one of my peeves is abilities that go off without a target. I think unless its a big channeled aoe spell, that they should not fire off abilities without a target, it seems wrong and easy to pull an oops

[kharmin.7683]

> @"Tiviana.2650" said:

> > @"Ashen.2907" said:

> > > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > > I worded the title this way so as not to give the wrong idea to some people. Still I find it odd that there are discussion threads on all other Policy topics except for this one.

> > > Link to the policy: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/65548/policy-unattended-gameplay

> > >

> > > A few things that I'd like being answered:

> > >

> > > > The use of auto-casting abilities to farm while not at your computer or not actively playing the game.

> > >

> > > Although I can understand this not being good for the game, how exactly are you going to find out if a player is doing this? To be honest the "auto-cast" feature should be only available on skills that require targets, that's the only solution to the unattended gameplay problem. Reporting or waiting for GMs to contact the individual so they can then get banned is really slow and judging by the gigantic amount of players doing this at certain places (Timberline Falls and Iron Marches most notably) it's not really working.

> > >

> > > > 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.

> > >

> > > Enter Ranger with pet, Engineer with turrets and Necromancer with minions, especially with the Ranger since there is no uptime (turrets require re-cast, minions require re-summon if they die): If I go afk in an area with enemies, my "allies" will participate in content and engage with the world while I'm afk. I can understand the policy (unattended gameplay should be punished) but in some cases it does look weird.

> > >

> > > Much like the auto-cast above, it's up to the developers to make sure summoned allies are "disabled" if a player goes away from their keyboard (disable turrets, kill minions and put pet on "away" if a player is unresponsive for a set amount of time. These are things up to the developers to fix and not something that requires a policy because from my understanding, they are both very hard to enforce.

> > >

> >

> > Solid suggestions IMO.

> >

> > I main a ranger and there have been a few times where I had to go afk for an emergency only to come back to find that my pet had earned me gold participation in an event that spawned while I was gone. Having my pet despawn when I am afk would help avoid situations like this.

>

> A better suggestion is to do what other games do, if the player controlled AI kills something without the player damaging it you dont get credit. Because there are going to be times you have an emergency or have to leave the keyboard for a bit. Despawning the pet is kind of a punishment for those times, and rather not see that implemented. Much rather you just not get loot or credit if your pet kills something without your character contributing in damage. Because honestly its still exploited by people with pets and minions that they let the pet tag everything and never have to enter the fray in events themselves. So my idea that has been used successfully in other games works to put an end to pet farming without the player actually contributing.

 

No thanks. I also main a ranger and part of my play style is to send my pet after one target while I attack another. Why, then, should I be penalized for this because of some farmers? I don't think that rangers who tag with their pet and don't have to enter the fray is abusive -- it is using the mechanics of the class.

 

If "pet farming" is truly an issue in Anet's eyes, then I would prefer a different solution to this one.

[Gehenna.3625]

Listen, I am going through the process of making a legendary weapons and suddenly am confronted with crafting thousands of items at a time. If starting a craft for 1200 mithril ingots and going afk while this happens is against the rules then pls let us craft such items per 10 or 100. You can't expect me to sit and stare at the screen for 5 minutes because you require high crafting amounts which take a long time. I'd rather take a break while this is happening.

 

So ArenaNet. What about this? Is this type of afk crafting illegal or can you tell me that this is counted as idling in town?

[BrotherHolmes.5941]

I would like to know how they view using a macro to play music. I know it would be bad to use it for the Wintersday game, but what about just playing music for a party in town?

[Pifil.5193]

> @"BrotherHolmes.5941" said:

> I would like to know how they view using a macro to play music. I know it would be bad to use it for the Wintersday game, but what about just playing music for a party in town?

 

That's allowed. Check the macro policy.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/65554/policy-macros-and-macro-use

 

> You may use music macros to compose or perform in-game music. As long as the macro is used solely for the composition or performance of in-game music and the account is actively attended by a player, we do not place restrictions on its use.