Botting in Fort Aspenwood

BoredJoe

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Sep 2006

Has anyone noticed any increase in botting in Aspenwood? Sure there are always the leechers who do nothing, those who move then stand around and do nothing a little way into the match.

I've started to notice one or two known leechers start to move around a large area inside of the kurzick side but basically do nothing. At first I thought that the person who was leeching had decided to play but I'm inclined to think it was a bit more "advanced" botting program.

Anyone else notice this? As A.Net have said leeching is not a problem in FA do you think FA will eventually become populated by botting programs? And will it be a safe haven/training ground for botting programs?

Clone

Clone

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jan 2006

If they're just running around the edges, they might be people going for a Cartographer title.

BoredJoe

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Sep 2006

Quote:
Originally Posted by Clone
If they're just running around the edges, they might be people going for a Cartographer title.
Nah these are 1 or 2 players who used to stand around and do nothing for a number of games but who are moving around now, but who still essentailly do nothing, which is really weird.

Redwinter

Academy Page

Join Date: Jan 2006

[BotW]

Me/

I've noticed them too.

Anet said leeching wasn't a problem? Source?

Angel Develin

Angel Develin

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Sep 2005

Lions Arch

Minions of Kronos

N/Me

yesterday 2 guys botting (i saw them in more battles standing doing nothing) and 2-3 leavers in 1 battle............. aspenwood is FUN, yay!!!!!

There was a time I played everyday there, but this days?---------------------

Franco

Franco

Banned

Join Date: Jul 2006

England

VoB

Me/

They might not be bots, check the guild tags, they are probably people trying to sabotage the map, trust me in faction farming alliances there are A LOT of these "weirdos", that hate luxon/kurzick so much they actually waste their time doing this ^^ lol.

Ole Man Bourbon

Ole Man Bourbon

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jun 2005

Atlanta

GONG

W/E

Aspenwood is really 5v5. If you have the right couple of builds, you can win with about 3 people, on either side.

Trvth Jvstice

Trvth Jvstice

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: May 2006

HALE

W/

Botters and leechers are annoying, but Ft Aspenwood is such a fun mission, I enjoy it anyway. Win or lose, you still get rewarded.

I believe that most people running botting programs will eventually get caught and banned.

Jetdoc

Jetdoc

Hell's Protector

Join Date: Jul 2005

The Eyes of Texas [BEVO]

D/A

The latest bot I've seen in Aspenwood is a monk that runs around in a circle and constantly spams Heal Party and Heal Area. Seems like a simple program to run, and does just enough (without needing to target) to draw suspicion away from him.

leeky baby

leeky baby

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2005

Surrey University

Starting to play again... need a guild

W/E

i just had 5 leeacher in a AB yay that was fun

Clone

Clone

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jan 2006

I even think the term "bot" gets tossed around too much in this context too. It certanly wouldn't take any third party software to do most of the described behavior, even running multiple clients at once.

At any rate, these occurances are very annoying, and one of the biggest failures of the faction system. Linking a PvP game where people can idle and benifit to a PvE reward that can be sold was a horrible idea.

Joao Ninguem

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jul 2006

Im tired of these leechers, and anet does absolutely NOTHING about this.

Ridiculous.

wildcide

wildcide

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Sep 2006

Tanks & Angels

Mo/

I did see some very unusual behavior in the Frost gate. About 10+ mo/w would arrive run to the anvil rock sign then to merchant and then disappear and this would happen continuously over and over, it was in international district 1, asked them what was going on and non replied. Any of you lot seen this too.

Opeth11

Opeth11

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Oct 2005

Richmond, British Columbia, Kanada

Demon of the Fall [Opet]

Mo/Me

Don't tell me they're botting the minotaurs there, too >_>

donaldbrooke

Academy Page

Join Date: Oct 2006

Australia

W/Mo

Leechers in FA are becoming a problem. it is not uncommon to get 3 or more leeches in a team. It would not be as big a problem if it happened to both sides but it more often than not happens to one group taking the fun out of what can be an enjoyable part of the game.
Maybe areanet should start leeching faction points from those that just stay in the initial area. I know this will only work for a while but at least it will be some penalty.

lg5000

lg5000

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jul 2005

Australia

Oh oh oh.. *gets exited* there are Minotaures in fort aspenwood?

Linksys

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Apr 2006

I used to fight in Fort Aspenwood. I still would but I don't like it when there are leechers.

They should make it so you have to touch combat in some way, otherwise you earn no faction.

Leechers don't really care if you leave because of them because, win or lose, they get faction.

There is a way that may help in taking action against leechers. But it would require a lot of organization to the point where it's a widespread trend.

In the battle, the teams can use local chat to communicate with each other and find out if there are any leechers.

If there are any on the Kurzick team, everyone can agree to leave. However, one person on the Luxon team would volunteer to stay in there, otherwise the Kurzick leecher wins and gets faction. And the volunteer Luxon would go around, chat, things like that so that any Anet staff who may be observing will know which is the bot and which isn't. The volunteer can rack up drunkard title points or something.

If there is a Luxon leecher, same thing other way around.

If there are leechers on both sides, everyone who's not a leecher can leave. The leechers can just stay and get nothing.

I'm sure something like this won't actually happen. But I do remember being on the Luxon side when the Kurzick team told us about a couple of leechers. They let us get through and kill them repeatedly :-).

Iscana

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Sep 2006

Maybe it sounds stupid, but when I readed all those posts I remember all the time about leavers in Random Arena. Everyday I join RA and do like 10 matches, there are at least 8 or 7 matches were someone comes in and do nothing else then just stand on the spawn or they join and directly leave even without being able to get a glimpse of there GW character.

I also noticed people standing still and doing nothing in FA, and yes it's fustrated, even when you're a luxon fighting on the kurzick side to finish you PvE missions and quests. I hope that A.net will solve this with a sort of punishment. Like when you have 10.000 factions or somewere between and leave without finishing the match, you lose an amount of factions depending on the time you've playing that match. For example: FA leave in 5 sec will lose you 1000 factions, when 10 minutes it will be around 100 factions or something.
For people joining and playing that match, it's np, cause you want to play, so what's the point of leaving? Ofcourse this doesn't solve the leechers, but at least the Arena and Battle leavers which I really <lot of bad words here> hate, and that's also 1 point why I don't like PvP, cause always there's someone leaving, ok maybe I should do team arena or HA, but anyways I like to do RA as well just to get something unexpected towards me, but in some cases it's too much unexpected leavers.

I'm sure A.net can come up with solutions for leechers, bots and such, you just need a creative mind to solve such problems and find bots by keeping track of players stats or whatever. A.net saying there is no problems with leavers and leechers, well maybe they have to think about to put someone of the A.net team more into play, cause it is a problem on certain times.

Mr_eX

Mr_eX

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Dec 2005

Ice Tooth Cave

Opt and Niho Private Chat [lulz]

N/Me

Fort Aspenwood is the worst example of Guild Wars PvP that exists thusfar. Leechers make the arena completely miss the mark.

dargon

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: May 2005

The Seraphim Knights [TSK]

R/

so let the leeches have FA, everyone goto the Jade Quarry and leave them behind

Lilith St Cyr

Lilith St Cyr

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Aug 2006

Yes, please, go to Jade Quarry!
I need to map that area, but it's always too dead for me to get a group.

Traveller

Traveller

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jul 2005

Finland

League of Extraordinary Explorers [LOST] (my one man guild)

Me/

During the time I've played Factions, I've been able to have a match at Jade quarry twice. It seems no matter what time I'm there, it's always empty.

I'm still a bit confused why A-Net won't admit leechers to be a bit of a problem in the community. Will they ban them if we submit support tickets?

Jeffy Jean

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: May 2006

Siege Turtles

I have a simple solution:

If one does not register a hit on a foe, or uses a skill on a foe or ally, within one minute, the party member recieves a -100 faction penalty.

Of course this may be reworded; however, the point is that if someone enters a battle and leaches, they will suffer a penalty.

Maria The Princess

Maria The Princess

Forge Runner

Join Date: Mar 2006

Aequitas Deis

Quote:
Originally Posted by Traveller
During the time I've played Factions, I've been able to have a match at Jade quarry twice. It seems no matter what time I'm there, it's always empty.

I'm still a bit confused why A-Net won't admit leechers to be a bit of a problem in the community. Will they ban them if we submit support tickets?
well, theres not much they can do to a person that has entered a mission and remains inactive. Lets say someone's house cough onfire! or baby twins are both crying? real life happens so nobody should get punished for that

the best thing they can do is if a person is inactive for, lets say 5 minutes, he is returned to the outpust and is replaced by a henchman of the same profession.

but that could be implimented only for those challenges (imagine a guild group doin a coop and one has to go but others dont mind finishing for him)
and besides, ANET has their hands full with a new campaigh (that will need all the support it can get) coming out and a haloween special event on top of that.

I bet that leechers in the PVPVE missions are the last thing on their minds at the moment.

jimmy_logic

jimmy_logic

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Sep 2005

R/

I support the activity meter... if the player remains inactive as in uses no skills that target an ally or foe for more than a minute the player instantly suffers a -200 faction penalty for every minute they are inactive. Reason for this is within 5 minutes the player will have lost whatever they would of gain and end up in a net loss position. Easy botters will leave cause seriously who goes back into the green gate area within one minute of the game starting, bam -200 faction gone. Maybe they should increase it... to -650 faction. Easy those who want to play will play those that don't will go elsewhere.

Clord

Clord

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jul 2006

Finland

Victory Via Valour

Penalty effect. If character is not entered to any teleportal, goed from any gate after match is started 2 min ago, he will not be able to recieve factions 24 hours, account lose all his currently not spended faction points and is not able to enter competive mission during that time. Once goed from gate this penalty effect dissappear from that match.

Linksys

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Apr 2006

I think it should be you need to deal or recieve a combat attack or spell, whether its hit or miss. Because some on the Kurzick side sometimes just run amber only, rather than fight.

Spura

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Feb 2005

They should implement AFK check in form of a simple question that player has to answer in 20 sec(enough time to finish fight). Question like popping up two small colored squares of random color(chosen from dye set = 10 colors or something) then saying: "Click square with such and such color".

These checks would come up at random 2-5 minute intervals in AB and FA and JQ, other modes don't have such leecher problems. Players failing the check should get booted and their balthazar and luxon/kurzick faction decrease by the amount earned in this round(these numbers are equal for all players on the same side so not much server resources used). This penalty wouldn't hurt players AFKing cos of emergencies, but it would make leeching fail.

Maria The Princess

Maria The Princess

Forge Runner

Join Date: Mar 2006

Aequitas Deis

Quote:
Originally Posted by Spura
They should implement AFK check in form of a simple question that player has to answer in 20 sec(enough time to finish fight). Question like popping up two small colored squares of random color(chosen from dye set = 10 colors or something) then saying: "Click square with such and such color".

These checks would come up at random 2-5 minute intervals in AB and FA and JQ, other modes don't have such leecher problems. Players failing the check should get booted and their balthazar and luxon/kurzick faction decrease by the amount earned in this round(these numbers are equal for all players on the same side so not much server resources used). This penalty wouldn't hurt players AFKing cos of emergencies, but it would make leeching fail.
that would be sooooo irritating to the non leechers

Spura

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Feb 2005

Not really. A small floating window in the corner, a short click and you are done.

Spura

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Feb 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeffy Jean
I have a simple solution:

If one does not register a hit on a foe, or uses a skill on a foe or ally, within one minute, the party member recieves a -100 faction penalty.

Of course this may be reworded; however, the point is that if someone enters a battle and leaches, they will suffer a penalty.
A bot spamming orison on himself every 30 sec standing in spawn.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jimmy_logic
I support the activity meter... if the player remains inactive as in uses no skills that target an ally or foe for more than a minute the player instantly suffers a -200 faction penalty for every minute they are inactive. Reason for this is within 5 minutes the player will have lost whatever they would of gain and end up in a net loss position. Easy botters will leave cause seriously who goes back into the green gate area within one minute of the game starting, bam -200 faction gone. Maybe they should increase it... to -650 faction. Easy those who want to play will play those that don't will go elsewhere.
See above. A bot spamming a skill every x seconds.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Clord
Penalty effect. If character is not entered to any teleportal, goed from any gate after match is started 2 min ago, he will not be able to recieve factions 24 hours, account lose all his currently not spended faction points and is not able to enter competive mission during that time. Once goed from gate this penalty effect dissappear from that match.
Leecher plays 1 minute to go through gate, then afks for the rest. Seen it done a lot, they just walk over to portal so it looks like they aren't leeching, but then just stand on the other side of portal.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Linksys
I think it should be you need to deal or recieve a combat attack or spell, whether its hit or miss. Because some on the Kurzick side sometimes just run amber only, rather than fight.
This would ruin bonders. If I saw a bonder I'd just wait for him to be forced to open the gate to get into wand range or get kicked/penalized.

Also dangerous for defensive characters like heal party spammer, or running amber with no enemies around.

Kais Unduli

Kais Unduli

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Sep 2005

Room V

Anet could simply hire a few people to go in game and check this out for themselves. Best solution there is. Have their employees spectate the matches, see if all members are moving, keep notes on which characters don't do anything, and act accordingly.

Matsumi

Matsumi

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Mar 2006

I think something like the screen that pops up when you donate faction to your guild in order to enter the battle would be good. That way they can't set up something to hit enter battle over and over while they aren't there. They would have to type in their character's name, then hit enter battle. They might find a way around it, but I think it would be a step towards making sure they're present at the keyboard for a while.

gabrial heart

gabrial heart

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jan 2006

Las Vegas

Beautiful Peoples Club [LIPO]

Mo/Me

Yeah, I've done the map thing in both of those too. It doesn't matter whether i say I'm mapping or not, people just get pissed. Thankfully I got GMC and am done with all that.

Eviance

Eviance

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2005

Eh I forget... o_O

Biscuit of Dewm [MEEP]

R/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kais Unduli
Anet could simply hire a few people to go in game and check this out for themselves. Best solution there is. Have their employees spectate the matches, see if all members are moving, keep notes on which characters don't do anything, and act accordingly.
Hire nothing, I am sure there are plenty of people out there willing to do it freely just to have bots and freeloaders out of the area!

Shadow of Light

Shadow of Light

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jun 2006

Australia

Mo/

Anet says the leechers aren't a problem because they're not directly hurting anyone. They are a relatively passive presence. They don't steal anyone's drops. They just... stand there. And get rewarded for not only doing nothing, but taking up the space of a player that might have actually been actively helping your team win.

The easiest thing to do would be remove the rewards given to the losing side. The reason there are so many leechers is that, win or lose, they get something out of the fight.

The other option, which I suggested in Sardelac, is that after the battle is over, an NPC is spawned on the map (somewhere the leechers would have trouble setting up a program to run to) which all team members must run/talk to in order to receive their faction reward. As an added bonus, this would also allow 'after the battle' time for those who want to explore the map.

Voltar

Voltar

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: May 2006

My dog let's me crash at her place.

POB

R/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shadow of Light
The other option, which I suggested in Sardelac, is that after the battle is over, an NPC is spawned on the map (somewhere the leechers would have trouble setting up a program to run to) which all team members must run/talk to in order to receive their faction reward. As an added bonus, this would also allow 'after the battle' time for those who want to explore the map.
most of the ideas to solve this problem (including a lot of my own) are pretty much flawed because it will in some way screw over legit players...

i can't for the life of me see a way that this idea fails. the only reason not to like it is because of the extra time it takes to walk somewhere...

if you've played enough aspenwood, you realize though that an extra 20 seconds waiting before the 10 "no opposing party" messages makes little difference.

thumbs up, shadow of light. if this was a poll, i'd vote that.

elLOCOmutha

elLOCOmutha

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: May 2005

Ascalon City, Tyria

Free Agent

W/

I havent Played in aspenwood for awhile...is it still as bad as ever with leechers/leavers etc..?

Kidney Licker

Kidney Licker

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Aug 2005

Europe Server

It seems to be a bit better, but I've heard loud complaints from other players so it might be luck.

Lately I've seen a few of the leechers actually playing and had the opportunity to yell abuse at them. They probably leech during their non-playing times, i.e. when I play, and if I play at odd times I get to see them for real :/

Kais Unduli

Kais Unduli

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Sep 2005

Room V

Just finished playing one battle in FA where my kurzick team had 4 leechers. That's half the team. If someone from Anet sees this, please do something.