NCSoft's follow-up on PvP-botters.

Maybe a mod could pick a more fitting thread title: The main idea of this thread is to get an idea of how many people are actually reporting botters, and how many reports are going through.

Alot of the complaints go not particularly to NCSoft's inability to ban every botter out there, but simply the inability to recognize the problem in the first place. Many people have reported NCSoft not banning obvious botters, despite "proof" being given.

I actually want to get a general idea of how bad the support truly is at dealing with the problem when the community itself delivers the reports, and they only have to press the "BAN" button, so to speak.

The sole purpose of this thread is to generate a positive attitude from the community towards reporting botters. By showing people that reporting people through the long route (print screens + email to NCSoft) IS worth the trouble, we can get more people to file in complaints, and ultimately get more people to report botters.

The general attitude right now, when I ask friends and other PvP'ers, is that reporting them through the long route simply is not worth the effort because everyone believes they won't get banned anyways. (Why waste easily 30+ minutes on writing a nice email with screenshots when you know it isn't going to do anything anyways?) I hope this thread can change that attitude a bit.

What I ask is for people to quickly post here after they reported a botter using the NCSoft email route, how they reported him and what the current status is. (Not banned, pending, banned or "falsely banned"*)
*Where they say they banned the person, but in reality they didn't

If you can be asked, try and post some pictures (Links, don't use img marks, I'll just use them in the OP to illustrate what pictures) obviously with blanked out names so people understand what NCSoft's definition of "proof" is.

I'll try and keep the thread update as often as I can. I'll keep the checklist (below) update aswell. I'll keep track of all the reports that have been made, and will then split them up in 2 categories: With pictures (proof) and without pictures (without proof). This should give some nice information in case some reports don't result in a ban, to see wether or not the person reporting supplied pictures.

If you're posting a report that didn't result in a ban, and you did supply pictures, provide the links here so the community themselves can see how obvious the proof was. For those unaware of the NCSoft support site: http://help.ncsoft.com/cgi-bin/ncsof...bCZwX3BhZ2U9MQ!!

Total number of reports: 21

Reports with pictures: 18

Reports resulting in a ban: 5

Reports still pending: 3

Reports not resulting in a ban: 10

Reportings resulting in a false ban: 0


Reports without pictures: 3

Reports resulting in a ban: 0

Reports still pending: 0

Reports not resulting in a ban: 3

Reportings resulting in a false ban: 0

I've reported 4 people so far, all 4 with pictures. The first report was a long time ago, so I have no records of that.

The second one was a week or 2 ago, I supplied pictures of the person using 5 interrupts, aswell a couple of skills getting interrupted. After 3 days he got banned.

The third report was send a couple of hours ago, and is still pending. I only supplied pictures of 3 of his interrupt skills, and I asked them to look at his logs. He had a bar of 7 interrupts, and interrupted 1/4' second spells at a redicilous rate. There is no doubt he was a botter. This one is still pending.

My last report was made just now on behalve of my gf who got completely obliverated by this botter. He managed to pblock skills such as patient spirit and infuse health, whilst keeping all weaponspells and the mesmer shutdown. I send in the report with 4 screenshots, showing all the skills he uses aswell as the interrupt's he's hitting.

with follow screenshots: (I only post image tags so people understand what is obvious proof of a botter)




Please post your reports here so we can actually get a clear overview on how many reports are being made, and how many are actually getting through.

0-2 here, no screenshots.

Are you interested in statistics on ladder/codex manipulation?

Wahey first post on this forum.

I think the main opinion that everyone will have, is that they can't be bothered, no one likes to take an hour out of their own game time, just to report some guy who grieves you for about 5 mins.
I know Im one of those people, but more or less, youll never meet that botter again, so it's more of case of a minor incovenience than to waste your own valuable time.

First off the word is "grief" not "grieve", different things.

Second, it's this kind of Apathy that lets people get away with botting.

Third, you obviously never played JQ, where the same bots are always present, there's even a guild called [pet] which is nothing but a bot dump.

However on top of all this, I'm guilty of apathy towards it as well. I'm not spending my time reporting a few bots, trying to gather evidence instead of playing the game (and no doubt being reported for leeching while I try and cap a decent screenshot) when I know that the bots will just be replaced with a new account. Or wont be acted upon at all. I commonly face entire Luxon teams which are nothing but bots. Why should I report them all, when it's so blatently obvious, that if ONE GM just watched a sodding match they could ban them all in one go?


edit: p.s. I use the /report command to report bots on a regular basis, but see them all week still, unbanned.

Might wanna add a link in the OP for where to go to send this stuff.

A good idea, see what happens.

Except that if botters are rife, you'll get griefed constantly by one bot after another - not just an isolated 5 minutes.

It's also a somewhat selfish attitude - those bots will go on to grief countless others. I applaud the OP for getting off his ass and trying to do something to clean things up - for everyone's benefit.

And - as if it takes 1 hour of your game time. It couldn't possibly take that long, unless you do it with both hands tied behind your back. Are you a botter, trying to discourage reporting?

If this survey shows that botters do get banned, then I imagine reporting will gain momentum. The more results it gets (ie. the more bots are SEEN to be banned, here or elsewhere), the more willing people might be to spend time reporting.

That would not only remove some botters, but would also discourage others from doing it, rather than risk a ban.

On the other hand, if it shows that botters do not get banned, then this might shame A-Net into addressing the issue. That would also be FTW.

Here are my numbers for the last month.


Total number of reports: 14

Reports with pictures: 13

Reports resulting in a ban: 3

Reports still pending: 1

Reports not resulting in a ban: 10

Reportings resulting in a false ban: 0


Reports without pictures: 1

Reports resulting in a ban: 0

Reports still pending: 0

Reports not resulting in a ban: 1

Reportings resulting in a false ban: 0



Looks pretty bad when it's all laid out.

when you say that a report has resulted in a ban, does that mean that you were replied to and told directly that the person is not going to be banned? Or does it mean you just did not get a reply for an extended period of time?

anet doesn't necessarily have to reply to you with the results of their investigation, telling you whether or not the person in question was banned.

Just want to thank you for this post. Next time I meet a team I know they have someone botting, I'll try to sreenshot them.

Do you think the /report command helps or is it useless without email and screenshot ?

How did you take a picture of a botter actally prooving he/she is a bot?

Pictures of the same N/Mo bot running posts in Chivros, pics of interrupted 1/4 cast time skills in HA/GvG, pics of chat logs with well-known botters, pics of follow-bots on secondary accounts named things like "[Player Name] 2", pics of players botting the Dragon Arena (not hard, because the pathing is obvious), etc.

It's not hard if you know what kinds of bots there are.

Ok, I wasent trying to sound smug or anything.

I've had my D-shot be D-shotted or a quarter heal be d-shotted. Even by "real" players too. Now, thats obviously a lucky break, but i guess if it happend repeatadly I would figure something is fishy.

So the 1/4th cast 'rupt pics dont seem as solid evidence to me, but to each his-own.

If you PvP atleast once a day, you know what is and isn't doable. Don't doubt that when I say someone bots, he is botting.

He, aswell as Lemming, aswell as Karate Jesus aswell as every other PvP'er have enough experience to really pick out the botters on the spot. It's only a matter of making it easy enough to understand for the support.

A few people on this site have access to GW bot forums (which isn't that hard to find) and we can read what the bot does.

It is extremely hard for a person to copy EXACLY the same thing a bot would do and do it,let alone a whole guild. I'm (and some of the people on Guru) are not saying that everyone that interupts a skill with 1/4 sec activation time as soon as it activates is a bot,we are saying that there are ALOT of players with the same behaviour,the same time to interupt a spell,the same action after a spell was casted,etc. AND that this actions were put into a known bot in its features,when it was posted in a thread.

Don't be naive,bots are present. 2 days ago or so this German guild named (in english) We Do HA with [----] (---- being the name of the "api" used to run GW bots,which I doubt I can post here) that was holding HA. JQ is also full of botters,and something has to be done about it,but I highly doubt something CAN be done.

What I do agree with you though,is that some people are just pooping threads over and over and over instead of posting in the same one,IMO to get post counts maybe,but IDK.


------------I do not own bots,know people personally that bot,make bots,etc. I just know a certain site that has bots and I read what they do so I know what is out there-----------------------

I agree with Danzo Dattori, the trouble with bots is there are just too many to report and ban. One bot site estimates there are 1000 botters in game. Each botter doesn't just use one account; they use at least 7 - 10. That means there is an estimated total of around 7,000 - 10,000 bots running at any one time in GWs.

Not only that but since these threads about how easy it is to get away with botting have appeared downloads of the botting software and registration on bot sites had gone up by around 700 new members in just a few days.

Some bots have become so advanced they are almost undetectable (except these interrupt bots which can catch every 1/4 second skill which just gives them away), other bots are easily noticeable as they follow the same path time and time again but the botters do watch threads like this and do edit their bots to make these noticeable actions unnoticeable (one example is a thread for advanced Mo/W bots in RA, the guy who created the bot saw the thread and has now changed the bot so it’s not noticeable by the methods mentioned in that thread).

The only real way anet can effectively stop botting altogether is to check for injected dlls (which is how they work). However, how often would this checking program have to run? Start and end of every match? Every few minutes? The point is that the players could just wait until the server has scanned the GW.exe process and then inject the process and run the bot.

Botting is going to be around for a while as Anet just doesn’t have the resources to deal with it right now, due to GW2 and the sheer number of bots in game. For me personally taking the 30 minutes out of my time, which could be spent re-joining a match, to upload screenshots and explain why I feel this guy is a bot just seems like too much effort. Ok, I’ve stopped one bot, but that guy will have 10+ other accounts botting AND will just trade Zkeys and Ectos for another account to make up for the one that’s been banned.

Edit:

Like Zarion said:

I don’t own bots; I just pay attention to botting sites so I know what’s out there and what to look for if and when I do report someone.

look at the 2nd word of healing on that screenshot.
its like 1/20th of the way there, if not less.

pretty sure your buddy monk just cancel casted, because nobody can rupt that fast.

and with that logic, i could just sit there, cancel cast infuse 5 times...take a screenshot. and call the mes on their other team a bot.

with this said, id be scared if anet was banning ppl from the screenshots and not looking through the logs. you should be easily be able to figure out bots from logs, so the screenshots would seem like a waste, since they can be faked.

Even when I see a Ranger that has his back to me and interrupts my monk only to whip around and interrupt me when I am not his target on a 1/4 to 1/2 second cast, that can be a person. When that same Ranger interrupts my spell in exactly the same fashion time and time again at the same position of the cast, that is fishy. ANETS servers are not able to keep one person with that low of a latency to even make it possible. What's the point of competitive game play when it's anything but competitive. I would rather play against NPC's in PvE. They don't cheat, and if they beat me, it's my fault.

Point proven?

We're talking about PvP bots here, not PvE.

at 1/20 of a 3/4 second cast is 0.0375 seconds.

thats shorter than a 16 fast cast 1/4 second cast.
(15 fast casting = half casting = 1/8 second cast = .125 seconds)

so you'd have to have negative ping to rupt like that.

thus: it was either cancel casted, or guessed, or the dood just got qknocked.

or he was chain casting skills and got rupted on his second spell. but then thats even more unlikely to be a bot. because that would mean the bot was a whole second slow. 1/4 second for the previous cast, and 3/4 second for the aftercast.

im not saying the other screenshots dont look like bots, just that word of healing shouldnt be included in your screenshots.