How to prove someone is botting

Ok so heres the deal: I reported a couple of players for botting in FA/JQ, one of which is a known long time botter. These bots do not attack, do not talk, move about in random patterns to avoid the dishonor hex and only use 2 different skills from time to time. (eg, the ele bot periodically uses glyph of lesser energy and feigned neutrality at full hp)

I've been corresponding with support and they keep insisting that they cannot find a violation/have not enough evidence. They say that they could be just really bad players that dont understand english. Well it's blindingly obvious if you've been observing them ingame for any amount of time. Even the worst player has more then 2 skills on his skill bar.

It's getting rather frustrating. I've resorted to taking in game vids of the bots with fraps but still get the "cant find a violation" response. So tell me, is there some way for these bots to elude detection by anet or do the support staff just not give a ****?

I am aware that posting this here probably means there is a chance the botters will read this, but I don't know where else to ask, so..

I'm exactly in the same situation. Habe been playing JQ for over than a year and a half and seen lots of matches manipulations in the past( Lenna knows this) and '' armies'' of bots. For the people who play JQ a lot, i think the name ********* is known to you. However, since the last 2 or 3 months, the bots stopped going to JQ, this might be because of the 3,700 accounts bans or whatever, but they just stopped playing. The same thing happened a while ago, i think it was last year when bots quit JQ for a bit because Anet was paying attention to them.
Anyways, the bots will come back. Even so, some bots playing JQ as I write these sentences. One day, i was in a match and the guy who owns the bot named *******was at computer and talking, saying he was never a bot although many people accused him of botting. He was talking english fluently so you can't blame him of not knowing any word in English. And i assume ******* isn't the only example... too bad i haven't made any screenshots with him.
Well, that's the story with JQ bots. Anet says they gonna fix this ''eternal'' problem but i really doubt they will...

P.S : Done... Names were censored

I think they only hit those who used GWCA during the mass ban? It pisses me off that support keeps saying there is no violation even though anyone with half a brain can see that these are not human controlled characters. It's one thing if they dont have enough resources to go around looking for all the bots, but I reported them with screenshot, video, time and date of offense etc and yet none of them were banned!

ps. u gotta censor the names of the bots cause this forum dont allow it

Well, it may be that these people aren't bots, just incredibly stupid, or trying to stir up jq. To be honest, i don't see many bots in there anymore. And i have seen tom yum before, doesn't seen like a bot to me.

I don't report just anyone. Even the most noob player knows how to click on an enemy and attack. These bots just meander around the spawn site, every 30 seconds or so they will use a skill. If they run into a wall they will get stuck sometimes because the AI isn't smart enough to say "theres an obstruction so stop moving in that direction" Occasionally by chance they wander into the teleport portal, but most of the time they just hide in a corner. And when I see them doing the same thing in consecutive games... really???

ALSO, one of them, (lets call him S.N.S.) has been botting for aaages. Over the years I've seen S.N.S. botting festival events, FA, JQ using different toons. Everytime I see a friggin festival arena bot there's a good chance it's one of the people I recognize because I keep the names of notorious botters on flist. The other player is a member of a pretty exclusive pvp guild... dont think i need to mention names. The third one i dont recognize, but their m/o seems to be exactly the same.

Before anyone starts asking 'why the hell i care' it's the principle of it If anet can ban people for something as silly as drunkard bot they should be able to ban people who have been botting for a much longer time

You really shouldn't care about it because you will get loads of aggravation and little satisfaction.
Consider the number of bots that seem to be around and that for anet to follow up every report they would need a huge staff devoted to it.
If they affect your game either live with it or play another arena or at another time.

Its something for anet to sort out, I am guessing the attention they give to reports is based on number.
report from one person might be a bot, report from a hundred sources is worth investigating.
If they followed up all the reports they would never catch up with the flow.

Ignore them and get on with enjoying the game

@StormX:

This isn't really related to answering your question but I thought I would tell you anyways to clarify your misunderstanding of how the "new" dishonorable works...

Through personal experience and testing, I can indeed confirm that dishonorable is given to you regardless if you move around or not. You can stand around all day and that won't give you dishonor. What does give you dishonor is if you do not cast at least 1 skill every 20-25 seconds (I have not narrowed it down yet and I don't really expect to find out since I haven't done any testing on this in quit a very long time; for all I know it can be 40 seconds?).


Anyways... If you cast Healing Signet (just a random skill that comes to mind) once every 20 seconds, you can stand still all game and not get dishonorable.

I dont pvp so pp bots i cant state upon , but in pve you`d think its easy to spot the bots which most of the time it is.What is a problem and if you scan guru posts on bots you will see a big problem that arises.
scenario - im in gates of kryta with my trusty 55 monk in dragon tats ( armor is not an issue usually ) and low and behold someone always pipes up and claims im a bot.That person usually gets abusive and throws claims of reporting me for being a bot.Regardless of the fact i can do anything he requests to prove im not a bot within reason - even chat in local to them and still im classed as a bot.Many players have had this and many will still in the future.
How do you 100% prove that someone is a bot - in my books you cant.
If bot has human controller then the "master" can jump on and claim hes was messin around testing mouse etc.
We`ve all seen the bots in bergen who run into posts and get stuck , ones who take the same path so often its now a trench.
Now im not defending anet here but trying to think logically - on anets side i wonder exactly how many bot reports they recieve daily - a few thousand im guessing which includes all the kiddies who love to cry "BOT".How long does it take the few staff that anet gives the investigation task to check that many claims daily and im sure no way can a handfull check daily and keep on top .
Why do ppl bother botting ? I bought gw to play myself and enjoy - would you pay for a game just to run a bot and not do sod all on the game ( and i mean players not gold sellers ).If your sad enough to feel you need a bot to "play" gw for you then id suggest you need a life , uninstall gw and find a game thats within your ability to play.
Player prob says to guildies - i did fow today and i feel i achieved something - the botter prob says to another botter - i botted today and i bet my bot achieved something ( more like something most of us can do ourselves but a botter hasnt the ability to do :P - like killing a few foes lol ).

Ok guys, in answer to the thread, it is very difficult in this situation to prove that they are botting. Let me just compare an interupt bot with a farming bot. Interupt bot can be measured interupting skillz. Now a human will have variability in how they interupt, at what time during the cast etc... bots do not have the same degree of variability. Therefore it is possible to distinguish in some, but not all of cases what is a bot and what is a human. When it comes to the 'jade quarry bots' this is not nearly so easy. Take 2 examples, a retarded human and a bot. As a human, i could bring just 2 skillz into jade quarry, have no idea of the map, and run around to irrelevant places, and when everyone shouts abuse at me, i could easily just ignore it. This to mean sounds exactly what a bot does. However there is no way to prove which is the bot as there is nothing like interupting that allows anet to distinguish between a human and a computer program. So basically, u cant, anet cant, and botters aint gonna own up...

Which brings me nicely onto my next point. GET OVER IT. Srsly, this is not srs bsns pvp we are talking about. This is jade quarry, 1stly its effectively a quest that is being farmed for titles. Dosent really demonstrate much skill and is REALLY BORING (ok that last bit is my personnel opinion but meh). If people really wanna farm something that means SO LITTLE in an already dead game then why are u breaking sweat over it??? Surely for ur sake, instead of qqing and spending ur precious time writing to anet which btw is completely pointless, u should log back on, and go and enjoy the game. Both sides have effectively the same chance of having a bot on their team, so neither side is at a long term advantage or disadvantage. Therefore just enjoy urself, if u get a bot, take that as a challenge to play twice as good to make up for having a retard on ur team, same as if u got a echo mending wammo which is just as pointless as a bot.

Lastly, if it is not because they make u lose, but because ur JEALOUS of the fact they get more factions than u per minute then QQ. Its a dead aspect of a dying game. Earn ur titles for urself not for others, go, improve at game, enjoy game and when u earn ur titles by the work u put in u can be proud of it. Who cares if someone will get it twice as fast as u because they botted? There are 1000x of people who have already maxed it. Do it for ur own satisfaction and enjoyment.
Pz out peeps

Wow, worst troll rant ever. I took the liberty of highlighting everything that is flat out wrong. Enjoy.
Why not make players mods? With a /report ability to suspend or ban others. Of course, the player mods will have to be well informed of the rules, be level headed etc.
We as players see these bots all the time, why not have some be able to ban?

Even if not ban...maybe disable that character, in case something is RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOed that person can still play if they are indeed a human...

Or if its mostly PvP bots they are worried about... 5 hour dishounorable button xD

Look, i really dont understand all this qqing over botters. The only problem I ever had with botters was when they were farming gvg and it made playing ranger pointless in PvP. Since its now dead in competitive REAL PvP then I just dont care anymore. I dont see why so many people feel the need to raise their blood pressure on something as trivial as someone using a computer program to farm a computer game. Srsly, get some real concerns in life.
Pz

I've seen the same thing on Kurz side of FA a few times now. 3 or 4 different characters, always the same guild ticker (which I won't mention here), random movements every 20 seconds or so, casts the same single spell every minute or so (I've seen an Ele use Aura Of Restoration, a sin with Feigned Neutrality, and a Ranger with a trap I can't remember).

With regard to the movement, part of it may be an instruction to walk towards another player. For example, there have been times I've been monking behind a gate, and the char walks up beside me, the gate breaks and I get rushed, the char does nothing to help, just follows me around periodically, casting the same single spell.

I always point them out to the team and report them, but nobody else ever seems to care enough for it to make any difference. I've since switched to Lux and haven't seen this behaviour on that side at all so far, presumably because they'd be much easier to spot from that side since everyone is normally charging straight in.

*shrug*

I have a feeling I know who you are talking about. Perhaps if more people reported them support might actually bother to investigate. Or not. Usually my teammates aren't observant enough to even notice that they are not doing anything useful.

Latest response from support:
So im mystified. what could this elusive piece of missing evidence be? If anyone knows anything about bots please help me out..

Also, here is the best footage I could get of one of the bots in action. You be the judge

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUSpngpNKio

We've all been there. But yeah, you can report all you want, they wont do anything. I gave up a long time ago, and just played the game and enjoy for myself and friends. Frankly that login message is utter crap, and even if they 'revamped' the report function, wouldnt mean anything, cause they again wont do anything.

tl:dr - reporting does nothing sadly, just learn to ignore it.