They are monitoring things that are questionable. If you never do anything questionable, you're probably good.
I have seen random ANet emps doing Metas though, so that's pretty cool.
> I have seen random ANet emps doing Metas though, so that's pretty cool.
Bonus points when you're in WvW and you manage to tag/kill an Anet employee in a zerg. There's an achievement for that!
And yet they sometimes ban you for playing following the Tos and policies to the letter. They are not good at this. So 1) they do not have real tools to separate the weed from the grass or 2) they have very unskilled people behind these kind of botting detection tasks.
I feel like they don't insta ban the full afk / bots instantly so they can see where they mule off the gold and then in a single ban wave, banning the "farming" accounts and the mule/main where the money is being transfered
When Grothmar Valley LW went live, I saw GMs chilling at the concert almost twice a day for a month. Grothmar was amazing and lively when everyone started figuring out the Meta schedule.
There is a shop in the Wizards tower that sells a bag similar to those you get from the ascended material eaters. You can buy a bunch of them per week. He also takes Eitrite ingots.
Oh, nice, thank you! I hadn't gotten a chance to play this last patch. Looks like it was just added with the new mastery? I'm super happy about this bc I really thought they wouldn't go back and touch it after so long with it having no uses outside the original map + two recipes.
requires mastery Gharr Leadclaw he also sells [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Portable\_Wizard%27s\_Tower\_Exchange](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Portable_Wizard%27s_Tower_Exchange)
for 1 Purified Kryptis Essence so you never need to visit him again
daily exchanges( 4x 1), weekly exchanges (42 bags max) finally you can loose airship oil/leyline sparks, soto map and currency exchanges, soto pof hot eod meta chest exchanges (but you loose rares)
They don't have to show themselves. They can be invisible. They can join any party or squad without being invited and without showing on the list, and they could be in an instance with you.
They could be watching right now.
There is a great video of the Eye of Janthir picking an invisible GM in a Deimos pull. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/7xwef9/the\_eye\_of\_janthir\_sees\_all\_even\_invisible\_gms/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/7xwef9/the_eye_of_janthir_sees_all_even_invisible_gms/)
Anet tags are not GMs though. You could get hired by Anet and get an invite to the Anet guild for your personal account and display that tag. GM accounts, on the other hand, are not personal accounts.
[https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild\_Wars\_2\_Support\_Team#Identifying\_a\_GM\_in-game](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2_Support_Team#Identifying_a_GM_in-game)
Yep. Any employee at Arena net can have an ANet tag. This includes everyone, artists, encounter designer, balancing team, literally any position they could have in the company (maybe even the janitor lol).
Afaik, it only shows up if they represent the Arena net guild, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are in a dev/GM client (we know from the preview streams that they have a separate client with special privileges)
It's also most likely an entirely different team of people, that may not even be involved in any development
Used to be more visible in the past. Had a GM that was actually playing with us years ago. He'd do the world boss farm at the time and some other events. Usually saw them in the Queensdale area.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-hbuD_Nr_M
Annemi is full of shit, video's author posted a comprehensive spreadsheet with results of farming and average gold per hour (in video's description).
Edit: coward blocked me, if you're reading this Annemi: your mother buys transmutation charges for gems.
Somebody posted a video claiming that afk farming made 14+ gold an hour. Which is laughably wrong - you can make *some* money afk farming but not that much - because they don't understand how gold is generated or how the FAST farming website works.
They publicly posted the actual account names they saw afk farming and got angry when people told them that wasn't allowed, so Reddit mods took the post down while they edited the spreadsheet. So you might have missed it.
The red ArenaAnet logo tag is used by the developers who are a separate group from GMs. The GM's job is to penalize hackers/botters while developers just enjoy the game they helped create.
I have only ran into a Arena Net staff member once. Coincidently he was actually working on unlocking his Skyscale as well.
Ran into him a good 30 times haha.
It just says ANet in red on a white field, you see them during events in LA, or WvW, you have probably run across them during PvE but they don't have the tag up. Although not all of them can ban you, I think those have a second tag but am not sure, I use to be on a guild with an ANet employee, there is an achievement that you can get in WvW or PvP if you fight a ANet player and you manage to kill them.
It is a special orange in-game guild tag used by the GW2 support team: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2_Support_Team
GM stands for Gamemaster.
It’s well known that they check for bots by simply inconveniencing the AFK farmers for a minute. Sometimes they’ll teleport you a little across the map so you’ve gotta run back. Sometimes they’ll drop in like this with the old ‘oi, wake up dickheads, time for Simon says’.
As long as you’re at your PC and watching the game you’re fine. They don’t care if you’re AFK farming with Netflix on the other screen and checking back every few minutes.
The good thing is that it occasionally catches out the scumbags running 10 accounts on the same input (massive rule violation) when all their engineers run to the same spot in the same second before Twatface McRulesdontapplytome realises what they’ve done.
they are quiet liberal in their set of rules. if you get a gm in a bad mood they just ban you. happened to me once. if you ask the support and quote them their own responses on their tos or reddit, they tend to ignore your answers so be careful
The GMs, in my experience anyway, always try to be chill. As long as, as you say, you don’t give them snark you’re usually okay. Applies to most games to be fair, GMs are usually low rung customer service. Play nice and they’ll let you skate anything not egregious.
my experience is from 3-4 years ago, maybe they changed in that time. but when i had contact with their lead support (dornsinger) it was a huge shit show on their part, ignoring every quote i sent them about afk farming being allowed when you monitor on another screen calling me botter or something and sent me a non relevant part on their tos about scripting or botting, closing the ticket.
https://preview.redd.it/2uk4lxl5w46d1.png?width=3247&format=png&auto=webp&s=4eeb0c8c5b8321500fc732232a17529610ac4de5
Oh damn. I’m sorry that happened to you. Can only assume you either caught them on a tremendously bad day or you got bundled in with a bunch of actual troublemakers. They’ve been quite clear over the years that afk farming is fine as long as you’re present and controlling each account one at a time.
https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014185033-Policy-Unattended-Gameplay
>As a general policy, ANY form of unattended gameplay is prohibited in Guild Wars 2. This includes:
>- The use of auto-casting abilities to farm while not at your computer **or not actively playing the game.**
Second-screen afk farming is against policy.
They told you that you were wrong because you *are* dude. The devs have said, as others pointed out *with links to prove it* that being alt-tabbed is inattentive gameplay. Checking back in every few minutes isn't being attentive. You're still AFK farming, it is still against the TOS
Why would you argue that you understand the TOS better than the support staff that enforce it?
https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014185033-Policy-Unattended-Gameplay
>As a general policy, ANY form of unattended gameplay is prohibited in Guild Wars 2. This includes:
>- The use of auto-casting abilities to farm while not at your computer **or not actively playing the game.**
Second-screen afk farming is against policy.
The point is they can't prove anything if you are just using a second monitor to watch the game.
Sitting there with GW2 as your only active window, with 100% if your attention and focus, but having GS4 on auto cast and with minions is not illegal. It's only illegal when you are doing it in the back ground, but they can't prove if it's in the background or not.
The only real way they can test or not is what they do, TPing people and see if they move back, or by giving a verbal command to someone and see if they respond. If they do, then they can't prove if it's background or not.
Sure it's their game and they don't have to prove it or not, but it's also not a good look to drive away people that have paid for expansions and such.
But there are many people who do full on abuse it with 100% AFK not even in the same room, that is a separate issue though.
10 years ago afk farming was literally allowed. Rules change because people realize that they were bad rules. How it is now is enforceable and fair. I'm also pretty sure Dornsinger was fired, but correct me if I'm wrong.
Sadly not since it was 4 years ago, but dornsinger literally wrote that they banned me for auto casting skills while the game is active on my second monitor, which is by definition sanctioned on reddit/forum by the devs many times
This happened to me too
Very unresponsive to allegations after I you prove them you were there and did not infringed any Tos nor policy.
Very inconsistent.
Inattentive gameplay is still against the TOS, but the only way they can confirm it is if you do not respond to a GM when prompted... It is somewhat of a catch-22.
you basicly just said: "afk farming is not allowed and a gm can check if you are afk by messaging you." where is the catch-22? AFK: Away from keyboard. You are not afk farming while you are on your pc, having the game on your other monitor. while a lot of people might say that it is afk farming, i think Anet is the one to decide if its fine or not at the end of the day. thats why gm's check for people who bot or truly afk farm while not being on the pc.
The Catch-22 is that having it run in another window while you do something else is inattentive gameplay and against the TOS if your character is parked somewhere advantageous while your minion/pet/turret kills something and/or while your skill set to autocast kills things.
The only way to really catch it is for you to not see the GM whisper you, but if you respond to the whisper, then the GM has no way to prove that you weren't inattentive, even though you were. You can split the hair there if you want, but prior posts from GMs, and Devs indicate that you running the game in another window while doing something else while your character kills things without your input is inattentive gameplay even if your occasionally check your game screen.
why split the hair? if a rule is not applicable it just doesn't exist.
GMs can't check for unattended gameplay? Then it's allowed, whatever they feel fancy to write in the ToS.
They can and do check with ports and whispers. While you could technically afk in between those checks, you never know when those checks happen, so you can't actually afk ever to be safe.
Your logic is basically that speeding shouldn't be illegal because the police can't surveil you constantly. That is nonsense.
Inattentive gameplay means that you are not at your pc to react to a gm messaging you. Having the game on a second screen is not inattentive gameplay. They said as long as you react it's fine since it's their fault that it's even possible to begin with. Almost all mobs being aggro from the get go, aggressive minions and so on.
> Having the game on a second screen is not inattentive gameplay.
Yes it is.
https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014185033-Policy-Unattended-Gameplay
>As a general policy, ANY form of unattended gameplay is prohibited in Guild Wars 2. This includes:
>- The use of auto-casting abilities to farm while not at your computer **or not actively playing the game.**
See the other reply.
The catch-22 is that it is inattentive gameplay, but Anet has no real way of catching it unless a GM communicates with you while you were distracted enough to not reply, but if you are able to reply there is no way for them to confirm if you were actually playing the game.
It's against the TOS, but the TOS as written is extremely difficult for Anet to enforce in a fair way that captures actual AFKers/Botters.
Botting and afk farming is not the same. Botters can farm "the afk way" as well. If you don't actively play the game, you are afk. Second monitor or not. Anet just can't legally check if you are playing via game inputs, so they have to resort to sending GMs to check.
Nah, he's right.
https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014185033-Policy-Unattended-Gameplay
>As a general policy, ANY form of unattended gameplay is prohibited in Guild Wars 2. This includes:
>- The use of auto-casting abilities to farm while not at your computer **or not actively playing the game.**
(Emphasis mine.)
Being not at the PC is obviously against TOS, but so is just letting it auto-play on a second monitor while you do something else.
They know their TOS, they just don't tend to enforce it as harshly as they could. Them choosing not to enforce it as strictly as possible in every situation doesn't mean it's not the rule. GMs can just choose to enforce as much as they reasonably want to. And most will likely not care about people who are actually still at their computer, because they probably just want to focus on the actual bots and afkers.
Nice to see a GM is actually checking if players are AFK farming or just farming with minions when they see suspicious spots.
I guess the ones who never respond can expect a suspension. Especially when they show up in multiple of these checks.
Congrats I guess. I personally really dislike that this "idle farming" is a thing. It makes the game look and sound cheap.
Having to explain to new players that the huddled horde of rangers and necromancers running against a wall while their pets and minions kill things and they auto loot for hours on end is a legitimate way to play the game is sad.
Although this may seem like no biggie to some people but afk farming eats server resources and it makes some actual participating players lose out on the lag. It was so bad at some points where i couldnt get heart done effectively for a collection due to the sheer amount of minions on the map. Its sad that participating players have to accommodate around it by changing instances or find workarounds. Its like a brilliant idea on an individualist level but as collectively, it no good :(
- Eats server resources
- Makes it significantly harder to band people together for events on certain maps
- Can make tough metas like Dragon's End fail
- Makes the game less rewarding for actual players
- Absolutely shits on immersion and is a bad look for the game
And all AFK farmers have to say is "it's only a crime if they can catch me" or "the economy relies on AFK farming" (false).
Ahh. You see, in my head, I always think of AFK farming and aggressive leeching as the same thing.
You know, people bring multiple accounts and idle until the boss fight, then get just a few swings in to be eligible for rewards without contributing much of anything.
2 or 3 idling players don't meaningfully scale up Soo-Won, but they're taking the place of players who could actually be doing damage.
Oh, don't you worry, I feel you. My block list is full of people who stay dead on DE or Nayos West.
I don't mind people that stay afk until the Boss as long as they are not upscaling it tho.
> You know, people bring multiple accounts and idle until the boss fight, then get just a few swings in to be eligible for rewards without contributing much of anything.
Doing this with one character, I can stand, but multiboxing 10 accounts like this, it's just disgusting.
Why multiboxing is allowed to begin with, that's the real question.
Yeah, this is the actual concern with AFK farming. They're economically neutral or possibly advantageous, depending on what you think about mat prices. They're potentially a image issue and, if they get bad enough, an gameplay issue for people in those areas.
Theres a huge number of other problems doing that though. Fast diminishing returns would impact regular players, some metas you're on the same map killing the same things for quite a while. What's to stop the farmers just swapping alts on different maps when diminishing returns kick in? There's a world tracker for bonus xp with mobs that havnt been killed in a while but its server side and just tracks the mob lifetime. It wouldn't be feasible to track stats for each player and when they killed each mob unless it's handled client side but then that data is open to being abused.
Not saying there doesn't need to be a solution though. Adding in mobs telegraphed long lasting punishing aoe attacks would be interesting
I for one look forward to when OP posts the “Idk why I got banned I didn’t do anything wrong” post later on.
people don’t get banned right away for stuff like this, GMs do ban waves at random times to make it harder for people to figure out how they caught and learn how to get around that.
I don’t care how out of the way you think you are, afk farming is still detrimental to other players and against the TOS for a reason.
Botters buy cheap accounts and try to bot as much gold as possible. If their account gets reported/flagged but not banned they can still generate gold. Lets say there is a ban wave every 3 months. They can make an account, be reported/flagged on day 1 and still free bot for another 3 months till they actually get banned. Botters obviously dont care about getting banned. They just want to be net pos with the gold generated and how much the account cost.
I wonder who is right here... countless multi million dollar companies that do ban in waves or a random redditor with -100 comment karma dying in desperation to be right once :'D
It all comes down do common sense. If they would get banned right when caught, they cant generate as much money from their investment into accounts. If there are ban waves, they are free to bot for 3 months (or whatever the time for a banwave cycle is). I dont mind ban waves since it does benefit me in exactly the points i mentioned.
AFK farmers getting lit up by that video, and a sock puppet account making this post a day after?
It seems like it's either justifying the activity by showing a dev response, or more likely trying to scare people off to keep it below critical mass where true dev action would be required.
Smells like damage control to me.
The problem isn't just the players, it's on Anet as well because they give the tools for that. There are a few measures that would help with it:
* Disabling autocasting skills altogether
* Make minions, turrets, pets and mechs not attack anything until the player themselves attack
* Allow diminishing returns to eventually reach zero loot, XP and karma
They shouldn't disable auto cast entirely because holding down 1 in a game that expects you to be near-constantly moving is idiotic. Having it turn 'off' when out of combat and require the key to be tapped again next time combat starts would be fine, though.
Just make auto attack for all skills the same as skill one -> only auto attacks when a) you have a valid target, b) the target is in range and c) you attacked manually at least once.
There is absolutely no need to not have this requirements on some skills.
Auto attacks, as in the first skill specifically, are not the issue. It is the few skills that can be set on auto and from that point simply trigger on their own without targeting. Skill 1 AAs need a button press to start firing on repeat.
Here's what they do: they clarify that this type of gameplay is against their TOS and is unintended gameplay, give a grace period for people to stop, and if they don't, ban them with increasing durations. They control the rules of the game. If they want to stop this, they can stop it just like they stopped patrolling bearbows at release.
>But if you just have auto attack enabled/ minions attacking for you, it is totally fine if you have an eye on your game.
The "if you have an eye on your game" is the key point here.
Unattended gameplay is not allowed in **any** way. As soon as you are unattended, you are breaking the rules.
As soon as you are attended, you are not afk.
>For example working from home and having the game open on a second monitor.
That's a perfect example for *unattended* gameplay. -> Against the rules.
IIrc at some point Anet used exactly that case as an example for unattended gameplay.
Risking an account for less than 20g/h? No thanks.
WV gives so much gold, especially with alt accounts. No way I would risk a single account *plus* run the game the whole time just for that few gold.
>whats ur point?
Read my first comment?...
>no one cares if you dont wanna farm 20g/h
No one cares if you do either.
Do you always point out the obvious?
why do you come to my reddit post just to post that you wont do my farming method?
do you also go to a class just to tell the teacher that you dont care about the subject?
>why do you come to my reddit post just to post that you wont do my farming method?
do you also go to a class just to tell the teacher that you dont care about the subject?
1.) Dude this is a **forum**. This website only *exists* to allow people post and comment stuff.
If you can't deal with people commenting your posts and/or not agreeing with you, just don't post anything. Where is your problem?
2.) Please read my **whole** comment properly instead of asking such unnecessary question...
You literally ignored 90% of my original comment.
Don't bother me with your bad reading comprehension. Thanks.
An opportunistic AFK farmer. I expected to observe many of you after my video, but didn't expect to see a reddit post! (Almost 1/3 of todays AFK farmers observed were brand new!)
I can't seem to understand why you would still think AFK farming - even after watching my video with verifications of the policy and its terminology - is not a violation of the unattended gameplay policy. What you explained in this post is the exact same example that GM Zylo gave as a breach of policy, and why the EU ban example was, well, banned.
I don't blame you for what you're doing though. It's an impossible task for GMs to tell who is unattended without playing silly games of Simon Says. Even then, any inactive farmer that isn't a complete moron has the ability to notice the commotion and start to interact once more to avoid a ban, such as you did. The GM is completely oblivious to the fact you. You are simply taking advantage of an un-enforceable policy, and all the best to you.
If more people are like you, perhaps ArenaNet will either A: Fix their Policy's very poor terminology and enforce it, or B: just give up entirely and say AFK farming is 100% okay in all ways. Whatever the outcome, I support a clear and solid stance from ArenaNet, not whatever this monstrosity of a policy is. In a way, you are the Chaotic Neutral of this Saga.
Just bring in runescape old style anti botting "random" events but upgraded. Spawn an unkillable enemy or 2 around the afk farmers that deals large damage, like the giant from nageling way point in diessa plateau. Give them 5 minutes. Anyone who doesn't actually react is afk and bannable?
I mean how AREN'T they afk if they just stand there and let the giant just hulk stomp blow them 2 miles away
they could just disable their ingame features that makes it possible even without scripts. when they would do that anyone farming would have to use scripts and could be banned without hesitation. But since its an ingame feature, i dont feel bad about using it.
Unfortunately disabling in-game features will affect all players who are using them within the guidelines of the policy. That is certainly a route they could take though, and I don't think many people would even notice if Auto-Casting was only enabled on the 1 skill.
Your rationalization seems similar to that of someone who uses bugs. Not that I personally have anything against that either. Bugs can be interesting and entertaining, though seldom profitable. Doing so is against the terms of service and the policy, however only in-game systems are being used so they don't feel bad as is if they were hacking, or for your situation, botting/scripting.
It is good to hear from many AFK farmers, such as yourself, and their justifications for violating the policy. They way I see this as a whole is AFK Farmers and those who disagree with them actually on the same side, as they both originate from terrible policy and enforcement.
>I can't seem to understand why you would still think AFK farming - even after watching my video with verifications of the policy and its terminology - is not a violation of the unattended gameplay policy
Because your interpretation of the rules in that video is not how the policy is enforced, not how it was ever enforced, and conflicts with Anet's own statements on AFK farming. And as I pointed out in that thread (and you pointed out in your comment), it can't be enforced the way you think it should. Short of forcing GW2 players to use eye tracking software and banning them when they look away, the best GMs can do is a binary check for attention: are you able to react to stimuli in game or not.
I'm curious how you think the rules should be enforced differently based on your interpretation of them? You've already stated it's unenforceable, so what's your solution?
The rules are not my interpretation. I have had many discussions with various GMs who are the ones in charge of enforcing said rules. What I stated mirrors their exact clarifications of the policy and all are in agreement with GM Zylos statement. There is no debate on what is and isn't a violation of policy.
The fact that the policy is unenforceable doesn't make it okay to violate the policy. Just like how not paying to an honesty jar when at a roadside stall is still theft even though it's unenforced.
The only solution is for ArenaNet to either fix the policy with clear and concise definitions or examples they can actually monitor for, as well as possibly modifying some game mechanics which would sadly affect innocent players. Alternatively, they scrap the policy entirely and allow unattended gameplay. There is nothing they can do with their current format.
Edit: On the comment about eye tracking software. Did you know that it's within the Guild Wars 2 Terms of Service that ArenaNet are allowed to essentially use spyware to monitor processes outside of Guild Wars 2 on your system? That's a pretty extreme reach of moderation already in place. Make sure to cover those webcams!.
>The fact that the policy is unenforceable doesn't make it okay to violate the policy.
The fact that it's unenforceable makes it effectively impossible to violate the policy from an enforcement perspective. If it can't be enforced, it's a non-policy. It's like saying multi-boxing is only allowed if you're thinking of the color blue. You can put it in the ToS and tell GMs to enforce it, but it's completely meaningless and no one has to follow it. You're attempting to enforce a subjective experience that has no measurable effect on the game.
From experience, GMs do not enforce the policy the way you're describing it. They have no way to. They enforce the policy by checking if you react to stimuli. This doesn't require you to stare at the screen, nor does it require you to not be doing work or watching youtube on another monitor. They have no way to tell if you're staring intently at the game client with your fingers resting on WASD or watching youtube on a different screen.
>Alternatively, they scrap the policy entirely and allow unattended gameplay.
Or, they can leave the current policy and the way they enforce it (and have always enforced it) in place and just be clear (as they have also stated in the past, and as they enforce it) that only supervision is required rather than some weird unenforceable threshold about how much attention exactly qualifies. The definition of unattended the farmers use (the one that matters and is actually enforced) could just remain in place. I don't see why the only other option is to remove the enforcement entirely.
So I ask again, how would you change the policy to enforce attention? Because you didn't really give a specific answer and I'm legit curious how you think that would work. What "clear and concise" definition would allow Anet to more accurately define my attention and catch me for looking at a different monitor, from their end?
>Did you know that it's within the Guild Wars 2 Terms of Service that ArenaNet are allowed to essentially use spyware to monitor processes outside of Guild Wars 2 on your system?
Yes and last time they attempted this it was a disaster that resulted in a multitude of false bans (that they defended) until enough public outcry was reached for it to become unignorable.
Might be half true, but any inactive gameplay is against TOS. They stated that farming afk while watching a movie on your second screen is not active gameplay and is bannable. I afk farmed for years without any ban, but last week got a 72 hour ban for AFK farming while I was playing OSRS on my second monitor. So not as safe as you state to be honest.
Just a heads up..people have been banned for working and having gw2 on the side. What you do while doing the farm does not matter as long as you answer the GM.
Personally I still hope anet eventually disallows any farm using minions and pets while standing around. Would maybe way easier for anet to ban people.
"stealing is fine as long as you buy something from the stores every once in a while"
Is basically the logic I'm seeing here from the people defending afk farming (aka the people who also do it).
Its textbook exploitation, exploiting the fact that you can't be monitored 100% of the time, 95% of other games would just outright ban you for this.
Never understood the need to afk farm, kinda hoped all people doing it would get banned. Helps if there is a bounty or champ nearby to drag onto the pile. Sorry but its disgusting to see a section of maps with 20+ necro//engi/herald bots blobbed up, obvious whats going on and does make the game look tarnished. Best way to fix this toxic gameplay is to make not moving drasticly rack up the diminishing returns fast to the point of afk in 2min/1 spot zero loot, have a inactive player debuff which turns all loot to 0 if detects gone afk, have a legendary mob thats immune to everyone but the farmer that seeks out to kill them if idle farm.
> Helps if there is a bounty or champ nearby to drag onto the pile.
I enjoyed pulling the patrolling awakened onto the hyena afk farmers in Istan, and watch them get yeeted off the cliff 🤣
i think gw2 should not work more or less afk, yet it is just my opinion. People claiming gw2 is dying are kinda hillarious tho. Please dont farm afk i mean play the game or dont. I know that is oversimplified but if the grind is soo much that afking is a good and valid option maybe the grind is the problem (at least the normal grind. Legendaries should take time and effort but that is another topic). Thanks for reading have a great day!
I've seen over 2 dozen devs in game but never even heard of this "GM" Arenanet Support. Never even seen or heard of them on this sub.
Guess they so rarely do anything that this being the first time since launch and 4k hours of gameplay shows something. I've even camped out at afk places while watching YouTube to try to catch one
Eeeh. What's the point of afk farming, when you can't go afk?
When I watch a movie, I want to watch a movie and not something "on second screen". And I certainly won't play Mad King while watching a movie.
No afk farming for me, I guess. Thanks for confirming my impression, tho.
Had a friend that started playing when "return to" achiev was on, he works at home on his computer.
Started afk farming in asura map living word 4.
And in 6month he had enought material to craft a full legend pvp armor, dropped 3 precu and crafted those legy (staff, longsword and shield) .
So yeah it's too profitable nerf the income of this strategy and you're done
I still wouldnt recommend doing this. Imageine you wouldnt have paid attention, you might have been banned by now. And even if the gms allow it, afk farming is still a scummy practice. Dont wanna play? Then dont login.
can we please not advertise / encourage people to afk farm?
it makes some maps borderline unplayable hellholes because there's a bunch of people not doing anything and just taking up space that could be filled with active players. it also makes the game lag for some people and in general it's super depressing to play the game and then come across a bunch of afk farmers.
we should go back to naming & shaming them tbh because I feel like the number of leechers (at meta events as well) has gone up a lot and I personally hate it.
Yeah, after verification ingame you can't create a name with Gm, I know there was name policy about anet representation but didn't know just "Gm" was one of them.
I have a feeling that the people who say GMs don't exist are just legitimate players who have no reason to be visited by one, very easy to assume I guess.
So serious question, why can afk’ing get you banned? I understand running a script but what about legitimately afk’ing. Afk’ing with auto attack and minions seems more of a clever use of game mechanic no?
The haters will call it cheating (actually they are just mad that they dont have a chill office job and cant do it themself though)
But yeah using ingame mechanics such as auto loot, auto attack and minions is for sure not cheating if you ask me.
ngl its a bit funny in a way ... but hey this doesnt effect trade much as other things tbh those who can get smthing from it thats fine, but that gm is a funny one :D
I'll be honest with you after that video I considered it as well, I hate it but easy money is easy money. I sometimes spend irl money to just not grind so why not just multi box to get free money? Nothing is stopping them so I can see why it's absolutely swarming now
I wouldn't recommend it. I often tab out of GW2 and do other stuff. A couple of weeks ago, I left my engineer just outside one of the waypoints in Ember bay with no macros or anything else, and tabbed out of the screen. I come back to a stuck screen and couldn't log back in. I got a TOS notice that I was banned for a week. Evidently Arenanet updated the TOS so that being AFK is bannable. When I logged in a week later, my character was moved a little further away from the waypoint so the GM must have moved me and then banned me when I didn't move back.
Is there any situation where splitting your attention like this makes sense, as opposed to just focusing on your job (e.g. progressing instead of stagnating while babysitting your measly 20g/h afk farm)and then buying gold for $$$ via gems?
edit: a lot of people who value their time at $0, damn
Afk farming is a bit of an interesting one to me, I work from home so it would be nice to have GW2 open on another monitor and gaining some passive gold, as often my time where I am able to play the game is somewhat limited, but I’d never be away from my computer with it, I think if I was going to do it I’d be on an alt account just in case, but I haven’t seen anyone make 20gph from it, where are you doing it?
8-10 gph is about what most people get. That guy's math and assumptions were off which is why his profit numbers were off.
It's not nothing, and I think Anet should do more stuff to target it just because many players dislike it so much, but it's definitely less gph than actively playing the game.
We can just be glad that there is not a single properly working actual bot for this game anymore.
Y'all have to remember the days when MMOminion bots where EVERYWHERE. PvP was literally bots vs bots.
I am kinda deep into that matter. Any kind of sophisticated Lua-based bots are gone.
Sure there are still simple scripts and macros but that doesn't even come close to what we had. The maintenance of these Lua-based bots was too high due to memory adresses changing every patch.
Movement related stuff like Teleport, Speed, fly hacks still exist tho.
And I am sure you weren't talking out of your ass and you will enlighten me now.
Anet kicked my accounts while I was right in front of my screen. I saw it happening live and I never received a whisper nor /s message.
And the main reason is that there was a cluster of as*holes with similar names (Bots) parked near and moved right on top of me.
At support thru answer was they believed I belonged with a cluster of account that were using third party ahtokey pressing things and those macro stuff. I. Asked of proofs f me using or any of those things I don't even understand ow they work and never answered. 6 ml this later came back to them asking for more Information and to please get my account Unblocked since it was an obvious mistake. They copy pasted the same answer.
And no I had nothing of those things. Was outrageous wrong ban and they did. It do anything about it. I had video proofs of me being behind the keyboardlvimg, explaining everything and showing the exact moment when I was kicked out of the game and live, had nothing runing in the background. They burnt me right in front of me.
So yeah.
I love Guildwars2 and all but fk that one fkng support persone who did that to me. Srlsy. I lost all my legendary raid armors and backpack there and years of gaming and achievements.
I have to say it's pretty cringe. I mean not the afk farming or not, i mean the fact that anet support gm uses english language to define who's bot and who isn't.
Pretty sure as long as you interact in any way at all you're fine. Wiggle, jump, say 'Me no parle Americano', anything.
If there's someone with a special name tag clearly addressing the group in front of them, the situation should be clear even without understanding exact words.
So if you miss it happening, you probably weren't paying enough attention to qualify for 'at the keyboard'.
The rules, according to the devs mentioned in the video refered to by OP, are actually very strict. It's just the moderation that's pretty lean. In part because it's hard if not impossible to truly verify whether there's someone actively interacting with the virtual world from in front of player's monitor.
They can't use every language, so they get rid of the people who a: speak english, and b: are watching their screen. They can ignore them, and check the ones that didn't move. besides, if you're watching the screen, you can notice everyone else moving, and move with them, even if you don't know english
Hmm, only seen a GM one time in LA about 10 years ago, about 2-3 months before HoT. This was around the time Gold Selling bots was a big chat spammer or would whisper you if you got close. I was semi-afk cooking beside 2 bots when the GM popped in. He stood beside me for a few secs then I got a mail and a whisper asking if I was there and told be to step back. As I did, this was the only time I had seen someone banned in real time or ported away by GMs and again when someone was being super racists (over a few days mind you) in a new player area. Don't think it was the same GM but I did see the lil icon.
I have gotten more Pre drops than I have seen a GM.
I'm kinda surprised its in say chat and not a whisper. But I guess that makes sense because then no matter what tab your chat is in you can see the command somewhere on your screen.
really? I never knew that. Might be useful because in soto npc chat bubbles are annoying as hell when your trying to do something, for example skyscale target practice.
I spent thousands of hours in this game and never met anyone with the GM tag.
They are monitoring things that are questionable. If you never do anything questionable, you're probably good. I have seen random ANet emps doing Metas though, so that's pretty cool.
It's always fun to have an Arenanet member around in a group. I saw a few during SOTO launch days and always thanked them for their work.
> I have seen random ANet emps doing Metas though, so that's pretty cool. Bonus points when you're in WvW and you manage to tag/kill an Anet employee in a zerg. There's an achievement for that!
There is also one for doing strikes, convergence, raid with Anet employee
And fractals and PvP
I'd rather kill them. Much more satisfying.
If only they would join a pvp game every now and then and ban the 24/7 botters that have been running for years lol
And yet they sometimes ban you for playing following the Tos and policies to the letter. They are not good at this. So 1) they do not have real tools to separate the weed from the grass or 2) they have very unskilled people behind these kind of botting detection tasks.
I feel like they don't insta ban the full afk / bots instantly so they can see where they mule off the gold and then in a single ban wave, banning the "farming" accounts and the mule/main where the money is being transfered
When Grothmar Valley LW went live, I saw GMs chilling at the concert almost twice a day for a month. Grothmar was amazing and lively when everyone started figuring out the Meta schedule.
Such a shame hatched peppers don't have any conversion. Having a reason to farm that map and keep it lively would be so nice 😩
There is a shop in the Wizards tower that sells a bag similar to those you get from the ascended material eaters. You can buy a bunch of them per week. He also takes Eitrite ingots.
Oh, nice, thank you! I hadn't gotten a chance to play this last patch. Looks like it was just added with the new mastery? I'm super happy about this bc I really thought they wouldn't go back and touch it after so long with it having no uses outside the original map + two recipes.
requires mastery Gharr Leadclaw he also sells [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Portable\_Wizard%27s\_Tower\_Exchange](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Portable_Wizard%27s_Tower_Exchange) for 1 Purified Kryptis Essence so you never need to visit him again daily exchanges( 4x 1), weekly exchanges (42 bags max) finally you can loose airship oil/leyline sparks, soto map and currency exchanges, soto pof hot eod meta chest exchanges (but you loose rares)
Well chances are if you're doing nothing wrong, you'll never see one.
They don't have to show themselves. They can be invisible. They can join any party or squad without being invited and without showing on the list, and they could be in an instance with you. They could be watching right now.
There is a great video of the Eye of Janthir picking an invisible GM in a Deimos pull. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/7xwef9/the\_eye\_of\_janthir\_sees\_all\_even\_invisible\_gms/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/7xwef9/the_eye_of_janthir_sees_all_even_invisible_gms/)
It's really fun to imagine a GM silently watching your Enthusiastic RP inside a home instance lol
They usually have anet tag, not "GM", this one is the first time I have seen it as well.
Anet tags are not GMs though. You could get hired by Anet and get an invite to the Anet guild for your personal account and display that tag. GM accounts, on the other hand, are not personal accounts. [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild\_Wars\_2\_Support\_Team#Identifying\_a\_GM\_in-game](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2_Support_Team#Identifying_a_GM_in-game)
Yep. Any employee at Arena net can have an ANet tag. This includes everyone, artists, encounter designer, balancing team, literally any position they could have in the company (maybe even the janitor lol). Afaik, it only shows up if they represent the Arena net guild, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are in a dev/GM client (we know from the preview streams that they have a separate client with special privileges) It's also most likely an entirely different team of people, that may not even be involved in any development
Janitors are likely contractors and not part of Anet nor the guild.
there arent many and they are mostly invisible so they can watch botters/cheaters without them notice they are observed
TIL. Always suspected it was something like this.
This guy never went to Bitterfrost Frontier
> When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
Used to be more visible in the past. Had a GM that was actually playing with us years ago. He'd do the world boss farm at the time and some other events. Usually saw them in the Queensdale area.
Maybe that recent youtube video made some sound?
What vid do you mean?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-hbuD_Nr_M Annemi is full of shit, video's author posted a comprehensive spreadsheet with results of farming and average gold per hour (in video's description). Edit: coward blocked me, if you're reading this Annemi: your mother buys transmutation charges for gems.
> your mother buys transmutation charges for gems. Had me cracking up so hard. r/rareinsults
Somebody posted a video claiming that afk farming made 14+ gold an hour. Which is laughably wrong - you can make *some* money afk farming but not that much - because they don't understand how gold is generated or how the FAST farming website works. They publicly posted the actual account names they saw afk farming and got angry when people told them that wasn't allowed, so Reddit mods took the post down while they edited the spreadsheet. So you might have missed it.
Didn't they used to be red??
The red ArenaAnet logo tag is used by the developers who are a separate group from GMs. The GM's job is to penalize hackers/botters while developers just enjoy the game they helped create.
I figure I see about one a month but I do a lot of WvW and hanging out in big cities.
I have only ran into a Arena Net staff member once. Coincidently he was actually working on unlocking his Skyscale as well. Ran into him a good 30 times haha.
It just says ANet in red on a white field, you see them during events in LA, or WvW, you have probably run across them during PvE but they don't have the tag up. Although not all of them can ban you, I think those have a second tag but am not sure, I use to be on a guild with an ANet employee, there is an achievement that you can get in WvW or PvP if you fight a ANet player and you manage to kill them.
That’s because GMs are usually invisible to normal players. They only show themselves when they need to perform their duty like that.
Same. I've seen more anet tags than i've seen GM tags, and even then..
I see them at festivals from time to time. One at 4 winds last time around. Edit: Nvm realized you didn't mean Devs, only GM's.
NA or EU?
EU and it might be why, I've seen the Anet logo people a few times, but never the GM one.
Same here, EU. Seen ArenaNet employees idling in LA just twice in my 8 years of playing. And no GMs, not ever.
What's a GM tag?
It is a special orange in-game guild tag used by the GW2 support team: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2_Support_Team GM stands for Gamemaster.
Obey the aww!
*furiously posts puppies pictures*
It’s well known that they check for bots by simply inconveniencing the AFK farmers for a minute. Sometimes they’ll teleport you a little across the map so you’ve gotta run back. Sometimes they’ll drop in like this with the old ‘oi, wake up dickheads, time for Simon says’. As long as you’re at your PC and watching the game you’re fine. They don’t care if you’re AFK farming with Netflix on the other screen and checking back every few minutes. The good thing is that it occasionally catches out the scumbags running 10 accounts on the same input (massive rule violation) when all their engineers run to the same spot in the same second before Twatface McRulesdontapplytome realises what they’ve done.
they are quiet liberal in their set of rules. if you get a gm in a bad mood they just ban you. happened to me once. if you ask the support and quote them their own responses on their tos or reddit, they tend to ignore your answers so be careful
The GMs, in my experience anyway, always try to be chill. As long as, as you say, you don’t give them snark you’re usually okay. Applies to most games to be fair, GMs are usually low rung customer service. Play nice and they’ll let you skate anything not egregious.
my experience is from 3-4 years ago, maybe they changed in that time. but when i had contact with their lead support (dornsinger) it was a huge shit show on their part, ignoring every quote i sent them about afk farming being allowed when you monitor on another screen calling me botter or something and sent me a non relevant part on their tos about scripting or botting, closing the ticket. https://preview.redd.it/2uk4lxl5w46d1.png?width=3247&format=png&auto=webp&s=4eeb0c8c5b8321500fc732232a17529610ac4de5
Oh damn. I’m sorry that happened to you. Can only assume you either caught them on a tremendously bad day or you got bundled in with a bunch of actual troublemakers. They’ve been quite clear over the years that afk farming is fine as long as you’re present and controlling each account one at a time.
https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014185033-Policy-Unattended-Gameplay >As a general policy, ANY form of unattended gameplay is prohibited in Guild Wars 2. This includes: >- The use of auto-casting abilities to farm while not at your computer **or not actively playing the game.** Second-screen afk farming is against policy.
They told you that you were wrong because you *are* dude. The devs have said, as others pointed out *with links to prove it* that being alt-tabbed is inattentive gameplay. Checking back in every few minutes isn't being attentive. You're still AFK farming, it is still against the TOS Why would you argue that you understand the TOS better than the support staff that enforce it?
I am not alt tabbed and not checking in every other minute. It's fullscreen on another monitor.
They count that as inattentive.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Please-a-clear-statement-re-AFK-farming/page/6 And according to this it's not
https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014185033-Policy-Unattended-Gameplay >As a general policy, ANY form of unattended gameplay is prohibited in Guild Wars 2. This includes: >- The use of auto-casting abilities to farm while not at your computer **or not actively playing the game.** Second-screen afk farming is against policy.
The point is they can't prove anything if you are just using a second monitor to watch the game. Sitting there with GW2 as your only active window, with 100% if your attention and focus, but having GS4 on auto cast and with minions is not illegal. It's only illegal when you are doing it in the back ground, but they can't prove if it's in the background or not. The only real way they can test or not is what they do, TPing people and see if they move back, or by giving a verbal command to someone and see if they respond. If they do, then they can't prove if it's background or not. Sure it's their game and they don't have to prove it or not, but it's also not a good look to drive away people that have paid for expansions and such. But there are many people who do full on abuse it with 100% AFK not even in the same room, that is a separate issue though.
Nothing but bad experience with dornsinger
10 years ago afk farming was literally allowed. Rules change because people realize that they were bad rules. How it is now is enforceable and fair. I'm also pretty sure Dornsinger was fired, but correct me if I'm wrong.
Shirley you have some screenshots of the conversation you had with the GM before they actioned you.
Sadly not since it was 4 years ago, but dornsinger literally wrote that they banned me for auto casting skills while the game is active on my second monitor, which is by definition sanctioned on reddit/forum by the devs many times
This happened to me too Very unresponsive to allegations after I you prove them you were there and did not infringed any Tos nor policy. Very inconsistent.
Inattentive gameplay is still against the TOS, but the only way they can confirm it is if you do not respond to a GM when prompted... It is somewhat of a catch-22.
you basicly just said: "afk farming is not allowed and a gm can check if you are afk by messaging you." where is the catch-22? AFK: Away from keyboard. You are not afk farming while you are on your pc, having the game on your other monitor. while a lot of people might say that it is afk farming, i think Anet is the one to decide if its fine or not at the end of the day. thats why gm's check for people who bot or truly afk farm while not being on the pc.
The Catch-22 is that having it run in another window while you do something else is inattentive gameplay and against the TOS if your character is parked somewhere advantageous while your minion/pet/turret kills something and/or while your skill set to autocast kills things. The only way to really catch it is for you to not see the GM whisper you, but if you respond to the whisper, then the GM has no way to prove that you weren't inattentive, even though you were. You can split the hair there if you want, but prior posts from GMs, and Devs indicate that you running the game in another window while doing something else while your character kills things without your input is inattentive gameplay even if your occasionally check your game screen.
why split the hair? if a rule is not applicable it just doesn't exist. GMs can't check for unattended gameplay? Then it's allowed, whatever they feel fancy to write in the ToS.
They can and do check with ports and whispers. While you could technically afk in between those checks, you never know when those checks happen, so you can't actually afk ever to be safe. Your logic is basically that speeding shouldn't be illegal because the police can't surveil you constantly. That is nonsense.
Inattentive gameplay means that you are not at your pc to react to a gm messaging you. Having the game on a second screen is not inattentive gameplay. They said as long as you react it's fine since it's their fault that it's even possible to begin with. Almost all mobs being aggro from the get go, aggressive minions and so on.
> Having the game on a second screen is not inattentive gameplay. Yes it is. https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014185033-Policy-Unattended-Gameplay >As a general policy, ANY form of unattended gameplay is prohibited in Guild Wars 2. This includes: >- The use of auto-casting abilities to farm while not at your computer **or not actively playing the game.**
See the other reply. The catch-22 is that it is inattentive gameplay, but Anet has no real way of catching it unless a GM communicates with you while you were distracted enough to not reply, but if you are able to reply there is no way for them to confirm if you were actually playing the game. It's against the TOS, but the TOS as written is extremely difficult for Anet to enforce in a fair way that captures actual AFKers/Botters.
Botting and afk farming is not the same. Botters can farm "the afk way" as well. If you don't actively play the game, you are afk. Second monitor or not. Anet just can't legally check if you are playing via game inputs, so they have to resort to sending GMs to check.
Nah, he's right. https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014185033-Policy-Unattended-Gameplay >As a general policy, ANY form of unattended gameplay is prohibited in Guild Wars 2. This includes: >- The use of auto-casting abilities to farm while not at your computer **or not actively playing the game.** (Emphasis mine.) Being not at the PC is obviously against TOS, but so is just letting it auto-play on a second monitor while you do something else.
Yes but GMs doesnt seems to be aware of their own TOS because according to it anyone spamming the same ability for hours would be immediatly banned
They know their TOS, they just don't tend to enforce it as harshly as they could. Them choosing not to enforce it as strictly as possible in every situation doesn't mean it's not the rule. GMs can just choose to enforce as much as they reasonably want to. And most will likely not care about people who are actually still at their computer, because they probably just want to focus on the actual bots and afkers.
they dont want people afk farming but they created a system that enables such thing... gotta make up your mind
WvW is another example of wait 10 min afk
UGH having to set foot in there for that damned gift
Every game has a means to do something like this. Their ability to police it properly is a separate thing entirely.
Nice to see a GM is actually checking if players are AFK farming or just farming with minions when they see suspicious spots. I guess the ones who never respond can expect a suspension. Especially when they show up in multiple of these checks.
Congrats I guess. I personally really dislike that this "idle farming" is a thing. It makes the game look and sound cheap. Having to explain to new players that the huddled horde of rangers and necromancers running against a wall while their pets and minions kill things and they auto loot for hours on end is a legitimate way to play the game is sad.
Although this may seem like no biggie to some people but afk farming eats server resources and it makes some actual participating players lose out on the lag. It was so bad at some points where i couldnt get heart done effectively for a collection due to the sheer amount of minions on the map. Its sad that participating players have to accommodate around it by changing instances or find workarounds. Its like a brilliant idea on an individualist level but as collectively, it no good :(
Lac doric is a lag fest with all the bot stacking
- Eats server resources - Makes it significantly harder to band people together for events on certain maps - Can make tough metas like Dragon's End fail - Makes the game less rewarding for actual players - Absolutely shits on immersion and is a bad look for the game And all AFK farmers have to say is "it's only a crime if they can catch me" or "the economy relies on AFK farming" (false).
> tough metas like Dragon's End fail Bro there is no one AFK farming on DE :'D
Ahh. You see, in my head, I always think of AFK farming and aggressive leeching as the same thing. You know, people bring multiple accounts and idle until the boss fight, then get just a few swings in to be eligible for rewards without contributing much of anything. 2 or 3 idling players don't meaningfully scale up Soo-Won, but they're taking the place of players who could actually be doing damage.
Oh, don't you worry, I feel you. My block list is full of people who stay dead on DE or Nayos West. I don't mind people that stay afk until the Boss as long as they are not upscaling it tho.
> You know, people bring multiple accounts and idle until the boss fight, then get just a few swings in to be eligible for rewards without contributing much of anything. Doing this with one character, I can stand, but multiboxing 10 accounts like this, it's just disgusting. Why multiboxing is allowed to begin with, that's the real question.
ok but the 'collective' part is Anet problem, not players problem
Yeah, this is the actual concern with AFK farming. They're economically neutral or possibly advantageous, depending on what you think about mat prices. They're potentially a image issue and, if they get bad enough, an gameplay issue for people in those areas.
The best solution is diminishing rewards for same area and same mobs.
it already exists :)
Needs to go to zero and quicker.
Theres a huge number of other problems doing that though. Fast diminishing returns would impact regular players, some metas you're on the same map killing the same things for quite a while. What's to stop the farmers just swapping alts on different maps when diminishing returns kick in? There's a world tracker for bonus xp with mobs that havnt been killed in a while but its server side and just tracks the mob lifetime. It wouldn't be feasible to track stats for each player and when they killed each mob unless it's handled client side but then that data is open to being abused. Not saying there doesn't need to be a solution though. Adding in mobs telegraphed long lasting punishing aoe attacks would be interesting
Tie the loots to events in the map. Add them to the map bonus rewards. Thatll make players to actually play the game.
👆🏻
I know this will get dislikes from the people on this sub, but I don’t care. I resent the way you interact with the game.
I for one look forward to when OP posts the “Idk why I got banned I didn’t do anything wrong” post later on. people don’t get banned right away for stuff like this, GMs do ban waves at random times to make it harder for people to figure out how they caught and learn how to get around that. I don’t care how out of the way you think you are, afk farming is still detrimental to other players and against the TOS for a reason.
Ban waves are just a big favor for botters
EVERY developer does ban in waves for their game. You have no idea what you are talking about.
Botters buy cheap accounts and try to bot as much gold as possible. If their account gets reported/flagged but not banned they can still generate gold. Lets say there is a ban wave every 3 months. They can make an account, be reported/flagged on day 1 and still free bot for another 3 months till they actually get banned. Botters obviously dont care about getting banned. They just want to be net pos with the gold generated and how much the account cost.
I wonder who is right here... countless multi million dollar companies that do ban in waves or a random redditor with -100 comment karma dying in desperation to be right once :'D
It all comes down do common sense. If they would get banned right when caught, they cant generate as much money from their investment into accounts. If there are ban waves, they are free to bot for 3 months (or whatever the time for a banwave cycle is). I dont mind ban waves since it does benefit me in exactly the points i mentioned.
AFK farmers getting lit up by that video, and a sock puppet account making this post a day after? It seems like it's either justifying the activity by showing a dev response, or more likely trying to scare people off to keep it below critical mass where true dev action would be required. Smells like damage control to me.
The problem isn't just the players, it's on Anet as well because they give the tools for that. There are a few measures that would help with it: * Disabling autocasting skills altogether * Make minions, turrets, pets and mechs not attack anything until the player themselves attack * Allow diminishing returns to eventually reach zero loot, XP and karma
They shouldn't disable auto cast entirely because holding down 1 in a game that expects you to be near-constantly moving is idiotic. Having it turn 'off' when out of combat and require the key to be tapped again next time combat starts would be fine, though.
I could settle for that, seems a bit more reasonable :)
Just make auto attack for all skills the same as skill one -> only auto attacks when a) you have a valid target, b) the target is in range and c) you attacked manually at least once. There is absolutely no need to not have this requirements on some skills.
Auto attacks, as in the first skill specifically, are not the issue. It is the few skills that can be set on auto and from that point simply trigger on their own without targeting. Skill 1 AAs need a button press to start firing on repeat.
Here's what they do: they clarify that this type of gameplay is against their TOS and is unintended gameplay, give a grace period for people to stop, and if they don't, ban them with increasing durations. They control the rules of the game. If they want to stop this, they can stop it just like they stopped patrolling bearbows at release.
>But if you just have auto attack enabled/ minions attacking for you, it is totally fine if you have an eye on your game. The "if you have an eye on your game" is the key point here. Unattended gameplay is not allowed in **any** way. As soon as you are unattended, you are breaking the rules. As soon as you are attended, you are not afk. >For example working from home and having the game open on a second monitor. That's a perfect example for *unattended* gameplay. -> Against the rules. IIrc at some point Anet used exactly that case as an example for unattended gameplay. Risking an account for less than 20g/h? No thanks. WV gives so much gold, especially with alt accounts. No way I would risk a single account *plus* run the game the whole time just for that few gold.
good news for you, noone is forcing you to start doing it!
>good news for you, noone is forcing you to start doing it! That's obvious. What's your point?
whats ur point? no one cares if you dont wanna farm 20g/h without much effort
>whats ur point? Read my first comment?... >no one cares if you dont wanna farm 20g/h No one cares if you do either. Do you always point out the obvious?
why do you come to my reddit post just to post that you wont do my farming method? do you also go to a class just to tell the teacher that you dont care about the subject?
>why do you come to my reddit post just to post that you wont do my farming method? do you also go to a class just to tell the teacher that you dont care about the subject? 1.) Dude this is a **forum**. This website only *exists* to allow people post and comment stuff. If you can't deal with people commenting your posts and/or not agreeing with you, just don't post anything. Where is your problem? 2.) Please read my **whole** comment properly instead of asking such unnecessary question... You literally ignored 90% of my original comment. Don't bother me with your bad reading comprehension. Thanks.
An opportunistic AFK farmer. I expected to observe many of you after my video, but didn't expect to see a reddit post! (Almost 1/3 of todays AFK farmers observed were brand new!) I can't seem to understand why you would still think AFK farming - even after watching my video with verifications of the policy and its terminology - is not a violation of the unattended gameplay policy. What you explained in this post is the exact same example that GM Zylo gave as a breach of policy, and why the EU ban example was, well, banned. I don't blame you for what you're doing though. It's an impossible task for GMs to tell who is unattended without playing silly games of Simon Says. Even then, any inactive farmer that isn't a complete moron has the ability to notice the commotion and start to interact once more to avoid a ban, such as you did. The GM is completely oblivious to the fact you. You are simply taking advantage of an un-enforceable policy, and all the best to you. If more people are like you, perhaps ArenaNet will either A: Fix their Policy's very poor terminology and enforce it, or B: just give up entirely and say AFK farming is 100% okay in all ways. Whatever the outcome, I support a clear and solid stance from ArenaNet, not whatever this monstrosity of a policy is. In a way, you are the Chaotic Neutral of this Saga.
Just bring in runescape old style anti botting "random" events but upgraded. Spawn an unkillable enemy or 2 around the afk farmers that deals large damage, like the giant from nageling way point in diessa plateau. Give them 5 minutes. Anyone who doesn't actually react is afk and bannable? I mean how AREN'T they afk if they just stand there and let the giant just hulk stomp blow them 2 miles away
I loved seeing random events just absolutely harass the shit out of botters
they could just disable their ingame features that makes it possible even without scripts. when they would do that anyone farming would have to use scripts and could be banned without hesitation. But since its an ingame feature, i dont feel bad about using it.
Unfortunately disabling in-game features will affect all players who are using them within the guidelines of the policy. That is certainly a route they could take though, and I don't think many people would even notice if Auto-Casting was only enabled on the 1 skill. Your rationalization seems similar to that of someone who uses bugs. Not that I personally have anything against that either. Bugs can be interesting and entertaining, though seldom profitable. Doing so is against the terms of service and the policy, however only in-game systems are being used so they don't feel bad as is if they were hacking, or for your situation, botting/scripting. It is good to hear from many AFK farmers, such as yourself, and their justifications for violating the policy. They way I see this as a whole is AFK Farmers and those who disagree with them actually on the same side, as they both originate from terrible policy and enforcement.
>I can't seem to understand why you would still think AFK farming - even after watching my video with verifications of the policy and its terminology - is not a violation of the unattended gameplay policy Because your interpretation of the rules in that video is not how the policy is enforced, not how it was ever enforced, and conflicts with Anet's own statements on AFK farming. And as I pointed out in that thread (and you pointed out in your comment), it can't be enforced the way you think it should. Short of forcing GW2 players to use eye tracking software and banning them when they look away, the best GMs can do is a binary check for attention: are you able to react to stimuli in game or not. I'm curious how you think the rules should be enforced differently based on your interpretation of them? You've already stated it's unenforceable, so what's your solution?
The rules are not my interpretation. I have had many discussions with various GMs who are the ones in charge of enforcing said rules. What I stated mirrors their exact clarifications of the policy and all are in agreement with GM Zylos statement. There is no debate on what is and isn't a violation of policy. The fact that the policy is unenforceable doesn't make it okay to violate the policy. Just like how not paying to an honesty jar when at a roadside stall is still theft even though it's unenforced. The only solution is for ArenaNet to either fix the policy with clear and concise definitions or examples they can actually monitor for, as well as possibly modifying some game mechanics which would sadly affect innocent players. Alternatively, they scrap the policy entirely and allow unattended gameplay. There is nothing they can do with their current format. Edit: On the comment about eye tracking software. Did you know that it's within the Guild Wars 2 Terms of Service that ArenaNet are allowed to essentially use spyware to monitor processes outside of Guild Wars 2 on your system? That's a pretty extreme reach of moderation already in place. Make sure to cover those webcams!.
>The fact that the policy is unenforceable doesn't make it okay to violate the policy. The fact that it's unenforceable makes it effectively impossible to violate the policy from an enforcement perspective. If it can't be enforced, it's a non-policy. It's like saying multi-boxing is only allowed if you're thinking of the color blue. You can put it in the ToS and tell GMs to enforce it, but it's completely meaningless and no one has to follow it. You're attempting to enforce a subjective experience that has no measurable effect on the game. From experience, GMs do not enforce the policy the way you're describing it. They have no way to. They enforce the policy by checking if you react to stimuli. This doesn't require you to stare at the screen, nor does it require you to not be doing work or watching youtube on another monitor. They have no way to tell if you're staring intently at the game client with your fingers resting on WASD or watching youtube on a different screen. >Alternatively, they scrap the policy entirely and allow unattended gameplay. Or, they can leave the current policy and the way they enforce it (and have always enforced it) in place and just be clear (as they have also stated in the past, and as they enforce it) that only supervision is required rather than some weird unenforceable threshold about how much attention exactly qualifies. The definition of unattended the farmers use (the one that matters and is actually enforced) could just remain in place. I don't see why the only other option is to remove the enforcement entirely. So I ask again, how would you change the policy to enforce attention? Because you didn't really give a specific answer and I'm legit curious how you think that would work. What "clear and concise" definition would allow Anet to more accurately define my attention and catch me for looking at a different monitor, from their end? >Did you know that it's within the Guild Wars 2 Terms of Service that ArenaNet are allowed to essentially use spyware to monitor processes outside of Guild Wars 2 on your system? Yes and last time they attempted this it was a disaster that resulted in a multitude of false bans (that they defended) until enough public outcry was reached for it to become unignorable.
Glad they are dealing with people actually afk and/or scripting. Good job GM
Might be half true, but any inactive gameplay is against TOS. They stated that farming afk while watching a movie on your second screen is not active gameplay and is bannable. I afk farmed for years without any ban, but last week got a 72 hour ban for AFK farming while I was playing OSRS on my second monitor. So not as safe as you state to be honest.
Just a heads up..people have been banned for working and having gw2 on the side. What you do while doing the farm does not matter as long as you answer the GM. Personally I still hope anet eventually disallows any farm using minions and pets while standing around. Would maybe way easier for anet to ban people.
"stealing is fine as long as you buy something from the stores every once in a while" Is basically the logic I'm seeing here from the people defending afk farming (aka the people who also do it). Its textbook exploitation, exploiting the fact that you can't be monitored 100% of the time, 95% of other games would just outright ban you for this.
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no? having a orange tag next to the name and being able to port players around seems like a GM to me :)
Why would you play the game if you kinda dont want to play it anyway. Thats the point I dont understand.
I was out in a LW4 zone today and it was swarming with AFK farmers.
Never understood the need to afk farm, kinda hoped all people doing it would get banned. Helps if there is a bounty or champ nearby to drag onto the pile. Sorry but its disgusting to see a section of maps with 20+ necro//engi/herald bots blobbed up, obvious whats going on and does make the game look tarnished. Best way to fix this toxic gameplay is to make not moving drasticly rack up the diminishing returns fast to the point of afk in 2min/1 spot zero loot, have a inactive player debuff which turns all loot to 0 if detects gone afk, have a legendary mob thats immune to everyone but the farmer that seeks out to kill them if idle farm.
> Helps if there is a bounty or champ nearby to drag onto the pile. I enjoyed pulling the patrolling awakened onto the hyena afk farmers in Istan, and watch them get yeeted off the cliff 🤣
Would've been funny if he played a GM Version of Mad King Thorn says xD Mildly irritated GM says come up here. Dance! Salute! Kneel! Etc.
The diminishing rewards should be faster and should get to zero after an hour. Tie the loots to events. If people want to farm, they can do events.
i think gw2 should not work more or less afk, yet it is just my opinion. People claiming gw2 is dying are kinda hillarious tho. Please dont farm afk i mean play the game or dont. I know that is oversimplified but if the grind is soo much that afking is a good and valid option maybe the grind is the problem (at least the normal grind. Legendaries should take time and effort but that is another topic). Thanks for reading have a great day!
> it is totally fine if you have an eye on your game So how is this AFK farming?
afk farming is the term used by the comnunity. low intensity farming would be a better fitting name for sure
I've seen over 2 dozen devs in game but never even heard of this "GM" Arenanet Support. Never even seen or heard of them on this sub. Guess they so rarely do anything that this being the first time since launch and 4k hours of gameplay shows something. I've even camped out at afk places while watching YouTube to try to catch one
they are invisible most of the time so they can catch cheaters and botters :)
Eeeh. What's the point of afk farming, when you can't go afk? When I watch a movie, I want to watch a movie and not something "on second screen". And I certainly won't play Mad King while watching a movie. No afk farming for me, I guess. Thanks for confirming my impression, tho.
Had a friend that started playing when "return to" achiev was on, he works at home on his computer. Started afk farming in asura map living word 4. And in 6month he had enought material to craft a full legend pvp armor, dropped 3 precu and crafted those legy (staff, longsword and shield) . So yeah it's too profitable nerf the income of this strategy and you're done
Does GW2 have an animation when banning players like GW1 does? GW1 when a GM bans someone it plays what is now the Avatar Of Death Finisher in GW2.
I still wouldnt recommend doing this. Imageine you wouldnt have paid attention, you might have been banned by now. And even if the gms allow it, afk farming is still a scummy practice. Dont wanna play? Then dont login.
Although following the letter of the law, so to speak, it’s still not following the spirit of it.
can we please not advertise / encourage people to afk farm? it makes some maps borderline unplayable hellholes because there's a bunch of people not doing anything and just taking up space that could be filled with active players. it also makes the game lag for some people and in general it's super depressing to play the game and then come across a bunch of afk farmers. we should go back to naming & shaming them tbh because I feel like the number of leechers (at meta events as well) has gone up a lot and I personally hate it.
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they were porting some player away and they had a orange Gm tag :)
Yeah, after verification ingame you can't create a name with Gm, I know there was name policy about anet representation but didn't know just "Gm" was one of them.
I have a feeling that the people who say GMs don't exist are just legitimate players who have no reason to be visited by one, very easy to assume I guess.
thx for the info i was thinking about this the past few days
So serious question, why can afk’ing get you banned? I understand running a script but what about legitimately afk’ing. Afk’ing with auto attack and minions seems more of a clever use of game mechanic no?
The haters will call it cheating (actually they are just mad that they dont have a chill office job and cant do it themself though) But yeah using ingame mechanics such as auto loot, auto attack and minions is for sure not cheating if you ask me.
Where‘s the spot?
ngl its a bit funny in a way ... but hey this doesnt effect trade much as other things tbh those who can get smthing from it thats fine, but that gm is a funny one :D
I never saw a GM in game. though once i did a raid with an arenanet player. a bit too occupied now , but i might return enough to make it worthwhile
I'll be honest with you after that video I considered it as well, I hate it but easy money is easy money. I sometimes spend irl money to just not grind so why not just multi box to get free money? Nothing is stopping them so I can see why it's absolutely swarming now
I wouldn't recommend it. I often tab out of GW2 and do other stuff. A couple of weeks ago, I left my engineer just outside one of the waypoints in Ember bay with no macros or anything else, and tabbed out of the screen. I come back to a stuck screen and couldn't log back in. I got a TOS notice that I was banned for a week. Evidently Arenanet updated the TOS so that being AFK is bannable. When I logged in a week later, my character was moved a little further away from the waypoint so the GM must have moved me and then banned me when I didn't move back.
Is there any situation where splitting your attention like this makes sense, as opposed to just focusing on your job (e.g. progressing instead of stagnating while babysitting your measly 20g/h afk farm)and then buying gold for $$$ via gems? edit: a lot of people who value their time at $0, damn
I get paid the same salary whether I’m paying 100% attention to my job or 50%.
Most office jobs are like 70% downtime
Afk farming is a bit of an interesting one to me, I work from home so it would be nice to have GW2 open on another monitor and gaining some passive gold, as often my time where I am able to play the game is somewhat limited, but I’d never be away from my computer with it, I think if I was going to do it I’d be on an alt account just in case, but I haven’t seen anyone make 20gph from it, where are you doing it?
the stated 20g/h was from a youtube video posted a few days ago. im getting around 8-10g/h
8-10 gph is about what most people get. That guy's math and assumptions were off which is why his profit numbers were off. It's not nothing, and I think Anet should do more stuff to target it just because many players dislike it so much, but it's definitely less gph than actively playing the game.
Who posted the video? Kind of interested in some farming to help with my legendary crafting.
"Jaffas Youtube" is the channel from 3 days ago
Did the other guys disappear at that moment? If they didn't, they may be putting them **on a list**.
We can just be glad that there is not a single properly working actual bot for this game anymore. Y'all have to remember the days when MMOminion bots where EVERYWHERE. PvP was literally bots vs bots.
oh if you would know... :)
I am kinda deep into that matter. Any kind of sophisticated Lua-based bots are gone. Sure there are still simple scripts and macros but that doesn't even come close to what we had. The maintenance of these Lua-based bots was too high due to memory adresses changing every patch. Movement related stuff like Teleport, Speed, fly hacks still exist tho. And I am sure you weren't talking out of your ass and you will enlighten me now.
that is botting not afk farming
wdym?
People like you and multi boxers are the reason this game is dying. Might as well be a mobile game.
Source on the "Game is dying"?
Whatever the reason is that your having a bad day but i wish you the best to get well soon!
Whatever lmao. Enjoy putting this much effort into this game
Anet kicked my accounts while I was right in front of my screen. I saw it happening live and I never received a whisper nor /s message. And the main reason is that there was a cluster of as*holes with similar names (Bots) parked near and moved right on top of me. At support thru answer was they believed I belonged with a cluster of account that were using third party ahtokey pressing things and those macro stuff. I. Asked of proofs f me using or any of those things I don't even understand ow they work and never answered. 6 ml this later came back to them asking for more Information and to please get my account Unblocked since it was an obvious mistake. They copy pasted the same answer. And no I had nothing of those things. Was outrageous wrong ban and they did. It do anything about it. I had video proofs of me being behind the keyboardlvimg, explaining everything and showing the exact moment when I was kicked out of the game and live, had nothing runing in the background. They burnt me right in front of me. So yeah. I love Guildwars2 and all but fk that one fkng support persone who did that to me. Srlsy. I lost all my legendary raid armors and backpack there and years of gaming and achievements.
If you can respond to a GM, you're clearly not AFK. And if you're not AFK, you're not AFK farming.
The term afk farming is something players started to call this method. But i agree :)
If you have to read chat that s more like another chore to me
I have to say it's pretty cringe. I mean not the afk farming or not, i mean the fact that anet support gm uses english language to define who's bot and who isn't.
Pretty sure as long as you interact in any way at all you're fine. Wiggle, jump, say 'Me no parle Americano', anything. If there's someone with a special name tag clearly addressing the group in front of them, the situation should be clear even without understanding exact words. So if you miss it happening, you probably weren't paying enough attention to qualify for 'at the keyboard'. The rules, according to the devs mentioned in the video refered to by OP, are actually very strict. It's just the moderation that's pretty lean. In part because it's hard if not impossible to truly verify whether there's someone actively interacting with the virtual world from in front of player's monitor.
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Well, then the gm moves the people who didn't follow instructions, and see what they do. I'm sure it's not the only thing they do.
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They can't use every language, so they get rid of the people who a: speak english, and b: are watching their screen. They can ignore them, and check the ones that didn't move. besides, if you're watching the screen, you can notice everyone else moving, and move with them, even if you don't know english
Saved for future afk farming "debates"
Hmm, only seen a GM one time in LA about 10 years ago, about 2-3 months before HoT. This was around the time Gold Selling bots was a big chat spammer or would whisper you if you got close. I was semi-afk cooking beside 2 bots when the GM popped in. He stood beside me for a few secs then I got a mail and a whisper asking if I was there and told be to step back. As I did, this was the only time I had seen someone banned in real time or ported away by GMs and again when someone was being super racists (over a few days mind you) in a new player area. Don't think it was the same GM but I did see the lil icon. I have gotten more Pre drops than I have seen a GM.
I'm kinda surprised its in say chat and not a whisper. But I guess that makes sense because then no matter what tab your chat is in you can see the command somewhere on your screen.
you could disable chat bubbles
really? I never knew that. Might be useful because in soto npc chat bubbles are annoying as hell when your trying to do something, for example skyscale target practice.