Gold Farming Bots/People

[arunav]

Is there any way BW can do anything about these?

 

I see them on leveling planets even, now. They appear and disappear in certain areas of Belsavis, for example. If you check their achievements, there basically are none, except they have the 100% currency one done.

 

Appear near a chest, then disappear moments later.

 

I was gather materials near a location where a couple of chests spawn (Maximum Security Area) and have seen the same mara for weeks now doing this. He is in the mid-30s level-wise.

[Darth_Wicked]

Is there any way BW can do anything about these?

 

I see them on leveling planets even, now. They appear and disappear in certain areas of Belsavis, for example. If you check their achievements, there basically are none, except they have the 100% currency one done.

 

Appear near a chest, then disappear moments later.

 

I was gather materials near a location where a couple of chests spawn (Maximum Security Area) and have seen the same mara for weeks now doing this. He is in the mid-30s level-wise.

 

Every so often, whenever I'm doing dailies in Belsavis on the Red Eclipse, I run into this LV50 Twi'lek Jedi Knight who for sure is a credits farming bot. I've reported its behavior but even so it's still there, appearing, disappearing and - most of all(!) - moving at a speed that is simply not possible.

 

Then again, it may be a different character with the exact same look and species.

Edited September 3, 2014 by Darth_Wicked

[JediRelentless]

I'm seeing this more often lately . I've reported some players after noticing that they were using some kind of software to automate their actions. The ones I've reported stopped showing up in the game after about two weeks.

Unfortunately game companies don't give out details about what disciplinary action was taken, if any. So it's difficult to judge if BW is doing enough to discourage this kind of behavior.

I think it's a good idea to report people using loot bots.

Edited September 4, 2014 by JediRelentless

[DimmuJanKaarl]

It's not a bot, it's simply a person who created a character whose sole purpose is to farm chests. You don't need a bot you just need a stopwatch. I can't say that back in the day i didn't know "someone" who spent their day off with a stopwatch farming Ilum chests when they were desperate for creds at a time when only a small handful of players crossed the 1M credit line (anyone remember Georg's presentation on credits distribution?)

[JediRelentless]

It's not a bot,. ..

Yeah, it can be done with a stop watch but that is unlikely the case with the ones I've seen. Too many things about the character's movement indicate that the user had altered the game with some extra software.

[MotorCityMan]

There are probably a hundred ways that Bioware could do something about the spamming that goes on. Not the least of which is for them to play their own game and censure gold spammers when they see them.

[DimmuJanKaarl]

Yeah, it can be done with a stop watch but that is unlikely the case with the ones I've seen. Too many things about the character's movement indicate that the user had altered the game with some extra software.

 

While I don't doubt that you are seeing what you say you are seeing, I'd love to see it for myself. Over the years, there have been many, many instances of players claiming that someone was definitely using a bot, when it had nearly always turned out that it was a feature of a particular class, or the effects of client-side lag, or any number of other more probable causes with which the observer simply wasn't familiar.

 

I also don't doubt your sincerity, I'm just extremely skeptical after this long and seeing so many debunked reports. I remember back when there were rampant complaints of teleporting when it turned out that many players simply weren't familiar with certain classes' ability to become invisible to opposing-faction players.

 

Just my two cents; and yes I do believe there are definitely people out there working tirelessly to exploit bugs and dev oversights

[DimmuJanKaarl]

There are probably a hundred ways that Bioware could do something about the spamming that goes on. Not the least of which is for them to play their own game and censure gold spammers when they see them.

 

Unfortunately there simply aren't enough in-game EAware people to catch everyone all the time. And they simply aren't fast enough nor are there enough of them on the outside to respond to spam reports effectively. Regardless, they do rely on us, the players, to click "report spam" each time we encounter a spam post from a new spammer.

[arunav]

It's not a bot, it's simply a person who created a character whose sole purpose is to farm chests. You don't need a bot you just need a stopwatch. I can't say that back in the day i didn't know "someone" who spent their day off with a stopwatch farming Ilum chests when they were desperate for creds at a time when only a small handful of players crossed the 1M credit line (anyone remember Georg's presentation on credits distribution?)

 

So... someone went through the trouble of leveling to the mid-30s, then sneaking around Belsavis (this wasn't a stealth class character)... to farm a chest with 2k credits in it? Or a few?

 

Forgive my ignorance if it actually is, but isn't that terribly inefficient for earning credits?

 

I was trying to figure out why there would be characters like this I run into, and the only one I could come up with is it must be somehow worthwhile for credit sellers, once in place, because they are using some kind of automated setup.

Edited September 4, 2014 by arunav

[DimmuJanKaarl]

So... someone went through the trouble of leveling to the mid-30s, then sneaking around Belsavis (this wasn't a stealth class character)... to farm a chest with 2k credits in it? Or a few?

 

Forgive my ignorance if it actually is, but isn't that terribly inefficient for earning credits?

 

I was trying to figure out why there would be characters like this I run into, and the only one I could come up with is it must be somehow worthwhile for credit sellers, once in place, because they are using some kind of automated setup.

 

Stranger things have happened. I would imagine it is possible that farmers power-level (i.e., level at a fast pace by spending many more hours a day than "normal" players) to get to a planet whose chests are worthwhile but aren't particularly popular (Belsavis is, for a lot of players, a pass-through planet that they just want to get through quickly on their way to 50).

[LyraineAlei]

Unfortunately there simply aren't enough in-game EAware people to catch everyone all the time. And they simply aren't fast enough nor are there enough of them on the outside to respond to spam reports effectively. Regardless, they do rely on us, the players, to click "report spam" each time we encounter a spam post from a new spammer.

 

The problem with censors is that people can work their way around them, so they don't work as well as we'd all like.

 

Not defending the gold spammers, they're a blight to my chat reading as well. Just report and hit ignore each time. Tedious, but at least you can carry a conversation without seeing them as often.

[HelinCarnate]

So... someone went through the trouble of leveling to the mid-30s, then sneaking around Belsavis (this wasn't a stealth class character)... to farm a chest with 2k credits in it? Or a few?

 

Forgive my ignorance if it actually is, but isn't that terribly inefficient for earning credits?

 

I was trying to figure out why there would be characters like this I run into, and the only one I could come up with is it must be somehow worthwhile for credit sellers, once in place, because they are using some kind of automated setup.

 

Exactly. It is only inefficient for a person to do this. It is free money for those that run a bot program and allow it to do its thing.

[tindin]

for the most part t's not the bots that the swtor wants to ban, But rather the banks. The guys the bots send all the credits to that get sold. So more often then not the reason bots stay around for awhile is they are waiting to see the money trail so to say.

[JacksonMo]

So... someone went through the trouble of leveling to the mid-30s, then sneaking around Belsavis (this wasn't a stealth class character)... to farm a chest with 2k credits in it? Or a few?

 

Forgive my ignorance if it actually is, but isn't that terribly inefficient for earning credits?

 

I was trying to figure out why there would be characters like this I run into, and the only one I could come up with is it must be somehow worthwhile for credit sellers, once in place, because they are using some kind of automated setup.

 

exactly. If you're going to go to the trouble of botting, why not automate something profitable like a flashpoint. You'd never be seen and reported. Set up four computers to run Battle of illum endlessly and go take a nap while the credits roll in.

[MandFlurry]

Every so often, whenever I'm doing dailies in Belsavis on the Red Eclipse, I run into this LV50 Twi'lek Jedi Knight who for sure is a credits farming bot. I've reported its behavior but even so it's still there, appearing, disappearing and - most of all(!) - moving at a speed that is simply not possible.

 

Then again, it may be a different character with the exact same look and species.

 

I get the Feeling that you may be too nice, and that character probabyi IS a Bot lol

[MandFlurry]

exactly. If you're going to go to the trouble of botting, why not automate something profitable like a flashpoint. You'd never be seen and reported. Set up four computers to run Battle of illum endlessly and go take a nap while the credits roll in.

 

Really smart, Now idiots are most likely gone do Fps for farming if they can because you just told them how they might be able to.

[JayromeCG]

I've seen threads from a couple years back reporting this but with video.

Hopefully I've linked this properly.

[HelinCarnate]

exactly. If you're going to go to the trouble of botting, why not automate something profitable like a flashpoint. You'd never be seen and reported. Set up four computers to run Battle of illum endlessly and go take a nap while the credits roll in.

 

Automating moving from one point to another and opening chests is easy (relatively speaking) compared to automating running a FP over and over on 4 different machines with 4 different classes.

[Grouchy_one]

One way Bioware could deter gold farmers is to use the same random mechanic that they use in the Pirate Den on Tatooine. There are like 12 places a chest could spawn and only a maximum of 5 will be available at any one time. To make it even more random, there is only a chance that the chest will respawn in the same location 30 minutes later.

 

When you go to Makeb, there are certain toons that you see like clockwork by the chests. If a gold farmer has timed it properly, by controlling the spawn timers on three instances the gold farmer is looking at nearly 800k per hour on average. I've seen them on Jedi Covenant for 6-7 hours a night since the spring. Not certain that they are still doing it, but if Bioware were to implement the random spawn locations, gold farmers wouldn't be able to use a stop watch.

 

I don't begrudge them if there is no one around, but it irks me when I'm fighting a mob of elites and strong for a chest only to see a d-bag gold farmer unstealth and ninja the chest.

[DarthTHC]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say this isn't a terribly high priority issue. I mean, who cares if someone gobbles up a chest? The only "harm" to you, the player, is you don't get to loot that chest. The same thing can happen if any other player gets there before you. The same thing happens to resource nodes all the time - someone gets there before you.

 

Is botting against TOS? Absolutely.

 

Does this situation warrant assignment of any resources at all... resources which could be spent enhancing many other aspects of the game? No. Not remotely.

 

If this is your biggest, MUST FIX IT NOW, issue with the game, then I believe congratulations to BioWare are in order, don't you?

[Idoya]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say this isn't a terribly high priority issue. I mean, who cares if someone gobbles up a chest? The only "harm" to you, the player, is you don't get to loot that chest. The same thing can happen if any other player gets there before you. The same thing happens to resource nodes all the time - someone gets there before you.

 

Is botting against TOS? Absolutely.

 

Does this situation warrant assignment of any resources at all... resources which could be spent enhancing many other aspects of the game? No. Not remotely.

 

If this is your biggest, MUST FIX IT NOW, issue with the game, then I believe congratulations to BioWare are in order, don't you?

 

 

Script apologist detected. Do you, mayhaps, have a stake here?

 

Sorry for necro'ing this thread, but you can shove that 'what's the harm' ******** up your heiny. I've been from one end of Belsavis to the other and didn't realise I hadn't seen a single loot chest until I saw someone standing next to one, loot it, then disappear. Out of curiosity, I waited, and he reappeared moments before the chest did. So I started ninja'ing it out from under him. Repeatedly. I was persistent, and you'd think a human would give up, which I did after about a dozen ninjas (hours of game time), but he didn't. He kept spawning in predictably a few moments before the chest would, which is how I knew the chest was about to spawn and could beat him to it. He'd then disappear completely until, predictably, a few moments before the chest would reappear.

 

Now obviously, it's not up to players to police the game in such a way, but if players can't grab a chest of opportunity in passing, then all BW are doing here by not dealing with the bots is favouring the select few using them. There is, of course, an easy way to fix this. Get rid of fixed chest locations in public non-story areas, and single-spawn only chest in story areas. Randomised chest spawns in public areas, same number of chests as present with same respawn timers except they respawn somewhere at random once the timer ends. Somewhere accessible, obviously, but random nonetheless. Scripts rely heavily on predictability. Remove that, and you make it that much less worth the effort for them.

 

Also, don't pretend this is a low priority. When there are no chests anywhere on an entire planet for legit players to loot, you have a problem. And if this is, as you suggest, our 'only problem', then it's the only one BioWare should be giving ANY priority.

Edited May 26, 2015 by Idoya

[LoverNoFighter]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say this isn't a terribly high priority issue. I mean, who cares if someone gobbles up a chest? The only "harm" to you, the player, is you don't get to loot that chest. The same thing can happen if any other player gets there before you. The same thing happens to resource nodes all the time - someone gets there before you.

 

Is botting against TOS? Absolutely.

 

Does this situation warrant assignment of any resources at all... resources which could be spent enhancing many other aspects of the game? No. Not remotely.

 

If this is your biggest, MUST FIX IT NOW, issue with the game, then I believe congratulations to BioWare are in order, don't you?

 

Agreed.

[Monumenta]

bots are people too!

[sarbonn]

I see one on Belsavis ALL THE TIME. He's right near the story mission entrance of a cave for the jedi knight. I was helping out someone who asked for help with that mission (it's one of those that is really, really hard and usually requires help for those of us not so awesome at everything). So I pointed the guy out to the person I was grouped with as he appeared (he's a Sith) in front of a chest surrounded by Sith enemies, which don't target another Sith, he loots and then disappears. We went in and did the mission, came out and he appeared again, waiting obviously for the chest.

 

It was annoying to see it, but not the end of the world. The only thing that bothered me is that we killed those mobs because you have to do so in order to get down the road. But we don't get to loot anything because this gold farmer bot already got the loot. Not a big deal but it reminds me that there are people exploiting this game, and that takes away from the illusion that this sort of thing doesn't happen in a game I really enjoy.

[ALaggyGrunt]

A lvl 50ish bot would be worth a little more than a throwaway spam account.

 

If the chests actually are being botted, Bioware can script a bit on its own: if an account grabs too many chests in a certain period of time (or keeps grabbing the same one over and over), flag it.