I have noticed the increase of herbalism bots running in Tiragarde Sound while herbing. I have kept reporting them but they are still there and it has been few weeks already and nothing has been done. I still see the same names gathering a herb, taking few steps back, running 2 full circles around and then going to another node. I’m already questioning blizzard’s activity to remove the cheaters and while witnessing the actions of each of the bots each day it kills the motivation to log on and keep playing.
Few of the bots have already evolved little (I have also noticed this because when they dismount (they are around 30-35% hp and have to kill the adds, I usually bring them 10 more mobs to ensure they die from the mob pack) . It doesn’t slow them much because they keep running 24/7, but it still gives me a little satisfaction. Some of them have altered routes, their routes have become very familiar to me during the last 2 weeks. So i can pretty much tell who’s botting and who’s not in the cluster that I am in.
The bots also damage the economy of the servers so players who are more interested in running economics than raiding this really sucks. It kills one major aspect of them game entirely.
This is getting very frustrating and it looks like Blizzard isn’t hearing the feedback through reporting in-game or the company is incredibly slow and inefficient. I lost my faith a long time ago but a little part of me still hopes for Blizz to come back before it’s too late.
Can I ask how you know they are bots? It’s not that I doubt you I just see a lot of posts like this but never understand fully how you can identify a bot from a normal player.
Would help me and others spot them and report them too you see
The problem is that the ban wave takes too long. Each of the bots can gather up to millions of gold during this time but this isn’t the issue. The issue is that the players lose time battling these bots and the bots are everywhere.
Just banning the bots once or twice a year isn’t enough.
Also I don’t know why I had that old toon in my original post but I wrote this topic.
You can identify bot easily. If you see another character farming for example herbs and so it will eventually reveal itself. No normal human looks like that or makes dump moves like them. Usually they can afk 5-10 secs after each herb. Normal human wouldn’t wait this long after EVERY herb. Also their movement is the same regardless of herb nodes. Funniest thing I have seen is that a bot runs to a herb and then returns to it current path and there is nothing there and only THEN he continues forward. A human character would go for the next node instead of running backwards 25yards for nothing.
Also I have noticed that some bots can get stuck. But they usually solve it by dismounting, running left first, then right to see if the obstacle is there. Then they try jumping and finally running back few steps and returning the previous position.
On Zandalar there are quite a few mini-gangs of multi box farmbots running around harvesting herbs and ore.
They typically are a group of 5 identical toons, mostly druids in cat form, that dash around all night. Can’t talk to them or interact in any way.
Once, in the middle of a pitched WPvP battle, two of these farmbots zigzagged across the battlefield picking herbs as we fought, completely oblivious to what was going on.
It was frustrating because we could have used some help in that battle but they just botted around for a while and then moved on.
I have farmed herbs with WM on and WM off. They are both crowded but especially if you farm WM off, there is nothing you can do to the bots. I have also seen multiboxin druids a lot. There is always one leading them and a group of druids following then. Their names are usually identical.
But there is nothing I can do for these. My alt herbalist toon is farming WM off and WM on doesn’t help because there are same problems. You cannot kill the players from same faction.
Thank you for explaining, I know what to look for now and understand why I haven’t noticed any before, I simply don’t pay enough attention to those farming around me to spot odd pathing and movements.
If you see the same guys farming again and again each time you go farming. Just check them. Some bots dismount at certain types like when their HP goes to a set treshold. Some bots run the same path everytime. You can usually spot the difference after they have just gathered a node. If you spot anything unusual at it and it repeats then you found a bot.
Druids are a big problem because they do not need to dismount or fight back, they usually just heal and run and the mobs just disengage. But you can identify botting druids easily. Most of them are level 110 or 111 most likely or they are just multiboxing and having 100 other druids following them.
Multiboxing and botting are different things but there are bots who multibox. I never thought about it before but after farming for 2 weeks for herbs I have seen multiboxing bots.
It sometimes amuses me. One druid is leading a pack, takes them to a herb node. the leader gathers and after that each member of the pack gathers. Then they usually server swap somewhere because they disappear and appear back later on different node. But it amuses me to see some of the druids fallen behind. They are just sitting near the lake or a river. Hoping their leader would come back to pick them up.
The two are not mutually exclusive. There are clearly many multibox farmbots.
It makes sense for them to have more than one toon on a farm route so they multibox.
Following the money is the only way to address this.
They must be “cashing out” somehow else they wouldn’t bother farming.
They need to sustain multiple accounts and therefore multiple subscriptions so they have to be making [5 x WoWtoken] + [profit] just to keep the operation going.
I am guessing they are selling game time somehow to make IRL money.
I cba to read the whole EULA but there must be a transgression somewhere in there. Multiboxing in itself is clearly legal but selling game time?
They do not need to sell wow tokens anymore and also they do not need to pay subscription fees. Having 5 accounts nowdays is easy.
The bots must get around 500k+ each day by farming. I farm less and I do normally 250k per day. The bots can actually do around 1 mil per day. So they get the gold to buy 5 tokens any day they want. The bots do not lose anything and farming it doesn’t cost them anything. Those bots who are farming in my clusters must have made a lot.
Also what Punyelf said they get caught at some point but it matters when. I don’t want to wait for 6 months for a bot to get banned because the bot affects my gaming time and my gathering for 6 months. It is the same for every other player who likes to farm. The longer the bot remains, the more it eats away the player who is actually doing the farm.
Also they are selling gold. People must still be buying it because it is cheaper than getting wow gold by tokens. Sad truth.
This is all I really meant.
Turning ingame gold into external [IRL] cash is breaking the EULA &/or T&C.
The fact that they fund multiple accounts by farming I couldn’t care less about, whatever floats their boats.
It’s the commercial aspect, they are making IRL money by exploiting WoW
(meaning exploiting as in making capital as opposed to ingame exploits),
this must be addressed.
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