Curse

Linksys · Oct 02, 2007, 05:42 AM // 05:42

This concerns all who do Kurzick faction Fast Faction Farming, manually or using heros/henches.

There's a guild that is obviously botting this in the international district. I won't say the guild's abbreviation tag since it's like saying someone's ingame name here. But you can observe them if they're there.

When they appear in the Lutgardis Conservatory outpost, they will always run to the Melandru's Hope signpost at the base of the stairs. They will pause for a moment, turn a little to the left, then run up the stairs. How long they pause seems to depend on where in the outpost they appear. The bot program probably sets a number of seconds before turning to the left based on the appearance spot furthest from the sign post.

Right now as of this post there are two characters from this guild doing this.

The reason it concerns everyone who does this without bots is because it may bring Anet staff to this faction farming spot looking for botters. People have been mistakenly banned for botting when they were really hero fast faction farming without any use of bot programs.

If you continue to fff or hero fff, it would be wise to at least vary up your routine. If it becomes so repetitive and routine that your movements and mouse clicks are very similar, it's time to vary it up.

I'd like to see the botters get nailed so I'll figure out how to report them.

~I've submitted a support ticket reporting the two bot users with screen shots of them.

ReZDoGG · Oct 02, 2007, 06:53 AM // 06:53

That sux, I jus learned how to do it last night with Hero's. And it works pretty good... still only takes like a minute and half to finish.

Linksys · Oct 02, 2007, 07:00 AM // 07:00

They're still there right now, both have the same guild tag on their names. Lutgardis international district 1.

fujin · Oct 02, 2007, 02:39 PM // 14:39

Wow... this is disappointing.... I always wanted to try, but now I'm going to have to be a little bit more careful. Thanks for reporting the find.

BuD · Oct 02, 2007, 02:43 PM // 14:43

Look Out! Here comes the Lutgardis FFF Nerf Hammer

ShadowofWar · Oct 02, 2007, 03:17 PM // 15:17

just report the characters with /report, anet cant keep track of everyone botting. /report is ftw

mazey vorstagg · Oct 02, 2007, 03:48 PM // 15:48

I heard the report was taken off, because it was only a test weekend

Senrath · Oct 02, 2007, 07:16 PM // 19:16

Yeah, /report was only for the weekend. Depending on the feedback they get, among other things I think, Anet will decide whether or not to put it back into the game.

And just as long as you're careful not to act like a bot, you're fine. Talk to friends, vary your pace/clicks/keystrokes, take a break every once in a while to do something else.

El Sabio · Oct 02, 2007, 08:33 PM // 20:33

i only knew the arborstone faction farm, but where and how in melandrus hope can i get these points fast? and how many in a hour ?

wetsparks · Oct 02, 2007, 09:12 PM // 21:12

10,000 points per 40-45 minutes. there is a quest outside where you have to go to 4 areas on the map to check for a luxon presence. then go back to the guy who gives the quest for 150 gold and 2000 exp and 400 kurzick faction. you go to the spots before you take the quest and it still triggers when you take the quest later. people run to the spot, die, rez, and accept the quest and then the reward in a matter of 2-3 minutes.

My Sweet Revenga · Oct 02, 2007, 09:38 PM // 21:38

I can see how hero/hench flagging can be done easily with a bot, but what I wanna know is how the bot player char itself makes it to its designated tag spot. For hero/hench, this is usually shrooms.

Senrath · Oct 02, 2007, 09:47 PM // 21:47

Um, H/H usually use 3 heroes, 2 henchies, and then does door man.

My Sweet Revenga · Oct 02, 2007, 11:26 PM // 23:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Senrath

Um, H/H usually use 3 heroes, 2 henchies, and then does door man.

Oh I dunno. From what I read it had something to do with the player flagging everybody and then running shrooms himself. I guess if they have the flagging and hero skill activation down to a T, then it must be a pretty consistent run each time, especially since flagging to stairs requires 2 steps for flagging.

Linksys · Oct 02, 2007, 11:38 PM // 23:38

To do it with heros/henches, you use the U map to flag them since the compass map isn't big enough. Just stretch the U map out.

I was thinking of taking screen shots of this to show in another topic to show which exact spots on the map to flag. If I do that, it will be in another topic in this forum.

When you use heros/henches, you don't die. That makes it ten seconds faster since you don't wait for the resurrection timer. The exact method varies from person to person.

How someone is able to do this with a bot I'm not sure. But it may be a program where you manually do a hero/hench run and the program records the exact keystrokes and mouse movements. The mouse cursor may start a one of the corners of the screen to get it the exact same each time. Then it plays it over and over again. The person running the bot may check on it now and then while watching TV, eating food, whacking off, whatever these bozos do while they're botting.

ReZDoGG · Oct 03, 2007, 06:34 AM // 06:34

Well, I don't think it will get nerfed. It ain't like there is 1000's or more people botting this. I mean, there are places that still have bots from 2 years ago... and still didn't nerf them, or ban them. I'm sure H/H is here to stay for FFF, and nerfs as well.

As for what I learned, I only use 3 hero's and no henches for this. I see people with 6-7 H/H... I tried that, and it didn't work so well...and took along time. Using 3 heros is alot faster, and when you die yourself, u immediately start getting res'd... and don't have to kill heros to do so. This way it only takes minute and half, aslong as you run some parts yourself.

I have them all set up as SF runners. A/R, A/R, and W/A... I send W/A to bridge, and send both A/R heros to Shrooms. And myself I run Shore and Stairs... it took me awhile to get used to using their skills, but once I did, I can complete a run everytime. It only takes me a minute and half to complete, just as good as a full party. First time learning, I ended up farming 15k worth in bout 2 hours. Some of that time was the learning part... But now, I'm sure I can do that much in around a hour and half or less. Not bad at all, and don't have to worry about stupid people in groups. Heros FTW!! What would we do without them?

Linksys · Oct 03, 2007, 10:04 AM // 10:04

Below is a post in reply to the one above. It doesn't really involve the issue of botting so if you're just skimming the replies here, this one isn't that important but it does involve the general idea of Hero FFF.

I use three heroes for the shore, stairs, and mushroom. I send the two warrior henches to the bridge. If I go the fastest I can, I can finish in I think under a minute. I timed by typing /age immediately after it was complete and most of the time it said I was in that area 0 minutes. I typed it again and then it says 1 minute. I haven't actually timed it with a stopwatch yet.

Since I myself stand by the quest guy and don't die, I don't have to wait ten seconds to rez. I can get the reward right away.

If any survivor title seekers get to Lutz without dying and get two or three heroes, you get your title no worries.

If I'm getting burned out from the repetition, I just send one hero to shore and one to mushroom. I wait a bit, then send the shore hero runner to stairs. Then get reward. That's if I'm listening to the radio or TV or something at the same time. Of course I'm still playing the game manually so it's not like botting just because I have the TV on or if I'm eating food.

And I agree, no need to worry about having people in my group. I made a new ranger specifically for FFF running because I found the increased death count, XP, and skill points unnatural feeling for a regular character. I got the ranger there and I'm running spots in groups manually. I'm always left to running mushroom over and over again. No one else can or will run it. I was able to run mushroom but got burned out from the repetition. Finally I had it and looked into hero fff.

Someone was nice enough to let me tag along and throughout the bits of conversation we had(and me dying to watch the heroes running), I learned it myself. And I learned it just in time because manual running FFF died very very fast over the course of about a week or less it seems.

I used to let people tag along my hero fff. I like to be nice. I ferried people to Urgoz for free back when the TLS alliance had HzH. I used to ferry to Consulate docks for free as much as I could. Then it was letting people join my hero fff so they can just wait and get the reward. However, I kept getting people who didn't understand and they ran off to a spot or "sacced" or something. I explained what I was doing and they needed to stay where I was. Some didn't get it. Some got jittery and couldn't stay still and touched the portal. Some fought the lvl 5 tiger which was distracting to me. I tried to explain that only I am to go thru the portal both ways. And if I'm not ready, then we're not ready. But people do it anyways. I'm trying to type something and the loading screen interrupts me. It's annoying. So this is the one thing that I do alone. I don't invite random people anymore. Never. There are no exceptions do this(other than returning the favor to the guy who showed me hero fff, which I did get to do once). I don't even want survivor title seekers to give me their reward money.

Besides it seems like most people have done it so much that they're burned out and can't do 25 runs in a row nonstop. I'm already like that. Sometimes I'll just wait and daydream for a few minutes before getting the reward or starting a new run. Just going at my own pace. But if I have someone else in my party, I'd be stuck at the keyboard just for that person. I'm not doing that anymore.

~Infact while I was typing this, my heros at this moment have already reached their spots. Now I'll get the reward. I doubt anyone would want to join my party anyways and wait this long between some runs. Hero FFF is more of a solo thing now. If someone has heros, they can do this. They just need to figure it out. But some must be afraid of never figuring it out and would rather have people do it for them. Well if some people want to help them, fine, but I'm not one of them.