The Underground World of Guild Wars 2 Clients, Bots & Trainers (Cheats & Hacks)

[@Hollts]

GW2 investigative journalism? Take my like, sub and admiration please.

[@JaffasYoutube]

My man. I remember watching your necro pvp stuff years back.

[@Hollts]

@@JaffasKZbin :D Thank you! Means a lot to me. I'm glad you're making awesome new content.

[@sunnydlite-t8b]

Ahhh the classic "I need to break rules because my grandmother has cancer" excuse.

[@P3R5I3dark]

Wouldn’t you do the same?

[@unnamed2737]

@@P3R5I3darkno. It’s a stupid excuse.

[@YouTubeChillZone]

@@P3R5I3dark Motivation doesn't matter when it ruins the fun for thousands of other people.

[@P3R5I3dark]

@@KZbinChillZone you didn’t answer tho

[@YouTubeChillZone]

@@P3R5I3dark ofc but it dosent make it right

[@Keorl]

Paused at 4:08. Generating THAT MUCH gold with mostly gathering ? And then people will argue that botting isn't big enough to affect the economy ... Sorry but if someone can make that much just with gathering nodes, it means that they definitely flood the tp enough to have a visible impact on the value of materials. And its turns out, the economy of materials is completely broken atm (most of them are way too cheap, anet overcompensates by requiring stupid amounts in any new sinks, and they can't balance research notes to give a wider array of options and actually sink something else than the mat that already have sinks and very high tp transaction rates)

[@Chiaros]

There are too few of them to really impact the market. People that play regular high-yield farms are far more numerous. The bots are a drop in the ocean.

[@hellmasker1]

In the earliest days of the game, bots were so rampant that to communicate my point I mention that for my first legendary - in October of 2012 - my first stack of T6 bones were about 5-7 copper each. T6 blood was "expensive" at a few silver each. And the silver doubloons I needed? Entire stack for about 8g (though that I half attribute to many players not knowing their use/purpose) You're absolutely right that bots can impact the economy.

[@joyboy6067]

@@Chiaros this kinda answer my question about ambergris,there are plenty of people using fishing bot,low key i kinda expect they just flood the market so the prices crash but that just never happen lol

[@JaffasYoutube]

@@joyboy6067 Lots of the fishing bots fish open water or camp one node. They don't obtain the fish that give ambergris very often.

[@kazuya246]

@@Chiaros 3%(or more) of the population is not a drop in the ocean when that 3% is using insanely overpowered cheats to advantage themselves over everyone else. Anyone who knows economics knows that economies are dominated by a tiny portion of the population.

[@DanielKitchka]

some top tier detective work, keep it up!

[@sentokigames151]

I really don't mind cheating against the computer like the man said. But against real people it's different. So PVP and WvW I really would like those people to get banned.

[@rayhoodoo847]

You realize that people who are not cheating have to grind much more for gold than cheaters due to the market being saturated with cheaters’ gold and items?

[@sentokigames151]

@@rayhoodoo847 flipping TP items is not grinding either. You call that cheating?

[@rayhoodoo847]

@@sentokigames151 obviously it's not cheating. It's using in game built in processes and is not against any GW2 rules. Just like you can speculate on financial assets in real life, but are not allowed to print your own money.

[@sentokigames151]

@@rayhoodoo847 We can all have different opinions, and I do get where you coming from because I thought the same way. However when reporting people about this and nothing is done, it becomes very frustrating. But another thing is what about bugs? People abuse bugs and that's kinda cheating too. You think that is okay?

[@rayhoodoo847]

@@sentokigames151 Buddy, what are you on about? Starting to think you might be cheating or abusing the game yourself. It's very simple - if you are cheating, hacking, using exploits and bugs to earn money or gain significant advantage, it's bad, because you are screwing over people who are playing fairly.

[@jasminej9553]

Imagine being told where the security vulnerability is and couldn't care less cos it's not affecting the community that bad.

[@dathacks8434]

Dude... I've flat out told them exactly how to fix bugs like the one at the bounty board in Istan that you can't pick up due to the flag on the agent spawning as not interactable. Sent them the image of the agent info and everything haha. They don't wanna fix stuff in some cases.

[@Kantharr]

Sadly Anet is probably suffering from what other tech companies are dealing with which is poor priority management. Companies would compare the cost/impact of changes and determine whether it should be worked on immediately or "whenever we get around to it on our free time". I don't know what these vulnerabilities are but apparently their cost/impact isn't enough to be a high priority according to their standards. At my job I have a few projects on the backburner that I think would greatly improve our developing time and our applications but they were deemed low priority because they were high cost/little to moderate impact on the user's end. I personally think that any vulnerabilities, whether small or big, should be high priority because that would protect their applications and provide a better user experience.

[@Pirokh]

If it gives the player an advantage somehow, they'll fix that bug in a hurry. If it's just a qol thing they won't touch it. Whisper of Jormag still has bugs in the strike to this day that break the strike.

[@voidvector]

@@Kantharr It is not poor prioritization. Beyond a certain career level, fixing bugs doesn't get you promoted anymore because bugs rarely affects the financial bottom line. If you are above certain level (above senior), you are expected to tackle bigger projects, so wasting time fixing bugs would probably get you negative performance review. If you are around senior level, you are expected to be able to quantify the impact of your bug. So unless it is a juicy bug cause a lot of other problems, it is not worth fixing. This leaves junior engineers, but they often don't have the expertise to tackle the bug outside of their daily work. The only good place that fix bugs regularly are open source projects, but those are usually labor of love.

[@Kantharr]

@voidvector I am a senior software developer so I understand what you described and that is part of the process of determining priority level of fixes/features. Fixing bugs for a senior developer like me would be lower in priority versus a junior developer on the same team.

[@MrVyse]

Those Bots and Trainers are pretty common on any MMORPG. Automatic farm stuff to make real Money.. Selling map completions with those TeleportCheats to complete the map in a few Mins etc. but the worst Part in my Opinion are the nasty Cheats in PvP and WvW and i see it almost every Evening on Europe Server. Peoples Teleporting in WvW across the Map, Teleporting under the map every second to be kinda damage imune, going invisible as classes who clearly have no invis like WBs, Eles, Warriors, Necros etc. and easily walking up Walls what normally doesnt work at all.

[@BishieBishie]

The crazy part is, if you talk about it in map or team chat, you get called crazy or the classic "they are just good". There is a certain player on a certain already strong build that hits those macros in the video, runs after people just spamming abilities and its painfully obviously not their input, sometimes they even hit cooldown abilities twice, which I think is a happy accident of these scripts. Like to me its SO obvious, and far more common than people realise. Once one server had a lot of people from one discord cheating on it, I joked "I will walk out the keep and find a cheater" because one of the guys said its not THAT common, I walked out, and 2 players insta killed and finished me, at the end of the green keep bridge on EB, from under the floor....

[@anath9439]

Depending on context every class can access invis with field combos, it depends of the team comp (any explosion or leap in shadow combo field provide it, and it is not the only way to get it). It is especially easy if you duo queue ! For the walls, with a lot of training you can access areas you wouldn't expect, like on the top of the buildings in the djinn map. It is not easy but worth the time invested in custom match !

[@MrVyse]

@@anath9439 there is no way on earth that Ele, Willbenders, Warriors and Necros does have Smokefields. Im not dumb, i know how this Game works, even if i only have 3k ish hours playtime

[@anath9439]

@@MrVyse I am not telling you are dumb :( Im just telling you that even if they don't have them they can still use those of their teammates

[@anath9439]

As a WB I play with a rogue mate and our strat is to put me invisible so I can run down a few unsuspecting ennemies (shadow field + explosion on his bow, or i use my GS leap)

[@R-N-Gesus]

Awesome work as always Jaffa!

[@butterflysrage]

7:51 man, I thought I had an incoming call for a second there!

[@JaffasYoutube]

I tried to make it quiet D:

[@uniquename111]

imo it might not be as high of a gold gain and Arena Net might think that is ok to ignore, but what most people seem to forget is the afk farming and bots and new players running in to them. They then ask in chat what is this. We then have to answer it is bots and afk farming. And then they ask is this allowed and we answer no it is not but Arena Net don't do that much about it. Then the new players get angry and feel that this is a bad thing and why should they put in time and money in to a game where you can just bot your way to gold. That awkward feeling they get when they see this have made many new players pick another game. And yes there is bots in many games, but in GW2 they are in the open world everywhere where new players level and they constantly have the bots and afk farms in their face .

[@DHXPmusic]

Great video! I heard about some rotation bots for cerus cm for example, but its neat to see some more insights on this topic, very informative and even though I'd never touch a bot in this game, its refreshing that you stayed mostly neutral and didn't seem to have an agenda for this video other than being interested in the topic.

[@EQXaint]

well made and put together, i would argue to some point tho that the economy is influenced by bots, in a sense that even if the % is small, the gold over time is high, therefor they can influence bigger market things such as expensive infusions or / and needed materials, we saw how it was with Casiano tho that was heavily extreme, but he was a single invidual ( prob more inviduals involved ) but not as many as these bot users, yet still had quite an impact on economy during the time it was relevant. anyways great content, keep it up :)

[@nikkuku7021]

So the moral of the story is learn reverse engineering.

[@StagWithLag]

Only in Germany apparently 😅 I mean messing with someone else's IP for any sort of personal/monetary gain is wrong and would likely get you in trouble if the other party had sufficient reason and resources to deal with it

[@pookysgirl7535]

Okay, show pitch time: Bot Busters, a gaming procedural show that has a grizzled dev from GW1 paired up with a rookie that has only played since EoD (bonus points if you tie jade tech into it). Together they roam the game, hunting down bots and their developers... and the shadowy (possibly Mad) King behind it all.

[@exoqqen]

Great video, it was just a matter of time and i'm glad that your video is produced as objective as it is. The gatherbot that the reddit user took videos of is the same one that the developer you spoke to on discord voice is referencing whenever he says "nothing happens as long as you dont break the economy". It is also why MMOMinion shut down (in my opinion), this specific bot generated gold like no other. Ever since MMOminion is dead, the botting scene has died with it. While the new project has many talented developers and real passion, its missing the community of scriptwriters that MMOminion had. This is all to say that botting is a non-issue atm, nobody really wants to bother. It was good times.

[@goriq1000]

I think you're being too sympathetic towards the tool creators and tool users and a bit too hard on Anet. That being said, the tool creator you interviewed and by extension every person that develops tools like that is just incredibly selfish, ignorant and unethical in my eyes. It doesn't really matter what motive they might have had when they started developing these tools, not even supposedly noble causes, that I don't buy anyway. The tool developer you interviewed accepted that he's hurting an entire community for his own gain even though there would have been many ways to achieve his goal (learning new skills) differently that aren't harmful to a large amount of people. He claims to have played the Guild Wars games for a long time and love them but when the games ask him to actually play them, he doesn't want to. Online games and MMORPGs in particular are largely just work. Tasks packaged in a nice wrapper to make them look appealing or feel rewarding to certain people. I know this even as someone that loves playing MMORPGs. They are also, however, micro societies and virutal worlds. And just like every person that cheats and acts immoral in the real world is reprehensible, people that act that way in online communities (even from a meta perspective) have no excuse. And this doesn't even take into account that these people and the tools they create do actually harm the game as has been shown with hackers in sPvP or WvW. Even the "small" amount of people that can be estimated to be using these tools harm the game. It doesn't matter if they harm the game economy specifically or not or to what degree. Also, while I do accept that I am a very idealistic person and that many more jaded people will laugh at me for having values and promoting them, that's on you, sorry. You don't have to agree with me the same way I don't have to take anyone's excuses. I know that nothing will ever fix this problem and I've heard of the motivations of tool creators and cheaters before. I have been playing online games for close to 20 years at this point. But ultimately these people are selfish, ignorant, delusional and playing the wrong game. There are many people that think they love MMOs and online games but really they don't and instead of making everyone's life worse because of their selfish actions these people should reflect and understand that they're in the wrong place.

[@whitesmoke_live]

I can't agree more

[@nhimsim]

Couldn't agree more

[@Kaltsukka]

Unable to agree more

[@frankmills1917]

Well, he said they told Anet about the vulnerabilities in their code but they did nothing about it.

[@goriq1000]

@@frankmills1917 We have exactly zero insight into why that is and the video just makes an unfounded assumption as to why they didn't.

[@BBooshey]

This was fascinating! So glad you got to talk to actual devs of the scripts, I’ve always wanted to know WHY they do it. Excellent video ❤ thank you

[@dathacks8434]

Should just ask us :) I made most of those and am very open with my scripting and coding.

[@_Ligneel]

Bots in competitive modes are infuriating. So is anet not doing anything about them.

[@SmileyCurse]

There have been bots and cheats in PvP and WvW for years, Anet knows about them and they dont ban them.

[@natelidner]

luckily they dont pass silver rank

[@YouTubeChillZone]

@@natelidner they do atlist they used to i stoped playing at 2019 was fed up whit that

[@catactivationsound]

@@SmileyCurse the alleged reason anet doesn't do anything about cheats is because they are taking a cut from all this.

[@Shrek_The_Mathematician]

I'm against bots, teleports , automatic farming stuff, ultra speed, hitting from under the map, basically against stuff that really counts as cheating and give a real advantage over other players. However I really think that some of the stuff you showed could be useful from an accessibility perspective. For example having bigger/better name plates is nice to have for players with color blindness. Automatic rotation tools are a bit too much for my taste, but would be ok for accessibility purposes if they made it more like GSE addon in WoW (you bind your rotation to 1 button, but it only does the next spell in the sequence each time you press it, so it's still 1 button = 1 action). Also tools like automatic inventory management seem 100% fair to me, it's just quality of life improvements. The problem is that most of the "good" tools come in the same package as the "bad" tools. Also there seems to be 0 effort from the devs in disabling usage of their tools in PvP and WvW. I know it can be done because a lot of addons and blish modules are disabled when you enter in PvP and WvW.

[@Shrek_The_Mathematician]

​@@Candidly_Aloof I edited my comment to clarify, but i meant more in the vein of stuff that gives a definite advantage over other players, for example running at ultra speed and teleporting is basically the same as being invincible if ppl can never hit you, same if you can walk under the map and hit ppl from there.

[@Kensensus]

Release the Epstein list. I mean botter list. lol

[@StagWithLag]

Yeah lol! Let the community police/bully them

[@PARADISE-404]

I have been playing Guild Wars 2 since the first expansion, and honestly, I am happy to use a bot in the game. Once the Living World episodes and the main DLCs are completed, there is nothing left but intense grinding with the goal of obtaining legendary armor and/or the legendary weapons that come with it. These items are extremely time-consuming or require a lot of gold. Unfortunately, the auction house is completely monopolized by a base of players or guilds, making it extremely difficult and time-consuming for an average player to generate a lot of gold. Personally, I don't want to spend 3 months grinding and farming just to get an item for comfort and aesthetics. It's too much time to invest, so for me, botting has been my solution to make my progression more enjoyable.

[@jenfine]

I always report bots when I see them. That shit disgusts me.

[@lem0nification]

I really apreciate the fact it was aproached from engineering point of view rather then monetary.

[@pizzapasta8851]

nice that the bot-guy is german :D :D

[@lordflunder]

weirdly alot of afk farmers and multiboxers are too, not sure what's going on with that. too greedy or not wanting to actively play the game maybe.

[@Iriesu]

Top tier journalism

[@JoseValdeolivar]

In my personal experience, there's a point where gold has absolutely 0 meaning to progression of an account. I would definitely agree that the impact is negligible at best.

[@JustYetAnotherUser]

I understand people who are into programing and coding liking this sort of stuff because it helps them learn and improve their skills. But I'll never understand why the avg player might enjoy cheating. It ruins the game experience, they're not really playing it or achieving stuff with their own skill, what's the fun in it? Troling and pretending? What a waste of time.

[@arge12]

@@JustYetAnotherUser I get your point, BUT the automatic rotation stuff that he shows might be beneficial for some players to be able to achieve kills in raids/fractals because in some instances people kick you out if you don’t hit benchmark

[@EtherealBeing]

Let's take botting in osrs as an example. There are a lot of boring monotonous grinds involved in osrs to get to the fun content (bossing/raids), so if I have a job and a family, my ability to play the game is diminished, making those monotonous grinds longer than hoped for to get to the fun content. For some people with busy lives, skipping these boring grinds with a bot while we're at work makes the game 10 times more enjoyable once we can actually get to playing. MMORPG's tend to have some pretty terrible monotonous grinds, so if i can make real money irl while passively gaining xp in my game of choice it seems like a win-win. I can make my money to support my family and once i do get to sit down and play my game I actually get to do what i want and prefer to do. This is just one of the reasons a player may feel compelled to bot. Some would call it wrong and immoral, some would call it smart, it all depends on how you choose to look at it. Some might say it is a *waste of time* to play video games as a whole, y'know.

[@arge12]

@@EtherealBeing couldn’t said it better myself, then again that’s a point of view from us parents, younger kids that have all the time in the world and no responsibilities will not understand it.

[@Dreamonology]

because they profit off it, most cheat to sell currency or accounts or cheat in pvp to boost and sell titles.....if there is a market people will do it.

[@tonic316]

​@@EtherealBeingplay a different game. Mmos aren't for you if you don't have the time. Sorry not sorry. There are games for all types of play time. You decided to have kids so to be a good parent mmos are out. Try again when your kids are more self sufficient.

[@odin13th76]

Detective Jaffa going undercover for the good of the community and bringing us some interesting data and view. I do feel the daily active playerbase is probably more around 500k. Just a few sites have the range being too wide.

[@JaffasYoutube]

Almost every metric I could find on the active playerbase was a reference to MMOPopulation. It's not perfect, but it does at least give an idea. I would love if ArenaNet could provide player stats like many other MMOs

[@PhilosophicalSock]

@@JaffasKZbin gw2's active population is probably not high enough, so they prefer not to show weakness in the eyes of gamers or investors

[@JaffasYoutube]

@@PhilosophicalSock That is a fair assessment.

[@whoisime]

I don't think gw2 gets 500k active players a month. On the rare occasion anet do release stats we saw that something like season 4 only had 500k clears total over 3 years.

[@BkzReaper]

For many years. I tested flight, no clip, jumping, teleportation. It was fun not needing mounts and getting through jump puzzles for years but it isn’t good since raid bosses reset when you are not within range or visible line of sight. It was fun as thief though for pvp and wvw Competitive you have to be careful because crippling and slow effects will make your body distort, rag doll and glitch visibly obvious if using speed or teleportation. Anet only bans you if you email or receive a fully built legendary 3 months per legendary. You are only allowed to receive the components to build it. It was purely for educational and entertainment purposes and I don’t resort to such methods other than testing and research

[@filippogavelli690]

Very interesting, nice investigation!

[@kesamek8537]

I saw a WoW content creator recently exposing bots, he is getting irl downstate threats so bad he is deleting his channel. Blizzard doesn't care. Maybe ANet cares more about the welfare of players and puts effort into actual bot detection, we shall see. Please stay safe too.

[@iosa88]

This video made me finally manage to quit the game after playing since launch. Thank you.

[@MrVeps1]

I would personally never want to use hacks for a multiplayer game, but I don't really care all that much if the people using them aren't ruining the experience for others. This includes ruining the economy by injecting unreasonable amounts of liquid gold into the marketplace, but at least Arenanet has safeguarded against that sort of thing. It seems weird to have your DPS rotation on a macro, though, when there are builds delivering 95% of the tryhard, pianist DPS numbers using like three skills off cooldown.

[@stupedaso5046]

Says it's just for fun and charges a monthly. Yeah, cheaters suck. I dont see them often though. Seen a few fly hacks and the node teleports but it's rare. Spend most of my time in WvW. Nothing too crazy out there besides the occasional player attacking others from under the map. I think some hacking accusations come from misunderstanding the game mechanics. I know it's different but the afk necro farming is more obvious and rampant. Fun to mess with if you can kite an area boss to them. Funny watching them die. Sometimes you can get them in your turtle mount and take them for a joyride.

[@JaffasYoutube]

@@stupedaso5046 Completely agree. So many people instantly assume hacks when they see something they don't understand. I'm thinking of making a quick video on how to identify cheaters and also showcase many false flags people often mistake for cheating

[@tydeb1780]

I just dont understand how bots and tools that are that broken exist in this game... Its really sad the devs dont care about players or even try to, the game had so much potential allways has but i just dont get how they constantly drop the ball over and over... I realy wish more mmos would take a page and the only good page jagex has is osrs and its community involvment..

[@YouTubeChillZone]

Arena net is known for being able to make a product that is only half finished

[@penumbrareactor8500]

Story as old as time. They CAN'T get rid of cheaters, botters, exploiters etc... Every multiplayer game with a trading system has them, and their number is much higher than playerbase realizes

[@tydeb1780]

@@penumbrareactor8500 its more about how broken they are, most games i've played, if you are teleporting all over the map would be instant banned, here they are not at all

[@gamertubehd1303]

I will never understand players who seek to use cheats, like where is the pleasure of progressing and playing the game in that ?

[@Mohroka]

To be fair, if the in game economy was better, in how much gold you earn doing content, it really wouldn't matter.

[@Ciferz]

Ok so you'd rather pay a monthly sub fee? Because the game is f2p, meaning all revenue has to come from the shop. A lot of the shop revenue comes from people buying gold. And if the shop didn't provide much better gold per hour than most in-game content then nobody would buy gold there. Also, I hate to break it to you but WoW and FFXIV have just as many bots. You can see them everywhere, and the devs know about it too. Overall your argument is very weak.

[@Mohroka]

@@Ciferz I don't play WoW, or FF. I have played GW since the first one launched. I am very familiar with the grind, but buying gold for money is a VERY cheap excuse to not have a better in game economy. The argument FOR it is inherently weaker than the argument against it for the simple fact that many other MMO's just do not use or need it to make a profit. Including the first GW. Which had RMT issues and bots as well they just mattered a lot less.

[@sunnydlite-t8b]

It wouldnt change anything. Everything would just cost more.

[@TheHippyhopp]

This is against the terms of service. You are allowed to make tools and addons for Guild Wars 2, but you are not allowed to sell it.

[@jacobruiter592]

Ah the classic excuse of "tools made for friends with disabilities." I've seen the excuse used so many times by different hacking business creators I know it's horse shit now. And HOLD UP, 5K £ a month is NOT a livable income? They are essentially doubling the standard income.

[@JaffasYoutube]

@@jacobruiter592 It's €3000, €1500 after tax (if they were to transfer to personal accounts), and then split between two co-owners for €750/mth each. Certainly still livable if you are extremely frugal with your finances, but not as much you might originally think. Assuming additional slots are still full prices, €5000 wittles down to €1250, more livable but still not much.

[@jacobruiter592]

@JaffasKZbin okay yeah, not as much as I originally thought. But man, assuming you are already making the average and having that on top? They should be able to afford a mortgage, a car debt, food, and bills no problem. And knowing EU, they likely do not have/need a vehicle. They are living VERY comfortably.

[@JaffasYoutube]

@@jacobruiter592 I'm not going to leak that individuals job, but they would certainly be living comfortably. Due to that, I believe them when they say they haven't touched anything they've earned from licenses.

[@Schokelmei]

@@JaffasKZbin It's not 50% taxes. Let's say the earn 3000€, that's 36.000€/year. Without taxes for church you pay 6000€/year on taxes in that case. And in many cases they could substract around 30% of the profit for operating costs. So most likely it's an additional 30k/year of income.

[@samuraichicken2315]

"It's not cheating in PvE because it's not against a person but the computer." Yeah, right. It's the same logic people have when cheating in exams.

[@Frankenllama]

what i wanna know is what the ban rate is like for these tools.... in other words, how efficient is ANET at detecting these accounts/tools

[@JoseValdeolivar]

Well, someone wasn't paying attention to the video. The teacher said it was gonna be on the test.

[@Frankenllama]

@JoseValdeolivar i made the comment before I got to the part he speaks about bans, but still, a percentage figure as a total would've been nice

[@tinlizziedl001]

I had been playing GW2 since beta weekend events over a decade ago, and have seen freaking tons of bots in the game over the years. For me, it's demoralizing. As just a filthy casual PvE player, I hate seeing people just pop in/out all over the map, doing in a couple minutes what takes me an hour or more. My "labor" in the game is devalued as the materials I gather and sell on the TP become effectively worthless to other players since these bots flood the market with mats.

[@tophatturtle3019]

I think that using bots is bad for the game but unfortunately the inventory management bot made me pause for a second, I'll never use it because I think there is a very genuine chance that you could get your account banned for using it. But I think it goes to show just how poor the inventory system is in Guild Wars 2 that this bot feels neccesary for some players, like the gold farm bots are because people don't want to play the game, but I can understand someone not wanting to deal with the inventory system, I hope GW2 fixes their inventory system soon. Even if it's a patch job like adding a mastery or even just allowing a "list on TP at lowest offer" and removing the TP cap accounts over 1 year old.

[@JoseValdeolivar]

Inventory management is part of the game, just like world / zone completion is to completing a legendary weapon. I mean, there's a specific cheat for that very reason.

[@fylimar]

I don't get those people. GW2 is a game, where you don't have a lot of farming and are pretty free to do what you want and still there are bots for everything. Why evewn bother to play at this point? Winning a hard fight or getting a rare item through a quest/event etc. is so nice. I have zero sympathy for those cheaters and that excuse 'I made it for my ill relative' is just bs, sorry. And that German guy, you interviewed: I'm pretty sure, Anet could held him responsible in our country, if he would found out. I do think, those people are selfish assholes, even if there aren't too many. There are also the people who uses bots to crowd a map with a lot of characters, which leads to event maps being full for the player, who actually want to play the game and those people are mainly afking and not really helping (and I just saw, you made a separate video about those afk farmers) I do like, that you are documenting this in a neutral manner here though, so that we can make up our own opinion. I agree, that those people are probably few compared to the player base (and GW2 has the nicest community I ever encountered), but it is important to talk about it.

[@JoseValdeolivar]

Funny thought just popped into my head when you mentioned the ill relative. You know medicine is just cheating the disease right? What are your thoughts on that? Man, i just got in and this mofo has a P2W account. F**k that! -Virus after being killed from host, probably.

[@slytherben]

In WvW, if you're following a cheating pugmander it's kinda funny. If you're fighting against one it's a nightmare. IMO it's rare enough that it just gives us something to gossip about.

[@nucklepuckk]

I know of at least two pve-raid focused discords that have had to ban users for botting/macro-ing/cheating Temple of Febe LCM. Do you know anything about that? Information about it is hard to find and I feel strongly that their existence needs to be cracked down on by Anet.

[@JaffasYoutube]

@@nucklepuckk I know about that, and the leaders of those discords do take illegal 3rd party usage very seriously.

[@methanbreather]

this video made me subscribe. Thank you.

[@zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba0]

Holy shit. Quick Maffs after listening to the custom client guy. Say 300 users, bot for about 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. Not goin 24/7 but getting a bit of grind in during some chores. Say they make something like 53 gold an hour doin whatever their doin. Mash that all together. 4 a day, 5 a week, for four weeks, 300 people doin this ; Thats 1,272,000 G a month getting forced into the game from the ether every month. And this is only one small fraction of the whole botting population using an example of only 300, and assuming just on account connected at a time. Like godd damnnn

[@JoseValdeolivar]

And that's only 3.7% of the entire game population. Probably a drop in the sea at best.

[@zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba0]

@@JoseValdeolivar If only. Thats just from one service from one community. There's how many out there? How many communities offering something similar? Its a problem. Inflation is a real thing in a virtual world. These are the kind of decisions that will slowly force a paid progression eventually in game. We've seen it in real time with WoW and OSRS.

[@msk5992]

I made roughly 48-54k usd from gw2 alone, however one of my mains got banned cause it raised some red flags when you trade off 500 usd worth of gems to someone random, I have since then quit Gw2 and decided to focus on classic wow where you can basically make roughly 19-25$ an hour at this moment, copy that on multiple other chars and you can already see where this is going.

[@anotherClueless4]

hard to believe. how do you earn so much in wow?

[@leonardopupin]

@@anotherClueless4 probably some mythic raid seller shenanigans, prices are jacked up

[@Shrek_The_Mathematician]

@@leonardopupin classic wow has no mythic raid or dungeon

[@msk5992]

@@anotherClueless4 Selling gold that my bots farm on classic, hence why the 19-25€ an hour. Another way would be on retail via mythic raids that get sold off directly via money.

[@anotherClueless4]

@@msk5992 wow thats inspiring.. You use some self-made bots or pay for one's? And arent you worried about getting hacked or you have 2fa?

[@msiaci7297]

Anet should hire the hack dev as GM. Anyway for me JW will my last invest to anet.

[@JoseValdeolivar]

Invest? You own company stocks? That's pretty dope, my dude.

[@bamjo9]

3% is huge amount! Even 0.3% would be too big amount! That's the reason why me and several others left gw2 a couple months ago, cuz cheaters were everywhere and anet didn't care about anything, including the game. The interview pointed out out so clearly! "we sent them the fixes, but they didn't care"... Like wtf. Gw2 is really dead

[@JaffasYoutube]

@@bamjo9 When I think of a game with lots of bots, I think runescape. In comparison 3% is very small. I think I could have done that section better in hindsight. Any % of cheaters is too many.

[@bamjo9]

@@JaffasKZbin anyway I forgot to say "great video and amazing research and investigation skills". Really great job

[@ArthurYeh-f5c]

It's interesting to see how little people cares about this in gw2 while in other MMO people would probably go outrageous

[@Slvrbuu]

I've typically called software used to manipulate single-player games Trainers, and software which is used to manipulate multiplayer games Hacks. In single-player, you're not ruining the fun of anyone else, but it's like putting on training wheels. Whereas in multiplayer, you are ruining the experience of other people. So you're hacking.

[@henseltbrumbleburg3752]

Botting and cheating in games is amongst the lamest thing a person can do

[@JoseValdeolivar]

This i can definitely agree on. And yet, some people will always find a way to cheat, and that is something to always keep in the back of our minds.

[@Grisu.]

ill never blame the creator, only the user.

[@Dan-p2x1b]

Isnt it super sketchy to login using one of these clients though? They could hack you easily no?

[@Kensterrr]

Tbf, in regard to "they don't seem bothered because they were handed a patch to fix it", it might have put it on their radar while they work on their own patch for it. If they accept the patch from someone else, and anything goes wrong, they're liable. Not worth the risk. - someone that works in tech

[@JaffasYoutube]

@@Kensterrr As far as Im aware, It was a single line that wasn't crucial. This was reported many many years ago and still remains. I get not implementing foreign patches. You think they'd be able to verify and fix a single line.

[@sand9577]

Wait! So I don't have to grind my rotations?

[@Havie]

This is the exact type of video I want to see for Lineage2 but a focus on private server files/owners a well

[@geromewypukol]

Imagine running 5 clients boting fractals😮

[@zach_ry]

Great video, thank you.

[@Smokyz79]

ty for bringing this to light, even though Anet doesn't care ;_;

[@imadeyoureadthis1]

That was really interesting. I rarely find characters in pvp and wvw that teleport. I have seen bots around farming in some maps. It's a bit hilarious that anet is like "meh". I wonder if these bots can have an overall benefit for the gw2 economy. They increase supplies, which means that there's a high chance that prices will go down, which means that i can buy stuff at lower prices.

[@Rayowag]

I'm actually mostly neutral about PvE cheating unless it's duplicating items that are time gated or something else with a safe guard for the economy already built in. Teleport on maps is something I find funny considering the amount of waypoints tho lol. I don't see anything I do in the game in competition to cheaters, they exist in all MMOs and they'll just be there sometimes. There have always been mats that were more expensive and some less expensive too. Whoever gets disheartened from 3% of a player base doing what already happens in most games...they haven't seen some of the MMOs of the 2000s lol. GW2 Economy has more than enough things in it that will balance these cheat farmers out. In PvP and WvW I'm against it because you impact other players, but someone running a daily resource farm train or having their rotation on auto is fine as long as it's not clogging up a full map instance while I'm trying to run my favorite metas 😅 especially with resource nodes they don't take anything away from others...and if it tanks the price the only people a little pissed are the ones needing to change their gold farm rotation to a different material or meta 😅 most of these PvE cheats won't affect casual players in PvE otherwise imho. I'd be happy if some things tanked in price as a casual. It's wild how that hasn't fully happened for many mats even after over a decade of this game like in others. ANet has the power to limit this hardcore in PvP and WvW but here we are... I'll stay with my Blish HUD. It does say a lot that Anet gets told how they can fix a vulnerability and don't give a damn tho. Hard to respect that.

[@NecroViolator]

The dont just use 1 account.. they use MANY accounts with bots !... YES it DOES raise prices INGAME because those with Gold buy and resell for outrageous prices. ALSO its UNFAIR for those who play fair and pay for items with REAL MONEY !!... This is why my family and friends stop playing this game... To hell with cheaters online !...

[@siegfurd]

jaffas content 👑

[@shogenx]

spvp sucks ass even if people werent hacking it, it would still suck ass, the matchmaking is broken, the playerbase it sweatier then a fat man at the gym and the toxicity when a game is lost is cancer

[@Midaspl]

Well... Bots is one thing, but teleporting and stuff is completly anet's fault of having too much client-side agency in the game making stuff that should not be possible, possible.

[@Gawdzilla96]

Platforming the developer of a cheat to tell everyone arenanet does nothing is going to hurt the game in the long run. Now people know they don't care I guarantee the number of cheaters goes up. I came from tarkov with 2000hrs ish, that's exactly what happened when someone made a video about the cheaters on that.

[@johnxina1681]

game is dead anyway if arenanet does nothing

[@StagWithLag]

​@johnxina1681 you have the best KZbin profile 😂

[@ruperterskin2117]

Appreciate ya. Thanks for sharing.

[@Maebbie]

best ad/showcase for those things. tbh i dont even care that people do this, as long as its not done in pvp stuff, where it actually impacts others.

[@JaffasYoutube]

That appears to be the standpoint of many 3rd party tool creators. Much of what is obtained in GW2 is Account Bound, so if you cheat to benefit only your account, you're not directly impacting others. However when you start to buying/selling using cheating funds on the Trading Post, you are interacting with the economy which you could argue impacts other players. PvP and WvW are the clear aspects of the game where people are significantly affected.

[@Maebbie]

​@@JaffasKZbin I can see that, but gw2 is a game, our lifetime is limited, just have fun the way you like to. Some economy impact does not matter in the grand scheme of this mmo. The tool creator your interviewed seemed pretty chill, I am sure he has a lot of fun making the tool too.

[@dulcetwho5770]

@@Maebbie yea gw2 is a game so why are people choosing to cheat to get something they could otherwise have fun trying to earn while also disrupting the experiences of others to varying degrees? this way of thinking isn't the moral high ground you seem to think it is. if they feel like they have to cheat, which this is, to get things just because they're too lazy to... why bother playing at all? to look cool and pretend you actually worked for things? there's a reason bots and other 3rd party programs like them are and should be banned. it's wild anyone would actually see it as simple as "well life's short". it's a video game. stop playing it if you aren't having fun, and stop playing if you are so heavily addicted to fake clout that you have to pretend you earned non-existent things to gloat about. it's an mmo. a multiplayer game to put it simply. if people want to cheat just do it in a single player game where nothing gets disrupted. there is literally no defending this stuff.

[@JaffasYoutube]

​@@Maebbie Many MMOs have died out because bots have degraded the economy, thankfully GW2 isn't at that point so I do agree with you to some extent. But yeah, the developers were all pretty chill and shared the same idea that it's good fun to try learn new things and see what's possible.

[@skulpturostone4621]

​@@JaffasKZbinit doesn't matter if they are chill or not. They deserve IP ban + hardware ban. Period.

[@Keorl]

"not a living wage" ... 300 licenses at 10€ (up to 500x10), most probably undeclared, is definitely a living wage. Even if you declare it properly (and a lot goes to social security, and then income tax), you get about the minimum monthly. That's more than just a little bit of extra money.

[@JaffasYoutube]

@@Keorl We did talk about the tax situation which didnt make it into the video for privacy reasons. They'd get taxed about 50% and the 300 users for 500 slots was peak population. My quick napkin maths at the time came out to about 1,500 euro per month split between two the two who own the company. I know what the developer does for a living and they most certainly don't need the side money from licenses.

[@Keorl]

@@JaffasKZbin Thanks for the answer. That's exactly what I calculated too (1500/month), but I didn't take in account that he was saying "we", which implies that it's not the income for a single person. In France (where cost of living is close to that of Germany afaik), minium monthly wage is 1426€ after taxes atm. But if you split between 2 people, 750€ starts being quite low for a living income (if you don't have kids and live in some remote area -cheap real estate- on the basis that you get money from your own internet job, it can work, but realistically you won't do that, like the guy in the video having another "real" job, and it's not like 750/mo are secured in the long run). Even then, it's still more than a little extra money in my opinion :) 750 can make a real difference in living standards, being able to buy stuff you want, or building up assets (if you get that a few years, you can collect a very nice down payment for your first flat/house, or safely invest in one to rent out (even if the income from that isn't stable, the first years will secure the mortgage before you rely on rent)

[@ninjaneerz8350]

Who’s the guy in the interview

[@JaffasYoutube]

@@ninjaneerz8350 One of the co-founders and developers of a 3rd party gw2 client.

[@SuperDirtyChef]

Wow Jaffa. keep it up

[@bimbamboum3320]

i've seen egirls in some guilds that sell pics for ingame gold, so i'm not surprised to see these tools being used more and more haha honestly gg to this young german hustler, making a living wage off of that shid without being caught is a win. cheaters will eventually lead all these multiplayers games to their demise (well, gw2's already kinda dead), it's sad but hey maybe we'll get some kind of digital law enforcement in the future lol

[@aguy6833]

well you proved you're too good at journalism to get a job in the mainstream media :) good work

[@ginx2666]

Would it be possible to post an unlisted video with cheaters' names not being redacted? I get that plebbitors would ban it for "eNcOuRaGiNg wItCh hUnTs", but sapient people would appreciate knowing whom to watch out for and report.

[@SylvesterAshcroft88]

That's pure insanity.

[@enzovic5242]

ArenaNet don't really care if you're using any of these tools unless you don't advertise it. If they ban you, then banned you for advertising the tools, not because you're using them. Bots are not really a problem in GW2 since the important materials in creating a lot of gold are account-bound, meaning non-tradable. You have to do stuff yourself if you want to get stuffs. Anything you can bot farm will only make those items/materials more common which will reduce their value over time, and will only hurt the bot-farmer in the long run. So in a way, the GW2 economy is self-regulating, that's why the Devs don't really care much about it. Heck, they don't even care if the game story is good or not. lol. As for the PvP/WvW, the more you cheat, the less players will play the game mode, which you're only hurting yourself in the long run. They rather invest their time in creating skins, which the quality are getting better lately, IMO. Great video but this issue is not a major concern.

[@r0d0j0g9]

yea and what about pvp guys that one shot you 28k hp in 2 secs or less...

[@JaffasYoutube]

These tools are unable to modify server based attributes such as stats or power coefficients. There are some power classes capable of one shotting in PvP/WvW. This is an issue with game balance, not cheaters.

[@F1rstp3rson]

Why would they Ban people ? It's not in their interset to-do so. Keeps the Wales in the Game.

[@NecroViolator]

Im so tired of these bots crap ... This is why I quit playing the damn game !!....

[@Gnipahell1r]

Ok, so this bot programmer is German. Speaking about that and regarding taxes, 3k to 5k per month is a substantial amount of money, especially when not paying taxes. In Germany, you need around 8k before taxes to achieve such an income. Edit: ok, they claim to have formed an LLC. However, if living in Germany, they are still committing tax fraud, because the location of the LLC doesn‘t matter if all is done from Germany.

[@StagWithLag]

Yeah I was thinking the same. Also 3-5k/mth in Euros is a good income in many countries

[@Rayowag]

He's not evading taxes if (big IF) the business bank account is in the same place as the LLC. He said they haven't taken out the money because of complicated tax laws. The tax law being as soon as he takes it out it gets taxed as personal income. As long as the money isn't transferred to their individual personal accounts like a salary, they don't pay taxes as long as the yearly income and interest payments of the business itself is below the threshold you mentioned. I don't know how much they actually make, so if the LLC is in Germany it could be evasion. If the other member is in the US and the business is in that person's name there it's not evasion. Source: I founded a US nonprofit with a friend in her name and as long as I'm not salaried and doing it volunteer-based it's essentially the same principle. At the end of the day for an LLC it might be different, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is how they set it up.

[@StagWithLag]

@Rayowag RE the nonprofit in an individuals name sounds kinda sketchy. I hope you had a business lawyers advice on setting that up and those can still pay salaries, so no need to volunteer. Also usually as soon as money is exchanged for goods/service its income for the business and needs to be declared (be like a sole trader or business charging money for something, getting paid and putting it in savings and saying it wasn't withdrawn so no tax). It's probably not enough to warrant an official looking into it at this point in time.

[@deuscosta2111]

Welcome to gw2 pvp

[@tayalt2406]

Gamers ruining games

[@georgeristo]

I just find it funny that people will pay or use tools to not play a game

[@JaffasYoutube]

@@georgeristo It's cheaper and faster to bot on 5 accounts than to buy gems and convert to gold for legendary gear. It is a net benefit to them, but still funny that they do it nonetheless. Gacha games are viral for this exact reason.

[@MisterLatency]

​@@JaffasKZbin than they made legy sets and still dosnt play cause they continue to use cheats 😂 real gamers until they go outside😮

[@MageSkeleton]

it would be one thing if these accounts were being made use of on "F2P" accounts, limiting them to base world at the very least. But these accounts have the expansions and you KNOW they're not giving money for gems, they're doing the "in game gold for gems" exchange for all the gems for indestructible tools and such. So not only is this ruining the economy for everyone else, with artificial and ill gotten gains, but i'm sure it doesn't benefit Anet in any way. And this is unfair advantage, either GW2 implements these things as features for normal players to use, or bans them. And i mean IP ban.

[@WillianBusch-x9x]

Wdym? People still need to pay for the expansions. You can't buy those with gems.

[@flylowe46m38]

I just started playing free right now so hmm lvl 30 now I wonder

[@sorinnicolae5759]

Dupling items is still the best way to make money

[@johnxina1681]

ban all third party programs, integrate arc dps in the core game. PERMA BAN ALL CHEATERS AND BOTTERS. also dead game

[@StagWithLag]

I've always said that too, but I don't think anet could do it themselves. They'd need a donated anticheat 3rd party client

[@Schokelmei]

Ban ArcDPS with it. There is no need for a penis meter.

[@duckyorwell9416]

Gotten banned unfairly from games so often that I also said F it, let's bot the living hell out of this game when it is Me Vs A.I , it does get annoying and I also won't use it when it is Player Vs Player, I don't like to cheat there at all nor do I like encountering cheaters.

[@wizzkidd5896]

damnn... another form of hardcore!

[@whitesmoke_live]

Great video, but you seem to minimize the impact of bots on the economy. The average player generates about 5g per hour. If you have hundreds of bots producing 50-60g per hour, it has a significant impact on the economy. Not all materials are evenly farmed either, some items have incorrect prices because of these bots. If you add leeching, AFK farming, multiboxing, and RMT to the mix, you end up with a distorted economy. You also need to consider the negative effect these bots have on the community's vibe. People don’t want to engage in activities or games plagued by bots. (For example, the Bell Choir Ensemble is bloated with bots every year.) I don’t think bots have a marginal impact on the game, and Arenanet should put more effort into solving this issue. This reminds me of that kzbin.info/www/bejne/iJ-oqHyHht6VnpI

[@sexyplexie]

i am an "average" player and i might be lucky to generate 5G in a day. i've made more money playing the market than i do playing the game (on the order of thousands of gold) -- possibly more than i'd have made cheating, too. but agree, this vid seemed to understate the impact on the economy, for better or worse. for me the though damage to the spvp/wvw content is most-damning, because after you've gathered the gold, the gear, completed all the content the only fun thing left is competitive play.. and when someone teleports directly to you inside a cave with only once entrance (that you were watching) you realize it's not a level playing field. you can't compete with scumbag cheaters. scumbags.

[@JaffasYoutube]

@whitesmoke_live The vast majority of bots are from the client, which is 300 peak licences. It's impossible to know how many accounts each user has. Assuming 5 bots each for 8 hours of botting daily @50g/hr, this hypothetical would be 600,000g per day. We don't know the games total daily gold generation so we can't make a good estimate. I dont mean to minimise it. Just Instead of making a huge fuss over hypotheticals, I just put the information out there and allow viewers to make their own decisions.

[@frostdracohardstyle]

He isnt talking about liquid gold mate. he's talking about gold value. The average player generates more than 5g an hour. Check your premises.

[@vidaliver1447]

@@JaffasKZbin >> Assuming 5 bots each for 8 hours of botting daily @50g/hr, this hypothetical would be 600,000g per day. We don't know the games total daily gold generation so we can't make a good estimate. ^ here, you're doing the same mistake again. The gold from junk items you earned in the fractals =/= gold you get from selling mats your bots farmed. Why? Because mats are not liquid gold, they are traded by other players too and the more mats you shove in, the less value others get from them. If these cheaters were farming !!!liquid gold!!! and the gold gem convo wasn't affected by players then no one would've been giving a second thought about them. These people do not just get rich, they also make other, normal players less rich, that's where the problem is laying. Same thing with PvP/WvW bots. And Anet does a very poor job on it and literally promotes the gold farm race between players. I mean, how hard would it be to make gold to gem conversion a static price? Every hour you play slowly becomes less valuable due to mat farms, every gem these bots buy denies you of your gem. To be fair here, i get these people, they are getting scammed by this bad game economy design and development and they scam their way back through it.

[@whitesmoke_live]

​@@JaffasKZbin I don’t believe the vast majority of bots come from that client. Yes, they are more organized, but they are not the only fish in the sea. There are a lot of people who create their own script bots using simple macro apps or by coding their own more sophisticated software. Then, they keep the value for themselves or engage in RMT (Real Money Trading). While the majority of people using these tools seem mentally limited, some others use them on the trading post to earn thousands of gold each day. The impact of these tools is far greater than just simple auto-farming. If you look at the trading post, you will notice crazy numbers of offers (which would take you hours to match manually) and massively discounted resources for sale. Take minor runes and sigils on the TP, for example-it’s entirely manipulated by bots. The same applies to items like Gifts of Wintersday, which are mostly generated by bots. They crash the festival economy and then reduce the player engagement.

[@gmh3393]

Anet should be hiring these guys for their bot busting team

[@dathacks8434]

Anet doesn't want help, I've sent them detailed breakdowns of bugs I've found and the agent info while coding my ACR and bots and and they still didn't fix the bugs lol

[@heraldofthemetalgods2620]

cool vid ty

[@ediGoesPRO]

08:30 he german o.o

[@RPGCrash]

ohhhhhh based

[@katsoutofthebox]

So now we know they are german :D

[@SatoMalSoMalSo]

gj dude

[@gkoogz9877]

Wow

[@dathacks8434]

no this is for gw2 not wow :P