Insane amount of bots farming low level area's, please do something.

I have recently noticed a lot of 'POE is dying' threads, at the same time I have experienced a large decline in the use of general chat in both default and hardcore (More so on defult). I thought for a while that perhaps the population was indeed thinning down. Then I sat in town for a while in normal difficulty (lioneyes watch) and saw something very scary.

Over the course of an hour I noticed a constant stream of, what I can only assume are bots or very precise low paid 'orb farmers'. These 'players' logged in in groups of 10 or more. They ran to the vendor, the stash then the way-point. The same path was used each and every time.
The names of these characters were always along the lines of 'ebhg' 'jfngd' ifhn' etc, and the level was never more than 30.

Twice I noticed a stream of new 'players' come in from the starting beach area, run to the stash and then out the main exit. In under an hour I counted more than 100 different 'players' doing this in one lioneyes instance (towns are also instanced as many know so this must be happening in many instances). What I assume is happening is that these 'players' have found a way to automate game-play, they have hundreds if not thousands of bots running on low level area's to farm orbs.

It has reached the point there are now so many bots running that the 'global chat' channels are saturated with more bots than players.
Please GGG find a way to detect these bots (account repetition detection, client memory scanners) whatever it takes.

the public bots are coming

I'm actually surprised they haven't even stopped the first wave yet. It's the same program from awhile ago. They stop in the same locations as before, same direction, same pauses, everything.

My question is, do you have a way of detecting these bots and being able to differentiate them from real players?

Thanks GGG! You guys are awesome & really quick response.

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My question is, do you have a way of detecting these bots and being able to differentiate them from real players?

Typically game companies won't so much as give a whiff of an answer around these sorts of questions. I believe, however, that Chris did mention the other day that they are banning 1K accounts per week. I'll infer from that they have automation assistance at the very minimum.

--C

I'm not going to comment about the bots, because they are being handled, but I will comment about the software which people choose to run on their computers. Unless you hear a trusted (GGG) developer approve of the source code, it's very likely loaded with a virus. These are not scare tactics, I have done my research personally. You should never trust an anti-virus program to safeguard you against sketchy programs, most of these niche viruses are still undetected. Don't trust software you find on the internet unless it's open source and peer reviewed (or you wrote it).

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TechnoMage wrote:

I have experienced a large decline in the use of general chat

I almost never say a word let alone read or have general chat open.
Most people play this way. General chat is a cesspool of nonsense, pie vs cake conversations, insults, internet meme's, kids, you name it.
There's zero reason to have general chat open,ever. I'd like to think anyone with a brain realizes this.

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DamageIncorporated wrote:

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TechnoMage wrote:

I have experienced a large decline in the use of general chat

I almost never say a word let alone read or have general chat open.
Most people play this way. General chat is a cesspool of nonsense, pie vs cake conversations, insults, internet meme's, kids, you name it.
There's zero reason to have general chat open,ever. I'd like to think anyone with a brain realizes this.

So you've had bad experiences from general chat and you no longer use it, yet you want to lecture those who have far more experience of using it?