Tree of Savior Forum

The clear legality of AFK auto attacking

General Discussion
#1

Hello everyone,

I see that there has been a lot of debate regarding AFK auto attacking. I am writing this article to address and clear the air on the legality of AFK auto attacking. Now before reading this I will tell you that the facts I am going to present will heavily support AFK farming, but my argument will not encourage or discourage this.

Terms you need know before you continue reading:

  1. AFK = Away From Keyboard
  2. Botting = The use of an illegal third party software to play the game on a persons behalf and provide an unfair advantage in terms of gameplay.
  3. Auto attacking (in respect to the topic) - The holding down of the “attack” key with the use of an object.
  4. AFK-AA - Abbreviation for AFK auto attackers
  5. Grinding (in respect to the topic) - The process of engaging in the repetitive task of killing monsters to level up.
  6. Mob - A large group of monsters

Now let’s address the most common issues. I will try to cover as many negative points that people throw out as I possibly can, among other potential issues.

Point 1 - AFK-AA stealing spawns
Most people are angry at AFK-AAs for camping and killing a spawn repeatedly for long hours and therefore inhibiting their ability to level. When regular players play the game and grind, they will also undoubtedly camp at spawn. The advantage is actually with the players who are not AFK as these players are able to use skills and properly target monsters as compared to players who are attacking aimlessly with regular attacks. AFK-AAs will have a lower “time between kill” ratio.

Point 2 - These players aren’t even playing the game
People have paid money for this early access, downloaded the game, created 1 or more characters and logged in with them. By definition said person is playing the game.

Point 3 - These people are getting money and items without putting time and effort into the game
While this statement is true, but there is no line in the TOS gameplay policy that states a player can only gain money and items by being present in real life when their character kills monsters. Take this scenario, you are playing the game regularly and you suddenly had to use the rest room and while you were using the rest room your pet killed a monsters. Does this constitute that what ever items/money you receive from the monsters was not legally obtained?

Point 4 - They are ruining the game
Let’s see if this is really ruining the game.
In “Point 1” I have already cleared the air that AFK-AAs are actually at a disadvantage as they are not killing spawns as fast and regular players can/are. Also, regular players will also camp at spawn point and will in fact, by using their skills, clear the mobs faster than any AFK-AA could. Hence, in this aspect AFK-AAs do not ruin the gameplay.

I would says that the biggest gameplay aspect that AFK-AAs pose is the sociability aspect of TOS. They will not party or respond to questions.

Point 5 - Addressing the TOS Gameplay policy

  1. You shall not continuously act in a way to disrupt other players’ gameplay.
  2. Answer: You are killing monsters at a lower speed than regular players. I believe this does not disrupt players in anyway. Refer to “Point 1” for a more detailed explanation.
  3. You shall not abuse or exploit abnormal AI, items or quests to obtain illicit gains.
  4. Answer: You are attacking monsters using the built in game attack function and camping at spawn like players who are not AFK-AAs, this is neither exploitation or illicit.
  5. You may not engage or attempt to engage in any activities that might hinder the natural progression of the Game
  6. Answer: Please refer to “Point 1”.

Point 6 - Reporting AFK-AAs as bots
TOS’ policy on reporting bots as of 11th April 2016:
(Policy Start) As such, we are working on implementing the much requested bot report function. Not only that but we’re also developing and testing a system to detect bots faster.

Through the reporting system, you will not only able to select and report suspected bots, but you will also be able to report items in the market suspected of being part of RMT (e.g. low-value items sold at unusually high prices). Through this system, GMs will be able to catch more bots by prioritizing and reviewing cases reported by users.

However, we know that this system can be misused or even abused and are in the process of polishing rules to regulate the system. We wish to provide merits to those who accurately report bots, and penalize those who misuse the system to report innocent users. This will most likely be a constantly updated set of rules since there will always be different cases. (Policy end)

We can clearly see that TOS’ will verify bot reports to confirm if the player was really botting (Refer to Botting definition at the start of the article), so if the argument I have put forth is valid reporting AFK-AAs will actually result in TOS punishing you for abusing the bot reporting function.

Well that’s the end of my extremely lengthy article. Thank you very much for reading through all of it.

I know this will garner a tremendous amount of hate, but I believe that I have put forth valid point in light of the topic.

Please argue back with me (professionally) as I know I might not have addressed this topic from every angle.

Cheers and have a fun in TOS.

#2

It takes one try of “Immanuel Kanting” to take out your article and show that it must be flawed.

You can use the categoric imperative and simply check if the idea could stand as a rule for everyone. So lets see:

  1. Everyone will finish their game session by going somwehere and holding Z for several hours.
  2. Suddenly you are looking at 2-3 people per ‘spawn’ trying to sneak in more dmg and get the kill.
  3. Ups - being active and using skills suddenly isn’t fast enough anymore against several AFK auto-attackers.
  4. Now actually playing people are hindered, since they can’t switch channel either since these spawns will be camped aswell.

This is the nice way of showing you that everything you base your argument on (10 point 1 references or so) is already flawed by the assumption that I can only afk-z mobs of my level, when I could just go into an area where I onehit to e.g. farm or whatever. If you had hundreds of lvl 200+ players going into the first zone for easy z-money farming there suddenly is no killing slower anymore.

Additionally I doubt you will gather tremendous hate, because this isn’t a big issue right now since not everyone is dumb enough to do this.

2 Likes
#3

Hey Pappus,

Thank for the great feedback. but please see below for my reply.

  1. Everyone will finish their game session by going somwehere and holding Z for several hours.
    Bell: Yes people will stop playing, but if someone decided to play say 7 hours straight, wouldn’t that be possible and pose the same issues as an AFK-AA? I know the percentage is low, but it exist.
  2. Suddenly you are looking at 2-3 people per ‘spawn’ trying to sneak in more dmg and get the kill.
    Bell: Even non AFK-AAs have to contest spawn with other non AFK-AAs.
  3. Ups - being active and using skills suddenly isn’t fast enough anymore against several AFK auto-attackers.
    Bell: If you can’t beat an AFK-AA then you surely would not be able to beat a regular player
  4. Now actually playing people are hindered, since they can’t switch channel either since these spawns will be camped aswell.
    Bell: Good spawn will always have players and even botters. There will be no channel without people or botters camping spawns.

Please do comment back.

#4

The problem is, AFK camping is continuous. They are killing mobs in the same spot for a considerably longer time than active players. They attack enemies that other players are currently also attacking, or intending to attack, which the AFKer does not need for quests yet the other players might. That is much more disruptive than an active player unless it’s clearly intentional griefing.

An active player would take a spawn, get what they need, and leave. This frees it up for other active players to do the same. AFK farming does not.

While being AFK is not as good as being active, you cannot compare the two over an equal amount of time across a short period (less than a day). An active player can’t be playing 24/7 without a decrease in efficiency or sharing the account. No such restriction applies to AFK-AAing, so they can do more total damage and clear more mobs with just autos than an active player could by using skills and taking breaks.

Finally, “normal” players can, at the end of their active play session, opt to also AFK-AA until they actively play again. This is strictly more than they could accomplish by simply logging off instead. The advantage is very obvious.

3 Likes
#5

Why would I be able to beat 2-3 autoattackers on any particular mob?

We can take my priest for example I don’t have ranged attack skills so the mob spawns immediatelly it is hit by an arror and runs towards the archer/mage. I might be right next to it by coincidence, but most likely I am in no position to autoattack yet so I keep running while the archer accumulates the advantage. He won’t be z-afking a mob he needs 50 AA to finish. More likely those are mobs that need 4-5 hits at the most while I need to finish the mob before he has done half of that to get the kill for myself instead.

Now we can take my w3/e2. My single target options aren’t great, but yeah technically I could meteor the first on 1:30 cooldown to claim that glorious one mob or magic missile and be out for 20s afterwards. I could of course hope that my autoattacks deal more damage aswell.

Other skills would be sleep, electrocute (not useable), Providence (not useable).

Remember that is against a single autoattacker that afks. When there are 2-3 per spawn, then suddenly there is 0 chance to get it at all since the 50% threshold will immediately be met and whoever gets the second shot in wins.

That is simply why it cannot stand as rule for all - there are games that are designed around doing things while being AFK, but this isn’t one. You can accept that or not, but at this point arguing further doesn’t help. You don’t seem to be suspectible to this kind of logic.

Every rule has to stand the test of what if everyone does it per definition or it cannot be a rule.

#6

It wouldn’t, as that 7-hour player would spend his time actively hunting mobs around his own level range if he wanted to farm Silver. Going down to low-level maps and doing what he would normally do if he went off the computer for a few hours (AFK-Z), without him actually leaving his keyboard, would be a severe waste of time.

Which makes it even worse to add a 3rd variable to the mix. If we already have active players and scripted bots circling areas ready to attack mobs on spawn, then why should we let AFK-Z’s slide in too? This is partly IMC’s fault for not changing the system to prevent this from even being possible, even though they’ve changed the popular low-level map Elite spawn that people used to AFK-Z on back during iCBT2 to prevent this so it’s hard to figure out what their stance is on the issue.

2 Likes
#7

Great points guys. How about we debate from a different angle.

AFK farming means you hog the farm and it is an a$$hole-ish thing to do, but is it breaking any of the gaming policy set by TOS?

#8

Didn’t read (sorry too long) but I think I already know what he’s saying, which shouldn’t be (but is easily) misinterpreted by people who despise AFK/AA farmers.

OP is probably just pointing out that it is just simply not against literal rules set by IMC and usually doesn’t fall into the technical definition of what a ‘bot’ is… or that the action is at best in a very grey area because of a lack of clear policies set by IMC.

I don’t think they are defending these people for being as sholes or not ‘playing’ the game, probably just sick of inaccurate language (ie. people calling them bots when they are by a technical definition not, or calling them out for breaking rules which don’t exist because it’s a grey area and the team didn’t think of writing a line about it in T&C).

Neither are they saying that it shouldn’t be in T&C. Just that it’s not right now.

(Although OP could have meant an entirely different thing, since I didn’t read it all)

#9

Hey Kitty,

You are right. I am not saying that AFK farming is the right thing to do. My title was to indicate the legality of it. I do think it can be a huge problem when the game goes f2p, but I am sure the admins will address if it does become an issue. But AFK farmer should not be treated as botters as they do not currently pose the same level of gameplay interruptions as botters do, because AFK farmers are not hacking.

#10

Somebody obviously doesn’t realize IMC made Granado Espada, the king of AFK MMOs. You could take your family into an open field and hit Space and they’d automatically attack and heal until they died. It was the best game ever for that.

Although that also had open PVP so you could come back and see that somebody killed you 15 minutes after you went to sleep.

The point is that you’ll never be as effective AFK than being actually there, and they did implement things like durability to make it harder. That and on higher level maps it’s impossible because nothing spawns.

1 Like
#11

I think afk auto attacking shouldn’t be considered as illegal bots because it doesn’t use any 3rd party program but also should be fixed by IMC because it is their fault…
Would it be hard to make them stop attacking after some time? It wouldn’t affect active players because those don’t attack constantly anyway.

#12

I submit that weighing down your AA key with a rock, tape, or jamming a quarter into the keyboard is actually utilizing a 3rd party to gain an advantage. The advantage being: gaining money or experience without actually playing the game. Rocks in the real world are outside the jurisdiction of the game.

It’s done, there can now be no AFK AAers.

#13

You are incorrect, the definition of botting extends to any progression gained while not present, having your character “botted” or act as a “robot” autonomously. Now it is ultimately up to IMC wether or not they consider afk auto attacking botting, but essentially your debunking of the idea that afk auto attacking is not botting and therefore not illegal because it is less efficient than playing the game is a mute point and useless. It is 90% fallacy and based almost SOLELY on opinion and belief. You referred to point 1 which was based on no facts and nothing more than an opinion.

I personally don’t care either way as they don’t really affect me, but IMC made and owns this game, we are do not need people to explain legality and banning policies who does not work at IMC, because in short, you know nothing more than anyone else.

2 Likes
#14

Just switch/shuffle between channels.

#15

imagine we all camp a map with valuable items

#16

[THREAD OWNER UPDATE]

From ICM’s “About the Bot Report Function” article (dated 19-Apr-2016), they have declared AFK attacker not the same as botters.

Link - https://treeofsavior.com/news/?n=377

"However, should the reported account be declared clean, the reporter’s RII value will be negatively affected. The RII is not a simple difference between the numbers of accurate and inaccurate report counts, and the algorithm we use to determine the final RII value can be changed in the future. Therefore, you should not report bots if you’re unsure of their offense. The system can backfire on you if you’re not careful.

For example, a player going afk while leaving a heavy object on the attack key has to be handled differently from regular bots. The classifier can deem the afk player innocent from looking at the honest play records, so afk players should not be reported using the report function as that will work against your RII."

#17

Bell, I would like to indicate that your own post, while it does say that players killing in an AFK state should not be reported using the in-game system, it DOES indicate that they should be reported using another method, that they will still be handled in a non-autonomous way. Your own quote establishes that they are completely willing to punish players who grind in an AFK state, but that the way to report them is much more difficult.

This means that yes, AFK Grinders will not get caught as much and as often, but they are still punished when caught. This doesn’t even establish details on my own perspective on the right and wrong of AFK grinding, which in the end doesn’t matter. If the company says it is punishable when caught, it’s bad.

2 Likes
#18

Hi Lanie,

Thanks for your comment. I did not say that IMC would not punish AFK attackers. I only pointed out that they are not punishable in the same way botters are. All we know is that at the moment IMC is not taking any action because they have not deem AFK attacking illegal, hence my argument. When IMC has officially deemed AFK attacking illegal then my post will be void.

Hope that clarifies my post above.

#19

The game itself has its own AFK farming mechanist, called pets. you dont even need to put something in your Z key. Anyone can buy his/her own pet and just stand wherever he/she pleases. It’s part of the game and not against the rules (contrary of botting).

#20

I did this afk autoattacking thing last night. For over 15 hours, I went from 33 to 45. This was in tenet garden.

I only kept one tiny area clear of enemies. It was such a small area I was keeping clear that its negligible unless it was a full party of archers/wizards positioned in a way to keep the entire area cleared.