It just means 'away from keyboard', ie; using any sort of automation or trickery to farm without actually playing.

Aha! So it's some kind of program that auto farms material nodes (like iron ore) while the player is AFK?

I've seen that too, players who just stand over a node spawn and don't move for hours.

I thought it meant players who AFK at dolmens.

Talking about dolmens, is AFK XP Farming allowed? Cause there's a player on the EU server (I won't name him) who's been doing this for weeks.

He either starts a dolmen group or joins one, he then spends hours and hours just standing there at the goat dolmen. He never moves or helps. The thing that baffles me is he never gets auto kicked from the game and on the rare occasions that he dies (red circles don't seem to hurt him much) he instantly resurrects.

I've been thinking for some time that it's very fishy and was wondering if I should report him. But I'm not sure if this is against the rules or not.

Klixen wrote: »

Aha! So it's some kind of program that auto farms material nodes (like iron ore) while the player is AFK?

It does not have to be a program. There are "mechanical" ways to do it, too.

Yes, it was widely used at dolmens, and why there is a static charge that builds up around the anchors, now. (I assume the same applies to geyers?)

Klixen wrote: »

Talking about dolmens, is AFK XP Farming allowed? Cause there's a player on the EU server (I won't name him) who's been doing this for weeks.

He either starts a dolmen group or joins one, he then spends hours and hours just standing there at the goat dolmen. He never moves or helps. The thing that baffles me is he never gets auto kicked from the game and on the rare occasions that he dies (red circles don't seem to hurt him much) he instantly resurrects.

I've been thinking for some time that it's very fishy and was wondering if I should report him. But I'm not sure if this is against the rules or not.

The only "AFK activity" that is not a violation of the ToS is the inactivity timeout. As I read it, if you are away from the keyboard, your character had better be doing nothing.

There have been a number of people who have claimed various things about AFK bans and suspensions here in the forum. Players have claimed bans and suspensions for watching movies, doing homework, and other things while playing. I seem to recall one where sorc pet aggro was blamed while AFK. ZOS usually does not confirm or deny, so we are left with anecdotal, probably wildly inaccurate, testimonies.

The best rule of thumb is that, when logged into the game, more than 50% of your attention needs to be on the game while your character is moving, collecting materials, gaining XP, fighting monsters, or otherwise actively playing.

As for that guy at the dolmen... Something is not right when the player is apparently AFK, yet immediately resurrects, and does this for hours. I would be reporting them for cheating and let ZOS figure out the details.

Klixen wrote: »

Aha! So it's some kind of program that auto farms material nodes (like iron ore) while the player is AFK?

I've seen that too, players who just stand over a node spawn and don't move for hours.

I thought it meant players who AFK at dolmens.

Talking about dolmens, is AFK XP Farming allowed? Cause there's a player on the EU server (I won't name him) who's been doing this for weeks.

He either starts a dolmen group or joins one, he then spends hours and hours just standing there at the goat dolmen. He never moves or helps. The thing that baffles me is he never gets auto kicked from the game and on the rare occasions that he dies (red circles don't seem to hurt him much) he instantly resurrects.

I've been thinking for some time that it's very fishy and was wondering if I should report him. But I'm not sure if this is against the rules or not.

its multiple levels, one is being member of an group, if they kill something you get xp even if not doing anything.
This is legal but you will be logged out for inactivity, but going out for a smoke is no issue outside of be careful so spawning enemies don't kill you.
Illegal:
Rubberbanding: simply locking down the fire key for repeated heavy attacks. works better on sorcerer because pet do extra damage, most common on console.
Macro: programable mouse, keyboard or controller, works like rubberbanding but you can now have an rotation with various skills, activate an node or rotate.
This is banable but probably not an permanent one the first time
Bot, this uses an 3rd party program who read game data and let you run around in an area attack monsters or picking resource nodes, this could probably give an permaban on first time because the effort to set it up.

Simply standing around idle won’t give you anything. So you either have to be in a group (shared XP there) or run a program. The former is terribly ineffective because of the inactivity logout and the latter is a Terms of Service violation.

lordrichter wrote: »

Ban them all!

Yeah, sorcs 1st, then NBs

People may argue that rubberbanding isn't cheating...

for me it's just stupid when you see like 20 bot standing at wolfes in bethnik farming them

The Static Charge effect at dolmens isn't very effective in some popular places, provided you have enough health. There's often enough healing being thrown out to top you back up.

In places like Alik'r, I would sometimes go up to one of the dolmens, wait for it to pop, smack one of the cultists (or kill the group if no one else is around yet), then just stand on the sidelines while the Giant Wave of Players Grinding Dolmens does all the work. It's impossible to get much XP from the actual mobs, so it's only worth getting the XP at the end, plus the chest for completion.

I tab out and read or watch YouTube while waiting for it to finish. Most of my characters have enough health that they don't die to Static Charge before it resets, but I may toss out a healing circle or Meditate for lower-health characters.

It also doesn't trigger unless you've done damage to something (thus become eligible for credit at the dolmen when it breaks). So you can stand there and do nothing (but also get nothing).

Turelus wrote: »

The last one being the one which normally raises the question of how you tell the difference between someone using a rubber band and someone holding a trigger on a control whilst watching TV.

There have been cases in the forum where claims have been made that ZOS did not believe the player when they said they were doing this. I think that puts it into the "beware" category, since it is almost impossible for the player to prove that they were there, if ZOS gets it into their head that they were not.

Numerikuu wrote: »

AFK farming? So that's what they call botting now?

Yes, because on consoles it also includes putting something on your controller to keep things moving which is technically not botting because it doesn't use a program.

hamgatan wrote: »

*sigh*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWq3UxLqStI

Reminds me of D2jsp all over again except it doesn't recreate games and go on a random run lol

I've seen several instances of bots on PS4, both servers. Most notably, Betnikh and Camlorn. So yes it's quite possible.