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• PC/Mac: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – November 11, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 9:00AM EST (14:00 UTC)
• Xbox: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – November 13, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EST (17:00 UTC)
• PlayStation®: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – November 13, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EST (17:00 UTC)
So, now that ALL the bots are back.
pknecron
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I think it is time we came up with a better solution. We can't STOP them, that much is obvious, but we might be able to CONTAIN them.
I think we need to make all crafting mats vendor for 0 and boost the gold from mobs by 3 to 5 times what it is now. I don't really like this idea, but it should in theory stop the bots from node farming and push them all into pub dungeons and Crosswych-like areas where they are a pain but at least contained.
Does anyone else have any other potential solutions. I realize mine is pretty drastic, but since enforcement is not working containment seems the only way.
I think we need to make all crafting mats vendor for 0 and boost the gold from mobs by 3 to 5 times what it is now. I don't really like this idea, but it should in theory stop the bots from node farming and push them all into pub dungeons and Crosswych-like areas where they are a pain but at least contained.
Does anyone else have any other potential solutions. I realize mine is pretty drastic, but since enforcement is not working containment seems the only way.
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Dagus✭✭✭enforcement is not working because there isnt a whole lot of it going on.
they need to put their team on shifts in the game checking for all those bots that we the players are reporting.
if Chad does 7am-8am and Bob does 8am to 9am and Larry does 9am to 10am
you could take 1 hour per day out of 24 people (hell, just 8 people making up only 8 hours a day from a standard work day would be great)
RAWR!!!4 -
ZiRM✭✭✭✭✭
✭Shouldn't they of come up with a solution by now?Want to become Vampire? 5k @ZiRM in game.ESO Server Status. ( ^_^)o自自o(^_^ ) SkåL!!!!!3 -
Ackwalan✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭There is not a one shot magic bullet that will get rid of bots once and for all. ESO needs to continue with their banning, updating and enforcing of rules. Players need to continue reporting, and more importantly, not buying their gold.8 -
Vorkk8383✭✭✭They could be slowed by A LOT of zeni only would put GM's on game 24/7 for a few months. They REFUSE to answer why they won't do it. There's a GM in game every so often for 15 minutes at a time (laughable at most) to mainly shut us up.
I don't think they have the personnel to give us GM's in game 24/7 and with all the player defection, they may not have the money to hire people anymore. It's really the only thing I can come up with since they choose to remain silent on the issue. If they had any good reason, they would of likely already said it to shut up the proponents of this solution.
BTW, anyone who advocates this solution KNOWS it's not going to get rid of ALL the bots. It's not our first rodeo (in most cases). However, if they get rid of 25-50000 accounts in a month or two, that's gonna make a HUGE dent in the bot accounts. It will also teach them not to be so brazen about it. These people aren't stupid. They hack, cheat...but when they are able to use hacks and cheats that are 12 years old and Zeni has NO WAY to counter it, they laugh their asses off and do whatever they want.
I'm sure that Zeni has gotten rid of maybe a few thousands of them using other solutions so far. Clearly, a few thousands doesn't even make a dent.
A game where there are GM;'s on 24/7 for 1-2 months and then maybe once a week for the first 6 months after that will notice a HUGE reduction in bots and a huge increase in player satisfaction. Yet, they have so many issues and I feel like they all just want to give up and cry at times...so I don't think that bots are a huge priority anymore. Especially not after the last ''patch''.
If they don't stop putting out more content (they can create it but not put it out-you can't stop other teams from doing what they need to do which is create) and fix the mess that they've made so far, this game is going to go from one of the most hyped up games to one of the most hated pretty fast. I've even seen total fanbois leave so far because they just didn't know what to say to defend them anymore. And yes, we all realize that the game is only 2 months old. Well out for 2 months. Things were broken in BETA and Alpha and never looked into yet the game was released with all these issues. So 2 months old only doesn't quite cut it for me anymore. Btw, I wouldn't still be here if I didn't care. There are aspects of this game that I love but it's getting tougher and tougher to love when there's so much going wrong. I'll support them until there's not enough love to cover for the issues. We all have a different threshold for that. What we know is that there's been a HUGE exodus of people already. Some weren't ESO fans and felt no loyalty at all. They moved on already. EU server people are moving away at a rapid pace due to the lag that could be fixed so easily. It's like they don't know if it's worth moving the server anymore since they lost so many players already.
What I would do if I were them is to stop with any new content (yes they will lost a few players who have nothing to do but it won't be as bad as all the players they are losing now over other issues), fix everything then send out a mass email to all players (old and recent) and hand out 15 free days or so...say we're sorry. Things are fixed now. Please give us one last chance. A lot will. Some won't but either way, they already lost those subs. So giving it a try is worth it. But they can't do that until things are fixed. If not, people will just think ''you're liars'', move on after a day. There's ways to fix this still. It's not so sunken that it can't be patched...But it's going to be very soon if they don't realize that they can't do just about anything they want without consequences. I'm sure they are looking at their subs and they may still look great....but when a ton of those are bots, it won't look so good when they all go away because there's no players to cater to anymore. And I'm not advocating them being around for that. But sometimes, it feels like it's making Zeni feel better to know that they have these subs, these numbers....because the reality may hurt.4 -
Bryong9ub17_ESO✭✭✭✭A little bird told me that a group from this college who are fans of the game are planning on doing DDOS attacks and various other attacks on their websites. Not sure how true this is, but I wouldn't be against it.
It wouldn't stop them for long, but it would give them a headache.Edited by Bryong9ub17_ESO on 26 May 2014 04:139 -
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Drazticulous✭✭I would like to volunteer for an anti-bot hammer that looks like something off roger rabbit to use my free time and kill bots..... If I am found killing actual players.... I give permission to revoke my access.0
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GrimCyclone✭✭✭✭✭Personally, I think it's time to close the whole operation down. It was a good try, but time to make the announcement.6 -
Drazticulous✭✭GrimCyclone wrote: »Personally, I think it's time to close the whole operation down. It was a good try, but time to make the announcement.
Please don't speak like you are the only one with the game...3 -
phairdon✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭They farm mobs too. Exactly what the bots were doing in Rivenspire.Your immersion is breaking my entitlement. Buff Sorc's. Darkshroud the cremator Death by furRubeus BlackFluffy knight BladesThe Fat PantherPsijic Fungal SausageFlesheater the VileCaspian Rafferty FernsbyArchfiend Warlock PiersThe Black BishopEvil Wizard Lizard (EU)Neberra Vestige Fajeon (EU)Salanis Deathstick (EU)Blood Mage Alchemist (EU)1 -
Reevster✭✭✭✭✭Give them their own bug filled server and make a new bug free server for real players.....2
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twev✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭As players, we can't do anything but report or unsub.
And there are some pretty obscure achievements in the game.
Sticking with the report idea, I'd like to see a bot report achievement.
I'd like to see a version of 'FastReport' incorporated into the game menu:
http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info181-FastReport.html
10/100/1000 correct reports to unlock a weapon cache or armor cache. Maybe level up with something like a green/blue/purple Ban Hammer weapon(s) bound to the character.
There are useless trophies in game already, we might as well get a useful weapon.
To keep it fair, you lose 2 points for a false report.
I don't know yet:
Every 10 false reports you lose an inventory slot? 100 false reports you lose a level?
Just spitballing here, but as it stands, it's feels that reporting needs some sort of feedback.
Unless Zen supplies the feedback with something, a lot of people are expressing the idea that Zen isn't doing much of anything with the reports we send until it gets to the point that people don't bother anymore.
And admit it, the:
'We're going to be in game for the next 15 minutes taking your bot sighting reports seriously, and then we wont care for another 72 hours or so.'
as 'the' tangible' response from Zen is pretty pathetic.Edited by twev on 26 May 2014 08:59The problem with society these days is that no one drinks from the skulls of their enemies anymore.0 -
bugulu✭✭✭Since it's so easy, surely you guys can come up with a solution?
It's not as if the most popular MMO:s out there have managed to fix the bot problems.
Having GM personnel to handle bots, while might be viable, is just a dream.
The cost of having personnel, even for an hour, of their work day will be hard to justify.
What I would like to see done is the following:
* Reduce the gold cost of mounts and refund the difference to the people that already bought mounts.
* Reduce mats vendor value to 0
* Change how motifs are acquired. Either increase the motif drop rate on containers or a chance when deconstructing an item to learn the racial ability. For highend purpose and as incentive, make new racial motif that are considered "high end" random loot from dungeon mobs.
Vendor mats and motifs are how they make money, remove that from the equation and they will find new ways of reaching out to gold sellers.
By taking away the high cost of motifs and mount, there's really no incentive to buy gold.6 -
steveb16_ESO46✭✭✭✭✭Since it's so easy, surely you guys can come up with a solution?
I can. It begins with:
'Don't design a game wide open to gold bot harvesting in the first place. Instance and time lock things. Don't design quests that give 300 gold for 3 seconds work. Don't let people create and destroy infinite characters. Make valuable stuff bind on acquire and reduce the demand for gold by not having insane and pointless gold sinks like repair and respec.'
It continues with:
'Build hack defenses in from the start that can check for client side hacks.'
There's a reason why we've never seen anything like this before and it's because Zen failed to learn from MMO history and completely failed to defensively design the game against exploiters.
Their only defense strategy appears to have been trusting in the kindness of strangers.4 -
zaria✭✭✭✭✭
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Some ingame changes who will reduce bot income, however you can always craft stuff from mats and sell to vendors to.Since it's so easy, surely you guys can come up with a solution?
It's not as if the most popular MMO:s out there have managed to fix the bot problems.
Having GM personnel to handle bots, while might be viable, is just a dream.
The cost of having personnel, even for an hour, of their work day will be hard to justify.
What I would like to see done is the following:
* Reduce the gold cost of mounts and refund the difference to the people that already bought mounts.
* Reduce mats vendor value to 0
* Change how motifs are acquired. Either increase the motif drop rate on containers or a chance when deconstructing an item to learn the racial ability. For highend purpose and as incentive, make new racial motif that are considered "high end" random loot from dungeon mobs.
Vendor mats and motifs are how they make money, remove that from the equation and they will find new ways of reaching out to gold sellers.
By taking away the high cost of motifs and mount, there's really no incentive to buy gold.
Making high end resigns far more rare from low end mats will also have an impact.
Minimum level requirements for quests, say 15 level below.
Bots was not the main motif farmers either, it was players logging in on alts.
I would rater make new motifs drop from bosses in 4 man dungeons/ trials.
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Still best method would be to search for bot behavior.
Someone who is level 3 after playing 12 hours and give all their farmed mats to another player is an obvious bot, you also check the player receiving the mat and gold, he is part of the network so you take it all down.
And you could check far more behavior, templars farming for hours only spawning the spear atack grouped with other templars doing the same all running in the same pattern.
Teleporting, flying or undergound movement would also be easy to spot, unlike the others you don't have to prove bot, just prove that its not because of bug then autoban.
Grinding just make you go in circles.
Asking ZoS for nerfs is as stupid as asking for close air support from the death star.1 -
bugulu✭✭✭When I was back playing WoW, you had plenty of bots gathering mats.
Plenty of bots doing archeology.
Plenty of them battleground honor farming.
Just because the bots are so obvious in this game doesn't mean that other games have been bot free. WoW have had time to mature and the premium bot services out there have proven to be very efficient to avoid the ban waves.
The bots in here are more obvious since they blatantly don't care but don't compare it to other games because there's sure as hell plenty of bots out there.
What's a viable number to set the threshold on to create and destroy characters?
Hack defenses (without even able to specificy what kind you are talking about) can be bypassed with ease. Even if a program manage to detect a hack, the company will not be stupid enough to ban it immidietly because then the bot user will acknowledge that they got banned for something specific and can cause precautions against it. There's a reason bans comes in waves.
Even if you make every single epic drop bind on pickup, it will not stop the bots. WoW had plenty of bop items and yet there's still a very healthy gold farm business going on.
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mutharex✭✭✭✭✭After reading threads like this I realise that how many clueless kids play these games even if they are rated M2
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Darzil✭✭✭Could help against certain bots by having a cooldown (1 day say) on deleting any character that has completed a quest.
The mob killing bots that manage to hit VR1 without getting banned would just have to be manually banned, of course.0 -
ZakyUchiha✭✭✭I don't know if they IP-ban them, but they should really consider it.
Name: Zaky Warbringer
Level: Veteran Rank 12
Class: Templar
Race: Imperial
Faction: Ebonheart Pact
Server: EU Megaserver0 -
AlexDougherty✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Shouldn't they of come up with a solution by now?
They do, but after a few hours the bot programmers figure out a new line of attack.People believe what they either want to be true or what they are afraid is true!
Wizard's first rule
Passion rules reason
Wizard's third rule
Mind what people Do, not what they say, for actions betray a lie.
Wizard's fifth rule
Willfully turning aside from the truth is treason to one's self
Wizard's tenth rule0 -
TRIP233✭✭✭I think it is time we came up with a better solution. We can't STOP them, that much is obvious, but we might be able to CONTAIN them.
I think we need to make all crafting mats vendor for 0 and boost the gold from mobs by 3 to 5 times what it is now. I don't really like this idea, but it should in theory stop the bots from node farming and push them all into pub dungeons and Crosswych-like areas where they are a pain but at least contained.
Does anyone else have any other potential solutions. I realize mine is pretty drastic, but since enforcement is not working containment seems the only way.
Botters also sell crafting material on their websites. This idea would not work. Plus they also sell the yellow rares for crafting and the only way to get that is by farming the nodes and refining them. Bots are all low leveled so they don't have the crafting perk for mail deliveries for more material.0 -
david271749✭✭✭✭✭GrimCyclone wrote: »Personally, I think it's time to close the whole operation down. It was a good try, but time to make the announcement.
You always make these comments. I'm not saying I don't mind. Your tone is very entertaining. If you're not trying to be funny, I'm sorry.1 -
mutharex✭✭✭✭✭david271749 wrote: »GrimCyclone wrote: »Personally, I think it's time to close the whole operation down. It was a good try, but time to make the announcement.
You always make these comments. I'm not saying I don't mind. Your tone is very entertaining. If you're not trying to be funny, I'm sorry.
I doubt he grasps the concept of sarcasm....
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david271749✭✭✭✭✭david271749 wrote: »GrimCyclone wrote: »Personally, I think it's time to close the whole operation down. It was a good try, but time to make the announcement.
You always make these comments. I'm not saying I don't mind. Your tone is very entertaining. If you're not trying to be funny, I'm sorry.
I doubt he grasps the concept of sarcasm....
Not being sarcastic. There's something about the ultimate defeat/unsub/uninstall/pack your bags and go home comments that I find entertaining.0 -
mutharex✭✭✭✭✭david271749 wrote: »david271749 wrote: »GrimCyclone wrote: »Personally, I think it's time to close the whole operation down. It was a good try, but time to make the announcement.
You always make these comments. I'm not saying I don't mind. Your tone is very entertaining. If you're not trying to be funny, I'm sorry.
I doubt he grasps the concept of sarcasm....
Not being sarcastic. There's something about the ultimate defeat/unsub/uninstall/pack your bags and go home comments that I find entertaining.
It would be hell of a lot funnier if he did it at last, you know after the first 3-4 times0 -
Bot Bounty. Make a better way to report them in-game. You report, the GM confirms and you get 100 gold. Bot Hunting for fun and profit!3 -
gryphdnb14_ESOSoul ShrivenI'm not sure how Rift managed it, but they have a coinlock feature that if your account has any suspicious behavior(and staying level 3-4 for longer than 10 hours would do it.), it coinlocks you so you can't sell anything in your inventory until you get a coinlock code from Zen in your e-mail.
Or make it so that you can't log into your account until you activate the code to clear the lock on your account?
That might help. Hard to say though. I've not seen botting this bad in a game in a looong time.0
