The Alik'r Problem

Niliu · October 12

This has been going on on the PC server for 10 years. Dolmen bots running from dolmen to dolmen, people coming to the zone and spamming every letter in the alphabet until they get auto-invited using a mod that a bot host has. The fact you haven't dealt with the cheating bots in that area, and the spammers who come into the zone every day is pathetic. Something needs to be done in Alik'r, that's definitely driving people away.

BixenteN7Akantor · October 12

Alik'r is actually one of the most active zones because on how useful it is.
Want to xp braindead ? Go farm dolmens
Want to xp less braindead ? Go farm Sentinel shore and Necropolis zombies
Want to PvP duel anyone ? Go to Bergama Wayshrine
Easy to travel, cool music.
What more do you need ?

aleksandr_ESO · October 12

Are you calling xp farmers bots? It's irresponsible.
I myself was a person with an auto-invite addon and a person who was invited by an addon. And I've never seen any bots or cheaters there.

JanTanhide · October 12

Those are not Bots. Those are active players.

Niliu · October 15

BixenteN7Akantor wrote: »

Alik'r is actually one of the most active zones because on how useful it is.
Want to xp braindead ? Go farm dolmens
Want to xp less braindead ? Go farm Sentinel shore and Necropolis zombies
Want to PvP duel anyone ? Go to Bergama Wayshrine
Easy to travel, cool music.
What more do you need ?

aleksandr_ESO wrote: »

Are you calling xp farmers bots? It's irresponsible.
I myself was a person with an auto-invite addon and a person who was invited by an addon. And I've never seen any bots or cheaters there.

JanTanhide wrote: »

Those are not Bots. Those are active players.

Except you're all wrong. That's botting by definition. Using a mod to automate actions is against the TOS.

Not to mention, why should everyone who's in that zone for a real reason have to deal with people coming into the zone and spamming chat? "Oh, well you can turn off zone" so anyone not into farming and cheating loses access to chat?

Pelanora · October 15

That's just what allikr is.

Dagoth_Rac · October 15

Niliu wrote: »

BixenteN7Akantor wrote: »

Alik'r is actually one of the most active zones because on how useful it is.
Want to xp braindead ? Go farm dolmens
Want to xp less braindead ? Go farm Sentinel shore and Necropolis zombies
Want to PvP duel anyone ? Go to Bergama Wayshrine
Easy to travel, cool music.
What more do you need ?

aleksandr_ESO wrote: »

Are you calling xp farmers bots? It's irresponsible.
I myself was a person with an auto-invite addon and a person who was invited by an addon. And I've never seen any bots or cheaters there.

JanTanhide wrote: »

Those are not Bots. Those are active players.

Except you're all wrong. That's botting by definition. Using a mod to automate actions is against the TOS.

Not to mention, why should everyone who's in that zone for a real reason have to deal with people coming into the zone and spamming chat? "Oh, well you can turn off zone" so anyone not into farming and cheating loses access to chat?

AutoInvite is completely legitimate and uses ZOS' built-in addon API. If ZOS didn't want to allow people to use addons to ease grouping, they would not expose grouping tools to addons. It's not a "hack". If you feel this a violation of TOS then ZOS is violating their own TOS because their API explicitly allows automated grouping.

Elsonso · October 15

JanTanhide wrote: »

Those are not Bots. Those are active players.

Every one of them? Without exception?

Niliu wrote: »

That's botting by definition. Using a mod to automate actions is against the TOS.

Using a third party thing to automate game play is against the ToS, yes. This could be anything from running a botting program to farm XP or mats, to setting a weight on a key on the keyboard to repeatedly use a skill on an area where the boss will spawn.

Using an addon is not against ToS, and Auto Invite is not against ToS. It is using functionality provided to the addon by ZOS.

Niliu · October 16

Elsonso wrote: »

JanTanhide wrote: »

Those are not Bots. Those are active players.

Every one of them? Without exception?

Niliu wrote: »

That's botting by definition. Using a mod to automate actions is against the TOS.

Using a third party thing to automate game play is against the ToS, yes. This could be anything from running a botting program to farm XP or mats, to setting a weight on a key on the keyboard to repeatedly use a skill on an area where the boss will spawn.

Using an addon is not against ToS, and Auto Invite is not against ToS. It is using functionality provided to the addon by ZOS.

That is absolute nonsense. ZOS doesn't make addons.

Niliu · October 16

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

Niliu wrote: »

BixenteN7Akantor wrote: »

Alik'r is actually one of the most active zones because on how useful it is.
Want to xp braindead ? Go farm dolmens
Want to xp less braindead ? Go farm Sentinel shore and Necropolis zombies
Want to PvP duel anyone ? Go to Bergama Wayshrine
Easy to travel, cool music.
What more do you need ?

aleksandr_ESO wrote: »

Are you calling xp farmers bots? It's irresponsible.
I myself was a person with an auto-invite addon and a person who was invited by an addon. And I've never seen any bots or cheaters there.

JanTanhide wrote: »

Those are not Bots. Those are active players.

Except you're all wrong. That's botting by definition. Using a mod to automate actions is against the TOS.

Not to mention, why should everyone who's in that zone for a real reason have to deal with people coming into the zone and spamming chat? "Oh, well you can turn off zone" so anyone not into farming and cheating loses access to chat?

AutoInvite is completely legitimate and uses ZOS' built-in addon API. If ZOS didn't want to allow people to use addons to ease grouping, they would not expose grouping tools to addons. It's not a "hack". If you feel this a violation of TOS then ZOS is violating their own TOS because their API explicitly allows automated grouping.

that's not what the tool was meant for. It was meant for trial groups, not for people to come into a zone and spam chat until they hit the right letter to be invited. It's automated, therefore it's botting.

Rkindaleft · October 18

Niliu wrote: »

Pelanora wrote: »

That's just what allikr is.

[snip]

Yawn.

Alik'r is not a problem. [snip]

[edited for baiting & to remove quote]

Rohamad_Ali · October 18

The Alik'r board of tourism welcomes ALL dolman enthusiasts year round. Don't forget to stop by the market and spend a little coin.

Marronsuisse · October 18

I dunno about bots, but I have seen a lot of players standing at empty Alik'r dolmens just... shooting out a destro staff light attack every few seconds. Some sort of automated action to let them get XP I guess. I always wondered if that's against TOS.

People will also run Auto Invite then just go afk at a dolmen. It's annoying because people trying to find an active group get pulled into these dead groups run by XP leeches.

SeaGtGruff · October 21

When you refer to an actual player as a "bot" just because you don't like the fact that they are spamming zone chat in an effort to be added to a dolmen group, you are dehumanizing them, which is rude.

Personally, I don't like to use addons, so I don't use them. But I would never accuse anyone of being a bot because they like to use addons.

Coincidentally, I happened to go to the Alik'r Desert on PC EU earlier tonight, to grind dolmens for a little while in order to get 10 Jewelry items to deconstruct for the daily endeavors. I was expecting the dolmens to be overrun by dozens of players on a "dolmen train," so I mentally prepared myself for that situation. Surprisingly, there were only a couple of other players at the dolmens, and in some cases I was the only player there and got to solo the dolmen. Furthermore, there was no one spamming the zone chat with requests to be added to a dolmen group. It was the complete opposite of what I'd expected.

Ph1p · October 21

Niliu wrote: »

Except you're all wrong. That's botting by definition. Using a mod to automate actions is against the TOS.

Botting is typically defined as "programs used to impersonate player characters", usually to gain a gameplay advantage, like automatically farming resources, dodging attacks, or casting skills. Simple improvement of quality of life has usually not been against TOS. There are numerous automation add-ons that sort your inventory, remove redundant clicks, etc. and they are all allowed.

Niliu wrote: »

that's not what the tool was meant for. It was meant for trial groups, not for people to come into a zone and spam chat until they hit the right letter to be invited. It's automated, therefore it's botting.

So, it's allowed for trial groups but not for Dolmens? What about PVP, zone runs, or any other type of group? Do you also complain about LFGs in Craglorn and Cyrodiil?

If you don't like the zone chat spam or the practice of being AFK next to a Dolmen while weighing down the attack button, that's fair. But surely there is a better approach to this than calling all Dolmen farmers bots or cheaters - unless you intend to needlessly antagonize people, of course...

Elsonso · October 21

Ph1p wrote: »

Niliu wrote: »

that's not what the tool was meant for. It was meant for trial groups, not for people to come into a zone and spam chat until they hit the right letter to be invited. It's automated, therefore it's botting.

So, it's allowed for trial groups but not for Dolmens? What about PVP, zone runs, or any other type of group? Do you also complain about LFGs in Craglorn and Cyrodiil?

If you don't like the zone chat spam or the practice of being AFK next to a Dolmen while weighing down the attack button, that's fair. But surely there is a better approach to this than calling all Dolmen farmers bots or cheaters - unless you intend to needlessly antagonize people, of course...

To be honest, being AFK and weighting down the attack key at a dolmen is using a weighted item to impersonate a player. I am pretty sure it is against the ToS, as well. I would not hesitate to report them for cheating. They are easy to report since they never move. It is apparently the reason that dolmens have that electric shock for not moving, although the healing recovery has far out paced that old trick.

Don't compare people who cheat at dolmens with people who are asking for or advertising groups in zone chat.

Ph1p · October 21

Elsonso wrote: »

Ph1p wrote: »

Niliu wrote: »

that's not what the tool was meant for. It was meant for trial groups, not for people to come into a zone and spam chat until they hit the right letter to be invited. It's automated, therefore it's botting.

So, it's allowed for trial groups but not for Dolmens? What about PVP, zone runs, or any other type of group? Do you also complain about LFGs in Craglorn and Cyrodiil?

If you don't like the zone chat spam or the practice of being AFK next to a Dolmen while weighing down the attack button, that's fair. But surely there is a better approach to this than calling all Dolmen farmers bots or cheaters - unless you intend to needlessly antagonize people, of course...

To be honest, being AFK and weighting down the attack key at a dolmen is using a weighted item to impersonate a player. I am pretty sure it is against the ToS, as well. I would not hesitate to report them for cheating. They are easy to report since they never move. It is apparently the reason that dolmens have that electric shock for not moving, although the healing recovery has far out paced that old trick.

Don't compare people who cheat at dolmens with people who are asking for or advertising groups in zone chat.

Yeah, that's exactly my point to the OP: Don't just call everybody a bot, cheater, or scammer. Even those seemingly AFK could just be watching a series on a second screen, while putting their thumb on a button every few minutes. Should they be banned for that?

Elsonso · October 21

Ph1p wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

Ph1p wrote: »

Niliu wrote: »

that's not what the tool was meant for. It was meant for trial groups, not for people to come into a zone and spam chat until they hit the right letter to be invited. It's automated, therefore it's botting.

So, it's allowed for trial groups but not for Dolmens? What about PVP, zone runs, or any other type of group? Do you also complain about LFGs in Craglorn and Cyrodiil?

If you don't like the zone chat spam or the practice of being AFK next to a Dolmen while weighing down the attack button, that's fair. But surely there is a better approach to this than calling all Dolmen farmers bots or cheaters - unless you intend to needlessly antagonize people, of course...

To be honest, being AFK and weighting down the attack key at a dolmen is using a weighted item to impersonate a player. I am pretty sure it is against the ToS, as well. I would not hesitate to report them for cheating. They are easy to report since they never move. It is apparently the reason that dolmens have that electric shock for not moving, although the healing recovery has far out paced that old trick.

Don't compare people who cheat at dolmens with people who are asking for or advertising groups in zone chat.

Yeah, that's exactly my point to the OP: Don't just call everybody a bot, cheater, or scammer. Even those seemingly AFK could just be watching a series on a second screen, while putting their thumb on a button every few minutes. Should they be banned for that?

Not my call, but I seem to remember a case where someone bragged they were playing while watching Netflix and got suspended. No idea how true the story was.

Personally, if i knew botters were trying to imitate that sort of behavior to sneak under the radar, I would action it for everyone and let customer support sort it out.

Shanee · November 1

Niliu wrote: »

BixenteN7Akantor wrote: »

Alik'r is actually one of the most active zones because on how useful it is.
Want to xp braindead ? Go farm dolmens
Want to xp less braindead ? Go farm Sentinel shore and Necropolis zombies
Want to PvP duel anyone ? Go to Bergama Wayshrine
Easy to travel, cool music.
What more do you need ?

aleksandr_ESO wrote: »

Are you calling xp farmers bots? It's irresponsible.
I myself was a person with an auto-invite addon and a person who was invited by an addon. And I've never seen any bots or cheaters there.

JanTanhide wrote: »

Those are not Bots. Those are active players.

Except you're all wrong. That's botting by definition. Using a mod to automate actions is against the TOS.

Not to mention, why should everyone who's in that zone for a real reason have to deal with people coming into the zone and spamming chat? "Oh, well you can turn off zone" so anyone not into farming and cheating loses access to chat?

Hmm, yes and no. While bots do automate things, not all automation means the use of bots.

- BeamMeUp (I click a keybind and it automatically teleports me to a random zone)
- LazyWrits (Automatically crafts what is needed for my daily writ quests)

I could list so many addons which automate things. Both addons above are just two examples.

BeamMeUp, is a 1:3 action I believe? It removes the need of finding someone, right clicking them & teleporting..

While LazyWrits is a little bit more than that, in which it'll automatically craft multiple items by just opening up a crafting station.

Would you argue that everyone who uses such addons are botters and deserve their accounts terminated?

BahometZ · November 1

Bots are not running from dolmen to dolmen, or typing in chat. Those are people. Bots would be spamming one skill en masse in a secluded corner of the map, killing mudcrabs for hours. Minimal effort over a long time. Effortless grind. That's what bot behaviour is.

Please don't mis-label behaviour you don't understand.

Pcgamer · November 20

They are not bots but players using an auto invite addon. Some guilds run dolmens to help players level. I've run dolmens to level up my fighters guild rep and also level up skills and get lots of Jewelry to decon. Win, win, win. A bit boring at times but I take breaks for a day then go back until I get max fighters guild rep on an alt.

RexyCat · November 21

Pcgamer wrote: »

They are not bots but players using an auto invite addon. Some guilds run dolmens to help players level. I've run dolmens to level up my fighters guild rep and also level up skills and get lots of Jewelry to decon. Win, win, win. A bit boring at times but I take breaks for a day then go back until I get max fighters guild rep on an alt.

When Orsinium where added with Wrothgar map and those daily quest in that map, sharing daily quest in combination with autoinvite did help players to fast find or create a group that could do those daily quest or do WB for when they couldn't solo WB, so auto invite add on have had a very important place in this game to actually get player to group up and do stuff in this game. By sharing daily quest this way player can exchange daily quest that they had picked up with other players and that way progress faster instead of waiting for daily reset to pick up next daily quest. Same for WB as those where harder to do solo during that time.

I don't understand why @Niliu are upset that player work together towards common goals.

If automation is that big problem then why do we have companions in this game?

Those kind of player based NPCs are virtually "bots" as they work through a script for when to attack and which skill to use, they also do run scripts when they should avoid taking damage like using dodge or teleport away from hostile target when target do a counter attack. As player we can not control our Companions (except for summon or unsummon) so there is another type of automation which I don't think most player that make use of Companions want to have removed.

In GW2 there are areas where you can clearly see a very large group of bots standing very close (so close that you can't see any name tag or report those PC as it is too close - those PC make use of in game tools like minions/pets or turrets that are placed on ground) where some bosses spawn which even prevent quest progression which is a more serious issue.

In ESO this isn't something I have seen in all my years playing ESO since 2014. Shadowfen had small groups of Sorcs running around in a predetermined path with their minions/pets, but I haven't seen any of those since I returned to play and those didn't really have any impact on progression in game as those only farmed and moved on in their scripted paths.

Bots in ESO isn't any major issue compared to Lost Ark or in some area of GW2 where you could clearly see those doing more advanced stuff then fire an auto attack.

Niliu · November 22

RexyCat wrote: »

Pcgamer wrote: »

They are not bots but players using an auto invite addon. Some guilds run dolmens to help players level. I've run dolmens to level up my fighters guild rep and also level up skills and get lots of Jewelry to decon. Win, win, win. A bit boring at times but I take breaks for a day then go back until I get max fighters guild rep on an alt.

When Orsinium where added with Wrothgar map and those daily quest in that map, sharing daily quest in combination with autoinvite did help players to fast find or create a group that could do those daily quest or do WB for when they couldn't solo WB, so auto invite add on have had a very important place in this game to actually get player to group up and do stuff in this game. By sharing daily quest this way player can exchange daily quest that they had picked up with other players and that way progress faster instead of waiting for daily reset to pick up next daily quest. Same for WB as those where harder to do solo during that time.

I don't understand why @Niliu are upset that player work together towards common goals.

If automation is that big problem then why do we have companions in this game?

Those kind of player based NPCs are virtually "bots" as they work through a script for when to attack and which skill to use, they also do run scripts when they should avoid taking damage like using dodge or teleport away from hostile target when target do a counter attack. As player we can not control our Companions (except for summon or unsummon) so there is another type of automation which I don't think most player that make use of Companions want to have removed.

In GW2 there are areas where you can clearly see a very large group of bots standing very close (so close that you can't see any name tag or report those PC as it is too close - those PC make use of in game tools like minions/pets or turrets that are placed on ground) where some bosses spawn which even prevent quest progression which is a more serious issue.

In ESO this isn't something I have seen in all my years playing ESO since 2014. Shadowfen had small groups of Sorcs running around in a predetermined path with their minions/pets, but I haven't seen any of those since I returned to play and those didn't really have any impact on progression in game as those only farmed and moved on in their scripted paths.

Bots in ESO isn't any major issue compared to Lost Ark or in some area of GW2 where you could clearly see those doing more advanced stuff then fire an auto attack.

Yea, it's always been an issue in this game, literally since day one. That's why you can only delete 3 characters a day. Bots.

Automation to do things together isn't the issue, it's people just going to a zone and spamming "x/y/x" into chat without anyone saying there was a group. That's not people working together, as you DO NOT need to be in a group to do a dolmen, it's literally just cheating.

Niliu · November 22

Pcgamer wrote: »

They are not bots but players using an auto invite addon. Some guilds run dolmens to help players level. I've run dolmens to level up my fighters guild rep and also level up skills and get lots of Jewelry to decon. Win, win, win. A bit boring at times but I take breaks for a day then go back until I get max fighters guild rep on an alt.

If you read the responses in the thread, you'll see we've already addressed your point

Niliu · November 22

Shanee wrote: »

Niliu wrote: »

BixenteN7Akantor wrote: »

Alik'r is actually one of the most active zones because on how useful it is.
Want to xp braindead ? Go farm dolmens
Want to xp less braindead ? Go farm Sentinel shore and Necropolis zombies
Want to PvP duel anyone ? Go to Bergama Wayshrine
Easy to travel, cool music.
What more do you need ?

aleksandr_ESO wrote: »

Are you calling xp farmers bots? It's irresponsible.
I myself was a person with an auto-invite addon and a person who was invited by an addon. And I've never seen any bots or cheaters there.

JanTanhide wrote: »

Those are not Bots. Those are active players.

Except you're all wrong. That's botting by definition. Using a mod to automate actions is against the TOS.

Not to mention, why should everyone who's in that zone for a real reason have to deal with people coming into the zone and spamming chat? "Oh, well you can turn off zone" so anyone not into farming and cheating loses access to chat?

Hmm, yes and no. While bots do automate things, not all automation means the use of bots.

- BeamMeUp (I click a keybind and it automatically teleports me to a random zone)
- LazyWrits (Automatically crafts what is needed for my daily writ quests)

I could list so many addons which automate things. Both addons above are just two examples.

BeamMeUp, is a 1:3 action I believe? It removes the need of finding someone, right clicking them & teleporting..

While LazyWrits is a little bit more than that, in which it'll automatically craft multiple items by just opening up a crafting station.

Would you argue that everyone who uses such addons are botters and deserve their accounts terminated?

Yes. Botting is any action that requires multiple clicks/button presses being reduced to one. Those apps directly meet the definition.

Vonnegut2506 · November 23

Niliu wrote: »

Shanee wrote: »

Niliu wrote: »

BixenteN7Akantor wrote: »

Alik'r is actually one of the most active zones because on how useful it is.
Want to xp braindead ? Go farm dolmens
Want to xp less braindead ? Go farm Sentinel shore and Necropolis zombies
Want to PvP duel anyone ? Go to Bergama Wayshrine
Easy to travel, cool music.
What more do you need ?

aleksandr_ESO wrote: »

Are you calling xp farmers bots? It's irresponsible.
I myself was a person with an auto-invite addon and a person who was invited by an addon. And I've never seen any bots or cheaters there.

JanTanhide wrote: »

Those are not Bots. Those are active players.

Except you're all wrong. That's botting by definition. Using a mod to automate actions is against the TOS.

Not to mention, why should everyone who's in that zone for a real reason have to deal with people coming into the zone and spamming chat? "Oh, well you can turn off zone" so anyone not into farming and cheating loses access to chat?

Hmm, yes and no. While bots do automate things, not all automation means the use of bots.

- BeamMeUp (I click a keybind and it automatically teleports me to a random zone)
- LazyWrits (Automatically crafts what is needed for my daily writ quests)

I could list so many addons which automate things. Both addons above are just two examples.

BeamMeUp, is a 1:3 action I believe? It removes the need of finding someone, right clicking them & teleporting..

While LazyWrits is a little bit more than that, in which it'll automatically craft multiple items by just opening up a crafting station.

Would you argue that everyone who uses such addons are botters and deserve their accounts terminated?

Yes. Botting is any action that requires multiple clicks/button presses being reduced to one. Those apps directly meet the definition.

You mean those apps meet your definition of botting. Luckily, ZOS makes the rules and not you.

Jaimeh · November 23

I call Alik'r 'the zone that never sleeps', and personally I like that it's always populated with people running the dolmen train, and it's pretty nice how you can easily join a group to do some leveling and then hop off. Also, I've created groups there and I don't have the auto-invite addon, I just manually invited people, but there's nothing wrong with the addon either, as there are people on both sides of the request and the joining.