Taking Action Against Cheaters in ESO

Karm2865

So what are you doing about server security? I see bots harvesting instant respawn hacked nodes over and over.....and over.....and over....... I report them but it makes me wonder what else they have managed to get into?

TomSamuel

Good job ZoS on the dungeon bots imho . Now if you could only get the node to node resource bots I'd be happy again

Ezeklol

So can we expect all the batshit spammers to be banned too?

The fact that this wasnt hotfixed was bad enough.
Not that i expect any of these subhumans to be banned and just find another i win button or quit i guess.

KerinKor

Xaei wrote: »

This was because ArenaNet landed the ban hammer so hard at the start it scared the players who might have otherwise bought gold.

ZOS don't ban buyers, that's the problem.

KerinKor

Karm2865 wrote: »

So what are you doing about server security? I see bots harvesting instant respawn hacked nodes over and over.....and over.....and over....... I report them but it makes me wonder what else they have managed to get into?

Please, quit with the paranoia .. there's nothing at all about this which hints at a 'security' problem, it's just crass programming.

Tanthul

When can we expect a more active approach against PVP cheaters/exploiters? Namely people who pay others or have friends making alts on another alliance in order to farm them on a forward camp, then bring guests on the enemy alliance to flip the 6 keeps to get Emperor and/or animation canceling exploiters (all the million variations from serious to less serious), infinite dodge/autododge etc etc? The worst part is that these people are getting reported daily from all 3 alliances on a campaign but nothing is being done about them. Screenshots have been sent, etc etc yet nothing..we're getting fed up with it.

Singular

Tanthul wrote: »

When can we expect a more active approach against PVP cheaters/exploiters? Namely people who pay others or have friends making alts on another alliance in order to farm them on a forward camp, then bring guests on the enemy alliance to flip the 6 keeps to get Emperor and/or animation canceling exploiters (all the million variations from serious to less serious), infinite dodge/autododge etc etc? The worst part is that these people are getting reported daily from all 3 alliances on a campaign but nothing is being done about them. Screenshots have been sent, etc etc yet nothing..we're getting fed up with it.

Wow, that's nuts that people would go so far.

Ok, how can someone in another alliance 'flip' a castle?

And, sorry to be slow, how do they get infinite dodge? Is that some kind of computer progam.

Nazon_Katts

KerinKor wrote: »

Karm2865 wrote: »

So what are you doing about server security? I see bots harvesting instant respawn hacked nodes over and over.....and over.....and over....... I report them but it makes me wonder what else they have managed to get into?

Please, quit with the paranoia .. there's nothing at all about this which hints at a 'security' problem, it's just crass programming.

Considering how many there are, how often they get banned and how fast they come back, I highly doubt they pay for their accounts. And if all those accounts were hacked, we'd heard much more about that. This does hint at a hacked account server or a working key gen.

Niffo

I thought that the action you guys take against cheaters was to make an article interviewing them and putting them on a pedestal. Can't wait to see the article you guys write for when the cheaters exploit their way through Craglorn.

Aenra

I will tell you one thing;

So far, i criticised (in a civil manner and with arguments) aspects of the game in a design-level. Nothing else.
Never bugs, hoping/allowing for some of them to be fixed.
Never their total ignorance in all things MMO, as evident by Boethiah knows how many blatantly -dumb- decisions they have made.
Never about the lack of precautions every other company takes for granted.

Until i read Sage's interview on mmorpg.com yesterday. Somehow that was the tip for me.

So what i do -now-, is email and post screenshots. Everywhere.
Of the bots (in one pic you can number 9 of them)
Of those that deliberately took advantage of the bank exploit and make bragging posts. While never been banned. With details. You can tell whom is lying, and whom actually did it.
Of a post from a certain guild officer here relating his selling the exploits to a chinese site. While never been banned. And six of his guildies taking part of the goods. Only two of which got banned. After all, said leader is a famous community blogger, right? Hush hush. At least they share.

steveb16_ESO46

GambitJ79b14_ESO wrote: »

steveb16_ESO46 wrote: »

Well, the sooner zmo rectify the mistake of designing the perfect game mechanics for bots to exploit the better then. Until then us paying customers are going to scream and shout.

They can fix the lag and freezes while they are at it.

By all means scream and shout, nothing wrong with that - how else is anyone going to know something is wrong...
- what I am pointing out is the demanded changes, the demanded fixes the "people" and "paying customers", that seems to think they represent the whole community, have been making have not presented the results they claimed... sure it stopped the bots at the bosses, but it didn't stop the bots. The long term result is that all the real players are further restricted while the reason it's put in place is non-effective.

If the rest of the 'community' want to have a say they can turn up and say something. Until then we paying customers who see something we don't like are going to continue holding feet to the fire.

I'm not seeing any bots any more so that's a big win. If they are where I am not then people need to continue reporting them and continue insisting things are done about it, which they probably are.

KerinKor

steveb16_ESO46 wrote: »

I'm not seeing any bots any more so that's a big win. If they are where I am not then people need to continue reporting them and continue insisting things are done about it, which they probably are.

You're not playing in the open world then because I see bot trains in every zone I go to, all factions, all zones before Coldharbour where I don't yet have access; thought it's perfectly clear from many posts LEVEL THREEs in Coldharbour aren't likely 'legit' players. Yes I know a level 3 CAN get there but no 'legit' players calls his character 'qwerafe' or somesuch.

Either that or you have no idea what open world botting looks like. It's IMPOSSIBLE to explore zones and never see bot trains!

steveb16_ESO46

Well, I'm not seeing any bot trains in Rivenspire and there seems to be plenty of resources around to gather. Same in Stonehaven which I've just left. I've been reporting bots hand over fist for weeks so I notice when they are gone.

silent88b14_ESO

KerinKor wrote: »

Karm2865 wrote: »

So what are you doing about server security? I see bots harvesting instant respawn hacked nodes over and over.....and over.....and over....... I report them but it makes me wonder what else they have managed to get into?

Please, quit with the paranoia .. there's nothing at all about this which hints at a 'security' problem, it's just crass programming.

Not really. It is player greed. By processing a tremendous amount of raw resources players extract otherwise rare material components which in turn can be sold for large quantities of gold on top of what they get from tenders for the processed materials. Hence the chat spam selling embroidery and tempers, etc.. It isn't programming, it is greed. There is no way to program player greed from the game short of shutting the game down.

Wookie120

In my humble opinion I feel that volunteer GM's in game with authority to outright ban the bots right then on the spot would go a long way. I agree with using the ban hammer on gold buyers as well. This MMO has a lot of potential and i certainly want to see it achieve it. It is already frustrating enough to have the server down twice a week without having to deal with what I call circuit bots. Bots programmed to run circuits, they are most prevalent near Mistral on Khenarith's Roost. I spent a good amount of time chasing them yesterday to report them. I reported one last week and noted that it was back as of yesterday.

GambitJ79b14_ESO

@steveb16_ESO46

steveb16_ESO46 wrote: »

If the rest of the 'community' want to have a say they can turn up and say something. Until then we paying customers who see something we don't like are going to continue holding feet to the fire.

Are you somehow offended of the idea that you don't represent the whole community? or are you offended of the idea that you (since you place yourself in that category) are one of those that demanded these restrictions which have failed in their purpose of ridding the bots? maybe both? Your response indicates you misunderstand my comment and miss the point as I say "By all means scream and shout, nothing wrong with that - how else is anyone going to know something is wrong..." which is agreeing with your "holding feet to the fire" ... So what is your point in your rebuttal?

I'm not seeing any bots any more so that's a big win. If they are where I am not then people need to continue reporting them and continue insisting things are done about it, which they probably are.

- I'm confused as to how you could be missing this if you are such a gamer as you claim... are you aware of the changes people have demanded ZOS take? Are you aware of the after effects? Cause if you're saying it worked then you're either bias or turning a blind eye because the bots are still out there and still in large forces and in all areas.
- I will also say that the changes have deterred the bots/gold sellers but I don't see in any way that discouragement or slowed their abilities. Behind every bot is a programmer and the game changes (that people demanded for and claimed would rid the place of bots) did only two things: 1)forced those programmers to re-program their bots to stay off pub-dungeon bosses, nothing more - nothing less. 2) placed those restrictions on the real players too.

Targrim

Only problem is you banned the main groups, but you did not clean up the damage they had already caused. Now DC has unlimited stacks of everything, and almost 80% are all 10 Vet status while the other 2/3s are still grinding at regular speed because we don't have the luxury of just using endless resources on Offense and Defense and so on. You should have wiped all Vet status and cleared all PvP related gear to level the field after you patched the problem. Now before all you Dumb Fks start crying "why should the rest be punished for what a few did?", simple most of the DC are still using the stacks to this day, while wiping just DC would the preferred method, some would think that they were singled out. Then again you DC didn't report your faction while it happened so your really just as guilty. let the flaming begin the TRUTH hurts.

zaria

KerinKor wrote: »

steveb16_ESO46 wrote: »

I'm not seeing any bots any more so that's a big win. If they are where I am not then people need to continue reporting them and continue insisting things are done about it, which they probably are.

You're not playing in the open world then because I see bot trains in every zone I go to, all factions, all zones before Coldharbour where I don't yet have access; thought it's perfectly clear from many posts LEVEL THREEs in Coldharbour aren't likely 'legit' players. Yes I know a level 3 CAN get there but no 'legit' players calls his character 'qwerafe' or somesuch.

Either that or you have no idea what open world botting looks like. It's IMPOSSIBLE to explore zones and never see bot trains!

Yes, level 3-5 in coldharbor should be autobanned together with the one they grouped with to get them where, and yes get the ones who received their lot too.

The way to handle bots would be to handle it as spam filters handle spam.
Instead of searching for pattern in text you look for player behavior in the log.
As this is a lot of data you might use traps, some actions who is easy to identify put the player on an watchlist and here his behavior is logged and analyzed.

If chance of not being a weird player is 99.9% autoban.
Not only obvious stuff like level 3 in coldharbor but put in other traps like characters giving all his loot to another character multiple times.
No its not banable but put you on the watch list, now if you now move in a pattern for known bots for hours you get banned.

KerinKor

zaria wrote: »

Yes, level 3-5 in coldharbor should be autobanned together with the one they grouped with to get them where, and yes get the ones who received their lot too.

Given that the only way to get there is a quest line that ends at 43 or a 'Travel To' then simply putting a minimum level on that would block this: there's no valid reason for character to be there before they are able to get the quest that's needed to be done in order to get there 'normally'.

And yes, I know some people like exploring 'under level', I do, my level 21 Templar has mapped most places in all AD zones before Coldharbour, but if giving free reign to that is allowing exploitation on a massive scale then lock it!

shadoza

One of my characters was kicked for spamming the chat (I said two words: Zone and /Zone). I sent a message to ESO immediately and received a response that stated the situation was reviewed and I have been declared innocent. That was good to hear, but I still felt bad that I was treated like a criminal. I am over it now; however, I do believe that ESO will provide an explanation if a player is accused of wrong-doing. I do not believe that someone that was perma-banned, had a review, and came out still banned is all that innocent. Something caused the security team to make the same decision twice.

Hnightblazenub18_ESO

Now just imagine if there were a community AH for people to capitalize on with gold spamming and botters. IMO these people have no real use or detriment in ESO because there is no community AH. At this point the most I consider them is an annoyance. Nice work on keeping the gold spammers at bay and annoyances to a minimum by keeping out community AH's. Keep up the great work. I love this game, been in since BETA and enjoying every minute thus far.

Jogi1

Thanks you, keep up the good work banning bot, hacker etc.

To all who are complaining that GM does not react to your bot reports, are you reporting straight to /help. That alerts the Support Team and they are able to make action.

Read the story here

GuardM

myself and my guild have witnessed first hand ban on the spot gm's showing up at farming locations and more then once. So they are on top of this, saying other wise is being a troll, sorry but true. Do the bots return? of course they do and I won't even get into the issues of how but it will continue, the only way to off set it is start tracking product and trading or have in game live GM's run daily routines looking for botters which they are doing. So all said and done, they "ARE" doing something about it. This is my first official post here and I am proud to say this is that post, give credit where credit is due.

There are other issues in this game, no doubt about it, but at least I am seeing results, can't say that about many MMO's I have been a part of in the past.

Tawn

It might be time to take a few GMs into the area outside of Vulkel Guard and throw ban hammers at the groups of two to six bots exploiting jute.

They pick a node and a second later it respawns. Over and Over and Over.

2g per node is 120g per minute.
2g per mode is 5,200g per hour.

Put in 10 or 20 nodes and well, they are "earning" upwards of USD$50 an hour, or more.

Talwyn_Aureliano

Since the Nerf on Dungeon/world boss loot drops, the gold-spammer bot drivers have changed their tactics. Bots are now spam harvesting nodes as Tawn has just said. I see them all the time in Stonelands, usually 3 to 4 bots clustered around a mat node always harvesting very time it respawns. Only 1 bot harvests while the others stand by in case a monster attacks. I've tried leading monsters onto the group in order for them to be attacked and killed but it hasn't worked so far.

So here's my solution:

Bethesda/Zenimax or whom ever is in charge: you need to start to increase the number of GM's. You need to ask the community for volunteers to be a police force with ban hammer powers because the fact is you guys are losing the war here against the bots and their masters. If you invested dedicated players with the trust and powers to act as GM's then you might start to see a decline in the bots. In addition, you almost need a entry check, like a customs officer to check if the new character logging in is actually being run by a legitimate player. Again a player based police force will be able to help here. 2nd Life has this, why can't ESO?

You have a pool of people here who love this game but are becoming totally sh@t off due to the bot issues which is ruining the game. I urge you to seriously consider my proposal in forming a player based police force which will aid the game by getting rid of obvious bots. Of course any player who abuses their power will get auto banned for life plus named and shamed.

Jogi1

Talwyn_Aureliano wrote: »

Since the Nerf on Dungeon/world boss loot drops, the gold-spammer bot drivers have changed their tactics. Bots are now spam harvesting nodes as Tawn has just said. I see them all the time in Stonelands, usually 3 to 4 bots clustered around a mat node always harvesting very time it respawns. Only 1 bot harvests while the others stand by in case a monster attacks. I've tried leading monsters onto the group in order for them to be attacked and killed but it hasn't worked so far.

So here's my solution:

Bethesda/Zenimax or whom ever is in charge: you need to start to increase the number of GM's. You need to ask the community for volunteers to be a police force with ban hammer powers because the fact is you guys are losing the war here against the bots and their masters. If you invested dedicated players with the trust and powers to act as GM's then you might start to see a decline in the bots. In addition, you almost need a entry check, like a customs officer to check if the new character logging in is actually being run by a legitimate player. Again a player based police force will be able to help here. 2nd Life has this, why can't ESO?

You have a pool of people here who love this game but are becoming totally sh@t off due to the bot issues which is ruining the game. I urge you to seriously consider my proposal in forming a player based police force which will aid the game by getting rid of obvious bots. Of course any player who abuses their power will get auto banned for life plus named and shamed.

I think this is a good idea. The hammer power could be limited to time, ban for hour or two. This would give time for moderators to investigate and make needed decisions. Another idea is new ability, tagging. The volunteers could "mark" the player with a tag, GM would see immediately tagged accounts, investigate them and if needed ban the account. This exist now in one way, you can type the /help when you see bots. That alerts the Support Team and they can act. But tagging an account would give a signal to the owner of the account, it would be like yellow card in football. Tagging would also mark the account till GM would erase it, that would guarantee that appropriate measurement would be taken.

Tanthul

@Talwyn_Aureliano: I'm sure you have the best intentions but giving players such powers is a recipe for disaster. And of course every company knows that so it's not going to happen. And we're not only talking about abuse possibility but a player can not and should not have any access to any logged information that is needed in order to complete an investigation PRIOR to any bans.
The players are already policing by reporting and that is all they could/and should ever do. It just needs better response times to those reports and more sophisticated algorithms in flagging seller bots. But also do try to understand that these things are costly and have to be done in a cost efficient way as resources are limited.
I am also fed up/frustrated with the PVP exploiters but due to being a developer myself and understanding the processes behind these things, I do not ask for things that are not feasible. What I'm asking for is a better status report/possible ETA on taking action; thus applying pressure for resources to be allocated towards this direction:)
This is all, we, as players can do (apart from continuing with the reporting):)

Talwyn_Aureliano

@Tanthul : Thank you for you thoughtful reply.

I do though respectfully disagree with your analysis. While you are correct that would be a recipe for disaster in giving players Carte Blanche with access to logged information I believe this can be mitigated quite easily with binding legal agreements and contracts that any player who wishes to become a volunteer "de facto GM" and work on behalf of Zenimax/Bethesda et al in policing TESO against bots and cheaters.

The alternative is that they must hire more staff to deal with this problem.

I agree that we, as players, can continue the reporting however I'm finding it tiresome and I see little results of the dozens of reports I've sent in thus far of bots etc.

I also have another suggestion: if we are to be the eyes of the GM's in reporting bots and exploiters, surely there should be some reward for our efforts? Perhaps some extra game time for all the bots you've identified? Perhaps we could also have an in game achievement: BOT HUNTER! Submit 100 BOT reports that are lead to BOT accounts being banned and you get the achievement plus 2 days extra game time. That's incentive for all players to start doing their share in making ESO a better MMO.

Tanthul

The problem with rewarding people for reporting is that it will increase the amount of bogus reports exponentially. People will just report anyone trying to get the achievement/reward. Some will do it on purpose, others will due to lack of better judgement and some will do it on the first sign that someone is botting (eg a legitimate player may actually manually running a specific route to collect mining nodes..this player would be reported a million times if there is a reward). How many times have you seen good PVP players being called bots in games by other players that lack in skill or understanding of game mechanics/gameplay? Imagine if all those had incentive to report (some do it anyway but a reward would guarantee that everyone would).
This will only hinder the process as the employees responsible for investigation and banning will have to weed through countless bogus reports.

KerinKor

GuardM wrote: »

myself and my guild have witnessed first hand ban on the spot gm's showing up at farming locations and more then once. So they are on top of this, saying other wise is being a troll, sorry but true..

Of course they're not on top of it, and you seem to confuse someone pointing out a truth which doesn't conform to your agenda as 'trolling'.

There are so many bots, so many broken nodes, so many zones, layers, phases, instances that this effort is at best a whack-a-mole that produces a bit of PR then goes away.

Last night on the EU server a GM came on for FIFTEEN minutes. ONE GM, for FIFTEEN minutes .. I'm sorry, that's so lame it doesn't even qualify for token gesture status.

Sorry, this is a diversion, ZOS want to be seen to be doing something but this is so totally ineffective it's sad to see some people are trying to hype it up into any sort of 'solution' at all.

Meanwhile Bleakrock is overrun with bots that yesterday I conservatively reckon outnumbered real players by at least 5:1, and all starter zones seem to be as bad and the infection goes all the way up the tiers to a lesser extent.

THAT is the scale of the problem here, that won't be solved by ONE GM.