How to deal with the infamous bots :)

Squishy

Edit* Please remember to rate the guide at the bottom,as Zeni has not yet commented yay or nay on this, If a decision has to be made, if a lot of people agree, they might go easy on the flogging on my pretty self *

Well,

After a few days experiencing, here are the couple of ways I found to disrupt the bot's activities.

For gathering bots, find a spot with disappearing nodes, harvest a node, but do not loot it (keep the loot window open). The bot will eventually pop next to you, and after a bit, reset and walk for a bit. You have time to target it, get its name, then ignore it. In the chat window, the account name will appear, report it by right click on the yellow notification.

For dungeon bots, it is trickier. In many case, there are several kind of bots running.

The first is the easiest, they're self moving bots, probably using a determined path, or following another bot. They usually have a spot, where the healer goes. Simply aggor 4 or more mobs, and wait for the bots at that spot. Things will eventually "clear themselves", or they'll get stuck since their path has changed.

Other are non moving bots, targeting a specific area (the spawn), but they do not actually attack back it seems. Simply get AOE mobs, and get them behind the bots when they attack the boss (you do not attack, you simply defend/evade to have a low aggro). Once one of their tanks get the aggor, the mob will keep attacking all members of the group, and eventually kill them all.

I had some pretty good success tonight, with a nice death count of 36 bots. To the points where to bot owner eventually came up and chatted to me. When they figured I was not going to leave their bots alone, they left . I'm assuming they have some sort of alarm/mails when their bots die (but it took a good 30 minutes before they came up and actually talked/were used other than the self repeating macro).

IT ended up with the boss being actually taggable by other players which where all waiting to have a shot at the boss

I'm hoping these ways will give some ideas to the devs regarding the bot problem

*edit to add a suggestion from someone in this thread*

SirAndy wrote: »

Pulling them into lava pools can be quite entertaining as well. If they're after a mob, simply pull the mob into the lava and they will follow.

Some will even respawn in the lava and die again until they run out of gems ...

*edit*

Singular

Squishy wrote: »

Well,

After a few days experiencing, here are the couple of ways I found to disrupt the bot's activities.

Well done!

I'm curious, what did the bot farmer say to you?

Squishy

After 45 minutes of auto killing the mob, and dying, one of them told me not to play with their bots . Then one of them followed me around, probably trying to push F to report me . I guess they have some sort of alerts when they die, or when something's not working right with their bots (or when the inventory is full?)

Squishy

A few suggestions that could be used to deal with the bot infestation problems, that could work ok with immersion too.

For dungeons, put a quest giver outside the dungeon. The boss will not drop loot or xp, unless you take the quest, and it can not be shared, but is repeatable.So basically, everyone in the group has to get out, and get the quest again.

Alternatively, when the boss spawns, make him untargettable for a few seconds, then have him cast a room wide AOE that knocks down everyone, with a random knockback (this should mess up any possible formation bots could have). Then, have the boss get addons mobs, at random locations within the room, targetting random attackers. If the bots survive one encounter, their healers are unlikely to survive several.

For gathering bots, introduce either an ambush at random times (like 15% chance of ambush), where the npc is a daedra, and CC's you (no teleport options, no escape/dodge options, only WASD). It'll follow you until you kill it, or it kills you. If you get more than 25 meters away from it, it'll teleport you back to itself.This should stop any automated gathering, as you can not gather while being hit . The mob does not have to be challenging, since I doubt the bots can be programmed to do 2 actions (to be tested I guess?).

If the ambush does not seem workable, Randomly change the loot button (R for all, but on the next one it would be Y for example) and if you push the wrong one, twice, you get disconnected, and a report is automatically sent for possibly botting/macroing. Another option, would be to randomly have a window, like a discussion popping up (quest like), asking if you are a bot, with the yes and no moving randomly, so it can not be automated, and with R and E mapped to self report as a bot.

reggielee

that was nice, I was eventually paired up with a DK who would snare the boss in ruins and drag him over to his spot, by the time the bots responded the boss was dead. I started do the same to the other spawn that goes with the boss, eventually the bots were not getting anything for their troubles. As for the operator coming on, same thing happened with me when I disrupted the grouped bots pathing by dragging mobs into stairs and corners, the bots would get stuck and run in place. Eventually the operator came, gathered up all the bots and booked it out of the dungeon. i cant do it everyday but once in a while its nice to screw their day for once

Dekkameron

Be careful when getting mobs to attack bots, as in most MMOs that is called "training" and can result in measures being taken upon your account whether the target is a bot or not.
Unsure about the ruling in ESO though.

Chomag

Lol, ZOS have no idea how to deal with bots.

Squishy

Considering the amount of bots, and the hate the generate, we should be encouraged to do it

Personally, if one of my suggestions is implemented and works as a bot deterent, I'd settle for an ingame statue of My toon .

If I get banned for harassing bots, I have no regrets

orntharon

Squishy wrote: »

For gathering bots, introduce either an ambush at random times (like 15% chance of ambush), where the npc is a daedra, and CC's you (no teleport options, no escape/dodge options, only WASD). It'll follow you until you kill it, or it kills you. If you get more than 25 meters away from it, it'll teleport you back to itself.This should stop any automated gathering, as you can not gather while being hit . The mob does not have to be challenging, since I doubt the bots can be programmed to do 2 actions (to be tested I guess?).

This would be interesting as a mechanic, if only to level the fighter's guild due to all the daedra killing. You can farm guild rank while you farm mats! Nice!

Aemesh23

I love you all. You should get to loot the bot's corpses by the way. Not everyone, just you Squishy.

Singular

Squishy wrote: »

After 45 minutes of auto killing the mob, and dying, one of them told me not to play with their bots . Then one of them followed me around, probably trying to push F to report me . I guess they have some sort of alerts when they die, or when something's not working right with their bots (or when the inventory is full?)

That is hilarious! Next time I see bots, I'm going to follow your suggestions. I hope their reports were ignored - and I hope they were banned for botting.

Have a good one!

Squishy

Aemesh23 wrote: »

I love you all. You should get to loot the bot's corpses by the way. Not everyone, just you Squishy.

In all fairness, I'll donate it to the people affected by the bank bug, I'll juste take the runes for myself, and clothier/woodworker upgrade mats

Eorea

Squishy. Teach me your ways. If any bots survive maintenance (and they will), I will gladly become your most attentive student forever. Please?

Squishy

The explanations have been posted in this thread . I have not had any words yet from Zeni, if this is considered a TOS violation, or if I am getting a Statue... so do at your own risks for now I guess

Gunsang

I think I might come out of the veteran zones to have some bot slaughter-fun-time...

Squishy

There's been reports of gathering bots, with a high level escort now, I'm guessing a few of my students followed my teachings, and annoyed them enough for them to have to level up their bots.. lol?

I'll have a look into this, and see if anything can be done

I just wish Zeni would give us the go to annoy bots, and possibly, pick a few of us, and give us a special account (that can not be reported by the bots), in the sole purpose of annoying bots

A bot griefer account if you will... with the abilitiy for example, to spawn mobs behind bots, would save a lot of time from trying to aggro them to the bots ^_^.

Kallion

Squishy wrote: »

There's been reports of gathering bots, with a high level escort now, I'm guessing a few of my students followed my teachings, and annoyed them enough for them to have to level up their bots.. lol?

I rolled a dark elf templar yesterday and I saw (in the area of the Davos mage with the colorful beams) a level 21 bot (in a lvl 8 area) appearing and disappearing, harvesting/exploiting a jute node that was insta-respawning. The owner had it programmed to attack a mob that would appear nearby. I reported him (and the node malfunction) twice (I've done about a couple dozen reports on bots if not more in my 3 days in the game).

In dungeons, I approach and "F" - report them

Squishy

I also reported one of the gold seller to their hosting sites. Considering it is a financial activity, I'm assuming they have to do paperwork to sign up somewhere else first, hence, the downtime will hopefully hurt their wallet

OrgAbuseName: Abuse Department
OrgAbusePhone: +1-661-554-0287
OrgAbuseEmail: abuse@multacom.com

The details of the goldah hosting site are above.

I reported them as possible credit card thieves (used to sign up for online games and as such, avoiding all consequences of bans). I also reported them for spamming, harrasement of community, and since there's an association and conspiracy to comit crime, possible link to financing of terrorist activities.

Feel free to do the same, hosts usually do not take risks when such subjects are approached .

I'm still surprised no giants of mmo's are constantly harrassing goldseller's ISP's. It doesn't take much time to do so.

AeliaVicusPlave

On most of the Jute nodes now are 2 bots, one visible, and one below the map. Only the name of the second one is visible. Both are harvesting the nodes. Today I've also pissed some bots by opening the Jute node, but not taking the Jute...and I felt good with it

Chryos

HEY!! Let's get a coordinated bot raid going!!

Chryos

You guys make me proud!!! Keep fighting the good fight. I'll be on tonight to try this stuff out!!

SinisterJoint

There is a train of bots RIGHT NOW in Taarengrav (the rift) on NA. 20+ all running around in a line killing. Everyone please report this group of bots so a GM will show up

SirAndy

Pulling them into lava pools can be quite entertaining as well. If they're after a mob, simply pull the mob into the lava and they will follow.

Some will even respawn in the lava and die again until they run out of gems ...

RubyTigress

Squishy wrote: »

For dungeons, put a quest giver outside the dungeon. The boss will not drop loot or xp, unless you take the quest, and it can not be shared, but is repeatable.So basically, everyone in the group has to get out, and get the quest again.

This suggestion in particular is absolutely brilliant. Have a cookie!

nicholaspingasb16_ESO

Very useful. Thanks!

Tarwin

RubyTigress wrote: »

Squishy wrote: »

For dungeons, put a quest giver outside the dungeon. The boss will not drop loot or xp, unless you take the quest, and it can not be shared, but is repeatable.So basically, everyone in the group has to get out, and get the quest again.

This suggestion in particular is absolutely brilliant. Have a cookie!

My fear would be while messing around trying to get this organized a GM Bottinator will show up and accidentally ban everyone not paying attention to his whispers or zone yell.

michaelpatrickjonesnub18_ESO

All they need is one big fat cool down timer on boss loot and xp. Problem solved.

There are enough dungeons in this game to keep people busy running around. You don't need to, nor should you be allowed to, park the bus in one cave for the night.

This game is like amateur hour. Like we've gone back in time. Did they not learn anything from the billions of dollars these MMO's rake in every year...

Mistakes have already been made for them. By other developers. And they've learned nothing from it.

What works? Who cares what works, let's wing it.

That's what ESO feels like.

Squishy

The timer certainly did not solve the problem, the bots are now outside... farming.... everything else that moves and can be killed.

To that, I would suggest a couple of non attacking enemies, targettable, but unkillable... A normal player will just try a bit, then walk away, a bot, will keep going non stop

RubyTigress wrote: »

This suggestion in particular is absolutely brilliant. Have a cookie!

don't mind if I do... omnumnumnumnum.

Chryos

I dont think ZOE would care what we do to botters, it's not like the botters pay for the game themselves anyway, they either stole accounts or stole the money to pay from them. I'm sure ZOE rofl's at the botters who try and report an honest player. You can bet an honest player is easily determined from an individual player history. Likewise a botter is easily found out through a player history.

I've been given threats by botters who try to report me when I speak out against them, in forums or in game, ZOE knows my distaste for them and they know I'm a honest customer. They arent out to ban me, I assure you of that. They will however believe my word over ghfhdh the botter though anyday of the week.

Squishy

Yes, however, stolen accounts have normal names .

And considering the mass ban of apparently innocent people, which was done manually... you know, I still feel apprehensive, sometimes

Svann

Someone posted that you can COD a lockpick to a bot and they will think you are their boss and give you the gold.