Either come up with a real plan to take care of the bots or offer refunds.

GreySix

SadisticSavior wrote: »

Buying gold is the lazy way out.

Good thing online video games are packed with hard-working folks then, eh?

Where there are gold sinks and exploits, there will be gold sellers and gold buyers.

Drachenfier

mutharex wrote: »

Drachenfier wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Jedi467 wrote: »

Wait, bots in the dungeons? (that's still going on after the loot nerf?) I thought this was gonna be about the bots farming up every single crafting material in the game world via speed/teleport hacks.

Seriously, i was unable to craft my new sorc alt even a single piece of gear because i could not get enough materials to refine even once. Reported 3 teleport bot hackers though when they stopped long enough for me to get their character names.

But seriously, i have almost no motivation to play this game anymore because the bots and hackers are dominating every non-quest source of in game money, which means if i want to do something like buy a non-imperial horse, or respec a character, i have no alternative but to buy gold from the damn gold sellers right now, and on top of that if i want crafting materials i gotta go to them too!

I do not have words to appropriately express how bad this situation is, all i can say is i and the rest of my guild are already playing other games and hoping against hope that Zenimax will figure out how to fix their own game before we settle into another one.

And if you think there's some amazing MMO out there that actually doesn't have bots, I can't wait for your rude awakening.

Is this guy serious?

Yes he is. ALL games that have a decent player base have bots (yes even WOW), only Dead Men Walking MMos don't have them

The fact that after a few years they have been reduced in number and are not as evident as in TESO is because TSEO just came out. Didn't you play FFXIV:ARR??

GreySix wrote: »

Drachenfier wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Jedi467 wrote: »

Wait, bots in the dungeons? (that's still going on after the loot nerf?) I thought this was gonna be about the bots farming up every single crafting material in the game world via speed/teleport hacks.

Seriously, i was unable to craft my new sorc alt even a single piece of gear because i could not get enough materials to refine even once. Reported 3 teleport bot hackers though when they stopped long enough for me to get their character names.

But seriously, i have almost no motivation to play this game anymore because the bots and hackers are dominating every non-quest source of in game money, which means if i want to do something like buy a non-imperial horse, or respec a character, i have no alternative but to buy gold from the damn gold sellers right now, and on top of that if i want crafting materials i gotta go to them too!

I do not have words to appropriately express how bad this situation is, all i can say is i and the rest of my guild are already playing other games and hoping against hope that Zenimax will figure out how to fix their own game before we settle into another one.

And if you think there's some amazing MMO out there that actually doesn't have bots, I can't wait for your rude awakening.

Is this guy serious?

Yep, all games have bots, but they're not as open and brazen about their presence, as we see in ESO.

As I said before, I've only seen two MMO's with this level of bot activity, both NCSoft Korean grinders: L2 and Aion. I've played pretty much every triple A mmo at launch with the exception of WoW.

nerevarine1138

Drachenfier wrote: »

mutharex wrote: »

Drachenfier wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Jedi467 wrote: »

Wait, bots in the dungeons? (that's still going on after the loot nerf?) I thought this was gonna be about the bots farming up every single crafting material in the game world via speed/teleport hacks.

Seriously, i was unable to craft my new sorc alt even a single piece of gear because i could not get enough materials to refine even once. Reported 3 teleport bot hackers though when they stopped long enough for me to get their character names.

But seriously, i have almost no motivation to play this game anymore because the bots and hackers are dominating every non-quest source of in game money, which means if i want to do something like buy a non-imperial horse, or respec a character, i have no alternative but to buy gold from the damn gold sellers right now, and on top of that if i want crafting materials i gotta go to them too!

I do not have words to appropriately express how bad this situation is, all i can say is i and the rest of my guild are already playing other games and hoping against hope that Zenimax will figure out how to fix their own game before we settle into another one.

And if you think there's some amazing MMO out there that actually doesn't have bots, I can't wait for your rude awakening.

Is this guy serious?

Yes he is. ALL games that have a decent player base have bots (yes even WOW), only Dead Men Walking MMos don't have them

The fact that after a few years they have been reduced in number and are not as evident as in TESO is because TSEO just came out. Didn't you play FFXIV:ARR??

GreySix wrote: »

Drachenfier wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Jedi467 wrote: »

Wait, bots in the dungeons? (that's still going on after the loot nerf?) I thought this was gonna be about the bots farming up every single crafting material in the game world via speed/teleport hacks.

Seriously, i was unable to craft my new sorc alt even a single piece of gear because i could not get enough materials to refine even once. Reported 3 teleport bot hackers though when they stopped long enough for me to get their character names.

But seriously, i have almost no motivation to play this game anymore because the bots and hackers are dominating every non-quest source of in game money, which means if i want to do something like buy a non-imperial horse, or respec a character, i have no alternative but to buy gold from the damn gold sellers right now, and on top of that if i want crafting materials i gotta go to them too!

I do not have words to appropriately express how bad this situation is, all i can say is i and the rest of my guild are already playing other games and hoping against hope that Zenimax will figure out how to fix their own game before we settle into another one.

And if you think there's some amazing MMO out there that actually doesn't have bots, I can't wait for your rude awakening.

Is this guy serious?

Yep, all games have bots, but they're not as open and brazen about their presence, as we see in ESO.

As I said before, I've only seen two MMO's with this level of bot activity, both NCSoft Korean grinders: L2 and Aion. I've played pretty much every triple A mmo at launch with the exception of WoW.

That's because you don't see the bots in some of those games. Doesn't mean they aren't there, just that they're using exploits that put them out of sight. WoW still has a ton of bots active, because bots can't be eliminated while players are dishonest enough to buy gold.

Drachenfier

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Drachenfier wrote: »

mutharex wrote: »

Drachenfier wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Jedi467 wrote: »

Wait, bots in the dungeons? (that's still going on after the loot nerf?) I thought this was gonna be about the bots farming up every single crafting material in the game world via speed/teleport hacks.

Seriously, i was unable to craft my new sorc alt even a single piece of gear because i could not get enough materials to refine even once. Reported 3 teleport bot hackers though when they stopped long enough for me to get their character names.

But seriously, i have almost no motivation to play this game anymore because the bots and hackers are dominating every non-quest source of in game money, which means if i want to do something like buy a non-imperial horse, or respec a character, i have no alternative but to buy gold from the damn gold sellers right now, and on top of that if i want crafting materials i gotta go to them too!

I do not have words to appropriately express how bad this situation is, all i can say is i and the rest of my guild are already playing other games and hoping against hope that Zenimax will figure out how to fix their own game before we settle into another one.

And if you think there's some amazing MMO out there that actually doesn't have bots, I can't wait for your rude awakening.

Is this guy serious?

Yes he is. ALL games that have a decent player base have bots (yes even WOW), only Dead Men Walking MMos don't have them

The fact that after a few years they have been reduced in number and are not as evident as in TESO is because TSEO just came out. Didn't you play FFXIV:ARR??

GreySix wrote: »

Drachenfier wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Jedi467 wrote: »

Wait, bots in the dungeons? (that's still going on after the loot nerf?) I thought this was gonna be about the bots farming up every single crafting material in the game world via speed/teleport hacks.

Seriously, i was unable to craft my new sorc alt even a single piece of gear because i could not get enough materials to refine even once. Reported 3 teleport bot hackers though when they stopped long enough for me to get their character names.

But seriously, i have almost no motivation to play this game anymore because the bots and hackers are dominating every non-quest source of in game money, which means if i want to do something like buy a non-imperial horse, or respec a character, i have no alternative but to buy gold from the damn gold sellers right now, and on top of that if i want crafting materials i gotta go to them too!

I do not have words to appropriately express how bad this situation is, all i can say is i and the rest of my guild are already playing other games and hoping against hope that Zenimax will figure out how to fix their own game before we settle into another one.

And if you think there's some amazing MMO out there that actually doesn't have bots, I can't wait for your rude awakening.

Is this guy serious?

Yep, all games have bots, but they're not as open and brazen about their presence, as we see in ESO.

As I said before, I've only seen two MMO's with this level of bot activity, both NCSoft Korean grinders: L2 and Aion. I've played pretty much every triple A mmo at launch with the exception of WoW.

That's because you don't see the bots in some of those games. Doesn't mean they aren't there, just that they're using exploits that put them out of sight. WoW still has a ton of bots active, because bots can't be eliminated while players are dishonest enough to buy gold.

I'll just take your word for that. No gold spam, no ingame mail spam, no visible bots farmers. Whatever games like SWTOR, Rift, LOTRO, etc are doing, ESO needs to take some notes, and do it fast.

steveb16_ESO46

I can guarantee you there aren't bot swarms in LOTRO.

Because valuable stuff is bind on acquire. Because there aren't huge gold sinks creating an insatiable demand. Because valuable things are both instance-gated and require complex group mechanics to obtain. and because in these instances loot laden enmies don't constantly respawn in easily harvested packs.

This is what good defensive game design looks like.

But not, following Helm's Deep, what a good game looks like of course.

zaria

mutharex wrote: »

Drachenfier wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Jedi467 wrote: »

Wait, bots in the dungeons? (that's still going on after the loot nerf?) I thought this was gonna be about the bots farming up every single crafting material in the game world via speed/teleport hacks.

Seriously, i was unable to craft my new sorc alt even a single piece of gear because i could not get enough materials to refine even once. Reported 3 teleport bot hackers though when they stopped long enough for me to get their character names.

But seriously, i have almost no motivation to play this game anymore because the bots and hackers are dominating every non-quest source of in game money, which means if i want to do something like buy a non-imperial horse, or respec a character, i have no alternative but to buy gold from the damn gold sellers right now, and on top of that if i want crafting materials i gotta go to them too!

I do not have words to appropriately express how bad this situation is, all i can say is i and the rest of my guild are already playing other games and hoping against hope that Zenimax will figure out how to fix their own game before we settle into another one.

And if you think there's some amazing MMO out there that actually doesn't have bots, I can't wait for your rude awakening.

Is this guy serious?

Yes he is. ALL games that have a decent player base have bots (yes even WOW), only Dead Men Walking MMos don't have them

The fact that after a few years they have been reduced in number and are not as evident as in TESO is because TSEO just came out. Didn't you play FFXIV:ARR??

I stopped playing WOW before the pandas but at that time bots in batlegrounds was a major issue, mostly as you could risk entering an fight where many of the players on your side was bots and lose the fight.
Note this was players who boted while AFK, bot was good enough to not raise flags but would not help much in a fight so they mostly went for the point your team got if they lost.

Skillet

[ [/quote] Is this guy serious?[/quote]

In his mind yes he was serious.

Some people are just obtuse. [/quote]


Shawshank Redemption Movie:


Andy Dufresne: How can you be so obtuse?

Warden Samuel Norton: What? What did you call me?

Andy Dufresne: Obtuse. Is it deliberate?

Warden Samuel Norton: Son, you're forgetting yourself.

Andy Dufresne: The country club will have his old time cards. Records, W-2s with his name on them. Sir, if I ever get out, I'd never mention what happens here. I'd be just as indictable as you for laundering that money.

[Norton slaps the table]

Warden Samuel Norton: Don't you ever mention money to me again, you sorry son of a ***! Not in this office, not anywhere!

Turelus

@ZOS_EveP Instead of just moving more duplicate topics to GD would it be possible for ZOS to have one centralised topic pinned in GD listing what they're doing about bots, links to relevant information, a guide to how to report them most efficiently.
Then any new threads started on the subject can be locked with a message saying...
"Thank you for your concern but we would ask that you please see our official thread about the war on bots here (link) and post your concerns there. Duplicate threads cause clutter on the forums and we're trying to keep it tidy for the enjoyment of everyone."

It's getting a little stupid just how many threads about the same issues are cluttering up the forums now.

p.hurst1b16_ESO

It is getting really bad. It is partly to do with the enormous cash sinks. The repair and attrition needs balancing and so does the resets,

The bots are wrecking the game in the starting Islands and low level areas botting the nodes over and over and nothing is done about it.

We are PAYING for this and spending time working for Zenimax by reporting.

Don't get me wrong I am a fan of this game. I love it. But I hate the bots and the gold buyers are snotballs, not worth anything in this community.

I like alts to try out some very good builds so I can write some guides in the future (for free of course).

But I need to be able to play easily without having to waste time watching nodes disappear and the top of the head popping up form underground from time to time. The path bots are annoying. The bot trains are infuriating killing quest mobs.

Zenimax you need to get smart and investigate the gold transactions and learn who is BUYING. Give them a warning and say 3 strikes and you are out. That will put them off for a long time.

Edward000

Turelus: I like that there are so many topics open. It shows what's going on. If they restrict it to one topic, they'll just ignore it.

Rellimniets

robacooperb16_ESO wrote: »

kitsinni wrote: »

This is absurd you can't even do half the content in public solo dungeons because or 40+ bots in a chain. You are lucky to get in a hit on a boss, killing the regular mobs is near impossible. No chance of getting the achievment and if you do it probably is bugged anyway. They make no effort to even cover up their botting. If you can't do anything about it offer us a refund. If it is not worth the cost to have GM's in game patrolling the most heavily botted areas that are infested 24/7 then refund the purchase price of the game.

Uhhh Achievements don't really count for anything progress-wise so it really isn't prohibiting your progress.

Yes the bots are annoying, yes Zeni is working on it, and yes GMs do appear in game to deal with them (have seen it), but to demand a refund simply because you can't complete an achievement? That demanding sense of entitlement (though not as bad as the class action clown) is fairly annoying as well.

If you buy a game and you are paying for a sub, you have every right to state your opinion and PISSED off that another is ruining your experience. It is a choice to report them for that, BOTS are a harassment of my experience and every person that does not care for them.
I have the right as does every other HUMAN playing person, not some *** script driven character running around stealing nodes at lightning, unfair, harassing speeds. I have the right as every other HUMAN playing person that sits in their chair sending their/mine own valuable time, versus some chain gang of script driven bots running around areas I need to quest in and can't because they grab everything and kill it.
This all adds to mine and other peoples valuable time that actually sit in a chair and play, so anyone that is annoyed by this has the right to claim so and it is not annoying to listen to their feelings as well.
Achievements is a sense of progress for many, as is for me and it is part of the game that they, the dev's have chosen to implement. So how is it not right to ask for a refund for a game not being able to control something that is taking away from what is part of the game and subscription that we all pay for, that we HUMAN players take our valuable time to try and earn, not be stolen from some "Again" some script driven character with no real human behind it earning it.

To each their own I suppose and enjoy your experience.

Turelus

Edward000 wrote: »

Turelus: I like that there are so many topics open. It shows what's going on. If they restrict it to one topic, they'll just ignore it.

They're not ignoring the issue though, they have made a bunch of posts addressing it, but there is no magic bullet which kills bots off.
They're not going to talk about back end changes or future security changes because that's just free information for the creators of botting software to use against them.

It's just tiresome trying to read and post on the forums (something I spend a lot of time doing) when every other post some days is the same complaint, the same ideas to solve it, the same threats of cancelling subscription.

ThisOnePosts

Level up... get into VR zones. Bots will have a very high risk to do that in VR zones, getting an account that you poured hours and money into banned.. is something they will have to consider heavily and I imagine it would work against them big time.

Some round the clock GMs or community volunteers (pick me!!!) could definitely help as well.

Arreyanne

Decided it wasnt worth the effort Move along nothing to see here

Ohioastro

It would be really, really helpful in threads like this to be specific about what you're seeing and where. I don't see any bots at all in public dungeons across a wide range of zones; but maybe there are a few that they target. They were present in dungeon bosses until the timers were introduced; then, presumably, they moved elsewhere. It's more useful to report locations than just to spam the forums with generic complaints.

I think that changing from harvesting nodes at fixed locations to random ones in an area would help. Also, for people looking for crafting, an actual tip: log in and out. There is a megaserver, and doing this usually puts you in a different shard. If there is an active bot in your shard and you move, they are no longer your problem.

Rellimniets

ViciousWayz wrote: »

Level up... get into VR zones. Bots will have a very high risk to do that in VR zones, getting an account that you poured hours and money into banned.. is something they will have to consider heavily and I imagine it would work against them big time.

Some round the clock GMs or community volunteers (pick me!!!) could definitely help as well.

This is what a lot of us are talking about. It is harder to level up with all this bot crap going around. Yes I can move to another area, yes I can ignore it, yes there are others ways of leveling, but I choose my path just as others do theirs. The dev's designed this and the bots are taking advantage of this and altering our choices, which makes the new path not our choice, how is this our own freedom of playing then?
Achievements and other game paths are being hindered the same, which now makes this game become the bots choice for your way of playing and being able to achieve what you want to accomplish on their terms, not yours alone.
To me this is harassment and voiolates a few of the TOS and would surely cause many people to quit playing, hence ZM is going to lose a ton of subs and eventually the game will go to where a lot of others have gone, the bone yard.
It is very justifiable to request any and all refunds or credits for time lost or a speedy solution to amend this issue

I for one hope they get this resolved quickly and properly for the sake of their future of this game and my/others enjoyment, so we can all hang around and see what goodness they will be bringing in the future.

Just hope it is not too late.

mutharex

Khandi wrote: »

mutharex wrote: »

Khandi wrote: »

mutharex wrote: »

Khandi wrote: »

In other MMO's that I have played there are generally some launch issues. What I have seen other MMO's do is not offer refunds but they offer free months. Tera had some issues and gave at least one month at no charge maybe even two months.

Point is, that offering refunds, from a business standpoint, is not going to happen. No company will take money out of their bank accounts unless they have no other option.

.....but I do think that the player base does deserve some compensation for all this mess and in my (not very) humble opinion, the 5 days we got was just plain measly.

TERA was dying the week after it opened.. hardly the same thing. Hell, it even had already gone F2P back home in Korea and shut down in Japan

Thank you for missing my point entirely.

I didn't, I just corrected a glaring mistake:using a game that was dead before coming out as example isn't very helpful to prove your point

Wrong again. My comment was not about ESO vs Tera.

No, your comment was about games that give compensation to players for downtime or problems- Again, mentioning a disaster like TERA doesn't give much weight to that.

OFC_it

Drachenfier wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Jedi467 wrote: »

Wait, bots in the dungeons? (that's still going on after the loot nerf?) I thought this was gonna be about the bots farming up every single crafting material in the game world via speed/teleport hacks.

Seriously, i was unable to craft my new sorc alt even a single piece of gear because i could not get enough materials to refine even once. Reported 3 teleport bot hackers though when they stopped long enough for me to get their character names.

But seriously, i have almost no motivation to play this game anymore because the bots and hackers are dominating every non-quest source of in game money, which means if i want to do something like buy a non-imperial horse, or respec a character, i have no alternative but to buy gold from the damn gold sellers right now, and on top of that if i want crafting materials i gotta go to them too!

I do not have words to appropriately express how bad this situation is, all i can say is i and the rest of my guild are already playing other games and hoping against hope that Zenimax will figure out how to fix their own game before we settle into another one.

And if you think there's some amazing MMO out there that actually doesn't have bots, I can't wait for your rude awakening.

Is this guy serious?

I think either he is a botter or he needs to get his head out of his veteran content. I have been trying to find some mats to make potions to help me with Molag Bal. I have never been able to find hardly any in the A. D so I have alts in all the factions. I took my alt. last night to the best place I have found in the game and most of the resources there are GONE. Not being grabbed by invisible bots like before but now they never appear. I know where the nodes are and nothing is showing up where maple,iron,jute and flowers used to be. In one hour where my pockets would be full of those items(outrunning the bots mind you) I saw ONE iron ore. I wasn't there for that but thought what the heck I will pick it up. Well I had to fight a bad guy first and some one came and took it lol.

robertszak

Was excited to see the dev response logo for this thread...

What a let down.

ShintaiDK

One day this one TV channel didnt work for some hours. I demanded a refund right away for all the channels for a whole month!

/sarcasm

Anyway, to the Op. Just move on. Come back later. that single public dungeon is not the end of the world for you.

Redsun

Bots = $$$
Zenimax loves $$$

KhajiitiLizard

I've actually seen fewer bots this week than last week and I play every day. Something must be happening.

Armianlee

Jedi467 wrote: »

But seriously, i have almost no motivation to play this game anymore because the bots and hackers are dominating every non-quest source of in game money, which means if i want to do something like buy a non-imperial horse, or respec a character, i have no alternative but to buy gold from the damn gold sellers right now, and on top of that if i want crafting materials i gotta go to them too!

So you're admitting to breaking the rules and dealing in RMT? Or just saying that you're not playing anymore because you would have to resort to that.

canghai

strange i have not been effected by bots from 1-vr2, of course i see them but i just go along with my gaming

Loco_Mofo

I thought this was fixed ages ago.

I have not seen bots camping bosses in solo dungeons for at least 2 weeks.

Loco_Mofo

Turelus wrote: »

@ZOS_EveP Instead of just moving more duplicate topics to GD would it be possible for ZOS to have one centralised topic pinned in GD listing what they're doing about bots, links to relevant information, a guide to how to report them most efficiently.
Then any new threads started on the subject can be locked with a message saying...
"Thank you for your concern but we would ask that you please see our official thread about the war on bots here (link) and post your concerns there. Duplicate threads cause clutter on the forums and we're trying to keep it tidy for the enjoyment of everyone."

It's getting a little stupid just how many threads about the same issues are cluttering up the forums now.

GW2 did this, so I agree. They should consolidate all these threads.

ciannait

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

GreySix wrote: »

Weberda wrote: »

I haven't seen any kind of response whatsoever in weeks from ZOS regarding bots which is strange considering the rage. I wonder if they're getting ready to drop a nuke on em' and they don't want to tip their hand.

But they did restructure the forum.





.... so, there's that.

Because that's totally the same team at work.

/facepalm

Be that as it may, they all report to the same people, who are deciding where to put resources. ZOS is not that big an org.

Loco_Mofo

Redsun wrote: »

Bots = $$$
Zenimax loves $$$

How do bots benefit Zenimax? You want to explain?

Ezrith

The bots I saw before were just in a chain killing everything in dungeons or camps, now they are improved and come with a super speed hack XD I had troubles picking out their names to report them. Extremely annoying I hope they come up with a way to detect them, but since we see them at higher levels... looks like they are not erased much.

ciannait

Loco_Mofo wrote: »

Redsun wrote: »

Bots = $$$
Zenimax loves $$$

How do bots benefit Zenimax? You want to explain?

A lot of people really don't get that the credit cards used to purchase the game copy and subs for the bots and farmers are stolen (sometimes in batches, like old-school IRC style, sometimes from gold buyers - way to go, guys) and ZOS will probably have to pay all that money back in the form of chargebacks.

This is why banks hate dealing with MMO companies, the level of fraud is sky-high. (Or should I say levitating-bot-high...)