How much damage do bots do?

JoseDelgadoCub17_ESO · May 2014

Like honestly I see all these complaints about bots but how much damage do they actually do that bothers you that much and makes the game non enjoyable.

Like honestly someone explain this to me.

Crassius · May 2014

For me it's not so much a question of the damage they do it's the fact they (and the cheaters/exploiters) have been allowed to do it for so long.

Monkeyshoeslive · May 2014

They do do damage. They take mats away from genuine players, creating a shortage which leads to price hikes. They also make public dungeon damn near unplayable due to the respawn rate.

Glurin · May 2014

JoseDelgadoCub17_ESO wrote: »

Like honestly I see all these complaints about bots but how much damage do they actually do that bothers you that much and makes the game non enjoyable.

Like honestly someone explain this to me.

Boss farming bots kill the boss in less than a second, making it extremely difficult or even outright preventing you from getting credit for the kill, collecting loot or getting any enjoyment at all from the challenge of taking down said boss.

Power leveling bots feed gold farmers money, giving them more reason and resources to create more of all types of bots and increasing the availability of "ebay characters".

Both previously mentioned bots create a situation where the enemies you need to fight are nearly constantly dead and on their respective respawn timers. Meaning you spend a lot more time just standing around waiting for the enemy mobs to show up, hoping you can kill them before the bots come back.

Resource farming bots snipe the resources right out from under you, preventing you from collecting the quantity that you need with any reasonable degree of effort.

Gold spam bots clog up the chat channels, making it difficult to impossible to use them for their intended purpose.

All bots take up valuable graphics processing power, especially when they congregate in large numbers, creating lag.

All resource and item collection bots can at any point flood the game economy, drastically altering the price and value of the items they collect. "If everyone's super, no one will be."

AH bots buy up all the cheap stuff and resell it at dramatically inflated prices, making it impossible for anyone who isn't already wealthy to get what they need without finding it themselves and encouraging people to buy gold, which in turn results in many more hacked accounts.

All types of bots often use various game exploits which, aside from being a cheat and against the ToS, can also cause lag or even create other bugs and glitches.

tengri · May 2014

The damage they do to new(ish) players specifically is significant; you simply can not get enough mats harvesting nodes to start out anymore.
The impact is somewhat softened because with a little patience you can do ok by just destructing loot; does not work for alchemy though.

Another sort of "damage" was created by Z themselves because they announced they wont be moving "EU server" to EU until after the bot problem is under control. Riiight!
And now it pretty much looks like this will never happen - a lot EU players wont be taking this crap for very long and start canceling rather sooner than later; paying full price, seeing bots laughing in their faces left and right and knowing those are the major reason why their server does not move to provide better network connection... very funny, haha! Not.

yiasemi · May 2014

Well, for example, in Grahtwood I wanted some hide for my first set of armor at level 16. So, medium armor is available all along the beach in the form of mudcrabs and crocs. OK off I go. Normally I would be able to farm mudcrabs as they respawn fast and this seems to be the beach where all mudcrabs come to mate, there are loads of the little snappers. But a train of 4 bots were running from animal to animal killing them all in a second, before running to the next. As an NB dual wielder (I know I know) I had to nip in first with strife(missile spell) to get my share. A pleasant 10 minute jaunt with the excitement of new armor as a reward for levelling to 16 turned into a scramble for scraps with hhghgjhgj and ahxhjvcccv.
That's just one example of countless annoyances. Scarcity of some mats for crafting is the worst.

Censorious · May 2014

In simple terms, if they are allowed to get away with it, they eventually take over the game.

Once the number of bots increases beyond a critical point no-one can get any materials, gold or drops because the bots take it all first.
The only way you can get any for yourself is to buy from the botter. Or get a bot-program yourself.
That's it - there's no point to playing the game any more because all the quests and all the dungeons are full of bots, killing the mobs, bosses and snatching resources.

Game Over. We Pwnd your Bosses.

mutharex · May 2014

Not a lot of damage, they usually are lvl 3 character in rags...
Oh wait, that's not what you asked?

People need something to complain about, I seen the same in other games (like GW2 or FFXIV) and now no one remembers them but at the time you could read the exact, same silly remarks (The worst ever!Never seen anything like this)

My advice? Just ignore them (the complainers, not the bots:report those!)

AlexDougherty · May 2014

JoseDelgadoCub17_ESO wrote: »

Like honestly I see all these complaints about bots but how much damage do they actually do that bothers you that much and makes the game non enjoyable.

Like honestly someone explain this to me.

Firstly they steal all the resources we want for crafting, you can travel for days on some maps and not see more than two or three nodes unharvested.

Secondly they trawl dungeons fighting mobs and bosses, preventing people from getting experience (both kinds) and taking drops.

Thirdly and Finally they suppport those goldsellers who are constantly advertising on /zone, who themselves represent dodgy websites that may or may not steal credit card details for illegal organisations.

Does that explain why we don't like botters?

Turelus · May 2014

Crassius wrote: »

For me it's not so much a question of the damage they do it's the fact they (and the cheaters/exploiters) have been allowed to do it for so long.

They haven't been allowed to do it. ZOS haven't said "keep at it bots! Annoy our players and make your gold!" but ZOS also doesn't have the magical bot killing bullet everyone seems to think exists.

I ask everyone who complains about ZOS not doing enough to fight bots one question. How do they fix it? How do they do what no other MMO in history (to my knowledge) has ever achieved and become bot free?

Fix your code! - This isn't going to be done over night.
Hire more GMs and have them online 24/7! - How many people would this take and at what costs? 24/7 protection from GM's across two servers isn't going to come cheap.

AlexDougherty · May 2014

Turelus wrote: »

Crassius wrote: »

For me it's not so much a question of the damage they do it's the fact they (and the cheaters/exploiters) have been allowed to do it for so long.

They haven't been allowed to do it. ZOS haven't said "keep at it bots! Annoy our players and make your gold!" but ZOS also doesn't have the magical bot killing bullet everyone seems to think exists.

I ask everyone who complains about ZOS not doing enough to fight bots one question. How do they fix it? How do they do what no other MMO in history (to my knowledge) has ever achieved and become bot free?

Fix your code! - This isn't going to be done over night.
Hire more GMs and have them online 24/7! - How many people would this take and at what costs? 24/7 protection from GM's across two servers isn't going to come cheap.

Agreed, even a few of the more creative solutions, such as making under the surface a death zone so underground bots die, are not things that will happen overnight. And even if these counter measures take place, the botters will just find ways around it.

All ZOS can do is make as hard as possible for the Botters, and keep banning them. Which is all any MMO can do.

ArRashid · May 2014

1) they stink. Even after they moved underground.

2) people who use bots are owning the whole market, as they have free and literally unlimited flow of gold and crafting materials, tempers and everything else

3) CRAZY, ABSURD and SHORTSIGHTED countermeasures against bots made by Zenimax have ruined the game for regular players

Orizuru · May 2014

ArRashid wrote: »

3) CRAZY, ABSURD and SHORTSIGHTED countermeasures against bots made by Zenimax have ruined the game for regular players

This is true as well. The bulk of the methods employed so far have hurt players more than bots. I can't help but feel that the players demanding a solution right now are contributing to that though by putting unneeded pressure on ZOS for a quick fix instead of a good fix.

yiasemi · May 2014

I made a comment above about bots on Haven beach. They have been there for weeks farming mudcrabs. Well, went back tonight to gather mudcrab eyes for the carnival, and...empty beach, just a couple of players doing player stuff. What a lovely beach and surprise. The mudcrabs however were not happy to see me. Well done though on sorting out one little corner, it is a lovely beach now, if you can dodge Bosmer eating plants, carnivorous giant beetles, crocs and sirens.
EDIT Log back in to play again and.... as I was half-expecting there is the same bot train I reported days ago. Those of you who doubt, it's all instanced and they are there. And not being banned. C'mon ZOS get Zossing.
BTW for racists, I'm in China right now and in my experience a lot of the bots are from Asia, (but some are players and some have Spanish names) but so are many players, and the Chinese have become expert at hiding their point of origin due to their own internet meanies. Please don't have blanket bans like some kind of bizarre war on terror. It won't work, and many of us play like bouncy khajiits.

hk11 · May 2014

one guy going from zone to zone watching players with names like asdfasdfa could make a serious dent

mutharex · May 2014

Orizuru wrote: »

ArRashid wrote: »

3) CRAZY, ABSURD and SHORTSIGHTED countermeasures against bots made by Zenimax have ruined the game for regular players

This is true as well. The bulk of the methods employed so far have hurt players more than bots. I can't help but feel that the players demanding a solution right now are contributing to that though by putting unneeded pressure on ZOS for a quick fix instead of a good fix.

This reminds me exactly of GW2, the outrage at bots ("never seen a game with so many bots" and the usual hyperbole) and the even bigger outrage at aNet countermeasures

nerevarine1138 · May 2014

hk11 wrote: »

one guy going from zone to zone watching players with names like asdfasdfa could make a serious dent

If gold-sellers didn't basically have an endless supply of accounts, it totally would make a dent.

OP, to answer your question: they don't make a huge difference to anyone's play. They're bad in the overall scheme of things because they mess with game mechanics and compromise accounts. But in terms of actual, tangible impact on the individual player, they really don't do all that much. People just like to whine, and whining about gold-sellers/bots is a time-honored tradition, because deep down, everyone knows that the developer can never get rid of them entirely.

Dayv · May 2014

Does anyone know what the typical lifespan of a bit is? I'm just wondering if a no trading other than with NPCs for the first 24 hours of a toon's existence (or a certain amount of active logged in time) would help. It certainly wouldn't cause genuine players any real hindrance.

Dayv · May 2014

hk11 wrote: »

one guy going from zone to zone watching players with names like asdfasdfa could make a serious dent

One guy sat at a terminal reading a log of the names of the latest characters created could make an even more serious dent.

yiasemi · May 2014

Ask older players to ban or be the pointman/woman. As an example, I can talk Cantonese with a little Putonghua), Greek, English, French and increasing Spanish. I'm in my late 40's. From chat I can see a lot of very worldly people who grew up with TES around this game. Don't leave it to a few air-conditioned office workers in the US to sort out the world. Or an automated complaint system that is obviously broke. Mine our experiences, it's we players that figure out the bugs, I don't mind helping the game survive. Well actually I do tbh, I want to play when I am not working, but I don't mean me anyway, I mean all the people like me. Use some players and get away from the corporate automation, after all, it's automation V human experience. Get closer to the players who are your customers. Most of us see bots all the time and can't understand why they flourish, and we decline.

GreySix · May 2014

JoseDelgadoCub17_ESO wrote: »

Like honestly I see all these complaints about bots but how much damage do they actually do that bothers you that much and makes the game non enjoyable.

Like honestly someone explain this to me.

Two pieces for me:

Immersion: Playing a game like this generally entails a suspension of disbelief, much as when you're enjoying a fantasy or science-fiction movie. When you see folks in prison garb and Level 3 teleporting from node to node, swinging pick-axes from underground, or flying through the air - it messes with immersion
Crafting: Like to engage my characters in crafting, so when I see barren landscapes, or worse - bots flitting about upon such barren landscape, it removes much of the pleasure I gain from crafting - or exploring the land.

Aett_Thorn · May 2014

Dayv wrote: »

Does anyone know what the typical lifespan of a bit is? I'm just wondering if a no trading other than with NPCs for the first 24 hours of a toon's existence (or a certain amount of active logged in time) would help. It certainly wouldn't cause genuine players any real hindrance.

Wouldn't bot creators then just park their characters overnight before sending them out into the world to collect resources?

It's an interesting idea, but I don't think that it would really work to hinder bots, and might actually hurt real players who wanted to trade with friends.