Suggestion for beating the bots!

AlexDougherty

I want to make two suggestions for beating Bots, I'm not pretending these are easy solutions or that I understand the programming, just that these would help reduce the Bots stealing resources.

First, make the game partially track players, at the moment the game seems to be tricked by bots into accepting that they are where they say they are. If we have some sort of tracking system the game can detect characters teleporting without using shrines and going five times fast than any character can move. I realise this would use memory, but if the game only track where we had been for say the last 20seconds it might spot the bot teleporting/running faster than the eye can follow.

Second, make under the surface a death zone, with exceptions for dungeons and caves where we are supposed to go (so legitimate players aren't affected). This would hinder the cheating bots who are running under our feet to get to the nodes. This would work especially good if it destroyed all mats in their possession (on the basis that they where illegally harvesting them).

These two combined would make it extremely hard for harvesting Bots to operate, especially if GMs then investigated them and hopefully banned them. As I said I'm not claiming they are easy or even possible, but I want to suggest them for your Consideration.

Noctisse

To be honest, the tracking thingy would probably make the game impossible to play for everyone without a super gaming computer, especially now the game already tends to freeze because of memory leak.

The ''under the surface'' death zone seems like an interesting option; HOWEVER, if implemented now, it would be a disaster for legit players. Sadly, the game has so many glitches that I personally end up stuck inside a wall while jumping over it or falling through a house while trying to use the door, pretty much every day. If I also were to lose all my gathered materials every time this happened, I would probably end up quitting the game. Therefore, all those glitches would have to be fixed, otherwise actual players would suffer as much as bots

dannymcgr81b14_ESO

I know absolutely nothing about programming so I don't even know if this is possible but I wish they could randomize the node spawns. If they didn't appear in the same place all the time then the bots would be useless.

AlexDougherty

Noctisse wrote: »

To be honest, the tracking thingy would probably make the game impossible to play for everyone without a super gaming computer, especially now the game already tends to freeze because of memory leak.

The ''under the surface'' death zone seems like an interesting option; HOWEVER, if implemented now, it would be a disaster for legit players. Sadly, the game has so many glitches that I personally end up stuck inside a wall while jumping over it or falling through a house while trying to use the door, pretty much every day. If I also were to lose all my gathered materials every time this happened, I would probably end up quitting the game. Therefore, all those glitches would have to be fixed, otherwise actual players would suffer as much as bots

Yeah, I suspected that the tracking thing is unviable, but It's the only thing I could think of, especially as I've seen a few moving ridiculously fast and teleporting.

The under the surface death zone would be something for them to investigate, and introduce when they can do it right, not necessarily right now.

But thanks for the feedback, any constructive criricism is happily received.

AlexDougherty

dannymcgr81b14_ESO wrote: »

I know absolutely nothing about programming so I don't even know if this is possible but I wish they could randomize the node spawns. If they didn't appear in the same place all the time then the bots would be useless.

That's doable I think, it would just require each node to have a variable it it's location, with some sort of mechanism to ensure that it's on the surface.

Nice Idea.

Drasn

AlexDougherty wrote: »

Noctisse wrote: »

To be honest, the tracking thingy would probably make the game impossible to play for everyone without a super gaming computer, especially now the game already tends to freeze because of memory leak.

The ''under the surface'' death zone seems like an interesting option; HOWEVER, if implemented now, it would be a disaster for legit players. Sadly, the game has so many glitches that I personally end up stuck inside a wall while jumping over it or falling through a house while trying to use the door, pretty much every day. If I also were to lose all my gathered materials every time this happened, I would probably end up quitting the game. Therefore, all those glitches would have to be fixed, otherwise actual players would suffer as much as bots

Yeah, I suspected that the tracking thing is unviable, but It's the only thing I could think of, especially as I've seen a few moving ridiculously fast and teleporting.

The under the surface death zone would be something for them to investigate, and introduce when they can do it right, not necessarily right now.

But thanks for the feedback, any constructive criricism is happily received.

Most MMO's do use a tacking system in a sense. Simply explained it works similar to this: The server predicts the possible options for where your toon can end up based on expected user input. If your toon teleports or is moving faster than normal or flying etc. the server will reset you to the appropriate position. That is why in many games you get a rubber-banding effect after a lag spike.

It actually surprises me that simple server side checks like this aren't currently being used.

Noctisse

I recall playing an MMO couple of years ago (don't remember which one though) which would occasionally randomly bring up a small pop up, asking the player to do something (answer a question or so, cant recall the details) to prove they are not a bot. I know it sounds annoying, but it's something

zinoviy22b14_ESO

That would be Aion. If you were harvesting for a long time it would throw up a bot check.. but It took a really long time to trigger if I remember.

Also ZoS the first reason whoy Aion failed in NA was the bot swarm...

elizabethmciver19pub19_ESO

I think the pop up question is a good idea. I'd be willing to tolerate a small interruption to catch those damn bots!

AlexDougherty

elizabethmciver19pub19_ESO wrote: »

I think the pop up question is a good idea. I'd be willing to tolerate a small interruption to catch those damn bots!

Provided it doesn't happen in the middle of a fight. Otherwise I could tolerate it too.

Requiemslove

Yea, I mentioned something similar to this a few weeks ago. I had an idea where the game would essentially have a form of virtual intelligence where it starts out with a rudimentary understanding of bot behaviour, and as people come across bots, report them and say exactly what the bot was seen to do, that VI gets more intelligent and the game automatically bans bot accounts. I do not understand the specifics but I don't believe this would have a memory issue like one of the OPs ideas would. Of course, any player who gets automatically banned by the game [say it gets it wrong] would have the chance to appeal to ZOS staff.

madangrypally

ZoS would much rather destroy the class that the Bots used and consider all the normal players they loose from it as expendable garbage.

Less legit players == less need for bots..

Come resubbing time I would love to see ESOs current numbers but ZoS will never publish them because it would cause a panic and even faster exodus of the player base.

Noctisse

zinoviy22b14_ESO wrote: »

That would be Aion. If you were harvesting for a long time it would throw up a bot check.. but It took a really long time to trigger if I remember.

Also ZoS the first reason whoy Aion failed in NA was the bot swarm...

You're right, that was the case!
So, if it is only triggered by farming for a long time I don't think it would really bother players all that much, as it wouldn't occur in the middle of a fight.

Requiemslove wrote: »

Yea, I mentioned something similar to this a few weeks ago. I had an idea where the game would essentially have a form of virtual intelligence where it starts out with a rudimentary understanding of bot behaviour, and as people come across bots, report them and say exactly what the bot was seen to do, that VI gets more intelligent and the game automatically bans bot accounts. I do not understand the specifics but I don't believe this would have a memory issue like one of the OPs ideas would. Of course, any player who gets automatically banned by the game [say it gets it wrong] would have the chance to appeal to ZOS staff.

Wow this is...just wow. It's a really cool idea, but I don't think ZOS is going to develop an AI with the capability of learning from feedback and improving itself, to support ESO. I am clueless when it comes to programming, but I believe that sort of thing would require a proper research and development team and a LOT of work. A company could probably make billions by properly developing something like this and selling it to third parties, I don't think it's something ZOS could do as a side project...

AlexDougherty

Noctisse wrote: »

Wow this is...just wow. It's a really cool idea, but I don't think ZOS is going to develop an AI with the capability of learning from feedback and improving itself, to support ESO. I am clueless when it comes to programming, but I believe that sort of thing would require a proper research and development team and a LOT of work. A company could probably make billions by properly developing something like this and selling it to third parties, I don't think it's something ZOS could do as a side project...

He said VI, which is shorthand for something that acts smart but is nowere near an actual AI. The old "AI" in some games was actually VI, whichh is to say smart enough to respond but not AI. But even that is problematic, so I agree with you.

ExiledKhallisi

How about for every 5-10 reports.... "player" or bot.... is flagged hostile to all.

Or a lore based game related captcha after a report.

AlexDougherty

ExiledKhallisi wrote: »

How about for every 5-10 reports.... "player" or bot.... is flagged hostile to all.

Or a lore based game related captcha after a report.

If you base it on the number of players reporting, then it becomes subject to abuse, so no. Having a GM investigate is one thing, or any of the other suggestions, but not that.

A lore related Captcha is problemetic, since new players won't know the lore, which is contradictory in places. But having some sort of question that requires an answer might work, provided it's typed in and someone checks it to make sure it's an answer.

Noctisse

Maybe not lore related, but it would actually be interesting if, whenever you reported someone for botting, they were sent an automated request to type a randomized captcha...

AlexDougherty

Noctisse wrote: »

Maybe not lore related, but it would actually be interesting if, whenever you reported someone for botting, they were sent an automated request to type a randomized captcha...

Agreed, typing in something on screen is a decent way to beat bots, and we need something.

dewy666

Put all the cheaters on their own small server with tons of lag and disconnects to punish them

Orizuru

AlexDougherty wrote: »

dannymcgr81b14_ESO wrote: »

I know absolutely nothing about programming so I don't even know if this is possible but I wish they could randomize the node spawns. If they didn't appear in the same place all the time then the bots would be useless.

That's doable I think, it would just require each node to have a variable it it's location, with some sort of mechanism to ensure that it's on the surface.

Nice Idea.

Not doable. Computers can't really choose anything at random. They can only choose from a list of choices in a seemingly random manner.

The end result is all possible spawn points would be easily identifiable within a few days of this being implemented and the bots would just run between the spots and harvest from the ones that are spawned.

It would slow the bots for about 2 days at most, then we would be right back where we are now.

AlexDougherty

NaciremaDiputs wrote: »

AlexDougherty wrote: »

dannymcgr81b14_ESO wrote: »

I know absolutely nothing about programming so I don't even know if this is possible but I wish they could randomize the node spawns. If they didn't appear in the same place all the time then the bots would be useless.

That's doable I think, it would just require each node to have a variable it it's location, with some sort of mechanism to ensure that it's on the surface.

Nice Idea.

Not doable. Computers can't really choose anything at random. They can only choose from a list of choices in a seemingly random manner.

The end result is all possible spawn points would be easily identifiable within a few days of this being implemented and the bots would just run between the spots and harvest from the ones that are spawned.

It would slow the bots for about 2 days at most, then we would be right back where we are now.

Well you could have it randomly select the location from a list, which would have that result.

Or you could have a random number generator (plus a minimum and maximum range) on each axis determine where the cordinates would be, which would require the Bots to actually search. Obviously this could produce nodes in unreachable locations, so some sort of fix for that would be required.

Of course, I'm not a programmer, so that might be impossible, but I think it's doable.

AngryWolf

Apparently there a GM's in the game. I just wish they would either put in a way to contact the online GM's when you come along yet another Bot Train of Love , or provide and easy reporting method that provide the coordinates and time stamp.

If you try the F1 all you can say is, 'Well...they are over by the bridge, behind the big tree, to left of the rock thingy'. I have the quick report add-on, but it's really not that helpful when this bot train is tooling along full speed. Just a quick 2 button combo that would log the sighted bot train and when. Then I guess the online GM's can come take a look at their leisure.

I really like the GM systems Age of Conan had. A GM would show up, and sometimes as his own toon in full tech support regalia, and one even saluted me before before leaving after helping me. SLIIICKK! They never had a bot problem in that game though. Not sure if the software wasn't as easy to fool or if bot makers just weren't as smart back then.

Any...QUICK BOT TRAIN SIGHTING REPORT SYSTEM PLEASE!

AlexDougherty

AngryWolf wrote: »

Any...QUICK BOT TRAIN SIGHTING REPORT SYSTEM PLEASE!

Yes, this would be a good idea, any method of quicker Bot reporting would be nice. Especially if you could report the quick glimpses of bots underground or moving ridiculously fast, as well as groups in dungeons.

Asasinka

As a coder I can say that everything is doable. The idea is a start point of all code and it can be anyone's idea. Coder just has to implement it with available resources.
And the unreachable spots won't be a problem if you have system which holds player inside some area, the same system can avoid bad node placement.

RockSolidWiff

How do you know those trains of Templars, all with odd names are actually bots?
I have followed a couple of trains of 5 guys, all 2H Templars, running from spawn to spawn. I would guess they are farming.
I could stay with them, I could, as mage get in on the kill. In no time I filled my bag from the drops.
Nothing I saw indicated these were bots.
I could be five guys just farming as a system to maximize results. Very legal. These people are not playing but working, end goal is to make in game gold to sell to other players for RL money.

Orizuru

AlexDougherty wrote: »

NaciremaDiputs wrote: »

AlexDougherty wrote: »

dannymcgr81b14_ESO wrote: »

I know absolutely nothing about programming so I don't even know if this is possible but I wish they could randomize the node spawns. If they didn't appear in the same place all the time then the bots would be useless.

That's doable I think, it would just require each node to have a variable it it's location, with some sort of mechanism to ensure that it's on the surface.

Nice Idea.

Not doable. Computers can't really choose anything at random. They can only choose from a list of choices in a seemingly random manner.

The end result is all possible spawn points would be easily identifiable within a few days of this being implemented and the bots would just run between the spots and harvest from the ones that are spawned.

It would slow the bots for about 2 days at most, then we would be right back where we are now.

Well you could have it randomly select the location from a list, which would have that result.

Or you could have a random number generator (plus a minimum and maximum range) on each axis determine where the cordinates would be, which would require the Bots to actually search. Obviously this could produce nodes in unreachable locations, so some sort of fix for that would be required.

Of course, I'm not a programmer, so that might be impossible, but I think it's doable.

The random coordinates idea has been tried before by other games. In the long run, they abandoned the idea because it causes things to spawn in odd places, which in many cases could be hidden by other objects in the game world, or unreachable by players. These resource nodes that are effectively unlootable never despawn and end up just reducing the number of nodes available. Trying to fix these problems mostly just led to inefficient code that risked heavy performance hits to the game servers when respawning resource nodes.

In theory, almost anything is doable in programming, but it has to be efficient, and when there are a quarter million players interacting with the game's code in different ways, one inefficient block of code can have severe performance implications of the application, your personal computer, and/or the game server.

AlexDougherty

Kisiassi wrote: »

The random coordinates idea has been tried before by other games. In the long run, they abandoned the idea because it causes things to spawn in odd places, which in many cases could be hidden by other objects in the game world, or unreachable by players.

Ok, thanks for telling us @kisiassi .

Pewpie

Kisiassi wrote: »

AlexDougherty wrote: »

dannymcgr81b14_ESO wrote: »

I know absolutely nothing about programming so I don't even know if this is possible but I wish they could randomize the node spawns. If they didn't appear in the same place all the time then the bots would be useless.

That's doable I think, it would just require each node to have a variable it it's location, with some sort of mechanism to ensure that it's on the surface.

Nice Idea.

Not doable. Computers can't really choose anything at random. They can only choose from a list of choices in a seemingly random manner.

The end result is all possible spawn points would be easily identifiable within a few days of this being implemented and the bots would just run between the spots and harvest from the ones that are spawned.

It would slow the bots for about 2 days at most, then we would be right back where we are now.

Of course computers can choose something at random. Or what appears to be random. Bots would absolutely not be able to find nodes that were randomly created on a map, unless they blindly run around and look for them. (which they probably could, but would be killed by npcs most likely).

Simply give the nodes a random x,y location and put it out in the world. I'm sure they could also check if the location is a valid place for the node (ie on a house or tree) etc.

This would probably have to be instanced and performed on the client though, the server could not make those checks for terrain etc. It wouldn't be a good solution. So the nodes need to be player specific, (which shouldnt be a problem).

Requiemslove

RockSolidWiff wrote: »

How do you know those trains of Templars, all with odd names are actually bots?
I have followed a couple of trains of 5 guys, all 2H Templars, running from spawn to spawn. I would guess they are farming.
I could stay with them, I could, as mage get in on the kill. In no time I filled my bag from the drops.
Nothing I saw indicated these were bots.
I could be five guys just farming as a system to maximize results. Very legal. These people are not playing but working, end goal is to make in game gold to sell to other players for RL money.

1. I feel obligated to take this one. We know a bot by the odd random name. Most, if not ALL people who play MMOs make an attempt to have original names for their characters and do not, as bots do, have the likes of "srtjdhjkd" as example.
2. When following that train, did they all move in unison? I have never actually seen a bot train in the game myself [just seen groups in dungeons] but the thing about bots is when they move, they do so together, I watched a video clip another posted of a bot train, and they would kill a mob, then the 1st would move, followed by the 2nd 3rd 4th and 5th, and they do so in complete unison. Actuall players, even grouped in the same room/location will not ever have the same level of unity of movement, because bots are a script.
3. You say nothing you saw indicated they were bots...are you actually blind?, bots are not hard to spot. The random nonsense not connected to anything names, are the first indicator...not that you should need any others.
4. Actually, gold farming with intent to sell acquired gold to other people, for real cash is a breach of the TOS and rightly, if caught gets the seller and buyer banned. I do not know what ZOS stance is on multi character boxing [as in playing more than one character at a time] having never done so but regardless of that, selling game currency for real money is not allowed. So why would any legitimate player want to?

To close, a word of advice. Be careful what you say as you may well cast doubt on your own legitimacy as a player.