I report the same bots every day, and nothing.

babedenny

The same bots. The same usernames. Every single day, at the dolmen in Vulkhel Guard. ZOS does nothing. Why is that? All you would have to do is have an employee log in for five minutes and go there to see what everybody else can see. It's pretty obvious. Yes, they are bots. They are not just AFK for hours. Am I not following the correct procedure for reporting obvious cheating?

JamieAubrey

ZOS seem to not GAS anymore, amount of things people get away with

Elsonso

babedenny wrote: »

The same bots. The same usernames. Every single day, at the dolmen in Vulkhel Guard. ZOS does nothing. Why is that? All you would have to do is have an employee log in for five minutes and go there to see what everybody else can see. It's pretty obvious. Yes, they are bots. They are not just AFK for hours. Am I not following the correct procedure for reporting obvious cheating?

Well, for starters, you only need to report them once. I doubt multiple reports from the same person gets anything done faster.

Also, would be helpful to know playform and server, so we can all go watch them.

babedenny

PC NA. They are there right now. Vulkhel Guard dolmen.

WuffyCerulei

I'll check this out as soon as I log back in. Probs get some footage.

WuffyCerulei

Recording such events gives some pretty solid evidence as to botting or using macros.

babedenny

Ackwalan

Have you tried putting them on ignore?

Elsonso

Well...

The most obvious person cheating by using a repeating macro isn't even pictured

I would not get upset about reports for the guy on the right in the picture being ignored. There is a player there. He runs around, collects loot, and acts rather hyper between drops. I would not report this person, based on what I saw.

The guy on the left is holding down the mouse button to get a heavy attack whenever something gets in range. He could be using a macro or some other form of cheating. He got knocked by a mob and stayed on target, so my feeling is that someone is close by. I'd have to watch this guy for longer before I reported him.

The one guy you did not picture is doing a light attack ever second or so, which smells like cheating to me. I would report this guy. What he is doing is stupid obvious and deserves to be reported.

Ankael07

They should assemble a team of volunteering players. Put an official on their head and theyll only have to pay 1 person who looks at every report received by volunteers.

geonsocal

Baconfat79

It's especially sad if you've been around since day one. There were global popup notifications to the tune of "I am GM so-and-so, the bot crusher! Report bots to me and they will be eradicated"...and they were! I could send that GM a whisper, and WITHIN THE HOUR, those bots would be removed. Now it seems like they just don't care anymore. The GM presence is not there like it used to be. I get it...it's not feasible to have ppl on the payroll just sitting around waiting to police the population, but there should be some middle ground. Where are the GMs these days?

Elsonso

Baconfat79 wrote: »

It's especially sad if you've been around since day one. There were global popup notifications to the tune of "I am GM so-and-so, the bot crusher! Report bots to me and they will be eradicated"...and they were! I could send that GM a whisper, and WITHIN THE HOUR, those bots would be removed. Now it seems like they just don't care anymore. The GM presence is not there like it used to be. I get it...it's not feasible to have ppl on the payroll just sitting around waiting to police the population, but there should be some middle ground. Where are the GMs these days?

That was back when ESO was on the course of a AAA subscription game.

raidentenshu_ESO

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

Recording such events gives some pretty solid evidence as to botting or using macros.

The problem with that is that ZOS protects bad players because if the video shows their name.... ZOS will remove your post for name shaming.

This is a new form of protecting bad players from being exposed in public.

LMar

I have reported a lot of bots in the dolmen near Vulkhel Guard on PC EU. It is always the same variation. A player standing a little bit away from it using ranged weapons (fire or ice staff or bow) and heavy attacking (for staff) or light attacking (bow) at the position where the dolmen boss spawns. Some of them are a bit more "clever" and activate skills in between their heavy attacks, eg I saw a sorcerer bot activate dark deal, healing himself (just in case a mob got him? ) These were clearly not players as they did all those attacks and skill activation always in the same manner and timing and they just stand there for hours heavy attacking the dolmen boss position

Vipstaakki

Why do you feel the need to send in a new ticket everyday? This is why the support is unresponsive and stuck. No amount of people are able to handle the staggering amount of tickets you are literally spamming them with,

babedenny

The response is the same, regardless of whether you submit 1 ticket, or 50 tickets. Typically, with most held desk systems, multiple tickets for the same issue are all combined into one anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

MightyBantam34

It's not just on pc , this is also on console now , I've reported many bot groups , yet I still see them in the same places , nothing done . .

Banana

Maybe they're subscriber's

malchior

I was going to say more bots = more initial sales. But yours is better, more bots = more monthly donations to ZOS

Banana wrote: »

Maybe they're subscriber's

RoyalPink06

Interestingly enough, the other day I spent a painful amount of time watching a group of about 6 bots farming on PS4 NA. First I reported them individually, and then I took a bunch of screenshots (including one of all the carcasses that had piled up lol) and video clips and added those to the tickets afterwards. The next day I went back to the area and the bots were gone. Not sure if coincidence or not, and I haven't gone back since to see if they stayed gone, so who knows.

I think the more details you can provide, ex., exact location, time, day, what they are doing and why it is wrong, etc., and the more evidence you can provide with screenshots and video, I think that makes it more likely that GMs will be able to do something. Just a guess though.

Divad Zarn

Nothing strange, when support replies withing the WEEK, while they obligated to reply with 1 business day, there can't be further questions. Also, game service quality is dramatically decreased for last 2 years. I really loved this game when it was out, i enjoyed it a lot (yes i'm the one who pre-ordered it with hope that it will be greatest MMO), but now, its only money-sucking machine which probably will be closed in one day. How the hell NEVERWINTER can have MORE players than Elder scrolls MMO with HUGE lore?? I think people who were responsible for TESO must be sent to jail for decreasing quality of ES series.

nine9six

Try reloading your UI.

Saturn

I've experienced the same, and it feels like there's no impact at all when you report an obvious bot following the same path for 40 minutes straight without pause. Every time I see a bot train it's bigger than the previous one, not as big as they were at launch, but they are getting there. At launch I saw an eleven man train, just recently in Eastmarch I found a seven man bot train...

I used to be really proud of the fact that ESO was bot free, but they are creeping back in, and it feels like ZOS is doing nothing to prevent it.

If only these were the early days and you could simply whisper @antiboty to come banhammer them all.

ESO feels more and more like it gave up the diet and just said, "*** it, I'll just give up on my body and let nature take its course." Except that doesn't work in an MMO, because that's when bots and cheaters get to run rampant, and when the performance tanks so it feels like the game is locked at 20fps. (Excuse the odd analogy, but it's honestly what the game feels like to me at the moment.)

Prof_Bawbag

Still don't understand why people report these players. If ZoS couldn't give a damn about policing their game, then I'm not gonna waste a second of my time reporting them. On PS4 EU, the dolmen outside of Vulkhel Guard is full of them and has been for weeks. Zero gets done about it and because there's so many, they're hindering new players that can't even get a single hit in. It's bad enough with how populated this dolmen is without there being umpteen bots making it even more of a lag fest.

DMuehlhausen

babedenny wrote: »

The same bots. The same usernames. Every single day, at the dolmen in Vulkhel Guard. ZOS does nothing. Why is that? All you would have to do is have an employee log in for five minutes and go there to see what everybody else can see. It's pretty obvious. Yes, they are bots. They are not just AFK for hours. Am I not following the correct procedure for reporting obvious cheating?

Trust me they are gathering data just like they were at the start of the game. In a month or two there will be another Ban Hammer probably

Junipus

raidentenshu_ESO wrote: »

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

Recording such events gives some pretty solid evidence as to botting or using macros.

The problem with that is that ZOS protects bad players because if the video shows their name.... ZOS will remove your post for name shaming.

This is a new form of protecting bad players from being exposed in public.

No, this is how you protect people from being accused of being guilty before being proved innocent.

Without a naming and shaming policy there's nothing to stop someone from reporting another player that they have a beef with and accusing that player of cheating, botting etc. That then leaves that other player open to harassment, intimidation, threats and repercussions while being entirely innocent of any wrongdoing.

Having a naming and shaming policy avoids the witch hunts that would inevitably arise (and have arisen) from the toxic behaviour of people on the internet.

It might suck donkey balls when you know people are cheating or that you're dealing with bots, but it's there for a damn good reason.

Elsonso

raidentenshu_ESO wrote: »

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

Recording such events gives some pretty solid evidence as to botting or using macros.

The problem with that is that ZOS protects bad players because if the video shows their name.... ZOS will remove your post for name shaming.

This is a new form of protecting bad players from being exposed in public.

You don't have to post the video on the forum for everyone to read. You can send a private message to someone like ZOS_JessicaFolsom or ZOS_GinaBruno with a link to the video and they will see it and forward the link on to the people that can handle it. You can name and shame all you want in that video. That rule applies to what gets posted in public on the forum.

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

babedenny wrote: »

The same bots. The same usernames. Every single day, at the dolmen in Vulkhel Guard. ZOS does nothing. Why is that? All you would have to do is have an employee log in for five minutes and go there to see what everybody else can see. It's pretty obvious. Yes, they are bots. They are not just AFK for hours. Am I not following the correct procedure for reporting obvious cheating?

Trust me they are gathering data just like they were at the start of the game. In a month or two there will be another Ban Hammer probably

This is possible. I really don't think that ZOS knows how to tell when someone is cheating, and when they are just outside of the normal way people play. That means innocents get banned, and in the attempt to make that right, guilty people get unbanned.

Junipus wrote: »

It might suck donkey balls when you know people are cheating or that you're dealing with bots, but it's there for a damn good reason.

To add to this, it is best to not get personally attached to the reporting of players for cheating. Report them and move on. Forget about it. Do something else. If you see them again, just let it go. If it bothers you, go somewhere else. Essentially, this:

Ackwalan wrote: »

Have you tried putting them on ignore?

Tandor

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

babedenny wrote: »

The same bots. The same usernames. Every single day, at the dolmen in Vulkhel Guard. ZOS does nothing. Why is that? All you would have to do is have an employee log in for five minutes and go there to see what everybody else can see. It's pretty obvious. Yes, they are bots. They are not just AFK for hours. Am I not following the correct procedure for reporting obvious cheating?

Trust me they are gathering data just like they were at the start of the game. In a month or two there will be another Ban Hammer probably

Agreed. Most developers don't tackle bots on a single report/action basis, they accumulate the reports then have a field day banning hundreds in one go. I assume a couple of reasons for that are firstly that it's more time-efficient for staff who are primarily engaged on other stuff, and secondly that if you ban one bot account it's both cheap and easy to open another with no incentive to give up, but if you have dozens of your bot accounts closed in one go then it's more of a hassle and at a higher cost to replace all the accounts and with a greater likelihood that you will move on to another game instead.It's also possible that ZOS run a software tool every so often that searches the game and catches all the bots in one sweep. Pure speculation on my part, but it makes sense to me!

I also suspect that 20 reports from 20 players will be a lot more productive than 50 reports from 1 player. If I were a developer and 20 people reported the same player I'd think him worth investigating, whereas if one player reported another player 50 times I'd be more likely to think that it might be a case of harassment and I'd investigate the reporting player instead!

When the game launched I was certainly impacted by the bots because they stripped a lot of the harvesting nodes in ways I simply couldn't compete with, but while I'm aware of reports of bots these days I've not once felt impacted by them. I never hang around a dolmen, for example, long enough to notice whether I'm doing it with other players or bots, and have never failed to get a hit in unless I arrive just as it's all over. I loot the chest and move on, job done.