What is this? Botting, cheating, "legitimate" behaviour?

Seraphayel

Platform: XOne
Region: EU

I noticed some really weird behaviour of players during dolmens - players standing on "safe spots" and casting Destruction Staff heavy attacks permanently. Those players are there in the morning, during daytime and in the night. It seems like they're "bots" or players using macros (?) so that they can constantly get the dolmen XP when the event starts. I even saw those players in Camlorn doing the same thing (farming Werevoles, there is no dolmen or event) - casting staff heavy attacks without a pause. They are not on every dolmen but on some special ones e.g. the first dolmen in Auridon. Dozens of players doing the same thing - this can't be legitimate, right?

I just made a video (really bad quality because I had to film my TV with my smartphone to get a video) where you can see what I mean:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-XQpdkou1M&feature=youtu.be

Can somebody tell me what this is? Is this cheating? Botting? What is this? And the more important question: is this legitimate behaviour or can I report them?

kewl

Botting. Please report each and every player.

SantieClaws

This reminds khajiit very much of the bots that plagued Tamriel long, long ago and that this one she filmed then,

Any group of travellers bunched up together and doing the same thing over and over again would raise the spines of suspicion - if khajiit she had the spines yes.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Cherryblossom

This is fairly common in the starter area's now.

There are many in PVP running around using the CE again now, so I'd assume ZOS changed something recently that has allowed them to return.

Lord-Otto

I don't actually think it's botting. Just rubberbanding the right trigger.
Report 'em, anyway, it's cheating.

Lake

There's tons on PC, too. And the numbers are rising by the week.

Seraphayel

kewl wrote: »

Botting. Please report each and every player.

Yeah, did this with 10-15 players but reporting on consoles is so... let's not talk about it. And I don't even know in which category I should sort this - I used “cheating“ and “other“ describing them as bot users but I don't know if that's right. And it's ZOS... I doubt they'll do anything.

Rohamad_Ali

kewl wrote: »

Botting. Please report each and every player.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i-15kwAqIRM

Ankael07

One thing I want to make it clear is that there is no difference between botting with another program or just holding down a button on your keyboard/gamepad with a rubberband or something. Botting isnt about technology.

Ermiq

They are not bots! And it's not a macros-using!
How can you say so?
It's just a brick accidentially stuck on the controller's 'fire' button.

Ankael07 wrote: »

One thing I want to make it clear is that there is no difference between botting with another program or just holding down a button on your keyboard/gamepad with a rubberband or something. Botting isnt about technology.

Botting is about robots. Brick on the button is not a robot. ))

strikeback1247

Eremith wrote: »

They are not bots! And it's not a macros-using!
How can you say so?
It's just a brick accidentially stuck on the controller's 'fire' button.

Ankael07 wrote: »

One thing I want to make it clear is that there is no difference between botting with another program or just holding down a button on your keyboard/gamepad with a rubberband or something. Botting isnt about technology.

Botting is about robots. Brick on the button is not a robot. ))

But it's still just as punishable :^)

maltinkilic

Eremith wrote: »

They are not bots! And it's not a macros-using!
How can you say so?
It's just a brick accidentially stuck on the controller's 'fire' button.

Ankael07 wrote: »

One thing I want to make it clear is that there is no difference between botting with another program or just holding down a button on your keyboard/gamepad with a rubberband or something. Botting isnt about technology.

Botting is about robots. Brick on the button is not a robot. ))

Depends on if the brick is manufactured manually or with an automation process within a plant. There are billions of brocks on the world and it is hard to produce that much manually. So somewhere in the process of these heavy attacks industroalosation and aome softeare programming is used. I say it is botting.

JamieAubrey

I need to get into this action lol

VampiricByNature

I'm confused what this actually gets them? I mean, xp, but does it bother the markets like the pig farm or anything?

I guess if I were ZOS I would consider offering a very expensive XP boost for 0-50 or something. A lot of people don't play the game for the questing or leveling enjoyment and I think these "rubber-band-criminals" are an indication of that. [Or zone chat in Craglorn with multitudes of people power leveling in Sky Reach Catacombs)

Kevin_of_Devinshire

VampiricByNature wrote: »

I'm confused what this actually gets them? I mean, xp, but does it bother the markets like the pig farm or anything?

I guess if I were ZOS I would consider offering a very expensive XP boost for 0-50 or something. A lot of people don't play the game for the questing or leveling enjoyment and I think these "rubber-band-criminals" are an indication of that. [Or zone chat in Craglorn with multitudes of people power leveling in Sky Reach Catacombs)

Toons just standing there are getting XP. Now the ones that run around killing like the Dwemer video are looting. There is one RL person controlling one toon and a bot programs gathers the same key inputs and issues it to another account(s). You see these ppl running around all the time because one toon is leading and "usually" two other toons following the EXACT same path. If there were two other human controlling the other two toons there would be variations to their path or small changes. Human can't keep running the exact same path overtime. Eg: when coming up on a rock or hole, one toon will jump over, one toon will not calculate the jump just right and not make it over and another toon will see the second toon not making and just go around.

Gadget4

Seraphayel wrote: »

Platform: XOne
Region: EU

Exact same Dolmen on the EU PS4, 40+ 'cheaters' .. all day, every day.

I have reported people, others have reported people too .. but that was many weeks ago, when there were much smaller numbers, <15 .. now it's just ridiculous, there's just far too many people to report.

Elsonso

Ankael07 wrote: »

One thing I want to make it clear is that there is no difference between botting with another program or just holding down a button on your keyboard/gamepad with a rubberband or something. Botting isnt about technology.

There is no practical difference. Botting does not have to be high-tech. It can be anything from a fully autonomous character being driving by CE, to someone with a rubber band on the trigger or a weight on the keyboard. Apparently, it can also be a "toe" on the keyboard. No matter how much time is wasted debating definitions, the intent is the same, and is reportable.

RoyalPink06

Everyone needs to do their part and report when they see something like this. It is a pain on console, but I just put the report under "cheating" and then I write "bot" under the additional info section. Everyone I've ever reported (even large groups) this way is gone when I come back to the area to check, so ZOS is able to deal with them. Bot or rubber banding, it still plagues the game and it needs to be reported as much as possible.

Slurg

Doesn't matter if they're a "bot" or a rubber band, if they aren't going for the chest to get the rewards at the end, you can be fairly certain there is no player actively controlling the character, and that is against the rules. Please report.

Duiwel

@SantieClaws I remember those days... Every dungeon was plagued with them, every jute ( because it was launch ) node just had worms, every alchemy node had worms...

Those were the days The bots were kind of the reason I DIDN'T play the templar and kept at it with sorc and later moved over to DK.

Seraphayel

It would be great to have some official words from ZOS regarding this behaviour and what to do as a normal player like me.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_KaiSchober @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

anadandy

Seraphayel wrote: »

Platform: XOne
Region: EU

I just made a video (really bad quality because I had to film my TV with my smartphone to get a video) where you can see what I mean:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-XQpdkou1M&amp;feature=youtu.be

Can somebody tell me what this is? Is this cheating? Botting? What is this? And the more important question: is this legitimate behaviour or can I report them?

Ah, another day at the Iluvamir Dolmen. Same thing on PC/NA - lags the hell out of the area, and pretty much ruined Vulkhel Guard.

Elsonso

Seraphayel wrote: »

It would be great to have some official words from ZOS regarding this behaviour and what to do as a normal player like me.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_KaiSchober @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

They have said that it is already against the ToS and that they have a team of people who review this and that there is punishment. They don't give any details, so we have to fill in the blanks. The "team" consists of 2 interns that come in once a day for an hour. The punishment is being the intern. The intern does have some job perks; they get a 1 hour lunch break every day.



Edit: seriously, apparently they do deal with this. They move at a pace that make snails and glaciers look like sprinters.


Edit: drats, did it again. They are just slow.

GreenhaloX

Seraphayel wrote: »

Platform: XOne
Region: EU

I noticed some really weird behaviour of players during dolmens - players standing on "safe spots" and casting Destruction Staff heavy attacks permanently. Those players are there in the morning, during daytime and in the night. It seems like they're "bots" or players using macros (?) so that they can constantly get the dolmen XP when the event starts. I even saw those players in Camlorn doing the same thing (farming Werevoles, there is no dolmen or event) - casting staff heavy attacks without a pause. They are not on every dolmen but on some special ones e.g. the first dolmen in Auridon. Dozens of players doing the same thing - this can't be legitimate, right?

I just made a video (really bad quality because I had to film my TV with my smartphone to get a video) where you can see what I mean:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-XQpdkou1M&amp;feature=youtu.be

Can somebody tell me what this is? Is this cheating? Botting? What is this? And the more important question: is this legitimate behaviour or can I report them?

All the above.. ha ha

driosketch

VampiricByNature wrote: »

I'm confused what this actually gets them? I mean, xp, but does it bother the markets like the pig farm or anything?

I guess if I were ZOS I would consider offering a very expensive XP boost for 0-50 or something. A lot of people don't play the game for the questing or leveling enjoyment and I think these "rubber-band-criminals" are an indication of that. [Or zone chat in Craglorn with multitudes of people power leveling in Sky Reach Catacombs)

It's a pretty poor way to level up. Sure you get levels while you're away, plus fighter's guild, but you're still going to need to grind for gear, skills, Alliance and Undaunted. The level to 50 is the easy part.

Myrrah

SantieClaws wrote: »

This reminds khajiit very much of the bots that plagued Tamriel long, long ago and that this one she filmed then,

Any group of travellers bunched up together and doing the same thing over and over again would raise the spines of suspicion - if khajiit she had the spines yes.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

ohhh my god-this brings back memories. it was miserable. to try to get one hit in on the boss in a delve before they killed it took intent focus and perfect timing-lol

Elsonso

Myrrah wrote: »

SantieClaws wrote: »

This reminds khajiit very much of the bots that plagued Tamriel long, long ago and that this one she filmed then,

Any group of travellers bunched up together and doing the same thing over and over again would raise the spines of suspicion - if khajiit she had the spines yes.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

ohhh my god-this brings back memories. it was miserable. to try to get one hit in on the boss in a delve before they killed it took intent focus and perfect timing-lol

Sort of like getting the boss at a dolmen today, no?

EvilCroc

I am just curious. If I will read a book or watch tv, while holding right trigger with my finger, will be I recognized as cheater or bot handler?

Jemcrystal

Just one well placed roamer devszzz...

AnviOfVai

I have never seen this before, seeing that video looks hilarious to me

Elsonso

EvilCroc wrote: »

I am just curious. If I will read a book or watch tv, while holding right trigger with my finger, will be I recognized as cheater or bot handler?

Why would you do this? Just play the game.

But, to answer your question, there was a person in here not to long ago that claimed they were playing with their toe while watching Netflix, etc. They were banned for botting, I guess.

This is why I say that it is not how you do it, but what you are doing.