Can we get a GM to just surf dolmens for the AFK botters?

Verbalinkontinenz

kyle.wilson wrote: »

If you can, record the bots with video capture software like OBS.
While someone can try to explain away a picture, video proof of botting is game over.

as if lol

sticx45_ESO

kyle.wilson wrote: »

If you can, record the bots with video capture software like OBS.
While someone can try to explain away a picture, video proof of botting is game over.

The thing is, plenty of people have recorded video of these players before, with supporting screenshots etc, and nothing seems to be done about it. There's an unprecedented level of aggravation here, because we players are actually trying to help out the problem, and not seeing anything being done on ZOS's end to alleviate the issue.

When we take video of a group of botters, or macro afkers, report them, and even include the video link in our report. Only to check months later and see that not a single time has that video been viewed, it feels like ZOS just doesn't care about us.

The total lack of any response here outside of the template "Report this behavior if you see it, using the mechanics provided" response just drives that feeling home. Is it that hard for Gina or someone else to say, "We hear you guys, this is what is going on, we're taking steps to rectify the situation" type response that hard? Hell a "We've hired on (not outsourced, but directly hired) 10 more GM's to monitor the situation" response would make me ecstatic. So much so I would probably be directly induced to spend more money on the game than I would have before, because I feel like I matter to the company.

Instead, I'm getting the opposite feeling. Which is giving me the direct opposite reaction.

starkerealm

Turelus wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Verbalinkontinenz wrote: »

A majority of the games player base don't notice nor care. It's also not negatively effecting sales or in the media, so why apply effort.

lol? then lets do it.

Do what?

If you mean to try and get the media to publish a negative or critical article about the ESO bot problem then you'll fail.
No site which carries weight wants to run a negative story of a Zenimax Media game for fear of losing exclusive information.

http://kotaku.com/the-elder-scrolls-online-has-a-botting-problem-1792727078

Just, sayin.

EDIT: Linked the wrong article. There's a lot of stuff from back in 2014 talking about the bot issues at launch, though.

Kotaku isn't a serious games site. Not the kind who want exclusives from companies.

I mean no offence to the site as I read their stuff, but it's not exactly hard to get something on there.

The site that literally provoked gamergate isn't a serious news site? Heh.

Here's the thing, most sites can't even be bothered to cover ESO at this point. It's not like ZOS has some huge, secret trove of information hidden away, and even if they did, it's not like Bethesda's handing out review code anymore.

So you go, "no one will cover it because they'll lose out on their exclusives that they're not getting anyway." Okay, cool, so I link you a site, and you go, "nooo they don't count, I'm talking about all the other sites that can't be bothered to report on it, because they're afraid of losing their access to a dev with one game in production, it'd cripple them."

Banana

I don't think I've ever seen an official zos person in game.

Turelus

starkerealm wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Verbalinkontinenz wrote: »

A majority of the games player base don't notice nor care. It's also not negatively effecting sales or in the media, so why apply effort.

lol? then lets do it.

Do what?

If you mean to try and get the media to publish a negative or critical article about the ESO bot problem then you'll fail.
No site which carries weight wants to run a negative story of a Zenimax Media game for fear of losing exclusive information.

http://kotaku.com/the-elder-scrolls-online-has-a-botting-problem-1792727078

Just, sayin.

EDIT: Linked the wrong article. There's a lot of stuff from back in 2014 talking about the bot issues at launch, though.

Kotaku isn't a serious games site. Not the kind who want exclusives from companies.

I mean no offence to the site as I read their stuff, but it's not exactly hard to get something on there.

The site that literally provoked gamergate isn't a serious news site? Heh.

Here's the thing, most sites can't even be bothered to cover ESO at this point. It's not like ZOS has some huge, secret trove of information hidden away, and even if they did, it's not like Bethesda's handing out review code anymore.

So you go, "no one will cover it because they'll lose out on their exclusives that they're not getting anyway." Okay, cool, so I link you a site, and you go, "nooo they don't count, I'm talking about all the other sites that can't be bothered to report on it, because they're afraid of losing their access to a dev with one game in production, it'd cripple them."

I'm talking about MMORPG, Game Informer, PC Gamer, IGN, etc.

The sites which carry weight with their words because they're professional games journalism. Maybe not with readers but with the companies producing the games.

Kotaku is a great site, but it's mostly opinion pieces and what's hot articles, not games reviews or exclusive access reveals.

I'll agree with you that other sites probably CBA with it and kudos to Kotaku for doing something, but I don't think that Kotaku carries the weight ZOS cares about.

Johngo0036

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

When you guys run across what appear to be botters, please make sure to report these players through our official channels so we can address it quickly. You can find exact instructions here.

Hi Gina,

I have reported all these botters but never know if anything was ever done about them..

StackonClown

Johngo0036 wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

When you guys run across what appear to be botters, please make sure to report these players through our official channels so we can address it quickly. You can find exact instructions here.

Hi Gina,

I have reported all these botters but never know if anything was ever done about them..

^^^ This!!! Why cant we have some reporting from Zenny about botting and how many botters were banned! No need to name, just some stats - whats the big secret ??? please be more transparent

Turelus

StackonClown wrote: »

Johngo0036 wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

When you guys run across what appear to be botters, please make sure to report these players through our official channels so we can address it quickly. You can find exact instructions here.

Hi Gina,

I have reported all these botters but never know if anything was ever done about them..

^^^ This!!! Why cant we have some reporting from Zenny about botting and how many botters were banned! No need to name, just some stats - whats the big secret ??? please be more transparent

We've been asking for this since forever, closest we ever got was some info during cheat engine ban.

My guess is no one at ZOS actually knows because they're not involved in it, it's the customer service team handling it all (at least re bots).

chess1ukb16_ESO

A lot of really good points have been made on this thread.

I have reported hundreds of bots or accounts selling their ill-gotten gains; identified either through observing them bot in known locations or selling their product in Zone/Trade Stores and I know many others have too.

Its very easy for experienced Traders like those who have already posted on this subject to pick up on this and report it however its very time consuming, not helped by the clunky reporting tool and in return we are rewarded with extremely slow / or no responsiveness and communication from ZoS which is very discouraging.

I think many of us have tried countless times to reach out to Customer Support and other more senior ZoS representatives to foster a virtual working group where we help point out the tell-tale signs of this type of cheating however its always met with silence.

To sum up:

• The reporting tool is terrible
• The Communication from CS team both individually on reports and wider PR about this subject is wholly unsatisfactory and actively discourages reporting
• Responsiveness is poor at best. There are countless occasions where bots are permitted to exist for weeks at a time significantly damaging the in-game economy as a result

We all want the same thing so ZoS, please rethink your approach and work with us not against us.

Verbalinkontinenz

@chess1ukb16_ESO u should make more clear who u are ingame, maybe your words, especially regarding the ingame-economy-influence, get more weight then.
____

Dear @ZOS_GinaBruno

please find below screenshots, from a friend of me, that has been banned for “gold selling activities”. Altho he never ever sold a single piece of gold, never bought a single piece of gold, he still got banned for “gold selling activities”. As you can see, Zachary from customer support, even SAYS that he was buying materials from known gold sellers. Why is my friend banned and the actual gold seller is still in the game?

We have reported ALL these gold sellers many many times. When, after a certain amount of time, these accounts are still in game..

People that get banned for trading with - by ZOS called “known gold sellers” - SHOULD NOT BE BANNED. You should ban the actual gold seller. But apparently, they are not that known as you say they are, cause they are still walking around in the game.

The banned person even offered help, with more intel, to get rid of this mess. You guys did not even reply in any way to that. So far, showings ZOS’s willingness to get rid of this problem he?















How can you make people call participants in gold selling activities, just because they are trading? Why the heck do you, ZOS, tell that you know that someone is a goldseller, but do not act against him? Why do you act against someone, who just bought ore, wax, scraps, alloy...whatever? 1 Mio in trading is already enough? 1 Mio is nothing meanwhile anymore. Its a small amount of gold to many of us. But we also know, ZOS missed out the inflation ingame. Are you really starting to blame normal traders, making them responsible? Are you really starting, to leave the work judging on who is a goldseller, who is a bot in the trading system to the players while trading?

This is for gods sake your *** work, ZOS, not ours!

Your Support team even asks for other people, who bought wax or other stuff from maybe suspicious accounts, instead of asking for more information about those, who really act against the TOS. Are you kidding me, ZOS?
You are making everyone else in trading responsible for your lack of investigation, you are forcing us to check wether someone is a bad guy, when he offers items in zone or via trading guild? This is your way to go? Then you can ban nearly everyone on this server who sometimes trades, because everyone on which way ever bought knowingly or unknowingly botted material or non-botted-material from a goldseller (as if its of matter to me, when i see a lucrative offer, what the other person is doing with that gold - thats your job, not mine).

So I kindly ask again: unban him. This isnt rightfull.
____________________

So ... or to make it easy, and judge the same way, as ZOS does: I blame @ZOS for participating in gold selling activities and supporting bots ingame. Even though their activities come to your attention, you do not act in any ways against them. Known goldseller groups are still there for months, destroying the economy. Instead of acting against them, you even fake activity, by banning people, who you caught trading with them. You make people work for you for hours, in this case you @ZOS_GinaBruno, just showing, that nobody from ZOS is even interested in acting against that accounts. ZOS is even stating, that specific accounts came to their attention and they still do not anything against it.

Ban yourself, ZOS, for *** sake.

Kodrac

Wow thats a load of crap. Just buying off a guild trader could get you banned? Damn. I bought some cheap mats last night. How am I supposed to know if the seller was a bot or someone who just doesn't care or just ignorant of things like Master Merchant? If you guys know which accounts are gold sellers why don't you flag them so the rest of us know, or maybe suspend them or ban them instead? Letting them continue isn't going to widen the net to nab the people supplying them gold, it's incorrectly nabbing anyone and everyone. If you were ballsy enough to tell that guy ^ he's *** out of luck, then get the cajones to tell the gold sellers to stuff it too before it comes to that. Geez.

Verbalinkontinenz

Kodrac wrote: »

Wow thats a load of crap. Just buying off a guild trader could get you banned? Damn. I bought some cheap mats last night. How am I supposed to know if the seller was a bot or someone who just doesn't care or just ignorant of things like Master Merchant? If you guys know which accounts are gold sellers why don't you flag them so the rest of us know, or maybe suspend them or ban them instead? Letting them continue isn't going to widen the net to nab the people supplying them gold, it's incorrectly nabbing anyone and everyone. If you were ballsy enough to tell that guy ^ he's *** out of luck, then get the cajones to tell the gold sellers to stuff it too before it comes to that. Geez.

yes in short: buying mats from a farmer, who is a goldseller, can make u banned. doesnt matter if u know or not know about his activities. have fun trading the next weeks.

lpfan678

I'm wondering if they don't just have people on staff surfing the dolmens for botters is for legal reasons. It seems like an easy thing to do to have someone looking at all the common areas for bots, but instead they just point people to the reporting system. I can only assume that since they take your money for the game, they have to have formal paperwork and evidence in order to ban you (or at least its some kind of corporate policy)? We all bought the game and have a reasonable right to access it, and if they revoke that access they have to have a reason why in case of a lawsuit. So they have a team manually (and painfully slowly) compiling evidence for each report. It would explain why it takes so long for anything to be done about the reports.

Or they're just not doing anything about the reports. Who knows, we can only speculate.

Elsonso

@Verbalinkontinenz ... interesting story, and I hope it works out for you. There was a case a couple years ago where a central figure in a guild was a gold seller, and was taking gold from players for what the players believed were guild related functions. It may have actually been for guild related functions, but the story is that the guild member got banned and they followed the gold trail around the game in a manner that included these guild transactions. Players in the same guild were warned, suspended, and banned.

Or so we were told, and led to believe. To this day, I do not know if it is actually true. Only ZOS can answer that. Still, it serves for what I have to say next...

A lot of gold moves around in this game, for "raffle tickets" and to support the purchase of guild traders, not to mention buying and selling items in the game. There are risks associated with this, particularly if trading gold with the same person on a regular basis, and that person turns out to be a gold seller.

One hopes that ZOS would be willing to see when the person sending the gold had no knowledge that there was a ToS violation happening. I can also see how it could be very difficult to determine that, especially if it is happening a lot between the same two players. Innocents can get caught up in this because the gold seller is trying to hide behind legitimate gold transactions.

This might be what has happened in the case presented in this thread, or it could be something completely different.

Turelus

lpfan678 wrote: »

I'm wondering if they don't just have people on staff surfing the dolmens for botters is for legal reasons. It seems like an easy thing to do to have someone looking at all the common areas for bots, but instead they just point people to the reporting system. I can only assume that since they take your money for the game, they have to have formal paperwork and evidence in order to ban you (or at least its some kind of corporate policy)? We all bought the game and have a reasonable right to access it, and if they revoke that access they have to have a reason why in case of a lawsuit. So they have a team manually (and painfully slowly) compiling evidence for each report. It would explain why it takes so long for anything to be done about the reports.

Or they're just not doing anything about the reports. Who knows, we can only speculate.

The Terms of Service cover their butts on this. They can cancel/ban an account any time they want for any reason they choose and face no legal action.

Verbalinkontinenz

@lordrichter I know about that story, I also know some former GM leaving game and selling their private gold, maybe even some of the guilds gold. i also know about people got caught by ZOS for goldselling but getting unbanned again. thats very odd. then someone who just bought stuff without ever beeing a goldseller or buyer gets banned. the former gm of TSE who gave the guild to me 1,5 years ago did so, sold his own gold, and then took out some millions from both his trading guilds to have a backup in case he comes back. needless to say, i went rampage on him, giving me a near-dead guild back then and even emptiying the bank leaving it to me, getting the guild back to where it was.

right in this case ^ i am guaranteeing, he never sold gold or the guilds gold, we know each other quite good. i am also guaranteeing it for me and some other close gm-friends of other guilds on eu-pc.

edit: it also saddens me, that such cases like u mentioned, which were quite unique, sow mistrust to the trading guilds and the trading gm, because many of those i know dont earn that mistrust in any way and do not deserve it.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Violynne

SirAndy wrote: »

Just one more question: What dolmen is your character currently parked at?

None.
Violynne is currently stationed in VG next to the woodcrafting station so she can make low level traited items for my other characters.

Vio'lynne is currently at the stables in Shadowfen, so I can continue training my mounts while I play my current character...

Vio'lynne-Two-Moons is at the stables in Elden Root, so I can throw down some training before I continue clearing Grahtwood.

By all means, I personally invite anyone to join me if you think I'm standing around dolmens all day.

Oh, and while I'm currently at work now, any view of my characters will show... nothing! The game isn't even running.

Yes, I know your question was facetious, but wanted to clear the air just in case anyone else thinks this about me.

Violynne

lordrichter wrote: »

Yeah, it is, and, yeah, it does. This is pretty much were I exit this conversation. I answered your question.

No, you didn't. All you did was avoid the question and throw out the ToS like it's some sort of "Get out jail" free card.

Fine. Let's look at it from a different point of view:

Let's say a group of 20 friends get together and decide they're going to spend an entire day attacking the VG dolmen. Every 5 minutes, they engage in battle, moving about as (mostly) everyone else does.

How would this be any different than 20 people just standing there firing into the center all day?

Remember, we're not talking about the ToS factor here. Your concern was about "lag" and "too many people" being at the dolmen.

Answer this question with honesty, please. Don't avoid it. I want to truly understand what your position on this issue is because you've not yet explained how this affects you personally.

Until you do this, I'm sorry to say, you're not really giving anyone a valid reason why ZoS should patrol dolmens.

The ToS is not a reason. You have the tools to report them. Complaining ZoS isn't working fast enough to address the "problem" doesn't take into consideration there really isn't a problem with this.

ZoS probably doesn't put much resource into addressing the issue because it really doesn't affect any other player directly.

That's my opinion, not a fact.

I'd rather they focus on the time going after players who steal from guild banks or hack other player accounts, because those issues do affect people directly.

Verbalinkontinenz

@Violynne

You shouldnt only just consider this problem from your playstyle or your point of view. We are talking about dolmen botters - or the thread has been started about that - i even understand you saying, there are bigger problems in the game, thats where you are right, to me these are the farm bots who often also are goldsellers, also the problem that guildrobbery isnt punished by zos (its your thing how u set bank-rights, stated by zos) and some other exploits as well.

But I at least get the argumentation, that those people steal xp from regular players and are a big problem for immersion. while grinding in a group is legal, this stuff isnt legal, so zos is able to do something regarding the tos, to do something against sthg which is such disturbing to the ingame experience for new players.

i at least get your point showing off bigger problems which should be solved and adressed by the zos support, thats also why i turn from dolmen botters often too farm botters and their activities. as well for me they are the bigger problem.

but since these dolmen botters are regular players, which do not gain anything like mats or gold from standing there, only xp, it also shows me, that people do not have any respect towards zos, that people do not fear getting caught by zos, and to me it looks like the farmbots and goldseller just showed eso players now for a long time, how easy and unproblematic it is, to bot in eso. and this affects us all when it wont get stopped.

the basic lessons the last months zos taught this community: they can ban u for ***, but exploiting is okay.

Sheezabeast

Your system of having the backs of your customers shouldering the burden of reporting and behavior is breaking us. IT IS NOT FUN OR MY JOB to have to service the game. I'm not getting paid to do it, I'm not an employee, what right as a company do you guys really have to expect your own player base to act as vigilante report-happies who take time out of their game play to do your job???

Does this need to hit cheat engine in Cyrodiil levels before you do something?? How bad does it have to get to get a call to action?

starkerealm

Turelus wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Verbalinkontinenz wrote: »

A majority of the games player base don't notice nor care. It's also not negatively effecting sales or in the media, so why apply effort.

lol? then lets do it.

Do what?

If you mean to try and get the media to publish a negative or critical article about the ESO bot problem then you'll fail.
No site which carries weight wants to run a negative story of a Zenimax Media game for fear of losing exclusive information.

http://kotaku.com/the-elder-scrolls-online-has-a-botting-problem-1792727078

Just, sayin.

EDIT: Linked the wrong article. There's a lot of stuff from back in 2014 talking about the bot issues at launch, though.

Kotaku isn't a serious games site. Not the kind who want exclusives from companies.

I mean no offence to the site as I read their stuff, but it's not exactly hard to get something on there.

The site that literally provoked gamergate isn't a serious news site? Heh.

Here's the thing, most sites can't even be bothered to cover ESO at this point. It's not like ZOS has some huge, secret trove of information hidden away, and even if they did, it's not like Bethesda's handing out review code anymore.

So you go, "no one will cover it because they'll lose out on their exclusives that they're not getting anyway." Okay, cool, so I link you a site, and you go, "nooo they don't count, I'm talking about all the other sites that can't be bothered to report on it, because they're afraid of losing their access to a dev with one game in production, it'd cripple them."

I'm talking about MMORPG, Game Informer, PC Gamer, IGN, etc.

The sites which carry weight with their words because they're professional games journalism. Maybe not with readers but with the companies producing the games.

Kotaku is a great site, but it's mostly opinion pieces and what's hot articles, not games reviews or exclusive access reveals.

I'll agree with you that other sites probably CBA with it and kudos to Kotaku for doing something, but I don't think that Kotaku carries the weight ZOS cares about.

Well, I know IGN and MMORPG both ran articles on the bot problem back at launch. Which tips the scales hard in favor of apathy rather than some fear they'll lose access. Hell, IGN even mentioned the botting issues at launch when they did a writeup on One Tamriel before it launched.

Nestor

Violynne wrote: »

How would this be any different than 20 people just standing there firing into the center all day?

They are not playing the game.

If 20 people want to participate in the game farming something, they are playing the game. If 20 people want to make bots, then soon it will be 40 people, then 60 and so on and so on.

ZOS needs to patrol the game because they are providing the gaming space to play in. It would be much the same as going to a gaming center to play games and having a bunch of people standing around farting and collecting it to sell for energy. Their activity may not directly affect what I am doing, but they are stinking the place up.

Bringing this back to ZOS and ESO, it bothers me that I have to spend time and effort to accomplish what I want in the game, where as others just have to program a macro, or put a rubber band on their controller, and get to farm resources.

Further, these bots are stealing kills from me as I have no opportunity to kill the mobs before they do.

CaffeinatedMayhem

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

When you guys run across what appear to be botters, please make sure to report these players through our official channels so we can address it quickly. You can find exact instructions here.

Sure! Can I see some action other than an auto-generated email telling me to "ignore" them? I don't think the ignore function works on in-game behavior. Edit yes, I sound pissed because I keep reporting the same 4-5 players, and yet I see them at least once a week.

How about the bot-trains? I know they're "technically" not violating the anti-cheat thresholds, but they are undeniably bot trains. Is anything being done to stop them? Edit: same here. Same templar dude I can't get a lock on to use the report function because all of his alts are clustered so tight and he's moving too fast to report a "bot".

This is really frustrating! 3 (ok 2-ish minus breaks) years of not cheating, not exploting, yet here I am, STILL reporting bots and spammers. With no visible action. It's really disheartening.

sticx45_ESO

If ZoS does indeed outsource their in game moderation, is it possible that the company they are outsourcing to is claiming to be doing a job they are not actually doing? IE claiming to be banning x number of bots/afk farmers a day. When in reality they are banning fewer, if any at all?

I know ZoS would be able to easily check this, but if there's no checks being done? Who's to say?

Zenzuki

As far as the dolmen bots...

Couldn't ZOS just make the XP only drop from opening the chest? And as an added deterent, the player would only get the chest if they landed at least one "melee" shot on a mob.

Any active player (even a squishy staff user) can throw in at least ONE jab at a mob during a dolmen fight! (Even if it was a block/interrupt)

This would create a "two-step" process to getting loot and XP, that active players are already doing and thus not affect their gameplay in the slightest, while making the afk "rock climber" XP boosting worthless! And while I'm no coder, seems like this could be handled with the addition of a few "if-then" statements to the code, so shouldn't be that big a deal!


Ya gotta come at this some other way ZOS. Cause whatever you've been doing, ain't workin!


Edit: typos.

Turelus

Zenzuki wrote: »

As far as the dolmen bots...

Couldn't ZOS just make the XP only drop from opening the chest? And as an added deterent, the player would only get the chest if they landed at least one "melee" shot on a mob.

Any active player (even a squishy staff user) can throw in at least ONE jab at a mob during a dolmen fight! (Even if it was a block/interrupt)

This would create a "two-step" process to getting loot and XP, that active players are already doing and thus not affect their gameplay in the slightest, while making the afk "rock climber" XP boosting worthless! And while I'm no coder, seems like this could be handled with the addition of a few "if-then" statements to the code, so shouldn't be that big a deal!


Ya gotta come at this some other way ZOS. Cause whatever you've been doing, ain't workin!


Edit: typos.

Why penalise the current active player base with changes to how XP works because they're too lazy to get a security team which actually works.

I again don't agree with ZOS' ways to dealing with bots by making gameplay changes all the time. They have a GM staff, we report bots, that should be all that's needed.

Something is stopping that simple system from working though, things get held up and obvious bots go weeks without any actions taken against them.

It's on them to sort the GM/Security/Reporting methods to make sure things are happening, not saying I have to jump through hoops to enjoy the game.

Zenzuki

There's no "penalty" to the active players?!

To get the loot chest, a player has to contribute like what 10% of the overall damage before the dolmen drops? An active player is already doing that. So where is the penalty?

You'd get your XP and loot when you open the chest if you met the two criteria (minimum damage criteria met and if you did both types of atacks), which all active players at the dolmen are doing anyway!

I'm not talking wholesale change to the entire game, just in how the Dolmens are taken down.

A player would not even see a difference in gameplay. They'd see Dolmen spawn, cook down the mobs and boss, collect from the dead, open chest and be on their way. . . just like always. All the "rock climber" spammers would get nothing for their "effort" and this issue would die!


What they have now (as fas as reporting, etc.) is far from a "simple system" and doesn't function properly. Or is so cumbersome, that none of us want to (nor should we have to as non-employees) go through it more then once!