i think i found a way to remove botters/afk farming bots (probably gold sellers too)

BurningLance

just came up with the idea when i was at work.

now if im right then the afk farming bots relies on the auto heavy attack when the attack button is held down (with a rubberband) to avoid getting afk kicked and automatically attack mobs within range infront of em then their pets do the rest with no player interaction afterwards.

now what if the devs removed the auto heavy attacks feature when holding the attack button so players must release the button then rehold the button to do a second heavy attack right after? (shouldnt affect legit players since they only weave in heavy attacks to recover their magicka/stamina in between light attacks and skills anyway)

1. that would prevent afk farming since their heavy attacks dont auto attack when holding attack button thus their pets wont attack the mobs which making em idle to the eventuall server kick due to being idle for to long.

2. and since they cant afk farm then the gold sellers using various websites will lose their material/gold supply from their farming bots then they might either start playing legit or quit playing leaving the game for legit players to enjoy without bots swarming various spots causing lag etc.

should be very easy for the devs to change imo

oh i dunno how it will work for PC but for Xbox One and PS4 this would greatly help us console players

Bryong9ub17_ESO

I don't think you understand how Bots work.

They are using a script/program. No "rubberband" needed.

Have you not seen a bot train before? They are using more than just heavy attacks. They program the bots to run in a certain pattern endlessly over and over killing mobs.

What you described is hardly a issue at all. It was more of an issue at the Dolmens before they implemented a fix for it.

Turelus

This would once again only effect consoles (like the dolmen changes), as PC bots can be scripted to do much more.

Once again the solution is better tools and people working actively to read tickets attend to the reports. This is how other companies have managed to stay somewhat on top of it. We don't really know the inner workings of ZOS very well though, I am just speaking from what I see as the issues.

Mystrius_Archaion

1) The bot managers have a workaround for any patch against them before the patch goes live. That is what happened with the dolmen movement requirement as I saw spam-bots there moving back and forth endlessly even before the patch made it to live.

2) The only way to stop BoTs is to reduce/get rid of grind, for gold or xp. Yes, this is possible and can be a very good thing depending on how it is done.
They did start a good way toward this with One Tamriel allowing anybody of any level to play anywhere, but it didn't do all that was needed because of certain drops being limited to max level/skill rank players. For example, you're still replacing gear fast as you level and your crafting rank and level determine what materials you get from nodes, both making it advantageous to hit max level and cp160 ASAP.

If the game has more reason to play it for fun and less reason to "avoid playing" because of boring grind then it will have fewer bots by far. Simple as that.

ZioGio

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but this brought back memories of the early days of Star Wars Galaxies. As a Ranger, I could camouflage other players to reduce their chance of drawing aggro (useful in the days before mounts were introduced). I saw a bot at a creature spawn point so I just kept him camouflaged as I did my errands in the area. In the big picture it did nothing, but I did get a bit of satisfaction knowing the player would return to find his/her character had not progressed as far as s/he thought. :-)

ComboBreaker88

The only thing that would fix the servers at this point would be a full inventory reset for every player in the game.

SirAndy

Bryong9ub17_ESO wrote: »

I don't think you understand how Bots work.

Bots != Rubber Band

Nestor

It takes GM's going out and observing the areas where the bots are reported, and Perma Banning the Accounts, and, the Machine that the accounts are created on.

Malacthulhu

lol if it was that simple

SheepdogPaladin

Nestor wrote: »

It takes GM's going out and observing the areas where the bots are reported, and Perma Banning the Accounts, and, the Machine that the accounts are created on.

This is the only thing that would work. Too bad they won't do this.

forwardbias83

Too bad there is not an open PVP/PK server like some of the older style MMO's. With rules where on death, a player can loot all your items and equipment. I remember on those types of games there being vigilante guilds who would specificlly hunt down bot farmers.

Some games would differ however, some you would only drop items and equipment if killed by a monster npc, or if you were chaotic. In those situations, you would pull a huge group of aggro mobs on yourself by running near them, whom were also social aggro. Then lead the train of mobs to a bot fighting the same time of mob, run around the bot, and all aggro would be transferred to the bot and they would be overwhelmed.

Even if the bot lost equipment, it would die, and come back to the same spot as programmed to do so, and eventually you could strip them of all their equipment, which was quite funny to see. A bunch of naked bots trying to punch mobs in their underwear. Stripped of all their equipment. They would also drop the items they were trying to farm on death as well. Such a server would also be interesting, as you could impliment bounty hunting quests as part of the justice system to hunt down player killers/gankers.

Would need to add a hardcore server option though. As making the whole mega server like this would probably cause strictly PVE people to quit. But that sort of extreme risk vs reward would attract people into that hardcore type of open world PVP, and on that hardcore server, it would allow regular players to take the bot problem into their own hands and grief any bots into the ground, and botters would have a hard time trying to farm stuff for RMT with players actively hunting them down.

zaria

Nestor wrote: »

It takes GM's going out and observing the areas where the bots are reported, and Perma Banning the Accounts, and, the Machine that the accounts are created on.

You could do a lot with logging and data mining.
Look for players farming or grinding for long time as in +6 hour day without breaks. If player also do other stuff like questing its probably an player with an afk bot. If not some is fattening an account for sale or farming gold for gold sellers.
Now for the counter, GM or simply log players and ban would work well. First time an 3 day ban.
Second time is perma ban, you can buy back your account for $50, next time is $100 and doubling.

Runescape is super grindy and have simple mechanics making it perfect for bots or even an keyboard macro.
They had multiple ways of dealing with bots, standard was random world bosses. Simply add an boss with an reflect attack ability in this phase damage is reflected on attacker. Add an AoE instant kill spell with an 3 second cast time.
Not much dangerous outside this so even an noob player would either run away or learn the mechanic.

Cpt_Teemo

ComboBreaker88 wrote: »

The only thing that would fix the servers at this point would be a full inventory reset for every player in the game.

That would be the worst thing you can possibly do

PlagueSD

Nestor wrote: »

It takes GM's going out and observing the areas where the bots are reported, and Perma Banning the Accounts, and, the Machine that the accounts are created on.

You can't ban a "machine" only an IP address. It takes me about 30 mins to automatically get assigned a new IP address from my ISP, so that's ineffective also. What ZOS needs to do is ban the activation key (if this is even possible). That way, they have to go buy a new copy of the game.

SilentRaven1972

PlagueSD wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

It takes GM's going out and observing the areas where the bots are reported, and Perma Banning the Accounts, and, the Machine that the accounts are created on.

You can't ban a "machine" only an IP address. It takes me about 30 mins to automatically get assigned a new IP address from my ISP, so that's ineffective also. What ZOS needs to do is ban the activation key (if this is even possible). That way, they have to go buy a new copy of the game.

Even if they could, that would require a large amount of human power behind it. They would have to issue some kind of temp ban, or wait until a very detailed investigation had been concluded, before doing something like that. Look how many innocents have been banned for exploits they didn't even know they were caught up in?

PlagueSD

SilentRaven1972 wrote: »

PlagueSD wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

It takes GM's going out and observing the areas where the bots are reported, and Perma Banning the Accounts, and, the Machine that the accounts are created on.

You can't ban a "machine" only an IP address. It takes me about 30 mins to automatically get assigned a new IP address from my ISP, so that's ineffective also. What ZOS needs to do is ban the activation key (if this is even possible). That way, they have to go buy a new copy of the game.

Even if they could, that would require a large amount of human power behind it. They would have to issue some kind of temp ban, or wait until a very detailed investigation had been concluded, before doing something like that. Look how many innocents have been banned for exploits they didn't even know they were caught up in?

Botting and using exploits are 2 different things. Verified bots should get the insta-ban hammer. They are pretty easy to identify.

phairdon

Nerf rubber bands

SirAndy

PlagueSD wrote: »

You can't ban a "machine" only an IP address.

Not true, every PC sold in the last 20 years can be uniquely identified if you know how.
There are unique identifiers build into the hardware.

PlagueSD

SirAndy wrote: »

PlagueSD wrote: »

You can't ban a "machine" only an IP address.

Not true, every PC sold in the last 20 years can be uniquely identified if you know how.
There are unique identifiers build into the hardware.

Other than using "cookies" that info is not available via Internet Protocol. You have to have local access to get that info. This is used by hardware manufacturers to know which version of a hardware driver it should install (call made by the installer to the OS).

KingMagaw

I laughed when i read OP. Nice suggestion when your clueless.

Additionally plenty of bots on consoles, would hardly say that is hard these days it is simply a google search away. As for PC's, there are a few well known people who make and sell scripts and update them as necessary. Definitely nothing new.

ArchMikem

Turelus wrote: »

This would once again only effect consoles (like the dolmen changes), as PC bots can be scripted to do much more.

Once again the solution is better tools and people working actively to read tickets attend to the reports. This is how other companies have managed to stay somewhat on top of it. We don't really know the inner workings of ZOS very well though, I am just speaking from what I see as the issues.

Still, gotta acknowledge the OPs idea as interesting and practical.

starkerealm

forwardbias83 wrote: »

Too bad there is not an open PVP/PK server like some of the older style MMO's. With rules where on death, a player can loot all your items and equipment. I remember on those types of games there being vigilante guilds who would specificlly hunt down bot farmers.

The problem with systems like this is, you will end up with veteran players ganking newbies because they find the tears hilarious.

It would result in all kinds of negative ramifications for the community. If you want to see how toxic this can get, go ahead and look at EVE's community.

Even with level scaling inflating a lowbie's scores to ludicrous levels, it isn't enough to deal with an experienced player who knows what they're doing.

Delaying PvP until you hit a preset level (40 for example) (Black Desert Online comes to mind as an example) would simply result in bots being ground until they hit that level, then deleted, while still harvesting and shipping gold and materials to parts unknown. (To say nothing of the part where level 40 is, arguably, the exact point where a player character is at their weakest. So newbies investing time, then getting horrifically ganked by 13 year-olds who think trolling people is hilarious.)

This is especially true if you open up looting of the victim to anyone, with corpse runs. You can design games to support these mechanics. They exist. The problem is, the vast majority of those games do not retain enough players to maintain dev costs that would keep ESO afloat.

starkerealm

Honestly, you want to kill off botters? Give enemies more elaborate patrol paths. Throw in some minibosses with clearly telegraphed moves that hit very hard, like the old zombie vomit. Let them wander around. Ask us to bounce around between enemies, and chose the right moment to attack. Make it so that if you're grinding, you need to react to where the enemies are.

SydneyGrey

forwardbias83 wrote: »

Too bad there is not an open PVP/PK server like some of the older style MMO's. With rules where on death, a player can loot all your items and equipment. I remember on those types of games there being vigilante guilds who would specificlly hunt down bot farmers.

As much as I'd love to see bots disappear from the game, that old-style MMO system was AWFUL. If ESO did that, they'd lose half their players, I expect.

Xelrick

Botting is possible on console with a macro controllers or something relation that runs inputs, and maybe something that reading data packages (I know it possible to datamine packets coming in your network to your console, which is contains that information say this spawn here and such.)

But as I seen isn't as bad as the scripts runners on PC, so far... did have a Bot on Console farming Heavy Sacs though when Morrowind came out. It did a loop of 3 commands on a min timer (or whatever the spawn rate was of the Heavy Sac), which I threw it off Heavy Sac respawn timer and made him jump instead of looting.

Nestor

PlagueSD wrote: »

Other than using "cookies" that info is not available via Internet Protocol. You have to have local access to get that info. This is used by hardware manufacturers to know which version of a hardware driver it should install (call made by the installer to the OS).

Change your video card, the Log In system asks you to validate your machine again with an email two factor. They can identify your machine if they can identify changes made to your machine.

xenowarrior92eb17_ESO

how to remove bots? add animal skinning ingame. there problem solved...since now scraps drops to every1in ur grp...ofc it is bot friendly...but zos never listen...im tired of trying and after 3 years of constant posts and thread always ignored...I gave up...so keep qqing about bots...they will always be cuz no1 wants them actually gone.

Tandor

forwardbias83 wrote: »

Too bad there is not an open PVP/PK server like some of the older style MMO's. With rules where on death, a player can loot all your items and equipment. I remember on those types of games there being vigilante guilds who would specificlly hunt down bot farmers.

Some games would differ however, some you would only drop items and equipment if killed by a monster npc, or if you were chaotic. In those situations, you would pull a huge group of aggro mobs on yourself by running near them, whom were also social aggro. Then lead the train of mobs to a bot fighting the same time of mob, run around the bot, and all aggro would be transferred to the bot and they would be overwhelmed. <snip>

Why would anyone bother doing that to bots, when there's that low-level character over there talking to a Quest NPC? I bet he's just asking to be overwhelmed !

zaria

PlagueSD wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

PlagueSD wrote: »

You can't ban a "machine" only an IP address.

Not true, every PC sold in the last 20 years can be uniquely identified if you know how.
There are unique identifiers build into the hardware.

Other than using "cookies" that info is not available via Internet Protocol. You have to have local access to get that info. This is used by hardware manufacturers to know which version of a hardware driver it should install (call made by the installer to the OS).

Eso.exe has access to that information, cpu serial number and OS registration key is two who is hard to change.
This is pretty pointless as ESO also has an licence id who is linked to your account. If banned this will not work anymore.

SirAndy

zaria wrote: »

PlagueSD wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

PlagueSD wrote: »

You can't ban a "machine" only an IP address.

Not true, every PC sold in the last 20 years can be uniquely identified if you know how.
There are unique identifiers build into the hardware.

Other than using "cookies" that info is not available via Internet Protocol. You have to have local access to get that info. This is used by hardware manufacturers to know which version of a hardware driver it should install (call made by the installer to the OS).

Eso.exe has access to that information, cpu serial number and OS registration key is two who is hard to change.

Cookies are for web browsers, ESO is a native exe, it has access to everything needed to uniquely identify your hardware.
CPU/GPU and harddrive serial numbers, NIC/MAC address and other peripheral ids can all be used for this purpose.

PlagueSD

Nestor wrote: »

PlagueSD wrote: »

Other than using "cookies" that info is not available via Internet Protocol. You have to have local access to get that info. This is used by hardware manufacturers to know which version of a hardware driver it should install (call made by the installer to the OS).

Change your video card, the Log In system asks you to validate your machine again with an email two factor. They can identify your machine if they can identify changes made to your machine.

That's what's called system "fingerprinting". Based on how they weigh the different "values", I can force the same action by changing my desktop display resolution or system time. They pair that with your IP address to determine if the same machine is logging in from the same location. This can't be used to reliably identify a specific machine due to how easy it is to change certain system settings. This is mainly used for account security...Or by hackers trying to get access to your computer.