Cheating We Can Stop It

SisterGoat

Apparently if you are caught botting, you only get a 3-day ban. Seriously, that isn't going to do ANYTHING.

1mirg

Mondini wrote: »

I refuse to believe that after paying the cost to run 4 pc's to bot that you could make any real money.

I hate to break it to you but it actually is because of real money that one can earn through botting. Which can reach quite the high price. (check spoiler for a example of that)

I'm not showing the website. So dont ask.

What makes the matter worse is that @ZOS isn't doing anything towards the people who give these people money, like for example those who bought a high level toon never run into any issues once they own the account and are playing on it. It's kinda like they are approving of users who give the bots money by not giving them any punishments either.

Either way, the developers need to change the way they punish these people. The current "punishing" isn't doing anything. Especially when you consider that these people are earning alot of money doing this.

Taysa

To answer a question posed "Did any of us record the encounter"...the answer is no. I don't run my recording software 24/7, and honestly I shouldn't have to. When I record, it's for me, not to make ZoS's job easier.

When over half a dozen people send multiple reports to outline multiple instances that these things occurred, in less than a week, it warrants a GM actually investigating and watching said player to see if it happens again. I shouldn't have to record hours of PvP in hopes of encountering one player, and then baiting them into a fight. That's not my job. I don't pay a subscription to do ZoS's job for them.

So while I admire the sentiment of "We take cheating and botting very seriously," the fact of the matter is...they don't. At least not enough to put in the effort to see these things for themselves. And honestly, even if I DID send them a video, they'd probably brush it off as something to do with my system or internet, like they brushed off the missing texture on the dwarven boiler I reported and that's been reported on the forum several times. (They said it was my PC.)

Jade1986

Had someone that blatently could see me while I was in stealth from across a field. No, pots cant reach that far,no i wasnt marked, no there was no magelight, no no one else was around. This is not the fist person that was able to do that, and even someone on their faction messaged me telling me that he saw that and reported the guy.

KingMagaw

laced wrote: »

Had someone that blatently could see me while I was in stealth from across a field. No, pots cant reach that far,no i wasnt marked, no there was no magelight, no no one else was around. This is not the fist person that was able to do that, and even someone on their faction messaged me telling me that he saw that and reported the guy.

Happened to me quite a few times by one player in particular. Reported to ZoS - Don't see the player around in Cyrodill anymore but who knows if he now plays a different campaign or such

My own limited research heard it was a private addon. Cant verify because i didn't take it far, just accepted part of ESO now

Dredlord

Rahotu wrote: »

Dredlord wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

sirinsidiator wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys,

We know that cheating players and botters takes away from your experience in the game, and also affects important aspects such as the economy or scoring. We do take this very seriously, and appreciate everyone who brings these to our attention. For the record, we are aware of the sites called out from the OP. While we can’t discuss specifics, we do our best to combat sites and programs that encourage breaking our Terms of Service.

As far as what you can do to help, telling us is the first step. If you run across someone you believe is cheating (whether it’s botting or exploiting), please report them. You can do so in-game or simply by messaging a staff member on the forums (it can be me, Jess, or any of the moderators). Keep in mind our TOS team suspends and bans botting accounts daily, and investigations are prioritized based on the number of reports received.

While this sounds nice, unfortunately I - and many others I talked to - had a different experience. A few weeks ago I reported several bots. I took the time to capture them on video and create a list of names which I sent via the ingame ticketing system. No answer.
I waited a few days and the bots are still running around.
I wrote a reply on the open ticket, pm'ed you here on the forum, asked other people to bring up the topic.
Only answer I got was a canned response on the ticket which got closed, but the bots are still running around.
In a final attempt, I brought it up in twitch chat before the previous ESO live and pm'ed the ticket number to @ZOS_RichLambert , but to this day I don't think it has been investigated as the videos have no views since I uploaded them to youtube.

Honestly, this doesn't give me the impression that you really care about getting rid of them. A simple answer like "thanks for sending us these videos, we will look into the issue" would have gone a long way, but all I got was silence or automated responses and no visible action at all after weeks. In the meantime I kicked the bots from my guild, so I can't see if they are still running around, but it would be nice if we could get an update when accounts we have reported were investigated or actioned, regardless of the outcome.

It's very possible that the original bots were removed, but these guys can simply just make a new account (and it's not uncommon for them to do so).

Keep banning, keep selling accounts.

The employees can literally pay for themselves by policing this.

not if the botters have cut a deal with the game management to share the profits of the goldselling,as many games do

I love a good conspiracy theory too and this one is certainly not outside the realm of possibility.

Anything explained by money or further profit such as the monthly subscription bot/hack program/cheat sites could be supported or run by the company or a programmer.

It would explain why so many new bugs pop up EVERY patch. Gotta generate content for the paid exploit pages.

It would also explain why ZOS has FAILED to incorporate a single anti-cheat best practice used by more ethical businesses running online games.

Trinity_Is_My_Name

Would like to add that there is a new addon available called BOT SCANNER 2000 from esoui.

It works great collecting info on BOTs and doing most of the form filling for us.

STOP THE BOTS! Report them every time we see them.

Dredlord

kevlarto_ESO wrote: »

it's been going on so long and zos does not have the chonies to do anything about it, that's why I stopped my sub don't buy any new dlc's rarely play any longer I refuse to support a game that lets cheaters and exploiters run wild unchecked, while the honest players that come for a good game experience get the shaft.

Exactly how I feel and exactly why I cancelled my sub this last week.

JonnytheKing

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys,

We know that cheating players and botters takes away from your experience in the game, and also affects important aspects such as the economy or scoring. We do take this very seriously, and appreciate everyone who brings these to our attention. For the record, we are aware of the sites called out from the OP. While we can’t discuss specifics, we do our best to combat sites and programs that encourage breaking our Terms of Service.

As far as what you can do to help, telling us is the first step. If you run across someone you believe is cheating (whether it’s botting or exploiting), please report them. You can do so in-game or simply by messaging a staff member on the forums (it can be me, Jess, or any of the moderators). Keep in mind our TOS team suspends and bans botting accounts daily, and investigations are prioritized based on the number of reports received.

Thank you for the reply , the hole cheating thing means a lot to me , i am actively working on bring this all to the for fount, to hopefully improve the community, i do have some great idea s on some ways we could impove the hole thing and would love to have a chat to some one from zos , i was talking to gmraven but i could not reply to him
thanks again for the reply

alainjbrennanb16_ESO

its like the lastest thing i saw last in sotha on the eu, we where in side a yellow keep just one person there and they could not tp, i went to the left of the keep and saw them putting up a forward camp and guess what, behold 30 yellows came from the forward camp, they where not dead in the keep etc, but it looked like they died on the map and res'ed at the camp from some distances away, pitty i was not recording at the time, i just stood there and look at them coming

Cpt_Teemo

Dredlord wrote: »

kevlarto_ESO wrote: »

it's been going on so long and zos does not have the chonies to do anything about it, that's why I stopped my sub don't buy any new dlc's rarely play any longer I refuse to support a game that lets cheaters and exploiters run wild unchecked, while the honest players that come for a good game experience get the shaft.

Exactly how I feel and exactly why I cancelled my sub this last week.

I just love ES to give it up completely, I just mostly sub and that's about it for me, but yeah they really need to get in shape on actually perma banning these bots these aren't some minor rules there breaking its the actual code in the ToS which they implemented and not abiding by which is pretty bad for a company.

alainjbrennanb16_ESO

this is what zos should do http://massivelyop.com/2017/10/06/fortnite-cracks-down-on-cheaters-banning-thousands/ or this from steam http://massivelyop.com/2017/07/11/steam-bans-40k-cheaters-in-a-single-day-and-plans-user-interface-refresh/ its simple name and shame them and ban them, the gaming community is not small but most people know someone who knows someone if named and shamed it would stop them

Jade1986

KingMagaw wrote: »

laced wrote: »

Had someone that blatently could see me while I was in stealth from across a field. No, pots cant reach that far,no i wasnt marked, no there was no magelight, no no one else was around. This is not the fist person that was able to do that, and even someone on their faction messaged me telling me that he saw that and reported the guy.

Happened to me quite a few times by one player in particular. Reported to ZoS - Don't see the player around in Cyrodill anymore but who knows if he now plays a different campaign or such

My own limited research heard it was a private addon. Cant verify because i didn't take it far, just accepted part of ESO now

There was someone in dc doing it, but they seeem to have disappeared, only to have someone with the EXACT same build do it to me in EP now. As if rogues and rangers didnt have enough problems atm.

1mirg

laced wrote: »

There was someone in dc doing it, but they seeem to have disappeared, only to have someone with the EXACT same build do it to me in EP now. As if rogues and rangers didnt have enough problems atm.

Tbh I seen this happen alot in Cryodil but I rarely report them. Mostly because I know reporting them doesn't do really anything. I kinda lost insentive to report stuff after I saw old beta bugs in the game, which i did report on. Months after the beta ended and the game was live. If the developers don't bother taking my reports seriously. Then why should I bother reporting stuff anymore? That's my motto.

I'm not going to be the guy talking with a brick wall, after all. It's not my job to be the police for them.
Yeah, I know how I sound but hey. What can I say. I'm tired of the way they handle stuff like that.

JonnytheKing

Thanks guys , for blow this up , and getting zos to see it

JonnytheKing

SisterGoat wrote: »

Apparently if you are caught botting, you only get a 3-day ban. Seriously, that isn't going to do ANYTHING.

i think it depends if its there first time or not

JonnytheKing

laced wrote: »

Had someone that blatently could see me while I was in stealth from across a field. No, pots cant reach that far,no i wasnt marked, no there was no magelight, no no one else was around. This is not the fist person that was able to do that, and even someone on their faction messaged me telling me that he saw that and reported the guy.

yer this kind of stuff sucks if had it happen to me many times

rfennell_ESO

laced wrote: »

Had someone that blatently could see me while I was in stealth from across a field. No, pots cant reach that far,no i wasnt marked, no there was no magelight, no no one else was around. This is not the fist person that was able to do that, and even someone on their faction messaged me telling me that he saw that and reported the guy.

In truth, the range at which you can be detect by a detect pot + sentry set is quite large.

If you are in front of them and not wearing medium armor the detection range is 60 meters (20m baseline, +20 meters detect pot, 50% increase on 40 meters for +20 meters sentry set).

With 7/7 medium armor it's 39 meters.

Just for posterity... if they popped magelight, used a detect pot and were wearing sentry set and you aren't wearing medium it's 75 meters detection if you are in front of them.

Not saying there isn't something amiss, but clarifying something. It's not all that difficult to achieve that 75 meters detection with a quick gear swap.

Jade1986

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

laced wrote: »

Had someone that blatently could see me while I was in stealth from across a field. No, pots cant reach that far,no i wasnt marked, no there was no magelight, no no one else was around. This is not the fist person that was able to do that, and even someone on their faction messaged me telling me that he saw that and reported the guy.

In truth, the range at which you can be detect by a detect pot + sentry set is quite large.

If you are in front of them and not wearing medium armor the detection range is 60 meters (20m baseline, +20 meters detect pot, 50% increase on 40 meters for +20 meters sentry set).

With 7/7 medium armor it's 39 meters.

Just for posterity... if they popped magelight, used a detect pot and were wearing sentry set and you aren't wearing medium it's 75 meters detection if you are in front of them.

Not saying there isn't something amiss, but clarifying something. It's not all that difficult to achieve that 75 meters detection with a quick gear swap.

It was a light armor sorc. Been fighting the person all night. He was well beyond 60 meters. Think about ballista range from the wall between ash and nik. Thats how far. They literally walzed right toward me like they knew exactly where I was and placed a curse on me. I wear 7/7 medium, and I am a woodelf. No way on earth did they detect me.

StackonClown

laced wrote: »

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

laced wrote: »

Had someone that blatently could see me while I was in stealth from across a field. No, pots cant reach that far,no i wasnt marked, no there was no magelight, no no one else was around. This is not the fist person that was able to do that, and even someone on their faction messaged me telling me that he saw that and reported the guy.

In truth, the range at which you can be detect by a detect pot + sentry set is quite large.

If you are in front of them and not wearing medium armor the detection range is 60 meters (20m baseline, +20 meters detect pot, 50% increase on 40 meters for +20 meters sentry set).

With 7/7 medium armor it's 39 meters.

Just for posterity... if they popped magelight, used a detect pot and were wearing sentry set and you aren't wearing medium it's 75 meters detection if you are in front of them.

Not saying there isn't something amiss, but clarifying something. It's not all that difficult to achieve that 75 meters detection with a quick gear swap.

It was a light armor sorc. Been fighting the person all night. He was well beyond 60 meters. Think about ballista range from the wall between ash and nik. Thats how far. They literally walzed right toward me like they knew exactly where I was and placed a curse on me. I wear 7/7 medium, and I am a woodelf. No way on earth did they detect me.

radar hack lol - look it up

Jade1986

StackonClown wrote: »

laced wrote: »

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

laced wrote: »

Had someone that blatently could see me while I was in stealth from across a field. No, pots cant reach that far,no i wasnt marked, no there was no magelight, no no one else was around. This is not the fist person that was able to do that, and even someone on their faction messaged me telling me that he saw that and reported the guy.

In truth, the range at which you can be detect by a detect pot + sentry set is quite large.

If you are in front of them and not wearing medium armor the detection range is 60 meters (20m baseline, +20 meters detect pot, 50% increase on 40 meters for +20 meters sentry set).

With 7/7 medium armor it's 39 meters.

Just for posterity... if they popped magelight, used a detect pot and were wearing sentry set and you aren't wearing medium it's 75 meters detection if you are in front of them.

Not saying there isn't something amiss, but clarifying something. It's not all that difficult to achieve that 75 meters detection with a quick gear swap.

It was a light armor sorc. Been fighting the person all night. He was well beyond 60 meters. Think about ballista range from the wall between ash and nik. Thats how far. They literally walzed right toward me like they knew exactly where I was and placed a curse on me. I wear 7/7 medium, and I am a woodelf. No way on earth did they detect me.

radar hack lol - look it up

Well thats just great.

StackonClown

Part of the problem I see on the forums is that on the rare occasion that some ZOS employees do reply to a thread, they are either:

authoritarian - 'we are looking in to it but cant say more' - what is this, communism?
diversionary - look a cute cat meme - now can we stop talking about this!
trust me - don't ask, just trust us
etc

Also, as soon as some of these known ZOS employees reply, some people act like fanboi's - 'oh wow, look, is it true?? she replied to my post - I'm in love!'

Very few people seem to be willing to challenge in a polite and decent manner.

Whenever I have challenged some of their statements with counter questions, they either go silent or put up a cat meme for the fans.

We are not a bunch of robots, we can read between the lines ZOS - just be honest and we will be fine.

Crimsonwolf666

I have several times reported bots in Stonefalls, Auridon, Glenumbra. HUGE massive gaggle of players (mostly sorcs from all the damn twilights flying around) and painstakingly went to each individual bot, reported it, wrote the name down so I didn't repeat cuz there were SOOOO damn many. I did this many times..... I still see those @names playing the game...... not just one of them, but a good chunk of those @ names that were running around in circles with other bots killing the same things over and over for hours and hours non-stop are still in the bloody game. I give up. I am not gonna bother reporting this crap anymore, cuz nothing is done to truly alleviate the cheating/exploit problem. Maybe once in a blue moon, someone is perma ban, but that seems to be it. I am just tired of putting in the effort to try and clean up the game and ZOS doesn't really do anything about it.

KingMagaw

@JonnytheKing

Maybe you missed this thread but an interesting read on the direction that was reinforced/taken 21 months ago.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/268218/permabans-being-lifted-zos-how-are-we-as-a-community-dealing-with-exploits-hacking/p1

KingMagaw wrote: »

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

I even had a player tell me they showed him the video that they banned him for, and how he was going to get even in real life.

@ZOS_GinaBruno - please tell me that isn't a procedure you have in place to name a customer/player who took time out to report cheating.

If it is, it needs corrected asap or how can this ever promote players doing this?.

This also needs addressed how/if ZoS are showing the videos that players are supplying to the cheaters. It is hardly an encouragement to get more reports sent in, quite the opposite. I tagged Gina but no response from ZoS.

rfennell_ESO

KingMagaw wrote: »

@JonnytheKing

Maybe you missed this thread but an interesting read on the direction that was reinforced/taken 21 months ago.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/268218/permabans-being-lifted-zos-how-are-we-as-a-community-dealing-with-exploits-hacking/p1

KingMagaw wrote: »

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

I even had a player tell me they showed him the video that they banned him for, and how he was going to get even in real life.

@ZOS_GinaBruno - please tell me that isn't a procedure you have in place to name a customer/player who took time out to report cheating.

If it is, it needs corrected asap or how can this ever promote players doing this?.

This also needs addressed how/if ZoS are showing the videos that players are supplying to the cheaters. It is hardly an encouragement to get more reports sent in, quite the opposite. I tagged Gina but no response from ZoS.

In truth I took the threats as seriously as I took what was said.

I'm a big believer in "consider the source", and it wouldn't be unreasonable to find the video being they knew hands down they were busted and by who.

rfennell_ESO

laced wrote: »

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

laced wrote: »

Had someone that blatently could see me while I was in stealth from across a field. No, pots cant reach that far,no i wasnt marked, no there was no magelight, no no one else was around. This is not the fist person that was able to do that, and even someone on their faction messaged me telling me that he saw that and reported the guy.

In truth, the range at which you can be detect by a detect pot + sentry set is quite large.

If you are in front of them and not wearing medium armor the detection range is 60 meters (20m baseline, +20 meters detect pot, 50% increase on 40 meters for +20 meters sentry set).

With 7/7 medium armor it's 39 meters.

Just for posterity... if they popped magelight, used a detect pot and were wearing sentry set and you aren't wearing medium it's 75 meters detection if you are in front of them.

Not saying there isn't something amiss, but clarifying something. It's not all that difficult to achieve that 75 meters detection with a quick gear swap.

It was a light armor sorc. Been fighting the person all night. He was well beyond 60 meters. Think about ballista range from the wall between ash and nik. Thats how far. They literally walzed right toward me like they knew exactly where I was and placed a curse on me. I wear 7/7 medium, and I am a woodelf. No way on earth did they detect me.

Oh I get ya... I'm just pointing out the legit way people find people from distance. Keep in mind if they saw about where you were before you stealthed and you didn't go far from there they can find you from a decent range even with medium armor.

I've seen enough people that ought not be able to see me being able to see me. Particularly with curse... a certain segment of the sorc population has the ability to fire curse right through everything at extreme range... it's quite suspicious.

Alcast

Mondini wrote: »

Here is something I never understand, why do people actually bot? Do they make any money from it or is it just to have ingame items. In OP's video there are 4 bots, I refuse to believe that after paying the cost to run 4 pc's to bot that you could make any real money.

You can run as many ESOs on one PC as you would like to. And Goldsellers make a *** of money because ZOS does not successfully ban botters. A bot that runs around for 1+ month already made A LOT of real $$$$

ZOS would have to invest into a Gamemaster on each server and problem solved. But hey, how dare you to use all that juicy crown store money!!

AoDD33pfri3d

Ackwalan wrote: »

If only ZOS was as aggressive towards following the rules in the game, as they are to making sure the forum rules are followed.

One game if you get caught cheating it's a permanent ban. That's what Zos should do in my opinion.

MighTyx

Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous how cheaters in ESO apparently only get temporary bans at first.

I've never heard of any other games doing this. Once someone decides to cheat, they should get a permanent ban.
It's the only proper way to discourage cheating. Botting is one of most harmful things in ESO and also the most obvious to spot.

All it takes is a couple of bot-destroying gamemasters on every server that log on at a different time of every week and do this for at least an hour.

Jade1986

AoDD33pfri3d wrote: »

Ackwalan wrote: »

If only ZOS was as aggressive towards following the rules in the game, as they are to making sure the forum rules are followed.

One game if you get caught cheating it's a permanent ban. That's what Zos should do in my opinion.

Agree, there should be 0 tolerance.