Bots are easy to fix!

Rex-Umbra

Ever since one tamriel bots have been increasing all over the server in nearly every zone in stacks of 20-50. They are always Sorcs in lightening form heavy attacking with pets at any mob that has a fast re spawn time. Since it's been getting worse and worse with ZOS doing nothing to hire in game GMs or police the issue at all. Why can't they just take all those animal npcs that respawn so fast wolfs, crabs bears etc and increase their repawn time to like 3 minutes. Boom bots will no longer be profitable.

Bonzodog01

Nope, the bots will simply wait for respawn or just plot a much larger route that allows for the 3 minute respawn times. I mean, a route that takes 3 minutes to get round woldn't even have to be that big.

Captain8504

......yeah and so there would go level grinding and people that do farm for items....it would cost millions of gold to buy a stack of crafting material.

phaneub17_ESO

Then they'll chain run dungeons like Wayrest Sewers I, clogging up the instance servers, may come to a point where they flood it so much killing and requeue repeatedly that regular players run out of instances from their load.

Marto

Back when the game released, enemies had very long respawn timers, which lead to everyone, botting or not, to camp at every single enemy spawn in the game. This, on top of the very low experience gain, and very low gold gain.

Those were not good times.

Logicbomb00

Bots operate in Questing areas. The respawn timer for mobs in these areas is much quicker than your overland mobs because it would suck waiting 3-5mins for a mob to spawn just so you could complete your quest because someone did it 1 minute before you. These are the areas where most Bots congregate.

aeowulf

Give leather a harvest time, so it takes say 1s to harvest the pelt from a body.

But really, they probably just need to be more on it with responding to reports and/or the servers identifying continous trains of folks occupying an identical spot/route for more than 30 secs.

WakeYourGhost

funnier solution for bots
Every mob killed makes a tiny increasing chance that a Super-mob will spawn (using a system that builds the chance faster for people who stay still too long, spam attacks with no hits, kill the same type of mob very often, so on.)
Said Super Mob would be at world boss levels of challenge, yet maybe have a short leash distance.
Bots farm, god-mob spawns, bots are wiped - it acts like “slaughtered” and prevents soul gem revival.
Maybe it causes a unique button prompt to pop up or you get a small ban?

Either way, it would be great to watch.

red_emu

I agree. Fix the bots! All my bots seem to be bugged

Logicbomb00

an even funnier funnier solution would be that:

1) a 'normal' player puts in a ticket about a bot train.
2) the ticket is investigated.
3) the bots are all perma-banned.

now THAT would be funny.

Emothic

The problem is not that the developers aren't doing anything about them. They are very most likely are. The problem is that they can't do anything about them. Meaning, that bots are areally hard to combat. I've used bot programs on many other MMO games, and they are nearly impossible to get rid of. And since it's so easy for someone to just make another bot on another account, you can't really stop the person. Most times the game company will go after the people or website supplying the bot programs, but this can turn into long legal battles that sometimes doesn't even work as the bot providers just make another website.

WakeYourGhost

Logicbomb00 wrote: »

an even funnier funnier solution would be that:

1) a 'normal' player puts in a ticket about a bot train.
2) the ticket is investigated.
3) the bots are all perma-banned.

now THAT would be funny.

That would be hilarious.
I’ve submitted dozens of tickets myself.. cricket sounds and bot swarms with the same name day in and day out.
Maybe they just aren’t at the punchline yet?

Though, I’m assuming it’s hard to investigate every ticket. They might need more manpower for that, and more coffee.

Best bot solution - Mail bags of coffee to ZOS headquarters.
...or maybe Naryu body pillows would be a better motivator?

Elsonso

Picture CAPTCHAs that make you endlessly pick every square with a car, or sign, or no loot and XP for you. If the bots get wise to that, put up random flowers and make people select only specific ones, or pictures of a bunch of cars and people have to pick the ones with groceries in the back seat. My favorite is the one where you have to pick the store fronts, but have us pick only the ones that are open late.

Edit: Or ZOS could handle bot reports faster...

Turelus

The bots will move elsewhere and all you will have achieved is making the game worse for legal paying customers.

The true way to stop bots is to convince people to stop buying gold and materials for real life money. No market no gold seller bots.

The ones which remain would be cheating players (farming for their own benefits) which we would require ZOS to work harder to crack down on and chase the money/materials where they're going to ban the master accounts.

Syncronaut

lordrichter wrote: »

Picture CAPTCHAs that make you endlessly pick every square with a car, or sign, or no loot and XP for you. If the bots get wise to that, put up random flowers and make people select only specific ones, or pictures of a bunch of cars and people have to pick the ones with groceries in the back seat. My favorite is the one where you have to pick the store fronts, but have us pick only the ones that are open late.

Edit: Or ZOS could handle bot reports faster...

Something like this?


Trust me it doesnt work. And it can get super anoying for players who farm, as it keep poping up. But in this game you were rewarded with extra resorce when it poped.

Slick_007

do people like OP bother putting any thought into what they ask for? at all?

edit: i still think they should be ported to cyrodiil as a rogue faction with no ability to loot/mail etc. and alerts sent to nearby players so they can be repeatedly killed by other players.

Emothic

Syncronaut wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Picture CAPTCHAs that make you endlessly pick every square with a car, or sign, or no loot and XP for you. If the bots get wise to that, put up random flowers and make people select only specific ones, or pictures of a bunch of cars and people have to pick the ones with groceries in the back seat. My favorite is the one where you have to pick the store fronts, but have us pick only the ones that are open late.

Edit: Or ZOS could handle bot reports faster...

Something like this?


Trust me it doesnt work. And it can get super anoying for players who farm, as it keep poping up. But in this game you were rewarded with extra resorce when it poped.

No, it doesn't. Eventually the bot program creators are able to add those 'anti-bot puzzle events' into the botting program. Of which the bot itself is able to preform it very easily. Runescape use to do this, and after a few years they stopped because it wasn't working anymore.

Captain8504

Logicbomb00 wrote: »

an even funnier funnier solution would be that:

1) a 'normal' player puts in a ticket about a bot train.
2) the ticket is investigated.
3) the bots are all perma-banned.

now THAT would be funny.

Quit that your making to much sense lol can't be having that around here.

Captain8504

No what would be even better is a random key/button generator at the start of ever character creation..that way they have to physically press all the key/buttons after one is banned/killed..that might work....maybe?

Turelus

Logicbomb00 wrote: »

an even funnier funnier solution would be that:

1) a 'normal' player puts in a ticket about a bot train.
2) the ticket is investigated.
3) the bots are all perma-banned.

now THAT would be funny.

That happens, but sadly it has some issues. ZOS isn't always fast to act, and the bots are remade and farming again within a day normally.

Personally I would like to see ZOS take the CCP/EVE route of going after the selling/buying side more making business less profitable and thus making botting less viable. That's not to say ignore all the bots they're a symptom of a bigger problem.

Giraffon

If they could come up with a way for the player base to interfere with the bot trains maybe that would help. Maybe a way for players to buff mobs with a special spell so they are much harder to kill for as long as the player is protecting them.

Sure some of us would find it fun to buff mobs just to troll other players...okay, that actually sounds super fun but it's all for the greater good, right?

Elsonso

Syncronaut wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Picture CAPTCHAs that make you endlessly pick every square with a car, or sign, or no loot and XP for you. If the bots get wise to that, put up random flowers and make people select only specific ones, or pictures of a bunch of cars and people have to pick the ones with groceries in the back seat. My favorite is the one where you have to pick the store fronts, but have us pick only the ones that are open late.

Edit: Or ZOS could handle bot reports faster...

Trust me it doesnt work. And it can get super anoying for players who farm, as it keep poping up. But in this game you were rewarded with extra resorce when it poped.

Well, the point being that if they put a CAPTCHA up that could not be answered correctly, the botting problem would vanish over night. (along with other things, but hey, can't make an omelet without attracting hungry teenagers.)

Emothic

Captain8504 wrote: »

No what would be even better is a random key/button generator at the start of ever character creation..that way they have to physically press all the key/buttons after one is banned/killed..that might work....maybe?

No, A person will manually log in and manage the account everytime before and after starting the botting program. Bot's can sign in and out on their own, but very few actually have this functionality. Of which still needs an actual person to activate.

Turelus wrote: »

Logicbomb00 wrote: »

an even funnier funnier solution would be that:

1) a 'normal' player puts in a ticket about a bot train.
2) the ticket is investigated.
3) the bots are all perma-banned.

now THAT would be funny.

That happens, but sadly it has some issues. ZOS isn't always fast to act, and the bots are remade and farming again within a day normally.

Personally I would like to see ZOS take the CCP/EVE route of going after the selling/buying side more making business less profitable and thus making botting less viable. That's not to say ignore all the bots they're a symptom of a bigger problem.

This is really the only viable option. Though this only has a limited effect on bots itself. In many cases the sites just create a new website and continue on, and the botting community is really good at communicating the new sites location to other botters and those who buy/sell on those sites.

Mayrael

Bans for players bying gold. This would lead to really quick colapse of bots community No buyers, no profit, no bots.

The_Protagonist

Another thing I would like to see is that if an area is farmed for too long, they spawn a Elite version of the mobs in the area, equivalent to a world boss or even tougher, that can easily wipe the Bot Train. regular life players can escape said boss.

Bots will find a way to repopulate again, but it would take them time and effort to do so.

Better still is for a GM to come in and spawn an unkillable elite mob to wipe out the bot train and then finally perma ban them from ever playing again, after doing the required investigation.

The_Protagonist

WakeYourGhost wrote: »

funnier solution for bots
Every mob killed makes a tiny increasing chance that a Super-mob will spawn (using a system that builds the chance faster for people who stay still too long, spam attacks with no hits, kill the same type of mob very often, so on.)
Said Super Mob would be at world boss levels of challenge, yet maybe have a short leash distance.
Bots farm, god-mob spawns, bots are wiped - it acts like “slaughtered” and prevents soul gem revival.
Maybe it causes a unique button prompt to pop up or you get a small ban?

Either way, it would be great to watch.

This, just the way I like it.

Turelus

Emothic wrote: »

Captain8504 wrote: »

No what would be even better is a random key/button generator at the start of ever character creation..that way they have to physically press all the key/buttons after one is banned/killed..that might work....maybe?

No, A person will manually log in and manage the account everytime before and after starting the botting program. Bot's can sign in and out on their own, but very few actually have this functionality. Of which still needs an actual person to activate.

Turelus wrote: »

Logicbomb00 wrote: »

an even funnier funnier solution would be that:

1) a 'normal' player puts in a ticket about a bot train.
2) the ticket is investigated.
3) the bots are all perma-banned.

now THAT would be funny.

That happens, but sadly it has some issues. ZOS isn't always fast to act, and the bots are remade and farming again within a day normally.

Personally I would like to see ZOS take the CCP/EVE route of going after the selling/buying side more making business less profitable and thus making botting less viable. That's not to say ignore all the bots they're a symptom of a bigger problem.

This is really the only viable option. Though this only has a limited effect on bots itself. In many cases the sites just create a new website and continue on, and the botting community is really good at communicating the new sites location to other botters and those who buy/sell on those sites.

I'm not on about sites but on about actively getting their security team to focus on the in game transactions.

I know I tout about CCP/EVE a lot (and I try my best not to) but this is one area they've done pretty well in.

They do the following.
Actively track and investigate suspicious money transfers in game.
Where evidence sugests that RMT (real money trading) is happening they step in.

• Sellers are permabanned.
• Buyers are suspended (1st offence) or permabanned (second offence) with all money they purchased removed. If they've already spent the money they're set to negative gold and must grind out of it.
• They're even able to track sales which were people buying billions worth of items then jettisoning them into containers in space for players to pick up.

I had a friend who was active in RMT (selling side) but avoided it in ESO (as it was his main MMO at the time), he would often tell me about information on sites he worked for.
We discussed the values of games and he stated that EVE was considered a "risky" venture vs ESO (or other MMO games) because of the quality of enforcement and tracking methods CCP used.

If we want to see less bots we need to make their profits suffer, that means hitting their sales, give them a bad reputation of not being safe to buy from they look at better games to make money on.

badmojo

What they actually need to do is let some members of the community volunteer to check bot reports and forward the obvious cases to the GMs for banning.

I understand that paying an employee a full wage to attack a never ending flood of bots is not a great use of money. So, lets get players to take up the slack somehow. Maybe pay proven bot hunters in crowns or something.

Make it part of the game. After a player reports a certain number of actual bots they unlock another 'World' skill line that gives them access to verify other bot reports. You accept a report, travel to the report area, verify the bot and either +1 or -1 the report. Then GMs can simply go to the most upvoted reports and swing that ban hammer, giving bot hunter 'xp' to those who upvoted so their votes are worth more than low level bot hunters, otherwise the bots would downvote themselves.

Make a game of it. Have leaderboards. People love that stuff.

Elsonso

badmojo wrote: »

What they actually need to do is let some members of the community volunteer to check bot reports and forward the obvious cases to the GMs for banning.

People do that now, when bot reports are posted in the forum. The vigilante bot hunters can go there and see for themselves. There is no reason to formalize what is already being done, other than for ZOS to formally take care of them.

Turelus

lordrichter wrote: »

badmojo wrote: »

What they actually need to do is let some members of the community volunteer to check bot reports and forward the obvious cases to the GMs for banning.

People do that now, when bot reports are posted in the forum. The vigilante bot hunters can go there and see for themselves. There is no reason to formalize what is already being done, other than for ZOS to formally take care of them.

This, many of us already report and some even hunt bots in order to get reports to ZOS.

The issues are that reporting is slow and clunky (the fact many use a 3rd party add-on to make it easier is bad), reports don't seem to be addressed fast (often sped up only when ticket numbers are posted to developers/community staff), and the bots are back within no time at all.

ZOS either needs to have more employees working full time on RMT/Security or better detection software in order to stop repeated bots entering the game. I'll be fair with them and say they will never fix this issue and not expect it of them, but when the same locations every day see 5-10 character size bot trains doing the same thing you would think they'd work a bit harder on securing those areas.

Also I am not sure how it differs between NA/PC and with consoles. The whole Bleakers debacle the other year was sadly a showing that ZOS can be shockingly unaware of events happening on EU servers.

badmojo

lordrichter wrote: »

badmojo wrote: »

What they actually need to do is let some members of the community volunteer to check bot reports and forward the obvious cases to the GMs for banning.

People do that now, when bot reports are posted in the forum. The vigilante bot hunters can go there and see for themselves. There is no reason to formalize what is already being done, other than for ZOS to formally take care of them.

Yeah but currently its clunky. Bots reported on the forums get all sorts of attention and bots not posted on the forums fly under the radar. If it was built into the game ZOS could organize the players better, aiming them towards the reports that need more verification.

There is also the fact that many people do not read these forums but would still be willing to help expose bots.

I have posted bots on the forums. Took scteen shots and reported their location and ticket numbers...it wasnt quick and easy, and I mostly got replies saying they could just be organized players. No response from ZOS, saw the same bots in the same place couple days later. I put in the work, nothing happened, now I dont bother unless I am looking to waste my time.

Thats not a good system.