Reporting bots - are we wasting our time?

Drummerx04

kargen27 wrote: »

Rocki wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

No we/you are not.

What gives you confidence in saying that though? I would like to agree but you haven't given me any reason to and neither has ZoS.

If I wrote down the names of these bots here on the forums, I doubt it would take a day or more for a moderator to take action and remove the post, and possibly even ban me for naming and shaming. And yet the bots that I reported yesterday are still running around. Doesn't it seem strange that the forums are more strictly policed than the actual game?

Not really because the forums are much easier to police. I've reported bots and a couple of days later they were gone. Maybe they just weren't around when I went and checked? If it is an obvious bot train I will report. It would be nice to have a more streamlined way to report the bots though.

I wrote an addon to streamline the reporting of bots Bot Scanner. Enjoy

BWS2K

Reporting bots is not a waste of time, if you're interested in seeing less bots.

It is going to be difficult to notice any significant change if you see one once, report it, and then check back the next day and do nothing more. When you report, call it out in zChat and encourage others to report. Ignore the ones that tell you you're wasting your time. This does work. It's not ZOS's job to find and insta-ban bots. That's inefficient. It's their job to provide willing players with the tools to bring possible bots to their attention and let them decide on a course of action - which they've done by providing us with the reporting option. It's also not efficient to pay someone to run around doing nothing but banning bots, so oftentimes they'll accumulate a wealth of bot reports and then just do a massive ban. It's why you'll see five bots on Monday and then they'll all be gone by Wednesday or whatever. You don't have to report bots, or suspected bots, of course... but they'll always be there unless someone does. If you see the bot again 24hrs later, it means you're there - report it again. Once a day until it's gone. Or not. My experience is on PC, btw, and I've heard horror stories about consoles. Not sure how it all goes over there, lol

And the in-game market will 100% recover if all the bots are eliminated because [ economics works like this ] BUT there will always be a small portion of bots because there will always be lazy people willing to risk getting scammed online to gain a perceived advantage or 'skip ahead to the good parts'. It's in these peoples' best interests to discourage reporting and feed paranoia about some sort of market collapse.

Either way, report or not, Happy Gaming!

HeroOfNone

I think a big issue on bots is DPS doesn't get a lot of good reports on them from players. When I ask most how they report they simply tell them "Oh, they are in shadow fen, by this landmark. I gave a screenshot". And all that's there is a screenshot of a bunch of players but no names.

Admittedly though it's a pain in the butt to get all those names down and give exact locations and times when you just want to quest.

That's where the "bot scanner 2000" comes in, makes it reporting so much easier. Though it can only be used on PC I hope ZOS takes it design into account and offers something for the bots you occasionally see there as well.

Here's a video showing it off

qbit

I'd say you're wasting your time. There is just so much to do in this game, that I just don't understand the obsession the bot hunters have with the bots. That's why I troll so many of the bot hunter posts. Trying to be nice here in this comment...

I agree, it would be nice if there were no bots. But they affect game play so little, that most don't care. They were an issue for me around maybe levels 20-40 on my first and only character. I don't farm anymore, and have enough money to buy mats. As far as selling mats, there are plenty of other things to sell that are not mats that you get for doing real content. And you get them by having fun rather than obsessing about bots.

I just don't get the people that spend their game play time following these suspected botters around. Making videos. Compiling lists. Reporting them. Apparently also installing addons that make reporting easier. Literally stalking these players and noting if they see them online again. Logging where they are seen. Which is impressive given how the instances you are put in are random. And then whispering at them (and frankly, I consider you violating TOS by harassing me if you're whispering me accusing me of being a bot).

Like, seriously? I don't mean to come here and tell people how to play the game, but I just can't get past the idea that you're creating your own turmoil over this issue by caring so much. Do the bot hunters realize the sheer volume of content available in this game outside of farming resource nodes in starter zones?

What level-headed people actually have time to stalk these suspected botters? I would think emoting /sitchair by a wayshrine in Vivec and watching naked players duel in a slap contest would be more entertaining than stalking botters. I would think just standing in a crafting area would be more entertaining.

Let alone actually doing some real content...

Bot hunters should go do some content and stop obsessing about things they can't change and are powerless to stop.

BWS2K

qbit: The thing is, you're using your subjective opinion about time-wasting activities to throw shade on other people's preferred activities. Just because you don't understand, just because you don't see the appeal, just because you don't feel it makes a difference... doesn't mean others think or feel differently. Everyone has the same amount of time to play and we're free to choose how to spend that time - hence the friction with bots, I think, because they represent no time being played. It's perfectly fine to feel as you do and I 100% have no animosity towards you or those who feel similarly. It becomes a problem, however, when I say, for instance, botting is against TOS and then someone counters with but you'll never stop them all. Or I say this is how I choose to spend my time and someone counters with that's a stupid thing to do and a complete waste of time. Or I say reporting is a legitimate tool we have to help ZOS improve the gameplay experience and someone counters with ZOS never reads reports ever and this is definitely completely true and I can't prove it but everyone knows it. Or I say the market will be fine without bots and then someone counters with but the market prices won't ever come down without bots because there's no conceivable way anyone would ever farm materials for themselves.

I mean, where's the threads telling people setting up houses is a waste of time? Or grinding in the same dungeon over and over again for a piece of jewelry? Or roleplaying? *shrug* I would never tell someone how to spend their time in ESO - we all have the same hours of the day.

StormChaser3000

qbit wrote: »

What level-headed people actually have time to stalk these suspected botters? I would think emoting /sitchair by a wayshrine in Vivec and watching naked players duel in a slap contest would be more entertaining than stalking botters. I would think just standing in a crafting area would be more entertaining.

It takes much less time than for example for you to write long poems on forums why we shouldn't hunt them or use so called "trolling" by writing nonsence about US law system which has nothing to do with the topic or describing how you like to stand in one place and spam light attacks for hours.

Ignorance will lead to them swarming the game. Sorry man, we hunted them and will continue doing so. Personally I do see slow progress from my personal actions which take max 5 min every 3 days.

Happy hunting everyone.

Starlock

While games are certainly a less serious affair than most, I can't help but draw comparisons. When I see someone defending a practice that is clearly against the terms of service for a game, I think about laws that govern our countries and communities. I wonder if the same people who say calling people out for violations of terms of service is a waste of time would also say that calling out people for breaking laws is a waste of time. In both cases, we often don't know the results of the investigations. Affairs are often kept private, and for good reason. Is it a waste of time to be a responsible citizen of a community? To be that person whose motto is "if you see something, say something?"

Ashilda_Dragonheart

Rocki wrote: »

The reason I'm making this post as I've just been back to Beldama Wyrd Tree in Glenumbra (on EU) and there's a bot train running around. That's not unusual in ESO but I reported all of them yesterday, and yet they're all still there in the same place botting around as I'm typing this. They're all CP160-400, if you're on EU you can go see for yourself.

So am I wasting my time reporting them? I know ZoS won't discuss disciplinary actions taken, but does anyone actually have any confidence that ZoS is doing anything about it? I've never seen botting as frequent and normalised in any other MMO. Does ESO even have GMs?

Some people think they allow bots so there is a larger player base, which is possible but I don't know how true it is. Personally, I don't think they will ever do anything, unless Gina or another dev sees all of these posts and decides to do something. Please devs, do something about this.

BWS2K

Ashilda_Dragonheart wrote: »

Some people think they allow bots so there is a larger player base, which is possible but I don't know how true it is.

I think it's more that there's just no way to stop all the botz evar and, combined with what's already been said, we see some linger for quite a while. I don't like to presume but I wouldn't think you'd want to gain a reputation as a safe place for botters since it'd likely lead to more of them and less real players and eventually you'd reach a point of diminishing returns. They don't talk about it here on the forums though, and I'm genuinely surprised this thread hasn't been closed yet. Usually someone's violated common decency or the name-and-shame rules by now, so good job all around folks, lol

Ashilda_Dragonheart

BWS2K wrote: »

Ashilda_Dragonheart wrote: »

Some people think they allow bots so there is a larger player base, which is possible but I don't know how true it is.

I think it's more that there's just no way to stop all the botz evar and, combined with what's already been said, we see some linger for quite a while. I don't like to presume but I wouldn't think you'd want to gain a reputation as a safe place for botters since it'd likely lead to more of them and less real players and eventually you'd reach a point of diminishing returns. They don't talk about it here on the forums though, and I'm genuinely surprised this thread hasn't been closed yet. Usually someone's violated common decency or the name-and-shame rules by now, so good job all around folks, lol

I don't think it's true, but it's possible. I'm just hoping the devs will see this thread. I've noticed the bots as well and I'm worried that this issue will get worse if something isn't done about it.

Elsonso

BWS2K wrote: »

qbit: The thing is, you're using your subjective opinion about time-wasting activities to throw shade on other people's preferred activities. Just because you don't understand, just because you don't see the appeal, just because you don't feel it makes a difference... doesn't mean others think or feel differently. Everyone has the same amount of time to play and we're free to choose how to spend that time - hence the friction with bots, I think, because they represent no time being played. It's perfectly fine to feel as you do and I 100% have no animosity towards you or those who feel similarly. It becomes a problem, however, when I say, for instance, botting is against TOS and then someone counters with but you'll never stop them all. Or I say this is how I choose to spend my time and someone counters with that's a stupid thing to do and a complete waste of time. Or I say reporting is a legitimate tool we have to help ZOS improve the gameplay experience and someone counters with ZOS never reads reports ever and this is definitely completely true and I can't prove it but everyone knows it. Or I say the market will be fine without bots and then someone counters with but the market prices won't ever come down without bots because there's no conceivable way anyone would ever farm materials for themselves.

Well, @qbit does have a point. Reporting bots in this game is a thankless task. If ZOS does not share our disdain for the cheater, harasser, or exploiter, then they aren't going to do anything about them. ZOS is never going to give anyone an atta-boy for reporting others. They aren't even going to acknowledge that it is being done, except maybe once per year when they run Gina or Jessica out with a statement in response to some forum thread.

He also has a point that there is apparently a cottage industry in the game for reporting bots, made up entirely of volunteers.

Still, I will admit that a lot of what @qbit said was fired in my direction, so I do feel the need to counter.

I report players for ToS violations because ZOS has the responsibility of enforcing that sort of stuff, I want them to perform in that role, and reporting those players is how that gets started. ToS enforcement is just as much a part of the service they provide as keeping the server running. ZOS should not allow people to just violate the ToS whenever they want. Otherwise, what is the point of having a ToS? I want them to have a ToS, and I want them to enforce it against people who would exploit or cheat. I don't play the game with the intent to cheat by farming mats or XP, and I honestly want ZOS to acknowledge that by removing those who do intend to cheat while in the game.

XxCaLxX

rynth wrote: »

just ignore them and they wont hurt you, in no way have bots hurt our economy nor could you even prove that they have. You just have to chock it up to the game and realize that bots are going to be in game no matter what. Move on and stop beating the dead horse it's dead and it can do nothing to you.

Posts like this makes me lose even more hope for humanity.

Rocki

Drummerx04 wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Rocki wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

No we/you are not.

What gives you confidence in saying that though? I would like to agree but you haven't given me any reason to and neither has ZoS.

If I wrote down the names of these bots here on the forums, I doubt it would take a day or more for a moderator to take action and remove the post, and possibly even ban me for naming and shaming. And yet the bots that I reported yesterday are still running around. Doesn't it seem strange that the forums are more strictly policed than the actual game?

Not really because the forums are much easier to police. I've reported bots and a couple of days later they were gone. Maybe they just weren't around when I went and checked? If it is an obvious bot train I will report. It would be nice to have a more streamlined way to report the bots though.

I wrote an addon to streamline the reporting of bots Bot Scanner. Enjoy

Seems like a fantastic addon, happy to say I haven't been able to test it yet though as I just went back to the spot and the bots are gone!

Cadbury

I'll occasionally report a bot if I happen to come across one. I don't go out of my way to look for them, as a famous poet once said, "Ain't nobody got time for that."

But I do wonder what if any impact my efforts have. Sometimes I feel like this guy:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus

As an aside, I do get some perverse enjoyment out of seeing people defend of even sympathize with botters...

LordSkyKnight

@Starlock

Equating refusing to report bots to refusing to report criminal activity to police is downright ridiculous and a straw man.

That would be like the police sitting in the station eating donuts never leaving until a community member reports a crime.

A true comparison would be more akin to seeing people commit crimes and you calling the police to report it and they never actually show up. People then get sick of calling the police because it seems like they never leave the police station to do their jobs.

Those of us saying don’t bother are sick and tired of wasting a ton of time chasing bot trains then attempting to use the stupid wheel command to report them. Once done with the first guy you have to chase the meat train down again and attempt to aim the damn cursor trying to report the next one and not tag the same one again. Doing all of that over and over then guess what...........come back the next day and the meat train is still there. Yep that was so worth the time and effort reporting them. Or coming back next week and seeing all the zombies in the same damn location doing the same damn crap.


My free time is precious to me. When I spend that time doing ZOS job of bot hunting then to see no apparent effect for my effort really grinds me gears. Don’t you think that is a fair reason to be pissed?

leakyassassin

Seems like it. ESO literally doesn't care as long as they are making money from their accounts and their actions in the game.

I've seen a group of 10 bots on for a solid 2-3 months before I quit over 3 years ago. It's kinda pathetic that these people are left on, I left a good 20-30 reports against each one. 3 of them I added to watch them, they are still playing today.

Elsonso

.

leakyassassin wrote: »

Seems like it. ESO literally doesn't care as long as they are making money from their accounts and their actions in the game.

I've seen a group of 10 bots on for a solid 2-3 months before I quit over 3 years ago. It's kinda pathetic that these people are left on, I left a good 20-30 reports against each one. 3 of them I added to watch them, they are still playing today.

Back in 2017, there were some bots in Shadowfen that ran from around August through the end of the year. Some individual bots would disappear, but a core group remained. They are all gone, now, but I know where you are coming from. I have not seen anything like that since. To this day, I do not know whether ZOS took care of them, they just left the game, or they are still playing, but under a new identity.

Jeremy

Rocki wrote: »

The reason I'm making this post as I've just been back to Beldama Wyrd Tree in Glenumbra (on EU) and there's a bot train running around. That's not unusual in ESO but I reported all of them yesterday, and yet they're all still there in the same place botting around as I'm typing this. They're all CP160-400, if you're on EU you can go see for yourself.

So am I wasting my time reporting them? I know ZoS won't discuss disciplinary actions taken, but does anyone actually have any confidence that ZoS is doing anything about it? I've never seen botting as frequent and normalised in any other MMO. Does ESO even have GMs?

I saw a character using a bot program in my favorite farming spot. It wasn't a fancy program - he/she just stood by a node - forever, instantly hitting it as soon as it appeared and it was impossible to get.

I reported the person.

I saw the player there again next time i went farming. Was at same spot - but was no longer using the bot program. So it seemed to make a difference for me.

Elsonso

Jeremy wrote: »

Rocki wrote: »

The reason I'm making this post as I've just been back to Beldama Wyrd Tree in Glenumbra (on EU) and there's a bot train running around. That's not unusual in ESO but I reported all of them yesterday, and yet they're all still there in the same place botting around as I'm typing this. They're all CP160-400, if you're on EU you can go see for yourself.

So am I wasting my time reporting them? I know ZoS won't discuss disciplinary actions taken, but does anyone actually have any confidence that ZoS is doing anything about it? I've never seen botting as frequent and normalised in any other MMO. Does ESO even have GMs?

I saw a character using a bot program in my favorite farming spot. It wasn't a fancy program - he/she just stood by a node - forever, instantly hitting it as soon as it appeared and it was impossible to get.

I reported the person.

I saw the player there again next time i went farming. Was at same spot - but was no longer using the bot program. So it seemed to make a difference for me.

I am guessing that ZOS sends them a warning when they are reported (and ZOS confirms the report). The first time. As long as they are there, pressing the button that does the harvest, with their own finger, everything should be good.

ProfessorKittyhawk

I remember when the game first came out there bots at the farm at the beginning of Rivenspire. This being my first mmo I had no idea what was going on but I was out there doing a bit of grinding as well. Thinking these were just other people. Until everything freezes and suddenly everyone is dead. When I rezzed but none of the others did it clicked with me what had happened. A GM went Godmode and smited the lot of us to kill the bots. Only those of use who were flesh and blood would rez.

And that's when little Kittyhawk learned never to trust machines and their robotic ways. Would love to see the bots today get the same treatment.

PyroDes86

Unfortunately, to an extent every games economy is dependant on bots.

BWS2K

PyroDes86 wrote: »

Unfortunately, to an extent every games economy is dependant on bots.

Unfortunately, there will always be people willing to do whatever it takes to gain a perceived edge in a given game, but the economy in ESO is not dependent on bots.

Gold = Time in ESO. Always.

Let's say I want to buy 100 jute. I can go pick it myself or I can buy from a trader. The trader is charging 5g each, for a total of 500g. I have to decide whether it's worth my time to get that jute myself or settle for paying that price. If I pay that price, it's because someone else has invested the time and is doing the opposite of me - they decided it was worth it to spend the time farming in hopes of getting the gold. That's just how the market works.

Bots represent a zero time investment. Arguably, they also deny the resources to those who are deciding not to buy the jute and, instead, want to go farm it instead because it's systematically taking those resources from them (where there's one bot, there's more - and they can be quite efficient). This means the bots deny the jute to those looking for it and sell it back to them at a price they set, controlling both sides of the supply/demand dynamic.

People will say that bots keep the prices of jute down because they flood the market with jute, decreasing its value and ensuring its availability. That's only half true. It's still the same decision being made on the buyer's end though - is this jute worth my time to go pick or my gold to buy (because you've spent time doing other things to get that gold... usually... :: eyeballs the daily rewards :: )? Without bots, there will be less supply into the market, potentially raising the prices... temporarily. In that short period of time where it becomes a Sellers' Market, the prices will rise - but they will absolutely fall back down again to whatever price the buyers feel is reasonable. This is because, unlike in the real world, every single player in ESO can choose to go gather their own resources. The market is completely optional.

And that's how it should be. It should always be someone spending time gathering jute in hopes of selling at a pricepoint that people will buy it on one side, and people deciding that the pricepoint is more acceptable than gathering it themselves on the other. With bots, there's no decision or investment on the sellers' side - it's just automated. Real world economics have to be tweaked because in ESO we can all do everything. The currency is really just time - we all have the same number of hours in a day to earn gold (or whatever). A person setting up a trio of bots to go farm nodes and then walking away to go nap for six hours is getting six hours of resources times three without every spending any time in-game at all. They're getting 'extra' hours in the day.

Yes, it keeps prices cheap, but a) the market will recover on its own in short order with the removal of bots because that's how the market works, b) botting is against Terms of Service, c) bots that node-farm take resources away from legitimately present players and thus artificially creates both supply and demand, and d) botting is part of a pretty shady world of scams and worse. Players can choose not to report them, which is fine, but the facts are undeniably clear that botting is in no way beneficial or harmless to ESO. When it comes to reporting them, because ZOS's policy is never to follow-up with the reporters, we never know if the reporting works - but we can all know for sure that not reporting them won't make them go away.

Kanar

Yes you are wasting your time and here's why:
You are acting as an unpaid employee for zos. As long as there are people like you policing for bots in-game, zos knows they don't need to allocate "resources" (people) to doing that job. If no one reported bots, then ESO becomes known as a bot-haven, then ZOS will have to do something about the problem like paying in-game GMs to find and ban the botters.

BWS2K

Kanar wrote: »

Yes you are wasting your time and here's why:
You are acting as an unpaid employee for zos. As long as there are people like you policing for bots in-game, zos knows they don't need to allocate "resources" (people) to doing that job. If no one reported bots, then ESO becomes known as a bot-haven, then ZOS will have to do something about the problem like paying in-game GMs to find and ban the botters.

It's not ZOS's job to report bots though, it's only their job to consider each report and then act on it. They don't get back to us about results but I know every bot I've reported since I've started is gone today, most are gone within 24hrs or less. Paying someone to go through the zones and look for bots would be a waste of time because there's too many. It would have to be several people, and that would be a waste of money that could be going to more content or, and this is the key point, it could go to paying people to consider and act on the reports. Which they're already doing.

And paying GMs from the community is a terrible idea, incidentally, because that will absolutely get exploited and we'll be back where we are. The current system works better than anything... but it doesn't work as well as it could because some people refuse to use it.

All that said, I'm on PC. My understanding is the situation is considerably worse on console and if half the stories I've heard are true, it does feel like a good GM presence there might be worthwhile every now and then. I've seen a lot of folks really disappointed about the botting there.

Kanar

BWS2K wrote: »

Kanar wrote: »

Yes you are wasting your time and here's why:
You are acting as an unpaid employee for zos. As long as there are people like you policing for bots in-game, zos knows they don't need to allocate "resources" (people) to doing that job. If no one reported bots, then ESO becomes known as a bot-haven, then ZOS will have to do something about the problem like paying in-game GMs to find and ban the botters.

It's not ZOS's job to report bots though, it's only their job to consider each report and then act on it. They don't get back to us about results but I know every bot I've reported since I've started is gone today, most are gone within 24hrs or less. Paying someone to go through the zones and look for bots would be a waste of time because there's too many. It would have to be several people, and that would be a waste of money that could be going to more content or, and this is the key point, it could go to paying people to consider and act on the reports. Which they're already doing.

And paying GMs from the community is a terrible idea, incidentally, because that will absolutely get exploited and we'll be back where we are. The current system works better than anything... but it doesn't work as well as it could because some people refuse to use it.

All that said, I'm on PC. My understanding is the situation is considerably worse on console and if half the stories I've heard are true, it does feel like a good GM presence there might be worthwhile every now and then. I've seen a lot of folks really disappointed about the botting there.

It is zos' job to stop bots from being present in the game. At least, they took that responsibility by making it "against the TOS." Reporting is just the way players bring a bot or other TOS violation to zos' attention. Obviously zos wouldn't pay people to report; the fact you even say that seems like you're trying to set up an easy target to win an argument against.

No, paying someone to go through the zones and look for bots is not a waste of time. Two or three game masters per platform could supply sufficient coverage; heck give them the responsibility of addressing bot reports too and other zone reports.

I never said to pay someone from the community to do this, so again your second paragraph seems to be setting up a target to win an argument against.

Finally, you're wrong that the system works because after years of players reporting bots they are still here in the same numbers. Also you are wrong that they ban in 24 hours, as can be seen from the numerous posts about long-standing bot trains.

BWS2K

Kanar wrote: »

BWS2K wrote: »

Kanar wrote: »

Yes you are wasting your time and here's why:
You are acting as an unpaid employee for zos. As long as there are people like you policing for bots in-game, zos knows they don't need to allocate "resources" (people) to doing that job. If no one reported bots, then ESO becomes known as a bot-haven, then ZOS will have to do something about the problem like paying in-game GMs to find and ban the botters.

It's not ZOS's job to report bots though, it's only their job to consider each report and then act on it. They don't get back to us about results but I know every bot I've reported since I've started is gone today, most are gone within 24hrs or less. Paying someone to go through the zones and look for bots would be a waste of time because there's too many. It would have to be several people, and that would be a waste of money that could be going to more content or, and this is the key point, it could go to paying people to consider and act on the reports. Which they're already doing.

And paying GMs from the community is a terrible idea, incidentally, because that will absolutely get exploited and we'll be back where we are. The current system works better than anything... but it doesn't work as well as it could because some people refuse to use it.

All that said, I'm on PC. My understanding is the situation is considerably worse on console and if half the stories I've heard are true, it does feel like a good GM presence there might be worthwhile every now and then. I've seen a lot of folks really disappointed about the botting there.

It is zos' job to stop bots from being present in the game. At least, they took that responsibility by making it "against the TOS." Reporting is just the way players bring a bot or other TOS violation to zos' attention. Obviously zos wouldn't pay people to report; the fact you even say that seems like you're trying to set up an easy target to win an argument against.

No, paying someone to go through the zones and look for bots is not a waste of time. Two or three game masters per platform could supply sufficient coverage; heck give them the responsibility of addressing bot reports too and other zone reports.

I never said to pay someone from the community to do this, so again your second paragraph seems to be setting up a target to win an argument against.

Finally, you're wrong that the system works because after years of players reporting bots they are still here in the same numbers. Also you are wrong that they ban in 24 hours, as can be seen from the numerous posts about long-standing bot trains.

You said reporting bots was a waste of time because it's doing ZOS's job. I'm saying it's not, because the job doesn't exist. ZOS doesn't pay people to report bots. They do pay people to, among other things, respond to reports. This is one of the ways ZOS stops bots. Clearly, while they used to have GMs patrol zones, they don't do that (that we're aware of) anymore. The community getting compensated was less in response to you and more to the common notion that ZOS should pay us for reporting them. Some people report bots and they disappear in hours or days. Some people report bots and they never disappear. This doesn't mean it works, it just means we can't say it doesn't work for sure... but we know that it can't work if people don't use it at all.

I'm not looking to get into arguments but this sort of topic does tend to get heated. We all spend our time as we want and there's no way to prove that reports aren't read and acted on. That action may not be what we want, as fast as we want, but we can't say it's not happening. Moreover, I'm not trying to defend ZOS's decision to stop GM patrols or say they couldn't handle botting with scripts or whatever - I'm just pointing out that there's no way to know that reporting bots doesn't work except to not do it, and that there appears to sometimes be results afterwards that may be attributable to reporting, and that this is the mechanism (or one of them) that ZOS has in place to stop bots. How we choose to spend our time is up to us. *shrug*

Kanar

BWS2K wrote: »

Kanar wrote: »

BWS2K wrote: »

Kanar wrote: »

Yes you are wasting your time and here's why:
You are acting as an unpaid employee for zos. As long as there are people like you policing for bots in-game, zos knows they don't need to allocate "resources" (people) to doing that job. If no one reported bots, then ESO becomes known as a bot-haven, then ZOS will have to do something about the problem like paying in-game GMs to find and ban the botters.

It's not ZOS's job to report bots though, it's only their job to consider each report and then act on it. They don't get back to us about results but I know every bot I've reported since I've started is gone today, most are gone within 24hrs or less. Paying someone to go through the zones and look for bots would be a waste of time because there's too many. It would have to be several people, and that would be a waste of money that could be going to more content or, and this is the key point, it could go to paying people to consider and act on the reports. Which they're already doing.

And paying GMs from the community is a terrible idea, incidentally, because that will absolutely get exploited and we'll be back where we are. The current system works better than anything... but it doesn't work as well as it could because some people refuse to use it.

All that said, I'm on PC. My understanding is the situation is considerably worse on console and if half the stories I've heard are true, it does feel like a good GM presence there might be worthwhile every now and then. I've seen a lot of folks really disappointed about the botting there.

It is zos' job to stop bots from being present in the game. At least, they took that responsibility by making it "against the TOS." Reporting is just the way players bring a bot or other TOS violation to zos' attention. Obviously zos wouldn't pay people to report; the fact you even say that seems like you're trying to set up an easy target to win an argument against.

No, paying someone to go through the zones and look for bots is not a waste of time. Two or three game masters per platform could supply sufficient coverage; heck give them the responsibility of addressing bot reports too and other zone reports.

I never said to pay someone from the community to do this, so again your second paragraph seems to be setting up a target to win an argument against.

Finally, you're wrong that the system works because after years of players reporting bots they are still here in the same numbers. Also you are wrong that they ban in 24 hours, as can be seen from the numerous posts about long-standing bot trains.

You said reporting bots was a waste of time because it's doing ZOS's job. I'm saying it's not, because the job doesn't exist. ZOS doesn't pay people to report bots. They do pay people to, among other things, respond to reports. This is one of the ways ZOS stops bots. Clearly, while they used to have GMs patrol zones, they don't do that (that we're aware of) anymore. The community getting compensated was less in response to you and more to the common notion that ZOS should pay us for reporting them. Some people report bots and they disappear in hours or days. Some people report bots and they never disappear. This doesn't mean it works, it just means we can't say it doesn't work for sure... but we know that it can't work if people don't use it at all.

I'm not looking to get into arguments but this sort of topic does tend to get heated. We all spend our time as we want and there's no way to prove that reports aren't read and acted on. That action may not be what we want, as fast as we want, but we can't say it's not happening. Moreover, I'm not trying to defend ZOS's decision to stop GM patrols or say they couldn't handle botting with scripts or whatever - I'm just pointing out that there's no way to know that reporting bots doesn't work except to not do it, and that there appears to sometimes be results afterwards that may be attributable to reporting, and that this is the mechanism (or one of them) that ZOS has in place to stop bots. How we choose to spend our time is up to us. *shrug*

The question is not, "do bots get removed?" But rather, "is this an effective way of removing bots from a game?"

Since bots are still in the game, in droves, I say that it is not an effective strategy. Just think through the steps required for that bot report to manifest into a ban; I tried typing them out but it became a ridiculously long post.

Starlock

Kanar wrote: »

The question is not, "do bots get removed?" But rather, "is this an effective way of removing bots from a game?"

Well, we gotta use the tools we have. Not using reporting tools at all is certainly the least effective way of dealing with bots.

Elsonso

Kanar wrote: »

The question is not, "do bots get removed?" But rather, "is this an effective way of removing bots from a game?"

Since bots are still in the game, in droves, I say that it is not an effective strategy. Just think through the steps required for that bot report to manifest into a ban; I tried typing them out but it became a ridiculously long post.

Actually, since I am seeing fewer bots today than I did this time last year, I would have to say that whatever ZOS changed in the last year, is working.

BWS2K

Kanar wrote: »

BWS2K wrote: »

Kanar wrote: »

BWS2K wrote: »

Kanar wrote: »

Yes you are wasting your time and here's why:
You are acting as an unpaid employee for zos. As long as there are people like you policing for bots in-game, zos knows they don't need to allocate "resources" (people) to doing that job. If no one reported bots, then ESO becomes known as a bot-haven, then ZOS will have to do something about the problem like paying in-game GMs to find and ban the botters.

It's not ZOS's job to report bots though, it's only their job to consider each report and then act on it. They don't get back to us about results but I know every bot I've reported since I've started is gone today, most are gone within 24hrs or less. Paying someone to go through the zones and look for bots would be a waste of time because there's too many. It would have to be several people, and that would be a waste of money that could be going to more content or, and this is the key point, it could go to paying people to consider and act on the reports. Which they're already doing.

And paying GMs from the community is a terrible idea, incidentally, because that will absolutely get exploited and we'll be back where we are. The current system works better than anything... but it doesn't work as well as it could because some people refuse to use it.

All that said, I'm on PC. My understanding is the situation is considerably worse on console and if half the stories I've heard are true, it does feel like a good GM presence there might be worthwhile every now and then. I've seen a lot of folks really disappointed about the botting there.

It is zos' job to stop bots from being present in the game. At least, they took that responsibility by making it "against the TOS." Reporting is just the way players bring a bot or other TOS violation to zos' attention. Obviously zos wouldn't pay people to report; the fact you even say that seems like you're trying to set up an easy target to win an argument against.

No, paying someone to go through the zones and look for bots is not a waste of time. Two or three game masters per platform could supply sufficient coverage; heck give them the responsibility of addressing bot reports too and other zone reports.

I never said to pay someone from the community to do this, so again your second paragraph seems to be setting up a target to win an argument against.

Finally, you're wrong that the system works because after years of players reporting bots they are still here in the same numbers. Also you are wrong that they ban in 24 hours, as can be seen from the numerous posts about long-standing bot trains.

You said reporting bots was a waste of time because it's doing ZOS's job. I'm saying it's not, because the job doesn't exist. ZOS doesn't pay people to report bots. They do pay people to, among other things, respond to reports. This is one of the ways ZOS stops bots. Clearly, while they used to have GMs patrol zones, they don't do that (that we're aware of) anymore. The community getting compensated was less in response to you and more to the common notion that ZOS should pay us for reporting them. Some people report bots and they disappear in hours or days. Some people report bots and they never disappear. This doesn't mean it works, it just means we can't say it doesn't work for sure... but we know that it can't work if people don't use it at all.

I'm not looking to get into arguments but this sort of topic does tend to get heated. We all spend our time as we want and there's no way to prove that reports aren't read and acted on. That action may not be what we want, as fast as we want, but we can't say it's not happening. Moreover, I'm not trying to defend ZOS's decision to stop GM patrols or say they couldn't handle botting with scripts or whatever - I'm just pointing out that there's no way to know that reporting bots doesn't work except to not do it, and that there appears to sometimes be results afterwards that may be attributable to reporting, and that this is the mechanism (or one of them) that ZOS has in place to stop bots. How we choose to spend our time is up to us. *shrug*

The question is not, "do bots get removed?" But rather, "is this an effective way of removing bots from a game?"

Since bots are still in the game, in droves, I say that it is not an effective strategy. Just think through the steps required for that bot report to manifest into a ban; I tried typing them out but it became a ridiculously long post.

Not quite. If the question is is this an effective way of removing bots from a game? then the answer is maybe, maybe not, but it's the only one we have - BUT the original question on the table (the title of this thread) is are we wasting our time reporting bots? and the answer is there's no way to know, but some people seem to think so because sometimes the bots disappear. I mean, everyone's entitled to their opinion and you definitely aren't the only one who feels the way you do, but the only conclusive answer to these sorts of concerns would have to come from ZOS and they don't talk about it.

Certainly there exist other ways of handling bots but saying that something doesn't work and is a waste of time simply because something else would work better isn't very helpful. There's always going to be a better way.