Why do bots bother you?

Tryxus

Bots bother me cuz they're like those creepy mannequins that can suddenly jump to life o.o

Ackwalan

Bots affect more then you realize. ZOS keeps track of a lot of data. For example, they track drop rates for nirn. Now if the bots are running 24/7, they can move the drop rate % enough that ZOS lowers the % they drop to lower how many are in game. ZOS may even track which skills are most used and how much damage the do compared to other skill. And those bot trains of templars spamming jabs will mess up the data, causing an unneeded nerf.

If you think bots don't hurt your game time, you are mistaken.

DMuehlhausen

Aurielle wrote: »

The bots who camp resource nodes are by far the worst. Go to a starter area like Stros M’kai and try to farm ore. You’ll find that most ore spawn sites are occupied by bots who harvest said ore the millisecond it spawns. Starter areas were at one point in time the best place to farm resources, but no longer, thanks to bots.

Well that's cause of the stupid 1T.

You use to have to go to the right zone to farm the mats you needed. Now once you hit CP160 you get a 50/50 chance of getting Rubedite whatever. If that wasn't the case the bots would farm other zones where max level mats only spawned.

Valykc

They steal my grind spots

robpr

I commonly see bot trains in Shadowfen and Reaper's March, I like to troll them with chaining away mudcrabs and other mobs.
Bots flood the economy with materials earned by unfair practices, but mostly they are ruining the overall image of the game.

tactx

I think botting should be allowed, but only in Clockwork City for obvious reasons.

theyancey

Bots rarely cause me any direct distress. Being falsely accused of being a bot on a few occasions has. IMO a person who files a false bot charge should be subjected to the same punishment that a bot would.

Jayman1000

myskyrim26 wrote: »

There are a lot of posts about bots here. I wonder, why do they bother people at all? I sometimes see bots at dolmens. I report them. Just because... well, no reason, actually. They don't disturb my game. I report because it is a common practice when one sees a bot. Because a bot is something bad and unfair. But lot of people here seem to really suffer from bots - in what way, I wonder? No sarcasm or something like that, just curious.

Because of the grindy nature of the game requires you to do tedious grindy things that are not very fun so you can obtain the things that makes things fun... bots are owned by humans that employ them to do their dirty grindy work for them. So naturally normal human players are getting jealous at the botters. Here they are grinding their ass of for hours while some bot master employs his armies of bot trains with little effort raking in millions upon millions.

DeadlyRecluse

I don't mind bots at all.

They keep the improvement mat cost low, which is okay by me, and have never disrupted my gameplay.

I do report them occasionally, usually when I find a particularly egregious bunch.

Odovacar

Has anyone seen the Z's online lately? I haven't seen one zeni account online in over a year or so. I know the chance of seeing them online is rare, especially on consoles, but I feel their presence is needed a bit more to investigate the increasing bot presence. Lastly, I know that bots are not new but over the last 6 months they have been everywhere and sightings are up, LOL. For example, I was leveling up my Psijic line for a new character last month and I noted multiple bots while running around closing rifts. #deathtothebots

MasterSpatula

Bots bother me because, as Turelus stated, they're frequently scammers (hell, just by botting, they're exploiters of some stripe), Maybe they're there for selling accounts; maybe they're there for farming resources and keeping actual players from getting those resources instead. Regardless, they're a nuisance at best and harmful to the game and its long-term health at worst.

But more so, what bothers me is that the same bots run the same circuit for weeks on end. It's a reminder of one of ZOS's greatest failings as a company, one of the ways they've taken the absolute barest, lowest minimum standard of a company in the MMO business and actively, willfully, intentionally chosen not to fulfill this bare minimum standard: They want algorithms to do jobs that can only really be done by people. They want to automate processes that require GMs with human insight and human judgement to do effectively and fairly.

It's why it took them months to get rid of Gold Sellers at launch and why we players filled our Ignore lists within a couple of weeks. They refused to get people to do the job of people because they wanted code to do the work. It's why no one can manually progress a quest for you if it bugs and you have to reset the quest and do it from the beginning. ZOS doesn't want to have to pay money to staff a position that is, quite simply, non-optional.

The unstopped bot trains are a constant reminder that, while the content creators of this game are amazing, the bean counters are indefensibly, inexcusably cheap and deserve destitution, not success.

#tellushowyoureallyfeel

Jhalin

For one thing bots pretty much singlehandedly destroyed the market for Clean Pelts on day one of the Homestead up update. Same as they did with Fleshfly Larvae in near the same instant the Dark Brotherhood DLC implemented poisons.

Yeah obviously those would have dropped into the ground eventually as most common things do, but when the brand new item is barely above vendor trash values on the first day, that screws with the player economy.

Bots also sell their cp160+ accounts for real money to players who have no clue what they’re doing. All the while selling the gold for real money.

Or if you wanna assume the very least of them, they’re being used to funnel gold into a main account so that person can pile up gold while doing absolutely no work.

All that is on top of bot trains being a massive eyesore, a disruption to questing in new players zones that make completing quests damn near impossible with the conga line of light attack spamming pet sorcs on everything that moves, and a really sh!t impression to give new players when they’re first starting out.

Hurbster

During beta and for some time after release bot trains camped bosses and hunted where there were a lot of fast respawning adds (coral area just outside of Ebonheart comes to mind, still a popular grinding area), these could cause my rather ancient pc to throw up it's hands in despair and crash out.

ezio45

I like bots, there funny

Acrolas

These days, I put a higher priority on reporting external sellers, which are probably easier to pursue and shut down as they tend to present their own incriminating evidence right in the description.

The fun thing about eBay is all you have to do is look at one gold/account seller page and they send you a reminder email with that seller page and many other related ones. If you don't mind support occasionally seeing what other hobbies you're interested in, it's a really easy message forward.

I report in-game bots but don't expect them all to be taken down quickly. They're a stark contrast to honest players, but we're also dealing with a segment that doesn't learn from the disciplinary action taken on others. Which presents its own set of challenges.

Asys

its cheaters - exploiters. why even ask. the stupidity in this world amazes me almost every day

SirAndy

myskyrim26 wrote: »

There are a lot of posts about bots here. I wonder, why do they bother people at all? I sometimes see bots at dolmens. I report them. Just because... well, no reason, actually. They don't disturb my game. I report because it is a common practice when one sees a bot. Because a bot is something bad and unfair. But lot of people here seem to really suffer from bots - in what way, I wonder? No sarcasm or something like that, just curious.

Hey @ZOS, we found another one! Ban hammer please ...

kip_silverwolf

For those who say they're not affected by bots - well, you may not feel directly affected by them but bots have affected this game over the years, resulting in changes to gameplay.

- The reason why we have a cool down on boss loot is because of bots (at launch a normal player couldn't even get a hit on dungeon & quest bosses due to bots camping them)

- The reason we can only delete 3 characters within a 24hr period is because of bots. Initially it never used to be like this, but was implemented in an effort to combat bots. It was to stop bots leveling quickly, taking quest rewards and money then doing it again.

- The reason we now have the dolmen mechanic in place where if you stand still at an anchor a charge builds beneath you to accumulate & explode, is because of bots. For a long while Dolmen's never had this and bots would camp them.

These are just some examples. There's probably more I've not mentioned. But fact is bots do affect our gameplay, whether we realise it or not, and are nothing but a plague upon the game. Plus it's a form of cheating and who wants to play with cheaters? Not me.

VileNord

Well my guild lost it's Mournhold trader this week to a sniper guild with nothing in it's store.... (bot farmers) and now my holiday sales won't be as lucrative. I hate bots.

MLGProPlayer

Because I'm a farmer and bots bring down the price of materials by creating oversupply.

Atreidus

Bots dupe and cheat. And you ask, why? Not, that non bots wont be doing this to.

Darkhorse1975

Tryxus wrote: »

Bots bother me cuz they're like those creepy mannequins that can suddenly jump to life o.o

Bots creep me out for some reason too! Maybe Im still traumatized by all the bots when the game launched? Its an uncanny valley type of feeling.

Glurin

They are most annoying when they are killing something that I need to kill for whatever reason. Nothing like sitting on your attack button waiting for respawns because the bots keep killing the things you need for your quest. Same goes for when I'm trying to farm a particular mat that only appears in certain areas, but lo and behold the bots are strip mining the place.

Aside from that, they flood the market so badly with things like crafting mats that they become nearly worthless, which makes trying to turn a profit by selling them a pointless endeavor. This is thankfully somewhat mitigated by the guild trader system, but it's still a problem.

Also there's just something about some lazy *** having the computer play the game for him so he doesn't have to put in any effort that rubs me the wrong way.

Bobby_V_Rockit

They took our jerbs!

DaveMoeDee

HalloweenWeed wrote: »

Zweible wrote: »

Bots are changing. Resource node Bots are very commonplace now. Harder to spot, but just as damaging to people trying to get their own mats instead of buying them. I have reported the same 3 Bots that are in Rivenspire 4 different times now. The have been plaguing the same area, running the same path, etc for over 4 months and ZOS has done nothing except to send me an email saying they got my reports. Its a shame ZOS does not take this seriously as it does impact gameplay of normal players.

I suspect they are ZOS employees, making $$ on the side, or ex-employees and thus possibly friends of current employees! I suspect that's why ZOS can't or won't get rid of them! It's even possible they have something to threaten ZOS employees with to prevent ZOS from removing them. However, this is not an accusation, I have no proof at all. I have come to this suspicion simply from pondering the possible reasons for ZOS to not permaban their IP blocks.

Unfettered imagination is a dangerous thing.

idk

Turelus wrote: »

They're most annoying when they're directly in a location you're trying to play. If they're farming areas or monsters you need for quests it can be really frustrating.

They can have a big impact on a game economy and fair play for those interested in competitive elements.

Also it's worth noting that large gold selling groups (who run bots) are not in business to be nice. They're there to make money off someone else's product, as well as exploiting their customers by stealing accounts or credit card information.
CCP Games (creators of EVE Online) have done a number of really interesting security presentations about Botting, RMT and games security, I would encourage people to go watch them some time.

Great explanation.

I would add that left unchecked they interfere with game play, going well beyond disrupting the market.

I recall the early days of this game when you could see bots phasing in one at a time at quest interaction points, turn ins etc. One would be doing the interaction while the next was spawning in and the previous was disappearing. They would move through the world in a manner we could not see them.

Where they had the biggest interruption of our gameplay was in delves where groups of them would kill the boss. Many times would have a DK with chains pull the boss to them preventing most from getting any damage on the delve boss.

thorwyn

theyancey wrote: »

Bots rarely cause me any direct distress. Being falsely accused of being a bot on a few occasions has. IMO a person who files a false bot charge should be subjected to the same punishment that a bot would.

That would discourage people to report bots because of the risk involved. Counter productive in my books.

Rowjoh

because its cheating.

and they get away with it.

pod88kk

I just find it annoying that there's no repercussions for them going against the terms and conditions and people who deal with them don't face any repercussions either even though they are very clearly cheating. To make it worse a lot of those people cheat in other ways & get away with it too.

Kingslayer513

Bots directly and noticeably effect the game's player economy, especially the crafting mats economy, in a very negative way. It's akin to domestic products being undercut by foreign imports made from slave-labor and being sold for fractions of the price.