To the low level player in Bleakrock. . .

Versispellis

. . . Carrying tons of plants for the express purpose of trading with high level farmers: you're smart, and I support you.

Asardes

Or maybe it's only part time human managed

Versispellis

@Asardes Hahaha yeah, god, who knows. This toon was at least wearing clothes and had a real name!

myskyrim26

I remeber my first day in ESO, on Bleakrock. I was running around like headless chicken and collecting everything I could. Just because of my experience with previous games - if something can be collected, that means, I will definitely need it. So I collected a lot of plants, wood etc. I collected all those just because I had no idea - do I need this or that...

Versispellis

@myskyrim26 Same. lol I remember collecting ALL the runes, just because they were so cute and glowy in the snow! And that was how enchanting became my first discipline.

Salix_alba

and then you made it to the first large zone to sell the scant handful of mats you had found and people started handing you bait and telling you what you need to be doing is fishing for roe.

Fischblut

This toon was at least wearing clothes and had a real name!

Many bots which I (after making sure they are not a human) report wear nice clothes and crown store outfits, have nice names and wear monster sets/proc sets (Skoria, Maw of Infernal, Defiler etc). I think those are either bought/hacked accounts, or maybe even people who think that it's ok to bot from time to time

Versispellis

Fischblut wrote: »

This toon was at least wearing clothes and had a real name!

Many bots which I (after making sure they are not a human) report wear nice clothes and crown store outfits, have nice names and wear monster sets/proc sets (Skoria, Maw of Infernal, Defiler etc). I think those are either bought/hacked accounts, or maybe even people who think that it's ok to bot from time to time

I think it might be the latter. Before the change to rapids, I used to see a lot of rapids-spamming high level sprinters, from whom you could not provoke a human reaction no matter what you did. I haven't seen anything like that in a while. Just the ones that are in prisoner garb or naked. Have you seen something like this recently?

Jayne_Doe

Usually you can tell it's a bot because they stand waiting at a node and immediately harvest it as it appears. I've tried to take mats away from bots, but I'm never fast enough once the node appears and the bot is standing there. I can take mats that have appeared before the bot arrives at the spot on their route. They are usually low level with no clothes and generally female - at least in my experience. They also run somewhat circuitous routes and open their map frequently to try and make it look like they're just wandering around.

I've found, and reported, them in Bleakrock, Bal Foyen, and Rivenspire. In Rivenspire, it's usually been a bot train of 6 or so toons that all look exactly the same, each with a scamp. They run around the Barrows there killing skeevers.

Versispellis

@Jayne_Doe Yup, that's exactly what I see. In Bleakrock especially there are a lot of women with white hair running around in their underwear. I also see a cluster of XP-farming sorcerers sometimes, too, spamming lightning form and shooting the wolves.

Electricblulion

Bleakrock, Bal Foyen, Rivenspire, Khenarthi's Roost, Betnikh and I think Alikir are all completely infested with bots. I even saw a cluster them with pets, all moving in unison, using wayshrines. It's almost impossible to harvest nodes where they are because there are so many of them. Usually all level 3, some all the way to level 15. Almost always sorcerers with pets. Before too long they are going to make the crafting bag useless because they'll be nothing left to harvest. I also wonder if the bots affect the performance of the game? I think maybe disabling the auto loot function for a while would stop them but I don't know exactly how the bots work. I've also heard that the people behind the bots are making real world money from this and that makes me worried about what kind of things this could be funding.

Starlock

Versispellis wrote: »

Same. lol I remember collecting ALL the runes, just because they were so cute and glowy in the snow! And that was how enchanting became my first discipline.

Remember when there were different colors of runes? I miss the other colors... the blue and yellow were pretty.

Hapexamendios

Jayne_Doe wrote: »

Usually you can tell it's a bot because they stand waiting at a node and immediately harvest it as it appears. I've tried to take mats away from bots, but I'm never fast enough once the node appears and the bot is standing there. I can take mats that have appeared before the bot arrives at the spot on their route.

Ever try mudballing the bot to throw off it’s timing?

SeaGtGruff

Fischblut wrote: »

(after making sure they are not a human)

And how do you do that?

srfrogg23

Versispellis wrote: »

. . . Carrying tons of plants for the express purpose of trading with high level farmers: you're smart, and I support you.

*"Real men of genius" playing in the background*

Tabatha

You can use the bear trap memento on the node pickers. Place it in the direction the bot is looking, then again slightly further away, then again... eventually you will move that bot off the node.

*keep in mind the field of view is a cone, the bear trap must be in the field of view... baby steps.

p00tx

3 words: Questionable Meat Sack

Place it on the node the bot is waiting at, then just wait a moment.

Versispellis

Starlock wrote: »

Versispellis wrote: »

Same. lol I remember collecting ALL the runes, just because they were so cute and glowy in the snow! And that was how enchanting became my first discipline.

Remember when there were different colors of runes? I miss the other colors... the blue and yellow were pretty.

I think that was a little before my time. That sounds fabulous!

Versispellis

srfrogg23 wrote: »

Versispellis wrote: »

. . . Carrying tons of plants for the express purpose of trading with high level farmers: you're smart, and I support you.

*"Real men of genius" playing in the background*

I lol'd.

Versispellis

Electricblulion wrote: »

[. . .] I've also heard that the people behind the bots are making real world money from this and that makes me worried about what kind of things this could be funding.

It gets even darker than that. I don't know if this applies to ESO specifically, but these bots in games are sometimes maintained by overworked and underpaid people at the behest of larger entities.

cyclonus11

p00tx wrote: »

3 words: Questionable Meat Sack

Place it on the node the bot is waiting at, then just wait a moment.

Amazing. I have to try this now.

Hallothiel

They are in the same areas on ps4 EU. Usually pet sorcs with nonsensical psn name & game name of two random words joined by an _.

Do annoy me greatly. I try & report them but the ingame reporting tool on ps4 is rubbish.

Like to follow them & steal their nodes. 😉

Dojohoda

I like to harvest ahead of them. If I don't have much time, I like to agro better enemies, if any are around, and drag them to the bots. I like the bear trap and meat sack ideas; I will try that next time.

jircris11

Fischblut wrote: »

This toon was at least wearing clothes and had a real name!

Many bots which I (after making sure they are not a human) report wear nice clothes and crown store outfits, have nice names and wear monster sets/proc sets (Skoria, Maw of Infernal, Defiler etc). I think those are either bought/hacked accounts, or maybe even people who think that it's ok to bot from time to time

Most are stolen accounts. When you are dumb enough to pay for lvling then you tend to lose your account. Gold is sent via mail or trade but lvling requires access to accounts. Its brutal but its ppls own fault.

Ysbriel

Just follow the low lever player and hit the node before he does

Asardes

jircris11 wrote: »

Fischblut wrote: »

This toon was at least wearing clothes and had a real name!

Many bots which I (after making sure they are not a human) report wear nice clothes and crown store outfits, have nice names and wear monster sets/proc sets (Skoria, Maw of Infernal, Defiler etc). I think those are either bought/hacked accounts, or maybe even people who think that it's ok to bot from time to time

Most are stolen accounts. When you are dumb enough to pay for lvling then you tend to lose your account. Gold is sent via mail or trade but lvling requires access to accounts. Its brutal but its ppls own fault.

I always wondered how one would lose an account, other than providing the password himself or having a really shoddy mail service.

SeaGtGruff

And this conclusively proves that the low-level character is a bot, because no new player ever went running around trying to interact with and pick up everything they saw in the game?

"What's this? Do I need this? And what's this? Or that over there? I'd better grab that before someone else beats me to it!"

I have no doubt that bots exist, that they exist in vast numbers, and that they don't necessarily have bot-sounding names.

But I also wonder how many actual players get reported as bots because other players got pissed off at them for farming mats and competing with them.

"But I whispered to them and they didn't reply!"

My chat window doesn't stay open; it auto-hides itself (praise Azura), so I can't always see what people are saying.

Besides, some players are from non-English-speaking countries, and there are non-English-speaking people in the USA.

It's hubris to assume that just because you say something to someone using the in-game chat and they don't acknowledge you, then it means they're a bot.

Just saying, I don't think these "bot detection methods" are infallible.

I do wish something could be done about them, though.

Versispellis

@SeaGtGruff Yeah, I agree. I fully believe this player was a real person, based on their behavior, and also the uneven stacks they gave me. I kind of doubt that a bot farmer would waste their time trading with players, too. It was a good trade! I got a lot of those lower level clothing materials you kind of stop seeing after a while. I gave them some purple food. They kind of spun around in a circle a few times ("weee!") and then ran off.

Aletheua

I love farming in Bleakrock and I am definitely not a bot, but I'm always leery of doing so in case somebody else thinks I am. I support the farm there, if they're real folks - mess up the bots run, good on you!

ShawnLaRock

...I love your Scamp pet. How did you get it at such a low level? Also noticed that it is really popular amongst, well, umm... ALL of your low-level colleagues.

S:

Aznarb

Versispellis wrote: »

@myskyrim26 Same. lol I remember collecting ALL the runes, just because they were so cute and glowy in the snow! And that was how enchanting became my first discipline.

I'm in this sentence and I don't like it.
:>

Damn, at start I was thinking enchanting was gonna be something crazy at full level, was so hype x)