annoying farming bots

Oingloin

Is there no way to get rid of all these farming bots in the game?
They are pretty annoying when you try to farm rubedo hide etc.

madrab73

They keep the price of mats down so you don't need to farm. Farm some gold instead. A lot faster than waiting on ZOS to do anything about it.

JamieAubrey

So you want to remove farming bots so you can farm there instead

SolidusPrime

Don't hold your breath. You can report the same bot for a month straight and nothing will happen to it, unfortunately.

twev

JamieAubrey wrote: »

So you want to remove farming bots so you can farm there instead

Of course.

If you're going to be OK with authorizing farming bots to farm resources and save players the time and effort of playing, how long until 'players' want to authorize bots to log in as a player and level up their accounts for them?

Those two options are not much different in practice.

BRCOURTN

Are there people in this thread defending the bots?

Over here ZOS! I found them! Wait what? Okay I'll just submit a ticket, but youre going to do something about it right? Right....?

Elsonso

madrab73 wrote: »

They keep the price of mats down so you don't need to farm. Farm some gold instead. A lot faster than waiting on ZOS to do anything about it.

Cheating is cheating, whether it keeps prices down or not.

Fischblut

Don't hold your breath. You can report the same bot for a month straight and nothing will happen to it, unfortunately.

After I report bots, they are always gone.

But it's on PC - I can imagine how painful it is to report bots on consoles/without addons I remember the first bot train I reported long time ago, back when I had no BotScanner addon... Trying to catch the name of every bot on screenshot, then filling out every name in every report ticket manually - it was time-consuming and totally discouraging

Cheating is cheating, whether it keeps prices down or not.

100% agree.

madrab73

Elsonso wrote: »

madrab73 wrote: »

They keep the price of mats down so you don't need to farm. Farm some gold instead. A lot faster than waiting on ZOS to do anything about it.

Cheating is cheating, whether it keeps prices down or not.

I submitted a ticket in 2017 so not holding my breath for action to be taken. It's not like they are hard to find lol.

twev

Fischblut wrote: »

Don't hold your breath. You can report the same bot for a month straight and nothing will happen to it, unfortunately.

After I report bots, they are always gone.

But it's on PC - I can imagine how painful it is to report bots on consoles/without addons I remember the first bot train I reported long time ago, back when I had no BotScanner addon... Trying to catch the name of every bot on screenshot, then filling out every name in every report ticket manually - it was time-consuming and totally discouraging

Cheating is cheating, whether it keeps prices down or not.

100% agree.

Many of us have reported bot-trains over and over, only to find them there for weeks.
Sometimes the bots in the train have different names after a while.
I always assumed that the bots were replaced cycled in/out as they leveled up and the accounts could be sold and replaced with new ones.

phileunderx2

Right now on ps4 na there is a bot train at silver hoof vale in rivenspire. 8.pet sorcs and they are all spamming lighting form so it is impossible to see their @ names. I reported them in game anyway.
if sorc pets were like necro pets I think alot of bottling will be eleminated.

Elsonso

Fischblut wrote: »

Don't hold your breath. You can report the same bot for a month straight and nothing will happen to it, unfortunately.

After I report bots, they are always gone.

But it's on PC

Yeah... no. I wish that were the case.


Three bots that I reported in Khenarthi's Roost are still there, killing mudcrabs.

• 200704-000171
• 200704-000167
• 200613-009543

I added a new one today, while I was there...

• 200720-005138

I figure that one of three things is going on...

1. I am wrong and they are not bots, but just really poor players.
2. ZOS sees them but does not care whether bots are allowed to run
3. ZOS is too busy to deal with them, even over the course of a month.

Again, ZOS made it harder to report bots by giving the Sorcerer Pets a higher priority than the player, so the pets act as a shield to prevent us from seeing the player to report them. Thanks, ZOS!

Jannisaries

When mentioning bots here could you please include the location and which server you are on? I have no problem taking some time to hunt down and report bots. I use Bot Scanner 2000 addon which makes reporting bots a breeze even if they have pets.

For those who defend bots please keep in mind that bots are parasites and, like biological parasites, will kill the host if not kept in check. ZoS does nuke them eventually so I just keep reporting them until they are gone.

Cheers

Arunei

People defending bots because "they keep the price low" need to stop and realize they also make it less profitable for actual players to bother farming. Why should someone who runs a macro for hours on half a dozen or more alts, doing literally no work and putting no effort into it, be rewarded more than the actual living people who put in the time to farm mats? It's selfish on the part of people who endorse cheating just because it serves them better. I also don't think bots are these saviors people make them out to be in terms of "keeping the prices low"; I could be wrong, but I'm willing to bet that the number of actual people farming mats is a lot higher than the people running bots to do it, so in the long run the people who are actually keeping prices low are the people who list their stuff at a lower price than average, not the bots.

doomette

Arunei wrote: »

People defending bots because "they keep the price low" need to stop and realize they also make it less profitable for actual players to bother farming. Why should someone who runs a macro for hours on half a dozen or more alts, doing literally no work and putting no effort into it, be rewarded more than the actual living people who put in the time to farm mats? It's selfish on the part of people who endorse cheating just because it serves them better.

Bingo. Time is a resource and people who use their time to farm should be fairly compensated. They can’t compete with bots that are just pre-programmed and run on auto-pilot 24/7. (And no, I don’t think the bot programmer’s time is a worthy consideration, since they’re making a product that violates ToS.)
I’m not saying this out of, uh, in-game professional jealousy as I don’t really farm mats to sell so bots aren’t hurting my bottom line.

XxCaLxX

I’ve been seeing bots for years. Mostly in Bleakrock and other small zones. I use to report them but just gave up. I appreciate the people that take the time to report them though but the more I would report the more I would see. Now I’m starting to see them in Deshaan, Auridon and other zones. Up until the last couple months all bots I saw would be standing at one node and gathering when it spawns or all standing together to pull wolves or whatever in to collect scraps. Now I’m seeing Bots that have paths( from one node to multiple others then back). Pretty soon they’ll be doing chest runs and everything. This will kill the game if something else doesn’t first.

Aznarb

XxCaLxX wrote: »

I’ve been seeing bots for years. Mostly in Bleakrock and other small zones. I use to report them but just gave up. I appreciate the people that take the time to report them though but the more I would report the more I would see. Now I’m starting to see them in Deshaan, Auridon and other zones. Up until the last couple months all bots I saw would be standing at one node and gathering when it spawns or all standing together to pull wolves or whatever in to collect scraps. Now I’m seeing Bots that have paths( from one node to multiple others then back). Pretty soon they’ll be doing chest runs and everything. This will kill the game if something else doesn’t first.

I gave up too.
I've report lot of them, and month after they still was here, with the same name.
Report are worthless.

I miss old day on mmorpg when a dedicated GM team was here to take action in-game.
Automated programme just made thing worst.

Ascarl

I wish ESO had more in game GMs who can look after these incidents.

This forums has a dozens of moderators, I'd rather trade them for in game masters. In the end, it's the game that matters not the forums.

ShawnLaRock

On XBOX NA, they are learning to fight in a big circle of bow users firing in all directions - aggro-ing / killing wolves, I assume for the hide. It’s pretty gross.

S.

Elsonso

Ascarl wrote: »

I wish ESO had more in game GMs who can look after these incidents.

This forums has a dozens of moderators, I'd rather trade them for in game masters. In the end, it's the game that matters not the forums.

I don't think they have "dozens" of moderators. They just move fast, giving the illusion that there are more of them.

However, I have recently been liking the idea of simply closing the ESO forums entirely and putting the forum moderators at the task of helping resolve CS and ToS issues. While that may spark dread in the hearts of the forum moderators, I think that ZOS needs CS and ToS people more than they need a forum. They can replace the ESO forum with a much more limited forum over on Bethesda.Net, mainly for the purpose of handling PTS. Outside of PTS, very little happens here that is important or relevant. Whatever useful thoughts might come from the forum are probably a pain to data mine and separate from the piles of [snip] that gets posted here on a daily basis.

NewbieOKS

Ascarl wrote: »

I wish ESO had more in game GMs who can look after these incidents.

This forums has a dozens of moderators, I'd rather trade them for in game masters. In the end, it's the game that matters not the forums.

Curious are there any Gamemaster’s (GM) in actual gameplay or live version? I only saw them on youtube....

Elsonso

NewbieOKS wrote: »

Ascarl wrote: »

I wish ESO had more in game GMs who can look after these incidents.

This forums has a dozens of moderators, I'd rather trade them for in game masters. In the end, it's the game that matters not the forums.

Curious are there any Gamemaster’s (GM) in actual gameplay or live version? I only saw them on youtube....

I suspect that there are ZOS ToS people that do go out into the game, but they do not announce themselves or make themselves known. I have not seen any in the game since 2014. They probably do most of their work in the game from outside of the game. Besides, by the time that they get to whatever it is they are investigating, it probably happened weeks or months ago and is long gone.

Donny_Vito

Elsonso wrote: »

NewbieOKS wrote: »

Ascarl wrote: »

I wish ESO had more in game GMs who can look after these incidents.

This forums has a dozens of moderators, I'd rather trade them for in game masters. In the end, it's the game that matters not the forums.

Curious are there any Gamemaster’s (GM) in actual gameplay or live version? I only saw them on youtube....

I suspect that there are ZOS ToS people that do go out into the game, but they do not announce themselves or make themselves known. I have not seen any in the game since 2014. They probably do most of their work in the game from outside of the game. Besides, by the time that they get to whatever it is they are investigating, it probably happened weeks or months ago and is long gone.

I would agree. There are most likely have GMs out there, but hidden for good reason. Every game I've played that had visible GMs always resulted in trolling and un-needed comments to get a reaction from the GM, like bees swarming for some honey. But, with today's technology and data tracking you can do a lot of the GMs work via an admin dashboard (I would imagine they have).

Elsonso

Donny_Vito wrote: »

I would agree. There are most likely have GMs out there, but hidden for good reason. Every game I've played that had visible GMs always resulted in trolling and un-needed comments to get a reaction from the GM, like bees swarming for some honey. But, with today's technology and data tracking you can do a lot of the GMs work via an admin dashboard (I would imagine they have).

At 6 years in, they should have something better for the ToS people than logging into the game and running around trying to find them in the instance/phase/channel that they are in. Besides, I have to think that most of the "evidence" that they need to establish whatever they are trying to "prove" is more plainly found on the backend, not in the game world itself.

Pterion87

Why not rename betnik? It should be called botnik. Seriously, it's frustrating to see the number of bots all over the island. I was looking for an object there (part of the antique system) and to my surprise it is full of bots farming mineral nodes. All with a similar pattern, sorcerer with pet, between level 3 and 6, pretending to use the map, but with a defined route and always the same, stopping to collect those resources and repeating the cycle. How sad for people who farm material, to have this kind of competition.

Btw: PS4 NA server

VoidCommander

Jannisaries wrote: »

When mentioning bots here could you please include the location and which server you are on? I have no problem taking some time to hunt down and report bots. I use Bot Scanner 2000 addon which makes reporting bots a breeze even if they have pets.

For those who defend bots please keep in mind that bots are parasites and, like biological parasites, will kill the host if not kept in check. ZoS does nuke them eventually so I just keep reporting them until they are gone.

Cheers

This is so true. Look at what happened to Runescape. The game become so flooded with bots that actual players have become the minority. It is an extreme example, but worth mentioning the consequences of not being proactive in reporting bots. Most of the time the first line of defense against bots is a community that won't tolerate it, but instead report it.

SeaGtGruff

Arunei wrote: »

People defending bots because "they keep the price low" need to stop and realize they also make it less profitable for actual players to bother farming.

I can understand that, but I keep everything I farm, so I just ignore the bots.

Also, I try to harvest nodes whenever I see them while I'm on my way to a quest destination, and haven't had to actually farm for mats in a while, so if another player or a bot grabs a node before I can get there, I just move on, because I know there will be plenty more nodes to come.

I'll even break off from a node or treasure chest if I realize that another player is also headed for it, and just veer away to grab a different one-- although the phenomenon of racing other players' internet connections can play havoc with that. I'll reach a node and try to interact with it but get a "Someone is using that" message, then another player will come up (seemingly after the fact) and harvest it, which presumably means they had actually reached the node *before* me, but my game client wasn't showing me their true current location. I'm sure the reverse has happened many times, where other players tried to harvest a node only to have *my* character pop up "out of nowhere" and harvest it. Oops!

Elsonso

VoidCommander wrote: »

Jannisaries wrote: »

When mentioning bots here could you please include the location and which server you are on? I have no problem taking some time to hunt down and report bots. I use Bot Scanner 2000 addon which makes reporting bots a breeze even if they have pets.

For those who defend bots please keep in mind that bots are parasites and, like biological parasites, will kill the host if not kept in check. ZoS does nuke them eventually so I just keep reporting them until they are gone.

Cheers

This is so true. Look at what happened to Runescape. The game become so flooded with bots that actual players have become the minority. It is an extreme example, but worth mentioning the consequences of not being proactive in reporting bots. Most of the time the first line of defense against bots is a community that won't tolerate it, but instead report it.

I dunno. ZOS might consider that situation in Runescape to be a role model for late life ESO. The bots provide activity in the world that NPCs cannot provide, and other players are not. It makes the game look more alive than it is.

This is why I always wonder whether ZOS is really concerned about botting. All bots, including player-run bots. Not just the gold sellers. Dealing with them is a business expense, and the bots might end up being a signifcant customer down the road.

Silly talk, I know. I still report them, but the way ZOS communicates with us...

Zweible

And, as in all other Bot threads, you will not hear a peep out of ZOS about the problem. I think if it has the word BOT in it, it is hidden from moderators except to close it.

doomette

ShawnLaRock wrote: »

On XBOX NA, they are learning to fight in a big circle of bow users firing in all directions - aggro-ing / killing wolves, I assume for the hide. It’s pretty gross.

S.

It is obnoxious how blatant they are. A single node bot, easy to miss. A giant train of sorc bots with all the pets, zapping up the place, and moving in perfect synchronicity? Not so subtle.

Elsonso

Elsonso wrote: »

Three bots that I reported in Khenarthi's Roost are still there, killing mudcrabs.

• 200704-000171
• 200704-000167
• 200613-009543

I added a new one today, while I was there...

• 200720-005138

Still there, today:

• 200704-000171
• 200704-000167
• 200720-005138
• 200613-009543