BlackTearsOfHope wrote: »Serious question above, with the double nodes event.
If we report bots, will they be banned immediately?
They're like a plague in certain areas and should be dealt with, since they're taking away from actual players.
I just put up with them but if they really bug you find a good farming route in a dlc zone. Bots don't buy dlc or sub for Plus so all you'll have to compete with is other players.
I have three farming routes- one each in Bal Foyen, Hews Bane and Stormhaven. Bal Foyen is competitive and I have to fight other players and bots. Sometimes I enjoy that, when I don't I'll hit up one of the others.
BlackTearsOfHope wrote: »Serious question above, with the double nodes event.
If we report bots, will they be banned immediately?
They're like a plague in certain areas and should be dealt with, since they're taking away from actual players.
Has seen them a couple of times, once in Grathwood and once in Desan, far to the west.Varangian_af_Scaniae wrote: »BlackTearsOfHope wrote: »Serious question above, with the double nodes event.
If we report bots, will they be banned immediately?
They're like a plague in certain areas and should be dealt with, since they're taking away from actual players.
How do you identify a bot? I have a few thousand hours in the game and I can't say I have seen a single player act in a strange way farming resources. In whatever zone I run thru their are plenty of resources everywhere. Maybe don't play during peak hours?
Has seen them a couple of times, once in Grathwood and once in Desan, far to the west.Varangian_af_Scaniae wrote: »BlackTearsOfHope wrote: »Serious question above, with the double nodes event.
If we report bots, will they be banned immediately?
They're like a plague in certain areas and should be dealt with, since they're taking away from actual players.
How do you identify a bot? I have a few thousand hours in the game and I can't say I have seen a single player act in a strange way farming resources. In whatever zone I run thru their are plenty of resources everywhere. Maybe don't play during peak hours?
The grathwood once was obvious, the Desan one just looked like players farming mobs waiting for the dolmen but they did not react to dolmen and after doing it I found they was bots in an fixed route.
Not seen harvesting bots however.
BXR_Lonestar wrote: »As far as I can tell, the bots are out in full force. Seen a few bots farming up ancestor silk and mudcrab chitlins in Alik'r last night.
Lol zos hasnt ever done anything about bots & I doubt they ever will.
Yes back then you could do that you always had the guys afk auto HA into the area.Varangian_af_Scaniae wrote: »Has seen them a couple of times, once in Grathwood and once in Desan, far to the west.Varangian_af_Scaniae wrote: »BlackTearsOfHope wrote: »Serious question above, with the double nodes event.
If we report bots, will they be banned immediately?
They're like a plague in certain areas and should be dealt with, since they're taking away from actual players.
How do you identify a bot? I have a few thousand hours in the game and I can't say I have seen a single player act in a strange way farming resources. In whatever zone I run thru their are plenty of resources everywhere. Maybe don't play during peak hours?
The grathwood once was obvious, the Desan one just looked like players farming mobs waiting for the dolmen but they did not react to dolmen and after doing it I found they was bots in an fixed route.
Not seen harvesting bots however.
Well XP bots, I have seen them many times farming dolmens.
Bots are generally banned in batches. That is ZOS gathers a certain number of reports before purging them all in one go.
Varangian_af_Scaniae wrote: »How do you identify a bot? I have a few thousand hours in the game and I can't say I have seen a single player act in a strange way farming resources. In whatever zone I run thru their are plenty of resources everywhere. Maybe don't play during peak hours?
Bots are generally banned in batches. That is ZOS gathers a certain number of reports before purging them all in one go.
What would possibly lead you to believe that?Varangian_af_Scaniae wrote: »How do you identify a bot? I have a few thousand hours in the game and I can't say I have seen a single player act in a strange way farming resources. In whatever zone I run thru their are plenty of resources everywhere. Maybe don't play during peak hours?
They generally run whenever the servers are working. Most people probably don't notice them. At an uneducated glance, they just look like a player running across the map.
I see them mainly in the starting zones. Usually, I don't even need to be in the zone for more than a minute or two before I see one. I report them when I am bored. In some places, it is like shooting fish in a barrel.
I dunno what ZOS does with the report, or how often they do it. I tried to get someone at ZOS to provide basic feedback about whether the reports were useful or could be improved, but never heard back.
Goregrinder wrote: »As someone with a mostly open mind, if you have evidence to present that refutes the claim that ZOS does ban waves or mass bans which include botter accounts, I'd be happy to take a look to analyze your sources!
In regards to our efforts to combat botting and automated play, we’re tackling it on two fronts: Game Development and Customer Support.
On the Game Development front, we are auditing the monsters that are most commonly targeted by those who bot and automate play to ensure the spawn timers are what they should be. As we find them, we’re fixing any monsters that are instantly re-spawning or on a spawn timer that is shorter than intended.
On the Customer Support side of things, our Terms of Service team suspends and bans accounts daily. We review all TOS reports that we receive, and prioritize the investigations of accounts that have received multiple complaints. We regularly send our Support Agents in-game to watch high-traffic areas such as Dolmens, and take action on any violators we identify. We turn over identified “black marketeers” and repeat offenders to Sony and Microsoft, which sometimes results in a ban of the individual’s PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. We also do other secret things.
Goregrinder wrote: »As someone with a mostly open mind, if you have evidence to present that refutes the claim that ZOS does ban waves or mass bans which include botter accounts, I'd be happy to take a look to analyze your sources!
ZOS has a tendency to do things the ZOS way. How Blizzard handles stuff is great for WoW, but doesn't apply to ESO. Obvious fact is obvious, I know.
That said...
- They say they ban people daily, but that statement is broad and may not mean that bots are banned daily. They may queue them up and do it once a year, for all I know.
- They prioritize multiple reports, which means that Elsonso the Lonely reporting a bot may actually do nothing. I could game the system by reporting the same bots from multiple accounts, but I consider that to be dishonest. I report bots once.
- I am not so certain that they still send people out into the world. This is one of those things that, if they decided to stop, we would never know. As this costs time and money, it is not off the table that they stopped doing this. For now, I assume that they do not do this anymore.
- Based on the statement below, and a couple other statements, I do have a belief that ZOS is mainly looking for bots that can be linked to RMT. Gold sellers. If they can do this, I think they will waste no time banning them. If they cannot, then I am not sure what the do, as these will be Joe Player.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/3858917/#Comment_3858917
In regards to our efforts to combat botting and automated play, we’re tackling it on two fronts: Game Development and Customer Support.
On the Game Development front, we are auditing the monsters that are most commonly targeted by those who bot and automate play to ensure the spawn timers are what they should be. As we find them, we’re fixing any monsters that are instantly re-spawning or on a spawn timer that is shorter than intended.
On the Customer Support side of things, our Terms of Service team suspends and bans accounts daily. We review all TOS reports that we receive, and prioritize the investigations of accounts that have received multiple complaints. We regularly send our Support Agents in-game to watch high-traffic areas such as Dolmens, and take action on any violators we identify. We turn over identified “black marketeers” and repeat offenders to Sony and Microsoft, which sometimes results in a ban of the individual’s PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. We also do other secret things.
Goregrinder wrote: »Yep, I would say the same thing. That ZOS has a priority structure in place when it comes to bans, and bots directly link to gold selling are properly at the top of the list. I also believe that ZOS does individual bans, and probably has a queue of them daily. I also believe that ZOS does "ban waves" (group bans, mass bans, insert classification here) in addition to individual bans. You can find posts by people on various forums dating as far back as 2014, with people referencing specific ban waves, and records of in game system messages and posts by CSR's implying they are in the process of banning a bunch of people...in a wave. Like ocean waves, or sound waves...a bunch of individual bans all done within a 24 hour period (however you want to define or classify it).
Goregrinder wrote: »Yep, I would say the same thing. That ZOS has a priority structure in place when it comes to bans, and bots directly link to gold selling are properly at the top of the list. I also believe that ZOS does individual bans, and probably has a queue of them daily. I also believe that ZOS does "ban waves" (group bans, mass bans, insert classification here) in addition to individual bans. You can find posts by people on various forums dating as far back as 2014, with people referencing specific ban waves, and records of in game system messages and posts by CSR's implying they are in the process of banning a bunch of people...in a wave. Like ocean waves, or sound waves...a bunch of individual bans all done within a 24 hour period (however you want to define or classify it).
I think that the "ban waves" that people see are mainly associated with a discrete event, not a collection over time. For example, if there is an exploit, ZOS may go through and ban everyone involved with that exploit. That would be considered a ban wave, but it is more just that ZOS is dealing with that instance all at once. This seems rather rare, tbh.
I have not seen any case where, seemingly out of the blue, people are reporting large numbers of bots suddenly disappearing.
I think that bots do disappear, as they do change names, but I cannot say whether it is because ZOS bans or because the botter relocates them somewhere else. I do see the same bots in other locations, from time to time.
Varangian_af_Scaniae wrote: »BlackTearsOfHope wrote: »Serious question above, with the double nodes event.
If we report bots, will they be banned immediately?
They're like a plague in certain areas and should be dealt with, since they're taking away from actual players.
How do you identify a bot? I have a few thousand hours in the game and I can't say I have seen a single player act in a strange way farming resources. In whatever zone I run thru their are plenty of resources everywhere. Maybe don't play during peak hours?