Bots are everywhere.

jackiemanuel

Farming mats all weekend in Bal Foyen and other starter zones and they're absolutely littered with bots. I've seen a couple of them every day numerous times. Just was in Betnikh and the bot to player ratio was nearly 1:1. This is NA. Can something be done about this please? It's annoying as I'm taking the time to actually farm the mats I need.

alberichtano

How do you know a bot from a "real" player?

jackiemanuel

their player name is random letters like "rytxqxp" they're all level 3 and not wearing any clothes or armor. they farm a node and then run directly to the next node where they open their map just before it, and then farm that node. rinse, repeat. follow one. they're on a clear path from node to node. also, when you check their xbox profile they have another random letter gamertag and have no friends or achievements or games played other than eso.

alberichtano

jackiemanuel wrote: »

their player name is random letters like "rytxqxp" they're all level 3 and not wearing any clothes or armor. they farm a node and then run directly to the next node where they open their map just before it, and then farm that node. rinse, repeat. follow one. they're on a clear path from node to node. also, when you check their xbox profile they have another random letter gamertag and have no friends or achievements or games played other than eso.

Ah, OK. Good to know. :-)

jackiemanuel

Another thing, when you look at their xbox profile it says that they're "logging in" to eso where when you do the same for another player it tells you their level and class.

jackiemanuel

alberichtano wrote: »

jackiemanuel wrote: »

their player name is random letters like "rytxqxp" they're all level 3 and not wearing any clothes or armor. they farm a node and then run directly to the next node where they open their map just before it, and then farm that node. rinse, repeat. follow one. they're on a clear path from node to node. also, when you check their xbox profile they have another random letter gamertag and have no friends or achievements or games played other than eso.

Ah, OK. Good to know. :-)

Next time you log on to one of the starter zones. they're everywhere.

ZOS_Bill

You can find instructions on reporting players on Xbox in the link below.

How do I report a player on console?

jackiemanuel

ZOS_BillE wrote: »

You can find instructions on reporting players on Xbox in the link below.

How do I report a player on console?

Thanks, but I've already reported about 20 of them. I doubt anything will change.

SirAndy

alberichtano wrote: »

How do you know a bot from a "real" player?

How do you *not* know a bot from a real player?

jackiemanuel

ZOS_BillE wrote: »

You can find instructions on reporting players on Xbox in the link below.

How do I report a player on console?

Just logged into Bal Foyen and encountered five bots in my first three minutes of farming. One was a name I saw yesterday.
Also, I just read a thread on this site from over a year ago lamenting this exact same thing. What's the deal? Zos can't be bothered to clean this up??

Elsonso

SirAndy wrote: »

alberichtano wrote: »

How do you know a bot from a "real" player?

How do you *not* know a bot from a real player?

There are (or were) solo farming bots running in Bal Foyen on PC NA that would probably go unnoticed by many players. Actually, the human players probably go unnoticed, too.

HybridFreak

Bumping this as it's still very much an issue, especial in Bal Foyen. The place is littered with bots just like the OP said. They just keep running around in a circle between nodes grabbing them while constantly opening their map. Hell all of the bots even have the same base character appearance and only slight variations on the names.

Elsonso

HybridFreak wrote: »

Bumping this as it's still very much an issue, especial in Bal Foyen. The place is littered with bots just like the OP said. They just keep running around in a circle between nodes grabbing them while constantly opening their map. Hell all of the bots even have the same base character appearance and only slight variations on the names.

SlashLurk was asked about bots on his stream. While he admitted that he cannot share any numbers, he did say that our "eyes would bug out of our heads" if we knew how many bots were nuked every week. So, keep reporting them...

MrGrayJ

Reporting and banning the bots seems like a never-ending loop. It is not a good policy to encourage that as an effective countermeasure. Tracing those who get the resources from the bots would lead to more concrete results. Its not like its a widespread issue among the player base.. most likely just few rotten apples who create a sour taste for thousands others.

It is very detrimental to both the gaming experience and general sense of justice, if this type of behavior is overlooked and those responsible are not identified. There should be more repercussions to those responsible than the nuisance of having to create new xbox accounts for their bots every now and then.

eco_TR

In addition to reporting, you can try to speed them up with NB's refreshing path, assault's charging maneuver,etc.. and try to take them out of their course. Or if available nearby, you can pull a decent mob on them which might kill them. May not work all the time though.

Smoky

It'd be nice if ZOS actually gave us (even a rough figure) of how many are removed each month then at least those reporting might feel like continuing to do it. I gave up reporting when I saw the same bots running around, that I had reported, for well over a month in the same area so considering I had reported them more than once during the month I lost any enthusiasm I had to report them.

I believe ZOS do actually do something but as usual without any actual communication from them with some evidence like a rough figure then it becomes hard to believe they are doing anything about them. The standard "You can fill a report out" is not proper communication, just a copy/paste response. I'd love to be wrong but finding it hard to believe.

HybridFreak

The only way I see this getting any better is with some form of hardware ban if that's even possible. Even if they're banning bots every week or even every day, it's not making any difference at all. Literally zero difference. You can go into Bal Foyen at any time on any day and find dozens of bots everywhere.

Is ZOS content to just keep churning the bots every week so that they have to keep continuously buying new copies of the game in order to keep botting? Because given how long this has been an issue (check the forums, literally been an issue for several years now), that's what it sure seems like. It really should just be a simple matter of tracking the items and banning the main accounts once they're identified instead of just the actual bot.

Elsonso

Smoky wrote: »

It'd be nice if ZOS actually gave us (even a rough figure) of how many are removed each month then at least those reporting might feel like continuing to do it. I gave up reporting when I saw the same bots running around, that I had reported, for well over a month in the same area so considering I had reported them more than once during the month I lost any enthusiasm I had to report them.

I believe ZOS do actually do something but as usual without any actual communication from them with some evidence like a rough figure then it becomes hard to believe they are doing anything about them. The standard "You can fill a report out" is not proper communication, just a copy/paste response. I'd love to be wrong but finding it hard to believe.

I agree. Even though I know that ZOS bans bots, and lots of them, what is seen in the game makes it easy to think ZOS isn't doing anything.

ZOS does not want to publish bot numbers. My guess is that this information makes them look really really bad. I suppose it could just be some "children don't need to be concerned with the affairs of the parent" sort of stuff.

HybridFreak wrote: »

Is ZOS content to just keep churning the bots every week so that they have to keep continuously buying new copies of the game in order to keep botting? Because given how long this has been an issue (check the forums, literally been an issue for several years now), that's what it sure seems like. It really should just be a simple matter of tracking the items and banning the main accounts once they're identified instead of just the actual bot.

Well, you know, the joke is that ESO has had 19 million players since launch, 1 million human players and 18 million bots.

Going back to SlashLurk's stream, when he was asked about bots, you could tell he wanted to say more than he did on the subject of bots and why they keep coming back. Whatever road ZOS chose to handle bots, there are no "simple matter of" solutions. These would have been done.

I mean, I used to say that the bot enforcement person at ZOS was a sole person in a disused basement closet and if anyone ever went down there to check on them, they would find an abandoned dust filled room with an "I quit" post-it-note on the desk. Obviously, that is not true, but the point of the story is that, whatever they are doing, ZOS simply can't keep up with bots. I have no idea why, their chosen course is obviously not working, and I know they are smart enough to do it, if smarts is all it takes. This is obviously one of those "it is more complicated than it looks" things.