Farming bots

Jokesonyou · February 2022

Almost every single day I see naked, low level characters with just some random letter and number combo out farming nodes on a set path or a group of sorcs stacked on top of each other killing bears.. how does this not flag something for you to shut these down?

malistorr · February 2022

Always wondered the same thing myself. And then I see a crazy amount of Chromium Plating (for example) at a guild trader for sale. I guess setting up and running these bots is big business. Who knows? Maybe they have some system where they sell game gold or mats for real money so it's a business for them. Wouldn't be surprised. It's just annoying going to spend some time manually farming for mats and seeing these "people" out there taking almost everything 24/7.

MidniteOwl1913 · February 2022

Yes, I too find them annoying! Mostly I see them in BalFoyen. And oddly, at least to me, it's only (mostly) Blacksmithing resources they seem to be after...

Sometimes there will be two bots standing over the same node waiting, and it makes me laugh when one seems ('cause its a program and not really there) so confused that it didn't get anything that time.

Yes, I'm easily amused ;-)

S0Z0H · February 2022

There's a guy in Riften that farms tigers on top of that big snow covered mountain place. He has like multiple bots running in unison , a sorc build and it's hilarious to see the groups of dead animal bodies everywhere lol

Ya , bots seem be a hidden feature in all mmorpgs lol.
The craziest bot farm I saw was a guy farming crabs. It was incredible site. He must of had 10 bots, all working together overlapping each other.

Insane lol

malistorr · February 2022

The ones I see all seem to be about level 3ish female sorcs with a pet. They farm mostly jewelry/blacksmith mats and come across an occasional enemy. The pet draws most or all of the attacks so the bot character doesn't die. The pet also kills the monster. I guess I'm just surprised that there could be so much demand for low-level mats but their must be.

S0Z0H · March 2022

Sometimes if I'm farming resources , I run into those dumb bots and if they *** me off I kite a bunch of monsters together and draw them to the bot and let me them die slowly by AOE and direct damage lol.

Last time I did this, the guy or gal who made the bots took control of the bot and started running away and I kept harassing their bot toon til they logged off.

Bots aren't really players , and bots are against the TOS in the game. So they should be happy I didn't report them lol

Lumenn · March 2022

Seen a set on Xbox na today at the grahtwood shrine. Looked like the owner was testing them(had them mount up, all in sync, say hello, run around the shrine a bit) then they all said bye and ported out. All the same name but one letter different. Just shows if they're that bold they aren't worried about zos. Would have been a great time to have some GMs though.

Fizzyapple · April 2022

There are some interactable mementos in the game that others can interact with and they are set to the same button as harvesting nodes. Drop one in front of the bot and they will try and harvest it. You can lead some bots to their doom that way. It doesn't fix the bot problem but its something to do when bored. Bots are just scripts running on peoples computers and are very basic most bot farmers don't even know how to edit them.

FlopsyPrince · April 2022

S0Z0H wrote: »

Sometimes if I'm farming resources , I run into those dumb bots and if they *** me off I kite a bunch of monsters together and draw them to the bot and let me them die slowly by AOE and direct damage lol.

Last time I did this, the guy or gal who made the bots took control of the bot and started running away and I kept harassing their bot toon til they logged off.

Bots aren't really players , and bots are against the TOS in the game. So they should be happy I didn't report them lol

Reporting them doesn't seem to work normally, until they do a sweep and temporarily clean things out.

malistorr wrote: »

Always wondered the same thing myself. And then I see a crazy amount of Chromium Plating (for example) at a guild trader for sale. I guess setting up and running these bots is big business. Who knows? Maybe they have some system where they sell game gold or mats for real money so it's a business for them. Wouldn't be surprised. It's just annoying going to spend some time manually farming for mats and seeing these "people" out there taking almost everything 24/7.

I don't think such low-level characters are likely to get gold mats, but I may not know the system as well as I thought.

Lumenn · April 2022

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

I don't think such low-level characters are likely to get gold mats, but I may not know the system as well as I thought.

Considering they farm 24/7 never needing a bio break, sleep, eat just constant constant farm, I'm sure they get enough resources to get a quite a bit off refinement. Remember there are accounts behind these tens, hundreds, bots infesting every platform

tmbrinks · April 2022

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

S0Z0H wrote: »

Sometimes if I'm farming resources , I run into those dumb bots and if they *** me off I kite a bunch of monsters together and draw them to the bot and let me them die slowly by AOE and direct damage lol.

Last time I did this, the guy or gal who made the bots took control of the bot and started running away and I kept harassing their bot toon til they logged off.

Bots aren't really players , and bots are against the TOS in the game. So they should be happy I didn't report them lol

Reporting them doesn't seem to work normally, until they do a sweep and temporarily clean things out.

malistorr wrote: »

Always wondered the same thing myself. And then I see a crazy amount of Chromium Plating (for example) at a guild trader for sale. I guess setting up and running these bots is big business. Who knows? Maybe they have some system where they sell game gold or mats for real money so it's a business for them. Wouldn't be surprised. It's just annoying going to spend some time manually farming for mats and seeing these "people" out there taking almost everything 24/7.

I don't think such low-level characters are likely to get gold mats, but I may not know the system as well as I thought.

The level of material refined doesn't affect the gold mats drop. As long as you're 3/3 in the appropriate refining, and if you can add Meticulous Disassembly to get more (though I doubt most bot accounts have enough CP for it, but that's only a 12.5% gain)

Most of them are likely just going for sheer numbers, so even though there's a lower drop rate, they still get plenty.

I just report and move on... and see them the next day. ZoS don't care. At least on PC it isn't as bad because you can only have 1 account, whereas on PS, you can just create a new account under the same PSN tag without having to rebuy the game.

MidniteOwl1913 · May 2022

So night before last the majority of the bots in Bal Foyen were gone. Thanks ZOS! But it only lasted a day. Lat night they were back but with a different nonsense name structure. So now it QXXX DD XXXX with random letters for the X's. The username is still two random dictionary names and the profiles are similar.

It was nice while it lasted...

Jimboo84 · May 2022

If I run around in Craglorn they think I'm a bot too. Which isn't

It's not because I'm gathering to craft or sell after that I'm a bot

katanagirl1 · May 2022

I’ve been trying to farm runestones in Stros M’Kai for the last week or so, there are dozens of bots on that small island. I have made two feedback game tickets. Today I attached a snapshot of two different bots waiting on the same node to respawn. It’s ridiculous.

I spend hours farming mundane runes and as soon as I craft 3 structural furnishing pieces, I’m back to farming for hours again.

Lumsdenml · May 2022

I've been playing this game since beta, and have not once seen a bot. I don't farm as much as I used to, so I'm not out gathering much, and when I do it's usually in Craglorn or Cyrodiil, but still, haven't seen one. Is this more an xbox or ps issue? I'm on PCNA.

katanagirl1 · May 2022

Lumsdenml wrote: »

I've been playing this game since beta, and have not once seen a bot. I don't farm as much as I used to, so I'm not out gathering much, and when I do it's usually in Craglorn or Cyrodiil, but still, haven't seen one. Is this more an xbox or ps issue? I'm on PCNA.

I see lots of them in all starter zones and in Craglorn too.

PS NA

redlink1979 · May 2022

Console servers keep being plagued with bots.
The cleaning purges made by ZOS don't last long, they keep coming back in the following days to the purge day.
There are so many bots that they even compete for the same nodes. It's ridiculous.
And it's impossible to complete a simple endeavor such as "collect "x" mining nodes" on a starter zone (where, theoretically, you'd complete this type of endeavor in a very short amount of time)

Elsonso · May 2022

ZOS never really built a system that was effective at combating bots, I guess. Maybe ZOS_Next_Game will have that built in from the start?

Lumsdenml · May 2022

redlink1979 wrote: »

Console servers keep being plagued with bots.
The cleaning purges made by ZOS don't last long, they keep coming back in the following days to the purge day.
There are so many bots that they even compete for the same nodes. It's ridiculous.
And it's impossible to complete a simple endeavor such as "collect "x" mining nodes" on a starter zone (where, theoretically, you'd complete this type of endeavor in a very short amount of time)

Hmmmm.... maybe I'll have to fire up my Xbox and log in to see them! 😀

Kalik_Gold · May 2022

PS/NA has bots in every starter zone and heavy in Alik’r also.

fizl101 · May 2022

Trying to do this quest is hard on console as there are bots farming the mudcrabs you are supposed to harvest

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Carnival_Conundrum

katanagirl1 · May 2022

fizl101 wrote: »

Trying to do this quest is hard on console as there are bots farming the mudcrabs you are supposed to harvest

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Carnival_Conundrum

The wildest case I ever encountered was when I went to do the DC quest for Camlorn in Glenumbra. I entered the city to cure the werewolves and there were dozens of bots farming them. It took me 15-20 minutes to be able to cure enough of them before the bots killed them off. When I turned the quest in (inside one of the houses) and stepped back out, they were no longer there.

Pretty sneaky, they hid inside an instance where most would never see them.

Elsonso · May 2022

katanagirl1 wrote: »

fizl101 wrote: »

Trying to do this quest is hard on console as there are bots farming the mudcrabs you are supposed to harvest

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Carnival_Conundrum

The wildest case I ever encountered was when I went to do the DC quest for Camlorn in Glenumbra. I entered the city to cure the werewolves and there were dozens of bots farming them. It took me 15-20 minutes to be able to cure enough of them before the bots killed them off. When I turned the quest in (inside one of the houses) and stepped back out, they were no longer there.

Pretty sneaky, they hid inside an instance where most would never see them.

Yeah, they do that. I had some alts that had not progressed in several quests like that. I could report the bots. As the only purpose for those alts today would be to report bots, I deleted them. I get that ZOS _does_ handle bots, but... well... for the sake of the players of the new game they are designing, I hope bot mitigation is built into the game from the start and they don't adopt whatever was used for ESO.

ob1ken0bi · May 2022

It's funny - people say they bring down the price on mats but doesnt seem to be the case for Mundane Runes...See so many stacks of these in traders and making a TON of money while those who just want to decorate their home have to farm forever for a few pieces or spend all our coin for this mat...

MidniteOwl1913 · June 2022

ob1ken0bi wrote: »

It's funny - people say they bring down the price on mats but doesnt seem to be the case for Mundane Runes...See so many stacks of these in traders and making a TON of money while those who just want to decorate their home have to farm forever for a few pieces or spend all our coin for this mat...

I think that for some mats the are so few bot masters that they can and do set prices. Those bot masters belong to some of the larger trading guilds and it's easy for them to set prices. So far from bringing prices down they help keep them artificially high.

Bots are a widespread and insidious problem that has a wider effect than most people can see.

FlopsyPrince · June 2022

Lumenn wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

I don't think such low-level characters are likely to get gold mats, but I may not know the system as well as I thought.

Considering they farm 24/7 never needing a bio break, sleep, eat just constant constant farm, I'm sure they get enough resources to get a quite a bit off refinement. Remember there are accounts behind these tens, hundreds, bots infesting every platform

I still believe you have to be a higher level to get gold mats, at least a high level in that crafting line.

WinterHeart626 · July 2022

Xbox NA, can confirm they’re all about the joint unfortunately, ZoS just send the usual copy pasta response. I tried doing a taunt and dump (go invisible) to drop aggro on a few bots, unfortunately that doesn’t work (I feel that it certainly should work though, because there’s nothing more fun that gathering a swarm of crabs).
I feel that if ZoS don’t want to do anything about them, then perhaps they should allow players to handle them.
Mystery meats funny to drop on them, but it only lasts about 10 seconds…… if they fixed it so it lasted until a break free was attempted 🤭 then just maaaaybe it would work to slow them down more.
Or you know, they could get a GM to actually jump in and travel around……..