The BOT problem will ever be fixed?

Ulvich

In the very early days of ESO Gamemasters would actually interact with players in locating and destroying bots.
The screenshot I am posting is not my own, but I did see this sort of thing quite often.
This type of interaction happened quite a lot and really needs to make a comeback.

Virys1967

Ulvich wrote: »

In the very early days of ESO Gamemasters would actually interact with players in locating and destroying bots.
The screenshot I am posting is not my own, but I did see this sort of thing quite often.
This type of interaction happened quite a lot and really needs to make a comeback.

I've always noticed the warning that real game masters will have a special icon next to their name.
That icon has changed twice in the years I've been playing.
Not once have I seen anyone with that tag.
Not once.
It's like were home alone and paying a monthly subscription, twice, to be ignored.

fizl101

Would love to meet Gamemaster Bot-Smasher in game and watch their work!

Elsonso

Virys1967 wrote: »

Ulvich wrote: »

In the very early days of ESO Gamemasters would actually interact with players in locating and destroying bots.
The screenshot I am posting is not my own, but I did see this sort of thing quite often.
This type of interaction happened quite a lot and really needs to make a comeback.

I've always noticed the warning that real game masters will have a special icon next to their name.
That icon has changed twice in the years I've been playing.
Not once have I seen anyone with that tag.
Not once.
It's like were home alone and paying a monthly subscription, twice, to be ignored.

They spent money to make the GM feature, and seemingly never used it. Certainly haven't in a long time. Wonder if it even works anymore.

zaria

Virys1967 wrote: »

Ulvich wrote: »

In the very early days of ESO Gamemasters would actually interact with players in locating and destroying bots.
The screenshot I am posting is not my own, but I did see this sort of thing quite often.
This type of interaction happened quite a lot and really needs to make a comeback.

I've always noticed the warning that real game masters will have a special icon next to their name.
That icon has changed twice in the years I've been playing.
Not once have I seen anyone with that tag.
Not once.
It's like were home alone and paying a monthly subscription, twice, to be ignored.

Game masters are not very efficient removing bots, they are more for seeing bugs who is best seen playing the game.
I guess they often use anonymous GM who looks like players for this so they will not be swarmed with curious players while checking of an area has lots of lag 😺

If some is creating an new account, create an character and then immediately starting materials 24/7 its an bot you can easy spot with logs.

Elsonso

zaria wrote: »

Game masters are not very efficient removing bots, they are more for seeing bugs who is best seen playing the game.
I guess they often use anonymous GM who looks like players for this so they will not be swarmed with curious players while checking of an area has lots of lag 😺

If anything, they are completely invisible when in the game. There is no reason they even need to appear to other players.

zaria

Elsonso wrote: »

zaria wrote: »

Game masters are not very efficient removing bots, they are more for seeing bugs who is best seen playing the game.
I guess they often use anonymous GM who looks like players for this so they will not be swarmed with curious players while checking of an area has lots of lag 😺

If anything, they are completely invisible when in the game. There is no reason they even need to appear to other players.

Possible but its beneficial having an character then testing out bugs who can often be character related like can not access a quest objective. Yes they have their own internal test server, and the PTS but they don't have the player mass the live server have. Its not uncommon with quest bugs because to many players do them at once and this tend to sort it out once the pressure drops. Remember this well from the beta days and early live but can also happen on chapter releases.
And dungeon finder always go down during DLC dungeon releases, sometimes you can not even leave group so if in an 4 man group its very smart to not use the dungeon finder first day.

opalcity

I still report them, even if it feels pointless sometimes.

Just out of interest, the people who ARE reporting bots, what category are you reporting them under?

fizl101

opalcity wrote: »

I still report them, even if it feels pointless sometimes.

Just out of interest, the people who ARE reporting bots, what category are you reporting them under?

I put them under cheating and exploiting

Necrotech_Master

kieso wrote: »

That sucks, never seen this on PC for some reason.

they were more noticeable on PC way early on but they crack down on the bots on PC a lot harder

every once in awhile ill still see the occasional bot train, but they are very very rare now (usually see 1 or less bot train a year nowadays)

disintegr8

Haven't seen a bot train in ages but see plenty of individual bots in the starter zones, all sorcs with pets, all level 3, running from node to node in a seemingly programed route.

Techwolf_Lupindo

PC does not seem to have this problem due to all consoles have free accounts. If a bot get banned, they just create a new free account on the same console. Can not do that on PC.

Lumenn

disintegr8 wrote: »

Haven't seen a bot train in ages but see plenty of individual bots in the starter zones, all sorcs with pets, all level 3, running from node to node in a seemingly programed route.

On Xbox na they'll (trains) will run circles around wayshrines, waving at everyone in sync, mounting in sync, saying "hi" in sync. Then port out. Seen it in craglorn, vulk, grahtwood. It's nuts.

katanagirl1

disintegr8 wrote: »

Haven't seen a bot train in ages but see plenty of individual bots in the starter zones, all sorcs with pets, all level 3, running from node to node in a seemingly programed route.

All of the single bots are black-furred Khajiit with white manes and volatile familiars now.

Ragnarok0130

Elsonso wrote: »

zaria wrote: »

Game masters are not very efficient removing bots, they are more for seeing bugs who is best seen playing the game.
I guess they often use anonymous GM who looks like players for this so they will not be swarmed with curious players while checking of an area has lots of lag 😺

If anything, they are completely invisible when in the game. There is no reason they even need to appear to other players.

The Game Master I saw in 2014 was very much visible. Seeing GMs in game acts the same as seeing mods on the forum or a cop on the side of the road, it’s a deterrent to bad behavior even if they aren’t doing anything.

zaria

Techwolf_Lupindo wrote: »

PC does not seem to have this problem due to all consoles have free accounts. If a bot get banned, they just create a new free account on the same console. Can not do that on PC.

I say that is likely, PS4 has been hacked for years now.
Solution is to demand console user id, not just the let them create new ESO accounts because they are logged in on the console. I'm sure other games do something like this.

Pretty sure the primary anti bot system is analyzing user activity in logs and this take some days to do.
People do farms for hours watching netflix or youtube as an example so you need some data and its also likely this is an database batch job.

Elsonso

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

zaria wrote: »

Game masters are not very efficient removing bots, they are more for seeing bugs who is best seen playing the game.
I guess they often use anonymous GM who looks like players for this so they will not be swarmed with curious players while checking of an area has lots of lag 😺

If anything, they are completely invisible when in the game. There is no reason they even need to appear to other players.

The Game Master I saw in 2014 was very much visible. Seeing GMs in game acts the same as seeing mods on the forum or a cop on the side of the road, it’s a deterrent to bad behavior even if they aren’t doing anything.

Yes, the one I saw back in 2014 was visible, as well. We have been told that employees do log into the live server on studio accounts using a "special client", whatever that means. I presume these people are QA and TOS employees. No one ever sees them do this. This suggests that they are now invisible to us.

That deterrent cop sitting on the side of the road keeps the "honest people honest". I question effectiveness on anyone else.

ZOS_Bill

As this thread is over a year old and been raised from the grave, it will now be closed from further comments.

For bots, we recommend reporting these players so our support team can investigate and deal with these accounts.

How do I report a player on console?