Bots

USarmydrew09

Trying to figure out what's the point of Double resources when there's so many bots on it doesn't seem to matter sure you can get a lot of wood and a lot of enchantment and silk but you can't get a lot of Jewelry craft or rubidite. After many years of waiting for them to be removed on the PS4 there every single day. How about this for a solution instead of of making the resources more Spannable in the starter zones change it to the DLC zones. It's not like the new players can get any of the nodes anyway because of the bots. Give or take there's about 40 of them per starter zone and about 40 per regular zone on the PS4 so any given minute per day there's about a 1000 bots If not more it's just ridiculous at this point.

disintegr8

I've been away from the game for a couple of years and can't believe the bots are still there, all easily identifiable, all in the same locations. Maybe I've missed something but is there a reason they haven't been stamped out?

Double resources would lessen the need for people to buy mats for a while, if they could be bothered farming them. This admittedly hurts regular traders but it's only for a while. Also, I'm not sure how many 'genuine' material traders there are, or if most of them are running farming bots.

USarmydrew09

Some are running the traders it's easy to see the names. And I'm a trader usually by dayler what I do is just farm the living c*** out of them and hold on to him for a few months and then resell them when the others go out

ChuckyPayne

Double resources => More pressure to buy ESO+ (craft bag)

Dr_Con

If I were playing on console I would be finding more lucrative ways to make money, maybe through PVP rewards, then using the money gained from that to buy the price of mats which have crashed. I am looking at your prices on TTC and they are pennies compared to what we on PC have to pay since our demand is higher.

Botters have ruined your economy by flooding your markets with supply to the point of you having to consider making your gold in ways that can't be botted.

Necrotech_Master

on PC its rare to see actual bots or bot trains nowadays lol

FluffWit

Learn a route in a dlc zone. They're 100% bot free. Hews Bane has a good one for ore.

Mik195

On Xbox, I'm not sure that some of these are bots anymore. They seem to fidget like there's a sweatshop somewhere with a bunch of people probably farming multiple games. Which if they are on Xbox and playing Gamepass games is probably not against TOS.

Dr_Con

Mik195 wrote: »

On Xbox, I'm not sure that some of these are bots anymore. They seem to fidget like there's a sweatshop somewhere with a bunch of people probably farming multiple games. Which if they are on Xbox and playing Gamepass games is probably not against TOS.

I can be sure for both of us.

I am sure these are bots. posted 6 days ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09HxGvZykh0

opalcity

I watched the mudcrab farm botclone army yesterday, and at one point they lost cohesion and some started going in different directions. About two minutes later they all stopped moving, and one at a time they got back into the cluster. It looked to me like one person was taking turns at controlling each one individually until they were all a tight group again, then moved off as one.

Tandor

This does seem to come up regularly, pretty much specifically on PS4 these days where the problem seems particularly severe.

@ZOS_Kevin Do you have any information on whether the company is aware of the particular problem with bots on PS4 (or more generally) please? Bots harvesting tutorial zones gives an especially bad first impression of the game to new players.

opalcity

@Tandor someone is definitely aware because I report bots constantly. Wherever I see one, I report, they're really easy to spot - and they do get taken down. Just not for long. They're soon replaced by similar bots.

The bunch I was just talking about have different (yet similar) names to the ones I reported last week! Silver linings and all that 😬

perfiction

Play on console they said, there are no bots and cheaters they said.
*laughs in PC*

Dr_Con

Tandor wrote: »

This does seem to come up regularly, pretty much specifically on PS4 these days where the problem seems particularly severe.

@ZOS_Kevin Do you have any information on whether the company is aware of the particular problem with bots on PS4 (or more generally) please? Bots harvesting tutorial zones gives an especially bad first impression of the game to new players.

The vid I posted is from Xbox. This problem seems endemic to consoles. Modded consoles of course, I'm pretty sure they are running scripts on virtual xboxes and playstations, which is likely illegal violating the terms and conditions for using those systems (not to mention the code of conduct for the game), but botting shouldn't be possible otherwise. The alternative is that they are using an external controller that inputs the same scripted sequence to multiple machines at once, which seems overly complicated to set up and still falls in the realm of botting as opposed to "boxing" (using multiple accounts at once and simultaneously, popular in games that have built-in auto attack sequences or long cast times). I posted the video in response to someone saying they have more human-like behavior. These are not community members participating in the world of ESO that we are complaining about- these are people deliberately trying to get some gain who are exploiting some vulnerabilities. I have no stake in console gaming but I don't think that the console gamers should be made to suffer because of bots.

Since this isn't an issue on PC (any more, at least), and I have seen other MMOs go out of control like the consoles currently are, I don't blame ZOS for this. I think this has something to do with virtual consoles being exploited, possibly vulnerabilities such as no anti-cheat measures and lackadaisical action from Sony and Microsoft, and illegal/stolen copies being used, or possibly people buying the game while it's on sale through a country that sells it for pennies on the dollar, using funds they get from gold buyers. These issues are multifactorial and I present some theories to work with until the root source gets figured out like it did with getting rid of them on PC. Stopping the botting is one way to deal with them, making it not worth it to bot anymore is another solution to scare them off, and I think that's what some of these "social bans" where people can no longer interact with traders or talk ingame is about. I've spoken with many players in good standing who buy 200k here, 500k there from the gold buyers, and say the gold farmers are outsmarting ZOS. Then every once in a while you hear about someone being social banned and there's no proof or reason they were given. Hmm I wonder why.

Tandor

Dr_Con wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

This does seem to come up regularly, pretty much specifically on PS4 these days where the problem seems particularly severe.

@ZOS_Kevin Do you have any information on whether the company is aware of the particular problem with bots on PS4 (or more generally) please? Bots harvesting tutorial zones gives an especially bad first impression of the game to new players.

The vid I posted is from Xbox. This problem seems endemic to consoles. Modded consoles of course, I'm pretty sure they are running scripts on virtual xboxes and playstations, which is likely illegal, but botting shouldn't be possible otherwise. The alternative is that they are using an external controller that inputs the same scripted sequence to multiple machines at once, which seems overly complicated to set up and still falls in the realm of botting as opposed to "boxing" (using multiple accounts at once and simultaneously, popular in games that have built-in auto attack sequences or long cast times). I posted the video in response to someone saying they have more human-like behavior. These are not community members participating in the world of ESO that we are complaining about- these are people deliberately trying to get some gain who are exploiting some vulnerabilities. I have no stake in console gaming but I don't think that the console gamers should be made to suffer because of bots.

Since this isn't an issue on PC (any more, at least), and I have seen other MMOs go out of control like the consoles currently are, I don't blame ZOS for this. I think this has something to do with virtual consoles being exploited, possibly vulnerabilities such as no anti-cheat measures and lackadaisical action from Sony and Microsoft, and illegal/stolen copies being used, or possibly people buying the game while it's on sale through a country that sells it for pennies on the dollar, using funds they get from gold buyers. These issues are multifactorial and I present some theories to work with until the root source gets figured out like it did with getting rid of them on PC.

Thanks for your clarification. I was aware that you had posted about Xbox, but I saw this thread as the latest in a series highlighting the problem on PS4. I'm happy to acknowledge that it's a more general console problem, although I'm not happy that it exists at all.

Is an additional factor with consoles that, as I understand it and I've never owned a console, console accounts are allowed to be shared? Or have I got that wrong and a console account only generates one bot ingame at a time like on the PC?

zaria

Its weird its so many bots on consoles,

perfiction wrote: »

Play on console they said, there are no bots and cheaters they said.
*laughs in PC*

Yes, this is weird, I'm very sure bots on consoles require an cracked console to run non authorized programs, as in a cheating program who can run on that and works with ESO.
Now some of the pc cheat programs might been ported.

But bots on pc is rare, not seen any for years doing quests, surveys or antiquity.
Granted an solo faming bot might be hard to spot over an random player unless you hang around and its not something you want to do near quest hubs and similar, easy to be reported and slim pickings as other players around.
But the last I saw looked like normal players afk leveling, real names and crown store cosmetic.

Now it might be that ZoS think its no bots on consoles and that MS and Sony fight it well enough wile the previous generation is probably not really supported.

perfiction

zaria wrote: »

Its weird its so many bots on consoles,

perfiction wrote: »

Play on console they said, there are no bots and cheaters they said.
*laughs in PC*

Yes, this is weird, I'm very sure bots on consoles require an cracked console to run non authorized programs, as in a cheating program who can run on that and works with ESO.
Now some of the pc cheat programs might been ported.

But bots on pc is rare, not seen any for years doing quests, surveys or antiquity.
Granted an solo faming bot might be hard to spot over an random player unless you hang around and its not something you want to do near quest hubs and similar, easy to be reported and slim pickings as other players around.
But the last I saw looked like normal players afk leveling, real names and crown store cosmetic.

Now it might be that ZoS think its no bots on consoles and that MS and Sony fight it well enough wile the previous generation is probably not really supported.

It's because on PC you need to buy new copy of the game whenever you get banned, while on consoles for some reason you can create infinite alt accounts for free so it's a bot heaven.
https://help.elderscrollsonline.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/29554/~/if-i-have-different-user-accounts-on-the-same-“home”-xbox-one,-do-i-need-to

ZOS_Kevin

Hi All, the team is aware and actively combatting bots. However, feedback like this is helpful for us to send to our teams to better pinpoint bots. We also suggest using the in-game reporting tools when reporting bots as that will give us a better idea of where bots are at a specific time.

However, we will pass this thread to our customer service team to make sure they can take a look and see what they can do.

Necrotech_Master

Tandor wrote: »

Dr_Con wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

This does seem to come up regularly, pretty much specifically on PS4 these days where the problem seems particularly severe.

@ZOS_Kevin Do you have any information on whether the company is aware of the particular problem with bots on PS4 (or more generally) please? Bots harvesting tutorial zones gives an especially bad first impression of the game to new players.

The vid I posted is from Xbox. This problem seems endemic to consoles. Modded consoles of course, I'm pretty sure they are running scripts on virtual xboxes and playstations, which is likely illegal, but botting shouldn't be possible otherwise. The alternative is that they are using an external controller that inputs the same scripted sequence to multiple machines at once, which seems overly complicated to set up and still falls in the realm of botting as opposed to "boxing" (using multiple accounts at once and simultaneously, popular in games that have built-in auto attack sequences or long cast times). I posted the video in response to someone saying they have more human-like behavior. These are not community members participating in the world of ESO that we are complaining about- these are people deliberately trying to get some gain who are exploiting some vulnerabilities. I have no stake in console gaming but I don't think that the console gamers should be made to suffer because of bots.

Since this isn't an issue on PC (any more, at least), and I have seen other MMOs go out of control like the consoles currently are, I don't blame ZOS for this. I think this has something to do with virtual consoles being exploited, possibly vulnerabilities such as no anti-cheat measures and lackadaisical action from Sony and Microsoft, and illegal/stolen copies being used, or possibly people buying the game while it's on sale through a country that sells it for pennies on the dollar, using funds they get from gold buyers. These issues are multifactorial and I present some theories to work with until the root source gets figured out like it did with getting rid of them on PC.

Thanks for your clarification. I was aware that you had posted about Xbox, but I saw this thread as the latest in a series highlighting the problem on PS4. I'm happy to acknowledge that it's a more general console problem, although I'm not happy that it exists at all.

Is an additional factor with consoles that, as I understand it and I've never owned a console, console accounts are allowed to be shared? Or have I got that wrong and a console account only generates one bot ingame at a time like on the PC?

i heard that at one point at least xbox could create fully free accounts because ESO was featured at one time on the xbox game pass, so there was no need to buy a copy of the game

i dont know if its still included or if it was a temporary thing, but effectively as long as its free to create an acct and play the game, bots will run rampant

while i dont see botting in ESO as much anymore on PC, i do see other PC games that have problems with bots such as lost ark, whenever i play that now every lower level area is full of players with a "keyboard spam" name of randomly hit keys

zaria

perfiction wrote: »

zaria wrote: »

Its weird its so many bots on consoles,

perfiction wrote: »

Play on console they said, there are no bots and cheaters they said.
*laughs in PC*

Yes, this is weird, I'm very sure bots on consoles require an cracked console to run non authorized programs, as in a cheating program who can run on that and works with ESO.
Now some of the pc cheat programs might been ported.

But bots on pc is rare, not seen any for years doing quests, surveys or antiquity.
Granted an solo faming bot might be hard to spot over an random player unless you hang around and its not something you want to do near quest hubs and similar, easy to be reported and slim pickings as other players around.
But the last I saw looked like normal players afk leveling, real names and crown store cosmetic.

Now it might be that ZoS think its no bots on consoles and that MS and Sony fight it well enough wile the previous generation is probably not really supported.

It's because on PC you need to buy new copy of the game whenever you get banned, while on consoles for some reason you can create infinite alt accounts for free so it's a bot heaven.
https://help.elderscrollsonline.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/29554/~/if-i-have-different-user-accounts-on-the-same-“home”-xbox-one,-do-i-need-to

Yes, that is another reason this is bad. But still think ZoS ignored this for too long. Also clamping down on spamming accounts for personal guild banks as they done on PC during free trials. Later as it hurt ESO+ sales

Destai

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, the team is aware and actively combatting bots. However, feedback like this is helpful for us to send to our teams to better pinpoint bots. We also suggest using the in-game reporting tools when reporting bots as that will give us a better idea of where bots are at a specific time.

However, we will pass this thread to our customer service team to make sure they can take a look and see what they can do.

On PS-NA, I regularly see bots up in Forelhost, on the ascent up to the mountain.

en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Forelhost

Reaver999

The bot problems on console are outrageous. I am suprised they let them get so bad as ultimately they are selling in game gold earned form botting on websites. I mean look at how the cracked down on toon and user names that had copyright violations but they allow console bots to pretty much ruin console economies. Once I left Xbox for PC I have noticed that PC botting, where you'd think it would be easier is no where near as bad. I reported a few bot fishers and they were gone within a week on PC. That never happened on console. I'm sorry console fam, but they will never address the issue. I feel bad for console players because I feel like the bot problem is a sign that console is a Zenimax after thought and is poorly maintained until ultimately it will die.

katanagirl1

I have put in a few in-game reports in the past for bots in Stros M’kai while trying to farm runestones. I feel like it’s a waste of time, they are there the next time I go back. I could spend an hour tracking them all down and getting the names for reports, but then I wouldn’t get any farming done. There they are single bots usually level 3 with a familiar and a hyphenated username like squiggly-loop7 and a randomly generated character name with something like 15 digits in length. They frequently open up their maps to check if they are in the right location for the node if it is empty. I’m guessing they are set on some automated path and just loop around indefinitely. They use the familiar to keep any enemies from stopping their harvesting.

These type of bots are all over Stros M’kai, Khenarthi’s Roost, and Bleakrock. I see them all the time while farming in Craglorn too.

The bot trains with the synchronized sorcs and familiars are always on the beaches when I see them, farming the living daylights out of a few harmless mudcrabs. It’s like using a sledgehammer to kill a fly. I‘ve seen them in Alik’r in the northwest area on the map. They have the same naming convention described above, the long randomly generated character names look like they were created sequentially because the characters are similar. I actually saw a group of them come out of the Elden Root wayshrine one time, take a few minutes to synch up, then move along to who-knows-where. It was surreal even in a video game where magic and fantasy rules.

SerafinaWaterstar

One problem when trying to report on consoles is that its hard to add a valid screenshot to the in game report. Screen moves when you go in to options & makes it hard to capture bots in situ.

Skullstachio

Can anyone imagine if we could kill said bots? If pve areas were part of a toggleable pvp zone where we could turn those bots into mincemeat?

Because being able to earn stuff from defeating these bludgers aplenty would indirectly help clean them off the roads and reduce megaserver stress since it would irritate the malfeasants comitting it in the first place. (Not to mention it would bring some form of relief to any devs tryin ta stop 'em.)

Rex-Umbra

Bots been bad on Xbox since 1t easily 1000s online all times of day. All fast spawning easy mobs like mudcrabs bears etc, why do these mobs spawn every 5 seconds?. All base game zones running around farming ore. I feel like my first example is easiest to fix make the high profit 5 sec spawns less profitable by increasing spawn times. Have one GM actually online banning bots.

Lebkuchen

Whenever i see someone multiboxing like in the video @Dr_Con posted, i switch to my nightblade and use refreshing or twisting path (1) on them until they all run in different directions. Some of them will drown, some will be killed by stronger NPCs, some will end up in a ditch... When the person running the program comes back to the screen, and sees what i have done, i usually get hatewhispers from over 10 accounts at a time until i get booted from the game for spam. Totally worth it, and way more fun than farming flowers, killing tigers or doing dailies... I get excited every time. Is it just a poor kid, trying to earn some easy money? Do i have to feel bad now? Or is a criminal organisation behind it? Will they hack my network and send me John Wick for disturbing their farmbots? Will i die today?

There are so many other ways to earn gold in this game. We should not obsess over some multiboxing kids and automated heavy sack farmers. I agree, it does not look good and it is unfair to the people who love to pick flowers all day. But there are a lot of ways to mess with the economy and control the market. Compared to them, farmbots are a very small problem.

(1) https://eso-hub.com/en/skills/nightblade/shadow/path-of-darkness

zaria

Lebkuchen wrote: »

Whenever i see someone multiboxing like in the video @Dr_Con posted, i switch to my nightblade and use refreshing or twisting path (1) on them until they all run in different directions. Some of them will drown, some will be killed by stronger NPCs, some will end up in a ditch... When the person running the program comes back to the screen, and sees what i have done, i usually get hatewhispers from over 10 accounts at a time until i get booted from the game for spam. Totally worth it, and way more fun than farming flowers, killing tigers or doing dailies... I get excited every time. Is it just a poor kid, trying to earn some easy money? Do i have to feel bad now? Or is a criminal organisation behind it? Will they hack my network and send me John Wick for disturbing their farmbots? Will i die today?

There are so many other ways to earn gold in this game. We should not obsess over some multiboxing kids and automated heavy sack farmers. I agree, it does not look good and it is unfair to the people who love to pick flowers all day. But there are a lot of ways to mess with the economy and control the market. Compared to them, farmbots are a very small problem.

(1) https://eso-hub.com/en/skills/nightblade/shadow/path-of-darkness

This is pretty genially, just wonder how you can be kicked from spam then you are the receiver?

Questionable meat sack is also useful if they activate stuff.
People sometimes put them on dolmen chests.

DMuehlhausen

USarmydrew09 wrote: »

Trying to figure out what's the point of Double resources when there's so many bots on it doesn't seem to matter sure you can get a lot of wood and a lot of enchantment and silk but you can't get a lot of Jewelry craft or rubidite. After many years of waiting for them to be removed on the PS4 there every single day. How about this for a solution instead of of making the resources more Spannable in the starter zones change it to the DLC zones. It's not like the new players can get any of the nodes anyway because of the bots. Give or take there's about 40 of them per starter zone and about 40 per regular zone on the PS4 so any given minute per day there's about a 1000 bots If not more it's just ridiculous at this point.

yes, I hit several hundred nodes in summerset last night just doing the main story quest. Some zones are virtually empty find them and you cand hit tons of nodes for every craft

Dr_Con

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno

I have a design suggestion that would give mixed reviews but would certainly curtail the botting and be healthy for the community.

Since they are low levels farming mudcrabs, bears, and such, they are likely getting raw hide/hide scraps and then refining those to get Dreugh Wax.

Why not have a scaling chance to get Dreugh Wax with better materials? Ancestor Silk and Rubedo Hide when refined should net a higher chance, but instead it's the same chance as the lowest quality materials. Right now I believe it's about a 0.5-0.6% chance per refine to get a gold mat for anything when refining any essential crafting mat if you use crafting CP and have the right skill points invested. Same goes for Pewter Dust vs Platinum Dust. Why not make it scale based on the level of the mat? This would crash the value of low level mats, but shouldn't low level mats be low value anyways?

One thing you can do to mess with them is shadowban them before banning them, slap restrictions on them that prevents trading outside of associated accounts for a week without any notification then issue a ban- figure out what character they are sending these mats to before banning, if they even are. Who's to say you aren't doing this already though, but it would prevent further economic harm on consoles (I'm pretty sure this is why certain guild leaders are getting social banned on console, they allow these people in their guilds and the botting activity harms the console economy and playerbase- these guild leaders shouldn't be getting punished unless they are involved- they're just trying to make money so they can afford the traders, the botters should be the ones punished).

Why not nerf it to 0.01% chance with the lowest level materials, and make the chances go up depending on the level of the mat? This wouldn't put a stop to them unless you are on top of them and catch their characters quickly, but as it currently sounds like they are making characters faster than you can ban them- it will certainly slow them down enough and provide more markers for you to check for suspicious activity... (i.e. if a level 15 sorc has no points in anything but the clothier line, that's very sus). Adjustments and nerfs like these in the name of stopping bots are perfectly justifiable.

This would force them to get their crafting levels up on all characters, making them spend more time at the crafting table and getting skill points, using up ill-gotten materials instead of being able to sell them (they probably sell the refined mats- not the dreugh wax but rather the hide scraps- for gold at vendors).

Like I said in a previous post, there's many ways to tackle this. This is one way- make it not worth their time. If you are truly putting in all the effort to ban them based on reports, but they are already back at it by the time you ban them, this should communicate to you that a ban is meaningless as they can just create a new character.

Also, are they able to port out of the tutorial the first time when making a character if someone sends a friend request or parties with them? If that is a feature it needs to be disabled- make everyone go through that for each new account and it will cripple them further. If it's required, another possibility you should account for is if they are "warping" with modified clients to the end of the tutorial instead of doing every quest checkpoint- make sure that before they get to the end that the portals aren't active until they kill that daedra, or until the NPC in Balfiera gets to them. I have no way of knowing if "Warping" is even a thing in this game because people seem to phase in and out of existence sometimes, but I have seen people hitting others from under the map in cyrodiil in the past, I can only assume it's a possibility.

USarmydrew09

DMuehlhausen I am mostly in Summerset When farming these days the only problem is a lot more people are doing the same thing. In the starters zones I used to be able to get about a 1000 rubidite or an hour. In Somerset I am lucky if I get 500.