Welcome To: The Elder Bots Online & How to Stop Them.

VvwvenomwvV

Hello.

I've been playing Eso for over 8 years. I've seen farming bots for almost as long. They are getting worse. There are more of them today than ever, and they are picking up everything.

I understand this is a huge task to try to get rid of them. I have been thinking of things that could be done to stop them, or at least make it harder on them to farm.

Reporting bots don't seem to help. They are right back the next day on a new bot or the same exact bot for a long time. Eight years of reporting bots....it's not working.

First thing would be better detection software that shows the exact path a "bot" is traveling on. Bots follow the exact same path and never deviate. A human player would have imperfect movement as they were farming.

Next thing, and the best way I can explain this...imagine you have several children, and you have a 3 year old who is eating all of the cookies. The other kids would love to have some cookies, but every time a cookie is put in the jar, the 3 year old instantly grabs it. What should a parent do? Put the cookie jar on a higher shelf to where the 3 year old can't reach it. The older kids can, but not the the level 3 farming bot.

When you have a new character, it doesn't cost much resources to craft anything, so this will not hurt the players at all. This will only slowdown / stop the bots....

Zos could add a Harvesting feature to the game to where you have to be a certain level before you can pick up resources, OR add a feature to an already existing thing. Under crafting passives, we will use metalworking as an example. You can put up to 10 skill points into this. If Zos made it to where you have to put skill points into this to be able to start collecting resources, it would help.

At level 1 ( in metalworking for example ) the amount of resources you get from a source would be 1 and will go up as you put more skill points into it. This will not hurt human players for two reasons. The amount of resources needed to craft low level stuff is very low to begin with and a human player will level up fast and be past this pont anyway. A bot will not.

Another thing would be to add some steps before you can begin harvesting a resource. Zos could make it to where you have to talk with your crafting certification people.

There are no steps to stop the level 3 bot from going straight to the kitchen and eating cookies. All I'm suggesting is to put some stuff in game that will not hurt the players, but would stop the bots.

The thing farming bots all have in common is they are low level 3-4. Target this commonality to stop them. Make it so that it doesn't affect human players. It's doable.

If you all have any helpful ideas, please share them. That way we can all get back to playing the game we love...without the bots.

I made a video video on this. I go into more detail on these ideas and I go though some of the zones to show what is going on.

https://youtu.be/_EEOqQdHWyM

Lumenn

The simplest way to get rid of bots is to remove the incentive. Make all mats available for purchase at npc vendors for cheap. Yes, that will affect the people farming them as well but they can't compete with bots anyway. I've yet to see bots farming furniture plans though so there is an alternative farming route for the newbies.

This way zos doesn't have to develop a better anti cheat system that will be obsolete in a week. This way zos doesn't have to pay people to sit in on every server constantly removing bots. Just make the mats purchasable and cheap and until bots are farming urns they will have little incentive to run them. It's faster and cheaper for zos, lessens the update regearing fatigue, makes housing people happy, and newbies can farm furniture plans for cash. It's a win for all but the bot farmer's.

Carlos93

There are not only bots in the game, here in the forum they are also.

Lumenn

I honestly don't know about bots in the forums perse, I know any account we interact with might be one of several a single person has, or maybe even a developer/moderators personal account, but I'm not sure what a forum bot would accomplish. But then I'm older, so maybe I wouldn't get it.

Edit: auto spell

Ingenon

VvwvenomwvV wrote: »

Hello.
I've been playing Eso for over 8 years. I've seen farming bots for almost as long. They are getting worse. There are more of them today than ever, and they are picking up everything.

Sorry to hear the bots are a problem for you! What platform are you on? I'm on PS/NA and have not noticed many bots while leveling a baby Arcanist by doing overland quests. While doing the ESO main quest line, Fighter's Guild quests, and Mages Guild quests I am in the base game zones, so I should see these level 3 bots everywhere if there are lots of them.

Lumenn wrote: »

The simplest way to get rid of bots is to remove the incentive. Make all mats available for purchase at npc vendors for cheap.

I'm not sure ZOS would agree to this, because I think they want us to spend time playing the game to get the nice stuff.

Separately, I keep reading about advances in AI, so I expect to be hearing about bot teams doing more than just farming mats soon. I'm thinking world events, world bosses, etc.

Lumenn

Ingenon wrote: »

show previous quotes

VvwvenomwvV wrote: »

Hello.
I've been playing Eso for over 8 years. I've seen farming bots for almost as long. They are getting worse. There are more of them today than ever, and they are picking up everything.

show previous quotes

Lumenn wrote: »

The simplest way to get rid of bots is to remove the incentive. Make all mats available for purchase at npc vendors for cheap.

I'm not sure ZOS would agree to this, because I think they want us to spend time playing the game to get the nice stuff.

That's the issue though. Some still farm(I'm one of them, so I know people do) but many won't bother with timesinks and will just set up bots. Apparently it's easy. Ironically I have accounts on both PC and Xbox and I chose/focused Xbox because PC was too easy to run bots. I've heard they're still on PC but some run underground (I'm not on it enough to see any) but Xbox is nasty with them.(haven't seen mat prices drop a lot either. Imagine that)

I imagine urn farming would be more complicated than mat farming, and you're right, technology is moving forward, (back in my day it was game genies and later save editors) but for now mat merchants would solve a huge chunk of the issue. Not popular on THESE forums but it's a suggestion.

VvwvenomwvV

Ingenon wrote: »

show previous quotes

VvwvenomwvV wrote: »

Hello.
I've been playing Eso for over 8 years. I've seen farming bots for almost as long. They are getting worse. There are more of them today than ever, and they are picking up everything.

Sorry to hear the bots are a problem for you! What platform are you on? I'm on PS/NA and have not noticed many bots while leveling a baby Arcanist by doing overland quests.


I'm on PSN NA.

show previous quotes

Ingenon wrote: »

VvwvenomwvV wrote: »

Hello.
I've been playing Eso for over 8 years. I've seen farming bots for almost as long. They are getting worse. There are more of them today than ever, and they are picking up everything.

Sorry to hear the bots are a problem for you! What platform are you on? I'm on PS/NA and have not noticed many bots while leveling a baby Arcanist by doing overland quests. While doing the ESO main quest line, Fighter's Guild quests, and Mages Guild quests I am in the base game zones, so I should see these level 3 bots everywhere if there are lots of them.

I'm on PSN NA. There are a lot of bots. Bots are not doing quests, they are farming materials.

That's why I suggested making it to where you have to do your crafting certifications as part of the harvesting process. Bots don't quest. It would take up their time, stop, and or slow them down.

ArchMikem

Give more mobs an AoE attack, so we can kite them over to the bots. I've tried this but many mobs in the areas that are farmed only have single target attacks.

VvwvenomwvV

ArchMikem wrote: »

Give more mobs an AoE attack, so we can kite them over to the bots. I've tried this but many mobs in the areas that are farmed only have single target attacks.

I've tried doing that as well 😆

Four_Fingers

Ingenon wrote: »

show previous quotes

VvwvenomwvV wrote: »

Hello.
I've been playing Eso for over 8 years. I've seen farming bots for almost as long. They are getting worse. There are more of them today than ever, and they are picking up everything.

Sorry to hear the bots are a problem for you! What platform are you on? I'm on PS/NA and have not noticed many bots while leveling a baby Arcanist by doing overland quests. While doing the ESO main quest line, Fighter's Guild quests, and Mages Guild quests I am in the base game zones, so I should see these level 3 bots everywhere if there are lots of them.

show previous quotes

Lumenn wrote: »

The simplest way to get rid of bots is to remove the incentive. Make all mats available for purchase at npc vendors for cheap.

I'm not sure ZOS would agree to this, because I think they want us to spend time playing the game to get the nice stuff.

Separately, I keep reading about advances in AI, so I expect to be hearing about bot teams doing more than just farming mats soon. I'm thinking world events, world bosses, etc.

On PS NA go to any of the starter islands, they are crawling with low level black Kajjiit sorc bots with one scamp and one pet out.
There are more bots than players.

Ingenon

ArchMikem wrote: »

Give more mobs an AoE attack, so we can kite them over to the bots. I've tried this but many mobs in the areas that are farmed only have single target attacks.

Since the bots are running a fixed path, maybe make the mat locations more random? If the mats are never in the exact same place twice, this should break a bot running a fixed path while not affecting leveled players too much, since we can put a skill point into the passive allowing us to see mat locations from a distance.

Kimda

It was possible to disturb bots with a Nightblade using Twisting Path, I don't know if it's still working.

SerafinaWaterstar

Starter zones. Khajiit sorcs with scamp. Mainly after jewellery or ore nodes.

Really bloody annoying. And cant get anything to attack them, sadly.

PSEU.

Lumenn

Ingenon wrote: »

show previous quotes

ArchMikem wrote: »

Give more mobs an AoE attack, so we can kite them over to the bots. I've tried this but many mobs in the areas that are farmed only have single target attacks.

Since the bots are running a fixed path, maybe make the mat locations more random? If the mats are never in the exact same place twice, this should break a bot running a fixed path while not affecting leveled players too much, since we can put a skill point into the passive allowing us to see mat locations from a distance.

I've thought about that, but there would still be set places for them to appear even if the pattern were random. Might just end up with 3X the bots camping certain areas instead of running a path.

I'm wishing we had an EQ1 type FD to train mobs to the bots, but that could be used to grief players too unfortunately.

Beilin_Balreis_Colcan

Ingenon wrote: »

show previous quotes

ArchMikem wrote: »

Give more mobs an AoE attack, so we can kite them over to the bots. I've tried this but many mobs in the areas that are farmed only have single target attacks.

Since the bots are running a fixed path, maybe make the mat locations more random? If the mats are never in the exact same place twice, this should break a bot running a fixed path while not affecting leveled players too much, since we can put a skill point into the passive allowing us to see mat locations from a distance.

A combination of both this and the OP's proposal would be good. It probably wouldn't get rid of all bots, but it would certainly reduce them a lot.

VvwvenomwvV

Suffering for over 8 years with these bots, I'm open to any suggestions to get rid of them. I hope we can all put our heads together and get something done. Whatever has been tried so far hasn't worked.

At them moment, there is nothing stopping or slowing down a level 3-4 bot from instantly farming mats. Putting the "cookie jar on a higher shelf" might be worth a try.

Nestor

Make Lowest Tier Mats cheap, no raws, must buy only refined. Make Green Temper available (a real player can feed higher level Tempers or Improved items to low level alt, for say, 1 to 50 PvP.

Then, only allow Farming starting at L15. Nobody is getting rich at gold farming, it barely pays minimum wage. Make the time investment needed bigger and they will go find another game to pester.

Or, IP Ban the Accounts.

kargen27

They are level 3-4 because that is all they need to be. If the game were changed so they had to get certified before gathering and had to reach level 10 they would. It would be maybe an extra half hour to get there.

Allowing NPCs to sell materials is still a bad idea. It was a bad idea when it was suggested to fix the economy, an economy that isn't broken, and is a bad idea now. The solution might be to get game masters back into the game?

thedoodle_90

Put mobs near the spawn points that are immune to aoe dmg and do a huge charged attack a few times. This wat they have to block or die and have to ST damage or die.

SimonThesis

Bots increase the supply of mats in the game, thereby lowering mat prices across the board. Lower mat prices help new players and people too lazy to farm. As a mat buyer not seller/farmer, I welcome cheaper prices.

katanagirl1

SimonThesis wrote: »

Bots increase the supply of mats in the game, thereby lowering mat prices across the board. Lower mat prices help new players and people too lazy to farm. As a mat buyer not seller/farmer, I welcome cheaper prices.

For those of us who farm our own mats and don’t buy them, they are a nuisance and take the nodes we would gather.

VvwvenomwvV

SimonThesis wrote: »

Bots increase the supply of mats in the game, thereby lowering mat prices across the board. Lower mat prices help new players and people too lazy to farm. As a mat buyer not seller/farmer, I welcome cheaper prices.

This is the wrong way to look at it. Bots are ruining the game. There are many people out there who enjoy farming and would like to sell materials for gold. Those people can not do this because the bots are taking over all of the stuff all of the time.

Then these bots flood the markets with the materials, which destroys any chance a human has to sell. It isn't worth the time for a human to farm materials to sell. Bots don't worry about time. They don't eat, get tired, sleep, etc. It's been over 8 years of dealing with these things....

They have no place being in the game.

Lumenn

SimonThesis wrote: »

Bots increase the supply of mats in the game, thereby lowering mat prices across the board. Lower mat prices help new players and people too lazy to farm. As a mat buyer not seller/farmer, I welcome cheaper prices.

This just simply isn't true. As the main supplier of mats, they simply control the mat prices. Unlimited supply of gold by cheating and being a nuisance.

Twig_Garlicshine

The irony of crafting daily bots complaining about framing bots is perfect.

NPC suppliers of crafting materials at a set rate solves the whole issue.
The myth that "every new player is a farmer and this would hurt them" is old, tired and phony.
The people most hurt would be bots, and flipper-gougers.

And if it included housing materials, it would make housing a more accessible part of the game for more people.
Letting players control the materials market price completely for a huge section of the game -housing-
was a serious mistake.
Serious enough to affect Zos's real world cash intake for housing sales.
Many players abandon Eso when they see the way housing materials stops them from the part of the game that most interests them.

Lapin_Logic

Lumenn wrote: »

The simplest way to get rid of bots is to remove the incentive. Make all mats available for purchase at npc vendors for cheap. Yes, that will affect the people farming them as well but they can't compete with bots anyway. I've yet to see bots farming furniture plans though so there is an alternative farming route for the newbies.

This way zos doesn't have to develop a better anti cheat system that will be obsolete in a week. This way zos doesn't have to pay people to sit in on every server constantly removing bots. Just make the mats purchasable and cheap and until bots are farming urns they will have little incentive to run them. It's faster and cheaper for zos, lessens the update regearing fatigue, makes housing people happy, and newbies can farm furniture mats for cash. It's a win for all but the bot farmer's.

This would only work if ZOS would add "Gold mats" and Nirncrux to the vendors at a fixed price point, This would also stop the scalpers turning mats into a 100k purchase when quests give you 69 Gold.

If I wanted to become a "Market trader" I would be playing EVE Online not having to buy and flip products, driving the price of consumables ever higher, Legendary shouldn't mean unobtanium.

Lumenn

Lapin_Logic wrote: »

show previous quotes

Lumenn wrote: »

The simplest way to get rid of bots is to remove the incentive. Make all mats available for purchase at npc vendors for cheap. Yes, that will affect the people farming them as well but they can't compete with bots anyway. I've yet to see bots farming furniture plans though so there is an alternative farming route for the newbies.

This way zos doesn't have to develop a better anti cheat system that will be obsolete in a week. This way zos doesn't have to pay people to sit in on every server constantly removing bots. Just make the mats purchasable and cheap and until bots are farming urns they will have little incentive to run them. It's faster and cheaper for zos, lessens the update regearing fatigue, makes housing people happy, and newbies can farm furniture mats for cash. It's a win for all but the bot farmer's.

This would only work if ZOS would add "Gold mats" and Nirncrux to the vendors at a fixed price point, This would also stop the scalpers turning mats into a 100k purchase when quests give you 69 Gold.

If I wanted to become a "Market trader" I would be playing EVE Online not having to buy and flip products, driving the price of consumables ever higher, Legendary shouldn't mean unobtanium.

(But bots drive down prices, didn't you know that?😂)

But yeah, I said all mats for cheap so nirncrux would be there. I'm still on the fence about upgrade materials though. Zos would probably still want to keep some rng in there but it'd be fine if they added gold mats too and washed their hands of it. As I said before no extra payroll on in-game gms, no new bot catcher program that will have a work around in a week. Newbies can farm furniture plans. The average person is happier, zos saves money, bots get at least a setback until they learn to farm urns, flippers and bot farmer's though don't like the idea /shrug.

Ingenon

I would prefer to see ZOS limit the bots. Perhaps some creative ideas that don't involve killing the bots, since I think an NPC that kills bots could be exploited to kill new players by a griefer.

I suggested earlier in this thread to have crafting nodes respawn in a different location every time.

Another option: random replacement of crafting node with an immobilizing crafting node when it respawns. The trap would not be lethal, simply requiring you to roll dodge to escape. Should throw a bot off track without being able to be exploited to kill a new player.

Dragonlord573

Idea: make refined mats only give upgrade mats from CP materials, while making them more likely to be gained from refining.

Literally would solve 99% of problems by making it harder on bots cause they'd have to either lv up to CP, or level up crafting skills to actually get the materials they're used for.

madman65

ESO/ZOS if these are bots then they would be slowing or even stopping our progress in the game. Is that not worth looking into? I mean a couple of years ago there was a lead from Murkmire that was being disrupted by another gamer by stopping us from gathering, how is this any different?

acastanza_ESO

Lumenn wrote: »

The simplest way to get rid of bots is to remove the incentive. Make all mats available for purchase at npc vendors for cheap. Yes, that will affect the people farming them as well but they can't compete with bots anyway. I've yet to see bots farming furniture plans though so there is an alternative farming route for the newbies.

This way zos doesn't have to develop a better anti cheat system that will be obsolete in a week. This way zos doesn't have to pay people to sit in on every server constantly removing bots. Just make the mats purchasable and cheap and until bots are farming urns they will have little incentive to run them. It's faster and cheaper for zos, lessens the update regearing fatigue, makes housing people happy, and newbies can farm furniture plans for cash. It's a win for all but the bot farmer's.

They should definitely add materials to NPC vendors but with a limited amount per account per day (maybe 50 in a refined state). This would be enough to cover casual players needs, and still contribute to deflating the market a little bit, but without crashing it entirely.

Lumenn

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

show previous quotes

Lumenn wrote: »

The simplest way to get rid of bots is to remove the incentive. Make all mats available for purchase at npc vendors for cheap. Yes, that will affect the people farming them as well but they can't compete with bots anyway. I've yet to see bots farming furniture plans though so there is an alternative farming route for the newbies.

This way zos doesn't have to develop a better anti cheat system that will be obsolete in a week. This way zos doesn't have to pay people to sit in on every server constantly removing bots. Just make the mats purchasable and cheap and until bots are farming urns they will have little incentive to run them. It's faster and cheaper for zos, lessens the update regearing fatigue, makes housing people happy, and newbies can farm furniture plans for cash. It's a win for all but the bot farmer's.

They should definitely add materials to NPC vendors but with a limited amount per account per day (maybe 50 in a refined state). This would be enough to cover casual players needs, and still contribute to deflating the market a little bit, but without crashing it entirely.

It will only "crash" the market for mats, which is exactly the whole point. I don't want to "ease off the bots". I, and several others it seems, want the bots gone, annihilated, ka-put never to be seen again.

There are plenty of other goods for sale, and only bot farmers can compete with other bot farmers in regards to mats in the market. Let it crash and burn.