Change to the patch notes (Boss drops)

Ojustaboo

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Saerydoth wrote: »

Did this change go in with the patch on Monday and it was just left out of the patch notes? Or was it added in the hotfix today?

It went with the patch on Monday - it was just accidentally left out. Sorry about that!

Hmm

Monday after the patch I stumbled upon my first stormhaven dungeon boss without bots. I commented elsewhere about how quickly it respawned (my inv was too full to loot, by the time I had destroyed a few useless things and looted, it respawned), about 20 to 30 seconds. I killed it again and still got loot.

Today I was in another stormhaven dungeon and there were a load of bots camping the boss, first time I didn't hit it, 20 odd seconds later when it respawned I managed to get a hit in, but zero loot due to the botters.

Not sure it's working as intended ?

Holycannoli

crush83 wrote: »

What's worse? Never getting a chance at a loot because you can't get a hit on the boss, or having to wait 3 minutes between loot attempts?

This isn't an end solution. It's a stop gap measure until they can get a decent bot detection system put together.

My problem is I don't expect them to revert the change when they get the bots under control. I also don't want the problem moved from public dungeon bosses to outside PVE mobs which I'm already seeing.

What I would like to see is the bosses dropping their loot with much greater frequency so that you don't have to waste potentially 30 minutes or more with this change trying to get it. I've killed some bosses over six times without getting their loot which is annoying enough when they spawn every minute or two. But having to wait every five minutes for that loot chance? Annoying.

They need invisible GMs online whose primary job is either monitoring city chat for gold spammers or silently policing boss mobs for bots. So far I have seen zero GM presence in game. If they are there invisible and silent I'm not seeing any indication they're muting spammers or kicking/banning bots.

Rantog

Ojustaboo wrote: »

Hmm

Monday after the patch I stumbled upon my first stormhaven dungeon boss without bots. I commented elsewhere about how quickly it respawned (my inv was too full to loot, by the time I had destroyed a few useless things and looted, it respawned), about 20 to 30 seconds. I killed it again and still got loot.

Today I was in another stormhaven dungeon and there were a load of bots camping the boss, first time I didn't hit it, 20 odd seconds later when it respawned I managed to get a hit in, but zero loot due to the botters.

Not sure it's working as intended ?

Run, enjoy it NOW, while you can.

Once the bot operators get their bots re-scripted to log between characters to Bypass this "fix." they'll be back in force.

And since the logging takes a little time, they will probably ADD bots to make sure they are still getting as much as they were before.


Meanwhile.. we should all Thank Zenimax for refusing to hire some GMs to actually deal with the bots - and instead punishing US by limiting our ability to re-kill a boss until we get the specific item drop.

This is like having Trucks in convoys hauling illegal goods...
so you make Cars stop in for inspection every 3 miles.

ragamerb16_ESO

By the way Bot/Farmers are piling up on specific Bosses now... Seems this change is not applied to all Bosses. I'm patiently sending reports on the PD Bosses that still give loot after killing them twice in a row... Just in case they manually have to check out all bosses. Good change, as the fact the Bots are moving around and concentrating on specific PD Bosses would make far easier for GM to catch them...

...On the other side, you can forget about manual reports... Having to report "adasdahg" type of Bots piled up in dozens is not practical and prone to errors at reporting legit players that are just getting close for the kill.

In either case, a "GM patrol" on all PD Bosses were a high concentration of farmers is detected should be in order to: a) Ban the remaining farmers and b) Spot the bugged Bosses still not subject to the timer.

Ojustaboo

To be honest, I'm not sure any public dungeon is really working as intended.

We were chatting in guild chat earlier about what a pain the bots were and the guild leader responded along the lines,

"I hate public dungeons even without the bots, every time you go in one, most of the mobs are killed by all the other players and you can just stroll to the boss without killing anything, they should instance all of them"

And he does have a point

kamohs212eb17_ESO

What about other of them? Like deaderic public dungeon in Shadowfen? I simply can't go through it without other players. Even with invisibility (i'm NB archer). And mobs respawn like every 15-20 sec. Lots of them.

If i wanna kill something, i'll go play Borderlands 2. TESO is for LOR)

Demira

So are all you saying to the honest players - the single players that they loot the boss and not stay there to get the extra blue drop ...for someone else who is lower level that will benifit from the drop when they reach that lvl or break it down for the materials?
I have tried to do this for members and my guild and my in game married partner who is slow in lvling because he has to work and only plays a 2 to three hours a night.
So you all want to punish the honest player that wants to do good for other people?
I can understand the bots need to be stopped. but its going to make it hard for the people that are doing the very same thing that I am doing.

deathly809_ESO

I still think every so often they should just spawn an invincible boss and have him never attack but walk around the entire dungeon and then stop at some random place and just sit there. Do this every 15 minutes.

seanolan

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Saerydoth wrote: »

Did this change go in with the patch on Monday and it was just left out of the patch notes? Or was it added in the hotfix today?

It went with the patch on Monday - it was just accidentally left out. Sorry about that!

If this is true, I am VERY confused. Monday, after the patch, I went into The Corpse Garden in Deshaan, where I did camp for about 45 minutes farming the boss there (General something-or-other) and, while there were about a dozen bots in there, there is a lovely trick that works in there specifically where you can use the Chains ability to drag him away from the bots. If you do it correctly, the bots follow but cannot get back up to the original spot for 6-10 spawns. Anyway, I did this for 30 minutes, as I said. I think less than 5 spawns did NOT have loot for me, 5 pieces, usually 1 blue armor/weapon and 3-5 Effusions, as well as a lesser soul gem every time. This does not seem to be a 10-minute cooldown, unless he normally gives even BETTER loot. How did I manage this?

(BTW, before I get leapt upon for farming, I repeatedly "said" in the dungeon how to come share the kill with me, so the humans in there had NO complaints...most of them thanked me and I taught them the trick to yanking the boss away from the bots.)

Sadique

after reading this patch went in i thought id check the lower level dungeons, and guess what? there is still a crap ton of templars sitting at the spawn points of the bosses instantly killing them when they spawn.

Losian

Kythia wrote: »

crush83 wrote: »

This isn't the answer. Bots will still get loot once every several minutes. It's still worth them setting up camp and farming the boss.

We need Diminishing Returns. (I'm sick of preaching this, honestly)

10 minute cooldown window. If you kill the boss within that 10 minute window it gets refreshed. This is literally the most important part of why this will effectively nullify bots camping bosses. If they camp, they will never get loot again.

The more kills you get within your cooldown window, the less likely you are to get loot until eventually you get none. I'll let ZOS determine the logarithmic curve.

If you wait 10 minutes between kills, then your window expires, and you get full loot again.

Adjust the 10 minutes to be inline with the content.

Done. End of story. Why is this still not implemented?

Hello? Support? Someone just did half the work for you!

Problem: Not all the bots are farming for loot, in my opinion. Bosses respawn super fast and statically - they can also just XP farm and sell characters/accounts just the same. Bosses should spawn and grant a decent XP/loot, then not do so again per player for a decent amount of time, if that's what it'll take.

deathly809_ESO

Losian wrote: »

Kythia wrote: »

crush83 wrote: »

This isn't the answer. Bots will still get loot once every several minutes. It's still worth them setting up camp and farming the boss.

We need Diminishing Returns. (I'm sick of preaching this, honestly)

10 minute cooldown window. If you kill the boss within that 10 minute window it gets refreshed. This is literally the most important part of why this will effectively nullify bots camping bosses. If they camp, they will never get loot again.

The more kills you get within your cooldown window, the less likely you are to get loot until eventually you get none. I'll let ZOS determine the logarithmic curve.

If you wait 10 minutes between kills, then your window expires, and you get full loot again.

Adjust the 10 minutes to be inline with the content.

Done. End of story. Why is this still not implemented?

Hello? Support? Someone just did half the work for you!

Problem: Not all the bots are farming for loot, in my opinion. Bosses respawn super fast and statically - they can also just XP farm and sell characters/accounts just the same. Bosses should spawn and grant a decent XP/loot, then not do so again per player for a decent amount of time, if that's what it'll take.

They give almost no XP, it would take forever. And in another post someone says that they keep seeing the same bots there after a week. I don't think they are using it for XP.

smflynn_ESO

I don't understand this change. Thus far, in the delves I've been in, bosses are still spawning just as quickly and loot is still dropping. Now in the last one I tried, a blue never dropped...so is that the change? If you aren't lucky enough to get one the first time you kill the boss, you can forget about getting one at all unless you wait 10 minutes (or whatever the timer is...is it known/consistent across bosses)? I'm not one for farming them anyway, but I would like to understand how it works now.

Monsoon

Isn t it great to punish the players who want to grind a boss instead of having to deal with the bot problem? Haaaaa take that bot, instead of looting every 30 seconds you will only loot every 3 minutes...that will teach you.

Because of course the bot will cry and decide its life is now meaningless.

Keep it up guys, keep punishing the players instead of actually fixing the mess by having the server check and spot bots. This is a PR/Marketing disaster that screams of incompetence. You could have had a GM doing a round of instances and banning hundreds of accounts in minutes...but no, instead lets make changes to punish the players and do nothing to curb the bots

I should have known this was going to be a disaster when I saw the forums here. Such incompetence of building proper forums shows a clear lack of professionalism both in game and outside of it

Dunhilda

I walked in to a public today and stopped I thought the boss was near the entrance only to noticed the bots were now attacking and killing a normal NPC


So what will putting a timer on a boss do? HURT THE LEGIT PLAYER the bots owners will adopt new ways, you're ruining the game on the account of bots and your own inability to combat them in a effective manner, it's like dropping a nuke on a city due to one bad group, so many innocents.


Most bots are not going for loots it's the EXP, hell I bet if PVP has better ways of leveling I'm sure many would quit botting ( Not all bots are gold farmers) return, it's a better option than hurting legit players.

pmn100b16_ESO

Well I just 'farmed' a boss 3 times in as many minutes in a dungeon in Reaper's March. Does this only affect lower level dungeons or something?

stefaan.de.wasch1b16_ESO

Do you really think a gold farmer can't implement a 10 minute timer into his macro's ? I mean, it might slow their gathering of loot, but they'll still be there...

"But" It will give normal players a chance to kill the boss and get loot during the botters 10 minute window

Skellan

Monsoon wrote: »

Isn t it great to punish the players who want to grind a boss instead of having to deal with the bot problem? Haaaaa take that bot, instead of looting every 30 seconds you will only loot every 3 minutes...that will teach you

Just one problem, I do think this timer works. I just killed a boss 4 times in a row and got loot each time

vizionblind_ESO

still not enough. bots still camping

badmojo

I just logged in to go test out the change and couldn't even loot the boss once because there were so many bots and players. My guess is legit players are not getting the blue in the first drop then sitting there for 10minutes cursing at the bots for not letting them get credit enough to loot, while it might be the 10min timer, but either way, people are going to sit there for much longer now.

This change has only made the situation worse. As I suspected it would.

maliwali

The timer doesn't seem to be working. The public dungeon bosses I've seen in Bangkorai are still lootable after each kill.

SailorArashi

I don't see why anyone thinks this change will alter anything at all? The bots won't stop killing the boss just because there's a timer. They'll keep killing and only get loot every few minutes. Why would the person running the bot take the time to program a delay in?

You have to wait a few minutes after LOOTING the boss before you get loot again. It says nothing about only being allowed to KILL the boss every few minutes. The bots are not going to change what they are doing.

Noswell

Daverios wrote: »

Worse even. I went through 2 whole ones in reapers march and not a single peice of loot from any trash or boss. They did drop thick hide and only thick hide. Probably killed 200 trash and 10 bosses no loot.

To be fair, I think in your other thread
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/comment/703729/#Comment_703729
it was established that this was because you were more than 6 levels above all the mobs you were killing.

Nordak

crush83 wrote: »

Daverios wrote: »

PS bots are NOT killing bosses for loot period they NEVER were. They do it because its the onlt effective means to level multie chars simultaneously. You can make way more gold per hour in high lvl zones their goal is to get all thier toons there.

This will do nothing to deter even a single bot mark my words.

You are aware that you get virtually no XP for killing bosses, right? It's not difficult to write bots to follow a specific quest line from start to finish which would level a bot much, much, much faster. Yes, it's more data entry, but you do it once, and it's done for all bots.

And they are, teleport bots have been sighted in multi-part quests. Hard to get a bead on them as they are fast, but you'll know them if you see a shadow like quick toon appear for about a second at the quest giver or the turn in for the first part.

Flayedalive

Just have the dungeon boss drop no loot or xp, instead have upon completion of the dungeon the blue item mailed to you. You can receive this reward once per character. This is bound to your account and cannot be sold for money but can be dismantled as per normal.

As it stands now, all you're doing is hurting the legitimate players that just want the blue item.

Jadakin

I'm for any change that deters people from camping bosses. Bots or not.

Ashtaris

After thinking about the bot situation, I think I like crush83's 10-minute diminished returned cooldown solution the best. It seems to make the most sense, and shouldn't be that hard for Zeni to implement. So get it done devs!

Maverick827

To stop bots and gold sellers completely, you need to remove the reliance on gold. Repair costs are too high. Respec costs are too high. Enchanting is too difficult to level on its own, the fastest way is to buy other crafter's glyphs. These are the things that lead people to buy gold, and you need to fix them.

Instead of costing 42k gold, why not have the better horses be a reward for a long quest or achievement? Or drop as a BoP item in a dungeon?

There's this big myth that MMOs need gold sinks, which is the only thing that allows gold sellers to exist. The truth of the matter is that MMOs are all just a big con; they're artificially padded with random time sinks to squeeze out more monthly fees. And since time = money, we get gold sinks. The problem is that someone else can sell me more gold, but they can't sell me more time.

So if you want to stop gold spammers and bots and everything else that comes with it, stop trying to engage my gold and engage my time instead.

crush83

The crowd in this game is amazing.

In one thread, we have players crying that boss loot doesn't drop often enough. It should drop every time they say.

In another thread we have players crying that free respec costs would somehow be too easy, and wouldn't reward players for making smart choices. Players should be stuck with whatever skills they choose because this game is too easy as it is and shouldn't reward lazy players...

Cherryblossom

crush83 wrote: »

This isn't the answer. Bots will still get loot once every several minutes. It's still worth them setting up camp and farming the boss.

We need Diminishing Returns. (I'm sick of preaching this, honestly)

10 minute cooldown window. If you kill the boss within that 10 minute window it gets refreshed. This is literally the most important part of why this will effectively nullify bots camping bosses. If they camp, they will never get loot again.

The more kills you get within your cooldown window, the less likely you are to get loot until eventually you get none. I'll let ZOS determine the logarithmic curve.

If you wait 10 minutes between kills, then your window expires, and you get full loot again.

Adjust the 10 minutes to be inline with the content.

Done. End of story. Why is this still not implemented?

Sadly your wrong, in this case you would set your Bots to kill one boss, travel across land killing everything in their way to the next dungeon at which point their ten minutes is up, kill this boss, rinse repeat. Their bots they won't get bored...

In your analysis it only effects players...