Loot change in Patch notes - Harms Real Players, not Bots.

Sorcerious

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/85974/state-of-the-game-address#latest

merwanoreb17_ESO

They should only drop loot for each account 1 time a day.

Fyrakin

murklor007neb18_ESO wrote: »

I wonder why no one seems to imagine a way to resolve this with AI? Make the bosses smart and random.

The boss spawn with an invouln shield up and knocks all of them away in a random direction. Bots cannot predict landing location.

Boss spawn with reflective shield upp, instakilling anyone that try to melee it in the first few seconds. Bots cannot tell if the boss need ranged weapons

Boss spawn and teleport 20m in a random direction while dropping AoE on the original location. bots cannot predict where the boss will be.

Boss doesnt spawn, it make 5 strong adds in random locations that all need to die first. Bots dont know how many targets there are.

Boss spawn and reflect all ranged damage for a short period. Bots cannot only stay at range.

Boss is on a random timer. Bots cannot time attacks.

Etc and so on.

Good ideas. I would suggest that boss spawns could scale depending on player number in immediate area. If it would not solve the farming issue it would at least make it viable for the rest of players who enter these dungeons to get credit for kill.

soalrism

kamohs212eb17_ESO wrote: »

I was thinking, what are public dungeons for?
1) Quests
2) Loot: soul gems, equipment, loot for sale and loot for destruction (craft leveling).
They can take apart public dungeon for 2 parts: main dungeon with quests and Boss's Room with timer. 5 ppl maximum capacity, one boss without respawn, internal timer, guarantee 5 blue items drop (maybe with very small chance for epic).

Soul gems... get off, how long time ago you saw someone using soul trap? Its more fast and easy stay a hour in dungeon and get enought since next ones.

Compensate unfarmed equipment by lowering NPC merchant's prices for armor/weapon (cmon, noone buying this stuff for this prices!) so players always can get adequate equipment every few levels.

Compensate loot for sale by makin' some daily quests with some money reward.

Compensate loot for destruction by makin' thing like craft leveling through research (maybe add some chance to fail research like its with improvement untill you put 5+ items with some threat). And improve XP gained for item creation.

And everyone will be happy.

P.S. Maybe they should make some several things:
Remove ore and wood deposites placed everywhere.
Move large ore deposites to mines, and wood to forest. Put some stone-pits/sawmills and move hirelings from skills. Make them resource merchants: you pay 1000g for 24h ore/forest harvest, after 24h you recieve mail with floating ammount of stuff like they do now.
In mines/forest make offline gathering, like "work for 1/2/.../8 hours" with 8 hours limit per day. And make char not able to do anything untill work will be done.

Even if botting, it will limit their farming capability.

thanks god you are only player not a dev! this would be a terrible game!

Laerian

Instead of having a big amount of bots together, now they are farming all over the world. Find them one by one and ban them now (if you can).

Please someone tell me what else is more easily banneable than a gold spammer. Can a GM have any doubt if a someone is spamming that crap over and over?. Then why we have to see it more than 2 times (I am generous, maybe is a busy GM).

No I don't want a filter hiding the problem, I want living persons working on it, giving them enough reasons to think that botting and goldspaming is not worth in ESO.

vnlouis

I don't think this will out right stop bots from farming these bosses, however what it does do is stop regular players from doing the same. This will make it much easier for Zeni to pinpoint and earmark bots for banning whenever they do a new ban wave. I expect to see a few of those in the coming weeks now that the change has gone live.

Cherryblossom

With regards to Gold Spam in Chat, I have a addon that picks these up and removes them for me, why the hell can't Zenimax pick this information up as well and ban them?
With regards to the timer, if the loot was epic then I'd agree, but it's not. You have a chance at a Blue, which are used to de-construct which have a chance of a blue crafting upgrade. So we are not talking big numbers for farmers, but the only reliable way of getting these items for crafting!
The bots need to be addressed on the ground, as stated by many you have to ban them as you see them, they are obvious to spot! If they have a Zerg on banning this will address the issue short term agreed, but it will reduce the rampant numbers we have currently seeing!

paul.durlachcub18_ESO

Lets be serious. mmo's are all about farming, Always have been always will be. You need to farm to make gold,armor, weapon's etc,If your not farming mats and stuff your farming daily or weekly quests for rep or tokens etc .

The problem that is in ESO, is that they are trying to combat bots.

Why should some that sits there and takes the time to farm be penelized. Some play for the enjoyment of the game and don't have the luxary of playing long periods of time, which now will inhibit the amount of mat farming they can do. Why wouldn't you farm dungeons it is where the best stuff is.(unfortunately in ESO the best stuff is on the boss)

We can all play our part and report as many as we can. Eventually the gold farming bots will be stopped, The problem is that there are lazy people that buy the gold that give these guys the market to sell the gold. These people should also be perm banned as well as the bots.

I do agree that the dungeons should be instances it will help keep track of who is entering and leaving the dungeons.

The other solution is change the whole way the dungeons drops loot(ie let mobs drop mats including all the crafts not just food) and put quest(s) in there so that you have to physically finish a quest(s) to spawn the boss at the end.But have a choice of rewards at the end that suit all amour classes or weapon types.They can still be done solo and the bots can't just sit there and keep farming the boss.

vnlouis

paul.durlachcub18_ESO wrote: »

Lets be serious. mmo's are all about farming, Always have been always will be. You need to farm to make gold,armor, weapon's etc,If your not farming mats and stuff your farming daily or weekly quests for rep or tokens etc .

The problem that is in ESO, is that they are trying to combat bots.

Why should some that sits there and takes the time to farm be penelized. Some play for the enjoyment of the game and don't have the luxary of playing long periods of time, which now will inhibit the amount of mat farming they can do. Why wouldn't you farm dungeons it is where the best stuff is.(unfortunately in ESO the best stuff is on the boss)

We can all play our part and report as many as we can. Eventually the gold farming bots will be stopped, The problem is that there are lazy people that buy the gold that give these guys the market to sell the gold. These people should also be perm banned as well as the bots.

I do agree that the dungeons should be instances it will help keep track of who is entering and leaving the dungeons.

The other solution is change the whole way the dungeons drops loot(ie let mobs drop mats including all the crafts not just food) and put quest(s) in there so that you have to physically finish a quest(s) to spawn the boss at the end.But have a choice of rewards at the end that suit all amour classes or weapon types.They can still be done solo and the bots can't just sit there and keep farming the boss.

There are other ways to farm that don't negatively impact the experience of other players, which farming public dungeon bosses does. Don't pretend that this is the only way to farm in this game, you will just sound like a whiner otherwise and no one likes a whiner.

paul.durlachcub18_ESO

vnlouis wrote: »

There are other ways to farm that don't negatively impact the experience of other players, which farming public dungeon bosses does. Don't pretend that this is the only way to farm in this game, you will just sound like a whiner otherwise and no one likes a whiner.

I actually wasn't whinning. Mearly stating the obvious and passing a comment, and thought which I thought forums was for.
I know that dungeons aren't the only place to farm, Mearly just commenting on what this forum thread is mainly talking about(boss farming and bots impacting peoples expierence). Read more carefully next time and take it as a comment.

SeñorCinco

paul.durlachcub18_ESO wrote: »

Lets be serious. mmo's are all about farming, Always have been always will be. You need to farm to make gold,armor, weapon's etc,If your not farming mats and stuff your farming daily or weekly quests for rep or tokens etc .

I must respectfully, yet passionately disagree. Farming is not a necessity nor a requirement in ESO. Farming became a active part of JPN games where the only way to get high end gear was from drops. That mechanic alone promotes farming. This is not the case here.

In less than an hr of questing, less than 30 minutes if you rush through content, and your bag is full of items to either sell, deconstruct and/or refine.

This game is focused on being different from other MMOs and you can't apply techniques from others to defend why players need to camp a boss.

I will yield to the option of farming runes. Only because enchanting is so difficult to level compared to the other professions. But even then, I feel... dirty by doing that.Farming is too close to being an exploit for me to feel like I deserved the rewards.

While, my character (not toon) is making a route like a mail carrier to hit a select set of rune locations, they are traversing across the map. This grants others the ability to harvest when you are not there. If the rune is gone, you keep going and maybe you will get on the next loop.

Iorail

Just put a timer on the dungeons themselves, 30 minutes, that means you have 30 minutes to get in an complete it, if you don't, then you get kicked out and you have to wait 24-48-72? Hours until you can come back to that dungeon, problem solve.

Arthur_Spoonfondle

paul.durlachcub18_ESO wrote: »

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vnlouis wrote: »

There are other ways to farm that don't negatively impact the experience of other players, which farming public dungeon bosses does. Don't pretend that this is the only way to farm in this game, you will just sound like a whiner otherwise and no one likes a whiner.

I actually wasn't whinning. Mearly stating the obvious and passing a comment, and thought which I thought forums was for.
I know that dungeons aren't the only place to farm, Mearly just commenting on what this forum thread is mainly talking about(boss farming and bots impacting peoples expierence). Read more carefully next time and take it as a comment.

You are completely missing the point, that the boss farmers are having the same negative impact, on people trying to complete quests as the botters, by hogging the boss and preventing players from getting the necessary credit, for the boss kill, to complete quests and a fair chance at the loot.

No good pretending you are better than the bots, because you at your PC, playing your character. You are not.

Singular

paul.durlachcub18_ESO wrote: »

show previous quotes

vnlouis wrote: »

There are other ways to farm that don't negatively impact the experience of other players, which farming public dungeon bosses does. Don't pretend that this is the only way to farm in this game, you will just sound like a whiner otherwise and no one likes a whiner.

I actually wasn't whinning. Mearly stating the obvious and passing a comment, and thought which I thought forums was for.
I know that dungeons aren't the only place to farm, Mearly just commenting on what this forum thread is mainly talking about(boss farming and bots impacting peoples expierence). Read more carefully next time and take it as a comment.

Tbh, I don't think public dungeon bosses are the best place to farm for gold. I really, really, really don't like farming (and I don't like grind) but today there was a non-dungeon, quest related boss (out in the open) who was respawning every 15 seconds or so (maybe 10. almost as fast as you could kill him then loot). There were 3 non-bot players farming it. I joined in, just to see if it was worth anyone's time xp-wise.

Well, my inventory filled up in no time. Xp-wise, it was only 200 or so, so it really didn't feel worth my time. No way I'm going to do the same thing over and over for hours just to level slowly. I can only guess they were farming for gold (or selling items)- and they were most definitely not bots.

Rantog

Daverios wrote: »

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Rantog wrote: »

Daverios wrote: »

You think a person running a dozen bots actually loots anything that is not stackable. Hint they do not and never did.

Yes, and Wrong.

You seem to be forgetting that we can mail from Anywhere in the game, and mail Items.

l?

Lol I never forgot. I run two accounts and mail all the time. But you seem to forget there is a cost associated. Some stuff just not worth mailing no profit in it. Stackables are worth it. Plain iron swrod is not.

Also you seem to forget they leave bots unattended for hours. Bags fill up fast.

You seem to forget thier goal is getting to the better loot in higher zones.

Okay, think of it this way..
You want to get down to the end of the street where people are Handing out $5 bills.
People along the way - are handing out $1 bills.
You're suggesting they will refuse those $1 bills while they work their way down the street.
Not likely.

And yes - They Loot It All.
Costs? Have you Used the mail system to mail items?

Any given non-stacking item a boss drops is going to be worth More than 15g, which is enough to mail 6 items.

Even if the items Were only worth 15 gold, every time they mail they are getting 5 times the cost of mailing, so there is No reason for them Not to do it.

The only reason they would Not use the mail for items is if it somehow slowed them down, and since a script could load the mailer in a fraction of a second, it doesn't.

Rantog

stefaan.de.wasch1b16_ESO wrote: »

Oh.... the less players, the less money the gold sellers can make and they'll just follow people to the next game that is heralded as "WoW Killer"... rest assured of that

Failed logic tho - because the people willing to Quit the game because of gold sellers and bots, aren't the ones Buying gold, ergo, the gold sellers don't Lose customers.
Zenimax, does.

babylon

Just get ingame GMs to sweep areas (dungeons for farmbots/open world for harvestbots/towns for spambots).

It's the only thing that will actually work.

And do it now before people leave because of 1) too many bots and 2) getting our legit activities penalised because of too many bots.

Dunhilda

Daverios wrote: »

This is NOT to combat bots. You could not be more wrong.

Let me repeat THIS IS NOT TO COMBAT BOTS.

Bots do not care about the loot. Only experience. You think a person running a dozen bots actually loots anything that is not stackable. Hint they do not and never did. Do you think they stop botting and run to town when inv full? Nope the delete it themselves.

This is 100% to combat farmers and griefers NOT bots. You know those annoying little #&(! $ that infest every delve doing the exact same thing as the bots hiding behind 'im a real person so its ok'. Those are the people that are in it for the loot. This is Zenimax telling you to bugger off as the rest of us have sent in thousands of reports against these jerkwads.

We know it didn't combat bots, they tried to hide the fact of what it was for, they could care less about the bots in the end, bots pay a sub that's much needed money for a P2P MMO.

I want them to be honest, this is truly about a gold sink, how much are Souls gems from a vendor again?

Rantog

WilliamTee wrote: »

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Rantog wrote: »

So.. you would rather support counter measures that cause the ban of Innocents - such as many of us suffered last week - and have No Impact on the bot and spammer populations...

than paying a Human Being to get into the game and actually find and remove the bad elements manually - which skyrockets the cost of the bots operating?


You don't really think that is the most rational approach, do you?

Show me the evidence for anything you're saying.

I honestly doubt there were so many 'innocents' collaterally damaged.

The change has been live a day - how can we actually tell how it effects bots OR players?

Show me the games where GMs have become this 'miracle cure' you claim.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have them. I do believe they would be a significant help. But the evidence of other games proves they are no cure.

On another note I do find it interesting the change was live a full 24 hours before the patch notes were amended... How many people actually noticed?

Evidence, of which? Their banning innocent players or that GMs are effective?

Since you don't specify, here's both..

#1 - Banning masses of innocents.
So many were banned wrongly that they issued a Public Apology. If it were 10, or 30, or 100 .. they would have just done individual mail apologies and left it at that.
But no, so many were suspended for Not Cheating - that they had to apologize to the entire player base.

Need more? Go read back on Facebook, Twitter, etc that day. Because they shut off our access to the forums, and weren't answering phones or email - we were forced to seek elsewhere.
Now pick Any person who claimed there, or here on the forums, that they were Not cheating, and see if they're still a member.

Gee.. how would Every Single One of those people still be playing if they weren't Banned Wrongly, then Restored?

#2 - GMs hunting down cheaters = fewer cheaters.
Pick a game.
Let's go back to the start.. or what most people mistakenly view As the start..
Ultima online - Shortly before the split and addition of Tramel, script programs had become rampant. (origin of the MMO use of the term BOT) - Material values were falling fast, and the game was being flooded with items that were supposed to be Rare.
GMs and Guides went to work finding those automating, and banning them.

*Poof* the bots vanished. It was years later before bots became an issue again, and by that time they had no Councelor or Companion programs any longer.. and only a handful of GMs who were all part time.
Because they never went back to what worked, the game remains plagued with bots today. Any given day you can explore the game and reliably half of all the characters you meet are Automated.

Later : World of Warcraft. Having just bragged about 7 Million users, began having real problems with a script called WoW Glyder - bots were everywhere, and you couldn't find a key mob without a swarm of bots there waiting to kill it.
14 (if I remember right) GMs went on a spree, banning from a field of 7 Million players - and the bots Vanished in a couple of weeks.

Again, it wasn't until later, when they let slip that they no longer searched for those using these things to ban them, that Botting came back.
This Second round - they eventually admitted was a factor in their loss of nearly 6 million players. (only a year after peaking at over 11 million)


So.. Games in the past have Removed Bots by seeking and banning them.
Games in the past have had bots Return when they Stopped using GMs to seek and ban them.

Is this absolute proof? No. But then, waking up isn't absolute proof you were ever sleeping, nor is memory absolute proof you existed before this moment.

But the Likelihood is extreme that GMs Banning Bots = Fewer Bots, and Lacking GMs to ban them = More Bots.

Rantog

Blackwidow wrote: »

They need to make the boss a ONE time thing, period. For everyone.

Nobody should be standing around killing a boss over and over, not even a few minutes apart.

How is this not implemented?

Do the dungeon, kill the boss, get your blue item and go away.

I actually thought the same.. briefly.
For that to work tho - they would have to make the boss' specific drops a 100% drop rate.
Doing so voids the unique quality of the item.
Failing to do so means that if you fail to get it the first time, you never get the opportunity to try again.

And it won't get rid of them - just move them off of the Boss spawn.

Blackwidow

Aenra wrote: »

Don't know how many of you will read this, but let me pinpoint that in THIS case it is as much our fault as theirs.

What?

Please explain, because we did not make this game.

We are pointing out that there is a problem and even trying to give solutions to that problem.

Is it our fault ZOS can not see how bad they are screwing up ESO?

Stop splitting hairs, stop posting even if you are incapable of productive thought.

I would say stop posting especially if you are incapable of productive thought, but why split hairs?

If you can't think for yourselves..why should others do it for you?

What the hell are you talking about?

Lonn87b16_ESO

Laura wrote: »

should have made it 24 hours for the same boss imo. would have fixed it fine. It never should have went live like it was in the first place.

if you think having gms sit around in every instance of every public dungeon is viable... i don't really know what to say.

24 hours or 5 weeks, it would've been the same, most bots would still be in the dungeons just because of spite towards Zenimax for making them lose loot.

Lonn87b16_ESO

cisadanepajsuxrwb17_ESO wrote: »

Assigning a GM to specifically ban accounts all day long wont be cost efficient considering there are so many problems and so little workforce (apparently)

Botters would need to get new accounts (mostly because 75% of the bots are set up by gold sellers who need a steady ingame income to be able to sell their product) = more $$ for Zenimax, way more cash than a GM would cost them.

Hrithmus

FF11 had this BOT issue back in like 2002. HOW in the hell is this new news?? HOW do we not know how to fix it? DO WHAT THEY DID. Make the spawn time on the BOSS'S LONGER or once killed you need to leave the dungeon and zone back in.

BUT your issue is that you left the add-on in the game. THIS opens sooooo many can of worms with hacks and mods.....But hey, you got the nerds happy who installed the DPS counter to do some "EPIC Damage!!"

badmojo

Arthur_Spoonfondle wrote: »

People like you are no better than the bots and need to be stopped as well. You are having exactly the same effect on other players as the bots. Just like the bots you are preventing other people from completing quests and getting loot because you are selfish and lazy.

No-one needs to loot a boss more than once to complete a quest. The lock-out should be extended to 24 hours, preferably with dungeons instanced. If you want crafting mats, get out there and look for them, like the considerate players do.

Actually considerate players stand back and let the player who spawned the boss start to attack before going in to get a few hits so.. wait for it... ALL of the players get loot.

The only selfish one here is you because you don't want to share loot with people who camp at the bosses, while those campers are more than happy to share it, because they know there's plenty of loot to go around.

The problem happens when there are bots parked at the boss. Those bots don't care if you get loot or not, so therefore they attack instantly and the legit players can't get there in time.

But whatever, I'm sure you scold a homeless person picking bottle out of your trash bins. Telling them to get a real job and such. How dare someone pickup something that you feel should go to the dump. Like how dare someone stand next to you and hit the boss, how dare they pickup the loot that both of you are rewarded, how dare they.

kamohs212eb17_ESO

Arthur_Spoonfondle wrote: »

People like you are no better than the bots and need to be stopped as well. You are having exactly the same effect on other players as the bots. Just like the bots you are preventing other people from completing quests and getting loot because you are selfish and lazy.

No-one needs to loot a boss more than once to complete a quest. The lock-out should be extended to 24 hours, preferably with dungeons instanced. If you want crafting mats, get out there and look for them, like the considerate players do.

Guess what, I DID. Yesterday i didnt meet even a single tree or ore. I played like 6 hours and didnt meet EVEN A SINGLE WOOD!!! Only alchemy herbs and some cotton. Half of cotton was teleporting/dissapear gives me nothing. Lol, i dunno if Shadowfen is resource free zone now (it wasnt 2 days ago).

Almost no drop from normal mobs. 90% is 1-2 gold. It doesnt even pays repair.

Difference between me and bots: i put some mental and physical effort in game to get my loot. My farming time is about 20-30 min max, 1 bag. If i stay more, i'll just faint on keyboard. And i never preventing others from boss farming. Guess why? I agree to party (loot for everyone). I can even go to kitchen and make some coffee, losing 2-3 bosses.


Give us better sollution or STFU.

Arthur_Spoonfondle wrote:

its amazing how many people think real players should be able to farm but bots shouldnt.

Suck. My. Duck. Botlover.

Opirasb16_ESO

The solution is to ban both the accounts and the IP (for a few days) and prevent him form logging in to the site and create new accounts.

Gillysan

GM's are the best solution. This will slow things down some but is not the best answer.

If no GM's are going to be used I still say the best thing is to remove loot & gold from the bosses even on a first kill. Let them give a good dose of experience the first time regardless of how little damage a person makes, get the achievement, and that's it. No loot, no gold ever plus no xp after the first kill.

steveb16_ESO46

Aenra wrote: »

Don't know how many of you will read this, but let me pinpoint that in THIS case it is as much our fault as theirs. Stop splitting hairs, stop posting even if you are incapable of productive thought.

They deal with the consequences of an issue. It's called ramification. YOU DO TOO. By further ramifying, passing judgement and many a 'what ifs'.
Cease the critique on how to handle the outcome of a problem, and press them on the problem. Security. Two pages long of this is good, no this is actually unfair, maybe timers, maybe instanced, this or that.

If you can't think for yourselves..why should others do it for you?
And there already -are- threads about their security systems. Bump those and cease the daily quest posting. Humble opinion, feel free to call it aggressive, ignore it, and keep dealing with the surface.

How can so many words be content free? What on earth, in your head, do you imagine you are saying here?

Well not entirely content free, I detect you are blanket insulting players from some entirely-in-your-own-head sense of superiority.

Other than that it is gibberish that would make Google Translator recompile itself out of embarrassment.

Rantog

Hrithmus wrote: »

FF11 had this BOT issue back in like 2002. HOW in the hell is this new news?? HOW do we not know how to fix it? DO WHAT THEY DID. Make the spawn time on the BOSS'S LONGER or once killed you need to leave the dungeon and zone back in.

BUT your issue is that you left the add-on in the game. THIS opens sooooo many can of worms with hacks and mods.....But hey, you got the nerds happy who installed the DPS counter to do some "EPIC Damage!!"

You posted this before...
Add-Ons do Not Allow Bots.

All they do is change how data is shown, or how the game Gets data from you - that is All they can do, because that is all the API Zenimax created for them does.

Bots are characters run by a completely Separate program from the game client - it monitors the screen to see what is happening, and based on a script, sends the pre-determined keyboard, mouse, game pad, etc signals to the Operating System... as if it were a Human doing it.