Your "boss drops changes" solution is almost the same as doing nothing to fix the problem

nhisso

They stand there for hours attacking the bosses and your solution is to make it so drops only occur every few minutes? Are you serious? How does that stop the problem? In fact, there is no answer for that because the farmers are still there attacking the bosses for hours on end. I was just in a dungeon in Auridon where there were so many farmers I couldn't get one hit on the boss as an archer. This is ridiculous. There is not one excuse for why there aren't GMs with the power to insta-ban farmers/"bots". I've said it before, and Ill say it again: Pay me minimum wage for my state or give me a free sub., and Ill do it. Not like you can't monitor to make sure I am not banning the wrong people or using my powers for evil. This is completely out of hand and it's ruining the game.

I sincerely do not understand why Zeni is allowing this game to fail. You are going to lose so many subs. over the next 2 months if you don't fix all of these problems; especially the farmer/bot problems. Look at your forums, other internet forums, and zone chat. People are extremely disappointed in this game. But not because of the game, but because of Zeni.'s response to the problems plaguing this awesome game. I, too, will be among those that do not renew their sub if these issues aren't fixed by June.

Actually, I DO know why they are allowing this: Zeni. knows it's going to make a ton of money from console sales where there will be almost no bots or farmers. That's why they don't give a rat's *** about the PC gamers. They are happy to let the game fail because they have made so much money already, and are about to make a ton more from consoles, that it's not even going to hurt Zeni. at this point, if the game fails. They'll just go f2p and make even more from micro transactions. Sad. I have been one of the most vocal defenders of this game and its launch.

Desdemonte

Timer= fail
Diminishing Returns= WIN !

Kyotee0071

Woah, your console comments actually makes sense.

Most MMO's (practically every one out ) rely on the computer player base for subscription/income. This company having a huge market to fall back on - well I didn't even consider that, and not sure how I missed it. The console world is very much in love with the Elder Scrolls series, and this game actually seems tailor made for consoles.

Very nice input, thank you.

nhisso

If the diminishing returns were a win, they wouldn't still be farming, now would they?

Lkory

The only good solution is to ban bots systematically and let the real player enjoy the game however they want.

Also suspend gold buyers and remove the gold they bought. Enjoy wasting your money.

nhisso

Kyotee0071 wrote: »

Woah, your console comments actually makes sense.

Most MMO's (practically every one out ) rely on the computer player base for subscription/income. This company having a huge market to fall back on - well I didn't even consider that, and not sure how I missed it. The console world is very much in love with the Elder Scrolls series, and this game actually seems tailor made for consoles.

Very nice input, thank you.

It only dawned on me today as well lol. Like I said, I was a vocal, staunch defender of this game until the last week or so. I also "mocked" people who said it would go F2P eventually. Now I think they're right. And Zeni will make lots of money from microtransactions when it goes F2P. I have no qualms with that. But, F2p games tend to be pretty crappy and their communities are abhorrent. I hope Zeni gets their act together; I do. But, it looks like they are making the same mistakes so many other companies have made with MMOs over the past few years. It's like they refuse to "break the mold" or go against any MMO conventions, even if they didn't work for other games. It's the definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Oh, and in regards to another issue, where is this constant communication and stream of new content? We have no ETA on Thieve's/DB guilds. We have no news of anything coming in the future besides Crag. This was a big cash grab. I see real "heart" in this game. I think the people who worked on it really wanted it to be awesome. And the game, itself, is awesome. It's the "higher ups" who are clearly the problem.

WhiteQueen

I've said this in another thread but--

If they instance the dungeon to the individual player or group and make it a little bit more complicated, like, say: having an active quest in order to make the boss spawn, it'll cut down on the botters but leave the farmers to their farming without harming the experience for anybody else.

It'll probably need more system resources at the start but once people get tired of going back to the start to get the quest and do every step the demand on system resources should taper off.

Holycannoli

This change hurts legitimate players actively playing, not bots.

Kyosji

I don't agree with this change, because it's actually having the opposite effect now. The bots still sit there, nothing has changed with that. Now REGULAR players are being forced to sit there even longer, making the area more crowded and giving people less of a chance to hit the target. The players are there to get their kill, some soul gems to get by, and a blue. When you kill the loot timer like that, you force 2 options onto the player. 1) Sit there like a bot waiting and hoping you can deal enough damage to get some loot that MIGHT be the blue. 2) Skip the boss and lose out on content and unique blues.

This was a bad choice of prevention.

Sarabian

Whether a legitimate player or not, 'farming' a boss in a public dungeon is not in the spirit of the game.

Make the boss lootable once per hour, or 3 times a day, or alternatively place a reasonable time limit on being in the dungeon. Once the time has expired the 'player' is transported out of the dungeon and then cannot re-enter for a set time, possibly based on the amount of time they have been in the instance.

There's a whole range of different mechanics that could be used to overcome this problem without being to the detriment of the legitimate player, but whatever is done it has to be done quickly otherwise the player-base will be lost.

An earlier post said it very well where it said that this game had 'great heart' and I think that's well said. There has obviously been an incredible amount of work and joy put in to this game. I don't believe that this amount of attention to detail would have been put in to a game that was going to be allowed to fail purely because there is a console version just round the corner and I do believe it would be a travesty if that was to happen.

Kyosji

Farming a boss not in the spirit of a MMORPG...ooooooookay

Etchesketch

They forgot to take into account that bots are not real people.

They don't mind waiting.

WhiteQueen

@Etchesketch wrote: »

They forgot to take into account that bots are not real people.

They don't mind waiting.

+1

gunplummer

I am a firm believer that PC players are guinepigs for consoles. The PC players find the bugs which get fixed and polished for consoles. Just look at how many fixes modders have come up with for Skyrim not to mention there is still a lot of time before ESO is released on consoles.

I would not be surprised if more MMO's come out on consoles. From a dev's point of view its a good money making process. Consoles are difficult to hack so the bot problem we see maybe a non-issue. Most of the bug, glitches, and exploits will be gone. Built-in voice chat, established micro-transaction system. They have a huge consumer base already and they keep adding features to make them more PC like. If they can just figure a way to get rid of the under 14 crowd it may be the perfect gaming/money-making environment.

I still love my PC.

SuperScrubby

This is why I said in so many other threads not to nerf the boss drops or change them. I knew that Zeni was going to listen to some guy that's never played an MMO or played against bots. They gave their inexperienced opinion and those with similar IQ rallied behind the idea.

Look now and you see that the problem still exists and the only people that suffer are human players. People need to realize that dev's usually don't do long term solutions to problems, only the knee jerk ones because they're fast and take little to no thought. The phrase "squeaky wheel gets the oil" is true for a reason. Now the rest of the game population has to suffer due to the lack of insight from people who have no idea how these types of decisions ripple within the actual game.

They will continue to make terrible changes as long as the inexperienced minority whines about it. People need to be more thoughtful about the issues they're encountering and the solutions they offer up. Because usually the easiest and worst fix gets chosen to be implemented.

Diminishing returns was supposed to be implemented in the game, but I don't know what happened with that to stop people from farming bosses. They chose not to take that route or scale the public dungeons since you know they're public. Or the absolute easiest fix that requires no developer intervention. Have a group of GM's patrol highly camped area's and ban bots. Only job responsibility is to warp from boss to boss for 8 hours a day 5 days a week and ban bots. That would have eliminated 80% of the games bots within the first week.

That really isn't a lot of money compared to the possible loss of subs they face due to poor management. I don't know how the devs are getting their information, whether they're reading the forums themselves or getting the information 2nd hand from the community managers but there definitely is a HUGE disconnect between actual game problems, and perceived game problems. This is always the problem with games where developers don't go in and dabble in it after launch or when people who are the information brokers don't do the same. They don't actually know what the real problems are and listen to a first time MMO player's cry about not being able to farm loot against more experienced players and bots.

felixgamingx1

If you old enough and play drunk you can't really notice the bots.

CrimsonThomas

Etchesketch wrote: »

They forgot to take into account that bots are not real people.

They don't mind waiting.

Oh, they took that into account, they just couldn't be bothered to care enough about their customers to create a real solution to the problem.

Zenimax, what was that thing that Pete Hines said about our subscription dollars? It's ok, I'll put it up for everyone to read.

"We feel pretty strongly about the support we're going to have for the game and what you're going to get for those dollars..."
- Vice President of PR, Pete Hines

Oh, that's right! What support was he talking about, though? We certainly haven't seen it yet.

How is it that some of the most rudimentary free-to-play MMO developers get this right, yet you people at Zenimax absolutely refuse to help your customers who pay you a monthly premium? Yes, refuse. Simply skirting around the game-destroying exploitation with timers that bots could not care less about is choosing to not take the problem seriously.

How on earth is Craglorn supposed to work, then, huh? Are we going to lie to ourselves by trying to say that place won't be bot-farmed to oblivion and back?

YourNameHere

Oh yeah, the measures they did do absolute squat, especially for botters I reported over a week ago are still around, higher level and under the world.

And now, even in the mid 20s dungeons, there are 8 or so jiberrish, start clothes wearing bots on the bosses.

Mhm. Good job for doing nothing!

CrimsonThomas

Oh, this is going to be a long summer for the ESO community, as I don't think Zenimax truly cares enough to solve the problem, as they'll likely turn their focus to raking in profits off of the console market for the next several months. Will the game still be as broken and bot-riddled? Almost certainly. Why do I have any right to assume this? Well, look at Zenimax's demeanor with solving any of the problems ailing ESO, not just the bots. They couldn't be bothered to fix issues that were present in the early closed beta and those same bugs still harm players today, so why should we have any reason to believe they'll change anytime soon in any dramatic fashion?

Dunhilda

It's sad but I Why do I feel they are after a world record on server


ZoS Just remember APB, please don't try to beat their server shutdown record of five months.

Dragos

Sigh. What is wrong with people? Did they actually think this timer business would hurt anyone but the real players? I have a templar healer and i love to rez people. RL friend, teammate, guildie or random, i dont care; if you are dead, i will rez you. There is no way i can afford to buy as many soul gems as i need to play the way i like to play, so i would sit and farm bosses for soul gems in my downtime.

Guess they figured someone putting in that little bit of extra effort for the good of others wasn't worth considering when it comes time to nerf things.

CrimsonThomas

Dunhilda wrote: »

It's sad but I Why do I feel they are after a world record on server


ZoS Just remember APB, please don't try to beat their server shutdown record of five months.

The Elder Scrolls Online. Rated M for "Maintenance."

gunplummer

Please don't jinx us I really don't want to buy a console just to get my ESO fix.

CrimsonThomas

gunplummer wrote: »

Please don't jinx us I really don't want to buy a console just to get my ESO fix.

Don't buy this game again if it turns out to be a big fat swindle. Learn your lesson the first time.

gunplummer

Good point. I hear Titan Fall is pretty good and Destiny comes out in Sep.

Korusus

Kyosji wrote: »

Farming a boss not in the spirit of a MMORPG...ooooooookay

The point I think (not to speak for the poster) is that the Zenimax did not put in bosses that respawn every two minutes and drop loot as a means to reward farming. Blame lack of experience or naivety. They did it to facilitate public dungeons. I wasn't in the beta, but I imagine the beta players did not abuse the boss spawning mechanic to the same degree that the current player base does.

CrimsonThomas

Korusus wrote: »

Kyosji wrote: »

Farming a boss not in the spirit of a MMORPG...ooooooookay

The point I think (not to speak for the poster) is that the Zenimax did not put in bosses that respawn every two minutes and drop loot as a means to reward farming. Blame lack of experience or naivety. They did it to facilitate public dungeons. I wasn't in the beta, but I imagine the beta players did not abuse the boss spawning mechanic to the same degree that the current player base does.

The beta community was significantly more well-behaved. We reported on issues like this and other parts of the game that might be open to exploitation, but did anybody listen? Haha.

Monsoon

Punish the players who want to grind the boss instead of doing something to stop the bots...

Blackwidow

Monsoon wrote: »

Punish the players who want to grind the boss instead of doing something to stop the bots...

When you have to call yourself brilliant, it kind of has the opposite effect.

gladen5rwb17_ESO

Many of the bots are not there for the loot, that is just a bonus. If their names are something afgjjina, rggifalliaf, aaffpsta,they are there for gold. However if their names are collina, salina, darren, names that look like real names, they are botting to level up the character for account sale. They move on and are replaced by others of the same type names.

The real problem is not with the bots (I know sounds wrong right?), it is with the customers that are buying gold. They must be buying it because the bots are in the game in huge numbers. If the game had some sort of red flag program that sees an increase in gold not gotten legitimately from the game, that account is permanently banned after investigation. No customers, no bots.

This has worked in many other games and is why those games have stood the test of time. Banning bots accounts is like swatting at flys. This is a multi million or possibly billion dollar business. Ban one account they have the money to create ten more. These are companies that have flourished from games such as this that do not have these programs in place.

Monsoon

gladen5rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Having most of the game files on the client side is also a massive mistake on ESO's part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrjwaqZfjIY

It has nothing to do with having game files on the client side but with allowing packet manipulation and the server not doing checks. If you had no game files on the client side you could not play the game smarty pants