Bots, Bots and .......Bots!

Dr_Magic

After the recent action by the GM's against gold farmers using bots to kill dungeon bosses, it seems that some peoples fears that it would just push the problem elsewhere were completely accurate. They (gold farmers) have a new soloution! They have arrived on mass in open world mob spawns.

Today questing in Stonefalls - Vivec's Antlers, there were upwards of 15 bots porting around to whatever mob happend to be spawing next. They kill it and ping to the next . Sometimes the mobs are insta gibbed and a regular human player can't even tag the thing. Then, when there are no more mobs they all ping back to the same point and wait to begin again.

After running around , for what felt like ages ,trying to figure out which ones I had reported and which ones were (as yet) unreported, I finally came to the conclusion that being as I am paying for the privilege of playing on the EU server. Yes the EU server... You know, the one thats not located in the EU ( Whole different topic so I am not gunna go there). I will be buggered if I am spending my game time reporting bot after bot.

At least when the gold farmers were all in one place farming the boss mobs in dungeons they were not really effecting the game experience as much.

So I guess what I am finally getting at is .... a more permanent solution to the goldfarming botters problem needs to be found, and quickly!

My wife just suggested, with just a touch of sarcasam, that maybe a special botting dungeon could be created. Called "Botters Rest" with high mob spawn rate / lots of loot (a risk vs reward vibe) and with a quest for the normal players to see how many bots you can report in a minute ( very sandbox )

/endrant

P.S. Thanks for reading

caryhammub17_ESO

I read it, and don't quite understand how the botting occurs. How deos one bot, do you not have to place a credit card info into the system on creation of a new account?

How do these botters get by that, and if they are not but using 1 source of payment, or even 50 different ones, isolate the sources of payment, and eliminate block, or otherwise shut that system down.

Can they not locate the botters, not ban them right away, but back trace their packets, locate the general area they are coming from, isolate any other accounts that also come from that area, further isolate by creation date of account, who created them, and do batch bans on a massive scale?

I just don't understand how it is that millions of bots can be created by a hand full of companies without being able to isolate the people doing this and putting up roadblocks.

I just have a hard time getting my head around how easy it is to hack the games base code to allow what is happening, and why no one in ZM even bothered to hire a outside firm to hack their code while in development to find the weaknesses, and close them.

Fairydragon3

This is what the bots do, they move on once they have been caught in one place. the gold spamming and boting has been changing pretty quickly over the last month. first they spammed to where you could not see their name to ignore them, then they moved to mail and guild invites.

They running out of places to hide. Give it some time. Getting these guys off is a constant battle that no game has managed to fully get ride of

Dunhilda

caryhammub17_ESO wrote: »

I read it, and don't quite understand how the botting occurs. How deos one bot, do you not have to place a credit card info into the system on creation of a new account?

How do these botters get by that, and if they are not but using 1 source of payment, or even 50 different ones, isolate the sources of payment, and eliminate block, or otherwise shut that system down.

Can they not locate the botters, not ban them right away, but back trace their packets, locate the general area they are coming from, isolate any other accounts that also come from that area, further isolate by creation date of account, who created them, and do batch bans on a massive scale?

I just don't understand how it is that millions of bots can be created by a hand full of companies without being able to isolate the people doing this and putting up roadblocks.

I just have a hard time getting my head around how easy it is to hack the games base code to allow what is happening, and why no one in ZM even bothered to hire a outside firm to hack their code while in development to find the weaknesses, and close them.

Some bots are simply stolen accounts while others are stolen Credit cards , and the thing with banning locations is that you don't know where they are connecting from due to a number of ways to mask the connection, If they ban by batches they could end up banning innocents, say I was a botter living in an apartment that also have 7 other ESO players should my action then lead to the 7 other players getting banned? This suggestion is another that again hurts innocents.


Could people please stop giving ZoS ways to hurt their legit players?

WitchAngel

@Dr_Magic‌
You are absolutely right that it is not the responsibility of the player to help repair a broken game. For that, the tables need to turn, and they need to pay us, instead of the other way around.

Knottypine

I'm thinking that anything they do to try to combat bots is just going to affect real genuine players. It's almost turning into a lose-lose situation.

Mailmann

I usually have to stop role playing every 30 minutes or so to report a bot account now in the open world. I spend an eighth to a quarter of my time in ESO reporting spamming and bots... and that's only the accounts that I do report. If I chose to report every account I came across (chat, mail, zone bots, dungeon bots, or hackers in general) I doubt I would every really get to around to actually playing ESO. ESO is actually a really good game with a ton of potential. Unfortunately it is just far too easy for unscrupulous parties to hack their client data and ruin the immersive experience and great story for those that play the game honestly.

Knottypine

Dunhilda wrote: »

Some bots are simply stolen accounts while others are stolen Credit cards

Most likely stolen Credit Cards or some other hack. Doubtful they are using stolen accounts. When you block a spammer, you block their @account name. And with that, their account name is just as random and ridiculous as the character names they mash in there.

Mailmann

Knottypine wrote: »

show previous quotes

Dunhilda wrote: »

Some bots are simply stolen accounts while others are stolen Credit cards

Most likely stolen Credit Cards or some other hack. Doubtful they are using stolen accounts. When you block a spammer, you block their @account name. And with that, their account name is just as random and ridiculous as the character names they mash in there.

Every so often, I actually do see a bot with a relatively normal name. This is a really big problem because it takes me even longer to report them since I'm not immediately sure that this is a bot. Besides, some people have reported that their accounts were hacked (often because of poor security on the client end) only to find their account information completely changed and their in-game data gone/replaced. However, some gold sellers will actually keep the stolen character names rather than delete the characters and replace them with characters with gibberish for names.

Elsonso

caryhammub17_ESO wrote: »

How do these botters get by that, and if they are not but using 1 source of payment, or even 50 different ones, isolate the sources of payment, and eliminate block, or otherwise shut that system down.

Stolen credit card numbers used to purchase ESO in bulk from legitimate third party resellers is my first guess.

caryhammub17_ESO wrote: »

I just don't understand how it is that millions of bots can be created by a hand full of companies without being able to isolate the people doing this and putting up roadblocks.

Hopefully, "millions" is a wild exaggeration.

caryhammub17_ESO wrote: »

I just have a hard time getting my head around how easy it is to hack the games base code to allow what is happening, and why no one in ZM even bothered to hire a outside firm to hack their code while in development to find the weaknesses, and close them.

As a software developer, it is practically impossible to secure a program from prying eyes and modifications. The program is installed on a system that is completely out of the developer's control, while the "hacker" has complete control. They can use any number of tools to examine how the program works, find out what the source code looks like, determine how it uses memory, and peek at how it communicates over the internet.

The teleporting bots are taking advantage of some system internal to the game to move instantly from A to B whenever the server lets them know that a monster has appeared at location "B".

The software that Zenimax uses to detect this sort of thing has, by anecdotal evidence, resulted in bans of players falling into isolated bugs in how the game works. Sadly, each time this happens the botters win a small battle.

Woogawoman

What I've seen lately is chains of bots porting to each other along a quest line. So, one bot is stationed at each interaction point in the quest (NPCs, locations to grab items, etc.). Then they port others to each of those in sequence (often bypassing any mobs they should have had to kill along the way). In some spots, you can actually see them appear, then shift position slightly until they are on top of the previous (still present) bot, before the first one pops off to the next bus stop.

While finishing the particular quest I was doing, I kept seeing "level up" white swirls/noise from underground, as one after the other finished invisibly. (Since they are all following exactly the same sequence, they are all leveling exactly the same.)

SeñorCinco

I noticed one in the Manor House in Vulkhel Guard. He was a level 2 character named with that crazy "dsksjsgdk" junk. Still in his pajamas form the tutorial.

I checked in over the course of two days and he remained in the same spot, only to teleport in and out but always to the exact same spot. On occasion he would open his bag and even be crouched in sneak mode but even that became evident they were just a scheduled automatic action to mask the fact that it was a bot.

I reported him with a detailed description of the suspicious actions.

That was one of two in the same Manor House. The other was observed over the next two days and was reported with a similar detailed description of their actions.

starkerealm

SeñorCinco wrote: »

I noticed one in the Manor House in Vulkhel Guard. He was a level 2 character named with that crazy "dsksjsgdk" junk. Still in his pajamas form the tutorial.

I checked in over the course of two days and he remained in the same spot, only to teleport in and out but always to the exact same spot. On occasion he would open his bag and even be crouched in sneak mode but even that became evident they were just a scheduled automatic action to mask the fact that it was a bot.

I reported him with a detailed description of the suspicious actions.

That was one of two in the same Manor House. The other was observed over the next two days and was reported with a similar detailed description of their actions.

Was this the manor house with the bank? Standing in front of the throne? If so, yeah, that's a bot. I keep seeing one whenever I log in on my AD characters. Basically he... or, she in my case, seems to be receiving mail from dungeon bots and is doing... something, with it, I'm not sure what, but that's the only reason I can think it's going into it's inventory.

gladen5rwb17_ESO

You know it is also bad when they are spawn in the bank, do their thing and poof, gone again. They are harvesting everything. My mail box had one letter offering all legendary crafting items. They are standing out side in the towns, waiting for I have no clue. Having a smoke break? They are in the dungeons, out in the wild, harvesting, mob camping, mailing me and in general their names stick out like sore thumbs and don't give a damn if you know what they are or not. Do they feel threatened? Not by what I am seeing.

SeñorCinco

starkerealm wrote: »

Was this the manor house with the bank? Standing in front of the throne? If so, yeah, that's a bot. I keep seeing one whenever I log in on my AD characters. Basically he... or, she in my case, seems to be receiving mail from dungeon bots and is doing... something, with it, I'm not sure what, but that's the only reason I can think it's going into it's inventory.

Yes, that was one. A female character that teleports in and is either in their bag, in sneak mode or jumping constantly. The other is a male character in that middle bedroom downstairs.

I thought they might be teleporting out to a Boss or select mob when the target was made available. Obviously that is doubtful to be the case as they would likely jut teleport to another in lieu of just standing there.

They have some purpose. Hopefully the GMs can track them some way and find out.

Krivaan

I see that the Ebonheart Pact zones are especially hit by botters. My main is a veteran rank in the Daggerfall Covenant and I rarely saw any bots on my way up, but I created an alt on the EP, and I saw pretty much nothing but bots.

Spam in chat, dungeon camping, even this weird exploit where a material node would respawn instantly and they'd consistently loot it!? No idea how they do that.

At least the Veteran Rank content is void of these problems.

Elsonso

I do not use groups, so all is clear to me now. I always notice unmoving characters standing around. I thought they were broken bots, but they are transport system.

They are very devious, indeed. They can farm, move from place to place, bank their goods, even sell their goods, all without really having to break the TOS. Very clever. All it takes is a lot of people, a lot of accounts, an unmodified version of the game, and a macro keyboard. They keyboard is just for convenience, it is not actually necessary.

The only accounts that they need to risk are the ones that do the advertizing, and possibly the ones that dispense the gold and purchased goods. Everyone else can comply with the letter of the Terms of Service.

If they are not breaking the TOS, Zenimax can do nothing to stop it without either changing the game or the TOS.

SeñorCinco

lordrichter wrote: »

If they are not breaking the TOS, Zenimax can do nothing to stop it without either changing the game or the TOS.

That is quite true. Posing the traits and actions of being a bot does not constitute a ban. However, if they can be noted as such and monitored it could lead to having mechanics in play to deal with their supplier bots.

samtolkennub18_ESO

I think the best way to deal with boss camping, its scale the boss difficulty by how many player around him.
I don't like this solution, but maybe the best way to get the gold seller away, is to zenimax to sell gold... I really, really hate gold seller... Any hacker here can work on their site?

Loxy37

Do you know. I could solve the bot issue in days! If all the idiots that buy gold, suddenly stopped. Problem solved! Supply and demand, ecconmics 101!

You will have all the ones that buy the gold, in a week, saying how bored they are cause they zerged through all the content and bought piles of gold to win virtual e-peen battles, oh and they bought all the mats for 5$ each and motifs for 35$ but that's a good deal because the gold sellers say that they are having a sale!

Edit:
There's a simple way to solve the issue of gold sellers and that's to make gold very easy to come by + make real game currency only obtainable via other methods which are not tradeable. Other games do thus to great success. Having horses costing so much was like inviting gold sellers to do their stuff!

gladen5rwb17_ESO

lordrichter wrote: »

I do not use groups, so all is clear to me now. I always notice unmoving characters standing around. I thought they were broken bots, but they are transport system.

They are very devious, indeed. They can farm, move from place to place, bank their goods, even sell their goods, all without really having to break the TOS. Very clever. All it takes is a lot of people, a lot of accounts, an unmodified version of the game, and a macro keyboard. They keyboard is just for convenience, it is not actually necessary.

The only accounts that they need to risk are the ones that do the advertizing, and possibly the ones that dispense the gold and purchased goods. Everyone else can comply with the letter of the Terms of Service.

If they are not breaking the TOS, Zenimax can do nothing to stop it without either changing the game or the TOS.

If they are using each character as a transport system that was not intended to be used that way by Zenimax then they are breaking the TOS surely?

jimdove

ive noticed the bots at dungeon bosses have decreased in the last 2 days. Would be pretty easy for a GM to port to each dungeon boss once a day and insta ban the obvious bots. I could run to about 5 dungeons in the next 10 mins and have a nice list of obvious bots. Hey Zeno, emlpoy me to do this. I would not abuse a GM account (much) and would work for a lot less than you would expect.

AbraCadabra

Wouldn't Zenimax make more money by banning the bot accounts? Then the gold farmer/sellers would have to buy the game again and open a new account. Ban and repeat. It probably would be a full time job for several people to track and ban the bots, but seems like it would be worth it if they were caught/banned in a timely fashion.

vwaskarb16_ESO

All dem paladin bots.

GMs just need to sit at some quest givers and watch them port in and out, and ban the accounts that way. Eventually their ability to make new accounts will stagnate.

It's really not that difficult, they can grab them at level 3/4 in some areas, especially when quest givers/npcs are in houses.

Loxy37

AbraCadabra wrote: »

Wouldn't Zenimax make more money by banning the bot accounts? Then the gold farmer/sellers would have to buy the game again and open a new account. Ban and repeat. It probably would be a full time job for several people to track and ban the bots, but seems like it would be worth it if they were caught/banned in a timely fashion.

Most the time they use stolen credit cards and or stolen accounts.

Elsonso

gladen5rwb17_ESO wrote: »

If they are using each character as a transport system that was not intended to be used that way by Zenimax then they are breaking the TOS surely?

This really depends on what Zenimax considers "abusing the game system". Using the game in a way that was not originally intended does not automatically mean "abuse". Just because the players think of something that the developers did not is not a bad thing.

But, how do you determine whether a farmer using the group teleport function once or twice an hour is actually abuse? Do you say that you can only use it once an hour? Will the non-farmers be OK with that?

Say Zenimax says that this can only be done once per hour, the farming can still be done with only a modification and be back in compliance with what is now the official intent of the game.

As soon as Zenimax steps forward and says "this is how we intend for groups and group transport to be used", Zenimax is stating intent. The farmers can adjust their procedures and be in compliance and nothing will appear to have been changed.

Fortunately, I believe the farmers are getting while the getting is good. They are collecting massive amounts of resources NOW, while ESO is still new and other games have not come out. They are hoping to collect a "lifetime" supply of materials so that they can focus farming efforts on other games when they come out. Then, they only need to revisit ESO when resupply is necessary.

caryhammub17_ESO

I can help with the female in the manor house.

There is a legit addon that will mail out harvested materials to a select person you choose.

They have their farmer bots out there harvesting and auto-mailing that material to their "central hub". The hub is not associated with anything illegal as it were, they just take the good, and then probably mail those out to distribution bots to spread out the loot.

To make sure if the central hub is found, and taken out they are not completely screwed.

You can bet they have a second, or third hub somewhere else in the world out of prying eyes sorting and sending to other hub characters to sell for real world money, or legitimately in guild stores for gold to sell to players to get real world cash.

That part I can understand, and see, as that is basic supply and distribution chain management.

starkerealm

I ran across a "hub" in Daggerfall awhile back. Camped behind the stairs in the bank, crouched down.

Incarnatus

It always amazes me how many people actually think these bots are controlled be real people. Imagine a room filled with 50 computers each one running a script (one per bot) and one real person to manage it all ....

SeñorCinco

caryhammub17_ESO wrote: »

There is a legit addon that will mail out harvested materials to a select person you choose.

They have their farmer bots out there harvesting and auto-mailing that material to their "central hub". The hub is not associated with anything illegal as it were,...

I cannot agree with that.

Those bots, receiving the illegally acquired goods are part of it all. They are no different than the bots farming the bosses and nodes.

thegamekittenub17_ESO

Well the only sure fire way to deal with the infestation of bots and it will still take some time (by bots I mean gold sellers and their bots).

Ban gold buyers. It always amazes me how MMOs don't see the logic of this. In figuring you lose a good deal of fair (people who actually play by the rules if you will) playing subs, maybe even more than the amount of money you get from the gold sellers (who get these accounts illegally you can be sure). But instead of hurting someone's feelings or losing a bit of money at first, they go about it the wrong way and try to rid the MMO of the gold sellers and their shanighans (sorry about the spelling).

It's the buyers that cause this issue and there is no excuse. If there wasn't someone out there buying what these gold sellers offer then the gold sellers would leave. No profit for them. But it seems if we want to get down to the nitty gritty...there are ALOT of people buying what they gold sellers are offering. This is the real issue. The gold sellers are most likely by just the sheer numbers of them in this game, are making more than Zenimax is at this time.

Ban buyers.