Bots, loads of bots !

Zorak

I wasn't thinking about canceling the sub till today.

First time in weeks I went outside of Davon's Watch with my crafting alt. (needed some skill points)

And I was disgusted by the number of bots right outside the town farming spirits.

Literally dozens of bots farming in plain sight. They were even competing for the same spot. All with names like "adsadsa", "yfkiyfkfy", "Hero c", "Hero f" and things like that.

I'm not talking about bots hiding below the ground or inside public dungeons at the bosses respawn. I'm talking about dozens bots farming in plain sight right outside of the first big town of Ebonheart Pact.

And I'm not even talking about the bots in Coldharbor...

Here is an example of a 2 minutes run outside Davon's Watch:

imgur.com/a/jh8oS#0

I know some ppl don't care about it because they think this doesn't affect them. But personally, I find this very lame for a game with a subscription.

I don't care about many bugs on an one month old MMO, I don't even care about the repetitive with NPCs that are literally clones of each other. But this is beyond RIDICULOUS, there is no excuse for that !

I'm still not canceling my subscription because I like some things in this game and I think it could have a good future (and because I'm persistent). But right now I personally think that the only people that don't see any MAJOR issue with this game is delusional. (Even more if you consider the $15 monthly fee.)

nerevarine1138

The location of bots doesn't somehow make them easier for the developers to eliminate. Breaking a bot takes time; be patient.

Zorak

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

The location of bots doesn't somehow make them easier for the developers to eliminate. Breaking a bot takes time; be patient.

Many ppl at Davon's Watch knows about this and were telling me this is happen for more than a week.

This isn't happening on a hidden place nor in a hidden way.

It's happening in plain sight on a wide open area.

Again, I'm not talking about bots running below the ground. You just need to get outside of the town and see several bots running around, following each other in couples, or several bots sitting on the same spot waiting for a respawn.

It is really that easy and known by many players.

But where are the GMs ?

nerevarine1138

Ok, education time:

To break a bot, the developers need to observe it in action. Then they need to identify the holes in their code that let it work. Then they need to fix those holes in-house. Then they need to break the bots that exist. Then they apply hotfixes to the actual game client. Then the botters figure out a new way around the code, and the process starts over.

Bots are a reality in any major MMO. It will get better, but it's never going to go away. And the only people to blame for that are the selfish players who abuse the system.

Zorak

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Ok, education time:

To break a bot, the developers need to observe it in action. Then they need to identify the holes in their code that let it work. Then they need to fix those holes in-house. Then they need to break the bots that exist. Then they apply hotfixes to the actual game client. Then the botters figure out a new way around the code, and the process starts over.

Bots are a reality in any major MMO. It will get better, but it's never going to go away. And the only people to blame for that are the selfish players who abuse the system.

Education time ?? Are you serious ?

All you did is say things that everyone knows. And tbh you are the one that lacks education. lol

Real education time for you Nerevarine:

That doesn't change the fact that this game has more bots then other MMOs, and it doesn't change the fact that dozens bots are running in plain sight, on a crowded area, in a way that is very easy to "find", identify and take care of(ban). But they aren't...and this is happening for more than a week.

If you can't manage to "fix" your client to prevent the possibility of bots (if you were educated enough you would know that won't happen), at least you can, and you should, fight this problem with active GMs identifying bots and taking care of them in real time, which isn't difficult when you have bots with such obvious names, running around in couples, disputing mobs...

Yes, I blame "the selfish players who abuse the system". But I also blame the lack of really active GMs that can't even take care of bots running in such a obvious way. And I also blame blindfolded people like you.

So stop being a blind fanboi, educate yourself, start helping to bring a solution to this problem and stop trying to be the smart ass over someone that's looking for a solution.

Silkesh

Do you think it is easy to have GMs in all instances of the game areas existing simultaneously?

These instances are numerous (not as numerous as the bots I admit). Like Nerevarine said, the process is long and difficult to get rid of the bots. As they are smart and adapt to the devs counter-measures quite immediately, I am quite certain there will always be bots.
Moreover, these gold seller have almost infinite financial resources to buy new accounts when banned with the stolen credit cards from their former clients (that's when they don't use hacked accounts from their former PL clients).

As for being the MMO with the highest number of bots: FF XIV had a lot of them and still has, EVE also has many of them, not to mention F2P MMOs where they abund.

Cut some slack to the devs, they are doing what they can to struggle against this plague.

Zorak

lol

So many white knights in denial on this forum.

Zorak

Silkesh wrote: »

Do you think it is easy to have GMs in all instances of the game areas existing simultaneously?

These instances are numerous (not as numerous as the bots I admit). Like Nerevarine said, the process is long and difficult to get rid of the bots. As they are smart and adapt to the devs counter-measures quite immediately, I am quite certain there will always be bots.
Moreover, these gold seller have almost infinite financial resources to buy new accounts when banned with the stolen credit cards from their former clients (that's when they don't use hacked accounts from their former PL clients).

As for being the MMO with the highest number of bots: FF XIV had a lot of them and still has, EVE also has many of them, not to mention F2P MMOs where they abund.

Cut some slack to the devs, they are doing what they can to struggle against this plague.

1- This game has far too many bots for a P2P MMO.

2- Are you quite certain that will always be bots ?? Hell yeah, like anyone that have played any game. And it gets worse on RPGs and even worse on MMOs.

3- Like I said many times, I'm not talking about bots that are hiding inside public dungeons or whatever, I'm talking about bots farming on crowded areas with the knowledge of many people for weeks and still not getting banned.

4- Do I think it's easy to get rid of the general bot problem ? NO.

But in this case ? YES IT IS.

And it is easy because it has nothing to do with coding or changing anything on the client. Just get some freaking GMs, to that already acknowledged place by many people, where you have dozens of bots farming together, on every phase.

Like I said before, I'm not a hater.

I like this game and I can spend $15 a month with a P2P MMO with no problem.
But I'm not gonna keep spending my money on a game where ridiculous things like that happen in plain sight for weeks and nothing is done.

Humor

Silkesh wrote: »

Do you think it is easy to have GMs in all instances of the game areas existing simultaneously?

Gee... The people who have programmed the bots have no problem being everywhere at once... Teleporting from node to node and what not.

Surely, the GM's, and dev's have no problem doing this... Right?

nerevarine1138

Humor wrote: »

Silkesh wrote: »

Do you think it is easy to have GMs in all instances of the game areas existing simultaneously?

Gee... The people who have programmed the bots have no problem being everywhere at once... Teleporting from node to node and what not.

Surely, the GM's, and dev's have no problem doing this... Right?

Please read the earlier post explaining how bots are actually dealt with. There is no magic wand, and the only people you should be blaming here are the players who buy gold. Without them, this whole ridiculous situation wouldn't exist.

Bhakura

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Please read the earlier post explaining how bots are actually dealt with. There is no magic wand, and the only people you should be blaming here are the players who buy gold. Without them, this whole ridiculous situation wouldn't exist.

I dont get how you still can defend this, yes it isnt gone by a snap of a finger, but theres no way you can make me believe it takes weeks to do something about it, its been out for a month+ and bots been parading all over the place since day one.
if those bots where hacking their game and play free, they wouldve been delt with instantly.
but they are income just like normal players and it takes ages to remove them, i find this a bit to much coincidental.

Zorak

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Humor wrote: »

Silkesh wrote: »

Do you think it is easy to have GMs in all instances of the game areas existing simultaneously?

Gee... The people who have programmed the bots have no problem being everywhere at once... Teleporting from node to node and what not.

Surely, the GM's, and dev's have no problem doing this... Right?

Please read the earlier post explaining how bots are actually dealt with. There is no magic wand, and the only people you should be blaming here are the players who buy gold. Without them, this whole ridiculous situation wouldn't exist.

There is no magic wand...BESIDES hard work. =D

Even more on a situation that has nothing to do with coding.

Xithian

He's right... they don't ban these guys one by one. They do it in waves. Banning them one at a time would be the equivalent of trying to get rid of an ant infestation by killing ants one by one.

Bans come in waves for exploits, bots, and goldsellers. It's not because the game companies are lazy. It's because they're not stupid. They do this for a living. As stated above, first they observe until they have enough data to reliably catch a high percentage of cheaters/exploiters/botters in one swoop. If you do it in small groups then people get wise to how they're being found out and adjust.

Zorak

Bhakura wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Please read the earlier post explaining how bots are actually dealt with. There is no magic wand, and the only people you should be blaming here are the players who buy gold. Without them, this whole ridiculous situation wouldn't exist.

I dont get how you still can defend this, yes it isnt gone by a snap of a finger, but theres no way you can make me believe it takes weeks to do something about it, its been out for a month+ and bots been parading all over the place since day one.
if those bots where hacking their game and play free, they wouldve been delt with instantly.
but they are income just like normal players and it takes ages to remove them, i find this a bit to much coincidental.

EXACTLY.

And I really can't understand that position too.

As I said, there are some types of bots that do take some time, they are hidding inside dungeons, underground or using latency tricks to teleport so its alot harder to report and/or catch them.

But those bots that I'm talking about it's BS. You CAN and you SHOULD ban them one by one. It isn't a matter of coding or collecting data.

It's just go outside the town, see lots of bots running together, on every phase, and start picking them. It IS really that easy (hard work, but easy work) because those bots aren't even trying to hide or whatever. They aren't using any tricks that you might want to wait and learn from them, they aren't doing in a way you need to collect data to catch them, it's just too visible and "in your face" that should be banned one by one.

Getting rid of bots is a constant and hard work. But you need good programmers and active GMs.

I don't know about the programmers but we don't have good and active GMs on this game. Which is very sad.

nerevarine1138

Xithian wrote: »

He's right... they don't ban these guys one by one. They do it in waves. Banning them one at a time would be the equivalent of trying to get rid of an ant infestation by killing ants one by one.

Bans come in waves for exploits, bots, and goldsellers. It's not because the game companies are lazy. It's because they're not stupid. They do this for a living. As stated above, first they observe until they have enough data to reliably catch a high percentage of cheaters/exploiters/botters in one swoop. If you do it in small groups then people get wise to how they're being found out and adjust.

This. How have you guys not learned this by now?

WoW (I know, we're all tired of hearing that name) has been out for 10 years. They still haven't eliminated the gold-sellers and bots in their game. And as recently as a year ago, the forums would be flooded with people saying that Blizzard never took action, despite hundreds of banwaves and added security features. If you aren't going to bother actually understanding how the system works, then don't get upset when "fanboys" present actual facts.

Zorak

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Xithian wrote: »

He's right... they don't ban these guys one by one. They do it in waves. Banning them one at a time would be the equivalent of trying to get rid of an ant infestation by killing ants one by one.

Bans come in waves for exploits, bots, and goldsellers. It's not because the game companies are lazy. It's because they're not stupid. They do this for a living. As stated above, first they observe until they have enough data to reliably catch a high percentage of cheaters/exploiters/botters in one swoop. If you do it in small groups then people get wise to how they're being found out and adjust.

This. How have you guys not learned this by now?

WoW (I know, we're all tired of hearing that name) has been out for 10 years. They still haven't eliminated the gold-sellers and bots in their game. And as recently as a year ago, the forums would be flooded with people saying that Blizzard never took action, despite hundreds of banwaves and added security features. If you aren't going to bother actually understanding how the system works, then don't get upset when "fanboys" present actual facts.

Because it isn't actual facts.

It's just "fanboysm".

I've never said anything about ELIMINATE bots, because everyone knows by now that's impossible.

But don't you think active GMs help with those blatant ones ? Don't you ??

Do you really think we have active GMs ?

I don't think we have it. I did, but not anymore.


Gonna quote myself here:

"As I said, there are some types of bots that do take some time, they are hidding inside dungeons, underground or using latency tricks to teleport so its alot harder to report and/or catch them.

But those bots that I'm talking about it's BS. You CAN and you SHOULD ban them one by one. It isn't a matter of coding or collecting data.

It's just go outside the town, see lots of bots running together, on every phase, and start picking them. It IS really that easy (hard work, but easy work) because those bots aren't even trying to hide or whatever. They aren't using any tricks that you might want to wait and learn from them, they aren't doing in a way you need to collect data to catch them, it's just too visible and "in your face" that should be banned one by one.

Getting rid of bots is a constant and hard work. But you need good programmers and active GMs.

I don't know about the programmers but we don't have good and active GMs on this game. Which is very sad."

Yankee

This fanboy thinks perhaps they should find a way to do a ban wave pretty soon.

nerevarine1138

GMs will not act against "blatant" bots until the bot has been broken. This isn't "white-knighting", it's not "fanboyism". Get over yourself.

Zorak

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

GMs will not act against "blatant" bots until the bot has been broken. This isn't "white-knighting", it's not "fanboyism". Get over yourself.

I know that.

In THIS game they don't act against even "blatant" bots.

Which is sad.

Zorak

Yankee wrote: »

This fanboy thinks perhaps they should find a way to do a ban wave pretty soon.

+1

Zorak

And keep in mind there are several other places with this lots of bots running, like Coldharbor.

I've only visited EB first map, which is my faction, but I bet the other factions have this issue too or even worse, like AD.

Bhakura

Seems to me they not acting at all, or very very very very slowly, because, well it takes time right? Weeks and weeks and weeks. Strange!
Having a sub for three months running, maybe i am completely wrong about it. So if bots arent gone by last month, i aint gonna renew the sub, till then i can give them the benefit of the doubt.
Its that simple, shame really enjoy the game alot, but getting spammed to death or not able to make a new toon because if i do ill have to compete with hordes of bots to get anything done, and that isnt my cup of tea, as fun as the game may be, theres other fun games with less annoying stuff like this.

3 months should be enough right, and they already got one passed.

Blackwolfe5

Other than tightening security and closing any other loopholes the bots are using (to prevent tp/flying/underground bots or instaspawning nodes), active GMs are the most important thing when it comes to getting rid of bots.

Xithian

In this thread - people think they know how to handle bots better than gaming companies that have been doing it for a decade, and then call "fanboy" despite the fact that the examples cited come from games that have nothing to do with ESO.

I'm not a fanboy. I'm a former computer programmer that's been playing MMOs for 13 years.

Xithian

Blackwolfe5 wrote: »

Other than tightening security and closing any other loopholes the bots are using (to prevent tp/flying/underground bots or instaspawning nodes), active GMs are the most important thing when it comes to getting rid of bots.

There are threads on the forums of GMs going after bots. There are also people in those same threads whining that the GMs are horribly ineffective at it due to the number of bots vs one at a time action.

People will complain about anything.

Yankee

Part of writing any program involves testing to try to see how users will break it. While one will probably not be able think of and test all possibilities in a very complex program, the effort must be made.

Some bean counter must have limited the resources available for testing how bots could break into this game.

As has been pointed out many times, "all MMO's have to deal with bots". Zenimax knew they were coming and it seems to me they were unprepared.

I really am rooting for them, but the clock is ticking.

Zorak

Xithian wrote: »

In this thread - people think they know how to handle bots better than gaming companies that have been doing it for a decade, and then call "fanboy" despite the fact that the examples cited come from games that have nothing to do with ESO.

I'm not a fanboy. I'm a former computer programmer that's been playing MMOs for 13 years.

Good to know your a fellow former programmer.

Because I am a former computer programmer that's been playing MMOs for more than a decade too. =D

I know how bots work and the difficulties of dealing with them, and I know it's impossible to completely eliminate them. I know about ban waves and how they work. I know you should learn from bots and adapt your program.

But you should know that indeed the best way to counter this rampant botfest is with active GMs.

And I personally find VERY game breaking when you have "to compete with hordes of bots to get anything done" if you want to level a new character. Like Bhakura said.

I completely agree with Blackwolfe5:

"active GMs are the most important thing when it comes to getting rid of bots."

Zorak

Xithian wrote: »

Blackwolfe5 wrote: »

Other than tightening security and closing any other loopholes the bots are using (to prevent tp/flying/underground bots or instaspawning nodes), active GMs are the most important thing when it comes to getting rid of bots.

There are threads on the forums of GMs going after bots. There are also people in those same threads whining that the GMs are horribly ineffective at it due to the number of bots vs one at a time action.

People will complain about anything.

But still there is alot of bots farming public dungeon bosses, running underground collecting nodes...there will always be bots, but now it got even worse because there is even dozens bots farming in plain sight.

I saw those threads and I even saw a GM myself (once).

But after witnessing all this bots yesterday, the last thing I would call those GMs is active.

Xithian

Your recurring theme is "in plain sight". Honestly it seems as if your main gripe is just that you have to look at them. You don't seem as concerned about the effects of bots on the game as a whole, only that they are on your screen affecting you.

So, rather than continue the long-term strategy of removing the most offenders possible you suggest that ZoS should divert resources towards swatting at flies now, even if it is just GMs doing one at a time. Then when it's pointed out that they are doing this (as ineffective as it is) you suggest that they should simply divert more resources into this clearly ineffective method.

Your reasoning is not founded on logic. It is based on an emotional response of outrage at seeing bots openly and blatantly operate in your questing area. Let them do their job and take care of the big picture.

Zorak

Xithian wrote: »

Your recurring theme is "in plain sight". Honestly it seems as if your main gripe is just that you have to look at them. You don't seem as concerned about the effects of bots on the game as a whole, only that they are on your screen affecting you.

So, rather than continue the long-term strategy of removing the most offenders possible you suggest that ZoS should divert resources towards swatting at flies now, even if it is just GMs doing one at a time. Then when it's pointed out that they are doing this (as ineffective as it is) you suggest that they should simply divert more resources into this clearly ineffective method.

Your reasoning is not founded on logic. It is based on an emotional response of outrage at seeing bots openly and blatantly operate in your questing area. Let them do their job and take care of the big picture.

I won't put effort in answering you because your response isn't founded on logic, It's clearly based on your emotions.

The sad thing is that you don't want to be called fanboy. =(

Xithian

Zorak wrote: »

The sad thing is that you don't want to be called fanboy. =(

The sad thing is that you think that calling someone that somehow invalidates their statements, without providing any actual counterpoint.