BOTS: What is the official policy?

nerevarine1138

tanthil wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Jim_McMasterub17_ESO wrote: »

I'll tell you what they aren't doing..

Banning accounts.

They've already had banwaves, and they will have more. It won't stop gold-sellers from stealing accounts or credit cards. Feel free to complain to the FBI.

Every t

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

tanthil wrote: »

I hope all the botters on that site that see the ad and want to come ruin ESO, do some research on how google ads works before they come.

no wait.

How stupid does that sound?

It sounds pretty darn stupid, because you still apparently don't understand how Google ads work.

If Google tracks me visiting the ESO site a lot, then every site with Google banner ads will tend to show ESO ads. If I visit Blizzard sites a lot, it will show D3, etc. Have you ever noticed that your favorite sites tend to show ads for your other favorite stuff?

Is that how it works? is that why any other section of the site i go to i get ads for some kind of online fax machine, and when i step in to a eso section i get eso ads?

Is that because i split my time an eso site and a fax machine site?

also just tried on a computer that has never played eso/been on their forums. same thing

Because Google ads (and I know it's hard to believe that the programmers at one of the best tech companies in the country could be smart enough to figure this out) also looks at the site when determining which ads to show.

I mean, really. How do you get this far on the internet without noticing these things? Google banner ads are not, never have been, and never will be specifically placed by the companies who buy them. They pay Google to place the ads based on their own marketing tools.

Alpha_Protocol

tanthil wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

tanthil wrote: »

I hope all the botters on that site that see the ad and want to come ruin ESO, do some research on how google ads works before they come.

no wait.

How stupid does that sound?

It sounds pretty darn stupid, because you still apparently don't understand how Google ads work.

If Google tracks me visiting the ESO site a lot, then every site with Google banner ads will tend to show ESO ads. If I visit Blizzard sites a lot, it will show D3, etc. Have you ever noticed that your favorite sites tend to show ads for your other favorite stuff?

Is that how it works? is that why any other section of the site i go to i get ads for some kind of online fax machine, and when i step in to a eso section i get eso ads?

Is that because i split my time an eso site and a fax machine site?

also just tried on a computer that has never played eso/been on their forums. same thing

Google bots know what content is on the page and place appropriate ads... you really are slow.

tanthil

All these fun facts you have about google ads.

Fact of the matter is, game is being advertised on a bot haven

AlexDougherty

JungleBoot wrote: »

BASIC
10 CLS
20 HOME
30 FOR X = 1 TO 10
40 PRINT "HELLO WORLD."
50 LOOP
60 END

I have no clue what I just did. Would you be so kind as to explain it to me?

Oh yeah, that isn't complex enough.

maybe I should pull out my assembly language text book. But, that is a bit archaic. hmmmmm

Ok, I never said you were a non-programmer.
I said I was, and the "we" I used was non-programmers (including me).

Doskias

tanthil wrote: »

All these fun facts you have about google ads.

Fact of the matter is, game is being advertised on a bot haven

Well of course they are goober. The gold seller websites are trying to sell you the game they are selling money for. If you don't have the game then you aren't buying gold for them. Even if it is placed, it isn't going to be Zenimax that is doing it. Anyone can make a banner for their site to lead to another site. This is all assuming it isn't Google Ads.

Getorix

tanthil wrote: »

All these fun facts you have about google ads.

Fact of the matter is, game is being advertised on a bot haven

Theres a difference, (at least to me) between Zennimax buying add space on a bot site and googles spyware putting up a zennimax add on any site you visit and one of those happens to be a bot site.

Khandi

@Getorix‌

Exactly! Have you ever gone online to look for those pretty little high heeled sandals that would look oh-so cute with a mini skirt and halter???

Then BAM!! every web page you visit has ads for sandals??? YAY for google bot ads >.<

javaman123

For the dungeon boss bots, my suggestion is to allow characters to either:
a. kill a boss OR
b. Loot a boss
once per day or once per lifetime.
While leveling, I have no desire to go back to a dungeon that I have completed.

Naguur86

'Let's "Hello World" Zenimax to the ground!
Do
Debug.Print "Hello World"
Loop While bots > 0
'They asked for it!

On a more serious note: How did this thread became a discussion about how google ads works? I either get real boring or real disturbing stuff on these ads. What does that mean?

Lodestar

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

JungleBoot wrote: »

Xilc wrote: »

In fact, you're more than welcome to help them if you're so mad at their "lack of effort to do anything". Go learn how to program an MMO from the ground up and combat botters, and tell me just how easy it is to do something about it.

This is the typical response individuals provide to non-programmers. Why? Because, I can't compete with it. It's true. But, it lacks any real thought. It's a cop out. It is also a deflection tactic. Let's place the responsibility on the individual speaking out to remove it from those who do have the skill set to do something.

You did see where I stated hire more employees for the sole purpose of banning active bots? You did see that, right? Are you going to ignore it? Because that requires no programming skills whatsoever to accomplish? A little side-by-side training and any high school kid can do it.

It doesn't lack real thought; it simply exposes the massive flaws in your argument. You admit to having no idea how these systems work, yet you seem to think your opinion should carry some weight.

And throwing money at the problem has never worked. Breaking a bot takes a long time, and there is absolutely no point in banning until the bots are broken, because they'll come right back. And you would think that after over a decade of this, players would have learned that the community bears the responsibility for this behavior, not the developers.

He and I are paying customers. Our opinion therefore does carry weight. This is the core argument people on here telling others to shut up, seem to miss frequently.

Who is going to be maintaining this game should this exodus of players continue? Where are the sub fees going to come from? You may be pleased to never see their posts again on your forums. But your game company will miss their income. And that WILL impact you.

Not saying our opinions are more valid mind. You however seem to think yours is, but as another fellow customer your same as any of the rest of us. And the poster you quoted had a point, "go learn MMO programming yourself" is a cop out. Your not explaining anything. No information to back it or anything.

And yet there is a post by some programmer who says, something can and should have been done. I would be interested in what you have to say to them.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/comment/852197/#Comment_852197

nerevarine1138

Lodestar wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

JungleBoot wrote: »

Xilc wrote: »

In fact, you're more than welcome to help them if you're so mad at their "lack of effort to do anything". Go learn how to program an MMO from the ground up and combat botters, and tell me just how easy it is to do something about it.

This is the typical response individuals provide to non-programmers. Why? Because, I can't compete with it. It's true. But, it lacks any real thought. It's a cop out. It is also a deflection tactic. Let's place the responsibility on the individual speaking out to remove it from those who do have the skill set to do something.

You did see where I stated hire more employees for the sole purpose of banning active bots? You did see that, right? Are you going to ignore it? Because that requires no programming skills whatsoever to accomplish? A little side-by-side training and any high school kid can do it.

It doesn't lack real thought; it simply exposes the massive flaws in your argument. You admit to having no idea how these systems work, yet you seem to think your opinion should carry some weight.

And throwing money at the problem has never worked. Breaking a bot takes a long time, and there is absolutely no point in banning until the bots are broken, because they'll come right back. And you would think that after over a decade of this, players would have learned that the community bears the responsibility for this behavior, not the developers.

He and I are paying customers. Our opinion therefore does carry weight. This is the core argument people on here telling others to shut up, seem to miss frequently.

Who is going to be maintaining this game should this exodus of players continue? Where are the sub fees going to come from? You may be pleased to never see their posts again on your forums. But your game company will miss their income. And that WILL impact you.

Not saying our opinions are more valid mind. You however seem to think yours is, but as another fellow customer your same as any of the rest of us. And the poster you quoted had a point, "go learn MMO programming yourself" is a cop out. Your not explaining anything. No information to back it or anything.

And yet there is a post by some programmer who says, something can and should have been done. I would be interested in what you have to say to them.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/comment/852197/#Comment_852197

The customer is not always right. Generally speaking, the customer knows very little about your product, so they're usually wrong.

Your argument is absolutely less valid if you don't understand the core principles of the issue at hand.

Thorntongue

Xilc wrote: »

Dita wrote: »

Xilc wrote: »

Botters - We are continuing to improve our process and security behind-the-scenes for combating botters in-game. This is an ongoing work in progress that we are fully dedicated to. Please keep in mind that we cannot go into detail on the various actions we’re taking to combat botting, as doing so could put our game and security at risk.

If you cant farm some materials becouse of bots, than work on another craft until you find a place safe of bots to farm what you want.

TL:DR One old demented circus monkey, smashing a keyboard and eventually will come up with solution to bot problem.

There's also this wonderful invention everyone can use if they can't stand a "horrible" game.... I think they call it outside? Not sure these days

I just bought a new fan, and it's a real good one boy. It even has an alert in case the temp drops below a set temperature.

Some people will defend a turd to death. I really think that the bot issue is too much for these people to handle. When/if they fix it I will be happy but I don't see much improvement incoming.

Lodestar

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

The customer is not always right. Generally speaking, the customer knows very little about your product, so they're usually wrong.

Your argument is absolutely less valid if you don't understand the core principles of the issue at hand. [/quote]

You still have not responded to the information in one of the posts on the link.

Knottypine

Aldrorius wrote: »

From the know issues thread:

Botters - We are continuing to improve our process and security behind-the-scenes for combating botters in-game. This is an ongoing work in progress that we are fully dedicated to. Please keep in mind that we cannot go into detail on the various actions we’re taking to combat botting, as doing so could put our game and security at risk.

If you cant farm some materials because of bots, than work on another craft until you find a place safe of bots to farm what you want.

I honestly do not see how their process has improved. I still receive bot mail in-game daily... and there are still bots swarming dungeons... etc. Sure there are things happening behind the scenes, but from a player perspective, the only thing that I have noticed is legitimate players being penalized since bots come up with new methods the moment one is secure.

And the part I've put in bold, honestly I think that is unacceptable. IMHO. Yes, go play somewhere else where the bots are not diminishing the game experience.

JungleBoot

Aldrorius wrote: »

From the know issues thread:

Botters - We are continuing to improve our process and security behind-the-scenes for combating botters in-game. This is an ongoing work in progress that we are fully dedicated to. Please keep in mind that we cannot go into detail on the various actions we’re taking to combat botting, as doing so could put our game and security at risk.

If you cant farm some materials because of bots, than work on another craft until you find a place safe of bots to farm what you want.

The statement in bold demonstrates a lack of understanding. Why? How? A bot is a program. Programs can run indefinitely as long as a termination condition has not been met or a fault is not encountered. Even then, a program may run forever depending how a fault is handled.

You're answer demonstrates your thought process from a human stand point and assumes there are other areas in the game where bots are not active. Even if you have two or three bots operating in an area, they disrupt the flow of resources to legitimate players. How? For every reason players are up in arms over the issue. Just look over what people are saying in the forums.

About farming for resources and crafting
===============================
1. The only reason I do it is because the best gear is crafted.
2. To obtain that gear, you must farm resources.

Remove those two requirements and deny gold sellers their market, then resource farming bots may disappear. This does not address the bot software used to level characters.

TigerBeard

Recently there were swarms of bots in Windhelm. They'd create a character, have it go to the Windhelm wayshrine, and from there do a quest for Thane Mera. Collect gold. Send gold on, destroy character. Rinse and repeat.

The simple solution? All the characters were level 2-3. In a non-beginner zone like Windhelm, any character below lvl 6 should be vulnerable to PvP. Just watch our hunter-killer groups take out the bots... let the (human) players have tools to combat the bot problem.

Low level character repeatedly stealing the jute? Kill it, and take the jute. This should not apply in the beginner levels, but who farms there anyway? Zenimax employees only then need to watch the beginner zones for low-level characters stealing resources, and bot check them.

nerevarine1138

Lodestar wrote: »

You still have not responded to the information in one of the posts on the link.

The information about the API? Was that news to you?

Everyone is aware of how bots work (or if you aren't, you shouldn't be commenting in the first place). It's up to the developer to figure out how to fix vulnerabilities in the API without interfering with add-ons. Now, I'd be perfectly fine with add-ons being completely eliminated, but since I seem to be in the minority, I'm happy to wait for ZO to figure out how to boondoggle the code into doing what they want.

Lodestar

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Lodestar wrote: »

You still have not responded to the information in one of the posts on the link.

The information about the API? Was that news to you?

Everyone is aware of how bots work (or if you aren't, you shouldn't be commenting in the first place). It's up to the developer to figure out how to fix vulnerabilities in the API without interfering with add-ons. Now, I'd be perfectly fine with add-ons being completely eliminated, but since I seem to be in the minority, I'm happy to wait for ZO to figure out how to boondoggle the code into doing what they want.

quote="DrywFiltiarn;851674"]

Archaon wrote: »

Speedhacks, teleporthacks, flyhacks and such are the same for everymmorpg the last 12 years. Memory injection.

And yet most of them are so easily preventable.

Speedhacks, you know how fast a player can move and which buffs possibly allow faster movement and such, do a delta check on movement over time and you can easily detect serverside, something is off with a players movement (and thus a hack is going on). This detection is impossible to manipulate for the client. Obviously it will require a bit of logic to prevent wayshrine teleports and such from becoming false positives, but you know if someone used a teleport or not, so you can ignore an unexpected value on a delta on that.
Movement on a client will continually be send back to the server (as the server will need to provide that information back to other clients and such), so it's in theory very easy to detect speedhacks and reset players position and then kick them from server.

Teleporthacks, same as above, as far as I know the teleports are beyond regular portal/wayshrine teleporting and thus detectable as invalid movement, as movement speed X over time T calculates to an out of range value for regular (valid) play. Yes you can manipulate the client to allow for this through whatever hack you want, yet the client will report the movement data back to the server, where botters have no control over and thus can be checked.

Flyhacks, basicly it's not a fly-hack, but rather a no-clip hack, which allows players not to just move through the air, but also through the ground and through walls and such. This also is detectable in a lot of cases, but in some cases can't be detected. Movement through walls is hard to detect serverside, although this will depend on what movement data is send back to the server and how often. If the updates back to server are often enough and include information of usage of doors and such (if any present), you could in theory detect if a player moved out of a building using the door or went through a wall. problem is there's many buildings without a door, so this can't be consistently detected.
A lot of no-clipping can be detected though, simply by checking if the XYZ coordinates a client communicates back to the server match up with the map. If those values are off (especially on the Z axis, which controls height) this may/will mean the player is either flying through the air or under ground. This can be hard to manage properly, because this will require some overhead room for areas where you can jump off cliffs for instance, which may temporarily give you invalid XYZ readings if you strictly follow the terrain, although this can be solved by applying a grace-time for instance, where you will allow a player to be for a period of T seconds out of valid coordinates, before intervention takes place. This will prevent players that jump off mountains for instance to be falsely detected, but will catch bots that are underground for a long while harvesting nodes.

Anyway, the story above is a long one, but based upon personal experience of client-server solutions, as I'm a software developer myself. From what I see, going on with the memory-hacks that allow things like no-clipping, this is a failure at server-side to properly sanitize and check data received from clients and detect and flag suspicious behavior. A lot of the things bots are currently doing can be solved with proper server-side validation of received data and kicking the user off the server in case of irregularities. My assumption is that the game is currently relying too much on the client sending back valid information to the server, while there are too many factors that can influence this data and manipulate it. Not just memory-hacks are an option like currently is happening, but I think it's a matter of time before the next issue will arise, namely the manipulation of the network traffic to manipulate movement and possibly even other options that I don't even want to mention here (I don't want to give people ideas).

As a comparison, I've played WoW for a long time as well, and somewhere around a year ago, they too suffered a lot from (regular players, not bots) walking underground, due to errors in collision-detection, that would allow them to pop out of the map without falling infinitely. Blizzard has solved this by auto-kicking the player back to login screen, when they detected this on their servers. Ever since most of the players doing this (although it basicly was harmless as you couldn't do anything anyway underground as you could only do it in cities) stopped doing this as you will have a hard time getting back in, because you will respawn underground again after login and thus be kicked again within 10 seconds or so. This means you will have to heartstone very quickly to prevent being auto-kicked again to move back into the map.
[/quote]

THIS POST.

Even if I was commenting on API. Even if it is news to me your wording and tone is uncalled for. Not everyone does know,and since you don't know what others know you should not be commenting on that going by your own logic.

nerevarine1138

Lodestar wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Lodestar wrote: »

You still have not responded to the information in one of the posts on the link.

The information about the API? Was that news to you?

Everyone is aware of how bots work (or if you aren't, you shouldn't be commenting in the first place). It's up to the developer to figure out how to fix vulnerabilities in the API without interfering with add-ons. Now, I'd be perfectly fine with add-ons being completely eliminated, but since I seem to be in the minority, I'm happy to wait for ZO to figure out how to boondoggle the code into doing what they want.

quote="DrywFiltiarn;851674"]

Archaon wrote: »

Speedhacks, teleporthacks, flyhacks and such are the same for everymmorpg the last 12 years. Memory injection.

And yet most of them are so easily preventable.

Speedhacks, you know how fast a player can move and which buffs possibly allow faster movement and such, do a delta check on movement over time and you can easily detect serverside, something is off with a players movement (and thus a hack is going on). This detection is impossible to manipulate for the client. Obviously it will require a bit of logic to prevent wayshrine teleports and such from becoming false positives, but you know if someone used a teleport or not, so you can ignore an unexpected value on a delta on that.
Movement on a client will continually be send back to the server (as the server will need to provide that information back to other clients and such), so it's in theory very easy to detect speedhacks and reset players position and then kick them from server.

Teleporthacks, same as above, as far as I know the teleports are beyond regular portal/wayshrine teleporting and thus detectable as invalid movement, as movement speed X over time T calculates to an out of range value for regular (valid) play. Yes you can manipulate the client to allow for this through whatever hack you want, yet the client will report the movement data back to the server, where botters have no control over and thus can be checked.

Flyhacks, basicly it's not a fly-hack, but rather a no-clip hack, which allows players not to just move through the air, but also through the ground and through walls and such. This also is detectable in a lot of cases, but in some cases can't be detected. Movement through walls is hard to detect serverside, although this will depend on what movement data is send back to the server and how often. If the updates back to server are often enough and include information of usage of doors and such (if any present), you could in theory detect if a player moved out of a building using the door or went through a wall. problem is there's many buildings without a door, so this can't be consistently detected.
A lot of no-clipping can be detected though, simply by checking if the XYZ coordinates a client communicates back to the server match up with the map. If those values are off (especially on the Z axis, which controls height) this may/will mean the player is either flying through the air or under ground. This can be hard to manage properly, because this will require some overhead room for areas where you can jump off cliffs for instance, which may temporarily give you invalid XYZ readings if you strictly follow the terrain, although this can be solved by applying a grace-time for instance, where you will allow a player to be for a period of T seconds out of valid coordinates, before intervention takes place. This will prevent players that jump off mountains for instance to be falsely detected, but will catch bots that are underground for a long while harvesting nodes.

Anyway, the story above is a long one, but based upon personal experience of client-server solutions, as I'm a software developer myself. From what I see, going on with the memory-hacks that allow things like no-clipping, this is a failure at server-side to properly sanitize and check data received from clients and detect and flag suspicious behavior. A lot of the things bots are currently doing can be solved with proper server-side validation of received data and kicking the user off the server in case of irregularities. My assumption is that the game is currently relying too much on the client sending back valid information to the server, while there are too many factors that can influence this data and manipulate it. Not just memory-hacks are an option like currently is happening, but I think it's a matter of time before the next issue will arise, namely the manipulation of the network traffic to manipulate movement and possibly even other options that I don't even want to mention here (I don't want to give people ideas).

As a comparison, I've played WoW for a long time as well, and somewhere around a year ago, they too suffered a lot from (regular players, not bots) walking underground, due to errors in collision-detection, that would allow them to pop out of the map without falling infinitely. Blizzard has solved this by auto-kicking the player back to login screen, when they detected this on their servers. Ever since most of the players doing this (although it basicly was harmless as you couldn't do anything anyway underground as you could only do it in cities) stopped doing this as you will have a hard time getting back in, because you will respawn underground again after login and thus be kicked again within 10 seconds or so. This means you will have to heartstone very quickly to prevent being auto-kicked again to move back into the map.

THIS POST.

Even if I was commenting on API. Even if it is news to me your wording and tone is uncalled for. Not everyone does know,and since you don't know what others know you should not be commenting on that going by your own logic.

I'm aware of these different kinds of hacks, and I find it more than a little ironic that you mention how WoW is still having issues with these 10 years in. The developers will always be working on a better mousetrap, and bot programmers will always be working their mice out at the gym so that they can avoid getting their heads chopped off.

My tone comes from years of dealing with this attitude in a variety of different games: the entitled stance that says players are somehow not responsible for botting, but that developers have magic buttons they can press to disable it. It's born entirely out of laziness and ignorance. A simple Google search can show you how bots work and how bot-prevention is not something that can be done with the flip of a switch.

Even some of the cannier players in this game have said that their main issue is that they can see these bots. It's not that the problem is any worse than other games, but because it's visible, suddenly people think it's a bigger deal. It's a problem of perception, not a problem with the approach the developers are taking to eliminate bots.

GreySix

Jim_McMasterub17_ESO wrote: »

I'll tell you what they aren't doing..

Banning accounts fast enough to supplant the multiple botter accounts that are opened the very instant they ban the identified botter accounts.

Altered for accuracy.

JungleBoot

Even some of the cannier players in this game have said that their main issue is that they can see these bots. It's not that the problem is any worse than other games, but because it's visible, suddenly people think it's a bigger deal. It's a problem of perception, not a problem with the approach the developers are taking to eliminate bots.

My main issue has nothing to do with seeing the bots. I would still suffer from their presence if I couldn't see them. Trash mobs would appear to fall during combat for no reason. Resources would disappear moments before I reach them. Wait a minute -- that one already happens. I am going to state something that will have some think I am going against my original complaint. So I will restate my real problem again.

Problem: I can't compete with all of the bots that are basically able to collect resources far faster than I can due to the various hacks. For every 1 ore node I collect, a bot using the various hacks may collect 3 or 4 ore nodes. That may seem like a small difference on the face of it. But when you take a look at it over time, the difference in amounts I can collect versus a bot is much larger.

So, here is the contradictory statement. I don't mind the use of bots that operate the same way as every other player. I would love to set up a route for a bot to follow and collect only the resources I want for the day while I do other things -- minus the speed boosts, minus the z-axis hacks, minus the teleporting, or movement under the terrain to avoid obstacles. Why? Farming sucks and is a left-over mundane task from the early days of MMOs and is not required. Farming and grinding are nothing more than time sinks designed to slow the player down and hopefully keep the player subscribed for that extra month or so until that player feels they have completed the game. Only die-hards will be present month in and month out for years paying. The rest of us will come in and out of that revolving door like people visiting their local superstore. When there is something new we may or may not come back to take a look. Your core customer is not the die-hards. Your core customer are the ones passing through that revolving door. Therefore, content is more important than stupid trivial outdated activities like farming and grinding. Content is what will keep people around. Content is what will pull them back. So, I have no problem with the use of bots to perform tasks that automate the collection of nodes so long as everyone can do it and it is the same bot. And yes, that would create a problem too as resources would probably be non-existent in the game. So, the next best thing to do is HAVE VENDORS SELL ALL RESOURCES. Wow, that there is some new thinking. Do away with farming and reward players with a decent amount of in-game currency so that they can purchase the materials they need for crafting.

Farming does not add a level of difficulty to a game. It adds a level of nuisance to a game. I feel the same way about any game that includes the activity as a way to progress and obtain better gear, weapons, etc. So, it annoys me that it appears in games like Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, the Elder Scolls franchise, Lord of the Rings Online, Neverwinter Online, etc. Until the player base is willing to change their stance on activities like farming and grinding, it's gonna be there. But one glorious day, it will be gone. I will probably be dead and buried when it happens. But, you will cheer, dance, and drink over my grave in celebration that I am gone.

Jedi467

Hmm, this is the thread about the speed/teleport hacking bots vacuuming up all the resources, yet it's already becomming unrecognizable by the second page, impressive.

Anyways, the big problem is that the resources of the game are controlled by the botters/gold sellers now, which means that crafting is at the mercy of the gold sellers.

Some of you may have noticed that as you advance in the game crafting become a bit more important as the enemies get harder to kill, requiring better gear/enchants/potions/food to be effective. I guarantee the gold sellers have noticed, that's why they are focused on dominating the crafting resource market right now.

Trouble is, for players like me who refuse to contribute to gold seller employees salary, this renders the game progressively more unplayable since everything under the crafting section is now behind a third party paywall except for provisioning. for a new character it's much more evident since you cannot even craft a single piece of gear due to the lack of materials.

Patience actually makes the situation worse since that either gives the gold sellers more revenue as players cave in to keep playing, gives Zenimaz less revenue as players move to other games, or both.

What's frustrating is that the solution already exists in the game, provisioning is the example. Provisioning materials are provided in a character specific fashion with the crates and barrel looting mechanics, thus gold sellers cannot interfere with it. Anyone see any advertising for food materials in that spam? Had the other materials been implemented in this way, character specific instead of world specific, the gold sellers would have no leg to stand on right now, they would have nothing we could not get ourselves.

nerevarine1138

Jedi467 wrote: »

Hmm, this is the thread about the speed/teleport hacking bots vacuuming up all the resources, yet it's already becomming unrecognizable by the second page, impressive.

Anyways, the big problem is that the resources of the game are controlled by the botters/gold sellers now, which means that crafting is at the mercy of the gold sellers.

Some of you may have noticed that as you advance in the game crafting become a bit more important as the enemies get harder to kill, requiring better gear/enchants/potions/food to be effective. I guarantee the gold sellers have noticed, that's why they are focused on dominating the crafting resource market right now.

Trouble is, for players like me who refuse to contribute to gold seller employees salary, this renders the game progressively more unplayable since everything under the crafting section is now behind a third party paywall except for provisioning. for a new character it's much more evident since you cannot even craft a single piece of gear due to the lack of materials.

Patience actually makes the situation worse since that either gives the gold sellers more revenue as players cave in to keep playing, gives Zenimaz less revenue as players move to other games, or both.

What's frustrating is that the solution already exists in the game, provisioning is the example. Provisioning materials are provided in a character specific fashion with the crates and barrel looting mechanics, thus gold sellers cannot interfere with it. Anyone see any advertising for food materials in that spam? Had the other materials been implemented in this way, character specific instead of world specific, the gold sellers would have no leg to stand on right now, they would have nothing we could not get ourselves.

I have managed to craft a new set of gear every single VR level. My Blacksmith, Clothier, Provisioning and Alchemy skill lines are all maxed out. The only reason my Enchanting line isn't at 50 is that I dropped Provisioning for Enchanting at VR4.

Are bots creating a problem farming mats (usually at the lower levels)? Sure. I don't see much of an issue on any of my characters, but I'll take your word for it. Crafting, however, is not like other games. You do not need to farm mats to be an effective crafter, and you certainly don't level crafting through farming/refinement.

JungleBoot

I do like the above idea. I would be completely okay with that.

Lodestar

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I'm aware of these different kinds of hacks, and I find it more than a little ironic that you mention how WoW is still having issues with these 10 years in. The developers will always be working on a better mousetrap, and bot programmers will always be working their mice out at the gym so that they can avoid getting their heads chopped off.

My tone comes from years of dealing with this attitude in a variety of different games: the entitled stance that says players are somehow not responsible for botting, but that developers have magic buttons they can press to disable it. It's born entirely out of laziness and ignorance. A simple Google search can show you how bots work and how bot-prevention is not something that can be done with the flip of a switch.

Even some of the cannier players in this game have said that their main issue is that they can see these bots. It's not that the problem is any worse than other games, but because it's visible, suddenly people think it's a bigger deal. It's a problem of perception, not a problem with the approach the developers are taking to eliminate bots.

I never said anything about WoW. I had to copy paste this because you were so self absorbed trying to cut people down. This is not my post, take a look, it is quoted from someone else.

That is why I quoted the post. I linked the thread, you glanced at it to look for another weapon to knock someone down, you never bothered to check it.

Your not some special case who gets to be rude and obnoxious to someone else because they remind you of someone who was mean to you. Your still responsible for your own actions.

As you say it is about perceptions. You already know it is about a lack of knowledge. So why are you not posting said Google links on bots and explaining things, instead of launching into dramatic behaviour at anyone you don't like, telling them to shut up? Want to post some links and help educate people? By all means lets go there. I am all for it. You could post some of them, and explain them in laymans terms and answer questions.

IronMaiden_burnout

JungleBoot wrote: »

I can not compete with the number of bots running resource laps within Deshaan. Now that they can't just farm Jute all day long in Stonefalls, they simply stagger their bots and send them on a standard pre-defined resource collection path. The result is pretty much the same. The majority of resources are being collected by bots and not by players creating a deficit of materials and supporting a market where real cash is used to purchase "virtual" goods. So, what is the official policy?

If the official policy is to ignore and do nothing, here is what I want.
01. I want a speed boost and infinite stamina.
02. I do not want to be confined to the spaces above the terrain. I want to be able to travel beneath the terrain so I can ignore any and all obstacles and maybe beat a bot to resources
03. I want to be "authorized" to run "legitimate" bot software for the purpose of collecting resources since collecting resources is not playing the game but a time sink.

If I can't have that, hire your kids to sit in each zone and kick bots all day. Or I don't know, hire more employees with the job description to ban any and all accounts engaged in bot activity.

Yes, I'm pissed about something that will most likely never change. Why? Because the die-hard MMO gamers think professions and farming is a requirement for a game to be called an MMO. In case you are not paying attention, the current trend is to create persistent worlds for many players to interact with and form groups to complete common goals. That does not mean it is an MMO. They are expanding the concept of co-op play. I will applaud the first company that is brave enough to tell the MMO community to stuff it and do away with pointless activities like farming and grinding. It's not required.

Precisely the reason I sadly canceled my sub! Tired of reporting hundreds of bots since 5 hours into the game's headstart.
The only sign of anything has been a GM looging on for 15 mins only on a randon day about 4 times now. YAY! so they banned thousands they said but trust me when I say twice as many logged on 5 mins later!

Total re-write of the code is needed or at the very least a good cheat detection system to at least kill off 90% of them, since as it is now its so easy to cheat that you may as well serve it on a platter to online gold brokers.

steveb16_ESO46

We know how bots work. What we don't know is:

1. Why the game design makes it so easy to bot.
2. Why, given that bots are a well known and well understood threat, why there were none of the standard precautions taken. Why is it only now they're trying to fix a lock to the stable door.

I'm in the Archeage alpha and the most recent patch notes reference fixing an issue with the false positives from the movement hack detection system.

That's doing it properly. building and testing defenses during alpha and beta.

Jedi467

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

-snip-

I have managed to craft a new set of gear every single VR level. My Blacksmith, Clothier, Provisioning and Alchemy skill lines are all maxed out. The only reason my Enchanting line isn't at 50 is that I dropped Provisioning for Enchanting at VR4.

Are bots creating a problem farming mats (usually at the lower levels)? Sure. I don't see much of an issue on any of my characters, but I'll take your word for it. Crafting, however, is not like other games. You do not need to farm mats to be an effective crafter, and you certainly don't level crafting through farming/refinement.

Good to know the botters haven't leveled up to vr in significant numbers, but that is expected since it's behind the main quest line isn't it?

Yes the best way to level a craft is to deconstruct, but to deconstruct you need an item to being with, either constructed or farmed from mobs, and the best ways to get things to deconstruct is dungeon bosses, or constructing things on another character to deconstruct, and that requires materials of the same level. Both of these routes are dominated by bots below the VR levels at the moment, meaning that for the legit player the only option is to farm regular mobs and hope for a drop.

I don't think anyone expects bots to be completely purged, but they need to be dealt with in some way where they are not impeding people.

steveb16_ESO46

I don't care if I can bypass bots by not doing stuff. I don't play this game to be able to stroll unmolested through dungeons to the end boss. I don't do crafting just to camp bosses for items. I play it to enjoy all the features and possibilities.

What the bot invasion is doing is both forcing us to not play parts of the game and forcing ZMO to nerf other parts.

So no - the fact I can 'work around' things cuts no ice.

Ohioastro

A point of fact on crafting: unlike other games, it is absolutely not necessary to farm ingredients to skill up in crafting. You gain,. by far, the most IP from deconstructing dropped items. The actual amount of raw materials that you need to make things is actually very small - it depends on level somewhat, but you typically need ~6 items on average to make something; if you craft a complete armor set this is ~42 items per set. You don't need to do this often - perhaps once per few levels - and you don't need to do it for everything.

Yes, being conditioned about this from other games made me think that I needed to harvest a zillion thing to level up. ESO just doesn't work that way. You may be losing cash, and you may not be directly making as many things, but lack of access to raw materials is not the roadblock here that it is in many games.