Bots= gold sellers= malicious organizations that hack accounts and put viruses on your computer every chance they get. Defending this behavior speaks volumes. They infest and ruin games as well as represent the shady underworld of the Internet. I want no part of them in a game I play to get away from the ugly aspects of humanity.

If you think they are harmless, perhaps you can offer consolation to the mom that got her credit card info stolen from a key logger virus that was put on her PC when her 12 year old son went to a website he saw selling gold in zone chat.

Maybe bots and gold sellers are ok until it's YOUR account that gets hacked. I suspect all you bot defenders might be singing a different tune then.

TagaParti wrote: »

It is easy to detect if botting is rampant on any game.
Economy of the game tells much of it.
When we say economy of the game that means gold value.
Take a look at ESO gold values on gold seller sites,
golds are getting cheaper and cheaper.
Which means economy is getting too saturated.
How can this game become too saturated when it has
a very good gold sink system thru guild traders which sink
millions of gold a week. Also those respecs that can sink lots
of gold too. So when it is not a problem with the gold sink
systems, that means there are much more gold being farmed.
Gold sinks were designed to make the market stable, to keep
the value of gold at a certain point. But bots are here,
and they are smarter than ever. We might not see them,
or detect them, or ZoS might not catch them but we can see the
result of their actions, game's economy is slowly dying.
They are the killers MMO, ZoS must hunt them at all cost!

I'm no Economist, but isn't there (at least) two paramaters that effect prices of products and services in a free market? Supply and demand? The prices of in-game currency, on gold-seller sites, may be going down due to shrinking demand, rather than increased supply. (Or a combination of both, of course.)
I agree that bots and hacks are game killers and should rooted out and banned, as much as possible, but not at the expense of game playability and new content. (If the entire dev team were dedicated to hunting bots and cheaters, the game would die for sure.)

TagaParti wrote: »

It is easy to detect if botting is rampant on any game.
Economy of the game tells much of it.
When we say economy of the game that means gold value.
Take a look at ESO gold values on gold seller sites,
golds are getting cheaper and cheaper.
Which means economy is getting too saturated.
How can this game become too saturated when it has
a very good gold sink system thru guild traders which sink
millions of gold a week. Also those respecs that can sink lots
of gold too. So when it is not a problem with the gold sink
systems, that means there are much more gold being farmed.
Gold sinks were designed to make the market stable, to keep
the value of gold at a certain point. But bots are here,
and they are smarter than ever. We might not see them,
or detect them, or ZoS might not catch them but we can see the
result of their actions, game's economy is slowly dying.
They are the killers MMO, ZoS must hunt them at all cost!

I would assume it has more to do with the prices simply leveling out. When new content comes out, there's a huge demand for new gear, crafting mats, etc. But there hasn't been anything new in this game for months now. As a result, more and more players are hitting level cap, getting the gear they want, and starting to farm for things to sell because there's nothing else to do. When you add the fact that I'm sure the population is now dropping again after the short influx of players with the B2P model, it has more to do with there being no demand for gold because there's little demand for the items gold buys.

It has very little to do with bots I imagine.

Let's have some happy news from the bot front :-)
Seeing as some people think Zenimax is doing a poor job at fighting bots, here I present to you a few recent emotional testimonials from people who've had first hand experience with Zenimax' effort to put a stop to botting in ESO. (All quotes anonymized ofcourse)
So far this month, Zenimax has been doing it's job, as you will see from these quotes.
MAY-08-2015 03:31 PM - "Is getting banned from using the Guild Store like a "soft" ban of sorts? Has this happened to anyone else? I'm no longer seeing Guild Store and Guild Bank options at the bank. I bot ~12 hours a day, interspersed by playing myself."
MAY-08-2015 04:27 PM - "Yesterday accs were banned and the remaining one has the same issue as you do. Dunno if something has changed on their side."
MAY-08-2015 07:16 PM - "I think that Zeni added something new to fight gathering bots. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Welcome to the Tamriel limited "
MAY-08-2015 07:23 PM -" Got the same issue on brand new account after gathering for a bit. Well looks like it got worse now after it went Unlimited."
MAY-09-2015 01:03 AM - "Same issue here, just noticed actually. I even tried disabling all add-ons to determine if it was some sort of conflict and it wasnt... Anyone has any solid info as to why this is happening?"
MAY-09-2015 01:39 AM - "I don't know if bots behavior can now be easily detected now by their antibot system. But I've tried to play/grind/gather a bit on a new account and this account got limitation even before I've noticed it. I had a few lag disconnects though."
MAY-09-2015 02:14 AM - "Something weird is going on, my main acct is unable to use guild banks or guild traders, that includes the ones out in the world. Had another acct that i havent touched and that one still has access to the guild bank/trader. If this is a soft ban, its surely is a weird way to go about it. Now my concern is weather its a temp "slap in the wrist" or initial restriction (prevent gold selling?) until the real ban hammer strikes."
MAY-09-2015 02:18 AM - " I think that they are testing their new detection system because of some hardcore gatherers. I could be wrong though. "
MAY-09-2015 02:23 AM - "Cant find anything about this on the official forum or reddit and im not going to be the first one to bring it up. On a side note i have never used the bot to gather a single time. I guess time will tell."
MAY-09-2015 05:28 PM - "i highly doubt that this is a bug ^^ the official forums or general ingame chats are way too quiet for that."
MAY-09-2015 06:02 PM - "I don't think it's a bug 'cause gm lifted it from my acc after contacting them. I'm sure there was a banwave. Everyone is just quiet."
MAY-12-2015 07:12 PM - "It s not the keys got 2 accounts limited today after doing too many guild bank transactions it seems"
MAY-13-2015 10:10 PM - "I sent an email to customer support about not being able to access guild bank and such... they replied back saying they restored my permission and kindly reminded me that 'bots' or 'macro's' are in violation of terms and services and can result in disciplinary action."
MAY-14-2015 12:06 AM -" Well I guess I can forget it being fixed with the next patch then, if the accounts are flagged. That confirms that it actually is a kind of weird softban. Any idea what you did to get it? In my case It was just after withdrawing tons of items from my guildbank and depositing gold into it. A few minutes after that the account was flagged apparently."
MAY-14-2015 12:11 AM - "This - is annoying as hell."
MAY-14-2015 06:11 AM -" I think they(Zeni) "know" and ready to kick our a..,Damn!"
MAY-14-2015 10:00 AM - " Yes, it s a Pre-Ban. It seems they review your account and later decide if you get a slap on the wrists or perma. In my case both got permabans this morning. Not sure if it was because I submitted a ticket or they would have been banned anyways once they get to them. Anyhow it doesn t matter since the limited account is just as good as a banned account to me. Since it were my oldest accounts my best bet is they re metering gold/items generated/traded over certain amount of time and once you hit a threshold the flag hits you. I never gathered a node on those accounts and never used guildstores. They never directly RMTd. All they did was deposit gold into a guildbank. I'm 100% positive it's not HWID in my case. That's just my latest theory, the only hard fact I have is that TESO is becoming a real pain in the a..."
MAY-14-2015 12:42 PM - "Guys i have the same issue here! Cant whisper players anymore and cant access guild banks and vendors. I really hope i dont get permaban its my main account. >.<"
MAY-14-2015 12:51 PM - "well if you cant risk it being banned then you shouldnt bot on it."
MAY-14-2015 05:12 PM - "I wrote to the support this is the exact answer i got:
Subject
Can't access Guild Banks and vendors.
Cant Whisper to people.
Response By Email (IIIIIIIIIIII) (05/14/2015 12:28 PM)
Greetings,
Your social permissions have been restore. Please keep in mind that use of all 3rd party software violates out ToS.
Thank you for your continued interest and support!
Warm Regards,
IIIIIIIIIII@The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited Team
I dont think i got reported or anything. I'm pretty sure if they detect 3rd party software the game automatically removes those "social permissions" until a GM checks the account or you write a ticket. "
MAY-14-2015 05:42 PM - "After a thorough review of your account with the UserID: fiiiiiiiiiv, it has been determined that the account did in fact violate our Terms of Service. We regret to inform you that your appeal for an account ban reversal is denied due to the evidence within our system for association with fraudulent accounts.
this ban for bot?
another account was banned 2 hours after starting the bot, the bot is determined?
2 keys time passes, but you can't run bots, just know what to do?"
MAY-14-2015 06:33 PM - "Just got a 72 hour ban. I only use assist mode."
MAY-14-2015 09:02 PM - "Looks like they don't want to stop. I think that they have increased their detection threshold."
MAY-14-2015 11:30 PM - "Indeed, my main account got shut down after limitations been lifted."
MAY-15-2015 01:05 PM - "Yeah, I think gm manually checked me when I've been gathering. He ported me to get me stuck. They do not whisper now."
MAY-15-2015 02:42 PM - "They didn't mention anything about a ban when limits were lifted. Just said sorry. Well, I value more experience, not the accs."
MAY-15-2015 06:13 PM - "To sum up. First, a friend of mine, who was using these bot for a while and recommended it to me, got softban straight away after last patch was applied. He wrote to support, and they fixed that problem. Second, yesterday i bought that bot and used it for the first time ever. I was grinding mobs for like 6 hours in solo location where NOBODY could see and report me, and also tested radar for like 20 min. And at the evening i realised that i got that softban issue, where i can't get access to guildstores, banks, pm ppl etc. After i wrote to support, they fixed it and apologize for the issue. Nothing about botting or using 3rd side programs. So my idea is that ZoS somehow found out how to find bots. I wasn't reported for sure, so it shud be somehow related to the character behaviour tracking or some difference in data pocket sending."
MAY-18-2015 12:30 PM - " Here is the reason whi i think so, after i got "softban" i was grinding mobs for about 3 hours with the help of bott, and few hours later i gat banned for 72h. Well. so unlucky i am, was using bot for 2 days, and never ever boted befor. Looks like i chose wrong time to start botting, becous a lot of ppl say that they used to bot 24/7 and everything was alright. Btw. i bought bot becous of the stupid champion system, not to make extra profit from selling gold."
MAY-18-2015 04:56 PM - "I sent emails to ESO asking why i couldn't see the guild banks or guild store. Got email back earlier saying we have looked into your account and seen that you have used third party programs / bots and have decided to add a warning to your account which will be escalated to something more severe if continued. With this being said we have removed the block on you seeing the guild store/guild banks and have listed this complaint as resolved. ^ unlike other people i did not get a ban with sending whispers or tells. I used this bot for like 2 days, and never actually used it for ANYTHING other than Keymaster for opening lock boxes/ safe chests whatever you want to call them.. I did this for about 2-3 hours in total prior to experiencing this guild store/bank block. Something really needs to be done about this...Has anyone tried just playing the game manually for 2-3 days with the bot attached but not actually using it? I don't understand how they can be so hot on this, setting flags up so easily for this game, I must of opened like 15 chests in total before this ban.

Thats insane...

It cannot surely be that all the users of this bot are "doing the wrong thing", if we cannot use basic functions of this bot without being banned within such a REALLY small amount of time, the programmers should purely stop wasting there time with this game and invest it into other things... doesn't seem, in my honest opinion worth it, what can you actually get away with? Idk, doubt anyones able to confirm either.

Oh btw i am an ESO plus member - Having this means nothing, your treated all the same."

MAY-22-2015 11:01 AM -" botting died in this game or is there hope?"

Oh these poor souls...

Thanks Zargorius! Yes those quotes are priceless....


Same as most people who do not use bots themselves, I recognise that bots running wild will kill the game for us human players.

Little advice though..
Any bots spotted should be reported, always, always, but at the moment it might be that some of those easy to tell bots we see, are probes sent to test ZOS bot detections.

The bot makers are pretty eager to trigger Zenimax ban hammer because they have no idea how their bots are now detected. So they will try various bots in the game now, to see what triggers Zenimax responses and what doesn't..
If ZOS hits on absolutely anything they detect, the bot makers might succeed in figuring out the detection system and find a work around. ZOS might just delay their actions in a few cases just to cover their detection methods.



Gotta hand it to them, the guys at Zenimax had the perfect timing for their anti bot actions in early May, a new bot with improved questing engine was supposedly scheduled for a public beta this week, but now that beta has seemingly been put on hold till someone can figure out Zenimax anti bot system.
So ZOS with a lot of effort, can make an conciderable impact.

drschplatt wrote: »

Molsondry wrote: »

Who cares ? bots are not that bad what do they do? Farm ressources ? lower market price ?(wouldnt be bad at all 200k for a single piece or 6k for a temper ... wth)

Not mentioning alot of player thinks part of the lags comes from the zos Anti-bot system.

Not to mention what zos did with there api and the way server works for anti-bot is broken right now . We have no addons development and everything is being buggy because of it.

There will always be bots, no matter what.... A game with no bot in its just prove the game is dead and therefor no reason to develop and sell a bot.

So in other words . Id rather have a better api for addon development opened , no lag in cyro, lower market price, then having no bots. like 2000x more

Based on what you've written here, you must not have been around before they squashed most of the bots. They completely ruined the game when the bots were thriving.

i agree with you - most of these players wouldn't recall the months of bot problems we had before they laid down the hammer- harvest nodes being sat on by bots, bots under the node itself to harvest it - bots by the tens camping delve bosses. They implemented quite a few things to deter the botters; they didn't simply leave because the botters thought this was a dull game >.> how stupid do you have to be to think people wont bot because people think this game is rubbish >.>

DistantDragonThunder wrote: »

Gotta hand it to them, the guys at Zenimax had the perfect timing for their anti bot actions in early May, a new bot with improved questing engine was supposedly scheduled for a public beta this week, but now that beta has seemingly been put on hold till someone can figure out Zenimax anti bot system.
So ZOS with a lot of effort, can make an conciderable impact.

Don't be fooled. I am not a botter and have never installed any botting software for this game or any others, but I think I have an idea how they are detecting them. If I can see it, with no skin in the game, they would have to be bloomin' idjits to not know.

Most of the people in those quotes would likely fly beneath the radar of most players in the game. I always report bots when I see them, but I never report humans. This does tend to limit my reports as I do not ever want to report someone who is not botting. Even if I am 99% sure, that is wrong one in 100 times.


P.S it is good to get confirmation that bots can unlock chests now. Always theoretically possible, but was not sure if it was a reality yet.

Good God!


@DistantDragonThunder are you a part of botters community? You are so aware of botters problems...
How much is the bot?

DistantDragonThunder wrote: »

Let's have some happy news from the bot front :-)
Seeing as some people think Zenimax is doing a poor job at fighting bots, here I present to you a few recent emotional testimonials from people who've had first hand experience with Zenimax' effort to put a stop to botting in ESO. (All quotes anonymized ofcourse)
So far this month, Zenimax has been doing it's job, as you will see from these quotes.

<snip>

...

MAY-22-2015 11:01 AM -" botting died in this game or is there hope?"

Oh these poor souls...

This...I'm laughing too hard. I...I'm crying tears of laughter. This is too funny...

<Composes himself>

Ahem, sorry. Well, at least ZoS has been on top of it.

Anyway, no argument can support botting. If people were allowed to bot, market is ruined, then bots have your credit card info, then they introduce viruses on your computer...I highly recommend reporting them.

Keep on reporting them, guys. Let's finish this job.

Signed,

Arena25

Eventual_Silence wrote: »

Well...it's not a bad thing for bots to exist right? It's not like they're trying to steal our accounts or anything...just to get gold and resources. And only idiots buy gold with real money (no offense anyone who does...)

It's the death of a game when bots are allowed (see: 90% of the above posts).

Besides, this is a necro of an issue that's hopefully been fixed again.