Be careful of botting...the bots are making a comeback...

sirston · January 2017

you know would make ESO's job so much easier, copying runescape and have player Mod's They Don't have anything special other than the fact they can whisper a real ZOS employee or support staff.......and maybe a fancy title Player Mod. @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Dragonking06 · January 2017

I remember playing one MMO with a rampant Bot problem... But in this game you could drop items from your inventory and it would appear on the ground instead of being destroyed, other players could also pick it up.

I used to enjoy finding the popular bot locations and drop a line of 1 coin piles on top of and leading off a bots path. They all had some kind of auto pickup thing going so it was easy enough to figure out which ones were legitimate players. Did this once and led the bot about half way across the open world map (about the same distance as running from one side of cyrodil to the other at the widest point), got him stuck in a lake and left him there. XD

Sorry this doesn't add much to the conversation, but if I spot a suspected bot in future I will report. Good to know there are others out there doing the same.

Zaldan · January 2017

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

kaiage wrote: »

ZoS here's what you should do:

A captcha every five minutes in-game.

Cyrodiil hardmode right there. x_x

already there, otherwise called a Loading Screen ;P

tambo.01b16_ESO · January 2017

I reported 8 of them last week (tickets 170107-004048 and 170107-004126).
8 Leather farming bots in Kerbols Hollow - Bangkorai (EU server). Checked tonight...the same 8 are still there. Nothing has been done by ZOS to get rid of them and it's very obvious from watching the 2 trains.
6 of them have guild sales over 1million each this week alone and have invited more bots in to the guild, so now we have 16 all selling leather scraps and making a fortune for someone.

Hafgar_W · January 2017

captainwolfos wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Usually a player who is actually there will respond with something.

This just in: those of us with crippling social anxiety are bots :P

Now this is the biggest problem with the whisper method of trying to identify bots. Just taking video evidence or letting ZOS do the same is far better than whispering everyone who ever moves in a straight line. Seriously, some people have done that mistake in the past and bragged about it in these very forums.

Anyway, I recommend people to report anyone you believe to be a bot. At least ZOS won't be banning legitimate players over it.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom · January 2017

tambo.01b16_ESO wrote: »

I reported 8 of them last week (tickets 170107-004048 and 170107-004126).
8 Leather farming bots in Kerbols Hollow - Bangkorai (EU server). Checked tonight...the same 8 are still there. Nothing has been done by ZOS to get rid of them and it's very obvious from watching the 2 trains.
6 of them have guild sales over 1million each this week alone and have invited more bots in to the guild, so now we have 16 all selling leather scraps and making a fortune for someone.

We'll take a look, @tambo.01b16_ESO, thank you.

O-Los_Zulis · January 2017

I thought I saw a bot last week. I guess I'll start reporting them.

Xelrick · January 2017

sirston wrote: »

you know would make ESO's job so much easier, copying runescape and have player Mod's They Don't have anything special other than the fact they can whisper a real ZOS employee or support staff.......and maybe a fancy title Player Mod. @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Oh man I remember having that power on PSHome, was actually friends with a Mod and I encountered some shady things in it early days, which people got communication ban.

I talked to the Mod through PSN versus ingame, due to no personal channel. You had 2 report methods atleast, normal ingame reporting, then if reporting wasn't working (bugged) You were given a PSN ID to an ingame MOD to contact..

I preferred going through PSN message to report but then someone got power crazy and ruin the ingame Mod presence.._

However, if ZOS went that route, they would have to have choose people that would go in a professional way of the game, not like a named Guard patroling and catches someone stealing. More like Harald spreading the word that there are consequences for act in ill manner.

Though players who would be able to talk directly to a Mod would have to have an account specifically for reporting, else you may get backlash for getting someone ban.

FleetwoodSmack · January 2017

Xelrick wrote: »

sirston wrote: »

you know would make ESO's job so much easier, copying runescape and have player Mod's They Don't have anything special other than the fact they can whisper a real ZOS employee or support staff.......and maybe a fancy title Player Mod. @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Oh man I remember having that power on PSHome, was actually friends with a Mod and I encountered some shady things in it early days, which people got communication ban.

I talked to the Mod through PSN versus ingame, due to no personal channel. You had 2 report methods atleast, normal ingame reporting, then if reporting wasn't working (bugged) You were given a PSN ID to an ingame MOD to contact..

I preferred going through PSN message to report but then someone got power crazy and ruin the ingame Mod presence.._

However, if ZOS went that route, they would have to have choose people that would go in a professional way of the game, not like a named Guard patroling and catches someone stealing. More like Harald spreading the word that there are consequences for act in ill manner.

Though players who would be able to talk directly to a Mod would have to have an account specifically for reporting, else you may get backlash for getting someone ban.

They'd also have to have active gamemasters too. I mean when's the last time someone's actually seen one aside from the marriage event on the PTS last year?

Stormahawk · January 2017

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

tambo.01b16_ESO wrote: »

I reported 8 of them last week (tickets 170107-004048 and 170107-004126).
8 Leather farming bots in Kerbols Hollow - Bangkorai (EU server). Checked tonight...the same 8 are still there. Nothing has been done by ZOS to get rid of them and it's very obvious from watching the 2 trains.
6 of them have guild sales over 1million each this week alone and have invited more bots in to the guild, so now we have 16 all selling leather scraps and making a fortune for someone.

We'll take a look, @tambo.01b16_ESO, thank you.

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom

There are bots similarly on the US server selling about 15 million a week on a guild trader in Mournhold. Wayrest also has a guild that has a similar bot "problem" where they net 15 million a week from bots selling. Usually multiple bots join a week (3 to 5) that split the 15 million between them. I have observed them and reported them for months starting September. The bots will go inactive after a week of being in the guild, and then a new bot will join that guild and continue botting/selling. I noticed that their buyers also tend to be the same people. However, I feel like this is futile since whatever I report just gets replaced by another bot and it is a never-ending revolving door, so I stopped reporting a long time ago. Whatever they make selling that 15 million gold is definitely more than enough to continue buying accounts and continuing this. If you need more specific information, I can email it if requested.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom · January 2017

Stormahawk wrote: »

There are bots similarly on the US server selling about 15 million a week on a guild trader in Mournhold. Wayrest also has a guild that has a similar bot "problem" where they net 15 million a week from bots selling. Usually multiple bots join a week (3 to 5) that split the 15 million between them. I have observed them and reported them for months starting September. The bots will go inactive after a week of being in the guild, and then a new bot will join that guild and continue botting/selling. I noticed that their buyers also tend to be the same people. However, I feel like this is futile since whatever I report just gets replaced by another bot and it is a never-ending revolving door, so I stopped reporting a long time ago. Whatever they make selling that 15 million gold is definitely more than enough to continue buying accounts and continuing this. If you need more specific information, I can email it if requested.

Thanks for the info, @Stormahawk. If you have UserIDs or character names, we can take a look at the accounts. You are correct that bots often come back, and they'll get caught and banned again. It is a never-ending battle, but we do have a team committed to handling bot reports that come in, looking at back-end reports for bot behavior, and banning them. The reports do help.

For those who have asked how to best report bots on console, here's what the TOS team recommends:

In-game, submitting a ticket under any TOS report category will work. Please make sure you include details including the character name, what they are doing, and where you saw them.

If you wish to submit a ticket via the Support portal, that's an option too (and it allows you to include screenshots and video.) Simply go here and log in, select "In-Game Support" and "Report Another Player", fill out the form, attach any screenshots or videos you'd like to include (not required) and hit "Submit Question." As with the in-game ticket submission, please make sure you include the character name, what they are doing, and where you saw them.

Stormahawk · January 2017

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

To reported a bot right-click on their name and select "Report Player” or hold F and select “Report Player” then E for “Report Botting” and the name will automatically generate in the bot report then they can describe the behavior. If this isn't working, please let us know!

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom, Is there a way to quickly report people as bots from the guild roster the same way you can by holding F and then selecting "Report for botting" like in the quote above? This will help deal with bots that join trading guilds to sell like I mentioned above. Those bots are easily recognizable by having names like werweq, being low level, joined recently, and having millions in sales of raw mats already (also being in a noob zone at all times is a giveaway). If not, it will be a very helpful feature to add. It gets tiresome very quickly to fill out all these bot reports by hand (aside from it being a revolving door of bots making it feel ineffective, it also takes a lot of time).

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom My concern is that reporting currently does not work because by the time they are reported and hopefully banned, the bots already have made millions in sales (one bot I saw made 15 million in sales alone in a week!). Are there any plans in the future to add some sort of automatic bot-detecting system that can give them social bans and thus prevent them from offloading their ill-gotten goods?