Disrupt the Bot Market - Remove Leather from Drops

Preyfar · February 2017

Every single day I run across bots. And I report them. Bots seem entirely focused on killing skeevers and mudcrabs, mainly because they drop leather which they can use to refine, sell and make money off it. And because these bots run in small patterns, they're really easy to identify -- and stop. Furrier traps/crates already exist in game where players can pickup leather from. As an alternative to bots, and stopping the bot armies that are running around, it would make a lot of sense to remove the leather drops from animals. Give any cloth node a chance to spawn a furrier trap, and up the mat drops from them slightly to offset the difference.

This would, instantly, completely disrupt the bot market. They wouldn't be able to farm certain areas instantly, and it would throw a wrench into the farming plans without hurting players. It'd be easier to find leather for most and not chance things up too much.

Preyfar · February 2017

EDIT: I hit post accidentally before typing out my thought. Editing it now.

rotaugen454 · February 2017

No

OutLaw_Nynx · February 2017

No

Slurg · February 2017

Bots gather and sell clean pelts too.

And no. Lots of actual players want to gather leather too; why on earth would anyone want it removed?

Edit: Your edited explanation makes no sense. Botters harvest plants too.

Preyfar · February 2017

Slurg wrote: »

And no. Lots of actual players want to gather leather too; why on earth would anyone want it removed?

This wouldn't prevent people from gathering leather, but just stop the bots being able to automate it. Leather would still be easy to gather, but not so easily automated.

ADarklore · February 2017

Preyfar wrote: »

Every single day I run across bots. And I report them. Bots seem entirely focused on killing skeevers and mudcrabs, mainly because they drop leather which they can use to refine, sell and make money off it. And because these bots run in small patterns, they're really easy to identify -- and stop. Furrier traps/crates already exist in game where players can pickup leather from. As an alternative to bots, and stopping the bot armies that are running around, it would make a lot of sense to remove the leather drops from animals. Give any cloth node a chance to spawn a furrier trap, and up the mat drops from them slightly to offset the difference.

This would, instantly, completely disrupt the bot market. They wouldn't be able to farm certain areas instantly, and it would throw a wrench into the farming plans without hurting players. It'd be easier to find leather for most and not chance things up too much.

Um, you make more money from selling UNREFINED leather... the refined leather sells for much less.

Botting is bad, but let's get realistic, bots also farm regular nodes as well, so you're suggesting taking away extra nodes (animals) and have the bots suddenly focus on all the cloth nodes so that there are fewer for non-bots to access.

mesmerizedish · February 2017

Is there some reason bots can't automatically harvest gathering nodes?

bulbousb16_ESO · February 2017

I'd get behind this. Or make leather only drop from difficult to defeat monsters, not mudcrabs.

Preyfar · February 2017

Slurg wrote: »

Edit: Your edited explanation makes no sense. Botters harvest plants too.

While they can harvest plans they can't sit in the same spot for days at a time farming mats. Reporting bots seems ineffective as the bots continually come back to the same locations over and over. With current spawn timers the bots can just circle all day, and transfer the mats out.

mesmerizedish wrote: »

Is there some reason bots can't automatically harvest gathering nodes?

Bots could, but it's far less profitable for them to do so. The reason is the bots are grouped, so killing one skeever has a chance to drop leather for each bot, basically allowing them to farm them in higher quantities while they level up the bots. The bots have their routes mapped out to maximize farming leather and mobs.

alexkdd99 · February 2017

No way, horrible idea. Wouldn't hurt regular players? It most definitely would. Farming leathers is the only way I farm wax, and you want to take that away.

And btw bots can easily farm nodes as well you just don't see it as much because they run long complex routes. But if you remove leather from animals all those bots will be eating up all the nodes.

So no I do not want them to do anything close to what you are suggesting and it is doubtful zos would do such a thing anyways.

Slurg · February 2017

Preyfar wrote: »

Slurg wrote: »

Edit: Your edited explanation makes no sense. Botters harvest plants too.

While they can harvest plans they can't sit in the same spot for days at a time farming mats. Reporting bots seems ineffective as the bots continually come back to the same locations over and over. With current spawn timers the bots can just circle all day, and transfer the mats out.

mesmerizedish wrote: »

Is there some reason bots can't automatically harvest gathering nodes?

Bots could, but it's far less profitable for them to do so. The reason is the bots are grouped, so killing one skeever has a chance to drop leather for each bot, basically allowing them to farm them in higher quantities while they level up the bots. The bots have their routes mapped out to maximize farming leather and mobs.

Have you never seen bots on a loop harvesting nodes? And you want to inflict that on the general population on a much larger scale, while punishing regular players by not allowing them to get any mats for things they are killing? This is a horrible idea in so many ways; I hope the development team completely ignores it and instead works on their anti-bot detection mechanisms.

Cpt_Teemo · February 2017

Yeah they would have to remove all raw mats all together if they wanted to get rid of raw leather, so no for me

ChandraNalaar · February 2017

No, this isn't really a good idea to stop botting. It will mean there is less nodes for them to harvest, which will push them to the other nodes faster.

Katahdin · February 2017

No, bad idea

kojou · February 2017

In general I think that would push the "botters" to harvest the spawned nodes...

Maybe they could increase the health and physical/spell resistance of mudcrabs and skeevers to the point they are not a one-shot instead? Or give them a "flee" mechanic when they hit half health? I always wondered why a mudcrab would stick out a fight against a fire breathing lava whipping dark elf...

Botters are always going to take the path of least resistance, and if one thing is no longer viable then they will take the next thing that is...

We as players can basically choose to report them or ignore them as part of the game. I tend to be the former, but it does seem to be an unending fight.

Acrolas · February 2017

They could borrow some of the marketing budget to hire GMs that run around with upcoming crown store items equipped while they murder botting accounts.

They could even have cool names, like Banny McBillboard.

Katahdin · February 2017

There are bots under the maps harvesting nodes already. Every once in a while I try to harvest a node and it disappears before I can click on it.

runagate · February 2017

In fairness the only reason we're having to think about this is that ZOS won't pay someone to sit ina global anti-bot-reporting channel and zap bots.

Preyfar · February 2017

runagate wrote: »

In fairness the only reason we're having to think about this is that ZOS won't pay someone to sit ina global anti-bot-reporting channel and zap bots.

I just don't see how it's an every day thing. It frustrates me to no end. Where are the GMs? You can't tell me that locations like Sanguine Barrows in Rivenspire aren't patrolled by the GM team for botters when they're so abundant and blatant.

WhiteCoatSyndrome · February 2017

Katahdin wrote: »

Every once in a while I try to harvest a node and it disappears before I can click on it.

Also ran into this, however...keep removing portions of the game to keep botters from getting at it and eventually you have no game left.

I suspect there are better solutions. Make the monster spawn areas move around, flag an account that spends more than an hour in one spot without moving for review, something.

runagate · February 2017

Preyfar wrote: »

runagate wrote: »

In fairness the only reason we're having to think about this is that ZOS won't pay someone to sit ina global anti-bot-reporting channel and zap bots.

I just don't see how it's an every day thing. It frustrates me to no end. Where are the GMs? You can't tell me that locations like Sanguine Barrows in Rivenspire aren't patrolled by the GM team for botters when they're so abundant and blatant.

They absolutely are not. I promise you.

Dawnblade · February 2017

runagate wrote: »

In fairness the only reason we're having to think about this is that ZOS won't pay someone to sit ina global anti-bot-reporting channel and zap bots.

Game companies are not going to hire actual people to sit in game and police everything from bots to chat to whatever else annoys players.

That said, they could and should develop automated tools to detect, deter, and eventually delete bots.

SleepyTroll · February 2017

There was a bot chain of 12 killing the ww in bankoria all weekend and last week probably still there.

BigBragg · February 2017

Hindering the vast majority because of the actions of some bad apples is not an acceptable solution. Not to mention the fact that they are tenacious enough to find another way. So in the end, all that would be a be accomplished is hurting the legitimate player base.

Elsonso · February 2017

Preyfar wrote: »

As an alternative to bots, and stopping the bot armies that are running around, it would make a lot of sense to remove the leather drops from animals. Give any cloth node a chance to spawn a furrier trap, and up the mat drops from them slightly to offset the difference.

This would, instantly, completely disrupt the bot market. They wouldn't be able to farm certain areas instantly, and it would throw a wrench into the farming plans without hurting players. It'd be easier to find leather for most and not chance things up too much.

Yes! As a person with a crafting bag loaded with this stuff, I endorse this action. If you want any of mine, my guild trader is in Rawl. I'll be the one next to the trader counting his gold.

Nestor · February 2017

Instead of changing the Loot System of the game, make it inconvenient for these people to set up accounts and run bots.

ZOS just needs to have GameMasters respond to Bot Reports and take them out. It is easy to see the behavior with just a few minutes of observation.

ZOS already knows the hardware signature of our machines, so the fix would be the same hardware from the same or similar IP would be ran through a more rigorous vetting before the account could be activated.

This would not catch all of them, but it would take out most.

BigBragg · February 2017

Nestor wrote: »

Instead of changing the Loot System of the game, make it inconvenient for these people to set up accounts and run bots.

ZOS just needs to have GameMasters respond to Bot Reports and take them out. It is easy to see the behavior with just a few minutes of observation.

ZOS already knows the hardware signature of our machines, so the fix would be the same hardware from the same or similar IP would be ran through a more rigorous vetting before the account could be activated.

This would not catch all of them, but it would take out most.

Hardware ID spoofing and VPNs are very easy to set up. I think the tickets to GMs is a solid approach, until they can find a way to identify and kick in an automated process that won't actually target live players.

Nestor · February 2017

BigBragg wrote: »

Hardware ID spoofing and VPNs are very easy to set up. I think the tickets to GMs is a solid approach, until they can find a way to identify and kick in an automated process that won't actually target live players.

For Hard drives it is, but not if you also include MB, Video Card and Game Codes. There are probably a couple of other methods. Also, VPNs are easy to combat, most legitimate people do not use them, and those that do can be vetted. Is someone sophisticated enough to get around that, probably. Is everyone who runs Bots able to do this? Doubtful. Just like locks on your doors at home really just make it inconvenient for a thief to gain entrance (breaking a window for instance, kick the door for another) just make it inconvenient for botters and most will go bot another game. GM's then can just take out the few that do persist.

Or, just use GMs and do it one by one. That could make it inconvenient enough they would go to another game.

alexkdd99 · February 2017

Dawnblade wrote: »

runagate wrote: »

In fairness the only reason we're having to think about this is that ZOS won't pay someone to sit ina global anti-bot-reporting channel and zap bots.

Game companies are not going to hire actual people to sit in game and police everything from bots to chat to whatever else annoys players.

That said, they could and should develop automated tools to detect, deter, and eventually delete bots.

Don't see why not. They have people to monitor forums and at some point they had them or planned to have them monitor the game considering one of this hints in game talks about only real zenimax employees will have A z by their name.

Also a lot of games have gm's that monitor in game for bots and such. Not sure where you heard gaming companies don't do that as they have been doing it since the beginning of bots in mmo's.

ThePaleItalian · February 2017

I think players are worse than bots. If you harvest a nod you should have to take everything with it automatically.