Bot Farming... A Menace

TattdPocahontas · April 2017

This is a huge issue in my opinion. I have reported and captured pictures and recorded videos... and yet I feel like these people are duplicating upon duplicating this process... they are everywhere!

DaveMoeDee · April 2017

I too am tired of people losing jobs to automation.

Egonieser · April 2017

DaveMoeDee wrote: »

I too am tired of people losing jobs to automation.

They took our durrrbs!

TattdPocahontas · April 2017

Actually, I'm a quest/achievement player and I don't much appreciate the bosses being farmed or honestly anything being farmed as they are being done. What happened to running around and collecting as you go? I'm not asking for people to stop trying to grind the armor or whatever they're in need of, I'm asking that all the ghbytj players with lvl 5's standing still rubber banding kills in a largely populated animal region be eradicated. And yes, before you bash me, I know that it's next to never going to happen, but I had to try. This is hugely the biggest bunch of *** I've seen in a while. It's bad enough that you can barely go into a delve without having to wait for bosses to respawn (because of people standing in a Charlie Foxtrot spamming the same heavy hits over and over) and hope you can get a couple hits in so you can get the necessary "credit" so that you can move on to the next one... all in the name of clearing the delve and collecting the achievement. (And forget about trying to get much off said boss unless you can do a real amount of damage to the boss... otherwise you generally walk away with XP & a meager amount of coin as reward.) The thing is, I know that there are more PVPers and "it's just a game" gamers than those like me, but it's my life away from real life and I actually Quest and Theory Craft my armor as well as collect menial rewards because it's part of how I game. I am a Completist, it brings me joy to complete everything to the fullest, and I've prided myself on being able to solo almost everything in TESO... yes, Trials and Vet Dungeons aren't on that list... but I just want the game to be less about who can get the best gear the fastest with the highest currently attainable level the fastest and more about enjoying the basic open world questing with some camaraderie thrown in. Is that too much to ask?

Dixa · April 2017

TattdPocahontas wrote: »

Actually, I'm a quest/achievement player and I don't much appreciate the bosses being farmed or honestly anything being farmed as they are being done. What happened to running around and collecting as you go? I'm not asking for people to stop trying to grind the armor or whatever they're in need of, I'm asking that all the ghbytj players with lvl 5's standing still rubber banding kills in a largely populated animal region be eradicated. And yes, before you bash me, I know that it's next to never going to happen, but I had to try. This is hugely the biggest bunch of *** I've seen in a while. It's bad enough that you can barely go into a delve without having to wait for bosses to respawn (because of people standing in a Charlie Foxtrot spamming the same heavy hits over and over) and hope you can get a couple hits in so you can get the necessary "credit" so that you can move on to the next one... all in the name of clearing the delve and collecting the achievement. (And forget about trying to get much off said boss unless you can do a real amount of damage to the boss... otherwise you generally walk away with XP & a meager amount of coin as reward.) The thing is, I know that there are more PVPers and "it's just a game" gamers than those like me, but it's my life away from real life and I actually Quest and Theory Craft my armor as well as collect menial rewards because it's part of how I game. I am a Completist, it brings me joy to complete everything to the fullest, and I've prided myself on being able to solo almost everything in TESO... yes, Trials and Vet Dungeons aren't on that list... but I just want the game to be less about who can get the best gear the fastest with the highest currently attainable level the fastest and more about enjoying the basic open world questing with some camaraderie thrown in. Is that too much to ask?

paragraphs pls

and grinding has been the best way to level since the day this game launched. not everyone finds it mind numbingly boring

what IS boring is doing the same quest content over and over on your alts. why do that when grinding out fast spawns with a ton of training gear, eso plus, pledge of mara and xp pot/scroll means you can do it in 1/10th the time?

theultimatewarrior · April 2017

One of the reason i change to ps4 it was discouraging on pc seen the bots. Even though they make the community goods cheaper

notimetocare · April 2017

I hate bots, but they really aren't a problem. Their impact on the game is far less than things ZoS has done (look ay motif prices now)

TattdPocahontas · April 2017

I agree on the motifs, but I never really sold them, I usually even trade.
I finally got back to doing the Caldwell Quests, after all the DLC

Nestor · April 2017

I have seen them go away, not immediately, after I have reported them recently. Some still pop up from time to time. But they do seem to be paying attention on the PC. Also, with the free to play event recently, it was easy for new bot accounts to be set up. So I am sure chasing that was not helping.

They really need to get serious about using complex hardware signatures to vet machines. I know they can recognize minutia as I recently upgraded my Video card (same brand even) and had to re-validate with an email. Make it hard for the botters to target the game, they go find another one. If the complex hardware signature shows botting related accounts, it does not get to run the game.

Will this eliminate 100% them? No. Will it get rid of most of it with no change to real customer's experience? Yes.

TattdPocahontas · April 2017

Just realized that my post didn't post everything, but no matter, all I am trying to say is it's gotten ridiculous how they're farming certain dolmens, delves bosses, public dungeons and large animal spawn areas... it's not the actual players I'm speaking of, it's the rubber-banding bots/afk accounts.

TattdPocahontas · April 2017

And I agree with your post Nestor.

SleepyTroll · April 2017

Two bot trains running around shadowfen all day everyday since month+, bot train running around ariodon same time frame, 2 bot trains running in bankoraki same time frame and more probably. guild stores having multiple accounts selling raw leather of different grades for pages on pages restocked everyday by the same 5 or so accounts. Yea ZOS doesnt care about their botting problem, they only care about people putting rubber bands on there little sticks for heavy atack afk farming.

Fleshreaper · April 2017

Dixa wrote: »

and grinding has been the best way to level since the day this game launched. not everyone finds it mind numbingly boring

what IS boring is doing the same quest content over and over on your alts. why do that when grinding out fast spawns with a ton of training gear, eso plus, pledge of mara and xp pot/scroll means you can do it in 1/10th the time?

But then you still have to go grid Skyshards.

Evergnar · April 2017

Bots are a problem again period. I see little being done about them as they are in the exact same locations every time I go back to those areas. It's annoying to see and annoying knowing how much these players are making doing it.

TattdPocahontas · April 2017

Agreed, it's a literal menace and I refuse to buy mats from guild traders, instead trading with friends who just have me build the gear they need... but I'm just a little fish. And their impact is growing...

Amadis001 · April 2017

ZOS may be winning some battles, but it's losing the war. I run into more and more bots. They need a different strategy. Get some GMs into the game to man the dolmens and issue insta-bans to the bots. And try to get behind the bots to whoever is doing this. It seems like there must be a small number of people in the business of farming mats for gold to turn into real-world cash. Maybe ZOS is already doing these things, but they need to try harder. It's ruining the game.

QuebraRegra · April 2017

the number of rubberbanders on xbox NA...

TattdPocahontas · April 2017

I'd read somewhere that they were banning accounts they'd discovered selling mats for real world cash, but outside of banning an isp address, I think these rubber-band accounts are just creating a new slew of accounts when the one they had is gone... it's egregious to say the least, but I think they're not well equipped to handle this on consoles. It's different than PC, and from what someone told me, more difficult.