CarbonX wrote: »

Mordenkainen wrote: »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_banding

"In online gaming, an undesirable effect of latency in which a moving object appears to leap from one place to another without passing through the intervening space; also called "warping" or "teleporting""


Get your sh*t right.

And you care about the term? WHO CARES ABOUT THE TERM!!!??? The term IS NOT the ***** matter in question here!!! If you want to discuss what rubber-band means open another thread. Otherwise, go ***** some other place!!!
 

The terminology is just as important ya dingus. You don't want to get set up for murder just because you committed the 'crime' of jaywalking, do ya? Make a new term, rubber banding is already set in stone with a majority of the PC gaming world.
That said, I'm heading to that Dolmen to spam light attacks in vegetable mode.

CarbonX wrote: »

I'm sorry, but many have reported bots on a specific place and shown that after a year the same bots with the same exact user IDs are still there. So that's doing nothing, because, if banned, they can't come back with the same user ID. Therefore, after a year, that's taking no action at all.

Not that I have seen on PC/NA.

I have been watching bots on PC/NA since April 2014. I have never seen the exact same bot account running the exact same bot pattern several months later. Weeks? Yes. A year later? Never. I honestly do not know if I would believe anyone who would try to tell me otherwise.

While I do not see the same accounts following the same path a year later, I do see different accounts following the same path over a period of months. I see this a lot. Really a lot. Like, all the time.

Phinix1 wrote: »

Because ZOS has gotten very greedy and doesn't want to invest in active GM's.

All they would have to do is make a circuit of popular dolmens once an hour and ban the people botting there. But they don't.

Yes, I think they are understaffed, but has anyone stopped to consider the size of the game people are asking them to police? It is not a simple matter to just stop by the "popular dolmens" once per hour. Three employees could probably manage to stop by 4-6 dolmens once an hour, in a day. That is going to a dolmen, scoping out who is there, identifying the botters, verifying that they are botting, and banning them.... every 10 minutes, 24 hours per day. 3 employees. Up to 6 dolmens per hour. Out of something like 324 dolmens in the whole game, not counting multiple instances of dolmens.

So, no, I certainly do not expect them to be making the rounds of popular dolmens every hour.

I would much rather they hire one person who works Monday through Friday, 8 hours, not including lunch, to police the dolmens being reported by players. If they could hit 30 dolmens per day, roughly 4 per hour, and just suspend the botters for 72 hours, I think that word would start to get out and botting at dolmens would drop off significantly. They would probably be needed for a week or two, then ZOS could do spot checks.

For bot trains, it is even easier, and they could have some fun and use bots to handle it. No human GM actually required to be there, which is an interesting, if not ironic, solution.

ProfessorKittyhawk wrote: »

Seen lots of bots around Shadowfen the past few days. Reported what I could.

As have I.

The bots I *just* saw are using some sort of mimic-script that allows one person to drive what appears to be a train or snake of characters around that repeat all of the leader's actions, precisely. When you see them, you can tell ONE person is in control while the 5, 6, or 7 bots trail behind in perfect lockstep. If I had to guess, it's some type of 3rd-party software that relays the inputs from one player to ALL the characters in "follow" mode. That's why their actions are in perfect sync.

Just saw the train in Shadowfen -- PERFECT path-following. There's no way there were seven individuals driving those characters. The proof came when I messaged the leader, said I was reporting the botting, and the train immediately ran to the nearest Wayshrine and ported. I'm aware it's against policy to name and shame, but the person I messaged had the word "tandie" in their character's name, so it's fairly obvious to me that specific character was created with the expressed purpose of this type of botting in mind. The name-choice -- that person is just thumbing their nose at ZoS.

To answer the question of "Who cares?" posed by the unthinking among us, you should care. ZoS should care.

To answer the follow-up of "Why should we care?" for the unthinking, we should care because it's cheating. One person is running these bots, while a half-dozen are earning experience. Consider WHY a person would consign themselves to driving bots around Shadowfen, farming XP for *SEPARATE* accounts: either this player is engaged in RMTs in exchange for XP grinding, or this player is leveling back-up accounts in anticipation that his/her account(s) will get banned for exploits and/or using 3rd-party cheating software.

Punitively banning a player only works if they just have ONE account, not seven.

And I have to agree with the general assertion on this thread: ZoS needs to hire Game Masters who are in-game at all times, ready to investigate reports of cheating, botting, exploits, etc. in real-time. Otherwise, this will continue unabated.

KingMagaw wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

I have never seen the exact same bot account running the exact same bot pattern several months later. Weeks? Yes. A year later? Never. I honestly do not know if I would believe anyone who would try to tell me otherwise.

I think alot of the newer/beginner botters do it for a while and either stop or change ID on webpage or get busted on players reporting them. But if a professional bot getting scraps earns ~600k/daily which equates to around $40 you can see the math that 1 day pays for many accounts if required.

lordrichter wrote: »

While I do not see the same accounts following the same path a year later, I do see different accounts following the same path over a period of months. I see this a lot. Really a lot. Like, all the time.

Simply there are boys coding in absolute co-ordinates and selling static or dynamic bot paths, shamelessly cheap. Some bot trains i am sure are individual boys running the same script just timed bad and they overlap a bit with other players.

Phinix1 wrote: »

Because ZOS has gotten very greedy and doesn't want to invest in active GM's.

Even if they invested in GM's, I personally would have to assume they follow the same path as Z0$ and prove to be incompetent to deal with anything without making it worse. New maintenance recently broke items back to ALPHA style
with small caps. Incompetent and rushing out untested content, as usual. Then i see someone in the community has made an addon that fixes what Z0$ broke in <1 day. I have minus expectation for anything they are touching atm.


Dont get me wrong either i believe you cant eradicate automated behavior from a game but you can certainly make it harder, more awkward and gains in discouraging it. Since release, exploiting in this matter has only been encouraged by Z0$ with inaction and not being transparent and engaging with the player base.

I am sure that people create a script, program, or whatever, for the software they use to bot and share it with people on some internet site. That IP is probably valuable.

As for whether they are the same player, just with a different (or changed) account name and character, it is impossible for me to tell. Theoretically, ZOS knows, so they cannot hide from ZOS. The question is whether ZOS has time to look for them. My feeling is that cheaters know they can run wild in this game and not have to worry about the town cop seeing them. I gather that it would be like one police officer for all of Chicago.

Unlikely_Ghostbuster wrote: »

Just saw the train in Shadowfen -- PERFECT path-following. There's no way there were seven individuals driving those characters. The proof came when I messaged the leader, said I was reporting the botting, and the train immediately ran to the nearest Wayshrine and ported. I'm aware it's against policy to name and shame, but the person I messaged had the word "[snip]" in their character's name, so it's fairly obvious to me that specific character was created with the expressed purpose of this type of botting in mind. The name-choice -- that person is just thumbing their nose at ZoS.

On PC/NA, there are actually two running right now in south Shadowfen. Anyone reading this... Stop by and check them out, if you haven't, and are able. No hurry. They will still be there whenever you get a chance.

I would not assume they did a duck-and-cover because you have whispered to them. When they are near the wayshrine, they seem to be programmed to go offload their inventory from time to time. If you had stuck around for 5 minutes, they probably would have returned.