Tired of All the Bots?

Nestor · October 2017

Thank you for this addon.

Reporting BOTS does seem to help, but it takes ZOS too much time to act on the reports. Since we can legitmately only report a small part of the train, maybe this mod will give them more reports and more accurately expose the problem.

ZOS has stated that they only really need one name of the train. But some of them log off or go back to town to dump items.

ZOS does need to react to reports faster and needs to come up with a method to ban the people who make the accounts, not just the accounts. They can do this with the same systems that they use to make us re-validate my machine if I change my video card.

Thing is, Bots are so obvious to anyone who looks at them for 5 seconds. We really just need ZOS to respond to reports (which will encourage people to make more) and slam the BanHammer on them. And not just a 72 hour ban, but a clean the bank out, clean out the inventory, remove the guild listings, disable permanently the account banhammer. Call it a Ban Sledge if you will.

Drummerx04 · October 2017

Nestor wrote: »

Thank you for this addon.

Reporting BOTS does seem to help, but it takes ZOS too much time to act on the reports. Since we can legitmately only report a small part of the train, maybe this mod will give them more reports and more accurately expose the problem.

ZOS has stated that they only really need one name of the train. But some of them log off or go back to town to dump items.

ZOS does need to react to reports faster and needs to come up with a method to ban the people who make the accounts, not just the accounts. They can do this with the same systems that they use to make us re-validate my machine if I change my video card.

Thing is, Bots are so obvious to anyone who looks at them for 5 seconds. We really just need ZOS to respond to reports (which will encourage people to make more) and slam the BanHammer on them. And not just a 72 hour ban, but a clean the bank out, clean out the inventory, remove the guild listings, disable permanently the account banhammer. Call it a Ban Sledge if you will.

Yeah, automatic banning would be great, and ZOS can even put in some basic checks to limit hardcore griefing of players.

The automatic super ban will occur if 10+ reports are made by different players within 1 week and one of -> (the target player is less than alliance rank 10, or the target player has less than 5 normal/vet dungeon clears or, has completed fewer than 40 side/main quests.

The idea being that bots don't generally do any of these things but a player who gets on for an average of 1 hour per week can get any of these done within a couple weeks and won't be around enough to warrant getting troll reported.

LadyNalcarya · October 2017

They really need to re-introduce gamemasters.
Automated systems might also work, but they have a chance of false positive. On the other hand, if someone was reported a few times, a gamemaster could just check the account and ban it if its a bot.

Drummerx04 · October 2017

LadyNalcarya wrote: »

They really need to re-introduce gamemasters.
Automated systems might also work, but they have a chance of false positive. On the other hand, if someone was reported a few times, a gamemaster could just check the account and ban it if its a bot.

It would be nice, but I won't hold my breath. In the short term I'm hoping to flood ZOS with so many botting tickets that they have to at least pretend to care about them. (Auto report the entire list is next on my todo list lol)

Drummerx04 · October 2017

I just pushed an update to fix the Subcategory issue, you should now get rapid fire email responses from ZOS when you start submitting bot reports

Smasherx74 · October 2017

It's amazing when the communty designs third party addons to combat cheaters/hackers because the actual devs are too incompetent to do so.

smfh

Drummerx04 · October 2017

Smasherx74 wrote: »

It's amazing when the communty designs third party addons to combat cheaters/hackers because the actual devs are too incompetent to do so.

smfh

I would like to use an appropriate ML algorithm on a combination of Character Name, Display Name, Class, Gear Level, Level, and CpLevel in order to make an estimate on the probability of any given character being a bot (there is a lot of overlap in bot characters)... But I'm not sure I can gather enough data to make it work properly on my own.

Xelrick · October 2017

Too bad we can't use this on console.

I told someone though, if ZOS wanted to battle bot farms (atleast long running farming) was to create a grind debuff.

In such I suggested two forms, for both bot like encounters.

For the moving bots, make a kill and node counter which checks if you looted or kill the same target in a time span greater than respawn rate, like if you are farming a delve boss for gear (have a cooldown) and what it'll do is prevent area grinding. (Catch it'll affect people who may be doing legit, however they could put a bonus effect on XP potions/scrolls that allows you to grind areas.)

For the standing still kill-loot bots, used a debuff which triggers after killing an enemy (or a group members kills) if you didn't move greater than 5 in-game meters in the pass 15 seconds. By move I mean walk around, so even if they set up to use an ability then heavy attack, or jump, they'll still get debuff (They can still get the debuff if they died). The debuff will do the following it'll disable loot and XP gain, and put a 5 in-game meters ground AoE under you (that only you see) that last 60 seconds which will kill you when it ends and automatically place you to nearest wayshine, if already dead it will place you to the nearest wayshrine after 60 seconds pass. To removed the debuff simply walk out of the AoE. >_> oh this will only come in play in public areas, so excludes group dungeons, Trials, and killing other players.

I know I put more into the second one due to I'm on console, and it commonly seen there. Can't see the bots reacting to it too well, and it would be less intrusive to active players...

Chronicburn · October 2017

ZOS is 100% focused on milking every dime out of this Titanic before it sinks for good. Every resource from here on out will be spent on profit maximization until the day the game dies (eta 18 months?) ...
honestly they may give you a song and dance that they are trying, but that just to string you along in the hopes you will spend more money.
This game is 3 years old with one foot in the grave, don't expect much.
I'm ready to stick my head in the sand and wait for Camelot :0)

Elsonso · October 2017

Drummerx04 wrote: »

Smasherx74 wrote: »

It's amazing when the communty designs third party addons to combat cheaters/hackers because the actual devs are too incompetent to do so.

smfh

I would like to use an appropriate ML algorithm on a combination of Character Name, Display Name, Class, Gear Level, Level, and CpLevel in order to make an estimate on the probability of any given character being a bot (there is a lot of overlap in bot characters)... But I'm not sure I can gather enough data to make it work properly on my own.

For a while I was working on a virus scan sort of algorithm that could determine the likelyhood that a particular character is being controlled by a computer program and not a player. Back in 2014, using account and character names was a viable detection method. The first metric was the consonant to vowel ratio.

Today, you cannot go by account names and character names. The botters got smarter and realized that banging their head on the keyboard to generate account and character names was not a good plan. Normal players could decide to start botting, or they might sell their accounts to bot masters. They have normal names, even fancy equipment and titles, but all they do is run patterns farming. No one who cares about their account runs their Level 50 high CP character with a VMA title as a bot, but they do blend in better.

In any case, with the limited information that is available, now reduced thanks to the frothing about Miat's, and latency in the game, it is more work than it is worth to try to algorithmically detect botting from the player side. If ZOS were serious about them, I would certainly take another go at it, but as it stands now, it is just a folly.

VaranisArano · October 2017

@Drummerx04

Hey, I tried your addon today on PC NA, and it works fantastically! I prefer to write up a list of the bots and their @names so this worked perfectly. All I had to do was watch long enough to make sure I was only getting bots (even called out a warning that I was reporting), scan my cursor over the group, and click on their names to see the @name for my list for the report! I could have easily sent in one report for each player with your auto-generated report, but with 17 bots running in two trains in Karthdar, Grahtwood I wasn't sure that ZOS Customer Service would appreciate the spam. Instead I just attached my list when I reported a couple bots in each train.

This was much easier than my previous method of trying to follow the mob of bots and write down both character name and player @name for each one. This is a great tool for anyone who wants to report bots, since in my experience it takes repeated reports over several days to get them taken care of. Your scanner makes this additional daily task much quicker.

This is a great add-on that sadly fills a much needed role.

Elsonso · October 2017

VaranisArano wrote: »

@Drummerx04

Hey, I tried your addon today on PC NA, and it works fantastically! I prefer to write up a list of the bots and their @names so this worked perfectly. All I had to do was watch long enough to make sure I was only getting bots (even called out a warning that I was reporting), scan my cursor over the group, and click on their names to see the @name for my list for the report! I could have easily sent in one report for each player with your auto-generated report, but with 17 bots running in two trains in Karthdar, Grahtwood I wasn't sure that ZOS Customer Service would appreciate the spam. Instead I just attached my list when I reported a couple bots in each train.

This was much easier than my previous method of trying to follow the mob of bots and write down both character name and player @name for each one. This is a great tool for anyone who wants to report bots, since in my experience it takes repeated reports over several days to get them taken care of. Your scanner makes this additional daily task much quicker.

This is a great add-on that sadly fills a much needed role.

Check back on those bots daily. Let us know when they disappear, if they disappear.

Drummerx04 · October 2017

VaranisArano wrote: »

@Drummerx04

Hey, I tried your addon today on PC NA, and it works fantastically! I prefer to write up a list of the bots and their @names so this worked perfectly. All I had to do was watch long enough to make sure I was only getting bots (even called out a warning that I was reporting), scan my cursor over the group, and click on their names to see the @name for my list for the report! I could have easily sent in one report for each player with your auto-generated report, but with 17 bots running in two trains in Karthdar, Grahtwood I wasn't sure that ZOS Customer Service would appreciate the spam. Instead I just attached my list when I reported a couple bots in each train.

This was much easier than my previous method of trying to follow the mob of bots and write down both character name and player @name for each one. This is a great tool for anyone who wants to report bots, since in my experience it takes repeated reports over several days to get them taken care of. Your scanner makes this additional daily task much quicker.

This is a great add-on that sadly fills a much needed role.

@VaranisArano

Hey glad to hear you like it.

If there is a specific feature you'd like to see added, please let me know. Right now this is kind of just something I threw together, but I think in the public version Mouse 4-5 dumps the data stored for the character name in the list you've clicked on if you are trying to make sort of an aggregate report yourself.

There are features outside of Bot Reporting that I also intend to include down the road.

Apherius · October 2017

Thank for this ! It's just Awesome ,but i don't know what you mean by " mouse 1 ... mouse 2 ... mouse 3 "

( i mean in the addon description )

Edit : i have find ^^

DHale · October 2017

I really wished ZOS would address this with real action rather than just some fluff. I reported a bot over the weekend and as of last night still there I reported it but I don't think anyone at ZOS actually cares.

Drummerx04 · October 2017

Apherius wrote: »

Thank for this ! It's just Awesome ,but i don't know what you mean by " mouse 1 ... mouse 2 ... mouse 3 " ( i mean in the addon description )

Edit : i have find ^^

By default they are, "Left click, Right click, Middle click"

Waseem · October 2017

Zenimax no longer have employees to take care of bots.. i mean.. there are some to keep the espresso machine working non-stop but for customer support they have a couple of kawaii girls who reply 2 months after you submit the ticket

Kahina · October 2017

DHale wrote: »

I really wished ZOS would address this with real action rather than just some fluff. I reported a bot over the weekend and as of last night still there I reported it but I don't think anyone at ZOS actually cares.

A single report here or there is easy for ZOS customer support to ignore or take minimal action on. This tool allows far better reporting by more people. The customers themselves have to demonstrate that they see it as a problem

Light rain vs a flood.

Tasear · October 2017

So of these boots are turning into players. People are buying max level accounts. Good sellers are offering discount codes in chat. It's scary and thanks for add on.

FloppyTouch · October 2017

I wish we could use this on xb

Drummerx04 · October 2017

Kahina wrote: »

DHale wrote: »

I really wished ZOS would address this with real action rather than just some fluff. I reported a bot over the weekend and as of last night still there I reported it but I don't think anyone at ZOS actually cares.

A single report here or there is easy for ZOS customer support to ignore or take minimal action on. This tool allows far better reporting by more people. The customers themselves have to demonstrate that they see it as a problem

Light rain vs a flood.

Yup, this was the idea. The bot trains were annoyingly difficult to report. I remember trying to do it manually a few months back and I summarily gave up because it took too much effort.

But now if some are willing to take a minute to push a couple buttons with this addon we can generate dozens more reports in a fraction of the time from quite a few more people.

I'm hopeful, and I like to think I've done my community service lol

VaranisArano · October 2017

lordrichter wrote: »

Check back on those bots daily. Let us know when they disappear, if they disappear.

Interesting results so far.

As far as I know, the two bot trains with 17 players total in Karthdar, Grahtwood are gone, as are the 2 trains of 3 and 4 players that were farming the mudcrab beach near Haven, Grahtwood that I reported. So that's a good thing. Thank you, ZOS!

However, Kathdar really is a bot magnet, and there was a train of 5 bots there today, that I also reported. This one was fun, since they'd sometimes get split up on their route, but after watching for ten minutes, attempting interactions, and warning them in both /say and /zone chat that I was reporting and getting zero response, I'm pretty confident that they were all bots.

Unfortunately, the bot train of 12 bots in the Silverhoof Vale is still running strong for the third day that I've reported them (I included screenshots the 1st time). These bots are particularly sophisticated, since I watched some of them leave the Vale, run up the road to Shornhelm, sell their stuff to a merchant, and then go back to farming with their bot group. No, I'm not happy about this at all.

If anyone knows of locations that currently have active bot trains running, I'd be glad to take a look and report if necessary. I have done a quick check of locations that I knew I'd seen bots in the past and was happy to find many of them empty and the wildlife unmolested. It was also very easy to figure out when it was actual players farming the location and not bots on a preset routine.

Drummerx04 · October 2017

VaranisArano wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Check back on those bots daily. Let us know when they disappear, if they disappear.

Interesting results so far.

As far as I know, the two bot trains with 17 players total in Karthdar, Grahtwood are gone, as are the 2 trains of 3 and 4 players that were farming the mudcrab beach near Haven, Grahtwood that I reported. So that's a good thing. Thank you, ZOS!

However, Kathdar really is a bot magnet, and there was a train of 5 bots there today, that I also reported. This one was fun, since they'd sometimes get split up on their route, but after watching for ten minutes, attempting interactions, and warning them in both /say and /zone chat that I was reporting and getting zero response, I'm pretty confident that they were all bots.

Unfortunately, the bot train of 12 bots in the Silverhoof Vale is still running strong for the third day that I've reported them (I included screenshots the 1st time). These bots are particularly sophisticated, since I watched some of them leave the Vale, run up the road to Shornhelm, sell their stuff to a merchant, and then go back to farming with their bot group. No, I'm not happy about this at all.

If anyone knows of locations that currently have active bot trains running, I'd be glad to take a look and report if necessary. I have done a quick check of locations that I knew I'd seen bots in the past and was happy to find many of them empty and the wildlife unmolested. It was also very easy to figure out when it was actual players farming the location and not bots on a preset routine.

That's some dedication! Another pretty popular botting location atm is in Rivenspire towards the SW side of the map with a boat load of harpies (South of the gargoyle world boss)

Were you giving my addon a spin or are you doing all the reporting manually?

VaranisArano · October 2017

I'm using the addon to collect the names and usernames, then reporting several bots with the list included in the reports. It seems to work just fine, I'm just leery of spamming ZOS with reports myself because today I would have had to report 17 bots.

Yeah, I think Silverhoof Vale is the harpy area, but I'll check.

Elsonso · October 2017

VaranisArano wrote: »

If anyone knows of locations that currently have active bot trains running, I'd be glad to take a look and report if necessary. I have done a quick check of locations that I knew I'd seen bots in the past and was happy to find many of them empty and the wildlife unmolested. It was also very easy to figure out when it was actual players farming the location and not bots on a preset routine.

Let's see... Just a few quick ones from PC/NA. If I have time, I will add to the list.

Shadowfen @ Percolating Mines Wayshrine - They run right past it.
Shadowfen @ Hissmir Wayshrine - They run right past it
Shadowfen @ Reticulated Spine Dolmen - They will trigger the anchor here
Grahtwood @ Beach near Brackenleaf - They hunt mudcrabs
Grahtwood @ Karthdar - Near the Well is a good place to observe them
Stonefalls @ Fort Virak - must not have completed the quest line to see these bots

VaranisArano · October 2017

I hate to do this, I really do, but I have to.

The bot trains at Karthdar and the Haven beach weren't gone. I'd been afraid all along that I'd just been in a separate instance and tried to check back there multiple times over the last days to make sure I wasn't. I was in a sepearte instance, I suspect, because they were happily farming away.

Reported them all again, adding a note that I'd previously reported them. the Add-on makes it so nice and easy.

Ticket Numbers:
171013-002206
171013-002208
171013-002209
171013-002210
171013-002212
171013-002214
171013-002215
171013-002216
171013-002218
171013-002220
171013-002221
171013-002222
171013-002225
171013-002226
171013-002247
171013-002248
171013-002249
171013-002250
171013-002252
171013-002261

VaranisArano · October 2017

Wound up in a second instance of Rivenspire this morning, which naturally ALSO has a train of bots running around in it killing harpies. Reported them.

Checked back in before lunchtime, attempting to get into the first instance of Rivenspire so I can report that horde again. Wound up in the second instance with the bot horde from this morning. Found an actual ZOS Gamemaster dealing with the bots! Now they are all gone.

Thanks, ZOS Gamemaster Raven!

I also reported the same old bots in Karthdar (both instances) Haven beach, and new bots (new to me) in Shadowfen near Percolating Mire Wayshrine, Hissimir Wayshrine, and the Retiulating Spine Dolmen, turning in over 56 reports.

Hippie4927 · October 2017

Someone just started another thread with a picture of the Gamemaster announcing that he/she will be cleaning up bots in Shadowfen. Seems as though ZOS does care.

Hippie4927 · October 2017

Edited for double post

Chronicburn · October 2017

Still not sure why anyone cares about bots