transGemini wrote: »

Forgive my ignorance but how do you spot a bot?

They are always grouped and go like train killing wolves, crabs and similar.

For example, they are always in the same spot in Auridon.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1232688209
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1245091710

Now that the game gets more and more popular, more bots will show up. I really hope ZOS will intervene at some point....(they already do intervene but just not efficient enough)

ZOS is banning bots, they just show up faster again than they ban them lol. They ban 10 bots, 12 more show up the following day.

@Rittings @exiars10 thank you for explaining that to me. I will be on the look out and will report (although it doesn't sound like it's worth much).

SisterGoat wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Bots are a simple solution. Just add CAPTCHA to the game and require the player to pass it to get loot from anything.

There are bot programs that know how to get around captcha now...

It really depends on the CAPTCHA technology used, doesn't it?

SisterGoat wrote: »

Every game I've played that puts in new systems to combat bots, the botters find their way around them in a week. One game made the game so restrictive that it was extremely uncomfortable for normal players, yet bots still somehow found ways around them. It's almost not even worth it to put in the effort to stop them.

It depends on what the motives are for getting rid of bots to determine what the "worth" is. If bots are driving away customers that actually pay, then it might be worth quite a bit to put in the effort to stop them. That is probably not the case here.

At launch, ZOS went the extra mile and took care of them. It is why I came back to the game in 2014. Apparently, it was worth it back then.

transGemini wrote: »

Forgive my ignorance but how do you spot a bot?

As has been said, bot trains are easy to spot and you know them instantly when you see them. When you see 2 to 15+ characters following in a line killing minor mobs like mudcrabs, guars, wolves, and stuff like that, and they all run like they are on the same railroad track, it's bots. These are easy to track and report on PC with that bot add-on that is out there on ESOUI.

We still get the single bot that just farms a single resource. This guy will just stand there doing nothing until a resource node pops up, grab it, and go back to doing nothing. It is almost impossible to get that node before they do, which is the first test. A human will not be able to beat you every time, no matter how dedicated they are. This character will stand there for hours. That is the second test. When they are there on two consecutive days, or more than 12 hours later, I consider it reportable.

Trickier to spot are the single bots that are out there farming multiple crafting resources. There are almost always one or two of them in Bal Foyen on PC NA. If you want to learn how to see these in the game, and I see them quite frequently in non-DLC zones in the game, it is necessary to really to be paying attention to who you see and when and where you see them. Bots always return to the scene of the crime. Repeatedly.

Most people think that bots are limited to "Chinese gold sellers", and while I am sure that something like that is in the game, some are probably run by normal players who just want to cheat. Some of those normal players visit the forums. I am sure that it is not unheard of for them to post in threads like these.

Lord wrote: »

There is a need for one or more of the following:
1. Active Game masters patrolling the servers and banning the bots on-sight or per reports 24/7 or most of the week(The easiest solution to this issue. I will be happy to see Game Masters involved in keeping the peace).
2. An automatic system to ban the bots if found positive for botting(system of this type will have to be very good in checking if a player is botting in order to avoid false positives, i.e mistakenly banning a real player for botting).
3. Other - Many suggestions on how to deal with bots can be found in this thread and other threads. Please consider those suggestions.

While I have often said that Item 1 is impractical due to the sheer size of the game, one person spending one hour per megaserver every day could put a serious dent in the bots at certain locations in the game. They are that easy to find, right now.

Item 2 is basically an implementation of CAPTCHA. Note that if you do it the Google way, you don't have to challenge the player at all, which makes it very hard to "beat". I am not sure I trust ZOS enough to automatically ban accounts, but booting them from the game, flagging their account for review, and imposing a cooldown on how soon they can log back in, would be a start.

BlazingDynamo wrote: »

This is 1Ts fault. Overland zones are a breeze and take not effort to kill things.

Bots were here before then, and bots don't take on the big monsters, anyway. Guar and mudcrabs barely fight back.

Bot farmers exist and gold selling works because players who want instant gratification exist. A few of them will openly admit to buying gold, some know it's against TOS and so keep quiet. But they exist... and these gold sellers are making a fortune.

Think of it this way - remember those people banned for the *** rally imitation in Belkarth? (PS4 NA) Well, nearly all of them are back - some have purchased PSN accounts from other players who quit the game. ZoS know about them, but haven't acted on that either. Some of them are youtubers who make money from their ESO related content - so it's an investment for them that will make a return.

I maintain some easy stuff could seriously help. If I were ZoS I'd definitely recruit some GMs they can trust. I'd also make the drops far less on smaller creatures with a much higher return of scraps on harder enemies. Watch those bots die if they try to take them on.

They could also hire a type of GM that doesn't have kick power, but has the power to "force duel". Meaning the player could force a duel with the bots and kill them all

Zweible wrote: »

You have to look at the whole situation in a business like manner. As long as revenue generated (from the bots) is greater than or equal to the revenue lost from people quitting the game because they feel the botting is affecting their gameplay, ZOS will feel under no pressure at all to alleviate the situation. It's a business, pure and simple. Why spend more of the profits or income to try to quell a problem that is not (at the present) affecting your bottom line?

Zweible

This is a true business statement, but there is more to it than that. The cost to fix has to be less than the revenue they will gain by fixing it. Cyrodiil lag has, in my opinion, completely gutted PVP in this game. I figure that has cost them tens of millions in revenue over the last couple of years. If that has not been enough to justify fixing it, I can't imagine lost revenue protesting a few hundred people cheating and botting in the game is going to even register with them. Cyrodiil is too expensive to fix. Bots and Cheating is probably too expensive to address more than they are.

Zweible wrote: »

You have to look at the whole situation in a business like manner. As long as revenue generated (from the bots) is greater than or equal to the revenue lost from people quitting the game because they feel the botting is affecting their gameplay, ZOS will feel under no pressure at all to alleviate the situation. It's a business, pure and simple. Why spend more of the profits or income to try to quell a problem that is not (at the present) affecting your bottom line?

Zweible

Then why bother even having a ToS to sign ?

Cpt_Teemo wrote: »

Zweible wrote: »

You have to look at the whole situation in a business like manner. As long as revenue generated (from the bots) is greater than or equal to the revenue lost from people quitting the game because they feel the botting is affecting their gameplay, ZOS will feel under no pressure at all to alleviate the situation. It's a business, pure and simple. Why spend more of the profits or income to try to quell a problem that is not (at the present) affecting your bottom line?

Zweible

Then why bother even having a ToS to sign ?

They are not required to enforce the ToS, but if they decide to do it, in total or in part, they have your agreement to do so.

Besides, it keeps the lawyers busy. Idle lawyers are the devil's workshop. I think that is how the saying goes.

Bots allow zos to say they have X active players every month.

Rittings wrote: »

On the PS4 NA Server, today I spotted bots in the following locations...

Glenumbra, Camlorn (2 different instance, one of them all the psn's began with "Lancer" with letters and numbers after them. The ring leader was a CP594 with about 20 bots all similarly named.

Bangkorai killing bears as you take the passage from north to south Bangkorai

Auridon killing bears and wolves (roughly centre of map)

Betnikh killing wolves

Rivenspire killing wolves in the derelict castle to the east of Shornhelm (by the Public Dungeon)

I would estimate approximately 100 bots spotted and reported in a short period of time. We need GMs badly - and they need to investigate further. It might be useful to make DLC animals drop double the rate of leather compared to the normal zones. That would force the bots to either spend some of their cash constantly (which I doubt they'd do) or enable genuine players the ability to drive their prices down even further, thus making it worthless for the bots to bother...

I noticed this on Xbox one NA. It was difficult to do the New Life quest there.

jaye63 wrote: »

So then why within 2 minutes of reporting one was the account no longer there?

Six months ago, someone else reported them?

The Bot situation is just going to be a repeated cycle over again because these people do not care about getting banned at all or selling fake accounts that will get banned. The true crime is whose identities were stolen to create these fake accounts?

Rittings wrote: »

Wildcopper wrote: »

Rittings wrote: »

If not, start giving power to dedicated players that you can trust.

WORST. IDEA. EVER.

This is how Gamemasters work... it's how they work in most top MMOs.. sorry if that disappoints you.

Wrong. In all top MMOs, GMs are paid professionals, not some random players.
Giving that kind of power to random players is the worst idea ever.

krachall wrote: »

As said in this thread above, ZOS needs to leverage their greatest asset to fight bots: the players.

You have tens of thousands of people who will happily do 90% of the work for you to identify bots. Use it!

Give some accounts a higher form of reporting that will flag a character as a potential bot and have that flags sent to someone dedicated to shutting down the account.

Once the account is shut down, escalate it to true customer service to investigate and take the appropriate actions.

If an account abuses the reporting flag, remove their ability to flag.

And it’s not like we’re talking about hundreds of bots, it’s just a few dozen. It’s not that much of a drain on the staff but it’s a HUGE step towards retaining players.

Sadly, we ARE now talking a few hundred bots. All over of Tamriel in mutliple instances too...

Wildcopper wrote: »

Rittings wrote: »

Wildcopper wrote: »

Rittings wrote: »

If not, start giving power to dedicated players that you can trust.

WORST. IDEA. EVER.

This is how Gamemasters work... it's how they work in most top MMOs.. sorry if that disappoints you.

Wrong. In all top MMOs, GMs are paid professionals, not some random players.
Giving that kind of power to random players is the worst idea ever.

I know a few GMs for Blizzard - they applied via the website as PLAYERS - they get paid next to nothing. You might want to check your source of facts.