How do bots work on console?

Im_MegaDeath · January 2018

bloodthirstyvampire wrote: »

Carved hills betnikh ps4 NA, like 50 bots this vid is EU but It's basically the same.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgPhkrzkacM

just looks like people with heavy atk held down or tapped down

TequilaFire · January 2018

OH they get flagged, they just change what gets flagged every time they do.

BlazingDynamo · January 2018

LiquidPony wrote: »

BlazingDynamo wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom can you please start putting a hard IP ban on these bot accounts? Something that will slow them down cause it's getting nuts.

Also believe it or not alot of end game players are buying gold and this contributes to the problem. There needs to be a more strict plan in place with dealing with these kinds of people.

The best way to get end game players to stop buying gold is to give them back a way to make gold in-game.

Bet that wasn't nearly the problem it is now when there was BoE gear in Trials.

Poor excuse. Lazy players are going to be lazy.

These people spends hundreds if not thousands on the crown store. It's easier for them to just swipe that credit card for gold just much as it it is for crowns.

I do believe there should be better ways of making money end game like it use to be with gold jewelry being tradeable.

LiquidPony · January 2018

BlazingDynamo wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

BlazingDynamo wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom can you please start putting a hard IP ban on these bot accounts? Something that will slow them down cause it's getting nuts.

Also believe it or not alot of end game players are buying gold and this contributes to the problem. There needs to be a more strict plan in place with dealing with these kinds of people.

The best way to get end game players to stop buying gold is to give them back a way to make gold in-game.

Bet that wasn't nearly the problem it is now when there was BoE gear in Trials.

Poor excuse. Lazy players are going to be lazy.

These people spends hundreds if not thousands on the crown store. It's easier for them to just swipe that credit card for gold just much as it it is for crowns.

I do believe there should be better ways of making money end game like it use to be with gold jewelry being tradeable.

You say lazy, I say efficient.

I don't really have a whole lot of time to engage in activities that earn gold, or to farm materials. Occasionally I get a day where I can group up and farm DLC dungeons for motifs, and that'll get me enough gold to keep me in Blessed Thistle/Corn Flower for a few weeks, but then I'm broke again. Progression is an expensive venture.

I'm certainly not going to buy gold, because I'm not risking getting my account banned, but I understand why people do it. People buy accounts, too, and I can't really blame them when, for instance, it's a console player fed up with the garbage performance of the game who wants to transfer to PC but can't.

Gamers being what they are, they're going to find ways to get what they want regardless of whether that jives with the ToS.

Cracking down on gold selling seems to me to be a lot like the "War on Drugs." ZOS ain't ever gonna win that battle. Blizzard never did. Instead, address the root cause. If end gamers were earning a reasonable amount of gold doing what they do playing the game for hours on end every day, they'd be less inclined to look to the black market.

BlazingDynamo · January 2018

LiquidPony wrote: »

BlazingDynamo wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

BlazingDynamo wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom can you please start putting a hard IP ban on these bot accounts? Something that will slow them down cause it's getting nuts.

Also believe it or not alot of end game players are buying gold and this contributes to the problem. There needs to be a more strict plan in place with dealing with these kinds of people.

The best way to get end game players to stop buying gold is to give them back a way to make gold in-game.

Bet that wasn't nearly the problem it is now when there was BoE gear in Trials.

Poor excuse. Lazy players are going to be lazy.

These people spends hundreds if not thousands on the crown store. It's easier for them to just swipe that credit card for gold just much as it it is for crowns.

I do believe there should be better ways of making money end game like it use to be with gold jewelry being tradeable.

You say lazy, I say efficient.

I don't really have a whole lot of time to engage in activities that earn gold, or to farm materials. Occasionally I get a day where I can group up and farm DLC dungeons for motifs, and that'll get me enough gold to keep me in Blessed Thistle/Corn Flower for a few weeks, but then I'm broke again. Progression is an expensive venture.

I'm certainly not going to buy gold, because I'm not risking getting my account banned, but I understand why people do it. People buy accounts, too, and I can't really blame them when, for instance, it's a console player fed up with the garbage performance of the game who wants to transfer to PC but can't.

Gamers being what they are, they're going to find ways to get what they want regardless of whether that jives with the ToS.

Cracking down on gold selling seems to me to be a lot like the "War on Drugs." ZOS ain't ever gonna win that battle. Blizzard never did. Instead, address the root cause. If end gamers were earning a reasonable amount of gold doing what they do playing the game for hours on end every day, they'd be less inclined to look to the black market.

Sounds like you're just trying to defend people you know. But that's okay lol

Armatesz · January 2018

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

zaria wrote: »

Armatesz wrote: »

Most bots are hacked consoles. That and they would use preprogrammed controllers as well.

Programmable controllers should work well enough. Not that this is not real booting, its macroing or how pc players do LA animation canceling
Yes its way better than rubber banding as you can use abilities like AoE, an rotation with multiple AoE, self heal or shields, you could even set up you character to rotate and so on, however its no feedback. You are doing this totally bind.

Now running if you can jailbreak an Xbox One you can run external software, just as on an PC, now if you unplug it and just play pirated games you download on your pc this would works for ever.
However ESO is an online game, ESO will deny player with an non updated client it will require an updated OS, Microsoft is likely to require this.
Now ESO is doing pretty well however Overwatch and some other games is 10 time larger and have more professional developers. being pure pvp games hacks also hurts way worse.
In short I doubt you can run an cracked console online for long.
Its so many ways you could uncover this.
Again bots would require software written for use with eso.

You can't run a cracked console online for any amount of time. It get's picked upon as soon as you log in. Also, like you said, most of the chipped/homebrew consoles from last gen were for offline use only, to play SP games. It was possible last gen to use save editors, manipulate values within those editors and fill your boots a la Borderlands 2. Those saves can and are still used in the remastered PS4/X1 versions.

That is not always true. I've seen some people that had hacked xbox 360 systems that were up for 2 years before microsoft caught on.

Wreuntzylla · January 2018

You can't say can't. To anything. Not since Galileo...

So many fail examples. The world can't be round. The Titanic can't sink. The sound barrier can't be broken. What goes up (can't stay up) must come down. People can't cheat in ESO. And so on.

Xithian · January 2018

There are devices to send input to the console by plugging in a dongle to the USB. The console thinks it's a plugged in controller. From there it's not a giant step to set up a bot run on a PC, but I'd imagine they would require more oversight than their PC counterparts. Or different techniques for adjusting for lag/being bumped off course.

Either way, I'm sure it's doable. Worth the investment for anyone but a professional bot farmer? Probably not.

Mettaricana · January 2018

If i remember correctly ps4 can be streamed to a pc

Runefang · January 2018

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

You can't say can't. To anything. Not since Galileo...

So many fail examples. The world can't be round. The Titanic can't sink. The sound barrier can't be broken. What goes up (can't stay up) must come down. People can't cheat in ESO. And so on.

Galileo was the Earth not being the centre of the solar system. It was common knowledge that the Earth was round before Christ was born.

wolfxspice · January 2018

their are programs that allow a pc to "pretend" its a controller, look at the back of your xbox, theirs a usb port their, they plug that into their computer, then they use the controller program to write macros. this is just one of a long list of reasons why i haven't been playing a whole lot lately.

LiquidPony · January 2018

BlazingDynamo wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

BlazingDynamo wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

BlazingDynamo wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom can you please start putting a hard IP ban on these bot accounts? Something that will slow them down cause it's getting nuts.

Also believe it or not alot of end game players are buying gold and this contributes to the problem. There needs to be a more strict plan in place with dealing with these kinds of people.

The best way to get end game players to stop buying gold is to give them back a way to make gold in-game.

Bet that wasn't nearly the problem it is now when there was BoE gear in Trials.

Poor excuse. Lazy players are going to be lazy.

These people spends hundreds if not thousands on the crown store. It's easier for them to just swipe that credit card for gold just much as it it is for crowns.

I do believe there should be better ways of making money end game like it use to be with gold jewelry being tradeable.

You say lazy, I say efficient.

I don't really have a whole lot of time to engage in activities that earn gold, or to farm materials. Occasionally I get a day where I can group up and farm DLC dungeons for motifs, and that'll get me enough gold to keep me in Blessed Thistle/Corn Flower for a few weeks, but then I'm broke again. Progression is an expensive venture.

I'm certainly not going to buy gold, because I'm not risking getting my account banned, but I understand why people do it. People buy accounts, too, and I can't really blame them when, for instance, it's a console player fed up with the garbage performance of the game who wants to transfer to PC but can't.

Gamers being what they are, they're going to find ways to get what they want regardless of whether that jives with the ToS.

Cracking down on gold selling seems to me to be a lot like the "War on Drugs." ZOS ain't ever gonna win that battle. Blizzard never did. Instead, address the root cause. If end gamers were earning a reasonable amount of gold doing what they do playing the game for hours on end every day, they'd be less inclined to look to the black market.

Sounds like you're just trying to defend people you know. But that's okay lol

Nope, just don't have a problem with the exchange of real money for in-game gold.

Whiphid · January 2018

ZOS should really just report all these people directly to MS/Sony, so they can just brick the consoles.
Nothing seems to be happening however, all it would take is 1 hour of ingame admin with a banhammer, on a changing time every week to visit the hotspots.

Stop defending gold buying and gold selling. There is really no excuse.
The gold selling business has f-ed up the PS4 economy for real.

If, on the other hand ZOS doesnt care too much about these bot accounts, maybe they should post a tutorial, so that we can all farm some wax in the hours we are at work?

MJallday · January 2018

it doesnt even have to be as difficult as having cracked hardware.

Windows 10 comes with an Xbox app, which connects to your Xbox 1 to stream any game on it - you can plug a (wired) controller into your PC and play on ESO on your Xbox, on your PC. (i do this a lot if im sat in my living room as opposed to my games room)

it wouldnt take a genius to work out how to make a macro/peice of software to make a bot using this method.

tbh the only way of stopping it is having random locations for spawn points for nodes (i believe thats what they ended up doing in games like runescape)

LadyLethalla · January 2018

Since I started again on PS4 NA I have seen bots, bots and more bots - and I would venture to say, more bots thanI ever encountered on EU, where I have spent most of my game time. Bots in Betnikh. Bots in Camlorn, killing werewolves. I have a screenshot saved of the carnage. And last night, in Alik'r, a group of sorcs, standing in a clump, all popping Lightning Form simultaneously and killing mudcrabs. So it's definitely possible.

Elsonso · January 2018

Whiphid wrote: »

ZOS should really just report all these people directly to MS/Sony, so they can just brick the consoles.
Nothing seems to be happening however, all it would take is 1 hour of ingame admin with a banhammer, on a changing time every week to visit the hotspots.

I would imagine that it is not that simple on the consoles. The player is, first and foremost, a customer of Sony or Microsoft. I have to think that this complicates matters, even for something as simple as banning them from ESO. There is certainly an appeals process with Sony and Microsoft, and I have to wonder whether the outcome of that might have bearing on what ZOS does. I am sure there is a lengthy and detailed contract, with terms and limitations, obligations and expectations, between ZOS/Bethesda and Sony/Microsoft that details all of this. I am also sure that we will never see that contract.

I am not sure that the role of ZOS and Bethesda in all this is nothing more than to forward this stuff on to Sony and Microsoft. I have yet to hear anything out of ZOS that would indicate that they take direct action against botters and gold sellers on the console platforms. I realize that ZOS doesn't jabber on about what they do about this sort of stuff, but you would think something would slip out, as it has on the PC side.

WildRaptorX · January 2018

LadyLethalla wrote: »

Since I started again on PS4 NA I have seen bots, bots and more bots - and I would venture to say, more bots thanI ever encountered on EU, where I have spent most of my game time. Bots in Betnikh. Bots in Camlorn, killing werewolves. I have a screenshot saved of the carnage. And last night, in Alik'r, a group of sorcs, standing in a clump, all popping Lightning Form simultaneously and killing mudcrabs. So it's definitely possible.

Yeah, Camlorn is really bad

Wreuntzylla · January 2018

Runefang wrote: »

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

You can't say can't. To anything. Not since Galileo...

So many fail examples. The world can't be round. The Titanic can't sink. The sound barrier can't be broken. What goes up (can't stay up) must come down. People can't cheat in ESO. And so on.

Galileo was the Earth not being the centre of the solar system. It was common knowledge that the Earth was round before Christ was born.

Galileo also wasn't the Titanic sinking, the sound barrier being broken, etc. I picked my examples based on concepts most people are familiar with. Flat Earth societies still exist... Non-heliocentric societies? Not so much.

Tan9oSuccka · January 2018

mb10 wrote: »

They dont lol

Most people can do is rubber band but getting a character to act on its own without being there in person is impossible on console.

This statement is 100% false.

I see it on PS4 every day and in multiple zones.

CromulentForumID · January 2018

Tan9oSuccka wrote: »

mb10 wrote: »

They dont lol

Most people can do is rubber band but getting a character to act on its own without being there in person is impossible on console.

This statement is 100% false.

I see it on PS4 every day and in multiple zones.

I have a fantastic video capture of a line of characters moving back and forth in unison in Betnikh on PS4. It actually looked like someone was playing Foosball.

iiYuki · January 2018

Neither have been hacked successfully to the extent to allow you to run Jtag/RGH, jailbreaking or mod-menus and certainly not while online. Anyone that thinks they can are people talking *** or are being conned by sites offering a fake service.

The PS4 recently got broken into but that was on a very old software version (a late 2016 release v4.05), you cannot go online and it only allows for basic console modding and playing PS2 games via the inbuilt backwards compatibility Sony dont want to release to people (so they can sell us games that are over a decade old at marked up prices).

Allegedly the Xbox One has a offline softmod to allow you to run .ISO files of pirated games, again on an older version (early 2017 - v10.0.14393.2152) but sites are sketchy at best and aren't talked about on major console modding sites so I take them as being fake, they best you can find is talk about proof of concept mods based on a know code exploit found in 2016 that has obviously been patched. The only major "hack" was in late 2014 and early 2015 with the releasing of the SDK and minor leaks like the ability for Xbone devs to use a 7th core and minor leakes about Halo 5.

I imagine what people class as "bots" are really just people farming that people claim act like bots, whatever acting like a bot is, as if anyone caught running a node train instantly counts as a bot. Even if there was a RGH xbox one readily available what is the likelihood they even play eso, never mind choose to run bot software, farm the same place at the same time. I play PC and since beta and have never seen a bot train like people seem to describe on the forums.

LiquidPony · January 2018

iiYuki wrote: »

Neither have been hacked successfully to the extent to allow you to run Jtag/RGH, jailbreaking or mod-menus and certainly not while online. Anyone that thinks they can are people talking *** or are being conned by sites offering a fake service.

The PS4 recently got broken into but that was on a very old software version (a late 2016 release v4.05), you cannot go online and it only allows for basic console modding and playing PS2 games via the inbuilt backwards compatibility Sony dont want to release to people (so they can sell us games that are over a decade old at marked up prices).

Allegedly the Xbox One has a offline softmod to allow you to run .ISO files of pirated games, again on an older version (early 2017 - v10.0.14393.2152) but sites are sketchy at best and aren't talked about on major console modding sites so I take them as being fake, they best you can find is talk about proof of concept mods based on a know code exploit found in 2016 that has obviously been patched. The only major "hack" was in late 2014 and early 2015 with the releasing of the SDK and minor leaks like the ability for Xbone devs to use a 7th core and minor leakes about Halo 5.

I imagine what people class as "bots" are really just people farming that people claim act like bots, whatever acting like a bot is, as if anyone caught running a node train instantly counts as a bot. Even if there was a RGH xbox one readily available what is the likelihood they even play eso, never mind choose to run bot software, farm the same place at the same time. I play PC and since beta and have never seen a bot train like people seem to describe on the forums.

lol

Seriously, I can go to any starter zone on XB1/NA and find 15 sorcs standing on top ofeach other who all have similar names like "xyz123" and "zyx321" and "yxz213", who are all repeating identical actions in identical order without moving.

"Botting" on XB1, 101:

* Connect your PC to your XB1 via Remote Play
* Use AutoHotkey to automate a sequence of button presses
* Profit

Take it to the next level:

* Get 10 XB1s
* Run 10 Windows instances in VMs, connect each to its own XB1
* Script out your actions rather than using AHK
* Profit

There's no "hacking" necessary to do this.

Elsonso · January 2018

iiYuki wrote: »

I imagine what people class as "bots" are really just people farming that people claim act like bots, whatever acting like a bot is, as if anyone caught running a node train instantly counts as a bot. Even if there was a RGH xbox one readily available what is the likelihood they even play eso, never mind choose to run bot software, farm the same place at the same time. I play PC and since beta and have never seen a bot train like people seem to describe on the forums.

On PC, there are bots, and bot trains. Actual characters that are not being run by any player interactively. Right about 100 of them on PC/NA in the last two weeks. They are not hard to find.

I can't say for PS4, since I don't play on that enough to go look where people are seeing them.

zaria · January 2018

lordrichter wrote: »

iiYuki wrote: »

I imagine what people class as "bots" are really just people farming that people claim act like bots, whatever acting like a bot is, as if anyone caught running a node train instantly counts as a bot. Even if there was a RGH xbox one readily available what is the likelihood they even play eso, never mind choose to run bot software, farm the same place at the same time. I play PC and since beta and have never seen a bot train like people seem to describe on the forums.

On PC, there are bots, and bot trains. Actual characters that are not being run by any player interactively. Right about 100 of them on PC/NA in the last two weeks. They are not hard to find.

I can't say for PS4, since I don't play on that enough to go look where people are seeing them.

This, know about the Gratewood bot train, its very obvious.
On the other hand I ran into an small groups of bots in north west stonefall while questing there, I thought it was players farming mobs waiting for dolmen to spawn, dolmen popped and they all continued killing the few mobs so they was obvious bots.
Rubber banders and simply macro is just so much more visible.

geonsocal · January 2018

iiYuki wrote: »

I imagine what people class as "bots" are really just people farming that people claim act like bots, whatever acting like a bot is, as if anyone caught running a node train instantly counts as a bot.

I play PC and since beta and have never seen a bot train like people seem to describe on the forums.

definitely sounds like something a bot would say...

BrockofPercival · January 2018

Cheating and bots are going to happen, moreso the more popular the game. Anyone denying this is either extremely naive/clueless, or cheating and thus trying to downplay.

Anyways, it always happens every MMO. The key is the devs have to ban.

It is so easy to roam and see all the bots, I do not get why they don't just ban them all. One GM could wipe out hundreds in 1 day. And it is also easy to see and then for the GM to check their data logs to confirm. There is a huge difference between a bot data log and a data log by someone actually playing the game, not to mention their banks, etc. Should be simple to just data mine for bot accounts, ban thousands in one swoop.

So so easy. Yet it always takes so long for any action to be taken. People have to start leaving in big chunks before gaming companies finally decide to spend a small amount of money removing cheaters. Always too late.

Elsonso · January 2018

geonsocal wrote: »

iiYuki wrote: »

I imagine what people class as "bots" are really just people farming that people claim act like bots, whatever acting like a bot is, as if anyone caught running a node train instantly counts as a bot.

I play PC and since beta and have never seen a bot train like people seem to describe on the forums.

definitely sounds like something a bot would say...

Bots don't say anything...

WildRaptorX · January 2018

iiYuki wrote: »

Neither have been hacked successfully to the extent to allow you to run Jtag/RGH, jailbreaking or mod-menus and certainly not while online. Anyone that thinks they can are people talking *** or are being conned by sites offering a fake service.

The PS4 recently got broken into but that was on a very old software version (a late 2016 release v4.05), you cannot go online and it only allows for basic console modding and playing PS2 games via the inbuilt backwards compatibility Sony dont want to release to people (so they can sell us games that are over a decade old at marked up prices).

Allegedly the Xbox One has a offline softmod to allow you to run .ISO files of pirated games, again on an older version (early 2017 - v10.0.14393.2152) but sites are sketchy at best and aren't talked about on major console modding sites so I take them as being fake, they best you can find is talk about proof of concept mods based on a know code exploit found in 2016 that has obviously been patched. The only major "hack" was in late 2014 and early 2015 with the releasing of the SDK and minor leaks like the ability for Xbone devs to use a 7th core and minor leakes about Halo 5.

I imagine what people class as "bots" are really just people farming that people claim act like bots, whatever acting like a bot is, as if anyone caught running a node train instantly counts as a bot. Even if there was a RGH xbox one readily available what is the likelihood they even play eso, never mind choose to run bot software, farm the same place at the same time. I play PC and since beta and have never seen a bot train like people seem to describe on the forums.

Nah like, they all look the same, casting heavy attacks at the same time, using the same pets. Everything identical, even their timing. They also have keyboard spam names. And there’s like 20 of them. Defiantly real bots.

Asardes · January 2018

The console itself has a number of anti-hacking measures that helps the Microsoft and Sony detect and shut down the devices. So it's more likely botters are using hacked controllers that get input from a script actually running on a PC trough a cable; technically this is easy to do with simply soldering wires at the right places and then to an external connector. The console receives and executes the movement commands as usual. The main problem with those kinds of bots is that they cannot respond to environment like some of the PC ones, so they probably have rudimentary mechanics, like running in the same loop every time. Aggroing and killing is relatively easy, because of auto target on ranged weapons. They probably also need some kind of human assistance, to check if they died, if their inventory is full etc. from time to time. Probably that's why they use pet sorcerer, which is one of the hardiest builds in game due to surge and ward. You don't even need to respond to the environment. As long as your process recasts Power Surge every 30s then holds the heavy attack button you simply cannot die to overland mobs.

GreenhaloX · January 2018

LadyLethalla wrote: »

Since I started again on PS4 NA I have seen bots, bots and more bots - and I would venture to say, more bots thanI ever encountered on EU, where I have spent most of my game time. Bots in Betnikh. Bots in Camlorn, killing werewolves. I have a screenshot saved of the carnage. And last night, in Alik'r, a group of sorcs, standing in a clump, all popping Lightning Form simultaneously and killing mudcrabs. So it's definitely possible.

Yes.. this. I use to report those and the locations, but throughout the years, it seem more and more are popping up. So, I just pretty much whatever and go on my way. You can also see those duplicates or replicants in Khenarthi when they first spawn. Every time I create a new toon and go there for the skyshards, I can see these replicants. The leader (the real toon with jumbled up name; well, they all have jumbled up names and numbers) in front while 8-10 replicants are lined up straight behind. It can be amusing to watch. The replicants seem to mimic everything the leader (or actual toon) does. If the leader pulls up a map, the replicants will do the same. As the leader draws the staff and so does the replicants. When the leader does that non-wayshrine bubble warping thing, and so does the replicants.

I'm thinking it's probably more difficult for ZOS to police these bots/bot farmers than with those dolmen rubberbanders. It be would cool to watch, though, if ZOS is able to police or actually set up a countermeasure, like they had done for the rubberbanders. Let's say an actual GM going to those sites of the bot farmers and pops up a couple/few mammoths to barrel roll through those bots back and forth. Ha ha