Open letter to ZOS concerning bots

dimensional · April 2018

Please read this @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_RichLambert or anyone else that can forward this along.

I know that you know that we all know, bots have been plaguing ESO since basically forever. I have been playing since launch but now I am at the point that I am considering not spending a single dime on ESO until SOME kind of meaningful steps are taken towards this problem. Or even some kind of acknowledgement that the way it's currently being handled is not satisfactory.

I propose a simple solution: Just hire ONE game master per megaserver whose sole duty is to be IN-GAME and check on reports of botting as they are generated in real time. They can simply teleport to the location and ban the accounts. I can't stress enough how absolutely miserable it is seeing long bot trains every single zone I go to. Not only is it unfair for people who don't use bots, it's an ugly eye-sore and 100% ruins my gaming experience.

Do you guys and girls at ZOS even take this seriously? Let's see some *real* action on this finally, once and for all.

If any of the community members agree, I implore you to contribute to the thread, tag ZOS people and let them know. Please don't fall into the trap of "oh nothing will be done so there's no point". If you truly feel that way, then don't bother posting. I know for a fact that they read these threads and there have been issues that were resolved in the past simply because a thread like this gained enough traction.

VaranisArano · April 2018

Open letters generally aren't allowed on the forums.

However, I wholeheartedly agree that something needs to be done about the bots! A ZOS dev did go through some months back and hit the major groups of bots but of course they were right back at it a couple days later. Sustained efforts are needed.

Violynne · April 2018

I don't see a solution that's not going to waste time. Every single online game has bots, and there's nothing anyone can do about them except ignore them.

I've seen bots, but as long as they don't affect my game, I couldn't care less about them.

Kicking them off is only temporary. They'll be back. They're always going to be back.

DaedricAdept · April 2018

Back at launch it was a bad problem, in between it really got better from what I've seen but recently the botting raises up again especially in certain places that are full with mobs and a bit off the chart like the WWs in bankorai behind the small village, wolves around the tower of that cast away mage were Ayrenn's 3 advisors got lost, that zombie place in Greenshade around the tree that is withering.

Whatever you did back then to make it stop clearly is needed again.

Katahdin · April 2018

Saw my first bot train in Reaper's a couple of weeks ago. 20 characters running around following right after the other. Strangest thing I've seen in a while.

BozzyTheDrummer · April 2018

I have seen the bots before in large groups, especially sorcs. I know some poeple have told me they farms mats and the lot, but how exactly is that happening? I mean I can't say I know how bots work, but are these bots controlled by a computer to farm stuff? or are they just there, in groups casting spells and what not? I am genuinely confused as to the purpose of these bots and why there are so many of them.

reprosal · April 2018

People will be in a state of disbelief if all the bots were banned and realized that gold upgrading mats would double ^_-

Skwor · April 2018

reprosal wrote: »

People will be in a state of disbelief if all the bots were banned and realized that gold upgrading mats would double ^_-

As it should be. Bots are destroying the economy of rares

Violynne · April 2018

BozzyTheDrummer wrote: »

I mean I can't say I know how bots work, but are these bots controlled by a computer to farm stuff? or are they just there, in groups casting spells and what not? I am genuinely confused as to the purpose of these bots and why there are so many of them.

On PC, there are probably scripts running the game.

On console, they're rubber-banding controllers (with auto-loot turned on).

Regardless, after a couple of hours, someone probably clears the loot and goes right back to it.

I see bots on the XBox NA server often, and given their location, I can't envy what they're doing. Most are farming mats, and you can tell its probably Rubedo since every bot I've seen has attacked animals which drop it.

Given how rare this stuff drops, I often find myself tempted at rubber-banding my own controller.

EvilAutoTech · April 2018

The bots will be here as long as it's profitable. As long as people buy gold or leveled accounts, it will be profitable. Get people to refuse to do business with these companies and the bots will be gone.

How ZOS can do that is anyone's guess.

jssriot · April 2018

reprosal wrote: »

People will be in a state of disbelief if all the bots were banned and realized that gold upgrading mats would double ^_-

lol

Gold tempers and tannins are at the prices they are in large part to flippers: players who buy cheap listings up in bulk and then resell at higher prices. And guess what--some of these flippers are buying directly from people running bots.

Banning bots will not make price shoot up. The larger player community would in part resist that. There is such a thing as outpricing your market, and when your market is mostly players who have limited amounts of gold with the option to go farm things themselves--as well as plenty of other players around willing to undersell you--you are restricted in just how much you can price things before players stop buying. So there's that control in place and that will not change in bots disappear. The biggest change would probably be fewer so-called "high volume" sellers around and I think that would be ok.

Zweible · April 2018

I agree. But hold no hope for a solution.

Argruna · April 2018

Botting always picks up a month or two before an expansion drop. I ran into someone who was just sitting there using a spell in the same spot over and over again killing dreugh if they pathed into it. So I spent about ten minutes sniping all the dreugh I could find near them just to see if I got a message to '*** off' (I don't really consider it botting if they are at their keyboard). No message so I reported.

What irked me the most was reporting them didn't give me a drop down for botting and it should. Cheating to me is using exploits like hacking through a wall or doing something you can't do like flying. Botting is a beast of its own and therefor needs it's own category in the report screen.

The canned response emails are frustrating too. To be honest, the most frustrating thing is reporting something.

Question Subject: Customer Service Ticket
Question Reference #
Date Created:
Date Last Updated:
Status: Unresolved

Message Log:
The Elder Scrolls Online Team response on
The dwellers of Tamriel thank you for taking time from your adventures to report this offense. Maintaining the integrity of the land is a priority. We will investigate this matter and take appropriate action.

To protect individual privacy, we do not disclose the outcome of our investigation.

Please also be aware that you can add players whose behavior you find objectionable to the ignore list. To do this, open your contacts list (default: O) and click on the "No Entry" icon in the upper right corner. Now you have the option to add players. You can also do this by right-clicking on a player's name and choosing "Ignore". Once this is done, messages from the player in question will no longer be able to reach you.

If you are playing on a console, please contact Sony / Microsoft directly for more information on how to ignore or report a player who you feel is in violation of Sony or Microsoft’s Terms of Service.

Thank you for your continued interest and support!

Warm Regards,
The Elder Scrolls Online Team
Customer response on
Has been in the same spot, hitting the same area. Appears to be botting.

We will assume your issue has been resolved if we do not hear from you within 96 hours (4 days).

If your issue has not been resolved, you can respond directly to this email. We look forward to working with you again should you need us!

I'm not reporting someone who I want to ignore, I'm reporting someone who I think is botting. Don't tell me you'll investigate and then further down tell me if you haven't heard from me in 4 days, you consider the issue resolved. This is probably one of the reasons people don't want to report in the first place because of such a haphazard email this is. Mixed messages in one email does not help with reporting something, especially on issues like botting or worse, someone reporting harassment/stalking.

I think this is the one thing I hate in ESO is the reporting system. The emails are automated, it gives you mixed information on what is going on and honestly feels like the least thought was put into it seeing how the emails have seen little or no change in their formatting for 2+ years.

strangeradnd · April 2018

I report them any time I see them on PS4. I usually like to draw the attention of enemies with an AoE to the area and just keep watching the bots die. Sadly they res but it still costs them resources so it works for me. I will say over the last month or so I have actually seen fewer then normal and the worst offenders I have seen in the past seem to be missing so maybe something is being done?

carljokl · April 2018

How do we defeat evil bot uses? Build good bot uses?

From a computer science project perspective building a bot is an intriguing intellectual challenge. Can it be made to behave real enough for people to not know it is a bot. All the potential AI it would use to target items to fight or harvest.

Theoretically building a bot is much more straightforward on PC / Mac. Running equivalent software on a console is problematic as consoles typically don't let you run any third party software that hasn't been signed by an approved publisher. Consoles don't have ESO mods like the PC. I don't know if it is theoretically possible to hack the game somehow to insert some bot code that can drive it automatically.

Rubberbanding would have pretty limited functionality. A player would be stuck just firing the same attack over and over in a given direction without an enemy necessarily being there. It might work if it is some kind of magical attack that only fires if you are pointing at an enemy. Something like harvesting would be difficult. Do you just point at a resource node with the interact button permanently on so it harvest's it whenever it respawns? It could work but would be quite slow with long waits between respawns.

strangeradnd · April 2018

carljokl wrote: »

Rubberbanding would have pretty limited functionality. A player would be stuck just firing the same attack over and over in a given direction without an enemy necessarily being there. It might work if it is some kind of magical attack that only fires if you are pointing at an enemy. Something like harvesting would be difficult. Do you just point at a resource node with the interact button permanently on so it harvest's it whenever it respawns? It could work but would be quite slow with long waits between respawns.

I see this frequently. 5 or 6 nodes in an area with lvl 3 characters with similar names like ttg3 and ttg4 standing over them and going to work as soon as a node spawns. They don't even move out of an AoE from a shaman minotaur so you know there is no one on the other end.

Colecovision · April 2018

I always think the bot cries are overblown, but not this time. 'm pretty sure it's about to explode. Craglorn is already bare for the most part, and now it will be all of tamriel with the jewelry mats being so rare. I'm not sure if it matters, but the nodes for jewelry are mixed with the mining nodes. So if something were programmed to farm those, it may already be set up to keep jewelry mats from the rest of us. Someone who programs would know better, but either way, I don't see this going well without intervention from ZoS.

Ardaghion · April 2018

carljokl wrote: »

Rubberbanding would have pretty limited functionality. A player would be stuck just firing the same attack over and over in a given direction without an enemy necessarily being there. It might work if it is some kind of magical attack that only fires if you are pointing at an enemy. Something like harvesting would be difficult. Do you just point at a resource node with the interact button permanently on so it harvest's it whenever it respawns? It could work but would be quite slow with long waits between respawns.

On the console you basically have what you describe, a group of players, almost always sorcs, firing the same attack patterns off simultaneously with each player being pointed at a specific spawn point. Saw a group of them over the weekend killing wolf after wolf. Each player had a character name starting with a single letter and 2 digits, the gamertags were random.

I didn't watch them long enough but I assume they would stop attacking at some point to gather the hides. The players were all about level 8 so they weren't getting high level mats, probably just selling for gold that they can sell to other players outside the game.

ZOS could limit this ability by having random spawn points, if the wolves don't spawn deterministically it would be much harder to get anything this way automatically.

xaraan · April 2018

I'm sure they have manpower issues in responding to every report asap, but I have had additional emails from ZoS after reporting bot farming where of course you get the generic reply, but I also got additional replies thanking me for info that didn't seem form letter-ish. So it seems like they do take action, unfortunately there probably are just more bots than workers, not even counting being on or off work hours.

notimetocare · April 2018

dimensional wrote: »

Please read this @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_RichLambert or anyone else that can forward this along.

I know that you know that we all know, bots have been plaguing ESO since basically forever. I have been playing since launch but now I am at the point that I am considering not spending a single dime on ESO until SOME kind of meaningful steps are taken towards this problem. Or even some kind of acknowledgement that the way it's currently being handled is not satisfactory.

I propose a simple solution: Just hire ONE game master per megaserver whose sole duty is to be IN-GAME and check on reports of botting as they are generated in real time. They can simply teleport to the location and ban the accounts. I can't stress enough how absolutely miserable it is seeing long bot trains every single zone I go to. Not only is it unfair for people who don't use bots, it's an ugly eye-sore and 100% ruins my gaming experience.

Do you guys and girls at ZOS even take this seriously? Let's see some *real* action on this finally, once and for all.

If any of the community members agree, I implore you to contribute to the thread, tag ZOS people and let them know. Please don't fall into the trap of "oh nothing will be done so there's no point". If you truly feel that way, then don't bother posting. I know for a fact that they read these threads and there have been issues that were resolved in the past simply because a thread like this gained enough traction.

Bots are in every game. Impact of eso bots is small due to inefficient speed and no central AH.
Ignore bots tbh. Only hurts you if you let it

Karivaa · April 2018

Wow! A game master would be amazing to have on Xbox too!

KRBMMO · April 2018

notimetocare wrote: »

show previous quotes

dimensional wrote: »

Please read this @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_RichLambert or anyone else that can forward this along.

I know that you know that we all know, bots have been plaguing ESO since basically forever. I have been playing since launch but now I am at the point that I am considering not spending a single dime on ESO until SOME kind of meaningful steps are taken towards this problem. Or even some kind of acknowledgement that the way it's currently being handled is not satisfactory.

I propose a simple solution: Just hire ONE game master per megaserver whose sole duty is to be IN-GAME and check on reports of botting as they are generated in real time. They can simply teleport to the location and ban the accounts. I can't stress enough how absolutely miserable it is seeing long bot trains every single zone I go to. Not only is it unfair for people who don't use bots, it's an ugly eye-sore and 100% ruins my gaming experience.

Do you guys and girls at ZOS even take this seriously? Let's see some *real* action on this finally, once and for all.

If any of the community members agree, I implore you to contribute to the thread, tag ZOS people and let them know. Please don't fall into the trap of "oh nothing will be done so there's no point". If you truly feel that way, then don't bother posting. I know for a fact that they read these threads and there have been issues that were resolved in the past simply because a thread like this gained enough traction.

Bots are in every game. Impact of eso bots is small due to inefficient speed and no central AH.
Ignore bots tbh. Only hurts you if you let it

Just one GM on multiple PC's would be sufficient. Are bots an issue on non-PC or exclusively PC? There can't be THAT many bot trains and if they start handing out permabans there will be fewer very quickly so it should be able to get a handle on this in a week with just one GM.

What really boggles my mind is why there isn't a special category in a drop-down menu for flagrant violations of the TOS like gold selling, bots, exploits, etc.

Gnortranermara · April 2018

There are simple ways to characterize the behavior of bots and automate bot-busting responses when a player send a report. We should be able to report bots, which should trigger an automated behavior check that (if it comes back positive) should result in blowing that player up, logging them out, and placing the account on review for a human to check out and possibly permaban.

Adernath · April 2018

Violynne wrote: »

Regardless, after a couple of hours, someone probably clears the loot and goes right back to it.

I guess that these bots are clearing their loot by mailing it to someone.

Aurielle · April 2018

The more sophisticated (if I can use such a term) bots on console are also running macros, presumably with modded controllers. Saw a whole bunch of them not too long ago in Betnik running the same pattern and firing off Hurricane simultaneously.

Saucy_Jack · April 2018

The only way to stop a bad guy with a bot is a good guy with a bot.

Enemy-of-Coldharbour · April 2018

Just wait until the bots are hogging the few jewelry crafting nodes. Not looking forward to it.

notimetocare · April 2018

KRBMMO wrote: »

show previous quotes

notimetocare wrote: »

dimensional wrote: »

Please read this @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_RichLambert or anyone else that can forward this along.

I know that you know that we all know, bots have been plaguing ESO since basically forever. I have been playing since launch but now I am at the point that I am considering not spending a single dime on ESO until SOME kind of meaningful steps are taken towards this problem. Or even some kind of acknowledgement that the way it's currently being handled is not satisfactory.

I propose a simple solution: Just hire ONE game master per megaserver whose sole duty is to be IN-GAME and check on reports of botting as they are generated in real time. They can simply teleport to the location and ban the accounts. I can't stress enough how absolutely miserable it is seeing long bot trains every single zone I go to. Not only is it unfair for people who don't use bots, it's an ugly eye-sore and 100% ruins my gaming experience.

Do you guys and girls at ZOS even take this seriously? Let's see some *real* action on this finally, once and for all.

If any of the community members agree, I implore you to contribute to the thread, tag ZOS people and let them know. Please don't fall into the trap of "oh nothing will be done so there's no point". If you truly feel that way, then don't bother posting. I know for a fact that they read these threads and there have been issues that were resolved in the past simply because a thread like this gained enough traction.

Bots are in every game. Impact of eso bots is small due to inefficient speed and no central AH.
Ignore bots tbh. Only hurts you if you let it

Just one GM on multiple PC's would be sufficient. Are bots an issue on non-PC or exclusively PC? There can't be THAT many bot trains and if they start handing out permabans there will be fewer very quickly so it should be able to get a handle on this in a week with just one GM.

What really boggles my mind is why there isn't a special category in a drop-down menu for flagrant violations of the TOS like gold selling, bots, exploits, etc.

Doubtful. Bots are a non-issue compared to what happens when goldsellers can't bot. They move on to hacking and draining accounts

GeorgeBlack · April 2018

VaranisArano wrote: »

Open letters generally aren't allowed on the forums.

However, I wholeheartedly agree that something needs to be done about the bots! A ZOS dev did go through some months back and hit the major groups of bots but of course they were right back at it a couple days later. Sustained efforts are needed.

So if he didnt incluse these words in the title how would this topic be any different?

sirston · April 2018

couldn't they pull a runescape and have a % chance of npcs spawning and yelling "HA HA GOT YOU NOW" which could be labed as thief's/murders and would K.O. you if you try to run?

dimensional · April 2018

Any chance you are reading this thread @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_KaiSchober ?