I've seen a few bots in Alkir (spelling?) desert over the past few weeks, quite a few low level players light attacking mudcrabs who have an insanely fast respawn time, just west from Sentinel city. Reported it twice, still nothing done.

Oh I remember when I first got into ESO and started levelling my first character. I came upon a train of other players with pets running around, killing everything. I honestly thought this must be power levelling or something, so I joined them. After an hour I received a whisper from another player telling me I am following bots and should step away or I might get banned.

To be perfectly fair, I have never come across a bot train again. Maybe once, in Windhelm, there was literally dozens and dozens of players with impossible names running around in prisoners clothes.

I won't go out of my way to report bots. If I see a bot train run by me, I'll tag one and report them for exploiting/cheating but in my report all I write is "Bot train/multiboxing."

I'm not the bot police and not going to spend my free time chasing after them and filing detailed reports. I figure if enough people report the same player for botting, eventually they may take notice.

Most of my tickets get closed within a few days and all I get is some form of automated response ending in, "We will assume your issue has been resolved if we do not hear from you within 96 hours (4 days)."

I report them when I see them. I've never received a reply such as yours.

Use this: http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1818-BotScanner2000.html

Bot Scanner 2000 updated for Summerset. It does all the hard work for you. Fills out the report and the correct categories, etc.

Scan em in, report them. Done. Those xi82k;Jk.a,,'[9873780 names? No problem! It does it all.

I've been lucky so far (*knocks on wood*) in that I've only seen a couple of bot trains recently, but yes, they are a problem for a variety of reasons, the chief being that players are willing to pay real $$$ for in-game currency. As long as scripters can make money from producing a simple script, they are going to do it; it's plug and forget, basically free money. While B2P and other free MMO models are also a bit more attractive to scripters, the biggest problem for banning players is that there is virtually no way to permanently ban an individual from a site/game/etc.

And therein lies another core issue with scripters and farm bots: they do not care about their characters/accounts. To a scripter, it doesn't matter if his/her account/s are banned, just plugin a new email address and start over, simple. Permanent bans are a lot more meaningful to players with dedicated characters, all their achievements, gold, items, titles, crowns are lost. That's a huge blow, as it should be if a player has done something to warrant such an action; they can come back if they wanted, but they are starting over from scratch. Scripters don't have attachments to such things because the game is just a tool to make money.

So yes, bot trains will always be a thing on any MMO as long as people are willing to spend real money on a service or item provided by these scripters.

Also, in almost any company, customer service departments are under-staffed, under-paid (for what they deal with), and overloaded with the sheer amount of tickets coming in at all-times during the day. This is especially true for online games, so even though you're frustrated or annoyed, please don't take it out on them... They're people too. I have worked in customer support and believe me, not only is showing simple respect and courtesy greatly appreciated and in general short-supply; but I'm much more willing to go the extra mile for that customer compared to another who is taking their frustrations out on me.

ok so new to this... How would you know it's a bot? I frequently follow a circuit when I'm farming.. like for Jewelry mat for example.. I have been trying to lvl quickly and have a place that I found that has been consistent so I've spent and hour or so going in a circle and gathering.

Allypage wrote: »

ok so new to this... How would you know it's a bot? I frequently follow a circuit when I'm farming.. like for Jewelry mat for example.. I have been trying to lvl quickly and have a place that I found that has been consistent so I've spent and hour or so going in a circle and gathering.

You'll know, it'll be a bunch of characters, usually with starter gear still on, all stacked up on each other using the same skill or rotation set every time. And the account names are usually just gibberish. They tend to be templars (in my experience) just spamming puncturing strikes. Their might be a few stragglers who fell behind due to obstructions, but there are usually like 5-8 stacked right on top of each other like their following the same cursor

Edit: The most typical ones I've seen are leather bot trains that just run everywhere destroying imps, wolves, lions, etc. for the raw materials.

Thanks

Lunatic_Dizzy wrote: »

So I reported a huge group of bots I came across in Auridon the other day. And ZOS's answer was for me to add people that I find with offensive behavior to my ignore list. Seriously? A group of bots crapping all over ToS and I'm advise to just look the other way and pretend like they're not there? Why do I even both. So is this standard procedure or what? I mean, another part of the message did say that they would look into the matter and take appropriate action. But, I'll bet a day, a week, a month from now - that they will still be there, murdering all those poor bears and wolves. Oh, I know, I'll get PETA involved! Remember, when they went after Mario for wearing that Tanooki suit? I'll send PETA after those scumbag botters!

best way i find reporting bot trains is to observe, see their path, note it down, try count the amount of them, give a detailed as possible account of the specific spot they are farming(enemies, near anything specific, what they are spamming, etc) , make a post on the forum with all of it (no names remember) and give more details if possible, murdered many bot trains like this

Allypage wrote: »

ok so new to this... How would you know it's a bot? I frequently follow a circuit when I'm farming.. like for Jewelry mat for example.. I have been trying to lvl quickly and have a place that I found that has been consistent so I've spent and hour or so going in a circle and gathering.

Go harvest the nodes and kill the creatures in front of its path and watch it just idle off and spin around until it resets and continues.

Buffler wrote: »

When will you guys realise that zos has no interest in dealing with bots whatsoever. That became obvious when they got rid of active GM's all those years ago.

When you realize that they will never respond with when they got rid of them, or what changes they are, or have made. If they say we are changing X to fight the bots. Then the people making the programs to run the bots know how to beat the new changes before they even go live.

No company in the history of games says how they are fixing it, or what they are doing. Very few even make announcements when they ban accounts.

strangeradnd wrote: »

I harass and report every bot I cross. At this point I think I should get xp for every verified report and extra xp for every one of them I manage to kill with an enemies AoE.

Ha, I never thought about trying that. Killing them with an enemies AoE, that is.

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

I do report them. I use the Botscanner 2000 addon on bot trains. Solo bots are a little harder to figure out. You have to observe them to see if they do the classic bot actions.

Good man! That's why I made the thing lol.

There's a link to the addon in my signature. It makes reporting a 20+ man bot train take about a minute tops.

Trinity_Is_My_Name wrote: »

FR0STDEE wrote: »

Go to Alikir Desert, there's a huge bot train every day going from dolmen to dolmen. I try to report them but the next day there's a whole new group of them.

Those are not Bots. They are Players farming the Dolmens. You can usually join the group quite easily.

Lol

Trinity_Is_My_Name wrote: »

FR0STDEE wrote: »

Go to Alikir Desert, there's a huge bot train every day going from dolmen to dolmen. I try to report them but the next day there's a whole new group of them.

Those are not Bots. They are Players farming the Dolmens. You can usually join the group quite easily.

Sometimes bots do go in their group so not quite innaccurate to say some are potentially bots. If you got a zerg going for dolmen farming, check gamerscore if they are on console. They could be one that sells account.