Suggestion: BOTS, automatically find and BAN them, like other MMO's.

xirub17_ESO · July 2018

To me, bot's haven't really bothered me so much, but I do report them. They can totally dilute farming and grinding for certain things you need in the game.

Today, I was casually farming in Stros M'Kai, and a bunch of bots were standing on top of all the jewelry nodes, IDK if they are programmed to hold/smash "X" to mine it, but there was no grabbing the loot away from them. One isn't so bad, but there were maybe 7-8 of them, and I reported them all. You can tell they were all BOTS because they were all low level, and "twitching" the same moves at the same time.

Other MMO's I've played over time has a zero tolerance policy against said BOTS, and have automatic bans in place from the servers when they are detected.

The question is, why not ESO? Do you even have a policy regarding BOTS, and how comes they aren't banned yet?

smacky · July 2018

I agree but have one question, what happens when someone accuses a solo farmer of botting?

Ragebull · July 2018

smacky wrote: »

I agree but have one question, what happens when someone accuses a solo farmer of botting?

That's the problem now, it's all up to us to finger point. A detection systems puts the ball more in ZOSs hands

smacky · July 2018

Ragebull wrote: »

smacky wrote: »

I agree but have one question, what happens when someone accuses a solo farmer of botting?

That's the problem now, it's all up to us to finger point. A detection systems puts the ball more in ZOSs hands

I get that, but if I spent a day farming and my account got banned because I needed resources I'd be pretty peeved. And an autodetect system would have a chance of doing that.

Cpt_Teemo · July 2018

Doesn't WoW have an automatic bot detection system?

xirub17_ESO · July 2018

Cpt_Teemo wrote: »

Doesn't WoW have an automatic bot detection system?

League of Legends does, among other things such as scanning for "MODS". I know it's not an MMO, but that's part of where I get the idea from.

xirub17_ESO · July 2018

smacky wrote: »

Ragebull wrote: »

smacky wrote: »

I agree but have one question, what happens when someone accuses a solo farmer of botting?

That's the problem now, it's all up to us to finger point. A detection systems puts the ball more in ZOSs hands

I get that, but if I spent a day farming and my account got banned because I needed resources I'd be pretty peeved. And an autodetect system would have a chance of doing that.

Then you have to beg ZOS to get your account back if your doing "bot-like" activity, such as having 4-8 PS4's programmed to mashing X at the same time, from the same IP.

dennissomb16_ESO · July 2018

Bots are a plague in most popular MMOs. What differs is the resource the various MMOs put towards combating bots. The downside to ESO is an extremely poor reporting system combined with slow response time to actually taking action keeps the botting issue a constant subject on the forums.

There are far worse games. Play any NC soft game (Aion, Linage etc) and you will see how much worse the botting issue can really get.

The best thing ESO could do is vastly improve their reporting mechanics so players can actually report the bot trains and I am guessing they may actually respond a little faster

Elsonso · July 2018

xirub17_ESO wrote: »

The question is, why not ESO? Do you even have a policy regarding BOTS, and how comes they aren't banned yet?

The answer to that is a bit muddied.

Yes, that have had a policy about bots, and have banned them, and probably continue to do that.

They don't seem interested in them unless the players are interested enough to report them, and then in sufficient numbers.

They also don't make it easy to report them, so it does require work on the part of the player. I am sure that increases the safety of running bots in this game by quite a bit.

They don't jump right on bot reports. It can take a while before ZOS does anything. It is almost like everything else in the ZOS world is more important.

It has been a while since they tooted their horn, and many things in the game have changed since then. Maybe, someday, they will do that.

Swifigames · July 2018

xirub17_ESO wrote: »

To me, bot's haven't really bothered me so much, but I do report them. They can totally dilute farming and grinding for certain things you need in the game.

Today, I was casually farming in Stros M'Kai, and a bunch of bots were standing on top of all the jewelry nodes, IDK if they are programmed to hold/smash "X" to mine it, but there was no grabbing the loot away from them. One isn't so bad, but there were maybe 7-8 of them, and I reported them all. You can tell they were all BOTS because they were all low level, and "twitching" the same moves at the same time.

Other MMO's I've played over time has a zero tolerance policy against said BOTS, and have automatic bans in place from the servers when they are detected.

The question is, why not ESO? Do you even have a policy regarding BOTS, and how comes they aren't banned yet?

It's unfortunate they exist. What bother me the most about them is that if bot farming is possible at the least on console versions of The Elder Scrolls Online, that means any of my loot items are not safe. I no longer wonder what happened to my Medium Selene's Mask Divine...for a while I thought I must have made a mistake, but then I remember it was locked. I believe someone stole it out of my inventory while farming the Forgotten Wastes with them. I reported a bot farm once, it was still there 6/7 months later, I haven't reported any since.

Davor · July 2018

xirub17_ESO wrote: »

smacky wrote: »

Ragebull wrote: »

smacky wrote: »

I agree but have one question, what happens when someone accuses a solo farmer of botting?

That's the problem now, it's all up to us to finger point. A detection systems puts the ball more in ZOSs hands

I get that, but if I spent a day farming and my account got banned because I needed resources I'd be pretty peeved. And an autodetect system would have a chance of doing that.

Then you have to beg ZOS to get your account back if your doing "bot-like" activity, such as having 4-8 PS4's programmed to mashing X at the same time, from the same IP.

How do you program a PS4/Xbox one to do that? I mean I don't want to know how to do it, just how it's done through a program or a mechanical arm that does this. If it's a program isn't that against the terms and services of the consoles? If so, report to Sony/Microsoft so they can find it and then suspend the accounts.

Abigail · July 2018

One area I farm in is often frequented by a CP680 player. The character is camped on a node for hours on end, and it's obvious he's running some macro to attempt harvesting every second.

I could do that, too -- setup a macro on my gaming mouse (perfectly legal) and simply farm the node indefinitely. I won't, of course, because I despise node campers.

With regard to the OP, however reprehensible it might be, I'm not sure ZOS can do anything because the player(s) are likely not breaking any stated rules.

Ohtimbar · July 2018

It's simply a problem of effort; not enough of it. I don't expect that to change, unfortunately.

Minyassa · July 2018

I'm not sure why they don't prioritize this, but I suspect it doesn't lose them any money so they're not terrible concerned about it. I haven't seen slews of people quitting their subs because of bots. After watching how this game operates for about a year now what stands out to me is that they hotfix exploits immediately, they let some game-breaking bugs go until the next patch, they let minor bugs go indefinitely, and they don't mess with bots unless it's convenient for them to sweep a bunch up. Whether or not they permaban them, I'm also not sure. But ZOS just really does not seem to mind bots. Maybe they actually do something that works out to giving ZOS more money? I can't figure that out, but perhaps someone else can.

ManwithBeard9 · July 2018

Abigail wrote: »

One area I farm in is often frequented by a CP680 player. The character is camped on a node for hours on end, and it's obvious he's running some macro to attempt harvesting every second.

I could do that, too -- setup a macro on my gaming mouse (perfectly legal) and simply farm the node indefinitely. I won't, of course, because I despise node campers.

With regard to the OP, however reprehensible it might be, I'm not sure ZOS can do anything because the player(s) are likely not breaking any stated rules.

Macros are against ToS