Open letter to ZOS concerning bots

Kelces · August 2018

Violynne wrote: »

dimensional wrote: »

I propose a simple solution:

Here's a better solution that's 100% free, doesn't cost anyone's time, and is just as effective: Ignore the bots.

Simple. Elegant. Effective.

I've seen bots in the game (on XBox) and as long as they don't interfere with my game, they're harmless.

I find it ironic, however, that most people who get upset are those who are trying to do what the bots are doing: farming mats.

Take Martiisen in Auridon: Every so often, I get a survey in that area, and every time I visit, there is a group of bots farming the bears and wolves. What else do I see? Other players doing the same thing!

So, who are the true bots? As far as I'm concerned, both are doing the same thing, but one of them is just a bit more efficient than the other.

Just ignore them and focus on your game. You'll enjoy it better if you do.

Sure, and while we are at it, we could aswell ignore those cheat engine users too. And whatever else is out there to mess around with the game. Because after all, you'll enjoy it better - ignorance is bliss!

Zorgon_The_Revenged · August 2018

Ankael07 wrote: »

Its not like opening a new account is free anyway. But ESO suffers bots like a f2p game

You never played FFXIV? that's a sub only game and every hour of the day you will have a random bot gold selling.
You also have full groups (bot guild groups!) of scripted bots questing and doing dungeons, speed hacking from NPC to NPC. The game lets you inspect players and finding out "bot qhiuaoiu" was created 24 hours ago and has even done the "job quest" for their soul stone, is quite amazing

Kelces · August 2018

Zorgon_The_Revenged wrote: »

Ankael07 wrote: »

Its not like opening a new account is free anyway. But ESO suffers bots like a f2p game

You never played FFXIV? that's a sub only game and every hour of the day you will have a random bot gold selling.
You also have full groups (bot guild groups!) of scripted bots questing and doing dungeons, speed hacking from NPC to NPC. The game lets you inspect players and finding out "bot qhiuaoiu" was created 24 hours ago and has even done the "job quest" for their soul stone, is quite amazing

Now that's bad indeed, but there is a problem in all this. On one hand ZoS repeatedly refers to their TOS in this forum and ban players, where often not even bad language is being used, but simply important and constructive criticism is provided, while on the other hand they ignore another, much more severe problems - bots and nobody is geting banned there.

I mean, they should finally decide what actually their TOS are and what not, this has reached levels where you can't take them seriously anymore...

Kelces · August 2018

.

Violynne · August 2018

Kelces wrote: »

Sure, and while we are at it, we could aswell ignore those cheat engine users too. And whatever else is out there to mess around with the game. Because after all, you'll enjoy it better - ignorance is bliss!

Prove me wrong, then. How does anyone in this game cheating affect your game. Enlighten me.

N00BxV1 · August 2018

If you can't ignore the cheaters then defend them.

/sarcasm

Kelces · August 2018

Violynne wrote: »

Kelces wrote: »

Sure, and while we are at it, we could aswell ignore those cheat engine users too. And whatever else is out there to mess around with the game. Because after all, you'll enjoy it better - ignorance is bliss!

Prove me wrong, then. How does anyone in this game cheating affect your game. Enlighten me.

I could tell you some things, even provide videos. But you seem not open to any suggestions.

But if you are, I suggest searching for it on youtube, there are some fun things to "ignore" if you like...

Rex-Umbra · August 2018

Canceled eso plus a year ago and not giving a dime until botting is dealt with.

Merlin13KAGL · August 2018

pslagalb14_ESO wrote: »

For all we know it is ZOS who owns and operates these bot accounts for farming and selling gold to make more money for themselves.

You can't be serious...?

Drummerx04 · August 2018

I wrote a PC bandaid solution for botting last winter in the form of a bot reporting addon. Basically you just run your targeting reticle over all the bots which fills up a list of their names, then the Addon can automatically generate a bot report. Just 2-3 clicks per bot you want to report and no typing required.

Zorgon_The_Revenged · August 2018

Kelces wrote: »

Zorgon_The_Revenged wrote: »

You never played FFXIV? that's a sub only game and every hour of the day you will have a random bot gold selling.
You also have full groups (bot guild groups!) of scripted bots questing and doing dungeons, speed hacking from NPC to NPC. The game lets you inspect players and finding out "bot qhiuaoiu" was created 24 hours ago and has even done the "job quest" for their soul stone, is quite amazing

Now that's bad indeed, but there is a problem in all this. On one hand ZoS repeatedly refers to their TOS in this forum and ban players, where often not even bad language is being used, but simply important and constructive criticism is provided, while on the other hand they ignore another, much more severe problems - bots and nobody is geting banned there.

I mean, they should finally decide what actually their TOS are and what not, this has reached levels where you can't take them seriously anymore...

I will add that FFXIV also state how many bots/accounts/gold sellers have been banned in their newsletters every so often (or they did when I played).

Maybe the ESO team aren't very proud of how they are doing with the bot problem and, giving regular numbers of "bots sent to Oblivion", would be an embarrassment.

Botting is also a criminal activity spanning 3 separate gaming platforms and not always someone simply running a script on a few cheap accounts...… I'm sure they don't put "made X amount of cash from committing a criminal act" on their end of year tax form either. I can forgive ZOS for squashing some bot threads quicker than they squash them ingame.

Lake · August 2018

They could copy what Guild Wars 2 did.

Secretly add spyware to the client to detect cheating and bots. Screw the media controversy that brought.

Sogreth · August 2018

Walting wrote: »

So please don't tell the people that are bringing this topic to attention to move on. Instead you should have an eye on if ZoS is becoming active in this matter to reflect user concerns and enforce their own terms of service.

I think they are too busy hanging around the forums, censoring people from using "bad words".

Funny thing too, is you see them active on the forums, but then they say nothing in threads like this. The threads that actually matter.

Kelces · August 2018

Lake wrote: »

They could copy what Guild Wars 2 did.

Secretly add spyware to the client to detect cheating and bots. Screw the media controversy that brought.

There was something planned like this, as someone mentioned a few months ago. Don't know what happened to it, but the idea was there at least and many complained about it...

It's nothing new either, Blizzard implemented such a program also and this was many years ago.

HeroOfNone · August 2018

I believe a big issue with bots is getting them reported, especially in large 10+ groups. Most just take a screen shot of them and say "here are the bots!" And don't even get an @ name to report. When I used to come across bot trains I typically saw them day after day and ignoring them. "I'll report them all later when i have more time." Is what I said. A lot of time I would, taking a lot of time getting all their names, screenshots, filing out the report, it was a pain and took up a lot of game time.

Luckily now there is an addon that can grab the names of anyone you hover over. You can middle click and it writes the report for you, then you can submit! It's called: Bot scanner 2000, this addon is a must for PC users and something I hope ZOS will copy into its core functionality. It's simple and makes reporting a breeze. It's taken a half an hour to an hour process and changed it into minutes. Now when I report an area, normally I don't see the same, if any, of the same @ names the next day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbsiB6tl5xA

Universe · August 2018

HeroOfNone wrote: »

I believe a big issue with bots is getting them reported, especially in large 10+ groups. Most just take a screen shot of them and say "here are the bots!" And don't even get an @ name to report. When I used to come across bot trains I typically saw them day after day and ignoring them. "I'll report them all later when i have more time." Is what I said. A lot of time I would, taking a lot of time getting all their names, screenshots, filing out the report, it was a pain and took up a lot of game time.

Luckily now there is an addon that can grab the names of anyone you hover over. You can middle click and it writes the report for you, then you can submit! It's called: Bot scanner 2000, this addon is a must for PC users and something I hope ZOS will copy into its core functionality. It's simple and makes reporting a breeze. It's taken a half an hour to an hour process and changed it into minutes. Now when I report an area, normally I don't see the same, if any, of the same @ names the next day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbsiB6tl5xA

While this is a fine tool, this is not a real solution.
Until ZOS will take more serious steps to address the botting issue, the issue will remain.
Methods to deal with the bots:

Universe wrote: »

1) Please implement an auto ban system of bots. This can be done by adding verifications of characters behavior etc.
2) Please hire Game Masters to patrol the servers and actively ban the roaming bots. This can be done daily for a few hours or twice a day, depending on the need.
3) Please ask the Game Masters to run searches for suspicious raw materials and disband any guilds infested with bots.
4) Add a system which will check suspicious gold transfers by mail or by guild in order to find guilds who operate bots or selling gold.
5) Optional: Add a random verify code/action when trying to loot an npc/node.

BigM · August 2018

Sadly bots will always be with us. Unless a company (not pointing at Zenimax) bans a complete country they will always be around. There are botters from the United States, but most come from North and South Korea, China, Russia etcetera. Yet that would be a massive money loss to companies. So all they can do is every once in a while do a major bot account clean. In less than 24 hours they will be back, last I heard it's a billion dollar a year business.

Maybe one day someone will create a program within the game to finally stop it, yet all the programs they have created did more harm to the legal players than the bots.

It's the games we have chosen to play!

Salvas_Aren · August 2018

I don't understand point 3.

DuskMarine · August 2018

Salvas_Aren wrote: »

I don't understand point 3.

i dont understand why people keep bumping this when zos just keeps ignoring it as a problem

Odnoc · August 2018

Skwor wrote: »

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

Go play on console if you want high prices. I was shocked at how much cheaper everything is on PC when I switched.

Starlock · August 2018

Violynne wrote: »

Kelces wrote: »

Sure, and while we are at it, we could aswell ignore those cheat engine users too. And whatever else is out there to mess around with the game. Because after all, you'll enjoy it better - ignorance is bliss!

Prove me wrong, then. How does anyone in this game cheating affect your game. Enlighten me.

You must not care about immersion, role play, and questing then. I've said it before, but if bots had been this big of a problem when I first started the game, I would have quit. There is nothing that ruins my experience more than doing some questing and running across a giant group of sorcs with pets spamming lightning form and staff attacks all over the area. Lag and disconnects are preferable from content being utterly ruined by their presence. I dread doing the Glenumbra quest lines because of how bad Camlorn is for bots. I walk in there, and I don't see a town taken over by werewolves, I see a bunch of dead werewolves and a town taken over by $#*ing sorcbots.

DMuehlhausen · August 2018

Where are these bots people speak of? I'm honestly asking. I haven't run into a train of them since I was first leveling in Rivenspire about a year after launch.

pslagalb14_ESO · August 2018

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

Where are these bots people speak of? I'm honestly asking. I haven't run into a train of them since I was first leveling in Rivenspire about a year after launch.

On xbox consoles they like to farm the wolves in bleakrock by deathclaw's Lair and camp atleast 15 ore nodes or more too. In Stros M'kai about 3 dozen or more like to camp the ore nodes there. In Glenumbra there are a bunch that like to farm the werewolves in Camlorn. There are more spots too but those are the worst areas.

Starlock · August 2018

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

Where are these bots people speak of? I'm honestly asking. I haven't run into a train of them since I was first leveling in Rivenspire about a year after launch.

There are a few hotspots I've noticed. Sometimes, you will not be put in the same instance as the bots so you won't see them, but it's almost a certitude these days that some instance of that zone has a giant chunk of bots.

Camlorn in Glenumbra is by far the worst. The city is instanced to a quest, so if you have already done the quest, you will never see the instance with the bots. It's probably why they use it. But if you go into that area without having the quest done, good odds you will see it overrun not with werewolves, but with sorcbots. It's really, really bad. The thread that got taken down around here recently was from that area.

Lately I've seen a number of them in Craglorn. They have predictable, programmed paths throughout mostly the western region (with fewer hostiles) and use the newbie horse and rapids to harvest nodes. They're still very obvious to spot when you look at their gear, their character names, and their gamercard. I've seem similar programmed pathing bots in The Hollow City (coldharbor) farming alchemy nodes, as well as in Bal Foyen harvesting all nodes (though lately they seem programmed just to go for blacksmithing/jewelry notes, no big surprise there with the jewelry crafting fiasco).

There are other sites here and there. Basically any place with a decent density of wolves, mudcrabs, bears, or senche (aka, leather sources) will have them at some point or another. During the Thieves/Brotherhood celebration last year there was a huge influx of node camping bots abusing the double resources. You'll also see them during free ESO+ times or free trial periods. In general, bot wranglers abuse the #$^& out of free trial times. You'd think that given it leaves a terrible impression on newcomers to the game, they'd police at that time if no other time.

Elsonso · August 2018

Violynne wrote: »

I find it ironic, however, that most people who get upset are those who are trying to do what the bots are doing: farming mats.

Violynne wrote: »

I've seen bots in the game (on XBox) and as long as they don't interfere with my game, they're harmless.

I think you did a fine job justifying the reporting of bots, no?

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

Where are these bots people speak of? I'm honestly asking. I haven't run into a train of them since I was first leveling in Rivenspire about a year after launch.

If you are on PC, I am pretty sure that you can go back to Rivenspire, or a number of places in Grahtwood, to find them. Bal Foyen and Bleakrock usually have one or two of them. I would also expect to find them in Strohs and Khenarthi, but I usually don't go there. I have not been to Shadowfen recently, but there are a number of places they like to hang out.

Drummerx04 · August 2018

HeroOfNone wrote: »

I believe a big issue with bots is getting them reported, especially in large 10+ groups. Most just take a screen shot of them and say "here are the bots!" And don't even get an @ name to report. When I used to come across bot trains I typically saw them day after day and ignoring them. "I'll report them all later when i have more time." Is what I said. A lot of time I would, taking a lot of time getting all their names, screenshots, filing out the report, it was a pain and took up a lot of game time.

Luckily now there is an addon that can grab the names of anyone you hover over. You can middle click and it writes the report for you, then you can submit! It's called: Bot scanner 2000, this addon is a must for PC users and something I hope ZOS will copy into its core functionality. It's simple and makes reporting a breeze. It's taken a half an hour to an hour process and changed it into minutes. Now when I report an area, normally I don't see the same, if any, of the same @ names the next day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbsiB6tl5xA

@HeroOfNone
That's awesome! I had no idea someone liked it enough to make a video. I actually finally updated the interface to make it a bit more user friendly last week, but I'd like to include your video on the addon page as a demonstration of how it works if you don't mind.

HeroOfNone · August 2018

Drummerx04 wrote: »

HeroOfNone wrote: »

I believe a big issue with bots is getting them reported, especially in large 10+ groups. Most just take a screen shot of them and say "here are the bots!" And don't even get an @ name to report. When I used to come across bot trains I typically saw them day after day and ignoring them. "I'll report them all later when i have more time." Is what I said. A lot of time I would, taking a lot of time getting all their names, screenshots, filing out the report, it was a pain and took up a lot of game time.

Luckily now there is an addon that can grab the names of anyone you hover over. You can middle click and it writes the report for you, then you can submit! It's called: Bot scanner 2000, this addon is a must for PC users and something I hope ZOS will copy into its core functionality. It's simple and makes reporting a breeze. It's taken a half an hour to an hour process and changed it into minutes. Now when I report an area, normally I don't see the same, if any, of the same @ names the next day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbsiB6tl5xA

@HeroOfNone
That's awesome! I had no idea someone liked it enough to make a video. I actually finally updated the interface to make it a bit more user friendly last week, but I'd like to include your video on the addon page as a demonstration of how it works if you don't mind.

Perfectly fine, I just made a short with it, but hope that more folks get it until ZOS develops better ways to handle bots. Even then, the functionality to get a bunch of names of folks in a group is pretty handy for guild events too where you need roll call

Elsonso · August 2018

HeroOfNone wrote: »

Perfectly fine, I just made a short with it, but hope that more folks get it until ZOS develops better ways to handle bots. Even then, the functionality to get a bunch of names of folks in a group is pretty handy for guild events too where you need roll call

Just remember not to report them all as bots...

Banana · August 2018

I like cheap stuff. Buff the bots

pslagalb14_ESO · August 2018

well the bots were gone for a day or two after the patch on the Xbox One North-America server now they are all back lol. exact same accounts too ZOS bust be getting a cut from these guys or something. It is they only thing I can think of that they allow something that funds illegal activity. (Yes profits from gold selling are known to fund cyber crimes, human trafficking, drug trade, etc. but mostly cyber criminals.

https://www.darkreading.com/cloud/online-gaming-currency-funds-cybercrime-in-real-life/d/d-id/1327136

https://news.softpedia.com/news/online-gaming-currencies-used-to-launder-money-for-cyber-criminals-509177.shtml

https://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/selling-online-gaming-currency-makes-way-attacks-enterprises/

https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/20/virtual-goods-real-fraud/

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2016/10/11/trade-online-gaming-currencies/

https://www.scmagazine.com/cybercriminals-sell-video-game-currencies-to-finance-attacks/article/548152/