Bots, teleportation, and movement OH MY
falsfire
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This is intended to be a brief discourse on my experiences to-date with bots, and my knowledge as an actual games developer for a different company/product.
Q) How are bots present in high-level zones that normally require you to pass (solo) grueling quests to unlock?
A) They don't have to do the quests. They teleport.
I have witnessed bots in public dungeons kill mobs (sorcerer bots), teleport to the corpse one at a time to loot, then teleport back stacked like kindling waiting on the spawn. They don't walk, they teleport.
Q) How is this possible?
A) I can't say for certain but I can make a logical guess. Player Movement is a fundamental concept in online games that also requires very careful coding and design to a) prevent exploits and b) recover from lag spikes.
Normally, you do NOT let the client (player) tell the server where the avatar (toon) is located. This allows hack clients to use teleport/speed hacks. What you should do instead is have the SERVER always tell the client where their avatar is located. The CLIENT only transmits movement speed and vector (direction) to the server. As the client transmits speed/vector, the server performs validation (is the speed correct/possible and the vector valid?) and transmits back LOCATION.
This way the client cannot teleport/speed hack. Also, in the event of lag, where the client is transmitting movement that the server is not receiving, when the lag subsides and they re-sync, the server updates the client on the avatar location and the client will think they got teleported. This is simply because the client displays movement locally based on its own calculations, but always accepts whatever the server tells it at any time as to actual location of the avatar.
Based on the blatant botting (and I've NEVER in my fourteen years of online gaming seen bots so blatantly obvious), it seems this fundamental concept was missed allowing the bots the ability to instantly teleport around the game world.
Q) How are bots present in high-level zones that normally require you to pass (solo) grueling quests to unlock?
A) They don't have to do the quests. They teleport.
I have witnessed bots in public dungeons kill mobs (sorcerer bots), teleport to the corpse one at a time to loot, then teleport back stacked like kindling waiting on the spawn. They don't walk, they teleport.
Q) How is this possible?
A) I can't say for certain but I can make a logical guess. Player Movement is a fundamental concept in online games that also requires very careful coding and design to a) prevent exploits and b) recover from lag spikes.
Normally, you do NOT let the client (player) tell the server where the avatar (toon) is located. This allows hack clients to use teleport/speed hacks. What you should do instead is have the SERVER always tell the client where their avatar is located. The CLIENT only transmits movement speed and vector (direction) to the server. As the client transmits speed/vector, the server performs validation (is the speed correct/possible and the vector valid?) and transmits back LOCATION.
This way the client cannot teleport/speed hack. Also, in the event of lag, where the client is transmitting movement that the server is not receiving, when the lag subsides and they re-sync, the server updates the client on the avatar location and the client will think they got teleported. This is simply because the client displays movement locally based on its own calculations, but always accepts whatever the server tells it at any time as to actual location of the avatar.
Based on the blatant botting (and I've NEVER in my fourteen years of online gaming seen bots so blatantly obvious), it seems this fundamental concept was missed allowing the bots the ability to instantly teleport around the game world.
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Carnage2K4✭✭✭✭I have not personally seen teleporting bots, Has anyone recorded this?Human Infant Connoisseur0 -
deathly809_ESO✭✭✭This is intended to be a brief discourse on my experiences to-date with bots, and my knowledge as an actual games developer for a different company/product.
Q) How are bots present in high-level zones that normally require you to pass (solo) grueling quests to unlock?
A) They don't have to do the quests. They teleport.
I have witnessed bots in public dungeons kill mobs (sorcerer bots), teleport to the corpse one at a time to loot, then teleport back stacked like kindling waiting on the spawn. They don't walk, they teleport.
Q) How is this possible?
A) I can't say for certain but I can make a logical guess. Player Movement is a fundamental concept in online games that also requires very careful coding and design to a) prevent exploits and b) recover from lag spikes.
Normally, you do NOT let the client (player) tell the server where the avatar (toon) is located. This allows hack clients to use teleport/speed hacks. What you should do instead is have the SERVER always tell the client where their avatar is located. The CLIENT only transmits movement speed and vector (direction) to the server. As the client transmits speed/vector, the server performs validation (is the speed correct/possible and the vector valid?) and transmits back LOCATION.
This way the client cannot teleport/speed hack. Also, in the event of lag, where the client is transmitting movement that the server is not receiving, when the lag subsides and they re-sync, the server updates the client on the avatar location and the client will think they got teleported. This is simply because the client displays movement locally based on its own calculations, but always accepts whatever the server tells it at any time as to actual location of the avatar.
Based on the blatant botting (and I've NEVER in my fourteen years of online gaming seen bots so blatantly obvious), it seems this fundamental concept was missed allowing the bots the ability to instantly teleport around the game world.
The problem with this is that if they put all that work on the server end then they would end up having to do a ton of computation and the client side would notice it.
Then they would have to buy more servers to offset the lagging and then that would make costs go up and then they would either have to raise monthly prices or do less content.Carnage2K4 wrote: »I have not personally seen teleporting bots, Has anyone recorded this?
Yeah, go browse some of the other posts.
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Valdune✭Here is one in action I ran across today.
https://vimeo.com/92658357
Actually they were coming across that spot quite frequently.
Different bots, same starter clothing.
One about every 10 to 15 seconds like clockwork.1 -
Rantog✭✭✭✭
Video uploading now, it is at 95%Carnage2K4 wrote: »I have not personally seen teleporting bots, Has anyone recorded this?
This is possible because while Every MMO in the past 20 years has known better... Zenimax apparently did No research What So Ever into hacks and exploits common to MMOs.
The Realm (by Sierra Online) was the First graphical MORPG - and they quickly realized that allowing the CLIENT to determine the character's location allowed players to literally Edit their location, a simple memory tool could let them jump to other players' houses to rob them, to pop into GM-only locations, or to jump to the end of a dungeon and collect the loot, while skipping all of the battles set up as an obsticle to it.
Because of that One example, every game since has used variations on a theme - tracking the hard coordinates of a given character Server-Side.
Those who gave the most freedom to the client suffered abuse by Speedhacks - eg Ultima Online... but even UO managed things enough Server side that you couldn't simply plug in coordinates and BE at that new location.
ESO is designed as if it is the First MMO - not the first by Zenimax, but the First MMO Period.
They have taken NONE of the lessons learned by their predecessors into account.Edited by Rantog on April 22, 2014 8:19PM1 -
Korusus✭✭Carnage2K4 wrote: »I have not personally seen teleporting bots, Has anyone recorded this?
Youtube "ESO Bots", half are boss bot campers, the others are harvesting teleporting bots (and some other interesting things as well)
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Harva✭✭✭The Ne Salas public Dungeon has this happing pretty badly for some reason. Actual players have said the lieutenant boss drops gems and a mask of shadows?
First time I ran into the bots there were four of them with the same first names; Maycan, Mayfeed, Mayiina, Maysee. They all moved in unison with each other and were pretty much melded together. They attacked before the boss was even visible so it's clear the boss spewing triggers the bots to attack.
I had to go back after I realized I didn't actually sneak in an attack on the boss to complete the dungeon. When I returned there were TWELVE bots now, some had somewhat legit names, others had gibberish like vcvb and dsffrg. Vcvb somehow had two characters with the same name in the area. It also appeared evident that after reporting some of them they would disappear and more bots would drop out of thin air above the area they were camping.
It's very weird and ultimately it isn't fair to real players. I was guiding some of them around the issue, asking them to report if they like or if they wanted to complete the dungeon just spam and AoE attack so they could get a hit in at least.
List of suspected bots in Ne Salas.
Vcvb
Meiyanshaofu
dsdffrg
Suntome
Wendinos
Maycan
Maysee
Mayiina
Poesky
Guuna
Mayone
There are a group of them running in circles in a very glitchy manor in the chamber before the boss.
Popos
kokos
daxiaxia
tionwe
niaoni0 -
kevjon74_ESO✭✭Yep, absolutely. I've witnessed the teleporting myself. I've seen a bot teleporting from resource node to resource node, pausing log enough to loot it before teleporting to the next. His entire cycle lasted about 1 minute before repeating, and I was able to target him long enough to report him.
The unofficial client interaction with the servers is pure nuts.Edited by kevjon74_ESO on April 23, 2014 4:42PM1 -
Kyotee0071✭✭✭Any game that does not make hacking/cheating/botting and exploiting a huge priority will not last long...and it seems that the bot problems are just getting worse - not better. Same with gold SpamI didn't think my hangover was that bad this morning until I spent 10 minutes trying to log into my old Etch-A-Sketch1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVi2xi-XKzQ