Loot change in Patch notes - Harms Real Players, not Bots.
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Rantog
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I know the intention with the timer is to limit Bots, but it doesn't do that.
A Bot operator can simply set up to log from character to character - each getting their own timer - allowing them to loot 8 times / 10 minutes for full loot..
While Actual players - loot One time / 10 minutes for full loot.
Additionally, they aren't going to Stop killing the boss because the loot is reduced - they will have the first 7 characters work With the timer, and let the last suffer reduced loot - so that they can continue taking the kill and preventing as many as possible - of the Real players - from getting loot rights.
Because every character who can't get loot, is another potential gold buyer in their view.
Seriously, This CODE fix is not a fix - it is yet another way to Ignore our request that you hire a GM to deal with these issues.
One GM could easily ban hundreds of these bots / hour - and eventually drive them out of the game. ONE.
But you'd rather keep making 'solutions' that punish the paying players more than the bots.
A Bot operator can simply set up to log from character to character - each getting their own timer - allowing them to loot 8 times / 10 minutes for full loot..
While Actual players - loot One time / 10 minutes for full loot.
Additionally, they aren't going to Stop killing the boss because the loot is reduced - they will have the first 7 characters work With the timer, and let the last suffer reduced loot - so that they can continue taking the kill and preventing as many as possible - of the Real players - from getting loot rights.
Because every character who can't get loot, is another potential gold buyer in their view.
Seriously, This CODE fix is not a fix - it is yet another way to Ignore our request that you hire a GM to deal with these issues.
One GM could easily ban hundreds of these bots / hour - and eventually drive them out of the game. ONE.
But you'd rather keep making 'solutions' that punish the paying players more than the bots.
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Laura✭✭✭✭✭
✭should have made it 24 hours for the same boss imo. would have fixed it fine. It never should have went live like it was in the first place.
if you think having gms sit around in every instance of every public dungeon is viable... i don't really know what to say.Edited by Laura on April 22, 2014 9:37PM10 -
Rantog✭✭✭✭should have made it 24 hours for the same boss imo. would have fixed it fine. It never should have went live like it was in the first place.
if you think having gms sit around in every instance of every public dungeon is viable... i don't really know what to say.
I just don't see why they would have ANY so called "solution" that impacts the play of Legitimate players!
They need GMs! = Problem Solved, Bots Banned, Spammers Gone - and legitimate players Unharmed.5 -
Xaaz✭✭✭Save your breath. ZOS is pathetic. GM's should have been here since day with with the IP this game had. Such a let down.8 -
Mace✭✭
I just don't see why they would have ANY so called "solution" that impacts the play of Legitimate players!
They need GMs! = Problem Solved, Bots Banned, Spammers Gone - and legitimate players Unharmed.
They had active GMs in beta. I'm sure they're buddy doing something else ATM but they do existMasce0 -
Daverios✭✭✭✭This is NOT to combat bots. You could not be more wrong.
Let me repeat THIS IS NOT TO COMBAT BOTS.
Bots do not care about the loot. Only experience. You think a person running a dozen bots actually loots anything that is not stackable. Hint they do not and never did. Do you think they stop botting and run to town when inv full? Nope the delete it themselves.
This is 100% to combat farmers and griefers NOT bots. You know those annoying little #&(! $ that infest every delve doing the exact same thing as the bots hiding behind 'im a real person so its ok'. Those are the people that are in it for the loot. This is Zenimax telling you to bugger off as the rest of us have sent in thousands of reports against these jerkwads.Edited by Daverios on April 22, 2014 9:56PM15 -
Rantog✭✭✭✭They had active GMs in beta. I'm sure they're buddy doing something else ATM but they do exist
They did? I never saw or heard of any - but I wouldn't be all that surprised to learn they Had them and eliminated the position when it was actually Needed.
I mean, they still won't place a GM in the game - but have decided instead that the way to deal with the bots is to punish... US instead.
A 10 minute reduced loot timer on a boss = Actual players kill the boss One Time, and if you don't get the item - you're likely screwed for the next 10 minutes, and must stand idle to get another chance later.
A 10 minute reduced loot time on a boss = Little concern to the bots, who will just park 8 characters there, kill, log, iill, log.. until they get to character #8 - who will eat the penalty until the timer expires on 1-7, so they get Full loot 7x as often as we do, and still manage to prevent most players from getting credit at all.2 -
Rantog✭✭✭✭
Yes, and Wrong.You think a person running a dozen bots actually loots anything that is not stackable. Hint they do not and never did.
You seem to be forgetting that we can mail from Anywhere in the game, and mail Items.
Go watch a team of bots at a boss - and get any others in the room to Not attack one round.
- You'll notice the boss vanishes Immediately after it dies - becauese once all lootables are taken from a corpse, it decays.. and the bots are looting All Of It.
They are after Gold, and the soul gems are a Tiny part of that - the bulk comes from mailing All the items that drop to a bot parked in town at an NPC, and selling everything.
If EXP were the goal, there are ways that are Just As Easy to script into a bot- and Infinitely more effective and reliable than the hope that enough players will enter the dungeon and progress to the boss room to keep that One Mob spawning often enough to be worth decent exp.
Because of the previous nerfs, they would get More exp for killing almost anything Else int he dungeon than the boss.. so why would they target the boss --- if Experience were the goal?5 -
snigernissen✭✭Right.. so much for me reporting bots and gold sellers now, whats the point really...
In the end its us legit players that gets screwed over for it.8 -
Daverios✭✭✭✭Yes, and Wrong.
You seem to be forgetting that we can mail from Anywhere in the game, and mail Items.
l?
Lol I never forgot. I run two accounts and mail all the time. But you seem to forget there is a cost associated. Some stuff just not worth mailing no profit in it. Stackables are worth it. Plain iron swrod is not.
Also you seem to forget they leave bots unattended for hours. Bags fill up fast.
You seem to forget thier goal is getting to the better loot in higher zones. This hold true for any game with levels. Deleting crappy low lvl loot and not spending time managing the inventory of a dozen toon with full bags mean they get there faster. They have thought this through more than you.
Edited by Daverios on April 22, 2014 10:09PM3 -
Dolenz✭✭✭They need GMs! = Problem Solved, Bots Banned, Spammers Gone - and legitimate players Unharmed.
2 servers
3 factions
5 zones per faction
multiple dungeons per zone
Multiple instances of every single one of those dungeons and zones.
It would take a very long time or a whole bunch of GMs to cover all the bases.
In the meantime the Gold Farming companies would simply create new accounts as fast as the old ones were banned.
GMs alone are not the answer.0 -
Rantog✭✭✭✭snigernissen wrote: »Right.. so much for me reporting bots and gold sellers now, whats the point really...
In the end its us legit players that gets screwed over for it.
AGREE-
I really hope everyone cancels their payment before the included-with-purchase time expires.. and lets them know precisely Why.
If Zenimax is unwilling to do even so little as stafffing One person in-game to deal with some of this, they are clearly unwilling to put forth effort to preserve their customers.
Claiming it is a top priority doesn't carry any tone of truth when the only efforts we've seen actually made - hindered US more than the bots and spammers.3 -
SuperScrubby✭✭✭Mailing something only costs like 10 gold which you can then stack up to 5 items per mail. You get around 3-5 gold per boss kill, so in essence you mail back 5 blue's you'd have made more than enough gold to pay for it.
Also if you're selling the mats or using it to level up your crafting you will more than make a return on your investment. I'm not saying that's what the bots are doing but if you're looking at a pure cost associated with it. It's definitely not cost prohibitive.0 -
Rantog✭✭✭✭
2 servers
3 factions
5 zones per faction
multiple dungeons per zone
Multiple instances of every single one of those dungeons and zones.
It would take a very long time or a whole bunch of GMs to cover all the bases.
In the meantime the Gold Farming companies would simply create new accounts as fast as the old ones were banned.
GMs alone are not the answer.
Actually, I disagree completely.
I think GMs are the answer, and Could accomplish it alone.
Here's why...
Imagine the first dungeon the GM goes into - the first instance - is being done by One bot operator... 5 bots running.
That means this operator has 6 bots, 5 killing, looting, and mailing to bot #6 - parked in town and selling it all to an NPC.
When the GM comes in and BANS those 5 accounts in the dungeon, the operator just lost $250. That is how much it will cost to Replace those lost accounts.
So, they run off to buy 5 more acconts, set them up, create characters and get them to the dungeon to start it back up again.
So... if that GM is slightly intelligent, and circles back every little bit to that same dungeon - and catches those 5 new bots.. and bans them.......
How long is it before the cost of buying new accounts is far beyond what the operator is making selilng the gold he's getting?
And once he quits, it means the GM has Fewer bots to hunt down, meaning he/she is More likely to hit the same bot repeatedly -driving them out of the game, and making Fewer.. more likley.. you get the picture.
This is dealing only with the BOT issue,.. but it could easily be applied to the spammers and teleport/speed hacks as well.7 -
WilliamTee✭✭✭i hadn't noticed this change yet tbh... veteran dungeons are rather empty, you generally only see the boss the once...
How does the timer work though? If it's anything like the debuff you get from your 'free res' soul magic ability the timer stops when you log out and resumes when you come back into that toon... Is this the case here? If not, make it so and voila.
Other games have GMs. Other games are still plagued by gold sellers and bots.0 -
Yeah, yeah. Other games had gold sellers on second day of early access with prices like $30 for 100k gold (in TESO 100k gold is some money, dont you agree?).
GM may teleport between dungeons of 3 alliances randomly and ban bots he see. No need army of GMs, like 1 GM per dungeon. 2-3 GMs for whole megaserver will be okay.5 -
WilliamTee✭✭✭The game's been live less than a month.
Other games have had a decade and not solved these problems, GMs and all.
Noticed how gold prices have been in steady decline? Could be a sign of desperation.
Maybe we should give these countermeasures a chance before assuming their effects or lack thereof.0 -
Holycannoli✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Yep you don't need a GM parked in every instance of every dungeon. You only need a few to teleport to bosses and ban any bots they find. It's not like these botters are making it difficult to tell they're botting with names like xlijfp and cvvpv, or admina, adminb, adminc, admind (I actually saw a bot group named that).
While those GMs are policing the bosses there should be one GM in each city's zone chat muting/banning gold spammers.2 -
Rantog✭✭✭✭WilliamTee wrote: »The game's been live less than a month.
Other games have had a decade and not solved these problems, GMs and all.
Noticed how gold prices have been in steady decline? Could be a sign of desperation.
Maybe we should give these countermeasures a chance before assuming their effects or lack thereof.
So.. you would rather support counter measures that cause the ban of Innocents - such as many of us suffered last week - and have No Impact on the bot and spammer populations...
than paying a Human Being to get into the game and actually find and remove the bad elements manually - which skyrockets the cost of the bots operating?
You don't really think that is the most rational approach, do you?1 -
Rantog✭✭✭✭
Only one would really be necessary. They could set up GM accounts to change public chats like television channels. Better - they could have a constant stream from All the channels, and just Bring Forward the chat they want - so they don't Miss any spammers because they're in a different chat at a particular moment.Holycannoli wrote: »While those GMs are policing the bosses there should be one GM in each city's zone chat muting/banning gold spammers.
One GM could eliminate spammers overnight - they'd be back the next morning, but that's why it's a full time job
One GM could wipe out bots in any given dungeon, and probably 5 or more - in a given night. SOME of them would be back the next morning, but for every one of them that doesn't return, it's that much easier for him/her to get the next one to quit.2 -
One GM could easily ban hundreds of these bots / hour - and eventually drive them out of the game. ONE.
Tad over the top that notion... "ONE" as you put it can only monitor "ONE" dungeon at a time... "ONE" not more, just "ONE"
So they'd need a full time GM per dungeon... have you counted the dungeons ? That would be very expensive, seeing as you'd need more then "ONE" per dungeon... you can't expect those GM's to be online 24/7 ...
The statement "if you put enough monkeys behind enough typewriters... sooner or later one will produce the works of Shakespeare" has sadly been proven utterly wrong by the internet...1 -
Sihnfahl✭✭✭✭Well, they can always do the solution other companies do.
You have the ability to run a dungeon once per hour, timed from when you down the boss.2 -
Rantog✭✭✭✭stefaan.de.wasch1b16_ESO wrote: »So they'd need a full time GM per dungeon... have you counted the dungeons ? That would be very expensive, seeing as you'd need more then "ONE" per dungeon... you can't expect those GM's to be online 24/7 ...
Not really.
Once the bots in a given dungeon are banned, it will take time for them to be replaced - meanwhile the GM moves on to the next dungeon.. after 3 or 4, cycle back and Re-ban the replacements they made.
I can't think the bot runners would be much pleased to have 5x accounts banned 2 or 3 times in a single day.
They don't have to monitor them all at once. Even if they could only hit one dungeon an hour - that's one dungeon devoid of bots every hour - and as they quit from repeated bans, more dungeons would be without them even without recent GM visits.1 -
pmn100b16_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
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Not really.
Once the bots in a given dungeon are banned, it will take time for them to be replaced - meanwhile the GM moves on to the next dungeon.. after 3 or 4, cycle back and Re-ban the replacements they made.
I can't think the bot runners would be much pleased to have 5x accounts banned 2 or 3 times in a single day.
They don't have to monitor them all at once. Even if they could only hit one dungeon an hour - that's one dungeon devoid of bots every hour - and as they quit from repeated bans, more dungeons would be without them even without recent GM visits.
They don't even have to monitor the dungeons. Let the players report the bots (as I'm sure they have been), GMs would simply have to pay a visit when the reports come in.
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yodased✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I'll be your GM Tl;dr really weigh the fun you have in game vs the business practices you are supporting.1 -
Rantog✭✭✭✭pmn100b16_ESO wrote: »They don't even have to monitor the dungeons. Let the players report the bots (as I'm sure they have been), GMs would simply have to pay a visit when the reports come in.
True.
Tho I think they would need to modify the reporting system significantly (it needs it anyway) - currently it all goes to the same locations, an Email responder, and I have doubts that most of it ever goes any further than that.
And there is much to be said for repeated visits to the same dungeons early on - those Repeated bans are the key to getting them to leave for keeps.1 -
UrQuan✭✭✭✭✭
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It's also pretty obvious when it's a group of them around level 12-14 and they're all still wearing shriven gear. I saw that yesterday.Holycannoli wrote: »It's not like these botters are making it difficult to tell they're botting with names like xlijfp and cvvpv, or admina, adminb, adminc, admind (I actually saw a bot group named that).
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its amazing how many people think real players should be able to farm but bots shouldnt. Both groups are just milking the same exploit, hole, oversight. Just one group less nicely. Id rather end up with less loot overall but have a decent chance of real loot, then dealing with what I have been seeing for the last month.
this action isnt Zen last word, its just filling a gap until a deeper solution is put in. Meanwhile some players keep screaming "the sky is falling, im quit the game cos of it". All they have done here is plugged a gap that no doubt will be wedged open by the farmers soon.1 -
Assigning a GM to specifically ban accounts all day long wont be cost efficient considering there are so many problems and so little workforce (apparently)1 -
And hiring people to do it isn't something you don't do in a day or two either...The statement "if you put enough monkeys behind enough typewriters... sooner or later one will produce the works of Shakespeare" has sadly been proven utterly wrong by the internet...0