Boss Campers: Maybe they're not camping after all...

gypsythief · April 2014

We've all seen the threads on the forums, and we've all seen them in dungeons: get to the boss, and there's a group of people stood around camping, and you can't get your boss kill and dungeon completion. Most annoying.

But what if these people aren't camping the Boss at all?

First, a quick example to explain the mechanics as I think they might work.

Yesterday, myself and my friend encountered someone trying to take down a World Boss on their own, and not faring too well. We didn't want to steal their kill as they seemed to have put in a lot of hard work, so my friend gives the World Boss a couple of whacks to distract it, whilst I throw a heal to the person. We both then stand back to let them finish the Boss off, with me tossing the occasional heal as needed. At the end of the fight, I got credited with a kill and was able to loot the Bosses body, presumably because of the heals, whilst my friend did not, even though they had done some damage to the Boss.

Later that day we were running a public dungeon, and sure enough when we got to the Boss there was the usual group of people all stood around on top of a huge pile of the Boss's corpses. Boss spawns, group wipes it out in a second or two, we struggle to get a completion, and mutter darkly about "bloomin' Boss campers."

And this is when I realised that they might not be camping it all. A worked example (numbers are made up):

From the first situation where we were helping someone out, it seems that you have to do a certain minimum amount of damage to a mob to get kill credit. Let us arbitrarily assume that this is 20% of the mobs health.

In the second situation, 10 people are all stood around a Boss spawn point. The Boss spawns and all 10 people let fly. Each person damages 10% of the Boss's health and no-one gets credit as no one person does sufficient minimum damage!

So they all hang around, desperately trying to get dungeon completion and mutter darkly about "bloomin' Boss campers."

If this is the case, then it is a serious flaw in the game mechanics.

Of course, they may all just be Boss camping

Chrisu · April 2014

IIRC you get credit for the kill (achievement) when you hit it once but to get loot you have to do a certain amount of damage. I think most of the people are just camping

gypsythief · April 2014

Chrisu wrote: »

IIRC you get credit for the kill (achievement) when you hit it once but to get loot you have to do a certain amount of damage. I think most of the people are just camping

That does seem to be correct, as we did get the completion for the dungeon the first time we killed the boss, but no loot; it took a few attempts to get loot. I still wonder though if people aren't in fact "camping" just to get one lot of loot, rather than farm repeatedly.

Zordrage · April 2014

they are bots i saw once that the boss jumped or got knocked away with arround 20% HP from the army of campers and they ALL was just standing their while the boss killed them ALL with huge AOE spams LOL......

the 8+ bots were just standing there in the aoe and died...........

glorious momment.

Moonclaw · April 2014

Boss camping is a real issue due to game design. Public dungeons are a bit of a joke. Typically you see 2 things - the zerg train - followed by the boss camp. Great core idea - but being messed up. Would be good to put a tag on the boss which says if someone got kill credit that day and then prevent any further kill credit / loot for a set period to prevent this

Filodendron · April 2014

Yeah they are campers however in some cases dungeons have a quest related to the end boss, like take his head or something.

Here is where the loot system messes everything up. Like you mentioned in order to loot the mobs you have to deal a specific amount of damage else you get nothing, NOT EVEN THE QUEST ITEM.
Knowing this, people try to deal as much damage as they possibly can, even blowing up ultimates, and if you even blink in that second the boss spawned you lose the right to loot.
It's a really terrible design.

Kroin · April 2014

Dont really have the problem, had one quest where i had to loot a soul gem and i needed 2 tries until i dealt enough damage, there were alot of people about 15.

Normally i kill bosses 1-3 times, depends if i just reached a new soulgem and i need some for the next dungeon or what else. And i see that many people do i the same as me.

If you do a lvl 39 dungeon nearly nobody is camping the boss, but if you at a lvl 40/41 there are tons of people.

Brucas · April 2014

To be honest, they could solve this issue very easily by phasing dungeons; spawning private areas for you (and your group, if you have one). Lets people actually do dungeons - alone or in groups as desired - and lets farmers do their business without ruining ours. Not that I condone farming or bots, of course, I just want to play through content the way it's meant to be played.

Mantiss · April 2014

Yeah Im not a fan of the "evil dungeon filled with 10 MoBs and 40 fully armored players." They aren't working as intended and should be instanced. There are a few ways to go about it wither either making the maximum per instance say 4-5 people. Or making them entirely personalized instances. However something needs to be done as the boss MoBs and all the botters/campers aren't just abusing the gold/potions/experience. They are also messing up the economy by sitting there for 5 hours, getting the gear and then breaking it all down to sell the improvement parts.

hlg · April 2014

Boss always drops a specific unique Rare (blue) item all the time, but you usually need more than one try to get it. Many people, including me keep farming the boss until that item drops. It usually takes up to 5 try's. You have to score "finesse points" which conclude how good of a reward u will get after the kill, starting from nothing. Not only damage or healing counts, also cc, dodges blocks and so on. Read about it more here: http://elderscrollsonline.info/guides/finesse

Sergeant_Novak · April 2014

If there are 10~ or less people standing around a boss spawn and killing it rinse and repeat, they are very much likely farming it. If there is like 15+ it's probably the same story but now with players that are actually trying to kill it for completion.

Nidwin · April 2014

The problem is not farming those Bosses as their could me some reasons for it. I did farm the lvl 12-13 Boss as I wanted to upgrade my old stuff and was in need of a Rest Staff as mine was lvl 7. Also Soul Gems are always more than welcome. I filled my 60 slots and moved on afterwards, gold always welcome too from selling the stuff.

The problem I'm having are those multi-boxers camping and screwing it all up. My point of view of course.

@hlg‌
Thank for that link. Interresting reading.

dumbo · April 2014

Nidwin wrote: »

The problem is not farming those Bosses as their could me some reasons for it.

There is no acceptable reason for farming bosses (not that I'm going to stop anyone or shout at them).

AFAICT people are simply farming the relevant boss for blue items, then deconstructing those for the upgrade mats.

voltorsfury · April 2014

I was just in Sheogoraths Tongue 5 minutes ago, and literally had 4 players trail me to the boss, not fighting a thing, didn't notice if they were lower level or anything. until I got close enough that they all sprinted by while I fought 3 mobs. I was annoyed... then I get to said boss, and they are all in the pile waiting for bosses. It can be dressed up anyway you like, but they are farming the boss and in essence ruining what could be a fun thing to run through solo or with friends.

7788b14_ESO · April 2014

Dungeons and quests give me level appropriate gear so I don't have to craft.

Chingis · April 2014

Bots are ruining this game for me. If something is not done, and soon, I'm not going to renew. simple as that.

Ruinous · April 2014

hlg wrote: »

You have to score "finesse points" which conclude how good of a reward u will get after the kill, starting from nothing. Not only damage or healing counts, also cc, dodges blocks and so on. Read about it more here: http://elderscrollsonline.info/guides/finesse

I'm fairly certain that 'finesse points' got removed from the game during beta. Perhaps one of the closed testers can shine more light on what happened, but afaicr the mechanic wasn't working so got canned.

On the main topic, it seems bots and hackers are rampant. Hopefully Zenimax are aware of the situation and acting to both remove these *** and prevent it happening in the first place.

Singular · April 2014

hlg wrote: »

Boss always drops a specific unique Rare (blue) item all the time, but you usually need more than one try to get it. Many people, including me keep farming the boss until that item drops. It usually takes up to 5 try's. You have to score "finesse points" which conclude how good of a reward u will get after the kill, starting from nothing. Not only damage or healing counts, also cc, dodges blocks and so on. Read about it more here: http://elderscrollsonline.info/guides/finesse

Wow! Thanks for that.

So...they're going to mess that system up by giving the Boss's timers.

Ah...just read Ruinous's post above - finesse may not exist anymore. That would make their new timer system not break finesse.

OP: I was in quest today. There were about 7 characters standing on the boss spawn site. Three were clearly bots and at least 2 people were non-bot farmers. I pulled a mob over and they immediately broke and killed it, so I think the two were human. The other ones all looked the same and had strange names, so I'm pretty sure those were bots.

Anyways, I didn't get a credit the first time - don't think I even had the chance to damage it. The second time, the boss was up for all of 1 second, or less, and I got a shot in, b/c it said 'completed' and 'achievement unlocked.' I don't even know what that boss looks like!

So why can't the devs make botting not work? What if the Boss were simply to spawn in a random site in that room? Wouldn't that break botting? Or, like others have said, scale up the Boss, depending on people in the room.

I don't like the idea of them putting a universal timer on all Bosses. That's going to kill, say, dungeon raiding parties - maybe some people just want to run around a kill different bosses. Or, some non-bot people want to farm them. Why can't they?

In sum, Bosses should:

- spawn at random locations in their spawning room
- scale to the number of players (or to how fast they were killed the previous time on some kind of sliding scale. If it's 1 second, make them 10 times as strong. 2 secs, 5 times, or something like that)

Khuul99 · April 2014

the whole system of calculating exp and if you get loot rights are flawed from the start.

Once again it's mostly based on dmg dealt (which put people that play support roles at a disadvantage). You "punish" the two roles that has the fewest people playing them (healer and tanks) while you promote burst dps.

Don't understand how the developers think.

gabrielc.e1123ub17_ESO · April 2014

They should just tie the experience the boss is supposed to give to the achievement, and reduce the amount of EXP the boss gives. That will make it so that you are only interesting in killing the boss once.

Falmer · April 2014

At this point, I may hang around for a spawn or 2 just to even TRY to get a single hit in to get the dungeon completion.

Most of these are obviously bots. I was in the first Mage guild quest dungeon in the Dominion. Must have been a dozen "people" with clearly randomly generated names like "jlkajslkd". They all moved instantaneously when the boss spawned and all stopped instantly when it died. They stood there completely unmoving until the next spawn when the cycle repeated.

There is often the occasional real player like myself in the mix trying desperately to get a hit in before it dies in 0.8 seconds. I usually give up home of trying to do it though if I can't get it in about 3 spawns.

Personally, I wouldn't mind something as extreme as if a character hits the same named spawn on more than 3 different spawns they get teleported back to the cold harbor tutorial with no access to fast travel for an hour. Harsh enough to keep the bots from doing it, but not so harsh as banning accounts to protect those innocents that might get caught accidentally.

hauke · April 2014

best idea around is to limit the amount of times you can get xp/loot per hour from bosses, limit it to 1 time each hour = no bots no boss farming

Singular · April 2014

hauke wrote: »

best idea around is to limit the amount of times you can get xp/loot per hour from bosses, limit it to 1 time each hour = no bots no boss farming

Some people want to farm them though. I'm all for players being able to do that - though I would never engage in such boring behavior. Bots, though, they shouldn't be in the game.

TheRedMage · April 2014

Chrisu wrote: »

IIRC you get credit for the kill (achievement) when you hit it once but to get loot you have to do a certain amount of damage. I think most of the people are just camping

Not sure this is true. I can see my XP gains as a scrolling text on my screen. I spammed aoes so i could try to get a tag on the boss at emberflint mine ( I only kill bosses once then mover on, just so I can say "Yeah i've downed that boss") and out of the 10+ respawns where I *KNOW* I got a hit in I never received loot or xp.

Svann · April 2014

Im not sure about the theory about how you get loot credit. Ive had times when I get 1 hit in and get credit time after time. Other times I get 3 good hits in and no credit no matter how many times I kill him. You would think that if I had time to get 3 shots off that would be enough to get a decent chunk of his hps right? And this is not like Im underleveled for the dungeon. Suspect the formula may depend on whether the bots are grouped.

AbraCadabra · April 2014

We should be able to flag the bots for pvp and kill and loot their items. Maybe if they are reported by x number of players they auto flag pvp. Something other than boss timers would be preferable imo.

mikeabboudb14_ESO · April 2014

gonna add my two cents id prefer my own dungeon. I like to do content the way its supposed to be down. Mostly all i do is follow the train to the boss and thats were the trouble begins. Please change it. I consisder it a game breaker.

indytims_ESO · April 2014

I really wish Zeni would make a simple fix: You kill the boss once, you get his loot - any time you kill it after, you get nothing, no loot, no xp. Simple. Easy. Removes all reason to camp it. Especially when most of these bosses respawn SOOO fast. Today I watched a boss respawn literally 10 seconds after he died, four times in a row.

SootyTX · April 2014

indytims_ESO wrote: »

I really wish Zeni would make a simple fix: You kill the boss once, you get his loot - any time you kill it after, you get nothing, no loot, no xp. Simple. Easy. Removes all reason to camp it. Especially when most of these bosses respawn SOOO fast. Today I watched a boss respawn literally 10 seconds after he died, four times in a row.

I wasn't a supporter of this until today, but after half a dozen dungeons where the boss was being camped by 8-10 active players, not even counting the bots, I'm about ready to give up on the dungeons entirely unless something major is done really soon to fix the design flaws.

They are currently a joke - as someone earlier noted, the 'evil dangerous dungeon that the townsfolk dare not go near' is usually completely void of life, other than 30 players slaughtering everything in sight in less than 2 seconds, including the boss. It's truly pathetic, and embarrassing imo, for ZoS to allow this farce to continue.

Half the time I go through the entire dungeon without seeing a single mob - I mean, what is the point of them even existing. Stick the Skyshard on the surface outside the door with a button to click that gives you the achievement and a random amount of loot and stop wasting people's time running through empty tunnels.

Aimeryan · April 2014

They should make them uber powerful and invincible for 10 seconds after spawn; real players will know to wait, bots will just die - that will sort the problem out.