Seeing numerous resource nodes that instantly respawn after being harvested...

BeerWolf · April 2014

And, ofc, there's bots farming said nodes 24/7.

Give an example;

Fort Arand Wayshrine in Stonefalls , there are a number of Jute nodes around it being farmed 24/7 by Bots...

All these bots and bugs are seriously off putting...

If they ain't sorted soon, then I'm sure as hell bailing from the game. I'm sure many others will as well.

thjudgeman1142ub17_ESO · April 2014

Seen it happen all over..wonder if its part of the algorythm used for spawn timing... not seen any tho that are constant, just random nodes giving one or two extra spawns before resetting.

Valethar · April 2014

I've had that happen to me a few times, when I was doing the harvesting. Usually happens with cloth/ore type nodes. I had one that respawned 3 times in a row, almost immediately.

At the time I simply shrugged and put it down to the zone being full of people harvesting, and getting lucky on the respawn. Now, however, after seeing more people mention this almost two weeks later, I'm beginning to think there may be a bug somewhere.

BeerWolf · April 2014

thjudgeman1142ub17_ESO wrote: »

Seen it happen all over..wonder if its part of the algorythm used for spawn timing... not seen any tho that are constant, just random nodes giving one or two extra spawns before resetting.

These are constant - they respawn within 2 seconds from being harvesed. These bots are effectively getting a stack of Jute every 8 minutes -- that's roughly 72k gold from farming it in a day, PER BOT...

If you're on the EU servers, go to Stonefall's Fort Arand Wayshrine --- there's a number of bots farming there right now.

Loxy37 · April 2014

Ive had it where you go to pick it and nothing happens but almost instantly, a new plant emerges of a different variety but I try to pick that, get nothing and a new plant spawn, rinse and repeat. Stopped now after the first disapears just in case I get flagged as a bot or something.

Allumis · April 2014

BeerWolf wrote: »

thjudgeman1142ub17_ESO wrote: »

Seen it happen all over..wonder if its part of the algorythm used for spawn timing... not seen any tho that are constant, just random nodes giving one or two extra spawns before resetting.

These are constant - they respawn within 2 seconds from being harvesed. These bots are effectively getting a stack of Jute every 8 minutes -- that's roughly 72k gold from farming it in a day, PER BOT...

If you're on the EU servers, go to Stonefall's Fort Arand Wayshrine --- there's a number of bots farming there right now.

I can't seem to see anyone doing this, in fact theirs no one about at all on my phase.

Cycled through a few phases and eventually found some people doing this, can just stand next to them and hammer E yourself. You'll beat the botting software which will annoy them when they come back to empty bags and nab yourself a nice little bit of jute in the process.

babylon · April 2014

Lucky, on my phase I hardly ever see a node. Maybe all the nodes from my phase are spawning on your phase.

thjudgeman1142ub17_ESO · April 2014

babylon wrote: »

Lucky, on my phase I hardly ever see a node. Maybe all the nodes from my phase are spawning on your phase.

A joke but would explain to some extent the odd spawn behavior.

KerinKor · April 2014

I've harvested thousands of nodes by now and never seen one inst-respawn more than twice, and those are a very small percentage of the small numbers I've seen insta-repsawn at all.

thjudgeman1142ub17_ESO wrote: »

babylon wrote: »

Lucky, on my phase I hardly ever see a node. Maybe all the nodes from my phase are spawning on your phase.

A joke but would explain to some extent the odd spawn behavior.

A node appears in all phases, that's why one category of 'invisi-bot' actually isn't 'invisi' at all.

MistryssNite · April 2014

I just had this happen to me today in Auridon, near Del's Cairn, I believe. I didn't check if it gave me more ore or anything. It also spawned just slightly north of it rather than in the same exact area.

Tavore1138 · April 2014

I've harvested a lot of nodes to render for improvement drops, mainly in the 'gold coast' of Rivenspire, and I have seen the occasional node that will respawn as I am moving to the next one and if I spot it I'll grab it again but never seen a third spawn when that happens.

Then again in Alik'r there are a lot of ore nodes that can't be harvested at all - at the end I put it down to human error, probably after long days of doing tedious bits. /bug it and hopefully it'll get fixed once all the bigger bugs are done.

Myrrik · April 2014

Yep - Saw that happen in several places in Stonefall on Sunday. several different nodes, all with a Bot camped next to it, and each time it harvested, the node would instantly respawn. Watched it for about 5 mins while I was reporting it and the node never stopped respawning.
Only seen it since this weekend though, not sure if this is a new thing or i just never noticed before.

ragamerb16_ESO · April 2014

It's a vulnerability of the node algorithm. It works like this according to my lengthy observations on how bots are exploiting this:

- Each type of resource (per craft) can appear on a network of nodes. This "network" can be as small as 5 nodes (For example I have seen how easily is to exploit this on Jute networks on newbie zones) and each zone can have multiple networks of the same resource.

- Naive as they are, ESO Devs thought that to deal with massive population of gatherers the respawn rate of a given network of nodes is dynamically increased the more often a node on the network is gathered.

- Famers obviously noticed this and identified small networks of a given node type. They proceed to place 1 bot on each node of the network simply gathering the same node over and over. The respawn rate increase is not capped on some node networks (I have personally witnessed this on Jute and Plant networks... But seeing ppl commenting here can be generalized to more types).

Result?

After enougth time happens after the last server reset EACH bot controlling a network node is gathering EACH 2 seconds (The gathering animation)...

...You can guess what's the point on all of this... Gold & Temper farming.

The solution is obvious... Remove the dynamic acceleration of the respawning rate (Or cap it)...

...But I can't shake off the disgusting feeling of thinking into how many obvious flaws on the Trading/Crafting are still to discover that will end ruining completely this important part of the gameplay of any MMO with some aspirations to last longer than a few months...

...After each of this events I report/witness, the idea that ESO Devs simply lack any kind of advisor/consultant regarding how certain features are used (And abused) on multiplayer environments grows more and more... For each of this events I have personally played at least one MMO were it happened or got a design aimed to prevent such abuse (Probably a sympthom that I have played too many

, also).

reggielee · April 2014

ya know, I just dont get the whole lets cheat thing. Im starting to earn gold in the higher regions and I am not farming mobs or dungeons. Daily I earn around 2-3k which i spend on repairs or save for bank upgrades, and that is very very casual adventuring.

I am earning upgrade mats as well as I go about regular crafting. I have no need to upgrade any of my extremely disposable lower level armor and dont intend to until I am high lvl with a set. In a month or so Ill have enough for another type of horse, not sure which one but my point is. ... its only been a few weeks.

What on earth are people freaking about so much that they have to buy gold off credit card thieves? for bank space and a fast mount? or upgrade parts for leet gear so you can go against other cheaters in pvp? why? youll be bored (already seeing whining threads) in a couple weeks after buying all that

for those freaking about the botters and saying it will make you quit.. why? just ignore them, report them and go about your game. zen will take care of it soon enough, but even if they are here to stay.. so what

Abigail · April 2014

Alas, it's not only gold sellers engaged in 'botting' activities. Yesterday, for instance, I was going about my gathering routine, and each time I cycled through a particular area I noticed the same player standing over an empty node. After a couple hours I decided to take a break, drink some coffee, and watch the player. Sure enough, within milliseconds of the node spawn the player would harvest. Quite normal player name, suitably equipped for level, definitely not your run of the mill bot. And, this is by no means the only time I've seen an otherwise normal player engaged in botting.

I think ZoS will soon have to do something about the casual botters also or the game will be wrecked beyond repair.

ragamerb16_ESO · April 2014

for those freaking about the botters and saying it will make you quit.. why? just ignore them, report them and go about your game. zen will take care of it soon enough, but even if they are here to stay.. so what

The reasson, at least in my case, is simple... I like to spent "offtime" crafting and selling on my MMOs... You can spend valuable Skillpoints into your Main Character in this game precissely to progress in other activities than fighting.

This exploits will kill any economy attempt (On top of the basic flaws the system have already... Don't take me wrong, not everything can be blamed to 3rd parties) by removing the needs of looking for other players to get whatever you need... Gold seller networks will provide everything unless fought to death by ZO Devs.

I don't get this kind of mind-numbling ways to play neither... But there is a certain type of player that pursuing a single activity at top performance will look for "easy" ways to NOT having to "waste" time in whatever they think it's now worth it... That's why there are all this kind of "services" because there are players that doesn't mind investing Real Money into skipping parts of the intended way to play...

... Sadly, requires a Good Deal of Community Management knowledge to predict this kind of behaviours at Design Phase and include into your game mechanisms to satisfy all kind of players without encouraging disruptive behaviours (Sometimes you have to take the painfull decission of filtering out portions of a Community... There are game designs that simply can't satisfy conflicting player profiles)... Obviously, and looking at the basic flaws on multiplayer content... I just simply stopped thinking that this MMO would include this kind of Community Interactions into their Development plans in the future...

...ATM I'm just holding my breadth so this MMO doesn't start "The Path" too soon... The next major content contains a few steps into "The Path" but I will not get the confirmation after a real class/trading balance patch hits.

novek000b16_ESO · April 2014

For me is simple, right now, players play games but they don't really like to play games, just want to reach the end as soon as possible, avoiding everything in middle.

Everyone can see how this days tons of players run throughout the game content to reach the end game, of course, soon to be bored and leave because the lack of content, exactly what they just jump over without a second look.

This is the logical end of the road that most games developers had used all this last years, the travel is not worthy, just at the end of the road where you will find the treasure buried waiting for you, especially true on free-to-play games where you can insta obtain anything with real money on their "legal shops".

This players will use any tool at hand to reach there as soon as possible, that is exploits, hacks, gold-sellers, etc. and will keep using them instead of playing to keep their short-time gameplay until they left. If they want a horse, they visa buy it, if they need resources for crafting, they use a bot to farm them, even levelling up becomes logic with a bot farming experience for you, etc

stabbemub17_ESO · April 2014

The reason this farming/botting behavior diminishes my enjoyment of the game is simple - it makes it harder for me to find a node - especially a rune node. Enchanting, unlike other crafts, seems to need far more materials to level than you would find just adventuring and questing. Nodes seem much scarcer than they did when I first ran through the starting zones, so I went back to early zones, and wasted an hour running around looking for rune nodes - and they are VERY scarce. But a couple of times in an hour I saw a node spawn - and before I could get there, a player would spawn on top of it, harvest it, and immediately stealth before I could get there. Now I know why the nodes are scarce - bots are camped in stealth on them, programmed to harvest and re-stealth. Now that I know why the nodes are so scarce, I won't waste time trying to find more until this farming/botting problem is addressed.

Public dungeons are another example of a simple enjoyable event stolen from us by bots. At the end of a dungeon there is a boss, kill it and you get an achievement and a chance for a piece of blue gear. FUN! But because of flawed game design, now there are 4 to 8 mindless bots at the spawn point, who insta-kill the boss. It is exceptionally difficult to get in on the loot because he dies too fast.