How to help ZOS battle the Bots

Ravalox · May 2014

I am hoping this thread can be a *constructive* conversation on what we can do to assist @ZOS to greatly reduce if not eliminate the bot threat. Please do not use this thread for complaints!

I have seen the GMs in game and appreciate the effort ZOS is taking to combat the bots; GM Antiboty even graciously posed for a screenshot in Daggerfall a couple of weeks ago.

I think there is more that can be done, and we (the players) can be part of the solution. Things that irritate us during game play should be important enough to take a moment to report the issues seen. Bots can be reported and even in the case of the invisible bots (possible under map exploit), the activity can still be reported even though we see no names.
In addition to player assistance, there may be some changes that ZOS can make on the server that could assist in thwarting programmatic bot farming. (one proposed solution below). I'm writing this because our guild has daily chats on our TeamSpeak server on this topic and we want to see ESO succeed, so we are hoping to mobilize the player base to work together instead of just griping about the issue and why hasn't it been solved yet.

I have seen a number of posts here that may be a bit misleading, so first, here are some helpful facts:

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1. For chat system Gold Sellers, right click the name in the chat window and "report player" Click the attach screenshot box while the message is still on screen (you can drag the window to make it larger or scroll back to the entry if it has been pushed off screen). [* once checked off and even before you send the report, you can verify you got the shot you wanted by looking at the bugreport.jpg file in the screenshots folder (documents/elder scrolls online/screenshots). You should see the JPG has been updated and has the chat entry you want to report in it.

* Select the Cheating/Exploit option from the report type selection

* Be sure to explain in the description that you are reporting a gold seller. (I literally just put "Gold Seller" in the description.

* When submitting the report, it will prompt you suggesting that you seem to be reporting spam. Select no so the report goes in under the cheat/exploit designation.

2. The screenshot check box: When checking the screen shot check box, the client will actually take a screen shot of the client User Interface PRIOR to opening the /bug dialog etc. as noted above, you can confirm that the screenshot is correct by looking at the bugreport.jpg file created when clicking this checkbox. There have been a number of miss-conceptions regarding this function and even reports that it does nothing since players think they will need to attach a manually taken screenshot afterwards.

3. The same rules apply for reporting spam Email. If the email is from a gold seller, then report it as a cheat/exploit. These issues need to get higher visibility than SPAM and when identified as a gold seller the account sending the email will be dealt with in a more critical manner. NOTE: Always click the screenshot box for chat and Email reports!! The text body of the email will be captured when using the screenshot checkbox (even though you are in the report screen!)

Overall, if you see something, say something!

When in game, if you see bots, hold down the "F" or equivalent key and select report player. Then select cheat/exploit and write "Bot!!!" in the description. Again use the screenshot option whenever possible.

If the bots are operating "under the map" or cannot be seen for whatever reason, report the bot activity anyway!

A typical scenario is when farming mats you may arrive at a node and receive a message that the node is in use by another player. we should all start submitting /bug reports using the following selections:

1ST ! Click next and check off the screenshot box (so you can get a shot of the system notice indicating that someone is using the resource **important**

Then after the screenshot has been attached, click prev to fill out the form after writing your description. Indicate in the description that there are no other players present and the node states it was in use and then disapeared.

IMPACT: Exploit!
CATEGORY: Game System
Sub Category: Interactables/Lock Picking

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@ZOS_Ginabruno suggestions ...

1.
Our guild was brainstorming with regards to the mat farming bots and we came up with an idea we think might be of value for the devs ...

Currently it appears that nodes spawn at specific XYZ coordinates; even in some cases where it seems that a node is cycling between two or more spawn points within a small grid, they always spawn in the same locations.

To trip up bots (permanently?) the spawn point can be made to have a radius assigned and allow the node to spawn at a randomly generated XY coordinate (using the correct Z for that particular XY of course) and possibly checking if the generated spawn coordinate is outside of the player collision domain (E.G.: under a rock or behind a cliff face, wall etc.)

This would allow nodes to be completely random and prevent any kind of Bot programmatic location scripting.

2.
Currently a player can report a player in chat by clicking their name and activating the menu which gives the option. It would benefit all if there was a specific "Gold Seller" reporting option that would not require any additional information. This "one click" reporting solution [with the proper visibility, such as a spot in the Launcher's News items list] will encourage many more to report issues since nothing more than a single click would be put on the shoulders of the player. This structure could also be applied to the other "Report Player" mechanisms whereas a "Report Suspected BOT" option could be included (set aside from the other selections) that will pre-populate all of the ZOS info including a default description and check the screenshot box, bringing the player to a point where they can either add to the description or just submit the ticket.

3.
Add a slash command /GM. This would allow a player to send a message to any GMs that are active in game at that time to advise of local bot activity. Though the GMs will let a zone know that they are present and "obliterating bots" (which gets cheers on our TeamSpeak server when it occurs), having a special /GM command to advise them of the bots presence makes it easier than having to remember the name of the GM to do the whisper, especially if the message has scrolled beyond the buffer.

This isn't for laziness, there are many of us who gladly report every instance we see, the goal should be to get the entire player community on board to fight off the scourge; it will take *all* of us to fight this problem.

Ravalox Darkshire
Deputy Guildmaster
Brotherhood of Redemption
http://eso.borguild.com

Daverios · May 2014

My desire to help with bots died on april 30th shadow patch.

100% their problem I for one will no longer be reporting.

michaelpatrickjonesnub18_ESO · May 2014

Ravalox wrote: »

This would allow nodes to be completely random and prevent any kind of Bot programmatic location scripting.

It would work.

Because in Lord of the Rings there are several locations where nodes can spawn, but you never know exactly which one of those locations they will appear, or when, as they respawn much slower.

Bots would be S.O.L.

crush83 · May 2014

Daverios wrote: »

My desire to help with bots died on april 30th shadow patch.

100% their problem I for one will no longer be reporting.

Why bother even posting in here then?

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I made it through most of your post, but skimmed over some so forgive me.

On your first suggestion, I have some constructive criticism to offer based on my own game development experience.

When the server sends the resource node to the client, it has to send the client the X, Y, Z coordinate of the resource node so that the client can display the resource node on the screen in the game world. That means that no matter where it spawns, the bot will be able to go to it. Likewise, in the same fashion that the ZOS client detects collision, so could a bot client by examining the client files.

Now, if they made the random area large enough, it would be much harder for bots to get within range for the resource node to get sent to their client. They'd likely then be running all over the map until one popped up, and then run directly too it.

The random area would have to be pretty large, though. I think that the resource nodes appear if you are within 32m of them.

moko.fateb14_ESO · May 2014

Always here for bot pawnage.

Ravalox · May 2014

crush83 wrote: »

When the server sends the resource node to the client, it has to send the client the X, Y, Z coordinate of the resource node so that the client can display the resource node on the screen in the game world. That means that no matter where it spawns, the bot will be able to go to it. Likewise, in the same fashion that the ZOS client detects collision, so could a bot client by examining the client files.

Now, if they made the random area large enough, it would be much harder for bots to get within range for the resource node to get sent to their client. They'd likely then be running all over the map until one popped up, and then run directly too it.

The random area would have to be pretty large, though. I think that the resource nodes appear if you are within 32m of them.

@‌crush83 This is a good point. Thanks for the feedback!

One thing I have noticed with the farming bots is that they are programmed for specific routes which intersect with known spawn points. The client will do exactly as you have said (indicate the active nodes position), so the spawn routine would need to take the last spawn location into account and ensure it is far enough away to throw off the bots. Even if the bots programming allowed them to dynamically add new spawn XYZs to their list of spots to run to, then the bots would quickly get bogged down tracking down all the possible spots. IMO :-)

crush83 · May 2014

Ravalox wrote: »

One thing I have noticed with the farming bots is that they are programmed for specific routes which intersect with known spawn points. The client will do exactly as you have said (indicate the active nodes position), so the spawn routine would need to take the last spawn location into account and ensure it is far enough away to throw off the bots. Even if the bots programming allowed them to dynamically add new spawn XYZs to their list of spots to run to, then the bots would quickly get bogged down tracking down all the possible spots. IMO :-)

I think that it could help slow them down to randomize the positions of the nodes. I also think that the diameter of the random spawn area needs to be at least double the distance that a player needs to be in order for the resource node to be sent to their client. So, if a resource node gets sent to the client when a player comes within 32m, then the random diameter of the spawn area should be 64m.

The problem here is that now resource nodes would have to be spread further apart than they currently are. If no resource spawn areas overlapped, then that would mean it would be:

a) possible for nodes to be up to 128m apart (that's quite a bit).
b) possible for nodes to be right next to each other, unless the algorithm is adjusted to prevent nodes from ending up on the boundaries. If you don't allow them on the boundaries, though, then you have to increase the random spawn area even more.

I do think the idea has merit, but getting it to a point where it is most effective, without hurting the player, will require quite a bit of thinking and testing.

7788b14_ESO · May 2014

If it was me I would study MMO's and duplicate what the one's were doing that had the smallest bot problems. Can't eliminate them completely.

I noticed Archeage installs Hackshield Pro before it runs.

Here's an informative video from youtube. Start at 31:50 where he visits actual gold farmer business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQfKDff4d2M

Here's an article about prevention.
How to prevent cheating in our (multiplayer) games?
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/960499/how-to-prevent-cheating-in-our-multiplayer-games

I don't think you should do anything to stop cheating on single player games. Your users bought the game, they should be able to cheat if they want to, as long as they're not playing against others.

Here are a few things that I've done. These were mostly done for anti-cheat systems on tournament games, where money is at stake, and certain levels of intrusion on the user's system is considered acceptable. I would be careful about doing some of this stuff on casual games since if your game is not stable there is the potential for causing problems with their system.

1) Open all other processes, and hook their WriteProcessMemory functions so that they can't write to the memory in your game's process. Done right this one step will block 90% of all cheats and cheat engines.

2) Do the same thing, hooking the various mouse and keyboard emulation functions. This will prevent a lot of aimbots and other types of automation bots.

3) Hook into the VirtualProtectEx/VirtualAllocEx/etc functions in your game's own process and monitor which modules are changing protection levels or allocating new memory chunks. You have to be crafty with this in order to prevent it from being too CPU intensive when your game does a lot of allocations, but it can be done.

4) Hook into the LoadLibrary functions and monitor any DLLs that are being loaded dynamically, to prevent DLL injection.

5) Use some lightweight polymorphic encoding on your game connections.

6) Use some anti-debugging techniques to prevent debuggers from attaching to your processes. Google anti-debugging and you should be able to find lots of stuff.

7) Use a custom proprietary PE packer to prevent useful disassembly of your game.

8) Hook into your OpenGL or Direct3D functions and methods that deal with transparency and alpha blending.

9) If using shaders, checksum your shaders and the shader constant values.

10) Use additional occlusion culling techniques on player characters to prevent them from being rendered at all when the line of sight to them is blocked by other geometry. It may or may not help with your performance also, but it will prevent many wallhacks.

crush83 · May 2014

7788b14_ESO wrote: »

If it was me I would study MMO's and duplicate what the one's were doing that had the smallest bot problems. Can't eliminate them completely.

Most MMOs seem to render bots inert by offering a cash shop with which bots can't compete, or hide bots from the community through heavy use of instancing.

That's been my experience anyways.

Drachenfier · May 2014

Here, I can help them right now:

Put some GM's in the game and start banning the trains of jjdghk and cdfgshd named players wearing prison garb.

Problem solved o.O

esoone · May 2014

A few weeks ago some smart guy on the forum had a good plan to add random npcs spawn during gathering it wont stop the bots but it wil stop the lvl 3 bots in high lvl zones.

Cernow · May 2014

I'm tired of chasing the bots around trying to get close enough so I can press my interact key and report them. The ones farming mobs seem to run faster than me, kill before I reach them and then charge off to the next pack. Even if I wait for them to come back round in a loop it can still be tricky to get a report off.

If they want us to help them, then they need to make it easier for players to do so. The current The method of reporting is clumsy, clunky and difficult.

Besides, even if you do report a bunch of bots, you'll still find them running around the game several days, even weeks later. Makes you wonder why bother.

I'm beginning to wonder who they made this game for - the players or the gold sellers?

Cylver · May 2014

I took this quote fro another "BOT" thread and must say I whole heartedly agree:

snowmanflvb14_ESO wrote: »

Considering how much less gold farmer spamming is going on and the reduction in bots in public dungeons and GM going through zones swatting them down I would say they are doing a good job on them. Now if people such as the OP would stop supporting them they would just go away.

Constructive criticism, thoughts and ideas would go much farther then constant complaints, whining and threats. This thread can lead the way.

An easier method of reporting Bots and the presence of in-game GM's, even randomly, to respond to complaints by investigating and instantly banning the bots would go a long way to help.

Noswell · May 2014

I remember reports used to automatically fill in a targeted player's name in the report, but it wasn't doing that for me the last few days, and it's a pain to go through the screenshot stuff to get the bot names, anyone know what the issue might be?

Karoneth · May 2014

The one click to report gold spammers in both chat and mail will help. I'm not really sure how to address the bots, but especially for the invisible ones, ZOS needs to determine how that can occur and block it. Whether it is by random node placement, or by blocking the way they are going invisible, or stopping the automation of the resource pickup, hopefully that will help. Everyone needs to do their part and continue to report all of the spammers and bots, and be sure to never purchase gold. ZOS is making progress here!

gladen5rwb17_ESO · May 2014

I am baffled as to why the onus is upon us to deal with the bot problem. Why these threads about bots are not recognized as an authentic forum for complaint that bots are everywhere considering there are dozens to hundreds of posts per thread.

This is hacking issue and were I to spend the amount of time in the game reporting bots, I would have not have time to play my game.

Quote:
snowmanflvb14_ESO wrote: »
Considering how much less gold farmer spamming is going on and the reduction in bots in public dungeons and GM going through zones swatting them down I would say they are doing a good job on them. Now if people such as the OP would stop supporting them they would just go away.

This is just not true. Public dungeons have just as many bots now as they did before except now they are pathing up and down hallways killing everything except the boss.

The numbers of bots has increased not decreased. I have many alts all low level and I see the problem has not only increased but become wide spread from the low end zones right into the veteran level zones.

Dodece · May 2014

The solution to the problem isn't reporting the perpetrators, and yes I know that saying such a thing is counter intuitive. The developers banning efforts seem to be entirely futile at this juncture. For every bot they eliminate two more arise to take their place. Either they have hacked the authentication servers, become skilled at hacking players accounts, or are just buying accounts for pennies on the dollar from some online auction house.

Basically we can report them all day long, and the games staff can ban them all day long, but at the end of the day it still amounts to a drop in the ocean. To put them out of business you don't go after the guy slinging dope on the corner. You don't even go after the kingpin. No you go after the bag man. The account that collects the wealth.

That is the throbbing weak spot in these operations. They pool their wealth into a few accounts. So they can expedite in game transactions. What the developer needs to really do is cobble together, or buy software to track in game money transfers, and such accounts will stand out like a thermonuclear blast amid all of the more mundane transactions that take place daily in game.

Further more scooping these accounts up will expose not only the accounts that are bots, but will also expose the buyers. They don't need more staff to do banning dragnets. They just need a couple forensic accountants. I mean lets face it these people are leaving a paper trail a mile long in game.

Anyway reporting them isn't getting us anywhere. They can obviously churn out an endless supply of cut outs. I mean some users have noted this. Prior to the public dungeon bosses being throttled down. Players would see a host of bots get banned from a dungeon, and five minutes after the mass banning took place. A fresh batch of bots would arrive to take their place. Most likely run by the same bot farmer who had just gotten banned.

You have to hit them where it huts. Banning the accounts that are holding that horde they are so fond of selling off. Sometimes in playing virtual worlds. We seem to forget that they aren't like the real world. A criminal syndicate may be able to operate in cash only terms, but in these worlds all transactions can, and should be recorded.

Just use those records to find out who has the giant pot of gold. Who is making a lot of large peer to peer transactions, and see who that transactions are with. If there is a avatar doing a lot of business, and most of the accounts that are making transactions with are just a string of consonants. Then you have your bag man right there.

You can use that one lynchpin to roll up their entire organization, or at least a big lucrative part of it. Plus in doing so you remove their stash. Just sending hundreds of millions of gold into oblivion every day. Will stem the flow, because you are eliminating days or weeks worth of work.

BenjaminKacher_ESO · May 2014

Best way to battle the bots: Ban the kids buying gold (for real money) and mats (for gold) from them to cut them off at the source. If you just ban the bots they'll start hacking players accounts for gold or use more generated keys to join the game and form more bots.

reggielee · May 2014

extending the range to report player.. having to go into melee range is difficult, especially with bots using speed hacks.

simplify the report process, make a separate button on the report page for only botting, one click with attached screenshot included. use the pull down for other game issues

if there is a way to group bot report, like pressing and holding the report function to widen the zone to include multiple players.

tbh, i get tired of reporting and it impacts my game enjoyment, I give up to 5 reports a day then ignore the rest

YourNameHere · May 2014

Here is an add-on that was suggested to me by another forum user.

I got it, and it works wonderfully.

http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info181-FastReport.html

If you haven't already, get the addon client used Minion: http://minion.mmoui.com/

Then you can search there for FastReport by thelegendaryof

Once you install that in Minion, go into TESO then go to settings. You'll need to set up the report key (I used F5 in the key bindings).

So when you hover over someone, it will save the last name you captured, even if they disappear quickly. Hitting the key you chose for the report will bring up two windows, as shown in the screenshot http://cdn.eso.mmoui.com/preview/pvw554.jpg

Highlight and CTRL + C the information on the left hand window into the report window on the right hand side, then fill in the rest of what you saw, making sure to click from the drop down menu.

Hope this helps!

~~~~~

And I understand the frustration. Right now, I am doing a quest with 3 trains of 4 bots wiping out the mobs in the area. 3 TRAINS!

But, I use FRAPS to catch them in action, upload the video to You Tube, make a ticket using Fast Report, add the names and the link, and keep my fingers crossed.

Though I admit I spend half of my playing time reporting bot trains and harvesters.

Taleof2Cities · May 2014

This was extremely helpful, OP, thank you!

Chirru · May 2014

From reading the hundreds of posts on this topic i honestly have come to the conclusion that at the moment Z-max has lost the war to the gold-sellers.

They have out-smarted and out bot-ed the game's developers by such a large margins one is prone to suggest.... give the programming of the game to the hackers.

My solution...as others have suggested already. open a Z-max easy 'buy gold through cash' shop...underbid the gold sellers and put an upper sales cap on trade items so rares are protected from the scalp merchants. If one can buy rares for a 1000 gold instead for 10000 or more, and if one can buy gold cheaper in an official shop, then the gold merchants will go and with them the bots.

else..it is not my problem any longer. If Z-max lets the game being wrecked by such thing they do not deserve any better. Pithy really...the game is good and to see it go down the drain like this.....

but no worries... all this will happen when the game goes f2p. No, this is not an IF...it is a WHEN. right now the game is definitely headed that way... also regrettable...but as it is now, unavoidable.

Big_Bob · May 2014

YourNameHere wrote: »

Here is an add-on that was suggested to me by another forum user.

I got it, and it works wonderfully.

http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info181-FastReport.html

If you haven't already, get the addon client used Minion: http://minion.mmoui.com/

Then you can search there for FastReport by thelegendaryof

Once you install that in Minion, go into TESO then go to settings. You'll need to set up the report key (I used F5 in the key bindings).

So when you hover over someone, it will save the last name you captured, even if they disappear quickly. Hitting the key you chose for the report will bring up two windows, as shown in the screenshot http://cdn.eso.mmoui.com/preview/pvw554.jpg

Highlight and CTRL + C the information on the left hand window into the report window on the right hand side, then fill in the rest of what you saw, making sure to click from the drop down menu.

Hope this helps!

~~~~~

And I understand the frustration. Right now, I am doing a quest with 3 trains of 4 bots wiping out the mobs in the area. 3 TRAINS!

But, I use FRAPS to catch them in action, upload the video to You Tube, make a ticket using Fast Report, add the names and the link, and keep my fingers crossed.

Though I admit I spend half of my playing time reporting bot trains and harvesters.

Nice, this add-on would be helpful on the farm bot eradication crusade lol

Singular · May 2014

ESO needs to punish the gold buyers in addition to tackling the bots. Yes, I know they're real players, and a source of income for the company, but the fact that they purchase gold is what puts the bots, spam and gold sellers here in the first place.

If not a permabam, at the least a 2 week ban plus inventory wipe.

Sorry, but it's the gold buyers who are the root cause of the problem. The sellers are just impoverished people in third world countries skimming from the entertainment expenditures of those who can afford the time and money to spend time staring at pixels.

Chryos · May 2014

Daverios wrote: »

My desire to help with bots died on april 30th shadow patch.

100% their problem I for one will no longer be reporting.

This attitude is not how wars are won.