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If you can't handle the bots...
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Gwarok✭✭✭
I'm actually starting to see less of them pushing gold spam mailings and more "pre-manufactured" crafting items being advertised now.
With every mmo that's been made that has this gold farm/sell problem, I am amazed that zen didn't see this coming. There are a couple games that have been able to avoid these problems altogether but it appears zen did not do theyre home work.IronMaiden_burnout wrote: »The companies would only pay some players to level through that content then activate the bot program where they want.
Your solution would only make it a little harder to get going.
sad
Edited by Gwarok on May 10, 2014 8:25PM"Strive for balance of all things. When the scales tip to one side or the other, someone or somethings gets short-changed. When someone gets short-changed, unpredictability and strife unbalance the world around us...To achieve freedom from greed, from want, and from strife, all parties in any exchange MUST find balance." -House Hlaalu's Philosophy of Trade
"I am ALWAYS very busy, so I KNOW what's best. You need to stay away from the waterfall. TRUST ME, you're better off keeping busy than playing in the stream....Do you know how to swim, Little Scrib?"
"I am but a simple farmer". -Rags'nar LodesBroke
#SKOOMA!
(Juliet):
...it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man.
O, be some other name!
What's in a name?
That which we call a rose?
By any other name would smell as sweet.
Retain that dear perfection to which he owes...
(Act II, Scene II -William Shakespeare's: Romeo & Juliet -1595 A.D.)2 -
dennissomb16_ESO✭✭✭✭✭While ideas like OP seem ok, the reality is they always punish players and not the bot/hackers. Recent changes to public dungeons only punished players. Like it or not, the proper way to combat bots etc is through commiting resources. In game GMs, dedicated software such as BI and data mining. all targeting these cheaters. On top of that is a willingness to perma ban the accounts and everything related to the account such as credit cards etc. Changes to game itself only ever punishes legit players2 -
Gwarok✭✭✭@RedTalon , quite possibly.dennissomb16_ESO wrote: »While ideas like OP seem ok, the reality is they always punish players and not the bot/hackers. Recent changes to public dungeons only punished players. Like it or not, the proper way to combat bots etc is through commiting resources. In game GMs, dedicated software such as BI and data mining. all targeting these cheaters. On top of that is a willingness to perma ban the accounts and everything related to the account such as credit cards etc. Changes to game itself only ever punishes legit players
Sorry if I seem a little slow today @dennissomb16_ESO , but something like this?Edited by Gwarok on May 10, 2014 8:34PM"Strive for balance of all things. When the scales tip to one side or the other, someone or somethings gets short-changed. When someone gets short-changed, unpredictability and strife unbalance the world around us...To achieve freedom from greed, from want, and from strife, all parties in any exchange MUST find balance." -House Hlaalu's Philosophy of Trade
"I am ALWAYS very busy, so I KNOW what's best. You need to stay away from the waterfall. TRUST ME, you're better off keeping busy than playing in the stream....Do you know how to swim, Little Scrib?"
"I am but a simple farmer". -Rags'nar LodesBroke
#SKOOMA!
(Juliet):
...it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man.
O, be some other name!
What's in a name?
That which we call a rose?
By any other name would smell as sweet.
Retain that dear perfection to which he owes...
(Act II, Scene II -William Shakespeare's: Romeo & Juliet -1595 A.D.)0 -
Daethz✭✭✭I agree, I always return to those islands anyway.
Using Mail, Bank/Guild Bank, Store and even talking in stonefalls zone chat should require level 10+, well maybe 8+Waiting, and watching, for the return of Melee Weapons.
-Subsidiary of The Fighters Guild0 -
ElliottXO✭✭✭✭✭CH bots are easier. Level lock Coldharbour to 45. Done.
Grind bots will still get there but the level 3 shriven bots wont.dennissomb16_ESO wrote: »While ideas like OP seem ok, the reality is they always punish players and not the bot/hackers. Recent changes to public dungeons only punished players. Like it or not, the proper way to combat bots etc is through commiting resources. In game GMs, dedicated software such as BI and data mining. all targeting these cheaters. On top of that is a willingness to perma ban the accounts and everything related to the account such as credit cards etc. Changes to game itself only ever punishes legit players
You know the game had mandatory starter islands until it went live because AngryJoe was crying a river that ESO does not feel like an offline elder scrolls.
I don't see how going back to this hurts any players, because I think that the vast majority completes them anyway.1 -
Loxy37✭✭✭✭IronMaiden_burnout wrote: »The companies would only pay some players to level through that content then activate the bot program where they want.
Your solution would only make it a little harder to get going.
A little bit harder? I can promise you this measure would drop the bot population outside of the starter island by more than 95%.
It takes hours to finish the quest line. And if you invest that time and still get banned afterwards it really hurts the botter.
Right now their bots are directly jumping into profit after creation.
This is completely wrong! Have you not seen the teleporting bots that port to mobs, kill mobs, port to quest NPC, hand in, rinse and repeat? Confining them to the starter zone will just make those dead areas for everyone even if we didn't have those teleporting bots. I think you seriously underestimate how clever these prigrams are and with the added abilities to script in anything they want, the possibilities are endless!
ZOS have already lost the battle and its now just about damage limitations.
Writing that script for the whole starter islands is far more complex. I don't think they will be able to write it at all.
Well scripting is my speciality
its not that hard + they use a collective of scripts that many people have wrote. They buy the program or pirate it, whatever and then finding scripts is easy. Have you ever seen the bots port in to hand quests in? I've seen them at level 3 in a level 40 area, port in by the 100s all following the same script. If the solution was so simple then why do you think so many games have the issue of bots?
They could level lock areas but then the go anywhere, do anything mantra would be out the window. They could level lock the first few zones but then the bots would adapt. They are like viruses and the mods are like antibiotics. They kill a few but soon they get resistant (adapt) and before long there's no way to stop them and sadly Zenimax have had no effect what so ever on the bot problem. I feel that this problem alone will be the death of ESO or at the very least, its path to the dark side (FTP).
A better solution is what I have proposed all along. Make high level tempers bound to character and make gold worth nothing at all. Make it so that a player buy stuff with bound tokens if they want to buy from a vendor, only use gold for reps and basic stuff that everyone can get cheap. Having a horse cost 45k gold is just like asking and begging the bots to ruin your game!
Zenimax are new at MMOs but they have some vets of the industry on their team + they must have consulted on this very thing many times. The only thing I can think of is that Zenimax didn't listen or there was something else like backers making all the decisions. Very bad decisions were made in the development of this game that any vet of the MMO industry or any vet player can see, so why didn't they?
The bots I've seen follow like 30 or 50 consecutive commands. To finish the quest line in one run you probably need more than 1000. I really cannot imagine it's that easy.
I also know better and more efficient ideas. The beauty of this one: it's already there. They just need to add one single limitation that you cannot teleport out before finishing the quest line and restore the old mandatory status from beta.
And what is the drawback? Explain to me: how does this change hurt or limit you?
Heck, even if the write a script that can finish the whole quest line in one go within one hour. It's still one hour more before a freshly created bot arrives on coldharbour.
Well that's wrong again. Most quests are just kill quests or pickup quests which is just the same as harvesting a node, they are just dressed up to seem different.
They don't just use scripts, they use macros which are neigh on impossible to be detected because most keyboards and mouse software can be macroed thus it appears as legit commands sent to the server.
Don't forget that a script is just a text file and it can be almost any size + they can use multiple version of scripts also but without downloading the software (Not risking it for curiosity), I can only guess at its limitation and features. I've seen a few videos on YouTube and for the majority of the commands, a simple toggle is only required which is suspect the program has some form of ability to emulate behaviour. So all it would take is for 1 real person in each faction to run the majority of the quests with the record pathing switched on and then set variables for rezzing and other things that may go wrong. They then upload the script, all download and hey presto!
I suspect that they are using some other trickery though because how would a level 3 survive a level 40 area even with the above example? (Unless there is ten of them) The above would be great for powerlevelling a character to be sold. Like I said, I'm not downloading the software even though I'm curious. No doubt Zenimax has it, that the first thing I would do is infiltrate their network but I'm afraid that they will always be 1 step behind the criminals because how can you create a defence if you don't know what you are defending against!
Its pointless restricting people because of bots! Hurting people because of what a few do is just silly. They need to work out some way to live with them but limit their damage without compromising peoples enjoyment and what I proposed my other post is the only way and I've played every AAA MMOs since UO (Can't really count online games on Bulletin boards, yeah I'm old) and most other eastern MMOs. A few have succeeded to some extent, Zenimax needs to look at these games and try to integrate what they have done to combat the cancer of MMOs!Edited by Loxy37 on May 11, 2014 2:06AM1 -
Nox_Aeterna✭✭✭✭✭
✭95% of the players go back to the starter islands anyway and the other 5% probably don't know they even exist.
Ah , made up % , i love these.
Yes , 0% of the playerbase wanted to jump the starter islands. That is why they made it possible ... oh wait.IronMaiden_burnout wrote: »The companies would only pay some players to level through that content then activate the bot program where they want.
Your solution would only make it a little harder to get going.
A little bit harder? I can promise you this measure would drop the bot population outside of the starter island by more than 95%..
And ofc , it gets better :P.
Stop making up % mate, you have no numbers to prove any of this."Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
-Hanlon's razor0 -
dennissomb16_ESO✭✭✭✭✭CH bots are easier. Level lock Coldharbour to 45. Done.
Grind bots will still get there but the level 3 shriven bots wont.dennissomb16_ESO wrote: »While ideas like OP seem ok, the reality is they always punish players and not the bot/hackers. Recent changes to public dungeons only punished players. Like it or not, the proper way to combat bots etc is through commiting resources. In game GMs, dedicated software such as BI and data mining. all targeting these cheaters. On top of that is a willingness to perma ban the accounts and everything related to the account such as credit cards etc. Changes to game itself only ever punishes legit players
You know the game had mandatory starter islands until it went live because AngryJoe was crying a river that ESO does not feel like an offline elder scrolls.
I don't see how going back to this hurts any players, because I think that the vast majority completes them anyway.
There was really two points I was trying to make. First was making changes to the game never stops bots but punishes players. I created two toons simply for bank space. it would be annoying to have to level them just to be bank bots and it would do almost nothing to slow bots.
The main point I was trying to make is commit resources to fighting the scurge vs changing the game to slightly slow them up. having said that all ideas need to keep coming
1 -
Loxy37✭✭✭✭Reignskream wrote: »
Well I'm never in favour of taking away peoples choice because of bots and it will never work because they will adapt and then all that accomplished is nothing apart from hurting legit players. Where would they draw the line? Erm, when the game is not functional anymore because that's what would happen.0 -
SirAndy✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭"Travel to Player" would have to be turned off for any of this to be even just somewhat effective. That's how all the level 3 bots made it to Coldharbour.
Edited by SirAndy on May 11, 2014 2:31AM0 -
Reignskream✭✭✭✭Reignskream wrote: »
Well I'm never in favour of taking away peoples choice because of bots and it will never work because they will adapt and then all that accomplished is nothing apart from hurting legit players. Where would they draw the line? Erm, when the game is not functional anymore because that's what would happen.Reignskream wrote: »
It's only logical.Edited by Reignskream on May 11, 2014 2:33AM0 -
Daethz✭✭✭
That'd get real old, real fast.Just make us calculate some simple integral every few minutes xD
Like captcha
ZOS could just use all of our connections to their servers and use us as a form of botnet to DDOS gold selling websites, lol.
Waiting, and watching, for the return of Melee Weapons.
-Subsidiary of The Fighters Guild1 -
Sakiri✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭
Its used to swap phases too, so if Im trading with someone in a different phase I port to them. They wont necessarily be my level.
Oh and the gold sellers are now in the rift. Spamming chat.0 -
Sariias✭✭✭Slantasiam wrote: »make beginner island pvp ....I will go fix it
If Bots were put on FFA PvP status we'd have so much fun. Griefers and Righteous Crusaders would rejoice and join forces to reap some soul shriven hide.
1 -
Sakiri✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Whats sad are the v1 bot trains in the chest armor and weapon from cadwells urn are able to survive in coldharbour.
They shouldnt be able to do that...0 -
ElliottXO✭✭✭✭✭Nox_Aeterna wrote: »95% of the players go back to the starter islands anyway and the other 5% probably don't know they even exist.
Ah , made up % , i love these.
Yes , 0% of the playerbase wanted to jump the starter islands. That is why they made it possible ... oh wait.IronMaiden_burnout wrote: »The companies would only pay some players to level through that content then activate the bot program where they want.
Your solution would only make it a little harder to get going.
A little bit harder? I can promise you this measure would drop the bot population outside of the starter island by more than 95%..
And ofc , it gets better :P.
Stop making up % mate, you have no numbers to prove any of this.
Well if you are bothered so much by them. Let's start to prove it.
I'll start with you: have you finished the starting islands on your ,real' characters?
Please give me an honest answer.0 -
ElliottXO✭✭✭✭✭Reignskream wrote: »
Well I'm never in favour of taking away peoples choice because of bots and it will never work because they will adapt and then all that accomplished is nothing apart from hurting legit players. Where would they draw the line? Erm, when the game is not functional anymore because that's what would happen.
I'd like to have the choice to teleport to molag bal after character creation and 1 hit him dead. Please don't limit my choices.
The game was fine with the mandatory starting islands all along. I don't remember any hate towards them. At least not in this forum. They could've rather spend the time implementing something the people really want like a PvP sparring arena.
Now we are overrun with bots. Now that is a serious problem and I don't see any solution from Zenimax apart from 'we're working on it'.1 -
ElliottXO✭✭✭✭✭dennissomb16_ESO wrote: »CH bots are easier. Level lock Coldharbour to 45. Done.
Grind bots will still get there but the level 3 shriven bots wont.dennissomb16_ESO wrote: »While ideas like OP seem ok, the reality is they always punish players and not the bot/hackers. Recent changes to public dungeons only punished players. Like it or not, the proper way to combat bots etc is through commiting resources. In game GMs, dedicated software such as BI and data mining. all targeting these cheaters. On top of that is a willingness to perma ban the accounts and everything related to the account such as credit cards etc. Changes to game itself only ever punishes legit players
You know the game had mandatory starter islands until it went live because AngryJoe was crying a river that ESO does not feel like an offline elder scrolls.
I don't see how going back to this hurts any players, because I think that the vast majority completes them anyway.
There was really two points I was trying to make. First was making changes to the game never stops bots but punishes players. I created two toons simply for bank space. it would be annoying to have to level them just to be bank bots and it would do almost nothing to slow bots.
The main point I was trying to make is commit resources to fighting the scurge vs changing the game to slightly slow them up. having said that all ideas need to keep coming
I don't consider this a change. It's restoring the intended functionality after finding out you made a pointless change.
And come on... Banking alts? If you need banking alts you should certainly be complaining about the root of this problem rather than 'it takes too long to create a banking alt'.1 -
Sakiri✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭We have complained. Loudly and long.
Mules are the result of their insistence on our current system.1 -
steveb16_ESO46✭✭✭✭✭
I simply do not understand why the limitation that a toon can only port to or within areas it has accessed was not built in. It is not rocket surgery to anticipate that a teleport to player option is going to get abused to hell otherwise.
All along the line; from basic game design through preemptive security to reactive changes the ball has been dropped.
They clearly had not given one moment of thought to the issue. No one that had would have either unlimited teleport to player, fixed node spawning, or infinite loot from respawning public bosses in a game.
This is not hindsight. It is basic foresight informed by a cursory knowledge of other mmo's.
It simply beggars belief that they not only did nothing to preempt the issue they actually designed key aspects of the game such as non instanced, infinite loot bosses to be perfect for them.
Edited by steveb16_ESO46 on May 11, 2014 7:17AM1 -
Adryssa_Joneley✭✭✭So true.. and i also fail to see WHY on EARTH they put us into our main provinces when we have to go back to start zones anyway. You can skip cold harbour at the start if you done it at least once, so fair enough... but bots have it way too easy getting right into it. I still meet up with people who skipped the start island because they didn't know about it. lol It happens.1 -
Sakiri✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Adryssa_Joneley wrote: »So true.. and i also fail to see WHY on EARTH they put us into our main provinces when we have to go back to start zones anyway. You can skip cold harbour at the start if you done it at least once, so fair enough... but bots have it way too easy getting right into it. I still meet up with people who skipped the start island because they didn't know about it. lol It happens.
No, you just met people that cant read the text of the very first quest youre given landing in those places.
Prophet tells you and theres a quest to go directly outside.0 -
LadyDestiny✭✭✭✭✭Yeah, I am not sure why they did not add level restriction in this game. I know a lot of crafters like to be able to go to higher level zones, but even if they were to just make it so you needed to be a certain level to go to certain areas would cut down on the bot problem. They would have to actually grind up to enter places like coldharbor etc. I don't think a level 3 has any business being in coldharbor or vet zones and if they are, they should not even be able to take a quest from any npc.0
