After Today's Maintenance - Infestation of Bots Pouring In

CombatBeard · May 2014

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

And secondly the reason why I said "after today's maintenance" in my OP is because I always remember bots in the starting zones (i.e. Glenumbra). As I leveled higher the zones were pretty clear of bots (at least in the open world, they were still boss camping dungeons). After the last maintenance it was an army of them pouring in from the Wayrest wayshrine, running the same exact path, and into the Sewers group dungeon.

Something must of happened because the bots are around in much greater numbers than I ever saw in the first 30 days.

The bot "trains" in Windhelm started before the NA server went down on Thrusday.

Swampster · May 2014

I have to agree with everything @ViciousMink‌ has written, and can't see a fix for this problem occuring anytime in the very near future.. it's too big a job to fundamentally re-write how the client/server interact with each other over a matter of a week or two. Still I'm definintely open to being pleasantly surprised!

However, I feel in the meantime we're more liable to get a raft of band aid measures designed to make their activities less profitable á la the dungeon 'fix'. For example the quest in Windehlm (as seen in the video above), where they log in then port to Windhelm, run and talk to an NPC.. collect an item, then collect 200+ gold, delete toon rinse/repeat is liable to get a nerf where there's no gold to be collected..

demonlkojipub19_ESO · May 2014

i was in shadowfen a few weeks back looking for the quests i missed and saw bots training in mass in the fields just killing everything. I reported as best i could and said they were present in zone. Tho, the people in the zone just made jokes about them, seeming to not care about their presence in shadowfen. no one was showing the slightest concern or digust. Makes me wonder how many people actually give a damn about getting rid of them, and that those complaining here are only like 2% or less of the living game population.

They are at least getting taken care of before reaching veteran levels. Tho i wouldnt be suprised if many of the vr rushers (through exploiting) have thier own hand in rmt, given that there are those who spent thier days hunting the top 2 motifs just to sell them..... never know.

digital_illusion · May 2014

I was in Bangkorai/Arlimahera's Grip last night(EU) and saw a stream of bots(lvl3 drab and bot naming convention) drop out of the sky to an NPC, I can't recall the name as he/she vanished after I completed the quest.
Anyway after automagically appearing, all the bots appear to stay in the one position(presumably to talk to the NPC). With me being a completely inept player I managed to aggro some nearby mobs with AoE abilities, caught unawares all I could do is defend myself and watch as the poor bots died one after another, a crying shame...
I sure the bot stream continued long after I had snuggled up to the Mrs.

Nebthet78 · May 2014

Last night in Reaper's March, at S-Ren-Ja's Old Dock I saw a train of bots going up and down the area and under the bridge in the distance killing everything as they went. It looked really odd and out of place because you had one lead bot and then another 7 or so bots running back to back to it. I did whisper a GM but after half an hour nothing was still done.
There had also been two bots standing outside of the bank in the central city in RM as well that I reported, but at least one was still there 8hrs after reporting.

Merlin13KAGL · May 2014

A couple possibilities...this would be an inconvenience for real players, but might help ID (automatically) and lead to the mass elimination of some of the new bots...

First, a periodic wipe of your 1-5/ultimate set up and automatic unequip of your current weapon...

This would require a minute or so for real players to set the 1-5/ultimate back up and re-equip, but it would be immediately noticed by any real player.

Any character that continued to try to use a skill (1-5) or attack with a weapon that was essentially not there could be tagged...

It's a minor irritation for regular players, but so long as is doesn't happen in a fight, I think it's something that could be tolerated for mass bot extinction...

Second, anyone remember Traps?? A level 2-3 in any class only has so much HP...if it's a higher level quest, have a trap go off that damages HP higher than a level 3...no armor damage.

Absurdly low level character (that would presumably not be able to realistically finish the quest anyway) dies... Anyone else just has to wait a second or two after to regen the HP lost...

Again, kind of another bandaid for now...but the coders are going to come up with every possible way to exploit using the bots...There are several out-of-the-box things that could be added that would only minorly affect real players, but majorly affect the bots...

(Low level guy dies...if data stream continues coming in for movement/interaction on a waiting-to-be-resurrected body that's laying there, becomes pretty apparent that it's automated.)

steveb16_ESO46 · May 2014

Just stopping people creating and destroying infinite toons would really help. no-one needs to create more than two or three a day.

drkfrontiers · May 2014

I just experienced my first three flying bots on the Glenumbra map where you saving villagers. Was so immersion breaking I logged out

GreySix · May 2014

drkfrontiers wrote: »

I just experienced my first three flying bots on the Glenumbra map where you saving villagers. Was so immersion breaking I logged out

Yeah, seeing those just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, eh?

drkfrontiers · May 2014

GreySix wrote: »

drkfrontiers wrote: »

I just experienced my first three flying bots on the Glenumbra map where you saving villagers. Was so immersion breaking I logged out

Yeah, seeing those just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, eh?

I really want this game to succeed. Been dreaming about ESO for ages, right back to the days of Oblivion. I feel so powerless, like nothing I do matters. Bot companies intent on destroying the game.

Part of me wonders though is how much of this is your vanilla bots, and how much of it is players masquerading behind the "bots" as a means to earn gold?

Swampster · May 2014

drkfrontiers wrote: »

Part of me wonders though is how much of this is your vanilla bots, and how much of it is players masquerading behind the "bots" as a means to earn gold?

The floods of bot trains are your everyday gold farmer bots..

However from reading various forums, there are certainly a lot of players buying/using the more advanced varieties it would seem, mostly to farm gold and maybe crafting materials while they're asleep or at work etc.

brandon · May 2014

I saw a lot of bots near hinault farm in rivenspire yesterday.

Teloria · May 2014

Gillysan wrote: »

Actually that has been going on for awhile. It has been referred to in several ways and they all might be right - teleporting, underground, invisible.

-
- You are exactly correct!! We have noticed this for quite some time now and have been reporting and reporting till our fingers bleed. (figure of speech of course). However, many have been getting banned for reporting bots and gold sellers and for other reasons that they did not do. I really wish ESO or whoever ACTUALLY controls this would follow the rules and take care of the problems at hand. Get RID of the bots! Put program controls in place to eliminate them AND the accounts they are attached to like other MMOs!

Sariias · May 2014

Teloria wrote: »

However, many have been getting banned for reporting bots and gold sellers and for other reasons that they did not do.

What?

Source?

ttwinklerub17_ESO · May 2014

that has to be a typo

no way someone should be banned for reporting bots or gold sellers
(something ZOS asked us to do)
not even if a mistake was made - your just flagging an account
- ZOS can then watch account and determine for themselves if the flagged player is cheating
- that's would be ZOS doing it's do diligence

more likely many have been banned as a result of reporting bots and gold spammers

Teloria · May 2014

Sariias wrote: »

Teloria wrote: »

However, many have been getting banned for reporting bots and gold sellers and for other reasons that they did not do.

What?

Source?

The source is my husband and brother in law. Both were banned. One banned for reporting bots and the other banned, first time for 24 hours and then a week later for three days. All occurances were determined to be 'human error' on ESO's end, however; they still carried out the bans. Also, have spoken to other people who have been banned for similar things wrongfully including the reporting of gold sellers.

Bouvin · May 2014

CrimsonThomas wrote: »

Zenimax, this game is officially on the tipping point. Are you going to let it die? Band-Aid "fixes" that punish the players don't hurt the botters at all. They just keep coming, they'll just keep growing in number until you do something.

Telling us, "Report those bots guys!!" Does not fix anything at this point. For each one you ban, a bot with the same name takes its place. This is on your end, Zenimax.

It doesn't help that reporting is a pain in the butt.

I wouldn't mind reporting if all I had to do was right click a name and hit "Report".

But noo... I've gotta fill out a form, which after about the 500th time I don't want to bother with.

Bouvin · May 2014

I'm also curious how they are unable to setup an automated system that can detect bots which are speed hacking or map clipping and automatically suspend the account...

Winnower · May 2014

Force every new character to go through the tutorial, rather than only make one character on an account do it.

Insert a random instance in the tutorial going from one place to another where the path is one of 12 paths that changes randomly each time you enter the instance - easily negotiable if you look at a map, but impossible if you're running a script. There are mazes which can be designed where the "follow the left "(or right) hand path doesn't work. One of those should do.

Sharee · May 2014

Bouvin wrote: »

I'm also curious how they are unable to setup an automated system that can detect bots which are speed hacking or map clipping and automatically suspend the account...

Setting up a system that detects anomalous movement should be a top priority now for ZOS. That they did not have something like that implemented at launch shows how inexperienced they are with MMO's. If you give the client the freedom of determining character movement without server authorization, not checking whether the movement is legal afterwards just begs for hacks.