The Botting Epidemic in ESO

[βird]

It’s getting a bit ridiculous. I can’t enter Bal Foyen, or any of the starter zones to try to harvest crafting materials, without seeing at least 7 bots using a script and running from resource node to resource node.
No matter how many I report, the next day a new one is back in the same area, with some dumb name like xxxyyyzzz. These accounts are all being made for third-party sites that sell gold for irl money.
When is Zenimax going to fix the crazy bot problem? Can’t you shut down the websites, or limit the number of accounts one IP can have to prevent multiple bot accounts? Or have some code that detects if a player is using a script to harvest resources?
Eventually if this isn't taken care if, it can cause problems with the in game economy due to gold/price inflation. I've seen it happen to WoW, i've seen it happen to TF2, and this game is next if something isn't done to stop the problem.

[Ruse]

What bots?

[βird]

Originally posted by Theresa Barkskin:

What bots?

You haven't noticed them? I guess they blend in a lot, but there are tons of them. Everywhere. Especially in specific zones. If you go to Bal Foyen for example, look really closely at the players. You will notice some of them are walking around, never sprinting. Going from one resource to the next. Have noob gear on from the tutorial. Crazy names. constantly do 180 degree turns that no regular player can ever do.
There are tons of bot signs, and I notice them everywhere I go. A lot of people, i'm sure you included, just run past them without realizing.

[Crixus]

I sometimes see bot trains running around zones, like 10-20 bots in a line just killing mobs. So stupid.

I find it really annoying when I see bots farming nodes though, basically stealing gold from players who are putting the effort in to actually farm.

[Cpt. Stern]

EU or NA Bal Foyen?

[Spirit]

i dont care for the nodes ... i collect it here and there because i literally drowned in materials
all hail to the crafting bag

[amapola76]

Originally posted by Cpt. Stern:

EU or NA Bal Foyen?

Both, in my experience.

[Psyringe]

Originally posted by Marauder:

I sometimes see bot trains running around zones, like 10-20 bots in a line just killing mobs. So stupid.

I find it really annoying when I see bots farming nodes though, basically stealing gold from players who are putting the effort in to actually farm.

In the past 6 weeks, I brought a character from scratch to CP50. I play slowly and very thoroughly, so I don't think I'd miss a bot train. But I never saw a single one. In fact I never saw more than 4 other players at the same time outside of cities and dolmens.

In all this time, I had less than 10 resource nodes "stolen" by another player. In fact, 99.9% of players seem to run right past them.

So I can't confirm a "botting epidemic" at all, from what I'm seeing. Though it could be that they are limited to certain areas; I mostly played in Morrowind, Aldmeri Dominion, Hew's Bane, Gold Coast, Stros M'kai, and the Daggerfall area, all on the EU server.

[Prince Vegeta]

Bot trains are pretty common in Glenumbra.

[Gun Slinger]

Yes, I actually tried to follow a bot train, and help with the kills, so I could collect supplys.

[Chrys]

Been playing for over 100h I have never once seen a bot train. (Played on the aldmeri dominion zones (auridon etc.), morowind and summerset) Barely encounter that many players anyway.
Also, I may be wrong but some of the 'bots' might be players using harvestmap.
Like, when I'm looking fro an alchemy reagent I just go from mapped node to mapped node (checking out if other resources respawned if they're on my route) until I have enough if what I need.

[Psyringe]

Originally posted by Blazebeak:

Originally posted by Theresa Barkskin:

What bots?

You haven't noticed them? I guess they blend in a lot, but there are tons of them. Everywhere. Especially in specific zones. If you go to Bal Foyen for example, look really closely at the players. You will notice some of them are walking around, never sprinting. Going from one resource to the next. Have noob gear on from the tutorial. Crazy names. constantly do 180 degree turns that no regular player can ever do.
There are tons of bot signs, and I notice them everywhere I go. A lot of people, i'm sure you included, just run past them without realizing.

Are you really sure that you're talking about bots? I mean, think about this:

Many people create a character that specializes in crafting. This makes sense because crafting can eat up a lot of skill points, and why would you take away so many points from your main characters' combat skills when an alt can do the gathering/crafting job just as well?

So people create crafting alts. When players create and play these alts, they ...
- often use throwaway names, because if the character's sole purpose is to gather resources and craft, why bother
- don't need better gear than tutorial armor, because again, if the character's sole purpose is to gather resources on a route that he can handle with tutorial armor, why bother
- go from resource to resource, usually assisted by a mod that points them to spawns, because that's the whole purpose of the character

Regarding the "never sprinting", could you explain why bots wouldn't sprint? I mean, _I_ sometimes don't sprint when I gather resources, because it's a low-effort task that I do with one hand on my mouse while I hold something to eat in the other. But why wouldn't _bots_ sprint?

Regarding the "impossible 180 degree turn that no regular player could ever do", could you explain why that would be an impossible move? I play in zoomed-out third-person view and find 180 degree turns pretty easy to do, you just move the mouse quickly to the side while you're walking.

I'm not saying that there are no bots at all, but I'm saying that your evidence doesn't really work when it just lists aspects that are true for human players as well. If you take your points as "proof" for spotting a bot, then you may be grossly overestimating the number of bots in the game. In fact, if you see me gathering resources with my orc harvester, you'd probably think you spotted another bot, because she fulfills all the criteria you listed, except for the name.

[EViLiSLuRKiNG]

I have seen bots before,I have yet to see any running around hoarding all the nodes and I do collect them as I see them just because I have the craft bag and why not.I think you way over estimate the bot issue.I have over 1000 hours log and rarely run into bots even in popular zones.

I would assume they would be more common in areas better suited for nodes and such but by far not an epidemic.I mostly pick DLC to farm nodes as it usually cuts down on human traffic but I don't ever recall seeing bots in some time.

[βird]

Originally posted by EViLiSLuRKiNG:

I have seen bots before,I have yet to see any running around hoarding all the nodes and I do collect them as I see them just because I have the craft bag and why not.I think you way over estimate the bot issue.I have over 1000 hours log and rarely run into bots even in popular zones.

I would assume they would be more common in areas better suited for nodes and such but by far not an epidemic.I mostly pick DLC to farm nodes as it usually cuts down on human traffic but I don't ever recall seeing bots in some time.

They are mostly in the starting zones because they have the most resources of any zones. But when those are full they tend to bleed over into regular zones. I think they are much more common on the NA servers, but they are on both.

Originally posted by AnglaisRose:

Been playing for over 100h I have never once seen a bot train. (Played on the aldmeri dominion zones (auridon etc.), morowind and summerset) Barely encounter that many players anyway.
Also, I may be wrong but some of the 'bots' might be players using harvestmap.
Like, when I'm looking fro an alchemy reagent I just go from mapped node to mapped node (checking out if other resources respawned if they're on my route) until I have enough if what I need.

This is what it looks like, but normally a bit smaller.
https://youtu.be/l6wBfQbTUWA

[Cpt. Stern]

I have seens lots of kill bot trains and dolmen shot bots, but not node bots. I have been in Bal Foyen recently for several hours and didn't see anything unusual.

[βird]

Originally posted by Cpt. Stern:

I have seens lots of kill bot trains and dolmen shot bots, but not node bots. I have been in Bal Foyen recently for several hours and didn't see anything unusual.

That is because they are normally from China. They aren't online during the day in america. Or they just got banned recently. They come online in about 4 hours, when there is less people online so it is easier to harvest stuff. If you go back on at night, you will surely see them.