ESO bots are a troublesome problem, but what can be done?
In last month’s State of the Game Address, Matt Firor (Game Director for The Elder Scrolls Online) acknowledged the problem of ESO bots and the ongoing fight to squash black market activities. In the Address he said that:
Fighting black market activity like gold selling spam and farming bots is a marathon, not a sprint, but we will do whatever we can to reduce their impact on the game.
ESO Bots
But what exactly are ESO bots? In simple terms, ESO bots are automated characters used for the sole purpose of cheating. This is how the scam works:
- Criminals, using stolen credit cards, create accounts in The Elder Scrolls Online to unleash bots.
- The bots infest the game and mine gold.
- The mined gold is then sold to buyers for real cash.
Based on the number of ESO bots infesting the game at any given time, it appears that botting is a lucrative activity for the bad guys. Unfortunately, this criminal practice not only rips off the victims of stolen credit cards, it damages the in-game economy of The Elder Scrolls Online itself.
Bot Frustration
ESO bots are a menace, and some legitimate players are starting to get angry as you can see from this official Elder Scrolls Online forum post. In roughly 15 minutes, the original poster reported somewhere between 20 and 30 bots. In frustration he calls out the game’s developers and says: “Grow a pair and do something about the problem.” His original video was pulled from the forums, but can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jomeIxYvrsk
Who Is To Blame?
Depending on how you look at the situation, the blame for ESO bots can be placed on either:
- The criminals who created the bots in the first place,
- The cheating buyers who pay for gold and keep the criminals in business,
- The game’s developers for not stopping the botting practice.
What Can Be Done?
Bots aren’t an exclusive problem to The Elder Scrolls Online, and in fact other MMORPGs have to deal with similar black market activities. Regardless, ZeniMax Online Studios has to shoulder the responsibility of dealing with the ESO bot problem, and the buck stops with them.
Thankfully, the ESO devs are taking the matter seriously. Matt Firor tells us that the accounts of offenders are being banned on a regular basis. This is a good step, but banning accounts is a reactive response to the problem, and doesn’t solve the issue. As soon as accounts are banned, new ones are created.
Obviously, we’re not privy to all that is being done behind the scenes, but proactive measures are needed to combat ESO bots. For starters, the devs could:
- Strengthen the account authentication and payment processing system to better flag stolen credit cards.
- Sick their legal team after known gold spamming outfits, hopefully putting them out of business.
- Improve systems to better identify players who buy gold and penalize their accounts.
- Increase the number of in-game moderators to police the game.
The entire problem is a difficult one to be sure, and there are no easy fixes. In the meantime, our only recourse as players is to continue to report botters and hope for the best.
Final Thoughts
So what do you think about ESO bots? Is the problem getting out of hand in your opinion? If so, do you have any solutions? Share your thoughts and ideas in the Speak Your Mind section below or in our forums.
It’s frustrating at times to be sure. I have limited play time and I love to craft so the bots can be a serious downer. On the other hand, I know that if people playing the game did not want to cheat, we would have no bots. I blame the players who make it lucrative for people to want to sell gold and mats. All it has really done so far is insure that most of the people at the top are cheaters who did not rightfully earn their place. It won’t make me quit playing, because despite the population of bots I really like the game.
It’s very frustrating! I also love to craft and I have noticed the bots mine nodes in 1 direction ONLY! So I learn their pattern and try to reverse the pattern so that I get the majority of the nodes and they get the minority! It’s hard to get started but once you change the timing and the pattern it gets easier
I with you, it’s sad they’re forcing those that enjoy farming to buy them instead, no doubt from he ones stealing ours
I think changing node spawn points to move randomly in a 35 meter area and to change the type of resources that spawn at a site making the bots less effective. Perhaps making hostile mobs pass through spawning radius so that bit would have wondering monsters to contend with and their lack of response would make them more noticeable.
Brilliant idea with the hostile mobs running around resource areas however most bots anymore take the Mage class so the familiars can fight the mobs off, and with the gold they collect from resource farming they can afford to buy soul gems in huge quantities, and can just simply write a script to allow the use of soul gems if dead, or just respawning at the wayshrine
Now it has gotten to the point where I’ve seen sir I’ve seen bots walk through the ads and not even get get any agro but if I get close the ads arrow on me I think some of Em are working for zos.
Why not make the the ore spawn cooldown for each player/bot. Just because a bot is mining an ore, shouldn’t prevent me from mining it, too. I don’t think randomizing spawns would work. Computers/bots will find some sort of pattern and surely there will be a finite number of locations to spawn on each zone. Or you can entrust a few moderators with a special “Kill Bot/Account Perma-death” spell. Like an infinity gauntlet. I’d snap my damn fingers so much they’d be sore.
They do very little to nothing to deal with the bots all they have to do is get online and actually monitor the game but on PS4I have never seen a Dev Is all the Starter zones are filled with bots 30 maybe 40 and sometimes the name’s change but change but for the most part it’s the same Box that I reported last week and the week before
Agreed. All eso has to do is go to bal foyen. Their are 10-15 of them in there all hours of the day. All are level 3 players and all run around gathering ore. It’s simple
The easiest answer to get rid of them is have a moderator in the starter zones and crag Lauren that’s the only place where the bots are so if there were people actually paying attention to the game they could be on their moderate in that and other small problems
I’m at my wits end with this bot issue, been reporting continuously for years and the problem is only getting worse… It was typically starter zones, now they’re in CRAGLORN farming nirncrux.. If they can’t control them they need to control the nodes.. Precious nodes from ore, seams that also drop rare crafting ingredients shut only drop from adds or add heavy areas that can’t be manipulated, take them off timer/s you get what you get beats getting nothing because there’s now 3-5 bot accounts running the same trails, making them have to fight adds to get resources will stop alot of exploiting. And start listening to gamers reporting this activity