Botting / warping groups making it difficult to complete Hunter

Couple of times today I've almost finished some hunter achievements in TOV. Named spawns, I engage with a mini-cheer.

On both occasions a bot group warps from the far side of the zone, kill steals me, warps out. When I say group - its 12 players. No campfire near me, only 1 mage in their group. They are warping. So I can't out DPS them, not gonna train them.

I've reported them and received the standard automated response.

I get that either DPG is tight for resource / doesn't care / is part of a global conspiracy with these prawns or whatever. I don't care. I accept that cheaters are a part of life, same way there are people that don't like Marmite (weirdos, I know)

Can we get pick-zones set up to prevent this? Give GD a picksize like EW to at least give me a fighting chance... and ideally set up instances so named can spawn

Not quitting, not giving away my stuff, not cussing.... not paying a sub any more, just using my cash and Krono reserves for now

Keep petitioning them. And for future 100% bannable time provide video of them warping .. aka video the whole thing. They can deny deny deny all they want..

They can 100% not deny chitt.. if you video the entire thing.

Ironically I did that previously - nothing beyond auto response, bot team still there

I am sorry but i do not believe you. The couple times this has happened to me i videoed it.. submitted the video.. have not seen them again.

So where is the youtube vid link?

Edit: misread your message Veteran. Don't have the video any more as I had a hard drive issue. However, I'm looking into setting up recording whenever named hunting.

A little frustrating that we need to do that - hence I'd prefer a solution that enables us to play the game rather than police it

I know suff like that happens, but I honestly have never seen it on Drinal. We have our jerks, but not to that degree.

I'm just wondering if maybe they can code named (rare) mobs to only give kill credit to the group/raid that first engages it. Might solve the problem...might make it worse...hehe.

Recently, on Drinal, I watched a guy set up three bot teams in CR. That is, 18 toons in three groups.

Could it have been three different bot teams? Sure, but they were all set up the same way at the same time with the same armor, and each group had alike names.

As far as being in a guild, there are guilds on Drinal that don't care much what their players do, as long as they can get numbers. Good luck trying to get them to respond.

Isn't that against forum policy? Naming individuals?

Oh yeah... Surely a guild is not an individual though?

Who knows, they might be. Our moronic judicial system decided that corporations are people.

Thancra's thread posted this week who was describing this problem happening on AB has suddenly disappeared without explanation and posts erased. Not even thread closed by a moderator, it simply been erased like it never existed. No board rules have been violated in this thread, which makes it very weird. The KS botter answered in this thread.
He is well known on AB, last year he has received numerous complaints last year, numerous petitions made against him and sent to GM, and nothing has been really done to him, which made people suspect he is protected by or working for DPG somehow.
I don't want to fall into conspiracy theory, but this sudden thread disappearance doesn't help.

That being said, I'm going to repeat what I said.
The current situation is pretty bad on AB, because atm he is hoarding EW and GD, kill stealing every named he sees and that he didn't pop himself. In the last months, he was hoarding other former expansions and was not really playing in ToV which explains he was kept unnoticed, but he never left.
To the OP, sadly /pick don't solve things. Like he did in GMM when it was current, when /pick are created, he zone some of his toons into the pick zone to track named with his cheating tool and can kill still you. He works with like 18 toons in the zone. All his characters are in anonymous and don't belong to any guild.
I urge DPG to do really something against this guy, because this is really annoying.

EQ has one of the worst cheating management approaches I've ever seen in any MMO. Personally I'm not that hurt by bot groups and cheaters, and the situation on Bristlebane is pretty good, but it's sad to see such a foolish policy stay in place for years/decades.

1. They outright refuse to clarify any questions about what is and isn't cheating other than "you may not modify your EverQuest gameplay by using any banned/cheat programs in game". It's up to you to decide what is a banned/cheat program. https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/regarding-third-party-cheat-programs.250451/
2. When they perform bans, they do so discreetly, so the playerbase gets the sense that the ban didn't take place and the cheater just moved on to a different hustle or game. So players are less motivated to report cheaters.
3. Public shaming of individuals by providing proof of them cheating on this forum is a bannable (on the forum) offense and they'll silently delete threads showing evidence of people cheating while doing nothing to the player in question.
4. After years of people warping around the game and botting indefinitely, I'm pretty sure the extent of their systems in place involve a GM manually warping to a player, asking them if they're around and then maybe taking action against them. I could be wrong, I have no idea. See point #2

Hell, if all they changed about this was #2 and anytime someone was banned for cheating they posted all their account's characters and the guilds those characters were in, it'd be a huge improvement. Revoking #3 would also do a lot to improve the game.
Doing both #2 and #3 would have the side effect of creating a bunch of social drama, which is really the reason we're playing MMOs anyway. It'd be great.

The botter on AB has changed the most names of his toons since last year or he botted new toons up to 110+. Because a couple of wellknown names are inside these groups and the method is always the same, they are easy recognizable. And he changed most of his typical 4-letter names. I have no clue if all are him or some are mimicking him like he did with many boxers. Meanwhile a couple of bigger boxing groups are around. Many change now from small boxcrews to larger ones (6/12 group and more) to be able to stand against these bot-groups. That is what I witnessed and that is what I started too. If you want to be not a victim of the botters then the only way at moment is to make a boxing crew with enough burn power or to gather enough people but many simply avoid them and do instances or anniversary instead. The only chance to work properly Hunter or parts of the ToV quests are bigger groups in my opinion.

But I didn't saw them warping and killstealing in the way they did in TBL or RoS. They block partly some sensitive areas for the evolving earring - but I am beyond that so I didn't cared. I also avoid the areas where they are pulling except a nice named runs around then I simple pull it from them if I am sure that it is only a bot group. And the DPS of these groups are partly rudamentary. A nice burn setup and the mob is history.

@Ashigaru: which server are you refering?

I had trouble with this set of bots yesterday, its the same team as before. on AB server
he only took 1 named before I was able to "adapt"

They are all unguilded, and unfortunately nothing seemed to be done about them.

TBH if they are afk gaming they have no rights. They arent even a person anymore. Im not saying this to be mean. If there is no person there then they arent a person.

It is actually funny in a very sad way - all on AB know who those botters are - without naming them here. most have reported them for botting but no action are taken against them.

they warp to named they never spawned them self, they permacamp named for rare loot and skins.

Darkspaws inactivity eventually will kill game

and to add to this all know crybaby actually are that player - who grieve so many on AB

These players are consuming the zone population. The group I am in zone in, become separated by /pick and mercs get suspended.

I reported them this morning. (not that I expect anything from it)
They appeared when I was camping a named in GD out of nowhere KS'ed the named and moved on … twice.
I was so frustrated that I logged out.
As if the EQ population isn't shrinking fast enough already.

Sanae.

What I just simply don't understand is, why if we pay to play, the game is not set as fair.

The very thing I like about this game is the conversation with other player, not frustration of being in a /pick over half my group because a bunch of botters are in it.. getting away with playing AFK. And it is proven with several petitions and reports, yet nothing is done. There is no conversation with these players, they have 399 players in General chat, but 12 speak.
Asking for buffs now days is painful to get. Especially at lower mid level.
Population has turned into a machine.

It was an offence to use a forage key program which would get you a ban..... now this?