What if there is a traitor among my Alliance? Spy Wars?

Dragonjunior

This has been happening for two days in a row on Auriel's Bow. A traitor would give our captured scroll back to the enemy along with many Alliance Points.

As far as I can tell this is how he does it: he lets the enemies smash down the gate and repairs it as soon as they come in, or he uses DK chain ability to pull enemies into the keep. Either way, there will be MINIMUM to NO time that shows on the map the keep is under siege, but the enemies got inside the keep, captured it and took the scroll.

What's worse is the he would kill the one enemy holding the scroll, and took the scroll himself, carry it to a location where enemies has already set up defense. Since he is a player on our side, we can do NOTHING to stop him. Then he would stand among the enemies and cry out for help in zone chat. Then every honest player would rush to the scroll, into enemies oil and AOE trap. Eventually the enemy will go home with a scroll and loads of Alliance Points.

For the last two days, in the time I was in Cyrodiil, we lost three scrolls and two additional keeps because of this invisible capture method. Obviously I want this to stop, but punishing (if Zenimax even could to do that) one player doesn't solve the problem.

This raises serious concern for me in doing any honest PVP since any organized guild could just make a level 10 character on the other side and start doing this. Zenimax made the cross-faction multi-guild system, but I don't think this is how they want players to use it.

To me this is more of an issue than the lately hot topic on OP vampire builds. Vampire may break game balance sometimes, but this breaks the very idea that defines ESO PVP--Territorial Faction Wars. But if this issue is not addressed, eventually this will just turn into Spy Wars--the faction that has the most spies will have the most keeps and scrolls.

Censorious

Well now, this could be a problem.

blackwolf7

Omg that dude is a brilliant ***! Haha!

Anyways why do you have to post it here instead of sending ticket or posting it to customer service section?

If people who share the same mindset as that brilliant son of a ...... then they will immitate him.


Last thing we need is a bunch of spies running around in every campaign.

JosephChip

Brilliant? How is it brilliant in any way? A toddler could figure this out the very first moment he enters Cyrodiil. Everyone else is grown up enough to not exploit it. He is a disgusting cheater, terrible player and an overall pathetic person. I hope he gets his unworthy ass banned and this issue is solved.

bugulu

Throw in a feedback using the in-game system.
Behaviour like this should not be tolerable.

Phoenix99

Add a simple fix to this. If there are ways to exploit current mechanics, just shut it down hard and do not listen to whiners..

1) You have to have control of one flag in the keep before you can grab the scroll

2) you cannot pick up scrolls from temples if the gate is closed.

Theron75

Anyone who sees this needs to file a report.

Ability/class balance issues are one thing, but something like this breaks the game itself and needs to be addressed ASAP. Letting exploits like this run rampant (especially in PvP) will just lead to player frustration and lost accounts.

Never fails...some tool finds a way to exploit in every MMO. I just don't understand the mindset.

Mordenkaiser

I applaud the OP for posting this on a public forum.

Most likely people who were too dim to realize this is possible will now do it.
More people doing it means more pressure to fix it (just look at vampires) which leads to 2 outcomes..

1 - Zeni fixes it in a timely manner and punishes the offending accounts.
2 - Zeni does nothing and we eventually leave.

I'm of the mindset you should be able to have a character in each faction, but given the lack of servers it means that people would have to ultimately choose a side. Vet levels let you experience every factions content.

But yeah I love knowing that someone in my large group could just be a AD spy feeding his guild all our info. Atleast if he had to choose a side then I could find reassurance in knowing he isn't really gaining anything since his toons are all EP.

Armoril

It's a viable strategy. It works, and if it didn't, you wouldn't be here complaining about it. As long as we, the players, are allowed to have characters on any of the three factions, there will always be a chance that you have a mole in your ranks. I've been in plenty of situations where it seemed like the enemy knew exactly where we were going to be. There was an informant on our side spying on us. And it worked to their advantage.

Solution? Maybe find somebody who is willing to do the same thing for your alliance?

I'm not sure where Zenimax currently stands on this. I don't know if they've outlined "rules" in PvP, and deemed this kind of behavior to be against the rules (if there are any rules), so I'm not sure it's something that you should be reporting people for.

Spying is a big part of military operations, and it's no different in ESO. Sometimes one person can do more than an entire army.

There are plenty of effective strategies in PvP, and this looks to be one of them. I don't expect it to get out of hand though, because after a certain point you would have more of your allies playing on the other side, and that would weaken your odds of defending your keeps.

GattacaGaming

This has been going on in many MMO's throughout history. One of the big ones was Dark Age of Camelot. There was always a spy doing his or her thing reporting information to the opposing realm(s). You know this and account for it. When you have a game that has multiple factions and a program such as Teamspeak and Vent then you have the means to have spies.

The most common defense was the use of misinformation. Whoever was leading the main zerg would only entrust his or her battle plans with people he knew he could trust and let slip false information knowing that someone in the raid was a spy. This obviously doesn't work when there are multiple smaller zergs running around but still this problem has existed throughout many MMO's and is not new to ESO

Dragonjunior

@blackwolf7,
I did, but this is not a single player issue, but a systematic oversight. They need to tweak the system so that this wouldn't happen, and they would only do this if enough people knows about it.

@Butthurtlocker,
In military operations, a known spy can be interrogated, coerced, or executed. But in ESO there is no punishment system.

@butthurtlocker and @GattacaGaming,
The biggest problem is not information leak. The battle front is always marked on the map and any real organized strike force would not use zone chat. The problem is invisible siege using DK chains or repair for enemies, and spy scroll delivery. As I was describing in my main post, the traitor would deliver the scroll into enemy territory. There is NO way to stop it, UNLESS we have a spy character ourselves and venture into hostile territory to kill this traitor.

As of right now the only way to deal with spies is to have a spy character, then it would really be a spy war

Mordenkaiser

butthurtlocker wrote: »

It's a viable strategy. It works, and if it didn't, you wouldn't be here complaining about it. As long as we, the players, are allowed to have characters on any of the three factions, there will always be a chance that you have a mole in your ranks. I've been in plenty of situations where it seemed like the enemy knew exactly where we were going to be. There was an informant on our side spying on us. And it worked to their advantage.

Solution? Maybe find somebody who is willing to do the same thing for your alliance?

I'm not sure where Zenimax currently stands on this. I don't know if they've outlined "rules" in PvP, and deemed this kind of behavior to be against the rules (if there are any rules), so I'm not sure it's something that you should be reporting people for.

Spying is a big part of military operations, and it's no different in ESO. Sometimes one person can do more than an entire army.

There are plenty of effective strategies in PvP, and this looks to be one of them. I don't expect it to get out of hand though, because after a certain point you would have more of your allies playing on the other side, and that would weaken your odds of defending your keeps.

Actually its poor sportsmanship at best. In a game where grouping is encouraged all this does is help create divides among the player base.

I'll acknowledge it as a tactic and not just being a someone unable to simply interpret and respond to battlefield conditions when there is a actual ramification for being discovered. As it stands there's zero means to effectively counter it that do not involve players ceasing to work together. I want to remind people this is a game. Bugging your opposing teams locker room might be considered a valid tactic too, but if we are going to go the the level of military operations, then lets have a means to punish moles ingame.

Chryos

This is something that we discussed in our guild as well, and why I dont believe in the whole join 5 guilds concept. I think its ok to join 1 player guild and the rest pve guilds. The whole concept of a guild is to devote your loyalty, time and energy into that one guild.

There are many guilds, especially your hardcore pvp guilds that only want you to belong to that one guild for that very reason alone. There are some people who join multiple guilds and you never basically hear from them in chat or they never attend any guild functions (even if they arent a spy), which makes no sense. We allow people to join other guilds, but if I had my say, I'd say no. Either you are just with us exclusively, or not at all. Thats really how a guild should be and has been for most of my MMORPG life.

rawne1980b16_ESO

I can say, with 100% certainty, that there are spies and "traitors" in every single alliance on every single campaign.

It happens in any game with PvP.

In DAoC I did it myself.

In some cases, people go on another faction to feed them wrong information about where zergs/groups are heading.

People also plant others to do as you said, quick ninja scrolls.

In any case where it's possible to get alts on the same campaign in other factions, it's going to happen.

I believe you can report them for it but chances are, if you didn't catch the name, that alt will have been deleted and a new one made. Bit silly using the same character.

Lord_Draevan

It's not a brilliant strategy: it's an unbeatable one. All they have to do is pick up the Scroll and boom: we cannot harm them in any way since they're on our side. The traitor can literally WALK to the enemy keep and hand it to them and there's not a thing we can do.
If they're allowed to betray their faction, we should be allowed to kill them or kick them out of the faction entirely. Simple as that.
People feeding misinformation or spying on our zone chat, that's fine. But this Scroll carrying to our enemies needs to be stopped, or we need the option to kill them or kick them out of our faction.

Mends_from_Shadows

I posted in the other Auriel's Bow thread about this. But it's been pretty rampant. It's happening right now as Teepo Fatestealer, Azera, Stoned, Warz, and some other garbage Ebonheart players are handing the scrolls over to DJCoin of Aldmeri.

This as bad as the Vampire situation in was in Cyro. It completely ruins the fun of the game when you lose a scroll and can't do anything about it. Not to mention we're about to lose the other scrolls because people are too busy chasing the *** on our side who took the scroll.

I just finished reporting all of these guys, so hopefully Zenimax will have some response to it. It should not be possible for people to get around everything the Developers put in the game to protect the scrolls. It's a clear exploit, and it should be dealt with as such. People should be banned for this.

Mordenkaiser

Mends_from_Shadows wrote: »

I posted in the other Auriel's Bow thread about this. But it's been pretty rampant. It's happening right now as Teepo Fatestealer, Azera, Stoned, Warz, and some other garbage Ebonheart players are handing the scrolls over to DJCoin of Aldmeri.

This as bad as the Vampire situation in was in Cyro. It completely ruins the fun of the game when you lose a scroll and can't do anything about it. Not to mention we're about to lose the other scrolls because people are too busy chasing the *** on our side who took the scroll.

I just finished reporting all of these guys, so hopefully Zenimax will have some response to it. It should not be possible for people to get around everything the Developers put in the game to protect the scrolls. It's a clear exploit, and it should be dealt with as such. People should be banned for this.

I agree, this is not a strat, its an exploit. +1

Gwarok

Mordenkaiser wrote: »

Mends_from_Shadows wrote: »

I posted in the other Auriel's Bow thread about this. But it's been pretty rampant. It's happening right now as Teepo Fatestealer, Azera, Stoned, Warz, and some other garbage Ebonheart players are handing the scrolls over to DJCoin of Aldmeri.
This as bad as the Vampire situation in was in Cyro. It completely ruins the fun of the game when you lose a scroll and can't do anything about it. Not to mention we're about to lose the other scrolls because people are too busy chasing the *** on our side who took the scroll.
I just finished reporting all of these guys, so hopefully Zenimax will have some response to it. It should not be possible for people to get around everything the Developers put in the game to protect the scrolls. It's a clear exploit, and it should be dealt with as such. People should be banned for this.

I agree, this is not a strat, its an exploit. +1

I like LOVE to read.

One thing I have learned by reading about some of the greatest "Generals of wars, past" is, knowledge/intelligence gathering is one of a soldiers greatest weapon against his enemy.

Please allow me to quote probably THE GREATEST military general, strategist and philosopher in the history of mankind:

"All warfare is based on deception.

Thus, what enables the wise sovereign and the good general to strike and conquer, and achieve things beyond the reach of ordinary men, is FOREKNOWLEDGE. Now this foreknowledge cannot be elicited from spirits; it cannot be obtained inductively from experience, nor by any deductive calculation. Knowledge of the enemy's dispositions can only be obtained from other men.

Hence the use of spies, of whom there are five classes: (1) Local spies; (2) inward spies; (3) converted spies; (4) doomed spies; (5) surviving spies. When these five kinds of spy are all at work, none can discover the secret system. This is called "divine manipulation of the threads." It is the sovereign's most precious faculty.

Having LOCAL SPIES means employing the services of the inhabitants of a district. Having INWARD SPIES, making use of officials of the enemy. Having CONVERTED SPIES, getting hold of the enemy's spies and using them for our own purposes. Having DOOMED SPIES, doing certain things openly for purposes of deception, and allowing our spies to know of them and report them to the enemy. SURVIVING SPIES, finally, are those who bring back news from the enemy's camp. Hence it is that which none in the whole army are more intimate relations to be maintained than with spies."
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War

WELCOME TO WAR!!! (I didn't come here to play hop-scotch). All is NOT fair in love and WAR, milk drinkers!!! You find a spy you deal with him yourself, don't go crying to @ZOS , deal with them your selves:

"The enemy's spies who have come to spy on us must be sought out, tempted with bribes, led away and comfortably housed. Thus they will become converted spies and available for our service. It is through the information brought by the converted spy that we are able to acquire and employ local and inward spies. It is owing to his information, again, that we can cause the doomed spy to carry false tidings to the enemy. Lastly, it is by his information that the surviving spy can be used on appointed occasions."
(again) -Sun Tzu

LONG LIVE THE EBONHEART PACT!!!

Lord_Draevan

Gwarok wrote: »

WELCOME TO WAR!!! All is NOT fair in love and WAR, milk drinkers!!! You find a spy you deal with him yourself, don't go crying to the Dev's, deal with them yourselves

Your long-winded post is invalid since, unlike in real life, there is no way to counter these spies. Can we kill them? No. Can we lock them up to prevent them from gathering further intelligence? No. Can we do anything to stop them? Nope.
Right now they're unstoppable. If they're allowed to spy on us, we should be allowed to kill them or kick them out of our faction. They want to spy for the AD/EP/DC? Fine. We should be allowed to cast them out of our faction or kill you when we discover their treachery. Like what Sun Tzu would have done.
Though to be honest, I have no problem with zone-chat spying or stuff like that. It's the Scroll carrying to enemy keeps by traitors on our side that bothers me.

Mordenkaiser

Gwarok wrote: »

One thing I have learned by reading about some of the greatest "Generals of wars, past" is, knowledge/intelligence gathering is one of a soldiers greatest weapon against his enemy.

Please allow me to quote probably THE GREATEST military general, strategist and philosopher in the history of mankind:

"All warfare is based on deception.

WELCOME TO WAR!!! (I didn't come here to play hop-scotch). All is NOT fair in love and WAR, milk drinkers!!! You find a spy you deal with him yourself, don't go crying to the Dev's, deal with them your selves:

"The enemy's spies who have come to spy on us must be sought out, tempted with bribes, led away and comfortably housed. Thus they will become converted spies and available for our service. It is through the information brought by the converted spy that we are able to acquire and employ local and inward spies. It is owing to his information, again, that we can cause the doomed spy to carry false tidings to the enemy. Lastly, it is by his information that the surviving spy can be used on appointed occasions."
(again) -Sun Tzu

LONG LIVE THE EBONHEART PACT!!!

Wow... when your done patting yourself on the back with the chest thumping you need to realize there is currently no ramifications to performing these acts,

Let me apply your "logic"

“Minimum Effort, Maximum Result,” (Guess who said that?)

So lets stop sending armies to get scrolls and just send faction alts to ferry them back and forth...

Oh wait....that would destroy the whole purpose of gates /etc

You may want to read his entire book next time, not just the inside of the cover.

Gwarok

Can we kill them? Can we lock them up to prevent them from gathering further intelligence?

Not yet.

is currently no ramifications to performing these acts

Patience, A justice system is in the works from what I hear..

If they're allowed to spy on us, we should be allowed to kill them

A possible solution is give The Emperor the power to place (temporary) bounties on their heads (they are unable to gather up a future scroll, they also possibly get locked out of zone chat once they're found to be a spy), and/or the bounty can be removed when the campaign resets.

#PatsSelfOnBack

Sihnfahl

Gwarok wrote: »

A possible solution is give the Emperor the power to place bounties on their heads. The bounty can be removed when the campaign resets.

So what would keep an Emperor from putting a bounty on the heads of a group, then rescind it when they respawn inside their 'new' alliance's keep?

You could bypass the gates if you say 'these people are spies for the <whoever>', then once they're inside, bring them all back into the alliance. Behind the oils. Behind the siege.

Gwarok

Sihnfahl wrote: »

...then rescind it when they respawn inside their 'new' alliance's keep? You could bypass the gates if you say 'these people are spies for the <whoever>', then once they're inside, bring them all back into the alliance.

The bounty doesn't give them immunity of any kind from any of the three factions, they're still a killable target on the battlefield only now they have to watch their backs.

Sihnfahl

Gwarok wrote: »

The bounty doesn't give them any immunity of any kind for any of the three factions, they're still a killable target on the battlefield.

... my head just short-circuited. That's about one of the ill-conceived ideas.

Why would anyone be a spy if EVERY faction could kill them for AP? Or even if no place in Cyrodiil was safe.

And it would open itself up for even more abuse for AP farming. You know Guilds have already conspired to have members in both factions and then pump up AP by zerging into killzones.

Now get ten, twenty people in your own faction marked, have them sit around. "Hey, everyone, easy AP!"

Gwarok

Sihnfahl wrote: »

Why would anyone be a spy if EVERY faction could kill them for AP?

Put AP restrictions on the spy so AP "farming" is not possible. They're only worth AP the first time they are killed after they've been marked; and the spy killing one of their own faction they are originally aligned to gives no AP whatsoever, or even worse takes away subtracts AP.

#Justice?

Armitas

Gwarok wrote: »

WELCOME TO WAR!!! (I didn't come here to play hop-scotch). All is NOT fair in love and WAR, milk drinkers!!! You find a spy you deal with him yourself, don't go crying to @ZOS , deal with them your selves:


LONG LIVE THE EBONHEART PACT!!!

Great idea! Who needs traditional PvP. Lets play click on an object and carry it somewhere uncontested. Thats why I pvp, not to find challenge or test my abilities, but to click on something and carry it somewhere.

Maybe as a counter strategy we can roll toons on the other faction to kill the spies in our own faction. So if I play AD and there is a spy on AD, then everyone on AD can roll EP so that they can protect AD from spies. Lets make this easy for everyone by implementing the following guide.

If you are AD then roll EP
If you are EP then roll DC
If you are DC then roll AD

And so that it doesn't get confusing...

If you are playing EP you are really AD
If you are playing DC you are really EP
If you are playing AD you are really DC
Pretty simple.

This is going to be so awesome, thanks so much letting us know that it's not an exploit but a brilliant opportunity for strategy! Going to go pull the Art of War of the shelf and reread it to see if it says anything about Vampires.

Lord_Draevan

Armitas wrote: »

Great idea! Who needs traditional PvP. Lets play click on an object and carry it somewhere uncontested. Thats why I pvp, not to find challenge or test my abilities, but to click on something and carry it somewhere.

Maybe as a counter strategy we can roll toons on the other faction to kill the spies in our own faction. So if I play AD and there is a spy on AD, then everyone on AD can roll EP so that they can kill the one spy on AD. Lets make this easy for everyone.

If you are AD then roll EP
If you are EP then roll DC
If you are DC then roll AD

This is going to be so awesome, thanks so much letting us know that it's not an exploit but a brilliant opportunity for strategy!

Dragonjunior

@Gwarok‌
I agree with @Sihnfahl , giving one player too much power is not helping balancing the game. I think the easiest solution is for Zenimax to implement a system that only allow ONE character per account to enter Cyrodiil. And there will be a time limit and AP points penalty for switching PVP right between characters, just like what they are doing for changing a campaign. This is not the best solution, but the easiest.

rawne1980b16_ESO

Armitas wrote: »

Going to go pull the Art of War of the shelf and reread it to see if it says anything about Vampires.

Not in the Art of War but according to the magic box in my living room, garlic works.


I propose we swap the meatbag catapult with a garlic one.

Sihnfahl

Dragonjunior wrote: »

only allow ONE character per account to enter Cyrodiil.

Or at least one campaign. You can have five PvP toons, they just can't enter the same campaign as Home or Guest.

Igolbug

LoD/Kill Cult are trying to do this on Wabbajack now.