Hi all,

I have some concerns about the game currently; more specifically how breaches of ToS are investigated and how bans are made.

3x of my friends have recently been banned for perceived exploitation and had them reversed on appeal. All they did was run around certain areas collecting resources, no add-ons or mods, no third party installations etc, and then woke up to emails advising them their accounts have been permanently deactivated.

My friends and myself also find it quite relaxing to run around collecting resources. We call it collecting shinies (due to them shining when it's dark in the game). We don't all have tonnes of time to play the game so when we only have an hour or two to commit, we might sometimes just run around collecting every resource we see (not together of course) or loot every container, as one cannot have enough resources for crafting. I personally like running around Bal Foyen as it's relatively small and the abundance of resource there is quite high in the small space. I loot every resource I see, and do it more often now due to the introductions of add-ons/mods on PS5 which highlight resources more clearly. However, now I'm worried I could potentially get banned at some point too, and wondered how ZOS enforce this? I'm not saying I fear I've been reported etc, I just worry because this is something I do each week without fail.

Please note, I appreciate and understand that ZOS cannot divulge specifics relating to other peoples bans - that's not what I'm asking - I'm asking for an understanding of how they process these things, as quite frankly, I cannot understand why they were banned in the first place. Cursory research shows that humans handle all bans, but if their bans were reversed on appeal, based on no evidence of a breach, why were they banned in the first place? Is there an element of AI in dealing with bans etc?

Also seen some posts on the ESO Reddit today with almost identical circs, I.e. ban with no explanation.

I just want to ensure that I am not at risk of waking up to an email to say I've been banned when all I'm doing is collecting resources. I've reported my fair share of bots on my travels and it's usually very apparent they're a bot (sorcerer with pet, no clothes, usually level 3). How do I differentiate myself from a bot - should I kill the odd mob during my travels? Should I need to?