Game breaking exploit.

Nénlindë

My friends and several others have been reporting players (and the bug itself). Nothing is being done, about crafting writs. Currently people have found a way to exploit their surveys and mine/chop/harvest any material over and over non-finite. Zenimax this is game breaking and please do something about it. It's already crashing the market of Tempering Alloy, Dreugh Wax and Rosin.

OGLezard

tell us more on how to replicate it plz

pelennor_fields

It's true. I sent multiple emails to customer support and haven't had a response yet. I also have had multiple people acknowledging the exploit and encouraging me to participate. I won't; in fact I rode around Wrothgar for hours reporting people doing it. When are you going to do something about this? It is a game breaking exploit that will wreck the economy.

Reverb

How can you be sure they're exploiting? There's every liklihood that Zeni has looked into your reports and found they are doing nothing wrong. I don't know what those players are doing, but can give a scenario that would create what you've seen.

I do 6 writs with 4 toons daily (24 total). But I hate taking the time to farm the surveys, so I let them pile up. I
Between the 3 toons doing Wrothgar writs, I have 30-40 containers I can't open because there are duplicate survey maps in them. When I finally go farm them, I go to a spot and clear the nodes, reloadui, open a container with another survey for that spot, harvest the nodes, repeat until I'm out of surveys. Then I go to the next spot and do the same. I once had 8 surveys for one clothing spot. To an observer, it would have looked like what you described. But it's not exploiting, it's just hoarding surveys (read: being too lazy to farm nodes more often).

Tholian1

pelennor_fields wrote: »

It's true. I sent multiple emails to customer support and haven't had a response yet. I also have had multiple people acknowledging the exploit and encouraging me to participate. I won't; in fact I rode around Wrothgar for hours reporting people doing it. When are you going to do something about this? It is a game breaking exploit that will wreck the economy.

How can you tell? I thought there wasn't any visible animations happening when others are harvesting nodes from surveys.

@Reverb , mine pile up too and I will often have half a dozen surveys for the same area.

Moglijuana

Yup, this has been all over a few trading groups I'm in on facebook. I'm all for sticking it to the man , but this exploit is something I can't agree on...the economy is already destroyed on Ps4 lol. It's only been a few hours of people spreading the word too... @ZOS_GinaBruno any word on getting a fix for this??? Do you guys even know yet?

Egonieser

Reverb wrote: »

How can you be sure they're exploiting? There's every liklihood that Zeni has looked into your reports and found they are doing nothing wrong. I don't know what those players are doing, but can give a scenario that would create what you've seen.

I do 6 writs with 4 toons daily (24 total). But I hate taking the time to farm the surveys, so I let them pile up. I
Between the 3 toons doing Wrothgar writs, I have 30-40 containers I can't open because there are duplicate survey maps in them. When I finally go farm them, I go to a spot and clear the nodes, reloadui, open a container with another survey for that spot, harvest the nodes, repeat until I'm out of surveys. Then I go to the next spot and do the same. I once had 8 surveys for one clothing spot. To an observer, it would have looked like what you described. But it's not exploiting, it's just hoarding surveys (read: being too lazy to farm nodes more often).

Unless someone explains in detail how the exploit works, guess we'll never know.

Hah, last time I did a writ is when I started my 2nd alt over a year ago.

Reverb

Tholian1 wrote: »

pelennor_fields wrote: »

It's true. I sent multiple emails to customer support and haven't had a response yet. I also have had multiple people acknowledging the exploit and encouraging me to participate. I won't; in fact I rode around Wrothgar for hours reporting people doing it. When are you going to do something about this? It is a game breaking exploit that will wreck the economy.

How can you tell? I thought there wasn't any visible animations happening when others are harvesting nodes from surveys.

There aren't, the player harvesting survey nodes appears to others that that are just moving from spot to spot and standing there for a few. People might just be pretending to harvest nodes and nobody would know differently.

pelennor_fields

@Reverb

What you described is legit, but when someone is exploiting it is perfectly obvious. I'm not going to elaborate on why it is obvious here but I have in my emails to ZOS customer service. If you are doing your surveys that is one thing - but if you are exploiting anyone who knows the exploit will notice. Primarily because you never leave the one spot for hours... But there are other "tell-tale" signs...

Egonieser

pelennor_fields wrote: »

@Reverb

What you described is legit, but when someone is exploiting it is perfectly obvious. I'm not going to elaborate on why it is obvious here but I have in my emails to ZOS customer service. If you are doing your surveys that is one thing - but if you are exploiting anyone who knows the exploit will notice. Primarily because you never leave the one spot for hours... But there are other "tell-tale" signs...

Want to elaborate? I wanna get rich-quick too xD
(Not really, I couldn't care less about PvE, I'm more for getting rid of PvP exploits)

Nénlindë

Reverb wrote: »

How can you be sure they're exploiting? There's every liklihood that Zeni has looked into your reports and found they are doing nothing wrong. I don't know what those players are doing, but can give a scenario that would create what you've seen.

I do 6 writs with 4 toons daily (24 total). But I hate taking the time to farm the surveys, so I let them pile up. I
Between the 3 toons doing Wrothgar writs, I have 30-40 containers I can't open because there are duplicate survey maps in them. When I finally go farm them, I go to a spot and clear the nodes, reloadui, open a container with another survey for that spot, harvest the nodes, repeat until I'm out of surveys. Then I go to the next spot and do the same. I once had 8 surveys for one clothing spot. To an observer, it would have looked like what you described. But it's not exploiting, it's just hoarding surveys (read: being too lazy to farm nodes more often).

I don't think you understand.. We're talking about players pulling away with 10,000 or more Raw ore, without even completeting their survey.

runagate

I just recently started doing writs on a new character for the first time in a long time. It must not be something one does while alone as I haven't noticed anything unusual in newbie zones.

You can in fact see that other people are harvesting writ nodes, you just can't see the nodes.

The weirdest is always when someone is reaching into the same spot as you are, even though you're both actually interacting with two separate nodes. They're instanced.

Acrolas

I had a bugged survey once about a year ago. Nothing to write home about. One extra stack of ebony ore is about as game-breaking as a taco recipe.

Reverb

Nénlindë wrote: »

Reverb wrote: »

How can you be sure they're exploiting? There's every liklihood that Zeni has looked into your reports and found they are doing nothing wrong. I don't know what those players are doing, but can give a scenario that would create what you've seen.

I do 6 writs with 4 toons daily (24 total). But I hate taking the time to farm the surveys, so I let them pile up. I
Between the 3 toons doing Wrothgar writs, I have 30-40 containers I can't open because there are duplicate survey maps in them. When I finally go farm them, I go to a spot and clear the nodes, reloadui, open a container with another survey for that spot, harvest the nodes, repeat until I'm out of surveys. Then I go to the next spot and do the same. I once had 8 surveys for one clothing spot. To an observer, it would have looked like what you described. But it's not exploiting, it's just hoarding surveys (read: being too lazy to farm nodes more often).

I don't think you understand.. We're talking about players pulling away with 10,000 or more Raw ore, without even completeting their survey.

You didn't answer my question: how do you know? How do you know what they are doing, or how much of anything they have in inventory while doing it?

pelennor_fields

@Reverb

We can't say how we know without basically explaining how to do the exploit - which I am not going to do.

disintegr8

I would be interested to know how you can tell they are exploiting rather than doing multiple surveys. I am not interested in how to exploit it, just how you can tell if someone else is.
Like Reverb I have multiple alts doing writs and only one harvesting so I will quite often do multiple harvests at the same location in relatively quick succession when the surveys have been banking up. I would hate to be accused of doing something I haven't done.

Nénlindë

@Reverb What? Do you want me to tell you how to exploit or something? I'm not going to do that.

dem0n1k

If it brings down the price of gold improvement agents... it's good for everyone!

Nénlindë

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JanS @ZOS_GaryA @ZOS_KaiSchober @ZOS_TristanK , Please do something. It's happening on PS4 and possibly all platforms.

Nénlindë

disintegr8 wrote: »

I would be interested to know how you can tell they are exploiting rather than doing multiple surveys. I am not interested in how to exploit it, just how you can tell if someone else is.
Like Reverb I have multiple alts doing writs and only one harvesting so I will quite often do multiple harvests at the same location in relatively quick succession when the surveys have been banking up. I would hate to be accused of doing something I haven't done.

It's not players jumping between alts, Or anything of that matter. I couldn't tell you how you'd know without giving away the exploit to the Forums. The less people that know the better for Zenimax and all of us.

Firerock2

The best way to get it fixed is to let everyone know it and then it will become a major problem that requires fixing.

pelennor_fields

It's not doing multiple writs stacked to one character. It isn't doing even 8 surveys in one place. It is doing the same survey 30-50-100 times.

Reverb

Nénlindë wrote: »

@Reverb What? Do you want me to tell you how to exploit or something? I'm not going to do that.

No, I'm saying that the majority of the times people scream "exploit", it's actually not. I understand you truly believe it's an exploit, but there's a good chance you're wrong. Or straight up full of bunk.

And it's easy to say how you know it's an exploit without revealing the exploit itself. Have you done it? Has "a friend" (because its always a friend and not onesself, right?) done it? Has anyone bragged about it in guild or area chat? Has it been posted on Reddit, YouTube, etc.? Unless you explain how you know, I maintain my stance that you don't actually know what people do , or what they have in their inventory.

Nénlindë

Firerock2 wrote: »

The best way to get it fixed is to let everyone know it and then it will become a major problem that requires fixing.

It is a major problem that requires fixing and Zenimax is doing NOTHING, players are banking up thousands and thousands of Tempering Alloy, Rosin, Kutas and Dreugh Wax. They are doing this within hours.

pelennor_fields

And if we explain how we know they are doing it you will know 7/8ths of how to do it and I don't teach people how to exploit. I have explained in detail in emails to ZOS what the exploit is and how to do it in exact terms. No response yet.

Sheezabeast

has it made its way to PC yet? I regularly do 4 writs a day and don't want t accidently do this. My writs perform normally at the moment and if they're bugged I don't want to accidently do it

krees28b14_ESO

pelennor_fields wrote: »

It's not doing multiple writs stacked to one character. It isn't doing even 8 surveys in one place. It is doing the same survey 30-50-100 times.

Yet you will not prove that the writ is being done multiple times. You are making an accusation that you cannot backup and prove. Not saying I do not believe you or it's not possible but since I do writs in Wrothgar and it has yet to happen to me I find it hard to believe.

x5ofspadez

Obviously the best course of action would be to tell everyone so then it gets fixed faster.
If you cant explain it to us, as to why you KNOW it is an exploit. And havent "tested it". Theres no way to know what your saying is true.

Firerock2

Yeah um, I have multiple writs saved up on my characters too...so what steps should we avoid doing if we don't want to glitch and get tons of gold mats because I would never do that.

pelennor_fields

@Reverb
Why would I explain in detail for everyone to do this and run the risk of tanking the market where i have legitimate mats? I can say they never leave the same spot and there is something there with them that is usually not there. I have had the exploit explained to me by multiple people who know how to do it and were encouraging me to do it. I also belong to a facebook ESO ps4 page with 13k members and multiple people there are aware of the exploit and reporting it to ZOS. I want to end exploits - not propagate them... That is why I am not going to explain to you how to do it here. I just want to get ZOS's attention in another method since they aren't responding to email.

If you are doing legitimate surveys then you have nothing to worry about... If not - perhaps thou doth protest too loudly.

Nénlindë