Bans Weren't For Surveys In Banks. They Were For VERY High Ratios Of Mats Per Survey

Tandor

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

ADarklore wrote: »

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

ADarklore wrote: »

It is surprising the number of people who support the exploiters... it makes me wonder how their own 'real life' logic works. I definitely wouldn't trust any of these people in real life!

Quick question. If a person bought something from a store. And that product bought from the store had secret functions in it, that its creators weren't aware of... But, others choose to use said secret functions... Who's at fault truly in the situation? Is it the fault of the creators/developers for not thoroughly checking their product enough for secret functions, or the people who discovered the secret function, and choose to use it however they wished...?

I can tell you right now, from a corporate point-of-view? The creator/developer is at fault, and should face punishment. Not the consumer. Why? Because it was the CREATOR/DEVELOPER'S job to have solid quality control. It was their job to not only develop said product, but thoroughly examine it for: Flaws, exploits, etc.

If by using said 'exploit' directly harmed other people... which it no doubt would do because of how it would impact the game economy... then YES, it definitely is the player's fault! ZOS had a major problem with exploits when the game launched, it was a major PR fiasco which took them quite some time to recover from. Further, the TOS give ZOS the absolute right to enforce ANYTHING they consider to be improper player behavior... our participation in this game is at THEIR discretion, not OURS. Albeit, we can walk away from the game at any time... but ultimately, if we want to continue playing, we have to abide by their rules and TOS.

So you're saying it's not the developers' fault for not testing enough? Interesting... I suppose its because of this type of "okey-doke mentality" that ZO$ is so sloppy nowadays with their products, or in case of the Thieves Guild release, completely ignore our feedback on things in the PTS. In fact, they released something live that was completely different than what was on the PTS. But okay, that's a different topic all together. I see now why ZO$ gets away with the treatment of its customers, and thinks nothing of it.

I've honestly no idea whether you're truly innocent or guilty as charged, but with every post you write you make it sound increasingly like the latter. If you really are innocent, I'd leave it to a support ticket and stop digging a hole for yourself here.

helediron

I got suspension. I think i have a credible false positive. Note, i am not petitioning here. Because of reading this thread, i assume i got the suspension because of writs. I still don't know what exactly the exploit was.

I do writs with all characters not being mules. After doing the writs, i move them to bank, and then one character takes them and loots the survey areas. I harvest the area and the map disappears during the harvest. I do writs with every character, so i think i have very high amount of those survey maps.I get about full set every day, and sometimes i need to run extra run to get rid of extra boxes. If i don't run the maps, the writ boxes pile up quickly. And they sometimes pile up if i get repeatedly the same map from multiple characters and sometimes every day. They don't always distribute evenly - RNG as usual.

Because of that RNG i have writ reward boxes waiting in inventory, and i harvest multiple times the same survey area. So, some logs can really show that i have looted multiple times a map area, but that is because i have one map in inventory and more of them in unopened writ boxes, because survey maps are unique. After harvesting the survey area once, i run few hundred meters away. Then i open one writ box, get map number 2 to the same survey area, and return harvesting it. I think i have had a map and maximum three unopened boxes to same survey area.

I do not see any cheating here. But again, the decision happens through ZOS channels.

@ZOS_AlanG , few questions:
- Why doesn't ZOS tell why a player is suspended? The email only mentions exploiting but not what exactly. If ZOS doesn't discuss individual bans publicly, they surely must talk them then privately. Every suspension must have exact reason. That vague wording is something i interpret ZOS didn't give a reason to service break. So, ZOS is interrupting the service without reason. And that is something ZOS promises to deliver according to EU media TOS (as far as i understood the text).
- There has not been any response today. Why does ZOS send three day suspensions friday night and then walks home?
- You mention to make a petition to help.elderscrollsonline.com. If i received a suspension ticket with ID, wouldn't responding to that through email be the preferred way?

Reevster

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

ADarklore wrote: »

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

ADarklore wrote: »

It is surprising the number of people who support the exploiters... it makes me wonder how their own 'real life' logic works. I definitely wouldn't trust any of these people in real life!

Quick question. If a person bought something from a store. And that product bought from the store had secret functions in it, that its creators weren't aware of... But, others choose to use said secret functions... Who's at fault truly in the situation? Is it the fault of the creators/developers for not thoroughly checking their product enough for secret functions, or the people who discovered the secret function, and choose to use it however they wished...?

I can tell you right now, from a corporate point-of-view? The creator/developer is at fault, and should face punishment. Not the consumer. Why? Because it was the CREATOR/DEVELOPER'S job to have solid quality control. It was their job to not only develop said product, but thoroughly examine it for: Flaws, exploits, etc.

If by using said 'exploit' directly harmed other people... which it no doubt would do because of how it would impact the game economy... then YES, it definitely is the player's fault! ZOS had a major problem with exploits when the game launched, it was a major PR fiasco which took them quite some time to recover from. Further, the TOS give ZOS the absolute right to enforce ANYTHING they consider to be improper player behavior... our participation in this game is at THEIR discretion, not OURS. Albeit, we can walk away from the game at any time... but ultimately, if we want to continue playing, we have to abide by their rules and TOS.

So you're saying it's not the developers' fault for not testing enough? Interesting... I suppose its because of this type of "okey-doke mentality" that ZO$ is so sloppy nowadays with their products, or in case of the Thieves Guild release, completely ignore our feedback on things in the PTS. In fact, they released something live that was completely different than what was on the PTS. But okay, that's a different topic all together. I see now why ZO$ gets away with the treatment of its customers, and thinks nothing of it.

If you actually read the TOS , they can do pretty much what ever they want to do and you and I agreed to it... although not many read every bit of TOSs lol,

https://zenimax.com/legal_terms_us

Ch4mpTW

helediron wrote: »

I got suspension. I think i have a credible false positive. Note, i am not petitioning here. Because of reading this thread, i assume i got the suspension because of writs. I still don't know what exactly the exploit was.

I do writs with all characters not being mules. After doing the writs, i move them to bank, and then one character takes them and loots the survey areas. I harvest the area and the map disappears during the harvest. I do writs with every character, so i think i have very high amount of those survey maps.I get about full set every day, and sometimes i need to run extra run to get rid of extra boxes. If i don't run the maps, the writ boxes pile up quickly. And they sometimes pile up if i get repeatedly the same map from multiple characters and sometimes every day. They don't always distribute evenly - RNG as usual.

Because of that RNG i have writ reward boxes waiting in inventory, and i harvest multiple times the same survey area. So, some logs can really show that i have looted multiple times a map area, but that is because i have one map in inventory and more of them in unopened writ boxes, because survey maps are unique. After harvesting the survey area once, i run few hundred meters away. Then i open one writ box, get map number 2 to the same survey area, and return harvesting it. I think i have had a map and maximum three unopened boxes to same survey area.

I do not see any cheating here. But again, the decision happens through ZOS channels.

@ZOS_AlanG , few questions:
- Why doesn't ZOS tell why a player is suspended? The email only mentions exploiting but not what exactly. If ZOS doesn't discuss individual bans publicly, they surely must talk them then privately. Every suspension must have exact reason. That vague wording is something i interpret ZOS didn't give a reason to service break. So, ZOS is interrupting the service without reason. And that is something ZOS promises to deliver according to EU media TOS (as far as i understood the text).
- There has not been any response today. Why does ZOS send three day suspensions friday night and then walks home?
- You mention to make a petition to help.elderscrollsonline.com. If i received a suspension ticket with ID, wouldn't responding to that through email be the preferred way?

this

pinkempyreal

Even if you are innocent and were banned, being upset is one thing but coming to the forums to stand on a pedestal and shout to the world about it is another. Quite frankly I'd rather not play with people like that. If you're innocent, curse the gods for your misfortune, submit your appeal and shut the hell up.

Rafishul

Serenityx

I think guilt should be determined by how much a player had to work to abuse an exploit. If ZOS can not think far ahead enough that something as simple as banking a survey after activsting the zone lets you literally farm infinite mats....then players should not be held so accountable. Just remove the mats rather than banning/suspending. Its ZOS fault for being so god damned stupid. A 10 year old could have figured out how to do this "exploit".

Flynch

Hey my neighbour's door is wide open, guess they must have forgotten to lock it. It's ok to steal all their stuff, right? brb, thieving!

Hyperbolic as standard, but you get the idea i'm sure.


But less flippantly - the apparent almost non-existence of non-exploiters being banned (yeah we see a few here and there, apparently, but if the code was knackered, there would be an absolute ton of accidental bans) then we can surmise that it's working as intended.

But if there is a slew of people who can contest the ban, then that shows the code employed by ZOS wasn't working as intended, and undoubtedly they will assuredly look upon those accidentally caught in the net with benevolence.

In short, just email support. Anything else will just end up in fire-fighting.

helediron

helediron wrote: »

I got suspension. I think i have a credible false positive. Note, i am not petitioning here. Because of reading this thread, i assume i got the suspension because of writs. I still don't know what exactly the exploit was.
...snip...

I got response from ZOS. They verified the suspension is related to writ exploit. Thank you ZOS moving things forward during weekend. I am only commenting that the discussion with support is ongoing.

It only seems that ZOS doesn't have european support, and everything happens in wrong country for me. This is not exactly electricity service ZOS is providing, but live in country where internet is guaranteed by law, and service providers have a responsibility of uninterrupted service. ZOS is walking on thin ice here, pun intended .

Caradawc

Flynch wrote: »

But if there is a slew of people who can contest the ban, then that shows the code employed by ZOS wasn't working as intended

That in a nutshell is the reason I started posting about this today, I don't usually post but wanted to make sure ZOS were aware there was an issue with their calculations and commenting here as well as via a ticket meant it was seen by as many people as possible..

I've played this game almost every day since launch so a few days away is no big deal even if it is for something I didn't do.

KerinKor

Nénlindë wrote: »

Very few if any legit players are banned at all. It's almost always exploiters/cheaters who plead their case claiming they've done nothing wrong.

Zenimax can track every single item you ever pick up...

I'll assume you and the others in this thread calling all those who have been banned but claiming to be innocent 'cheaters' weren't playing this game on 18th April 2014 when literally HUNDREDS of 'legit players' were falsely accused of an exploit (it was an item duping exploit were were accused of using) and were subsequently re-instated after 24+ hours, due to what clearly was an automated script even though the assertion made on here by ZOS people stated all bans were MANUALLY validated.

I know, I was one of them, we too were slandered by umpteen posters who notably failed to apologise when the re-instatements happened and ZOS finally owned up to the error.

Ch4mpTW

KerinKor wrote: »

Nénlindë wrote: »

Very few if any legit players are banned at all. It's almost always exploiters/cheaters who plead their case claiming they've done nothing wrong.

Zenimax can track every single item you ever pick up...

I'll assume you and the others in this thread calling all those who have been banned but claiming to be innocent 'cheaters' weren't playing this game on 18th April 2014 when literally HUNDREDS of 'legit layers' were falsely accused of an exploit (that ZOS never provided any information about but it was widely assumed was something the bot hordes were using at the time) and were subsequently re-instated after 24+ hours, due to what clearly was an automated script even though the assertion made on here by ZOS people stated all bans were MANUALLY validated.

I know, I was one of them, we too were slandered by umpteen posters who notably failed to apologise when the re-instatements happened and ZOS finally owned up to the error.

I remember this "event". And you'd think ZO$ would have learned their lesson. But nope.

Flynch

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

KerinKor wrote: »

Nénlindë wrote: »

Very few if any legit players are banned at all. It's almost always exploiters/cheaters who plead their case claiming they've done nothing wrong.

Zenimax can track every single item you ever pick up...

I'll assume you and the others in this thread calling all those who have been banned but claiming to be innocent 'cheaters' weren't playing this game on 18th April 2014 when literally HUNDREDS of 'legit layers' were falsely accused of an exploit (that ZOS never provided any information about but it was widely assumed was something the bot hordes were using at the time) and were subsequently re-instated after 24+ hours, due to what clearly was an automated script even though the assertion made on here by ZOS people stated all bans were MANUALLY validated.

I know, I was one of them, we too were slandered by umpteen posters who notably failed to apologise when the re-instatements happened and ZOS finally owned up to the error.

I remember this "event". And you'd think ZO$ would have learned their lesson. But nope.

Or they have learned their lesson. Hence why there aren't hundreds affected by it.

Sledgemoto

helediron wrote: »

I got suspension. I think i have a credible false positive. Note, i am not petitioning here. Because of reading this thread, i assume i got the suspension because of writs. I still don't know what exactly the exploit was.

I do writs with all characters not being mules. After doing the writs, i move them to bank, and then one character takes them and loots the survey areas. I harvest the area and the map disappears during the harvest. I do writs with every character, so i think i have very high amount of those survey maps.I get about full set every day, and sometimes i need to run extra run to get rid of extra boxes. If i don't run the maps, the writ boxes pile up quickly. And they sometimes pile up if i get repeatedly the same map from multiple characters and sometimes every day. They don't always distribute evenly - RNG as usual.

Because of that RNG i have writ reward boxes waiting in inventory, and i harvest multiple times the same survey area. So, some logs can really show that i have looted multiple times a map area, but that is because i have one map in inventory and more of them in unopened writ boxes, because survey maps are unique. After harvesting the survey area once, i run few hundred meters away. Then i open one writ box, get map number 2 to the same survey area, and return harvesting it. I think i have had a map and maximum three unopened boxes to same survey area.

I do not see any cheating here. But again, the decision happens through ZOS channels.



This exactly, period end of story.

Elsonso

maboleth wrote: »

I did this, sort of. I got the survey that I didn't use, but then in Enchanter's package I received yet another survey of the same region. Since I couldn't have 2 surveys in my inventory, I have used one and then after harvesting, I opened the box and used it again.

I thought this was a mere coincidence that I used wisely, not an exploit. I didn't get punished though, but if I was, I'd feel totally innocent. I never use any kind of cheats. Not even the skyshard positions, I play riddles instead.

You are fine. That is not an exploit. This is how the game handles multiple copies of "unique" items.

If you get two of them, you can use two of them, and you can collect the materials twice. After you have used them, they are gone.

nimander99

lathbury wrote: »

kylewwefan wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

So if I've been doing Writs every day for the last month and decided today I was going to clean out my inventory and actually use all those Surveys that have been piling up, I'm safe doing that? *remains skeptical*

Actually, that's what I did yesterday.

I had a bunch of surveys piled up, and I've moved a bunch to mules because I haven't had the time to go harvest them. When ZOS announced that they'll fix this exploit, I had guessed (incorrectly) that they'll fix it by making it character-bound (seemed like the easiest fix to me). If that was to be their solution, then I can't have my surveys sitting on a mule because then they'll be stuck on that character.

So I relocated all my surveys back to my main and spent a couple of hours collecting the mats from all of them (including some duplicate surveys that were still in their containers).

And everything's fine. I went on a legitimate survey spree yesterday because I thought that they might make it character-bound, and nothing happened.

Finally, I do know a few people who did get suspended (nobody is being banned, BTW; it's all 3-day suspensions), and AFAIK, there were no false positives in any of those suspensions.

(I'm not saying that their system is 100% fool-proof; I'm just saying that with the few data points that I do have access to, there were no false positives amongst them.)

I'm glad no one is getting permenantly banned, but suspension does suck over the weekend. seems wrong to do to someone that has a 5000 crown banker....these are the people zenimax needs to keep happy after all....

should be perma banned and no exploiters are not people zos need to keep happy

I bought both assistants. I would never expect Zenimax to let cheating slide just because I bought a couple over priced assistants... I wouldn't expect Walmart to not call the police just because most of the time I pay for stuff there

CaptainBeerDude

Tryxus wrote: »

FLuFFyxMuFFiN wrote: »

HxC wrote: »

Volkodav wrote: »

HxC wrote: »

Volkodav wrote: »

jamesharv2005ub17_ESO wrote: »

Volkodav wrote: »

If someone has no clue that this isnt supposed to happen,they shouldnt be banned.Someone might just think they found a glitch and is using it until it is fixed. Not realizing they could be banned for it. I dont think it's cool to exploit a glitch,but everyone did it with the troves until that got fixed and no one got banned.Perhaps this is the same situation,..only they broke rules they had no idea existed.

Ignorance of crime is not a defense. Otherwise people would simply claim they didnt know they couldnt do that and get off every time. As far as the thieves troves they just respawned quickly. There was nothing you had to do to make it respawn quickly. Thats the difference.

I can see your point.Forgive my ignorance.I was offering my thoughts.Sorry.

No you right you shouldn't be banned for exploit as exploiting means you intentionaly use a bug to gain an unfair advantage.

Didnt I just apologize for having added my thoughts? Is getting your two cents in worth that much to you? Fine,go ahead.Rant.
Personally.,I prefer the other more intelligent comment to mine,..instead of yours.

(there's 2 "l"s in intentionally,btw.)

Let's clarify , you're right people shouldn't be banned for exploiting if they use a bug without noticing it, because to exploit you need to intentionally use the bug to get and unfair advantage.

Yes but this exploit could not have been done by accident. You would have had to put the survey in your bank knowing that it would not go away. Take it back out and repeat the process. You can't honestly believe somebody would do all those steps by accident.

It's possible. I mean, a full inventory and quickly depositing a lot of stuff to make room for the survey rewards, you could've accidentally deposited the survey, and then later on be like: "I thought I alrdy did this survey?/Where did this survey come from"

Exploiters should be punished yeah, but those who triggered it by accident or realized that it was an exploit and stopped doing it after the accident shouldn't receive the banhammer for it

And like every company, ZOS makes the occasional mistake too

Is it very often that you go to collect surveys without your surveys? When you check your maps, don't you dump all non essential items? My (limited) understanding of the glitch in question leads me to believe that you would have to actively doing something that is obviously broken, repeatedly and without reporting it. You may not get banned, but shouldn't cry if you do. It is covered, albeit in a general sense, in the ToS that you agree to before you can play. It is irrelevant if you didn't know because reading is hard.

themdogesbite

Friend of mine that haven't played since early TG got a 3 day ban today, apparently managed to trigger the "exploit" twice unknowingly. If only this kind oif stance was enforced in PvP aswell.

Daymond

I am sorry to the people that are innocent if they really are, but you are mad at the wrong people. Think about it if the exploiters did not run to the forums yelling that they are innocent or spam tickets to try and lie to lift their ban or keep their exploited items it would be easier to fix the innocent that got caught up in it if there are any. So please do not let the exploiters win.

Nifty2g

Dominoid wrote: »

Source

Hello, we do not generally discuss suspensions or other player penalties. However, it is not true, suspensions are for simply having a crafting survey in the bank. The criteria was the ratio of surveys and obtained raw materials. And no one who has recovered from a survey 500 resources can tell me that he had simply gotten lucky. I do not exclude that mistakes could be made. It's the opposite. But not everyone who shouts, is innocent.

I'm fairly sure I said this

If I was banned and seen something like the other topic it seemed like a great opportunity to get out of a ban, and people are so self righteous they feel they shouldn't be banned and will do anything.

I believe a select few people were banned when they shouldn't have been, but majority of people were just using it to get out of it.

Korah_Eaglecry

pinkempyreal wrote: »

Even if you are innocent and were banned, being upset is one thing but coming to the forums to stand on a pedestal and shout to the world about it is another. Quite frankly I'd rather not play with people like that. If you're innocent, curse the gods for your misfortune, submit your appeal and shut the hell up.

Just look at his post history and youll see this is par for the course with this guy. Got quite the flair for the dramatic. I wouldnt even be surprised if he wasnt suspended and decided to come here and play the part of some victim caught up in all of the suspensions being handed out.

Nifty2g

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

Volkodav wrote: »

If someone has no clue that this isnt supposed to happen,they shouldnt be banned.Someone might just think they found a glitch and is using it until it is fixed. Not realizing they could be banned for it. I dont think it's cool to exploit a glitch,but everyone did it with the troves until that got fixed and no one got banned.Perhaps this is the same situation,..only they broke rules they had no idea existed.

Oh please. There is no way this happens by mistake. It can only be intentional cheating.

Permanently ban these cretins. The game is far better without them. There should be a zero tolerance policy when it comes to cheating.

@ZOS_GinaBruno by only suspending these cheaters for 3 days, you have guaranteed far more players will attempt the next exploit.

I levelled up legerdemain skill line on two characters with opening chests, breaking door locks and pickpocketing NPCs. That's fine but takes forever.
For my 3rd character, someone told me about some very generous sheep in some starter island.
That's certainly NOT how legerdemain was supposed to be levelled, but it works.
Is that cheating ? Is AOE'ing goblins in cracked wood cave in order to XP faaaaasst the way character were supposed to grow ? Is that cheating ?

Frankly I hadn't thought about the survey + banker "trick", have no banker anyway, and I'm not banned, but IF I HAD thought about it and had a banker, I would probably have used it, not thinking that I was "cheating", just thinking "great, that works"... pretty much like with the sheep.

That said, I don't think people should get away with it, but 3 day ban (and not perma ban) is fine, and people definitely don't deserve to be called names, because we would probably ALL have done pretty much the same. IMO.

Sorry but I can't find the connection between grinding faster xp than intentionally item duplicating.

Grinding mobs for xp isn't an exploit by any means, it's the general nature of the game really, kill mobs to level up, it benefits you only and you are only doing the main thing this game has been. Many grind spots have been fixed as they were giving you xp far more than what you were meant to be getting. These get fixed very fast but ZOS do leave grinds in the game for obvious reasons as questing is horrible after the first time.

Leveling up legerdemain skill line by using that sheep thing I believe that was fixed and was seen to be an exploit? Again this is really only something that benefits you and not other players.

Now lets talk about the exploit, using your banker to duplicate and infinitely spawn nodes which you can deconstruct to get legendary materials which you can sell and make millions and crash the market. Gain all sorts of advantages, if anything I think people's materials should be wiped this is a huge unfair advantage and just an overall market crash for the game.

So no, you can't connect all 3 of those together, and how can you think item duplication is not cheating? Honestly?

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Svalinn wrote: »

Since all other threads are beeing closed and this seems to have become the "main one" i'll copy paste here what i wrote about this in another one:

As far as i know.. in the german part of the forum a ZOS staff member replied to a tread like this stating that they banned people that actually had 500+ materials obtained from 1 single survey.. there's a tread with the source and the translation of it searching the oldes posts and well.. i'm really too tired to go and look for it so just trust my word xD

Anyway... if that is the case, and it seems to be since it was officially said, it's totally useless to start saying "i didn't do it" because i doubt this kind of data can be "bad read"...

...and on top of that i've seen this happens in too many mmos for me to believe the players over the devs.. i mean in some mmos there were people claiming that they used the nickname "gold_seller" just as a joke and no, they didn't really gold sell and their ban for gold selling was totally unfair ad the company should burn to hell.

Sorry, i trust the devs on the people that were banned.

Glad you copy/pasted this one here, I was actually commenting when Alan closed it.

The german forum doesn't say "the criteria for banning people was a mats/survey ratio above 500". Kai said "the criteria used was the mats/survey ratio. Now if you come and tell me that you got over 500 mats from a single survey by pure luck, I just don't believe you". He was just giving an example, not a fixed figure.
The translation was googled so it's pretty much rubbish.

It is possible that people who have normally harvested a survey and then gone on farming normally for a couple of hours have been caught mistakenly. There are hundreds of reasons why a script can render wrong or partially wrong results. I'm not saying that everyone's innocent, but you should assume everyone's guilty either. We simply don't know, case by case.

And... do we really have to know ... ?

You can't go on and harvest the unique nodes these surveys give you.

ZOS get informed that there is an exploit going on with players harvesting "Lush Ancestor Silk" they write up a script for players harvesting x amount of nodes in x amount of time for suspicious behavior and I believe the number they would write up would be realistic enough to not catch someone who has saved their surveys.

They run the script from when assistants were introduced to now and ban anyone exceeding the benchmark.

But in saying that, yes I believe some people were wrongly banned, and this is all guessing but I'm fairly sure that's how they would have handled their script. From the time they were notified on this to the time the bans and fix rolled out it seems like thats what was happening.
I'm unsure how they would even handle fixing someone who was banned wrongly

Bossdonut

Time to queue up the dindu nuffin posts.

helediron

Nifty2g wrote: »

....snip...

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Svalinn wrote: »

Since all other threads are beeing closed and this seems to have become the "main one" i'll copy paste here what i wrote about this in another one:

As far as i know.. in the german part of the forum a ZOS staff member replied to a tread like this stating that they banned people that actually had 500+ materials obtained from 1 single survey.. there's a tread with the source and the translation of it searching the oldes posts and well.. i'm really too tired to go and look for it so just trust my word xD

Anyway... if that is the case, and it seems to be since it was officially said, it's totally useless to start saying "i didn't do it" because i doubt this kind of data can be "bad read"...

...and on top of that i've seen this happens in too many mmos for me to believe the players over the devs.. i mean in some mmos there were people claiming that they used the nickname "gold_seller" just as a joke and no, they didn't really gold sell and their ban for gold selling was totally unfair ad the company should burn to hell.

Sorry, i trust the devs on the people that were banned.

Glad you copy/pasted this one here, I was actually commenting when Alan closed it.

The german forum doesn't say "the criteria for banning people was a mats/survey ratio above 500". Kai said "the criteria used was the mats/survey ratio. Now if you come and tell me that you got over 500 mats from a single survey by pure luck, I just don't believe you". He was just giving an example, not a fixed figure.
The translation was googled so it's pretty much rubbish.

It is possible that people who have normally harvested a survey and then gone on farming normally for a couple of hours have been caught mistakenly. There are hundreds of reasons why a script can render wrong or partially wrong results. I'm not saying that everyone's innocent, but you should assume everyone's guilty either. We simply don't know, case by case.

And... do we really have to know ... ?

You can't go on and harvest the unique nodes these surveys give you.

ZOS get informed that there is an exploit going on with players harvesting "Lush Ancestor Silk" they write up a script for players harvesting x amount of nodes in x amount of time for suspicious behavior and I believe the number they would write up would be realistic enough to not catch someone who has saved their surveys.

They run the script from when assistants were introduced to now and ban anyone exceeding the benchmark.

But in saying that, yes I believe some people were wrongly banned, and this is all guessing but I'm fairly sure that's how they would have handled their script. From the time they were notified on this to the time the bans and fix rolled out it seems like thats what was happening.
I'm unsure how they would even handle fixing someone who was banned wrongly

Hmm, this is news to me. I DO harvest normal nodes at the same time when collecting survey mats, and do it fast. It's quite common i have over 500 mats after survey node route through Wrothgar. In fact i move from survey to survey by harvesting in-between.

Inklings

helediron wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

....snip...

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Svalinn wrote: »

Since all other threads are beeing closed and this seems to have become the "main one" i'll copy paste here what i wrote about this in another one:

As far as i know.. in the german part of the forum a ZOS staff member replied to a tread like this stating that they banned people that actually had 500+ materials obtained from 1 single survey.. there's a tread with the source and the translation of it searching the oldes posts and well.. i'm really too tired to go and look for it so just trust my word xD

Anyway... if that is the case, and it seems to be since it was officially said, it's totally useless to start saying "i didn't do it" because i doubt this kind of data can be "bad read"...

...and on top of that i've seen this happens in too many mmos for me to believe the players over the devs.. i mean in some mmos there were people claiming that they used the nickname "gold_seller" just as a joke and no, they didn't really gold sell and their ban for gold selling was totally unfair ad the company should burn to hell.

Sorry, i trust the devs on the people that were banned.

Glad you copy/pasted this one here, I was actually commenting when Alan closed it.

The german forum doesn't say "the criteria for banning people was a mats/survey ratio above 500". Kai said "the criteria used was the mats/survey ratio. Now if you come and tell me that you got over 500 mats from a single survey by pure luck, I just don't believe you". He was just giving an example, not a fixed figure.
The translation was googled so it's pretty much rubbish.

It is possible that people who have normally harvested a survey and then gone on farming normally for a couple of hours have been caught mistakenly. There are hundreds of reasons why a script can render wrong or partially wrong results. I'm not saying that everyone's innocent, but you should assume everyone's guilty either. We simply don't know, case by case.

And... do we really have to know ... ?

You can't go on and harvest the unique nodes these surveys give you.

ZOS get informed that there is an exploit going on with players harvesting "Lush Ancestor Silk" they write up a script for players harvesting x amount of nodes in x amount of time for suspicious behavior and I believe the number they would write up would be realistic enough to not catch someone who has saved their surveys.

They run the script from when assistants were introduced to now and ban anyone exceeding the benchmark.

But in saying that, yes I believe some people were wrongly banned, and this is all guessing but I'm fairly sure that's how they would have handled their script. From the time they were notified on this to the time the bans and fix rolled out it seems like thats what was happening.
I'm unsure how they would even handle fixing someone who was banned wrongly

Hmm, this is news to me. I DO harvest normal nodes at the same time when collecting survey mats, and do it fast. It's quite common i have over 500 mats after survey node route through Wrothgar. In fact i move from survey to survey by harvesting in-between.

500 is in the very low end for me. Doing 46 writs a day i normally get a around 7-10 surveys. Collecting those surveys along with my 80 hireling mails a day, i'm netting over well over the 500 raw ore and silk mark. If i end up waiting a day to do some of the surveys those numbers jump even more drastically.

jamesharv2005ub17_ESO

helediron wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

....snip...

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Svalinn wrote: »

Since all other threads are beeing closed and this seems to have become the "main one" i'll copy paste here what i wrote about this in another one:

As far as i know.. in the german part of the forum a ZOS staff member replied to a tread like this stating that they banned people that actually had 500+ materials obtained from 1 single survey.. there's a tread with the source and the translation of it searching the oldes posts and well.. i'm really too tired to go and look for it so just trust my word xD

Anyway... if that is the case, and it seems to be since it was officially said, it's totally useless to start saying "i didn't do it" because i doubt this kind of data can be "bad read"...

...and on top of that i've seen this happens in too many mmos for me to believe the players over the devs.. i mean in some mmos there were people claiming that they used the nickname "gold_seller" just as a joke and no, they didn't really gold sell and their ban for gold selling was totally unfair ad the company should burn to hell.

Sorry, i trust the devs on the people that were banned.

Glad you copy/pasted this one here, I was actually commenting when Alan closed it.

The german forum doesn't say "the criteria for banning people was a mats/survey ratio above 500". Kai said "the criteria used was the mats/survey ratio. Now if you come and tell me that you got over 500 mats from a single survey by pure luck, I just don't believe you". He was just giving an example, not a fixed figure.
The translation was googled so it's pretty much rubbish.

It is possible that people who have normally harvested a survey and then gone on farming normally for a couple of hours have been caught mistakenly. There are hundreds of reasons why a script can render wrong or partially wrong results. I'm not saying that everyone's innocent, but you should assume everyone's guilty either. We simply don't know, case by case.

And... do we really have to know ... ?

You can't go on and harvest the unique nodes these surveys give you.

ZOS get informed that there is an exploit going on with players harvesting "Lush Ancestor Silk" they write up a script for players harvesting x amount of nodes in x amount of time for suspicious behavior and I believe the number they would write up would be realistic enough to not catch someone who has saved their surveys.

They run the script from when assistants were introduced to now and ban anyone exceeding the benchmark.

But in saying that, yes I believe some people were wrongly banned, and this is all guessing but I'm fairly sure that's how they would have handled their script. From the time they were notified on this to the time the bans and fix rolled out it seems like thats what was happening.
I'm unsure how they would even handle fixing someone who was banned wrongly

Hmm, this is news to me. I DO harvest normal nodes at the same time when collecting survey mats, and do it fast. It's quite common i have over 500 mats after survey node route through Wrothgar. In fact i move from survey to survey by harvesting in-between.

You get 500 mats from one survey? If not the guy was talking about from one survey.

helediron

jamesharv2005ub17_ESO wrote: »

helediron wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

....snip...

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Svalinn wrote: »

Since all other threads are beeing closed and this seems to have become the "main one" i'll copy paste here what i wrote about this in another one:

As far as i know.. in the german part of the forum a ZOS staff member replied to a tread like this stating that they banned people that actually had 500+ materials obtained from 1 single survey.. there's a tread with the source and the translation of it searching the oldes posts and well.. i'm really too tired to go and look for it so just trust my word xD

Anyway... if that is the case, and it seems to be since it was officially said, it's totally useless to start saying "i didn't do it" because i doubt this kind of data can be "bad read"...

...and on top of that i've seen this happens in too many mmos for me to believe the players over the devs.. i mean in some mmos there were people claiming that they used the nickname "gold_seller" just as a joke and no, they didn't really gold sell and their ban for gold selling was totally unfair ad the company should burn to hell.

Sorry, i trust the devs on the people that were banned.

Glad you copy/pasted this one here, I was actually commenting when Alan closed it.

The german forum doesn't say "the criteria for banning people was a mats/survey ratio above 500". Kai said "the criteria used was the mats/survey ratio. Now if you come and tell me that you got over 500 mats from a single survey by pure luck, I just don't believe you". He was just giving an example, not a fixed figure.
The translation was googled so it's pretty much rubbish.

It is possible that people who have normally harvested a survey and then gone on farming normally for a couple of hours have been caught mistakenly. There are hundreds of reasons why a script can render wrong or partially wrong results. I'm not saying that everyone's innocent, but you should assume everyone's guilty either. We simply don't know, case by case.

And... do we really have to know ... ?

You can't go on and harvest the unique nodes these surveys give you.

ZOS get informed that there is an exploit going on with players harvesting "Lush Ancestor Silk" they write up a script for players harvesting x amount of nodes in x amount of time for suspicious behavior and I believe the number they would write up would be realistic enough to not catch someone who has saved their surveys.

They run the script from when assistants were introduced to now and ban anyone exceeding the benchmark.

But in saying that, yes I believe some people were wrongly banned, and this is all guessing but I'm fairly sure that's how they would have handled their script. From the time they were notified on this to the time the bans and fix rolled out it seems like thats what was happening.
I'm unsure how they would even handle fixing someone who was banned wrongly

Hmm, this is news to me. I DO harvest normal nodes at the same time when collecting survey mats, and do it fast. It's quite common i have over 500 mats after survey node route through Wrothgar. In fact i move from survey to survey by harvesting in-between.

You get 500 mats from one survey? If not the guy was talking about from one survey.

No, from the route through Wrothgar. Usually i have almost every survey with me. Äsch, i don't have exact statistics for you, this is just what i commonly see afterwards when saving stuff to bank. Stacks, lots. ZOS could have filtered people having lots of mats in their pocket, and the other then talks about one survey. Corporate confusion as usual.

RedRoomGaming

A load of people who did the exploit I know haven't been banned.

joker0137

Step forth and let ye be judged!

TX11

i do writs every day on all 3 of my characters. I put the surveys in the bank and then take them out on my main and collect them all. I was not banned and I put surveys in my bank and such. people here got caught and are flat out trying to either justify it or lieing and making there case of why they for some reason didn't know it was an exploit.

For those saying they got banned and don't own the banker. Come on you realize how stupid you sound when we all know that the banker can be used by anyone currently until DB update. I saw many people standing at the survey sites with bankers out and many using it and you bet your ass I reported each one. Enjoy the ban people. The only travesty here is the ban was not a week minimum.

I also would like to thank ZOS for getting on this quickly and taking care of the people who exploited. I hope this sets a precedent going forward and future exploiters will be banned swiftly.

I do have to say thanks to those who got banned you have provided me with great entertainment in many threads.