[Permabans being lifted] ZOS how are we as a community dealing with exploits/hacking?

InvitationNotFound

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

sirinsidiator wrote: »

How about you make a thread then where you post every month how many cheaters and exploiters you have caught in the past month? You could also add some other numbers like how many bans of each type you handed out or how many exploits have been fixed for example. That way people can see that something is being done about it.

That's seems pretty reasonable and doable. We'll talk with our Dev and Support teams about it.

Can I called it "CHEATER BANNORATED TALLY"?

almost forgot to comment on this one @ZOS_JessicaFolsom .
I'm looking forward to this and likely will remind you from time to time of that thread doesn't appear.

kyle.wilson

I think, that along with banning the account. They should also ban the ip adresss, email adress and credit card used on that account. At least make it difficult for them to start another account.

While these can be circumvented, at least make it an annoyance.

But, I like the idea that a list of banned players is maintained. It would give assurance that something is being done to stop hackers/ exploiters.

kyle.wilson

Zheg wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

Is this going to be like vet levels 2.0 where ZOS looks to the side and whistles pretending nothing is wrong for a year and a half until their playerbase becomes anemic and they're forced to act?

We're not finished with our efforts to keep cheaters out of ESO by any means - if anything, the round of bannings you all saw was just the beginning of a multi-faceted effort. Some of it you'll see, some of it you won't (beyond cheaters getting banned.) There's a good possibility we'll quietly roll out what we're working on so that those still using cheat programs aren't tipped off and we catch them in the act.

You can demonstrate your results and capacity without giving away your tactics. Someone posted a video of the speed hack still functioning (among other CE features) early last week. Players have no idea whether you're even capable of detecting small usage of CE, and as such there can be little confidence that opponents aren't still using it. This has led to both toxic (and probably at times accurate) fingerpointing and a questioning of nearly every fight. When you couple the CE possibilities with lag and (still!) unfixed bugs, you can never be sure if your opponent was using CE, or if you just hit a lag spike or health desync. Who wants to play like that?

We don't know if your permabans are actual things because we don't know who you banned and whether they were allowed to come back or not. As such, for anyone that may be back, we cannot monitor them for suspicious behavior because you won't say who they were. It's the equivalent of the guy in HS that said he slept with 43 girls but won't actually give names.

Sorry Jessica, but you guys aren't exactly starting from a place of established trust with your playerbase, you've fumbled on exploiters since launch so it's hard to be reassured by vague details this late in the game. I was hopeful and excited when I saw your initial response, but disappointed and jaded when it fizzled back to the normal ZOS communication and policy. Please remember that you're trying to convince a playerbase that dealt with b****** the sorc and his unbreakable shields for 2 years that you're now being firm on exploiting.

The paranoia about speed hack is real. I listened to several people in ts insinuate someone was using it.

Nifty2g

kyle.wilson wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

Is this going to be like vet levels 2.0 where ZOS looks to the side and whistles pretending nothing is wrong for a year and a half until their playerbase becomes anemic and they're forced to act?

We're not finished with our efforts to keep cheaters out of ESO by any means - if anything, the round of bannings you all saw was just the beginning of a multi-faceted effort. Some of it you'll see, some of it you won't (beyond cheaters getting banned.) There's a good possibility we'll quietly roll out what we're working on so that those still using cheat programs aren't tipped off and we catch them in the act.

You can demonstrate your results and capacity without giving away your tactics. Someone posted a video of the speed hack still functioning (among other CE features) early last week. Players have no idea whether you're even capable of detecting small usage of CE, and as such there can be little confidence that opponents aren't still using it. This has led to both toxic (and probably at times accurate) fingerpointing and a questioning of nearly every fight. When you couple the CE possibilities with lag and (still!) unfixed bugs, you can never be sure if your opponent was using CE, or if you just hit a lag spike or health desync. Who wants to play like that?

We don't know if your permabans are actual things because we don't know who you banned and whether they were allowed to come back or not. As such, for anyone that may be back, we cannot monitor them for suspicious behavior because you won't say who they were. It's the equivalent of the guy in HS that said he slept with 43 girls but won't actually give names.

Sorry Jessica, but you guys aren't exactly starting from a place of established trust with your playerbase, you've fumbled on exploiters since launch so it's hard to be reassured by vague details this late in the game. I was hopeful and excited when I saw your initial response, but disappointed and jaded when it fizzled back to the normal ZOS communication and policy. Please remember that you're trying to convince a playerbase that dealt with b****** the sorc and his unbreakable shields for 2 years that you're now being firm on exploiting.

The paranoia about speed hack is real. I listened to several people in ts insinuate someone was using it.

Because a good job of dealing with it hasn't been done.
We haven't been told if we can or cant use it still, apparently we still can. It's easy and people find loopholes to go undetected, the amount of people doing it has significantly shrunk most likely, but there is still people out there. We don't know who or what or how they are doing it but they probably are.

It completely destroys Maelstrom and PvP and even destroys legibility of players.

And even more so we are keeping hacked scores on the leaderboard to SHOWCASE how we deal with hacking. I am going to say this was a really poor way of dealing with it.

Universe

In just one hour of gameplay I reported 2 cheaters.
Both of them used speed hacking.
Also, one of them had infinite health.
Infinite health=never goes down no matter what.
Definitely not L2P issue, no matter what hit him and how many he faced, health didn't go down.
At least, I managed to fight him without going down easy.
Unfortunately, I didn't record it.

This is becoming a daily activity, reporting cheaters/hackers in Cyrodiil.
There is an urgent need for a technical solution to catch them in the act.
The report player is simply not enough.
I'm tired of facing demi-gods in Cyrodiil

daemonios

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

Is this going to be like vet levels 2.0 where ZOS looks to the side and whistles pretending nothing is wrong for a year and a half until their playerbase becomes anemic and they're forced to act?

We're not finished with our efforts to keep cheaters out of ESO by any means - if anything, the round of bannings you all saw was just the beginning of a multi-faceted effort. Some of it you'll see, some of it you won't (beyond cheaters getting banned.) There's a good possibility we'll quietly roll out what we're working on so that those still using cheat programs aren't tipped off and we catch them in the act.

Jessica, for the love of Arkay, do you realize the culture you (and by "you" I mean ZOS, not you you) have created in this game? Just today I ran into another series of threads about people exploiting into alliance bases in IC sewers, and of course some players are debating whether it's even an exploit since you can simply do it. This is what you need to change. And to change it you need to start officially disclosing what you consider to be exploits and what the consequences of exploiting are, and to start policing the game in a routine manner.

Posts buried in some thread or other that most players will never see are not enough. The majority of the player base probably doesn't even have a forum account. We need you to issue warnings to players who cheat/exploit. We need you to post a warning on the loading screens about the consequences of cheating/exploiting. We need you to create an official website containing your most detailed policy on this matter and to link to it from the launcher and/or login screen.

Grao

daemonios wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

Is this going to be like vet levels 2.0 where ZOS looks to the side and whistles pretending nothing is wrong for a year and a half until their playerbase becomes anemic and they're forced to act?

We're not finished with our efforts to keep cheaters out of ESO by any means - if anything, the round of bannings you all saw was just the beginning of a multi-faceted effort. Some of it you'll see, some of it you won't (beyond cheaters getting banned.) There's a good possibility we'll quietly roll out what we're working on so that those still using cheat programs aren't tipped off and we catch them in the act.

Jessica, for the love of Arkay, do you realize the culture you (and by "you" I mean ZOS, not you you) have created in this game? Just today I ran into another series of threads about people exploiting into alliance bases in IC sewers, and of course some players are debating whether it's even an exploit since you can simply do it. This is what you need to change. And to change it you need to start officially disclosing what you consider to be exploits and what the consequences of exploiting are, and to start policing the game in a routine manner.

Posts buried in some thread or other that most players will never see are not enough. The majority of the player base probably doesn't even have a forum account. We need you to issue warnings to players who cheat/exploit. We need you to post a warning on the loading screens about the consequences of cheating/exploiting. We need you to create an official website containing your most detailed policy on this matter and to link to it from the launcher and/or login screen.

I agree with you that Zenimax should be far more transparent about a whole lot of things, but this matter in particular is such a complicated slippery slope. I think the use of hacks should indeed be considered cheating and be heavily punished, but Dragon Leaping on top of a Keep Wall? Nah... Charging into someone that is trying to enter a keep and thus end up charging through a door? Nope...

Zenimax is very aware of those bugs, they were made aware of them by the beta testers in the PTS and all that, but they still chose to release the abilities as they were, gap closing through walls... So I believe they should own it and accept what happens in game as fair play, I know it is not a popular opinion, but I think it would reduce frustration to a point if everyone accepted those bugs and played around them instead of shouting all the time that one or another player are 'exploiting'.

That would make the job easier for those responsible for going over all those reports being filed and we might see more of those Hacking getting banned... Those are the real problems in the community, not the Dks invading a keep by jumping on it, or the Nightblades dashing through doors... Those are just players using the abilities in the game as they currently function. Eventually ZOS will fix their *** (and break their *** somewhere else) and those players will no longer be able to go through walls. People hacking, those are not so easy to stop... Those need to be banned.

ManwithBeard9

So, confirmed through a former player, the third party program is still alive and working well with ESO. It is being updated to work around what ZOS is able to come up with. As was mentioned by numerous people, users arent super boosting stats any more, just subtly adjusting stats, regens, speeds, so that they stay within "tolerance".

Makkir

are we allowed to post videos in this thread?

Nifty2g

Makkir wrote: »

are we allowed to post voids in this thread?

As long as they dont show names.

Makkir

Got video in HD of an AD player running circles around a rock outside nickel tonight health bar was empty and it said DEAD....couple DC players hitting on him too.

Rohamad_Ali

Makkir wrote: »

Got video in HD of an AD player running circles around a rock outside nickel tonight health bar was empty and it said DEAD....couple DC players hitting on him too.

Message Jessica Folsom with the link if it has names

DUTCH_REAPER

ManwithBeard9 wrote: »

So, confirmed through a former player, the third party program is still alive and working well with ESO. It is being updated to work around what ZOS is able to come up with. As was mentioned by numerous people, users arent super boosting stats any more, just subtly adjusting stats, regens, speeds, so that they stay within "tolerance".

We noticed tonight some players in IC who didn't "drop" as intended. Thanks for posting the info. Gonna send my vid in.

Grao

ManwithBeard9 wrote: »

So, confirmed through a former player, the third party program is still alive and working well with ESO. It is being updated to work around what ZOS is able to come up with. As was mentioned by numerous people, users arent super boosting stats any more, just subtly adjusting stats, regens, speeds, so that they stay within "tolerance".

Unfortunately there is very little Zenimax can do about this other than ban those using this third part program. It was said before, but because the calculations for damage, etc are all made client side... Those numbers will never be 100% secured and a smart hacker will definitely find ways around the little security Zenimax manages to implement with every patch. It really sucks, but for the game to be more secure, calculations would need to be made Server Side and the current servers can't handle that sort of weight, they can barely sustain the game without horrifying lag as it is (PvP specially).

ManwithBeard9

Grao wrote: »

ManwithBeard9 wrote: »

So, confirmed through a former player, the third party program is still alive and working well with ESO. It is being updated to work around what ZOS is able to come up with. As was mentioned by numerous people, users arent super boosting stats any more, just subtly adjusting stats, regens, speeds, so that they stay within "tolerance".

Unfortunately there is very little Zenimax can do about this other than ban those using this third part program. It was said before, but because the calculations for damage, etc are all made client side... Those numbers will never be 100% secured and a smart hacker will definitely find ways around the little security Zenimax manages to implement with every patch. It really sucks, but for the game to be more secure, calculations would need to be made Server Side and the current servers can't handle that sort of weight, they can barely sustain the game without horrifying lag as it is (PvP specially).

I know, just making sure the info is out there in case someone comes across someone else that they feel is actually cheating for a report.

Makkir

yeah so I think its about time I migrate over to XB1

Phelaen

i reported 3 botters 2 days ago. they were grinding the zombies in Deshaan 2 night ago. logged in today, same people, same place, still botting....

Grao

Phelaen wrote: »

i reported 3 botters 2 days ago. they were grinding the zombies in Deshaan 2 night ago. logged in today, same people, same place, still botting....

Zenimax never promised efficiency when dealing with this problems, they just promised they'd be handling the problem XD

Reevster

Tavore1138 wrote: »

Reevster wrote: »

I don't believe anyone anymore, ban em all and let Zos sort it out through the appeal process/reviewing game logs etc... if your legit then welcome back, if not, good riddance.

Bah just what someone would say to make themselves look innocent!

Just ban the top 50 players

Makkir wrote: »

Got video in HD of an AD player running circles around a rock outside nickel tonight health bar was empty and it said DEAD....couple DC players hitting on him too.

Ya saw a DC with almost zero heath, like 10 AD pounding on her, then boom, full heath , and slips into a tower, saw lots of other weird crap going on today.

Cheating is still going strong, kinda losing interest in playing, its like you need to cheat to compete with these players, what a sad state of affairs ESO PvP has become,

When will ZOS actually completely get rid of the ability for players to use this cheat engine? Or is that even possible at this point?

Grao

Reevster wrote: »

Tavore1138 wrote: »

Reevster wrote: »

I don't believe anyone anymore, ban em all and let Zos sort it out through the appeal process/reviewing game logs etc... if your legit then welcome back, if not, good riddance.

Bah just what someone would say to make themselves look innocent!

Just ban the top 50 players

Makkir wrote: »

Got video in HD of an AD player running circles around a rock outside nickel tonight health bar was empty and it said DEAD....couple DC players hitting on him too.

Ya saw a DC with almost zero heath, like 10 AD pounding on her, then boom, full heath , and slips into a tower, saw lots of other weird crap going on today.

Cheating is still going strong, kinda losing interest in playing, its like you need to cheat to compete with these players, what a sad state of affairs ESO PvP has become,

When will ZOS actually completely get rid of the ability for players to use this cheat engine? Or is that even possible at this point?

OMG, didn't you read any of the posts above? It is not possible for Zenimax to simply fix this problem, they can discourage it by banning players, but client side calculations can only be made partially secure. To fix the issue completely Zenimax would have to make all calculations be server sided, which is impossible with their current servers.

And if you want to say 'well, they should get new and better servers' I will have to point out how expensive servers are... They don't grow in trees.

hamgatan

kyle.wilson wrote: »

I think, that along with banning the account. They should also ban the ip adresss, email adress and credit card used on that account. At least make it difficult for them to start another account.

no that's going a bit far.. well on the IP front anyway.

with the IPV4 space running out worldwide, ISP's are rapidly switching to dynamic IP (DHCP) for subscriber links. In most cases it costs extra to have a Static reservation now. By banning the IP you may inadvertently block another customer who is allocated that IP from the DHCP pool who has done nothing wrong..

Calippe_Hac

I closed my plus account and stopped playing @ 2 months ago (before the date of this thread) when I first heard about the hacks, etc. and the weak ESO response. After reading a bit of this thread I am now convinced I acted correctly.

ESO relies too much on the good will of the player base created from their very successful Elder Scrolls single player series and either cannot run a multiplayer game or chooses to take advantage of this good will.

I am glad I no longer reinforce ESO's destructive behavior.

Grao

Calippe_Hac wrote: »

I closed my plus account and stopped playing @ 2 months ago (before the date of this thread) when I first heard about the hacks, etc. and the weak ESO response. After reading a bit of this thread I am now convinced I acted correctly.

ESO relies too much on the good will of the player base created from their very successful Elder Scrolls single player series and either cannot run a multiplayer game or chooses to take advantage of this good will.

I am glad I no longer reinforce ESO's destructive behavior.

Though I believe Zenimax has made several mistakes that justify no longer subscribing as a ESO plus, I do think people should be a little more forgiven in this particular instance. One thing one has to understand is that Bethesda and Zenimax had no MMO experience when they created this game. They are companies that previously worked mostly with single player platforms and if the game was hacked then, it simply didn't mattered, it didn't affect other players.

So they chose to make ESO have most of its calculations Client side, yes, it was a mistake, but one born out of inexperience and naivety, not necessarily corporation greed. They simply didn't expect hackers to dod what they are doing, it is really quite silly if you think about it. They are cheating in a rather insignificant game, ESO isn't even close to being played professionally.

The truth is, hackers aren't doing this because they care about getting an advantage in the game, they just want to prove to everyone that they can break whatever incription Zenimax managed to layer over their game, that is what is fun for them... Once that is done they can sell the final product or simply give it away to observe the chaos...

DHale

Wait... Can I have their stuff?

Rohamad_Ali

Grao wrote: »

Calippe_Hac wrote: »

I closed my plus account and stopped playing @ 2 months ago (before the date of this thread) when I first heard about the hacks, etc. and the weak ESO response. After reading a bit of this thread I am now convinced I acted correctly.

ESO relies too much on the good will of the player base created from their very successful Elder Scrolls single player series and either cannot run a multiplayer game or chooses to take advantage of this good will.

I am glad I no longer reinforce ESO's destructive behavior.

Though I believe Zenimax has made several mistakes that justify no longer subscribing as a ESO plus, I do think people should be a little more forgiven in this particular instance. One thing one has to understand is that Bethesda and Zenimax had no MMO experience when they created this game. They are companies that previously worked mostly with single player platforms and if the game was hacked then, it simply didn't mattered, it didn't affect other players.

So they chose to make ESO have most of its calculations Client side, yes, it was a mistake, but one born out of inexperience and naivety, not necessarily corporation greed. They simply didn't expect hackers to dod what they are doing, it is really quite silly if you think about it. They are cheating in a rather insignificant game, ESO isn't even close to being played professionally.

The truth is, hackers aren't doing this because they care about getting an advantage in the game, they just want to prove to everyone that they can break whatever incription Zenimax managed to layer over their game, that is what is fun for them... Once that is done they can sell the final product or simply give it away to observe the chaos...

Everyone they hired had prior experience in other MMO's . The name was just new to MMOs , not the people .

InvitationNotFound

kyle.wilson wrote: »

I think, that along with banning the account. They should also ban the ip adresss, email adress and credit card used on that account. At least make it difficult for them to start another account.

you have no idea how IP addresses work, right?

you know that most providers assign them dynamically and it is mostly not a problem at all to change it (or using a proxy, vpn whatever). And in the worst case you get an IP address assigned that has been banned. enjoy.

sometimes i really wonder why people are demanding things without the slightest clue about how things work...

edit:
oh well, forgot to mention email and credit cards.
as if it would be difficult to create a new email address or as if the game wouldn't work without credit card (or prepaid cc, etc). *sighs*

Turelus

ginoboehm wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

ManDraKE wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

sirinsidiator wrote: »

How about you make a thread then where you post every month how many cheaters and exploiters you have caught in the past month? You could also add some other numbers like how many bans of each type you handed out or how many exploits have been fixed for example. That way people can see that something is being done about it.

That's seems pretty reasonable and doable. We'll talk with our Dev and Support teams about it.

Can I called it "CHEATER BANNORATED TALLY"?

The wall of shame. And do daily raffles with their items lol

This is the best idea I've ever seen on these forums.

and it would encourage reporting since you increase the chance to get gear

You shouldn't need to encourage people to report one another with rewards of items. If you see someone abusing a bug or using a cheat engine you should be reporting them for the health of the game.

I mean under the report and get stuff system wouldn't it be better if I let them exploit for an extra week then report them so I get even more stuff they have farmed?

The rewards for reporting players abusing the game is that you're helping remove them from the game and making it a better place. I don't worry at all that ZOS will ever go down this route because I think even they understand it's not a great idea.

ManDraKE wrote: »

InvitationNotFound wrote: »

Immortal_Dark410 wrote: »

just out of curiosity, Individuals using "Add on's" would they be considered under the title of using "Cheat Programs"?

what did i just read here?

ZOS provides an API for add-ons. go and take a look at it and see what you can do with it. why for f*** sake should this have anything to do with cheating... *sighs*

wait till people start reporting for use of "animation canceling"

That's why it would be beneficial for ZOS to make something like this: https://support.eveonline.com/hc/en-us/articles/204873262-Known-Declared-Exploits

They can have a page listing things which are and are not exploits and link players who submit reports back to it.
They would recieve normal email saying they're investigating and can't talk about the outcome but also link back to their page explaining what exploits are.
This way if the player has reported animation cancelling for example they can see that it's not considered an exploit by ZOS (and as an official ZOS written post, not a forums post or chat from another player).

Then players who were making misinformed reports would learn what they shouldn't be reporting and help to cut down on false reports.

Lastly I would agree with others that while it's nice to have these updates posted in our threads @ZOS_JessicaFolsom these things should really be pinned somewhere so everyone visiting the forums and not reading the Dev Tracker can see something has and is being done.

The same way Patch Notes are pinned when you read Recent Discussions. Have something there which is updated with the ongoing process of this.

yumyum

Some very funny posts in this topic, love the way some of you read some information on the net and then you all think you know what you talking about.

Not one of you know what ZoS are doing or are working on, not one of you know what detection methods ZOS are using. so please let this drop for a few weeks and if nothing is done by then, then come back and and have a go at ZoS.

Turelus

@yumyum the problem is we have done that every other time this has been an issue since launch. Two years later and it's still happening.

ZOS have horrible communication regarding their rule enforcement.

They're also highly inconsistent. One month you'll see a developer post stating that bypassing keep walls in PvP is an exploit, the next month there is a way to do it and they refuse to comment on the issue whilst guilds in Cyrodiil abuse it.

Large exploits are reported to them and ignored for weeks until someone eventually brings it to the forums and it gains enough public awareness to force their hand.

This is the first time we have really seen ZOS talk about the issues after fact and people want to keep the pressure on that it continues to happen. Many in the community (and I can't/won't speak for everyone) are tried of the old ways and want to make sure ZOS don't band-aid it and move on again.

yumyum

Turelus wrote: »

This is the first time we have really seen ZOS talk about the issues after fact and people want to keep the pressure on that it continues to happen. Many in the community (and I can't/won't speak for everyone) are tried of the old ways and want to make sure ZOS don't band-aid it and move on again.

Yes it is and that is why you all need to give them time to work on it. If you wanted to help ZOS then report the players that you think could be cheating, as i said no one here knows what ZOS are working on or what ZOS are now doing.