Sigh...balancing around cheats?

LegacyDM

We all now know the cheats have been around since launch. Infinit dodge rolls, speed hacks, ultimate spamming, and etc. I just learned that the people I have been facing in pvp for the past 2 years were cheaters. I've been working hard for the past 2 years trying to develop builds to beat the people who I didn't know we're cheating. I never quite understood why I wasn't performing and just chocked it up to l2p. For years I've been l2p getting better trying to beat the so called cheaters. Now the truth comes out. While I feel like I wasted 2 years of my life beating my head against a wall I feel that it's also made me a better player. Thank you to all the lame cheaters. Now with that said.

I wonder if ZOS has been trying to balance a game around cheating rather than fixing. This is more disturbing to me. Actions indicate that this is true. They don't do perma bans, never had a roll back, and the cheats continue to exist. For example, rather then fix infinite dodge roll they implement a work around. Increase dodge roll costs and than poisons that drain stamina pools. Is this how they fix exploits? Implement work arounds rather than directly fixing? Or decrease movement speed from 40% to 30%. I don't know. However, if they are balancing around the exploits rather than fixing head on, this game is doomed.

It's amazing to me that game companies don't invest more in anti cheats or hiring people to monitor logs and give out bans. It's clear that it's more profitable for a gaming company to cut corners and let people cheat than it is to implement an anti cheat system. Only when they see a hit to their bottom line and subscriber base do they have an o *** light bulb moment. ZOS is not dumb. They new of the cheats. People had been reporting for years. It's only a problem when it threatens their business and the cash coming in. Very unfortunate because this is a good game. Sad to see it abused. Hope this moves them to change their policy on cheats.

imenace

just speculation on my part but if i had to guess when they 'tried' to reduce the lag they removed some of the server checks so it allows ppl to alter client side values

LegacyDM

imenace wrote: »

just speculation on my part but if i had to guess when they 'tried' to reduce the lag they removed some of the server checks so it allows ppl to alter client side values

Maybe. But what I heard was that the cheats have been working since launch. People were just very cautious about using them.

SeptimusDova

the SH set to 1.10 puts you back to the normal run speed. 1.15 puts you back to the original major expedition run speed.setting it to 2.5 makes you the Usain Bolt of ESO.

Farorin

I dunno, I do alright without cheating in PVP.


But yeah, cheaters still makes it less enjoyable.

Brightxdawn

Kinda bummed was excited for DB dlc. Make some new sets to play in pvp. Now I know when I play there will be cheaters everywhere.

starkerealm

Brightxdawn wrote: »

Kinda bummed was excited for DB dlc. Make some new sets to play in pvp. Now I know when I play there will be cheaters everywhere.

Honestly, with the attention it's getting on the boards right now. I think we can expect ZoS to do something about this. Even if it's just stick a couple guys online, and have them watch Cyrodiil very closely for the next couple weeks.

Khamira

LegacyDM wrote: »

imenace wrote: »

just speculation on my part but if i had to guess when they 'tried' to reduce the lag they removed some of the server checks so it allows ppl to alter client side values

Maybe. But what I heard was that the cheats have been working since launch. People were just very cautious about using them.

Yeah, that's the most painful thing here. I don't care about dudes spamming 50 meteor on you, since they do it for lulz and clearly they'll get banned. The worst part is that there are people around you, or fighting with you or alongside you and they have 10% more DPS not because they have better gear, more free time, they farmed their eyes out to get Mael weapons or anything. Or even freaking advanced theorycrafing. They just changed few bits of their computer memory and servers are just like "Lol OK, duh". And you can't guess if what they are doing is just more advanced animation canceling than you (Why it's even in this game I dunno) or they just land one hit per 0,9 sec, not 1,0 sec.

I don't know if I should care anymore...

ZOS_DaryaK

We've removed post that were not constructive to this specific topic or inflammatory. Please avoid insults and stay on topic.

ola.wilhelmssonb16_ESO

ZOS_DaryaK wrote: »

We've removed post that were not constructive to this specific topic or inflammatory. Please avoid insults and stay on topic.

How about some form of response regarding what you are planning to do about the rampant and, literally, un-checked cheating?

ThePonzzz

ola.wilhelmssonb16_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_DaryaK wrote: »

We've removed post that were not constructive to this specific topic or inflammatory. Please avoid insults and stay on topic.

How about some form of response regarding what you are planning to do about the rampant and, literally, un-checked cheating?

Not everyone with a ZOS tag works on game development or can even talk about it. For all we know, DaryaK can just be a forum moderator.

Cernow

Khamira wrote: »

LegacyDM wrote: »

imenace wrote: »

just speculation on my part but if i had to guess when they 'tried' to reduce the lag they removed some of the server checks so it allows ppl to alter client side values

Maybe. But what I heard was that the cheats have been working since launch. People were just very cautious about using them.

Yeah, that's the most painful thing here. I don't care about dudes spamming 50 meteor on you, since they do it for lulz and clearly they'll get banned. The worst part is that there are people around you, or fighting with you or alongside you and they have 10% more DPS not because they have better gear, more free time, they farmed their eyes out to get Mael weapons or anything. Or even freaking advanced theorycrafing. They just changed few bits of their computer memory and servers are just like "Lol OK, duh". And you can't guess if what they are doing is just more advanced animation canceling than you (Why it's even in this game I dunno) or they just land one hit per 0,9 sec, not 1,0 sec.

I don't know if I should care anymore...

Exactly this. People doing the highly visible cheating are just idiots, bandwagon jumpers or are trying to make a point. But there's a LOT of much more insidious cheating going on. Subtle things, people doing stuff that gives them the edge without actually ringing too many alarm bells. I've been reporting various things for months. Stuff that cannot be explained by animation cancelling, server lag, gear, CP or skill imbalances and or other suchlike. Not just in PvP but in PVE too. All I ever get is "we'll look into it" response from support and nothing happens, you see the same cheats running around day after day.

Once cheats get the upper hand and don't get perma banned, just a slap on the wrist and allowed to keep most of their ill-gotten gains, it's essentially game over for a MMO. Any multiplayer game has to be built around trust - trust that the other players you're playing with or against are on the same playing field and ruleset as you are. if they're not, there's no point playing. Period. If the company behind the game are incapable or unwilling to fix things so cheating is the exception, not the rule, then it's time to walk away for a better game.

ola.wilhelmssonb16_ESO

ThePonzzz wrote: »

Not everyone with a ZOS tag works on game development or can even talk about it. For all we know, DaryaK can just be a forum moderator.

Well the title says "admin", so yes DaryaK is "just a forum admin/moderator". And we all owe him/her great deal for taking on such a thankless and endless job. I'm just hoping, probably in vain, that the heroic and stoic frontline employees of ZOS will start to "shovel the shite upstairs", so said "brown matter" will eventually "hit the fan" in some executive's office. And that we paying customers finally get some transparent answers about, and affirmative action taken against, this rampant cheating.

Stikato

ola.wilhelmssonb16_ESO wrote: »

ThePonzzz wrote: »

Not everyone with a ZOS tag works on game development or can even talk about it. For all we know, DaryaK can just be a forum moderator.

Well the title says "admin", so yes DaryaK is "just a forum admin/moderator". And we all owe him/her great deal for taking on such a thankless and endless job. I'm just hoping, probably in vain, that the heroic and stoic frontline employees of ZOS will start to "shovel the shite upstairs", so said "brown matter" will eventually "hit the fan" in some executive's office. And that we paying customers finally get some transparent answers about, and affirmative action taken against, this rampant cheating.

I sure hope this is how it works. But unfortunately, I think those executives care about is $ generation.

Nothing wrong with that. But there are 2 ways to do it:

1. Make a great, balanced, fun game largely free from cheaters, that masses of people bend over backwards to pay for.
2. Make an ok game, possibly over-reliant on a popular IP, that encourages people to buy $40 virtual horses.

I'm sure there are other ways but you get the point. As long as there are enough people proudly proclaiming they will "support" ZOS by buying things in the cash shop, there is zero incentive for ZOS to invest money in any fixes.

Tavore1138

I don't think all of this stuff is since launch - my understanding is that they have been moving bits of processing over to the client side to try and reduce lag and have gone too far in doing so?

If so this is more like weeks or months not from launch?

Not that it sucks any less...

I wish ZOS would do the decent thing and tell us what is going on:

1. How big is the problem?
2. When will it be fixed?
3. What will happen to the cheaters?

They don't have to tell us how the exploits works and I am sure if we google enough we could find it for ourselves anyway.

But like the OP I want to know what is being done and when I can actually trust that most people are playing clean?

I am not after refunds or prizes going back however long - I simply want to know when can I go to PvbP or trials and know that I am on a level playing field.

The worst of this is that suspicion grows - did you get killed honest or did they hack? Are your guildies hacking? How many people might suspect you of hacking just 'cos you did well at something?

It's like the old thing with emperor flipping - it devalued the title for those of us that did it clean as well as those that didn't.

ola.wilhelmssonb16_ESO

Stikato wrote: »

I sure hope this is how it works. But unfortunately, I think those executives care about is $ generation.

Nothing wrong with that. But there are 2 ways to do it:

1. Make a great, balanced, fun game largely free from cheaters, that masses of people bend over backwards to pay for.
2. Make an ok game, possibly over-reliant on a popular IP, that encourages people to buy $40 virtual horses.

I'm sure there are other ways but you get the point. As long as there are enough people proudly proclaiming they will "support" ZOS by buying things in the cash shop, there is zero incentive for ZOS to invest money in any fixes.

And a very "hackable" game client reflects poorly on the ZeniMax and the Elder Scrolls brands, which will hurt the cash flow, in the long run. The problematic aspect being "the long run". A lot of investors/companies don't really care about "the long run", they just want the next quarter year report to be "better and perkier" than the previous one. They usually are rather keen on maintaining a "good brand" and keeping/raising "brand awareness", thou. That should be reason enough for ZeniMax Media to step in and shape things up at their subsidiary, ZeniMax Online Studios. But I'm neither a shareholder in ZeniMax Media Inc, nor a MBA graduate, so what do I know? I do know that I love the Elder Scrolls series and I just wish that the dev team ZOS would be given the opportunity/resources/staff to do a better job.

susmitds

Guys, most of you are thinking up worse situations than it really is. The last patch increment added a new accidental vulnerability. Do you think the exploiters suddenly discovered a exploit when it was there in the game for the whole time?

No, going by the vMA leaderboards, the exploits started since two weeks ago, which means whatever the issue is came after that.

sadownik

susmitds wrote: »

Guys, most of you are thinking up worse situations than it really is. The last patch increment added a new accidental vulnerability. Do you think the exploiters suddenly discovered a exploit when it was there in the game for the whole time?

No, going by the vMA leaderboards, the exploits started since two weeks ago, which means whatever the issue is came after that.

The use of a "hacking" soft was rumored for very long time. Sure it probably wast widespreaded - i would be surprised if it was 1% of players, my guess its more like 0.01%. Problem is... now detailed info is out of the wild and whats worse for me i wont be able to stop myself if being suspicious towards other players, since it seem the very basic soft like CE works in Z. and is working since the beta.

I am sure that before the public manifestation of detalis most of the people were much more careful. Not spamming ultimates but just getting a little ahead. 20% more regen? 20% less dmg? Yeah options are a plenty.

ola.wilhelmssonb16_ESO

susmitds wrote: »

Guys, most of you are thinking up worse situations than it really is. The last patch increment added a new accidental vulnerability. Do you think the exploiters suddenly discovered a exploit when it was there in the game for the whole time?

No, going by the vMA leaderboards, the exploits started since two weeks ago, which means whatever the issue is came after that.

Actually, according to this thread:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/268253/a-few-facts-about-the-recent-ultimate-exploit-hack#latest
the exploits/weakness has been around since launch.
Apparently it has been exploited very discreetly, for the most part, up until 2 weeks ago. Then some long time eso-players got fed up with ZOS blatant lack of action against it and decided to use it overtly and blatantly to force the issue.

Betheny

susmitds wrote: »

Guys, most of you are thinking up worse situations than it really is. The last patch increment added a new accidental vulnerability. Do you think the exploiters suddenly discovered a exploit when it was there in the game for the whole time?

Well there's been a Cheat Engine trainer since 2014 which could do all of this -

• Gradient Speed Invert (go faster up/down slopes rather than slower)
• Infinite Dodge Rolls
• No Fall Damage
• Super Speed (very fast)
• Walk in Air

So make of that what you will.

Junkogen

They probably have balanced around cheats because people complaining incessantly probably saw the cheaters and thought everyone could do that. This is a case of a few bad apples ruining the bunch. I'm not sure how rampant cheating is, but it only takes a one minor recorded instance to make the devs think there is a problem when it's really just cheaters. I wonder how many of these heavy-handed nerfs have been because of cheaters as opposed to legitimate reasons.

If only we could appoint an independent investigator to evaluate this. Unfortunately, I think we'll never get an honest answer and we're stuck with the far-reaching consequences of unregulated and undetected cheating.

NBrookus

LegacyDM wrote: »

We all now know the cheats have been around since launch. Infinit dodge rolls, speed hacks, ultimate spamming, and etc. I just learned that the people I have been facing in pvp for the past 2 years were cheaters. I've been working hard for the past 2 years trying to develop builds to beat the people who I didn't know we're cheating. I never quite understood why I wasn't performing and just chocked it up to l2p. For years I've been l2p getting better trying to beat the so called cheaters. Now the truth comes out.

I'm there with ya. Sad thing is, I was always very reluctant to point fingers at players and assume hacks and cheating. Not that I didn't see obvious ones sometimes. Reported... nothing ever happens... they keep running around in the game, pulling the same tricks.

I think we have now:

• Poor players who are using cheats to be mediocre. I can think of a dozen offhand that I run into regularly that don't seem to play well that but just somehow are hard to kill and never run out of resources.
• Excellent players who would be good players anyway if they weren't cheating.

And yet if the cheating is this pervasive, it ends up putting every honest, legitimately good player under suspicion. Not only does that make the community toxic, it's not fair to them to have to defend themselves from accusations.

ikza

ZOS_DaryaK wrote: »

We've removed post that were not constructive to this specific topic or inflammatory. Please avoid insults and stay on topic.

Then just remove the post, no need your copy paste spam in every thread, is against rules.

arena25

ZOS_DaryaK wrote: »

We've removed posts that were not constructive to this specific topic or were otherwise inflammatory. Please avoid insults and stay on topic.

There, I fixed the grammar for you, Darya.

Pallio

Reminds me of Syrim alch/crafting for godlike gear... except that was cool in a single player game, now it seems terribly bad for pvp and competitive boards etc.. wonder how long people have been using this, conservatively to not get caught but to gain an edge...

kalimar44

Is this a pc problem only? I play on ps 4 and I don't see what your talking about. To many ways to cheat with a pc.

usrevenge

kalimar44 wrote: »

Is this a pc problem only? I play on ps 4 and I don't see what your talking about. To many ways to cheat with a pc.

even if it's possible on ps4 it would be significantly harder anyway.

Pheefs

kalimar44 wrote: »

Is this a pc problem only? I play on ps 4 and I don't see what your talking about. To many ways to cheat with a pc.

its an add-on issue, Yes.
apparently an exploiters add-on that lets them generate infinite ultimate, & as harsh as it is I hope the people who used it all get banned...

& from now on anyone who says L2P & doesn't offer any advice on either the L or the P, I will assume is a cheater.
I'm not a devotee of PvP or anything, but I do enjoy it... & Exploit Eaters make it unfair unbalanced unreliable.
its The Leaderboard of LIES!

snoogadooch

sonething needs to be done immediately. If cheaters scores are filling the leaderboards again.....

NBrookus

Pheefs wrote: »

kalimar44 wrote: »

Is this a pc problem only? I play on ps 4 and I don't see what your talking about. To many ways to cheat with a pc.

its an add-on issue, Yes.
apparently an exploiters add-on that lets them generate infinite ultimate, & as harsh as it is I hope the people who used it all get banned...

& from now on anyone who says L2P & doesn't offer any advice on either the L or the P, I will assume is a cheater.
I'm not a devotee of PvP or anything, but I do enjoy it... & Exploit Eaters make it unfair unbalanced unreliable.
its The Leaderboard of LIES!

It's not an add-on. It's a 3rd party software program that modifies the data being transmitted from the client to the server, and goes way beyond ultimate generation.

starkerealm

ZOS_DaryaK wrote: »

We've removed post that were not constructive to this specific topic or inflammatory. Please avoid insults and stay on topic.

I was hoping this would be a post about how the devs factor cheating in when they're making balance adjustments. (._.)