Cheating and Exploits

Essiaga

I was accused of hacks yesterday during a fight i lagged out on and won ... I assumed he lagged out as well and that's the reason i won. He seemed only to twitch on my screen and when he died I assumed it was a faction member of mine adding into the fight that wasn't in my group. i seriously only spammed jabs while standing still cause I didn't know if he was still standing there but figured it was the best chance I had at actually hitting him.

Many people's perception of PVP seems to be zergs, lag, and hax. I can't tell whats hax and whats lag and apparently many others can't as well ... and the great thing is that countering hacks will likely lead to more lag.

Dubhliam

Well, at least ZOS is enforcing Forum rules, if not Terms of Service.

Pomaikai

LastAmbushOnEarth wrote: »

and what to do ppl who live in EU region? there is no call support of ZOS
another lack of customer service

in the region where actually MORE players of TESO located

just look to the number of pvp campaigns for example

There is no phone support ANYWHERE for ZOS. It's not just you in the EU. It's all just automated support, and that support is designed to make you work your butt off to finally get past the auto replies until you get to a real person. I've been in sales, service, and marketing for over 40 years, and ZOS's is flat out the shoddiest that I've ever dealt with, even worse than Dell, AT&T uVerse and C.o.x Cable (Seriously Zenimax? This is a Fortune 500 Company's NAME for crying out loud!!!!!), and that is saying a LOT! I mean you have to work really really hard to suck this bad. I wonder if there is an industry award for this?

Of course, this is all 110% fixable. They just have to want to, and then they have to spend the money doing it.


Edited because ZOS's profanity filter ***'d out one of the biggest cable companies in the USA's name. For a company that is SO darned concerned about cursing on their boards, your employees always seem to have the biggest potty mouths whenever they're doing recorded and live video chats. Funny how that works, eh?

#hypocrites #pathetic #irony(LetMeGoogleThatForYou)

Pomaikai

Thalmor-Nordmaster wrote: »

Zenimax is trying to make the game better. Kudos to them. Their risk management guy Hap. Might want to look into implementing a read only friday.Lots of people got caught up in this auto system. Today in cyrodiil I still saw a few speedy gonzales types. and wall jumpers. though not as many as before.I am going to finish out the trueflame campaign and then take a break for a few weeks and see what has transpired. I could use some pve time and find some sky sparkles.

Personally I think that zenimax put together something really quick and pushed it out. I don't think that the cs department was coordinated with, nor, was weekend time scheduled. The bean counters and overtime and such. Will they learn from this? One would hope so.

@LegacyDM and @SirAndy what sort of time frame would a company zenimax's size with zenimax's architecture be looking at to move from client side to server side?

Sorry, I got away from the business while AS/400 was still the thing.Found better money elsewhere.

Striving for a balanced system and a balanced appeal process should be the end goal.

Clear policy that is not wrapped up in a convoluted TOS should be presented to each and everyone of us.

Casting dispersions and besmirching character should be below us.

@Pomaikai I did see a teleporter today. Low activity area of Cyrodiil and ping was good about 117. It was like blink-blink - blink-gone. I am glad I am not competitive and only there to have fun.I think that level of brazen goofyness is enough to drive the competitive people bonkers.I did find something new though and that is Siege Shield will keep fleas off of Khajiit.I tried another experiment on a cat today with Stalwart Guard and it just went to sleep.

Sparkles for president. Because Cats are smarter than people
This ad paid for by friends of Sparkles

There was a Blue group last night in TF that was jumping inside of Keeps. This was not only DK's, but at least one Templar and a NB. There was a group of 6 inside of Nikel before it was even close to being lit.

I also saw a Teleporter last night too. I jumped off a rock near a Keep on my mount, saw a Blue player in a Robe, went to target them, and they had just vanished. Instantly. Just gone. Poof.

Bucket666

Pomaikai wrote: »

[...]
I also saw a Teleporter last night too. I jumped off a rock near a Keep on my mount, saw a Blue player in a Robe, went to target them, and they had just vanished. Instantly. Just gone. Poof.

Remember you have home and guest campaign. So this guy maybe just had his queue ready for the other campaign. Its so very sad that with the obvious shameless cheating going on (ladders weekly and lifetime especially) you cannot be sure whats cheat and whats just odd.

NobleNerd

lordrichter wrote: »

.

NativeJoe wrote: »

Any system they put in will be automated guys. They said themselves they don't have the budget for ingame GM's.
The "warden type" monitoring of wow, and the third party program detectors arn't in the budget either. What is in the budget?

I don't think they have the budget for automation. I think they just run some SQL queries against their database, probably as part of the Business Intelligence unit, and filter log files.

But wait.... they have 7 million players .... right? If they have that number supporting the game how can you NOT afford GMs?
*end sarcasm*

LastAmbushOnEarth

NobleNerd wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

.

NativeJoe wrote: »

Any system they put in will be automated guys. They said themselves they don't have the budget for ingame GM's.
The "warden type" monitoring of wow, and the third party program detectors arn't in the budget either. What is in the budget?

I don't think they have the budget for automation. I think they just run some SQL queries against their database, probably as part of the Business Intelligence unit, and filter log files.

But wait.... they have 7 million players .... right? If they have that number supporting the game how can you NOT afford GMs?
*end sarcasm*

no, not players
only accounts bought

NobleNerd

LastAmbushOnEarth wrote: »

NobleNerd wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

.

NativeJoe wrote: »

Any system they put in will be automated guys. They said themselves they don't have the budget for ingame GM's.
The "warden type" monitoring of wow, and the third party program detectors arn't in the budget either. What is in the budget?

I don't think they have the budget for automation. I think they just run some SQL queries against their database, probably as part of the Business Intelligence unit, and filter log files.

But wait.... they have 7 million players .... right? If they have that number supporting the game how can you NOT afford GMs?
*end sarcasm*

no, not players
only accounts bought

LOL I guess you missed the sarcasm disclaimer on my post. I was making fun of ZOS attempt to make their game sound more active during the E3 presentation.

NobleNerd

Bucket666 wrote: »

Pomaikai wrote: »

[...]
I also saw a Teleporter last night too. I jumped off a rock near a Keep on my mount, saw a Blue player in a Robe, went to target them, and they had just vanished. Instantly. Just gone. Poof.

Remember you have home and guest campaign. So this guy maybe just had his queue ready for the other campaign. Its so very sad that with the obvious shameless cheating going on (ladders weekly and lifetime especially) you cannot be sure what's cheat and what's just odd.

Is it possible for some of you still actively playing the game to provide some video (no naming or shaming in it) to see some of these exploits still working in the game?

I currently have given up playing the game, but am waiting to see if things get remedied with all this hacking and cheats. My gaming group would like the information also.

Pomaikai

I don't have my Mac setup to video my play sessions. I don't even know why I should even have to. This is ZOS's job, and not mine. When they pay me to do their job then I'll start wasting my time and gaming enjoyment, because that video recording is going to slow down my computer, make it run hotter, contribute to lag, and make my playtime less fun.

GET SOME DANGED GM'S ON THE GROUND IN CYRODIIL ALL THE DANGED TIME!!!!!!!!!!

Mureel

Tavore1138 wrote: »

Zoner wrote: »

LegacyDM wrote: »

Zoner wrote: »

LegacyDM wrote: »

Manpoints wrote: »

My previous post telling hackers to get rekt got removed, guess it hurt feelings.

But yeah, bans went out mainly in certain circles (obvious why)
They are investigating those temp bans to extend manually (good, and you obviously did something)
Trying to post up 'false positive' on a game like this doesn't work as there's no anti cheat searching your 8TB computer for hacks that you've never used in this game (only things you did with eso)

I would like to see these bans increase, first round 3 days? Fine, investigate the abusers and make them perm, everyone from this point, perm imo.

Oh really? I extracted The following from someone who was suspended due to a false positive. Here is the correspondence from Zos.

"Greetings,

This is Name Removed from customer support. I have good news! I have spoken with the Terms of Service departement and your account has been reinstated. You are good to login at any moment and continue playing.

I do apologize for the interruption in your game play. It looks like the latency and rubberbanding you described may have triggered some hack triggers we have in place."

You have no idea how the anti-cheat program works. Keep on beating the war drum supporting the witch hunt.

You missed the part where he said permaban after further investigation.

And you missed the part where he claims that posting up false positives doesn't work, Like he knows how the anti cheating software works.

Look before we all panic and start making assumptions let's settle down and let Zos sort this out tomorrow.

I think the point was that actual cheaters are going to scream false positive as well as those who have been given an actual false positive.

I understand it's really frustrating to be given a suspension when you've done nothing wrong but the community has been crying out for something to be done about the hacking for quite a while now, and if this is what Zos is going to give us, flawed as it may be, it's still a step in the right direction.

Those like your friend who were wrongly caught should be released. I think it's a case of cleaning up a few wrongful bans vs letting the hackers run wild

It really isn't a step in the right direction because every time something like this misfires and bans honest players, assuming that is what has happened, it gives further cover to the real cheats to claim that they too are innocent and reduces the credibility of such processes.

Also, as others have pointed out, doing it on a Friday night and then leaving people stranded for the weekend is really bad - we have a change freeze for anything but genuine emergency fixes on the last day of the week just so we don't leave people screwed over the weekend... and that is quite a common practice in IT these days.

Well and it SUCKS because my raid guild has a 2 raids per week requirement.

Thankfully they understand but I've missed now 4x raids in a row because of this ridiculousness.

It is insane.

I've been as calm as I am able, but I am not just gonna let it go, either.

Mureel

Manpoints wrote: »

purple-magicb16_ESO wrote: »

Specific hacks/exploits/cheats should be outlined in forum along with their consequences and then link this in the newsletter and send to everyone in big bold red letters. Reminders should be posted from time to time right in game (as your logging in just like how the crown store pop up happens). Then they can take a harder stance on exploits.

Discussion regarding individual accounts should never happen. I'm not an exploiter (not smart/tech savvy enuff 4 that-lol!) but it just makes sense since a banned player could come back on them if his/her account was discussed with others violating confidentiality.

Needing to provide a road map on exploits maybe, but on hacks and the use of 3rd party programs - I doubt not one person who uses those sorts of things is ignorant to the fact its against TC's. I think a perma ban for both, instantly and without discussion of appeal for hacking and the same for exploits but only when ridden hard and knowingly abused.

I agree 100% because if THAT was happening, this would not be - but it should have been from the beginning. Not 2 years in.

Mureel

Pomaikai wrote: »

There is no phone support ANYWHERE for ZOS.

There sort of is, but it is a pain. You have to contact the office in your country, Raise an Almighty Stink, leave 2-5 messages then someone will ring you back.

I've had to do that 2x now.

SirAndy

Thalmor-Nordmaster wrote: »

@LegacyDM and @SirAndy what sort of time frame would a company zenimax's size with zenimax's architecture be looking at to move from client side to server side?

@Thalmor-Nordmaster
If you had a good team of 4 you could do this in 4 weeks. 2 working on the client side, 2 working on the server side.
The mechanics needed are well known (not just in the gaming industry) so it's really just a matter of pumping out code.
You're going to need seasoned programmers with a solid understanding of various parts of a game engine.
No frills low level C optimized for speed and throughput and using UDP for transport.

Of course this all depends on how badly spaghettified their code is.
If they have a clear separation of the different logical layers within the code, it will be a lot easier.

If ZOS had hired me when they had the chance, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now.

daemonios

SirAndy wrote: »

Thalmor-Nordmaster wrote: »

@LegacyDM and @SirAndy what sort of time frame would a company zenimax's size with zenimax's architecture be looking at to move from client side to server side?

@Thalmor-Nordmaster
If you had a good team of 4 you could do this in 4 weeks. 2 working on the client side, 2 working on the server side.
The mechanics needed are well known (not just in the gaming industry) so it's really just a matter of pumping out code.
You're going to need seasoned programmers with a solid understanding of various parts of a game engine.
No frills low level C optimized for speed and throughput and using UDP for transport.

Of course this all depends on how badly spaghettified their code is.
If they have a clear separation of the different logical layers within the code, it will be a lot easier.

If ZOS had hired me when they had the chance, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now.

I'm pretty sure they at least considered it. It mush have been ditched for the load it put on the servers. Remember, ESO was developed primarily as a mass AvAvA PvP experience. I'm not so sure there's anything they can do about it now without massive overhauls of their server hardware AND software.

Xylphan

SirAndy wrote: »

Thalmor-Nordmaster wrote: »

@LegacyDM and @SirAndy what sort of time frame would a company zenimax's size with zenimax's architecture be looking at to move from client side to server side?

@Thalmor-Nordmaster
If you had a good team of 4 you could do this in 4 weeks. 2 working on the client side, 2 working on the server side.
The mechanics needed are well known (not just in the gaming industry) so it's really just a matter of pumping out code.
You're going to need seasoned programmers with a solid understanding of various parts of a game engine.
No frills low level C optimized for speed and throughput and using UDP for transport.

Of course this all depends on how badly spaghettified their code is.
If they have a clear separation of the different logical layers within the code, it will be a lot easier.

If ZOS had hired me when they had the chance, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now.

Having spent a number of years in the game industry, I can assure you it's not exactly a pleasant segment of the software engineering profession. You'll make a lot more money and have a significantly lower level of stress elsewhere.

Well, assuming you have the skills of course.

SirAndy

Xylphan wrote: »

Having spent a number of years in the game industry, I can assure you it's not exactly a pleasant segment of the software engineering profession. You'll make a lot more money and have a significantly lower level of stress elsewhere.
Well, assuming you have the skills of course.

There is a reason why i don't work in the gaming industry anymore ...

SirAndy

daemonios wrote: »

It mush have been ditched for the load it put on the servers.

I hear this argument a lot but it really isn't true. I've worked on systems that kept track of 1000+ users per physical sever (!) without breaking a sweat. The servers were high end off the shelf machines, nothing super fancy.

The processing time per user was much less than your average network latency. We had the system dialed in to the point where we had <10ms processing times per user update. That was under full load on the system.

Xylphan

SirAndy wrote: »

Xylphan wrote: »

Having spent a number of years in the game industry, I can assure you it's not exactly a pleasant segment of the software engineering profession. You'll make a lot more money and have a significantly lower level of stress elsewhere.
Well, assuming you have the skills of course.

There is a reason why i don't work in the gaming industry anymore ...

Yeah. Coldharbor is what a dev house on a quarterly release schedule looks like. Those poor souls. :P

They get it from both sides. The public side for all the hack, exploits and bugs, and the private side from their managerial overlords cracking the whip. That's why I put the blame squarely on Molag Bal...er ZOS management when it comes to issues like this. I've never known a single dev who WANTS to release crappy code. However, I've known plenty that have been forced to.

daemonios

SirAndy wrote: »

daemonios wrote: »

It mush have been ditched for the load it put on the servers.

I hear this argument a lot but it really isn't true. I've worked on systems that kept track of 1000+ users per physical sever (!) without breaking a sweat. The servers were high end off the shelf machines, nothing super fancy.

The processing time per user was much less than your average network latency. We had the system dialed in to the point where we had <10ms processing times per user update. That was under full load on the system.

I'm not in IT but it seems to me there's more done in ESO than "tracking users". All the buffs, debuffs, bonuses, stats, weapon/spell damages, penetration and resistances need to be calculated. From what I've heard, ZOS offloaded much of that to the client, which is one of the factors that enables CE to work in this game. If everything that's currently done client-side and needs to be trusted, and therefore needs to be done server-side, I have my doubts that it wouldn't add a considerable load.

P.S. I'm not excusing ZOS or arguing for argument's sake. This is why I believe in the end we won't have the ideal solution - server-side calculations and no inherently trusted client. The reason I say they must have considered doing it the right way from the start is because apparently this is common knowledge when designing any piece of software with a client/server side to it. Although to be fair, ZOS aren't the only ones cutting corners.

KingMagaw

Dubhliam wrote: »

Well, at least ZOS is enforcing Forum rules, if not Terms of Service.

Me and some other friends got suspended from forums posting in this topic. Never answered any of the 4 questions i had asked though. Solid support resulting in me rarely posting anymore in these forums. If there was a reason not to sub anymore, this is it for me ))

LastAmbushOnEarth

my friend was perma banned yesterday

he just bought his account and spent only 5 hours in the game in total

and guess what they answer to his first ticket?

IS THIS A JOKE?

Greetings,
We apologize that we have taken so long to get back to you in regards to your issue. Due to high ticket volumes, we will be unable to assist you further with this ticket. We understand this may be frustrating and we are disappointed that we are unable to deliver a Customer Service experience that is up to our desired standards. Below is all the troubleshooting we have available at this time. Below are some of the most common solutions for most in game issues.
For issues such as missing NPCs or quests not advancing correctly can be resolved by logging out for five minutes then logging back in. This will load you into a new game instance and refresh your surroundings. Please make sure you’ve attempted that first!
I recommend checking out our new Player's Guide for gameplay mechanics such as how certain items or character abilities work: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/60795/the-elder-scrolls-online-new-player-guide
There are also many wonderful unofficial community wikis which have a lot of helpful information about the game:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_Wiki
http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/
Please also be sure to visit our help portal where you can search for common issues and subscribe to individual articles for any updates about that information: https://help.elderscrollsonline.com.
Best Regards,
The Elder Scrolls Online Team

Rohamad_Ali

Just a word of warning , since no one knows what software is triggering these permabans for certain , don't run any while playing ESO . That's the only thing I can recommend since the perma bans started back up . Be safe , don't lose your account .

SirAndy

daemonios wrote: »

I'm not in IT but it seems to me there's more done in ESO than "tracking users". All the buffs, debuffs, bonuses, stats, weapon/spell damages, penetration and resistances need to be calculated. From what I've heard, ZOS offloaded much of that to the client, which is one of the factors that enables CE to work in this game. If everything that's currently done client-side and needs to be trusted, and therefore needs to be done server-side, I have my doubts that it wouldn't add a considerable load.

@daemonios

I'm not in IT either, i'm a programmer.

When i say "tracking users" i'm talking about tracking *everything* server side.

All their settings, all their gear, skills, inventory whatever. Everything there is to know about their character, location orientation, force vectors acting upon them etc.. Plus all the surrounding other players, NPC and all their stats.
Everything tracked in real-time on the server and all decisions made by the server. You use a UDP based data exchange that does not rely on a handshake (no ACK required) combined with client side and sever side prediction to minimize lag from network latency and lost packets.

Sounds daunting (and it is) but with enough memory all this can accessed in an instant, the server can do sanity checks (making sure the client input does not violate what the user is actually capable of, also known as cheating) of incoming client data, process the input and send a result back to the client. All in under 10ms ...

Enodoc

LastAmbushOnEarth wrote: »

my friend was perma banned yesterday

he just bought his account and spent only 5 hours in the game in total

and guess what they answer to his first ticket?

IS THIS A JOKE?

Greetings,
We apologize that we have taken so long to get back to you in regards to your issue. Due to high ticket volumes, we will be unable to assist you further with this ticket. We understand this may be frustrating and we are disappointed that we are unable to deliver a Customer Service experience that is up to our desired standards. Below is all the troubleshooting we have available at this time. Below are some of the most common solutions for most in game issues.
For issues such as missing NPCs or quests not advancing correctly can be resolved by logging out for five minutes then logging back in. This will load you into a new game instance and refresh your surroundings. Please make sure you’ve attempted that first!
I recommend checking out our new Player's Guide for gameplay mechanics such as how certain items or character abilities work: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/60795/the-elder-scrolls-online-new-player-guide
There are also many wonderful unofficial community wikis which have a lot of helpful information about the game:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_Wiki
http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/
Please also be sure to visit our help portal where you can search for common issues and subscribe to individual articles for any updates about that information: https://help.elderscrollsonline.com.
Best Regards,
The Elder Scrolls Online Team

@LastAmbushOnEarth All your friend can do is ping it back to them until he gets an actual reply rather than an automated response. Saying that though...

@ZOS_AlanG I'm pretty sure the automated response from Support has always indicated that the ticket will be closed if there is not a further reply to it, but the wording of the current version makes it seem as though Support basically don't care (putting aside the corporate blabber) and doesn't say how to reply to keep the ticket open. While I appreciate that there's a high volume of tickets and Support can't deal with them all in good time, the wording of the automatic reply needs to be improved to ensure a good relationship is retained with the customer base.

(Also @ZOS_JessicaFolsom I imagine this is probably the "we're too busy to look into it" reply that was being discussed here.)

GreenhaloX

Roehamad_Ali wrote: »

Just a word of warning , since no one knows what software is triggering these permabans for certain , don't run any while playing ESO . That's the only thing I can recommend since the perma bans started back up . Be safe , don't lose your account .

Oh yes.. in addition to be safe.. well, just don't cheat! It's like people speeding out there, just taking their chance that no police has a radar on them or causing any accident or even kill someone. Cheating maybe somewhat of a short-term value to the cheater, but it has a lasting negative affect on the whole community in the long run.

ArcticWolfy

Tbh I don't see any point report ppl who glitch in this game like jumping walls in cyrodiil as if the game wasn't broken they couldn't do it. Maybe it's easier to remove siege weapons and castles and just do capture the flag. Lol

projectscience

Exploitation of the gap closer -> keep wall/grid screw up is getting out of hand. Players start to pop up onto the inner keep like popcorn.

NobleNerd

ArcticWolfy wrote: »

Tbh I don't see any point report ppl who glitch in this game like jumping walls in cyrodiil as if the game wasn't broken they couldn't do it. Maybe it's easier to remove siege weapons and castles and just do capture the flag. Lol

Yeah if the game wasn't so broken with glitching, rubber banding and the likes then there would not be as many false positives causing negative feedback from the automated bans happening right now. What is also not clear is if this has actually prevented the Cheat Engine users.

UltimaJoe777

Just so you know, I made the thread about appointing in-game staff to patrol places where cheating and exploiting happens not to discuss cheating and exploiting but to actually let Zenimax know we want THEM in-game and not their fixes. They're not going to see that as much here. But since it was deemed lock-worthy please support my thread here.

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Guards only handle criminal activity related to the game. We need Guards that will handle cheaters and exploiters now, and that means appointing some of your staff to be in-game officers that patrol Cyrodiil and Dungeons looking for cheaters of any and all sorts. You have moderators for these forums, now give us some for the game. We don't want anymore of your band-aid fixes and flawed auto-catchers, we want YOU actually DOING something to both stop hackers/exploiters and prevent more from arising. If you're not big on permabans then at least constantly suspend their accounts by catching them in the act. Just get inside your own game and DO SOMETHING for once. At the very least this would show everyone you truly do care and really are doing everything in your power to fix this problem, because you do have the power, so now let's see the communication!