Cyrodiil, Cheating/Exploiting, & You

NBrookus

I am very happy that ZOS listened to our feedback and is getting tougher on cheaters and exploiters. That said, it is poorly handled to retroactively ban people for an exploit ZOS did not really acknowledge. ZOS should have been addressing this issue with the customers MUCH sooner.

qrichou

Sallington wrote: »

If I accidentally misclick my gap-close button and charge onto a keep wall (it's really that easy to do), does that mean I'm at risk of being banned if someone reports me?

Should we all unslot Critical Charge until this mess is fixed?

If you do that you r not sieging the wall but waiting to jump in .

Stratforge

Alishka_Gunter wrote: »

I'm not even sure why alot of this has come into question. It's called integrity folks. It seems there are a lot of self entitled people who believe they can do something because it is capable of doing.

You know why people think that? Because that's how games work 99.9% of the time! If developers don't want players doing something, they generally make it so the players cannot do the thing.

DHale

Really you should fix the game only a very small population ever get on these toxic baddie filled forums. Ppl have been jumping into keeps for over two years. I love it as they land then die seems like a perfect risk reward mechanic. To compare keep jumping to using cheat engine is a chasm of incredulity. You were told on the pts you could gib the gap closers but did not fix it. Wrobel himself said gap closers would work like a teleport... it does. Works like he said.

Akgurd

Nice! So 90% of population has possibility of getting banned by wearing malubeth set?

We all know its heals are broke but most pvp player abuse it

kevlarto_ESO

Thank you for the post Jessica, I am just disappointed at how many people in this game cheat or exploit, shame really.
In the end they only hurt themselves by diminishing their gaming experience.

Alishka_Gunter

Agreed Kevlarto.

Cherryblossom

Alishka_Gunter wrote: »

Why is anyone even remotely using the argument "we told you in PTS, it's not our fault!!! Fix your game" ?

Seriously.

I guarantee you that you will not be banned if you ambush a dude through a postern by mistake and make an effort to leave the keep asap. Same for the mistaken critical rushes I to outposts through the grate or up onto walls via the stairs. If it accidentally happens, just jump off. Christ people. It's really simple.

The bans to at least two "infamous" DC members on azuras star was due to rampant abuse of the exploit while being emperor and having a heal bot (and others but they weren't caught) go into walls to clear it out. They did this to AD and EP multiple times. Screenshot of conversations with them admitting to knowing it was an exploit but they didn't care because Zos wouldn't do anything about it - or - using the excuse "zos put it in the game so it's ok to use" were what would have gotten them banned. Or it could have been the seven videos I knew about that were submitted clearly showing them running up to the walls, getting into a specific position to gap close onto them. My personal favourite was watching the emperor use the mages at the front gates of a keep, he presumed was empty but was actually being recorded (lol), to get into a keep while no one was there.

To compound this fact, these two players were told it was officially labelled an exploit and to check the forums yet they continued to do so.

The bans that were handed out recently were not from one off, mistaken gap closures into a keep. They were done by two very experienced members from a well known guild on all NA servers to grief and troll other players. They openly admitted to this many times, even on these forums.

Pls note this was typed on my cell and wasn't checked for spelling or grammar lol

Sorry at the end of the day, ZOS should not add a broken mechanic into the game which they know about.

By the way the characters I use in PVP do not have the Gap Closers in question, so I don't use this, but I will stand up for ALL who use it, based on the fact this IS ZOS fault.

We should be holding ZOS to account for continually rolling out broken patches.

Alishka_Gunter

So your the guy/girl racing down the emergency lane of a highway because the construction crews built it, they knew it was there and you just going to do it because it's their problem, not yours. Shouldn't place it on the highway right?...

Yes, I realize the analogy is a flawed comparison and is like comparing an apple to an orange but I digress.

This still boils down to your own personal integrity. You do not do it. That's awesome! Thank you for not being a toxic player. You support the players that do? That's ok too! Freedom to think how you want and say what you feel like within the community guidelines.

Let's go over the circumstances again, just so everyone clearly understands what happened:

1) The DC Emperor and one of his healers would gap close into keeps. Since they are both outstanding players in their own rights, they were asked why they would resort to exploits to defeat players. Their response was "it's not an exploit. Anyone can critical rush into keeps. Zos will not take action because they put the bug into the game." They were subsequently told to check the forums because ZOS had labelled it an exploit. They ignored these warnings and continued to do it.

That's actually not a bad argument in and of itself. Of course new players or those who haven't experienced it yet would give them the option to do it by standing near the ledge. If it had stopped with just that, I don't think the public outcry would have reached the critical mass that it did.

2) This same emperor would go to undefended keeps and use the NPCs to get into the keep. He would then proceed to solo the keep with his healer. This was witnessed by several people who remained hidden and recorded him doing this. The videos were submitted.

This is full on exploitation and abuse. The argument that "baddies" let them in becomes null and void the moment they did this and it showed that they lacked any form of personal accountability.

3) To those that state the people "crying" are baddies and should have just killed them the moment they exploited in; they are unaware of who was doing this and since I am not allowed to name names, I'll describe the situation as best as I can.

The DC Emperor was a very experienced and skilled templar who has built himself around max sustainability. Easily capable of sustaining himself against large groups. Add in one of the better healers and he becomes nearly unstoppable. You can make whatever arguments you want but when a skilled player has the scourge set, emperor, pocket heals and is an outstanding player who then jumps into walls, most players don't stand a chance. You can call it whatever you want. Please do not forget, this is Azura's Star where there is zero champion points and makes your characters resource management much harder to manage.

Now add in bugs like the "zero health" invincibility from the malubeth set (which happened when we had 14 people DPS him down to no health for over 5 seconds and four spamming executes on him all from range... We know how to counter the set), it makes this even more laughable.

4) The continued and blatant disregard for ZOS user agreements. You can argue that the problem is ZOS' and not the players all you want until they come on their forums and state it is in fact a bloody exploit. The moment that happens, your personal feelings go out the door. It's their game, their rules. I am not stating how they handled the situation was the best (I can't argue letting a bug like gap closing into keeps go live when they were told it was a bug on PTS is anywhere near acceptable, it isn't.) but that's for the community manager / customer support to deal with. If you tired of ZOS' actions with respect to how these things are handled, then leave the game.

I don't see how anyone can support exploiting into keeps. It's trashy play by lazy people who "don't want to siege down walls". Being lazy has never been a valid excuse for anything.

FENGRUSH

Unreal that players say these bans should happen.

When everyone was using double mundus because the competition was using it - everyone knew it wasnt intended, but it was easy as hell to do. ZOS said they were aware of it and were fixing it. They werent saying report people for bans for it. They said yes - there is an exploit and we will fix it. THIS GOES FOR SO MANY "EXPLOITS" IN THE GAME.

People jumped inside enemy home bases and killed people endlessly at their respawn. ZOS said they were aware of it. THEY DIDNT BAN PEOPLE FOR EXPLOITS.


Im not defending these exploits. What Im trying to make clear to the community is that you CANNOT SUDDENLY ONE DAY DECIDE YOURE TAKING A FIRM STANCE AND DO THAT BY BANNING PEOPLE RETROACTIVELY. ZOS set the precedent on this issue. That precedent is that exploits will get addressed and fixed - specifically the ones that the community complained about the most (EI: gap closer for this patch). And yet this time around, people are losing their accounts. Is this an effective and fair way to do this?

I want an effective and fair solution, because it will bridge the community and ZOS. If you dont do that, people will be mad as hell from both the banned and those wanting fair and defined rules across the board.


@ZOS_RichLambert
@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Please realize the solution is important here. Any permanent bans should be reversed for activity that occured on players after this message was communicated. Players deserve communication, because what youre doing today is not what you did 3 6 months or a year ago. And please - do not lift bans on players using cheat programs/bot programs. This is pretty much the dirtiest thing players can ever envision. Many players were unbanned who used CE, and they are amongst us today, on our leaderboards, and staring us in the face to remind us that things are not fair.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQDm5rGhqaI

Altercator

This is what happens when ZOS refuses to take responsibility for their actions. They release a broken mechanic into the wild and instead of fixing it they blame the player base for the mistake they made.

ZOS fix the code you have access to. Stop blaming the players for your mistakes. Players should not be getting banned for your recklessness. This has become a witch-hunt of your own creating.

Fix the code. Stop blaming the players for your mistakes.

Alishka_Gunter

FENGRUSH wrote: »

Unreal that players say these bans should happen.

When everyone was using double mundus because the competition was using it - everyone knew it wasnt intended, but it was easy as hell to do. ZOS said they were aware of it and were fixing it. They werent saying report people for bans for it. They said yes - there is an exploit and we will fix it. THIS GOES FOR SO MANY "EXPLOITS" IN THE GAME.

People jumped inside enemy home bases and killed people endlessly at their respawn. ZOS said they were aware of it. THEY DIDNT BAN PEOPLE FOR EXPLOITS.


Im not defending these exploits. What Im trying to make clear to the community is that you CANNOT SUDDENLY ONE DAY DECIDE YOURE TAKING A FIRM STANCE AND DO THAT BY BANNING PEOPLE RETROACTIVELY. ZOS set the precedent on this issue. That precedent is that exploits will get addressed and fixed - specifically the ones that the community complained about the most (EI: gap closer for this patch). And yet this time around, people are losing their accounts. Is this an effective and fair way to do this?

I want an effective and fair solution, because it will bridge the community and ZOS. If you dont do that, people will be mad as hell from both the banned and those wanting fair and defined rules across the board.


@ZOS_RichLambert
@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Please realize the solution is important here. Any permanent bans should be reversed for activity that occured on players after this message was communicated. Players deserve communication, because what youre doing today is not what you did 3 6 months or a year ago. And please - do not lift bans on players using cheat programs/bot programs. This is pretty much the dirtiest thing players can ever envision. Many players were unbanned who used CE, and they are amongst us today, on our leaderboards, and staring us in the face to remind us that things are not fair.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQDm5rGhqaI

Your message is heard loud and clear however the bans weren't retroactive. Their stance was announced in a post and with this announcement. Two players were banned after this message was sent. Christ, one of them acknowledged they wouldn't do it again after reading the posts and they continued to do it,were recorded doing it (they can continue to deny it all they want, same with their guild. The proof was provided) and now they are banned. One of them even went as far as to buy another copy of eso and started messaging the guy who provided the proof... They got banned for circumventing a ban lol.

I'm only speaking of the two high profile players. If there are other players who were banned before the message was passed, then yes, those bans have grounds for appeals.

Also, if ZOS reversed a ban for cheat engine then that shouldn't happen. Using an exploit is nothing compared to a third party hack. I think everyone can agree to that one.

Honestly, I wished ZOS wouldn't hide their banning process and would release names and circumstances of why players were banned. It would clear up alot of the misinformation the guilty parties are trying to pass off as fact. It also limits those that have recorded the proof from providing it in the clear.

qrichou

Altercator wrote: »

This is what happens when ZOS refuses to take responsibility for their actions. They release a broken mechanic into the wild and instead of fixing it they blame the player base for the mistake they made.

ZOS fix the code you have access to. Stop blaming the players for your mistakes. Players should not be getting banned for your recklessness. This has become a witch-hunt of your own creating.

Fix the code. Stop blaming the players for your mistakes.

You sound like a kid who blames his parents for the trouble he gets in for acting like one.
Its an invalid argument as every person is responsible. for its own actions .

Altercator

qrichou wrote: »

Altercator wrote: »

This is what happens when ZOS refuses to take responsibility for their actions. They release a broken mechanic into the wild and instead of fixing it they blame the player base for the mistake they made.

ZOS fix the code you have access to. Stop blaming the players for your mistakes. Players should not be getting banned for your recklessness. This has become a witch-hunt of your own creating.

Fix the code. Stop blaming the players for your mistakes.

You sound like a kid who blames his parents for the trouble he gets in for acting like one.
Its an invalid argument as every person is responsible. for its own actions .

You sound like someone who doesn't have an understanding of rational arguments.

bikerangelo

Keep in mind, these mechanic changes were meant to improve gap closers, but in the end they made them worse. They're slower, they're just as unreliable, they'll get stuck and lock up abilities if a target dies or runs out of range, they continue to have pathing issues, and now anyone can jump into a keep at will. Since no improvements were made and the new "teleport" mechanics we were given are now considered an exploit, the best thing to do would be to roll back to the old code from 2.3 until they can engineer yet another mechanical improvement. They should throw that into an incremental patch in the next week.

qrichou

Altercator wrote: »

qrichou wrote: »

Altercator wrote: »

This is what happens when ZOS refuses to take responsibility for their actions. They release a broken mechanic into the wild and instead of fixing it they blame the player base for the mistake they made.

ZOS fix the code you have access to. Stop blaming the players for your mistakes. Players should not be getting banned for your recklessness. This has become a witch-hunt of your own creating.

Fix the code. Stop blaming the players for your mistakes.

You sound like a kid who blames his parents for the trouble he gets in for acting like one.
Its an invalid argument as every person is responsible. for its own actions .

You sound like someone who doesn't have an understanding of rational arguments.

Why , i mis your rational argument on that statement .
Saying that something remind you of something without explaining why it does , is an incompleet invalid nonargument.

DeadDealer

im interesting
if you ZOS, in the future, admitted you cannot fix it, FOR example
and you will announce gap-close to keep intended mechanics like animation cancelling

whats then? you will unban all people you banned for it?

Vaoh

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

In plain English: if it looks or feels like cheating, then try it out at your own risk. Or better yet, don’t try it at all.

-_-

A lot of things feel cheap in ESO when it's lagging terribly, and gap closers being used to climb unrealistic terrain is no different.....

Just fix your gapclosers, add some special invisible barrier to all keep walls which cannot be gapclosed through.

Lokov

Hi ZOS, i have something to say about your ban warning if someone using gap closer bug with keep walls:

The most ridiculous that you break skills mechanics / physics / textures and then you want to ban people for the fact that they play what you give them.

But no questions about 3rd party programs. But It would be desirable to pay once again your attention on use not only cheat engine but also to macroes which put players in unequal conditions because of availability of use at a low ping and inaccessibility at a high ping. Once you have entered delay for skillbar swap, explaining it with the fact that you want to deliver players with a different ping in equal conditions. It does not seem to you that for complete success you need to get rid of cancellation of animation in game? Or...Maybe even enter visible global cooldown for all skills?

Alurria

He said /she said should never ever be used as a basis for a decision.

Bromburak

Alishka_Gunter wrote: »

Their stance was announced in a post and with this announcement.

I only can repeat my self.

ZOS is in charge to setup rules to consequently enforce their strategy in dealing with cheaters and exploiters. This requires a
lot of more work including a cheating and exploiting page with all consequences.

Games need rules and players reliable orientation and not an opinion or statements of single mods somewhere deep in the PTS forums or in the alliance forum. As a company you must have a very clear position on cheating and exploiting including all consequences and you should provide all the details at a central place for all customers on the same level with your term of service.

And this is the only source for staff and customers that defines what is right or wrong.
There is no room for discussions or assumptions when it comes to cheating and exploiting.
ZOS needs a well defined position on cheating and exploiting so that customers can trust you in this matter.

Deal with it as a professional business in this industry and then we back on track.

Alishka_Gunter

As a grown adult, you have a conscience. You know to cheat others in real life or within a game is wrong. Period. The fact that certain cheats should be allowed or shouldn't, or that anyone would require a guideline to what penalties are for exploitation and or cheating is incredible to me.

Seriously. Cheating is wrong. Exploiting is wrong. Finding an exploit, reporting it and not abusing it is fine. The problem comes when you abuse the exploit.

I just don't understand why is concept is hard to understand.

duncan_cougarpreeb18_ESO

Just to bring this to the attention of ZOS (well it's their code, so they should know about the mess they made), but ...
Certain folks now seem to be able to instantly repair walls and doors and that despite constant heavy siege on exact that wall / door. Video only shows wall ... but same happened with wooden gates ... so go figure
https://youtube.com/watch?v=jZRUifsj938
(EU Trueflame campaign)
Just watch the wall health indicator and yes everyone was hitting against the wall not the door itself

Alishka_Gunter

Nah man, that's trolling the walls. You can repair damaged walls and doors so long as they are above 95%.

This is intended.

It's known as troll repairing. You have to time multiple siege to get it below 95% and then your fine. Well, so long as their isn't someone repairing once it hits 95%. You can stack 3-4 guys all repairing which means you need to time six siege or more to hit at once.

ToRelax

Alishka_Gunter wrote: »

Nah man, that's trolling the walls. You can repair damaged walls and doors so long as they are above 95%.

This is intended.

It's known as troll repairing. You have to time multiple siege to get it below 95% and then your fine. Well, so long as their isn't someone repairing once it hits 95%. You can stack 3-4 guys all repairing which means you need to time six siege or more to hit at once.

Which is exactly why we need to have easily accessible information about exactly what is or isn't considered an exploit. A lot of people think this one can't be intended, and in this thread ZOS basically tells them not to do it then.

InvitationNotFound

FENGRUSH wrote: »

Unreal that players say these bans should happen.

When everyone was using double mundus because the competition was using it - everyone knew it wasnt intended, but it was easy as hell to do. ZOS said they were aware of it and were fixing it. They werent saying report people for bans for it. They said yes - there is an exploit and we will fix it. THIS GOES FOR SO MANY "EXPLOITS" IN THE GAME.

People jumped inside enemy home bases and killed people endlessly at their respawn. ZOS said they were aware of it. THEY DIDNT BAN PEOPLE FOR EXPLOITS.


Im not defending these exploits. What Im trying to make clear to the community is that you CANNOT SUDDENLY ONE DAY DECIDE YOURE TAKING A FIRM STANCE AND DO THAT BY BANNING PEOPLE RETROACTIVELY. ZOS set the precedent on this issue. That precedent is that exploits will get addressed and fixed - specifically the ones that the community complained about the most (EI: gap closer for this patch). And yet this time around, people are losing their accounts. Is this an effective and fair way to do this?

I want an effective and fair solution, because it will bridge the community and ZOS. If you dont do that, people will be mad as hell from both the banned and those wanting fair and defined rules across the board.


@ZOS_RichLambert
@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Please realize the solution is important here. Any permanent bans should be reversed for activity that occured on players after this message was communicated. Players deserve communication, because what youre doing today is not what you did 3 6 months or a year ago. And please - do not lift bans on players using cheat programs/bot programs. This is pretty much the dirtiest thing players can ever envision. Many players were unbanned who used CE, and they are amongst us today, on our leaderboards, and staring us in the face to remind us that things are not fair.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQDm5rGhqaI

@FENGRUSH some valid points and some bs on your side

it isn't suddenly an exploit. they stated very often that bypassing the intended mechanic of breaking the walls is considered an exploit. so saying out of a sudden they call it exploit is nothing but bulls***. btw. this whole thing has been discussed quite a while and videos have been removed by ZOS employees. they reason for this was because they were calling it an exploit (yes, it is a joke.i completely agree here, and it shouldn't have been put on the live servers). anyway, that should have rang some alarm bells to players wanting to use that mechanic in such a way.

i agree that the communication is a problem as people who aren't reading the forum aren't aware. nonetheless, i don't think people like you aren't reading the forums...

furthermore, you come up with the mondus bug and say something like "hey, it was okay to use it. everyone was using it. so where's the problem with this one?" both are / were exploits. using any of these mechanics isn't okay and should have consequences. unfortunately it didn't have so far. i would consider it a good thing if they would ban (temporary - the first few times) people for exploiting. even in retrospective. guess what... everyone knew it was an exploit and wrong to use it but nothing would happen to them. so you consider changing this is a bad thing and would make people leave? well, might be a good thing if people who exploit every single sh** would leave.

another point is that you consider it fun to bypass that mechanic. well, that's your opinion. but i doubt the majority of the player base likes and enjoys that (besides that it is absolutely irrelevant). at least not according to all the forum posts.

and then you say "you can't ban people for your own mistakes". well, they can and they should, at least as long as it is clearly an exploit. let's stick with the mondus bug you came up earlier. everyone knew it is a bug. if you "didn't know" you were simply the worst type of *** out there. abusing a bug = exploiting. simple as that. if have an other opinion you probably should check the definition of the term exploit.

let's keep on going. "it isn't the fault of the players, you gave it to them". abusing a bug is the fault of the player. everyone using a gap closer to get on a wall or tower exactly knows what they are doing at that this can't be what the developers expected (they even "fixed" it once and made it more difficult to achieve. you even show how it know works after their "fix"). therefore, it is the players choice and their fault.

another point regarding "people are going to lose faith". well, of course they should fix the mess they've created. the game is in a bad state without a doubt. we all know how long it takes to "fix" things and this is very likely not going to change (and even if it would, you can be certain that there will be bugs from time to time. every piece of software has bugs). as this won't change the least they could and should do is going for people who are exploiting the cr** out of it. this has nothing to do with "losing faith". that's actually a little improvement.

with most of the other things i agree...

FENGRUSH

InvitationNotFound wrote: »

FENGRUSH wrote: »

Unreal that players say these bans should happen.

When everyone was using double mundus because the competition was using it - everyone knew it wasnt intended, but it was easy as hell to do. ZOS said they were aware of it and were fixing it. They werent saying report people for bans for it. They said yes - there is an exploit and we will fix it. THIS GOES FOR SO MANY "EXPLOITS" IN THE GAME.

People jumped inside enemy home bases and killed people endlessly at their respawn. ZOS said they were aware of it. THEY DIDNT BAN PEOPLE FOR EXPLOITS.


Im not defending these exploits. What Im trying to make clear to the community is that you CANNOT SUDDENLY ONE DAY DECIDE YOURE TAKING A FIRM STANCE AND DO THAT BY BANNING PEOPLE RETROACTIVELY. ZOS set the precedent on this issue. That precedent is that exploits will get addressed and fixed - specifically the ones that the community complained about the most (EI: gap closer for this patch). And yet this time around, people are losing their accounts. Is this an effective and fair way to do this?

I want an effective and fair solution, because it will bridge the community and ZOS. If you dont do that, people will be mad as hell from both the banned and those wanting fair and defined rules across the board.


@ZOS_RichLambert
@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Please realize the solution is important here. Any permanent bans should be reversed for activity that occured on players after this message was communicated. Players deserve communication, because what youre doing today is not what you did 3 6 months or a year ago. And please - do not lift bans on players using cheat programs/bot programs. This is pretty much the dirtiest thing players can ever envision. Many players were unbanned who used CE, and they are amongst us today, on our leaderboards, and staring us in the face to remind us that things are not fair.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQDm5rGhqaI

@FENGRUSH some valid points and some bs on your side

it isn't suddenly an exploit. they stated very often that bypassing the intended mechanic of breaking the walls is considered an exploit. so saying out of a sudden they call it exploit is nothing but bulls***. btw. this whole thing has been discussed quite a while and videos have been removed by ZOS employees. they reason for this was because they were calling it an exploit (yes, it is a joke.i completely agree here, and it shouldn't have been put on the live servers). anyway, that should have rang some alarm bells to players wanting to use that mechanic in such a way.

i agree that the communication is a problem as people who aren't reading the forum aren't aware. nonetheless, i don't think people like you aren't reading the forums...

furthermore, you come up with the mondus bug and say something like "hey, it was okay to use it. everyone was using it. so where's the problem with this one?" both are / were exploits. using any of these mechanics isn't okay and should have consequences. unfortunately it didn't have so far. i would consider it a good thing if they would ban (temporary - the first few times) people for exploiting. even in retrospective. guess what... everyone knew it was an exploit and wrong to use it but nothing would happen to them. so you consider changing this is a bad thing and would make people leave? well, might be a good thing if people who exploit every single sh** would leave.

another point is that you consider it fun to bypass that mechanic. well, that's your opinion. but i doubt the majority of the player base likes and enjoys that (besides that it is absolutely irrelevant). at least not according to all the forum posts.

and then you say "you can't ban people for your own mistakes". well, they can and they should, at least as long as it is clearly an exploit. let's stick with the mondus bug you came up earlier. everyone knew it is a bug. if you "didn't know" you were simply the worst type of *** out there. abusing a bug = exploiting. simple as that. if have an other opinion you probably should check the definition of the term exploit.

let's keep on going. "it isn't the fault of the players, you gave it to them". abusing a bug is the fault of the player. everyone using a gap closer to get on a wall or tower exactly knows what they are doing at that this can't be what the developers expected (they even "fixed" it once and made it more difficult to achieve. you even show how it know works after their "fix"). therefore, it is the players choice and their fault.

another point regarding "people are going to lose faith". well, of course they should fix the mess they've created. the game is in a bad state without a doubt. we all know how long it takes to "fix" things and this is very likely not going to change (and even if it would, you can be certain that there will be bugs from time to time. every piece of software has bugs). as this won't change the least they could and should do is going for people who are exploiting the cr** out of it. this has nothing to do with "losing faith". that's actually a little improvement.

with most of the other things i agree...

People have been bypassing doors and walls since the inception of the game though. They never banned for it, whether or not they labeled it an exploit. For a while it was DKs pulling with chains, always DKs with leap, NBs through doors. This patch anyone with a gap closer can do it. Now people are going to be banned suddenly? Its fine to set the bar now if they want to - Im not suggesting they shouldnt. But to not communicate it, is poor on their part. To permanently ban anyone on the ouset is even worse, especially if youre unbanning people for gaming the market and using cheat engine - both much more offensive issues.

Its fine if they want to change their tune now on this, but the point stands its going to be rampant and places it will be used the most are backdooring keeps and scrolls - which is the worst use of this. Front line fighting with this isnt that bad, you KNOW they are coming in, you are there to fight already. But losing scrolls and keeps that never flagged is a whole different story. And those people wont get any punishment.


Saying its not the fault of players/can ban people for their mistakes is a valid point I think. Its one thing if the bug is discovered in live. Its another to discover you have a completely broken mechanic a month into the test server and never address it. Its not communicated anywhere outside of these forums? How will people really know? Im not saying they wont know its an 'exploit' or 'unintended'... but how will they know they can be banned? People are just saying who cares, they should be, because theyre bad people for doing something like that. Which is completely irrelevant - the point is making clearer guidelines and communicating them to the playerbase effectively. Responding to a random post in an isolated forum is not how you do it, or enforce it. You dont just hand out bans either, you communicate to people that are caught doing it and roll out a practical solution. The support teams strategy is not effective at solving issues, its an attempt to damage control. I want real solutions - so should everyone else. Effective communication and consistency is the key to delivering that solution. Secondly, we need better decisions from up top not to roll out changes like this that are so easy to do by the entire playerbase. Reason is, many people are/will still use this bug, and it incites others to do it maliciously as well.

Unlikely_Ghostbuster

Quite the drama on this thread. If this is, in fact, the thread to which @ZOS_JessicaFolsom was referring on Friday's episode of ESO Live, then I got a lot more than the information I was looking for, and I'm grateful.

Plainly stated, cheating should be zero-tolerance.

I've known the "gap closers" were broken in Cyrodiil, but I didn't know people were using them to get onto keep walls. I'd seen enemy players magically appear on the walls of unbreached keeps, but figured they were using their Dragon Leap ultimate -- I had no idea they were using normal, non-ultimate skills to do so. My first thoughts were "Wow. So many Dragon Knights." Now, I think "Wow, so many exploiters."

Sword and board, my invasion skill has put me "under the map" several times, now... ...sorta. Each time it's happened, I only see my character doing his animation surrounded by blue skies. This occurs on flat terrain! Meanwhile, the enemy I was charging is capable of attacking me, which is why I've died every time this has happened. I've also experienced getting stuck in the charge having not connected with my intended target (apparently this is due to my target moving out of range), and I end up mashing keys mindlessly to break free of my own attack. Indeed, if this is happening with other skills, "gap closers" are severely broken.

I don't play on the PTS. Frankly, I only go on the forums when I'm looking for specific information. I don't peruse them for fun. I only found this thread because it was mentioned in ESO Live. So let me be clear: it's completely asinine for ZOS to put this broken mechanic into the game, knowing it was broken due to PTS feedback from players. The fact that it puts me under the map and gets me killed is annoying. The fact that dishonest players are *knowingly* using this as an exploit to usurp the honest play is infuriating. The fact that it's 100% the case that ZOS was warned, but knowingly allowed this sad state of affairs to be is totally outrageous. ZOS is to blame for enabling these broken mechanics to go live, but players are also to blame for exploiting the broken mechanics. It's on players to avoid exploits. It's on ZOS to fix them.

To be frank, I have little sympathy for the players getting banned for this exploit. However, if it is indeed the case that ZOS suffered from a full-blown quality assurance breakdown (how does something like this slip through QA, exactly?), then that counts as mitigating circumstances. So I'm on the fence about permanently banning people, en masse. To be fair, each ban would need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis so that only the repeat-offenders whose cases include absolutely no "reasonable doubt" get banned. Let the innocent ones make their case and rejoin. Let the guilty ones plead their case as well, but don't reverse their ban out of sympathy when the evidence is against them.

By the way, I don't for a moment buy the "I was RPing as a deity" argument to explain away intentional exploits. That's above and beyond ridiculous. Why weren't you RPing as a benevolent deity, then?

As for the cheaters using third-party software to alter their stats (the reason I was looking for this thread -- I wanted assurance they're being dealt with), if it is indeed true that former emperors gain ultimate at incredible rates without the use of "cheat engines" to alter their stats, then that too should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. However, if someone has installed this software, they should be permanently banned. No prevarications. Ban them. That is unquestionable cheating. If the software they use is called "Cheat Engine," then how much reasonable doubt can there be?

I've witnessed some astounding things in Cyrodiil that I cannot explain. But I don't have the best gear, nor have I hit the CP cap, nor do I play any sort of min/max build. So I'm willing to take a single person solo-killing five enemy players with a grain of salt. I'm even willing to entertain the possibility of legitimate tank builds that have +60k health that take very little damage, that require at least a dozen players to DPS them down because the tank doesn't *do* much damage. CP, plus the plethora of gear in the game means there are thousands and thousands of build variations. So sure, there might be a non-exploitative meat-shield build that is virtually indestructible. Some players have overpowered builds, but aren't cheating. I'm willing to believe this, especially on Trueflame.

I can witness these amazing feats in PvP and give those players reasonable doubt because -- and this is crucially important -- I don't have access to all the same information ZOS developers do. As players, we can have our suspicions, but we don't have the tools to substantiate them. Simply put, we don't know their builds, so we don't know if it's cheating. The player base relies on ZOS to do that for us because, realistically, ZOS does have access to player build info: their race, gear, passives, and CP distribution. This is why the burden to root out and ban cheaters is on the developers, not the players. The onus belongs to ZOS, so they must do so diligently and responsibly, not by simply reacting (or overreacting).

Exploits and cheating makes the game "fun for one" but not for all. So please, developers, do something about it.

With all the talk on ESO Live I've heard about number crunching, this implies ZOS has access to the all the information necessary to identify people using 3rd party software to augment their stats. Load a suspected cheater's build data into a template, run that template through simulated combat situations, and see if the performance of the simulation is comparable to in-game performance. If the player's in-game performance is more than one standard deviation outside/above the simulation's performance, then clearly something fishy is happening. This isn't advanced biochemistry where individual differences and unknown environmental factors can explain odd variances in performance data. We're talking about a 100% artificial environment built on random number generators that operate within *known* parameters (because developers specify them). Doing this only requires an undergraduate grasp of statistics and probability.

This is not difficult to understand, and shouldn't be difficult to implement, so please, just do it, and rid us of the cheaters.

duncan_cougarpreeb18_ESO

ToRelax wrote: »

Alishka_Gunter wrote: »

Nah man, that's trolling the walls. You can repair damaged walls and doors so long as they are above 95%.

This is intended.

It's known as troll repairing. You have to time multiple siege to get it below 95% and then your fine. Well, so long as their isn't someone repairing once it hits 95%. You can stack 3-4 guys all repairing which means you need to time six siege or more to hit at once.

Which is exactly why we need to have easily accessible information about exactly what is or isn't considered an exploit. A lot of people think this one can't be intended, and in this thread ZOS basically tells them not to do it then.

However, it seems to work also with gate at 0% .... one second later at 25% despite shooting with siege
Is this also intended? Don't think so...

ToRelax

duncan_cougarpreeb18_ESO wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

Alishka_Gunter wrote: »

Nah man, that's trolling the walls. You can repair damaged walls and doors so long as they are above 95%.

This is intended.

It's known as troll repairing. You have to time multiple siege to get it below 95% and then your fine. Well, so long as their isn't someone repairing once it hits 95%. You can stack 3-4 guys all repairing which means you need to time six siege or more to hit at once.

Which is exactly why we need to have easily accessible information about exactly what is or isn't considered an exploit. A lot of people think this one can't be intended, and in this thread ZOS basically tells them not to do it then.

However, it seems to work also with gate at 0% .... one second later at 25% despite shooting with siege
Is this also intended? Don't think so...

Some gates were known to have been bugged this way in the past, but in most cases players simply don't manage to actually hit a broken gate with their siege (if that is at all possible, too long since I had a reason to).