Is AP boosting allowed or is it against the terms of service? Can boosters get in trouble?

DHale

Speez is already the emperor in my eyes... and always will be.

Soul_Demon

Apparently Zeni does in fact consider boosting against the TOS. I will go ahead and post this since it has been asked but forum moderators have not been able to comment on it just yet for those of us who wanted an official answer to the question of boosting.


Ticket submitted: Asking if boosting is against TOS
"As a PvP player I have seen on occasion methods of 'boosting' your AP to take the top spot on the leaderboards as have many other players in the game. Many believe it to be against the TOS and therefore cheating the game and do not use those methods. Currently the forums has a thread explicitly asking Zeni to give some guidance to the players with regard to the methods and if they are cheating or not cheating here:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/311872/is-ap-boosting-allowed-or-is-it-against-the-terms-of-service-can-boosters-get-in-trouble
There has not been a response in the forums yet even with a forum administrator being directly linked and asked for guidance on the question."

Ticket response:Response By (Zachary) (01/10/2017 10:22 AM)
"Greetings (PvP player),

At this point, this practice would fall under:
"You agree not to use any hardware or software or any other method of support that is not authorized by ZeniMax or that may in any way influence or advantage Your playing abilities, or influence or advantage Your use of the Services. Third party tools, the use of "bots", "speed hacks", "deep-link", "page-scrape", "robot", "spider", algorithms or other programs that copy or monitor any part of the Services (including, but not limited to, the Game(s) and/or forums), software that transmits, manipulates, or distributes (including, but are limited to, "mirroring") the data stream or any aspect of the Services to another computer, server websites or other publication or distribution media, or software that permits You to use Services without human input are examples of methods not authorized by ZeniMax."

This would be considered "any other method of support that is not authorized by ZeniMax" because we do not condone or endorse this method of play. Each claim of Terms of Service violations are investigated independently and then actioned appropriately.

We do not discuss the actions taken on other people's accounts, no matter what.

Regards,
The Elder Scrolls Online Team"

Anazasi

Soul_Demon wrote: »

Apparently Zeni does in fact consider boosting against the TOS. I will go ahead and post this since it has been asked but forum moderators have not been able to comment on it just yet for those of us who wanted an official answer to the question of boosting.


Ticket submitted: Asking if boosting is against TOS
"As a PvP player I have seen on occasion methods of 'boosting' your AP to take the top spot on the leaderboards as have many other players in the game. Many believe it to be against the TOS and therefore cheating the game and do not use those methods. Currently the forums has a thread explicitly asking Zeni to give some guidance to the players with regard to the methods and if they are cheating or not cheating here:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/311872/is-ap-boosting-allowed-or-is-it-against-the-terms-of-service-can-boosters-get-in-trouble
There has not been a response in the forums yet even with a forum administrator being directly linked and asked for guidance on the question."

Ticket response:Response By (Zachary) (01/10/2017 10:22 AM)
"Greetings (PvP player),

At this point, this practice would fall under:
"You agree not to use any hardware or software or any other method of support that is not authorized by ZeniMax or that may in any way influence or advantage Your playing abilities, or influence or advantage Your use of the Services. Third party tools, the use of "bots", "speed hacks", "deep-link", "page-scrape", "robot", "spider", algorithms or other programs that copy or monitor any part of the Services (including, but not limited to, the Game(s) and/or forums), software that transmits, manipulates, or distributes (including, but are limited to, "mirroring") the data stream or any aspect of the Services to another computer, server websites or other publication or distribution media, or software that permits You to use Services without human input are examples of methods not authorized by ZeniMax."

This would be considered "any other method of support that is not authorized by ZeniMax" because we do not condone or endorse this method of play. Each claim of Terms of Service violations are investigated independently and then actioned appropriately.

We do not discuss the actions taken on other people's accounts, no matter what.

Regards,
The Elder Scrolls Online Team"

interesting response. I would assume than that a combination of death recap and combat log would be sufficient proof with time stamps of course of those players using macro's. I suppose it would be time to start policing the macro invested zone for all those lazy players who simply cant manage to push 6 buttons with their own fingers.

ilander

I was playing a campaign on Blackwater Blade with one of my new toons and there was a guy who was top of the table but nobody had seen him anywhere at any point. This continued for a good while, like a couple of days of nobody having seen him at any point. For this reason, we didn't even want to crown the emp but there were many of us who started submitting tickets because there was definitely something weird going on.

At one point, some of us spotted the guy and he had the cheek to tell us in zone chat that he was going to keep doing it over and over, every campaign so that nobody else could get emp.

Thankfully on the 3rd day of us submitting tickets, the guy mysteriously stopped gaining any ap and didn't gain any the rest of the campaign so evidently zos did actually take action on this occasion but i think it took a lot of people having to waste their time submitting tickets for something that was obviously "a bit strange."

We guessed that he was either farming another of his own accounts on 2 pcs or he had another account that someone had signed in with and there was a ban for account sharing. Either way, it was stopped on this occasion but generally, it is so hard to prove these things in the game because ZOS always want full video evidence with a pound of flesh before they'll even remotely consider anything other than ignoring the matter completely.

Neoakropolis

speeez wrote: »

This is the second time I have been beat for my emporer push due to players boosting AP.
(If you aren't familiar, AP boosting is when a player either pays players of another faction or has their friends of another faction purposely die to them in cyrodiil to gain alliance points at a very fast rate).
I have reported the players both of the times yet zenimax hasn't respond to me, which leads me to believe it is allowed in the game.

I read the terms of service and have found that it might fall under these categories:

"You agree not to use any Service to:
- Promote, upload, transmit, encourage or take part in any activity involving hacking, cracking, phishing, taking advantage of exploits or cheats and/or distribution of counterfeit software and/or Virtual Currency or virtual items. In an effort to continuously improve the Services, You and other players discovering exploits, cheats, cracks or other inconsistencies are required to report them to ZeniMax;
- Engage in disruptive behavior in chat areas, game areas, forums, or any other area or aspect of the Services. Examples of disruptive behavior include, but are not limited to, conduct which interferes with the normal flow of gameplay or dialogue within a Service, vulgar language, abusiveness, hitting the return key repeatedly or inputting large images so the screen goes by too fast to read, use of excessive shouting [i.e., all text in capitals] in an attempt to disturb other users, "spamming" or flooding [i.e., posting repetitive text], commercial postings, solicitations and advertisements, posting advertising or promotional messaging, chain letters, pyramid schemes, or other commercial activities;"

The first time I was beat by an AP booster, the booster admitted it to me in game via whispers, and I have screenshots, yet zenimax has still not responded.
I've also found threads in regards to this topic that date back to 2014 (reference), yet no solution.

So here I am lead to believe that players will not get punished and/or it is allowed in the game?
Thanks for anyone's input on if they think players will not get in trouble for AP boosting and if they think it is allowed.

Guess you wernt around when players would head off to the unpopulated servers and flip keeps (leave the breaches open) to get all their guildies emp. It was usually done by 2 guilds of opposite factions. This was when former emps had a skill tree. Over a weekend you would see tons of "Former Emp" titles appear out of nowhere.

WeylandLabs

Ive been fighting this way too long if i cant beatum joinum. Bought my Nacon Revolution controller yesterday, macros here we come, not for farming for playing. And perfectly legit licensed by PlayStation.

Im done fighting this, and seems like players dont care about Honor, then i thought well its a video game and factions are pointless.

No real reason to be loyal when its all about stats and achievements and leaderboards and AP.

AD since June 10th 2015 and been AD since then. 16 monthly campaigns won. 11 Azura 5 Scourge.

Derra

Ackwalan wrote: »

you won't get an answer. ZOS won't discuss something like this.

No they stick their head in the sand and hope everything will turn out allright.

Garwulf

Personally the Emperor system is one of the most pointless facets of Cyrodiil.
Virtually all emperors are AP Farmers; i only know a handfull who got it by actually working for it and not what I call expoiting the game mechanics by killing their own 'mates' over and over again etc.
The current system should be removed from the game and replaced by a system which not only rewards you for becoming Emperor but also punishes you when you fail at being Emoprer. There are currently so many failed Emperors running around Cyrodiil it is essentially a joke.

White wabbit

Emp and alliance ranks mean nothing now after all the crap going on ! Well done Zos on a great job

EIGHTS

I think many of those players will tell you it's not true. They don't cross faction. They only have one toon in this faction.

frozywozy