Skill Point Exploit & Account Suspensions

Gruffysb16_ESO

Ok so now onto the real issue.....something that probably most people haven't thought about.

The three days isnt such a huge deal, it sucks but its not permanent however Zenimax have said that they are only resetting skill points back to where they were a week ago.

So what happens to skill points earned legitimately rather that erroneously , skill points earned from skyshards, quest lines ect. Those I presume will be reset too, and because you have already done that content and picked up those skyshards you wont be able to earn those skill points back.

Ergo a player affected by this ban who leveled up a warden to 50 last week will have likely 0 skill points when they login and will have done piles of content they cant do again to earn those points back.

What are you going to do about this Zenimax?

MajBludd

You get banned if you get those skyshards again, cause you already got them at a different time.

MajBludd

What I'd suggest is if you ran across this bug unintentionally and if you have eso+, cancel your subscription.
Doesn't have to permanently, just for a month or however long you feel is appropriate

Turelus

Lord_Draevan wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

As I have posted many times in other threads about exploiting I feel ZOS would do well to adopt a strike system (if not already) to make sure first time offended who may not know better learn, but repeat offenders are eventually removed from the game.

What I'd suggest:
1st strike: 1 month account ban
2nd strike: 3 month account ban
3rd strike: Permaban the account

EDIT: It would help if ZOS posts (either on the forums on the ESO website) what is an exploit when they find it.

Example, "Doing action X is an exploit. As of June 2nd, anyone caught doing it will be considered an exploiter and banned accordingly."

I've seen previous companies do.
1st: 1 week - removal of all gained assets (taking money negative if it's already spent, you grind that back positive).
2nd: 1month.
3rd: Permanent.

That's depending on the issues as well, I also know that CCP Games at least moved to a 2 strike for botting/RMT as they found people would just abuse the first and second strike for gains (still normally removed) and not stop until perma-bans loomed.

One of the key differences as well is CCP investigate accounts related to RMT and follow the money trail, making sure all accounts from buyers and sellers are punished (sellers are permaban, RIP bye, no strike system).
This means people who use alt accounts to sell their money (like know those on ESO do, yes I know people who have done it) still get caught an punished on all their accounts.

Darlon

lol, so people who stumbled over this and reported it honestly to zos got the banhammer as a thank you ??

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert Do you think anyone is ever going to report anything broken to you guys now if you keep screwing up like this ??

Merlin13KAGL

MissBizz wrote: »

Here's a thought.

Whether true or not, I don't know, but people are claiming they had no clue about this and are now on suspension.

We know Zos knew, heck there was a thread on the forums - but it didn't say what dungeon(s).

What IF... when Zos knew, they put a popup in game stating "There is a known exploit pertaining the X and Y dungeons bosses. Please do not defeat these bosses more than once until a fix has been put in place"

That way, anyone who does it after that, is damn sure aware of it.

To be honest, it might stop some from exploiting it... since they know Zos knows.

Part of this definitely could have been handled differently. I suspect part of the determination of an 'exploit' should involve what a reasonable person would assume to be normal in game behavior.

That being said, if you're not brand friggin' new, you probably have a pretty good idea how this does(n't) work.

On that note, I'd say anything more than 3 is deemed exploitive. This covers the one time "I wasn't paying attention to the giant white message that flashed across the screen." (50% ***, btw - if you're actively playing the game, you saw it, if you're not, you're already in violation of a different aspect.) This even covers the 3rd time without bug reporting (some people simply don't bother, as they don't know if anything comes from them.)

Anything beyond that, you had a pretty damn good idea what you were doing and that something probably wasn't right.

• Server message should have posted at login or when already logged in, as @MissBizz suggests. That is a fail on ZoS's side.
• Pretty sure it takes about 15 minutes to hotfix disabling content or part of content server side - disable the group boss, disable the whole damn instance. People in there would get ported out until properly fixed. Will it *** people off? Sure, but probably less than what's happening here.
• If that kind of ability is not available to high level Gamemasters, server side, ZoS might consider adding it. "This instance has been disabled due to an ongoing bug. You will be ported out in 10...9...8..."
• Actively review these involving a real live person. Takes all of 10 minutes, if that, to calculate the math of skyshards - skillpoints spent, etc and to see if the person submitted a bug report, hell, any bug report in the last week. If that value >3, add the suspension. If other circumstances applied, review and respond accordingly.
  • If < 3 and you bug reported it, skill point rollback (extras only), "Thanks for reporting this."
  • If < 3 and you didn't report it, gentle reminder to make sure you're actively playing the game.
  • If < 4 and you didn't report it, gentle reminder to /bug report odd game behavior, as this helps us find and correct potential exploits. Also helps protect you from potential suspensions in the event an exploit is determined.
  • If 4 or more, look at suspension history and reporting information (reports against you) and respond accordingly, up to and including a permaban.
• Ultimately fix the code so events such as this don't grant extra, or anything, for that matter after the initial completion.

White wabbit wrote: »

Surly by now people should know you only get one skill point from a group dungeon , so when they were getting 2 3 4 skill points they should have know this wasn't right , so I see no excuse

Bingo. Unless really, really new to this game, people were aware. If you were simply 'helping a friend while Netflixing,' maybe you should pay more attention to the game, since you'll have 3 days to catch up on your shows.

@Gruffysb16_ESO, they're rolling back the extra skillpoints only, and a possible skill reset if they've been spent. So they probably won't do my original suggestion (which was only intended for those that actually exploited this.)

If a character fell under the magic number 4 above, no big deal. Anything beyond that, they probably deserve what they get.

MajBludd

Not new and wasn't aware. Sorry, not always so black and white. Although I do agree with what you say on the way it should have been handled.

I don't keep a log book of what sky shards I got and where. I don't pve much. Only to lvl enough to get into pvp and to grind out gear, so I don't really pay attention to what or what didn't flash on the screen.
Some times I'm distracted by my side asking me to help her with things or to play with the pups or respond to a txt.

MajBludd

*wife

Aleraon

If it is one of the public dungeon group bosses I just hope it wasn't the one I've been running round in trying to collect pieces of that dwemer pet and levelling my warden. Guess I'll find out soon enough once I get home from work.

As others have said, a pop up or some kind of warning to make people aware of this would have been a good idea as I've been running round killing everything in the delve, not just bosses. I just hope zos can tell the difference between someone exploiting and someone just playing the game.

DarkAedin

U guys are horrible.
Zos effed up, we had no clue this was bugged till this thread came up, no warning.
Its completely normal to grind bosses for gear and xp.
I was farming bangkorai for 7th legion/spriggan setup this past weekend on my lowbie. I hit the public delve for the pieces that drop there, gloves and shoulder.
In that public delve there are 4 bosses including the group event within 50ft of each other. I did the rotation 4-5 times and got my pieces and headed off to cyro. Was paying attention to the pieces of gear i got bc i was looking for specific traits and not looking for skillpoints. Didnt notice skillpoint gain. Just kept running through the boss rotation trying to keep up with the higher level players also farming.

Even if i did realize i was getting a message (which i did not notice) about an extra skillpoint whenever i killed one of those 4 bosses. Im still playing the game within thier rules. Theres nothing wrong with farming bosses. They never told me not to do this. I got no message indicating to me that bosses were bugged. So i played the game and got a 3 day ban for getting my lowbie some pvp gear.

I did not deserve a 3 day suspension for playing the game normally, grinding dungeon bosses for loot.
Ive been playing since beta.. wat if this was a new player? He/she wont be coming back lol

When i opened a ticket he closed it right away. I didnt find i what i did wrong till i came here and took part in this thread. A week after i farmed that dungeon.

Edited for phone typing typos

Gruffysb16_ESO

Sorry, those of us who discovered the problem for ourselves were explicitly told not to inform anyone else about the issue, see the forum post here:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/4186244#Comment_4186244

we weren't allowed to help you avoid it.

Elsonso

SantieClaws wrote: »

Khajiit knows very good and honest players who have been caught up in this.

It's the most normal thing in the word, if in a public dungeon with a group of friendly travellers, to go and do each of the bosses several times to make sure everyone has got them yes.

Of all the exploiting issues that this one she is aware of this sounds the most likely to catch people who had no intention of doing any wrong.

Of course if someone has obviously acquired 100 skill points and has sat there for hours farming this one boss then give them a ban but if someone has only accidentally acquired an extra couple of points then it might be just better to remove the points - rather than upsetting players, making them cancel ESO Plus, even perhaps quitting? Leaving a bad taste in the mouth of good players is sometimes just not worth it.

Khajiit also hopes the bans will not count against these players in the future on this occasion.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Well, in the case of rampant innocents, I expect that ZOS will reverse some of them. If they had their net set too tight, shame on them. Naturally, the Forum will find issue with this, but I would rather guilty go free than the innocent punished.

Still, 300 seems small for the duration and type of exploit. Even with Vvardenfell just being released and people spending time there, I would expect more than 300 people out of the thousands playing.

Juli'St

@ZOS_GinaBruno

ZOS still omiting about MANY exploit's in this game and you know that. If Devs investigate some armor addon's, your team dev ll see what i say here.

Other, Many players still JUMP into keeps like in past - today i make a report about - and, of corse, ll be ignored for this support.

SantieClaws

lordrichter wrote: »

SantieClaws wrote: »

Khajiit knows very good and honest players who have been caught up in this.

It's the most normal thing in the word, if in a public dungeon with a group of friendly travellers, to go and do each of the bosses several times to make sure everyone has got them yes.

Of all the exploiting issues that this one she is aware of this sounds the most likely to catch people who had no intention of doing any wrong.

Of course if someone has obviously acquired 100 skill points and has sat there for hours farming this one boss then give them a ban but if someone has only accidentally acquired an extra couple of points then it might be just better to remove the points - rather than upsetting players, making them cancel ESO Plus, even perhaps quitting? Leaving a bad taste in the mouth of good players is sometimes just not worth it.

Khajiit also hopes the bans will not count against these players in the future on this occasion.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Well, in the case of rampant innocents, I expect that ZOS will reverse some of them. If they had their net set too tight, shame on them. Naturally, the Forum will find issue with this, but I would rather guilty go free than the innocent punished.

Still, 300 seems small for the duration and type of exploit. Even with Vvardenfell just being released and people spending time there, I would expect more than 300 people out of the thousands playing.

This one is not sure, from what she has been told, that it was a dungeon in Vvardenfell. Khajiit does not even know for sure that it was limited to just one dungeon.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

DarkAedin

lordrichter wrote: »

SantieClaws wrote: »

Khajiit knows very good and honest players who have been caught up in this.

It's the most normal thing in the word, if in a public dungeon with a group of friendly travellers, to go and do each of the bosses several times to make sure everyone has got them yes.

Of all the exploiting issues that this one she is aware of this sounds the most likely to catch people who had no intention of doing any wrong.

Of course if someone has obviously acquired 100 skill points and has sat there for hours farming this one boss then give them a ban but if someone has only accidentally acquired an extra couple of points then it might be just better to remove the points - rather than upsetting players, making them cancel ESO Plus, even perhaps quitting? Leaving a bad taste in the mouth of good players is sometimes just not worth it.

Khajiit also hopes the bans will not count against these players in the future on this occasion.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Well, in the case of rampant innocents, I expect that ZOS will reverse some of them. If they had their net set too tight, shame on them. Naturally, the Forum will find issue with this, but I would rather guilty go free than the innocent punished.

Still, 300 seems small for the duration and type of exploit. Even with Vvardenfell just being released and people spending time there, I would expect more than 300 people out of the thousands playing.

A few of us figured out that we all farmed one area last week. We were all farming spriggans gear. Look back on this thread.
It makes sense so few players hitting it within first few days of vvarden dropping, its the last dc quest zone. I myself was only there to get 7th/ spriggan gear for lowbie kyne (new bwb) pvp.
But apparently zos in thier infinite wisdom thought it was better practice to ban rather then warn off

Elsonso

SantieClaws wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

SantieClaws wrote: »

Khajiit knows very good and honest players who have been caught up in this.

It's the most normal thing in the word, if in a public dungeon with a group of friendly travellers, to go and do each of the bosses several times to make sure everyone has got them yes.

Of all the exploiting issues that this one she is aware of this sounds the most likely to catch people who had no intention of doing any wrong.

Of course if someone has obviously acquired 100 skill points and has sat there for hours farming this one boss then give them a ban but if someone has only accidentally acquired an extra couple of points then it might be just better to remove the points - rather than upsetting players, making them cancel ESO Plus, even perhaps quitting? Leaving a bad taste in the mouth of good players is sometimes just not worth it.

Khajiit also hopes the bans will not count against these players in the future on this occasion.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Well, in the case of rampant innocents, I expect that ZOS will reverse some of them. If they had their net set too tight, shame on them. Naturally, the Forum will find issue with this, but I would rather guilty go free than the innocent punished.

Still, 300 seems small for the duration and type of exploit. Even with Vvardenfell just being released and people spending time there, I would expect more than 300 people out of the thousands playing.

This one is not sure, from what she has been told, that it was a dungeon in Vvardenfell. Khajiit does not even know for sure that it was limited to just one dungeon.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Part of the problem is that we don't know exactly what dungeons or what bosses. To me, it sounds like all of them because I am reading comments talking about different dungeons. I am also reading that people with and without Morrowind got suspended. I have to assume it was a global issue, not a single instance. If that is the case, 300 is not a large enough number. If it is one boss in one dungeon, then it is.

DarkAedin

SantieClaws wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

SantieClaws wrote: »

Khajiit knows very good and honest players who have been caught up in this.

It's the most normal thing in the word, if in a public dungeon with a group of friendly travellers, to go and do each of the bosses several times to make sure everyone has got them yes.

Of all the exploiting issues that this one she is aware of this sounds the most likely to catch people who had no intention of doing any wrong.

Of course if someone has obviously acquired 100 skill points and has sat there for hours farming this one boss then give them a ban but if someone has only accidentally acquired an extra couple of points then it might be just better to remove the points - rather than upsetting players, making them cancel ESO Plus, even perhaps quitting? Leaving a bad taste in the mouth of good players is sometimes just not worth it.

Khajiit also hopes the bans will not count against these players in the future on this occasion.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Well, in the case of rampant innocents, I expect that ZOS will reverse some of them. If they had their net set too tight, shame on them. Naturally, the Forum will find issue with this, but I would rather guilty go free than the innocent punished.

Still, 300 seems small for the duration and type of exploit. Even with Vvardenfell just being released and people spending time there, I would expect more than 300 people out of the thousands playing.

This one is not sure, from what she has been told, that it was a dungeon in Vvardenfell. Khajiit does not even know for sure that it was limited to just one dungeon.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

I never entered any delve in vvarden. Wasnt there. The only boss i killed more then once this past week while playing the new warden was in bangkorai.
Based on another posters info, i had thought it was vvarden too and was confused bc i only killed 1 overworld boss in vvarden twice - on seperate occasions.
The only thing i farmed thos past weekend was spriggans / 7th gear from bangkoria. A few other players here also farmed only that area and were hit too. We believe its the bangkorai public dungeon....
But thats a huge problem isnt it? We dont even know what we did. All the zos employees tell us is that we exploited and close our threads or emails

This is some bull

bennysbeastb16_ESO2

2bh Zos should be clearing stating issues like this on forums, so people can be aware,
i spent the whole week farming vardefell (week off work for it) so i dont believe its in that instance..

Also i have 5 charectors 600+ cp, and never realised that you could gain skill points from doing group activities in delves(learn something every day*; are their specific quests? ).. as a solo player this isnt something ive ever picked up on, i dont do dailies (e.g. mage guild etc), , so with all those people on their high horse shouting you know what you did, gtfo please. Grow de *** up, not everything is a conspiracy.

And with Zos not clearly stating what boss; in which location. doesnt help the community at all.

* and i havent been banned so i guess i didnt run into the area, **
Sympathies to those who have been caught up in the issue, and well 'unlucky' o those who did know and got caught ;D

**Final note, other companies do states exploit on their forums, i.e Ubisoft is one, that way people can be notified, and pass the neccesary information on through guild chat..*

White wabbit

bennysbeastb16_ESO2 wrote: »

2bh Zos should be clearing stating issues like this on forums, so people can be aware,
i spent the whole week farming vardefell (week off work for it) so i dont believe its in that instance..

Also i have 5 charectors 600+ cp, and never realised that you could gain skill points from doing group activities in delves(learn something every day*; are their specific quests? ).. as a solo player this isnt something ive ever picked up on, i dont do dailies (e.g. mage guild etc), , so with all those people on their high horse shouting you know what you did, gtfo please. Grow de *** up, not everything is a conspiracy.

And with Zos not clearly stating what boss; in which location. doesnt help the community at all.

* and i havent been banned so i guess i didnt run into the area, **
Sympathies to those who have been caught up in the issue, and well 'unlucky' o those who did know and got caught ;D

All the group dungeons have a sky shard and a certain boss that if you kill you get a one off skill point

DarkAedin

I think there should be an in game warning.

Its not my responsibility to check every forum page first thing before i log on to see whats newly bugged and exploitable.
What about the tons of players that dont get on the forums.
I never got a warning. Had no clue there was an issue or that i even picked up xtra skillpoint bc i went into pvp directly after i farmed the gear, had already previously set and saved my bars, and spent the night in cyrodiil till i got vigor, which netted me several skillpoints on the way.
I had no clue this happened till i got booted yesterday while in the middle if questing in eastmarch. Clarity came when i came to this thread and discussed with other players what happened.
My ticket was immidatly closed without informing me of anything other then i exploited.
This is how zos treats its customers.
This is not appropriate.

DarkAedin

Btw my character has completed all of dc and ads main zone stories, skyshards, and public dungeons. I have caltrops on him now too so thats a bunch more skillpoints from pvp.
I was up to eastmarch when i was booted. Thats the 2nd to last ep zone. U realize i have a ton of skillpoints from painstainkingly going through all this content. getting a few from farming bosses while grinding out gear is unnoticable in the middle of a massive skillpoint grind.
And i just shelled out $50 canadian for the xpansion

RoamingRiverElk

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Last week, there was an exploit reported on PC that allowed you to repeatedly gain skill points from a single location. We have since fixed this issue as of our most recent incremental patch, but accounts had not yet been actioned… until now. This afternoon, we’ll be suspending close to 300 PC accounts that were found exploiting this issue. In addition to a 3-day suspension, affected accounts will have all skill points reset to their original state before this exploit occurred.

We encourage everyone to review the Terms of Service and Code of Conduct. If you’re unsure if you’ve found an exploit in ESO, please reach out to a staff member or contact Support.

If you're unsure or sure at ZoS that there is an exploit in ESO, please reach out to players on the forum and inform them on the login screen with a Pop-up.

Your communication on exploits is VERY unclear and leads to people getting punished for not knowing what is allowed and what is not. Take this case for example - it is likely that many new or casual players do not know you're not supposed to get a skill point each time you complete the group event in a public dungeon. Another example is the way the AP trading at outposts was handled - you did not provide clear communication that it was considered an exploit. Thus many people did it, and those players who tried to stop the trading were mocked for it. And people who would have otherwise avoided trading AP like that got punished.

These things need to be announced when people log into the game. ZoS must make decisions much, much faster on what is considered an exploit and what is not, and then clearly communicate that to the players. If it is not a blatant case of exploiting, then players should only be punished if they perform the punishable action AFTER the announcement has been made.

Skullstachio

@ZOS_GinaBruno

I would recommend closing this thread to ensure that it does not get out of hand.
But more importantly, to move on to different topics instead of talking about the you-know-what.

(As certain topics should be kept under wraps unless discussed with a ZOS staff member privately via the PM[private message] System.)

Lithium Flower

While I think it's a positive improvement that ZOS is starting to take action against exploits and exploiters but the way it has happened the last couple of times has been handled really unfairly and inappropriately.

Protection from retroactive law is a fundamental tenant of justice and equity. It is afterall, even included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (which is obviously not applicable here but the principle still matters).

It's simply wrong to punish people without defining the actions that constitute an offence.

ZOS needs to be proactive against exploits and exploiters, it's good they're willing to take quick steps to correct exploits and ban abusers but there needs to be a lot more transparency to this process.

I was following the developments during the last big exploit/moderation incident - the infamous Bleaker's RP season and frankly, while many, many PvPers absolutely felt the AP farming was exploitative, abusive and diminishing the value of alliance ranks and AP as currency - the overwhelming feeling on the forums and in-game based on the posts ZOS made was that it was not an exploit but a "clever use of game mechanics" much like animation cancelling. Yes you got an advantage but it was available to anyone and operated within the intended mechanics (outpost capture and recapture).

People debated in guild chats whether it was an exploit or not and behaved accordingly.

At no point did any ZOS developer clearly state that playing the game this way, performing the actions that resulted in large AP gains by not contesting outpost capture was considered an exploit and that abusers of this exploit would be punished.

The exploit got so widespread and rampant and blatant precisely because there was no developer comment on whether it was allowed behaviour or not.

This happened pretty much again in Morrowind.

It didn't require players to do much outside of the intended gameplay. There was no comment on whether it was considerd an exploit, a bug, or whether players should expect to be actioned against.

There were new players and veterans alike farming in the dungeons like they've done before and they had to do very little out of their routine to end up éxploiting'.

Some of them reported it as a bug, most did not because that's how players are. A fraction will ever bother to give feedback.

Then a week later, without warning, developers turn around and slap bans on 300 account.

This is terrible lack of transparency.

When an exploit is brought to developer notice - the first thing that should be done is a post on the forum advising players from abusing it.

"We are aware of the action that results in X. This is considered an exploit and we are working on fixing it. Until that time, players found abusing this exploit will be taken action against." Then put this notice up on the login page even if the latest disco-guar-senche-wolf advertisement has to be bumped down a couple of sentences.

And if despite the public notice, players continue to abuse exploits and unintended mechanics, by all means, slam down the banhammer so hard, they get knocked into next year.

James-Wayne

Moral of the story = don't farm gear

MajBludd

And again, good luck getting a response from a ZOS employee. Enjoy your 3 day suspension. Guess it's time to take care of the honey do list.

AzraelKrieg

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

I'm so glad I didn't pre order Marrowind and accidentally get banned . Being a cheap skate pays off once again .

Wouldn't have mattered because the dungeon in question wasn't part of Morrowind, it was part of the base zones

LiquidPony

altemriel wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Sheey wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Will punishments be worse if any of these people were repeat offenders?

As I feel whilst this issue was reversible the fact we often see suspensions only leads people to promote exploiting, cash out before the suspension, take a suspension and enjoy the rewards still.

As I have posted many times in other threads about exploiting I feel ZOS would do well to adopt a strike system (if not already) to make sure first time offended who may not know better learn, but repeat offenders are eventually removed from the game.

No. Just No.

Repeat offenders should not be removed from the game. As long as it is game expirienced-related the punishments should stay ingame related and not account related.

Suspending someone from the game permanently is never to take in action just because someone abusing a bug in game. Permanently bans are reserved for Bots and system hacks ONLY.

This is the procedure for almost every other MMO, there are clear ToS rules stating you are not to exploit bugs if encountered.

The issue we have with ESO and exploiting is that because ZOS has rarely ever made a harsh stance we literally see people telling one another to abuse bugs on the forums and have active groups within the game which find them and abuse for massive gains yet face only a temporary suspension.

I've been banging on about this for over a year now linking the same old information again and again. If ZOS wants ESO to have a reputation of a fair and competitive online game then they need to start taking actual actions against people who continuously exploit bugs for advantages in the game.

Here are some examples to prove I am not just touting rubbish.

https://community.eveonline.com/support/policies/suspension-and-ban-policy/
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-conduct-breaches-outcomes/
http://www.playonline.com/ff11eu/rule/manner05.html?pageID=manner

Maybe I'm a jerk, but, I feel like a more reasonable solution to this problem would be ... fix the bugs? Invest in a competent QA team? Hold the developers responsible for consistently releasing bug-riddled code that never gets fixed?

It just seems to me that if ZOS "wants ESO to have a reputation of a fair and competitive online game," then they should produce a game that isn't a donkey show of bugs, crashes, and lag.

Stuff like this leading to permabans would be a great way to let ESO rest in pepperoni. I've spent many an evening grinding Public Dungeons for various purposes (guild events, gear farm, gold farm, etc.).

The issue and the reason a ToS exists is because not all bugs can be foreseen and fixed instantly. You have to remember there are groups who go on PTS to find issues, don't report them then abuse in the live game.

ToS which gives a company freedom to suspend or ban due to unforeseen bugs. It should only lead to a perma ban if a player constantly after one or two strikes continues to exploit bugs.

If you find a bug which can be exploited, report it, don't use it, don't get banned. It's that simple.

My point is that bugs like this one can easily be accidentally "exploited" by people who had no ill intent.

And there are other bugs that are "exploited" to work around broken content that can't be played otherwise.

And there are many potential bugs that are, by some definition, being "exploited" in competitive end-game content ... but of course we have no idea if those are actually bugs that we are exploiting or intentional mechanics.

Anyway, all I'm saying is that it cuts both ways. People should be banned for repeatedly exploiting known bugs, but ZOS should do a better job of communicating the existence of those bugs and then fixing them. The sheer number of bugs and exploits in this game is astounding.

If ZOS wants this to be a fair and competitive online game, the buck starts and stops with ZOS. Putting all of the blame on players, especially in cases like this, just allows ZOS to continue raking in cash for delivering broken content.

well yes, it can.

But an easy way to distinguish this is when someone gains 2 or 3 skill points like that and when someone other one gains 20 skill points farming this location for few hours, right?

lol, you think ZOS is capable of "easily distinguishing" the difference between exploiters and people who accidentally ran into a bug?

This thread is proof that they are not.

I am sometimes amazed that this company managed to deliver a game that works at all.

Elsonso

.

LiquidPony wrote: »

altemriel wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Sheey wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Will punishments be worse if any of these people were repeat offenders?

As I feel whilst this issue was reversible the fact we often see suspensions only leads people to promote exploiting, cash out before the suspension, take a suspension and enjoy the rewards still.

As I have posted many times in other threads about exploiting I feel ZOS would do well to adopt a strike system (if not already) to make sure first time offended who may not know better learn, but repeat offenders are eventually removed from the game.

No. Just No.

Repeat offenders should not be removed from the game. As long as it is game expirienced-related the punishments should stay ingame related and not account related.

Suspending someone from the game permanently is never to take in action just because someone abusing a bug in game. Permanently bans are reserved for Bots and system hacks ONLY.

This is the procedure for almost every other MMO, there are clear ToS rules stating you are not to exploit bugs if encountered.

The issue we have with ESO and exploiting is that because ZOS has rarely ever made a harsh stance we literally see people telling one another to abuse bugs on the forums and have active groups within the game which find them and abuse for massive gains yet face only a temporary suspension.

I've been banging on about this for over a year now linking the same old information again and again. If ZOS wants ESO to have a reputation of a fair and competitive online game then they need to start taking actual actions against people who continuously exploit bugs for advantages in the game.

Here are some examples to prove I am not just touting rubbish.

https://community.eveonline.com/support/policies/suspension-and-ban-policy/
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-conduct-breaches-outcomes/
http://www.playonline.com/ff11eu/rule/manner05.html?pageID=manner

Maybe I'm a jerk, but, I feel like a more reasonable solution to this problem would be ... fix the bugs? Invest in a competent QA team? Hold the developers responsible for consistently releasing bug-riddled code that never gets fixed?

It just seems to me that if ZOS "wants ESO to have a reputation of a fair and competitive online game," then they should produce a game that isn't a donkey show of bugs, crashes, and lag.

Stuff like this leading to permabans would be a great way to let ESO rest in pepperoni. I've spent many an evening grinding Public Dungeons for various purposes (guild events, gear farm, gold farm, etc.).

The issue and the reason a ToS exists is because not all bugs can be foreseen and fixed instantly. You have to remember there are groups who go on PTS to find issues, don't report them then abuse in the live game.

ToS which gives a company freedom to suspend or ban due to unforeseen bugs. It should only lead to a perma ban if a player constantly after one or two strikes continues to exploit bugs.

If you find a bug which can be exploited, report it, don't use it, don't get banned. It's that simple.

My point is that bugs like this one can easily be accidentally "exploited" by people who had no ill intent.

And there are other bugs that are "exploited" to work around broken content that can't be played otherwise.

And there are many potential bugs that are, by some definition, being "exploited" in competitive end-game content ... but of course we have no idea if those are actually bugs that we are exploiting or intentional mechanics.

Anyway, all I'm saying is that it cuts both ways. People should be banned for repeatedly exploiting known bugs, but ZOS should do a better job of communicating the existence of those bugs and then fixing them. The sheer number of bugs and exploits in this game is astounding.

If ZOS wants this to be a fair and competitive online game, the buck starts and stops with ZOS. Putting all of the blame on players, especially in cases like this, just allows ZOS to continue raking in cash for delivering broken content.

well yes, it can.

But an easy way to distinguish this is when someone gains 2 or 3 skill points like that and when someone other one gains 20 skill points farming this location for few hours, right?

lol, you think ZOS is capable of "easily distinguishing" the difference between exploiters and people who accidentally ran into a bug?

This thread is proof that they are not.

I am sometimes amazed that this company managed to deliver a game that works at all.

This thread is anecdotal, and nothing more. ZOS is cagey about the actual exploit and has, apparently, not even told the people who were suspended exactly what they did, where, and when. On top of that, we only have the word of the people reporting as to what they did. Not that I want to call people liars, but it is not like they can provide proof to us.

That said, I believe they probably have a problem where they are banning for unintentional infringement, and possibly even well-intentioned infringement (for reporting purposes). I just have no proof.

I do expect they will make it right for those people, though.

Gruffysb16_ESO

LiquidPony wrote: »

I am sometimes amazed that this company managed to deliver a game that works at all.

Are you mad? Clearly you have not been here for the last 3 months where the dungeon finder has been utterly borked!