Response to the Veteran Hard Mode Asylum Sanctorium Trial Exploit - Nov. 10

Shad0wfire99

INHUMANENATION wrote: »

Timeoin wrote: »

Can we please have their gamer tags posted, so we can be wary of these folks in future?

@Devs, Why this thread wasn't locked initially baffles me. Look at this guy above! Asking for gamertags? When will it end? I long for the days when these issues were handled discreetly, confidentially and professionally.

@Timeoin They have been permanently banned. What do you have to worry about in the future? Shame on all the people in here gleefully celebrating other peoples punishments. Whereas the people exploiting are unknown, those of you that are in here piling and rejoicing at the expense of those banned, are not.

Lock the thread and for the record, Zero Tolerance is actually the worst form of intolerance. I hope the trend of throwing my fellow players to the wolves to appease the losers that take joy out of things like this ends. The players broke the ToS but have also made you aware of a bug in the programming. There could have been a lot better ways to handle this and leaving this thread open for discussion doesn't paint the best picture about depth of character in the powers that be.

Do you know these people? Because I do, and a good number of them have been banned multiple times (3-day) for multiple reasons. They've exploited, and profited, off of pretty much every exploit that's been in this game over the last year. The game is better off without them. So, yes, I'm celebrating.

x0drkghost0x

I actually know a few people who were banned personally on Xbox. It sucks because they were along for the ride. They were told to get in the group and just follow directions. I already addressed it with one of them that when you saw what was happening, you should have left. You can always leave group then report it. That could have been his saving grace. Sadly, his account is now banned on Xbox. I told him what he could try in order to get it reversed, but with ZOS's statement, I seriously doubt it will happen.

Buffler

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Recently, a small number of players discovered a way to kill Saint Olms + 2 (Hard mode in Veteran Asylum Sanctorium) from safely outside his room where he could not attack them. This is not only unintended and an exploit, but it cheapens the time and work put in by players who have legitimately beat this fight and earn a very difficult achievement and reward. As a result, we have permanently banned all players – 34 accounts in all – who used the exploit to complete the kill and earn the special achievement and skin in this way. We will not be considering overturns for these account bans. They are permanent and final.

We are working on a fix for this exploit, but we will not be able to deploy it until Monday at the earliest. We will be watching things closely over the weekend. After we deploy the fix on Monday, we will do another audit of kills for this fight. Be warned: we will permanently ban any additional players who use the exploit over the weekend.

Its funny, as the reasons given for the ban are :

"This is not only unintended and an exploit, but it cheapens the time and work put in by players who have legitimately beat this fight and earn a very difficult achievement and reward."

Can I ask ;

1) Are top guilds selling vmol carries for 2.4m gold intended.
2) Is selling these runs not exploiting the players paying as they cant find a team due to time constraints etc
3)Does selling these carries not cheapen the time and work put in by legitimate players who completed vmol through progression.

I believe those guilds selling vmol carries meet all this criteria and urge ZOS to perma ban everyone that has charged people for these carries.

x0drkghost0x

Buffler wrote: »

1) Are top guilds selling vmol carries for 2.4m gold intended.
2) Is selling these runs not exploiting the players paying as they cant find a team due to time constraints etc
3)Does selling these carries not cheapen the time and work put in by legitimate players who completed vmol through progression.

I believe those guilds selling vmol carries meet all this criteria and urge ZOS to perma ban everyone that has charged people for these carries.

No, said guilds selling vMOL runs are not exploiting a glitch in order to gain the skin. They still legitimately complete the content for the skin. Paying does cheapen it, but it doesn't violate the TOS as served by ZOS. Your ascertation is false.

woe

Thank you ZoS.

Horowonnoe

lynog85 wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

lynog85 wrote: »

Perma bans way too harsh imo. Zos are releasing unfinished content with these exploits only being possible because of THEM. I hope all accounts who done this get it overturned.

lol

The people who did this didn't accidentally exploit something.

They figured it out on normal and then went back and intentionally exploited it on vet HM.

And then some other people found out about it, got the details, and did the same thing. Some of those people are long-time players with 700+ CP who are regularly on the leaderboards. Who then were advertising in zone chats that they were selling vAS HM skin runs.

So on top of exploiting and getting a skin and title that all end game PvE guilds covet, they then tried to use the exploit to make a bunch of in-game money.

Can't imagine how dumb you have to be to risk a permanent ban for something like this.

But I'm sure they stashed a bunch of gold and gear in a guild bank somewhere and they'll be back by the end of the day on new accounts.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom it'd be a real shame if you guys took a look at guild bank deposit transactions from the banned accounts and made all that money disappear ... most of which was probably earned via exploits like this one anyway.

Good riddance. GG ZOS.

Totally missing my point. Paid content shouldnt beable to be exploited. If they developed it properly then these people would have no option but to do it legit.

if only life was perfect...

Jim_Pipp

It seems most people are really happy to see a strong stance against exploits. The game has a reputation for being slow to respond to exploits and soft on exploiters. I really love that Zos is changing that perception, even if it means naughty players get treated more harshly now than they would have in the past.

A few weeks ago I sent mods a public YouTube video showing how to do a different exploit. The comments on the video made me ashamed of the game. People were telling each other that there would be no consequence, that Zos wouldn't fix the exploit for months, and the only outrage was that the exploit wasn't being kept secret (by one-of-the-most-famous-pvpers) so a small number of people could get an advantage over everyone else.

Keep up the harsh punishments until ESO has a better reputation.

marcusthebearhunter

x0drkghost0x wrote: »

I actually know a few people who were banned personally on Xbox. It sucks because they were along for the ride. They were told to get in the group and just follow directions. I already addressed it with one of them that when you saw what was happening, you should have left. You can always leave group then report it. That could have been his saving grace. Sadly, his account is now banned on Xbox. I told him what he could try in order to get it reversed, but with ZOS's statement, I seriously doubt it will happen.

the most of the banned x box players are this kind of players that have used all kind of exploits and glitches to get a advantage( and more then the half of them was have already a coupel of zenimax joke bannes ) even they was sitting in gildchats and was selling the polymorph and runs for it .and was all saying zos never do anything too them .
a perma bann is the only answer for exploiting and cheating .

Docmandu

Great... if it really stays permanent... but somehow I doubt it.


nice diversion from the Loading Screen issue though.. throw people a bone so they forget about that one

Buffler

marcusthebearhunter wrote: »

x0drkghost0x wrote: »

I actually know a few people who were banned personally on Xbox. It sucks because they were along for the ride. They were told to get in the group and just follow directions. I already addressed it with one of them that when you saw what was happening, you should have left. You can always leave group then report it. That could have been his saving grace. Sadly, his account is now banned on Xbox. I told him what he could try in order to get it reversed, but with ZOS's statement, I seriously doubt it will happen.

the most of the banned x box players are this kind of players that have used all kind of exploits and glitches to get a advantage( and more then the half of them was have already a coupel of zenimax joke bannes ) even they was sitting in gildchats and was selling the polymorph and runs for it .and was all saying zos never do anything too them .
a perma bann is the only answer for exploiting and cheating .

Mazeone, thats a bit rich coming from someone that glitched vmol.

marcusthebearhunter

Buffler wrote: »

marcusthebearhunter wrote: »

x0drkghost0x wrote: »

I actually know a few people who were banned personally on Xbox. It sucks because they were along for the ride. They were told to get in the group and just follow directions. I already addressed it with one of them that when you saw what was happening, you should have left. You can always leave group then report it. That could have been his saving grace. Sadly, his account is now banned on Xbox. I told him what he could try in order to get it reversed, but with ZOS's statement, I seriously doubt it will happen.

the most of the banned x box players are this kind of players that have used all kind of exploits and glitches to get a advantage( and more then the half of them was have already a coupel of zenimax joke bannes ) even they was sitting in gildchats and was selling the polymorph and runs for it .and was all saying zos never do anything too them .
a perma bann is the only answer for exploiting and cheating .

Mazeone, thats a bit rich coming from someone that glitched vmol.

buffi my favorit vampiar hunter i never was on a vmol glitch run! i never exploitet in any game my friend and you now this

INHUMANENATION

You know what achievement is also extremely difficult to get? Flawless Conqueror. How many people were permanently banned for glitching that? It's a slippery slope we will find ourselves on if we start calling for heads to roll for every exploit. I'm not a hater for however people get their achieves as they are only robbing themselves of the satisfaction of achieving it for themselves. Yet I would hate to find out even one of the people in here gleefully overjoyed at these bans exploited VMA for the title or paid and shared accounts to get it. I'm not certain about ToS as it relates to share play but I know for a fact it's against not only ZoS ToS but also Sony's ToS to login to someone else's PSN. Are people that slotted vma staffs on the back bar knowing the enchantment swapped with weapons perma banned before ZoS changed from claiming it was unintended to intended? Will I finally sleep better at night without nightmares of being ambushed/ rushed/ lept at while inside a keep knowing all those players were permanently banned? Few are the players that have never exploited at all and they are usually called scrubs for their troubles. I don't know a single person affected by this ban yet if we don't stand up for justice for all we will possibly be treated unjustly as ZoS sees fit. Should we start checking who has vmol jewelry but never completed the twins or last boss yet wasn't around for when it was in leaderboard rewards?

Those of you trying to argue their names should be made public for any other reason than to shame them should be ashamed of yourselves. Also @Timeoin this stream was uploaded after they already knew the cheating had occurred. Before this stream or the OP's warning. No one would have thought they would be perma banned for finding a exploit. Semantics I agree but generally the punishment for a crime should be set before and not after the fact.

StackonClown

Alcast wrote: »

<snipped wierd image>

Finally some rightful punishment thanks ZOS.

Also for those that do not understand it: there is a HUGE difference between finding a bug and purposly abusing it.

I dont think you needed to explain your last statement to anyone - everyone understands, but wateva..

That picture is just plain wierd - what is it attempting to illustrate?

Chufu

Thanks that you did something against the players who used this exploit to get the rewards (skin, title, achievement).

The orc would even have smashed them if he would have seen them...!

Gigasax

Now i wanna know some names xD
I want to know who is that stupid to exploit

lynog85

LiquidPony wrote: »

lynog85 wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

lynog85 wrote: »

Perma bans way too harsh imo. Zos are releasing unfinished content with these exploits only being possible because of THEM. I hope all accounts who done this get it overturned.

lol

The people who did this didn't accidentally exploit something.

They figured it out on normal and then went back and intentionally exploited it on vet HM.

And then some other people found out about it, got the details, and did the same thing. Some of those people are long-time players with 700+ CP who are regularly on the leaderboards. Who then were advertising in zone chats that they were selling vAS HM skin runs.

So on top of exploiting and getting a skin and title that all end game PvE guilds covet, they then tried to use the exploit to make a bunch of in-game money.

Can't imagine how dumb you have to be to risk a permanent ban for something like this.

But I'm sure they stashed a bunch of gold and gear in a guild bank somewhere and they'll be back by the end of the day on new accounts.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom it'd be a real shame if you guys took a look at guild bank deposit transactions from the banned accounts and made all that money disappear ... most of which was probably earned via exploits like this one anyway.

Good riddance. GG ZOS.

Totally missing my point. Paid content shouldnt beable to be exploited. If they developed it properly then these people would have no option but to do it legit.

I didn't miss it. I just think it's a poor point.

All complex software has bugs. Critical multi-million dollar software that is subject to the most stringent engineering standards has bugs. Every software engineering student has to study the Therac-25 disaster or the Mars Climate Orbiter disaster or other similar incidents.

The ToS lays out exactly why this behavior resulted in bans. These people were aware that they were exploiting and even tried (and perhaps succeeded) to profit from it.

Bugs are fine. A way to completely bypass a games mechanics is a bit more than a bug. Its becoming more and more like Destiny.

Woeler

Stables called. They said a lot of their high horses were stolen and they have the suspicion they are in this thread. If anyone sees them please return them to stable master Falruin in Reapers March. Thank you.

regime211

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Recently, a small number of players discovered a way to kill Saint Olms + 2 (Hard mode in Veteran Asylum Sanctorium) from safely outside his room where he could not attack them. This is not only unintended and an exploit, but it cheapens the time and work put in by players who have legitimately beat this fight and earn a very difficult achievement and reward. As a result, we have permanently banned all players – 34 accounts in all – who used the exploit to complete the kill and earn the special achievement and skin in this way. We will not be considering overturns for these account bans. They are permanent and final.

We are working on a fix for this exploit, but we will not be able to deploy it until Monday at the earliest. We will be watching things closely over the weekend. After we deploy the fix on Monday, we will do another audit of kills for this fight. Be warned: we will permanently ban any additional players who use the exploit over the weekend.

Load screens....

Feanor

Don’t reverse the bans. Stay on course. Only then it will be a move deserving the praise it gets now.

DPShiro

This is beautiful and has somewhat reinforced my faith in ZoS for handling future issues.

I still think the vMoL exploiters, bot farmers, afk farmers etc should be permabanned too. But this is a nice step in the right direction.

GG ZoS!

Zer0oo

Nice to see that ZOS does something against exploits but at what point is an exploit an exploit or an bannable offense.

Was the cheese rock in HR an exploit or bannable?
Were cap closing into keeps an exploit? (it was not and only recently got labeled as exploit)
Is taking shortcuts(skipping adds) in dungeons an exploit? e.g. vRoM to get faster mofits
Were the safe spots in HoF 4th boss exploits? (they were considered as exploits by devs)
Getting the speed run in vAS with a bugged(not bugged by the players but by the devs) boss an exploit?
Getting the no death run because the dungeon was bugged an exploit?
....

No one really knows what is really an exploit, smart game play, intended game mechanics or just fu** ups from the dev side. There are way too many broken mechanics to really tell what is intended and what not. (I think in this case it maybe kinda clear with killing the boss from outside the room)

Loc2262

@Zer0oo: You said it yourself. Killing a boss from outside the room is clearly a massive intentional abuse of a bug. This is not like getting a nodeath in Darkshade Caverns despite someone died, or skipping the arena in Mazzatun by jumping up a tree. This is completing a whole trial, the most difficult content in the game currently, without actually fighting. The difference is severity is so extreme here that I agree a ban was warranted.

Turelus

Feanor wrote: »

Don’t reverse the bans. Stay on course. Only then it will be a move deserving the praise it gets now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnP5iDKwuwk

LiquidPony

lynog85 wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

lynog85 wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

lynog85 wrote: »

Perma bans way too harsh imo. Zos are releasing unfinished content with these exploits only being possible because of THEM. I hope all accounts who done this get it overturned.

lol

The people who did this didn't accidentally exploit something.

They figured it out on normal and then went back and intentionally exploited it on vet HM.

And then some other people found out about it, got the details, and did the same thing. Some of those people are long-time players with 700+ CP who are regularly on the leaderboards. Who then were advertising in zone chats that they were selling vAS HM skin runs.

So on top of exploiting and getting a skin and title that all end game PvE guilds covet, they then tried to use the exploit to make a bunch of in-game money.

Can't imagine how dumb you have to be to risk a permanent ban for something like this.

But I'm sure they stashed a bunch of gold and gear in a guild bank somewhere and they'll be back by the end of the day on new accounts.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom it'd be a real shame if you guys took a look at guild bank deposit transactions from the banned accounts and made all that money disappear ... most of which was probably earned via exploits like this one anyway.

Good riddance. GG ZOS.

Totally missing my point. Paid content shouldnt beable to be exploited. If they developed it properly then these people would have no option but to do it legit.

I didn't miss it. I just think it's a poor point.

All complex software has bugs. Critical multi-million dollar software that is subject to the most stringent engineering standards has bugs. Every software engineering student has to study the Therac-25 disaster or the Mars Climate Orbiter disaster or other similar incidents.

The ToS lays out exactly why this behavior resulted in bans. These people were aware that they were exploiting and even tried (and perhaps succeeded) to profit from it.

Bugs are fine. A way to completely bypass a games mechanics is a bit more than a bug. Its becoming more and more like Destiny.

I don't even know what that means. A bug is a bug is a bug.

LiquidPony

lynog85 wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

lynog85 wrote: »

Perma bans way too harsh imo. Zos are releasing unfinished content with these exploits only being possible because of THEM. I hope all accounts who done this get it overturned.

lol

The people who did this didn't accidentally exploit something.

They figured it out on normal and then went back and intentionally exploited it on vet HM.

And then some other people found out about it, got the details, and did the same thing. Some of those people are long-time players with 700+ CP who are regularly on the leaderboards. Who then were advertising in zone chats that they were selling vAS HM skin runs.

So on top of exploiting and getting a skin and title that all end game PvE guilds covet, they then tried to use the exploit to make a bunch of in-game money.

Can't imagine how dumb you have to be to risk a permanent ban for something like this.

But I'm sure they stashed a bunch of gold and gear in a guild bank somewhere and they'll be back by the end of the day on new accounts.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom it'd be a real shame if you guys took a look at guild bank deposit transactions from the banned accounts and made all that money disappear ... most of which was probably earned via exploits like this one anyway.

Good riddance. GG ZOS.

Totally missing my point. Paid content shouldnt beable to be exploited. If they developed it properly then these people would have no option but to do it legit.

I didn't miss it. I think it's a poor point.

All software has bugs. All ga

StackonClown wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Recently, a small number of players discovered a way to kill Saint Olms + 2 (Hard mode in Veteran Asylum Sanctorium) from safely outside his room where he could not attack them. This is not only unintended and an exploit, but it cheapens the time and work put in by players who have legitimately beat this fight and earn a very difficult achievement and reward. As a result, we have permanently banned all players – 34 accounts in all – who used the exploit to complete the kill and earn the special achievement and skin in this way. We will not be considering overturns for these account bans. They are permanent and final.

We are working on a fix for this exploit, but we will not be able to deploy it until Monday at the earliest. We will be watching things closely over the weekend. After we deploy the fix on Monday, we will do another audit of kills for this fight. Be warned: we will permanently ban any additional players who use the exploit over the weekend.

Hi @ZOS_JessicaFolsom - great job!

Wasnt even aware of this exploit and probably 99.9% of the player base wasnt but great to see you were able to respond to whoever reported this so swiftly and unequivocally. and now you will be 'watching over the weekend' - wow! Can you please watch out for other cheating so closely also?. Now the people that got the skin through the normal way can wear it happily!

Considering some of the gleeful updates in this thread, it seems there are a small number of small players who are now delighting in your actions, so bravo.

Anyways... Since you have shown great transparency in naming a precise number of accounts that were banned for this so far, 34 can you:

>>Please provide a similar update for Cheat Engine?<<

How many players are being banned for using Cheat Engine?
I sincerely hope its more than zero, can you please give us a precise number for 2017?

I dare say more players care about Cheat Engine detection and banning than the above skin exploit, but I could be wrong.

Looking forward to a really detailed update about overall cheating and not just specific examples like this skin (need to look it up when i get around to it - Skins are meh for me, sry)

Also, there is an overall cheating thread that has been open for 17 months with no input from @ZOS for a really long time . Any reason why that thread is being essentially ignored but such dramatic urgency is being placed on things like this skin?

The people who used this exploit were dumb enough to take screenshots of their "achievement" and then brag about it and then try to sell the exploit. The people who reported them have the screenshots.

Pretty easy to identify and ban people for something so obvious. Detecting sophisticated or novel memory editors like CheatEngine is much more difficult.

ZOS has banned people in the past who stupidly posted video evidence of their CheatEngine-type exploits, but d

INHUMANENATION wrote: »

kyle.wilson wrote: »

INHUMANENATION wrote: »

How people can rejoice over the permanent bans of another player is disturbing. It's an unfortunate situation. Letter of the law can be used or turned on any one of us to justify permanent bans as the Terms of Service disallow alot of actions. There hasn't been a game I've played that couldn't be exploited and some people enjoy testing limits in games as much as some enjoy any legit aspect. A month long ban for first offenders would have been more prudent.

Thank you for punishing the offenders but where is the tolerance or lesson to be learned? Lost in all this outrage *** and zero tolerance is the chance at redemption. I do truly appreciate the developers need to send a stern warning, I just hope this wasn't done to appease the blood thirsty mobs.

If you got banned and youre reading this. Sorry buddy.

Considering that ZOS's bans in the past have been so lenient,, it has encouraged players to exploit and cheat.
They gave 3 day breaks to the writ exploiters, and short bans for the Cheat engine users.
They have learned that unless they come down hard, the player base here will continue to exploit.
It's unfortunate that your friends were caught up in this, but maybe this'll deter the next people from attempting it.
Sometimes you just have to make an example of some people.

I honestly don't know a single person this has affected if you trust me. I fully appreciate your point but you have numerous instances of exploits still in game that have not been dealt with as harshly and that's why people will try. I won't be foolish to list a single one but most of you know of a time the intended mechanics were exploited purposefully and unless rules are enforced equally it creates a double standard. Some of the worst exploits to have happened three years ago still have lasting effects. Remember for those of us on console the pig farm? How people came directly from the PC or saw it on the PC and how long did it take for them to address it? Yet it drove the price of wax below 2K and saturated the market. Survey glitches ruined the trader bids... 1st time offenders shouldn't get a perma ban. Thats all. Let the pile on continue, im done with trying to be the voice of reason. No offense to you though. I do appreciate your point and yes examples should be made.

lol

You're not the "voice of reason." You're an apologist and you don't even know the details of what happened.

How do you know these were "first-time offenders?" (hint: many of them weren't)

They found the exploit. Instead of reporting it, they spent hours executing the exploit on vet hard mode. They bragged about it. They took screenshots. They told other people how to do it who then did the same, and then tried to sell exploit runs.

There's evidence of all of this in Band/Discord chats, zone chats, etc. People have screenshots. That evidence was all submitted to ZOS.

UppGRAYxDD

I still feel like ZoS is going:" Look, we are doing something!! Look over here!" Good things!" While in the meantime, load screens are still broken, and this new patch was implemented poorly. If it took players on console 4 days to find an exploit on the main selling point of the newest released content, why not explore the option of a console PTS? Just think about how much better the game would be if these issues were found before it went live? I just see it as a mismanagement of assets and plain negligence on ZoS's behalf. They had months to develop and test, then weeks on the PTS...testers should have found this considering that there wasn't a giant amount of content released. It really makes me wonder if they even test on consoles at all...

olsborg

Meanwhile in cyroiil....cheaters and exploiters are ignored by ZOS, even after numerous reports and videos of these individuals sent to them. I get why ZOS deals with pve more seriously then pvp, but this is completely ridiculous.

Apherius

olsborg wrote: »

Meanwhile in cyroiil....cheaters and exploiters are ignored by ZOS, even after numerous reports and videos of these individuals sent to them. I get why ZOS deals with pve more seriously then pvp, but this is completely ridiculous.

At least they do something in PVE , they could just ignore them like those in PVP ,it's what you prefer ?

Yirmeyahu

I realize that this may have been missed in all of the ban-bliss and back-patting...
But, when is this exploit being patched anyway? Will it "for sure" be Monday? All Platforms?

Voxicity

Days remaining until the bans get lifted: 2