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

Majeure

Way to go, ZOS finally doing something about exploiters. Thanks!

Taysa

Apherius wrote: »

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 ?

Or they can actually give as much of a hoot about PvP, considering cheating in PvP has more of an impact than someone getting a stupid achievement, which bears no real weight other than bragging rights.

CRehrl15

Nerfhammer can now be morphed!

Apherius

CRehrl15 wrote: »

Nerfhammer can now be morphed!

Now they have the choice between

Nerfhammer blast : incant time of 3 years ... then ban all the bots and cheater from the game, but very slow,send a notification to the ennemies saying "be careful ,the nerf hammer is coming" and with a big animation showing a nerhammer in the sky, can be avoid, dodged and reflect

Nerfhammer fragments : Instant, ban all the bots from the game.

I think that both morph are interresting , but be careful ,both are useless against Miat's PVP alert.

spiiros

Buffler 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.

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.

... that is two different things. The groups are still COMPLETING the content legit in order to get to the last boss and they are doing the content without a bug/glitch. There is no exploit or unintended aspect happening. It's basically having a player do nothing while others are doing the work or... they can teach while in there and said player can still be involved, regardless if they are messing up mechanics. The difference there is "earning through actually doing the work" and "earning through paying" - which both do not involve any form of exploit.

It doesn't cheapen anything. At the end of the day... real players know who put in the hard work to earn their skins/titles and people who payed/got carried.

There is no reason to ever perma ban people who give out carries - there are 12 people putting in legit work to get it done.

Unfadingsilence

Gitgud kids and best of luck with the next game you play

notimetocare

So because your development team sucks at their job, players get banned? Logic...

paulsimonps

notimetocare wrote: »

So because your development team sucks at their job, players get banned? Logic...

No, cause people are stupid idiots that violate terms of service they get banned. Bugs are and will most likely always be a part of any game, online or not. That is why onlines games have rules against exploiting bugs like this. We signed a contract before playing, we agreed to the terms, they were violated and so they got banned, easy as that.

cmetzger93

usmcjdking wrote: »

lol.

Cheat at video game hurting neckbeard egos? Permaban.
Repeatedly shout N****R in zone chat and reported by multiple accounts? NP bud keep raiding.

No kidding. I’m glad someone has some sense on here.

cmetzger93

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom This thread needs to be closed. There was never a reason to allow people to comment at all other than to stroke ZOS’ ego because they banned some people and everyone applaudes.

cmetzger93

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.

I could not agree more. Very well put. These comments are embarrassing to read. It is sad that everyone just wants to point and laugh at someone else and the company and devs I once thought very highly of I am now disgusted that they have let it continue like this.

Taysa

We all know the real reason action was taken and this thread was made. It was to appease the youtubers, of course. Wouldn't want to anger their free marketing machine.

XDragonDoomX

@ZOS_GinaBruno & @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Thank you - and thank you for the information regarding the bans.
I just hope it acts as a warning to those indulging or considering indulging in exploits.
May the good work continue.

Shad0wfire99

Taysa wrote: »

We all know the real reason action was taken and this thread was made. It was to appease the youtubers, of course. Wouldn't want to anger their free marketing machine.

Haven't seen a "blame the youtubers" post in a while. Well played.

AllPlayAndNoWork

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.

I don't........ Ban em all !. Just because its there to be exploited doesn''t mean you should.

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.

Really... that's like saying its not illegal to kill someone... unless you get caught........

Arse about face logic of the highest order......

MakoFore

ouch

i would have been okay with a 3 month ban. thsees guys love the game as much as anyone, but hey- someone in guild whispers "guess what- i got a way to get that skin that u were never going to get otherwise!" - and stuff goes around like "dont worry its their fault- for not fixing it" - "why would we get banned for ZOS incompetence"- etc , etc
i think they have a valid point. yes they deserve punishment- but taking away the skin, banning them for 3 months- is more than enough. banning somone from an mmo isnt like an FPS, the amount of work, money and time people put into these things is insane. ive spent like 2 years levelling al myalts, undauinted, all weapon lines to have one of each class, do vMA with all of them , etc. - and I STILL havent had the time to find a guild who will do vMOL with me. I cant imagine being banned for life ... these player dont play the game, the lIVE the game, their friends, their social routines, their days revolve around this game. what they did was wrong- but this is an overreaction when people ahve done worse and gotten less

Dont_do_drugs

es they deserve punishment- but taking away the skin, banning them for 3 months- is more than enough. banning somone from an mmo isnt like an FPS, the amount of work, money and time people put into these things is insane.

even if also my moral values have some weak spots - rexactly this is why i dont exploit.
guess what.

Dont_do_drugs

Alcast wrote: »

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.

Hey - what about some of your main group friends also some former main group friends? I bet they are all clean, right? Guess what, some know better.

Laggus

Wasn't expecting to see this here to be honest. Thought it would be given ZoS's full attention on page 84 of the Cheating and Exploit thread, along with all the rest of the reports.

Tahava

HatchetHaro wrote: »

Ouch. While the points made were valid, I feel that a permanent ban is way too harsh. Perhaps a month-long ban would fit better, just for this instance.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not on the exploiters' side. I dislike exploits, but there have been plenty of instances where exploits have gone unfixed, such as the vRoM skip, and the more serious vMoL exploit had gone unpunished as well; this had given the community this brash mentality to exploit freely. This sudden acknowledgement of and punishment for a major exploit, while a huge step in the right direction, just feels way too sudden and overzealous.

I have no qualms about future major exploits being perma-bannable, but this one should really serve as a warning first. RIP the time and effort spent in 34 accounts just for a bad decision to ruin it all.

Hopefully ZOS will keep this up and continue to fix exploits. The one in vRoM, afaik, is still there.

First, let me say this is question and conjecture. If the exploiters were not permabanned, but were allowed to use those accounts in (x) days, would they still have the perfect weapons, skins, etc., that were obtained during the exploit? Can ZOS just dip into their accounts and remove those items? (I find nothing in the TOS stating they can.) If not, how is this fair to the rest of the playerbase that didn't use the exploit? If their accounts could be reset to data saved prior to the exploit, then I would be inclined to say ban for (x) days. If this is not possible, then my lowly opinion would say a permaban is in order.

Dont_do_drugs

an ZOS just dip into their accounts and remove those items?

they can actually, still permaban is cool. u dont hurt someone with removing equip they can refarm, or taking 150m if they are able to make fast some millions again, right?

If their accounts could be reset to data saved prior to the exploit, then I would be inclined to say ban for (x) days.

they can, but for what? like "oh we just undo it. haha". what kind of a stupid punishment is that?
its like 50:50 on next exploits. maybe ure lucky and dont get caught or they just remove it and nevermind.

i mean just a example. take some nice bis bop items from a progress guild. does that hurt? they just refarm it within some days. and then, well yeh, whatever.

notimetocare

paulsimonps wrote: »

notimetocare wrote: »

So because your development team sucks at their job, players get banned? Logic...

No, cause people are stupid idiots that violate terms of service they get banned. Bugs are and will most likely always be a part of any game, online or not. That is why onlines games have rules against exploiting bugs like this. We signed a contract before playing, we agreed to the terms, they were violated and so they got banned, easy as that.

There are times I agree, but this is not a major exploit... This is a sign of developer failure and not a hard searched intentional exploit. I would agree something needed done, but perma ban when they dont perma ban cheaters and bots? Nah. Stupid

Dont_do_drugs

notimetocare wrote: »

paulsimonps wrote: »

notimetocare wrote: »

So because your development team sucks at their job, players get banned? Logic...

No, cause people are stupid idiots that violate terms of service they get banned. Bugs are and will most likely always be a part of any game, online or not. That is why onlines games have rules against exploiting bugs like this. We signed a contract before playing, we agreed to the terms, they were violated and so they got banned, easy as that.

There are times I agree, but this is not a major exploit... This is a sign of developer failure and not a hard searched intentional exploit. I would agree something needed done, but perma ban when they dont perma ban cheaters and bots? Nah. Stupid

how werent they cheating? just bcs not using cheat engine? doesnt the definition of cheating include exploiting a bug, and if not, since when?

Rawkan

Great job!

zyk

Awesome. Now do this to players who are caught using CE -- even if they're popular streamers.

notimetocare

Dont_do_drugs wrote: »

notimetocare wrote: »

paulsimonps wrote: »

notimetocare wrote: »

So because your development team sucks at their job, players get banned? Logic...

No, cause people are stupid idiots that violate terms of service they get banned. Bugs are and will most likely always be a part of any game, online or not. That is why onlines games have rules against exploiting bugs like this. We signed a contract before playing, we agreed to the terms, they were violated and so they got banned, easy as that.

There are times I agree, but this is not a major exploit... This is a sign of developer failure and not a hard searched intentional exploit. I would agree something needed done, but perma ban when they dont perma ban cheaters and bots? Nah. Stupid

how werent they cheating? just bcs not using cheat engine? doesnt the definition of cheating include exploiting a bug, and if not, since when?

If you are able to do something in game with game mechanics (not outside programs), are you supposed to assume it an exploit?

SHADOW2KK

Good on you ZoS, justice is served

Rarok_Yariy

Ban people for using bugged content, it is something like arrest people who use drugs, purchased from drug dealer. I think normal way is arrest that dealer, not buyers.

ManwithBeard9

Rarok_Yariy wrote: »

Ban people for using bugged content, it is something like arrest people who use drugs, purchased from drug dealer. I think normal way is arrest that dealer, not buyers.

Well, when you agreed to the ToS you agreed to not exploit. Pretty simple, regardless of ZOS' incompetence.

Woeler

cmetzger93 wrote: »

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom This thread needs to be closed. There was never a reason to allow people to comment at all other than to stroke ZOS’ ego because they banned some people and everyone applaudes.

Mom, look I am so self-righteous!