Suspensions for Update 17 XP Exploit

ZOS_GinaBruno

Last Monday when we launched Update 17, an exploit was found allowing players to earn much more experience than intended – upwards of millions per kill. As a result, we have just suspended a total of 276 ESO PC accounts that we found were abusing this bug. During our investigation, we took into account that some players may not have immediately noticed the bug, and it was possible they were not intentionally exploiting. The suspended accounts were those that undoubtedly took advantage of the situation. These accounts will remain suspended until the morning of March 5, and we will be removing all excess Champion Points from the account and resetting all skills.

As a reminder to everyone, the ZeniMax Terms of Services states that you will not exploit any bug or abuse any game system, and are expected to report any discovered exploit to us. Abusing a bug will put your account at risk for a suspension or permanent ban from ESO.

OutLaw_Nynx

Guess they should be lucky they aren’t banned.

krachall

This is a perfect example of how you handle the situation appropriately and communicate the results to the community without divulging names or accounts.

Great to see it was handled with a rather heavy hand and that REAL punishment was handed out to the blatant abusers. Telling us how many accounts were suspended is sufficient transparency. Well done, ZOS.

OtisMiller

Not a perma-ban as everybody was freaking out about. Punishment fits the crime. I can dig it

LMar

"Never play on patch day" has never been truer!

Elsonso

Awesome. Thanks for the update @ZOS_GinaBruno. I was not expecting it, and it was nice to see.

JamieAubrey

I'll take it, better than nothing, Also 5th March is my birthday @ZOS_GinaBruno hint hint a free crate or birthday hat hint hint

Turelus

Thanks for the info Gina.

Seems like a strong enough punishment and glad to see the gains removed. Are you able to say if accounts with suspension are also given flags so any repeat offenders will eventually run out of strikes?

Bluepitbull13

Aliyavana

JamieAubrey wrote: »

I'll take it, better than nothing, Also 5th March is my birthday @ZOS_GinaBruno hint hint a free crate or birthday hat hint hint

all cool people are born in march.

AlienatedGoat

Radiance

LMar wrote: »

"Never play on patch day" has never been truer!

I guess I should consider myself lucky because I can't usually log in for a few days after a patch anyway...

SGT_Wolfe101st

276, that number is smaller than I would have suspected. I guess those 276 must have went off the rails, like adding hundreds of CP. At then end of the day, the ban is minimal, couple weeks in the penalty box and any gains removed, pretty tame at the end of the day. Thanks for the update.

SGT_Wolfe101st

aliyavana wrote: »

JamieAubrey wrote: »

I'll take it, better than nothing, Also 5th March is my birthday @ZOS_GinaBruno hint hint a free crate or birthday hat hint hint

all cool people are born in march.

and December...(would also like my retroactive birthday crate, hint hint)

f047ys3v3n

Wow, snap.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

As a result, we have just suspended a total of 276 ESO PC accounts that we found were abusing this bug....These accounts will remain suspended until the morning of March 5, and we will be removing all excess Champion Points from the account and resetting all skills.

Wow, some bans. I'll admit that I am totally surprised. Lets do that for the CE users as well, only make them longer because, you know, it's much worse. It would be fun to reset their leaderboard scores and clear their alliance rank as well. You know, ill gotten gains.

Good on you guys. BTW, what are you going to do about those 1 crown houses folks got?

ZOS_GinaBruno

Turelus wrote: »

Thanks for the info Gina.

Seems like a strong enough punishment and glad to see the gains removed. Are you able to say if accounts with suspension are also given flags so any repeat offenders will eventually run out of strikes?

Yes, and it's very possible that some of these accounts already have strikes and will not be reinstated.

Ch4mpTW

JamieAubrey wrote: »

I'll take it, better than nothing, Also 5th March is my birthday @ZOS_GinaBruno hint hint a free crate or birthday hat hint hint

@JamieAubrey In case if I don’t get to say it to you then, have a happy birthday. And may you be blessed with many more to come.

As for the original topic at hand, I feel as though this is a great way to earn the trust of your player base. Communication in situations like these can get you quite far. Well done, ZOS. Job well done.

Rickter

RIP

cant say im sorry.

it was an unintentional bug. keyword: unintentional. that means, ZOS didnt mean for it to happen, it was a mistake, and that doesnt mean its ok to take advantage of said mistake. taking advantage of a bad situation is exploiting the situation.

obviously, as Gina states, not everyone was exploiting. frankly, seeing people with 1200 + CP is a little head scratchingly suspect

Arv_Morvis

Well done indeed ZOS!

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Thanks for the info Gina.

Seems like a strong enough punishment and glad to see the gains removed. Are you able to say if accounts with suspension are also given flags so any repeat offenders will eventually run out of strikes?

Yes, and it's very possible that some of these accounts already have strikes and will not be reinstated.

Good to know!

People that like to push things too far are best dealt with this way.

In fact you can see some people complaining in the games steam discussion board already of being "banned for unkown reason"

TheZirex

That took some time. Glad it finally happened though.

Dragonnord

Good job! Punishment well deserved.

Cpt_Teemo

OutLaw_Nynx wrote: »

Guess they should be lucky they aren’t banned.

^, ZoS is more lienant than Wargaming, if you want your banned account back in War gaming you have to agree to full account wipe

Lysette

Pretty much every MMO has this rule - if you see something what is unlikely to be intended, report it and stay away from it for the time being - I know no modern MMO, which would not have this rule in their terms of service - so basically all could know.

DjMuscleboy02

Ehh, idk about this one. Had it been 5m gold instead of xp, absolutely. But leveling characters affects no one but those doing so. In my opinion, this was a "ahh damn, fix the bug and move on" case. Sometimes things like this happen and when no achievements or collectibles/consumables are involved, I think it's best to just fix it and not let it happen again. It's nice to see Zos taking action, but I disagree with something that does not affect other players being a bannable offense.

That being said, if so many people are willing to exploit experience, maybe Zos should take a look at adding a character level token to the crown store.

Horowonnoe

DjMuscleboy02 wrote: »

Ehh, idk about this one. Had it been 5m gold instead of xp, absolutely. But leveling characters affects no one but those doing so. In my opinion, this was a "ahh damn, fix the bug and move on" case. Sometimes things like this happen and when no achievements or collectibles/consumables are involved, I think it's best to just fix it and not let it happen again. It's nice to see Zos taking action, but I disagree with something that does not affect other players being a bannable offense.

That being said, if so many people are willing to exploit experience, maybe Zos should take a look at adding a character level token to the crown store.

Agree. This didn't affect anyone/anything other than the players own character. It was especially useless for those already at cap CP. Like what are they going to gain from that? Just some lols: yo look at me, i am cp 340958309538409538 that i can never assign lmao.

Asgari

So what happens to the few who went down there to kill players and got xp from others in their faction? Are they being punished for 2 weeks as well

Mureel

I killed like 2-3 small overland things Vvardenfel, just in the course of farming the darn mundane runes - and I had 1400xp pop up once and thought nah- let's dip up out of here that doesn't look right. Servers went down shortly after. It may have been perfectly legit, but it looked off to me, and I was paying attention due to the guild chats already full of this info. I wonder how long it would have taken me to notice if I wasn't watching? I bet when I suddenly got a CP I'd become very concerned because I'm used to how long they take.

I heard tell of people getting a level per kill.

Cpt_Teemo

Mureel wrote: »

I killed like 2-3 small overland things Vvardenfel, just in the course of farming the darn mundane runes - and I had 1400xp pop up once and thought nah- let's dip up out of here that doesn't look right. Servers went down shortly after. It may have been perfectly legit, but it looked off to me, and I was paying attention due to the guild chats already full of this info. I wonder how long it would have taken me to notice if I wasn't watching? I bet when I suddenly got a CP I'd become very concerned because I'm used to how long they take.

I heard tell of people getting a level per kill.

Yeah 1400xp seems like enlightened xp to me, these people that exploited were gaining 2m xp per kill

Chufu

Very good, the orc dislike bug-exploiter.

Smash them all!!!

Cpt_Teemo

Horowonnoe wrote: »

DjMuscleboy02 wrote: »

Ehh, idk about this one. Had it been 5m gold instead of xp, absolutely. But leveling characters affects no one but those doing so. In my opinion, this was a "ahh damn, fix the bug and move on" case. Sometimes things like this happen and when no achievements or collectibles/consumables are involved, I think it's best to just fix it and not let it happen again. It's nice to see Zos taking action, but I disagree with something that does not affect other players being a bannable offense.

That being said, if so many people are willing to exploit experience, maybe Zos should take a look at adding a character level token to the crown store.

Agree. This didn't affect anyone/anything other than the players own character. It was especially useless for those already at cap CP. Like what are they going to gain from that? Just some lols: yo look at me, i am cp 340958309538409538 that i can never assign lmao.

Even then it was still a bug and they used it to there advantage so therefore they exploited, read the ToS again.

Dragonnord

Asgari wrote: »

So what happens to the few who went down there to kill players and got xp from others in their faction? Are they being punished for 2 weeks as well

I think the matter is clear. If you were there enough time as to CLEARLY see you were earning unusual and excesive amounts of XP... and you remained there, I think it doesn't matter if that XP came from your blade or the killings of your group.