Suspensions for Update 17 XP Exploit

fadingidealsb14_ESO

Turelus wrote: »

eirinnpryderi wrote: »

LordSemaj wrote: »

eirinnpryderi wrote: »

Well......kinda fair of a punishment, its not a account termination....and it shouldn't be anyways, despite the player attitude, the main error here was from Zenimax, Dragon Bones came with a lot of errors...so the fault should be shared equally

True enough. It's not the players' fault the bug existed. It's the players' fault for not stopping after the bug was discovered.

Being constructive, ZOS should made a more smart move like they did in EU, not lifting the patch until 12 hours later, also what doesn't keep players in check its the lack of GMs...in my 7k hours of ESO never saw one...if they were around and were saw often, players would find both secure and intimidated by their prescence in game, and that should minimize the amount of exploits by a good margin

You don't need GM's to keep players in check. There are logs which show which players are bad and a ToS to tell you not to abuse bugs you find.

The fact ZOS suspended 276 accounts one week later shows how the current system works fine. People abused something, they got punished.

The only thing I feel ZOS could do better is to push in game notifications out or update forums/launcher where possible to give more warnings. Something like "We're aware of a current XP exploit, anyone abusing it will be punished accordingly" sent across the server.

They didn't push a warning on the NA Servers that I'm aware of, but I *believe* they posted a notice on the forums prior to the servers going down (essentially announcing they were aware of the issue and taking them down in response). Not the same as a server-side warning, but it did give some notice somewhat in advance.

And I agree about them punishing abusers, I just feel that the punishment should have been scaled to the abuse in question. Being in the zone under an hour and getting 20-30 CP while recording a brief clip for Youtube doesn't seem the same as farming 100's of CP. I wanted to document a bug that I assumed would result in a rollback - I didn't max out characters. The cookie-cutter response of suspending players with the same initial punishment for both levels of offense seems like poor logic. That's the only part of the response I take issue with.

But, again, I'm glad they are making an example of it. Just...wishing they treated it as more of a judgment call than a set standard for all they deemed initially guilty.

pzschrek

There's no question they're taking a stand.

To be honest, I really wish they enforced the TOS standards as strongly on a lot of the toxic chat in Cyrodiil.

Asgari

fadingidealsb14_ESO wrote: »

Can't argue with the decision to punish those who exploited with a temporary ban. Kinda feeling like two weeks is excessive, though.

I went to IC after hearing about the bug thinking it had to be an exaggeration, then stayed a bit because I was amused. Started recording a short clip to upload to Youtube. Made about 20-30 CP in the process (not the hundreds of CP some are assuming were needed to get banned), but given you were seeing 3-5 CP per minute? That's not exactly much time.

A few minutes of play, at that rate, was sufficient to garner two weeks of ban with the threat (for some) of permaban.

Again: punishment seems merited, but when you're banning players that have supported the game since beta for 15 or 30 minutes in a zone that was bugged? Seems excessive.

Still - even getting hit with the temp-ban myself, I'm glad you're making it clear that abuse won't be tolerated.

Of the 200+ bans I know for a fact some of the people banned made less than 100 cp. some as low as 50. Taking into account depending on your cp level this could be 5-15 min of being down there.

Obviously those who gained 100s of cp knew what they were doing but anyone curious and went down there for a few minutes could have gotten swept into this as well.

It’s unfortunate but I hope those who made 100 or less will eventually make it back into the game.

VaranisArano

Asgari wrote: »

fadingidealsb14_ESO wrote: »

Can't argue with the decision to punish those who exploited with a temporary ban. Kinda feeling like two weeks is excessive, though.

I went to IC after hearing about the bug thinking it had to be an exaggeration, then stayed a bit because I was amused. Started recording a short clip to upload to Youtube. Made about 20-30 CP in the process (not the hundreds of CP some are assuming were needed to get banned), but given you were seeing 3-5 CP per minute? That's not exactly much time.

A few minutes of play, at that rate, was sufficient to garner two weeks of ban with the threat (for some) of permaban.

Again: punishment seems merited, but when you're banning players that have supported the game since beta for 15 or 30 minutes in a zone that was bugged? Seems excessive.

Still - even getting hit with the temp-ban myself, I'm glad you're making it clear that abuse won't be tolerated.

Of the 200+ bans I know for a fact some of the people banned made less than 100 cp. some as low as 50. Taking into account depending on your cp level this could be 5-15 min of being down there.

Obviously those who gained 100s of cp knew what they were doing but anyone curious and went down there for a few minutes could have gotten swept into this as well.

It’s unfortunate but I hope those who made 100 or less will eventually make it back into the game.

Being gone for a 2-week ban isn't the end of the world. I'm sure most will be back, and hopefully will have read the TOS in the interim.

Asgari

VaranisArano wrote: »

Asgari wrote: »

fadingidealsb14_ESO wrote: »

Can't argue with the decision to punish those who exploited with a temporary ban. Kinda feeling like two weeks is excessive, though.

I went to IC after hearing about the bug thinking it had to be an exaggeration, then stayed a bit because I was amused. Started recording a short clip to upload to Youtube. Made about 20-30 CP in the process (not the hundreds of CP some are assuming were needed to get banned), but given you were seeing 3-5 CP per minute? That's not exactly much time.

A few minutes of play, at that rate, was sufficient to garner two weeks of ban with the threat (for some) of permaban.

Again: punishment seems merited, but when you're banning players that have supported the game since beta for 15 or 30 minutes in a zone that was bugged? Seems excessive.

Still - even getting hit with the temp-ban myself, I'm glad you're making it clear that abuse won't be tolerated.

Of the 200+ bans I know for a fact some of the people banned made less than 100 cp. some as low as 50. Taking into account depending on your cp level this could be 5-15 min of being down there.

Obviously those who gained 100s of cp knew what they were doing but anyone curious and went down there for a few minutes could have gotten swept into this as well.

It’s unfortunate but I hope those who made 100 or less will eventually make it back into the game.

Being gone for a 2-week ban isn't the end of the world. I'm sure most will be back, and hopefully will have read the TOS in the interim.

Obviously it’s not the end of the world and I get the need for the 2 weeks to investigate further, just hope they go through the list from the least made up. Also reading tos wouldn’t save you if you killed no mobs and rode around on your mount down there for a few minutes. But it is what it is.

Zos doing the right thing.

fadingidealsb14_ESO

As I've said - I don't dispute the suspensions, just feel it's overkill to do a one-size fits all punishment to start at two weeks.

If they recognize different levels of bug abuse, it logically follows that different levels of response are merited.

Oh well, one suspension since beta. I'll live.

Cpt_Teemo

fadingidealsb14_ESO wrote: »

As I've said - I don't dispute the suspensions, just feel it's overkill to do a one-size fits all punishment to start at two weeks.

If they recognize different levels of bug abuse, it logically follows that different levels of response are merited.

Oh well, one suspension since beta. I'll live.

You do have the option to send in a ticket to reverse the suspension if they find you were in the good

Feanor

Well done.

fadingidealsb14_ESO

Cpt_Teemo wrote: »

fadingidealsb14_ESO wrote: »

As I've said - I don't dispute the suspensions, just feel it's overkill to do a one-size fits all punishment to start at two weeks.

If they recognize different levels of bug abuse, it logically follows that different levels of response are merited.

Oh well, one suspension since beta. I'll live.

You do have the option to send in a ticket to reverse the suspension if they find you were in the good

Do I? I tried to log in to the account side of the website, and it says I've been suspended. I can post in the forum, but not access my account. How do I open a ticket, then?

fadingidealsb14_ESO

Feanor wrote: »

Well done.

Random, but love the name pick.

Elsonso

fadingidealsb14_ESO wrote: »

Cpt_Teemo wrote: »

fadingidealsb14_ESO wrote: »

As I've said - I don't dispute the suspensions, just feel it's overkill to do a one-size fits all punishment to start at two weeks.

If they recognize different levels of bug abuse, it logically follows that different levels of response are merited.

Oh well, one suspension since beta. I'll live.

You do have the option to send in a ticket to reverse the suspension if they find you were in the good

Do I? I tried to log in to the account side of the website, and it says I've been suspended. I can post in the forum, but not access my account. How do I open a ticket, then?

From what I saw when another person posted an image of the email, you have to reply to the email they sent you.

fadingidealsb14_ESO

lordrichter wrote: »

fadingidealsb14_ESO wrote: »

Cpt_Teemo wrote: »

fadingidealsb14_ESO wrote: »

As I've said - I don't dispute the suspensions, just feel it's overkill to do a one-size fits all punishment to start at two weeks.

If they recognize different levels of bug abuse, it logically follows that different levels of response are merited.

Oh well, one suspension since beta. I'll live.

You do have the option to send in a ticket to reverse the suspension if they find you were in the good

Do I? I tried to log in to the account side of the website, and it says I've been suspended. I can post in the forum, but not access my account. How do I open a ticket, then?

From what I saw when another person posted an image of the email, you have to reply to the email they sent you.

Suppose I'll be trying momentarily, then. Thanks.

GreenHere

As someone who:

1) Plays with addons that remove UI elements I find annoying (which includes XP gains, and CP gains)

2) Sets up tabs in chat so I specifically don't have to be bothered with Zone & Guild chatter unless I tune into those channels

3) Is well over the CP cap now, thus cares very little about XP and even if I had a way to see it in game (which, again, due to my setup I do not)

I'm inclined to believe @Emma_Overload 's account of things, and see it as entirely feasible. It could have easily been me, if I made the "mistake" of going into the City during the time this was happening.

I wouldn't have even been aware of it, unless I just so happened to know my current CP (which I don't), notice my CP was off from whatever it was when I started (unlikely, since when you're 850+, who cares? I ain't lookin at my CP number even once a week anymore...), and then been able to personally diagnose what was causing the discrepancy. I'm pretty sure it would have taken me a while to figure out it was huge XP from killing mobs, since I'd need to start disabling addons to even see my XP gains. No telling when it would have occurred to me to try that, or if I'd even care enough to do it.

Like Emma has claimed, I jumped into my usual content to play around and see how the changes felt. I'm just lucky it didn't happen in Craglorn or Dungeons. Because I'd be pissed to be labeled an exploiter & penalized for something that got borked with a patch. Something I was unaware of and had no control over.

But... Lots of people legitimately knew about this, abused the hell out of it, and deserve punishment. Furthermore, how does one prove they didn't know? Hard to say, and I can see why ZOS would assume @Emma_Overload did something wrong. BUT, it sounds to me she just did exactly what I do every day, totally legitimately (probably), just in an unfortunate location & at an unfortunate time.

Which doesn't make much sense, since there was fairly heavy incentive for anyone/everyone to go to IC anyway...

VaranisArano

And if all of those are the case, GreenHere, it seems to me it'd be fairly simple to explain all that to ZOS and for them to double check that you did indeed have those addons equipped and your zone chat set up that way, in which case, I'd hope they sort the situation out.

GreenHere

VaranisArano wrote: »

And if all of those are the case, GreenHere, it seems to me it'd be fairly simple to explain all that to ZOS and for them to double check that you did indeed have those addons equipped and your zone chat set up that way, in which case, I'd hope they sort the situation out.

One would hope that's true, for the sake of the people who were mistakenly labeled as offenders here. Seems to me the worst part of all this is the strike against your account... Does ZOS go by baseball rules? 3 strikes and poof goes all your progress/collectibles/etc.? (Read: considerable time, effort, and (for some of us) money spent supporting their product)

LordSemaj

GreenHere wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

And if all of those are the case, GreenHere, it seems to me it'd be fairly simple to explain all that to ZOS and for them to double check that you did indeed have those addons equipped and your zone chat set up that way, in which case, I'd hope they sort the situation out.

One would hope that's true, for the sake of the people who were mistakenly labeled as offenders here. Seems to me the worst part of all this is the strike against your account... Does ZOS go by baseball rules? 3 strikes and poof goes all your progress/collectibles/etc.? (Read: considerable time, effort, and (for some of us) money spent supporting their product)

No one knows. *spooky noises*

And it's intentionally that way. If it were made public that baseball rules were in effect and you are banned on the third strike, everyone would abuse their first two strikes freely. Keeping a tight lip on what qualifies for account action ensures people respect the rules because it may happen on your first offense.

Don't tempt fate.

Drakkdjinn

Damn, 300 people in IC? I don't believe it! Well there goes my dream of IC becoming relevant again. Ain't nobody gonna go down there this patch for 200k stones for a chest and a potential account strike because some underpaid intern might've added too many zeros to something -- something that costs extra $ to access no less.

GreenHere

LordSemaj wrote: »

GreenHere wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

And if all of those are the case, GreenHere, it seems to me it'd be fairly simple to explain all that to ZOS and for them to double check that you did indeed have those addons equipped and your zone chat set up that way, in which case, I'd hope they sort the situation out.

One would hope that's true, for the sake of the people who were mistakenly labeled as offenders here. Seems to me the worst part of all this is the strike against your account... Does ZOS go by baseball rules? 3 strikes and poof goes all your progress/collectibles/etc.? (Read: considerable time, effort, and (for some of us) money spent supporting their product)

No one knows. *spooky noises*

And it's intentionally that way. If it were made public that baseball rules were in effect and you are banned on the third strike, everyone would abuse their first two strikes freely. Keeping a tight lip on what qualifies for account action ensures people respect the rules because it may happen on your first offense.

Don't tempt fate.

Fair point, I suppose. Didn't really occur to me, since I'm not the type to hurry up and find neat ways to get two stikes. :P
I could definitely see it becoming a serious issue if everyone suddenly thought they had two blank checks to do whatever they liked with nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

Drakkdjinn wrote: »

Damn, 300 people in IC? I don't believe it! Well there goes my dream of IC becoming relevant again. Ain't nobody gonna go down there this patch for 200k stones for a chest and a potential account strike because some underpaid intern might've added too many zeros to something -- something that costs extra $ to access no less.

Agreed. This whole thing will make a lot of people gunshy of entering IC, which is the opposite of what it needs right now. A real bummer, more so since (as @Drakkdjinn points out) you gotta pay for IC in the first place.

Hortator Indoril Nerevar

@anitajoneb17_ESO

You argued tooth and nail on other threads.. You said they did nothing wrong, they should have no punishment, they should keep the cp gained, ZOS is to blame 100% and more..

Now you are here saying this is a fine outcome.

What happened to the "no bans even for people who got to 3200" and "they should keep the cp"..

Idinuse

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

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.

magictucktuck

LMar wrote: »

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

these are people who UNDOUBTEDLY exploited. like figured it out and hopped on 5 alts to do it again...

jordanmarx_ESO

Emma_Overload wrote: »

Commenting here in case my thread gets deleted:

I just got suspended and I don't even understand why! Why would someone with over 900 CP even pay attention to XP gains? Why didn't ZOS just close the City if there was an XP bug?

@Ashyam (swims with Sithis) commenting here Emma. You've kicked my ass in IC so many times. Your overshields are amazeballs. We play in IC almost every damned day. I hope to see you on March 6 so I can attempt to crack those overshields once again.

Until then, I am hoping for a dragon break to make this all go away.

A_G_G_R_O

For those worries that folks that did so lightly got off free this is not the case. Had people I know who only earned 20 to 30 cp and got the hammer. Even folks at cp cap who didn’t even need cp got the hammer.

Cpt_Teemo

A_G_G_R_O wrote: »

For those worries that folks that did so lightly got off free this is not the case. Had people I know who only earned 20 to 30 cp and got the hammer. Even folks at cp cap who didn’t even need cp got the hammer.

As been told before so many times, doesn't matter what bug it is, its breaking ToS and your abusing that bug.

monktoasty

How about you fix the game stopping bugs instead of worry about one that gives xp to fast.

Big whoop your coders let a bug that HELPS the player for once.

I still can't finish many quests that are broke.

I still get stuck on chairs in dungeons..wasting so much time

Bots still roam the country side breaking your rules and you care less

I say unsuspend these people and let them be..you could have easily just reversed the gained xp.

It's sickening that zos preys on people for their cash but treats customers like trash

Cpt_Teemo

monktoasty wrote: »

How about you fix the game stopping bugs instead of worry about one that gives xp to fast.

Big whoop your coders let a bug that HELPS the player for once.

I still can't finish many quests that are broke.

I still get stuck on chairs in dungeons..wasting so much time

Bots still roam the country side breaking your rules and you care less

I say unsuspend these people and let them be..you could have easily just reversed the gained xp.

It's sickening that zos preys on people for their cash but treats customers like trash

Exploiting helps nothing, it just turns in an MMO into a single player game.

DieAlteHexe

A_G_G_R_O wrote: »

For those worries that folks that did so lightly got off free this is not the case. Had people I know who only earned 20 to 30 cp and got the hammer. Even folks at cp cap who didn’t even need cp got the hammer.

Guess the thinking is cheating is cheating and whether it was "only a little" or "huge amounts"; still cheating.

Also, from what I saw in another thread, since closed, it sounds like they suspended accounts 'til they can research more thoroughly so it might be that those who "only cheated a little" or seem to have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time may yet be exonerated.

Karivaa

Are you going to fix this before it drops on Xbox?

monktoasty

Cpt_Teemo wrote: »

monktoasty wrote: »

How about you fix the game stopping bugs instead of worry about one that gives xp to fast.

Big whoop your coders let a bug that HELPS the player for once.

I still can't finish many quests that are broke.

I still get stuck on chairs in dungeons..wasting so much time

Bots still roam the country side breaking your rules and you care less

I say unsuspend these people and let them be..you could have easily just reversed the gained xp.

It's sickening that zos preys on people for their cash but treats customers like trash

Exploiting helps nothing, it just turns in an MMO into a single player game.

BUT bugs do? It's more important to shut the whole game down for this? Why not shut the game down to fix the quests instill can't finish?

Suspending people for the coders mistake is rediculous

Emma_Overload

LordSemaj wrote: »

Emma_Overload wrote: »

fadingidealsb14_ESO wrote: »

Can't argue with the decision to punish those who exploited with a temporary ban. Kinda feeling like two weeks is excessive, though.

I went to IC after hearing about the bug thinking it had to be an exaggeration, then stayed a bit because I was amused. Started recording a short clip to upload to Youtube. Made about 20-30 CP in the process (not the hundreds of CP some are assuming were needed to get banned), but given you were seeing 3-5 CP per minute? That's not exactly much time.

A few minutes of play, at that rate, was sufficient to garner two weeks of ban with the threat (for some) of permaban.

Again: punishment seems merited, but when you're banning players that have supported the game since beta for 15 or 30 minutes in a zone that was bugged? Seems excessive.

Still - even getting hit with the temp-ban myself, I'm glad you're making it clear that abuse won't be tolerated.

I was probably there for a few hours right after the patch went live. I was excited to see how the new interrupt changes worked, and IC is where I spend the vast majority of my time.

I really hope that people who read this thread, including ZOS employees like @ZOS_GinaBruno , realize that not everyone prefers Cyrodiil or PVE dungeons... there really are players who LOVE playing in the Imperial City. It's a shame that some of us are being punished for simply doing what we love.

Also I don't understand at all why people in this thread assume that all players are constantly monitoring their XP gain. Why would anyone beyond CP cap with all skills leveled care about XP?

No one is assuming people are monitoring their XP gains. The XP gains were high enough that you would have gained a CP point every kill. People are assuming you were noticing the spam on the front of your screen. It doesn't matter if you care about the XP or not, you illegally gained it by abusing a bug instead of walking away from IC and saying "This doesn't seem right". As only 276 accounts were suspended, it didn't happen to everyone in IC. Only people who were clearly and obviously exploiting the situation. There were even people in IC advertising groups during the bug and using XP scrolls.

Whether you enjoy playing or not, you don't continue playing when you're getting ten thousand times the reward. Player accountability is a personal matter and you are responsible for your own choices. If you don't understand why it's wrong then just take it at face value that it's wrong and learn to never do it again. Any time you spot a bug that is giving you more than it should, immediately report it and stay away from doing it. This is not the first time ESO has had a bug of this nature. Infinite XP from repeatable quest turn-ins and infinite skill points from killing the same bugged public dungeon boss have existed with account action levied against those individuals as well.

If you were oblivious to why this matters then fear not and take the punishment and learn from it. This isn't something players are permitted to do regardless of whether they care about the gains or not.

You apparently missed the part of my comments where I said I didn't know anything about any unusual XP gain. When you're over the CP cap, there is nothing exciting or interesting about gaining more CP. I simply don't pay any attention to it. Why would I react to something I didn't know about?