MAJOR AP EXPLOIT WITH 2x AP (500k+ per hour)!!!

Blobsky · July 2018

For those who remember last Double AP event, there were huge groups flipping outposts taking turns without fighting...

Well the same is true in Imperial city currently.

Many campaigns have groups of 20+ taking turns taking IC flags in 1 huge circle, getting 6k AP per flip. This was actually done even BEFORE the 2x AP but is now completely out of hand. People are able to get around 300-500K AP per hour and are getting ridiculous amounts of gold and ranks that are completely undeserved.

Zos stated clearly that this uncompetitive AP 'Trading' is a bannable offence, and it is destroying the AP economy... So please respond and help deal with this! @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

PS: If a Zos guy sees this, please take the thread down and forward the info to the relevant parties asap

saxgooner · July 2018

Cheers. will give it a try later

Universe · July 2018

This is very disappointing.
I presumed there is some kind of a new/existing exploit, especially when I noticed some players managed to make 200k-250k ap per hour even before the ap event(based on campaign Leaderboard scoring).
Hopefully ZOS will fix it soon and punish the exploiters.
Sadly, now that you advertised the exploit many more will do it.

Feanor · July 2018

@Blobsky

I'm sure this will be called "clever use of game mechanics" again. Tbh, it's not a biggie. AP in general is so out of hand that it's not funny. You're regularly getting 20k+ ticks for a 1v1 on a level 5 resource, and def ticks in the 90k+ range aren't seldom. The record is around 500k AP for a single keep def tick.

It's like always. @ZOS_BrianWheeler was tagged numerous times considering the absurd results the calculation has on level 5 resources and keeps. The IC flag flip exploit was brought up before Midyear Mayhem even started. The utter and deafening silence on these matters are just a mirror of the state of PvP in general.

KingMagaw · July 2018

Blobsky wrote: »

Zos stated clearly that this uncompetitive AP 'Trading' is a bannable offence, and it is destroying the AP economy... So please respond and help deal with this! @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Link please with that factual information. If the IC flags are giving the correct AP i see nothing wrong with this.

Not like ESO is competitive.

Avran_Sylt · July 2018

Oh sweet. Wonder if I can get any bombers together.

Blobsky · July 2018

KingMagaw wrote: »

Blobsky wrote: »

Zos stated clearly that this uncompetitive AP 'Trading' is a bannable offence, and it is destroying the AP economy... So please respond and help deal with this! @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Link please with that factual information. If the IC flags are giving the correct AP i see nothing wrong with this.

Not like ESO is competitive.

During the bleakers version of this over 300 accounts were issued permanant and temporary bans

Feanor · July 2018

KingMagaw wrote: »

Blobsky wrote: »

Zos stated clearly that this uncompetitive AP 'Trading' is a bannable offence, and it is destroying the AP economy... So please respond and help deal with this! @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Link please with that factual information. If the IC flags are giving the correct AP i see nothing wrong with this.

Not like ESO is competitive.

You aren't supposed to run in circles after the other group, flipping flags and never engage. It's not different to the outpost "roleplay". It's painfully obvious this is an exploit.

That said, the IC flags shouldn't count for the campaign ranking and have an AP cooldown, just as resources do. Another job of less than stellar game design.

Thlepse · July 2018

someone already got a 700k ish defense tick

DenniMyuu · July 2018

And people who just go in circles, take the flag to get a Tel var bonus while they kill the bosses in each district (which most of the time are killed or the same one spawned therefore you keep on going) for IC achievement are exploiting. Ok cool.

Hammy01 · July 2018

Blobsky wrote: »

For those who remember last Double AP event, there were huge groups flipping outposts taking turns without fighting...

Well the same is true in Imperial city currently.

Many campaigns have groups of 20+ taking turns taking IC flags in 1 huge circle, getting 6k AP per flip. This was actually done even BEFORE the 2x AP but is now completely out of hand. People are able to get around 300-500K AP per hour and are getting ridiculous amounts of gold and ranks that are completely undeserved.

Zos stated clearly that this uncompetitive AP 'Trading' is a bannable offence, and it is destroying the AP economy... So please respond and help deal with this! @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

PS: If a Zos guy sees this, please take the thread down and forward the info to the relevant parties asap

Zos should start laying down the ban hammer on these people but they won't. Instead they will just wipe all the AP gained from the flag flipping.... of course this is after all the flag flippers have already converted their AP to other things. Zos really has no clue at this point. The only thing they are really good at is their crown store and crates!

Feanor · July 2018

To me it's always amazing to see the length some people will go to when it comes to defending exploits.

Blobsky · July 2018

Feanor wrote: »

To me it's always amazing to see the length some people will go to when it comes to defending exploits.

Yep... sad to see

LegendaryMage · July 2018

Roleplayers went to IC now? Cool...

Fallewarrior · July 2018

Noone got permanently banned for bleakers. just some temp bans, and ap wasn't even reverted. Roleplaying is the good life

Moonsorrow · July 2018

I hope to see permanent bans again and with fast reaction on it.

Us pvp players who earn AP the legit way pay our pvp (potions, food, gearing) with that AP so we dont have to farm at pve land. Those who do this exploit should think about their fellow pvp people and not make AP worthless. And no, you cannot defend this kind of behaviour. It is cheating and low. These people needs to be teabagged so hard they get disconnected from the server for a lifetime.

Qbiken · July 2018

What surprises me is that it took people this long to realise flipping flags in IC is a really good way of farming AP. Not as efficient as creating artificial defensive ticks, but it gives you a steady flow of AP/hour.

Feanor wrote: »

KingMagaw wrote: »

Blobsky wrote: »

Zos stated clearly that this uncompetitive AP 'Trading' is a bannable offence, and it is destroying the AP economy... So please respond and help deal with this! @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Link please with that factual information. If the IC flags are giving the correct AP i see nothing wrong with this.

Not like ESO is competitive.

You aren't supposed to run in circles after the other group, flipping flags and never engage. It's not different to the outpost "roleplay". It's painfully obvious this is an exploit.

That said, the IC flags shouldn't count for the campaign ranking and have an AP cooldown, just as resources do. Another job of less than stellar game design.

Each individual flag does have a cooldown, but since you flip more than one flag you´ll never be near that cooldown.
(memorial --> Arena --> Arboretum --> Temple ---> Noble --> Elven and repeat). But I kinda have to agree that IC shouldn´t count towards the overall leaderboard. Maybe if it one day became a part of the base-game it would be logical.

While I´m not going to mention any names, it would explain all the huge organized raids in imperial city on shor the last few days.

Salvas_Aren · July 2018

Take AP from the game and let ppl play for fun.

laksikus · July 2018

Feanor wrote: »

KingMagaw wrote: »

Blobsky wrote: »

Zos stated clearly that this uncompetitive AP 'Trading' is a bannable offence, and it is destroying the AP economy... So please respond and help deal with this! @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Link please with that factual information. If the IC flags are giving the correct AP i see nothing wrong with this.

Not like ESO is competitive.

You aren't supposed to run in circles after the other group, flipping flags and never engage. It's not different to the outpost "roleplay". It's painfully obvious this is an exploit.

That said, the IC flags shouldn't count for the campaign ranking and have an AP cooldown, just as resources do. Another job of less than stellar game design.

Actuall, its quite different from outpost trading. You cant afk and let others flip it.
Zos took several steps to ensure people dobt afk farm. Beeing it dolmens, outposts or standing afk in keeps to get defense ticks.

Flipping those IC flags is bot that different to farming xp/gold/telvar in circles somewhere. And clearly those farms are no exploit?

No rule states that you have to engage enemies. Neither for pvdoor, flipping ressources for ap and campaign points or farming telvars with killing bosses in IC.
So i dont rly see why it should be different with IC flags

The Uninvited · July 2018

Feanor wrote: »

You aren't supposed to run in circles after the other group, flipping flags and never engage. It's not different to the outpost "roleplay". It's painfully obvious this is an exploit.

That said, the IC flags shouldn't count for the campaign ranking and have an AP cooldown, just as resources do. Another job of less than stellar game design.

So, let's say I jump into IC and all the flags are taking by enemies BUT they are all gone back up into Cyrodiil.

I could take the flags without ever engaging, so that would be an exploit to you?

Blobsky · July 2018

The Uninvited wrote: »

Feanor wrote: »

You aren't supposed to run in circles after the other group, flipping flags and never engage. It's not different to the outpost "roleplay". It's painfully obvious this is an exploit.

That said, the IC flags shouldn't count for the campaign ranking and have an AP cooldown, just as resources do. Another job of less than stellar game design.

So, let's say I jump into IC and all the flags are taking by enemies BUT they are all gone back up into Cyrodiil.

I could take the flags without ever engaging, so that would be an exploit to you?

You wouldnt be able to, as the other alliances wouldnt be taking turns taking them off of you.

Beardimus · July 2018

Feanor wrote: »

To me it's always amazing to see the length some people will go to when it comes to defending exploits.

Was just about to post this!! Its unreal. And it shows the issue is people. I think regardless of what ZOS do with peoples mentalities defending alliance switching, AP boosting, Emp Farming etc etc etc cheaters gunna always cheat sadly.

I just wish @ZOS_BrianWheeler et al took a real interest into it and what they can do. Surely the data itself speaks volumes, even with out us reporting.

Please guys, put some steps t bring some integrity back into Cyro

Feanor · July 2018

No rule states that you have to engage enemies. Neither for pvdoor, flipping ressources for ap and campaign points or farming telvars with killing bosses in IC.
So i dont rly see why it should be different with IC flags

That is exactly the same argumentation people brought up why their Bleakers roleplay was ok. Don't you see how illogical an "I can't be forced to engage opponents" in a PvP setting is? It breaks the very reason the game mode exists. We could just award AP for killing overworld or dungeon NPC then too.

A radical solution would be to award no AP at all if there were just NPCs killed. Would make PvDooring a lot less attractive in Cyrodiil too.

Septimus_Magna · July 2018

500k AP per hour? Lets do some math on that.

For each flag flip you get 6k AP
500/6=83 flag flips per hour
That 1 flag flip every 43.4 seconds

I havent tried flipping IC flags with a big group but I dont think thats even remotely possible. Walking/riding from one flag to next district door to the next flag probably takes more time than that, especially if you get hit with a loading screen once in a while.

Qbiken · July 2018

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

500k AP per hour? Lets do some math on that.

For each flag flip you get 6k AP
500/6=83 flag flips per hour
That 1 flag flip every 43.4 seconds

I havent tried flipping IC flags with a big group but I dont think thats even remotely possible. Walking/riding from one flag to next district door to the next flag probably takes more time than that, especially if you get hit with a loading screen once in a while.

Assuming you can flip those flags without getting disturbed too much, you can easily make 90-100k AP/hour (x2 during the event). 500k AP/hour feels way excessive, I can agree with that. For that too happen it would require people feeding you AP and then getting "defensive ticks" from protecting your flag.

Malacthulhu · July 2018

Yes lets bring out the ban hammer for poor game design. I use to run this coffee shop and I had these crappy disposable cups, I noticed some customers started using their own cups so I banned them. Eventually, I had no customers. Guess I could have sold better cups.

After playing mmos since uo I can tell you that any poorly desgined system will be run and "exploited" by the playerbase. A game with so many issues using the banhammer for poor quality work is a joke.

Btw, who designs such a system without putting a cap on pvp currency per hour per toon so everything doesn't just get flooded.

The Uninvited · July 2018

Blobsky wrote: »

The Uninvited wrote: »

Feanor wrote: »

You aren't supposed to run in circles after the other group, flipping flags and never engage. It's not different to the outpost "roleplay". It's painfully obvious this is an exploit.

That said, the IC flags shouldn't count for the campaign ranking and have an AP cooldown, just as resources do. Another job of less than stellar game design.

So, let's say I jump into IC and all the flags are taking by enemies BUT they are all gone back up into Cyrodiil.

I could take the flags without ever engaging, so that would be an exploit to you?

You wouldnt be able to, as the other alliances wouldnt be taking turns taking them off of you.

??? I could just take all the flags without ever engaging, right?

So what makes it an exploit? Flipping the flags OR doing so without ever engaging the enemy?

Asardes · July 2018

Well, what do you expect? It happened during the last 2 double AP events as well, starting with the first one, in March 2017. IMO the best solution against this would be to put a cooldown on AP gained in getting an objective, with diminishing gain, in relation to how much time has passed since the last change. Namely you would only get the standard AP if that point has been held for more than 15 minutes by an opposing faction, then cut the AP exponentially in relation to time. For example if it was flipped after only 1 minute, you should get 1/15. Since the AP for an IC flag is 3K (6K with the event), this will be reduced to a mere 200 (400) AP. I think such a rule should be reasonable, since PvP has become way too much PvDoor in the last year or so due to changes made to scoring.

Feanor · July 2018

Malacthulhu wrote: »

Yes lets bring out the ban hammer for poor game design. I use to run this coffee shop and I had these crappy disposable cups, I noticed some customers started using their own cups so I banned them. Eventually, I had no customers. Guess I could have sold better cups.

After playing mmos since uo I can tell you that any poorly desgined system will be run and "exploited" by the playerbase. A game with so many issues using the banhammer for poor quality work is a joke.

I guess that's why a certain game company which is named after a natural catastrophe is so harsh on their exploiters and even starts law suits against the companies that develop cheating tools and exploit suites....

The Uninvited · July 2018

IC is usually a dead zone anyway, these are probably a lot of PVE players only there for the event and maybe even too scared to engage.

Feanor · July 2018

The Uninvited wrote: »

Blobsky wrote: »

The Uninvited wrote: »

Feanor wrote: »

You aren't supposed to run in circles after the other group, flipping flags and never engage. It's not different to the outpost "roleplay". It's painfully obvious this is an exploit.

That said, the IC flags shouldn't count for the campaign ranking and have an AP cooldown, just as resources do. Another job of less than stellar game design.

So, let's say I jump into IC and all the flags are taking by enemies BUT they are all gone back up into Cyrodiil.

I could take the flags without ever engaging, so that would be an exploit to you?

You wouldnt be able to, as the other alliances wouldnt be taking turns taking them off of you.

??? I could just take all the flags without ever engaging, right?

So what makes it an exploit? Flipping the flags OR doing so without ever engaging the enemy?

The exploit is agreeing with the other group - either in chat, over discord or through conclusive action - that you're not going to fight at all but just flip the flag for each other. Is that so hard to get?