Stealing scrolls with "spy"characters

Dreamweaver357

Awhile ago, by a miracle, DC was leading in the campaign I run in.
There was a very clear turning point tho...
After 2 days of really hard fighting (3 bars DC vs poplocked AD) and with DC leading by a small margin, some AD people login with some DC characters, pickup an AD scroll currently owned by DC and walks it over all the way to AD territory. That DC character made fun of us all the way into AD territory and at a point was even escorted by AD players.

Enough said, DC dropped a full pop bar immediately, the over the next days we had half of the numbers coming online. Some guilds just gave up fighting or turned on each other. I have never seen anything more toxic in PvP honestly.

Enough said, I wanted to ask what is the current "rules" for doing that kind of things?
Common-sense obviously says this is a [censored]-move, but is it against the Terms or something? If it is, how consistently is this enforced by Zenimax?
Have you had similar experiences?

We had dozens of reports filled on the spies making fun of us and exploiting the scroll mechanic, however on the next few days we spotted them online and playing as if nothing had happened.

Disclaimer: I don't mean to offend any factions or group of people by this post, this is also not a critic to Zenimax. I really just would like to know how big of a problem should I expect this to be in campaigns to come, as I have come to really enjoy AvA and I'd like to see my faction win one day without having to deal with what I perceive as cheaters.

Raknosh

First of all, I'm gonna assume that DC spy got an AD friend inside the keep with exploits, cause only enemies can take a scroll off his pedestal.

I remember about 2 years ago, we've had the same cancer going on in BwB. It was always the same 2 players, Judge and Jago. They did that repeatedly for about a month and eventually (I learned that recently) Jago got banned. They still had time to troll a ton of scrolls that way and it was very disheartening for everyone.

It pisses me off that I got name banned almost instantly for "offensive" name (I insist on the quotes here) and they will close their eyes for so long on mass report about people exploiting...

Aliyavana

All factions do this, but it sucks that you have to log in to a different faction character to counter it and cant kill traitors. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/419772/this-is-why-people-hate-the-pvp-cyrodil-community/p1 zos doesn't care and the person in particular that did this in this instance is correct in that zos doesn't care. I used to care about campaign score and faction loyalty but its just pointless when you can do things like this and you can log in to another faction and kill players in the faction you were fighting along side 5 minutes ago.

esotoon

As I understand it, ZOS don't have a problem with 'Spies' and related issues so long as they don't break the ToS, because "It's all part of warfare". (Some would argue it's more to do with them not having the means, manpower or will to enforce rules/mechanics to prevent it, but that's an argument for another day. )

All you can do, is let it go. Don't let it affect you. Over time you will see that there are times when your faction does exactly the same to them as they did to you. Scrolls will be stolen, scrolls will be passed to the opposite side to try help a losing faction; scrolls will be passed to an opposite faction to 'repay' them for help they might have given your faction earlier; scrolls will be used by guilds to farm inexperienced players; scrolls will be used by trolls to cause mischief, etc.

The sooner you accept all those things (and more) happen to all 3 factions, the less such tactics will bother you and the more fun you will have in PVP.

(To be clear, I would far rather it not happen because, like you say, it can be demoralising, etc. But as it can, you just have to accept it as part of PVP life.)

Kartalin

You know, part of why they do it is to see people react like this.

Enkil

Kartalin wrote: »

You know, part of why they do it is to see people react like this.

...but mainly because they are sad and pathetic.

geonsocal

Enkil wrote: »

Kartalin wrote: »

You know, part of why they do it is to see people react like this.

...but mainly because they are sad and pathetic.

although i did "agree"...that may be a little harsh...annoying as *** may be a little more apropos...

people do all sorts of weird stuff for various reasons...i think it may be part of our dna code...the "acting strange" chromosome...

still remember the first time i saw it happen...was playing blue...saw another blue player with an AD scroll heading in the "wrong" direction...

was playing with a buddy at the time...took us a minute or two to figure out what the heck was happening...

supposedly this particular player did it to prove his "loyalty" to AD...

man i was pissed...mostly cuz, there ain't *** you can really do about it at the time, other than to hope some other random enemy from either of the other two alliance attacks them and releases the scroll from their character...

i stayed pissed about it for a few months...thankfully it hasn't happened too often while i was playing...

i'll tell ya what else is kinda annoying - the folks who drop a scroll in the lava crevasse by chorrol - then keep trying to pick it up without just letting it time out and return to wherever it belonged...

i'm not even sure it's possible to get the scroll out of that lava...

Vilestride

Enkil wrote: »

Kartalin wrote: »

You know, part of why they do it is to see people react like this.

...but mainly because they are sad and pathetic.

I'd say what's sad and pathetic is getting riled about about the actions of a player in a video game. Enough so to suggest that they are noth sad and or pathetic.

There is nothing wrong with taking a scroll to whichever faction you choose.

Kelces

Vilestride wrote: »

Enkil wrote: »

Kartalin wrote: »

You know, part of why they do it is to see people react like this.

...but mainly because they are sad and pathetic.

I'd say what's sad and pathetic is getting wrilled about about the actions of a player in a video game. Enough so to suggest that they are noth sad and or pathetic.

There is nothing wrong with taking a scroll to whichever faction you choose.

It's laughable, just as a kid throwing around sand in the sandbox to get rid of all the other kids in there to have it for him/herself. Isn't that pathetic if a (young) adult acts out on such an immature level? Some people simply never grow up and do stuff like this.

Kartalin wrote: »

You know, part of why they do it is to see people react like this.

And guess what sort of mind would want to do something with precisely that intention...

Heimpai

Vilestride wrote: »

Enkil wrote: »

Kartalin wrote: »

You know, part of why they do it is to see people react like this.

...but mainly because they are sad and pathetic.

I'd say what's sad and pathetic is getting wrilled about about the actions of a player in a video game. Enough so to suggest that they are noth sad and or pathetic.

There is nothing wrong with taking a scroll to whichever faction you choose.

Just like you by his comment? There’s also nothing wrong with faction swapping to the winning side, it is just a video game after all

Vilestride

Heimpai wrote: »

Vilestride wrote: »

Enkil wrote: »

Kartalin wrote: »

You know, part of why they do it is to see people react like this.

...but mainly because they are sad and pathetic.

I'd say what's sad and pathetic is getting wrilled about about the actions of a player in a video game. Enough so to suggest that they are noth sad and or pathetic.

There is nothing wrong with taking a scroll to whichever faction you choose.

Just like you by his comment? There’s also nothing wrong with faction swapping to the winning side, it is just a video game after all

Or you by this one. Mmmmm paradoxical.

dtsharples

Raknosh wrote: »

First of all, I'm gonna assume that DC spy got an AD friend inside the keep with exploits, cause only enemies can take a scroll off his pedestal.

I was under the impression that if said scroll was was in a keep that got flipped to a different colour, that the scroll would remain 'movable' until placed within a different enemy keep again.
This is why you should immediately remove scrolls from conquered keeps, and run them to any other keep you own - as it completely prevents this from happening.

Was this the case here? Because like Raknosh mentioned, only enemies can remove scrolls once they are secured in a new position.

Beardimus

Just another reason for alliance lock. Sure the D Bags will still happily lose a week to get up to nefarious 'RP' I'm sure but it would help cut out some of the crap we see.

Hurtfan

Vilestride wrote: »

Enkil wrote: »

Kartalin wrote: »

You know, part of why they do it is to see people react like this.

...but mainly because they are sad and pathetic.

I'd say what's sad and pathetic is getting riled about about the actions of a player in a video game. Enough so to suggest that they are noth sad and or pathetic.

There is nothing wrong with taking a scroll to whichever faction you choose.

Really? There's plenty wrong with trolling the scroll.

I give up on the human race.

Dreamweaver357

Since some people don't know how they did pick up the scroll - AD managed to open a breach on the side of the keep, went in there and picked up the scroll.

DC reinforcements showed up and killed AD runner, and took the keep back. As soon as the scroll fell on the ground, that DC "spy" I mentioned picked it up and moved away from the now cleared Keep.

Runner then started moving south (with DC in masse following the runner telling him to go back to the keep) until we could no longer keep up with the AD respawn rates within their own territory. Only then the runner got killed (scroll was beyond Roe at this point) and changed to AD hands.

IIRC, "Red Lotus" - I guess thats an AD guild? - was what they kept talking about as that "@inobdurate" ran the scroll south.

Vilestride

Dreamweaver357 wrote: »

Since some people don't know how they did pick up the scroll - AD managed to open a breach on the side of the keep, went in there and picked up the scroll.

DC reinforcements showed up and killed AD runner, and took the keep back. As soon as the scroll fell on the ground, that DC "spy" I mentioned picked it up and moved away from the now cleared Keep.

Runner then started moving south (with DC in masse following the runner telling him to go back to the keep) until we could no longer keep up with the AD respawn rates within their own territory. Only then the runner got killed (scroll was beyond Roe at this point) and changed to AD hands.

IIRC, "Red Lotus" - I guess thats an AD guild? - was what they kept talking about as that "@inobdurate" ran the scroll south.

Maybe the scroll runner made the right choice. Maybe he brokered a deal with AD that would benifit DC and he thought he was helping the faction. Maybe he decided having the scroll was tactically unwise. Maybe he just thought AD deserved it more.

None of it matters. The decision of what to do with a scroll is entirely up to the scroll runner. If you wanted something else to happen you should have picked it up.

This is in no way against any rules and is completely fair game. Change my mind.

BloodBeast_ESO

Aliyavana wrote: »

All factions do this, but it sucks that you have to log in to a different faction character to counter it and cant kill traitors. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/419772/this-is-why-people-hate-the-pvp-cyrodil-community/p1 zos doesn't care and the person in particular that did this in this instance is correct in that zos doesn't care. I used to care about campaign score and faction loyalty but its just pointless when you can do things like this and you can log in to another faction and kill players in the faction you were fighting along side 5 minutes ago.

ScrollTroll 2018

xan4silkb14_ESO

Vilestride wrote: »

Dreamweaver357 wrote: »

Since some people don't know how they did pick up the scroll - AD managed to open a breach on the side of the keep, went in there and picked up the scroll.

DC reinforcements showed up and killed AD runner, and took the keep back. As soon as the scroll fell on the ground, that DC "spy" I mentioned picked it up and moved away from the now cleared Keep.

Runner then started moving south (with DC in masse following the runner telling him to go back to the keep) until we could no longer keep up with the AD respawn rates within their own territory. Only then the runner got killed (scroll was beyond Roe at this point) and changed to AD hands.

IIRC, "Red Lotus" - I guess thats an AD guild? - was what they kept talking about as that "@inobdurate" ran the scroll south.

Maybe the scroll runner made the right choice. Maybe he brokered a deal with AD that would benifit DC and he thought he was helping the faction. Maybe he decided having the scroll was tactically unwise. Maybe he just thought AD deserved it more.

None of it matters. The decision of what to do with a scroll is entirely up to the scroll runner. If you wanted something else to happen you should have picked it up.

This is in no way against any rules and is completely fair game. Change my mind.

If there was an actual deal brokered to "benefit DC" then maybe some communication to those escorting the scroll runner on what the deal was should have occurred. Unless there was a "cease fire" brokered between AD and DC for X amount of time and AD was concentrating all attacks on EP I don't see any other benefit that outweighs keeping an Elder Scroll.

Also, if the OP is correct and the scroll runner was in essence trash talking the DC faction mates, he's not helping.

Vicarra

The same thing happened about two weeks ago. The DC scroll was held in an AD keep, we (DC) went for it, and the scroll was ninja'ed by a random DC guy, who immediately ran it to EP for them to store it at KC. I reported him for it, but the only way to really fix these sorts of issues to bring back faction locking so that it makes it harder for people to have spy characters.

esotoon

Vicarra wrote: »

faction locking so that it makes it harder for people to have spy characters.

Faction locking wouldn't solve it. It is so cheap to buy the base game and quick to level a character these days that people would just use alt accounts to do it (if they don't already have them).

Ormtunge

esotoon wrote: »

Vicarra wrote: »

faction locking so that it makes it harder for people to have spy characters.

Faction locking wouldn't solve it. It is so cheap to buy the base game and quick to level a character these days that people would just use alt accounts to do it (if they don't already have them).

Well, since almost no players have several accounts, a faction lock would remove almost all of the scroll stealing. That is in my oppinion very good and could improve the pvp experience for the majority of the pvpers in Cyrodill:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/434101/we-want-our-cyrodill-back-pc-eu/p1

Beardimus

Faction Locking wont fix everything - but it will stop plenty.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler mentioned a few months back that they are looking at something with it.

I pray for an alliance locked, 7 day, noCP campaign for the real hardcore campaign loyalists

RaddlemanNumber7

Easy technical fix would be to prevent players from picking up a scroll that is installed in a friendly keep or temple, so players can only pick up scrolls from enemy held keeps and temples.

xan4silkb14_ESO

esotoon wrote: »

As I understand it, ZOS don't have a problem with 'Spies' and related issues so long as they don't break the ToS, because "It's all part of warfare". (Some would argue it's more to do with them not having the means, manpower or will to enforce rules/mechanics to prevent it, but that's an argument for another day. )

Except in "It's all part of warfare" you'd be able to kill the spy without "pretending to join the other side"(i.e. log in to a different faction character)

esotoon

Ormtunge wrote: »

Well, since almost no players have several accounts, a faction lock would remove almost all of the scroll stealing. That is in my oppinion very good and could improve the pvp experience for the majority of the pvpers in Cyrodill:

Not sure whether it is because the majority of guilds I'm in are Trade guilds, but the number of people who I see talking about having multiple accounts is quite high (I have several myself). Obviously I can't give an exact figure but it is certainly more than "almost no players".

And given there are already trolls who use multiple accounts, I just don't see that faction locking would be the cure to this particular problem. (It might well be the cure to other PVP problems, just not this one.)

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

Easy technical fix would be to prevent players from picking up a scroll that is installed in a friendly keep or temple, so players can only pick up scrolls from enemy held keeps and temples.

That is how the game works now.

Maryal

esotoon wrote: »

Vicarra wrote: »

faction locking so that it makes it harder for people to have spy characters.

Faction locking wouldn't solve it. It is so cheap to buy the base game and quick to level a character these days that people would just use alt accounts to do it (if they don't already have them).

The way faction locking used to occur in this game was that you couldn't have more than 1 character in a given campaign. If you had a 'different faction alt', that alt had to join a different campaign. Faction locking didn't 100% prevent spys, but spys occurred much less often -- that type of behavior wasn't 'accepted' by the majority of pvp'ers (it was looked down upon). If someone was a spy, they were 'named and shamed' in zone chat, no one would group with them or rez them (they basically were shunned).

esotoon

Maryal wrote: »

The way faction locking used to occur in this game was that you couldn't have more than 1 character in a given campaign. If you had a 'different faction alt', that alt had to join a different campaign. Faction locking didn't 100% prevent spys, but spys occurred much less often -- that type of behavior wasn't 'accepted' by the majority of pvp'ers (it was looked down upon). If someone was a spy, they were 'named and shamed' in zone chat, no one would group with them or rez them (they basically were shunned).

I'm talking about alternative accounts, not alternative characters.

When the game started, it was a subscription model. Not only was the cost of the game high (because it was new) but in order to play you had to also pay the monthly sub. Levelling was much harder. So, trolls were put off from having multiple accounts and, like you say, the faction lock was a good deterrent.

4 Years on, the sub model is gone and you can pick up a brand new copy of the game for £5 (6 USD). Levelling is much easier, taking just a matter of a few hours, and unless you are new, gold and materials are no problem because you have a load stockpiled. As a result, it is next to no hassle for players (so inclined) to have multiple accounts. So without that financial barrier, and with the social policing ("Naming and Shaming", etc.) no longer being applicable, it's impossible for the faction lock to be the deterrent to scroll trolling/spying it once was.

allstarplayergk

I see the debate rage on whether running a scroll to an opposing faction is breaking TOS, how about exploiting in order to gain control of the scroll like what went on allllll day on PS4 NA vivec today...
https://youtu.be/0xCdGndd498

heng14rwb17_ESO

TRAITOR MUST DIE

MetalHead4x4

Amazing isn't it, but I get run down in my own zone chat by other faction members as well as my own team mates because I say people cheat like this.

idk

Dreamweaver357 wrote: »

After 2 days of really hard fighting (3 bars DC vs poplocked AD) and with DC leading by a small margin, some AD people login with some DC characters, pickup an AD scroll currently owned by DC.

In all this time I had never tried to pick up a scroll my alliance had placed.

Being that I have never seen someone move a scroll from one keep to another for friendly reasons Zos could lock the scroll in place until an enemy faction member picks it up or the keep changes hands.