Unjustified perma bans?

ZeeroCelcius

ZOS, how can you justify handing out perma bans to players for something they didnt intentionally do or even know about?

More and more in the past week I have been hearing players are recieving a perma ban and they are unaware as to why. After numberous emails between them and ZOS, they recieve an answer stating that they used an exploit with the Stone Husk Target Dummy. Its my understanding that these bans are happening because [snip] So these people deserve a perma ban [snip]? I haven't seen any mention of this in the forums (I may have overlooked it if there) but keep hearing more people having this issue. [snip]

Has anyone else been hearing this and find it messed up?

[edited for exploit/baiting]

Ackwalan

You need to edit out how to do the exploit.

Girl_Number8

No I have not. You should tag a few people with your Question and Contact them directly with the appropriate information.

Is there any information on this

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_BillE
@ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Caveat, ZOS cannot and will not discuss disciplinary actions taken

Update; If you have questions or concerns about an in-game disciplinary action, please contact https://help.elderscrollsonline.com/ to ask about a suspension or ban, and any other support-related feedback. We cannot assist with in-game violations on the forums.

*I did not see this earlier

Dusk_Coven

ZeeroCelcius wrote: »

they recieve an answer stating that they used an exploit with the Stone Husk Target Dummy. [snip]

Let's ASSUME that this was the actual cause.
What was stopping the player from reporting the bug/exploit [snip]?

Or did they quietly keep everything? Like with the one-berry Onyx indrik exploit and try to play dumb afterwards? Especially those who didn't stumble on it but were told of the exploit in or outside of the game and proceeded to use it.

If the players promptly reported, then I would expect ZOS to take that into account.
But given the stories about customer service on these forums, that's iffy at best.

[edited for exploit]

ZeeroCelcius

Ackwalan wrote: »

You need to edit out how to do the exploit.

You must want to see more people banned

ZeeroCelcius

Girl_Number8 wrote: »

No I have not. You should tag a few people with your Question and Contact them directly with the appropriate information.

Is there any information on this

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_BillE
@ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Caveat, ZOS cannot and will not discuss disciplinary actions taken

Thanks. I knew I forgot something. And no, I dont expect a reasoning behind it. Acknowledgement of the issue would suffice.

Wildberryjack

Thank you for posting this, I know to [snip] now so I don't end up banned! OMG. What in the world?

And ZOS, seriously,[snip]. Banning is overblown. Come on! Really? Oh and fix it [snip]. Wow guys.

[edited for exploit]

SolidusPrime

They've never banned people for basic mistakes like this before. I have a hard time believing they are doing it now. I don't know anyone that has experienced this, nor have I heard of it happening or seen any posts making similar claims.

People are probably getting banned for legitimate reasons and using this as an excuse.

mairwen85

ZeeroCelcius wrote: »

Ackwalan wrote: »

You need to edit out how to do the exploit.

You must want to see more people banned

I think they're trying to help you avoid moderator action against your account.

ZeeroCelcius

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

ZeeroCelcius wrote: »

they recieve an answer stating that they used an exploit with the Stone Husk Target Dummy. Its my understanding that these bans are happening because when a player goes to combine the fragments to make the dummy, if they are not all stacked, the fragments remain in your inventory and you still receive the dummy.

Let's ASSUME that this was the actual cause.
What was stopping the player from reporting the bug/exploit [snip]?

Or did they quietly keep everything? Like with the one-berry Onyx indrik exploit and try to play dumb afterwards? Especially those who didn't stumble on it but were told of the exploit in or outside of the game and proceeded to use it.

If the players promptly reported, then I would expect ZOS to take that into account.
But given the stories about customer service on these forums, that's iffy at best.

How many players have something random like this happen in game and report it? Dought there are many. But true what is stopping them from reporting it? Yes, maybe some are playing dumb with this whole thing. That still doesnt justify that the game isn't consuming what it should and then putting blame on the players. The Onyx Indrik exploit was more of a [snip]. This was also patched in like a day.

[edited for bashing]

Wildberryjack

SolidusPrime wrote: »

They've never banned people for basic mistakes like this before. I have a hard time believing they are doing it now. I don't know anyone that has experienced this, nor have I heard of it happening or seen any posts making similar claims.

People are probably getting banned for legitimate reasons and using this as an excuse.

That is of course entirely possible, but what if it is the reason? This needs to be addressed if so. If a number of people have been perma banned it does seem odd they'd all give out the same lie as to why, so it makes me wonder.

ZeeroCelcius

SolidusPrime wrote: »

They've never banned people for basic mistakes like this before. I have a hard time believing they are doing it now. I don't know anyone that has experienced this, nor have I heard of it happening or seen any posts making similar claims.

People are probably getting banned for legitimate reasons and using this as an excuse.

You obviously havent seen the emails back and forth between other and ZOS. Just because you haven't heard about it, doesnt mean its not happening.

Elsonso

I don't know if a permanent ban is warranted, that is certainly a decision that ZOS gets to make, but I do think that a ban is warranted.

I watched as a streamer encountered an exploit on a stream. They immediately knew something was wrong, documented it, reported it, and then stopped so that they would not exploit it any more.

That is how an "innocent" should be able to avoid a ban.

The key point is not that the player encountered an exploit and used it, it is that they continue to use it beyond what would be considered the point of awareness. They knew something was wrong, yet did it anyway.

Just because the game does something does not mean that it is right to do that. The game is not the arbiter of what we can do, the ToS is.


Edit: I did want to add that they responded to this pretty quickly.

Tandor

Wildberryjack wrote: »

SolidusPrime wrote: »

They've never banned people for basic mistakes like this before. I have a hard time believing they are doing it now. I don't know anyone that has experienced this, nor have I heard of it happening or seen any posts making similar claims.

People are probably getting banned for legitimate reasons and using this as an excuse.

That is of course entirely possible, but what if it is the reason? This needs to be addressed if so. If a number of people have been perma banned it does seem odd they'd all give out the same lie as to why, so it makes me wonder.

Given that the OP is talking as if he's either seen or heard the details of the emails between the affected players and ZOS, and no-one else has yet suggested they've heard about this so as to indicate that it went beyond the OP's circle, my guess is that we're talking about a single guild here, in which case it would explain an organised defence. I'm not saying that's what happened, just that it's one possible explanation.

Dusk_Coven

SolidusPrime wrote: »

They've never banned people for basic mistakes like this before. I have a hard time believing they are doing it now. I don't know anyone that has experienced this, nor have I heard of it happening or seen any posts making similar claims.

People are probably getting banned for legitimate reasons and using this as an excuse.

Or they simply decided to change their policy on how decisions are made regarding exploits. Past decisions do not guarantee future decisions -- and their umbrella policy of not discussing how they conduct investigations makes it easier to change policies.
They don't owe us any explanation for any change in decisionmaking. Heck I think they don't even technically have to obey their own TOS.

Elsonso

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

SolidusPrime wrote: »

They've never banned people for basic mistakes like this before. I have a hard time believing they are doing it now. I don't know anyone that has experienced this, nor have I heard of it happening or seen any posts making similar claims.

People are probably getting banned for legitimate reasons and using this as an excuse.

Or they simply decided to change their policy on how decisions are made regarding exploits. Past decisions do not guarantee future decisions -- and their umbrella policy of not discussing how they conduct investigations makes it easier to change policies.
They don't owe us any explanation for any change in decisionmaking. Heck I think they don't even technically have to obey their own TOS.

It is easier to ban and then see what the player has to say to justify the behavior in an appeal. Of course, I am not suggesting that they blanket banned everyone. No indication of that. I am sure they banned the people they decided were bannable. Now they have to sort out the edge effects.

(Edit... and if history is relevant, I am sure that some people who do deserve a ban will be bragging about how they got away with it.)

Karmanorway

Who cares about stupid dummys, ban snipe desync exploiters instead xD

TequilaFire

/sigh

Azuramoonstar

Banning people who do exploits is normal. ff11 dev banned entire endgame guilds who used exploits.

If you see an exploit report it.

OtarTheMad

Azuramoonstar wrote: »

Banning people who do exploits is normal. ff11 dev banned entire endgame guilds who used exploits.

If you see an exploit report it.

Absolutely but my question is what if I accidentally do this exploit? I don't know what it is because all references are being erased. Is it obvious? If I do it accidentally will I be perma-banned?

idk

ZeeroCelcius wrote: »

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

ZeeroCelcius wrote: »

they recieve an answer stating that they used an exploit with the Stone Husk Target Dummy. Its my understanding that these bans are happening because when a player goes to combine the fragments to make the dummy, if they are not all stacked, the fragments remain in your inventory and you still receive the dummy.

Let's ASSUME that this was the actual cause.
What was stopping the player from reporting the bug/exploit [snip]?

Or did they quietly keep everything? Like with the one-berry Onyx indrik exploit and try to play dumb afterwards? Especially those who didn't stumble on it but were told of the exploit in or outside of the game and proceeded to use it.

If the players promptly reported, then I would expect ZOS to take that into account.
But given the stories about customer service on these forums, that's iffy at best.

How many players have something random like this happen in game and report it? Dought there are many. But true what is stopping them from reporting it? Yes, maybe some are playing dumb with this whole thing. That still doesnt justify that the game isn't consuming what it should and then putting blame on the players. The Onyx Indrik exploit was more of a [snip]. This was also patched in like a day.

[edited for bashing]

This seems to justify the very comments that @Dusk_Coven said. If they see something that should not be and instead of reporting it they take advantage of it they are in fact exploiting and as such the ban becomes very justified.

In the past, Zos did not ban players for doing something once but doing it repeatedly or something that was not very obvious.

Blacknight841

Since they don't ban people who actually deserve it and regularly violate the tos... I can totally see this happening.

Nomadic_Atmoran

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Azuramoonstar wrote: »

Banning people who do exploits is normal. ff11 dev banned entire endgame guilds who used exploits.

If you see an exploit report it.

Absolutely but my question is what if I accidentally do this exploit? I don't know what it is because all references are being erased. Is it obvious? If I do it accidentally will I be perma-banned?

This argument comes up every time this type of discussion is brought up. And it always falls flat because its not like ZOS is out here Perma-Banning people for accidentally triggering an exploit. They even tend to be rather conservative with the perma-bans considering how many people have admittedly exploited only to return a short time afterwards. If someone is being perma-banned its likely they continued the behavior.

redspecter23

Nomadic_Atmoran wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Azuramoonstar wrote: »

Banning people who do exploits is normal. ff11 dev banned entire endgame guilds who used exploits.

If you see an exploit report it.

Absolutely but my question is what if I accidentally do this exploit? I don't know what it is because all references are being erased. Is it obvious? If I do it accidentally will I be perma-banned?

This argument comes up every time this type of discussion is brought up. And it always falls flat because its not like ZOS is out here Perma-Banning people for accidentally triggering an exploit. They even tend to be rather conservative with the perma-bans considering how many people have admittedly exploited only to return a short time afterwards. If someone is being perma-banned its likely they continued the behavior.

That's part of it, but the other part is the fear. If people don't know anything about the banning, they start to worry they could be banned as well. It's the lack of knowledge. We hope that ZOS is banning exploiters and not catching innocents at the same time, but how can we tell?

Lately we've seen a huge uptick in the amount of social bans being thrown around. Sure, it's not as penalizing as a permaban, but nearly every day you have someone on the forums asking to be un social banned and they have no idea how it even happened. ZOS won't tell them and it causes frustration in the playerbase. I haven't been social banned, but I still worry it could happen simply because of the number of players hit by it that seem to have no idea why. Could a similar situation happen with perma bans? Well that exact thing has happened in the past with this very game so there is no reason it couldn't happen again.

Emma_Overload

Can someone explain to me how the heck you can "exploit" a target dummy? Did someone figure out a way to artificially inflate their DPS result with this dummy?

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO

They exploited a bug which made it possible to create an unlimited amount of dummies from one set of 50 fragments, which should have been a very obviously unintended effect to anyone experiencing it. The creation of that dummy from fragments is disabled for now, awaiting a fix.

mairwen85

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO wrote: »

They exploited a bug which made it possible to create an unlimited amount of dummies from one set of 50 fragments, which should have been a very obviously unintended effect to anyone experiencing it. The creation of that dummy from fragments is disabled for now, awaiting a fix.

^ and this is why the whole 'innocent' thing falls flat for me. The first time it happened, OK, accident, they discovered a bug, they should report it and no harm done, but instead to do it again, pass on how to do it to others, and repeat the process... that's no longer accidental.

TheRealPotoroo

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO wrote: »

They exploited a bug which made it possible to create an unlimited amount of dummies from one set of 50 fragments, which should have been a very obviously unintended effect to anyone experiencing it. The creation of that dummy from fragments is disabled for now, awaiting a fix.

How did they actually benefit from it though? Can you sell or trade these dummies?

redgreensunset

TheRealPotoroo wrote: »

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO wrote: »

They exploited a bug which made it possible to create an unlimited amount of dummies from one set of 50 fragments, which should have been a very obviously unintended effect to anyone experiencing it. The creation of that dummy from fragments is disabled for now, awaiting a fix.

How did they actually benefit from it though? Can you sell or trade these dummies?

I'm not sure but I know you get the stone husk dummy by collecting 50 fragments from Labyrinthian which you then need to put together. Whether that gives you the final dummy or a rune box, or if either are tradable idk. But considering how costly it is to get those 50 fragments either in time or in game gold this is obviously meant to be something that is difficult to achieve plus time and/or gold sink, and not where you should get multiple dummies from one set of fragments.
So yeah I can see why the perma ban if people did this more than once.

Raudgrani

[got my answer, not reading carefully enough]

ralphylauren

So let me get this correct, you have to buy the game and then to get full experience get a membership and pay monthly to access the game you already bought, only to be under constant pressure of getting you’re account banned without reason?

Amazing 🤣🤣🤣🤣