Missing Skill Point Investigation & Resolution

Faiza

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

LuxanQualta wrote: »

Please give this a rethink folks.

ZOS found the root cause for the skill points issue and has a solution ... which will help every single affected player and put everyone on even ground.

Why on earth would this need a "rethink"?

It sounds like some characters will flat-out LOSE 20+ skillpoints they've long had.

Eh but they are skill points that they did not do an activity to earn. So, how can you really be upset?

Hotdog_23

Aliyavana wrote: »

When you push the patch, can you make it so that Chapter tutorials dont give a skillpoint? It has been since Morrowind (2017) that characters created prior to owning a chapter have reported missing a skillpoint, since chapter tutorials give out a skillpoint, and characters created after owning a chapter can also do the original Soul Shrivren in Coldharbour tutorial for another skillpoint. That option isn't available for pre-chapter characters. Remove the skillpoint from the Chapter tutorials, or give all pre-chapter characters that skillpoint.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/374410/skillpoint-from-morrowind-tutorial-unobtainable-for-toons-created-before-morrowind-change-please/p1
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/404450/major-oversight-summerset-tutorial-missable-skillpoint-feedback/p1

This seems like a good time to finally address this issue.

Stay safe

merevie

I would not assume that addons related to saving build specs will work after an update.
Take pics lol.

renne

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This brings us to today where we've identified an issue with the original addition of refunds. Since 2018, it appears that some players were erroneously granted extra skill points based on the number of Champion skills they purchased. Furthermore, our data shows that some players have earned more than 20 extra skill points this way that are unaccounted for by the refund system. The more Champion Points someone had, the more likely they were to encounter this issue. But to be clear, these are skill points that these players should not have been able to earn, and that are not obtainable by players through normal gameplay means.

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Can you please clarify what this ACTUALLY means? Because no one else seems to know.

LaerothKeykalyn

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

When we launched Update 28 on PC/Mac back in November, some of you ran into an issue where the Soul Trap or the Werewolf Ultimate skills had unmorphed. When attempting to re-morph these skills, they would continually reset and cause you to lose a skill point each time. Each attempt to refund missing skill points in subsequent incremental patches was unsuccessful. As we continued to further investigate the entirety of the issue, we discovered numerous other bugs that were contributing to a much larger and more extensive problem. In this post, we’ll elaborate on the current issues and how we plan to address them.

First, we need to take a step back and look at the skill system itself, which reallocates skill points in two different ways:

• Respec-ing, which grants a full refund of all points based on system tracking, completely ignoring allocated points
• Refunding, which measures allocations against expectations, and only returns points that are missing

We introduced Refunding in 2018 when a change to the Werewolf passive Devour removed the purchase requirement, and instead automatically granted the ability when players first acquired the Werewolf skill line. At that time, we did not take measures to refund the point back to players who had already spent a skill point on it.

Fast forward to Update 28 in 2020, when a recent change to the way we count skill point allocations caused an issue where abilities that are automatically granted - but have purchasable morphs - were not correctly counted. This caused those abilities to reset back to their base state without refunding a point. We quickly addressed the issue to prevent players from losing more points, and with it, issued a skill point refund.

After this occurred, we continued to receive complaints that skill points were still not refunded. Upon further investigation, we suspected that some players actually had extra skill points for one reason or another – more than they should, and more than normal play would grant. This means when players lost a skill point, the system did not know to refund that missing point since they had extra points to begin with. To gather more information, we added some logging in an incremental patch to help us identify the players with extra skill points.

This brings us to today where we've identified an issue with the original addition of refunds. Since 2018, it appears that some players were erroneously granted extra skill points based on the number of Champion skills they purchased. Furthermore, our data shows that some players have earned more than 20 extra skill points this way that are unaccounted for by the refund system. The more Champion Points someone had, the more likely they were to encounter this issue. But to be clear, these are skill points that these players should not have been able to earn, and that are not obtainable by players through normal gameplay means.

To correct this issue and return us to a place where we can accurately give refunds when needed, we will push a full respec for skills and Champion Points to all players in Update 29. When that happens, all extra skill points should be removed from the game and all players will have access to the same amount of earnable skill points, as is intended. The amount of extraneous skill points we remove will range from 0 all the way up to 25, depending on skill allocation when these refunds were performed. We are taking additional steps to prepare for the future including improved logging for refunds, converting our refund process to match the respec process, and better precautions surrounding how we change existing skills.

We understand these actions may be pretty disruptive to your builds; to extend our apologies for all these issues, we’ll be offering a free Ambersheen Vale Fawn pet and free respecs for all players at the launch of Update 29.

We hope this gives some insight into this issue and the related investigation we’ve been tackling since Update 28. Thank you, and we appreciate your patience and understanding while we correct these issues.

Ambersheen Vale Fawn pet, really? ZeniMax Online Studios, pls, kill me!

Integral1900

ZOS please make certain that you have full screen messages in game weeks ahead to tell people this is happening and give them time to record their builds

Most players do not read this forum and even fewer post on it

If you just drop this like a normal patch they will have their builds wiped and may not remember how to recreate them

Give them a few weeks unavoidable notice otherwise it’s going to be an absolute avalanche of anger and frustration

Aram500

DewiMorgan wrote: »

I'll get cracking on an addon to backup and restore skills and CP for all characters, when I get back from work in 5 hours.

At the moment I know of a few addons that already do something similar:

- https://www.esoui.com/downloads/info946-SuperStar-CharacterBuilder.html - for CP and skillpoints.
- https://www.esoui.com/downloads/info2126-ChampionPointsSlots.html - for CP only.
- https://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1903-ChampionPointRespec.html - for CP only.

These are powerful and full-featured, but perhaps overkill for just a simple backup/restore of CP and skillpoints.

All I think we need for this update is:
- A "Backup" button
- A "Restore" button
- Let the user know if there is a points difference between backup and restore.
- Let the user tweak the restored values before committing them (maybe only possible for CP?).
- Gracefully handle if the user has already spent some skillpoints/CP before hitting "restore".
- Gracefully handle if the user is up to 25 points short of what they had when they backed up.
- Decent translation, so everyone can use it easily.
- VERY simple/easy to use and lightweight. May be *many* users.

Anything I'm missing?

Hi, could you let us know please, when you have done this. I only have 7 alts, but could make life a lot easier

Tommy_The_Gun

Elfdominion4 wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

When we launched Update 28 on PC/Mac back in November, some of you ran into an issue where the Soul Trap or the Werewolf Ultimate skills had unmorphed. When attempting to re-morph these skills, they would continually reset and cause you to lose a skill point each time. Each attempt to refund missing skill points in subsequent incremental patches was unsuccessful. As we continued to further investigate the entirety of the issue, we discovered numerous other bugs that were contributing to a much larger and more extensive problem. In this post, we’ll elaborate on the current issues and how we plan to address them.

First, we need to take a step back and look at the skill system itself, which reallocates skill points in two different ways:

• Respec-ing, which grants a full refund of all points based on system tracking, completely ignoring allocated points
• Refunding, which measures allocations against expectations, and only returns points that are missing

We introduced Refunding in 2018 when a change to the Werewolf passive Devour removed the purchase requirement, and instead automatically granted the ability when players first acquired the Werewolf skill line. At that time, we did not take measures to refund the point back to players who had already spent a skill point on it.

Fast forward to Update 28 in 2020, when a recent change to the way we count skill point allocations caused an issue where abilities that are automatically granted - but have purchasable morphs - were not correctly counted. This caused those abilities to reset back to their base state without refunding a point. We quickly addressed the issue to prevent players from losing more points, and with it, issued a skill point refund.

After this occurred, we continued to receive complaints that skill points were still not refunded. Upon further investigation, we suspected that some players actually had extra skill points for one reason or another – more than they should, and more than normal play would grant. This means when players lost a skill point, the system did not know to refund that missing point since they had extra points to begin with. To gather more information, we added some logging in an incremental patch to help us identify the players with extra skill points.

This brings us to today where we've identified an issue with the original addition of refunds. Since 2018, it appears that some players were erroneously granted extra skill points based on the number of Champion skills they purchased. Furthermore, our data shows that some players have earned more than 20 extra skill points this way that are unaccounted for by the refund system. The more Champion Points someone had, the more likely they were to encounter this issue. But to be clear, these are skill points that these players should not have been able to earn, and that are not obtainable by players through normal gameplay means.

To correct this issue and return us to a place where we can accurately give refunds when needed, we will push a full respec for skills and Champion Points to all players in Update 29. When that happens, all extra skill points should be removed from the game and all players will have access to the same amount of earnable skill points, as is intended. The amount of extraneous skill points we remove will range from 0 all the way up to 25, depending on skill allocation when these refunds were performed. We are taking additional steps to prepare for the future including improved logging for refunds, converting our refund process to match the respec process, and better precautions surrounding how we change existing skills.

We understand these actions may be pretty disruptive to your builds; to extend our apologies for all these issues, we’ll be offering a free Ambersheen Vale Fawn pet and free respecs for all players at the launch of Update 29.

We hope this gives some insight into this issue and the related investigation we’ve been tackling since Update 28. Thank you, and we appreciate your patience and understanding while we correct these issues.

Ambersheen Vale Fawn pet, really? ZeniMax Online Studios, pls, kill me!

Yep... kinda shame... I mean I lost one skill point due to a bug (not caused by me) and because of that I kept "on hold" playing Markarth (skyshards & main story quest rewarding with skill point). And now they say that "some people" may lose even more because "supposedly" long time ago they got some due to a bug (also, not caused by them).

Idk about you but it (from the lack of better word) - "stinks"... On one hand I appreciate that they try to put everything on "even ground"... but part of me is afraid that it maybe like: "lets use this as an opportunity to take some skill points away from players who have too much, so they will have more reason to buy new content for more skill points".
Idk... I guess I am paranoid lol...

I am most likely not on the "list". I do not recall getting skill points out of nowhere, and even skill respec shrine is charging 50 gold more than it should (for one skill point I am missing). So I should simply got skill point back... but I am a kind of person that likes to be prepared for the worst... I already planned my build with 25 skill point less lol...

MasterSpatula

Been a long time since they've forced a full respec on us, but it's definitely not the first time.

tmbrinks

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Elfdominion4 wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

When we launched Update 28 on PC/Mac back in November, some of you ran into an issue where the Soul Trap or the Werewolf Ultimate skills had unmorphed. When attempting to re-morph these skills, they would continually reset and cause you to lose a skill point each time. Each attempt to refund missing skill points in subsequent incremental patches was unsuccessful. As we continued to further investigate the entirety of the issue, we discovered numerous other bugs that were contributing to a much larger and more extensive problem. In this post, we’ll elaborate on the current issues and how we plan to address them.

First, we need to take a step back and look at the skill system itself, which reallocates skill points in two different ways:

• Respec-ing, which grants a full refund of all points based on system tracking, completely ignoring allocated points
• Refunding, which measures allocations against expectations, and only returns points that are missing

We introduced Refunding in 2018 when a change to the Werewolf passive Devour removed the purchase requirement, and instead automatically granted the ability when players first acquired the Werewolf skill line. At that time, we did not take measures to refund the point back to players who had already spent a skill point on it.

Fast forward to Update 28 in 2020, when a recent change to the way we count skill point allocations caused an issue where abilities that are automatically granted - but have purchasable morphs - were not correctly counted. This caused those abilities to reset back to their base state without refunding a point. We quickly addressed the issue to prevent players from losing more points, and with it, issued a skill point refund.

After this occurred, we continued to receive complaints that skill points were still not refunded. Upon further investigation, we suspected that some players actually had extra skill points for one reason or another – more than they should, and more than normal play would grant. This means when players lost a skill point, the system did not know to refund that missing point since they had extra points to begin with. To gather more information, we added some logging in an incremental patch to help us identify the players with extra skill points.

This brings us to today where we've identified an issue with the original addition of refunds. Since 2018, it appears that some players were erroneously granted extra skill points based on the number of Champion skills they purchased. Furthermore, our data shows that some players have earned more than 20 extra skill points this way that are unaccounted for by the refund system. The more Champion Points someone had, the more likely they were to encounter this issue. But to be clear, these are skill points that these players should not have been able to earn, and that are not obtainable by players through normal gameplay means.

To correct this issue and return us to a place where we can accurately give refunds when needed, we will push a full respec for skills and Champion Points to all players in Update 29. When that happens, all extra skill points should be removed from the game and all players will have access to the same amount of earnable skill points, as is intended. The amount of extraneous skill points we remove will range from 0 all the way up to 25, depending on skill allocation when these refunds were performed. We are taking additional steps to prepare for the future including improved logging for refunds, converting our refund process to match the respec process, and better precautions surrounding how we change existing skills.

We understand these actions may be pretty disruptive to your builds; to extend our apologies for all these issues, we’ll be offering a free Ambersheen Vale Fawn pet and free respecs for all players at the launch of Update 29.

We hope this gives some insight into this issue and the related investigation we’ve been tackling since Update 28. Thank you, and we appreciate your patience and understanding while we correct these issues.

Ambersheen Vale Fawn pet, really? ZeniMax Online Studios, pls, kill me!

Yep... kinda shame... I mean I lost one skill point due to a bug (not caused by me) and because of that I kept "on hold" playing Markarth (skyshards & main story quest rewarding with skill point). And now they say that "some people" may lose even more because "supposedly" long time ago they got some due to a bug (also, not caused by them).

Idk about you but it (from the lack of better word) - "stinks"... On one hand I appreciate that they try to put everyrhing on "even ground"... but part of me is afraid that it maybe like: "lets use this as an opportunity to take some skill points away from players who have too much, so they will have more reason to buy new content for more skill points".
Idk... I guess I am paranoid lol...

I am most likely not on the "list". I do not recall getting skill points out of nowhere, and even skill respec shrine is charging 50 gold more than it should (for one skill point I am missing). So I should simply got skill point back... but I am a kind of person that likes to be prepared for the worst... I already planned my build with 25 skill point less lol...

They're only taking away skill points that were gotten from a glitch. Not any legitimately earned ones. I'd bet the massive majority of characters will be having exactly 0 skill points removed and dwindling rapidly after the 1-2-3 range (from the known glitches that have happened) with only a very, very limited number having 3+ skill points removed due to a very specific set of circumstances.

Even if you lose skill points... they are ones that you actually shouldn't have. Now, if they take away skill points you earned legitimately, then you have a gripe.

jle30303

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

https://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1863-UrichsSkillPointFinder.html
@DewiMorgan

This is useful to compare your earnt skillpoints.

This addon is apparently only up-to-date for Stonethorn - not for Markarth, which contains skill points and skyshards. It needs updating.

Tommy_The_Gun

One thing I would like to know is: Will skill point reset be on PTS for update 29 too ? I mean each time there is a PTS we have our characters coppied to PTS. 1st 2 weeks are NA characters and 2 next weeks we have EU characters.

So will we be able to test if it works (before it will go live with Update 29) ?

katzchendrokai

I would just like to say thank you for providing us with ongoing updates to the problem and providing compensation for the bug. It's really nice to see that things are becoming more transparent and this has improved my view on how Zos will be in the future

Sylvermynx

Thanks for the heads up Gina. I'll be screenshotting 60 characters - as soon as we get a date for 29 dropping.

GreenhaloX

You know.. I just don't understand why some peeps just complain and complain about the lack of commo from ZOS. You have to give Gina and her team at the ZOS lounge a lot of credits. Such as this and many other previous lengthy notes from her on various issues of the game, I have to really applaud her and her team. However it serves, that is just a lot of time and writing on her part. We get similar lengthy updates with every patch, DLC and chapter releases. You can just imagine all the thoughts, time and effort have been put into each note and update. Kudos to you and your team, Gina.. and thank you again for the commo.

Now.. (Here we go. Get your popcorn ready and ease back on your lazy boy or recliner a bit. There is always a but.) Just kidding, just kidding. No but this time. Ha ha. However, I'm not looking forward to whatever plethora of bugs and issues we are awaiting to experience with update 29.

Anyways.. fast forward. We are in 2021.. 2021, ZOS! Why are we still stuck on CP 810?!! isn't it about time to reinstate the quarterly CP increases?! I say yes; it has been too long overdue. No need to change or revamp any CP system. Just reinstates the increases and wipe your hands. You all will be fine..

Sju

I predict a bigger mess than before. I'm betting that a lot of people who earned their skill points will end up having them taken away. Can't wait. Probably should think about this and test it a hundred times, then another hundred times after that.

Calm_Fury

This is really, really bad.

There has to be a better way to solve this without causing that much disruption and grievances.

I have addons now. I'll try to save everything before patch. But even doing that, I'm pretty sure I'll just log out when I log back and see that I have to redo everything in every single chraracter.

Again, there has to be a better way to solve this.

No matter how much out announce this, a huge part of the playerbase will be caught off-guard. This is surely going to cause the forums and the already strained customer support service to melt down.

One more time, there has to be a better way to approach this. This is not good at all for the already damaged trust in ZOS.

Starlock

NoSoup wrote: »

No matter how much out announce this, a huge part of the playerbase will be caught off-guard.

Not likely.

As someone else already mentioned, this is not the first time they've done skill resets. What they've done in the past is put up a very noticeable announcement on the login screens for a couple weeks or so before the patch drops. Anyone who plays the game regularly will see it. Those who don't play the game regularly, well... that's beyond the company's control and there's not much they can do about that.

GormBT

Your free pet selection sucks, I understand why....here's a free Bambi to calm things down...nope, rage and anger will still abound, like strapping Godzilla's foot to a baseball bat and smacking the crap out of a Bambi pinata 8D . You should instead look into a Black Bug (Tourchbug?) ... soul sucking black, it would express and represent so so much better

Jayne_Doe

renne wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This brings us to today where we've identified an issue with the original addition of refunds. Since 2018, it appears that some players were erroneously granted extra skill points based on the number of Champion skills they purchased. Furthermore, our data shows that some players have earned more than 20 extra skill points this way that are unaccounted for by the refund system. The more Champion Points someone had, the more likely they were to encounter this issue. But to be clear, these are skill points that these players should not have been able to earn, and that are not obtainable by players through normal gameplay means.

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Can you please clarify what this ACTUALLY means? Because no one else seems to know.

Seems pretty clear. She says "based on the number of Champion SKILLS they purchased." These SKILLS are purchased with earned champion skill POINTS. For some players, when they purchased a Champion skill with a Champion skill point, they earned extra "regular" skill points.

EDIT:

While I do understand the fears that this fix will break things further, or that players might end up with less points than they should, the idea that they are going to use this to purposely take legitimate points away from some players is rather paranoid.

I think this skill reset should be done, as I don't think that any player should have more skill points than can be earned. Talk about unfair advantage. Everyone should have access to, and no more than, what can be earned in the game through normal gameplay.

To that point, I do support either giving pre-Morrowind characters the skill point that all post-Morrowind characters have, or allowing those pre-MW characters to do the upcoming chapter's tutorial (as previously suggested).

Sarannah

Important question: When all skillpoints are reset, does it remove the actual skills from the skillbars? ... As I have 18 characters and I won't be able to remember what skills(and which morphs) every single one of them is using. If the skills would remain on the skillbars and be unusable, we would atleast be able to see which skills a character was using. This way it would be easier to place back the right skillpoints.

bradams

So please correct me if I am misunderstanding what I am reading, but what I am taking from this is that all characters who are still missing skill points are only missing ones they shouldn't have in the first place, and should never expect to get them back? Or just that fixing this respec system is the first step to correctly fixing the skillpoints that people are still missing from the bug?

ZOS_GinaBruno

SimonThesis wrote: »

Thank you for the clarification above!

What does "players were erroneously granted extra skill points based on the number of Champion skills they purchased" mean? Do you mean champion skills purchased from the crown store?

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Sorry, no. This is referencing Champion Skills unlocked, not "purchased" in the sense of purchasing through the Crown Store.

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

One thing I would like to know is: Will skill point reset be on PTS for update 29 too ? I mean each time there is a PTS we have our characters coppied to PTS. 1st 2 weeks are NA characters and 2 next weeks we have EU characters.

So will we be able to test if it works (before it will go live with Update 29) ?

Yes, all skills will be reset with each character copy during PTS.

Pyr0xyrecuprotite wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

https://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1863-UrichsSkillPointFinder.html
@DewiMorgan

This is useful to compare your earnt skillpoints.

@ZOS_GinaBruno can someone please officially state if the characters with excess skill points are on PC or consoles or both, and (for PC players) if the real (official) total skill points available matches what the skill point addon finds?

This would allow PC players (at least) to find out in advance if they are likely to lose a bunch of skill points when update 29 comes out. Thanks!

This is on both PC and console.

Hlaadriel

Hello @ZOS_GinaBruno, since you pretty much know which players have those extra points, would it be possible to warn them via inGame mail that they are going to miss some skill points after update 29?

Starlock

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is on both PC and console.

Yay, that's what I thought! Plenty of time to take some notes to remember how things are supposed to be on our characters.

goldenarcher1

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

SimonThesis wrote: »

Thank you for the clarification above!


So will we be able to test if it works (before it will go live with Update 29) ?

Yes, all skills will be reset with each character copy during PTS.

Might there be any champion system changes in update 29?

dcam86b14_ESO

yikes

time to take some screenshots of what my build is bc it's many years since I repec'd

karthrag_inak

Oh dark and bloody moons! This one has 18 full CP characters! YIkes.

Varsuuk

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

relentless_turnip wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno apologies, I am still a little confused. Does this mean I will need to replace all my.skill points on all of my characters? I don't mind I am just after clarification 👍

Correct, once Update 29 launches (we haven't announced a date for this yet, but figure it'll be in Q1).

OK - so, I guess this means I can spend points again on my 2 messed up WW characters. One of which I entirely stoped playing because it was worse messed than other.

That at least is good news and when respec comes it will be fixed and I’ll have 1 more point or several less - whichever is right

redsaaryn

Was this so hard? People were angry because there was no communication and the infamy gained by fallout 76. A "we are working on this right now" every now and then would have prevented people anger. I personally didn't have any experience in this game but at the moment I got in the game, got screwed by the bug and the lack of communication made me regret buying the game, dlc and plus. I thought about never ever spending a dime in this game feeling like this would be another fallout 76 but at least I know better now and hope my skill points are returned so i can buy the new year long expansion/dlc