Raid group gets banned for discovering and reporting game-breaking bug on Bahsei boss fight

Yezzl

On the 30th of August, I discovered a bug with my raid group on one of the bosses in the trial Rock Grove (Bahsei)

After we tried this strat out we realised that the bug could skip every mechanic for the boss.
Afterwards, I created a report in-game requesting that this issue would be looked into and to reach out to me as it could be considered game-breaking.

We had no ill intentions about abusing it in any way hence why I have not spread how this glitch happens or is caused to keep the issue private.

Below is a link to a reddit thread regarding the issue. It would be greatly appreciated if people could head over there and share their support.
https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/pfgvvn/entire_raid_group_banned_for_reporting_a_bug/

cyclonus11

I guess that means stop reporting bugs. FYI you'll probably be banned on the forums for posting this.

VaranisArano

Based on your Reddit thread, it sounds like you've got tickets opened with Support to appeal. While it's usually best to have one ticket (each, in this case) and replying too frequently resets you in the queue, it may be helpful to list your Ticket #s and then @ people like ZOS_BillE or ZOS_Kevin who can make sure that your tickets are with the appropriate team.

ZOS won't discuss disciplinary action on the forums, but hopefully those mods can help straighten out any issues that Support may be having with the handling of your tickets.

bikerangelo

Kusto

This is why you shouldn't report anything to Zos. There has been other similar cases when people got banned for reporting exploits. People have been banned even for reporting bots, harrassment or any other misbehave in zone chat. They provided clear screenshots to Zos and Zos banned the reporter. Lmao. Seems like they have bots working in there.

SirAndy

cyclonus11 wrote: »

I guess that means stop reporting bugs. FYI you'll probably be banned on the forums for posting this.

Sad, but true ...

Centurio_Regor

This is a very sad turn of events. I hope this get fixed soon.
#freePTE

spartaxoxo

You should post the ticket number here if you hope to find help from a manager on here. Other than that just wait for the appeal process and I wish you well on it.

redspecter23

Banning players for reporting exploits sets a very poor precedent if ZOS actually wants players to report exploits in the future.

Rudrani

that's...
....surprising?

Amottica

Wow. Games require players to report such bugs when they discover them and one has to discover something unintended happens to be able to report it.

So it makes no sense that a company would ban a player for reporting such an exploit unless they continued to exploit it after reporting it or had already heavily and obviously enriched themselves before or after reporting the exploit.

Granted, we are only getting part of the story and I do not expect Zenimax to be perfect so they may yet correct this if they made a mistake.

honglatongla

#FreePTE

Alienoutlaw

i find it surprising you find a "game breaking bug" and decide to do it anyway, that there is why all the accounts were banned i suspect. you could of stopped at the point bug was found and either a) reported and quit the trial. 2) go onto the PTS server to verify and report findings from there. to just expect everyone to except 12 innocent ppl were banned for nothing is very naive, ZOS doesnt blanket ban for no reason and very rarely.

Razorruk

Pretty shocking that you've effectively done the job of the ZOS Quality Control team, reported the bug without abusing for achievements/titles, and their response is simply to ban with no proper dialog.

Hopefully ZOS get their act together and sort this for you asap.

Pauwer

I really hope you guys get unbanned, this is not cool.

zaria

Alienoutlaw wrote: »

i find it surprising you find a "game breaking bug" and decide to do it anyway, that there is why all the accounts were banned i suspect. you could of stopped at the point bug was found and either a) reported and quit the trial. 2) go onto the PTS server to verify and report findings from there. to just expect everyone to except 12 innocent ppl were banned for nothing is very naive, ZOS doesnt blanket ban for no reason and very rarely.

If you find an weird bug you want to see how far it goes, if an raid boss freezes people will still do damage to him.

Now afterward they will discus this and find it weird. Now before reporting it makes sense to try to replicate it to see if it can be replicated or was an one off or just extremely unlikely, its well know that lag can make the game do weird stuff.

Now farming the raid and then reporting the bug could get you in problems but not just redo to replicating it as an one off bug who can not be replicated is not worth reporting.

Jeirno

#FreePTE

Wolfkeks

I'd suggest putting your ticket numbers (from you and your raid group) in here so the devs can straighten this out. (Don't forget to tag them here)
If you just repositioned the boss and this glitch happened might be worth sending the support not only the clip of the glitch but also (if you have it) the whole raid itself, so that they can see that you did this glitch by accident while for example training for the trial.
I hope this gets sorted out for you and your raid team soon and I hope ZOS might have a look into this thread.

Sephyr

zaria wrote: »

Alienoutlaw wrote: »

i find it surprising you find a "game breaking bug" and decide to do it anyway, that there is why all the accounts were banned i suspect. you could of stopped at the point bug was found and either a) reported and quit the trial. 2) go onto the PTS server to verify and report findings from there. to just expect everyone to except 12 innocent ppl were banned for nothing is very naive, ZOS doesnt blanket ban for no reason and very rarely.

If you find an weird bug you want to see how far it goes, if an raid boss freezes people will still do damage to him.

Now afterward they will discus this and find it weird. Now before reporting it makes sense to try to replicate it to see if it can be replicated or was an one off or just extremely unlikely, its well know that lag can make the game do weird stuff.

Now farming the raid and then reporting the bug could get you in problems but not just redo to replicating it as an one off bug who can not be replicated is not worth reporting.

This is how honestly most report bugs found in any kind of gaming environment because it's helpful to know if;

1. The bug is reproducible.
2. Figuring out how the bug is triggered.
3. Seeing if anything similar also triggers the bug.

I'm more surprised that it was so fast that they were banned from the /bug report. A lot of us are still waiting about various bugs with other things that've been open going on eight months now with no word.

That being said; #FreePTE

divnyi

ZOS this is a major *** up. Educate your support team to work correctly on bug reports - write them new scripts if you need, but this is totally unacceptable.

FluffWit

I understand trying it out and burning the boss to 10% or whatever. But finishing the job and getting your achievements etc wasn't wise.

I got glitched under the map in Cyrodiil once, out of curiosity I did like two light attacks on the guys I was already fighting just to see if I could still deal damage then closed app within like 15 seconds of the glitch happening because I knew it wasn't kosha and that I may get in trouble.

Anyways sorry you got banned and I hope you get your accounts back.

Thor199389

#FreePTE

BansheeVT

@Yezzl Add the ticket number(s) and then add ZOS accs like someone else said already. That usually helps speeding things up. Commenting here and bringing this to my communities attention for the same reason. Best of luck!

etchedpixels

You can always report exploits or holes in any Microsoft prroduct (and Microsoft owns Zenimax) through security@microsoft.com, they have a set of very strong policies on proper handling of things, non-retaliation etc.

Anhedonie

Not gonna lie, this is hilarious. But also disappointing.

aurelial

I really hope this gets investigated properly and zos takes a good look at the repercussions some of their decisions might be having on the community.

ShinyBacon

This is such a weird behavior from a gaming company to ban someone for reporting a bug.
Especially if it is a big one like that.

I have to say other companies handle that much better and appreciate the help of the community much more.
One other popular game i played has even a nice bug report form where they specifically ask questions like: "can the bug recreated? Which actions in game lead to the bug. Can you send a video of the bug happening/being recreated"
You can then even send in an unlisted Youtube link to explain the bug in video format.

they also either disable the activity until the bug is squashed or let the community know that there is a bug (without mentioning how to do it)

they even had a couple of bugs where they were aware that it got abused (double loot drops etc) and encouraged the community to play the activity and enjoy it until they can fix it. They clearly stated the bug was on them (the company) and no player should be ever punished for their mistakes.

ZOSs reaction is really putting a sour taste to the whole experience and I wonder why there is even a bug report feature if there is a chance to bet banned.

DragonRacer

@ZOS_Kevin

Tag done, now add your ticket number, OP

Sephyr

FluffWit wrote: »

I understand trying it out and burning the boss to 10% or whatever. But finishing the job and getting your achievements etc wasn't wise.

I got glitched under the map in Cyrodiil once, out of curiosity I did like two light attacks on the guys I was already fighting just to see if I could still deal damage then closed app within like 15 seconds of the glitch happening because I knew it wasn't kosha and that I may get in trouble.

Anyways sorry you got banned and I hope you get your accounts back.

That's the thing though. Having been behind the scenes, I've appreciated it when someone was thorough enough to test if the exploit was reproducible with other bosses within the instance as well. It's nothing to roll back a character before the characters received the achievement when a heavy exploit like this is found. Take it from a developer's standpoint;

They're in an instance that, if closed, could potentially lose the data of that exploit. That's why leaving and doing it on the PTS isn't so much an option because it's hard to tell if the first instance is a fluke and people aren't thinking "Hey, this is an exploit, let's try to reproduce this on the PTS." They're going to do it in a live environment because it's simply more effective at testing these things at capacity. Sure, it's a 12 person raid, but if it's visible in the logs they can also tell who's been using it that didn't report it.

Really, most gaming companies appreciate it when people are honest in their bug reports. While we don't know the full story, why send a bug report to warn them about the exploit in the first place? That's more honest than some people selling knowledge on exploits for gold. It's rare, but it happens.

Thor199389

DragonRacer wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin

Tag done, now add your ticket number, OP

OP is banned from forum aswell afaik.

divnyi

Yeah right, because it's only the people who decided to report the bug have abused the bug, right? *taps head*