[PC-EU] Broke my total Champion Points amount via the Armory system (Potential exploit?)

RAHelllord

Greetings!

So as the title says I managed to obtain extra champion points while setting up my Armory Slots on my character Seras, and managing to get access to 65436 points in Warfare, 290 points in Fitness, and 541 points (the only correct amount) in Craft. I'm CP 1621 so I should have 541 in Craft, and 540 in Warfare and 540 Fitness.

How? I'm not entirely certain but I'm suspecting it has something to do with either: freshly purchased slots, or vampire curse status between slots.

What'd I do? I placed the armory in my house and set up Slot 1 and Slot 2 for Stamina DD, for solo content in 1 and for group content in 2. After that was done I went and purchased 2 additional slots, for Tank and Stamina PVP respectively. I set up Slot 3 for tank, (removed vampirism for this slot, too), saved it. Then in order to set up Slot 4 I activated Slot 1 as it shares most of the morphs, CP, etc with my PVP setup, and went to change my morphs. So far so bug free. Then I wanted to set up my Champion Points and saw I had both the active stars from Slot 1 and Slot 2 available at the same time, drastically increasing my effective Champion Points, however at that point I thought it's just a visual glitch and saved the profile because it was otherwise done. For fun I tried what would happen if I change the points it turns out that I was able to move those extra points out of the erroneous stars and into any other stars.
Realizing that this is definitely not okay I tried redistributing and clearing my points, but that did not give me the correct number of points back, I got the combined amount. I tried logging out, logged back in, and suddenly had the numbers above available to me.

However, now that I had logged back in to the game I can't fully replicate the above behavior anymore. My Slot 1-3 have the proper, identical amount of champion points available, but Slot 4 has 543 in Craft, 540 in Warfare, and 542 in Fitness. Relogging at this point just gives me randomly (?) anywhere from no extra points to just setting them to 65k+, which I can distribute freely and persist between logins.

I have counted the ones I'm currently having set to be at or below the correct amount of points, but I'm still randomly getting more if I log back in regardless of which slot I used last.

If it matters, I did not log out between buying Slot 3 and 4, but I did log out multiple times after seeing I had more points than I should have. If there are any further questions I'll gladly answer them as I am able, either here or via email for the support staff. I also spent some gold on changing CP points repeatedly, but I don't think I paid more than 30k on that so I'm not too bothered by losing that amount.

RAHelllord

Small correction to the above post:

This sentence

Then I wanted to set up my Champion Points and saw I had both the active stars from Slot 1 and Slot 2 available at the same time, drastically increasing my effective Champion Points,

Should say "stars from Slot 1 and Slot 3 available" instead.

colossalvoids

Was happening on PTS but apparently not fixed @ZOS_Kevin

tes4p00nerb14_ESO

I can confirm I had the same happen to me, except that I had 65k points in each tree. I could literally fill out every star and it allowed me to confirm as well. I will note that since you mentioned vampire status, that I had no vampire status for either slot. As a software engineer myself, my gut feeling is that it related to enabling a blank/fresh armory slot as you mentioned. The numbers were right at the max value of an unsigned short int data type at 65535, except slightly lower as it had subtracted my already used points. I had noticed this after enabling slot 2 when it was blank. The odd part was after initially equipping the blank slot everything seemed normal and I set up my champion points with the correct number of points. It wasn't until later that the values changes to 65k. So I am not sure what trigger the change. Maybe in saving the build or switching between build 1 and built 2?

ZOS_GinaBruno

Thanks for the info, all. We're actively looking into this now.

Parrot1986

Trigger for this is using the armoury system by selecting a blank build and then porting to another instance. Once ported you will have 65k to sworn in each tree.

I reported this on Pts thread and another users confirmed trigger on live as well.

RAHelllord

Parrot1986 wrote: »

Trigger for this is using the armoury system by selecting a blank build and then porting to another instance. Once ported you will have 65k to sworn in each tree.

Part of this bug can be triggered without changing any instance, I'm getting changed points by just logging in and not moving anywhere despite having the correct amount (or none) set at the time.

perfiction

After applying empty build I ended up with 65553 points in green tree, 65566 in blue and 65544 in red. Guess I can stop grinding in Skyreach/BRP during 2x exp events now.


Edit: did you know you can have negative CP as well? it just works

milkchai

(PC/NA) can also confirm - all i did was leave sleek creek and walk into rawl'kha, and i have 65k points to spend in 2 of 3 trees. it changed again when i returned home (20 extra points instead of 65k)

silvereyes

I just love type overflow errors.

Best of luck getting this patched quickly. Time to go back up all my champion point allocations, in case they do a full reset.

Muttsmutt

can confirm this happened to me too.

saved 2 builds with old CP setup. redid CP setup. saved build 1 with new CP setup. switched to build 2 with old CP setup. switched back to build 1 with new CP setup. changed two items. saved over build 2 (having new CP setup equipped from previously having switched to build 1).

don't know when they got messed up though, i only checked now, after several hours, cause i saw the thread.

Mortuus126

Yep this happened to me too. I can't even leave my house or relog after switching presets without my champion points hitting 65k+. So basically, I can't even play right now because I dont want ZOS to think I'm exploiting or something. I'm basically under house arrest until this gets fixed.

tomofhyrule

Also here. Saved a second build, and then reset to my first build. Everything worked fine until I ported out of my house. Then I had overflow errors in the blue and red trees.

Once I relogged, I noticed it still wasn't fixed - I had stars purchased from both of my builds. I went back to my house and reloaded the build and it was fine again until I ported out.

Relogging is not fixing the issue. I reloaded the game after just loading one of my builds, and I've got the overflow bug again with both builds worth of CP purchased.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin , what should we do? Since the characters (by no fault of ours) are bugged and have more CP allocated than they should, this seems like an exploit so I don't want to mess with them. But does this mean we are not able to play at all until this issue is patched?

tomofhyrule

UPDATE: I got mine fixed.

I paid the 3k to redo my CP and then just took everything out and confirmed. I noticed that the blue and red trees had 65535 + 449 CP available (which I should have had). As soon as I hit confirm, the value jumped to the proper 449.

At least I took pictures of my CP before I went in so I could put the proper ones in and then confirmed again. It seems to be holding through porting around now.

EDIT: It's stable. I can port all over and my CP is now correct and stays correct. I assume that resetting it to 0 did reset it properly. I wonder if the armory just adds one build on top of the other without resetting to zero first, and that's why we get both sets of stars... and then why there's an overflow when we have extra stars purchased that is over the CP we have.

I guess I'll avoid switching builds until this is patched. Hopefully this doesn't lead to a mass ban - I did make sure that my CP was stable and what it should be before doing anything else in game.

EDIT2: Also just shut off the game and came back. Still stable. I think it might be fixed on this toon.

Mortuus126

I hope they provide some sort of compensation for those of us who can't play without risk of being banned right now. This is multiple days in a row now that I can't play without risking a ban, and yet being able to play this game is something I am paying for. Shouldn't have to spend in-game gold to fix bugs on their end either.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Mortuus126 wrote: »

I hope they provide some sort of compensation for those of us who can't play without risk of being banned right now. This is multiple days in a row now that I can't play without risking a ban, and yet being able to play this game is something I am paying for. Shouldn't have to spend in-game gold to fix bugs on their end either.

Just play, you aren't at any advantage compared to the rest of the playerbase with capped CP.

Mortuus126

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Mortuus126 wrote: »

I hope they provide some sort of compensation for those of us who can't play without risk of being banned right now. This is multiple days in a row now that I can't play without risking a ban, and yet being able to play this game is something I am paying for. Shouldn't have to spend in-game gold to fix bugs on their end either.

Just play, you aren't at any advantage compared to the rest of the playerbase with capped CP.

I'd love to, but lots of players seem to think that doing so risks a ban. Given the number of people I've heard that from, I'm inclined to believe them.

tomofhyrule

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Mortuus126 wrote: »

I hope they provide some sort of compensation for those of us who can't play without risk of being banned right now. This is multiple days in a row now that I can't play without risking a ban, and yet being able to play this game is something I am paying for. Shouldn't have to spend in-game gold to fix bugs on their end either.

Just play, you aren't at any advantage compared to the rest of the playerbase with capped CP.

If your character is bugged, you'll likely have both sets of CP. While not slotting the extra slottables or buying stars with the 65k CP is an obvious way to avoid exploiting, you may have been given a few extra passives that you can't normally afford. I know that was my case. That would essentially put you at an advantage you shouldn't have - even if the extra power you get from CP passives is pretty minimal compared to what you'd get from slottables.

Fortunately 3000 gold is really nothing for me since I've been playing a while so I fixed my character, and he's still stable with the correct number and placement of CP like he should have. It seems like just paying to reset CP to zero does fully reset the system, and then you can spend as you normally would. Pity the armory isn't 'doing it for you' like was advertised, but that's better than risking a ban for exploiting.

I hope that I won't get banned since I'm specifically making sure I don't exploit. I didn't do anything with him except port to wayshrines while I was trying to fix it. Once I did get it fixed (and made sure my CP was correct, several times), then I did do a random vet with some friends.

I hope this bugfix though ends up being one they push out as an emergency though. Waiting until the next incremental in two weeks while anyone who had the armory can just exploit... that sounds like a lot of players getting banned who might not even know there's an issue. If ever there was a time for an emergency patch, this is it.

Mortuus126

I've tried reaching out to them with a ticket, but I just keep getting generic form responses obviously intended to stall. The latest insinuation was that PC specs have something to do with it: a laughable suggestion, especially given that my specs are far above the minimum requirements. Next they'll probably ask me if my PC is turned on. This is very disheartening. I just want to be able to play again...

Vaoh

Mortuus126 wrote: »

I've tried reaching out to them with a ticket, but I just keep getting generic form responses obviously intended to stall. The latest insinuation was that PC specs have something to do with it: a laughable suggestion, especially given that my specs are far above the minimum requirements. Next they'll probably ask me if my PC is turned on. This is very disheartening. I just want to be able to play again...

But did you check who manufactured each of your pc parts?

ZOS_GinaBruno

Hey all, thanks for your patience while we fully investigated this. Just posted an update in this thread, but the TL;DR is we'll be doing a hotfix to address this tomorrow morning, all allocated Champion Points are being reset, and nobody is getting banned.

LuxanQualta

Forcing a reset of CP may sound like an easy way for the developers to address the problem, but it puts a lot of workload on players. We just got a new DLC. I wanted to play it, but now I can plan on spending my time fixing CP on 36 characters across two accounts instead of doing new content. Great. That is just what makes me want to play ESO - Not!

Is it impossible to script a hotfix that only resets CP when it exceeds what was earned normally?

SantieClaws

With this one and 17 other kittens a CP reset is something of a nightmare.

This one didn't get any extra points either - she kept checking the green tree in hope!

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Katheriah

I like how this was reported on PTS and when it goes live it suddenly can be fixed in 3 days, but with a forced CP respec. Thanks guys.

Mortuus126

Thank you for the update and for putting my own (and others') worries about possible bans to rest! Very much appreciated.

etchedpixels

Cool, I don't have to pay 3K to redo the regen CP that were nerfed to the point of being a waste of screen space 8)

bregol

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey all, thanks for your patience while we fully investigated this. Just posted an update in this thread, but the TL;DR is we'll be doing a hotfix to address this tomorrow morning, all allocated Champion Points are being reset, and nobody is getting banned.

Question... would it work to save in the armory station and reapply from there in the morning, or are the CP allocations saved in the armory also being wiped?

JonnAndCo

That was my question as well, if the armory saves our old build, this will be easy for anyone not already affected by the bug.

JonnAndCo

And alternately: if our armory is wiped, wont this screw up everyone who saved a vampire/werewolf condition?

ZOS_GinaBruno

bregol wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey all, thanks for your patience while we fully investigated this. Just posted an update in this thread, but the TL;DR is we'll be doing a hotfix to address this tomorrow morning, all allocated Champion Points are being reset, and nobody is getting banned.

Question... would it work to save in the armory station and reapply from there in the morning, or are the CP allocations saved in the armory also being wiped?

Those are also being wiped, but just the Champion Point portion.

JonnAndCo

Hmm, then we will have to pay to respec our champion points for each armory build. Not terrible, but not great for those who had multiple builds.