"PVP" and "Cyrodiil" Gets you Banned on Twitch

FeedbackOnly

BlossomDead wrote: »

I can back up the claims on super heavy handed censorship - this is not moderation anymore. I think my forum account has received a final warning. And if I am to look at the reported posts that were sent to me I always burst out laughing - it's just ridiculous.

Some people don't even get warnings. Moderation hasn't been very systematic.Needs to scale better.

TwinLamps

Maybe the twitch mod just hate pvp and its actions made entire zos look bad in that stream.

Ankael07

Theres no problem in Cyrodiil

FeedbackOnly

TwinLamps wrote: »

Maybe the twitch mod just hate pvp and its actions made entire zos look bad in that stream.

SimonThesis wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

However, please remember that our mods are human at the end of the day and work hard to ensure the forum is a welcoming and approachable space for all players. If there is an issue with how anyone has been moderated, please make sure to place a ticket to challenge the moderation. For added measure, please feel free to PM me and I can get that number over to our customer service team for additional context.

When there is room for open dialogue, we're happy to have it. I hope this provides some context for forum moderation as well.

So glad to have someone like Kevin in the company, an adult in the room with empathy and tact willing to listen to us and even help people out. I don't envy him tho, proverbial trigger happy peeps below him, company hacks above him, and the public to deal with. But he's doing a fine job of it and sounds like things will get better from here and that's really all we can ask.

I want to say this. I thought we would all have to continue keep quiet about this problem. Someone to actually to listen to problem will likely being a saving grace to forums.

A lot of people mention how zos is only keeping favorable comments on forums m

Some of us really deserved a ban, but others a suspension or just close the thread, because it's both sides causing problems.

Also I know of one poster who is time and time again reporting anyone who slightly disagrees with them as baiting.

Over the the years you see things.

FluffWit

Perhaps it would help if you added something pvp focused to your regular cycle of official streams.

nightstrike

BlossomDead wrote: »

I can back up the claims on super heavy handed censorship - this is not moderation anymore. I think my forum account has received a final warning. And if I am to look at the reported posts that were sent to me I always burst out laughing - it's just ridiculous.

Ditto regarding censorship. I keep trying to point out that when customers are upset, silencing them only makes the problem worse. The result is more censorship. Even 1984 wasn't that bad; don't forget the last four words at the end. They knew that censorship by itself doesn't work when people aren't on your side.

I've also noticed that the posts of mine that get censored are the ones with the most Agree / Insightful / Awesome reactions.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Moderation as you probably can guess isn't an exact science. (...) What should be noted here is in those back and forth conversations that get actioned, often times those escalate because either the parties start to include personal attacks or one of the parties has reported the other and a mod needs to figure out context by reading through the interactions and make a call based on our community guidelines.

Sure, but you should be erring on the side of "less is more". And frankly, when those "attacks" are genuine disgruntled reactions to ZOS, that needs to be handled differently than two players calling each other bad names.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

If there is an issue with how anyone has been moderated, please make sure to place a ticket to challenge the moderation. For added measure, please feel free to PM me and I can get that number over to our customer service team for additional context.

I would suggest that you audit those tickets and see how many of them had a successful appeal. Spoiler alert: that process doesn't work. We can't even get reasonable responses for normal tickets. Tickets about a forum action are significantly harder. The responses from support are awful. And before someone goes censoring that, please understand that from a customer perspective, "awful" is an accurate way to describe the support system in this game. That's not me saying "I hate your face!" That's me saying that the quality of the support system is rock bottom. Censoring that won't make the support experience any less dreadful.

When there is room for open dialogue, we're happy to have it. I hope this provides some context for forum moderation as well.

I suppose this will have to be evaluated from here on out, because certainly up until this point, "open dialog" is not something that ZOS is known for. Maybe I'd propose this to you: What metrics do you use to determine how effective current moderation is? How much review of moderator actions do you conduct? This thread should indicate that there's a strong dislike for the insanely high amount of moderation occurring from the player perspective. What's your perspective? Do you think that moderation is out of control, or merely needs more slight adjusting? Understanding this will illustrate whether ZOS and the player base are on the same page or are on two totally different planets. My personal (and biased) opinion is that you (as in, Kevin) lean towards "we do it well but need a slight adjustment;" while certainly I and probably others in this thread lean towards "omgwtf just stop already". How would you explain that stark difference of opinion?

I will use as a case study a particular thread that highlighted an enormous amount of angst towards the almost universally hated achievements change. If you could quantify the amount of moderation that took place there, silencing people that were clearly extremely upset about ZOS' actions, I'd like to compare it to ZOS' responses: a Q&A that didn't provide A's to Q's with technical justifications that were not believable, and a small bug fix for Undaunted skills. And beyond that? Silence. So on one hand, we have ZOS deleting, censoring, warning, and banning core users that care so much about this game that they will write over a hundred pages of posts on one feature. On the other hand, we have ZOS.... not really doing much else. So from the outside looking in, that appears to be exactly what is expressed in this thread -- heavy moderation with little regard to the open dialog that you advertise, and no desire to actually fix the underlying issues that cause the posts that get moderated. Just delete and censor, and hope the issues quietly fade into the background quickly before the next thing erupts.

The problem with the approach that ZOS takes here is that this game isn't made up of Fortnite kids. TES attracts sophisticated brains that think and create and innovate. You can't treat people here the same as you would in other games. You can't put up obviously fake technical justifications when so much of your customer base works in the field you're trying to hide under the rug. You can't trick people with crown store sleights, you can't reduce content and jack prices, you can't hide problems, you can't do any of these things without expecting a heated backlash. And you can't censor that backlash and think it just disappears. It doesn't. It festers and rots.

The bottom line is that there is a big difference between two people arguing over a bike shed color, and customers angry at ZOS actions. You need to deal with the latter problem and stop trying to hide it behind "snip", "deleted", "warned", and "banned".

I would also suggest that there is a correlation here between the increased frequency of inappropriate moderation and the simultaneous increased frequency of bad game changes. Think about that before hitting the "Edit" button on a message that is highlighting these bad changes.

Mythgard1967

Mmmmmm

I have been moderated...had posts deleted....a couple of them made me laugh...cause....why??? I mostly shrugged and and thought "Ya, ok, I have been a forum moderator and its a hard job....move on" because nothing I actually say is important enough to get all upset about being moderated for....

I received no warning that I know of...and am now worried..... How are warnings sent??? Please dont say email....if it is email, I need to stop posting asap. Please say they send you a message through the actual forums.

When you get banned, is it only forum account or game also? If it is game also; I have spent more money than I will ever admit on this game....I will need to logout of these forums and never return. Based on the content of those posts I had deleted.....I am not willing to risk my game account and the investment made therein by logging in to these forums...ever.

Iron_Warrior

Mythgard1967 wrote: »

When you get banned, is it only forum account or game also? If it is game also; I have spent more money than I will ever admit on this game....I will need to logout of these forums and never return. Based on the content of those posts I had deleted.....I am not willing to risk my game account and the investment made therein by logging in to these forums...ever.

I have this question too. I've been in these forums for only a couple of months and i'm already reaching the end of the line. So if my game account is also in danger, just tell me so i can stop posting alltogether

Sylvermynx

I have a good friend who was banned from the forum (not going into why), but he still plays the game just fine. So unless you do something really egregious in both forum and game, a ban from the forum shouldn't mess you up in the game.

Mythgard1967

Well that is good news! I might be mouthy...but never egregiously so!

Sylvermynx

Mythgard1967 wrote: »

Well that is good news! I might be mouthy...but never egregiously so!

Well, I've never seen any of your posts I thought were even "mouthy"!

FeedbackOnly

nightstrike wrote: »

BlossomDead wrote: »

I can back up the claims on super heavy handed censorship - this is not moderation anymore. I think my forum account has received a final warning. And if I am to look at the reported posts that were sent to me I always burst out laughing - it's just ridiculous.

Ditto regarding censorship. I keep trying to point out that when customers are upset, silencing them only makes the problem worse. The result is more censorship. Even 1984 wasn't that bad; don't forget the last four words at the end. They knew that censorship by itself doesn't work when people aren't on your side.

I've also noticed that the posts of mine that get censored are the ones with the most Agree / Insightful / Awesome reactions.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Moderation as you probably can guess isn't an exact science. (...) What should be noted here is in those back and forth conversations that get actioned, often times those escalate because either the parties start to include personal attacks or one of the parties has reported the other and a mod needs to figure out context by reading through the interactions and make a call based on our community guidelines.

Sure, but you should be erring on the side of "less is more". And frankly, when those "attacks" are genuine disgruntled reactions to ZOS, that needs to be handled differently than two players calling each other bad names.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

If there is an issue with how anyone has been moderated, please make sure to place a ticket to challenge the moderation. For added measure, please feel free to PM me and I can get that number over to our customer service team for additional context.

I would suggest that you audit those tickets and see how many of them had a successful appeal. Spoiler alert: that process doesn't work. We can't even get reasonable responses for normal tickets. Tickets about a forum action are significantly harder. The responses from support are awful. And before someone goes censoring that, please understand that from a customer perspective, "awful" is an accurate way to describe the support system in this game. That's not me saying "I hate your face!" That's me saying that the quality of the support system is rock bottom. Censoring that won't make the support experience any less dreadful.

When there is room for open dialogue, we're happy to have it. I hope this provides some context for forum moderation as well.

I suppose this will have to be evaluated from here on out, because certainly up until this point, "open dialog" is not something that ZOS is known for. Maybe I'd propose this to you: What metrics do you use to determine how effective current moderation is? How much review of moderator actions do you conduct? This thread should indicate that there's a strong dislike for the insanely high amount of moderation occurring from the player perspective. What's your perspective? Do you think that moderation is out of control, or merely needs more slight adjusting? Understanding this will illustrate whether ZOS and the player base are on the same page or are on two totally different planets. My personal (and biased) opinion is that you (as in, Kevin) lean towards "we do it well but need a slight adjustment;" while certainly I and probably others in this thread lean towards "omgwtf just stop already". How would you explain that stark difference of opinion?

I will use as a case study a particular thread that highlighted an enormous amount of angst towards the almost universally hated achievements change. If you could quantify the amount of moderation that took place there, silencing people that were clearly extremely upset about ZOS' actions, I'd like to compare it to ZOS' responses: a Q&A that didn't provide A's to Q's with technical justifications that were not believable, and a small bug fix for Undaunted skills. And beyond that? Silence. So on one hand, we have ZOS deleting, censoring, warning, and banning core users that care so much about this game that they will write over a hundred pages of posts on one feature. On the other hand, we have ZOS.... not really doing much else. So from the outside looking in, that appears to be exactly what is expressed in this thread -- heavy moderation with little regard to the open dialog that you advertise, and no desire to actually fix the underlying issues that cause the posts that get moderated. Just delete and censor, and hope the issues quietly fade into the background quickly before the next thing erupts.

The problem with the approach that ZOS takes here is that this game isn't made up of Fortnite kids. TES attracts sophisticated brains that think and create and innovate. You can't treat people here the same as you would in other games. You can't put up obviously fake technical justifications when so much of your customer base works in the field you're trying to hide under the rug. You can't trick people with crown store sleights, you can't reduce content and jack prices, you can't hide problems, you can't do any of these things without expecting a heated backlash. And you can't censor that backlash and think it just disappears. It doesn't. It festers and rots.

The bottom line is that there is a big difference between two people arguing over a bike shed color, and customers angry at ZOS actions. You need to deal with the latter problem and stop trying to hide it behind "snip", "deleted", "warned", and "banned".

I would also suggest that there is a correlation here between the increased frequency of inappropriate moderation and the simultaneous increased frequency of bad game changes. Think about that before hitting the "Edit" button on a message that is highlighting these bad changes.

We all know some bans are well deserved, but honestly this might be only chance we can say this without as much fear

The appeal process is bad. It's not consistent at in replies. Also warning system hardly ever gets used.

Moderation is random on ESO forums. Since the summer after Summerset with tos change. The TOS can making anything under the sun banned.

There's favoritism too. I witnessed something personally of another player getting original forum account account unbanned by certain zos employee because they asked. The second account was left alone.

Deleted posts and censorship are a problem too. I am not sure how I would handle that, but often I look at some names...and be like I can't believe you are still here.

So many accounts get banned for trival reasons. Instead suspensions would be way more appropriate for ESO audience. If 3 days isn't enough than increase the duration to a month and build on it.

People are human and ESO audience is typically far older. A time out of a week is enough to cool heads while repeat offenders a month

I am serious when I say this we often joke in discord, reddit, and even some on steam about how heavy forum moderation is

At first people defending zos ... there's two sides to every story right? Now you will rake up karma. A lot of long term players talk about how silly their forum bans were. Then in discords you

ZOS please recognize that we love the game. It's a beautiful world. We don't always agree with the decisions you make, but let us vent our frustrations. Let us disagree with each other

Losing playerbase on forums will taint opinions in subjects. Also will lose data from those who do calculations. Also bug reports get lost.

There's got to be a better way to handle some of this. I also think some players I see gone should get a second chance.

I don't need it myself, but appeals should be reviewed. Also look at people abusing the report system

Vaoh

For those asking for an official response, the banning itself is the official response.

No more, no less.

FeedbackOnly

Vaoh wrote: »

For those asking for an official response, the banning itself is the official response.

No more, no less.

👀 It's hard to see on mobile, but looks like we were actually heard this time. I know we have concerns how long before they forget again, but response looks like at least looks like a foot in right direction.

Something is better than nothing

spartaxoxo

Mythgard1967 wrote: »

Mmmmmm

I have been moderated...had posts deleted....a couple of them made me laugh...cause....why??? I mostly shrugged and and thought "Ya, ok, I have been a forum moderator and its a hard job....move on" because nothing I actually say is important enough to get all upset about being moderated for....

I received no warning that I know of...and am now worried..... How are warnings sent??? Please dont say email....if it is email, I need to stop posting asap. Please say they send you a message through the actual forums.

When you get banned, is it only forum account or game also? If it is game also; I have spent more money than I will ever admit on this game....I will need to logout of these forums and never return. Based on the content of those posts I had deleted.....I am not willing to risk my game account and the investment made therein by logging in to these forums...ever.

It's only forum suspensions and you'd be notified by both email and a message here if you were banned.

blktauna

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

Also look at people abusing the report system

^^^^^
So much this. Have a adult look at the claims not a bot. And please can the appeals process be documented and functioning.

I got a 3 day ban for literally saying "you must be a joy to work with" which was apparently reported as harassment. Review by an adult human would have shown how ridiculous that was.

Kidgangster101

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

Zos is once again trashing their paying customers? Quelle surprise.

I don't even play PVP but I'm really sorry the company many of you have poured time and money into doesn't think you're worth their time and actively hides your voice. I'm really sorry. This truly sucks.

I feel bad but I don't at the same time. Legit people keep complaining and paying money on this game knowing fair well that they are treated like this. It's not the first time they do stuff like this and it won't be the last.

Before all of the try hard defenders of eso come into this chat saying "it doesn't affect me I don't even like pvp anyways" just think about them making lies and promises about your PvE stuff. Because guess what? Once all the pvp players leave they will do the same thing to you for questioning their logic behind xyz.

If people want actual change to the game they need to not sub not buy dlc not buy marketplace items. It legit is the only way to have them hear you.

FeedbackOnly

Kidgangster101 wrote: »

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

Zos is once again trashing their paying customers? Quelle surprise.

I don't even play PVP but I'm really sorry the company many of you have poured time and money into doesn't think you're worth their time and actively hides your voice. I'm really sorry. This truly sucks.

I feel bad but I don't at the same time. Legit people keep complaining and paying money on this game knowing fair well that they are treated like this. It's not the first time they do stuff like this and it won't be the last.

Before all of the try hard defenders of eso come into this chat saying "it doesn't affect me I don't even like pvp anyways" just think about them making lies and promises about your PvE stuff. Because guess what? Once all the pvp players leave they will do the same thing to you for questioning their logic behind xyz.

If people want actual change to the game they need to not sub not buy dlc not buy marketplace items. It legit is the only way to have them hear you.

I think actually this time we are united as players. Nobody is disagreeing this was too far

Gaeliannas

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

Kidgangster101 wrote: »

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

Zos is once again trashing their paying customers? Quelle surprise.

I don't even play PVP but I'm really sorry the company many of you have poured time and money into doesn't think you're worth their time and actively hides your voice. I'm really sorry. This truly sucks.

I feel bad but I don't at the same time. Legit people keep complaining and paying money on this game knowing fair well that they are treated like this. It's not the first time they do stuff like this and it won't be the last.

Before all of the try hard defenders of eso come into this chat saying "it doesn't affect me I don't even like pvp anyways" just think about them making lies and promises about your PvE stuff. Because guess what? Once all the pvp players leave they will do the same thing to you for questioning their logic behind xyz.

If people want actual change to the game they need to not sub not buy dlc not buy marketplace items. It legit is the only way to have them hear you.

I think actually this time we are united as players. Nobody is disagreeing this was too far

Sadly, it will never happen, most don't actually care, they just login, buy crowns, get their virtual trinkets, do their daily grind and are satisfied. Many of us see what ESO could be, but that is immaterial, because what it is, is meeting expectations for the powers that be, otherwise there would be change. Me personally, I still login because there isn't any other game out there that interests me currently. But the long term result of my experience here is, I will probably never buy another ZOS product, maybe not even Bethesda... Unless they decide to treat their customers better.

nightstrike

blktauna wrote: »

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

Also look at people abusing the report system

I got a 3 day ban for literally saying "you must be a joy to work with" which was apparently reported as harassment. Review by an adult human would have shown how ridiculous that was.

I got a warning for saying "it's a feature" in response to a someone asking about why something didn't work the way they expected. I lost the appeal. I asked for management escalation, and lost that, too.

Technically, they cited two other statements that I made, but those other two were IMO tamer and less tongue-in-cheek. They were just longer.

RaikaNA

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

However, please remember that our mods are human at the end of the day and work hard to ensure the forum is a welcoming and approachable space for all players. If there is an issue with how anyone has been moderated, please make sure to place a ticket to challenge the moderation. For added measure, please feel free to PM me and I can get that number over to our customer service team for additional context.

When there is room for open dialogue, we're happy to have it. I hope this provides some context for forum moderation as well.

When PvPers are getting attacked by your twitch moderators.. censoring us by putting us into time out when we enter PvP in the chat.. sympathizing with your moderators by saying that their humans get thrown into the trash can. There is no reason to justify bad behaviors from the moderators.. abusing their powers by censoring people... taking away people's fundamental right to free speech.

FeedbackOnly

Gaeliannas wrote: »

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

Kidgangster101 wrote: »

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

Zos is once again trashing their paying customers? Quelle surprise.

I don't even play PVP but I'm really sorry the company many of you have poured time and money into doesn't think you're worth their time and actively hides your voice. I'm really sorry. This truly sucks.

I feel bad but I don't at the same time. Legit people keep complaining and paying money on this game knowing fair well that they are treated like this. It's not the first time they do stuff like this and it won't be the last.

Before all of the try hard defenders of eso come into this chat saying "it doesn't affect me I don't even like pvp anyways" just think about them making lies and promises about your PvE stuff. Because guess what? Once all the pvp players leave they will do the same thing to you for questioning their logic behind xyz.

If people want actual change to the game they need to not sub not buy dlc not buy marketplace items. It legit is the only way to have them hear you.

I think actually this time we are united as players. Nobody is disagreeing this was too far

Sadly, it will never happen, most don't actually care, they just login, buy crowns, get their virtual trinkets, do their daily grind and are satisfied. Many of us see what ESO could be, but that is immaterial, because what it is, is meeting expectations for the powers that be, otherwise there would be change. Me personally, I still login because there isn't any other game out there that interests me currently. But the long term result of my experience here is, I will probably never buy another ZOS product, maybe not even Bethesda... Unless they decide to treat their customers better.

I do care. I hope from here we take a different direction as a community. Hope is hard, but we are getting there.

Don't give up just yet

joerginger

nightstrike wrote: »

blktauna wrote: »

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

Also look at people abusing the report system

I got a 3 day ban for literally saying "you must be a joy to work with" which was apparently reported as harassment. Review by an adult human would have shown how ridiculous that was.

I got a warning for saying "it's a feature" in response to a someone asking about why something didn't work the way they expected. I lost the appeal. I asked for management escalation, and lost that, too.

Technically, they cited two other statements that I made, but those other two were IMO tamer and less tongue-in-cheek. They were just longer.

Interesting. Exactly the same thing happened to me. As I wrote earlier, the slightest joke is regarded as "bashing" these days. My appeal for management escalation was completely ignored - of course.

Knockmaker

One would expect that zos would learn something from that twitch incident a while ago. Seeing as how no apogology or an official explanation was made regarding that incident apart from a so-called PvP update (I've used the acronym, hope I won't get banned(!) ), which hasn't seen a single update in four (4) months, and now this incident, I must say that no review of moderation or so-called better communication would fix the issue here to be honest. Because, the main problem here is the repeated battering of the good faith that the playerbase have towards ZoS. The whole series of incidents indicate a broader policy or attitude towards their player-base, more specifically pvp players, and the only way to fix this severely damaged trust is to actually do something about the root cause (performance mainly) and tell the players of even the tiniest progress on that. Because, saying that it takes a long long time isn't specific (needless to mention that we had to search the internet to find those few words) and in the current state of events, raises eyebrows and lead people to think that you really aren't doing anything at all.

Just final words: I haven't played in many months, because it was literally unplayable for me. No exaggeration. It is that bad.

Jaraal

BlossomDead wrote: »

I can back up the claims on super heavy handed censorship - this is not moderation anymore. I think my forum account has received a final warning. And if I am to look at the reported posts that were sent to me I always burst out laughing - it's just ridiculous.

Yes, even mild criticism or pointing out things that just don't make sense is often considered "bashing" and becomes actionable. You never know when something that seems pretty innocuous when you post it is going to provoke a surprisingly harsh reaction. And the worst part is that judgement is so inconsistent across the board.

Aetherderius

I feel like it has to be said.

A heavy-handed moderation is kinda understandable when no matter what the stream is about, there is always people whinging about how cyrodiil is unplayable for them. How the lag in Cyrodiil is the worst it has ever been. PvP is the only reason I play this game and if you don't fix it NOW I'm leaving.

It has become a copypasta at this point. Spam 'what about cyro and pvp', rinse and repeat. Every quarter when new content comes out in this mainly PvE game, there people are, sooking about how their huge Cyrodiil map can't load the entire map, all the people, all the destructible objects, AND all the abilities that do big AoE or big calculations behind the scenes.

[snip]

[edited for potential bait]

DragonRacer

Mythgard1967 wrote: »

Mmmmmm

I received no warning that I know of...and am now worried..... How are warnings sent??? Please dont say email....if it is email, I need to stop posting asap. Please say they send you a message through the actual forums.

Warnings from a mod referring to a forum post are sent to you as a private message here on the forum.

I've had a grand total of one, and it still amuses me to look at my PMs and see that mod is no longer around (the name of who that warning came from is now "Deleted User").

Casul

The only moderation I ever received was for using a term to describe someone who spends lots of money on microtransactions. You can probably guess it. And it was in a thread about a person who spends lots of money on microtransactions.

Lumenn

I've often wondered if we had a program (bot) looking for keywords in the forum after a suspension (overturned after a GRUELING appeals) while I was DEFENDING the company. But I had just been p.m.'d by a "regular" forum user minutes before that as well, something that had never occurred in the years before(or since for that matter)

Inaya

I got a message once that one of my posts was being removed because it was sexual in nature and it wasn't even MY post hahahahah