Cloudrest exploiters should have title and skin removed

viphhase

According to Zenimax media's terms of service players are not allowed to;

- Promote, upload, transmit, encourage, or take part in any activity involving hacking, cracking, phishing, taking advantage of exploits or cheats and/or distribution of counterfeit software and/or Virtual Currency or virtual items. In an effort to continuously improve the Services, You and other players discovering exploits, cheats, cracks or other inconsistencies are required to report them to ZeniMax;

As listed in their rules of conduct. Players that willfully used the Oakensoul exploit that allowed them to complete Cloudrest in all forms and iterations up to and including Gryphon Heart (HM, Speed Run, No death achievement) should find themselves facing the ban hammer, or at the very least have the skins, titles, gear and gold earned by using the exploit removed.

I argue that the use of the Oakensoul ring to subvert the mechanic of Relequen mechanic (barswap) by simply not equipping a backbar weapon was a deliberate use of an exploit which is against the Rules of Conduct.

Given that the devs fixed the issue, implies that it was unintended and therefor is categorized as an exploit of an unintended mechanic. I seem to remember last time people earned a skin and/or title and ZOS came down like a ton of bricks. 200 bans iirc, I fail to see a difference.

Bat

You know what, I agree.. but I'm also mostly of the opinion that "the most challenging content in the game" shouldn't be possible to complete by "not standing in bad stuff while holding left MB".

viphhase

I think the devs need to respond with either this is an exploit, or we intended for this to be used that way then took it away from people.

And if it is an exploit then why are there no punishments?

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Bill @ZOS_Icy @ZOS_Adrikoth @ZOS_KaiSchober @ZOS_The_Adoring_Fan @ZOS_BrianWheeler

merpins

Most players were under the impression that it was an intended mechanic for Oakensoul, since you physically cannot bar swap with it. I don't think anyone should be, or will be, banned because of this. From what I know, ZoS didn't put any words into the matter until they patched it out of the game during a major update.

I agree. People should be banned for purposefully exploiting known bugs. But this wasn't a known bug, but instead what players thought was an intended feature of the item.

viphhase

I disagree. I think a lot of people knew that it was not an intended mechanic, otherwise it would have been more widespread since the release of Oakensoul. In fact the previous iteration of the item was more powerful. I believe that people caught on to how easy it made content like vAS and tested it in cloudrest to see if the got barswap. Once it was confirmed that you didn't receive it they made it known far and wide that you could do Cloudrest +3 is if it were a simple +2.

I agree that no one should be banned for using it. I do however believe that the people that gained their skin and/or any titles using that method should have them removed and be made to re-achieve them.

If it wasn't purely because of the exploitation of an unintended interaction with the trials mechanics and an item, then those people should have no issue in doing the achievement again

spartaxoxo

It worked that way for years. There is no reason for people to believe it was unintended. They even left that function in for players who are too low level to have enabled bar swap.

And they didn't say "fixed a bug," they said "no longer functions."

Voltaic Current no longer functions differently for players with a second weapon bar unlocked, and are in Werewolf form or have the Oakensoul item equipped.

BaalMelqartu

spartaxoxo wrote: »

It worked that way for years. There is no reason for people to believe it was unintended. They even left that function in for players who are too low level to have enabled bar swap.

And they didn't say "fixed a bug," they said "no longer functions."

Thank you. I have some Oakensoul characters and never actually did Cloudrest with any of them while using those builds but it just really saddens me that there are individuals who feel the need to play police and look for any way to punish other players. I truly do not understand the mentality of being so fixated on what other people are doing with their characters. In this instance, everything was made clear, things were fixed, etc and now some individuals want to retroactively punish people even though the game was set up for these scenarios for years? isn't it enough that they took notice and made changes?

I have tried to choose my words carefully so as not to be too dismissive or rude to OP while still getting my point across. I respect that their opinion is totally different than my own but in this case, just felt the need to provide an outsider's perspective who has a really hard time with people so fixated on punishing any other player.

ApoAlaia

It worked for WW, which cannot bar swap because WW form only has one bar.

Is not a stretch to believe that it was intended behaviour with Oakensoul too.

Now it doesn't work for WW anymore, and for some reason this seems to fill people with gleeful joy.

I have fond memories of running vCR with WW for that magical - albeit short - window where running WW was acceptable.

They nailed that down hard pretty quickly though, and they have been adding nails to that coffin ever since.

You know, just in case there is a small crack somewhere that lets a little bit of light in.

Zodiarkslayer

Exploits means harmful behavior. Harmful to other players.

@viphhase Can you please state in wich way you were harmed to make such a ... colourful request?

I see it like @spartaxoxo ZOS couldn't possibly foresee the effects of Oakensoul on Cloudrest HM mechanics. After it became clear there was an unintended side effect, they changed it to preserve the HM achievement.
If anything it is an oversight on ZOS's side. No player should be reprimanded for that.

Jamie_Aubrey

Maybe the devs should have tested for this

gronoxvx

Who cares if they did? No different to buying a carry for a title or skin imo. Besides a lot of guilds wont accept any BoL or GH clears on oakensorc builds anyway. So i dont see how this effects you other than just whining?

Dr_Con

Doing anything at this point would be too messy, many content creators and stream team members were using it for this reason and making video guides on doing it.

thorwyn

Exploits means harmful behavior. Harmful to other players.

That's your personal interpretation, not the official definition.

But anyways, I agree that this was not an exploit, mainly because the devs were fully aware of the situation, the "glitch" has been discussed on the forums and even well known ESO content creators posted videos about it. ZOS just did not seem to care, since there was no official statement about it.

And let's face it, at this point, it doesn't really matter anymore anyways.

N3CR01

Another Oakensoul bashing thread YAY!
Haven't seen one of these in a while...

Grizzbeorn

Oakensoul builds are not an exploit.

AnduinTryggva

viphhase wrote: »

I disagree. I think a lot of people knew that it was not an intended mechanic, otherwise it would have been more widespread since the release of Oakensoul. In fact the previous iteration of the item was more powerful. I believe that people caught on to how easy it made content like vAS and tested it in cloudrest to see if the got barswap. Once it was confirmed that you didn't receive it they made it known far and wide that you could do Cloudrest +3 is if it were a simple +2.

I agree that no one should be banned for using it. I do however believe that the people that gained their skin and/or any titles using that method should have them removed and be made to re-achieve them.

If it wasn't purely because of the exploitation of an unintended interaction with the trials mechanics and an item, then those people should have no issue in doing the achievement again

I play ESO since 4 years or so. I have been told that during the early years there was a trick using some armor trait that allowed farming insane amounts of money. This way of generating gold was later removed. Have these people lost the amount of money they made using this unintended effect? I guess not. So why should ppl get this single achievement, one out of many be removed?

Northwold

For heaven's sake who cares. What's the damage? Personal pride? Why do people keep coming on here to lament other players having gained achievements by playing differently to them? It's a video game. It's not real life. It's pixels.

The_one_i_seek

this is not an exploit at all
[snip]

[edited for baiting]

viphhase

Its not an exploit to completely ignore a mechanic through nefarious means? Yea that sounds completely correct.[snip] @Moderator please ensure this does not devolve into further name calling

[edited for baiting]

viphhase

Dr_Con wrote: »

Doing anything at this point would be too messy, many content creators and stream team members were using it for this reason and making video guides on doing it.

That is also against terms of service as it falls under ;

Promote, upload, transmit, encourage, or take part in any activity involving hacking, cracking, phishing, taking advantage of exploits or cheats and/or distribution of counterfeit software and/or Virtual Currency or virtual items. In an effort to continuously improve the Services, You and other players discovering exploits, cheats, cracks or other inconsistencies are required to report them to ZeniMax;

Ph1p

There was a clear precedent that if you can't bar-swap the Overload mechanic treats you differently: Werewolves and players below level 15 had a workaround for it, so there was no reason to assume that Oakensoul users were different or taking advantage of an exploit.

For whatever reason, ZOS decided to change that mechanic. Since they did not announce it as a bug/exploit and initially even forgot to mention the change, this exercise of banning and/or removing titles would be unwarranted, unfair, and a waste of ZOS resources.

Northwold

At the end of the day the complaint is to all intents and purposes that people don't like other people using the Oakensoul ring.

1) The Oakensoul ring was created to allow a different play style. It didn't pop out of nowhere, ZOS deliberately introduced it into the game. It is not a side effect that it changes the way people play. That is the obvious purpose of the ring.

2) It makes not a jot of difference to anyone else whether other players use it or not.

3) There was a mechanic in a trial that used to be OK with Oakensoul and now isn't. I actually find the *change* to make the mechanic unusable with Oakensoul rather weird, *not* that it was usable before. Oakensoul is supposed to allow the game to be played differently, so why suddenly block it? *That* strikes me as the bigger issue. (I also find mechanics that break the game's fourth wall really jarring and inappropriate -- our characters do not have bars, and they don't even carry two weapons on their backs, so a gaming mechanic that depends purely on a quirk of the game's user interface strikes me as really, really weird -- it has nothing to do with the game's own world.)

4) From a personal perspective, I solo almost everything and don't use Oakensoul (indeed, to my mind it would make the game too difficult for me). But I also find people swapping two bars at the speed of light and taking pride in that fact (rather than worrying about the early onset of arthritis) peculiar. In neither case, though, do I actually care: it's not the way I play, but if people want to play like that, what difference does it make to me? They enjoy it, I don't.

The game is supposed to be designed to let players play in different ways, Oakensoul is a useful step forward in that. That really should not be a problem. If anything it should be embraced.

Soarora

Everyone I know was under the impression that how it functioned was intentional, thus not exploiting. I have not heard of any person use oakensoul purely to avoid voltaic… because why would they? It’s the easiest mechanic in there, why would you sacrifice one bar to avoid it?

viphhase

Now I don't particularly care in either direction. I just remember that several years ago ZOS cracked out the ban hammer for people exploiting vAS. They handed out over 200 bans for an "exploit".

Now a small rebuttal to the two comments above. First and foremost sir I am a tank and my CPM rarely exceeds that of a snail moving so I assure you that I do not swap bars at the speed of lightning. [snip]

I will also point out that people do struggle with barswap when they don't have the magical addon that prevents them from swapping bars, hence why until they could avoid the mechanic they were never able to complete the content, which further reinforces my point

[edited for baiting]

Grizzbeorn

viphhase wrote: »

Now I don't particularly care in either direction. I just remember that several years ago ZOS cracked out the ban hammer for people exploiting vAS. They handed out over 200 bans for an "exploit".

Which illustrates that they DO ban for exploiting, and they say as much when they do.

None of that happened with regard to the vCR mechanic, ergo, Oakensoul builds are NOT an exploit.

FeedbackOnly

It was a oversight. It happens, but now it's fixed.

viphhase

Grizzbeorn wrote: »

viphhase wrote: »

Now I don't particularly care in either direction. I just remember that several years ago ZOS cracked out the ban hammer for people exploiting vAS. They handed out over 200 bans for an "exploit".

Which illustrates that they DO ban for exploiting, and they say as much when they do.

None of that happened with regard to the vCR mechanic, ergo, Oakensoul builds are NOT an exploit.

Seems you don't remember it friend, they only implemented the bans after a significant portion of time and outcry by the endgame community.

Hamish999

This hate towards HA Oakensoul builds is getting really tiresome.

BlueRaven

Hamish999 wrote: »

This hate towards HA Oakensoul builds is getting really tiresome.

Agreed. At this point I kind of am starting to want to see a trial boss that requires one bar builds. That punishes bar swapping.

viphhase

I don't hate the build, I simply think the build is excellent for the content it was created for. But I don't think it was created to cheese mechanics.

There is a certain irony I find that the DEVs nerfed Thrassians into the ground because "It made content too easy" and then created this

Grizzbeorn

Not an exploit.