Addressing the Issue of Coordinated Fake Reports in ESO

forum_gpt

Hello fellow adventurers,

I hope this message finds you well in the ever-expansive world of Tamriel. I'm writing today to discuss a growing concern that many of us have noticed recently: the coordination of fake harassment reports in response to PvP defeats in The Elder Scrolls Online.

PvP is an integral part of ESO, offering players thrilling and competitive experiences. However, it's no secret that some players take these encounters a bit too personally. Recently, there's been an uptick in players banding together to file fake harassment reports against those who best them in PvP battles. This behavior is not only unsportsmanlike but also detrimental to the community.

Why is this happening? The reasons seem to vary. Some players might feel that reporting others is a way to "get back" at them for a defeat, while others might view it as a tactic to remove skilled opponents from the battlefield. Whatever the motivation, this behavior undermines the integrity of the game and the trust we place in its reporting system.

This trend has several negative consequences:

Misuse of Resources: False reports waste the valuable time and resources of the support teams, delaying responses to genuine cases of harassment and misconduct.

Tarnishing Reputations: Players who are reported unfairly might find their reputations damaged, impacting their enjoyment and participation in the game.

Erosion of Trust: When the reporting system is abused, it can lead to a general mistrust among players and towards the game's management.

What can we do about it?

Promote Fair Play: Encourage a culture of sportsmanship where players can accept defeats gracefully and learn from them.

Educate: Spread awareness about the proper use of the reporting system. Remind fellow players that it's there to protect, not to be weaponized against others.

Report Honestly: If you encounter players trying to coordinate fake reports, consider reporting them through appropriate channels with evidence, if possible.

Let's work together to keep ESO a fair and enjoyable place for everyone. PvP should be about skill, strategy, and fun—not about finding ways to exploit the system.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and suggestions on this matter.

ForumSavant

Yeah I see this happen a lot in zone chat. People claim they are being harassed by groups just because they are killing them in PvP, where the objective is centered around killing people and taking keeps. I would understand somewhat if they chased people, but you see the same people res up, run into a group to try to kill them, and then say in zone that they are being harassed and try to abuse the report system. This behavior of mass fake reports should be punished. it leads to people thinking false reports are a remedy to remove things they don't like and they attempt to weaponize it.

CrashTest

This won't stop because there are so many people who think you're hacking or cheating if you kill them and their group. They never think it's their lack of skill or counters. It's always because you're cheating somehow.

EdjeSwift

I've said it before, I'll say it again, concentrated reports are fine if someone is doing something wrong. Someone LITERALLY tried to argue that this is bad because "might have slipped by in the past"

Reference: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/663461/mass-reporting-a-player

If you're not doing anything bad, then why does this matter? Reporting someone in this takes effort and if someone(s) takes the time to do so, and provides evidence, there is nothing wrong with that. Of your three misuse issues, only one is valid and that's the misallocation of resources. Reports are not published, nor are results, so there is no tarnished reputation outside of "I just reported @CaptainTightpants", which can be done regardless of reporting. Erosion of trust is a non-issue because actions should only be taken if a violation occurred, someone can report me for speedhacking in BG's for days, but if I haven't been in BG's since 2022, then nothing will happen.

I'll reiterate what I said in the other thread:

There is absolutely nothing wrong with mass reporting a player. If the player is in violation of the ToS or whatever else they SHOULD be mass reported. Asking to go against this will bring nothing but suspicion upon the one doing the asking because if there was a violation shouldn't it be reported?

Now mass FALSE reporting, that's another issue

If you did nothing even remotely wrong you have nothing to worry about.

DenverRalphy

False reports, regardless whether mass coordinated or not, fall on deaf ears. Anyone who claims they got bnned due to false reporting just doesn't want to admit that they were caught doing something.

Reporting other players requires screenshots/video proof. And you can't just screenshot a one sided conversation as proof.

LaintalAy

If you need 'warning flags' about players, it will be the alphabet-soup names, e.g.

dofuighuildfhgiolfdg

Is a bit hard to report, if you can't spell it.
My view is that these names are used specifically so that they don't get reported. But my view quite often doesn't count.

DenverRalphy

LaintalAy wrote: »

If you need 'warning flags' about players, it will be the alphabet-soup names, e.g.

dofuighuildfhgiolfdg

Is a bit hard to report, if you can't spell it.
My view is that these names are used specifically so that they don't get reported. But my view quite often doesn't count.

I just thought they're simply lazy quick finger raps on the keyboard cuz they know the shelf life is pretty short so no real though needs to go into it.

LaintalAy

DenverRalphy wrote: »

I just thought they're simply lazy quick finger raps on the keyboard cuz they know the shelf life is pretty short so no real though needs to go into it.

Ye-ah, that's how I used to think about it, then I noticed that I was being annoyed by more players with this type of name, compared to others.

Possibly 'Bizarro-Opher-Reaxe' syndrome...?

Maybe I dreamt it?

Rowjoh

What can we do about it ?

omg that's easy...

All that's required is that Zos should absolutely not penalise anyone unless there's actual proof/irrefutable evidence of an offense.

Its so so easy for 10 or more players to co-ordinate to gang up on any individual via the report system to say whatever they want.

In fact it shouldn't be possible to report a player in this manner, unless it's accompanied with screen shots or video clips of offences.

ForumSavant

I agree that mass reporting generally does nothing, unless of course the person actually is doing something, which I am fine with.

The issue is wasting the time of support by not only submitting fake reports yourself, but attempting to entice the entirety of zone chat to false report people just because they kill you in PvP, and then making claims about them for hours on end. This type of behavior should get flagged for abuse of the report system and end up in a warning for the people abusing it and attempting to waste supports time with a false flag of an account that is abiding by the TOS.

baratron

LaintalAy wrote: »

If you need 'warning flags' about players, it will be the alphabet-soup names, e.g.

dofuighuildfhgiolfdg

Is a bit hard to report, if you can't spell it.
My view is that these names are used specifically so that they don't get reported. But my view quite often doesn't count.

Also Ùñêxpéctëð Chãråçtërs in names. It's one thing if an accented letter is part of a name from a non-English language, and quite another when a player name is filled with them.

LaintalAy

baratron wrote: »

Also Ùñêxpéctëð Chãråçtërs in names. It's one thing if an accented letter is part of a name from a non-English language, and quite another when a player name is filled with them.

Yep.

ClowdyAllDay

fake news. nothing to see here. if fake reports are being faked ZOS can review zone chat. if people are using obscene gestures then record youe streams and turn them in. and so called abuse of the reporting system is not reasonable for forum disc=ussion as we have moderation standards

ClowdyAllDay

lets discuss instead the growing trend of complaining in the forums in order to garner sympathy as that is def a growing problem

Pelanora

Sympathy? From the forums? Are you kidding? This place is dog eat dog. This is pvp for typists.

Rowjoh

ClowdyAllDay wrote: »

fake news. nothing to see here. if fake reports are being faked ZOS can review zone chat. if people are using obscene gestures then record youe streams and turn them in. and so called abuse of the reporting system is not reasonable for forum disc=ussion as we have moderation standards

so do tell us, if a group of players fake-report a player for t-bagging, how is ZoS reviewing 'zone chat' going to help with that?

I know a player that was warned after being wrongly accused of t-bagging. I know this because we were duo-ing AD resources and repelling all-comers when there was a barrage of whisper report threats against her.

This is a perfectly reasonable and valid forum discussion.

ApoAlaia

There is a reason why many PvP players use account/character names that are either random sequences of characters, long strings of weird characters etc and actively avoid 'humorous' or 'pun' ones, basically anything that can be subjected to 'opinion' or 'interpretation'.

Tommy_The_Gun

The issue imho represents the state of PvP balance in general and recent PvP event kinda demonstrated it. I mean, I don't think it is good to do a "fake" report in any way shape or form. But think of it that way: a player new to ESO PvP enters Cyrodiil during PvP event... and shortly after, they encounter a Ball Group. They try to fight it & die over & over without a single kill. They also see experienced players with maxed out AW rank to also die over & over. Will they think that "Ball Group" players are cheating ? Of course they will. (We know they are obviously not cheating).

Balance is all over the place, to the point in which some play style actually do feel like cheating, but in reality it is more of a exploit/abuse of certain game mechanics. So I can totally see some players trying to report others, either cuz they feel that something is off and some one might be cheating or exploiting something, while in reality it is just game balance being neglected by ZOS for far too long.

DenverRalphy

Rowjoh wrote: »

ClowdyAllDay wrote: »

fake news. nothing to see here. if fake reports are being faked ZOS can review zone chat. if people are using obscene gestures then record youe streams and turn them in. and so called abuse of the reporting system is not reasonable for forum disc=ussion as we have moderation standards

so do tell us, if a group of players fake-report a player for t-bagging, how is ZoS reviewing 'zone chat' going to help with that?

I know a player that was warned after being wrongly accused of t-bagging. I know this because we were duo-ing AD resources and repelling all-comers when there was a barrage of whisper report threats against her.

This is a perfectly reasonable and valid forum discussion.

Warned by whom? You actually saw an official response from a ZoS representative? Or your player friend just told you so?

Whispers from other players does not a warning make. Accusations of TeaBagging requires video proof (or maybe a screenshot of an admission of guilt in chat but not likely), or there's no action taken. And ZoS doesn't typically whisper you in game (at least I've never seen it) but instead drops the hammer on you, or you receive a mail.

Morvan

I lost account of how many times I got rage pms during this event, as I tried to answer, part of them were either offline or blocked me, probably the latter, but now I'm wondering if they actually didn't just report me out of frustration lmao

JanTanhide

baratron wrote: »

LaintalAy wrote: »

If you need 'warning flags' about players, it will be the alphabet-soup names, e.g.

dofuighuildfhgiolfdg

Is a bit hard to report, if you can't spell it.
My view is that these names are used specifically so that they don't get reported. But my view quite often doesn't count.

Also Ùñêxpéctëð Chãråçtërs in names. It's one thing if an accented letter is part of a name from a non-English language, and quite another when a player name is filled with them.

That's the same type of "names" that Bots usually use. There is an old Addon that still works correctly called Bot Scanner 2000. You can hotkey it to capture names for an auto report to ZOS. It gets those pesky names easily. Just be sure to not get innocents as you move your Mouse pointer to them. Yes, they have to be visible so you can scan them but if you can do that you can capture their name(s) for the report. I still use this for Bots.

https://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1818-BotScanner2000.html

Rowjoh

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Rowjoh wrote: »

ClowdyAllDay wrote: »

fake news. nothing to see here. if fake reports are being faked ZOS can review zone chat. if people are using obscene gestures then record youe streams and turn them in. and so called abuse of the reporting system is not reasonable for forum disc=ussion as we have moderation standards

so do tell us, if a group of players fake-report a player for t-bagging, how is ZoS reviewing 'zone chat' going to help with that?

I know a player that was warned after being wrongly accused of t-bagging. I know this because we were duo-ing AD resources and repelling all-comers when there was a barrage of whisper report threats against her.

This is a perfectly reasonable and valid forum discussion.

Warned by whom? You actually saw an official response from a ZoS representative? Or your player friend just told you so?

Whispers from other players does not a warning make. Accusations of TeaBagging requires video proof (or maybe a screenshot of an admission of guilt in chat but not likely), or there's no action taken. And ZoS doesn't typically whisper you in game (at least I've never seen it) but instead drops the hammer on you, or you receive a mail.

where do I write that she had a whispered response from ZoS ! ?

She had an email a few days later which she forwarded to me, reminding her of the code of conduct/t's and c's.

The point is, in case you missed it, is that she didn't t-bag, has never t-bagged' yet received an email on the back of multiple fake reports.

barney2525

Real life is making its way into the game. Have we not noticed what is going on in the news?

The slightest PERCEIVED slight brings calls for banning and censoring and all manner of punishments, labels, and accusations. Too many victims these days, with no one standing up and telling them to just deal with it.

IMHO

ClowdyAllDay

so i mean i have actually played pvp and the chat only works for players in your alliance. Otherwise they would be able to read all your battle plans! So how are people fgrom other alliances writing to you?

ClowdyAllDay

Rowjoh wrote: »

ClowdyAllDay wrote: »

fake news. nothing to see here. if fake reports are being faked ZOS can review zone chat. if people are using obscene gestures then record youe streams and turn them in. and so called abuse of the reporting system is not reasonable for forum disc=ussion as we have moderation standards

so do tell us, if a group of players fake-report a player for t-bagging, how is ZoS reviewing 'zone chat' going to help with that?

I know a player that was warned after being wrongly accused of t-bagging. I know this because we were duo-ing AD resources and repelling all-comers when there was a barrage of whisper report threats against her.

This is a perfectly reasonable and valid forum discussion.

then i guess you better get a twitch account and stream everything to it and record it so you can have proof. For my part i have nothing to do with this event unless i have a below level 50 toon and can find a vacant below level 50 instance to gather skyshards from and maybe do some scouting reports.

Zodiarkslayer

I think this wouldn't be an issue, if we had gameplay based ways to get back at other palyers.
But in this PvP environment it is almost impossible. If some tanky META vampire whatnot is repeatedly killing you, than chances are high that you don't have a chance anyway.

This PvP is toxic.
And elitist.
And abelist.
And a lot of people find that bitter pill of constant defeat very hard to swallow. Or their pride. And so, if the only way to get back at that player at all is a fake report? Because there is no gameplay way to do so?

Do you really think this is either players' fault?

Am I ever glad, that I do not PvP anymore ...

ganzaeso

It is against the TOS and Code of Conduct to to mass report/abuse the reporting system. You had best provide some evidence at minimum that you were involved in any player reporting rather than just report on the whims of some player venting in game chat. Otherwise, when that player finally appeals the ban, you may end up with an account ban yourself.

tsaescishoeshiner

Fake mass reports are at least against the ToS.

But people shouldn't encourage others to report someone if the others aren't direct witnesses. That's fake mass reports, which can get action taken against your account. So someone telling you to report someone they saw hacking is and should be avoided.

ClowdyAllDay

I’d like to discuss the problem of people being retaliated against for filing real reports by people who were justly accused and filed a fake report that they were fake reported against by people losing in pvp.

Rowjoh

ClowdyAllDay wrote: »

Rowjoh wrote: »

ClowdyAllDay wrote: »

fake news. nothing to see here. if fake reports are being faked ZOS can review zone chat. if people are using obscene gestures then record youe streams and turn them in. and so called abuse of the reporting system is not reasonable for forum disc=ussion as we have moderation standards

so do tell us, if a group of players fake-report a player for t-bagging, how is ZoS reviewing 'zone chat' going to help with that?

I know a player that was warned after being wrongly accused of t-bagging. I know this because we were duo-ing AD resources and repelling all-comers when there was a barrage of whisper report threats against her.

This is a perfectly reasonable and valid forum discussion.

then i guess you better get a twitch account and stream everything to it and record it so you can have proof. For my part i have nothing to do with this event unless i have a below level 50 toon and can find a vacant below level 50 instance to gather skyshards from and maybe do some scouting reports.

Don't need a twitch or any other streaming account, or your 'advice' thanks.

Fake reporting is fake reporting so all that's needed is that Zos should obviously ensure they do not penalise anyone unless there's actual proof/irrefutable evidence of an offence, which wasn't the case with my friend as I've already described.

forum_gpt

Rowjoh wrote: »

ClowdyAllDay wrote: »

Rowjoh wrote: »

ClowdyAllDay wrote: »

fake news. nothing to see here. if fake reports are being faked ZOS can review zone chat. if people are using obscene gestures then record youe streams and turn them in. and so called abuse of the reporting system is not reasonable for forum disc=ussion as we have moderation standards

so do tell us, if a group of players fake-report a player for t-bagging, how is ZoS reviewing 'zone chat' going to help with that?

I know a player that was warned after being wrongly accused of t-bagging. I know this because we were duo-ing AD resources and repelling all-comers when there was a barrage of whisper report threats against her.

This is a perfectly reasonable and valid forum discussion.

then i guess you better get a twitch account and stream everything to it and record it so you can have proof. For my part i have nothing to do with this event unless i have a below level 50 toon and can find a vacant below level 50 instance to gather skyshards from and maybe do some scouting reports.

Don't need a twitch or any other streaming account, or your 'advice' thanks.

Fake reporting is fake reporting so all that's needed is that Zos should obviously ensure they do not penalise anyone unless there's actual proof/irrefutable evidence of an offence, which wasn't the case with my friend as I've already described.

I know what youre saying, I know of a very similar case involving a friend of mine.