Open letter: Exploits, Perma Bans, Naming & Shaming

HeroOfNone · August 2016

Hello folks, I made a video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvfoY38Vea4

This is an open letter to ZOS & the community about exploits, bans, naming & shaming, and reporting issues. This comes as a followup to my prior message to the community on cheating and toxicity, which you can find linked above. For those of you that want to skim or who are browsing at work:

Exploits
Community: DO NOT USE THEM. Regardless of what you feel ZOS should do in fixing them we already know they will take administrative action against you if you do it. If you want to argue about priority to fix them on the forums, fine, but just because it's broken and not fixed doesn't give carte blanche. here is a great place to discuss the current exploit policy in Cyrodiil. Here you can discuss the policy around discussing exploits and cheaters on the forums, and what ZOS won't allow done on the individual (we'll get more into thst in a bit).

Permanent bans for first time exploiting
I've heard rumors players have been permanently banned for using exploits in benign ways for their first offense. I can't verify these accounts (due to the naming & shaming policy) but if it's true,
ZOS: Please scale back some of the punishments. If it's high impact; doing vet Maelstrom Arena 50 times with salvation set bugged, emperors using gap closers to flip keeps, ban em. But if it someone doing a DPS check or killing mudcrabs with the Salvation set on I feel a temporary suspension is more in order.
Community: Realize a lot of this is ZOS's response to us requesting permanent bans on cheaters. Some of us have been accusing them of being ban happy, but we were accusing them of being soft a few months ago. Lets offer more specifics on how you feel exploiters and cheaters should be handled.

Communication on Exploits
ZOS: I feel we need better dialog on if something is or isn't an exploit. If the risk is a ban, permanent or temporary, then there should be clear dialog "do/do not" when a question comes up if something is an exploit. It's worked up till now to be vague about things while fixes are being developed, but the information network is working faster now and the risk to players getting administrative action against them is greater. Quick and clear responses are needed.

Naming & Shaming
ZOS: Please consider revising this policy. It's good for dealing with just accusations, but with the above issue with communication, it's important to let players know if what they reported is a confirmed bug/exploit. Without some sort of acknowledgement when reporting someone, the assumption is that what they are doing is legal, and more people will start to do it. On top of that certain toxic players will use this to their advantage, spreading poison and knowing their name won't be seen by the community.

If an agreement can't be reached on revising the naming & shaming policy on guilty individuals, please consider allowing public apologies from players to reduce their bans. This wouldn't violate the policy, will let use know you did take action against certain players, and will give players an Avenue for reforming. These apologies should include who they are, what they did, express some sort of sincere remorse, and place an agreement with the community that they won't do it again, otherwise they will be banned for good. I doubt this will make everyone happy, but compromises rarely do.

Bug & exploit amnesty week
Both: A week on the PTS or with friends showing possible bugs and exploits to ZOS, regardless for how long you've been using them. At the end of this week ZOS can review and determine if they are in fact exploits or intended mechanics with no fear of administrative action by ZOS. Possibly give rewards out for the number of confirmed bugs. After this week however, it's expected any confirmed bugs will not be used.

Allow certain players access to "cheat" on PTS
ZOS: give access to certain streamers (@fengrush, @SypherPK, @deltia, or others) and their associates access to use cheats and exploits on the PTS server to show the difference between "working as intended" and out right cheating. There is a lot of misinformation out there, and folks need to see clear examples of cheating on the victims end to understand them. I recommend more seasoned PVP players to participate in this, to break down the differences.

Admistrative action numbers per week/month
ZOS: I believe is was @ZOS_JessicaFolsom that said they could give us administrative action summaries at the end of each month or week, what happened with this? Were any released? If not, can we get the ball rolling?

Thanks for your time watching and reading this.

Bonus: how many "oks" were used in this video? I lost count half way through.

UrQuan · August 2016

I can't watch the video at work, but that's a damn fine post. The naming and shaming policy is a tricky one for sure. I understand why it's in place, but it has the drawback of making it appear that nobody who uses exploits/cheats ever gets punished for it... Except when you hear that one of your friends was banned, and when it was one of your friends your natural bias is to think that the ban probably wasn't fair.

I'd like to see a "purgatory" thread (or maybe "banished to Coldharbour"?) where ZOS posts the people who are banned (maybe not for any suspension that lasts less than 72 hours), along with the length of the ban, and the reason for it. People can appeal their bans, and if the appeal is successful their name gets a note beside it saying why the ban was reversed. This way there's more transparency, and you can keep the "no naming and shaming" policy in place for non-ZOS staff (so players still have to send reports to ZOS rather than posting names on the forums) while still allowing people to see that their reports have an effect.

It'll probably never happen though.

idk · August 2016

I agree Zos need to step up their game concerning the various means for cheating.

However, naming and shaming should never be permitted in the forums. To many are quick to claim cheating because they do not understand how someone did something or think it must be a cheat because they are skilled enough.

We already see threads like this now. If naming and shaming was permitted it would most certainly would be harmful to the game of upstanding players.

HeroOfNone · August 2016

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

I agree Zos need to step up their game concerning the various means for cheating.

However, naming and shaming should never be permitted in the forums. To many are quick to claim cheating because they do not understand how someone did something or think it must be a cheat because they are skilled enough.

We already see threads like this now. If naming and shaming was permitted it would most certainly would be harmful to the game of upstanding players.

Read through again, we're on the same page that naming & shaming as accusations should never be allowed. I'm talking specifically on players found guilty with substantial evidence that they got a ban placed on them. In these cases there isn't any real "shame", it's stating the fact that they did cheat or exploit or did something big enough to break the rules. It also doubles as informing the community "this thing they did was wrong, you shouldn't do it either."

Hope that clears up the difference between naming & shaming as an accusation verses naming someone that has been breaking the rules.

cjthibs · August 2016

HeroOfNone wrote: »

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

I agree Zos need to step up their game concerning the various means for cheating.

However, naming and shaming should never be permitted in the forums. To many are quick to claim cheating because they do not understand how someone did something or think it must be a cheat because they are skilled enough.

We already see threads like this now. If naming and shaming was permitted it would most certainly would be harmful to the game of upstanding players.

Read through again, we're on the same page that naming & shaming as accusations should never be allowed. I'm talking specifically on players found guilty with substantial evidence that they got a ban placed on them. In these cases there isn't any real "shame", it's stating the fact that they did cheat or exploit or did something big enough to break the rules. It also doubles as informing the community "this thing they did was wrong, you shouldn't do it either."

Hope that clears up the difference between naming & shaming as an accusation verses naming someone that has been breaking the rules.

Only issue with that is players don't have access to the kind of evidence needed to back up such a claim. (Usually.)

Cryptical · August 2016

Naming... If there's a video that shows a name, that's not a subjective story about events being told by memory. That's a video of the exact incident.

The example videos of what something looks like from multiple screens is a winning idea. There was a topic a week or so ago about a guy who got multi-gap closed from beyond the rendering distance. It was pointed out how a certain type of circumstances plus randomness can create what has been named a 'macroslice', and a fengrush video was linked showing it happening during his session. That vid was illuminating.

cjthibs · August 2016

Cryptical wrote: »

Naming... If there's a video that shows a name, that's not a subjective story about events being told by memory. That's a video of the exact incident.

The example videos of what something looks like from multiple screens is a winning idea. There was a topic a week or so ago about a guy who got multi-gap closed from beyond the rendering distance. It was pointed out how a certain type of circumstances plus randomness can create what has been named a 'macroslice', and a fengrush video was linked showing it happening during his session. That vid was illuminating.

In that example in particular he could've accidentally done so.
Without seeing the bigger picture you might just get someone who made a mistake banned.

One video of one incident is not enough. If I accidentally gap-closed through a wall one time, having no idea that would happen...should I be publicly shamed for that?

ZOS has the data, let them play judge and jury, that's all I'm saying.

Lucius_Aelius · August 2016

I agree that, when incontrovertible proof is provided, that naming and shaming should be allowed, and obviously people shouldn't be using exploits, that's a given. Some of the lesser ones like glitching onto a wall with a gap closer is something I did for the lulz, but not to take a scroll or anything and I never accomplished anything useful, just fooled around with it a few times and never did it again (and that's really the only exploiting I can think of having done in this game at all). I'm not ashamed of it and don't mind being called out for anything that I do, I stand by my actions or, if I overstep, I'll happily apologize and say I did wrong and ask for forgiveness.

People need to be held accountable for their actions and not do anything they don't want to be called out for, and not being able to name and shame when proof is provided encourages people to feel like they don't need to be accountable for anything they do. It's a fine line to be sure, but when the proof is incontrovertible then I think it's fair and just to name and shame, and not allowing us to do so at all limits our ability as players to police ourselves and each other. And while we should not be policing ourselves exclusively I believe it can be healthy to enable players to do so, and would help to keep people in line if they know they will be publicly called out for any wrongdoing they may perpetrate.

Banning people is all well and good, but stopping people from being uninhibited prevents wrongdoing in the first place and would help ZOS have less policing to do, which I imagine would be an all around good thing.

KaleidoscopeEyz · August 2016

ZOS "administrative actions" for using exploits has been a slap on the hand. Seriously, they banned people for like 2 days for the writ exploit. I'd gladly take a 2 day ban for unlimited ore and tons of tempering alloys. It's a joke.

If you want an exploit dealt with and resolved, make it public so everyone does it. They won't ban everyone and they'll fix the issue quicker.

UltimaJoe777 · August 2016

Naming and Shaming isn't allowed because if it were it would make Zenimax look unprofessional. This honestly goes for any company really.

cschwingeb14_ESO · August 2016

I do know one person who was perma banned for the Salvation set, and he was definitely not farming anything. He might have been making a funny video with it, or showing of to friends. But since he already had all of the gear possible to get in trials and vMA, it wasn't that.

What most likely did happen is that he triggered some "you did to much damage" CE flag, and got a perma ban. Now ZOS is resorting to heavy handed tactics rather that actually doing good QA, bug fixes or having a transparent ban process.

HeroOfNone · August 2016

cjthibs wrote: »

Cryptical wrote: »

Naming... If there's a video that shows a name, that's not a subjective story about events being told by memory. That's a video of the exact incident.

The example videos of what something looks like from multiple screens is a winning idea. There was a topic a week or so ago about a guy who got multi-gap closed from beyond the rendering distance. It was pointed out how a certain type of circumstances plus randomness can create what has been named a 'macroslice', and a fengrush video was linked showing it happening during his session. That vid was illuminating.

In that example in particular he could've accidentally done so.
Without seeing the bigger picture you might just get someone who made a mistake banned.

One video of one incident is not enough. If I accidentally gap-closed through a wall one time, having no idea that would happen...should I be publicly shamed for that?

ZOS has the data, let them play judge and jury, that's all I'm saying.

Thing Is that ZOS would have already played the judge & jury, and are letting you know the sentence. And your correct that ZOS would have the evidence that someone cheated, if it wasn't conclusive evidence I wouldn't expect to hear anything from them. Here is an example:

Player A is recording their game, standing in thier inner keep with the walls up. Suddenly player B uses crit rush to attack player A, kill them, and flip the keep. Player A reports them asking if this is a exploit. ZOS comes back saying "thank you for your report, we'll investigate this issue. We can't tell you the results of this investigation" and gives no response after. In the next few days, player C and Player D do similar things and Player A reports them each time, getting the same response. By the 3rd report, player A wonders if it's a legal tactic, because it seems everyone is doing it, and now they start using crit rush to bypass walls.

This could have gone different if ZOS came out and said "we'll investigate" and after several days came back and said "thank you for your report. Using gap closers to bypass walls is indeed an exploit. We will take appropriate action to handle this, please understand we do not discuss the penalties about other players. Thank you for your time."

This can't happen with the current system though. We never see this unless the incident is so major everyone know it.

In addition to this there are a lot of folks spreading misinformation about being perma banned for a first offense. I feel that ZOS should be upfront in saying "no, this was you 5th or 8th offense, it's time to go" and give us more information.

KaleidoscopeEyz wrote: »

ZOS "administrative actions" for using exploits has been a slap on the hand. Seriously, they banned people for like 2 days for the writ exploit. I'd gladly take a 2 day ban for unlimited ore and tons of tempering alloys. It's a joke.

If you want an exploit dealt with and resolved, make it public so everyone does it. They won't ban everyone and they'll fix the issue quicker.

That was the older ZOS, after the cheat engine debacle & gap closer exploits they seem to have a much harder stance. I don't like soft punishment, but a zero tolerance policy is the other extreme.

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Naming and Shaming isn't allowed because if it were it would make Zenimax look unprofessional. This honestly goes for any company really.

I disagree.

Several games like Team fortress 2, DOTA 2, and Counter Strike:GO show when players have prior VAC bans on thier accounts. This let's others know when something wierd is happening in game, they see the prior ban, and they can report the player to be investigated.

League of legends are very vocal about the people they ban and show that they are committed to make their games less toxic.

And more recently, and notably more popular and by a bigger "professional" company, Overwatch banned several thousand cheaters and even listed their accounts on forums.

So this isn't anything new, it's something that should be reviewed and possibly tweaked, if what I'm recommending makes sense.

UrQuan · August 2016

Um, so... is there a reason why this thread isn't showing up in recents or where it should be in General Discussion based on the time of the most recent post?

iRogue32 · August 2016

UrQuan wrote: »

Um, so... is there a reason why this thread isn't showing up in recents or where it should be in General Discussion based on the time of the most recent post?

Yeah, the post doesn't seem to be properly updating in the list of most recent posts.

UltimaJoe777 · August 2016

HeroOfNone wrote: »

cjthibs wrote: »

Cryptical wrote: »

Naming... If there's a video that shows a name, that's not a subjective story about events being told by memory. That's a video of the exact incident.

The example videos of what something looks like from multiple screens is a winning idea. There was a topic a week or so ago about a guy who got multi-gap closed from beyond the rendering distance. It was pointed out how a certain type of circumstances plus randomness can create what has been named a 'macroslice', and a fengrush video was linked showing it happening during his session. That vid was illuminating.

In that example in particular he could've accidentally done so.
Without seeing the bigger picture you might just get someone who made a mistake banned.

One video of one incident is not enough. If I accidentally gap-closed through a wall one time, having no idea that would happen...should I be publicly shamed for that?

ZOS has the data, let them play judge and jury, that's all I'm saying.

Thing Is that ZOS would have already played the judge & jury, and are letting you know the sentence. And your correct that ZOS would have the evidence that someone cheated, if it wasn't conclusive evidence I wouldn't expect to hear anything from them. Here is an example:

Player A is recording their game, standing in thier inner keep with the walls up. Suddenly player B uses crit rush to attack player A, kill them, and flip the keep. Player A reports them asking if this is a exploit. ZOS comes back saying "thank you for your report, we'll investigate this issue. We can't tell you the results of this investigation" and gives no response after. In the next few days, player C and Player D do similar things and Player A reports them each time, getting the same response. By the 3rd report, player A wonders if it's a legal tactic, because it seems everyone is doing it, and now they start using crit rush to bypass walls.

This could have gone different if ZOS came out and said "we'll investigate" and after several days came back and said "thank you for your report. Using gap closers to bypass walls is indeed an exploit. We will take appropriate action to handle this, please understand we do not discuss the penalties about other players. Thank you for your time."

This can't happen with the current system though. We never see this unless the incident is so major everyone know it.

In addition to this there are a lot of folks spreading misinformation about being perma banned for a first offense. I feel that ZOS should be upfront in saying "no, this was you 5th or 8th offense, it's time to go" and give us more information.

KaleidoscopeEyz wrote: »

ZOS "administrative actions" for using exploits has been a slap on the hand. Seriously, they banned people for like 2 days for the writ exploit. I'd gladly take a 2 day ban for unlimited ore and tons of tempering alloys. It's a joke.

If you want an exploit dealt with and resolved, make it public so everyone does it. They won't ban everyone and they'll fix the issue quicker.

That was the older ZOS, after the cheat engine debacle & gap closer exploits they seem to have a much harder stance. I don't like soft punishment, but a zero tolerance policy is the other extreme.

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Naming and Shaming isn't allowed because if it were it would make Zenimax look unprofessional. This honestly goes for any company really.

I disagree.

Several games like Team fortress 2, DOTA 2, and Counter Strike:GO show when players have prior VAC bans on thier accounts. This let's others know when something wierd is happening in game, they see the prior ban, and they can report the player to be investigated.

League of legends are very vocal about the people they ban and show that they are committed to make their games less toxic.

And more recently, and notably more popular and by a bigger "professional" company, Overwatch banned several thousand cheaters and even listed their accounts on forums.

So this isn't anything new, it's something that should be reviewed and possibly tweaked, if what I'm recommending makes sense.

Thanks for confirming why I don't care for LoL and Blizzard. That is not professional because it's basically a violation of user privacy. I mean really, would you consider a company that just hops on local media and says " hah hah we banned such and such because they cheated!" professional? No, I have no respect for companies like that, regardless of why those people were banned. It's flat out childish is what it is.

UrQuan · August 2016

iRogue32 wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Um, so... is there a reason why this thread isn't showing up in recents or where it should be in General Discussion based on the time of the most recent post?

Yeah, the post doesn't seem to be properly updating in the list of most recent posts.

I think the mods decided to stealth sink it so people wouldn't pay attention...

Edit: hmm, now it seems to be showing up where it should...

iRogue32 · August 2016

UrQuan wrote: »

iRogue32 wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Um, so... is there a reason why this thread isn't showing up in recents or where it should be in General Discussion based on the time of the most recent post?

Yeah, the post doesn't seem to be properly updating in the list of most recent posts.

I think the mods decided to stealth sink it so people wouldn't pay attention...

That's what seems to have happened. Care to explain @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_DaryaK ?

Edit: this seems to have been fixed

Verbalinkontinenz · August 2016

"dont use exploits, okay?"

every exploiter stops exploitig now.

HeroOfNone · August 2016

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

HeroOfNone wrote: »

cjthibs wrote: »

Cryptical wrote: »

Naming... If there's a video that shows a name, that's not a subjective story about events being told by memory. That's a video of the exact incident.

The example videos of what something looks like from multiple screens is a winning idea. There was a topic a week or so ago about a guy who got multi-gap closed from beyond the rendering distance. It was pointed out how a certain type of circumstances plus randomness can create what has been named a 'macroslice', and a fengrush video was linked showing it happening during his session. That vid was illuminating.

In that example in particular he could've accidentally done so.
Without seeing the bigger picture you might just get someone who made a mistake banned.

One video of one incident is not enough. If I accidentally gap-closed through a wall one time, having no idea that would happen...should I be publicly shamed for that?

ZOS has the data, let them play judge and jury, that's all I'm saying.

Thing Is that ZOS would have already played the judge & jury, and are letting you know the sentence. And your correct that ZOS would have the evidence that someone cheated, if it wasn't conclusive evidence I wouldn't expect to hear anything from them. Here is an example:

Player A is recording their game, standing in thier inner keep with the walls up. Suddenly player B uses crit rush to attack player A, kill them, and flip the keep. Player A reports them asking if this is a exploit. ZOS comes back saying "thank you for your report, we'll investigate this issue. We can't tell you the results of this investigation" and gives no response after. In the next few days, player C and Player D do similar things and Player A reports them each time, getting the same response. By the 3rd report, player A wonders if it's a legal tactic, because it seems everyone is doing it, and now they start using crit rush to bypass walls.

This could have gone different if ZOS came out and said "we'll investigate" and after several days came back and said "thank you for your report. Using gap closers to bypass walls is indeed an exploit. We will take appropriate action to handle this, please understand we do not discuss the penalties about other players. Thank you for your time."

This can't happen with the current system though. We never see this unless the incident is so major everyone know it.

In addition to this there are a lot of folks spreading misinformation about being perma banned for a first offense. I feel that ZOS should be upfront in saying "no, this was you 5th or 8th offense, it's time to go" and give us more information.

KaleidoscopeEyz wrote: »

ZOS "administrative actions" for using exploits has been a slap on the hand. Seriously, they banned people for like 2 days for the writ exploit. I'd gladly take a 2 day ban for unlimited ore and tons of tempering alloys. It's a joke.

If you want an exploit dealt with and resolved, make it public so everyone does it. They won't ban everyone and they'll fix the issue quicker.

That was the older ZOS, after the cheat engine debacle & gap closer exploits they seem to have a much harder stance. I don't like soft punishment, but a zero tolerance policy is the other extreme.

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Naming and Shaming isn't allowed because if it were it would make Zenimax look unprofessional. This honestly goes for any company really.

I disagree.

Several games like Team fortress 2, DOTA 2, and Counter Strike:GO show when players have prior VAC bans on thier accounts. This let's others know when something wierd is happening in game, they see the prior ban, and they can report the player to be investigated.

League of legends are very vocal about the people they ban and show that they are committed to make their games less toxic.

And more recently, and notably more popular and by a bigger "professional" company, Overwatch banned several thousand cheaters and even listed their accounts on forums.

So this isn't anything new, it's something that should be reviewed and possibly tweaked, if what I'm recommending makes sense.

Thanks for confirming why I don't care for LoL and Blizzard. That is not professional because it's basically a violation of user privacy. I mean really, would you consider a company that just hops on local media and says " hah hah we banned such and such because they cheated!" professional? No, I have no respect for companies like that, regardless of why those people were banned. It's flat out childish is what it is.

But it does break part of the argument that it's never done, correct? I'm also not looking to go on a crusade to out every cheater, exploiter, and toxic player we have either, but we should get some feedback "yeah, you were right, that was a exploit/cheat, thank you for bringing this to our attention" and leave it.

On the forums here I feel what we need is just summary information of what occured. "We had 29 folks cheating last night that were banned, thank you for the reports." No need to get into detail unless someone starts spreading misinformation around.

timidobserver · August 2016

Solid post minus the giving streamers special privileges part.

UrQuan · August 2016

timidobserver wrote: »

Solid post minus the giving streamers special privileges part.

Special privileges? I thought the streamers part was just about getting streamers to help the community by showing the difference between an exploit and something that's working the way it's supposed to... And it was supposed to be on the PTS anyway.

timidobserver · August 2016

UrQuan wrote: »

timidobserver wrote: »

Solid post minus the giving streamers special privileges part.

Special privileges? I thought the streamers part was just about getting streamers to help the community by showing the difference between an exploit and something that's working the way it's supposed to... And it was supposed to be on the PTS anyway.

If it is on the pts allow anyone to do it.

UltimaJoe777 · August 2016

HeroOfNone wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

HeroOfNone wrote: »

cjthibs wrote: »

Cryptical wrote: »

Naming... If there's a video that shows a name, that's not a subjective story about events being told by memory. That's a video of the exact incident.

The example videos of what something looks like from multiple screens is a winning idea. There was a topic a week or so ago about a guy who got multi-gap closed from beyond the rendering distance. It was pointed out how a certain type of circumstances plus randomness can create what has been named a 'macroslice', and a fengrush video was linked showing it happening during his session. That vid was illuminating.

In that example in particular he could've accidentally done so.
Without seeing the bigger picture you might just get someone who made a mistake banned.

One video of one incident is not enough. If I accidentally gap-closed through a wall one time, having no idea that would happen...should I be publicly shamed for that?

ZOS has the data, let them play judge and jury, that's all I'm saying.

Thing Is that ZOS would have already played the judge & jury, and are letting you know the sentence. And your correct that ZOS would have the evidence that someone cheated, if it wasn't conclusive evidence I wouldn't expect to hear anything from them. Here is an example:

Player A is recording their game, standing in thier inner keep with the walls up. Suddenly player B uses crit rush to attack player A, kill them, and flip the keep. Player A reports them asking if this is a exploit. ZOS comes back saying "thank you for your report, we'll investigate this issue. We can't tell you the results of this investigation" and gives no response after. In the next few days, player C and Player D do similar things and Player A reports them each time, getting the same response. By the 3rd report, player A wonders if it's a legal tactic, because it seems everyone is doing it, and now they start using crit rush to bypass walls.

This could have gone different if ZOS came out and said "we'll investigate" and after several days came back and said "thank you for your report. Using gap closers to bypass walls is indeed an exploit. We will take appropriate action to handle this, please understand we do not discuss the penalties about other players. Thank you for your time."

This can't happen with the current system though. We never see this unless the incident is so major everyone know it.

In addition to this there are a lot of folks spreading misinformation about being perma banned for a first offense. I feel that ZOS should be upfront in saying "no, this was you 5th or 8th offense, it's time to go" and give us more information.

KaleidoscopeEyz wrote: »

ZOS "administrative actions" for using exploits has been a slap on the hand. Seriously, they banned people for like 2 days for the writ exploit. I'd gladly take a 2 day ban for unlimited ore and tons of tempering alloys. It's a joke.

If you want an exploit dealt with and resolved, make it public so everyone does it. They won't ban everyone and they'll fix the issue quicker.

That was the older ZOS, after the cheat engine debacle & gap closer exploits they seem to have a much harder stance. I don't like soft punishment, but a zero tolerance policy is the other extreme.

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Naming and Shaming isn't allowed because if it were it would make Zenimax look unprofessional. This honestly goes for any company really.

I disagree.

Several games like Team fortress 2, DOTA 2, and Counter Strike:GO show when players have prior VAC bans on thier accounts. This let's others know when something wierd is happening in game, they see the prior ban, and they can report the player to be investigated.

League of legends are very vocal about the people they ban and show that they are committed to make their games less toxic.

And more recently, and notably more popular and by a bigger "professional" company, Overwatch banned several thousand cheaters and even listed their accounts on forums.

So this isn't anything new, it's something that should be reviewed and possibly tweaked, if what I'm recommending makes sense.

Thanks for confirming why I don't care for LoL and Blizzard. That is not professional because it's basically a violation of user privacy. I mean really, would you consider a company that just hops on local media and says " hah hah we banned such and such because they cheated!" professional? No, I have no respect for companies like that, regardless of why those people were banned. It's flat out childish is what it is.

But it does break part of the argument that it's never done, correct? I'm also not looking to go on a crusade to out every cheater, exploiter, and toxic player we have either, but we should get some feedback "yeah, you were right, that was a exploit/cheat, thank you for bringing this to our attention" and leave it.

On the forums here I feel what we need is just summary information of what occured. "We had 29 folks cheating last night that were banned, thank you for the reports." No need to get into detail unless someone starts spreading misinformation around.

You make a valid point. Every professional company should follow protocol that doesn't make them look childish and I wanna believe EVERY company is professional but clearly that isn't the case. Zenimax basically did that last bit you said, and that tells us exactly what we needed to know without being unprofessional. LoL and Blizzard could learn from that apparently.

UrQuan · August 2016

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

HeroOfNone wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

HeroOfNone wrote: »

cjthibs wrote: »

Cryptical wrote: »

Naming... If there's a video that shows a name, that's not a subjective story about events being told by memory. That's a video of the exact incident.

The example videos of what something looks like from multiple screens is a winning idea. There was a topic a week or so ago about a guy who got multi-gap closed from beyond the rendering distance. It was pointed out how a certain type of circumstances plus randomness can create what has been named a 'macroslice', and a fengrush video was linked showing it happening during his session. That vid was illuminating.

In that example in particular he could've accidentally done so.
Without seeing the bigger picture you might just get someone who made a mistake banned.

One video of one incident is not enough. If I accidentally gap-closed through a wall one time, having no idea that would happen...should I be publicly shamed for that?

ZOS has the data, let them play judge and jury, that's all I'm saying.

Thing Is that ZOS would have already played the judge & jury, and are letting you know the sentence. And your correct that ZOS would have the evidence that someone cheated, if it wasn't conclusive evidence I wouldn't expect to hear anything from them. Here is an example:

Player A is recording their game, standing in thier inner keep with the walls up. Suddenly player B uses crit rush to attack player A, kill them, and flip the keep. Player A reports them asking if this is a exploit. ZOS comes back saying "thank you for your report, we'll investigate this issue. We can't tell you the results of this investigation" and gives no response after. In the next few days, player C and Player D do similar things and Player A reports them each time, getting the same response. By the 3rd report, player A wonders if it's a legal tactic, because it seems everyone is doing it, and now they start using crit rush to bypass walls.

This could have gone different if ZOS came out and said "we'll investigate" and after several days came back and said "thank you for your report. Using gap closers to bypass walls is indeed an exploit. We will take appropriate action to handle this, please understand we do not discuss the penalties about other players. Thank you for your time."

This can't happen with the current system though. We never see this unless the incident is so major everyone know it.

In addition to this there are a lot of folks spreading misinformation about being perma banned for a first offense. I feel that ZOS should be upfront in saying "no, this was you 5th or 8th offense, it's time to go" and give us more information.

KaleidoscopeEyz wrote: »

ZOS "administrative actions" for using exploits has been a slap on the hand. Seriously, they banned people for like 2 days for the writ exploit. I'd gladly take a 2 day ban for unlimited ore and tons of tempering alloys. It's a joke.

If you want an exploit dealt with and resolved, make it public so everyone does it. They won't ban everyone and they'll fix the issue quicker.

That was the older ZOS, after the cheat engine debacle & gap closer exploits they seem to have a much harder stance. I don't like soft punishment, but a zero tolerance policy is the other extreme.

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Naming and Shaming isn't allowed because if it were it would make Zenimax look unprofessional. This honestly goes for any company really.

I disagree.

Several games like Team fortress 2, DOTA 2, and Counter Strike:GO show when players have prior VAC bans on thier accounts. This let's others know when something wierd is happening in game, they see the prior ban, and they can report the player to be investigated.

League of legends are very vocal about the people they ban and show that they are committed to make their games less toxic.

And more recently, and notably more popular and by a bigger "professional" company, Overwatch banned several thousand cheaters and even listed their accounts on forums.

So this isn't anything new, it's something that should be reviewed and possibly tweaked, if what I'm recommending makes sense.

Thanks for confirming why I don't care for LoL and Blizzard. That is not professional because it's basically a violation of user privacy. I mean really, would you consider a company that just hops on local media and says " hah hah we banned such and such because they cheated!" professional? No, I have no respect for companies like that, regardless of why those people were banned. It's flat out childish is what it is.

But it does break part of the argument that it's never done, correct? I'm also not looking to go on a crusade to out every cheater, exploiter, and toxic player we have either, but we should get some feedback "yeah, you were right, that was a exploit/cheat, thank you for bringing this to our attention" and leave it.

On the forums here I feel what we need is just summary information of what occured. "We had 29 folks cheating last night that were banned, thank you for the reports." No need to get into detail unless someone starts spreading misinformation around.

You make a valid point. Every professional company should follow protocol that doesn't make them look childish and I wanna believe EVERY company is professional but clearly that isn't the case. Zenimax basically did that last bit you said, and that tells us exactly what we needed to know without being unprofessional. LoL and Blizzard could learn from that apparently.

I fail to see how having a publicly available record of people who have been caught and punished for breaking the rules is somehow childish and/or unprofessional. Does that make real life courts childish and unprofessional? We're not talking about publishing rumours about bad behavior - only cases where they've investigated and determined that a ban was warranted. It's the game equivalent of being convicted of a crime and getting a criminal record.

HeroOfNone · August 2016

timidobserver wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

timidobserver wrote: »

Solid post minus the giving streamers special privileges part.

Special privileges? I thought the streamers part was just about getting streamers to help the community by showing the difference between an exploit and something that's working the way it's supposed to... And it was supposed to be on the PTS anyway.

If it is on the pts allow anyone to do it.

Allowing folks to use cheat engine I feel, if allowed, should be restricted and highly regulated, and with purpose. We don't want everyone on PTS using it and causing potential issues. The purpose of allowing it in even a sliver of a bit of time is to give more knowledge one what cheats look like so they know when to report them. Think of it like Mythbusters, looking for the queues and indications that someone is using something, and preferably in the victims role, since most of us shouldn't be in the abuser role. I know it's not popular to give them special treatment, it would reach the widest audience and shut down other abusers that have been coasting under the radar.

So I still wouldn't say give it to all, it should be restricted, but which group would really be best to show it?

UltimaJoe777 · August 2016

UrQuan wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

HeroOfNone wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

HeroOfNone wrote: »

cjthibs wrote: »

Cryptical wrote: »

Naming... If there's a video that shows a name, that's not a subjective story about events being told by memory. That's a video of the exact incident.

The example videos of what something looks like from multiple screens is a winning idea. There was a topic a week or so ago about a guy who got multi-gap closed from beyond the rendering distance. It was pointed out how a certain type of circumstances plus randomness can create what has been named a 'macroslice', and a fengrush video was linked showing it happening during his session. That vid was illuminating.

In that example in particular he could've accidentally done so.
Without seeing the bigger picture you might just get someone who made a mistake banned.

One video of one incident is not enough. If I accidentally gap-closed through a wall one time, having no idea that would happen...should I be publicly shamed for that?

ZOS has the data, let them play judge and jury, that's all I'm saying.

Thing Is that ZOS would have already played the judge & jury, and are letting you know the sentence. And your correct that ZOS would have the evidence that someone cheated, if it wasn't conclusive evidence I wouldn't expect to hear anything from them. Here is an example:

Player A is recording their game, standing in thier inner keep with the walls up. Suddenly player B uses crit rush to attack player A, kill them, and flip the keep. Player A reports them asking if this is a exploit. ZOS comes back saying "thank you for your report, we'll investigate this issue. We can't tell you the results of this investigation" and gives no response after. In the next few days, player C and Player D do similar things and Player A reports them each time, getting the same response. By the 3rd report, player A wonders if it's a legal tactic, because it seems everyone is doing it, and now they start using crit rush to bypass walls.

This could have gone different if ZOS came out and said "we'll investigate" and after several days came back and said "thank you for your report. Using gap closers to bypass walls is indeed an exploit. We will take appropriate action to handle this, please understand we do not discuss the penalties about other players. Thank you for your time."

This can't happen with the current system though. We never see this unless the incident is so major everyone know it.

In addition to this there are a lot of folks spreading misinformation about being perma banned for a first offense. I feel that ZOS should be upfront in saying "no, this was you 5th or 8th offense, it's time to go" and give us more information.

KaleidoscopeEyz wrote: »

ZOS "administrative actions" for using exploits has been a slap on the hand. Seriously, they banned people for like 2 days for the writ exploit. I'd gladly take a 2 day ban for unlimited ore and tons of tempering alloys. It's a joke.

If you want an exploit dealt with and resolved, make it public so everyone does it. They won't ban everyone and they'll fix the issue quicker.

That was the older ZOS, after the cheat engine debacle & gap closer exploits they seem to have a much harder stance. I don't like soft punishment, but a zero tolerance policy is the other extreme.

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Naming and Shaming isn't allowed because if it were it would make Zenimax look unprofessional. This honestly goes for any company really.

I disagree.

Several games like Team fortress 2, DOTA 2, and Counter Strike:GO show when players have prior VAC bans on thier accounts. This let's others know when something wierd is happening in game, they see the prior ban, and they can report the player to be investigated.

League of legends are very vocal about the people they ban and show that they are committed to make their games less toxic.

And more recently, and notably more popular and by a bigger "professional" company, Overwatch banned several thousand cheaters and even listed their accounts on forums.

So this isn't anything new, it's something that should be reviewed and possibly tweaked, if what I'm recommending makes sense.

Thanks for confirming why I don't care for LoL and Blizzard. That is not professional because it's basically a violation of user privacy. I mean really, would you consider a company that just hops on local media and says " hah hah we banned such and such because they cheated!" professional? No, I have no respect for companies like that, regardless of why those people were banned. It's flat out childish is what it is.

But it does break part of the argument that it's never done, correct? I'm also not looking to go on a crusade to out every cheater, exploiter, and toxic player we have either, but we should get some feedback "yeah, you were right, that was a exploit/cheat, thank you for bringing this to our attention" and leave it.

On the forums here I feel what we need is just summary information of what occured. "We had 29 folks cheating last night that were banned, thank you for the reports." No need to get into detail unless someone starts spreading misinformation around.

You make a valid point. Every professional company should follow protocol that doesn't make them look childish and I wanna believe EVERY company is professional but clearly that isn't the case. Zenimax basically did that last bit you said, and that tells us exactly what we needed to know without being unprofessional. LoL and Blizzard could learn from that apparently.

I fail to see how having a publicly available record of people who have been caught and punished for breaking the rules is somehow childish and/or unprofessional. Does that make real life courts childish and unprofessional? We're not talking about publishing rumours about bad behavior - only cases where they've investigated and determined that a ban was warranted. It's the game equivalent of being convicted of a crime and getting a criminal record.

It depends on what KIND of record. Actually announcing it as if mocking them or, as the rule here states, shaming them is what would be unprofessional. If their status simply says banned like it would for anyone on these forums that were banned for example then that's another story.

KaleidoscopeEyz · August 2016

I fail to see how having a publicly available record of people who have been caught and punished for breaking the rules is somehow childish and/or unprofessional. Does that make real life courts childish and unprofessional?

Oh, snap. Someone just got served.

UltimaJoe777 · August 2016

KaleidoscopeEyz wrote: »

I fail to see how having a publicly available record of people who have been caught and punished for breaking the rules is somehow childish and/or unprofessional. Does that make real life courts childish and unprofessional?

Oh, snap. Someone just got served.

And yea I get the pun lol

Wycks · August 2016

The reality is ZOS does not have the resources to make much of this game great, and it never did after the mass layoffs. So the exploit policy is amateur and ridiculous, and so is how they fix bugs in a timely manner.

coolermh · August 2016

Or you know...zos could just not release exploitable broken sets and skills... and when they do make it priority number 1 to fix those errors...

I mean dont get me wrong I think there should be a punishment for cheating but when you allow players to cheat for weeks at a time when it can be avoided who's fault is that they are losing money because of perma bans.

UltimaJoe777 · August 2016

bob.ellisonb16_ESO wrote: »

The reality is ZOS does not have the resources to make much of this game great, and it never did after the mass layoffs. So the exploit policy is amateur and ridiculous, and so is how they fix bugs in a timely manner.

More of an opinion than a reality, as how much of the game is great or not is indeed opinion. Also this comment is off topic.

Open letter: Exploits, Perma Bans, Naming &amp; Shaming

Open letter: Exploits, Perma Bans, Naming & Shaming