XP Exploit Poll

idk · February 2018

DoctorESO wrote: »

Abysswarrior45 wrote: »

altemriel wrote: »

redspecter23 wrote: »

It's an exploit because the definition of exploiting stated by ZOS says it is. Any given player may decide that something is or isn't an exploit according to them, but at the end of the day, that doesn't determine who receives action against their account.

this!!

But not everyone reads the forums.

Peekachu99 wrote: »

Some really salty people who got millions of XP/ minute and didn’t “realize” it. Let it go already. I’ve seen one debatably innocent player and that’s Emma Overload, who 1VXes and I’m sure has tunnel vision in IC when being attacked by 3-4 enemies. 99% of the two hundred and some odd exploiters can’t claim the same innocence.

Correct. Emma isn't the only 1vXer down there I'm sure and when you're telvar farming bosses you're likely focused on the boss rather than the xp gains in the corner of the screen. I'm not saying there aren't exploiters, but to ban everyone over a mistake from the devs is so stupid.

Yes, and this is the danger with lumping without allowing for individual explanations and review (not saying this part isn't happening; I sure hope it is), no matter how "good" the criteria/metrics are.

Iirc, they can contact Zos about this. I do not recall the means but recall seeing moderators placing such information into threads like this when they closed the thread.

VaranisArano · February 2018

Though, if the appeal process is anything like the Help Service for In-game Bugs, it helps to be persistent about responding to those form letters they send by repeating your problem and saying "That really didn't address my issue. Here's my issue:... Please help me fix this."

I eventually get to a real person who can help me.

Tasear · February 2018

Hmm,

I mean how clear was this you were gaining extra xp? Was it like one CP per kill. But either way I see they it as they were doing something naturally built game on dlc content they paid for on the day a new feature was added.This looks like a bug not an exploit. Should of just reroll back the server.

DieAlteHexe · February 2018

Tasear wrote: »

Hmm,

I mean how clear was this you were gaining extra xp? Was it like one CP per kill. But either way I see they it as they were doing something naturally built game on dlc content they paid for on the day a new feature was added.This looks like a bug not an exploit. Should of just reroll back the server.

An exploit is the misuse of a bug.

And rolling back the server? Oh hell no. That would punish thousands of players who had nothing to do with this.

VaranisArano · February 2018

Tasear wrote: »

Hmm,

I mean how clear was this you were gaining extra xp? Was it like one CP per kill. But either way I see they it as they were doing something naturally built game on dlc content they paid for on the day a new feature was added.This looks like a bug not an exploit. Should of just reroll back the server.

By the time ZOS took down the servers, PC/NA had already been up for 5-6 hours or so. That's a lot to roll back. A lot of new content, a lot of people running the new dungeons, a lot of people making new characters for the Level Up Rewards, a lot of people buying storage (which had its own bug, as it happens), and well, a whole lot of stuff that would have gotten rolled back for 276 people deemed to have gained sufficient exp gain to be suspended for 2 weeks across PC/NA and PC/EU.

Much easier for ZOS to remove the extra CP gain from those who gained it from the Imperial City, and then to suspend those whose rate or amount of exp gain led ZOS to believe that they had not accidentally stumbled across the bug but instead continued to gain exp (for clarity, the gains were along the order of 1.9 million exp per kill).

So essentially, choosing to roll-back the servers and not suspend those who gained abnormally large amounts of exp from the bug in Imperial CIty (which those players should have reported at stopped using the bug according to the TOS they signed) would have punished every other player on the server with the removal of whatever they'd done since the servers went up. I realize that a server rollback looks attractive to anyone struggling with the exp exploit, but I think that ZOS made the right choice in not rolling back the servers and instead suspending those who gained large amounts of obviously bugged exp.

idk · February 2018

Tasear wrote: »

Hmm,

I mean how clear was this you were gaining extra xp? Was it like one CP per kill. But either way I see they it as they were doing something naturally built game on dlc content they paid for on the day a new feature was added.This looks like a bug not an exploit. Should of just reroll back the server.

@Tasear

It was a bug. An exploit is taking advantage of a bug. Apparently the XP gained was huge and very hard to not notice.

I will leave a link to the official comment from Zos on this matter. It sums things up.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/396731/suspensions-for-update-17-xp-exploit/p1

Tasear · February 2018

Okay it makes since just feels icky. I could of easily been there if I actually followed through and went to imperial city when servers open instead of playing with outfits. I just don't think I would actually notice xp gains. So issue seems to garish my sympathies. Even though I am the offender who first reported strange issues occurring with xp. So I guess they did best they could.

Cpt_Teemo · February 2018

DoctorESO wrote: »

Perfect way to lose loyal customers who were just playing the game. There is a difference between these people and true exploiters.

If you got flagged unjustly just send a ticket in like they said to, pretty simple

Cpt_Teemo · February 2018

Tasear wrote: »

Hmm,

I mean how clear was this you were gaining extra xp? Was it like one CP per kill. But either way I see they it as they were doing something naturally built game on dlc content they paid for on the day a new feature was added.This looks like a bug not an exploit. Should of just reroll back the server.

Yes, around 1.9-2m xp per kill, how many times does someone have to clear, a bug is an exploit if people used it to there advantage, and no a rollback would not solve anything but *** of the entire rest of the game.

Asgari · February 2018

Cpt_Teemo wrote: »

DoctorESO wrote: »

Perfect way to lose loyal customers who were just playing the game. There is a difference between these people and true exploiters.

If you got flagged unjustly just send a ticket in like they said to, pretty simple

The issue is I haven’t heard anyone get back an actual response. Last week everyone who relied got a generic response at the same time. I think Emma stated that previously.

I think regardless everyone is going to have to wait until the 5th. But according to the wording it seems it could possibly be longer.

nryerson1025 · February 2018

yes they have a right to do it. but can we go over strategy here for a second? what is the motivation behind the "guilty until proven innocent" sweeping suspension? isrevenue or userbase even being considered? i don't know, if a company doesnt want me after i've spent 4200 hours on their game in the past two years, maybe i dont want them. I've spent the past week playing other MMOs, something i'd think most suspended players are doing during this time. are they actively baiting and cleaning up the subscriber base? what is this company thinking?

Elsonso · February 2018

.

Tasear wrote: »

Hmm,

I mean how clear was this you were gaining extra xp? Was it like one CP per kill. But either way I see they it as they were doing something naturally built game on dlc content they paid for on the day a new feature was added.This looks like a bug not an exploit. Should of just reroll back the server.

Exploiting a bug is still exploiting, and this one was a pretty obvious one to anyone that was paying attention.

Not everyone was exploiting this bug. I was not. I certainly did not want to see my normal, non-exploitative, game play rolled back so that they could fix 276 accounts out of thousands.

They are rolling back those accounts. That is what they are doing before March 5. Each account that they let back into the game is being rolled back. Individually.

At the same time, each of them is being investigated. That will determine if there is to be any modification to that suspension, either by making it permanent, or by expunging it.

idk · February 2018

nryerson1025 wrote: »

yes they have a right to do it. but can we go over strategy here for a second? what is the motivation behind the "guilty until proven innocent" sweeping suspension? isrevenue or userbase even being considered? i don't know, if a company doesnt want me after i've spent 4200 hours on their game in the past two years, maybe i dont want them. I've spent the past week playing other MMOs, something i'd think most suspended players are doing during this time. are they actively baiting and cleaning up the subscriber base? what is this company thinking?

The simple and clear answer is yes Zos did investigate and yes revenue and player base was was taken into consideration. (It is commonly referred to as player base, not userbase).

I leave this link to Zos' statement on the matter. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/396731/suspensions-for-update-17-xp-exploit/p1

It explains they did investigate it and within the paradigm they established as what they considered to have undoubtedly taken advantage of this issue vs those who may not have noticed right away and banned those that fit into that group.

Zos certainly does take into account the revenue they gain from us and length of time we have played the game which is why they have started taking appropriate steps to suspend and ban those who are deemed to be exploiters based on the severity of the situation.

If a player is an exploiter then any good gaming company will be happy to see them out the door regardless of how much they have spent or how many hours they have played the game.

Motivation, they do not want cheaters and most certainly want to discourage it. Finally Zos has gotten their act together on this issue with the bans after the vAS exploit and appropriately a mere suspension after this one.

Thing is, no one in this thread or the vAS has demonstrated they were innocent or wrongly punished. Mostly we have seen time and time again that those who are caught often go to extremes to somehow reason that it is not their fault by attempting to fancifully craft their words like you did in what I just quoted.

look at the poll, We are pleased Zos to action. Kudos to them.

VaranisArano · February 2018

nryerson1025 wrote: »

yes they have a right to do it. but can we go over strategy here for a second? what is the motivation behind the "guilty until proven innocent" sweeping suspension? isrevenue or userbase even being considered? i don't know, if a company doesnt want me after i've spent 4200 hours on their game in the past two years, maybe i dont want them. I've spent the past week playing other MMOs, something i'd think most suspended players are doing during this time. are they actively baiting and cleaning up the subscriber base? what is this company thinking?

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand the argument you are making here.

ZOS made it pretty clear that the criteria for the suspension was that those players gained a certain amount of bugged exp deemed non-accidental. The TOS all players agree to state that players need to report and not exploit bugs. (That's why so many people argue that they didn't notice the bug.)

You seem to be arguing that your hours of gameplay or possibility of you picking up another game should cause ZOS to be cautious about dealing with exploits and people breaking the TOS. What?

Sorry. Players with enormous amounts of ESO experience were permabanned for the Asylum exploit and recently for goldselling. The more experienced the player, the more I expect them to know and follow the TOS when they discover a bug, not less.

xenowarrior92eb17_ESO · February 2018

exploiters should be perma banned without a warning...
"You break the law, the law breaks you!"- Rawl'kha Khajiit Guard

DoctorESO · February 2018

What would you think about removing the experience points of the alleged exploiters but not banning/suspending them? The accused would still have lost/wasted their time, and any innocent people who may have been lumped in with the exploiters would not be overly prejudiced. Or is that not enough of a spanking?

VaranisArano · February 2018

xenowarrior92eb17_ESO wrote: »

exploiters should be perma banned without a warning...
"You break the law, the law breaks you!"- Rawl'kha Khajiit Guard

I like the strike system ZOS seems to be using. Some stuff happens by accident - you can accidently Ambush into a keep while attacking someone entering the doors OR you can deliberately Ambush into a keep by attacking people entering the doors. That's exactly the sort of situation where a strike system is helpful because someone doing it accidently who gets reported has a very different history of reports than someone who makes a habit of it.

This is one of those exploits that people have all sorts of reasons for how and why they gained so much exp. Someone in the habit of breaking the TOS or who was deliberately leveling up toons is going to have a very different history from someone who gained a bunch of exp but otherwise keeps their nose clean.

Elsonso · February 2018

DoctorESO wrote: »

What would you think about removing the experience points of the alleged exploiters but not banning/suspending them? The accused would still have lost/wasted their time, and any innocent people who may have been lumped in with the exploiters would not be overly prejudiced. Or is that not enough of a spanking?

Suspension is probably required.

I think that ZOS has to roll back accounts manually, and only after they have been examined to determine where they were before the exploit so that they can reset it. That takes time and the account cannot be in use while they do that.

We also don't know how much work it is for them to accomplish this. It is entirely possible that they had to install the last drop of Update 16 on an internal dev server, then restore an account backup to that server, just so that they could pull account status prior to Update 17. That could take them a couple days to accomplish. After that, 276 accounts are waiting to be rolled back.

As to whether it is enough of a spanking? I defer to ZOS for that, but 12 days seems long. I suspect that the duration is a factor of how long they think it will take to roll back up to 276 accounts.

Edit: 276, not 273

idk · February 2018

DoctorESO wrote: »

What would you think about removing the experience points of the alleged exploiters but not banning/suspending them? The accused would still have lost/wasted their time, and any innocent people who may have been lumped in with the exploiters would not be overly prejudiced. Or is that not enough of a spanking?

They are already losing the XP gained so this is a moot point.

Suspending them for a short period as they did sends a good message to the community that if you find a bug and exploit it (which is in violation of the ToS) rather than report it you will be dealt with appropriately and without prejudice.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/396731/suspensions-for-update-17-xp-exploit/p1 posted it here again since some seem to not be familiar with the actions Zos has taken and why.

Cpt_Teemo · February 2018

nryerson1025 wrote: »

yes they have a right to do it. but can we go over strategy here for a second? what is the motivation behind the "guilty until proven innocent" sweeping suspension? isrevenue or userbase even being considered? i don't know, if a company doesnt want me after i've spent 4200 hours on their game in the past two years, maybe i dont want them. I've spent the past week playing other MMOs, something i'd think most suspended players are doing during this time. are they actively baiting and cleaning up the subscriber base? what is this company thinking?

Just the same way War gaming does, they don't care how long you've been playing your not exempt from breaking the ToS and not getting punished.

Loralai_907 · February 2018

I appreciate that they are trying to do the right thing. For people that knew it was happening, this should serve as a pretty good warning to not do it again if you care about playing this game. It really isn't hard to try to do the right thing as a player. I understand that some people have add ons that would have made it harder to notice, not sure if that matters or not in the eyes of ZOS.

And for the ones that think since you have been here a million years or you have spent tons of money on the game, or maybe you advertise the game bringing in more players, so maybe you should get a break of some kind. No. That should absolutely not matter. Breaking the rules is breaking the rules, and being a special little butterfly should not make you exempt.

Some of you may not be familiar with past experiences with ZOS and punishing people. Things used to be a lot worse, or were at least perceived to be a lot worse. Open communication on what they are doing, how many accounts they are handling in a situation, they never used to share that information. You would sometimes see them take a stand against something, but it never made any sense. Very random stuff and their didn't seem to be any kind of road map on what sort of things would get what sort of punishments. From what I can see, it looks like things have changed. They seem to have taken a lot of things into consideration and worked to make a better system. It may not be perfect, but it is going in the right direction if you ask me.

All we need now is the net of bot catching that some players can use to tag entire bot trains at once. Please make that a thing.

nryerson1025 · February 2018

VaranisArano wrote: »

nryerson1025 wrote: »

yes they have a right to do it. but can we go over strategy here for a second? what is the motivation behind the "guilty until proven innocent" sweeping suspension? isrevenue or userbase even being considered? i don't know, if a company doesnt want me after i've spent 4200 hours on their game in the past two years, maybe i dont want them. I've spent the past week playing other MMOs, something i'd think most suspended players are doing during this time. are they actively baiting and cleaning up the subscriber base? what is this company thinking?

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand the argument you are making here.

You seem to be arguing that your hours of gameplay or possibility of you picking up another game should cause ZOS to be cautious about dealing with exploits and people breaking the TOS. What?

.

Not just me, but everyone. What Zenimax does, is a business...modeled on making money. You don't seem to get that. This is the real world. Is ZoS so cozy with their growth and retention that they don't have to be concerned about this?

nryerson1025 · February 2018

And I would love to hear how Zenimax would respond to the bot farmers hitting the same spots 16 hours a day for 8+ months now

DieAlteHexe · February 2018

nryerson1025 wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

nryerson1025 wrote: »

yes they have a right to do it. but can we go over strategy here for a second? what is the motivation behind the "guilty until proven innocent" sweeping suspension? isrevenue or userbase even being considered? i don't know, if a company doesnt want me after i've spent 4200 hours on their game in the past two years, maybe i dont want them. I've spent the past week playing other MMOs, something i'd think most suspended players are doing during this time. are they actively baiting and cleaning up the subscriber base? what is this company thinking?

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand the argument you are making here.

You seem to be arguing that your hours of gameplay or possibility of you picking up another game should cause ZOS to be cautious about dealing with exploits and people breaking the TOS. What?

.

Not just me, but everyone. What Zenimax does, is a business...modeled on making money. You don't seem to get that. This is the real world. Is ZoS so cozy with their growth and retention that they don't have to be concerned about this?

276 *potential* players booted vs. the entire player population?

I see nothing to be worried about there. Plus, if they let people cheat that WILL have a nasty impact (see bots).

DieAlteHexe · February 2018

nryerson1025 wrote: »

And I would love to hear how Zenimax would respond to the bot farmers hitting the same spots 16 hours a day for 8+ months now

Whilst the one does not preclude the other, I think most of us would like a bit more transparency on how they are dealing with this. Sure doesn't look impressive from here but I know from other MMOs that this is really a difficult thing to deal with. You ban, they open new accounts and pick up where they left off.

Like the cockroaches they are.

nryerson1025 · February 2018

They ARE letting people cheat--they let the bot farmers farm every day!

And as businesses go, 80% of your profits typically come from 20% of your business. I wonder how many or what percentage are under suspension right now.

All I'm trying to say is if they want to stop cheating, then stop cheating! Make the lag hackers in cyrodiil go away and stop the bot farmers and gold selling! Don't suspend people who got caught up in something that originated in the programming

nryerson1025 · February 2018

Not to even mention priorities--with the servers as buggy as they are today--the consistent crashing, load screens and lag-- we get a 10-business-day-resources-tied-up "investigation" into this matter

DieAlteHexe · February 2018

nryerson1025 wrote: »

Not to even mention priorities--with the servers as buggy as they are today--the consistent crashing, load screens and lag-- we get a 10-business-day-resources-tied-up "investigation" into this matter

The people who are investigating this are not people who would be working on code.

nryerson1025 · February 2018

So they are of no use whatsoever to bettering server health?

nryerson1025 · February 2018

Maybe THIS department should be reduced and the people working on code made better!