How do cheaters get banned in ESO?

hesobad · March 2019

Whenever I open an in game ticket to report cheaters in ESO, I get an automated message to my email about my ticket. At the bottom of that email it reads that if I dont reply to that email about my ticket that than the subject matter will be deemed resolved and the ticket will be resolved. NO ZOS involvement what so ever! Even when I reply to ZOS 1st email and say something like, no this issue is not resolved, please take action against these cheaters. I still dont get any message and they automatically resolve the issue in 3 days anyway.
my IC group ran into cheaters in IC that were perma stunning us even thru the Psijic ability ultimate and CC immunity pots. Clearly cheating! I have screenshots to prove this but I can not share here due to the (No name calling policy) which prevents me from exposing cheaters. I've reported these guys so many times I've lost count. others players I talk to in game know about these guys also, they say that they have also reported them but nothing seems to be getting done because I keep running into them. ZOS what are you doing to stop cheaters in your game? It seems like there is no punishment at all!! Why doesn't everyone just start cheating if you don't punish people for it! Ridiculous. maybe if you guys actually responded to tickets rather than just send automated messages to emails that automatically resolve tickets, and took action against cheaters after doing a real investigation things would be better

Alucardo · March 2019

I certainly don't expect them to respond to every single report, but it'd be nice if they handled it like Overwatch does. If you report a player, they get investigated, and if found guilty you receive a message thanking you for your report and that they have been dealt with.
They don't tell you what the actual punishment was, and for how long, but at least you know they were found to be a cheater and punished so you can sleep soundly at night.

Shadow-Fighter · March 2019

I dont want to go into detail but I dont trust ZOS anymore

AlienatedGoat · March 2019

ZOS policy is to not comment on individual disciplinary actions. You won't ever hear about anyone you reported from ZOS.

The only time ZOS has directly commented on disciplinary actions is when it's a mass banning.

pod88kk · March 2019

Unless they've found a way to snipe the new trials boss they will more than likely get away with it

Eshja · March 2019

hesobad wrote: »

my IC group ran into cheaters in IC that were perma stunning us even thru the Psijic ability ultimate and CC immunity pots. Clearly cheating! I have screenshots to prove this but I can not share here due to the (No name calling policy) which prevents me from exposing cheaters.

First of all, you can share your screenshots here, just cover the names.

Second - you don't just ban the cheaters. If you ban them, they will come back with new account and cheat again, same way. You need to leave them be for some time, observe, find out how they are cheating, block that way and then ban everyone who used that method. That seems unfair and can be annoying but it's the best way to eliminate cheaters.

TheShadowScout · March 2019

hesobad wrote: »

How do cheaters get banned in ESO?

Quietly. Because...

AlienatedGoat wrote: »

ZOS policy is to not comment on individual disciplinary actions.

...that.

But it does happen. Just... the only time you will actually hear about it is if it was some major happening, like a mass ban for a certain bossfight expliot a while back...

Eshja wrote: »

Second - you don't just ban the cheaters. If you ban them, they will come back with new account and cheat again, same way. You need to leave them be for some time, observe, find out how they are cheating, block that way and then ban everyone who used that method. That seems unfair and can be annoying but it's the best way to eliminate cheaters.

...and that is a very valid concern. They do have to plug the holes after all, and to do that they need to observe the holes being exploited. Which takes time. And sometimes they will make a judgement to only fix the game, and leave those who abused the design flaw unpunished, because they feel it was not the players fault the flaw was there. And other times they will feel people over-abused a certain flaw, and then... there starts a great whining and wailing on the forums, as banned people go like "Whyyyyy? I was just doing what the others were doing..." so if you -ever- find some flaw in the designs... best to just bug-report it instead of exploiting it a lot yourself, mmmm'kay?

In the end, reporting cheaters, exploiters or bots in ESO can be a bit lacking in safisfaction due to not seeing the reaction right away. But that's how it is. And we all can either ignore any such we see, ot just keep reporting them, then forgetting about it. Possibly multiple times, on each day we see them, just to make sure the notice does not fall to the cracks. But that is all. And we better not expect any more (though I agree that it would be nice if ZOS sent a "thanks for your report helping bringing a problem to our attention, we took care of it now" notice)

f047ys3v3n · March 2019

ZOS responds to cheaters primarily by issuing threatening take down letters from their lawyers to any video hosting sites that have up videos of cheaters in action. I'm actually pretty amazed at how thorough and quick they are at this.

Of course, they don't remove all videos of people cheating, just the ones labeled as such. So, you can see plenty videos of groups blowing through endgame content with amazingly high dps and even resource numbers that you somehow fall at least 25% shy of when you put on the same gear and get your warhorn blown. You can see those players take the un-blockable, un-sheildable, resistance immune, and unavoidable damage in vCR yet somehow it only hurts them ~1/3rd as much as it hurts you in the same content despite them being on vCR+3 when you are working on +2 or +1.

Yea, it's pretty frustrating.

It is interesting that, after watching a bunch of those vCR videos from different guilds specifically for the effects of all that oblivian damage, I did note that all the top guilds do not seem to be using either the same cheats or the same settings. Some of them took a lot more damage from the unavoidable damage than others and, despite playing the mechanics much cleaner, did not score as well. Looks like the cheats arms race is for real.

idk · March 2019

Zos will not let you know what comes of any investigation they do. It is a privacy issue. The best response any responsible gaming company will provide in such a case is thanks for your report and they will look into it.

hesobad · March 2019

Eshja wrote: »

hesobad wrote: »

my IC group ran into cheaters in IC that were perma stunning us even thru the Psijic ability ultimate and CC immunity pots. Clearly cheating! I have screenshots to prove this but I can not share here due to the (No name calling policy) which prevents me from exposing cheaters.

First of all, you can share your screenshots here, just cover the names.

Second - you don't just ban the cheaters. If you ban them, they will come back with new account and cheat again, same way. You need to leave them be for some time, observe, find out how they are cheating, block that way and then ban everyone who used that method. That seems unfair and can be annoying but it's the best way to eliminate cheaters.

Ok well all of the players involved were at or above CP 880 with all at least Alliance rank 15 Brigadier with a single 2 star general magic dk. These guys were not new to the game, they've been here for a long time. I know I've reported at least 1 of these players in the past because I recognized and had reported his name in the past and still have screenshots of him from long ago. Not buying that for one second

hesobad · March 2019

idk wrote: »

Zos will not let you know what comes of any investigation they do. It is a privacy issue. The best response any responsible gaming company will provide in such a case is thanks for your report and they will look into it.

What I'm saying is that I very strongly doubt any real investigation is taking place whatsoever. How can a ticket be automatically resolved in 3 days if I do not reply to the email that they send to me regarding the ticket?? It's all a facade in my opinion

TempPlayer · March 2019

How does one really "cheat" in this game?
Like someone mentioned above that they are taking less damage then it should; how does one do that when the damage is being calculated on the server.
P.S. I'm not saying that it couldn't exist but I'm just curious on how does one pull that off.

rabidmyers · March 2019

cuz they cheated

efster · March 2019

Never for too long.

Eshja · March 2019

TempPlayer wrote: »

How does one really "cheat" in this game?
Like someone mentioned above that they are taking less damage then it should; how does one do that when the damage is being calculated on the server.
P.S. I'm not saying that it couldn't exist but I'm just curious on how does one pull that off.

I don't know much about that, I've never cheated in any game cause why even bother... but I was into programming so time ago. So every program, game, everything has a code which have holes, you can abuse it with third programs. You can't just make your damage higher, things like this are well protected cause are obvious, but in the past people were multiplying number of ultimate points they get, I heard about one guy who was cheating on MSA with slightly highier movement speed...
There are also exploits, which is abusing system directly in game. There was a guild on pvp whose members were spamming orbs in Cyrodiil before fights so server will lag or you could go into textures in few trials so boss couldn't target you but didn't reset so you could make hard mode that way. Obviously these cheaters get ban hammer in the face for whole guild which was abusing that, no excuses that you didn't know that your friends were doing that. If you see most of your guild members are doing that, I recommend reporting them and leaving guild, cause they will get banned at some point.
And bots, obviously. I don't get how this one works. Guess third program with AI which behaves like human. Seems kinda boring to me.

There are many ways to cheat but I don't wanna really get into details, especially if something wasn't patched yet, no need to make it more popular. In the end of the day, people who cheat usually wants to just boost their ego, they wanna feel better than you and that isn't good for anyone and this doesn't give them any profit. Especially with IP bans. It's really important to report them.

Bergzorn · March 2019

hesobad wrote: »

my IC group ran into cheaters in IC that were perma stunning us even thru the Psijic ability ultimate and CC immunity pots. Clearly cheating!

I know it's a bit off topic, but did they really perma-stun you or did they just root you? CC immunity does not prevent roots, and there have been cheating claims here before by players that were not aware of the difference.

f047ys3v3n · March 2019

TempPlayer wrote: »

How does one really "cheat" in this game?
Like someone mentioned above that they are taking less damage then it should; how does one do that when the damage is being calculated on the server.
P.S. I'm not saying that it couldn't exist but I'm just curious on how does one pull that off.

ZOS would like you to think it is being calculated server side. It is not, and realistically, there may not be a way to make it calculated server side and still have acceptable performance.

In any case, these things are not calculated server side. The variables are hidden better than they were back 3 years ago when they wern't hidden at all and ZOS had the whole meteors from the flying men in the sky weekend but the variables are not server side, and insufficient checks exist on what people have manipulated their client side stuff to say.

The real question is what some of these guys are manipulating to take less damage from oblivion sources. You can't mitigate that by turning knobs on the typical variables like armor and spell resistance as it bypasses all that. Somehow, at least one guild looks like they have created a new knob to turn altogether and they have turnt it up. I wonder if what they have done is tap into the major minor system and redefine minor maim and/or minor protection so that their dark cloak gives them massive protection downstairs and tank can help out the people upstairs more than 15%.

In any case, vCR videos are pretty interesting to watch for cheats as there are a lot of places where you just have to absorb large amounts of damage and cannot mitigate it with shields or blocks in the way you can other places. Because of this, if you run vCR a lot, you get quite used to seeing how much damage you and your team take from these things and it is also very easy to see how much their team takes from them as these things are not avoidable.

TempPlayer · March 2019

Eshja wrote: »

TempPlayer wrote: »

How does one really "cheat" in this game?
Like someone mentioned above that they are taking less damage then it should; how does one do that when the damage is being calculated on the server.
P.S. I'm not saying that it couldn't exist but I'm just curious on how does one pull that off.

I don't know much about that, I've never cheated in any game cause why even bother... but I was into programming so time ago. So every program, game, everything has a code which have holes, you can abuse it with third programs. You can't just make your damage higher, things like this are well protected cause are obvious, but in the past people were multiplying number of ultimate points they get, I heard about one guy who was cheating on MSA with slightly highier movement speed...
There are also exploits, which is abusing system directly in game. There was a guild on pvp whose members were spamming orbs in Cyrodiil before fights so server will lag or you could go into textures in few trials so boss couldn't target you but didn't reset so you could make hard mode that way. Obviously these cheaters get ban hammer in the face for whole guild which was abusing that, no excuses that you didn't know that your friends were doing that. If you see most of your guild members are doing that, I recommend reporting them and leaving guild, cause they will get banned at some point.
And bots, obviously. I don't get how this one works. Guess third program with AI which behaves like human. Seems kinda boring to me.

There are many ways to cheat but I don't wanna really get into details, especially if something wasn't patched yet, no need to make it more popular. In the end of the day, people who cheat usually wants to just boost their ego, they wanna feel better than you and that isn't good for anyone and this doesn't give them any profit. Especially with IP bans. It's really important to report them.

Thanks for replying. Very interesting read. Trying to overload the server with orb is interesting, although disgusting. Amazing how people comes up with these.
I guess it is just like real life in a sense that it is a cat and mouse game. You comes up with rule and regulation and there is always someone who try to find loophole in the system to give them an edge over other. The best course of action is to not to play, but if life is only that simple.
Thanks.

Beardimus · March 2019

They don't discuss cheating here nor in game / via email.

The case closed you got doesn't mean they auto shut it in terms of process, it means the conversation with you is over. They got it from there will investigate

At least that's how it should work, as various cheats or exploiting behaviour ive seen haven't been resolved.

What we would appreciate is a published ban stat. Would keep it in everybodys mind. I.e xx players banned for CE xx players banned for AP boosting etc monthly

Gina has published stats a few times before for specific events leading into keeps / IC XP exploit etc

Gnozo · March 2019

I highly doubt that these guys are cheating.

CC immunity is handled on server side and no programm can change this....

Skwor · March 2019

They were probably not cheating. ESO has continued to over emphasize CC making them stronger even. Yet they failed to fix the ease of exploting or the whole range of bugs associated with CC imunity which works at best a small percentage of the time.

Welcome to ESO stun and root. Kind of boring and frustrating huh? Definitly not "funner."

ATomiX96 · March 2019

How do they stun you in Psijic ult if you arent targetable while casting it?
It doesnt grant immov after the "cast" is finished, so you can be ccd the frame after the ult ends.
Also immov pots last like 15 seconds these days, maybe you just overestimated the duration of it.

PunkAben · June 2019

Cheating is not going to get a ban unless the really cheat hard.
It is a big business to sell undetectable cheat for TESO becouse Zenimax have bad detection and dont use admins like other game like World of Warcraft for cheat cheat.
So some cheater can keep go on and on and nothing will happens.

Darkenarlol · June 2019

sometimes for 3 days with keeping all

benefits gained by cheating/exploiting...

sometimes perma-bans just to make

the cheater to buy a new acc and cheat again =D

as for bots...they are just there with same accs

on same spots for 6+ months with all reports for botting

Caligamy_ESO · June 2019

Beardimus wrote: »

They don't discuss cheating here nor in game / via email.

The case closed you got doesn't mean they auto shut it in terms of process, it means the conversation with you is over. They got it from there will investigate

At least that's how it should work, as various cheats or exploiting behaviour ive seen haven't been resolved.

What we would appreciate is a published ban stat. Would keep it in everybodys mind. I.e xx players banned for CE xx players banned for AP boosting etc monthly

Gina has published stats a few times before for specific events leading into keeps / IC XP exploit etc

Just logged into FFXIV last night for the first time in ages because they currently have a play for free campaign and free Heavensward DLC in the SE store, and immediately I appreciated the level of anti-cheating measures they have over there. It's one of the first things you see on the launcher before you even begin to login. I've always thought Zenimax should post stats like that periodically but instead they seem to have adopted the 'Let's do absolutely nothing' appearance.

kitsune_beth · June 2019

Cheaters should be permanently banned imo (no matter what form the cheating is). A threat like that hanging over them might make them think twice about doing it.
I've been reporting farming bots for over a year, and they've done absolutely f'all about them it seems.

Dusk_Coven · June 2019

Caligamy_ESO wrote: »

Just logged into FFXIV last night for the first time in ages because they currently have a play for free campaign and free Heavensward DLC in the SE store, and immediately I appreciated the level of anti-cheating measures they have over there. It's one of the first things you see on the launcher before you even begin to login. I've always thought Zenimax should post stats like that periodically but instead they seem to have adopted the 'Let's do absolutely nothing' appearance.

SWTOR eventually adopted the same thing after (years I guess) of players accusing them of doing nothing against PvP cheaters, bots, and win-traders. It's probably the closest thing you can get to showing justice done without actually naming names.

kitsune_beth wrote: »

Cheaters should be permanently banned imo (no matter what form the cheating is). A threat like that hanging over them might make them think twice about doing it.
I've been reporting farming bots for over a year, and they've done absolutely f'all about them it seems.

If it were that easy you'd see less botting and RMT in games everywhere. But you don't -- they constantly show up like a bad rash. There are probably ways around bans and typically banning is a manual process. Because if it weren't there'd probably be too great a chance that innocent people get caught up in automated measures and the uproar and backlash would be incredible. All game companies need to protect the innocent this way.

Thogard · June 2019

The stun immunity from immov pots doesn’t go into effect until your next global cooldown after activating the pot. This is common knowledge.

Undo not breaking Cc, bugging out, and failing to teleport you is a known bug that has been happening for a long time now and has been acknowledged by the devs. This is common knowledge.

With how many cheat accusations you’ve made, I’d be surprised if your reports weren’t on some sort of auto-ignore system with Zenimax. If you spent half as much time learning the game mechanics as you have accusing people of cheating then I think you’d be having a more enjoyable and productive ESO experience.

West1389 · June 2019

Well it's a bit complicated but I'll try to explain a bit. 1st they get sat down and a stern warning.
The 2nd time is long loading screens.
3rd they get put stuck in combat.
4th violation is a bit harsh, that's the lag.
The 5th is long line to log into game
Now after all.of those and they still have not learned then comes the ban. Long process I know but hey everyone needs a 2nd or 5th chance.

MojaveHeld · June 2019

Ignore the people lying about this cheat not existing, it's one that's been around for a while and is not a bug. It's been reported many times by many different players, and is one of the single most popular cheats in the game. The problem seems to be that ZOS doesn't know how to stop this one, so they just let it continue to happen and ignore all the reports of it. So as frustrating as it is, you just have to put up with people doing it, all you can do is look down on them for being cheating pieces of garbage, and decide for yourself whether you feel like putting up with their BS when you see them, or would rather just go do something else.

Skwor · June 2019

Only the most egregious ever get banned and they end up with restored accounts after a few months, so basically they do not get banned.