Cheating vs exploits vs addons

worrallj · August 2019

mairwen85 wrote: »

The meta game of who has the best addons is exactly what happens when you leave such gaping holes in your product UI.

I like that as players we can customize our gameplay experience and most QoL addons I use are enabled during solo play. Combat specific addons enabled during group play.

I would like zos to take the top 10, work into actual game features and publish so that console gets the same - - in many ways zos should see addons as proposal functionality.

I totally agree, well said. Except then they would probably have to start paying the people maintaining their product....

Edit: that's maybe a little harsh on zos, but yeah the point is there would be an good argument about intellectual property at that point. Even now I find it a little squirly that these add-on developers who vastly improve the UI aren't on the payroll. Hard to guess numbers but those add-ons have surly increased zos profits by some figure.

worrallj · August 2019

Apologizing for necroing my own thread even though everyone's said their piece, but just to drive home how silly this is I just happened to discovered a potential vma exploit days after making this post. I reported it, and even if I were willing to risk the TOS violation, its not a huge exploit that I'd feel tempted to use. Just a minor bug that could possibly make one phase a little easier if folks figured out how it worked. But this stuff is everywhere. Banning people for using something so omnipresent in the game is ridiculous.

You want to get rid of exploits? Stop passing the buck onto the players. Let players play the way they want to play and take responsibility for your own bugs. If everyone has the knowledge of an exploit and feels free to use them, no one has an advantage. Unlike the current system. Forbidding exploits is a fools errand that just causes everyone heartburn.

Willard · August 2019

I made the switch to PS4 mainly to get away from Add-ons! Never looked back and enjoy the game much more--that is when I can actually play it(Please fix the performance issues)

I do still use the PTS just to test things and see what is coming.

Marcus684 · August 2019

worrallj wrote: »

Apologizing for necroing my own thread even though everyone's said their piece, but just to drive home how silly this is I just happened to discovered a potential vma exploit days after making this post. I reported it, and even if I were willing to risk the TOS violation, its not a huge exploit that I'd feel tempted to use. Just a minor bug that could possibly make one phase a little easier if folks figured out how it worked. But this stuff is everywhere. Banning people for using something so omnipresent in the game is ridiculous.

You want to get rid of exploits? Stop passing the buck onto the players. Let players play the way they want to play and take responsibility for your own bugs. If everyone has the knowledge of an exploit and feels free to use them, no one has an advantage. Unlike the current system. Forbidding exploits is a fools errand that just causes everyone heartburn.

You want to get rid of bugs? Everyone who discovers a "minor bug that could possibly make one phase a little easier" should report it, rather than exploit it. It is humanly impossible to create a bug-free electronic product like this game, so companies that create them have to write anti-exploit language into their TOS to prevent dishonest players from discovering bugs and using them to gain an unfair advantage over other players who haven't discovered them. It's really Honest Gaming 101. If you can't accept that, the problem is with your level of honesty, not with ZOS.

worrallj · August 2019

Edit deleted my response. No point going around the ring again. Cheers!

Aurrynthea_Drake · August 2019

I'm confused, how is a mini map cheating? Last I heard it was supposed to be an in game function until it was dropped right before release for some unknown reason.

idk · August 2019

Aurrynthea_Drake wrote: »

I'm confused, how is a mini map cheating? Last I heard it was supposed to be an in game function until it was dropped right before release for some unknown reason.

It is not. OP clearly created those definitions to make it appear that the use of addons sanctioned and controlled by Zos were cheating. OP has since acknowledged he was wrong but chooses to not change the OP. The conversation has diverged into something else that still lacks reasonable logic.

Heelie · August 2019

PC players will be using other 3rd party software to help them if not for addons, I personally used 8 clocks on my 2nd monitor in IC when farming Telvar in IC before I had a person make the the addon for me.

The difference in scores from PC to console is not because of addons when talking the top 1-5 scores on each platform. "PC will have higher averages on the leaderboards due to addons helping clears." While addons do help slightly "less than 1 min in most cases." The largest problem for console is the performance. If Console had anywhere near the same load screen times in vMA we would see closer scores... How do we know this? Well Console often take arena scores from PC where they are later beat. And the vast amount of the time lost on console side where load screens, the fight times where largely the same.

idk · August 2019

Heelie wrote: »

PC players will be using other 3rd party software to help them if not for addons, I personally used 8 clocks on my 2nd monitor in IC when farming Telvar in IC before I had a person make the the addon for me.

The difference in scores from PC to console is not because of addons when talking the top 1-5 scores on each platform. "PC will have higher averages on the leaderboards due to addons helping clears." While addons do help slightly "less than 1 min in most cases." The largest problem for console is the performance. If Console had anywhere near the same load screen times in vMA we would see closer scores... How do we know this? Well Console often take arena scores from PC where they are later beat. And the vast amount of the time lost on console side where load screens, the fight times where largely the same.

And in this a lot of top players from consoles have come to PC over the past few years. That talent drain has a huge effect.

Kidgangster101 · August 2019

Thorvik_Tyrson wrote: »

Donny_Vito wrote: »

I personally think add-ons are cheating and they just dumb the game down to help people who couldn't otherwise play at that level, but then again I'm a console pleb so I'm totally biased.

I'm sorry, but I do not agree here. I do not consider mod's to be cheating. The ones that I use are mainly quality of life types of issues to me. Most of my mods help with Gathering and crafting, and not actual in game combat.

For example: the mod that I installed last night allows me to filter for what is in my bank or bag when at the crafting table. This is basic functionality that I think the Devs should have put into the game to begin with.

people make mods because of these and similar quality of life issues. It's faster for some people to write the mod themselves (Thanks to all the MOD creators! Much appreciated!) than to wait for ZOS to get around to coding it into the game.

ZOS is finally allowing Multi craft as part of the game.
So Donny, in your book, was the Multi-craft mod a cheat before? but now that ZOS is adding it to the game, it now OK? It was always Ok in my book.

Your mods help you with gathering...... Meaning your mods help save/earn you in game currency....... Meaning you have some sort of advantage over someone that does not/can not use said mods........ Meaning at that point is it actually a "quality of life" thing or is it giving you an advantage (even saving your own real life time as you never get that back)...... Just saying it is in fact giving you an advantage in many ways.