I thought the questions about ZOS' in game enforcement of rules didn't quite capture the full picture.

I felt like I had to grade them lower on "in-game" enforcement than perhaps they deserve, simply because much enforcement takes place either out of game or deliberately out of sight of players. ZOS usually cares more about privacy than making displays of in-game enforcement, and when they do officially announce a major enforcement action, its on the forums with little sign of it in game (aside from some missing players.)

What follows may be way too much information. If that's the case, sorry!


The only time I've seen ZOS directly moderate in-game was in Oct 2017, when I watched a gamemaster delete a bot train farming harpies at the Silverhoof Vale in Rivenspire. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/375863/today-i-talked-to-a-game-master-they-are-real/

That's the only time I've seen active in-game enforcement. Usually, Bots are handled with periodic sweeps. They'll get reported for a week or so, and then at some point they are gone (and usually replaced with other bots in a couple days.)


Otherwise, most of their enforcement is handled out-of-game.

If I report a player, obviously, ZOS isn't going to tell me the result. The most I'll ever see is that the player isn't around again, but that doesnt necessarily mean anything. (Though I do strongly suspect that at least one of my reports was acted on, as it came up in another thread that a name I'd reported for impersonating a real person was changed.)

Similarly, ZOS usually handles cheating in a low-key manner. Unless someone starts a complaint thread, the most we players see is someone we suspected of cheating taking a "break" or just gone. That's great for avoiding naming-and-shaming, but it does mean that most players don't see a lot of specifically in-game enforcement. (When you add that to the prevalence of false or mistaken reports for cheating, it's even harder to see whether ZOS is acting or not from the perspective of an individual player.)


When ZOS enforces the rules after a big exploit (AP farming at Bleakers, Imperial City XP glitch with Dragonbones, and the (repeated) vetAsylum Sanctorium snipe/Caltrops glitch(s), we find out how its being handled on the forums instead of in-game.

ZOS' official posts on the forums is probably the best evidence I've seen for how they handle (or don't) player wrongdoing. That's because its handled semi-publicly, with the consequences for rule-breaking laid out.


If you are interested in looking more in depth at how ZOS handled some major exploits that resulted in at least temporary bans, here were some incidents. There might be more, but these are the relatively recent ones I remember.
1. AP farming: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/327446/no-punishment-for-outposts-flipping/p3

2. Update 17 XP glitch in Imperial City:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/396731/suspensions-for-update-17-xp-exploit/p1

3. Asylum Sanctorium (note, it happened multiple times)
Nov 2017: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/380210/response-to-the-veteran-hard-mode-asylum-sanctorium-trial-exploit-nov-10/p1
May 2018: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/416280/action-taken-for-veteran-asylum-sanctorium-exploit/p1

4. (Ongoing) With the PC/EU Multibidding issue that happened last week, ZOS is removing the extra gold from guilds and investigating those who abused the excessive gold: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6294683#Comment_6294683

A useful comparison may be this recent glitch where the Necromancer class was temporarily available to all players. ZOS declined to take any action against player accounts who made necromancers without owning Elsweyr: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6270116#Comment_6270116