ElderOfTamriel wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just wanted to clarify here. We followed up in another thread just a little while ago, but will share here. That response is below.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

We do want to offer some clarity around the issue of bans here however. First, we want to note that no bans have actually been given out. Currently, a very small number of accounts are subject to an investigation regarding the transmute crystals issue during the Crafter's Celebration. Those under investigation have been temporarily suspended during the investigation period and have been notified of this. Those impacted will be noticed once the investigation is over and will receive further instruction. Please be patient as we work to conclude the investigation.

Additionally, when we look at actions for exploitation, we don't just say, "person did x, thus they are banned". We look at a multitude of factors to make sure if there is an margin for accidents, we can account for that. We totally understand is someone stumbles into an exploit on accident. But there is a difference between doing something, 3 times without knowing it and doing it 1000 times, for example. @LunaFlora mentioned the endeavor issue and we took the same approach there and outlined it. If you stumbled into in by accident, then we can see that and account for that. Those who took advantage, it was pretty easy to tell. Hopefully this helps in easing some concerns. But we'll make note of this and take it to the team as well.

Is it cheating when we exploit the developers' mistakes?

I see that nobody was banned and thats also good imo, it wouldnt be right any other way. its probably more of an ethic question if you use the exploit or not but you cant really punish anyone for doing it i guess.

I'm sorry but maybe you can shed some light on where are people getting the idea that exploiting isn't bannable offense? It's quite common on forum lately it seems so I guess there's some idea originator or precedent outside of ESO.

gamergirldk wrote: »

Get a perfectet malesrrom drop in normal is ok,get extra transmute crystale is not...suspended..

Make up your mind.

Running Maelstrom was normal activity, especially during the event. The extra drops came as part of game play that would have happened anyway. People reconstructing garbage gear, with no intention of ever equipping or using it, then immediately deconning it, and doing that over and over again 1000 times, straight up until the second the bug was hotfixed? Not normal gameplay.

Scrimblobimblito wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Those who took advantage, it was pretty easy to tell.

That's great to hear from you guys. Unfortunately, people are now bragging on other social media about how they'll never need to farm transmutes again after the last event and laughing at people who got banned. Even people I know who literally spread knowledge of this via zone chat and hoarded all the collected gear now laugh at my face.

The inconsistency here is absurd. So a roullette was spun to decide who got suspended?

It apparently affected a "very small amount of people,"  yet it takes >8 days. You can "easily tell" who exploited, yet MASSES of people now brag about how it didn't affect them, and with this "very small amount of people," your support is at capacity.

Tragic

Exactly, I've seen several people standing there reconstructing and then sharing that they have like hundreds of one random set, they have not been suspended. And yet I've seen several people who shared their problems on Reddit/Discord where all they did is reconstruct the item sets they thought they might need, or deconstruct once or twice because they changed their mind, after which they got suspended. Isn't it weird that, despite it being easy to tell who exploited, there are plenty of cases of people getting caught up in it and plenty of cases of actual exploiters getting away with it. Maybe I'm wrong, and it really is only a small number of players, like Kevin said, since I don't really have any actual evidence to contradict that, but even still, it's worrying that the supposed small number of players requires more than a week to sort out.

Kerteen wrote: »

Scrimblobimblito wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Those who took advantage, it was pretty easy to tell.

That's great to hear from you guys. Unfortunately, people are now bragging on other social media about how they'll never need to farm transmutes again after the last event and laughing at people who got banned. Even people I know who literally spread knowledge of this via zone chat and hoarded all the collected gear now laugh at my face.

The inconsistency here is absurd. So a roullette was spun to decide who got suspended?

It apparently affected a "very small amount of people,"  yet it takes >8 days. You can "easily tell" who exploited, yet MASSES of people now brag about how it didn't affect them, and with this "very small amount of people," your support is at capacity.

Tragic

Exactly, I've seen several people standing there reconstructing and then sharing that they have like hundreds of one random set, they have not been suspended. And yet I've seen several people who shared their problems on Reddit/Discord where all they did is reconstruct the item sets they thought they might need, or deconstruct once or twice because they changed their mind, after which they got suspended. Isn't it weird that, despite it being easy to tell who exploited, there are plenty of cases of people getting caught up in it and plenty of cases of actual exploiters getting away with it. Maybe I'm wrong, and it really is only a small number of players, like Kevin said, since I don't really have any actual evidence to contradict that, but even still, it's worrying that the supposed small number of players requires more than a week to sort out.

It's probably small relative to the number of accounts. If there's around 23 million accounts and 1% had to be temporarily banned, that would still be 230k accounts.

colossalvoids wrote: »

ElderOfTamriel wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just wanted to clarify here. We followed up in another thread just a little while ago, but will share here. That response is below.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

We do want to offer some clarity around the issue of bans here however. First, we want to note that no bans have actually been given out. Currently, a very small number of accounts are subject to an investigation regarding the transmute crystals issue during the Crafter's Celebration. Those under investigation have been temporarily suspended during the investigation period and have been notified of this. Those impacted will be noticed once the investigation is over and will receive further instruction. Please be patient as we work to conclude the investigation.

Additionally, when we look at actions for exploitation, we don't just say, "person did x, thus they are banned". We look at a multitude of factors to make sure if there is an margin for accidents, we can account for that. We totally understand is someone stumbles into an exploit on accident. But there is a difference between doing something, 3 times without knowing it and doing it 1000 times, for example. @LunaFlora mentioned the endeavor issue and we took the same approach there and outlined it. If you stumbled into in by accident, then we can see that and account for that. Those who took advantage, it was pretty easy to tell. Hopefully this helps in easing some concerns. But we'll make note of this and take it to the team as well.

Is it cheating when we exploit the developers' mistakes?

I see that nobody was banned and thats also good imo, it wouldnt be right any other way. its probably more of an ethic question if you use the exploit or not but you cant really punish anyone for doing it i guess.

I'm sorry but maybe you can shed some light on where are people getting the idea that exploiting isn't bannable offense? It's quite common on forum lately it seems so I guess there's some idea originator or precedent outside of ESO.

Lol. Ok, imagine this:

So you go to a grocery store and buy some cornflakes for, what the price tag says, 4.50$. At the checkout you notice "Oh, it charged me for only 2.30$", so you think the price might be entered wrong in their system. Then you think, hmm yeah i could eat a bit more cornflakes in the future and since they are pretty durable you go back in and buy 10 packages more for only 2.30$. I mean i would never do that because its very questionable ethicaly whise. But will you get arrested for it? Ofc not. It was the grocery stores' mistake, maybe not even from a human, probably something corrupted the system, but it definitelly was theirs. Why would they be able to punish you for exploiting it?

ElderOfTamriel wrote: »

Lol. Ok, imagine this:

So you go to a grocery store and buy some cornflakes for, what the price tag says, 4.50$. At the checkout you notice "Oh, it charged me for only 2.30$", so you think the price might be entered wrong in their system. Then you think, hmm yeah i could eat a bit more cornflakes in the future and since they are pretty durable you go back in and buy 10 packages more for only 2.30$. I mean i would never do that because its very questionable ethicaly whise. But will you get arrested for it? Ofc not. It was the grocery stores' mistake, maybe not even from a human, probably something corrupted the system, but it definitelly was theirs. Why would they be able to punish you for exploiting it?

Honest people would notice the discrepancy and ask the shop's owner whether that's intended. They wouldn't even think of buying 10 packages of the stuff. And those who wouldn't notice they wouldn't think of buying 10 packages either, you know, not having noticed and all.
Besides, comparisons to real-life scenario such as "being arrested" are rather ridiculous and more than a bit telling.

Adremal wrote: »

ElderOfTamriel wrote: »

Lol. Ok, imagine this:

So you go to a grocery store and buy some cornflakes for, what the price tag says, 4.50$. At the checkout you notice "Oh, it charged me for only 2.30$", so you think the price might be entered wrong in their system. Then you think, hmm yeah i could eat a bit more cornflakes in the future and since they are pretty durable you go back in and buy 10 packages more for only 2.30$. I mean i would never do that because its very questionable ethicaly whise. But will you get arrested for it? Ofc not. It was the grocery stores' mistake, maybe not even from a human, probably something corrupted the system, but it definitelly was theirs. Why would they be able to punish you for exploiting it?

Honest people would notice the discrepancy and ask the shop's owner whether that's intended. They wouldn't even think of buying 10 packages of the stuff. And those who wouldn't notice they wouldn't think of buying 10 packages either, you know, not having noticed and all.
Besides, comparisons to real-life scenario such as "being arrested" are rather ridiculous and more than a bit telling.

thats what i said, its very questionable and i definitelly wouldnt do it. Also yeah the impact in a video game is so low, much more people will probably exploit it bcs it doesnt has to do ANYTHING with real money value. Who cares tbh. Some ppl now have 1000 transmute crystals? Great, congratulations they abused the system. But it wasnt wasnt their fault so why would the care. Also do i care about it? Absolutelly not. Should i be jealous now bcs i played fair and didnt abused it? Nah, stop whining folks.

ElderOfTamriel wrote: »

Adremal wrote: »

ElderOfTamriel wrote: »

Lol. Ok, imagine this:

So you go to a grocery store and buy some cornflakes for, what the price tag says, 4.50$. At the checkout you notice "Oh, it charged me for only 2.30$", so you think the price might be entered wrong in their system. Then you think, hmm yeah i could eat a bit more cornflakes in the future and since they are pretty durable you go back in and buy 10 packages more for only 2.30$. I mean i would never do that because its very questionable ethicaly whise. But will you get arrested for it? Ofc not. It was the grocery stores' mistake, maybe not even from a human, probably something corrupted the system, but it definitelly was theirs. Why would they be able to punish you for exploiting it?

Honest people would notice the discrepancy and ask the shop's owner whether that's intended. They wouldn't even think of buying 10 packages of the stuff. And those who wouldn't notice they wouldn't think of buying 10 packages either, you know, not having noticed and all.
Besides, comparisons to real-life scenario such as "being arrested" are rather ridiculous and more than a bit telling.

thats what i said, its very questionable and i definitelly wouldnt do it. Also yeah the impact in a video game is so low, much more people will probably exploit it bcs it doesnt has to do ANYTHING with real money value. Who cares tbh. Some ppl now have 1000 transmute crystals? Great, congratulations they abused the system. But it wasnt wasnt their fault so why would the care. Also do i care about it? Absolutelly not. Should i be jealous now bcs i played fair and didnt abused it? Nah, stop whining folks.

First, the exploit was capable of generating a lot more than 1000 crystals, anything beyond the first 1000 is just stored in the form of cheap gear waiting to be deconstructed later. If you were willing to save up 100 reconstructed items, that would be an extra 2500 crystals, on to of the 1000 you can store directly.

Second, it does affect other players, because the people who got crystals through the exploit won't be queueing for activities that reward crystals, making it harder for everyone else to find groups.

Third, taking advantage of the exploit was absolutely the exploiter's fault. They knowingly exploited a bug that they should have reported instead. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is, and this one was about as obviously too good to be true as can happen in a game like ESO.

Ph1p wrote: »

ElderOfTamriel wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

ElderOfTamriel wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just wanted to clarify here. We followed up in another thread just a little while ago, but will share here. That response is below.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

We do want to offer some clarity around the issue of bans here however. First, we want to note that no bans have actually been given out. Currently, a very small number of accounts are subject to an investigation regarding the transmute crystals issue during the Crafter's Celebration. Those under investigation have been temporarily suspended during the investigation period and have been notified of this. Those impacted will be noticed once the investigation is over and will receive further instruction. Please be patient as we work to conclude the investigation.

Additionally, when we look at actions for exploitation, we don't just say, "person did x, thus they are banned". We look at a multitude of factors to make sure if there is an margin for accidents, we can account for that. We totally understand is someone stumbles into an exploit on accident. But there is a difference between doing something, 3 times without knowing it and doing it 1000 times, for example. @LunaFlora mentioned the endeavor issue and we took the same approach there and outlined it. If you stumbled into in by accident, then we can see that and account for that. Those who took advantage, it was pretty easy to tell. Hopefully this helps in easing some concerns. But we'll make note of this and take it to the team as well.

Is it cheating when we exploit the developers' mistakes?

I see that nobody was banned and thats also good imo, it wouldnt be right any other way. its probably more of an ethic question if you use the exploit or not but you cant really punish anyone for doing it i guess.

I'm sorry but maybe you can shed some light on where are people getting the idea that exploiting isn't bannable offense? It's quite common on forum lately it seems so I guess there's some idea originator or precedent outside of ESO.

Lol. Ok, imagine this:

So you go to a grocery store and buy some cornflakes for, what the price tag says, 4.50$. At the checkout you notice "Oh, it charged me for only 2.30$", so you think the price might be entered wrong in their system. Then you think, hmm yeah i could eat a bit more cornflakes in the future and since they are pretty durable you go back in and buy 10 packages more for only 2.30$. I mean i would never do that because its very questionable ethicaly whise. But will you get arrested for it? Ofc not. It was the grocery stores' mistake, maybe not even from a human, probably something corrupted the system, but it definitelly was theirs. Why would they be able to punish you for exploiting it?

Except in this case people then returned the cornflakes, getting $4.50 back instead of the $2.30 they were actually charged. They then did it not 10, but 250 times with full fraudulent intent. And they did this not with $4.50 packs of cornflakes, but $500 smartphones.

Ok yeah youve got a point here, youre right

ElderOfTamriel wrote: »

Adremal wrote: »

ElderOfTamriel wrote: »

thats what i said, its very questionable and i definitelly wouldnt do it. Also yeah the impact in a video game is so low, much more people will probably exploit it bcs it doesnt has to do ANYTHING with real money value. Who cares tbh. Some ppl now have 1000 transmute crystals? Great, congratulations they abused the system. But it wasnt wasnt their fault so why would the care. Also do i care about it? Absolutelly not. Should i be jealous now bcs i played fair and didnt abused it? Nah, stop whining folks.

If they abused the system, it was their fault by definition. As to why you claim to not care about people cheating, you've already painted a pretty telling picture.

well, so we all have our own opinions, no need to bring me into a bad light just bcs i really doesnt care if ppl have 1000 crystals more than me or even 10000. cheating for me is to use third-party apps to really abuse the system. Not cheating if developers just f*ed up. and still its only a game, calm down. no one is dying or getting financially hurt just bcs like 0.5% less players will do their daily dungeon for the transmute crystals...

I'm not "bringing you into a bad light", you're doing all the work by being staunchly apologetic of cheating (while at the same time claiming not to care). Exploiting is cheating by definition; I won't repeat myself any further, as humoring mala fides is a waste of time.

ElderOfTamriel wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

ElderOfTamriel wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just wanted to clarify here. We followed up in another thread just a little while ago, but will share here. That response is below.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

We do want to offer some clarity around the issue of bans here however. First, we want to note that no bans have actually been given out. Currently, a very small number of accounts are subject to an investigation regarding the transmute crystals issue during the Crafter's Celebration. Those under investigation have been temporarily suspended during the investigation period and have been notified of this. Those impacted will be noticed once the investigation is over and will receive further instruction. Please be patient as we work to conclude the investigation.

Additionally, when we look at actions for exploitation, we don't just say, "person did x, thus they are banned". We look at a multitude of factors to make sure if there is an margin for accidents, we can account for that. We totally understand is someone stumbles into an exploit on accident. But there is a difference between doing something, 3 times without knowing it and doing it 1000 times, for example. @LunaFlora mentioned the endeavor issue and we took the same approach there and outlined it. If you stumbled into in by accident, then we can see that and account for that. Those who took advantage, it was pretty easy to tell. Hopefully this helps in easing some concerns. But we'll make note of this and take it to the team as well.

Is it cheating when we exploit the developers' mistakes?

I see that nobody was banned and thats also good imo, it wouldnt be right any other way. its probably more of an ethic question if you use the exploit or not but you cant really punish anyone for doing it i guess.

I'm sorry but maybe you can shed some light on where are people getting the idea that exploiting isn't bannable offense? It's quite common on forum lately it seems so I guess there's some idea originator or precedent outside of ESO.

Lol. Ok, imagine this:

So you go to a grocery store and buy some cornflakes for, what the price tag says, 4.50$. At the checkout you notice "Oh, it charged me for only 2.30$", so you think the price might be entered wrong in their system. Then you think, hmm yeah i could eat a bit more cornflakes in the future and since they are pretty durable you go back in and buy 10 packages more for only 2.30$. I mean i would never do that because its very questionable ethicaly whise. But will you get arrested for it? Ofc not. It was the grocery stores' mistake, maybe not even from a human, probably something corrupted the system, but it definitelly was theirs. Why would they be able to punish you for exploiting it?

Your example only partially equals the exploit in question.

Sure, buying at a discount isn't an exploit. Also the reduced transmute cost was clearly advertized.

That's not what people did tho. To stay with your example, these players returned said cornflakes to the shop and were refunded more than they ever paid for them by accident.

Sure, still happens and still no reason for disciplinary action.

But the players getting greedy and starting to print nirncrux with transmutes they never rightfully earned by simply abusing a bugged crafting loop must not be excused anymore.

They know exactly what they did, they not it was wrong. They thought themselves especially smart by exploiting the bug.

Well, they were wrong.

Blood_again wrote: »

Is it me or there is really some kind of tunneled trust contained in this request.

No, there isn't.

I had no choice in whether or not to participate in the crafting event, unlike most other events that I can just ignore. But the crafting event perks were passively there whether we chose to be part of it or not.

A lot of players craft and this particular bug had a high potential of innocent players being brought into question because the return from deconstructing transmuted gear was the same as it had always been.

I want the choice to opt out of these kind of events and not put myself at risk.

Grizzbeorn wrote: »

FluffyBird wrote: »

Grizzbeorn wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Look at how many players are banned right now

Look at how many aren't.

If you could twist your neck the way you twist logic, you'd be an owl

I guess a fluffy bird such as yourself would know, huh?

But, yeah. It's logical. A hell of a lot more people haven't been touched by this because they knew well enough to stay away from what was an obvious problem.

In my case, I wasn't even logged in between the time when the event went live and when the reduced cost for reconstructing gear was disabled, so that's the primary reason why I "stayed away" from it. And even if I had been logged in for the first hours of the event, I still probably would not have reconstructed any gear before the reduced cost was disabled, as I rarely recon gear except for storing TCs when I'm at or very near my limit and can't accept any more TCs from various rewards. So before I decided to reconstruct any gear for actual use, I'd need to sit down on each character and examine all of the available sets before deciding which ones to go with.

On the other hand, I have a number of reconstructed daggers and such which are purely serving as storage for 25 TCs, and if I had decided to reconstruct any gear for use while the cost was reduced then I might very well have deconstructed several of those "storage daggers" which I've had for weeks and months before the event ever went live, and apparently that is how at least one player got in trouble-- by deconstructing already-existing "TC storage gear" to get back those TCs and use them to reconstruct "for-actual-use gear" while the cost was reduced. That's not the same thing as reconstructing a piece of gear at reduced cost and then immediately deconstructing it to gain 13 free TCs each time.

supersonic_kitten wrote: »

Not everyone who abused it was suspended. I don't know the legitimacy of the stories as it's hearsay, but what I heard is that some of the people who printed nirncrux are still running around in game. So by that logic, if not everybody who did it was suspended, surely it's not that hard to believe that people who didn't abuse it were suspended also?

This is just speculation, and it's pointless to point finger at who did what until we know the results.

Remember, it's still an ongoing investigation, and it's definitely not that simple. Otherwise it wouldn't take 9 days and support being at capacity limit to investigate a small amount of people if they know how to identify those who exploited so easily.

As far as "printing Nirncrux," that has always been a thing and by itself shouldn't have been why anyone's account was banned or frozen, as the reduced cost for transmuting traits on existing gear was left in effect and thus being able to "print Nirncrux" at half the usual cost must not have been seen as any sort of exploit. It was specifically the ability to recon-decon and get back 13 more TCs than you'd started with which was viewed as an exploit.

Unfortunately, any players who deconstructed gear that had been reconstructed for TC storage long before the event went live so that they could reconstruct gear for actual usage by their characters got caught up by the exploit-detection process, and whether or not it's even possible at this point to exonerate them through investigation depends on how detailed any logs are, how long they're kept, and how easy it is to extract the necessary data from them. If distinguishing the blatant exploiters from the "innocent" were a simple matter, the investigations wouldn't need to take so long.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

The investigation is ongoing and no final judgements have been made. And we handled those on an individual level. There are a ton of pitfalls that can occur by having a thread to discuss something that is still under review. And we note this generally, but we don't discuss how individuals will specifically be impacted as that involves an understanding of their player history, which is private information.

If it's something impacting the community at large, it's going to be discussed one way or another. So whatever the pitfalls are, find a way to manage them, and better align with community behavior.

Once it gets to Reddit, it's going to spiral out and become a major fiasco like it has now. This has happened with every fiasco @ZOS_Kevin. Having it here, like @spartaxoxo was suggesting ensures that official information at least frames the conversation.

At the very least, you could've let us know day-of that ZOS was evaluating the possibility of an exploit and its approximate scope, especially when you're already telling us there's a hotfix coming in 2 hours. That doesn't require disclosing private information.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

But we'll end with this. No one has been banned and the suspension is temporary. We have properly articulated this to all players involved. While we understand those under investigation want to get back in, we have clearly outlined the steps regarding the investigation to them via email. We are hoping to conclude the investigation soon and notify the players involved with next steps.

Hopefully you're compensating those accounts who were placed under investigation and later found innocent.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

We are making changes to the event to make sure this doesn't happen in future iterations and we have provided tons of player feedback noting frustration around it.

What are those changes and will they be tested on PTS?