Force Crashing People

Four_Fingers · March 23

katanagirl1 wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

Gotta love disabling zone chat....

You can’t do this on console unless you disable ALL chat.

Glad to hear it will be fixed for console, thanks.

It was already fixed for console.

NoSoup · March 23

I have a pretty strong feeling this has made its way to ToT. Now my pc is incredibly stable, especially when it comes to ESO. It would have to be atleast 12 months since I've had a game crash. Yet tonight ESO turned white and created a spinning wheel of death right after getting what would normally be a game winning combo (vestment & two blue cycle cards by deal 3). The problem with ToT is that chat is automatically minimized so even if you are recording or able to take a screen shot during record it won't show any whispers.

dvonpm · March 23

Crown wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

We do want to stress that actioning someone for exploiting it is not just a black and white thing as looking at logs.

Hi @ZOS_Kevin, your statement doesn't make sense. If someone sends someone else a whisper with the content, "IİI" and that crashes people (that string was from another game a while back, found it in a quick google search as I don't want to post the actual one in here), then it should be trivially simple for your back-end admins team to add that string to their search terms, and flag those for the TOS team to review.

We know that your teams don't like to share any information about how they do things. Based on information from other players, we are absolutely certain that there is an automation flagging terms from chats (whispers, group, and guild at least - not certain about zones) and either auto-banning or providing such details to the TOS / support team who then perform the bans. Here's a response from your team that refutes your statement as well. Please note that formal persmission to repost this was requested, and I can provide screen shot of authorization if desired.

There is no conceivable technical reason why you would need reports from people who crashed when you know the string that crashes them and there are still many using it regularly (many of us are playing offline this week as a result).

The lack of communication and clarity is (one of a few reasons) why so many of the player base feel a seething contempt towards your team(s). There is an overabundance of technical skill among us, with many dev and IT teams from other companies among the player base who would be thrilled to offer advice to help (if for whatever reason the knowledge on how to do things like this is missing at ZOS and nobody is able to use a search engine for sample code and examples).

Is it a common string or one that might accidentally occur for font related reasons? Maybe they are trying to avoid auto-banning people for it?

Destai · March 23

dvonpm wrote: »

Crown wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

We do want to stress that actioning someone for exploiting it is not just a black and white thing as looking at logs.

Hi @ZOS_Kevin, your statement doesn't make sense. If someone sends someone else a whisper with the content, "IİI" and that crashes people (that string was from another game a while back, found it in a quick google search as I don't want to post the actual one in here), then it should be trivially simple for your back-end admins team to add that string to their search terms, and flag those for the TOS team to review.

We know that your teams don't like to share any information about how they do things. Based on information from other players, we are absolutely certain that there is an automation flagging terms from chats (whispers, group, and guild at least - not certain about zones) and either auto-banning or providing such details to the TOS / support team who then perform the bans. Here's a response from your team that refutes your statement as well. Please note that formal persmission to repost this was requested, and I can provide screen shot of authorization if desired.

There is no conceivable technical reason why you would need reports from people who crashed when you know the string that crashes them and there are still many using it regularly (many of us are playing offline this week as a result).

The lack of communication and clarity is (one of a few reasons) why so many of the player base feel a seething contempt towards your team(s). There is an overabundance of technical skill among us, with many dev and IT teams from other companies among the player base who would be thrilled to offer advice to help (if for whatever reason the knowledge on how to do things like this is missing at ZOS and nobody is able to use a search engine for sample code and examples).

Is it a common string or one that might accidentally occur for font related reasons? Maybe they are trying to avoid auto-banning people for it?

I would think their log tracking system would be able to flag long strings, rapid fire data entry, and a person disconnecting. If nothing else, drop the sender once and then investigate.

Crown · March 23

dvonpm wrote: »

Is it a common string or one that might accidentally occur for font related reasons? Maybe they are trying to avoid auto-banning people for it?

No chance it's common, and discussing bugs and exploits is against forum rules. I just tried going online for a bit and crashed out way too many times. Went offline, and now smooth sailing again.

People have been weaponizing this, and laughing about it when confronted:

@ZOS_Kevin we would love a comment or response about my previous note where it's proven that you have automations watching chats and are able to identify strings (words) being passed.

Crown · March 23

Destai wrote: »

I would think their log tracking system would be able to flag long strings, rapid fire data entry, and a person disconnecting. If nothing else, drop the sender once and then investigate.

One would think..

ForumSavant · March 24

Crown wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

We do want to stress that actioning someone for exploiting it is not just a black and white thing as looking at logs.

Hi @ZOS_Kevin, your statement doesn't make sense. If someone sends someone else a whisper with the content, "IİI" and that crashes people (that string was from another game a while back, found it in a quick google search as I don't want to post the actual one in here), then it should be trivially simple for your back-end admins team to add that string to their search terms, and flag those for the TOS team to review.

We know that your teams don't like to share any information about how they do things. Based on information from other players, we are absolutely certain that there is an automation flagging terms from chats (whispers, group, and guild at least - not certain about zones) and either auto-banning or providing such details to the TOS / support team who then perform the bans. Here's a response from your team that refutes your statement as well. Please note that formal persmission to repost this was requested, and I can provide screen shot of authorization if desired.

There is no conceivable technical reason why you would need reports from people who crashed when you know the string that crashes them and there are still many using it regularly (many of us are playing offline this week as a result).

The lack of communication and clarity is (one of a few reasons) why so many of the player base feel a seething contempt towards your team(s). There is an overabundance of technical skill among us, with many dev and IT teams from other companies among the player base who would be thrilled to offer advice to help (if for whatever reason the knowledge on how to do things like this is missing at ZOS and nobody is able to use a search engine for sample code and examples).

I agree, any string of text causing the crash is more than likely being used maliciously and should result in an automated ban. If people really want to say it wasn't intended they can argue that after they stop crashing people in an appeal, because preventing people from crashing others should be first priority (aside from just fixing the text causing the crash.) They are not transparent enough, I have an entirely different issue where they are 100% aware of a certain group of people intentionally exploiting a set last patch, all reports were filled with proof, including the exploit showcased even on their own game logs, and they refused to give the players punishment. Exploiting is just a joke and they cherry pick who to ban.

Crown · March 24

ForumSavant wrote: »

I have an entirely different issue where they are 100% aware of a certain group of people intentionally exploiting a set last patch, all reports were filled with proof, including the exploit showcased even on their own game logs, and they refused to give the players punishment. Exploiting is just a joke and they cherry pick who to ban.

Three are still a lot of issues of skills not working as intended.. Warden gates pulling people through walls (the same few players have been doing this for months) is a great example:

https://youtu.be/LDbYF53Bc78 noting that while this is obviously done on purpose, there has never been a formal "this is an exploit" statement like the one made way back when you could gap close over non-contiguous ground.

Players who can ignore doors and walls is also a very common one:

https://youtu.be/vepx8XM1hrE This may just be poor coding and particular positioning, but we've tried quite a few times to replicate this and can't seem to do it. This too has never gotten a formal "this is an exploit", so people just keep doing it.

Many of us have reported the players doing these with no results, so either it's not formally an exploit and we can all start doing it, or.. what we have here is a failure to communicate. Reporting doesn't accomplish much, and if it does as @ZOS_Kevin suggests, then the lack of communications and transparency from the ZOS team make the player base truly believe otherwise.

ForumSavant · March 25

Crown wrote: »

ForumSavant wrote: »

I have an entirely different issue where they are 100% aware of a certain group of people intentionally exploiting a set last patch, all reports were filled with proof, including the exploit showcased even on their own game logs, and they refused to give the players punishment. Exploiting is just a joke and they cherry pick who to ban.

Three are still a lot of issues of skills not working as intended.. Warden gates pulling people through walls (the same few players have been doing this for months) is a great example: https://youtu.be/LDbYF53Bc78 noting that while this is obviously done on purpose, there has never been a formal "this is an exploit" statement like the one made way back when you could gap close over non-contiguous ground.

Players who can ignore doors and walls is also a very common one: https://youtu.be/vepx8XM1hrE This may just be poor coding and particular positioning, but we've tried quite a few times to replicate this and can't seem to do it. This too has never gotten a formal "this is an exploit", so people just keep doing it.

Many of us have reported the players doing these with no results, so either it's not formally an exploit and we can all start doing it, or.. what we have here is a failure to communicate. Reporting doesn't accomplish much, and if it does as @ZOS_Kevin suggests, then the lack of communications and transparency from the ZOS team make the player base truly believe otherwise.

I literally just saw the person who was exploiting seekers last patch t-bagging someone on stream after stream sniping them. @ZOS_Kevin this is what I've come to expect of support, and it's sad.

barney2525 · March 25

I understand the response, and see the point in what to do IF one was videoing at the time...
but how would someone who just crashed get a screenshot... since they did not know they were about the crash?

I'm not sure how many people video their games every day, but I do not video mine at all.

SpiritKitten · March 25

What campaign is this?

Bubbles43 · March 26

Had a fun time tonight in Cyrodiil in Grayhost, we went up against Xans/Legion and I got a hard crash had to restart comp. Is this what your all talking about.

doabhi · March 26

Do we know if the use of the PChat addon changes the outcome of this? I haven't witnessed it myself (as far as i know, i've had more than my share of crashes this months though) I'm not blaming pchat, i'm genuinely curious if it's either related or a possible source of mitigation or has no bearing at all.

Aurielle · March 26

doabhi wrote: »

Do we know if the use of the PChat addon changes the outcome of this? I haven't witnessed it myself (as far as i know, i've had more than my share of crashes this months though) I'm not blaming pchat, i'm genuinely curious if it's either related or a possible source of mitigation or has no bearing at all.

Probably unrelated to any add on, as console players had this issue too.

It's curious, though... if this was a known issue on console that was fixed, why was it not preemptively fixed on PC as well?

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · March 26

SpiritKitten wrote: »

What campaign is this?

The player in question was hopping between campaigns / logged in with multiple chars at the time.

Also @Crown you might want to censor the video, Forum bans for showing the names of people exploiting occur at a much greater rate then player bans for actually exploiting sadly.

Crown · March 26

barney2525 wrote: »

Also @Crown you might want to censor the video, Forum bans for showing the names of people exploiting occur at a much greater rate then player bans for actually exploiting sadly.

Based on the ZOS team not declaring a formal exploit, this is just valid play with skills / activities / doors not working as intended, so there's no naming and shaming - same as any other video anyone posts. @ZOS_Hadeostry please confirm if my belief on such is accurate, and if not I'll remove the videos.

Sepultura_13 · March 26

Finally, my suspicions about force crashing have been confirmed! I've seen it happen most often in Cyrodiil, but also had it occur a few times while running dungeons.

I'm amazed that people consider t-bags such an offense. I've never seen anyone get t-bagged "hundreds of times" - more like a quick 1-2-3 in BGs. I've been t-bagged in BGs and Cyrodiil, and pretty much just laugh it off because it's funny.

On a side note, those who harass others in-game deserve massive t-bags and mudballs.

If you don't want to get bagged, quit following others around. Especially when they've politely asked you to stop, multiple times, on multiple occasions.

ElderSmitter · March 26

Wow this is Wild to read about! Never even knew this kind of crap existed. Ban them All!

TechMaybeHic · March 26

I'm sure it's a coincidence there is a guild of players that all run names with variations of the mentioned string

SpiritKitten · March 26

Can someone DM the names of ppl I should be putting on ignore for this? I crashed in Cyro for the first time ever last night. Maybe a coincidence? But I was leading a group so that was not good.

DanteTheDeviant · March 26

ForumSavant wrote: »

I agree wholeheartedly with the most recent comments. Many players do infact weaponize the report system, and whoever the people working at support are, seem to genuinely have an agenda they are trying to serve. I have seen people t-bag hundreds, yes hundreds of times, be reported, with video proof, and follow ups to tickets, and not receive any punishment. I have on the other hand seen people t-bag those same people in retaliation to themselves being t-bagged, and receive bans quicker, even with 0 prior history. The system makes absolutely no sense. I know for a fact there were people ABUSING to no end, the recent exploit that got patched, these people received no ban whatsoever, even though reports from several people with undeniable proof was submitted, tickets responded to, follow-ups replied to, and still nothing. The gaslighting is beyond obvious, there is more of an urgency to ban people for minor infractions than people who exploit game breaking bugs that make you next to invincible in PvP, and that's very telling of the support system as a whole.

T-bagging is specified in ToS!? Really??? I thought that was just a fun competitive joke/thing we all did...

Jaraal · March 27

DanteTheDeviant wrote: »

ForumSavant wrote: »

I agree wholeheartedly with the most recent comments. Many players do infact weaponize the report system, and whoever the people working at support are, seem to genuinely have an agenda they are trying to serve. I have seen people t-bag hundreds, yes hundreds of times, be reported, with video proof, and follow ups to tickets, and not receive any punishment. I have on the other hand seen people t-bag those same people in retaliation to themselves being t-bagged, and receive bans quicker, even with 0 prior history. The system makes absolutely no sense. I know for a fact there were people ABUSING to no end, the recent exploit that got patched, these people received no ban whatsoever, even though reports from several people with undeniable proof was submitted, tickets responded to, follow-ups replied to, and still nothing. The gaslighting is beyond obvious, there is more of an urgency to ban people for minor infractions than people who exploit game breaking bugs that make you next to invincible in PvP, and that's very telling of the support system as a whole.

T-bagging is specified in ToS!? Really??? I thought that was just a fun competitive joke/thing we all did...

Depends on how you react to it. It's not a violation unless you try to turn it into a violation.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6962775/#Comment_6962775

Bitsqueezer · March 27

If there is a known string which can cause crashes to OTHER people - why not simply integrate a filter in the game client? If the client doesn't allow sending the string when it find it no other player would be harmed as the string never reaches the server.

As a side effect the client can send a warning to administrators which client/account tried to use it. So no need to find anything in long log lists.

As the game uses GB of data on the local harddisk it would be no problem to save a local database with a ton of things not to allow in chats...

merevie · March 28

Pretty much all of DC figured out who simply by their vicinity in screenshots and blocked said person within the afternoon he started it. If you're on DC and not sure, ask anyone with a DC discord.