Could ZOS please make their position on boosting for Cyrodill emperor unambiguous?
kiwi_tea
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Hi @ZOS_Kevin and crew.
I'm one of many high-ping players (230ms) who mains in the Blackreach campaign solely because the campaign's performance is better on high ping due to the lower populations. One thing I have noticed in campaigns like Blackreach, Ravenwatch, and Icereach is that they tend to become a playground for a very mercenary kind of player who enjoys "ruling the roost" by any means necessary. These players engage regularly (weekly, if not daily) in activities that I would have thought breached TOS - specifically, boosting alt accounts to secure the emperor position on enemy factions, thereby denying enemy factions access to the emperor buffs, and also parking alt accounts at hammer spawns to run the hammer over to enemy territory. Just stuff that feels against the "spirit" of the game.
I know that, to some degree, this will always be an issue, but these bad actors have acted openly, with impunity, over many years. They are part of the wallpaper. I know people have reported many of their accounts many times to no avail. There are disputes about whether "boosting" - killing alt accounts on a 15 min timer over and over again near a keep to farm big defense AP ticks - is *actually* a breach of Terms of Service or Code of Conduct. It's hard to imagine it would not be. On an intuitive level it *feels* like cheating, and I know nobody prominent on my faction on BR would dare do it - or at least in my guilds - for fear of losing their account. (Also it's a VERY boring way to have to play). But on the other hand, nobody appears to ever lose their account for doing it despite ample reporting - there seems to be a policy of no sanctions for this behaviour.
Is it ZOS's policy that these actions are acceptable? Detailed reports over many years have always come back as "No Violation of the ZeniMax Terms of Service or Code of Conduct occured", and I've seen the first of a methodical and coordinated round of reports with video evidence from multiple perspectives and from multiple people on different factions start to again come back with that same boilerplate. Nobody sane and with a sense of fair play wants to *have to* park by a keep and kill an enemy toon on a timer over and over for an hour, but it does start to feel like that's what ZOS expects us to have to do at times. Is it down to us as players to basically join these malicious players in their anti-sportsmanship if we want to be competitive for Emperor? For better, but mostly for worst, we've all learned to live with the incessant bullying and paranoia this behaviour enables (eg, a player works very hard across a week or so to earn emp with legitimate play, then one of a handful of very conspicuous malicious players comes onto their faction and boosts an alt account ahead in a few hours to punish or harass them).
My questions are:
Is this kind of behaviour *actually* sanctioned by ZOS as many have come to believe, and is our only defense as players to "fight fire with fire"?
Could we please have a clearly worded statement of what ZOS's actual position here is once and for all?
Edited by kiwi_tea on January 14, 2025 3:39AM I'm one of many high-ping players (230ms) who mains in the Blackreach campaign solely because the campaign's performance is better on high ping due to the lower populations. One thing I have noticed in campaigns like Blackreach, Ravenwatch, and Icereach is that they tend to become a playground for a very mercenary kind of player who enjoys "ruling the roost" by any means necessary. These players engage regularly (weekly, if not daily) in activities that I would have thought breached TOS - specifically, boosting alt accounts to secure the emperor position on enemy factions, thereby denying enemy factions access to the emperor buffs, and also parking alt accounts at hammer spawns to run the hammer over to enemy territory. Just stuff that feels against the "spirit" of the game.
I know that, to some degree, this will always be an issue, but these bad actors have acted openly, with impunity, over many years. They are part of the wallpaper. I know people have reported many of their accounts many times to no avail. There are disputes about whether "boosting" - killing alt accounts on a 15 min timer over and over again near a keep to farm big defense AP ticks - is *actually* a breach of Terms of Service or Code of Conduct. It's hard to imagine it would not be. On an intuitive level it *feels* like cheating, and I know nobody prominent on my faction on BR would dare do it - or at least in my guilds - for fear of losing their account. (Also it's a VERY boring way to have to play). But on the other hand, nobody appears to ever lose their account for doing it despite ample reporting - there seems to be a policy of no sanctions for this behaviour.
Is it ZOS's policy that these actions are acceptable? Detailed reports over many years have always come back as "No Violation of the ZeniMax Terms of Service or Code of Conduct occured", and I've seen the first of a methodical and coordinated round of reports with video evidence from multiple perspectives and from multiple people on different factions start to again come back with that same boilerplate. Nobody sane and with a sense of fair play wants to *have to* park by a keep and kill an enemy toon on a timer over and over for an hour, but it does start to feel like that's what ZOS expects us to have to do at times. Is it down to us as players to basically join these malicious players in their anti-sportsmanship if we want to be competitive for Emperor? For better, but mostly for worst, we've all learned to live with the incessant bullying and paranoia this behaviour enables (eg, a player works very hard across a week or so to earn emp with legitimate play, then one of a handful of very conspicuous malicious players comes onto their faction and boosts an alt account ahead in a few hours to punish or harass them).
My questions are:
Is this kind of behaviour *actually* sanctioned by ZOS as many have come to believe, and is our only defense as players to "fight fire with fire"?
Could we please have a clearly worded statement of what ZOS's actual position here is once and for all?
7
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Telel✭✭✭✭✭
✭It's not just AP boosting that's gotten increasingly blatant recently. Score boosting via cross faction coordination has gotten sickeningly prevalent.
Not to mention the sexually aggressive stalkers trying to harass people out of the game. At best those are getting temporary bans which they sidestep by playing one another account for a few days.Character: Telel
Class: Night Blade-Werewolf-viking-ninja-catgirl-mallet wielder
Past times: Refusing to go full magika spec, hitting things with a big hammer, sniping, and speaking in khajiit
Also: Gelel the Derp Knight, Altsel the streaker, and Filafel the temp temp.
Khajiit has a twitch stream! https://twitch.tv/telel_khajiit feel free to come see how truly unskilled Telel is.2 -
kiwi_tea✭✭✭It's not just AP boosting that's gotten increasingly blatant recently. Score boosting via cross faction coordination has gotten sickeningly prevalent.
Not to mention the sexually aggressive stalkers trying to harass people out of the game. At best those are getting temporary bans which they sidestep by playing one another account for a few days.
While it does feel like Cyrodiil is a bit of "wild west" without moderation, I'd like to keep this thread hyper-focused on the practice of boosting - maybe tangentially alt abuse in general - but mostly I'd like to see some clarification of what ZOS's expectations and intent is so players can *safely* decide whether they can fight back in some way, and know what the appropriate options actually are for them to do so.3 -
MincMincMinc✭✭✭✭✭
✭Maybe if cyrodil was designed in a way to work with lower population and reward players based on pvp and not repairing keeps or being afk at a defense tick......We should use the insightful and awesome buttons more2 -
kiwi_tea✭✭✭MincMincMinc wrote: »Maybe if cyrodil was designed in a way to work with lower population and reward players based on pvp and not repairing keeps or being afk at a defense tick......
Cyro's always going to cater to lower APM, broader coalition of players. Reps giving AP, etc. All fine by me. There do need to be rewards for players who are just older with carpal tunnel, or just learning and very casual about brawling, cos that is - like it or not - a huge proportion of players who enjoy Cyrodiil. If they were building out Cyrodiil you'd hope they would incentivise more rewarding opportunities for direct PVP alongside and complementary to the less sweaty masses though. But BGs and dueling are where to go if you just don't like the existence of sieges and walls and doors, tbh.
It feels like the AP system overall is a draft that was never iterated upon. There are way too many perverse incentives and weird quirks an average player would never discover intuitively - like repairing keeps scaling from healing done stat and literally proccing sets with a heal proc requirement, or spamming heals on other players to mooch dticks, etc. The boosting is just the most broken aspect of an unrefined (or, charitably, a poorly communicated) system.
It feels like there must be a super simple way to just eliminate boosting altogether, and it feels weird they've never just made it ineffective and unrewarding over all these years. Even if it lowered the overall AP earnings, it'd be worth it just to eliminate the anti-competitive behaviour from being a factor in gameplay altogether. It doesn't help anyone that it's a viable strategy to boost, it just enables toxic and petty behaviours. Why it's still even physically doable is actually just as good a question to ask as whether it's "allowed".Edited by kiwi_tea on January 14, 2025 8:15AM8 -
Just_Attivi✭✭✭✭✭Considering some players have had emp title stolen from them for years due to boosters (personally only ever got emp once, every other 'big push' was ruined by boosters, despite definitely having had a good amount of months no life-ing this game at one point) It is also a huge factor that pushed yet more people away from pvp.
Personally have witnessed many an emp push by newer players that got outpaced by boosters, only to decide that the pvp in this game isnt worth it, deeming achievements unobtainable. Many of these boosters openly admit to doing it, because worst case, theyll just boost their alt account and continue the cycle.
With this being the year ZOS ''Seriously looks at cyrodiil" maybe yall should actually look into this sort of stuff with some active moderators in game, in particular at off-peak hours when these shenanigans generally happen.5 -
kiwi_tea✭✭✭Just_Attivi wrote: »Considering some players have had emp title stolen from them for years due to boosters (personally only ever got emp once, every other 'big push' was ruined by boosters, despite definitely having had a good amount of months no life-ing this game at one point) It is also a huge factor that pushed yet more people away from pvp.
Personally have witnessed many an emp push by newer players that got outpaced by boosters, only to decide that the pvp in this game isnt worth it, deeming achievements unobtainable. Many of these boosters openly admit to doing it, because worst case, theyll just boost their alt account and continue the cycle.
With this being the year ZOS ''Seriously looks at cyrodiil" maybe yall should actually look into this sort of stuff with some active moderators in game, in particular at off-peak hours when these shenanigans generally happen.
I think having active moderators in PVP would be a huge mistake. I very much doubt they would behave appropriately or objectively even with decent training. I just want to understand what the parameters of the game are according to ZOS. If they don't punish boosting at all, as seems to be the case, then the only solution to the practice is that we all start boosting - which would absolutely suck, but also, be - as many of the boosters already insist - the way ZOS intends us to play.
It would feel awful to do it. It would be a total chore. But having some avenue to openly counter the boosters who routinely boost in order to upset and harass players would be welcome all the same. (Generally if they sense the emp attempt is from a naive player they repeatedly "promise" they'll drop campaign and allow the legit player to emp, but then gleefully never follow through on this "promise"). They do it openly, earning hundreds of thousands of AP in an hour on a dead map where no keeps and resources are flipping, and there are no reps to farm. You can watch them doing it, often in "hidden" areas within keep range, like just over the cliff to the east of Drakelowe Keep. There's a strong sense that it's simply something you can do, and the only sanction will be that you're disliked. I think these players tend to enjoy being disliked, though, so the social repercussions don't matter.
Right now ZOS's moderation of reports suggests boosting against boosters is probably the only option. But it also doesn't feel safe to go ahead and counter them by boosting. It all feels extremely "off" and confusing, and boosters have exploited this ambiguity and ZOS's tolerance/inaction for years and years and years.
We *at least* need to know if boosting is actually allowed, or if this whole situation is just an unfortunate artifact of Cyrodiil's historic neglect.Edited by kiwi_tea on January 14, 2025 6:12AM4 -
kiwi_tea✭✭✭Hmm no statement at all. I'm not surprised. I believe the true answer would go something like this and they are not allowed to say these kinds of things to the public:
"We here at ZOS feel bad that the cheating that goes on in our game upsets you. Unfortunately we do not have the resources available to police all areas of PVP (or even 1 of them) to ensure that players are following the terms of service and spirit of the game. If we could charge 10,000 crowns for each report of rule-breaking, we would spend the time to research all these complaints and do something about them. However, because we cannot properly monetize policing our player base in any way, you're on your own. Either play our game or don't. Love ZOS"
You're welcome
Most of the reports that come in to support from PVP are probably spurious or mistaken. I submitted a mistaken one a few patches ago when I misread an ESOLogs file, which thankfully they saw was my error.
False accusations of cheating, macros, etc, come in thick and fast in PVP for a range of reasons. Boosting is one of the simplest issues to deal with, and support will only act with video evidence as far as I know.
Over in Blackreach we've had a lot of skilled players join the EP faction and disrupt the "balance" this campaign. One particular player was furious and called them "toxic", but they're not toxic, they're just better than all of us. They play really well, and have shared their knowledge of the game with a lot of less skilled players on all factions.
Honestly, it was a breath of fresh air. EP held Emperor a lot early in the campaign. It was oppressive, but well-earned (I'm an AD main). Someone on either DC or AD got angry about the situation and used an alt to boost ahead of the real, skillful EP Emperor. The legit Emp's guild got together one night and filmed the boosting taking place. It was blatant, involving multiple alt accounts whose names were all captured carefully in the footage. Players submitted reports. I did not capture footage, so I did not submit one myself otherwise I'd include ticket numbers.
It was extremely depressing when those reports started coming back as "no breach of TOS". It felt like we had this eruption of skillful, good faith enemies enter Blackreach, only to lose their motivation hard when they encountered the kind of rotten behaviour we have come to... ...not tolerate... ...but grudgingly live with. I think the next campaign might go back to that kind of very nasty behaviour dominating all aspects of the AvA in Blackreach.
I'm concerned that @ZOS_Kevin or anyone else has not replied. If it is not a simple reply, then I'm really fearful the policy from ZOS is not to have an explicit policy about this behaviour. If that is the case, I expect no reply and no closure, but as a player you have to hope and assume the company has a policy they abide by - either this is acceptable, or it is not. It would be a watershed moment for many PVP players if they felt confident what approach to take here in defending themselves against boosting.Edited by kiwi_tea on January 30, 2025 8:55AM5 -
DeadlySerious✭✭✭✭Hmm no statement at all. I'm not surprised. I believe the true answer would go something like this and they are not allowed to say these kinds of things to the public:
"We here at ZOS feel bad that the cheating that goes on in our game upsets you. Unfortunately we do not have the resources available to police all areas of PVP (or even 1 of them) to ensure that players are following the terms of service and spirit of the game. If we could charge 10,000 crowns for each report of rule-breaking, we would spend the time to research all these complaints and do something about them. However, because we cannot properly monetize policing our player base in any way, you're on your own. Either play our game or don't. Love ZOS"
You're welcome
Most of the reports that come in to support from PVP are probably spurious or mistaken. I submitted a mistaken one a few patches ago when I misread an ESOLogs file, which thankfully they saw was my error.
False accusations of cheating, macros, etc, come in thick and fast in PVP for a range of reasons. Boosting is one of the simplest issues to deal with, and support will only act with video evidence as far as I know.
Over in Blackreach we've had a lot of skilled players join the EP faction and disrupt the "balance" this campaign. One particular player was furious and called them "toxic", but they're not toxic, they're just better than all of us. They play really well, and have shared their knowledge of the game with a lot of less skilled players on all factions.
Honestly, it was a breath of fresh air. EP held Emperor a lot early in the campaign. It was oppressive, but well-earned (I'm an AD main). Someone on either DC or AD got angry about the situation and used an alt to boost ahead of the real, skillful EP Emperor. The legit Emp's guild got together one night and filmed the boosting taking place. It was blatant, involving multiple alt accounts whose names were all captured carefully in the footage. Players submitted reports. I did not capture footage, so I did not submit one myself otherwise I'd include ticket numbers.
It was extremely depressing when those reports started coming back as "no breach of TOS". It felt like we had this eruption of skillful, good faith enemies enter Blackreach, only to lose their motivation hard when they encountered the kind of rotten behaviour we have come to... ...not tolerate... ...but grudgingly live with. I think the next campaign might go back to that kind of very nasty behaviour dominating all aspects of the AvA in Blackreach.
I'm concerned that @ZOS_Kevin or anyone else has not replied. If it is not a simple reply, then I'm really fearful the policy from ZOS is not to have an explicit policy about this behaviour. If that is the case, I expect no reply and no closure, but as a player you have to hope and assume the company has a policy they abide by - either this is acceptable, or it is not. It would be a watershed moment for many PVP players if they felt confident what approach to take here in defending themselves against boosting.
If ZOS publicly stated boosting was against the ToS then they'd be expected to police the behavior. <snip>
<snipped for Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation>Edited by ZOS_Hadeostry on January 30, 2025 8:57PM5 -
kiwi_tea✭✭✭DeadlySerious wrote: »If ZOS publicly stated boosting was against the ToS then they'd be expected to police the behavior.
It wouldn't necessarily imply an *active* moderation. It would, however, imply that reports with clear video evidence would result in action of some kind.
<edited out snipped part of quote>Edited by ZOS_Hadeostry on January 30, 2025 8:53PM1 -
malistorr✭✭✭✭Just see my response above and you'll get the real answer. Even though it was "tongue in cheek". It really is how things work at ZOS and most gaming companies. Maybe they'll come on here and answer and try to say otherwise, but I know the truth. I think most of you do too.2
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reazea✭✭✭✭✭
✭DeadlySerious wrote: »If ZOS publicly stated boosting was against the ToS then they'd be expected to police the behavior.
It wouldn't necessarily imply an *active* moderation. It would, however, imply that reports with clear video evidence would result in action of some kind.
<edited out snipped part of quote>
ZOS only very rarely takes action even against the most toxic of behaviors in Cyrodiil, even when copious amounts of evidence including videos and chat evidence are presented. There is one player on PC NA that has had more than 50 videos of them misbehaving and talking smack in chat have been provided to ZOS and they STILL haven't done anything about it.
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kiwi_tea✭✭✭Just see my response above and you'll get the real answer. Even though it was "tongue in cheek". It really is how things work at ZOS and most gaming companies. Maybe they'll come on here and answer and try to say otherwise, but I know the truth. I think most of you do too.
The problem does become that comments like this make the whole thread look like a public relations "trap". How can the devs speak freely with this amount of ill will?
I understand that the ill will has been *earned* through years of neglect, and that ZOS cannot openly acknowledge (or even really dispute) that without probably making matters worse. I do think it's an objective fact and a problem that there has been a communication breakdown between PVP players and devs. I doubt the devs *wanted* to neglect PVP the way they did. There were likely many decisions outside their control that led to the famine of PVP updates, bug fixes, refinements that has plagued ESO for 5+ years, but...
...the devs do need to be able to communicate without a deluge of directionless hostility when they make so much as a peep about PVP. They cannot fix anything, or earn back any trust, if we make it generally impossible for them to communicate with us.
Do I have faith that PVP will see better days in ESO? No. I don't. I think they left this years and years and years too long, and let the issues bloat out of their control. I also think they won't maintain or refine whatever they do any more than they've maintained and refine PVP over the past decade. Look at BGs. Can losing players still time out teammates so they don't earn anything? I don't think I've seen that fixed in patch notes, even though it was an urgent issue last year. I hope I'm wrong, and I've just missed it. Even if they develop a vision for PVP, the studio might only apportion time and resources to see it maybe a quarter of the way through - similar to hybridisation which began, then abruptly stopped.
Obviously I'm skeptical, at this point, but not completely cynical.
Do we want to prematurely stifle the chance that the devs can pull off a miracle? I've worked in departments where we've been asked to work miracles with inadequate time and resources. I suspect that's the norm in game development as it was in my former field. Sometimes, people find a way to pull it off, and I want to give PVP in ESO a chance at thriving, which means letting the devs *try*, and letting them speak to us more freely than we currently do.
All of this may be moot. I have no clue why the devs are not responding to this request, but maybe it is even that they don't think they can without people turning on them?1 -
xylena_lazarow✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I thought it was unambiguous that this is fine as long as no third-party tools are involved. They've stated from the beginning that cross-faction communication and cooperation is allowed.PC/NA || Cyro/BGs || RIP old PvP build system || bring Vengeance2 -
kiwi_tea✭✭✭xylena_lazarow wrote: »I thought it was unambiguous that this is fine as long as no third-party tools are involved. They've stated from the beginning that cross-faction communication and cooperation is allowed.
It is ambiguous because, while you state that, I've heard otherwise many times from many people. At any rate, this isn't cross faction collaboration, which I do myself (eg, hanging out a door strategically helping enemy faction secure a keep), this is one, maybe two people using a range of alt accounts to deny emperor to opposing factions frequently across several years. The emperor account exists only to be boosted higher than the opposition's highest real player.Edited by kiwi_tea on January 31, 2025 5:21PM1 -
StaticWave✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭DeadlySerious wrote: »If ZOS publicly stated boosting was against the ToS then they'd be expected to police the behavior.
It wouldn't necessarily imply an *active* moderation. It would, however, imply that reports with clear video evidence would result in action of some kind.
<edited out snipped part of quote>
ZOS only very rarely takes action even against the most toxic of behaviors in Cyrodiil, even when copious amounts of evidence including videos and chat evidence are presented. There is one player on PC NA that has had more than 50 videos of them misbehaving and talking smack in chat have been provided to ZOS and they STILL haven't done anything about it.
What faction is that player on?0 -
reazea✭✭✭✭✭
✭StaticWave wrote: »DeadlySerious wrote: »If ZOS publicly stated boosting was against the ToS then they'd be expected to police the behavior.
It wouldn't necessarily imply an *active* moderation. It would, however, imply that reports with clear video evidence would result in action of some kind.
<edited out snipped part of quote>
ZOS only very rarely takes action even against the most toxic of behaviors in Cyrodiil, even when copious amounts of evidence including videos and chat evidence are presented. There is one player on PC NA that has had more than 50 videos of them misbehaving and talking smack in chat have been provided to ZOS and they STILL haven't done anything about it.
What faction is that player on?
The player I am referring to is on PC NA greyhost and plays on DC. I'm sure there are others out there if this guy can get away with such toxic behavior for so long after so many reports WITH VIDEO EVIDENCE. It just kinda makes a mockery of the ToS when some people get away with anything and everything like this.
Is the person you're thinking of also PC NA Grey Host playing a DC toon too?1 -
darvaria✭✭✭✭✭Even with evidence of hammer turn over, nothing gets done. The offender even responds in zone chat, KNOWING nothing will be done. Turning over hammer is "fair" game play. I see numerous instances of cheating by DC players. There was a DC player last night reporting FC locations. I heard them on discord. I have a collection of discord accounts given to me from players that have left the game, many of them with admin. ZOS has said "spying" is fair play ... so I guess this is "fair" play. Nothing heard/recorded on discord can be considered by ZOS, so I have been told. The cheating and spying in this game is too far gone now. I'm at the point I no longer care about the PVP in this game.
ZOS should just get rid of the hammer. Worst thing they could do was to add it back to BR. They need to get rid of emp on those other campaigns. There is NO integrity in this game now. If you complain too much you will stalked and harassed. if you take retribution, make SURE nothing will be traced to you or you will be stalked and harassed.
Edited by darvaria on February 20, 2025 2:39AM3 -
Bubosh✭✭✭@ZOS_Kevin statement about exploit ap boosting in cyrodiil via enemie keep defense/attack ticks? some ppl are climbing up like in that way to get to emperor and others who spent days up without sleeping which are trying to get emp title are losing it beccause of ppl gaining ap ticks in such exploitive way. Please kevin give us finally feedback on that. Emp title and rank etc is pointless if ppl can exploit to 1. on leaderboard in that way and others having to spent like literally 24h to stay up on that place xD please statement2 -
kiwi_tea✭✭✭@ZOS_Kevin statement about exploit ap boosting in cyrodiil via enemie keep defense/attack ticks? some ppl are climbing up like in that way to get to emperor and others who spent days up without sleeping which are trying to get emp title are losing it beccause of ppl gaining ap ticks in such exploitive way. Please kevin give us finally feedback on that. Emp title and rank etc is pointless if ppl can exploit to 1. on leaderboard in that way and others having to spent like literally 24h to stay up on that place xD please statement
I feel like we might not hear back. We also might, but seems doubtful at this point. Either way, I cancelled my ESO plus in response to the radio silence. It doesn't end til June or July cos I usually go for the yearly sub. Sad, but I know what it means when a large company simply does not respond to a good faith question. I'm not paying to be treated with "professional" contempt. Sad to be proven wrong, given I've backed the company and called for giving ZOS some grace and patience quite a bit in recent threads in recent months. It won't make much difference. Losing one paying customer over a "niche" issue isn't going to trouble them.
I'm just frustrated because this seems like such a straightforward issue. Very hard to understand.1 -
TheValkyn✭✭✭✭✭
✭xylena_lazarow wrote: »I thought it was unambiguous that this is fine as long as no third-party tools are involved. They've stated from the beginning that cross-faction communication and cooperation is allowed.
This is so far from the truth and is pure misinformation. When they ban you for boosting it’s called “win trading” in the support email you receive right after being permanently banned.
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RealLoveBVB✭✭✭✭✭
✭I've recorded and reported several boosters already, which got banned. Important is the video proof I guess.
There is also a rule in code of conduct, where it states something like "playing in favor for the enemy is forbidden", which includes suiciding to create def ticks.0 -
SpiritofESO✭✭✭✭I have addressed this very serious PVP Citadel exploit in the five bugs and five pain points thread.
It is against, I believe, ESO's intentions of having fair gameplay to allow a few individuals to use exploitive "boosting" in Cyrodiil to monopolize the Emperor position... yet it has been done continuously for years.
I suggested, and I suggest again, to put on one or more limitations for earning the position and title of Emperor or Empress.
ONCE per year, per account, I believe, is a good way to fix this serious player exploit.
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~ PS NA ~ ALDMERI DOMINION ~~ "SPIRIT GOLDBLADE" WOOD ELF NIGHTBLADE ~~ GRAND OVERLORD ~ FORMER EMPRESS ~~ The "SPIRIT GOLDBLADE" Channel on YouTube ~"Adapt or Die"
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RealLoveBVB✭✭✭✭✭
✭SpiritofESO wrote: »ONCE per year, per account, I believe, is a good way to fix this serious player exploit.
And what's your suggestion to "fix" this besides reporting and banning them?
There is no way to automatically recognise, whether a kill is legit or boosted.
They could still put some sort of automatic alert, when one player dies continously on a keep to the same player again and again.
Edited by RealLoveBVB on March 11, 2025 9:40PM0 -
kiwi_tea✭✭✭RealLoveBVB wrote: »SpiritofESO wrote: »ONCE per year, per account, I believe, is a good way to fix this serious player exploit.
And what's your suggestion to "fix" this besides reporting and banning them?
There is no way to automatically recognise, whether a kill is legit or boosted.
They could still put some sort of automatic alert, when one player dies continously on a keep to the same player again and again.
Boosters usually kill alts across a range of keeps. They kill one in a hidden spot on one keep grounds. Kill one on a hidden spot in 2nd keep grounds. Etc. On a rotation. It makes it much easier to hide, and much harder to film without a coordinated group - preferably nightblades - so you can follow them undetected. It also means much faster AP gain to climb the emp ladder much, much faster than any legit player can possibly match no matter how efficiently they manage the AP system.0 -
RealLoveBVB✭✭✭✭✭
✭RealLoveBVB wrote: »SpiritofESO wrote: »ONCE per year, per account, I believe, is a good way to fix this serious player exploit.
And what's your suggestion to "fix" this besides reporting and banning them?
There is no way to automatically recognise, whether a kill is legit or boosted.
They could still put some sort of automatic alert, when one player dies continously on a keep to the same player again and again.
Boosters usually kill alts across a range of keeps. They kill one in a hidden spot on one keep grounds. Kill one on a hidden spot in 2nd keep grounds. Etc. On a rotation. It makes it much easier to hide, and much harder to film without a coordinated group - preferably nightblades - so you can follow them undetected. It also means much faster AP gain to climb the emp ladder much, much faster than any legit player can possibly match no matter how efficiently they manage the AP system.
I am aware how this works and as said, catched many boosters already. I was asking, how a automated system would detect such boosters, as someone was asking for a "fix".
Detecting boosters as player is not that hard anymore, as there is the kill feed now.
Boosters have to stay in keep range to generate a def tick, which means, you can see the kills in a kill feed when just staying in that same keep or often see a combat cross on some keep corner.
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edges_endgame✭✭✭✭Over in Blackreach we've had a lot of skilled players join the EP faction and disrupt the "balance" this campaign. One particular player was furious and called them "toxic", but they're not toxic, they're just better than all of us. They play really well, and have shared their knowledge of the game with a lot of less skilled players on all factions.
Honestly, it was a breath of fresh air. EP held Emperor a lot early in the campaign. It was oppressive, but well-earned (I'm an AD main). Someone on either DC or AD got angry about the situation and used an alt to boost ahead of the real, skillful EP Emperor. The legit Emp's guild got together one night and filmed the boosting taking place. It was blatant, involving multiple alt accounts whose names were all captured carefully in the footage. Players submitted reports. I did not capture footage, so I did not submit one myself otherwise I'd include ticket numbers.
It was extremely depressing when those reports started coming back as "no breach of TOS". It felt like we had this eruption of skillful, good faith enemies enter Blackreach, only to lose their motivation hard when they encountered the kind of rotten behaviour we have come to... ...not tolerate... ...but grudgingly live with. I think the next campaign might go back to that kind of very nasty behaviour dominating all aspects of the AvA in Blackreach.
I'm concerned that @ZOS_Kevin or anyone else has not replied. If it is not a simple reply, then I'm really fearful the policy from ZOS is not to have an explicit policy about this behaviour. If that is the case, I expect no reply and no closure, but as a player you have to hope and assume the company has a policy they abide by - either this is acceptable, or it is not. It would be a watershed moment for many PVP players if they felt confident what approach to take here in defending themselves against boosting.
Have you seen the video?Edited by edges_endgame on March 13, 2025 10:09AM0 -
kiwi_tea✭✭✭
No. I never saw the videos, I just helped track down the players in their hidey holes on keep grounds without being detected. I know the filmers went to lengths to ensure all account names involved were clear and visible in the recordings. About 5 people filmed the accounts doing it, not sure how many submitted tickets, but at least 2 did as far as I'm aware. That's about all I know about that specific time.edges_endgame wrote: »Have you seen the video?Edited by kiwi_tea on March 13, 2025 1:20PM0 -
darvaria✭✭✭✭✭
Not to mention the sexually aggressive stalkers trying to harass people out of the game. At best those are getting temporary bans which they sidestep by playing one another account for a few days.
No one will accept this as true. This has gotten to the point where my husband doesn't want me playing this game any more.
ZOS needs to stop letting players log on the game from VPN's. Just yesterday, this creepy player admitted to having a toon parked on EP while main on AD.
As for hammer, they should REMOVE it from game.
Edited by darvaria on March 13, 2025 2:55PM0 -
malistorr✭✭✭✭The answer is no. Same answer for will they fix the stuck in combat bug/problem that has plagued PVP since the game started.0