If this is a wargame, and scouting and spying is part of war, you can't ban a player for doing gaming things. That's like banning a player for killing another player and taking their loot.

It's the game.

If you see a spy, tell people, so they can go fight it.

Umbracat449 wrote: »

If this is a wargame, and scouting and spying is part of war, you can't ban a player for doing gaming things. That's like banning a player for killing another player and taking their loot.

It's the game.

If you see a spy, tell people, so they can go fight it.

If you actually read what my post, you'd see that I already addressed your "counter point". Holding a spy for treason and taking them out of existence is part of war also. Lots of times spies are killed by the government they were spying on. Banning the account from PvP activities or the game itself is the same thing as deleting the person in real life.

You argument doesn't hold water at all.

sshogrin wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

So enter and form up via the sewers instead of up the ladders, then gank the gankers.

Read my comment again. The spies are in the sewers in the ladder room.
Most of the time people don't actually group up anymore. It's sad.

Yes, they're in the ladder room. So enter through the sewers instead of up the ladders.

And quite honestly, it's not hard to gather the troops and all go up a ladder together. Going it alone is rarely the greatest idea. PvP-101.

Something seriously needs to be done about the spying in faction-locked campaigns like Gray Host. There are people who relay zone chat to the other factions, sometimes by streaming it on Twitch. Some people even have multiple accounts and play on multiple factions at the same time with multiple game clients.

Faction lock isn't doing enough. Nobody trusts zone chat because faction lock is so insecure. If you want people to cooperate and act like they're on the same team, you have to make sure spying is outright impossible.

Is it really so much to ask that people don't try to bypass faction lock? Zone chat is limited to your faction only for a reason, and any way to show zone chat to the other factions should be considered an exploit. It's absolutely shameful that people will go as far as livestreaming your faction's zone chat for all to see, and even more embarrassing that ZOS does nothing about it.


If it requires external tools like Discord or Twitch to do, it's likely unintended and should not be endorsed by ZOS. On that note, we should have the ability to directly communicate with players on other factions (such as by mail, by guild chat, and by whispering directly) while in a faction-locked campaign disabled. Make sure that we can't send messages while in Gray Host to anyone not locked to that same faction on Gray Host. We already can't group with people on opposing factions, and this change would further reinforce the idea that communicating with your enemies is off limits. There was once a bug on consoles that accidentally enabled cross-faction proximity voice chat that ZOS fixed, so we know that ZOS would not approve of cross-faction communication.

Umbracat449 wrote: »

If this is a wargame, and scouting and spying is part of war, you can't ban a player for doing gaming things. That's like banning a player for killing another player and taking their loot.

It's the game.

If you see a spy, tell people, so they can go fight it.

Players have been banned for having multiple accounts open at the same time in order to spy on the other side.

sshogrin wrote: »

I have noticed players standing around in the ladder room in IC watching players go up the ladders to a city zone, then "magically" players from another faction show up. When a player hasn't moved in 10 minutes, we know something is up, and they're telling their friends, or even using another account, where players are going.

How do we know whether a player whose character is standing motionless for 10 minutes is spying as you claim, or is simply AFK doing something else in the real world? A few examples might be a streamer chatting with their viewers, or someone who is taking a bio break, making a snack, talking on the phone, feeding a pet, or seeing to anything else that might need to be dealt with. Note, I'm not questioning whether spying actually occurs on occasion; I am just wondering how I'm supposed to know that someone who's just standing around is spying, so I don't inadvertently report an AFK player for spying when they really weren't.

sshogrin wrote: »

There is a big problem with spying in Cyrodiil and IC.
We need a way to report these players and accounts for spying, then hold them accountable for treason like in the real world.
I understand that people argue that spying is a part of war, and so is holding spies accountable.
We can use the in-game report for a player/account, but nothing is done about that.
I have noticed players standing around in the ladder room in IC watching players go up the ladders to a city zone, then "magically" players from another faction show up. When a player hasn't moved in 10 minutes, we know something is up, and they're telling their friends, or even using another account, where players are going. This is spying and the account/player needs to be held accountable. That is how real war works when a spy is found, they are either imprisoned or held for treason and removed from the world. The same thing should happen. The spy accounts should be either banned from any and all PvP action or have their account banned completely.
We have spying going on in Cyrodiil also. The same thing should apply to that zone also. People will spy and while they're in Discord with their friends on a different faction, so nobody is really grouping up solo players looking for group, and zone chat has nothing but social discussions going on, so it's hard for solo players to actually know what's going on and where to go.
This is a problem that needs to be addressed ASAP. If players know they will be banned in all PvP activity for spying, or have their accounts banned, things will change.

sshogrin wrote: »

Umbracat449 wrote: »

If this is a wargame, and scouting and spying is part of war, you can't ban a player for doing gaming things. That's like banning a player for killing another player and taking their loot.

It's the game.

If you see a spy, tell people, so they can go fight it.

If you actually read what my post, you'd see that I already addressed your "counter point". Holding a spy for treason and taking them out of existence is part of war also. Lots of times spies are killed by the government they were spying on. Banning the account from PvP activities or the game itself is the same thing as deleting the person in real life.

You argument doesn't hold water at all.

My opinion is based mostly on my Cyrodiil perspective. Spying has been part of warfare since ancient times. It is simply a part of existence even in times of peace (e.g., corporate spying). And although I can understand the frustration to a certain degree, banning accounts is just an extremely unfair proposition.

The fact that there are spies to deal with in Cyrodiil adds an extra layer of challenge to the activity. Factions have to find other ways to coordinate their objectives, since the zone chat is insecure (e.g., create specific guilds meant exclusively for coordination, and where members are selected very carefully). Just like IRL, war plans are classified and accessible only to players who have the clearance; nobody publishes their war objectives in tabloids IRL either. You can also use the zone chat to deceive and mislead your enemies.
That makes the game more interesting; it reflects the real world accurately, and so it makes Cyrodiil more immersive. Without spies, Cyrodiil gameplay would be much more dull, trivial, and boring.

Also, asking for banning accounts isn't demanding that the government solve the issue. ZOS isn't the government; your faction leaders, zone commanders, and guild masters are the government. What you are asking for is equivalent to requesting a divine intervention—you're demanding that the heavens strike your enemies with fireballs out of existence.

LOL. Khajiit wants to start spying now. Such srs bzns. EP toons, prepare to launch!

sshogrin wrote: »

Umbracat449 wrote: »

If this is a wargame, and scouting and spying is part of war, you can't ban a player for doing gaming things. That's like banning a player for killing another player and taking their loot.

It's the game.

If you see a spy, tell people, so they can go fight it.

If you actually read what my post, you'd see that I already addressed your "counter point". Holding a spy for treason and taking them out of existence is part of war also. Lots of times spies are killed by the government they were spying on. Banning the account from PvP activities or the game itself is the same thing as deleting the person in real life.

You argument doesn't hold water at all.

Taking them out of things WHILE IN THE GAME. Not in real life. Dude. You can't penalise someone from playing a game by the rules of the game, by banning them from the game.

Have players able to shove them in some cell they have to crack a code to get out of, or something IN GAME. Or, just fight them yourself instead of trying to get zos to stop them for you.

But you can't seriously think irl actions are appropriate for in game playing, that's within the rules.

It sure is a crazy take wanting people literally banned from the game for playing differently than one likes. I got a chuckle out of this, thank you.

Shocking post

The main problem is that so many sore losers in this game's pvp that are trying to accuse others with cheating or spying and they actively try to give that player a ban by reporting anything really. It is mainly because ZoS is involving too much in PvP regarding bans, and these sore losers try to take advantage of this as a revenge when they can't do anything playing the game itself. Stuff like tbagging etc.

I am already recording any unusual interaction i have when for example people begin to start whispering using some keywords like "griefing" or "please stop this please stop that". Or when they say i am just attacking reds or whatever and i am spying etc. That is when i know they are not geniunie and up to something. Probably recording some clips for a report etc. Even when you just kill same person twice in their castle while they are coming to your direction constantly, some of them still whisper stuff like you are griefing and they are going to report you, which is actually the most usual way of PvP ever.

So, in such a sore loser environment, and under so extreme ban involvement of ZoS in PvP, banning suspected spies will just lead to sore losers trying to get other players banned, like how it is with tbagging and emotes currently. Because maybe there is 1% of player base that is geniunely hurt by tbags, and then there are 99% that are trying to take revenge by abusing the ban system in PvP.

And also in the end, you maybe see some friends on the other faction and you dont want to attack them or you just want to chill for a while doing nothing. Do you want to report me every second i am not attacking other faction players?