Suspended without warning?

Hi Devs,

I put in a ticket about my base being deleted in PvE(C) the other day. One morning I log in and a base that has stood for over 2 years is completely gone. (Yes this is essentially PvE luxury).

I have ~1000h in the game and all of them in that server on that base - it was a work of art, no function at all and no doors except my log out room. Literally a tourist attraction for Aus server 1972.

I later found that apparently I was blocking some sort of spawn point and was not only missing my base but suspended from playing!

My issue is I had absolutely no warning. I would have complied without complaint and deleted whatever necessary had I known there was a problem - but considering the longevity of the base this was very out of the blue.

Thanks for nothing.

16 Likes

First time poster here, long time lurker. This has been my main non PVP server since late 2018, I know T******x and I know his build.

T******x never broke any rules, he made the server a better place to login to and made the game a funner place to be.

I watched his build slowly progress over the years into the stunning and beautiful piece of art that it was. Itā€™s a crime and sheer insanity that the effort, work and passion that went into this project is just gone. No rhyme or reason, no warnings, no logic, itā€™s evil, pure evil and whoever made this decision without at least giving him some warning or a chance to reduce his build needs to re-think whatever flawed process they used to make this WRONG deletion.

His build did NOT block any spawn points, pure and unadulterated hog-wash, (unless you mean basic rock and tree nodes, then you should ban everyone!), his build was THE tourist attraction of the server, open to all to navigate and marvel at.

Banning him on top of wiping 2+ years of work, nice, so whatever other builds he has on other servers will now decay as well? What is wrong with you guys, do you think these sorts of decapitation for a stubbed toe decisions will make the game better? Or maybe just maybe it will drive long-time players away from the game with associated negative press spewing onto social media outlets?

Fix this mess, have a proper procedure in place that differentiates between fair players and obvious spammers, hackers and cheaters. Donā€™t lump them all into the same basket with the same punishments and lack of warnings, itā€™s idiotic at best and will kill your game at worst.

P.S. Most of all make the rules for wiping TRANSPARENT, donā€™t hide them under meaningless drivel like ā€œblocking spawn pointsā€, or, ā€œtoo bigā€, tell us exactly what this means, what type of spawn points, how many spawn points, how many foundations, how many place-ables and give people some warning if they are not obviously spamming or cheating. Itā€™s all just so sadā€¦

10 Likes

This actually raises an interesting point. You build a base. Itā€™s been there for months, a year, moreā€¦ Last update, Funcom adds a new spawn point for some rare thrall or resource or something. Youā€™re now in violation of the rule against blocking spawn points. A, lets say ā€œveteranā€ admin who is familiar with your structure might be willing to give you a pass or warn you about it. But along comes an admin who is a newbie or otherwise is not familiar with your particular server/build. For them itā€™s simple. Youā€™re blocking the spawn point.

Not saying this is what transpired in your case, but itā€™s an interesting conundrum.

6 Likes

Welcome to the club. Happened to me twice. In my case even paired with a ban. Up to this day , I donā€™t know what I did wrong, because all I got as information was ā€œbuilding abuseā€, so I assume size as nothing was blocked.
Malicious reporting has become a troll meta, but I am also experiencing that fc is looking more closely by now and not banning anymore.
But it hurts, although we know that the stuff we build on pve is not meant to last forever, in my case, something that has grown over more than 4k hours, just was gone.
I know build less prominent and much smaller

3 Likes

Wow, I heard your base de-spawned and saw that your temples were no longer on the mapā€¦i assumed decay. To hear that your base was dev wiped is utterly messed up.

I will second Yupā€™s comment. Theatrix has played on 1972 for years now, he has always been a friendly and helpful member of the 72 community.

His base was fantastic, one of the best Iā€™ve ever seen. Extremely well decorated, every part of it crafted with amazing attention to detail, every thrall named appropriately. The whole place was filled with little stories that made it a joy to explore.

It was always fun to see the excitement when new players would stumble across it and express their awe at what was possible to do in the game.

Absolutely ridiculous to wipe and suspend such an upstanding longtime player. Because of a sudden rule change? That is not even clearly defined anywhere?

Why even allow building in places that will get you suddenly wiped without warning? What the hell.

There seriously needs to be an improvement with communication regarding the rules and their enforcement.

Funcom should be ashamed.

7 Likes

like i said in another thread. all it takes is some salty clan to mass report you and youā€™re outtie.

6 Likes

Now imagine the PvP-Exploit territory:

You are joining a PvP clan. They are ā€œcleanā€ players and you can confirm that.

Suddenly 2 weeks later: boom, banned.

You question yourself: ā€œwhy?ā€

Little did you know, that this clan once had a member who built an undermesh base that is long forgotten in a busy area where all clan members passed by so it never decays.

5 Likes

I have no real information that I can tell if it was legit or not. Where was it at? How many foundational pieces? How many memory intensive placeables?

However i understand the issue here and I think FC needs to do something because the game can lead to MASSIVE builds that they actually promote in their building contests. We need more than just PVP,PVE, and PVE-C. Maybe PVE-builders which only allows ten people on. Iā€™m just spit-balling here.

2 Likes

Yeah I canā€™t have sympathy there. I donā€™t believe someone in the clan just goes rogue without anyone else knowing and secretly builds an undermesh base. Whoever fed you that line of BS is LYING. We build and we share with our clanmates. I would bet money that the clan leader at the time knew dang well what was being built. No one in a clan just builds and not shares what they are doingā€¦especially when using exploits (because every exploiter I have EVER met are very proud of their find and how they maximized its effect). While I believe there are innocent folks that join up with clans that get caught up in the pastā€¦I donā€™t buy that the clan had no idea about this illegal build or that walling off resourcesā€¦Please! Just goes to show that you have to be really diligent on how you choose who you team up with. Should be anyways since you loose everything you have done solo to that point butā€¦some folks donā€™t understand that either.

1 Like

I canā€™t really have sympathy for anyone who complain about rules and yet agreed to them.

Just you all know, by having characters on officials you agree to the rules. If you donā€™t agree to the rules and donā€™t wish to be actioned, then your recourse is to stop playing on those servers.

Its pretty simple, play on servers who have rules you agree with.

1 Like

Thatā€™s the ticket. Fewer players on Officials, quite the panacea.

You are being disingenuous.

Case in point: If you built atop Klaelā€™s Plateau, abutting the Warmaker Ruins prior to Warmaker Dungeonā€™s release, you now have a permanently glitched base. If you placed your Followers on the ruins, you have a ridiculous advantage over other players.

BAM Warmakerā€™s drops, all of a sudden the situation has changed. Please donā€™t tell me I violated some TOS by emplacing a perfectly legal base one minute, then have it adjudged illegal the next. This would range into the realm of False Claims on the ToS, especially if weā€™re never expected to update our assent to them.

3 Likes

I stand strongly WITH the OPā€¦ a message with clear details, of what u r blocking and where should appear upon logging in the serverā€¦ the message should clear out the days u have (yes days , as some bases took a really long time to be madeā€¦

Now i do not categorise the griefer in the same spot as a builder , but the number of days should differ from the dmg is doneā€¦ So lets say a player that despawned a religion trainer should get 24 hrs, and the one who surrounds a player an immediate one(as this shows intentions), but a builder that his base existed before a spawn point should get a weekā€¦

For FC: unless u have another side of the story (cause here we see the players opinion ), i would even suggest a server rollback to correct thisā€¦

2 Likes

Whatā€™s this now? I donā€™t believe Iā€™ve ever insinuated any specific individual was a liar - other than to say all normal human beings are - without exception. We canā€™t really say people do not lieā€¦ and we for sure cannot say this and other fault/blame/discipline matrices arenā€™t some of the most common things people lie about. Welcome to humanity. And this all added to by ignorance (not even knowing) of violations and etc. thus claiming something when they didnā€™t know the reality of the situation.

The OPā€™s main gripe is the lack of any warning so that they could remedy or correct their error. Thatā€™s been covered a billion septillion times already here in this forum (see, told ya we all lie! :smiley: ) with the basic conclusion being that such warnings and checks would more than double the workload of Admins trying to do an already very labor intensive job. If you wanna pay $90 for the CE base game in order to pay for that I think youā€™ll find yourself in a very lonely camp - could be wrong.

I do think that a heads up sort of warning might be nice. Like: On this date, at this time (approx) your base will be destroyed for violations xyz - prepare accordingly. Further violations will result in a server wide ban of your account and the accounts of all of your currently enlisted clan members.

But nice is nice, when they are (apparently) just up and banning people for 1st offence violations. @Theatrix apparently was not also banned so maybe FC have finally understood that point at least - progress?

  • On demolitions I think and have suggested several times that such should be a game mechanic or at least appear as one - rather than looking like the heavy hand of a strict and unforgiving company enforcing itā€™s rules. So then the message would not be On this date, at this timeā€¦ but rather: You have angered the gods with your abominable affront to their lands bla bla blaā€¦ and a purge-like countdown be initiated resulting in a god or gods destroying everything with no player defending actions being affective. Basically like it is now but the gods do it as part of the game. And then a server log entry maybe that explains the infractions which triggered it.

These demolitions are going to continueā€¦ Because people continue on in their ignorance. Case in point is the PVE server I play on. Six bases over the past month or so have been demolished for just absurd and ridiculous building practices. But guess what, now there are 12 n00bs who just today or soon will be level 60 - and what do their structures look like? Worse, MUCH worse than what was just demolished. Spam block covering the hills and planes, pointless walkways going hither and yonā€¦ Buildings much worse looking going up right where others were deleted for being in a disruptive or bad place. So ultimately, warnings and checks are just not going to serve any function other than to help bankrupt Funcom - not something weā€™re likely in favor of Iā€™m sure.

So, whatā€™s your idea of a solution then?

2 Likes

I recently took nut punches from all angles, in my own dang thread, of all places. The intended goal is to make you look ā€œmean,ā€ and to degrade the topic until it derails. Some of them are quite systematic at it, almost like itā€™s coordinated. A shame, really. But as long as itā€™s not WASD they can PvP with a keyboard to beat the band!!

Good to see you back. The situation stinks.

@Theatrix: I used a VPN to tour there one time, it was magical. We build, ultimately to lose, Exile.

4 Likes

Asking for clarification to get a complete understanding of the circumstances is completely different than calling someone a liar. Do you think everyone is obligated to believe every claim that you make? Thatā€™s a pretty entitled attitude you have and itā€™s completely hypocritical to say that others are on their high horse for questioning you.

2 Likes

I donā€™t know if youā€™ve done this yet or not but supposedly you can submit a ticket via zen desk and theyā€™ll tell you why your base was demolished (supposedly).

Out of curiosity, where was your base and how much land did it cover?

3 Likes

A couple of months ago I got a ban but my bases were not wiped. I submitted a ticket and was able to speak with an admin. I was told exactly what I had done wrong and was allowed to go fix the problem. I had what they consider ā€œland claim spamā€ but it was my purge lighting so that I could see what I was fighting when the purge comes at night. I think I was reported out of spite by another player.

When I tried to log in the day I found out I was banned I was unable to log onto any official server and the server list had a big notice on it that I was banned from that server. IMO they could use the server list screen notice to warn people that they are breaking the rules and give them a chance to fix the issueā€¦basically not let a person go past the server list screen until they click ā€˜okā€™ on the notice. Yes, I know this would mean admins would have to follow up on the ticket after the timer ran out but it would make their player base happier to know what they did wrong and to have a chance to fix it if it is a small infraction.

Bottom line is that a person has to know what they are doing wrong so that they know what not to do in the future because not everyone is fully aware that they are breaking the very vague rules.

2 Likes

Sorry didnā€™t realise others would jump in so much for details.
Thanks1972 ppl for the kind words.

Gist of the base: it was huge - a mega build really.
around 40,000 building pieces and ~11500 placeables. It was located in the jungle on top of and going up the cliff at Descent of Dagon, with a small city in the valley outside it, up the cliff on the other side, then up and over with a series of hanging pathways through the treetops to a secondary citylike section on the plateau near the obelisk there. It had no traps or griefing capacity of any kind, no closed doors or gates except my logout room - and to be clear, in the whole time i played i had two neighbors, not exactly sought after real estate near any major dungeon or resource (except the obelisk i was close to)

  • so i totally understand that this is alot which is why i said in the OP i would have been happy to just take a video then cull it - or to be honest even to wake up to lose an offending section not the whole thing. However id note as some ppl said in their support for me. this was ALL t3 dlc. wer talking 20-30 unique designed buildings most several stories or larger with every room decorated to specific rp purpose not just generic repeats. So its not like i just sandstone spammed some vast area to be a prick or save it for myself later.

I was very much a completionist boasting a display of every weapon in the game and had spreadsheets for all important thralls and all item locations - i certainly i did not block any. in fact i didnt block a single thrall spawn i wouldnt do that to a pve server.

In answer to the other questions in here - There was no clanmate doing random dodgy things, i was solo. there was no requirement for dodgy undermeshing its pve and that server is a lovely place where we all chat and help each other out and often go dungeoning together or stage our own events - my next task was to build a server arena somewhere so we could stage fights during conflict time and us bigger players put up rewards for the newer players from our stockpiles. Guess yall can do that without me and my stockpilesā€¦

If u wanted someone to do something there you really just asked.

End of the day, two solutions, if a base is blocking something, warn, or, at least just delete the offending part! And B, if its too big, which i suspect is the case after reading some of these posts, then either stipulate a block count or foundation footprint maximum. At bare minimum add a term to the detection algorithm to determine block type (t1,2,3), how many blocks rest on top of it, and how many placeables (which should be easy now that picking buildings does most of that even for players) before determining that its spam and against the rules.

I dont think many people would have seen the base itself and agreed it was spam or ruining the server.

4 Likes

Another note - I know alot of people toured the place if anyone knows anyone with a video or pics that would be appreciated. Was only really finished the decoā€™s the day before suspension but old ones still good :slight_smile:

1 Like

You should be able to submit a ticket and ask for an explanation. And anecdotally I suspect most people who have been temp banned seem to understand why. ā€œI know my base was huge, and yeah, it was blocking the spawn of a world boss, butā€¦ā€ or ā€œYeah, it was a lot of sandstone foundations spread around, but I was trying to bait purges for thrallsā€¦ā€ and so on.

I have a tough time thinking that people who just spam sandstone boxes and torches all over the place, particularly in high traffic areas, donā€™t understand that what theyā€™re doing isnā€™t appreciated and will likely get them reported.