In the fantasy MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online, TESO, a severe exploit has become known that makes player groups immune to the damage from siege weapons in PvP.
It is a rather insignificant ability that suddenly causes a lot of stir. The “Caltrops” from Alliance War abilities are actually designed to slow down a large number of enemies, up to 12 players, for a short time. Caltrops are military jargon for caltrops or spike traps, with four sharp ends that are thrown onto the ground to injure opponents at their feet. Historically, they were used to stop cavalry units; even today, police use caltrops for roadblock purposes to puncture tires. In The Elder Scrolls Online, they should theoretically have the same function: a slowing effect and light damage for enemies that walk through an affected area.
But caltrops in TESO come with a nice side effect: They make your allies immune to the damage from siege weapons like the dreaded burning oil. The bug was highlighted today in the English-language Reddit forum:
This is just about the worst exploit, in terms of consequences and scale, that I’ve ever seen in a competitive PvP game.
The problem with this bug is that coordinated player groups already take almost no damage from AoE abilities due to the AoE cap. However, the AoE cap does not apply to siege weapons. The exploit now makes closely grouped players also immune to it and nearly invulnerable.
Zenimax is now aware of the problem but will not address the exploit immediately. Apparently, they have developed a hotfix but plan to roll it out shortly after the eagerly anticipated Craglorn patch.
We can confirm there is currently a bug with Caltrops, as some of you have called out. We have a fix for it that will go live shortly after the Craglorn patch.
Some players had already expected to see it on the server Tuesday morning. However, this hope was disappointed when the servers in the USA were not taken down for maintenance on Monday.
As for when to expect the Craglorn patch, it is still unclear at the moment. Since the US servers were also not taken down on Tuesday, we can likely expect that the patch will be delayed until Friday, and until then, some PvP groups might prove unusually resistant to boiling oil or the fire of a ballista because they are standing in spike traps.
