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Win-Trading In Season 4 and Beyond


EricMusco

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  • Dev Post

Hey folks,

 

Season 4 for PvP is about to start and we wanted everyone to understand the Rules of Engagement and how we plan to keep it fair and fun for everyone who participates in Ranked Warzones:

 

In The Past

  • Throughout the Season we would track data around games being played by each character.
  • At the end of the Season we compare data to look for possible win-traders.
  • Anyone whom we are 100% sure has win-traded received action against their account. The action we took was to completely reset their rating to zero. This would mean they would receive no end of season rewards and would have no credit for taking part in that season.

What We Learned

  • By doing a single large data review, it created a situation where someone could have partially win-traded may have been overlooked.
  • Since all of the actions took place at the end of the season, most players didn’t realize any action had been taken.
  • This perception was further enhanced by our continued silence on the topic.

Starting with Season 4

  • An analysis will occur weekly and continue throughout the season. A warning will be sent to any player who has taken part in win-trading or any other area of misconduct. The warning lets the player know they may be doing something that could lead them to losing their rating, any seasonal rewards, or more severe actions.
  • If a player receives a warning and continues to engage in the same activity we will take further action. Actions include any or all of the following: rating resets on that character, rating resets for all characters on their account, and game time suspensions.
  • On a regular basis, we’ll communicate via the forums and let you know the type of actions that took place. Obviously, we will not be directly sharing who received a warning or action.

Hopefully these changes will provide a bit more visibility into the actions we take against those players who are playing Ranked PvP unfairly. Win-trading takes away from the spirit of the game and is completely unacceptable. We know that win-trading in Ranked PvP is something all of you take very seriously, and so do we, so we’re making adjustments in how we handle and communicate around it going forward.

 

-eric

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Sounds good. Any ETA on balancing though, or a schedule/roadmap? As it stands, I think most of the people here would agree that Assassins and Vanguards need a good look at least early into Season 4. Edited by Metthew
Removed duplicate though.
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Sorry Eric, but no. No we're not so stupid as to believe what you're saying is true. There have been posts regarding certain players having 10/0 ratings achieving super high team ratings. There scorecard on the leaderbords was linked on these very forums, the 10 wins was won the last 2 weeks of the ranked season and they're still running around with their rewards.

 

Will you do better? Lets hope so.

 

Have you done anything in the past? Oh please.

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Props, Eric. Thanks for the info.

 

I think I can see how it could be difficult to be 100% certain.

 

I'm wondering if cross-faction queuing for ranked could help alleviate some of the win-trading issues. Just a thought. ;)

 

EDIT: I suppose, depending on how it is done, x-faction would not alleviate group ranked issues. I guess I am thinking about queue-sync - intentional or accidental. Anyway, I think that x-faction in ranked would be a wonderful thing for a number of reasons if it were feasible and whatever RP issues associated with it could be minimized.

Edited by teclado
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Sorry Eric, but no. No we're not so stupid as to believe what you're saying is true. There have been posts regarding certain players having 10/0 ratings achieving super high team ratings. There scorecard on the leaderbords was linked on these very forums, the 10 wins was won the last 2 weeks of the ranked season and they're still running around with their rewards.

 

Will you do better? Lets hope so.

 

Have you done anything in the past? Oh please.

 

It's been known for a while that the first 10 games are weighed much more heavily than the subsequent games. However winning your first 10 games doesn't really mean you were win trading.

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It's been known for a while that the first 10 games are weighed much more heavily than the subsequent games. However winning your first 10 games doesn't really mean you were win trading.

 

Obviously that's the case. A while? Try forever.

 

Getting 1800 rating for the first 10 won games does mean you're win trading because it involves boosting a first team to high ratings with alts and then winning vs high rating team with main in order to get colossal gains. Which was the case with the proof provided (that as per usual fell on deaf ears)

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Please just give up already on Ranked PvP. It is so fundamentally flawed. Something more is needed. The current implementation is terrible. Seriously...

 

In my opinion all the biggest problems with ranked PvP stem form the low population. Elo rating isn't designed to work with such a small population. It's tough to have ranked with out the real numbers to support it.

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What happens if there are teams that just face each other a lot and are evenly matched. Will you take action against their accounts? I don't see how you can be 100% certain in even some cases if any. What exactly constitutes being a win trader by your definition. Do you take into account queue syncers and assume they are win traders when they just want to play with their friends instead of the loser with 1000 expertise trolling people. Edited by skarlson
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Win trade is our least concern at the moment, there is no class balance there is only shadow-sin, pt-vg sholder cannon still broken and you didnt fixed it in 2 months (are still in holiday? o yea these are not cartel market item so out of guarantee). I dont think i will join season for at the beginning. It will be horrible until some class balance is done but i have doubts about it.

You dont need a win trade all you need is inquisitor/consular teams.

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• An analysis will occur weekly and continue throughout the season. A warning will be sent to any player who has taken part in win-trading or any other area of misconduct. The warning lets the player know they may be doing something that could lead them to losing their rating, any seasonal rewards, or more severe actions.

• If a player receives a warning and continues to engage in the same activity we will take further action. Actions include any or all of the following: rating resets on that character, rating resets for all characters on their account, and game time suspensions.

 

I like the idea that you're aware of the problem but NO. People don't deserve a warning for win-trading, especially at this point. People are simply going to win-trade for their rating in one week only, then get a warning, but they won't continue, because they already got the rating they needed in the specific time window you provided. It's literally like giving win traders a calender with "Cheat Here" written across every week. You are essentially saying it is legal to win-trade, just as long as you don't do it for more than one week.

 

Pro tip: if your rules have an obvious loophole, don't post it in bright yellow text where it shows up on the Dev Tracker and on Dulfy. You are begging players to exploit this loophole.

Edited by idnewton
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I thank you guys on the community team for speaking out and being more proactiv. I can't imagine how depressing the job can be when so many people hate you even when you try. Of course every one is skeptical to see if you guys will actually follow through, even if you do it perfectly people will still complain. I'm happy to see yellow posts more though it's awesome.
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What happens if there are teams that just face each other a lot and are evenly matched. Will you take action against their accounts? I don't see how you can be 100% certain in even some cases if any. What exactly constitutes being a win trader by your definition. Do you take into account queue syncers and assume they are win traders when they just want to play with their friends instead of the loser with 1000 expertise trolling people.

 

You raise some very, very valid questions Skarlson. Although I can't give you a detailed answer I will do my best. We have a lot of different data and a lot of different criteria we can look at to determine if someone is win-trading.

 

As you can imagine, some behaviors could look suspicious, but could happen in completely normal play. Ex: Someone went 15-0 in the last week of play to get into the top tier reward. Nothing to say with that information alone that the player was win-trading. They could just be an amazing player who jumped in at the last minute with min/maxxed PvP gear and got lucky in their match-ups. Or, they could be a win-trader. However, this one data point alone does not make a win-trader.

 

With any suspicious activity we will compare multiple sets of data that when combined can make a pretty complete picture on someone's intent. We also believe that us checking week over week on this will help us in more clearly finding this with ill-intent.

 

-eric

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I like the idea that you're aware of the problem but NO. People don't deserve a warning for win-trading, especially at this point. People are simply going to win-trade for their rating in one week only, then get a warning, but they won't continue, because they already got the rating they needed in the specific time window you provided. It's literally like giving win traders a calender with "Cheat Here" written across every week. You are essentially saying it is legal to win-trade, just as long as you don't do it for more than one week.

 

Pro tip: if your rules have an obvious loophole, don't post it in bright yellow text where it shows up on the Dev Tracker and on Dulfy. You are begging players to exploit this loophole.

 

Devs, please read this statement aloud, 40 times, until it sinks in.

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This is sensible and will actually take work and resources from BW. It's what has been asked for and sounds liek it will work better, well done.

 

Not even trying to balance the OP classes - and the extreme bugs - before starting the season though: defies logic.

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This is sensible and will actually take work and resources from BW. It's what has been asked for and sounds liek it will work better, well done.

 

Not even trying to balance the OP classes - and the extreme bugs - before starting the season though: defies logic.

 

 

It is a big step in the right direction people putting on fight nights have nothing to fear by this as you all fight it out as hard as you can. Looks like some of are compliant got through last week. If BW follows through with this it will only make the game better for PVP. Also it mean they actually care about pvp and not just pve.

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More empty promises won't convince me until I see action taken. Players will cheat to get the rewards, and unless the playerbase is big enough to prevent queue sync, I don't see how you plan to detect win traders. There are more players interested in win trading than in playing legitimately, so as long as there are enough win trading teams queued, it is easy to hide win trading in the noise.

I just hope that the rewards won't be too over-the-top, that way I won't be disappointed when I lose too many matches as a scoundrel healer for playing legitimately. Especially now that there is a minimum rating for the lower tier, I may even get nothing for farming PvP gear and playing arena if I lose against the same one or two Imperial teams. :(

Edited by Jerba
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You raise some very, very valid questions Skarlson. Although I can't give you a detailed answer I will do my best. We have a lot of different data and a lot of different criteria we can look at to determine if someone is win-trading.

 

As you can imagine, some behaviors could look suspicious, but could happen in completely normal play. Ex: Someone went 15-0 in the last week of play to get into the top tier reward. Nothing to say with that information alone that the player was win-trading. They could just be an amazing player who jumped in at the last minute with min/maxxed PvP gear and got lucky in their match-ups. Or, they could be a win-trader. However, this one data point alone does not make a win-trader.

 

With any suspicious activity we will compare multiple sets of data that when combined can make a pretty complete picture on someone's intent. We also believe that us checking week over week on this will help us in more clearly finding this with ill-intent.

 

-eric

 

All this sound good as long as You all follow through with this is what we all been asking for. To fix all parts of the game start taking the hard line and not allow people to break the rules of the TOS.

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What would be your ideal way of handling the problem? Just curious.

 

Assuming their apparent resources stayed the same not much different than what they're doing, but with a differerence in consequences.

 

The holes I mention exist mostly because this announcement is also a great guide on how to game things. Transparency often cuts both ways of course, but it's self-defeating to tell people how to deal with your plans to deal with them. But then again that post might just be a bogey and they're going to do different things or at different frequencies, which would be wise since it's now out there.

Edited by Joesixxpack
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