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Let's Talk Win Trading...


MikeBradley

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Hi All,

 

My name is Mike Bradley and I work as a Live Producer on the SWTOR team. As Eric alluded to, I’ve recently been delving into Ranked PvP and I’d like to talk about win trading in our game. As ‘win trading’ has become an umbrella term to describe a number of different cheating behaviors, I feel like it might be helpful to clarify at the onset some different types of manipulation this can refer to.

 

  • Conspiring with others to intentionally trade wins & losses
  • Queuing with bots to boost rating earned per win
  • Using multiple accounts to control the outcomes of individual matches

 

Any form of matchmaking manipulation to coordinate winning and losing is against our Terms of Service. While we are constantly evaluating and improving our existing methods for catching players who cheat, I realize that our current systems for reporting, catching, and punishing this behavior are not perfect. As I read through these forums, I see a lot of understandable frustrations. I think part of the cause of these frustrations is a lack of clarity on our behalf into how we punish individuals we’ve determined to be cheating or otherwise negatively affecting the gameplay experience in PvP. I believe that we can do better, and I’m committed to demonstrating that.

 

I will be spearheading a number of different efforts in season 11 to more effectively gather feedback from our players, educate the broader team on the nuances of exploitative behavior, catch those who attempt to abuse the system, ensure they are held accountable for their actions, and report back here with as much relevant information as I can provide. There will however be some details that I cannot share, or perhaps specific questions that I cannot answer because doing so would reveal information that would make it easier for cheaters to evade us.

 

I know that the vast majority of our ranked PvP players play legitimately and, to one extent or another, are having their experience ruined by those who would rather cheat than play fairly. I know that many of you have taken time and effort to send us detailed reports, raise concerns here on the forums, or explain to us all the different ways that you encounter manipulative behavior. Please know that we are listening, that we appreciate your efforts, that we are redoubling our resolve on this front, and that we will be more transparent regarding our actions going forward.

 

Actions and resets are being finalized throughout the day today for season 10, and top 96 rewards will be delivered early next week. I will report back to this thread to confirm when they have been sent out. Expect to see a lot more of me on here throughout season 11 and hopefully beyond.

 

Thank you

 

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That's really nice, just to recap on some forms of cheating currently going on in this game:

 

- Conspiring with people to boost your own character - this includes having people throw against you.

- Conspiring to throw games on people you believe are your competition for top 3, this means you secure a spot by lowering your competition's rating. Throwing is also used as a tool to bully people out of the queue.

- Queueing against bots to earn rating.

- Having teammates decline queue in teams to improve rating gain - this is an exploit in teams to boost rating gain against bots. Probably works for botting in solos too.

 

You removed queue syncing thankfully - while people can queue solos on voice, they cannot manipulate queue as well to get pops together anymore. Hopefully you'll respond better to cheating and harassment in the future :)

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Why were so many wintraders/cheaters restored shortly after they were banned/wiped?

 

I mean I'm not surprised. Expected there to be a lot more that got away with it tbh, usually how it goes... but like especially the blatant repeat offenders, seems like a no brainer to just perma ban some of those legends

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Hi All,

 

My name is Mike Bradley and I work as a Live Producer on the SWTOR team. As Eric alluded to, I’ve recently been delving into Ranked PvP and I’d like to talk about win trading in our game. As ‘win trading’ has become an umbrella term to describe a number of different cheating behaviors, I feel like it might be helpful to clarify at the onset some different types of manipulation this can refer to.

 

  • Conspiring with others to intentionally trade wins & losses
  • Queuing with bots to boost rating earned per win
  • Using multiple accounts to control the outcomes of individual matches

 

Any form of matchmaking manipulation to coordinate winning and losing is against our Terms of Service. While we are constantly evaluating and improving our existing methods for catching players who cheat, I realize that our current systems for reporting, catching, and punishing this behavior are not perfect. As I read through these forums, I see a lot of understandable frustrations. I think part of the cause of these frustrations is a lack of clarity on our behalf into how we punish individuals we’ve determined to be cheating or otherwise negatively affecting the gameplay experience in PvP. I believe that we can do better, and I’m committed to demonstrating that.

 

I will be spearheading a number of different efforts in season 11 to more effectively gather feedback from our players, educate the broader team on the nuances of exploitative behavior, catch those who attempt to abuse the system, ensure they are held accountable for their actions, and report back here with as much relevant information as I can provide. There will however be some details that I cannot share, or perhaps specific questions that I cannot answer because doing so would reveal information that would make it easier for cheaters to evade us.

 

I know that the vast majority of our ranked PvP players play legitimately and, to one extent or another, are having their experience ruined by those who would rather cheat than play fairly. I know that many of you have taken time and effort to send us detailed reports, raise concerns here on the forums, or explain to us all the different ways that you encounter manipulative behavior. Please know that we are listening, that we appreciate your efforts, that we are redoubling our resolve on this front, and that we will be more transparent regarding our actions going forward.

 

Actions and resets are being finalized throughout the day today for season 10, and top 96 rewards will be delivered early next week. I will report back to this thread to confirm when they have been sent out. Expect to see a lot more of me on here throughout season 11 and hopefully beyond.

 

Thank you

 

 

nice to hear it!

Edited by bladech
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I have a question. Recently in chat, after one person posted "more people queue solo ranked" (presumably in the hope of getting a match faster), someone else posted that this is considered win trading or is somehow against the rules in some other way. Surely this can't be true? Asking more people to queue seems to me like an utterly harmless request - actually the opposite, since it promotes more active PvP.
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I have a question. Recently in chat, after one person posted "more people queue solo ranked" (presumably in the hope of getting a match faster), someone else posted that this is considered win trading or is somehow against the rules in some other way. Surely this can't be true? Asking more people to queue seems to me like an utterly harmless request - actually the opposite, since it promotes more active PvP.

 

I'm no one official of course, but if posting a request in general chat (I assume?) for people to queue is somehow against the ToS... holy ridiculous batman. Given the general type of stuff posted in gen chat, if THAT is somehow the bad thing then I've lost all faith in humanity. So I really hope not.

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Hi All,

 

My name is Mike Bradley and I work as a Live Producer on the SWTOR team. As Eric alluded to, I’ve recently been delving into Ranked PvP and I’d like to talk about win trading in our game. As ‘win trading’ has become an umbrella term to describe a number of different cheating behaviors, I feel like it might be helpful to clarify at the onset some different types of manipulation this can refer to.

 

  • Conspiring with others to intentionally trade wins & losses
  • Queuing with bots to boost rating earned per win
  • Using multiple accounts to control the outcomes of individual matches

 

Any form of matchmaking manipulation to coordinate winning and losing is against our Terms of Service. While we are constantly evaluating and improving our existing methods for catching players who cheat, I realize that our current systems for reporting, catching, and punishing this behavior are not perfect. As I read through these forums, I see a lot of understandable frustrations. I think part of the cause of these frustrations is a lack of clarity on our behalf into how we punish individuals we’ve determined to be cheating or otherwise negatively affecting the gameplay experience in PvP. I believe that we can do better, and I’m committed to demonstrating that.

 

I will be spearheading a number of different efforts in season 11 to more effectively gather feedback from our players, educate the broader team on the nuances of exploitative behavior, catch those who attempt to abuse the system, ensure they are held accountable for their actions, and report back here with as much relevant information as I can provide. There will however be some details that I cannot share, or perhaps specific questions that I cannot answer because doing so would reveal information that would make it easier for cheaters to evade us.

 

I know that the vast majority of our ranked PvP players play legitimately and, to one extent or another, are having their experience ruined by those who would rather cheat than play fairly. I know that many of you have taken time and effort to send us detailed reports, raise concerns here on the forums, or explain to us all the different ways that you encounter manipulative behavior. Please know that we are listening, that we appreciate your efforts, that we are redoubling our resolve on this front, and that we will be more transparent regarding our actions going forward.

 

Actions and resets are being finalized throughout the day today for season 10, and top 96 rewards will be delivered early next week. I will report back to this thread to confirm when they have been sent out. Expect to see a lot more of me on here throughout season 11 and hopefully beyond.

 

Thank you

 

 

It's refreshing to see someone from BW respond to win trading with a more proactive outlook here in the PVP section. Thanks for coming here to discuss it. I just have some questions and concerns.

 

Besides being aware of how cheaters manipulate the system and being more active in punishing them, is there anything else you guys are going to do to curb the behavior?

 

I am just curious if it's actually possible for BW to stop the cheating, I mean it's great if you punish those who cheat, but the fact is when it's so easy to cheat these guys are willing to take the risk just to get top ELO/rating.

 

My point is no matter how hard you punish the cheaters, that won't stop the ruination of ranked matches nor will it remove a lot of the toxicity that goes along with the shenanigans these cheaters pull when they compromise other player's matches with their win trades.

 

My thoughts on ranked and the cheating involved always come back to how do you stop it with the present scoring system?

 

Ranked rating/ELO is so easy to manipulate now, and has been for years. Have you guys ever considered changing how rating is gained? Perhaps a wins/losses point system instead of the present ELO system or some other type of scoring system? Something other than what has been used for years and proven to not work?

 

I realize this seems controversial to some, but if it has proven impossible to stop or curb the cheating the rating/ELO system now in place, perhaps a different type of scoring system would make it more difficult to manipulate which would then make it far less alluring to try to cheat. All it takes is some coordination with shady pals, a handful of matches on a character and voila high ELO and rating.

 

Again, more stringent punishment is great, but more important in my mind would be to find a way to eliminate the win trade behavior or make it far less convenient for the cheaters who want to try to cheat for their rating because the behavior ruins matches for honest players throughout the whole season.

 

It's not just the end rewards/awards that are important to get right, it's the fact the quality and fun of the matches are being destroyed during the entire season.

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Welcome, and hope you make ranked a better than it was prior.

 

The entire ELO rating gaining system has to change, and has to be engineered from the ground up to completely prevent wintrading and exploiting.

 

I know the team has good intentions, but you unknowingly have encouraged win trading, and exploiting since ranked came out.

 

1. Punishment is too light, even with the recent enforcement buff..... give them the IP ban.... seriously.

Ok so it's not easy to do this legally, with the cartel market and items sold to players.

Set up a table, and store values that indicate if players are eligible for ranked. If the account gets caught cheating, flag the account and never allow the account to play in any form of ranked ever again. Take all prior accomplishments, and delete them from the account.

Let them make a new one...money in your pockets, but they lose all past progress, and over time this could deter people from taking part in this, and doing this.

Runescapes punishment is a pretty good example of how overkill can really deter bots, and cheats, and exploits.

Oh my this sounds like over kill! No, You can't win vs the current implementation of action taken, everyone knows this, we have to explore new areas. A few ideas in here, but just my two cents.

 

2. The Elo gained/lost works against the people who put time into this content. We do not have the playerbase to support the current model. It's a great model, but it works for a game with a large playerbase who compete. This makes it even worse to deal with when your trying to climb the ladders, and you have a system that actively punishes you for playing the game. Wintrading makes this even worse....I have no technical solution to this, but we gotta go back to the drawing board.

 

3. I think the entire ranked model needs a re design. A lot of us I included would miss some things, but it's been so long dealing with the same issues, and never seeing good come from it.

 

I will analyze data for 4 hours a night and take the actions needed for free. Just give me the access and let me patrol the servers.

Edited by Going
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Bioware, we need to talk...

 

QUOTE=MikeBradley;9708787]

Hi All,

 

My name is Mike Bradley and I work as a Live Producer on the SWTOR team. As Eric alluded to, I’ve recently been delving into Ranked PvP and I’d like to talk about win trading in our game. As ‘win trading’ has become an umbrella term to describe a number of different cheating behaviors, I feel like it might be helpful to clarify at the onset some different types of manipulation this can refer to.

 

  • Conspiring with others to intentionally trade wins & losses
  • Queuing with bots to boost rating earned per win
  • Using multiple accounts to control the outcomes of individual matches

 

Any form of matchmaking manipulation to coordinate winning and losing is against our Terms of Service. While we are constantly evaluating and improving our existing methods for catching players who cheat, I realize that our current systems for reporting, catching, and punishing this behavior are not perfect. As I read through these forums, I see a lot of understandable frustrations. I think part of the cause of these frustrations is a lack of clarity on our behalf into how we punish individuals we’ve determined to be cheating or otherwise negatively affecting the gameplay experience in PvP. I believe that we can do better, and I’m committed to demonstrating that.

 

I will be spearheading a number of different efforts in season 11 to more effectively gather feedback from our players, educate the broader team on the nuances of exploitative behavior, catch those who attempt to abuse the system, ensure they are held accountable for their actions, and report back here with as much relevant information as I can provide. There will however be some details that I cannot share, or perhaps specific questions that I cannot answer because doing so would reveal information that would make it easier for cheaters to evade us.

 

I know that the vast majority of our ranked PvP players play legitimately and, to one extent or another, are having their experience ruined by those who would rather cheat than play fairly. I know that many of you have taken time and effort to send us detailed reports, raise concerns here on the forums, or explain to us all the different ways that you encounter manipulative behavior. Please know that we are listening, that we appreciate your efforts, that we are redoubling our resolve on this front, and that we will be more transparent regarding our actions going forward.

 

Actions and resets are being finalized throughout the day today for season 10, and top 96 rewards will be delivered early next week. I will report back to this thread to confirm when they have been sent out. Expect to see a lot more of me on here throughout season 11 and hopefully beyond.

 

Thank you

 

 

1. Improve your ****. Solo ranked match making is a bad joke. You win one game - next game you get the scum of the

server. Oh best part you need to win 3 games to make up for one loss.

2. Group ranked is dead. If there are some guilds playing (always the same people) and you queue against them you win a game and they stop queuing. Those "mat farmers" seem to have a free pass when it comes to win trading, since they all have gold rating even though they are really bad players. And according to your rules, if you make an appointment with other groups you wintrade!?!

3. While some innocent players got banned many actual wintraders didn't get banned or got reinstated after 3 days. I could name 3 from the top of my head (and I did report them). Great job. I guess you just go by reports from certain players. Maybe from influencers? ;)

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Less grind less cheat... its mathematics !

So true.

How about just giving more options to get this crystal? Normal WZ, normal FP, MM FP etc.

What about the people who insult others? Hey, I do not feel like dying through Raked. The only reason is that I am bad. Iam PvEer. But BW leaves us no choice. I have been to the Queen three times now 2 hours and no success .... So I'm doing Ranked. Seriously. To all who insult me ​​or others. I announce everything and hope that they will be punished properly. :mad:

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So true.

How about just giving more options to get this crystal? Normal WZ, normal FP, MM FP etc.

What about the people who insult others? Hey, I do not feel like dying through Raked. The only reason is that I am bad. Iam PvEer. But BW leaves us no choice. I have been to the Queen three times now 2 hours and no success .... So I'm doing Ranked. Seriously. To all who insult me ​​or others. I announce everything and hope that they will be punished properly. :mad:

 

If you cant win queen you or your group is too weak. Why do you even need this crystal then? Ruining solo ranked matches because you want to get a weapon you wont need is terrible to say at least. We pvp players never asked devs to put another mats in solo ranked because we knew that it will lead to more farmers in solo ranked. Instead, we asked devs to put this crystals or other incentives to team ranked quests which needs a revival and in team ranked no one will insult you for queueing. Pvp players will be even happy to see fast pops in team ranked but meh devs here have no clue how to fix ranked

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If you cant win queen you or your group is too weak. Why do you even need this crystal then? Ruining solo ranked matches because you want to get a weapon you wont need is terrible to say at least. We pvp players never asked devs to put another mats in solo ranked because we knew that it will lead to more farmers in solo ranked. Instead, we asked devs to put this crystals or other incentives to team ranked quests which needs a revival and in team ranked no one will insult you for queueing. Pvp players will be even happy to see fast pops in team ranked but meh devs here have no clue how to fix ranked

Ah yes, then I just imagine the insults. Recently, a healer was asked to hang himself. :rolleyes: I am allowed to play and collect what I want, without having to file any accountability. If you have a problem with it, please make a group ranking. Most of them have collected their weapons, so it should not be a problem.

 

Off-topic as usual.. Queue ranked whenever you want on whatever you want but stop being emotionally unstable.

"Emotional unstable" are more likely the people who insult. ;)

Incidentally, I've noticed that most of those who scream are more likely to gain trades.

For example, I do not think it's normal for a sorcerer to take no any damage during the game. Certainly not without a shield. And certainly not when he is beaten all the time.

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Awesome, I can finally address you.

 

Let me expose your big yellow lie for what it is: a big damage control attempt to sweep it all under the rug, just like Season 9. Do you remember ''zero-tolerance''? We all do.

 

 

 

You have had 10 seasons. You have had endless feedback. You have had endless reports. The cause of player frustration isn't a ''lack of clarity on our behalf into how we punish individuals'', players who get banned go around showing exactly what you do to them, we all know how you handle things. It is your lack of action, however, what drives many of us mad. For the love of Malgus, BioWare, you ban wintraders, slap their writsts, then hug them back with a big candy and a top 3 reward. What the **** is wrong with you? You cannot ''do better'', the time to ''do better'' was one week ago. The only thing you have demonstrated was your occult support towards wintrading.

 

 

 

You can barely catch 20% of the players who really manipulate their rating, and I'm being generous. What makes you think that ''the vast majority of our ranked PvP players play legitimately''? Your matchmaking pushes people to the edge, it wants them to wintrade, it rewards them. You plainly made Solo Ranked a fertile ground for wintrading the 20 first wins to the top.

 

 

 

We can look at the leaderboards, you know. I mean, I understand you are displaced from the game, and that it is not feasible to expect the team to have the knowledge that myself or any other Solo Ranked player who has been around enough has; but it is your job to know what happens in your game, not ours. Oh wait, there is a method, it is called ''reporting'', something which many did, just to see how you make 3 moves right, then 5 wrong. I cannot stress this enough.

 

So sorry for exposing your blatant lies to the naive eye around here. As I've said, you are about to reward about 20 players who were involved in rating manipulation.

 

I see I am not the only one "mildly" displeased with their "minor" lack of effort :p

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Hi All,

 

My name is Mike Bradley and I work as a Live Producer on the SWTOR team. As Eric alluded to, I’ve recently been delving into Ranked PvP and I’d like to talk about win trading in our game. As ‘win trading’ has become an umbrella term to describe a number of different cheating behaviors, I feel like it might be helpful to clarify at the onset some different types of manipulation this can refer to.

 

  • Conspiring with others to intentionally trade wins & losses
  • Queuing with bots to boost rating earned per win
  • Using multiple accounts to control the outcomes of individual matches

 

Any form of matchmaking manipulation to coordinate winning and losing is against our Terms of Service. While we are constantly evaluating and improving our existing methods for catching players who cheat, I realize that our current systems for reporting, catching, and punishing this behavior are not perfect. As I read through these forums, I see a lot of understandable frustrations. I think part of the cause of these frustrations is a lack of clarity on our behalf into how we punish individuals we’ve determined to be cheating or otherwise negatively affecting the gameplay experience in PvP. I believe that we can do better, and I’m committed to demonstrating that.

 

I will be spearheading a number of different efforts in season 11 to more effectively gather feedback from our players, educate the broader team on the nuances of exploitative behavior, catch those who attempt to abuse the system, ensure they are held accountable for their actions, and report back here with as much relevant information as I can provide. There will however be some details that I cannot share, or perhaps specific questions that I cannot answer because doing so would reveal information that would make it easier for cheaters to evade us.

 

I know that the vast majority of our ranked PvP players play legitimately and, to one extent or another, are having their experience ruined by those who would rather cheat than play fairly. I know that many of you have taken time and effort to send us detailed reports, raise concerns here on the forums, or explain to us all the different ways that you encounter manipulative behavior. Please know that we are listening, that we appreciate your efforts, that we are redoubling our resolve on this front, and that we will be more transparent regarding our actions going forward.

 

Actions and resets are being finalized throughout the day today for season 10, and top 96 rewards will be delivered early next week. I will report back to this thread to confirm when they have been sent out. Expect to see a lot more of me on here throughout season 11 and hopefully beyond.

 

Thank you

 

 

Hi Mike,

 

As a live producer, do you also over see other aspects of cheating in pvp as a whole? ie hackers - exploiters in regular pvp?

 

If so, then these guys need to be dealt with harsh penalties too because regs is where they learn the bad behaviours and attitude to cheat that they bring into ranked. It would be better to nip it in the butt at the source.

 

Make the policy for cheating in the game (at any level) a zero tolerance one. Ban these guys back to the Stone Age. Close their accounts, never to be reopened. This is what other games do successfully and it curtails the causal or average cheaters.

 

If you don’t have a good enough deterrent, that is publically known, then it’s no deterrent to cheating at all and encourages the casual cheaters to try it because there are hardly any consquences.

 

You can’t “encourage” good behaviour with these people. It’s been proven they don’t care because the punishments aren’t harsh and that just “encourages” more people to try it. You know, “keeping up with the Jones”

 

If there is a chance they will lose one of their paid accounts, they are less likely to cheat on it. If they do cheat and the account gets closed, then they are forced to start over again and you still get their money.

 

No one likes cheats, wether it’s win trading, hacking or exploiting. Any ledgitmate player would be more than happy if you were to show these guys the door.

Edited by TrixxieTriss
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What is the penalty for win trading?

 

It seems to simply be having their score reset. What about the other benefits gained from exploitative behaviour, such as CXP, Unassembled components, Crystals (now both masterwork and Monumental). It seems they keep all the other rewards, so lets face it that is not much of a penalty at all.

 

If they play fairly, probably get few rewards, they aren't win trading cause they are the best and feel sorry for others.

If they cheat and get caught, lose a ranking they wouldn't have anyway but keep all the other rewards.

If they cheat and get away with it, keep it all.

 

Where is the incentive for them to play fairly?

 

Is there not also a concern if you remove win traders, alt accounts and bots from the queue then ranked pvp will become even rarer than it already is.

 

Also given, you believe only a very small number of people are participating in this behavior, how much impact is this going to have. The game is hemorrhaging players, there is an incredible lack of content, are we gearing up for another summer of PVP in place of content, or do you have sufficient resources now Anthem is out the door to deal with this issue and all the other issues that plague the game. As lets face it the lack of content effects everyone as opposed to a very small number of people, while there is no evidence that you actions here will have any effect other than to tie up very limited resources investigating people that you ultimately take no action against.

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What is the penalty for win trading?

 

BW has never been clear/transparent about their "crimes" and "penalties" practices, and that is part of the problem. I realize this isn't the "court of law," but having clear rules and penalties -- stated -- would be an obvious start, imo. as this have always been, it's just the community seeing someone cheat, disappear for a while, and be back at it again. I know you can't say specifically what is done to a specific person, but you CAN have a clearly coveyed policy of infractioas and the penalties for each.

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BW has never been clear/transparent about their "crimes" and "penalties" practices, and that is part of the problem. I realize this isn't the "court of law," but having clear rules and penalties -- stated -- would be an obvious start, imo. as this have always been, it's just the community seeing someone cheat, disappear for a while, and be back at it again. I know you can't say specifically what is done to a specific person, but you CAN have a clearly coveyed policy of infractioas and the penalties for each.

 

Keeping it secret or not making it publically available means it’s no deterrent to cheating.

 

Other games publically announce what their policies are and even say when they do a sweep to catch the cheats.

 

99% of the time the other game companies perma ban the accounts (close them). Bioware is the only game I know that doesn’t do that to cheats (especially repeat offenders).

 

If they want to curb the cheating in this game, they need to have harsher policies (preferably zero tolerance with perma bans) and they need to publically announce what the penalties are for cheating.

IMO, they should also announce after theyve done a sweep up of the cheats to tell us it’s happened and approximately how many they perma banned.

 

Cheating will only stop when Bioware change their policy to something like this ^^

 

No deterrent = people don’t care = people who wouldn’t normally cheat, will cheat to keep up with the “Jones”

Edited by TrixxieTriss
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Keeping it secret or not making it publically available means it’s no deterrent to cheating.

 

Other games publically announce what their policies are and even say when they do a sweep to catch the cheats.

 

99% of the time the other game companies perma ban the accounts (close them). Bioware is the only game I know that doesn’t do that to cheats (especially repeat offenders).

 

If they want to curb the cheating in this game, they need to have harsher policies (preferably zero tolerance with perma bans) and they need to publically announce what the penalties are for cheating.

IMO, they should also announce after theyve done a sweep up of the cheats to tell us it’s happened and approximately how many they perma banned.

 

Cheating will only stop when Bioware change their policy to something like this ^^

 

No deterrent = people don’t care = people who wouldn’t normally cheat, will cheat to keep up with the “Jones”

 

They would need to ban people for substantial periods of time and permanently if the player continued the behavior after already being punished for there to be any chance of deterring cheating.

 

The problem is they seem incapable of banning people or catching them on a regular basis. Catching up to the cheaters at the end of the season is too little too late because thousands of games have been ruined by that point.

 

The one big problem BW faces is the fact it's too easy to cheat their scoring system for ranked. As long as you can win trade and get top rating within an hour or less (or however minimal time it is that it takes) cheaters will continue cheating.

Edited by Lhancelot
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Keeping it secret or not making it publically available means it’s no deterrent to cheating.

 

 

BS - you have a rule and a consequence. you state the rule and the consequence. you do not need to single out individuals. I really don't care what other games do. they won't ever single out players in this one. it's core to the game. you can't even name someone on the forum. you know this. and it's superfluous to do so at any rate as long as the rules and requisite punishments are clearly stated. but when you hide names AND punishments, everything becomes shady af.

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:rak_02:

They would need to ban people for substantial periods of time and permanently if the player continued the behavior after already being punished for there to be any chance of deterring cheating.

 

The problem is they seem incapable of banning people or catching them on a regular basis. Catching up to the cheaters at the end of the season is too little too late because thousands of games have been ruined by that point.

 

The one big problem BW faces is the fact it's too easy to cheat their scoring system for ranked. As long as you can win trade and get top rating within an hour or less, cheaters will continue cheating.

 

Not sure if it’s changed in the last 3-4 years, but I had a guy in our guild who was quitting the game and wanted to prove to a bunch of hack deniers that hacking was indeed possible.

 

So he got a speed hack from some where and used it at max speed (so it stood out and the system caught him). He got a warning. The next day he did it again and got a 24 hour ban and told not to do it again. I think it took him 5-6 goes to finally get a 6 month ban.

 

I now wish I’d kept that Facebook account so I could show you the Bioware correspondence with him. All harsh words with a slap on the wrist. Even after all of that he got his account back 6 months later.

 

One thing that was interesting is he proved through testing that you could indeed use the speed hack on really low settings and not get caught. I’m not sure what the cut off was till the auto system realised it was a hack, but it wasn’t really high.

This same thing happens with other hacks in the game and most people can’t tell the difference until someone blatantly over does it with the hacks settings.

 

Lately I’ve started to play ranked again and I can say it’s so different to regs. There is no hacking, exploiting or lag switching (that I’ve seen... yet). Where as lately I’ve seen a bit going on in regs (even lowbie arena :rolleyes:).

 

All I can conclude from that, is the cheaters are scared to use them in ranked because players there should know all the class abilities and mechanics and they would be able to tell more easily if someone is cheating.

Either that or they are so bad (which is why they cheat in regs) and know their cheating wouldn’t help them in ranked.

 

My experience with this phenomenon over 7 years, proves that Bioware’s cheating policy is pointless and has zero deterrent factor. It’s time they woke up and changed it.

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BS - you have a rule and a consequence. you state the rule and the consequence. you do not need to single out individuals. I really don't care what other games do. they won't ever single out players in this one. it's core to the game. you can't even name someone on the forum. you know this. and it's superfluous to do so at any rate as long as the rules and requisite punishments are clearly stated. but when you hide names AND punishments, everything becomes shady af.

 

You miss interpreted what I said. Maybe I didn’t explain it properly

 

I’m not advocating a name and shame policy or announcing each individual ban for cheating.

 

When I refer to “sweep” I mean when Bioware catch a whole bunch of people at once or over a period of time and then say they caught x amount of people and they’ve taken the appropriate action (based on their policy)

 

Here is an example of Blizzard banning hackers

 

”More than 20,000 Overwatch players have been banned in South Korea, a representative for Blizzard Entertainment announced on the game’s forum. The reason for the bans is “unauthorized use of third-party programs,” otherwise known as illegal hacks.”

Source : https://www.polygon.com/2017/2/2/14491286/overwatch-korean-hackers

 

I wanted to show the official Blizzard statement, but I dont read Korean. If you do, here is the link https://kr.battle.net/forums/ko/overwatch/topic/4563416302

Edited by TrixxieTriss
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When a system is so easy to manipulate and so hard to prevent or deter manipulation, you have to look at the system as the biggest problem.

 

Obviously the current system stresses winning above all else. In order to not discourage players your best ranking over a short duration of time is all that matters. Together, those 2 factors lead to all the win trading that currently exists. It also promotes a toxic environment that discourages people from participating.

 

Every sport has teams that may be bad teams, yet still have one of the best players in that league at his or her position. So unless ranked matches are 1 vs 1 matches, the current criteria that ranks us here is pretty stupid.

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