Stop letting people merge accounts

2

Comments

  • AdamMagus
    AdamMagus Posts: 363 Mover and Shaker
    So I've been spending my money playing the token lottery when all I needed to do was buy a winning ticket and merge it with my account?

    It's disappointing to learn that this is happening
  • Zikato
    Zikato Posts: 33 Just Dropped In
    This reminds me of the Legendary Token exploit, but this time people are being actively helped by CS. This is an ufair advantage over the honest players. Merging two 3* accounts gives about same advantage as 6 months of playing.
  • Marvelfamily
    Marvelfamily Posts: 208
    didn't know that this is possible. icon_cry.gif

    This has to be stopped. icon_exclaim.gif
  • over_clocked
    over_clocked Posts: 3,961
    Thank you so much, babinro.
    Account merging has been going on forever. I know of at least two cases where people merged their primary account with their own newbie account and got some ISO/HP/covers out of it (nothing to envy, though, because not one human being can play two accounts competitively in MPQ, covering PvE, PvP, LRs, everything. Just PvP is very possible with high level rosters).

    But while I personally have nothing against people merging their own accounts and ToS/support have nothing against it either, a good portion of high level rosters are the result of merging a vet account with another vet account. A lot of vets quit regularly, recently - over the irrational and disappointing 5* endgame (get lucky or bust, even if you spend a lot of money and/or time), and end up selling their accounts for a fraction of their investment. Lately, AFAIK, the best accounts have been sold for up to 1000 USD, which is still just a fraction of money (not to mention time) needed to create such an account legitimately.

    It's all hush-hush and I personally ask people to not even mention wanting to sell/buy an account to me because it cheapens legitimate gameplay so much, what's left of it with buy clubs, token rerolling and RNG having everyone in its grip. Yet it's pretty widespread and any top alliance knows about it.

    I would prefer vets that quit to ask for refunds than sell their accounts because THAT would make devs think things over. Besides, getting back a percentage of what has been spent and potentially, almost assuredly giving the account to players that would use the improved rosters to troll, grief, harass players they don't like, etc. isn't something I'd call productive. And I can bet that most trolls I know in the MPQ community are illicit account mergers, because they are headlined by one.

    As is, the support just mindlessly processes requests and approves nearly all of them, I imagine. All you have to do is ask that the seller provides you with some Google Play/iTunes receipts and what not to dupe support into believing that both accounts belong to one player. It's so easy to do I'm baffled more vets don't do this. Maybe because the people to do this in the first place have pretty low regard for the community. There are no other downsides whatsoever to the merger other than being potentially discovered but that's not something support is good at.
  • atomzed
    atomzed Posts: 1,753 Chairperson of the Boards
    over_clocked wrote:
    It's so easy to do I'm baffled more vets don't do this.

    I thought about it before, and if I make my decision based purely on tangible benefits, it makes sense to buy an account and merge it.

    However, I also realised that part of the fun is the pull of the draw. Getting a 5* and wohoo! If I use the instant power up button, it ceases to be fun. I mean, what use do I have for covers once I champ them all right?

    On dark days, when I am frustrated with the constant poor pulls, I still think about buying an account. On other more lucid moments, I talk myself out of it cos I will be shortchanging my own fun if I merge a vet account.
  • Monged4life
    Monged4life Posts: 420
    Had no idea this was a thing... I agree that between this , cupcakes, bracket abuse and the expoit the devs really don't come across as being able to manage their own game :/

    Championing would only have made this even more profitable. Hell I want to get on board with this!
  • Malcrof
    Malcrof Posts: 5,971 Chairperson of the Boards
    There are valid account mergers as well, i had a tablet account as well as my main mobile account. When i got my chromebook, i gave the tablet to my niece for college, since MPQ is not available on a chromebook, CS took everything i had worked for on my tablet and merged it with my main account on mobile.. mind you this was long before 5*s, but if a person has 2 valid accounts, and has put time and money into both, we can't blanket stop mergers, those persons are entitled to keep all of their hard won items.

    For buying of accounts, i didn't even know this was a thing in MPQ (i did sell my Everquest account long long ago, but they did not merge things), there has to be an easy way to figure out which are valid and which are not.
  • TheOncomingStorm
    TheOncomingStorm Posts: 489 Mover and Shaker
    One fact omitted by the op, players caught buying an account get sandboxed. Yes, there are ways cs can tell.
  • ViralCore
    ViralCore Posts: 168 Tile Toppler
    This also violates the D3 EULA as one is not allowed to sell their account. Something needs to be done about it, this is as bad as the token exploit (which people are still doing).
  • mmrosek
    mmrosek Posts: 40
    DayvBang wrote:
    Moving this post to Suggestions/Feedback for the devs to see it.

    Also, upvoting it, because it is accurate as hell.

    So the devs don't read General. Good to know.

    Can you leave this on General too though? Because I know I don't read Suggestions/Feedback (don't think I'm alone in that) and think this needs some player awareness. As it is now, it's the last post on the front page.
  • Dayv
    Dayv Posts: 4,449 Chairperson of the Boards
    Phumade wrote:
    simonsez wrote:
    Phumade wrote:
    And your post will get locked and buried in

    3, 2, 1....
    Maybe not locked, but definitely buried. The OP shouldn't have phrased it as a suggestion. The mods are even pickier about verbiage than Alex Trebek.

    yep... this is a new way to stop discussion on the main board. It will slide off the 1st page by the end of the night and then that will be the end of the discussion.
    And here, two days later, it's still at the top of the Suggestions & Feedback forum.

    Have a little faith in organization, peeps.
  • Dayv
    Dayv Posts: 4,449 Chairperson of the Boards
    mmrosek wrote:
    Can you leave this on General too though?

    No, this is the right place for it. And there's no way to put a single thread in two forums.
    Because I know I don't read Suggestions/Feedback
    That's your choice.

    Not speaking as a moderator: one good way to bring more attention to this might be to open customer support tickets to report accounts suspected of being merged as a result of account sales. Since this is against the terms of service, that should be the intake method for reports, just as it is for other suspected cheats.
  • simonsez
    simonsez Posts: 4,663 Chairperson of the Boards
    DayvBang wrote:
    one good way to bring more attention to this might be to open customer support tickets to report accounts suspected of being merged as a result of account sales.
    I don't follow. They already know which accounts have been merged, and based on the strength of the absorbed account, they know damn well it was the result of a sale. Why should we have to report suspicions of things they already know? And shouldn't the devs care more than customer service drones? Assuming of course they really DO read these threads.
  • Dayv
    Dayv Posts: 4,449 Chairperson of the Boards
    simonsez wrote:
    I don't follow. They already know which accounts have been merged, and based on the strength of the absorbed account, they know damn well it was the result of a sale. Why should we have to report suspicions of things they already know? And shouldn't the devs care more than customer service drones? Assuming of course they really DO read these threads.
    Customer Support may not be thinking "is this a bogus merge?" -- they probably have a checklist of criteria to approve a merge and too many people are sneaking through the cracks (or wide-open doors, as the case may well be). Reporting these accounts as cheaters will trigger a second look at the situation with a mind to legitimacy.

    I can't swear it will work, but at the very least it will make them realize that there's concern about this.

    I'm not saying this should be the only response, but it's one way to increase the priority, in my mind.
  • Motionless Tree
    Motionless Tree Posts: 2 Just Dropped In
    Way to basically tell the whole community how to merge. Lol this whole forum post is counterintuitive. FYI they regularly deny merges. People who slip through the cracks are lucky to say the least. Now I'd consider deleting this before you teach more scrubs how to merge. icon_lol.gif
  • simonsez
    simonsez Posts: 4,663 Chairperson of the Boards
    Motionless Tree wrote:
    Way to basically tell the whole community how to merge.
    The way to get this kind of B.S. to stop IS to let everyone know about it. Why do you think the token exploit was addressed only after someone posted about it here?
  • kensterr
    kensterr Posts: 1,277 Chairperson of the Boards
    Bumping up this thread so that the devs take a look into the subject - just in case they missed it.
  • Dayv
    Dayv Posts: 4,449 Chairperson of the Boards
    kensterr wrote:
    Bumping up this thread so that the devs take a look into the subject - just in case they missed it.
    Please don't "bump" threads without adding any additional content.
  • Warbringa
    Warbringa Posts: 1,299 Chairperson of the Boards
    I understand the need for legitimate merging of accounts but I really, really hope that they are sandboxing those who are cheating by buying other players accounts. It should be pretty simple for CS to look at the history of the accounts and determine whether a merger request is a result of such a transaction. My fear though is that many may be slipping through the cracks do to the extra work it will take to weed out the cheaters that do this. I assume that CS is busy with normal requests and may have limited time to combat this issue. This rattles my already shaky faith in the game.
  • Crowl
    Crowl Posts: 1,580 Chairperson of the Boards
    Unless CS has decided to lie to me about my request, people should be feeling happy as they are now claiming that they are merging accounts.

    **** typical, people are able to abuse the process for ages and now it is people with a genuine need for the process who get **** over. (my reason for requesting a merge was that I am changing jobs and will no longer be able to play regularly on my steam version and wanted to merge it with my secondary account which is on my phone)

    CS response:
    Unfortunately, there has been a change of policy regarding account merges, and we are no longer allowed to proceed with account merge requests. We are truly sorry for this inconvenience or any frustration that it may cause, but we are unable to proceed with the request due to this policy change, and are unable to proceed with an account merge.

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