Open letter: Cheaters in Inventor's Fair

ZW2007-

James13 wrote:

For people who want to eliminate cheating, try to not promote and spread it so much, ok? Some truly ham-fisted attempts to talk about it probably managed to create more. And griping about taking down links and promotions of cheating while pretending there are not dozens of other threads discussing the topic is really quite annoying.

The thread that was almost immediately removed was jokingly implying that people should start cheating as a means to combat cheaters since it seems as though the devs have no intentions of doing so themselves. There were no links to cheats or anything of that nature. Whining about whining doesn't stop the whining.

Fiddler

Would Wizards of the Coast step in if they knew their brand was being tarnished by the lack of response to the cheating issue?

babar3355

bken1234 wrote:

MADAFAKA wrote:

Cheaters will always cheat. But the game's economics does encourage some cheating too

For a temporary fix, they should stop rewarding mythic at individual level and/or group level, but award more crystals or extra bb instead.
Top performers can use the crystals to buy bb or open the ones they earned.

The best short term solution to this is to take individual rewards out of PVP coalition events -- and run the reward structure like PVE. At the very least, there is less of an incentive to cheat as an entire team would have to do it in order for it to make a difference.

Nothing more depressing than seeing the games most obvious cheater at the top of the platinum bracket (yet again) for an exclusive mythic everyone is clambering for.

Does the integrity of the game mean nothing to D3 or Hiberium?

buscemi

Fiddler wrote:

Would Wizards of the Coast step in if they knew their brand was being tarnished by the lack of response to the cheating issue?

I imagine if they knew what was going on here they'd just close down the whole game. Maybe we can get their new digital department of whatever it is to take over the running of it?

Ohboy

ZW2007- wrote:

James13 wrote:

For people who want to eliminate cheating, try to not promote and spread it so much, ok? Some truly ham-fisted attempts to talk about it probably managed to create more. And griping about taking down links and promotions of cheating while pretending there are not dozens of other threads discussing the topic is really quite annoying.

The thread that was almost immediately removed was jokingly implying that people should start cheating as a means to combat cheaters since it seems as though the devs have no intentions of doing so themselves. There were no links to cheats or anything of that nature. Whining about whining doesn't stop the whining.

It was pondering out loud how to cheat and not get banned. Let's not pretend it's a joke when there's nothing in there that implies it was one.

ZW2007-

Ohboy wrote:

ZW2007- wrote:

James13 wrote:

For people who want to eliminate cheating, try to not promote and spread it so much, ok? Some truly ham-fisted attempts to talk about it probably managed to create more. And griping about taking down links and promotions of cheating while pretending there are not dozens of other threads discussing the topic is really quite annoying.

The thread that was almost immediately removed was jokingly implying that people should start cheating as a means to combat cheaters since it seems as though the devs have no intentions of doing so themselves. There were no links to cheats or anything of that nature. Whining about whining doesn't stop the whining.

It was pondering out loud how to cheat and not get banned. Let's not pretend it's a joke when there's nothing in there that implies it was one.

Let's say you are right and James13 is right. My original post still stands on it's own. My point was that they are so quick to remove a post like that but the devs have done nothing to remove known cheaters. I don't care if they are working on stopping cheats altogether, they should be banning cheating accounts now, like they claim they will in their FAQ. Lets not turn this thread into something it isn't. I'm very plainly complaining that cheating accounts are still in game and winning events while there are legitimate, paying players that are completely locked out of their accounts.

johnnyde76

I know I am not the only one to do so, but the cheating has essentially lead me to leave my coalition GoblinPile. On top of everything else we all typically complain about, the cheating was just the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Just like everyone has been mentioning, the lack of response from D3 and Hibernum makes it even worse.

The only reason I even played for the past couple of months while the cheating was a known issue was just because I didn't want to let my coalition down as I know recruiting can be a pain in the butt. And now I feel bad that because of my departure, I am forcing them to recruit again. And this is going to continue to happen to a lot of coalitions (and already has happened) where the turnover rate is going to just get higher and higher.

Thésée

It's no use taking screenshots at the end of events, they are cleverer than that.

30 minutes before the end of the event I was 5th in gold (not jetnoctis' bracket). Then someone appears at the top of the ladder with 272 points. Well there's timezone problems, there are people working, etc. Maybe it's possible that someone ends up the event this late. Ok, I'll end at 6th place.

Still, I take a screenshot, exactly 2 minutes and 7 seconds before the end. Event ends and my final ranking appears... 7th !!

This, I seriously can't believe. I can't imagine someone playing his last game 2 minutes before the end.
Not in such a competitive event, in a system where finishing first at a same score settles the tie, and when in other events you have 10 people or more tied for first place within 10 minutes after the end.

But hey, I must say he's a clever guy, I don't have his name

Monkeynutts

..................

JopeX37

Fiddler wrote:

Would Wizards of the Coast step in if they knew their brand was being tarnished by the lack of response to the cheating issue?

Only one way to find out. Time to start writing some emails.

Ohboy

Monkeynutts wrote:

Just playing a *snip* cheater in the new event - 5 turn double damage one.
Commanding position....
then one turn. deploy gatewatch....olivia x2 and ulrich then another deploy in olivia. geier and another ulrich.. all haste....are u *snip* kidding me...

sort ur game out you useless developers

Shteev, You're the expert... This is sarcasm right?

madwren

Monkeynutts wrote:

Just playing a *snip* cheater in the new event - 5 turn double damage one.
Commanding position....
then one turn. deploy gatewatch....olivia x2 and ulrich then another deploy in olivia. geier and another ulrich.. all haste....are u *snip* kidding me...

sort ur game out you useless developers

So, when you're playing in the new event, you aren't actually playing people. You're playing the computer, which is running the decks of players.

The turn you describe, while certainly depressing to face, does happen.

K1llerKarma

I was the one in your bracket who with an hour left hit 272. I'm on the east coast of US and that is in the morning at 8 am when I have a chance to play before work. When I hit 1st you were bumped to fifth. I have a picture of that as well as several I took throughout the tournament to share with my line group (which by the way I was first throughout the whole tournament in our bracket). Its the first time I have placed top 5 and I was documenting it throughout. No cheating just a really good tournament for me. I can even take a picture of the line chat where I said this morning "man the guy who just go bumped to sixth with an hour left must be pissed". Wasn't you at that point.

madwren

Thésée wrote:

This, I seriously can't believe. I can't imagine someone playing his last game 2 minutes before the end.
Not in such a competitive event, in a system where finishing first at a same score settles the tie, and when in other events you have 10 people or more tied for first place within 10 minutes after the end.

Some people can't, or won't, get up in the wee hours of the morning even though tiebreakers suck.

While some people sandbag their nodes deliberately, most people play them within a reasonable time. By following the leaderboards, you can get a fairly good estimate of the number of players that are perfect or near-perfect (-1 or -2). While I was out of the running by the time I went to bed (-5, ugh), if I'd been at the perfect or -1 level--which was a guaranteed placement at that point--then I would have felt no pressure to get up at 1am to play.

Instead, I would have woken up at 6am like usual, and played my nodes, before the event ended at 7am. At times, that means I've finished within 10 minutes of event end, particularly if I've been stuck in a drawn-out matchup.

K1llerKarma

Exactly how it was for me. When I went to sleep I knew that as long as I won all three matches in the morning I was going to get top 5. If I lost one I would be out of the running so if it was three hours or two minutes before the end it made no difference.

James13

I played near the lead, then fell behind on matches during the weekend. Caught up after the next to last node refresh. (Unintentional sandbagging?) Though I actually sat at a perfect I had enough close calls during the event and saw enough a near perfect scores that I made the probably dumb decision to stay up till 4AM because I couldn't sleep (thinking about the event due to a competitive and paranoid mindset that I'm not happy to have). Just in case I leaked points on the last round I could still have a chance at it that way.

Managed to do it without leaking a point, though I was a bit slower than some. There were a couple there that seemed to finish really quite fast. Took me almost 25 minutes to do my three because of the decks and I was second guessing decisions the whole way, scrutinizing boards, etc. (I've blown it at that stage before.)

I think I'm not going to do any more sleep depravation, even though it will certainly cost me in the future. It's just a phone game in the end and the allure of shiny mythic cards is fading fast.

If anything is driving me away it's the tiebreaker and my own personal mindset that makes events a super stressful affair, though lucrative. I care about cheating in that it's ramped up the stress of competing for the top much further, but I'm trying really hard for my own sanity not to care anymore and let go of the competing for the top so much.

The most fun I have in the game currently is fooling around with different deckbuilds in Story mode, but that seems to have been utterly abandoned in terms of new content. Seems like that should be easy to do. Events are feeling like a job (my fault on that). I do still love the coalition individual progression only events, though.

babar3355

James13 wrote:

The most fun I have in the game currently is fooling around with different deckbuilds in Story mode, but that seems to have been utterly abandoned in terms of new content. Seems like that should be easy to do. Events are feeling like a job (my fault on that). I do still love the coalition individual progression only events, though.

Agree with this comment. Many players avoid card mastery to avoid being bumped into a very difficult platinum bracket... their should at a minimum be incentives to move up brackets and some new brackets at well. Then you have a reason to play a Marionette Master / Trafficker deck.. rather than just continuing to abuse the best cards or use the same decks over and over on QB, ****, EMN and even FS... Should I really risk losing points for my coaltion because I want to have fun with a unique deck?

Meh, there just isn't really anything to do in the game with all the cards... Even a no-reward PvP event or where you could battle your own decks or coalition decks would be awesome... Also, how about a 1000 HP mega boss that we could really deck test against... I really want to see how big I can get my Eletro static pummeler, but am stuck on BFZ bosses.

Plastic

Can you imagine what a new player would think if they read these forums or just this thread? I haven't played in a while and just uninstalled the game. From the outside looking in it definitely looks bad.

buscemi

Ohboy wrote:

Monkeynutts wrote:

Just playing a *snip* cheater in the new event - 5 turn double damage one.
Commanding position....
then one turn. deploy gatewatch....olivia x2 and ulrich then another deploy in olivia. geier and another ulrich.. all haste....are u *snip* kidding me...

sort ur game out you useless developers

Shteev, You're the expert... This is sarcasm right?

Yes.

Thésée

@K1llerKarma

Very well, done and yes, I understand the usefulness of knowing how much you have to score in your last games when you lead.

Still, I think someone sneaked at the last moment in the top 5 in our bracket and since it was at the very last minute I have difficulties believing it is for the same (good) reasons as you.

Or maybe the prize was so coveted I'm going I'm going insanely suspicious. Anyway I didn't had enough points to claim it in every case