Why is D3Go! Support not investing potential cheating?

peteer01

During Sharp Dressed I was finishing battles as quickly as I could trying to crack 900. Anyone who plays regularly knows that if you're in the top single digits, with no 5*s in your roster and a fairly high score, you're going to be attacked if you take your time finishing matches.

My recollection is that I was playing multiple matches hoping to cross 900 and be done with the event. Right as I completed a battle that got me just over the finish line, I vaulted to 949. (Cue my confusion)

That's when I saw this:


I know I benefited from it, but that is still off. No one ever has lost to me three times in a row, in any PvE event, regardless of how long between checking. Now I'm supposed to believe that:

* Someone with +1000 points with more than a day left fights me

three times and loses all three battles in the time it takes me to complete one match as fast as I can
* And that same someone has their score fluctuate between 1049 and 873 during those same few minutes

Anyone who's played this game for a long time knows that looks very fishy. I click on their roster: Loads of championed 5 s. So, for the benefit the community, I want this potential cheater looked into. I fire off a ticket (303635) to D3, including the screenshot:

Was attacked by same person three times in the time it took me to win one battle. Highly suspicious that this person's score can very by hundreds, and lose to me 3 times, during just one battle. Roster is very suspicious as well.

I get the following reply (this is the meat of the reply, all of which is a form letter reply, verbatim, that I have received for previous tickets):

In order to aid our investigation of the issue, could you please provide us with a screenshot of what you are seeing? (PNG or JPEG only).

If you require further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us again and it will be a pleasure to help you.

I reply with the image above. (This is my second time sending the image) That gets me this reply (KHY):

Thank you for contacting D3 Go! Customer Support.

The attacks listed are from oldest to newest. What we're seeing here is that this player had made several failed attempts to attack your team as they were progressing through the event. Each time they saw your node, they must have repeatedly assumed that they could beat, this list shows otherwise. So what you are seeing is normal game functionality and a nice little boost to your overall score.

If you require further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us again and it will be a pleasure to help you.

OK... That reply makes their attacks go from fishy to unbelievable. In less than five minutes (approximately, not sure exactly how long that single battle took), someone attacks me with 873 points, loses, ranks up to 908, loses again, ranks up to 1049, and then loses again!? Clearly not possible, just the tile swap animations involved in that many battles involved would take longer than my one match. I reply with the following:

What you're excluding is that all these "battles" occurred within 5 minutes. I was actively battling as fast as I could and these all popped up between two battles. No normal person can win or lose the number of battles it would take to have their score vary that much in such a brief period of time.

I would highly recommend this player's activity be escalated for review. My guess is that their activity will not align with actual games.

That gets me this reply (TJM):

Thank you for contacting D3 Go! Customer Support.

What we're seeing here is that this player had made several failed attempts to attack your team. What you are seeing is normal gameplay functionality and is intended.

Many questions can be answered by visiting our helpful Marvel Puzzle Quest FAQ at: http://www.d3go.com/mpq-support/

If you require further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us again and it will be a pleasure to help you.

I absolutely cannot fathom how anyone who fundamentally understands this game and looks at the image and my description would not understand the issue in this user's activity, and escalate this review. And yet two separate people replied as if nothing was unusual.

I've seen posts on Reddit from people about having their accounts banned/reset after being caught cheating (not sure which happens), and it's clear cheating is a thing. Seeing multiple people with multiple max championed 5*s as the people I'm supposed to compete against with my 3 and 4* rosters is very frustrating when I wonder how many of them are potentially cheaters and not understanding how there could be as many of these people as there are. It's even more frustrating to see something that screams out that something unnatural is occurring, provide that proof, and then get no action from multiple people in support.

Why is D3Go! Support not understanding the issue here? Why are they not investigating potential cheating when it's brought to their attention?

Quebbster

Looks like points dumping to me. The other player wanted to stay below a certain points threshhold, so he started a match and immediately retreated until he got low enough.

Bowgentle

Quebbster wrote:

Looks like points dumping to me. The other player wanted to stay below a certain points threshhold, so he started a match and immediately retreated until he got low enough.

This.

The guy retreated to the OP 3 times to get rid of his points.

No, he didn't "lose".
He retreated voluntarily.

JablesMc

Bowgentle wrote:

Quebbster wrote:

Looks like points dumping to me. The other player wanted to stay below a certain points threshhold, so he started a match and immediately retreated until he got low enough.

This.

The guy retreated to the OP 3 times to get rid of his points.

No, he didn't "lose".
He retreated voluntarily.

I was gonna say...

Don't the battles show up with the oldest on bottom, newest on top? so they first attacked at 1049 and lost, then 908...

peteer01

JablesMc wrote:

I was gonna say...

Don't the battles show up with the oldest on bottom, newest on top? so they first attacked at 1049 and lost, then 908...

If battles are oldest on bottom, then point dumping makes sense as a possible explanation.

Support saying the opposite was where the score fluctuations become impossible.

Brigby

Hi peteer01,

Apologies for the confusion. Yes. The top-most battle should be displaying the most recent attack against you, not the oldest. This would allude towards, as other players have mentioned, the player attempting to "point-dump"

peteer01

Brigby wrote:

Hi peteer01,

Apologies for the confusion. Yes. The top-most battle should be displaying the most recent attack against you, not the oldest. This would allude towards, as other players have mentioned, the player attempting to "point-dump"

Brigby, thanks for the reply. Hopefully someone sets support straight on the order of battles, since the correct explanation on the order makes this plausible.

Were you able to see my other bug post or PM from yesterday?

WRIGHT3OUS

Points dumping isn't cheating. You benefited from it.