Reminder of Terms of Service
 

Good morning folks. We have seen an increase as of late in regards to Perfect Point funneling, reports of tanking and other in-game activities that violate the Terms of Service for OOTP 20/Perfect Team. As a result, the development team will start being more aggressive in enforcing the ToS, specifically the sections posted below. Please keep in mind that penalties for violations of the ToS include written warnings and outright bans from Perfect Team (for repeat or egregious violations).

(c) Cheat, deliberately lose, trade wins or Perfect Points, "feed" wins or Perfect Points from one account to another via the auction house or any other method, or otherwise fail to make a good-faith effort to play the game in a fashion intended to win via fair gameplay according to the intended operation of the game. Note that an Out of the Park Developments account is required to play Perfect Team, and individuals are limited to a single OOTP account. Use of multiple accounts by an individual, including the use of accounts registered under another person's name, real or fictitious, will be subject to the sanctions listed in (j) (k) and (l) below for the party or parties involved.
(d) Deliberately manipulate, outside the course of normal gameplay, the game's economy or the economy of any game-related marketplace in a manner intended to gain a financial or competitive advantage.

Note by Markus:
We typically do not enforce the "individuals are limited to a single OOTP account" part, as long as the individual does not use the extra PT accounts created with additional licenses for illegal activities like win trading our PP funneling. So, it is okay if you buy multiple copies of the game with the intent to have more than three PT accounts for yourself, if you so desire. Just please make sure you do not violate the other rules.

Question: is it allowable to have one account put a card up on the Auction House at, say, the last 7 average price, and to purchase it with another account? I understand it'd be illegal if account 1 posted a card at a ridiculously low or high price, but if you list it at "market price" that seems like a legitimate transaction to me.

The wording of that statement suggests we shouldn't be having any more than 1 team each, if we should be limited to one OOTP account. Is this something you're planning to cut out?

The wording indicates 1 account, so basically 3 teams per person.

I am also curious about this, as I know lots of ethical and good-natured people on these boards have multiple licenses because they just love running PT teams. I only have the 1 account, but don't want to see these folks punished (I'm sure they won't be as OOTPD are good guys).

The free rewards in the game are great! Not complaining about that, but the issue with tanking could be pretty easily resolved by offering better rewards at higher levels. Honestly, I think the rewards at Iron and Bronze should be lower as well.

Maybe something like -50% current rewards at Iron, -25% at Bronze, current rewards at Silver, +25% at Gold, +50% at Diamond, and +75% at Perfect.

The only thing that I don’t understand about this statement is why the TOS wasn’t being aggressively enforced all along,

No. Selling cards between your own accounts is not permitted

It has been enforced all along. But with an influx of new users and an increase in the amount of violations we have been seeing, we thought it a good time to remind everyone about the ToS and penalties associated with violating them

We have no plans to reduce the 3 teams/account.

Thanks for the clarification.

Reminder of Terms of Service
 

Can you elaborate on the one account (3 teams) wording per individual.

One can read it as you prefer not to have users with more than 3 teams (buying one copy of OOTP and then buying another OOTP license for teams 4-6)?

Or is the wording outdated and not fully updated to consider the fact that PT is also driving additional sale of licenses and the wording is trying to only focus on the abuse of users buying a second account to funnel points&players.

In other words....
1 game = 1 license = 1 account = up to 3 teams?

2 games (Steam and standalone) = 2 licenses = 2 accounts = up to 6 teams? Violation?

I'm with you, Orcin. The evidence, such as it was, led me to believe just the opposite. Then again, this aspect of PT is not at all transparent.

Yes, I have made plenty of reports and saw no evidence of enforcement. Obviously, I could not "see" a warning. But if the player was warned and continued to engage in the same behavior with impunity, then the warning was/is useless. I don't call that aggressive enforcement. I expect aggressive enforcement to result in the timely end of the violating behavior. I have been concerned about cheating in PT since beta 0.1 and I remain concerned because I see and report plenty of obvious violations for tanking that end up rewarding the tanker with a demotion. And I don't need a definition of tanking to know blatant tanking when I see it, so let's not start that debate again.

Good suggestion. I think adding a level above Perfect would help too to allow us humble minnows to compete in Perfect. Adding two additional relegation spots to Perfect League recently helps too, although may inadvertently encourage more tanking.

The free rewards in the game are great! Not complaining about that, but the issue with tanking could be pretty easily resolved by offering better rewards at higher levels. Honestly, I think the rewards at Iron and Bronze should be lower as well.

Maybe something like -50% current rewards at Iron, -25% at Bronze, current rewards at Silver, +25% at Gold, +50% at Diamond, and +75% at Perfect.

This idea rewards people for not cheating and/or breaking the service agreement.
It then penalizes players at lower levels.
Got it.......

How about taking away earned points from players caught cheating and/or breaking the service agreement.
That is a more reasonable and fair solution.
You don't reward people for not cheating, stealing, etc....

We did enforce the rules like Kris said. Most of the time a warning was enough, but we also banned plenty of accounts in the previous months for several reasons.

Your solution to stop tanking is to penalize the 99 percentile trying to progress through the game because of a few bad apples and give it to the people who've already progressed. You sound like a politician. Vote NO on suggestion 1.

I'll throw this in again - just in case no one has yet taken it seriously...

Add code to the game that takes a snapshot of the OVR total first game of the season - then block any attempt for the balance of the year to reduce the total OVR more than 10% (example). In this scenario, a team with a 95 OVR average (2375 total) wouldn't be able to deplete the team any further than an 85 OVR average (2138 total) for the rest of the season. And maybe it should be even more restrictive; like 5%.

As someone who has 2 teams that adhere to themes and a 3rd that has prioritized the addition of elite offensive talent while ignoring pitching (beyond a certain set amount that coincides with a specific collection of poor quality cards), it is absolutely clear to me that I am "failing to make a good-faith effort to play the game in a fashion intended to win via fair gameplay." I am focusing on point generation in 1 example specifically and interesting card collections in all 3. In neither case are my actions taken with an intent to win. Sometimes I win, but that is often in spite of the lineup I field, rarely because of it.

In both cases, I pursue objectives that directly inhibit the amount of games I can win. By valuing points and enjoyment over winning, I am in violation of the TOS.

Either I am wrong, or the TOS is not sufficient.

I wouldn't interpret an offensive focused team that is not excelling yet as a bad-faith effort.

Maybe if you are deliberately playing your defense out of position (a first basemen at shortstop, a catcher in centre field, etc.) or are doing weird moves with your pitching staff to elevate ERA, I could see those being bad-faith. But focusing on buying players who are good offensively while not upgrading pitching or defense? I can't imagine that will be seen as against TOS.

I could just be optimistic, but I don't think so.