Do tankers actually get punished?

[emilempenza]

Hi, I'm new to the game and only in my second season and there is an incredibly blatant tanker. The guy has a team full of 100's and has had 13 different 100 win seasons, but mysteriously loses in the playoffs every year.. On the two occasions he has accidentally gotten promoted beyond the bronze league, he has then got relegated each time with 40 win seasons. He is currently 101-19 in our league, leading every statistical category pretty much.

He couldn't be much more obvious, I have reported him, but does anything actually happen to these guys? I know it's against the rules, but are they actually enforced at all?

It's pretty much ruined the season for me tbh, it's no fun at all "competing" against someone like this and he'll obviously take all the awards at the end as well. Given that he'll probably tank the playoffs again, will I be stuck with him every season until I'm promoted? Or do the leagues shuffle at least every week?

Thanks for any help

[Orcin]

Report him.

[emilempenza]

Originally Posted by Orcin

Report him.

As I said, I did report him, I was just curious as to whether anything actually results from this. He's clearly been at it for months, I'd be surprised if no one has reported him before as he's not even subtle about it.

[HRBaker]

Originally Posted by emilempenza

As I said, I did report him, I was just curious as to whether anything actually results from this. He's clearly been at it for months, I'd be surprised if no one has reported him before as he's not even subtle about it.

I'm sure some reported tankers get punished, but it's also common that some seem to get away with it fairly regularly. I still think team changes should be limited week-to-week (season-to-season). Whatever "value" is set for the initial 25 man roster at the beginning of the season should only be allowed to go up or down maybe 10%. That way there is a limit on how much a team can tank OR improve in a single season.

[waittilnextyear]

Originally Posted by emilempenza

As I said, I did report him, I was just curious as to whether anything actually results from this. He's clearly been at it for months, I'd be surprised if no one has reported him before as he's not even subtle about it.

There have been extremely rare cases of guys getting barred from Perfect Team altogether, but I think those have mostly been about trying to manipulate the Auction House and transfer coins and cards from satellite teams to a main team. I have also noticed that sometimes a team will have an atrocious record (obviously bad enough for relegation) one week, but doesn't get relegated the next week. So, I assume when a team gets reported by a bunch of people the punishment appears to be barring the offending team from moving down.

That being said, you can pretty much find a team or two each week in your league that has a questionable record of yo-yo-ing up and down in extreme, artificial fashion. It's pretty clear to me that the majority of tanking goes mostly unaddressed and it always relies on us to spot these cheaters and be the front line enforcers to begin with, which is kind of dumb. Hopefully, the developers can build in some code that can auto-detect this and it becomes much less of a "thing" in future versions of the game.

[Dogberry99]

Originally Posted by waittilnextyear

It's pretty clear to me that the majority of tanking goes mostly unaddressed and it always relies on us to spot these cheaters and be the front line enforcers to begin with, which is kind of dumb.

It relies on us, the community, to address cheaters? There are a lot here who will disagree with that statement. Well, they constantly tell me that its not for the community to decide at any rate, so... Have fun with that one.

As long as the devs and admins remain silent about any corrective actions they take, we will remain ignorant to them. This is a shame, because the devs and admins of this game are smart hardworking people. Unfortunately, you can't highlight good work when its done in the dark.

[waittilnextyear]

Originally Posted by Dogberry99

It relies on us, the community, to address cheaters?

The 'Report This Team' button is what I'm talking about. While the community is not tasked with adjudicating anything, the matter is presented to the devs when that report feature is utilized by other players.

[Dogberry99]

Originally Posted by waittilnextyear

The 'Report This Team' button is what I'm talking about. While the community is not tasked with adjudicating anything, the matter is presented to the devs when that report feature is utilized by other players.

My apologies. The part about the community being the "front line enforcers" rely skewed my perception of the comments away from the intended meaning, I guess.

[Markus Heinsohn]

Tankers first get a warning email. If they do not react they get banned and the team removed when the next season cycle starts.

[BigRed75]

Originally Posted by emilempenza

Hi, I'm new to the game and only in my second season and there is an incredibly blatant tanker. The guy has a team full of 100's and has had 13 different 100 win seasons, but mysteriously loses in the playoffs every year.. On the two occasions he has accidentally gotten promoted beyond the bronze league, he has then got relegated each time with 40 win seasons. He is currently 101-19 in our league, leading every statistical category pretty much.

He couldn't be much more obvious, I have reported him, but does anything actually happen to these guys? I know it's against the rules, but are they actually enforced at all?

It's pretty much ruined the season for me tbh, it's no fun at all "competing" against someone like this and he'll obviously take all the awards at the end as well. Given that he'll probably tank the playoffs again, will I be stuck with him every season until I'm promoted? Or do the leagues shuffle at least every week?

Thanks for any help

I'm curious, what is the name of this team? Because this behaviour sounds EXACTLY like a team in the league I was in last season and I reported him...

[BigRed75]

Okay, so I just looked - the OP is in Bronze .225, assuming his board name matches his username. And I'm pretty sure it does, because also in Bronze .225 is the Las Vegas White Claws, which is the team that I faced last week that I was talking about.

The guy rolls through the regular season, then, when he gets the #1 seed, he sets all his starters' pitch counts to 1 and they get pulled after the first batter, making a bullpen game with an increasingly tired bullpen (and you can bet he probably has "allow SP in relief" unchecked as well.

Of course, as the OP pointed out, it doesn't always work, and he does sometimes get promoted. I know that I, in fact, won the division series in 5 games (I went back and looked - yes, in both the wins and losses, his SP only faced one batter). If he does get "accidentally" promoted, then it looks like he trots out his roster of iron cards that he keeps on his reserve list to ensure relegation.

So Markus, now that we know this player was reported (by me), an e-mail was sent, and he has continued to blatantly tank, I trust that user AzkabanSirius (hell yes I'm naming and shaming him) will be banned?

[Hertston]

Originally Posted by HRBaker

I'm sure some reported tankers get punished, but it's also common that some seem to get away with it fairly regularly. I still think team changes should be limited week-to-week (season-to-season). Whatever "value" is set for the initial 25 man roster at the beginning of the season should only be allowed to go up or down maybe 10%. That way there is a limit on how much a team can tank OR improve in a single season.

I would expect some to at least appear to 'get away it', as any element of reasonable doubt should always favor the player. If there's one thing worse than having your favorite game spoiled by such a cheater, it would be being banned from it for something you didn't do - and that is by no means an unknown scenario in gaming.

I see where you are coming from vis-a-vis your suggestion, but it does seem very restrictive, particularly at lower levels. What if new player draws a even a modest diamond in a pack.. it would essentially force them to either sell it, or sit and watch while the potential saviour of their promotion hopes that season rests on the bench. Is that really in the 'spirit' of the game? Similarly, the value of a roster would crash if even one lucky high value card was withdrawn from it as the player decided to sell, maybe holding out for a high price as they are quite entitled to do, in order to improve the team all-round with the proceeds. Surely that's just fine as well? Indeed, isn't it rather the point of the thing?

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by BigRed75

Okay, so I just looked - the OP is in Bronze .225, assuming his board name matches his username. And I'm pretty sure it does, because also in Bronze .225 is the Las Vegas White Claws, which is the team that I faced last week that I was talking about.

The guy rolls through the regular season, then, when he gets the #1 seed, he sets all his starters' pitch counts to 1 and they get pulled after the first batter, making a bullpen game with an increasingly tired bullpen (and you can bet he probably has "allow SP in relief" unchecked as well.

Of course, as the OP pointed out, it doesn't always work, and he does sometimes get promoted. I know that I, in fact, won the division series in 5 games (I went back and looked - yes, in both the wins and losses, his SP only faced one batter). If he does get "accidentally" promoted, then it looks like he trots out his roster of iron cards that he keeps on his reserve list to ensure relegation.

So Markus, now that we know this player was reported (by me), an e-mail was sent, and he has continued to blatantly tank, I trust that user AzkabanSirius (hell yes I'm naming and shaming him) will be banned?

I have notified the mods. If he did get a warning, he will get banned today.

[HRBaker]

Originally Posted by Hertston

I would expect some to at least appear to 'get away it', as any element of reasonable doubt should always favor the player. If there's one thing worse than having your favorite game spoiled by such a cheater, it would be being banned from it for something you didn't do - and that is by no means an unknown scenario in gaming.

I see where you are coming from vis-a-vis your suggestion, but it does seem very restrictive, particularly at lower levels. What if new player draws a even a modest diamond in a pack.. it would essentially force them to either sell it, or sit and watch while the potential saviour of their promotion hopes that season rests on the bench. Is that really in the 'spirit' of the game? Similarly, the value of a roster would crash if even one lucky high value card was withdrawn from it as the player decided to sell, maybe holding out for a high price as they are quite entitled to do, in order to improve the team all-round with the proceeds. Surely that's just fine as well? Indeed, isn't it rather the point of the thing?

I threw out the 10%-thing as a simplified example. "Tanking" is, by definition, purposefully fielding a group of players significantly worse than what the team is capable of fielding. The purpose of doing so isn't important - but doing so is expressly against the TOS.

The Devs could, given the effort, come up with a fair and reasonable set of limitations that would limit the amount to which a team could play under its potential - and THAT could be coded into the game.

Once done, there wouldn't be any need for us (or anyone) to be on the lookout for "cheating" unless someone came up with a new way to do it.

All my argument has ever been is code the limits (whatever they are) into the game so we can quit this endless discussion.

[dkgo]

Or even better, make the game so people dont benefit more by losing in the first place...

[bailey]

Originally Posted by dkgo

Or even better, make the game so people dont benefit more by losing in the first place...

You mean like trying to lose a game after winning 16 in a row?

[emilempenza]

Welp, he's still there and just thrown the first game of the playoffs with his starter only going one batter, his lineup is missing all it's big names and he's playing everyone out of position. So I guess that answers my question about whether these guys get punished. Pretty disappointing tbh

[Thundercrack]

Enforcement not much of a priority, apparently.

[dkgo]

The guy clearly will be banned. At least give the team a day to do it good lord.

[Orcin]

It might be technically impossible to ban the player until the league has completed its season, i.e. tonight.