Tanking?

[One Post Wonder]

Originally Posted by Kushiel

WoW! Most? I cringe at the thought that there are more dishonest people than honest. That is a heck of a statement concerning the human condition. I have yet to see more than one team at a time in the same league blatantly tanking.

It's not quite as bad as that, where we're living in Sodom and Gommorah (sp?) here and we're all a bunch of cheats or anything. It's just adapting to the environment.

IMO it's like jaywalking (crossing the street on a red light or where there is no crosswalk, for non Americans). In America, pretty much everyone jaywalks despite there being nominal laws against it, but when I went to Switzerland last year, no-one did it.

In each country, when that law was put into place, perhaps 5% of people broke it regularly. Switzerland obviously made a point of cracking down on those 5% and everyone else saw that jaywalking was not accepted behavior. In America, nothing happened to that 5% and they got where they were going faster. Everyone else saw that this 5% gained an advantage from jaywalking with no downside, emulated it, and now most people in America will jaywalk according to their own personal needs and physical capabilities.

There had to be an easier way to put that, but I'll leave it...

MP games are the same way. Rules are put into place. Some players break them because that's how they are. If they get away with such violations, every player who seriously wants to compete will play in a similar way, and that becomes sort of the accepted way to play the game.

There will be lots of people who never tank here. But they'll either be:

1. Buying tons of pp.
2. Working the AH (I think most of those guys are competitive enough to also tank if it became accepted though).
3. Zorro.
4. .. or nowhere near the elite levels of the game and accepting of that.

[<Pion>]

Hopefully given that only 10% of those who voted in the poll did not think it was tanking is more reflective of how many think it is wrong and by extension, hopefully not doing it themselves. I agree that it doesn't happen in every league (to this extent) and I've yet to see more than one team in a league do it (though it could be).

[Dogberry99]

Originally Posted by <Pion>

Hopefully given that only 10% of those who voted in the poll did not think it was tanking is more reflective of how many think it is wrong and by extension, hopefully not doing it themselves. I agree that it doesn't happen in every league (to this extent) and I've yet to see more than one team in a league do it (though it could be).

It is possible to believe that true tanking is wrong while simultaneously believing that these were poor examples of true tanking.

[<Pion>]

Originally Posted by Dogberry99

It is possible to believe that true tanking is wrong while simultaneously believing that these were poor examples of true tanking.

See the "Neither Are" tally for your answer.

[Kushiel]

Originally Posted by One Post Wonder

MP games are the same way. Rules are put into place. Some players break them because that's how they are. If they get away with such violations, every player who seriously wants to compete will play in a similar way, and that becomes sort of the accepted way to play the game.

There will be lots of people who never tank here. But they'll either be:

1. Buying tons of pp.
2. Working the AH (I think most of those guys are competitive enough to also tank if it became accepted though).
3. Zorro.
4. .. or nowhere near the elite levels of the game and accepting of that.

Every player that tanks either as a pioneer of tanking or simply a follower into the tanking schemes is a cheater. Every cheater would have cheated with or without being shown they could get away with it because at some point they decide on their own that nobody will notice.

Not every player will follow into that path of deceit and degradation of character whether they fit your exception list or not. The poll is a small sample but it points with no doubt to the people I speak of. I look at these type of posts and honestly I feel that the people you speak of are the ones trying to find and state some validity in the cheating choice. They want some reason to show it is OK, so they keep running all these what ifs by the people like me on these forums that are diametrically opposed to cheating. They want an excuse to follow the cheating trend. Why else would somebody ask about this or that being acceptable in these posts?

[One Post Wonder]

Originally Posted by Kushiel

Every player that tanks either as a pioneer of tanking or simply a follower into the tanking schemes is a cheater. Every cheater would have cheated with or without being shown they could get away with it because at some point they decide on their own that nobody will notice.

Not every player will follow into that path of deceit and degradation of character whether they fit your exception list or not. The poll is a small sample but it points with no doubt to the people I speak of. I look at these type of posts and honestly I feel that the people you speak of are the ones trying to find and state some validity in the cheating choice. They want some reason to show it is OK, so they keep running all these what ifs by the people like me on these forums that are diametrically opposed to cheating. They want an excuse to follow the cheating trend. Why else would somebody ask about this or that being acceptable in these posts?

There might be some truth in that, although I think most of the OP's in these threads are legit and have reported the violations they see.

The real problem is that no-one is driving the bus. If OOTP developments doesn't establish a system which makes it impossible, risky, or unprofitable to engage in any kind of cheating then the rules will be set by the players. If the players drive the bus, then players who cheat, whether it be via tanking, exchanging pp, exploiting multiple accounts, whatever, are going to learn which of their behaviors will be flagged by other players and which won't. And eventually players like you will wonder (quite reasonably) why it is on you to catch this stuff, and not on the company who is actually selling and running the game.

I personally think that 19 was viewed as an experiment by OOTP and that a lot of these kinds of problems will go away in 20, as the admins learn how people are cheating and eradicate them. I hope so, because you absolutely can't have cheating in a game that uses real money.

[<Pion>]

Originally Posted by One Post Wonder

The real problem is that no-one is driving the bus.

The saddest part to me is that someone has to be driving the bus as people cannot police themselves.

It reminds me of the first time I started a baseball league using APBA cards. I came up with a simple list of rules, and two of the guys in the leagues shocked me (I never expected it as I was new to participating in these leagues) how they would find the grey area between the lines and do things that went against the concept of what APBA had intended. So I would add a rule to prohibit something and they would do something else. I asked them to follow the "spirit" of the law rather than the actual rules, but that did not stop them. I then prematurely disbanded the league rather than continue having a shambles made of things. Is it any wonder that we have to have rules on aircraft saying "tamper with, disable, or destroy any smoke detector installed in any airplane lavatory" rather than "don't mess with it" since someone might argue they tampered but did not disable or mess with it???

[Kushiel]

I hope there is a better handle on it in 20 by the OOTP staff. So far I have not seen anybody actively tanking but that is likely because the leagues are still in such flux that nobody feels trapped yet.

The silly part of the tanking is that I have seen teams with rosters that were only a couple players(usually pitchers) away from being pretty good start tanking. Before the AH here blew up with the release of OOTP-20 players could have built decent staffs with pitchers in the 30-40k range. I suppose to some, cheating is a better/easier answer than either saving a few weeks or spending $20.

[Dogberry99]

We do not have a clear definition on what is and is not cheating. If we did, there would be no poll in this thread.

We can moralize all we want about how this game should be played, but at the end of the day, none of us are in a position to rule on in game behavior. We are all making assumptions, many of which pit us against one another, adding to the toxicity of the community.


Why are we surprised that some here are trying to look for any and all advantages allowed by the game mechanics when the sport we're simulating doesn't merely look for the same advantages but lauds and rewards such behavior?

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by Dogberry99

We do not have a clear definition on what is and is not cheating. If we did, there would be no poll in this thread.

From the ToS:

"When you access Perfect Team mode, you agree that you will not, nor encourage another party to:

(a) Use any software, program, or practice that damages, interferes with, or disrupts gameplay, related services, or any other party's computer or property, such as denial of service attacks, spamming, hacking, uploading computer viruses or similar malicious software.

(b) Exploit the game in such a way as to use bugs or other unintended design or coding issues of the software in a manner intended to gain an advantage in gameplay over players who do not use such exploits, or to disrupt the normal operation of the game.

(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."

Seems pretty clear to me.

EDIT: Cheating is defined as "to act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage." Part C adds clarity to the definition as it applies to this game.

[Kushiel]

Originally Posted by Orcin

From the ToS:

Seems pretty clear to me.

EDIT: Cheating is defined as "to act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage." Part C adds clarity to the definition as it applies to this game.

It is very clear to me too, Orcin. It is clearly and concisely stated.

[Pirates]

No matter what game you play, you will always have people who cheat so they can win.
This is a major character flaw they have.
These type of people can never be trusted.

What type of person wants to win by cheating?

[Dogberry99]

Originally Posted by Kushiel

It is very clear to me too, Orcin. It is clearly and concisely stated.

Then the devs need to stop the pussyfooting around the issue, stop allowing some protected ways to win less than the maximum possible amount of games, and start actually doing something about it by banning people. If I am in the wrong for playing Ed Delahanty in CF instead of Paul Blair and Garry Maddox so that I can get relegated from Perfect to Diamond - which I did do - then hold me accountable. Warn me. Ban Me. If I am breaking your rules, then correct me! Stop leaving it to the community to try and police me.

I want the rules clarified, but I am fine with that clarification coming in the form of enforcement. Until it is clarified, in whatever manner that takes, my sliders will continue to be optimized for losing.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by Dogberry99

Then the devs need to stop the pussyfooting around the issue, stop allowing some protected ways to win less than the maximum possible amount of games, and start actually doing something about it by banning people. If I am in the wrong for playing Ed Delahanty in CF instead of Paul Blair and Garry Maddox so that I can get relegated from Perfect to Diamond - which I did do - then hold me accountable. Warn me. Ban Me. If I am breaking your rules, then correct me! Stop leaving it to the community to try and police me.

I want the rules clarified, but I am fine with that clarification coming in the form of enforcement. Until it is clarified, in whatever manner that takes, my sliders will continue to be optimized for losing.

Sometimes it is easy to see the intent, such as playing Mike Piazza in center field with Blair and Maddox parked on the reserve roster. It could be difficult to know if playing Delahanty, an outfielder, in CF is just a poor decision to trade defense for offense or a purposeful attempt to lose. I would expect the developers to err on the side of caution rather than wildly banning everyone that fields a less-than-optimal lineup.

[Dogberry99]

Originally Posted by Orcin

Sometimes it is easy to see the intent, such as playing Mike Piazza in center field with Blair and Maddox parked on the reserve roster. It could be difficult to know if playing Delahanty, an outfielder, in CF is just a poor decision to trade defense for offense or a purposeful attempt to lose. I would expect the developers to err on the side of caution rather than wildly banning everyone that fields a less-than-optimal lineup.

Playing Garry Maddox in a corner spot with Delahanty and his single digit positional rating in CF may not be quite obvious enough, but I thought that playing Paul Blair at DH (which is also what I did, sorry for not being clearer) would surely make my intent transparent.

[pstrickert]

What level of scrutiny on the part of the developers can we reasonably expect when half a million games get played each week?

[One Post Wonder]

Originally Posted by Dogberry99

We do not have a clear definition on what is and is not cheating. If we did, there would be no poll in this thread.

We can moralize all we want about how this game should be played, but at the end of the day, none of us are in a position to rule on in game behavior. We are all making assumptions, many of which pit us against one another, adding to the toxicity of the community.

Why are we surprised that some here are trying to look for any and all advantages allowed by the game mechanics when the sport we're simulating doesn't merely look for the same advantages but lauds and rewards such behavior?

You're not wrong there. But this is something that clearly needs addressing, not by players but by OOTP.

And yes, as someone who is also a gamer I'm well aware that we are not playing actual major league baseball but a game which is an approximate representation of real baseball. The rules to be successful at this game are very different than the rules of real baseball. Whenever you play a video game, this is the most successful way to look at it.

And that would be OK. But. People are paying real money here. If I can beat a guy who dropped $100 by using strategy, AH trades, and smarter player signings then that's one thing. If I can beat that guy because I earned more pp in 4 seasons of tanking and mopping the floor with inferior competition than he did by paying that $100... well, I don't see why people would continue to pay money under that circumstance. The top spots of the game would all be filled by 'gamers'.

I'll be honest; I would also tank if the game meant that much to me because I play games to win. It's not fun to be a doormat. But things like tanking and pp funneling, to me at least, take the game too far away from actual baseball. It wouldn't matter if I could win or not - I would stop playing because the whole thing would seem stupid to me. I think a lot of other players might lean that way too.

Regarding what OOTP can do.. they can use algorithms combined with a little, but not too much manual oversight. If a team wins a game 41-3, that game should be flagged and reviewed to make sure there were no shenanigans. If a team goes 27-135, that team should be looked at. They're already monitoring the AH in this kind of fashion... they don't need to review everything manually.

How is OOTP 20 looking? I'm not looking at that the threads there regarding PT since I'm not a player. I'm of the impression that this stuff won't happen in the new version.

[Findest2001]

I just got promoted to silver with my theme team and they're getting destroyed. I mean rolled over. Last I checked they are 4-18. But I'm trying my hardest to win. It might not look like it because even though I plowed through bronze my first season, I'm learning very quickly my team may not have been ready for silver yet. Would that look like I'm tanking to others?


(Serious question)

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by Findest2001

I just got promoted to silver with my theme team and they're getting destroyed. I mean rolled over. Last I checked they are 4-18. But I'm trying my hardest to win. It might not look like it because even though I plowed through bronze my first season, I'm learning very quickly my team may not have been ready for silver yet. Would that look like I'm tanking to others?


(Serious question)

No.

[Kushiel]

Originally Posted by Findest2001

I just got promoted to silver with my theme team and they're getting destroyed. I mean rolled over. Last I checked they are 4-18. But I'm trying my hardest to win. It might not look like it because even though I plowed through bronze my first season, I'm learning very quickly my team may not have been ready for silver yet. Would that look like I'm tanking to others?


(Serious question)

In my opinion, you are fine. Experienced players would never look twice at your team at Silver. Most if they looked at your w/l record would then look at your history. You do not have a big winning record that gets you to Perfect proving you had good players. Then suddenly you have only low players. That is the main tankers seen regularly.