Reporting a new type of cheating

[emilempenza]

I've reported a guy who was cheating, but I think their cheating is more complex than the usual reporting system allows so they almost certainly have gotten away with it. This is probably going to be a fairly long post, but the scale of the cheating and the effect on the market is probably so large I think it warrants it.

To cut the setup short, my third team is a joke, I never use it, I just use it to buy packs, sell what I get and buy more packs, so I don't fee tempted on my main account. As a result, they are usually somewhere in the bottom 2 leagues as I don't change the team ever.

Anyway, last week, I logged in to see the account all of a sudden had over a million coins. This seemed more than a bit odd, usually I log in every couple of weeks to find they have 40-50k, maybe more if they got lucky with packs and something sold for a large amount.

So I look through for the cause and it turns out there is a team in rookie deliberately set up to lose every game by about 100 runs. Each game like that nets the opponent around 100k! Now obviously this has been set up by someone as a means to funnel millions of coins to another account they are friends with so they stay in the same league. Looking at their history, they had been doing this for at least 10 seasons, potentially "earning" the companion account tens of millions in coins.

I couldn't tell by looking who the other account was, I presume they then fed the millions to their main account through inflated player sales, but all I was able to report was the deliberately losing account. This account has gotten away with this for so long, presumably because teams enjoy getting the 100k a game and don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but this must be massively effecting the game far more than pretty much all the regular tankers combined.

Either way, I figure this needs addressing as it's coin farming way beyond anything else I have ever seen and is potentially game breaking. Not sure I can say the accounts name or not as some forums don't want naming and shaming, but I have it recorded if you want to investigate it properly.

[bailey]

Then they were pretty stupid. They should have bought 10 copies of the game (even at full price) and by controlling every team in the league could have gotten at least 1 team to 16.2 million points in just 1 season.

[emilempenza]

Originally Posted by bailey

Then they were pretty stupid. They should have bought 10 copies of the game (even at full price) and by controlling every team in the league could have gotten at least 1 team to 16.2 million points in just 1 season.

Tbf, no way of knowing how many teams in that league were in on it, if a group of friends or like minded cheaters got together they could easily have a league. Clearly there are no in built anti-cheating mechanisms and it's reliant on people being reported, but no one can report if you are all in on it.

[Will_L]

Originally Posted by emilempenza

Tbf, no way of knowing how many teams in that league were in on it, if a group of friends or like minded cheaters got together they could easily have a league. Clearly there are no in built anti-cheating mechanisms and it's reliant on people being reported, but no one can report if you are all in on it.

No way for us players to know but the devs probably can check that players friends list and extrapolate information from that. They can probably also check to see what other players have the cheater on their friends list to see it from another angle if the cheater has tried to avoid using his/her friends list.

[dkgo]

I cant make any conclusions yet. what is their username so I can try to join their league next year in order to fully investigate?

[chazzycat]

Originally Posted by emilempenza

Tbf, no way of knowing how many teams in that league were in on it, if a group of friends or like minded cheaters got together they could easily have a league. Clearly there are no in built anti-cheating mechanisms and it's reliant on people being reported, but no one can report if you are all in on it.

I'd say the promotion/relegation system is actually a natural, and fairly effective, anti-cheating mechanism.

I can tell you from experience - it's incredibly tough, if not impossible, to keep an entire league full of your friends week after week.

[One Great Matrix]

I think a cap should be designed.

Why? Because people go for more but more & more (& more) is no better than less & less (& less).

I remember Markus spoke of "the sweet spot" when 2.0 was released. Whatever that is.

Otherwise, overflow.

[One Great Matrix]

How about 10M PP if y'all can't stand the thought of a 240K PP cap.

[tbonetim]

I suspect that for Perfect Team in OOTP 22, the developers are going to need to review how such teams have manipulated the strategy settings and find out how they can better govern these. Same thing occurred last week with a team in a league I was in. It threw off the balance of competition by a wide margin and especially favored the teams in the same division as that team in question. It cost me being competitive for a wildcard but at least I got almost 12K in points in just one of the few games I played against them, god knows how many points other teams racked up who played in the same division with that team. I would have much rather been in the hunt for a playoff spot on the final day of the week.

[dkgo]

Originally Posted by One Great Matrix

How about 10M PP if y'all can't stand the thought of a 240K PP cap.

A cap is either so high that it is effectively useless because the market price is under it anyway, or it "works" by further restricting the supply of a card that is already in limited supply.

It's like you have no understanding of basic economic concepts.

[One Great Matrix]

Oh, well, I don't.

I understand what I understand.

A 10,000,000 PP cap is still a cap. And I feel very strongly that a max is better than none.

I mean...when did the market get manipulated. Because everything I've ever gotten really has been well-earned.

You can start teaching me economics if you want but you did just shake up a memory of me making my Economics teacher shake his head.

Good economy is good economy.

[One Great Matrix]

Actually, I don't feel that strongly that there should be a max...
Going back to economics class, though...

Similar to this situation on one hand I had my opinion or was "barking" but then on the other the teacher honestly thought I must've cheated or something when I handed in the test just as he had taught me, so paying attention.

I don't know, I disagreed. Don't sit too well with a blue-collar worker that isn't familiar with economics but is familiar with mathematics. To put things so clearly when I observed a lot of other things at work... You know couldn't help but say "that doesn't work for me".

Just expect, yeah, a little bit more thoughtful responses or I guess to be ignored.

[SF Giants]

It's very simple. Either devs support this behaviour or not. If they are in favour, I will follow the example myself. If they don't then they should set boundaries from when focusing on making money by offense is cheating and COMMIT TO ENFORCING IT. If not then set cap on how much a player can earn in a season (prefferably make sure that every players choice of strategy is awarded the same amount of PP - yes I am annoyed that my F2P defensive team won't ever make it because of no income).

[One Great Matrix]

Originally Posted by SF Giants

It's very simple. Either devs support this behaviour or not. If they are in favour, I will follow the example myself. If they don't then they should set boundaries from when focusing on making money by offense is cheating and COMMIT TO ENFORCING IT. If not then set cap on how much a player can earn in a season (prefferably make sure that every players choice of strategy is awarded the same amount of PP - yes I am annoyed that my F2P defensive team won't ever make it because of no income).

In this case, there was some compensation in that he got 100,000+ PP and the team, for the time being, goes 54-108 or whatever...Kinda ironic that there's a complaint about teams losing, but there does seem to be another kind of team that well...has more 'economic flexibility' than other teams within the game. This is my other concern besides cheating. Just a concern. When I first asked if there should be a limit to how much you could sell a card on the Auction House, it was honestly a question concerning the whole PT Universe; the eco-system...because

I'm not sure how the developers could just come down on these behaviors and eliminate them.

Making it? What do you mean by that?

[SF Giants]

Originally Posted by One Great Matrix

In this case, there was some compensation in that he got 100,000+ PP and the team, for the time being, goes 54-108 or whatever...Kinda ironic that there's a complaint about teams losing, but there does seem to be another kind of team that well...has more 'economic flexibility' than other teams within the game. This is my other concern besides cheating. Just a concern. When I first asked if there should be a limit to how much you could sell a card on the Auction House, it was honestly a question concerning the whole PT Universe; the eco-system...because

I'm not sure how the developers could just come down on these behaviors and eliminate them.

Making it? What do you mean by that?

I can stay on losing side for a month or two. It doesn't bother me at all if in the end I will make 2-3mil PP as emilempenza wrote in the initial post.

Making it - making such nice money.

[One Great Matrix]

Originally Posted by SF Giants

I can stay on losing side for a month or two. It doesn't bother me at all if in the end I will make 2-3mil PP as emilempenza wrote in the initial post.

Making it - making such nice money.

F2P in order to make money. Hmm

I mostly just like putting teams together & seeing how they fare, tweaking them.

This week, Sweet Emotion & Natural Players, twin teams, one of them in Gold floundering at the bottom, the other crushing it in Bronze.

[SF Giants]

Originally Posted by One Great Matrix

F2P in order to make money. Hmm

I mostly just like putting teams together & seeing how they fare, tweaking them.

This week, Sweet Emotion & Natural Players, twin teams, one of them in Gold floundering at the bottom, the other crushing it in Bronze.

Money = PPs