Cheaters

[Bubbley]

@tigerussell Rovio are in business so one must suppose everything they do is to increase revenue. I would guess most players who previously reached diamond or platinum don’t spend anything in the Arena. Hence the caves and new levels. Yet cheaters surely spend nothing for they have no need. Legitimate players who think they have a chance of reaching the top three might well renew their banners. Is it really impossible to prevent cheats advancing?

[t_russell]

@bubbley — I don’t think it would be impossible to stop the cheating at all. And since as you say they likely spend no money they should not be considered customers. Banning cheaters has been the rule on most game servers since the advent of online gaming. What galls me the most about this issue is that no one at rovio thought to ask the question “what will we do when people start to cheat?” Not if but when, and that absolutely no consideration was given to the eventuality. It would seem that they were actually astonished by the fact that so many people would be dishonest. Reality check anyone?

And while the re-setters may have been annoying at least you saw them coming. They still had to play after a fashion to get their scores to increase. You knew right away when it was a waste of time to chase a spot. There isn’t any way to spot a hacker since they can sit in last place until one minute from the end and then throw in a huge score. Now you have no way to know how much effort to expend, You could be in first place all week and then end up in fifth.

In any event I’m still spending no more money in or on the game. I don’t really care if they fix it or not. I’ll also not spend any money on any of their other games which I have quit playing for the most part TBH.

Customer lost.

[Angry Johnny]

No, it is not impossible to stop the cheaters at all. I even made a thread about a sure way to fix the arena so it can not be manipulated by changing the score of the player and it would not take long to implement. However it seems like Rovio is unwilling to go that route :-/

[Bubbley]

@tigerussell @angryjohnny so they have removed resetting which as you say we could spot but have left hackers who we can’t spot. It is conceivable then that some players are buying banners in hope. It seems bizarre that the hackers are allowed to deceive honest players. In fact it makes no sense to me because in the end honest players will leave the game.

[WhiteAsIce]

Score hackers are still present. This person did not appear in my leaderboard until an hour right before the weekly reset. http://i.imgur.com/KcMqlp7.jpg

[t_russell]

@neomerlinmagic @whiteasice VLAD and the Ghost of VLAD strike two boards and knock two people out of first. Anyone out there still want to defend the “Ghost player fallback system”. Seems the entire point was made right here.

[KillerKea]

@tigerussell I benefitted from the ghost players because there were only 3 players in my group that earned any points so we all advanced to Gold. That seems to indicate that the ghosting is random since an active player can’t have a zero score. The ghosting will help more than it hurts because there are a lot more people that don’t play the arena than those that earn or cheat to get high scores.

[t_russell]

@killerkea I dont buy it that helping one player equals hurting another. Any system capable of ruining any players chance to advance is damaging to the game as a whole no matter how many people see a benefit. No one should get a free pass.

[KillerKea]

I’ve noticed more ghost players with no scores than ghost players with high scores so it appears the ghost players help more than they hurt players. If you have 3 or more no score players, then you can’t get demoted unless you also score zero points. I’ve never seen 3 ghost players occupying the top 3 spots. The real problem is with cheaters.

[t_russell]

@killerkea I agree the cheaters are the real problem here. The ghost issue pales in comparison. But I dont see any movement on either front so both points are moot.

[MVNLA2]

@killerKea — How do you know you’ve seen ghost players with no scores?

[KerrAvon]

I think we should dispense with the notion that the presence of ghosts helps us in any way.

If there are just 5 active players on the leaderboard, then where you finish depends on those players. If the system adds 10 ghosts to the leaderboard, even if they all have scores of “0” at the end, they have not helped you. You still have to play one battle and gain points in order to not be demoted.

Also, we have no way of knowing that there are ghosts on our leaderboards. We can suspect, but the only way of knowing for sure is if we have independent confirmation from someone else on our leaderboard.

I have reached Diamond with my level 18 game. There are currently 5 players on my board who have scores of zero – we are 9 h into the second day. They all have diamond frames and so presumably made Diamond last season. I started 5 h late yesterday, so I would not expect ghosts. Last week in Platinum was similar. I had 3 players with scores of zero at the end of the week. I don’t understand what is going on. Surely players are just not quitting after the effort to get back up to Platinum and Diamond.

If these are ghosts, then how can I know whether or not everyone else on my leaderboard is also a ghost?

[KillerKea]

@mvnla2 Through deduction I can determine that at least some if not most of the players on my board were ghosts.

I suppose it is possible for 12 real players to lose every battle they play and end up with a score of zero at the end of the week, but that is extremely unlikely. The players had a variety of frames and a couple were even diamond level so for all of them to lose all their battles is very hard to believe. A real player has to fight in the arena to get on a scoreboard. Therefore a good portion of those 12 if not all of them were ghosts.

@kerravon Any player that has a score of zero is helping you quite a bit because that is one less player you are competing against and if you have 3 players with zero scores you are in no danger of getting demoted. Having 12 players with zero scores like I did guaranteed me an advancement, but I still completed all my daily objectives while the other 2 players advanced with scores around 20k. Also I did not start late to try and get an empty board. I started less than an hour after the league finished.

[Neomerlinmagic]

Cheaters are definitely worse than ghosts. I don’t like either, but the cheating is higher priority, but the ghosts seem like they should be an easy fix. When the cheaters also get ghosted, the issues are compounded. I really don’t consider logging in anytime in the first day to be logging in late, since peak play times on an international game hit at different times of the day. Rovio seems to be adding players to leaderboards as the accept their rewards rather than when they start putting up a score. VLAD kept at least two legitimate players from advancing. Two that we know of anyway. VLAD may have been ghosted a thousand times, there’s no way to tell. Ghosts only bother me the most when either the cheaters are ghosted or when they are of a higher/lower league. If they must ghost, please keep it a fair competition.

[laura118b]

I don’t really think the players on boards with a zero score should be counted as ghosts, they seem more like place holders to me. If the algorithm (don’t try to tell me they don’t use one) predicts player X will score around N and places that player on a board with like scoring players that’s fine. Now a player skipping a random week isn’t predictable. I know there’s lots of zeros on some of these boards, but it still doesn’t seem to be copying. Vlad the douche is a true ghost, his score is being cloned and disrupting fair play.

Maybe that’s a truer term anyway, clone not ghost.

[Neomerlinmagic]

Here’s a scenario to help people understand the problem with ghosts. Many people say that because there’s just as much chance to be helped by a ghost as there is to he harmed by one, that it’s fair overall. Here’s the hole in that logic. Okay, here goes.

Let’s say that first, your workplace has 50% of it’s workforce work every weekend, picked randomly. Then, let’s say, they decide that when the clocks change, they’ll pay 8 hours, regardless of hours worked. So the people who work “spring forward” benefit and the same amount of people lose during “fall back”. Can you really tell someone who worked 9 hours for 8 hours pay, in the fall, that it’s fair, because they had a 50% chance to get paid an extra hour in the spring?

[Duiksmurf]

Last night I finished my objectives, quit the game normally and reset my tablet as I always do. This morning I logged in, noticing I had a complete fresh set of objectives??

Somehow they got reset overnight, while I did keep my points of last night.

Did anybody else ever notice this?

D.

[HarleyM]

@neomerlinmagic The difference is arena leagues reset weekly. Using your example, if the clocks both “sprung forward” and “fell back” once a week, most people wouldn’t care too much, because it would even out very quickly. That’s the case with ghosts. It can be frustrating, but it isn’t really *that* big of a deal. Even in your example, it IS fair “overall”, just problematic because the luck likely won’t average out. With us it likely will.

Either way, I’m not defending the system, just saying it isn’t this horrible awful system that only hurts players that some make it out to be. @KerrAvon In your example the ghosts have helped you, because otherwise you would be on a board with 15 legitimate players competing for your spots. The only way they don’t help you is if you assume that Rovio would ever be okay with a board that only featured 5 players. They wouldn’t be.

[FreckledPig147]

Are we talking about cheaters or ghosts here? It’s getting a little off-topic here…

Anyways, if Rovio doesn’t ban the cheaters, then the least they could do would to be to ‘revoke’ advancement for cheaters. (But all cheaters are in Diamond League now, so it’s pointless until the whole arena gets reset at the end) Basically they would keep the cheater in the league, but then after being flagged as being illegit, the cheater would be immediately sent to 15th place at the end of the week, and they will not be able to advance. Then all the honest players will be able to advance. (Everyone would get moved up 1 position per cheater, who fall to the bottom, but unfortunately, Rovio needs to keep tabs on cheaters for this to really be effective!!!) So unless they hack the leagues, all cheaters will stay in Wood League. :P BUT in my opinion, this still isn’t enough. And of course, banning cheaters or even setting a punishment harsh enough makes everything so much easier…but I guess I can’t do anything about it besides complaining… :(

[MVNLA2]

I think there is a cheater in my stone league named Almir. So far this week his score is 0, but he got to diamond league last season. I think he’s a cheater and not a ghost, because he would have had to play last week either to get into stone or stay there. @KillerKea would say he is obviously a ghost. I’ll let you know if anything happens before the end. of the week.
Everyone else has a score, and seems to be playing. I don’t think anyone else is obviously cheating. The top score is 17,640, and right now I am second at 16.670, but I think a lot of people haven’t started today’s objectives. There are a total of 4 players who previously got to diamond league.

[KerrAvon]

@mvnla2 It is quite possible that the player has just had enough of the arena. They could have played last week, remained in the stone league and then just quit.

@killerkea I think it is quite possible that last week you had an entire leaderboard filled with ghosts – not just the 12 players who finished with a score of zero. To have so many ghosts in the Silver league (I presume that’s where you were) when you started so early on the first day is just ludicrous.

[KillerKea]

@mvnla2 Your reasoning makes no sense to me at all. Do you really think a cheater would still be in the Stone league at this point? Competition in the Wood league is so weak you probably don’t need to complete all the objectives to advance at this stage. You should only accuse someone of being a cheater if their score has jumped an impossible amount in a short time. For example, if someone’s score jumps 15k in 10 minutes, then you’ve found a cheater.

I would not say Almir is a ghost unless he goes the whole week with a zero score.

[HarleyM]

@Killerkea Keep in mind that not all 0 score individuals will be ghosts. Anyone who goes into the arena for their free spins, or due to a misclick, or for any other reason will be entered into a board (so long as they click “Finished” from the previous week). Those players will be on boards and may keep a 0 score, like I did last season.

[KillerKea]

Yes, I know. I would expect to see lots of zero score players in Wood and some in Stone, but once you get above that there won’t be many inactive players at all. Players above Stone most likely played everyday for at least a couple weeks to advance above Stone. Heck I got held back in the Stone league twice last season despite completing all my objectives.

Note: I’m starting my league within the hour of the leagues finishing so I should not be getting many if any inactive players since all the other players in my group would have started at about the same time as me.

[MVNLA2]

Interesting, the person I think is a cheater, Almir, has 4K points this morning, and is now 13th. Not sure what to make of that.