The War on Cheaters Update - November 2023

MCOC TeamMCOC Team Administrator, Admin [en] Posts: 599
in General Discussion

Everest Content

In the lead up to the release of our first piece of long-form Everest content in over three years, the anti-cheat team has been busily improving our mod detection algorithms, using Eternity of Pain and Abyss as testing grounds. We have made substantial progress. Earlier today we banned over 2000 accounts that were detected cheating in these modes by these new systems. The lessons we learned are being applied to Necropolis, which is the first piece of content we have ever released with an integrated anti-cheat program in place before launch. Be warned, modding in Necropolis will be met with an immediate permanent ban, regardless of your account’s history of fair play, or any other factor.

Moreover, those wanting to compete for the limited vanity prizes that will be awarded for the first ten Summoners brave enough to explore the content will be required to record their runs and post them to YouTube or another streaming service for us to review at our discretion. For more information about this, you can tune into our live stream this Friday, November 3rd on Twitch.

Battlegrounds

There has been an uptick in cheating this Battlegrounds season. After reviewing the data, we believe this is the result of us opening the mode up to Summoners at the Conqueror progression milestone, which makes it easier for cheaters to spin up new accounts and get them into the Battlegrounds. To address this, we have started running our detection algorithms more frequently, hoping that these accounts will negatively impact fewer Summoners before they are banned. We will continue to monitor as the season progresses.

….And on point farming

Summoners have requested more specific information about the point farming behaviour we have prohibited in Battlegrounds, so we will try to be as explicit as possible. The behaviour we are looking to prevent is deliberately losing matches to avoid progressing in the Victory Track in order to farm accounts at lower rungs on the Victory Track ladder. There has been substantial skepticism that we can identify this behaviour from other forms of losing. Of course, we do not have a crystal ball. What we do however have is data on millions of Battlegrounds matches played every season, and the play pattern of Summoners engaging in this behaviour is unique.

Things that won’t get your account flagged for action include:
  • Being bad at the mode and losing a lot
  • Going on long winning or losing streaks
  • Legitimately getting stuck in a Victory Track rank, regardless of the pattern of wins and losses
  • Queuing into matches and setting your phone down in order to complete the bi-daily objectives (we do not necessarily endorse this behaviour but are not investigating it at this time)
  • Queuing into matches and setting your phone down in order to farm event points while losing, unless it is done strategically to avoid progressing (we do not necessarily endorse this behaviour but are not investigating it at this time)
  • Farming event points in a similar way in the Gladiator’s Circuit (we do not necessarily endorse this behaviour but are not investigating it at this time)
  • Deliberately losing one or two matches on occasion to manage Elder’s Mark caps or otherwise optimize your play
Things that won’t evade our detection algorithms:
  • Entering matches with weaker decks
  • Pausing to make your losing matches longer
  • Trying to fake effort while trying to lose
  • Any other form of manipulating your fight data
  • Losing a bunch of matches in a row at zero medals in order to skew the data
  • Losing with medals below the threshold that would actually promote you
To this point we have only taken action against a handful of accounts. As more data comes in, we intend to widen the net. The team is hand reviewing data this season to make sure we get it right, we guarantee no innocent Summoners will be caught in the net. If you are not engaging in the specific behaviour spelled out above, you have no need for concern.

Finally, as with any game on earth, there is an arbiter who sets the rules of fair play. In the case of Marvel Contest of Champions, that arbiter is us. Just because a system in the game allows a player to engage in a behaviour, it does not mean it is within the bounds of the rules we have set. The same Code of Conduct and Standards that allowed us to address Alliance War shelling and Gladiator’s Circuit win trading empower us to address this point farming issue. Our team intends to continue to address fair play issues, whether they directly involve modding or not.
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Comments

  • HungaryHippoHungaryHippo Member Posts: 1,060 ★★★★
    edited November 2023
    Thank you Kabam. That is all.
  • UnknownUnknown
    This content has been removed.
  • ThomildoThomildo Member Posts: 510 ★★★
    👏👏👏
  • Ayden_noah1Ayden_noah1 Member Posts: 1,861 ★★★★
    Keep up the banning, let's keep this game clean and fair for all.
  • DukenpukeDukenpuke Member Posts: 658 ★★★
    "Queuing into matches and setting your phone down in order to farm event points while losing, unless it is done strategically to avoid progressing (we do not necessarily endorse this behaviour but are not investigating it at this time)"

    The only way I ever play BGs. Sincere thanks for the clarification!
  • IvarTheBonelessIvarTheBoneless Member Posts: 1,276 ★★★★
    Well that answered my question about glad circuit :smile:
  • ChikelChikel Member Posts: 2,106 ★★★★
    Siliyo said:

    Oh man, we had BrutalDLX for Realm of Legends and HQ Sean for Labyrinth. I’m sorry to the person who got Abyss 100% first, but who will be #1 in Necropolis?

    Probably @BeroMan
  • KnordyKnordy Member Posts: 188 ★★
    AverageDesi said:

    ThePharcide said:

    Siliyo said:

    Oh man, we had BrutalDLX for Realm of Legends and HQ Sean for Labyrinth. I’m sorry to the person who got Abyss 100% first, but who will be #1 in Necropolis?

    Wasn’t Seatin first in Abyss?
    First in completion. Exploration was someone else
    That was 不酷企鹅 (Not Cool Penguin)
  • UnforgvnUnforgvn Member Posts: 50 ★
    That was a great explanation. It answers all of the question that I had about that. Thank you Kabam huge W.
  • PikoluPikolu Member, Guardian Posts: 7,786 Guardian
    Colinwhitworth69 said:

    "Trying to fake effort while trying to lose"

    You read minds now, do you?

    Player:Consistently ends fights at 100% health.
    Meanwhile in a random match: Somehow dies to an sp2 multiple times.

    If it is happening consistently where theybare winning big and then losing hard, would definitely be up to suspicion especially if those times they're losing are before they would have promoted
  • ShiroMikazukiShiroMikazuki Member Posts: 515 ★★★
    I did farm for a bit in platinum 2, but then someone in my global said that it could get me banned so i stopped farming and went onto diamond 1, i havent looked at forums much after the thread in announcements was made, sorry for the people i farmed on 🫶
    I take responsibility to what i did, sorry mods 🫰
  • Supersha7Supersha7 Member Posts: 248 ★★
    XFREEDOMX said:

    So the bottom line is "farm points but don't be too obvious".

    I think more specifically they saying you can farm points, but as long as you don’t win and then lose against low power people for easy win points. This particular points farming method would essentially give more points more easily and take advatange of the lower tier system, which kabam thinks is unfair.

    So if you’ve got as far as you can go, for example are in glad circuit or victory track, and just want to farm points by stringing together 400 losses with elders and energy and just putting your phone down, they currently say it’s ok.

    So “afk autoloss”points farming is ok, if I’m reading it correctly.

    So anyone busy at work, in theory, can just fire up a match, let it play out and lose and as long as you aren’t taking advantage of staying at a low tier, it’s ok.

    This sound like I’ve understood it correctly to everyone else?

  • Supersha7Supersha7 Member Posts: 248 ★★
    I think we can safely say that a large number of people playing bgs aren’t super competitive , and are mainly looking to get the solo points milestones done.

    So the clarification on obtaining points in various easier ways has probably been very welcome news to those summoners.

    The clarification (and the cheater bans) are very much appreciated by the community.

    Thanks kabam :)
  • iDestroyerZiDestroyerZ Member Posts: 729 ★★★★
    ''Queuing into matches and setting your phone down in order to farm event points while losing''
    ''Trying to fake effort while trying to lose''
    I'm confused of how 1 is allowed and the other one isn't, i mean in both situations people would be farming points which is now prohibited o.O i don't get it
  • Supersha7Supersha7 Member Posts: 248 ★★
    iDestroyerZ said:

    ''Queuing into matches and setting your phone down in order to farm event points while losing''
    ''Trying to fake effort while trying to lose''
    I'm confused of how 1 is allowed and the other one isn't, i mean in both situations people would be farming points which is now prohibited o.O i don't get it

    I think these points are to do with what kabam think people may try and do to allow them to points farm against low levels.

    So what they are saying (I think) is that if you try and points farm at a tier where there are a lot of low level summoners, and try and pretend to put in effort and “lose” sometimes to the low levels, when really you should easily win, then they will spot it.

  • Supersha7Supersha7 Member Posts: 248 ★★
    What they are saying is ok (I think) is that if you get as far as you can go in bgs and get stuck, you can just auto play points farm at your own level.
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