No more identity in MCOC.

The level of competitiveness added to MCOC with the addition on AW Seasons has been great, but it has also taken a lot away from the game.

Much of the stuff is actively being worked on and improved and Kabam has said they are working on their communication with us the community as well. This is all good.

However, now we are at a point where everyone is changing their names to lllllllllll this is great strategy, but it removes all identity from the game, and is super lame IMO. When I was coming up in this game BrutalDLX was the guy. In other games there was always that legend in the game that I wanted to surpass. Now I'm looking up to lllllllllll, but there are 100's of lllllllllll's IDK who I am even talking to anymore.

Many alliances are making this a requirement to join as it makes it harder for the opposing team to know who they are fighting. I do agree that this is great strategy, but the anonymity it is creating is very lame.

I'm in an alliance war where someone is talking to me, but IDK who it is. They have to tell me "hey it's such and such" and then I only know who it is till the next lllllllllll with a blade portrait starts talking to someone else "hey it's so and so."

Great strategy, but super lame.

Comments

DrBruceWayne

Can anyone elaborate on why this is an issue? I am not able to understand

Riegel

The_Unknown wrote: »

Can anyone elaborate on why this is an issue? I am not able to understand

I'm not really saying it is an issue. Just that it is very lame.

Everyone seemingly has the same name when you look at them in an alliance. Is this bad? No not necessarily.

As I stated, IMO it's just very lame, and removes all identity from the game. Would rather just not have a name, or would rather not be able to see class icons on the AW map.

Hulksmasshh

The_Unknown wrote: »

Can anyone elaborate on why this is an issue? I am not able to understand

In higher tier Alliance Wars, alliances will note down every champion and playername they face throughout the war. For example, they'll note that player Hulksmasshh has a 4/55 Medusa, 4/55 IMIW, etc up to 5 defenders. This essentially creates a database of players and defenders for each alliance they face. If that alliance is faced again, they'll know that when they see Hulksmasshh, one of his cosmic champions placed is very likely Medusa. The meta for Alliance War defenders has been evolving more and more towards hard counters with the release of IMIW, Domino, probably Ghost/Wasp and more. That means the most important thing is that you bring in the right counter for a defender, because bringing in Blade vs IMIW can be a disaster. Knowing the defender placements or having a strong guess of where the toughest defenders are placed is very crucial to winning an Alliance War. Alliances can counter this by having members switch up their defense every now and then, but there's only so much variety that can be done with limited 4/55, 5/65 champions. Alliances have been able to predict entire battlegroup defenses doing this.

Kabam has coined this "spreadsheet wars" and it was one of the reasons Kabam listed for removing defender diversity. So Kabam must not want "spreadsheet wars" to be the direction AW turns into as it is happening now. What the OP is referring to as lost identity in MCOC, is that players in many alliances are all changing their names to barcode names IIIIIIllll with a mixture of capital i's and lowercase l's. This makes playernames almost indistinguishable in MCOC's in-game font. This essentially elimnates "spreadsheet wars" because opposing alliances aren't able to tell which name belongs to which profile. Sure they can click on the defender's profile when they reach the node, but by the time they reach that node it's too late to plan your team. The problem here is that it brings a huge competitive advantage to those willing to go through with the name change. And we can all agree it is pretty lame to see that. In my opinion, a cosmetic feature like a playername should never give a competitive advantage in the most lucrative gamemode of Alliance War. Even further, the once rarely accepted name change request should never be granted solely for the purpose of providing a competitive advantage.

Player1994

bro wtf just click on your deffence and you have all the attaquers profil in front of you who cares if someone 's name is edfsjdsfgùjdfgjsgkfj or fslkgsdlksdlkfslkdf let it be it's their choices .. i dont like it too but it's their right to make it whatever they want
speaking of alliances who do from this a requirement i doubt it if they really exist ( they are stupid)

AxeCopFire

Kabam should just hide player names on the war map. Problem solved

13_Dub

They need to hide player names and + / - so alliances have a harder time making deals

Riegel

Player1994 wrote: »

bro wtf just click on your deffence and you have all the attaquers profil in front of you who cares if someone 's name is edfsjdsfgùjdfgjsgkfj or fslkgsdlksdlkfslkdf let it be it's their choices .. i dont like it too but it's their right to make it whatever they want
speaking of alliances who do from this a requirement i doubt it if they really exist ( they are stupid)

That's fine, but it solves nothing.
Yes, they can do as they want, but it's still lame.
Also, alliances making this mandatory do exist and are not stupid.

Hulksmasshh

AxeCopFire wrote: »

Kabam should just hide player names on the war map. Problem solved

This is probably the best solution I've heard so far.
- Eliminate "spreadsheet wars" ✔
- Make Alliance War slightly more difficult ✔
- Put both alliances in a war on an even playing field ✔

When looking at the standard alliance war map, any hidden defender should have the summoner's name hidden. When you go in to start the fight, the summoner's name can display like normal so it still feels like you are facing another alliance. Miniboss / boss nodes can display summoner name as usual because they are already revealed.

Gabbros

The_Unknown wrote: »

Can anyone elaborate on why this is an issue? I am not able to understand

It is an issue because when most or all of the members have identical looking name, it becomes very difficult to guess placement whether its via checking profiles and placement or past war placement data you been keeping track. This is a good strategy yet it is one that is based on an exploit of the namechanging system imo and one that give an unfair competitive advantage which is no good for the sportsmanship of the contest.

Gabbros

Player1994 wrote: »

bro wtf just click on your deffence and you have all the attaquers profil in front of you who cares if someone 's name is edfsjdsfgùjdfgjsgkfj or fslkgsdlksdlkfslkdf let it be it's their choices .. i dont like it too but it's their right to make it whatever they want
speaking of alliances who do from this a requirement i doubt it if they really exist ( they are stupid)

It is a problem when everyone do it. Check season2 #1 winner alliance.

Grub

Hide the names. Simple fix. @Kabam Miike

OnlyOneAboveAll

The best solution to this is to make rank up materials far more obtainable. I for one have had the same profile for who knows how long. Sure I max out plenty of 4stars and take plenty of 5stars to rank 3 but with taking a 5star to rank 4 or 5 being an important decision most wait til they have the right champ. I have 2 rank 4 5stars and 2 6stars on profile anyday now. And I'm sitting on 8 t2 alphas and almost 2 t5b. So someone can already tell that my 6star Sentinel in most likely in Defense. This sucks. Top alliances have many so I can see why they keep track. Nothing you can really do unless you can easily obtain 20 or more maxed out 5stars or obtain and rank up 6stars more quickly. Never understood why Kabam keeps us at certain levels but It definitely wouldn't "unbalance" the game. Would probably even the playing field.

unknown

This content has been removed.

Gabbros

Toukolou wrote: »

How about just showing a single, top champ for player profiles. Easier change than hiding all names in aw, and such.

I never understood the big “need” of showing our top champs. Would b a lot better if we can customize our profile pic and avatar to a champion of our choice.

Hulksmasshh

Toukolou wrote: »

How about just showing a single, top champ for player profiles. Easier change than hiding all names in aw, and such.

It's not about hiding the visible profile where you can see a player's top 4 champs. Alliances have that information already written down on an excel sheet or whatever method to keep track of every player's champions. It's how the best way to play this game is for you and your whole alliance to chance your name to barcode IIIIIllll names to hide that information from opponents.

CoatHang3r

Update the font or display defenders names in all caps, bam bobs your uncle.

Badrose

So basically big alliances only find way to cheats, wanna know everything about their opponents but try hard to hide everything to their opponents, wanna fix matchups, piloting, don't like competition, but if you ask them they only talk about their so called skill. The real question is: why are they still playing?

Neroa65

Hide names in AW attack maps. Simple as that. The champion class is already revealed, let people make strategic guesses using that. It's going to make AW harder but isn't that what Kabam wants anyway? Instead of throwing diversity out the window this could be done instead.

Tbh the OP has a big point. How do I enjoy the game when I don't even own my account anymore? The requirement for joining an alliance now is to scrap your identity? That's more like a cult if anything, not an alliance.

For_Spetz

If Kabam decides to hide IGN on defenders in alliance war this would probably solve the issue, but lets not go and make silly mickey mouse excuses like “identity”

If some players want to remain
anonymous in game that is entirely their choice and permissible by Kabam.

Some argue and say Barcoding provided a competitive advantage, maybe true but recording and spreadsheeting defenses and sharing them amongst other alliances is just as foul.

TacoScotty

I would agree with others that hiding the name is way to go. Alliance can still keep notes about what defenders were placed where for a given alliance and use that to give them informed guesses in future -> this is an advantage I think that should stay since takes effort and isn't guaranteed. Bar code names I find funny for at least with those I don't even bother to look up and I more focus on class versus say Chinese characters where it can be annoying at times looking those up.

GroundedWisdom

One of the complications I see with this is it makes it harder to identify people who seem to be cheating. Not that I want to feed the paranoia. As much as I agree with a need to be vigilant, I also feel that the amount of "Cheating Fever" has become quite paramount, to the point of people being more focused on the behaviour of others, rather than enjoying Seasons. Nevertheless, I see the real issue with being identity-hidden as removing accountability in the event that someone is actually cheating.

BitterSteel

GW raises a good point (this day started weird). Let’s say I’m facing a so-called barcode alliance. I suspect they are modding or let’s say I suspect them of piloting. I collect my screenshots and my screen recording of the alleged offence and I send them into kabam.

Kabam’s cheat-finding team look at it and go “Ah, the player with the Blade called IIlIllllll starts moving and then the other player with the blade called lIlIllIl starts moving just after. Meanwhile, this player, IllllIIIl here with a blade took down a miniboss in 3 seconds flat.”

Who do they ban? Who do they investigate?

Now, I’m not saying they don’t have ingame data to support anything without the need for just seeing what’s happening. But if these screenshots I send in are needed to launch the investigation and the team sees an entire alliance of IIllIllIIll’s and blade profiles it’s hard to distinguish between them, who’s to say they get the right one, every time.

If they had a unique name, they only have to investigate that one account. These barcode names are multiplying their work load by 30, since they’d have to investigate each account in case that one was the one in the screenshot. That’s assuming they even would.

RedBaron99

This happens in all games/sports/conflicts; the organisers, administrators and protagonists write the 'rules', after which the participants, players and combatants find creative ways of increasing their chances of winning with those 'rules' in mind.

History is littered with examples of this - from sport alone (and off the top of my head) there have been double diffusers and f-ducts from Formula 1, Brailsford's approach to 'marginal gains' in cycling (plus all the doping), ball tampering in cricket, the whole 'deflate gate' in NFL... heck, watching Neymar roll around like he was on fire, clutching his head in yesterday's World Cup match.

The point is, when something exists that is worth having and you have to compete to get it, people will push the boundaries of propriety. Sometimes that falls within an accepted level of creativity - which I think this does for the record - and sometimes it doesn't (i.e. 3rd party software and piloting).

As an aside, this is just another example of how Kabam's knee-jerk, short term, reactionary style of content development makes the game less enjoyable as a whole.

Bapoi

BitterSteel wrote: »

GW raises a good point (this day started weird). Let’s say I’m facing a so-called barcode alliance. I suspect they are modding or let’s say I suspect them of piloting. I collect my screenshots and my screen recording of the alleged offence and I send them into kabam.

Kabam’s cheat-finding team look at it and go “Ah, the player with the Blade called IIlIllllll starts moving and then the other player with the blade called lIlIllIl starts moving just after. Meanwhile, this player, IllllIIIl here with a blade took down a miniboss in 3 seconds flat.”

Who do they ban? Who do they investigate?

Now, I’m not saying they don’t have ingame data to support anything without the need for just seeing what’s happening. But if these screenshots I send in are needed to launch the investigation and the team sees an entire alliance of IIllIllIIll’s and blade profiles it’s hard to distinguish between them, who’s to say they get the right one, every time.

If they had a unique name, they only have to investigate that one account. These barcode names are multiplying their work load by 30, since they’d have to investigate each account in case that one was the one in the screenshot. That’s assuming they even would.

Having not read the first, but your reply to it, there shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Kabam holds more than the players’ names. Login credentials, IP’s, device IDs. There is a plethora of information on players other than their barcoded names.

Aside from that, and forgive me for being too lazy to look it up, I seem to recall a statement by Kabam where screenshots and/or chat screenshots are not valid evidence, as they can be easily manipulated. Sure, something is better than nothing to send along, but screenshots are circumstantial at best.

They mine their own data for any evidence. There is no real issue with these names, other than it being a petty move in my opinion.
As others stated, get rid of the names altogether. Keep them visible for your own internal alliance ‘measuring contests’ if that’s what gets an alliance all warm and tingly, but remove names for the attacking party...

Riegel

There is also an issue with well known pilots and cheaters making it into your alliance now that they cannot be identified. I made a post asking that anyone caught cheating should not be able to request name changes a while back, but now all the cheaters are named llllllllll haha.

IDC about the barcode names. If you want to do that fine, but this could be easily handled by a game update. Remove the defenders name until you fight that defender.

ClintBeastwood

RedBaron99 wrote: »

This happens in all games/sports/conflicts; the organisers, administrators and protagonists write the 'rules', after which the participants, players and combatants find creative ways of increasing their chances of winning with those 'rules' in mind.

If you have a look at the top 10-15 alliances, each one has performed some sort of tactic in an effort to increase their odds of winning outside of just playing the game and winning based off skill. These range from organized chats coordinating search times (which, to us in low master and high plat 1 is extremely comical because we match up with these top guys), bar code names, pilots, unit fraud, bribery, etc. Clearly all of these aren't on the same level (a lot of these I personally wouldn't even considering cheating), but tying this back into the concept of identity, its ironic how seasons has shown that each and every top alliance can not just play the game and win. They need some other competitive advantage.

BitterSteel

Bapoi wrote: »

BitterSteel wrote: »

GW raises a good point (this day started weird). Let’s say I’m facing a so-called barcode alliance. I suspect they are modding or let’s say I suspect them of piloting. I collect my screenshots and my screen recording of the alleged offence and I send them into kabam.

Kabam’s cheat-finding team look at it and go “Ah, the player with the Blade called IIlIllllll starts moving and then the other player with the blade called lIlIllIl starts moving just after. Meanwhile, this player, IllllIIIl here with a blade took down a miniboss in 3 seconds flat.”

Who do they ban? Who do they investigate?

Now, I’m not saying they don’t have ingame data to support anything without the need for just seeing what’s happening. But if these screenshots I send in are needed to launch the investigation and the team sees an entire alliance of IIllIllIIll’s and blade profiles it’s hard to distinguish between them, who’s to say they get the right one, every time.

If they had a unique name, they only have to investigate that one account. These barcode names are multiplying their work load by 30, since they’d have to investigate each account in case that one was the one in the screenshot. That’s assuming they even would.

Having not read the first, but your reply to it, there shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Kabam holds more than the players’ names. Login credentials, IP’s, device IDs. There is a plethora of information on players other than their barcoded names.

Aside from that, and forgive me for being too lazy to look it up, I seem to recall a statement by Kabam where screenshots and/or chat screenshots are not valid evidence, as they can be easily manipulated. Sure, something is better than nothing to send along, but screenshots are circumstantial at best.

They mine their own data for any evidence. There is no real issue with these names, other than it being a petty move in my opinion.
As others stated, get rid of the names altogether. Keep them visible for your own internal alliance ‘measuring contests’ if that’s what gets an alliance all warm and tingly, but remove names for the attacking party...

I’m not disputing that they have more than player names, if you read my message I even say that, but as to where to start; If they only have a barcoded name and an alliance to go by. That’s already 30 people they have to investigate.

In regards to screenshots, I believe that statement was more about LINE app conversation screenshots because they are easy to fake. I guess screenshots not being evidence sort of applies to ingame ones as well, but not because they’re as easily faked,but because they don’t really show much. You can’t show a suspected modded takedown of a miniboss on a screenshot because you can’t show how long it’s taken. All evidence to show modders and pilots should really be screen recording, because it’s a hell of a lot harder to edit videos than pictures for the average person. Plus, you can actually show suspected mods and piloting.

Besides, while screenshots and recording are not evidence, and never will be since anyone could edit one to imply anything, they are however a launching point for an investigation. If I made a line chat screenshot and changed my name to the same name as a member of MMXIV and wrote a message saying “I bought this account from my friend, I’m breaking the terms of service lol. Also I pilot and mod all the time.” I could screenshot that and (by assumption that kabam do consider all submitted evidence, like they have said) Kabam would investigate that account. Of course, nothing would happen, but there would be an investigation.

The1_NuclearOnion

To the commentators about complete anonymity:

Getting upset over strategies like making spreadsheets seems ridiculous. Studying your opponent is exactly how real competitions are done aren't they? Even sports competitions.
You keep tabs on the other team. You take note of their plays as they execute them. You know the players and their abilities.
If you have EVER watched a youtube video about MCOC, or "how beat xxx champs" videos, or the best methods for RTTL, ROL, LOL, etc. then you are guilty of the same type of strategy. No one blindly picks their teams for any of these. Everyone is looking for someone else's spreadsheet on best defenders, attackers, etc. down to the node are they not? The forum plays into this also.

The newer characters are complicated and in some VERY difficult if not impossible to beat without a specific champ or two. You want to make it where there is no way for you to even guess who you're facing in AW? I can't imagine ANYONE would actually like that in reality. Sounds great for yourself and your defense until you have to walk through the opponent's blind row of noded "who-knows" with whatever champ you randomly decide. Happy revives!
Real wars and real competitions are never like this. You are allowed to do your homework on the opponent to the best of your ability and within moral framework.

To what the OP said:
Yeah changing the names to IIIIIIII seems frivolous but I can't say it isn't clever also. The question is, could AW be altered in such a way that it wouldn't matter as much is people could creep your profile that doesn't include completely hidden nodes? I don't know.

Riegel

The1_NuclearOnion wrote: »

To the commentators about complete anonymity:

Getting upset over strategies like making spreadsheets seems ridiculous. Studying your opponent is exactly how real competitions are done aren't they? Even sports competitions.
You keep tabs on the other team. You take note of their plays as they execute them. You know the players and their abilities.
If you have EVER watched a youtube video about MCOC, or "how beat xxx champs" videos, or the best methods for RTTL, ROL, LOL, etc. then you are guilty of the same type of strategy. No one blindly picks their teams for any of these. Everyone is looking for someone else's spreadsheet on best defenders, attackers, etc. down to the node are they not? The forum plays into this also.

The newer characters are complicated and in some VERY difficult if not impossible to beat without a specific champ or two. You want to make it where there is no way for you to even guess who you're facing in AW? I can't imagine ANYONE would actually like that in reality. Sounds great for yourself and your defense until you have to walk through the opponent's blind row of noded "who-knows" with whatever champ you randomly decide. Happy revives!
Real wars and real competitions are never like this. You are allowed to do your homework on the opponent to the best of your ability and within moral framework.

To what the OP said:
Yeah changing the names to IIIIIIII seems frivolous but I can't say it isn't clever also. The question is, could AW be altered in such a way that it wouldn't matter as much is people could creep your profile that doesn't include completely hidden nodes? I don't know.

Would you agree that removing the names of the defenders would work just the same as everyone having the same barcode name? If so then everyone can keep their in-game identity

The1_NuclearOnion

RedBaron99 wrote: »

This happens in all games/sports/conflicts; the organisers, administrators and protagonists write the 'rules', after which the participants, players and combatants find creative ways of increasing their chances of winning with those 'rules' in mind.

History is littered with examples of this - from sport alone (and off the top of my head) there have been double diffusers and f-ducts from Formula 1, Brailsford's approach to 'marginal gains' in cycling (plus all the doping), ball tampering in cricket, the whole 'deflate gate' in NFL... heck, watching Neymar roll around like he was on fire, clutching his head in yesterday's World Cup match.

The point is, when something exists that is worth having and you have to compete to get it, people will push the boundaries of propriety. Sometimes that falls within an accepted level of creativity - which I think this does for the record - and sometimes it doesn't (i.e. 3rd party software and piloting).

As an aside, this is just another example of how Kabam's knee-jerk, short term, reactionary style of content development makes the game less enjoyable as a whole.

Somehow I missed this before my post. I was thinking right along similar lines.