**WINTER OF WOE - BONUS OBJECTIVE POINT**
As previously announced, the team will be distributing an additional point toward milestones to anyone who completed the Absorbing Man fight in the first step of the Winter of Woe.
This point will be distributed at a later time as it requires the team to pull and analyze data.
The timeline has not been set, but work has started.
There is currently an issue where some Alliances are are unable to find a match in Alliance Wars, or are receiving Byes without getting the benefits of the Win. We will be adjusting the Season Points of the Alliances that are affected within the coming weeks, and will be working to compensate them for their missed Per War rewards as well.

Additionally, we are working to address an issue where new Members of an Alliance are unable to place Defenders for the next War after joining. We are working to address this, but it will require a future update.

Is This Considered Battlegrounds "Cheating" or Not?

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Comments

  • SnakepSnakep Posts: 362 ★★★
    Searmenis said:

    Kabam Jax said:

    Hey Summoners,

    While this tactic, as discussed here, exists in a bit of a grey area in terms of taking advantage of the system, it does seem like something the game team has under a microscope. It wouldn't surprise me if we see changes in the near future to the way matchmaking weighs different elements.

    Great news, but, keep in mind that matchmaking by progress level is not a good solution either. There s a very big gap between TB players that just got the title and TB players that are missing half a catalyst to become paragon. And in Paragon, there s a big difference between someone who has 3 r4 6 star champions and someone who is about to for his 11nth.
    Gaps do exist in progression levels but it’s a much smaller gap than we are seeing with late game paragon players matching with early cavalier players. If you try too hard to make the matchups completely equal then q times will get very high. Some disparity needs to exist but a system that you manipulate in order to get lower level challengers is the real problem.
  • SearmenisSearmenis Posts: 1,545 ★★★★★
    Snakep said:

    Searmenis said:

    Kabam Jax said:

    Hey Summoners,

    While this tactic, as discussed here, exists in a bit of a grey area in terms of taking advantage of the system, it does seem like something the game team has under a microscope. It wouldn't surprise me if we see changes in the near future to the way matchmaking weighs different elements.

    Great news, but, keep in mind that matchmaking by progress level is not a good solution either. There s a very big gap between TB players that just got the title and TB players that are missing half a catalyst to become paragon. And in Paragon, there s a big difference between someone who has 3 r4 6 star champions and someone who is about to for his 11nth.
    Gaps do exist in progression levels but it’s a much smaller gap than we are seeing with late game paragon players matching with early cavalier players. If you try too hard to make the matchups completely equal then q times will get very high. Some disparity needs to exist but a system that you manipulate in order to get lower level challengers is the real problem.
    Is "a" problem, that tends not to be that much of a problem anymore, since everyone s doing it. Except for cav minus players of course.
    The war system may work, or, as someone said, something like counting the number of r4, r3 six stars and matching accordingly... I don't know... (and it's not my job to know anyway)
  • SuelGamesSuelGames Posts: 925 ★★★
    edited September 2022
    I dont get it, why putting 2* affects matckmaking? Is it based on roster strengh? I thought it was purelly based on the tier you are, rating or whatever that is called
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Posts: 36,193 ★★★★★
    SuelGames said:

    I dont get it, why putting 2* affects matckmaking? Is it based on roster strengh? I thought it was purelly based on the tier you are, rating or whatever that is called

    Starting out, there has to be some kind of mechanic. Otherwise it's equally as random and overpowered.
  • DemonzfyreDemonzfyre Posts: 20,865 ★★★★★

    Snakep said:

    It's pretty much what people have been doing in arena for years.

    The difference being that in arenas you are only beating a computer ai with no negative effects to another player. In BG’s doing this beats and discourages an actual person.
    Sandbagging is sandbagging whether it's a real component to the game mode or not. The infinite streak is not an intentional part of arenas. You're sandbagging your arena matches to get easier matches to score higher in the rankings, which is against real people.

    Arena is meant to get harder as you go along which is why you get the "death matches" the long your streak is. People sandbag to get around those matches. There isn't any rule against this in arena and there isn't any rule against adding 2*'s to you deck in BG's. People found a way to get easier matchups in BG's and there's nothing in the rules that says it can't be done.

    I am not in any way condoning what people are doing in BG's but lets not pretend there hasn't been 1000's of posts in the forums asking how to achieve the infinite streak in arena. So until Kabam can figure out a way to remove that element from BG's, any they very much should, it's not cheating and it's not against the rules.
    This is nonsense. If the infinite streak were not part of the area, why is Kang/Thanos team only through fight 14, after which you get manageable fights forever? And equating the two is even more absurd. It is not "unsportsmanlike" to sandbag an arena fight. You can play area however you want. Sandbagging a few fights to get to 15 is nothing like sandbagging matchmaking so that you can continually destroy weaker players. People competing for top spots in arena were not being displaced by sandbagging. Most arena players are only going for milestones anyway. Your argument is just wrong on so many levels. The only point of analogy is the idea of sandbagging itself.
    If the infinite streak was a intended part of arena, it would have been announced and Miike has said in the past that it wasn't part of it. He said it when 6*'s began creeping into arena more and more, causing the threshold needed to keep the infinite streak going by maintaining the proper PI.
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Posts: 36,193 ★★★★★
    edited September 2022
    They have commented that it wasn't an intended aspect, and they even explored options to make it not essential, but we were so used to it that we asked for it back, and they reverted.
  • TheBair123TheBair123 Posts: 5,344 ★★★★★
    Kabam Jax said:

    A little update for you, Summoners!

    The team has implemented a major adjustment to matchmaking that will help prevent the use of this method of sandbagging.

    They will continue to evaluate the matchmaking situation and make changes as they see fit.

    do you have any sort of numbers or specific information about it? would love to have some insight into what exactly the system that was/is now put in place is
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Posts: 36,193 ★★★★★

    Kabam Jax said:

    A little update for you, Summoners!

    The team has implemented a major adjustment to matchmaking that will help prevent the use of this method of sandbagging.

    They will continue to evaluate the matchmaking situation and make changes as they see fit.

    do you have any sort of numbers or specific information about it? would love to have some insight into what exactly the system that was/is now put in place is
    Wouldn't that just be doing the "questionnable" Players' work for them?
  • ThiartcThiartc Posts: 257 ★★
    Kabam Jax said:

    A little update for you, Summoners!

    The team has implemented a major adjustment to matchmaking that will help prevent the use of this method of sandbagging.

    They will continue to evaluate the matchmaking situation and make changes as they see fit.

    Someone pls test this, maybe it was just said to make us think it was changed but still remains the same and the players remove the 1 and 2 *’s and fall for the double bluff
  • LeNoirFaineantLeNoirFaineant Posts: 8,638 ★★★★★

    Snakep said:

    It's pretty much what people have been doing in arena for years.

    The difference being that in arenas you are only beating a computer ai with no negative effects to another player. In BG’s doing this beats and discourages an actual person.
    Sandbagging is sandbagging whether it's a real component to the game mode or not. The infinite streak is not an intentional part of arenas. You're sandbagging your arena matches to get easier matches to score higher in the rankings, which is against real people.

    Arena is meant to get harder as you go along which is why you get the "death matches" the long your streak is. People sandbag to get around those matches. There isn't any rule against this in arena and there isn't any rule against adding 2*'s to you deck in BG's. People found a way to get easier matchups in BG's and there's nothing in the rules that says it can't be done.

    I am not in any way condoning what people are doing in BG's but lets not pretend there hasn't been 1000's of posts in the forums asking how to achieve the infinite streak in arena. So until Kabam can figure out a way to remove that element from BG's, any they very much should, it's not cheating and it's not against the rules.
    This is nonsense. If the infinite streak were not part of the area, why is Kang/Thanos team only through fight 14, after which you get manageable fights forever? And equating the two is even more absurd. It is not "unsportsmanlike" to sandbag an arena fight. You can play area however you want. Sandbagging a few fights to get to 15 is nothing like sandbagging matchmaking so that you can continually destroy weaker players. People competing for top spots in arena were not being displaced by sandbagging. Most arena players are only going for milestones anyway. Your argument is just wrong on so many levels. The only point of analogy is the idea of sandbagging itself.
    If the infinite streak was a intended part of arena, it would have been announced and Miike has said in the past that it wasn't part of it. He said it when 6*'s began creeping into arena more and more, causing the threshold needed to keep the infinite streak going by maintaining the proper PI.
    That doesn't negate the main point, but regardless, I just don't buy it. Why do Kang/Thanos teams stop after fight 14 in every arena, exactly at fight 14, and why do matches stop getting progressively harder at fight 15 whether or not you fought Kang/Thanos? The specifics of how infinite streaks used to be done back in the all or nothing AI days from fights 9-14 may not have been intended, specific PI thresholds, etc., but clearly the option to eventually get easier matches indefinitely is built into the arena design.
  • LeNoirFaineantLeNoirFaineant Posts: 8,638 ★★★★★

    They have commented that it wasn't an intended aspect, and they even explored options to make it not essential, but we were so used to it that we asked for it back, and they reverted.

    They reverted? They changed the AI so that it would no longer go through the all or nothing phase, which removed the need to sandbag. When was the infinite streak ever removed such that reverting would be necessary? Pretty sure that never happened.
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Posts: 36,193 ★★★★★

    They have commented that it wasn't an intended aspect, and they even explored options to make it not essential, but we were so used to it that we asked for it back, and they reverted.

    They reverted? They changed the AI so that it would no longer go through the all or nothing phase, which removed the need to sandbag. When was the infinite streak ever removed such that reverting would be necessary? Pretty sure that never happened.
    They brought back the Infinite.
  • SnakepSnakep Posts: 362 ★★★

    Kabam Jax said:

    A little update for you, Summoners!

    The team has implemented a major adjustment to matchmaking that will help prevent the use of this method of sandbagging.

    They will continue to evaluate the matchmaking situation and make changes as they see fit.

    do you have any sort of numbers or specific information about it? would love to have some insight into what exactly the system that was/is now put in place is
    It would be nice if the system was perfect to have openness about it but few things are ever perfect. If they were to give all the details involved in matchmaking then players would use any information given to work the system as much as possible into their favor. As long as the system is good enough then I think that is enough. Obviously others would want more information, weather their intentions with that knowledge was for the general good or not.
  • LeNoirFaineantLeNoirFaineant Posts: 8,638 ★★★★★

    They have commented that it wasn't an intended aspect, and they even explored options to make it not essential, but we were so used to it that we asked for it back, and they reverted.

    They reverted? They changed the AI so that it would no longer go through the all or nothing phase, which removed the need to sandbag. When was the infinite streak ever removed such that reverting would be necessary? Pretty sure that never happened.
    They brought back the Infinite.
    When was it gone? I've never played an arena in which I didn't get an infinite streak other than when my account was too small to do it, which was the beginning of 2016. Evidence?
  • SnakepSnakep Posts: 362 ★★★

    They have commented that it wasn't an intended aspect, and they even explored options to make it not essential, but we were so used to it that we asked for it back, and they reverted.

    They reverted? They changed the AI so that it would no longer go through the all or nothing phase, which removed the need to sandbag. When was the infinite streak ever removed such that reverting would be necessary? Pretty sure that never happened.
    They brought back the Infinite.
    When was it gone? I've never played an arena in which I didn't get an infinite streak other than when my account was too small to do it, which was the beginning of 2016. Evidence?
    They did this a while ago (a year or so maybe?) and the community hated it and it was quickly reverted back. It was a short term, failed experiment at improving arenas.
  • Graves_3Graves_3 Posts: 1,284 ★★★★★

    Kabam Jax said:

    A little update for you, Summoners!

    The team has implemented a major adjustment to matchmaking that will help prevent the use of this method of sandbagging.

    They will continue to evaluate the matchmaking situation and make changes as they see fit.

    do you have any sort of numbers or specific information about it? would love to have some insight into what exactly the system that was/is now put in place is
    Wouldn't that just be doing the "questionnable" Players' work for them?
    nope, it wouldn't. the issue was with the fact that the matchmaking system was flawed, not the fact that players knew what the system was. if we knew what the system was, feedback would be able to be given and changes would be able to made without having this conundrum and having 3 days of people being able to exploit it.
    As a player in an AQ focused top alliance if the matchmaking will only match against other top players such as top war players. There will be no ability to move up as such why play, this is dead on delivery game mode. This plus the sure amount of grinding is turning off players.
    if you're at the top of the game, do you not expect to be playing against other top players?
    Eventually yes. But not burning resources in bronze 3 again and again without making any progress.
  • BluCitizenBluCitizen Posts: 47
    DNA3000 said:

    Zan0 said:

    Gotta say it's pretty hilarious to see so many people who complain about cheating in arenas and in other areas of the game so quick to try to exploit something like this. Not sure why they feel it's all that different of a situation. If your rationale is "if Kabam won't do anything about it then I'm going to take advantage of it", how's that any different than all the other cheating/exploitation people complain constantly about?

    Modding the game and this is not even comparable. This isn’t cheating, it’s similar to card counting in poker, it isn’t illegal but the casino doesn’t like it
    I think you mean card counting in Blackjack (there's no such thing really as card counting in poker per se). And the important thing about card counting in Blackjack is that while it is not technically illegal in many jurisdictions, a casino is entitled to kick you out for any reason whatsoever at their discretion, and if they catch you card counting they will typically ask you to stop playing blackjack, or leave the premises completely. This is an option that Kabam as the operator of the game theoretically possesses as well. Anyone who wants to say this behavior is technically legal has to face the fact that blocking your play, taking away your rewards, and terminating your account are all also technically legal.

    And actually, I would define 2* deck loading as cheating. Cheating is not strictly about breaking explicit rules. Games don't have rules for every possible situation. That's why most games and sports have general catch-all "sportsman-like" clauses. In most sports you can be penalized at the officials discretion if they feel you're doing something sufficiently outside the realm of fair play, even if there is no specific rule to cover the actions. There cannot possibly be explicit rules to cover things like 2* deck loading, or the rulebook would be a mile long. But I would say it is very obviously cheating, and anyone who attempted to argue otherwise on technicalities I would be perfectly happy with seeing those same technicalities used against them.

    Does it rise to the level of bannable or punishable offense, however? I think that's a grey area. I could go either way. If players who did this were somehow docked, I would not shed a tear. Anyone who is so ethically compromised that they honestly can't tell this is obviously cheating should not be allowed anywhere near a fair competition comprised of normal humans. If they knew it was a grey area and decided to take their chances, well sometimes chance operates against you. Either way, I think Kabam has wide discretion here.
    I completely agree, thanks for understanding my perspective.
  • @Kabam Jax the "team" must realise that unless you match on rank (just as you had in the beta or in war now), anything else will end up being gamed.

    Matching on rating/rank has a different exploitability issue which has been discussed. A player can deliberately lose to dump rating and then get easier fights. Since you cannot backslide in track, and promotion requires wins in a row, there's a strong incentive to lose then win. Also, given the reward situation with marks, there's a different incentive to lose with energy then win with marks. And doing this creates the opposite problem with bullying. Instead of super strong players using deck manipulation to match weaker players, players can use energy dumping to match against weaker players and then destroy them (this was happening in the beta, which is probably the reason the match system was changed before going live).

    The suggestion I gave to the devs was to match on ELO (basically, rating or rank), but use roster as a match floor. If you try to dump rating to get easier matches, the game recognizes this and prevents you from lowering your rating to some minimum value calculated based on your roster strength (that's roster strength, not deck strength which is exploitable). This also has some issues that would need to be fixed (it is too simple as stated, this is just the large framework: in particular there's a complex subject of match rating decay), but I think this does a decent job of handling the problem of ratings dumping on the low end while letting strong competitors find each other at the high end, with less opportunities for exploitable match situations.

    Basically, the more you win, the more the game should "trust" the player is doing their best (since they are winning) and match them against other players that are similar in performance. But when a player loses, the game should trust the player less, and trust their roster more as a judge of what their competitive strength is, so the player cannot use loses to manipulate the match system.
  • CoppinCoppin Posts: 2,601 ★★★★★
    edited September 2022

    Snakep said:

    It's pretty much what people have been doing in arena for years.

    The difference being that in arenas you are only beating a computer ai with no negative effects to another player. In BG’s doing this beats and discourages an actual person.
    Sandbagging is sandbagging whether it's a real component to the game mode or not. The infinite streak is not an intentional part of arenas. You're sandbagging your arena matches to get easier matches to score higher in the rankings, which is against real people.

    Arena is meant to get harder as you go along which is why you get the "death matches" the long your streak is. People sandbag to get around those matches. There isn't any rule against this in arena and there isn't any rule against adding 2*'s to you deck in BG's. People found a way to get easier matchups in BG's and there's nothing in the rules that says it can't be done.

    I am not in any way condoning what people are doing in BG's but lets not pretend there hasn't been 1000's of posts in the forums asking how to achieve the infinite streak in arena. So until Kabam can figure out a way to remove that element from BG's, any they very much should, it's not cheating and it's not against the rules.
    This is nonsense. If the infinite streak were not part of the area, why is Kang/Thanos team only through fight 14, after which you get manageable fights forever? And equating the two is even more absurd. It is not "unsportsmanlike" to sandbag an arena fight. You can play area however you want. Sandbagging a few fights to get to 15 is nothing like sandbagging matchmaking so that you can continually destroy weaker players. People competing for top spots in arena were not being displaced by sandbagging. Most arena players are only going for milestones anyway. Your argument is just wrong on so many levels. The only point of analogy is the idea of sandbagging itself.
    If the infinite streak was a intended part of arena, it would have been announced and Miike has said in the past that it wasn't part of it. He said it when 6*'s began creeping into arena more and more, causing the threshold needed to keep the infinite streak going by maintaining the proper PI.
    That doesn't negate the main point, but regardless, I just don't buy it. Why do Kang/Thanos teams stop after fight 14 in every arena, exactly at fight 14, and why do matches stop getting progressively harder at fight 15 whether or not you fought Kang/Thanos? The specifics of how infinite streaks used to be done back in the all or nothing AI days from fights 9-14 may not have been intended, specific PI thresholds, etc., but clearly the option to eventually get easier matches indefinitely is built into the arena design.
    The day they changed how the arena match ups were made there was so many ppl in the forums crying...sooooo many
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