Best punishment for MODDERS !
Xtremenits
Member Posts: 4 ★
With everything going in the game ATM, this issue needs to be addressed ASAP.
Handling Modders
There are 2 kinds of Modders in the game
1. Modders who are not caught by KABAM
2. Modders who are caught by KABAM
The focus of this post is to make a practical suggestion to KABAM to handle the second kind (one who are caught)
Currently, once a Modder is caught they are banned for a week. After that they can keep their rewards and go around flaunting their LEGEND title and all the Rank 4 / 5 champions they got illegitimately and compete in BGs and join high tier alliances playing AQ / AW. The current punishment seems like a tiny nudge more than a deterrent for Modders.
The following punishment should be dealt to the Modders who are caught:
1. Permanently delete their top 20 champs
2. Reset their story content to ACT 5 (if they have progressed beyond ACT 5)
3. Reset Carina Challenge Objectives
4. Reset Gauntlet Keys
5. Reset Abyss paths
6. Reset EOP Paths
7. Remove the following titles from their account (LEGEND / PARAGON / THRONEBREAKER / ABYSS STARRED BACK)
8. Delete / Empty all catalyst and gems from their inventory
The first response with deleting their top champs is crucial as this is what allows them to unfairly compete in BGs. But then again if they stop modding they won't do that well in BG's anyways. But this will cripple them from join high tier alliances. This will also lower their prestige and stop them from basically using unfairly obtained champs in any kind of content in general until they earn them again fairly.
Most of the resetting content suggestion is aimed at bringing them to a Cavalier status which again might be unfair for other honest cavalier players. But I guess there has to be some compromise. This also gives them a chance for redemption by playing the game honestly and try to win the rewards fairly. I din't include contents like ROL / LOL / Variants on purpose as the rewards from them are already out-dated with the current meta of the game.
Everything above is assuming this is the first time they are caught. If they are caught again it should be a permanent reset on their account. Again they can still choose to play right from ACT 1. All the changes suggested here will give honest players some value to the time and effort they genuinely put in the game and will strongly deter any Modder or their children / grandchildren (as said by our very own @Kabam Miike
) from Modding in the first place.
Handling Modders
There are 2 kinds of Modders in the game
1. Modders who are not caught by KABAM
2. Modders who are caught by KABAM
The focus of this post is to make a practical suggestion to KABAM to handle the second kind (one who are caught)
Currently, once a Modder is caught they are banned for a week. After that they can keep their rewards and go around flaunting their LEGEND title and all the Rank 4 / 5 champions they got illegitimately and compete in BGs and join high tier alliances playing AQ / AW. The current punishment seems like a tiny nudge more than a deterrent for Modders.
The following punishment should be dealt to the Modders who are caught:
1. Permanently delete their top 20 champs
2. Reset their story content to ACT 5 (if they have progressed beyond ACT 5)
3. Reset Carina Challenge Objectives
4. Reset Gauntlet Keys
5. Reset Abyss paths
6. Reset EOP Paths
7. Remove the following titles from their account (LEGEND / PARAGON / THRONEBREAKER / ABYSS STARRED BACK)
8. Delete / Empty all catalyst and gems from their inventory
The first response with deleting their top champs is crucial as this is what allows them to unfairly compete in BGs. But then again if they stop modding they won't do that well in BG's anyways. But this will cripple them from join high tier alliances. This will also lower their prestige and stop them from basically using unfairly obtained champs in any kind of content in general until they earn them again fairly.
Most of the resetting content suggestion is aimed at bringing them to a Cavalier status which again might be unfair for other honest cavalier players. But I guess there has to be some compromise. This also gives them a chance for redemption by playing the game honestly and try to win the rewards fairly. I din't include contents like ROL / LOL / Variants on purpose as the rewards from them are already out-dated with the current meta of the game.
Everything above is assuming this is the first time they are caught. If they are caught again it should be a permanent reset on their account. Again they can still choose to play right from ACT 1. All the changes suggested here will give honest players some value to the time and effort they genuinely put in the game and will strongly deter any Modder or their children / grandchildren (as said by our very own @Kabam Miike
) from Modding in the first place.37
Comments
Just like in bodybuilding, the big guys help out and have their own class. It is illegal/forbidden, everyone knows it, but it is tolerated because there is a big lobby behind it.
Sad that Kabam can’t see that.
It’s not that hard
Just one more suggestion. I have no idea if it’s possible - but if a player is a repeat offender and on multiple accounts, look into an IP/device ban or something. I think IP is the one that can be changed and worked around with? Again, Got no clue but if it’s possible - it’s a good way to permanently erase such vile players
Rewards stripped with progression reset to the point when they started modding.
Why is this NEVER discussed? I mean if we are going with a strike or regression stance in hopes of “repentance” - well, (to keep the analogy in the moral/religious categories) where is the “restitution” to those harmed?
Right now there is none. Less than permanent bans requires restitution to those alliances or BG opponents who suffered from it.
Of course, those affected by modders in today’s set up have to spend more to compensate for their losses to modders….
Draw your own conclusions.
Whatever kabam says about wanting to give a chance for players to reform is stupid and weak. Hence why the game is at this current attrocious state.
If someone wants to reform: they can start a new account and work for it from scratch.
No wonder cheaters are so shameless in this game.
Bot arena? Keeps the champs.
Mod BGs? Keeps the rewards.
Manipulates end game content? Keeps everything.
Cheats in AW? Nothing to see here.
Just drop the hammer. And keep dropping until these losers eventually find it's not worth it their time to cheat coz they don't get anywhere.
But seriously, this is the smartest way to handle them. Give them a 3 day ban and say they are removed from all chats/alliances and banned from joining/creating an alliance. Then they get dumped in a shell server with no way of really knowing they aren’t on the production server. BG wait times are super long and they only face other modders. Meanwhile, all these accounts are flagged and Kabam can data-mine them constantly to improve mod detection.
Modding in mobile games has been around for over a decade. And one thing remains constant: mod developers have the upper hand. They are working with much more information than game developers are. When someone gets banned, the modders can then reverse engineer why it happened to close that gap. I’m guessing the developers have a bunch of shell accounts that cheat constantly for this purpose alone.
It’s pretty silly to say you don’t want anymore resources devoted to cheaters. Because Kabam will always devote resources to cheaters. I guarantee resources in the software engineer team and data science team are devoted to this endeavor at all times. Replicating a server can be done by one person in a day or less, but I digress.
The benefit of shadow banning them to their own server has two major benefits. One, it doesn’t easily notify cheaters that their methods are being detected. That prevents them from constantly changing their code to circumvent new security measures. Two, it provides a localized continuous stream of data of verified cheaters to Kabam to bolster their security measures.
I think people are getting caught up in the revenge aspect of this. If they see cheaters getting banned forever it makes them feel good. But that isn’t the goal here. The goal is to protect the integrity of the game and reduce cheating to near non-existent levels. I’m all for punishing people. But if a different solution reaches a better end goal but happens to have less punishing; then that solution is still the ideal one.
This may just be ignorance on my part as to what the flagging suspicious accounts is based on but the concern I have is, what is the robustness of the flagging/banning mechanism?
For all the current and future improvements, It will probably never catch every cheater, but is it guaranteed to never wrongly lead to someone's ban? I can't imagine there is a huge training set neatly tagged with honest cheaters saying they have cheated to train on, although there would be the very obvious cheaters winning impossible fights in seconds. With people's accounts/money/time spent on the line, Is everything flagged, manually reviewed by someone with expert knowledge to make sure the ban/flag was correct?
Lots of things in this game have bugs, it's a complex games with loads of different interactions between champions, nodes and abilities, and while we need a robust cheating detection/deterrent In place, it does need to be 100% sure it can't lead to any false bans because of an oversight of what's possible.
Maybe it isnt even an issue, it doesn't seem like the forums have been plagued with "Why have I been banned posts" and I imagine there will never be too much transparency over how the system works, because will encourage workarounds, but would be interesting to see what the perceived sensitivity/specificity of the current approach is.