The War on Cheaters Update - November 2023
MCOC Team
Administrator, Admin [en] Administrator › Posts: 599
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
- 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
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
Whew I'm safe.
The only way I ever play BGs. Sincere thanks for the clarification!
You read minds now, do you?
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
I take responsibility to what i did, sorry mods 🫰
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?
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
''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
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.
In a month like this where bgs rewards are increased, most players care about the points, instead of where they rank in Gladiator circuit. I’ve had numerous alliance mates reach the 450k points substantially faster than me because they had to start at the beginning of victory track and thus had a significantly much easier time getting points, opposed to me, someone who had to get the majority of their points in gladiator circuit because I started durther down victory track in either plat or Diamond(can’t remember)…
I personally don’t sandbag because my pride hates losing, no matter the reason, which is why I posted the picture below to show I’ve been actively playing in GC. BUT, even I couldn’t help but think sandbagging had to be the better answer because not only do victory track award everyone the same, but each loss I take is more Elders marks I have to use as well. And it doesn’t sound right that a victory track player can compete with players in gladiator circuit in terms of points, with dramatically lower effort.
All in all, I feel gladiator circuit should be more awarding in points as the current model actively encourages players to stay in victory track unless they’re trying to compete for gladiator circuit ranking. Which most players across the board I would assume currently aren’t, especially in months with increased bg rewards.