87 replies to this topic

[Widowmaker1981]

Not too sure if this is the right place.. might be better in the website section but thats not very active.

If you take a look at the leaderboards in any given month and sort by average match score / KD ratio, its very obvious that people are abusing the tier system in order to 'cheat' their way to the top of the rankings.

I wont name any specific names, as that's against forum rules, but all you need to do to confirm this is to look up some of the outstanding performers on Jarls and see that the account is brand new, often not even visible due to being created since the last season started. There is just no way that lots of brand new players are getting 500+ Avg match score (and then only playing 10-20 games in a month, lol). This is obviously a case of strong T1 players making alts to abuse the T5 players.

I would imagine this is seriously damaging the new player experience, because there is a constant stream of T1 players in their games who shouldnt be there - its going to make new players a great deal less likely to stick with it when they get obliterated by someone they probably didnt even see shooting at them.

You're always going to have some people on T5 alts for sh!ts and giggles, but i think the leaderboards are incentiving this behaviour and greatly increasing the numbers doing it.

The fix for this is very easy, imo. Just have a marker next to each player in the leaderboard which shows their tier, and add an option to the leaderboard to filter based on tier. Everyone knows T5/4 players with absurd stats are alts and we can just filter them out and ignore them. I think doing this would largely remove the incentive and therefore stop the majority of the people doing it. If there is a privacy or choice issue around displaying tiers or whatever, its still simple. Make the 'Disply tier on forum' checkbox into 'Display tier on forum and appear on leaderboards'.

This does leave another method of 'cheating' these leaderboards which is a bit harder to resolve. If a T1 groups with 2-3 T5s, the average tier means they will end up in low tier games and can farm new players in much the same way as the twink alts can. My suggestion to fix this is to change the way tier is calculated for groups and just make it take the highest tier as the overall rating for the group. This does cause some collateral damage by making the matchmaker treat a group of 3 T5s and a T1 exactly the same as a group of 4 T1s, but i think that removing the leaderboard incentive for established players to farm newbies is worth it. Added bonus is the leaderboards would be less of a joke than they currently are.

TL:DR :- Leaderboards as currently implemented combine with the tier system to incentivise abuse of new players. This should stop.

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 09 May 2023 - 02:45 AM.

[martian]

Widowmaker1981, on 09 May 2023 - 02:40 AM, said:

....
This is obviously a case of strong T1 players making alts to abuse the T5 players.

I would imagine this is seriously damaging the new player experience, because there is a constant stream of T1 players in their games who shouldnt be there - its going to make new players a great deal less likely to stick with it when they get obliterated by someone they probably didnt even see shooting at them.

You're always going to have some people on T5 alts for sh!ts and giggles, but i think the leaderboards are incentiving this behaviour and greatly increasing the numbers doing it.

PGI explicitly allows alternate accounts, including specifically permitting T1s creating new T5s accounts.
"ALTERNATE ACCOUNT
Under typical circumstances running alternate accounts is not prohibited, unless doing so violates a specific provision of this Code of Conduct. We understand that players may want to run accounts split between Clan and Inner Sphere, or operate a ‘new user’ account alongside their main account. etc. etc."

Essentially, one can have as many alternate accounts as he wishes.

Widowmaker1981, on 09 May 2023 - 02:40 AM, said:

This does leave another method of 'cheating' these leaderboards which is a bit harder to resolve. If a T1 groups with 2-3 T5s, the average tier means they will end up in low tier games and can farm new players in much the same way as the twink alts can. My suggestion to fix this is to change the way tier is calculated for groups and just make it take the highest tier as the overall rating for the group. This does cause some collateral damage by making the matchmaker treat a group of 3 T5s and a T1 exactly the same as a group of 4 T1s, but i think that removing the leaderboard incentive for established players to farm newbies is worth it. Added bonus is the leaderboards would be less of a joke than they currently are.

TL:DR :- Leaderboards as currently implemented combine with the tier system to incentivise abuse of new players. This should stop.

PGI has always favoured premade groups and I would be quite surprised to see PGI changing its policy.

[Widowmaker1981]

martian, on 09 May 2023 - 03:21 AM, said:

PGI explicitly allows alternate accounts, including specifically permitting T1s creating new T5s accounts.
"ALTERNATE ACCOUNT
Under typical circumstances running alternate accounts is not prohibited, unless doing so violates a specific provision of this Code of Conduct. We understand that players may want to run accounts split between Clan and Inner Sphere, or operate a ‘new user’ account alongside their main account. etc. etc."

Essentially, one can have as many alternate accounts as he wishes.

Im not saying they should disallow alts. Im saying they should show the tier of players on the leaderboards - this will disincentivise people making alts to game the leaderboards as everyone will be able to see they are T5s.

Do you have a problem with that, for some reason?

martian, on 09 May 2023 - 03:21 AM, said:

PGI has always favoured premade groups and I would be quite surprised to see PGI changing its policy.

What Im saying is they should change how the matchmaker works out the tier a group should be playing in. Not that groups should be disallowed or anything, i just think T1 players should be prevented from intentionally getting into T5 matches.

[Bud Crue]

Widowmaker1981, on 09 May 2023 - 02:40 AM, said:

This is obviously a case of strong T1 players making alts to abuse the T5 players.

This is pathetic if that is what is really occurring. Perhaps even more so, for as long as I can recall, when allegations like this have come up in other contexts (CW/FP, the dawn of soup queue, etc.) the refrain from the top players has always been "no one likes roflstomps, we we want competition," and yet your observations would appear to suggest that at least some of these top tier folks do indeed go out of their way to beat down their lessors and avoid actual competition with those of more comparable skill, all so they can pretend to be the top player on the leader board for a bit. Utterly pathetic.

By all means show their tiers, label them, call them out etc. NPE in this game has always been awful, anything reasonable that can be done to discourage these ******* from taking advantage of new/unskilled players should be implemented.

Edited by Bud Crue, 09 May 2023 - 04:10 AM.

[Widowmaker1981]

Bud Crue, on 09 May 2023 - 04:09 AM, said:

This is pathetic if that is what is really occurring. Perhaps even more so, for as long as I can recall, when allegations like this have come up in other contexts (CW/FP, the dawn of soup queue, etc.) the refrain from the top players has always been "no one likes roflstomps, we we want competition," and yet your observations would appear to suggest that at least some of these top tier folks do indeed go out of their way to beat down their lessors and avoid actual competition with those of more comparable skill, all so they can pretend to be the top player on the leader board for a bit. Utterly pathetic.

By all means show their tiers, label them, call them out etc. NPE in this game has always been awful, anything reasonable that can be done to discourage these ******* from taking advantage of new/unskilled players should be implemented.

I agree It is pathetic, but the way the leaderboards are currently set up it is incentivized, so its no surprise that it happens.

And it is obviously happening. Just take 10 minutes to look up a few of the more obvious examples (very high KD ratio and match score, unknown player name, typically under 20 matches) in Jarls and draw your own conclusions.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

Pathetic as it may be, you'd have to decide wether or not these edge-cases justify the publication of the player tier. Personally, I'd be fine with it, but I'm not sure if I'm content with doing away that voluntary choice for each player.
Also this does not prevent T1's from making new accounts and clubbing seals for the lulz, which I suppose happens vastly more often than with the intention to brag about their position on a leaderboard.

[Widowmaker1981]

Aidan Crenshaw, on 09 May 2023 - 04:28 AM, said:

Pathetic as it may be, you'd have to decide wether or not these edge-cases justify the publication of the player tier. Personally, I'd be fine with it, but I'm not sure if I'm content with doing away that voluntary choice for each player.

I did think of that concern, but i dont see an issue with combining the choice with a choice to be displayed on leaderboards or not. I struggle to see a valid reason to want to be displayed on the leaderboards while refusing to display your tier.

Tbh, i think you could also solve it by just making it so the leaderboards only display T1s (its a leaderboard and if you cant get into T1 you arent leading), but i think that might lead to more complaints.

Aidan Crenshaw, on 09 May 2023 - 04:28 AM, said:

Also this does not prevent T1's from making new accounts and clubbing seals for the lulz, which I suppose happens vastly more often than with the intention to brag about their position on a leaderboard.

Its obviously speculation, but i think the opposite - i feel like removing the leaderboard incentive will have a profound impact on the numbers of people bothering to keep making new alts every month.

I certainly dont see how it hurts to try. Worst case outcome is the leaderboards become less of a joke as we would be able to filter out low tier players and look at actual rankings.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

Widowmaker1981, on 09 May 2023 - 04:39 AM, said:

I did think of that concern, but i dont see an issue with combining the choice with a choice to be displayed on leaderboards or not. I struggle to see a valid reason to want to be displayed on the leaderboards while refusing to display your tier.

[...]

I certainly dont see how it hurts to try. Worst case outcome is the leaderboards become less of a joke as we would be able to filter out low tier players and look at actual rankings.

These are good thoughts and I'd support that. This would result in killing Jarls as it is now, I'd guess.

[Widowmaker1981]

Aidan Crenshaw, on 09 May 2023 - 04:49 AM, said:

This would result in killing Jarls as it is now, I'd guess.

I dont see why really. I believe Jarls takes its data from the leaderboards so, if people decided to opt out, they wouldnt be visible.. so it might have some effect on being able to search anyone. On the other hand the data it does get would be improved by an additional data point (player tier)

[Aidan Crenshaw]

It would be easily confusable, though. One could just opt-out before Jarl's is updated and the opt-in again afterwards and Jarl's would be none wiser. It would harm the already questionable reliability of Jarl's.

[Widowmaker1981]

Aidan Crenshaw, on 09 May 2023 - 05:10 AM, said:

It would be easily confusable, though. One could just opt-out before Jarl's is updated and the opt-in again afterwards and Jarl's would be none wiser. It would harm the already questionable reliability of Jarl's.

To be honest, i feel like it would be an overall improvement as Jarls data is, to my mind at least, already compromised by the fact that it doesnt account for player tier.. but you're right that it would give people the option to 'hide' from it if they wanted.

I think its a price worth paying, personally.

Ill admit the reason for this thread is that ive been trying to see how high i can get my avg match score in mediums this month and its ... a bit frustrating to see so many people above me who im certain (based on Jarls data) are gaming the system (when im going as far as to not play mediums this month when im grouping with unit mates to *avoid* gaming it)

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 09 May 2023 - 05:26 AM.

[martian]

Widowmaker1981, on 09 May 2023 - 03:33 AM, said:

Im not saying they should disallow alts. Im saying they should show the tier of players on the leaderboards - this will disincentivise people making alts to game the leaderboards as everyone will be able to see they are T5s.

Do you have a problem with that, for some reason?

In my opinion it is better to treat the problem rather than the symptom.

And from your description, it seems to me that the problem is that T1 players are creating alternate accounts and that they are farming T5 players.

Your suggested change of leaderboards display is not going to change this basic problem: As long as PGI explicitly allows for such behaviour, they will probably keep doing that.

Widowmaker1981, on 09 May 2023 - 03:33 AM, said:

What Im saying is they should change how the matchmaker works out the tier a group should be playing in. Not that groups should be disallowed or anything, i just think T1 players should be prevented from intentionally getting into T5 matches.

I still remember how the then-Lead Developer Paul Inouye promised "the frank and honest open discussion about the MWO matchmaker". Of course, such discussion has never occured.

[Widowmaker1981]

martian, on 09 May 2023 - 05:51 AM, said:

In my opinion it is better to treat the problem rather than the symptom.

And from your description, it seems to me that the problem is that T1 players are creating alternate accounts and that they are farming T5 players.

For me, specifically, the problem is that the leaderboards are badly polluted by people obviously gaming the system and i have no way to filter them out. Other people seal clubbing T5s doesnt actually affect me directly.

Its a free to play game and email addresses are not exactly hard to come by, so i dont think its at all feasible for PGI to ban alt accounts - how would they differentiate between one players alt and a second player at the same address?

Given that i dont see any way PGI can possibly prevent people from creating alts to farm newbies, i think that removing the leaderboard incentive to do so will at least help reduce the frequency with which it happens.

[Widowmaker1981]

Nine-Ball, on 09 May 2023 - 06:21 AM, said:

Smurfing to produce a good score isn't abuse of the system, that is merely using the system as is intended.

If that is the case then, to be blunt, the intent behind the system is absolutely moronic. Ive seen what happens when i end up in a T5 game (was grouped with a unit mate who is T5) and its.. disgustingly easy to rack up insanely dmg output and kills. I genuinely think a lot of T5s are aiming with joysticks.

Nine-Ball, on 09 May 2023 - 06:21 AM, said:

I fought with a few people using alternate accounts trying out new mechs because they don't want to risk their monthly score, lol. Some people are famous and would rather play a few games by themselves, others have a reputation they don't want to lug around 24/7.

And? None of this would be impacted in the slightest by having tier shown on the leaderboards.

Nine-Ball, on 09 May 2023 - 06:21 AM, said:

Abuse, if something close to it, would merely be the exploitation of the system to your benefit; ie. always being last one alive, JJ sniping from afar and amassing enough damage after your team is dead to run up your score and pad your stats.

Id say that the obvious intent of a leaderboard system is for players to compare against each other, and that gaming the tier system to get scores you otherwise could not is, in fact, abusing it. You might disagree, but id like to hear what you think the intent of the system is in that case.

I have no idea why you think the specific match score calculation is relevant. The best players will be the best players whatever system you use.

[martian]

Widowmaker1981, on 09 May 2023 - 06:12 AM, said:

For me, specifically, the problem is that the leaderboards are badly polluted ...

Oh, so this is the problem.

[Widowmaker1981]

martian, on 09 May 2023 - 07:06 AM, said:

Oh, so this is the problem.

For me, yes. At least its the reason i noticed what was going on.

Id go out on a limb and suggest that its bad for the players in question (and the long terms health of the game) for new players to be used as stat padding target dummies, but i guess thats just speculation.

[Storky]

Widowmaker1981, on 09 May 2023 - 02:40 AM, said:

Not too sure if this is the right place.. might be better in the website section but thats not very active.

If you take a look at the leaderboards in any given month and sort by average match score / KD ratio, its very obvious that people are abusing the tier system in order to 'cheat' their way to the top of the rankings.

TL:DR :- Leaderboards as currently implemented combine with the tier system to incentivise abuse of new players. This should stop.

TL:DR - agree, smurfing is pathetic, and the main reason is to appear in the leaderboards. The leaderboards must be fixed by not only tier filter, but by bigger threshold to show up. Currently it is just 10 matches.

[Storky]

Nine-Ball, on 09 May 2023 - 07:40 AM, said:

Anyways, a leaderboard has always been about vanity and pride. Whether someone is abusing or using unintended means or simple exploitation to get amazing counting stats or whether that person is playing normally.

If it wasn't about vanity or pride, then nobody could give two hoots about comparing themselves to other players and would simply being enjoying the game for what it offers.

Agree, the current leaderboard is unusable. It is hard to find a really good player among smurfs.

Nine-Ball, on 09 May 2023 - 07:44 AM, said:

so ultimately the problem will only exist for the first few dozen games.

Erm, they do not need a dozen of matches. They make a dozen of accounts. If smurf failed to get his 15k/d for the first 10 matches, he will try with next one.

[TercieI]

Leaderboards will never mean anything so long as soup queue exists. But even if it didn't, the obvious answer is that leaderboards are only for players who were Tier 1 the entire period. No Tier 5 score is comparable.

[Widowmaker1981]

Nine-Ball, on 09 May 2023 - 07:40 AM, said:

Anyways, a leaderboard has always been about vanity and pride. Whether someone is abusing or using unintended means or simple exploitation to get amazing counting stats or whether that person is playing normally.

If it wasn't about vanity or pride, then nobody could give two hoots about comparing themselves to other players and would simply being enjoying the game for what it offers.

Yes, of course it is. Im not sure what your point is. Some people demonstrably do care about comparing themselves to others, and id guess that gamers, particularly ones that like PvP, are more likely to than the average person.

Nine-Ball, on 09 May 2023 - 07:40 AM, said:

The only way to get unsullied stats in a post-stat padding era is running leagues. At least that way you'll know everyone is on the same page and of similar skill level and the numbers derived from it are 1000% legit, despite some teams ending up as a chew toy for others at the end of a season.

Why? Leaderboards reset monthly, so i dont see what you are talking about here.

Nine-Ball, on 09 May 2023 - 07:44 AM, said:

Now as for smurfs farming newbies? Yeah that is a problem.

Whether the problem is as massive as you argue it is, remains to be seen. As it is, these players will soon see themselves in a higher tier as a result of their farming and stat padding, so ultimately the problem will only exist for the first few dozen games.

However, we're still left with a bunch of new players being bombarded and smoked by veterans creating alternate accounts.

The only possible solution I can think of would be to automatically place Alt accounts one tier below their main account as a way to try and mitigate that problem.

Please explain how you think that is possible? You don't tag an account as 'alt' and submit a 'main' account name when you create an account - its just a new account as far as PGI is concerned - and it cannot be based on IP address, or even PC MAC address because it could be a second player at the same house or using the same computer (eg a mechdads 16 year old kid)

Literally every free to play online game i have ever played has explicitly allowed alt accounts, even when they were known to be used primarily for cheese - because its just not feasible to enforce a prohibition on alts, for technical reasons.

You cant prevent people from clubbing seals on alts if they want, but you could at least remove (some of) the incentive to do so, and im unsure what your objection to having tier shown on the leaderboard is (or just making them T1 only)

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 09 May 2023 - 10:29 AM.