Win-Trading In Season 4 and Beyond

[blackopsranger]

still no word why conqueror and obroan bolster above 174 gear maybe those when augmented should be bolster capped to 168 with no augments.

[blackopsranger]

Also what if the opposite faction a guild queues to win trade but leaves when they see its not the other team

[Linyivee]

When you have virtually every queued Imperial on your but, while the other Rebels are off doing god knows what, I call that a serious problem for PvP matches. How can the Imperials win 85%-95% of the time in solo PvP matches?

 

My Sentinel always falls below 100,000. I am barely getting off hits.

 

BioWare needs to watch over both ranked and PUG PvP queues.

Edited February 4, 2015 by Linyivee

[ped_i]

You raise some very, very valid questions Skarlson. Although I can't give you a detailed answer I will do my best. We have a lot of different data and a lot of different criteria we can look at to determine if someone is win-trading.

 

As you can imagine, some behaviors could look suspicious, but could happen in completely normal play. Ex: Someone went 15-0 in the last week of play to get into the top tier reward. Nothing to say with that information alone that the player was win-trading. They could just be an amazing player who jumped in at the last minute with min/maxxed PvP gear and got lucky in their match-ups. Or, they could be a win-trader. However, this one data point alone does not make a win-trader.

 

With any suspicious activity we will compare multiple sets of data that when combined can make a pretty complete picture on someone's intent. We also believe that us checking week over week on this will help us in more clearly finding this with ill-intent.

 

-eric

 

Again with the none-answer. What defines a win-trader, people would like to know so they don't do it. You guys need to be clear with your communication and be "transparent" as you put it. With low populations and yolo queue being terrible and based on luck, and not skill most just group up and do group ranked with guildies or friends to get ratings. I think if you solve the population problems your win-trading problems will go away.

[KrukPL]

Good joke, very good joke. Do u know that witg ths ****ed up balance maras, pt and some other class dont have a chance to have a good rating? Everyone now is playing juggs/guardians or overpowered sins/shadows. And what should mara/pt do? Kill himself just after entering arena? "Win-trading" like u call this is the only way for some classess to earn ratng and get rewars, becase now rankeds will all be about who has more sins in team.

[Selenial]

Again with the none-answer. What defines a win-trader, people would like to know so they don't do it. You guys need to be clear with your communication and be "transparent" as you put it. With low populations and yolo queue being terrible and based on luck, and not skill most just group up and do group ranked with guildies or friends to get ratings. I think if you solve the population problems your win-trading problems will go away.

 

People who team up, decimate another team of friends, log over to unused alts and lose repeatedly to that teams' main composition. The main characters of both teams get good rating, and they don't care about the others.

 

And I think the other "stats" they'll look at are how frequently those parent accounts do things together, how often they group etc. For example, me and the boys decide to win trade with Some girls. Now, all the girls are guildless, and I'm in a guild with the boys. The Devs would have a lot of information about our accounts in general. If me and the lads went 30-0, and then logged to a different composition "for lols" and let the girls go 30-0 on us, it looks suspicious. After that, the Devs do some analysing. They find out the girls have other toons in our guild, whose names are completely different. They find out the girls first team had no gear on, and the boys second team didn't either, or they find out they did have gear, but they were toons who were levelled in a week, same advanced class as another in the legacy and just had gear transferred. They could also see that the girls and boys PVP a lot together constantly, being in a PVP Guild, and that in private whispers they once discussed the idea of trading wins.

 

So from that, the Devs realise they all lost on ****** unplayed toons with no gear, won on their mains who they'd been angry about not getting rewards on, do a lot together anyway so not just different classes of player, and more. But you're right, even then it's not conclusive, and that's why people are getting a warning first. It'll be far too obvious if they repeat it at all...

Edited February 4, 2015 by Selenial

[blackopsranger]

Well they should do like i have said remove bolster from ranked, Conquest regardless, there is no incentive to get fully geared if mix and matched 2.7-2.9 gear is better because of bolster. You can also just remove ranked war-zone wins from conquest. 2018 should be minimum expertise so people don't get fancy and try PVE main hands and off hands for the higher damage rating. To many people queue with PVE/ Lower rated PVP gear and "try to win" you cant use 162 gear in a HM 60 op same should apply to Ranked Warzones. Otherwise your bolster should just set everyone's stats to the same. Including Armor rating i.e Sorcs/Sage with Tank amounts of Armorings.

[Darth__Reaver]

Good joke, very good joke. Do u know that witg ths ****ed up balance maras, pt and some other class dont have a chance to have a good rating? Everyone now is playing juggs/guardians or overpowered sins/shadows. And what should mara/pt do? Kill himself just after entering arena? "Win-trading" like u call this is the only way for some classess to earn ratng and get rewars, becase now rankeds will all be about who has more sins in team.

 

 

You forgot dps mercs but we so cool we don't need no buffs.

 

<----- no buffs all skillz

[ped_i]

People who team up, decimate another team of friends, log over to unused alts and lose repeatedly to that teams' main composition. The main characters of both teams get good rating, and they don't care about the others.

 

And I think the other "stats" they'll look at are how frequently those parent accounts do things together, how often they group etc. For example, me and the boys decide to win trade with Some girls. Now, all the girls are guildless, and I'm in a guild with the boys. The Devs would have a lot of information about our accounts in general. If me and the lads went 30-0, and then logged to a different composition "for lols" and let the girls go 30-0 on us, it looks suspicious. After that, the Devs do some analysing. They find out the girls have other toons in our guild, whose names are completely different. They find out the girls first team had no gear on, and the boys second team didn't either, or they find out they did have gear, but they were toons who were levelled in a week, same advanced class as another in the legacy and just had gear transferred. They could also see that the girls and boys PVP a lot together constantly, being in a PVP Guild, and that in private whispers they once discussed the idea of trading wins.

 

So from that, the Devs realise they all lost on ****** unplayed toons with no gear, won on their mains who they'd been angry about not getting rewards on, do a lot together anyway so not just different classes of player, and more. But you're right, even then it's not conclusive, and that's why people are getting a warning first. It'll be far too obvious if they repeat it at all...

I think the win trading that happens in solo ranked is way more problematic than in grouped, since in grouped no other players ratings are getting hurt whereas in solo when people queue sync and throw matches for their guildies because of small population(i wonder why population keeps coming into this ..) they effectively screwing with other players hard earned ratings. I could careless what someone does in group ranked with another group of their friends. they aren't hurting me.

[FerreusSteelTip]

No it was intended like that so you have to queue and actually win, not just queue up and throw a match and collect ranked comms. I thought that was pretty obvious.

 

There should be ***0**** comms given in RANKED play, if you ask me. People should get gear other ways. No one should be queuing up just to do a daily and just to get comms. That's part of the problem with ranked at the moment.

 

You should be queuing ranked to prove and improve your skill and ELO rating. Not because it's the best way to get ranked comms and ranked gar. Just NO.

 

I agree with you COMPLETELY

Can get the gear by doing regs.

Maybe separate the 8m wzs and 4m arenas into separate ques. Wzs give reg comms, arenas give ranked. Maybe rename the comms. Call it warzone comms and arena comms for simplicity.

Then leave the actual ranked play JUST for ELO

[FerreusSteelTip]

Props, Eric. Thanks for the info.

 

I think I can see how it could be difficult to be 100% certain.

 

I'm wondering if cross-faction queuing for ranked could help alleviate some of the win-trading issues. Just a thought.

 

EDIT: I suppose, depending on how it is done, x-faction would not alleviate group ranked issues. I guess I am thinking about queue-sync - intentional or accidental. Anyway, I think that x-faction in ranked would be a wonderful thing for a number of reasons if it were feasible and whatever RP issues associated with it could be minimized.

I just want to say 'No' to this. Not to troll, just to show any dev or whatever looking at the forums we don't want this at all.

[FerreusSteelTip]

RIP win-traders. Also RIP trolls.

 

If you think that will be the case you are a major optimist

as a realist, this won't even phase people. Least of all the trolls. Not until people receive perma bans and scare the others into stopping.

[FerreusSteelTip]

Obviously that's the case. A while? Try forever.

 

Getting 1800 rating for the first 10 won games does mean you're win trading because it involves boosting a first team to high ratings with alts and then winning vs high rating team with main in order to get colossal gains. Which was the case with the proof provided (that as per usual fell on deaf ears)

 

I personally went on a 10 game win streak as a tanking VG in season 1, got 1500 rating, and that was that. It dropped by the end. Just hit a lucky night against inferior tanks.

So, it doesn't necessarily mean win trading.

That said, I do think a LOT of the top ranked players get their rating via win trading.

I knew of a few on Pot5 that paid people towards the end of the season to throw games for them so they could get the rewards.

[FerreusSteelTip]

In my opinion all the biggest problems with ranked PvP stem form the low population. Elo rating isn't designed to work with such a small population. It's tough to have ranked with out the real numbers to support it.

 

This boils down to cross server ques being implemented. They may be against, players in some situations may be against it. But in the end they'll have to.

There is no choice.

Most MMOs, new ones, are going either the mega server route or some kind of cross server. People in general like it. So to compete, most mmos with a que system will have to do something.

[FerreusSteelTip]

Win trade is our least concern at the moment, there is no class balance there is only shadow-sin, pt-vg sholder cannon still broken and you didnt fixed it in 2 months (are still in holiday? o yea these are not cartel market item so out of guarantee). I dont think i will join season for at the beginning. It will be horrible until some class balance is done but i have doubts about it.

You dont need a win trade all you need is inquisitor/consular teams.

 

only two fixes needed imo

Nerf shroud to what it was for dps. Don't give them the tank's version. Remove the utility to make the dps even further immune with their saber defense. Or whatever that skill is called that looks like saberward.

And then for pt/vg, nerf the rate limit on how fast the shoulder cannon fires. Or reduce it's dmg. One or the other.

[FerreusSteelTip]

I like the idea that you're aware of the problem but NO. People don't deserve a warning for win-trading, especially at this point. People are simply going to win-trade for their rating in one week only, then get a warning, but they won't continue, because they already got the rating they needed in the specific time window you provided. It's literally like giving win traders a calender with "Cheat Here" written across every week. You are essentially saying it is legal to win-trade, just as long as you don't do it for more than one week.

 

Pro tip: if your rules have an obvious loophole, don't post it in bright yellow text where it shows up on the Dev Tracker and on Dulfy. You are begging players to exploit this loophole.

 

I personally think those who have topped the leaderboads the past 3 seasons should be monitored. Live. Watched to see, randomly, if they engage in win trading.

Then just work off reports, with random monitoring.

[FerreusSteelTip]

What joke.

 

You guys have Fked Up PvP so bad, participation is so low that now we have to schedule times when teams will have matches.

 

So how do you tell the traders from the teams that have had to play each other 10 times because there is no one else in the Q?

 

This game is so over.

 

there are 3 reasons for this.

1) no cross server ques. This is the main reason people face each other over an over.

2) Lack of tanks. A team with a guard vs team without, the one without is gonna lose most the time. IF they nerfed the guard in PvP. Make it so it only increases dmg reduction. Raise it to 20%. Then remove the dmg abs feature. Then yeah, you could see teams with 3 dps instead do just as well.

3) solo q. People would rather q for that since it's faster, and easier than building a team.

If they made the rewards MUCH cooler. And then remove solo ranked. People would form teams. They'd have to. Be pug teams, but meh. Is what it is.

[FerreusSteelTip]

Thank you Eric for your responses. Its good to hear steps are being taken against wintraders.

 

But I do have a couple questions regarding the topic at hand:

 

-- Seeing that ranked arenas are PvPers "endgame" will anything be done to keep out those in full PvE gear? Having a player in full pve gear, around 1600 expertise is a massive handicap and a guaranteed loss. Maybe an expertise check before queueing and have the queue button grayed out with a notification "You must have 2018 expertise before queueing for this warzone." Having this in place will also lure PvE wintraders away given they would have to get a fullset of pvp gear before queueing up.

 

-- Ranked trolls. There are a ton of ranked trolls on every server. Now I am not talking about wintraders. Wintraders and ranked trolls are two separate things. The goal for ranked trolls is to queue up and make their team lose purposely regardless who is on their team or who they are up against. They *want* to tank their rating for giggles. A simple "warning" isnt going to stop them from queuing again.

 

I have to add. Just greying out the que for those without full expertise won't cut it. They will have to LOCK their gear as soon as they enter the match. No changing equipment inside.

 

and as I said in my own post, the trolls need suspensions. Harshly handed out. No slap on the wrist will stop them. Only fear of being banned MIGHT.

[FerreusSteelTip]

So, I have a question. If you get 8 people from your guild, try to make the teams as even as possible, and everyone actually tries to win, would they get action taken against their accounts? This would help people get a feel for ranked without hurting others' rating, but it's not win trading.

 

As for trolls, I have a suggestion. In group finder, you can ignore someone and they won't get put with you again. Is it possible to do this with ranked queues? Yes, you have to deal with them once, but it's better than getting stuck with them multiple times and having your rating drop a lot. This is probably possible because it already works with group finder.

 

Problem with this, people would ignore everyone they didn't see as 'good'. And you'd have very stacked teams in solo ranked.

I'd ignore most the server and just get the good players on my team.

 

What they need is a better system in solo ranked. Add new medals. Make the ELO gain in solo ranked based off performance only.

DPS

HPS

and protection.

Base it off how long you're alive, not how long the match lasts.

Give medals based on how much dmg you take before you die.

Then how much ELO you gain is figured this way.

Loss = -x ELO against how many medals you get. Each medal = to x amount.

So lets say you get 8 medals, and each equal to 5 ELO. That's 40 ELO. Then you lose. In general, a loss will be -40 elo

Then it'd be a wash IF you got 8 medals. And up to -40 if you got 0 medals. If you end up with 14 medals in a loss, you actually get an ELO gain

 

If you win said match, there is no ELO penalty. So any medals you get will equal an ELO gain.

 

I'm sure the math wizards out there could figure the specifics. BUT if they did it this way, counting the dmg taken per second and having medals gained for how much dmg you take before you die within a certain window of time. Say, if you die within 30secs and take over 100k dmg, you get medals. (To illustrate you kited, healed yourself etc etc to stave off being focused) then yeah. Even mercs who'd get swarmed at the start has a chance at still showing skill.

 

THEN solo ranked would be JUST about performance. Wins and losses wouldn't matter AS much. You'd still get more ELO for wins most the time, but that's how it should be.

People would say that other classes would have an advantage. Like a dps guardian who could taunt getting protecting medals. Or mercenaries who get a crit on heals.

Mainly marauders and snipers would be at the disadvantage. But if they adjust protection to include cc. Stuns, slows.

An algorithm that reads the affected target's current DPS, then how long they were stunned for. Would equal to how much protection they'd get.

Slows would be across the board. A small amount of protection for each second a target is slowed.

This would encourage players to PEEL.

[FerreusSteelTip]

When you have virtually every queued Imperial on your but, while the other Rebels are off doing god knows what, I call that a serious problem for PvP matches. How can the Imperials win 85%-95% of the time in solo PvP matches?

 

My Sentinel always falls below 100,000. I am barely getting off hits.

 

BioWare needs to watch over both ranked and PUG PvP queues.

 

Not to be a troll, but first off you are using the wrong lingo so coming off sounding like a newb. Also if you are doing so poorly, that is on YOU man.

[Linyivee]

Not to be a troll, but first off you are using the wrong lingo so coming off sounding like a newb. Also if you are doing so poorly, that is on YOU man.

I can only assume that you may be benefiting from the one-sided nature of PvP.

[SlightlySychotic]

I just want to say 'No' to this. Not to troll, just to show any dev or whatever looking at the forums we don't want this at all.

 

What? Cross-faction? Dude, lots of people on these forums are for that. It's like the biggest movement now that people are finally starting to accept that cross-server is a dead horse. They give it a little TLC, adopt a neutral avatar system to keep the RPers happy, and they could have a rock star for once. Hell, it'll do more to offset win-trading in the solo queue than anything else, not to mention the "trolls" (who, I suspect, are largely players queuing alts to help some guildmates or just attempting to sabotage the opposite faction).

[warstory]

You raise some very, very valid questions Skarlson. Although I can't give you a detailed answer I will do my best. We have a lot of different data and a lot of different criteria we can look at to determine if someone is win-trading.

 

As you can imagine, some behaviors could look suspicious, but could happen in completely normal play. Ex: Someone went 15-0 in the last week of play to get into the top tier reward. Nothing to say with that information alone that the player was win-trading. They could just be an amazing player who jumped in at the last minute with min/maxxed PvP gear and got lucky in their match-ups. Or, they could be a win-trader. However, this one data point alone does not make a win-trader.

 

With any suspicious activity we will compare multiple sets of data that when combined can make a pretty complete picture on someone's intent. We also believe that us checking week over week on this will help us in more clearly finding this with ill-intent.

 

-eric

 

it took u 3 seasons to look at the data on a week to week basis? r u guys morons seriously. common sense is truely not common. people can log on twice a week win trade for 5 games team ranked then go back to solos how u going to know ? 5 games is such a small smaple size. i have won 5 games in a row legit i have lost 5 in a row legit.

 

you guys dont post much on the forums cause u r in meetings but *** r u talking about in meetings?

its not balance clearly cause i finaly thought i could play my lightning sorc but u can not beat a PT or sin

 

ever notice how when everytime when u were showcases those new classes ppl were saying the one u were showing was op even after they saw what u showed the week before? I am tired of being right

 

sorry bioware starting to lose interest in ur game

[foxmob]

In my opinion all the biggest problems with ranked PvP stem form the low population. Elo rating isn't designed to work with such a small population. It's tough to have ranked with out the real numbers to support it.

 

^agree

[Anyakaschala]

What happens if there are teams that just face each other a lot and are evenly matched. Will you take action against their accounts? I don't see how you can be 100% certain in even some cases if any. What exactly constitutes being a win trader by your definition. Do you take into account queue syncers and assume they are win traders when they just want to play with their friends instead of the loser with 1000 expertise trolling people.

 

well, I would say that EA/BW have access to a lot more data than we do in this regard. I'm going to guess that they have a system that will red flag someone if they win a lot of games in a row and then can review the matches. I would also guess that they would also know who the other toons are on that persons account, and if one toon goes 15-0 an they have and alt that goes 0-15 and magically it's against bascially the same subset of characters and/or guilds, that would send up a lot of massive flags, and probably incontrovertible evidence that they are win-trading.

Edited February 4, 2015 by Anyakaschala