Let's Talk Win Trading...

[omaan]

To put it short, as you allude to, BioWare needs to understand that wintraders do their stuff outside the ''legitimate'' Solo Ranked time frame. Everything would be fine if they looked at the logs and what happens in these matches. Rating manipulation within the legitimate time frame is actually rather minor as it doesn't happen too often.

 

So, @MikeBradley, please note the emphasis on this. I would assume this is actually standard procedure; but, judging how the season turned out, I highly doubt it. BioWare needs focus on players with little wins but high rating, specially if those wins happen an hour before the servers shut down at 5 a.m. by the end of the season. I mean, for **** sake how is this not obvious to you?

 

You are pretty mistaken if you think that those are wintraders who outrated you 5 min before the patch. The feature is when thepatch was applied it was a normal gaming time for EU (3-4 pm for most eu countries) and a dead time for USA. No wonder why this happened since eu servers had during that time almost instant pops. I guess same may happen in next seasons too

[Costello]

Just wanted to touch base with you all, let you know that I've been reviewing the thread throughout the day, and here are the standout points that I'm drafting individual responses to:

 

 

• 
   
  
• Why did we restore accounts that we punished this season?
  
• How can we change the rating system to discourage abuse?
  
• Do we look for and punish cheaters in non-ranked PvP?
  
• How specifically do we punish win traders?
  
• How can we make these punishments more severe?
  

 

I'll be posting these throughout the week, please keep the feedback coming.

 

Thanks,

 

What about how effective your efforts are going to be and will it have a positive effect on the game?

 

You have said that its only a very small number of people that are exploiting, most views are that even if caught nothing is done so it doesn't act as a deterrent. Its currently held that even if you do ban someone you reverse the decisions as you got it wrong.

 

It appears that the game has almost no development resource, look at the utter lack of content in the last 2 years and the quality of that content, we are talk 2 min companion returns (where there returns were delayed so they could be done right). So with those almost no existent resources, hemorrhaging players, is spending time giving cheaters and exploiters a harshly worded e-mail begging them not to do it again or they may get a 3 day ban really going to achieve anything and therefore the best use of those resources.

 

Would not more be done to improve the situation simply be done by finding an alternative way to reward the monumental crystal therefore removing some of the intensive to win trade in ranked PvP to get the reward.

[Storm-Cutter]

Honestly, maybe one good way to go about it would be to disable ELO gain on servers when it is not a reasonable time. I mean, why would someone be earning ELO on Darth Malgus at 4AM EU time, for example?

.

 

~Some of us work different work patterns to regular 9-5 -ers.

 

I agree on your other points, but if I get in from work at midnight does that mean I'm barred form ranked? / conversely if I want a match ( and it pops) at 4.30 in the a.m. before I leave for work, is that not eligible for ELO or whatever the system might become?

 

Some people play on other servers to be with friends, some play at different times to get more matches during another server's primetime.

 

The ELO system has a number of flaws that have been easily exploited. fix that and they'll be making the first small step to making it fair for everyone.

 

But TBH it'd be interesting to see how many people are really bothered about rank, versus how many people just wanna have evenly matched games and a bit of fun. - Think I'm here for the latter. - Especially since in solo at least, your rank depends so much on 7 other people's performance.

[merovejec]

I'll take one for the team here

 

Ok, Im sorry Snave I have to show the public what you are planning this season

 

Its so ridiculous to post pics xD don't trust internet kids.

Edited March 5, 2019 by merovejec

[EmanoWanga]

Ok, Im sorry Snave I have to show the public what you are planning this season

 

Its so ridiculous to post pics xD don't trust internet kids.

 

Guys, lets not make this thread into "those" threads again. We know the PVP community will want to discredit anyone who goes against them and will bring up this stuff. Please keep in mind, its the internet, Photoshop is your friend, you can make toons on other servers with specific names, appearence, make videos etc.

 

This is about wintrading and not naming and shaming.

Edited March 5, 2019 by EmanoWanga

[snave]

Guys, lets not make this thread into "those" threads again. We know the PVP community will want to discredit anyone who goes against them and will bring up this stuff. Please keep in mind, its the internet, Photoshop is your friend, you can make toons on other servers with specific names, appearence, make videos etc.

 

This is about wintrading and not naming and shaming.

 

The image I linked isn't faked or shopped, I have another screenshot of the # next to his name to verify it is him but people are welcome to not believe me.

 

The image IS about wintrading. Let me explain to you why it's important to be transparent right now, more so than in a few months. SWTOR are asking for advice and feedback so how on earth are you meant to give advice or feedback if you blindly ignore the situation we're in at the moment and how we got there?

 

These types of "efforts" happen pretty much annually from Bioware, normally a few months before an expansion and we've already had this conversation multiple times. If you want to ignore the fact that we've been here before how do you possibly expect to stop history repeating itself?

 

Several people in the game are well known for some form of shenanigans in ranked. These people aren't banned despite there being a veritable mountain of evidence and reports against them. How are we meant to have a meaningful discussion about win trading if we don't address the fact that previous evidence has been WILLFULLY ignored? How are we meant to be "oh great thanks for this Bioware this sounds amazing" when they've ignored a super large chunk of these people using whatever means for whatever reason?

 

Bioware is engaging in a conversation from a position of bad faith, that needs to be addressed before we can move forward because every time this has happened before, nothing has happened in regards to an actual attempt at addressing the issues.

 

You cannot move forward until you acknowledge where you are and how you got there, but hey, this is only like the 4th time we've had these conversations, see you in 12 months time for round 5 boys.

[TheDramaKing]

The image I linked isn't faked or shopped, I have another screenshot of the # next to his name to verify it is him but people are welcome to not believe me.

 

The image IS about wintrading. Let me explain to you why it's important to be transparent right now, more so than in a few months. SWTOR are asking for advice and feedback so how on earth are you meant to give advice or feedback if you blindly ignore the situation we're in at the moment and how we got there?

 

These types of "efforts" happen pretty much annually from Bioware, normally a few months before an expansion and we've already had this conversation multiple times. If you want to ignore the fact that we've been here before how do you possibly expect to stop history repeating itself?

 

Several people in the game are well known for some form of shenanigans in ranked. These people aren't banned despite there being a veritable mountain of evidence and reports against them. How are we meant to have a meaningful discussion about win trading if we don't address the fact that previous evidence has been WILLFULLY ignored? How are we meant to be "oh great thanks for this Bioware this sounds amazing" when they've ignored a super large chunk of these people using whatever means for whatever reason?

 

Bioware is engaging in a conversation from a position of bad faith, that needs to be addressed before we can move forward because every time this has happened before, nothing has happened in regards to an actual attempt at addressing the issues.

 

You cannot move forward until you acknowledge where you are and how you got there, but hey, this is only like the 4th time we've had these conversations, see you in 12 months time for round 5 boys.

 

Amen.

 

PS. Since we have to start from somewhere, can't we just have finally Merovejec (Ray) banned from this community so we can move on to a better future?

Edited March 5, 2019 by TheDramaKing

[Lhancelot]

To put it short, as you allude to, BioWare needs to understand that wintraders do their stuff outside the ''legitimate'' Solo Ranked time frame. Everything would be fine if they looked at the logs and what happens in these matches. Rating manipulation within the legitimate time frame is actually rather minor as it doesn't happen too often.

 

If they limit times ranked can be queued for ELO, it's unfair practice to those who may play at "odd" times. The other thing is you are simply chasing one symptom by thinking limiting when ELO is gained will stop the cheating.

 

The problem is the ELO system is too easy to cheat.

 

If you make it so people only gain ELO during certain hours, people will cheat during those ELO hours mark my words. When it takes a handful of matches to boost ELO rating to top changing when ELO is gained isn't going to stop the cheating.

 

The scoring system needs changed, otherwise you are just chasing symptoms of the problem.

 

I propose a system that would put focus on number of wins as a goal for a contest of ranked PVP. I just don't see any other way to make cheating less alluring other than make it a challenge to manipulate the system which a total wins system would do.

 

Let's be frank here, the present ELO system in no way proves anyone is better than other competitors, we all know that so let's just stop pretending this notion. Once you accept that fact, then a wins only score system makes more sense to implement.

 

With a wins scoring system, more people will participate in the end. Less toxicity will be in the matches as well as people wanting more wins for a higher rating which means more people in the queues.

 

Toxicity? I say less toxicity, because in my opinion much of that comes from the pressure of losing a match in the ELO system. Presently, a loss can crush someone's ELO, and it's usually viewed as a loss that the player themselves had little to do with.

 

With so many win trades going on you are always at risk of having someone drop a match causing a loss which then destroys your ELO. A lesser player on your team? Loss.

 

One loss has the ability to ruin a player's rating, and that pressure is bad for other players who feel they need to perform at a high level who simply can't. I have seen these angry players on fleet calling out teammates that they feel cost them their ELO in a earlier match. These arguments can go on for half an hour. When all of fleet sees this dialogue, who wants to participate in ranked? No new players, that's for sure. All of this toxicity is because ELO rating is too easily ruined with one loss.

 

If BW wanted to make it a little more complex, they could also calculate not only wins but include losses. Meaning, calculate which players have not only the highest win count but also the lowest loss percentage.

 

I realize this doesn't prove who "the best" is, but the present scoring system fails at that too. I don't really understand why some players actually cling to this ELO system. It's as if they really feel it validates their skill, when it does not. At least with a wins counting system it would be impossible to manipulate easily, and would reward effort and to a lesser degree skill because winning does require skill.

[Metthew]

What if you play in another region?

 

Ie, I play in the APAC region, so 4am US time or UK time is 8pm Australian (for US) and 3pm Australian (UK).

 

~Some of us work different work patterns to regular 9-5 -ers.

 

I agree on your other points, but if I get in from work at midnight does that mean I'm barred form ranked? / conversely if I want a match ( and it pops) at 4.30 in the a.m. before I leave for work, is that not eligible for ELO or whatever the system might become?

Well, what kind of legit game would you have at 4:30AM when everybody is sleeping though?

 

I'd rather they just police the games, get maybe one or two live customer service agent who can look at all four games happening in ranked at any given time, but sadly that won't happen.

[Lhancelot]

Well, what kind of legit game would you have at 4:30AM when everybody is sleeping though?

 

I'd rather they just police the games, get maybe one or two live customer service agent who can look at all four games happening in ranked at any given time, but sadly that won't happen.

 

yes, because having constant supervision is plausible. Let's be realistic here. BW or any game isn't going to devote 24/7 supervision to ensure no one is win trading. This isn't realistic nor will it ever happen.

 

I'd suggest thinking how they could make it harder to cheat and less easy to destroy other player's matches, because that's the problem.

 

The system is too easy to corrupt and BW isn't going to hire people to babysit a part of the game that only 5% of the population takes part in. They need a scoring system that has a solid foundation that can't be cheated easily that also doesn't require hired babysitters watching all the matches in ranked 24/7.

[Lhancelot]

BioFail is fixed on thinking that the vast majority plays legitimately, yet they don't have a clue about what happens in their game. Indeed this original yellow post is another ''don't worry guys, we'll get'em next time'' thread, just like Season 9 with its ''zero-tolerance'' assertion.

 

I agree with you that they appear to believe the majority of players play legitimately and that much is probably true however as you allude to a lot of cheaters are active. A lot more than they seem to openly admit.

 

That could be just to not put ignorant players in a panic though. I mean, no game would want to come out and say "yeah we know tons of cheaters are ruining ranked right now!"

 

I disagree that they are going to do nothing (again), I think it's at a point where nothing is at stake, the state of ranked is at such a low that there's no risks on their end to change things up.

 

With that being said, I suspect they will change how the system scores, it's undeniable that there lies the biggest problem. How they change it I have no clue.

 

Whether it's a system that is based on wins, or some other form of calculations something has to change on that end of it. It's not reasonable to expect them to supervise 24/7 and it's not possible.

[Lhancelot]

I can assure you, they will not ''fix'' anything.

 

I don't know if they will fix anything, but I believe they will try. There's a difference in trying and not doing anything and I think they really will make a concerted effort to stop the cheating and make ranked better. That's the only reasonable expectation that players can have is that BW tries to improve it.

 

If anything, the screenshots of private interactions between players in this thread prove just how much rating and ELO mean, especially for top 3 titles. This ridiculous "need" for them is causing the ruination of ranked and the behavior some players exhibit for said titles is compromising the integrity of the entire ranked scene.

 

It's like these players feel that the entire ranked competition is theirs to ruin just to get their coveted titles and with it being so easy to cheat they have no problem doing it to get the titles. Some players exhibit no conscience whatsoever and ought to be ashamed of themselves but you'd need a conscience to be ashamed.

[TrixxieTriss]

Well, what kind of legit game would you have at 4:30AM when everybody is sleeping though?

 

Not everyone is sleeping. I queue up and if it pops, I play. Your 4.30am isn’t my 4.30am. I think you need to realise this game doesn’t revolve only around your time zone.

 

If the queue doesn’t pop, I do stuff till it does. It’s not my fault the game’s population has died due to poor design decisions by Bioware. It’s not my fault Bioware shut the APAC servers or the West Coast servers and drove the majority of players away in my time zone.

 

I have just as much right as you to try and play ranked pvp. If there are only 8 of us online when that happens, it’s not our fault, it’s Biowares.

[TrixxieTriss]

I understand the reason they don't like it.

 

But if it's been in the game for months maybe years even, does it really benefit the situation allowing the ones aware of it to use it for longer periods of time than if it were spotlighted and eliminated sooner than later?

 

If it's been in the game for over a month, it should be spotlighted for everyone to be aware of it imo.

 

Yeah, I don’t disagree if it’s been around for a long time. I really hope it hasn’t been years

 

Even if it’s only been a month, it’s too long IMO. But at what point do you draw a line in the sand and make it public so Bioware actually bother to fix it?

[Lhancelot]

Yeah, I don’t disagree if it’s been around for a long time. I really hope it hasn’t been years

 

Even if it’s only been a month, it’s too long IMO. But at what point do you draw a line in the sand and make it public so Bioware actually bother to fix it?

 

Well personally as soon as I seen it I would report it in game and then to BW on forums in bugs section if it looked like an exploited bug. If i seen it a week later, I'd report it to the masses lol.

 

I wouldn't have the patience to watch people use a bug/hack/exploit for a long period of time.

 

The guy above mentioned past seasons that this exploit was being used. Nice to find out about it seasons later.

 

I mean, to me it just sounds like after a long period of time people have been enjoying the secret knowledge of this exploit and suddenly someone who players dislike began using it too, so the whistle got blown.

[CliffRedemption]

How much longer until Top3 Rewards will be dished out? It's been 22 days since the end of the season.

[JediMasterAlex]

It's like these players feel that the entire ranked competition is theirs to ruin just to get their coveted titles and with it being so easy to cheat they have no problem doing it to get the titles. Some players exhibit no conscience whatsoever and ought to be ashamed of themselves but you'd need a conscience to be ashamed.

 

This is an important point. There is a well-known wintrader who got all of his toons reset at the end of season 10 (and they stayed reset). He still thinks that he's a great player, and when confronted with his wintrading, he's basically proud of it. What's worse, is that a lot of players in gen chat were defending him, essentially saying "it's no big deal, everyone wintrades". It's disturbing how many unethical people without consciences play this game. It both makes me angry and feel great pity for them. Granted, many are probably teenagers without fully developed brains, but for those that aren't...they're just bad people.

[Shirvington]

 

[*]How can we change the rating system to discourage abuse?

 

 

As people have said, solo ranked is a tough beast because you can't control your teammates. So you could end up losing match after match, and therefore a significant amount of rating, if there are bad players/throwers in the queue. Right now, you have two options if there are bad players/throwers in the queue: play anyway and risk getting them on your team and losing, or just stop queuing. NOT playing the game shouldn't be a valid option to choose, right?

 

Solo ranked rating system needs to change to something like ZERO points deducted for a loss, and a small amount of points for a win, e.g. if the enemy team has a high average elo, you gain 4, if the enemy team has a low average elo, you gain 2 upon winning. You can then track total rating (people who play a lot and win will have high ratings) and win/loss ratio separately (people who don't play a lot but win every game will have a high ratio. Or have ratio weighted against total rating, so a 1500 rating and 80% win ratio = 1200 weighted rating).

 

To curb abuse like dropping matches for your friends, if someone drops before the match starts or in the first 30 secs, you gain 1 point for the win.

 

A system like this dovetails with the Monumental and Weekly Ranked quests as you still need to win matches to complete the quests quickly. A loss is still just 1 point out of 50, whereas a win is 5.

Edited March 5, 2019 by Shirvington

[MikeBradley]

Why were so many wintraders/cheaters restored shortly after they were banned/wiped?

I've seen variations of this question a few times so let me try to shed some light on why this happened. Every action that we take against an account for win trading is based on troves of data that we have collected. We look at data on every character, every match played, who they played against, how many times, at what hour, whether or not they've been caught previously, etc. and all of that is used to build the most compelling case possible.

 

Towards the end of season 10, we cast a much more aggressive net than we had previously, using several new data points that we believed would help us see more varieties of exploitative behavior. As we reviewed all the accounts that were caught with these latest criteria, we discovered that in certain cases these new data points could mislead us. It became clear that rather than giving us additional conclusive evidence, there was a higher chance than we were comfortable with that we were also catching innocent players. In this case, where there was reasonable doubt, we erred on the side of caution.

 

I know that one of your concerns is that by restoring these players, we may have allowed some win traders to get away with it. We completely hear you on this and this is where we need to continue to improve our systems for catching them, we just didn't want to risk our net catching innocent players.

 

We do not take, or reverse action based on the number of reports we receive on any account. We use the same rigorous scrutiny on accounts with 1 report of win trading as we do with accounts with 10 reports. We monitor all accounts that have been reported, but the idea that we reset (or restore) an account’s rating based purely on the volume of reports is just false.

 

I realize our process here is not perfect, but it does get more robust with every revision to our nets, with every batch of cheaters that we catch, with every detailed report that we receive, and with all the information that is shared here. So please keep it coming.

 

[snave]

I've seen variations of this question a few times so let me try to shed some light on why this happened. Every action that we take against an account for win trading is based on troves of data that we have collected. We look at data on every character, every match played, who they played against, how many times, at what hour, whether or not they've been caught previously, etc. and all of that is used to build the most compelling case possible.

 

Towards the end of season 10, we cast a much more aggressive net than we had previously, using several new data points that we believed would help us see more varieties of exploitative behavior. As we reviewed all the accounts that were caught with these latest criteria, we discovered that in certain cases these new data points could mislead us. It became clear that rather than giving us additional conclusive evidence, there was a higher chance than we were comfortable with that we were also catching innocent players. In this case, where there was reasonable doubt, we erred on the side of caution.

 

I know that one of your concerns is that by restoring these players, we may have allowed some win traders to get away with it. We completely hear you on this and this is where we need to continue to improve our systems for catching them, we just didn't want to risk our net catching innocent players.

 

We do not take, or reverse action based on the number of reports we receive on any account. We use the same rigorous scrutiny on accounts with 1 report of win trading as we do with accounts with 10 reports. We monitor all accounts that have been reported, but the idea that we reset (or restore) an account’s rating based purely on the volume of reports is just false.

 

I realize our process here is not perfect, but it does get more robust with every revision to our nets, with every batch of cheaters that we catch, with every detailed report that we receive, and with all the information that is shared here. So please keep it coming.

 

 

Thanks for this Mike. Unfortunately, this post has some fairly severe implications attached to it.

 

I can completely understand the philosophy behind not wanting to punish innocent players and erring on the side of caution, it's completely reasonable.

 

Completely reasonable until you realise that some of the most egregious win traders were banned and then restored. The implication here is that despite casting a wide net and having all these data points to reference you still can't tell when someone is cheating.

 

So thanks for this, it's a breath of fresh air for you to come on the forums and let us know that your systems are anaemic and easily fooled. Hopefully, from having an open discourse about this you can come up with something that you know, works.

[KittyKat_Karrot]

I'd honestly be surprised if a single person who initially had their rating reset before the reversal, didn't deserve that reset.

[foxmob]

We do not take, or reverse action based on the number of reports we receive on any account. We use the same rigorous scrutiny on accounts with 1 report of win trading as we do with accounts with 10 reports. We monitor all accounts that have been reported, but the idea that we reset (or restore) an account’s rating based purely on the volume of reports is just false.

 

I realize our process here is not perfect, but it does get more robust with every revision to our nets, with every batch of cheaters that we catch, with every detailed report that we receive, and with all the information that is shared here. So please keep it coming.

 

I would like to ask exactly how compelling user submitted video evidence is in your accrual of "data." Like, is it evidence or just "a report"?

[DavidAtkinson]

I've seen variations of this question a few times so let me try to shed some light on why this happened. Every action that we take against an account for win trading is based on troves of data that we have collected. We look at data on every character, every match played, who they played against, how many times, at what hour, whether or not they've been caught previously, etc. and all of that is used to build the most compelling case possible.

 

Towards the end of season 10, we cast a much more aggressive net than we had previously, using several new data points that we believed would help us see more varieties of exploitative behavior. As we reviewed all the accounts that were caught with these latest criteria, we discovered that in certain cases these new data points could mislead us. It became clear that rather than giving us additional conclusive evidence, there was a higher chance than we were comfortable with that we were also catching innocent players. In this case, where there was reasonable doubt, we erred on the side of caution.

 

I know that one of your concerns is that by restoring these players, we may have allowed some win traders to get away with it. We completely hear you on this and this is where we need to continue to improve our systems for catching them, we just didn't want to risk our net catching innocent players.

 

We do not take, or reverse action based on the number of reports we receive on any account. We use the same rigorous scrutiny on accounts with 1 report of win trading as we do with accounts with 10 reports. We monitor all accounts that have been reported, but the idea that we reset (or restore) an account’s rating based purely on the volume of reports is just false.

 

I realize our process here is not perfect, but it does get more robust with every revision to our nets, with every batch of cheaters that we catch, with every detailed report that we receive, and with all the information that is shared here. So please keep it coming.

 

 

This just confirms the fact that there is no way you can tell if someone is cheating or not.... You simply do not have access to enough proof for you to take proper action against those who deserve it....

 

I believe that most of the cheating and trading is set up outside of the servers and you dont have access to those places, but I may be mistaken.

 

It's not that you don't want to take action, simply put, you just cannot prove that Jeff or Joe are legit or not.

 

And before we talk about being fair, I think it's time you make some changes and how players receive their ratings because at the moment the system is just garbage and it forces people to manipulate the outcome of games to suit their ratings. I mean if I lose one game I need to win 3 to get back what I lost for that one loss and believe me It gets painful after a while.

 

The points system was suggested and the reactions are not very positive which is to be expected as obviously all these clowns wouldn't be able to get their top 10 titles in the last week of the season with the help of their "good" friends. People who put in the effort would end up on the top eventually and this isn't going to go well with a lot of people. I mean they say its not fair that rankings are given to people to no life the game, but let me ask a simple question: How is it fair that in the current system my rating is dependent on other 3 randoms who I get matched up with ?

 

I don't know if you ever thought about changing something about ranked matchmaking and ranking methods for players but I really hope you will considered it.....

Edited March 5, 2019 by DavidAtkinson

[LordFabricius]

What if you have hit some accounts that have never played Rank pvp? I have seen that happening to a lot of people will they get their account back since, they have done nothing wrong? Or are you gonna keep them locked?

[DNGDangerous]

Suggestion:

For solo ranked:

 

Why not just separate players into brackets by elo?

 

Brackets are assigned by the highest obtained elo amongst all characters of the whole account per season. So an ALT character uses the same bracket as their main.

 

This would mean a bracket 4 cannot match with a bracket 2 or bracket 1. But bracket 4 can match up against 3.

This would also mean, bracket 1 can only be paired with brackets 1 and 2.

Also bracket 2 can match up with brackets 1, 2 or 3 provided that bracket 1 and 3 are not matched up in the same ranked warzone.

 

Bracket 4) 0-1199

 

Bracket 3) 1200-1399

 

Bracket 2) 1400-1599

 

Bracket 1) 1600+

 

Edit: forgot to add:

Points gained or lost per current character in use are based on the Highest Elo character per account for that season, (and based on the current character currently in use).

 

So basically, if the Main character is rating 1603, and the ALT is currently 1200; and the ALT is the current character in use, their win/loss point reward is based on 1603 vs their opponents top rating.

Edited March 5, 2019 by DNGDangerous