Multiple accounts for arena

[Terry Yam]

I notice that in a particular board game, someone has been doing this over 2 years. He creates a new account 1 month before an arena season, then makes it eligible for and many turn-based games at the same time and the upcoming arena season. He is skillful and does not have to do point trading, and can climb up to the top few every season. When he wins the champion with that account or uses it for at most 2 seasons, he will abandon that and redo the procedure. It can be easily told because of the fresh history of the account with a fast climbing of elo and arena ranking in just 1 single game, also from the play style I can tell it's the same person.

While I don't think he violates BGA rules (at least he doesn't have to do point trading or play against his another account), and BGA likely welcomes more accounts (and more membership fee received), is his act actually unfair to other players by hiding his essential BGA information on purpose? I surely admire a player who can win every season under the same account, but I personally dislike his hiding of his 'real' identity, skill or bad behaviour, as most players play with only a single account and history of the players can be checked.

Any views or info to me about BGA rules please?

[Meeplelowda]

Any views or info to me about BGA rules please?

It has been recently stated in the forums by a BGA admin that use of multiple accounts for competitive play in any fashion, even if not used for ELO boosting, is prohibited.

To be perfectly clear:

Using more than one account to play in ranked games (Arena or normal games for ELO) is prohibited in our Terms of Use.

Allowing other players to login and play games from your account is prohibited as well by our Terms of Use.

Players caught cheating to increase their ELO / Arena Ranking / the rankings of others will be moderated.

I put that in bold, because some people had the odd notion that it was ok in regular games, just not in Arena.

Furthermore:

1 player - 1 account.

Playing from multiple accounts for ranking, even if not against themselves, is unfair and prohibited.

A secondary account that ONLY plays in Friendly Mode is permitted (so that players may use these to create tutorials, etc).

Thank you so much. Please let this be the end to this nonsense once and for all (wishful thinking maybe).

Identifying these accounts and proving they are the same person is a different story. Your anecdotes, even if true, only suggest (not prove) that a new account by a skilled player is being created regularly, not that it is the same skilled player.

[Terry Yam]

I see your points, thanks.

I believe my playing experience against his accounts cannot be a valid proof and only BGA can catch him by IP address. He can still use VPN to hide his real IP address or argue that he participates each season with just one account. I guess for myself I can only ban his new accounts whenever I come across.

[Lady_Jane]

i don't understand how that would benefit them? why not just keep winning arena with the same account?

[nik592]

If they're not playing with different accounts at the same time, then I think technically they're not breaking any rules - theoretically, if you want to change your account to a new one for whatever reason, I believe you can do that, so long as you're no longer using your old one. That said, I don't really understand the benefit either - while an increased K factor might make it easier to gain ELO, I don't think K factor impacts the Arena rankings? So it should be roughly the same thing to climb to the top with a new account or an existing one, shouldn't it (if not easier with an existing one, since you may retain a higher starting level for some games)?

[Terry Yam]

The reason I can only think of is that he gets blocked by many players. It is either because of his aggressive play style, or many just like me hating his act of using separate accounts to hide his real profile.

[RobertBr]

The reason I can only think of is that he gets blocked by many players. It is either because of his aggressive play style, or many just like me hating his act of using separate accounts to hide his real profile.

Hard look in the mirror time for you.

Let us be clear about what you came to the forums (which are just other players) to complain about.

You imagine a player is doing something completely legal and which has no element of bad sportsmanship. That is they are entering a specific competition *once* (because in the scenario you imagine they do not employ multiple accounts in a single season), and then playing well.
While you have no evidence this is actually happening you can imagine a motivation, namely that the player is being excessively red thumbed by others. And you are able to imagine two motivations for this - one, that opponents don't like losing to them, and, two, your own reason, that you feel a visceral hatred for people who don't like you doxing them.

In this scenario you think that is the player BGA should moderate?

I think you need some considered reflection on your own understanding of sportsmanship.

[Terry Yam]

The reason I can only think of is that he gets blocked by many players. It is either because of his aggressive play style, or many just like me hating his act of using separate accounts to hide his real profile.

Hard look in the mirror time for you.

Let us be clear about what you came to the forums (which are just other players) to complain about.

You imagine a player is doing something completely legal and which has no element of bad sportsmanship. That is they are entering a specific competition *once* (because in the scenario you imagine they do not employ multiple accounts in a single season), and then playing well.
While you have no evidence this is actually happening you can imagine a motivation, namely that the player is being excessively red thumbed by others. And you are able to imagine two motivations for this - one, that opponents don't like losing to them, and, two, your own reason, that you feel a visceral hatred for people who don't like you doxing them.

In this scenario you think that is the player BGA should moderate?

I think you need some considered reflection on your own understanding of sportsmanship.

Sorry I can't understand why you still say this is legal after reading all of this and draw to this conclusion.

In most competitions even gaming competitions using game accounts, you cannot hide your real identities either by rules or in the nature of in person competition. In some cases like chess, it is totally legitimate and you are supposed to know and study about you upcoming opponent. Thanks to Meeplelowda's quotation, BGA's stand is also a 'NO' to multiple accounts on competitive play even an individual account in different seasons of arena or in different ranked games. If you really read through the whole thread quoted, you can tell the story that a player wanted to dominate the ranking with his accounts, and it is actually discouraging the others to play the same game and hurting BGA itself. In no other competitions, a single player can dominate the champion, 1st runner up, etc, to get all the prizes, medals, fame and whatever he is up to.

Originally I wanted to see if the phenomenon of multiple accounts is across the website as well as BGA has any corresponding rules, and both answers are 'yes'. Now it's just the matter if BGA will deal with this seriously, and I don't have the authority to investigate or catch those shadow accounts. It's just up to me to choose not to play against those accounts. The remaining is just chitchatting on we wondering why they play with multiple accounts which is not the main point.

If you want to discuss sportsmanship, one point on bad sportsmanship on the multiple account players' side is that, they gain advantage unfairly by knowing their opponents while the opponents don't have any knowledge on who are behind those shadow accounts.

[Cile]

If you want to discuss sportsmanship, one point on bad sportsmanship on the multiple account players' side is that, they gain advantage unfairly by knowing their opponents while the opponents don't have any knowledge on who are behind those shadow accounts.

Wow, people play arena on a whole different level than I do...

[nik592]

Thanks to Meeplelowda's quotation, BGA's stand is also a 'NO' to multiple accounts on competitive play even an individual account in different seasons of arena or in different ranked games. If you really read through the whole thread quoted, you can tell the story that a player wanted to dominate the ranking with his accounts, and it is actually discouraging the others to play the same game and hurting BGA itself. In no other competitions, a single player can dominate the champion, 1st runner up, etc, to get all the prizes, medals, fame and whatever he is up to.

Yes, the other thread described a person using multiple accounts at the same time. The situation you are describing is using a single account at a time. I'm not sure you can interpret the quote from xate as meaning that a player cannot discontinue use of one account and switch to another. So long as they are not using multiple accounts for competitive play at the same time, I'm pretty sure they're within BGA rules. For example, if a person was experiencing harassment from other players and wanted to move to a new account to avoid this, I don't think anyone would argue that they shouldn't. Yes, they can (and probably should) report the harassment, but shifting to a new account is likely faster and may be more effective anyway.

As to a player being red thumbed by too many others, there's been arguments to remove red thumbing effects from Arena play, since it allows you to cherry pick your pool of opponents (eg. I red thumb all the strong players, and now I dominate the competition by only playing against weaker players). So again, if anything, a player creating a new account each season to play against the full pool of players and not just those who haven't red-thumbed them probably makes achieving high rankings harder, not easier.

If you want to discuss sportsmanship, one point on bad sportsmanship on the multiple account players' side is that, they gain advantage unfairly by knowing their opponents while the opponents don't have any knowledge on who are behind those shadow accounts.

Much like Cile, I'm surprised if anyone pays attention to their opponents to that degree, but perhaps you are one of those. BGA's Arena season is rankings on a website - there's no prizes, even very little prestige (in my opinion). It's a very different thing to the world of competitive chess (which again, I don't claim to know a lot about, but there appears to be governance, prize money, the things you see in other competitive recreation/sport). I mean, if it means that much to you, you're free to see it that way, but I'm not sure you can expect other players and/or BGA to run it that way.

In any case, if you really think they're breaking the rules, use the support contacts to report them. If someone from BGA agrees, they'll deal with it, and fair enough, that's not my call, these are just my opinions.