Bot “Player” cannot be reported to BGA

[FrankJones]

What do you mean "slow action and no action"?

Reporting bots and smurf accounts, even with proof, rarely results in a ban or suspension. Or it takes ages. So you will run against those often enough again.

I doubt this very much.
Most likely, the reason BGA staff responds slowly or not at all is because BGA staff doesn't see any actual evidence.

Most claims I've seen of playing against a bot had no supporting evidence other than "this player is playing fast and playing well."
Which can be immediately dismissed as nonsense. Good players can play fast and play well.

The Smurf account is mostly nonsense too. Usually reported by players who cannot fathom that someone might already be good at a game before playing it on BGA.

I've played a lot of games on BGA, and I have run into zero bots and one Smurf. (The Smurf player admitted it in the chat for some reason.)

The notion that this is a widespread frequently occurring issue is not really supported by much evidence.

What does likely occur often enough to be annoying:

1) Multi-accounters playing at the same table.

2) Players cheating the arena system by using red thumbs to block the top-rated players and pick up cheap wins against low rated players, thereby competing with the actual good players despite not being on their level.

[yazavats]

The Smurf account is mostly nonsense too. Usually reported by players who cannot fathom that someone might already be good at a game before playing it on BGA.

Why are you so incredulous that smurfing is a thing in a game with which you ostensibly have no competitive experience on BGA? What's the point of you so adamantly assuming that position if you're not talking from experience? Let me run you through the hallmarks of an Ark Nova smurf account. The account is relatively new, the account is standard, i.e. not premium, the account only plays Ark Nova, the account reached a high elo in a small number of games. The account has game settings set to what indicates the player is accustomed with playing on BGA. All of these criteria were met by the account OP implied was a bot. This criteria is what I made my judgement on. It's not my first run in with such an account, but I don't keep track of how often I do. Every once in a while, which I know is vague. Enter the argument that this account deserves the benefit of doubt cause it's possible this is a monomaniac board gamer who only now started playing on BGA. Ok, possible I say, but unlikely because of aforementioned reasons. Now we shift to a discussion about proving an account is a smurf. We establish that it's hard to prove it's someone's secondary account. What's the takeaway from this? That smurfing is easy to get away with as long as you don't expose your main account. Now we start talking about legal smurfs, i.e. those who honorably deleted their initial account before starting a new one. You conclude this is a rare occurrence. I agree. What I don't agree with is the leap of logic in saying legal smurfs are next to non-existent therefore all smurfs are next to non-existent. Why, because they're all honor bound?

Why do I rant about this? Smurfs don't bother me as long as their accounts aren't used for collusion. It just irks me that someone is denying my empirical reality for apparently no reason other than to be a contrarian.

And BTW, I more thoroughly checked the game history of the account in question. Of the almost 200 games played, the vast majority of them were against low elo players. That's why they have a 90% win rate without being a master. This is arena, no filtering by elo. So this person is gaming the system by probably using a script to auto red thumb higher elo players in order to grind their elo/rank/stats. Which is something that's reportable and bannable. I guess noob stomping is the little thing that brings them joy that they refer to in their bio. Go ahead and tell me it's likely a virtuous monomaniac again.

[Jellby]

So this person is gaming the system by probably using a script to auto red thumb higher elo players in order to grind their elo/rank/stats. Which is something that's reportable and bannable.

???

Using a script to scrap data beyond the terms of service is indeed a breach. I don't think it's reportable, because you have no way of proving it. But BGA can monitor the data traffic and are probably banning/blocking the worst offenders.

But red-thumbing everyone you like (or don't like) for whatever reason you see fit, however unethical it may seem, is not reportable or bannable. Unless they have changed their policy. The only announced "fix" was to have red thumbs not work in Arena (like they don't work in tournaments), but they never got around to implement that, as far as I know.

[yazavats]

Ok, I have no way of proving it. This person is just impossibly lucky to almost always match with a low elo player in arena. They have a win rate of 92% and are yet to breach master rank. The person currently sitting at the top of the all time leaderboard has a win rate of 91% and has a peak elo above 900 with only 50 more games played. Most other top players who have a peak elo above 900 are below a 90% win rate. I guess simple statistics and common sense is not proof enough. Whatever.

[FrankJones]

Why are you so incredulous that smurfing is a thing in a game with which you ostensibly have no competitive experience on BGA? What's the point of you so adamantly assuming that position if you're not talking from experience? Let me run you through the hallmarks of an Ark Nova smurf account. The account is relatively new, the account is standard, i.e. not premium, the account only plays Ark Nova, the account reached a high elo in a small number of games. The account has game settings set to what indicates the player is accustomed with playing on BGA. All of these criteria were met by the account OP implied was a bot. This criteria is what I made my judgement on. It's not my first run in with such an account, but I don't keep track of how often I do. Every once in a while, which I know is vague. Enter the argument that this account deserves the benefit of doubt cause it's possible this is a monomaniac board gamer who only now started playing on BGA. Ok, possible I say, but unlikely because of aforementioned reasons. Now we shift to a discussion about proving an account is a smurf. We establish that it's hard to prove it's someone's secondary account. What's the takeaway from this? That smurfing is easy to get away with as long as you don't expose your main account. Now we start talking about legal smurfs, i.e. those who honorably deleted their initial account before starting a new one. You conclude this is a rare occurrence. I agree. What I don't agree with is the leap of logic in saying legal smurfs are next to non-existent therefore all smurfs are next to non-existent. Why, because they're all honor bound?

Why do I rant about this? Smurfs don't bother me as long as their accounts aren't used for collusion. It just irks me that someone is denying my empirical reality for apparently no reason other than to be a contrarian.

And BTW, I more thoroughly checked the game history of the account in question. Of the almost 200 games played, the vast majority of them were against low elo players. That's why they have a 90% win rate without being a master. This is arena, no filtering by elo. So this person is gaming the system by probably using a script to auto red thumb higher elo players in order to grind their elo/rank/stats. Which is something that's reportable and bannable. I guess noob stomping is the little thing that brings them joy that they refer to in their bio. Go ahead and tell me it's likely a virtuous monomaniac again.

I wouldn't use the word "incredulous". I am aware that smurfing is a thing, but I am also aware that many players are just simply good at a game before playing it on BGA.

1) "The account is relatively new". [Every account is new at some point.]
2) "The account is not premium". [Many accounts are non-premium.]
3) "The account only plays Ark Nova." [Some people only play one game. Many of the strong Terraforming Mars players only play Terraforming Mars. It's probably easier to be master-level at a game by focusing energy only on that one game.]
4) "The account reached high Elo in a small number of games". [Yes, a player who already knows the game well will reach a high Elo quickly. As I did in most of the games I have played on BGA. So what? ]
5) "The account has game settings set to what indicates the player is accustomed with playing on BGA" [ OMG. The player has preferred game settings and plays with those settings? Well, stop the presses, this is earth-shattering news! (Every game I play, I have one preferred set of settings that I use. So what?) ]

The rest of your bizarre word salad is puzzling to me. We agree that smurfing is rare. I never said it was non-existent. So why exactly are you blasting me with this lengthy rant?

Red-thumbing high Elo players to beat up on scrubs is lame, but not against the rules of BGA. I blame the BGA system for taking something (red thumbs) meant to protect players from encountering unpleasant opponents who had been rude or unfair, and allowing it to be used to just avoid playing good players in the arena. This is an old topic though. Almost everyone seems to agree that red-thumbs should not work in arena, and BGA said they would do something about it, but never did.

All that being said, I have no idea what your issue is with me.

And what exactly does my "lack of competitive experience about Ark Nova" have to do with anything? We're having a general discussion about smurfing. I know what smurfing is, and I have played against a Smurf account.

I have no idea why you think this makes me unqualified to participate in this discussion, but you need to get off your high horse and chill out, because your rude attitude toward me is rather baffling.

[FrankJones]

Ok, I have no way of proving it. This person is just impossibly lucky to almost always match with a low elo player in arena. They have a win rate of 92% and are yet to breach master rank. The person currently sitting at the top of the all time leaderboard has a win rate of 91% and has a peak elo above 900 with only 50 more games played. Most other top players who have a peak elo above 900 are below a 90% win rate. I guess simple statistics and common sense is not proof enough. Whatever.

Proof of what, exactly?

Obviously, the account in question is owned by someone who has significant prior Ark Nova experience. Maybe it is someone who had previously played on BGA, deleted the old account and made a new one. Or maybe it's just someone who played the game extensively by other means and then decided to play on BGA.

[yazavats]

Proof of what, exactly?

Proof that the player uses a script to red thumb high elo players in order to only grind against low elo ones. I wasn't being rude to you, I was merely argumenting my initial assessment against your contrarianism and smurf solidarity. I could say some things if I were to actually be rude, but I'm done arguing against a wall.

[FrankJones]

Proof of what, exactly?

Proof that the player uses a script to red thumb high elo players in order to only grind against low elo ones. I wasn't being rude to you, I was merely argumenting my initial assessment against your contrarianism and smurf solidarity. I could say some things if I were to actually be rude, but I'm done arguing against a wall.

Yes, it would be difficult to prove that someone is using such a script. If a person were this dedicate to all the nefarious things you suggest, that person could just manually bring up the leaderboard and red-thumb players.

You are making some wild statements here.

I am not being contrarian. I am having a discussion. Someone (I forget whether it was you or someone else) said that we will run into Smurf accounts "often enough..." whereas my opinion is that such occurrences are rare.

As for "Smurf Solidarity", what on earth are you talking about? I do not support smurfing. I have on BGA account, the same one I created 6 years ago, and it's the only account I have ever used to play on BGA.

The one time I definitely ran into a smurf account I found it highly annoying.

Where did you see me write anything that indicates as am engaging in some sort of "smurf solidarity"?

[FrankJones]

I just want to be clear here.

I oppose smurfing. I have no idea how anyone read into my statements that I support it. I would support any means by which to prevent people from closing an account and opening a new one.

[The only statements I made about smurfing were that I did not believe it is as common an occurrence as others have implied, and, that an account that only plays one game isn't necessarily a smurf account. Many top-rated Terraforming Mars players only play TFM. They're not smurf accounts; they're just very good at the game. Ark Nova has been around since 2021. Maybe some players are just high-level players before playing on BGA.]

I do not support gaming the system with red thumbs either. In two of the games I play, I know or suspect someone of using the red thumbs to cherry-pick opponents and completely avoid playing the other top players against whom they are competing for Arena ranking. Meanwhile, I run into one expert-level player after another.

I occasionally use a temporary red thumb to avoid an Elo penalty for winning a 3rd in a row against the same player - but I would do that regardless of that player's Elo or skill level. I just think that 3rd win Elo penalty is stupid.

Occasionally I would use a temporary red-thumb to get some opponent variety if it seems like I keep getting the same opponents over and over which does happen occasionally.

But generally speaking, I think people in the top 10 in Arena should be willing to play against other top players.

[yazavats]

There are two concepts here that really aren't high brow, nor are they bizarre.

First is seeing the forest for the trees. You can make an argument against each of the smurf hallmarks individually but can you make an argument against all of them put together?

Which translates into the second concept which is that if something looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck.

If the account this thread was started for with all of its red flags doesn't arouse your suspicion, than nothing short of someone straight up admitting or getting caught is enough.

Which brings me to the last point of calling out smurf solidarity. By that I didn't mean you condone or partake in it, but you still alleviate it by being extremely lax about calling it out.

And I like my high horse just fine.