Can we limit the smurfing in Arena?

[Wonderful Plays]

This has been on my mind for quite some time now and I finally decided to write about it.

Code: Select all

EDIT: Info about what is smurfing (from urban dictionary):
In gaming culture, smurfing is defined as logging into a secret account seperate from a main account as to allow the user to play a game without being detected by his or her peers.

Generally the purpose of smurfing is to improve oneself without compromising the statistics of a main account. It allows gamers to try new strategies, or simply play without worrying about a "record".

First of all let me tell you that I am not totally against smurfing, I think if you want to relax or just test some stuff it can be a good way of playing.
But for the last season and a half 7 Wonders ladder is plagued with smurf and having smurf is currently the best way to win the whole thing.

How do you reach high ladder for 7 Wonders (and other games that require a lot of skill, but also some amount of luck vs other best players). You play a lot, you catch a streak of good games and then you sit at the top and see if anyone takes over. If he does you can continue to sit or try to overtake.

Advantages of smurfing:
1. By smurfing you are risk free to drop points (with games like 7W it is big).
2. The more accounts you get in the top, the more "chances" you get to overtake someone else.
3. You can "play defensive" and play against other top players from the lower rated account and take away the points.
4. If you make a new smurf top players won't recognize your nickname and may not target you so much.

Why heavy smurfing is bad for competitive environment:
1. It takes away spaces that can be occupied by real players on top of arena leaderboard and robs players of their achievements.
2. It creates pressure to just "play more games" in Arena, some players even target playing hours with lower rated players so they can go further.
3. And the most important thing is: it is a bit shady. This is obviously subjective, but I do believe that using multiple accounts to manipulate the ladder shouldn't be ok.

My proposed solution: state officially that smurfing is not legal for Arena, make a rule like one IP address one account for playing arena and start to punish the offenders.

I do not namecall anyone here, but if needed I can provide examples to the admins. I don't think anyone should be punished for the past behavior right now, as the BGA stance on smurfing is fairly unknown (I know there is something in the rules, but it hardly has ever been enforced). I am just wishing that the arena experience can improve. Right now if I want to win the whole thing I should probably make a couple of smurfs, which I don't want to do.

Some players also have 2 accounts one for the ELO ladder records and one for the arena as it is quite difficult to maintain very high elo when playing a lot of arena games. I don't have a problem with that (but I can see that some people will), I personally never used this solution.

Disclaimer: As a fairly known content creator for 7 Wonders, I've played on smurfs in the past to test if players are playing against my main account (spoiler: they are! the more "unknown" the account the higher my winrates are), but I never tried to reach the very top out of respect for other players so they can get their achievements at the end of the season.

[Realism]

Arena is somewhere halfway to the perfect competitive environment. And this is surely one of the major roadblocks.

You've structured it, I'll add a general note.

Arena is by definition for competitive purposes. In games based on making choices within time limits, the competition should rely precisely on that (skill, making best possible decisions, ideally at a table with skilled people only) as a main factor. Currently, arena result bases partially on that, but it is a function of time (or number of chances taken) more than most factors. Multiple accounts add to that, making it more twisted and more based on number of chances taken and less on a "ratio of chances well used to chances taken".

Thought experiment as one illustration of it
Given current arena system, could one person populate the entire top10?
Yes, with a methodical approach and using more than 10 accounts. It can be done even
1) by a person of above average skill (note it is only that and not more), and
2) in a much shorter time than season duration (probably weeks), and
3) multiple times during the season.

My approach
Whenever I played arena, I used one active account at a time (to be more transparent, I created this one a few months after I deleted the previous one). That said I understand multiple accounts might be a way of omiting some arena limitations with no cheating intentions whatsoever (example: being top 1 and wanting to keep playing - difficult to reconcile) and many have done that as a norm. That's why witchhunting/punishing retroactively might be not fair either.

This topic is important, perhaps to get some BGA recommendation, or perhaps to reach a gentlemen's agreement on what limits to smurfing are fair.

[MoiMagnus]

You might want to edit your first message to add a definition of smurfing.
While I followed some previous discussions before so now I know what it is, BGA is the first place where I've heard about it, and that's a pretty obscure term for peoples who come from non-english speaking communities (I've never seen anyone use "schtroumpf" in French to talk about alternate accounts).

[Additionally, you never know when peoples are using a slightly definition of yours]

[Wonderful Plays]

Thank you guys for excellent responses. I added the info to the main post.

[RobertBr]

I was under the distinct impression that multi-accounting was expressly forbidden and the admins treated cheating in that way very harshly. On the other hand my impression is that most accusations of multi-accounting fall into the same category as the claims that randomization is broken, ie they are entirely unfounded. I realise that is only a part of your concern but perhaps distinguishing between things which are fairly overt cheating and thinks which are optimal play for the competitive environments meta-rules but which you consider undesirable would be useful.

[Wonderful Plays]

I was under the distinct impression that multi-accounting was expressly forbidden and the admins treated cheating in that way very harshly. On the other hand my impression is that most accusations of multi-accounting fall into the same category as the claims that randomization is broken, ie they are entirely unfounded. I realise that is only a part of your concern but perhaps distinguishing between things which are fairly overt cheating and thinks which are optimal play for the competitive environments meta-rules but which you consider undesirable would be useful.

I think using multiple accounts in a single game is being punished (very rightfully so), but using multiple accounts has never been punished. It is very hard to enforce, because you can always say it is your brother/sister/dad or whatever.

If you take a look at 7 Wonders ladder you will find people with the same nicknames (with small variations). Again I'm not saying that these people should be punished right now, I'm just suggesting that in the future it should be prohibitted, because it is ruining the experience.

[MoiMagnus]

I was under the distinct impression that multi-accounting was expressly forbidden and the admins treated cheating in that way very harshly.

From the FAQ

What is absolutely forbidden?
On Board Game Arena, it is absolutely forbidden to:

Insult other players in any manner.
Create multiple accounts and play against oneself to boost one's ranking.
Trolling, admin-bashing, moderator-bashing, empty critiques or defamation. Please share your frustrations with your therapist rather than imposing them on strangers on the internet.

Breaking these rules can lead to the removal of your account and/or a ban from the website.

It's important to note that smurfing exclude the case where you play against yourself (playing against yourself is another can of worms, and can be reported to the mods). When you're smurfing, you're having multiple accounts, but never use both of them at the same table. There might be another sentence somewhere fully banning multi-account, but I've not found it.

[Realism]

https://boardgamearena.com/legal?tosv=&section=tosv

There is a bullet in TOS which reads

not to create several Accounts: the User undertakes to create only one Account corresponding to them.

I trust pointing it out will not lead to any bans, but to a discussion what is reasonably allowed. After all we defined a problem as multi-accounting in Arena. Personally I think it is OK to let people play casual games from the same IP address every now and then (families, people living together etc.).

[RobertBr]

https://boardgamearena.com/legal?tosv=&section=tosv

There is a bullet in TOS which reads

not to create several Accounts: the User undertakes to create only one Account corresponding to them.

I trust pointing it out will not lead to any bans, but to a discussion what is reasonably allowed. After all we defined a problem as multi-accounting in Arena. Personally I think it is OK to let people play casual games from the same IP address every now and then (families, people living together etc.).

Yep, that is what I was recalling. The real issue here though does not seem to be multi-accounting, which as noted if used to directly inflate you position is policed. It is a player deciding that once they have achieved a certain objective they no longer want to play (for fear of losing the achievement). It is worth noting that is not an Arena problem, it is something people have talked about almost since the site existed. It was considered to be a big issue with the old achievement system that predated XP and with the rankings based on ELO. The people who were at the top of the ELO would refuse to play for fear of losing their prized positions at the top (or at least this was perceived to be happening, there was much discussion at the time over how well perception matched reality). An early fix to that was that you have an ELO but are only ranked if you played recently. Arena was actually introduced to try and solve some of those sorts of problems (I don't play much Arena, I started using the site long before it existed and never felt any dis-satisfaction with tournament/standard play). What you seem to be saying is that Arena has still not managed to get its incentives right to solve the problem.

[MoiMagnus]

The real issue here though does not seem to be multi-accounting, which as noted if used to directly inflate you position is policed. It is a player deciding that once they have achieved a certain objective they no longer want to play (for fear of losing the achievement). It is worth noting that is not an Arena problem, it is something people have talked about almost since the site existed. It was considered to be a big issue with the old achievement system that predated XP and with the rankings based on ELO. The people who were at the top of the ELO would refuse to play for fear of losing their prized positions at the top (or at least this was perceived to be happening, there was much discussion at the time over how well perception matched reality). An early fix to that was that you have an ELO but are only ranked if you played recently. Arena was actually introduced to try and solve some of those sorts of problems (I don't play much Arena, I started using the site long before it existed and never felt any dis-satisfaction with tournament/standard play). What you seem to be saying is that Arena has still not managed to get its incentives right to solve the problem.

I'm not sure how much it "the real issue". It is the primary incentive for smurfs as far as I know, but it's not the only one. For example, some might use it to be both first and second of the arena ranking of a game (or any other situation where someone is taking multiple place in the top N of a game).

Obviously solving the incentives when addressing a problem is better. But having a clear and enforced position about the limits of multi-accounting is also something I'd like to see. (For clarity, just making the FAQ align with the TOS by explicitly calling out multi-accounting as forbidden would be a possibility)