Cheating at Letter Tycoon and other word games

[frogstar_A]

With recently updated FAQ, I think something is in order...

can you explain how they cheat in a more layman way?

I read the whole thread, it seems they spell uncommon long words, and win many games. Can't they be expert in word games? Are there engines for them to spell word for letter tycoon? I don't know the game, but I think there is more element (board game aspect) than just spelling he, and there are engines on websites, that are made to help cheating in letter tycoon & hardback?

There are lots of websites you can put in letters and it tells you all the words those letters make. The cheaters just turn after turn after turn make obscure words that no person could possibly know all of. The only way they could do this is to be using these anagram websites.

[Stealthpup]

With recently updated FAQ, I think something is in order...

can you explain how they cheat in a more layman way?

I read the whole thread, it seems they spell uncommon long words, and win many games. Can't they be expert in word games? Are there engines for them to spell word for letter tycoon? I don't know the game, but I think there is more element (board game aspect) than just spelling he, and there are engines on websites, that are made to help cheating in letter tycoon & hardback?

There are lots of websites you can put in letters and it tells you all the words those letters make. The cheaters just turn after turn after turn make obscure words that no person could possibly know all of. The only way they could do this is to be using these anagram websites.

An easy-to-find one is https://www.anagrammer.com/scrabble/. I use it, not to cheat, but to check racks after the fact to see what words I *might* have been able to find. That practice helps reinforce obscure words into my brain, if they are high-probability enough (e.g. made with common letters) and I see them enough times. That, and studying old Scrabble lists, helps me remember oddities like TEOSINTE or OUISTITI or DIRDUMS or UINTAITE.

I have also competed in tournament Scrabble and won money off of it. It helps that this site uses the North American Scrabble dictionary, so my previous play helps me out significantly.

But this is a long-winded way to get to the point, which is that I applaud your removal of Letter Tycoon from Arena. That in itself will take away the dopamine hit from the chronic cheaters.

[Silene]

can someone give a list of games that are affected?
thanks

[dschingis27]

Thus, unless a better solution emerges from the community (we are always listening, even if we can't answer everything), what we can do at the moment is remove the incentive to cheat: rankings and competitive modes have been disabled for games in this situation.

Give it to the gurus!

As soon as BGA released the existence of game gurus, I thought: "OH, those will be the ones who handle cheating in the future!" You could set up a ticket system like with bugs / translations / alpha reviews. Cheating reports can be provided by anyone and should be evaluated by the gurus (and made only available to them). When, say, at least 5 gurus and at least 80% of gurus who looked into a report do agree on a guilty cheater, then the cheater should be punished. At least the most obvious cheating is very easily picked up by experienced players.

Why the gurus are the perfect group for the job? They are (1) competent enough, (2) usually respected members, (3) motivated to spend a lot of time on a particular game, and (4) potentially motivated to keep "their" game (which they care much about) clean and fair.

As a first step, cheating reports might be limited to Arena games or might only be filed by premium members, to not get overwhelmed by stupid reports. BGA is usually good at one thing, it is to make use of the power of the community.

[Jellby]

Gurus are just players who play a game a lot. Cheaters will often play a game a lot, Cheaters will become gurus

[ufm]

Gurus are just players who play a game a lot. Cheaters will often play a game a lot, Cheaters will become gurus

This. All cheaters I found were in fact gurus.

[dschingis27]

Yes, ok. To "just" play a lot means to show much dedication to a specific game. And most gurus are not cheaters. Obviously gurus should not be immune against penalties and no one should be able to evaluate a cheating report about themselves.

And it will be tough to have multiple guru accounts (and if so, it will often become obvious).

[Jellby]

Actually, not even "a lot". I've been designated a guru of Grosstarock, a game I have played exactly 6 times, 3 of which were abandoned before finishing.

[GeraldineMerida]

Yes for less popular games 'a lot' seems to mean you have played enough to get an ELO of at least 100, and have played in the current season.

And from my experience of 'guruing' in both popular and unpopular games, most gurus don't even care enough about 'their' game to click and vote for the arena setting they prefer, so I doubt many will want to scour game histories for patterns that suggest cheating.

[ufm]

Yes, ok. To "just" play a lot means to show much dedication to a specific game. And most gurus are not cheaters. Obviously gurus should not be immune against penalties and no one should be able to evaluate a cheating report about themselves.

And it will be tough to have multiple guru accounts (and if so, it will often become obvious).

Also, as JackHH pointed out some players may misidentify someone as cheater, or may even collude and make false accusations (this gets easier with multiple accounts).
Without automated anticheat algorithm I cannot find a better alternative to deal with this problem.