Poll for future Hardback Arena season (and about cheating)

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What should we do about future Arena mode?

Poll ended at 21 August 2021, 08:08

Status quo (Leave cheaters untouched)
4
22%
Force restrictive dictionary (eg. 12dicts) in Arena
7
39%
Abolish future Arena mode and rank trophies
7
39%
 
Total votes: 18

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ufm
Posts: 1327
Joined: 06 January 2017, 08:38

Poll for future Hardback Arena season (and about cheating)

Post by ufm »

Now half of the season has passed, but current situation is not one everybody was expecting.
Even though cheaters did always exist, due to BGA's negligence the whole Arena mode is degrading into negative experiences.
Forum posts prove it, and I also heard plenty of complaints from other fellow players.
Check out this another forum post: viewtopic.php?f=320&t=22201

As admins threw in the towel long before, active users should determine what to do.
Current Guru system votes cannot correctly reflect the changed situation after surikkat's blatant cheating.
Thus I opened an old-fashioned poll to collect opinion.


tl;dr
Status quo: Leave it be. They don't care. Why should I care?
Force restrictive dictionary: Don't want to see solvers but want to play Arena mode. I can endure a little inconvenience.
Abolish Arena mode and trophy: Had enough. Just 86 it. Arena mode and trophies are unnecessary for fun games.

Edit: Closing the poll following Arena and ranking closure.
Last edited by ufm on 16 September 2021, 10:24, edited 2 times in total.
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JackHH
Posts: 40
Joined: 28 November 2020, 10:25

Re: Poll for future Hardback Arena season (and about cheating)

Post by JackHH »

On the topic of the poll itself,
- I would stop playing arena mode completely if it used 12Dicts. As somebody said before, playing a word game with 12dicts is like going to a high end restaurant and ordering chicken nuggets off of the children's menu.
- Why have you not included "faster time controls" as an option? I am convinced I could beat surikkat more often than not under a very quick time limit even if they had the aid of a solver.


On the topic of cheating:
- There will ALWAYS be people who like to cheat at online games, there are even people who cheat in real life competitions. There are so many games and so many users on this website, that it would come at considerable time and expense for BGA to do anything satisfactory about cheating in games like this. We (the player) have to sit back and be grateful that the website exists at all and accept the cheating as an imperfection in the system.

As you mention, you have players (such as myself) that you trust and enjoy playing with, so perhaps some sort of invite only tournament set up is what you would enjoy most.

Finally

You've gone to a lot of effort to be one of the best (if not the best) hardback player in the world. That's seriously impressive. Don't let the fact that somebody who is clearly cheating is close to taking this away from you get you down. If you look at professional sports, the things the top athletes say they find most rewarding in terms of recognition is not a ranking number, not what the public thinks, but the recognition from their peers. On BGA your peers all know how great you are, and they also know who the blatant cheats are, so your standing there remains in the best stead :)
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ufm
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Re: Poll for future Hardback Arena season (and about cheating)

Post by ufm »

JackHH wrote: 20 August 2021, 09:21 - I would stop playing arena mode completely if it used 12Dicts. As somebody said before, playing a word game with 12dicts is like going to a high end restaurant and ordering chicken nuggets off of the children's menu.
I concur, so I proposed an alternative: ditching problematic Arena mode and sticking to Normal mode, tournaments, or co-op as users see fit.
JackHH wrote: 20 August 2021, 09:21 - Why have you not included "faster time controls" as an option? I am convinced I could beat surikkat more often than not under a very quick time limit even if they had the aid of a solver.
Cheaters can rack up points in turn-based while avoiding real time games, and turn-based player pool is actually larger than real time one.
JackHH wrote: 20 August 2021, 09:21 You've gone to a lot of effort to be one of the best (if not the best) hardback player in the world. That's seriously impressive. Don't let the fact that somebody who is clearly cheating is close to taking this away from you get you down. If you look at professional sports, the things the top athletes say they find most rewarding in terms of recognition is not a ranking number, not what the public thinks, but the recognition from their peers. On BGA your peers all know how great you are, and they also know who the blatant cheats are, so your standing there remains in the best stead :)
Thank you for the compliment, however I'm tired of this shenanigan altogether.
As mentioned in other thread it's not the first time but was discussed ad nauseam, so now this feels like a needless suffering at least for me.
Hence I voted for putting an end to Arena mode (even though I'm current #1 holder of both ELO and Arena).
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JackHH
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Joined: 28 November 2020, 10:25

Re: Poll for future Hardback Arena season (and about cheating)

Post by JackHH »

ufm wrote: 20 August 2021, 10:55 Cheaters can rack up points in turn-based while avoiding real time games, and turn-based player pool is actually larger than real time one.
It blows my mind that turn based games count towards ratings!! I did not know this. You are asking for people to cheat if you allow this. The question of what is cheating and what is not cheating also becomes quite blurred.

For example:

- Bob likes playing hardback, and typically he has 4 or more turn based games in progress at any one time
- Bob also keenly revises word lists, using a tool like zyzzyva.
- Bob wants to learn all 10 letter words containing the 8 core start letters for hard back.
- He spends half an hour drilling them, and for example picks up on LATRINES +CM = CENTRALISM
- Bob resumes a game he started before he did the word list drilling. He's only 1 turn in and played LATER on his first turn. Now his next 5 letters are MICSN. He notices that if he uses 5 ink to draw he will be able to spell CENTRALISM.

So Bob has effectively looked something up in a word list mid game and then used it to his advantage. Is this cheating? If you say yes, then by that logic, any players who have outstanding turn based games have to restrain themselves from doing any form of practise in case they come across words that help them in their ongoing games? Clear ridiculous. On the other hand, if you allow word list revision/lookups mid game, then of course people can either deliberately, or out of genuine curiosity end up revising lists mid game to give them an edge. Also stupid.

The only solution there IMO is to make turn based games not count towards rating.
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ufm
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Re: Poll for future Hardback Arena season (and about cheating)

Post by ufm »

JackHH wrote: 20 August 2021, 11:24 The only solution there IMO is to make turn based games not count towards rating.
Ultimately another reason to ditch Arena mode and trophies. Thinking about player pool size, excluding turn-based is plain impractical.
Also, for real-time only competitive format already a well-established system exists: tournament.
Players may arrange private leagues too. I've seen some in BGA discord channel.
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LukeWarmLuke
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Joined: 13 June 2015, 02:41

Re: Poll for future Hardback Arena season (and about cheating)

Post by LukeWarmLuke »

I'm surprised I'm the only "status quo" vote so far. I never had a problem with these people for two reasons.

I don't care about being top of the arena. I just like getting Elite in a variety of games.

I also set my settings do that I only played with other people willing to use 12dicts.
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ufm
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Joined: 06 January 2017, 08:38

Re: Poll for future Hardback Arena season (and about cheating)

Post by ufm »

LukeWarmLuke wrote: 20 August 2021, 23:52 I'm surprised I'm the only "status quo" vote so far. I never had a problem with these people for two reasons.

I don't care about being top of the arena. I just like getting Elite in a variety of games.

I also set my settings do that I only played with other people willing to use 12dicts.
If you are using only 12dicts, what is your point of vote for status quo?
The second option is effectively no different for you (and maybe better for other players overall).
Besides, the main problem is being cheated openly, not ranking itself.
These cheaters tend to go away when there is nothing to brag about, thus I proposed closing Arena mode and trophies to demotivate them.
And 12dicts is not 100% bulletproof against cheating, especially in turn-based.
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surikkat
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Re: Poll for future Hardback Arena season (and about cheating)

Post by surikkat »

it's still astonishing to be slandered by one day accumulating clearly abnormal winning percentages on solved games:
quarto: 89%
mill clearance: 90%
reversi: 98% !!
neutereko: 94%
gomoku: 98%
ladies: 95%
failures: 87%
...

And that stands by fighting cheaters ??

can you also explain yourself about your multi-accounts? these snip5, corn 61 ... which appear mysteriously with stats and playing style identical to yours after 6 games .. and which only play hardback?
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ufm
Posts: 1327
Joined: 06 January 2017, 08:38

Re: Poll for future Hardback Arena season (and about cheating)

Post by ufm »

What do you think of my unsolved game results then?
So you're saying I somehow cheated in Tzolkin, Nippon, RRR, Kalah, or whatever stuff I performed well? Of course flat-out ignored, I presume.
In contrast, your progress is mediocre or bad in all games except ones engine is available. Is this a confession you being a cheater?
I even proposed to add swap2 and pie rule to Gomoku and Four in a row. If I were one to speak why would I back them? Don't get it.
The latter part is more absurd. What is your game? A hoax you fabricated for framing? Or a rant to someone you hate?

Ad hominem, good grief. Here it goes again. Yet another ElerCant trying to feign innocence and defame others.
Doubt you've ever studied strategy and analyzed game system to improve own performance even once. You are far worse than him.
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surikkat
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Re: Poll for future Hardback Arena season (and about cheating)

Post by surikkat »

you are a great gamer and an intelligent person, don't pretend you don't understand and divert the conversation.

are you an international grandmaster at chess? draughts? Othello? gomoku?

I doubt it, you may be excellent in strategy, I see that you pronounce fair play but that you are a beautiful bad apple among the bad apples in all these resolute games.
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