Board Game Arena

I recently played a game of reversi where I lost to what was obviously a cheat. They played a completely perfect game - every single tile on the entire board was theirs at the end of the game and for each of these perfect moves they used absolutely no time to think, each move was instant and perfect. This is obviously using a computer to make the moves.
I have given the thumbs down to the player and then clicked report on them. But there is no option to report a player for cheating (with the exception of very specific instances of cheating - multiple accounts etc.)
I then clicked the 'not any of these issues' button and got a 'well its probably not against our terms' message.

So,
firstly: I've checked the terms of use and there is no rule about using computers to cheat (or other more general ways of cheating) - why not?
secondly: If cheating (without the specific exceptions) is allowed, then does that not damage the integrity of BGA and make playing any games here/using the website pointless.

The person you played has a good track record and a high rating and has clearly been playing the game for many years.

Why do you assume playing well automatically means cheating? There are people that really are that good at games, particularly ones like Reversi.

That person is barely in the top 100 players for that game despite a lot of games logged.

Set your tables to play only strong players and below so that you avoid playing the top people in the world in the game you want to play if you don't want to feel like you are on ultra hard mode.

It is entirely possible your hypothesis is correct and that people are using software to decide their moves. That sounds really boring and there is no real prestige that I am aware of for being a high ranked reversi player. Not a ton of incentive going on there to encourage such behavior. If this person is, I guarantee others are given the number of games logged and number of people even better at it than them.

In general, if an AI is playing games against you online either avoid that person/AI or use it as a fun way of training and pushing to be better that most of us don't have access to. If I could play my favorite games against an AI that could actually compete or even win, I would love to play that. Most computer AI systems for the games I frequent cannot beat me much if ever.

I assure you players exist that can play as well as a computer or even better. They may have even trained up against one.

Just don't play with those people through manual settings or simply filtering your tables with elo caps to tune the fun to the experience you are looking for. Sadly, there are some games I love that just cannot be played online because the regular groups playing them have strong metas, rude behavior towards players that have a difference of style/opinion, or seem to be cheating in partner games. That is a sad fact of life and only blatant cheaters get dealt with most of the time.

Is it possible to report a player for cheating and if not why not?

Because if they allowed all you * to report, they would lose their minds. Who on God's green Earth would want to deal with all the * (on this forum) 24/7?

If cheating is allowed

why would you ask a question like this? *???


*moderator edit: insults removesd and player moderated. Please remember to be kind on BGA.

Owldeath wrote: ↑07 November 2023, 23:37 I've checked the terms of use and there is no rule about using computers to cheat (or other more general ways of cheating) - why not?

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

VIII. Fair Play

BGA will not tolerate any cheating and/or lack of fair play, whether through the use of cheating software [...]