Board Game Arena

Hey first of I wanted to check whether it is just a problem for me, being part of a competitive crowd. To be more precise, whether Im part of a (loud) minority, and in factuality most do not care and ignore this part of bga. Hence the little poll:



It is forbidden to call out people by name, which in general makes sense. But as a strict general rule, it leads to the problem not being able to discuss specific methods AND not being able to discuss major cheaters by name, who, most likely, wanted cheap recongnition, as first/best player in an arena season.

I usually do not post in the general forum, but I do think that this concerns not just some sub forums.

So my discussion questions are:
Is it a problem if ranking is compromised in a major way by cheating?
Is rank boosting, in form of elo or arena points, through friends, instead of smurfs, even allowed, since that cannot be reported, but only RedThumbed ?
What to do, if even the dumbest cheat attempts cannot be handled by mods in full? -- which also might be understandable, from mod POV!
Should there be exceptions to current policy, for outing LIKELY cheaters?? If methods used or the effect to community is major, that is. --- little cut here. It will end up in stupid drama and witch hunts. So there need to be serious consequences for unproven outing.

There also would be features, to fix some of those problems, that the devs of the site could implement - but I wouldnt want to assume that they would want to do that work.



Story Time:
Since Im actually in the bizarre situation that I cannot spell out about whom Im talking about, I just vaguely describe the extent of it. The rest anybody can deduce by looking up my preffered games. I also wrote some people, and this seems to be not only a "this seasons" problem, and not even a problem to the games I like/am aware of. Hence me posting in general forum.

*Redacted player* and a smurf/friend found a way to get into same arena tables, most of the time -- Id have several ideas on how to force that. Games were 1v1 and 1v1v1, which made it simple to force wins for *Redacted player*. To make sure it is not a coincidence, I checked out the game I understand. Out of 5 games, of which every one by itself were beyond weird, 2 of that games smurf/friend won; or he would have, if he wouldnt have given up just before that! And this is arena! People giving up to not win - Great stuff.

The report of it, was private to mods, and got posted in a subforum. The original poster was made promptly aware of guidelines, not to out people for cheating on the forum, despite all kind of proofs and lack of reaction. To be fair to the mods, they only had 2 days to react. Now *Redacted player* is officialy 1st in two arenas; And from what Ive heard, after this happens it will stay like that forever, even after a player ban. #HappyEnd

It sounds like you have already reported this player. I was able to easily find them via the leaderboards for 7 Wonders Duel and I agree that in reviewing their game history it is extremely obvious that this player is cheating via repeated intentionally pairing with friend/alt account(s). They don't even try to play out the game to completion, they just concede the other account. This is for >5 consecutive games.

This is undoubtedly against the BGA rules and the mods will take action. I don't know if that includes removing the player from last season's leaderboard, but I certainly think that it should.

Fletcheese wrote: ↑09 January 2024, 18:56 It sounds like you have already reported this player. I was able to easily find them via the leaderboards for 7 Wonders Duel and I agree that in reviewing their game history it is extremely obvious that this player is cheating via repeated intentionally pairing with friend/alt account(s). They don't even try to play out the game to completion, they just concede the other account. This is for >5 consecutive games.

This is undoubtedly against the BGA rules and the mods will take action. I don't know if that includes removing the player from last season's leaderboard, but I certainly think that it should.

Someone has complained in the related thread that this person's ELO was reset to 100, but they retained the Arena wins. Obviously allowing them to retain the fruits of the cheating is an incomplete remedy. I'm going to charitably assume that there is some technical obstacle to adjusting the Arena leaderboard, and that this isn't just an oversight.

Just based on views:
so funny that it seems to be old news and noone cares!

Extra note: If a mod/admin happens to be stumbling on this post. A page with reasoning about some decisions/guide lines would be fancy - so same-y topics arent posted in the forum and someone who is interested knows whether its worth it to post, since it might be already "work in progress"

I think your poll needs some more options. I definitely think cheating is wrong and stuff like this used to bother me much more when I first started playing games on this site. After playing for a few years now (mostly arena and tournaments, but also mostly turn based so I often don't play enough games to make it to the top top of arena seasons), I realize that the people who really want to cheat and/or get cheap wins (my bigger pet peeve is people kicking others out of tournament games when there's plenty of time for the game to finish) will do it and get creative about it no matter what. We can get upset about it and try to keep it from happening, but cheaters are gonna find ways to cheat. I've found that the best way to deal with cheaters is to red thumb them and just try to keep it out of your mind. If you really want to scratch that competitive itch despite these cheaters, then just let it be enough to know that they're cheating and you should rightly be above them in the standings. Pretend they don't exist!

campusclimber wrote: ↑10 January 2024, 17:07 I think your poll needs some more options. I definitely think cheating is wrong and stuff like this used to bother me much more when I first started playing games on this site. After playing for a few years now (mostly arena and tournaments, but also mostly turn based so I often don't play enough games to make it to the top top of arena seasons), I realize that the people who really want to cheat and/or get cheap wins (my bigger pet peeve is people kicking others out of tournament games when there's plenty of time for the game to finish) will do it and get creative about it no matter what. We can get upset about it and try to keep it from happening, but cheaters are gonna find ways to cheat. I've found that the best way to deal with cheaters is to red thumb them and just try to keep it out of your mind. If you really want to scratch that competitive itch despite these cheaters, then just let it be enough to know that they're cheating and you should rightly be above them in the standings. Pretend they don't exist!

In a game/round to game/round basis, sure, easy to ignore. My problem was that they affect central ranking, which at least some (hardcore) people care about, and is a central point of fun competition, which gets de-valued.

Furthermore, yes, people will find ways to cheat. That is not a valid reason to make it easy, esp. if it has wide ranging effects, beyond some rounds.

The cheating only achieves one thing, it pushes Genuine and Premium Players away from this site.

Four friends of mine aren't going to renew their membership after it expires because of the cheating.

Stated and confirmed many times already, and underligned by implemented changes and inactions: There is no point in being competitive on BGA, and no responsible is eager for it to become such a place. Just can accept that.