The Dustbin

[stockwellpete]

We're currently collecting data on all games to find out what "normal" behaviour is to be able to set the thresholds that will prevent cheating . . .

Another disappointing response. Let me reiterate that "normal" behaviour is 0 reloads. ZERO. The threshold you are setting is not for "normal" behaviour. It is the tripwire for the amount of "abnormal" behaviour at which an investigation must be launched . . .

This is where I disagree, Mike. At the moment, apparently the system flags up the 10 worst cases of excess downloads whenever it is checked (how often it is checked I don't know). In a previous post I asked whether this was likely to catch all those abusing the system. What about those players number 11, 12 and 13 on the list? Were they shown as having zero excess downloads? Or what? I don't suppose we even know. So when Iain says Slitherine is collecting data on all games to find out what "normal behaviour" is, I read it as him wanting to establish how many cases should be flagged up each time in future. Should it still be 10, or maybe 15 or 20? It is no good warning the worst 10 players if the next 10 players are also save scumming as well, albeit at a more judicious level. So maybe Slitherine's "net" will have to be a bit bigger in future.

When bbogensic first raised the spectre of cheating during the first season of the DL, RBS assured all of us that something like this was not able to happen.

Erm . . . "Bog Ends" (as he now must be called) joined the tournament as a late reserve in Season 1 and within about a week was aggressively accusing the only player who could stop him from winning automatic promotion of being a cheat. Richard investigated and dealt with him patiently with detailed responses. This was not enough for him and he persisted with his allegations before withdrawing a few days into the next tournament after causing as much disruption as he could. He also boycotted the first final of the FOG2DL KO Tournament. I don't think he is a very good "witness for the prosecution" myself.

[rbodleyscott]

At the moment, apparently the system flags up the 10 worst cases of excess downloads

Actually it is 40. (10 are shown on the front panel, but the code that flags up potential issues uses the top 40.)

[stockwellpete]

At the moment, apparently the system flags up the 10 worst cases of excess downloads

Actually it is 40. (10 are shown on the front panel, but the code that flags up potential issues uses the top 40.)

So are all 40 that are flagged registering excess downloads? Or are some them showing as zero excess downloads? Is this just for FOG, or is it all Slitherine games on the server? How often is a check done by a member of staff currently (that would entail sending warning PM's)?

[MikeMarchant]

Another disappointing response. Let me reiterate that "normal" behaviour is 0 reloads. ZERO. The threshold you are setting is not for "normal" behaviour. It is the tripwire for the amount of "abnormal" behaviour at which an investigation must be launched. And no one should be afraid of investigations. I have had to reload over the course of 2+ years of competitive play due to technical problems. Yet I am more than happy to have my upload vs download ratio public because it will prove that the the wins I have gotten are legitimate by the simple fact that you can count the number of reloads due to all problems on both hands.

But you make it sound like reloads should be a regular occurance, indeed "normal" behaviour. For a reload due to internet failure, the following has to happen. Their internet must be working to download the file. Then sometime in the next 10 minutes while they play their turn, their internet has to die preventing an upload and it must stay permanently down long enough for them to have to quit the game since FoG2 allows you to retry uploads. The other possiblility is that the game constantly crashes while being played. We don't see masses of people posting on tech support forums or emails saying the game is crashing do we? I mean if there are, you better tell Pip and RBS to fix it because they aren't doing their jobs.

Mike, how do you draw the conclusion that zero reloads is normal behaviour?

You would need to analyse the date in order to conclude that. If we lived in a perfect world where internet connections were 100% reliable, where computers never crashed, where storms never interfered with electronic equipment, where players never made stupid mistakes (it's not impossible to hit Alt-F4 by accident), and nothing else could possibly go wrong while playing FoG 2, then zero reloads might be normal behaviour. But we don't live in that world.

In fact, even after Slitherine have performed this analysis and established some baseline norm, deviation from that norm only flags up abnormal behaviour. This abnormal behaviour does not, by necessity, identify cheating. It means that Slitehrine have the very difficult job of making a decision about whether to level that accusation or not, in a case where, however abnormal the data might be, the player could still be innocent. After many years of interacting with the good people at Slitherine, I do not see them wanting to be hang 'em/flog 'em judges.

This is an extremely difficult problem to solve. It is not simply a technical challenge, it is also a judicial and social challenge. Navigating through all these complexities and coming up with a solution that works, that is fair and that is acceptable to the community is not a task I would want to take on. For my part, I am happy to accept whatever solution Slitherine proposes and move on. If I have to live with the possibility that one of my opponens is cheating (and I can't see how it is possible to ever rule that possibility out) then I have the choice of either accepting that gracefully or no longer playing multiplayer against opponents I don't know and trust. Persoanlly, I will take the former course of action.


Best Wishes

Mike

[texanotedesco]

Division E

texanotedesco (Arab) wins vs snooky51 (Persian allies Hunnic Sabir) 47% to 17%

Thanks

[Swuul]

Excellently said MikeC_81.

Ian has very carefully avoided to say redownloading is a problem, as long as it happens in moderate amounts, because otherwise there might be "false positives". Which very clearly means Slitherine stance on cheating is "It is OK, just don't go overboard with it".

It is sickening.

The correct proclamation would be "We have zero acceptance on cheating, every redownloading is abnormal. If a player is found to redownload more than once a day/week/month/whatever the player is flagged for further inspection."

I can guarantee the number of people with "technical problems" would see a massive drop. Depending on how common cheating has been, this will mean possibly huge savings for Slitherine, as they will no longer be paying to their Internet provider for the cheaters usage of their server.

[MikeMarchant]

Division C

MikeMarchant (Roman 24 BC-196 AD with Sarmatian 25-375 AD allies) Defeated phoyle3290 (Hunnic, Western 376-454 AD with Germanic Foot Tribes 260-599 AD allies): 57/29

Bad luck, phoyle3290.


Best Wishes

Mike

[MikeMarchant]

Excellently said MikeC_81.

Ian has very carefully avoided to say redownloading is a problem, as long as it happens in moderate amounts, because otherwise there might be "false positives". Which very clearly means Slitherine stance on cheating is "It is OK, just don't go overboard with it".

It is sickening.

The correct proclamation would be "We have zero acceptance on cheating, every redownloading is abnormal. If a player is found to redownload more than once a day/week/month/whatever the player is flagged for further inspection."

I can guarantee the number of people with "technical problems" would see a massive drop. Depending on how common cheating has been, this will mean possibly huge savings for Slitherine, as they will no longer be paying to their Internet provider for the cheaters usage of their server.

No, Swuul, clearly Iain's stance is he doesn't want to start accusing people of cheating when they're innocent.

As far as I am aware, 'zero tolerance' has never worked in any context, despite its popularity with some sections of society. In this context is would be destructive.

If Slitherine wanted to make huge savings on their bandwidth they could simply shut down all multiplayer servers. They could shut down the forums too. Just think how much money they'd save.


Best Wishes

Mike

[Cunningcairn]

Why not save every move/combat outcome locally? If you reload the game, it has the moves saved and goes through the turn until the point of crash. Sure, in theory one could hack one's own program to override this, but most players aren't going to have the expertise or the inclination to do this.

That sounds like a great idea. It should be coupled with a reload counter which is automatically monitored and logged. The movement log could also be encrypted without too much difficulty preventing a player modifying it. RBS is this something that you could code?

Not personally, no. It would have to be part of the engine (Pip's province) but it would be a very major change.

I understand. Pity though.

[Swuul]

As far as I am aware, 'zero tolerance' has never worked in any context, despite its popularity with some sections of society. In this context is would be destructive.

In Multiplayer games zero tolerance to cheating is the only way to go. The history of gaming scene is littered with good MP games which got driven to ground because their devs didn't take draconian measures against cheaters. When a MP game gets the stigma of being a cheaters paradise, the game has only one way to go. When the Steam ranters smell an easy prey, the sales of Slitherine games might suffer.

FoG2 is (I presume) played mostly as single player game, but it would be a shame if the MP was killed. I for one have no intention to play with cheaters, and as it seems cheaters are here to stay, there seems to be only one way for me to avoid cheaters.

[stockwellpete]

Ian has very carefully avoided to say redownloading is a problem, as long as it happens in moderate amounts, because otherwise there might be "false positives". Which very clearly means Slitherine stance on cheating is "It is OK, just don't go overboard with it".

It is sickening.

Except that Iain said in one of his posts . . .

Re: dkalenda has been expelled from the tournament for multiple re-loading of turns during his matches . . .
Post by IainMcNeil » 29 Jul 2020 10:54

Mike, that's exactly the problem. We have a zero tolerance for cheating and anyone we know is doing it would be banned. Determining whether someone is cheating beyond a reasonable level of doubt is the issue. Having a trial by public opinion is also not something that sounds like a good plan. An unpopular player (due to gamey tactics for example) who gets a false positive could be unfairly accused of cheating while a more popular player gets away with it.

But don't let this stop you being "sickened".

[stockwellpete]

As far as I am aware, 'zero tolerance' has never worked in any context, despite its popularity with some sections of society. In this context is would be destructive.

Quite agree. I think we have to recognise that there will still be some scope for error or uncertainty in whatever new security system is introduced and that our rules of competition should be flexible enough to cope with this "margin of error". For example, someone making one excess download in one match that they are not able to explain to everyone's satisfaction (and something like "my young child shut down the computer by mistake while I was in mid-turn" will not satisfy everyone) should not be thrown out of the tournament and permanently banned, in my opinion. Instead, they should just be cautioned that this has caused some disquiet among some of the other players and the incident has been recorded by the tournament organiser. A second such incident would then result in a ban from the tournament. I think most people would think this sort of approach quite reasonable.

[Cunningcairn]

As far as I am aware, 'zero tolerance' has never worked in any context, despite its popularity with some sections of society. In this context is would be destructive.

Quite agree. I think we have to recognise that there will still be some scope for error or uncertainty in whatever new security system is introduced and that our rules of competition should be flexible enough to cope with this "margin of error". For example, someone making one excess download in one match that they are not able to explain to everyone's satisfaction (and something like "my young child shut down the computer by mistake while I was in mid-turn" will not satisfy everyone) should not be thrown out of the tournament and permanently banned, in my opinion. Instead, they should just be cautioned that this has caused some disquiet among some of the other players and the incident has been recorded by the tournament organiser. A second such incident would then result in a ban from the tournament. I think most people would think this sort of approach quite reasonable.

+1

[devoncop]

As far as I am aware, 'zero tolerance' has never worked in any context, despite its popularity with some sections of society. In this context is would be destructive.

In Multiplayer games zero tolerance to cheating is the only way to go. The history of gaming scene is littered with good MP games which got driven to ground because their devs didn't take draconian measures against cheaters. When a MP game gets the stigma of being a cheaters paradise, the game has only one way to go. When the Steam ranters smell an easy prey, the sales of Slitherine games might suffer.

FoG2 is (I presume) played mostly as single player game, but it would be a shame if the MP was killed. I for one have no intention to play with cheaters, and as it seems cheaters are here to stay, there seems to be only one way for me to avoid cheaters.

After some thought re this sorry matter I find myself surprisingly in 100% agreement with Swuul and MikeC81.....

As to the avowed "zero tolerance" of cheating..... that laudable statement is pretty meaningless if the bar is set too high before suspect reloads are considered proof.

I will reserve judgement for now whilst Slitherine determine their tightened policy and explain it to their customers.

Without a meaningful change though it will be the end of my DL and tournament MP games which is a great shame.

[stockwellpete]

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[stockwellpete]

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[stockwellpete]

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[MikeMarchant]

As far as I am aware, 'zero tolerance' has never worked in any context, despite its popularity with some sections of society. In this context is would be destructive.

In Multiplayer games zero tolerance to cheating is the only way to go. The history of gaming scene is littered with good MP games which got driven to ground because their devs didn't take draconian measures against cheaters. When a MP game gets the stigma of being a cheaters paradise, the game has only one way to go. When the Steam ranters smell an easy prey, the sales of Slitherine games might suffer.

FoG2 is (I presume) played mostly as single player game, but it would be a shame if the MP was killed. I for one have no intention to play with cheaters, and as it seems cheaters are here to stay, there seems to be only one way for me to avoid cheaters.

I completely understand, Swuul. If cheating is commonplace, or even just a little more than very rare, then no-one is going to want to play the game and multi-player will die. I don't want that any more than you do. If someone is found to be cheating they should be banned. The difficulty I am trying to highlight is that it is not a black and white issue. Determining whether someone is cheating or not is very difficult to do with any certaintly and it involves setting the bar somewhere.

You could guarantee no cheating by banning everyone, irrespective of whether they have ever reloaded a turn, and in fact, irrespective of whether they've ever played a multi-player game.
You could guarantee no one is every falsely accused of cheating or wrongly banned by not looking for, testing for, or caring about cheating.
Neither of those solutions is remotely acceptable and so Slitherine has to find a point somewhere between those two positions. It seems to me that the argument here is simply about where that bar should be placed. Some will want it to be a great deal higher than others, some a great deal lower. There is no position for this bar that will please all players. Ultimately Slitherine cannot win in this situation. Whatever their decision they cannot avoid pissing off a section of the community and risking that section throwing their toys out of the pram.

My own personal position is that to accuse someone of cheating, destroying their reputation, their integrity and their dignity is a really big deal. This is a really big real-life deal. On the other hand playing multi-player FoG is just a game. It's just a game! And so I would prefer there to be no accusations of cheating without a very solid justification, rather than on the basis of an unavoidable reload, or sequence of reloads.


Best Wishes

Mike

[Nosy_Rat]

Division A

Nosy_Rat (Cimmerians) defeats harveylh (Thracians) 52-24.

[stockwellpete]

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