About Match Manipulation

[Wild.1705]

We need a thread to talk about this. It really doesn't affect most personally, but I will argue that it is unhealthy and should be stopped.

Players are asking questions about players with a 119-2 win/loss ratio and rightfully so.

To answer @VyPR.3412 question about match manipulation, I believe the following are tactics used by the players (cheaters) at the top.

• Trading wins with a player using a throw away account
• Queueing at "off hours" ex. 05:00amEST
• Queueing with another good player that is using a throw account (making the matchmaker take the average of plat &bronze/silver)
• Queue dodging anyone they feel is a consistent threat (most likely doing similar methods)
• Multi-boxing ( @Trevor Boyer.6524 knows more on this, but I believe it uses bots that throw matches if on emery team, and if on your team it fight but will disconnect if you are losing. Because you are not grouped you will lose no points.
• Paying other players to lose (Happens from time to time)
• Other deplorable methods that don't actually make you a good player

I miss any big ones? I can add more if necessary, but this is just to show how extensive this has become.

 

ArenaNet should not allow match manipulation, but they may currently be unable to do anything about it.

Is there anything as players that we can do? Being able to watch and record matches would allow us to ketch fishy behavior and report it. That is probably where I would start.

Edited June 29, 2022 by Wild.1705

[Crab Fear.8623]

They need to remove duo q.

They need to limit how far the matchmaker looks for games in terms of rating disparity.

4v5 games should end no contest, no rating changes or w/l changes.

F2P should be removed from rank.

12 unique afk reports should give a player 1 week of dishonor.

 

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

22 minutes ago, Wild.1705 said:

ArenaNet should not allow match manipulation, but they may currently be unable to do anything about it.

Oh they can and they know exactly who is doing it. They just choose not to do anything about it.

Take some time and go to youtube, do a search on: "he paid 10000 for gizmo" and also check out the creators page of other videos.

This will give you a great idea of how already exposed these issues are.

Why Arenanet does nothing with such inarguable evidence? One can only imagine.

[Curennos.9307]

1 hour ago, Crab Fear.8623 said:

They need to remove duo q.

They need to limit how far the matchmaker looks for games in terms of rating disparity.

4v5 games should end no contest, no rating changes or w/l changes.

F2P should be removed from rank.

12 unique afk reports should give a player 1 week of dishonor.

 

This is an MMO. Removing the option for playing with friends totally defeats the entire point. People who want to pvp alone have plenty of other games to choose from. Let's not punish the many because the few want to screw around, yeah? 

 

+1 to everything else you said though.

[Natedog.7549]

The fact that years ago anet dishonored certain players publicly but they are still playing is crazy. Lol

[VyPR.3412]

19 minutes ago, Curennos.9307 said:

This is an MMO. Removing the option for playing with friends totally defeats the entire point. People who want to pvp alone have plenty of other games to choose from. Let's not punish the many because the few want to screw around, yeah? 

 

+1 to everything else you said though.

 

Remove the duo option in ranked, not unranked. Play with your friends, but don't game the rankings together. Not everyone does, but those who do, do so flagrantly. It's a bad look.

Edited June 29, 2022 by VyPR.3412

[VyPR.3412]

5 minutes ago, Natedog.7549 said:

The fact that years ago anet dishonored certain players publicly but they are still playing is crazy. Lol

Technically they dishonored the accounts (essentially a $40 fine). These offenders were probably then welcomed into private Discords with the head PVP dev at the time to further help influence the game mode.

[Curennos.9307]

46 minutes ago, VyPR.3412 said:

 

Remove the duo option in ranked, not unranked. Play with your friends, but don't game the rankings together. Not everyone does, but those who do, do so flagrantly. It's a bad look.

The issue here is that ranked is the only way to get ascended shards. I wouldn't care much otherwise, but imo it's bad, self-defeating design to limit things how you describe. And how far into the ranks does the issue go, really? Changes made based on a ranking that's, at this point, basically just a list of numbers has no business impacting the average player.

Add the shards to unranked tho and it's fine. Who cares if players can work on getting stuff without having to deal with the steaming pile that is ranked.

Edited June 29, 2022 by Curennos.9307

[VyPR.3412]

25 minutes ago, Curennos.9307 said:

The issue here is that ranked is the only way to get ascended shards. I wouldn't care much otherwise, but imo it's bad, self-defeating design to limit things how you describe. And how far into the ranks does the issue go, really? Changes made based on a ranking that's, at this point, basically just a list of numbers has no business impacting the average player.

Add the shards to unranked tho and it's fine. Who cares if players can work on getting stuff without having to deal with the steaming pile that is ranked.

 
If Anet prioritizes participation over competition, they'll move the rewards out to unranked and leave ranked to wither (or possibly thrive once you pull out those who will idle for pips). At that point, let the duo ranked geniuses fight over God of the Ashes 

Edited June 29, 2022 by VyPR.3412

[Absinthey.5340]

2 hours ago, Crab Fear.8623 said:

F2P should be removed from rank.

 

While this would probably be effective, I worry this would further stagnate this game mode by limiting the amount of new player interest... and thus player retention. With a Steam release in the near future, it is entirely possible to see a flood of new (F2P) PvPers. 

 

Addressing the elephant in the room though... Arena Net can just do their job and moderate their game. 

 

 

[Luthan.5236]

If they put that much work into it ... I guess they deserve to be at the top. 😄 I do not really care about rank/rating - mainly playing for fun and for the rewards (I try to complete the seasonal track chest each season). They ceratainly care too much. If they put that much work into this for just some title you get at the top. And maybe the badge for legendary tier.

[Khalisto.5780]

11 hours ago, Luthan.5236 said:

If they put that much work into it ... I guess they deserve to be at the top. 😄 I do not really care about rank/rating - mainly playing for fun and for the rewards (I try to complete the seasonal track chest each season). They ceratainly care too much. If they put that much work into this for just some title you get at the top. And maybe the badge for legendary tier.

believe it or not it heavily impacts in your fun aspect, when plat 2 duos dodge each other there's a big chance you q into a impossible game, cuz both duos will get easier matches, and if you're in the other team you basically lost the game.

 

This issue goes further depending on time, rating and class you play.

 

If you do not play in prime time which is basically 2 hours spam from daily reset you're most likey to fight against duos, if you gold 3 + you basically has to actively dodge those ppl or you'll be face them over and over, always against them and prolly being the highest rated player in your team and the class mirror priority stuff could also affect you.

 

I was doing map completion on my war (gold 2) while waiting for match, just because of that i got matched against vans duo (1700+) cuz that aren't that many wars left.

I don't believe removing duo q will have any impact in top 25 cuz they go very deep into the exploits, but at least will show anet actually cares for the game mode a little

 

Edited June 29, 2022 by Khalisto.5780

[Crab Fear.8623]

15 hours ago, Curennos.9307 said:

This is an MMO. Removing the option for playing with friends totally defeats the entire point. People who want to pvp alone have plenty of other games to choose from. Let's not punish the many because the few want to screw around, yeah? 

 

+1 to everything else you said though.

 

I used to think like this, but I realize just how shady people are and how rampant alt throwing is.

I suggested an easy idea for playing with friends

 

But, of course, it doesn't get much traction because who knows.

It would be easy to implement.

 

Right now, duo is not healthy for the game.

They could only target above certain ratings, but that wouldn't be fair.

I am 100% for a team based mode, but duo is extremely toxic for ranked, as it is.

[Curennos.9307]

12 minutes ago, Crab Fear.8623 said:

 

I used to think like this, but I realize just how shady people are and how rampant alt throwing is.

I suggested an easy idea for playing with friends

 

But, of course, it doesn't get much traction because who knows.

It would be easy to implement.

 

Right now, duo is not healthy for the game.

They could only target above certain ratings, but that wouldn't be fair.

I am 100% for a team based mode, but duo is extremely toxic for ranked, as it is.

Gee I wonder why rampant alt throwing became so prevalent. Should the issue be solved? Yes. But solve the core issue. 

 

I like the idea to encourage bringing back pvp guilds, but I just don't think anet has the wiggle room right now to kitten off even more people by removing grouped play. Players have been given "settle for the band-aid fix for now while we work on actual fixes" for years now. 

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

Whether DuoQ gets removed or not is not important.

 

Getting a Solo arena would get the DuoQs away from the majority of Ranked's population and it would make most of these methods of match manipulation either impossible or much harder to do because pretty much all modern sPvP match manipulation involves DuoQ either wholly or to some extent.

 

If everyone fought fairly; solos only against other solos, and teams only against other teams, there would probably be a lot less match manipulation.

Wouldn't count on anything actually getting done about it either. Members and associates of the wintrader cartel have already infiltrated Arenanet itself and currently tell the dev(s?) how to balance their game in some secret, not so secret Discord.

[Wild.1705]

It's probably only a single instance of this happening, but didn't ArenaNet ban a few players after that pinned comment about account sharing? The video @Trevor Boyer.6524 talked about was extremely similar to a few others others I have seen. So, why is ArenaNet only mentioning the problem instead of fixing it?

It sucks not having better communication and more transparency with the deves.

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

1 hour ago, Wild.1705 said:

It's probably only a single instance of this happening, but didn't ArenaNet ban a few players after that pinned comment about account sharing?

If you mean this https://old.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/dka7hc/megathread_october_2019_ban_wave/f4lgjva/

Yes, it was some random person boosting accounts on EU, over 5 dozen accounts accounts apparently.

 

Its not the only instance of the crime, but it is one of the only instances of actual punishment.

On NA retired vets have been paid to boost accounts for years. You will occasionally see average gold and low plat players suddenly skyrocket to rank 1 with winrates that look like 118-2. They've never been wronged for it, even with them openly bragging about doing it and getting away with it like they do here: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/26585-congratz-r55-congratz-team-usa-but-special-remark-to-mr-helio-for-the-fair-play_/

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

32 minutes ago, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

If you mean this https://old.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/dka7hc/megathread_october_2019_ban_wave/f4lgjva/

Yes, it was some random person boosting accounts on EU, over 5 dozen accounts accounts apparently.

 

Its not the only instance of the crime, but it is one of the only instances of actual punishment.

On NA retired vets have been paid to boost accounts for years. You will occasionally see average gold and low plat players suddenly skyrocket to rank 1 with winrates that look like 118-2. They've never been wronged for it, even with them openly bragging about doing it and getting away with it like they do here: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/26585-congratz-r55-congratz-team-usa-but-special-remark-to-mr-helio-for-the-fair-play_/

@Wild.1705

There's your answer right there in the bolded.

Action is taken against random people but strangely not against well know ones.

Make of what you want.

 

[Khalisto.5780]

On 6/29/2022 at 5:36 PM, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

Whether DuoQ gets removed or not is not important.

 

Getting a Solo arena would get the DuoQs away from the majority of Ranked's population and it would make most of these methods of match manipulation either impossible or much harder to do because pretty much all modern sPvP match manipulation involves DuoQ either wholly or to some extent.

 

If everyone fought fairly; solos only against other solos, and teams only against other teams, there would probably be a lot less match manipulation.

Wouldn't count on anything actually getting done about it either. Members and associates of the wintrader cartel have already infiltrated Arenanet itself and currently tell the dev(s?) how to balance their game in some secret, not so secret Discord.

5s would be the greatest wintrade fest, higher rated you're most feared you are, it would be very easy q sync your multibox into your team when everybody else is q dodging you

[Chromazene.4807]

On 6/28/2022 at 9:35 PM, Crab Fear.8623 said:

They need to remove duo q.

They need to limit how far the matchmaker looks for games in terms of rating disparity.

4v5 games should end no contest, no rating changes or w/l changes.

F2P should be removed from rank.

12 unique afk reports should give a player 1 week of dishonor.

 

Yeah it's always bothered my how the AFK reports don't do anything unless someone explicitly says in chat "I'm going to AFK" and even then I don't really see players getting temp dishonor or suspensions.  Makes you wonder why they even build a report system in the first place if they won't use it?  

 

And yes, Glicko2, the way ANet uses it, isn't very transparent.  If you don't know the Glicko2 rank of prospective teammates and opponents as it is searching, how do we know the quality of the Glicko2 engine?  Players need access to data. Also, players need access to replayable game data that can be sent as a game file to devs in case someone is using blatant exploits.

[Wild.1705]

Wow, yeah idk, that is kinda sketchy.

[Wild.1705]

Would people be ok with no more leaderboards and top player rewards? Just keep the badge rank system?

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

1 hour ago, Khalisto.5780 said:

5s would be the greatest wintrade fest, higher rated you're most feared you are, it would be very easy q sync your multibox into your team when everybody else is q dodging you

Oh for sure. That would only be there for the people that "just want to play with friends."

31 minutes ago, Wild.1705 said:

Would people be ok with no more leaderboards and top player rewards? Just keep the badge rank system?

How about two leaderboards with different top player rewards?

For solos and teams. The current leaderboard is a measure of individual skill in a mode that allows teams. 

Solos should have the current leaderboard, Teams should play separately from solos and they should be measured as teams on the second leaderboard. I agree with Khalisto that teams is probably going to be match manipulation hell, but at least with two split arenas people have the option to not have to deal with it until Arenanet can; hopefully, ban the people that would make TeamQ unplayable to begin with.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

8 hours ago, Wild.1705 said:

Would people be ok with no more leaderboards and top player rewards? Just keep the badge rank system?

There is only one way to solve the problem. Even with suspensions & bans, people just come back on new accounts. This is the only way:

1. Put solo/duo Ranked back to 5man queue. This way players can make the choice to play with friends whom they trust or to at least LFG with community acquaintances, known actual human players on known mains, to form a 5man team. This way win traders or bot multi-window synchs can never land in their team. If the team believes someone is purposefully throwing or simply not good enough and they can find better, then they can kick that player, same they would in a fractal or raid or strike. It's not a big deal to form a team through the LFG. It's absolutely no different than using LFG to form teams for pve and it takes under 5 minutes to do. People do it every day all day for ATs already. This would also allow the win trade mains to all stack on one team together, which makes them easier to queue dodge for the rest of us. When they are playing solo/duo only, then we get like 3 teams of 2 mains out there who are rotating their queues and all playing with alt synchs with those teams of 2s. <- This makes it waaaay more difficult to ever find time to get a clean queue. With 5man queues we'd be able to identify the teams we want to avoid much much more easily.

Many people like to argue "yada yada this and this and that and that" about 5man queues, and how it's unfair for mixed singles  vs. 5man premades, but they toss this conjecture coming from a place as if we had some kind of high population to make it work and as if win trading synch queues weren't an absolute norm nowadays. The fact of the matter is that solo/duo only massively enables easy to perform match manipulation tactics, and this is by far the #1 problem contributing to GW2 bad matches. Anyone who still believes in solo/duo only queues is under a placebo effect and has clearly never sat in a Discord with a group of players while they were doing it. The reality is that when players are solo or duo queueing into matches, they are often against 5man or even 5+ man synch queue teams anyway, they just can't see it. 

At some point more players need to be strongly advocating for the return of 5man queues. They need to make a choice. Either player solo under that placebo of "the theory behind solo/duo" while not accepting the truths behind what it has enabled and while patsying for 5+ man team win trades, or advocate for a scene where they can at least get a legitimate 5v5. I don't care if "wah wah wah I don't want to go against Team USA" because you know what? Learn how to queue dodge if it's a problem. Let those top teams farm the ones who aren't wise enough to get out of the way.

Those players like that wouldn't need to perform match manipulation if they could stack together on a single team. If anything, they'd just do phases where they all queued weird alts together and tried to play others down out of the leaderboards. But again, identifying this stuff when they are all stacked together would be much much easier to do to be able to queue dodge.

I'm telling you, telling everyone, bringing back 5man queues is mandatory at this point for obvious reasons. It actually makes me wonder why in the hell it hasn't happened yet. It seems like maybe it's possible that someone at the top actually wants the community to be prone to these problems so we are easier to play down in the leaderboards.

 

Edited July 1, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

9 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

There is only one way to solve the problem. Even with suspensions & bans, people just come back on new accounts. This is the only way:

There's been like 0 bans outside of people who aren't known. Content creators and influencers are immune to any sort of permanent ban, and that's the only reason bans don't work.

If Anet put their feet down and actually dished out some punishment, eventually match fixers would get sick of wasting the time, effort, and of course $$$$.

9 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Many people like to argue "yada yada this and this and that and that" about 5man queues, and how it's unfair for mixed singles  vs. 5man premades, but they toss this conjecture coming from a place as if we had some kind of high population to make it work and as if win trading synch queues weren't an absolute norm nowadays. The fact of the matter is that solo/duo only massively enables easy to perform match manipulation tactics, and this is by far the #1 problem contributing to GW2 bad matches. Anyone who still believes in solo/duo only queues is under a placebo effect and has clearly never sat in a Discord with a group of players while they were doing it. The reality is that when players are solo or duo queueing into matches, they are often against 5man or even 5+ man synch queue teams anyway, they just can't see it. 

5 man is only a solution to match manipulation only if everyone plays 5 man, otherwise its just Solo/Duo on roids.

Mixed Solo/Duo is crap, yes. 1-5 is basically the same thing, but with different party sizes.

1-5 queue would essentially be handing Ranked over to the wintrading cartel for good.

They're already metagaming gods that are able to synch queues and fix matches in a system that only allows parties of 2. If you increase how many people they can fit into 1 party, that just straight up makes it easier for them to do what they've been doing for years now. 

 

This is not placebo, this is a mixture of common sense and basic mathemumatics.

Put yourself in the shoes of one of the cartel members. You're trying to get certain people onto specific teams.

That is going to be(and I speak factually and objectively here) 100% easier if you have full, absolute control over who is on your team. 

If you had a 6th person(or more) throwing for you in a 1-5 queue setting you'd have 100% certainty of not getting them on your team.