Make the "Draw Bug" a Bannable Offense

I don't say the mod team should watch and monitor every game of faf .... Just the reported games .. Which will probably not be many games because :
1° a lot of people don't know about the bug so won't report game where they have been abused
2° abusers are probably very few in number themselves
3° you only report when you're very frustrated and you can't settle it with your opponent

I've played 60h of ladder in the last 2-3 month, and encountered the bug 3-4 times (from only two players ...). If i report half of it (because the other half could be settleed by talking ...), it's what, 1 report every other month ? I don't know how many players would report this bug, but if it generates few dozens of reports every month, is it that unmanagable ?

So, did you just volunteer to do it?

@auricocorico said in Make the "Draw Bug" a Bannable Offense:

I don't say the mod team should watch and monitor every game of faf .... Just the reported games .. Which will probably not be many games because :
1° a lot of people don't know about the bug so won't report game where they have been abused
2° abusers are probably very few in number themselves
3° you only report when you're very frustrated and you can't settle it with your opponent

I've played 60h of ladder in the last 2-3 month, and encountered the bug 3-4 times (from only two players ...). If i report half of it (because the other half could be settleed by talking ...), it's what, 1 report every other month ? I don't know how many players would report this bug, but if it generates few dozens of reports every month, is it that unmanagable ?

Yes, but you are experiencing about .8% of the FAF population in ladder. The point here is that your area of FAF both knows ABOUT the draw bug, knows HOW to abuse it, and generally knows WHO abuses it.

At 1200 this is not true. They know none of this other than that the draw bug now exists and it involves getting free points for a draw.

This would now result in informing a larger part of the playerbase that the bug exists (which can have a net negative impact) but that's besides the point. If you're some newer (or just less involved) player that got a draw game and now got informed by a moderator that you did an exploit, you aren't going to review what the moderator said and understand the nuance between "draw bug" and "drawing the game." You're just going to be scared of any sort of game draw and probably morph the exploit rule into being anything about "draws."

And if the penalties here do not extend to bans, why would it change anything in the 1800+ bracket? You guys are already a small playerpool where everybody pretty much knows everybody. If they aren't already shamed by the fact everybody knows they are a bug abuser, a moderator pointing it out won't result in anything. You need bans, which
A) could impact player behavior in game
B) result in large amounts of needless work for moderators
C) result in players feeling they got banned for doing nothing more than playing the game with the tools the game gave it

Honestly it just sounds like a case of a few bad apples at top level spoiling the broth. I don't think it benefits FAF to create an entirely new structure around making a certain type of draw (which differs from other draws pretty much only by intent) an exploit.

If anything it should just be handled at the top level on a case-by-case basis on the understanding it's bad practice. Sure it's arbitrary but this is mostly a problem at the tippy top of the playerbase and one or two bans would probably stop most malicious use there.

I saw the bug abuse quite regulrarly in Twitch ladder streams of rating 700-900.

"Nerds have a really complicated relationship with change: Change is awesome when WE'RE the ones doing it. As soon as change is coming from outside of us it becomes untrustworthy and it threatens what we think of is the familiar."
– Benno Rice

I thought it was a game mechanic, to make a suicide to destroy the sneakily hiding commanders in some water or stop the commander with units using the mod. I agree it's unpleasant, but it's a good way out, if you have time to apply it first. In any case, if the commander has little health, then this already means some kind of defeat after the explosion.

In any case, this happens rarely and very rarely. And think about points in the ladder if you are not 1600+ there is no sense.

And as I know on 1600+ this is not abused.

You all seem to be really missing the point that you lose more points for a 'win' than a 'draw.'

Get it out of your heads that a 'draw' should award as many points regardless of how you do it.

As Swkoll said, it is known, and someone should ask for a draw during a pause. IF someone declines, then ctrl k on the stubborn bastard and they can suffer the consequences. I do not see the big deal in being fair and asking for this. There is absolutely no drawback and it should take less then one minute to discuss between the players.

Why cant this bug just be fixed in the code?

because it "just" needs s1 to do it, aka time (as was stated above allready)

Forumpros doing balance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wTcguJZh3A .
When a canis player remembers to build more than 3 units https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hjp8xJHuyA .

Was fixed in the past, resulted in other game results being reported wrong. Doubt anyone else is interested in taking a stab at fixing the issue without causing 30 larger rating reporting issues.

@blackyps I'm happy to personally handle all draw bug reports. I doubt there would be that many, and the work required to review them would be small compared to the average report. Plus making draw bug a bannable offensive is likely to reduce the number of people who exploit it regularly.

What percentage of matches does this happen in? Unless this is happening quite frequently, will it really make a big difference in the long run to anyone's rating? I mean think what happens if someone just magically added 500 points to your rating. You haven't gotten any better as a player, so it will pretty quickly just revert to your true rating when you lose most of your matches to players "at your rating."

Well eventually it doesn't increase your rating if you are a regular player.
Yes you win rating points. But you are not a better player because of that. Eventually you will be matched with better players which will defeat you without coming into Ctrl+K range.

"Nerds have a really complicated relationship with change: Change is awesome when WE'RE the ones doing it. As soon as change is coming from outside of us it becomes untrustworthy and it threatens what we think of is the familiar."
– Benno Rice

i'm already talking about it with askaholic, some revert of old pr are gonna be made to fix that.

Thank you all! Appreciate the hard work!

I don’t get this thread. What exactly is the problem?

https://forum.faforever.com/topic/513/a-draw-counted-as-a-win-if-you-kill-enemy-s-acu-with-ctrl-k-of-your-acu?_=1618729696862

Draw bug explained in more details above.
If the ennemy acu is below 2500HP and you ctrl+k, instead of getting a draw you'll get a win.

This is very frustrating for the other player, for a lot of reasons, but mainly :

  • In a normal situation you would try to go for the kill, so the ennemy would have a chance to block you and save his acu. With the bug abuse, once below 2500 and in range of the ennemy acu, it's like being dead, you can just ctrl+k to end the game and still get the win.
  • It's espacially stupid combined with shift+g strategies. You don't need a lot of tanks with your acu to drop your ennemy down to 2500HP. So basically an abuser of this strategy can just rush you with 10 tanks very early and just win ... while in a normal sitaution, this would be a draw.
  • Once both players know about the bug, and you end up in a close acu 1v1 combat, you're always tempted to ctrl+k for the win. So draw situations are never draws anymore.

In a lot of situations, you actually need to ctrl+K to actually get the draw (e.g. your opponent is <2500hp, but has shift g'd units around your acu and is about to walk out of range), so until the issue is fixed, the best temporary solution is to just pause and ask for/accept a draw in every draw situation.

In any case, I agree that this problem should be removed. A draw must be fair.

The last 3 posts have done well to explain, thank you