Proposal for [Challenge Accounts] | Feedback Wanted!

[Dorset]

Personally I don't think there should be any restrictions on having multiple accounts for any reason across the board. If people want to go through the effort of having multiple accounts what does it really matter? I think most people wont even bother and those that do aren't going to really affect anyone else.

[Jip]

I can see the value in this.

For example, Grubby who does a lot of casting of Warcraft 3 has a challenge account for literally that: challenges! These challenges originate from his viewers. Take as an example:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ui7O-yyyIg&t=924s

These challenges would never work (or be fun) against players of his rating. If you're unfamiliar with Grubby - he's similar to what TheWheelie is to FAForever in terms of rating. Not the best, but pretty close to it. And this content is viewed a lot. It is often also educational as he's often evaluating what is going on.

The suggestion here would not be much different. I'll respond to the details/questions another time.

[maudlin27]

@Dorset said in Proposal for [Challenge Accounts] | Feedback Wanted!:

Personally I don't think there should be any restrictions on having multiple accounts for any reason across the board. If people want to go through the effort of having multiple accounts what does it really matter? I think most people wont even bother and those that do aren't going to really affect anyone else.

Allowing multiple accounts more generally could cause the following issues (non-exhaustive list):

• Ban evasion, meaning people can get away with bad behaviour that wrecks the FAF experience for others, leading to an increase in such behaviour
• Rating becomes less reliable, meaning fewer balanced games - generally a closely fought game where either team could potentially win is more likely to be fun than a completely 1-sided game where one team never had a chance. The more reliable rating is, the easier it is to come up with teams that are a similar level of skill.
• New player experience is likely to be worse if you have a much higher chance of fighting against someone who based on their rating should be a new player but turns out to actually be a smurf that completely destroys you (leading to fewer people playing FAF longer term)

It's also not that much effort to create multiple accounts, and with people often enjoying winning more than losing there'd be a strong incentive to do it (since it'd increase your chances of winning a game).

[Dorset]

@maudlin27
I appreciate that but my logic is as follows.

• Ban evasion, meaning people can get away with bad behavior that wrecks the FAF experience for others, leading to an increase in such behavior

Yes this is true but if someone makes a new account and then never act out of line again the net affect is we have 1 more person in the community. I think it would be very rare for someone to repeatedly be toxic and make a new account over and over. These types probably do it anyway.

• Rating becomes less reliable, meaning fewer balanced games - generally a closely fought game where either team could potentially win is more likely to be fun than a completely 1-sided game where one team never had a chance. The more reliable rating is, the easier it is to come up with teams that are a similar level of skill.

In my opinion this isn't a concern because the "smurf effect" only lasts what?...100 games? I just dont think people can outrun their rank and it will quickly settle to what they are. I dont see pro level players wanting to pretend they are a 1200 and blend in a game and pile up losses just to be a smurf. I am a 1300 level and cant stand playing in games where everyone is a 600. Anyone who wants to do this is probably doing it anyway.

• New player experience is likely to be worse if you have a much higher chance of fighting against someone who based on their rating should be a new player but turns out to actually be a smurf that completely destroys you (leading to fewer people playing FAF longer term)

I am curious how many new players are onboarded each month to know if this would be a legit reason. If multiple accounts were allowed there may be an initial rush as players made new accounts but once that equalized I think it would be the same experience as it is now.

It's also not that much effort to create multiple accounts, and with people often enjoying winning more than losing there'd be a strong incentive to do it (since it'd increase your chances of winning a game).

I think its a rare type of person who wants to go through the effort multiple times over any meaningfully short duration. Anyone who wants to go through the trouble every time they get a few losses is probably doing it already anyway. I think most people probably don't even make a second account if it were legal and if they do its for a specific purpose such as playing only GAP with one account and playing only mapgen with another. Or maybe one where I am only ever UEF.

I personally would love a second account to grind but I wouldn't want a third or 4th or 5th lol. Multiple email accounts multiple steam accounts, keeping track of it all hurts my low apm brain. I have a few other games I play and have 3 accounts on each and each one is for a different playstyle but those are different genres so its not apples to apples I admit.

I'm not trying to suggest we should change the rules because FAF is great as is but since the topic was raise I wanted to point out that I think there is an argument for not governing multiple accounts.

[Sainse]

It’s clearly inspired by chess streamers. But no additional measures used on chess websites are mentioned. On chess website the players who play against “fake” account get all their points back (such games are basically not rated)

[IndexLibrorum]

@Dorset

Yes this is true but if someone makes a new account and then never act out of line again the net affect is we have 1 more person in the community. I think it would be very rare for someone to repeatedly be toxic and make a new account over and over. These types probably do it anyway.

Allowing people to evade their bans is not how the moderation system can work. Most bans we hand out are one or several days. Only when someone has been repeatedly banned over and over will they start receiving bans that can be counted in weeks or months. We hand out some permanent bans too, but those are very rare: from the top of my head I can think of maybe 10 permanent bans last year. (see also this page for more info on how bans are applied)

People that need an account to evade a long ban are not the people who 'then never act out of line again'; people with long bans have already proven that they are not people who will receive a warning and then improve. And these are not the kind of people you want returning to your community.

While there is a lot about the proposal for challenge accounts that we are unsure about, the one thing that we are sure about is that we want to make it exceedingly clear that this is not a free ticket to a smurf account. Nor will we start to be more lenient towards new smurf accounts. This challenge account is very much intended to be treated like a carefully managed exception, and we hope we can trust the community to treat it as such.

I am curious how many new players are onboarded each month to know if this would be a legit reason.

Last month we had about 3000 new users register. I don't have the data to how many of them are now regular players.

The other points you made regarding smurf/secondary accounts should be best addressed in their own thread if you'd like to see the rule changed. Continuing the discussion here will probably derail the conversation about the challenge accounts themselves.

[waffelzNoob]

I think a challenge account for educational purposes, i.e. a "road to grandmaster" guide series, is justifiable. An actual challenge account less so, with how small our community is. Considering this I think there should be 1 MAYBE 2 of these accounts active at a time, and that the user does not play more than 1 game at a time because playing more could temporarily drive people away from matchmaker.

Also, currently elo is gained too quickly for an actually educational "road to grandmaster" series. They'd hit 1500 in like 5 games and that's way too little to teach an 800 how to get past 800.

[IndexLibrorum]

@waffelzNoob said in Proposal for [Challenge Accounts] | Feedback Wanted!:

Also, currently elo is gained too quickly for an actually educational "road to grandmaster" series. They'd hit 1500 in like 5 games and that's way too little to teach an 800 how to get past 800.

This might be a consequence of the rating in the beginning not yet being settled. An account that already has a bit of a 'steady' rating at ~800 would help, I think.

Considering this I think there should be 1 MAYBE 2 of these accounts active at a time, and that the user does not play more than 1 game at a time because playing more could temporarily drive people away from matchmaker.

Yes, a hard limit on the number of challenge accounts available at a time seems like a necessary requirement to me too for this to work. Given that they're intended to only be active for a specific timeframe, we can then lock one and start another for another person and challenge.

Not sure what you mean with 'not play more than one game at a time'. You mean per day, or?

[Brutus5000]

Moderation team found a solution, can we now start looking for the problem?

Encourage creative challenges, such as "engineers-only games" or "tech-3 only games" inspired by similar successful initiatives in other gaming communities.

What is the problem doing this with a regular account?
The player doesn't want to fiddle with its rating? Play an unrated map/mod (unit restrictions are sufficient). Or we just create an unrated mod.
Nobody wants to play with the player because the rating is too high? That remains the case, even if you hide the rating. But now the other participants just get a worse experience.
Only that one player is doing shenanigans but not telling the other players? I don't think you want to setup an officially approved "prank" game mode.

A better explanation why challenge account for challenges are required in the first place would be very helpful to understand the intentions.

[waffelzNoob]

@IndexLibrorum said in Proposal for [Challenge Accounts] | Feedback Wanted!:

This might be a consequence of the rating in the beginning not yet being settled. An account that already has a bit of a 'steady' rating at ~800 would help, I think.

Or at 0 rating, so that <800 can be instructed. And perhaps that trueskill deviation be decreased manually at some points if possible, so that a winstreak doesn't bring the account from e.g. 1200 to 1800 too quickly?

@IndexLibrorum said in Proposal for [Challenge Accounts] | Feedback Wanted!:

Not sure what you mean with 'not play more than one game at a time'. You mean per day, or?

One game per few hours, because if players play what is pretty much a smurf account even twice in a row it may demotivate them from queueing more.
This would mean the content isn't streamable but guide videos are still great for putting out educational content

Rating compensation should also be considered so that players won't complain about losing elo in unfair games

[FtXCommando]

@waffelzNoob said in Proposal for [Challenge Accounts] | Feedback Wanted!:

@IndexLibrorum said in Proposal for [Challenge Accounts] | Feedback Wanted!:

This might be a consequence of the rating in the beginning not yet being settled. An account that already has a bit of a 'steady' rating at ~800 would help, I think.

Or at 0 rating, so that <800 can be instructed. And perhaps that trueskill deviation be decreased manually at some points if possible, so that a winstreak doesn't bring the account from e.g. 1200 to 1800 too quickly?

@IndexLibrorum said in Proposal for [Challenge Accounts] | Feedback Wanted!:

Not sure what you mean with 'not play more than one game at a time'. You mean per day, or?

One game per few hours, because if players play what is pretty much a smurf account even twice in a row it may demotivate them from queueing more.
This would mean the content isn't streamable but guide videos are still great for putting out educational content

Rating compensation should also be considered so that players won't complain about losing elo in unfair games

This already happens with "road to X" series in chess. People can get to 2000 or 2500 within a day or two. You would need to give the account an adjusted uncertainty and as long as it is roughly around FAF's tau value it shouldn't be changing much more than the change you yourself currently see every game. So for 1v1 it would be like 20-40 rating points a game depending on who they match with.

[IndexLibrorum]

@Brutus5000

Several ideas, such as a '0 to 2500' series, cannot be done unless with a new account. Other interesting challenges, such as engineers-only games, will be such a large handicap that we believe that the original rating of high ranked accounts will make it impossible to have a fun game. A player who is normally a 1800, for example, may very well only play at the 1300~ level when sufficiently handicapped.

Having a fresh account would allow it to reach an actual valid rating (for that challenge), which means that games will actually be balanced even with the handicap. We'd like these challenges to be still competitive, after all, albeit at a lower rating than what the player of the account normally would rank at.

We'd aim to only allow challenges that would make this possible: clear 'prank' gameplay is likely to be too disruptive, and we don't think it should be allowed. That said, I think there is a lot of room for interesting challenges that are still competitively viable if enough sweat is put in.

[xclkvnspoijfoisn]

I'm with Brutus. You don't need a second account for this.

Alternatively, allow everyone to create a second account that is linked to your main account somehow. Like how you can see previous names of a player, you can see other accounts. That way everyone can participate in challenges or whatever. Not just a select few content creators.