Make the "Draw Bug" a Bannable Offense

Plain and simple, those who use and abuse the "bug" where if you control k and kill an enemy ACU it gives the points as if it were a win.

This absolutely needs to get resolved or made against the rules.

If the devs want to resolve the bug, that's fine.

But you can't punish people for trying to salvage a lost game by turning it into a draw/win. You can't punish people for being aggressive with their ACUs. There's just no way to enforce that rule fairly or even to explain the rule to lower-rated players.

Dude, go the hell away. You cannot possibly argue that a 'draw' means someone gets the same amount of points as if it is a win verse the few they would get for a draw.

What does a "lower-" or "higher-" rated player have to do with using a bug? If someone is negligent, you give them a warning and if it sees continued use you enforce it.

So your acu was in position of dying from enemy acu's explosion ? And you consider that you were winning ?)

No, I consider that a "draw"

Do you understand that if you "draw" there is about 2, 3 points at most lost. If you win it depends on the rating difference, but is in general ~10 pts. That is a huge difference for a game conclusion.

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

You cannot possibly argue that a 'draw' means someone gets the same amount of points as if it is a win verse the few they would get for a draw.

I said the devs can fix it if they want. I never argued that this is how it should be.

I said your cure is worse than the disease

The solution you are proposing--to punish people for aggressively using their ACU to kill the enemy ACU--is bad, it's worse than what we have now.

How are you even going to describe this rule to lower-rated players?

People won't be allowed to ctrl-k in order to kill an enemy ACU? People will be allowed to ctrl-k to kill an enemy ACU, but only if the enemy is about to get out of range of the death explosion? Otherwise they need to die of natural causes?

Are you allowed to ctrl-k on an enemy ACU before they get a vet level?

If you're allowed to ctrl-k to kill an ACU before it gets out of range, are you allowed to move your own ACU back so it's almost out of range? Or do you have an obligation to stay close to the target ACU until you die of natural causes so the game can register a draw?

What if the aggressor intentionally moves his ACU back so the player who is trying to escape almost gets out of range of the 2500-damage radius, but then ctrl-Ks? Is it legal because they were almost out of range?

Should I pause the game once your ACU drops to 2477 health and ask if you will agree to a draw through the diplomacy menu, and if not, then I'm allowed to ctrl-k on your ACU? If you think someone is going to ctrl-k on you, why don't you just pause the game and offer a draw before you go under 2500?

Without clear rules, nobody is going to be happy about enforcement decisions.

My impression is that middle- and lower-rated players (sub 1500s) don't even care about this. I understand why Blodir is more jealous about his points. If you want to make a special rule for people with 1700+ rating, I wouldn't have anything to say about it.

Arma, do you have any actual capability to change this or are you just debating with me? I am trying to talk to the people such as moderators, devs, player councilor who can discuss this. I don't really care what someone's 2 cents on it is that has no power in altering the situation.

Sorry you disagree, but please don't argue with me just for the heck of it.

@arma473 said in Make the "Draw Bug" a Bannable Offense:

Should I pause the game once your ACU drops to 2477 health and ask if you will agree to a draw through the diplomacy menu, and if not, then I'm allowed to ctrl-k on your ACU? If you think someone is going to ctrl-k on you, why don't you just pause the game and offer a draw before you go under 2500?

Yes, player who will ctrl-k should pause the game and ask for a draw.

Wtf? If you are under 2500 you overextended and therefore deserve to get a draw loss
People need to do their homework, there is no mercy in faf especially not on setons

Arma, I am one of the two people offered to fix it and I’ve gotten busy and as such support Morax. While the code is fixable, it requires a level of testing both game side AND client side. And its alot easier said to fix.

I’m a shitty 1k Global. Any balance or gameplay suggestions should be understood or taken as such.

Project Head and current Owner/Manager of SCTA Project

Doesn’t this just flip the cards the other way around? If you’re losing to a lower rated player you can just force a draw and keep your rating.

I don’t think draws should give you as much rating as it does for a win but at least getting a couple useless virtual social score points makes sense. Trueskill didn’t expect you to draw let alone win so it needs to adjust its evaluation to compensate

To recall what ftx told me in a previous thread about this subject :

  • Problem is the enforcement, it's (supposedly) hard to differenciate a legit draw attempt (say, you felt behind, went all in, and ctrl k cause you were scared he could get away) from a legit abuse of the bug (you go in because you know you can secure the win with the bug when his ACU is 2500 HP).

I personnaly think it's clear as day when you look at the context of the game and behavior of players ... And as Morax said if the players finds himself reported several times a week for the same bug, it will be hard to hide behind the "i didn't know of the bug" ...

I'm in favor of issuing warnings (without ban), while talking about it between players when a game with the bug occurs. Obviously fixing the bug is the better solution. But in the meantime, it gives a clear message of : "don't abuse this, it's nasty" or "don't the jerk of your little ladder community".

Obviously there are players who don't give a f*** about warnings, but so far I haven't met remorseless offenders, so maybe some pedagogy around this topic will be enough to reduce the occurance of the exploit, and leave just a very few number of "big jerk cases" to be dealt with.

Yeah, it’s clear to you. Are you going to be the one now watching every draw under the sun of FAF? Because it’s damn sure not going to be clear to the 1200 that just saw their opponent draw them and was told there was a draw exploit.

The bug here comes from an intuitive use of game mechanics. You can’t ban people for it without hitting a giant sieve of innocent players with warnings (which will do nothing to prevent the actual abusers and just scare innocent players) or bans (not even an option).

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.