The Rise of the Machine - Some Stories Don't Have Happy Endings.

[Compassghost]

Author's Note: The person in question is not named in this article.

 

This is a story about how a machine, nuanced in the abilities of going forwards and nothing else, beat me in World of Warships. This story covers the two months over which my confidence in the ticket-based support and moderation system slowly waned and eventually died. I'm not the hero of this story... I don't believe that this situation deserves any special action because of who I am, but that all players who put in a support ticket with serious evidence get an honest, serious look by the moderation team with an honest, serious response. I can't attest to that at this point based on my experiences alone, and that's not a good sign.

 

 

About two months ago, I came across an interesting scenario. A player, in an Amagi, driving straight into B on Neighbors, without turning once, and dying. I thought nothing of it at the time since I didn't observe it, until I went back and watched the replay because I couldn't recall how a BB died on B. The ship did not deviate at all, traveling straight forward from its spawn point to B.

 

To be fair, this sounds like a lot of players, but something seemed really fishy about this, and I checked this unnamed player's stats out. Below is the recreation of my original investigation, using today's stats.

 

Exhibit A - Stats of the player as of Today

 

Back then, the stats were just as bad. I don't like to call people out for being red, but this is pretty red. And to top it off, about 50 games a day. I don't know of many people who can pull off 50 games a day. If it were me, I'd have burned out two weeks in.

 

Then I realized I had also encountered the person in Ranked, and he was nowhere as bad.

Exhibit B - Ranked Stats

 

Yup, something was up here. This person isn't half bad in Ranked, as if he were a real person. However, what I saw in Random was completely different. This person appeared to be purposely joining matches and pressing W, and then going AFK, allowing the enemy team to kill him.

 

And he was doing it often. In the past 90 days, as of this post, he has played almost 5000 games. Granted, most of those are pretty bad games, averaging about 475 XP. Compass, why do you care? It's really almost no XP at all!

 

Well, it sure adds up. 5000 games x 475 XP = 2,375,000 XP gained for really nothing more than pressing W. Not even really playing the game, though based on the current definition, it is.

 

We can examine the ship stats further to see that there is, at times, a player behind the wheel.

Exhibit C: Some of the worst average damages and win rates I've seen.

 

When we sort by damage done, however, it becomes readily apparent that this person is basically using Random matches as a stepping stone for T10s.

 

Exhibit D: Player Actually Trying

 

Obviously, the progress isn't pretty over the past 3 months.

Exhibit E: Doesn't go back far enough to show when it started.

 

At this point, I filed everything into a nice report, submitted it, and got a response about how an investigation would be held into the player's behavior.

 

Sure. I'll let you infer the rest of the story from there.

 

Two weeks ago, the same player in question appeared. Yup, still at it. 

 

 

This is footage I captured of the player in question. Another ticket goes in. Same response comes back. And at this point, the frustration peaks. This player treats the rest of the community like dirt. Worse than a DC/crash, since this person knows exactly what he is doing, and is still willing to put his team in an 11 v 12 situation for some quick XP.

 

Holding on to a glimmer of hope, I check in daily. The player usually plays when I'm at work, so I can check his stats throughout the day. Sure enough, they consistently update.

 

And that brings us to today.

 

Today, this player likely received 600 Dragon Flags for his timeless effort. 450 flags for having more than 8000 battles under his belt, and 150 flags for the 3 tier 10s he got while doing it. Congratulations, player.

 

You have successfully gamed the system.

 

You have shown me the futility of my ways in trying to stop you from exploiting your team for your own personal advantage.

 

You have won.

[Personator]

... wow 

 

[TransWarpWS6]

wow,thats bad

 

But how is he getting any damage if he just starts the battle and hits w?

 

[IKU19]

 

 It must've been weekend 

[Lert]

 

In all seriousness, that's just copulated in an ascending direction.

[MnemonScarlet]

This is what happens when you can fail to the top, with no prerequisite but pressing Battle enough times~

[TenguBlade]

The problem for WG is that he isn't technically botting and is legitimately playing at times.  Their hands are somewhat tied when it comes to dealing with this matter, because it's a legitimate player that is using a loophole.  The fact that spotting XP is now a thing doesn't help minimize incentive.

 

If it cheers you up, the new rewards system from 0.5.12 will hopefully go a way towards fixing this.  WG is aware the loophole exists, it seems.

This is what happens when you can fail to the top, with no prerequisite but pressing Battle enough times~

The thing is, this player actually does fairly well when he drives his ships; his Yamato stats are better than mine.  He's cheating the game because he found a loophole that WG didn't close.

[10T0nHammer]

I've run into players with 7000+ battles averaging about 7k damage a game. Most likely using literal bot programs (watched a Hipper swim circles firing torpedoes at nothing during a cyclone, only was able to acquire targets when cyclone ceased). I've reported him the 3 times he has been in game. Still playing...

[RogueFlameHaze]

Interesting post.. hopefully wargaming looks into players like this, though im not sure if they will do anything about it really.

[TenguBlade]

Interesting post.. hopefully wargaming looks into players like this, though im not sure if they will do anything about it really.

Well, we don't know if he was actually botting.  He actually uses his ships properly in some instances, and when he's not, all he does is mash "W" and wait to die.  Bot programs can do more than that, and he's probably aware that a bot program will get him banned.

 

If he indeed isn't botting and is just mashing "W" and DCing after he's dead to start another battle, then this is a loophole WG can't close via the rules.  To do so they would be asserting a right to pretty much ban people for being bad, because other than testimony from players - which can be biased - they don't have anything out of the ordinary to levy against said player under the current rules.  They don't keep logs of our actions on their servers, hence why no autobanning system exists in this game.  The 0.5.12 economy rework might cause future emulators to profit less from this tactic, but it can't close the loophole completely because spotting XP and credits are a thing now.

[BlazerSparta]

Who cares? They aren't affecting your performance.

 

It's not like teamwork and winning actually matters for having fun and earning rewards.

[1nv4d3rZ1m]

Well its not hard to reverse engineer the identity of this user. I agree that is very scumbag even more than the guy that kills himself in his CV if he does not like the matchup. 

[ScrappyC0co]

That's some serious botting. Damn, hope he gets banned for good.

[MnemonScarlet]

The thing is, this player actually does fairly well when he drives his ships; his Yamato stats are better than mine.  He's cheating the game because he found a loophole that WG didn't close.

 

Not the same thing as bads who fail their way to T10, but enabled by that same lack of checks on progression.

[Tachnechdorus]

Why should they? It's a business money talks and B.S. walks ! ! !  

[The_GoDDfather]

Oh my...... I'd like to imagine the WG investigation team is doing something.....maybe....

[IKU19]

Well, we don't know if he was actually botting.  He actually uses his ships properly in some instances, and when he's not, all he does is mash "W" and wait to die.  Bot programs can do more than that, and he's probably aware that a bot program will get him banned.

 

If he indeed isn't botting and is just mashing "W" and DCing after he's dead to start another battle, then this is a loophole WG can't close via the rules.  To do so they would be asserting a right to pretty much ban people for being bad, because other than testimony from players - which can be biased - they don't have anything out of the ordinary to levy against said player under the current rules.  They don't keep logs of our actions on their servers, hence why no autobanning system exists in this game.  The 0.5.12 economy rework might cause future emulators to profit less from this tactic, but it can't close the loophole completely because spotting XP and credits are a thing now.

 

It's passive behavior which is against the EULA.

[1nv4d3rZ1m]

You could say that this player is definitely not a Noble Cetacea.

[TruePoindexter]

Who cares? They aren't affecting your performance.

 

It's not like teamwork and winning actually matters for having fun and earning rewards.

 

It does for me. I do not enjoy losing. 

 

 

[Nuk_]

You could say that this player is definitely not a Noble Cetacea.

 

[BlazerSparta]

It's passive behavior which is against the EULA.

 

Or, it's incompetency.

 

The EULA is worthless in that it's almost completely subjective.

[NeonPeanuts]

Isn't the way XP is earned getting reworked next patch? I seem to recall that if you do no damage, you get no XP now.

[kerensky914]

Who cares? They aren't affecting your performance.

 

It's not like teamwork and winning actually matters for having fun and earning rewards.

 

This from one of the main guys who complains incesssantly about detonations because they influence the outcome of games.  And this behavior doesn't?

[ButtesVonToota]

Wow, why bother with premium time when you can get the same result with sheer blunt force 

[1nv4d3rZ1m]

 

Or, it's incompetency.

 

The EULA is worthless in that it's almost completely subjective.

 

It is not incompetency,  the player in question obviously has some level of competency that he chooses to use extremely sparingly.