A plea to the multihunters

[Mek]

please stop turning this game into a gigantic farce by allowing ship farming on the scale that it is.

It really makes a massive mockery of the game when people who are blatantly cheat they should be dealt with more severely. None of this removing fleet thing from the planets, close them. They are cheating afterall. Simply removing fleet doesn't resolve the issue, as they will just go and farm again from different planets.

<Benneh> carDi who shall i suicide on?
<@carDi>
<@carDi> on someone
<ATRO> wish, everyone else is
<@carDi> who is not top1/2/3
<@carDi> and make him top1
<@carDi> like some1 who is in top10
<@carDi> and crash on him
<Benneh> hahahaha
<@carDi> to make him top1
<@carDi> ;D
<ATRO> o/
<ATRO> :P
<Benneh> i only hvave 600k co :P

(sorry this is over 10 lines of quote)

is something i saw earlier (taken from the Apprime public channel - i am not using this as a snipe at App, before somebody says that i am)...i think it pretty much sums up the attitude of players in the community wiith regards to it. This open, and frankly blase, attitude to it is making a mockery of both the game and the multihunters who are meant to police this.

[Banned]

Like Benneh would ever crash.

[Linkie]

You can't close people without sufficient proof. Sorry, that's just the way it is.

[Mek]

Originally Posted by Linkie

You can't close people without sufficient proof. Sorry, that's just the way it is.

what would you define as sufficient proof?

[Linkie]

Originally Posted by Mek

what would you define as sufficient proof?

Proof that leaves out the possibility of being framed.

Edit: Honestly instead of all this whining people should be thinking of ways the game could be changed to make the cheating that occurs have less impact/harder to do.

Originally Posted by Mek

also as a side note...how manytimes in the last 10 rounds has the winner not been subject to speculation about fleet/salvage donations, galaxy fund donations or general cheating allegations?

I haven't been that into it, but outside of this and elviz, it hasn't been too bad, has it? And I don't think galaxy fund was illegal. And now there's restrictions on it.

[Mek]

Originally Posted by Linkie

Edit: Honestly instead of all this whining people should be thinking of ways the game could be changed to make the cheating that occurs have less impact/harder to do.

i agree, sorry if that wasn't articulated somehow. I just feel that people cheating to win a game devalues what we have left of this game and ruins the gaming experience for those who don't cheat and it is even more annoying that cheating is simply 'what you do' to get ahead in this game.....it really shouldn't be like this at all

[Linkie]

Originally Posted by Mek

i agree, sorry if that wasn't articulated somehow. I just feel that people cheating to win a game devalues what we have left of this game and ruins the gaming experience for those who don't cheat and it is even more annoying that cheating is simply 'what you do' to get ahead in this game.....it really shouldn't be like this at all

But how can you say for sure the crashes that has happened this round have been arranged beforehand? And I mean absolutely 100%-I-would-stick-my-dick-in-that-dirty-hoe-because-i-know-she's-clean sure. Innocent until proven guilty and all that jazz.

[Light]

Originally Posted by Linkie

You can't close people without sufficient proof. Sorry, that's just the way it is.

Actually, you cant close someone even with sufficient proof... as you need proof on every shipfarming planet as well for them to do anything.

Take elviz afew rounds ago, MH had enough proof to close him but didnt as they couldnt find enough proof on eksero to close eksero as well.. so left elviz open.


Should just turn salvage off for the last week when they turn off vacation mode.

[Knight Theamion]

Originally Posted by Light

Actually, you cant close someone even with sufficient proof... as you need proof on every shipfarming planet as well for them to do anything.

Take elviz afew rounds ago, MH had enough proof to close him but didnt as they couldnt find enough proof on eksero to close eksero as well.. so left elviz open.


Should just turn salvage off for the last week when they turn off vacation mode.

you mean 'you should just tell everyone to mass suicide on fleetcatches and/or attacks since it will never pay back anyway, stagnate the last week etc'


your idea has merit but should be something like, 'make salvage valueneutral the last week', you get max back what you lose, so 100% defender salvage if you kill enough of the attacker.

[Light]

Originally Posted by Knight Theamion

your idea has merit but should be something like, 'make salvage valueneutral the last week', you get max back what you lose, so 100% defender salvage if you kill enough of the attacker.

I'd prefer to make salvage value neutral all round. It isnt there to make a profit from, its there to help people who have been bashed.

[Knight Theamion]

Originally Posted by Light

I'd prefer to make salvage value neutral all round. It isnt there to make a profit from, its there to help people who have been bashed.

Actually I have heard several people of PA team say it was to encourage defending.

[Ronin]

Originally Posted by Linkie

You can't close people without sufficient proof. Sorry, that's just the way it is.

I remember, a couple of rounds back. Some guy Linkie won a round. But I'm pretty sure he wasnt ever online. He couldnt have been the one to find his targets every night! Cheat!

On topic:
You can't just close people down over some IRC conversation. And I have a feeling MultiHunters actually try to track these things down. But it's very hard to prove.

[Buly]

Apparently they don't close when it's obvious though, so what's the point in even having them? This Pommeh example proves how weak they are to players opinions on the closure.

[Paisley]

Originally Posted by Buly

Apparently they don't close when it's obvious though, so what's the point in even having them? This Pommeh example proves how weak they are to players opinions on the closure.

The senario that newt has given certainly supports thats

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes - it might be time / time coming where MHs might have to be audited. I dont think inhouse approach seems to be working effectively.

[Gabriel]

learn to handle a joke.

[Mek]

also as a side note...how manytimes in the last 10 rounds has the winner not been subject to speculation about fleet/salvage donations, galaxy fund donations or general cheating allegations?

[HRH_H_Crab]

Originally Posted by Mek

also as a side note...how manytimes in the last 10 rounds has the winner not been subject to speculation about fleet/salvage donations, galaxy fund donations or general cheating allegations?

I would offer the suggestion that it is because attempting to seriously clean up cheating in the game is like pissing up a flagpole.

[_Kila_]

I'm sure that with "innocent until proven guilty" the test used is whether the judge/jury has any reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty, it doesn't have to be "100%-I-would-stick-my-dick-in-that-dirty-hoe-because-i-know-she's-clean sure"

[Knight Theamion]

Stop whining, they are already removing ships of crashers where there is no clear breach of rules.

(which is I think a very dangerous path the MH's are on)

[Mzyxptlk]

Benneh didn't crash, so no rules were broken. What exactly is this topic about?

By the way, I'm crashing on Mek tomorrow. Better close us both.

[ellonweb]

I don't think this is meant to be an accusation of Benneh or Apprime, more just a moan at the sad state of affairs and the attitude of the community.

[ATRO]

Mek, i like you think there has been some dubious crashes/landings in the last week but it can't be proved and they could just as well be genuine.

I choose to laugh about it as I can't see the point getting angry about something i have no control over.

The quicker i can put this round behind me the better

[LukeyLove]

It is a major problem at the moment - there are some blatent cases out there of well-known friends crashing on one another e.g. Doddy on Reese (in which the ships werent even removed from Reese even though it was clearly intentional on Doddys part) The system used to work alot better - whether the rules have changed or the current MH's arent as strict is unclear - but it is evident it really isnt working. While it is often hard to close the planet that has farmed the ships as proof isnt easy to come by - the ships can be removed if the crashers attack is prooved intentional and the attacking planet can be closed. I'm not quite sure whats going on with the current 'lets remove some of the value gained but not the salvage' or somesuch shit - which really doesnt seem to work as they still get a large salvage bonus if nothing else.

In my opinion multi-round ban's would serve a function - alot of the reason people are willing to crash at this stage of the round is their planet has nothing left to play for and they want to ensure the success of their friends potentially winning themselves a favour or two in the future. Multi-round bans would stop this sort of farming - which appears to be the most common, while there maybe ways around this such as fake-nicking / IP changes etc it should still act to discourage as much farming.

[Knight Theamion]

Although it is silly, I think it is potentially far more dangerous when the following rule is roughly applied


'(Intentional) crashes are fine, unless they are in the last week and affecting the top 10 planets'.

That is just plainly retarded.

[MrLobster]

I remember years ago that most people just suicided their fleet at the end of the round at #1. I did it this round and got closed

Not that I was bothered, I was outside top 400 on score.

Its seems you get banned for crashing your fleet now. However its also seems you can attack someone smaller than you and get the #1 guy to defend and hey presto donation without proof.

It means that anyone in the top #10 cant do anything for the last few weeks of the round for fear of being called cheaters.

Perhaps we need to have a limit on how far above your score you can attack, and also how far below your score you can defend. Or perhaps better still when we pick our targets to attack we ask the Multihunters if we can launch...

[Knight Theamion]

Yeah, and if you want to go to your parents and log in there you better find out that ip first, notify the multihunters and then log in...

[JonnyBGood]

In order to close the planet being donated to you should have proof that there's actually some intention on his part. It gets pretty hazy at times and is also fairly annoying. Say I'm #1 and you decide to suicide on me and pm me to say so. I say no thanks but you launch anyways. I go into the staggeringly inactive #multihunters channel and try to find someone to do something but what can they actually do anyways? Stop you from launching? And then you go, ****s sake, I wasn't going to land, I just pmed him that to make him think I was going to suicide to keep his fleet grounded. But what if you didn't actually mean that and you do suicide and end up grounding my fleet for 7/8/9 ticks only for me to get all the "donation" removed anyways? So you cheated, I did nothing wrong and yet my fleet had to remain at home for ~8 hours? Sounds fair.

Also pretty sure benneh was joking as he's in my gal and I don't think we'd bother. Unless it caused immense amounts of hassle and made people emo like this. Then we might.

Originally Posted by Mek

also as a side note...how manytimes in the last 10 rounds has the winner not been subject to speculation about fleet/salvage donations, galaxy fund donations or general cheating allegations?

Ignoring all rounds won by elviz (lolz etc) r26 there wasn't much controversy cheating wise, everyone just thought cronix was a selfish defwhore who used his alliance to get his #1. R27 was won by linkie who is only slightly more likely to be bothered cheating than a person who doesn't have an actual account. r28 voodoo won by miles just by virtue of not getting attacked. r29 there were escorts and some standard end of round suicides which made the difference between sunny and achi but neither ever accused the other of cheating and I didn't see or hear anything to suggest there was. R31 santa won by virtue of not getting attacked. r32 fairly similar for eksero and given that the top 4 planets were all his bp I doubt any of them cheated to beat the others. r33 I never saw anything to suggest reese cheated.

There's always a lot of controversy over zik planets and shit. However given that, up until this round, only 1 round has ever been won by a zik planet (for serious) it's not that common (although obviously etd pop up a bit as well).


PS In fairness theam I've logged in from a ****ing ton of random places, various friends, my girlfriend's, I'm pretty sure I've logged in while on holidays etc. I just don't login 5 minutes later from home

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

only 1 round has ever been won by a zik planet (for serious)

Holy shit, this is actually true (r13).

[t3k]

Come on JBG, it was obviously the latter.

[Alki]

Yeah thats a pretty lol fact right there, didnt realise

[JonnyBGood]

Multihunters don't talk about cases. They don't even post on the forums to say they don't talk about cases, mainly because they rarely, if ever, read the forums (I think it's a pre-requisite for working for PA these days). They also won't talk about how utterly retarded this policy makes them look. But hey, on the bright side, here's a picture of a rabbit.

[Light]

The winners are usually from the top alliances and as those alliance HC's are the only ones the PA Team listen to.... why would they agree to fixing donations?

Originally Posted by Knight Theamion

Actually I have heard several people of PA team say it was to encourage defending.

PA Team cant remember crap.

[HRH_H_Crab]

Originally Posted by Light

The winners are usually from the top alliances and as those alliance HC's are the only ones the PA Team listen to.... why would they agree to fixing donations? PA Team cant remember crap.

I think that is an absolutely terrible attitude.
PA Team and the multihunters have to deal with a game engine that has evolved in such a way that there are fantastic opportunities for all kinds of cheating.

Impacting this, is the fact that any attempt to address that problem is likely to render the game unrecognizable from the form that the player base has grown to love (in so far as there are players that still love the game).

The fact that they even bother to take on the futile task of trying to keep people honest is something that they should be applauded for, not ridiculed.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Light

The winners are usually from the top alliances and as those alliance HC's are the only ones the PA Team listen to.... why would they agree to fixing donations?

Are you implying that pateam listen to the HCs from Ascendancy/Apprime more than others? Because I'm lirling if so.

Originally Posted by Light

I'd prefer to make salvage value neutral all round. It isnt there to make a profit from, its there to help people who have been bashed.

Talking about purposes is a waste of time really. I mean salvage was originally introduced in round 4 by a team who don't even play the game, never mind control it, any more.


Introducing a "salvage is value neutral" system to solely affect the top 10 planets is retarded though. Why don't we just automatically reset everyone to the same score every sunday morning and play out the round that way!

[MrLobster]

But if defenders get back at least most (but not more) of what they lose then defending isnt a waste of resource and time.

But if you get something for nothing then it can and will be abused.

The game should be able to run pretty much on its own without the need for intervention.

[JonnyBGood]

If there was zero salvage defence still would be worth it in certain scenarios. Pretty hilarious you're calling it abuse considering you decided to suicide your own fleet on the then #1 planet for no reason.

[Light]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Are you implying that pateam listen to the HCs from Ascendancy/Apprime more than others? Because I'm lirling if so.

I think the PA Team listens to Alliance HC's more than its community, why else would they set up a alliance HC channel to talk to them about changes?

Introducing a "salvage is value neutral" system to solely affect the top 10 planets is retarded though. Why don't we just automatically reset everyone to the same score every sunday morning and play out the round that way!

I just dont think you should be able to profit from salvage.

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

If there was zero salvage defence still would be worth it in certain scenarios. Pretty hilarious you're calling it abuse considering you decided to suicide your own fleet on the then #1 planet for no reason.

Value neutral salvage.. So if a random suicided on the #1 planet.. then the #1 planet would lose 0 value.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Light

I think the PA Team listens to Alliance HC's more than its community, why else would they set up a alliance HC channel to talk to them about changes?

Right. But the #1 planets have only come from a fairly select group for a long time. In reality most of the hcs in there very rarely have winning planets in their alliance and don't really give a shit either way what affects them. Mostly they're after the retention of the status quo in order to insure that their shitty little positions of authority remain as they are for as long as possible.

I just dont think you should be able to profit from salvage.

Why? Even from one of those stupid realism perspectives it makes sense that you can (you kill all the enemy ships before they fire and use their random bits of ship floating around to build more ships).

Value neutral salvage.. So if a random suicided on the #1 planet.. then the #1 planet would lose 0 value.

Yeah, having my fleet grounded for 8 ticks just so some ****wad can suicide on me sounds like fantastic fun.

[newt]

You're right, that is quite an unsummountable contradiction. You may call me Newt then. I am awaiting permission to divulge the full uncensored story of THE incident.

[Buly]

Please do so newt, I'd love to hear it.

[Ace]

the "affects the ranking so much" part means in the last few weeks we go over the top planets (not just top 10) more in regards to donations/crashers etc.
I didnt say we "discipline" the top 10 planets more then say a ranked 600 planet.

[Knight Theamion]

Originally Posted by Ace

the "affects the ranking so much" part means in the last few weeks we go over the top planets (not just top 10) more in regards to donations/crashers etc.
I didnt say we "discipline" the top 10 planets more then say a ranked 600 planet.

It's a sketchy area you are in then as a multihunter. What you say is that if you want to cheat, you better do it in the earlier stages, get value steals there and so forth then in the later weeks.
Also 'top planets'. It can be the different of winning or losing as a tag or galaxy if you get people to suicide on the small planets that barely count for tag etc.
It's just so subjective you shouldn't do it, or should do it properly Ace.

[Knight Theamion]

They aren't really following a strict set of rules.
For instance in my case i had someone suiciding on me and with tick 1 and tick 3 (it was a 3 tick suicide, pinning my fleet down for 11 ticks :S) I almost had a 1 mill valuesteal. With tick 2 his FR crashing on me which was after salvage (it was ugly) barely a profit.

Because I immediately spend my salvage, what was removed from the crash was the valuesteal of tick 1 and 3 and not tick 2. Also the already spend salvage was never removed because it couldn't be 'traced back' and I said that I refused to 'save it up' (i could have saved up the ammount of resources in the remaining ticks).

So to answer your question Paisley: No, they do not always act on a straight set of rules and just 'try to do whats best'. If they managed to remove the crash properly (still, why it should have been removed is beyond me. Someone, outside of my knowledge, decides to suicide on me. I cover the waves ingal with signs (who ended 4th) so that if he sends full he gets fully frozen. I get a value steal on tick 1, ugly kill pure salvage on tick 2, and another valuesteal on tick 3 as i had an AU and guessed he send all fleet at me so I could maximize tick 3) I would probably have ended 9th instead of 8th, but alas.

[Assassin]

To be honest its a difficult subject here. I was a MH for a few rounds, some of which i was of course the head MH (at one point was only myself and Squishy actually hunting which i guess did help in a way to be more consistant) however... i was also nicknamed the Hitler of PA due too i was said to be too strict. (ie i brought in the support planet rule during a round when a certain alliance was first, and was said to be biased against that alliance)

Hence my point if you do actually punish top players (which i had no problem with doing at all) you get bitched at.... for stupid reasons such as 'oh your biased against them and for another alliance/player' or other stupid reasons.


However, i also agree as i have mentioned in several threads already for the past 2-3 rounds the current MH situation is terrible with no consistancy... ie theres no procedures anymore for been closed/warned. Now its whateva the MH dealing with you sees fit bassically... Btw though on a side note when i was in charge people said i was at the time anti exi and for 1up.. so as a laugh to take the piss i joined 1up after i left PA team.. however Ace is a former CT HC and remy left MH to HC ct... how come no one gives them stick? :/

[Buly]

Anyone in charge of anything always gets called Hitler or something like that sooner or later Assassin, that's just the way it works.

It's worse that they're to cowardly to close anyone than that they don't see too that rules are followed.

I feel like it's very tempting to cheat as a zik seeing how easy it is and how easily you get away with it.

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Assassin

(ie i brought in the support planet rule during a round when a certain alliance was first, and was said to be biased against that alliance)

Hence my point if you do actually punish top players (which i had no problem with doing at all) you get bitched at.... for stupid reasons such as 'oh your biased against them and for another alliance/player' or other stupid reasons.

You brought in the support rule during a round of eXilition dominance - and subsequently stopped enforcing it during a round of 1up dominance, by words of mazzelaar, actually granting them a permission to use support planets. In no fashion was the support planet rule too strict: it was simply enforced for a selected group of people and turned a blind eye on for another group.

People can be surprisingly aware of who gets closed and why others aren't - spotting inconsistency isn't that hard. You'll get nailed for it really fast if you start pulling off stunts. The whole problem of the system might invoke from the fact that of recently all the hunters have been heavily community involved: you're now calling the joining 1up a "joke", and nobody's going to pull anything else off you, but it was no wonder you did so. Your affiliation to them was undeniable and noticeable from your rules enforcement. Similar things probably apply to Ace and Remy if you look close enough. It's not very easy to shake off burden of strong affiliations from rules enforcing, and this is why it's relatively bad to nominate heavily alliance community involved figures to the job.

Btw though on a side note when i was in charge people said i was at the time anti exi and for 1up.. so as a laugh to take the piss i joined 1up after i left PA team.. however Ace is a former CT HC and remy left MH to HC ct... how come no one gives them stick? :/

People do give them the stick for this, people have been giving the stick about this for ages. During your career - the time of which I was active - nothing was any more consistent than after.

Originally Posted by Buly

It's worse that they're to cowardly to close anyone than that they don't see too that rules are followed.

It's not about cowardice on times - sometimes it's about affiliation, friendship, mutual respect, and promises made to both sides - eg. "be nice, you get to join our alliance next round".

[Assassin]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

You brought in the support rule during a round of eXilition dominance - and subsequently stopped enforcing it during a round of 1up dominance, by words of mazzelaar, actually granting them a permission to use support planets. In no fashion was the support planet rule too strict: it was simply enforced for a selected group of people and turned a blind eye on for another group.

People can be surprisingly aware of who gets closed and why others aren't - spotting inconsistency isn't that hard. You'll get nailed for it really fast if you start pulling off stunts. The whole problem of the system might invoke from the fact that of recently all the hunters have been heavily community involved: you're now calling the joining 1up a "joke", and nobody's going to pull anything else off you, but it was no wonder you did so. Your affiliation to them was undeniable and noticeable from your rules enforcement. Similar things probably apply to Ace and Remy if you look close enough. It's not very easy to shake off burden of strong affiliations from rules enforcing, and this is why it's relatively bad to nominate heavily alliance community involved figures to the job.



People do give them the stick for this, people have been giving the stick about this for ages. During your career - the time of which I was active - nothing was any more consistent than after.



It's not about cowardice on times - sometimes it's about affiliation, friendship, mutual respect, and promises made to both sides - eg. "be nice, you get to join our alliance next round".

I was wondering when my biggest fan would appear i was going to actually mention 'when is kj going to appear after this post?' suprised you managed to wait more then 24 hours tbh... but anyway hi

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Assassin

I was wondering when my biggest fan would appear i was going to actually mention 'when is kj going to appear after this post?' suprised you managed to wait more then 24 hours tbh... but anyway hi

Seriously, you should at least try reply something tangible and useful instead of this. One day someone's gonna stab you.

[Willzzz]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Seriously, you should at least try reply something tangible and useful instead of this. One day someone's gonna stab you.

And of course that was really clever mentioning to assman regarding him been stabbed wasnt it you little troll? Take your own advice as i also recall you keep going on about assman been biased in every post maybe you need to get yourself a new hobby?

[Paisley]

At least you stuck to your guns assassin