[Discussion] Match Fixing Policy

[gbwead]

I would like to discuss the current match fixing policy and invite others to share their thoughts on the matter.

 

There is match fixing in every single tournament, but nearly no one ever gets banned for it. Since hardly anyone gets punished for match fixing, players assume forfeiting vs friends is completely fine. It’s common practice really. I don’t have facts to back up this statement because providing facts would mean calling out players or snitching on them. I don’t want this thread to become that so I really hope whoever is reading this will take my statement “match fixing is common practice” as face value. 

 

Tournament players witness match fixing all the time, but staff members only when a report is made. This is quite problematic because the only time players will be punished for match fixing is when someone has a vendetta against them to the point where they will make a report. Rules apply to everyone and therefore should also be enforced in regards to everyone, not only the high profile players or the hated players. This has already led to witch hunts and more are to be expected if this unhealthy way of dealing with match fixing remains.

 

Match fixing on ladder is also very different to match fixing in tournaments. When we see match fixing in tournaments, the only people affected by the match fixing are the players of that specific duel. If a player chooses to abandon, that’s on them and no one else suffers because of it. It’s their problem. When there is match fixing on the ladder, every single competitor on the ladder gets affected negatively. When a player boosts the ELO of another by losing on purpose, all the other players on the ladder lose a spot on the rankings in comparison to the player that got boosted. Ladder match fixing is unfair and something must be done about that.

 

When it comes to punishments, there should be a big distinction between punishing match fixing on ladder and match fixing in tournaments. However, it would be in my opinion more appropriate to put in place some measures that would reduce match fixing in general. For instance, a warning message regarding match fixing integrated in the current “Are you sure you want to forfeit message?” could go a long way in making players aware that match fixing is forbidden. 

 

Anyhow, I’m glad something is done about match fixing, but I think some aspects of this issue need to be addressed and clarified.

[NiceRNGbro]

I don't have much to say other than agreeing, it really is a COMMON and repulsive practice. Players have to be punished which doesn't usually happen, sometimes they don't even do it with malice, but think "Ah, my friend! I'll help you :D" and end up giving up.

 

A relatively stable or good player and a group of friends can very, very easily trade wins in lower tiers, because not many players are playing. 

 

Not to mention the Metronome/UT/Memes battles that occur in official tournaments (mostly in CCS) when friendly players realize they are up against each other.

 

As you said, I'm not going to point fingers at one or the other here, but I've seen strange things several times in the rankeds of our game, involving certain Asian players... 

 

What's left for those who don't agree with that, it's reporting and not doing it, and that's all.

 

It should be common sense not to commit this practice, but we are selfish.

[caioxlive13]

Well, not only Match fixing is a problem on PvP. We have a rotten opponent balancing(That explain part of Inactivity on lower tiers) and also a rule that is necessary and good in theory, but the way that he got implemented is a trash: 1 hour penalty for disconnection(I know, the rule is there to avoid people timestall opponent. The problem is the system can't recognize when a people are disconnecting for trolling(Timestall or disconnect) and when the disconnect aren't by trolling(you lost internet connection for some minutes due to any reason, or game crashes by OutOfMemory error for example).

 

All matchmaking should be re-evaluated, not only Match Fixing(Normal Chat is blocked so they only need to block whispers, if they try to matchfix they need to do or via discord(that could easily be noticed due to one player taking too long to move) or via a public chat where logs can be checked)

 

Also:

29 minutes ago, NiceRNGbro said:

Not to mention the Metronome/UT/Memes battles that occur in official tournaments (mostly in CCS) when friendly players realize they are up against each other.

I don't see this as a problem. They just agree to play in other formats. They aren't trading wins. They just want to have some fun. You pointed that happens on Community Combats, is because the prizes are Worthless. 800k you easily farm and the prize mon is cheap. And since CCs happen every week, their prize can't be buffed to not ruin economy.

Edited April 2, 2023 by caioxlive13

[Poufilou]

The tournament thing shouldn't be banned, ppl should have freedom to troll against their friend without consequences, the one thing that could be determinant for a ban there is if there is a transaction of any kind between players. 

 

Ladder matches however need to be punished because the game itself is sort of transaction. I have witnessed behavior on ladder that is very sus but it's hard to report because you would basically need to record a game (multiple for good measure I guess) and comment it since GMs don't always understand as much PvP and what is or isn't obvious match fixing within a community they don't always know that is relatively small (ladder spammers). 

Edited April 2, 2023 by Poufilou

[Seth]

1 hour ago, Poufilou said:

GMs don't always understand as much PvP

Untrue - need to be more specific cause we rock metronome

[razimove]

I've actively reported this in the past, and I do know some got punished for it. Although I think this should be actively looked into it by the staff.

[caioxlive13]

4 hours ago, Poufilou said:

The tournament thing shouldn't be banned, ppl should have freedom to troll against their friend without consequences, the one thing that could be determinant for a ban there is if there is a transaction of any kind between players. 

 

Ladder matches however need to be punished because the game itself is sort of transaction. I have witnessed behavior on ladder that is very sus but it's hard to report because you would basically need to record a game (multiple for good measure I guess) and comment it since GMs don't always understand as much PvP and what is or isn't obvious match fixing within a community they don't always know that is relatively small (ladder spammers). 

Tournament thing is not a big problem. Gb sayed: When you exchange wins on tours, only affected is you and your opponent. You're like: I don't care to the prize, take if you want.

 

Also people play Metronome, Untiered or LC on tour finals isn't a big problem. At the end of day, they are trying to get fun on a match. They aren't exchanging wins. 

 

On ladder exchanging wins is a problem. It affects all players on ladder when you lose to a people multiple times and boost their Elo. But we need to ask not for a solution for this and yes to the entire metagaming. Some of problems:

- We have a 1 hour penalty for disconnection.  On theory it sounds good. However, this rule is trash due to system can't recognize when the people disconnected because they want and when it disconnected due to internet or app error, etc... Rework it to system differ both cases or reduce the penalty.

- Bad tiering. We had this problem since HA become avaliable on game. People suggest some solutions like adjust cut-offs to reduce movement rate or de-sync OU/UU with UU/NU movements. However usage by himself are chaotic. So, the better would be abandon ladder usage and use usage from tournaments(Most likely Quarterfinals onward) to tiering because this usage represents better who is good and who isn't.

- No balancing. I need to Explain? Some weeks ago a 108 Elo(Aka OliverXL losing on purpose) faced top 1 at the time, USmx. 

Why not having balancing is a problem? Because if a player faces only players very above their level and lose to it, they would be unhappy and probablly would give up from PvP. One of main reasons to people not play UU/NU, you actually can't play 2 matches on those tiers and on at least one of them didn't face a top rank.

[Bearminator]

  

15 hours ago, gbwead said:

There is match fixing in every single tournament, but nearly no one ever gets banned for it. Since hardly anyone gets punished for match fixing, players assume forfeiting vs friends is completely fine. It’s common practice really. I don’t have facts to back up this statement because providing facts would mean calling out players or snitching on them. I don’t want this thread to become that so I really hope whoever is reading this will take my statement “match fixing is common practice” as face value. 

 

15 hours ago, gbwead said:

Match fixing on ladder is also very different to match fixing in tournaments. When we see match fixing in tournaments, the only people affected by the match fixing are the players of that specific duel. 

13 hours ago, NiceRNGbro said:

 

Not to mention the Metronome/UT/Memes battles that occur in official tournaments (mostly in CCS) when friendly players realize they are up against each other.

 

4 hours ago, Poufilou said:

The tournament thing shouldn't be banned, ppl should have freedom to troll against their friend without consequences, the one thing that could be determinant for a ban there is if there is a transaction of any kind between players. 

 

Hi, quoting those above as a start.

 

1. We do get match-fixing reports of tournaments for longer than last month. It's not always match-fixing, so we don't always act. Some names in past were banned, if they refused to share that info with other players, dunno what else I can say. We don't ban only big names, you just hear about big names.

 

2. Match fixing in tournaments is affecting other players as well. You need to try to beat your opponent, and meanwhile, other person gets the free win and a chance to see your match quickly to see how you play. It is advantageous. We are not interested in giving players option to match fix against friend cause they feel like it.

 

 

However, I think there's a misunderstanding on what we consider match-fixing and what not. 

 

a) Metronome/UU/meme team battle when two friends meet in a tournament IS NOT MATCH FIXING.

   - However, "meme" part is sometimes abused. It's not meme when you have an OU team and 1 meme pokemon, and another person has LC pokes with him.

      Meme match is using LC vs LC, in a legit way.

 

    - If two players will agree to for example metronome battle, then one will bring serious team, we will not act, unless we will have suspicions supported by other  instances/similar behaviour.  (aka if it will be abused to hide matchfixing)

 

b) Forfeiting for your friend can be considered match fixing.

 

c)  Blatantly letting your friend win in a duel that you practically won / could've won still is match-fixing.

 

Those are examples, but I think you need to understand we will not ban players from metronome matches. We will tho ban those who abuse those rules and try to cheese out wins.

 

d) Paying in any way for match outcome is match fixing at it's finest.

 

4. Match-fixing on the ladder is a bit more destructive than match-fixing in a tournament, but both are unfair to other players and both are investigated equally. 

 

 

5. About the presence of staff: it's not feasible for us to watch every match of every tournament, so we do have to rely on reports to point out suspicious battles - but that doesn't mean we don't investigate on our own. 
 Matchmaking is a bit more difficult due to the lack of replays, but when presented with recordings of full battle logs, or when we investigate them at the time of battles occurring, we can act. A lot of investigations started with us checking suspicious players' matches. 

 

 

[RysPicz]

18 minutes ago, Bearminator said:

  c)  Blatantly letting your friend win in a duel that you practically won / could've won still is match-fixing.

Ok, I will admit I have done literally this thing in the past (like idk... 4-5 years ago?). Am I in trouble? 😞 

[gbwead]

2 hours ago, Bearminator said:

1. We do get match-fixing reports of tournaments for longer than last month. It's not always match-fixing, so we don't always act. Some names in past were banned, if they refused to share that info with other players, dunno what else I can say. We don't ban only big names, you just hear about big names.

99.99% of match-fixing in tournaments result in no consequence. I'm not saying you only ban big names, I'm saying you only ban players that get reported and those represent almost nothing.

 

2 hours ago, Bearminator said:

2. Match fixing in tournaments is affecting other players as well. You need to try to beat your opponent, and meanwhile, other person gets the free win and a chance to see your match quickly to see how you play. It is advantageous. We are not interested in giving players option to match fix against friend cause they feel like it.

This is not much different than getting a bye when there are not enough players to fill a tournament. Not a big deal imo. This also doesn't apply to finals.

 

On a seperate note, what are your thoughts about players that join tournaments but can't stay until the finals? 

 

Could you clarify the following situation and what would be the consequences?

I join a tournament and reach round 3. I know who my opponent will be because my opponent has been stalling the tournament. I get an emergency call and I have to leave in the next 30 mins. There is no way for me to finish the tournament. What happens? Am I allowed to not play my duel? Am I allowed to forfeit my duel even if I am winning? Is there a difference between forfeiting/not playing vs a friend compared to someone I don't know?

Edited April 2, 2023 by gbwead

[Rychell]

I'm done with PvP, I'm hacking MMO.

[Bearminator]

1 hour ago, gbwead said:

On a seperate note, what are your thoughts about players that join tournaments but can't stay until the finals? 

 

Could you clarify the following situation and what would be the consequences?

I join a tournament and reach round 3. I know who my opponent will be because my opponent has been stalling the tournament. I get an emergency call and I have to leave in the next 30 mins. There is no way for me to finish the tournament. What happens? Am I allowed to not play my duel? Am I allowed to forfeit my duel even if I am winning? Is there a difference between forfeiting/not playing vs a friend compared to someone I don't know?

We are not interested in banning a person that joins the tournament but can't stay. It's absolutely different. 
We will always look at connections and see if there are ongoing situations. We will not ban for something we are unsure of, or for one semi-transparent occurrence.  So it all goes down to intention.

 

 

 

As per your other points from message above, agree to disagree cause we are not changing that by allowing people to let friends advance.

[LifeStyleNORE]

2 hours ago, Bearminator said:

Forfeiting for your friend can be considered match fixing.

I'd like to highlight this just to make sure:

 

- You get paired with a friend. 

 

- You don't really feel like carrying on with the tournament (There's just those days when you think you feel like joining a tournament, but get bored of the game midway through it).

 

- You forfeit. 

 

- Your friend doesn't really agree to that, but whatever it's not like he can stop you from doing it. 

 

Is that match fixing? 

[drewq]

99% of evidence gathered will be inconclusive. I'd rather punishments be restricted to egregious cases than risk punishing innocent players in the various edge cases others mentioned. 

[caioxlive13]

7 hours ago, LifeStyleNORE said:

I'd like to highlight this just to make sure:

 

- You get paired with a friend. 

 

- You don't really feel like carrying on with the tournament (There's just those days when you think you feel like joining a tournament, but get bored of the game midway through it).

 

- You forfeit. 

 

- Your friend doesn't really agree to that, but whatever it's not like he can stop you from doing it. 

 

Is that match fixing? 

Of course if you forfeit for a valid reason, will not. Bear says: "can be", not "will be". If you just forfeit for a valid reason, just tired because the tour extended more than intended because two players are still on round 2 stalling, or you had a emergency and are forced to leave, ok, fine, you would not be punished for that. If you get money, mons, or other type of benefits for forfeiting, like money IRL or roles in a discord server for instance, then it can be reportable for Match fixing. 

Edited April 2, 2023 by caioxlive13

[gbwead]

@Bearminator Thanks for your reply. It's appreciated. However, I fear the problem of match fixing remains quite vague for many of us. Could you please fill the following table, so we can all be on the same page?

 

 

Fillable table in spoilers:

Spoiler

A = Acceptable / U = Unacceptable / D = Depends		Opponent
		Stranger			Friend			Teammate
Loser's intentions were to play the tournament until...	Winner's intentions were to...	The way the duel was lost
		Throwing	Forfeiting	Not signing up	Throwing	Forfeiting	Not signing up	Throwing	Forfeiting	Not signing up
...they got bored or had to leave.	...earn the win.
	...pay the loser to get the win.
	...skip the duel to prepare against the competition.
...they faced someone they wanted to see win.	...earn the win.
	...pay the loser to get the win.
	...skip the duel to prepare against the competition.
...they faced someone that would pay them for losing.	...earn the win.
	...pay the loser to get the win.
	...skip the duel to prepare against the competition.

I realise my request could be seen as me just being annoying, but I can assure you that this is not my intention and I only seek clarity on this matter.

 

 

Edited April 3, 2023 by gbwead

[Bearminator]

18 hours ago, LifeStyleNORE said:

I'd like to highlight this just to make sure:

 

- You get paired with a friend. 

 

- You don't really feel like carrying on with the tournament (There's just those days when you think you feel like joining a tournament, but get bored of the game midway through it).

 

- You forfeit. 

 

- Your friend doesn't really agree to that, but whatever it's not like he can stop you from doing it. 

 

Is that match fixing? 

 

17 hours ago, drewq said:

99% of evidence gathered will be inconclusive. I'd rather punishments be restricted to egregious cases than risk punishing innocent players in the various edge cases others mentioned. 

 

10 hours ago, gbwead said:

@Bearminator Thanks for your reply. It's appreciated. However, I fear the problem of match fixing remains quite vague for many of us. Could you please fill the following table, so we can all be on the same page?

 

 

Fillable table in spoilers:

  Reveal hidden contents

A = Acceptable / U = Unacceptable / D = Depends		Opponent
		Stranger			Friend			Teammate
Loser's intentions were to play the tournament until...	Winner's intentions were to...	The way the duel was lost
		Throwing	Forfeiting	Not signing up	Throwing	Forfeiting	Not signing up	Throwing	Forfeiting	Not signing up
...they got bored or had to leave.	...earn the win.
	...pay the loser to get the win.
	...skip the duel to prepare against the competition.
...they faced someone they wanted to see win.	...earn the win.
	...pay the loser to get the win.
	...skip the duel to prepare against the competition.
...they faced someone that would pay them for losing.	...earn the win.
	...pay the loser to get the win.
	...skip the duel to prepare against the competition.

I realise my request could be seen as me just being annoying, but I can assure you that this is not my intention and I only seek clarity on this matter.

 

 

 

I'm sorry GB, but that doesn't work like this so I will not fill that. Bans are not instructional 1:1 situations, context and surrounding evidence are important factors as well. II  understand you are not trying to be annoying there, and I also don't want to come out as if I ignore you. 

 

 

Per Lifestyle's question:

 

Your example can be used to cover the match-fixing, so Im sure you will understand why it will not be hard "sure do it all the time". 

 

You can see you are paired with a friend and if you don't want to continue, you can choose to don't start the fight. In case of the middle of the match, it becomes suspicious, but... The big difference is between doing this once and doing it blatantly often, or trying to pretend you had to go out to match fix for your friend. Ideally all matches against every player would've been finished but we do not wish to ban players when the evidence is inconclusive. We do when there's enough evidence of the claim so don't worry, we don't ban someone who had to go out during a match once. 

 

So in short, It really depends on supporting evidence, and "it only happened once" will not be a counter argument if anything else will point at it. As well as "it was not enforced" cause it was, even if not as frequently as after matchmaking became a thing.

 

[Gengarcello]

I think PVP needs a proper ultimate overhaul.

 

 

 

as the "random bullcrap go" matchmaking makes other people avoid the PVP forever.

[gbwead]

3 hours ago, Bearminator said:

I'm sorry GB, but that doesn't work like this so I will not fill that. Bans are not instructional 1:1 situations, context and surrounding evidence are important factors as well. II  understand you are not trying to be annoying there, and I also don't want to come out as if I ignore you. 

I understand why you don't want to make every scenario black or white, but based on your reply to lifestyle, you are implying that there is a difference between losing by "not signing up" and losing by "forfeit" or "throwing":

4 hours ago, Bearminator said:

You can see you are paired with a friend and if you don't want to continue, you can choose to don't start the fight. In case of the middle of the match, it becomes suspicious, but..

That's fine, but it's really not obvious to most of us that these ways of losing are treated differently where one raises more suspicion than the other. If I know I have to leave in 15 mins, it's therefore better not to sign up at all instead of playing for fun for a few minutes (since assumptions could be made based on these few minutes).

 

 

 

Also, I want to insist of the following point you made earlier regarding why Matchfixing in tournaments is a problem:

On 4/2/2023 at 9:46 AM, Bearminator said:

Match fixing in tournaments is affecting other players as well. You need to try to beat your opponent, and meanwhile, other person gets the free win and a chance to see your match quickly to see how you play. It is advantageous. We are not interested in giving players option to match fix against friend cause they feel like it.

Match Fixing in tournaments is bad because it affects other players in the tournament. I want to point out that this reasoning does not apply to finals. There is no one to scout or to prepare for after the finals. It is not advantageous whatsoever. I'm not saying match fixing should be allowed in finals, just that the reasoning you have provided is imo flawed. I think punishing match fixing in tournament could simply be justified by saying match fixing gives a bad image of the competitive scene, because there are multiple scenarios where players are not affected at all by match fixing and that doesn't necessarily makes it okay.