To whom it may concern: cheating in Multiplayer

[Mr_X]

I don’t know if this has been reported / discussed before. When searching for this topic I came up empty…

A few days ago I lost a game on points. While I had the usual mix of good and bad results when I initiated combat, my opponent always seemed to get it right. Strange? I started “beta-testing” a little bit.

Here’s a way how you can cheat in multiplayer (WIN 7):
Start the turn, move your units, hit “Commit” and start combat.
If you don’t like the combat result, don’t click on “Close” after combat. Instead press “ALT+TAB” or minimize the window.
Then go to the task bar, right click on the BotB window and click “Close Window”
The program closes, no results are saved
Start BotB again, go to Multiplayer and select your game. It will still be your turn. Open the turn and execute your move and initiate the same combat again. The results will widely vary each time (0 - 5 hits, 4 – 1 hits, 1 -1 hits, etc.). You can rinse and repeat until you get the result you want. Only then click on “Close”, “Continue” and “Send turn”

I tried this a few times and there seems to be no limit of how often you can repeat this.

From my point of view it has to do with the design decision that you constantly have to confirm moves (Close, Continue, OK, etc…) Combat results are seemingly only stored after such a confirmation.

I resigned my last ongoing game. I’m done.

[pipfromslitherine]

We track additional downloads per turn at our end and take action against those who abuse the system, so while it may seem that people can get away with it they most certainly cannot. I happen know of one ban handed out just this week.

Cheers

Pip

[sa_gibson]

Good grief! Why not have a solution the doesn't permit cheating, rather than a claim - one hard to believe! - that you devote human resources to catching cheaters?

[Mr_X]

[quote="pipfromslitherine"]We track additional downloads per turn at our end and take action against those who abuse the system, so while it may seem that people can get away with it they most certainly cannot.


Really?
- The Dev team knows about this?
- This "feature" has not been documented and users not made aware of it?
- There is no warning, no pop-up, etc flagging a repeated download as illegal or making the user aware of the fact that he/she might get banned?
- You spend resources tracking this behaviour on your servers, blocking users, but did not make a statement about it in the forum?

I must be missing something. Or not?

[pipfromslitherine]

Feel free to (fully) describe a solution which "doesn't allow cheating".

Cheaters DO get warnings sent to them both via email and directly ingame. There are multiple threads on the forums, usually answering questions from players, but why would we need to warn cheaters not to cheat? Most people don't cheat and so need not worry about it. Those who do cheat - we are watching.

Frankly I find the snarky tone of these posts bewildering.

Cheers

Pip