What IS Cheating?

[ToxicDice]

So I used to think that the line between cheating and 'strategy' was whether something could be done via a button click in CA. So if you had to formulate your own link then it was cheating but clicking a button was legit. Hiding was a 'strategy' because you could do it with a click, bookmarking war targets was cheating because you had to formulate a link that was not clickable in the game. Bookmarking Duels/Invades was OK because there were buttons for those actions on the Keep pages. And then I came across an interesting quote from Kori.Maggotte in this thread which is now closed and I cannot quote: http://174.37.115.166/cforum/showthr...34#post1678134 You don't have to be scripting to cheat. Just exploiting the defensive win feature is cheating in of itself.

So that quite clearly states that it is cheating to attack your buddy knowing that you'll lose to help him level up before bedtime. OK, sounds reasonable enough, clicking the Duel/Invade button knowing it will have an adverse effect (losing a battle) is cheating.

So basically the known, detrimental outcome of the click is now the determinant of whether something is cheating or not, not the act of clicking itself.

OK, so by that same logic then, attacking a person/monster knowing that you will be reduced to under 10 health is also cheating. Most people understand this as hiding and those that do it have already checked out of this conversation but please bear with me. The game most clearly shows that being under 10 health is not a desirable state; You are not allowed to attack monsters or engage in battles, Health regenerates on a timer just as universally accepted 'positive' attributes Stamina and Energy do, and you are allowed to purchase health refills, not health emptiers from the Oracle.

So to get back to the point, knowingly reducing yourself to under 10 health is no different than knowingly attacking someone you will lose to. Both are achievable using clicks within the game as coded and both are clearly indicated by the game as being a negative outcome of a click yet one is 'cheating' and one is not.

I gotta call it like I see it and all I see in this whole new 'crackdown' on 'cheaters' is just an attempt to pander to the vocal minority of CA players who focus on PvP and can't stand to see their battle/war/arena/guild war stats take a hit. Hiding apparently isn't considered cheating even though it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck because this vocal minority supports its use to prop up their stats. At the very least the definition of what is and is not cheating has not been thoroughly thought out so as to be consistent.

I'd love to hear from Kori on this topic.

[Wicked Intentions]

*face palm* really? Okay how about the people who chain others till they themselves run under 10 health? Should they be required to heal before loggin out?
-edit:yes i'm aware that i'm feeding the troll.

[Zyxx]

But you can attack someone knowing you'll loose. They even made an achievement for doing just that.
The thing you can't do is repeatedely attacking someone just to speed up his leveling. I doubt 2 or 3 attacks if a friend needs 5xp to level up will be considered cheating, but 5000 attacks probably will.

[King Hrothbeort]

Until we hear directly from Kori, I'll give my interpretation:

In normal play, clicking on any buttons is fair game. So activities like hiding, chaining your friends to level them up or trying to work your way down instead of up in battle ranks are allowable.

However, an account may be deemed to be cheating if it is being attacked by several scripting bot accounts which are losing all the time. Though the original account is not scripting, it is benefiting from other accounts which are cheating. If the owner of the original account either created or coordinated the accounts attacking it, then that is cheating.

[Guard23]

Hi, the reasoning behind and the explaining for hiding was also posted by Kori, since you can find one post by Kori, I assume you can find the others.

Slamming a feature that you do not like and using convoluted logic stemming from a COMPLETELY unrelated rules standing commits at least two fallacies and is cheating... at logic.

[Luxor The Moonprince]

However, an account may be deemed to be cheating if it is being attacked by several scripting bot accounts which are losing all the time. Though the original account is not scripting, it is benefiting from other accounts which are cheating. If the owner of the original account either created or coordinated the accounts attacking it, then that is cheating.

That is absolutely how I view it as well.

In general terms... if you have 100k+ wins your account should come under scrutiny IMO.

If you have 100k+ wins and you are not High King... someone should really be asking what the heck you are doing...

If you have 200K+ wins you are absolutely cheating and botting.


I find cheaters all the time. I found 2 new ones today. Unlike everyone else tho... I dont even bother to report them now.

And why is that? Well the answers obvious IMO. Why is this left up to the players community to report suspicious accounts? Why for the love of god cant the devs just implement some auditing on the database?

I dont want to hear any nonsense that it's "too difficult to do". It isnt. Iv been a database administrator for 15 years. I could write the code. If I can - they can.


Kori has said some encouraging things these past few days.

It's now time to back up "words" with "action".

[Abysmal Alan]

select player_id, player_name, victories
into temp cheaters_temp
from player_database
where victories > 200000;

update cheaters_temp
set battle_rank = 'Squire', Attack =0, Defense = 0, Stamina = 0;

There, all of 1 minute of thought.

Enjoy your lives as an energy account, cheaters.


Btw, in the realm of cheating...
Let's say that someone I don't know (and soon grow not to like at all) decides to train a bot at me that's just a little better than I am. They attack me at regular intervals for regular iterations every day. I accrue a lot of losses. I message the bot owner to no avail. I message the Devs, to no avail. I get sick of this. I decide to up my attack and defense so that I can beat this bot. I know the bot will make their regular visits and I'm tired of seeing all those losses on my battle feed. My increases soon turn those losses into victories, against that bot I wish would stop attacking me. There is no way in Hell you convince me "I'm cheating" by increasing my attack and defense, even though, yes, I'm now accruing experience and money and positive battle stats. What the hell am I supposed to do as a PvP player, stunt my growth in the game forever just because someone trains a bot on me?

[labalaba]

select player_id, player_name, victories
into temp cheaters_temp
from player_database
where victories > 200000;

update cheaters_temp
set battle_rank = 21, Attack =0, Defense = 0, Stamina = 0, Health = 100000;

There, all of 1 minute of thought.

Enjoy your lives as an energy account, cheaters.

Changelog: Fixes to Alan's poor coding.

[King Hrothbeort]

Changelog: Fixes to Alan's poor coding.

Nice!

. . . could cause problems in guild wars though, hmmm . . .

[Abysmal Alan]

Changelog: Fixes to Alan's poor coding.

LOL Laba^2, you are an evil, evil personage and I'm glad you're in our Guild.
However, you've now unleashed an exploit that Kings worldwide would love to take advantage of... which is why the code is how it is.