Are they cheating you by bot-ing in and out? Are they stalling? Are they rage quitting?

[solar socket]

Probably not

Simple answer to all of this is probably not. Every time you think that is happening you should remember that the stability of this game is terrible. The most likely explanation is not that your opponent is scum, the most likely explanation is that they are having a terrible experience and from your end it might look like something else.

I have had personal experience with this. Since I don’t “bot out” I never could quite picture how that would even work on the end of a person trying to use that as a strategy. Until I had a momentary loss of power and internet during a tournament practice game. Normally I’d have been more concerned with other things but with my real game coming up I thought I should try as hard as I can to reconnect in case something like this happens during my actual game and so I did… a very frustrating experience. Since SMG’s reconnection mechanic is stupid, slow and not transparent it is very hard to tell what is happening and if you are just wasting your time. In the example I don’t remember if I ever successfully reconnected (meaning played a turn) but I definitely was connected to the game multiple times. To be clear the reconnections and disconnects where not due to further internet or power interruptions but as I recall were due to me having to repeatedly restart the app due to problems with SMG’s system (I believe the troop placement bug and other glitches were occurring).

The reason this example helped change my view was that I got to see it from another’s perspective due to the fact that an apparently inexperienced player started raging immediately on the discord about what a shitty bot quitter I was. The reason this was helpful was the event they described as having seen was one that I did not. Apparently after my internet failure while I was not yet reconnected someone broke my bonus or hit one of my stacks (I can’t remember exactly what they described, but I take their word for it that that is what they saw). What they didn’t realize is that I wasn’t there, I didn’t see it. Their subsequent conclusion that any glitchy bot out, turn timer running etc. that they witnessed must be me reacting to that and in fact their absolute insistence that that was what occurred was quite bizarre to experience. Since the events I experienced were me trying to desperately overcome a momentary power/internet interruption while becoming increasingly frustrated with the more terrible aspects of SMG’s programming. However it was quite easy for me in hindsight to picture what the experience of the other players was and it seemed like the experience of every bot out ever which is what leads to my conclusion but I’ll put it in the form of a question for you. Which is more likely that some aspects of the connectivity of SMG’s program is terrible or that everyone is out to get you?

Obviously I’ve had additional experiences that prompted me to try to write this. Troop placement glitched games both today and yesterday are probably the main reason. I may have also been influenced by a recent 24hr suspension on my account that was lifted that same day when SMG reviewed my ticket, but that is a story for another day.

Hopefully what SMG is currently working at will bring some improvement to the connectivity issues and we can finally experience the community of risk players as they really are primarily just a bunch of people trying to have a fair and fun game.

[karmic mauve]

Most people who know you Robards, knows you are not what they claimed you to be (the dreaded disconnect/reconnector that is unliked by all.) clearly, the key piece of this puzzle is typically the timing of it. I played a game the other day where I suspect a person disconnected on purpose. Here is why I suspect it. It was the timing of it. The game had just gotten down to 3 players and we were all allied. The question was going to be, which two were going to team up to destroy the third person as we were all pretty close in troop numbers. At that moment, the person in third botted out. Could it have been a power failure, sure. However, at that moment in time, I and the other person start attacking each other and I finally defeated the sole remaining active player. Now, just at that moment, the former botted out player magically returns. Could that be coincidence? Sure, but the timing of it makes it more likely that that player employed the fake bot out strategy. Only that player knows for sure exactly what happened. I know what I suspect happened though… as far as you Robards, I doubt the “timing” of the events would even make sense that you were attempting the fake bot out strategy. I wouldn’t worry over what one person writes about you on this discord… it’s just an opinion of one, not of many.

[solar socket]

At the time I was worried, because they were so quickly and so thoroughly slandering me I actually briefly thought: will people believe this and not play practice games with me. Luckily I quickly realized that the situation was implausible… botting out in a pout of a practice game didn’t make any sense and additionally the situation wouldn’t actually have made me pout (sometimes I do… card block me and sometimes I cry like a baby… I still don’t bot out). Anyway it quickly became apparent that most people would recognize that it didn’t make sense. Obviously the experience of coming face to face with someone with a completely set view of things locked in on the initial assumption they jumped to who is incapable of being open to the new info of a different perspective is a common one, but apparently this occurrence was memorable enough for me that it came back to me when I was looking for an example here.

As usual I have failed in my communication if it seemed that I brought it up because it was weighing on me.

I agree that the situation you describe looks like a fake bot out but the example I brought up looks like a pouty protest bot out at least from the perspective of a player who hasn’t played many practice games.

It does puzzle me how in your example and occurrences I’ve seen how they come back at just the right time… if they were stream sniping that would work, but otherwise did they just get lucky and at that point isn’t it possible the whole thing is just coincidence. When I think from the perspective of the other players I had bugged games yesterday and today and in both cases it would not surprise me if other players thought I was bot-ing out or cheating in some way. In the midst of yesterdays glitch I had the report tab open and was about to report the remaining player because I felt they had to have hacked the game… in the past I would have reported just in case but after my recent experience I stopped myself and hope I always will in the future.

[solar socket]

But in a game yesterday and today I was the dreaded disconnect / reconnect-or

at least from the perspective of the other players as I picture it. Obviously from my perspective I was struggling with some of the weirdest glitch combos I’ve ever seen and trying to restart the app for a successful connection to the game.

This is why an in app report of glitches is so important. If I could just hit the this game is glitched button and be reasonably sure that the game ID went to SMG then I’d close the app and play later. It still would be frustrating to be robbed of interesting positions that I had invested significant time in but the drive to fight to try to overcome the glitch so as not to lose rank points would be lessened.
In the case of yesterday’s game it was eventually cancelled as I was eventually the only human left. Today’s game the glitches were different but I again had the troop placement bug. This time one of the remaining humans mercifully killed my botted positions and I said “thanks”

[latent night]

i had 1 game yesterday with 4 other people, where 3 actually went offline pretty fast, and the 4th went in and out, i hope he had issues with his internet, as i was also thinking he was stalling half the time. Is there added chance of offline issues just after a server reeset or something, as i never saw all other people go offline so fast. It was game with mostly low ranked people, so maybe they just give up fast

[karmic mauve]

I have played several games where a person has botted out and returned to the game where I know it was not the dreaded fake bot out strategy. The timing was wrong. I typically play with alliances on, so when an alliance is broken at a weird time and right upon reconnection they offer the alliance immediately back. There are many nuisances that help me determine (from my perspective) whether it was a fake bot out or not. That being said, I am not The all knowing. I usually caution my statements about people who bot out and return later in a game because while the timing of it may look very suspicious, it may be intentional (as I suspect it was the other day.) but, notice that I didn’t name names in my post. Because while I suspect it was intentional, it may not have been. Contrary to what some may think of me (on this discord), there are few people who make my DNP list. I have also learned my lessons on playing with suspected fake bot out players before. I now play so that those types of strategies rarely work against me.

[karmic mauve]

Hey, this sounds like a good Risk-Ideas concept… heck, it might even be one (a rare one) that I might upvote!

[trim dawn]

RISK's current networking, most definitely makes it unclear at times if player's are cheating with the "bot-out strategy". I only report players when the timing suggests that the probability of it is very high. Coincidence is possible a lot of times.

However, this cheat does work. Therefore, cheaters do use it. Once the networking overhaul is finished I hope detection and prevention of this "strategy" is improved.

I do love the idea of a feature to report games to SMG, in the event of bugs. Would be very helpful to SMG in improving there own networking, in my opinion.

[solar socket]

Yes 👍

additionally the ability to report a suspicious / glitchy GAME for a look by SMG could be used rather than having to accuse a player in the game. This might have a positive effect on the community as there is a confirmation bias thing going on. The more you look for collaboration the more you find it and then you report it and because you reported it you feel even more sure that it was what you suspect and therefore that the game is full of collaborators when in actuality you may never (or very rarely) have been in a game with a collaborator team up and just have seen collaboration seeming behavior multiple times.

We could reserve reports for people we are sure are cheating and mark a game for a review if player actions OR the program performance itself seems suss.

[karmic mauve]

Dred, I think the system works pretty well as it is. Now, every system can be improved and your suggestion to report glitchy games is a good one. That being said, collaboration does happen. I just finished playing a game that had two clear collaborators in it, 99.99% certain. How do I know? Here is why… first of all their cap placements were super close to each other. (Europe Advanced was the map.) Green player places on one side of a bonus, and yellow player just outside of the bonus (in Turkey). On turn one, green takes the bonus, and yellow player places their troops on the capital, makes one attack and moves all troops of capital away from green and gives their cap to the green player. Each turn, yellow player keeps adding to their stack and walks away one territory. Until they reach the next capital, which they attack (and take). Next turn, the move off of that capital and gift a second capital to the green player. Again making one attack per turn. They finalize their play by leaving themselves ready to be killed (it’s a prog game) by green on four cards. There is no clearer example of collaboration, when the yellow player hands over 2 capitals and four cards to one player. In this case, I reported them both for collaboration and let the system work.

Green and yellow players… 99.99% certain are collaborators.

[solar socket]

Your example as you describe it is extremely hard to imagine as anything other than deliberate action to feed advantage to another account (probably the same player).

But…

I was just in a Europe advanced prog. caps game and black capped in the southern territory of Dinaric alps while purple capped in the southern end of south Eastern Europe and blue capped in the northern end. Pink capped in the north most territory of Western Europe and red capped in Scandinavia. Despot all this congestion and being able to see all these capitals except for Purple, White picking last capped next to Black choosing to block the path through Italy.

After inexplicably allowing black to hold Spain and Purple to hold a part of Africa White then battled Purple in the south and stole Pinks cap and killed them and then (after the death of Red 6th/5th ?) got into an all out war with blue raging across the entirety of the north of the board all the while leaving their cap next to Black inexplicably weak. At some point they fortified all troops away from Black giving the Italy cap to Black for free. They then hit purple over and over again in Russia but never opened Purples northern cap (blues original). Finally black said good game and smashed into Purples northern cap White followed up by stealing this cap which Black left empty and fortified half their strongest cap to that location. After purple took a card and a look Black again said good game and smashed into Purples southern cap as well. White immediately punched through that cap and hit only Purple all across the south including smashing a stack of more than 200 and an adjacent 1 to kill Purple. They immediately signaled good game and took the two black caps that were now left empty.

Obvious collaboration! Black after having been neighbor capped should have been in an all out war against White.