the cheating is out of control

[verbal moat]

Every game someone has at least 2 accounts and everybody can see the whole map but me apparently. Its ridiculous.

[steep sandal]

If every game has a cheater in it, I’m impressed I have been able to win over 50% of my ranked FFA games. I mean imagine cheating and still losing to me

[next mountain]

Seems like you and I either play a completely different game, or there's something foul. Personally I have never come across a single cheater in my 2.5 years of playing and I have been around a lot. There are cheaters, no doubt. But they're extremely rare and usually detected quickly.

Cheating is in fact not out of control and I highly doubt what you're stating.

On your way of trying to become better at the game, it's best not to assume foul play from your opponents first.
Instead, look how you can improve your own game.

Reporting someone upon suspicion is fine, but that's all you can do, have a little trust in the system.

If you wish to play higher quality games, I'd recommend taking a step back from ranked play and instead starting to engage in community hosted games and Events.
Participating in a few of the numerous community hosted tournaments is the #1 way to improve quickly and have a ton of fun in the process.

[unique saddle]

Crazy how in only 5% of my games have I seen cheaters/collaborators

[verbal moat]

@next mountain lol. Such time you took to attempt to write something clever yet insulting.

[next mountain]

It's not my problem if you feel insulted.
I hope you can find a way to deal with that. I'd gladly take the time again to write something very clever that might even help you a little bit.

[glacial oxide]

"everyone can see the whole map except me apparently"
You are using fog of war presumably?

If using auto placement, skilled players will often keep an eye on;

• where the biggest troop counts are for each player across visible territories
• where players attack >1 territories
• where players draft
  These can immediately in round 1 provide valuable insight into where your opponents are prioritising
• troops received per player
  If troops are 3 they have 11 or less territories, no capitals, no bonuses
  If it's 4 it's usually 12-14 troops (but can be a +1 continent bonus in some maps)
  If it's 5 or 6 you can usually assume that it's south america, australia or africa in early game (more likely africa if still 6 after a few turns)
• card gained per player turn
  If players don't gain a card, and you have a stack near them - good chance that they're fully in that area // blocked in - this is a good chance to look at going for a kill in progressive. In fixed, just keep as is.
• where each player attacks
  This helps as you tend to see players bring troops back to their continent
• where players fortify
  Same as attacks, more important on massive maps as you may see fortify path go through two separately just visible territories (lighting the path for where their continent(s) are)

Try these and see if it helps you with map visibility. Even if you can't see the exact numbers, after a very short time you've already received a massive amount of information about the board and opponents, just need to ensure that you're watching / staying alert for all of that information and not missing anything.

[untold grail]

@joemama702 I think each player’s experiences are their own, and we each interact with many different players. I personally think the “cheating” numbers are pretty low. I have been in a game with someone who hacked the game to give them additional troops. That happened once in all of my games. What I think happens more (and I think this is what you are referring to in this post) is the amount of people who either have two accounts playing (and this to me is more likely) or a friend (and I mean a person they know in real life) who joins the same game and gives their buddy an advantage. I have seen this happen with greater frequency in the past month, but it could be summer vacations and kids being kids. The most recent one I had to laugh at was playing caps on classic, when two people capped in Australia, and one player just walked off their cap to give the other player a two cap open, and they cleared the other troops out of Australia for them too. Once that was done, they quit the game. I reported (and nothing happened which to me was laughable.) those things happen. It’s just a game, and for the most part, it’s very enjoyable and most games are fun.

[valid meteor]

I can only second to what Silent said concerning the cheating numbers. I've never encountered a person adding troops that they shouldn't have had to my knowledge once in the games I've played. There certainly are people who add troops or have the above mentioned "see thru fog" mechanic but it's incredibly rare. To add to the playing with multiple account thing, I've had that happen to me as well but it's rare and if you are more experienced you start to boot those people already in the lobby because most of them aren't very smart at it (same flag from a smaller nation, similar number at the end and joining at the exact same time. Mostly they do at least 2 of the 3 things, sometimes even all 3) and you can leave the lobby if you notice that or if you are the host boot one person and see if the other one either doesn't ready up or leaves on itself

Also can second what Luci said about knowing the rough board state without seeing the entire board. You can very easy put together where everyone is and how strong they presumably are if you take the time and learn those skills.

[sterile canopy]

I don't see it every game but it seems to be happing more often. The game I'm in right now has two British flags playing like they are allies and knowing the whole map with fog of war and no alliances settings active. So obvious they are the same person. Game before that a player stalled out the game and trapped me in for over 30 mins just to give his other account second when I'd clearly surrendered the game in hopes of getting second. Not much you can do other than spam the report button and hope they actually investigate and ban some accounts.

[steel river]

Doesn’t sound like definitive example of cheating to me. Noobs be in Australia and they do all kinds of crazy, but yeah maybe a couple of accounts wielded by a simple minded child could also yield the result. ( Note if you have two caps in Australia, you are still CAPPED IN AUSTRALIA! )

[steel river]

Short answer

The cheating is in control

[gleaming canopy]

To counter collusion best thing you can do is make your own games really.. they tend to make their own lobbies

[hallow socket]

I just played a "master", form trukey with the name M7, (who quite obviously was a hacker) in EU advanced, as he added a lot more troops, than he could earn in the game and always had some 100 stack to fortify in the middle game

I can´t deny his skill in programming🙃

[hallow socket]

maybe we´re talking about the same guy (:

[deep marsh]

Maybe that guy is one of us

[strange lake]

cheaters cheat because they are bad though 😛 maybe we all beat multiple cheaters and don't know it

[gleaming canopy]

It me

[olive trench]

it's so hatd to tell if ppl are just braindead or collabing
I just had a 3p game that was the most blatant collab - both players only hit me for 5 rounds. Then it wasn't

the other game 2 friends had 400 each to my 100
after an hour they got bored and hit each other
The final proof of collab came when I killed all but 10 of one friend and the other kill guarded a 1 instead of just taking the win
but they were really bad

[zinc wagon]

Hanlon's razor. Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.

[verbal moat]

I think there’s folks here that aren’t good enough to realize they’re getting cheated on. I play 60 sec fixed and have for years. There are people playing multiple accounts or teaming up on ranked ffa. It’s ruining the game. Especially Europe advanced.

[steep sandal]

There is absolutely no way to definitively say whether someone is collaborating in the space of a single game. Working with other players is a part of the game.

But if you want to be ABSOLUTELY sure there’s no collaboration going on in your game, you could join the tournament community and play casual private games. Usually much more fun than ranked anyway

[neon shoal]

Good game like WOT but run by Re Tards

[kind trellis]

I just remember the names of those I think cheated and if I join their game again I instantly back out.

[gleaming canopy]

I record my games 🙂

Some are VERY SUS but I cant prove it

4 man, one guy doesnt connect, other guy plays terrible close to death with 5 cards, last guy takes free cards and continues to be able to hold 2 continents, bot is also put on easy

By terrible I mean trying to hit a 7 with a 4 at 4 cards etc

[steel river]

And YET the cheating remains in control

[gleaming canopy]

Just enough of it

[unique saddle]

bugs are the main problem
not cheating

[steel river]

Picture for a moment what it would actually look like if the cheating was out of control. The game would be unplayable. While we might have occasional frustrating play experiences, I at least am able to play the game nearly every day… that simply wouldn’t be possible if cheating was rampant as some allege.

The huge majority of games have not even the faintest whiff of cheating.

[steel river]

Agree. Bugged games and the terrible intersection of cynical play and an insanely punitive ranking system are the problems that make me contemplate quitting. Not the one time I was in a game with a hacker.

[strange lake]

I just joined a lobby game is about to start and it gets cancelled due to suspected collaborators, and now all my coins gone and I can't play a game another game I played had a guy who had troop hacks and was blatantly placing heaps more troops than possible and wiped the map.

[glacial oxide]

Restart RISK when that happens and you'll see token balance was returned - it just doesn't update client side between start game -> cancelled -> back to home screen - need to refresh by playing another game or by restarting app

[strange lake]

thanks I found that out soon after thinking it might be the case ^

[iron haven]

Will that be fixed with the upcoming overhaul?

[glacial oxide]

I don't think so but not sure - it's just a visual bug with little to no negative impact (just confusion on first encounter)

[steep sandal]

I’d imagine it would since the game is supposed to not be hosted client side anymore

[glacial oxide]

Because RISK can also be played offline tokens will still have client side support anyway

[iron haven]

Ah ok

Makes sense

[sterile canopy]

If you see BIGESP from USA. Guess he could easily change his name though... Leave the lobby. He adds troops to the game. Took his cap turn 3, got a 10 trade on 3 cards, held the plus 11 for 3 rounds while I slowly advanced out of the corner hitting 1s. I now have over 40 troops. I get to red and he now has a cap and puts 53 in my face. I make a 51 and get attackers advantage on it and he's sitting on a 73 cap in another corner. Kills me next round. He magicked over 150 troops into the game.

[dusty hedge]

I stream 100% of my ranked games on twitch. I have seen hacking, collabing and sniping. However it is not increasing or becoming worse in my experience. There are games I have suspected hacking to later discover that the game was 100% fair. Collabing is very difficult to prove based on a single game but again I've found, more often than not, players that i suspected collabing were actually an early game alliance (completely fair). Sniping is another difficult to prove form of cheating but I do my best to discourage it.
All in all I believe the game is in the best state it can be until the network update.
My approach is to do my best even when against sus players and look for ways to improve my game despite the plays of others.

[steel river]

It seems as of this date that the cheating is still under control.

[mortal plaza]

@dusty hedge I agree tho i do see collaboration more then hacking with actual injection troops or using client. i think collaboration with accounts is hard to prove but very much more common. sniping is a almost impossible problem to stop and only thing streamers and community members can do is support streamers and encourage snipers to stop. blocking screens etc. In the case of hacking network overhaul for timebeing should be main trust that will shut that down. I personally have only seen rare occasasions of hackers in ranked games and if they hack most likley cap run turn 5 or spawn obviouse troops and are terrible. Tho recently going around community hackers of other kinds and in that case can only hope for network overhaul to do SMG best to control situation on that hand.

For the time being cheating is almost impossible to control unless developers get involved to help there own game in the diffrent varities. consider cheating.

But i see the point as of for the time being "hacking" "collaboration" seems to be getting solved hopefully long term to respond @steel river "under control".

[safe pier]

I see a lot of cheating also, although I don't get mad, I take it as a challenge. When I realize that 1 person is using 2 accounts, I consolidate all my troops into 1 stack.

[steel river]

I have been playing multiple ffa games in very popular settings daily for years now and I have never seen “a lot of cheating”. A lot of cheating would make this game unplayable.

Many players are confused by the difference between teaming and collaboration or two account cheating (not saying that is you or any other reader here), but ask yourself how often do you see two account cheaters that you can actually verify. A lot of the time you could be misinterpreting natural team up play or even irrational or irrational seeming targeting play as part of a collab or two account cheating.

[safe pier]

Naw, I know the difference. When it's one person with 2 accounts, one of the accounts will sacrifice and go kamikaze. When it's 2 people teaming up, you can get them to turn on each other😂 I have seen a lot of cheating. It doesn't make the game unplayable to me, cuz it's just another scenario. Some scenarios are more difficult than others. If they were all easy, it wouldn't be fun.

Also, I would say it's cheating if you're playing in a "no alliances" game and you have a predetermined "team" that you enter a lobby with. I see that more than one person using two accounts, but I also consider that cheating.

[gleaming canopy]

I caught a temporary ban for cheating before, but turned out it was an auto ban because people reported me too many games in a row, probably because I was either africa or europe often and let whoever was the counter do his thing while we protect eachother stacking in Middle East and Ukraine for easy 1st and 2nd

makes it damn near impossible for anyone to hurt either of us without practically losing the game

(and as Africa I let SA do his thing without having to defend against me too, since I can scoop up SA when hes finished bullying out NA)

(If he doesnt let me thats even better, since it just results into everyone attacking him)

[dusty hedge]

I very rarely suspect cheating by default, but here is an example of the kind of play that leads me to suspect unfair play:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it83ACBWOHI

[neon shoal]

again out of this world dice rolls bs never ends

[neon shoal]

5 crap games in a row what a bloody joke

[steep sandal]

https://tenor.com/view/whatever-little-girl-drinking-too-cool-chilling-yeah-whatever-gif-27534207

[smoky roost]

Just finished an FFA game, by the third turn one of the players had over 60 troops. This is not possible- he had three armies totaling 36, 23, and 16 troops on his borders. For the three turns his reinforcements were, 3, 9, and 5 per turn. He had about twice the number of troops someone could have had at that point in the game. This was before he could even trade in cards. Has anyone else experienced this?

[steep sandal]

Depending on the map that is definitely possible but if you think someone is cheating just report them in game

[strong flax]

Ockhams razor

[cursive delta]

Collab is always tricky, but if the same team gets reported in multiple games it's easier to show.

Besides that I only had one obvious cheater in 1000 games. Never ever lost a troop attacking 1 or 2, usually hit 3s without losing a troop. No fog, everyone saw them running through bonuses like nothing. By turn 3 everyone teamed up against them (and we won).

[trail kettle]

To everyone saying: “I’ve only had “insert low amount” of cheaters”. How do you know?

First of all, good cheaters would use the hacks sparingly. You’d never think they were hacking. But they suddenly have more troops then you’d expect or every turn they continue to receive the same amount of troops regardless of losing a continent or multiple countries.

I know it’s coincidental but it does seem like certain (General ‘something’) accounts always seem to pull 10s from cards. I’ve seen hacks that can simply change 1 card.. which sometimes makes the difference.

I don’t think cheating is out of control either.

[steep sandal]

With a lot of experience you can pretty quickly determine if someone is receiving the right amount of troops even in fog. It’s all just knowing positions and counting attacks. As far as card trade ins… 🤷‍♂️. Yeah u can’t technically verify that. But you will get a 10 set like 80% of the time with 5 cards on most maps. But straight up hacking is relatively few and far between since it can be detected and the accounts are immediately banned.

For the most part when people talk about “cheating” they are talking about collusion. And while it’s impossible to be 100% sure that it’s happening, they are some things that give it away. And people that collude aren’t really banned so it’s much more common than hacking.

So long answer but it comes down to experience and skill. If something looks weird it probably is. If it all looks like normal behavior (the vast majority of my games) then there’s probably no cheating

[cursive delta]

if people increase their troop count by 10% behind the fog or change one card to get a critical trade on 3 then they stay undetected. That's why I said "obvious cheater". If cheat tools would be widely shared then we should see more obvious cheaters, too.

[dusty hedge]

Here's an example of a tricky hacker adding in the fog.
https://youtu.be/PRyofbtc8Xo

[steep sandal]

How did you get the troop totals for your graph at the end?

[dusty hedge]

I built a tool to monitor my games. I record the game memory state in raw form. It is unusable during the game. After the game I run a second tool that parses that raw data into a spreadsheet which lists who had each territory with how many troops for each turn. A third tool turns that data into the graph that I share at the end of the video.

[unique saddle]

nerd

[steep sandal]

That sounds pretty cool. I’m surprised SMG is cool with letting you do that though. It sounds like it’s essentially hacking since you are accessing in game data that you aren’t supposed to have access to. I’m sure that violates the TOS in one way or another. And If you have access to that data I’m sure the only thing stopping you from accessing it during the game is your own personal moral code. Am I understanding this correctly?

(I’m saying this as a fan of fun tools. I’m not criticizing)

[dusty hedge]

Yes and no. The tool 100% could be modified to cheat. As is, it cannot be used to cheat. Also I stream 100% of my games meaning I am making my info visible to everyone with the understanding that they won't cheat either. Trust is a 2 way street. I promise to not look at their hidden info and I ask the same of them.

[steep sandal]

Yes I get that. My point was more so this.... "Hacking" doesn't really have anything to do with your intentions. You appear to be using your "tool" in a white hat fashion, but you're still hacking. And I will quote the terms of service here... "users must not: Copy, modify, create a derivative work of, decompile, disassemble, decode, reverse engineer or otherwise attempt to derive or gain access to the source code any portion of the App or its contents". There are a few other lines in the TOS I believe you would be violating as well. You can find the TOS here: https://www.hasbrorisk.com/en/terms The "Using the App" section is probably the most applicable for you here. I mean take my word with a grain of salt, If SMG hasn't said anything by now they might never do so and you'll be perfectly fine. But they could also just as easily ban your account (possibly your discord account as well) and label your Steam account as a hacker so that other games ban you as well.

[dusty hedge]

Yes. I looked at the TOS before doing this. Technically, I am not touching or looking at the source code in any way. When the code is running, the program stores game data in memory. I am reading (never writing) this data and later parsing it. It would be a stretch to refer to this data as code, as it contains no instructions. By strict interpretation of the TOS, I do not believe I am violating it. However, before I started using it, I did reach out to SMG to let them know what I was doing with the promise that I would stop if they felt I was violating the TOS. My summary of the response is that as long as I was not modifying the game (or game state) in any way and I was not gaining an unfair advantage over other players that they were not going to ask me to stop. I have tried to be fully transparent about what I am doing. I have no desire to be banned. 😂 I do believe it's a good conversation to have though beyond strict rule interpretations regarding what is an ethical use of tools such as this. In my opinion this tool causes no harm and increases enjoyment for everyone. I could imagine someone might argue otherwise and I'd love to hear that opinion.

[steep sandal]

Ok great. I'm glad you reached out to them. Yeah I also don't see this tool harming anyone. I PERSONALLY wouldn't share it with the general public since I imagine it could easily be changed to basically see the board in real time. But keep on keeping on. I think its really cool and definitely a great addition for YouTube since it gives insight into the game for viewers. I really don't see any ethical problems with this. I think you only really get into ethical problems (game wise) when you start using tools during the game. That's why some people have issues with zombie pathing maps, 1v1 disconnection maps, etc

[dusty hedge]

i am not sharing with public at this time. If I were to share it (with permission), i would upload the raw data to a website that would not parse the data unless the game was over or a certain amount of time had passed that made the information irrelevant. That way I wouldn't have to share the parsing tool (which has the power to interpret the information) with anyone but could provide the benefits to the public. The tool already works this way so all that is needed is a public website to access it.

i haven't pursued this because all of this becomes worthless once the network update comes out

[deep marsh]

Hi luci

[glacial oxide]

Yeah the way it's being used currently was okay 👍 it's worth noting that it's likely to no longer work once network overhaul 🕐 gets around due to how data will be handled

[steel river]

I checked just now! And you may be relieved to know… The cheating is still under control

[trail kettle]

Those responsible for dealing with cheating have been sacked.

And to note, the ones doing the sacking have also been sacked.

[gaunt sail]

I'd say somewhere between 2-4% of my total games have had Collaboration involved. It's not that huge of a problem, but once you hit grandmaster just one of those games will cost you 3 or 4 wins to make up for, which needs to be fixed.

[olive mason]

I did see in another thread others were saying if you report collaborators and get a confirmation report saying there was action taken, your score for that match should be reverted back to you.

[steep sandal]

Where did u see that? I do not believe thats the case. I believe its only if they are fully banned

[olive mason]

"Should" is the operative word. Just people agreeing that if you are in a bad game and that game gets verified to have had bad actors in it then it shouldn't count against you.

[steep sandal]

Gotcha. Yes I agree. The cheaters get a warning or a short suspension and everyone else still loses points

[olive mason]

Exactly. But unfortunately they typically ruin many games before action is taken.

[iron haven]

Honestly I feel like <1% of my games have had cheating

[gaunt sail]

I just did the math and mine is actually only 1.4% of games have had verified cheating. So although it's not a significant problem, it's still 1.4% higher than I'd like it to be.

[upbeat dock]

Feel like I've gotten collaborated on like multiple times in the past couple days. Maybe just bad luck but seems like its rampant lately

[split fern]

Are you playing with alliances on? Cause people can see through fog of their allies

[split fern]

Yeah same thing happened to me

But people can also attack you if you're pissing everyone

[upbeat dock]

No alliances here, just very odd behavior. People throwing their own game to break all but one player. And like blatant from the first turn

[upbeat dock]

Ya i usually play pretty passive so I'd be suprised if I antagonized it. Could just be bad luck though like I said

[split fern]

Sometimes in a 3 players game, if someone is too strong the 2 other players can agree that 1 will go kamikaze and the other will finish.

[upbeat dock]

Ya just hasn't really happened in situations like that. It's been like one person is throwing troops into two other players, then the player they don't hit wins.

[split fern]

Sounds like a nooblius behaviour rather than collabing

I had a game where one player kept spending all the troops they get every turn.

[fickle lance]

You obviously don’t play ranked much or your a cheater yourself, I have been playing for years now off and on, recently started playing daily and I can tell you cheating is wide spread.
I played a game and someone had at least 3 accounts. Got his main account down to just 3 troops on 1 territory. Instead of knocking it out like a reasonable player would, he got both side accounts to kamikaze me from across the map on the same round. Alliances were off and Fog was on. And the more and more I play the more I see the same screen names on the games. So get out of here with that cheating isn’t out of control crap

[next mountain]

I don't think it's that obvious. I don't think that I have to defend myself from attacks like this. I have a pretty solid reputation.

I'd ask you to take a deep breath, and come back to this conversation, so that we can all understand each other a bit better. What might have been the meaning of the comment you were replying to?

From my experience, it is much easier for you if you don't waste your precious energy on thinking about what others might have done wrong for you, and rather what you could have done better. This is the road that has brought me to where I am now.

I don't enjoy seeing these frustrated people coming in here every day with the same doom attitude. Maybe I'm wrong for trying to show them the reality. But then I'd ask: Is there a better way to help them realize?

[unique saddle]

How is this thread still going

[deep marsh]

Cheaters are still out of control, just saying

[steep sandal]

“Magic's just science that we don't understand yet.” -Arthur C. Clarke

I think this same principle applies here. This game is more complicated than people think. So when they see people working together they don’t think oh that player is just better than me and can work with opponents. They think, they have to be collaborating because I couldn’t do that. And they have a lack of places to vent/complain because there’s no communication available in the game (and I’ve cracked down on Reddit) so they find this chat looking to complain

[unique saddle]

Yeah

all I know though is that if I ever wanna read this thread
im using text to speech

[uneven raven]

you're full of shit

[unique saddle]

pffff

more like what Silent said is true

I've also never seen a troop hacker

only stallers and collabers

and even that is super rare

[iron haven]

Strange that none of the people saying the game is full of cheaters are known for a high level of play

Just a funny coincidence I noticed looking at this conversation

[unique saddle]

yeah

[iron haven]

Yet people like silent, a very very highly ranked player is full of ****** just for suggesting that people are misunderstanding in game actions

[steel river]

c-o-n cheating t-r-o-l

[glacial oxide]

The people claiming cheating everywhere tend to be the people using it as an excuse for all of their losses - hardly a coincidence 😄

[steel river]

control

---

cheating

[olive mason]

A lot of what I used to think was cheating because that's how it felt and appeared to me at the time, was probably just players with a better understanding of the game than I. That being said, I have encountered cheaters and reported them and gotten feedback confirming as such on multiple occassions. I also think that at times maybe I myself might appear to be cheating to a novice's viewpoint because I've done the calculations and assessed the map/state of the board and decided that I wasn't willing to allow them to make me take 3rd or worse so I deliberately make sure I get 2nd.

[neon shoal]

Dual accounts still out there

[steep sandal]

https://tenor.com/view/you-dont-happen-to-know-where-they-are-do-you-linda-cardellini-judy-hale-dead-to-me-where-are-they-gif-17811014

[bold crest]

On mobile ive been noticing a lot of the same 2 people playing together in ranked ffa. And never see one without the other...i figure they r friends but cant say for sure.

[prisma hinge]

i have spells where i LOSE MUTLTIPLE GAMES INA A ROW, THE DICE ROWS ARE ALMOST PREDICTABLE. i WILL LOSE EVERY BATTLE, MKAES GAME A TOTAL WASTE OF TIME

[grave belfry]

Probably saw an ss somewhere

#risk_screenshots message

[steel river]

After several levels of verification and having security do a thorough sweep I can now safely report: the cheating is within control.

[sturdy vigil]

You might just be bad.

[steep sandal]

Thank you for your efforts

[unique saddle]

he is
he made this post, argued for a bit, and bounced 😂

[sturdy vigil]

Your right, he left the server.

[raven river]

For sure cheating is out of control. If someone attacks in the right moment, going straight to you to countries he never saw to kill you with fog of war you know its cheating. My guess is at least 15% of players use map reveal cheat in my fog of war games.

[raven river]

The people claiming lack of skill everywhere tend to be the people using it as an excuse for having no arguments - hardly a coincidence

[sturdy vigil]

Lmao, watch pete's newest video for understanding for how to see with fog on.

It is very easy without cheats as long you have skill. 15% is just wrong, where are you getting this. It is more closer to 0%.

[sturdy vigil]

You also may have it, are you GM? Skill can help make great plays and not having it can make great plays look like cheating.

[unique saddle]

as Robards said
the cheating is under control

I will say that stalling is a little too common though but that's pretty minor

it's the bugs and glitches that need attention the most
hopefully the network overhaul update fixes quite a few of them

hopefully

[steel river]

After peering through the fog and concentrating for many many games watching for every clue that I can glean as to the location and strength of the “cheaters” I can now say conclusively that the cheating is in control… even in the fog. Also, nice Sevastopol cap! (I deduced its location without ever seeing it).

[raven river]

Why is it common to many people here to assume that everyone with an different opinion has no glue of the game and try to teach lessons? There is a word for that mind set: arrogance

[raven river]

me: 1 oppinion + 1 argument
you: 0 arguments - dont answer to my argument
Its not easy to see to through fog to regions you are not active and have no countries to determine EXACTLY where someone has his last country. Its just impossible without cheats.
Read, think, answer!

[glacial oxide]

You see troops received
You see capitals held
You see cards gained
You see attacks made

From those, you can identify;
What bonus(es) someone has
How many territories they have, with a maximum discrepancy of 2 territories for first instance, can identify accurately by taking a territory or two of theirs
Can identify who is in the lead in capitals
Can see who's cardblocked
Can identify if a player is newer or more experienced by how they attack (manual rolling, use of slider, etc)
Can see when a player's making moves based on turn timer (& pauses between attacks) and roughly which player it's against based on draft -> attack turn timer of players after their turn

Pinging me on a 5 month old reply just to say "I disagree with you" was completely unnecessary but ok

If you have a good understanding of RISK, and the application itself, you can identify behaviour & movements & positions based on what players do, when they do it, and how.

You can agree/disagree with something you do not have any actual supporting evidence for (suspect cheating in 15%+ of your opponents is wild) but there's plenty of markers that good players know that to you, may look like cheating

[raven river]

The arrogance shows continues...

Completely unnecessary is to write comments that just have the goal to show disrespect to others. I said more than "i disagree with you", i threw your hypocrisy back to you.

Thank you for telling me things i already know. If you have a good understanding of RISK you know whats possible without cheats and whats not.

Stop your noob lessons to people that have a different opinion, stop showing disrespect to people that have a different opinion, start to argue.
Assuming that everybody with a different opinion is a noob is no argument. Where is your "evidence" that all the people you harass for beeing a noob are noobs?

[iron haven]

She wasn't assuming, we can tell from your arguments that you are, in fact, a "noob" at risk. Otherwise you wouldn't be whining in this channel. Cheating exists, as with every game, it's not nearly as wide spread as people like you seem to think. Learn to read fog, problem solved.

[raven river]

All you say is:
You are a noob because you have a different opinion.

Can a noob climb to position 2 in FFA-Ranking? Does a noob have 50% winrate + 35+% second place in more than 2k 6 man ffa games?

Now i teach you something.
Discussions are based on arguments. Arguments are based on facts. Assuming something is no fact. When you use assuming in discussion you clearly testify it. Ad hominem is no fact and no argument.

I dont had arguments, i had one argument. That argument is that things are cheating when its only possible by cheating. You really want to argue against? All you "noob"-blablas are not able to read and understand arguments. That i see more cheaters than others could be the result of playing different settings than you. It needs 1 second of thinking to came up with this. But instead you always write the same knee-jerk "noob"-blabla. You sabotage discussions with that toxic behaviour. If you dont want to discuss, dont write in the forum.

[steel river]

After further checks: the cheating remains in control.

[slim oracle]

i meant cheating is under control tho, only problem is probably the internet connection which i have ton of issue when im switching from Wifi to my phone Data
most cases i cant connect back to game

[iron haven]

I'll agree the connection stuff is a bit of an issue, hopefully fixed with the network overhaul

[steep sandal]

The network overhaul? I’ve heard stories of that. Maybe one day myth will become true

[sturdy vigil]

You are a noob

And your opinion is wrong.

Now you might say that isn't possible

And do that I say I don't care

I don't have time to argue over something like this. If you don't like the "cheating" then stop playing.

15% cheating stat is insane

And their is no proof of it

You have 0 arguments, and everyone here that actually plays is trying to explain ti you that, with skill you can do it.

[raven river]

Sure, you dont have time to argue. Because you use all your time for toxic ranting.
Dude you have a psychologic problem.
Behind your monitor there is a world full of different opinions.
Learn to deal with it.

[unique saddle]

https://tenor.com/view/michael-jackson-comendo-picoca-gif-9669437860846841235

[iron haven]

I don't even know why i got involved arguing. This forum never sees reason.

[raven river]

Liar

[raven river]

Like this?
https://youtu.be/LDLKl7bOGXs?si=TQtZ03JFrDIotn6o&t=2038
Leading to this:
https://youtu.be/LDLKl7bOGXs?si=lfejxT8I8vHGxpNf&t=2272

I wouldn't claim white to be a cheater for sure. Its possible, but its also possible that white just wanted the split territory to complete his continent and found capital accidently. So regarding your noobblabla-talking. May you talk to Pete and explain him that he has no skill. Or you talk to yourselve that you have no skill in arguing.

BTW: Pete also reports others for cheating after beeing one round offline. I guess you have to "optimize" your "i have no argument - i do noobblabla - i refer to Pete because i dont have skill" - pseudo argument.

[fierce surge]

Using alliances or just being prepared and building a territory up to a point where it’s ridiculous are both things that I personally do with fog of war for me to be able to see a good portion of the map. I would suggest going for alliances and betraying at any point possible.

[steel river]

CONTROL
v
CHEATING

[trail kettle]

A mantra to remember is that: The points mean nothing. It’s about winning.

[nocturne moon]

No VC games with fog and No Alliances. It defeats the whole purpose. Personally I would love open VC games if everyone could act accordingly. The game used to be played on a board one time.

[sharp spruce]

So if you don't run two accounts your not going to win in ranked ? it seems to me the last few games I've played they're has been more then a few suspicious actions taken by two accounts working together to control an area. An no one does anything my rank just keeps going down down down and its like either cheat or never win again. SMG needs to do something otherwise RISK is dead to me.

[next mountain]

Come on, how arrogant do you have to be to think that everyone you're losing to must be cheating, to then put the blame on the developers, not even once thinking you could be doing something wrong but instead threaten to actually cheat yourself?

I'm sure you can be better than that. There are a lot of helpful people in this community that would be happy to share some insights on how to get better at this game and show you where to go if you want to play some fun games.

You certainly don't achieve that by writing sad toxic comments like these. Risk is very much alive to a lot of great people and you're welcome to join us! I'm sure you'd see the light sometimes. :)

[steel river]

Despite reports to the contrary…

c-o-n cheating t-r-o-l

[spice kite]

The cheating is in control???

So no longer under control but now in control?

[olive mason]

Are you doing your part and reporting suspected collaborators?

[steel river]

We really all need to get together and collaborate on reporting these cheaters.

[steel river]

A False Dichotomy. It is both under control and in control and it is more. also:

CHEATING

REPORTED

[iron haven]

There has never been a single confirmed instance of cheating in the history of all online gaming.

And non online gaming.

[bold crest]

Tough to know who is really cheating. And who is just bad and or suiciding into you. Especially since I don't think they actually care about banning cheating. It's my understanding that every streamer is "technically" cheating as they have a possible open communication with others

I just screenshot the people who constantly play together at the same times and try to avoid lobbies w them

It DOES make the wins against collaboration that much sweeter though when you end up beating the whole squad

[olive mason]

communicating with others, is a very different thing than communicating with people you are playing in a public lobby with. Anyways I made this comment because he said he hopes SMG does something and I was asking if he was doing something also by reporting players he believed were collaborating.
And I used to do something similar to your screenshot method but you no longer have to as you can just block them.

[daring briar]

this looked like a fun 15 months

[weary rampart]

Play zombies. WAAAAAAAAY less cheating

[iron haven]

Dont be ridiculous

The zombies get impossible troops every turn

Theyre the biggest cheaters in this game

Not to mention they get to magically regenerate troops

[glacial oxide]

They're the most predictable ai persona in RISK, they have strict pathing they follow, troop gain is relative to territories, or > x % it's relative to top troops player
Have a read: https://risk-global-domination.fandom.com/wiki/Everything_you_need_to_know_about_Zombies!

[iron haven]

My bad

I just felt like messing with XC

I do know how they work i just have a bad sense of humor

[weary rampart]

Dogsargent and I are friends. He knows this, but I appreciate this from you, Luci 💚

Should have told you 🙂

[weary rampart]

Bad sense of humor? Nah, it was fine 🤣

[iron haven]

Not everyone would agree lol

[raven river]

Whats your success rate in reporting? I guess its below 5%. So its useless.
I think i have read that the ingame block mechanic doesn't block others forever. May thats wrong.

[olive mason]

It is wrong. People are on my block list from who only knows how long ago that I reported them. Also, a success rate isn't indicative of anything (and I have no idea of what my personal % would be) other than a measure of how often your report. If you are reporting people every game and suspecting everyone is cheating against you, I imagine you would have an abysmal success rate of reporting cheaters. The longer I played the better I became at spotting actual cheaters and towards the end of things I would estimate my rate was actually pretty high because when I chose to report someone I had a lot to go on.

[glacial oxide]

We have a handful of players that report ~500 players per month (effectively reporting everyone they encounter) - their success rate for reporting will primarily be false positives, so it doesn't actually tell them anything useful - whereas if you're not reporting people every single day, you're more likely to be reporting more accurately, with a higher success rate to match

[glacial oxide]

Block list does have an upper cap of ~500(?) players - so when you block player501, player1 block (oldest) would be dropped
Realistically you'll not really be running into the same players enough that you'd even notice, and unless you're reporting hundreds of people/month, you likely have them on your blocked list for months too

[raven river]

My sucess rate in reporting is way below 5%. There were maybe 5 successful reports in years. I report maybe 10 people per month in average. I played 2000 hours and have nearly 50% FFA win rate. I'm experienced enough to know whats clearly illegal and i report only whats obvious.

[bold crest]

Streaming games especially ones in fog settings is considered cheating bcas there's no way to know if any of the hundreds or thousands of viewers could be getting info that someone who is not watching couldn't get. But I'm saying it seems like they are ok with some forms of cheating if it helps make the game popualr

Popular*

At least that's how I understood the rules. Just HAVING possible outside communication ....not using it.

[open lake]

its not cheating to stream fog games.

its cheating to watch those as another player

if you as the streamer KNOW that someone in game is in your stream, then you should stop streaming

[steep sandal]

I mean I see streamers complain about someone stream sniping and not a single one stops streaming... which is understandable

[bold crest]

I could be wrong but I think for tournaments it is specifically listed as against the rules to stream any fog game. And normal TOS for the game are having any outside communication possible....regardless of weather you use it or not. Either way it SHOULD be cheating 100%. The streamers are knowingly sharing info with players that are very possibly and likely playing in games at that moment. "Well the streamers don't know FOR SURE that their streams are being used to cheat" just doesn't seem like a legit excuse to me.

Again I'm talking about games w fog settings

[bold crest]

Exactly . Part of my point. A streamer who complains about "stream sniping" is literally admitting that the sniper is using their stream to cheat against NOT ONLY the streamers but the other people in that lobby

[open lake]

Most tournaments allow streaming. If someone is watching the stream than its them who is cheating. Not the streamer. Unless the stream knows someone is in their stream and is communicating with them

[bold crest]

It's not possible to prove someone is USING the cheat. Stopping the people who are PROVIDING the cheat method is something that can be easily done though

[bold crest]

"Unless the stream knows someone in stream is communicating......."

They are literally admitting that when they complain about "stream sniping" lol

[open lake]

So you want to ban streaming basically. Why not focus on a way to ban the snipers, and not the streamers?

[bold crest]

Would cheaters be able to use the streams to gain unfair advantages if the game wasn't being streamed? Yes or no? How to fix the problem is pretty obvious...

[bold crest]

I'm saying it was my understanding that streaming fog games was already against the rules

[open lake]

In the main FFA tourney it sometimes is. Most othet tournaments its not

The community is small. People will be found out.

[bold crest]

I agree. Step 1 - stop them from being able to watch the streams of fogged games.

Step 2 - now it is not possible for them to snipe...or use an unfair knowledge

Step 3 - problem solved lol

If there is some other solution or suggestion that's easier than that I'm all for it. And again. I'm talking about fogged games. Streaming no fog games doesn't really help the cheaters

[open lake]

I mean i disagree. Being able to see when a player has a trades on 3, no trade on 4, if they're going for a kill, etc. Sniping is always gonna be an issue. But there has to be a better answer than "stop streaming "

[bold crest]

I don't think anything that helps cheaters should be allowed.(streaming fog matches not only helps cheaters...it is their MAIN way to cheat in those games) having to wait a few seconds after the match is over to post it seems like such a tiny thing to ask of the community.

[open lake]

People being able to watch grows the game

[bold crest]

People can watch non fogged games.

You're basically saying that sniping is an issue because they are cheating AGAINST the streamer.....not understanding that the cheaters are cheating against the streamer AND THE REST OF THE LOBBY

[open lake]

I'm fully aware

[bold crest]

If we have to allow cheating of 1 of 20 types of matches for fear that the game won't grow there are bigger problems. People being able to cheat hurts the game far more than not being able to stream fogged games which are a small percentage of games played

In my opinion only of course

If i ever stream a game, I'll just make sure it isn't fogged. I'll do my part. Lol

[open lake]

If people are sniping, we can check audience lists. We can investigate games. In non main ffa tourneys. Its really not as big of an issue

Main Ffa bans fog game streaming

[bold crest]

We could do all those things sure. But that's infinitely more complicated than to just not allow fog streamed games lol. If they want to spend the time and $ to do all that then sure. But as of now that isn't happening. I'm merely coming up with a simple solution to the problem that can be enacted right this moment

[open lake]

For sure. I mean i host a few tourneys and I allow all games to be streamed. We know all the players. If they snipe, they will eventually be caught.

[bold crest]

?

Is the word "screenshot" blocked as content?

Or why can't I send messages lol

My messages are being blocked for content and I can't figure out what words it thinks im saying LOL

[open lake]

Let me go check

[bold crest]

"Playing with" ?

Lol no that's not it

[open lake]

Are you posting a link??

[bold crest]

Nope

[open lake]

I'm not sure tbh

[bold crest]

"Can't post a Screenshot here. But rule #6 says "then I quoted the rule"

And then I said maybe we just need clarification on #6

But when I say that without the quotes it gets flagged for content lol

[open lake]

Ya no I saw the messages in automod

Weird. I can check later

[bold crest]

Yeah I'm not worried about it

[steel river]

I’m sympathetic to your point from a perfectionist obsessive sort of mind set which I have, but pursuit of the perfect should not get in the way of the good. Streaming is good.

Currently I believe any game of risk can still be troop hacked or collaborated in etc. Yet the availability of a method of cheating doesn’t make us ban all games. Probably should. Hey SMG please shut all public games in RIsk Global Domunation down. My suggestion to stop all cheating. Thanks. 😂

[bold crest]

But i think the whole issue comes down to interpretation. If you think streaming is a possible external communication or not

[bold crest]

"All STREAMED games....of FOGGED risk global domination" and ide agree lol

I love the fogged modifier. But streaming a fogged games defeats the the purpose of the modifier

Adding fog is supposed to mean "no one can see eachothers territory"

Not. "Only people tuned into a stream can see the territory"

Imo it's like streaming poker. Yeah you're risking giving away YOUR info to anyone watching. But you're also giving bad actors extra info they wouldn't have on the rest of the table.

[steel river]

No streaming of risk games! My troop movements and strategies are my intellectual property and should not be shared without my express written permission.

[bold crest]

Play casual?

Or unfogged? Lol

Or stream it with a few seconds/minutes delay until the games over? Tons of options here

I'm just struggling to see the logic. If you play with someone you are in a text chain with...that's cheating yes? But streaming w hundreds/thousands of people in your youtube chat is......different somehow.

My main point is. I think they have the right idea w tournaments and made streaming fog games against the rules. I wish they would use the same logic with ranked games

That's it

[steel river]

As a viewer of many risk games the No streaming of fog games would affect me little to none since I much prefer to watch recorded videos on YouTube etc. at my own pace.

But many streamers and stream viewers would be disappointed. SMG is very unlikely to tighten the reins in this way regardless of if a strict interpretation of the rules clearly makes streaming of any kind an open line of communication between players in the game (this actually applies to all streamed games not just fog).

[bold crest]

Exactly. I think the only people it would affect (and barely...) would be the streamers and the cheaters. And the successfull ones would probably be for that if it also cuts back on the sniping and cheating. The people binge watching the streams/games are still gonna watch weather they are fogged or unfogged.

If anything I'm complimenting the FFA tourney peoples on their rule enforcement and wish the game would do the same.

[weary rampart]

We are assuming there's at least 1 cheater in every fog game streamed.

Also, it's not the streamer's fault someone chooses to cheat off of their stream.

And there are maybe 5-10 streamers in all of Risk that even get sniped consistently, and said players only play brain rot settings anyways, so if you are going to want to not worry about streamers getting sniped via streaming the game you may also be in, avoid the brain rot caps games.

[glacial oxide]

People can't collaborate against you if you are not in that game, so we should just ban legit players so only cheaters play (and they just play together) ??

Prohibiting streamers from streaming under set circumstances would be punishing streamers for a tiny % of their viewer's actions - that's not good for the community overall.
Banning the few asses that stream snipe doesn't harm the wider community or streamers.

There's risk with live streaming games, posting videos of games, just like there's risks involved in sharing pictures on social media - it doesn't mean you should punish people that do, you should punish the people misusing that information.

Also stream snipers are rarely ever trying to rank up, they'll often use throwaway "1 use" accounts to stream snipe, so the "getting extra information through fog to gain an unfair advantage" isn't actually what they're doing, they're trying to harass the creator directly - it's more of a side effect of their goal if the game happens to be fog based, but they'd be targeting them regardless of fog on/off, or whatever mode / other settings they're playing.

[weary rampart]

And to piggy back off of this, don’t think that the streamers aren’t the ones leading the charge to get the cheaters banned and for getting the right players banned.

Also, I want to give props to SMG for their work to cut these cheaters down as quickly as possible. They are doing great work to address the “out of control” cheating.

[steel river]

It appears another reminder is needed:

c-o-n cheating t-r-o-l

👆

The cheating is completely inside control as you can clearly see in this 👆aerial photograph of the situation.

[bold crest]

Huh? This makes no sense. Just force the streamers to follow the rules. Acting like not streaming fogged games would somehow hurt the game is hilarious. I know more people who quit bcas of the cheating than started playing bcas of streamers. The ones watching streams already play.

It seems like the tournaments ( where the streaming rules are enforced) are becoming more popular than rank leader boards/ rank anyway...so it's a step in the right direction

[glacial oxide]

They do, it's not against the rules to stream (regardless of mode)
This is also very off topic from the OP's post now

[bold crest]

Like I said. I guess maybe we need more clarification on rule #6. If a youtube stream or chat isn't "external communication" I literally don't understand what IS one. I'm just not going to stream or watch any streamed ranked games under those settings. Just seems hypocritical for the ones streaming for the cheaters to claim to care about the game or community when they can't even make one extra click to change to "casual" instead of ranked.

Anyways. That's all I had to say. I dont even know what the OP was LOL I got here late and just saw talk of cheating

[steel river]

Clicking over to casual wouldn’t make any difference. Fair play rules apply there too.

[weary rampart]

The streamers aren't actively trying to communicate with the cheaters though. And also, if you want to play a mode that's hard for snipers to even beat you in, play zombies.

And yes, please do what you feel is the best move for yourself 🙂

[strange lake]

has anyone been randomly defeated in a match when they still had all their troops and capital etc, possible an exploit/hack? but I was just in a game and suddenly it said I was defeated, not sure if it happened to other players or if they just quit (as that's such a problem these days) but 2 other players had flagged for seemingly no reason.

[olive mason]

Unfortunately this is a known and reported bug and we hope it gets fixed very soon.

[sturdy vigil]

People have reached GM easily with the cheating

(Assuming it exists)

You can easily win ranked without cheating.

Cheating in ranked is a waste of time anyway, you aren't gaining anything.

[steel river]

Despite rumors to the contrary: the cheating remains within control.

Any out of control cheating will be immediately reported to proper authorities.

[steep sandal]

Wouldn't fog zombies be the easiest for a sniper? They would have perfect information of stack locations and size while they themselves would be hidden

[weary rampart]

People don’t play zombies or understand zombies well enough to effectively cheat. They’re usually obliterated by the zombies by then 🤣

[dusty hedge]

As a streamer of exclusively almost exclusively fog games. I'll try to break down rule #6 for you.

Do not join or allow a player into your public/ranked game that you know. This is simple.

Do not join a public game that you have the ability to communicate with other players in the game.

This is where I think your confusion is arising. Streamers have the ability to communicate with their audience. It is imperative that we do not allow our viewers into the game. We work very hard to enforce this. The corollary is that you should leave the game if you recognize a player in the game as a streamer.

Fog has no impact on rule #6.

[steel river]

👍
Streaming offers the possibility of the ability to communicate without actually being the ability to communicate. This is the only way I can think to interpret it to allow for SMG’s stance that streaming is allowed but having a means of communication is not.

It is the presence of a viewer in the game being streamed that would put both the viewer and the streamer in the position of violating the rules. The means of communication doesn’t exist between members of a game if either 1: it isn’t being streamed or 2: non of the other players are viewing the stream.

[fiery wigeon]

I'm used to 2 trying to collaborate, but today I had THREE! Reported them right before I died. Lol

[weary rampart]

W

[steel river]

https://media.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExNzMydm0wMThtNTlmbXJiejY4YnVoeHQ5MDh5bGpsZXRwNGdxM2Z5ayZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/8hMD9YakVza3452SpN/giphy.gif

In control the cheating is. Ummm

[steel river]

https://tenor.com/YHNt.gif

Always blaming the cheating the noobs are.

[drowsy forum]

I see cheaters in almost every game

[steel river]

The fault…is not in our stars, but in ourselves…

[dusty hedge]

Are these cheaters in the room with you right now?

[raven river]

You are not allowed to say this in this "community", except you agree that the discord rules don't apply to people that offend you, since you have the "wrong" opinion.

[dusty hedge]

You can say it but it doesn't make it true or false. Present evidence to support the claim.
The evidence for blatant widespread cheating is flimsy.
Most examples I've seen presented are normal fair play games that went against the poster.
Ending up as the 1 in the 2v1 stinks. Doesn't mean the 2 are cheating.

[olive mason]

@steel river status check please. Is the cheating within the acceptable bounds currently?

[steel river]

#1265446384413184130 message

[steel river]

While reports of massive online cheating appear from time to time. We have still seen little to no evidence of widespread cheating.

Cheating exists in risk. Is it out of control? No.

Based on my own in game experience I have seen occasional upticks in apparent collaboration with influx of new players. As recently as a month or so ago I saw a brief spate of players in casual with flags all from the same region who apparently were so new to the game that they thought that joining the same game together was okay. Do I have convincing evidence that they were deliberately collaborating, no I only have my suspicions, but that is what the report function is for.

Regardless of these kinds of anomalies by and large the game is playable for many fun and fair games a day. If the cheating was out of control then the game would be miserable to play and that is just not the case (at least not because of cheating, SMG does have various others things badly in need of a fix).

I am sorry that some users feel they are being cheated and therefore that everyone is. They may on occasion be witnessing actual cheating in their games but the great majority of the source of reports of cheating is a lack of understanding of the game.

If you enjoy the game at all then play more, learn more and you then will enjoy it even more. Eventually after many many games you will begin to see the patterns of noob behavior and other things that masquerade as “cheating” in the game.

If instead you choose to sit in the weird limbo of simultaneously overestimating your own ability and knowledge of the game while underestimating the massive power of stupid in noob play then you will continue to see cheating everywhere. I mean really if you are a genius and so are all your opponents then the only explanation for weird play is cheating.

[dusty hedge]

I posted this https://youtu.be/WDHSQLkaCgQ last week. A few of the comments on the video suggested that maybe 2 of the players were working together. This game is very indicative of the type of play that people suspect are cheaters. In reality, one of the players is just very bad and the other is able to capitalize on it. This is normal gameplay of bad players.

[steel river]

That did look very suspicious 🤨 but I think I agree that big time dumb plus dumb lucky could be an explanation. (Great series! I’ve been working my way through from the beginning)

I think the area of exception where cheating might be happening at higher rates is in the games of streamers. There are just some knuckle heads who can’t resist the urge to try to get in streamers games and either target or linger either way they are cheating if they are watching the stream.

I would imagine that SMG is keeping a better eye on this than they used to.

[sturdy vigil]

The line beetween being bad and cheating is very thin

[silent rose]

im randomly joining 5-6 pop rooms, played 141 games and only played 2 or 3 games against to teamers

the one i reported got banned after one day btw

[olive mason]

^ this feels amazingly accurate to me

[silent rose]

i played against teamers again its starting to get really annoying, novice acc feeding master

[iron umbra]

Sounds like you're gaslighting. Last 20 games I played I reported on 9, 8 confirmed so far. That's close to 50% .

[olive mason]

If this is true I would be amazed.

[iron umbra]

It's true

[olive mason]

All reported for collaboration or various items? Whats your risk friend ID? DM if preferred.

[iron haven]

I haven't even had suspicion on a quarter of games from any set of my games, 50% confirmed seems incredibly unlikely

[steel river]

Sounds like you’re making up numbers. How many players did you report for which fair play rule violations in what game settings? And how quickly did you receive confirmation from SMG on those?

You are claiming 40% confirmed cheating across 20 games, which would jump up to 45% if the report from the 9th game is also confirmed.

A response from SMG detailing a ban, suspension, or warning doesn’t prove cheating only that your report coincided with a player that SMG’s system responded to. Some of those might be triggered by false positives. We don’t have access to the data on how many of your reports resulted in confirmed positives that won’t be reversed via the ticket process, so for these purposes we will assume that any response you got is the final result.

So far we have you claiming that you saw something that made you file a report in 45% of your games and that 89% of your reports were met with a confirmation from SMG.

[dusty hedge]

I'm curious as to what you're experiencing. What is the behavior you're seeing? A turn by turn description would be helpful for me.

[iron umbra]

Collaboration

[iron umbra]

Collaboration mostly, don't see any other kind of cheating.
It's pretty obvious you can typically tell with 3-4 round

[iron umbra]

Yes collaboration specifically.

Weird, you tend to default to gaslighting

[steel river]

Fail

[dusty hedge]

What are you seeing in the first 3 rounds that leads you to believe it's collab?

[meager orchid]

Bro probably sees someone moving their troops out of the continent as collaborating

[dusty hedge]

I don't want to discount what BB is experiencing but it's either very different than what I'm seeing or his interpretation of what's happening is very different.
It's hard to say one way or the other without a detailed description of the behavior he's seeing

Here's the info id like to see. Settings (classic fixed, prog caps, etc.; fog?; alliances?)
Board setup. Who is where? List of moves that raised suspicion.

[glacial oxide]

I'd go the opposite route:
It's amazing that you've been catching so many cheaters with such a high frequency, thank you for keeping them out of all of our lobbies & getting them all banned 🙂

[steel river]

The cheating would probably be noticeably out of control in everyone’s else’s games if this one hero wasn’t drawing so many of the cheaters to his games. I feel that we should all chip in though. As soon as he details his magnetic settings. I suggest we all start playing them at least a few times a week and each take a hit for the team.

It is still unclear if the claim is 9 cheaters reported across 20 games or 9 instances of collab reported. (Which would require at least 18 cheaters or playing the same cheaters in multiple games). I assumed that it was the 9 instances since there was a claim of almost 50% cheating. And asked for more details or confirmation of my understanding of the claim. Extraordinary claims usually require extraordinary evidence, but I was gonna accept even a tiny bit more detail, since any honest recounting of in game experiences will aid in gauging if cheating numbers are going up.

Instead I was accused of gaslighting and it worked I was gaslighted into thinking I’m a gaslighter and have been looking for gas lamps to light all day. Accusations of me being a gasbag will be better supported by the evidence.

[steel river]

I stand corrected. There is a second player drawing unusually large numbers of cheaters. #1427181076450775164 message

We must rally the community and render aid. These two heroes must not face this fight alone.

[dusty hedge]

What he's describing is what I've seen when I've had blatant collab. But I've only seen it a few times in literally hundreds of games.
The big difference is he's joining random lobbies and I almost always host mine. I'm also selective of who I let into my lobbies

[steel river]

I have seen clusters of possible collab in my own games both other peoples lobbies and hosting my own in public casual. I’ve been playing a lot of that the last few months, and it is a lot of inexperienced players. The cluster I experienced just lasted a day or two. I attributed it to an influx of new players, some percentage of whom thought it be a great idea to play together without knowing they aren’t supposed to do that. Their flags all were from the same region where I believe the game is gaining popularity at a high rate.

Either they lost interest in the game, get a warning, figured out the fair play rules on their own, or the block system worked to my advantage and it went away.

Deliberate collaboration (by players who know better) as a strategy to game the system or just to troll is much more rare but it is also a very difficult problem to solve. People willing to do this are also willing to create new accounts over and over again. SMG’s system can frustrate this but can’t stop it all together. Unless they have developed new secret processes. I know they keep quiet on much of how it works so as not to give cheaters a road map on how to avoid being caught.

But that said if this was “out of control” then we would all see it in many more games. And as you said I too have seen blatant collaboration across many hundreds of games so rarely as to be negligible. Like many players I do see what I think could be collab (especially people with same flag working together) from time to time including the cluster I described and use the report feature, but often by the end of the game I become more and more convinced that is just standard sloppy noob play.

I proposed the risk idea of the ability to reverse an in game report at games end, a while ago. I would find that most useful personally for stalling reports that I’d like to reverse when I’ve seen the whole game, but would be useful for collab reports too.

[dusty hedge]

This is why it's so hard to fully detect collab based on 2 or 3 turns of gameplay. Super bad play is really easy to mistake as collab.

[steel river]

Sometimes really good play looks like collab too. If you are inexperienced and can’t understand why teaming or card blocking together would make sense to your opponents for their own advantage then it looks like they must know each other. And if you have made an enemy through bad play at the beginning (that you don’t see as bad) then you might not understand why a player would work the whole game against you.

[hollow swift]

I beg to differ. I don't cheat and just got suspended for "cheating"

[dusty hedge]

This was probably an automated suspension due to a number of players reporting you for suspicious behavior. The most common being stalling.

[drowsy forum]

This game sucks now. F smg

[steel river]

My reply is here
#1431668678881185903 message

[sly otter]

I don't see much collaboration on this game though I have seen blatant collaboration a few times.

I think this game completely underminds itself though because the ban system is rigged and designed in a way that toxic people who know the ends and outs of it know how to take advantage of it while honest players who report people rarely have their voices heard.

Like for example a player who waited out 60 turn timers at the end of the match can get a player banned who took each of his turns immediately. 60 * 60 seconds is over an hour added to the end of the match. That is ridiculous and for them to always get to just go free while also having the authority to get you banned is crazy.

[dusty hedge]

I know you just need to vent because you're frustrated, but the best thing you can do is open a ticket and explain what's happened (keep it simple) and get back in the game.

[sly otter]

Already did this, then they went further back in time when their initial accusation didn't work out. But also if a person who misses one turn or delays match by just 60 seconds is a bannable offense then they would surely have plenty of "proof". I am not only frustrated for the ban, but I also recognize that if they do not overturn their conclusions, there is no possible way I can play this without eventually getting perma-banned. And 99% of all players would suffer the same experience.

I can't recall the last time I seen someone play a full 2 hour match and didnt miss at least 1 turn.

[steep sandal]

No 1 player has that authority. You have to be reported by more than 5 people (SMG has not stated the actual number just that it’s more than 1 games worth) within a 30 day period in order to receive a suspension. And even then your first suspension is only 24 hours. It takes like 4 iterations of that to get banned which is basically impossible if you aren’t actually cheating

[sly otter]

I don't dont agree with these statement at all. My first ban was 24 hours and the second one was 48 hours. There response time was longer than that so I did not contest it. I think I am reported every match honestly and I will also report every player in every match for now on if they do things more egregious then the minor offense of my ban. Missing 1 turn per hour is quite normal and unintentional. delaying a match by 60 seconds or so being considered an actual delay is just petty. And I don't think I have seen even one player yet to meet both these conditions on any match out of the thousands I have played.

For example Fog of war, they don't know how many troops are on my capital, and take a slow march toward my cap in case I have hundreds waiting to card block them. That should NEVER get someone banned.

I could have 100's more than them, I might have abandoned my cap 20 turns ago. who knows, they can't see.

Hope SMG don't start playing favorites and ban some for that and not others.

[steep sandal]

I’ve never seen any of your games so I can’t speak to it perfectly but I’ve played thousands of games and never been suspended. So my guess is something you’re doing is making people think you’re breaking the rules. Since you’re bringing up missing turns my guess is people think you’re fake botting out.

[sly otter]

They might think that. One thing that was brought up was that I delay the end of the match by a VERY short time to do my signature attack. I did not consider this stalling and had no idea that it would possibly be seen as stalling since I did not wait out turn timer and rushed every turn to do it tastely and would even say "Good game" "Well played" at the end. For me to get banned for that 60 extra seconds is maddening. And I did it in most every match. Just had no reason to ever conclude that that would be seen as stalling since nobody would every explain how I broke the rules.

In my mind stalling should be waiting out maybe 3-5 turn timers at least.

For someone to be rushing their turns while the other player was waited out the full time 20+ times then report the other player is trolling if you ask me.

The other players ALWAYS seen I was rushing.

[steep sandal]

What is your signature attack?

[sly otter]

final attack is I attack the last territory with a 666 if it can done quickly. But sometimes just a 66 and another 6 on a dif territory. I rush this also, never waiting out a turn timer unless I am filing a report at the end.

I am trying to upload a screenshot to show you what they sent me, but doesnt seem like I can even though I have seen others do it.

[steep sandal]

Ok well yes. That is blatant stalling and every opponent that’s stuck there while you do that should indeed be reporting you.

Now that you know that is against the rules you should stop doing that and you won’t have any problem with being reported and suspended.

From your opponents perspective all you are doing is sitting there refusing to end the game for no reason. And that’s the definition of stalling

[sly otter]

Hopefully... But it still doesnt make sense at all to me. Almost like I am being singled out. I constantly reported people who waited out 30-90+ turn timers to troll and nothing every happen to them.

But that wasn't even the inital reason they brought up.

They went back in time to ensure I stayed banned lol

Weeks back in time.

[steep sandal]

A player using their full turn timer is not necessarily stalling. The turn timer is there for a reason. Players need different amounts of time to plan, think, and act. And again it’s a multiple opinion thing. It’s also an automated system. So it takes multiple players across multiple games to report an account for the same thing. There’s not a mod going around and looking at every report and deciding if that was stalling or not

[sly otter]

Yes, I get that. All I am saying is that If missing a single turn timer or delay match end by just 60 seconds then, there will be no more players left. People are too quick to report others, and vague fair play rules that can be interpreted in different ways is to blame. Not giving a full description on why you got banned is also to blame. I have recieved almost 10 suspensions now. And after each suspention I tried, in good faith, to fix whatever it is I tried to think could be the reason for a the ban. And each time I failed. Also people waiting out 30+ turn timers and not getting banned (You get feedback in-game if a player you reported gets banned or not) that sets a bar. So when I seen 100 players go free, it created a scenario were I had no reason to ever even think that delaying the match by 60 seconds while rushing each of my turns would even been upheld as a bannable thing.

[steep sandal]

I do fully agree with the fact that the fair play rules are vague and they have refused to fully expound upon what’s allowed and what’s not. I also agree they need to give full descriptions on why you got suspended (although I’ll give them a little slack in that again it’s an automated system doing it. But still). And yes players are quick to report. The system could use a lot of work

[sly otter]

Yes. And many of us have spent money on this game. I feel a class-action coming one of these days for this kind of behavior. One day, they will be held to the same strictness of the law they themselves set on others.

Another big thing about all of this is that the player count is low on this game, and it could easily double if they had more common sense when it comes to bans. Search any forum off of this discord and it is people only complaining about false bans.

[dusty hedge]

10 suspensions is a lot. I feel like there's another side to this story that we're not hearing. Smg is not going to air your laundry in this forum so we only have your version of the events to go on.
All i know is smg is very slow to permaban unless you have crossed some serious lines.

[iron haven]

The amount of people thinking a law suit is reasonable for whatever their current complaint is seems to have gone up recently

[steel river]

It is an amazing coincidence.

[steel river]

Occasionally SMG’s mechanisms to keep cheating in control (the way we like it) will result in false positives causing suspensions. These are rare. And there is a ticket process to contest the false positives. This is totally reasonable.

There have been a lot of posts recently claiming some extremely anomalous occurrences as the norm. Maybe this is explained by an inability to deal with the minor frustrations of life or hyperbole or the false claims of actual cheaters or trolls trying desperately to turn the narrative to their will. Who knows. Maybe they have experienced a series of highly unlikely coincidences and in that case I hope they have speedy success navigating the ticket process.

In my experience claims that it is easy to get suspended or to get that suspension elevated to longer lengths or a permanent ban while playing normally just don’t make sense. While in my view claims that suspensions or bans are a part of a conspiracy by SMG to extract more money from users are either ridiculous hyperbole or signs of madness.

Others experiences may vary but having played daily for years totaling well over 5000 games. I only have experienced one false positive and was lucky in that it was quickly cleared by SMG. And have since learned just what an anomaly even that false positive was. For an FFA player it is incredibly rare and I had to experience a list of coincidences for a false positive to be triggered. Is it possible that someone else might experience a series of coincidences even longer and more complicated to cause them multiple suspensions or elevated enforcement action? Yes, but what is the most likely explanation?

I have put money into the game across multiple accounts over the years and if there was a false ban conspiracy to extract even more money from users I would probably be in the target group. I have yet to experience this scam. But I would fully expect SMG to trick me out of my money soon if I took things I read on this discord seriously.

🤔

Meanwhile: The cheating remains in control.

[sly otter]

How could you even possibly know that false positives are rare? I have really gotten way more than 10 possibly closer to 20 suspensions. But half of those I had time and felt like contesting. And without ever having to defended myself or even knowing what it was I supposedly did I was found innocent. So that tells me the false positives are wide spread. But people have different ideas on what toxic behavior is. For example one player may believe he should always take extra time at the end of the match to say, "Good game, well played". Others may see that as stalling. In my mind stalling is stalling, not consensual interactions between willing participants or acting in good faith to have fun to play a simple game like this. How many times did I receive a suspension because I walked away for a few turns after the opponent waited out 60+ turn timers. I had one opponent wait out over 300+ turn timers in a match that lasted over 10 hours. Was I suppose to stare at my screen for that time? Well according to you and many others on here delaying the game by a mere 60 seconds is stalling and deserves a ban. As I have said many times, if you believe that then I should have received 1000+ bans now. But not only me, every player I ever played with also. Some players are waiting out 60-300+ turn timers in a single match then waiting like a predator to report players who miss just one after waiting so long. That kind of behavior is super toxic and those are the ones that should be getting banned. I said several times on here that missing 1-2 turn timers per match is quite normal. Not a single person agreed with me. HOLY COW! So that 10 hour match, I am suppose to play the whole time without ever eating, drinking, or using the bathroom? What if the match lasted over 20 hours? 40 hours? Where is the line drawn? As I said before I am innocent in my mind by my standards. By many peoples standards on here I deserve every ban for that 1 turn timer I missed.

[sly otter]

And another thing I just thought of, Isn't this game targeted towards children? I would NEVER let my child play this. He would get the account banned faster than me. Little kids hitting emotes all the time because they look cool or to respond to other players emotes, kids got low attention spans and sometimes may accidently skip there attack phase. Kids might not know how to clear 100 territories in one turn and therefore act slowly, only taking a few or even 1 per turn. With rules this strict there should be a warning or something before purchase. Only for players 18 and older. lol

[steel river]

c-o-n cheating t-r-o-l

[dusty hedge]

Control
vvvvvvv
Cheating

[steel river]

Cheating
Reported

[sly otter]

@silent rose How can it even be possible to know if someone is stream sniping?

[sly otter]

I see cheating but it is usually in the form of adding troops (Which I rarely see), Collabing (Which I think I have blocked most of them by now), and predatory reporting (This form of cheating seems widespread)

[dusty hedge]

Stream sniping is a lot like collab. They will make moves that don't make sense if they were playing to win fairly.

Snipers tend to neighbor cap. They will harass only the streamer. There are other variations as well.

Also it can be difficult to prove but smg has the ability to review pattern behavior and has permabanned quite a few players for it.
(This is not the same system as the one people are complaining about the false positives getting people suspended. )

Streamers can be paranoid and claim sniping too often. But it happens more often than most people realize.
Some snipers aren't even malicious, they just want to play the streamer, but it ruins the integrity of the game.

[daring briar]

I have reported collab in game only to later regret it when I realized I misread the situation. Dred, I also would love an "undo report" button lol. People have odd playstyles and motivations, which is part of the fun of the game.

Flak, just skimming thru this thread, I have seen several things that are getting you reported a lot. The waiting to win until you get a certain size stack is 100% getting you reported every single game you win. That is stalling and is bad sportsmanship.

The missing turns and coming back is probably seen as fake botting, a strategy some people use when blocked or being teamed. They will pretend to bot out in the hopes the other two players start fighting and then come back to a different board state in which they are not blocked. This is also getting you reported probably quite often.

If you are blocked and accepting it (just sitting on cap and not trying to break the block) you should be taking your turn asap. Burning your whole turn timer just to spite the others blocking you is also bad sportsmanship and will get you reported. Side note: I have seen more than once someone blocked and taking their turns quickly be appreciated by the blocker and sometimes the other players betray each other and you can gain an ally that will change their minds and open you and team with you the rest of the game just because you were classy about the block and didn't stall. Not always, of course, but it does happen sometimes.

The report system is automated so if you are reporting and no one is getting suspended that means no one else agrees that those players are cheating.

As far as SMG being unfair, the fact that you have been suspended 10-20 times and can still play is baffling to me. I would be praising the merciful folks over at SMG for giving someone an absurd amount of second, third, 20th chances.

My father was a small business owner and once hired a business consultant to hire a staff for him. As a kid, I questioned him on this and his response always stuck with me. He said "I have fired everyone I hired for the last 3 years, at some point I have to wonder if I am the problem so I am letting someone else take a crack at it"

I don't say all this above to troll you, I say it to share another perspective with you. Hopefully you reflect on it in a constructive way, that is how I intend it. Good luck to you sir.

[sly otter]

I don't think anyone is reporting me for the turn timers I may miss during a multi-hour game. I suspect I was getting reported for hitting the last cap with a 66 or a 666 and SMG might have seen those turn timers waited out and made their own conclusions. As far as my signature attack most of the time I rush my turns to complete it. I.e. Not waiting out a single turn timer and having in done in less than a minute. I think I was getting reported for that but the world may never know. Hard to know why you get a suspension without being told any peice of information about it. The point I am making, and some disagree with, is that that should not be considered stalling. And for a player who waits out 30+ turn timers to report a player who only missed 1 sounds absurd to me. I still don't think I have ever seen a player go a whole match without missing at least 1 turn timer. Even now when I promised to report every player who "stalled" longer than me, I realized I was just going to end up reporting every player, every match. And even worse my conscious would be bothered since I see that as predatory reporting. If you ask me, if you can't wait an extra minute at the end of the match, this isn't the game for you. These matches last multiple hours and it is entirely unreason to believe that people who want to play have to dedicate their entire life for those hours to stare at the screen. And I think SMG should look at the people who make the reports and ban them also if they were stalling for 30-60+ turns lying in wait for the opponent to miss a turn so they could get reported. As the saying goes.. On a side note I have never been fired but I would still fire 99% of the people I have worked with so you father was probably right. lol.

[glacial oxide]

If my signature move is grab 7billion troops to kill your last territory, just because I'm taking my turns in 5s doesn't mean that's in any way reasonable to force onto your opponent

[sly otter]

I have moved on from it. Will bring it up again in around 2 weeks when they give me next ban for using the emotes lol.

[jolly portal]

These 3 are cheaters: Sweet, Pleas Raid 32, and Boris Winkle 14. I reported them. Funny how I already had all 3 of them blocked and yet it still never notified me when I joined their lobby. Anyway, just a heads up.

[sly otter]

Be warned, if you block everyone who cheats or stalls or emotes there will be no players left to play with. And last time I checked you can ONLY unblock 9-10 at a time before the game bugs out and you have to uninstall. I had hundreds blocked and had to uninstall and reinstall every 10 I unblocked. Nowadays I only block people for cheating or collabing. Nobody really stalls more than the SMG bots so I hesitate to report anyone for that anymore.

[pale onyx]

This is an old thread from a while back but, I want to touch on it as it was recently opened.

We do have automated systems set up in place to catch collaborators as well as user submitted reports

I can't go into too specific into technical detail, but we look at both accounts that play together & accounts created by the same person to limit multi account as much as we can.

• We compare this to how many games you have played with that person vs how likely it is to find the same account over and over.
• We also compare login times as well as how many of the same lobbies you are trying to join

Players who receive a number of reports will be suspended; the severity depends on whether they're a first time offender etc. Repeated offenders, especially in ranked get permabanned.

This Automated first line of defense results in an average of 3500 suspensions a month, with an average of 170 accounts being permanently banned for multiple offences in ranked.

As for player reports, RISK is a game where you will have to work together with other weaker players to take down the emerging leader as well, so in some cases in-game alliances are mistaken for collaboration cheating. Even if alliances are off, players will still work against the strongest players to increase their own chances of winning especially in higher ranked lobbies with more skilled players. I understand this can be frustrating but it is the nature of board games to strategize like this.

We do take player reports seriously but on average only 4.65% of player submitted reports are creditable with supporting evidence either in game or with historical data.

There are of course ways around this that we do try to limit as much as we can but on the whole we'll catch your average players who ruin ranked games with their friend or another account.

[steel river]

Could you give us approximately how many accounts total play in online games a month?

[dusty hedge]

Spamming emotes will get you muted and there goes your communication ability.

[pale onyx]

Sorry I don't have the specific on this 😅

[steel river]

How can we verify if the cheating is out of control if we don’t know the scale of the ocean of accounts that the cheaters are mixed in with? If SMG is issuing an average of 3500 suspensions and 170 bans a month out of 10000 active accounts then that indicates a much bigger problem than out of 100000 or 1000000 active accounts. And my hat is not tasty so I hope I’m right that we have more than 10000 active players a month.

[cursive delta]

10,000 people have a peak elo of 17800 or higher this season

the season is about a month old so almost all of these will have played at least some game. and that's only master-GM, so overall we are looking at over 100,000 active players

only 500 of these are GMs at exactly 26000

[nocturne moon]

The Zombies even the odds.

[raven river]

"Players who receive a number of reports will be suspended"

And people wonder why they get banned for no reason...
Are you f**** serious?
Spoiler: People abuse this "system"

[short fractal]

I got suspended and I'm not a cheater so wtf

[olive mason]

@raven river If you were recently suspended you can (and should) file a ticket. I think a lot of people are being unfairly suspended right now in conjunction with the jacked up bot out system and they just announced that should be fixed very soon.

[raven river]

lol, nice, a ticket...
a ticket that needs way longer to get a reaction than the duration of the suspensions
and the reaction is: "you are a cheater read the fair play rules"

[sly otter]

Lol welcome to my world. I got banned for stalling and they said I did not miss a single turn timer. lol Stalling for rushing my moves lol. Then as soon as I asked them if it was only a bot left... dead silence.. The game will bait you into walking away from sometimes since you know you are the only human left and its only 5 non-moving bots left and you see it will take a whole hour to finish it. Then BOOM! Banned. lol

[sly otter]

Yeah. I have noticed there seem to be more people speaking out now against the predatory banning system. I also noticed it is only a few players on here that are quick to always speak as if you deserved your bans without knowing anything about it. Almost as if they are SMG undercover agents lol.

[sly otter]

I still think SMG should unban all the accounts (Except the ones banned for cheating or collaboration) and issue an apology to its entire player base. I once played this game called Rainbow six siege. And teammates would shoot me in the back. When I defended myself I would get a suspension. (They were trolling me to get me banned) That was seen by everyone as a predatory ban system and they quickly changed it. I would say the whole banning people for "stalling" or using emotes is far more predatory than the ban system in siege that I spoke about above. Reporting someone for stalling is widely abused to the highest degree. For example. Imagine being banned for stalling and being told you did not miss any turn timers. Or being told you are banned for delaying the game by a mere 60 seconds. Then SMG wont even tell you if that 60 seconds you took too long was even against a human. They say nothing about the ban itself 99% of the time to where you will NEVER have any idea what they are talking about or have any way to possibly defend yourself. And even at that just to reply to their reply could add weeks or months to the communication process. By the time you get the information out of them you need to defend yourself, all those matches from half a year ago are now a distant memory. Imagine all the players who were banned for a fog of war match where they had no way of knowing how much the enemy even had. Imagine your opponent knew he had lost and knew you did not know what he had and reports you for it. This is a common theme on this game with the current ban system. I would say this game has the most predatory ban system of ANY game I have ever played actually. And I most would agree with me who have played this game.

[iron haven]

Frick you caught me

Smg pays me every day to get on here and make sure no one bad mouths them

[short fractal]

All suspensions should come with explanations

[sly otter]

Sorry, I wasn't talking about you and actually meant to send that to the other guy.

[sly otter]

Yes. It should have:

• A timestamp
• A full screenshot
• Say if it was a fog of war game
• A specific reason
• Should let you know where the line is. (Since you can get banned for stalling for rushing your turns and not missing even one turn timer)
• Should know if you were actually just playing against bots or not
• If you are reported for stalling or using emotes, also show how many turn timers wasted and emotes the person who reported you used.
• Respond in a reasonable amount of time. (72 hours tops)

Really stalling and using emotes should never result in a ban. The only real way to actually stall is to collaborate with someone and collaboration is already a bannable offense.

[iron haven]

They could probably improve in communication, but I dont see how playing against bots is an issue, it shows a bot icon in game when youre playing against a bot

And to me, stalling should definitely result in a ban in some cases

[sly otter]

Just because it shows a bot icon doesn't mean a human can't come back magically 10 minutes later.

[sly otter]

People will bot out when they know you are the only one left and when they know it will take you an hour to clear the board. So they bot out and see if you quit or went afk yourself.

[iron haven]

They literally cant, it was changed in a recent update, and when they are temporarily inactive before they get kicked completely after 2 missed turns it shows that theyre a bot

[sly otter]

I don't think that update has gone thru yet. But yes that is what happens to me (Miss 2 turns them I cannot rejoin). But the thing is SOME players have a way to bypass that somehow. Though I do not know how myself.

I think they are going to attempt to try to fix it again on this next update when they update the bot surrenders again.

[short fractal]

Why should stalling result in a ban?

[iron haven]

Im pretty sure that the main update has gone through, its some tweaks and fixes that are rolling out some time this month. Im guessing if anyone is bypassing it theyre hackers, which majority of those problems should be fixed with network update

[sly otter]

The only way to trully stall is to collaborate. And that is already a ban. So no reason to have a separate ban for "stalling". Usually when people report others for stalling though, it is the most minor thing and the person reporting the other player is actually the trolling party.

[short fractal]

Not finishing the game when the game is over would be stalling and shouldn't be allowed, but to use the turn timer given I mean c'mon

I can't play until Thursday morning 😔

[iron haven]

Theyres a difference between using the timer to think, and waiting out the end of every turn to annoy others

[sly otter]

That can be VERY subjective so you got to be careful what you wish for. I got banned in a fog or war match cause my troops were higher than theirs. But I had no idea what they had. If you know you are lost, just surrender. Any delay in the match would be on you for not hitting surrender.

[short fractal]

Just dumb

[sly otter]

Yes, this can get very annoying. But their should be a line that is specified. So they don't ban people for missing just 1 or 2 turns in a multi-hour match.

[sly otter]

Because, "I could have finished the game". But had I played any different I could have very well lost too.

[short fractal]

I try to play at work sometimes... I cook at a bar. I'll play with 2 or 3 minute timers and take my turn in between rounds of dishes and orders etc.

So I'm sure I have "stalled"

[sly otter]

You actually have a good point there in that. I don't see that that often but yeah. I guess that would be a good reason to ban someone for stalling. And that is if they do it like 5+ times in a row or something like that.

[short fractal]

Some people play risk while doing other things

[sly otter]

I get you. I just don't think many people will be happy if you miss 20 turn timers in a match.

[short fractal]

I'm not sure if that's why I got suspended, could be another reason.

I have heard if you play the same settings a lot, you'll end up playing the same opponents a lot, and that can trigger their collab system

[sly otter]

Yeah. Honestly it is not really possible to defend yourself against being suspended. Its not feasible at least since a few message exchanges can take months.

[short fractal]

So they won't respond this week huh

[sly otter]

They sent me a screenshot of a map I have never even seen before (And I searched all the maps on risk and could not find it either). Imagine them showing you proof like that. lol

[short fractal]

I had to connect it to another email and jump through hoops just to create the ticket

Bunch of clowns

[sly otter]

Could take a couple days... could take weeks..

[short fractal]

Like reddit mods

[sly otter]

That is per response.

[short fractal]

Fucking sucks

[sly otter]

Yeah. They have sent me "proof" of why I deserved my suspension but the "proof" they sent was proof I was not guilty lol.

[pale onyx]

we get lots of tickets come through for ban appeals which we look deeply into the account, including player history, round turn history etc. If it all looks good we can clear them entirely from someone's acccont.

[sly otter]

What you mean to say is your intent is to do that. Also yall should really include alot more information when yall suspend someone. SMG has sent me proof of my innocents as evidence of my guilt before. You are making the assumption that the people who look at the bans interpret their given information appropriately. And they are impossible to defend against when a player knows nothing about it. No reason to ever appeal a ban since you don't really know anything about why it was issued in the first place.

[sly otter]

Anytime yall ban/suspend someone yall should send a FULL screenshot, a specific reason, a timestamp of the match, and how many humans were left in the match, how many turn timers were waited out by the accused and ALSO by the accuser, etc. That info is basic and would give people a start to figure out what is going on.

[steep sandal]

Most of this info is pretty ridiculous.

The only one they should be sending is the specific reason.

Pretty much any suspension/ban will be for offenses over multiple games so automatically sharing all of that information is ridiculous.

And if you need to know how many turns you sat out for why you got banned… the answer is too many. Stop doing your signature move and just end the game

[sly otter]

Signature move? You just trolling me now. Takes all of either that turn or the next turn to do it, with no delay. And they should 100% give all that info and more. Nobody will ever be able to defend themselves without it. No reason to even have an appeal system if you don't provide that basic info.

Attacking with 66 troops can be done in 1 turn. Reporting a player literally takes 2.

[sly otter]

Your probably one of the players reporting people for missing one turn when you yourself probably missed the 20 turns before.

[iron haven]

You dont get banned for one match for this reasom though, its for a pattern of behavior over many matches. A full list of all this stuff isnt really reasonable to expect them to produce, I do agree maybe they could give more context on what rules people broke, but the rest of the stuff isnt really feasible. And again, the game tells you how many humans are left in the match at any given moment. Also, you clearly said you would also wait until 666 troops before, although even waiting until 66 is just pointless, the correct thing to do is win the game when you can win the game and not try and look cool while doing it. I also feel like youre not giving them the benefit of the doubt here, allowing random bans for an insufficient reason isnt going to them retain players, it would just make them lose players. They have a direct incentive to do their best ensuring bans are valid.

[steep sandal]

Dude. You have been suspended multiple times. You have been told exactly what it’s for. You choose to keep doing it… you are the one trolling

Whether or not you agree with it is irrelevant. The people who make the rules have clearly stated that what you are doing is against the rules

[sly otter]

You are mis-construing what I said. When I did the 666 attacks, I did not have 10 troops then waited 20 turns to gather 656 more. I had all the troops needed then I reinforced it or MAYBE waited to the next turn to finish it, never missing a turn timer. Cards usually trading around 600 then anyways.

[sly otter]

Not sure where I said anything about randomly banning people. I showed everyone here how they can be wrong. I have proved my case over and over. The only reason I could not prove the other cases is because I know nothing about them. And I am only willing to spend a few weeks attempting to communicate with them. Once it goes into the months I don't care anymore. Also, that is mostly standard information that they already should posses. Nobody should be banned for things they did before their last ban.

Another thing yall seem to forget, is the 66 6 or 666 attack was ONLY against people who were constantly waiting out turn timers or collaborators I had defeated. I didn't just do it everytime for no reason. What usually happens is someone who waited out consecutive turn timers or who have magically taken over the bot even though more than 2 turns have passed, so I end up slamming them with the evil that they are. Then I report them for repeating the behavior.
In those situations I am the non-cheater, anti-staller if anything. And writing the report can be slow and they tend to get reported when they stall, so there might be another turn to file the report. It just goes back to if you believe 30-60 seconds is stalling or not (Not missing any turn timers) I for one don't. I can't even fill out the report against them in that time. So reporting anyone for stalling would often result in a ban for many. As I said before, just because someone fills out the report doesn't make them right. Alot of sore losers out there.

Still have no idea how this doesn't make complete sense to everyone.

[crimson socket]

I noticed a lot of collab. And a lot of bugs.

[steel river]

The bugs ARE out of control. The new update is coming before the end of the month. Hopefully most of the bugs are resolved for good with this update.

Meanwhile the cheating remains in control.

[dusty hedge]

I agree that stalling shouldn't lead to banning. In my ideal world the game would detect stalling in real time, warn the player, and then kick them out of the game.

[sly otter]

depends what you mean by stalling. But yeah. I get what your saying. That is not a bad idea either. As far as I know there is only 2 kinds of stalling that matter. Waiting out every turn timer over and over and another form that envolves collaboration but that is already collabing and no need to call it stalling.

As far as people not being able to clear the board in a single turn, trying to clear the board at the end, missing a single turn timer, delaying the end of the match by less than the length of a turn timer to report or slam someone, not knowing what lies within the fog, etc. None of that should every get someone banned, suspended, or kicked from a match in my ideal world.

[sly otter]

Literally just got banned again. There is no excuse they could possibly have now. I made sure to pay attention to EVERY match for anything that even the most toxic player could call stalling. No reason for this!

[olive mason]

Just curious. Are you having games where you're flagging out and surrendering?

[sly otter]

Yeah. I always flag out and surrender if I quit. Usually when Too many people quit before turn 1 or If I am the only human left and clearing the board will take too long. And sometimes if I suspect predatory reporting I quit right away.

[dusty hedge]

@sly otter I'm really curious if you are inadvertently playing the same players multiple times.
It's pretty hard to get banned as often as you do without violating some kind of fair play rules.
If i were in your shoes and felt i was being unfairly banned, I would open a ticket asking for clarification as to what you're being reported for, so that you can stop doing it.
This is not normal.

[sly otter]

Yeah. I open a ticket half the time. I don't know of any regulars. I always change my name and don't know anyone and don't even play private matches with the discords group. I play prog caps so there is only maybe 100-200 players in total from what I can tell. (At least it feels that way). I don't think it has to do with any of that though. I mean at this point I know. I think I get reported at the same rate that everyone else does but since I play 8-10 hours per day my reports per week and month are higher. I think 99%-100% are predatory though against me (And everyone actually). Also, at this point. If I appealed every ban and win I would still be de facto banned for half the year. The bans are regular and seem to come at a set interval. Maybe every 4 weeks (or 6 weeks or something) on the dot it seems. Also I monitored everyone of my matches to make sure there was no fathomable way anyone could ever report me or ban me for. Same thing happened on the dot. It usually takes a few weeks for me to get a response. If I get a false ban every month and it takes them 2 weeks to reply to an appeal. I am de facto banned. And one might even say If SMG themselves were to admit every ban was a false ban, then I have in effect just be banned just for playing the game.

[glacial oxide]

Appealing a ban is NOT about the ban being cancelled before it ends, it's about ensuring your NEXT ban isn't 2x (or usually more) longer. So you're appealing the suspension level you've been placed at, rather than "I've got a 24h ban and appealing it is a waste of time" - a few bans later under the same logic and you're stuck with a 30d, 90d, or permanent ban - and we may not even be able to verify if the earlier suspensions were issued incorrectly or not (and have to assume they were legitimately issued).

[olive mason]

The more likely scenario is he is botting out and since the bot out system is still bugged he gets reported by players for stalling. We've seen a large increase in this happening. The timing of when he appeared in discord to complain about this would suggest it to be the case.

[sly otter]

Is it possible to get a suspension without even getting reported?

[glacial oxide]

Sure, but it's uncommon.
You could be suspended without having any user-generated reports because you have system reports against you (that count towards suspension system) - this could be automated stalling detection, playing with friends in public games, etc
You could also be suspended by an administrator (this only really occurs without a permanent ban if someone is continuing to violate the same rule they were suspended for, after the previous suspension ended)
You could also be suspended (with a permanent ban issued too) if you have been identified as hacking or multi-account cheating - although the suspension would be the least of your issues in that case

[sly otter]

How long does a report stay on file before it "rolls off". How many reports trigger a suspension?

[glacial oxide]

The "stay on file" is easy enough to test (report a friend on mobile, wait for it to expire for the "no action taken") but it's 30 days
Report triggers I can't share (we don't have these publicly available)

[sly otter]

I am not quite sure what you said. If I understood you correctly, you are saying once you recieve that report that says "No action Taken" that means that said report is deleted from their file, and never used against them again. Would that be a correct interpretation?

[glacial oxide]

Yes

[sly otter]

How many number of reports in a 30 day period does there need to be to trigger a suspension? Also how many of those reports must be true?

[spice kite]

This suggests to me that x reports in 30 days triggers a suspension. It is unclear that the report has to be for the same offence and suggests the suspension is based on volume not substance.

[sly otter]

Right, That is my conclusion. And my conclusion is even more reinforced now that I went out of my way to set them up for false suspensions and still got suspended. But their vague fair play rules basicaly enable them to make up any reason to ban you. Missing a single turn timer. Delaying game by a mere 60 seconds, using emotes you paid for, etc. As I said before. Even if SMG find me innocent of every offense, I would still be de facto perma-banned by how the system is designed.

[sturdy vigil]

Proof?

[steel river]

While the cheating remains in control. This channel has been really good for learning all kinds of things… including the limits of what SMG can and can’t say about the suspension system. Luci’s answers above make it abundantly clear why anyone receiving a suspension should definitely be filing a ticket regardless of whether or not their brief suspension might be over before they see an answer. Sounds like ignoring suspensions could definitely come back to hurt you later if you are a long time player. So always file a ticket and always encourage anyone questioning a suspension on this discord (no matter how annoyingly) to file a ticket. Let’s all play fair together.

[jolly portal]

There are enough complaints about SMG that it should caution everyone to strongly consider refusing to give them any of your money. I, myself, refuse to spend another dollar with them.

[sly otter]

Yeah, I have thought that for the longest. Havn't spent a dime with them in a long time. I just got my final false ban. SMG doesn't care, why should anyone else. Really this game needs an age rating. 18+. If there is any chance you buy a game and could get banned for just playing it, nobody under 18 should be playing. Also, you can report scam games on steam.

[steel river]

Once many years ago a wise pirate wrote:

“Not spending money on a game you are not enjoying is a wise choice. Not spending time on the discord for a game you are not enjoying may be one too.”

I wish that guy was still around.

[sly otter]

Good to post it though. Best thing you can do is warn others.

[iron haven]

Too be fair ive seen about 500 complaints about smg in the recent weeks

The problem is they all came from about 5 people

[steel river]

Those are the only 5 people who aren’t secret agents of our s m g overlords. The collective has nearly reached full saturation. We must enter just a few more minds through our secret weapon, discord chat, before we reveal ourselves. All hail the blitz slider. The count down to network overhaul has begun.

Meanwhile: The cheating remains within control.

[sly otter]

I just realized yall are all apart of the same group. Lol. I guess that is exactly what I thought at the start though. Can't say it is surprising.

[sly otter]

Will call yall the Toxic 5 now.

[iron haven]

Sick

Ive always wanted a cool nickname

[sly otter]

Yall probably wouldnt even be here if SMG just banned the people doing the predatory reporting. At least 99% of the time SMG agrees with me on my appeals. Meanwhile the Toxic 5 advocating for the most toxic predatory reporting of people missing a single turn timer, or delaying the match by less than the entire length of a turn timer lol.

One would think, if yall have never been banned and I have been banned 10+ times and SMG agreed they were false..... One doesn't have to wonder very much.

[iron haven]

Yeah Ive done a toooooon of predatory reporting

Been playing for years and maybe done like 20 reports total?

Maybe 30

[raven river]

Pete abuses the report feature all the time in his videos, just sayin....
So when the "rolemodel" does it ....

[sly otter]

That is funny that you said that, because I just watched him a few days ago and thought the same thing.

[olive mason]

Maybe (since so many people think cheating is so rampant), streamers like Pete are the only ones using it properly.

[raven river]

sure, using it "properly" means saying that there is no real reason for the report you made some seconds before

[iron umbra]

80% of my reports are successfully marked as cheaters or collaboration.

[lilac warren]

Make your games Expert and above

[raven river]

above expert lobbies dont fill because SMG thinks its clever to split the playerbase by more and more modes and maps.

[steel river]

Current and recent update may have players on different versions not seeing each other’s lobbies. That has happened before. Usually lasts a day or two.

[raven river]

Even with the popular meta-settings there is nearly no chance to fill lobbies greater than expert, all the time.

[sly otter]

I just finally gave up and stopped playing again. SMG constantly spits in my face. And they basically stole my money and time from me again. They have no respect for their player base. They can burn their own game to the ground for all I care. Anyone can remake this game but better in every way without a single one of these bugs in a matter of a few weeks.

[iron haven]

Then do it

[cobalt glade]

Hey everyone, I'm leaving the game, no no don't try and stop me with how much you want me to stay, I'm leaving. And I know what your think, this for is for attention. - random internet person

[raven river]

You have a different oppinion: You are bla and blabla and blablabla - random risk "community" member