Cheating never stops. Smg DOES NOT CARE

[fair cargo]

500 plus hours on this game and I quit.
FuckSMG FOR LAZY PROGRAMMING

[waxen night]

Understand the frustration. I’ve played 1000s of hours and still think of quitting because of program issues from time to time.

We have waited a long time, for certain basic corrections, but there are some promising changes coming soon. I know we’ve heard that before. But it seems to actually be coming this time. Come back in a few months and see if the particular issues that bothered you are taken care of in the next updates. They are currently working on building the program again from the ground up basically and they are a tiny dev company, so that does take them a while, but yeah seems ridiculous that it has taken this long.

[broken eagle]

@fair cargo can you describe the behavior you're seeing in detail?
Are you seeing:
Hacking?
Collusion?
Stalling?
Harassment?

All of these are forms of cheating but they have different degrees of impact and how to deal with them also differs.

I have played 1000s of hours and have seen all of the above but not to the point i want to quit. So I'm curious as to what you're seeing that is so egregious that you don't want to play anymore.

[fair cargo]

As a fellow developer with tenured bona fide residency I would love to work for SMG and make this the billion dollar property that it really is the risk property is as loaded with potential as chess and Texas Hold'em

It's a multi-billion dollar property that's being underutilized

It's a multi-billion dollar property that's being underutilized and with the proper management and vision could literally be the next great multiplayer game that is welcomed by the world I see a future where Global risk tournaments are as profitable as Texas Hold'em this game is just as important as chess and Texas Hold'em and is widely adopted by people of all ages on the planet I totally understand the family-friendly rating and what that means for legality purposes.

Smg Is dropping the ball When it comes to the potential of this property and this gameplay

This is multiplayer chess multiplayer go better than multiplayer Tetris in fact I would make the argument that given a proper management this is more profitable than Texas Hold'em

I have the bona fide credentials I am easily verifiable on LinkedIn and I stand by my resume. I have over a thousand hours of verifiable gameplay on top of 30 plus years as a tenured Senior Systems architect of multi-billion dollar properties if SMG really cares about their bottom line they will take what I have to say seriously

I have receipts

[fair cargo]

@waxen night the only reason I'm here is to find others like myself thank you for replying I'm not just here to complain I'm here because I see the potential the multi-billion dollar potential of this intellectual property I'm here to fight for what I believe in with receipts to back it up. Linked in available upon request.

I'm going to contact SMG directly and if they don't take this property seriously I'm going to go to Angel Investors and approach Hasbro directly and buy this property out from under SMG and turn it into the multibillion dollar asset that it is I'm just doing due diligence and having compassion and integrity and speaking out first through appropriate channels.

Fact check me.
Proove me wrong.

[bold robin]

I played 10 games today. 8 of them had obvious collabs

[random valley]

What settings were you playing? Ive been playing a couple few years now and ive probably had less than 10 total times of confirmed cheaters, it seems weird others have a much higher frequency. What was the situations that led you to think it was a collab?

[bold robin]

I rarely host. I join others lobbies. Significant higher chance there. Also no way for me to confirm cheaters. We can only suspect.

[random valley]

Yeah but what kinds of settings were these lobbies? And what did they do to show collab?

[bold robin]

I always play prog with fog. Usually caps. Collabs again usually happen in fog. Those are just my fav settings. Feeding each other kills, the game etc. Pretty ovbious usually. Just played another one now. Two were definitely collabing.

[random valley]

Are alliances on?

[bold robin]

no

[random valley]

Interesting

[bold robin]

Pretty sure I have a cheater right now. Earth 2209. 2nd round I take Russia. Green player not even close to me comes from half way around the map and beelines my cap. He never saw my cap. The black player was adjacent to me and I was stacking on him. Pretty obvious collab, I'd say. Found green's cap and it was basically empty beside the black player. Black player lets green hold Russia next to him, and took out my externals he could see and green killed me. Very normal game play for me the last while.

[random valley]

Weird

Ive played those settings before and never had a big cheater problem, I wish there was a better way of verifying them and catching them, I wish I could see these games too, just cause I feel people say cheaters are much more common than ive had in my experience

[bold robin]

I've done multiple novice to gm runs by mostly joining lobbies. This run is significantly harder. It's much worse than it used to be.

[random valley]

I do play less ranked games these days, maybe thats why

[sharp granite]

I dont see much cheating (increase troop counts) and collaboration on this game to be honest though I do see it every now and then. I think the biggest cheating is fake reporting people at the end of the match to get them banned and get your points back. From what I can get out of it, once you are defeated with few troops left, you send a screenshot right away by hitting report for stalling. Then SMG morons will see they had more troops as you and could clearly win at the time of that report was sent, taking it as evidence of their guilt. (Even if it is fog of war and they had no way of knowing). This seems to be an flawless strategy to get high ranked and never having to worry about placing 1st in the match.

[random valley]

Smg can look at a game and see if there were just rounds of nothing

[brisk wigeon]

When a player is banned they can send us an appeal and we personally investigate to identify if the ban was a false or deserved ban. Even if they have that guarantee we will still look at the actual rounds and what happens.

[old sand]

I don’t allow same country players to play in games I host. You’ll never see cheating. I don’t always do it but it’s an idea

[upper atlas]

and then you send a message after 1 - 2 weeks back with the content:
"you are a cheater, read the fairplay rules"
Thank you for nothing

[sly cypress]

I find it telling that in Risk, we have these two extremes in opinion. One side says "Cheating is all over us, they need to be more radical", the other side says "They falsely accuse us of all cheating, they need to be more considerate" and both are only seeing their own position and their own corner case while saying "it would be so easy to solve, if I was in charge I'd fix this within a day".
In reality, it's not all that easy, extremely hard in fact to oversee so many people with so much variety in opinion and needs. Any one of the complainers would ruin the game within the same day of fixing their own so very obvious problem.

That being said, it's absolutely important to speak out on these issues. You must keep both the cheating issue, as well as the false banning issue relevant, as they're both very real. But in order to get your point across and stay sane, you need to be a bit more considerate than that. It's fun and satisfying to be extreme, but it's so much more rewarding to be differentiated - long term.

[upper atlas]

Its not "differentiated" to argue besides facts, like the "write a ticket"-argument.
In fact, in this discord community its "extreme" to tell facts.

SMG to false ban victims: "You are a cheater"
This community to false ban victims: "You are a cheater"
This is "moderate" here since the majority acts like this.

Another "extreme" fact:
SMG does false bans on purpose.
... since they use a nonfunctional automated ban system known to lead to false bans on purpose

SMG support at last one popular content creator that abuses the report system by false reports which feeds this broken ban system. In the end SMG promotes the abuse of their broken system.

[sly cypress]

You must enjoy the position you're in, otherwise you wouldn't dig your own grave with such ambition.

People like you are important, I recognize that. And I have much respect for you that way.

Unfortunately I have nothing left to say to you, because we don't seem to be on the same level.

[upper atlas]

No argument, instead personal attack.
You are extreme! You are not differentiated!
You are what the "community" here is.

[waxen night]

Not really a direct response to what you wrote but I guess some thoughts inspired by it.

If I have ever strayed into “Cheating doesn’t exist” or “Cheating isn’t concerning” then I have misrepresented my position (probably in jest). Here is a better (maybe) expression of my position on out of control cheating.

The cheating is not out of control. Hyperbole like that is not helpful. It is precisely because cheating exists and could be managed more effectively that we need to address it and hyperbole is not useful. It is fully possible that the cheating could be even less well managed in the future or go up for some other reason and eventually actually go out of control at which point the game would be almost unplayable (perhaps only sadists would attempt). I believe we need to reserve words like “the cheating is out of control” for those moments and not over use them. The situation now is more “SMG could manage cheating more effectively” and people writing reasonably in debate with each other about how that might be implemented or even what kinds of fair play rules we should have and how they should be enforced (if at all in some cases) might influence the direction SMG takes.

On the issue of false positives and other kinds of undeserved suspensions and bans and how concerns about those should affect how the system works, I have a similarly nuanced position.

We have to be careful to not push ourselves into extreme expressions of our beliefs. Also we must be careful not to allow ourselves to be pulled into other’s extreme views or pushed into extreme views of our own while opposing their extremes.

[waxen night]

“Cheater” is a fraught word. First response of this community to expressions of concern about a suspension message is almost always to share information about the ticket process. If the issue that the user may have actually violated fair play rules is addressed at all it is usually expressed (at least in my experience) in those words “violated fair play rules”.

While technically the words “cheating” or “cheater” would apply in the case of inadvertent violation of fair play rules even those as amorphous as emote spam or stalling, I wouldn’t use them in those cases because of the word’s heavier meaning.

While users who play ranked games on multiple accounts or join with friends to deliberately cheat or those who abuse glitches or hacks to deliberately cheat I would have no problem both expressing that they cheated and are cheaters. But that would be assuming that I had proof of their actions and motivations which is unlikely. Thus, even they would most likely be addressed with the words “perhaps be more carefully in the future not to violate fair play rules”.

To be clear “you may have violated fair play rules” is not a euphemism for “I think you are a cheater”, instead it is a reasonable insight into the situation. File a ticket but also make sure you think about what could have triggered the suspension. Maybe it is completely in error or maybe you can adjust your game play to avoid triggering future bans.

The player may have done so through deliberate action in ignorance of the rules, or unintentionally crossed the line even though they were aware of the rules or deliberately crossed the line in defiance of the rules. All of those cases and possibly more are covered.

[upper atlas]

Discussing about semantics is useless. It doesnt change the content of arguments when you exchange some words by other words with a similar meaning.

Wiki 'Cheating in video games':
"Cheating in video games involves a video game player using various methods to create an advantage beyond normal gameplay..."

Using the word cheating is totally fine in the context. Even SMG uses this word.

First sentence of the Fair play rules:
"To clear up any confusion in the community on what constitutes cheating we have the following Fair Play Rules..."

To be clear “you may have violated fair play rules” is exactly a euphemism for “I think you are a cheater” by SMG.

In my cases of false positives temporary bans, i was accused of teaming. I never played this game with people i know. There is nothing more to think about.

[waxen night]

I was writing entirely on the issue of how this community responds. Sorry for confusion if my quote of the sort of thing I would write happens to coincide too closely with language that SMG uses. And no in the case of how this community responds it is not just semantics. This community does not respond to false ban victims by writing or saying “You are a cheater”. Your claim is false.

The issue of how SMG responds and what policies and language they use is entirely different. I also think that is worth talking about. But I may reserve my thoughts on that since I have been thinking of writing directly to SMG on that issue when I have more fully developed an expression of my view point on those issues.

[upper atlas]

"This community does not respond to false ban victims by writing or saying “You are a cheater”. Your claim is false."

They did to me.

And this community also didn't wanted to believe that there are automated bans.

[waxen night]

In fact, in this discord community it’s "extreme" to tell facts.

SMG to false ban victims: "You are a cheater"
This community to false ban victims: "You are a cheater"
This is "moderate" here since the majority acts like this.

Your quote. I added bold to highlight the part I was addressing.
If you are stating that someone in this community or multiple people called you a cheater. I will take you at your word and am concerned about your experience. But you are not false ban victims. The very act of assuming that your experience is the norm and automatically extrapolating to the whole community is this way or they always respond this way is what I take issue with. It is an ineffective and misleading way to communicate.

If what you want to say is “this community called me a cheater even when I was expressing the facts about my multiple false positive suspensions or automated bans” okay then say that. With that you have my attention and haven’t strained credibility by jumping outside what you can actually substantiate.

I myself have received a false positive suspension and I believe it was likely some kind of completely automated response. Not sure if it was triggered by reports or was auto detect for collab being tricked by me playing a bunch of games in a short time period. I do know from SMG that something on the order of 70+% of all the reports that they cleared from my account were for collab even though I too like you have never played in ranked games with people I know or with multiple accounts in the same game etc. I’ll believe your claim and you can believe mine that is all we really have to go on in an online environment. This is why it is so important to me that we avoid hyperbole or over emotionality driving us to express things in terms of conspiracy theories etc. when the actual matter is often more on the lines of “this thing is concerning and we don’t really know how it works.”

[upper atlas]

The first "millions" times i talked in this discord i used diplomatic words. Since nearly all i received as reaction was toxic and harassment i'm not diplomatic any more and write what i think without using euphemism. But thats not the topic. The topic is the current state of anti cheating, which is ineffective, unfair and abused.

[sharp granite]

Exactly.

[sharp granite]

You are not alone. We are the silent majority but also the loud and vocal majority at the same time. When we speak, they do not here our words. They should be fixing the issues rather than presuming our guilt.

[sly cypress]

I want to say, I have a lot of respect for what you do, it's quite important to keep these issues relevant and personally I've heard you on that. So must have a lot of other people. Thanks to your work.
It's just very difficult to make out the dimensions of what's actually happening when you always assume the extreme.

Negative opinions are usually the loudest, so are the ones that are less differentiated. You couldn't express your fullest gratitude or your wisest thoughts while screaming at the top of your lungs so that everyone can understand you.

So as long as you put yourself into that position you ARE doing something important, which is keeping an issue relevant, but you're NOT, doing anything to help assess and solve the potential issue, the opposite in fact - you're sabotaging on that front. That is what I was trying to express above. If you wanted something to change and be the cause of that, you'd substitute your scream with something of substance, something differentiated, recognizing your own position in its relationship to that of others.

Because if you don't, well then you're nothing more than another screamer that I must assume enjoys being in that position for the fun in it, not because they actually want to move something.

[sharp granite]

I am not sure we are at odds. But I try to keep the issue relavant because I love what the game could be in its perfection. I also don't really use hyperbole though. I tend to express the EXACT thing I was to say. I got false banned 10+ times that was succesfully appealed. That alone should speak for itself. 99% of other players would just uninstall and never come back. In fact, after each one I stopped playing for weeks, months, or MANY months before playing this scam game again. But as I said, I LIKE the game itself, it is just how it is managed.

[sharp granite]

I think many people are starting to speak out more since I have shown sustainment for the fight. Those who are fighting are those who LOVE and WANT to play the game. We would not be here or saying the things we are saying if that wasn't true. We want to make the change. No. WE WILL make this change. It is a win win for SMG and for the player base. The toxic 5 who so far seem to speak and post the most on the discord do a great disservice to truth. It is almost like they are the actual devs but undercover. No reason they should have ever presumed our guilt. That is not even natural.

[sharp granite]

Its not hyperbole, we are speaking the exact thought that common sense would arrive at. For some reason, people think we are being negative, when we are just speaking the truth. And if SMG listened they would be FAR better off. Currently, they are scammers. What they are doing should NEVER be accepted from any dev. There is NO REASON a player should be banned for no other reason than just playing the game.

[quaint ocean]

You're more often critiqued for making wild assumptions like:

• this is a widespread issue
  • no - 99% of our suspensions issued are genuine. All of our false positives fall under 2 conditions: plays a lot more than an average player (gets reported infrequently but it all adds up over a month) or plays 1v1 games (which is effectively the same thing, but it can be done much faster, as games are much faster)
• "you may have violated fair play rules" - this can be inferred by a suspension being issued, a lot of longer term players have chatted with people that have been suspended before, and the vast majority were playing with friends in public games (knowingly or not, breaking fair play rules) - it is not definitive which is why you should always appeal a suspension if you believe you haven't broken our rules
• "malicious banning by SMG" - it's a primarily automated system, there's no ill intent there. It's automated, so there's always the possibility of incorrectly issued suspensions - but it's not a norm to the vast majority of players.

[sharp granite]

Thanks for replying Luci. But you made my point.

It should be Innocent until guilty.

To ban even one innocent person is unacceptable. They were a loyal and honorable player. Not one person should be banned that didnt deserve it. Also yall should be banning (and even state it in the fair play rules) people who do predatory reporting

[quaint ocean]

We wouldn't have a large enough team to manually approve/deny suspensions - you'll only ever see that in triple a studios (where live game moderation is also in place)

[sharp granite]

If I get a false suspendion, each of those people who reported me should be banned.

[sharp granite]

I understand. But nonetheless, it should be innocent until proven guilty.

If you ban even one innocent person, your game is a scam, and everyone should rise up and speak against it.

[quaint ocean]

You're also assuming malice in their reports, with the exception of a tiny % that do abuse reporting (they can only report anyone 1/game anyway), majority will be "suspected collusion" which is a perfectly valid suspicion to convey

[sharp granite]

I get what you are trying to say, but I think your assumptions are completely wrong. I think most reports are toxic and out of malice. And this is common thru all games and all genres.

I do not really even speak in hyperbole. Most, if not all of what I say, is common sense conclusions that 99% of people would make. Just read the discord. Outside of the Toxic 5, everyone else agrees.

Even SMG themselves agree.

[quaint ocean]

See I completely disagree with this, our old system would block you until the earliest report(s) expired. Our new system starts with a 24h timeout basically, and we provide a fairly simple appeal process.
Can you imagine what hacking/multi-account cheating would be like if you'd have to wait a week or more for any timeout to happen? Would be #1 with a 2x point lead on every genuine top 10 player within days.

The need for this automation is not disputed on our end at all, some known flaws are things that both you & I want fixed (keep in mind you're "10+ bans" you've appealed, I'll have cleared each of these after reviewing - as well as others affected - but, the vast majority of our appeals are still from correctly suspended players)

[sharp granite]

Most people will not even "appeal". The way yall use the word appeal. Just saying, "you have cheated and are now suspended". Nobody will every think of any response to say to that. That is not a respondable thing. Yall are making a testoment of guilt. Most will just uninstall and conclude yall are a scam right away upon the very first suspension.

This discord has a "survivors bias". So all those who uninstalled immediately and never came back, their voice will never be heard.

In fact, of ALL the games on steam, this game is the ONLY one that I have ever thought was a scam. I am sure 1000's of others share this opinion as it is a reasonable conclusion to reach.

Yall should listen to us and change your ways. We want to play this game. We LOVE this game. But for now, it is still a scam. Yall deserve to be sued. A class action with 10'000s joining. But maybe nobody ever files it. It is not really worth it to go thru the trouble to recoupe, 10-30 dollars.

The suit would be deserving though.

[quaint ocean]

"Most people will..."
"nobody will ever.."
"Most will just..."
"I am sure..."
As I said, you're making a lot of assumptions here

[sharp granite]

I do not belive I am. I believe I am a super majority and I ALSO believe this is common sense. Also I love this game. (assuming it worked perfectly without all this extra stuff going on)

[sharp granite]

I know I must sound like I am a super negative person trying to destroy everything yall probably have worked hard on, but that is not the case. I am actually on your side. I am trying to save yall.

So are the others.

[quaint ocean]

We don't have ETAs for any changes to things like suspension system (and we likely wouldn't be able to share it even when we do) - but it is a known issue that there's certain conditions that can cause false positives, and something the wider team are working on.

[sharp granite]

When I private message people to talk about this same thing. EVERYONE agrees with me. Nobody wants to feel persecuted for saying this. I just have the backbone to stand up for what I believe because I play 10 hours a day.

[sharp granite]

As I said, not a SINGLE innocent person who spent money on your game should EVER be banned.

But I have a feeling yall have banned 90% of your player base. And When I say this, I do not even think I am exagerating.

[quaint ocean]

Zero false positives is a great goal to aspire to, but it's also unrealistic

The vast majority of accounts haven't even received a suspension, so your assumption there is wildly false

[sharp granite]

Yall have underminded yourselves, and broken the trust of your fans.

[sharp granite]

You are saying this, I for one do not believe you. And if it were true, they would be people not playing the game much. But the people who love and play your game religiously. YOUR BIGGEST FANS, they should be worth more to you.

Yall need to change the things you can get banned for.

No bans for using emotes, NEVER. No bans for stalling, UNLESS they wait out a certain amount of turn timers AT THE LEAST.

Cheating and collabing is one thing.

That is accepaable to ban someone

To ban the person who stalled the least in a match for stalling is obsurd.

"You did not miss a single turn timer"

"You could have won because he had nothing" (but it was fog of war and you had no idea)

"You are lying, our ads pay out the correct amount of coins each time and no way your coins were stolen from you".

[quaint ocean]

If you won't have trust with us in being honest (bearing in mind that as employees we can't be lying to our players) then we are both wasting time communicating because neither of us will be willing to budge there
Also you are disputing the rules themselves with emotes/stalling etc - you can tell yourself that stacking up 666 troops "finisher" to kill a 1 territory is justified, but as per our rules it is a rule violation and should be actioned. If it's something you'd been doing throughout previous suspensions, there's a good chance that it's been a factor in how frequently you'd been suspended (but we'd gauged sufficient # of reports had no basis)

[random valley]

Thanks, this made me laugh

[sharp granite]

You are reaching the same conclusion again. Yeah, you can conclude this. But you are astrocizing 90% of your player base. Yeah. It may have taken me a turn or 2 to slam a staller. Replays would have shown they were the offending staller. Maybe they stallled 10x more than my mere (less than a single turn timer stalling). I get you. But you are just persecuting the victim instead of the assailent.

You don't have to listen to me though. But what I say is true. And we are the super majority. We are the rightous.

It the situation that you say I am guilty the other guy was such a malicous bad actor, he should have been banned on the spot with no chance ever to play again. I just stalled for the length of time less than the smallest turn timer. But them....

When I say I am the "most honorable player", sure I may not actually be the "most" but what you should be getting out of it is that, if I get even a single ban that is deserved, than ANY player who has ever played should be banned. Nobody should be playing.

[sly cypress]

I must say, one thing I was a bit surprised by was hearing, that you could apparently get suspended by the system just for getting reported a certain number of times.

Now I don't know if this is true or whether or not you can confirm/deny this, but to me this seems a bit outrageous. While people may have valid reasons to report, it's doubtful that they would always be correct, especially with the trend I seem to notice to report everyone upon the smallest suspicion (which is valid too, rather report one too many than let them get away).

So getting suspended based on reports alone seems questionable, that doesn't seem like very reasonable evidence, even if it happens in numbers. You might just be playing certain settings a lot, in a certain way that would make you more attractive for getting reported.

I don't know how the system works and in what way you gather your evidence. But I would assume that it's possible to detect some of it even in the automatic system. Evidence, that is more reliable than just reports based on humans' subjective judgement.

[quaint ocean]

The reports needed to trigger a suspension aren't shared, but yes it's possible to get suspended solely based on player reports. That's how things like stalling & multi account cheating are identified (relying solely on "shares some association in-game" is fine for repeatedly playing with a friend, but is generally limited to that) - if you use throwaway accounts, I can identify it easily enough - it gets heavily reported quickly - but it's also prone to false positives (so a "limit" to be reached rather than solely instant suspension based on maybe conditions, is generally safer)

Although the majority of players don't get suspensions, we get hundreds of thousands of reports each month (across both player submitted reports and system generated reports) - so a manual review for each is virtually impossible unless you're a triple A studio with a few thousand employee hours to spare each month

[sharp granite]

The fair play rules could be easily changed to further clarify the rules and reduce minor reports. Like harassment for example. What is that even? Attacking someone too much? Sending them emotes when their losing, thus making them angry and hurting their feelings? SMG is going above and beyond to overload themselves to provide services nobody wants. Imagine if SMG spend 30 total seconds to remove just that. That would not totally fix it but it would be a start. 1 step at a time.

[quaint ocean]

harassment is what stalling was reported as before stalling was a report type, it's effectively an "other" category in the event we are missing a new issue.

It's not much different from when we had a player open 5 minute lobbies and would just wait until 4m50s to place troops in manual placement. We have longer times for accessibility purposes, but it does unfortunately also get abused sometimes. Maybe you'd consider "opening a lobby for hours and never starting the game" as a good reason to report as harassment? It'll feel wrong to report it as cheating, but it's still bs behaviour - if it's a map you've been wanting to play and it's finally a lobby for it, it just sucks.

[arctic musk]

I report people for harassment if they seem to be only in the game to ruin my game. it's rare luckily

[sharp granite]

I see your point. I never thought of someone doing that. But can you even report a person from an unlaunched lobby?

[quaint ocean]

Not sure offhand but think so

[arctic musk]

relatively new feature

[upper atlas]

THIS!

[upper atlas]

THIS!

[upper atlas]

Even the most popular streamer (supported by SMG) does it.

Only a "tiny percent" of people get death penalty while beeing innocent.
Why do this people are so upset? Why are they so ignorant to the fact that it is only a "tiny percent".?
==> This argument is nonsense!

[quaint ocean]

It's a temporary suspension, calling it a death penalty is wildly exaggerated.

[north lily]

i just played a game where a player placed multiple caps before even their first turn

[upper atlas]

I didnt called it death penalty.
I used a hyperbole to make obvious why your argument isnt working.

[quaint ocean]

It's not an argument, it's fact. You can believe me or not, I'm not going to argue with you - welcome to disagree

[upper atlas]

You argued with this "fact" against an argument.
Thats an argument.

Sure you dont argue with me, you just throw AGAIN wild accuses into my direction by giving a false color to what i wrote.

There are 2 requirements to anti cheating:

1. Dont do actions against innocent players.
2. Do actions against as much guilty players as possible.

Your argument tries to justify a tradeoff between 1 and 2. But thats undiscussable.
Its inacceptable to weaken 1 to (fake) strenghten 2.

[broken eagle]

This is a hacker. Report and move on. That guy's permabanned

@upper atlas @sharp granite Both of you are hard to take seriously due to your use of hyperbole.
I am sympathetic to the false positive suspensions. They are a necessary evil.
However, your experience is not even remotely close to the norm. The vast majority of players will never receive a suspension. I can say this with confidence because the vast majority do not play online. Even among the online players, a suspension is a very rare occurrence for most players.
Ny uneducated guess is you're playing a style of risk that gets a higher number of reports from other players. If you're also playing a large number of games that may exasperate the issue as well.
Unless you are grinding for rank, maybe try playing with multiple accounts (but not while under a suspension)

[vernal swallow]

Flak still around complaining lol

[sharp granite]

It is not feasible to spend so much of a persons time constantly appealing suspensions. Not to mention most will just uninstall as soon as they felt cheated by the developers. And for some, winning every suspension appeal means being banned half the year anyways due to it taking so long to get replies. Some people (maybe even most people) work for a living, and some do not play everyday to even be aware they ever had a suspension. I don't think it is appropriate to punish players for their innocence. I also don't think SMG employees should be telling players to test the system by using another account and reporting themselves (That breaks the fair play rules).

[sharp granite]

You would care about them banning innocent people if it were the one being banned and not us.

[faint pasture]

Maybe stop breaking rules?

[broken eagle]

How did you arrive at the conclusion that I don't care? I've never dismissed your claims. I've offered suggestions to try to help you. The only claim I've argued is that this is a wide spread problem. It isn't. That doesn't mean I want anyone wrongly suspended. Ive been wrongly suspended 3 times due to stream snipers. It made me mad, but not at smg.

[upper atlas]

A anti cheat-system that encourages false reports, leads to false bans, which is ineffective against cheaters, that judges on quantities not on qualities, that judges without any linking to rule breaks is a wide spread problem. Everybody is affected. Its a kind of lottery who gets banned what has nothing to do with actual rules breaks.

The false bans are just one big reason from multiple reasons why the problem "automated ban system" introduced by SMG is unsustainable. There is no reason to defend the system since it doesnt help against cheaters. Instead it adds to the problem "cheaters" other problems.

[sharp granite]

Yeah. I think you articulated it better than me. Also, thanks, you made me think about it even more. I have actually believed for the longest time that most of the suspensions were predatory and false in nature nature as well.

[sharp granite]

It is not other people not getting banned that bothers me. It only bothers me to the extent that I get banned so easily yet MAJOR offenders who repeat the action over and over again just get, "This person has not repeated the action and the report has expired". If I did not get false suspensions / bans, I would not care nowhere near as much. And to be honest, I kind of like the block system in terms of getting players I view as cheaters / collaborators out of my lobbies. But for players to report me for stalling for missing a single turn timer (As many on this very discord have indicated) while they themselves have missed 5x-30x more turn timers than me in that match really says a lot.

We should really move this over to the #1426831811333324944 thread so all these messages can be seen on there instead of here. Some people will see all these comments as proof of cheating being out of control instead of bans being out of control. lol

[upper atlas]

The block system is broken, since its limited to a spefic amount, i think 1000. You will never know when the first persons you blocked are not blocked anymore.

[faint pasture]

Get this man a wambulance, help dry up those tears.

[sharp granite]

That is pretty toxic of you to comment on something you know nothing about, then to throw insults. Very adult of you.

[faint pasture]

What insult bro? You been crying about it for a while. You sound like you definitely do something to get banned. Blaming everyone else is what's toxic

Lol your crying about a video game you cheat in. So grown up bud.

[sharp granite]

Blocked lol

[faint pasture]

My life has lost all meaning now that I'm blocked. Skinny jeans and black nail polish here I come

[quaint ocean]

Your definition of "major offenders" will be entirely subjective, someone can throw their troops at you and it's perfectly within fair play rules - just because it ruins your chances of a win doesn't mean they were violating our rules in doing so.
Funnily enough, before the suspension system - we still had the same report -> ban - but it would last until your oldest report expired (this could be up to 30 days) - the suspension system on the other hand is very lenient in that, even if you were hacking - you'd only see a 24h suspension initially - we'll obviously still permanently ban them, but it is a compromise between "variable ban length" and "disrupting malicious actors"

We also won't necessarily read/review every report (even in a ban appeal) - but instead review the types & frequency (then take a sample of those, and confirm whether cheating occurs based on those) - your stalling for example was ABSOLUTELY justified suspension, it might even have caused previous collab/cheating reports, as it was a "signature move" - but the samples reviewed were insufficient to us to justify maintaining it, however when 90%+ of reports are stalling and we then see an excessive # of games this happens in, it's perfectly justified & you're now accounting all suspensions are wrong because you were held accountable for your actions in game??

I feel like I've been entertaining you both enough already, agree or disagree, feel free to share feature requests for changes - but a removal of the suspension system won't be on the table

[upper atlas]

"all suspensions are wrong"
Where did he said that? Why are you lying? No arguments?
Lucy, you are a major part of the toxicity in this "community".

[vernal swallow]

damn teen whats gotten into you

[upper atlas]

the truth

[vernal swallow]

what did u get banned for

[faint pasture]

She just explained everything clear as day and even said the quotes were generalized and not of him. If you don't see that guy is lieing you are either spineless lapdog or incredibly smooth brained. Your poor mother must be heart broken at her failings as a parent

[faint pasture]

Well gotta say didn't see this coming. I just got my first ban after playing thousand some games.

I think it was a stalling thing. I'm on call for work, got a call mid game that I had to go respond to. I was gone probably 5 mins. But I forgot to quit out of the game. I got back and saw a bot took over. I jumped in but the bot didn't stick to the battle plan so I surrendered as it was kind doomed after so much effort put In. I've also been up on stimulants since Friday playing risk non stop and I sometimes take long for my turn cauae I feel any wrong move is doom some games.

If that's what it was it was not on purpose but I'm sure the other players found it annoying none the less.

I've forever tarnished my name. 24 hours for first offense and no warning kind hurts, I still have booger sugar I bought for gaming to get through.

[pastel vapor]

you must not have read about his signature finishing move in the threads. It is very cool, he builds up a 666 stack to hit your last territory. No worries though he skips his turn quickly while building up this massive overkill stack to hit your last 1.

[quaint ocean]

1 game won't trigger any automated suspension, if you're not sure can still appeal it https://smgstudio.freshdesk.com/support/tickets/new
at minimum will give clarification

[upper atlas]

Ban: 1 or 2 days
Ticket Response: 1 or 2 weeks
Stop pointing in Tickets. Its No Help and you know that.

[waxen night]

This is incorrect. Stop spreading misinformation.

Filing a Ticket is worth while even if the suspension is over before you get a response. If it was a false positive your record can be cleared and then won’t lead to longer bans in the future. If you have somehow accidentally violated fair play rules then getting more information so you can avoid that in the future will help you avoid getting banned.

If you are just a cheater and you know it then sure skip the ticket and enjoy your suspension, but in all other cases filing a ticket is always the right choice.

[upper atlas]

Ticket Response at my tickets: 1 - 2 weeks
Records cleared: Zero
So where is the misinformation?

Ban 1 day -> Ticket -> 3 days later another Ban for 2 days -> ticket -> response ages later without any help or actions

And all of that has nothing to do with rule breakes. I didnt broke rules and the reason for the bans is just that i was falsly reported. What kind of BS is this? Its not a Anti-Cheating-System its a "dont get reported"-System or a "when you report others without a reason they will get banned"-System or a "false reports rocks"-System or a "false report benefit" system.

[sharp granite]

I love how you absolutely read nothing then speak in complete hyperbole to completely misrepresent me. Slamming a staller with a 666 if I have say over 1000 troops is completely different than building up. Then it still goes back to the, was there even another human left in that match? Or was SMG simply not able to find any dirt on you so they look at random matches, send you proof of you innocence as guilt or maybe find matches where there were only bots lefts and used that against you? Sure I can take credit for that one mistake. Only reason an extra turn was needed was to file a report. Using that logic, every player I have ever played with should be banned since you probably wont ever find a match were a single person "stalled" less than me by your definition. Let's say that ban was correct. So what? I have won over 10 appeals at this point. That means, SMG AGREES with continuously false banning me. So don't bring up things that have nothing to do with what we are talking about in hopes that you can somehow discredit the truth. Nobody is falling for it anymore. If I won EVERY appeal, I would still be de facto banned. Also, what was those even other bans about? I STILL no nothing about them. I just know I won the appeals.

[sharp granite]

At least you got responses. Some of us don't always even get those.

[upper atlas]

The responses were as good as no response. Content was: "you are a cheater, read the fair play rules". Thats it.

[sharp granite]

They sent me proof of my innocence once as proof of guilt. lol I was like wtf. Almost like the person who actual reviews cases has never even played this game before.

[upper atlas]

Where is the ANTI-FALSE-REPORT - System?
Lets automate it by randomly choosing reports and ban the reporter.

That would be exactly as fair as the current anti cheating system.

[sharp granite]

Exactly!

[quaint ocean]

when was your last suspension for this claim?
quick search on our end:

• no suspension for >1000 days -> you are super angry about false bans for someone with no ban in over 3y ago??
  reason given in your ban appeal for suspension: Specifically, playing with people you know in our free for all mode, Global Domination.
  telling people to not contact support for support is counterproductive for both players & us, if you continue discouraging it you'll just be removed from this server.

I really don't care if you want to keep bashing SMG / me in forums, but you'll not be disrupting other players getting help because you're angry about a ban appeal 3y ago that specifically tells you why you were banned.

[upper atlas]

And again you are lying. With no word i called onpeople to not create tickets when they are banned. I said these tickets are useless, so pointing on them is useless. Thats a complete different message. Stop your habbit to lie about what people say. And stop to threaten people because of your own invented messages. You should be threaten with discord ban for this behavior. What you do is bashing others.

You should be fired for giving again personal data to the public. Thats all we need to know how SMG deals with protection of data privacy.

What you do is unacceptable.

Great, you gave the reason for the ban. What does it change? I didnt played with people i know. I NEVER ever played this game with people i know. Thats are just wrong bans. And im pretty sure you didnt checked the bans. And if you did, you did it wrong.

However that doesnt change the problems with your creppy "we dont do something against cheater but we simulate to do so by automated bans without any relation to actual rule breaks"-system. In the end you can say "we banned X people, look how much we do". All SMG care about is to hide the fact they are not using adequate human resources against cheating , since it cost money. Thats why you in the name of SMG advertise for automated ban system that costs way less money.

Its 3 years old? So the problem is at least 3 years old. Where is the argument? It looks like you think its acceptable to get molested a bit by the company you sold a product from. No its not. The only acceptable amount is ZERO. There are no apologizes from you to the people that get molested by SMG. Instead you act with lies and threats. You are a complete miscard for your job. You harm users and company with your performances.

---

SMG employees that investigate in their internal systems about persons with a unwanted opinion to use it against them. If you think that is normal and ok, you are far more beyond reality than i thought.

People that are convinced about their opinion dont need such practices.

[pastel vapor]

read nothing? I responded to you about this over A MONTH ago. I (like many others) took time to read everything and give you some feedback, trying to be constructive, on your experience.

You claim it isn't feasible to write a support ticket, yet you spend months on here arguing with multiple people in multiple threads about the same fictious issue. Clearly, you have all the time in the world.

I have watched you go on and on about this. You do not listen to reason, because your issue is not with the game. Your issue is with loneliness, you are trolling for attention at this point.

You are trying to fill something missing with online conflict, hence your username that you chose. What I will tell you is this is a great community with some amazing people in it and if you need some friends you can find them here, but stop with the trolling. You can do better brother. Good luck.

[upper atlas]

I absolutely agree, its a great community.
A toxic community, great for toxic people...
... like you

[arctic musk]

yes, you are the only one on this server who isn't toxic. why are you on this server?

[quaint ocean]

None of that is personal data, suspension timeframe isn't your data, it's ours - reason given isn't the full message, and it's a standardised "for playing with friends in public games" message that's very commonly used.

Look up the ticket yourself, search emails for "SMG Studio" - tell me I'm lying then, with proof (include the reply if you like)

[upper atlas]

Wiki:
"Personal data, also known as personal information or personally identifiable information is any information RELATED to an identifiable person."

Data related to a person, is owned by the person. If SMG has a different opinion, say goodbye to EU market. Even in USA companies dont own personal data.

You should pray that none of your bosses see what you do here.

Give me the information about suspensions for Nordic_Noob!
You dont do that? Ohh what a surprise. You break taboos only at persons with different opinions.

---

All you do is attacking by all means even inadmissible to people with different opinions. What you dont do is giving arguments.

[pastel vapor]

what's your problem man? I have never had any interaction with you, unless flak is your alt

[upper atlas]

My problems is your toxic comment.

---

Even if you think that this are not personal data you cant deny that that are private information. No person with integrity uses private information the way you do.

[pastel vapor]

nothing toxic about calling out someone that is lashing out at people. it is usually caused by some kind of pain so it helps to be more positive and find people and community that share interests.

I stand by it, you can do better

[limber yew]

Stop feeding the troll and the thread will die 🫩

[upper atlas]

"Your issue is with loneliness, you are trolling for attention at this point. You are trying to fill something..."

thats toxic, no doubt

[sharp granite]

"We have hundreds of thousands of bans a month" - SMG
"We only have 1 person SMG checking the ban appeals" - Also SMG
"We don't have enough people to check each report" - Also SMG
"90% of reports are accurate" - Again, SMG.

So with this information how did they know 90% were accurate if they didn't even check them?

I am not even banned but acknowledge there is no way I can play without getting banned. I would be out half the year and half of every season if I won every appeal. Just blows my mind that I spend 30 bucks on a game that I can't even play.

[upper atlas]

good question - lets ask an advertising expert about the validity of ads

[sharp granite]

lol

[limber yew]

Thank you for your great questions guys. Now its time to end.

If you are banned or know someone who is banned for wrong reasons please contact SMG via ticketlink.

If you want to ask legal or technical questions about the game or SMG please contact SMG via ticketlink.

Thread locked.

Ticketlink

https://riskdiscord.com/smg-ticket