Stat cheating... either its real or a bug -- SD please take a look

Can an SD staffer take a look at this?

By pacov on June 29, 2009 10:58:15 PM from

I decided to check my stats to see how I was doing tonight. I did a search by my userid and found out I had 1 less win than I expected over my last 3 games. Well, bugs are bugs, so I figure, ok maybe just some strange rule I don't know about, but after digging for a minute, here's what I found:

I played this game a few hours ago (http://pantheon.demigodthegame.com/game/692752/player/28414/). My team won. I remember there being 1 disconnect. I think that person was the Sylis, who I also think was the host (but I'm not sure). I believe he quit about midway through the game while he was losing. He, and only he, shows up with a win stat. I click on his name and pull his stats http://pantheon.demigodthegame.com/games/player/46528/. He's ladder ranked number 4. He was getting his butt handed to him and he's ladder ranked number 4. As in, I played a pick up game with unknown people and ladder rank number 4 get crushed (and he appears to do premades with Slamoo on a regular basis), but emerges with a win... and I get a loss. The guy is not an active forum member (eg no posts I can find). Can anything be done? This appears to be an exploit to me...

For the lazy inclined, here are some pastes that I found in a 5 minute search. I'm thinking he found a way to still get a win if he loses a match by disconnecting or something. The worst part is everyone else playing appears to get a loss recorded to them.

(US) 3v3 US

Conquest on Cataract : Game Info

Winner: Forces of Light

Game Type: Conquest

Start: Jun 29, 2009 7:33 PM

Players: 6

Map: Cataract

End: Jun 29, 2009 8:15 PM

Playing: Custom Game

Game Length: 42 minutes

Ranked: Yes

Note: Games marked as "NA" do not count towards statistics.

Player	Team	Entity	Favor Points	Result
Sylis	Forces of Light	Torch Bearer	180	Won
Slamoo	Forces of Light	Regulus	0	Lost
Archaic Dhaos	Forces of Light	Unclean Beast	0	Lost
xaos2121	Forces of Darkness	Regulus	0	Lost
Vaidoras	Forces of Darkness	Rook	0	Lost
chacawaca	Forces of Darkness	Sedna	0	Lost

(US) 3v3 US

Conquest on Cataract : Game Info

Winner: Forces of Darkness

Game Type: Conquest

Start: Jun 29, 2009 6:20 PM

Players: 6

Map: Cataract

End: Jun 29, 2009 6:47 PM

Playing: Custom Game

Game Length: 27 minutes

Ranked: Yes

Note: Games marked as "NA" do not count towards statistics.

Player	Team	Entity	Favor Points	Result
pacov	Forces of Light	Lord Erebus	0	Lost
Sipherous	Forces of Light	Unclean Beast	0	Lost
wmatheric	Forces of Light	Sedna	0	Lost
Sylis	Forces of Darkness	Lord Erebus	105	Won
Slamoo	Forces of Darkness	Rook	0	Lost
LC217	Forces of Darkness	Unclean Beast	0	Lost

Winner: Forces of Light

Game Type: Conquest

Start: Jun 27, 2009 12:51 AM

Players: 8

Map: Cataract

End: Jun 27, 2009 12:57 AM

Playing: Custom Game

Game Length: 6 minutes

Ranked: Yes

Note: Games marked as "NA" do not count towards statistics.

Player	Team	Entity	Favor Points	Result
Sylis	Forces of Light	Torch Bearer	90	Won
Slamoo	Forces of Light	Regulus	0	Lost
DrunknMaster	Forces of Light	Unclean Beast	0	Lost
Sly_Squash	Forces of Light	Lord Erebus	0	Lost
SDGuthrie	Forces of Darkness	Rook	0	Lost
Lucifirus	Forces of Darkness	Lord Erebus	0	Lost
doomcloud	Forces of Darkness	Queen of Thorns	0	Lost
HauserGrim	Forces of Darkness	Regulus	0	Lost

+161 Karma | 62 Replies

Makes sense to me... each person should report their own outcome?

Quoting Sly_Squash,

reply 1

Makes sense to me... each person should report their own outcome?

But how do you automate validation to see which is correct?

You don't. That's the point.

That's the penalty you suffer when you make your game P2P instead of client/server.

Why do you trust the host more anyways?

Quoting DeadMG,

reply 24

Sylis, if you want to save any face, explain the stats he shows in the OP. How can you be recorded with three wins where everyone else in the game lost? Smells like an exploit to me, and that picture shows absolutely nothing, and can show nothing.

DeadMG, everything has been explained.

Sylis does NOT exploit this stupid bug. Sylis frequently hosts games. The vast majority of the time it works fine but sometimes he disconnects. And of the times he disconnects, the vast majority of those games his team is winning by a large margin. What would be the point of disconnecting in a game he is going to win anyway? Why would his friends continue to play with him if he consistently disconnects and gives them all a loss? Why are the people that he gives a loss to by these accidental disconnects coming to the forums to defend him? Why would he even have 9 losses at all???

Enough is enough.

We are aware that things are not being reported correctly when the host disconnects, and AFAIK GPG is looking into it.

Great, thanks.

Quoting InfiniteVengeance,

reply 25

Yes this means you could end up with 6 winners and 0 losers potentially but each person WON THE GAME THAT THEY PLAYED. They earned the win. It's better than handing out random and nonsensical losses for things completely out of your control, especially if you did indeed win the game.

Agreed that's the only way that really makes sense -- just have all players report their own results.

Quoting cwsault,

reply 7

Quoting InfiniteVengeance,
reply 25
Yes this means you could end up with 6 winners and 0 losers potentially but each person WON THE GAME THAT THEY PLAYED. They earned the win. It's better than handing out random and nonsensical losses for things completely out of your control, especially if you did indeed win the game.

Agreed that's the only way that really makes sense -- just have all players report their own results.

I'd add and have disconnects = losses. I've never heard of a system where you disconect and get a win, that makes no sense. I'm sorry if you have connection trouble at home or dogs and brothers running over your equipment, but its nobodys fault but your own, so you should get a loss and rememdy the problem of dropping to fix it for yourself.

Quoting RobWild,

reply 8

True most games of this nature do stick you with a loss if you quit or disconnect from a ranked game, regardless of reason. Plug-pulling and such is used in some cases to counteract this...but because DG doesn't count games with AI, as long as the disconnect leaves the host's gamewith no other human players it shouldn't count his win.

The problem is that the new auto-concede on quit means that, from his view, the entire other team concedes and quits, giving him the win. Then his game sends the report of the immediate win, while everyone else is still playing.

I know that, I'm talking about when one person disconnects and suddenly everyone else is server split off into their own little world. If each of the others win the game they should all get wins.

The guy who disconnected obviously won't get a win, because he didn't actually win his game.

AtMa44x	Forces of Light	Torch Bearer	55	Lost
Shedding	Forces of Light	Torch Bearer	40	Lost
Rocketpants	Forces of Light	Regulus	0	Lost
Sylis	Forces of Darkness	Unclean Beast	135	Won
SecondAdvent	Forces of Darkness	Regulus	115	Won
Sylar12983	Forces of Darkness	Regulus	105	Won

ROFL for the dog-excuse!

EPIC FAIL with the picture!

i hope the stats will get fixed soon.

disconnect = loss, anything else is just stupid, cause everyone who wants nice stats disconnects on purpose this way, like all the people (and dogs) exploiting right now.

Quoting DeadMG,

reply 24

Not that complicated man. After all this crap pacov brought up I checked out my power cable that goes to my modem. Apparently it has a shortage where there's a slight cut in the wire. All it takes is just a little wrong movement (i.e. someone stepping on it) for it to turn of my modem.

By looking at his stats I would say hes probably not purposly disconnecting. Even though he is getting the win it gives a loss to all of his premade partners as well. Why he would continue to be the host even though he has very sketchy network gear / dogs / brother knocking out the wires all the time is beyond me though.

Have you thought of, like, locking your dog up somewhere while you play with your computer? LOL Sorry, just funny because it sounds like an easy fix to your bug.

Anyways, stats are broken, and anyone trying to cheat the system is dumb anyways because it's obviously going to be all reset again. Now let's all be friends.

Nah, just coat the cables with something that will repel the dog, Like Arsinic! He won't lick THOSE cables again.

Quoting Shedding,

reply 11

I played a game with Sylis. I had AtMa44x on my team. Rocketpants was a complete noob and after about 1.5 minutes Rocketpants says to us "I have to go pick up my kid. Bye" and drops. We do our best to keep these guys at bay, but Sylis was just being a complete and utter dick. Even Atma44 was asking why he was being such a prick and this guy was just being a complete douchebag. My two cents. I tried copying and pasting the picture and posting it to the the other thread, but all I got was a gray screen.

AtMa44x
Forces of Light
Torch Bearer
55
Lost

Shedding
Forces of Light
Torch Bearer
40
Lost

Rocketpants
Forces of Light
Regulus
0
Lost

Sylis
Forces of Darkness
Unclean Beast
135
Won

SecondAdvent
Forces of Darkness
Regulus
115
Won

Sylar12983
Forces of Darkness
Regulus
105
Won

Funny how I was being a complete and total dick... I barely said anything the whole match. I told you guys before we even started the match I didn't want doubles and you pissed and moaned about wanting your 2 TB's. So Advent and Sylar went reggy. Throughout the entire game you and Atm4xx w/e his name is cried and called us fags because we killed you. I dunno about you or anyone else but if someone's talking crap to me I'm not gonna sit there and be nice and talk lovey-dovey with you. Your post has absolutely nothing to do with this thread in the first place so get over it, you got beat playing a game the way you wanted to even though I strongly disaggred with it from the start. Go cry somewhere else.

Sylis - Hey, after hearing your friends chime in on your behalf and seeing the picture you posted, I really don't think you are intentionally trying to cheat. Thanks for taking the time to clarify that. So, apparently loss of power or a short to your modem causes a temporary disconnect for everyone in the game. After the short disconnect and your modem cycles, you still find yourself in the game and you appear to be able to post stats. Please be aware that I'm only interested in getting as much information as possible regarding this, as it's a reproducable exploit that could easily be used to screw up stats... and many of us believe it has been. The only part I don't understand, is that your disconnect from the game sounds like it might be incredibly brief... like you cable modem is off for just a second then back working like normal instead of going through a power cycle... when your disconnects occur and you are in vent, do you drop from vent and then auto rejoin a few seconds later? So, I'm guessing that perhaps there is like a 5 second counter for everyone to disconnect from the host, then perhaps a longer counter (30 sec) before you time out from the servers and are able to post stats as a result of that. Anyway, any additional info would be appreciated.

Double Post - SORRY!

It's only briefly. It takes about 10-15 seconds for my modem to reboot and for my computer to pull an IP again. I usually just minimize and manually reconnect to vent myself. btw, is there another thread about me or something? Sounds like it according to Shedding. This is getting pretty funny.

I'm not aware of any other thread... Thanks for all the extra details. So, here's the full problem then.

You host games and get briefly disconnected from the internet when you have a loss of power or a short to your modem. This causes all players to disconnect from you, the host. They see you as having left the game, but are still connected to each other, but are now unable to report their stats as they are apparently routed through the host (you). Some timeout setting is low enough that you everyone disconnects from you, but another timeout appears to keep your connection alive after your modem cycles back on (after the 10-15 seconds you mentioned). Then, you are able to complete the game and receive a win stat if you are able to win, or you'd get a loss if you were unable to do so. Everyone else in the game gets a loss because the your connection indicates that they all disconnected or that they quit the game.

I think that about wraps it up. An obvious solution so this wouldn't happen with you in the future would be to not host games, as you appear to have some extra circumstances that might lead your connection to be unreliable as a host. But that said, that's your call and no flames here regarding that. So long as I care about stats (which is alot less now as your issue looks like it would be incredibly easy to duplicate), I'll stear clear of any games that you host. Not that you'd be all that interested in playing with me.

But, I do appreciate your jumping on the forums and clarifying this. Thank you, Sylis.

Some input on your last post: It doesn't keep me in the game and let me finish it out. It just automatically disconnects me entirely from everyone and gives me an auto win due to being against all AI. The only solution to this problem that I could possibly think of is for the developers to implement a system in which if the host disconnects it tries to transfer host to another player. They did this in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare for XBox 360 because if the host left it ended the game right then and there. It doesn't always work (in CoD4) but every now and then it'll successfully transfer over and the game can continue or it will just eject everyone back into the lobby so that you can do a rematch with the same people (except the host that left/disconnected). Also, I have been trying not to host lately due to these circumstances, although, sometimes my friend's make me! Force of habit I guess.

Brad, slurple commands you to fix this. Thanks

-Slurple

Perhaps the players should have a constant connection to a server somewhere, with the only info passed through being who the host is. The host can just persistantly be saying something like "Hi I'm still here." So if host loses connection he'll lose that one too....server will know host has dropped connection just like the players know. New host chosen at random by server, forwarded to new host, who begins the keep-alive "still here" messages.

Problems I can see are that it would require yet another connection from each player (though I'd guess it'd be a light one, and only the host would be actively using it), and possibly server resources that GPG/SD might not have. And it would be deliberately exploitable if someone made an app to cut off connections to everything except the server.

Just make it so host disconnects, host gets a loss. If host cares anything about his own record, he'll try and fix up his disconect issues. Maybe make everyone else get a NA, it would be a waste of time, but better than getting a loss for everyone for your efforts. That, and/or the report your own stats idea that others have had, even with that, disconect should equal a loss, I'm not sure how it ever would be reported as a win, thats flat out wrong.

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