Abuse of stats in 2vs2 ranked games

[HonestJohnny]

I wonder if any of you have come across this problems with 2vs2 ranked stats.
The stats for 2vs2 ranked usually record fine if:
a) the game ends with annihilation (no one from the losing team members quits)
b) the game ends with victory points running down to zero (no one quits as above)
c) the losing players quit one after the other (almost together) – usually when one team mate quits then the other quits instantly, as he knows that he has no chances

However, there is a problem with point c) and this is very often abused in 2vs2 ranked games making these ranked statistics not representative at all. Many times I have wasted an hour struggling in a 2vs2 battle only to find at the end that the “smart” losing team abused the quitting and NO STATS WERE RECORDED. This is a fact and I have several replays as proof for this. The best proof is a replay of a match 2vs2 where I play as Brits and win and I have no record in my stats at all as I never played as Brits 2vs2 before. I usually play Wehrmacht or Americans and I have been playing CoH right from the beginning of vCOH back in 2006, so I know what I am talking about.

The issue with abusing the 2vs2 ranked game stats is that when one team knows that they will lose the game then one team member quits early but the other plays on for a considerable amount of time but not till the end (annihilation or zero VP) but also quits before the actual end. I have tested this several times and THE STATS ARE NOT RECORDED in such case. The player who quits first gets no message of a loss. Well how can he get it if the game still plays on. Its best then to start another game, while the one where you just quit still plays on. And I assure you the stats will not change later. I have waited more than two days for the change and nothing happens so it is not a question of a later update of the stats. THEY SIMPLY DO NOT RECORD.

This means that when you win you can get the win in your stats if your opponents are honest and stay till the end of the game but when you lose then you can just make the quitting trick together with your mate and no stats are recorded. Perfect way for building up stats in 2vs2. This is why I consider 2vs2 ranks not to be representative of anything. Only 1vs1 ranks give you true information about a players abilities.

To make one thing clear I hate abusing the stats system and if nothing changes I will delete my profile with the 2vs2 games and play only 1vs1 ranked.

[Pankake]

Your theory does make sense, but to be honest, I haven't had much trouble (especially lately) getting my 2v2 wins counted.
Like you, I've been playing since the very beginning of the vCoH beta (the day it was released for free users on FilePlanet ). So I have to ask; how often does this happen to you? If it's not very often, then I suggest you just ignore it and carry on with your games, no doubt bringing this exploit to light will make it happen more often, if it does in fact work.

[HonestJohnny]

Just yesterday this happened 3 times out of say 7 games. What is interesting I did it myself twice after this. I played with a mate who was just building defences and I knew we would not win. So I quit the game and I know that the other guy was still playing on with building his super defended base. I didnt get a loss for that so I did it again and it also worked. I checked my stats after 24 hours and no change. And this all happened just in one day so it's bad news for me. Please note that no change in stats means no loss and no win !!! You could ofcourse argue that the other guy whom I left could have won. This does not matter as no update in stats occured, so it is irrelevant whether he won or lost. The point here is that you can avoid losses by "smart" quitting.

As I said I will delete my profile where I played 2vs2 and switch to 1vs1 if such problems continue with ranked 2vs2. I don't find it very amusing to stick with the abused 2vs2 ranked games as these ranks do not represent anything.

Finally if there is a problem with the 2vs2 ranked then this should be brought into light as something has to be done by Relic to fix this. Otherwise those cheating players will continue to spoil this game.

To sum up if any one does not believe me then try it and see for yourself what happens.

[Pankake]

Well every time someone drops from a game, he/she gets a bad trust rating, so any games that are arbitrated by relic, they will most likely get a loss, so, it should come back round and bite them in the ass soon enough.

[HonestJohnny]

Well the funny thing is that the case I describe above resuts in no stats record - no win, no loss for anyone. This is just a waste of time for the winning team and a way to avoid losses for the losing team, as in effect no one gets nothing.

My guess is that this does not affect the trust rating. It is just a very smart way of quitting. I know this as I did it myself. I did not hack the game. I did not fiddle around with my internet connection. I just legitemitly quited the game. The trick is that this has to be done as I described. Then the Relic servers somehow are unable to deal with this form of quitting and no stats are recorded. Its like a perfect hack.

[Flonky]

I have done 3 ranked 2v2 games with my friend who just got the game. In each game we were obviously going to loose so we just quit. In each game we never had the ranked loss confirmed.

[Pankake]

Then stop quitting :P it does affect your trust rating, every time you disconnect from a game by any means before the game is declared over (drop, pull the plug, pull the internet cord out, throw a cup of water into your computer case).

[Flonky]

Sorry, but earlier I (lvl 2), my friend (lvl 1) were against two allied pros (lvl 10+) in a ranked for some reason.

You seriously think I will fight them both (and win) when my friend has dropped?!?

[Heroin]

yep this cheap trick is in use. I can tell^^

[Kiese]

Mhm thats how you get such a high winning streak in 2vs2

If someone can confirm this bug / trick, I hope relic can patch this abuse. If it really works as you described.

[HonestJohnny]

2vs2 ranks are meaningless. Quite a while ago I played a 2vs2 with a teammate who was lvl 10 in 2vs2. He had a higher rank than me but he was so hopeless that I could not believe how he could have such a high rank. Now after the experience of "smart" quitting by losing opponents I know the reason for high ranks in 2vs2:

1) the games such people win with honest oponents give them wins in their stats
2) if such people lose then they just smartly quit and avoid losses

A great way for building up stats.

[FLXleGaulois]

Have you added this exploit to the community bug list of the wiki ? I can do it for you but it would be better if it was you because I haven't tested it myself.

[HonestJohnny]

FLX please do it if you can. I strongly blieve there is an issue with 2vs2 ranked. I have never before added anything to wiki so I am not sure how long it would take me to do. I understand that you have experience with this so please do it for me. You can state my nick name in CoH (HonestJohn) as the person who reports this issue.

[Skyline Pete]

What does quitting via the menu result in? Is it counted as a drop?

Because sometimes hanging around 'till the end can get a bit boring. I've never dropped (had my pc crash twice though) but want to know that if something comes up and I need to bolt if quitting via the menu gives my opponent the proper win.

[HonestJohnny]

Quitting via the menu during an multiplayer on-line game is a legitimate way of ending a game and if you do it then this should give your opponent a proper win. This works perfectly in unranked games as I have tested this with my friend. We both entered an unranked game, I quit and got a loss and he got a win and he got it instantly the very moment he entered the online chat. This should also work the same way in ranked 1vs1. If you quit through the menu your opponent gets the win as the game ends when you quit.

The problem with 2vs2 is that when just one player quits then the game dose not end because there are still 3 players in the game. The fourth player who left should be substituted by a computer player. The Relic servers seem to have a problem with deciding to whom give the win and to whom give the loss if players quit with a considerable difference in time between the quitting and if all is done of course before the game ends with annihilation or zero VP.

It goes like this (an example of 2vs2 game between team A and team B)

10:00 the game starts
10:00 - 10:20 game play
10:20 player 1 from team B quits (its best if this player starts a new game)
10:20 - 10:30 game play
10:30 player 2 from team B quits
"10:40" - this is a hypothetical time when the game would have ended (annihilation or zero VP) if the players from team B stayed till the end.

Such a scenario as presented above results in no stats recorded for 2vs2 ranked match. Using this approach someone can collect wins and avoid losses if his team mate cooperates with him in a given game. As we all know ranked 2vs2 picks players at random and the above scenarion might not work if for example you want to abuse the stats and quit mid-game and your team mate is honest and stays till the very end. The abuse also does not work if you quit and your team mate quits right after you.

[Pankake]

Quitting via the menu will give the appropriate wins and losses, but it will also affect your trust rating, which you cannot see. At least according to Relic's last statement on the new anti-cheat measures.

2vs2 ranks are meaningless

I wouldn't go so far as to say that, I've never used this trick, and hardly ever drop from a game, so my 2v2 ranks are as legitimate as it gets.

[HonestJohnny]

Pankake can you give more details where I could find this statement. I find it hard to believe that quiting via the menu affects your trust rating.

What if your house is on fire when you play on-line. You let your house burn down because you can't quit due to the trust rating. This is an extreme example of course but not letting someone quit the game before the end is going a little to far from me. As I said I find it hard to believe that Relic implemented such a solution. Especially if there is no problem with quitting in 1vs1 ranked games.

The problem with this trust ratio is that I haven't come accross clear rules how this ratio works and what really affects it. I very often see guesses and speculations relating to the trust ratio and it still remains a mystery how it works. If anyone has some more information I would be grateful.

Summing up there is a problem with 2vs2 ranked games. I mean if I struggle playing a game for an hour and win and then end with no stats update then there is a problem. Especially if this happens 3 times in one day.

Maybe it is because I just recently started playing 2vs2 ranked and the games are somewhat different form 1vs1 as team cooperation is key to the success. Maybe if I reached say lvl 8 in 2vs2 then I would be matched with more serious and responsilble players from 2vs2 ranked.

All I can say is that at the lower rank levels of 2vs2 ranked you come accross lame losers who abuse the game because they can't get past lvl 3. It is probably different at higher levels that is why Pankake these problems which I report might seem a little odd for you.

[Pankake]

What if your house is on fire when you play on-line. You let your house burn down because you can't quit due to the trust rating.

You'll have to decide what's more important to you; finishing the game or perishing in the fire.

I can't find the new policy in detail, I think it's up on the Relic Wiki but here's a quote from the 'Relic Online Policy' thread on this forum.

Drop-hacking is a specific action taken by a player to manually disconnect from a game with the intention of acquiring a win illegitimately or avoiding a loss intentionally. This does not include using the in-game option to quit, or if your Internet connection unintentionally drops. However, we will still be tracking trust for players who appear to drop often, regardless of the method used to drop.

As you can see, you are given a bad trust rating when you drop, regardless of the method, and my guess is they take some coarse of action when that bad trust rating gets a bit too high.

[HonestJohnny]

Well this is not entirely clear statement and you can understand it in different ways I would say. For me the trust ratio relates to drop-hacking and drops resulting form Internet connection rather than legitimate quitting.

It is not clearly said that quitting = dropping in this statement but it is clearly said that the trust ratio relates strictly to all forms of dropping. THE QUESTION HERE IS WHETHER LEGITIMATE QUITTING IS ACTUALLY A FORM OF DROPPING IN RELIC UNDERSTANDING. It is not clear that it is. You have drop-hacking, quitting and dropping resulting from Internet problems (rather than intentional action) and dropping is one thing (in different forms), while quitting is something else.

Anyway some more details on the fuctioning of the trust ratio would help here. However, I fear that this is some additional internal tool for Relic to help judge the outcome of games and its details will not be revealed as probably the people form Relic themselves are not sure what this trust ratio actually measures.

[Mordakii]

Menu quitting does not affect trust rating. FACT.

Lag drops, disconnects and drophacking do. Any time the arbitration message comes up= trust rating affected.

[FLXleGaulois]

Posting in the wiki is realy simple, just creat an account and edit the comunity bug list. done

Anyway I'll do it for you, I will post a link to this tread so please keep it clear, do not start talking about something different like it happens sometimes.

[LordZon]

It will eventually record the loss. I've had games I've won and it never showed any message in the corner.. Played another match and then it shows me both win messages one after another.

[HonestJohnny]

LordZon it is true what you say that sometimes there is a delay in recording of the stats and they sometimes update in bunches like three updates one after the other (first from the game just played and two from earlier games). But believe me not in the case I described. 3 days have passed since the first 2vs2 ranked match I played that did not record in the stats and nothing has changed. Still no stats update.

As I said test this for yourself and see. Give it some time and you will have your own answer.

[Texture]

To make one thing clear I hate abusing the stats system and if nothing changes I will delete my profile with the 2vs2 games and play only 1vs1 ranked.

Eh. Gonna say two things here. First, the dickish part. This happens to everyone. Stop whining and being a prima donna about it. So you get screwed out of some wins, tough. I've watched wins against top 10 players in a team not record, and trust me, I need those wins to break past level 10. 2v2 is basically a clusterfuck, stats recording wise, and you just have to be patient and forge ahead.

That being said, yeah, it really sucks, and it really does happen. I don't think it's quite as consistent as you make it out to be. I can't guarantee a non-record loss if I quit early and my teammate plays on. But it doesn't happen surprisingly often. And you have to keep in mind it isn't always malicious. If I get a complete noob teammate who is busy staring at his ass the first 5 minutes of the game, I might just quit and save my self the aggravation. If it fails to record my loss, did I cheat?

Half the time I get the loss, but shockingly often I don't. But I guess it balances against all the wins I haven't gotten. It truly does happen, totally sucks, but don't put all the blame on players: it's Relic's online system that is at fault. Hopefully it will improve over time, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of clamor about this, so I'm not hopeful.

[HonestJohnny]

Texture, what you say is generally very true. The only thing that bothers me is that I have limited time to spend with CoH as I have a full time job and family responsibilities. Now on average I have daily 1-2 hours at most for on-line play. And there are days when I can't play at all. Now in these 2 hours I can play 2, mayby 3 games at the most. And when the stats are abused, whoever is responsible for this (Relic, the players), then I waste my limited time I have for the game only to find out that my efforts were for nothing as the stats don't record. MAYBY IT IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE BUT IT HAPPENS TOO DAMN OFTEN. It relates to abuse of 2vs2 stats, dropping in 1vs1, game freezes, lags etc. etc.

I started seriously playing 2vs2 ranked just recently, as I thought that perhaps this will be a nice change and more fun than 1vs1 on the maps, which I already know by heart. But unfortunately I was greatly dissapointed only to find that the 2vs2 ranked is far more abused than 1vs1 ranked. And this can really put you off. Believe me. And I am not being a primadonna as I have many friends playing CoH who feel exactly the same. You got something wrong here my friend. You could call me a primadonna if the stats were working fine but I could not get wins because of my poor playing abilities. I am not complaining about balance, overpowered unit etc. (that's what a primadonna would complain about). I am complaining about such damn obvious thing as proper functioning of the game I paid for. The fact that this happen to everyone, as you say it, does not mean that Relic should get away with a poor functioning game. They should fix this.

To sum up if no one complained about problems with the game but just accepted everything then we would be still struggling with the famous drop hack in its early version, there would be no trust system, no policy by Relic on fighting abuse in gameplay etc. etc. etc.

[FLXleGaulois]

it's Relic's online system that is at fault.

Agree, that's why I've put this in "network problems" section of the wiki.
With the old server we constantly had server shutdown, it was realy crappy. Now things are a bit different: each time you used to have a frozen game, now you have everyone disconnected from each other and stats record problems. I find that better because you dont have to restart the game or hardware reboot but it is far from fixed.

[EroticCompany]

I know how you feel when stats are not recorded. Sometimes, my wins were not recorded and sometimes my losses were not recorded. I guess it gets balanced out.

[Texture]

Texture, what you say is generally very true. The only thing that bothers me is that I have limited time to spend with CoH as I have a full time job and family responsibilities. Now on average I have daily 1-2 hours at most for on-line play. And there are days when I can't play at all. Now in these 2 hours I can play 2, mayby 3 games at the most. And when the stats are abused, whoever is responsible for this (Relic, the players), then I waste my limited time I have for the game only to find out that my efforts were for nothing as the stats don't record. MAYBY IT IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE BUT IT HAPPENS TOO DAMN OFTEN. It relates to abuse of 2vs2 stats, dropping in 1vs1, game freezes, lags etc. etc.

Hey man, I hear you. A full time job really does cut into the gaming time, doesn't it? Thats why I am so pleased about how much better matchmaking and connectivity overall have gotten. I don't have time to fuck around for 30 minutes trying to get a decent game going. That could be nearly all the time I have for the day to play.

I was only giving you shit because of the whole 'well then I'll just go play 1v1 nyahhhh' comment. Keep playing 2v2, honestly I think it's a lot more fun. And overall, it will somewhat fairly score you, averaged out over time. It still really does hurt when the system fucks up though. We had a fairly massive 2v2 AT streak broken last night because the game froze and synch error'd for me only, leaving my teammate 1v2. That's still sort of burning us up, but oh well.

I appreciate you taking the time to post it, FLXleGaulois. Like I said, there isn't a lot of clamor about this, but it really does blow and every little bit of progress they make towards increasing server stability (which is MUCH better now, congrats) and reducing stat recording errors, is a big plus in my book.

[Bfoster80]

I will say it does happen to me too often, when you spend a hour playing a good hard game to not get a win and possibly a rank increase it is frustrating to say the least. It happens to everyone, the honest and dishonest. I have had people tell me GG while I was beating them down, and drop out, it say I was victorous and me not get a win. And vice versa, I do the same, I will give them the GG and drop and I will not get a loss. I always quit from the menu, and im sure they did too. This has happened to me in 1v1 also.

[HonestJohnny]

I must say that I love Company of Heroes. If anyone would ask me what was my favourite game of all times it would not take me a second to give the answer - Company of Heroes !!!

That is why I bring up the issue and problems with the on-line play. Because I love the game so much and would very much like to see it fixed and to see it grow with further expansions. If it was not Company of Heroes I would not care about the problems. I would just throw the game into my drawer and forget about it. And I would not bother to spend time wording my findings so that they are understood by other players and I hope by Relic representatives, who visit these forums.

And properly functioning ranking system is a must for a game to grow. Otherwise it becomes total chaos. I consider ranks to be important but that does not mean that I want to achieve them in a dishonest way.