Toon sharing.

[Darklords]

there will be special treatment the whole point of this is to stop people from sharing toons not limit how much 1 person can use 1 toon, its like blaze pointed out with time constants all what will happen is once limit is reached on that toon they log an alt the whole point of this is to stop that, not to help people plan what toon to use up first. I think its established the person worst of by any sort of time constraint would be my self as i do play a huge amount of nod. personally i thought that was the whole point of a mmo to grind and enjoy the game.

Yes toon sharing is an issue is time constraint going to fix said issue no. would it stop people using others toons in arena no. there for it may as well just be left as it is. and declared in terms and conditions that toon sharing is fine as long as no drama is caused any drama will effect both users being banned

[Blaze]

Originally Posted by darklords

there will be special treatment the whole point of this is to stop people from sharing toons not limit how much 1 person can use 1 toon, its like blaze pointed out with time constants all what will happen is once limit is reached on that toon they log an alt the whole point of this is to stop that, not to help people plan what toon to use up first. I think its established the person worst of by any sort of time constraint would be my self as i do play a huge amount of nod. personally i thought that was the whole point of a mmo to grind and enjoy the game.

Yes toon sharing is an issue is time constraint going to fix said issue no. would it stop people using others toons in arena no. there for it may as well just be left as it is. and declared in terms and conditions that toon sharing is fine as long as no drama is caused any drama will effect both users being banned

mostly agree. if bans did happen to both users in relation to drama and having more of a no nonsense attitude might decrease toon sharing a bit. since some people are willing to share with random noobs... the risk of them getting ripped off for a couple lgs then not sharing might happen. since getting ripped off > getting bant for making an issue out of the dumb choice. ofc wouldn't stop sharing much between people who do have 100% trust like some of the arena teams and such.

[Huggles]

Suggestion:
-Monitor activity of 'suspicious' accounts
-Monitor time actively logged on (logged on and actually clicking/typing) of the account, by IP

Realistically, if someone is farming 20 hours a day and the IP changes continents every 4 hours, it's not someone in a basement injecting a cocktail of Doritos and Mountain Dew. It's probably a group of people farming the account all day.

Yes, people may find ways around this, but many will not and will either be forced to stop doing this or they will be caught.

The bot-catching system isn't perfect either and people have managed to evade it, but it has also caught dozens of cheaters and made the game better for everyone.

[Soxson]

omg nibbles. we miss you!

good points too.

[Glitchless]

Bump. Still find it a bit odd that people complain endlessly about character sharing but don't support the one actual thing that would prevent it from giving sharers an advantage: our first post on page 1.

[Freakymagic]

Originally Posted by Glitchless

Using IP addresses as a means of detection or prevention is too easy to get around and would result in hassles for players without adding any real prevention.

The only viable way to prevent the benefits of toon sharing (not toon sharing itself) would be to limit weekly play on a character to something like 12*7 = 84 hours. This would keep us from hurting people who wanted to go on a bender and play 48 hours straight and still prevent toon sharers from getting more than 12 hours per day value from a character.

We'd be interested to hear if there are any objections to such a plan, and for what reasons.

Originally Posted by Glitchless

To clarify, the initial concept was to limit active gameplay, not logged time. It's hard to conceive that a single person would be able to average 12+ hours of actual active gameplay (ie actually doing game actions other than chatting or just sitting there logged on or in queue) over a weekly period. And if we raised it to 105 hours a week or 15 hours a day, it's honestly not even a physical reality.

If toon sharing is indeed a serious problem, this is the solution, but people would need to really support it in order to happen.

Changing the way TCs work would impact tons of non-sharers and is not an option. We are not looking to change the game on any fundamental level, just possibly limit excessive use of characters that is a clear indicator of sharing.

I think this would help if there are toons who are farming 24/7. Which would help the nod economy.

I dont think this would help with majority of arena sharing issues.
Many times toons that were logged by multiple people fought each other. Many times toons were only logged at certain times so as to avoid fighting certain teams. Supposedly teams were swapping emails to avoid certain teams.

Some things (the changing email specifically) I cant be certain of. Only have information from others (people who have logged toon/s in question) so the information can be suspect. However people openly talked about toons they were on/ common knowledge of people logging toons which were commonly fighting each other.

So i guess support? but i don't think this would help the sharing problem with arena. Its not the time that teams are in que. It is sharing and dodging so as to que and have minimal/no risk of losing rating while being able to dodge teams they cant share with and risk losing to.

[Roeth]

Originally Posted by Glitchless

Bump. Still find it a bit odd that people complain endlessly about character sharing but don't support the one actual thing that would prevent it from giving sharers an advantage: our first post on page 1.

I've no problems with your suggestion at all Glitch, whether averaging 12 or 15 hours a day over a weekly basis, it's far more than any one person can realistically accomplish.

Possibly implement it for a month on a trial basis, and see if there are any practical issues ?

[Darklords]

Glitch the funniest thing is that u changed the rules since this thread was created... you opened the door fully for people to toon share, and now your having second thoughts? toon sharing has been a major issue for over 5+ years but only now after an endless amount of people are complaining has happened you wanna reduce it.

So lemme get this straight to combat toon sharing before you limited how many matches we could do in arena. you then said ah to hell with it and changed tou in favour of toon sharers.
you then banned a couple of people because fighting own team or having same people logging toons in arena, then when somebody deliberately tried to break the rules to attempt to get people banned, you ignored this completely and then changed the format to where people lose 25 rating. point is its out of control limited toons to 12 hours a day would only effect a 24/7 farmed toon, which is the same as botting in my eyes so maybe should be banning them not limiting how much "botting" they can get away with...

[Roeth]

Originally Posted by Darklords

Glitch the funniest thing is that u changed the rules since this thread was created... you opened the door fully for people to toon share, and now your having second thoughts? toon sharing has been a major issue for over 5+ years but only now after an endless amount of people are complaining has happened you wanna reduce it.

So lemme get this straight to combat toon sharing before you limited how many matches we could do in arena. you then said ah to hell with it and changed tou in favour of toon sharers.
you then banned a couple of people because fighting own team or having same people logging toons in arena, then when somebody deliberately tried to break the rules to attempt to get people banned, you ignored this completely and then changed the format to where people lose 25 rating. point is its out of control limited toons to 12 hours a day would only effect a 24/7 farmed toon, which is the same as botting in my eyes so maybe should be banning them not limiting how much "botting" they can get away with...

There is a phrase :

If you've got nothing useful to say, say nothing.

Just pointing it out, randomly, you know

[Darklords]

sorry freedom of speech, but thanks for trying to "help" seems you thread could also apply to yourself

[ecnod]

Just ban em all!

[Raidens]

I have to agree with darklords on this, toon sharing in the past got many, many toons banned. Then suddenly you openly welcomed it by making it a non ban-able offense.

Personally, I sit three toons, but only burn daily rrt. This should be allowed, since I am neither 24/7 "botting" or causing any side affect to the nod economy, but there needs to be an enforcement for toons that are shared and whored out and farmed for a long period of time every day.

IMO you should make an app, like Blizzard, or what Swtor have, which is an authenticator. I go to login on nod, and only with said app confirmation can i then login. And it will ONLY let you login if both IP for login/authenticator match. This completely stops all toon sharing for good. And it isn't difficult to implement.

As for alt toons I sit, this would cause an issue, meaning I cannot log them to play, so maybe if the toon is not yours, you can give a time limit on the authenticator, meaning if the toon does not share email with your main, the authenticator will only let you stay logged for up to 4 hours real time. Seems like it may be hard to do all of that coding, but it is the most effective way to tackle what this game has been plagued with. i'd personally favour this over any new content in 2019.

[Pale]

Originally Posted by Glitchless

Using IP addresses as a means of detection or prevention is too easy to get around and would result in hassles for players without adding any real prevention.

The only viable way to prevent the benefits of toon sharing (not toon sharing itself) would be to limit weekly play on a character to something like 12*7 = 84 hours. This would keep us from hurting people who wanted to go on a bender and play 48 hours straight and still prevent toon sharers from getting more than 12 hours per day value from a character.

We'd be interested to hear if there are any objections to such a plan, and for what reasons.

Often goes on Nod benders. <----"go on a bender and play 48 hours"

In fact, one rush week I stayed in a luxury hotel suit for rush to avoid RL interruptions and catch arena dodgers sneaking into the arena late at night.

[Qratos]

motel 6 aint 'luxury' bruh :P

[Glitchless]

DL, the rules were not changed to encourage character sharing, they were changed for the sake of clarity. No one has ever been banned just for character sharing - they've only been banned when that sharing caused major problems: typically when it bled into grey areas about ownership and parties were complaining to us about who owed who what. And you clearly understand this and agree to this, since it was your own suggestion in your last post in this very thread:

Originally Posted by Darklords

there for it may as well just be left as it is. and declared in terms and conditions that toon sharing is fine as long as no drama is caused any drama will effect both users being banned

So, please, stop trying to imply we're doing stupid and/or hypocritical things by making changes that you agreed were for the best.


Raidens, thank you for an actual suggestion. Unfortunately, a login authenticator is only an impediment to sharing, and a poor one. It doesn't prevent sharers from communicating the app auth code or circumventing it (or any IP restrictions for that matter) completely via remote desktop sharing. It does screw over people who don't have cell phones, though. For these reasons, it is not being considered.


Freaky, it would be best if we isolated and numbered the issues you have, while being purposeful in also explaining the way in which they are giving an advantage to someone who should not have it.

Problems
1. Purposefully setting same e-mail to avoid facing each other. Advantage: Helpful at very high rating to allow two teams two fight at the same time who would otherwise risk lowering each others ratings when clashing.

2. Queue dodging made easier by sharing to maximize the amount of time in each 24 hour cycle a player can queue while still avoiding dangerous teams.


Resolutions
1. No longer works since e-mails don't prevent matchmaking anymore.

2. The proposed solution of limiting players to 84 hours per week (~12 hours per day) active time would actually help prevent this by shortening the effective time window, especially provided there was a minimum activity length. Example: Team Dodgy queues, activating their activity timer. They quickly leave the queue when they see team Jerry join. Team Jerry continues to play for the next 3 hours. Whereas in the past Team Dodgy would have had 24-3 = 21 hours to effectively queue with sharing that day, they now only have 12-2 = 10 hours. And that's assuming they are only trying to dodge 1 team in 1 timezone.

[Pale]

Thank you for what seems to be a real discussion on the merits of an issue.

The change that was made already deducting points if to shared toons meet in the arena is a meaningful one. I don't think there should be other changes yet. Let see how this change effects the arena before making further changes.

[Freakymagic]

Originally Posted by Glitchless

Freaky, it would be best if we isolated and numbered the issues you have, while being purposeful in also explaining the way in which they are giving an advantage to someone who should not have it.

Problems
1. Purposefully setting same e-mail to avoid facing each other. Advantage: Helpful at very high rating to allow two teams two fight at the same time who would otherwise risk lowering each others ratings when clashing.

2. Queue dodging made easier by sharing to maximize the amount of time in each 24 hour cycle a player can queue while still avoiding dangerous teams.


Resolutions
1. No longer works since e-mails don't prevent matchmaking anymore.

2. The proposed solution of limiting players to 84 hours per week (~12 hours per day) active time would actually help prevent this by shortening the effective time window, especially provided there was a minimum activity length. Example: Team Dodgy queues, activating their activity timer. They quickly leave the queue when they see team Jerry join. Team Jerry continues to play for the next 3 hours. Whereas in the past Team Dodgy would have had 24-3 = 21 hours to effectively queue with sharing that day, they now only have 12-2 = 10 hours. And that's assuming they are only trying to dodge 1 team in 1 timezone.

1) Yes i agree

2) While I agree that less time available will help dodging It is not a flat fix to it.

As well. 3) Toons being logged by friends to avoid fighting each other. Team 1 risks losing to teams 2, 3 and 7. They dodge teams 2 and 3 since they have no ability to access them. Only que with team 7 in que while someone has 1 toon logged from both teams 1 and 7.

Teams that after the changes fought each other, would then mysteriously never fight each other while both were in que. Before the changes they would never fight, After the changes they fought a few times. Then close to rush again, they would never fight. Just seems very suspect. Maybe at least for the higher rating teams there should be weighted match making to fight other higher rated teams more often?

4) I know changes were made at the same time as the email change; however, toons that were not owned by players were being used to arena. Maybe the "owner" just never logged them? Maybe that's why when they fought the owners other toons they were not penalized? Im not sure but many times toons with known owners were fighting other toons of the same owner with out the -25 being applied.


To be clear. Im not against the time limit changes. I just dont think they will solve all the issues. Maybe as time goes on and the changes are in effect from the start of the season and not near the end these concerns are fixed.

[SiSiX]

Glitch, read through the posts, see there are 'opportunities' and differing thoughts on this that seem to fall into three categories:

1) Legit players going on benders playing long grinds
2) Sharers that look an 'awful lot' like bots, but could just as easily be a group of people playing a group of toons
3) Teams dodging in Arena

I've played this game since release, you and I have had our occasional "need to hug it out afterwards", and I've read a good chunk of the suggestions, comments, gripes, and thoughts over the years. If I might make the following suggestions:

1) Add a third timer bar, World Time, either hidden with a menu, or an actual bar, with weekly "endurance". Your 7 days x 12 hours for 84 total hours is pretty reasonable, as long as it's based on activity. I can think of any number of people, self included that leave this window open, so just going by that means someone could nearly be out of time just leaving the toon on autolog and the window open over a long weekend. But burn time for ANY activity, including actively logged in arena, ESPECIALLY arena I think.

Have it reset say Server Rest on Friday morning.

2) You know, I can think of college players that run 'teams' on things like this to seriously grind out a toon. Amazing what 4 or 8 or 12 players can do, logged from a single IP that never changes. So accommodate them. Create a World TC that adds 12 hours of actual play time, not RT or RRT. Make them account bound, untradeable, and cash only. If I want to have a group of my friends come over, or simply grind Sisix for the next week straight, 24x7, then I should have that option. I should also PAY for that option. This might be a "Free to Play" game, but that's an awful lot like a Premium feature in my mind.

3) Set a minimum time for Arena queueing. Simply, once you queue for Arena, you stay queued for that amount of time. Call it 30 mins. (If you can't get three people to log for 30 mins at the same time, then you have no business being on a serious Arena team nor complaining about what happens in Arena. And if it's just 2 people, you REALLY have no excuses.) Or 45 mins. Or heck, you could even...

30 mins --Default Queue
45 mins --One Token Bonus Win
60 mins --One Token Bonus for loss (not doubled for Virtues), Two for Win, scales to Five based on Rating
180 mins -Two Token Bonus for loss (not doubled for Virtues), Three for Win, scales to Ten based on Rating

Simply, once you log into queue for your selected time frame, your team stays in (logged or not. Only a server reset clears. Limit queue logging near reset as needed). You enter fight, exit, and are auto logged back in. Obviously 3 hours in the Queue gives a nice boost, but makes dodging pretty much impossible.

People might seriously whine about their teammates logging out, getting disconnected, leaving the computer, but that's their problem, not yours or anyone else's. You want the benefits of Arena, you should be willing to at least put forth the minimum. Obviously, this queue time counts towards your "World Time", as mentioned in #1.

Anyway, my thoughts on this.
SiSiX

[Glitchless]

Problems updated:

1. No longer applicable.

2. Queue Dodging - weekly hour cap will help mitigate but not eradicate. End of season tourney would certainly help, but it could prevent some from participating properly due to scheduling issues. EDIT: the minimum queue time is also an interesting way to fight this. Nice suggestion Sisix.

3. Purposefully sharing to use the same IP to avoid facing friend's team. To prevent this we could make it so having the same IP no longer prevents matchmaking. Downside is that people queueing multiple teams at the same time, or even different people on the same IP/network, would risk the -25pts penalty. Feedback welcome to this proposed fix.

4. Dodging share detection to face friendly team on purpose. While avoiding -25pts is obviously nice, at the highest ratings you don't want to face friendly teams and trade fights 50/50 since you lose more than you gain. Thus, this is only beneficial when one team has excess rating to throw away to an undeserving team of a friend/sharer. This is not likely to have any real impact on topmost teams since the benefactor of this needs to be a not-so-great one. Furthermore, doing it would be risky for the better team, considering the loss would show on their record: obvious red flag: a team with excess rating is somehow losing to a team they would normally beat and is likely friendly with or strongly connected to. This can only be prevented by being reported. Was there actually anyone at the top that you think was doing this last season? If so, you need to report at the time.

[Algamisu]

There are multiple ways I'm against toon sharing but the bigges issue is all the arena nonsense.

People really shouldn't be allowed to arena for other people. Lots of top players keep on arena'ing for lazy players toons or toons of players that haven't even been playing for ages just for arena rewards concentrating the wealth and making things harder for newer and weaker players.

Then there's the dodging by logging each others toons. That's another big problem and something should be done about that.

Maybe make it so that you can only q with same email toons at the same time from 1 ip and make it so that toons that share emails get banned from arena until next season if they face each other, while also limiting the email changes to 1 per season or no q'ing for that toon. There are ways around that too but would help the current situation significantly.

I'm tired and slightly ill so this post wasn't 100% thought through but I figured I should give my 2 cents before anything gets changed.