Posted by doogan on 11/1/2022 12:20:00 PM (view original):

Posted by favre3xmvp on 11/1/2022 11:58:00 AM (view original):

Posted by doogan on 11/1/2022 10:58:00 AM (view original):

Posted by favre3xmvp on 11/1/2022 10:46:00 AM (view original):

Posted by doogan on 11/1/2022 10:38:00 AM (view original):

Posted by favre3xmvp on 11/1/2022 10:31:00 AM (view original):

Posted by doogan on 11/1/2022 10:27:00 AM (view original):

Posted by gigrant on 11/1/2022 10:21:00 AM (view original):

Posted by doogan on 11/1/2022 9:08:00 AM (view original):
I've talked to one of the guys who was banned. In my opinion, what he did is not cheating. I can see why it would be seen as something that shouldn't be possible or a loophole, but could also make the argument that it was designed to be part of the game. In fact, he asked CS about it a few years ago and they confirmed it would provide recruiting effort and did not say it was something he should not do or at all imply that it was something that went against Fair Play guidelines. I saw shoe mention the redshirting a senior thing. That's a loophole. What these guys did is a similar loophole, at worst. I'd just suggest that you hold off on making pronouncements about bans or punishments when you have very little knowledge of what happened.

respectfully, i don't agree at all. i've been here a long time, and i'm really tired of people acting outside the spirit of the game. these guys had an unfair advantage, so they were basically stealing money from the rest of us. with all of the frustration already at hand with the recruiting process, this issue was about to start an exodus of coaches who were already on the fence. you see the above post about the FL coach leaving. i know several other long-time vets who are packing their things as we speak. and many already have. HD has been in a bad spot for at least 2 years now and the timing of this scandal couldn't be worse. perhaps that is why CS got aggressive for once.

i hope the cheaters are forced to start new accts so that they can't get to D1 and compete before there's a fix.

Do you know what it was that these users did?

This should not matter. What we know is the impact it had on the game and it was a negative one for those recruiting against them, unfairly so.

It shouldn't matter what they did? We'll have to disagree on that one. How do you know it was unfair when you don't know what happened?

It provided an advantage that was not part of the game and those using it knew it. We need not know more. And that is why I discount the mechanics being revealed too. We know the result. These coaches were able to unlock additional recruiting options faster by using this exploit.

By the way, the senior redshirt results in 20 APs per cycle. This is no where near only 20 if someone can make 2 dozen scholarship offers by day 2 of recruiting. We are comparing apples and orangutans. (And yes, for those challenged in the realm of humor, I intentionally did not say, “oranges”.)

CS implied that it was part of the game, as I've said.

Doogan, you say, “CS implied it was part of the game.” Let me offer a counter perspective.

Over the 20 years of this game, we have had good, bad, and terrible CS representatives (CSR). Just because one was indifferent with respect to this being raised as a concern does not mean it isn’t significant. I lean more in the direction that the CSR didn’t ask enough questions to flesh out whether there was an issue. Clearly, the current CSR regime does see it as an issue and they are dealing with it accordingly.

There is no reason to throw shade on those of us offering our experience recruiting against Swenske or any of the other cheaters. And yes, I will call them cheaters because they willfully used an exploit to gain an advantage that was not intended to be available. The answer for punishment is probably somewhere between ban and slap on the wrist. But a punishment is necessary to accomplish a couple things:

1. Set an example for others to not exploit non-public vulnerabilities in the future.
2. Punitive justice: it is impossible to measure and compensate those harmed in this situation. The best we can do is hold those who abused the system to some level of accountability.

I don't think I threw any shade. Pretty sure all I've said is to consider reserving judgment until you know what actually happened. No problem at all with, for example, Benis posting what happened in his recruiting against swenske and it appears to have brought something to the attention of the devs that they feel is a mistake to fix. So that's cool.

But as for the quality of the CS? Here's the scenario: player basically accidentally finds a way to get players unlocked more quickly. Player sends a ticket to CS asking, what happened here? Was this a mistake that this happened? CS says no, it's possible that what you did could have that effect. Player then continues to do that, in part because CS told them it was a part of the game. Three years later, player gets a message that they've been banned from the site for doing that exact thing. Doesn't seem fair to me.

Should this user be punished for low quality CS?

Yeah, not sure this compares to the Senior redshirt thing at all, there are those of us that redshirt seniors because we are trying to balance out our classes a bit. There is no mistaking what this AP cheat/ hack is about.

Doogan, you said, “I'd just suggest that you hold off on making pronouncements about bans or punishments when you have very little knowledge of what happened.” Such a suggestion is aimed at quieting the crowd of voices on the forum. To quiet the debate is to prevent the community from developing a fuller perspective on the issue.

That aside, yes, I do think the user should be punished. But not for low quality CS, for his/her own lack of judgment. You indicated that CS left them with a sense that it was okay but they didn’t expressly state that it was acceptable to exploit it.

I think I am more frustrated by your revelation that you have an acquaintance on the site who used it knowingly for three years. Were you aware that this was available and did you ever, even just once, use this exploit? If you were aware and didn’t use it, what kept you from using it?

Holy sh-t, this has been going on for three freakin years??

I love your doubling down on this... your argument goes:

1. "This bug is no big deal."
2. A dude discovered this bug and thought it was significant enough to contact CS.
3. After getting the OK from CS, he shared it with a group of friends cuz it was a big deal, but none of these dudes announced it in the Forums. Meaning they recognized that they had an advantage.
4. It's been going on for 3 years.
5. "This bug is no big deal."
6. Holy sh-t.

Who else knows? A clique of HD friends? Name a couple besides you and Swenske.

Finally read all this and I am so confused about what the glitch even is and how it was used but I will be really saddened if any of my mentors were doing it. I doubt that as I think I've seen their skill excel and also take beatings in the dice roll of recruiting. However, in reading this I first learned of the RS Sr "loophole." Is that not considered against rules? If it is, why hasn't CS fixed it yet?

Do people use this currently? I have never noticed it.

Posted by favre3xmvp on 11/1/2022 12:29:00 PM (view original):
Doogan, you said, “I'd just suggest that you hold off on making pronouncements about bans or punishments when you have very little knowledge of what happened.” Such a suggestion is aimed at quieting the crowd of voices on the forum. To quiet the debate is to prevent the community from developing a fuller perspective on the issue.

That aside, yes, I do think the user should be punished. But not for low quality CS, for his/her own lack of judgment. You indicated that CS left them with a sense that it was okay but they didn’t expressly state that it was acceptable to exploit it.

I think I am more frustrated by your revelation that you have an acquaintance on the site who used it knowingly for three years. Were you aware that this was available and did you ever, even just once, use this exploit? If you were aware and didn’t use it, what kept you from using it?

I discuss HD with people sometimes and since it was no secret, this came up. And yeah, I did do it a few times, apparently not enough to get banned. But as I said before, it seemed like it was (albeit not obvious) an intended part of the game, especially since another player reported it and WIS essentially told them "yeah that can happen." It seemed to me like one of the many aspects of the game that could get changed at some point when they decide to reevaluate things but never crossed my mind that it was cheating. Again, this would make more sense to you if you knew what it was which you will soon.

And as for not posting it on the forums. As you can see I don't post on the forums. I've been playing this game for 18 years and made like 10 posts in all that time before today.

Posted by doogan on 11/1/2022 12:57:00 PM (view original):

Posted by favre3xmvp on 11/1/2022 12:29:00 PM (view original):
Doogan, you said, “I'd just suggest that you hold off on making pronouncements about bans or punishments when you have very little knowledge of what happened.” Such a suggestion is aimed at quieting the crowd of voices on the forum. To quiet the debate is to prevent the community from developing a fuller perspective on the issue.

That aside, yes, I do think the user should be punished. But not for low quality CS, for his/her own lack of judgment. You indicated that CS left them with a sense that it was okay but they didn’t expressly state that it was acceptable to exploit it.

I think I am more frustrated by your revelation that you have an acquaintance on the site who used it knowingly for three years. Were you aware that this was available and did you ever, even just once, use this exploit? If you were aware and didn’t use it, what kept you from using it?

I discuss HD with people sometimes and since it was no secret, this came up. And yeah, I did do it a few times, apparently not enough to get banned. But as I said before, it seemed like it was (albeit not obvious) an intended part of the game, especially since another player reported it and WIS essentially told them "yeah that can happen." It seemed to me like one of the many aspects of the game that could get changed at some point when they decide to reevaluate things but never crossed my mind that it was cheating. Again, this would make more sense to you if you knew what it was which you will soon.

Got em

Posted by doogan on 11/1/2022 12:57:00 PM (view original):

Posted by favre3xmvp on 11/1/2022 12:29:00 PM (view original):
Doogan, you said, “I'd just suggest that you hold off on making pronouncements about bans or punishments when you have very little knowledge of what happened.” Such a suggestion is aimed at quieting the crowd of voices on the forum. To quiet the debate is to prevent the community from developing a fuller perspective on the issue.

That aside, yes, I do think the user should be punished. But not for low quality CS, for his/her own lack of judgment. You indicated that CS left them with a sense that it was okay but they didn’t expressly state that it was acceptable to exploit it.

I think I am more frustrated by your revelation that you have an acquaintance on the site who used it knowingly for three years. Were you aware that this was available and did you ever, even just once, use this exploit? If you were aware and didn’t use it, what kept you from using it?

I discuss HD with people sometimes and since it was no secret, this came up. And yeah, I did do it a few times, apparently not enough to get banned. But as I said before, it seemed like it was (albeit not obvious) an intended part of the game, especially since another player reported it and WIS essentially told them "yeah that can happen." It seemed to me like one of the many aspects of the game that could get changed at some point when they decide to reevaluate things but never crossed my mind that it was cheating. Again, this would make more sense to you if you knew what it was which you will soon.

Doogan, I must give you props for being willing to admit your use of this exploit. Thank you.

Posted by favre3xmvp on 11/1/2022 1:13:00 PM (view original):

Posted by doogan on 11/1/2022 12:57:00 PM (view original):

Posted by favre3xmvp on 11/1/2022 12:29:00 PM (view original):
Doogan, you said, “I'd just suggest that you hold off on making pronouncements about bans or punishments when you have very little knowledge of what happened.” Such a suggestion is aimed at quieting the crowd of voices on the forum. To quiet the debate is to prevent the community from developing a fuller perspective on the issue.

That aside, yes, I do think the user should be punished. But not for low quality CS, for his/her own lack of judgment. You indicated that CS left them with a sense that it was okay but they didn’t expressly state that it was acceptable to exploit it.

I think I am more frustrated by your revelation that you have an acquaintance on the site who used it knowingly for three years. Were you aware that this was available and did you ever, even just once, use this exploit? If you were aware and didn’t use it, what kept you from using it?

I discuss HD with people sometimes and since it was no secret, this came up. And yeah, I did do it a few times, apparently not enough to get banned. But as I said before, it seemed like it was (albeit not obvious) an intended part of the game, especially since another player reported it and WIS essentially told them "yeah that can happen." It seemed to me like one of the many aspects of the game that could get changed at some point when they decide to reevaluate things but never crossed my mind that it was cheating. Again, this would make more sense to you if you knew what it was which you will soon.

Doogan, I must give you props for being willing to admit your use of this exploit. Thank you.

10 National Titles nice

First, a huge thanks to Benis, not only for catching this, but for putting it in the ACC chat to go to the forums, which I rarely do now days. I'm at Maryland in Allen. When I first got there I lost a ton of late recruits to Pitt and couldn't figure out how he had the funds to battle me. Turns out he was one of the ones using the renewal loophole and getting restocked in budget. Held me back for multiple seasons. Now I've recruited against St. John's for years. He's on a lot of guys all the time but I didn't think anything of it, just that he spread his AP around, just enough to offer scholarships and promises. I can understand why people in this world and in this geographical area are frustrated given both of those things have happened in our backyard so to speak.

Anyway, WarLeagle beat me too my next point, I'm old enough and poor enough with computers that it baffles me what could have happened here. I understand wanting to wait until the issue is fixed to tell the community, but the suspense until it happens will kill me :).

well ****. i DO think it is very important for it to come out, if any of these folks did run this by CS and CS ignored it. i mentioned that possibility really early on as something we'd definitely want to know about... and i stand by that. but its awfully hard for me to say *anything* in support of *anything* doogan said, now that he acknowledged using the exploit himself.

i will say this, however. this has been going on for 3 years, apparently (probably this has been around since 3.0 came out?). exploits this serious have existed at all points in HD. that's doesn't make it ok, but it DOES mean that as a community, we need to take a long term view here. we need to push for a strong institutional response to cheating, from CS. this is what i've been saying the whole time - we need CS to investigate and deliberate, that is what is required for a strong, long-term response to cheating. pushing for snap judgements from them and shooting down calls to investigate, is antithetical to that. frankly, all of you guys pushing for snap judgements, shouting down any questions on the merits or calls to investigate, you are undermining the long term anti-cheating effort.

anyway, one of the key structural, systemic problems here is that CS tends to pay 0 attention to cheating 364 days a year, and the 1 is when people start raging about it. the solution isn't to just rage about it when issues come up, but to push for a strong institutional response to cheating in general. it would TOTALLY be in character for CS to have heard about this two or three times and to have fluffed it off. or to have not explicitly condemned it. maybe that happened, maybe it didn't - i simply do not know. but the point is, neither do any of you, and we should REALLY care about whether that happened or not. because end of the day, there will always be another cheater. we should prosecute them, yes, but we cannot ignore the system. the system fails because the system is 100% reactive. we can't remedy that by also blowing in like a hurricane one day and then ignoring the issue the other 364 days of the year.

so... did CS get informed of this, and fluff it off? i think that is very important. i am definitely curious to hear any evidence that suggests they did. even though it does not make it OK for others to abuse this exploit and even though i am not trying to defend cheating here!

One thing that disappoints me is WHO is openly discussing it. Doogan. We’ll never know until we know. But doogan plays in the A10 in Smith only. Doesn’t mean those are his only friends in HD of course. But that conference is one of the best in all of HD period. There’s one particular user in that group that I’ve competed against (and I WILL clarify, it’s none of the big dogs there. So I’m not throwing shade at the top 4 guys there, nor am I throwing shade at Doogan), I’ve seen strange things around his recruiting tactics.

my mind is swirling everywhere. I’ll just have to wait and see.

If it isn't open knowledge that is in the FAQ, recruiting guides, player guides, etc. that can be accessed easily by new users then it is probably a cheat. If it appears to be a glitch in the system and you use it, then it is clearly a cheat. If a group is colluding to rig the recruiting, then it is cheating. This easily falls under the umbrella of cheating no matter how you look at it.

I will say that from my interactions with Swenske over the years that he is a good guy. However, even good guys can cheat if they chose to, but that doesn't make it right. If you get caught cheating you got to pay up by suffering the consequences no matter who you are in that environment.

For consequences I would start like to see the following imposed: A ban of a certain length until the glitch is fixed or 6 months whichever is longer, a resetting of their profile to reflect no accomplishments to date, removing their coaching profile from all time lists, a loss of seasons they have already paid for, and also a vacating of all their earned credits seems a reasonable start IMO.

Great job catching that cheating Benis!

Posted by tmacfan12 on 11/1/2022 1:29:00 PM (view original):

Posted by favre3xmvp on 11/1/2022 1:13:00 PM (view original):

Posted by doogan on 11/1/2022 12:57:00 PM (view original):

Posted by favre3xmvp on 11/1/2022 12:29:00 PM (view original):
Doogan, you said, “I'd just suggest that you hold off on making pronouncements about bans or punishments when you have very little knowledge of what happened.” Such a suggestion is aimed at quieting the crowd of voices on the forum. To quiet the debate is to prevent the community from developing a fuller perspective on the issue.

That aside, yes, I do think the user should be punished. But not for low quality CS, for his/her own lack of judgment. You indicated that CS left them with a sense that it was okay but they didn’t expressly state that it was acceptable to exploit it.

I think I am more frustrated by your revelation that you have an acquaintance on the site who used it knowingly for three years. Were you aware that this was available and did you ever, even just once, use this exploit? If you were aware and didn’t use it, what kept you from using it?

I discuss HD with people sometimes and since it was no secret, this came up. And yeah, I did do it a few times, apparently not enough to get banned. But as I said before, it seemed like it was (albeit not obvious) an intended part of the game, especially since another player reported it and WIS essentially told them "yeah that can happen." It seemed to me like one of the many aspects of the game that could get changed at some point when they decide to reevaluate things but never crossed my mind that it was cheating. Again, this would make more sense to you if you knew what it was which you will soon.

Doogan, I must give you props for being willing to admit your use of this exploit. Thank you.

10 National Titles nice

Didn't you guys say this Swenske guy wasn't that good. However, this doogan guy, who is unnecessarily forthcoming, is only good because of this thing that he barely used and we don't even know exactly what it is, how it works or how much it helps? I guess this is where the inferior coaches attribute all of their failures to being cheated? Leave your pitchforks at home and wait until we know more. This is a societal problem, at the moment - I get it. Whatever.