Cimmy posted Seble's (or whoever was working CS at the time) response in discord. This was what they said 3 years ago:

"Hi,

Unfortunately, since recruiting has ended, I can't give you a definite answer on this, but it is possible that informing that you won't redshirt has that much effect if the player is low relative to your prestige. If you run across a similar situation in the future, please let us know before recruiting ends and we can figure it out.

No, there is no way to inform non-redshirt without doing the redshirt option first.

Thanks."

At this point, Cimmy did not follow up with CS, which the current CS team took into account when keeping the bans in place (Cimmy also posted his current exchange with CS). To me, that response reads that they couldn't confirm or deny that a exploit was happening without seeing another instance during recruiting. I'd like to think someone like Chapel would have followed up again with more evidence. In Cimmy's defense, he said he got his answer based on the above response so didn't feel the need to follow up, particularly since he gave them detailed description of what had happened.

Hey everyone, I have posted a detailed response from staff from our investigation and findings, and where things currently stand here:

https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=535265

Please note, there is a patch in place that will have an impact on recruiting immediately.

Regards,
-Chris
WIS

Posted by almersk on 11/1/2022 4:42:00 PM (view original):

Posted by npb7768 on 11/1/2022 4:11:00 PM (view original):

Posted by almersk on 11/1/2022 3:56:00 PM (view original):

Posted by gigrant on 11/1/2022 3:46:00 PM (view original):
i know enough. i guessed cimmy as one before today's posts. hate to see what these people are like in real life if they are this bent up on winning in a silly game. doogan's post make more sense now too. i hope these guys can find peace and self-confidence eventually.

Good lord you have no idea of what you speak. If you think you're going to start winning championships because you got these talented coaches banned for life, I think you're in for a rude awakening. Please do elaborate on how you just knew he was a cheater. I'd love to hear your evidence but I suspect it's just a "feeling" based on your lack of success against him. Since you're ready to slander at the drop of a hat, let's hear it. Whatcha got?

Deny, deny, deny, gasllight, insult, gaslight again, insult again, and never admit you're a cheater. Actually, the cheaters are the *real* victims!!

I cant get into Smith World to check old NT brackets, but i had stacked rosters at Miami of FL and then Kentucky. Wonder if i lost to any of these juiced up rosters.

I didn't cheat, genius.That's why I'm still posting. Unfortunately, they can't defend themselves on here because they've already been banned. I think the percentage of users who agree with a lifetime ban is far smaller than the narrative in here. People who don't really care that muchare not taking the time to post. The people who "just knew" that their competitors were cheating are the loudest, so it feels that way. I posit that this is not an accurate representation of opinions.

A punishment to fit the crime? Lost scholarships? Lost AP's? Tournament bans including conference championships? How long? 4 seasons? More? Less?

Posted by Ccobb12 on 11/2/2022 11:11:00 AM (view original):
Hey everyone, I have posted a detailed response from staff from our investigation and findings, and where things currently stand here:

https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=535265

Please note, there is a patch in place that will have an impact on recruiting immediately.

Regards,
-Chris
WIS

and now we see why doogan was saying what he was saying.....

Sir Benis!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm dying over here!!

Sir Benis, on point.

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.

this smelt SO BIASED it reeked. now the facts are out. adios.

Posted by RiddleFace on 11/1/2022 6:33:00 PM (view original):

Posted by favre3xmvp on 11/1/2022 6:26:00 PM (view original):

Posted by RiddleFace on 11/1/2022 6:23:00 PM (view original):

Posted by mlitney on 11/1/2022 6:16:00 PM (view original):

Posted by RiddleFace on 11/1/2022 6:08:00 PM (view original):
So now that we know the method that was being used to unlock scholarships, what exactly is the rule violation?

Cheating

All owners must play by the rules and requirements set forth by each game on our site. If an owner discovers a loophole, a way to cheat, or any other method of giving himself an unfair advantage, WhatIfSports reserves the right to take the necessary steps to correct the issue at any time without prior notification. Refunds or roster changes will not be given to any owner in this situation.

There you go buddy. Imagine reading the rules.

The coaches gave themselves an advantage, but what makes it an "unfair advantage"?

They get recruiting credit without spending any APs. This is an unfair advantage.

Its not a bug though, the mechanic is supposed to give recruiting credit in that scenario.

Edit: The user still had to take action and risk with the decision to inform of redshirt. Its nothing more than a recruiting action, it gets processed at the same time as all other recruiting actions available.

I would argue it is a bug, how could the value of removing a redshirt be greater than declaring it in the first place?

and no, I don't think they should be banned for life.....I was in a conference for years with RobinHood....disappointed to hear he found and utilized the loophole...he helped me a lot.

Posted by zemedlin on 11/2/2022 9:40:00 AM (view original):
After sleeping on it, I still feel a disconnect with most others on this “issue.” I understand the initial outrage of this guy is getting beat badly in recruiting, this person has to be cheating in some way. But still outrage, even now that we know that it was a bit nothingburger?
Informing a recruit of a non-redshirt was common knowledge to be beneficial, right? Has to be. It’s in the name. It’s literally a recruiting button. It wasn’t called “non inform of redshirt”. But in the grand scheme of things it’s a small effort and won’t help you out in nearly any way in a battle.


There is no “secret” to be shared as you guys are speaking of. It’s not rocket science. The only reason these guys got kicked for “cheating” is because of a bunch of outrage that they were smart enough to use it on recruits without using any prior AP, and no one else was. My assumption was always that promised minutes overruled an inform of non-redshirt anyway, so there was never a reason to use an inform of NON redshirt because I’m going to promise anyway. I’m guessing they only went in and kicked people out who used this action first or who only used this action and a scholarship?

Hey Tristan, to answer your question, Last night, cimmy426 said in a discord chat last night (https://discord.com/channels/796012814149615656/799016113727471667) that
he does not know who swenske is. It appears to me that Swenske is what ruined it for everyone because he is the one that abused it. He was doing this on recruits he didn’t intent to sign I guess? Which is where people are mad? Now I will agree this user in particular does seem like a turd by offering 24 players (there are only a max of 12 players on a team btw) in 2 days. It looks like he “made” a lot of people decide to not go after any recruits just due to his mere presence of an offer on them. He seems to be the only abuser.

I don’t understand how anyone else could get punished for using a recruiting action just because apparently most people didn’t realize it was right there. You guys want every player to know every rule and every little thing about the game, and be the God and the overseer of the game with no mystery. Are other people going to be kicked out for doing things that aren’t explicitly stated in the FAQ?

Does it make sense to you as a human being, that In a game of basketball sim, you can offer a redshirt and un offer it, and POOF, it’s amazing effort gained!!!!

sure, it’s ‘an option within the game’. But its freaking ridiculous. Why on earth would a game be designed that way? We have 20 HV, very clear. We have limits on minutes promised, very clear. But if you start off by telling a recruit we’re going to redshirt you, and then change our mind and say we’re not, MAGICALLY the recruit just loves the school sooooooo much? That don’t make sense at all. The game was not intended to be that way.

This was certainly shady and not cool. Using this trick intentionally is truly an advantage. For the single user in a vacuum, I guess it could seem minimal like "a few APs" per potential recruiting target, and it's a trick potentially available to all if they happen to stumble upon it. However, knowing well enough how this game works, the disadvantage it gave to others is what causes the unbalance because other users allocate their precious APs based on what they see happening in real time. How the ripple effects of that worked out could be argued altered the recruiting actions (thus outcomes) of nearly every other user in the worlds this occured, all the way down to the D3 coach that had a harder time landing the low level D1 target that now had a D2 coach vying for because the mid-low D1 targets were becoming out of reach, and so on and so forth.

Once found and reported that user should have either stopped and not shared with others or should have discussed more openly with the community as just a way the game worked (like has been noted for the redshirting seniors thing). From the AMA discord it seemed that the user basically just washed their hands of it after reporting it. A more "greater good" type of user would have likely then followed up with CS after trying the trick again. That CS response from 3 years ago seems to give enough gray area for an "ok, I tried to tell you" type of user to brush off the matter because it seems that the CS response was kind of a brush off as well. The lack of passion to solve the problem on both the user side and the CS side caused what turns out to be a ton of unnecessary drama.

The true problem was that the action was possible in the first place. That is being resolved (and I'm sure will be debated a ton). A lifetime ban does not seem warranted, but as others have already mentioned, it's impossible anyway since anyone can just create another account and start over. Their legacies and records and whatnot will be tainted by those who know, but all that matters is fixing things going forward. Some sort of suspension is in order, probably 2-4 seasons in each world, basically something to reset their roster advantage. How and where they come back can be argued, but making them start back over with an empty resume in D3 is just going to cause the same issue with the lifetime ban, as also stated by others. If those users are interested in keeping their current resumes, then keep them as the active coach with no account access during the suspension (having to use their credits or pay during that time). Once the suspension is over, fire/remove them from their team and do not allow them to rejoin that world until the "new coach" period after the season rolls over, thus making them have to deal with what's left rather that potentially having a resume advantage over others during the "job change" period. This solution has repercussions on the actual roster of their teams, but so will probably any other solution.

Lastly, I just want to mention publicly that I will now be using inform of RS in its new design much more often because I almost always want to RS one of my players each season. I am not trying to see if this loophole will work again, but that might mean I then un-inform of RS as well. It's just now that the potential recruiting value/penalty is known, I like it better than my current strategy of signing them without informing them and just hoping it works out. Not trying to cheat here, just trying to get a player a RS.

Oh, and that user that did this 600+ times in 2022, that's amazingly greedy and foolish.

Posted by topdogggbm on 11/2/2022 12:16:00 PM (view original):

Posted by zemedlin on 11/2/2022 9:40:00 AM (view original):
After sleeping on it, I still feel a disconnect with most others on this “issue.” I understand the initial outrage of this guy is getting beat badly in recruiting, this person has to be cheating in some way. But still outrage, even now that we know that it was a bit nothingburger?
Informing a recruit of a non-redshirt was common knowledge to be beneficial, right? Has to be. It’s in the name. It’s literally a recruiting button. It wasn’t called “non inform of redshirt”. But in the grand scheme of things it’s a small effort and won’t help you out in nearly any way in a battle.


There is no “secret” to be shared as you guys are speaking of. It’s not rocket science. The only reason these guys got kicked for “cheating” is because of a bunch of outrage that they were smart enough to use it on recruits without using any prior AP, and no one else was. My assumption was always that promised minutes overruled an inform of non-redshirt anyway, so there was never a reason to use an inform of NON redshirt because I’m going to promise anyway. I’m guessing they only went in and kicked people out who used this action first or who only used this action and a scholarship?

Hey Tristan, to answer your question, Last night, cimmy426 said in a discord chat last night (https://discord.com/channels/796012814149615656/799016113727471667) that
he does not know who swenske is. It appears to me that Swenske is what ruined it for everyone because he is the one that abused it. He was doing this on recruits he didn’t intent to sign I guess? Which is where people are mad? Now I will agree this user in particular does seem like a turd by offering 24 players (there are only a max of 12 players on a team btw) in 2 days. It looks like he “made” a lot of people decide to not go after any recruits just due to his mere presence of an offer on them. He seems to be the only abuser.

I don’t understand how anyone else could get punished for using a recruiting action just because apparently most people didn’t realize it was right there. You guys want every player to know every rule and every little thing about the game, and be the God and the overseer of the game with no mystery. Are other people going to be kicked out for doing things that aren’t explicitly stated in the FAQ?

Does it make sense to you as a human being, that In a game of basketball sim, you can offer a redshirt and un offer it, and POOF, it’s amazing effort gained!!!!

sure, it’s ‘an option within the game’. But its freaking ridiculous. Why on earth would a game be designed that way? We have 20 HV, very clear. We have limits on minutes promised, very clear. But if you start off by telling a recruit we’re going to redshirt you, and then change our mind and say we’re not, MAGICALLY the recruit just loves the school sooooooo much? That don’t make sense at all. The game was not intended to be that way.

It doesn’t make sense. But it wasn’t an amazing effort gained either, they said roughly 80 AP, which would add up with Benis’s original math and what I’ve seen (pre Jan ‘22), which wouldn’t be enough to even be a percentage point in an all out battle. I never even sat back to consider using it on a recruit without using AP on them first, like these guys did. And I think it was a smart strategy If you know it works and are willing to risk being shunned by most recruits.

It’s not like what I initially expected and they’re using some sort of 3rd party application to double count AP’s. Also this cimmy guy told CS, another reason I still think banning (besides that one dude, don’t care either way there, good lord he used it a bunch) is an overreaction. They’re still considering what to do which is good. It’s fascinating to see the numbers of the times used on the post. I am glad the loophole is being closed, just was sharing my thoughts of the whole ordeal. However…

My theory was off.. I was wrong. I really thought that since it was CALLED Inform of non-redshirt that it was supposed to be a small positive recruiting effort. Not a big one, think less than 10 promised minutes, they just know they aren’t getting the RS year, which is why I haven’t used it in a while. I just figured it was like telling the recruit they’d be somewhere between 0-10 minutes. I was wrong. CS confirmed in their forum post earlier today that this was not supposed to be intended, and therefore….

going forward, It should be called non-inform of redshirt imo, instead of inform of non redshirt, but that’s nitpicky. I’m very satisfied with what I’ve seen from the current crew at CS. Good luck to all in this game we love

“Lastly, I just want to mention publicly that I will now be using inform of RS in its new design much more often because I almost always want to RS one of my players each season. I am not trying to see if this loophole will work again, but that might mean I then un-inform of RS as well. It's just now that the potential recruiting value/penalty is known, I like it better than my current strategy of signing them without informing them and just hoping it works out. Not trying to cheat here, just trying to get a player a RS.” I don’t agree with half of this post, but this last paragraph… my thoughts exactly.

Knowing that it’s -30 AP I think and hope will change the game for better. I love redshirting as well, and I like the inform button if I have no or light competition and if I’ve built up a few HV’s or the equivalent. Recruiting has been too hectic as of late to guess if it’ll work or not. I know most of the community had abandoned informing entirely, I wasn’t there yet, but it was getting very rare. Should hopefully be able to get back to using it how it was intended now that we know it’ll just be a teeny tiny dent in recruiting credit.


I’m curious to know for sure, but I’m assuming this will be regardless of if the recruit wants to play or not. A needed change imo. The wants to play still has value for the promised minutes.

80 AP's may not be that much in the big picture, but having an extra 80 per recruit on the first cycle is a big deal.
That's what unlocks the scholarship really fast and deters other teams from pursuing the recruit further. I've experienced that several times in Allen with Cimmy's Hawaii team.

I agree that this is a pretty big advantage. The 80 APs isn't enough to swing battles, but if an A prestige team can unlock scholarships (which are also free to hand out) without investing many APs, that means they could depress competition for those recruits when other coaches open the Considering screen and see an A prestige team with a scholarship offer out already and look for another guy to go to battle on.