We want blood!

I agree with gillespie and others that the loophole shouldn't be shared in case it allows for similar hacks. But I also believe that Benis does have a point in that loopholes are specifically spelled out as being inappropriate to use in the Sportsmanship guidelines. How may times have coaches backed off from recruits from this school early, or lost a roll simply because the school was in on so many recruits that losing a roll didn't matter? Cheating without consequence only fosters more cheating. And honestly beyond HD, into other games in the site, lax enforcement of the sportsmanship guidelines has caused the general user experience to suffer. I can't tell you how much misery I encountered as a Hardball Dynasty commissioner in trying to keep things on the level there too. Other players, or new coaches get wrecked and have zero incentive to stay.

The FPGs don’t say exploiting a loophole will result in a ban. They say WIS reserves the right to do whatever they think they need to do in that situation. I doubt this warrants a ban in their eyes, unless this is a multiple-warning-violator.

Depending on what this is - and I have some suspicions, I think it’s likely on the UI/browser side, and I doubt this is the only user doing it - dealing with this loophole means they should probably also deal with the loophole of getting an extra year of resources from a senior when you redshirt him. Lots of folks have been doing that for years (I’m redshirting a senior this year, but not for the resources, but because the team I inherited would lose 3 bigs this year otherwise. I literally don’t care about the resources, and think they should close that up.)

You're a good dude Gil. Perhaps a little naive, but a good dude.

I'm also in the conference with Benis and Swenske, well the division too with Villanova.

This is very disappointing to know that this has been happening in our backyard and I don't like it as a competitor. I don't see how this wouldn't have been intentional.

Is WIS going to do an audit on all teams? Do we just CS whenever we think someone else may be doing the same?

I'll just add too that I find it hard to believe a coach would be acting in good faith knowing they had an abnormally large number of APs or offers to drop.

Posted by Benis on 10/28/2022 6:32:00 PM (view original):
You're a good dude Gil. Perhaps a little naive, but a good dude.

for what its worth... i think the same about you :)

i generally agree with your post, that ramifications are probably in order for this guy. but probably not if you happened to find 1 of 100 people who is doing this, unless perhaps they find the other 100 and apply a consistent punishment. it would be really hard to justify a full ban for all 100 though, and it would be unfair to ban-stick this 1 guy and ignore the other 99.

if YOU were doing this, without reporting it to CS first, i would probably support banning you. and i would expect the same for me. you guys never like my argument that a 15 year old kid who doesn't read the forums and never read the FPGs, can't reasonably be held to the same standard as you and me. i'm not sure why. life is complicated, almost everything is shades of gray, not black and white.

i get that we were all taught as kids that to be fair, you hold everyone to the same standards. but by age 10 or so, the massive shortcomings in this approach should start to be too glaring to ignore. at least by age 20. or 30. its kind of like how liberals would full on rage at conservatives for being anti-gay marriage a mere 10 years after their own presidential nominee was anti-gay marriage. not everyone evolves at the same rate. everyone comes from different backgrounds, has different advantages or disadvantages and different innate abilities. holding others to the standard you think yourself should be held to, its just an absurd philosophy. we are all idiots trying to find our way through a universe we barely understand... and we all want some compassion when its us who plays the fool. its too hypocritical for my tastes not to afford this to others in turn.

Posted by FW_Kekionga on 10/28/2022 6:39:00 PM (view original):
I'll just add too that I find it hard to believe a coach would be acting in good faith knowing they had an abnormally large number of APs or offers to drop.

i do actually agree with this, like on average. my baseline assumptions are, you are right. i just don't think we have enough info to damand judgement yet. part of why i agree is, i tried to over-allocate AP through the system a bunch of ways, as just general testing when i started 3.0, and again later when i scratched my head at the seeming AP of others. i didn't find anything. as a result, overall, i would assume this dude's methods weren't super simple and easy to call an accident. but i also am pretty falliable, maybe i just missed something really obvious. part of why i don't fully agree is, i have wondered if this was out there probably a half dozen times in 2 years based on my actual opponents, and so, i am not at all convinced there aren't a large % of users who are doing this. in which case banning them all seems unreasonable. but some penalty for them all would probably be in order? unclear if CS has the ability or time to go figure out who they are all though... and that sort of thing.

Posted by gillispie on 10/28/2022 6:55:00 PM (view original):

Posted by FW_Kekionga on 10/28/2022 6:39:00 PM (view original):
I'll just add too that I find it hard to believe a coach would be acting in good faith knowing they had an abnormally large number of APs or offers to drop.

i do actually agree with this, like on average. my baseline assumptions are, you are right. i just don't think we have enough info to damand judgement yet. part of why i agree is, i tried to over-allocate AP through the system a bunch of ways, as just general testing when i started 3.0, and again later when i scratched my head at the seeming AP of others. i didn't find anything. as a result, overall, i would assume this dude's methods weren't super simple and easy to call an accident. but i also am pretty falliable, maybe i just missed something really obvious. part of why i don't fully agree is, i have wondered if this was out there probably a half dozen times in 2 years based on my actual opponents, and so, i am not at all convinced there aren't a large % of users who are doing this. in which case banning them all seems unreasonable. but some penalty for them all would probably be in order? unclear if CS has the ability or time to go figure out who they are all though... and that sort of thing.

I get where you are coming from, I do. Without understanding the full context of a situation it's hard to make an accurate call. But that said I do believe the consequences of inaction are cumulative and have the effect of eroding both the quality of play, and confidence in the game/site to ask that people continue to pay to play it. Since I jumped into D1 my credits dried up as I have learned and adjusted to the change in play, and I am a paying user until I am consistently good again. I am pretty certain there are others out there like myself who do not like the idea of paying to play against house money instead of other coaches. It's fundamentally unfair, and if just let go without even a warning (or even just a warning) I find to be really disappointing. I love this game, I've been playing it for pretty much two decades now, and would like to see it continue to exist and perhaps even grow. Hard to see that happening if violations like this are just allowed to continue with no real impact in product administration from WIS.

Reminds me of a story I heard once.

Lady gets pulled over by the cops for speeding.
She says "but everyone else is speeding! "
Cop says"I can't pull over everyone. But I can pull over you".

Or something like that. Can't remember.

Anyway, I definitely get your points Gil. I'm probably biased because I was one of the people directly impacted by this. His cheating helped him beat me in many recruiting battles over 15 seasons. It has a much lesser affect than almost everyone else (salag excluded)

I find it very hard to believe that this bug is something a lot of people know about or comparable to the pull down thing. At least not common enough to say, oh okay this how the game should be played.

i just just want to say (and then ill shut up), i do generally agree with you guys... it seems pretty serious. probably more serious than the guy who threw that NT game against himself or his friend or whatever it was - in my book anyway. and that was a pretty serious case. i think this guy more likely than not should be punished, *especially* with your information about how this has been going on for some time. i do try to push back on extremes on both sides (the 'he definitely shouldn't be banned, its not against PFG', to he definitely should be banned). but if im being honest with myself, that is largely because of my own agenda outside this particular instance (to see these issues dealt with, with a bit less raw anger and a bit more understanding towards both the nameless offender and towards CS - even though i am definitely anti-cheating overall).

but bottom line, this one does seem pretty darn serious, i agree with you guys there! and that this sort of behavior should come with consequences as a deterrent. and that this guy caused real harm.

This a bunch of bullshit. Swenske just beat me for a player recently. I’ma light that turd up and target that dude from here out. Penalize me for targeting WifS! Go ahead

Dude cheats and he still sucks ***

They're really not going to do anything? Recruiting is a zero sums game. Like Benis said earlier, if he's getting an advantage, someone else is getting a disadvantage.

I know they care about losing customers (i.e. $$$), so I promise this... If there is no action taken against swenske, I will drop 2 of my teams in perpetuity. WIS will be losing that revenue either way.

The bare minimum penalty should be losing both your teams and a 2-season ban.

Posted by mlitney on 10/28/2022 8:59:00 PM (view original):
They're really not going to do anything? Recruiting is a zero sums game. Like Benis said earlier, if he's getting an advantage, someone else is getting a disadvantage.

I know they care about losing customers (i.e. $$$), so I promise this... If there is no action taken against swenske, I will drop 2 of my teams in perpetuity. WIS will be losing that revenue either way.

The bare minimum penalty should be losing both your teams and a 2-season ban.

I’ll second that. I’ll drop a team right now as well. As a protest. I’ve considered, but I have kept on keeping on. I’ll drop a protest team with no problem.