Patchnotes 19.1 PTE
December 20, 2018 1:36PM
edited January 2019
Greetings Commanders!
Below you can find the first set of changes for the upcoming Patch that will hit all regular worlds early in 2019. We introduced 2 mayor changes so far, that being some changes to substitutions and a late-late-endgame loophole that has been fixed.
Bugfixes and Changes
Limitations to Substitution
To combat the use of the substitution system for the herding of multiple accounts by the same player, we see it necessary to impose some restrictions in the future.
We are working on some more changes regarding reducing the effectiveness of multi-accounting, especially on new worlds. These changes will arrive early in 2019 and we aim for a full release of Patch 19.1 before the launch of the next World Championship.
So long, enjoy the holidays on the PTE and see you in 2019!
Edit:
As another measure against the boosting of accounts with multi-accounts we also are going to change the distribution of loot rewards for the destruction of bases.
The resources looted by the player destroying the Construction Yards will now be based on how much the player striking the killing blow has also contributed to the destruction of the defense units. The difference in resources between that amount of loot, that the last player receives and the total value of the base is lost.
This only affects the loot gained from base structures, rewards for the destruction of defense units remain unchanged.
Below you can find the first set of changes for the upcoming Patch that will hit all regular worlds early in 2019. We introduced 2 mayor changes so far, that being some changes to substitutions and a late-late-endgame loophole that has been fixed.
Bugfixes and Changes
- Alliance leader’s name is now displayed on the alliance info window
- Arsenal now does list all Forgotten Units
- The amount of supply crates in your possession on a world are now displayed with a counter in the top bar, next to the Supply button
- Closed a loophole that allowed to field Offense and Defense units with a higher level than their Offense/Defense-HQ. Doing so now will disable the unit until level parity has been restored.
- A bug has been fixed interfering with unit arrangement in combat preparation screen when changing bases
- Spanish translation in the Options window has received some update on the button text (thx to @nefrontheone)
- An error with the calculation of time zones has been fixed
- Error messages for failed resource transfers have been improved for more clarity
- An error in the interface has been fixed that caused the base shortlist to overlap with the option box
Limitations to Substitution
To combat the use of the substitution system for the herding of multiple accounts by the same player, we see it necessary to impose some restrictions in the future.
- From now on, a player account can no longer be substituted on a world for more than half of its total lifetime on said world.
- Further, substitutions access can only be granted to others as early as 5 days after first joining a world.
- Lastly, only a period of 30 consecutive days can be substituted at a time, after that the original owner needs to re-issue a substitution request.
We are working on some more changes regarding reducing the effectiveness of multi-accounting, especially on new worlds. These changes will arrive early in 2019 and we aim for a full release of Patch 19.1 before the launch of the next World Championship.
So long, enjoy the holidays on the PTE and see you in 2019!
Edit:
As another measure against the boosting of accounts with multi-accounts we also are going to change the distribution of loot rewards for the destruction of bases.
The resources looted by the player destroying the Construction Yards will now be based on how much the player striking the killing blow has also contributed to the destruction of the defense units. The difference in resources between that amount of loot, that the last player receives and the total value of the base is lost.
This only affects the loot gained from base structures, rewards for the destruction of defense units remain unchanged.
Post edited by EE_Elephterion on
Envision Entertainment Community Liaison
1
This discussion has been closed.
Replies
We hope you enjoy your time anyway on the freshly wiped PTE
it looks like you have no idea how to combat the use of multi accounts.
when you receive a report, investigate the player and alts.
once you find out they all are run from the same IP, ban the main account.
it isnt rocket science.
From now on, a player account can no longer be substituted on a world for more than half of its total lifetime on said world.
Further, substitutions access can only be granted to others as early as 5 days after first joining a world
that means when a friend starts a world with you he is unable to go away for 5 days unless he hands over his login details to you, which you are now forcing.
I do appreciate the updates, though I question the validity of code changes surrounding alts/subs. These changes seem to be catering to free to play players, which is most definitely not the correct direction. Envision needs to disallow multiplayer from the same IP address unless they are pay to play. Altering the substitution program in this manner isn't going to discourage a feature deemed cheating by no one but free-to-play crowd.
This is not friends sharing accounts this is a single person using multiple accounts to feed bases to the main base getting 5x the amount of resources as normal players, Normal as in using funds and packages.
The point of this game is to COMPETE to get to the center.
Multi-accounting takes that out of the game and it is now who has more fake accounts feeding the main.
even with funds you can not compete with that.
There has to be something blocking one player from getting as much resources from forgotten bases based off how many attacks were used by another player , Like if i use 1 attack the person to kill it if its still Damaged only gets 90 percent of Total RESOURCES, and so on. I know killing hard bases would be a pain due to lack of resources gained in a team effort but i rather see this on a few bases than a guy with 320 base kills win, due to him having literally all the time in the world to sit at his computer and make 20 accounts to feed his base and still use funds even further pushing him or a group of them to the top.
That is not based off skill or is it inspiring competitive play its simply abusing the game mechanics, and not everyone has the time to match these types of players in a who can make the most accounts war.
Or somewhere where we can send info to someone that can take action against these types of players.
In any other game Multi-Accounting for farming/feeding would be punishable.
I feel it should be like this on Tiberium Alliances as-well.
This is coming from a player that has played since the start of this game and will most likely be here to the end having a job or a life puts these types of players in a whole different league of scum that i would not like to play with or against.
Now back in the day I remember people getting suspended for Player resource attacking allies bases to gain a resource advantage, people would make a account/ multiple accounts specifically for doing this and they would get suspended for a period, than they changed the economy and fix this issue. this is something far more game breaking and nothing has been done to combat this,and this substitute penalty will do nothing but force members of a alliance to give people there login information.
Options i see.
1 Make a patch that prevents multiple accounts to be ran from same ip at once on the same world.
2 Make multi-accounting punishable and give people the option to either contact someone through the forums with proof, video/pictures and names of the accounts involved so someone can inspect and make a decision.
3 Resource gain penalty for the base being hit by multiple accounts, making it almost useless to use multiple accounts for 1 base, or lock combat on bases to 2 people and the person who attacks the base the most can only kill the base making multi accounting useless, and once fully repaired may someone else try to kill the base.
They are attacking bases multiple times with these low level accounts and using 1-2 hits with there main to kill.
I'm just trowing out what comes to mind.
but number one seems decent to multi account the will have to share the burden of using these false accounts.
Number 2 seems the best to me since if you want the game to come down to skill and be competitive this will let people know that the dev-team/enforcement actually cares about the game and will not stand for this type of exploiting.
Like i said Player resource farming was punishable letting multi accounting go like this is just neglect for the competitive nature of this game, most of us have a life and a job, we like to come home and play this game but that is changing with this type of exploitation.
Related to Player resource farming.
Multi accounting gives you a even bigger advantage and on-top some people say just do it to but its not that simple due to the time it consumes to do that on the scale some alliances are doing.
I hope this fixes or makes it hard for Multiaccounting on WCS.
Let me explain.
The hard work I am proposing can be made easy with tools,
and effective with volunteers to help speed up the process.
IP bans could be 3 days, 7 days, 14 days and then permanent.
Something like "Three Strikes", to leave a margin for error and change of behavior.
All this can repel both multi-accounting and growth exploitation.
The consequences will mean a great deal to all who have invested both time and money into the game
Cheating will become synonymous with wasting money (or time; F2P).
I know EA want their moneymakers, but TA's days are numbered if this is never rectified.
So do it like in the actual game itself - invest in the right resources over time - and you will yield great results.
Secure the game's future and secure people's confidence in investing both real time and real money in your game. For what it's worth, that is what I think you should do.
PS: I hope you fix the bug that lets you bypass Protective Shields before the upcoming World Championship 2019.
Multi-acounters are spending a lot of times atleast. But those 2 bundles, there is no skill, no strat. Buy repair times, kill bases...
Iam pretty sure, alliance who win a world is always the one who bought more of those packs.
please let us know when you put them in so that we can test them on pte
right now on pte there is nothing implemented on this front yet
I, too, regard the planned changes as critical. Especially for new players on new worlds the representative rule isn't really applicable because they don't have friends in a new game. Similarly, the 30-day substitution limit is not compatible with the real world. Our job, possible illnesses and unexpected life situations can lead to longer downtimes during the long game period.
Even though I have not yet input for a concrete solution, I would like to ask you to incorporate my arguments into your considerations.
Greetings
How else do you keep a group alive without long term sub or getting their login info? And then how can you be allowed to play them if you block multiple accounts from same IP?
As far as the 'cheating' that has been described; I have never seen it on the old world. I see it all the time on new worlds but mostly by the pay to play people that grow fast and then start to bully everyone especially after they badge.
I've never seen "this problem" used successfully anywhere on any world, on any level. The proven statistics using parameters and rumors of 'apps' that can manage 50 accounts are insane but the math doesn't lie, the numbers are impossibly insane, you're talking about someone that has the ability to play 24/7. Even backing out account management programs, someone would have to play 10 hours a day. It's mind boggling stupid to believe anything "these critics" are discussing could actually be a reality. 4 players controlling 200 accounts is somehow able to control a server and block the fortress and control a world 100% from 100 legitimate real life players? Statistics further show what regions of the world these 'accounts' are coming from, logs will show the same. What is being described as a "problem" is physically impossible.
That being said, could 500 legitimate free to play whiners complain about half a dozen skilled players, paying money into the system, working within the legal boundaries of game play, using a few dozen subs each, garner a leap frog advantage over half the server? Yes, absolutely. As an admin of a for profit system, do I choose to listen to a relatively bunch of free loaders hording resources from my larger paying customers? Not in this universe, or any other.
The main problem is that Envision has not proven they have manpower or resources to run a server wide action team (SWAT), common to every professional MMORG in existence. Their sole job is to work with problems such as these and handle them on a case by case basis, in some sort of limited conjunction with the leadership of "alliances" on each world. The issue here is that these "problem accounts" aren't being dealt with directly. No one seems to be researching logs, interviewing leaders and then banning those FEW accounts creating what appears to be server wide havoc. Instead of confronting a dozen players, Envision has chosen to ignore the issue and implement code which is going to decimate hundreds, if not thousands of legitimate paying customers across all servers and ruin worlds.
We have a kid on W46 that tried this, he has 50 accounts. His purpose was genuinely innocent, he wanted to have an alliance to hold free POIs (under level 40). We left him alone, he left us alone for the longest time. Due to server population dropping, he eventually joined us but never, has he ever attempted to power level his main using 50 accounts. Is such activity possible? Can 50 accounts level 20 all attack a single level 45 forgotten base and power level a main? My god, why? Maybe, possibly if all accounts were free to play, but anyone, and I mean absolutely anyone paying money into the game shall advance faster than someone using such a 'questionable method' of game play.
The issue is pretty much fake and by it's own definition doesn't exist, nor is it a problem. The fact that Envision has chose to give it credit is mind blowing. The proper solution is to counter these players causing problems on a case by case basis and eliminate the problem, not cut the balls off paying customers server wide.