Open Discussion Defining Pushing

[Deleted User - 848983838]

Still not possible. For ease of gameplay reasons, we can only really afford to block this on speed rounds, where speed of moderation is important (and we do). Many people enjoy playing from the same device as another player (and even have to in some cases, for example playing from a public computer), and this is something we do allow on normal worlds.

what percentage of the userbase is playing on the same devices and public computers. im sure a lot less than the people who coplayed steam and you guys banned that to curtail botting. I feel there'd be a lot less negative reaction to this and a lot better impact on stopping cheating/pushing.

How would you go about identifying the differences? And more importantly, would/should that be concrete evidence in itself? I'm not convinced it is possible to separate out the innocent and deliberate cases confidently enough to have rules based only on twstats.



Of course Your suggestion means I could spy on my tribe, and when caught out stay safe as they aren't allowed to noble me. I can join another tribe with full protection because my old tribe would get bans for nobling me. That would be terrible for gameplay.



The problem with this is the impact in mid/late game when player retention/bringing older players from the world back is essential for activity. Putting a policy in place that tells returning users 'no you can't play' would drive people away from the game.

ill respond to first one when i can write more.

2nd one yes good point. would need to think on it

3rd. put a limit then can't rejoin a world for 6 months. if you want to push you can't move to your real account for 6 months etc. can comeback to the world for this, but you can't immediately jump after being rimmed and or using your fake account to push

 

[One Last Shot...]

what percentage of the userbase is playing on the same devices and public computers. im sure a lot less than the people who coplayed steam and you guys banned that to curtail botting. I feel there'd be a lot less negative reaction to this and a lot better impact on stopping cheating/pushing.

You are muddling two different situations.

Pushing doesn't really relate to users sharing a device (in fact, the game automatically blocks ingame interactions for the period while users share connections whether declared or not).

When related to nobling, if the blocks don't prevent it we already have rules that cover this (illegal merge on the same connection - it is under Additional Account Rules).

As such, that suggestion would have no impact on pushing as we already deal with that separately.

Whereas the Steam update (while not popular for some in the community) actively helps us fight botting. Not too sure on numbers but from the many, many investigations I've handled over the past 2 years I've seen far more legitimate users sharing a device than I've seen users coplaying on Steam & Browser at once. But that is only my personal observations

 

[world8vet]

How do you know what the context is, from the outside?

You got several factors that can give you context, for example the current rate of the res to pp market. You also have a players behaviour throughout the world, how were the troops being used and so on.

Either way i don't see the point of that question, it isn't the playerbase that is handing out bans.

 

[Cassius au Bellona]

how about hiring somebody that actually has it as a job to investigate pushing? playerbase is small enough to just let one or a few work with it on a daily basis and would fee up mods to do other things that would help the community, like for example taking 5 minutes to actually think before making a decision

ps, hire people that not like jirki

 

[DaWolf85]

how about hiring somebody that actually has it as a job to investigate pushing? playerbase is small enough to just let one or a few work with it on a daily basis and would fee up mods to do other things that would help the community, like for example taking 5 minutes to actually think before making a decision

We had three mods actively handling very little other than pushing cases for EN125. It still was not enough.

This is something we intend to resolve moving forward to allow us to execute rules like this effectively; but I do think the community in general underestimates how much additional work attempting to enforce a rule of this type really is. Players have years of experience doing these sorts of things without issue, and there is a lot of inertia associated with that.

 

[Zeddy le mange]

Hi everyone,

Over the past months, we have very often had discussions and questions about Pushing. This topic serves to openly discuss the pushing rule on itself, come up with definitions for pushing, and how you, as a player, would like to see it enforced.

If you haven't already done so, we would recommend reading through the following threads that have already touched these topics to get some ideas:

https://forum.tribalwars.net/index.php?threads/feedback-pushing-rule.288422/

https://forum.tribalwars.net/index.php?threads/account-pushing-and-coplaying.284697/

Current Rules



On World 125 (Non-premium, No-Haul) we extended this with:


Problem Description
One of the main problems with Pushing is how the situation is interpreted. An account can not serve for the primary benefit of another, but when does such an account become a benefit of another? On world 125 we have seen a significant amount of reports against players that were either cooperating on a tribal level or another bunch of players that were just lucky with how their attacks went. Each of these situations led to an outrage when the team did not find sufficient evidence to support a ban.

The main problem in enforcing is that there are many in-game situations that can lead to pretty easy takeovers that can be interpreted as pushing by the player but are not as obvious for the team. For example, a user just sent out all his troops scavenging (not en125) and the attacker was lucky with sneaking a noble in. This is just one of the situations that can occur.

As a team, we can not share our findings on a specific investigation due to privacy legislation, which limits us enormously in explaining how these investigations happen. However, we would really like to work with you to find a suitable and enforceable definition and policy for pushing. One of the things to keep in mind is that such enforcement policies can not be defined on a world level. A policy needs to work on every world within this game market (Tribal Wars International), which makes finding rules that fit every situation and eventuality extremely difficult.

Exactly for this reason, pushing cases are only ever investigated by Senior Staff on a case-by-case basis, checking off every possibility.

As always with ThinkTank threads, we expect you to follow the rules and only contribute if you have something constructive to add to the discussion.
Non-constructive posts will be removed and your account suspended from this section.​

I hope my post is seen as constructive and I don't get suspended! I have totally dodged (pun intended, refer below) the practical responses but instead gone for a philosophical response that I hope adds value.

I feel like I can relate to Inno in a very bizarre way.

IRL, I am a referee of semi-pro dodgeball. There are 16 players, 7 balls, limited resources and only 2 eyes officiating. Despite my best efforts, my 2 eyes see, for a split second, maybe 4 balls at a time and maybe 6 players on a good day. The rest, I must use my judgement for.

Regards what I'm officiating. Last week, 2 people came up to me. One was a national team player, played in the world cup (yeah it's a thing), moved around top club teams across the world. The other was a total first timer, played in primary / elementary school, watched the film, friend invited them, "Why am I here?" kinda vibe.

Both took issue with the rules I was trying to enforce. I had the same response to both:

You are honour bound to be both competitive and to enjoy yourself; you will find that following the rules means there is no conflict between these principles.

And they both have the same reply:

How can you possibly enforce rules where you only see, at best, on a good day, with your one good eye, 25% of the action in a single moment?

Simply, I can't and I don't even try to. My dodgeball league has an impressively strong sense of community and my judgement is, and I think rightly, coerced by the community.

Say something happens in my blind side. 7 screaming humans = something is going down. 1 screaming human = get over it. 4 screaming humans = I need to make a judgement. That judgement is not based on facts, or reality, or evidence that someone is infringing on the rules. It's made solely on the perceived community noise that something is not right and I need to make a call.

Hence what I would say to you, Inno, is don't try to find a rule breaker and definitely don't readily define what rule breaking is (this just encourages further infringement!)!! Your community will do both for you as the game continually grows and evolves, and, will, as already proven, very loudly tell you if things need to change.

I say, your role is to look the right way when you need to and determine the punishment. Keep the game fair, balanced and fun and keep it well adapted to the experienced and the newbies alike.

 

[One Last Shot...]

Your community will do both for you as the game continually grows and evolves, and, will, as already proven, very loudly tell you if things need to change.

Unfortunately it wouldn't be objective or fair to base potentially game-changing decisions solely off of who can shout the loudest, and wouldn't be reflective of the full community. This would be open to abuse by players focusing on their own interests to give them the best personal advantage, as opposed to what is right for the game.

like for example taking 5 minutes to actually think before making a decision

Players don't see just how much time is spent investigating each pushing case, or perhaps assume that because 2-3 tickets might get picked up at once, we are making snap judgments on those. That isn't the case.

In reality, pushing investigations are taking far, far more time than any other type of investigation we look into precisely because of every case being so unique.

 

[Zeddy le mange]

Unfortunately it wouldn't be objective or fair to base potentially game-changing decisions solely off of who can shout the loudest, and wouldn't be reflective of the full community. This would be open to abuse by players focusing on their own interests to give them the best personal advantage, as opposed to what is right for the game.

Forgive my lack of interest in the practicalities of my suggestion, but I am questioning the Inno perspective on its community.

Inno judgement will not be wrongly coerced by the community.

As it:

would be open to abuse by players focusing on their own interests to give them the best personal advantage

I completely disagree. This community has integrity, demonstrable on literally every world from every corner. It can call out unsportsmanlike behaviour a mile off, regardless of play style or allegiance. Case in point: @ropey - blue text and I could probably disagree on everything TW, but I am 1000% supporting his postings here, and on other worlds he has called out poor behaviour in this regard.

Yes, some would try to abuse the system that is there to deal with abuse to the system.

The support ticket method has failed in this regard. It is an antiquated method from 50 worlds ago.

Why doesn't Inno invest its time finding players and accounts that it can champion and rely upon and use them to assist it in making its judgments?

 

[HotLikeDat]

I feel like the issue here is, in order to permit a legitimate "merge" (or whatever people label it), a rule has been created that means illegitimate "pushing" is now entirely unenforceable. I don't see a way to allow the "legitimate merging" without giving people plenty of room to argue that their "pushing" is in fact allowed.

What is pushing? What is it to you?
How would you define pushing?

Key pushing: Pushing is when an account joins a world with the main intention being to later donate their villages to a friend.
- No I don't believe that bashing for a friend constitutes pushing. If the definition stretches to incorporate this, suddenly a lot of very valid teamwork will be disallowed (pre-nuking for a def player, or smaller player, or pre-nuking for a tribemate in an op when you are low on nobles).
- No I also don't believe that PP farming and then gifting is pushing. That's a fair deal: someone gets protection and then gifts later in return.
- If, however, a player bashes for a friend and then later gifts their village(s) to this friend, then this is pushing. The key is in the village gifting I feel, otherwise the rule becomes too unenforceable.

It's clearly impossible to define a hard and fast set of rules that covers everything. But I'll try my best

How should pushers be punished? What is the punishment?
The punishment for pushing clearly needs to be severe if it is to dissuade people from "risking it". You need to make the expected downside exceed the expected upside, which incorporates the probability of getting caught. E.g. if 10% likelihood I get caught, then the punishment needs to be >10 times more severe than the 'upside'. Perhaps this can encompass some painful loss of flags, or even losing access to the account entirely.
E.g. 1st time caught: Perma-ban the accounts involved from the current world and wipe 60% of their flags.
2nd time caught: Account deleted from the game, all flags gone.

How would a definition of pushing work if we keep allowing village gifting?
I mean case by case basis, but this will lead into the merge rule.
Not pushing: I clear a village but fail on loyalty, a nearby tribemember has a noble and sends it to make the conquer before more def can arrive. I then cap it off him later.
Also not pushing: I am a frontline who is struggling for activity. I give a chunk of my frontline villages to other players in the tribe to alleviate the pressure off me.
Also not pushing 2: A tribemate gifts a backline player handful of villages to give him a front / WT placement.

How would this work compared to a merging rule?
This is where the issue lies.
"aha I just HATE mid-game, it's super time-consuming amirite??? Going to merge with my best mate to share the workload aha x".

First idea: During a merge only x% of village can be nobled by a single tribemate. A ticket must be put in to warn the mods.
What is x? Maybe 15%? Number isn't that important, just low enough that it really nullifies the benefit of the classic push strategy. And also small enough to avoid 2 or 3 players with a push account swapping each other for villages to get around a 50% or 33% rule.
You might need an equation to base this off no. of tribe mates.

Second idea: In case the above receives push-back for whatever reason. Here is my second ingenious idea xd
Merging is effectively banned. When an account wants to "merge" he puts in a ticket and he instantly barbs. Def troops are placed in all of these villages, this might be based upon stage of the world and village points. E.g. late game, a 10k village could have somewhere between 15k/15k to 20k/20k def. In start-up a 10k village might have only 5k/5k to 10k/10k.

In my opinion, the number of legitimate "omg my rl has just been turned upside down and so I need to step back from the game and want to gift every village to my close friend who i will co-play with" are extremely minimal. Legitimate mergers are based off making 2 semi-active accounts into an active account, the size isn't really the real reason for it. And if it is, well that's straying towards pushing. A rule to cap the proportion of villages that can be taken is therefore not going to really affect the legitimate cases. This rule doesn't make pushing impossible, but it minimises the benefit from it significantly. To get the same boost now, a player would need multiple pushing accounts which HOPEFULLY increases their chance of getting caught.
- If people try to side-step the rule by never being tribemates and then gifting/whatver, "OMG I SEND 24 hour SCAVS!! LUCKY TIMING BRO". Then it becomes more subjective, but there should be clues: past world and current world interactions should be noted: did they message in game much, or play together on previous worlds. Did a player who was crazy active for weeks suddenly go AFK for 2 days as nobles came in. Did a clearly skilled player put up zero resistance to an attack, get nobled by a single account, who then magically has a new IP logging 24 hours later.

Yeah probably a few holes in this splurge but there we go. Ain't easy or there wouldn't be a discussion.

Less important pushing
Not sure how often this happens, but joining a world to send a friend res in the first few days or letting him farm you. These should be quite clear to spot.
If there is a reasonable ODD spike, then fair play. AT LEAST OTHER PLAYERS HAVE A CHANCE TO FIND THE FARM.
- if there is 0 ODD spike (keeps farming and OMG THE DEF IS SCAVVING), or he keeps farming and "WHOOPS I CLICKED A 10% RES PACK AGAIN", or someone else starts farming the guy and suddenly "MILITIA + DEF FLAG ACTIVE". Like just use some common sense here. But again, not sure how much this happens. and it's a different rule / enforcement from the nobling stuff anyway.

 

[bobertini]

Righty, I've kinda thought a little on this as a result of a few examples spotted along the journey of 125.

What is pushing? What is it to you?

- Giving players advantages that are unfair to nearby rule respective players.

How would you define pushing?

- Pushing is when an account is used for the growth of another.

How can the team enforce a rule on pushing?

Since quite a few things is classed as "Pushing" in my opinion (and likely that of the community, I've tried to cover all angles.

Rule 1: Accounts that share the same connection or previously have cannot cooperate against the same target for the sole purpose of a single account gaining an advantage.
Rule 2: A player cannot move their troops outside of the village prior to an incoming noble so that the nobling player gains a "free village" i.e. no ODA gain.
- If the player is sat the same rule is applied.
- The player's account that is being nobled should be observed to monitor patterns i.e. is this the first time they've scavenged or attacked X? (This will help rule out accidental situations where someone's been "lucky" with their attacks).
Rule 3: A player cannot suicide troops prior to an incoming noble (The attack was sent after the noble has been sent) so that the nobling player gains a "free village"
- If the player is sat the same rule is applied.
- Likewise to Rule 2, the player's account that is being nobled should be observed to monitor patterns i.e. is this the first time they've done this? (A player suiciding full def stacks for example is an uncommon behaviour).
- Possible issue, "What if the player knows they are doomed and sends a retaliation attack against an enemy player?"
Rule 4: A player cannot offer their village to another player for "free" no matter how long the world/player has been running/playing.
- A village must always be fought over with the use of troops.
- Possible issue, Player in-game mails cannot be accessed unless reported (Players conducting in Pushing are very likely not going to report themselves).
Rule 5: A player cannot just purely build up their village with the intention of it being nobled by another player with minimal resistance.
- Activity must show that the player nobled had intentions to recruit troops on a regular basis.
- A player actively restarting and then being nobled by either the same player or same tribe/tribe family) should constitute as pushing.
Rule 6: Accounts that are active (i.e. green of colour in a tribe) cannot be nobled within 36 hours of removal (i.e. being kicked) by the same tribe or by a member of the same tribal "family" i.e. an "academy/sister" tribe.
- Reasons why someone is likely kicked at this point that supports Pushing:
- A desire to gain an advantage by an easy village:
- A tribemate is less likely to have stacked vs their own tribe
- Tribal bureaucracy is likely to know the "offline" periods of a particular player.
Rule 7: Accounts that are inactive (i.e. yellow of colour in a tribe) cannot be nobled within 24 hours of removal (i.e. being kicked) by the same tribe or by a member of the same tribal "family" i.e. an "academy/sister" tribe.
Rule 8: Accounts that are completely inactive (i.e. red of colour in a tribe) cannot be nobled within 12 hours of removal (i.e. being kicked) by the same tribe or by a member of the same tribal "family".
- Whilst the above may be "unfair", integrity of the game needs to be held at a higher position and whilst yes people do go inactive, a potential loophole where a tribe allows for a particular player to go "inactive" to hide pushing needs to be addressed and a fair comprise needs to be inserted.
Rule 9: A player with less points cannot transfer more than 1 million in resources to a player with higher points within a period of 30 days or less.
Rule 10: If a player has a desire to play alongside another player on the same account, the account they join the world first (keyword = first, accidentally joining with another account counts as the first account still) with is the account they must stick to for the first 40 days of the account having joined the world.
- A player cannot swap to another account within the first 40 days of the account having joined the world.
- This will provide a fair anti-pushing desire to provide easy villages to accounts no matter how long the world has been running for.

Durations:

- Rules 1, 5, 9: Entire world
- Rules 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10: For the first 40 days of a player having joined the world.

Should the team intervene at all or should pushing just be an allowed thing (for everyone equally) as long as the other rules are respected.

- If the moderation don't then this is a blatant disrespect for integrity and there should be no rules at all (and no support team).

How should pushers be punished? What is the punishment?

- Assuming you have suffcient evidence:

- Pusher: 24h attackable ban
- Pushee: 48h attackable ban
- If a tribe is caught kicking players to then noble them and this results in a repetitive pattern, kicker (In addition to the pushee): 48h attackable ban

 

[DaWolf85]

This community has integrity

This is factually inaccurate and that's all there really is to say about it. We absolutely do get meaningless spam reports all the time and no, we will not be assuming who is breaking the rules based on that. That is a surefire way to ensure that everything is unfair and nobody is happy. It may well work fine on your smaller scale, but it does not on ours, and that is just a fact.

Rule 6: Accounts that are active (i.e. green of colour in a tribe) cannot be nobled within 36 hours of removal (i.e. being kicked) by the same tribe or by a member of the same tribal "family" i.e. an "academy/sister" tribe.
- Reasons why someone is likely kicked at this point that supports Pushing:
- A desire to gain an advantage by an easy village:
- A tribemate is less likely to have stacked vs their own tribe
- Tribal bureaucracy is likely to know the "offline" periods of a particular player.
Rule 7: Accounts that are inactive (i.e. yellow of colour in a tribe) cannot be nobled within 24 hours of removal (i.e. being kicked) by the same tribe or by a member of the same tribal "family" i.e. an "academy/sister" tribe.
Rule 8: Accounts that are completely inactive (i.e. red of colour in a tribe) cannot be nobled within 12 hours of removal (i.e. being kicked) by the same tribe or by a member of the same tribal "family"

This is interesting and while I think your implementation is maybe a bit complex, and a bit aggressive - we don't want to completely prevent underhanded play and betrayals, as this is a war game - it is true that simply picking off members of your own tribe, even if the villages are 'fought for', is easier than nobling villages outside your tribe, and perhaps that is something that could be looked at. Additionally, from what I've seen on EN125 and from what I know of seeing this sort of behavior in the past as a player, most players quit pretty immediately upon being betrayed by their tribe, rather than defending, making it a pretty low-risk strategy. I think the idea of having a pushing rule that makes betraying tribemates the only easy way to gain villages is going to encourage some pretty degenerate gameplay, so that's definitely something that should be considered moving forward.

 

[bobertini]

This is factually inaccurate and that's all there really is to say about it. We absolutely do get meaningless spam reports all the time and no, we will not be assuming who is breaking the rules based on that. That is a surefire way to ensure that everything is unfair and nobody is happy. It may well work fine on your smaller scale, but it does not on ours, and that is just a fact.


This is interesting and while I think your implementation is maybe a bit complex, and a bit aggressive - we don't want to completely prevent underhanded play and betrayals, as this is a war game - it is true that simply picking off members of your own tribe, even if the villages are 'fought for', is easier than nobling villages outside your tribe, and perhaps that is something that could be looked at. Additionally, from what I've seen on EN125 and from what I know of seeing this sort of behavior in the past as a player, most players quit pretty immediately upon being betrayed by their tribe, rather than defending, making it a pretty low-risk strategy. I think the idea of having a pushing rule that makes betraying tribemates the only easy way to gain villages is going to encourage some pretty degenerate gameplay, so that's definitely something that should be considered moving forward.

I get your point, but at least from what has occurred on World 125, this type of behaviour occurred a lot and was seemingly a loophole of the current Pushing rules so I thought whilst it can't be closed completely, it needed some addressing/discouraging.

As for the "bit aggressive". Sadly, I can't see a way it can't be; there's too many current loopholes. The easiest and most simple approach is to go in hard (at least as an initial trial to see how competitive the world start becomes (as it should be the fairest it can be with no pp - ideally .

 

[Zeddy le mange]

This is factually inaccurate and that's all there really is to say about it. We absolutely do get meaningless spam reports all the time and no, we will not be assuming who is breaking the rules based on that. That is a surefire way to ensure that everything is unfair and nobody is happy. It may well work fine on your smaller scale, but it does not on ours, and that is just a fact.

This is my point. If you can't operate a libertarian model that self regulates, then you must have the resources for an authoritarian model that does. My model works like 25% of the time. The rest of time I buy people beer and make it work.

I get the scale issue, but in principle, Inno is asking a community it doesn't trust to make the laws that the community should trust. The argument you present is flawed; you are, with this very post, literally asking the people who break the rules to define those rules better.

Way I see it:

Spoiler: Graph

I shall desist with my argument at this point, and as always, many thanks for your time and thought responding.

 

[I like Trains.]

Not too sure on numbers but from the many, many investigations I've handled over the past 2 years I've seen far more legitimate users sharing a device than I've seen users coplaying on Steam & Browser at once. But that is only my personal observations

This worries me. This means either you have a very skewed view on what "legitimate" users are, and I'm going to assume that's not the case, or...

Well, or you haven't investigated really efficient teams using the steam + browser tag team. One person planning, keeping overview & tagging on steam, while another user snipes, recaps etc on browser is was such a common tactic that allowed coplayers to work together fluidly, without doing anything that is against the rules... Apart from coplaying. Disabling the aspect of being logged on on steam+browser doesn't disable any botting vulnerabilities, either. If Steam is particularly vulnerable, well... These players can still use steam. Or if browser is the issue, they can still use browser. Nothing got fixed. And let's hope the mobile app isn't the next step.

It makes me wonder how many of these people on the same device you've investigated were "brothers" and "cousins".


On topic though:

1. What is pushing? What is it to you?
   1. How would you define pushing?
      
      People who, with intent, create accounts to deliberately help a certain person or tribe. Be it to clear villages, provide emergency support or to donate their villages, without the intent of actually playing. Fully sacrificing themselves and their own chances in the world. Crucially: not just multi accounts. If I get 40 friends to start and donate their villages to me, they are pushing me.
2. How can the team enforce a rule on pushing?
   1. Should the team intervene at all or should pushing just be an allowed thing (for everyone equally) as long as the other rules are respected
      
      The w125 are a step in the right direction. The team should intervene and stop this pushing madness, as it's only been escalating over the past worlds. If it doesn't get stopped, we'll eventually get to a point where a very large portion of initial accounts on a world will just be push accounts, furthering the gap between the regular noob and the pushed player.
      
      Rules & protocols need to be tightened from what they are on w125, which undoubtably is why this topic was created. The moderators need better tools and better guidelines in place to deal with this large-scale issue.
      
      
   2. How should pushers be punished? What is the punishment?
      
      It depends on the stage, and how... Blatant it is.
      
      Someone grabbing a juicy village with 0 ODA can be a coincidence. Someone getting 10 of those in a row, deserves a perma ban. Any punishment in the middle should involve the taking away of the gained villages, and a close inspection later on. These villages shouldn't just be allowed to be taken back after the fact.
      
      If a tribe has shown repeat offence, I also think punishments need to escalate. Not just on a player level, but on a tribe level. We see too often that tribes are the ones dictating push accounts, and if one can skirt around it by giving everyone just 1 or 2 free villages to each tribe member without punishment, they will do so.
      
      
   3. How would a definition of pushing work if we keep allowing village gifting?
      1. Should village gifting also become disallowed?
         
         Village gifting should be allowed, as long as a player has sufficient reason to do so. If I quit, I should be allowed to gift my villages to my tribemates. I should also be allowed to gift villages to tribemates to free up noble limit.
         
         I should also be allowed to gift to allies. And that's where the grey area joins us - because what are allies? To me, gifting villages to the opponent of my enemy, is a valid war strategy. If I lose, I'd rather get the enemy of my enemy to get my villages than the enemy themselves.
         
         Metrics like war stats and statistical analysis of incomings can be used to determine these things, to differentiate from full-on pushing. Though I admit it wouldn't be the easiest thing to fully prove.
         
         
      2. How would this work compared to a merging rule?
         
         Merges are very different - and as we know, can already be checked by the moderation team. The moment someone logs on a fresh account after gifting villages, the rules have to be stricter. Did that player start only to merge later, or did they genuinely decide to merge?
         
         Time is a big factor for that. 40 days is way too little, in my view, to determine this. I would start with 90 days, and evaluate from there. Subtle aspects as village builds, who you attack, who you communicate with... All small little things that can give it away as well. But time is the big one. Would someone be willing to wait 40 days to join the main account, after startup? I am willing to say so. 90 days, though? I am less likely to believe people would be willing to wait 90 days, especially these days.
         
         In the grand scheme of things, merges will be less of an issue. Good luck for people multi-accounting their pushes to show genuine coplayer activity after the fact.
   4. A combination of "thresholds" or one clear line?
      
      There never will be one perfect line. There never will be any perfect threshold. So a combination of thresholds is by far the best option: some will always slip through the net, but the goal should be to catch as many as possbile.
3. How do we detect pushing?
   1. Give clear arguments and definitions that can not be countered/circumvented with a daily situation within the game
      1. Keep in mind that "there was no ODA gain" does not work to cover all eventualities of an in-game situation
         1. eg. scavenging = no troops home = easy conquer does not fit an accurate detection method
      2. Keep in mind that Tribal Wars encourages tribal cooperation for as long as there is a benefit for all parties involved
      3. Keep in mind there needs to be actual proof and not suspicion.
      4. Keep in mind a rule, policy or definition needs to fit every world's situation (a rule for a specific rule or setting will not be accepted)
         
         The easy answer is that there is no such definition that is completely waterproof.
         The easy answer is that, without insight into the moderating tools, we can't say what is or isn't possible.
         
         However, patterns are the answer. And it's not an easy answer, and would no doubt ask a lot from the moderating team, but to me, it's the only way to detect these things.
         
         Patterns in login times, patterns in who just "happens" to only attack when you're out scavenging, patterns in people who just blindly send nobles rather than scouting & nuking before or during. Patterns in very similar village builds. Patterns in the same area of people suddenly just randomly losing to the same tribe, without even trying to fight it. Patterns in the same people doing this for each other, on multiple worlds. Patterns where coplayers on other worlds just "accidentally" lose a village to the coplayer.
         
         There is no be all and end all answer. It's even harder for us to define than for you guys, and you're the ones coming to us for help.
         
         The biggest thing, however, is to keep the perspective from a player: look at how any given situation affects other players. If 1 tribe gets 200 of these "borderline" situations, while the other gets 20, something is wrong. It's a sign those patterns should be investigated more attentively, without necessary looking at any tight-set parameters.
   2. Keep in mind that our players are very competitive in nature. They would love to report everyone for pushing, simply for every conquest ever achieved. Take every argument with a grain of salt.
      
      You explicitly ask for this, though. One of the standard lines in your replies to player reports is something along the lines of: Without player reports we wouldn't be able to catch as many rulebreakers. To me, that's you inviting people to report every borderline (or blatant) rule breaking.

 

[Basand]

Spoiler

This is my point. If you can't operate a libertarian model that self regulates, then you must have the resources for an authoritarian model that does. My model works like 25% of the time. The rest of time I buy people beer and make it work.

I get the scale issue, but in principle, Inno is asking a community it doesn't trust to make the laws that the community should trust. The argument you present is flawed; you are, with this very post, literally asking the people who break the rules to define those rules better.

Way I see it:

Spoiler: Graph

View attachment 10407

I shall desist with my argument at this point, and as always, many thanks for your time and thought responding.

I am pretty sure that we are not asking a community we do not trust to create laws. We are asking the Tribal Wars community, as a whole, for suggestions and opinions. That is why this is a "Think Tank." It is to bounce ideas around that will possibly open up new options to an issue that the community is very passionate about. Don't think the community is passionate about this? Think again. We see the tickets. We know.

Spoiler

Righty, I've kinda thought a little on this as a result of a few examples spotted along the journey of 125.

What is pushing? What is it to you?

- Giving players advantages that are unfair to nearby rule respective players.

How would you define pushing?

- Pushing is when an account is used for the growth of another.

How can the team enforce a rule on pushing?

Since quite a few things is classed as "Pushing" in my opinion (and likely that of the community, I've tried to cover all angles.

Rule 1: Accounts that share the same connection or previously have cannot cooperate against the same target for the sole purpose of a single account gaining an advantage.
Rule 2: A player cannot move their troops outside of the village prior to an incoming noble so that the nobling player gains a "free village" i.e. no ODA gain.
- If the player is sat the same rule is applied.
- The player's account that is being nobled should be observed to monitor patterns i.e. is this the first time they've scavenged or attacked X? (This will help rule out accidental situations where someone's been "lucky" with their attacks).
Rule 3: A player cannot suicide troops prior to an incoming noble (The attack was sent after the noble has been sent) so that the nobling player gains a "free village"
- If the player is sat the same rule is applied.
- Likewise to Rule 2, the player's account that is being nobled should be observed to monitor patterns i.e. is this the first time they've done this? (A player suiciding full def stacks for example is an uncommon behaviour).
- Possible issue, "What if the player knows they are doomed and sends a retaliation attack against an enemy player?"
Rule 4: A player cannot offer their village to another player for "free" no matter how long the world/player has been running/playing.
- A village must always be fought over with the use of troops.
- Possible issue, Player in-game mails cannot be accessed unless reported (Players conducting in Pushing are very likely not going to report themselves).
Rule 5: A player cannot just purely build up their village with the intention of it being nobled by another player with minimal resistance.
- Activity must show that the player nobled had intentions to recruit troops on a regular basis.
- A player actively restarting and then being nobled by either the same player or same tribe/tribe family) should constitute as pushing.
Rule 6: Accounts that are active (i.e. green of colour in a tribe) cannot be nobled within 36 hours of removal (i.e. being kicked) by the same tribe or by a member of the same tribal "family" i.e. an "academy/sister" tribe.
- Reasons why someone is likely kicked at this point that supports Pushing:
- A desire to gain an advantage by an easy village:
- A tribemate is less likely to have stacked vs their own tribe
- Tribal bureaucracy is likely to know the "offline" periods of a particular player.
Rule 7: Accounts that are inactive (i.e. yellow of colour in a tribe) cannot be nobled within 24 hours of removal (i.e. being kicked) by the same tribe or by a member of the same tribal "family" i.e. an "academy/sister" tribe.
Rule 8: Accounts that are completely inactive (i.e. red of colour in a tribe) cannot be nobled within 12 hours of removal (i.e. being kicked) by the same tribe or by a member of the same tribal "family".
- Whilst the above may be "unfair", integrity of the game needs to be held at a higher position and whilst yes people do go inactive, a potential loophole where a tribe allows for a particular player to go "inactive" to hide pushing needs to be addressed and a fair comprise needs to be inserted.
Rule 9: A player with less points cannot transfer more than 1 million in resources to a player with higher points within a period of 30 days or less.
Rule 10: If a player has a desire to play alongside another player on the same account, the account they join the world first (keyword = first, accidentally joining with another account counts as the first account still) with is the account they must stick to for the first 40 days of the account having joined the world.
- A player cannot swap to another account within the first 40 days of the account having joined the world.
- This will provide a fair anti-pushing desire to provide easy villages to accounts no matter how long the world has been running for.

Durations:

- Rules 1, 5, 9: Entire world
- Rules 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10: For the first 40 days of a player having joined the world.

Should the team intervene at all or should pushing just be an allowed thing (for everyone equally) as long as the other rules are respected.

- If the moderation don't then this is a blatant disrespect for integrity and there should be no rules at all (and no support team).

How should pushers be punished? What is the punishment?

- Assuming you have suffcient evidence:

- Pusher: 24h attackable ban
- Pushee: 48h attackable ban
- If a tribe is caught kicking players to then noble them and this results in a repetitive pattern, kicker (In addition to the pushee): 48h attackable ban

I definitely agree with you on what pushing is. Defining it as well, though that is extremely difficult to parse.

Points:

1. Agree
2. Agree, though this can be difficult as well. If someone attacks someone else out of the blue and a tribemate of the person being attacked suddenly launches a train from closer to stop the attack from hitting, what is that?
3. If a player attacks a stack and loses the player's nuke, what happens when a different(unrelated) player scouts and nobles the village the next day? Or, what if a player attacks an offensive player with a train and the offensive player botches the cancel snipe (assuming 1 village atm)?
4. Again, I agree though the points above stand. I can personally say that I have nobled someone after noticing them spike ODA and just launching my nukes and nobles at them. The village wouldn't be free for the player that ate the troops but it would be free for me. I would then look for the player with a huge ODD spike to take that one as well. Would both of those be gifted since I wouldn't pay any troops?
5. I agree with the first point but I disagree with the tribe part.
6. I disagree with this completely and mostly due to the arguments that @DaWolf85 mentioned already.
7. Same as above.
8. I don't think this should be a limit at all.
9. We mostly have something to prevent this in place. Free trading is typically disabled for the first 30 days or so. I do like the premise of this but there is also the point what if the rank 2 player sends the rank 1 1.5 million resources? Unlikely to be pushing each other though very likely to be using it to mint on flag worlds.
10. I agree with this one completely.

As for the punishment, I think all players involved should receive the same ban. 48 hour attackable does seem to be a pretty good spot to be at. In addition, any gifted villages need to be removed.

TLDR; I like the overall idea but setting the rules in stone like that don't exactly work out due to the situations above, which are just a few of many.

Spoiler

I think the first thing that should be looked at is the mix of mods that are on the worlds. A CM from a local market should not be the one handling the reports on the players that go way back with him/her. I rather divide it up a lot more so its not as much BIAS. Feels like the bans are just a roulette depending on what mod are the one taking the report

Our senior team worked on these together. Stating that we have a bias as a team is a bit of an overstep. I am guessing you are referring to pushing, anyway. If you are referring to something else, this topic is for pushing.

Spoiler

past worlds should be relevant when you say you don't consider them

if your friend joins to do nothing but gift you a village which was clearly all that happened besides also bashing for them and they've used the same accounts to push "cooperate" it should probably be changed to innos definition of pushing because thats just hilarious. honestly idgaf what excuse is given support was complete trash this world. whatever you guys define as cooperation is hilariously bad, it's not cooperation to just build a village to be nobled by a tribemate.

125 should've had merges extended to 90 days minimum if not 180, coplayers starting separate to merge is pushing. this is a complete joke as well.

also include merges to "quitting" can't internal because it's too grey. no eating tribemates for at least 90 days or eating anyone that was in your tribe. i'd rather have to suffer dealing with accounts quitting and not being able to noble them than to let everyone just "quit' and get eaten and support not do anything because it's not "pushing". just no eating anyone thats been in your tribe (or obvious family tribes based off name) for 90+ days. be smart who you invite and deal with suffer when someone quits early on.

creating accounts that you have no intention of player long term either to ruin other tribes or to spy is pushing and then just jumping onto your account you planned to play long term when you get rimmed or internalled. on milestone worlds force everyone to use a vpn if they are going to push like that and suffer worse timings or potentially logging with the same ID. I'd almost say milestone worlds your IP address cannot appear on two accounts at any point the entire world especially if you were eaten by the same tribe. a merge 180+ days into the world will need to be pre approved with support staff and no previous history on any world between those IP addresses so it's a real merge to coplayer no preplanned merge etc (at least without not having a vpn entire world.

be more clear. why weren't they banned if you give a lot of evidence and it's just we didn't see anyhting its not bannable it's BS.

if support cannot create concrete rules, just tell us how deep and similar pushers are not blatantly pushing and let us do the same thing to equal the playing field.

without responding directly to the template tldr change definition of cooperation, increase duration of account merges, no internalling accounts that quit same or similar duration to that of merges to prevent the "quitting" excuse, IP cannot appear on two accounts ever not just simultaneous. NO RELOCATION EXCEPT FOR PREREGISTERED TRIBES who can only do so on each other.

template:

1. What is pushing? What is it to you?
   1. Using accounts that are never intended to be long term accounts to benefit the real accounts whether through bashing/free defense, building+gifting villages, spying/infiltrating other tribes.
2. How can the team enforce a rule on pushing?
   1. Should the team intervene at all or should pushing just be an allowed thing (for everyone equally) as long as the other rules are respected
      1. if you cannot create clear enough rules you should just let pushing happen and explain how people got away with it so everyone knows exactly what they can do pushing rule wise, if you are incapable of handling it, just let it become part of the game to limit it's effectiveness.
   2. How should pushers be punished? What is the punishment?
      1. publicly humiliated, account permabanned from current and future worlds, ip ban from creating new accounts to circumvent ban.
   3. How would a definition of pushing work if we keep allowing village gifting?
      1. Should village gifting also become disallowed?
         1. limit "internals" similar to how merges were limited this world except a longer duration 40 days is not long enough.
      2. How would this work compared to a merging rule?
         1. basically the same. time lock duration
3. How do we detect pushing?
   1. Give clear arguments and definitions that can not be countered/circumvented with a daily situation within the game
      1. Keep in mind that "there was no ODA gain" does not work to cover all eventualities of an in-game situation
         1. eg. scavenging = no troops home = easy conquer does not fit an accurate detection method
      2. Keep in mind that Tribal Wars encourages tribal cooperation for as long as there is a benefit for all parties involved
      3. Keep in mind there needs to be actual proof and not suspicion.
      4. Keep in mind a rule, policy or definition needs to fit every world's situation
   2. Keep in mind that our players are very competitive in nature. They would love to report everyone for pushing, simply for every conquest ever achieved. Take every argument with a grain of salt.
      1. then explain how our reports aren't pushing because theres very clear pushing that is ignored in tickets and no ability to understand why support does not view it as pushing. and the secrecy does nothing but make it seem like inno is unable or purposely not banning players.
4. ... we will expand on this list on the go and as the discussion goes forward ...

Pushing is really only a *huge* deal on non pp worlds. which is every 4 years. surely you can get a better guideline and ruleset before 150. eliminate relocation item as I've stated before as that is the huge culprit for allowing all this pushing.

on non PP worlds the main things pushing is merges and push account farming. i've stated how push account farming should be handled and how it needs much more increased punishment because atm its a joke. account merges/internals should just be 3 months limited and don't just let 1 player eat force the tribe to spread it around to everyone then (ie <50% of caps allowed to the account merging into) to prevent people who do it for rank etc. merges should only be there for time coverage benefits and you should be happy to get a coplayer you didn't plan to merge into and just not for the points.

there is a problem this creates in situations of force internals early game as well as dumb mods deciding to punish some people and not others etc, honestly not super sure how to handle the force internal stuff as it generally happens even early on for players being bad etc would have to think more about it.

I do not think pushing can be stopped there will always be some excuse that inno will allow it to happen in some sort of grey area and a bunch of losers will mass push to compensate for their poor ability in this game

this was about as pg as i could keep it.

I am pretty sure almost all of this has been addressed but there is one part that I would like to point out. You want us to explain why you report someone for pushing and they do not get banned. You want us to explain why it isn't pushing. To do so would require us to disclose information about someone else's account. Would you appreciate it if someone could report you for pushing and then we explain that you were building X troops and sending them at player A, etc.? No?

If you say yes, I am pretty sure you would be in the minority. And, even if you weren't, we can't disclose information about other players' accounts.

 

[One Last Shot...]

Rule 2: A player cannot move their troops outside of the village prior to an incoming noble so that the nobling player gains a "free village" i.e. no ODA gain.

How would you go about proving this was deliberately?

So far, your comment doesn't account for situations where:

- Someone has sent out troops to backtime an enemy/support a tribemate legitimately and gets caught out from close range.
- Someone who deliberately empties out villages as a tactic specifically to get an enemy banned for pushing.

Rule 5: A player cannot just purely build up their village with the intention of it being nobled by another player with minimal resistance.

This assumes all players are experienced. That isn't the case and any rule that assumes everybody knows simple things like 'must build troops' and 'how to call militi' is very much ignorant of a large section of players. They'd end up getting banned for simply not knowing how to play which would be disastrous for a game.

On this point, a number of tribes wouldn't necessarily check their members for things like troop levels etc but partway through they'd realise they are inexperienced and then kick and eat them. I'm not convinced that any rule should affect a tribe's right to recruit/dismiss and noble former accounts if they feel they don't add value to the team.

Rule 6: Accounts that are active (i.e. green of colour in a tribe) cannot be nobled within 36 hours of removal (i.e. being kicked) by the same tribe or by a member of the same tribal "family" i.e. an "academy/sister" tribe.

This would be great for helping protect spies, backstabbers, traitors and people who simply need removing ASAP from their tribe for not following tribe directives/policies/ethos etc.
I can see this suggestion doing far more to encourage dirty play than to actually help reduce pushing. How would you avoid this being the case? Can you?

It makes me wonder how many of these people on the same device you've investigated were "brothers" and "cousins".

We're going off-task now with Steam / Shared Connection topics.

But to ease your concern:

• There are legitimate times people share connection. If there weren't, the feature wouldn't exist.
• Less common but still a thing. Some users in a number of countries don't have suitable home Internet but cab access TW via gaming cafes/public libraries and the like.

A very small number of rule breakers may slip through the net, but we do identify and deal with people who try to multi by exploiting the shared conbection feature. As this is not relevant to pushing as it already is fully dealt with by pre-existing rules, let's focus more specifically on pushing

 

[One Last Shot...]

How should pushers be punished? What is the punishment?

It depends on the stage, and how... Blatant it is.

Someone grabbing a juicy village with 0 ODA can be a coincidence. Someone getting 10 of those in a row, deserves a perma ban. Any punishment in the middle should involve the taking away of the gained villages, and a close inspection later on. These villages shouldn't just be allowed to be taken back after the fact.

If a tribe has shown repeat offence, I also think punishments need to escalate. Not just on a player level, but on a tribe level. We see too often that tribes are the ones dictating push accounts, and if one can skirt around it by giving everyone just 1 or 2 free villages to each tribe member without punishment, they will do so.

I don't ever see how you could directly punish a whole tribe for one user's rule breach (unless the rule breach relates to extreme content within a tribe forum etc).

Often the punishment has a big impact on their tribe anyway, but more importantly you are suggesting collective punishment which simply will not be incredibly unfair.

With regards to '10 empty villages in a row' - while less likely, it is still entirely possible it can be legit. Tribes clearing for each other, someone wiping their troops trying to attack a tribemate and another user capitalizing; inexperienced nearby users.

A few reports on w125 were focused on low ODA. On incestigation a few were seen as pushing but a number were very clearly just good teamwork and strategy. How could you go about taking this into account?

 

[Deleted User - 848983838]

I am pretty sure almost all of this has been addressed but there is one part that I would like to point out. You want us to explain why you report someone for pushing and they do not get banned. You want us to explain why it isn't pushing. To do so would require us to disclose information about someone else's account. Would you appreciate it if someone could report you for pushing and then we explain that you were building X troops and sending them at player A, etc.? No?

If you say yes, I am pretty sure you would be in the minority. And, even if you weren't, we can't disclose information about other players' accounts.

Why would I care? The only people who would care are people who are pushing. I would again give staff benefit of the doubt but frivolous reporting to fish for information like that compared to people putting in tickets that are either detailed or look very sketchy are going to be a lot different. But then again I would have to assume inno would be capable of doing something about cheating and not hiding behind some eu law about account data everytime they can.

 

[Deleted User - 848983838]

You are muddling two different situations.

Pushing doesn't really relate to users sharing a device (in fact, the game automatically blocks ingame interactions for the period while users share connections whether declared or not).

It does when they join a world on a fake account to infiltrate local and/global tribed and then move to their real account when they get rimmed if they do or get merged if they survive long enough to be in the vicinity of their actual tribe.

Thats still a form of pushing and a form that a device id would catch?

 

[Deleted User - 848983838]

I feel like there should be a thread of this where any mod can't respond for a set period of time and any idea anyone has however stupid can speak it without a mod jumping in to defend themselves because it seems this is just going to be a thread of people complaining/posting and mods getting defensive. Make one where mods can respond and one thread where they can't.

If I have to hear about how hard you all worked to achieve nothing in stopping pushing this world I'll have to rejoin discord until I get banned again.

In the end just tell everyone they can push and have written guides by mods who have dealt with this tickets because clearly you can't stop it. Just let me play like majority of 125, the turks, heck let me get the full .br experience while we are at it. So just level playing ground if you can't do anything. And stop acting like this game has any integrity. You allow worlds to almost be bought in the first place just let every cheat too, I'm sure there's a way to monatize that.