DefiantEmpyr's reply to 'The Letter'

Magic: The Gathering - Puzzle Quest MtGPQ General Discussion
1

Hello MtGPQ Community,

For those that don’t know, I am BruceWayneDK, the proud leader of DefiantEmpyr. Myself, along with Sin and Sway, have built up our coalition to the top 11 all time and consistent top 10 team we are today. My success as a leader and player has been fueled by their continued loyalty and support. We have one main goal; Creating fairness and equality in this game we thoroughly enjoy investing our time and money into. DefiantEmpyr was founded by several of us that were rejected by the mega coalition machine that dominates this game. The mega coalition was quick to turn us down or not even talk to us. But that’s okay because many of you that were in the same boat are now part of that mega alliance. We are not spurned players, but we did rally around the concept that one mega team should not be able to dictate if we were allowed to eat at the table of the top 10. We have a strong belief that players help shape the game and that our separate voices are what is needed to do so. As we started to play and get involved in the game, we saw more and more glaring issues hindering the community and being perpetuated by a mega team of 20+ coalitions.

Mega teams destroy games. Ive seen this time and time again, regardless of the intentions of the mega teams or their goals for the game, the results are usually the same. I’ve been a stand out player in almost every marvel based game and one of my old favorites, Rage of Bahamut. I’ve been part of a top alliance/team/squad/coalition in every game I’ve played. In those games, our team fought against what we saw as a detriment to the game. I wanted to bring these same methodologies and viewpoints to MTGPQ. We have a mega alliance in this game. Opinions are being dominated by the idea that since we are many then we are right. One voice of dissent is filtered to the many, often towing the same line. Differing opinions get lost as the many become the one.

We were recently asked to sign a letter regarding an exploit in the game. An exploit that was used by many of the same coalitions that signed the letter, to better their performance in events on a regular basis. An exploit used to give players that didn’t play in the entirety of the event a chance at prizes they didn’t really earn. An exploit we noticed in the very first event after we merged into the team we are today. You see, we were #2 and ahead by over 200 pts from 3rd place. Magically, within a matter of 45 minutes, there was a 400 point swing that knocked us down to 3rd place. A swing that was mathematically impossible due to the timing of the event and the capacity for valid charges to be burned. I voiced this to my squad and they didn’t believe me at first. I then demonstrated what was happening using a dummy coalition. Afterwards, I started screen grabbing each coalition’s points throughout events. Low and behold, many of the top coalitions were using this tactic to bolster their points and keep the lower coalitions out of top 10.

Now they are asking coalitions to sign a letter to the support team asking for a fix of the issue. We aren’t signing it out of the spirit of ‘dirty hands having no clean stake in fixing the issue’. You used the exploit for whatever reason and are now feigning an outcry to have it closed. The fix is needed. But be aware that they knew of this exploit along with already using a method to take advantage of it. We sat silent and watched. We posted a forum thread about the exploit and took note of the responses along with who made them.

DE was recently pointed out as having a point difference in our roster. We were quickly sited as having used the exploit to Point Boost. One of our best scorers recently had an issue mid event that required a sub. In belief of doing the right thing, we had player A spend all their charges in DE while player B spent all of their charges in their coalition. We then moved player B over (with no charges) and their combined points were less than the maximum achievable by one player. We understand the advantage of allowing rosters to stay open during an event. That is where the system as is helps. But this was not how it was used by others. This is still not what we want to see in the game.

DE wants the rosters to either lock completely until completion of the event OR we want the player’s points to leave when they leave a team mid event. In our case, we are willing to suffer the loss of points because life happens and you don’t have to win or place in every event. Players get hurt in games. If a relay runner falls down in a race, you don’t add in a sub mid race to compete for them. This game should be the same in spirit of fair competition. If this happens now, the advantage the mega team has is great over the rest of us. They have 400 plus people to draw from. How is that fair to the other coalitions?

We are not trying to incite a war between our modest squad and the mega team that controls most of the game. There are numerous posts voicing some player’s issues with the mega team. When they do, the people are attacked and ganged up on by the large group. Does that seem right to everyone? They laugh at assimilating all the other teams. They take pride in having so much potential control in the game.

This has to end. We will stand alone if necessary and be the team that will fight the conglomerate and stay away from being assimilated. We were offered a seat at the table but for that to happen the system needs to change. Order must be flipped and the many voices have to overpower the one. There has to be a true council of leaders with no one leader being the voice of the many. Rosters must be separate and not intermingled allowing a few teams to benefit from the massive trickle up of power players to the top groups. A coalition of 2-3 teams seems fair but a coalition of 20+ makes the game completely unbalanced.

If you agree with us, and our viewpoints, then please reach out to myself, Sin or Sway on the Line messenger app. Don’t reach out to us and ask for proof or evidence. Ive been tracking this since DE was formed. That’s ours and we will keep it close as we are not looking to get anyone banned or kicked out of the game. We just want the hypocrisy to be known and to explain our position. If this post alienates us from the majority, well we are fine with that. We will work to stay true to who we are and our mission.
Great gaming to everyone and I hope we can work as both individual coalitions and a community to affect the changes we need in the game. We deserve a solid game with little to no bugs or exploits. It’s our job as community to help improve the game. If this post offends your sensibilities and you feel the need to attack me or my peeps, save it as we won’t engage in any back and forth over this issue.

BruceWayneDK

2

I’ve talked about arbitrary lines in the sand before, so I’m curious why you think 2-3 coalition Alliances is any fairer than a 20 coalition Alliance.

3

I’m curious why he’s throwing shade on those alliance coalitions that 1) refused to use the exploit, 2) notified the devs about it, 3) confronted other coalitions their potential abuse of it, and 4) sought to foster an agreement that the exploit wouldn’t be used.

I mean, it’s great that DE is happy and all, but there’s no need to try and present yourself as a (false) moral compass by painting the entire alliance with one broad brush. In fact, our ability to reconcile this issue and present a unified front to the devs speaks to its advantages.

4

Thanks for sharing your opinion. You certainly put a lot of thought (and words) into it.

5

Ok, so you’ve got proof of this, now we can get somewhere and expose the problem.

Oh ok, guess we’ll all just take your word on it then??

6

Not all groups have used this tactic, reguardless all agree it should end.

7

Holy drama Batman! All I got from this thread is that there is a clear exploit to boost your team’s points, so finishing Top 10 in an event right now is pretty hard unless you have a huge coalition that you can draw upon to execute the exploit effectively. I’m having a hard time seeing why this is such a big deal.

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FYI: The “alliance” isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Not all coalitions are treated equally, and yes–some of us noticed the shady tactics going on within the alliance and had to call them on it.

If you want to see real drama, wait and see what happens if they increase coalition point rewards for those in higher mastery tiers. The shuffling that would precipitate would be very popcorn worthy. icon_e_wink.gif

9

I feel this “sited as having used the exploit to Point Boost” is directed at me. I was not accusing you of point boosting and I apologize that you got the impression I was. I had asked about what happened that caused the point variance because your coalition’s position on point boosting was made clear to me. It appears that I phrased my question wrong and as I said, I’m sorry.

I am not a fan of locking rosters for events because sometimes something comes up and when that thing is technical issue outside of player control, being able to sub is very handy. That you subbed a person to sync up the charges is a very appropriate way to handle a substitution situation. There are instances of other coalitions doing similar node synchronized substitutions but that doesn’t explain some of the point variances I’ve seen in the past. There has been an issue of extra points being earned but proving the intention behind it is tough. However, rotating players to earn additional points is not something that is prohibited in the game. Hopefully, the developers will fix the issue promptly or give us some insight into their though process if they want it to continue. Until then, it is up to individual players and coalitions to decide how they want to proceed and what kind of reputation they want to have. I appreciate DefiantEmpyr’s clear stance on this issue.

I would be satisfied if a player’s points earned for an event were deducted from their coalition’s total for the event if they leave or are kicked during the event.

10

Because a blanket accusation that all coalitions are taking advantage of the exploit is not only wrong, but borderline offensive, particularly when some of us have been fighting to get the exploit eliminated by the devs.

11

I appreciate the time and effort you’ve made to share your thoughts. But you haven’t supported your case with evidence.

The quote above is the closest thing to evidence, but you haven’t shown a mathematical impossibility or even an implausibility. You haven’t said what type of event it was, or explained the timing details, but a simple baseline would be a NoP event where all 20 players win 5 games each for a fresh set of nodes within a 45 minute window. That would be 500 points right there. With node charges banked, far greater jumps could be achieved in that time. A theoretical upper limit of plausibility for a 45 minute window may be around the 1000 point range - that would require 10 nodes available to play for each player and 4.5 minutes per game, with all players active at the same time.

I’m personally interested to know whether there really is evidence pointing to exploitation. I haven’t yet seen evidence in team scores (though I haven’t watched closely), nor in any “mega coalition” chat which I have access to.

12

Plus, like, the Alliance has got ME in it. Do you honestly think that we can all work together under those conditions?

13

Here is the letter, in its entirety, for the coalitions not privy to it. As previously stated, DE isn’t going to engage in a back and forth on the forums. We’ve seen how that usually goes and that’s not the level we operate on. People are more than welcome to inbox me or we can have a discussion on Line.

I, nor my squad, are targeting any one particular coalition in the MtGPQ alliance. As you can see below this letter insinuates that the people signing it have refrained from the tactic. We know that this is a false statement. That’s the main point of our response along with getting a dialogue going. We’ve shown our hand enough to this point and aren’t looking to out any one particular coalition hence why I am not going to plaster evidence all over the place. The leaders who signed should’ve done their due diligence before adding yourself to that statement. That’s why we aren’t on the letter.

Statements like “even though we represent a substantial portion of the top players…” is a dangerous sentiment and goes along with almost every post that is made when opinions differ. No one entity in the player community should wield or hold that much sway over the game. While coming together and uniting for a common cause can be good in a game at times, it also gives too much leverage to the large group.

I’ll address one person directly. Corn Noodle, I appreciate the open apology and my comments were just to get ahead of any potential accusations against my squad. I should’ve elaborated that I was more concerned about what method was being used to determine if boosting or reward dispersion was happening. We figured it out internally and that’s the basis of our evidence.

Dear D3Go/Hibernum,
Many of the leaders of the top coalitions in your Magic the Gathering: Puzzle Quest game came together to discuss the possible exploit of a loophole in your coalition event scoring system. Coalitions can currently use the points of extra members that swap in and out of the coalition during events towards their total event score.
As a community, we feel that this breaks the spirit of the competition as the main determinant to winning will become the number of people that can be coerced into giving away their points rather than team excellence.
We have collectively agreed to refrain from these tactics because we care about the integrity of the game. Even though we represent a substantial portion of the top players, we cannot ensure that the loophole will not be abused, and at best our efforts will only delay the inevitable arms race should this issue remain unresolved.
It is our expectation that closing this loophole is a high priority for you as rampant abuse will undermine the coalition competition aspect of the game that is the primary draw for many of the top spenders in the game.
The current system if not abused does have it’s positive side. It provides flexibility to coalitions in case individuals unexpectedly can’t play and need to be replaced after the event starts.
We understand the sensitive nature of spreading this kind of information, so we have chosen to not draw attention to it on the forums, but please understand that this is a very important and immediate concern to the most vocal of your customers.
What we want is an assurance that this loophole will be closed, and a planned timeframe for doing so.
Signed:
***Multiple Coalitions

*** commandpointsbig.png
Please do not post the names of other players without their permission. This is a violation of forum rules and also, it’s kinda rude. So please don’t do it.
Thank You
Danger. commandpointsbig.png

14

The best way to address any bugs or exploits found in the game is to raise a support ticket. This forum is for players, not developers. If you can demonstrate a problem or provide evidence an exploit is in use support will pass it to the development group.

I am enjoying playing in my coalition (deadapult). We struggle a lot to get into the top ten but it’s fun. Most of the group makes an effort to participate in every event. There’s lots of chatter and support in our slack group too.

The idea that other groups make such an effort to hit the top 2 in events is laudable. If they want to spend the time then power to them. It’s not hurting me. Remember, at the end of the day you are competing for crystals and runes. It might as well be fairy dust or goblin glitter or whatever. If you found an exploit to gain 3 million rune I guarantee it is not going to change your life. Enjoy the game, and try not to take it so seriously!

15

First of all, I can only speak for myself here. I’m in an alliance coalition (YouHave1Job) and I have several issues with this letter.

Inevitable Arms Race? There are several ways to interpret this–and none of them that I’ve come up with are good. Demanding a statement that it will be resolved as well as a timeframe for doing so? I have no words.

Thanks for sharing this as I don’t share the opinions that are being presented as those of the community at large.

16

I don’t think you’ve dealt with support for this game.

17

I understand the concept of the exploit. The easiest fix is that the coalition score should be the ribbons that the current members have. No exploit for that. This is a D3 issue. But most importantly is your use of “mathematically impossible”. I will assume since your team was up 200 ribbons that the event was giving more than 1 ribbon per battle. So lets use NOP so there are no secondary objectives. 20 members x 5 battles (1 regen) X 5 ribbons = 500 ribbons. 45 mins/5 battles = 9min/battle. Definitely doable. Maybe need to provide more details for me to believe your mathematical impossibility. I am not saying that they or anybody else out there are not using the exploit. If there is and exploit out there, someone is probably using it. One might say that you are currently using it to prove your point, since you are #1 in current event.

18

A way it could be mathematically impossible is for the coalition in question to have a current total of 2k out of a possible 1.9k ribbons.

19

One might also say that since we pulled back the curtain, the tactic wasn’t used and allowed for a fair playing field.

As for the conversation about mathematics and what not, this game is built around a max score and a timer for most events. Players can only score a certain number of points if they start at the opening of the event and pace for the recharges. At the time of the event it was not possible for even 20 players to put up that much of a jump in points. At the time, we were on pace with the alliances around us. On top of that, you can also just add up the player subbed out and the player subbed in. If they combine for more max points than an individual player can achieve in an event, then they took part in point boosting.

Since my posting, I’ve had quite a few PMs sent to me. From inside and outside of the MtGPQ alliance. I’ll continue to respect their requests not to put their names out there but they have confirmed that leaders within the megalliance were aware of teams purposely exploiting the roster churning. That’s disappointing on a few levels as I’ve seen many people talk about integrity and standing on a ground that ‘We would never do that’. In my eyes knowing it was happening and doing nothing is just as bad as doing the actual act. I wonder how much longer it would’ve gone on if we hadn’t posted about it? If the fear was the exploit being known then you should’ve acted in a more expedited manner. It smacks of keeping it quiet so it could be used.

I’d like to see the leaders of the coalitions that used the exploit take some accountability for their actions. Had they just stood up and said our bad let’s fix it, well that’s something I can respect and get behind. But not some cover up. A lot of us spend money on this game and have a right to know if the major alliance in the game was harboring cheaters or allowing it to happen with no ramifications. Every player in and out of the megalliance should want that.

I’d also like to apologize to those whose names where on the bottom of the letter. In my haste to copy and paste the verbiage, I forgot to remove their real names. For that, I do apologize and did not mean to be perceived as going over the top.

I’m not here to attack anyone on a personal level. I’m not here to categorically call anyone in the megalliance cheaters, imply they are bad people or any of the other items I’ve seen. I’ve tried to bring this all to light with out dragging specific people/teams thru the mud, I’m not an angry dissident that is raging against a group of people I don’t know. I just want a fair and level playing field because I’ve invested money and time into this game. I, along with everyone else that spent zero $ up to thousands, deserve to play a game that is not manipulated by any part of the player base in anyway. If someone posts on the forums or disagrees with the majority, they shouldn’t be attacked by some vocal members of the megalliance. You want to represent a majority of the players, then be accountable to the whole community.

I’ve been told that everything isn’t sunshines and rainbows in the megalliance. I’ve been told that there are like minded people within the alliance. Obviously people recognize that the impact the megalliance is having in the community has its negative sides. It also probably has positives…those outside of it haven’t seen them.

We are here if people truly want to work together to build a better community and have healthy competition.

20

I can assure you Team Deadapult doesn’t use such tactics. My members all agree using this exploit isn’t in the spirit of the coalition competition.

We have screen shots of the points total of all events since this exploit is made known to us, and the fostered members score all add up to the coalition final score.

Cheers blacklotus,
team leader of Deadapult