Wintrading exploit allowing abuse of new players

[roblox-oof-dot-mp3]

Description: Because Whitemane removed the need for arena teams to que for rated pvp, players have begun asking random people to stay in a group with them to help them out. They then start queuing arenas in order to wintrade. When they do this, everyone in the party is then being shown on the website as taking part in the arena, regardless of whether they accepted the queue .

While experienced pvp players would see the queue pop and know something's up, people have been taking advantage of this for a few weeks now and it's resulted in a number of either new players or ones that focus only interact with and understand PVE content being banned for wintrading.

This system could also be taken even farther if a bad actor were to start intentionally making throwaway accounts and doing this in order to get players banned. You can also combine it with one of the methods in-game to find players with Whitemane+ to purposely have people who support the server perma'd.

How it should work: With the removal of arena teams, there should be some form of protection in-game to prevent unsuspecting players from being pulled into wintrading. If not, then at least the website should not be showing that these players entered arenas and participated as it's currently being used as evidence by GM's to reject all of their appeals.

Some in-game solutions:

1. Just adding back arena teams
2. Hour-long deserter for not joining arenas
3. Treating games where a player failed to join as an automatic draw or loss (i.e. both teams gain 0 points or lose points)

Not sure how hard #3 is to implement, but I imagine it would be one of the best solutions as it would prevent the exploit altogether.

[Aeradel]

This is more of a suggestion, which should be in the Discord and not the bug reporter.

In any case, while PvE players are being invited to arenas - it's a little blatant. If one side is attacking the other side, and the other side is doing nothing, that's pretty blatantly win-trading. We have no tolerance for win-trading, which is outlined in the rules at Whitemane.org/rules

It is frustrating to be banned as a win-trader as a PvE player, but being aware of your surroundings and being cautious of people randomly inviting you to arenas can lead to the prevention of being banned for win-trading.

I also wouldn't say this is necessarily an exploit - but rather social manipulation. There is no exploiting of the game's mechanics.

[Chaos-within]

I'd argue this is a bug, because the implementation of the custom 'no team required for arenas' is missing a vital part: Acceptance in joining the queue. In the original system, this would be joining the arena team. With players able to queue after a simple party invite, they essentially bypass this as there's no pop-up to accept or decline when the party leader queues the group.

[Aeradel]

I'd argue this is a bug, because the implementation of the custom 'no team required for arenas' is missing a vital part: Acceptance in joining the queue. In the original system, this would be joining the arena team. With players able to queue after a simple party invite, they essentially bypass this as there's no pop-up to accept or decline when the party leader queues the group.

You possess the ability to not join. Battlegrounds are the same way. This is not a bug, but rather desired functionality - thus being a suggestion.

[Chaos-within]

If the queue instantly pops and you don't join you still lose out on rating and win-lose ratio do you not? Battlegrounds have no negatives for missing the queue other than missing the BG. I don't think they're comparable in this situation.

[Aeradel]

If the queue instantly pops and you don't join you still lose out on rating and win-lose ratio do you not? Battlegrounds have no negatives for missing the queue other than missing the BG. I don't think they're comparable in this situation.

Why would rating matter to a PvE player, which is the type of player the suggestion is related to.

While adding this functionality would be great, I would imagine it would require a client update.

[Chaos-within]

Because even for a PvE player, there's still downsides associated.

[roblox-oof-dot-mp3]

I'd argue this is a bug, because the implementation of the custom 'no team required for arenas' is missing a vital part: Acceptance in joining the queue. In the original system, this would be joining the arena team. With players able to queue after a simple party invite, they essentially bypass this as there's no pop-up to accept or decline when the party leader queues the group.

You possess the ability to not join. Battlegrounds are the same way. This is not a bug, but rather desired functionality - thus being a suggestion.

If you don’t join, it still logs you as a part of the arena game. Then when the actual person is punished for wintrading, people they used to group with are being shown on the website as being part of those games. This is being used as justification that they win traded and used to ban them despite them never having entered the arena.

For players who don’t understand the pvp system, this basically means they can just get banned now for joining a group with someone who asked for help.

While this requiring a client update would be unfortunate, I don’t see how they can justify banning multiple people now for wintrading if there is a known method people are abusing that involves unsuspecting players and they don’t plan to fix it.

[Aeradel]

I'd argue this is a bug, because the implementation of the custom 'no team required for arenas' is missing a vital part: Acceptance in joining the queue. In the original system, this would be joining the arena team. With players able to queue after a simple party invite, they essentially bypass this as there's no pop-up to accept or decline when the party leader queues the group.

You possess the ability to not join. Battlegrounds are the same way. This is not a bug, but rather desired functionality - thus being a suggestion.

If you don’t join, it still logs you as a part of the arena game. Then when the actual person is punished for wintrading, people they used to group with are being shown on the website as being part of those games. This is being used as justification that they win traded and used to ban them despite them never having entered the arena.

For players who don’t understand the pvp system, this basically means they can just get banned now for joining a group with someone who asked for help.

While this requiring a client update would be unfortunate, I don’t see how they can justify banning multiple people now for wintrading if there is a known method people are abusing that involves unsuspecting players and they don’t plan to fix it.

There is methods to check for this, and it's not happened yet.

Additionally, there are methods for checking being added, like the Arena Replays.