Arena Loophole Rule Enforcement

[TallBlondeDude]

Hi, I found a loophole in arena rules, did it, then didnt get paid for the challenge. Personally I dont care about the 3rd place rewards, but I do care about the spirit of things.

What I did: Bribed someone to leave a challenge so I can have their spot.

The Accusation: I rigged the challenge to favor myself via the rigging rule, as seen here:

• Players must not boost/rig the Arena Score Leaderboard in any manner.
  • This includes but is not limited to:
    • Attending a challenge or tournament on an account that is not owned by the player participating.
    • Organised and intentional throwing to favour another player or team.

Lets start with some definitions:
Rigging/Boosting - Artificial manipulation via playing in the challenge in a manner as to benefit someone else
Throwing - Purposely losing in a challenge

So here is the deal, they cited the 2nd as being against me. However, at what stage of this transaction did throwing occur?

Stage 1. Player Accepts Gold: Not throwing
Stage 2. Player Leaves: Not throwing, as leaving and throwing are clearly different, as seen in the fact that leaving is not punished, while throwing is per the rules.
Stage 3. Player joins team after paying: Not rigging, as a player should be expected to act in their own interest to the best of their abilities. A player is clearly not punished for joining and replacing, so that is not the issue.

The rule of boosting/rigging clearly applies to artificial manipulation of a challenge via non-self interested actors, as seen in the examples being: Helping someone else win via playing on their account, or helping someone else win via purposely losing. Leaving is seen as a neutral action per the rules, and as such cannot be in violation of this conduct (As seen by people not being punished for throwing when leaving on in team challenges, which happens with great frequency).


Solution:
Fix the rules by actually adding a rule against this, instead of having a knee jerk reaction because its scummy (which it is)

 

[Serien]

ur trying to make ariel fix the rules but really u can just be a better player who doesn’t need to bribe their way into top 3 lol not getting paid is just karma brother

 

[Sticktrees]

ur trying to make ariel fix the rules but really u can just be a better player who doesn’t need to bribe their way into top 3 lol not getting paid is just karma brother

keeping it real as per usual. go you!

 

[mermaidcat]

TEAM TALLBLONDEDUDE

 

[mermaidcat]

ur trying to make ariel fix the rules but really u can just be a better player who doesn’t need to bribe their way into top 3 lol not getting paid is just karma brother

To my understanding the transaction was only for joining the challenge. Under this assumption, Tall then fairly raced and earned top 3.

 

[Somnambulist]

At what point in the Arena class did this transaction and player leaving happen? If it was in the beginning before any dueling/flying took place then I don't see a problem, but if it was halfway through then it might be suspicious.

I think the definition of Throwing should be reevaluated here - I would consider throwing to take part during the action of the game. Such as when you're in the action of dueling/flying then you purposely stop to get destroyed or let a player past you by. But in your instance, you're trading gold to takeover another player's position in a team? This likely happened during a neutral state where no defining action to "throw" would occur.
And as you mentioned here -

A player is clearly not punished for joining and replacing, so that is not the issue.

That's what I see happening in what you're describing on your post - you're replacing another player that left.

Just judging this off your post, you're clearly not "throwing" since you were able to rank - unless you're considered super good and you purposely sucked just to let first and second players get ahead of you? Maybe it was related to that? Unless first and second were better than you in this instance?

* Side note - Not taking any sides here, just interested in what was posted. *

 

[MattyPoltergeist]

dont think its boosting or throwing but it defo rigging

 

[TallBlondeDude]

dont think its boosting or throwing but it defo rigging

curious how its rigging, the only argument i could see at all is boosting, rigging involves fixing results, which didnt happen here

 

[xAutumnn]

dont think its boosting or throwing but it defo rigging

I don't think it's really rigging tbh.. rigging kinda implies that they are manipulating the competition with the intention to ensure a specific outcome no matter what (rigging would be more like having all or a lot of competitors agree to throw/not perform well to ensure an outcome of results). In this situation, the person bribing is doing so in order to get better chances. Which could very well mean they'll have an extremely high chance at winning (especially on PW), but it's not necessarily rigging/fixing the competition cause it assumes that the person involved will certainly win, and that may not always be the case in a situation like this; it's more of a gambling-esque situation TBH, cause it's like taking a chance with money/gold in hopes to have a good outcome.

It's 100% throwing, over anything else to be considered first IMO. While it seems like the throwing comes primarily from the person who left the challenge, the person who made the bribe is the one initiating it via persuasion (bribery). Either way, both people involved are participating in aspects of throwing the competition because both are throwing/manipulating the challenge in hopes to get specific benefits (whether it be gold for leaving, or a better chance at winning for giving gold). The person bribing has more to gain, but also more to potentially lose (also the one bribing is more scummy lol)

Player 1 giving the bribe, manipulating Player 2 to throw their chances in order to favor/give a better chance at winning for Player 1 is the initiation of the 'throwing', and Player 2 accepting the bribe is the fulfillment or completion of the initiation. The actual act of manipulating/throwing of the competition in this scenario can't happen unless both people participate.

 

[Creme_de_Creme]

Hello @TallBlondeDude and everyone that gave their thoughts and opinions on the feedback!

We would like to make a few things clear regarding the Arena rules and protocol. For each challenge, if you were unable to click on the broadcast to attend the challenge, an Arena member will still ask in chat if there are those who would like to attend. Even if you directly message an Arena member to be added, so long as the challenge has not already started (meaning that either 1) the dueling bracket has not been sent/started yet or 2) the flying race has not already begun) and there is still room, they will add you. There are very few circumstances in which we will add people after the challenge has already begun, and these circumstances are listed in the protocol itself. These circumstances are as follows:

1. Teammate leaves (intention of not returning):​

- A sub will be found that has not yet participated in the challenge​

- If a sub cannot be found, you will be kicked from the challenge without AT, unless you have made it to qualifiers. Then you will be kicked with participation AT.​

​

In this specific challenge, the flying team in reference had completed qualifiers and the first race of a normal flying challenge before one of the team members was bribed to leave. The act of taking a bribe to leave the challenge as well as the act of bribing a person to leave a challenge in order to take their place does break our currently existing Arena rules. These rules are as follows:

1. Players must not throw a challenge or tournament.​

2. Players must not boost/rig the Arena Score Leaderboard in any manner.​

This includes but is not limited to:​

- Attending a challenge or tournament on an account that is not owned by the player participating.​

- Organised and intentional throwing to favour another player or team.​

​

The player that left their team and the challenge with the intention of receiving gold threw the challenge, yet at the suggestion/bribe of the player initiating the interaction/bribe. Thus, both players participated in throwing the challenge. The player who bribed the other to leave the challenge, in this case, also attempted to boost their own score. While it may have been a gamble as to whether or not they would have received Arena Score, gold, and Arena Tokens, Tall was at the time, and is currently, in a position to potentially be one of our Arena Season Winners for Season 1 2023. Any and all top 4 placements add to your Arena Score and can help boost you to maintain a spot on the leaderboard and increase your chances towards being a Season Winner. Considering that Tall had been too late to join the challenge normally, he had bribed a player to leave the challenge and thus gave himself the opportunity to potentially boost his score (an opportunity to receive score that he would not otherwise have had unless he offered gold in exchange to take that player's spot in the challenge). I made the call that whether or not Tall placed in the Top 4, that he would only receive 8 AT. This was to acknowledge that he did participate in most of the challenge; however, I did not want to reward Arena Score, nor any extra gold or Arena Tokens due to Tall having to bribe someone to get into the challenge.

I would also like to note that when a situation arises that is not explicitly defined within the Arena protocol, it is the responsibility of Arena team members to interpret our existing protocol in order to make the best call for the community. As the Assistant to Head of Academics, I take a large responsibility in ensuring that our protocol is being interpreted and implemented fairly; this is precisely what I tried to do in this situation.

As for the suggestion to add bribery to our Arena rules due to it not currently existing there, we will be accepting this suggestion and adding it to our existing rules to make it more clear that this is not acceptable. We would also like to take this opportunity to point out that our rules do state that rigging and boosting is not completely defined by the two listed clarifications. It also mentions "this includes but is not limited to" which suggests that while it may not be listed, there may be other situations that fall under it. Please also note that it is better to come forward to Arena and Academics Leadership about any potential loopholes in the future so that we can adjust our rules, rather than trying to take advantage of it.

Thanks again for your suggestion and feedback!