War #8 - Round 5

[serprex]

Aether as a team was unaware of this issue. Higurashi is the only one who is incriminated. But if a team member receives a penalty, it's the team which pays. This is why Haink feels victimized

The issue began in R2 deckbuilding

108 is 9*12. Aether's being penalized 9 cards per voided match. The average of -24 & 6 is -9. Thus Aether's vault has decayed as if they went 3-3 each round while other teams are not paying 9 card penalties for their voided matches. I've already explained it. (thanks Laxa, wrote this before you quoted)

[flyingcat]

• You are overdoing the penalty just to satisfy the majority. Populists.

I'm really curious about the number, now that hain says it. Why exactly the number of penalty that was given? I mean, it's not even a round number, so there has to be a reason behind it.

12 matches voided. -6 salvage for each = 72. -9 penalty for each = 108. 108+72 = 180 penalty.

[Dm]

the question is, how far aether team may have benefited from this "bug"

Rofl.

[ZephyrPhantom]

Thank you for detailed response, Higurashi. Serprex, the reminder of how the retroactive penalty is also appreciated.

So to answer Z, this was an Admin issue and not something a regular member can affect.

An additional comment: If this is also a staffing issue, I believe it would be a good idea to create a separate discussion about staff transparency and how our ability to operate affects us in times like War.

[inthisroom]

I've read all of this, I don't trust anything.

Higurashi conveniently has a justification.

Hainkarga, as expected, lashes out to accuse just about anyone because who else but him could be the victim here.

Warmasters have given no precise explanation that would quiet any of my paranoid assumptions.

Noone on this forum is important enough to hide anything from any of the other members, if anyone thinks they are, they should be removed asap.

So please clear this up, be precise, anything else just diminishes your credibility.

[Vangelios]

. Additionally the bug should not occur again after the forum update

well that to me is equal desync.. should never happen, but happens even after numerous fix.

[andretimpa]

[CuCN]

serprex and I saw enough evidence for us to conclude that the R3 and R4 games were not won legitimately.
Given this, voiding the games and doing nothing else would not have been fair for the other teams, because a net vault change of 0 across two rounds would be an excellent result. Every other team's vault decreased across the two rounds. Instead, we gave a -9 for each game, which in terms of relative vault sizes is approximately equivalent to (a bit better than) two 2-4 rounds.

The evidence our conclusion was based on:
Admin logs said that during the deckbuilding phase of Round 2, Higurashi made some change to all the team sections other than Aether's, and then another change to the same sections 13 minutes later. (source: antiaverage)
According to a database query, the account "The Oracle" viewed every one of the topics with links to the vaults, but not Aether's. No timestamps, but an incrementing ID number pointed to it happening in Round 2. (source: antiaverage)
According to the vault tool revision history, Aether's decks were consistently being posted after their opponents' decks were. This included one instance where only two decks were posted prior to a period of several hours with no activity; at that time, only the two corresponding opponents had posted their decks, with the other four posting during the gap. (source: Google Sheets history)
Some behavior in Aether's secret planning area, which will remain private. (source: deuce22, from hainkarga)

Higurashi gave an explanation for the first two, but serprex and I still agree on our conclusion because of the coincidences required.

Whether or not any cheating occurred, it is certain that every secret team board and vault tool except for Aether's was exposed to someone using the Oracle account.
antiaverage has told us that information in PMs was not exposed.

Thanks to hainkarga for being cooperative with our investigation.

[Vangelios]

According to the vault tool revision history, Aether's decks were consistently being posted after their opponents' decks were.

that was what I wanted to ask all the time thanks nice work

[Laxadarap]

So... After that post, and then going back and looking at Aether's decks the last 2 rounds, I think literally every one of them was a hard-counter, or at least vastly in favor of aether.  I am honestly inclined to side with the WM's, which is pretty saddening.

[Physsion]

stuff

Appreciate the explanation, CuCN. I think I speak for everyone when I say the announcement came as quite a surprise, but your response has cleared things up for me.

It may not be my place to comment against team Aether, but given the evidence that was provided, I think the Warmasters have made the most reasonable decision here.

I personally respect the way the Warmasters and Higurashi have handled this situation, and I think I speak for all when I say I'm hopeful War will continue forward in a positive manner following this.

Totally agree with this. Despite leaving the rest of us with some confusion as to what was happening, I think both parties have handled this as well as they could.

Cheers, Higurashi, for acting so honourably in this thread, regardless of what happened.

[CrockettRocket]

I'm not even gonna go back and quote some of these posts the hardcore way. ...
Higurashi explained the incident, and agreed with the WM's. We all know Higurashi is rather strict, so if she agrees, who are you to disagree, or even more, lash out?
Higurashi is an admin. Who are you to ask for an official answer from WM's when Higurashi>WM's and didn't even have to give any info. They could've obscured everything. Why not be thankful for them telling you the information?
ddevans* not Zblader has said he hopes war will move forward in a positive way.
Bripod said probably not.
Hain kept lashing out.

Now let me remind you of one of our forum rules, and mind you Higurashi is still and admin and it's her job to enforce these rules. Especially staffers too that help her.


MEDIUM INFRACTIONS - 40 points

Flaming: Do not post any messages that harass, insult (name calling), belittle, threaten or mock other members. Debates are fine, but critique the opinion, not the person. Personal attacks are not permitted.

Trolling: Do not post topics with the sole purpose of starting a dispute.

Advertising: Posting or private messaging to sell, buy, or trade products or services, links to auctions, affiliate links, links to promote personal or commercial websites, blogs, other forums and so forth is not allowed anywhere without explicit permission.

Disrespecting moderators.  Be respectful in both the forums and any private communications with moderators.  Moderators are volunteers that donate many, many hours of their own time to help in the forums and chat rooms.

Constantly bothering game developers. Elements the game owner and Lead Developer Zanzarino visits from time to time in the forum chatrooms. Please be respectful and don't bother him constantly by asking dumb questions. Regular conversation is of course permitted but spamming private messages asking how to upgrade cards is not. Lets give developers room to work on the game, ok?


Is lashing out at WM's and the admin "harass"ing enough? Is it not "belittl"ing our admin when you act like her answer isn't official enough and you ask for Warmaster's official opinions? Is it personal enough to count as a "personal attack" when you're talking specifically about the Admin and WM's?

My thoughts: an answer has been given. A solution has been given for the incident to make sure it doesn't happen in the future. Guys, seriously? This is coming from me!
Thank you Zblader for trying to find answers everyones looking for, but doing it in a polite manner while trying to lessen the situation at hand. I was waiting for our beloved admin to post the same thing I'm posting, but apparently someone else has to stick up for her cause she's stuck between a rock and a hard spot.

and as I typed this, a thank you's been given.