Fixing maxing

[wolf bite]

Fixing maxing

I am making this post both in development and in the staff forum. This way the members can put in input and the staff can talk about coding.


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The way I recall intentional maxings was around the third set I found the flaw in the code and used intentional maxing to hold the top. Retto in retaliation programmed in Land Loss for attacking with a very small army against a very big army. Which I then abused by having a team player make a full land run then hand the land up to me. Which gave me land and maxed me at the same time.(Hehe)  Attack opportunity was then added to get around the maxing.

This is an example of making fast fixes that create more bugs.  It has taken almost forever to get the land loss taken out of the code. I still don't like attack opportunity because it eliminates the value of being unclanned for non leader players. Also when a solution for intentional maxing is found, the reason for attack opportunity will not exist. But that is a discussion for another time. Let us work on what solution should be made for maxing.

The problem is that we want the following things to be legal:

- Suicideing an enemy to wear down their defenses.

- Being able to try different types of attacks that fail to find an attack that gets through.

- Being able to fail several times as the attacker keep making or buying more armies to try to eventually break their enemy.

Unfortunately the program has a hard time distinguishing those legitimate attacks from intentional maxing. And the program should be self operating without the staff checking into what is being done.

Some solutions I have come up in the past are:

- An attacker can only make 10 failed attacks within a curtain time frame.
However 2 buddies could still work together to make 20 failed attacks.

- Attacking with under 20% of the DPs will be not allowed.
However an exploratory attack to see what the enemy's weak army will not work.

- Attacks with under 20% of the DPs will not count towards maxing.
However this would allow a slow suicide against an unclaned person to unlimited attacks.

- Which leave with a combination of after attacking with under 20% of the DPs 5 times will forbid the attacker from attacking that target for 2 hours.
This works, but messy programming.

Other Ideas?


Wolf Bite

[Shadow]

Don't make failed troop attacks add to maxxing totals after the 4th one? (4 being the limit required for exploratory attacks). Leader suicides should still add, for obvious reasons. The problem is that there are so many loopholes to getting around any coding that can be done. I won't post them here, but contact me on msn if you like. I really think the only reasonable answer to this is to make it against the rules based on an investigation of intention. A lot of work perhaps, but much less than you'd have once people figure out the loopholes in the code.

[taekwondokid42]

Hmm.

I think that make attack opportunity needs to stay a part of the game, regardless of maxing.

As for maxing:

Player integrity is relied upon. But some additions to the code can be made.

After 5 failed attacks, attacks under 30% DP don't count. After 5 additional attacks, attacks under 75% DP don't count.

This applies to leader missions as well, excluding the "attack" one.

Comments?

[Shadow]

Same exploits apply.

[taekwondokid42]

pm me. I won't abuse them.

[bjornredtail]

The way I recall intentional maxings was around the third set I found the flaw in the code and used intentional maxing to hold the top. Retto in retaliation programmed in Land Loss for attacking with a very small army against a very big army. Which I then abused by having a team player make a full land run then hand the land up to me. Which gave me land and maxed me at the same time.(Hehe)  Attack opportunity was then added to get around the maxing.

I'd say that Retto intentionally designed that feature there and documented it for us to use. So, hardly a 'flaw' in the code. 

My idea: Limit the number of attacks you can do per-target in addition to the overall attack limit. Let's say we have three unclanned Warlords, X, Y, and Z. Suppose we have a per-target limit of 15 attacks and an overall limit of 25. Warlord X could attack Warlord Z 15 times, and then proceed to attack Warlord Y 15 times. Warlord Y could still attack warlord Z, but they would be limited to 10 times by the existing overall attack limit.

Implementation is non-trivial, but it can be done cleanly. Add another table, with the following format:

Code Select Expand

CREATE TABLE (Whatever you want to call it)
empirea int REFERENCES (The table that holds the player data),
empireb int REFERENCES (the table that holds the player data),
attacks int NOT NULL

Then use table-joins to get all the necessary data when attacking. This might mean writing a few new queries in funcs.php, but nothing too horrid.

Shadow- None of these systems have been implemented, and none are really 'security' issues anyways. Please post how such a system could be abused before it is implemented so that we can consider it in designing a solution.

[wolf bite]

Yes, Lets make it open shadow. If there is a flaw, then I would not use the code unless I found a fix, and having people see the flaw gives more input.

I need to spend more time thinking on navadacows idea. Shael is telling me that the forth idea is workable. Someone tell me what the flaw to it is.


Wolf Bite

[Shadow]

if you remove open atk op after implementing this, indiers can max each other with leader suicides with any of the suggestions other than bjorn's. Even with open atk op in game they can force leaderers to waste their turns opening atk ops in order to take land and other indiers won't be able to get through at all.

[The Obliterator]

we still need att opps though
it makes taking down an unclanned emp possible take that out and you can mabey suicide his leaders down but then you would have to wait a whole day to start murdering and in that time he could have passed his troops on to someone else and had a run to get back the leaders then have them pass back the troops to you.

[Wolf Snare]

Attack opps need to stay in the game to prevent absolute takeovers.
I honestly think the best solution would be keep it how it's always been.
If someone intentionally maxes a friend, they get penalized judged on how bad the offence was.
Admins don't need to monitor the game 24/7 either, when a player notices abuse, they report it... Same as it's always been. *misses Peace*

[wolf bite]

Attack opportunity is a discussion for another time. But just quickly, the reasons people are giving to keep it "that without it would make it hard to take someone down" is exactly the reason it should be gone. If with no intentional maxing someone can withstand 21 attacks, and one more each hour until they have full turns again, they deserve to stay on top.

As far as the staff monitoring intentional maxing, NO! I am still catching flack for giving the minimal punishment to someone I personally sent mail to concerning rules.

When the one rat attack with loss of land was outlawed, I would normally find out about it a day or so later. By then the person had the benefit of making a few runs on turbo with the land locked and had the game taken over already. Then people would argue that the person making the attacks was new and randomly doing it and the attack-ee did not ask to be attacks. Thus I could only punish the person making the attacks, which left the attack-ee emperor already having destroyed the game for everyone else. On the other had, people were yelling that I should somehow back out whatever the benefit the attack-ee emperor with locked land had made, which is impossible to figure out. So people argue that both the attacker and the attack-ee should be disabled. Gee, then all someone has to do is find a friend to max their enemy and they get their enemy disabled! And finally, when I was enforcing the land loss rule, people were all yelling that because each situation was different and at different points in the games, that I was not treating everyone the same. Geeez ....

In short, by the time I learn of a intentional maxing violation, the game has already been destroyed and whatever punishment I dish out I am attacked with some saying it should be more and some saying it should be less.

Which bring us back to either the members kill those abusing the rules of good sportsmanship or we program in something.


More programming ideas and flaws which will stop intentional maxing?


Wolf Bite

[CobyCopper]

How about this--slim the attacking margins a good bit? IE--max attack is 10x and min attack is 0.1x. Add to that, a minimal number of troops needed to attack with. Or, lose 3% of your soldiers in addition to the percentage lost because of NW--so that failing automatically loses 3%.

[The Obliterator]

That wont work cause thats is what already happens if your networth is too low anyway

[Gorak]

here's an idea,
but you prolly won't like it

QMT came up with this fix, for both eliminating intentional maxing, as well as clan hopping, in one code change
what they did was abolish hit limits all together, and instead, put in an attack limit
you could only attack max 25 times, with 2 additional attacks every hour, unless tagged attacking another tagged empire in warslot.
impossible to max someone, since they have no hitlimits, and there is no more clan hopping, since you can still gather enough empires together to gang bang a solo empire

people thought this would destroy solo play, but it didn't, it's not worth spending all your clans combined attacks on one solo empire, unless they really pissed you off, in which case they deserve it.

[CobyCopper]

By extension, to make kills a bit more difficult (turn/attack wise, that is), reduce land gain by half when under 500 acres. If you place a 25 limit on attacks. By extension, count leader attacks as half a melee attack, and eliminate open ops.