Win Trading on Aether

[AlbaTheGrey]

A much more thought out post has been made since. Please like and comment about similar experiences here;

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...g-in-The-Feast

[Cammel]

Idk but that seems pretty real. It is no better on Primal either.

[AlbaTheGrey]

Only 40 mins ago I ran into yet another pair of win traders. My team was losing and the enemy healer (a level 31 Silver in rags) dc'd in the last two minutes. How fortunate for my level 70 Platinum healer who seemed awfully distracted.

After that there was a 6 min wait time but 2-3 players were withdrawing almost instantly after the queue popped. It's almost like they're waiting for the queue to pop at the same time as someone else

[Mantrus]

Win trading is a real thing happening constantly on Aether, but tracking only your own matches with anecdotal accounts of changing variables isn't very good proof of it.

[AlbaTheGrey]

There are videos and stream clips but we can't post player names here unless I'm mistaken?

[Razzii]

There are videos and stream clips but we can't post player names here unless I'm mistaken?

Correct....my post was removed because of the images having individuals' names.

[AlbaTheGrey]

Correct....my post was removed because of the images having individuals' names.

Thanks for the clarification.

[Geryth]

I finally got the Aerodynamics System and the Logistics System from Frontlines so I figured it was time to get the Goten Pipe from Feast. People are clamoring that healers are OP and that win traders use healing, so I figured queuing as healer would avoid the win traders and since I think I'm pretty okay at this game I might be able to carry as a healer.

I have many queues that fail because someone withdraws, and I assume it's because someone is trying to win trade healers. Happened 4 times in a row last time I was playing feast, and I assume that's when the queue withdrawal punishment kicked in.

I guess my point is - learn how to play a healer and not only can you carry but you'll never have to deal with win trading.

[Gravton]

I don't understand why this is still possible. I thought ranked matches were supposed to match you to equal ranks. If one person always loses on purpose they shouldn't be the same rank as their partner. I don't play ranked, but I thought that's how it worked.

I mean I would:
Group unranked/bronze/silver then gold/diamond/plat in two different brackets. This way the most they could do is spring board a friend to gold.

Make pvp rank tied to account to help prevent an alt to help with losses.

Then have something look at the loss rate of an individual and prevent them from grouping with players on a win streak. Something like that.

[Geryth]

I don't understand why this is still possible. I thought ranked matches were supposed to match you to equal ranks. If one person always loses on purpose they shouldn't be the same rank as their partner. I don't play ranked, but I thought that's how it worked.

I mean I would:
Group unranked/bronze/silver then gold/diamond/plat in two different brackets. This way the most they could do is spring board a friend to gold.

Make pvp rank tied to account to help prevent an alt to help with losses.

Then have something look at the loss rate of an individual and prevent them from grouping with players on a win streak. Something like that.

You have two accounts, and you're a decent player. You play your main account until you hit your "wall". You play a second account and win a few and climb a bit. Then you start win trading to climb your rating "wall". Queue both healers at the same time and only accept the queue if they both pop at the same time (got the same game). Give your main account the win.

Do this a few times until your trading account can't get in the same game. Then play seriously on your trading account to climb back up. Rinse and repeat. Pretty easy because there's not enough players to give competitive games to the top rated players so they easily get in games with lower ranked players.

I think it's pretty easy to combat this - track how many games an account cancels queues for and look for trends about when they accept games against another player. Then check the win rates of those player against player combos. When red flags are thrown, lessen the chance those players get matched together, and have someone investigate to see if there's any win trading happening and punish them accordingly. It's going go take some coding resources and an employee to dedicate research time but I think the players really need this.