Leaderboard Shield Bug/Loophole Speculation

I am creating this thread in the hope that we can get a response from Midoki to end speculation on the topic. This is an issue that concerns every guild and player that desires to push into the Top Leaderboard rankings, even if you are not yet ready for it. The problem is that several players who reside at the Top of the Leaderboard (to not be named publicly) seem to have active shields more often than any other players pushing at their same level.

If you have ever pushed into the 700+ range you know what I'm talking about. You get attacked by one of these top players and attempt a revenge, possibly seconds after the attack, and they are protected by a shield. But you continue to view your logs and attempt attacking that player day after day, and at different hours of the day, but still they are shielded. In the meantime, you are hearing from your guild mates that this same player is still actively attacking them, yet nobody can revenge. It's as if they have discovered some magical power that the rest of us are unaware of.

Speculation on this topic has been covered in other forum posts. It is also widely discussed outside the forum among guild mates and with other guilds. The same names always seem to pop up during this discussion. Could it be a coincidence?

Some assume these players are just gemming shields. But it's my understanding that once you gem a shield and attack another player, you lose that shield and all the gem shields require a multi-day cool down period; not to mention the exorbitant cost to maintain said shields. Others are speculating that these players have jail broken iPhones and are using applications that allow the player to stay logged into the game thus preventing an attack. I did a search for such an application and found several that would do the job.

Rather than continue this speculation I would like to ask Midoki to investigate and/or publicly comment on the matter so we can put it to rest. As a person who has inside knowledge of IT systems, it seems reasonable that Midoki could examine the game logs for a few individuals that fit the profile described. If they were willing to investigate, I'm certain other players could privately PM @Lynsey [Midoki] with the suspected player and issue reported.

I have spent a little money on this game and thoroughly enjoy playing. It is my desire to continue getting better and one day find my own name near the top of the leaderboard. I'm even considering purchasing the $99 gem pack so I can get there faster. But I am hesitant to spend this money knowing that others are cheating while I'm playing within the rules. If you value the integrity of the game and wish to end speculation, ultimately gaining more income from players like myself...Please address this issue.

-Tex

 

Totally agree with @Tex . This question has been dangling out there for months, and it's causing a lot of grumbling amongst players. An answer to this would be great.

@Lynsey [Midoki] While we're bugging you, Can you give us an answer to this question?:

Q: Does Midoki regularly scan for accounts which have been logged on for an inhumanly long time, and if so, what do you do about it? There has a lot of speculation that Midoki doesn't monitor this activity, and, frankly, doesn't care. I want to believe otherwise, but I'd like to hear it from the Pirate's mouth

 

I am puzzled by the confusion, which makes me wonder if I am the one confused. I just always assumed this was same as Clash, meaning as long as a person is logged in and online, you cannot revenge or attack them. If the people at the top are anything like me when I was last up there, I am usually attacked within seconds of logging off, giving me a 3 or 12 hour shield immediately after logging off. I may attack 30+ people during a farming/raiding session, making a great many people waiting in line to revenge me. To summarize, I am online non-stop for 2-4 hours at a time, followed by an instant attack against me within 1 minute of logging off, giving me a 12 hour shield which I will only break again when starting my next raiding/farming session. The way I see it, someone only has a 1 minute window to attack me every 8-12 hours. Am I completely wrong on this and how this whole process works?

 

@Spongee Good question. That's what I was thinking, so I'd love to know the answer to that as well.

One semi-unrelated thing you said caught my eye. You said you were attacked within seconds of logging off. I'm curious, are you getting raided literally within a minute of logging off? In my experience (i.e. staying online all day and hitting the idle popup when I see it), it takes anywhere from 5-15 minutes before your base is visible to attackers. I base that on my never being attacked in the last 5 months while doing this strategy --even with max loot. If you're getting attacked that quickly, then my assumption has been incorrect.

With that said, It'd be great to know exactly how long you have after you log off before you can be attacked.

 

Thank you Lynsey for clarification. Look forward to seeing the new raiding changes. We understand the process is trial and error, and once more players become a available down the line along with the new raIding system that hopefully the rank pushing issue would be greatly reduced

@ Kelani, I was being exaggerative in my numbers to make a point. Yes, it does seem to usually take about 3-5+ minutes before I get attacked when logging off. Having more than one high level account has allowed me to try and find myself when above 800 to see how easy it is to rank push another account. I have only attempted it 3x, and all three times I did not become available for attack as soon as I logged off, it took a few minutes to appear as a target for myself. I did not time how long the delay was at the time, and I only experimented that one time for those 3 attacks. I may revisit the delay question in the future if I ever have more than one account above 800 again.

 

@Lynsey [Midoki] thank you for that comprehensive response and providing a mechanism for us to report potential abusers. It's great that Midoki cares enough to respond quickly to these concerns.

However, it does sound like the ability to stay continuously logged in either manually or using automated apps is a loophole that should be closed. Even the if you are not logged in 24/7 I can imagine many using this technique to avoid getting attacked. @Kelani 's description of how he stays logged in most of the day (not to game the system) and pointed at out he rarely gets attacked underscores the point that someone can game the system if they desire.

So my question for Midoki is why not put some logic into the system to prevent abuse?
For example...

 

@Lynsey [Midoki] perhaps also add in once there is an attack and one set of revenges, those players are off each others "next" search for x amount of days (2-5-7...?)
that would limit farms attacking a pig 5-6 times a day and giving up points.
Plus get rid of bully attacks attacking the same base over and over every day.
shinn and 3 tree will be happy next push if I can't attack them 4-5 times a day.

 

Clash also has something like this. I think it forces you to stay offline for 20-30 minutes after you've been online for a certain amount of time. Even though it's annoying as hell to run into, I'd totally support something like that if it would help reduce people gaming the system.

 

I suggest we try a period of 1 or 2 days. If you stay online non-stop for up to 1 or 2 days (taking into account the effect of traveling in between time zones if possible), you will be forced to go offline ("System Maintainence" ) for up to 1 or 2 days. I am sure all of us need sleep, right?!

 

Sounds like way too much time to me! Who needs to be continually logged in for 24-48 hours?
That will not solve the problem at all. In fact that is the problem.

 

1 day seems like a "safe option" to me. I thought some players might really stay online legitly for hours to do things like re-arranging their island layout. How about a limit of 12 hours per online session?

Also, I only realized just now that it won't help if players can simply quit the game and quickly log back in to reset the "online session duration" timer

 

First things first is to see if Midoki is even willing to close this loophole.

 

Let's hope they investigate and see for themselves this issue of "constant login".

 

Lots of info from @Lynsey [Midoki] to absorb.

One thing that concerns me the most is Loot. How might this effect our ability to score and save significant amounts of plunder to fund the high cost of upgrades. We're not talking thousands anymore, but rather millions in loot. Let's face it, there really isn't a lot of actual game play unless we Gem troops, etc.

How do we balance this aspect without killing the fun factor and having people quit from frustration of small amounts of loot and then losing it. Isn't this the same issue your trying to correct with low level players?

It just seems that were turning the table in favor of newer players and placing the higher level players inside a meat grinder.

Perhaps we need to consider eliminating loot from our mines and distillries from the attack equation. At least this would provide a quicker recovery. Would love to get some feedback on this aspect because right now I see a game I enjoyed slipping away.

TiGeR

 

My $0.02 is just, I can understand not being able to be attacked whilst you're in the game.
And I can understand the 5 minute timeout.

But maybe that should be a 5 minute timeout without any base changes or attacks or anything, not just 5 minutes panning around the map (I presume this is how the various anti-idle programs work).

 

@c00ni The anti-idle programs probably use the simplest solution of all: Tap the screen coordinates of the "Are you There?" Popup every 2-3 minutes.

The way the forced offline time worked for me in clash was, I left the game up for 8-10 hours. Not sure, and it logged me off for anywhere from 15 mins to an hour. I can't remember the exact wording it used, but seemed to imply YOU NEED REST. At any rate, a simple forced disconnect for an hour or so would solve that problem. And midoki could always look at online times later and see who's now showing as playing 22 hours every day. I'm sorry, but nobody can keep that up for weeks on end. Anyone showing that amount of online time is either using a keep-alive utility or handing their device to someone else while they're asleep.

As for loot. It just needs help. Clash has incrementing Loot bonuses for higher ranks, which aren't wonderful, but do help offset the cost of troops. PP needs this as well, but needs to learn from Clash's mistake, and greatly improve those bonuses.

I am NOT a fan of the idea of removing the contents of our collectors from the available loot count. This is one of those suggestions that, while well intentioned, seems like a punishment. The tendency so far has been to attempt to influence gameplay by discouraging certain things (loot reduced for attacking lower PH/Rank) This is a band-aid that doesn't stop the problem. The game as it is right now makes me feel completely punished and penalized for ranking up. Only when I see tangible benefits for doing so will I bother with it.

To get me to attack higher bases and rank up, I'd need to see things like: Loot bonuses, BP bonuses, more rewards for higher rank tiers, weekly tournaments (with prizes) for each rank tier. Hell, I'd even like to see something like an additional 25% hire time reduction on my next Tavern's crew for getting 100% on a higher-ranking base. Encouragement, not punishment is the way to go here.

 

Your probably right about the collector suggestion I made on a prior post. I'm just blowing bubbles right now in an attempt to stimulate suggestions such as yours.

TiGeR