Smurf tag.

[Philip the Swaggerless]

48 minutes ago, Dizaka said:

Then there wouldn't be a problem.  I've played games multiple times where it starts off as a 4v1 and I get defeated but my team wins either way because I'm target #1.  Very frustrating for things like that to happen.  It also happens when playing vs other players.  You know Yekatrina, Letsweaveabook, etc are good players and should be targetted early on.  Same applies for PistolPete, Palaigos, PhillipTheSwaggerless, Rauls (esp Rauls), Ricsand, Borg (this one definitely) etc.

It's weird but game matches are prone griefing.  But the griefing isn't intentional.  Instead, it is just player strategy.  However, the player strategy is coming from knowledge gleaned outside of the game and especially in team games.

 

I think it would be a cool feature to have enemy civs not disclosed as an option so people need to scout it out.

But my friend but I gotta say if you're not Borg,  Feldfeld, or Valihrant it is delusional to think you need to smurf to avoid targeting. 

Since carth merc cav are known to be OP anyone who is playing as them should expect to be targeted for a rush. It is carth merc cav being targeted moreso than any player.  Some hosts even ban carth. 

 

[Yekaterina]

20 minutes ago, Philip the Swaggerless said:

But my friend but I gotta say if you're not Borg,  Feldfeld, or Valihrant it is delusional to think you need to smurf to avoid targeting. 

They are lucky to not get a quadruple rush. If a 4v1 rush comes then even if you are 4808 player you have 0 chance. Imagine 20 cavs running around your base since minute 3.

[Philip the Swaggerless]

5 hours ago, smiley said:

Its honestly extremely weird, for me at least, that people care so much about such useless little details. Why is your ego so tied to this game that you cannot seem to digest the fact when a seemingly new player turned out to be better than you thought. Its not a big deal. 

Seems like this is a non-problem being hyped up because certain people are too much offended when losing to a mysterious nickname.

I like how online chess operates, somehow they don't need you to stick to one account for the pool to remain fair for everybody else.

I lost to deathwing (whom I trust is a new player) this weekend, and while it is embarrassing to have played this game for years and lose to someone who just started , I am happy deathwing plays and hope he stays around.  So I will say you're assessment is generally inaccurate.

It's the frustration of trying to have good games and knowing that you didn't because someone deliberately and deceitfully threw off the balancing process. 

Like your chess contrast, if we had hundreds of players on 0ad at each skill level with a reliable rating system it wouldn't matter.  It would be easy to get fair, competitive games. The best way to get competitive games right now in our small community is... to not have experienced players pretend to be  beginners.

[Yekaterina]

btw today a player called Sarah T came on and met me. She complained that everywhere she goes, people harass her and interrogate her whether she is me. This is unacceptable; you don't harass innocent people for my problems. If you got a problem with me then take it to me; send a message on forum or ask me to a 1v1 duel. You can even publically shame me on the forum if necessary. However, harassing any of my innocent  friends is absolutely unacceptable! Nor does it solve your problem! Don't vent your obsession problems on innocent people just because you are too scared of me!

 

@user1 pls don't ban random innocent people just because someone claimed they are my smurf account. Smurf speculators are rarely right. 

 

Just because you saw a feminine account name, doesn't mean it's definitely my smurf account. It's very likely that they are just a new player, although not necessarily female. 

21 minutes ago, Philip the Swaggerless said:

deathwing (whom I trust is a new player)

defenderbenny

 

 

Edited January 31, 2022 by Yekaterina

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

Just because you saw a feminine account name, doesn't mean it's definitely my smurf account. It's very likely that they are just a new player, although not necessarily female. 

it's true. women in many places easily go unnoticed by avoiding using female names.

And it has to do with "Internet rules." 

the men assume that:

 

The rule 30. There are NO girls on the internet.

 

We always assume that women only enter social networks and popular things.

[Yekaterina]

11 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

true. women in many places easily go unnoticed by avoiding using female names.

And it has to do with "Internet rules." 

the men assume that:

 

The rule 30. There are NO girls on the internet.

 

We always assume that women only enter social networks and popular things.

Yes yes many men pretend to be female on the internet and you never know. I wouldn't be mad if you assumed I am a man. However, I would be very mad at you if you keep harassing my friends by asking them what my gender really is and ask for proofs that I am a girl. 

Well, no one will ever have any solid evidence of my gender because I have 3 principles when online:

1. No posting nudes

2. No face reveal

3. No ID card/ bank account/ passport information

 

Edited January 31, 2022 by Yekaterina

[Dizaka]

2 hours ago, Philip the Swaggerless said:

But my friend but I gotta say if you're not Borg,  Feldfeld, or Valihrant it is delusional to think you need to smurf to avoid targeting. 

Since carth merc cav are known to be OP anyone who is playing as them should expect to be targeted for a rush. It is carth merc cav being targeted moreso than any player.  Some hosts even ban carth. 

Correct.  Which is why civs should be hidden and require scouting.

[sarcoma]

8 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

defenderbenny

0ad king, aka wwbutcher

[LetswaveaBook]

19 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

I would imagine that in your early days in the lobby you were accused of smurfing a lot? In A24, while we waited for players to arrive, the hottest topic of discussion was which smurf is behind LetswaveaBook. The majority of players thought that you were stockfish. Even if they don't say it to your face, I have seen many such discussions back then. 

I did not consider people unwelcoming, except for the special one from Brussels. Also I clearly had some general mistakes that revealed that I am was not an experienced player. My story might not translate to other new people as they don't get the honor of being compared to Stockfish.

Also when people said I really was Stockfish, I just played along saying things like "Stockfish is so good, I can't be him". I just want to express that not everyone considers the environment unwelcoming for new players.

Fun fact: On Voobly for AoE2, real noobs get smashed really hard in the new player lobby. So before I joined online play, I prepared myself a little offline. I remember watching Stockfish play against Weirdjokes on Pyrenean sierra casted by tom0ad. Though I can't find the game anymore, so maybe I am wrong on the details. I think I remember the player names correct as they were weird and funny ones.

[Yekaterina]

@LetswaveaBook I am glad that you shared your experiences with the lobby. When I joined in A23, the lobby was very welcoming to me as well, even though I was very cosmic compared to most other players, but they still let me play in their TGs. 

The problem only took a turn in late A24- early A25 when the family smurfs appeared. Note: I was not one of them. Some family smurfs even offered me their password because they think my trolling skill is superior, but I declined because I didn't like their username choice xD

I did social experiments with trinitrophenol, Roshan9 and Reyhan where I tried to play like I did in A23 and climb up the ranks slowly. But no, when I play 1v1s, specs come in and call me cosmic when I make a mistake, then smurf if I do something well. When I join TGs I say very clearly that I might be underrated, they say ok, but in game, as soon as I rush or push they call me smurf. If I come to their support too slowly they ask to ban me for being cosmic. In that lucky case they were right, but what if Roshan and Reyhan were genuine new players? How would they feel?

 

The only reason why some players hate smurfs is because they can no longer cheat by predicting playstyles if they don't know who the dude behind the keyboard is. 

 

 

Edited January 31, 2022 by Yekaterina

[Dizaka]

3 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

The only reason why some players hate smurfs is because they can no longer cheat by predicting playstyles if they don't know who the dude behind the keyboard is. 

 

[Yekaterina]

45 minutes ago, LetswaveaBook said:

except for the special one from Brussels

Even though he is often rude, he is actually a lot more hospitable than some other people. If you play well with him, he will treat you like a friend, ignoring who you are. Such was the case with trinitrophenol and Reyhan. 

 

Furthermore, he keeps everything in the hosted and doesn't harass you or people you know afterwards. He also never asked me for personal information. Much appreciated. 

[Emperior]

2 minutes ago, Dizaka said:

 

If a person can predict your playstyle means your playing style is so boring that you keep being repetitive. Ain't that right?   Often players learn what's op in each alpha so they keep doing same thing over again and again. Smurfs aren't needed. If you wish to change your nickname there should be possibility like steam does have. Bascially "main account name " stays the same, while your "displayed name " can be changed every minute until you love your nickname or get bored with it, also worth mentioning is that steam allows people to check your last few nicknames.

 

Like previously said: people don't decide to rush 1 person because they hate him or he is so op that they need too get rid of him so badly. Usually, this happens to people who abuse units which are simply OP, especially unbeatable in huge amount. Like Dizaka, we had few days ago. Where me and other allies rushed you just because you focused on spamming the most op unit after iber champs. Which are carthagians mercenaries.  Why that happend like that? If person abuse that kind of unit meaning that the game will end sooner than expected, simply no fun to others. While often people (not saying you) become very "toxic" if we can call it like that, by calling other players that they are noobs that they lost 1 vs 3, 1 vs 4 etc... Abusing op unit is not good, but making an excuse for someone to create additional account for such reason as being "op" by spamming 1 type unit is boring.

 

Let's give you an example? Why not. Berhudar/felix, good rusher, good boomer. Why he doesn't get rushed every game for being good ? If I see him next to me, I don't bother even rushing as I might fail doing so, so after my team will be -1 player. Tactic depending on a player and his team, if they decide still doesn't help them as much, they slow down themselfs (few of them) just to take out 1. While after 10 min in the game, the guy who got rushed already p3 and even faster than those who rushed due being able to get support from own team, while other team who has decided to knock out 1 lost eco boom's. I don't think i need too explain everything part by part.
 

Regarding A23 and being more friendly. What has changed? Not trying to be rude to anyone but let's be honest. @elexis was doing great job by taking care of multi-accounts. He did amazing job, sometimes he over-reacted like with my account name Emp, which was mainly used for svn. It got banned due me logging on with that nickname and started to be observer in the game, or maybe I played 1 or two? Don't remember but I loved that nickname. No rating, etc.

(* Small explaintion why I dont like Emperior (1465). The reason was already given in one of the post's by another member here in the topic. The reason is: rating is worth nothing in current state of the game. Often people been seen in a23 where they have played against very new players to grab point's few by few, just to make up the numbers. Some might not agree with me, but I know even which players did that, not all but some. I won't be giving out their nicknames here.) Often such situations for new players make "bad rating due unexpected level of the player played against.". It is simply unfair to do such thing. The way which i have gained my rating is not by playing new players, it is by playing top players which was best experience in my time with 0ad. I have leared a lot, @borg- was one of them, I have played few against @Feldfeldas well. Probably, often I did unrated due knowning they will beat me up like they want without much hassle.. But once more that's me... I am not asking anyone to follow stupid ideas or decissions like that.

 

Often smurfs come not to play a real games but to troll or simply steal someone's hard work to get higher rating. There is no other explaintion for smurfs to be existing in such game like 0ad. I remember that in a23 often top players for that alpha prefered to have quality games, more balanced. Which did happened due host being picky when it comes to players as well, simply not allowing new players into the games is not because we don't like them, it's just for balancing purposes. How did new players get in? That's pretty funny at least for me. Sometimes or even often if there was no players other known players prefered to have 4vs4 but had no players, so often just too fill in the space they took new players. after that they simply was "recommended" by another known player and being given a trial in specific match or often new players where specting the pro's in that alpha and learned from replays from our games. 

 

I remember even a days when I hosted games in a23 which had 8 players and more than 20 observers! Epic. Felt a bit like streaming on twitch

 

Sorry for the long post and some errors in grammar. Still I didn't cover whatever I wanted.

[Acanthis]

I agree that the main problem is a smurf doing so to troll a game by pretending to be worse than they are. 

I'm one of those players who just plays for fun- I keep my rating at 1491 because of the significance of the year. And I don't feel like I'm reliably playing 1500+, so high 1400's seems fair. I don't like 1v1 rated as the incentive to choose an OP civ and spam one or two units is too high. Not my play style, generally speaking.

I almost always advocate for the host to let unknown players in if they were there first and if there is a second unknown player (or a known run of the mill type like myself) to balance them out.

I've been off for a couple of weeks, but before I had to take a break, I noticed that smurfing was becoming a lot more common. Observer chat was often revolving around who is really who speculations. How anyone knows I'm not sure, perhaps social media outside the game.

At any rate, it really starts to hurt people who advocate to let others "unknown" play (especially those who join before "known" players, first come first serve principle) when smurfs ruin games. People aren't given a chance as much as they should be.

To be quite honest, it wouldn't be as big of an issue if 0ad didn't crash so frequently. Whether it is DDOS or some other reason, it happens quite often that you will spend half an hour or more going through multiple false starts before finishing a game. The most frustrating ones have to be those that crash at 9 minutes or so, just when things start to heat up in a decent 4v4. 

If more games were seen through to completion people wouldn't be so frustrated. If you have to start multiple times and when you finally "get lucky" and it turns out someone has been lying about their skill level and wrecks the balance, well, that simply sucks.

[Stockfish]

Hi letswaveabook, then you're not me, and i am not you??

 

[Player of 0AD]

19 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

I remember watching Stockfish play against Weirdjokes on Pyrenean sierra casted by tom0ad.

Must have taken place in a parallel universe

[Dakara]

Hello,

don't feed the troll yekaterina

 

all hear him on discord, not a girl and no care about that

XD

[alre]

18 hours ago, Dizaka said:

The only reason why some players hate smurfs is because they can no longer cheat by predicting playstyles if they don't know who the dude behind the keyboard is. 

'cheating' is incorrect, clearly. if single civs weren't linked to higly predictable OP strats, other players could try to predict your play choices only based on your identity, other than on scouting intel, which is how all other RTS work.

most players don't actually bother to create second accounts and it's easy to imagine they dislike others doing it to hide their identity, with the goal of gaining an edge in competitive play. if someone spots a weakness in my play style, I try to correct that weakness, I don't disguise myself in order to hide it.

I'm not particularly against allowing players to change names, but hey, slow down with those bold claims.

[Yekaterina]

20 hours ago, Emperior said:

e who abuse units which are simply OP

I have vowed to not use Iberian fire cav until they have been fixed or unless if someone else is trolling and I need to punish them. 

20 hours ago, Emperior said:

. Berhudar/felix, good rusher, good boomer. Why he doesn't get rushed every game for being good ?

He does get rushed, but he also rushed other people, so the cavs often meet at the centre of the map instead of his base. Also he has just as many smurf accounts as me so you never know who is berhudar. 

20 hours ago, Emperior said:

There is no other explaintion for smurfs to be existing in such game like 0ad.

1 hour ago, alre said:

I'm not particularly against allowing players to change names

My biggest wish is to freely change nicks without becoming a smurf or unknown! I don't want to be called Yekaterina anymore because it is not my real name at all and I didn't even come up with it! Some dude told me to use that name about 1.5 years ago and I went a long with him, but now I regret it! 

Please, I am not Russian or Slav neither. 

2 hours ago, Dakara said:

Hello,

don't feed the troll yekaterina

 

all hear him on discord, not a girl and no care about that

XD

So do you like my masculine voice?  

 

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

On 30/01/2022 at 7:28 PM, Yekaterina said:

Yes yes many men pretend to be female on the internet and you never know. I wouldn't be mad if you assumed I am a man. However, I would be very mad at you if you keep harassing my friends by asking them what my gender really is and ask for proofs that I am a girl. 

Well, no one will ever have any solid evidence of my gender because I have 3 principles when online:

1. No posting nudes

2. No face reveal

3. No ID card/ bank account/ passport information

 

In the Argentine communities they are called Roberto.

I never knew why.

Sometimes it's part of the trolling.

------

(1 and 2 )

I don't understand the need to show the body on the internet. (Men and women).

For some reason the new generations think that showing nudity is normal.

I find it very bizarre how the internet creates certain behaviors.

for a cleavage photo it is already scandalous. I know there is art, but most of the photos I see on the internet are not art.

(3 ) it would be a poor security decision.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

On 30/1/2022 at 4:54 PM, Yekaterina said:

They are lucky to not get a quadruple rush. If a 4v1 rush comes then even if you are 4808 player you have 0 chance. Imagine 20 cavs running around your base since minute 3.

Why imagine when you can feel it multiple times lol

[sarcoma]

Image, voice, address, IP, etc. are personal data (i.e. you can be identified and pinpointed). We share more of that information than we should already. Things like GDPR give some protection but some people keeps taking pictures and video of strangers to post in social media.

A little off-topic, a classmate is a cam girl and some of her videos got 'leaked'. Now she tries to track them down and report them, not easy. Btw, a guy shared one of the videos, which is illegal, and was metoo'd by many of the coeds.

[Yekaterina]

There is a new player (very underrated) called Anka. They may / may not be a smurf. Either ways, I am not them, so don't suspect that I am creating new accounts then ban me. 

I heard some people claiming this Anka is me so I just needed to clarify. Thank you for your cooperation. 

[LetswaveaBook]

2 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

so don't suspect that I am creating new accounts then ban me. 

To everyone who still has a good reputation: Ruining your own reputation is not appreciated.

I honestly feel for Yekaterina, she might have made a number of second accounts. Though I don't believe she used them to troll others, evade bans or do other bad stuff.

Edited February 4, 2022 by LetswaveaBook

[Yekaterina]

55 minutes ago, LetswaveaBook said:

Though I don't believe she used them to troll others, evade bans or do other bad stuff.

I made 5 attempts to become new person in the 0ad lobby but some smurf speculators are obsessed with finding out my past (which has nothing to do with them)! 

The longest identity lasted for 2 weeks until someone interrogated me and a bunch of 'new' friends for evidence of who I am.