Hello again! *** # **Secret Fight Club Updates** The team has been reviewing complaints about SFC in regards to players who "leapfrog" using lower level (less powerful) decks. While this in itself is not an exploit, we do believe it negatively affects the game and decreases the strategy and fun that surrounds top tier battles. In an upcoming update we will be making some changes to the backend of SFC in relation to matchmaking. We're working on a system to identify leapfrogging decks and removing them as viable opponents. The team will is monitoring SFC activity and we appreciate all the feedback we have received in regards to this issue - we will continue to review them as these updates roll out. These changes should be going out within the next few days and as always we will post a changelog when that happens. *** - ShinyMetalMod

Thank you Shiny. It is appreciated :) And a reset should follow soon behind. Bring that lot back down to earth. Make them earn it back the old fashioned way.

Key phrase in this entire post: "While this in itself is not an exploit" Now all the folks screaming about cheating, cheaters, ethics, etc. can shut the hell up. :)

While not necessarily an exploit *itself*, it *is* exploiting the system. Does it make people who use this "technique" cheaters? Probably not, at least not for this reason, but you can't defend it on an *ethical* level. Even though I'm not nearly to the point where this affects me, I am glad that this complaint has been taken seriously, and look forward to a sensible and logical fix.

I hear that data mining is going to be stopped because of this. I hope that the data for cards and combos will still remain unhidden for community sites as this is a helpful tool for deck building.

> *Originally posted by **[Deders2](/forums/727066/topics/795550?page=1#11326076)**:* > I hear that data mining is going to be stopped because of this. I hope that the data for cards and combos will still remain unhidden for community sites as this is a helpful tool for deck building. I heard they're shipping everyone outside the Top 25 free ponies to make up for it. I'm sure MStidman and cartoon-battle will be just fine. He seems to have a good relationship with them.

There IS a strong argument for punishing those who colluded to undermine the SFC scoring system. However it is basically impossible to prove exactly who colluded and to what extent. A temp ban would be a fair response -- that will never happen. These were the games biggest whales colluding to screw the rest of us over. Banning them would be risk loosing some of the games biggest supporters. Selecting the players who led and were involved in this movement would be nearly impossible. Resetting SFC scores would help re-level the battlefield -- This will eliminate the benefit those who colluded have already reaped. Not an effective punishment. Will result in general chaos in SFC until scores settle about a week later. Instituting a new opponent selection algorithim -- Key to ending current enviornmental factors which encourage Leapfrogging (and *perhaps* sandbagging?) Shiny's post seems to infer that the opponent selection algorithim will be modified to detect leapfrog decks and preclude them from selection.

The giggity watt farming was an exploit. Being able to farm the same card multiple times? That's cheating. Leapfrogging is just playing the system. But it's sad that as long as the whales were doing it; everything was a-ok. Now that the community decided as a whole to do it as well, it's a huge issue that caused Kong to have to, 'monitor our activity'. I'm sorry but this company is ran by some **** leapfrogging our wallets. Another slap in the face after making epics obsolete. Wonder what this "new-content" will bring.

Why not simply applying one of the many good suggestions of the community? No, no Kong the master coder themselves will create an algorithm which effectively identify leapfrogging attempts. The same coder who cannot fix simple audio bugs in one year or rather since the game is out.

To everyone saying leap frogging is legit...are you out of your mind?!? Or do you enjoy the fact that you are climbing easily without any challenge?Anyway this needs to stops I hope it will be fixed soon.

> *Originally posted by **[AWaagemans](/forums/727066/topics/795550?page=1#11326185)**:* > To everyone saying leap frogging is legit...are you out of your mind?!? Or do you enjoy the fact that you are climbing easily without any challenge? I enjoy the extra watts the extra nixons provide... or would had I been smart enough to think of it in the first place.

What a lot of people are overlooking, is the effect this has on brawl challenge scores. I'm 1600-1700 SFC and gain around 500 brawl points per win. How many points does someone with SFC score of 9k or 10k get?? I'm guessing 2000+. Kong needs to fix this 3 weeks ago. And it's sad that the offenders are the whales. Even sadder that Kong will not discipline the offenders. This is clearly an exploit, calling it "unethical" is just stupid on Kong's part.

> *Originally posted by **[Deders2](/forums/727066/topics/795550?page=1#11326076)**:* > I hear that data mining is going to be stopped because of this. I hope that the data for cards and combos will still remain unhidden for community sites as this is a helpful tool for deck building. the card stuff is all meta data not even from the API; doubtful it would ever be obscured

What about hiding players' names? Are you discussing that, too?

> *Originally posted by **[sikTh78](/forums/727066/topics/795550?page=1#11326284)**:* > This is clearly an exploit, calling it "unethical" is just stupid on Kong's part. Kong didn't call it unethical. And they explicitly said it's not an exploit.

Changing the decks chosen to battle is not a fix..... One can easily put together a mildly useful deck that could easily look passable but still be easily able to win. I predict a band-aide type fix that will truly fix nothing.

Then what is going to happen to those all player that has been leapfrogging and gained a really high points in sfc? U need to also reset the sfc ranking as part of the fix for this leapfrogging problem.

> _Originally posted by **[Mreed911](/forums/726779/topics/795550?page=1#11326260):**_ > > *Originally posted by **[AWaagemans](/forums/727066/topics/795550?page=1#11326185)**:* > > To everyone saying leap frogging is legit...are you out of your mind?!? Or do you enjoy the fact that you are climbing easily without any challenge? > > I enjoy the extra watts the extra nixons provide... or would had I been smart enough to think of it in the first place. I assume you used this technique to get as high as possible... hope you get a big fat ban and when you will be able to open the game, I hope you will be -1000000 nixons and GW. Have a nice day :)

> *Originally posted by **[Mreed911](/forums/727066/topics/795550?page=1#11326371)**:* > > *Originally posted by **[sikTh78](/forums/727066/topics/795550?page=1#11326284)**:* > > This is clearly an exploit, calling it "unethical" is just stupid on Kong's part. > > Kong didn't call it unethical. And they explicitly said it's not an exploit. LOL, he promoted me to Kong rep. Thanks sikTh78! It would be dumb for Kong to come out and say that leapfrogging is unethical. Nobody cares about that, particularly those with weak morals! As one of the aggreived parties though, I'm fully entitled to share my opinion. Leapfrogging is... --Unethical. --Unfair. --**Exploitative** of the obviously flawed SFC scoring system. --**Abusive** to all players not colluding. Leapfroggers have... --Stolen significant benefits which should have gone to deserving players who played the game as intended. *hopefully we can all agree that leapfrogging isn't playing the game it was intended to be played * --been aware of the unfair nature of leapfrogging from day 1. I don't think it's POSSIBLE to ban leapfroggers, and I'm not sure that is an appropriate response. As Mreed and others have pointed out, it isn't technically against the rules of the game. *That needs to be remedied.* Shiny seemed to imply that there will be no punishments for leapfroggers at this time. Undermining the scoring system(s) is a **serious infraction** in any tournament setting. Letting players think that there will be no consequences for their behavior will only encourage people to find new and exciting ways to undermine the games systems. Hopefully there will be an official announcement banning (or at LEAST discouraging) players from colluding to influence SFC ranking. At least under those auspices, leapfrogging would technicaly be a violation of the rules.

> *Originally posted by **[AWaagemans](/forums/727066/topics/795550?page=1#11326445)**:* > I assume you used this technique to get as high as possible... hope you get a big fat ban and when you will be able to open the game, I hope you will be -1000000 nixons and GW. Have a nice day :) You assume wrong (and can't read) - I wasn't smart enough to figure it out early enough to get in on this one. I'm stuck around 1700-1800. > *Originally posted by **[theinternetisbig](/forums/727066/topics/795550?page=1#11326576)**:* > Hopefully there will be an official announcement banning (or at LEAST discouraging) players from colluding to influence SFC ranking. At least under those auspices, leapfrogging would technicaly be a violation of the rules. They'd better hurry. The consensus among players on LINE is that everyone is putting in a "weak" deck and the Leela hero to help everyone get ahead at every level. So, if you see Leela, chances are that's an easy deck to beat. Thank whoever posted the deck up for the win streak, nixons, etc.

Edit to add: This is bleeding over into non-refillable challenges, too, since they use real player decks. Folks are starting to notice the "Leela Revolution" at higher levels, reporting seeing common and rare decks between 50 and 70 in the challenge(s) - with Leela as the hero.

> Leapfrogging is... > --Unethical. > --Unfair. > --**Exploitative** of the obviously flawed SFC scoring system. > --**Abusive** to all players not colluding. > > Leapfroggers have... > --Stolen significant benefits which should have gone to deserving players who played the game as intended. > *hopefully we can all agree that leapfrogging isn't playing the game it was intended to be played * > --been aware of the unfair nature of leapfrogging from day 1. > > I don't think it's POSSIBLE to ban leapfroggers, and I'm not sure that is an appropriate response. As Mreed and others have pointed out, it isn't technically against the rules of the game. *That needs to be remedied.* Shiny seemed to imply that there will be no punishments for leapfroggers at this time. Undermining the scoring system(s) is a **serious infraction** in any tournament setting. Letting players think that there will be no consequences for their behavior will only encourage people to find new and exciting ways to undermine the games systems. > > Hopefully there will be an official announcement banning (or at LEAST discouraging) players from colluding to influence SFC ranking. At least under those auspices, leapfrogging would technicaly be a violation of the rules. > > Well said. You appropriately identified leapfrogging as collusion. Which also is a more precise word for sandbagging. When you conspire with a teammate or opponent to skew the results of a match to achieve a desired outcome you are colluding. Although the practice is illegal in most respected sports or gaming events here, it is apparently tolerated as it was never officially described as illegal in the TOS. Unfortunately, the teams and players who “use“ these tactics are often P2W players. This places Kong in an awkward position of not wanting to scold a portion of the paid player base, for doing something that is at the very least poor sportsmanship, but not against their TOS. What is happening in SFC now is a complete collapse of the system due to Kong’s inability to swiftly and decisively act against a practice the vast majority of the community recognizes as unfair. The decks being switched throughout SFC are not in support of the practice but rather in protest of Kong’s failure to act. We saw how swift Kong delivered justice when their revenue stream was being compromised with the giggitywatt exploit. In this case, Kong is slowly applying ineffective bandaids to try to placate the spenders while offending no one. This is not the solution. Leadership is needed here, and it is sorely lacking from Kong. Numerous solutions have been suggested in forums and chat that would effectively end the problem in SFC. I won’t rehash them except to say, any solution must also be paired with a reset of SFC scores. This is the only way to reestablish the SFC.

> *Originally posted by **[Deders2](/forums/727066/topics/795550?page=1#11326076)**:* > I hear that data mining is going to be stopped because of this. I hope that the data for cards and combos will still remain unhidden for community sites as this is a helpful tool for deck building. Where did you hear this? I see no relation. > cartoon-battle will be just fine. He seems to have a good relationship with them I have no special treatment regarding the site. I made numerous attempts to gain some insider information on some of the game mechanics, but I have been denied them every time so far. All the site uses to work is my personal know-how, community knowledge or other public information (the „data mining” files, fan kit, etc).

The only problem with resetting the scores is the matchmaking horror that will ensue. Very few newcomers to SFC would be able to compete with most of the decks from the previous top 100, plus those people would still have an easy ride back up to >2000 crowns.

That is true...a reset would be nasty for a couple weeks...They also need to tweak the matchmaking to include deck strength...The Devs do have their work cut out for them, and Shiny said its a more complex bit of code that will require more time to work out. In the meantime, keep the ranking system closer (not +/- 400) so we play decks closer to our range and not lose 2 1/2 times as many as we gain (or 5x for those at higher crown ranks).