Aaaarrrrggggghhhhh!!!!
People who aren’t trying to exploit the loophole (or flaw if it makes you feel better) are not getting warned or banned.
So the answer is stop trying to exploit the loophole. You don’t need to! You can just play better!!!
What happens when they say “maximum 50 attacks” and then when you are trying to bust a wonder with your 120 cities and you can’t send all your offence because inno had to code it into the game to stop scroats being douchey! Well done you’ve ruined the game.
What happens when they change the game so you have to wait 72 hours after leaving an alliance before you can get full BP from an internal just to stop scroats being douchey. Well done you’ve ruined the game.
Why can’t individuals take responsibility for maintaining a pleasant, fair community for all to enjoy. The loopholes exist for a reason, legislating against them will also ruin other, non-douchey, legitimate aspects of the game.
The entire reason why I started this thread, and why I continue to find the current system to be an issue is because I feel the first thing you said isn't true. I'm saying that there ARE people playing fairly who are legitimately strategizing and are not looking for any 'loopholes' getting warned unfairly (I haven't heard of any unreasonable bans yet). This is my opinion on some cases I have heard of - perhaps you would disagree if you heard them yourself. That is part of the main issue here - like I say, the current solution is subjective and
that is a problem, as long as players disagree on what is/isn't fair play. This will lead to over-reporting as players will report anything that is marginally close to spam in the hope their opponents are penalized for playing in a manner they do not like.
With regards to hard coded solutions to the problem - please consider that there are methods other than naive limitations such as '100 attacks a day'. I suggest a few
here, but by no means are they all-encompassing solutions or complete - they are starting points to consider. I am not suggesting hard coded solutions that would seriously inhibit ordinary play, nor do I believe the devs would implement such.
My issue with this statement and a lot of the argumentation behind it, is that you are basing your observations on players who have received warnings/been banned for undergoing this behaviour. This means your data is skewed and tailored to rule breakers. I've said it many times, and I will say it again, no player will willingly admit to their peers of any wrongdoing upon being banned for whatever reason. They will extrapolate and highly inflate the handling of mods on their appeals, to make it sound like they have done nothing wrong.
As for the rest of the statements, I agree there is a lot of room for improvement, and I absolutely agree that there should be hard coded solutions to the issue of spam. What I do not agree, is that because of the lack of thoughtful game development that we should all flush our moral compasses down the pooper. I agree 100% that there should be improvements or added mechanics to mitigate the abuse (if to kill the App alarm, so be it), but I also believe on individual or even communal responsibility on the matter. These 2 aspects are NOT mutually exclusive.
Yes, the motivation behind me making this thread is my disagreement with how the current situation is being handled. From my limited perspective, I have seen more than a small number of cases which I consider to be unfairly handled. That IS my personal opinion on the cases, and it IS likely my 'data' is skewed. People bringing up this issue are likely ones who have received a warning, or know people who have. After all, there is no other way for other people to bring up the issue - there was
no announcement on the rule change,
no guideline publication, ...
nothing. Players who have a lower attacking rate than those in the active community would not know of these changes unless they have talked to others. So my aim in starting this thread is to bring the issue into the open and raise awareness on it.
That said, I don't believe this should have any bearing on the debate on how these rules could be improved/better implemented. I have my own motives behind starting this thread to raise the issue, but I try to step away from my anecdotal experience with the points I make. I did not do that in the post you quoted, I agree - perhaps I should have avoided that there, but without examples, there is nothing supporting the point on subjectivity other than speculation. I believe many proponents of the current system were victims of spam in the past, but that doesn't necessarily invalidate their opinions/arguments on this topic.
In the first place, I am not even arguing against tackling the issue of spam in general - I believe it to be a flaw in game design as well. The point of my thread however, is I find the current system of handling flawed (I personally believe we were better off before without it) and I am suggesting better solutions to handle the situation, or at least to improve the current solution.
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I still stand by my belief that the onus is on the game designers, not the players to tackle this issue, whether or not they actually do it. Players cannot be expected to ignore flaws in game design if they can use such flaws to improve their chances of winning. To me, bringing the issue of 'morality' into this is in itself 'wrong'. How can you talk about what is right and wrong in a game outside of its published rules? We are not talking about player harrassment via DMs here, we are talking about utilizing a game mechanic (attacking/cancelling). The rules do not mention limitations on them (the FAQ I linked somewhere even explicitly said there were none). If there is any morality to be had in a game, I would label players doing something other than trying to win to be playing it 'wrong'. If they are using a legitimate tactic that improves their chances in doing so, I can only say they are playing it 'right'.
As the original FAQ said, if you are finding the alarms too much for you, then switch them off at night, or don't use them at all. In the first place, Grepolis isn't a game everyone can commit to playing - not all are willing to stay up or wake at night to defend themselves when they have commitments outside of the game to tend to. To me, this looks like it is inherent in the game's design, but it is up to the designers to change it if they feel the need. I agree there are improvements that can be made to the app alarm, but there isn't much anyone can do about it unless they are implemented - we have to use it as it is, for now.