Stopping Spectator Cheating

[Writr]

So a problem that had begun in the very start of the servers and one I am still seeing today is spectators helping out tributes on Skype/other messaging systems. The way it works is that two players team up, then after one player dies, the dead player goes to the remaining players and tells his friend where they are - his friend then hunts them down and kills them because he knows where they're hiding. In some cases this happens with donors, who will leave just before a round starts after teaming with someone then rejoins and helps his teammate once he is back in. It is despicable and rather frustrating if you are not resorting to such a tactic, and should be stopped to give a fair advantage to everyone. I have proposed several options to help end this.

1. When a tribute dies, they are returned to the waiting room. If some sort of parkour/maze/puzzles were set up there, the players would not get bored and therefore would still be willing to remain on the server, but would be unable to cheat and assist other tributes. When the game goes to the deathmatch, all the players could be transported back to the cornucopia and watch the battle as spectators again. I am not entirely sure how difficult this would be since I think the Waiting Room is in a different map from the arenas, but in my opinion this is the best option.

2. Spectators are forced to remain in some sort of platform high above the arena. Puzzles, parkour, etc. could be placed up here, but for the most part it would simply be a way of keeping all the players together without resorting to kicking them after death or anything. This might mean that people leave because they get bored (though people ALREADY leave because they either become bored or frustrated), but it would keep players from cheating. At the Death Match, of course, players would be able to fly around invisibly just like normal.

3. Instead of seeing as a separate player and flying around, dead tributes could still spectate the living ones...but only from their first-person view (seeing from their eyes, basically). This would probably be difficult to code (possibly impossible, since I don't know Java nor how Minecraft really works), but it would at least make things slightly more interesting. Again, once it becomes Deathmatch things could be set to how it is normally, with spectators invisibly flying around and watching it.

TL;DR: People are using messaging programs to help other players after they die, and changing what happens to dead tributes could help change that and make the games more fair to other players.

 

[jefeperro]

I kind of like the ability to tell other people where players are hiding/camping... it makes the games go quicker.
As for reducing players cheating that have died here is a list of common ways to "cheat" while dead.
1)You can block/deflect arrows if you are dead and get in between a player shooting another player.
If a player is stuck in a hole and you try to shoot them from the top they will be impossible to kill without jumpin in after them.
2) dead players can pull mobs by looking at them and bringing them to living players
3) I'm pretty sure dead players can nudge living players while they are jumping and or on vines. This really only applies if a player is jumping from vine to vine or trying to sprint jump to the enchantment table on the on the old map

 

[Haydenw37]

i use Skype to talk with my friend as we play because stopping to chat makes you vulnerable and lets players know you are close and they know what you're doing. So yeah, when one of us dies they fly around and keep an eye out for payers heading our way, we don't go looking for other players to kill we try to stay out of peoples way mainly. At most we might fly ahead and check hostile areas like the boat in map 1 or the library in map 2 and the corn for both, if we see someone there we tell the other and go find somewhere else to get chests...
there is no way to stop it from happening and i think it is good because it seperates the Survival Games from the Hunger Games, because the Hunger Games you are by yourself with absolutely no way of getting help unless by trusting other tributes. Here we can play with frineds and scout out areas to protect each other.
also, by removing players from the arena, you're just causing more chunks to be loaded and many people complain already about the lag experienced on the servers. Why add more?

 

[Writr]

I kind of like the ability to tell other people where players are hiding/camping... it makes the games go quicker.
As for reducing players cheating that have died here is a list of common ways to "cheat" while dead.
1)You can block/deflect arrows if you are dead and get in between a player shooting another player.
If a player is stuck in a hole and you try to shoot them from the top they will be impossible to kill without jumpin in after them.
2) dead players can pull mobs by looking at them and bringing them to living players
3) I'm pretty sure dead players can nudge living players while they are jumping and or on vines. This really only applies if a player is jumping from vine to vine or trying to sprint jump to the enchantment table on the on the old map

Again, this is part of the reason why I feel things should be changed. Last I heard I thought they had fixed the blocking-arrows problem (though people are still complaining about it so I guess not) and spectators cannot push tributes, but the point still stands.

i use Skype to talk with my friend as we play because stopping to chat makes you vulnerable and lets players know you are close and they know what you're doing. So yeah, when one of us dies they fly around and keep an eye out for payers heading our way, we don't go looking for other players to kill we try to stay out of peoples way mainly. At most we might fly ahead and check hostile areas like the boat in map 1 or the library in map 2 and the corn for both, if we see someone there we tell the other and go find somewhere else to get chests...
there is no way to stop it from happening and i think it is good because it seperates the Survival Games from the Hunger Games, because the Hunger Games you are by yourself with absolutely no way of getting help unless by trusting other tributes. Here we can play with frineds and scout out areas to protect each other.
also, by removing players from the arena, you're just causing more chunks to be loaded and many people complain already about the lag experienced on the servers. Why add more?

There are plenty of ways to go about this without creating lag - for example, the platform above the arena. In that case, the same chunks are already loaded, the dead players can't cheat or otherwise interfere with the game, and the game runs smoothly. Regardless of what you personally do, the problem is that other players are using it heavily. I have been witness to several games where a player makes a beeline straight for other players who are out of sight, killing them, knocking them from their hiding places, and otherwise doing things he/she never would have been able to do without another player helping them or having hacks.

I'm not trying to make this more like the Hunger Games or anything...I'm just trying to suggest options to make the game more fair for everyone.

 

[NeatNit]

The ways you suggested for stopping this are too 'expensive' in terms of giving up features. I don't think it's worth giving up the ability to spectate, and there is no solution that solves both problems.

(There is no way to have first-person spectating without having the players install custom mods that the survival games team will have to code. There are so many downsides here that I won't even list them.)

 

[Writr]

What do you mean too 'expensive?' Honestly, of these ideas the easiest to implement and least annoying would be the platform in the sky. Dead tributes could still find something to do (perhaps a little parkour thing or redstone puzzles or something) and the living tributes could play the game without interference from the spectators. It's simple, not too difficult to code (all you need to do is have it that they are teleported to the platform), and prevents spectators from cheating. Simple as that.

I kinda thought the first-person perspective was a bit of a stretch/nearly impossible.

 

[heningen]

Do you want the game to last for 2 bloody months? lets be honest here. People camp okay?
So it will take ages before the game starts and thats sad. More people will be pissed about not being able to tell people where the campers are camping than people like you that hates this.

 

[NeatNit]

What do you mean too 'expensive?' Honestly, of these ideas the easiest to implement and least annoying would be the platform in the sky. Dead tributes could still find something to do (perhaps a little parkour thing or redstone puzzles or something) and the living tributes could play the game without interference from the spectators. It's simple, not too difficult to code (all you need to do is have it that they are teleported to the platform), and prevents spectators from cheating. Simple as that.

I kinda thought the first-person perspective was a bit of a stretch/nearly impossible.

I explained what I meant by 'expensive'. To solve this problem they'd have to take away the ability to spectate, which is too important to give up. Even if it was something fun like a deathmatch arena, having to give up on spectating is too much of a price to pay.

It's a tradeoff: spectating and people can cheat, or no spectating at all. Spectating always wins.