Cheating
Eaeme
REGISTERED
:?: Player "3bc" consistently gets scores that are to me obviously physically impossible (93 moves in 15 seconds in Seahaven Towers). A few others do too. What is the scheme they use to cheat your measuring system?
Comments
The techniques for obtaining fast performance times are simple. 1) Play the game to find a good solution. 2) Replay to find better moves, particularly with respect to the mouse movement. This means that "emptying a whole column" by clicking on the top card is faster than a more ergonomic play using several clicks on different cards. 3) Practise the winning sequence. (I developed a shorthand to write the sequence down so I could memorise it). 4) Log out and log in again to post the winning time. 5) You need a very fast internet connection.
There was a discussion on the forum, February 2012, "Winners for game #1994354560" when I wrote:
Games are instructive and constructive (and sometimes addictive) appealing to deep values within the player. There are key distinctions between individual and collective games, which rely on important (hidden) differences between Self-realisation Needs (realisation of one’s potential) and Esteem Needs (esteem of others).
Solitaire is an individual game, played by oneself, against oneself. The attraction of Solitaire has many factors: intellectual (the manipulation of complex patterns and sequences), emotional (the vertigo adrenaline of working against the clock), child values (pleasure, satisfaction at wining), coping with chance (random card deals), deep concentration (absorption in the game), etc.
Adding a LeaderBoard and HighScores (not found on other sites) transforms Solitaire from an individual game towards a collective game. One is no longer playing against oneself but against a collective status, comparing one’s performance to other players. Thus one becomes dependent on the esteem of others.
1) A table for performance figures (score, time, accuracy and other parameters) of an individual single player enhances the feedback and value in Solitaire. It allows the person to improve the game (technique, moves) and enhances the self-realisation.
2) The LeaderBoard and HighScore tables incite players to submit their fastest time performances, in comparison with other players. This encourages them to “manipulate” the system (e.g. with 2 user names or practising without logging on, then closing the site and logging back on to post the best time).
3) The philosophy of “public disclosure of minimum time performance” further encourages such “manipulation practices.”
Jim and David haven't yet devised a method of eliminating manipulation practices. Though they have the BEST SOLITAIRE SITE on the internet.
Having said all that, one must admire 3bc as someone who is capable of playing many of the solitaire games well. In my humble opinion, the most successful player is the allrounder with the WIDEST EXPERIENCE who can tackle any game, even the hard ones such as Forty Thieves and Spider.
To usurp an old expression "Play fast, win hard and die young." And above all have fun, Kingfisher
(sorry for my English, i'm from France)
Bye Bye and good luck to every body ;-)
Now when I start a "new" game I sometimes realize I have played it before : should I write the nb of each game I play to avoid that ?
The person could have created a bot that would run through games for them. That would be cheating. Not saying that is what happens, but it is possible.
You are correct, but we explicitly decided that we wanted undo more than we cared about cheating! We intend to make the situation a bit better by at least taking undo into account when computing the number of moves for a given game. Specifically, we only show the net number of moves now, but we intend to start showing the gross number.
-Jim
THE DRIBBLER
I must agree. You might enjoy this previous thread in reference to a takeover entire leader board for a week by the same a year and a half ago.
Yes, my plan is to implement that. It may not be the default, but it'll be an option.
-Jim
This 3bc guy really annoys me. I don't care if I'm not the fastest (I rarely am for long even if I'm one of the first to play a particular hand). But not only is that person obviously repeating many times to 'learn' how to play the winning moves as fast as possible, they are 'cheating' since they must either have multiple accounts or play as a guest - until they've got it worked out.
The new feature where you can compare just players first completed games has no impact on 3bc - since they must wait until they know they can do it perfectly and then log in as 3bc to play it just once. That really just makes a mockery of any best score tables.
I feel rewarded when I get a really low score, which for me is under 3 minutes. I say, geeze my nimble little fingers and my noggen were really working togeather on that one. I know some games are much easier, but still I feel pretty good achieving sub 3 minutes, a few sub 4 minutes is a pretty good accomplishment as well.
PS. I almost never replay a game.
celticknot AKA monkeynotail
Those that believe you can not cheat against yourself, need to rethink life.
Cheating at Klondike
Klondike felt. No anonymous. It's easy to win under 3 mins. I said 38 seconds. I win in 1 min 20 sec. But under 1 minute,
38/40 seconds???? No way..
Look. I play because it's fun and mindless. I really do not have to think that much to play. Just passing the time. Maybe
cheating is not the right word. It's the only one that came to mind.
I think the best thing to do is NOT POST THE MOVES AND TIMES THAT THE GAMES WERE COMPLETED. What is the purpose of posting any info. Just try tocomplete the games and enjoy. Quacki
If the high score table is making you unhappy, by all means ignore it—sometimes the zen attitude is the healthy attitude.
Personally, I like seeing my score, but I don't mind at all getting 50th or 80th place on a 3 or 4 minute Freecell game. I'm usually pretty happy if I manage to break the top 10.
Just for comparison, for the Freecell Game of the Day from 2 days ago had these statistics:
-David
ps. Should I be saying "nonymous" instead of "non-anonymous"? :-)
Times are irrelevant, these are solitary games to pass the time. Number of moves is key
I know. Just saying. It was just a question, Certainly not a life altering situation. I play because sometimes I like to pass the time with mindless stuff once in a while. Especially when I've been working a lot or stressed about something. That is all. End of discussion for me. Oh BTW, just got high score at Klondike Felt.
Whoopie!!!!! 1 min 20 sec. lol.
David, those stats are quite interesting! The averages seem very well defined, assuming distinct nonymous and anonymous users (which we know is not the case from Kingfisher above, but looks to be a good approximation).
You can play Solitaire by yourself. Not a group thing. Just you. No scores. Just play and that is it.
http://www.solitairebliss.com
Aww, I'd hate to see you guys start playing those crummy flash solitaire games. One of the reasons we made Green Felt in the first place was there were no online ones that had pretty cards, undo/redo, and felt nice.
Would you perhaps like us to add a "zen mode" that just never shows you a high score table?
-David
I don't see any comments on th negative time solutions that I've seen in Seahaven. I could even tell you who gets these implausible scores but why bother?
To get a negative score all your own can be achieved by working through a game until you know that the next move or two will finish it off. Stop there. Now open up your time on the toolbar and reset it as much as you wish to an earlier time, apply and close. Then go back to Greenfelt and finish the game. Of course you may want to correct your actual time afterwards.
This seems to work for me but it isn't half as fascinating as playing the game seriously.
Yay! Green Felt forever! As is!
@Geofc5, I don't see any of your games having the negative elapsed time. Are you sure you are able to do that by setting the clock? We use timers that aren't affected by wall time specifically so that isn't an option.
David - I admit that it's a while since I looked into this. How recent are your non-clock timers? No apparently I never followed through to the extent of recording a piece of nonsense against my name. Oops!!!
David, don't get me wrong. I have no intentions to stop using Green Felt. I like the look and enjoy playing. Although the ridiculous low scores sometimes gets me.How can anyone possibly finish the entire (52) Klondike in 38 seconds? Yes,yes, yes...should it bother me, absolutely not. But sometimes it does.The only reason I posted Bliss was because some one asked if there was a way to play by themselves and not deal with the so called "cheaters". So I posted they could play Solitaire Bliss. I actually go back and forth between Green Felt and Bliss. It's all good.
David hinted at a « zen mode » without a high score table (August 1). Perhaps some thought might be devoted to the LEADERBOARD, its presentation, its location, and its psychological impact. In addition, perhaps a second table might be added on the front page for individual performance, a « My Top Scores Today » table.
1. STATISTICS
David's statistics (reworked by Jim) for Freecell are really interesting :
1.1. Almost 10,000 PEOPLE play Freecell on the site daily. Freecell is the MOST POPULAR game on Green Felt.
1.2. There are 8 TIMES MORE ANONYMOUS players (i.e. they do NOT LOG ON with a user name) than logged-in players (with user name).
1.3. Each person plays Freecell on average 3 times (3,3 times) before finding a winning solution.
1.4. The AVERAGE WINNING TIME is over 5m. Typically the FASTEST times, shown on the LeaderBoard, are under 1m, sometimes well under 30s.
1.5. The AVERAGE WINNING MOVES is 108 (no difference between anonymous and logged-in players). The BEST scores, on the LeaderBoard, complete the game in 85 to 90 moves.
IN CONCLUSION : GREEN FELT is VASTLY POPULAR (Freecell alone has 10,000 people daily). Most play FOR PURE ENJOYMENT, they are NOT COMPETING to get themselves onto the LEADERBOARD since 90% are not logged on. They have a FUN TIME for 15 minutes or so producing a winning game. WONDERFUL !
2. CHEATING
To add to Geofc5 (August 3). In March this year (2015), a war broke out on the SHT and Freecell leaderboard with players posting winning times of 3 to 5 seconds, and sometimes 0 seconds, for 90 moves. Clearly impossible. These players were « cheating », manipulating the system to produce such fast and ridiculous times.
2.1. As Geofc5 and other respondents have pointed out, a number of cheating techniques can be used to slow down/stop the game, and falsify the time.
2.2. It is possible to produce faster times legitimately (?) by REPLAYING the game. I have done that in the past, replaying a Freecell or SHT game 20 times to produce winning times of 10 to 15s for 90 moves. I posted a poem on April Fool's Day 2012 on SHT using fast winning times (http://blog.greenfelt.net/2012/04/02/april-fools-pranks). In an exchange with Jim and David, they felt they did not want Green Felt to become a twitcher's, high-speed-mouse, hand-dexterity sort-of game.
2.3. By looking at log-in and log-out times, one can determine the total time a player spends playing. Some players spend 2-3 hours every day playing ; 10 to 20 minutes to replay each game, with a winning leaderboard time of 20 seconds (which should really be recorded as 20 minutes, since this is the actual time to arrive at the final solution).
IN CONCLUSION : It is possible to « CHEAT » to produce fast times. NUMBER OF MOVES is harder to falsify and a BETTER JUDGE of a good player. Also VERSATILITY, able to play all games (hard ones like Spider), is a mark of a good player.
Kingfisher
3. LEADERBOARD
The leaderboard is USEFUL to see which games are easy, difficult, or impossible to find solutions. And to keep a personal tally for a player of which games have been played each day.
3.1. The LEADERBOARD emphasizes TIME SCORES (fast = better), and EASY GAMES (weighting factor is identical for all the games) rather than rewarding the intellectual challenge of difficult/hard-to-solve games.
3.2. The LEADERBOARD is positioned on the top line of the OPENING PAGE of GREEN FELT, giving it a high prominence. Its name implies FAME.
3.3. The Leaderboard hints of a « CLUB nature », belonging to a group of players (which I like). But the SAME OLD NAMES appear EVERYDAY at the top of the LEADERBOARD. It's boring (and discouraging), as though the site were designed only for these 10 players instead of the 10'000 majority who are not on the leaderboard.
3.4. On completion of any game, a HIGH SCORES TABLE appears which compares the individual player's result with the top 10 listed players, emphasizing fast speed, competition (and disappointment ?).
3.5. Some people, writing on this Forum, are baffled by the recorded fast times and/or do not want to be compared or feel inferior to the best scores.
IN CONCLUSION : As I explained in the psychology of game playing (see thread above), people play for rewards of SELF-REALISATION NEEDS (playing for themselves) or for ESTEEM OF OTHERS (looking for approval from other players). The LEADERBOARD encourages comparison, competition (maybe produces feelings of inferiority ?), and the need to vaunt oneself (even by cheating) to get into the top 10 listed players.
4. A SUGGESTION FOR LEADERBOARD
A suggestion is to leave the Leaderboard as it is but to reduce its significance, make it less prominent, place it in a back position, 3 clicks away from the front page. Choose a less agressive name, e.g. Comparison of Scores ? This way players, who obtain their adrenaline kick appearing in the top10, can still get their high, but the 10'000 majority do not have to give them accolades.
Separately, another table might be introduced on the front page for individual performance called « My Top Scores Today », a summary of my scores, grouped together, without reference to the winners, to replace the High Scores Table at the end of each game. This would encourage brand loyalty as, by logging in with a user name, one would have a record of one's own games played.
And, while we are about it, why not add a third table called « Players who you are dying to meet today» ? A selected random list of the charming people in the 581 to 591 ranked position, you'd love to know, with their profile and their « Great card moments of my life ».
IN CONCLUSION : GREEN FELT is by far the BEST SITE on the internet for SOLITAIRE, sparkling presentation (colors, cards), brilliant tools (undo/redo, automatic finish), super features and exceptional hosts (David and Jim). Solitaire is not about competing with others but about meeting the challenge within. As Pogo said « The enemy is us ».
I reckon you have a wonderful idea there, Kingfisher - a way to interact with other players. And no, I do not mean one of those awful chat-room thingies, just a way to send a (short) message. I know I look for certain names when I play - those names who have been playing Freecell as long as I have (maybe longer) and play nicely. If I dont see one of the names for some time, I would love to send a message saying 'are you okay?'
Who cares if they are "cheating" or whatever it is classified as, this "cheating" is only occuring because if they did it any other way , they would fail horribly. All that matters is how you do it.
So yeah, blah blah blah, ignore the cheaters, blahblahblah, do your best, you know this stuff.
BTW 1 ...have you noticed that those top 3 or 4 who are atthe top, also appear very often, listed on gaes not finished after 4-5 moves ? .. they seem to quit when they realize they won't make it under 40 secs.
BTW 2 ... I have 1 game in 20 seconds, 2-3 between 24-29, tens in between 30 to 35, 50% under the 60 seconds, the rest is when i find them tough to complete, I take the time to finish them, That's when you see those who have quit after 3-5 seconds.
Wow. Now i only want to play anonymously.
I am not even sure what to say about this thread. I still have trouble comprehending why a solitaire score is so important in the grand scheme of things. Yes...I like to win my game but I am more concerned about finding all the moves compared to other scores. Games of the Day...if I am in the top 10% I am thrilled...in the top 25% I am fairly happy. At almost 66 y/o it assures me that I haven't completely lost all my brain power! I do wish the leader board indicated total number of players.
Wow...this thread came out of a time warp from 3 years ago. @Nan01 ...I agree with you but @lasso...you should play any way you want and ignore these comments. Just goes to show... these topics have been around awhile.
Good to see a comment from Hall of Famer @kingfisher on this thread. Wish we heard more from him.
I LOVE YOUR SITE!
I'm also a Grammie over seventy...
Playing is fun as well as a way to assuage any anxiety. Three games and I'm cool and relaxed!
I have an average time of six plus minutes and am shocked to find myself often in the top 5 - 10. I am NOT competing...
I am also shocked at how much complaining players make as well as ignore all the clear directions that are given in your games.
Thank you for all the hard work you guys do to fix any "bugs", as well as want to make improvements!!!
The forum is a terrific idea as well.
Players, lighten up and have fun!!! These are GAMES!!!
spidermum, you and I see the word 'game' and we think of something relaxing and fun.
Many people see the word 'game' and think of football, soccer, olympics, competition chess, etc. They don't play to relax, they play to win.
I wish everyone would find a way to just get along. Competitors can compete, we can play.
Enjoy the games.
I agree entirely.Criticisms mainly from players who then profess not to care how others play.It's called hypocrisy
It's a shame that some people just can't enjoy the games. Where is the satisfaction if you cheat - yourself?