[Discuss] OSM Big Issue - Cheating: How to reduce it?

Sir Alex G

We at Gamebasics are aware of this major increase on cheating, but solutions are not as easy as it may seem. Do you wish to be part of the solution? Then go ahead, put up your idea for discussion and comment other managers idea!

Hello everyone,

Having been a very long term player of this game for the past 11 years i felt compelled and strongly enough about something, that I believe, is an unfortunate oversight of OSM’s design today and is slowly ruining the game for the loyal players like I have been.

The main issue at hand here what I wish to discuss is the vast and unmanageable amount of cheaters in the game nowadays. Being, what I would like to think, a veteran of the game, i don’t mean your ‘cheaters’ that use a training camp against you last second or use a large amount of “Boss Coins” to buy the best players possible. I mean the ones that clearly have multi accounts in the league, set tactics up to lose or (the most common one) colluding transfers that are as clear as they can get for proof of cheating.

Now I can imagine and understand that due to OSM’s unprecedented growth over the last several years this would naturally bring a higher chance of people that cheat/collude, and therefore, more cheat reports for OSM Staff to investigate/resolve which in turn explains the delays of getting a cheat report attended to and resolved (if ever in time before a league finishes).

From my experience of what i’ve seen, since “OSM 3.0” was released, it seems that there are automated systems in place to prevent people from cheating however it still regularly occurs. My personal experience is about 1 in every 3 leagues i play in has clear and blatant cheaters in the league colluding via transfers more times than the amount of fingers i have on both hands and feet put together! Another common one is setting tactics up to lose or using a training camp against a manager that is leading at the top of the table.

My idea would be to implement something like a ‘2-Strike’ policy within each calendar year.
For example, ‘Manager A’ cheats/colludes etc with ‘Manager B’, both get 1 automated message (and final) warning, if then new ‘Manager C’ joins the competition and cheats/colludes with ‘Manager A’ then given ‘Manager A’ already has a first warning he would be permanently banned from the game via locked OSM account profile.

I will leave it up to OSM Staff to decide whether to leave this topic open for discussion or close it down however I was hoping we, as a OSM Community, could use it more pro-actively and discuss potential ways or methods of eliminating the amount of cheaters in todays game or seek a way to make the judicial process of managing cheat reports more efficient.

At the very least I hope this raises (or re-raises :P) the bigger issue at hand here with Gamebasics and OSM Staff.