Replay files: Fyi, this ain’t aoe2, if you want people to send replay files, you need to add to the FAQ on how to actually get them. I reckon atm like under 1 % of the people know how to get aoe4 replay files.
Match ids: The only place where players can easily get match ids is via aoe4world, there’s no ingame mechanic to do so. (and probably in warnings.log file, but ye, who knows how to use that)
That leads me to a question: Does reporting a player via the postmatch screen or replay summary screen lead to the match id being attached to the report?
If so, then perhaps visualize that match id in the summary page UI and in the report UI, if not then it’d be a good idea to add it to the report system. Coz in absence of a match id, I’m not surprised that customer support isn’t able to process ingame reports efficiently.
Also make sure that the support/fairplay team has the tooling to retrieve the replays associated with specific reports (both ingame and zendesk), most of the blatant cheating is obvious in the first 30 seconds of the match. They’re all available on the aoe4 servers, so the operations team should be able to make this process seamless.
The support staff should NEVER have to ask for a replay file, you have em, all of em.
I don’t think it should be necessary for players to record youtube videos of blatant cheats, such as the fairly obvious maphacks and zoomhacks that many encounter. Of course it’s useful for the more intricate cheating situations, so it’s a good thing to have as additional information, but it shouldn’t be necessary in most cases.
The FAQ could also use a bit of guidance to improve the quality of support tickets:
- It’d be useful for players to be specific about the observed behavior, like “player zooms out beyond allowed levels at 0:10 game time” etc.
- Explain panoramic zoom to avoid false positives, where unaware players mistake panoramic mode for a zoomhack.
- And perhaps include guidance about reporting suspicious behavior vs evident cheating. Someone correctly predicting your eco proxy is suspicious at worst and probably just skill, someone picking up relic in fog, sheep in fog, or killing deer in fog is obvious.
If substantiated reports are rejected for technical reasons, or the offender gets way too low a penalty, the cheaters will remain emboldened.
The only way forward is if the playerbase has a meaningful and easy to use way to not only report cheaters but get them appropriately penalized, and that customer support has the tools to efficiently validate reports.
