[INVESTIGATING] 3-Day Event Dungeon Scoring Bug

[Wokel]

Platform, device and operation system
Blackberry Motion, Android 8.X

What were you expecting to happen, and what actually happened
Having lost no health in any of the dungeon battles (Cache III, 33 total battles, Tier X), I expected to have the same score of other players who lost no health in 33 total battles.

What happened, was that I somehow ended up with 900 extra points. The correct score based on previous event experience for someone with a “perfect score” (i.e., no health loss) is 54,090. I ended up with 54,990 points after fighting 33 battles.

If there is a factor other than health loss, please inform us - otherwise this is a bug that should be squished.

Two screenshots are below:

This issue (coupled with the scoring mechanisms in the events) leads to a lot of negative outcomes for other players. The outcome of this scoring issue will likely be:

1. Approximately 10 other players will get 750 gems instead of 1000;
2. Someone or some people will be annoyed at the outcome and throw away 800 gems, and lots of people will lose a lot of gems.

Regardless, it is an unfair outcome which hurts other players.

How often does this happen? When did it begin happening?
This issue has happened to me twice now, and I have seen it occasionally happen to other players as well. The first time I remember it happening was during 0.37.

Steps to make it happen again
I have no idea what causes this bug and I did not observe when my score changed. I did notice that it only happened today. Yesterday, my score was even with every player who had completed 22 battles with perfect health.

[Sibelios]

I did 3x Cache on the 3 Day event multiple times and had tracked scoring each time resulting in the following table for perfect scores (losing no health, maintaining win streak):

If you buy the 3rd Gem cache then your max score possible is theoretically 54,090 (After the 21st fight, the max score possible per fight remains at 1,830). In the screencap above linked by @Wokel we can see 6 other persons with that exact score yet somehow @Wokel was awarded an additional 900 points for the same result.

The very next event you can see it has happened again:

The top scorer clearly bought a 4th Gem Cache, but RedRose somehow scored 900 additional points compared to the other players who achieved the expected “perfect” score of 54,090.

Either this is a bug or it is purposeful which means there is a hidden score mechanism in existance that I can only assume is used to prevent ties and reduce the amount of gems awarded.

[Jeto]

Hey all,

Raised this with the dev’s to see if there is anything I have missed, if I have some more follow up questions I’ll pop back in here!

Jeto - Support Human

[Wokel]

Another event where 10 players are all losing 250 gems each due to this bug. Same number once again. Can we get compensation for this bug?

[Lyrian]

I’ve been watching this behavior for awhile, and this point I’m reasonably sure that RedRose has found a reliable method to give themselves extra points on the final day of each 3-day event. RedRose almost always wins by exactly 900 points, suggesting that this player is repeating the same action every event. Perhaps even being done on that account’s last sigil for each 3-day event.

Curious question, @Wokel , by any chance when you were able to gain those extra 900 points, did you change any gear that character between runs or possibly changed characters for one of those runs?

I’m deeply suspicious that a way has been found to trick the game into awarding more than 100% of the possible score for a run through manipulation of HP totals between runs.

[Wokel]

Unfortunately I don’t remember anything of importance - next time if I have time I will play with my equipment… but yes, it has always happened on the last day.

[Mythos]

Given Redrose has been “winning” these events for a while - Is a possible explanation that they just spend extra gems, do 1 extra partial run and “win” (while still net losing gems)?

[Wokel]

Did you not see that I started this thread with screenshot evidence of this bug happening to me, even before it happened to RedRose? And in these two previous cases they have he same exact score I did, a round number which isn’t easy to get. It is possible they have figured out how to reproduce the bug, but I can’t understand any other solution.

[Sibelios]

@Lyrian

and this point I’m reasonably sure that RedRose has found a reliable method to give themselves extra points on the final day of each 3-day event.

Maybe, but I’ve been observing this for a while as well and it’s been a bit more inconsistent than that.

Here he is on 11/02 on the 2nd day of a 3-day event with a 2,006 point lead (33.960 being the “best” score on the 2nd day if you buy Cache 3):

So either he scored a variable number of extra points or more likely he bought Cache 5 since he was going to lose gobs of gems anyways.

Here is RedRose on 11/04 on Day 1 of a 3-day event with 615 extra points over the “best” Day 1 score with a 3 Cache purchase:

Here he is again on Day 1 of the next 3-day event with 675 extra points over the "best’ Day 1 score with a 3 Cache purchase:

These suggest that perhaps he has found a way to generate “bonus” points and that the bonus points were achieved in a match with a lower “max” score thus the bonus was prorated (615 and 675 instead of 900).

However, on Day 2 of the same 3-day event he somehow managed to drop to only a 405 point lead, from 675 on Day 1:

Losing points is hard to countenance against also finding some secret way to get max bonus points.

Here we have RedRose once again with a 812 point lead over the “best” score on Day 2 of another 3-day event on 11/11:

Now 812 is less than 900 which could support that he’s found a way to get bonus points before Day 3. But it could also be just someone who spends extra gems and likes to be first.

Finally, we have this scoreboard from Day 1 of a 3-day event on 11/16:

RedRose has a 488 point lead over the “best” score possible but Hapines has a 675 point lead overall (similar to the lead generated on Day 1 by RedRose sited previously). This muddies the picture further in my opinion about understanding if there is a way to get bonus scores before Day 3.

All in all, I don’t know what the answer is. Obviously, having RedRose chime in would help tremendously. But at least for Day 3, when the score is capped at 1,830 per match, there does appear to be some consistent way to generate another 900 points.

[00h00m]

I see my name in there a couple of times. So at a minimum I feel like I am owed 500 gems, but that is just the documented amount here. Will there be compensation?

[Sibelios]

The RedRose mystery continues: clever bonus point scorer or big gem spender?

[Tresk]

This is why I never buy more than one cache.

[Lyrian]

@Sibelios

(After the 21st fight, the max score possible per fight remains at 1,830).

And this is what bugs me about RedRose’s behavior in Events.

There a couple of red flags here.

• This behavior did not start until 0.38 when Events changed to their shortened version.

• If RedRose was purchasing Tier 4 just for the win, why do they consistantly not play ANY of their extra 11 sigils per day, outside of the lone sigil needed to win the bracket? That’s 32 forfeited sigils per Event and is quite significant. See Ajax, as you mention, for what a legitimate Tier 4 purchased score should look like.

• What if RedRose wants to see the world burn? Sure, that’s a possibility. But, players that tend to do that for trolls or lols do it once or twice for the kicks and then move on. RedRose has been near consistently doing this for weeks. If Tier 4 is purchased for this explicit purpose, then they are intentionally losing 700 Gems every 3 days to do this and would be out multiple thousands of gems by now. I’m skeptical that somehow this player has not figured this out and stopped like everyone else did.

• The margin of victory in every bracket win is significantly less than the points awarded for a single full clear, even at the minimum Level 40 (1230 points). It’s possible, but implausible, that this player on that lone extra run is clearing the miniboss and intentionally tanking on the boss to generate a low score on that extra run.

I think that whatever this player is doing, they sometimes take damage on that run as a consequence of their actions. 900 points might be the no-damage point reward for their actions at Level 60 runs, with less points being rewarded when damage is taken, Even if that player dies as a result of their actions, all they need are some bonus points to win the bracket.

I’ve tried a few things, but still haven’t been able to crack this one yet.

[Mythos]

Based on what we have seen so far that by switching to a lower level/gear score hero you could easily get a lower point score as you would take damage equal to highest gear score - lowest score (known issue)

[Sibelios]

Day 2 Update:
RedRose was up 619 after Day 1, and is now up only 545 at the end of Day 2:

@Lyrian

What if RedRose wants to see the world burn? Sure, that’s a possibility. But, players that tend to do that for trolls or lols do it once or twice for the kicks and then move on. RedRose has been near consistently doing this for weeks. If Tier 4 is purchased for this explicit purpose, then they are intentionally losing 700 Gems every 3 days to do this and would be out multiple thousands of gems by now. I’m skeptical that somehow this player has not figured this out and stopped like everyone else did.

Some people just like to be first. But I agree, that’s why this caught my attention and I tracked it. I just couldn’t make any sense of it.

[Sibelios]

RedRose continues his impressive effort to be forever first. This looks like someone who is just buying more attempts, rather than finding some secret bonus points.

@Jeto

Hey all,

Raised this with the dev’s to see if there is anything I have missed, if I have some more follow up questions I’ll pop back in here!

Any word on the original issue of the extra points as documented?

[Jeto]

I’ve been in the process of checking this player’s data, to see if there is anything out of place.

Just need to have a developer follow this up as well, as I don’t believe I have access to everything in their data.

Jeto - Support Human

[Wokel]

Is “this player” referring to me or RedRose? From my end there was a definite bug or hidden mechanic.

[00h00m]

The fact that Wokel has confirmed it was a bug when their score hit 54990 makes it pretty clear that there is a bug that allows scores higher than the max. The coincidence of RedRose hitting that exact same score seems suspect.

Any update @Jeto ?

[Lyrian]

Well, if 0.39 had some sort of fix for this issue, RedRose has found a way around that fix.

After playing legitimately for a couple of event cycles, here we go again with the event cycle ending today.

sigh