To ensure the accuracy of the XP rating system, over the past month we have been conducting a full audit of all XP awarded since the inception of GEM in 2019. Our audit uncovered several issues that we have been seeking to resolve. We want to apologise for these errors, and also share these findings with the community for transparency and to help you understand why you will see some XP changes on the leaderboards.
Double XP awarded / Missing XP identified
There was an error in the system that occasionally led to the results of some tournaments being processed twice and, less frequently, some tournaments not being processed at all. This error affected most player accounts across all event types. The average impact of this was that players have received ~3-4% additional XP to be gained per player account, although a small number of accounts are impacted more significantly than this.
Resolution: All instances of double XP gained will be removed from player accounts. This fix has a moderate impact on the absolute XP players have, but does not have a material impact on relative 90 day or lifetime XP rankings in most instances. In addition, no player who has over 1000 life time XP (and therefore may have received a Gold Legendary Prize Card) will drop below 1000 XP. Players mostly retain similar rankings on the leaderboards, as this bug affected all player accounts in a similar manner and generally in proportion to the number of matches a player had participated in.
Play Anywhere not consistently applying the 4 XP per day cap
The intention of Play Anyway from when we launched it mid-2020 until March 1, was a maximum of 4 XP could be gained per player account per day, as stated in the Play Anywhere release notes. Our audit found the system was not consistently applying this daily cap.
Resolution: All Play Anywhere XP over and above 4 that was gained within a 24 hour period is being removed from accounts. Only five accounts are affected by more than 10 XP as a result of this change.
Skirmish week 1
The XP modifier for Skirmish events run over the weekend of April 20-21 was incorrect. The XP modifier for those events was set at x3 when it should have been x6 as per the Ratings Policy.
Resolution: The XP modifier for the affected events will be retroactively changed to x6.
Fraudulent Play Anywhere activity
A small number of accounts have been identified for fraudulent Play Anywhere XP harvesting. One player was found to have undertaken fraudulent XP harvesting using Play Anywhere prior to March 1, and has had their player account XP reset to zero for that period. In addition, three accounts that we were unable to identify legitimate ownership of have been deleted.
Going Forward
In addition to fixing the known causes of these problems, we have also built a series of additional checks into the XP system to monitor for recurrences of these problems. We will also continue to conduct periodic audits of the system, in particular before any major prizes or ratings based invitations are handed out to players, with a focus both on ensuring that the system continues to run correctly and to identify and respond to any additional instances of dishonest behaviour.