#015
December 12, 2025:- Bot Mitigation Enhancements & Trust Feedback Loops
Purpose
To strengthen platform defense against manipulation by expanding behavioral detection, closing replay validation gaps, and adding initial feedback channels for trust scoring and community-driven moderation.
Key Highlights
🤖 Expanded Bot Flagging Logic
Heatmap analytics enabled for in-match cursor/touch behavior across common devices.
Flag thresholds adjusted based on data collected from over 3,000 real matches.
Device/browser fingerprinting integrated to detect multi-account collusion patterns.
Session telemetry now includes network jitter, average response time, and user interaction entropy.
🧾 Replay Validator Hardening
Hash chain verification now checks for timestamp monotonicity, consistent move sequences, and replay order.
Replays failing integrity checks are auto-flagged for admin review.
Reconnect events annotated in match timeline for post-match analysis.
📬 Trust Feedback Mechanism (For Future Alpha Version)
Players can now report suspicious matches directly from match history view.
Admins can label reports as resolved, escalated, or false-positive—feeding back into training set.
“Trusted Player” flagging introduced (non-public) for consistent, unflagged performance over 50+ matches.
⚙️ Monitoring & Alerting Improvements
Grafana dashboards now visualize bot flag frequencies, replay anomalies, and match abandonment clusters.
Alerting rules added to notify staff on flag surges, replay failures, and outlier match stats.
Why It Matters
Detecting subtle bot or manipulation behaviors early is key to long-term competitive integrity.
Community-involved flagging closes gaps that pure automation may miss.
Replay system validation ensures post-match data isn’t corrupted or falsified.
Trust signals will inform future matchmaking, leaderboards, and referral bonuses.
Open Issues
Certain stylus/tablet interactions still trigger false bot flags.
Trust score decay not yet reversible after a successful dispute appeal.
Replay anomalies currently lack detailed error messages in admin tools.
Fixed
Reconnect-related duplicate moves now correctly suppressed in replay logs.
Flagged matches are now removed from leaderboard/ELO calculations until resolved.
Device fingerprint hashes now regenerate only on substantial config changes (not on refresh).
Next Steps
Begin appeal workflow for flagged users to submit context or contest decisions.
Link trust score impacts to referral eligibility and leaderboard visibility.
Improve admin annotation UI with per-move flag reason overlays.
Tune heatmap model to better distinguish high-speed play from automation.
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