Last week, Ubisoft confounded us all by launching an NFT tactics game, Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles, in the year of our Lord, 2024. That character costs a whopping $63,000 in cryptocurrency. Once you own it, you can do it with it. For the most part, these seem to be suitable for playing Champions Tactics. However, I noticed that all players connect and lose quickly to the same players at the same time, unless you want to play on the weekend.
On Friday afternoon, players appeared on the official Champions Tactics Discord's bugs and feedback channel and began reporting that ranked matches had become unplayable. I connect to the game, but immediately receive a server error message. Despite the message that “status and ratings are unaffected,” players watched their competitive rankings plummet as they repeatedly played matches where they quickly lost.
Gradually, those players realized that they had all been matched with the same player “Paulstar111” in the failed game. By Friday night, users on Discord were calling on the developers of Champions Tactics to ban Paulstar111, who hacked the game's matchmaking to win.
Unfortunately, one of Discord's mods contained some bad news. Developers didn't have access to the office over the weekend. “Hey, family. We all share the same complaint. This is a known issue and many of us have already reported it,” said moderator Uncharted Block. “Unfortunately, we will have to wait until Monday for the team to resolve the issue.”
In response, Discord user Ketaros said, “If this guy stays connected all weekend and does this, he's doomed to ruin this game.” “GL for you guys.”
But Saturday morning brought a pleasant surprise. Game Director Biloukat announced that the developers were able to bring justice to the fraudulent Paulstar111. “We observed strange behavior with this player 'paulstar111',” Biloukat said. “We have decided to ban him and will conduct a thorough investigation into his actions on Monday!”
Sadly, as soon as Paulstar111 was defeated, his villainy reappeared under a different name. Within minutes of Biloukat's announcement, players all experienced the same momentary loss as they found themselves matched with the latest unkillable demigod, a user named “Schilleri11.” A soul plummeted through the floor, as if pouring tons of fake money into a bunch of fake tactical dolls might not have been as shrewd an investment as it seemed.
Monday brought us the weirdest wrinkle ever. Biloukat returned this morning with another announcement. Matchmaking should work, at least for now. Players are once again free to fight counterfeit tchotchkes with cryptocurrencies. But this sordid story had a puzzling conclusion. Polestar 111 and Cirelli 11 may have become unconquerable villains, but they didn't even know what was going on. Through no fault of their own, a network error caused them to receive hate no matter how many people played Champions Tactics. At least a few dozen people.
“We sincerely apologize to Scilleri11 and Paulstar111, as the issue was due to a matchmaking bug and they were banned for security reasons,” Biloukat said. “Of course, we have lifted their ban, but we ask for your understanding towards them.”
Just in case anyone took this as a sign to go full steam ahead with Champions Tactics themselves, it looks like things haven't quite settled down at Ubisoft Web3 HQ just yet. In this morning's announcement about restored matchmaking, Biloukat told players to “keep in mind that the bug may return” while the development team works on a long-term solution. I asked.
At least there doesn't seem to be any gradual change in the Champions Tactics marketplace. As of this writing, the most expensive champion is listed at $256.57 million. After the game's first week, I can only imagine how many eager buyers are now paying attention to it.
