What will Blizzard do about toxic players?

[uiemad]

There is no need for a tribunal system. If players used the existing tools we have available to us players would actually get punished and have consequences for their actions. Also why on earth would you have players involved in handing out punishments when your complaint is the community is toxic? I mean really? You didn't think that through too much did you?

---------- Post added 2013-06-17 at 02:59 AM ----------



No I'm sorry but this just isn't true. Before LFD/LFR if you wanted to do group content you put up with the assholes on your realm because you had no choice. LFD/LFR gives us a choice in who we play with rather than being restricted by arbitrary limits realms. Again it is ironic how people claim LFD/LFR makes players too lazy to be social and then claim a few lines of code is what is responsible for bad player behavior. It is a cop out and a huge contributor to why this community is bad. It isn't because of cross realm tech it is because players bend over backwards to avoid taking responsibility for what happens in their community.

Just to throw in my own experience. I cannot count how many times I saw people ostracized from the server community for being a douche. Or ninja. Or what have you. During the time before LFD. I STILL remember some of their names. Now I go into a group and roll on what I want. Do what I want. Afk as much as I want. Why? I'm not actively making an effort to be an ass, but it's just so easy when I'm not going to see any of those people ever again.

[xanzul]

If you look at the official forums you'll see that over the years one of the things Blizzard doesn't take action about is anything along the lines of "someone being mean to you." They are quite specific that a certain amount of rude behavior is tolerated. Only when it becomes outright harassment (when the victim has placed someone on ignore and the unwanted conduct continues) does Blizzard do anything about it.

Well, obviously, Blizzard can't make everybody be nice. But on the other hand, the standard could be different.

If you look at the problem of, say, trolls in LFR/LFD, the problem is that when you report someone and ignore him, that really has no effect on YOU. Even if he is banned from the game, there are thousands of other unpleasant people awaiting your company.

There really needs to be a way for Blizzard and/or the community to take IMMEDIATE action on someone for a minor infraction. A mild, immediate punishment for a minor offense.

More lies. If players violate the rules and they are reported Blizzard takes action no ifs ands or buts about it. As far as immediate action goes, how do you know it wasn't immediate? Just because you don't see a player being punished doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Again look at the threads here and the official forums for proof. If Blizzard's isn't banning players for behavior then why exactly are players whining about being banned for harassment and language? How do you explain that?

[xanzul]

Blizzard is more concerned with creating more new subscriptions than with keeping old ones. New players are much more important to the game than old ones. The average age of an active account is a little over 1 year.

What new players? You realize Wow hit market saturation years ago right? And new playesr or not, $15 is $15 so I'm not sure what point you think you are making. If people are quitting over a toxic community why on earth wouldn't Blizzard do something to prevent that if they could? I don't get these claims of Blizzard being both greedy and completely oblivious in how to make a profit. I'm not seeing a whole lot of logic and honesty here just a whole lot of blind misplaced hate.

---------- Post added 2013-06-17 at 03:47 AM ----------

Really? so why is it when I right click and hit ignore it says player not found?

As for my reporting? I have reported for names and racism and the same people are there every day.

Ever think that maybe what you thought was racist and/or inappropriate actually weren't by Blizzard's standards? Also even if they did violate the rules ever think that maybe their violations didn't warrant an account suspension? Also how do you know if they weren't suspended? You are making a lot of assumptions here based on pretty much nothing. Most of the names I have reported have been changed and again this is a very frequent topic on the customer support forums.

---------- Post added 2013-06-17 at 03:55 AM ----------

If only that was always the case. Blizzard has gotten far more lenient over the years towards griefing and scamming as well as biased moderation. An event like a guild trade spamming and messaging to disrupt a same faction member from accessing an AH to zone wide blocking of mail boxes on top of that, well apparently does not result in action from Blizzard despite such activities being in violation of the griefing policies along with such activity being posted online with clear cut intent to grief and knowledge of such activity being against policies. Well at least for a big name guild. Then there is the other event where a sponsored player organized an event that resulted in a realm crash and continued to move to other realms with the same result and went from being banned to unbanned after coming in contact with the players sponsor.

Just because players are not punished according to your standards doesn't mean they aren't being punished. Also many time if players are being harassed and griefed and if they grief back Blizzard will just not even bother dealing with it and for good reason. There is a reason why Blizzard is constantly saying "ignore, report and move on". Doing anything else at all implies you want the contact and changes the severity of punishment if any. Basically if you participate in the type of behavior you are reporting then you just aren't going to be taken seriously.

---------- Post added 2013-06-17 at 04:00 AM ----------

Yes let's just ignore every problem in game and in real life because hey, if doesn't effect ones self, you do realize just ignoring problems keeps them going right? I have tried getting several people into this game but they left quite quickly due to the racism and other vile behavior, so in short.............act like a decent human being not a little bitch.

You realize if you put players on ignore and they bypass that ignore that ramps them up the penalty volcano even faster right? Ignore is a valid solution whether you like it or not. No one is saying to pretend the problems don't exist but your failure to do something at the very basic level to prevent unwanted contact only sends a mixed message to Blizzard which will impact how they decide to punish a player if at all.

---------- Post added 2013-06-17 at 04:02 AM ----------

How to solve this? No more crossrealm. Social control. Player reputation. You know... the things we had before. Those aweful players will still be there but we don't have to wait for Blizzard to take some action which they are not going to take but instead put some system in place that is "fair" which will in the end only protect people who abuse others.

Low populated realms should then be solved properly instead of this crossrealm bullshit.

Being xenophobic about which realm players are from is the most toxic behavior of all.

[mvaliz]

FYI, here's a link to the news post that summarizes what was in the presentation and then links to it:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...havior-Fan-Art

Scroll down to the bit about Toxic Player Behavior. The video is about 25 minutes in length and more interesting than you would think.

Link direct to the presentation at GDC:

http://gdcvault.com/play/1017940/The...Shaping-Player

The point that everyone that thinks this is BS is missing is that it drives away customers and potential revenue. So dismissing it as inconsequential isn't going to make it go away. It's seen as an industry-wide problem that's only getting worse. As games strive to become more and more social, those houses that design such games are looking very hard at ways to rein it in. It's not so much an Internet thing as a business thing and that's why it won't be ignored.

Don't know why people would think that's BS - it sounds all rational to me... not to mention I also subscribe to the idea that the majority of people really do want to be nice and helpful and not foaming-at-the-mouth greedy or spite-filled all the time. :P

[xanzul]

Don't you think the game shouldn't be working against having a fun community?
Openraid is a great initiative but it doesn't change much.

What you consider to be a "fun community" is quite subjective and I'm not sure why it is less "fun" if some people are from a different realm.

---------- Post added 2013-06-17 at 04:08 AM ----------

Just to throw in my own experience. I cannot count how many times I saw people ostracized from the server community for being a douche. Or ninja. Or what have you. During the time before LFD. I STILL remember some of their names. Now I go into a group and roll on what I want. Do what I want. Afk as much as I want. Why? I'm not actively making an effort to be an ass, but it's just so easy when I'm not going to see any of those people ever again.

This is why we have vote to kick and why putting players on ignore prevents you from being queued with them again. There most certainly are consequences for bad behavior but just not the ones you want. I'm sorry but I don't think any player has the right to deny someone else the ability to play the game and that is NOT something we need to go back to.

People keep bringing up blacklists but more often times than not they were abused.

[uiemad]

What you consider to be a "fun community" is quite subjective and I'm not sure why it is less "fun" if some people are from a different realm.

---------- Post added 2013-06-17 at 04:08 AM ----------



This is why we have vote to kick and why putting players on ignore prevents you from being queued with them again. There most certainly are consequences for bad behavior but just not the ones you want. I'm sorry but I don't think any player has the right to deny someone else the ability to play the game and that is NOT something we need to go back to.

People keep bringing up blacklists but more often times than not they were abused.

Isnt the thing being discussed here to have people banned based on behavior. That is exactly people being denied the right to play. I think vote kick and ignore are fantastic tools and are good enough. My post was specifically in reply to you saying that there never WERE consequences.

[Normie]

Don't know why people would think that's BS - it sounds all rational to me... not to mention I also subscribe to the idea that the majority of people really do want to be nice and helpful and not foaming-at-the-mouth greedy or spite-filled all the time. :P

Yeah, I totally reject the idea that the "community" is made up of mostly bad or toxic people. Just like in the presentation, most people just have bad days. Then, there are people who are always having a bad day, or making one for someone else.

[Normie]

Isnt the thing being discussed here to have people banned based on behavior. That is exactly people being denied the right to play. I think vote kick and ignore are fantastic tools and are good enough. My post was specifically in reply to someone saying that there never WERE consequences.

No, bans aren't an ideal tool for modifying behavior.

When someone is allowed to continue to play but has to experience a reminder in the process, it's a much more effective means of modifying behavior than, say, a short ban.

For example, if your account was given an additional 15 minute "pre-queue" time in LFR and LFD for a week because of your behavior there, you would have to sit looking at an annoying blinking debuff for 15 minutes times however many instances you run. You would try very hard not to have to put up with that again, because it's annoying and embarrassing. It would also inconvenience other people queuing with you, so there would be peer pressure on you not to get "the queue debuff" again.

---------- Post added 2013-06-17 at 12:23 AM ----------

Imho what needs to happen is a clean up of Toxic Developer remarks. Replace that with honest discussion and explanations for nerfings, (remember when you nerf your invalidating people's time spent on their characters and THAT is really what angers people on nerfs). 90% of the game's problems will fade if the developers communicate, are respectful, honest, and defend their positions with logical thoughts.

When the majority of the player base believes perhaps erroneously that Mages are immune to nerfs because the lead Developer supposedly mains one? That is not going to win any respect, but it will sow disgust for any changes, as the perception it will be to help the Dev's pet class out. Also banning people from the forums for Spamming and Trolling or Other when they ask questions that the developers simply are too lazy or have too much white pedestal syndrome to answer, will also make for a very, very toxic game. The game's community is a reflection of what the developers make it. City of Heroes was nothing like this, nor was ToR or Ultima etc.


You get my point.

There might be a lot of players who would like to know the justification behind changes, but you can't design a good game if you have to justify your design, because many people (who will play your game anyway) will never accept your reasoning.

There are a lot of things in the game that I think are pointless and annoying, but on the whole, I see why they do things the way they do them. By any measure Blizzard is hugely successful. Has been, and continues to be.

[nekobaka]

Just because players are not punished according to your standards doesn't mean they aren't being punished. Also many time if players are being harassed and griefed and if they grief back Blizzard will just not even bother dealing with it and for good reason. There is a reason why Blizzard is constantly saying "ignore, report and move on". Doing anything else at all implies you want the contact and changes the severity of punishment if any. Basically if you participate in the type of behavior you are reporting then you just aren't going to be taken seriously.

In the case of the one being harassed by their own faction at an AH acted reasonably and made a ticket and no suspensions went out. Other guilds have been threatened with bans for PVP vs PVP zone wide griefing which is not against the rules on PVP servers while a guild that did mass zone disruptions on their own faction is a clear cut violation of policies was not actioned against. In the other case what are those who end up being griefed by crashed servers, what does their actions have to matter with the offending party being left off the hook? Did you even read my post?

Because being apathetic about reporting players is oh so much better. You are as much a part of the problem as anyone else.

Ah here you are again making BS assumptions about posters. I do take my part in reporting and writing tickets. I even take a part in reporting clear cut forum rule violations on the US Official forums, sadly the moderation staff has gotten very lenient on spam and thread derailment on the Official forums after the forum revamp. So many off topic threads now in general, EU still does a decent job. It is Blizzard who is being apathetic and the player base is following.

[HeroZero]

No, bans aren't an ideal tool for modifying behavior.

When someone is allowed to continue to play but has to experience a reminder in the process, it's a much more effective means of modifying behavior than, say, a short ban.

For example, if your account was given an additional 15 minute "pre-queue" time in LFR and LFD for a week because of your behavior there, you would have to sit looking at an annoying blinking debuff for 15 minutes times however many instances you run. You would try very hard not to have to put up with that again, because it's annoying and embarrassing. It would also inconvenience other people queuing with you, so there would be peer pressure on you not to get "the queue debuff" again.

---------- Post added 2013-06-17 at 12:23 AM ----------


There might be a lot of players who would like to know the justification behind changes, but you can't design a good game if you have to justify your design, because many people (who will play your game anyway) will never accept your reasoning.

There are a lot of things in the game that I think are pointless and annoying, but on the whole, I see why they do things the way they do them. By any measure Blizzard is hugely successful. Has been, and continues to be.

That actually sounds like a great idea. It definitely would have to be something VERY visible to remind them "you've been a bad boy/girl".

[Deleted]

In LoL , when you start playing a game , you will play with these specific 9 people (or 5 if 3v3) and you can't do anything to change them . This way toxic players can shine and generally be "toxic" .
In WoW , when you get in any "random team-up" LFG style (dungeon , lfr ) you can just kick the person or the person can just leave (something that can't happen in LoL and is against the summoners code). If you form a group for a raid or RBG you can just kick the player from your group .

WoW is a pay to play game and they can't just perma-ban someone. But they certainly could flag people or punish them in some way.

[Normie]

In the case of the one being harassed by their own faction at an AH acted reasonably and made a ticket and no suspensions went out. Other guilds have been threatened with bans for PVP vs PVP zone wide griefing which is not against the rules on PVP servers while a guild that did mass zone disruptions on their own faction is a clear cut violation of policies was not actioned against. In the other case what are those who end up being griefed by crashed servers, what does their actions have to matter with the offending party being left off the hook? Did you even read my post?

Ah here you are again making BS assumptions about posters. I do take my part in reporting and writing tickets. I even take a part in reporting clear cut forum rule violations on the US Official forums, sadly the moderation staff has gotten very lenient on spam and thread derailment on the Official forums after the forum revamp. So many off topic threads now in general, EU still does a decent job. It is Blizzard who is being apathetic and the player base is following.

Blizzard's system is ineffective at handling situations where griefing/harassment/disruption isn't ongoing.

Now, I have seen it dealt with promptly but that's the sort of thing I see only once per year. For example, early on in the life of the new Darkmoon Faire, I went out to do some crate fishing in my PvE realm. Two flagged opposite faction players showed up and spent minutes strafing back and forth over my lure, following me all around the island.

I managed to keep on fishing without getting myself flagged but it went on for quite some time. 10-15 minutes at least. Then, one of the players vanished. Then, the other did too, in mid-strafe. Some GM had "beamed them up," presumably because they had been reported earlier in the evening. I'm guessing LOTS of reports.

It would be great if the game could ALWAYS be like that, if you could click "report" on someone who is raging in a BG or in a dungeon, and then in a little while magically he would fade out, and people would know "By God the system does work."

But it doesn't work that way and realistically it can't work that way.

[Deleted]

It would be great if the game could ALWAYS be like that, if you could click "report" on someone who is raging in a BG or in a dungeon, and then in a little while magically he would fade out, and people would know "By God the system does work."

Just report and ignore players in a BG/Dungeon if they're raging, no reason to listen too it. The problem is too many people take things personal when they come under attack, when 99% of the time it is a troll looking to get a reaction, I've seen it happen in both LFR & battlegrounds!

As for the fishing thing, I'd have personally just gone AFK for 5 minutes to make a drink after reporting them for grief, it's something you shouldn't have to do but those kind of people again are looking for a reaction and get bored very quickly if they are not getting one.

[Notos]

In LF-whatever content, all you need to do is put them on ignore and you will never see them again. That sort of content breeds vitriol because there are no consequences for your actions, so of course you will see toxic players there. If it's an issue with a server, then all you can do is play with good people and shun the ones that are toxic. Hopefully, personal reputation will matter a bit more after the next patch, and that will go a long way towards cleaning up the community a bit.

[Kaleredar]

Since the day it came out... by and far, I haven't really noticed an excessive amount of toxic behavior in WoW PvE LFG content.

You meet maybe... one or two straight-up assholes per every four LFR runs? That's 1 or 2 people out of a good 90 others. And even back in LFD content, I can only remember a handful of people I'd call "outwardly toxic." Ninjaing stuff was more prevalent, but even that wasn't tremendously rampant.


It seems that the assholes mainly come out for PvP stuff. I suppose they could do some sort of LoL type system where you can upvote or downvote specific players for doing things right or wrong, but the punishments for receiving numerous down votes would have to be more obvious... like receiving less honor after receiving so many downvotes... (this would also help curve off the botting problem... worthless bot players would see a massive drop in their honor returns.) Then, if a sufficient amount of time went by in which the player received no more downvotes/a couple of upvotes, the amount of honor awarded would return to normal. Perhaps players with high ratings could receive bonus honor or conquest upon victory.

They could also extend this concept to LFD and LFR. Upvote the stand out good players, downvote the corrosive, ninjaing bad players. Good players could receive increased valor/justice, a higher chance of goodies from failbags, while bad players could suffer reduced valor/justice and perhaps even artificially inflated queue times.

[Tydrane]

Hopefully nothing.

I get that sometimes toxic behaviour is troubling. I've been playing a low-level Shadow Priest lately and in one run-through of The Stockades, the Mistweaver Monk healer, who I'd been on a few runs with that day, initiated a vote kick against a feral druid who wasn't doing so well. I didn't get the chance to vote 'no', but it wouldn't have made any difference, the rest of the party laughed as if it were some hilarious joke. I didn't want to kick up a fuss about it, because nothing would change the outcome, but I was not impressed - in my opinion it was nasty and completely unnecessary (we didn't need the DPS, myself and at least one other player had full BoAs). I felt bad for the guy, and more than a little ticked off as the monk who started it had caused a few wipes due to overestimation of his own ability, and had also ninja-rolled on a few drops, so he should have been grateful that we didn't kick him legitimately for his incompetence and selfishness.

I'll never pick on anyone new to the game. You can't help being new, and I often struggle with the choice of offering advice to new players just starting out, because you can never anticipate how it will be received. However. My tolerance dissipates quickly towards anyone who doesn't have a legitimate excuse for their incompetence.

---------- Post added 2013-06-17 at 08:16 PM ----------

It seems that the assholes mainly come out for PvP stuff. I suppose they could do some sort of LoL type system where you can upvote or downvote specific players for doing things right or wrong, but the punishments for receiving numerous down votes would have to be more obvious... like receiving less honor after receiving so many downvotes... (this would also help curve off the botting problem... worthless bot players would see a massive drop in their honor returns.) Then, if a sufficient amount of time went by in which the player received no more downvotes/a couple of upvotes, the amount of honor awarded would return to normal. Perhaps players with high ratings could receive bonus honor or conquest upon victory.

They could also extend this concept to LFD and LFR. Upvote the stand out good players, downvote the corrosive, ninjaing bad players. Good players could receive increased valor/justice, a higher chance of goodies from failbags, while bad players could suffer reduced valor/justice and perhaps even artificially inflated queue times.

Sorry, but terrible suggestion. There is absolutely no warrant to trust players with this level of interference with others' gameplay; if toxic players are so prevalent in PvP I can imagine a lot of undeserved downvoting for frivolous reasons. I've been shouted at once or twice on various alts for coming into a random BG without full Malev/Tyrannical.

[Elite Peon]

Put your settings so that you only see text Guild and People on your friends list ....problem solved

[Kaleredar]

Sorry, but terrible suggestion. There is absolutely no warrant to trust players with this level of interference with others' gameplay; if toxic players are so prevalent in PvP I can imagine a lot of undeserved downvoting for frivolous reasons. I've been shouted at once or twice on various alts for coming into a random BG without full Malev/Tyrannical.

You wouldn't be "booted down" into the depths because one guy gives you a bad review. You'd need dozens of negative reviews before you'd see any sort of affect on honor/conquest returns.

And perhaps the people that receive a large number of downvotes themselves would have their input about other players diminished by the "rating" system.

[Kuja]

I think Blizzard could do a better job too, but they don't want the subscriber numbers to drop too dramatically, so they do small ban waves only and LOTS of "toxic" players remain.

If there isn't, they should update their EULA with a line such as "Using or suspected of using a 3rd party program will doom your account". It's so easy to spot bots, yet those 60 bots I saw 2 months ago in Cosmowrench are all there still, and even more have appeared. GMs should have the right to ban an account instantly, without any account reviews which take months.

All a GM could do is teleport to a place where bots reside (I'm aware of at least 15 places + a few battlegrounds that are infested currently), ban everyone that moves in robotic, pre-defined patterns. No explanations needed, as it reads in the EULA.

Hell, even dedicate a full "bot hunter" team to get rid of this filth. Even FFXI did that. They even posted statistics for everyone to see every month. The amounts of people banned was insane. Would be great if they included names of the accounts and players too. Don't understand the naming and shaming policy.

I think the "toxic" players would be purged quite fast.

[Tydrane]

You wouldn't be "booted down" into the depths because one guy gives you a bad review. You'd need dozens of negative reviews before you'd see any sort of affect on honor/conquest returns.

And perhaps the people that receive a large number of downvotes themselves would have their input about other players diminished by the "rating" system.

Would players have to corroborate their reviews with any sort of evidence or information, or would it just be a simple click of a button?

If it were the former, it would merely be a duplication of the existing system to report players for bad language or behaviour, albeit with a partially-automated penalty system attached. This would be the best model to implement, because it would require that complaints be reviewed for validity before any penalties are applied. From Blizzard's perspective, it would be completely unfeasible because the volume of complaints requiring near-immediate review would take up more resources than could be justified for the simple purpose of curbing meanness.

If it were the latter, which is the assumption I based my previous answer on, it's still too much power and influence to give to any one player over another's gameplay experience, this would be the case with a 1-negative-review-requirement or with a million-negative-review-requirement. It will never happen, and it should never happen.