Maybe a way to fix the volatile nature of the playerbase?

[Deleted]

Reputation systems don't work.

As the games population continues to steadily decline from the big boom in Wrath, a lot of the toxic players will flow out with it and we'll stabilize at a nice population with people that genuinely like the game.

Forums will likely always suffer from people that claim to hate the game but can't stop spending time hating on, however.

They do work on websites where service is offered like forums where people help eachother with fixing PC's for example. At least on the websites I've seen in the past. But on websites like MMO-C there are way to much people posting about all kind of bullshit. Leave alone an MMORPG with even more kinds of different people.

Cultur and personality clash at it's peak.

[Jerichoholic Ninja]

Games like LoL have "Rep. Systems", here's what happens:
- People say nothing in entire game and beg for Honor (rep) after the game.
- When people are in this 'friendship is magic zone', for honor ofc, you call their bs. and they show their true colors. (This usually leads to hilarious dialogue)
- 3-4 Friends report (give low rep.) honor beggars, people who sucked, people who didn't suck (if they're on the other team), just for shits & giggles.

[lazypeon100]

Games like LoL have "Rep. Systems", here's what happens:
- People say nothing in entire game and beg for Honor (rep) after the game.
- When people are in this 'friendship is magic zone', for honor ofc, you call their bs. and they show their true colors. (This usually leads to hilarious dialogue)
- 3-4 Friends report (give low rep.) honor beggars, people who sucked, people who didn't suck (if they're on the other team), just for shits & giggles.

This really only happened when the system was first put into place. From my experience, honor is only given to those who really deserve it.

People still report like crazy though.

[endersblade]

The system should only have one setting: Good. Either you rate someone good, or you don't rate them at all. That way, if they were legitimately good, they will be marked as such, and with this system it's impossible for people to 'wrongly' rate someone, or be a dick and give negative feedback. So there will be no negative rating, only a positive rating.

Of course, the nature of this system is also flawed in the fact that shitty people will technically be ranked with people who have never been rated before, but it's a hell of a lot better than a system that allows people to be jerks and purposefully negatively rate everyone they play with just because they can and think it's funny.

[Deleted]

FFIXV (for example) has a rating system for the LF tool. There is no negative vote, you just give a +1 to someone at the end, or doesn't give at all. You get pets and mounts out of it. I guess that if blizzard went and put a couple of pets/mounts that they like to sell for 20€ behind such system, you will get an influx of people being strangely kind and helpful to get more +1. Bribed goodness, but hey, most people are as good as the system allows them to be.

[owbu]

reputation systems work, if you have a group of people in the same mindset and some control over who is in the group (moderators).
With a diverse group like a lfr group the results would not mean anything.

And they work with thumbs up and down, since everyone can agree on what those two mean.
1-10 is always a horrible idea, because sensible people use a lot of "in the middle" to express their opinion, while the raging kind of people, you dont really want in a jury (see threads with the word "worst", "death" and "quit" in this forum) only give out ones.

[vandalhart]

I think maybe it's better to have a binary system instead of 1-10. Basically give a player credit for being "Helpful" and anything else is just assumed to be neutral. So there can only be "positive" ratings. Trolls generally wanna be dicks so if there is no "downvote", what are they going to do? Upvote someone? And I think the "Helpfullness" rating should only be for things like LFR leadership roles or group leadership roles. It should naturally decay over time.

- - - Updated - - -

Wow just read everyone's replies. Interesting to see a lot of people are thinking the same

[RaenavenBlacksun]

Problem with a ranking system is that there are plenty of dicks out there who would 1 every person who didn't live up to their excessively high, toxic standards.

[Schwert]

Something like this will never work;

What would work is Blizzard actually suspending and banning people off their own ToU/Rules already.
But they don't.