Tacit Support for Anti-Noob Trolling by Confirmed Players

[Aragorn]

I would like to bring up the subject of newbe trolling in Spring which has attained a level unheard-of anywhere else. This participates imho in the lack of growth observed for this brilliant game by discouraging new players from remaining and investing themselves.

Some confirmed players actually take part in trolling and others tacitly support it, mostly by not voicing opposition even though they obviously see what is going on. Some go as far as giving vocal approval and even advice in spec chat usually but also in carefully-worded public talk. Finally, the lack of any effective moderation leaves the rampaging few to freely engage in their game-ruining practices.

http://replays.springrts.com/replay/4cd ... 7e86a675e/

Example: Dosh1 is dismayed at losing north front and decides to turn on the techer building a buzzsaw. Watch him capture allied metal converters from Aragorn (East) at 24:00 to blow them up at 25:40, forcing the slowdown of building the second buzzsaw which gets destroyed at 32:00, ending all chances of East turning the game around. At 27:00 he goes on to capture converters from Bator too with the obvious intention of blowing them up again. He actually asks for permission at 24:00 in spec chat, and this is given by Nix and Virtualip. When the converters blow up, Nix lols and Teddy gives advice on how best to do it next time. Only Gluon comments "dat Troll" at 24:00 but does not warn Aragorn.

Now I have nothing against a majority defining what is good and bad practice in any game. Maybe some believe teching for a lolcannon is wrong, but what we see here is not majority-ruling, but rather hijacking of the game by a very few who unilaterally decide to ruin the game for others. There isn't even a manifest will to better the game by showing or educating newbes: only game-ruining sabotage in an if-I-fail-I-won't-let-them-succeed mentality, with the obvious result of new players leaving the game as fast as they come in.

For this game to grow and maybe even go viral, as I heard some programmers of the new betting system suggest, noob-trolling will have to stop.

The best way to achieve this is by empowering the majority. For this, I suggest the following measures:

1. A feedback system where players who have been trolled can denounce. There should be a direct link to a player appreciation database, where everyone can put comments and affect other players' ratings like book comments on amazon.com.
2. Trueskill rating should be strongly penalized by any behavior which decreases the chances of success of the game. IE: TS should be negatively affected by any behavior which ruins the game for others. This is not to say players should be punished for playing a certain way, they should be punished only for non-playing activity.
3. Ban voting should be easier, confidential and for longer durations. There should be a button for ban-voting next to each player's name, with a drop-down list indicating the reason, and another for the duration. The current nominal voting system discourages some from voting so as not to be stigmatized by the banned.
4. In order to avoid troll hosts and their admins, creating a new battleroom should be as easy as clicking a button. Configuring ports for example should not be required.

I do realize such measures may take away the power to do as they please from certain contributors, but their implementation would certainly pave the way for this awesome game to become the global success it deserves.

[Silentwings]

Autohosts are run by other spring users, they are not run by Spring, or Spring moderators
...
Because we do not own these servers, we do not tell those that do own those servers what rules they do/don't have to enforce. Autohosts are a service provided to you for free by other spring users, and they have the right to provide that service in whatever way they personally prefer.

I'm afraid that's the way it is, in particular there is no "tacit support" from the developers who inhabit these forums.

The lobby/game developers would probably be glad of offers from you to develop 1 and 3, I suspect 4 is no help (complicated things require more than a single button) and 2 is a bad idea (dysfunctional players aren't going to care if someone lowers their rating).

[Orfelius]

There are 12 different games running atm on the Spring server. It is good to specify which one are you talking about in that case you are talking about Balanced Annihilation (judging by the replay).

Other than that I don't understand what the whole betting widget has to do with trolling (in fact I do not understand the premise of the said widget at all).
But yeah trolling is bad etc. Is capping uncapped mexes 20 mins into the game considered trolling though? If they weren't capped by that point then the player who should have done so messed up (in that case it was you) and its their fault for not doing so.

Now I have nothing against a majority defining what is good and bad practice in any game. Maybe some believe teching for a lolcannon is wrong, but what we see here is not majority-ruling, but rather hijacking of the game by a very few who unilaterally decide to ruin the game for others

Same can be said for an individual player that decides to build a lolcannon trough out 1/3 of the game while clearly not having resources to do so.

[qoute]creating a new battleroom should be as easy as clicking a button[/quote]
In Spring Lobby there is a button called [Host new...] which does just that.

[raaar]

What you reported is bad, but I think it is a rare occurrence. Think of the last 100 games you played. How often did someone intentionally dirsrupt allied players? How often did that happen with admins or veterans giving permission/helping?

Those options can be dangerous. Popular players can still get away with trolling if they have friends to back them up. Unpopular players can get unfairly reported by the masses.

Community is small, do you really want to ban people?

[Jools]

If you punish trolls by lowering their TS, then by consequence trolls will be more likely to win than other people, because they will be matched up together with better players. So in essence: troll and win. Do we really want to give incentive to trolling?

[PicassoCT]

karmabar on every server?

[Aragorn]

Thanks for all the positive feedback. It seems the main issue raised is the question of players influencing other players' TS. But then of course TS is mainly used to balance teams, which as some pointed out does not make it the ideal tool to discourage trolling.

Maybe there should be another metric, maybe called Commendability, which would be influenced by other players' votes. When hosting a room then, one could be able to request a minimum level of commendability from the players allowed to enter, thence discouraging game-ruining behavior.

Silentwings, maybe the easiest thing to implement would be confidential votes, part of point nb 3. This would probably affect the game very positively.

[gajop]

Keep in mind, what Silentwings said basically suggested you making the proposed system. And he's right, there is no lack of ideas here, just development time.

[klapmongool]

Seems easier to have decent admins dealing out fitting punishments. The die-hard trolls (the ones that have been evading all types of bans for years) can't be stopped by either system (without keeping out new players as well).

Btw I would downvote your 'Commendability' in your system if you play like that Aragorn.

[albator]

The strong incentive I can see are:
- increase their TS so they have a harder time to win but that is not fair for the rest of the team.
- prevent them to use some units or give them penalty in any way (starting ressources lower, ..). Once again, that also damage the team.
So both damage the team they play with, that is a bad idea.

My suggestion is to hit where it hurts. Troll should be prevented of what they really like: talking !

Spec talking, ally talking, drawing, everything !

Ofc that requires works. Maybe a spad command like

!troll player

could be easily implemented to mute a player already. THat is just an alias to the !mute command iirc, but it will give the aura it needs... my 2 cents...

[Aragorn]

!troll player

I like that. Effectively the main problem with Trolls is the talking :)
Capturing allied units should also be disabled as any player can share units as he pleases.

Klapmongol, the issue here is not how I play. It is about people who prefer to ruin a game rather than play.

[Silentwings]

could be easily implemented to mute a player already.

Already existed for years, on BA hosts, /ignoreplayer in local form and !mute in global form.

[very_bad_soldier]

Guys, we are talking about a SINGLE game server here. Administrating that thing is well doable without the need of developing anything.
Expecting the (remaining) players to adminstrate themselfs just by providing a voting system does not work.

[8611z]

Autohosts are run by other spring users, they are not run by Spring, or Spring moderators
...
Because we do not own these servers, we do not tell those that do own those servers what rules they do/don't have to enforce. Autohosts are a service provided to you for free by other spring users, and they have the right to provide that service in whatever way they personally prefer.

I'm afraid that's the way it is, in particular there is no "tacit support" from the developers who inhabit these forums.

The lobby/game developers would probably be glad of offers from you to develop 1 and 3, I suspect 4 is no help (complicated things require more than a single button) and 2 is a bad idea (dysfunctional players aren't going to care if someone lowers their rating).

The replay linked in this thread was played on BlackHoleHost1.
The !admins command on BlackHoleHost1 lists "Bluestone." Are you not "Bluestone" in lobby?
It also lists "Floris" - Is that the same person who is a BA developer or someone else?

Guys, we are talking about a SINGLE game server here. Administrating that thing is well doable without the need of developing anything.

Bingo.
However autohost-admins can only act if players notify them.
In past there have been similiar threads, sometimes with very clear cases of troll or teamkill. (I did not watch this replay, so no idea what happens there)
All it takes is someone to watch the replay, look at the given timestamps and playernames, and then act accordingly. Like in case of teamkill ban for some days or whatever. But those threads always got filled with useless replies or spam by people who do not even play, and basically showed players there is no use to report problems with autohosts. So the statements about "tacit support" seem true.

On Blackhole-Host it is not easy to find info on who is running the host or who to report to. There is the !admins command but new players can not be expected to know about it.
Even then it only gives you a list of lobby-nicks: Pure luck if one of them is currently online AND willing/able to take care of report right now.
Compare to ACE host:

* Contact [ACE]FabriceFABS (private / by e-mail **email-adress**) for any requests or suggests.

Of course there is also the question if admins are willing to moderate their autohost and act on reports or not.

[klapmongool]

Klapmongol, the issue here is not how I play. It is about people who prefer to ruin a game rather than play.

[brainfart]

I agree with your recognition of the problem but a lot of your suggestions potentially offer merely more means of abuse. Even the majority ruling is a source of abuse. People come to play and not to be played for. There is a lack of appreciation for that. I always remember there were things people did that were annoying but people never went so far to overstep and demand which strategies other players go even right out from the start of the game.

Trueskill also causes more problems than it solves. I don't see the benefit to it. I played this before there was trueskill. Having come back after many years I have not seen a single benefit to trueskill. I have only seen it cause problems. There was already moderate strife in TA Spring or any RTS between those who play to win at any cost and those who play more for fun. Now you have another mismatch with those who play obsessively for TS. I don't think it's the right answer. The players obsessed with TS will likely start to play in weird ways depending on how TS is calculated. If you have a proper league system or some kind of competitive system that would make more sense.

A player feedback system will likely lead to cancer when people start making friends and foes. Personally I don't care who is who that much. If I have an incident with someone I will be pissed for a day but then forget about it. When you start making some kind of player review board it will instantly be the target of mobbing by brigades who will likely then judge a player prematch or who will be judged by others prematch rather than just letting them play. Making ban voting easier will have a similar effect. You'll just have brigades ganging up on newbies to get them banned.

Making hosting and other things easier is something that would make an improvement if done right. Reducing frustration would improve conduct from players overall. There are a lot of points of frustration with the client and server such as not recursively fetching dependent mods.

[Silentwings]

Please avoid necroing 2 year old threads.

Locked.