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How to prevent bullying and abuse in the lobby
KanKrusha
I recently stopped playing Smite, a game which i loved, because of the community. It wasn't just the rude language and abuse, annoying as it was when I was playing as a guardian and actually carrying the team, but it was the other forms of bullying. For example "Reporting" other players just because they were bad players. I actually started reporting players for abusing the report system to bully.
What do we want to see in terms of monitoring of chat and reporting systems?
I think even an off line review of chat would be good. I think clear reporting guidelines would be good, including that using the reporting system to bully other players may get punished.
I think the community itself has to resolve to support learning players and challenge players who abuse people just because they are not as skilled.
Comments
vindicarex
I agree - a report should make it clear it's only for exploits and targeted harassment. Just being bad at the game isn't a crime.
WarJester
League of Legends' community is well known for being toxic. I played that game for a long time and Riot Games tried many different avenues to stop toxicity, to no avail IMO. They even held press conferences to solely address toxicity. People were innovative at treating their fellow players poorly. I think it's something that is just part of online gaming, and the more popular the game, the more prominent the problem will be.
Of course that's not to say leave the problem high and dry, there should be measures taken as you suggest OP, but I don't think there is any foolproof solution. Every once in awhile you will encounter grieving players, or the like, while playing online games, and in highly populated online games those encounters may come more often.
Creature
I think having the option to disable the chat is good. I've appreciated it in games I've played, tbh. 9/10 times I've just said "gg" and "gl hf" in games and when people say much beyond that I inevitably blacklist them...
I've not really seen companies enforce anti-harassment policies very well. Maybe it's hard to prove because of the existence of photoshop and such? And you get into a lot of he said / she said. It's not hard for someone harassing others to lie about it after being reported.
PrimaGoosa
What's also interesting is that if people try to show proof of being harassed/reporting someone/bad behavior on someone else's part, it's very frequently that they are also being horrible themselves. It seems like once any community reaches a critical mass, behavioral issues just start appearing. One of my friends paid attention to the DOTA 2 subreddit as the game grew in popularity, and eventually it tipped from being interesting and game-related to more drama-related.
The ability to disable chat is nice, a reporting feature that collects and sends the game's chat logs (or the past X minutes of a channel's logs) would be nice, but otherwise it seems like systems to punish bad manners or reward good manners can be easy to manipulate. It's a tightrope walk, because some people just like to talk smack, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sure it can be annoying, but there's no rule against being annoyed. As long as you can disable chat, it's no big deal in that regard.
I'm not sure what the best answer is, but I think starting with simple stuff would be best.
WarbossGogangash
I don't think for being rude and saying bad things or even swear and "bully" in the chat u should be reported, that's some sjw booshit. About reporting for being a bad player and such, ye there has to be done something with that. But if there is no reporting than they can't bully you with reporting you aren't they?
yourCuteMotoko
You should be grateful relic actually took steps forward to address the possible toxicity and griefing (coh2 friendlyfire xd).
There should be options to disable chat aswell, and i really hope there will be some sort of filter to avoid people spamming pings in public games.
Like in league you should also focus more on the gameplay than the chat itself if youre triggered by someone, this is a general advice
RaspberryTurtle
I think the best way to prevent abuse is to prevent players from playing terrible. Give them in-depth tutorials of how to use units and what do in common game scenarios
e.g.
"How to deal with boyz charging your Tacticals Squad"
"What do if you lost an early resource point"
yourCuteMotoko
Thats another step forward relic took, by giving small videos about each unit ability ingame so you can judge its pro/cons without having to delve through a specific guide
(something they "borrowed" from MOBAs)
Shardex
There will be some toxicity but not as much as in mobas. The toxicity there stems mostly from matches being really long, so if something goes bad its easily frustrating. Also these games are based on a lot of knowledge. Its hard for people to see their own mistakes. Smacktalk exists in real sports too and i dont think its a good idea to prevent it completely nor is it possible. When you have a bad day and feel sensitive just disable the chat. Or play with friends only.
As long as the important calls can be made with different ping signals, it shouldnt be a problem. Detailed replay analysis and statistics are a good thing and help to reflect your own game. Games like Overwatch tried to do the opposite by not showing any kill scores etc. In my opinion their idea failed and is even worse. People see themselves having 5 Gold medals and think their team was just bad.
I play vs humans, i want to be able to say "GG Well played" when it was a particulary good game. Also sometimes you might meet friends on the ladder and shittalk for fun. If chat would be disabled by default, i can just play vs an AI.
When you got ladder anxiety or get tilted because of toxicity or whatever, turn off the chat, pick one thing you wanna get better at and focus on that for the entire game, no matter if you win or lose. You will get something out of it.
grndmrshlgando
hmm with friendly fire off I'm going to have to find new ways to troll toxic players now. in DOW2 I could just nuke their base or something
Silk
I feel like a lot of the "toxicity" of some online games just boils down to the fact that those are team games, and most people just feel like they're never (entirely) wrong. And ... Well, if they're losing and it's not their fault, who else's could it be? The only logical explaination is that your teammates are rubbish, isn't it?
The problem is inherent to playing in multiplayer with randoms instead of your crew I fear.
shmoulki
report system doesn't work because it leads to misuse of the reports ("let me mid or get reported")
the best thing for me is positive reports and bonuses for people having good behaviors and leadership, the kind of behavior that makes you win a lost game.
Of course you have to be able to mute other players no matter what....
Silk
Wouldn't people use such a system to reward skill instead of behaviour?
Shardex
Gwent, the upcoming card game has an interesting mechanic, after EACH game you can choose to click a "GG" button, the opponent then gets rewarded with a significant amount of gold/scrap (like hearthstone gold/dust). This is kinda promoting good behaviour. Kinda like a handshake before and after the soccer match, it does help.
Maybe something alike could work with the skulls for visual fluff here. It wouldnt prevent abuse completely, but its quite the positive reminder instead the report function only.
Positive reinforcement goes a long way.
Andtaxes
I have to agree that positive mechanics are likely better than negative mechanics for team games.
1v1 it's literally just 'bantz' that you can turn off but communicating with team mates is pretty important.
AEQ777
There should be no report system outside of game bugs or exploits.
It isn't Relic's job, nor should it be, to dictate how human beings behave. If there's an actual issue with their game, it's their job to fix it.
They need to include an option to block communication from specifics users, but that's about it.
If a player wants to throw a game, no report system is going to change that. They spent $60 to play the game any way they want, just like you get to play the game any way you want.
Their rankings will suffer, and they will drop to a bracket with those like them. Good players will inevitably rise, and save for the occasional griefer, they will no longer have to deal with that drama.
There should not be any rules on what you can and cannot say. If you're still worried about being offended, maybe go back to your windowsless box, as that's the only safe space for you.
Include the option to disable chat for people pissing you off? Of course that needs to be in game. If someone's blasting music over their mic, then I should be able to squelch them.
But that's it. Report systems are stupid and do not work to regulate behavior. They should never have been implemented in the first place.
yourCuteMotoko
Its just an formality in the case of gwent, no matter how the game goes you only get benefit from giving a GG after the game
CleanAndClear
I like how this sounds, could be an interresting little feature that could do some good and couldn't do much harm imo.
KanKrusha
I agree, having no report system is better than a report system that people use to bully other players just for lacking skill
Gorb
Having spent a long time playing "MOBA" games, I can definitely say report systems have absolutely reduced toxicity in those games. LoL, which I stopped playing a long while ago, has made specific improvements even to the level of punishing professional or otherwise competitive-level players for their ingame actions.
Reporting systems being abused doesn't mean that reporting systems are without merit.
Like with all these kinds of things, if the biggest drawback for you is getting reported for something you didn't do, then perhaps consider that you don't suffer from the harassment, griefing or trolling that other players do (for which the reporting system is warranted and necessary).
This doesn't mean the developers can't do other things to mitigate the available avenues for trolling or other forms of abusive activity, but a reporting system (even an automated one; as flawed as it can be) is definitely something to bear in mind.
Also, in DoW III's case, bear in mind that it's not F2P and thus it's not so easy to "make a new account" once you've been banned once. This increases the threshold for people willing to actually intentionally be abusive in the first place, and is the major reason why popular MOBA games struggle with toxicity.
Zena
Most adults won't waste their time reporting for false or little things. I say most because some cry everytime they get killed or lose, like for instance everyone that shoots them uses a aimbot. I find it's mostly kids crying and tattle tell reporting becuase they can't handle losing. making stuff up like they are AFK when the person isn't. I plan on just playing my best, having fun, and keeping the chatter to a min. GG
tritol
on voice/chat abuse simple mute button solves everything, and for other stuff depends if this game will somehow record replays or chat logs and then add right click -> report -> reason and if it is chat abuse, there should be log available and if something like ability abuse (good ol´ friendly fire) they could just search game replay (some games send replay code with report and then you can simply find the game by searching its #number) .... or how blizzard solved toxicity in HotS to simply not have chat
GenuineProdigy
The only way to prevent toxicity is to remove the chat function and that does more harm than good. You'll never be able to stop toxicity only offer players a way to prevent it. For example, profanity filter, mute, block and the report system. However, reporting a player for "being bad" would never actually cause a player to be banned, otherwise, I would of been banned from League years ago, since, everyone has an off game.
However, I do want to point out that if you're given the tools to avoid abuse...use it. You know how many times in League and games in general, someone is being toxic and people just want to bicker back and forth instead of just muting the player? It takes two to tango.
karocann
The primary competitive modes will likely be 2v2 or 1v1, I'll bet. There's no reason to have chat on in 1v1, and in 2v2 it should be easy to find 1 friend. Finding 2-4 friends who's schedules line up is really challenging for a game like HoTs, LoL, or Dota2. Reporting a player for sucking I think will be less of an issue for 2v2, and I'm pretty sure they need a replay of "abuse" to prove abuse. Why would Relic ban mediocre players for being mediocre?
The lobby is going to be full of // snip, read the forum rules - Gorb // on any game you play.
Gorb
Casual reminder that language should be kept as clean as possible, especially when employing slurs used against actual human demographics.
This is a Moderator Hat post
Andtaxes
The pay-to-play aspect I think will keep alot of the jack-asses at bay if they know they can get perma-banned for being abusive jerks. That being said I don't think you are going to curb abusiveness by being authoritarian in banning folks either.
I'd like to see a "game rating" system at the end of the match where you rank players based on their helpfulness/would you play with them again. If yes, nothing happens. They continue as normal. If no, you drop in likelihood of playing with said player again. If a guy is a really abusive sack of garbage eventually he is going to have a hard time finding people to queue with.
Agemmon
Relic can absolutely dictate how players behave in their game.
It doesn't matter if people spend $60 on the game, Relic can still dictate terms of service for using the online services of their game – it's their game and their online services. Buying a game does not make the game yours, it gives you access to the game.
Toxic and obnoxious players are useless and do nothing but fuel themselves and others. If someone cannot refrain from being obnoxious and unconstructive when speaking with other players, they absolutely deserve to be suspended from the chat system.
It's not about "safe spaces" for "offended" players, it's about mitigating pointless toxic behaviour. Toxic, raging players are the real problem because they can incite others to react negatively, no argument. You seem to paint the picture that the players needing "safe spaces" are childish and immature, but it's really the people that can't help but uncontrollably rage against other players because they themselves are immature.
I agree with Gorb – report systems absolutely reduce childish toxicity. As Gorb said, Dawn of War III is not free to play and thus we wouldn't be seeing a lot of players treating the system with as much disregard as some free to play games. Penalties would be temporary, of course, and would become more harsh with repeated infractions.
The only people that would despise such a system are those that are toxic themselves and have little faith in their ability to control their childish outbursts.
HareBear
Thank you! This argument always drives me crazy. I guess if one mean comment or "joke" ruined my entire day that'd definitely be something I needed to work on. But I don't really want to spend my free time getting raged at. My friends and I throw a lot of bants around, but I like those people. I don't really want SephirothGoku666 telling me "you like that
" when I'm losing because they're not my friend and the comment isn't particularly funny. Without a report system my options are just to mute that guy after that message (unfortunately I've already seen the message at that point) or to mute all people immediately, which would be a bummer because I'd like to interact with the community.
Obviously rude comments are unavoidable and as always I'll go on with my day after some unfriendly bants or raging, but there needs to be a way to cut down on that behavior. My impression both from playing LoL for years and from hearing a psychologist Riot employed give a speech on player behavior was that their systems had significantly reduced the amount of improper behavior. There's no need to shun those models just because someone thinks people just need to toughen up. Valve took that approach with Dota and that game is a cesspool. I don't want DoW3's community to be like Dota's.
Edit: Here's the talk from Riot's Lead Social Systems Designer about player behavior that I referenced. It's a few years old but still interesting. I'd like to see how much player behavior has changed since then.
KanKrusha
You may have noticed there are rules on this forum about what you can and can't say. There are rules for behaviour in public places and what you can and can't say. Breaking those rules earns you charges such as "Verbal assault", "Use of Offensive Language" and "Disturbing the peace". These rules are harder to enforce on-line but that does not mean there should not be rules against this sort of behaviour.
I raised this thread not so much to talk about foul language, which anyone who has spent more than 2 weeks on line is probably immune to, but more active bullying behavior such as threatening to report and inciting others to report. On line bullying is illegal in some countries, so yes there are rules about that too, although the standard required to reach police prosecution is pretty high (maybe that should be "low"). I have seen some petty and mean behaviour on Smite and Heroes of the Storm (& stupid, i mean seriously, do they really think that developers would ban a play just for not being very good?). I would like it if the latest release of my favourite franchise did not suffer from the same thing. And I would like it if the community agreed that we will call this out, even if the developers are unable to police it.
Nautiloidor
LoL also has a community driven reviewing system. If someone get reported a few times it goes to the "tribunal" and you review the game chat logs for all the games they were reported in and could access their score and item build at the end of the game. I helped out for a year-ish, and it kind of worked, but eventually, 80% of people seemed just pressed punish for every case. There were some cases I had reviewed where someone was just really bad at the game, and had been reported multiple times, and 4/5 other "reviewers" had already chosen the punish option.
I suppose anything is hard to judge, unless the person is being revolting in chat, without watching the game. And watching that volume of games is going to be hard. But maybe the community driven system could work.