21 replies to this topic

[Remf]

Hola-

There's already a long post in off-topic about "trolls", which got me thinking a bit more about aberrant behavior online. For some reason, game devs seem to make similar mistakes over and over, either through oversight or intentional avoidance of the potential to abuse game mechanics. It's like they expect people to play their game the way they want it to be played, but don't put in sufficient or reasonable mechanisms to enforce that desire...

Sure, in a perfect world, everybody would play nice, and follow both the letter AND spirit of the rules. But that's just never going to happen. There are some games (EVE online jumps to mind) that embrace the "wild west" approach to game governance, which is frankly very refreshing sometimes. But a game like MWO, which REQUIRES at least squad-level coordination for enjoyable play, AND has essentially no barrier to entry (free to play), I'm pretty sure that type of laissez-faire approach just won't work.

So anyway, instead of doing the hindsight is 20/20 thing, I thought it might be interesting to discuss what types of "exploits" or other metagame shenanigans to expect, and what, if anything, could be done to control, respond, or prevent them. Perhaps the most obvious/damaging one to game credibility (aside from blatant hax/exploits anyway):

Game fixing. If there's any mechanism to control or anticipate the matchmaking process, expect folks to exploit it mercilessly. Could be as simple as in-game cross faction collusion using throw-away accounts to quickly lose matches or more elaborate fifth-column/traitor/manchurian-candidate scheming. Or simply organized, deliberate win trading. With the skill tree setup, you might also see people dual-boxing a mech on both sides of a fight, then running off to a corner to shoot themselves to up their skills. Basically, anything to corrupt the may-the-best-team-win intent.

Some other pretty standard misbehavior includes leeching (play n afk), general griefing/TKing (for the lolz, as opposed to for a gain.), spamming chat (with stupid ascii pics, vulgarity, etc.), general antisocial malevolence ("use alt-F4 to bring up your control panel..."), etc.

Would really be nice to know that all the OBVIOUS stuff like this has been considered and proper responses put in place BEFORE the game comes out, as opposed to the typical knee-jerk post game cleanup. There's lots of different approaches in use in various games... learn from history or repeat it.

Thoughts?

Edited by Remf, 09 July 2012 - 12:50 PM.

[CCC Dober]

It's quite telling that your topic got junked as well. If I had to guess, then I'd say this topic doesn't sit so well with certain persons. At least the moderation on this board. I'm all for solutions, but it doesn't help if topics like this get such a level of softcore censorship by junking them like this. I'll agree that this topic has been handled rather careless in the past and it would be nice if it was given more attention in general. But as I said, if certain mods openly suppress topics like this (and others), then I don't see how we can make a worthwhile contribution that gets noticed by Garth and friends. You know, the guys that can do something about it ...

[WardenWolf]

I think we will really have to wait and see how the Community Warfare pillar gets implemented. Only once we have an idea of what the devs are actually going to do with it can we anticipate possible abuses. However, when the time comes this is absolutely something we should discuss here on the forums... and then provide feedback to the Devs via the 'suggestions' forum

[Remf]

Just to clarify, the topic didn't get "junked", I posted it in the "off topic" area deliberately. Didn't seem appropriate anywhere else, and since the troll thread was already here...

[CmdrSpider]

Haven't read anything to this effect, but you bring up a very valid concern. I have often wondered why these matters aren't addressed in game. But let's explore some possible fixes, please be kind as I'm not a programmer.

Matchmaking - While I want to see lance/company to have the ability to challenge one another I've seen the problem of which you speak. So two thoughs here;

• Random matches - this keeps anyone from lining up a set out come.
  
• Challenge match - these matches must be set up with players whose abilities and skills are within a certain percentage of one another. In this way players couldn't challenge ghost lances who wouldn't fight back, or at least not for very long. Also have as a challenge requirement that the mechwarrior must reach some predetermined skill level before he can challenge or accpet a challenge.
  
• Additional Thought - while any team might blow thier opppent out of the water from time to time we all know this isn't going to happen regularily if the teams are reasonably matched by ability levels. One indicator to the devs of any game that someone is "Power Leveling" ought to be stats that are out of off the scale as compared to everyone else such as a 20 to 1 kill ratio. This is not to say someone might not go 20 and 1, but no one is going to go 20 and 1 everyday. Numbers like this reflect that someone is upto something that isn't above board and they ought to have their account under close watch if not banned/

Win Trading - While some will do anything to reach a new level for their team, the best you can probably hope for here is limit the number of times a group can do battle with another group in say a days/weeks/months/years time. While multiple groups could rotate through one another it has always been my belief that a program should be able to detect this kind of thing, through up a red flag and then the devs GM's could go observe those matches for themselves. Perhaps the red flagged matche could be saved for review.

Leeching - my suggestion here is that a player never receive's XP/CB's just for showing up. So if the game requires you to performs some actions and you don't then you get a big zip for that game. This could be further strengthened by having the game kick any player whose 'Idle" for a specified amount of time.

Spamming - These types of players aren't really players but trolls in disguise. Personally I believe that anyone caught spamming ought to have their account banned. At a minimum a player who spams ought to have his account suspended, with ever increasing amounts of time given to them. A steep progression would work for most I believe, how about; 1st time - 1 week suspension, 2nd time - 1 month suspension, 3rd time - 3 month supension and 4th and all repeated offenses 1 year. For me its simple break the rules suffer the consequences, after all why should we suffer because your bad choices.

Cussing - A lot of people do it, heck I use to cuss myself. That being said it doesn't make it right. Some will argue this is the real world so what's the big deal. Well it is the real world, but we will have kids, ladies and men playering who either don't need to hear it or read it. Now I'm not a prude and I'm not even offended, I simple don't believe that kind of behavior should be tolerated in MWO. Again how about suspension or banning as out lined in spamming. This should even come to play when a player uses texting short hande (i.e. "***" does not stand for "water the flowers"). While spoken words maybe hard to track, I would think that the progamming could be set up to catch what was typed and deal with the offender as needed.

General Griefing - I never understood why a player felt the need to try and ruin the game for others. This is an area there ought to be a where where a player can report the offender. An in game recording of all mechs actions might be saved when a player makes a report. While the devs might not look at every report, certainly when a player reaches a certain number of reports on his character the devs would recieve a red flag and then go an investigate.


Hackers - I have and I hope the devs have a no tolerance policy for this type of behavoir. I'm watching my favorite FPS slowly die as more and more players leave the game because their tired dealing with these individual's. Nothing sucks the life out of a game quicker than someone short cutting their way to the top, or facing an opponent whose OPKing, Aimbotting or some other non-approved way of winning a match.

I'm looking forward to seeing what other constructive thoughts our community has on this issue.

[Djarid]

Quote

Cussing - A lot of people do it, heck I use to cuss myself. That being said it doesn't make it right. Some will argue this is the real world so what's the big deal. Well it is the real world, but we will have kids, ladies and men playering who either don't need to hear it or read it. Now I'm not a prude and I'm not even offended, I simple don't believe that kind of behavior should be tolerated in MWO. Again how about suspension or banning as out lined in spamming. This should even come to play when a player uses texting short hande (i.e. "***" does not stand for "water the flowers"). While spoken words maybe hard to track, I would think that the progamming could be set up to catch what was typed and deal with the offender as needed.

I couldn't disagree more... implement a profanity filter by all means but do not impose your morality on me!

I reality in an unfiltered environment with mixed demographics I am a champion of moderation but being offensive cuts both ways, intolerance is is my biggest bugbear

[Skadi]

(Sorry i get bored reading walls of text that arnt about new gameplay mechanics )
OT: @Djarid and his quote, yes i agree with what yall are saying, thats why theres a filter (and it should be togglable for those who dont care about cussing, and hopefully itle be ingame as well, as for vent/mumble/ingamechat/teamspeak, thats why we have mute!)
PS. for the record if dont ******* care about cussing

Edited by Skadi, 09 July 2012 - 02:44 PM.

[Damascas]

I expect we will see griefing mechs like mechs with no HS and so many lasers they fire once and explode.

[CCC Dober]

Remf, on 09 July 2012 - 02:08 PM, said:

Just to clarify, the topic didn't get "junked", I posted it in the "off topic" area deliberately. Didn't seem appropriate anywhere else, and since the troll thread was already here...

So in other words: you have preemptively 'junked' your own topic? *shakes head*

[Stunner]

I had concerns with this game since it's free to play that there will be certain abuses. In the old MPBT we had people that would grief other players such as friendly fire on purpose to hurt their own team. As one of the moderators I knew that players were getting banned from committing acts when it was habitual. They would then have to create a new account which actually cost them money. In this game it's free to play and like other Free to play games there are folks that will have multiple accounts. The accounts they are serious on and the accounts that they like to become complete asshats on.

In a game that requires good coordination for the team to be successful it would be nice to know that the at least the teammates were trying to win and not loosing on purpose or worse killing members of their own teams.

[MuffinTop]

After reading these comments, you guys got me thinking I would want to play with others, where there is mutual respect and trust. So I'll lonewolf for a while,but will be looking for merch corp or a clan, depending on a mutual fuzzy feeling developed over time.

Edited by MuffinTop, 09 July 2012 - 09:02 PM.

[CCC Dober]

MuffinTop, on 09 July 2012 - 09:01 PM, said:

After reading these comments, you guys got me thinking I would want to play with others, where there is mutual respect and trust. So I'll lonewolf for a while,but will be looking for merch corp or a clan, depending on a mutual fuzzy feeling developed over time.

I don't blame you for that tbh. For me it was WoT that opened my eyes to the extent of unchecked 4$$hattery in online games. Without a full group to play with, you are at the mercy of trolls/griefers. The 'problem' can be solved either in radical or subtle ways. Ignoring it won't do much for the longevity of the game. We begged the devs in WoT to address these problems properly and it took them seemingly forever to come up with a rudimentary solution that was again prone to abuse and backfired initially because of poor implementation. Just my take on it. My hope is that it won't be like that over here, but related information is rather thin tbph.

[Agent KI7KO]

MuffinTop, on 09 July 2012 - 09:01 PM, said:

After reading these comments, you guys got me thinking I would want to play with others, where there is mutual respect and trust. So I'll lonewolf for a while,but will be looking for merch corp or a clan, depending on a mutual fuzzy feeling developed over time.

Asshattery in online games is overplayed. It exists, it will torment you, and it will be a massive ***** when you get it in your games, but like what? 1 out of 10 games? Don't make a big deal out of it and they won't target you specifically.

Edited by Afoxi, 09 July 2012 - 10:06 PM.

[Brew E]

Afoxi, on 09 July 2012 - 10:05 PM, said:

Asshattery in online games is overplayed. It exists, it will torment you, and it will be a massive ***** when you get it in your games, but like what? 1 out of 10 games? Don't make a big deal out of it and they won't target you specifically.

So better to roll over and just accept it? Sorry but no! 1 out of 10? Think Again there Chief. Try half the time in wot.

Edited by Brew E, 09 July 2012 - 10:25 PM.

[Brew E]

Djarid, on 09 July 2012 - 02:33 PM, said:

I couldn't disagree more... implement a profanity filter by all means but do not impose your morality on me!

I reality in an unfiltered environment with mixed demographics I am a champion of moderation but being offensive cuts both ways, intolerance is is my biggest bugbear

You know i would agree with you but the problem is that the really sic ppl know there are filters on and use all the cleaver ways around so they can flaunt it in your face. I mean we all know how to space out a cuss word so everyone in chat can see it.

[Macharias]

The best thing we can do as players of this game is just report any exploits or what have you we will see in the game.

We can only leave feedback to the devs and keep track of any bugs or glitches that cause unbalanced gameplay.

What I am dreading most however are those players that want to take what could be a great PVP game and turn it into another ******* contest for themselves. We've all seen it on League of Legends. Those individual players that want to be "telephone tough guys," those players that think because they stack a certain stat and win 1v1s, that they are suddenly King ****. I know you can't stop that behavior, it just happens, people want to be ********. All we can do as players is just recognize it's a game, have fun blowing each other's mechs to Kingdom Come.

And hope to god the devs have included a big fat ignore button >>

[Moriarte]

Lets just focus on the fact it will be mostly a game for fans of the Battletech/Mechwarrior history.
On a F2P game there will always be people joining just to amuse themselves in a way rather than enjoying the game as a whole.
That is why you have a community, if one steps over the line than all that we can do and should do is report the account.

[Vechs]

League of Legends does a respectable job.

After every game, you can report people for a variety of reasons. Each report gets reviewed by 15 different volunteer veteran players (who earn in-game money from reviewing reports). If a majority agree to punish the offending player, the case is elevated to a GM. If they vote to pardon, then the case is dismissed.

There is also a mechanism for weighting reports -- reports made by players with clean records have more weight in the system than players who have been punished before.

FAQ here:

http://na.leagueofle...ribunal/en/faq/

[GoldenArbiter]

Vechs, on 10 July 2012 - 12:06 AM, said:

League of Legends does a respectable job.

After every game, you can report people for a variety of reasons. Each report gets reviewed by 15 different volunteer veteran players (who earn in-game money from reviewing reports). If a majority agree to punish the offending player, the case is elevated to a GM. If they vote to pardon, then the case is dismissed.

There is also a mechanism for weighting reports -- reports made by players with clean records have more weight in the system than players who have been punished before.

That sounds really awesome. I would seriously volunteer my time to keep the game full of people who don't hack. I mean, we all just want a nice clean working environment, right?

[Qosmius]

Damascas, on 09 July 2012 - 03:51 PM, said:

I expect we will see griefing mechs like mechs with no HS and so many lasers they fire once and explode.

best comment ever