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Fastman

Hello

I thought a lot before posting this, but as a long term player of many online games, I see taht this community is either broken or something deeply doesn't work in how it's run bu the admins.

- People insulting in chat for a game.
No option to mute the chat, no "report" button (which is everywhere but here) and when people complain in the forum the best they are told is "blacklist those players". Which is frustrating when one just wants justice dealt.

- Trolls troll and they don't get banned.
People join the forum discussion stating they're a troll and nobody does anything about it.

- Players have nasty behaviours.
A lot of times I got messaegs in the chat like "you're just lucky" or the annoying "GG" ages before the game is over. One time the player kept on saying that for three turns because I was in lead and he thought I was buying the last province. Result? I had bad cards for 3 turns and he managed to overcome me and then buy the last province. How frustrating is that?
Not only, people rarely end the game as soon as possible. They want to get the more points possible, even if it's clear that the game is over and they won.  When this starts, I resign.

- People complaining about the right behaviour.
People here in the forum come even to complain for people resigning when the game is lost. What should a normal person do? Sit and watch someone playing and playing because they don't want to end the game? I've been there, no thanks, but at least do not whine about me resigning.

- Pepole losing time on purpose.
Yes, you probably get banned for that (at least for one reason you do!) but you still have to resign and hope it works. If it doesn't, he trolled you and won the game and you have nothing.

- People minding their own business and doing other stuff white playing.
I do not do other stuff while playing. It's called "RESPECT". Instead, I have a lot of people vanishing during a game and coming back 2 minutes after saying "Sorry, phone call" or "Sorry I'm playing two games in the same time". COME ON! You serious?

I can count on examples all day long, still the fact is that I never encountered such a throng of unpolite and disrespectufl players in an online game.

And since I don't think that Dominion is somewhat a magnet for trolls, I have to think that this community isn't handled properly by its runners, whoever they are.

Too bad, because people PAY for this and they get a really bad service IMHO.

Hope that more people complain and something starts moving because this is actually unbearable, the forum is literally FILLED with complaints and nothing happens.

Cheers

AdamH

Yeah I agree pretty strongly with most of your points. It's unfortunate that this is the state of things and it's also unfortunate that the only person (people?) out there with the power to do anything about it aren't going to do anything for whatever reason.

I guess out of your 7 points I will sort of disagree with one of them...

Quote from: Fastman on 25 July 2018, 04:30:14 AM
- People minding their own business and doing other stuff white playing.
I do not do other stuff while playing. It's called "RESPECT". Instead, I have a lot of people vanishing during a game and coming back 2 minutes after saying "Sorry, phone call" or "Sorry I'm playing two games in the same time". COME ON! You serious?

I mean, when I don't have 100% of attention to devote to a game I will either do something else or play a bot, but I usually give the benefit of the doubt to people in these situations. I've always used the maxim "just assume they had to change a diaper" and it makes me feel a little bit better, but you always have the blacklist to get rid of people who you would rather not play with for reasons like this. I realize this seems like an empty suggestion given that the blacklist is currently the only power users have to deal with a variety of things that are real issues, but hey the blacklist actually seems good to use here!

...but at the same time, the real solution would be to have a timer system that would work better. Unfortunately, that's a problem with the game and not with the online client or the community. The game was designed as a tabletop game where enforcing a timer isn't necessary or even desirable. I don't think there's a good solution to this, but that will probably be an issue with any online client we get in the future, which will hopefully be run by someone who can deal with the rest of the issues you've brought up.

Ingix

First, of course, thanks for your honest opinion.

Quote from: Fastman on 25 July 2018, 04:30:14 AM
- People insulting in chat for a game.

- Players have nasty behaviours.

- People complaining about the right behaviour.

- Pepole losing time on purpose.

- People minding their own business and doing other stuff white playing.

So in one sentence: Players behaving like idiots.

Quote from: Fastman on 25 July 2018, 04:30:14 AM
I can count on examples all day long, still the fact is that I never encountered such a throng of unpolite and disrespectufl players in an online game.

This is astonishing. According to all the reports in the games media, player toxicity is a mayor or the mayor problem of competitive online games. Players insult *teammates* in games like Overwatch. In other words: Players behaving like idiots seems to be the norm, not the exception.

Quote from: Fastman on 25 July 2018, 04:30:14 AM
And since I don't think that Dominion is somewhat a magnet for trolls, I have to think that this community isn't handled properly by its runners, whoever they are.

The big question is how frequent this is. I remember roughly a year ago when lots of players reported abusive behaviour, mostly with slow-players. This died down after a while, so I *assumed* that the scope of the problem has decreased.

Quote from: Fastman on 25 July 2018, 04:30:14 AM
Too bad, because people PAY for this and they get a really bad service IMHO.

Hope that more people complain and something starts moving because this is actually unbearable, the forum is literally FILLED with complaints and nothing happens.

Can you point out a few from last month? I visit the forums daily and of course I see complaints, but they happen at a rate of say 1 per day. Since forum activity is down, it may look like much, but in absolute numbers it is small.

One last comment, about something you wrote very near the start:

Quote from: Fastman on 25 July 2018, 04:30:14 AM
Which is frustrating when one just wants justice dealt.

This seems to be a common attitude: Somebody did something bad to me, so I want somebody else to deal out justice.

I understand it and certainly I feel and felt that way on many occasions. But the philosophy behind what is done in this game is that the impact on the player experience for the 'nice and friendly' players should be minimized. You blacklist the person that did something you did not like, and move on. Players that get excessivly blacklisted will be looked at.

Of course, it may be that the problems got out of hand and more drastic measures should be taken. But I don't see evidence that this is true.

Again, thanks for your posting!

daavor

Quote from: Ingix on 25 July 2018, 03:58:36 PM

Quote from: Fastman on 25 July 2018, 04:30:14 AM
Which is frustrating when one just wants justice dealt.

This seems to be a common attitude: Somebody did something bad to me, so I want somebody else to deal out justice.

I understand it and certainly I feel and felt that way on many occasions. But the philosophy behind what is done in this game is that the impact on the player experience for the 'nice and friendly' players should be minimized. You blacklist the person that did something you did not like, and move on. Players that get excessivly blacklisted will be looked at.

Of course, it may be that the problems got out of hand and more drastic measures should be taken. But I don't see evidence that this is true.

Again, thanks for your posting!

I don't want to touch the etiquette issues that were brought up in his post, but I think this really needs to be addressed. When someone gets abused in a game, they generally want to not interact with that person again. This software allows that pretty easily. (I've had an account since release so I can't really speak to the new player experience, but I would question how obvious it is to new players that a lightning bolt is the blacklist button).

But they also want justice. Or to put it in another light, maybe just maybe players don't want other people to have to go through what they did?

It may be the most efficient and simple way for a small company to do it, but people DO NOT think of this in terms of statistics. The guy who directs slurs at me once is going to impact my feelings about a game a lot more than a vague sense that the people who accumulate enough slow playing blacklists to alert the mods is getting banned.

This is made more pressing by the obvious differences in etiquette. Some people want to blacklist anyone who will resign on them mid game. Others want to blacklist people who say gg mid turn, or who overbuy points or who spend any time thinking. With this much fracturing in the use of the blacklist feature, the sense of it meaning anything except in avoiding that particular account is heavily diluted.

People want a report button. I want a button that is saying "I think this person's behaviour is seriously harmful to the community, I don't want anyone to have to play with them" not just "I find this person's timing/etiquette annoying please don't make me play with them" . Now I'm sure people would overuse the report button. I'm sure some among us would report minor breaches of "etiquette".

Personally I trust ShuffleIT enough to be satisfied with the current system. But for newer players the current model is very different to a standard report button. It gives the impression: "Yeah if you don't want to play with that person who just cursed at you for 'getting lucky' we wont make you, but we accept them as a part of the community unless they become statistically anomalous enough for us to care." Coming from some online communities that might seem par for the course and fine. Coming from others it will seem sort of cold and uncaring.

Honestly...just give a report and blacklist feature, and prioritize those over standard blacklists.

Fastman

One very easy-to-implement and successful feature can be this one:

you press the lightning button. A sub menu appears with a radio button.

- Insulting or bad words
- Abusive playing
- Slowing the game on purpose
- Other personal reasons.

So if a player gets too many "blacklist" for the very same reason, it gets to the mods attention.
It's a report button, but, if you press it, you wouldn't be able to play with that player anymore so you cannot abuse the feature.

Then, I read that players are banned with no warnings. This is also wrong.
I strongly enforce correction, not removal.

Warning that some behaviour is seriouslu leading to a banning via a message, will correct the player's behaviour.

RobGlass

I don't think the community is broken, per se, but I do think I've seen problems like this consistently over my time here and it isn't conducive to community building.

What I will say point blank is that the idea that the blacklist button should solve these problems has never seemed to go down well in the threads that I've read, and personally it feels like taking a sledgehammer to a smaller problem. Especially because A. the act of blocking someone from playing me feels hostile and I don't always want to do that, and B. the way that blacklist is always pitched is "If someone gets blacklisted enough time that'll start the process for a ban" and I don't think some of the problems outlined above should trigger that and I don't want some of these people banned.

Two examples:

I just played two games (16715419 and 16715590)  with someone who resigned early in both games and accused me of cheating each time. I didn't, obviously, but that's annoying. I don't want to blacklist him but I also think accusations of cheating shouldn't be tolerated.

Another set of games I played with someone a while back were nice, we had a small friendly chat going. In one game, though, he made the blanket accusation that I was copying his strategy. I wasn't, I had delayed buying the trasher that was the core of his strategy until after he'd started buying IGGs. It was an annoying experience, but on the whole he was a pleasant opponent who played well.



Neither of those is ban worthy. Each of those, if they're a pattern of behaviour, could be worthy of a "Don't be a pillock" e-mail or even banning someone from being able to use the chat function in games. And I'd feel better with a report function that just let me do that. I also feel that one of the things that online games have taught us (like Overwatch, cited above) is that if people think there could be immediate consequences for anti-social behaviour they start behaving better in the long run. The blacklist feature has proven itself not to have that deterrent value.

Fastman

Quote from: RobGlass on 26 July 2018, 01:16:43 AM
I also feel that one of the things that online games have taught us (like Overwatch, cited above) is that if people think there could be immediate consequences for anti-social behaviour they start behaving better in the long run. The blacklist feature has proven itself not to have that deterrent value.

I totally second this.

daavor

Quote from: RobGlass on 26 July 2018, 01:16:43 AM
I don't think the community is broken, per se, but I do think I've seen problems like this consistently over my time here and it isn't conducive to community building.

What I will say point blank is that the idea that the blacklist button should solve these problems has never seemed to go down well in the threads that I've read, and personally it feels like taking a sledgehammer to a smaller problem. Especially because A. the act of blocking someone from playing me feels hostile and I don't always want to do that, and B. the way that blacklist is always pitched is "If someone gets blacklisted enough time that'll start the process for a ban" and I don't think some of the problems outlined above should trigger that and I don't want some of these people banned.

Two examples:

I just played two games (16715419 and 16715590)  with someone who resigned early in both games and accused me of cheating each time. I didn't, obviously, but that's annoying. I don't want to blacklist him but I also think accusations of cheating shouldn't be tolerated.

Another set of games I played with someone a while back were nice, we had a small friendly chat going. In one game, though, he made the blanket accusation that I was copying his strategy. I wasn't, I had delayed buying the trasher that was the core of his strategy until after he'd started buying IGGs. It was an annoying experience, but on the whole he was a pleasant opponent who played well.



Neither of those is ban worthy. Each of those, if they're a pattern of behaviour, could be worthy of a "Don't be a pillock" e-mail or even banning someone from being able to use the chat function in games. And I'd feel better with a report function that just let me do that. I also feel that one of the things that online games have taught us (like Overwatch, cited above) is that if people think there could be immediate consequences for anti-social behaviour they start behaving better in the long run. The blacklist feature has proven itself not to have that deterrent value.


I've never viewed blacklisting people as particularly hostile. If you run into someone at a bar and find them annoying its not hostile to not seek out their company in the future. If you dont like the way someone plays or acts, just blacklist them. This is admittedly also shaped by experience with other platforms with clearly delineated categories of "Ignore" and "Report".

That said, I think the other thing is that the threat of random bans descending quickly even if not totally systematically for single instances of harassment is a far better way to deal with persistent trolls than the current model. A troll in the current system can make an account and play on it for hours before the blacklists pile up enough to alert a mod.


Ingix

Again, thanks for all the thoughts on that issue.

One thing to remember is that (according to what I've heeard) almost(?) all bans are for free accounts. The players using them are not invested in them usually, that is they don't want to protect their ratings etc. It's a small step to open TrollAccount45 if TrollAccount44 is banned. It apparently even happens for games like Counterstrike that cost money each time you buy it anew.

Also, to dispel any illusions you probably don't have: This is not an operation that has the resources (like Blizzard) to look at lots of in-game chat protocals and find out if it is abusive/harrasive, etc.

I do agree that there should be an in-game way to report something, like slow-playing or abusive chat.

Rabid

I think most people would agree there is room for improvement to the reporting system.
But the real question is: Is it worth using limited development time on it?
When the time could be better spent on other features.

Fastman

Quote from: Rabid on 26 July 2018, 10:38:52 AM
I think most people would agree there is room for improvement to the reporting system.
But the real question is: Is it worth using limited development time on it?
When the time could be better spent on other features.

My answer is 100% yes.
My gamind experience is frequently ruined.
But I can cope with people having different needs.

mark1878

I totally agree the going slow is a pain well over 10% of games have this. (writing this whilst waiting for player to time out)

At least let me block someone during a game.
It might alkso help if I could note why I blocked someone - make that private

Usefule information for the developers re prorities would be - How many games are ended by forcing someone to resign?

Martin plays Piano

Hi,
the community is certainly not completely broken, but perhaps it is much too open to be abused accordingly. For me the main problem is that every new user is immediately allowed to do EVERYTHING here - there is no period of probation, no public reputation and above all it doesn't cost a cent - all this makes it so easy for a troll to reinvent himself 10 times a day - and before the mods intervene, 100 trolls with the same account run through the community.
Some thoughts:
a)   There are generally 2 groups - paying and non-paying members
- If you don't pay, you can only play Base Set (against bots)
- If you don't pay, you will be auto-matched with Base players only – waiting for expansions isn't any longer allowed
- If you don't pay, you only can play expansions with your (paying) friends by joining a game
- If you don't pay, you can't enter the leaderboard (to get rid of alts)
- Only if you have paid, you are allowed to play with expansions to host your own games

b)   "Newbies" are players with less than 50/100 games with humans, regardless they are paying or non-paying members
- "Newbies" must prove themselves - they have to earn personal reputation points first before they are "Full Members" of the community
- "Newbies" should always get a mandatory voting from "Full Members" after the game (thumb up / thumb down)
- The "Newbie" status and the number of thumbs is flagged out publicly to all players - this can also be used as a filter in a "Full members" preferences for auto matching
- "Newbies" can't vote for other players – even not for other "Newbies"
- "Newbies" can't enter the leaderboard
- If the difference of Thumbs up vs. Thumbs down is higher than X a "Newbie" will be introduced ceremonially as a "Full Member" to the community
- Occasionally some "Newbies" will need some more games than 50/100 to get this level

c)   Of course, also "Full members" can be abusive or they can mutate to a troll
- "Full members" can propose a defined time window per turn (fast, medium, slow, endless) before the game starts – those who agreed on "fast" can be kicked after 1 minute
- Full members do not necessarily receive a rating after the game, but a player always can do this, if he wants to (this may be the old blacklist feature then)
- Blacklist features should be clustered into "Intended Slowplay" / "Quitting" / "Language" / "Foul play"
- Blacklist accumulations for "Full members" can be observed from the Shuffle IT mods to start the banning process with clear and public rules
- "Full members" have the option to press a report button while the game is running - if required, a mod can switch into the current game.

d)   Further annoyances
- Using the same IP address in the same game is not allowed (or it can only be used for unrated games)
- Alternative accounts (if known) are publicly displayed or flagged

May be much too much, but this is the way other platforms are acting successfully.

mark1878

The numbers of people just leaving is increasing.

But then looking at the page the resign button is hidden behind the log - ie the four entries Kingdom/Log/?/Resign does not fit on a line and so Resign wraps to the next line but the Log does not move down.

Perhaps putting resign more prominently might help.

mark1878

Much interesting stuff here but somethings are too much.
Quote from: Martin plays Piano on 26 July 2018, 04:30:35 PM


b)   "Newbies" are players with less than 50/100 games with humans, regardless they are paying or non-paying members
- "Newbies" must prove themselves - they have to earn personal reputation points first before they are "Full Members" of the community
- "Newbies" should always get a mandatory voting from "Full Members" after the game (thumb up / thumb down)
This I disagree with on some sites I have been voted down just for winning and as I had played the game in real life I was better than many non newbies so found it difficult to play with people.
Use of blacklist flags that can be checked ie quitting, Language can be used as negatives as they are observable to a third party.

Quote
- "Newbies" can't enter the leaderboard
No they need to  know how good they are.

Quote
c)   Of course, also "Full members" can be abusive or they can mutate to a troll
- "Full members" can propose a defined time window per turn (fast, medium, slow, endless) before the game starts – those who agreed on "fast" can be kicked after 1 minute
Sometimes the state can be odd so the odd turn could be longer so kicking without response for a minute is problametical.
Another site has something like a chess clock so that some moves can be slower.
Quote

- Blacklist features should be clustered into "Intended Slowplay" / "Quitting" / "Language" / "Foul play"

add other as well so you can blacklist just if you don't like the player but there is nothing objectional to others.

Quote

d)   Further annoyances
- Using the same IP address in the same game is not allowed (or it can only be used for unrated games)

This stops housemates, family members or people in the same company or campus playing. Given Dominion is so much less fiddly online than with cards and also checks your move is valid for newbies I don't think this is a good idea.