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I mean, basically you've said "I don't get why anyone wouldn't agree with me, therefore yall must be high level players hoping the game doesn't do well commercially". That's like, just not a good faith engagement with the people who disagree with you. Have you considered that maybe people genuinely think this aspect adds more strategic depth, interest and fun to the game than you do?

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.

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.