Revised report system suggestion from a programmer

[FaceFisted]

Reports are becoming a topic of controversy. They are intended to punish bad players, bots and flamers, but since they can use reports as well, good players will get their share of revenge reports.

 

At the moment only chat reports do their job, other two are debatable.

Do we know if bots are being banned? No, since there is no feedback.

What happens when you report someone for "bad play"? Nothing. This is probably implemented so that you can feel better

 

Luckily, there is a simple way to improve reports and prevent their abuse:

 

1. Conditions must be met before report options are available
2. OR Reports must be automatically checked before system approves them
3. After enough reports are accumulated, there must be some sort of consequence
4. Karma

 

Conditions must be met before report options are available to players

 

This is something that we, web developers, do all the time. We check for some sort of conditions before we allow changes in user interface. For instance, we check if user has entered correct e-mail before we allow him to register or log-in. Same thing can be applied here before report option even appear on right click.

 

For inappropriate chat:
 

• Has this player wrote anything?
  If he hasn't wrote anything - chat report should be unavailable.
   
• Has player wrote some words that are in a "bad words list"?
  If no bad words have been entered - chat report should be unavailable
   
• Is this player spamming chat?
  If player has wrote less than [certain amount] of messages in a [certain time period] - chat report should be unavailable 

 

For bot / afk report:

 

• Has the game loaded for this player?
  If the game hasn't loaded, then it may not be the players fault. Report for AFK should be unavailable. Some sort of UI marker should show to players as well who is in game and who isn't. 
   
• Has this player moved since the game has started?
  If he has moved, he is probably not a bot and report should be unavailable for this option.
   
• Has the game crashed for this player?
  If the game has crashed under any condition, then reports should be unavailable. It's not the players fault.

 

For bad play:

 

What is bad play? Judging by how 90% of the players are playing lately, especially during weekends, most of them should be reported. I would rename this to Griefing.

 

• Has this player damaged a team mate?
  This is easily checkable - if he hasn't used his weapons on a team mate, option should be unavailable.
   
• Is this player blocking a team mate?
  Also easily checkable. Allow this report option after certain amount of team damage
   
• Has this player killed a player from own team?
  Allow this option if team kill has happened.
   
• Has this player left match prematurely?
  If he has left, but he was alive - allow this report.

 

 

Reports must be automatically checked before system approves them

 

If there is no checking in user interface, because of possible game client performance, reports should be checked on server. System should remove karma points only if above conditions were met. Also, there shouldn't be any limitations on number of reports if report checking and their conditions are properly thought of and implemented.

 

 

Consequences

 

At the moment, we see consequences for team killers and those who were reported though chat reports. Wouldn't it be great if we receive a system message like:
"Your report from [date] that player [nickname] was a bot proved to be correct. We have blocked his account. Thank you for improving community"

 

What happens to team killers or griefers? Shouldn't they be punished more creatively in a way that would allow them to reflect or calm down?

They should be limited to COOP for the duration of their punishment. That will allow them to chill out in a relaxing game mode. This way they won't rage or deliberately ruin matches as most of them do now. It is absolutely the worst possible option when those pink players enter ranked matches. That is instant loss almost always.

 

What about bots? Simply - block their accounts for at least a week. Repeated offenders should face increased duration of account block.

 

 

Karma

Karma doesn't provide any benefits at the present time, but wouldn't it be nice if it did? Introduce Karma levels with benefits that could be reached on each level. For instance - small increase in income, small decrease in repairs, higher chance of getting a super container and so on. Small benefits as a result of being a normal human being This is an area that could improve community so much and would inspire players to play nice and help each others. Of course, as we have conditions for reports, developers could make similar conditions for compliments so that this system wouldn't be abused.

 

 

What do you all think?  Constructive feedback would be most welcome. Who knows, maybe some of this get through to WG.

[Monkeyhangerjak]

Just finished reading this post,and what can I say but.

WELL DONE

 A well thought out and executed suggestion,after reading I thought to myself this is all just basic common sense why havnt wargaming gone down this line from the beginning.It would have been so easy and sensible.

 

all in all one of the best posts and sugestions I have read in a long while,no whining no name calling just good common sense sugestions.Irealy hope someone frtom wg reads the op and thinks the same and passes it up the chain of command.

 

+100

[EsaTuunanen]

For bot / afk report:

 

• Has this player moved since the game has started?

  If he has moved, he is probably not a bot and report should be unavailable for this option.

Well, that will protect all those battleships running to sail in circles uselessly at rear of the map.

 

Though that should be detected by automatic system penalizing that after at most couple offenses.

[FaceFisted]

Well, that will protect all those battleships running to sail in circles uselessly at rear of the map.

 

Though that should be detected by automatic system penalizing that after at most couple offenses.

 

Those are simply bad players and bad play is their play style. Since this is PG7 game, who is to say that those are just not some elementary school kids? I know, we all really really hate that, but this game is (unfortunately or not) made for everyone.

 

Besides, bad players are not bots. Bots are programs made for account grinding and later on for sales.

[Kann_Nix_Extreme]

 

Those are simply bad players and bad play is their play style. Since this is PG7 game, who is to say that those are just not some elementary school kids? I know, we all really really hate that, but this game is (unfortunately or not) made for everyone.

 

Besides, bad players are not bots. Bots are programs made for account grinding and later on sales.

 

Good post you came up with! On this point I'll have to agree with EsaTuunanen though. I have witnessed behaviour of active ships that can't possibly be human. For example: Players sitting stationary in spawn until receiving the first hit, or ships going to random positions on maps, shooting at absolutely nothing in completely random places. Not talking about bad play here, but obvious bots simulating an active player. They are rare, but definitely a thing.

[EsaTuunanen]

 who is to say that those are just not some elementary school kids?

And do you think it's tolerated in that school football if player just keeps kicking ball to own goal or sits in corner?

That kind team sabotaging will surely have repercussions.

[FaceFisted]

 

Good post you came up with! On this point I'll have to agree with EsaTuunanen though. I have witnessed behaviour of active ships that can't possibly be human. For example: Players sitting stationary in spawn until receiving the first hit, or ships going to random positions on maps, shooting at absolutely nothing in completely random places. Not talking about bad play here, but obvious bots simulating an active player. They are rare, but definitely a thing.

 

This is typical bot behavior. This is why I have wrote a specific condition:

 

Has this player moved since the game has started?

 

Because most bots are not moving. They are idle until they are attacked and then they just return fire, without moving.

 

Of course, when bots become more advanced, more conditions should be implemented, but players won't see anything. They will miraculously have "Report as bot" option enabled for that certain player. 

 

And do you think it's tolerated in that school football if player just keeps kicking ball to own goal or sits in corner?

That kind team sabotaging will surely have repercussions.

 

You have to think like a developer here and separate software from humans and then come up with specific conditions for either one, without affecting game for pure bad players, because every game has them. Some of those bad players are kids, some are invalids, some are newbs who will learn in time. Aaaand some are weekend players that will never ever learn

 

So what condition would you invent to classify camping in background valid for report and consequences that come out of that? Remember that this condition will be applicable to all circumstances, even if you are defending a cap while your lemming team is on the other part of the map, doing nonsense.

 

[mtm78]

Excellent write up, out off likes sadly but I will come back to this thread when I get new one's  

 

I also linked to this thread from my own  

[FaceFisted]

Excellent write up, out off likes sadly but I will come back to this thread when I get new one's  

 

I also linked to this thread from my own  

 

Thanks! Linking is fine, let's get the ball rolling ;)

[EsaTuunanen]

You have to think like a developer here and separate software from humans and then come up with specific conditions for either one, without affecting game for pure bad players

 

So what condition would you invent to classify camping in background valid for report and consequences that come out of that?

For low HP BB going to hide can be acceptable and actually the best/only right thing to do if only thing needed for winning is retaining points for little longer.

But for full HP BB to run instantly to rear border and corner away from enemy and team mates that's unacceptable.

Shouldn't be hard to differentiate those full hp BBs.

 

Second it makes no difference to other players in team if their match is sabotaged by bot or player.

Such team saboteurs don't belong to PvP of team based game.

 

And the speed these coward BBs run to rear and hide behind islands belies they have problems because of some injury or been unfortunate to born with some condition.

Same for accuracy of those circling around caps/stopping in front of it.

[FaceFisted]

Esa, I agree with you, but such problems cannot and should not be solved by software or reports. I have been a gamer since I was 5 years old, so... almost 33 years of gaming and all I can say is that bad players always were and will always be here. You cannot remove them from public matches, but you can instead make more advanced game modes that require higher skills. Ranked mode is a step in a right direction, but it is not perfect since you only need persistence to make to the end. 

 

My suggestion is to come up with proposal on how to improve ranked instead.

 

Instead of making complicated solution for one part of the game, make more simple and common sense solutions for several different parts of the game. Simplicity always work best.

 

p.s. Think of it from reversed position - you have chosen to play with noobs in team. ;) Would you have to do that if you had other game modes more suitable for you skill level?

[Likatare]

For bot / afk report:

 

• Has the game loaded for this player?

  If the game hasn't loaded, then it may not be the players fault. Report for AFK should be unavailable. Some sort of UI marker should show to players as well who is in game and who isn't. 

This! I wish we could see if people haven't fully loaded into the game yet or if they have crashed.

[mtm78]

This! I wish we could see if people haven't fully loaded into the game yet or if they have crashed.

 

Ships which are loaded in have turrets which moved from starting position. People who crash while loading will keep their turrets in the starting position. Ships which crash in battle will keep their turret orientation.

 

Still I report those people as they MIGHT have crashed but only WG can see their behavior over multiple games so it's up to them to check. Knowing they don't do that unless these people are reported makes in mandatory to actually report those as well. 

[Bladezfist]

Am I the only one who thinks this is a bad idea, the karma system is just another player metric.

The report system will never be able to properly combat bots, relying on the user for cheat prevention is not the solution.

 

"Conditions must be met before report options are available"

This would allow bot authors to more easily test their software, just silently ignore reports on the server side if you are going to do anything.

 

"If no bad words have been entered - chat report should be unavailable"

We already have a language filter, why wouldn't this just be automatic at this point.

 

"Has the game crashed for this player?"

How does the server tell the difference between a crashed client and a bot that closes the connection to the server on purpose. Send crash logs on next startup?

 

"Karma doesn't provide any benefits at the present time, but wouldn't it be nice if it did?"

No, it would just lead to people gaming the system. You shouldn't feel like complimenting someone is a transactional thing, it should be a nice pat on the back for a job well done and nothing more.

[robihr]

well reports do what they are supposed to do. they help people went off so they dont spam the support. compliments/karma are just side product of the report system.

 

bot report system doesnt work at all. even when they have very strong suspicions about bots, they dont ban them. i have seen accounts that had over 100-150 battles per day for over 2-3 months without any sanction. and those were reported to support by numerous players. later when community started really complaining, most obvious ones were either banned or they just stopped playing. nowadays bots either have accounts hidden, or they dont go over 60 battles per day.

[FaceFisted]

Am I the only one who thinks this is a bad idea, the karma system is just another player metric.

The report system will never be able to properly combat bots, relying on the user for cheat prevention is not the solution.

 

"Conditions must be met before report options are available"

This would allow bot authors to more easily test their software, just silently ignore reports on the server side if you are going to do anything.

 

"If no bad words have been entered - chat report should be unavailable"

We already have a language filter, why wouldn't this just be automatic at this point.

 

"Has the game crashed for this player?"

How does the server tell the difference between a crashed client and a bot that closes the connection to the server on purpose. Send crash logs on next startup?

 

"Karma doesn't provide any benefits at the present time, but wouldn't it be nice if it did?"

No, it would just lead to people gaming the system. You shouldn't feel like complimenting someone is a transactional thing, it should be a nice pat on the back for a job well done and nothing more.

 

I welcome this sort of criticism. It helps to refine a solution. ;)

 

With good abuse prevention, Karma can prove to be useful because players will go to great lengths to secure their bonuses that come out of Karma reward system. Ofc, losing Karma points will result in loosing those benefits.After players experience benefits of behaving good, they will think twice before insulting or team killing someone again. We can expand Karma system with different punishment points for different infractions. Chat ban can cost you 1 karma point, while deliberate TK can cost you 20 karma points for instance.

 

Conditions must be met before report options are available

This is simple validation. If some terms are met, then you will have option to report someone. As every other system, this one will have to adapt to current bot technologies. 

 

If no bad words have been entered - chat report should be unavailable

Because this is one of the conditions software will test to see if you have really deserved that report or not. We want working report system that cannot be used to punish someone just out of spite, because he detonated you for instance.

 

Has the game crashed for this player?

If you exit a game through menu, your client hasn't crashed, but if your client stopped sending data packets to server - it crashed.

 

About Karma - as we can create criteria for reports, we can also create criteria for compliments. From a programmers point of view this is quite easy to do.

 

For instance - your clan members, division members, friends would not be allowed to give you compliments. Other players in match should have other conditions. If they help you through chat, system can test if they are valid for chat compliment etc.You get the picture.

[Bladezfist]

 

With good abuse prevention, Karma can prove to be useful because players will go to great lengths to secure their bonuses that come out of Karma reward system. Ofc, losing Karma points will result in loosing those benefits.

This will just become an arms race between those trying to cheat the system and WG. It would make the system into a sham.

 

Conditions must be met before report options are available

This is simple validation. If some terms are met, then you will have option to report someone. As every other system, this one will have to adapt to current bot technologies. 

No one is arguing if this is difficult or not. It's just not something that should be done client-side as it gives a heads up to people making cheats. Send the message to the server so the client has no way of figuring out if something passes or fails validation.

 

If no bad words have been entered - chat report should be unavailable

Because this is one of the conditions software will test to see if you have really deserved that report or not. We want working report system that cannot be used to punish someone just out of spite, because he detonated you for instance.

Bad language is not a good reason for a chat report, that's what the filters are for. The report is for people circumventing the filters (to which they could also do with this blacklist) and people breaking the ToS.

 

Has the game crashed for this player?

If you exit a game through menu, your client hasn't crashed, but if your client stopped sending data packets to server - it crashed.

Again, this could be something that a bot uses to his advantage, a better way of combating botting would be to take away the incentive.

 

About Karma - as we can create criteria for reports, we can also create criteria for compliments. From a programmers point of view this is quite easy to do.

Might as well just automate the whole thing then if you can map out exactly which behaviours are desirable and worthy of reward.

 

For instance - your clan members, division members, friends would not be allowed to give you compliments. Other players in match should have other conditions. If they help you through chat, system can test if they are valid for chat compliment etc.You get the picture.

 

I think we are asking two very different questions. 

 

"Is it possible to do X?" and "Is it a good idea to do X?" I believe the answers are yes and no, respectively.

[FaceFisted]

 

I think we are asking two very different questions. 

 

"Is it possible to do X?" and "Is it a good idea to do X?" I believe the answers are yes and no, respectively.

 

It is simple. Think about it some more since I have explained it nicely.

 

Report system checks are aimed at server - "Is it possible to do X / to report player for this problem?"

Karma system is aimed at players - "Is it a good idea to abuse someone over chat / team kill them...?"

[Likatare]

 

Ships which are loaded in have turrets which moved from starting position. People who crash while loading will keep their turrets in the starting position. Ships which crash in battle will keep their turret orientation.

 

Would still like an UI marker for it, just to easily see if there's anyone behind the rudder.

[waxx25]

great ideas OP. 

[pihip_wg]

Good suggestions OP, I especially agree with the 'griefing' one as I've already said elsewhere that the 'Plays poorly' report option can be (and most probably is) abused a lot.

 

Also, good karma being rewarded (for example small credits/free exp/flags packages) is an interesting idea, though I doubt many would benefit from it - people are far quicker to point out mistakes than to give praise.

[Agantas]

Karma system could be more visible as well. Perhaps they should show in what game you were complimented/reported in and why. We have this log in the bottom right corner that shows that kind of stuff. The feedback to player from compliments/reports isn't very helpful if you can't realize what game caused such feedback and why.

[Cosseria]

Lots of good ideas, but I strongly advice against any linkage between karma and benefits, even in an ideal system where rage reports wouldn't be possible. I don't want beggars to spam chat with crap like "I performed well pls everybody give me a + 1 pls pls plsss !!!11!". Also, I'm afraid that this would immediately be rigged in some ways.

[FaceFisted]

Lots of good ideas, but I strongly advice against any linkage between karma and benefits, even in an ideal system where rage reports wouldn't be possible. I don't want beggars to spam chat with crap like "I performed well pls everybody give me a + 1 pls pls plsss !!!11!". Also, I'm afraid that this would immediately be rigged in some ways.

 

Begging would be another condition for chat report ;)

[EsaTuunanen]

If no bad words have been entered - chat report should be unavailable

Because this is one of the conditions software will test to see if you have really deserved that report or not. We want working report system that cannot be used to punish someone just out of spite, because he detonated you for instance.

First it should check if player has said anything for that player to see.

To straight away discard any attempts to revenge getting sinked by enemy who hasn't said anything to other team.

 

 

 

 

Esa, I agree with you, but such problems cannot and should not be solved by software or reports. I have been a gamer since I was 5 years old, so... almost 33 years of gaming and all I can say is that bad players always were and will always be here.

While sure there were IDKFA and IDDQD and others but usually games demanded players to learn something to get forward for first levels.

I don't remember any racing giving you Ferrari from crashing starting car to walls enough times.

 

Heck, not free games still tend to demand player to learn instead of being "free-to-fail-forward".

I mean there's team saboteur with 1½k average damage in 85 Karlsruhe matches, 5½k in Königsberg and Nürnberg...

And of course Derpitz as only BB with over 500 matches sabotaged by 13k average damage.