Why would you have left FAF?

@arma473 said in Why would you have left FAF?:

If more people hosted "nice players only" lobbies that would suggest there is more demand for good behavior. I think there is a lot of willingness to tolerate toxicity and trying to force everyone to be nice would also have serious downsides.

For example, "Gentleman Seton's" has specific rules about being polite, not ctrl-k your base, that sort of thing. The vast majority of Seton's games are not "Gentleman" games.

If someone hosts a "Be Polite 500+" lobby, I'm guessing there would be 90% less toxicity in that game.

I always advocate people to host the games that they want to play. It doesn't matter if you have 2 games or 2000.

Your suggestion is indeed a workaround if you are already invested in the game and just fed up with the toxicity. I see a couple problems with relying on this approach though:

New players don't know the game, the maps or the implicit rules about hosting (initially, most of them don't even know what "being grey" means), so new players don't host games. I'm fairly certain this is true in basically all server lobby based games, so the experience new players will have is the one we give them, for better or worse.

Even if new players were to host games though, it would put the responsibility and work of curating a good game experience on them, which is not what we want. If we want to retain as many new people as possible, they should be able to just play the game and have fun, without worrying about all that stuff.
Therefore, I would strongly argue that curating an enjoyable new player experience is on us, the invested people, and not the new players themselves.

@BlackYps said in Why would you have left FAF?:

Well do you want it? Being toxic is already forbidden behaviour, but you need to actually report the people or nothing will happen.

I think nice people will generally feel it is inappropriate to report people for "not being nice".

If this actually needs to be reported then say so:

• Put a thin banner above the custom games list stating for example:
• "Please report players for verbal harassment and toxic behavior to help us keep the community a friendly place for everyone."

@CheeseBerry said in Why would you have left FAF?:

Make flaming, griefing, ctrl+k-ing your base reportable

that is already the case.

there's even an in-game prompt asking you whether you want report a user if the game thinks he attempted to grief you.

(dunno if that's still in)

@arma473 said in Why would you have left FAF?:

"Be Polite 500+" lobby

this is actually a practice I've witnessed. probably could bear to be a little more frequent.

I left FAF a long time ago, and when I came back, I saw the game with many changes (exp aeon plane with shield, wtf?). I feel noob and I see too good players.

I played SC/SCFA during long time and if I see the game hard, a noob.... it can see it too hard. Anyeay, I think players left is normal, too many games and the time is limited.

@Wainan said in Why would you have left FAF?:

Serious question, is there any support among the Council of Seton's for making toxic behaviour immediately punishable?

No other councilor bothered to reply to this so I will,
(Keep in mind we're not a unified entity)

As people have stated, the report functions are already in place.

The only reason you might feel that this is not the case is the same reason that:

@CheeseBerry said in Why would you have left FAF?:

My suggestions therefore would be a Karma system of sorts, fully built into the client.

Isn't viable.
The manpower of FAF will always be a major weakness,
Dealing with watching players 50 minute long gap games to find the moment where a player reclaimed your pgen is already a timesink, so trying to arbitrate a karma system to make sure people are not abusing it, is an unfeasble use of resources.

@Valki said in Why would you have left FAF?:

Put a thin banner above the custom games list stating for example:

A UI element such as this will only provoke a negative reaction and rightfully so, it makes FAF appear like it cannot handle it's community properly. You may not believe we do, but admitting to it is opening another can of worms. It's both overly draconian and overly weak. Also - If people are going to modify elements in said client UI, I rather they be doing something about fixing this garbage fire, than further complicating it.

The best thing to do is properly embed the report form link into the client UI instead of the bandaid methods we're using now (on the chat topic bar, and with a bot) so you can find it easier.

If the current system of reporting worked, there wouldn't be toxic behavior nearly every game.

@veteranashe
But it works? People are getting banned all the time?
Hell, there are instances where people are getting banned for stuff they should never have been banned for. So I really don't get it how you can come and say that it doesn't work?

Maybe instead of crying you should just make proper report next time with proper evidence?

@RandomWheelchair said in Why would you have left FAF?:

@veteranashe
But it works? People are getting banned all the time?
Hell, there are instances where people are getting banned for stuff they should never have been banned for. So I really don't get it how you can come and say that it doesn't work?

Maybe instead of crying you should just make proper report next time with proper evidence?

This is exactly the type of toxic attitude that resides in this community. Your reply is harsh, is empty content wise and is at best trolling in this context.

As an example, do you understand the full context of @veteranashe ? Did you ask him how he makes his reports? And if you did, did you tell him how to make a better report?

With your response you're just telling him to 'stop crying' and 'do better' without telling him how to do better. How would you react if your professor would give you an C- and then just tells you to 'stop crying and do better'? Does that tell you anything on what you did wrong? Does that tell you what topics you don't understand yet, and why? Does that help you prepare better for your next exam? It doesn't - as much as your post doesn't help anyone reading it either.

If you are going to tell someone to do better, at least state how better should look like. That may or may not help veteranashe, but perhaps it can help someone else and it appears a lot more friendly to the random reader that right now reads 'stop crying, do better - cheerio mate'.

Back on topic: I joined faf years a go just to leave it within a month. It wasn't a skill issue, it wasn't any technical issues: it was toxicity.

Every single game I did everything wrong because I did not understand the meta in map X or map Y. And I'm leaving the map names out with a purpose - according to every map that a host hosts there is a meta and if you don't get that meta then you apparently suck ass and should just uninstall the game. This while I could beat all my friends and the original AIX in the base game at that time.

This kind of %$#@ still happens and is widely mentioned throughout this thread. Sadly, it is not only in the game itself but also in our discord channels. Including the creative discord where content is made for this game.

Apparently people find it important that their opinion is always heard, even though there is no reason to state it with the attitude that sometimes is used. Multiple people have left the creative discord after or during their first map because of toxicity in the form harsh comments or opinions that were not required at all.

Throughout the last year we've lost at least three people that I can name from the top of my head that were either making content, or were at the start of making content and got demotivated or insulted because of the harsh responses that they got while showing their map and / or asking for feedback.

On top of that - the forum and the discord channels are essentially public - how does it appear to the random reader when its filled with toxicity? It wouldn't be that much inviting to me.

Alas, the only reason I came back two or three years ago is because this is the only reliable platform on which I can publish content for the game - and I enjoy doing that a lot.

"This is exactly the type of toxic attitude that resides in this community. Your reply is harsh, is empty content wise and is at best trolling in this context."
Pardon me for loosing my cool when I see the same exact frigging sentiment for the thousand time this past months, when regarding systems that mostly work correctly. How does he know that it doesn't work at all? Did he even make a proper report with evidence?

Cuz' funny enough each time I made proper reports with actual evidence I either got response that player got warned or outright banned. Why is it that for me the system works but apparently others are incapable of using it at all? Maybe the problem lies not in the system but that a certain person is just not capable of handling playing a game with other human beings? Beings that also want to have fun, it's multiplayer game. You are bound to share place with others so don't expect everyone to be pandering to your needs. Even more when you are bound to meet people that are vastly different from you.

"As an example, do you understand the full context of @veteranashe ? Did you ask him how he makes his reports? And if you did, did you tell him how to make a better report?"

Pardon me for not going out of my way to teach someone basic things like getting evidence against someone. Even more when the report form is properly setup and explains what to do. And even if it didn't plain basic understanding should be enough to mention where and what happened together with providing evidence in format of replay or screenshots.

"With your response you're just telling him to 'stop crying' and 'do better' without telling him how to do better. How would you react if your professor would give you an C- and then just tells you to 'stop crying and do better'? Does that tell you anything on what you did wrong? Does that tell you what topics you don't understand yet, and why? Does that help you prepare better for your next exam? It doesn't - as much as your post doesn't help anyone reading it either."

If system ain't broke don't try to fix it? In my experience it works properly as someone is actually willing to report the offending person instead of just coming to aeolus/dsc/forum and wailing how everyone one is toxic and moderation does nothing at all.
Well I'm not a child, so when I take a standarised test I'm expected to actually know what it contains and am provided with knowledge what it entails. Same situation here, the report form have everything you need to make a proper report. I'm not here to babysit people who can't be even arsed to read basic information on how to make a report nor are willing to contact moderation before spewing bullshit how everything is broken.

"If you are going to tell someone to do better, at least state how better should look like. That may or may not help veteranashe, but perhaps it can help someone else and it appears a lot more friendly to the random reader that right now reads 'stop crying, do better - cheerio mate'."

Same as before, all the information is freely available to everyone. And even if it weren't it's not rocket science on how to gather evidence against someone and then present it to higher instance instead of going about and publicly crying. Cuz sorry that's how his post seems to be.
Hell you can even see at what stage your report is, just log into the goddamn FAF page. Yes we have one, and it actually have some basic functionality.

"Every single game I did everything wrong because I did not understand the meta in map X or map Y. And I'm leaving the map names out with a purpose - according to every map that a host hosts there is a meta and if you don't get that meta then you apparently suck ass and should just uninstall the game. This while I could beat all my friends and the original AIX in the base game at that time."

I guess welcome to competitive gaming where people want to win the games and someone being really bad is inhibiting the possibility of having fun, as they are nothing more than dead weight. You aren't the only one who wants to have fun, there is another 1-11 people who want to have fun too. Again, if someone said something bad just use report function. But I doubt telling someone that they are bad can be considered toxic, same with telling to uninstall. It's actually quite mild thing to say.

Good, you beat some noobs and then actually met people who are playing to win. Welcome to online gaming where people want to win again and again. Also really? Beating AI in games makes people think that they are now gonna smash the online lobbies?

"This kind of %$#@ still happens and is widely mentioned throughout this thread. Sadly, it is not only in the game itself but also in our discord channels. Including the creative discord where content is made for this game."

Again, if they broke the rules then report them? Or just grow some thick skin? Not everyone is gonna pander to everyone's else needs. The options are there and moderation can easily dish out warning or bans if they deem the other to cross the line.

"On top of that - the forum and the discord channels are essentially public - how does it appear to the random reader when its filled with toxicity? It wouldn't be that much inviting to me."

Same, if you think that person is crossing the boundary then report them. Or you know, maybe the people who are so offended should go and say it upfront to the other person that they don't wish to be treated in such way instead of cowering and then crying how no one is doing anything for them? Like grow some spine people, you are mostly grown up people who should be able to stand on their own instead of going and asking others to held their hands.

highlight the text in the original post and then hit quote my man

@Jip said in Why would you have left FAF?:

Throughout the last year we've lost at least three people that I can name from the top of my head that were either making content, or were at the start of making content and got demotivated or insulted because of the harsh responses that they got while showing their map and / or asking for feedback.

Were they all because of Marlo?
I have to say though, the one I remember (LittleMissMurder) was definitely oversensitive to leave immediately because of one rude dude. Can't really do much about people who are that sensitive; they could at least report it to mods and stick around to see if anything comes of it or if other people are more helpful.

@RandomWheelchair said in Why would you have left FAF?:

But I doubt telling someone that they are bad can be considered toxic, same with telling to uninstall. It's actually quite mild thing to say.

Telling someone they are bad, w/e, have to deal with it when it's true, but telling them to never play the game again definitely is pretty toxic. Just because there are worse things doesn't mean we should excuse the otherwise still toxic stuff.

And yes, in general I have to agree with Endranii, reports do work, you just have to make them. Even got contacted by a mod directly once for further questions, so really can't say that reports don't work.

Ok I'll try a game tomorrow night and see if someone doesn't grief or show sort of unacceptable behavior.

I do not know what would to be done to fix the problem, I just know that people don't play because of it.

@biass said in [Why would you have left FAF?]

@CheeseBerry said in Why would you have left FAF?:

My suggestions therefore would be a Karma system of sorts, fully built into the client.

Isn't viable.
The manpower of FAF will always be a major weakness,
Dealing with watching players 50 minute long gap games to find the moment where a player reclaimed your pgen is already a timesink, so trying to arbitrate a karma system to make sure people are not abusing it, is an unfeasble use of resources.

I agree, taxing the time of our volunteer moderators further just to marginally improve the game is not feasable.

My intention for the karma system would be to have it mostly, or maybe even completely, automated.
I don't think this is the right place to post a three page design document about a possible karma system, so I'll try to be concise:

The main thing that requires human intervention are the meaningful, game altering punishments that come from griefing, harassment, etc. This is necessary of course, nobody should be banned w/o a human in the loop presiding over that decision.

What could be automated though is the small stuff, mainly the "was he an asshole or polite/helpful in the recent game" question, as well as (very) minor punishments or rewards.

As such, you could have the option to rate players after a game using the same interface prompt we already use to rate games as a whole.
Getting rated would result in someones karma score going up/down and after certain thresholds, you get minor punishments/benefits.
Like getting an automated warning informing them that they are making the game worse for others, or an angel/teacher emoji next to your name, if you are regularly nice/helpful

Maybe don't even give any rewards/punishments at all and just have a karma score shown when you click on someones profile as an incentive to be a bit more nice of a person. People like seeing numbers go up after all.
Like I said in my original post, this is all work in progress, especially the possible rewards punishments.

Having a way to rate to conduct of others might also help from a psychological perspective. Instead of being annoyed and having to stir in your own thoughts after a game, you get to tell the official karma system "Yes, he was a dick that game!" and get a "Thank you for your feedback.", providing just a bit of closure.
 

A couple of days ago I report someone for "being a dick" during multiple games and as expected nothing happened. This is probably a good thing, you don't want to start banning people for venting during a bad day, but it does give another perspective to the "just report them" suggestion:
Reporting may work, but it certainly doesn't for the small stuff.

It is good that the reporting system exists, but the small stuff does matter too!

Like I already said, this is not about me, my online-skin is thick enough by now, and it's also not about any of the real, competitive GaMErZ in this thread. We'll manage.

It is specifically about the new, inexperienced players and for them the difference between a welcoming and a hostile environment is huge.

The karma system might not be the right way to go, or it might just be a small part in a bigger solution, but I definitely think we can do better.

@CheeseBerry said in Why would you have left FAF?:

A couple of days ago I report someone for "being a dick" during multiple games and as expected nothing happened.

You mean the report already got closed? I was under the impression that at the moment they can't work on reports that fast.

Also what does "being a dick" entail for you? Did he insult people or did he just say "you're bad"?
Would be interesting to know whether mods are too lenient. If you think they should have taken action there are channels for that. It won't change if nobody even tries.

No ban doesn't need to mean nothing happened.

I reported a player last month or so for some bad behavior, the report was handled very quickly, the player wasn't banned, and the bad behavior has stopped completely. I am under the impression that the mods first helpfully warn and advise a player, though I didn't get feedback.

Happy with the result, no casualties (players banned or left), and no more problems.

@FemtoZetta said in Why would you have left FAF?:

I have to say though, the one I remember (LittleMissMurder) was definitely oversensitive to leave immediately

She is NOT oversensitive! when did this happen? who was mean to her? WTH I really like LittleMissMurder.

@FemtoZetta said in Why would you have left FAF?:

@CheeseBerry said in Why would you have left FAF?:

A couple of days ago I report someone for "being a dick" during multiple games and as expected nothing happened.

You mean the report already got closed? I was under the impression that at the moment they can't work on reports that fast.

Also what does "being a dick" entail for you? Did he insult people or did he just say "you're bad"?
Would be interesting to know whether mods are too lenient. If you think they should have taken action there are channels for that. It won't change if nobody even tries.

Yes, the report already got closed, w/o any notification to me, which I assumed to mean it was read and discarded for not being severe enough.

I don't think the mods were too lenient though. I filed the report specifically to test the "just report them" argument made in this thread and as such the bad behavior was relatively minor.

I don't want to publicly shame somebody here for maybe just having a bad day, so I won't post the replay ID, but a short summary is the following:

As it became apparent that we were loosing 40 minutes into a Setons, said player started to blame our air player, conveniently the lowest ranked player, for our loss. First passive aggressively by excessively praising the opponent's air player and then more directly by saying that our air played like shit, didn't do anything, etc.

It tipped all the usual boxes: Purely negative and non-constructive, avoidance of all personal responsibility for the outcome, excusing his bad attitude by being "competitive" when confronted, and so on.

Also, and this is my favorite, blaming our air player for that loss was, imo, just straight up wrong. He had air control for the first 30 minutes of the game, and bailed out both ponds with torps. He played about as well or better than would have been expected for his rank. (Even if he didn't, that wouldn't excuse being a dick of course.)

So, what was the experience like for our air player? He played a good game, winning his lane for half an hour straight and got to help his teammates, including said player. Then, once the tide turned, instead of fighting hard and loosing a still rewarding game, he had to sit there getting told he was shit and to blame for the loss for a full 10 minutes until the game finally ended.

No racial slurs were used and nothing really offensive was said, so I don't think the above is bannable behavior. But it is definitely mean, unhelpful and ruins the fun for everyone involved.
 

Compare that to some of the better games I have been a part of:
Just recently I was matched against HappyNoob (2k) on Setons navy, who then proceeded to absolutely murder me, even though I had 28 to his 12 mexes due to mid dying. Undoubtedly, had a better player been on my slot, we would have easily won that game, so in that sense I was certainly to blame for our loss.

Crucially though, the atmosphere was friendly all around, and he even started coaching me, his opponent, during the ongoing game. He even took the time to answer all my questions after the game on how I could have played better and how exactly he came to overcome such a huge eco disadvantage.

Even though I was responsible for our teams loss and I got absolutely obliterated by my opponent, this is easily among the best experiences I had in FAF so far!
 

Maybe the karma system idea is just an expression of my desire to give an "official" thumbs up for behavior like HappyNoob showed during that game, and an official thumbs down for stuff like the aforementioned flamer did.

Karma system hardly impacts new player experience. For one, new players are hardly going to be doing anything with it unless you obnoxiously put it in their face at the end of a game. Then, most aren't going to know how to check for it in the first place since the way you're describing it sounds like I need to go through every dude's user info tab in order to get any information about it. Then, it's going to take several shit games in order for the system to have any impact at which point the low karma is only really going to influence experienced players that already know what it means.

This is besides the point that such systems are going to be easily exploitable by dudes marking people just because of their nationality, inability to speak English, inability to speak Russian, "host stacked game", and any other bogus reason. All the garbage reports the mod team used to get when reporting was more automated would now just be translated into karma downgrades by people that don't understand how the game works ie cloak Cybran laser ACU is an exploit to make an ML invisible. Can't imagine the karma downgrades for deciding to go first bomber against some people, or deciding to go all in on some draw.

Not to mention this system is going to create absurd alienation in a community with already far too much alienation within its various subcommunities. Why would I as a dual gap player ever want to go into some wonder game? When I go, I will play terribly and likely lose the game. Now my allies are going to take it out on me by lowering my karma rating to turn me into a black sheep and potentially ruin my chance of playing other games. So instead, I will stay in the area of FAF I know well.

@FtXCommando said in Why would you have left FAF?:

Karma system hardly impacts new player experience. For one, new players are hardly going to be doing anything with it unless you obnoxiously put it in their face at the end of a game. Then, most aren't going to know how to check for it in the first place since the way you're describing it sounds like I need to go through every dude's user info tab in order to get any information about it. Then, it's going to take several shit games in order for the system to have any impact at which point the low karma is only really going to influence experienced players that already know what it means.

Well, if you are talking about the possibility to have no "real" rewards/punishments and just a score in the users profile, then yes, the karma score itself wouldn't effect the new player experience all that much directly, but the behavior that it influences might.

We don't want to just ban people after all. Preferably, we can nudge people into behaving better and the "numbers going up" incentive a karma score provides might do that.

Of course, this behavior change could only start to work after getting rated yourself enough, which means after at least a couple dozen games. That too is not a problem though as we don't need to adjust the behavior of new players directly.
Due to the FAF community being relatively small, new players come into contact with experienced players very quickly, and it's their behavior we want to change first and foremost.

I personally could name a couple of <600 ranked players with hundreds or thousands of games that regularly exhibit unwelcoming/bad behavior. It's these people that new players meet first and therefore these people's behavior we want to change.

New players don't even need to be the ones rating them, other experienced players can do that too.
 

This is besides the point that such systems are going to be easily exploitable by dudes marking people just because of their nationality, inability to speak English, inability to speak Russian, "host stacked game", and any other bogus reason. All the garbage reports the mod team used to get when reporting was more automated would now just be translated into karma downgrades by people that don't understand how the game works ie cloak Cybran laser ACU is an exploit to make an ML invisible.

It is true that most (all?) automated systems are exploitable to some degree, so a karma system would be no exception. A full discussion of countermeasures is outside of the scope of this thread, but here are some quick ideas:

Scale the karma rating given by how much a player uses the system. Somebody that downvotes everyone he sees, should have a much less of impact on the karma of others, than someone that only votes once every dozen games.

Include only automated rewards for good karma (like an emoji or some other swag) and no punishments for a bad score. Then it doesn't negatively impact anyone if the system gets abused.

Maybe even make the karma score positive only, like the upvotes in this forum, so that you can still reward good behavior, without many of the pitfalls of a full karma system.

There are many ways to implement such a system, I'm just spitballing here, but I'm not the first one with the idea for a karma system. Solutions, or at least workarounds, for exploitability do exist out there.
 

Not to mention this system is going to create absurd alienation in a community with already far too much alienation within its various subcommunities. Why would I as a dual gap player ever want to go into some wonder game? When I go, I will play terribly and likely lose the game. Now my allies are going to take it out on me by lowering my karma rating to turn me into a black sheep and potentially ruin my chance of playing other games. So instead, I will stay in the area of FAF I know well.

This scenario is exactly the type of toxicity players experience regularly, the only thing different is your fear that a karma system would be yet another way such bad behavior could manifest, maybe even be legitimized due to its officiality.

Besides some of the ideas I gave above to counter abuse of the karma system, my hope would be that the opposite happens:

Lets say you move from gaps to setons and immediately get flamed by three guys for "playing like shit". There is also one guy that defends you and tries to give you constructive feedback, but three to one is not a good ratio, so you go back to gaps and never try anything new ever again.

Now with the karma system, instead of just getting flamed by three guys for stepping outside your comfort zone, the one guy that defends you, now has a "trusted community member" (or something) symbol next to his name. So now you know that you should take his opinion more seriously than the opinion of the guys flaming you and wont get as discouraged as you otherwise would, hopefully resulting in you leaving your comfort zone again.

Frankly I disagree with the notion this is going to create any sort of cultural impact. At higher levels, there is no room to curate players based on behavior. You basically play with the dudes you get and barring absurd toxicity that gets you banned, that's what it comes down to. Then the people slightly below the top level that regularly watch streams are going to see the high level players disregard the karma system or consider it a joke and mimic the exact same behavior.

Continue on down the daisy chain and there's no real reason for some culture to manifest where anyone cares about the impact of it. I sure wouldn't look at it. If I want to curate a player, I look at their replay vault for what kind of games they play. As far as I know, this is how everyone else does it other than some teamgame dudes which keep their Bad Attitude (tm) list while ironically being people that get called out for their own Bad Attitudes. The major users of such a system are probably going to be these half a dozen guys that keep their death excel sheets for their 6v6 games because someone said they played like garbage and then a passive aggressive war ensued.

If there's no negative "warning this guy is mad toxic don't join this game" then what's the point of the system for new players. They join this 600 with 10,000 games that's toxic, are unaware that karma is a thing, and go play the game. Then a dozen games down the line when they complain about the toxicity of FAF they are told that this karma system is a thing and then get upset it doesn't do anything so what's the point in caring about it?

As far as I know karma systems in other games are deeply integrated into the matchmaking service of games. You get terrible karma, you get put in lobbies with others with terrible karma. Problem is FAF is self selecting so it's entirely up to the community to proactively create a culture around caring about karma rating, and we aren't big enough at higher levels of play to ever care about it. Best case scenario you have some "elo hell" where karma matters at <1000 or whatever rating and then suddenly no one ever gives a single care in the world about it.

Another thing I just recalled, I really enjoy seeing Gyle casts where a guy quits because the game is over and then I go into the comment section and see a bunch of dudes mad because a guy didn't play a game to conclusion and consider it "poor sportsmanship in FAF." If we allow "experienced players" to go and rate players, I'm assuming it's possible to adjust karma without being in a game. In which case, I eagerly await the Gyle Audience Good Behavior (tm) witchhunts.

All in all, if the entrenched FAF playerbase is so toxic it drives away players, I fail to see how creating a system which in turn allows this toxic playerbase to go and rate players is the solution.