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Right now we get two reports every so often. If I play one game I already do not have the ability to report everyone who deserves it. Often games will devolve into a shouting match between teams. One player on my team or the other team gets fed and trash talks the others. It's not just them taking jabs at other people but is, for the most part, just harassment. It's either personal attacks on them, racial slurs, etc. So that's one report gone already. Then what if someone on the other team yells back? I tend to forgive them depending on who is causing the issue or pressuring them to act this way. But then what if he has friends? Well fuck me I literally cannot have enough reports for all of you. As if it's not bad enough to be on the losing team and having them talk down to you, I feel bad when I'm on the same team as them and I'm helping them. I feel like I'm encouraging their behavior. And what am I supposed to do? I can't feed and help the other team. I can't just leave or afk. I can't apologize or even speak up. It's better to just stay quiet and let them shout at someone else so they don't turn on you.
I've tried my hardest to stay out of arguments but even if you're doing well there are many people who want to pick fights or blame someone for their personal failure. In a game that requires some sort of communication to be successful it's difficult. You can either be completely silent, try to not give them any fuel, or you can try to communicate but the minute you even open you're mouth you'll be attacked. There are a few things I've done to try and protect myself but it's not a perfect solution. I've disabled voice communication entirely. In my experience voice communication is by far the most trouble. Text you can ignore, sticks and stones, etc. But voice communication let's people just destroy your ear drums. If it isn't someone taking full use of their shitty mic, it's someone blasting music. The one or two occasions where there was someone pleasant on the end were not worth it. Anything said could've easily been done through text so it added no benefit. With all the extra hotkeys and the ability to alt+click many abilities and items you can easily get information across without the need to type or speak.
I've changed my behavior which has mixed results. I try to just never speak. Don't bother telling anyone how to play it wont work. You are personally attacking them, even if it's a suggestion, so I don't even bother. I don't bother asking for wards, I don't bother asking for help, I don't bother suggesting plays or strategies because it only leads to problems. I'd rather just tag along, do my best, and maybe they wont notice me. What little I do say is from alt+clicking to let someone know they've got a blink dagger or something. The only thing I type anymore is just wp, or gj. Granted it's hard to do this, and there are amny times where I can't just keep my mouth shut, but I found that talking to others is just not worth the risk. I have strongly considered automatically ignoring every player in the game once it starts. I haven't done that yet because I think it's better to mute people as they start fights so that people with something useful to say aren't always ignored. However ignoring someone isn't full proof. Players will still disconnect, feed, refuse to help or correct their behavior. There are just some things you can't stop. One thing that should be easy to stop is spam pinging. If you ping more than once or twice odds are you're doing it to be a pain. Even if I ignore someone there is no way to stop them from spamming pings on top of me or anyone else. I can still see them drawing on the mini map and that alone is a major hindrance. It makes it much more difficult to keep track of everyone's movement. If they're dead, as bad players will often be, they have all the time in the world to do nothing but mess with you. It's not like they have anything better to do. Why not scribble out the minimap or spam pings?
What we need first and foremost is many more reports. There are simply far too many people who are allowed to harass and bully others because there is no way to report their behavior. It isn't fair to assume that someone else in the game will report them either. Odds are they don't have any remaining either. Not to mention if there are a group of them you would somehow need to coordinate who reports who in order to get everyone. In addition to the increase in reports there needs to be more people reviewing the cases to get through the increase in reports. There will be a large increase in report cases, but if you are able to stick with it and be consistent you will eventually get many more of the toxic players. Once they're dumb into low priority, or better yet banned even if just temporarily, they wont be a problem for long. I believe once most of them are sorted out of the community you'll see the number of reports decrease. Once players see that there is a much more real threat of them being punished it'll discourage the trolls who aren't willing to make the commitment.
Another tool that I think would help tremendously is the ability to know, from the very start, who is grouped together. I do not want to play a game as the 5th with a group of four. You become an outsider, the new guy, the pub. Everything you do will be scrutinized by them who are just waiting for an excuse to tell everyone else. If you insist on putting me on a team with a premade group I would rather ignore them and not even take the chance. I think the best thing to do, and I would recommend this to everyone is to just leave. It's sad when it is better to take an abandon and risk getting reported than it is to play with premade groups. Those games become a circle jerk, and the hive mind is very real. They act as one person and not in a good strategic way, but in a "I don't care if my buddy is a dick I'm going to back him up and be a dick too." Even if it's just a group of two this applies. They are just not worth the trouble.
I mentioned this already but we really need the mute button to mute everything from a player. I don't want to see or hear their pings, I don't want to watch them scribbling dicks on the minimap, I want absolutely no communication from or to this person. In addition what would be great for everyone is just something to do during death. Playing with the minimap and pinging everything are the only things you can do while dead. A good example is hearthstone, that just has little things the player can do while they wait. They can click the board or some objects on the map. The reaction is very basic but it helps relieve that itch to keep your fingers moving. Maybe add the ability to interact with your HUD? Maybe you can click on a pile of gold and it'll shimmer or toss a few coins. Just a little something that only the player sees so that they don't need to bother me while they wait to respawn.
I've tried my hardest to stay out of arguments but even if you're doing well there are many people who want to pick fights or blame someone for their personal failure. In a game that requires some sort of communication to be successful it's difficult. You can either be completely silent, try to not give them any fuel, or you can try to communicate but the minute you even open you're mouth you'll be attacked. There are a few things I've done to try and protect myself but it's not a perfect solution. I've disabled voice communication entirely. In my experience voice communication is by far the most trouble. Text you can ignore, sticks and stones, etc. But voice communication let's people just destroy your ear drums. If it isn't someone taking full use of their shitty mic, it's someone blasting music. The one or two occasions where there was someone pleasant on the end were not worth it. Anything said could've easily been done through text so it added no benefit. With all the extra hotkeys and the ability to alt+click many abilities and items you can easily get information across without the need to type or speak.
I've changed my behavior which has mixed results. I try to just never speak. Don't bother telling anyone how to play it wont work. You are personally attacking them, even if it's a suggestion, so I don't even bother. I don't bother asking for wards, I don't bother asking for help, I don't bother suggesting plays or strategies because it only leads to problems. I'd rather just tag along, do my best, and maybe they wont notice me. What little I do say is from alt+clicking to let someone know they've got a blink dagger or something. The only thing I type anymore is just wp, or gj. Granted it's hard to do this, and there are amny times where I can't just keep my mouth shut, but I found that talking to others is just not worth the risk. I have strongly considered automatically ignoring every player in the game once it starts. I haven't done that yet because I think it's better to mute people as they start fights so that people with something useful to say aren't always ignored. However ignoring someone isn't full proof. Players will still disconnect, feed, refuse to help or correct their behavior. There are just some things you can't stop. One thing that should be easy to stop is spam pinging. If you ping more than once or twice odds are you're doing it to be a pain. Even if I ignore someone there is no way to stop them from spamming pings on top of me or anyone else. I can still see them drawing on the mini map and that alone is a major hindrance. It makes it much more difficult to keep track of everyone's movement. If they're dead, as bad players will often be, they have all the time in the world to do nothing but mess with you. It's not like they have anything better to do. Why not scribble out the minimap or spam pings?
What we need first and foremost is many more reports. There are simply far too many people who are allowed to harass and bully others because there is no way to report their behavior. It isn't fair to assume that someone else in the game will report them either. Odds are they don't have any remaining either. Not to mention if there are a group of them you would somehow need to coordinate who reports who in order to get everyone. In addition to the increase in reports there needs to be more people reviewing the cases to get through the increase in reports. There will be a large increase in report cases, but if you are able to stick with it and be consistent you will eventually get many more of the toxic players. Once they're dumb into low priority, or better yet banned even if just temporarily, they wont be a problem for long. I believe once most of them are sorted out of the community you'll see the number of reports decrease. Once players see that there is a much more real threat of them being punished it'll discourage the trolls who aren't willing to make the commitment.
Another tool that I think would help tremendously is the ability to know, from the very start, who is grouped together. I do not want to play a game as the 5th with a group of four. You become an outsider, the new guy, the pub. Everything you do will be scrutinized by them who are just waiting for an excuse to tell everyone else. If you insist on putting me on a team with a premade group I would rather ignore them and not even take the chance. I think the best thing to do, and I would recommend this to everyone is to just leave. It's sad when it is better to take an abandon and risk getting reported than it is to play with premade groups. Those games become a circle jerk, and the hive mind is very real. They act as one person and not in a good strategic way, but in a "I don't care if my buddy is a dick I'm going to back him up and be a dick too." Even if it's just a group of two this applies. They are just not worth the trouble.
I mentioned this already but we really need the mute button to mute everything from a player. I don't want to see or hear their pings, I don't want to watch them scribbling dicks on the minimap, I want absolutely no communication from or to this person. In addition what would be great for everyone is just something to do during death. Playing with the minimap and pinging everything are the only things you can do while dead. A good example is hearthstone, that just has little things the player can do while they wait. They can click the board or some objects on the map. The reaction is very basic but it helps relieve that itch to keep your fingers moving. Maybe add the ability to interact with your HUD? Maybe you can click on a pile of gold and it'll shimmer or toss a few coins. Just a little something that only the player sees so that they don't need to bother me while they wait to respawn.
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