[Suggestion] "Griefing" report option [merged]

[Ordin.9047]

Tonight a few players ruined Octovine for a full map. Its stupid, immature, and lame. Can we please have a specific way to report these people. It really brings the game down.

[Aldric the Slayer.5784]

I was just helping to run an instance of the Auric Basin meta and a guild decided to have a guild event where they would defeat the East Octovine with high DPS rotations, leaving the rest of the map to fall behind and failed the meta. Guild Wars is supposed to be the best of the gaming community and, that has been my experience. How can we call out behavior like this in our community without an option to report it? There were some newer players in the squad I was commanding and it left a bitter taste in their mouth. Surely we can do something to discourage trollish behavior.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

I was in this map and it was a whole guild it seemed.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

You can use the in-game report feature.

You can submit a ticket to the CS Team.

 

What you can not do is call out others on the forum.

 

Good luck.

[Aldric the Slayer.5784]

Thanks. I realized I was wrong to do that. I modified my comment.

[kharmin.7683]

Oh, hey look ... it's a duplicate thread to [this one](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/54264/we-need-a-way-to-report-griefing-players#latest "this one").

 

Please merge. Thanks!

[Forum Moderator.2781]

> @"kharmin.7683" said:

> Oh, hey look ... it's a duplicate thread to [this one](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/54264/we-need-a-way-to-report-griefing-players#latest "this one").

>

> Please merge. Thanks!

 

Merged. Thank you.

[Gaile Gray.6029]

I sure understand the desire to have a "Griefing" report option. But that term -- "griefing" -- actually has a lot of very subjective definitions, depending on the user. There are dramatic examples such as the above, where a full group causes the intentional loss of a meta. But some people feel they're being griefed if another player jumps where they're standing, or uses a finisher on them in town, or talks to them when they don't want to be talked to, or removes them from a party.

 

I believe that "griefing" is too subjective to be added to the report method. It simply covers too many different types of incidents. Imagine the person reviewing a report of "griefing" but who has no way to see -- much less verify -- what took place. In _all_ the examples I gave above, the agent would not be able to see what happened, and would be left with an unresolved in-game report.

[Tanith.5264]

There's a guild that makes a regular practice of sabotaging the Tequatl the Sunless event every reset by pulling abominations into the zerg during the burn phase and blowing them up. Then they type "F" which for some reason is quite hilarious to them. I and others have reported them repeatedly to no effect. If someone has another suggestion to put a stop to this, I'm all ears.

 

;)

[Gaile Gray.6029]

> @"Tanith.5264" said:

> There's a guild that makes a regular practice of sabotaging the Tequatl the Sunless event every reset by pulling abominations into the zerg during the burn phase and blowing them up. Then they type "F" which for some reason is quite hilarious to them. I and others have reported them repeatedly to no effect. If someone has another suggestion to put a stop to this, I'm all ears.

>

> ;)

This might be one of those cases where a detailed e-mail/ticket to the CS Team would be helpful. Normally I'd recommend an in-game report, but there isn't a way to report this with enough data or an accurate description, so I'd suggest a ticket with the offer of screenshots if you have a couple. (Don't attach them in the first e-mail -- they will be blocked for security reasons, just tells the agent if you have them). Best information: Exact spelling of the guild and the guild members involved, server name, time of day and date (with time zone).

 

[Bloodstealer.5978]

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> I sure understand the desire to have a "Griefing" report option. But that term -- "griefing" -- actually has a lot of very subjective definitions, depending on the user. There are dramatic examples such as the above, where a full group causes the intentional loss of a meta. But some people feel they're being griefed if another player jumps where they're standing, or uses a finisher on them in town, or talks to them when they don't want to be talked to, or removes them from a party.

>

> I believe that "griefing" is too subjective to be added to the report method. It simply covers too many different types of incidents. Imagine the person reviewing a report of "griefing" but who has no way to see -- much less verify -- what took place. In _all_ the examples I gave above, the agent would not be able to see what happened, and would be left with an unresolved in-game report.

 

So are you saying that when players report griefing to you they are just left unresolved anyways.. if not then how are those tickets resolved because surely you would follow the same process, only having a specific griefing report option would making it that much simpler for the team to start from instead of having it pushed via some other report option of no relevance.

If your saying that griefing reports are just left unresolved anyway because of the reasons you stated, that is pretty poor imo.

[miraude.2107]

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> I sure understand the desire to have a "Griefing" report option. But that term -- "griefing" -- actually has a lot of very subjective definitions, depending on the user. There are dramatic examples such as the above, where a full group causes the intentional loss of a meta. But some people feel they're being griefed if another player jumps where they're standing, or uses a finisher on them in town, or talks to them when they don't want to be talked to, or removes them from a party.

>

> I believe that "griefing" is too subjective to be added to the report method. It simply covers too many different types of incidents. Imagine the person reviewing a report of "griefing" but who has no way to see -- much less verify -- what took place. In _all_ the examples I gave above, the agent would not be able to see what happened, and would be left with an unresolved in-game report.

 

Then clarify what is griefing to the company. That disrupting an event to cause it to fail is reportable but being removed from party isn't. That kind of stuff. Set out examples like that so both agents and players know a set of guidelines to go by.

 

As for the in-game reports. It still bothers me that the reporting system doesn't allow you to type what is going on when you go to report in-game. In fact, this is still the only mmo I have played that doesn't have that feature of being able to spell out what you are trying to report. Take for instance, reporting for botting. Wouldn't it be beneficial for agents to know that the person I thought was botting avatar was stuttering around weirdly? If I report someone for hacking, wouldn't it give more insight if I'm able to type in the reason for the in-game report? Because this current system really does deter people from reporting things if they have to tab out of the game to be able to explain what they are reporting. And what you have written here really does cement in the idea of don't bother reporting, it doesn't do any good. Maybe that could be a next upgrade? An actual usable reporting system where we can type in extra info?

[Eekasqueak.7850]

There's a video of them doing it on reddit now, that should be pretty damning evidence and I hope this issue gets resolved soon.

[Tanith.5264]

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> > @"Tanith.5264" said:

> > There's a guild that makes a regular practice of sabotaging the Tequatl the Sunless event every reset by pulling abominations into the zerg during the burn phase and blowing them up. Then they type "F" which for some reason is quite hilarious to them. I and others have reported them repeatedly to no effect. If someone has another suggestion to put a stop to this, I'm all ears.

> >

> > ;)

> This might be one of those cases where a detailed e-mail/ticket to the CS Team would be helpful. Normally I'd recommend an in-game report, but there isn't a way to report this with enough data or an accurate description, so I'd suggest a ticket with the offer of screenshots if you have a couple. (Don't attach them in the first e-mail -- they will be blocked for security reasons, just tells the agent if you have them). Best information: Exact spelling of the guild and the guild members involved, server name, time of day and date (with time zone).

>

 

Thank you, ma'am. We'll gather all the evidence we can.

[Gaile Gray.6029]

> @"Bloodstealer.5978" said:

> > @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> > I sure understand the desire to have a "Griefing" report option. But that term -- "griefing" -- actually has a lot of very subjective definitions, depending on the user. There are dramatic examples such as the above, where a full group causes the intentional loss of a meta. But some people feel they're being griefed if another player jumps where they're standing, or uses a finisher on them in town, or talks to them when they don't want to be talked to, or removes them from a party.

> >

> > I believe that "griefing" is too subjective to be added to the report method. It simply covers too many different types of incidents. Imagine the person reviewing a report of "griefing" but who has no way to see -- much less verify -- what took place. In _all_ the examples I gave above, the agent would not be able to see what happened, and would be left with an unresolved in-game report.

>

> So are you saying that when players report griefing to you they are just left unresolved anyways.. if not then how are those tickets resolved because surely you would follow the same process, only having a specific griefing report option would making it that much simpler for the team to start from instead of having it pushed via some other report option of no relevance.

> If your saying that griefing reports are just left unresolved anyway because of the reasons you stated, that is pretty poor imo.

 

That is absolutely *not* what I am saying. I am saying that an in-game report is less effective, and I believed that the request was for an in-game report option called "griefing." Therefore I recommend that someone with concerns about genuine griefing would do best to submit a ticket, and not try to use the in-game report system.

 

I also strongly recommend that players use tolerance and understanding, and consider what is and is not griefing. I see the reports, and sometimes I'm flummoxed by what someone will report, with the full and fervently-expressed expectation that another player's account will be "banned." Do you define a player jumping where you're standing as griefing? If you do, and have similar sensitivity about interactions in an MMO, you may spend a lot of time feeling stress, and that's not good. Sometimes we own the solution ourselves, as gamers. My character gets finisher-ed, rained with arrows, slashed, jumped on, and oh-so-very targeted during PvP. :D But hey -- **it's a game** and I'm not going to get agitated about it! I just ignore it, or I change locations or something benign of that sort.

 

Before someone chooses to misunderstand me, I am not saying that all griefing should be ignored. *I'm suggesting where and how it might best be reported if it's a true case of griefing.* And to determine that, I suggest we consider the impact of the act. Someone pouncing on my char in the game isn't worth my time or pixels to report. Someone impacting everyone's ability to have fun by negatively impacting the outcome of a meta event would be, in my opinion, worth reporting.

 

I hope that makes sense, and of course, YMMV. (Translation: Your mileage may vary, meaning "You may see this differently, or react differently, and that's perfectly fine.")

[reaVer.4056]

> @"Aldric the Slayer.5784" said:

> I was just helping to run an instance of the Auric Basin meta and a guild decided to have a guild event where they would defeat the East Octovine with high DPS rotations, leaving the rest of the map to fall behind and failed the meta. Guild Wars is supposed to be the best of the gaming community and, that has been my experience. How can we call out behavior like this in our community without an option to report it? There were some newer players in the squad I was commanding and it left a bitter taste in their mouth. Surely we can do something to discourage trollish behavior.

 

So the meta effort has finally collapsed under the weight of the griefers? That didn't take long, they've been at it for months.

 

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> I sure understand the desire to have a "Griefing" report option. But that term -- "griefing" -- actually has a lot of very subjective definitions, depending on the user. There are dramatic examples such as the above, where a full group causes the intentional loss of a meta. But some people feel they're being griefed if another player jumps where they're standing, or uses a finisher on them in town, or talks to them when they don't want to be talked to, or removes them from a party.

>

> I believe that "griefing" is too subjective to be added to the report method. It simply covers too many different types of incidents. Imagine the person reviewing a report of "griefing" but who has no way to see -- much less verify -- what took place. In _all_ the examples I gave above, the agent would not be able to see what happened, and would be left with an unresolved in-game report.

We could define griefing as the intent to infringe or impede upon the enjoyment of other players where other players do not have the mechanisms to remove you from their experience. That way every player knows the scope of the griefing report and you have a report button that can automatically store and replay some of the server's event for GM duties.

 

Also... since when is practicing your grawl impression considered griefing by other players? What did I miss? o_O

[Gaile Gray.6029]

> @"reaVer.4056" said:

~snip~ and you have a report button that can automatically store and replay some of the server's event for GM duties. ~snip

 

We do store chat strings, as a single level of retention, but here's an opinion from a non-programmer: To try to record snippets based on potentially thousands of reports a day sounds like an impossible task, and one whose implementation might cause latency issues and could result in extraordinary storage requirements. Record who? What? Everything on the screen? (Whose screen?) In the zone? On the map? Record every skill used? Every trade transaction going on in that period? All key commands? Then, too, how long a snippet and would it show enough? Could a CS Rep see, in a few seconds, that Team A was doing a bad thing during a match? That Guild Y was throwing a match? How long would these recordings be retained? Who could access them? And... more questions than I can type. :dizzy:

 

I think it's great we capture chat strings, and I know those are effective in dealing with incidents like hate speech, harassment, and other unpleasant behaviors. But when I noodle on the idea of a video capture around a report, I can't believe it would be useful, feasible, or even possible.

 

 

 

[Tanith.5264]

> @"reaVer.4056" said:

> Also... since when is practicing your grawl impression considered griefing by other players? What did I miss? o_O

 

Ha! I always feel compelled to jump along with the grawl when fighting alongside them. I certainly don't consider that griefing.

 

[reaVer.4056]

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> > @"reaVer.4056" said:

> ~snip~ and you have a report button that can automatically store and replay some of the server's event for GM duties. ~snip

>

> We do store chat strings, as a single level of retention, but here's an opinion from a non-programmer: To try to record snippets based on potentially thousands of reports a day sounds like an impossible task, and one whose implementation might cause latency issues and could result in extraordinary storage requirements. Record who? What? Everything on the screen? (Whose screen?) In the zone? On the map? Record every skill used? Every trade transaction going on in that period? All key commands? Then, too, how long a snippet and would it show enough? Could a CS Rep see, in a few seconds, that Team A was doing a bad thing during a match? That Guild Y was throwing a match? How long would these recordings be retained? Who could access them? And... more questions than I can type. :dizzy:

>

> I think it's great we capture chat strings, and I know those are effective in dealing with incidents like hate speech, harassment, and other unpleasant behaviors. But when I noodle on the idea of a video capture around a report, I can't believe it would be useful, feasible, or even possible.

 

You don't video capture, you're obviously new to this :D So if you kept track of gaming history you'd know there's been game-'TV' for a really long time. I think it spans all the way back to quake 2 or maybe even quakeworld. What happened there was that, to conserve bandwidth, the TV client would join the game as a spectator and would broadcast the gamestate and its deltas to the clients watching the 'TV'. Those clients in turns would use the gamestate and deltas provided to reconstruct what happened in the game. So rather than sending a full 1080p picture which is 1920 * 1080 * 32 / 4 = 16588800 bytes = 15.697MB per frame uncompressed, the gtv would be sending strings of just a few bytes sending the commands of the players, their position on the server and the direction they are facing. A client could then determine for example that a player would be firing because it sent the +attack command and could determine a client stopped firing because it sent the -attack command.

 

Everything that happens in game has some sort of command attached to it with the location and direction of a player, even trading post purchases will go back to a single string on the server at some point, because if it didn't; the developers would not be able to work properly. Storing this chain of events and having it span up to 10-20 minutes should probably take less than a GB per instance and the information only needs to be written down when the report is made. When that information is written down in a file, it can be sent to the GM team who could then have a development version of the client dedicated to replaying these kinds of files. That way they can determine who did what and it will especially help them if for example the bomb is being zerged while a certain person is trying to send it in the wrong direction. This will be much more useful than a client side pov that is most likely suffering from significant framerate issues as it is and will only reveal you ~30 names in one location.

[Mourningcry.9428]

> @"reaVer.4056" said:

> Everything that happens in game has some sort of command attached to it with the location and direction of a player, even trading post purchases will go back to a single string on the server at some point, because if it didn't; the developers would not be able to work properly. Storing this chain of events and having it span up to 10-20 minutes should probably take less than a GB per instance and the information only needs to be written down when the report is made. When that information is written down in a file, it can be sent to the GM team who could then have a development version of the client dedicated to replaying these kinds of files. That way they can determine who did what and it will especially help them if for example the bomb is being zerged while a certain person is trying to send it in the wrong direction. This will be much more useful than a client side pov that is most likely suffering from significant framerate issues as it is and will only reveal you ~30 names in one location.

 

Just like magic....

 

If you actually had to explain how to do that particular trick, taking into account GW2s architecture, infrastructure and use scenarios, well, now that would indeed be some magic. By all means, proceed....

[starhunter.6015]

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> > @"Tanith.5264" said:

> > There's a guild that makes a regular practice of sabotaging the Tequatl the Sunless event every reset by pulling abominations into the zerg during the burn phase and blowing them up. Then they type "F" which for some reason is quite hilarious to them. I and others have reported them repeatedly to no effect. If someone has another suggestion to put a stop to this, I'm all ears.

> >

> > ;)

> This might be one of those cases where a detailed e-mail/ticket to the CS Team would be helpful. Normally I'd recommend an in-game report, but there isn't a way to report this with enough data or an accurate description, so I'd suggest a ticket with the offer of screenshots if you have a couple. (Don't attach them in the first e-mail -- they will be blocked for security reasons, just tells the agent if you have them). Best information: Exact spelling of the guild and the guild members involved, server name, time of day and date (with time zone).

>

 

Also if I may add if you can record the gameplay to send in if needed.

[Gaile Gray.6029]

> @"Mourningcry.9428" said:

> Just like magic....

>

> If you actually had to explain how to do that particular trick, taking into account GW2s architecture, infrastructure and use scenarios, well, now that would indeed be some magic. By all means, proceed....

 

I tend to agree. What another game did, or the technological explanations of what might be possible, in a theoretical sense, do not always intersect with what truly IS possible.

 

> @"starhunter.6015" said:

 

> Also if I may add if you can record the gameplay to send in if needed.

 

Absolutely. Offer to send it in your initial mail (as first mails have attachments stripped for security reasons) or host it and send a link. If the CS Team wants to receive the video or screenshots, they will make the request and those can be sent in any subsequent transmittal.

 

 

 

[reaVer.4056]

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> > @"Mourningcry.9428" said:

> > Just like magic....

> >

> > If you actually had to explain how to do that particular trick, taking into account GW2s architecture, infrastructure and use scenarios, well, now that would indeed be some magic. By all means, proceed....

>

> I tend to agree. What another game did, or the technological explanations of what might be possible, in a theoretical sense, do not always intersect with what truly IS possible.

 

Since quake 2 is from 1997, I would most certainly hope that GW2 is more capable than that engine :p I can explain how typical engines work, but it would take me a few pages and there's plenty of stuff about that I still wouldn't know. The generic flow of actions however is events followed by logic followed by visual/audio representation. What you essentially record is the converted event data. Replaying the exact same string of commands from a saved gamestate (world containing all relevant gameplay information) should always get the same result. There really is no magic to this, people have managed to implement this logic by purely recording inputs players make. Heck, I have made a netcode implementation for nullDC doing exactly that and desyncs were fairly minimal. You can confirm with your devs that there is some sort of command stream that can be recorded, and since the amount of player actions isn't all that big, they will most usually fit within less than a kilobyte.

[Mourningcry.9428]

> @"reaVer.4056" said:

> > @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> > > @"Mourningcry.9428" said:

> > > Just like magic....

> > >

> > > If you actually had to explain how to do that particular trick, taking into account GW2s architecture, infrastructure and use scenarios, well, now that would indeed be some magic. By all means, proceed....

> >

> > I tend to agree. What another game did, or the technological explanations of what might be possible, in a theoretical sense, do not always intersect with what truly IS possible.

>

> Since quake 2 is from 1997, I would most certainly hope that GW2 is more capable than that engine :p I can explain how typical engines work, but it would take me a few pages and there's plenty of stuff about that I still wouldn't know. The generic flow of actions however is events followed by logic followed by visual/audio representation. What you essentially record is the converted event data. Replaying the exact same string of commands from a saved gamestate (world containing all relevant gameplay information) should always get the same result. There really is no magic to this, people have managed to implement this logic by purely recording inputs players make. Heck, I have made a netcode implementation for nullDC doing exactly that and desyncs were fairly minimal. You can confirm with your devs that there is some sort of command stream that can be recorded, and since the amount of player actions isn't all that big, they will most usually fit within less than a kilobyte.

 

I think you're missing the point.

 

No one is arguing the technical feasibility of playback. The point is the actual implementation of it.

 

It's rather condescending to presume that many readers, and especially the devs aren't technically savvy enough to understand the suggestion of, as you put it, a twenty year old technology many of us have seen, used, or perhaps even worked with. If it were as easy, or at least not as dev resource intensive to such a degree where it becomes prohibitive, they would be aware of the benefits of such a tool and implement it. However, giving the benefit of the doubt that they can evaluate the effort and cost involved, it can be assumed that such an implementation would come at a cost greater than the any perceived benefit up until this point and would remain as such, until they may deem otherwise.

 

[Mewcifer.5198]

There does need to be some way to report people.

There is also people who will place banquets at a meta event and do their best to get everyone there to drink from the keg until they get 25 stacks of drunk. The drunk debuff doesn't tell you what it does and most people think it is only cosmetic. This hurts new people who don't know what drunk does as well as the event because now half the people who are there can't dps because of the debuff.

 

People will also go to organized maps where guilds will provide food buffs for people and place down as many cheap foods as they can until the area limit is reached, making it impossible for people to give actually useful food and thesis for people.

 

Going to meta events just to disrupt the event, aggravate people, and/or cause it to fail is becoming more and more common and I hope anet introduces some tools to be able to report it or negate some of the ways people have been trolling and griefing.