Curse

Esprit · Feb 10, 2009, 02:11 AM // 02:11

Way back in the early days of Guild Wars, when Prophecies was the only campaign, afking or leeching in PvP for free Balthazar points already existed. Rage quitting was a term that pretty much was coined when Guild Wars PvP came in to existence. Players complained for some sort of action against this, nothing was done.

Then Guild Wars Factions in April 2006, was released. Alliance Battles, Fort Aspenwood, and Jade Quarry were new forms of PvP where you earned Balthazar faction and Alliance faction points. Leeching free points spread to Alliance Battles and competitive missions. Rage quitting losing matches also became common place. Players complained for some sort of action against this, nothing was done.

Move past the release of Guild Wars Nightfall in Autumn of '06 to Autumn of '07 when players were introduced to the Anti-Griefing measures, the Dishonorable Combatant System where "You can report a player for leeching if you’re in the same Random Arena, Alliance Battle, or Competitive Mission as that player."

Finally! More than two years after players started asking for something to be done against leeching and rage quitting, players now have the power to punish players for such dishonorable behavior. The majority of the community showers Arena Net with praise.

Fast forward to today. Since the increased faction gain in competitive missions and PvE faction farming becoming useless leeching has spread like the plague through competitive missions. You would think, armed with the /report command, players would be reporting leechers left and right, discouraging such behavior.

Unfortunately that is hardly the case. Every other game, it seems, there is at least one leecher, sometimes more. I recognize leechers by name. They appear again and again and again. Why? Because it's very rare for half the team to report leechers. And you know what? People are still complaining about leechers, when at their fingertips is the power to do something about it.

Arena Net has given the players the power to do something about leechers, they have given us a great tool to smack these players down with Dishonor, but, yet I hardly see players report leeches. To me the players basically have thrown Arena Net's time and effort put into the Dishonor system back in their face with even more complaints about leechers.

It's mind boggling, the general apathy towards /report after such vociferous complaints against leeching and rage quitting.

What Now · Feb 10, 2009, 02:51 AM // 02:51

I no longer report leechers or bots. Too many times have I myself been given dishonorable for "lack of votes" while the rest of the team simply complained and never did actually report them.

Lots of people say nothing get's done to the leechers regardless.

Where does /report shine? In HA whenever someone loses. It seems to be a great tool for grief stricken players to get the other team banned for a simple filtered word or suggestive name.

Guild Wars...lol...

Chocobo1 · Feb 10, 2009, 02:51 AM // 02:51

Because a 10 minute break is a really crushing blow to the leechers. People are too busy abusing the system to dish out 3 day bans to actually use it properly.

shoyon456 · Feb 10, 2009, 02:52 AM // 02:52

Alliance battles introduced an actual reason to leech (Kurz/Lux Titles). Balth faction was generally worthless until ZKeys were introduced.

Not to mention, its not impossible to win even if someone is leeching, thus people will generally make a good go at it and direct their attention to the other team instead of /report.

Of course, RA and AB are screwed up in so many other ways...

Leechers are REALLY common during the festival events, and thats when it really gets me.

What Now · Feb 10, 2009, 03:05 AM // 03:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chocobo1

Because a 10 minute break is a really crushing blow to the leechers. People are too busy abusing the system to dish out 3 day bans to actually use it properly.

Love the irony eh? Let's punish people that aren't playing the game by..not letting them play? Seriously even if you made it an hour if their not there for the time anyway they already made the faction.

Need to revamp the system, take out any reporting for filtered chat and put in an option to grow some while you're at it. People are who they are, can say what they wanna say (with the limits the law gives), and chances are if you're getting picky about every word you arent the 13+ you need to be to play the game so Alt+F4.

Punishment needs to be more brutal for leeching, such as all faction of every kind is lost and cannot be accumlated for 24 hours. Sure it's a bit harsh but people will learn not to trip up or pretend and "brb" an entire match.

Martin Alvito · Feb 10, 2009, 03:07 AM // 03:07

There's this concept called a collective action problem that the devs apparently haven't heard of.

To put it simply:

It costs me effort and my hourly ragequit (under the Dishonor system) to report someone.

I gain nothing by using /report. If the behavior is that flagrant, other people will report for me.

All rational individuals in the system should eventually come to this conclusion and not use /report.

The system is well-intentioned but fatally flawed. Anyone with a rudimentary training in economics should be able to spot this immediately. Why the devs don't have someone on staff that understands these problems (or LISTEN to that person if they do) is beyond me.

Chocobo1 · Feb 10, 2009, 03:48 AM // 03:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by What Now

Love the irony eh? Let's punish people that aren't playing the game by..not letting them play? Seriously even if you made it an hour if their not there for the time anyway they already made the faction.

Need to revamp the system, take out any reporting for filtered chat and put in an option to grow some while you're at it. People are who they are, can say what they wanna say (with the limits the law gives), and chances are if you're getting picky about every word you arent the 13+ you need to be to play the game so Alt+F4.

Punishment needs to be more brutal for leeching, such as all faction of every kind is lost and cannot be accumlated for 24 hours. Sure it's a bit harsh but people will learn not to trip up or pretend and "brb" an entire match.

Well yeah thats the entire problem. The system is designed to stop leechers but they get off incredibly lightly. And rofl, I had a huuuuuge thread about people needing to toughen up and either use the word filter or stop complaining instead of reporting. Everyone on this forum had a mega rage at it, so it isn't happening anytime soon.

Really the people arent actually offended, they just can't accept losing in RA/TA/HA and decide to report. I'd play this game more if the report system was gone. I'd rather deal with leavers/leechers tbh.

Moloch Vein · Feb 10, 2009, 04:12 AM // 04:12

The leeching in Fort Aspenwood, specifically on the Luxon side, is getting brutal. Nothing is done about it. I've gotten dishonorable status three times in two days trying to report people. I still see them over and over again, despite everyone on my team noticing "oh, there's that leecher again".

Today I had a team with two real players, one follow-bot and five leechers. That way you can't even report them because there are too few players to do so. It's a disgrace.

Shayne Hawke · Feb 10, 2009, 05:03 AM // 05:03

Dishonor system fails. Awesome intentions, but a total failure in practice, as I'm finding with many of ANets changes these days.

Currently, here are the important rules:

- Players who leave a PvP match prematurely will receive 5 dishonor points.
- If a player is reported for leeching, that player will receive 2 dishonor points for each report against him.
- Players who report a team member for leeching without a third of their team also reporting that player will also receive 2 dishonor points.

We already know why the above system alone sucks. Here are some suggestions:

- If more than one member of a team reports a player for leeching, those members will receive zero dishonor for their report.
- A player is not considered a leech and does not earn dishonor until one-third of their team reports them for leeching.
- If a player is correctly called out to be a leech, those who have reported that player will lose x dishonor points (there will be a minimum limit of zero dishonor points; x should probably be low, like 1).

As something additional to look at, I just learned that teams in AB that resign get 5 points of dishonor. What BS, considering that a whole team is resigning in that case. The situation with RBR is a little different, but still something that ought to be re-evaluated if the Dishonor system is going to be adjusted. Ever. At all.

Woohoo, storage update in April. ANet tackles the important issues!

Lexar · Feb 10, 2009, 02:26 PM // 14:26

There is also the fact that it requires average players to read. Every time you go in, there's a message that says how you report people, and there are still many, many people who simply don't know how to report. This inherent retardedness of average people/players is the real underlying fault of the /report system that nobody wants to say out loud.

Then the second problem is the fact that even if everyone reports, the leecher just gets a 10 minute penalty. What's up with that? Why did they ever think this was going to scare people who make it a business to not be playing he game? Someone who is willing to be afk through lots of matches is not going to be bothered if he can't play for 10 minutes.

Third problem is the fact that if you report two leechers on your team you get 4 dishonorable points. Usually the rest of the team will not bother to report or will be close to 10 dishonorable points themselves and not want to report any more. So usually you will end up worse than the leechers do.

Fourth problem, the leecher has to be in range. In a match in FA, when the luxon side is around the green gate, the leecher is still at the spawn, so nobody is going to run back that distance just to report someone. So nearly all the reports have to be done at the start of the match, when it's hardest to distinguish between a slow loader, someone with lag, or a leecher.

StormX · Feb 10, 2009, 02:46 PM // 14:46

Yeah most of the time I'm the only one who reports and I end up with the dishonor. As for the others, even if you tell them how to report a leecher they won't bother. These are usually the same guys who use horrible builds and pick random fights.

It gets even worse if you get international players who dont speak english. Fat chance trying to explain to non-english speakers what a leecher is.

Then there are those who hide in a corner and the bots who move in random directions or spam skills etc...You'd be surprised how many people don't notice that a certain player has been hiding behind the green gate throughout the game.

AsyaMordina · Feb 10, 2009, 03:10 PM // 15:10

Anet modified the towns so that the golem tonics couldn't be used around the festival NPCs, it would really help if they could modify this logic and use it so that in the starting PVP areas players do not receive faction. This isn't a cure all, but at least it would be a start.

Luxon FA is quite full of leechbots.

Gigashadow · Feb 10, 2009, 07:40 PM // 19:40

People don't bother reporting because it really doesn't do anything and is pointless. The guy is afk, his macro will put him back in the game 10 minutes later.

If people knew there was an actual punishment that might get meted out, such as a big penalty to faction points (or even a reset to zero of his faction title for repeated violations), people might bother. That would also be an actual disincentive for people to afk bot in the first place.

Arkantos · Feb 10, 2009, 07:48 PM // 19:48

Two problems with the dishonor system.

1) You get punished if not enough people report a leecher. This refrains most players from bothering.
2) A 10 minute punishment really does nothing. Sure, the player can't join a game for a whole 10 minutes, but it's not going to stop a leecher from continuing.

I mean really. A 10 minute punishment hardly makes a dent in the leeching problem we have. Leechers who get dishonor do something else for 10 minutes, and then continue to leech. The 'punishment' is laughable.

Make the system not suck and you might see players using it.

Aeon221 · Feb 11, 2009, 05:00 AM // 05:00

Considering how many type 1 errors there are, you'd think people wouldn't be so gung-ho about the punishment being made more severe.

In other words, don't pick a punishment that you wouldn't mind having applied to yourself by accident.

I personally think a geometric progression starting at five minutes and increasing by a factor of two with a reset period of twenty four hours without dishonor would probably end leeching. Moving dishonored people to the Great Temple of Balthazar would also probably help.

I wouldn't know for sure, as I have a degree in economics, not in game design, and I wouldn't presume to lecture people on something I know nothing about.

MoriaOrc · Feb 11, 2009, 07:11 AM // 07:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chocobo1

Because a 10 minute break is a really crushing blow to the leechers. People are too busy abusing the system to dish out 3 day bans to actually use it properly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arkantos

2) A 10 minute punishment really does nothing. Sure, the player can't join a game for a whole 10 minutes, but it's not going to stop a leecher from continuing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lexar

Then the second problem is the fact that even if everyone reports, the leecher just gets a 10 minute penalty.

People keep saying this (in this thread and elsewhere) and it's not true. Let me quote the two relevant sections of the wiki page for dishonourable and give a nice example:

Quote:

Originally Posted by GWWiki

Dishonorable is the effect of accumulating ten or more dishonor points on a player and lasts one minute for each dishonor point that player has.
Dishonor points will remain on the player's account for a total of 60 minutes. If further dishonor points are acquired during this period, that account is once again given the Dishonorable status, though for a longer period of time.
If over half your team reports a player for leeching a further penalty will be incurred preventing any XP or Faction gain during the match.

Emphasis mine. So, as it says, the hex lasts one minute per point, not a flat 10 minutes, and there is a whole other penalty if half the team reports.... Example time:

Lets say you somehow (and you don't have to tell me this is impossible, I know) get all 7 people (since we're talking about FA/JQ) to report the leecher. That's 14 points, 14 minutes out, no faction for the match. He's already spending more then half his time sitting around the outpost, so he can only wreck every other game. But wait! 14 minutes later he still has 14 dishonor points. If any one person in the next match reports him, he now has 16 dishonor points, and so he sits out 16 minutes. For each extra person, that's an extra two minutes. Until you get to the point where dishonor means almost a 60 minute or greater time out (so you lose the points by default), it only takes one person per game reporting to keep him in time out.

If people use the system as intended, the punishment for repeated offenders is much worse then a 10 minute time out every few games. Add to that the extra penalty when you get over half the team to report (no faction for the match) which everyone also seems to be forgetting. If people would use the system as intended leechers would never get faction (unless they outnumbered real players), and would spend most of their time in outposts instead of games. Don't blame the system, blame the people who refuse to use it.

Winterclaw · Feb 11, 2009, 07:32 AM // 07:32

If it is too hard to report leeching, people won't report in fear of being penalized instead of the leecher. If it is too easy, people will abuse it.

Arkantos · Feb 11, 2009, 09:37 PM // 21:37

MoriaOrc, the chances of 7 people reporting a leecher is slim to none. The chances of 1 person reporting a leecher is pretty low. Out of every JQ match I've done in the past month, I've seen maybe 2 people report a leecher, even in matches with 3 leechers.

Fay Vert · Feb 11, 2009, 10:31 PM // 22:31

People have given up on /report because ANet /ingores them

HawkofStorms · Feb 11, 2009, 10:38 PM // 22:38

There are two problems with reporting for leechers

1) Ignorance. A lot of players just don't know how to report or why they should report a leecher. Many casual fans also do not understand the difference between reporting for dishonor or reporting for banning.
Edit: Ie, look at Fay Vert's post as a great example. A LOT of people still don't understand that the reporting for leechers system is completely automated (ie, a.net not "ignoring" /reports on leechers). A lot of people just don't understand the different types of reports, and the different types of punishments dispensed.

2) Prisoner's Dilemma. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma
Basically, people who do want to report leechers are afraid that other people won't report leechers, and then they will get dishonor instead. As such, nobody reports leachers out of fear that not enough people will report them (so therefore, not enough ever do).

When your behavior (reporting) is influenced by another actor's choice (ie, the other players decision to report or not to report) you make a cost benefit analysis. The reward (getting the leecher dishonor and removing his faction gain for the match) isn't enough to overcome the punishment of failure (getting dishonor yourself).

There is nothing really wrong with the system in itself, just the psychology of the players. So long as enough players remain ignorant of the /report feature, leeching will be a problem.

However, rage quitting in RA every single match has ended. Things are still much better now then they ever were before. Just the threat of possible dishonor discourages a lot of bad behavior. Is it perfect? No. It will never be perfect. But it does work.