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Hoping a Dev sees this... Support and trolling. Change needed

risian4risian4 Member Posts: 3,711 Arc User
The same troll that has been making it impossible for people to pug IGN (http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1385271) for weeks now, does not seem to have any intention to stop doing what he's doing. Talking to him won't work, he'll just reply with obscene remarks.

Anyway, one of your missions is almost unplayable and has been for several weeks now. Looks like there are two options:

1) Make sure Support is doing their jobs, and actually investigate and act upon reports, instead of sending an automatic reply saying they'll investigate it and not doing anything after sending this e-mail. Right now, your support division is nothing but a bad joke, so it seems.

It's really sad that normal players who want to enjoy your game find themselves unable to do so because trolls and grievers can keep trolling without someone interfering.

2) Change your missions so that one person can't lock out an entire team. And while I'm at it: making it possible to block invites of all kinds from one person would be an huge improvement.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments

  • risian4risian4 Member Posts: 3,711 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    And if I may make a suggestion for a possible change:

    Put another forcefield in front of the room the room with Ogen (before anyone enters) and in front of the final room. If you place the same forcefield like the one that can only be removed when three people use the consoles at the same time, it will prevent one person from locking all others out.

    Since the mechanic is already in the mission, it should be possible to do this.
  • starkaosstarkaos Member Posts: 11,556 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    This is a problem with PUGs since such behavior should have the offender kicked from a STF channel. It should be set up that anyone on your ignore list should not be able to team up with you through the Public Queue system.
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  • nicha0nicha0 Member Posts: 1,456 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    It isn't rocket science, first viable team in the queue gets launched. If they make it first come first serve you'll have trolls ignoring everyone and holding up the system.
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  • azntrigboiazntrigboi Member Posts: 139 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    valoreah wrote: »
    Well, no, you'll have trolls unable to PUG because they'll have ignored everyone... which may not be a bad thing at all.

    The point he was making was that if the system does first come first serve, if the troll has enough ppl on his ignore list, it will consider all those players as invalid teammates. Therefore, a queue will only fire off if there are 4 other ppl that aren't on his ignore list that queue up.

    And I think you misunderstand something too. The trolls never intended to play the mission in the first place, so not being able to PUG is a nonissue. Their goal is to prevent OTHERS from playing the queue which they would effectively do if things were first come first serve and their ignore list is huge.
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  • azntrigboiazntrigboi Member Posts: 139 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    valoreah wrote: »
    It depends on what order the troll is put into the team queue.

    It also depends on whether the person w/ the ignore list entry is the one that's booted or the one that is listed in the ignore list. :) In any case, the goal of trolls is to use the system to obstruct, and it would be the job of any troll prevention system to prevent obstruction without harming benign behavior significantly. That's not an easy job. Anti-trolling is a good thing to try, but I've yet to see one that actually works in all my times playing MMOs unfortunately. Devil's in the details. :o
  • jaguarskxjaguarskx Member Posts: 5,945 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    Yeah, unfortunately STO is a troll friendly game. Whine, complain, rant all you want. Nothing is going to happen.

    In STO, no Dev can hear players scream.
  • organicmanfredorganicmanfred Member Posts: 3,236 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    Avoiding Troll Pugs would be easier if the game could read a person's brainwaves for intentions of trolling. If yes, they cant enter the STF.

    C'mon Devs, this cant be so hard to do.


    The same could be done for the forum. Something that reads the logic level of someone and gives, or denies the access to the forum and post functions.
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  • azntrigboiazntrigboi Member Posts: 139 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    valoreah wrote: »
    You're assuming it would have any impact on benign behaviour at all. I'm not convinced it would.

    Great! Then can you please enlighten me about this because I don't see how the ignore system can't be trolled?
  • blakes7tvseriesblakes7tvseries Member Posts: 704 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    What about the captains doing 2k DPS are they trolls.
    download.jpg
  • roadghostroadghost Member Posts: 394 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    What about the captains doing 2k DPS are they trolls.

    Only if they go "neener! neener!" Otherwise they just suck.
  • jaguarskxjaguarskx Member Posts: 5,945 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    What about the captains doing 2k DPS are they trolls.

    Since this thread specifically references IG normal, I would assume players only capable of doing 2K DPS would be able to complete the STF.

    Assuming they are not simply AFK or are intentionally trying to keep players from completing the mission.
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  • deaftravis05deaftravis05 Member Posts: 4,885 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    valoreah wrote: »
    The more people a troll has on their ignore list and the more people who have said troll on their own ignore list, the greater the potential the troll has of not getting teamed with anyone. It's not rocket science.

    I likes your point sir!
  • azntrigboiazntrigboi Member Posts: 139 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    However, as I stated before, the troll doesn't need to actually be in the mission to obstruct. If he doesn't get matched on a team, he doesn't care. Only thing he cares about is if other people can't find teams because the PUG matcher times out.

    So let's say it is a first come first serve queue as it is currently, and the troll enters the queue with some team in the processes of being filled up. Someone on that team also has said troll on their ignore list. This is the situation you are describing correct?

    In this case, both are mutually ignoring each other. Which would you boot? Logical choice would be to boot the last person to enter in the team in which case the troll would be booted. Great! Now, let's consider the opposite. What if the troll were to enter the team before the normal player? The normal player would be booted. Oh no... So it's not all roses, but that's not the end of it.

    So now we have to talk about the likelihood of these events occurring. The likelihood of a troll being first which is the problematic scenario is partly determined by the proportion of trolls entering queues over time. The second factor comes from the fact that if a troll gets booted from the current team, they will be the first to enter the next one. Now, this already assumes one team got through which is great. However, this fact shows that the system has the characteristic that it retains trolls in the queue at steady state. This means as time goes on, the concentration of trolls in the queue gets higher and higher. The fact that one team got through before the troll becomes the first in the next team is only really relevant at initialization of the system. All other teams after that have him at the head of the next team. Therefore, the only way a system would fire off is if he missed 4 normal players in his ignore list. However, your problem statement is that ignore lists are big, so it would grind the queue firing to a very slow pace.

    The relief valve for this is the timeout period after one minute after which the troll needs to requeue. So one solution might be to shorten the timeout period, but this affects normal behavior. People have less time in their position in the queue before having to go back to the end of the line, so you don't want to make it too short or else it seems unfair/inconvenient. You can attempt to play with this parameter given the rate of trolls entering the queues, but such a thing is hard to measure.

    So while the idea itself seems straightforward and effective, actually creating a system out of it isn't so easy.

    Edit: some little typos that annoyed me. :P
  • azntrigboiazntrigboi Member Posts: 139 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    Also to clarify my first statement, what I'm saying is that from what I understand, the troll just doesn't want people to complete the mission. Whether it be in obstruction in the actual mission or obstructing people from even entering it, it's all the same to him.

    Now there's the aspect of the troll wants to see you suffer. Ok, sure. Perhaps being there in person with you in the mission gives him more satisfaction, but I think he'd also take some satisfaction from people whining in chat that queues aren't firing as he giggles in the corner. :rolleyes:
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  • azntrigboiazntrigboi Member Posts: 139 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    valoreah wrote: »
    For the usual queues? I don't really see this happening. There's always plenty of folk queued up for CCA, ISA,BDA, Bug Hunt etc. Only person shooting themselves in the foot is the troll.

    See, that's why I was talking about proportion of trolls entering queues and the fact that such a system tends to retain trolls in the queue. Therefore, the % of time that a team has a troll be the starter of the team is a function of proportion of trolls vs. total PUGing population per unit time and the timeout time. This actually becomes worse when trolls actually put each other on the ignore list as the system would now have one troll in the current team and the next team would now have the troll that tried to enter. Yikes...

    Some queues will have it worse though, I agree, since there would be TWO ways to troll in those(trolling in depth? :eek: ), but my main point is that adding this system actually gives them an additional system with which to troll if not done properly and we all know the success rate for MMOs implementing a good idea correctly. :(
  • azntrigboiazntrigboi Member Posts: 139 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    Trolls would be trolling themselves by making themselves unable to join teams.

    As I stated previously, given that trolling requires that no one completes the mission including the troll, I don't think they really care about this. They just want other people to not be able to complete the mission. If they can achieve this by not even entering the mission in the first place(read "less effort"), then I think it would be an appealing route for them.
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  • azntrigboiazntrigboi Member Posts: 139 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    valoreah wrote: »
    It's my experience that trolls who intentionally grief are an extreme minority in the public queues.

    You're also not fully understanding what you're typing. What you're essentially saying is a troll is either going to troll by intentionally griefing the match or by not having everyone on their ignore list, preventing a match from taking place. In either respect, they're griefing. There's nothing you can do about it.

    For me personally, I'd rather not enter a match at all rather than enter one with a couple of trolls. I also won't mind waiting the extra milliseconds it would take for the server to find more people to queue up with if it means keeping people I have on ignore out of my queues.

    Sure, and I agree with you. The problem is that trolls also tend to queue up more than an average player since that's what they do. The actual # of trolls doesn't matter. It's the total rate at which they are queuing up. Maybe that's still really tiny. I don't have the data, so I can't say for certain. However, I argue that if that really is indeed the case then you wouldn't even need to handle it. Implementing this system solves a problem that barely exists.

    Yes, there's nothing we can do about a troll who intentionally sets out to obstruct. That feeds into what I was saying. They want to troll, so they will find a way to do it. Implementing this system gives them an additional tool to do so.

    I agree with you here as well, but I was simply reasoning through the system to show that this system does so but has some unintended side effects that need to be managed. In this case, we're not talking milliseconds since this is first come first serve. Now if it wasn't first come first serve, you could probably get only milliseconds of penalty for the system, but then you'd lose the "fairness" of first come first serve.
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  • azntrigboiazntrigboi Member Posts: 139 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    valoreah wrote: »
    Not sure why it wouldn't be. If a match can't start due to ignore lists and not enough people available, then it doesn't start. It's not like the queue runs forever looking for people.

    No, it doesn't, but it's not milliseconds before the queue gives up. It's the timeout timer which is 60sec iirc. A player is only kicked out once the timer runs out right? Or am I misunderstanding something here? :confused: I mean this could just be my ignorance, but that's what it seems like. This is why I said the timeout timer is actually a relief valve for the particular trolling I was describing. If you can tweak this timer properly, you can actually mitigate the problem. It's just..."properly" is the key word here because if it's too short, it becomes really annoying, and if it's too long, it's not effective.
  • azntrigboiazntrigboi Member Posts: 139 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    In order to prevent people from completing any mission the troll has to be able to join a team in the first place.

    The real issue isn't if ignore lists can be used to screen team mates. A decent dev team could create a feature like that.

    However we are dealing with Cryptic, and we've all know this would turn into a colossal [redacted]-up if they tried it.

    Well, I was describing a way trolls, using an ignore list system, could possibly significantly slow down a queue which results in the same end state for a normal player - no mission completion.

    Yes, I completely agree. This is what I was attempting(maybe didn't succeed) to point out in the post previous to the one you replied to. "Decent dev team" would be required to do it. I'm not saying it wouldn't work in the ideal case. I'm saying...we're working w/ far from the ideal case. :P
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  • azntrigboiazntrigboi Member Posts: 139 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    valoreah wrote: »
    That's the queue timer which has a set time limit, not the query that would run to check if any players queued up are on each others ignore list.

    I've no idea how many attempts the queue system will make before it stops trying to put a team together. I've been queued for SB24 before where it times out due to lack of response and tries another time, but not sure if 2 or 3 is the try limit.

    Well, if it's first come first serve, given the troll is at the front of the list, they would always have preference in any comparison for potential matches. If his list is big enough, every check would return no suitable team until he gets booted out of the queue. That's why I was thinking that with a non-first come first serve system, it might be better, but you'd lose the first come first serve characteristic. Maybe that's the better answer. Just TRIBBLE first come first serve and have the server have no preference based upon queue position and just try to match a suitable team. I personally would probably not mind that, but I guess I'd feel a bit odd when I queued up first and someone else got a team before me. :D

    Yeah, I haven't run into this either, but it's something to consider. Man, I hate trolls sometimes. They're like cockroaches. No matter what you do, they come back somehow. :(
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