More severe punishment for trolls, please

Feedback/Suggestions
#1

I have been a long-time lurker in this forum, but I have never felt the actual need to write anything until now. The reason why I feel very much inclined to do so is due to the steady and unbearable flow of trolls I am experiencing while playing this game.

To begin with, I would like to briefly talk about the last two people who managed to ruin the game for approximately 12 people (presumably the evil faction and the NK are at least partially enjoying it):

There is, on one hand, a Physician, who claimed to be Sheriff in a Cult game, claimed that number 10 (the Prince) was Unseen, had him voted up and thus outed him. He also voted to execute the Prince, which got him jailed and executed. It lost the Prince his executes, followed by said Prince leaving the game out of anger.
On the other hand, there is a Paladin, who was convinced that Unganda Knuckles is still a fresh and interesting meme to listen to and read about, who claimed Fool to the Prince, Fool to the court and got himself executed due to his redundantly annoying and over-aggressive behavior.

And those are just my last two games. I cannot endure this any longer. These people always claim that they are just having fun with the game, not realizing their fun is at the loss of most of the other participants. Moreover, it is becoming common agenda for those type of people to defend their antisocial behavior in twitch-chatrooms of several ToL streamers, further encouraging more people to try it out. Unfortunately, said streamers are neither trying to prevent such abuse nor taking a stand against trolling in games, since they claim they do not recognize trolling as intentional game throwing.

I am very much uninformed about how trolling is being handled by the Devs. Judging by the undoubtedtly steady flow of trolls, however, I have to assume they are being treated with kid gloves. Therefore, I would love to propose a significantly more sever punishment for those types of people. Intentionally trolling a game and holding an entire group of 15 people hostage in order to “have some fun” should, in my very humble opinion, immediately lead to a short-time suspension of an account. We cannot give those people even the slightest sense of confirmation that their actions might be justified. Else, they will just try again if their mood calls for it.

At this very moment I am at a point where I feel forced to report somewhere from 1 to 5 people per game. Most of them for leaving while a alive (most of which are given evil roles they do not want to play), a few for leaving while dead whereas a Physician wanted to reanimate them, and an exceptionally influential minority for trolling. At least the last one of those has to change because they are clearly ruining the fun for most other participants.

1 Like
#2

Ahem
https://forum.imperium42.com/t/reports-do-nothing/37551
With that I never look at this thread again.

(you could also check #justice in discord)

#3

well unfortunately I don’t have the data, but yeah look at the #justice channel in the discord. Really where it comes down to of “if the penalties are too light”, is what is the rate of return offenders (not people who troll 2 games in a row because I’d assume actual response time is 24 hours minimum, but people who troll, get punished and troll again).

If the game has a steady increase of population, there’s a good chance we just keep getting people that think they can grief the game, realize they can’t after their first punishment, and another wave comes behind… harhsening the punishments won’t do any good in that case it only removes the chance of them becoming honest players after learning the dev’s aren’t going to ignore their crap.

#4

I did by no means write this under the assumption that the Devs are not doing their job. In fact, I am convinced that a lot of community feedback is being processed which leads to a constant improvement of every users gaming experience.

I, however, did write this because - from my point of view - the situation is getting worse, not better, does not stay the same. I did write this because there is now a troll in almost every game of mine and I clearly want that to change. I did write this because I assumed, even though I am clearly uninformed about it, that one of the reasons why those trolls keep appearing is because they are not harshly being dealt with. That is why I proposed an immediate short-term account suspension for holding a group of 15 people hostage. It is my personal view that if a person is willing to exhibit such overly antisocial behavior in the first place, severe reaction is necessary to send a clear message. From there on, a reform-process can start.

Nonetheless, the feedback I am being given here is that I should stop complaining because the situation is being handled… And so I will.

#5

I agree that trolling is annoying and should be (and I assume is) subject to a progressive discipline system (warnings->short bans->longer bans). However, I think one related aggravating factor to what you’re feeling is overreports which slow down the moderation process.

I just don’t see how you would need to report 1-5 people per game. Specifically, you should not be reporting people for leaving while dead. It may be good etiquette to wait to see if you get rezzed, but people are free to leave once they die. You reporting people for doing so only slows down the review of actual violations. It may also lead to a determination that you are overreporting, which itself has consequences.

Let’s take some measure in what we report. I report leavers only if it significantly impacts the game. I report the trolls that you describe which cost prince exe’s. I report toxic behavior that is sustained and directed. I don’t report every jerk.

#6

I agree there, but I think it’s a growing pain, from what I’ve seen it got notably worse, almost at the same time as when games went from taking 2 minutes to start to 5 seconds to start for me. We’ve got a boatload of new players that don’t know the dev’s pay attention… and it’s also possible that they will need more moderators to deal with it if they can’t handle the influx of griefers quickly enough.

#7

Ooh, ooh, idea

What if they added a seperate report option for players that leave once dead, and only actually send in consistent offenders for some #justice?

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#8

Well, I find that to be quite a common misconception, even amongst more experienced players. In fact, you are not free to leave a game once you die. The ingame rules (paragraph 12) clearly state that if a Physician could potentially reanimate you, you have to stay in game. Even when I refer people to that rule, they mostly either deny or stay ignorant.
As I mentioned, I rarely report people for that. In fact, I exclusively report people for this specific cause if I was the Physician and if it would have made an impact on the game if I could have reanimated 1 or 2 nights earlier - which, by the way, is surprisingly often the case. People heavily underestimate the presence of a DK nights 3-6 or 2-5.

The question here is, do these type of reports really slow down the processing or could they potentially help getting someone flagged who later becomes a more violent offender? - I do not know. As far as my intentions go and until told otherwise, I will continue to report any behavior that the rules specifically state is not being tolerated.

1 Like
#9

A more violent offender? Is leaving while dead the gateway drug to racial slurs? Do what you want, but I doubt that reporting people who leave when they die does anything to advance your cause of cleaning out the trolls. I seriously doubt the devs do or will ever attempt to punish leaving while dead, and so every second they spend on such a report is a second they are not spending on more serious reports.

#10

Actually the rules only say not to leave if there is a physician that spacificaly wants to revive you. You can leave so long as no outed phys says they want to do that.

#11

“Don’t leave the game early. It is okay to leave while dead, as long as there is not a Physician that wants to reanimate you.”

That’s what the rules say^^^