Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Toxic players

    • 2752 posts
    September 25, 2019 3:39 PM PDT

    disposalist said:

    The thing is, I think there are a lot of very easy to identify toxic behaviours in public chat and we know very well what they are.  The important part, I suppose, is some people, when asked to stop swearing or not make racist remarks or not be overtly sexual or not tell sick jokes or stop political arguments or any number of things we know very well are unpleasant or likely to cause unpleasantness, will not stop and it will probably make them worse.  These people are toxic.  Sorry, but they are.  No amount of going on about free speech and freedoms and snowflakes and carebears or whatever excuses it.

    Normal decent people moderate their behaviour, especially in public, so as not to offend/upset/disturb or otherwise be unpleasant *needlessly*.

    To be clear, I do all of the above 'rude' things if I can get away with it.  With people who have come to know me it's usually fine.  In public it's usually not.  If I do it in public and someone asks me to stop I generally will, because it costs me nothing.

    If I find myself somewhere where I can't be myself and everyone else doesn't appreciate me, I go elsewhere, I don't try and bend everyone else to my will and give them a hard time.  I might try and quietly corrupt them until they start thinking my way, but I sure don't make myself toxic if I can help it.

    *shrug* And here I am being overtly opinionated and possibly offending people in a public place!  Doh!  ;^)

    Right. In the real world one would likely be given a misdemeanor for "disturbing the peace" if they stood around publicly and constantly shouting obscenities/hate speech and/or attempting to troll/mess with other people. Which also says nothing of a private place, where the owners can remove and bar access or otherwise issue warnings/rules as they see fit (such as a game server). 

    • 57 posts
    September 26, 2019 11:23 AM PDT

    Wonderful thing about the Internet is you don't have to remove anyone on such ethereal grounds, because their behavior is not forced on anyone. They can simply be ignored by individuals at their own discretion. Individual freedoms are so lovely.

    • 145 posts
    September 26, 2019 12:37 PM PDT

    I was in a guild in EQ that was usually 2nd or 3rd on the server in terms of progression, and we had a couple of toxic players in the guild over the years. When I was younger I argued and argued with them in our forums about how they treated people. If someone wasn't always at raids they would make a real snarky remark and make them feel bad about it. Or if they messed up on an encounter they would rake them over the coals for it. I found myself defending other players against them all the time. There would be pages and pages of text arguing back and forth. It got to the point where every raid it seemd like they were taking shots at people. They were great players though and somehow stayed in the guild. Over time I quit worrying about it so much, and they quit being so harsh and it became much more manageable. 

    I'm too old for that stuff nowadays. I just want to play and have fun and skip out on all that drama. If I am being griefed I will either leave the area. Not worth my time anymore. I use /ignore a lot too.

    • 239 posts
    September 26, 2019 1:09 PM PDT
    I have a female friend I have played a number of games with over the past year or so, and she started playing ESO with about 3 months ago. We have a discord where we have a few people come and go on different games. Just recently I noticed on ESO she was always marked as not online and when I asked her why she commented there was one guy that makes her feel uncomfortable. Joking on what she is wearing while playing. Ir the subtle sexual joke.
    To me this is a form of toxicity. Most would say " just ignore " why does the person feeling attacked, humiliated, harrassed, pressured or anything else have to be the one to react? Why can toxic players not just keep THEIR mouths shut and their own opinions to themselves?
    End of the story she quit playing cause she just was not having fun having to hide from a guy making her feel uncomfortable while playing a damn game.
    • 2752 posts
    September 26, 2019 2:44 PM PDT

    KCRiley said:

    Wonderful thing about the Internet is you don't have to remove anyone on such ethereal grounds, because their behavior is not forced on anyone. They can simply be ignored by individuals at their own discretion. Individual freedoms are so lovely.

    This is a poor way to handle many things, ignore is more appropriate for direct messages than public broadcasts. Plenty enough people buy into the bait and then you have arguments flying all about, if not that then the trash draws in other flies and they start to fester and grow which hurts the community as a whole. Far better to address the problem than to let it spread and require players to play whack a mole with people popping up in chat channels, it only serves to embolden those spewing their crap when they are allowed to do so under the notion others can just ignore. It happens in so many games these days to the point players are encouraged to just turn chat off altogether to avoid abuse/racism/sexual obscenties/etc. 

    • 90 posts
    November 8, 2019 7:46 AM PST

    Iksar said:

    KCRiley said:

    Wonderful thing about the Internet is you don't have to remove anyone on such ethereal grounds, because their behavior is not forced on anyone. They can simply be ignored by individuals at their own discretion. Individual freedoms are so lovely.

    This is a poor way to handle many things, ignore is more appropriate for direct messages than public broadcasts. Plenty enough people buy into the bait and then you have arguments flying all about, if not that then the trash draws in other flies and they start to fester and grow which hurts the community as a whole. Far better to address the problem than to let it spread and require players to play whack a mole with people popping up in chat channels, it only serves to embolden those spewing their crap when they are allowed to do so under the notion others can just ignore. It happens in so many games these days to the point players are encouraged to just turn chat off altogether to avoid abuse/racism/sexual obscenties/etc. 

     

    This is the toxic player I speak of. Moral policing and getting rid of other players because they say things you don't like. They are paying customers just like you. 

  • November 8, 2019 12:20 PM PST
    If the game is focused on collaboration, anything that poisons collaboration poisons the game itself. People only leave games due to toxic behavior, they never join.
    • 81 posts
    November 8, 2019 12:57 PM PST

    I played Darkfall,  Toxic has a whole new meaning.

     

    Generally speaking it is easiest to just ignore them,  but I always try and take it further and make their life miserable if possible.

    I like to record as much information about those idiots as possible,  game names,  where they like to play,  where they live (in game), what they like to do (questing, trading etc) and then sometime down the road I exact revenge by foiling their raid,  killing them if pvp is allowed, ruining their trade credibility,  whatever I can and then remind them of when and how they irked my nerves in the first place.

    • 90 posts
    November 8, 2019 1:44 PM PST

    FlushingToiletScreamingShower said: If the game is focused on collaboration, anything that poisons collaboration poisons the game itself. People only leave games due to toxic behavior, they never join.

     

    That doesn't hold water. People have no idea what is going in chat rooms before they purchase the game. EQ got on just fine with just ignoring people. People start leaving games when they start getting censored. 

    • 90 posts
    November 8, 2019 1:46 PM PST

    KatoKhan said:

    I played Darkfall,  Toxic has a whole new meaning.

     

    Generally speaking it is easiest to just ignore them,  but I always try and take it further and make their life miserable if possible.

    I like to record as much information about those idiots as possible,  game names,  where they like to play,  where they live (in game), what they like to do (questing, trading etc) and then sometime down the road I exact revenge by foiling their raid,  killing them if pvp is allowed, ruining their trade credibility,  whatever I can and then remind them of when and how they irked my nerves in the first place.

     

    So you start stalking and harassening players because they say something you don't like. Pretty sure that makes you the toxic player. I'm sure VR wouldn't approve of this behavior. 

     

    • 81 posts
    November 8, 2019 2:07 PM PST

    Sunglare said:

    So you start stalking and harassening players because they say something you don't like. Pretty sure that makes you the toxic player. I'm sure VR wouldn't approve of this behavior. 

     

     

     I guess that would be 100% opinion and based on each individual instance.  To blanketly make your comment as you did to me just shouts troll but would not rise to the point of me "stalking" you.  Instances I am referring to are people that F with me to a point where I feel something has to be done.  Now if you went on a subsequent tirade of what a jerk and idiot I was for stating this and that my  mother was a ........  for birthing me,  then yes, I might be finding a way to put an exclamation on the point of me thinking you are a toxic player that needs to think twice about his actions.


    This post was edited by KatoKhan at November 8, 2019 2:08 PM PST
    • 801 posts
    November 8, 2019 9:10 PM PST

    Options to /ignore and /report for the really toxic players, harassing..

    Simple fix.

    • 9 posts
    November 11, 2019 11:24 PM PST

    Tea bagging. Copious amounts of it.

    • 90 posts
    November 13, 2019 11:50 AM PST

    KatoKhan said:

    Sunglare said:

    So you start stalking and harassening players because they say something you don't like. Pretty sure that makes you the toxic player. I'm sure VR wouldn't approve of this behavior. 

     

     

     I guess that would be 100% opinion and based on each individual instance.  To blanketly make your comment as you did to me just shouts troll but would not rise to the point of me "stalking" you.  Instances I am referring to are people that F with me to a point where I feel something has to be done.  Now if you went on a subsequent tirade of what a jerk and idiot I was for stating this and that my  mother was a ........  for birthing me,  then yes, I might be finding a way to put an exclamation on the point of me thinking you are a toxic player that needs to think twice about his actions.

     

    Thats not your place, /report /block and move on.

    How are people Fing with you in an online game? Training hasn't been a thing since EQ. why are people Fing with you in the first place. you just happen to randomely be walking through a zone and somebody just randomely choose to start messing with you in a chat system that you can totally just use a block feature. 

    Somebody disagreeing with you doesn't make them a troll. this is exactly the behavior that has become detested in online communties. You think you need to be the judge jury and excutioner of everybody that doesn't follow you moral beliefs. And you're the kind of person that makes me not want to commit 100s of dollars to Visual Realms if the game is going to be full of moral policing.

    This was never an issue in EQ. People had disagreements all the time and then just moved on. usually when you're busy grouping and adventring people don't have time to messing around with /shout or /ooc and just turn it off. The only people messing around in those channels are sitting around waiting for a group with nothing better to do. 

    Maybe you'll play a cleric so you'll never be wanting for a group and won't have to worry about having discussions with grouping impaired.  

    • 2752 posts
    November 13, 2019 1:51 PM PST

    To simply ignore intolerance/abuse/harassment is to enable it. The existence of /ignore is not a license to be a jerk, those people still deserve to be reported and have actions taken to address their behavior as appropriate. 

    It wasn't as much of an issue in EQ as it tends to be now for many reasons, one of which was they had clear policy against harassment/hate mongering/sexual comments and excessive foul language. 

    But it was very clearly still a problem for them even back then:

    ...Also like any society, we have our underbelly, a relatively small number of people who live to prey upon the honorable. It is frequently the goal of these people to see to their desires, no matter the effect of their actions upon others around them. They are the ones who claim ownership of servers, zones, or spawns, and cause or threaten harm to anyone who does not share their disregard and contempt. They are the ones who live, not to enjoy the game with everyone else, but to enjoy at everyone else’s expense.

    For the first few months after EverQuest’s release, we felt that a policy of non-interference in many of these matters was warranted. However, we continued to lose good players. This was not due to any deficiency or dissatisfaction in the game, but due to dissatisfaction with the treatment that they received from their fellow players, and the perceived inability of our Customer Service department to intervene. Late last year, we made a commitment to our players to begin playing an active role in many of these situations.

    The intent of these policies is to provide the players with general guidelines for what is or is not acceptable behavior in EverQuest, and give them the opportunity to work out differences prior to involving the EverQuest Customer Service Staff. Naturally, in a game as multifaceted as EverQuest, we are not able to cover every possible issue that could arise as part of these policies. In these cases, it is the spirit of a rule that will prevail over any discrepancies in the letter...

    • 1584 posts
    November 13, 2019 2:10 PM PST

    Iksar said:

    To simply ignore intolerance/abuse/harassment is to enable it. The existence of /ignore is not a license to be a jerk, those people still deserve to be reported and have actions taken to address their behavior as appropriate. 

    It wasn't as much of an issue in EQ as it tends to be now for many reasons, one of which was they had clear policy against harassment/hate mongering/sexual comments and excessive foul language. 

    But it was very clearly still a problem for them even back then:

    ...Also like any society, we have our underbelly, a relatively small number of people who live to prey upon the honorable. It is frequently the goal of these people to see to their desires, no matter the effect of their actions upon others around them. They are the ones who claim ownership of servers, zones, or spawns, and cause or threaten harm to anyone who does not share their disregard and contempt. They are the ones who live, not to enjoy the game with everyone else, but to enjoy at everyone else’s expense.

    For the first few months after EverQuest’s release, we felt that a policy of non-interference in many of these matters was warranted. However, we continued to lose good players. This was not due to any deficiency or dissatisfaction in the game, but due to dissatisfaction with the treatment that they received from their fellow players, and the perceived inability of our Customer Service department to intervene. Late last year, we made a commitment to our players to begin playing an active role in many of these situations.

    The intent of these policies is to provide the players with general guidelines for what is or is not acceptable behavior in EverQuest, and give them the opportunity to work out differences prior to involving the EverQuest Customer Service Staff. Naturally, in a game as multifaceted as EverQuest, we are not able to cover every possible issue that could arise as part of these policies. In these cases, it is the spirit of a rule that will prevail over any discrepancies in the letter...

    I agree, thats also a reaosn i believe on this topic i said if someone get /ignore at a rapid pace it throws up a flag and have the GM's investigate it even further, it isn't prefect but it is at least a step in the right direction.

    • 90 posts
    November 14, 2019 3:51 PM PST

    Riahuf22 said:

    Iksar said:

    To simply ignore intolerance/abuse/harassment is to enable it. The existence of /ignore is not a license to be a jerk, those people still deserve to be reported and have actions taken to address their behavior as appropriate. 

    It wasn't as much of an issue in EQ as it tends to be now for many reasons, one of which was they had clear policy against harassment/hate mongering/sexual comments and excessive foul language. 

    But it was very clearly still a problem for them even back then:

    ...Also like any society, we have our underbelly, a relatively small number of people who live to prey upon the honorable. It is frequently the goal of these people to see to their desires, no matter the effect of their actions upon others around them. They are the ones who claim ownership of servers, zones, or spawns, and cause or threaten harm to anyone who does not share their disregard and contempt. They are the ones who live, not to enjoy the game with everyone else, but to enjoy at everyone else’s expense.

    For the first few months after EverQuest’s release, we felt that a policy of non-interference in many of these matters was warranted. However, we continued to lose good players. This was not due to any deficiency or dissatisfaction in the game, but due to dissatisfaction with the treatment that they received from their fellow players, and the perceived inability of our Customer Service department to intervene. Late last year, we made a commitment to our players to begin playing an active role in many of these situations.

    The intent of these policies is to provide the players with general guidelines for what is or is not acceptable behavior in EverQuest, and give them the opportunity to work out differences prior to involving the EverQuest Customer Service Staff. Naturally, in a game as multifaceted as EverQuest, we are not able to cover every possible issue that could arise as part of these policies. In these cases, it is the spirit of a rule that will prevail over any discrepancies in the letter...

    I agree, thats also a reaosn i believe on this topic i said if someone get /ignore at a rapid pace it throws up a flag and have the GM's investigate it even further, it isn't prefect but it is at least a step in the right direction.

     

    That can be misused and lead to mob rule. Every server on EQ had their Pariah, some unjustly so. If a whole community decided they didn't like somebody because the in-crowd didn't like that person not only would they be punished sociably but you're asking for the GM to punish them for something they probably didn't do wrong. Don't put power into the hands of those who can gather followers on a cultish level. 

    • 1584 posts
    November 14, 2019 4:43 PM PST

    Sunglare said:

    Riahuf22 said:

    Iksar said:

    To simply ignore intolerance/abuse/harassment is to enable it. The existence of /ignore is not a license to be a jerk, those people still deserve to be reported and have actions taken to address their behavior as appropriate. 

    It wasn't as much of an issue in EQ as it tends to be now for many reasons, one of which was they had clear policy against harassment/hate mongering/sexual comments and excessive foul language. 

    But it was very clearly still a problem for them even back then:

    ...Also like any society, we have our underbelly, a relatively small number of people who live to prey upon the honorable. It is frequently the goal of these people to see to their desires, no matter the effect of their actions upon others around them. They are the ones who claim ownership of servers, zones, or spawns, and cause or threaten harm to anyone who does not share their disregard and contempt. They are the ones who live, not to enjoy the game with everyone else, but to enjoy at everyone else’s expense.

    For the first few months after EverQuest’s release, we felt that a policy of non-interference in many of these matters was warranted. However, we continued to lose good players. This was not due to any deficiency or dissatisfaction in the game, but due to dissatisfaction with the treatment that they received from their fellow players, and the perceived inability of our Customer Service department to intervene. Late last year, we made a commitment to our players to begin playing an active role in many of these situations.

    The intent of these policies is to provide the players with general guidelines for what is or is not acceptable behavior in EverQuest, and give them the opportunity to work out differences prior to involving the EverQuest Customer Service Staff. Naturally, in a game as multifaceted as EverQuest, we are not able to cover every possible issue that could arise as part of these policies. In these cases, it is the spirit of a rule that will prevail over any discrepancies in the letter...

    I agree, thats also a reaosn i believe on this topic i said if someone get /ignore at a rapid pace it throws up a flag and have the GM's investigate it even further, it isn't prefect but it is at least a step in the right direction.

     

    That can be misused and lead to mob rule. Every server on EQ had their Pariah, some unjustly so. If a whole community decided they didn't like somebody because the in-crowd didn't like that person not only would they be punished sociably but you're asking for the GM to punish them for something they probably didn't do wrong. Don't put power into the hands of those who can gather followers on a cultish level. 

    It can't really be misused, the flag does nothing it only has a GM look at it, and nothing else if they see its nothing they simply unflag it and move on.  BTW any system can be misused for the wrong reasons, i can say i tihnk the /report system is a great system, but I'm not blind to see it can be used incorrectly, that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a report system.


    This post was edited by Cealtric at November 14, 2019 4:57 PM PST
    • 1315 posts
    November 14, 2019 5:06 PM PST

    Riahuf22 said:

    It can't really be misused, the flag does nothing it only has a GM look at it, and nothing else if they see its nothing they simply unflag it and move on.

    An acquaintance said that is one of the data points used when deciding which users to investigate when they have limited manpower to follow up on harassment tickets. They would look up how many complaints there were against the player and how many people had them on ignore creating a bad behavior score before investigating. They would work their way down from those with the highest negative scores to make the most effective use of their CS manpower. Quite often the really toxic players will have very high scores so its more time effective from an improved game atmosphere perspective to focus on them. Pulling logs and validating a ban can be very time consuming as they want to be sure it is appropriate and not just players rubbing each other the wrong way.

     

    • 429 posts
    November 14, 2019 5:21 PM PST

                                                           TOXIX PLAYERS 

     

    No worries , Be happy .

     Toxic player in every game , tis always the same ....

    It gives them great sastisfaction , to only see your reaction !!!!! 

    No worries , Be happy 

     Here is my reply , Don't CRY !!!!

    For every reaction they gain satisfaction .....

    I might laugh , but never CRY . WHY ????

     Resistance might be futile , but satisfaction is no lie :P 

    No worries , Be happy say I :):):)

    • 1584 posts
    November 14, 2019 5:24 PM PST

    Trasak said:

    Riahuf22 said:

    It can't really be misused, the flag does nothing it only has a GM look at it, and nothing else if they see its nothing they simply unflag it and move on.

     

    An acquaintance said that is one of the data points used when deciding which users to investigate when they have limited manpower to follow up on harassment tickets. They would look up how many complaints there were against the player and how many people had them on ignore creating a bad behavior score before investigating. They would work their way down from those with the highest negative scores to make the most effective use of their CS manpower. Quite often the really toxic players will have very high scores so its more time effective from an improved game atmosphere perspective to focus on them. Pulling logs and validating a ban can be very time consuming as they want to be sure it is appropriate and not just players rubbing each other the wrong way.

     

     

    no matter what ypou try to do to have a healthy community it going to take a long time and a lot of work, that is inevitable, thinking it would be anything else simply just means they didn't try hard enough.

    • 1618 posts
    November 14, 2019 5:49 PM PST

    Unfortunately, toxic players do a lot more than just chats. Many will stalk you and intentionally try to steal every resource (mobs, nodes, whatever). They will just follow you and their only purpose is to cause you grief. Ignores don't solve that. 

    Sometimes, the community just has to take action and turned their tactics against them.

    • 66 posts
    November 14, 2019 7:36 PM PST

    Sunglare said: 

    Don't put power into the hands of those who can gather followers on a cultish level. 

    Suggestions like this are even-handed and great in theory - although rarely followed in any sort of polarizing society (as is highly apparent IRL).

    Given that Pantheon will revolve around social interactions and a degree of competition/scarcity, robust systems and rulesets to combat potential abuse are a no-brainer. If someone wants to cry "censorship" in response to a ban or other reprimand, logs should exist to prove they were/weren't engaging in abusive, illegal, or ToS-breaking behaviors. Not enforcing anything because people may feel censored sounds like a great way to open the door wide for abuse - to everyone's detriment. Ultimately, CS teams will make mistakes just like anyone else. Perhaps an appeal system would help allay fears of disproportionate or unfair censure. However, a hands-off approach or lack of guidelines gives avoidable problems the space and time they need to fester. Basic social expectations (and constant disregard for those expectations) are kind of the whole reasoning behind laws and enforcement agencies (or a ToS agreement and CS resolution teams).

    • 1584 posts
    November 15, 2019 6:57 AM PST

    Beefcake said:

    Unfortunately, toxic players do a lot more than just chats. Many will stalk you and intentionally try to steal every resource (mobs, nodes, whatever). They will just follow you and their only purpose is to cause you grief. Ignores don't solve that. 

    Sometimes, the community just has to take action and turned their tactics against them.

    I think this is a bit extreme, but like everything else if we can think it, it can happen.  I see the best you can really do is take VODs, of it and simply just prove he is stalking you.  I see this more of a problem for streamers in general, as they natural grow a huge fan base and people who disagree with them just as strongly.  But nonetheless your correct there should be something we can do about, I'm hoping more than anything his repuation of being ruined would be more than enough to stop people from doing such a thing, but I'm not blind to the fact some won't care about their repuation if they truly want to just grieve you or their guild.  

    Just look at Advertise hunting down Asmongold every second he has a chance and their proof of that, im not even a asmon fan but man that guy does everything he can to kill asmon.

    • 139 posts
    November 15, 2019 7:48 AM PST

    I find EU PVE servers to be pretty benevolent in the games I play so I don't experience much at all toxicity. It's a non-issue for me.