News: Xbox One Reputation System

[tential]

http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/26/microsoft-reputation-warnings/

The Xbox One's simplified Reputation system aims to keep like-minded gamers playing together, and now the folks in Redmond plan to notify you if you fall of out the community's good graces. Are you the sort of player who doesn't ruffle too many feathers? You'll be just fine -- the occasional bad report won't do much harm. Starting this month though, Microsoft will reach out to trollish gamers when negative feedback from fellow players drags their reputations down into "needs work" territory. Prolonged abrasiveness will ultimately land them in the red "avoid me" zone, where matchmaking for games becomes more difficult and certain features like Twitch livestreaming could be restricted. Seems like a pretty big price to pay when the alternative is to behave like a civilized human being, doesn't it?

I didn't like this the second I read this and I couldn't figure out why.

Then I thought about it and remembered League of Legends has a report system. Want to know how often players who broke 0 rules and played decently all game are reported? ALL THE TIME. And I'm not talking about 1 report. I'm talking about 4+ people reporting 1 person in a game for factors not related to reporting at all.

Play a bad game? Get reported. Make a bad call? Reported. Play with a 4 man stack and you're the 5th man out? Get reported.

People are assuming that we'll report those who are just bad to play with. That's true that happens. But most of the time reports are just used based on TONS of different reasons. A new person picking up a new game shouldn't be subject to tons of reports/bad reputation and lower priority matchmaking. Luckily, XboxOne doesn't have games like League of Legends/Dota where this type of reporting really is rampant (due to playing with 4 other players for an extended period of time), but I see this as a HUGE pitfall in the system.

 

[purbeast0]

yeah i think the whole reputation thing is stupid. just let people be able to set if they ever want to be matched up with someone again and leave it at that. you know, like how it was in the 360.

it just amazes me how many things worked perfectly on the 360 that microsoft has completely f'ed up with the xbox1. they are going backwards.

 

[blurredvision]

Last time I heard, the Xbox One didn't even have a way for you to report users. Not sure if that's changed or not.

 

[Batmeat]

This system would work as long as the reports can be verified. For instance, In World of Warcraft if you got reported the admins can look at why via chat logs and can even take screen shots of your supposedly bad behavior. How do I know this? Well, lets just say I nearly got a 6mnth ban for being "incompatible to a friendly environment" with the above mentioned ways sent to my email.

 

[Lil Frier]

I think my biggest complaint would be the potential to report people because you're in a bad mood or something. You do well, team still loses, you report your bad teammates. You get destroyed by a good team, you and your group report the other team because you don't like that they beat you. Of course, this is why reporting systems will always be screwy online, simply because people abuse them. I'd like to see something explaining how Microsoft would mitigate these issues, as well as the clear-cut reasons reporting would be accepted. I mean, is bad language a problem? What counts as bad language?

They're basically trying to take the Wild West, hand out punishments, but not provide people with good guidelines as to what is and isn't acceptable behavior.

 

[EightySix Four]

I think my biggest complaint would be the potential to report people because you're in a bad mood or something. You do well, team still loses, you report your bad teammates. You get destroyed by a good team, you and your group report the other team because you don't like that they beat you. Of course, this is why reporting systems will always be screwy online, simply because people abuse them. I'd like to see something explaining how Microsoft would mitigate these issues, as well as the clear-cut reasons reporting would be accepted. I mean, is bad language a problem? What counts as bad language?

They're basically trying to take the Wild West, hand out punishments, but not provide people with good guidelines as to what is and isn't acceptable behavior.

An older article with some information: http://consumerist.com/2013/10/03/will-the-xbox-one-live-up-to-its-no-jerks-promise/

It appears that their alogrithm takes into account a lot of factors, frequency of negative reports, single game anomalies, information about the player doing the reporting, etc.

 

[purbeast0]

An older article with some information: http://consumerist.com/2013/10/03/will-the-xbox-one-live-up-to-its-no-jerks-promise/

It appears that their alogrithm takes into account a lot of factors, frequency of negative reports, single game anomalies, information about the player doing the reporting, etc.

yeah, the problem is that this is nothing but a blanket promise at this point. i'm not saying it can't and won't be done, just that it's pretty common for these companies to promise the world and under deliver big time.

the most recent one in my own personal experience is the ragequit solution for killer instinct. the way it was implemented was horrible after it was promised to be a solution to the issue. it's far from it.

 

[cmdrdredd]

yeah i think the whole reputation thing is stupid. just let people be able to set if they ever want to be matched up with someone again and leave it at that. you know, like how it was in the 360.

it just amazes me how many things worked perfectly on the 360 that microsoft has completely f'ed up with the xbox1. they are going backwards.

Yep they just need an ignore list. You can go to your recently met list, pick the guy who gave you a hard time or whatever and put him on your list so you never have to bother with them.

The way this seems like it'll work is people who you report can still show up in your games and act the same way. So you report them again, and again...then MS will say you're just trolling them and give you a hard time or just ignore it. Then when you get a bad rep you are paired up with other people who also have a bad rep. So then how do you get a better rep once you've been put on that list? I mean the people with a bad rep aren't gonna give you a positive review, there is after all a reason they are there too.

 

[tential]

Yep they just need an ignore list. You can go to your recently met list, pick the guy who gave you a hard time or whatever and put him on your list so you never have to bother with them.

The way this seems like it'll work is people who you report can still show up in your games and act the same way. So you report them again, and again...then MS will say you're just trolling them and give you a hard time or just ignore it. Then when you get a bad rep you are paired up with other people who also have a bad rep. So then how do you get a better rep once you've been put on that list? I mean the people with a bad rep aren't gonna give you a positive review, there is after all a reason they are there too.

I agree with the ignore list and I'm not sure why this hasn't been implemented in more games (League of Legends I'm looking DIRECTLY at you especially).

Ignore list should be a"I don't want to play with" list as well. I'll use League of Legends as an example since it's the biggest abuser of this. I'll get a game with a troll player in League of Legends. Whatever, I suck it up and take my loss, and report the player, ask people in game to do the same. We all report. I also ignore the player as well.

Then NEXT GAME, I get the SAME player again. This has happened more times than I can count with League of Legends. The SAME player will then troll the whole game again, especially since he knows he was just reported. So now if I report again, I'm trolling.

I think the BEST way to do this is an unadvertised/unknown program that goes off of the ignore function. Have 100 people ignored you? Ok, you're probably a problematic player. Have 1000+ people ignored you? Ok, well then you definitely belong in a low priority match making pool.

If you want to see how bad a reputation system works head over to bodybuilding.com's off topic section. Most of the WORST posters have the highest reputation because people rep trade constantly with their friends. Even in League of Legends now they have a reputation type system where people can give eachother reps (same with Dota 2 actually). Most of the time people use all their "rep" ( I can't remember the name in either game that they actually use) on their friends each time they have it. Reputation systems almost ALWAYS lead to rep trading of some sort and a TON of abuse of that system.

It seems to me that M$ just wants to publicly look like they're doing something rather than actually work towards fixing the problem.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I agree with the ignore list and I'm not sure why this hasn't been implemented in more games (League of Legends I'm looking DIRECTLY at you especially).

Ignore list should be a"I don't want to play with" list as well. I'll use League of Legends as an example since it's the biggest abuser of this. I'll get a game with a troll player in League of Legends. Whatever, I suck it up and take my loss, and report the player, ask people in game to do the same. We all report. I also ignore the player as well.

Then NEXT GAME, I get the SAME player again. This has happened more times than I can count with League of Legends. The SAME player will then troll the whole game again, especially since he knows he was just reported. So now if I report again, I'm trolling.

I think the BEST way to do this is an unadvertised/unknown program that goes off of the ignore function. Have 100 people ignored you? Ok, you're probably a problematic player. Have 1000+ people ignored you? Ok, well then you definitely belong in a low priority match making pool.

If you want to see how bad a reputation system works head over to bodybuilding.com's off topic section. Most of the WORST posters have the highest reputation because people rep trade constantly with their friends. Even in League of Legends now they have a reputation type system where people can give eachother reps (same with Dota 2 actually). Most of the time people use all their "rep" ( I can't remember the name in either game that they actually use) on their friends each time they have it. Reputation systems almost ALWAYS lead to rep trading of some sort and a TON of abuse of that system.

It seems to me that M$ just wants to publicly look like they're doing something rather than actually work towards fixing the problem.

I don't play those games but I can see what you're getting at. I think that MS knows that XBL is viewed by some(alot of?) people as being full of trolls, foul mouthed children who shouldn't even be playing the game they are on, and players who just have a bad attitude. Since they know this they want to try to alleviate it without kicking the bad players off since they want their subscription fees. They are unwilling to really put the boot down on bad players because it would hurt their revenue stream. Their solution is to make people police themselves instead of enact policies that make the bad players feel unwelcome and simply stop playing and thus...stop paying for the Gold membership. Honestly the only way to get rid of bad players is to make them hurt a little bit. Otherwise what's the incentive to stop talking about my mom? I can mute them, but once they know they got to you as you said...they just troll you the whole time. This is really why I don't use voice all that much. I have the headset adapter and all, but haven't used it. I really only have it in case a few people from here or my local gamestop wanna hop in a game and I can party chat with them. Everyone slips, loses their temper and probably more than a few of us will swear like a drunken sailor at times, but there's quite a few people who have nothing better to do than to use racial slurs and mom jokes toward you.

 

[tential]

The only report systems I've EVER seen work were Dota (on Warcraft 3), the Throne It Community and the TDA community. Both of those communities had serious reporting measures.

All reports were forum based. You created a thread about the player, and posted proof that they had broken a rule. 99% of the time the player would receive a ban and within a timely manner as well. And you could look back at your thread to see that the player had gotten punished for their actions.

Of course, that really only works with PC, and doesn't work well at all with Voice Chat. It's the only system I've seen that truly moderated players. Running into Trolls in those communities was VERY LOW because everyone knew the report system was taken seriously. I think a report system where you provide screenshots/proof is the only real one that can actually work though. People aren't worried about being reported becuase THOUSANDS of reports are submitted, many false, every day. In those communities, not many reports were filed, but each one that was was looked at and taken care of in fast manner so people knew that if a person said "I'll report you for racial slurs." that they would be receiving that 2-3 week ban very shortly.

Besides a hidden ignore based system type way of policing xbox live, I really can't think of a good solution at all. It's hard when you're M$ and you really don't care about anything other than profits. In that case, kicking off all bad players (Which is a LOT in this current gen of kids online), is a loss of cash. It's the same reason League of Legends has been so bad to play. LoL doesn't want to lose customers/potential customers so they're EXTREMELY lenient rather than being harsh.

Back in Dota 1 days, I NEVER even left games because punishments of communities were quite severe. Now though, no players really respect/care about the report function because most players realize that it takes SO MANY reports to have something happen to you that chances are it isn't worth fixing your behavior since 99% of the time you won't receive any consequences for it.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

1. Develop system allowing normal players to report trolls and griefers
2. Allow trolls and griefers to use the system to report normal players
3. ...
4. Profit!

 

[Rakehellion]

Snitching is just stupid anyway. I wish there were a separate reporting system for crybabies.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Snitching is just stupid anyway. I wish there were a separate reporting system for crybabies.

Crybabies? You think everyone who has a problem with someone in an online game is a crybaby? It's not even snitching. This isn't some kid who took lunch money from your friend and he calls you a tattletale. This is more of a way to warn others of who is a bad player. Whether it's their attitude or how they troll and grief people which is also pointless. I think people have a right to know who is going to potentially ruin their game. We are simply looking at the flaws in Microsoft's proposed system.

There are people who have no respect for anyone, yell and curse at you like it makes them feel better about themselves, rage quit and use lame mother jokes when they lose, threaten you as if they actually know you, and all kinds of other nonsense. These people should be dealt with in some way, or as I said...allow me to remove them from the list of people that XBL will pair me up with. If someone is that obnoxious I should not have to deal with it and it's not being a crybaby. I have better things to do with my time in the games I enjoy than deal with these types of people. So why not allow me a way to avoid them?

 

[Tweak155]

Snitching is just stupid anyway. I wish there were a separate reporting system for crybabies.

Yeah, then we can double ignore the crybabies that get reported.

 

[Newbian]

Don't worry as I am sure microsoft will allow you to pay to get back in good graces.