Jav TKers getting out of hand, got zero help from staff over an eight hour period.

[Jason]

after seeing the player blackrazor discuss this on the forums, and also after having just spent the last 25 minutes in pub 0 monitoring all sorts of tk'ing and getting rather fed up with this "but he started it!" business, i am proposing the implementation of a system that automatically deals with tk'ers.

we already have the framework in place to implement such a system. we can track tk info, and players can report tk'ers. additionally, i've been led to believe that we can already handle shiplocking. surely most of this code can do what i'm proposing. and if all of the code isn't there, we have a great jumping off point from which to start.

so here's how it would work:

ON FIRST TK: obviously you have to warn the player right from the get go so appropriate expectations are set.

PubBot> *warn You are being warned for killing your teammate, <tk victim>. Teamkilling is illegal in SSCU Trench Wars. This is your first of only TWO warnings. If you continue to teamkill, you will be locked out of all bomb-equipped ships for a period of 60 minutes.

PubBot> *arena <tk'er> has been warning for teamkilling <tk victim>. (1st Offense)

ON THIRD TK: the number three is negotiable. my thinking here is that a player may accidentally get one more tk off shortly after the first, and i would hesitate to punish people for bad luck. three strikes, however, and you're out.

PubBot> *warn This is your second and FINAL warning for teamkilling. Please cease and desist or you will be locked out of all bomb-equipped ships.

PubBot> *arena <tk'er> has been given a FINAL warning for continuing to teamkill. (2nd Offense)

ON FIFTH TK: okay, so at this point a player has received two warnings. that's more than enough. there's no way anyone can say they weren't given a proper heads up. again, i've put a padding of one extra tk in between the second warning and the point at which action is taken. this is a buffer to catch an accidental tk that may follow the third tk in rapid succession.

PubBot> You have been locked out of all bomb-equipped ships for the next 60 minutes for failing to adhere to the zone's teamkilling policy.

PubBot> *arena <tk'er> has been locked out of all bomb-equipped ships for the next 60 minutes.


NOTES:

- the numbers at which warnings and shiplock should come are negotiable.
- the duration of the shiplock is negotiable.
- the purpose of the arena messages are to satisfy the tk'ers victims. people who are getting tk'ed get pissed and they want to send in a ?cheater call as a gut reaction. the bot will tell them that the situation is being dealt with before they have a chance to report.
- taking this a step further, the bot should automatically ban a player if they continue to tk after having already been subjected to a shiplock.
- this is probably obvious to any dev member, but both warnings and shiplocks would need to have a persistent state as far as the bots are concerned. no logging off and then back on to get around the system.


questions/comments/criticisms? what do you think?

of course this system isn't foolproof. there will be cases where players who accidentally tk get caught in a shiplock, but frankly, that's just too bad. if a player is playing poorly enough in a jav or shark to accidentally tk FIVE times, that player's freq is better off with them in a bullet-only ship anyway.

[Jason]

i've put together a proposal for an automated system to deal with tk'ing. haven't had a chance to discuss the development side of things with dexter.

so far i've haven't received much feedback on the inter-staff side of things, so i'll post the proposal here and let the public contribute their thoughts as well.

the biggest issue with such a system is that there isn't a way to account for accidental tk's, and as such, some people might get unnecessarily punished. my take on this situation is that even accidental tk's screw over the rest of the team, so if you get locked out of a jav or shark because you suck at it, too bad.

proposal coming in a second post as it's a long read.

[kthx]

Should just try my pub idea, I outlined them all and they all make sense.

[Pressure Drop]

Well, I tried to solve this by making javelin an item to be bought.
It was fair to everyone.

But some idiots came saying I "Banned" them from playing on those ships. Anyways, I think I'll work again on the pub money system, now I do have a free time.
so, fuck off idiots trolls. Start complaining on forum already if you want.

your solution was the wrong one though ... also that isn't a very good attitude

-To maintain the game play focus of this zone; Basing, and to promote it to newer players and establish it within the community (Publics), while not neglecting other aspects of Trench Wars, such as the dueling aspect of Trench Wars.

if your going to resume work you need guidelines to be honest and those should be expanded to protect the casual pubber who jumps on to play a game he is familar with after 5 years of playing and thats what he wants , messing with core TWD ships or createing a system that requires playtime to get more powerfull / unlock ships should not be considered. There should be a focus on improving bot functionality not messing with core gameplay aspects like macroing !full charge to get 2x wb bullets in a row. This game should always be for the casual player as well as the power gamer.

[H.M.S. Stargazer]

Yes, if you hardcode bans for players into the system then you are overstepped your bounds and can't remove a ship from the system.

I don't care if the guy has 300000 tk's you can't permaban him to a ship.

No, but you can set a tk limit on him. aka If you get banned in a ship, you get a 1 tk limit over x days. X increases each time you get banned for teamkilling. 1 -3 -7 -14-30-90-120- etc.

[Pressure Drop]

I play in the basing pub almost daily and I often report blatent jav TKers when I see them. Staff comes nearly every time after the first cheater call; only on the rare occasion do I have to do it twice so I find it hard to believe that for 8 straight hours, you couldn't get one staff to watch the pub for TKers. Just point out who is doing the TKing and make it easy for them to TK you.

maybe you are lucky with your timezone cuase i report the blatant ones too and nothing happens.

sometimes a staffer turns up and goes away and yet i'm never messaged by the bot that the call is being looked into. And that is an issue for me, in the past ppl used to at least let me know it was being looked into or hell sometimes even talk to me about what happened but lately that is not the case.

i'm in favour of a system where a bot tracking jav tks and when it messages you !report if that wasn't accidental it gives you a !tk option and if certain criteria are met the ship is locked out of jav... if it can track ip's then it logged etc and name changers / repeat offenders dealt with by either ship locking them or in severe cases banning them.

[kthx]

Yes, if you hardcode bans for players into the system then you are overstepped your bounds and can't remove a ship from the system.

I don't care if the guy has 300000 tk's you can't permaban him to a ship.

[Dexter]

Well, I tried to solve this by making javelin an item to be bought.
It was fair to everyone.

But some idiots came saying I "Banned" them from playing on those ships. Anyways, I think I'll work again on the pub money system, now I do have a free time.
so, fuck off idiots trolls. Start complaining on forum already if you want.

[Mela]

Another tker: kangashkhan or sthing like that.. thanks major crisis for showing up.. got that fucker to leave.

There used to be a restriction on how many javelins you could have on your freq, no? Why not bring that back? I hate watching 5 javelins just bombing all over the base and thinking they are important to the team.. when they could be sharking/spidering instead.

[Ilya]

is cres sir guacco or th@ kill@?

[Crescent Seal]

ban everyopne

how u fuks leave me? im only 1 on butterfrees chat now

[PH]

ban everyopne

[blackrazor]

Played a couple late rounds, stopped when our terr decided to be a jav turret instead of a base terr. His choice, I guess. Even with another terr, the amount of javs that jumped onto this guy left us too shorthanded to base.

Before that, Popeye was jav TKing us. Also, on the other team, Vulcan as terr, pops into base, totally invincible, right near flag. No amount of bombs, bullets could kill him, even though he wasn't moving at all. The other team used him as an anchor, but it didn't last, eventually he was specced / booted. Still the number of players behaving awfully in Pub seems to have skyrocketed. It's been bad before, yes, but never this bad. Oh well.

You weren't around to be a part of the leviterring culture, but many of us were. There were pub squads that only levterred, people that new every shot and spent hours making new ones. It's stupid to throw away all of that.

I was in here during the LEviTerring Culture. I remember LevTerr and I was in WolvenCreed, the pure basing pub newbie squad where everyone had WolvenSomething name. I believe this was around 2002. I remember staff back then making tweaks and adjustments to the base so the LT's (thats what we called them back then) couldn't pull off super elite shots. Personally, I liked LTing, but I have come to grasp that Pub will probably never be like that again, so why have a useless ship, and not turn it into something useful?

[blackrazor]

I am thrilled with the way this thread is moving forward. I totally agree about the LT culture thing.

I think if the TKWatcher module gives you the A-OK, then you should have the freedom of all eight ships, including Lev. If you lose that TKWatcher A-OK status, then you are limited to the four non-bomber non-rep ships (that includes weasels with reps these days), until you regain that status. It should be a bit of time to earn that status, but the data should be remembered between logins; this would be so a TKer cannot just keep making new aliases to outfox TKWatcher.

Is there a way to control bomb prox with the "delete key" the same way we use it for bullet spread? If so, that at least gives honest players another tool with which to manage their own accidental TKs.

About arena size, kthx is also correct. People just sit in Pub1, hitting esc-A until they finally get a spot in Pub0. Very rarely do we get a critical mass in Pub1 that allows for basing. Pub1 is essentially a waiting queue for Pub0, as things currently stand.

Lets not forget to fix the "disconnect from deaths" thing too, please. Other players in Pub have complained too, notably a couple terrs. For me, it happens when I shark. Apparently, there is some setting in a config file that holds the "number of deaths until disconnect" number. Please make it a bigger number for Pub.

I'm saddened to hear talk of red-tape through which to wade, and mountains to climb. We are down to ONE playable pub now, Pub 0. It's do or die folks. It's crunch time, let's make the changes that need to be made to keep pub populated and operational.