Fix Pub teamkilll process and train staff correctly

[Ephemeral]

Today a good pub game was once again crushed by team-killing and poor staff management. The issue is simple. Everyone who has played the game longer than 3 days knows exactly how exploit the team-killing process. A ?cheater call goes in, a staffer wanders into the arena, ‘watches’ for a while, and then often does nothing since the team-killing has ‘stopped’.

Generally speaking I don’t report anyone on the first few team-kills; this is especially true if I think the player is new. Often the best solution is to try to help the new player and explain to him why team-killing is bad. But lately I have been reporting those players who clearly know better on the second team-kill. Even this is often too late since they know they can team-kill a few more times without any consequences.

In the game today a good competitive battle had been going on for a while. Team-killing was rampant since the frequency had 5 javs and 2 levs. After being team-killed 3 times by two different players, I started reporting them. A staffer PMs me and suggests that I am reporting them too quickly and too often. He then proceeds to tell me that the team-killing was not intentional. What the fuck does ‘intention’ have to do with anything?

We automate virtually everything in this zone but somehow cannot figure out how to automatically ship reset a player who team-kills based upon the number of team-kills over a defined time period? We consume zone resources with noob staffers who sit and ‘watch’ and then make a decision based upon another players possible ‘intentions’? If we cannot automate a ship reset after a player team-kills 3-4 times in less than 5 minutes (or whatever everyone thinks would work best) then please consider revisiting the process and tightening it up some. Then retrain staff so they can quickly handle the situation without trying to determine the ‘intention’ of a player and without killing competitive pub games due to inaction.
Eph

[Shaddowknight]

Intentional teamkilling is not the only offensibile teamkilling. Excessive teamkilling also needs to be dealt with. Generally it should be handled less harshly, but still needs to be dealt with. If staffers are not handling excessive teamkilling properly, it's obvious they were not trained properly in that area.

As for automatic shipsetting, we have wanted to keep away with that because it's just as easy to abuse (base levis whose bombs/mines are repped once could trigger it instantly, even though it was a good shot or mine location. This would also remove a good bit of the "human feel" that the actual policing of our zone entails. We don't want it to seem like the zone is rules by robots.

[Wazzaaa.nl]

+1 for this thread and ephs post

[Wazzaaa.nl]

staff handles this so poorly
it takes so much time for them to act
and you need to report 10x and get tkd 20x before the person gets superspecd
and the dumbest staffers are who give out warnings when someone intentionally teamkills the whole team

this esp disrupts gameplay when they kill the terrier all the time
and staff just watches like idiots.. sees the guy tryn to tk the terrier
even if the guy misses, staff responds like ohhh he didnt teamkill you/him yet!
@ the time staff acts and superspec or something, the terr left long time ago
and the basegame dies out

[Jerome Scuggs]

are these teamkillers chronic teamkillers? are tk stats tracked persistently? if there's someone who routinely tk's, then the first violation or two throw their name on a list, and if they do it again, spec them. this way you don't punish accidental tk'ers, and you punish repeat offenders.

[olde]

I like to TK and then macro EZ newbie. I normaly get a good 6 TKs in before I get warned. So I second eph. On this subject.

[Turban]

There wasn't as many team killing incidents back when it was a bannable offense, I daresay, and I do agree that it often times takes far too long for staff members to react. In my opinion, if a player is caught blatantly team killing a team mate, or has done it excessively in a certain period of time, they should immediately be placed on a non-bombing ship.

Our players know that they can abuse the trust of staff and that they will get away with it most of the times. We are giving most of them the benefit of the doubt, and another chance to team kill, which is quite silly if you ask me.

There is no way these players will learn without immediate punishments, I'm afraid. This is a serious issue that needs to be thought through if its ruining the public experience and base games.

[9th!]

I believe the TKers record should be judged when TKing.

If a newplayer or a player who has been good for a while start tking the current system is fine.

However if someone continually does it they should be punished severley. I'm talking like 3 days for their first TK and a 1-3 day local ban from the zone.

people are not deterred from tking, all too often I see people happy to accept the ship lock for it and they don't seem like it's even a punishment.

[roxxkatt]

the reason tk watch cant be automated is because stupid people suicide on bombs to try to get someone penalized

[Shaddowknight]

We used to have a certain player who was constantly suiciding into team jav bombs (running near walls they are going to) and sitting near shark mines to get tk's once repped. He would report every time, and we eventually had to alter the report function somewhat, and start issuing warnings for disruptive gameplay. This sort of thing is why automated teamkill reporting would not work.
It's like putting the jar of candy out for Halloween with a sign that says "Only take one please"

[Jerome Scuggs]

We used to have a certain player who was constantly suiciding into team jav bombs (running near walls they are going to) and sitting near shark mines to get tk's once repped. He would report every time, and we eventually had to alter the report function somewhat, and start issuing warnings for disruptive gameplay. This sort of thing is why automated teamkill reporting would not work.
It's like putting the jar of candy out for Halloween with a sign that says "Only take one please"

so instead of banning this dude for abuse/obstruction you re-tailor an entire punitive system around him?

[but...why...per...]

Sadly Jerome, it wouldn't just be the one person doing it, many players would become 'tk chasers' in an attempt to get someone ship-locked, which I believe is worse than being tk'd (the wrong person being shiplocked). It is also more difficult for staff to reverse an automated shiplock and prove innocence than it is for staff to manually issue one after witnessing abuse.

[qan]

TK module originally was automated, yeah. Had a rather complex if slightly dysfunctional way of doing things. That functionality is still in there. But of course, the abusers, as always...

We'd still be able to do a few things aside from issuing a regular bombing ship restriction -- all of which could be reversed manually by staff if there's any question of a TK chaser, perhaps with an automated message letting the player know they can dispute anything the bot does if they feel personally wronged.

For example, after excessive TKs, the bot could begin sending messages letting the player know they're being watched, and do any number of things (these are simply presented options, not recommendations, before inevitably someone says why would you even suggest that/that would be the very downfall of society as we know it): send more frequent and earlier automated msgs to staff about excessive, targeted or rapid TKs; negative full charge; engine shutdown; deprize shrap and rockets in the case of Jav, or reps and such in the case of Levis; shipchange without lock; shipchange with lock for 5-10 minutes; lock from bombing ships but not as a recorded shipban, leaving that to discretion of staff; send team message informing the team that player X has TK'd quite a lot, and to send a ?cheater if they think it's intentional ... and so on.

And many of those with an accompanying notice to staff, or at the very least, an indicator on the TK record as to what actions have been taken and when.


As for staff not outright shiplocking someone when they see them teamfer-TK, that's a function of the ban protocol. Back in the day we could make that kind of call. These days staff members don't have that kind of leniency. It results in less abuse, a much more consistent system of punishment, and almost completely removes the possibility of the innocent getting punished, but at the cost of letting people walk (quite) a bit more often. We used to zoneban for just about anything, and a mod's word was for the most part taken on faith. Now you have to file a lot of paperwork, and if it's wrong, be ready to get chewed out. (Honestly, that may be enough to prevent some mods from doing a shiplock when they normally would have a few years ago.) Just like modern policing vs back in the day. It's a function of standardization and the evolution of bureaucracy. For better or for worse.

[9th!]

Well that's about that. Great post.

[Ephemeral]

And the voice of reason has arrived back.
IMO there are many possible solutions but the current ‘watching’ process has to be the lamest possible one. Human factor? Come on. It not only puts a extra burden on staff but also puts them in a position to make a subjective decisions. This is an issue that needs to be quantified; whether or not it is automated is not as important as this. It is a number. If the team-kill occurs X amounts of times within X amount of minutes then action should be taken.

I concur that ship reset is a bit drastic and as Qan points out there are other ways to penalize the behavior. The warning should be automated to the team-killer, the current system of notifying player who got team-killed doesn’t serve much purpose. And of course staff should be able to see the number of team-kills that have occurred in the last X minutes no matter what happens. No one should be forced to sit there and ‘watch’. A series of increasing punishments seems quite reasonable and a far better solution.

First Team-Kill; Warning to player
Second Team-Kill; Additional warning that next team-kill will result in action
Third Team-Kill; Warning, ship warped to lower safe, unable to reattached to any terr for X minutes. Staff notified
Fourth Team-Kill; Warning, ship lock to Wb, lanc, terr, or spider for X minutes. Staff notified

And to deal with those players who exploit the rule by intentionally getting team-killed, THEN use the ‘watch’ approach. If this is happening THEN allow players to use a ?cheater call to report what is going down. This puts staff in a position to only have to deal with the rare exception as opposed to having to respond to the current endless ?cheater calls.
Eph