What To Do As A Company/Battalion/etc. Leader To Deal With Trolls

[TrustyJam]

It’d be nice to reflect friendly damage done by stabbing.

Thank you for the suggestion.

We will look into punishments for stabbing if it proves to be an issue needing looked at.

Personally I'm not a fan of a reflective damage system. It feels too gamy a solution to me and will directly effect everyone playing, even when you are not to blame for hitting a friendly player - I'd much rather just count the stabs via a hidden counter, give the person a warning when he is close to going over the limit and temp ban him should he continue to stab away.

- Trusty

[Vulcarin]

Thank you for the suggestion.

We will look into punishments for stabbing if it proves to be an issue needing looked at.

Personally I'm not a fan of a reflective damage system. It feels too gamy a solution to me and will directly effect everyone playing, even when you are not to blame for hitting a friendly player - I'd much rather just count the stabs via a hidden counter, give the person a warning when he is close to going over the limit and temp ban him should he continue to stab away.

- Trusty

That sounds nice. Hope its not too much of a pain to implement something like that, if thats course you go.

[Redleader]

Thank you for the suggestion.

…. I'd much rather just count the stabs via a hidden counter, give the person a warning when he is close to going over the limit and temp ban him should he continue to stab away.

- Trusty

Sounds like an interesting idea to pursue, would dying and reconnecting influence this counter ?

Some insight on advanced troll tactics :

• They just plainly execute players (smart trolls wait until enemy fire begins or a charge is in effect)
• They will stab only once (non lethal, but very annoying and will limit combat efficiency), an officer/NCO & flagbearer would be priority targets.
• They provoke teamkilling (by blocking, standing in the line of fire or by any verbal/chat means)
• They wear an officers uniform and shout contradicting orders or cause confusing within the ranks.
• They 'solo' charge enemy positions to drain morale (on maps with low population this has a big impact cause of the multiplier)
• A few rare cases some even took on names of existing players (doesn't mean we didn't find out …)
• ….

-< sometimes a teamkill happens when trying to help a comrade (being stuck …) -> Maybe the 'respawn or F9' method is preferred. (hopefully at least in skirmish mode)

The response :

• A company is usually able to handle the situation, by firstly addressing that person … and if diplomacy fails ->
• Non regimentals/little groups have bigger issues, we are there also usually to keep an eye out an spot grievers
• If shit really hits the fan, I try and contact Trusty/devteam and report what is going on. (these are rare occasions)

[Redleader]

That sounds nice. Hope its not too much of a pain to implement something like that, if thats course you go.

I agree with Maj. Vulcarin, it's also nice to know what's easy to implement and what not (and why).
So we can make suggestions based on that knowledge and won't be asking similar questions all over

[TrustyJam]

I've talked to Mike, the programmer behind the punishment system - it will likely count team damage and issue temp bans based on a specific maximum amount set by us instead of just TK's.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

- Trusty

[TrustyJam]

A 'Forgive' system would be nice, too.

We don't want to make it acceptable to TK on purpose - no matter what. It is highly immersion and team morale breaking having a company tk each other (and being able to get away with it due to a forgive system) in spawn for instance.

- Trusty

[Quaker]

have you had any ideas yet about how to police potential flag trolling/griefing in a similar systemic/programmable way?

Referring here to someone running off with it, suiciding with it, hiding it or deliberately dropping it near enemies etc.

Maybe the answer lies in electing responsible flag bearers (and officers for that matter) prior to spawning.

[Dman979]

We don't want to make it acceptable to TK on purpose - no matter what. It is highly immersion and team morale breaking having a company tk each other (and being able to get away with it due to a forgive system) in spawn for instance.

- Trusty

I was a fan of Red Orchestra 2/Rising Storm's technique. Sure, you can forgive someone by typing "np" in chat, but most people only did that if it was a genuine accident and the "offending" party apologized. There was no teamkilling for fun, and mass-teamkillers were a one-off thing- sure, you could get some people at once through an explosive, but with that many simultaneous kills no one had time to forgive before the kick/ban.

I believe the limit for teamkills was six, but with forgiven kills counting as .5 of a death, and customizable by server. The game had code implemented to recognize when people who were TK'd forgave in the chat system.

I strongly suggest that you take a look at how Tripwire Entertainment designed their system. It stands out to me as one of the best-designed team-killing systems I've encountered in online play, especially for realism-oriented games.

Best,
Dman979

[TrustyJam]

have you had any ideas yet about how to police potential flag trolling/griefing in a similar systemic/programmable way?

Referring here to someone running off with it, suiciding with it, hiding it or deliberately dropping it near enemies etc.

Maybe the answer lies in electing responsible flag bearers (and officers for that matter) prior to spawning.

The flag bearer is killed after having been 60 seconds out of line currently.

When we add dropable flags we will also add a timeout function so no matter where you run in order to die and hide the flag it will be reset after a while if unreachable. The dropped flag will also have a UI marker.

- Trusty

[Cairnsy44]

Trusty, we need in game admin/mod tools, and we needed them yesterday. TKing was never a deliberate issue until we hit Phase II, but it needs to be addressed. I was TKed at Saturday's event with a double stab in the back by a player IN A COMPANY. Even if you don't trust me to do it, please consider making Leifr or Kyle server admins. At least so that I can reach out to them when someone isn't playing nice.

Were you playing as Union? I think I was in that game in the East Woods. The two previously named culprits were there and as soon as the map started, it became a slaughter and we hadn't even left the spawn point. Just "teammates" killing teammates. I quit and didn't come back for a few hours, because that will ruin a game really quick.