Suggestion: Ability to Systematically Avoid/Restrict Grouping WITHOUT Blacklist

Personal preferences vary, but I very rarely elect to actually blacklist someone. They pretty much have to be flooding chat in a channel I have no direct control over (like shout). And even then I'd just temporarily blacklist them until a GM deals with them and prevents recurrence.

However, there are many people I encounter that prove to not be a good fit for my parties, whether it be because they're mean to people, etc. Yes, such things are often actionable by GMs ... but often they are too minor to actually warrant GM action.

Obviously, I can just tell them this when they join such a party, but such is very time-consuming, extremely confrontational, and in itself borderline harassment. As such, this suggestion is for the ability to maintain a list of players that party finder (and, ideally, duty finder, while we're enhancing things) prevents from joining my party without having to completely deafen myself to anything they ever say to anyone in any channel I can see.

Kinda in harrasment territory or just me?

So similar to the Avoid Player list in games such as Overwatch? While a fair idea it has strict limitations as to how many people you could set in it due to the system needing to run all those checks for all the people using DF concurrently. Honestly if someone joins your party and you don't want them in it, just tell them. It may get messy but it's all in how you say it and how appropriate your actions are.

So basically a blacklist without blocking the chat from them?

Yeah. More of an actual blacklist rather than an ignore list. And yes, it would seem to double the checks the server needs to do when people try to join parties. But I understand this is a relatively tiny amount of data in the grand scheme of things.

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Originally Posted by EveK

Yeah. More of an actual blacklist rather than an ignore list. And yes, it would seem to double the checks the server needs to do when people try to join parties. But I understand this is a relatively tiny amount of data in the grand scheme of things.

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Actually, it needs to check more than double. In the best case, it will form parties and then check their eligibility. It will have to check for every member their entire lists and then decide who to remove.

And, yes...Remove who? If you blacklist me for whatever reason you see fit...why am I supposed to wait for another party if it was my turn to enter it at this point? There won't be any limit to the reason for blacklisting and some people could pick the most ridiculous ones like "I don't like their race/name/glamour.", so why make the innocent suffer?
And if the person that blacklisted characters...expect this to be mostly dead on arrival. Most people that will be use it will be tanks and healers. But then, yay...A DPS may end up waiting forever for a tank or healer just cause those are pretty darn rare anyway compared to them. And there are TWO DPS (four/five) in a party that could be blacklisted, potentially making parties unable to ever get full.


Sorry, but duty finder...just deal with it.
Party-finder...you can choose who to pick and who not if you're the leader. There is no need for this feature. Just say that you're sorry, but you do not wish to party with them due to your past interactions or something like that (or don't give a reason, really). There is nothing forcing you (it's not harassment as long as you don't start swearing at them or saying how much they suck, for example). If you are worried that you may hurt their feelings, then why do you want this feature?! They will still be able to try and join the party most likely and that's when they'll be told that they are blacklisted anyway. So they will find out the same thing anyway. That there is someone that doesn't want to party with them there.

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Originally Posted by EveK

However, there are many people I encounter that prove to not be a good fit for my parties, whether it be because they're mean to people, etc. Yes, such things are often actionable by GMs ... but often they are too minor to actually warrant GM action.

Obviously, I can just tell them this when they join such a party, but such is very time-consuming, extremely confrontational, and in itself borderline harassment. As such, this suggestion is for the ability to maintain a list of players that party finder (and, ideally, duty finder, while we're enhancing things) prevents from joining my party without having to completely deafen myself to anything they ever say to anyone in any channel I can see.

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Telling someone you don't want to party with them because XYZ is not borderline harassment, it's not harassment at all. Being mean to someone is subjective, and in and of itself doesn't actually qualify as harassment either.

For instance, we're in DF, and I say " Eve - you're bad". You can report me, but I can absolutely promise you I'm not getting put in jail or getting a GM interaction. In order for it be considered harassment it would have to be excessive and likely over the course of several interactions. I.e. if you said "leave me alone", and then I said LOL you're such a baby", then you could claim harassment, but this would be such a pitiful example this probably wouldn't see GM intervention either.

If you feel this feature has any value, I'd posit that the root cause may be the common denominator in the equation and it isn't the people you are grouping with.

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Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline

For instance, we're in DF, and I say " Eve - you're bad". You can report me, but I can absolutely promise you I'm not getting put in jail or getting a GM interaction.

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While not in a dungeon, some people had gotten warnings or a tempban for harassment if they were doing feast and told someone else they were bad at feast.

I don't believe blacklisting someone actually sets them up for GM action so... there should be no problem with blacklisting them?

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Originally Posted by kikix12

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Totally agree with this. While im sure a lot of us have thought "man, that person was totally rude and I hope I never get a party with them again!" once in a while, there could still be a lot of abuse coming from people who just decided they don't like something about your character or disagreed with your feedback, and decided to add you to the list.

So yeah, while useful for those truly awful individuals who are actually harassing your character, I could still see some unfair listings coming from this system. It's best to either ignore/kick these pesky people from your party, remove yourself from the situation if things become too stressful, or if things are escalated into harassment territory then to report it to the GM. It's not fair for a person to get an extended queue or have trouble finding a party if John Smith decided that "he didn't like you giving tips to newbies!" so he blacklists you. (And the sad part is I had someone harass me over giving instructions to a couple of newcomers in a dungeon once. :( )

Fair points on Duty Finder. Perhaps it could be implemented such that it is not the first choice if another is available just as quickly. As you say with party finder, though, all it would do would prevent you from having to manually kick the person and/or explain to them why they are not a good fit. That's all I'm really asking for, for the Party Finder piece.

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Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline

Telling someone you don't want to party with them because XYZ is not borderline harassment, it's not harassment at all. Being mean to someone is subjective, and in and of itself doesn't actually qualify as harassment either.

For instance, we're in DF, and I say " Eve - you're bad". You can report me, but I can absolutely promise you I'm not getting put in jail or getting a GM interaction. In order for it be considered harassment it would have to be excessive and likely over the course of several interactions. I.e. if you said "leave me alone", and then I said LOL you're such a baby", then you could claim harassment, but this would be such a pitiful example this probably wouldn't see GM intervention either.

If you feel this feature has any value, I'd posit that the root cause may be the common denominator in the equation and it isn't the people you are grouping with.

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This, for the most part.

That said, I wouldn't mind seeing the commendation system expanded significantly, and in both directions. If you thought someone was a pain in the *** to dungeon with, and greeted the exit with a sigh of relief specifically because of them and would like others to be informed or permitted to automatically avoid this player to the varying degrees that they care about those qualities, you could tag said player with one or multiple of the qualities associated that caused that feeling on your part. That would be weighted highly instantly for you, but for anyone else, it'd be weighed against whom you've tagged in the past and judged on a basis of how many others, of what weight each, thought the same. Essentially, a rating weighed collectively by a sum of collectively weighed sources. Likewise, players can commend any qualities basically opposite to those faults, and those too will be weighed collectively.

The weight of each tag / report would fade over time, especially on the negative end. Tags referring to competence also take into account the history of competence of the reporter, such as raid progress. (This would get a whole lot easier if official parsers were added.)

Players can then set a tolerance for players they'd like to be paired with, including a gradient of descent. If you don't much care how long you wait, but only want to pair with highly commended players, or an average of highly commended players (with no one below the set negative score), so be it. Enjoy your hour-long queue and your carry/smooth and harmonious run.

...Though, if someone were the kind of person who can't take a run with less than the best, I feel there's a greater than average chance that someone is not the kind of person the people desired would desire in kind...

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Originally Posted by SilverObi

So similar to the Avoid Player list in games such as Overwatch? While a fair idea it has strict limitations as to how many people you could set in it due to the system needing to run all those checks for all the people using DF concurrently. Honestly if someone joins your party and you don't want them in it, just tell them. It may get messy but it's all in how you say it and how appropriate your actions are.

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Overwatch doesnt actually avoid the player, it just says it does. And prefer player takes precedence too.

This is a bad suggestion. Other games dont use this kind of feature because it destroys matchmaking, and that's what it will do here.

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Originally Posted by Urthdigger

I don't believe blacklisting someone actually sets them up for GM action so... there should be no problem with blacklisting them?

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Blacklisting only prevents you from seeing their messages.

No.... just no... if you don't want to party with people at least have the guts to tell them.... unless you're the kind of two faced person who talks smack about people behind their backs but can't handle the blowback... just handle it like an adult...

It sounds to me all that you need is the current Blacklist. Blocks chat from people you don't like, stops them from joining your party finders (ones that you are in charge of). Remember, you don't owe anything to anybody other than playing your role. Explaining to people why they aren't a good fit, unless you are a static lead doing tryouts, is useless. Kick, recruit someone else, move on.