Sick of unjust vote dismisses

[SummerRider]

My personal opinion that if SE doesn't enforce abusive kicks, then each time you initiate a kick, you should incur a penalty -- whether the kick was legitimate or not. That penalty adds a timer onto when you can next kick someone in a dungeon and increases with each penalty incurred, so eventually, someone who repeatedly kicks will never be able to kick. That timer would decrease over time as long as you don't kick people.

I think you do get a penalty for initiating a vote kick.

The penalty is that you can't initiate another vote kick for 4 hours. Now I think the penalty is only "set" if the kick was successful. I've not ever initiated a vote kick myself so I don't know, but I've heard others talk about it.

Heck there was even a thread on here a while back (3-4 months ish) that was wanting a change to the system where when a player was kicked, that they could not join back up with that group for that dungeon. So there must me a limit it place that stops people from continuously kicking the same player over and over.

[Adire]

The GMs have outright said that reasons for kicking someone do not have to fall into those 4 categories.

Mind posting your source? I really hope this is not correct. Where are their standards for determining if something is vote kick abuse or not if these reasons are valued so lowly? Any reason other than these, with the exception of maybe a player's skill holding the others back from completing an instance, is getting dangerously close to immoral kicking imo. If they don't have standards, then that's pretty disorganized and seems like it would often cause no punishment to be done.

Players should at least be forced to fill out a form to show their reasoning for their kick if the other reasons are not the reason for the kick. Documentation is important, and such a thing would help determine if the kickers are lying or force them to post their reason, whether it's good or not being left up to the GM to decide.

[Jinko]

I saw someone vote kick another player in WoD because they were another BLM. The BLM that initiated clearly said it was because he didnt want someone to take his loot if it dropped. Is that abuse?

What happened out of curiosity, I hope the poor guy wasn't kicked.

It's cases like that where the BLM that initiated should have been put to vote as well to see if he got to stay after being a dickhead.

[Risvertasashi]

Mind posting your source? I really hope this is not correct. Where are their standards for determining if something is vote kick abuse or not if these reasons are valued so lowly? Any reason other than these, with the exception of maybe a player's skill holding the others back from completing an instance, is getting dangerously close to immoral kicking imo. If they don't have standards, then that's pretty disorganized and seems like it would often cause no punishment to be done.

Players should at least be forced to fill out a form to show their reasoning for their kick if the other reasons are not the reason for the kick. Documentation is important, and such a thing would help determine if the kickers are lying or force them to post their reason, whether it's good or not being left up to the GM to decide.

To me this sounds like everything someone has to say is "(s)he had a different playstyle" when kicking for whatever reason.

People who join a duty as partly groups can kick whoever they want without a real danger of facing any kind of punishment.

You want that Syrcus Tower item, but the random player with the same class might need on it in case it drops? -> "Sorry, we dont like how you play" and kicked before the bossfight starts.


And just to clear things up, the reason I was kicked for had nothing to do with "different playstyles", the GM just put it in that category...

Greetings!

To begin, I have removed several posts commenting negatively about the company or the service itself, as well as a side discussion about the use of spell checking. Those suggestions have been heard, but take away from the concerns in this thread, which is a criticism of policy and confusion resulting from a message sent by a GM.

I have escalated several of the concerns with the messaging to the appropriate group for review and ways to improve their messaging to prevent confusion like this.

However, there is one topic in this thread that seems to be an underlying point of contention: reasons for dismissal that are not strictly "AFK", "Offline", "Harassment", or "Cheating". I would like to address this.

The response from the GM touched on this, although it was missed due to the focus on the first part of that sentence. The reasons for dismissal are not all encompassing, which means that there may be valid reasons for dismissal outside of those four examples. Good examples of this that have been provided in this thread are the refusal to fulfill one's job function. Because of this, it is possible that the reasons provided for dismissal may be found to be accurate if they are used against you. As well, the feelings one may have about the reasons may differ from the feelings of those who voted to dismiss. For example, cultural differences in language may have one person using language they find fairly benign while another person takes great offense to it.

Because of these subjective discrepancies, the final decision on if a violation of the use of the vote dismiss feature is left to a GM after an investigation. In general, abuse of the vote dismiss feature is considered to be a grief tactics violation, which falls under section 3.2 in the Final Fantasy XIV User Agreement. However, it is only after a GM investigation that it can be determined to be a violation of the rules. If you feel that the vote dismiss feature has been abused, please do report it to the GMs through the Help Desk in game, and we will investigate.

LGM Enkrateia

This does leave us with 2 possible options.

Option 1: We only consider reasons for dismissal that are specifically stated to be an abuse of the vote dismiss feature. On the plus side, this does provide a clear and definitive set of guidelines for the use of the feature. On the downside, it is limited by the creativity of customers to find ways of disrupting a run outside of what is listed. Otherwise, the list of possible violations will be too extensive to be used efficiently or will be too vague to provide a definitive set of guidelines.

Option 2: Commonly reported reasons for dismissal are listed, although the tool can be used to dismiss anyone for causing a disruption to the duty. On the plus side, the feature can be used to remove disruptions and increase the chances that the duty can be completed. On the downside, it means that there is not one definitive list for reference on when the use of the feature is justified.

Neither option actively prevents abuse of the feature. Abuse of the feature is prevented due to account actions taken by GMs after an investigation to encourage customers who do misuse the feature to discontinue that behaviour. Currently, option 2 is what is currently in place, since a GM needs to investigate either way, and allows the GM to consider new types of disruptive behaviour that arise instead of waiting for a change to the tool while keeping the tool interface easy to navigate and use.

I think what I may not be clarifying in my replies is that this allows for a broader scope to the use of the tool than just one stated example (not fulfilling job duties). It's never just "one more reason"; the possible reasons for proper use of the tool are limited only bt the creativity of those looking to disrupt duties. Once we list something there, some new way of disrupting runs is bound to arise, and this allows customers to try to make sure runs go smoothly while still allowing for GMs to consider if the feature itself was used in a proper manner.

LGM Enkrateia

FWIW it does sound like kicking someone to avoid loot competition would fall under 'grief tactics' but these things are difficult to prove and I'm not sure the GMs would, or even could, do anything.

[Skiri]

remember the attitude you bring in with you is contagious. If you have a chip on your shoulder it will likely spread to others and once a small mistake or disagreement occurs people are already on the defensive. Never forget it's just a game guys, take it easy and be happy, you might just make someones day.

This is so very true. I try to be positive all the time in dungeons. Everyone needs a chance to learn so mistakes are ok. I pretty much have only played PLD so far and I ran into a situation last night on Garuda Extreme where some guys were being very critical of other players. Once they pointed my way just told them I won't argue about it because we have more important things to do. Lol Keep up the positivity!

[Adire]

Well, thanks for posting this. I hope the GM who said players are allowed to kick for different playstyles was mistaken...if not, that severely diminishes my confidence that fairness will be delivered to everyone to the best of their abilities. Unless the different playstyle is causing the duty to fail or is causing everyone else a headache and the player is unwilling to adjust, it should never warrant a vote kick.

Anyways, they should definitely implement the form thing I suggested, or something similar. It would greatly assist them in figuring out the logic behind the kick if there is any, and help them decide if it was justified. And if people lie, GMs can review chat logs or whatever they currently do to help them decide.

[Risvertasashi]

Well, thanks for posting this. I hope the GM who said players are allowed to kick for different playstyles was mistaken...

Anyways, they should definitely implement the form thing I suggested, or something similar.

Enkrateia is the lead GM and from what I understand, pretty much the final say in this kind of thing. (Not that I agree with it... but, for better or worse, it's pretty well established)

[Izsha]

So many players go about their day to day for months and months never really getting kicked unless in extenuating circumstances or absurdly rarely. Then there are players who are constantly kicked for "no reason".

If you are routinely getting kicked while a great many people are virtually never kicked, then the only common denominator the frequently kicked camp, is you.

Most people can get along just fine without kicks. If you cant, then it's probably you.

The only times ive be been kicked were when I was involving myself in arguments with the party. I may think they are unjustified because I was "right" but all I have to do is take a step back and see that by participating in drumming up drama I got myself into trouble. Similarly the only times I've witness vote kicks that were successful (not for being afk) were when the subject was generally on some tirade, argumentative or otherwise just needing an attitude check.

no drama no kicks. If you are paired with complete strangers and they routinely make the same decision about you (kick you) then it's you. Thousands of anonymous strangers all over the world didn't have a conference to black list you. They all see what you present them with.

If complete strangers regularly kick you, it's you.

[Risvertasashi]

If complete strangers regularly kick you, it's you.

This is the heart of it really.

If it's just happened once or twice... happens, move on.

[LordPhantomhive]

My husband was vote kicked on his final nexus key item in qarn hm, right before the boss. He was on blm, and he and the party had a dispute on how the sabotender should be killed. As a blm, he was used to cluster aoe'ing adds down, however they chose to kite and had trouble tabbing to the guardia, vs having no adds. It took a few tries but they eventually killed it. When they arrived at the boss's gate they kicked him. It was messed up. He's a great blm and long time player, and didnt deserve this treatment. Vote kick is quite a slap in the face, and can happen to even the good people.