How to fix the latest PR nightmare!

[Ath192]

If you join in on a report brigade just because a friend told you so then you need to start thinking for yourself and realize that the report system is not made for flooding it with ill intentioned requests. You are not innocent at that point anymore. Obviously I wouldnt go so far as to ban everyone who joined in on them the first few times but the priority of the reports they make should take a hit. People like that clearly havent understood when reports should be made.

The justice system doesnt always need to act, it needs to act when it's necessary. Otherwise we are just punishing people for the sake of having someone to punish. Classic scapegoat mentality does not cultivate good communities.

Report barrages are actually just a community vote on who to get out. If no one is ever held responsibly for them then it becomes completely riskfree to use it maliciously. Additionally it will drown out people having actual grievances with another player because if you are just by yourself and only have a few friends in the game, you dont have the power required to get justice for yourself. Worse even if the person you have a grievance with has a lot of friends and gets them all to mass report you. This has happened in this game already btw.

You are talking about what "needs" to happen. I'm talking about what happens and what a company can do about it, and from my point of view a company is not going to invest in an army of private investigators or IMO even hire one single person to look into who is reporting others for TOS violations. They are just going to ban them because they were violating TOS. It's a lot cheaper and easier.

I dont like it. But this is the truth. And hence why it doesn't have a good solution.

[Derio]

It was not Zero notice. IT has been in the TOS for years. Lodestone posts about it for years. Even when they did the big TOS update they reiterated it again. And here we are in 2022 where they are yet again stating it. The streamers who use third party tools and choose to show they are using it are playing with fire and sometimes when you play with fire you are going to get burned.

[Saraide]

You are talking about what "needs" to happen. I'm talking about what happens and what a company can do about it, and from my point of view a company is not going to invest in an army of private investigators or IMO even hire one single person to look into who is reporting others for TOS violations. They are just going to ban them because they were violating TOS. It's a lot cheaper and easier.

I dont like it. But this is the truth. And hence why it doesn't have a good solution.

Well they have the data on who reported who at what times and for what. A slap on the wrist would probably be enough to get most bandwagon hoppers to jump off. Unlike the majority of 3rd party tool users, people who make reports make themselves known directly to SE.

[Ath192]

Well they have the data on who reported who at what times and for what. A slap on the wrist would probably be enough to get most bandwagon hoppers to jump off. Unlike the majority of 3rd party tool users, people who make reports make themselves known directly to SE.

I agree, they were heavy handed with the 10 day bans on the streamers as well. This is reasonable.

**I'll edit this in though**
Trolls are known to create different accounts and characters, and more over, its not always the same people. IE - the train that got X streamer banned, is not necesarrily composed of the same train that banned streamer Y.

So really the effect this would have is questionable.

[Johners]

1. Yoshi P needs to issue a statement reversing the current bans with a go forward policy regarding the use of add ons that conflict with SE policy. Sorry but you gave zero notice then immediately started issuing bans.

They didn't need to give notice, it was already against the terms of service, how is that hard to understand? All third-party tools are against the terms of service, don't use any of them.

2. Hiding behind "well we told you guys before" after Yoshi P gave a 30 minute answer effectively green lighting certain add ons is pretty ridiculous.

He never greenlit it, he asked people to not do certain things like lewd modding or harassing people with damage meters. People didn't do this and some even outright cheat.

3. Report brigading needs to be treated as a bannable offense if it is abused which is definitely is currently being used for right now.

There's no way of knowing if someone was actually report brigading and trying to ban people for this is futile.

[Cach]

IMHO the only bad message this sends is that you need a brigade team to get something done.
Now if they just did that to serious offenders instead...

[D6Damager]

Conspiracy Theory #1: Streamer probably wanted to get banned, because it brings more attention to their stream.

[Kolsykol]

This is just concern trolling at this point...

I don't even understand why some of you play this game when you seem to do nothing but complain and hate on it and the devs for the most ridiculous of reasons.

[Canadane]

The biggest grievance here is using the word ban when the word suspension should be utilized.
People aren't, unfortunately, getting banned. Getting a suspension for 3 to 10 days is nothing.

[Myrany]

I rather hope that SE makes some fixes to UI customization and then puts software to detect 3rd party software on our machines. I really do. Yes SE will take a hit in subscribers for awhile. Yes the outrage will be enormous. Doing this will accomplish a few things.

It will instantly neutralize reporting/ban trains. SE will be able to say we use our own internal data not these reports.

It will finally put an end to any number of bots that are plaguing the game from PvP to Crafting to MB to gathering. These I personally feel are a whole lot bigger of a problem than what is being gone after now.

It will be a completely even playing field. Everyone will know if you use 3rd party software you are toast.

Will SE do this? Probably not. I really do wish they would.