Is Griefing a huge Problem for you? How Could Klei fix it?

[AllFunNGamez]

I recently made a post about wanting a few things added to DST that I find could help players. However it seems like the post was overshadowed by the fact that players would be scared to have the feature in fear of greifers finding their base and destroying it at a faster rate. 

I personally never use public servers 

1. Because of Griefers

2. Because I always enjoy playing with new players everyday especially while I am streaming,

A few solutions at least from what I see could be as simple as Team or Ally settings where you must be an Ally in order to move or change a structure of another person on a public server and also have them viewable on the world as well (optional).

Something as simple as this would remove the fear of someone running in and burning your base you just worked so hard on.

For the people who are going to say well that ruins the fun of DST what about wild fires? I am sure Klei could come up with a way to allow anything game related to still cause fires. This would also come into contact with what if someone surrounded your base with Spider nests etc .

So truthfully there are so many ways to grief and would require so many ways to counter griefing. I think this thread would be nice to voice a few opinions or ideas on how this could be avoided. 

Happy Monday

[clickrush]

There is a possible solution to this that requires a bit of effort on the community side.

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Quite a while ago I played the original DotA (when it was only a WC3 mod) quite regularly and we had something called "inhouse leagues/communities". The way this worked was that someone within the inhouse community had to vouch for you to join it. If you were an unknown player you typically had to introduce yourself on a community board and write a few paragraphs about why you'd like to join.

The reason we had this was because there was no matchmaking of the sort that we have now, so public servers had this huge skill-gap and games were generally very messy. People longed for a more competitive environment with random/PUG teams (that is not straight up skrimming teams vs teams or tournaments). So they created these communities and leagues. I personally wasn't even a good player by any means but played in 3 inhouse communities regardless. It was sufficient that you had a bit of a competitive mindset, were generally team oriented and if you were a weaker player it was expected of you to kind of listen to some of the better ones and fill in your role as needed, so even with some skillgaps between the players there was much better game quality (actually often better than in matchmade games of today).

---

Now DST could possibly benefit from a variation of this. Granted the game is not competitive but rather cooperative, so there are no skill-indicators or any of the sort and generally I don't think people care too much how many seconds you need to kill a spider nest or similar. But I think there might be a large chunk of the playerbase that have a shared mindset and follow some general etiquette. Hence "griefing" is deliberately violating this - often unspoken - etiquette, while making new accounts to avoid blacklisting.

An inhouse community doesn't rely on easily circumvented blacklisting but rather on whitelists. So it kind of needs to start somewhere, typically from a small group of better known players, and then works towards expanding with invites. The invites don't need to be cumbersome. Typically it is enough if someone writes a bit of something about them if they are otherwise unknown and a steam account with several hours into the game is a good indication too. Then to start games one would simply use an existing technology like discord or steam groups or something like that to announce the opening of private servers with a password maybe, and people of the community can join it or open one themselves. Very simple.

Granted that griefing would still exist, it would be much less of an issue.

[MondayNight]

Karma Points System awarded by the players on server you currently play (perhaps) after a certain amount of time, cumulative over sessions. When reaching certain positive or negative thresholds, particular titles are given (in classic DST/KLei comical manner) to signal good/bad recurrent behavior. For negative thresholds, at a distinct number, 1 warning is ensued. After 3 warnings, a 1-5h ban from playing public servers is "awarded" (disruptive players/griefers can still play personal servers "no matter what" - "their world, their rules"). Keep further getting negative points, a 1-day ban, 7-days ban, up to 1-month ban from pubs ensues. And the "ultimate prize" for "massive bundle of manure" people being a 1-year ban from pubs for Clouds-level of greifing. Each year Karma system may reset. Just a raw concept. System can be automated too or have automated bits: racking negative specific points for burning/massive hammering of other players' structures. People able to rate players should be only for current session by players participating in said session, to prevent as much as possible "false positives brigading".

 

Yet I have very low expectation KLei will ever tackle griefing in a holistic manner. They were quite reluctant to even touch upon Florid Postern traps trolling till 2020 (Touchstones or Cave entrances trapping still remains) and only addressed the day-1 spawn server-reset raids by 3-people-teams in 2017 after massive complains on these forums and Steam ones alike. And did so in "timid", faulty manner (people still could start day-1 votes via mods/command exploits for a long time after KLei first addressed this issue via in-game counter-measures). More-so, if one looks at how official DST trailer exemplifies a griefer in "glorious" action, one can suspect KLei even intended for what we call griefing to be "a valid part of the uncompromising wilderness adventure" DST was shaped to be - hence why it wasn't tackled from Beta, when Master was trolling the crap out of pubs. That, plus general disregard of anything that "isn't majorly complained by community at large", aka perceived as niche problems.

[LinknAllie]

The closest thing I've had to griefing was a Wurt trying to place merm houses in my base.

[CarlZalph]

I don't experience it very often but when I do it's quite disruptive to the flow and mood of the game.  It rarely is an accident and just someone looking to put their metaphorical foot in the sand sculpture.

I find that the number of them are a lot smaller on managed server chains where the moderators go in and fix things.

 

What is or isn't considered griefing is highly subjective in this game, but there definitely is a threshold somewhere between 'killing glommer might be okay' and 'you've burnt everything down and hammered it while eating all of the food in one go'.  This is where automated attempts to stop or deter griefing fall a bit flat in my eyes, it doesn't have the capacity to rationalize behaviours of people and their intent.

 

13 minutes ago, x0-VERSUS-1y said:

Clouds-level of griefing

He's the sole reason why I set out to make this for server owners, including the image used: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1157382983

[Tuesday Pidgeon]

Personally, I don't really mind if Klei does anything more to stop griefing.

Even when I used to play on pubs much more, there were only a handful of griefing "events," that I remember of. Out of the hundreds of pub worlds I've played on, I can only recall a few. Granted, I don't have the best memory, but I distinctly remember griefing to be a nonissue most games. And if someone were to grief, it'd just be them stealing all the food or just base burning with a torch. Both of those are easily reversed by a rollback and a kick to the perpetrator. 

The more recent changes, like making dropping items upon leaving the server and a protective shield around recently spawned players default just helped further minimize the issue. 

I'd be fine if Klei decided to pursue further action to minimize griefing, but I also wouldn't mind if they left it as it is. 

[Echsrick]

if i go to the puplic servers and i live in europe i dont realy see that much griefing and the likes its more like a about 10% if even and if somethings happen it usualy the griefer gets kicked and rollback day happens so it seems to be good at the momend and alsol im not sure what klei could do more to stop even more griefing

[glooomy]

There is actually a decent mod called Camp Security that does I think what you're looking for.
If a player without permission of a structure tries to burn/kill/destroy something that isn't theirs- it won't allow them

. 

 

 

Quote

 

This mod will protect your camp from destruction and burning by players. A large number of options will allow you to customize the mod to your preferences.

Button "L" - open the whitelist control panel. Allows you to remove from the player, if you trust him, all the restrictions. Players added to the whitelist automatically, are marked with an asterisk at the end of the name. Sometimes, in order for a player who is added to the whitelist to have restrictions removed, he needs to relogin to the server or enter / exit the cave.

Button "K" - open the list of your friends. Players on this list have full access to your buildings.

Button "R" (then right click on the building) - open the control panel of private property. Allows you to lock chests, tents, dryers, etc. If the list is empty, then any player can use the building. If you want to deny access to everyone except yourself, add only yourself to the list. Players on the list receive the right to use the building (for example, use a tent), but do not receive the right to change the list, burn or destroy the building.

Button "J" - open the control panel for players who will not drop items when leaving the server.

To become the owner of beefalo, you need to tame it by 5% or more, press "R", (then right click on the beefalo), in the opened window click on the button "Add". If the domestication rate drops to 0%, the beefalo will become wild and a new owner can be assigned to it. If beefalo has an owner, then he will not activate traps.

Buildings without an owner are not protected.

By default, the mod does nothing, you need to enable the options that you need in the settings. There you can read a description of each option.

 

[AllFunNGamez]

25 minutes ago, reichull said:

There is actually a decent mod called Camp Security that does I think what you're looking for.
If a player without permission of a structure tries to burn/kill/destroy something that isn't theirs- it won't allow them

. 

 

 

This mod is exactly what I would love to see in the Main game if possible I feel like it could really work well and make the public servers not be so riddled with issues. 

The trouble would be right now is that until griefers get taken care of a lot of people on the forums might shoot down and or never consider a possibly fine idea due to being afraid that griefers could also benefit from it.

So here is hoping Klei takes some steps towards fixing that.

[glooomy]

I agree.
This was the main reason Willow lost her fire immunity for a while- people were more worried about griefers being able to benefit from it more than the beauty of the character's lore, design and gameplay. 

They might add a toggle-able feature, never know. They did add the option to make others drop their items upon leaving, which helps a lot with griefers that love to join, raid and leave with important items. 

[Aeglefire]

The mod can be circumvented by lighting a twig on fire, or a structure owned by you on fire, and the fire spreads to the rest of the base. The fire would be ownerless, and the griefer would get away with lighting the base on fire. But such a mod is a step in the right direction.

I will again endorse the idea of a karma system, because it's just another deterrent added against griefers. Even a basic notification seen in the player screen of whether that person has been kicked recently or if they have been disliked recently is already a good karma system. Maybe have a maximum of 10 likes and a minimum of 3 dislikes. And the likes/dislikes dissipate down to zero over time, so that reputation is never static but goes towards neutral all the time.

[Gods fiddler]

i post this maybe 1 month ago, so much people recommend me to play in my own server but is hard to find new friends, i downloaded the no griefer mod to prevent any unknown player to burn our base in my server or in public servers the mod tell you if someone equip a torch, hammer, star caller staff, etc also the mod say to you if anyone that join your server was reported before. 

 

[me real life]

3 hours ago, reichull said:

This was the main reason Willow lost her fire immunity for a while- people were more worried about griefers being able to benefit from it more than the beauty of the character's lore, design and gameplay.

Willow's fire immunity being removed actually had nothing to do with griefing. It was initially removed because PVP was super huge during early DST, and using fire damage to go through the armor of players was an important strat. Since Willow didn't take fire damage though, it made her always the best pick over other characters. That change just... never got reverted until the Willow rework, long after PVP stopped being relevant.

[Cheggf]

8 hours ago, Aeglefire said:

I will again endorse the idea of a karma system, because it's just another deterrent added against griefers. Even a basic notification seen in the player screen of whether that person has been kicked recently or if they have been disliked recently is already a good karma system. Maybe have a maximum of 10 likes and a minimum of 3 dislikes. And the likes/dislikes dissipate down to zero over time, so that reputation is never static but goes towards neutral all the time.

So a group of griefers can just karmabomb you & get you kicked from every server you join for however long the reputation lasts?

14 hours ago, AllFunNGamez said:

A few solutions at least from what I see could be as simple as Team or Ally settings where you must be an Ally in order to move or change a structure of another person on a public server and also have them viewable on the world as well (optional).

Something as simple as this would remove the fear of someone running in and burning your base you just worked so hard on.

The structures aren't the problem. I don't care if someone burns the shadow manipulator, I have 60 living logs and 40 purple gems in a chest with the recipe prototyped so I can make another. The issue is if someone takes those 60 living logs. The most effective griefing has never been to burn things, that is very blatant and unless it goes unnoticed until the next day it can easily be rolled back and you kicked. But someone taking items out of chests & disconnecting with them or disposing of them away from other players goes unnoticed until the items are needed.

There is no good way to combat that. The only way there could be (At least that I can think of) would be private chests but those are obnoxious, imagine joining a server with 7 people all having private chests where they put everything. And when they disconnect, how long would the chests remain private? How many different private chests would be on the server from people joining & making private chests? How many private chests is each person allowed to make? It would exacerbate the issue instead of solve it.

Also, indestructible structures would enable more griefing such as blocking spawn, blocking off the entirety of the ruins, blocking anything really. Someone could make a huge wall something that's easy to craft and just completely cut off half the map until someone makes boats, then there's a huge ugly wall and stupid boats you have to use to go across.

But, to answer the thread title.

Quote

Is Griefing a huge Problem for you?

No, not really. The current systems in the game work adequately to protect against griefing.

Quote

How Could Klei fix it?

Klei can not fix griefing, it's impossible. If any additional measures were to be added to combat griefing I would want them to be measures that can't possibly benefit griefers such as the spawn protection they've implemented.

[Mysterious box]

The issue is any system that requires kiel to monitor servers is going to cost too much on their end unless we start paying a monthly fee to play dst as they already eat the server costs. On the flip side giving players the option to decide who is and isn't a griefer and mark others profiles will lead to a new more extreme type of grief and a fear in general to join a public server a state where if your not cool with the majority your reputation can be permanently tarnished is a dangerous direction for the game to go.

[TheJazMaster]

7 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Also, indestructible structures would enable more griefing such as blocking spawn, blocking off the entirety of the ruins, blocking anything really. Someone could make a huge wall something that's easy to craft and just completely cut off half the map until someone makes boats, then there's a huge ugly wall and stupid boats you have to use to go across.

I was under the impression you can't place anything that close together, except fossils and statues, which can be moved.

[Aeglefire]

9 hours ago, Cheggf said:

So a group of griefers can just karmabomb you & get you kicked from every server you join for however long the reputation lasts?

No. Because the karma system is only an indicator, not a true indicator, and also you would have a lot of likes vs dislikes, and likes should dissipate more slowly than dislikes, I didn't mention that.

[Cr4zyFl4mes]

1 hour ago, TheJazMaster said:

I was under the impression you can't place anything that close together, except fossils and statues, which can be moved.

You can place walls & fences next to each other.

4 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

On the flip side giving players the option to decide who is and isn't a griefer and mark others profiles will lead to a new more extreme type of grief and a fear in general to join a public server a state where if your not cool with the majority your reputation can be permanently tarnished is a dangerous direction for the game to go.

The power to mark profiles as griefers wouldn't belong to a single player, but to a bulk of players. You would have to be very unlucky to get a lot of bad karma for doing nothing bad.

[Cheggf]

5 minutes ago, Aeglefire said:

No. Because the karma system is only an indicator, not a true indicator, and also you would have a lot of likes vs dislikes, and likes should dissipate more slowly than dislikes, I didn't mention that.

None of that would prevent groups of griefers from karmabombing people, especially when the system is first introduced. Look at any other game where you can rep your teammates like Overwatch & Heroes of the Storm. Do people ever, ever, rep their teammates? No. They literally made it so you get money if you give rep to your teammates because nobody ever did, and still people only sometimes do it.

And I don't know what you mean by "only an indicator, not a true indicator", but if people see someone is negative karma they'll just kick them because they assume they're a griefer. People generally aren't interested in nuance, especially when the nuance is "They're negative karma so they might be a griefer, and if I let them stay on and they were a griefer all my stuff will be destroyed".

4 minutes ago, Cr4zyFl4mes said:

The power to mark profiles as griefers wouldn't belong to a single player, but to a bulk of players. You would have to be very unlucky to get a lot of bad karma for doing nothing bad.

Give me your Steam profile and I will get a bunch of my friends to leave a -rep on it.

[Aeglefire]

1 minute ago, Cheggf said:

None of that would prevent groups of griefers from karmabombing people, especially when the system is first introduced. Look at any other game where you can rep your teammates like Overwatch & Heroes of the Storm. Do people ever, ever, rep their teammates? No. They literally made it so you get money if you give rep to your teammates because nobody ever did, and still people only sometimes do it.

And I don't know what you mean by "only an indicator, not a true indicator", but if people see someone is negative karma they'll just kick them because they assume they're a griefer. People generally aren't interested in nuance, especially when the nuance is "They're negative karma so they might be a griefer, and if I let them stay on and they were a griefer all my stuff will be destroyed".

How about we test the karma system in Don't Starve Together first before we totally shoot it down?

[clickrush]

There is a general underlying problem here. As it stands now, you can't, literally can't, solve this kind of social problem with technology, period.

There are big companies that try to do these kind of things, and it works to some degree as a supporting feature. But it's really, really hard and they constantly fail and improve these systems. Armies of engineers and scientists, incredible amounts of data and infrastructure and typically a huge payoff in advertising/retail money or in security/compliance/reliability.

For gamers and hobbyists there is only the solution of building communities as I mentioned above. Knowing all the players is the best case, but being able to trust a moderated, invite only inhouse community is the second best and most feasible solution if you seek to play with others who follow a similar etiquette.

[MondayNight]

8 hours ago, Cheggf said:

So a group of griefers can just karmabomb you & get you kicked from every server you join for however long the reputation lasts?

Assuming you are the target of a group of griefers to "karma bomb" you over the course of multiple servers to accumulate enough points and get you in the ban interval. Griefers' majority is looking for immediate gratification, I reckon only a single-digits bunch akin Clouds (bots used on Friends & Family dupe accounts) would attempt such shenanigans. This sounds more like a vendetta among questionable players than anything. Plus for this an "appeal" system could also be introduced. And before writing "KLei has better things to do than policing their servers", true: for that community moderators can come in handy, perhaps same ones doing moderation on these forums - from what I get, they do it voluntary, out of passion or-the-like. And if present ones aren't available into managing a theoretical "appeal" system for various reasons, am sure additional moderators could be selected/would volunteer from DS/T community (similarly picked as Twitch streamers are nowadays). A lot to write about, still "where there's a will, there's a way". Finding excuses for not-to-do-it won't solve anything. For too much time trolls had their way plenty - supposing KLei indeed wants to discourage griefing on their servers. Else...well. Hello "KLei Official pubs"!

[Cheggf]

Just now, Aeglefire said:

How about we test the karma system in Don't Starve Together first before we totally shoot it down?

So go make a mod that implements a karma system, host some dedicated servers, and see how it works. Klei should not put in a bunch of time & effort developing a system that is almost certainly going to fail just to "test it out". 

[clickrush]

3 minutes ago, Aeglefire said:

How about we test the karma system in Don't Starve Together first before we totally shoot it down?

As mentioned above, these things simply don't work, not with the data and resources we expect. It's a bunch of bullcrap and never achieves what you need it to achieve but becomes it's own minigame with its own problems. To solve social problems you need social solutions.

[Aeglefire]

 

5 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

So go make a mod that implements a karma system, host some dedicated servers, and see how it works. Klei should not put in a bunch of time & effort developing a system that is almost certainly going to fail just to "test it out". 

That's not real testing. Real testing is that Klei implements it.