Klei should moderate this game.

[CrimsonStrider]

Player in question:

Kimwall1su Klei ID: KU_7vJFkneS

Recently switched to the name "Psychopath". Has 5 accounts. Currently using the name "Crim" to impersonate me and grief as many worlds as possible on Switch.

To start, this is an issue with Nintendo and Klei. Both have failed really hard, and neither are willing to take any responsibility. 

 

I play DST on the Switch. Working under the assumption that every game I can see is essentially every game on the Switch, the user base is very small. Perhaps around 50 or so names that I regularly see, and then some amount of people that play every once in a while or try the game and quit. On a slow day there are less than 20 worlds to choose from, with some percentage of them being password protected. 

I currently have a user that me and my friends call "The Stalker". He has been harassing me since as far back as December. I brought this issue up with Klei via e-mail and a few times with Nintendo. Nintendo's response is basically, Klei needs to deal with it. Klei's response was basically there's nothing they can do, and server hosts have all the tools they need to deal with griefing.

That is only true for getting a griefer out of your world once you've determined they've been doing something that warrants a kick/ban. Here are the limitations. Some of these may be Switch specific issues, but I'm sure they're somewhat applicable to other console versions and some PC specific situations. Additionally, one of the bigger issues in my case specifically is how small the Switch user base is.

 

1. When you ban an individual, you can only see their Klei ID number, which is completely useless as host. It's a mix of numbers that you can only see while accessing the banned players list in the compendium menu. You cannot see what name their were using, and you cannot view their Switch profile from this menu.

2. You can only ban (i.e. block) someone from the in-game menu by hosting a world and having them join. I cannot ban (i.e. block) them through the encounters tab or as a guest in someone else's sever.

3. Banned/blocked individuals can still join other worlds you are in.

4. Putting someone your block list from the Switch doesn't prevent them from joining other worlds you are in. 

5. The Switch has a max block limit of 100 users. 

6. With a family account, you can have up to 8 accounts. All of these can access DST, so you can have multiple accounts to circumvent bans.

7. You can very easily impersonate other players by closing the game, changing your Switch name, then loading the game back up.

8. There is no way to communicate on the switch without crafting a sign. That's the only method of communication on Switch. Additionally, you cannot input Chinese. In this specific case, perhaps by coincidence, he seems to grief a lot of Chinese players. Even though I know enough Chinese to communicate what's going on, it becomes more complicated because I have to use pinyin which can be ambiguous.

 

 

My stalker began harassing me back in Nov. He died in my world and kept rejoining as a ghost and doing nothing. I would kick and he would rejoin later or a few days later, so I eventually banned him. No malice. I banned a few others for the same reason, and when I began a new world I wanted to unblock some of those people so they could have a fresh start. At some point he actually spotted me in someone else's world and began immediately attacking a beefalo I was taming. I asked him not to, assuming he might have done it by mistake, but he then kept following me and trying to attack it. I eventually got the host to ban him.

He then began following me across multiple worlds doing the same thing, attacking my beefalo and posting stupid signs like "your beefalo is delicious". He also has a friend following me in public worlds. So, I no longer tame beefalo in public worlds because I never know when he's going to join, and if I am using a beefalo, I don't play with anyone else on the server.

He has at least 5 personal accounts and 1 friend that are constantly following me into other servers. If I'm playing with anyone, and they can't find me, they ruin the server for the host. It started with stuff like eating all the mandrakes, stealing any ruins EQ on the surface, eating everything in the fridge to make people starve, taking eyebrella's etc. If he'd get banned on one account, he'd just immediately rejoin with another and continue, and this time he'd know how to get to the base faster.

I've blocked all these accounts, but as mentioned before, blocking via switch does nothing. 

He's become very salty, because whenever I've been able to, I get him banned in worlds before he has a chance to do anything. 

In retaliation, he started changing his name to Crim to impersonate me, and grief other worlds. He's gone into worlds with people he assumes are my close friends and uses my name to grief them in hopes that it will ruin my relationship with them. I've already had people on my friend list think it was me, and warn the host to ban me because I'm a griefer. In a few instances I've been able to let the person on my friends list know what's going on, but that requires me to find them and the materials for a hammer, science machine, and sign.

 

He has been doing this regularly since January, using my name. Currently he's been spamming tentacles at Celestial portal or in base on other worlds, and I've had people stop joining my world and sometimes just get kicked for no reason in other worlds.

 

So I'd like to ask Klei, what tools do I have to prevent this type of behavior? What tools do I have to prevent someone from running up and attacking my beefalo after spending a few hours working really hard to domesticate it? What tools do I have to prevent someone from ruining my ability to enjoy this game by making an alt and griefing a very small player base with my name?  If I join a public game, I'm starting to get kicked. If I host a public game, people have generally stopped joining, but when they do, I have to worry about other users retaliating against me for something I didn't do. I like taming beefs, but it's especially unsafe for me because I have someone that's literally sitting there every night trying to join any public game I join, and can very easily do so because of how small the player base is.

 

First and foremost, this user should just have his right to play this game revoked. He does nothing but make the game unenjoyable for everyone on the Switch. Additionally, if Klei wants to really stay they give us all the tools we need to prevent this kind of stuff, here are my suggestions.

 

1. Have your player name tied to your Klei account, and make it so you cannot change it on a whim.

2. Have your Klei ID visible in the player menu, so that you can distinguish two players using the same name.

3. Give players that are not hosts the option the ban someone, both through the compendium and through the player listing menu while playing.

4. Make it so that banned players cannot join worlds you are in, and you cannot join worlds they are in.

5. Enable chat on Switch.

6. As a switch specific feature, if someone is using a family account to play, they should all be tied to one Klei account, and banning anyone associated with that Klei account would ban everything else.

 

I think those 6 would be very powerful tools that would help. Additionally

7. A report button would be nice.

8. In order to deal with people griefing followers/beefalo, any of these would be nice

a) just make all followers unable to be targeted by other players when carrying bell, eyebone, etc.

b) make it so that you can immediately mount beefalo if a player attacked it.

c) If attacking a follower, the person holding the bell/bone etc can target the person in question. If the holder of the bell/bone decides to attack the griefer, it could enable a temporary PVP status between the two, so that the player could defend their follower, and would end once the two players moved far enough away from each other or something like that.

 

In the reply from Klei, it was stated:

Quote

Because we are not monitoring activities in player hosted games, we cannot verify or enforce harassment complaints. 
 
We suggest discussing your complaint with the server host or playing private games that do not allow unchecked entry to the world. 

 

The original email had some different photos and a couple of videos, but it was more or less the same as what I'm posting now. For reference, you can see the 6 people I blocked. 5 of them are the Kim, and the "butterfly" is likely a friend of his. Kim may or may not have access to their switch.

 

Is this not evidence enough? It would be incredibly simply, I imagine, at this point, for someone at Klei to simply look at the names he's used while joining games for the past week and deduce what's been going on from my post alone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 24 by JoeW
screenshots removed

[Captain_Rage]

Klei's responsibility to keep their services operational and counteract any actors that would try to disrupt them. What players do in their games does not cover that. Pointing out allegations against specific users on the forums is a breach of terms however.

[Anis5240]

I'm sorry for what you had to go through, and am very surprised to know that the Switch version does not have the chat button. Granted, the Switch isn't exactly known for multiplayer use (at least if I remember correctly), but still. That really sucks.

But Klei's nonchalant attitude also somewhat irks me slightly. They probably think being quiet and affiant is nice and all but sometimes, they have to show they're in control of their game. It's their own creation, for real sake. Being complacent or ignorant over the many issues players face won't make them good in the players' eyes.

[Gi-Go]

I thought playing dst on consoles was torture already, but its actually straight up hell. You can't even chat like what? 

Dude, just get a PC. 

[Frosty_Mentos]

It's best to not try calling out names in forums as for mentioned terms of service, but you maybe didn't know.

Best thing is to do is to get a privately hosted world and keep it that way. Making servers public is a risk you'll be taking and there will be expected chaos to commence.

Most PC servers that are public always fight their own battles and set rules with moderators to kick people out. Klei can't do anything as they've mentioned and we all deal with it on our own. Trust me, it's pointless to try fighting that battle. There will be bases burnt and griefers will attack. Play private with friends or don't even try expecting anything to last for long.

[Gi-Go]

1 hour ago, Captain_Rage said:

 Pointing out allegations against specific users on the forums is a breach of terms however.

Is that why I can't find a forum post dedicated entirely to talking about how I ruined someone's day, that even featured my steam link? 

[goblinball]

1 hour ago, Frosty_Mentos said:

Making servers public is a risk you'll be taking and there will be expected chaos to commence.

Normally I’d agree, but this is beyond the normal harmless griefing. This is continued harassment, and nobody should have to risk dealing with this just for wanting to play on pub servers.

[JoeW]

I'm sorry you have gone through this, but let me explain a little bit here. 

Nothing in a screenshot is proven. 

I can't see who any of those players are - or what took place before or after any of these moments. 

While your situation is certainly frustrating for you, It's not just about what happens to you, but what happens between other players as well and what we can prove. I don't think many people would be surprised to know that a good portion, if not majority of complaints about these sorts of interactions also include additional information about the interaction oftentimes also implicating the person filing the complaint as well as any number of other factors that change or otherwise influence any decision we would make. 

Unfortunately, it is also quite often that people file complaints over meaningless encounters, misunderstandings as well as outright falsehoods. 

I am not suggesting this is the case for you, but I am saying that blindly banning or otherwise taking action on an account when all we have to go by is screenshots and complaints is a dangerous thing to do. 

I investigated your original ticket quite a bit. So much so that I used it to help determine next steps for what we are going to be doing about situations such as yours. Because your complaint does matter and we want better systems in place too.

I spent several hours just trying to figure out what I could know conclusively about your complaint as well as a few others. Unfortunately what can be proven, is very little. DST operates under the assumption that we are not directing people to play with each other. If players are unhappy playing public games, they should move to private games. To operate a moderation team and tools to monitor private servers is questionable and unfeasible for a studio like ours.

I do not have a solution to your issue, at this time. But we are working on something. Not to moderate or otherwise monitor what happens in your games. But to give players better control over their games. 

I do usually take these down, but I am going to leave this one up for now - but I am going to remove the screenshots. 

[SilentConstruct]

The situation on PC is better but not by much. Sure there's a chat function and community hosted servers, but I have still had encounters with someone who actively stalks and impersonates other steam users.

They have even gone as far as to do it via other platforms such as Discord as well. Klei not moderating griefing is one thing and that's fine, but please at least deal with literal stalking, harassment, and impersonation. Griefing is subjective, but nothing else I've mentioned is okay, ever.

[JazzyGames]

23 hours ago, CrimsonStrider said:

6. With a family account, you can have up to 8 accounts. All of these can access DST, so you can have multiple accounts to circumvent bans.

Yeah this is really wild and I can see that causing big issues specifically playing on Switch. I don’t see any feasible solution to that issue unless Klei were either willing to change their ban records to IP addresses, or make Klei ID’s specific to devices so that every account on your Switch uses the same Klei ID. Unfortunately the latter solution would not be feasible because your account is also tied to your unlocked characters and skins.

Aside from this technical problem, most of what you are struggling with is exactly what most of us on PC have also had to face about the reality of the game: that public games have never been safe to play on. We all have our sob stories about pub servers; once I got vote kicked off a pub in the middle of AG because I wasn’t basing with five Wilson’s on Day 5.

I get that this is targeted harassment, a step above random griefing. Still the reality of pub servers remains the same. If you take issue with being griefed then I’d recommend you don’t play on pubs. Find a group of players on a Discord and make a private game with them. If you insist on hosting an open world and the troll causes trouble, ban and rollback. Eventually you’ll have all their accounts banned. That’s the best the game can offer without mods; unfortunately that’s been the reality for years and I don’t see it changing any time soon, especially for console.

[CrimsonStrider]

JoeW

Thanks for your response, especially that you looked into it as much as you did. The original email response to my complaint took a while, and I wasn't sure if my second one would be acknowledged or not. Its always hard to know from the other side of the email, if anything is being done or not.

I don't know what' going on from Klei's perspective, and I figured my best option would be to make this situation public so that if any switch players are on these forums, they can at least be aware of what's going on while also bringing up something that I see as a big flaw with the Switch experience. 

Two things I forgot to add in my original post: I think being able to access someone's switch profile from the view player screen would help too. Also, I have no way to view my own Klei ID. You can only get an ID after banning someone, you can only ban someone as host. I will have my friend help me get my ID when they're on, but that's still not going to be useful when it comes to distinguishing me from him.

In the banned list, I saw something that says "view player" but it's gray and does nothing. Is it not working or something?

What do you need for proof? Is there anything I can provide? I assume you have to work under the assumption that I might be staging these photos, right? Do you need me to make a video capture of him doing any of the stuff I mentioned, exiting the game, going into the menu and selecting his profile, all in one video so that you know nothing is edited? 

I also have a few videos of him and his friends attacking me from back in Jan/Feb. The wickerbottom photo I posted is from a video, I just didn't want to post the video because I figured it would be too big.

I have 2, probably 3 people that can add their own experiences. Of those 3 people, there are maybe an additional 3 that I don't personally have contact with, but have dealt with the same individual. I could ask them if they'd like to share as well.

What exactly would you need from me, in order for you to better see what's going on right now?

You're right, I understand your position. Of course, I'm not sitting here completely innocent. I did start off being very nice, and I did leave it alone for quite a while. He clearly didn't leave it alone though, and I have started antagonizing him back. In that respect, I'm only human, and I'm not going to sit here and try to be the better man while he attempts to ruin my reputation within the Switch community with zero consequences. That's not fair to me. 

I don't know what the limitations are, and I understand moderation is a massive job for any gaming company. The Switch community is pretty small, and if some system could be put in place for bigger offences, I would definitely be willing to help.

 

To the other posters:

Thanks, I did not know it was against the rules. 

I have the PC version, but I play on Switch because my friends can't play on PC. There are definitely issues with Switch, but there a nice things as well.

I think most of us get it. Dealing with bad people is an aspect of this game. I don't think griefing is subjective: big or small, doing something with malicious intent is griefing. Doing something out of ignorance/stupidity/poor etiquette is not.

The subjective part is the degree to which it affects you. Stealing a Tam would hurt a beginner more than stealing a tusk; where as a better player might value the tusk more. I care less about grass now, but if it was my first world I'd probably be incredibly angry about someone taking a stack.

So I get all that, and when I open public servers I expect a lot of that and see it as a challenge to play around. I'm fine, I understand completely why some people hate it, and I wasn't implying that aspect needs to be moderated. Simply that my stalker shouldn't be able to do what he's doing in the first place, and that people like him should have consequences for their actions.

It would be one thing if it was just between me and him. “Haha, hehe, your tent trap failed, you suck. Better luck next time”.

 

@JazzyGames

Definitely Klei could make a name permanent or hard to change, but I don't really blame them for being unaware of this bypass. I just wanted to bring it to everyone's attention.  This is a big fail from Nintendo.

Edited April 25 by CrimsonStrider

[Balter]

Oh man, as much as I like them good old fashion witchhunts for griefers and impersonators. This will obviously increase entitlement/gatekeeping into the game which inturn will drive away the players, I can see alot of people abusing the mechanic simply because they don't like an individual, heck people already do those sorts of things like falsly claiming others as griefers to get the majority to kick them out (Which in fact I know a few people in this chat is already guilty of but I won't do callouts) because lets be real no one likes a griefer. And what are you going to do if these people decide to show "evidence" that YOU were stalking them? introduce a reputation system? literally 1984, but seriously this implementation will open up a whole new can of worms. It may sound good on paper like when politicians introduces tax cuts but you have to think about the long run too.

 

But if you are really being stalked by an individual this shouldn't be Klei's problem rather report them to Steam as it sounds like a user to user problem.

Edited April 27 by Balter

[Jakepeng99]

25 minutes ago, Balter said:

But if you are really being stalked by an individual this shouldn't be Klei's problem rather report them to Steam as it sounds like a user to user problem.

I think you skimmed over the post. They play on nintendo switch not steam, and have contacted nintendo, klei and everything, basically done everything they could do.

Edited April 26 by Jakepeng99

[LitulLola]

I'm so sorry you are having to deal with the stalking and impersonation. I agree that it's gone past the point of greifing. I just wish there was a way to help you and that these situations didn't occur in the first place. I just don't get it and it makes me incredibly sad. I have no idea how something like that could be proved by Klei without seeing it first hand,  I don't have the knowledge set to even guess. In all honesty I could be talking with your impersonator right now if he chose to make this post instead of you and I'd have no clue. This breaks my heart and I hope they can come up with a solution. I do agree a permanent ID # attached to screen names would go far in determining who's who. Then the whole switch community could make informed decisions on who's the actual problem. I hope all this works out for you!

[SamR]

On 4/24/2024 at 12:04 PM, JoeW said:

blindly banning or otherwise taking action on an account when all we have to go by is screenshots and complaints is a dangerous thing to do. 

What would your idea be for a golden standard to get results on official Klei hosted public servers?

• Screen record your play session from joining the server until the end of the incident
• Have zero provoking actions towards the griefer
• Witness on screen the incident
• Repeat to show a trend
• Submit video

What else would be required for definitive action to be made against someone who does grief?

What actions are Klei Entertainment allowed to take if any against players who grief consistently?

Would doing any of this just be in vain?

On 4/24/2024 at 12:04 PM, JoeW said:

DST operates under the assumption that we are not directing people to play with each other.

Players do not have to play with each other but it is implied on non pvp servers, especially ones hosted by Klei Entertainment itself, that players should co-exist together within the confines of the server your company provides. I use the word co-exist loosely as each person could be on opposite sides or levels of the world and not even interact with each other but just use the server to play the game.

The public servers your company hosts are meant for the use of the customers who purchase your product as far as I know. Griefers make even the use of them impossible and or unbearable and there seems to be no recourse as I've seen the same griefers over the years still active.

On 4/24/2024 at 12:04 PM, JoeW said:

If players are unhappy playing public games, they should move to private games.

Players are happy playing on public games, they just aren't happy that there are people out there that want to stop them from enjoying being on those public servers especially Klei hosted public servers.

Plublic servers [especially Klei hosted ones (there's a pattern here)] sometimes are the only place players can play the co-existing game because private/privately hosted servers are often times empty even when set to public. Not everybody has the hardware to host 12 player servers and have them populated while still being able to play without lag, like on Klei hosted servers.

To me, saying players should move to private games because of interactions with griefers on Klei Hosted public servers is akin to your local municipalities saying don't use the public parks you've paid tax dollars to maintain because criminals are there robbing people and we don't want to arrest them even with evidence.

On 4/24/2024 at 12:04 PM, JoeW said:

To operate a moderation team and tools to monitor private servers is questionable and unfeasible for a studio like ours.

Private servers are the wild west of hosted servers.

I think what you should be able to do is at least be able to react with prejudice against griefers on Klei hosted public servers.

It's not expected or necessary to have a 24 hour monitoring team for your servers but you should at least deal with bad actors when possible after the fact.

Klei Entertainment is a subsidiary of Tencent Holdings, a 415 billion dollar company. To say it is unfeasible for a studio like yours is short sighted. In my industry we look at worst case scenarios and make contingency plans with the resources we have. In your case, you and your company have the ability to tap into a multibillion dollar company and ask for help, you just need to know how to go about it internally to get better results that would have you thinking differently about your situation.

If these bad actors were joining every private, public, and Klei hosted public server around the clock and griefing the entire player base you would find a way to deal with them ASAP as it would affect your player retention rate and bottom line. The probably already do affect the bottom line but not to that great of a degree but there could definitely be an inflection point when it gets markedly more noticeable. A new-ish trend is having a team of bad actors take over a server and reset them.

Frame the situation properly, ask for help, more resources. Pitch the upside. The DST community has done it for you and you've responded in kind. It isn't past your company either to ask, make a call, and speak to a liaison of Tencent for some extra help.

 

As an aside, I just play this game in my spare time and wouldn't be here in the forums if the griefing hadn't gotten as bad as it is now, but unfortunately it has.

[Maxposting]

13 hours ago, SamR said:

Would doing any of this just be in vain?

Yes. Unfortunately.

[Mysterious box]

14 hours ago, SamR said:

What would your idea be for a golden standard to get results on official Klei hosted public servers?

• Screen record your play session from joining the server until the end of the incident
• Have zero provoking actions towards the griefer
• Witness on screen the incident
• Repeat to show a trend
• Submit video

What else would be required for definitive action to be made against someone who does grief?

What actions are Klei Entertainment allowed to take if any against players who grief consistently?

Would doing any of this just be in vain?

Players do not have to play with each other but it is implied on non pvp servers, especially ones hosted by Klei Entertainment itself, that players should co-exist together within the confines of the server your company provides. I use the word co-exist loosely as each person could be on opposite sides or levels of the world and not even interact with each other but just use the server to play the game.

The public servers your company hosts are meant for the use of the customers who purchase your product as far as I know. Griefers make even the use of them impossible and or unbearable and there seems to be no recourse as I've seen the same griefers over the years still active.

Players are happy playing on public games, they just aren't happy that there are people out there that want to stop them from enjoying being on those public servers especially Klei hosted public servers.

Plublic servers [especially Klei hosted ones (there's a pattern here)] sometimes are the only place players can play the co-existing game because private/privately hosted servers are often times empty even when set to public. Not everybody has the hardware to host 12 player servers and have them populated while still being able to play without lag, like on Klei hosted servers.

To me, saying players should move to private games because of interactions with griefers on Klei Hosted public servers is akin to your local municipalities saying don't use the public parks you've paid tax dollars to maintain because criminals are there robbing people and we don't want to arrest them even with evidence.

Private servers are the wild west of hosted servers.

I think what you should be able to do is at least be able to react with prejudice against griefers on Klei hosted public servers.

It's not expected or necessary to have a 24 hour monitoring team for your servers but you should at least deal with bad actors when possible after the fact.

Klei Entertainment is a subsidiary of Tencent Holdings, a 415 billion dollar company. To say it is unfeasible for a studio like yours is short sighted. In my industry we look at worst case scenarios and make contingency plans with the resources we have. In your case, you and your company have the ability to tap into a multibillion dollar company and ask for help, you just need to know how to go about it internally to get better results that would have you thinking differently about your situation.

If these bad actors were joining every private, public, and Klei hosted public server around the clock and griefing the entire player base you would find a way to deal with them ASAP as it would affect your player retention rate and bottom line. The probably already do affect the bottom line but not to that great of a degree but there could definitely be an inflection point when it gets markedly more noticeable. A new-ish trend is having a team of bad actors take over a server and reset them.

Frame the situation properly, ask for help, more resources. Pitch the upside. The DST community has done it for you and you've responded in kind. It isn't past your company either to ask, make a call, and speak to a liaison of Tencent for some extra help.

 

As an aside, I just play this game in my spare time and wouldn't be here in the forums if the griefing hadn't gotten as bad as it is now, but unfortunately it has.

I have to say forcing their hands isn't gonna lead to the ending you probably want. I see it ending one of 3 ways.

They start charging for public servers so they can pay for moderation

They remove public servers

They do loose moderation which leads to a lot of false flags and far more headaches

I understand it's unfortunate not everyone can play privately but you gotta remember every action has a reaction.

Edited April 27 by Mysterious box

[Uedo]

43 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

I have to say forcing their hands isn't gonna lead to the ending you probably want. I see it ending one of 3 ways.

They start charging for public servers so they can pay for moderation

They remove public servers

They do loose moderation which leads to a lot of false flags and far more headaches

I understand it's unfortunate not everyone can play privately but you gotta remember every action has a reaction.

Or as JoeW says; Giving players better control over their games. This change would be very welcomed and hopefully something that helps with the issue. It's difficult to stop stuff like this, but Klei are trying to help which is nice - We'll how it all pans out in the future ig.

[00petar00]

16 hours ago, SamR said:

To me, saying players should move to private games because of interactions with griefers on Klei Hosted public servers is akin to your local municipalities saying don't use the public parks you've paid tax dollars to maintain because criminals are there robbing people and we don't want to arrest them even with evidence.

My guess would be that majority of the players have only bought a game and given a copy to their friend and you are talking as If you are entitled to have klei host servers, you are not paying monthly subscription.

If klei stopped hosting their servers all the players that play there would go to dedicated servers or host their own. The only reason these servers are undesirable is because there are too many of them and players don't know which one to choose.

A suggestion I have would be for developers to advertise specific hosting groups or something else to advertise specific servers in some capacity because I think klei servers are popular because you can use filter or look at icon so they are easy to find.

In the past I have said that klei should stop hosting their servers because they bring bad PR to the company and the game for no benefit and it is probably beneficial for them to stop hosting them.

I just can't understand why would anyone want to play on klei servers and I don't really see why klei keeps hosting them when unmoderated DST servers are a nightmare.

16 hours ago, SamR said:

Private servers are the wild west of hosted servers.

It is the other way around, klei servers are the wild west because they are unmoderated.

16 hours ago, SamR said:

If these bad actors were joining every private, public, and Klei hosted public server around the clock and griefing the entire player base you would find a way to deal with them ASAP as it would affect your player retention rate and bottom line. The probably already do affect the bottom line but not to that great of a degree but there could definitely be an inflection point when it gets markedly more noticeable. A new-ish trend is having a team of bad actors take over a server and reset them.

The hosting group that I play at bans griefers from all of their servers if there is sufficient proof and you can always contact admins and request a rollback If that happens to you. 

On 4/24/2024 at 6:04 PM, JoeW said:

I do not have a solution to your issue, at this time. But we are working on something. Not to moderate or otherwise monitor what happens in your games. But to give players better control over their games. 

This sounds exciting but I can't really imagine it making a big difference unless something like ownership mod is added to the base game but that can also be abused by griefers. 

Only way for something like this without moderation would be for players to be able to completely isolate their base from any possibility of destruction since even If there is protection from hammering/lighting structures on fire someone could just lead a boss there. I don't think this will happen because bosses like deerclops and antlion are made to destroy structures and it would massively change the game.