Player Blacklist -- Allowed? Bad? Discuss and Inform!

[rezecib]

So I think most people who've played DST on a public server have either griefed or been the victim of griefing. I'm thinking that it's getting about time that there be some sort of player-curated blacklist system (in the form of Steam IDs, since that's what you can ban people with if they haven't joined your game). If this were to be a thread on the forums, would that be acceptable? I've looked at the Community Standards and Terms of Service, and the closest thing I can find is that it might qualify as harassment/defamation.

 

If it is allowed here, what do other forum members think? Should this be a thing? Would you make use of it/contribute to it? Do you think this would be a bad thing or a good thing?

 

I'm honestly a bit on the fence about this. On the one hand, it would be really nice to reduce the griefer count. On the other hand, people who get on this blacklist have very few options to improve their situation.

 

Edit: Good point made by imsomony that griefers could also use this against innocent players. I had thought about that a bit, but I guess whether that's a problem or not depends on how the blacklist was curated.

[imsomony]

I am so friggin' happy about this. In the hotfix from today, JanH said that we can add players to our blacklist based on Steam ID alone.

 

I have played other public servers and seen griefing, and hosted my own worlds and seen griefing. Sometimes we're quick enough to ban immediately, sometimes we're not and can only retroactively figure out who the player was. I'm 100% in support of the ability to add someone to our own personal blacklist based on known-IDs alone. Our blacklist is ours (unless we share it with others privately), so it doesn't impact anyone other than ourselves (willingly) and the griefers, who made their beds and can sleep in it.

 

However, on the other side, which is what I think is maybe you were asking about, a community-contributed and public blacklist that's common to all? No, I don't agree with that... being public means that griefers can use it as means to continue their griefing by blacklisting players who did no wrong. Also, as you said, people who get on the blacklist would have limited means to fix it. I also think it would also be against TOU by calling out specific names and players publicly.

[Ridley]

Hmmm...

 

This would not be acceptable. The forums hit dry periods every now and then. I myself, am one of the few remaining faces on the forums you will ever see at all times. I have not even changed my avatar that I found off google images.

 

People petitioning their case on the forums would require more than just a few people. Eventually, the forums will slow to a crawl, making the system very unfair for DST players. 

 

I think griefing should be addressed by game mechanics, not player policing (save for admins). "Energy meter that ghosts use to haunt and move fast, slowly builds again during night or sacrifices", for example, attempts to balance the OP nature of being a ghost and limits the desire to troll. While increasing dependency on teammates, even while in god mode.

[rezecib]

@Ridley, But no mechanical change will address people going around setting fire to things. Which is the most common method of griefing. On my Maxwell server, I'd estimate I get around 5-10 griefers that I know of in a day, and that's even with a spawn trap to filter people a bit and a place of exile for Willows. 

[Ridley]

@Ridley, But no mechanical change will address people going around setting fire to things. Which is the most common method of griefing. On my Maxwell server, I'd estimate I get around 5-10 griefers that I know of in a day, and that's even with a spawn trap to filter people a bit and a place of exile for Willows. 

 

To be fair, you don't send across a good message when you force players to kill themselves. There is not much point in having a base in your world either.

 

I bet there is a mechanical implementation that would discourage people from setting things on fire and leaving. I am going to bed because it is nearly 2:00 AM, but thinking along the lines of how pyrotechnics burn prairie land to help the land stay healthy. A mechanic that can easily backfire ( HA! BACKFIRE! ) is what I would base my idea around.

 

"HA, I burned all your grass farms!"

 

"Big deal. I can simply fix this up since I predicted a moron would do something like that."

 

I would like a reason to join a server and not feel un-trusted because I chose willow.

[rezecib]

To be fair, you don't send across a good message when you force players to kill themselves. There is not much point in having a base in your world either.

I got way more griefers before the spawn trap. The problem is with dedicated servers, because griefers think they can't be kicked or banned there, and for the most part, they're right.

 

And I don't think you understand my world very well, because there's definitely a point to having a base... 

[Clwnbaby]

@Ridley, There is a total purpose for a base in Rezecib's world, not only that but there are 2 types of bases to have.  If you've joined recently you've seen the BIG base which I have built.  The sole purpose of this base for me is to feed everyone and give them opportunity to focus on the maze.............which they dont.  When I arrived at Maxwell's playground I built a much much smaller base, which on my stream I've have stressed over and over is not a base but a camp,  for the sole purpose of surviving on as little as possible and only focusing on the maze.  It served me quite well as I was able to complete the maze in the first 100 or so days with all the roll backs resets and the occasional griefer who found it in its well tucked away area. 

 

As for no big deal just fix the burnt stuff you eventually encounter the problem we're about to run into on rez's world......there are no more resources to fix it with.  When griefers burn the maps resources 135 at a time you're going to run out.  Today alone I had to replant all the twigs and grass twice(just an idea i have exactly 40 twigs and 80 grass) and my berry bushes 4 times (these went from 20-16-12 and i didn't even replant the 4th set).  At this rate his world will soon only have rocks and burnt trees.  So yeah griefers burning stuff all the time is a problem.

 

OOPS totally got side tracked, yeah public blacklist is an issue I am definitely on the fence about.  Personally yes I would like a list of known griefers that I can ban simply and easily without question.  But in the end I just write down the names of the ones I find and keep my ear to the ground for the ones others find.  Thats all we can really do.  What really surprises me is it seems like 79,000 people signed up for the Dont Starve Beta just burn down people's bases.  Really?  What did you do on the original?  Burn your own base down over and over? Sounds pretty boring.

[Ridley]

I have only seen a few griefers on the public server, and never had one on my public servers. I want to believe your modded server is compelling people to troll, Rezecib. Your spawn trap drives away players in general, so you lose good and bad players. You still get bad players who I bet would like payment for being forced to die.

 

My idea for a mechanic is along the lines of grass tufts, berry bushes, and sapplings burn to the ground. Instead of ashes, the plant is trying to re-grow. With fertilizer, you could make plants grow back and a little stronger. Grass gives 2 grass on its first harvest, as do saplings. Berry Bushes extend the amount of times you can pick bushes before having to fertilize them. The saplings should already be dead according to Wickerbottom, so I assume the plants are not natural anyway.

 

The reasons I am leaning towards this instead of a jury consisting of four or five people on a good day, is that you get more than just griefer repellent. Most people bump up the world resources because having to share grass tufts with people divides the grass/twigs up too much. A 40 grass tuft farm is pretty average from what I have seen, so a 80 grass payout means less reason to leave a base in search of grass. Turning the grass spawn to MORE, is annoying because of how much grass is littering the place, and it is not any more organized than a 40 grass tuft farm. The catch is that burning a grass tuft will not save the harvest-able grass, and you wouldn't want your last grass supply to go out right before winter or ROG summer.

 

Trees drop pinecones that I wish would replant themselves like someone else suggested long ago. I do not see much reason in trying to save wood wall or grass walls, stones walls are much easier to set up and fix. Flamming walls is a good defense trick anyway. Eventually pig houses and science machines will become burnable, it would be nice if it could only be done by smoldering.

 

Writing their names down will not help when they can just change it, and the rules say no infaming people, so you shouldn't be hearing names most of the time. And starting monday, 790,000 new players are going to be doing the same thing. The options seem to be:

 

1. Player policing
2. Breaking "Da Rules"
3. Backfire mechanic

The backfire mechanic will never harm me or other innocent players, and we could finally have justification for hoarding all those kolaphants.

 

Clwnbaby, I could beat the ruin maze if I didn't lag so much. I think the reason the dangling depth dweller exists is because they are lag sensitive. Unlike spider dens, DDD spiders don't come out naturally, preventing 200 spiders from existing in a short space.

[Shenny]

I have only seen a few griefers on the public server, and never had one on my public servers. I want to believe your modded server is compelling people to troll, Rezecib. Your spawn trap drives away players in general, so you lose good and bad players. You still get bad players who I bet would like payment for being forced to die.

 

I've only played on private servers, thus having no opinion on blacklists or knowledge of any spawn traps, but victim blaming and "if it's not an issue for me it's not an issue for anyone else" logic are flawed arguments.

 

That said, I don't agree at all with prejudice against Willow players, especially since it takes almost nothing to create a torch.

[Ridley]

I've only played on private servers, thus having no opinion on blacklists or knowledge of any spawn traps, but victim blaming and "if it's not an issue for me it's not an issue for anyone else" logic are flawed arguments.

 

He forces you to kill yourself if you want to play on his map, adds your skeleton to his collection. Would you be surprised to see players unhappy about that?

 

"if it's not an issue for me it's not an issue for anyone else"

 

It is not a issue for me, so maybe there is something more to it than trolls and goblins rising from the depths of steam to swarm our favorite game and ruin all of our fun. Maybe there is factors, like how we present ourselves and our servers. Factors that alone can help maintain a friendly community and subdue temptations to troll.

 

Or we could just burn anyone accused of trolling with a faulty justice system.

[Clwnbaby]

He forces you to kill yourself if you want to play on his map, adds your skeleton to his collection. Would you be surprised to see players unhappy about that?

 

Its a puzzle dude.  It requires a solution and the best puzzles use solutions you don't expect or want to do.  You seem to be completely missing the point.  Also there are not very many ways to create a puzzle in this game.  When I first saw the puzzle I was like "SWEET!!!! a puzzle" and spent a minute scratching my head trying to figure it out until the solution dawned on me.  At least now you get helpful hints.  Also this puzzle says a lot upon entering his world.  It says "If you dont get this you're not ready for the rest," "Expect a few curve balls here," and most importantly is says "There is something to do here other than survive." 

 

BUT THIS IS WAAAAAAY OFF TOPIC.  still on the fence as it pertains to blacklist.  Blacklist people thats the topic here.

[jbeetle]

I'm going to have to agree with Ridley. I think this is the same thing as when people try to make a forum list of bad players. It just ends up calling people out, and in almost every case, the thread ends up getting locked.

[ryouryou]

I don't think a community blacklist would necessarily work out the way you'd think. I've seen them on a lot of other sites and games and they're not without their fair share of disputes and drama for you to manage. People have their weird interpersonal things, and you just can't control for them adequately. Also one person's 'griefing' may be a new player who is legitimately clueless, like in the case of the guy who keeps dying and running around as a ghost away from players. We really do need an ingame solution. I disagree with the assertion that normal servers don't get griefed. I hosted for a few hours the night before last, we had a good game and made it to winter before someone showed up and burned all of our trees and plants in the area. It was completely unsolicited and all anyone on the server did was greet them with 'hello'. The dedicateds are a cesspool, too, depending on the time of day. Seen multiple burners (sometimes a few in one ingame day), as well as a lot of afk/ghost griefers. 

Just because YOU can't personally imagine destroying the fun of others without motivation to be mean to them, doesn't mean that other people don't do it. There are players that literally just go down the list, join each open server, burn as much as they can before they get kicked, and move on to the next one. Their idea of having fun is to make sure other people don't have fun. This is a factor in all online games. It exists. These aren't all poor, slighted players who just need some way to get back at a bad host. 

 

Maintain your own personal blacklist, most definitely. But like I said, we do need some ingame solutions. You don't typically need to make griefing impossible. Usually making griefing more inconvenient mechanically drives away all but the most dedicated.

 

How about a system of tagging structures with the name of the player that placed them internally, and preventing the burn dialogue from appearing at all if you're not that player? Would apply to base structures, berry bushes, saplings, and grass, which would be tagged with the last player who replanted them. I would extend that to hammer/shovel but I think that would cause too many problems. Impenetrable walls, for one. Perhaps the hammer could be rebalanced for multiplayer to require significantly more hits to destroy a structure that isn't yours, giving more time to respond.

 

As far as willow griefing, unless you left another burnable nearby like a stray tree or unmoved tuft, a player couldn't just immediately light it on fire. This forces them to take the time to get an axe (plant their own tree nearby to burn), a hammer (just outright break things), a shovel (to dig up the tufts themselves), or find a mob to light on fire (most people still don't realize you can do this at all). Those all require an understanding of game mechanics, which a lot of the griefers don't have, as well as more time. More time means they can't get to another server to repeat the process as quickly. 

 

 

This would also be a feature for non griefers at the same time. You could inspect and see a message like:

 

-generic science machine message- + There's a carving that says "Made by -name-" 

 

Here's a short list of mechanical or social difficulties that might work:

 

 

+ Make the immediate spawn area unbuildable, mechanically requiring people to put a base 2-3 screens away, where it may not be as easy to immediately find. Bases on the portal are asking for it. 2-3 screens is still close enough to get people in for winter. 

 

+Some internal storage of owner and difficulties destroying things not placed by you. But not impossibility, so no boxing people in permanently. 

 

+A short (maybe 1 game day?) warmup period for using the lighter as Willow upon first spawning. You spawn in with light so this shouldn't be an issue if it is night.

 

+Some sort of ingame (like view profile/ban/kick buttons) method to uprate or downrate a player. Some would abuse it but the vast majority of people would not, so the average score would be a decent indicator. Ratings would slowly decay back towards the middle, giving you a chance to recover from bad behavior over time. A server owner could designate a minimum rating needed to join if they so desired.

 

+ Some sort of automatic, non-human-reviewed temporary ban from joining servers not hosted by friends that kicks in upon being kicked a few times in close succession. The exact interval would need to be secret. The ban would always be temporary and you could always join friends' servers, so if it was a mistake or bullying the impact would be minimized. If you grief frequently eventually you'd get bored at your sessions being cut so short and probably quit.

[Ridley]

Me saying that I have not had a grief problem on my server, came across as no one else does. I agree there is griefers, I agree public server get griefed, I agree that normal servers get griefed, I agree that there is a population of trolls who only mean to ruin fun in this game. 

 

I believe that there is people worrying about this, so the point in me saying, "I have not had a troll problem on my server" was to show everything is not terrible. It is really easy to give the idea that the trolls have taken over this game, when they haven't.

 

Do not make a player police system, it will divide the community over a fear of trolls.

[imsomony]

EDIT: nevermind, shoulda read through the rest of the thread before posting.

[rezecib]

That said, I don't agree at all with prejudice against Willow players, especially since it takes almost nothing to create a torch.

 Coming out of single-player, I wouldn't 100% agreed with you. I practically ignored the fact that Willow existed, there, since I didn't find her perks useful. But having played a fair bit on public servers now, there's definitely a strong correlation between picking Willow and being a griefer. Perhaps one part of it is that they can head out from the spawn right away, even if they join at night, and burn things to stay warm if it's winter. Also, I've generally been surprised at the lack of use of torches-- I've definitely met several players that always set down campfires for the night.

 

But generally regarding the blacklist, I'm agreeing with most of you that it's a bad idea. But I still feel like it needs a solution that it won't get, because Klei has stated that they will not police player behavior within servers (e.g. no reputation system, no reporting system, etc).

 

+Some sort of ingame (like view profile/ban/kick buttons) method to uprate or downrate a player. Some would abuse it but the vast majority of people would not, so the average score would be a decent indicator. Ratings would slowly decay back towards the middle, giving you a chance to recover from bad behavior over time. A server owner could designate a minimum rating needed to join if they so desired.

Perhaps a reputation system like this, by itself, could just be seen as giving us better tools to police our own servers. I would definitely be nice to have something like this integrated.

[Scoundreya]

I would like to say, after playing a good amount on the largest population dedicated server currently up - The Amazon East Wilderness 24 population server - **MAP** griefing has been completely game breaking. It's not even really so much base griefing, as most people haven't been able to really build a base after the server has been up a couple of hours because most Saplings and Grass Tufts have been destroyed by that point - of which we all know do not EVER return after being burned in this current version of DST. Of course, masses of trees have been burned as well, but that's not AS big of an issue for the server as a whole since they can be replanted with Pinecones.

 

Take into account that this is a Klei Official dedicated server that (as far as I know) does not have any banning/anti-griefing features implemented. So NO ONE can do anything about any of these players. What pretty much happens is this:

 

People use torches to burn anything and everything they see (Less common, but I've seen it happen)

or

Willows join, start running around burning anything and everything, ruin a large portion of the map, and then either leave, or die - DROPPING a lighter for anyone else to use (LOL seriously, how did Klei even think this would be okay? View this thread for a screen of a pile of Willows lighters me and some others tried to amass and keep in a pile just to show how ridiculous this is http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/46724-willows-lighter/ ) - and when the Willow griefer dies, they just go back to character select, and choose Willow again, starting in a completely new area, effectively saving THEM time on having to run across the whole map, and they repeat their toxic cycle all over again.

 

Take into account that this server has a capacity of 24 people - which, by the way, is almost always full if it's not wintertime (People can't even play on this server in wintertime because of the ludicrous scarcity of Saplings and Grass Tufts, as well as ground spawned flint, but that's a discussion for another time....) - the amount of map destruction is absolutely ridiculous. Now, I realize this is a rather unique case since, at least for right now, this is the largest server (there's only one other one that has a population of 20 - but it's European I think so I haven't reallly checked that one out since the server ping for me is around 250)

 

But something SERIOUSLY needs to be done about this! Like, SOON!!!!! This server was SOOOO amazing when I firrrrst started on it yesterday when it had only been up for less than an hour, but after a couple of hours, almost all of those taken-for-granted  saplings and grass tufts were GONE! (seriously... people were begging in all chat for twigs... FOR TWIGS!!!!!!!!!!!!! Some were even offering food for them.)

 

TL:DR Klei Dedicated Servers need to keep their own blacklist or anti-map destruction griefing needs to be implemented in some way

(I honestly like the idea of the saplings and grass tufts being able to come back after being burned if they are given fertilizer) I also thought maybe seeds dropped by birds could be grass tuft and/or sapling seeds, but this still wouldn't really put a dent in the mass amount of map-wide resource damage that can be done in a fraction of the amount of time that it would take to re build all of that lost stuff.... only to have it burned again eventually...

 

*sigh*

[Pyromailmann]

A blacklist and whitelist system would be great. I think it'd make for some more private servers.

[Pyr0mrcow]

I'd say bad idea, unless there's a way to actually find out who did the griefing in the first place. I got banned the other day because someone burned down the farms of a base that seemingly the entire server was using, and I happened to be Willow, running around holding a lighter exploring the base at the time...
To me she's one of the most useful characters, especially since her sanity problem basically doesn't exist if you don't stand still, but being the automatic suspect for any case of griefing ruins her. If there was a grief-tracking or limiting system, that'd help everyone.

 

An option for the server to turn off fire spread might be a better start.

[Delannion]

I fully support the idea of a public blacklist, though some care needs to be taken with the list as well - after all, if people can troll a game, they can troll a blacklist.  

 

Keep in mind, you can report players for harassment through Steam, as well as block communication with them. I'm not sure whether that prevents them from joining your games, but one can hope.  

 

 

However, until Klei implements something in terms of anti-griefing code, that's about all we have.  

 

In the time I've been playing DST I've only encountered a handful of griefers, but the amount of damage a single player can do in under a minute is truly unacceptable. 

 

Also, I notice the server snap-shots seem to be broken....that sure would be a good way to reset from trolls...if it were working =x.

[Amonarka]

On Don't Starve, a troll player can do sooo much dmg than a public blacklist is necessary i think. These guys will create their own servers after that, and burn what they want...

 

I'm sorry about Willow, but if someone burn everything (the base, the chests, the food, ahhhhh...), it's always her (and not only with the fire spread !!), and i never see another character do that... Sometime, i think i should be ban every Willow on my server =x

 

I'm waiting for the map editor with indestructible construction =D

 

 

(Sry for my bad english ^^')