Dear carebears, what would it take to get you to play PvP? | Forums

[devores]

Well, as much as I wanted to focus on what Ubi could do to fix the problem of low player count in Ghost War---like increasing prestige earnings or whatever---the vast majority of complainants in this thread seem more focused on the bad behaviour of most of the current pool of PvPers.

I can't say I really disagree with these concerns, but it's not really something Ubi can do anything about, it's something we've got to sort out ourselves. This sort of change has to come from within the Ghost War playerbase rather than be enforced from above by Ubi.

Authority always creates more resentment and resistance than peer pressure does.

To help refocus your intent,

The true underlying cause is the player base, however, I and everyone else knows it is a small percentage of players who are the dicks. But those are the ones who stand out the most and have the largest impact on our experience. Perhaps there are some things Ubi could do to help sway some who may be on the fence.

Now forgive me if some of these are already in use. I am not that familiar with all of the features.

Increasing the match sizes to 8 rather than 4 could help some. This will give the players a better chance of working with a good group as the chances of the entire 7 you're playing with being a ****** is slim. You can still have a 4 man squad option if that is what is chosen. With a 4 man squad the bad apple is much more prevalent.

Have a better lobby feature. Let us choose if we want casual or hardcore game play. This will not eliminate the problem but may cut it down some. Most of the problem children prefer the hardcore experience unless they are just straight up *******s. You can still keep the Ranked and challenges, but keep the casual server free of any challenges or rankings. Just straight game play.

Implement a means to silence selected players. This way you can still communicate with the team without having to listen to the verbal abuse. An ignore feature.

Have an ingame report feature for anyone who is abusive towards other players. If you get so many complaints against you you get a few days break from the game. There will probably need to be an indepth system on the back end to prevent abuse, but it could be done. Much like the cheater report system in place.

When doing a matchmaking (ive only done quickplay), allow choices. I like the maps with objectives. But others do not. If Im matched with a group who all pick elimination my experience just went down hill. If we had an option to say, pick a certain game play or style, it could help.

This may not be possible, but let us block players. If I had a bad experience with a player, let me choose to never be matched with them again. This would greatly improve game play.

Now all of this is just a bandage on the much larger wound. It will treat the symptoms but its going to take major surgery to eliminate the problem all together. Thats where the community comes in.

[V4MPiR1]

Have a better lobby feature. Let us choose if we want casual or hardcore game play. This will not eliminate the problem but may cut it down some. Most of the problem children prefer the hardcore experience unless they are just straight up *******s. You can still keep the Ranked and challenges, but keep the casual server free of any challenges or rankings. Just straight game play.

The problem with this method is that the casual server would become inundated by individuals with antisocial personality disorder, given that they prefer to prey on the numerous weak, as it requires the least amount of time and effort to enable their delusions.

To be effective, the PVP arena would have to introduce a developer-side section tasked with active match surveillance, revision of defined rules and codes of conduct, and be held accountable for the welfare of all players. The definition of "cheating" would also have to be expanded to include glitch exploitation (until such time as immediate code remediation can be completed and implemented), or any other maladaptive behavior contrary to the original intent of gameplay.

This, however, has a number of obstacles precluding its realization:

1. Cost of recoding (active match surveillance inclusion, glitch remediation, etc.), plus personnel tasked with said round-the-clock surveillance.
2. Insufficient gaming developer regulations. If you (generic) believe your best interests are at play, you're naive. Why do you think that the burden of proof of cheating is placed on the victim? Aside from the obvious costs, it generates the most revenue. From a business perspective, it's better to keep more people purchasing reluctantly and/or obliviously, than fewer people contently and/or cognizantly.
3. Indiscriminate sales. Wildlands has an ESRB "M" (17+) rating for mature content. There is absolutely no excuse why a 3-5 year old (see previous post) should have access to this game. Moreover, the PVP arena of Wildlands should be reassigned an ESRB "AO" (18+) rating... keep in mind that the entertainment industry's preoccupation with SF and choice to produce interpersonally interactable content under that pretext subjects individuals to active and ex-military, law enforcement, and other governmental agency trained personnel, and while not exposed to real-world stressors or traumas, said individuals may be otherwise mentally incapable of verbally interacting with said trained personnel while under the age of 25 years, without incurring psychological trauma (esp. onset of a personality disorder). Also, apart from individuals that have sworn an oath of protection, society also includes individuals from the opposite side of the spectrum; criminals/terrorists that have yet to be prosecuted or are otherwise still capable of purchasing and playing GW while affected by a personality disorder, diagnosed or undiagnosed.

KDR and WLR are poorly executed metrics. Firstly, GW is team-based. Consequently, said metrics are team-based. If you have a player that believes their KDR is the result of their actions alone, as opposed to the confluence of team work, then either that player's teammates are pylons, or that player is on the road to a personality disorder. Loners have no place on a team. Their actions, and more often inactions, have direct consequences to team survivability and mission completion. Similarly, WLR should be reserved for squadded task force match up. Hypothetically, a highly capable lone prestiger intermixed with three novices matched against four squadded high-prestigers will most probably get annihilated. Therefore, in that scenario, WLR has a bias and is only indicative of the deficiencies of the matchmaking system.

Implement a means to silence selected players. This way you can still communicate with the team without having to listen to the verbal abuse. An ignore feature.

This already exists in the form of mute and ban. While in a match (assuming you're on PC), press TAB, then F, then place your mouse cursor over the respective teammate, then press ENTER (? - I believe) or click on "Mute". Similarly, "banning" a player from a campaign's recent/all players lists mutes them for a definitive period. Continuation of the banning process requires submission of video evidence, and completion requires arbitration. Although the mute feature is a highly effective band aid, I wouldn't recommend it past a match/session. Assuming your intentionality behind GW is team work, lacking the ability to communicate with your team is self-defeating.

Have an ingame report feature for anyone who is abusive towards other players. If you get so many complaints against you you get a few days break from the game. There will probably need to be an indepth system on the back end to prevent abuse, but it could be done. Much like the cheater report system in place.

This already exists as well. While in a match (assuming you're on PC), press TAB, then F, then pace your mouse cursor over the respective player, then press X (? - I believe) or click on "Options". This will bring up a small menu, one option of which is "Report". Similarly, continuation of the reporting process requires GRN login, submission of image/video evidence, and completion requires arbitration.

This may not be possible, but let us block players. If I had a bad experience with a player, let me choose to never be matched with them again. This would greatly improve game play.

The personal BLACKLIST would be, without a doubt, the most practical, effective player-side solution. The recent players list would have to become a complete listing, as opposed to partial. From that, then, as you mentioned, players' Ubisoft account IDS (insusceptible to name changes) and alises are tagged and can be added to your blacklist. While matchmaking, blacklisted players (whether alone or squadded) cannot be added to the match roster, nor can you be added to the roster of an already active search of which a blacklisted player is a part. Blacklisted players cannot join a squad on active sessions, nor can a squad of which a blacklisted player is a part join an active session.

This already exists, passively, in the form of quitting. Believe me, it happens OFTEN. The formal personalized blacklist would reduce the rate of occurrence of quitting and significantly reduce the false progression towards the penalty. I suspect that this very issue is why each player is allowed five quits over a two-hour span. The only other down side to this would be the processing time required in interpolating eight players' blacklists. However, again, that would be far less than the time we all waste in passive avoidance.

[Mongol_Horde]

@non-exist-ent

In your OP, you wondered what Ubi could do to fix the problem of low player count in PVP. It quickly turned out that the (seemingly unexpected) answer was not in what could entice people, but what has kept them away, which is the lack of a healthy PVP environment, or conversely, the existance of a toxic/abusive one.

Now you take the stance that Ubi (or any game company) shouldn't be the ones to enforce a solution to that. I doesn't make sense to me that it would be ok to involve them to "fix" things with cosmetics, but not when it comes to the serious issue of actual abuse and cheating problems - in an environment they created and make money from.

I was a bit baffled when you suggested that the (good element) gamer base should take it upon themselves to solve the problem by increasing their PVP numbers and let it be a case of "social change". Do you honestly think a nest of snakes is going to care or go away because more mice showed up? Deal with the snakes, then the mice will be safe .. and happy. I can't reiterate that enough.

Cheating is a problem that isn't as obvious, nor is it directed at the personal character of a person, but it's still a problem. Verbal abuse, on the other hand, is a whole different animal that is completely unacceptable, no matter what format it comes in, or who it's from. The PVP environment is no exception to that, and definitely shouldn't be "holy ground" where the abusers can find shelter and feel "untouchable".

Maybe it is indeed time that game companies that create MP games (not just Ubisoft) and earn revenue from them, look into creating healthy and safe environments for people to play them in. It should be their responsibility, not ours. This is 2019, is it not?

Mongol Horde out.

[Ghost-Ami]

@non-exist-ent

In your OP, you wondered what Ubi could do to fix the problem of low player count in PVP. It quickly turned out that the (seemingly unexpected) answer was not in what could entice people, but what has kept them away, which is the lack of a healthy PVP environment, or conversely, the existance of a toxic/abusive one.

Now you take the stance that Ubi (or any game company) shouldn't be the ones to enforce a solution to that. I doesn't make sense to me that it would be ok to involve them to "fix" things with cosmetics, but not when it comes to the serious issue of actual abuse and cheating problems - in an environment they created and make money from.

I was a bit baffled when you suggested that the (good element) gamer base should take it upon themselves to solve the problem by increasing their PVP numbers and let it be a case of "social change". Do you honestly think a nest of snakes is going to care or go away because more mice showed up? Deal with the snakes, then the mice will be safe .. and happy. I can't reiterate that enough.

Cheating is a problem that isn't as obvious, nor is it directed at the personal character of a person, but it's still a problem. Verbal abuse, on the other hand, is a whole different animal that is completely unacceptable, no matter what format it comes in, or who it's from. The PVP environment is no exception to that, and definitely shouldn't be "holy ground" where the abusers can find shelter and feel "untouchable".

Maybe it is indeed time that game companies that create MP games (not just Ubisoft) and earn revenue from them, look into creating healthy and safe environments for people to play them in. It should be their responsibility, not ours. This is 2019, is it not?

Mongol Horde out.

Well, at significant risk to my SJW credentials I must reiterate that I don't believe social values can or should be enforced from above upon people, it's just going to make them get crazy pissed off and run out and vote for Donald Trump or some such because they believe "cultural elites" are "pandering" to "snowflakes" who can't stand to be smacktalked in PvP.

Further there's the practicality issue that Vampire mentions above. Ubi already devote so few staff and work hours to GRW these days it's inconceivable they'd be willing to expand whatever complaints department they have to deal with every single case of verbal abuse, bigotry, rudeness, whatever that arises in the course of a PvP match. Maybe Ubi could make it happen, and maybe they should after all in an ideal world, but the facts on the ground are simply that they will not, so that's what we have to work with.

In a way Ubi have already gone out of their way to try to improve regressive and hostile gaming culture by promoting progressive values in their games, expanding representation of different sorts of people as characters in their games, giving players two gender options for main characters in Wildlands, Far Cry 5, and Odyssey, and so on. This is how a developer can and should win hearts and minds, giving us better and more diverse characters and more options and so on. Increasing the game's appeal.

Not policing every single nasty comment in PvP matches.

On this forum the mods have done a relatively good job cleaning up the worst abusive rubbish people spew, but even so a lot of things fall through the cracks, and this forum has far lower traffic than the communications going back and forth between players in bajillions of PvP matches every day.

Am I permissive of deplorable PvPers spitting abuse and hate at me or anyone else in a match I'm taking part in? Of course not, and I will always make a point of stopping to scold them. Does it mean much coming from just me? Probably not. But if all seven other people in a match told an abusive person off the moment they said something offensive that one deplorable is going to be at least somewhat taken aback, maybe even chastened. Maybe they quit the match in disgust and go to another match where they think they can dish out some verbal abuse. But then what if all seven other people in that match push back as well? And the next match. And the next.

So what has this abuser encountered? Immediate rebuke and opprobrium, no safe space for abuse, the beginnings of a pattern of operant conditioning via peer pressure to either change their bloody attitude or at least keep their nastiness to themselves.

Now imagine we place the onus of policing deplorable PvPers on Ubi. Let's say Ubi's even willing to expand their complaints team by a bajillion people so they can deal with the volume of complaints. Let's say these moderators always find for the victim and punish the abuser.

What will an abuser have encountered this time? A distant authority figure meting out punishments that seem arbitrary to the abuser. Instead of finding themselves alone in a crowd of peers who disapprove of the behaviour the abuser will be able to blame Ubisoft for that whole "pandering" thing, and the abuser will internalise one or both of two lessons: (A) These aren't society's values they are being asked to live by, these are "Ubisoft's values" or, more largely, "SJW values" or something similar. (B) Someone with power---like Ubisoft---can just do whatever they want to someone without power, the abuser, who will naturally begin (or continue) to see themselves as a victim of "cultural elites".

The only way you can even begin to stop an abuser from convincing themselves they are the victim is if they are met with immediate, decisive, and universal backlash from every human being in communications range the moment they evince a deplorable behaviour or attitude.

Look, I totally sympathise with your position, it is not in any way fair to expect "regular citizens" to have to "take the law into their own hands" as it were. And in an ideal world, sure, it would be Ubi's responsibility to provide a safe space for all of their players. But it just isn't practical, and it will backfire constantly, and even if someone gets enough strikes against themselves for abuse in matches and gets permabanned from the game and is thus completely removed against their will from the player pool it's just kicking the can down the road. Because what's that deplorable going to do? They're going to mosey on down to another game or another forum or another Internet community or whatever and start spewing rage all over again, bolstered by the righteous anger that Ubisoft "victimised" them and their "freedom of speech".

If you're really interested in treating the disease rather than the symptom we're going to need a holistic remedy where the entirety of the healthy body of a society or any given social group within it rebukes and isolates any incidence of uncivilised behaviour it detects.

If you have a better idea I'm all ears, believe me. ))))

[Mongol_Horde]

I'm not going to comment on some stuff, so that we don't continue to go back and forth, but I hear ya and respect where you're coming from! I sense you have your heart in the right place.

"If you have a better idea I'm all ears, believe me. )))) "

lol .. I used up my better idea! You're on your own now ..

I wish you good luck with your PVP endeavor. I will continue to stay away from regular open GW or any other game PVP for that matter. There's still a chance that I may decide to join you all tomorrow in that sterile closed environment full of happy mice. We'll see.

Mongol Horde out

[R.B.haze]

really??? this triggered you???

Miss me with the sjw talk, that's not what I'm about. This thread has gradually turned into a critique of society but that's not what my post was about. I was simply unfamiliar with the term. On top of that mocking the people you want real input from isn't a great way to start a conversation is all.

I could care less about feelings and I'm certainly not some precious gamer who needs everyone to adhere to what I think is ok... I simply wanted a little reflection on the tone of the OPs question. If I were to approach someone on the street to ask directions but I open with the phrase "hey ***hole" I won't expect much in the way of a productive conversation after that. Makes sense to me at least..

[Ghost-Ami]

Miss me with the sjw talk, that's not what I'm about. This thread has gradually turned into a critique of society but that's not what my post was about. I was simply unfamiliar with the term. On top of that mocking the people you want real input from isn't a great way to start a conversation is all.

I could care less about feelings and I'm certainly not some precious gamer who needs everyone to adhere to what I think is ok... I simply wanted a little reflection on the tone of the OPs question. If I were to approach someone on the street to ask directions but I open with the phrase "hey ***hole" I won't expect much in the way of a productive conversation after that. Makes sense to me at least..

Oof, I'm really sorry about this, I honestly did not consider the word pejorative at all. I always thought carebears from the cartoon were adorable and sweet, it would never have occurred to me that someone would find the comparison offensive. I'll just say "PvEers" in future. ((((

[AI BLUEFOX]

Guys

This Sunday let's stop theorising about what PvP can be, and make it what we want it to be. Sign up to the custom room ( see the sticky thread)

[R.B.haze]

Oof, I'm really sorry about this, I honestly did not consider the word pejorative at all. I always thought carebears from the cartoon were adorable and sweet, it would never have occurred to me that someone would find the comparison offensive. I'll just say "PvEers" in future. ((((

Hey no worries. I'm all about respect so it just seemed off to me, but intent is often lost in text. Upon hearing your explaination it makes sense, I was more miffed by dude saying I was triggered and wanted to clarify what I'd meant.

[Ghost416]

I think the only way to save ghost war at this point is to allow crossplay (at least between consoles) and allow mouse & keyboard support for consoles

Crossplay between consoles and mouse/keyboard support does absolutely nothing to address the issue of why people stay away, though.

Do you honestly think a nest of snakes is going to care or go away because more mice showed up?

"A nest of snakes" is the most apt description of online multiplayer I've ever seen.