Harrassment Already A Larger Problem

F7sus4

UrQuan wrote: »

And honestly, unless it's some weird offensive RP, why would anyone care if there are some people in the area RPing using /say? Why would it be annoying?

Vice versa, why is it annoying for RPers that other people reply to public talk? You want to prevent other people being able to talk publicly whereas you can? Sigh...

You want it private, you keep it private. You use public, you make it public.

Kildayen

If I choose to be annoying and dance in my undies around a group of RPers and be all up in their faces, that is my choice and there is nothing wrong with that. If I choose to play the game as a character who likes trolling others, that is my choice and there is nothing wrong with that. As long as I am not using abusive language (cursing) or spamming the chat channel with the same words repeatedly, then there is nothing wrong with that.

I have never acted like that in the game, but it's no one else's place to tell me how to act while I'm in game as long as I am not breaking the rules. I have stopped playing the game because I'm completely bored with doing the same trials and dungeons over and over again to get the same crap gear that I already have.

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Trolling & Baiting]

SteveCampsOut

QuadroTony wrote: »

few days ago we found a vampire spawn at Reaper March and inviting people from the zone for free bite
people was bitten, mobs stay alive, that was the deal


but one guy, he told he cannot left this usefull rare spawm of mobs alive
BECAUSE HE PRing

we told him to STOP
but he kill all of them, and people become very angry because of it, they wasnt in time to had bitten

from that moment i become a HATER OF ANY RP PLAYERS in ESO
i will troll em EVERYTIME, I SWEAR
they must suffer

So the actions of one bad apple justifies trolling an entire class of players in your mind? I hope to see the backside of you as you leave the game then!

Digiman

MornaBaine wrote: »

I don't much care if you think roleplaying is stupid or you just don't get it. There is a sizable group of roleplayers in ESO and ZOS has repeatedly stated that they support this. I've seen GMs in the past show up to remove players who were trolling an RP event. And when I myself am getting trolled for roleplaying I will ask people once, politely, to stop. And sometimes what they are doing IS pretty funny and we all get a laugh out of it and then they move on and everything is fine. So it's not that I'm all that thin skinned. Yet despite warnings that player harassment of other players WOULD get worse with the switch to B2P ZOS seems not to have felt that greater GM presence is warranted. Nor have they taken any other steps to reduce harassment.

Last night members of my guild held an in-character funeral for another player character. Were we truly sad or upset? Not at all. It was just part of a story arc that has been going on in our guild for some time. So no, I'm not about to cry about some mean disrespectful person daring to dishonor our pixel dead. LOL The context of the roleplay isn't all that import, what is, is that we instantly had a guy dancing in his perma-underwear in our faces throughout the event and bragging about how he "loves to do this to roleplayers" who are, of course, "ridiculous" and "stupid." So while he was providing me with ample fodder I was reporting him with screenshots. But unlike past events, and believe me, this went on for quite awhile, no GM showed up to deal with the problem. Indeed at one point we thought he had finally gotten bored and gone away but nope, he had just gone to get some friends to join his little party. Further shenanigans ensured and were also reported with screenshots. FINALLY they did get bored and wander off. Probably because the entire event was held in group chat rather than spatial /emote or /say exactly so as to give less food to the trolls.

About an hour later a GM did contact me, apologized for not being able to do anything about the incident while it was happening, and was very professional and polite. I have absolutely NO beef with this GM. He or she was great. I also believed them when they said they'd go over the logs. And while they, of course, cannot tell me what, if any, action they will take against that player I am nevertheless fairly certain he'll receive some form of censure. Sadly, none of that changes the fact that this jerk was allowed to pretty much ruin what would otherwise have been a cool event.

THIS is why we need more GMs, player and guild housing, and empty instances of places you can take groups into. Any ONE of those things would come close to eliminating the problem of the continual player harassment that goes on in this game and that is made possible by the fact that any bratty twelve year old can now play this game by just badgering mom and dad once rather than on a monthly basis. We told you this would happen ZOS. I'd kind of like to know what your plans are for dealing with it.

Addendum: I've also been informed that there ARE games where placing a character on ignore will not only remove their chat, it will remove the character themselves from your view and it will be, to you, as if they no longer exist. This would be AMAZING. Please ZOS, I am begging you, figure out how to do this and implement it ASAP.

That was unfortunate. My sympathies as I know its a complete pain when a group of players decide to ruin you play time activity by actively harassing an event they aren't apart of.

The idea of removing a character from view when ignored is intriguing, but it would have to be only applicable when they aren't in a combat zone. Otherwise you will get some really weird mob deaths.

UrQuan

F7sus4 wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

And honestly, unless it's some weird offensive RP, why would anyone care if there are some people in the area RPing using /say? Why would it be annoying?

Vice versa, why is it annoying for RPers that other people reply to public talk? You want to prevent other people being able to talk publicly whereas you can? Sigh...

You want it private, you keep it private. You use public, you make it public.

You don't seem to have actually read this thread. That's not what people are talking about at all. People are talking about trolling by dancing around naked on top of those who are RPing, and similar behavior.

ZOS_AlexD

We're moving this thread to the Fiction and Roleplaying section as it is more fitting than the General Discussion area.

Flynch

Of course it's annoying as all heck - but where on Earth can you draw the line between two players enacting their own online personas in an MMO?

Personally i'd enable an instance-change mechanic where you basically phase into another shard as a group and leave those who are annoying you, in the dark.

SIN-X

Yea so my two cents is its not your game or your world if you don't want to be trolled then first off stay out of general chat, second don't expect other players to give a crap about your rp just because you do. I am not saying its not cool and I myself enjoy watching from time to time but don't expect Zos to be able to do anything about it as the TOS states harassment as unwanted or annoying behavior and if somebody doesn't want to hear your rp drama play to them that is a violation of the same. Point being don't be so public and maybe you wont be the attention of some of the public.

Iluvrien

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Easy enough to deal with... just ignore list the person if you care enough (dump some of the older ones if you need room), and don't entertain the silly person by acknowledging he's annoying you or even responding with anything but perhaps a sarcastic dismissal that doesn't mention what he's doing. If he drags mobs to you, let them be and he'll have to kill them himself anyway. The open world mobs in eso by and large die within just a few hits of your aoe, so if your concern's extra agro from more mobs it doesn't really affect much in the first place .

The last time this happened I didn't respond at all. I just reported them.

Ignore does nothing with regards to physical actions they are undertaking (spamming abilities or dragging mobs).

Dragging mobs does affect things. Especially when it happens continuously, i.e. every time the group of mobs we killed respawned they would go back and collect them again.

...all that said, my post wasn't about the lengths to which people have to go to be able to RP in peace... but whether the actions of the trolls could actually ever be considered "curiosity" as was suggested by the poster I was responding to.

Further to that, my Guild gave up on open world RP. Even if we were sitting and communicating only in group chat and not using /say or even any emotes we would still attract trolls.

The suggestion by @MornaBaine of an ignored player actually disappearing from your phase seems to be the best solution to all of the problems. It gets to work both ways. The players who don't want to see RP people can exclude them, and the players who don't want to see trolls can do the same. Nobody loses.

Vyle_Byte

SIN-X wrote: »

Yea so my two cents is its not your game or your world if you don't want to be trolled then first off stay out of general chat, second don't expect other players to give a crap about your rp just because you do. I am not saying its not cool and I myself enjoy watching from time to time but don't expect Zos to be able to do anything about it as the TOS states harassment as unwanted or annoying behavior and if somebody doesn't want to hear your rp drama play to them that is a violation of the same. Point being don't be so public and maybe you wont be the attention of some of the public.

Morna clearly stated in the OP that they were in their group chat. They were not in general chat. Therefore this argument is invalid, sorry.

MornaBaine wrote: »

Probably because the entire event was held in group chat rather than spatial /emote or /say exactly so as to give less food to the trolls.

They were doing their part, ZOS needs to implement something so that this kind of thing doesn't happen anymore.

MornaBaine

F7sus4 wrote: »

AlienSlof wrote: »

Why people can't live and let live, is beyond my understanding.

While I understand that all RPers get annoyed by interrupting, you could also have some good manners and use group chat to keep your "talk" private. Please imagine that other players don't want to see your [snip] as much as you don't want to be interrupted. And this could solve the issue. It's that easy.

And no, no one will know whether you're RPing or not, when you won't be talking publicly (with /say, /emote etc.) as there are many characters standing here and there being just AFK-people. Being myself one quite often, never experienced nor heard of anyone being interrupted or "harassed".

Peace n' love!


[Moderator Note: Edited quote to match moderated version]

Hate to tell you this but our entire event WAS held in group chat. The guy who trolled us simply saw a group of people walking and then gathering around the statue of Azura and doing a very few emotes. He instantly raced into the middle of our group, stripped and started doing his thing which included verbal abuse and spamming lots of flashy spells. And he kept it up for over an hour. So, your "solution" is no solution at all.

phreatophile

nobody loses

The trolls lose because it isn't really about not liking other people RPing, it's about messing with people who basically have no choice but to have their good time spoiled. The harm is the goal.

That's why instancing will work, you eliminate the jerks' ability to harm they go find somewhere else to get their jollies.
Always good when trolls lose.

newtinmpls

ZOS_AlexD wrote: »

We're moving this thread to the Fiction and Roleplaying section as it is more fitting than the General Discussion area.

Then I'm glad I have "recent" as an option - this discussion is potentially useful in "general" and much less so in some corner.

Ley

First time in eso that I ran into a group of RPers doing an event, I thought it was some sort of in game event involving NPCs. I sat and listened to their story for a couple minutes, until I realized they were RPers so I left them alone. Don't know if I was bothering them or not but they just pretended I wasn't there. Anyways I thought it was cool to see that sorta thing happening in game, it really added a layer of depth that can't be programmed into the game. I was a bit disappointed that they ignored me standing 20 feet away fighting lightning bugs, could have incorporated it into their story but figured it'd get old after 28th person came by.

I wish more people would RP in game, even if it's not something I would personally do. It's a shame people have to ruin other peoples fun.

nerevarine1138

Tripwyr wrote: »

ZOS_AlanG wrote: »

Ashigaru wrote: »

ZOS_AlanG wrote: »

There have been a few debates recently about how problematic something needs to be before it’s reported. But the answer is simple, if you find something offensive or harassing, report it.

It’s true that some of the reports we get in-game (and on the forums) are determined to not break the rules, and are closed without action. However, these determinations are quick to make, and we’d rather have a few unnecessary reports than find out people aren’t reporting content that should be – particularly in-game.

There are two ways to report bad behavior in-game. For chat, right click on the offensive content in the chat window and choose the report option. If someone isn’t in chat, look at them and open the “interact” wheel – one of the options is “report player.”

On the forums, there’s a report button on the bottom right of every post that shows up when you hover your cursor there.

The bold part troubles me, if a player reports something do you not think at that point in time it is problematic enough for you the company to take a look at it. From what i am reading from your statement is that instead of following up on reports or such, you moderate the reports and pick and choose which ones to follow up on instead of following up on everything. That actually answers a lot of questions for me from previous reports that i never heard anything about, it was as if they had just poofed.......

@nerevarine1138 is correct, there have been debates among players here on the forums.

We take reports, both on the forums and in-game, very seriously. This is one reason why we'd rather people use the report options when they are offended, and risk having some that don't need to be actioned.

I used the report system recently, and it is also the last time I will use it. We had a player following us around, harassing us in chat, telling everybody in zone chat we were cheaters, and whispering members of the opposing faction our location. When the opposing faction showed up to kill us, he spammed Purge (this was when purge was bugged and caused you to take double damage from wall of elements).

I reported that user, and the next day I received an email suggesting that I place him on ignore. As if somehow this would stop him from trash talking our guild in zone chat, or whispering members of the opposing alliance.

I gave up on ZOS support that day. Consider actually reading our reports next time.

You understand that the portion of the response recommending you ignore that player had nothing to do with any actions they took, right? That's just a generic recommendation they'll make in any case of chat abuse.

Darthryan

A true role player would have incorporated that jerk as being part of the funeral. like maybe hes a nephew who was really upset and thought that doing bath salts before the funeral would cheer him up. Someone could have maybe emoted what that guys was saying as he was dancing.

Krist

Sad, but you just have to find ways around it all. I know it can be a pain in the rear, especially when you have something like a funeral you are rp'ing.
However, this has been the the way it is from the beginning of rp times. Take your screen shots and chat shots to show the intent was to purposefully harass and let the GM's do their work. No doubt it will take time, and may be an hour later, but please report them. The GM did apologize for the time it took, meaning to me that it should have been done sooner, but they, for some reason, were unable.

Anyway, I dont think there is any one fix to this. I ALWAYS rp my character, and have yet to run into any problems. Of course I am not a part of an rp group so that makes me a much harder target.

I once rp'ed a male troll character who felt the need to dance naked in the faces of the rp'ers as a female slave with small breasts. It was in a tavern so it worked. When he would say he was a guy I would ignore him, and continue to call him a she. It wasn't long before he wandered off. Before I did that, he had the whole room in an uproar (this was on another game).

My point is, when you can, just find a way to work it in. They will see they can't get to you, and wander off. The more you ask them to leave or the more you say something, the more they will stay around.

MornaBaine

ZOS_AlexD wrote: »

We're moving this thread to the Fiction and Roleplaying section as it is more fitting than the General Discussion area.

I completely disagree with this decision. This topic absolutely does NOT belong in Roleplaying and fiction. It is about NEITHER of those things. It is about player harassment of other players and a discussion of the tools necessary to end it. Do you really think, @ZOS_AlexD , that NON-roleplayers never get harassed? Followed around by people spamming spells and being abusive in chat? While this issue may be most glaring to roleplayers because we get harassed and abused more often, it is absolutely pertinent to the entire player base.

Therefore I respectfully ask that it be returned to General Discussion where it belongs.

MornaBaine

SIN-X wrote: »

Yea so my two cents is its not your game or your world if you don't want to be trolled then first off stay out of general chat, second don't expect other players to give a crap about your rp just because you do. I am not saying its not cool and I myself enjoy watching from time to time but don't expect Zos to be able to do anything about it as the TOS states harassment as unwanted or annoying behavior and if somebody doesn't want to hear your rp drama play to them that is a violation of the same. Point being don't be so public and maybe you wont be the attention of some of the public.

Actually, it IS my game world. And yours too. And all players should be respectful of one another. But since they won't be...tools are necessary to eliminate the problems. Again, I will point out that our event was conducted solely in group chat so there was no "annoying" chat for anyone to see. This guy just saw a group of players and because we were walking and did a few emotes he targeted us. Even so, there's absolutely no reason on earth we should not use spatial channels for RP and your insistence that we not be "so public" is not only ironic since we weren't but just flat out wrong.

Nebthet78

ZOS_AlexD wrote: »

We're moving this thread to the Fiction and Roleplaying section as it is more fitting than the General Discussion area.

@ZOS_AlexD

I beg you to reconsider and move this thread back to the General Discussion Forum.

Harassment in this game by other players is something that is becoming a growing issue, and it is something that MANY players need to be reading and voicing their opinions on, whether it is someone else griefing another player to steal chests, node spots, or spamming abilities and acting inappropriately during another groups RP session. It is also something I have noticed more and more of since the release of 1.6.

This thread needs to be moved back to the General Discussion area rather than hidden away in the RP forum where only a specialized group of players will read and reply to it. Unless, that was your intention.

Iluvrien

MornaBaine wrote: »

ZOS_AlexD wrote: »

We're moving this thread to the Fiction and Roleplaying section as it is more fitting than the General Discussion area.

I completely disagree with this decision. This topic absolutely does NOT belong in Roleplaying and fiction. It is about NEITHER of those things. It is about player harassment of other players and a discussion of the tools necessary to end it. Do you really think, @ZOS_AlexD , that NON-roleplayers never get harassed? Followed around by people spamming spells and being abusive in chat? While this issue may be most glaring to roleplayers because we get harassed and abused more often, it is absolutely pertinent to the entire player base.

Therefore I respectfully ask that it be returned to General Discussion where it belongs.

^^This.

Sorry, @ZOS_AlexD but this thread is about the response of the general populace to roleplay, not about roleplay itself. As such it is much more apropos to General Discussion than it is in Fiction & Roleplaying.

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO

Flynch wrote: »

Personally i'd enable an instance-change mechanic where you basically phase into another shard as a group and leave those who are annoying you, in the dark.

That would require that there are enough people in the game to have more than one phase. With the current population of the game, this is not the case except for maybe a few starter zones at peak hours.

One of the original intents with the phasing system, as stated by ZOS somewhere in these forums long ago, was to place you in phases with people you had met before and interacted with. They even had a "Karma" system outlined where players who had a lot of reports from you would not be placed in your phase, regardless of whether any action was taken against them, and players with "bad karma" would be lumped together in the same phase and left to trolling each other.

Unfortunately, very few areas of the game are populated enough to have multiple phases active, so this didn't play out.

Turelus

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

fromtesonlineb16_ESO wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

It sounds like the chat probably crossed the line in to trolling, but sadly, there are no rules in-game (nor should there be) to prevent people from dancing in their underwear anywhere that they like.

Oh yes, there should be no rules to stop people being asses and deliberately griefing other players .. of course not.

Your admiration of ZOS is .. admirable.

Nothing to do with admiration for this particular company. Policing in-game chat is fine, but policing in-game dancing? It's just completely impractical and pointless. How do you determine when it's fine to dance around in your underwear and when it becomes trolling? What about using the mystery meat to vomit in front of people? Or running around in a goblin costume? Where do we draw the line?

Unless ZO is prepared to cordon off specific areas for RP events (a terrible idea), then the presence of people who aren't taking part in the event is a given. And since those people aren't taking part, it's ludicrous for RPers to expect their behavior to be regulated any more strictly than it would be elsewhere.

Then it should be based via each reported event. Did the player deliberately knowing full well there was RP going on take his clothes off and troll people, or was he stood randomly in a bar doing it while AFK.

If someone is quite obviously doing it just to interrupt roleplayers then why should they get a free pass because it's only dancing.

Keron

ZOS_AlexD wrote: »

We're moving this thread to the Fiction and Roleplaying section as it is more fitting than the General Discussion area.

For what it's worth, I'll add in my vote to move the thread back to General. This place was just chosen to sink this topic in a corner of the forum that is not frequented by the "second side of the discussion", so to speak. I myself only found it from the "Participated"-view.

Reconsider your decision. It is not RP if we talk about rude behaviour ingame.

I would like to write more about my feelings and impressions regarding this "move topic"-decision, but that would be neither helpful nor appropriate for the topic of this conversation.

Flynch

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO wrote: »

Flynch wrote: »

Personally i'd enable an instance-change mechanic where you basically phase into another shard as a group and leave those who are annoying you, in the dark.

That would require that there are enough people in the game to have more than one phase. With the current population of the game, this is not the case except for maybe a few starter zones at peak hours.

One of the original intents with the phasing system, as stated by ZOS somewhere in these forums long ago, was to place you in phases with people you had met before and interacted with. They even had a "Karma" system outlined where players who had a lot of reports from you would not be placed in your phase, regardless of whether any action was taken against them, and players with "bad karma" would be lumped together in the same phase and left to trolling each other.

Unfortunately, very few areas of the game are populated enough to have multiple phases active, so this didn't play out.

Yeah true enough! Possibly they could just have a single phase called 'RP' or something and that particular phase has its own set of rules - could be easier for a GM to moderate it too. Naturally there would be significantly less players in that phase, but at least they could have some peace and quiet with a GM nearby?

MornaBaine

Flynch wrote: »

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO wrote: »

Flynch wrote: »

Personally i'd enable an instance-change mechanic where you basically phase into another shard as a group and leave those who are annoying you, in the dark.

That would require that there are enough people in the game to have more than one phase. With the current population of the game, this is not the case except for maybe a few starter zones at peak hours.

One of the original intents with the phasing system, as stated by ZOS somewhere in these forums long ago, was to place you in phases with people you had met before and interacted with. They even had a "Karma" system outlined where players who had a lot of reports from you would not be placed in your phase, regardless of whether any action was taken against them, and players with "bad karma" would be lumped together in the same phase and left to trolling each other.

Unfortunately, very few areas of the game are populated enough to have multiple phases active, so this didn't play out.

Yeah true enough! Possibly they could just have a single phase called 'RP' or something and that particular phase has its own set of rules - could be easier for a GM to moderate it too. Naturally there would be significantly less players in that phase, but at least they could have some peace and quiet with a GM nearby?

While I would dearly love an RP "Shard" I have never yet encountered a game with an RP server that was not also home to INTENTIONAL trolls and griefers. And even where there is a different ruleset, there are never GMs committed to enforcing that ruleset on hand, especially not when you need them. It is really weird being part of a "persecuted minority" in a flamin' game of all things, but there it is. The parallels are just kind of creepy. There's a lot of lip service paid to the concept of parity and equality, almost zero actual action by the "powers that be" to make it so...and you're shunted off to the "poor" neighborhoods where no one will see or care about your issues. That, on top of being endlessly abused by the majority players/favored class. The internet is a very weird world. And it really kind of feels like we've just seen an example of that here. But the sad fact is, RP servers really don't work. That's why it's important to just put tools in the hands of players so that ultimately they are able to play with who they want and avoid the people they DON'T want to play with. And that works both ways as those who are, for reasons beyond my understanding, so offended by us poncy roleplayers, would then also have the power to never see us again.

MornaBaine

I've added the following question to the "Ask Us Anything" thread:
Are you planning to do anything for players regarding harassment by other players? Ideally, adding to /ignore the function to not just no longer see an abusive player's chat spam but to also literally no longer see their character either.

Maybe that is where we need to go to get this issue addressed.

MornaBaine

@ZOS_AlexD If I start a new thread in general discussion entitled: "Players Need Tools To Deal With Player Harassment" with the following post:

Dear ZOS, please enable the ability to have the /ignore feature updated so that in addition to making it so that you no longer see offensive or abusive chat from another player you will also no longer see their character (except in Cyrodiil if you both happen to be there) either. This will eliminate the problem of player harassment by other players as well as freeing up the GMs to no longer have to deal with reports of it and instead focus on issues players are having with gameplay. Thank you.

Or would doing so run me afoul of the "you can't make more than one post about the same topic" rules? If the answer is "yes" please explain why as my proposed new post above says nothing about roleplay and makes it clear that the topic is NOT about roleplay but rather about the problem of player harassment.
Thank you.

phreatophile

How about a 'jerk-wad, shard where the players doing the trolling can be sent. Sooner or later these players will find themselves surrounded by only like minded individuals. They all deserve each other anyway.

Also this thread belongs in General as its not about roleplaying it's about players harassing other players. You all must be hoping that sweeping this thread into a dark corner will cause it to die in obscurity. A lot of us simply use the 'recent' button, so hopefully it takes awhile to die.

MornaBaine

F7sus4 wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

And honestly, unless it's some weird offensive RP, why would anyone care if there are some people in the area RPing using /say? Why would it be annoying?

Vice versa, why is it annoying for RPers that other people reply to public talk? You want to prevent other people being able to talk publicly whereas you can? Sigh...

You want it private, you keep it private. You use public, you make it public.

Ah, another person who did not actually read the OP. We WERE in group chat. Therefore our activity was NOT "public." We were simply endlessly harassed by another player for over an hour for no good reason.