Question regarding Harassment/Bullying/Toxic Gameplay

Tarys · March 2023

Greetings,
as i just had another round with the most toxic troll squad on EU GH and i wanted to ask those things for a long time ... I know about the statement regarding tbag-players and that you first have to tell them to stop. Somewhere else i read about players having to stop farming the same person all over as it could be (will be?) considered bullying but i never found any list of things counting as such and how to deal with it. So what is allowed and what not? Do i first have to tell everyone to stop doing the things? Do i have to do it daily? Can i just report them the next day if they do it again or again first telling them to stop?

PVE/PVP:
- bad language incl. whispers

PVE:
- i really don´t know what could be a pve only thing but maybe harassing someone with constant targeted emotes/mementos like mudball?
- blocking quest-npc or writ turn in boxes with pets (looking at you wardens)? - although that needs more than 1 person doing it and in 99% it still leaves some spots to turn it in

PVP:
- the tbag thing is clear as it has been stated in some threads; even if i can´t understand why you first have to tell someone to stop being toxic instead of forbidding it ...
- killing the same person over and over with the pure intend to harass them (i can only think of IC as everything else would be hard)?
- running premade groups with the sole intend to open a keep and just farm people inside up to the point where the keep no longer is under attack and the premades almost wait near the porter?
- premades taking a scroll (even the own one) to lure in enemy players and farm them?

Those are the things i can think of which could count as "don´t do it" but ... is there some clarification?

wilykcat · March 2023

If someone is not being nice, you can always report and block the player. Also there is another option to send in a report ticket to customer support.

Tarys · March 2023

I know how to report someone ...
But thats no answer to "what is reportable" or better "what are people allowed to do". If f.e. farming inside a keep for an hour without any intent to ever take that keep and just make "funny vids" from doing that farming is considered okay by ZOS there is no reason to report that and just live with it. But how should i know when there is no place to look for the things that are ok?

Dr_Con · March 2023

Tarys wrote: »

I know how to report someone ...
But thats no answer to "what is reportable" or better "what are people allowed to do". If f.e. farming inside a keep for an hour without any intent to ever take that keep and just make "funny vids" from doing that farming is considered okay by ZOS there is no reason to report that and just live with it. But how should i know when there is no place to look for the things that are ok?

The only issues would be if they are spawn camping without lighting the keep, laying down massive AOEs and making it impossible for anyone to spawn and survive longer than a second for long periods of time (5 minutes might be fine, but 30 minutes is excessive), killing people from under the map, or killing people at the faction gate spawn points (where the generals and quest boards are).

but if someone wants to camp the courtyard or ramparts for easy kills, they're entitled to do that currently, just as 12 people can run around keeps like invincible lemmings with 24+ hots on & holding your scroll for hours at a time to farm your faction.

The solo NB pvper in the courtyard argument: these players are completely avoidable and are fine to be left as-is. It's ZOS's fault for giving them such a strong ability to one-shot you. If ZOS wanted to fix the problem they'd enact a damage reduction to the other faction if the keep isn't lit to ensure that attacking keeps is an act to take the keep, not to engage in farming of players. Counterplay to their stealth exists, but in my experience people don't want to follow that advice to get detect pots or use the sentry set to see everyone in render range- they want ZOS to remove people from the courtyard for them.

PeacefulAnarchy · March 2023

Tarys wrote: »

Greetings,
Those are the things i can think of which could count as "don´t do it" but ... is there some clarification?

What is not allowed is harassment and trolling. To take the tbag example, it's just crouching. If people reported everyone who crouched near a dead player ZOS would be flooded with reports. Also, context matters and if friends want to tbag each other there's no harm in that. Hence the "ask to stop" thing, it establishes a boundary and imbues subsequent actions with intent.

For most ingame (non-text) actions, I'd expect similar lines. Emotes, mementos, combat actions, etc are all part of normal gameplay. For them to cross the line into harassment there needs to be some evidence of intent and targeting, and communication is the easiest way to establish that. I'm sure you could establish a case in extreme circumstances without asking to stop first, but it would probably be quicker and easier to ask them to stop first.

For text that crosses the line I don't think you need to ask them to stop. If someone is typing slurs in chat or saying offensive things, or harassing you then report them.

As for PVP keep farming or other such things I'd say those things fall into a different realm. I'm not sure where the line is on those things but they're a different type of thing than "Harassment/Bullying/Toxic Gameplay"

VaranisArano · March 2023

If you think the behavior is reportable, report it.

What asking them to stop does, primarily, is build your case and establish intent.

Take teabagging, for example. It's a staple of PVP "gamer culture" for better or worse. It can be done for fun between friends and rivals, players may not care, or it can be malicious. Asking someone to "stop" and then they refuse is a crystal clear sign to Support that it's malicious intent/harassment.

It's not that Support won't take action without crystal clear evidence from you, though. For example, they also keep records on past disciplinary action, so if it's someone who makes a habit of teabagging maliciously, Support will know. Likewise, you don't have to ask them to stop daily, so multiple days of reporting that behavior builds a history.

As far as the "is farming allowed in PVP" question...

Are you dying multiple times to the same player(s) because you're being bullied or dying because you're throwing yourself at the enemy again and again expecting a different result?

Groups farming players who continue throwing themselves at the enemy is allowed. If there's a player at a resource tower who I can't defeat, could I keep attacking the tower and then complain to ZOS that they killed me again and again? Of course not. If there's a player waiting in ambush and I ride past the same spot a second, or third, or fourth+ time, can I complain when they attack me? Of course not.

Another example: players in Cyrodiil and Imperial City are allowed to camp quest locations. They don't have to let anyone pass after X number of deaths. This is a common complaint during Midyear Mayhem from players who expect easy event tickets, but there are also many counterplays to ambushes and gamers (including teaming up with my faction mates to push the enemy player off my objective.) That's all a part of normal gameplay in a PVP zone.

That's not to say that farming can't turn toxic and reportable, especially if whispers or teabagging is involved. But in most pure farming situations, the player who's dying has the ability to walk away, try another tactic to accomplish their goal, or team up with others.

If it is a matter of harassment rather than normal PVP gameplay, then yeah, report it. Extra stuff like "I asked them to stop and they didn't" or additional toxic behavior like whispers and teabagging can help Support establish intent, as well as continuing to report the behavior as it happens to build a history. But it's not strictly necessary to check all the boxes before reporting something that feels icky.

Heromofo · March 2023

Whoah when did T-bagging become a toxic thing?, this has been a thing since the old halo days. Heck yesterday doing the daily random. This dk and i were having full on mad clashes and he murked me and tbagged me. I came back and did the same and then he got me last and did it. I always enjoyed this like "ahahah i got you buddy!", after a mad fight.

I don't do pvp much outside of the daily random due to lag etc but i never thought i would see in my life time one of the oldest taunts getting called toxic.

Also how do you farm the same person over and over in pvp?, that person getting farmed must not have much in the old noggin if they don't know how to leave the area, stealth or run away.

If you go to a place like IC and expect everyone to take it easy on ya then i got a 30 year old car to sell ya.

thorwyn · March 2023

This thread is so german it's almost jodling. And I am entitled to say that because I am german. *g*

Do you really expect people to provide you with a complete "list" of bannable offences that you can print out and refer to before reporting players?
Read the TOS. Everything is outlined there. If you think an action is a violation of the TOS, report the person if you really feel obliged to. And if ZOS agrees with your assessment, they will take care of the case and punish the offender. It is impossible to define each and every possible case in advance. It's all situational.
Camping inside a keep with the intention of farming some easy kills is definitely a valid tactic. As an old time DAoC player, you should know that.

virtus753 · March 2023

Heromofo wrote: »

Whoah when did T-bagging become a toxic thing?, this has been a thing since the old halo days. Heck yesterday doing the daily random. This dk and i were having full on mad clashes and he murked me and tbagged me. I came back and did the same and then he got me last and did it. I always enjoyed this like "ahahah i got you buddy!", after a mad fight.

I don't do pvp much outside of the daily random due to lag etc but i never thought i would see in my life time one of the oldest taunts getting called toxic.

Since people started using it to harass others and since Gina explicitly said that if someone asks you to stop, you must stop. Even if you personally think teabagging is never toxic, other players can think otherwise. More importantly, ZOS has said otherwise, and we've all agreed to abide by their interpretation of their own Terms of Service and Code of Conduct.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6962775/#Comment_6962775

BenTSG · March 2023

T-Bagging and hate whispering, sure, I can see that being reportable. Though I have sent my share and seen little to no effort of action being taken, proof included, so I'm not holding my breath.

Now using emotes and momentos, especially emotes in PvP I think is fine. Emotes are there for a reason, and if you're going to taunt someone then at least put in even half the effort to do that instead of T-bagging, at least emotes have lots of different ones you can do. Of course if it annoys people too much and they tell you to stop and you don't, then you could probably be reported for it, but I find that if people are going to get made over being emoted at/on, especially if it's the first time and they take the effort to hate whisper you for it, then they are just toxic themselves and shouldn't really be minded. It's a video game, find something better to do and stop being so serious about the game and get mad over a virtual animation towards your character people!

VaranisArano · March 2023

BenTSG wrote: »

T-Bagging and hate whispering, sure, I can see that being reportable. Though I have sent my share and seen little to no effort of action being taken, proof included, so I'm not holding my breath.

Now using emotes and momentos, especially emotes in PvP I think is fine. Emotes are there for a reason, and if you're going to taunt someone then at least put in even half the effort to do that instead of T-bagging, at least emotes have lots of different ones you can do. Of course if it annoys people too much and they tell you to stop and you don't, then you could probably be reported for it, but I find that if people are going to get made over being emoted at/on, especially if it's the first time and they take the effort to hate whisper you for it, then they are just toxic themselves and shouldn't really be minded. It's a video game, find something better to do and stop being so serious about the game and get mad over a virtual animation towards your character people!

Emotes are weird when ZOS sells stuff like "Flip the Bird" which is explicitly stated for the purpose of showing disdain to your adversary.

That more than anything illustrates to me the difficulty of trying to draw a hard and fast rule over what's acceptable taunting behavior in PVP and what's not. Like, sure a /bow is more respectful than /sweep, but /kissthis is sold in the Crown Store? Ok...

BenTSG · March 2023

VaranisArano wrote: »

BenTSG wrote: »

T-Bagging and hate whispering, sure, I can see that being reportable. Though I have sent my share and seen little to no effort of action being taken, proof included, so I'm not holding my breath.

Now using emotes and momentos, especially emotes in PvP I think is fine. Emotes are there for a reason, and if you're going to taunt someone then at least put in even half the effort to do that instead of T-bagging, at least emotes have lots of different ones you can do. Of course if it annoys people too much and they tell you to stop and you don't, then you could probably be reported for it, but I find that if people are going to get made over being emoted at/on, especially if it's the first time and they take the effort to hate whisper you for it, then they are just toxic themselves and shouldn't really be minded. It's a video game, find something better to do and stop being so serious about the game and get mad over a virtual animation towards your character people!

Emotes are weird when ZOS sells stuff like "Flip the Bird" which is explicitly stated for the purpose of showing disdain to your adversary.

That more than anything illustrates to me the difficulty of trying to draw a hard and fast rule over what's acceptable taunting behavior in PVP and what's not. Like, sure a /bow is more respectful than /sweep, but /kissthis is sold in the Crown Store? Ok...

I mean, yeah, true, it is on them for selling such emotes as well, but if you really want to taunt someone for one reason or another, it's at least better then T-bagging and has more class and banter to it. Between friends, sure T-bagging is whatever, but to some random person? Come on now, do better...

To be fair, I don't remember the last time I saw anyone do anything 'honourable' towards someone they've killed. Most of the people I've seen is just toxic anyways. Run away from a fight because you're a healer and you know you can't kill them? You're a troll. Do an emote? Troll. Get beaten in fights thanks to disgustingly sweaty builds and game mechanics not working at all? Bagged. Like what???? Pick a lane!

SeaGtGruff · March 2023

I've been t-bagged a few times, but I always laugh it off.

Oddly enough, the worst cases of toxicity I've experienced in PvP were from other players in my own alliance.

One time was during a Cyrodiil event several years ago. I'd been running around soloing resources for the resource quests, then decided to join a group that was sieging and defending keeps. After several hours of that, some guy shows up-- I think he must have just logged on-- and starts talking to me in chat but I didn't see it. Then he comes right up to my face and says "you speak english?" I scrolled back, saw his previous question to me about why didn't I have siege equipment so I wouldn't just be standing around. For the record, I was standing by the ram but would move away to stay alive when the enemy targetted the ram. I responded to him with an apology about not having seen his question, but I typed in /zone chat by mistake because I'd been typing in /zone chat earlier that night, whereas he was using /say. So then he insults me for using /zone chat to answer him, and ends with "omg you're a moron." So as soon as we finished taking that keep, I mounted up and rode off to resume soloing resources deep in enemy territory.

Last week I jumped into Cyrodiil but my home campaign was pop-locked with a 33-minute queue, so I joined the other CP campaign-- which was also pop-locked for 2 of the 3 factions (mine included), although it had only a 1-minute queue. My main goal was to complete the daily endeavor-- I think it was for a Chorrol quest-- but I also wanted to have fun helping with the war effort, so I ported and rode to the nearest keep that looked like it had a fight going on. When I got there, the fight was over, everyone from my faction had apparently been driven off, and our camp had been destroyed, so I checked the map for another keep where something was going on, but it looked like most of the keeps we'd had were already flipped. Then I decided to just ride to Chorrol, do the 10 quests for Chorrol and Weynon Priory, and go back to the base game to do my other stuff for the night. On the way, I started harvesting nodes, then this massive parade of players comes into view, escorting a scroll runner back to base. I start riding along with them, but continued to stop to harvest nodes. When we got to our base gate, I peeled off (since the scroll runner was safely through) and rode off toward Chorrol. Then one of the players starts commenting about me in /zone chat, calling me "slow in the head," "you can tell." I did 1 Chorrol quest for the endeavor, queued to IC, then saw that my home campaign had gone down to a 1-minute queue. The other campaign looked like everyone had basically logged out for the night after they got our scroll back and let the other factions capture all of our keeps. So I queued for my home campaign and had a blast for the rest of the night, sieging and defending keeps, burning enemy camps and siege engines, and of course getting killed over and over. I even got several PvP achievements for killing 100 players of various classes or races.

It can be hard, but you just have to try to keep toxic players from pooping on your fun and ruining your day or night. You can't stop them from trying to poop on you, but you can ignore them and just keep on having fun despite them. Their behavior and comments are saying more about them than about you.

Jamie_Aubrey · March 2023

Half the players are offline anyway so how can you tell them to STOP

I save the replay report and move on, you want to tbag me for **** all, I'll just report you

Hell even someone was streaming and they did a half assed tbag, they went into sneak and walked over to me and walked away ( while I was reloading UI so I didn't see it until a friend told me )

SeaGtGruff · March 2023

Uh, you can usually tell when someone is deliberately being needlessly rude to you.

But you can't know what their day's been like, or even their whole life, so it's best to just let it slide (as long as it isn't outright threatening toward you), ignore them, and move on.

Tarys · March 2023

Thanks for the replies and opinions so far but i looks like noone really has a clue when things are ok and when they are not - besides the obvious things that are a reason to get a ban.

And yes, as a "good german" i would really like some sort of list or examples ... would also save the support team lots of work if people could just read through it and know if the thing they find "insulting" is something worth to report or not. No sane company would f.e. place a shield in a factory stating that ignoring a stop sign while driving a car is sometimes ok ... so leaving things in the hands of someone who just decides according to his mood if people should get a warning for doing so ... not good.

@thorwyn
you proily played a different daoc as i ... there was as good as never any form of keep farming like it is going on here in eso. 90% of the keeps were just taken to get into df or to weaken defense for relict raids. Just a handful keeps (the ones close to the homezone in OF f.e.) were barely good enough to farm players. There was no porting around the map. Players were most of the times slow. The fights were more static as your casters couldnt do much while moving and overall the use of cc with focus decided which group wins (and of course their realm rank and related abilities). And solo players couldn´t stay hidden in keeps to farm ... only 2 classes (ok ... 3 when playing albion) had access to stealth and just 1 (2 albion) could climb into keeps and hope to kill some afk buffbot ...

Feljax · March 2023

BenTSG wrote: »

I mean, yeah, true, it is on them for selling such emotes as well, but if you really want to taunt someone for one reason or another, it's at least better then T-bagging and has more class and banter to it. Between friends, sure T-bagging is whatever, but to some random person? Come on now, do better...

This ^^^

Had someone challenge me to a duel in Alinor on my Necro healer the other night. I never duel but figured what the heck, might be fun to give it a go on this toon? It never even occurred to me NOT to cast my "illegal" spells while in town. So, of course I aggro some guards during the duel making it a pretty quick end for me. Clearly for that, I deserved to be t-bagged.

Then I watch the same person duel other people and treat them respectably enough. Generally, I try to let that stuff roll off my back but I do find it perplexing sometimes how people can be so rude for no apparent reason.

VaranisArano · March 2023

Tarys wrote: »

Thanks for the replies and opinions so far but i looks like noone really has a clue when things are ok and when they are not - besides the obvious things that are a reason to get a ban.

And yes, as a "good german" i would really like some sort of list or examples ... would also save the support team lots of work if people could just read through it and know if the thing they find "insulting" is something worth to report or not. No sane company would f.e. place a shield in a factory stating that ignoring a stop sign while driving a car is sometimes ok ... so leaving things in the hands of someone who just decides according to his mood if people should get a warning for doing so ... not good.

You might consider that one of the reasons that Support doesn't lay out the rules for players as clearly as you'd like but leaves it to their agents' internal rules is because that makes it harder for players to follow the letter of the law while violating its spirit.

Ultimately, ZOS is the final arbiter of what's a violation. They've chosen a system where players decide what they deem reportable and then Support decides what actually warrants discipline because that's what they pay these people for.

If you're worried about you reporting someone else, go ahead and report whatever you deem reportable. Support gets paid to make the determination what's worthy of disciplinary action.

If you're worried about someone else reporting you, I suggest that making a habit of acting respectfully is a good idea.

SerasWhip · March 2023

Tarys wrote: »

Thanks for the replies and opinions so far but i looks like noone really has a clue when things are ok and when they are not - besides the obvious things that are a reason to get a ban.

No sane company would f.e. place a shield in a factory stating that ignoring a stop sign while driving a car is sometimes ok ... so leaving things in the hands of someone who just decides according to his mood if people should get a warning for doing so ... not good.

Dude, how is this discussion comparable to a real life hazard?

If someone's being toxic through chat or whispers, just mute them. Problem solved.

If someone t-bags you that's fine, nothing to do go crazy about, just kill them back and do the same. This isn't something to get upset over.

If someone kills you over and over, and if you can't kill them back, do not go near them. If they follow you or farming you, well, that's the nature of pvp. You either go better or just refrain from engaging in pvp if dying over and over disturbs you to a limit where you would want that person to be banned.

robwolf666 · March 2023

Well, y'know, bullies etc are at heart attention seekers, so I give them the most insulting reaction available - I simply completely ignore them and carry on with what I'm doing like they don't exist. I'm having fun doing what I'm doing, they're just wasting time in mommy's basement.

xilfxlegion · March 2023

maybe its because i dont pvp, but t-bagging is something to get upset about ? really ?

i can see if someone is sending you messages cursing you out or stuff like that. but someone squatting over you after you die is a hate crime now ?

this whole " everything i dont like is toxic " deal is already getting old.

if you keep dying in the same place - dont go to that place.

i remember people sending me hate messages in call of duty because after i killed them, they would just keep going back to the very same place i killed them. like it was an accident that i shot them the first time.

there's so much actual stuff to get angry about -- tbagging shouldnt even be i the top 100.

then again, this post will probably be considered toxic

Liguar · March 2023

It really doesn't matter if there are official store-bought emotes, or people are going to spam crouch over your face for their own entertainment... it's going to keep happening no matter what.

In another game recently people were complaining that some of the positive emotes were being used in a passive-aggressive way, as if it were something new and people hadn't been using "GG" and "well played" or the equivalent in a derisive manner for a couple of decades plus in every multiplayer game with any form of communication. I personally don't care for it, because we should be able to hold on to a shred of good sportsmanship.

I think mudballs are obnoxious, but they're in the game, not much to do about it except think slightly less of the player who threw it each time it happens. I think of it as a permastacking respect debuff.

Lebkuchen · March 2023

When you start the game, you accept the rules. It doesn't hurt to read them. But rules will never be absolutely fair and completely clear. Life doesn't work like that. Maybe one day for our robot overlords it will, but for us humans it doesn't. I don't know of a single country in the history of Earth that has (or had) clear and fair rules. Every law, every religion, every philosophy, every situation is open for interpretation. If all of them can't manage to achieve what you are asking for, you might be asking a little too much from the few people working on this part of the game.

The easiest way to end toxic relationships in video games like ESO is to ask the other player to please leave you alone. If that doesn't work you can block, ignore and avoid each other. If that doesn't help, report them. If they threaten you in real life, go to the police. Engaging in endless conversations about how to behave, making "exposed" videos, exploiting the faulty report system by asking friends to massreport, claiming keeps with stupid guildnames and all the other stuff players like to do, will not make anyone win anything... It will not make anyone a better person. It will not make anyone feel better. And it will not make anyone stop. It will just make you a juicy target for every troll out there. And maybe you might even become toxic yourself.

A lot of people in this world like to hurt each other and want to see the world burn. You can always report them when you feel like it's necessary, but it's not your responsibility to deal with them. There are plenty of professionals who are trained do that for you (game moderators, police, therapists...).

ESO is still just a video game, and in my opinion almost all the things you listed above are a normal part of this game, and should not be a problem.

SerasWhip · March 2023

Heromofo wrote: »

I don't know where the line is but T-bagging and saying mean things in video games doesn't feel correct.

I personally see T-bagging as a harmless gesture, I just smile when someone does it to me, it doesn't make me ponder or rage at all. That person is basically saying ''Hah! Gotcha!''. I find it strange when people take it as a serious personal insult. I don't think it is worth taking action against their account.

About saying mean words to another player, I do agree that it is tasteless. I do not support it, and I would not claim that it is okay to curse someone. I have just provided a simple solution to the problem. The solution is to simply mute them. As we have a simple solution, I find this issue to be too trivial to discuss, which was my point against OP's argument.

jle30303 · March 2023

"teabagging" is not a harmless gesture. it's an explicitly sexual one in the way that mudballing, or flipping the bird, are not.

Aerenthir · March 2023

In general my experience with games and rules is that the actually punishable ones are those that can actually cost the company money or end up with bad publicity.

- Cheating engines
- RMT
- Racism
- Sexism

Everything else is disregarded as s joke and nobody will actually pay attention to it. Peoples triggers are their own, and the world doesn't and shouldn't revolve around those.

As for what is punishable etc. I can assume that ToS is the place you need to look.

SerasWhip · March 2023

jle30303 wrote: »

"teabagging" is not a harmless gesture. it's an explicitly sexual one in the way that mudballing, or flipping the bird, are not.

It's not the same thing as some stranger on the street flipping you off. Teabagging is part of the gaming culture and has been a long time. It primarily does not carry that sexual meaning anymore. Holding teabagging equal to things like mudballing is reading waay too much into it.

Shihp00 · March 2023

you can avoid any toxic text interaction just by appearing offline.
personally don't mind Player BMs like tbaggin, whispers, banters using emotes or mementos

but using Hate Speech and Constant Harassment should get someone "Perma'd". Cheating (if guilty) should be IP Banned.

Beilin_Balreis_Colcan · March 2023

I had an unusual case of harassment the other day: I had arrived at a chest, with no other player present, had started unlocking it, and noticed just outside the chest unlocking UI that another player had appeared. After I finished unlocking it and retrieved its contents, the other player then started following me everywhere.

I even mounted and galloped away, and the player still followed me. I ended up porting to my house just to get rid of the player. Presumably the player was angry that I'd opened the chest first, and intended to prevent me doing any further harvesting in that zone. Pretty childish if that was indeed the case.

In other words: player harassment comes in many forms. I didn't report this, because it only occurred once. If that player had repeatedly targetted me with that behaviour, I would have reported it, though.

karthrag_inak · March 2023

Khajiit laughs at tbags.
"You know you have literally nothing there, yes? You are proud of this?"

But khajiit does understand the OP's sentiments. This one has stopped doing certain activities even with guild mates whose company he mostly enjoys due to a few wormy apples who sometimes worm their way into the mix. Is tragic but what can khajiit do?

JavaRen · March 2023

re: teabagging: [snip] may be so normalized to you that it is no longer offensive, but no one has any right to expect others to be okay with it. [snip]

[Edited for baiting]