Fake roles in group finder

Ardriel · February 11

Unfortunately, I often see players joining the group finder with the wrong role. Even in vet raids. That's why I think it would be useful to ask for a short confirmation of the current role when you want join a group: "Are you sure you want to join (x) with your current role (x)?"
I post here in the pts forum, because there would still be time enough to implement it in the next update.

Aerin · February 12

ZoS missed the opportunity to enhance the group finder feature significantly. If a raid leader requests achievements, only accounts with verified achievements should be able to view the trial, preventing players from linking fake achievements. Similarly, regarding roles, if a player joins as a DD, they should not be allowed to change it after join. This would prevent many instances of players causing disruptions by joining as one role and then switching unexpectedly. In some cases, raid leaders have had to kick out players because they were unaware of who joined with a fake role, resulting in unnecessary disruptions to the group. The group finder has great potential, but ZoS could have made it even better by implementing these measures.

J18696 · February 12

How exactly would we add measures to stop this from happening tho do we hard lock the tank role to a certain health threshold because you can still just sign up as a tank but play a dps with health attributes and barely affect damage really

James-Wayne · February 12

If there were more sources of transmutes for dungeon players and collecting weapons from item sets the whole fake role wouldn't be a big issue for some but as it stands its 10 transmutes for random runs (this doesnt affect the new group finder) and final boss drops for weapon pieces (with a rare chance on chest quality higher than simple).

I would prefer a system that rewards you (can be keys to buy item set pieces, convert for transmutes etc) for playing a % of the role you selected. ie your role is Tank so you get rewarded up to a max if you taunt bosses/shielded enemies, use crowd control abilities (sorry Templar), buff/debuff etc

But I guess the mantra is play how you want so maybe the above is needed

Daoin · February 12

not anymore can we blame the actual game except for 1 thing that we are still getting pulled into really rubbish other peoples pledges in random dungeon finder instead of them creating groups which is making random dungeon not random but repetative, but as for joining in the wrong role in group finder then only once i have been looking at what available for each role on the dungeons list but by mistake i had not changed my role back to dd and joined the random dungeon section instead in wrong role without realizing...i just apologized to the group then changed character to the correct role so could re-invite me and continue...water under the bridge..

Aerin · February 12

J18696 wrote: »

How exactly would we add measures to stop this from happening tho do we hard lock the tank role to a certain health threshold because you can still just sign up as a tank but play a dps with health attributes and barely affect damage really

To prevent this issue, it's quite simple. Once you join a group in the group finder, your assigned role should be locked in and unchangeable. If you initially join as a tank but intend to play as a DD, it becomes too easy for the group leader to remove you. Alternatively, you could leave the group, adjust your role to the appropriate one, and rejoin. Can't we make this process any simpler?

J18696 · February 12

Aerin wrote: »

J18696 wrote: »

How exactly would we add measures to stop this from happening tho do we hard lock the tank role to a certain health threshold because you can still just sign up as a tank but play a dps with health attributes and barely affect damage really

To prevent this issue, it's quite simple. Once you join a group in the group finder, your assigned role should be locked in and unchangeable. If you initially join as a tank but intend to play as a DD, it becomes too easy for the group leader to remove you. Alternatively, you could leave the group, adjust your role to the appropriate one, and rejoin. Can't we make this process any simpler?

The solution in this scenario would be to just kick the person so it exists you just need to keep kicking them locking the role you join as would help the group finder from bugging out so good idea there but won't stop this

Example I'm a dps and join as a healer locking me from swapping my role to dps does nothing I'll just stay a healer and play as a dps

It sounds like you want a system that will lock you out from selecting a role you are not and that's what I mean how do we dictate what role you are and are not its not really possible just going off stats

Lalothen · February 12

Have the vet dungeon & trial group finder check a character's slotted CP for tanking, healing or DPS stars, and LOCK the CP trees from the point at which someone joins the group finder until they leave the resultant group. I'd also advocate a gear check, but that might make things a bit complex for the ESO spaghetti code... even a CP check & tree lock might be pushing it tbh.

Elsonso · February 12

Aerin wrote: »

ZoS missed the opportunity to enhance the group finder feature significantly. If a raid leader requests achievements, only accounts with verified achievements should be able to view the trial, preventing players from linking fake achievements.

Achievements in this game are cosmetic. While the player may have achieved it, past performance does not guarantee future results. The achievement requirement ends up being more of a "social club" than anything meaningful.

Aerin wrote: »

Similarly, regarding roles, if a player joins as a DD, they should not be allowed to change it after join. This would prevent many instances of players causing disruptions by joining as one role and then switching unexpectedly.

The only way that the game could attempt to enforce the rule of not changing roles is to block gear swaps and to make sure the player is removed from the group if they try to switch characters after joining. This would work contrary to times when role changes are desired.

It is also worth remembering that the players not only define the roles, but they are the role. The game provides guidance, but it is the players, not the characters, the do the roles. Even if the player has the proper tools (character) to do the role, there is no guarantee that the player knows how to do the role in a manner that meets expectations.

Enforcing the proper tools does not guarantee that the role will be filled.

Aerin · February 12

J18696 wrote: »

The solution in this scenario would be to just kick the person so it exists you just need to keep kicking them locking the role you join as would help the group finder from bugging out so good idea there but won't stop this

Example I'm a dps and join as a healer locking me from swapping my role to dps does nothing I'll just stay a healer and play as a dps
It sounds like you want a system that will lock you out from selecting a role you are not and that's what I mean how do we dictate what role you are and are not its not really possible just going off stats

"I'm a dps and join as a healer" It's best to leave the group and adjust your role properly. If you continue to play as a DPS and start using healing skills, someone will likely notice and you may be kicked out. Similarly, if you don't contribute much damage because you're a healer, other players will notice. You can't maintain a false role in a trial for too long unless nobody pays attention.
Just leave the group, fix your role, and join again. This is too simple for us to complicate with "if" questions.

J18696 · February 12

Aerin wrote: »

J18696 wrote: »

The solution in this scenario would be to just kick the person so it exists you just need to keep kicking them locking the role you join as would help the group finder from bugging out so good idea there but won't stop this

Example I'm a dps and join as a healer locking me from swapping my role to dps does nothing I'll just stay a healer and play as a dps
It sounds like you want a system that will lock you out from selecting a role you are not and that's what I mean how do we dictate what role you are and are not its not really possible just going off stats

"I'm a dps and join as a healer" It's best to leave the group and adjust your role properly. If you continue to play as a DPS and start using healing skills, someone will likely notice and you may be kicked out. Similarly, if you don't contribute much damage because you're a healer, other players will notice. You can't maintain a false role in a trial for too long unless nobody pays attention.
Just leave the group, fix your role, and join again. This is too simple for us to complicate with "if" questions.

Thats my entire point the solution already exists if you stay in the role you get kicked its easy to figure it out we already have the solution no amount of locking gear locking champion points is going to solve this we already have the tools the only reasonable suggestion I've seen is to lock the group role after you have joined so people cannot bug out the group finder and have it searching for roles you no longer need

My example was not understood either people sign up as the wrong role on purpose because the role they want is already filled this is what people are doing to bypass the system and it comes back around to the solution just kick them

Majority of people signing up for grp finder trials as the wrong role isn't on mistake its on purpose to get into the group and quickly change role and hope someone didn't notice who it was and someone else gets kicked

g0thiCiCecReaM · February 12

Elsonso wrote: »

The only way that the game could attempt to enforce the rule of not changing roles is to block gear swaps and to make sure the player is removed from the group if they try to switch characters after joining. This would work contrary to times when role changes are desired.

Yeah, no, as a tank I have like 3 sets of gear for different situations, I will often swap gear depending on the content, how well the group is handling stuff etc. You can block armory assistants, but not swapping gear.

It wouldn't matter anyways, people are just jerks and queue fake roles regardless, there's really no way to enforce it. Amazingly enough I had someone queue vet random the other day as a healer and they were obviously not, couldn't kick them either b/c one person wouldn't vote yes.

No matter what you do, someone will find a way to troll just to be a jerk, you put in restrictions or mitigations on fake roles and people will just troll that just to troll, or if you put in a way to penalize trolls, people will use that to troll legit players...it's just how online gaming is.

Ardriel · February 12

Of course it's true that the easiest solution is to kick the fakers. However, I believe that many players accidentally join with the wrong role, simply because they were previously in the random dungeon with a fake role and forgot to change it. (I'm talking about the group finder tool - not the dungeon finder.) A simple, brief reference to the current role when joining the group finder could help. Of course not against deliberate fake role joining and trolling. But for these candidates there is always the kick function.

Daoin · February 12

easiest solution is leave group and take the penalty and log in with another char, if a players asks for a kick now even on thier dd's because queues are a little longer i found most of the times well over half a group will refuse to kick the player wanting to leave mostly making a big issue out of it. most of the time i just leave groups i dont want to be in now and sometimes politely ask for a kick if im pressed for time and really wanted to do a dungeon on the char im playing. either way by the time i have logged to another dd and done maybe some writs the dungeon has usually been ready again on the different character.

festegios · February 12

The option to whisper the raid lead via the group finder to confirm your role before they accept your name into group could be the easiest fix.

Would also show that people can read what’s put.

The amount of times I’ll say we want arcans/plars/DK to have warden dps join.

Or no HA builds for them to join.

Deter1UK · February 12

James-Wayne wrote: »

If there were more sources of transmutes

Bonus loot from excavations would seem an obvious source

Elyu · February 12

Seen more than a few threads on forums over past few months complaining about the "fake roles" epidemic.

Not sure if there is a simple solution to this as there are a few different things going on here.

1) Availability of transmutes - many many people (myself included) queue as "tank" or "heal" roles for random normal dungeons as that is currently far and away the fastest (reliable) way to obtain transmutes without a regular+ skilled + reliable group to run pledges / alliance war farming.
Any reasonably skilled+geared player can solo normal dungeons, so as long as we have a taunt/heal slotted depending on the role chosen we can easily run a dps build and speed through the dungeon in order to obtain our daily transmutes.

In order to solve the "fake roles" in random normal, you'd need to provide e.g. a greater transmute crystal reward (per time spent) for some other activity (e.g. random veteran dungeon, or daily undaunted pledges) in order to incentivise those after transmutes (and capable of farming them) to group together with like-minded players. e.g. veteran DLC dungeons and veteran trials should drop transmutes for every completion, not just weekly / external quests (pledges).

2) Dungeon difficulty vs player skill - again a reasonably skilled+geared group can clear all base-game dungeons with 4dd, and a significant number of DLC dungeons with 1 tank + 3dd.
Here the problem is matching players with different expectations together in the same group - 1 player is speed farming transmutes/gear, 2 are slow-farming transmutes (e.g. lower CP players) and 1 player is story-mode the dungeon, yet all 4 have queued using the dungeon finder because trying to use anything else (zone chat, group finder) is SO SLOW for anything other than normal trials.

Not entirely sure what the solution to this would be, but combining the group finder and dungeon finder together into one tool would help "pool" players rather than leaving them spread out amongst different ways of finding groups (although I agree with above comments that there should be some way of ensuring players have some way of finding like-minded individuals to group with for different activities)

3) Player competence - joining challenging, group oriented content (veteran DLC dungeons, veteran trials) but either though lack of skill / knowledge of mechanics / quality of gear is more a hindrance to the group than anything else.

Skill / knowledge of mechanics - not sure how to deal with this. Even with "CP tree checks" or "achievement checks" or anything else the chances of a player having bought 1 carry run then joining a group and linking a (genuine) achievement is just too easy. I have personally led veteran trial runs in which myself and maybe 1-3 other players are attempting to carry the other 9 players in the group who, despite urging from the "proactive players" refuse to either volunteer for essential duties (e.g. tombs for vSS 1st boss) or ask for help / clarification of mechanics or repeatedly die to easily avoidable boss mechanics (e.g. ice blast vSE 1st boss)

Quality of gear - there's partly progression in place, but this covers a few bases as well. Overland + crafted is "starter" gear as is (relatively) easy to acquire via purchases from guild traders + master crafters.
But then dungeon gear + trial gear would require transmutes to obtain a full set of gear + options all in correct traits, which then overlaps with point 1.
Suggestion - bring the acquisition of transmutes in line with the speed of acquisition of gear - e.g. every new stickerbook unlock grants some transmutes crystals + either remove or GREATLY increase the transmute limit. or have a transmute limit per character in addition to the account wide limit.
(as it currently stands, even if you fully unlock a gear set such that every piece costs 25 transmutes, outfitting even ONE character with decent gear + options depending on content + group setup would burn through most of the current 1000 transmute limit)

Treeshka · February 12

Yes please. Sometimes joined group finder as tank role selected while playing damage dealer. When you respec from healer to tank or damage dealer, role does not automatically change basically. It causes some unnecessary issues for group finder environment.

Ardriel · February 13

Treeshka wrote: »

Yes please. Sometimes joined group finder as tank role selected while playing damage dealer. When you respec from healer to tank or damage dealer, role does not automatically change basically. It causes some unnecessary issues for group finder environment.

Absolutely correct. That would be my next suggestion for improvement: Please make it possible to save a role matching the build in the Armory.

ShadowPaladin · February 13

Doing something about the *Fake-Role* problem isn't easy. Sadly

.

If you would do something as "blocking role changes" (swaping skills and gear), like it was mentioned already, it wouldn't do any good. Why? Simply because it would cause more problems than it would solve. Let me give you an example from personal experience.

I am playing a Sorc-Magi-DD as my main char (since day one

). From time to time, during a dungeon or trial run, I find myself in a situation where I do need to step in as a heal. I need to do this because the healer got dc'ed, left the group or isn't as good as he/she should be. Since I do have all the skills leveled and the gear I need for such a role swap, I can do it. But, with a block in place, I wouldn't be able to do it. That would result in a situation where the group would need to look and wait for another healer or - worst case - would be disbanded

.

From my experiences there are only a few possible ways you can try to solve this *Fake-Role* problem.

One would be a combination out of incentives and penalties. For example, - as it also was already mentioned - increase the rewards for playing certain things, with certain roles (e.g. more transmute crystals, boxes with special loot, etc.), BUT also do increase the penalties if you try to fake your way through (e.g. longer lockout timers, perhaps even account-wide timers, no loot and rewards what so ever, etc.).

In most cases the bottom line will be that players need to be aware of fake-rolers and need to be able to do something about them (kick from group). In addition fake-rolers need to be punished hard (12-24h account-wide lockout on what ever group activity they tried to fake through).