A thread about community management

(continued from http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/32201 )

quote: - i don`t think of new players as being the only cause for this social mechanic, but they are obviously part of it if you want or not.

Victims are part of rape cases too but but I don't try to solve that problem by telling them to dress less provocatively.

quote: - i don`t think of new players as being the only cause for this social mechanic, but they are obviously part of it if you want or not.

Players who play poorly in such a way as to degrade the game experience of others bear some responsibility for the "game is less fun for others" issue. They do not bear responsibility for the "people being toxic" issue.

quote: - what you are doing is to shift the blame entirely upon the players that get stressed out.

Solving the toxicity problem by trying to have the people who are being toxic not be toxic any more... doesn't seem like an unreasonable concept?

quote: - even IF you are right with the victim-blame-view, you have to admit that there is a social problem in team-games that you seem to be unable to solve with your ideology/way to deal with it.

I don't think social problems are avoidable when you throw 20+ online video game players in the same game.

I could throw some stones at your competing "ideology" but I think I'll pass for now.

quote: in return, you do not expect ANYTHING from new players. this feels unfair.

Toxicity from new players is not treated with any more tolerance than toxicity from experienced players.

quote: - how can we teach people the concept of income and expansion? if you look at team-games, the players that draw the most anger upon them are the ones that sit in their corner of the map turtling. players that produce units and suicide them seem to be far less annoying to most others, even tho they arguably do more harm than the back-turtlers. - is it possible to make a super-short tutorial that explains the fundamental mechanics of the game that i described above?

The first couple of missions of the campaign do talk about expanding already. Perhaps there could be a somewhat more explicit guide thrown more in people's faces. I'd prefer to spend my limited development bandwidth on Planetwars or something though.

That being said, you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make them drink. There will still be a large proportion of new players who do not bother with any meaningful perusal of any guide material.

quote: Demanding endless emotional stability from expierienced players while finding the need to play maybe five missions of the campain an unacceptable burden to others seems quite out of touch with reality to say the least.

If you think I am demanding "endless emotional stability" you must not have seen me play very much in a while. Sometimes people have to vent and I get that. I do not think it is too much to expect that more experienced players
- are not overly toxic
- do not use kickvote against players outside of where it is clearly necessary to prevent abuse

quote: If you find it unreasonable to expect players to show a minimum of efford to play with their team i don`t know what to say.

From passworded rooms to tournaments to matchmaker to !proposebattle to events I think there are a lot of options available for people to play games with a guarantee that their teammates will make a reasonable effort. I am not sure it is a reasonable thing to expect of games in the clusterfuck room. I can't think of any other game I have ever played in which
(a) teams were on the order of 12v12 or more and
(b) it was consistently true that in a random pick-up game many of the other people on my team had any idea what they were doing and/or the desire and capability to play in a coordinated way with their team

quote: I don`t think so either but you can do something to lower them. To use your own method: You are saying that society will always have conflict, so why trying to get people to get along at all?

You're the one who described not being able to "solve" the problem as a failure of my "ideology". If you agree that was an unreasonable requirement then we can ignore it and move on.

quote: Yes. But you don`t even lead them to the water because you assume in advance that it`s pointless without even having tried.

The campaign exists. I think that throwing more tutorial stuff in people's faces might potentially have a marginally positive effect but I have other things to spend my time on.

quote: If you think I am demanding "endless emotional stability" you must not have seen me play very much in a while. Sometimes people have to vent and I get that. I do not think it is too much to expect that more experienced players - are not overly toxic - do not use kickvote against players outside of where it is clearly necessary to prevent abuse

No, definitely not. I think you are straw-manning me quite a bit. I want to PREVENT SITUATIONS that could potentially lead people to initiate kickvotes and throwing insults AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. Players have all rights to be treated with respect, and that goes for everyone. In return, i don`t think it is too much to expect that the interests of ALL groups are represented and recognised as well.
Before the next point, let me stress that this is not a debate about your person. I think you are doing a pretty good job after all.
But you are a mod that has a pile of privileges and authority. I am fully aware that you get a lot of garbage thrown at you, from Keys to Drones to an uncountable number of childish accusations. But you still have the power to kick people if you wanted, because you are one of the few people that decides whereas those kicks were legit or not. All you have to fear is some forum-drama (from the same people every time as much as i can tell) or if you totally overdo it from other mods. You could also just end this discussion every time you wanted by locking the thread.
I know your position doesn`t make it easier for you, but you have a different perspective on things than the average clusterfuck-player. Please consider that as well. I stress again that this is not meant as a personal attack, but an encouragement to consider more perspectives.

quote: From passworded rooms to tournaments to matchmaker to !proposebattle to events I think there are a lot of options available for people to play games with a guarantee that their teammates will make a reasonable effort. I am not sure it is a reasonable thing to expect of games in the clusterfuck room. I can't think of any other game I have ever played in which (a) teams were on the order of 12v12 or more and (b) it was consistently true that in a random pick-up game many of the other people on my team had any idea what they were doing and/or the desire and capability to play in a coordinated way with their team

1. The usual argument against that, which is not my argument, is that one-room-culture exists.
2. so you have no interest in anything that could make the situation at least a tiny bit better?

quote: You're the one who described not being able to "solve" the problem as a failure of my "ideology". If you agree that was an unreasonable requirement then we can ignore it and move on.

1. I agree that solving is an unreasonable requirement, that was an unlucky choice of words from my side, as was "ideology". Propose a better term, i am still no native speaker. "Strategy"? I also know it`s not an opinion that you exclusively hold in this community. Maybe the way i put it made it sound like a personal attack, if so, sorry.
2. Wouldn`t it still be in the interest of EVERYONE (new, old, good, bad players, you, me) if we could improve the situation?

quote: The campaign exists.

So why not at least TRY to make the first few missions a requirement to join team-multiplayer? This has been proposed by many people multiple times already but was always brushed off.
I know your assumption is that this will have a repulsive effect on new players. Many of my points are based on assumptions as well. The only way to find out if those assumptions are correct is to test them. I am absolutely willing to change my opinion on those topics if my assumtions are proven wrong.

quote: I think that throwing more tutorial stuff in people's faces might potentially have a marginally positive effect but I have other things to spend my time on.

You don`t need to throw MORE at them, as said. Maybe the first few missions as they exist already are enough.
Suggestion: Make a poll like : "Would you be bothered if you had to play the first 5 campaign missions before you can play teams-multiplayer?"
If a significant (maybe 60% +) amount of people answers with yes, i would be convinced that i have to search for another way to improve the situation.

quote: but I have other things to spend my time on.

Yes i am fully aware. Thats why i spend MY time with it. And it would be more encouraging to do so if i wouldn`t get the impression that the people that are responsible for such decisions are not interested in suggestions how to improve the situation, even if they would benefit from them as well.


Anarchid

yes, i do realise that. You are straw-manning me as well. I have said already that getting toxic is generally unacceptable. Does that mean that thoughts about how to change a game-mode "that is liable to make (you) upset" are not viable?

Again, it is unfair to lay the complete blame to the non-new players as you do. This is going into the same direction as Aquanims polemic rape-comparison.

New Players chose to:

1.) play a gamemode where they take responsibility towards others. People in a team are DEPENDANT from each other. That is the huge difference to the rape-scenario. Here, players voluntarily chose to put themself in a situation where other people depend on them.

Yes, as you can see this list is not as long as yours. That is because the overall problem is way LESS with them. But in the (insert Aquas better word for "ideology" here) that is the official line of you admins, they have to take NO responsibility towards their team. (other than not being toxic as Aquanim already pointed out, but that is not what it is about mainly.) Expierienced players are asked to carry and endure to the best of their abilities while new players are not asked to even make the smallest, minimum efford they could make within their limited possibilities.

blah

quote: I did not say that. Who's straw-manning whom now?

maybe i interpreted your post wrong. i thought if you would see this as an example that you don`t support yourself, you would have used: "this game could be played in reverse" instead of "this game can be played in reverse." my bad.

quote: Where did you read that?

I did not read that but conclude it from expierience. I don`t think i recall a single instance where any new player recieved mod-action because of their playing (and this is more than absolutely fine and ok). Plus, there is no requirement to fulfil to join multiplayer. This leads me to believe that the official line of admins is that everyone can play without having to face any requirements.

quote: What is the limit of responsibility that you are willing to demand? How will you check for that?

The only thing one CAN demand imho is that players somehow know how to control this game on an absolute basic level.
- know how to select units and buildings
- have a vague idea that income and map control are related
- have an idea that the game is about annihilating your enemy. (i know that sounds funny but somehow you get the feeling that some players do assume their enemies will go away by themself. ok, suggestive.) In this case, you cannot do more than somehow tell them: "please be aware that if you chose to play in a team with others, they need your participation."

I have no solution for the problem Lu5ck named in their post, other than allowing to kick those people, but this is not wanted for reasons i completely agree on. "Playing bad" is a mostly subjective thing, "doing it deliberately" is a very subjective thing. It would open a rabbit-hole of abuse. (But even this has some limits for me personally, see http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/32188)

The only thing that can be done is to actively remind people that they take on some responsibility when going into team-games and to enforce a mini-tutorial so you don`t get the ones that sit around and try to figure out how to build stuff for example while their team gets killed. Those are not that many (sadly, in comparison to the people Lu5ck mentioned), but they exist. It is the only screw that can be adjusted as far as i see. So in my understanding this would mean setting a competence bar that:
- sits like 0.5 mm above the ground
- doesn`t ask more than for example to get familiar with the rules of a game of volleyball before you enter a running match
- doesn`t need to be enforced later because people had to do it. If they don`t care i can`t help it, but at least that makes it easier to judge if they are trolling or not.


I am aware that nothing helps against a lack of talent or a lack of cognitive ability, and i do not want those who suffer from that be punished by anyone either (at least not for their deficiencies themself)

As far as I have seen, regulars at all levels seem to want a particular property from their team. It's hard to define precisely, but it is something in the vicinity of everyone being willing to try, and to do their best.

Skill rating is a fairly poor proxy for this, being a mostly-sufficient condition - but not a necessary condition - for a player to be earnestly doing their best.

I don't know of any good solutions to this. Everything I have heard implies first needing to break one room culture, in order to obsolete the very intrusive workarounds that ensure fairness in its presence.

quote: And now we're right back to "telling rape victims not to dress provocatively".

you are not reading my text. i might as well talk to a brick.

quote: I am fundamentally disinterested in having a conversation on the basis of "we need to put more restrictions on newbies so that veterans are less toxic to newbies".

if you had actualy read my input and spend some thoughts on it, you would be aware of the fact that i gave answer to that as well. but you cannot do more than repeat things you have already said or threaten to end the conversation.

sad.

quote: I am aware that there are prices to be paid for a lot of potential actions, and furthermore that my time and desire for development work is limited.

fine and understandable. but why then do you claim almost exclusive control over those decisions? limited time is one thing, but limited desire another.
i will say it straight out, how blunt and impolite it may seem: if you want to be in a leading position, yet have no desire to put work into it, ask yourself how this goes together. now this is an open attack on you and i want it to be understood as such.

quote: And now we're right back to "telling rape victims not to dress provocatively".

Slightly modified:

quote: If they start a team-game, players chose to: 1.) play a gamemode where they take responsibility towards others. People in a team are DEPENDANT from each other. That is the huge difference to the rape-scenario. Here, players voluntarily chose to put themself in a situation where other people depend on them.

from passworded room, to coop-mm, to 1v1-matchmaker to open coop-rooms, there are a lot of options to satisfy your personal needs without having to take any responsibility towards other people.

quote: With the exception of this one part of the Code of Conduct: [...] new players and experienced players have exactly the same rights, privileges, and responsibilities.

so they don`t have the exact same rights, privileges, and responsibilities.

quote: and I am not particularly interested in heaping more responsibilities on new players and more privileges on experienced players to satisfy disgruntlement in the latter set.

quote: I don't claim any such control.

-> "and I am not particularly interested..."

-> "I am fundamentally disinterested in having a conversation on the basis of "we need to put more restrictions on newbies so that veterans are less toxic to newbies".

thanks for your time.

quote: It doesn't fundamentally change the character of "blaming the victim of toxicity for the toxicity" or "trying to reduce toxicity by putting restrictions on the likely victims of toxicity" though.

- i say it again that i am of the opinion that toxicity is generally unacceptable.

- next time someone leaves you hanging, tell yourself it`s your fault for expecting them to help you because you were being unreasonable to expect so.

you know, this was not about me trying to dishonestly try to blame new players for recieved toxicity or to erode the current common practise towards it. It was about trying to get you to move at least an inch to give all the frustrated players at least the feeling that their problems are noted and taken serious. Which won`t happen again i see, not even on a basically symbolic level.
At least for me being constantly told that my needs or opinions don`t matter at all is by far more frustrating than noobs in team-games.

I think it`s pretty clear this conversation is going nowhere (yet again), so we might end this here if you don`t have anything important to add.

katastrophe my reading of this thread isn't that Aquanim is saying nothing can or should be done to reduce toxicity, just that he disagrees that your proposals will work or dislikes the implicit tradeoffs. I think you may also have different standards of toxicity, with Aquanim's stance appearing to be "it isn't that much to ask people to not votekick or abuse each other", while you seem to be talking about more subtle forms of toxicity and things that make the social aspect of the game less fun in general.

I think you may be forgetting how hard it can be for some players to achieve basic teamgame competent, and unaware of the ways that new players are currently guided into the game. For example, the player can know all of this:

quote: The only thing one CAN demand imho is that players somehow know how to control this game on an absolute basic level. - know how to select units and buildings - have a vague idea that income and map control are related - have an idea that the game is about annihilating your enemy. (i know that sounds funny but somehow you get the feeling that some players do assume their enemies will go away by themself. ok, suggestive.) In this case, you cannot do more than somehow tell them: "please be aware that if you chose to play in a team with others, they need your participation."

but be so overwhelmed that they act at 10% the speed of a newbie with a bit of experience. A player can have knowledge and the intention to help, but look like they aren't doing anything because it takes them ten minutes to complete their base. An appreciation for pacing and efficiently using time is a learnt skill, many games don't care how slowly or methodically you make your way through their UIs (TBS games, colony management games).

I disagree with demands such as those above because, from what I have seen, your demands tend to already be satisfied. I have watched new players and streamers. They know how to select things, about income and that they eventually have to destroy the enemy. They just sometimes do these things incredibly slowly and inefficiently. For income they may send one constructor out to expand, have it die to a raider, and then forget about it for the next 20 minutes. The same can happen with destroying the enemy, or they may opt to destroy the enemy with artillery (because it is cool).

An actually effective demand would be something like "demonstrated ability to defeat Easy AI on Titan Duel in under 10 minutes", but that sounds far too onerous. If you've got replays or other data that says otherwise then share it.

There may also be a miscommunication around what currently exists to guide new players. katastrophe when was the last time you reset the game and took a look at what new players see? Go have a look, and have a look at all the mechanics that reduce social friction. You may think that you're directing us at low hanging fruit receiving unreasonable pushback in return, when in fact the low hanging fruit was already plucked. This comes off as you demanding we do a lot of work, on your particular approach, and that not doing the work constitutes not taking the issue seriously. You're ignoring or unaware of the work that already exists.

Some of your suggestions were met with "that seems like an inefficient way to spend developer time", which tends you mean you're free to work on it yourself if you consider it important. You could make optional challenge missions that are suggested for people before they hop into multiplayer. It's open source, doing the legwork yourself is much more effective than trying to argue others into doing it for you.

I think we only really disagree on whether there should be barriers in place that prevent completely new players from playing multiplayer in the casual room.

quote: So why not at least TRY to make the first few missions a requirement to join team-multiplayer? This has been proposed by many people multiple times already but was always brushed off. I know your assumption is that this will have a repulsive effect on new players. Many of my points are based on assumptions as well. The only way to find out if those assumptions are correct is to test them. I am absolutely willing to change my opinion on those topics if my assumtions are proven wrong.

• Being invited to play a game with a friend only to hit a forced tutorial is frustrating. Referrals like this are big for game growth. Forced tutorials introduce friction.
• As I said before, I don't think you'll see much of an improvement in apparent competence from a significant minority of players that are forced through the tutorial, if they manage to stick around through the tutorial in the first place.
• The big teams room is the default way to play multiplayer, and it isn't particularly serious. Other modes exist for more organised games.
• There is no system for this. You should not be forced to redo the campaign if you switch computer. Such things take infrastructure work.
• How do we even measure the effect to run a test? Such measurement would require infrastructure work.
• The test has very skewed outcome salience. Fewer new players in multiplayer will probably make the toxic vets less toxic, which is an immediate effect. The longer term effect of reducing the players coming into multiplayer is much more subtle but potentially much more important.

Basically there are four types of new players that join multiplayer:

• Type A: Those that play the tutorial/singleplayer first before joining multiplayer, and will have already done the forced tutorial or are happy to do it for multiplayer.
• Type B: Those that play the tutorial/singleplayer first before joining multiplayer, but that have not done the forced tutorial and would be turned away from multiplayer by the requirement.
• Type C: Those that ignore the current prompting and play multiplayer first, but would make it through a forced tutorial.
• Type D: Those that ignore the current prompting and play multiplayer first, but would be turned away by a forced tutorial.

For forcing a tutorial to be valuable (for the purpose of making players more skilled without reducing the playerbase), you need type B and D players to be rare and for type C players to gain a lot from the tutorial. I don't think type D players are sufficiently rare or that type C players would, on average, gain much apparently competence from a short tutorial. Make the tutorial longer and you just push more players from type C to type D.

If you barely care about gaining new players then a forced tutorial has few downsides. The issue with discussions like this is that players will tend to care about their own enjoyment over the longevity of the game. I'm not saying it is happening here, but there are certainly players who would like to remove new players and play higher quality ZK for the few years it takes for it to collapse under the lack of new players.