This is precisely the kind of handwringing centered moral logic that I loath as a free person. it is precisely this kind of thinking that has lead to an ever increasing viciousness in tyrannical and technocratic censorship practices that have permeated the internet landscape. If someone is being “toxic” or “annoying” simply mute them. You are a free person and have the ability to disengage. But as a whole population and as a internet community we must not tolerate this constant worrying over how people may or may not behave with a set of tools. The answer is always the same, some people will behave badly and some people will behave fine and it comes down to the individual. If someone proves themselves irresponsible with the tool or otherwise belligerent then simply prosecute them as such. If they can’t behave within the confines of the expected social behavior within a game, then they can get muted, silenced, banned, whatever, within reason and without excessive zealotry.
People being toxic is not the fault of a tool that inherently only provides information. People’s behaviour is what can be toxic. That’s why functions for reporting such behaviour exist.
By the same metric we do not ban cars, because there are some dipsh*ts out there that think it a good idea to always drive like they have an entire bottle of whiskey in their system - instead we punish misdemeanors where necessary and not the vehicle.
This post is fallacious in and of itself, it’s a false dillema. Why must one completely rely on scores without taking into account non-numerical factors? Why would non-numerical factors completely invalidate the relevance of scores either? Wouldn’t it be simple to just consider both simultaneously when reaching conclusions about performance? It’s not one or the other, the more information available, the better.
No, we have licensing. You have to prove that you re responsible enough to operate a car.
Are you suggesting we have a test to prove we are capable of not being awful?
Tonight a preacher with us kept running off and we would get bogged down and one by one fall. The preacher was very skilled and saved us a few time, but would then run off again on a damnation run. Now, I would think that maybe I should stick with the group if they keep getting overrun. They didn’t and instead when we wiped at the end, they tossed a fit. Once in the end screen, we cannot access the social tab. So how do I mute or block them if I wanted to? This is where the scoreboard appears, where we can no longer block or mute people. We can leave, but then we have to hope not to see them again.
Again… Just because you and others can “shrug it off” does not mean everyone can. There would not be cyber laws regarding cyber bullying, or even forum rules right here if it were all just about having thicker skin. I applaud you all for being so hardened and capable of being shat on. This is not about you though. We have well established that none of you are bothered by telling each other you are garbage. We get that. Now what about people who are not you?
Alright. I don’t know if it matters too much to go into this level of detail but a part of me is more interested in the philosophical/moral implications in this kind of argument, and @xxWeaSeL242xx
you seem like a reasonable fellow so I am making a bit of an investment in you in the form of time. Going to crack open the ol’ philosophy honours ba and put it to use (because it certainly has little use in my career).
Just to make clear, I don’t really have much “skin in the game” so to speak. I don’t play darktide anymore (striking due to the RNG/progression system), and if I did I would just use the mod, and I know I wouldn’t use it to make people feel bad, so the outcome is mostly ephemeral to me. I would also say IF it was true (get to that in a moment) that the existence of the scoreboard was directly related to a vastly increased number of incidents of people being inflamed, name calling, running ahead, missions failing, etc. I would AGREE that the score board is doing more harm than good and taking a moral utilitarian stance I would completely be fine with seeing even the mod support removed for it. Often society moves at the slowest pace, and some can ruin it forever. We have low speed limits because SOME people can’t handle the reaction times and fidelity of high speeds so we aim low and are cautious (this line of argumentation has it’s own implicit premises and assumptions). However, I am deeply skeptical and doubtful that there is such a causal or even correlative pattern between the behaviours we are looking to “weed out” in the community and the existence of a score board.
Lets break the “anti-scoreboard” argument into some simplified premises and conclusions, as I can see it from @xxWeaSeL242xx mainly (using you as the advocate for this position, because I haven’t really engaged in this conversation/debate anywhere else).
So I am not sure if you’re broadly generalizing or to whom exactly you are referring but I am going to take it at face value and assume it is referring to everyone who is firmly in the “pro-score board” camp. Firstly, communities contain bad eggs and ne’er-do-wells. Just because someone is “toxic” they are still, unfortunately, a “part” of the community. We may not want them to be, but they are if they interact with us. Secondly, I think this is the dangerous argument to make when assuming everyone in the opposite is one way. Because the argument is easily beaten, all you would need is ONE person who IS pro-score board to be a kind, non-insulting person and this premise turns false. To “steel man” your argument a bit we can say “most” pro-scoreboard players treat others a certain way to make your claim more reasonable, but we will get to that later. Thirdly, people could technically be awful or like insulting people and be aware of it, but just don’t want to change/see a problem with it (this is a tangent, not really related).
I think this also really isn’t doing the argument justice, it’s a straw man logical fallacy. No one is claiming the reason they want a score-board is for an ego certificate. You can make the claim that’s the real psychological reason behind the action of wanting it, I would disagree, but the onus/burden of proof would be on you to ground that claim into fact. A few considerations on this; 1- humans are generally prideful creatures. I would say the main reason people don’t want to be insulted is to protect their egos. The opposite of your claim could be made “Well all anti-score board people are just soft and have delicate egos that can’t stand criticism” but I would say this claim has the same problem in the opposite direction, so I wouldn’t make it. I am sure very few people enjoy being insulted, but I think everyone likes to build confidence. Get praise from family, friends, co-workers. A lot of things in life can be seen as an “ego certificate”. Participation trophies, getting likes on social media, etc. I mainly bring this up because I don’t think it’s inherently a problem to want/crave things that boost your self confidence or worth. Secondly, I think in video games, score board or not, people can get “ego boosts” from performing well or getting kills, or soloing things, etc. Finishing penances. There’s other factors, unrelated to the score board, that I think people could perform (veteran shooting an elite as psyker is about to brain burst them) because they want the kill. I think in games in general, most players (by a wide margin) enjoy being DPS heavy.
Thirdly, this is again the issue of making wide and absolutist claims but you essentially have to prove every single “pro-score board” player wants the score board for “ego” reasons. It would take only one example to disprove the premise. I will use myself as an example (I could be lying just to prove my point but lets operate on the premise we aren’t lying about our personal goals/motivations since it’s pretty much impossible to disprove) I am a hard determinist, existence monist, existential nihilist, moral relativist and subjectivist (with my own personal values), b-theorist for time, atheist, etc. Why do I bring this up? These beliefs pretty much remove all objective claims at ego, the ego doesn’t even exist in my metaphysical model. I am just a temporary pile of atoms existing in a slice of time, dying and being reborn in the next moment by a new pattern of matter, inheriting the memories of the dead past self. That the universe is a giant ocean/desert and we are all parts of the same thing, the metaphysical massive spatio-temporal blobject. Nothing has meaning or value (objectively), the self is an illusion, free will is impossible, and there is no reason to feel pride in anything, least of all skill in a video game. I could be lying, but I can say feeling an “ego boost” in comparison to others, is not a priority for me (at the very least, not in any way that is greater than the average persons needs for validation/approval in a very human way, such as the “anti-score board team”).
Now, lets say you disagree with me there and still think it’s ego. Fine, I can’t really say much else to it (How does one prove humility in a forum?). However, I think it’s valid to say there are other reasons people would want it. Some listed were:
1.) Testing your own builds and comparing
2.) Seeing if your perception of yourself and your competencies line up with reality
3.) Seeing what other people do to try out their build
I am sure there could be other reasons but I want to focus on this. I think this is hard to disagree with, you may say there are other ways to find this out (youtube videos and such) but there is an inherent and personalized convenience in this information. And one thing secondary sources can’t take into affect is play style and skill. Maybe one player does a lot more push attacks than the average player. Maybe more heavies or lights. Maybe more block cancel animations to restart light attack chains (I can’t be bothered to do the latter). So some weapons having competencies in some of these areas over others will matter more to some players over others, and getting direct feedback is a lot more useful than secondary sources online, taking their word for it as to how they perform (and how are these people getting their metrics?).
Scoring poorly is perfectly fine and normal, especially if you played a more support role. When I play ogyrn I don’t think I am getting most kills by a long stretch. I think if “pro-scoreboard” players were scared of being “last place” on the score board they probably wouldn’t be advocating for it. The “woof” at the end though I feel is a little ironic. If the whole point of the argument against toxic score boards is to “be nice” to people online… I think the message comes off as hostile and does the thing you’re trying to avoid people doing online with the score board? I could be misinterpreting the tone and intention behind it but insulting people for wanting the score board because others would insult them… is the definition of ironic.
^Just see the above comment. I think this also is self defeating, because it’s hostile and goes against the “spirit” of the “anti-score board” camp.
So this is more of where the conversation gets interesting to me. There is a lot of implications in this but lets break it down into some premises.
1.)- The scoreboard increases chances of attack on other players
2.)- People naturally want to attack other players
3.)- This is a proven pattern in gaming
Conclusion- The score board should be removed to reduce the attack on people.
I won’t fully dispute premise 1, but I do think it’s a marginal increase if any at all, but I will address that later. Lets assume it’s true for now at a meaningful increase. I want to address premise 2. I actually disagree that people are instinctually and naturally inclined to aggression (as a majority). It’s common, for sure, but humans are social creatures and it is more opportunistic and selfish to make allies out of people than enemies (we are pack hunters). We tend to be polite with strangers and in social situations because it is the most advantageous position to be in, compared to being stand-offish and confrontational. Now, I agree the internet and anonymization and de-personalizing people makes this a lot easier. So lets focus on that.
My own stakes/claims:
Premise 1.) Different game genres have radically different statistics of toxic behaviours
Premise 2.) Different types of gamers/demographics have higher tendencies to play certain genres.
Premise 3.) Some people are more “toxic” than others.
Premise 4.) There are fewer “toxic” players than “regular” players
Premise 5.) PvP games drastically have more incidents of toxic behaviour
Premise 6.) Competitive people are more likely to exhibit “toxic behaviour”
Premise 7.) Darktide is a cooperative game.
Premise 8.) Toxic players are more likely be “toxic” in all incidents that they have any reason to be so.
Premise 9.) The existence of the score board doesn’t change the game into a competitive game
Conclusion- The existence of a score board should have minimal at best increased chances of “toxic” incidents. A lot of my premises, full disclosure, is mostly anecdotal. We can debate the individual premises and they would have varying consequences for my position on this matter. But to back up some of my claims lets look at premise 1. League of legends if notorious for toxic behaviour. Same with call of duty. Doing some secondary research:
Notice all of these games are PvP games. (Premise 5). Top 10 most toxic gaming communities, according to esports.
Looking at another game, that I think has similar DNA to darktide, but also has a score board; DRG. DRG shows kills, minerals mined, number of times you went down, and number of players you revived. And yet:
^Anecdotally I have had pretty much nothing but positive experiences with players in DRG. The one negative experience that stands out was someone double dipping on the supply pod without saying anything (unrelated to score board). Some people hitting buttons too early and such, but widely a very supportive bunch. Now these aren’t very reliable metrics, granted just more anecdotal information. I would think that a poll asking questions like “Do you think the community for X game is toxic? How toxic?” And comparing cooperative games of similar genres with others with and without score boards would probably get a good rough and objective idea as to the increased delta between the two.
A poll was done here for Darktide specifically. Assuming the numbers are true for sake of argument, that’s 86% of people saying they want a score board. Now premise 4, for me, I say there are fewer toxic people than non-toxic I am HIGHLY dubious that ~86% of people are generally considered “toxic”.
My main point/take away here from all of this is that people and situations and variables are complex and we cannot ignore the variables. Crime rates differ in real life, as do transgressions online and while playing video games. Just like you suggesting a score board would increase changes of toxicity I will say there are lots of elements within games, players they appeal to, regions and languages, and cultures, that can all play roles in changing the variabilities and likelihoods of things.
I will chalk this up to a misunderstanding, but hopefully I have expressed myself clearly enough that I am not wholly painting everyone as constructive and positive.
This is more of an interesting claim that brings me back to my old moral classes. I get the feeling you are a utilitarian with your moral model. But lets broaden this up and extend this beyond the sphere of video gaming for a moment.
Premise 1.) There is a possibility of a worst case scenario due to X
Premise 2.) The worst case should be avoided if the benefits do not outweigh it.
Premise 3.) The best case benefit X provides can be achieved without X
Conclusion- X should not exist.
(You can correct me if I am wrong in trying to repeat and restructure your arguments). So start with a small disagreement on premise 3, I don’t think there is much point in debating things if there is an alternative that gives everyone want they want (best case for both groups) if both camps (in this case pro and anti score boarders) can get what they want without issue, then why bothering arguing about it? I think we should presume for the sake of argument, and not doing a disservice to the other side, that they cannot achieve the “best case scenario” with alternatives. They can maybe be achieved suboptimally (debatable) but it for sure shouldn’t be considered the “best” case. I think, as I stated earlier, there is no real alternative to direct player feedback that a score board can really do. You have a sample size of 10 games lets say, on the same difficulty across the same map even sometimes, maybe even private with bots, and you can get pretty accurate information regarding how you personally perform. Remove a lot of variables. (Could argue about score boards only being available in private matches potentially but playing with real players are also important metrics). No tool or source online really can provide that as an alternative.
Now back to the main topic. So worst case X is someone being belittled in some unfair and uncalled for way lets say. Now, the existence of worst case, isn’t guaranteed, it doesn’t happen 100% of the time, we can agree on that, so what percentage is it? Does it not matter?
The justice system sometimes incarcerates innocent people (a worst case scenario) but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do away with it. What about social media in general? People kill themselves from cyber bullying, do we really NEED social media? Surely we can achieve “Best case scenarios” without it? Cats can give you toxoplasmosis. You don’t need a pet cat, but a lot really like them. Others have allergies (prolonged exposure to allergy sources can cause permanent asthma). Doing shrooms and some other drugs can permanently change you into a schizophrenic depending on your genetic makeup. Or bipolar. We should ban all drugs, even for therapeutic reasons due to the worst case, no? (Emergent research is showing therapy benefits to shroom/acid lead therapy sessions. I am straight edge though so not really glorifying drug use or anything). I think there are lots of little risks we acknowledge and take when we get things. I had to get my wisdom teeth removed, there was a worst case scenario I would lose permanent feeling in my mouth if they hit the wrong nerve, chances were low enough. Now, you are probably saying the chances (of the worst case) are very likely, which is fine, but my main point is the existence of a “worst” case scenario shouldn’t be enough to deter an action, and that the likelihood is vastly important to the decision making of whether to allow X or not. Something governments and people have to make all the time.
Now one slightly tangential thing I would like to bring up is the difference between constructive feedback and “toxic”. This is a hard area to navigate online without proper tone and body language. But I would argue:
1.) People can be sensitive/defensive on topics
2.) People should strive to be open to criticisms and judgements
3.) Authenticity and honesty should be valued
4.) People can give criticisms without the intent/effect of making themselves feel better or others worse.
Conclusion- Constructive feed back should be promoted and is appropriate to do.
If I am playing on damnation and notice someone is dying a lot, and for the sake of argument, lets say we objectively agree this player is not ready (due to gear or skill) for this difficulty and is more of a liability than an asset for the team. How should this be handled? “Not to sounds harsh, but I think you aren’t ready for this difficulty yet”. Anything you quickly type in the chat, I think, could be misconstrued as “toxic” (would just like to clarify I have maybe only said this 3 times in my life in DRG, VT2, and darktide). I am not sure if there is a better way to phrase (in a way that is short and concise) but I think a statement like that is appropriate. Some people can feel hurt, sure, but I don’t think the other person is intending to be awful/evil. Whether you think “constructive feedback” is a small or not portion of the perceived “toxic” behaviours is fine, my argument isn’t central to this but I do think it’s important we correctly identify and acknowledge/define what we mean when we say “toxic”. As well as people not being TOO sensitive either.
So in a hypothetical universe you could maybe have a test for how “aggressive” or contrarian someone is but I don’t think it would be per tool. If you’re an aggressive person that puts people down online I don’t think you would need a new test per game. Maybe per genre. What would you do if someone was just objectively aggressive and belligerent? They never broke any laws and technically never did anything “wrong” but would they be exiled from society? How would you deal with these cases? What if certain demographics of genetic backgrounds had higher chances for toxicity? Would we do eugenics programs? I think in a fully controlled society you could maybe isolate for this, so not entirely disagreeing with the notion that you could maybe license people’s driving on their psychology to not exhibit road rage and such if we had the science to uncover peoples minds (watch psyhco-pass?) but in reality we do not. A driving test doesn’t really have the capabilities to know the likelihood of someone’s road rage… and even if it did its (the persons mind) liable to change, for better or worse, as people are not static. Same with buying video games. We sell butcher knives for cutting meat in our kitchens even though people are stabbed to death with them, but they are still sold without psychology assessment tests. I think, in our flawed world, we actually need to invest in the opposite approach.
Bullying I think is actually the closest approximation to this issue so how do schools and governments try to address this issue? They don’t try to create systems bullies can’t exist in or remove tools or forms of communication that could be vectors for bullying (otherwise the internet would be banned). It’s just not possible nor feasible. Instead they invest in telling people what support tools are there, reporting people, going to the police, help lines and therapy etc. If I was a parent (which I never will be snipsnip) I wouldn’t teach my children with the expectation bullies need to be avoided and things where bullies exist need to be avoided. I would train them up with resiliency in mind and how to deal with it, and how to try and not inflame them further and how to have their own respect and values. And what they can do to report on them in the most egregious cases. I think the same is here, because I think people are still going to be toxic score board or no score board (that I hope we can agree on). Same for r@pe. You can’t tell rapists to simply not r@pe. It’s not fair to put the burden on victims but that’s why we have r@pe whistles and services to help prevent the incident and punish those who perform it.
To me this seems like something this preacher player would do regardless of a score board. I will say, I think there is one thing that does cause more toxic behaviour in darktide, but it isn’t the score board. It’s the crafting. The crafting/progression is so bad, there’s a lot of players in damnation that probably shouldn’t be. All trying to farm plasteel. People who can play that difficulty with high clear rates are probably frustrated playing with players who can’t play according to the needs of that difficulty. In VT2 I think they mostly fixed this by having CATA give the same rewards as legend so people new to the game, had no mechanical reason/benefit to play on that difficulty and that promoted better team matchmaking and player types/skills. The current system is designed poorly on mission rewards and difficulty and general grind.
I would say this is more of a failure in ease of muting/blocking players rather than the score board itself.
So I don’t think this is the claim either. I think most people don’t like being insulted. I just think better tools need to be available to block those people, potentially even automatically. Personally, I just mute all voice chat and only use text. People’s voices break the immersion for me. I do think though there is a case to be made for some people SHOULD have some “thickness” of skin and that overly sensitive and having very “thin skin” to a point you cannot take any criticisms from someone, even with good intentions is something that should be worked on (getting flash back of my ex’s).
TLDNR:
I think the strongest interpretation position of the anti-scoreboard camp is:
Premise 1.) The score board changes a cooperative game into a competitive game
Premise 2.) The score board increases the chances of toxic players to behave in a toxic way
Premise 3.) People in a competitive game exhibit anti-team focused behaviours
Premise 4.) The benefits of a score board aren’t worth the issues.
Conclusion- Don’t allow score boards.
But as stated above I don’t think there is strong correlations between these. I don’t think the game is that much more, if at all competitive, since everyone still needs to survive and work together. At most it’s a friendly killing competition like with Gimli and Legalos.
I think the benefits are seen by a vast majority of players and they seem to think it’s worth arguing over (Assuming the ~86% number is correct).
I think toxic players are going to be toxic regardless with minimal increases into their interactions. If I am the type of person to say “you suck” and I see you go down to pox walkers again I will probably say it, score board or no.
Anecdotally I am more reminded of the kindness of strangers than their pettiness. Having randoms be ok with me doing a penance to solo a monster as a psyker? I felt AWFUL even asking, but private games weren’t possible, and even if they were, I doubted I could tell the bots to cease fire. But they allowed me. Another time, trying to play a squishy class with a build I wasn’t comfortable with + having a bad game, going down the third time, I apologized and the other players said not to worry and gave tips (VT2). In cooperative games specifically, I think the goodness of people is much more likely to show than the opposite. And a score board, at the very end, I don’t think changes that much other than the near- obligatory “GG”. And I don’t think it changes that much kill stealing, running ahead again if at all. Maybe we will get hard facts and I will be proven wrong. Maybe Fatshark will do a scoreboard opt-out update for a few months, see the number of blocks/bans, then change it to opt-out or remove it and see what changes. But without rigorous data like that I think the most we have is our personal experiences and general trends in comparable games. Maybe someone should just do a poll and ask “How many players are toxic in darktide” and keep scoreboards out of it to prevent biases.
I will stop here. Need to put my wrists on ice. Apologize for the wall text.
So many things to address/respond to. We likely should have done this in PM.
I am going to forego the quoting for the most part, if at all as I scroll through and respond.
Before I do, I appreciate the candour as well as the time and effort.
I also have no skin in the game as it were. I stopped letting people online get me mad or upset ages ago. I do not have a BA in psychology, but I do have 30+ years in designing rule systems and running games. Granted my experience is a live action setting, but we have always had to take into account the balance formula I mentioned (and you mostly summed up). I do not think that make me right, or that I have been dealing with the social aspects of the internet since its inception as overwhelming validity for my stances.
So, it is only two people who have degenerated to being the toxic examples of people who should not have this tool. They are the two that I have made the comments to that you felt were counter productive. In a way, I did goad them a bit to show that some people need very little to turn from “this is a constructive tool” to “I am a total tool and going to be an ass now”. That sort of covers a lot of the first sections… I was less than polite in response to both of them as well. I am good with it.
Yes.
There are people in every setting who will lash out at other people.
Yes
Anecdote: The game I was part of has branches all over the world. The branches have autonomy on how they run their games as long as they abide by our core code of conduct, and game setting. One such branch would gather all the players at the end of an event and have them nominate each other for recognition. On paper, this sounds like a harmless and inclusive idea. As a community, we get together and someone might say you or I did exceptionally well and should be given recognition. Very uplifting stuff. In practice, we cautioned against this for a number of reasons. This communication was only with the owners of the branch, so we did not influence the outcome by publicly making predictions. It was all private owners to owners chatting. Anyway, we told them it would quickly become a popularity contest and lead to cliques. Players would gravitate to those who were consistently nominated, and those who never were would feel ostracized. Cliques would build, and it would then degrade to one or more groups accusing the other(s) of only favouring people within their own group. This would lead to players leaving the game and infighting.
Less than a year later with events held monthly, that is exactly what happened.
In a sense they introduced a scorecard, then the type of people that will use something like that poorly did so. That branch has since gone through multiple owners and even split so there is a second branch in the area. Lesson learned. The infighting here was petty and only resulted in a couple people being banned. So, our warning and reporting systems were used. As they should be… just as in these video games we are discussing. I do not think a lot of those people were bad people or even intentionally playing favourites. They would be exposed to the play of their friends more than others, and that connection would naturally sway their appreciations. Regardless of intent, the damage occurred. It has taken the better part of a decade for those branches to recover and move on (mostly).
I agree with most of your own stakes and claims. I will point out though that the toxicity in those games in not toward opponents in PVP, but to their own team.
I would like to think the Warhammer community on the whole is much more tolerant and polite than most. The dedication to the craft of the table top as well as the more mature themes, feels like we have a more mature and socially stable crowd. That said, there are definitely hard gamers in this thread who have proven that they want that card for their own ego. They see being blocked by some thin skin as a positive, so they will never have to suffer their inferiority again.
That attitude feels like:
“If I am hard on others they will either improve, or block me. Either way, my play experience is improved.”
On top of that, they know how to dodge the final screen so you will never get my play ID if the social records feature is never fixed. (likely not high on their to do list).
The reddit poll is of reddit users, and they are a smidgen of the actual players. We have no idea how many responses were even collected. This conversation and that poll will likely have little impact on FS making choices. Internally, they will apply what they think is best. In gaming, that usually means if two sides are opposed to something, it is likely being done right. Not my mantra, but it has applications I agree with.
So after all of that, I think we can agree that bad players will be bad players regardless of tools. More tools for them to use in their poor behaviour is just more tools, but they would likely be jerks anyway.
This is accurate and has proven to be the winning formula for our game balance and policies. I have 30 years of anecdotes of success and failure in trying to add things to make people happy. Again, this does not make me more correct in our current topic (scoreboard morality), but I mention it to say I am not just pulling ideas out of the air to be devil’s advocate.
There are the bad players who will be bad regardless.
There are players who will take abuse from these players harder than others.
There are people who will absolutely take any commentary on their play as an attack.
There are kind or at least inoffensive players more often than not.
You go into some points that I won’t quote but will just quick reference.
Wrongful incarceration is part of why the death penalty has been nixed in most places. They have segregated prisons to separate the offenders by degrees of crime. This is to ensure safety and peace… so far as possible I guess. They saw ways that more bad would happen, and took mitigating steps. Same with drugs for treatment in place of recreation (agreeing with the restrictions or not), controls are put in place. Often times, the controls are complete omission/forbidding.
It is all bullying and ways to prevent and control it. I feel like telling people to get over it is victim blaming. Firstly, none of us have the authority to be telling other players to get gud, kindly or not. So if they respond poorly, that is kinda their choice as they did not initiate the feedback. The scorecard COULD be seen as more of an invitation to provide that feedback (kind or not). In my experience, most players want no interactions. Voice chat is super rare, typing for me as a controller user is not convenient at all. Most of the time it is the customary “Jee Jee” or Good try. Maybe reporting what guards are standing over your captured body…
So that leads me to what info of the scorecard is actually useful for —
1 - Your own metrics.
2 - Your own metrics.
3 - My metrics, and asking what my load out is + witnessing my play.
I feel like 3 involves asking, so you do not need my metrics when asking and observation are already part of that. I do not think this is a scorecard thing. You can ask me what my metrics were in the round and we can open a dialogue on my gear etc.
It is the very fact that numbers do not represent my attack patterns, target prioritizing, team awareness or overall competency. The same mission is never played the same way twice. The enemies are varied, the damage is varied, my alertness is varied and a thousand other influences.
I find the “score” to be silly as well. who decides what each action is worth, and based on what measure? My role is near and mid crowd control. I bring my flamer and I use it to stagger as well as use my charge-full blast for optimal damage output techniques. I kill way more than everyone else. I have more stamina and move faster as part of my core stats, so I open more boxes and pick up more materials. I am in front, so I take more hits/shots on me etc… so I end up dodging more and blocking more. Score wise, the psyker with the surge staff who carried us all with the stuns and staggers, did none of the things I did. So does the score reflect an accurate picture of that game? The ogryn who cannot be interrupted when picking me up, picked up more people. That is their role.
So it gets into a silly mess of what does the score actually mean, and do we really need a “grade” instead of just flat personal metrics?
This is where I think Ego is driving some people more than Info.
Metrics on my own play is great. An arbitrary point system when there are too many variables to count, folly. Seeing other people’s metrics in such an uncontrolled results generating scenario, potentially provoking.
In the end, I think the scorecard only needs personal metrics. This provides the most good for those who favour such things, while best mitigating the chances of that info being used as harmful. Checks and balances.
There is no reporting system sadly… I have seen some names that definitely prove we still have so far to go as a society. I also saw Hulk Hogryn, and that pretty much always makes me smile.
I have al;so blocked a bunch of people who do not actually get blocked. My list is 6 people, and it should be closer to 10ish… names that are trying to be offensive or being a Salty Beach all game is just easier for me to block and move on with my day.
So in summary
IF the scoreboard shows other people’s metrics:
1 - I think the game is competitive already for those kinds of players.
2 - Yes.
3 - Same with 1, I think those people are already looking for ways to do this/see their team as a drag.
4 - Yes.
Side notes:
Same here on the kids thing. Same solution too.
I actually did help a psyker get the penance for that. Throne side, nurgle beast. It was nice to help them and I was glad of it. I am always in for helping get those things done. It is fun for me to add that level of challenge to our mission. If I could get others to help me with my last 4, it would be dope
I agree that this topic is more about the players, and less about the tool. it was started that way though. The question and thread should have simply been “What metrics do we want shown in an end of mission report.”
Inviting the ideas of yes or no, why and how etc… that is how we ended up here.
We call it a scoreboard, but most people wanting one just care about the “stats” and seeing how they did relative to the team and/or as a comparative way to get feedback on their build/performance. They don’t care about a score and who “won.”
Toxic people, circle chasers, and all the other people looking to exploit a scoreboard are going to be toxic a-holes or bad team mates regardless. People act this way sometimes l
So this is the respectful disagreements I have heard of! I didn’t think the rumors could be true, such things possible on internet forums.
I won’t dig into responses regarding others, understood. Although I will say (and I don’t always follow my own advice here) speaking with continued composure and politeness in the face of adversity and hostility I think is a decent tactic (although the younger generations seem practiced and well versed in their sarcastic and snide comebacks).
Now, I don’t want you to think I didn’t read the examples you provided in your personal experience but my responses will be terse for a few reasons:
1.) I don’t have direct experience with the examples you provided so I don’t feel I can really make any earnest and intelligent responses about it without deeper dives into the subject matter
2.) I am not confident I am understanding all the finer details/implications
3.) My wrists hurt
I assume when you say “live action gaming setting” it sounds like something with web cams/social media? I am trying to imagine the dynamics and interactions but I am imagining something like summer camp games done over web cam with people or web portal games that have a real time streaming component.
For your “nomination event” example I could see it becoming like a class system. People getting different statuses depending on their number of likes. Tangent but people farming for social media likes and validation is something that can have a radical effect on behaviour, especially social media influences, almost always at the cost of authenticity.
I think I understand some of the parallels that you are bringing but I think that the situation you are describing, as I understand it, is distinct enough from an “end of mission” score board that doesn’t permanently affect someone’s ranking or status in the game world (for better or worse) after the game.
For PvP games there is some “rubbing in face” or literal “tea bagging” the opposing team, but yes most frustrations are coming out on your team, since you “rely” on them and people, accurate or not, can blame their team for their failures individually and/or collectively. I think though there’s a big difference between a co-op team based game, and a PvP team-based game. In a fully co-op team based game (again I don’t have direct evidence to prove this) I think most people are significantly more relaxed/chill and not so hard on their teammates or likely to be belligerent.
I think you raise a fair point about demographics of age. Darktide players are likely older for sure, and they are hopefully more mellowed out in their twilight years so as to not be needing to prove themselves. I think that’s another important variable to consider in terms of “rates of toxicity” in a gaming community.
You may have some individual cases/interactions where you feel like specific person so-and-so is doing this to boost their ego, sure I can’t really dispute that, I think it’s more how likely that’s the reason/motivation and for it to lead to bad behaviour. (You could have green circle chasers chasing for ego, but still work as a team and never say anything to anyone ever).
As for the specific attitude/example you listed, sure, that can exist, I can see the rationale behind why some would do that… my question would be to you though, how prevalent do you think that is? And how much is it hinged upon score boards? I feel like for the example you gave I could see people still “trash talking” and getting blocked by that same strat. It’s just it would be based on the observations such a player sees while playing the game. But yes, such a strategy is obviously not great for either party.
That I feel like is just part of the solution. Assuming this was fixed and better moderated, is there still as much concern for scoreboards if there was an effective way to block bad actors?
I can’t speak to the poll’s numbers and demographics, but I would guess anti and pro- score board people would all have had a likely chance of putting input in. Small sample sizes aren’t accurate, but they can give a general trend, and since the poll was VERY heavily leaning towards wanting it, if a larger scale one was done I would still suspect at minimum players wanting a scoreboard would be 60% or higher as a conservative estimate. Which brings up the other question. At what point does the democratic vote of players come into play? Even if we assume you are right about all the psychology and events behind player actions lets say (we can argue about whether gamers know what they want/whats good for them another time) it’s true 80% of players DO want the score board? At that point isn’t it “worth it” to give it to the players?
I can see some benefit to that in some things (People arguing what the meta is) but I think percentages are important. If 5% of players think the RNG grind is ok, but not 95% don’t, just because there’s a debate I don’t think it’s indicative it’s good. The percentages and numbers are important.
Just a side note to this, because the legal system is so expensive, it’s also cheaper to incarcerate someone for life rather than kill them. But I think that’s part of the discussion right? Systems are flawed and we can’t protect everyone, so just because the existence of something could cause harm, we shouldn’t eliminate it on that basis alone, but rather the likelihood and intensity of such events.
Yes, it can be seen that way, but that’s because I am talking more of realities of trying to reduce issues when you don’t have the resources, technology, or means to prevent something… or the will. For example, it was discussed in my sociology class, there are some countries where women have curfew because men commit pretty much all the r@pe/theft etc. in their country. So women can’t stay out. However, people brought up, “well, the women are the victims, and not committing the crimes, why not make the men follow a curfew?” The sad truth is you can’t tell the people committing the crimes to not do them, so even though the onus is on the victims, it’s not victim blaming but trying to reduce the suffering with limited resources. Bringing back to this, this is why I mentioned that you can’t stop bullying, you can put measures in place to reduce it. And this is why I said, bullying will happen, score board or not (may increase the chances) but I think it’s more important to have systems to address it quickly and easily when it happens. Not to say you can’t do both approaches but I think that’s where, as I see it, the benefits outweigh the risks.
So it sounds like you agree that a score board is at least useful for your own information, just whether it should collect someone else’s. So that’s fine, and narrows the scope of the conversation/debate if it goes from “no score board at all” to “no public score board, but a personal one”.
With 3 sometimes it’s not as obvious until you see the final numbers, and I also never use voice chat, so typing it and trying to ask (and not getting an answer) can be difficult, especially at end of mission. There was a mod in VT2 that was great because it showed me exactly what feats, and weapons and trinkets they used (not sure if that is a potentially contentious point).
For the metrics you mention, sure, I agree, numbers alone in a score board don’t tell the whole story, BUT the people reading the scoreboards aren’t reading it without context. If I know the psyker was using a flame staff I can expect few elite/special kills but a lot of pox walker kills for example. So if I see high elite/special skills, despite knowing their class, the weapons they used, and how I saw them play, that’s where public score board information can be interesting, knowing how they were able to pull that off.
For the other variables you mention, yes, but when you play dozens or hundreds of games, or notice patterns of classes with weapon combos achieving certain things (low damage taken or something) you can maybe see why or how and be inspired to make a change (I never thought of using the shovel, but I noticed a pattern where people using it have less damage taken overall in my 30 games of playing). I think the numbers, like AI gathering data, can be more useful. Although I can say it’s more reasonable to no want this. What do you think of the mod for scoreboards then? What would you have the developers do? Ban it? Or create their own in house score board tracker (without public info).
(I agree a better reporting system needs to be in place)
So let me ask a more general question, how many players do you think in Darktide specifically are toxic? You said you should have blocked 10, so 10 out of how many players would you say? And how many of them, do you think would have been toxic despite a scoreboard or due to a score board? I guess where’s the critical fulcrum upon which things slide into “worth it” for public score boards and “not worth it” in terms of percentage of incidents.
A LARP. arrive friday afternoon/evening and reamin in character all weekend until sunday evening… or longer if a special event. I did not think the game itself was overly relevant, simply the scenario of people judging the performance of other people. How it introduced a system by which people were measured and the game lost customers, eventually needing a change in ownership. In DT terms - A tool that measured performance was added. It made some people feel measured, inferior or excluded. Others used the tool to judge or exclude others.
Nothing more or less than an example of my experience with social settings (that are supposed to have the spirit of inclusion and community) turning on itself because someone thought a recognition system would be a boon.
No, and most of us have mentioned that. Still though, I would say my metrics are not relevant to the “good users” needs in a scoreboard.
I dislike the idea that “reality” is that life is hard and people get stepped on. It is true, but we do not know what people are going through. To tell Gary that being crapped on just happens and he has to tolerate some of that, is not accurate IMO. Countries that hid the women because men are crap, that is not right IMO. bad actions need to not happen, not be given a arbitrary level of acceptable volume. On discord with my friends, I will absolutely be like… why is this person so effin bad? In text, it is no big deal and we failed but learn… GT. Crapping on them helps no one and it is a game… at worse, failing means we play again. Success means we play again. The result is the same.
I do not have a metric of who is garbage and who is not. Everyone if caught on the wrong day, no one if they are feeling particularly compassionate that day. My point is and has always been:
IF someone is going to use my metrics against me, it is not a positive addition to the game when personal metrics and a bit of searching get the job done. Why exclude metrics because a few people will be sad? Because we can, and it doesn’t hurt to do so.
When considering adding features to your product as a business, it is about customer numbers AKA Profit. Is what I am adding going to attract or repel potential customers. A video game is a one and done transaction for the most part. So the question comes to, will you lose players because the built in mission summary does not include my stats? Will you lose players if it does include my stats and that is used in bad faith? I think No to the first, and possibly to likely for the second. So, I would leave out the metrics of others and work on how to best make personal metrics useful.
Again, the question is what should we include. Not, should we have one at all. If we ask if we should have one, then you will get responses that say it will do more harm than good or it is ego etc…
Until there is better reporting, I do not think it is a good idea to introduce more things for people to be frustrated over. When it is brought in and I can tailor who I play with via blocks, then by all means… Even if it has my stats, which I think it absolutely does not NEED, but people WANT for whatever reason they insist it is necessary.
Let’s boil this down a bit. Let’s say you’re mostly right about everything. We’ll have to agree to disagree on somethings because there’s no real easy way to prove any of it without large scale polls or data. So let’s just say score boards do have meaningfully increased chances of toxic behaviour, and hell let’s even say people that normally wouldn’t have said something may now say something unkind. Fine.
My questions are mainly an idea on numbers as to when do you think it’s permissible vs impermissible.
1.) What percentage of incidents need to happen to make this relevant? Let’s say it’s 1% of games on average. That’s 1/100 games someone will trash talk you at the end of the game because of your metrics. Is that still enough? Granted negative experiences can “sting” longer than neutral or positive ones (can take 5 positive experiences to balance out one negative).
So less than 5% permissible? And I am not asking about all trash talk, just the trash talk related to end of game metrics from the score boards. I am assuming you agree even if the number is really low like 0.001% of games it’s fine to allow, so my question is 1.) At what critical threshold does it become a problem and 2.) Based on your own personal experiences what do you think the number is in darktide today roughly.
The other question was if people want it, and let’s say for this hypothetical they know it will cause more trash talking, at what percentage is it worth the issue? If 99% of players want it, and it’s a selling feature for the game for them, and they are ok with increased trash talking, isn’t that reasonable and fiscally responsible for the devs? So at what point should the popularity or demand for the score board also make it not warranted. 60%? 51%?
I just think numbers make it more helpful to understand the exact position here, and this is assuming public score boards since you were fine with private metrics.
I have 700 hours in VT2. I can’t recall a single instance of “trash talking because of the scoreboard.”
More the point, if someone feels like they are the victim of scoreboard trash talking, instead of feeling bad for yourself just remind yourself that the trash talker is a) an idiot, b) a jerk, c) compensating for something, d) self-absorbed, or e) all of the above. Have some confidence in yourself that you’re a better person since you aren’t being an a-hole or an idiot.
Anyway, I’m sick of people trying to design “the system” to prevent a-holes and idiots from being a-holes and idiots. There will always be a-holes and idiots regardless of what counter-measures are put in place, and they’ll find a way to work around the system. Ultimately, part of being a functioning human being and member of society is, unfortunately, learning how to deal with the inevitable a-holes and idiots that you’ll encounter in all walks of life, be it family, jobs, schools, or leisure pursuits.
I have completed 681 missions. I have no idea how many did not get completed.
I just finished one where I played like garbage. Need some potassium… Anyway, everyone was super chill about it and we laughed when we were all ammo dry and suddenly realised I had an ammo crate. I am not even sure where I picked it up tbh. So, we have a lot of great players.
I think the discussion of ratio of good to bad players of the game is impossible to answer. I think there are more good than bad. I think some of the bad are very bad, and some may just be having a day.
On the flip side of this, last night my roomie was in one of the new gauntlet missions on damnation. He is a surge psyker and really good at it most of the time. The Scoreboard mod can now be checked live, and a veteran in the group made sure everyone knew it. They were consistently running forward, activating volley and spraying everything with a braced autogun, then being overrun. This would of course lead to his capture after corruption mounted. Each time he went down, he blasted the other veteran and the preacher for low dmg outputs. Neither of them went down once, and stuck relatively close to the rest of the team. He would spam vote kicks while downed or dead. Eventually the team just kicked him… right at the end of the mission. He is one example of someone with the scoreboard who uses it poorly.
Could this person have been a jerk without it? Yes, it is possible. Could they be a jerk with only their own metrics to look at and not a comparison? Less so. You chewing me out because you think I am not performing well is one thing. You chewing me out and the game itself supporting your abuse is another. To me, I laugh at this sort of thing and would likely try to make them more mad… Henry though, he is not a happy guy and has major depressive disorder. Worse, it is treatment resistant. He love 40K though, and this game is the 40K game he has been waiting for. He knows he will likely never be a world champion player, but he gets to rip heretics apart with a chain axe and that is his jam.
One week goes by, dozens of matches and then he runs into our hero; Mr. Scorecard McDiesalot himself. Now his happy place is a little put off. That stays with him all day because that is how depression works. Tomorrow when he goes to play again, his anxiety kicks in and he wonders if he will run into someone else like that. He blocked them, but there are so many players and the game itself showed him he is actually not good and likely ruining everyone else’s fun, they just don’t say anything. Maybe he won’t play after all.
This is a fiction, but it is how depression and anxiety work. Mezmorki here, has made it abundantly clear that people need to suck it up and accept that crappy people exist. In essence, he is a crappy person apologist but puts the onus of tolerance on the victims of the abuse. Much like the " I am sorry you felt like what I said was offensive" type of approach to things. To me that is not how things should be. Simply because they are, is no excuse to let it continue that way. Especially when you cannot control who is the recipient of poor treatment, or the degree of that treatment.
This is purely the toxic gamer side of this whole debate.
What level of toxic gamer should be acceptable? 0% That is why there are systems in most games to report, not just block. We will pretend the blocking system in DT is perfect for the purposes of this whole ordeal.
The OP of this thread is the validity of the claim that my metrics and a total value of my performance are required. IMO, I agree with their sentiment that those are not required statistics. You can measure your own performance all you want, but I paid for the game and am entitled to play it to whatever intensity I wish. My learning curve may be steeper than you like. Maybe I have hit my cap. Maybe I do not have all my fingers. Maybe I have some form of disability. So my metrics compared to yours in those cases (AND in a pug no less) are not relevant data. Further, someone like Scorecard McDiesalot will use it to shame me.
Can I get a clear idea of my performance with only my metrics and playing the mission? Yep. After 700 hours you should be able to tell what weapon I am using and if I am where I am supposed to be doing the role I am supposed to be doing. You should be able to share your experience and use the forums for more than just complaining about the game. You should be able to share your build ideas and ask for others. You do not need to see that I have a lvl 1 stripped down blessing on a weapon that should have instead. You should be able to tell if I did good, or bad. You can also use the Friend option, just like the block and then you can ask me all about how I did so well from your observations.
If adding a feature will cost players then it should not be added.
If adding that feature without some parts can help mitigate the chances of the feature being used to shame others, then do so.
The acceptable ratio of abuse is 0%
Regardless of the popularity of demand, every person who purchased the game has the same privileges to the game. There is no percentage of people asking for a feature. There is the loud outspoken people. The people who can shrug things off and lead a dialogue. Then there is the silent majority. People who do not play DT so they can sit on forums and discuss this type of stuff, or attack the game devs because their instant gratification has not be satisfied. Most people, just play the game.
TLDR:
You can get your measure of your performance without your team’s metrics to compare to. Since it is never the same mission twice with the same variables, the numbers are arbitrary at best. The only thing a score does is confirm your own thoughts. (Am I getting more accurate? it feels like I am, oh the metrics agree. Good) The psykarium will show you how much damage you do to every single enemy save for the monstrosities, and there is a mod for that. IE: you can get the info you want without all the info you are asking for.
End of the day, it is up to FS to add the feature and to include whatever they feel is best.
But acceptable and achievable are two different things. At what cost are we willing to pay to achieve it?
Maybe we should not allow voice comms or chats? Maybe we should turn each others characters into abstract shapes so we can’t tell if someone else has spent more money than someone else on cosmetics?
There is a lot of idealism and naïveté when it comes to trying to regulate other people’s behaviors. As individuals we can and should set a positive example, and help our fellow humans and lend them support as we’re able. And certainly condem bad behavior. But is never going to be perfect.
Reflecting on this, yes I do think people need to accept that crappy people and crappy behaviors exist. Because, unfortunately, they do exist.
I’m not apologizing for crappy people/behaviors. I’m saying that people as individuals DO need to have coping mechanisms to deal with it, because it is 100% impossible for most people to go through life without encountering crappy people/behaviors at some point.
Or did you have some solution in mind for dealing with all the people you decide are crappy?
I’ll say another thing that I’ve frequently mentioned but no one ever seems to respond to:
A “stat screen” could work as follows: You see your own personal stats alongside the TEAM total and percentage (%) value of your stat relative to the total. You could also OPT-IN to showing your scores to the rest of the team if you wanted.
The above idea solves two issues.
(1) Reporting things as a % of the team total normalizes your stats across runs. Your % of kills will be more comparable, in relative manner, across runs at different difficulties and based on how much stuff spawns since it would be normalized into % metric of the total.
(2) It keeps the default focus on your own stats and performance relative to the whole team, and if you don’t want your information shared you don’t have to have it shared. If you share your info, maybe the % are even hidden for other players just to keep it simple and not have players read into each others numbers too much.
No one said any of these things, and here you are once again being an apologist.
You seem to be confused as to what an apologist is. You give crappy people a free pass and make it my responsibility to accept that they exist. Your solution to the issue is to remove the victim rather than correct the actions. So you are not literally apologizing for the actions of these people, but you are making their actions acceptable and shifting the onus.
Apologist - a person who offers an argument in defense of something controversial.
As has been pointed out a number of times in very clear ways, mitigation.
Mitigate - make less severe, serious, or painful.
You clearly understand mitigation, as you provide an example of a convoluted system of opt-in.
Number of kills is not the objective. Everyone has a role to play in the TEAM. Someone is responsible for long range threats. Someone is responsible for short range threats. Someone handles mid range. Crowd control and horde clearing. Most people will cover at least one of these roles, but normally at least two. So if my job is horde clearing and mid range threats, then I will have the most kills. If your job is long and close range threats, then it is likely that you will have less kills. If your job is crowd control, then you will have the least kills.
Again, trying to turn a game that is in no way competitive, into a contest.
I have exhausted my level of GaS on this topic. My opinion on the matter has been clearly stated. If not, then I will have to learn to live with that. Come what may, we are just beating the proverbial horse at this point.
I get it. You guys are super hardened and can handle everything life throws at you. Everyone needs a thick skin because people are jerks, so suck it up. Except, that is not how the world actually works. If it were, Fatshark would respond to all the whinny people here and just say “we have your money already, if you do not like the game you can stop playing.” They don’t, because that is not how adults interact in a meaningful way. We obviously have differing opinions on this, and how useful inconsistent numbers based on never repeated data is. We will all have to find a way to live with that.
We can’t “correct the actions” of people being crappy. The only thing we can do is disincentive it (reporting/bans/penalties, e.g. not a free pass) or “de-platform” and deny crappy people the opportunity to be crappy (but also deny others intending good a potential opportunity as well).
In this case, I don’t personally believe the “cost” of de-platforming potential crappiness by NOT having a scoreboard is worth it at all because (A) crappy behaviors already DO and will continue to happen regardless of there being a scoreboard or not (and hence why we also need better reporting/ban/block tools); and (B) the value of a score/stat board at the end of a mission is a huge part of the gameplay loop that I value.
I’ve personally been immeasurably more interested and compelled to play since the scoreboard mod came out. I love being able to see how I did in the metrics relative to other players. It helps validate and compose how I felt my performance in the round was, gives me something tangible to reflect on, and often sheds a light on my teammates and the relative effectiveness of what they were using. Since the scoreboard mod came out I’m frequently asking others what build/blessings/items they used when they are shown to be effective. I want to learn and improve and stats facilitates that.
And it goes without saying that stats require some level of user interpretation and reflection on what you were trying to achieve during the run. A good stat report isn’t going to be perfect or cover all the nuances of different playstyles or roles, but it’s still helpful input.
Anyway, we clearly disagree on this. And If I’m an apologist on this topic I guess I need to own that - but honestly people can be jerks right now without an official scoreboard. What’s your solution to dealing with that reality (this is rhetorical, you don’t need to respond if you don’t want to :)!)?
