Opt-in for reputation

[Niph]

For this suggestion forum, and since there is still time while the game is in alpha, I would like to suggest an (optional) in-game reputation system. By optional, I mean turned off by default, and a player would need to explicitly turn it on to acquire public reputation.


Also, I'm envisioning a system that would give positive reputation only. In no way I want people getting trolled with negative reputation, on the contrary. I'd like it made such that the worst someone can do about your reputation, is nothing at all.


Of course, if a majority of people opt-in to acquire reputation, then it can become socially unacceptable to not opt-in, so the 'optional' part could quickly become mandatory. I believe that would happen only if the system is successful, and if it does, then that's exactly what I'm looking for.


In fact, this post was prompted by recent incident in my guild, that convinced me that some level of assistance from the game would be beneficial when you have to judge players. For example when you can invite them in guild, or when you're confronted with the decision of booting them out. Guild dynamic would probably be the area of the game where reputation would have the biggest effect.


How would that work? I don't have something really solid to suggest, so I will just list some ideas. If you opt-in:


All alts on your account would be connected, so that if you play Joe, people could tell you're Bill's alt (or vice-versa). Could extend to multiple accounts.
If you group with strangers, after you disband, their name could remain for a little while with some 'Like' button. Adding to someone's reputation ought to be as seamless as possible.
Grouping consistently with high-reputation players would increase yours.
Reputation should probably be something that grows slowly. If you just helped someone, there should be no way to really tell if they increased your reputation, so that you can't blame them if they don't.



A know issue with this system is the 'circle of friends' problem, when a clique of people mutually congratulate each other, trying to artificially raise their reputation as high as possible. I haven't studied this case, but I believe it's both detectable and correctable (scientists have it, they certainly can tell more).

[Crissa]

Positive reputations have the same problem that systems with negative reputation have: Someone with a circle of alts, accounts, or friends can game the system.

They also penalize those who play less frequently.

I'm usually for ideas, but I literally don't know how this one could be made useful; it needs really close community monitoring to find where the abuse cases are and to make sure the opacity is working.

[Easylivin]

I like this idea. I wonder if it could turn into a skill and give cosmetic abilities to players.



Grouping consistently with high-reputation players would increase yours.
This reminds me of a show on Netflix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8tX9zjO698


https://rateme.social/

[Crissa]

Yeah, that was horrible and tore apart the community.

[Easylivin]

Yes, but some method for identifying undesirable folks would be nice.

Is there a place where a rating system like this has worked?

[Citan]

We'd really need to have a working example of an MMO where that was successful, so I could crib the details. If I were to code it from scratch, it'd need tremendous amounts of experimentation and tweaking to find a hard-to-exploit system that's actually useful... and I just don't have that bandwidth. The game still have lots of existing systems that need more experimentation and tweaking!

[Niph]

I understand that. I didn't provide a complete model, and even then the experimenting part would be necessary.

If there are no working examples in other MMO (and my experience is too limited), I will have to do some research (see what was tried, and why it fails), before I can make another suggestion, in-game this time.

[Khaylara]

I experienced that system on a private lineage 2 server (idk, maybe the official had that too but by that point I wasn't playing on the official anymore).
How it worked
-clicking on a character would give you the option to "rec" that person, basically a "like" button.
-at certain amounts of recs a player name would be displayed in a different color i.e. blue for 100+ recs and yellow for 200+ recs (btw a nametag would be great in P:G, it's very hard to tell players from each other given the limited selection of clothing and character customization)
-the recommendations would decay over time if you didn't receive new ones (that kinda made it impossible for a person to organize a "my alts like me" session) so people would have to like you consistently in order for you to maintain a good reputation.

I was guild (and alliance) leader so that feature was very useful to me as recruiter.The main purpose of reputation was PvP related though. During PvP (but especially in PK) you had a good chance to drop items, having a good reputation reduced that possibility.
In P:G, especially when the population increases we might need a tool of this sort to help with grouping and ofc guild recruiting. We had several instances when dishonest people would join with several alts (without them saying they were the same player behind those alts) and ofc the instance that Niph is referring to. Going forward with the guilds numbers increasing and with larger guilds we will need some way to identify alts or dishonest players. Citan-maybe just this type of rudimentary mechanic -a "like button" on name tag (and name tags ofc xD) would be good if it's not uber difficult to add. Idk what's in the new UI but an option to see at least a char's name w/o clicking on it would be really good.

[kazeandi]

On small servers, reputation usually takes care of these things. Heck, even on WOW servers in vanilla, you knew your "neighbors", and that were 4-digit communities.

[Crissa]

I wish I knew an example, but if I did, they'd pay my way at GDC.

This is the holy grail in social games - a system that works and doesn't require alot of moderators.

I think one tool that did work was WoW's report+mute; that reduced the workload of mods because they could see where all the mutes and reports were synchronized, which generally meant someone was being disruptive. But even that requires a huge amount of moderation.

Didn't Blizzard recently reveal that the moderation was taking so much work in Overwatch that the game was literally being delayed by the amount of trolling?

If the biggest company has trouble with this, well, I think we should have sympathy for Citan and crew.

[Khariel]

I think with as small as our community is, word of mouth reputation is just as, if not more effective in helping you weed out bad apples as a system such as you;ve described here would.

[Oxlazr]

The only working example of such a system I can think of is Archeage's hero system; players gain hero points for participating in large-scale events, and the top X amount of players are then voted for every month. The heroes get a money reward, but they're also able to summon the entire server to a central location - the intention being that if an event is going on, they're able to quickly rally the faction.

It works sometimes, but honestly the scale of Project Gorgon doesn't really justify a similar system - but if you wanted a functional example, they're out there.

[Silvonis]

The only working example of such a system I can think of is Archeage's hero system; players gain hero points for participating in large-scale events, and the top X amount of players are then voted for every month. The heroes get a money reward, but they're also able to summon the entire server to a central location - the intention being that if an event is going on, they're able to quickly rally the faction.

It works sometimes, but honestly the scale of Project Gorgon doesn't really justify a similar system - but if you wanted a functional example, they're out there.

We need some applicable examples. Sure, there are examples but it needs to be applicable so that it could work with Project: Gorgon and it can't be fundementally flawed. What's fundementally flawed? Examples: Systems that are easily abused, systems that require significant moderation, etc.

[Oxlazr]

We need some applicable examples. Sure, there are examples but it needs to be applicable so that it could work with Project: Gorgon and it can't be fundementally flawed. What's fundementally flawed? Examples: Systems that are easily abused, systems that require significant moderation, etc.

I'll use druids for an example.

If you participate in X druid events, you'll start earning druid notoriety. The top 10 druids become candidates for Arch-Druid status. All other druids (with a minimum level requirement) can vote for a druid during a particular 3-month festival. The 3 most voted for druids gain the "Arch-Druid" character badge, and the ability "Druid's Call", which sends out a "call" to all other druids on the server, which can be accepted to teleport the player to the Arch-Druid's location; this ability has a 24 hour cooldown, and can only be cast during a druid emergency.

It hardly seems exploitable or something that could be abused, and would make the whole druid emergency event go down a lot smoother, while also establishing players as a pillar of the community & requires no moderation whatsoever.

That said, I'm not saying the game needs these sorts of systems, I'm just saying they're doable.

[ShieldBreaker]

One issue that can't be fixed is that if you want to be nice to new people but these new people are prone to being mean/evil then the rep system isn't going to protect you. If I ever choose to come back, I'm going to vow to avoid being engaged in the player economy in any way, shape or form. I wonder if what/who drove me from the game, is related to why Niph is looking for ways to vet people. In my case it was someone I had never heard of before. It would be nice to know that the kerfuffle I got myself into wasn't entirely or mainly my fault.

One issue with Niph suggestion of "Grouping consistently with high-reputation players would increase yours." I would think the problem(s) would just suck-up to higher ups and still be hell for lower level players. They probably flaunted their rep, and use it in their scams and schemes to their advantage.

I am thinking that some problem people are smart enough that they get on your nerves but don't cross the line, that calls for you to writing out a abuse report. In those cases I'd like to submit lesser feedback. This person made me sad, this person made me mad, this person made me quit the game. In cases where this person made me quit the game, and if the player then stops playing at all, then the system would put a message to the devs. Of course if someone was racking up lots of sads, mads or quits, the system should also alert the devs. When issues with a player did arise they could look at the accumulated totals, and might be able at a glance to see if the player in question is more problematic than the average player. Any system would still require investigation on the part of the devs once the system reached the call to action point. If the system could automatically, record chat and transactions that occured between the two players before the feedback submitted, or a timestamp at least to make it easier to investigate.

Maybe a friendly suggestion from the devs, to people that are being disruptive. A sort of please change your ways, or you might get along better with people if you did things this way. Of course that would be just phase one, incase they didn't realize their behavior was harmful.

Anyway, I miss playing. :(