Griefers and Game design.

[chompers]

After only a few days playing, it's really apparent that something needs to be done about the griefers.

This sounds harsh I know, but: Any game that allows one griefer to destroy a match will not work online.

Apart from security measures like IP bans and GUIDs which there are other threads about, there is another way you could approach this problem, which is to adjust the game mechanics to make griefing less effective and/or more difficult.

Here's a couple of suggestions to start off, hopefully some more ideas for solutions might find their way into this thread.

* Completely replace Deconstruct with Relocate for crucial structures. Pressing 'E' to relocate an overmind puts you into the build mode and cancelling the move has no effect on the existing structure. This could also avoid the downtime if you really need to move the overmind / reactor.

* A method which holds onto the existing gameplay ideal of removable bases and is similar to the karma mentioned in the other thread, but handled by the server and match based rather than persistent - Allocate points for structures built, and subtract points for structures destroyed or deconstructed. Work out the points before building or removing the structure where possible.

Anyone going into negative points can be dealt with by the server in any number of ways up to an automatic IP ban. Before it gets to that stage, they should be warned and hindered, eg. Player turns up and deletes 2 eggs, the 2nd deconstruct will take 2 minutes to complete and they get a warning. If they try to delete a third, they're auto kicked by the server and the egg stays. If they come back with the same IP into the same match and try to deconstruct again - Auto IP ban.

How you handle the points allocation is another thing, because griefers will work around the above system easily. If a player builds 5 boosters, the first one would grant points, but the fifth one would subtract a lot of points. Likewise, deleting a spawn is not so bad when there are six of them, But deleting the last spawn should be a huge amount of negative points.

The negative point threshholds for hinder, warn, kick and ban should be svars, even one that is votable, this way you could run the game exactly as it is now, but the minute you get a griefer, one callvote can temporarily tigthen up the rules so that griefing is impossible on that server. It could work also to allow the server to set point values for building / deconstructing, so that a griefer can never be sure if their second evil action will result in a warn, kick or ban.

This way the match stays running while the griefer is busy changing IP. No  swearing, no map cycling etc.

Personally, I like the first idea better, as it is so much simpler.

[Silverius]

* Completely replace Deconstruct with Relocate for crucial structures. Pressing 'E' to relocate an overmind puts you into the build mode and cancelling the move has no effect on the existing structure. This could also avoid the downtime if you really need to move the overmind / reactor.

That would make long range base relocations, which are already quite tricky to pull off, extremely difficult.

* A method which holds onto the existing gameplay ideal of removable bases and is similar to the karma mentioned in the other thread, but handled by the server and match based rather than persistent - Allocate points for structures built, and subtract points for structures destroyed or deconstructed. Work out the points before building or removing the structure where possible.

Anyone going into negative points can be dealt with by the server in any number of ways up to an automatic IP ban. Before it gets to that stage, they should be warned and hindered, eg. Player turns up and deletes 2 eggs, the 2nd deconstruct will take 2 minutes to complete and they get a warning. If they try to delete a third, they're auto kicked by the server and the egg stays. If they come back with the same IP into the same match and try to deconstruct again - Auto IP ban.

How you handle the points allocation is another thing, because griefers will work around the above system easily. If a player builds 5 boosters, the first one would grant points, but the fifth one would subtract a lot of points. Likewise, deleting a spawn is not so bad when there are six of them, But deleting the last spawn should be a huge amount of negative points.

Griefers would respond by using more subtle approaches which are equally irritating (like building spawns near enemies). Banning the subtle approaches would also ban valid strategies. So you might limit one symptom of the problem a bit, but you won't get far without hurting valid players too.

And if you do manage to block one strategy well griefers would just move on to other strategies, of which there are plenty.

[Norfenstein]

Chompers you're absolutely right that Tremulous needs some gameplay changes to make it less vulnerable to lamers. Right now better admin controls are the first priority though, since they'll be needed anyway.

I think the best solution is to obsolete the deconstruct command altogether by incorporating a mechanism for moving structures without needing to destroy them (sincing moving something is more or less the only legitimate reason to take something down). The simplest way to do this, I think, is to replace 'deconstruct' with some sort of 'mark as surplus' button, which would tag structures you want to move then use up their points for the next thing you build, automatically taking down the tagged structure when the new one is finished. This would have the nice side effect of making human bases much easier to move, which would open up a lot of gameplay possibilities. There are some subtleties this would have to take into account but overrall I don't see any downsides. I've discussed this with Timbo and he seemed generally agreeable.

[b0rsuk]

Additional things that should be taken care of:

- A granger can sit on an egg blocking it forever, and prevent playes from spawning. This has already happened in some games. May work for telenodes, too. Is a problem for healing pads, too.

Solution: when a player is about to spawn, any player currently sitting on an egg/telenode should be pushed with some force in random direction. There's really no reason a honest player would sit on spawn forever.
Healing pad solution: similar. When a player is finishes healing, is fully healed and his medikit is restored, he should be pushed in random direction so that he's not blocking the building anymore.

- Some sort of penalty should be placed on grangers who build eggs which make you fall into 'wrong place' and die. The best way to penalize would probably be a message saying who placed that egg.
--------------------
In general, the best ways to fix griefers are to increase player awareness. All players should be informed when someone builds/removes a building. This would make it much easier to detect griefers, and pass kick/ban votes (as soon as they work properly, anyway)

Calling a vote to kick someone should not be possible without giving a reason. Furthermore, starting a vote to kick someone for teamkilling should print amount of team damage and teamkills dealt by that person.
Similarly, if someone votes to have someone else kicked for base destruction, the game should print how many structures did he build and destroyed. Bonus points for showing which structures did he build/remove.

Name changing should be severely limited. I can't think why someone would need to change his name several times in short amount of time.
Make it impossible to change name altogether when there's a vote against that person.

About votes: it shouldn't be possible to kick someone with just 51 percent majority. This actually helps griefers, because they can abuse the fact most people don't care about votes. Increase it to 65 percent or so. I've seen good/helpful players kicked by idiots in the middle of a match.
---------------------------------

Another solution I like, simple and MUCH better than those currently available:

- 30 sec warmup time before match. If someone is kicked during this time, he can't join a team.
- once the match starts, no more players can join. (but allow changing teams  to balance for players who go away)
- result: once someone is kicked during a match, he can't join until end of match. Sounds good.

[Silverius]

I think the best solution is to obsolete the deconstruct command altogether by incorporating a mechanism for moving structures without needing to destroy them (sincing moving something is more or less the only legitimate reason to take something down). The simplest way to do this, I think, is to replace 'deconstruct' with some sort of 'mark as surplus' button, which would tag structures you want to move then use up their points for the next thing you build, automatically taking down the tagged structure when the new one is finished. This would have the nice side effect of making human bases much easier to move, which would open up a lot of gameplay possibilities. There are some subtleties this would have to take into account but overrall I don't see any downsides. I've discussed this with Timbo and he seemed generally agreeable.

Sounds good, if this takes into account that sometimes you want to trade a spawn for something else and turrets for tesla's. But I guess that's what you mean with subtleties.

[chompers]

Oh, building too near enemies raises another point. How is it that the game allows aliens to build an egg in a position that is too close to the enemy for anyone spawning at it to evolve?

At least that seemed to be the case, though being new it is possible the one time I caused that to happen, the enemy base may have crept forward in the meantime. Even so, you would think the proximity radius for buildings would be somewhat larger than the radius for evolving.

Of course you are right Silverius, when you fix one vulnerability griefers will find another one, but each tactic they employ will generally be less disruptive than the last. As it stands, the game almost hands everybody an instant game-over mechanism on a silver platter.

Norfenstein, your idea of deprecating structures is better than my idea of relocating them. If the new building must be fully built before the old one is removed, it would help to prevent people moving crucial structures into vulnerable positions as well, and if combat classes were able to deprecate things, it would remove any need for players to be able to physically damage their own team's structures.

Off topic, but why are barricades so expensive anyway?

Making the human base more mobile can only be a good thing too.

[mindfray]

I have an idea that might not be too hard to implement. This could be done a few differant ways. By admin command, By vote, and maybe by Trigger. Example of the trigger its say you take into consideration the persons idea about a negative point system, you get them for team killing, or somthing else. so many negative points and the server puts them in a "spectator prison" were they are locked in spectate by IP address untill an admin undoes it by cvar, or by vote.

OR somthing similar, i think a "locked in spectate prison" method would be really irratitating to a greifer, and would be an alternative to a vote ban, or trigger ban.

if all else fails BANSTICK

or you could make a name trigger if somone has ALL in their name like " all nexter holland" or "over all" the server would "lock them in spectate and disable vote kicking on that name" or just lock them in spectate untill they change their name.

[chompers]

- Some sort of penalty should be placed on grangers who build eggs which make you fall into 'wrong place' and die. The best way to penalize would probably be a message saying who placed that egg.

It would be better if the game code just didn't allow eggs to be built in positions that can't trace to ground.

Another thing which is not so much from deliberate griefing but still a common annoyance - Grangers, dretches and basilisks should not collide with dragoons and tyrants. At least dragoons and tyrants should have the bottom of their hit box above the top of the smaller units on the ground.

[Silverius]

Another thing which is not so much from deliberate griefing but still a common annoyance - Grangers, dretches and basilisks should not collide with dragoons and tyrants. At least dragoons and tyrants should have the bottom of their hit box above the top of the smaller units on the ground.

The hitbox problem is annoying for aliens, but equally for humans.  Ever had a base on the balcony on transit and somebody standing right in the middle of one of the railings? That's pretty irritating too.

Oh, building too near enemies raises another point. How is it that the game allows aliens to build an egg in a position that is too close to the enemy for anyone spawning at it to evolve?

Because a granger might subsequently build a swarm next to it? Sure, it would be a sign of bad tactics not to have others clear the area a bit first, but I can't think of a decent way to detect that from the game code (there might be a tactic where some big aliens take a few hits to protect grangers while swarm is being build).

Of course you are right Silverius, when you fix one vulnerability griefers will find another one, but each tactic they employ will generally be less disruptive than the last. As it stands, the game almost hands everybody an instant game-over mechanism on a silver platter.

Yes, but you need to be careful with changing things that have legitate uses too (unlike abyss eggs). Plus, attacking the various strategies is ultimately just fighting the syptoms, not the problems.

I personally see the solution in a combination of attacking some symptoms (abyss eggs, base reloc reform) but also attacking the causes (better admin interface, karma).

Btw, the damage own structures problem does add to the gameplay, it makes people at least think when using their guns in their own base. Like team damage this can easily be used, but it also adds value. An option for disabling it might be good though, for admins who want to make the tradeoff.

[chompers]

Just had a hilarious situation which reminded me of this thread.

Playing as human on arachnid, the other team's granger decided to build an egg very close to our base but on the upper level. Unfortunately for them, it was close enough to our reactor that we "captured" the egg by putting a couple of turrets beside it, then sitting there nailing the dretches and grangers as they hatched.

After we got the cheapest stage three ever and relocated our base closer to the captured egg, we put more turrets on the other side of it to kill anything spawning there while we cleared out the rest of the map. We left that one egg there as a punishing reminder on why not to lay eggs too close to the human base.

So yeah, the point is there really is not any reason for allowing eggs to be built so close that outweighs the massive potential for abuse.

[Greewi]

First ---------------------------

With point system to detect those remove all the base is quite dammagable... I use often the following technique :
- I'm at the old and I remove
- An other is at the new emplacement and build

That make a quick base move, but how to distinging from this scenario :
- I'm a fu**** guy and I remove everything
- An other guy is tring to rebuild all that I destroyed in a desesperated way

With a score point those two situations are same... The only "good" way is to place an admin that can juge the real acts... With full log and why not an IRC bot that can warning admin in suspicious beaviours, this can be sufficient...

An other point ----------------

Server with no admin will be avoided by peoples and they will go on server that have admins. I dont go on a server that seem to attract these unloved guys... And when I play on a server and I enjoy myself, I will search this server next time.

A solution ? -----------------

Each server dont have admin, let see how to distribute them.

First it will need a common concensus for building an admin group that have power on several server. These admins are supposed less than servers. We suppose that the admins are "waiting" on a IRC channel...

Each servers must now be able to warn the channel that something strange is happening. So this will put two thing : how to know something strange is happening and and to put the message on the channel.

For the message : it is purely technical, just a connexion as client of the channel able to put a message and ignoring anything else.

For the beaviour detection. We see that it will be very hard to get an automated system that will avoid multiple false alert and see every griefer... So we wont use an automated system but a vote system.

It is a simple vote (logged of course) that launch an emission of message on the irc channel. If it is a real alert, one of the guarding admin will go kick the face of the griefer. If it is a false alert (a griefer), the admin will go and see that is it a false alert. But with the log, he will be able to kick the face of the one that launch the vote.

It seem simple but one problem stay : If the griefer change server ? It can be an idea to have an authetification server (just a server that memomrize baned Ip and names), and having all the servers of the protected ring connected on it.

Ok all seem so simple when we dont implement it our selves...

[Sandy]

Chompers you're absolutely right that Tremulous needs some gameplay changes to make it less vulnerable to lamers. Right now better admin controls are the first priority though, since they'll be needed anyway.

I think the best solution is to obsolete the deconstruct command altogether by incorporating a mechanism for moving structures without needing to destroy them (sincing moving something is more or less the only legitimate reason to take something down). The simplest way to do this, I think, is to replace 'deconstruct' with some sort of 'mark as surplus' button, which would tag structures you want to move then use up their points for the next thing you build, automatically taking down the tagged structure when the new one is finished. This would have the nice side effect of making human bases much easier to move, which would open up a lot of gameplay possibilities. There are some subtleties this would have to take into account but overrall I don't see any downsides. I've discussed this with Timbo and he seemed generally agreeable.

This sounds very reasonable. Base moving later on in the game is very difficult as human so a change like this might help balance things out a bit.

[b0rsuk]

I think the best solution is to obsolete the deconstruct command altogether by incorporating a mechanism for moving structures without needing to destroy them (sincing moving something is more or less the only legitimate reason to take something down). The simplest way to do this, I think, is to replace 'deconstruct' with some sort of 'mark as surplus' button, which would tag structures you want to move then use up their points for the next thing you build, automatically taking down the tagged structure when the new one is finished.

This sounds very reasonable. Base moving later on in the game is very difficult as human so a change like this might help balance things out a bit.

How exactly does it prevent me from relocating reactor to outside alien base ?

[Norfenstein]

It doesn't and shouldn't.

[Silverius]

On that note I saw a very creative human team yesterday. On arachnid they moved their reactor to just outside the alien base and build quite a few turrets around it. The reactor helped too as a free tesla. If I'm not mistaking the humans won that map.

So moving the reactor to near the alien base is not per definition a bad thing.

[Silverius]

Time to respond to the larger post .

Each servers must now be able to warn the channel that something strange is happening. So this will put two thing : how to know something strange is happening and and to put the message on the channel.

Not as easy as you might think, unless you want one bot for each server. But it should be too hard to set up a special proxy server to handle this.

It seem simple but one problem stay : If the griefer change server ? It can be an idea to have an authetification server (just a server that memomrize baned Ip and names), and having all the servers of the protected ring connected on it.

When you have an auth server you're half of the way towards having lot's of half-admins too. Asume that there is a certification system allowing people to express their confidence in somebody at a certain level. Using a web of trust kind of system somebody could be promoted to a half-admin or "guard" on a server when there is enough trust flowing from the admin of the server to that person.

A guard basically has limited admin rights, think things like limited time bans and give/take funds / kills (a nice warning measure). All guard actions are logged (perhaps even to IRC, giving all admins a headsup on certain individuals and severely discouraging guards from misbehaving).

The idea behind guards is to have many people doing the basic janitor work. In the case that there is no guard in a game and the game is full the case will have to be escalated to an admin or somebody with the server password, but that shouldn't occur too many times.

Ok all seem so simple when we dont implement it our selves...

Well before development can start there must first be consensus. All parties must agree on what auth system is needed and how it would be done. The auth system would most likely connect the work of many people, so it's non-trivial with regard to communications.

[b0rsuk]

It doesn't and shouldn't.

Ok, so consider this:

player named all lljk smallpenis tags the reactor as surplus, then moves it far away, outside the base. The base is left without power - dretches, tyrants, even wimpy basilisks swallow it whole. Or if you get lucky, they will *only* destroy the newly moved reactor

Another scenario:
for(x=3; x>0; x--) all lljk smallpenis marks telenode as surplus and build a turret.

Result: the game quickly degenerates, and players start to leave the server. Especially if voting is disabled (common) and admin is absent (common, too)
-------------

It will more be convenient for moving bases, but I don't see what it has to do with protection from griefers. They'll just have to adapt to new interface, which will take them less time than implementing it.
 One thing to keep in mind: marking as surplus should take as much time as deconstructing, unless you want to simply speed up human build time.

[Silverius]

I have to agree with this. The problem isn't so much the interface, it's the freedom that you have as a builder. And you can't change that without sevely limiting the tactical part of the game.

[Catalyc]

It doesn't and shouldn't.

Ok, so consider this:

player named all lljk smallpenis tags the reactor as surplus, then moves it far away, outside the base. The base is left without power - dretches, tyrants, even wimpy basilisks swallow it whole. Or if you get lucky, they will *only* destroy the newly moved reactor

Against any decent alien team (especially with tyrants) do you really think Mr. smallpenis will actually get more than a few meters away from his base?

As well, I believe that in the next version (just like in the tjws and r1s servermods) there will be "x deconstructed y" announcements once something is deconstructed/moved. So your team should notice when this kind of stuff happens. perhaps being able to only mark one telenode at the time wouldn't hurt either.

nice sig  :roll:

[Silverius]

Depends on the definition of decent I guess. In many maps there are enough places to run to and hide a reactor long enough to let the aliens overrun the human base. After all, the reactor doesn't need to stay there, it only needs to be constructed there.

And you really don't need to move more than the reactor to shut a human base down. I'd say this is a pretty likely scenario.

[b0rsuk]

It doesn't and shouldn't.

Ok, so consider this:

player named all lljk smallpenis tags the reactor as surplus, then moves it far away, outside the base. The base is left without power - dretches, tyrants, even wimpy basilisks swallow it whole. Or if you get lucky, they will *only* destroy the newly moved reactor

Against any decent alien team (especially with tyrants) do you really think Mr. smallpenis will actually get more than a few meters away from his base?

As well, I believe that in the next version (just like in the tjws and r1s servermods) there will be "x deconstructed y" announcements once something is deconstructed/moved. So your team should notice when this kind of stuff happens. perhaps being able to only mark one telenode at the time wouldn't hurt either.

nice sig  :roll:

First, you only need to move the reactor a feet away to shut power down. ESPECIALLY against good alien team, because they would immediately notice the power must be down if reactor is light blue, shiny and translucent.
Satgnu server already has annoucements. But they need to be of another color (yellow, for example). It's easy to miss them. Or do you think all the messages "x killed y" are more important ? The messages don't solve the problem, but they force griefers to work harder.

Also consider this: HUmans have aliens pinned down and are on offensive. Some of them are using jetpacks (yes, jetpacks actually ARE useful in right circumstances). Additionaly, in outstanding display of teamplay, humans have offensive repeaters which prolong their ability to attack.
There are no aliens anywhere near human base. Now mr smallpenis disables reactor. All jetpackers fall down, repeaters no longer work. If there's no one left at the base (or with just some luck), humans will have no idea where the reactor has been moved.
I like the idea of change to relocating human buildings for other reasons (smaller turret downtime etc), but it won't hinder griefers.

As for my sig, I'm still waiting. I would really like to see a good basilisk in action. Lack of them on servers and no demos coming continue to convice me good basilisk is an urban legend. I can use basilisk well against newbish players who travel around map alone or 2 at most, but any class is good for that.

[Norfenstein]

First, you only need to move the reactor a feet away to shut power down.

You're misunderstanding how the proposed change would work. It would not be possible to "shut power down". You could move the reactor, but no change would happen until the new one finishes building, and at any point while that's happening a non-lamer could easily notice what's going on and cancel it. Such a system would make malicious players no worse than players that just don't know any better, and the gameplay is not going to change to prevent the latter from being able to make lousy bases. If you want that, then you'll have to mod Tremulous to make its building like the that of Team Fortress or Natural Selection. Proper server administration is more than enough to fill in any remaining problems.

[testian]

Chompers you're absolutely right that Tremulous needs some gameplay changes to make it less vulnerable to lamers. Right now better admin controls are the first priority though, since they'll be needed anyway.

I think the best solution is to obsolete the deconstruct command altogether by incorporating a mechanism for moving structures without needing to destroy them (sincing moving something is more or less the only legitimate reason to take something down). The simplest way to do this, I think, is to replace 'deconstruct' with some sort of 'mark as surplus' button, which would tag structures you want to move then use up their points for the next thing you build, automatically taking down the tagged structure when the new one is finished. This would have the nice side effect of making human bases much easier to move, which would open up a lot of gameplay possibilities. There are some subtleties this would have to take into account but overrall I don't see any downsides. I've discussed this with Timbo and he seemed generally agreeable.

As i thought of the "base destroyer lamers" i had _exactly_ the same idea

The problem of this could be that "aliens" could prevent humans from marking their own buildings to move the base.

So it should either be possible to mark buildings for deconstruction even if you wear a weapon or you must somehow be able to mark buildings remotely.

But there is still the problem that lamers could move structures to useless places.

You could also make a vote system for important buildings.
To mark the reactor for deconstruction you need enough votes.
A similar system you need for its construction. (a vote naming it's future location)

A dependency system could also be useful to prevent the reactor from being rebuilt and have a lot of structures losing their power.

What about virtual buildings? Every builder can build virtual buildings and as soon as they have complete consistency (power etc) you can build them at once (as this is critical you also need votes)

Useless thoughts, of course.

[SLAVE|Mietz]

Chompers you're absolutely right that Tremulous needs some gameplay changes to make it less vulnerable to lamers. Right now better admin controls are the first priority though, since they'll be needed anyway.

I think the best solution is to obsolete the deconstruct command altogether by incorporating a mechanism for moving structures without needing to destroy them (sincing moving something is more or less the only legitimate reason to take something down). The simplest way to do this, I think, is to replace 'deconstruct' with some sort of 'mark as surplus' button, which would tag structures you want to move then use up their points for the next thing you build, automatically taking down the tagged structure when the new one is finished. This would have the nice side effect of making human bases much easier to move, which would open up a lot of gameplay possibilities. There are some subtleties this would have to take into account but overrall I don't see any downsides. I've discussed this with Timbo and he seemed generally agreeable.

As i thought of the "base destroyer lamers" i had _exactly_ the same idea

The problem of this could be that "aliens" could prevent humans from marking their own buildings to move the base.

So it should either be possible to mark buildings for deconstruction even if you wear a weapon or you must somehow be able to mark buildings remotely.

But there is still the problem that lamers could move structures to useless places.

You could also make a vote system for important buildings.
To mark the reactor for deconstruction you need enough votes.
A similar system you need for its construction. (a vote naming it's future location)

A dependency system could also be useful to prevent the reactor from being rebuilt and have a lot of structures losing their power.

What about virtual buildings? Every builder can build virtual buildings and as soon as they have complete consistency (power etc) you can build them at once (as this is critical you also need votes)

Useless thoughts, of course.

VOTES?
In BATTLE?

Sorry, but that would make the game unplayable...

[testian]

The thing with votes is more an UI question and could for example only be a vote under builders. It should be a vote that does only count explicit no-votes, so there is no need to have more yes-votes than 50% of players in (builder)-team.
It's easy to have a minimum overhead here.

It's to prevent from stupid or "evil" decisions of one single person.

edit: and if every builder action takes time you could make the vote system also passive. (build while no one is against it)

[b0rsuk]

I foresee a new way of griefing: cancel 'deconstruct' markers to paralyze any building initiatives. On many maps - for example Karith - this is as good as removing reactor.

[testian]

If unmark is possible.

Why should unmark be possible?

In case you make a mistake, why should another person than the one who marked it be able to unmark it?

Marking surplus is a replacement for deconstruction.
You can't undo deconstruction.

Currently builders could also build structures to useless places, which has a similar effect.

If you implement unmarking "free-for-all" it has to take time, because it uses (virtual) resources. That's not perfect, but not worse than before.(it simulates reconstruction at the same place) Right?

[Stof]

Idea : make unconstructing so that it isn't instant and can be canceled. It won't remove griefers completly but it can help mitigate their annoyances and can also help when I mistake the "Use building" key with the "Deconstruct building" key when I wanted to replace my construction kit with a weapon

[Silverius]

Not a bad idea actually. A short timer wouldn't hurt relocations (you can already move to the new location) and it would save a lot of accidents.

[apple]

Changing gameplay just because of a few players sounds like a bad idea.

Solution: admins

It's a team game.. obviously someone who works against the team in any way will be lame, but it's easy to see. Just have even better logs of construction/deconstruction of structures.