Morality of banning based on skill.

[klasbo]

SNIP

You mean like the "No explosives" servers on BC2. Where if you kill infantry via RPG or C4 or mortar you get banned. I hated those, people just hopped out of tanks just to die by your rocket and get you banned.

If the server clearly states "no explosives", then you'll quickly find out how that affects gameplay. If you don't like that new gameplay variation, don't play on that server any more.

I was thinking more along the lines "no players over rank X" (which is vulnerable to smurfing, sure), or "noobs only" (where if you get kicked, I suppose you should take it as a compliment). In any team-based FPS there is no perfect system, due to these issues of smurfing, friends with different skill level, and no way to accurately measure skill (because there are many things to be skilled at).

 

[The White Hunter]

SNIP

You mean like the "No explosives" servers on BC2. Where if you kill infantry via RPG or C4 or mortar you get banned. I hated those, people just hopped out of tanks just to die by your rocket and get you banned.

If the server clearly states "no explosives", then you'll quickly find out how that affects gameplay. If you don't like that new gameplay variation, don't play on that server any more.

I was thinking more along the lines "no players over rank X" (which is vulnerable to smurfing, sure), or "noobs only" (where if you get kicked, I suppose you should take it as a compliment). In any team-based FPS there is no perfect system, due to these issues of smurfing, friends with different skill level, and no way to accurately measure skill (because there are many things to be skilled at).

Yeah I quickly stopped playing on that server. It didn't state "No explosives", it just said "No RPG", so I assumed it meant the RPG-7 and carried on with mt AT4 and other explosives, but they meant frags, C4, all rockets, mortars, etc were all off limits unless it was to destroy vehicles. Unfortuneately a lot of the fun of BC2 for me comes from blowing shit up.

Edit: My frustration mostly came from the fact people would jump o ut of the tank to make it so you killed them with the explosive and get you kicked. That and in BC2 the best antidote to a camper is an rpg to the wall.

I went to find a standard rules server to say the least. BF3 was bad on consoles when the servers got rented, lots of kicks for me for sniping the server admin out of jeeps and such.

 

[Raddra]

The only instances of people getting banned for being too good have been veteran players who join new player servers so they can 'dominate'... and they deserve to get kicked and banned off those servers really.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

What if your an Admin, and it is your server. Should you have to leave because some "Pr0 G4m3r" dropped in?

Say it is a rather low level recruiting server, you aren't trying to recruit veterans from other teams, just give new players an opportunity to join password protected servers with lower level players.

Finally, say your just trying to be nice, and provide a "casual" server, not a competitive server. Casual servers are for gamers who do not care about getting better, or care little.

Ignoring the fact that you're mixing declaratives and possessives, I don't see how any of these scenarios are valid. If I was an admin, I wouldn't leave or do anything because I'm usually not bad at the games I'm playing.

Who the hell forms a clan of people that are going to suck at the game? And why would you need a special server to do that if you're just going to pick basically random people anyways.

And there's no such thing as a non competitive server when you're playing a competitive game. Just because you want to play it against lower level competition does not make it non competitive, it just makes you worse at it. If you were truly non competitive you would log in and have fun either way.

Which Is what I have done in the past when I wasn't as good. I didn't ***** at other players for being better or change the servers when I was losing to a better player. I just progressively acted like more of a jackass either using insane strategies to see what would happen, or dicking around to ruin their fun.

Because in the end I either actually want to get better at a game, in which case I don't mind fighting better players because there's a lot to learn from losing; or I actually am playing 'just for fun casual' and don't actually give a shit that I'm losing because I can jump out with a TMP against 7 enemy dudes and get a luck headshot once in 3 rounds because they are surprised, and I find that hilarious. Or I can wait around a corner and manage to knife stab someone before they gun me down, and that's hilarious enough.

Maybe casual players shouldn't take the game super seriously and be intent on winning every fight if they are that prone to raging when they lose? And if they can't handle people being better than them, then they will probably have a really difficult time at life in general.

:words:

Wow those are some of the wonkiest most nonsensical statistics I have seen in a long time. Go back to whatever math class you came from and tell them to give it another try because, whatever the hell they did, it didn't stick.

 

[klaynexas3]

I just used COD as one example, but it could be anything. Halo, Wolf Team, Team Fortress, etc. Also, the idea is that lower skilled servers ban such highly skilled players to force them to essentially pick on someone their own size.

Okay, this is a completely different story. With your example, that's based on matchmaking, and so no one should be disqualified by their skills because you should be matched with those of your own size. If you really are just better than anyone that has ever played the game, then I don't know what to say, as I've never run into that sort of problem before. There is always someone just as good, if not better. Typically anyway, if we find some god that can't be killed, I assume we'll have to make new rules for it and it alone, besides that, everything else that I have to say is for humans and humans alone.

Now in servers that someone chooses to go into, if that server is made specifically for lesser skilled people, then I see a reason for mods of that server to ban that person because the higher skilled player is simply griefing, and not trying to play a fair game, and technically breaking the rules of the server as it is a low skill server, for players that are trying to learn, not one for higher skilled players.

As for scripting, that shouldn't be tolerated no matter what. Games are skill based, you go around this to become better with zero skill, you've broken the rules, and you can thus be justly punished for it. Being good at something should not have punishments, except maybe a bit of hate and envy, but that's another story. At any rate, there is no reason to not ban a cheater, unless it's a server wanting to just use cheats. I don't know if this game actually has cheats, but I suppose the only example I could think of would be play GTA online in a private server using the cheat codes, but even then those codes are scripted into the game, so it's not even really breaking the rules of the game as a whole. But I digress.

 

[Frostbite3789]

Why the fuck should someone be punished for being good at a game?

This . How do you get better if you don't play against good people . I know winning is fun but this is pushing the limit . It's like your saying , you only want to play against prople worst than you so you'll win . The irony is you might ge banned using that logic .

I dunno, there's a difference between 'better than you' and 'kick your ass so hard it's not even funny'. It's why I'm glad there's a surrender function in LoL. I'm not learning much in a 20-1 game at 20 minutes. I'd rather end it quickly so I can get into a game that's actually fun.

 

[Monster_user]

Ignoring the fact that you're mixing declaratives and possessives, I don't see how any of these scenarios are valid. If I was an admin, I wouldn't leave or do anything because I'm usually not bad at the games I'm playing.

Just because your not bad at the game, and not because you spent hard earned money for the server itself?

The point I was trying to make with that, is its the Admin's server, they can run it as they please, as long as they make it clear what the rules are. And the rules are not completely horrible.

Who the hell forms a clan of people that are going to suck at the game? And why would you need a special server to do that if you're just going to pick basically random people anyways.

I doubt the intention would be to create a clan, but if you want to keep out professional clans and players, and/or griefers, it may well end up that way. Playing against members of your clan would be a good way to know you are not going to be pubstomped.

The rationale for picking random people, is that you want the player base to grow, and you want to give the players a chance to grow. To give them a chance to develop their skills.

As the players skill improved, they would probably advance into a different clan, maybe a higher tier in the same "clan".

And there's no such thing as a non competitive server when you're playing a competitive game. Just because you want to play it against lower level competition does not make it non competitive, it just makes you worse at it. If you were truly non competitive you would log in and have fun either way.

Well, say I'm level 30. I would like to play against players ranging from levels 25-35, maybe level 45s. I don't want to play against a level 50 who only cares about winning, and goes on 50+/0, or 100+/0 rampages. Not every game has a good matchmaking system.

It is difficult to have fun when your game involves: Spawn, die at spawn, respawn, die at spawn again. One can't learn the map, vantage points, or even figure out where the enemy even is to develop a strategy, because they can't even stay alive for more than a few seconds.

Maybe casual players shouldn't take the game super seriously and be intent on winning every fight if they are that prone to raging when they lose? And if they can't handle people being better than them, then they will probably have a really difficult time at life in general.

You seem to be taking this to the other extreme. Hackers, griefers, pubstomps, etc. These actually happen, and are not just unintentionally stacked teams. There are a lot of gamer jerks who are only intent on winning every fight, and will play against low level players just to accomplish this. This is not a regular occurrence, but this does happen.

I'm not taking the game "super seriously", and I don't care if I loose, though I do try to win. I don't care if there are people better than me, I just don't want to play against somebody with ten times my skill. They should be in a different "tier" than me, and thus disqualified from running the same matches.

For me personally, a lot of my lack of skill is due to the frame-rate handicap I suffer. I consider 30 FPS to be good, but I average 22 FPS. If there is a lot of action, shadows, or explosives, then my frame rate drops into the teens, or even single digits.

:words:

Wow those are some of the wonkiest most nonsensical statistics I have seen in a long time. Go back to whatever math class you came from and tell them to give it another try because, whatever the hell they did, it didn't stick.

Yes, I realize that the statistic were nonsensical. My point was that there are a lot of people in the world, and an ever increasing number that play video games. It is entirely possible, though improbable, to run up against a jerk in every match. Thus some kind of enforcement, and rules are necessary.

 

[Zealous]

Nope it's not the player's fault they're far batter than everyone else in the game, it's the devs fault for not implementing some sort of ranking system. Unless they purposefully circumnavigated the aforementioned system in which case they're just a dick (but still not cheating).

 

[Loonyyy]

It's a terrible idea.

There's always going to be better and worse players, and they're always going to have this problem. So long as no-one is using unfair tactics, then it's ridiculous.

The problem can be easily fixed anyway: Let people choose who they play with. Use Dedicated servers and browsers, and you can control who plays. If you're sick of being killed by that guy, then ban him. As long as there are still public servers, you're golden. You can have your heavily moderated "Noobs only server", and eventually no-one will play with you, for fear of being banned, since they long surpassed the level of skill that was required to not get banned there.

And, while my fun is drained by a player cheating, it's done so because I have no chance of beating him. A human player, no matter how skilled, is someone I can beat. And losing is not always a bad thing, so long as it's fun. There's only one scenario where that skill difference has ever been a problem for me (Funnily enough, in Call of Duty). When you're playing ranked games for tournaments, the first few matches are either a cake walk or hell, while you play teams of vastly different levels, before finding your niche on the ladder. You don't learn from being completely stomped in single life environments, so these matches are often just drudgery.

 

[A.A.K]

Should you be banned? God no.

Should you leave the game? Sure. I don't see a problem with that.
I'm not competitive.
I play to fuck about and unwind. If I'm playing a shooter, it's because I just want to run around and fire bullets. So when it's me and a team of guys either with a similar mentality or low skill, the dude who runs around with 51:2 k/d really should just fuck off somewhere else.
Kick him/boot him...whatever.

I'm not interested in becoming the best. I just wanna have some casual shooter fun.

 

[xDarc]

But what of people who are simply immensely skilled compared to their enemies? I watched a video a long while ago about someone going 108-0 in Black Ops 2

You know what always bothers me about CoD scores? No one ever subtracts all the killstreak rewards from the score. If I get a skill streak, and PUSH ONE BUTTON to sick dogs or drop napalm, and it kills a dozen people... did "I" kill those people? OR - did the game just play itself for me?

It's a bad example.

I've been playing FPS games since DOOM Dial-Up days, a long motherfucking time. I can say from my experience that games today TRY THEIR DAMNEDEST to stop anyone from running the board old school. They put it all these artificial restrictions like lower run speeds, no shooting while sprinting, no accuracy without ADS which is practically sitting still in most cases, strafe speed does not equal run speed, and on and on and on.

These are all things that came out of the xbox generation, this was how they made gaming, particularly FPS games, a household item. They made it so that literally anyone could play and get a few kills and have fun. If they through the average person in with the sharks that had already been playing for a decade without changing the rules, the average person would find themselves fish food and would stop playing in disgust. Not good for business, so they dumbed them down.

"Skill" today has more to do with finding ways to manipulate or bend the rules and game mechanics, which is exactly what CoD killstreaks do. I've had my share of 90-100 kills to <10 deaths rounds in pubs, but they were in games in which you physically had to face down and best every single opponent 1 at a time.

Now a days it's more important to be able to manage kill streaks than to actually play the game.

 

[Couch Radish]

As an ex-administrator of about 7 different TF2 servers, you can absolutely kick someone for a way big skill difference.

I used to admin on a 24/7 Turbine server where 3-5 competitive players would all hop on the same team and make life a living hell for the other team, and rage quitting was so freaking prominent. But the server leads never acted upon it, server population died out, and the server (and the community running it) pretty much died.

It is a fine line, but it is viable and necessary for the life of a server.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

If someone owns a server, they can kick someone for whatever reason they want. If the entire contents of the server are mid-tier players, and someone way better than them is consistently cleaning up and the only person is having fun is that person, they are probably in the wrong server.
Why are they hanging around murdering people with no shot of beating them? If someone is truly skilled, they should be seeking out worthy opponents, not beating on people who can't fight back.
If it is a public server of some kind though, they shouldn't be auto-kicked. However, if someone owns the server, it is completely within their rights to kick the person. They own it, their rules.
In the end, video games are about having fun, anyone who says different is selling something.

 

[Voulan]

I know there's a group of people on Far Cry 2 that are all the highest level (30) and deliberately put themselves on the same team, so that everyone on their team is the highest level. Meanwhile, all the other players are stuck on the other team, and most of these people are level 5 or lower. One time the game randomly shuffled the teams and I was suddenly on the max level team (at level 6), and then a lovely message popped up saying I'd been banned from the game (before we'd even started!) for no reason whatsoever. The real reason was because I wasn't a max level on this prestigious team, therefore somehow diminishing their chances of unfairly beating a team of much lower rank. And they do this every time, to make their stats look better, when in reality their wins are against people several levels below them.

I'm still fuming about it, because every time I try to play a fair online game there, there's always the max levels on one team, and people that have barely got any XP on the other team. It's not fair, and it's not fun.

I don't think banning people based on skill is a good thing (since I'm an example of the other way around), but these teams have got to be more fair than this!

 

[Keoul]

By that logic, little league teams should compete against major league pros. That will surely teach them, right?

Since we're talking about video games and FPS in general I don't think that's a good comparison.
In a real sport there's the obvious age difference and strength, in a video game everyone is on equal footing physically. For a video game the only difference is experience in which case jumping right in would be the best option. Again this depends on the game, for FPS specifically I don't believe they should be banned, that just seems far too harsh.

 

[Lawnmooer]

While my views on the subject is against banning the skilled individual as it allows for practice against high skilled player giving incentive to get better and massive thrill if you do manage to take them out and such.

I've noticed that my view isn't shared in the gaming community.

There's been times when I was playing TF2 in which I got perma-banned from servers for hacking and also accused of hacking when people spectated me. This got to the point that all my favourite servers (No insta-respawn, no stupid RTD things nice basic servers)wouldn't accept me even though all I did was get to a point in an FPS game where I decided to aim with my Sniper Rifle and so the kills racked up (I also got very good with the Rocket Launcher and Pipe Launcher which while no-where near as good as the top Soldier and Demoman players was good enough to be accused of hacking)

Then of course there's the source of all my negative feedback on my Xbox Live account: Gears of War.

I got kicked from a server and complained at heavily when I went 15-0 using only the chainsaw on the Lancer (This didn't even take skill, I just ran forwards revving it until I hit someone, the counter to which is to just shoot me...)

Also the one game where I was just camped on a sniper rifle spawn in an Annex game and ended up with 255-0 K ratio which even included most of the enemy team using the exploit where they can sprint while being able to fight and turn as if they where running normally. I just sat there and shot peoples heads. While I didn't get kicked for this, I did receive a bunch of negative feedback (I think it was a lot of "Too good" which I believe is a category of complain in Xbox Live)

I didn't have much fun in these scenarios to be honest, but I guess that was Matchmaking's fault.

Some anecdotal evidence for high skilled players: A TF2 game I was playing in which the enemy team had a hacker playing as a Sniper and insta-killing everyone who they saw in under a second and ended up dominating my entire team, I eventually went sniper and started killing him due to my superior positioning and reactions (I knew where he was and could pre-emptively aim, while his hack just detected and then moved to players currently on screen)

 

[Keoul]

Oh buit it is, because your logic is simply that playing against people better than you improves your skills.

But if we use your example it's not exactly skills is it? it'll be like one chap playing CoD on the latest gaming rig with 10 ping while the other has a school laptop connecting to the same server with 200 ping. It's not about skill anymore they are physically handicapped.

Yep, because as we know (using this for an example because it's the most familiar to me) it's perfectly reasonable to expect a level 1 character in WoW to be able to compete against a 90 in full PvP gear since the physical limitations aren't there.

It's a different game, WoW PVP doesn't exactly take "Skill" like aiming or timing or any of that, it's just items, levels, and good macros for skills. Just spam till the other party dies. Therefore WoW is a bad example as well, also note that unless you're in a PVP world or purposely walk into enemy territory/PVP territory you won't be attacked. Not to mention, as I have said many times before, OP specifically used FPS in his original post therefore they are what he had in mind, it's like bringing up a game like maplestory into the mix, PVP is completely different.

While I understand what you're trying to say please keep in mind we're focusing on games were a player can be so good that they could be considered hacking. WoW has no such options since you either hack or you win by levels and gear.

I don't think they should be banned either, but I'm all for shunning or shaming a player who seems intent on consistently seeking only to take on people he knows don't even come close to matching his or her experience.

Those that persistently join low level servers just to attack newbies, those people I wouldn't mind the admin banning or kicking. But just a random guy who auto-joins a game that just happens to be filled with low leveled peeps? he shouldn't be kicked just for being good at the game.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

I don't think its ban worthy but you would think they would find harder opponents. Or at least if they are going to play public then go for something that gives the other team a chance like only killing people by going up behind them, going prone and doing a 720 claymore plant to kill them.
Its easier than it sounds.