Xbox One introduces Reputation system to oust 'jerk' players

[Eduku]

This doesn't really concern me since I have no intention of getting a next gen console, but it does interest me seeing as I've heard all about the toxic multiplayer community on Xbox Live and there was a thread on this very topic not so long ago.

Basically, every player will have a reputation which is colour-coded into green (good), yellow (needs improvement) and red (avoid me). Players will be able to vote other players depending on how good or bad their conduct is. Players will then be matched online with those of the same colour. It's essentially like playing in Heaven (green), Purgatory (yellow) and Hell (red).

I know the problem you're all going to point out: the system is open to abuse/trolls. To prevent this, Microsoft have put in place a few safeguards. For example, if a community of people have a grudge on this one guy, they insist that their algorithm is advanced enough to detect if a player is getting a large chunk of downvotes at a time and will check to see if that community has actually played online with that player.

The 'votes' are also weighed in the long term - a few hundred votes won't put you in the red zone, but in the long term, if you rack up a few thousand, you'll be marked. Those in the yellow zone will be warned about their conduct before falling into the red.

Your 'vote' will also be weighed more heavily if you downvote those players who end up becoming red players against those who just vote everyone they play against for no apparent reason.

I think that despite the Xbone's poor reputation (pun unintended), this is nonetheless an interesting solution to the apparently poor online community that Xbox has. What do you think?

 

[votemarvel]

The problem is that this is going to be abused straight away by trolls and sore losers.

 

[Eduku]

The problem is that this is going to be abused straight away by trolls and sore losers.

Then what do you think of the safeguards they've put in?

 

[XzarTheMad]

Any time a vote system like that is put in place, it is abused. Far more than reporting misconduct, people will assume it is a tool for vengeance or revenge, and use it against those they feel are better than them, those who are worse than them, those who mocked them when they tried to troll someone, etc. There is a reason, I think, that people are trained for years to be able to mete out justice in our society, and why vigilantism is not accepted. I don't see anything positive arising from a system like that.

EDIT: To address the safeguards: I don't think they will do much. Requiring a high report count to be penalized will allow legit players a larger room of time before they are downvoted by sore losers and trolls, but so will it afford the trolls a longer reign. And as for their algorithm to prevent communities from votebombing someone, I don't see that happening anyway. If a person gets a lot of votes at the same time, it is more often than not exactly because they have exhibited misconduct, and the server/community is trying to crack down on them. Negating this kind of collective effort is sort of undermining your own system, I find. Of course, there's no accounting for what is actually going to happen, gaming communities are fickle, petty, vindictive and will find any excuse to demean and detroy itself from the inside out. Generally.

 

[Guy from the 80's]

Wait.....this already exist on 360.
edit : Not quite

 

[Maximum Bert]

I hope you are not good at an online game because you will get a lot of downvotes just from beating people especially if it is popular because then you get a lot of people who dont understand why you are winning and so make up excuses, most of my downvotes on Xbox Live were from winning in SFIV vanilla because winning is unsportsmanlike behavior apparently and no I never teabagged others or sent abusive messages etc..

Seriously you would be surprised how much shit you get if you win, you are a noob who needs to learn how to play instead of spam moves and if you lose you are a noob who needs to learn some moves.

Anyway as you can see I am very skeptical of this system any system can be played and I would be surprised if it doesnt happen here especially given its anonymous nature. Really there is no need for this anyway if you dont like someone just have a flag that you can tick to stop them playing with you and I am pretty sure this feature is around already, I know you can ban messages from people as I had to do so once after some loser kept sending me death threats after I beat him in ranked multiple times in Street Fighter 4, he was amusing at first but he kept repeating the same threats and it got old.

Also how do you get out of Red or Yellow? Is it a one way street and even if you can be voted up who is going to do that only your friends and the odd nice person online most people wont give a shit they will only go on if they think you need to be downgraded not uprated as its easier to piss people off online than earn their respect.

 

[Zhukov]

Eh, it's worth a try.

I don't think getting downvoted because you beat someone would be as big a problem as people seem to think. However, I can see someone developing a grudge, then jumping on 4Chan or the like and getting a whole bunch of people to downvote the crap out of them.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

I think it's worth a try. Sure, there will be abuse, but, it might also work as intended, although for that to happen the mods will need to be plentiful and able to sift through quite a lot of bullshit.

 

[UnnDunn]

The good thing about this new system is that it isn't based entirely on votes. The system takes lots of factors into account; whether you get muted a lot, whether you complete games, etc. And developers can submit their own player feedback based on the parameters of their specific games. For example, if you constantly drive backwards trying to crash into people in Forza 5, or you teamkill a whole bunch in CoD Ghosts, the game itself can track that and submit negative feedback on you. On the other hand, games could implement "MVP" voting at the end of every match, with the winning player getting a big reputation boost. Or if you play the objective in BF4, the game can reward that with positive feedback.

It is still going to be abused, but letting developers automatically submit feedback based on actual in-game behavior will help mitigate the abuse somewhat. Who knows, it might actually work this time.

 

[Comocat]

The good thing about this new system is that it isn't based entirely on votes. The system takes lots of factors into account; whether you get muted a lot, whether you complete games, etc. And developers can submit their own player feedback based on the parameters of their specific games. For example, if you constantly drive backwards trying to crash into people in Forza 5, or you teamkill a whole bunch in CoD Ghosts, the game itself can track that and submit negative feedback on you. On the other hand, games could implement "MVP" voting at the end of every match, with the winning player getting a big reputation boost. Or if you play the objective in BF4, the game can reward that with positive feedback.

It is still going to be abused, but letting developers automatically submit feedback based on actual in-game behavior will help mitigate the abuse somewhat. Who knows, it might actually work this time.

A system like this makes me nervous because now rather than playing a game to just have fun, you are playing it to conform to developer expectations. I understand how team based games sometimes suck when some guy just goofs around, but othertimes having "that guy" who insists on only driving in circles can be kind of fun.

Skill based rewards are incredibly difficult to code. For example, when Warhammer online came out, they had lots of public events that rewarded you based on contributions to the quest. The problem was DPS was 95% of the equation so buffing or tanking or anything that wasnt damage penalized your final reward.

That being said, overall I believe this is a right step in making online communities, which are becoming almost mandatory (see galactic readiness in ME:3) more welcoming.

 

[Andy Shandy]

It seems to be a step in the right direction anyway. Anything that attempts to make online communities a bit better is worth a shot, even if it might not work straight away.

 

[votemarvel]

The problem is that this is going to be abused straight away by trolls and sore losers.

They wont work.

How many people do you know who actually file positive reviews on the 360, indeed how many have you done yourself?

Checking if they've played with the person is a nice touch but its still not going to stop a group of sore losers in a match filing poor reviews on a person.

 

[Dominic Crossman]

I used to have a 360, I got reported for abusive language twice, only problem being, I didn't own a mic and I never message anyone.
Ie the system sucked.

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

Good.

Any system is better than the one that is currently in place. I always felt the current reputation system was kind of...useless. I didn't think it hardly did anything. Of course, this was years ago, back when I played online multiplayer with my mic on with people I don't know (IE Gears of War 1, Halo 3, Halo Reach).

Since then I've stopped using my mic unless I'm in a party with friends, as well as muting everybody else otherwise.

I find my game-playing more pleasant that way; worked for me for years.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

Why? All I ever needed was a mute button and a block function. Trying to make sure I don't end up with dickheads has never been a successful strategy before due to the fact that said dickheads typically make more use of the system than reasonable people. Let me silence and ignore the dickheads and I'm happy.

 

[Erttheking]

I think it's a good idea worth a shot. Not getting an Xbox One but I still think it's a good idea for the people who do play it.

 

[MetalDooley]

but it does interest me seeing as I've heard all about the toxic multiplayer community on Xbox Live

I've had an XBL gold account for over 4 years now and I've played a fair bit of online multiplayer across a variety of games and at most I've heard a few clowns talking shit.This idea that everyone on XBL is a raging sexist racist homophobe is nonsense to be perfectly honest

As for what I think.Well I hope their safeguards are as good as they say because this system semms ripe for abuse otherwise

 

[Genocidicles]

I don't see the point. The mute function seemed perfectly fine, and if you were always running into assholes there's an option to automatically mute everyone.

This just opens it up for abuse.

 

[Zenn3k]

The problem is that this is going to be abused straight away by trolls and sore losers.

Exactly. Within a year, all the "best" players in their respective titles will be flagged so hard they'll only be able to play with the worst of the worst.

Lose a game? Flag your opponent. Abused system INCOMING!