Idea Votekick Requirement Change

Hey there, Judge Joe Brown here. I'm a somewhat new player on Devinity and what I've notice a lot is that there are a decent amount of people on that like to troll and such. Without an admin, mod, or VIP member there is no way to punish them quickly. I think it would be a good idea to allow either in game currency exchange for a 1-time votekick or maybe a certain level requirement to votekick. Votekick is common in pretty much every other game I've played, and while it may be abused sometimes, the amount of times it saves someone from being abused is much greater.

I mentioned this previously and the main point against it by some of the admins seems to be that they don't want it to be abused by a normal player. While this is a very important point against it, nothing is stopping a VIP member from doing it (or an admin for that matter). The idea is that if you're willing to give money to the server you should care about it, so you wouldn't abuse the power. Well, if I have 50 hours put into the game, and I have all the weapons, and am a part of the community I would be way less likely to abuse the power then some kid with his mommy's credit card.

Abusing votekick can be punished with a lifetime ban or something very severe to dissuade people from doing it. Nothing feels worse than being powerless to stop a player who is breaking the rules. I've been playing this server a lot and I've made some good friends lately. I really don't want to have to take a 2 hour break, especially because my time is about to be a lot more limited, just because 1 player in a sever of 14 wants to be an asshat. Admins know how often it happens, and that's WHEN the admin is on.

I'm completely down with changing the level requirement or any tweaking to my idea. Basically I just would like there to be some way to handle the issues without an admin being present. Especially because late on a weekday and from like 1-4 there are never any admins on, or at least not as frequently as there are people who troll. Anyways please reply with any ideas or problems with this suggestion. Once again, completely okay with changing it, as long as it helps solving the issues of people abusing game mechanics to ruin others experience.

-Judge Joe Brown

 

This is very interesting and all, but there are some things that you've missed or didn't think off. I dont say this idea is dumb in anyway, so dont misuderstand my following reasons WHY I dont this idea:

First of all, since you're "experienced" player, you should know and freely use BR feature. Its here since god-knows-how-long and its one of the features that alows ANYBODY make a request on rulebreakers of all kind and form. If you dont know about it or dont want to use it - its your problem.
Also, there is also "calling" feature where you can just call for a staff member on a specific server, and most of us respond to that call as fast as we can. And if you also dont know about that... well, dont blame us for that.

Second of all, level restriction does not prevent people from abusing votes. I know lots and lots of players above lvl 90 that are total bastards in-game. By doing that we just adding more problems to already existing mix. You wouldn't like to be kicked by some group of douchebags in the middle of a fight, right?

Third of all: Kicking people does not prevent them from coming back. Yes. You will waste your currency and nerves just to make someone disconect for about 5 seconds.

I hope my point is clear. Have a greatest of days.
Dont let your judgment blind you.

 

I really do agree with Joe Brown on this one because Nyaaa he was talking about instant ban requests are everything not that exept theres not really a way to add it in without allowing more abusing^>

 

I believe we should only give it to select trustworthy players. (Example: 2 accepted ban requests grants you vote kick & 5 accepted ban requests grants you vote ban) this would cut down the abuse.

 

If we want to do something around this proposal and get a solution out of this, I propose the creation of a rank (perhaps Special User or Trusted?) that can help with small-scale moderation in the servers and act as a "militia" group for the staff administration. This group of people should be trusted with votekick and voteban, with limited duration, and they should not take on any direct staff commands or positions as they are not part of the staff administration. Getting staff members who are Moderators and above to appoint these players who have shown the capability to moderate and act rationally in various situations would definitely be more beneficial and less tedious compared to getting them to "apply" or whatsoever, and I generally feel that through this measure, we can also pinpoint potential staff applicants who are capable of carrying out staff responsibilities and such. This is just my two cents though, take them lightly as you please.

I don't really like the notion of just "handling" the privilege of votekick and voteban to a group of players who have contributed none or very little to the server. It is very subjectable to misuse and abuse, difficult to coordinate and implement and probably will get some of our current VIPs mad (since votekick and voteban is a VIP feature; making it common gives less incentive for them). Furthermore, having a global cooldown of x rounds might not help in a mass rulebreaking scenario and I am pretty sure if we give players votekick and voteban via ban requests, we are going to expect a shitstorm of ban requests (since players with motives are going to take advantage of this).


To be really honest with y'all, I will just stick to the usual method. Saw a rulebreaker? Just report 'em. Give a shoutout in Discord and the Shoutbox. I recommended this idea a few weeks back but it seems that there has been no feedback regarding it.

Staff members aren't really 24/7 if you ask me, we have lives to lead and while we cannot provide real-time moderation for our servers, we can assure you that any disputes you have within the server will be resolved by the administration as quickly as possible.

 

Personally I think that Joe Brown promotes a very valid point, there are a shit ton of people that break rules when there is no staff on. If it would be a vote, that means that the whole server as a whole has to vote weither the person gets kicked or not and not everyone is a ass hat so the fact of it being abused I can barley imagen happening. Counter said something about a global cooldown and waiting a certaint amount of rounds before the vote would be able to be made again, I like the idea but I think it would be easier to make by setting a time for example like 15 minutes. But I also disagree unless we can find a way that they can't join back within 1 minute.

 

The problem with having this kind of democratic solution is that while all players in the server won't be able to abuse this command and such, you are going to have players who (1) are not receptive enough for the vote and abstain from it (2) misuse the command, using it for petty or scornful purposes, with the aim to either trigger the 15 minute cool down or delay the whole process.

I believe that our Moderators and above, or at least, selected Moderators and above, should have the capacity and capability to at least appoint players from the general population to help act as a "volunteer" and "militia" group for the staff administration. If these selected individuals do abuse their position, a recommendation of a week's ban towards the player should deter and make up for this.

Of course, if our Moderators and above does abuse this function, I'd say we revert back to the old.

 

Hey, thanks for all the reply's, I'm glad I started at least a little bit of a discussion. I really like Ice's idea of a select group of people. But that sort of creates the issue of what if nobody is on? Idk maybe just expand the Jr. mod pool a bit? Enough so that effectively there's always a mod on if we don't create this group of militia

But I think that might solve the issue, and if you abuse the votekick function as a militia just ban them for awhile. Or hell, make it a perm ban to really bring the point home we don't want people to abuse it. TBH when I first started playing I would've votekicked someone who constantly won and that's obviously something that wouldn't happen with people who are invested or know how to play the game properly.

 

I think the problem is there are to many mods in the same timezone. When im on after school almost always there is another^

 

Or have personal lives and other important shit, like school, taxes, wifes and work.
Im basically the only person that moderates at random times each and every day. (cuz i have no life)

 

That's why we all need to have staff members spanning across different timezones. I live in Singapore (GMT +8) and there's always very little staff online during that period of time (aside from Viral and Razor, of course). If you want to talk about the staff prospects and such, I suggest getting more staff members from the Asia continent - it can greatly help to deal with the EU moderation and such.