under review Change how you report someone's gameplay while in a battle

[Son_Goku 523]

Sometimes, when you vote a player and a battle mod joins the battle to spectate, I feel like they're pretty lost. That is partly because you can't provide enough information when voting. If players had to provide a reason to why they are voting someone, it could help the mods out a bit. So, the format could be changed from just /vote [nickname] to something like /vote [nickname] [reason].

For example, when a player is afk for too long and keeps resetting the afk timer so they don't get kicked, you would write /vote [player] afk. With this, the battle mod would know what to look for immediately, which could result in better battle moderation. You could of course go more into detail, explain that they keep resetting the afk timer etc.

There could also be a small window that pops up whenever you click on "Report the gameplay", where you have a few boxes you can tick to make it clear why you are reporting someone, there could be for example one box for inactivity, one for sabotage and one for cheating. A textbox would also be nice, where players can explain the reason themselves.

It's a small change, but I'm sure that it would be a nice quality of life improvement for battle moderation.

Edited January 4 by Son_Goku

[Maf 32,322]

Under review

I'm not an expert in this field, but I believe I do know enough to say that this approach won't be effective due to complexity of both implementation and use. In fact, a popular Minecraft server called Hypixel used to have a detailed reporting feature where you first report and then select a reason, but this was later changed and the ability to select the reason was actually removed, most likely because the simpler report system proved to be more effective. So that's one example of a precedent suggesting that a detailed reporting feature is less effective than a simple one.

ChatGPT summarised the disadvantages of your suggestion pretty well, so I'll just copypasta its response:

1. Potential for Abuse

   • Players might use the reason field to write offensive, irrelevant, or spammy comments, increasing the workload for moderators.

2. Increased Complexity

   • Adding a reason field could make the reporting process more complicated or intimidating for players, especially younger or less tech-savvy users.

3. Higher Moderator Workload

   • Reading and interpreting typed reasons adds to moderators’ responsibilities, potentially slowing down the response time for handling reports.

4. Misleading or Unclear Reasons

   • Players might not describe the issue clearly, leading moderators to waste time investigating vague or incorrect claims.

5. Implementation and Maintenance Costs

   • Developing, testing, and maintaining this feature might divert resources from other game improvements.

6. Privacy Concerns

   • If reasons are linked to player profiles (e.g., for tracking or accountability), there could be concerns about data use or potential misuse.

 

A while ago I'd fully agree with this idea, but nowadays I also believe that simpler reports are more effective.

[Son_Goku 523]

On 1/5/2025 at 11:32 AM, Maf said:

popular Minecraft server called Hypixel

Well, Minecraft is full of 9 year olds who have no idea what they're doing, so I can imagine them having lots of false reports. If you look at any other of the big games - be it Valorant, League of Legends, Counter Strike or also World of Tanks, you would see that they all require a player to provide a reason to why they are voting someone. Those games are the games Tanki should take inspiration of anyway, and not Minecraft, as its gameplay is completely different.

 

On 1/5/2025 at 11:32 AM, Maf said:

1. Potential for Abuse

   • Players might use the reason field to write offensive, irrelevant, or spammy comments, increasing the workload for moderators.

I really doubt this would happen, and if a player reported someone's gameplay just to insult the battle moderators, they should obviously get banned. Such players deserve it anyway.

 

On 1/5/2025 at 11:32 AM, Maf said:

1. Increased Complexity

   • Adding a reason field could make the reporting process more complicated or intimidating for players, especially younger or less tech-savvy users.

I see the point, but this could also be an advantage. Reporting someone should be something serious, and by making it more complicated, if you can even count this as more complicated, you could get rid of lots of potentially false votes, since you have to put in a bit more effort then, compared to having to just click one button without really thinking about it.

 

On 1/5/2025 at 11:32 AM, Maf said:

1. Higher Moderator Workload

   • Reading and interpreting typed reasons adds to moderators’ responsibilities, potentially slowing down the response time for handling reports.

Interpreting yes, some people don't have the best writing. But occasionally, battle moderators join your battle and literally ask you why you voted the other player, so if you could at least tick a box to make them know what the vote is about, having to explain it to them in a battle would be less common. I don't see how the workload would be higher.

I've seen it happen multiple times that the voted player suddenly started playing as soon as they saw a spectator in the chat, and that player didn't get kicked then.

 

On 1/5/2025 at 11:32 AM, Maf said:

1. Misleading or Unclear Reasons

   • Players might not describe the issue clearly, leading moderators to waste time investigating vague or incorrect claims.

They also waste time arguing with players about the purpose of the vote and by spectating false ones, which would occur less times if the voting were more serious. It could be misleading I guess, but currently they have to figure out themselves what's wrong, which is also not ideal.

 

On 1/5/2025 at 11:32 AM, Maf said:

1. Implementation and Maintenance Costs

   • Developing, testing, and maintaining this feature might divert resources from other game improvements.

2. Privacy Concerns

   • If reasons are linked to player profiles (e.g., for tracking or accountability), there could be concerns about data use or potential misuse.

The difficulty with implementing this is probably saving the information a player provided, as that functionality does not exist currently - but still, I doubt it would be problematic. With the vote command it would be just adding one more argument to it. The spaces between all of the words could be a problem initially, but if that is an actual hurdle for Alternativa, Tanki's future is anything but bright.

I kind of agree with the privacy concerns, but I also think that it would not be too bad to be able to categorize why players were voted, to be able to better judge their karma or whatever as a moderator.

But yeah, in my opinion at least, the current voting system is completely outdated and also ineffective, as the battle moderators simply don't see things sometimes. I don't see how having to provide a reason why you are reporting a player would be worse than the current system.

Edited January 5 by Son_Goku

[Jeers4U 685]

On 1/4/2025 at 1:02 PM, Son_Goku said:

Sometimes, when you vote a player and a battle mod joins the battle to spectate

 

I always thought they just posted a fake message about moderator analysis being complete, lol.

I would have thought come up with a better message like 'hacker booted. thanks for keeping tanki real'.

 

On 1/5/2025 at 5:32 AM, Maf said:

 the simpler report system proved to be more effective.

Effective at what? Reducing hackers/saboteurs or more effective at mods understanding the report?

 

As far as I'm concerned, the bots are the biggest saboteurs in the game today.

They block you and your path, they bump you when trying to shoot, they shoot directly at you (sometimes) and not the enemy, They don't shoot at each other, and they don't participate in the game mission,

Sounds like multiple violations...

[Son_Goku 523]

On 1/5/2025 at 3:18 PM, Jeers4U said:

I always thought they just posted a fake message about moderator analysis being complete, lol.

They post that message once they're done. I've seen it lots of times that they start talking to the player who sent the report and also start arguing. What's funny is that everyone else can also read the chat, which is honestly also a privacy concern, since 1) everyone gets to know who sent the vote and 2) everyone gets to know who got voted eventually and what the vote is about.

I don't think that this is what battle moderation should be like. It's just outdated.

[NikmanGT 4,415]

On 1/5/2025 at 6:07 PM, Son_Goku said:

f you look at any other of the big games - be it Valorant, League of Legends, Counter Strike or also World of Tanks, you would see that they all require a player to provide a reason to why they are voting someone.

While I agree with Maf about its simplicity, this point grabbed my attention, and I've witnessed cases like these where a simple reason I posted for players sabotaging in other games actually made it pretty easy and fast to ban the cheaters, and I was greeted with something like "Thank you for reporting, your report XXX for reason YYY has been successful and player has been banned".
But something similar can happen in Tanki as well, imo when reporting a player, you are greeted with a good enough dialogue box that lists several checkboxes that you can choose from to report players.

[Maf 32,322]

On 1/5/2025 at 4:37 PM, Son_Goku said:

Well, Minecraft is full of 9 year olds who have no idea what they're doing, so I can imagine them having lots of false reports. If you look at any other of the big games - be it Valorant, League of Legends, Counter Strike or also World of Tanks, you would see that they all require a player to provide a reason to why they are voting someone. Those games are the games Tanki should take inspiration of anyway, and not Minecraft, as its gameplay is completely different.

OK yeah, that's a good point.

On 1/5/2025 at 4:37 PM, Son_Goku said:

But occasionally, battle moderators join your battle and literally ask you why you voted the other player

On 1/5/2025 at 4:37 PM, Son_Goku said:

They also waste time arguing with players about the purpose of the vote and by spectating false ones, which would occur less times if the voting were more serious.

I didn't know this happens. Also very valid points.

Changing it to Under Review for now. We'll check what the battle mods/admins have to say about this.

 

On 1/5/2025 at 6:18 PM, Jeers4U said:

Effective at what? Reducing hackers/saboteurs or more effective at mods understanding the report?

Probably both, since mods being able to process reports faster leads to a reduced number of violators.

On 1/5/2025 at 6:18 PM, Jeers4U said:

As far as I'm concerned, the bots are the biggest saboteurs in the game today.

True, but we both know that removing bots isn't something devs will consider.

[Son_Goku 523]

You could also just remove the /vote command and only work on expanding the functionality of the report button, that would probably make things easier.

I'm not saying that this is the solution to everything, but I'm pretty sure that this can lower the amount of false reports, and improve battle moderation in general.

[Jeers4U 685]

A battle mod sighting is more rare than a sighting of the Loch Ness Monster...