Report system reform

I've long been the target of verbal abuse and scamming, and I have definetely seen my fair share of botting, leeching and spamming, so I think i speak for everyone when I post this recommendation (I'm probably wrong here-but it will benefit us all)

In my opinion, there is one major flaw with the report system. Under the current system, we can only report people in the same town/outpost as us. However, from my experience, this is useless. Because of whisper chat, I have people start abusing me in an outpost or during something such as PVP of missions, then "run and hide" in their guild hall. Because I am guildless, I can't map to their guild hall to report them, so I get abuse spammed at me from someone nowhere near me, so reporting is out of the question. And if its not a guildhall, its some obscure outpost and district combo. What does this mean? We have to file a complaint to NCSOFT.

And this is where the problem intensifies, for me.

The NCSoft website is, I admit, very easy for me to navigate, so the problem doesn't lie there. It lies with the length of the form you have to fill out. And, you have to screenshot all your chat to show all the abuse. Its a very lengthy process over all-I some times spend between 45mins-1 hour reporting one person. Except, one time when I left a guild because of abuse, I got abuse from 5 different people, meaning I had to fill in one large form. I bought the game because I wanted to play it, yet every time I get abused I lose game time trying to report someone. Then this report bothers staff from NCSoft. I often have to spend 2 weeks sorting out the problem, because the replies from me and the team take ages to send and reply to. I admire the team for their great work-their reply time makes it seem like they have a backlog of complaints for various reasons, and I hate to keep disturbing them because of their report system.

But I hate it even more because I have replies from 5 different members of the NCSoft team This means I waste the time of 5 different staff members, and I hate the though im wasting their time over 2 weeks. It makes me want to give up even reporting them-but at the same time, I can't stand them getting away with it.

Don't get me wrong-the report system has recently got a big boost, with the big bot crackdown. Its nice to see Grenth reaping revenge on bots, and its good to know that PvP games will be a bit less aggravating with bots.

However, the only suggestion I have is to make the /report feature gamewide, so that we can report anyone for something anywhere.

I understand Gaile's stance on this-"But a support ticket actually gives the player much more latitude on who, when, how, and what he reports. A ticket lets him give details, and those details are often what makes it possible to see what happened and take the appropriate action. So I encourage players to report abuse or harassment issues via tickets in cases beyond, say, a passing incident observed within a district. " (taken from wiki). However, I believe it is still far to frustrating to constantly do this. I can usually get 4 of these reports to fill in every month-that's 4 hours of my gameplay lost, and 2 weeks before someone gets prosecuted-if they even get prosecuted.

This quote from Gaile is fair enough-but if she doesn't feel convinced that Arena Net should prompt such a move, then perhaps they could change the ticket system to make it less demanding to fill in. I lose a week waiting for the team to reply because I get constant replies telling me to fill in the whole form again, because they may not have enough evidence, or because i entered obscure details slightly wrong. Its fair having a report system-but it would be great if ArenaNet and NCSoft could make it easier to report people. By reporting people, we have less people breaking rules, meaning more people enjoy the game, keeping their customers loyal for GW2. With this report system, im strongly considering leaving GW and forgetting buying GW2, where I will no doubt get abused by plenty of newcomers or GW veterans who feel I may be inexperienced, so decide to swear and rage over whisper chat.

I know-one game sale won't change their mind. But its not fair on all their customers who have to go through this great deal of hassle just to have a chance at getting some punished-because there is no guarantee that their swearing was serious enough to warrant a ban.

What do you say to this? Please voice your opinions below.

this thread has been stated several times...

The problem is, most people act like jerks because it's their nature. A three day ban from Guild Wars isn't going to change that, so as soon as their ban ends, they'll just keep being assholes. I choose just not to care what other people say to me, then I don't have to worry about the whole reporting business.

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I don't see how a report would take over 10 minutes. I guess you're just bad at it, or make things far too dramatic.

...Or you think into the situation WAY too much. Either way, response time is fine on viable reports. I just reported an idiot two nights ago, they got suspended 12 hours later. The system works if you don't lie, too.

Place them on ignore and/or set status to offline. That way they can't message you.

As far as scamming goes, I personally believe that if the same person is repeatedly scammed then it is as much their fault as the fault of the multiple scammers. I realize new players may get scammed once or twice, but by looking at your join date to the forums, I can safely assume you are not a new player. The problem lies in your gullibility as well as the scammer's attempt to sell you useless crap.

Also, you may be confusing being scammed with being ripped off. A scam would be paying 10k for an item that is really worth about 100g. Being ripped off would be paying 10k for a 7k item.

I agree about not being able to report if someone has left the district. I can't help but wonder why is it you are always the target of abuse. In my 4+ years of playing I have never reported anyone (never cared enough it's a game), and I am very rarely the target of verbal abuse.

I'm very certain that this has been suggested before, both inside and outside of Sardelac, and I'm also very certain that the Devs are aware of this idea. So, since there's nothing else you're bringing to the table that's new to us, this thread shall be locked.

If you'd like to just continue a discussion on the matter, it would do you well to perform a search of past threads in Riverside on this subject. You might find one that is suitable for bringing back, or one with exhaustive discussion over what you see is the issue.

Closed.