Proposal for a player trust system

You can give people who give you a bum rap a horrible trust rating, and anyways people will still ask for you even though you have a bad rating, because monks are rare late game.

Can someone go running around rating people and give them unsatisfactories across the board? I can certainly see a bunch of teenage boys tearing through Lion's Arch doing just that. Just like I see them chasing after someone and mocking them or doing something else stupid these days. They can skew the whole system right there. Or someone else who gets a bug under their skin getting a bunch of people to give you a bad rating. There's no way to stop that kind of griefing. It's just too easy to skew no matter if it wears off or not.

I really like the idea of a trust system. I think it will encourage a stronger sense of community in the game, which could use it. I like the trust aura around people, since it would be intuitive and visual.

I would use the eBay model though for assigning trust though. People would rate each other only after a 'transaction' - meaning a quest or mission. At the conclusion of a quest or mission (after it's completed successfully, or everyone dies), you'd have an opportunity to rate each other party member: positive, neutral, negative. This would reduce buying and selling of trust, I think, and outright prevent people running through town distrusting everyone.

Trust would be displayed as both the total number of people who have given positive ratings to a person, and a percentage of positive feedback. Trust would also be account-based, so you couldn't create characters just to boost someone else's trust level. With your account, you could only rate each other account once.

To prevent arbitrary negative feedback, someone's trust profile could also show how much of each type of feedback they have given. You wouldn't want to party with someone who marks everyone as negative...

It definitely encourages cooperative group play in PvE, since having a higher level of trust makes it easier to find groups. I also have had a great time playing with certain people, and it would be cool to have a way to reward them for their teamwork and let other people know they're good players.

It also makes guilds a little more meaningful: As an officer, you want to accept trusted people into the guild. And as a member, you know if you play well with a guild you'll have a nice beginning source of trust.

I don't think trust should decay. A profile could simply show the last 20 trust ratings, to show the 'trend' of a player. I'm not sure this system should apply in PvP either - it would be hard to resist a round of negatives after a loss, even if you knew the other team simply played exceptionally well.

In reply to Pashet's, and all "abuse" issues:

I think that the system sorts that out-- Other players would only see the "bad" rating if they had a direct link of "fully trusted" players to said Teenage Boys (or any other "abuser of the system"). The system, as I understand, works on a "web" of trust, with each individual player at the center, not on a "global" E-bay style rating system. The system would also be useful only to people who use it, i.e., people who have friends that are "fully trusted". Otherwise, every player would appear "unknown" save those that the player herself/himself rated. (Please correct me if I'm wrong, Xanthar.) It seems like quite a brilliant system to me (though difficult to implement). The only problem is that webs might be very small if the system isn't put into wide use. The trick would be to make it very simple and quick to use.

Simple Example: (In a Guild Wars world of four players )
- Teenage Boy rates Innocent Bystander as "untrusted"
- John Doe, having no relation to Teenage Boy sees Innocent Bystander as "unknown"
- Griefer Joe who has Teenage Boy rated as "fully trusted" is the only one besides Teenage Boy who sees Innocent Bystander as "untrusted"

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In reality, couldn't you just trust them anyways, i mean, without having a system. I believe an idea was proposed like this for a group rating system. The idea of marking someone as trustworthy is too much wishfull thinking. Just because YOU think someone is trustworthy, does that mean that he/she REALLY is, no, it doesn't. If you trust someone, then you shouldn't have to put a label on him. Let people have their own opinions on the people they meet. Just because you think one way of someone, does that mean we all have to?

This sounds like a really good idea. (Although I disagree that ANY trust, good or bad, should deteriorate. You should earn your trust back the hard way! Or meet new people.)

I would prefer that there be more steps on the trust ladder- it seems like there's only a couple of real levels anyone's trust could be, and I would like a more refined scale. But the basic idea is really solid, and griefing free (if you take the time to think about it.)

Yes, the thought of it is good. But, it is easily abused and will encourage more group discrimination. If your an a**hole, and you act like it, chances are, you're not getting an a good group. Just because some retard lables you as untrustworthy, should you be punished? And, if you really did do something naughty, you shouldn't be punished in a long term way. A system as proposed will only make this game become like highschool (and I know what that is like, trust me ). People will be put into classes, Uber l33t trustworthy, trustworthy, untrustworthy, jerk...etc. People will judge you based only on OTHER people's opinions of you, and to me...that's just wrong.

So, to the people who would get bad ratings this is a bad idea, and to the people who would get good ratings, this is a good idea. Funny that.

No, if you're some jerk, who buddies up with other jerks to get a good rating, then would it not hurt the whole community? And, if you're some unlucky fellow who gets paired up with said jerks and gets a bad rating, is that fair? Nope, it's not. I ask you, what is the point in having a player trust system other than that you already have. You know the good people in the game, you have a friends list, you have your opinions on said people. If you want someone else to trust these people, refer them, make friends. You do not need some title in order to get into a good group/guild or otherwise. If you are a generally good person, and you can get along with people, you don't need a rating. If you're a jerk, you'll get ignored by most except for your fellow jerks.

If you are the jerk group, even if you gave eachother good ratings it wouldn't effect the whole community, and read above for why, I don't feel like saying what has been said before if you would look.

There will always be jerks in the game who love to make other people feel miserable. But if they give people bad ratings, then the people will give bad ratings back and no one will party with them.

Well, then there will be a war of bad ratings and no one would benefit. People really shouldn't worry about giving people ratings other than the casual, "your good, hope to play with you again."
I also do not like restating what was once said, if you would read my post to actually GET what I am saying, then i wouldn't.
Just to make it clear, here is my POINT, I was trying not to be rude before:
Look, this idea has NO use whatsoever in my opinion. It would give other people a reason not to group up with you because of a title. If you really like this person, group with him, if you don't then don't. No need for a bunch of whiny little brats to give you a bad rating, and then whining for not getting a good one.


And, you have helped make my point. "There will always be jerks in the game who love to make other people feel miserable." You're right, and this rating system would just give them another outlet to make people miserable, no matter what. The system won't stop them.

Lineage II has this exact idea and guess what? It doesn't work. Great idea, but like a previous poster said this would be HIGHLY abused.

If you're looking for people to trust, look towards your guild. I know sometimes you can't always find people who are availble help when you want, but it's better than nothing. If you're not happy with your guild, hit me with a whisper sometime...

Arthas006not7, I might presume, but I think that you have gotten the idea about the system a bit wrong, and since you are not the only one, I'll endeavor to explain a bit more.

The system, as it stands, gives noone a global "rating". You are not rated to anything visible across the game - The system is about letting YOU see what people your FRIENDS trust and distrust when it comes to grouping in GuildWars.

There is nowhere in the proposal anything about people being able to see how a random guy has been rated by the general populace, because that means nothing. Only when a buddy of yours, one whos judgement you fully trust, has met Joe Random and rated him will a status be visible for you. The same goes for anyone.

So take the famed example:
"Moron A" rates me as "distrusted" because I didn't res him within 30 secs after he stupidly died
"Moron B" marks "Moron A" as fully trusted.
"Joe Random" is no moron, so he marks neither "Moron A", nor "Moron B" as fully trusted.
What does "Joe Random" see when he looks at my shabby avatar? He sees me as unknown.
What does "Moron B" see? He sees me as "distrusted", and that is fine by me, since anyone stupid enough to fully trust "Moron A" or "Moron B" is very unlikely to be a good player.

Simple. Just have the decay over hours played, not actual time.


EDIT: oops, I wrote this right after reading the post.



And for how many others of you has the word 'trust' lost its meaning from the 200+ times it has been used in this thread? lol

Okay, from the way others explained it to me in PMs, I got the idea of a GLOBAL rating. I like the idea of a friends list rating, great idea. No realy need for decay though. Or, we could just make the friends list bigger.

A trust-system would be nice, but, as somebody already said, will always a target of abuse in some way.
The easiest way to know who you can trust or not is (when it comes to getting people on your team) to listen to your feelings.

You can usually see who fits your team and who doesn't after the first battle during a mission.
And often you can already tell, if you take your time and talk to your team-members before you start the quest/mission.

I usually pick people by their names.
If somebody has a name that I like, I invite the character.
It's not foolproove, but it's a system.

All this talk about abuse without addressing what was said prior in the thread makes me feel the need to quote myself. So read above, read whole thread.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...9997#post79997
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...0417#post80417

Just a review of what I brought to the table.

I don't know if this has been said allready, but what if you could only "rate" someone inside an instance? That would probably eliminate some of the abuse.