Toxic-Racist-Troll players ruining Sandstorm. Biggest flaw in game. What are you going to do NWI?

Community,

By far the #1 design flaw I am experiencing in Sandstorm is the steady stream of toxic, racist and troll behavior and the complete inability to vote-kick the players, mute them permanently, or even report to NWI.

The toxic behavior often comes in the form of people who will mic-spam, curse, and overall reduce the enjoyment of the game considerably by owning the airwaves, making it near impossible to hear what is happening in-game, or even communicate with other teammates.

Trolling I've seen are players who don't play the game, but like to flash their own teammates, or purposefully get in front of my aim-sights while spamming one of the character voice options, making it impossible to shoot and purposefully revealing my position.

The racist & anti-semitic behavior and language is the most troubling. It is absolutely not acceptable that fellow players have NO AGENCY to stop this in-game. Young people are playing the game hearing this toxic sludge and forming impressions, maybe thinking this is what "cool" is. I am actually quite livid at this, and it is ruining the game experience completely.

I have written in to NWI and have not received any response. I have over 1200 hours in Insurgency and over 600 hours in Day of Infamy, and I can recall only 1-2 instances where vote-kicking was being abused. It makes no sense why NWI would leave this feature out, even on custom servers.

I want to hear an explanation from this, because it is ruining the game.

@aslan14 I wonder how people like you even manage to wipe their own asses. QQ

@sangon what is the source of your projection of "people like me" ? Are you referring to people who are intolerant of explicit racist, anti-semitic, and homophobic behavior and language in a gaming environment that young people involve themselves in? What exactly does that have to do with wiping an ass?

Are you able to provide a dignified, mature, informed, and intelligent response? Or, are you outing yourself as one of these trolls?

last edited by Aslan14

They already did something. Hit tab and block the microphone of the person who is hurting you with words.

I saw vote kick abused daily in RB6S by the same toxic people you are talking about. Lets not give them more ways to interfere with peoples play.

last edited by MLB7

@MLB7 My mute feature doesn't work. It reverts back after 5 seconds.

Also, it's not about my being personally hurt by their words. I can hold my own. It's about standing up for unacceptable behavior, especially considering young impressionable minds play this game.

Having no recourse to address toxic players who repeatedly and explicitly cross lines for me is the main reason why I think this game is not as fun to play. It's not every server or every game, but unfortunately rampant enough that we as a community need some kind of tools to self-moderate.

I'm sure they will address the blocking function problem people are having. That sounds like a hotfix issue to me and I hope they take it seriously.

That being said I don't think we should create another abusive situation to correct an abusive situation. Everyone paid for the game and they have the right to play without being kicked out.

It's always the same and annoying.The developers of such games typically doesn't learn from the past. Whenever such a game enters the public the probability that griefers, toxics and cheaters will flood the game is 100%. Everybody knows it from the beginning. Despite the knowledge security management is not implemented beginning with the first line of code. But after a while it's neccessary to implement "something" to "repair" the situation. It's like building a palace on the base of a wooden hut. Good luck.

@aslan14 said in Toxic-Racist-Troll players ruining Sandstorm. Biggest flaw in game. What are you going to do NWI?:

@MLB7 My mute feature doesn't work. It reverts back after 5 seconds.

Also, it's not about my being personally hurt by their words. I can hold my own. It's about standing up for unacceptable behavior, especially considering young impressionable minds play this game.

Having no recourse to address toxic players who repeatedly and explicitly cross lines for me is the main reason why I think this game is not as fun to play. It's not every server or every game, but unfortunately rampant enough that we as a community need some kind of tools to self-moderate.

"It's about standing up for unacceptable behavior, especially considering young impressionable minds play this game."

do you mean young minds as in 18+ years old? thats the rating for this game. i for sure knew my mind at 18

maybe you should start playing something else? especially what i find funny about your post is you dont complain about the "graphic depiction of war or dismemberment 🙂

Toxic and racist (not going to touch troll because that exists in every multiplayer game) behavior is the most troubling thing for you in an 18+ game where you can blow the smithereens out of some guys head with a click of a mouse button and visually see the bits and pieces of the head fall to the ground in a gory, semi-realistic way and even hear the /r/morbidreality level screams?

C'mon.

This may be a video game and because of that you may conflate the community to be as family friendly as Super Smash Bros Ultimate or Super Mario Party's community as those games are also video games, but it isn't. The game's not family friendly and it's not rated E for everyone, why do you expect the community to be as well?

Personally, I can't figure out who or what else you're trying to protect other than yourself and your altruistic ego, and for that, you can use the mute button or turn off comms rather than try to report or ban other players you don't want to hear. And that's all it is, you don't want to hear them and you believe other people don't want to hear them. Let those people decide for themselves by also choosing to mute or turn off comms, you can even tell them yourself and feed your altruistic ego that way.

@b4ndo and @Deathpill,

If one knows anything about NWI, they would know they are getting into a realistic shooter with a visually gory and an auditory graphic depiction of what modern gun battles might be like. That's aligned with what the game is, and NWI's brand is. This anticipated understanding on the player's part has nothing to do with repeated toxic, explicitly racist, hateful and ignorant mic-spamming. This behavior has no place in this or any other game not sponsored or created for and by racial supremacist sympathizers. NWI "does not support players who use racist or toxic language and we are considering our options on how to prevent these types of players from bothering others in the future." I believe them.

When I hear such language or experience troll behavior in-game, I politely comment that this is inappropriate on this server, and ask the person to cease such language. If they persist, I politely inform them I will report them if they continue. My next step would be to mute them, but that feature is broken currently, and it highlights a need for the community to self-moderate.

What I like about Insurgency and DOI, is by virtue of the learning curve and punishing nature of not playing with a baseline of intelligence, it attracts a more mature & serious player. Occasionally the toxic racist or Hitler admirer confuse the game with a platform to voice their ignorance, but at least as a community we have the option of putting it to the team whether they want to kick someone like this from this server and chain-of-games. Currently we have no option for dealing with this in-game other than leaving the server.

And yes, this is an 18+ rated game, and yet populated heavily with 10-17 years olds, very clearly so. In this community that I am co-cultivating as a player, I want to seed the idea that we do not tolerate this worldview expressed in our shared platform, though the person is welcome to play the game as-intended.

last edited by Aslan14

its an indie dev so stuff like this takes a lot of time for them to fix. and just like valve, nwi will probably not communitcate with us. nwi is not going to find out about this problem unless someone who is big in the community talks about it.

In regards to trying to force TKs, and other non-TK oriented forms of trolling, I agree, there are flaws and issues.

In regards to toxicity, you obviously haven't played very much INS 2014. The behavior hasn't changed, and will not change for as long as competitive gaming remains a common way to pass time.

As a young person, allow me to address two points of one of the most ancient internet memes:

14 - Do not argue with trolls — it means that they win.
20 - Nothing is to be taken seriously

Your agency to avoid toxicity consists of pressing tab and muting members of your team that you do not appreciate, and members of the enemy team that make an ass of themselves in the 20 seconds both parties interact.

Expecting maturity and civility in a game where suicide bombing is a valid strategy that will be met with cheers and excitement from both sides should be a pretty strong indication of what you're getting in to (In the same vein as Rising Storm NVA Jokes and "GI GO HOME", along with other edgy teenagers)

@aslan14 said in Toxic-Racist-Troll players ruining Sandstorm. Biggest flaw in game. What are you going to do NWI?:

The toxic behavior often comes in the form of people who will mic-spam, curse, and overall reduce the enjoyment of the game considerably by owning the airwaves

@aslan14 said in Toxic-Racist-Troll players ruining Sandstorm. Biggest flaw in game. What are you going to do NWI?:

people who will mic-spam, curse, and overall reduce the enjoyment of the game considerably by owning the airwaves

This has been present since the original Insurgency because it is a highly competitive and frustratingly hard game and frankly I do not know how you have survived your 1200 hours.

Also have you considered to simply ignore them - as in discard their words and shrug them off? It seems to work fine for me.

Stezz.

Yes please. There need to be community-moderation tools. AFKers, toxic players, racist/homophobic/sexist outbursts etc need to be reportable. Getting enough many reports in a short time should automatically lead to suspensions. The system could also automatically detect someone spamming reports and just remove the reporting privileges from them.

In regards to toxicity, you obviously haven't played very much INS 2014. The behavior hasn't changed, and will not change for as long as competitive gaming remains a common way to pass time.

I mainly played INS14 on my own servers and just promptly banned anyone for repeated racist/homophobic/etc language. That isn't really an option now though; competitive play happens primarily via the matchmaker.

14 - Do not argue with trolls — it means that they win.

You shouldn't argue with trolls, but you aren't forced to play with them either. I don't actually see that much trolling in the comp mode, but if I did start to see it a lot and it was not possible to report or otherwise address it, I'd just not play at all.

20 - Nothing is to be taken seriously

It's easy to take this attitude when you aren't the one targeted. But sexism, homophobia, racism are still very real issues even in 2019. No community - including gaming communities - should allow discriminatory behavior.

@tzaeru, completely agree.

I go back to - it's up to us as a community to enforce the baseline standard we want to have in-game. I don't mind someone who rants here and there because they are frustrated at the learning curve. I do mind when their choice of rant is specifically hateful and derogatory towards historically oppressed groups in the minority -- as if that has anything to do with the game.

I think NWI games are best enjoyed with mature players who elevate the game through team-work and tactical communication. Can't get that all the time, but the ability to community-moderate in-game in order to meet that standard is key I think.

@stezz, I encountered some of this stuff in INS2014, sure, which is why I ended up playing >90% of my time on community servers that had an explicit banning policy on this kind of behavior. Those servers were fun.

last edited by Aslan14

This has been brought up repeatedly and you have tons of players jump on the boards to defend racist toxic behavior and argue against any sort of moderation. A lot of theses defenders of casual racism are really, really persistent in their apologetics to the point that you might get certain ideas about them, like that they casually throw around racial slurs in their private lives or in-game.

It's always the same tired argument too, one that doesn't fly in the real world, but for them somehow resonates because you're online. "You should just ignore it." Imagine if your coworkers told you that you should just ignore your super racist coworker constantly spouting off about Jews and black people in the break room. It's idiotic and the only reason anyone would present this argument is because they are at best ignorant and therefore complicit in the racism of others or supremely racist themselves.

Would a person on this forum casually dropping racial slurs get a pass from all of them as well or would that somehow cross a line because it's written down? What's the difference between that and spoken in game?

last edited by CootageChees

@cootagechees said in Toxic-Racist-Troll players ruining Sandstorm. Biggest flaw in game. What are you going to do NWI?:

This has been brought up repeatedly and you have tons of players jump on the boards to defend racist toxic behavior and argue against any sort of moderation. A lot of theses defenders of casual racism are really, really persistent in their apologetics to the point that you might get certain ideas about them, like that they casually throw around racial slurs in their private lives or in-game.

It's always the same tired argument too, one that doesn't fly in the real world, but for them somehow resonates because you're online. "You should just ignore it." Imagine if your coworkers told you that you should just ignore your super racist coworker constantly spouting off about Jews and black people in the break room. It's idiotic and the only reason anyone would present this argument is because they are at best ignorant and therefore complicit in the racism of others or supremely racist themselves.

Would a person on this forum casually dropping racial slurs get a pass from all of them as well or would that somehow cross a line because it's written down? What's the difference between that and spoken in game?

You can't just cut out your coworker's tongue and call it a day. You can mute everyone else online.

We're talking about a mature game that involves suicide bombers, chemical gas attacks, and burning people alive. If someone calling you gay or n-word has offended your sensibilities to the point where denial of a paid good is the only appropriate response, then rest assured, you need to evaluate why you're playing an 18+ game.

In regards to community servers, by all means they should have administrator and moderator privileges enabled, with the additional option to enable vote systems at host/owner discretion.

In regards to public lobbies, if such toxic behavior is as prevalent and commonplace as implied, what makes you think that you won't be the one removed for questioning the mass majority's behavior and in-game norms? By all means, it's a matter of majority (read as mob) rule, and in this instance it's made to sound that you're a minority.

It's also worth noting that games like Rainbow Six Siege and INS 2014 oftentimes have their votekick features heavily abused in some instances; be it removing legitimately good players because of salt, removing new players because of some sense of elitism, or as a tool for griefing against specific players.

In regards to in-game censorship, I'll also point out how much of a slippery slope it is. Again in reference to siege, typing "Nibba" over team chat to a friend can get your ass banned. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfP8yF5dSog).
Let's not also forget the entire debacle that occurred with Electronic Arts and BFV's censorship. It literally blocked the word "Nazi" in game that includes Nazis. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gozrEDoZyG4&t=279s)

You start one chain of censorship, you're opening a door for a very slippery slope, and I guarantee that slope is a cheese grater in disguise.

I am not saying I am taking the trolls' side here, but I have come to realize that gaming is and will forever be a very frustrating hobby if you can not deal with socially retarded people.

Have you ever been to a public restroom? Have you ever boarded and disembarked an airplane? Ever watched a public debate? Have you ever driven a car? Have you ever worked in customer service? Do you live on planet earth? Well, then you should be well aware that a good chunk out of the human race (I'd claim about 10%) is an utter abomination and waste of oxygen.

I am pretty sure that the percentage of uncivilized loudmouths is much greater in the gaming community than the global average.

It doesn't matter what game you play, or what the age of the average player is. People with no social life or social intelligence whatsoever, people who were invisible in school and are trying to compensate for not having a voice then, bigoted losers suffering from small penis syndrome, even potentially decent people suffering from any form of depression and are acting erratically for that very reason, must all be overrepresented in the gaming community. Maybe even more so in the shooter genre.

I am not sure where I stand on the vote-kick matter. Personally, I find it a bit of a relief to not be asked to vote for something every other minute. It doesn't really matter to me. What I am trying to get at is;

Appalling behavior is here (and everywhere else) to stay. I have not seen more, or less, "toxicity" here than in any other shooter I play, or on different forums... the supermarket... at work...

Just ignore them.

Regardless of opinions trolling and racism should not be tolerated. I cant imagine many of you would tolerate it IRL so why is it acceptable in a game. A game which many of us enjoy playing and use as a method of winding down. I have no desire to get trolled or have someone mic spam me and my team when im trying to have fun. It comes down to the number one rule in most things 'dont be a dick'...

Something needs to be done, a vote kick system and maybe even a reporting system. People who ruin the fun and the experience of others do not deserve the right to play. Its as simple as that.

last edited by PlPPlN

@goat-walrus said in Toxic-Racist-Troll players ruining Sandstorm. Biggest flaw in game. What are you going to do NWI?:

You can't just cut out your coworker's tongue and call it a day. You can mute everyone else online.

Idk, but, muting everyone while playing Insurgency sounds a bit pointless to me. If I had to do that (which I don't, as I've not had too much over the top toxicity happen) I'd rather just call it a day and quit.

We're talking about a mature game that involves suicide bombers, chemical gas attacks, and burning people alive. If someone calling you gay or n-word has offended your sensibilities to the point where denial of a paid good is the only appropriate response, then rest assured, you need to evaluate why you're playing an 18+ game.

The game isn't slurring at anyone nor does the game itself contribute to a hostile or unwelcoming community.

In regards to community servers, by all means they should have administrator and moderator privileges enabled, with the additional option to enable vote systems at host/owner discretion.

I don't think running competitive mode community servers is super feasible anymore. People use the matchmaker and the only servers that seem to have enough activity are 32-player push servers.

In regards to public lobbies, if such toxic behavior is as prevalent and commonplace as implied, what makes you think that you won't be the one removed for questioning the mass majority's behavior and in-game norms? By all means, it's a matter of majority (read as mob) rule, and in this instance it's made to sound that you're a minority.

Firstly, I think you're mistaking an obnoxious, loud minority for the majority. At least I sure hope you are. Secondly, majority opinion isn't automatically right or the best way to approach something. Thirdly, no one's said anything about removing people for questioning something.

I'd say that usually, racist people don't leave a game because they aren't allowed to be racist. However, a game whose community has a lot of racism in it definitely does turn lots of people off from it.

Though again I should stress that in my experience, the competitive mode at least has been pretty OK. I play on the EU region which helps somewhat. I know the American regions in most games can get a bit more.. wild, at times.

You start one chain of censorship, you're opening a door for a very slippery slope, and I guarantee that slope is a cheese grater in disguise.

Sounds like a slippery slope fallacy to me. In my experience, majority of the time a blanket ban on openly racist/homophobic/sexist slurs is simply a good thing. The examples of it going too far that you posted are just a few fringe cases and they weren't very serious anyway. If you can't write "Nazi" in a game about Nazis, so what? The game isn't the place for deep discussions about the European history. It's a place to share a few shitty puns at, talk tactics, make callouts and just wind down.

@puddlemurda said in Toxic-Racist-Troll players ruining Sandstorm. Biggest flaw in game. What are you going to do NWI?:

I am not saying I am taking the trolls' side here, but I have come to realize that gaming is and will forever be a very frustrating hobby if you can not deal with socially retarded people.

Have you ever been to a public restroom? Have you ever boarded and disembarked an airplane? Ever watched a public debate? Have you ever driven a car? Have you ever worked in customer service? Do you live on planet earth? Well, then you should be well aware that a good chunk out of the human race (I'd claim about 10%) is an utter abomination and waste of oxygen.

As a Finn this doesn't quite match my experience! I think most people in real life are pretty nice and friendly and just looking to go about their business without being too much of a bother. I've literally never had anyone start a toxic rant at me at the airport, or while driving, or whatever.

Appalling behavior is here (and everywhere else) to stay. I have not seen more, or less, "toxicity" here than in any other shooter I play, or on different forums... the supermarket... at work...

Just ignore them.

It isn't here to stay. It varies greatly between places. But it sure as hell wont get better by ignoring it. If someone's being a toxic prick publicly or at your work, fucking tell them so.

last edited by tzaeru