Unpopular opinion about the ban system

Introduction
I don't make this a feedback thread because I'm pretty certain it would just be moved to the decline box.

Vote abusers shouldn't be banned
I am personally not taking a part in vote abusing. I just think permanently banning them is stupid. They're given power that shouldn't be abused. Go figure. Nothing new to me. The thing is that people are given power they don't have the mental strength to deal with to avoid.

My proposal? (THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE AND SHOULDNT BE TAKEN LITERALLY)
First warning: Vote ban on all accounts for 1 month. Caught for voting anyway? Automatically move to second warning.
Second Warning: Vote ban on all accounts for 3 months. Caught for voting anyway? Automatically move to third warning.
Third Warning: Wipe their entire inventories on every account they have.
Fourth warning: Remove their characters too
Fifth Warning: Permanent ban

Context - Why this proposal?
I don't believe in the idea of permanent punishment. Most of them are kids, or just stubborn people. Let them learn. After having their accounts wiped, do you really think they will do it again? If they do, wipe it again... If they start harassing, ban them permanently. Simple as that. I think this server would be a lot more fun if they were more creative with theirs bans.

Also
This could apply for more types of bans. I just find vote abusing to be a great example.

 

In my opinion, just warn 1 time is enough for vote abuse.
First time can be ignorance and not really read the rules when join server.
But after 1st time, cant tolerate 2nd time. The 2nd time is for sure that person intend to break the rules.

 

I agree with you. The problem that I have with this is that people come back after 3 years as a more grown up person. Yet they don't have the chance to play anymore. I feel like those people will mature after a while. I believe there is some good in everyone. I think that having your account wiped is enough detail for you to understand to never do it again. And if you mature 2 or 3 years later, you can come back in a new light.

 

This needs a lot of effort though. How feasible is all this for the current manpower of royals staff

 

I mean, wiping an inventory takes 10 seconds if you write a script for it

 

Making 5 different ban appeals per person, wiping an innocent person's inventory(some people were wrongfully banned in the past, we are all humans), tracking people and their offences, this is a lot of work for quite a meaningless task. If my guy abuses after being warned once he is clearly doing it intentionally.

Besides, the issue is the amount of nx the abusers cycle into the economy. Even if you ban someone, the dude was getting an unfair amount of nx until caught, and by that inflated the cs/ws/apr prices and did his damage on the economy.

I understand the idea of forgiveness, but I truly believe one of the reasons mapleroyals still stands as the top server is due to the zero tolerance policy and strict rule enforcing.

 

If you're suggesting that MapleRoyals strict policy is anything unique, you're mistaking.. I think you've slightly misinterpreted my thread. Sure, I understand the problems you may face along with wiping peoples accounts. But obviously, this should only be done when it is a 100% certain someone is at fault.

 

You(edit:as a bystander) will probably assume that people are innocent because they take their time to write fairy tales in their ban appeals.

I don't want to go deeper into the argument so let me sum up what I meant.
The staff here isn't dumb. These people are good at what they do. People don't get banned for no reason.
As a player, it's easy to get fooled by the rule breakers (e.g skunk's legendary ban appeal) which lead you to believe they didn't do nothing.
When someone makes such an effort to vote abuse that severely, I don't see the need for 5 warnings until they get permanently banned.

 

You assume that I believe in fairy tail stories based on...? You're being awfully rude for no reason. If you feel offended, you should do it in a PM. As a staff member you should know better. This is uncalled for, and this isn't the first time you've been rude without context. Disagreeing with me is fine.

I'm talking about people who have matured years later and want another shot, but they can't because of a mistake they know they made. Imagine if the prison system worked like that. I'm taking about flying in zakum jump quest because you're too lazy. You've matured and understand your ban. So six months later you try again. Humans change, just like you mentioned. And that's my opinion. Hence ''unpopular opinion''.

Anyhow, you've given your opinion. That's all I wanted form this thread and thank you for that.

For future purposes, please get off your high horse. I understand the purple tag gives you an ego and you're doing an extravagant job showing that, but keep in mind that you're representing everyone on your team.

 

They weren't being rude. You're taking what they said out of context and getting offended for no reason.

Anyway, I understand the thought of giving people chances to learn from their mistakes but 1 warning is enough for vote abuse. As was said earlier, depending on the sevarity of the abuse, it can directly effect the economy. There are some other bans that probably deserve some leniency, but not vote abuse in my opinion.

 

Putting words in peoples mouth is rude period.

To keep it on topic, thanks for your opinion. I agree that it is hard to differentiate between what can and what can't be tolerated. I still don't believe in permanent punishments. I think it doesn't help anyone. Some people have friends that can't play anymore because they HP washed their girlfriends account. Those people deserve another chance if you ask me. But then again, this still remains an unpopular opinion.

 

Come on man don't try to twist my words.
Your post was about vote abusers, I replied to that section. My statement about fairy tales, or more so made up stories, is not personal, but rather general. I gave skunk's ban appeal as an example because back then ban appeal likes were enabled, and you can see that the dude managed to fool the community for quite a bit until he revelead everything. https://royals.ms/forum/threads/ban-appeal.108825/

No idea why you decided to bring up people flying in zakum, if your post was about vote abuse.
As I said before, it is almost impossible to vote abuse without an intention.


For future purposes, I am a player just like everyone else on the game, and always have been. My opinions are based off my experiences in the server, as a player. The fact that I can give warning points for uncalled for memes doesn't mean I feel superior to anyone, it's the other way around. I gave you my sincere opinion on the subject, while I can admit I personally am tired of reading stories in the ban appeal section, which may came out wrong. I am sorry if I somehow offended you, but I truly don't believe I said anything rude, or inappropriate.

Would appreciate if you can link to me my the other times when I was rude out of context, so I can apologize to those I hurt.

 

Thank you for this respectful comment. I will PM you the comments later today or tomorrow.

On topic: I mentioned in my thread ''This could apply for more types of bans. I just find vote abusing to be a great example.'' So I just used another example I deemed fit. Not just vote abuse.

 

Then I believe the title is a bit misleading. I admit I must have missed that line but considering the title I figured the discussion would be about vote abuse.

 

There are some loopholes in the suggestion. Let's visit them to improve the idea.

Vote abusers often do it on multiple accounts. I've heard of someone who got caught with 15+ accounts before. One month of vote ban won't be enough to negate their stock of NX.

Complications will follow with items that they lent to others or asked for safekeeping. People will always find a way to take advantage of the grey area and pretend their items were traded or downgraded in a "fair" way as a measure to hide them away. Staff won't be able to confiscate those items from their friends under the current T&C.

Royals has been online for 6 years +. Only God knows how many current players are ban evaders. My estimation is a minimum of 30% of the total population. If you doubt this number, try to answer why so many people know exactly what to do when they enter the server as a proposed "newbie". As we witnessed from a few ban appeals, these folks return with full knowledge about the game and poke at every area where they can take legal and illegal advantage of others. The most recent one was https://royals.ms/forum/threads/ban-appeal.151791/. Remember how many times Zofran returned to royals: he's still here after all. Royals doesn't have the best security out there so there's no way to tell if someone vote abused out of innocent stupidity or under the disguise of a newbie hood. A strict policy is inevitable with the current insecure state of the server.

As mentioned by others, once the NX is poured into the economy before they are caught, either via Gachapon or AP resets, it cannot be undone. Thousands of Gachapon items in the form of rare equips, etc or scrolls will oversaturate the market and affect the economy. Limitation of AP Reset sellers is the only factor holding back more people from heavily washing their characters. Mass vote abuse supplies a substantial portion of those ap resets. Most people don't care whether they are buying their 800 AP resets from an obvious vote abusing lvl 50 char or a reputable lvl 200 mage. Once the vote abused NX is filtered through Gachapon or AP Resets, their unpleasant contribution to the server cannot be undone even with an inventory wipe.

I'd say a 2nd chance is a maximum limit of appeal even with major (I dunno exactly how long this is but I'll assume more than 2 weeks) vote abuse but ONLY when the equal NX to the duration of vote abuse is still left on their account(s) for deletion and within 2 maximum accounts. Those voting on 3 + accounts already have a blueprint of mass illegal income.

 

try first before you say something like that ?

 

@Becca
I'm not really in the mood to multi quote most of everything but I want to clarify a few things.

- The 5 ban thing should be taken lightly. It's just an idea. I just believe there should be an extreme measure like an account wipe vs permanent. Whether it is the 3rd or 27th isn't really my point.
-I know I've been rude, but when someone is putting words in my mouth, you can't really expect someone to respond in a kind matter. Either way I apologize to @Hamburg for that since he probably didn't intend it that way. This kind of came from a post prior to this where hamburg was in my eyes rude. But I will discuss that with him in a PM soon as this isn't related to this thread.
- I also want to address that my whole thread shouldn't be taken to literally. My whole point is ''be creative with bans''. Not ''there should be 5 chances for vote abusers''. I genuinely understand the idea behind gray area.
- Again, for the part of @sparky95. It would make a great point taking my thread literally. But I haven't been clear enough, and that's my fault. My point is that if you think it through, there are better ways, rather than letting people like Skadi the #1 player back then who was banned in 2015 iirc for washing his girlfriends account(correct me if I'm wrong). If his account were to be wiped he would most definitely play for a whole lot longer.

 

This message doesn't come out of arrogance. To give you some background, I'm computer science major. And worked on reverse engineering servers below v40.

If @Matt would seriously consider this, I would send him the script within 20 minutes.
I'm not interested in a coding thread, but if you genuinely want me to proof it to you. Shoot me a DM.

Spoiler: im not bullshitting

The easiest way is to boot the player offline, and then just delete the inventory from the database.

e.g. SQL query
DELETE * FROM items WHERE char_id=<id>