Sucks to be Squelched

[Neoforcer]

This sounds ... unlikely.

 

you can be Squelched for not saying any thing in any chat. happened to me last week on ilum logged went afk can back to send a whisper to a friend got the you are Squelched. I did not type in any chat window at all. A rival guild reported my hole guild for spam and most had not typed in say/gen/guild/ or even OPS. It how the system works...

[Nonumbersfails]

you can be Squelched for not saying any thing in any chat. happened to me last week on ilum logged went afk can back to send a whisper to a friend got the you are Squelched. I did not type in any chat window at all. A rival guild reported my hole guild for spam and most had not typed in say/gen/guild/ or even OPS. It how the system works...

 

That was one of the suggestions I made to the gentleman I spoke to today from Customer Relations, and that he is passing on to the development team. To fix things so you can not report someone for spam without actually witnessing that person posting something in chat. As it stands, you can just /who and go down the list reporting anyone and everyone for spam. Its the main reason why the abuse is so out of control. So hopefully we will see some sort of fix for this soon.

Edited March 22, 2016 by Nonumbersfails

[RaucousJackson]

Thank you Eric for your feedback. Always nice to hear from one of the key people, and even nicer to hear that a system put in place to alleviate game issues is actually being used by the devs.

 

Unfortunately you guys forgot human (kiddie?) nature and the wanton enticement halfwits feel when faced with a new way to abuse a system put in place to help us, to help themselves and cripple others.

 

My suggestion would be to include a life of account trigger when people use the report feature, subs have immediate flag for investigation on the legitimacy of the report, and anybody with an account older than a month would also be put on hold, if this isn't already in place somehow. FTP or accounts younger than a week have immediate holds after say 10 reports or similar triggers.

 

To you naysayers using this forum to moan about issues including devs "threatening paying subs", if you are not breaking the terms of your agreement with them that you clicked on and most likely didn't read when you subscribed, then why stress? Further, community input in any online game is critical, and clearly listened to and used as deemed appropriate or possible. If you're tired of providing input to further the betterment of the game, then dont. And watch it crumble.

 

Negative statements breed negative reactions. Try providing positive feedback and you'll be surprised at the respone.

 

I applaud this interaction from the development team and look forward to more like it. Now. PLEASE integrate some of the the long term subscribers rewards forum suggestions!

[TxAstarte]

from what i have seen of your posts, you are trying to get rid of a particular guild just because it beats you in conquest every week. seeing as your guild cant beat them, you want them to be dismembered. i'm starting to think you have made all this squelching up to get rid of your opponents. this has got to be some of the dirtiest tactics i have ever seen. shame on you

 

As I state in my post, I am not a member of either guild that has been mentioned, nor have I personally been squelched.

 

And a guild that responds to a game challenge by exploiting to prevent others from playing the game instead of excelling themselves does not impress me.

[omaan]

Hey folks,

 

Let’s talk a little bit about our squelch system that is in the game. This system was implemented quite some time ago as a method for players to not only avoid filling up their /ignore list, but to also help in getting a lot of those pesky Credit Sellers out of chat. This has been very successful for us since its implementation as we have experienced a dramatic drop in this type of chat spam. Please continue to report Credit Sellers and any other spammers you encounter as it is helping!

 

Lately, we’ve been receiving reports of this system being abused by players. Typically, the squelch abuse is in the form of Guild members targeting individual players or anyone in a rival Guild and deliberately impacting their game play. We take these type of abuses very seriously and as with any exploit, we will be taking appropriate action against anyone who participates. Depending on the severity of the abuse, action includes everything from warnings and suspension time to account closure. Please note, if this action is taken by a Guild, we will be particularly tough on Guild Masters and Guild Officers who coordinate, participate, or simply do not stop their Guild members from abusing the squelch system.

 

If you have been on the receiving end, what you must not do is retaliate! If you do, you have added yourself to the list of participants and you are putting your account at risk. If someone, or a group of users, has used squelch in an abusive way against you please file a detailed report with Customer Support. They will investigate and take the necessary action(s).

 

With all of this in mind, we are constantly looking at ways to improve this functionality. In the meantime, please use it wisely against spammers and advertisers/credit sellers, but please don’t ruin the game play of legitimate players.

 

-eric

 

Now credit spammers will appeal that they got squelched unfair and those who did that will be banned or warned for squelching spammers. Iam more then sure that swtor customer support won't handle these investigations (from my previous ticket experience i understood that our customer service not that good). And i have a feeling that squelch abucers won't be punished,again from my experience of harassment players who never gets any punishment.

[branmakmuffin]

Now credit spammers will appeal that they got squelched unfair and those who did that will be banned or warned for squelching spammers.

Players don't squelch other players, players report other players for spam (or harassment or whatever). Not even close to the same thing. And you need a new foil hat. How are spammers going to report players who report them?

[Rafiknoll]

Players don't squelch other players, players report other players for spam (or harassment or whatever). Not even close to the same thing. And you need a new foil hat. How are spammers going to report players who report them?

 

They just need to add another macro for sending such tickets, shouldn't be too hard for them. And if you would answer that they are f2p and cant send tickets, that brings up a worse problem: What should f2p who are targeted and squelched do?

[branmakmuffin]

They just need to add another macro for sending such tickets, shouldn't be too hard for them.

And whom, exactly, do the spammers report? Everyone? No one knows they have been reported or by whom.

[Rafiknoll]

And whom, exactly, do the spammers report? Everyone? No one knows they have been reported or by whom.

 

Same goes for any other player. I assume that the CS are the ones who track the reporters down and punish them, since as you said, you cant know who reported you, so the whole thing wouldn't work otherwise. That's why its so easy for the spammers to get away with this. All they need as to write a complaint once and make a macro spam it. By the time CS notices its the same thing all the times, they will just change the text a bit, like they do with the spamming itself, and we are again stuck with the same problem...

 

The only solution I can think of is having CS check chat history of every reporter carefully and see which one is the spammer/troll. The question is: Will all employees really have the patience to look through the whole recent chat history of approx. 30 minutes around the squelch time? In my experience, they rarely go that far for anyone, let alone everyone...

[Rafiknoll]

And regardless of that. my second question: Do f2p deserve no protection against troll squelching?

[MasterCritter]

On my 3rd or 4th squelching in less than a week, and let me tell you how crappy it is, especially when you're a bystander because you're new to the guild, and your guild tried to have a friendly conquest challenge with another guild, only to find out the other guild is full of people who act like children. Who cross outside the game to harass our members, who taunt us regularly because they know as much as we do that Bioware does not care. That's what it feels like anyhow after 40+ in game tickets all ignored by them, and the customer support on the phone refusing to do anything because it has to be handled by the in-game team (who they can't call because that totally makes sense /s).

 

You'd think you'd get some level of customer support from Bioware since we do pay a sub.

 

If your guild is The one I'm thinking of id be careful. You may have joined the wrong guild

[Nonumbersfails]

Players don't squelch other players, players report other players for spam (or harassment or whatever). Not even close to the same thing. And you need a new foil hat. How are spammers going to report players who report them?

 

Actually, they do. If someone is reported for spam enough times, about a dozen, the system automatically squelches them. Its a completely automated system. There is zero oversight or action on behalf of Bioware unless the person getting squelched files a complaint.

[IanArgent]

If your guild is The one I'm thinking of id be careful. You may have joined the wrong guild

 

Um, phrasing - that could be read very negatively.

[airman]

squelched again smh....wasnt bbb ur system is just that awful...whispering ppl too fast squelches you smh

[airman]

Hey folks,

 

Let’s talk a little bit about our squelch system that is in the game. This system was implemented quite some time ago as a method for players to not only avoid filling up their /ignore list, but to also help in getting a lot of those pesky Credit Sellers out of chat. This has been very successful for us since its implementation as we have experienced a dramatic drop in this type of chat spam. Please continue to report Credit Sellers and any other spammers you encounter as it is helping!

 

Lately, we’ve been receiving reports of this system being abused by players. Typically, the squelch abuse is in the form of Guild members targeting individual players or anyone in a rival Guild and deliberately impacting their game play. We take these type of abuses very seriously and as with any exploit, we will be taking appropriate action against anyone who participates. Depending on the severity of the abuse, action includes everything from warnings and suspension time to account closure. Please note, if this action is taken by a Guild, we will be particularly tough on Guild Masters and Guild Officers who coordinate, participate, or simply do not stop their Guild members from abusing the squelch system.

 

If you have been on the receiving end, what you must not do is retaliate! If you do, you have added yourself to the list of participants and you are putting your account at risk. If someone, or a group of users, has used squelch in an abusive way against you please file a detailed report with Customer Support. They will investigate and take the necessary action(s).

 

With all of this in mind, we are constantly looking at ways to improve this functionality. In the meantime, please use it wisely against spammers and advertisers/credit sellers, but please don’t ruin the game play of legitimate players.

 

-eric

yea no one really does that,...its more of an ignore thing yet they spam fleet chat for about maybe 5 hours and then they delete that toon and make another one.... .000000001% of the time someone actually reports them and nothing happens.... this is also something you devs should talk about on the stream or maybe get to the bottom of this quickly instead of sitting on support line and wait 20 min to talk to a supervisor that doesn't have a noggin. thats just my opinion though

Edited March 23, 2016 by airman

[Nonumbersfails]

squelched again smh....wasnt bbb ur system is just that awful...whispering ppl too fast squelches you smh

 

A quick look at the link to your twitch stream, that you have included in your own signature, shows you actually spamming. Archived video from March 21st. You have an entire guild pulled up with /who, a guild you were previously banned from and whose members want nothing to do with you, and you are sitting there, going through the list of members, sending everyone on the list whispers with links to your twitch stream.

 

Based on that video evidence, you were in fact spamming, and advertising as well. So I'm not sure why you are surprised by what happened.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Nonumbersfails

[TralyanSavo]

Hey folks,

 

Let’s talk a little bit about our squelch system that is in the game. This system was implemented quite some time ago as a method for players to not only avoid filling up their /ignore list, but to also help in getting a lot of those pesky Credit Sellers out of chat. This has been very successful for us since its implementation as we have experienced a dramatic drop in this type of chat spam. Please continue to report Credit Sellers and any other spammers you encounter as it is helping!

 

Lately, we’ve been receiving reports of this system being abused by players. Typically, the squelch abuse is in the form of Guild members targeting individual players or anyone in a rival Guild and deliberately impacting their game play. We take these type of abuses very seriously and as with any exploit, we will be taking appropriate action against anyone who participates. Depending on the severity of the abuse, action includes everything from warnings and suspension time to account closure. Please note, if this action is taken by a Guild, we will be particularly tough on Guild Masters and Guild Officers who coordinate, participate, or simply do not stop their Guild members from abusing the squelch system.

 

If you have been on the receiving end, what you must not do is retaliate! If you do, you have added yourself to the list of participants and you are putting your account at risk. If someone, or a group of users, has used squelch in an abusive way against you please file a detailed report with Customer Support. They will investigate and take the necessary action(s).

 

With all of this in mind, we are constantly looking at ways to improve this functionality. In the meantime, please use it wisely against spammers and advertisers/credit sellers, but please don’t ruin the game play of legitimate players.

 

-eric

 

Not that my guild would do this, but you would seriously go after guild officers/leaders for actions outside of their control? How will you prove they knew anything or encouraged it? Given your shoddy record at handling penalties for this kind of thing, it seems crazy to me to go after people who weren't personally involved. For example, by design my guild is small and officers exist to have more access to the guild bank and guild ship summons... But officers and the guild leader have no more power than that. No amount of data you have in game could show you that.

 

On another note, maybe add "be in a guild with people harassing" to your terms of service.

[airman]

A quick look at the link to your twitch stream, that you have included in your own signature, shows you actually spamming. Archived video from March 21st. You have an entire guild pulled up with /who, a guild you were previously banned from and whose members want nothing to do with you, and you are sitting there, going through the list of members, sending everyone on the list whispers with links to your twitch stream.

 

Based on that video evidence, you were in fact spamming, and advertising as well. So I'm not sure why you are surprised by what happened.

well it's not them because I'm in the guild that is supposedly does it but literally no really does. Lots of members get squelched from replying to whispers way too fast. I have been squelched 6 times for this it's not rocket science for me but it might be for you

[casirabit]

This is not thought out at all. It is probably the craziest thing I have ever read a dev post.

 

Me, being a GM since guilds were implemented can get in trouble if someone in the guild is abusing this system and I can't control them and make them not do it? How am I suppose to know who is abusing this system? GM's have very little tools in the way of communication, tracking or even basically running their guild. To even suggest WE would get in trouble for something a member of a possible 1000 member guild does makes me want to give up on guilds and the game. I would suggest Eric that you rethink what you posted and make further clarifications.

 

My guild leader was extremely cautious about who she recruited for the guild until she turned it over to me and my boyfriend and we are picky who we recruit in the guild. Yes, that means sometimes telling a person no for joining the guild. A guild leader sets an example on how they act and they tell the potential new member what is expected and gives a warning and if they still refuse then kick. We have kicked one in the time we been playing because of the attitude.

[airman]

A quick look at the link to your twitch stream, that you have included in your own signature, shows you actually spamming. Archived video from March 21st. You have an entire guild pulled up with /who, a guild you were previously banned from and whose members want nothing to do with you, and you are sitting there, going through the list of members, sending everyone on the list whispers with links to your twitch stream.

 

Based on that video evidence, you were in fact spamming, and advertising as well. So I'm not sure why you are surprised by what happened.

 

my stream has nothing to do with it anymore anyways since im not associated with that guild any longer

[branmakmuffin]

Actually, they do. If someone is reported for spam enough times, about a dozen, the system automatically squelches them. Its a completely automated system. There is zero oversight or action on behalf of Bioware unless the person getting squelched files a complaint.

Even if true, that still does not address the second part of my post, namely, who are spammers going to report? Everyone?

[Aeneas_Falco]

Not that my guild would do this, but you would seriously go after guild officers/leaders for actions outside of their control? How will you prove they knew anything or encouraged it? Given your shoddy record at handling penalties for this kind of thing, it seems crazy to me to go after people who weren't personally involved. For example, by design my guild is small and officers exist to have more access to the guild bank and guild ship summons... But officers and the guild leader have no more power than that. No amount of data you have in game could show you that.

 

On another note, maybe add "be in a guild with people harassing" to your terms of service.

 

Assuming there is no proof that guild officers knew what members were doing, I think Bioware should only ban those responsible for the first offense. If however there is a second offense from the same guild, Bioware would be entirely justified in nuking that guild whether or not the evidence was there for guild officers being directly involved or tolerating the behavior.

 

Guilds do need to take some responsibility for the actions' of their members, and if a particular guild has more than one harassment complaint lodged against it for separate incidents than prove to be founded, it is very unlikely to be a coincidence. That would suggest that issue is not just with bad members acting on their own, but with a guild that has a toxic attitude in general. That sort of thing stops and ends with its officers. If the officers can't or won't reign it in, Bioware should penalize the guild by deleting it and emptying the guild bank.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Aeneas_Falco

[peter_plankskull]

Assuming there is no proof that guild officers knew what members were doing, I think Bioware should only ban those responsible for the first offense. If however there is a second offense from the same guild, Bioware would be entirely justified in nuking that guild whether or not the evidence was there for guild officers being directly involved or tolerating the behavior.

 

Guilds do need to take some responsibility for the actions' of their members, and if a particular guild has more than one harassment complaint lodged against it for separate incidents than prove to be founded, it is very unlikely to be a coincidence. That would suggest that issue is not just with bad members acting on their own, but with a guild that has a toxic attitude in general. That sort of thing stops and ends with its officers. If the officers can't or won't reign it in, Bioware should penalize the guild by deleting it and emptying the guild bank.

 

I'm all up for court martial and stuff ... but nuking the entire guild? People put A LOT of work into those things, and at times its the sole reason for me to log on now a days, simply just to socialize with my friends and kill stuff.

 

I realize that the guild officers and leaders should be responsible for the actions for there members, but remember, sometimes if you're in such a large guild, its not easy keeping track of everyone. The members of the guild that was doing inhumane acts should be banned, not everyone in the guild needs to suffer for the mistakes of the few, or the mistakes of the many. They need to make sure that when they ban people, innocents aren't going to be affected, the entire guild dissipated for the acts of a few officers that members have nothing in control of are going to be punished badly.

 

Ban the people, not the guild.

[Nonumbersfails]

my stream has nothing to do with it anymore anyways since im not associated with that guild any longer

 

Learn to read maybe? Never said your stream is what got you squelched, or that you were squelched because of the guild you were in when you were squelched. But your claim that you go squelched because you "replied" to "whispers" from other people too fast is not true, and the archived video on your channel proves that. On 03/21 you were mass spamming whispers to, not reply to whispers from, people from a certain guild you were not a member of. A guild who had banned you and whose members want nothing to do with you.

 

You had the entire guild pulled up via /who and you went through the list, whispering as many of them as possible with a link to your twitch stream. Which is both spam and advertising, making any squelch you received deserved under the ToS.

 

Even if true, that still does not address the second part of my post, namely, who are spammers going to report? Everyone?

 

I didn't address it because it makes no sense. The spammers don't get to report anyone, because if they were actually spamming, they deserve whatever punishment they receive. Now, if someone is unfairly squelched when they were not actually spamming, that issue has been clearly addressed in this thread. If you were not actually spamming, but get squelched, per EA Customer Relations you are to file an in game ticket for harassment.

 

When you file that ticket, you provide them with as many details as possible. A ticket should look something like this:

 

"On ThisDate I was improperly squelched at approximately ThisTime. Please review my chat log to see that I was not spamming or breaking any other policy under the ToS at or before the time I was squelched. Since I was not in any violation of the ToS when I was squelched, that means another player or players who reported me were abusing the Report Spam feature and reporting someone who was not actually breaking the rules. Please review the logs to see who reported me, after verifying I was not actually breaking the rules, and take appropriate action against the player or players who filed the false reports against me."

 

When the ToS enforcement team reviews that ticket, the first thing they will do is look at the chat logs of the person who made the ticket. If that person was actually breaking the rules, they will be opening themselves up for additional possible action against them. If and only if they were not breaking the rules will Bioware then look at who reported them for spam in the first place and take appropriate action as necessary.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Nonumbersfails

[Paxx_Maximus]

I just came back to this game from a break. I was in fleet on harbinger and I was reading up on what I missed when I got squelched. I had to text one of my guild-mates telling him I got squelched.

 

Apparently this is now a fun "game" for trolls and it allows bioware to shrug their shoulders and say "we did something".

 

In WoW if there is a spammer or someone bothering you there is a way to report them. Then they can look into what happened and act accordingly. It is not perfect but it prevents trolls from ruining your gameplay. This apparently means that bioware doesn't have the resources to check reports to see if someone is actually a gold spammer or harasser.

 

These are the same trolls that are attacking youtube channels and social media "striking" people they disagree with or whom they maliciously want to take down.