In my opinion, introducing a stricter chat filter with real consequences might be effective for a few months at best, but it likely won’t last. From my experience with chat moderation in this and other games, players will eventually figure out which words—or their alternative spellings—trigger the filter and find ways to work around it. So, while this approach might lead to some short-term improvement, it’s ultimately just a temporary fix. Sooner or later, things will probably go back to the way they were.
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Nothing went wrong for the one teammate i assume/
Filters are not a static thing though. If that is Gaijin’s approach to moderation, then it is obvious why the problem has gotten so bad. A filter should be populated over time as player reports are made regarding bypassed words and phrases. Moderation is not a one-time implementable feature.
Also, the alternative is what? Do nothing and allow the behavior, which is blatantly against the rules, to continue unopposed because they would probably figure out a way to circumvent it?
Here’s my perspective on this
Eventually, I have a feeling that some eSafety board is gonna come along and go ‘oh hang on, this game doesn’t meet safety standards or whatever, we need to do something’, and the rating is going to change, or it’s going to be delisted in certain regions.
That, or some media or news platform is gonna pick this up and spotlight this, casting Gaijin in a negative light.
But this is just my understanding and view on all this
I don’t understand what you are trying to say here, but if you were asking if they were upset, then yes, they were. The players were reported by multiple people in the lobby. I’m saying it shouldn’t have gotten to that point in the first place.
No i was saying why were they doing it
I don’t know exactly. IIRC, they had killed one of the members of the clan a few times. It shouldn’t really matter regardless.
“Bad” might be a bit of an overstatement. In my experience, competitive games tend to share similar issues when it comes to insults and overall chat behaviour. While the chat environment in this game isn’t the best among the games I’ve played, it’s certainly not the worst either.
Easier said than done. The duration of chat devoice punishments depends on several factors: the context of the conversation, the nature and severity of the insults (especially if multiple are involved—we go by the most severe one), and the individual’s history of past violations. A filter alone can’t take all of that into account, and relying on it would likely create more problems for us. We’d end up having to recheck every report manually just to ensure consistency in how punishments are applied.
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Blacklisting another player prevents you from seeing any of their msgs anywhere they can post them. In game chat, general chat & pm’s. That’s it.
Thing many do not seem to consider is, we ALL agreed to the TOS/EULA which includes the game rules(and yeah, those covering the chats) when we made our accounts.
So it’s merely a matter of “keeping your word”, which in these days and times means a bit less and is different from when I came up.
Yes, I am older, I reached level 68 last month, buuuuuuut, I am also from Texas and frankly, what I say when I am playing(no one can hear it except my dog), would make just about anyone blush . . . when things go badly. ☻
And taking the extra time/effort to type that stuff is . . . meh, but many do it
I do not get easily offended, but I find racism and hate speech to be . . “bothersome”
They’re not going to change the age rating just so people can be less than courteous then is required now. If they were gonna do that, they woulda done it a long time ago and added infantry at the same time.
It’s a business, why would you turn away “customers” just so some can act badly?
The system is in place, it’s not that bad, and they have made it easier to report people now as well. They might up the limit of reports you can make each day, but that also allows goobers to make more false reports, so . . . double edged sword.
The internet is a unique place, MANY have the “you can’t reach thru the monitor and slap the spit outta my mouth so I can act the fool” attitude and yeah . . . that’s what they do a lot.
Many are trolls(see attitude above) and are just seeking attention . . . don’t give it to them. The blacklisting feature is there if you need it. But really, random players here & there in random games . . you can prolly let most of that go before bl’ing them.
It’s about maturity and “doing the right thing” for the most part.
Look for the good, if you cannot find the good . . . Be the good.
There are more Game Masters/MODs handling that stuff than ever before . . . more players too & yeah, more matches going on and opportunities for people to misbehave.
It will never go away, do your part and have faith in the system.
If something happens to warrant Gaijin to make changes, then they will.
But think about all the things they have had to do in the past because of player’s actions first. Crew lock, removing friendly fire and so on. Many things players do not care for have been brought upon us … . by us.
If they were to change chat moderation, chances are fair, most of us would not like that either . . . something to consider.
p.s. I used to be a Game Master some years back, trust me when I tell you they have a much harder job than most players will ever know, and it’s not easy.
Appreciate them for being there . . they actually are there to make the game better.
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I appreciate your perspective, but I have to disagree. War Thunder is by far the worst chat I have experienced in a game. At best it is matched by games that have zero chat moderation such as Wargame: Red Dragon and COH 1. While I’ve seen chats go off the rails in games like TF2, it only occurs on unmoderated 3rd party servers. That’s just my experience.
I agree 100% that it is not an easy fix. I never stated that it would be. The fact is that this either is, or should be somebody’s job. All major online games have at least some level of development dedicated to in-game player interactions (usually lumped in with devs focused on anti-cheat) in addition to a full moderation team. A filter isn’t a replacement for these things, but if anything should reduce the workload for the moderation team. A filter should not require direct moderator action outside of appeals.
For example, The N-Word does not have any legitimate reason to be used in game and I think most players would agree. It is against the rules to say this word. If you type it in the chat, it should not be sent at all. It would be up to the developers to determine whether typing a banned word even if the message did not send should be punishable. Either nothing will happen to the player or they will receive an automated mute, potentially increasing with the number of violations on record. This process really doesn’t need direct moderator involvement at all, beyond an appeals system for the player in case of false positive.
This would free moderators to address player reported chats, which due to the automatic filter, would typically be bypassed words or phrases OR larger conversations that violate chat rules but do not necessarily use inappropriate language. If a word or phrase is consistently being used to bypass the filter, the filter can be updated to now include that word or phrase. The filter should act as an automod and deal with the vast majority of inappropriate messages. You wouldn’t have to recheck an automod’s actions outside of appeals and general maintenance to ensure it is functioning properly.
Your description of how punishments are determined for violating the chat rules is exactly how punishment should be determined for player reports. There are 2 major issues with this implementation in War Thunder however: 1. The system relies on player reports, so unreported violations of the rules go unpunished when solutions for this issue exist and 2. The lack of a filter creates unnecessary strain on the moderation team. Every time a player reports the N-word being chatted in a game, it must be manually reviewed. Does the context of a player saying the N-word really matter or would it be easier if the player were just blocked from saying it in the first place?
100% agree and I appreciate your input.
My point is merely that a basic filter would seriously reduce the amount of hate speech I see in game. The game masters do a wonderful job handling player reports and I have no issues with them whatsoever. The issue in my eyes is that players generally won’t report hate speech because it is so common in game due to the lack of any sort of automatic filter. Honestly, I don’t even bother reporting it because I see it every other match. I don’t want to spend 2 or 3 minutes every other match reporting a message, especially when I have to explain why I am reporting someone saying the N-word.
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One issue I can see with automatic moderation is the fact that Warthunder is heavily multilingual, and what may rightfully only be used by awful people in one language, might happen to have a similar phrase in another language that means something completely innocous and harmless.
Old School Runescape runs into this issue quite a bit with finnish and latine players.
And I say this as someone who is quite invested in having humanity be less awful towards people like myself.
War Thunder’s chat is pretty tame compared to a lot of games I’ve played. Also, it’s probably mostly younger people who are using edgy language in chat. Teen boys like to push boundaries.
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I don’t believe there should be chat filter of any kind in the game. Currently, we have a good option already, as you mentioned: the “chat censor” in Options, which turns any offensive or foul language into ‘*’ characters on your end. This is sufficient for the purpose of blocking some hateful speech.
What really needs to be done is the hiring of more staff which respond to player reports of foul/hateful speech. Ever since the notification “reported player was punished” was implemented in the game, it has become clear that not enough reports are acted upon. This is what is most important for actual change, not any chat filter.
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go away
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Modern gamer wouldnt survive average MW2 xbox 360 lobby.
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No idea why u complain,i am one ban before perma rn so i wouldnt say chat aint moderated. For the last one i only told someone to keep himself safe and that was enough to get 30d.
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The system should keep track the amount of slurs a player has typed, should it exceed a certain threshold, then a chat ban is issued. Pretty simple stuff.
Honestly, the worst offenders are probably racist chat chains or those do “y” if you’re "x. It’s probably a lot harder to tackle those but I’m sure it can be dealt with manual reports.
That thing singlehandedly killed a known MOBA’s /all chat (hint: it has a series).
The game doesn’t need an automated ban issuer, as it will fail to provide context to it, and an actual funny, not offensive conversation could perfectly end in a punishment for literally all parties by just having a laugh.
The current moderation system just needs more people, and it’s up to Gaijin to set the incentives to go and help them.
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