V26 blocked players in chat. Answered in post 4, 41 by staff

My question is why does block mean track? You block someone so you don’t see comments you don’t want to see. Let that be the end of it. This whole thing seems way overblown.

I’ve been in dozens of alliances because that is what make me happy, and I have never heard people complain about people coming in with different names to terrorize the rest of the alliance.

It might happen periodically but reading some of these posts about tracking people so you can disparage them in your alliance and possibly other alliances seems way off the mark. I am more inclined to agree with the devs after hearing how people demonize other players and track them because they feel wronged by that player.

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What if you did nothing wrong you leave the ally on good terms then before you know it there is a smear cam about you?

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Surley if you blokc a player from an alliance it should be based on their account number, not name?

Kicked player would have to start a new account and rank up to meet alliance entry requirements before they could re-enter. Keep your alliance requirements high to minimise.

No need for that

If they don’t like what they read or what someone says about them in front of anyone they might know, they can just block and problem solved right?

If they can’t read what is said then it can’t do any harm, i mean isn’t that where they stand on this debate?

A player that has harassed me in game and has been banned from a ton of alliances for abusive behavior that was tracked with the block method (due to many name changes to get back into alliances) is now bragging he can change his name and fool us all. I do not feel safe because he can literally change his name and apply anywhere now to abuse more players. Why are people like this allowed to be in the game?

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In a situation like this, you should contact SGG and have them handle it. However, if the harassment is on a third party app, like Facebook or WhatsApp, staff from those apps should be contacted.

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If that actually worked, you wouldn’t see people using the block tool the way they were

Common sense says that was their 1st step before just blocking and keepin tabs

Automated “thanks for your report, we’re looking into it” messages really don’t help anyone with anything. Period. Customer support has always been subpar in this game regardless of what the concern is

Now unlike you, that couldn’t give any quotes or links of anyone that had issue with the previous way the block system worked

I’m positive i can find numerous links and quotes to directly show flaws in the report feature and the customer service in this game(believe entire threads have been devoted to it actually)

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So how does your “boss” do this if the player has changed their name but they can’t see that, or what the new name is?

If I cause drama in my alliance and leave. The leader may block me and say “don’t let Cupcake back in”. But if I change my name to Frank, I can send a request and it’s very likely that I’ll be accepted back. Frank is not on the ‘no fly’ list.

Previously, the leader could say, ‘Cupcake changed her name to Frank. Don’t let either of them in.’

Much like Rigs said though, I don’t see the point of this change. The previous feature wasn’t causing enough problems to be well known. The response to this change has many folks explaining how the change will cause problems.

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By “block you,” I assume you mean using the in game tools and not a self maintained list.

Whomever has you blocked would not see the request. From that point, you wouldn’t be able to let the person in. That said, I agree, it is likely that someone would let them in. At which point, you still wouldn’t see their posts. This should raise a flag and action could be done.

People were talking about tracking where these people went. Let’s not get into whether or not that in itself is stalking or harassing (someone did note the peculiarities of the behavior - but I did it too :innocent:).

But let’s look at it the opposite. What if someone blocks someone to stalk and/or harass them. This person couldn’t get away. They’d change their name, leave alliances, and the person still follows them.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a perfect system. And people who want to cause problems will find a way.

As I said earlier, I do see both sides. There are valid arguments to be made on both sides. I do think this current approach does work however. And would encourage anyone observing harassment to contact SGG (or appropriate third party app if happening elsewhere).

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I do ‘hear’ what you’re saying. If someone is actually being followed and harassed, this is a huge issue. I simply don’t see that happening with any frequency (maybe I’m just fortunate). And if it does happen, this is definitely worth reporting to Support, and likely to generate a response beyond an auto generated message. I don’t believe that reporting someone for repeated name changes and causing drama would get more than a canned answer.

Sure, I’ve blocked folks just to see where they end up. If someone I enjoyed leaves but doesn’t use an external app, I’m curious. If a player leaves because they are “retiring”, I may want to see if the returned. I really don’t see that as a breach of privacy, or stalking. I’m simply curious. I’m not going to follow them. In the absence of in game messages, or player lookup. It was a way to answer “whatever happened to…?”

My position remains that this was a pointless change that is causing more issues than it ‘solved’. :woman_shrugging:t3:

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For the reason of “what happened to” curiosity they should implement a friends list of some sorts, then at least you have two consenting parties to it.

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This thread…I mean seriously if you are a casual alliance you home have casual players come and go some good some bad. Once you guys start to get rather serious you shouldnswiych yo invite only. Someone comes in your alliance being a tool they should be gone. Dont need to block them we are set to invite only. See ya around. Following someone is stalking doesn’t material what they did to you first you are now being a predator to them which makes you just as bad as them. People come and go focus on the good ones let the bad ones go you will fill up eventually if you really care to or move to somwhere larger since yall cant seem to learn enough to fill your own place to prevent this from even being an issue. Stalking a stalker is stalking if you didnt know

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i think scenarios like this could be prevented by an alliance block. for example leader blocks someone from alliance and that person cannot join or apply again but you still can’t see his/her info.

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Online stalking/harassment/**** disturbing has been an ongoing problem with no solution for years and years. Most responses to it tend to be reactionary rather than proactionary. I suspect this change was probably the result of something external to the game itself like legal or contractual requirements.

I am not at all familiar with the blocking mechanism in the game and have no horse in this race. It would be good to have SGG explain the reasons for this change, but I rather doubt that will happen given the track record.

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This. ^^

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Actually, it’s an understandable compensatory behavior that stalked victims may start having, that however, does not have the same cause.
You are not stalking because you have a primary ocd behavior. You are checking in on the stalker to make sure he is not breeching your boundaries.
Stalked victims just absolutely love not knowing where a stalker is or where he may pop up.

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One solution may be to add a player history to read when they join. Have things like X times booted, # of war flags left on the battlefield, # of zeros on titans, list of name changes, average time in alliance, # of times reported (not the reason) etc… You should have an idea of what kind of player they are just by having their game stats when they join. These are only reviewable when they join. If the numbers don’t look good for you, add to the number of boots for the next alliance to see.

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More stats has been discussed several times. It would also go a long way into providing more in house events as with more stats more options for leaders of alliances and definitely stop trouble makers from just popping up anywhere

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Just because its understandable doesnt make it right, so now if the stalker says you stalking them and you say they did it first and they say no it was you how do we have proof who is the problem if you both doing the same thing? I dont want someone following me around just because we had a disagreement any more than the next person. I just had a guy troll our allaince recruitment thread just because she didnt like a comment I made on one of his posts. That’s stalling right? I never said snytbing to this person directly but because they dont like an opinion they follow you around. I dont agree with stalking by anyone and there is never an excuse either way to be following people around. You have an invite only option stops anyone from just joining. If people joining don crazy stuff learn to interview better before allowing them in. Anyone suffering this stuff regularly has an open door to their allaince and well if it’s free to come in better believe you not always gonna attract the right kind of people.

Well yes actually, that would be right thing to do from a development standpoint.

As a developer myself, I would fix something that can be used for malicious purposes like stalking. In this case, that was fixed.

If that fix causes other issues, then the right thing to do is fix those issues instead – not re-introducing the other issue again. That’s what we call a band-aid fix, and frankly it would be very negligent and lazy of SG to do that.

If the issue is that players can now keep changing their names to continue harassing alliances – then the issue isn’t in the block functionality. It never was to begin with. The fact that players had to use that function to keep tabs wasn’t a solution, it was a workaround.

What should be addressed instead is the following:

  • the ability to change name repeatedly – clearly gem fee isn’t enough of a deterrent for players to spend money just to harass other players
  • introduce the ability for an alliance-wide block to prevent unwanted players to rejoin the Alliance.

(I’ve suggested to staff too that these things should be looked at. We can only hope that they consider them soon :crossed_fingers: )

Ultimately, yes it does totally make sense to make more changes to address the problem many users have now. It’s more work, and it’s more time-consuming, but it’s the proper thing to do.

EDIT: in case it isn’t clear, I do agree that there’s still issues with players harassing others, and I do see how the previous function was used by those players to stay away from malicious users. But in my opinion, the best way to address the currently existing issue is directly – not via workaround through the previous block function that had room for exploitation.

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