The current party instance system has the following problems:
1. If the instance owner leaves/disconnected, the entire party is kicked.
2. Vote kick only requires one more vote (2/5).
The current system gives temporary IMPUNITY to the instance owner to do whatever he wants. Any effort from the other 4 players to punish him result in collateral damage to all. (The other players can report, submit support tickets, etc., – it doesn’t matter whether or not the guy will be banned / suspended 72 hours – the damage HAS BEEN DONE – let alone most players don’t even bother, hence the griever walks away unpunished.)
The current system clearly favors if not encourages such behavior.
Here is the true story. A group of 5 went to Fractal of the Mist, lv 20. Everything went fine until the middle of the 3rd stage after an hour and a half, the instance owner starts to insult one of the members, calling names. The said member keeps being quiet about it. After 5-10 mins of more insulting, the member fights back and defends himself. The instance owner losing in his logic, threatens to kick the member. The member decided to counter kick the instance owner. Now the other party members are quiet knowing what would happen if the instance owner is kicked – that is the entire party is kicked. In fact one of the other members said “You can’t kick him, all of us will be kicked”.
One of the other members steps in and tells the instance owner to shut up and gets on with the game. Unfortunately the insults keep going. One of the white knight in the group finally gave up and second vote kick the instance owner – knowing full well the consequence. And as the result all 5 were kicked. The other two bystanders were like OMFGWTFRUSTPD. They know the bad guy but couldn’t do anything about it. Two hours wasted.
Moreover, two good innocent bystanders who would probably like to help – kick the harasser – couldn’t do it, and finally being punished as well.
I am also sure that many of you have experience or witness such behavior once or twice during the last year of your fractal runs.
The reason why the instance owner could do this is the result of this temporary impunity that he knows he has (and for no good reason why he is the only one having it). He knows full well the weight and threats he has backing his words. This is typical of cyberbullying and a form of harassment. It is a crime. Yet is is ENCOURAGED in the current system. Sure, there is the report system – which no one probably bother to use,
and the one being harassed is probably too discourage to even use it – in fact there is no option to report “harassment”. But what we can do is not to have post-action to punish the harasser. What we can do is to PREVENT it.
Besides that there a minor problem of – instance owner disconnected, entire party is kicked. Two guildies kick everyone else and invite their friends / alternate account in for the reward after a long dungeon run, etc. – yes, they have been (probably) reported and (possibly) suspended 72 hours – but that is besides the point. You don’t want 1,2,3, 4 (you name it) hours of effort wasted. You don’t want to every time entering the dungeon having to think “OMG I hope there is no griever here, who owns this instance?” etc.
With that I would like to suggest the following changes to the current system (whether the current one is working as intended or not):
1. Do not close instances as long as there are people in it. – This has been done in Guild Wars 1, the mechanics are all there. I believe the current is the design CHOICE instead of technical difficulty.
2. To prevent two people from abusing the kick system – I mean 2 out of the remaining 4 people is HARDLY a majority. In fact that majority means more than half – I would like to propose:
In party of 5, 3 votes (2 + kick request) are required to kick
In party of 4, 2 votes (1 + kick request) are required to kick
In party of 3, 2 vote (1 + kick request) are required to kick
In party of 2, well I guess each go their own way.
3. With suggestion #1, this let people to decide for THEMSELVES who the griever is and even if he is the instance owner, he cannot act with impunity.
I realize that this issue is more rampant and urgent to change than some T3 human look alike is being added to the gemstore. Please consider it.
Sincerely.
(edited by Stars.2179)