Guild Wars 2

I didn’t really see a better forum to post this in where i was sure devs would see this topic.

I’d have to say this is a bug, since every other mmo i can remember playing does not allow someone who has blocked another person to continue to send them whispers and mail them items in game. its only logical…

the harassment goes on all day and is entertaining to people as you can tell from the map chat in the pvp lobby and even in lion’s arch occasionally when people disagree with others and find this childish behavior acceptable.

heres what happens:

i block player xx for whatever reason, but i’m going to continue to send nasty whispers and/or a in game mail with items attached that they can’t even return because i blocked them.

simple solution:

don’t let players whisper/mail people on their block list.

this kind of behavior is almost encouraged simply because theres no check on sending whispers/mail. its bad for the community and its something extremely easy to fix. its harassment and its close to cyber bullying frankly. if people want to have a discussion over differences, fine….but this one sided form of harassment is toxic for the community.

please address this devs, thank you.

Block and report.

A player can only ‘harass’ you once if you immediately block them. You can’t be whispered by someone you’ve blocked. And you can only know you are blocked if you were planning on responding to said ‘harassing’ whispers.

Good luck.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Block and report.

A player can only ‘harass’ you once if you immediately block them. You can’t be whispered by someone you’ve blocked. And you can only know you are blocked if you were planning on responding to said ‘harassing’ whispers.

Good luck.

obviously you can block them after the first whisper but this behavior i just described is a way to work around that to be nasty to a person.

and “report” does what? its the same report options we’ve had since launch and none of them relate to this behavior. we have to take screenshots and log out of game, log in to the website, fill out a ticket, attach (and resize large screenshots) to report harassment expecting anything to be done about it. thats not a solution.

this post is to point out that block exploit. maybe its just a few whispers or mails, but it shouldn’t happen period. if a person wants to block you, they have no right to continue to spew insults.

If they are blocked, how can they ‘work around’ the block?

And, again, how do you know you are blocked if you are not responding to the nasty whispers?

Regardless, this has been discussed on the forums before, and I’m sure the Devs are aware of the issue, and will attend to it when and if they see fit.

Good luck.

you’re missing the point completely, we shouldn’t have to block people just because they want to go out of their way to be nasty. i’d rather hear from a dev than you play devils advocate that its a players responsibility to proactively block people constantly.

thats not how i want to play guild wars 2 and i don’t think thats how people want to see guild wars 2.

Good luck.

For an individualized response, you can contact the CS Team via the ‘Support’ link above/below.

Good luck.

I think a public discussion is better than a generic cut and paste customer support response.

Good Luck.

Here’s an official response:

Hello,

If you think a player is stalking/harrassing you, please contact our customer support team with any information you may have, and our GM team will look into it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Too-easy-to-stalk-Privacy-concerns/page/3#post1804114

Again, good luck.

thanks for not reading anything i’ve posted here. i’m talking about the mechanic where you can continue to send mail and whisper a person you have blocked. that means that they are doing it just to degrade you and insult you. that means that they have no intention of having a conversation with you, they just want to be nasty.

am i getting through to you at all here? i don’t need to hear about how to use the block feature or how to report someone for stalking or harassing. we all know how to do this.

i don’t understand how you aren’t understanding what i’m saying here. its quite clear.

Again, good luck.

I think everyone understood you. Question is, why it should be a bug?

For example:
I block you: I won’t get any whisper/pm from you, but I can write you whispers/pm.
You block me: You can write me whispers/pm and I can’t write you anything.

Is that an example what you described as a bug?
If yes, in both cases you can prevent any issue by just blocking that person and it would be no bug.

Big sorry if I got your bug wrong too.

hey thanks for saying the same thing!

i said in the first post that i don’t see any other forum better to post in, so its in bug because it doesn’t make sense to be able to spam/mail/whatever a person you block. clearly you don’t want to talk to them right?

i’m playing an online game to enjoy it with other people. not block everyone and end up playing a single player game.

you apparently don’t play unranked or ranked spvp much, nor do you seem to care about blocking 90% of that player base. other people do want to play this game and socialize not be blocking someone over 1 pvp match and never communicate again in another match.

so yeah man, i get it. block everyone, thanks. great advice.

my point and solution was simply to stop this childish behavior of blocking and insulting and all this “salt” nonsense. i’m tired of reading it in the pvp lobby like that somehow made a player better by being a kitten to them?

i’m surprised you don’t see how these types of things aren’t toxic to the community.

Just block report. It’s over. Also this topic has been brought up so many times. Also I’m wouldn’t be surprised if you have brought this topic up yourself before and are just trolling from a second “backup” account. Anyway good luck but you won’t get anywhere so I don’t know why you bother.

“just block report” like that does something? lol. the report feature is a placebo.

i don’t read the forums simply because of these types of responses from anet fanboys. no offense but defending something that is clearly behavior that is close to cyber bullying and harassment because you can “block” them is sad.

you said that its been brought up so many times, well obviously its a issue thats getting worse and worse. once its done to you, you’ll start doing it to others and it goes on and on.

getting somewhere on anything requires trying. its certainly a QoL change.

if you watch the news, all the facebook and other social media bullying seem to have some actions taken. if this were my game i’d take the time to do whatever possible to keep he chance of this type of behavior at a minimum. i’m sure they could get their pants sued off in court the first time someone does something dark over this.

so yeah, whatever. defend it if you want… in wvw there isn’t a problem with this, but in the spvp and open world just a few logical fixes and it would be a lot better.

Well he got a point, say a person decide he want to be a kitten and troll me, he blocks me and then he sends me a message with loads of rude language, i can then block him, but the damage is already done. He already got his shot to insult me, i already saw what he wrote, so he goes out of this feeling great, it is a win situation for a person who are abusing something that easy could be fixed.
If you block a person you have no busniess writing that person anyway, you block for a reason, so why you should be able to write something to the person does not make any sense what so ever.

Now it might be that you feel this is not needed, but that does not in any way mean that the OP don’t have a good point, it is both good and valid and there should be a very easy solotion to it, and in the end the only thing you stop is the people abusing it.

If they have you blocked, then they CANNOT whisper you. No way around it. If you try to whisper someone you’ve blocked, you get an Error message. The end.

However, if they have their status set to Invisible, then they can whisper you, and you won’t be able to whisper them back because of them being set to Invisible. So, they’re not whispering people they’ve blocked; they’re whispering people while Invisible.

There’s no flaw in the Block system here; it’s just an annoying side effect of having an Invisible status.

RoseofGilead.8907:

If they have you blocked, then they CANNOT whisper you. No way around it. If you try to whisper someone you’ve blocked, you get an Error message. The end.

However, if they have their status set to Invisible, then they can whisper you, and you won’t be able to whisper them back because of them being set to Invisible. So, they’re not whispering people they’ve blocked; they’re whispering people while Invisible.

There’s no flaw in the Block system here; it’s just an annoying side effect of having an Invisible status.

This is correct. I just tested ingame, and could not PM someone I had blocked. But you can still send mail till they block you.

However, it isn’t much different than someone going invisible to prevent responses. They have a means to further annoy you by preventing any rebuttal, so they use it. But even if they couldn’t prevent your reply, they would still be PM’ing whatever offensive crap to you. The only difference being that you’d be able to respond. Either way, you’re going to be receiving their offensive PMs and will need to block the person if you wish to stop that.

The only actual issue I see here is mail still working for players you have blocked. But it’s still a minor issue, as you can prevent further mail by blocking them. And the fact that even without this “bug”, they would still be sending you mail that you could then return to sender. So (again), fixed or not, you will still be getting whatever they feel like sending you, you’ll just have the ability to return/reply.

It truly doesn’t matter if someone is ‘online’, ‘invisible’ or has blocked you; they can send a harassing message, and the only way you would be able to tell their status, or if they had blocked you, is if you respond.

You should never respond to harassment or abuse; only block and report.

Hey,

Little section to talk about people’s reactions on this forum, guys; keep cool, the OP is just posting a suggestion and his opinion in a constructive way. Of course everyone should feel free to react to a suggestion, but no need to post again after that to absolutely convince the OP you’re right… I mean, it’s basically derailing the thread instead of staying on the topic: the suggestion
</off topic part>

Agree with you backup.1256: I don’t think it’s a bug, but logically if you block someone, you shouldn’t be able to whispe him or gift him items.
But it would seem really weird to me that this could happen, so I would tend to believe more RoseofGilead’s explanation.

In my opinion, both cases are/could be annoying. Of course, reporting is a viable solution, but once the invisible player whisped you well… The damage has been done – as explained by Leaa above -. Prevent players of doing this could probably discourage some (Yeah, only only discourage them because players attitude in general is the real crux of this bad behavior).

Even though I don’t think working on it should be a priority right now.

Cheers’

mrstealth.6701:

RoseofGilead.8907:

If they have you blocked, then they CANNOT whisper you. No way around it. If you try to whisper someone you’ve blocked, you get an Error message. The end.

However, if they have their status set to Invisible, then they can whisper you, and you won’t be able to whisper them back because of them being set to Invisible. So, they’re not whispering people they’ve blocked; they’re whispering people while Invisible.

There’s no flaw in the Block system here; it’s just an annoying side effect of having an Invisible status.

This is correct. I just tested ingame, and could not PM someone I had blocked. But you can still send mail till they block you.

. . .

The only actual issue I see here is mail still working for players you have blocked.

Yeah, I forgot about the ability to still send mail when blocked. That is definitely a bit odd and should be addressed. However, usually harassment stays in whispers/chat and doesn’t go to mail, so it’s not quite as big an issue.