So just recently Ubisoft has begun a crackdown on the toxic behavior that people come across in online gaming in Rainbow Six Siege and a quick look on the Steam discussion board for the game will bring up several threads from people unhappy with the process.

This ranges from people angry that they got caught out in the recent wave of banning to people concerned that the current system appears to be very strict to even minor offenses. Personally I welcome a developer actively trying to make the online experience in their game as enjoyable as possible for everyone but I suppose there is a danger that Ubisoft could go too far and even simple trash talk or "banter" might get you in trouble even if no one at the time has a problem with it, They have said they will only focus on the most extreme cases but where do they draw the line?

Do you guys think this is a good move and should other developers of popular online games do more to stamp out toxicity in gaming?

I don't play games online that much lately, but when I do there is a nearly 100% chance that I am going to hear someone say something stupid. It's been that way forever, might even be worse now. So at this point I am very much in favor of developers taking militant stances towards poor behavior. If you want to say horrible things while online gaming then do it privately with your horrible friends.

I can understand that and I think it's gamers such as yourself that companies like Ubisoft are thinking about with this toxicity ban wave. If they can convince people that are usually turned off such games due to the toxic parts of the community that their game is more friendly then they'll sell more copies of the game and have a bigger playerbase.

I hope they keep it this strict. I play siege regularly and while it isn't as bad as some other games (mainly PUBG where it's rare to be in the starting area and not hear a slur), it is bad enough to the point where I've been teamkilled a handful of times for calling someone out on calling me or other teammates a slew of slurs.

Yeah. I played Siege for a little bit when it came out and really liked it, but for some reason dropped off pretty quickly. In the back of my mind I keep thinking "hmm, I should play Siege again, that was super-fun!", but then I realize "Oh, wait, that's game's is really popular, and super-dependent on good team play. Everyone's going to be really shitty to me if I come in there and suck ass!" and I never pick it back up again.

PUBG doesn't have this problem, because you can turn off voice chat and play solo, and then no one is going to get unreasonably angry at you or hurl slurs your way. Neither does something like Battlefield, where you're just one of 32 players on your team.

I think they just need transparency. They should post the reasons people will be banned and expressly describe behavior to anyone banned. We live in a world where facebook and youtube ban you for being pro gun or pro life. If they are banning people for being assholes that sounds like a good plan. Even if I kind of like screwing with those assholes when they show up.

Will never be angry at devs deciding it is time to take out trash.

Siege is unqiue in it's community toxicity, i think it skews towards a younger demographic. And since every teammember needs to be "on it" to get a victory, people will quickly become hostile to anyone who "isn't playing right" i haven't been tked in like 60 hours for doing something someone disagreed with. So thats progress? I'm glad they're doing this, i hope they aren't catching people by mistake though.

Or maybe i just learned how to play by the invisible community rules? Don't reinforce kid's room y'all.

It's a good thing. Simple, don't be a dick, don't say gross and hateful shit. People are just pissed they are getting caught when they have been able to freely get away with it before.

As long as they are transparent about how/why they are banning, I don't have a problem with it.

Good on them for trying to do something about it.

Good.

I support these sorts of efforts. When dealing with a large player base, I'm sure there are some borderline cases that get caught up in a ban wave, but in general, I don't take complaints about these sorts of things all that seriously since the loudest complaints are almost always from the most toxic players that were most deserving of a ban.

@chaser324: I mean...It'd be kinda weird if you DIDN'T support this kind of thing, what with being a moderator on a forum and all. ?

This always happens when bans roll out, its usually 90% of people who were being shitty then getting mad when there is a consequence. If they want to be strict then either except it or move on, its like screaming in a library then getting mad you get kicked out. Rules are rules.

I really enjoyed siege right up until assholes just went full on into team killing. Ruins the whole experience.

Maybe I don't play online enough, but I almost never see or hear people saying bad stuff. I was playing Garry's Mod the other day on a casual hangout server and I can't remember anything obviously offensive being said. I always imagine censorship being taken to its logical extreme where if certain words are banned, the worst thing you're allowed to say is then the worst thing you can say. Maybe that's not how it actually works, but it seems like that's how it should.

It's good, but what exactly are the concerns of people who think it's too strict? Are they only the fear that Ubisoft may "go too far"?

If they say they're only gonna deal with the most extreme cases, that sounds pretty clearly like the line they're drawing. Your banter or friendly jabs shouldn't be an issue.

Ah, just gave the Steam forums a glance and it seems they're permabanning people without warning? Apparently only those in the top 1000 in terms of worst offenders, so not exactly a stellar bunch. Still, I think even they should've been given whatever other warnings their system has in place (mutes, or temporary bans, or whatever they've got).

Besides that, actually having measures in place for curtailing this kind of behaviour is definitely something more devs should do, and obviously Rainbow Six: Seige isn't the first. I'm actually kinda surprised they didn't have it in the first place. I figure if you're gonna make an online game with voice/text chat, you'd obviously think to put in countermeasures for that kinda shit if you're able (and I can't imagine Ubisoft wasn't able).

But ya, it's good. Why wouldn't it be? Are there people really taking an ideological stance in opposition to codes of conduct in online games?

Considering the alarming frequency I hear someone making "jokes" about Jews or black people on my team when I make the mistake of playing in a public quickmatch, I'll take this as a step in the right direction. It's a good game but at least half the people playing it need to be purged from the internet forever.

Rainbow Six Siege has the worst community I've ever had to deal with, on the PS4 at least. I'm not great at FPS's, not anymore, and people are insanely unforgiving of that. At least once in every session of siege I will be the last one to die and when you are the last one to die all eyes are on you and if you don't manage to pull a win out of your ass in a 1v3 you can bet that you'll be voted to kick. If you are with a friend and they can't get the unanimous vote needed to kick you they'll just team kill you the next round because a 4v5 is so much better apparently.

It really is a shame because it is really fun and so unique compared to the spawn/die/repeat gameplay of most multiplayer shooters. I don't think strict banning procedures are going to fix the problem. I think the issue is that these sorts of games attract angry children and adults that are unhappy with their lives and need an outlet for their aggression and will let that aggression out on their teammates when they aren't living up to their expectations. Obviously not the whole community but a good percentage are these people.

I think people should be banned for actions not words. I don't care if someone is talking shit to me, express yourself however you like, but purposeful team killing or kick votes for being bad in the casual playlist is just fun ruining for everyone.

The one negative I'd put on Ubisoft is the instant perma-bans they initally dished out which I can understand that most of them probably deserve it but since this is the first step in tackling this type of behaviour I think jumping straight to permanent bans wasn't strictly necessary. I can 'almost' sympathize with the banned since Ubisoft basically turned a blind eye on toxicity until now so I think an extended ban of around a week or so would give toxic players a chance to clean up their act, despite how unlikely that'd be.

That sums it up.

Assholes no longer getting to be anonymous assholes in Seige, and they're complaining? Sounds right....too bad so sad. Good on Ubi.

Maybe respectful, decent people will come back to their game now.....and have some fun again....hhmmm.

I can see the devs banning people over minor offenses becoming a problem, but If we're talking legitimate assholes then I have no problem.

I think it's great.

Banning everyone who thinks it's funny to be an asshole online will have a significant impact on player base though I'm afraid.

It's great!

Sounds good to me

Personally, I'd rather them focus on stuff that matters and affects gameplay. People/trolls team killing the first few seconds of the game is still around and a problem. It doesn't even make sense for the game to have friendly fire activated so soon like during the staging phase while defending.

I only speak with friends online, not randoms, so I don't care about their efforts with this problem. I don't get how it's implemented. Is Ubisoft listening to game chat and filtering for certain words and then banning if someone says one of those words or it's only based on getting reported?

I also play on PS4. While I have definitely run into the situation you are talking about in the first paragraph, I find most people (in Casual) to be accommodating. For as many times as the team as voted to kick because I didn't win in a 1 vs 3 or 1 vs 4 situation, I've had many more times when the dead players would say "nice try", or "we shouldn't have put you in that situation", etc.

In Ranked, people tend be less forgiving, but I think that is fair.

I have to say after coming off playing Overwatch on PC I've found Siege's community on the whole less toxic, you'll still have a chance to run into it but not as often from my personal experiences.

I do find it funny when if you are the last alive in a 1 v 4 or something and your team says "clutch or kick" as if they didn't do anything wrong themselves when they obviously did since it's a 1 v 4 and they are dead.

God the Overwatch community is just really something else. I have a little over 100 hours with Siege on PC and while I've encountered my fair share of assholes they usually shut up pretty quick when they realize that I'm partied up with other people knowing they can't kick me for keks or team kill me without getting team killed themselves.

I haven't seen "clutch or kick" as anything other than a joke for a long time either because it usually only comes up on match point when kicking is disabled anyway.

Maybe I'll finally get banned for posting Full House episode synopses in the chat when I'm dead.

I hope they're actively implementing this kinda stuff on console. Like Omega said above, I find the Siege community to just be unbearably fucking awful. This past weekend the game had a 50% bonus renown so I was playing a bunch to grind out an Operator and man, every 3rd or 4th game, I was getting team-killed for no apparent reason, voted to kick for being in a 1v4/5 situation, or even just getting voted out of a match because I joined just as a round was starting and apparently waiting the extra minute or so for me to load in was just unthinkable. Getting team-killed 5 seconds into a match when the only thing I've done is put down a Jager gadget is probably the worst for me, but there's stuff like putting down Rook plates and then getting killed, or holding down the objective room and getting voted to kick simply for existing I guess? It'd be slightly more reasonable if any of these people had gotten on mic and said, "Hey, put your gadget here" or "Don't reinforce that wall, I wanna keep it open" but I guess just team-killing on site and voting to kick is easier than having to actually talk to your team. Siege is the closest I've ever come to completely and utterly dropping a game because of the community of people playing it and its such a huge bummer because the game is super fun.

I’d like to see Ubisoft come out and reply to these people with the exact quotes they are being banned for. I’m sure those complaining would stop quickly when their vile comments are on display for the world to see.

I haven’t played an online game with public voice chat on in years due to these sorts of things so I applaud any steps taken towards weeding it out

lol

This is a very good idea, the Siege community is a garbage fire of racism and homophobia - it's the worst.

Good mainly because I hear the PC side of the game is pretty toxic. Can't say I have ran into that while playing the Ps4 version much.

@solh0und: I play PC and I've only been tked once during casual I play nothing but ranked now since season 2 and it's been pretty grand

The toxicity (majorly in ranked mode) is the main reason I stopped playing. I don't think I have "thin skin," but getting yelled at constantly for not doing the perfect thing at every moment was enough to just shelf the game.

I would be so happy if I saw somebody doing that in a game.

They've tried the unmoderated/barely moderated "laizezz faire" (bad spelling...) attitude toward this kind of behavior for...how long has it been since CS came out?

It hasn't worked. It has NEVER worked. It's about time they take a look at how many people are turned off by this kind of crap, who don't even engage with voice chat and that means they don't engage as much with the game, and measure that against people wanting to sound edgy to strangers online.

It's not tolerated anywhere else, and internet communities are fast learning that they're no longer the exception.

Ban all cheaters. Harder bans on them. Learn to play, noobs.

I wouldn't mind real name requirements in some games, so that people would think before posting stupid shit. Who acts in real life like they act in the Internet? Not many I'd wager, because of the possible consequences.

@willyod: Doesn't stop anyone on Facebook.

Why do these people need to be banned? Couldn't developers implement a punishment system where people who misbehave simply lose their ability to voice and text chat for a set period of time. Perhaps add some sort of "Your communication has been disabled due to offensive behavior" for the period of the punishment.

These folks could still connect with their friends over Discord etc. and continue to play the game they paid for, but they would be rendered harmless for random people they play.

Why solve this with a total non punishment?

If there are no real consequences to your shitty behavior you have no reason to ever modify it.

Since Siege has a fair amount of reliance on communication and teamwork in order to play well, banning people from chatting voice or text wouldn't allow them to rely info or callouts to over team members. Sure those people are likely to not even use voice/text chat for that purpose anyway but that just further justifies giving them a full ban for whatever amount of time.

I wouldn't want to play a ranked game with someone who couldn't physically communicate to the team because he was toxic in previous games, I'd rather they couldn't play full stop.

As someone who doesn't play nor watch someone play Siege, what exactly did these people do to warrant bans? I know from other games people usually cry foul enforcement when they have been banned saying they did nothing wrong, only for it to surface they were cheating/being absurdly racist/sexist and the ban being completely justified.

If you're telling me people are being banned in Siege for spouting racial slurs, then I'd say these bans are completely valid for example. You don't get to be a dick in social context and demand no repercussions to fall on your person.

The more recent bans people are talking about are for toxic behaviour which in most cases is from angry players saying/typing racial/homophobic abuse to others but can also equate to general toxic behaviour too, I think the more serious offenders were banned first which is usually people saying the N word or other similar stuff.

@craigieboy: That sounds like justified bans to me. What is their defense for using racial slurs and such?

I really don't like when people pretend to advocate for freedom of speech but are actually justifying saying foul stuff and harassing people. Also it's Ubisoft's game and they have every right to filter the content in its public chat, because if they don't then sooner or later it will look bad on their brand. Nothing to do with freedom of speech.