Yes I'm sorry it's THAT post again BUT with the silence on Klei's end in terms of their stance on this vote kick system that they've implemented, I've come to realize that they either really have nothing to say about this system as they feel there is nothing wrong, or have absolutely no idea how to "fix" this problem and satisfy the majority and therefore are abandoning the idea in its current state. As it stands now, it is very difficult to enjoy a run without someone being a jerk, and I get that there needs to be some sort of system in place to try and solve this problem. But, this system as I have mentioned before is completely broken and pretty much does the opposite of what it is supposed to be doing in most scenarios. It is so easy to get around this system and even abuse it that it seems there are more problems now than without the system. Without further reiterating this issue as I have many many times in other threads before I'd like to seriously reach out and ask for a legitimate response on what Klei is going to do to improve this. If you want to keep this system in, FINE, but PLEASE tell me that you're going to at least address the issue of AVOIDING THE KICK. Its so simple and easy to do, just leave the server and rejoin in 10-15 seconds and BAM you have another 20 second window to do as you please before the system attempts to successfully kick the player. If the player is not in the server when the actual kick comes out it doesn't do anything and they can join immediately back and begin doing whatever again. Here is a nice example of what has happened a few times since this has been discovered:
Here we can see that someone has left the game, as a kick has gone out and mysteriously a part of the base has been caught aflame! Well you can piece it together, this is someone who has left the game because they know they're going to be kicked for what they've done and in their eyes
"HEY, it can't hurt to leave if you're going to be kicked anyways?" Whether they know that they can just join back or not, all it takes is one try to see if it works. Of course, they joined back 10 seconds later and:
He's BACK with more incentive to be a pyro than anything, by this time at least i have a bit of ice to combat the issue. This went on for a bit until I had the base cleared out and a ring of nests placed where he kept leaving and rejoining, so that when he did spawn in he would die (Webber is best amirite?). But we lost a lot of time (and more importantly, PLAYERS) and sadly a flingo may have been able to prevent most of this from happening, but these weren't the best of players as is everyone when they first start playing so of course this happens. Now on to my point, what is the difference between this system being in place and what we had before (nothing)? The only differences I can see, and i'll list them by pro and con
Pro- Between the times where he had to leave the server, we did have a bit of time to assemble some things to attempt to stop him like ice, and luckily we got an extra gear from tumbleweeds nearby and immediately assembled a flingo.
Con- The entire system as a whole can be used both negatively and positively. The system is capable of kicking anyone, and people who are aware of how it works can easily work around it making it useless, while there is no way to prevent those who have done nothing and are victim to a kick that they do not deserve. The same goes for a rollback / server RESTARTS, there is no way to tell by a servers standards when and if this should happen, quite frankly I believe there should be no server restart option vote for the average player. The server should only when E V E R Y O N E wants it to. (a whole 'nother issue, I know.
So a recap, with this system in place there is almost no difference to maybe even more problems than before in terms of issues. It is much easier for someone who isn't guilty of anything to be a victim of this system that has no moral compass, as well as it is elementary for anyone who is deserving of a kick to completely avoid the kick and even continue doing what they love with more incentive than ever. I know I'm more than likely going to get the comment that is pretty much guaranteed with this topic of "play on a server with only an admin!", and yes i fully agree and even now do i ever rarely go on a server that isn't usually moderated or has some form of admin lurking / playing to guard the server (only when there are no other servers up with people). I just bring this up because I love this game and the whole experience of playing with others can be super rewarding but when stuff like this happens it really deters people from playing. I could have easily gone and made my own camp, I had more than enough resources to do whatever I wanted, because even in this case none of this stuff that was burnt was mine, but whats the point If i'm playing for interactions with others anyways? I might as well be playing single player. All in all I believe this system IF IT MUST STAY needs a serious re-tweaking, and we could start with preventing people from avoiding the kicks. With a system like this I know that when you solve one issue others can arise in its place but if you leave this the way it is, it is most certainly worse than before when there was no system.
Klei, my question is, is there ANY WAY you can keep track of a persons Klei ID or something and if a kick has been initiated against them, the system NEEDS TO UNDERSTAND that when it passes they cannot be allowed to join back. If we must deal with this system you have put in place it has to be somewhat functioning, because as it is now it is getting harder and harder to find a server to play with others on and have a guaranteed "good" experience. Bottom line, it is now more important to find a server that has an active admin now than it was before and with this voting system in place and the logic of "dont join a server if you dont want to deal with crap" the amount of actual servers there are to play on with other options like (is the ping good? is it modded to high heavens and basically completely un-enjoyable for someone who wants a challange/vanilla experience? is it an actual dedicated and stable server? and many more) is basically limited to less than 5 servers at least on the beta branch. Maybe this will be better when the branches merge but from my past experiences I only see more greifing in the stable than beta, so I'm actually enjoying the separation of branches and not really looking forward to the merging of them right now.
Sorry for the wall of text but as it stands now despite all of these wonderful updates, additions to the game and content galore this will always haunt me and be probably the biggest issue this game has in my opinion. No matter what though, I will always love you guys and the game you have made as it has brought me countless hours of entertainment and many more good memories and friends than bad, and it is because of these things that I am overly passionate about this issue.