Vote to Kick is Poorly Suited for its Intended Purpose

[Moondoggíe-faerlina]

@Duhammad-grobbulus

I see this quite often in lfd and nobody has gotten kicked for it.

had a dude say his family needed him. took 2 mins and got kicked
right as he said 'ty" and came back. crap was the saddest kick i ever saw.

[Oortaelia-turalyon]

Here’s what happens if you get rid of dungeon deserter altogether.

1. Season includes a really terrible dungeon, somehow it is either way harder or just incredibly unfun compared to the other seven so everyone instantly drops out if they get it randomly. But uh oh some class BiS trinket is in that dungeon so what do they do… they come to the forums whining people won’t do that specific dungeon and demanding penalties for people who drop group.

2. not quite as bad but one dungeon is very very unfun to tank, to the point that tanks will not do it. Guess what happens… yup people come to the forums saying everytime they get that dungeon they have to wait 10 minutes because five tanks quit before someone agrees to stay. Now they want punishments for people who quit.

[Oortaelia-turalyon]

So I don’t think anyone is saying it NEVER happens but it happens so rarely that most of us don’t think the whole system needs changed, no penalties need added.

Will someone get kicked for getting up to run and grab their doordash before it gets stolen, I’m sure it happens.

Will some jerk kick someone for 4 million dps when they want them to do 4.5 sure it’ll happen.

Could I be kicked because my transmog is too bright and hurts someone’s eye I could see that happening on a few alts lol.

The thing is if you are getting kicked more than once every long while then it is something else going on with you personally.

[Fairlight-emerald-dream]

@Solarae-barthilas

I was disconnected from the game my guy cause something went wrong with my internet.
How did you read that as me logging off? oof.

It’s happened to me - in a couple M+’s over the years which was quite stressful (knowing the tank dc’d in timed content).

I think the other player’s comment, to which you’re responding to, is a good example of the lack of understanding and communication in a random LFD group: the other players have no idea if the dc’d player is returning, if they logged for reasons, etc. so, without more information, they are left to draw their own conclusions. These conclusions could be exacerbated by “quiet” dungeons, where no one’s talking, possibly letting others know that the player is interested in being there and maybe endearing them to the rest of the group, thus buying them time before a VTK is executed. (This last part is definitely my bias)

I imagine that the dps queues are quite long - I play tank 99% of the time in instances. So, perhaps the group - some of them having already waited in a queue - may not want to wait longer.

If the above happens when I’m in a CTA LFD (call to arms) I don’t kick. I just wait. No reason to kick when 1) I like the challenge (so a selfish reason) and 2) I’ve been in their (possible) position of getting dc’d.

[Liolang-daggerspine]

lmao…we LITERALLY have had posters in here ADMITTING they kick for no valid reason…but ‘it never happens’ …lmao…with both the complaints AND the admissions in here.

just cant take this forum seriously most days lmao

Two of many we’ve had in here over the last couple years.

@Paris-malfurion

Once saw a Dwarf Shaman with the ugliest transmog I’d ever seen.

Proceeded to initiate a kick and got it passed.

@Evilbadguy-malganis

It’s just kicking, there doesn’t need to be any reason at all for me to vote kick you. If I don’t like the way your character looks, your name etc… I’ll just vote kick you as that is entirely within the rules of the game for me to do, so technically it’s not trolling as it’s a legitimate use of the in game feature. Sometimes I just randomly vote kick people in the group to see if it even goes through and 99% of the time it does, it’s not my fault blizzard decided to add the debuff to the entire run instead of just leaving at the start.

but…you know…it never happens

[Venivici-old-blanchy]

Your first point is irrelevant because other than at the very start of an expansion, the preseason, you’re not getting BIS anything from LFD. That’s two weeks about every two years. Completely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. As far as your second point there is a precedent for that in the past. It was called Oculus. They didn’t punish everyone for every dungeon, they just gave an extra reward for completing that one, and they put a mount in it. There, problem solved. And if there is a dungeon that terrible, Blizzard has a design problem. That’s no reason to punish the player base who hasn’t done anything wrong. And, I’ll fire back at the response everybody that thinks this current system is okay has been giving me. Get a group of friends together or guild mates to complete the dungeon with you if you need something from it so badly.

[Kyama-stormrage]

I’m not sure if blizz increases the chance leavers, kickers and the kicked are grouped up together but seems like it according to all these complaints.
And while others like me who rarely see vtk requests are put in a different que.
I know dota does that and blizz may be doing the same but without letting us know.

[Oortaelia-turalyon]

I’ve always been a big fan of the games I know that do that, and perhaps you are right maybe they snucky snuck it in. The two more popular theories though are still probably most likely.

1. These people who get kicked are doing something and leaving those details out of their story.

2. It is actually happening to them once, unjustly possibly, and they come to the forums saying it has happened a dozen times in two days because they think exaggerating will get them sympathy.

[Oortaelia-turalyon]

For people who don’t do M+ yes they could still be getting a BiS trinket from a heroic dungeon at this point in the season.

[Kennie-malganis]

Nah, works fine. More than fine.

[Kiyoko-ravenholdt]

@Solarae-barthilas

I’m sure there are experts in the industry who know better than me and have better solutions than the ones I’ve proposed

That’s the only thing of worth in this whole post, and they already hired people who know better and have better solutions. That’s why we have the current system that works just fine.

[Riyyah-malorne]

i dunno. I’ve been using it a lot on my alt healer whenever we get a bird brained tank who either:
A) Wants to pull the entire dungeon, but doesn’t interrupt or CC or anything, Just leads to a wipe as mobs free cast against the party
B) Literally goes AFK at start of boss fight, lets everyone die, just so he can “flex” and try and solo the boss
C) A paladin tank who bubbled himself without last stand/bopped himself and dropped aggro on to the party. When asked to stop doing that, he said “who the f*** cares” so we booted him middle of the fight last boss and the feral druid went bear form.

I don’t mind if you’re slow. I don’t mind if you’re fast. I don’t mind if you suck or your gear sucks. But when you do things that makes it harder for me to clear what should be easy content, and wastes everyones time, I’m going to kick you.

[Karvalli-proudmoore]

@Riyyah-malorne

But when you do things that makes it harder for me to clear what should be easy content, and wastes everyones time, I’m going to kick you.

This is what a vast majority of kicks are, and then people just debate over exact examples of what that behavior looks like. But this is why a vast majority of kicks are initiated and passed.

[Liolang-daggerspine]

@Riyyah-malorne

A) Wants to pull the entire dungeon, but doesn’t interrupt or CC or anything, Just leads to a wipe as mobs free cast against the party

lmao…tell you the ones I love.
The old runs up in outland with the fearing mobs. lol.

Tanks will pull every mob in sight…cause a chain fear wipe…then we’ll come back from the gate, gear damaged enough and the 'FACE ROLLZ" moron will do it again

My gear will be down to 60% sometimes just from the wipes this idiot caused for no reason.

You can tell bad tank in seconds by how he pulls those mobs lol.

[Dojacàt-moon-guard]

@Solarae-barthilas

The vote-to-kick system is in serious need of an overhaul.

It’s possible that sometimes it is used for its intended purpose, policing toxic behaviour in LFG.

However, I’ve only ever seen it used to punish people who are new to the game, dungeons or make simple mistakes. The leaver debuff just adds insult to injury to people who are kicked. I understand why it was implemented but a little more thinking should have been put into how it works than has been in its current state.

By keeping the system the way it is, just like the automated reporting system Blizzard is passively endorsing toxicity in the game. I don’t seriously think anyone at Blizzard wants people to be toxic, but that desire is not being reflected in the tools they give the players to use to moderate unwanted behaviour in the game.

There’s no punishment for abusing the vote to kick system and there’s no recourse for someone to contest being wrongfully kicked. This creates a massive power imbalance in the system. Understandably Blizzard having manpower dedicated to contesting a 30-minute debuff is asking a lot.

A better handoff solution needs to be put in place. It starts with there being more steps involved in voting to kick someone.

Firstly, the reason for kicking someone should be on a drop-down menu and the game should validate that you are in fact doing that reason that’s been selected it initiates a vote for other players to interact with.

• If you’re being abusive in chat, it should check the chat log before it pushes the vote to other players.
• If you’re AFK, it should check if your character hasn’t been in combat in the last 5-10mins then push the vote to other players.
• If you disconnect from the game, there should be a 3-minute grace period before the vote is presented to other players.
• If you disconnect more than once the grace period is reduced by half each time.
• The players who vote should have to select the character’s name from a list
• Should be asked to confirm two or three times not just accept once and move on.
• If the vote fails because the condition is untrue the player who initiated the vote should get an automated warning.
• If they get three warnings within a week for abusing the system, they lose access to the vote to kick system for a week or however long is suitable.

I’m sure there are experts in the industry who know better than me and have better solutions than the ones I’ve proposed. Hire them if you haven’t already and give them some resources to improve your moderation tools. As it stands its infuriating.

Thank you for reading my post.

Okay but no.

@Vrakthris

The Vote to Kick system was designed to give players who used Looking for Dungeon/Raid some agency over who they are grouped with. If they have someone in that group that isn’t meshing, for whatever reason or no reason at all, they may choose to remove them.

i don’t defend people kicking others over petty reasons, but any reason is allowed.

[Liolang-daggerspine]

@Dojacàt-moon-guard

i don’t defend people kicking others over petty reasons, but any reason is allowed.

uh…right…and THAT is what the thread is about…getting THAT changed

[Kiyoko-ravenholdt]

The thread is about whining that someone got kicked. As is the usual state of these complaint threads.

[Sendryn-sentinels]

@Dojacàt-moon-guard

i don’t defend people kicking others over petty reasons, but any reason is allowed.

And no one should be playing arbiter to decide whether or not a vote was justified.

I don’t need Blizz deciding that Joe Schmo’s reason of “tank was moving too fast for us” was wrong, while Joe was out of mana, but Blizz sanctions Joe for it.

I don’t want to sit around and wait for three minutes while our tank disconnects and we hope he comes back because there’s no other recourse, we’re stuck.

I don’t want to sit around and wait 5-10 minutes before I can kick the tank for being AFK either.

And there’s no way to “check the chat log.” That’s a hands on Blizz thing.

And I’m tired of the same five people posting these threads and the same two people harassing others over these threads, bullying people until everyone stops posting.

[Carhagen-moon-guard (Carhagen)]

@Solarae-barthilas

There’s no punishment for abusing the vote to kick system

No, because you can kick someone from a group for any reason. You cannot however kick people repeatedly over and over again because that will start the internal cooldown for the kick feature. Kick too many times in quick succession and you won’t be able to kick again for X amount of minutes, and that number increases every time you kick.

@Solarae-barthilas

there’s no recourse for someone to contest being wrongfully kicked.

No, because there’s no such thing as a ‘wrongful kick’. Again, you can kick someone for any reason or no reason. You can kick someone because you don’t like their race, their transmog, you don’t like their character name, or their pets names. You can kick someone because you think the title they use is stupid.

Or you can kick them because they caused a wipe, or underperformed, or didn’t pay attention to the rest of the group etc etc. The reasons are vast, endless almost. All of those reasons are valid.

[Darkbladejk-area-52]

It’s also funny that they whine about this massive epidemic of vote kick abuse but none of them has yet to have the spinal fortitude to post any kind of real evidence of it that can be verified. It’s all been anecdote that amounts to “trust me bro”. At this point I’m convinced we could offer these people gold and they still wouldn’t do it. Well no actually some of them might try to manufacture said evidence, but at least then I could say they made the attempt and get entertainment value from it, so could be a win win lol. Sarcasm aside it’s rather telling that they always want kicks made harder but refuse to address the pebcak issues on their end. I’m convinced they just want it harder to kick so they can troll groups.

As far as recourse goes, I’ve seen several say they want recourse, but never define what that is.