Please Stop Abusing the Report System

Yep, seems that innocent players who actually got the T-22 without cheating are called riggers and reported for unsportsmanlike conduct. I recieved an interesting letter:

Dear Sebastianul,

I am writing this letter to bring your attention to the “false Unsportsmanlike Conduct reports” issue that is currently happening on the EU server. I explained the problem here. If this is too much to read, basically the report function has been abused for quite a long time now against arty players, members of high profile clans, and even players who simply are extremely good at the game. They are reported for just playing the game. This has to stop immediately. I personally only started experiencing this abuse since I got my T-22.

I do not want to bore you with useless details but I believe it is crucial for me to explain this problem in as much depth as possible. For me, this problem began about a week ago. On the 28th of December I got my T-22. The T-22 is a tank that you have undoubtedly heard of. Besides that, you also have heard the unorthodox ways utilized by certain players to obtain it. And as a result, the actions taken by Wargaming against the players that went against the game’s rules to obtain this tank. Anyway, I played a few games on my new tank until the 31st of December, when I received a 24h account suspension for “Unsportsmanlike Conduct”. Basically most of the matches,if not all started with ” Rigger”, “Hacker”, “Cheater”, or “Report”. I made a thread on this topic here . Anyway ,I moved on and took that with a pinch of salt, and waited for the ban to expire. I next played on the 1st of January, just to get banned again on the 2nd of January, however this time for 4 days.

Well, what could I had done so wrong to get that many reports in less than 24 hours to get another UC ban? This is where the abuse of the reporting systems comes in play. During that evening I played a full session of Skirmishes with my clan, all the battles being played in the T-22. What I think had happened is entire clans just reported me for having a T-22. I have asked WG support to investigate, and if they do I am certain that they will see a large number of reports being submitted in that evening ,most of them from a select few clans. On top of that I am also a paying customer that pays for a premium account on a monthly basis.

Owning a T22 is just the tip of the iceberg, just being part of one of the better known clans on the European server will automatically lead to you being reported for “Unsportsmanlike Conduct”. A former member of the clan FAME, Pfoogel, has documented this issue and tried to bring it to the attention of Wargaming staff to no avail. In this forum thread he laid out a detailed log of all the battles he played with his results, eventual incidents and every replay he played in an effort to prove his innocence. After he received no answer and support declined to refund him for his premium time despite him clearly not doing anything wrong he was left with no other choice but to leave the clan because of it. But just playing a lot of skirmishes can be enough. There have been several cases of players having to leave clans because it’s impossible to avoid bans for “Unsportsmanlike Conduct” in the longer run.

This problem gets multiplied through organized play where teams can concentrate their reports on a certain player and basically get him banned instantly. Some clans even have a reputation for abusing this system yet nothing is done about it. By now abuse has been so widespread there are daily forum threads about this even by players who aren’t in a clan and who didn’t play the T-22 (the most obvious target currently). An example would be this player who claimed to do nothing wrong but play artillery. You can see the thread here. Just from the replies in this thread it is easy to see that false reporting is an issue, some people even openly admit it in there.

Wargaming needs to consider whether this is an issue they’re willing to ignore. No player that wants to see the WoT community improve should consider the current way the report system works as a positive thing. Anyone (including Wargaming) who is under the assumption that the current functioning of the system is “as intended” is either delusional or part of the group that abuses the system.

Another thing that we saw when looking into this issue was that on the Asian server, WG has disabled the report system for anything other than gathering statistics about reports, and all bans are handed out directly from support, and you have to submit a ticket instead of simply reporting people in game. Obviously the scale between SEA and EU is completely different, and the number of tickets that get issued would be a problem, but I found it interesting that a server disabled the reporting function.The thread is here.

It would not have been such a big deal If I were the only one to get banned so often, but unfortunately many more players are being abused by this reporting system (maybe it is just a coincidence but most of them seem to play artillery or be top players from top clans). And maybe my assumptions are wrong, but as it stands – I know that personally 2 unsportsmanlike bans have been issued to me since receiving the T22. Other players have been banned for playing arty, or simply being good at the game.

Statements

WGL team – Out of Range:

“As a WGL team – Out of range would like to comment on this matter.

We believe this is too often abused, it means that occasionally someone is reported for

their usage of ammo or because of assumptions that one is utilizing cheats. And besides that, there’s many other reasons why people are reported without justification. Repeatedly,

We have seen players of our team receive these unsportsmanlike conduct bans which hinders our ability to participate in ESL tournaments. All this because of a report that was unjustified.

We believe that until WG is able to figure a way to properly handle reports and bans, this option should be disabled.”

In the end, together with more top players from the EU servers, we made a list of questions which we hope can make it into a Q&A with Storm:

Is Wargaming aware of this issue and what’s their opinion on it?
Are you trying to fix this and what is your solution ?
Wargaming Asia openly admits that the current report system cannot be used due to the lack of validation of the reports. Why is Wargaming EU / Wargaming RU using it?

Yours Sincerely,

SANTI

FAME

IDEAL

S3AL

OMNI

3XR

322

LGEND

ARCAN

Individuals who also support this action:

     LordMuffin
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    Hugh_Dunnit
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    _JohnConnor
    Homer_J [EU Community Contributor]
    janmb,
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    Comrade_tyne
    Mave_Maverick
    Coopsjc21
    EvidenceA51
    taief
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Emeraldweed