Potential solution to address the trolling problems

aeiowu · 2018-03-07 16:08:31

There are a lot of threads about trolling recently. I totally feel everyone that trolls suck and while I even agree that something needs to be done, I don't think addressing the trolls directly with gameplay changes and so on makes sense. In fact, I think the trolls are potentially an important part of the game. Some folks want eating-limits, or to make trolling harder. But I'd say to that, trolling _should_ be easy. Stealing, killing, and destruction in general are all The Easy Way Out and that's part of why it stings so bad. It _should_ sting.

I personally believe the issues we're having with trolls have less to do with the trolling, and more to do with certain illusive design decisions affecting our ability to communicate as one would expect. I'm not talking about character limits, I'm talking about the viewport and presentation of dialog.

It is _so_ hard to have a conversation with someone in a town, or even just alert anyone of breaking news:

There's the overlapping text.

The zoomed in nature of the game so you can only feasibly be talking with 2-3 people at a time.

The zoomed view also contributes to the inability to yell or be heard by anyone in any town of nearly any size.

It also means that when a fellow villager does come into view, you have about 3 seconds to rifle off a message, often something like "STOP". If you do manage to get the message off in time and their screen is aligned properly as not to occlude your message, the chances of them actually stopping are still, at best, a coin flip because it's likely they're en route to avoid starvation, head-down making a bow saw or have their own children to tend to.

Giving it a bit more thought, zooming the view out would effect too many things in the game. Part of the tension of being nomadic or searching for water is directly correlated with the zoomed-in nature of the game. Zoom it out and the whole world gen needs to be re-thought.

But I do think there's room to play with how text/speech is presented. In the real world, someone can yell loudly. It might be worth exploring yelling, perhaps it costs hunger boxes? But a yell could send out a message within a radius, even within the same current style. Players would either see it above the yelling players head, or if off screen, snapped to the edge of the screen and sized based on distance from yelling player.

This could even be implemented without adding anything special like yelling costing hunger points, and just have each player have a voice volume radius. Maybe your voice volume is on a bell curve just like your stomach capacity is. Younger and older players have less of a voice, and middle-aged players, the loudest. Even if trolls somehow try to abuse this new way of talking, it won't be anything too different from the current model of communication in the game and if there's a bustling village of a dozen people and something happens and 3 people cry out "THIEF" near the city center, the whole town can come to see how they can assist with taking care of the thief.

Taking care of trolls, defending the village and all other manner of people-problems _are_ interesting things to solve as players, and they should stay. But I believe this change would not compromise any of those issues and give us much more ability to begin to find our own creative solutions to these issues.

Let me know what you think, or if you have ways to improve on this idea.

EaterOfBerries · 2018-03-07 16:38:26

aeiowu wrote:

I don't think addressing the trolls directly with gameplay changes and so on makes sense.
But I do think there's room to play with how text/speech is presented. It might be worth exploring yelling, perhaps it costs hunger boxes?

Hate to nitpick, but this sounds like a contradiction to me.

As far as actual criticism goes, I think it has a couple issues.

If your volume radius is purely dependent on age it has the potential in a busy town to occupy a lot of screen space if the corners of your screen are constantly occupied by other people's convos. And that is assuming only legitimate use (not spammers).

However you could reduce the problem by having it be optional and cost hunger as you suggested. But then this means adding additional controls. Jason seems to be a fan of having very limited controls and interactions so I'm not sure he would be a fan of this idea.

There is also the aspect that difficult communication is a core feature of the game (I'd argue it's more important than trolls), that's why you start with one letter as a baby.

I don't hate the idea but I think we have better options for dealing with trolls than this one.

Doctor Flintrock · 2018-03-07 16:56:54

That's a cool little mock-up!

One of my first posts was trying to deal with the feeling that, somehow, the game felt far too unforgiving, but I didn't really know in what ways. Having played enough now (and this has little to do with the new problem of trolling, which I experienced for the first time 4 days after the game released), the problem of communication is definitely ever present. (Again, trolling is a separate problem.)

Being less hungry means being able to communicate for more time without having to panic about food or positioning or immediate responsibilities; but the coordination required is unreasonable: clothes, a fire, homes (a place to hold a forum basically).

There is no equivalent of makeshift shelters or a caves (not inhabited by bears) or even a fireside chat because everything moves incredibly quickly and you can't really gather that many people around fires (and fires are hard to get started). That and people don't understand hunger enough and the general steps for moving up the tech tree to make all of these things less frustrating.

So yes, maybe making communication (which is lifting most of the game right now in terms of player experience) should be improved. The speech bubbles overlapping is irritating, like you said—that needs to be improved.

I think a way of solving the spamming problem for yelling would be to have players mouse over speech bubbles that would otherwise be obscured, so that you can ignore chatter and focus on it (reveal it) when you wanted to purposefully listen.

So the speech bubbles would appear with little ineligible compact scribbling but you would be able to see if there's an exclamation point (a warning or command) or a question mark (a question) and prioritize speech bubbles based on that little bit of information. So not actually yelling, like as a separate mechanic, but just being able to communicate outside of your screen area by having your speech bubble appear as a little bubble with a scribble/doodle animation for other players that are at some distance from you. These players could choose whether or not to listen to you.

[Good post! Something like this would also help towards Eves actually naming their children and calling them when needed, and make the game much less frustrating.]

Last edited by Doctor Flintrock (2018-03-07 17:02:56)

yvanhooe · 2018-03-07 17:13:37

Yes shouting and signaling. I think this game is a lot about that. Actually Jason at one point mentioned he was working on making communication easier when someone is a bit offscreen

draequine · 2018-03-07 17:33:46

Possible shouting solution: clay cones
Wet clay nozzle + wet clay bowl + fired adobe kiln
Holding it while talking will ping people a few screens away with a text bubble icon that they would need to hover their mouse over to read and only contain enough characters to call for a specific person/area/warning

I feel that the current problems with communication (limited space, overlapping, literal runoff sentences) allows for a more personal connection between people to form because of all the hassle needed to make sure they hear and understand you.

Phate · 2018-03-07 20:42:42

I like this idea, and maybe like draequine said, perhaps it could be a cone shaped item to amplify the sound or something.
But OP is right, when there is a troll, by the time you inform everyone, they are already dead, or in danger of death seconds later.

katastic · 2018-03-07 20:53:15

I want the ability to have markers for sound.

Like a baby crying, off screen, should have a marker to a baby crying. Likewise, a mother should be able to call for babies and baby's have a marker to the direction someone is calling.

That's real-life/evolutionary.

Just add a Shout/Call button.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2018-03-07 16:08:31

Potential solution to address the trolling problems

#2 2018-03-07 16:38:26

Re: Potential solution to address the trolling problems

#3 2018-03-07 16:56:54

Re: Potential solution to address the trolling problems

#4 2018-03-07 17:13:37

Re: Potential solution to address the trolling problems

#5 2018-03-07 17:33:46

Re: Potential solution to address the trolling problems

#6 2018-03-07 20:42:42

Re: Potential solution to address the trolling problems

#7 2018-03-07 20:53:15

Re: Potential solution to address the trolling problems

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