[Feedback] Regarding chat toxicity, scammers, and victim-blaming culture.

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kompaniet wrote:

You don't have to worry about this unless you are a trade scammer.

i ever asked them what they think scamming is, and the answer in this thread is "if you use the trade screen for what it's been intended to do", YOU ARE SEEN AS A SCAMMER.

the timing of you opening and closing the trade screen and the type of items you put in, make ggg support to decide if you keep the mtx you spent thousands of dollars on or not.


i find that rather worrying but it might not affect you, that's true.

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vio wrote:

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kompaniet wrote:

You don't have to worry about this unless you are a trade scammer.

i ever asked them what they think scamming is, and the answer in this thread is "if you use the trade screen for what it's been intended to do", YOU ARE SEEN AS A SCAMMER.

the timing of you opening and closing the trade screen and the type of items you put in, make ggg support to decide if you keep the mtx you spent thousands of dollars on or not.


i find that rather worrying but it might not affect you, that's true.

I would argue that the trade window was intended to make it easier to execute trades which were agreed to previously. Tricking people into executing trades which differ from what was agreed previously is obviously a scam. The problem isn't that GGG can ban you for scamming. The problem is that there is no rule against scamming (as far as I can tell, in game or elsewhere) so they're essentially banning people randomly without any guidance.

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vio wrote:

i ever asked them what they think scamming is, and the answer in this thread is "if you use the trade screen for what it's been intended to do", YOU ARE SEEN AS A SCAMMER.

the timing of you opening and closing the trade screen and the type of items you put in, make ggg support to decide if you keep the mtx you spent thousands of dollars on or not.

i find that rather worrying but it might not affect you, that's true.

I'm going to let you in on a secret: GGG already doesn't need to catch you in the act of some particular rule you've broken to ban you. Here's their TOS (emphasis mine):

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Grinding Gear Games also reserves the right, acting at its sole discretion, at any time to cancel your registration and access to your Member Account or to restrict, limit or otherwise change your existing rights of access to your Member Account, or any specific feature or benefit afforded to you in relation to your Member Account, including without limitation in respect of any Virtual Items, if it believes you have breached these Terms of Use or any other agreements you may have with Grinding Gear Games or for any other reason whatsoever. In such event you agree that Grinding Gear Games will not be required to provide you with prior notice or explanation in respect of such action. Notwithstanding the cancellation of access to your Member Account in any case, you agree you will remain fully liable for any outstanding liability owed to Grinding Gear Games.

i.e., they can ban you for any reason they want, don't have to tell you why, no refunds. By playing their game, you're implicitly trusting them to decide whether you're a significant enough detriment to the community to want to ban you- you don't get a trial where you get to demand where in the rulebook it says a dog can't play basketball. It's unlikely that they want to be in the habit of banning people for frivolous reasons, especially ones spending "thousands of dollars" as you've said, so just don't be an a-hole and you should be able to sleep comfortably. Otherwise, if you're regularly doing things that are clearly going to piss people off and get angry emails sent to support about you, maybe you should think twice about all those mtx purchases.

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battlecarrier wrote:

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ubersuperduper wrote:

The last thing you are describing is a none issue, its good that players get called out on their mistakes so they remember not to make that mistake again.

Unfortunately this is a little idealistic. There are already an overwhelming number of barriers for new players to get past to really start enjoying the game, if you add being scammed with absolutely no recourse to all of that it is more likely to make them leave the game... Especially when everyone else shames and blames them. I have seen this first-hand among my group of friends.

No, for real, its good that players mistakes are called out, thats how you get good players, this is not suppose to be a kiddypool.

First, thank you to Sarah_GGG for explicitly stating that scamming is a bannable offence. This is hotly debated in many of the "scammer" threads and it is really good for this point to be clear, IMHO.

IMHO, the OP makes a good point that there does seem to be a lot of the victim blaming type positions taken. I'm not sure why this happens but it does and it does make the atmosphere less pleasant, IMHO, when it does happen. One can point out that we need to be observant and careful when doing trades without belittling and insulting the victim. If the goal is to defend GGG when belittling and insulting the victim you are only hurting GGG and yourself by doing it because it makes the community look toxic.

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Turtledove wrote:

First, thank you to Sarah_GGG for explicitly stating that scamming is a bannable offence. This is hotly debated in many of the "scammer" threads and it is really good for this point to be clear, IMHO.

IMHO, the OP makes a good point that there does seem to be a lot of the victim blaming type positions taken. I'm not sure why this happens but it does and it does make the atmosphere less pleasant, IMHO, when it does happen. One can point out that we need to be observant and careful when doing trades without belittling and insulting the victim. If the goal is to defend GGG when belittling and insulting the victim you are only hurting GGG and yourself by doing it because it makes the community look toxic.

It mainly happens when the poster expects GGG to fix it while taking absolutely no responsibility for their part in failing to verify. The very first time I traded it took me a while to realize I had to mouse over that side of the window.

I also grew up with the internet and its infancy (not darpa back but commercial dial-up) so expecting the worst out of people became the norm.

I may not always check when I get change for a 5 but I count everything when I break a 100. (But I pretty much count everything short of coinage.)

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Marisbury wrote:

I actually like scammers/pricefixers, as long as they are not bots.

Their existence actually forces me to pay attention to the game while trading and not doing things mindlessly (AH would have exactly opposite effect). It's not that hard to look at the trade screen for any multiple exalt item.

If someone is going to leave after being scammed, they are going to leave after losing to hard endgame boss, I don't see how things are different. Trade is aspect of the game and it should provide challenge, which you can trivialise with knowledge.

I was never scammed, and whenever I sold items for less than I could due to price fixing, it was 100% my fault for not properly investigating the market.

Well for you it sounds great that scammers are keeping you on your toes. For me they waste my time getting me to leave my maps and take up space on my block list. In general, scammers have no positive impact on the game or community. I'm not sure where the conclusion about people leaving the game comes from. And trade should provide challenge? With each successful trade I should feel more accomplished and a sense of triumph! OK.

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Marisbury wrote:

I actually like scammers/pricefixers, as long as they are not bots.

Their existence actually forces me to pay attention to the game while trading and not doing things mindlessly (AH would have exactly opposite effect). It's not that hard to look at the trade screen for any multiple exalt item.

If someone is going to leave after being scammed, they are going to leave after losing to hard endgame boss, I don't see how things are different. Trade is aspect of the game and it should provide challenge, which you can trivialise with knowledge.

I was never scammed, and whenever I sold items for less than I could due to price fixing, it was 100% my fault for not properly investigating the market.

I didn't see this comment until it was posted above me in a reply.

The first time I got scammed was all the way back in the D2 days when I finally tried to trade a soj for a silly harlequin's crest shako. And EXACTLY like the scammers do it today, he showed me the item, canceled as I thought it over and opened the window, and while the artwork was identical it was just some junk armor.

I did quit over that - getting stuck on a boss wouldn't have upset me even close to the same way.

I did eventually go back a few years later and got wealthy enough to enjoy the fancy runewords. But even back then, I knew as angry as I was at the random trader, it was my fault for falling for it. I had sat on it for a while just because I was weary of losing it in that exact way too.

But really, saying trade should provide "challenge" is a bit silly unless you're really just going for the trade simulator experience.

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

The first time I got scammed was all the way back in the D2 days when I finally tried to trade a soj for a silly harlequin's crest shako. And EXACTLY like the scammers do it today, he showed me the item, canceled as I thought it over and opened the window, and while the artwork was identical it was just some junk armor.

I did quit over that - getting stuck on a boss wouldn't have upset me even close to the same way.

Player experience differs from case to case.

For me, my first blind Sirus attempts on previous league were much more frustrating (he completely obliterated me for first 5 times), while The Fiend scam attempts (putting the 1ex instead on 10ex) and wrongly priced herald rings (I think lost around 3-5ex on each of the two mispriced rings) not that much. Not to the point of quitting the game, of course, since it's quite fair that you cannot faceroll last boss of the game while going blind.

And there are literally threads in first page "I am quit because Sirus is too hard" and "I am quit because of 10% death penalty".

But it's my point of view, I like when there is obstacles to overcome (main reason that I am doing Poorjoys rotas instead of Pure Breach ones: I like that even Herald Stackers with 90% max resistances often die here, so I actually have to pay attention to the game). Dealing with scammers is actually easy: if someone cancel the trade or removes the currency it's 95% scam attempt (bonus points if that's multiex trade and buyer have less than 10 challenges), so they never bothered me too much while still forcing to pay attention to trade screen.

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Marisbury wrote:

But it's my point of view, I like when there is obstacles to overcome (main reason that I am doing Poorjoys rotas instead of Pure Breach ones: I like that even Herald Stackers with 90% max resistances often die here, so I actually have to pay attention to the game). Dealing with scammers is actually easy: if someone cancel the trade or removes the currency it's 95% scam attempt (bonus points if that's multiex trade and buyer have less than 10 challenges), so they never bothered me too much while still forcing to pay attention to trade screen.

But that's why I thought the "challenge" to trading comment was funny. The warning signs aren't hard to miss if you're paying attention at all (instead of going through the motions).

Earlier in league someone tried to sell me a vet awareness instead of a hollow palm, didn't even bother with the show and cancel just straight up threw it in the window. The difference between getting scammed was a matter of just taking a few seconds to actually view the description during the mouseover instead of blindly hitting accept because a jewel was in the window.