What's the point of the Report Function?

[Bristingr.5034]

Legitimate question. With the amount of bots, afkers, and match manipulators, why do we even have a reporting function if Anet doesn't bother actually acting on these reports?

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Here you go: https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/360010187753-Reporting-a-Player-or-Guild

[Danikat.8537]

Reports aren't automated. You won't see someone immediately disappear because they've been reported so now they're banned, it has to wait until someone from Anet reviews the report and their actions and makes a decision. (Also that decision might be to warn them or issue some other kind of penalty, especially if it's a first offense.)

For people afk farming that can involve someone from Anet whispering them and trying to contact them in other ways to see if they're genuinely afk or just not moving around much right now.

With bots they've said previously they ban them in 'waves' - they wait until they've identified as many of that type of bot as possible and then ban them all together, so it's harder for the people running the bots (who likely have a lot of them) to work out how they were caught and update all their others to avoid detection. It won't stop them forever of course, but it makes it more likely they have to start over with a whole bunch of new accounts instead of just losing one and fixing all the rest so they can keep running.

[mercury ranique.2170]

You asume they do not act on the report, while in reality all reports are being looked into.However not always the way you think.Keep in mind the report function is not to get a personal revenche. It is to report a situation you do not want to encounter in the game and is in your opinion a breach of the rules.However, for you it is impossible to determine wheter or not it really is a breach of the rules and it really is the GM's who makes such a determination.While doing this they want to ensure that it is done fair and that breaches no longer happen. Bad people do bad things. Often using stolen accounts and bypassing rules with third party software. To ensure that the rules are hard to bypass, the detection methods are secret. Also, they often do not take immediate action to hide what behaviour got them busted.A good example is when you see someone breaking the rules. If they are banned within 5 minutes afterwards they know exactly how they where reported and for what action. But if they wait and observe for a while they can see the entire behaviour and check the severity of the breach. They also can take more appropiate action while not giving away what got them busted.

[Galmac.4680]

I guess ANet has a big queue for reported players and still trys to handle the millions of cases from 2017...

[Omega.6801]

It gives the people a feeling of agency, which usually satisfies the urge to "do something against [x]".

[Bristingr.5034]

@Danikat.8537 said:For people afk farming that can involve someone from Anet whispering them and trying to contact them in other ways to see if they're genuinely afk or just not moving around much right now.

With bots they've said previously they ban them in 'waves' - they wait until they've identified as many of that type of bot as possible and then ban them all together, so it's harder for the people running the bots (who likely have a lot of them) to work out how they were caught and update all their others to avoid detection. It won't stop them forever of course, but it makes it more likely they have to start over with a whole bunch of new accounts instead of just losing one and fixing all the rest so they can keep running.

It's mostly in PvP. Every match there's at least 1-2 afkers, and the rest are bots (generic names, no guild tag, same pathing for all of them, etc.). Seriously, an Anet person could literally look at any of my matches in the past 3 days and they'd have at least 20 characters to ban without needing a 2nd review. It's absurd that such a game mode can be taken over and they do it because of how little Anet cares or does anything. At least with WvW and PvE, you get kicked from the game if you afk for too long, but matches don't last long enough in PvP to trigger that timer -- it used to be 60 seconds or something really short, but now players can just afk all match without penalty.

@mercury ranique.2170 said:A good example is when you see someone breaking the rules. If they are banned within 5 minutes afterwards they know exactly how they where reported and for what action. But if they wait and observe for a while they can see the entire behaviour and check the severity of the breach. They also can take more appropiate action while not giving away what got them busted.

That's a terrible analogy as other companies explicitly tell them that they were banned for x or y (e.g. Blizzard and Overwatch) and do just fine.

[Fueki.4753]

I think the report function is mostly there to make you feel better for reporting misdeeds.I have yet to read about Arenanet doing anything with those reports though.

[Sobx.1758]

I didn't believe the verb abuse reports do anything, but after not-so-extensive testing I can tell you that they do work, even for not as harsh words as you might think. :grimace:

I assume reports for botting/cheating aren't automated, so they might take longer OR be missed due to lack of proof or w/e, but I know I've reported one absolutely obvious cheater in wvw and didn't see him online since then (which was 13.02). If I see him, I'll probably try submitting the clips I have on him along with his account name, but for now I'll just wait for him to show up again.

[kharmin.7683]

@Fueki.4753 said:I think the report function is mostly there to make you feel better for reporting misdeeds.I have yet to read about Arenanet doing anything with those reports though.

Anet never divulges what action, if any, is taken against individual players. They have, in the past, spoken about a number of bot accounts that have been removed.

[Naxos.2503]

I think I remember on Guild Wars 1, that GMs would actually seek out offending characters and kill them in a fairly elaborate fashion before banning them. I think if other players actually Saw that, it would confirm that something is done about reports. As far as gw2 goes, I'm inclined to agree with those that feel nothing is done about it. I've seen plenty of offenders, reported them several times over the course of a week, and said offender would still be there after said week.

Either there's only 1 person reviewing offenses, or there is just That many offenses per day that an entire team cannot act on reports in a fair time.Personal opinion of course.

[Yggranya.5201]

For you, it's to make you feel better, to give you the illusion that you're helping. For anet, it's so they can see the 1 in a billion report that might hurt their sales, which causes them to take action swiftly and decisively, while they ignore everything else. That's it.