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Why aren't we talking about this?
You heard it here folks.
BHVR would literally rather delete the only free, non-prestige cosmetic options available to any licensced killer rather than have a functioning ######### report system.
Not saying I support racists or anything wild like that
This is just my personal take on it
Comments
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Yes, I feel like it would've been more prudent to research streamlining the reporting process and cracking down on people who are targeting POC rather than nuking cosmetics than 99.9% of the playerbase used without any issue.
The message sent via removing the only free base-game cosmetics rather than reworking their clunky and frankly pathetic report system is clear. They'd rather do anything else other than that.
Scathing? Perhaps. Too harsh? Maybe. But I stand by my opinion that there were better courses of action that would've helped other parts of the game too.
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People did talk about it. For 8 hours.
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Their logic has been even if the report system works quickly and efficiently 100% of the time, someone still had to experience harassment in the first place that was made possible or worse by something they can remove. Reporting is a reactive measure, this is proactive. I'll miss the masks, but I understand what they're saying.
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I honestly don't even see how racist remarks are any worse than what you typically get in an endgame DBD chat. Death threats, DDOS attacks, SWATING, etc, etc all in a game where like 20% of the players are probably hacking anyways. The DBD community is a trashcan overall.
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There was conversation on this for a while but went mostly ignored and even Mandy said that racist behavior was impossible to stop
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I mean what is racist behavior? If someone uses racial slurs ban them or chat ban them so they can't do it anymore.
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Isn't it on the streamer to moderate the content on their stream?
If racism is taking place isn't the onus on them to stop broadcasting it?
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Apparently not. It's definitely unstoppable
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Yeah but everyone's just salty they removed masks nobody's talking about how they wouldn't have to if they fixed the report system
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While I understand that logic until they type racist marks in egc you honestly never know what someone's intentions are
We can't just be the thought police because people may commit crimes
Again not defending just trying to relate it to irl actions ig
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Well there's probably not a single thread devoted to this conversation but we've talked about it on here plenty. Actually I think there was a topic on this earlier... it may have been drowned onto page 2
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I might've and I might've missed it really I just want game replys already man at least with game replays console could finally report
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They actually bent the knee to the guys on Twitter. I can't believe this is happening. I never seen anyone complain about the masks on anywhere except Twitter.
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I don't even check page 2 myself 😂
I agree. Report system does need work. Consoles and PC
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Aye. To be clear, I'll miss the masks and thought they were a neat idea. I was just throwing out there what they've said their logic was in other threads.
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Are you suggesting that when people of color experience targeted harassment made easier by a cosmetic, they should simply no longer stream because it is instead racist for them to show people the racism they encounter? Rather than Behaviour removing a cosmetic that was unnecessary and often used for harassment, instead, black content creators should be silenced when people behave poorly towards them in racist manners using cosmetics that can instead be removed as to not be used as a tool that way?
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Your personal take is inaccurate. They were and certainly will continue to ban people exhibiting racist behavior. The removal of the faces is to give them less tools to be racist ass hats.
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What do you mean, why aren't we talking about this? I've been yelling about this very take all day all day. There's been at least twenty threads.
To clarify, you're completely right about the onus not belonging to streamers here - people should be able to enjoy the damn game without being harassed, especially not on the basis of who they are, and "just stop streaming if you're getting harassed" is an awful take. I don't take any issue with what you're saying here except one tiny line, but that's "removing a cosmetic that was unnecessary." Every cosmetic is unnecessary. This game would function fine if everyone just had the default outfits and nothing else. They are, however, nice things to have and losing any of them is a shame.
Every single thing about this problem could have been fixed by actually banning the racist dickweeds instead of this limbo where it takes a few dozen reports and several weeks minimum before BHVR does anything. Instead, we're left with a situation where we have less cosmetics to enjoy and the racist shitheels are still roaming around being disgusting to every Claudette/Tapp/Adam/Elodie they meet because the report system in this game barely functions and even obvious, unrepentant proof isn't enough to get rid of people in a timely fashion.
Getting rid of Smartface didn't fix the problem that awful people are allowed to run rampant in DBD with little fear of repercussion. It just took away a set of cosmetics, and now BHVR is patting itself on the back for looking out for its community while it refuses to actually put in the legwork and manpower to address the long-standing and incredibly pervasive issue that plagues this game.
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Really cause ive never seen them ban anybody and ik tons of cheaters some that have streamed the game for years
Still never banned
We have zero proof a single soul has ever been banned
I've never once heard anyone anywhere on the internet say they've been banned
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You say it was used often but I can only remember once in 1500 hours that I remember seeing a Claudette mask.
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I gotta say I typically like your posts and agree with your takes and opinion
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Obviously, whatever they are doing is not helping our POC community.
Will removing Bubba's faces dissuade anyone from targeting POC streamers? Unlikely.
Will banning them via a new and simpler reporting system dissuade them? Maybe not, but they've got to spend money to buy a new game now.
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Aww, thanks.
They eventually remove them, I'm sure, but they take inordinately long to do it, and the bad actors are able to abuse far too many players in the meantime.
You know the current hacker issue where people are flying around spamming screams and headpopping every survivor two seconds into the game, and they can go unbanned for upwards of a month despite it being really, really obvious they're cheating? Being a racist ######### is just as bad. You don't have to be subtle about it; even with the game taking chat logs, people can report you using slurs over and over again and it still takes BHVR forever to get around to checking them.
A report system that works on this long a delay isn't a working report system at all.
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I mean, to be fair, the POC community were mostly the ones calling for the cosmetic(s) to be removed. POC are of course not a monolith, and we are aware that it doesn't magically solve racism, nor is it going to stop harassment of us - nothing ever will bar humanity ending, but I mean, it's a step forward in a good direction regardless of how other people think the idea is dumb/does nothing.
I personally have reported users being racist in pre-game lobby and end game chat for racist and homophobic comments and followed up on the users to find later they end up with a game ban, but I mean nothing is going to stop them from just creating a new account, like you said.
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ik some cheaters personally irl that have been streaming cheating for years and never been banned
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How is it a good step forward if, by your own admission, it does nothing to actually stop harassment or racism against POC?
To me then, it looks like an attempt to mask the issue without actually doing anything to help people affected by it.
All it does is allow BHVR to say, "See, we care we're doing something about it" when in reality, they've done nothing at all.
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Quick question:
What evidence would you use to prove it's racism? What evidence do you think players have available that makes the difference between percieved racism(aka, something that feels like targetted racism when it's just a coincidence between a bad mannered player who simply likes wearing a specific skin) and actual racism(who is bad mannered and wears that skin BECAUSE they are targetting players)?
In both of these cases, the player who is/feels targetted has a very negative experience due to a single cosmetic item. So that cant be used as evidence. Afterchat maybe? Well, racists would simply stop using chat to do so. Encountering the same player over and over again because they are sniping you? Could easily be chalked up to matchmaking giving you the same player(I've faced the same player up to 5 times in a row as a killer, same killer up to 5 times in 3 hours time).
Seriously, what would be the functioning report on this, without falsely banning players? Would you really want players to be banned for a false accusation just so you can keep a cosmetic?
There is none that I can think of. Making this question somewhat rethorical. This is exactly why the cosmetics themselves have to go. You cannot tell the difference between percieved racism and actual racism in a game like DBD, yet the experience is the same for the player suffering from it.
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Or you know only report when theirs actually racist stuff in egc instead going through mental gymnastics
It's really that simple is their racist stuff said yes or no
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I mean, for one, I am not going to be targeted anymore by some bubba wearing Claud's skin with a name like killnaggers or whatever. That isn't a singular instance, in my experience, that has been literally EVERY Bubba with her face on that I have ever faced. It's objectively a step in the right direction removing this sort of harassment, I don't really know what else to say.
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This would be easily handled if DBD kept match recordings in case of a report instead of leaving the onus on players to use external programs to record and submit evidence.
Everything that happens in the match happens with a blindfold to the current report system - every single form of in-game harassment there is cannot be discerned by the people going over the reports and it's all unconfirmable hearsay from not-necessarily-reliable narrators. But if you have a racist who's canny enough not to say anything in endgame chat or have a revealing profile who facecamps and BMs all the black survivors while letting everyone else go, and BHVR actually viewed ingame actions, this would only need to be reported, like, three times tops before you have enough proof that a player is behaving in bad faith and needs to go. Once is already enough to flag them for concern and perhaps send a warning.
Meanwhile, if it turned out the player in question was BMing and facecamping every player, or at least attempting to catch and kill other players, which would also be covered by the match recordings, that report could be discarded because while the reporting player experienced what felt like racism, it doesn't appear that that was the actual intent. Same if the match recording showed that the person who got singled out was provoking the killer beforehand, or any extenuating circumstance where there might be another reason. (Being able to save the killer's current active challenge would be ideal, as they may have a challenge to kill the obsession - though I'd imagine this would be a very rare coincidence.) When sufficient proof has been obtained, send a warning not to do this again just to be absolutely sure you're not hitting anyone innocent, with a next-strike-you're-out.
That's just for the players who don't say anything, though. Many of these degenerates aren't shy about outing themselves and give ample, ample rope to hang themselves with.
Keeping match recordings (until the lobby is dissolved, and saving them when a report is made) also has the benefit of being able to properly address hacking, all forms of hostage-taking, teaming with the killer, sandbagging and griefing, and repeated and unfair targeting over the course of several games. It's something that's needed across the board.
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Again, define it. Actually DEFINE the difference between percieved racism and active racism. If it's so easy, why are you avoiding it?
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First off, I fully agree that there needs to be a replay mod for this game. Being able to download a match and single out the moments in the match is far easier for players, takes no time to set-up and is far easier to report hackers alone. However, back to addressing the issues:
"This would be easily handled if DBD kept match recordings in case of a report instead of leaving the onus on players to use external programs to record and submit evidence."
You might think so, but to do so, you would need to hire a very specific team to watch match recordings, find the moments where it happens and EVEN THEN, it's not gonna be clear cut. I'll use some of your points to basically show why:
"a revealing profile who facecamps and BMs all the black survivors while letting everyone else go" Except, that they are not facecamping and BM'ing black survivors, they are facecamping and BM'ing black players. You cannot typically tell the ethnicity of a player through the game, so this can be done purely on accident. Especially if there are multiple black players in the same game. You would need to contact said player to explain themselves, and if they refuse to explain themselves, there is nothing you can do without having potential legal action backing it up, as it's not solid evidence.
"if it turned out the player in question was BMing and facecamping every player" Sheer statistical probability means that there is at least 1 killer who will only do this to black players without knowing it. This can lead to very nasty legal actions if they are banned wrongfully, not only losing money to just cover the costs of the game, unbanning them etc, but also would easily be a case of slander, which can reach into compensations up to hundreds of thousands of dollars alone, just because of 1 free cosmetic. It's not solid enough to uphold in a court of law, that makes it very easy to claim discrimination and slander, and sue the company.
"send a warning not to do this again just to be absolutely sure you're not hitting anyone innocent, with a next-strike-you're-out." This would be seemingly fine, except that you cannot really tell a player to not play the game the way they want to play while all other players get to play the game the way they want to play, especially considering their behaviour isnt breaking the rules in the game. This again can turn into quite a cumbersome legal action where there is player discrimination. Since BHVR is a company, its far easier to gain evidence on them. For players, you would need to launch a personal investigation just to see if they are actually racists. Both can cost a lot of money, it's easier to simply remove the thing that causes the problem.
"Many of these degenerates aren't shy about outing themselves and give ample, ample rope to hang themselves with." These players actually already see bans, which is why most of them return on a new copy, maybe on a new device and remain silent.
Effectively, the options to keep the cosmetics are either:
- gonna cost a lot of money through legal actions
- gonna cost a lot of money through investigations
Considering the cosmetics are free, that is a LOT of money to be spending, just to keep a small portion of the playerbase happy and while the harrassed portion of the playerbase will still experience the same negativity.
The reason why it's very hard to prove someone or something is racist, is because of appearant racism. Racism needs personal investigation, and once there is actual evidence of racism(aka, intended behaviour), only then can you legally take action without being at risk for slander.
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I just told you and you ignored it
Perceived is made up bullshit in your head that isn't real
And everybody knows what real racism is do you really need me to explain that to you?
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I don't entirely understand how there could be that much legal kerfluffle around banning someone for repeatedly doing something if you make that something against the rules, but I will concede it's really hard to prove whether or not someone knew whether or not what race a player is. It's... easier to prove with streamers, but much less so when it's a matter of looking at people's profiles or extrapolating from their names. That's an angle I hadn't adequately thought out, and you're right, players could easily unknowingly be dinged for this when in actuality they pay no attention at all what's on people's profiles and are just sparing or killing certain players because Feng didn't want to farm or the other three were cute or whatever.
Thank you for that, because it's done more to convince me why this decision was made than anything else I've heard today. I'm still cynical that this change will do much to help, but it at least sheds light on why improved moderation was not the obvious solution it seemed to be.
I still want it, though - it fixes way more problems than just this. And I'd prefer match replay be handled in-house than the current system of having players essentially have to use an external website to write up a proper report that will actually be heeded, because that is unnecessarily obfuscating and clunky and I can't think of a single other game that's ever required people to go that out of their way to report people.
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So removing the faces is going to stop players who go out of their way to target POC and be #########?
You must forgive me if I find that unlikely.
I think what this is really about is making people feel better, not about actually curbing any harassment or racist activities, and I wish people would just say that.
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I didnt ignore it, you didnt define it. Define "actually racist stuff" in DBD.
Oh, and since you dont believe in appearant racism. Tell me the difference between these situations:
- a white police officer shot a dark skinned suspect, that was described to be heavily armed and dangerous, because they thought they were grabbing something that looked like a firearm and acted out of self-defence.
- a white police officer shot a dark skinned suspect, that was described to be heavily armed and dangerous, as soon as they saw him, then proclaimed they thought they saw them grabbing a firearm and claimed to be acting out of self-defence when he merely saw it as an excuse to shoot a dark skinned person.
In both cases, the dark skinned suspect was an innocent bystander that, in the right lighting could pass as the description, and both claim they were shot "out of nowhere" by a white police officer and claim them to be racist. Both officers claim to not have intended to harm, both claim that the suspect seemed to grab a firearm. There were no other witnesses. Person A and Person B are both in the court of law. One of these is a racist, the other is not.
How do you differentiate the racist from the non-racist? Do you punish both just in case because ######### the innocent officer?
And no, this isnt a specific situation, these things happen daily in a court of law. It's exactly why it's so hard to trial someone for racism without risking slander. Because claiming someone to be a racist when they could build a case that they are not will cost people a ton of money for a false accusation.
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100% agree.
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Yeah, 100% that replays from the games would have made past moderation and make future moderation much, much easier. It gives players the input to point things out. It would be much easier to warn people that their behaviour seems racist and that they are urged to stop said behaviour because their actions are making players feel unsafe.
There is 1 thing I didnt mention tho. Even with all the legal stuff, there still is a way. To basically make it part of the ToS to reply to moderators, and that a lack of reply to questioning may result in an undeserved ban.
But then you still have the issue that people could lie. You'd still have players feeling harassed and harmed for something that is free to get. You could remove those skins from people who harassed or seemingly harassed players with it, but that wouldnt prevent it. Similar to the hacker situation. It's not exactly hard to get a new copy with a cheap bubba license these days. Bubba's DLC has seen very low prices over the years, especially if you're buying those on accounts where the price is already lower(in Turkey, for example, Bubba's DLC has been worth 50 cents, but can only be gifted to turkish accounts).
Prevention simply is the easier way. Gets rid of all the potential legal issues, removes the problem even if it impacts the satisfaction of players a bit. I personally would preferred the faces to be merged instead, have a stitched version of all 4 survivors(would be very unique too, and falls in the scope of DBD lore considering survivor's faces arent safe from his chainsaw, forcing bubba to stitch the pieces that are unharmed together instead). Which would have somewhat alleviated the issues players have with the full removal. But that would also need to be clarified with the license holder etc, overall a massive hassle.
This is effectively the safest solution for now, untill a better one has been found.
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But this isn't real life it's a video game
Your over thinking it an doing mental gymnastics to prove a point about something that doesn't exist in a video game
Actual racist stuff would be racist stuff said in end game chat
I shouldnt have to list off a list of slurs for you to understand that, if you haven't seen or read what racists say I'm defs not typing them here and getting banned
Anything you perceived as racism in the game
Unless it's in text format, is just you taking certain actions as something there not in your head
Let me give a example lots of people hate tea bagging right well everyone says it's to taunt the killer
Well everyone defending it says it's all for fun and in good laughs however you can never know which one it is
So you just don't assume anything
Let me put it simply for you understand
Actions in game mean nothing
Text mean everything
Does that make it easier to get
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Except people are targetted because of race, people are mocked and mistreated because of race. People have experienced this behaviour enough to link said behaviour to racism, meaning everytime they get treated that way, with similar, if not the same outfits, it is as if they are targetted by the racist. To the racist, whatever they are doing, is fully intended to harass that person based on their skincolor.
That means the action itself is racist. It's with racist intent. No mental gymnastics.
Those are the facts. There are specific skins and actions being done by racists to mistreat players through racist intents. That's the whole problem.
"Actions in game mean nothing." Wrong, intent is intent, its impossible to read intent, but that doesnt mean it means nothing.
"Text mean everything. Does that make it easier to get" Which is why people get banned, and why racists stay silent in endgame, while harassing players over and over again and ruining their experience just because of their skincolor.
People dealing consistently with racism, are playing games to escape that reality and be treated like a normal person for once, only to be harassed by racists again.
Because of a free cosmetic that's not required to play the game.
You are the one trying to go for mental gymnastics to try and keep a recolored head in the game, that doesnt affect your gameplay at all. You never see it during the game, only in the lobbies. A cosmetic whose existance makes the experience of specific ethnicities horrible.
Imagine being jewish and having a skin that looks like AH in the game, that is obtainable for free and nothing more than a recolor, and being smacked consistently by a killer with this skin just because you are jewish. Other players do like the looks of that killer because it fits with other skins really well, but quite a large portion of the playerbase is consistently harassed by it. Would you really argue to having a resemblance of Adolf in the game, harassing jewish players, just because actions mean nothing?
Sure dude, totally not mental gymnastics.
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That's a non-argument that's meant to sound reasonable when it isn't. I could use the exact same argument to ban bats.
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Im suggesting that in a match that if someone is doing something against various t.o.s that they stop streaming until that is fixed.
I'll give you a uniquely Australian example, when streakers run onto a sports field, they dont film it, the cameras don't broadcast the streaker, they look at the ground, the stands anything else.
Why to stop it being glorified. If a streamer is getting racist abuse directed to them yeah it's horrible, but the onus is on the streamer to not broadcast it. Why not just stop streaming that match? and broadcast the next.
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Yeah, I don't support taking away Leatherface's masks, but that's a really bad argument.
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Bhvr has been showing us with their actions that they will rather take the easy option that doesn't solve the problem instead of putting in the work to solve the issue.
Same reason we've heard nothing about what they are going to do about cheaters. It's easier to put the effort onto people creating support tickets that they don't have the man power to process quickly rather than upgrade the anti cheat.
Same reason we get such minor balance changes every 3 months (or 1.5 if we are lucky) instead of seeing patches on a more frequent basis making changes.
It's really sad the devs are getting rewarded by doing the bare minimum.
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The whole situation is comically ridiculous.
Removing consistently used and enjoyed content from your game because it was misused a handful of times over the course of 5+ years? That’s mental 😂
Of course it would have taken a bit more work, but simply banning the individuals engaging in harassment is the best option, no? I mean, you can’t literally remove or censor every little thing that could potentially be used to harass someone, right?
Claudette will be next, you’ll see! Oh the irony of it all.
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It makes a lot of sense, remove the free cosmetics, virtue signal, give people an incentive to purchase Leatherface. Genius. One of their better business decisions, actually, I have to admit.
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Sorry that you seem to be misunderstanding the process here.
Whilst I appreciate your feelings with regards to the report system - the report system is not part of this discussion at all.
We are removing tools that are used for harassment - we do not want people to be harassed in this manner, it's not about banning individuals it's above removing the hate that people are facing with regards to the way these masks have been used.
Someone can't be banned until they have done something and that means that people have to get racially abused before we can take action on a person - we have no tolerance for racial hatred in our game, so removing the tools used for that racial hatred within the game is important to us.
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