The problems as I see it with the bots and suggested improvements

[Ripshaft]

Before I get into anything, I just want to say I love the idea of public bots, I would have done so myself if I had the resources to do it, but I don't. As such I am very, very greatful to the people who make playdota.eu possible, and regardless of any problems i list, it will still be easily the best thing to happen to eurobattle.net since I joined many years ago.

Now, the problems I'm going to list operate on the assumption that the playdota.eu bots exist and are made publicly available for the purpose of providing an easy to use, difficult to abuse bot service to the players as a whole.

With this in mind, I see the following problems, they all fall into the category of admin abuse, but some are less obvious than others:

1. Admins being able to freely kick players in the lobby for any reason.
 This one I see as a major problem currently, as a public bot service, it seems entirely unreasonable to give the admin this much power. How many of you have been in a game where you wait for 10 minutes, then the admin kicks you to open a slot for a friend. Or how many of you have just had to sit by and watch as a jerk admin constantly opens slots, kicking players, instead of just closing slots and using !hold for their friends? How often are people with perfectly reasonable pings kicked because the admin uses !ping 75 or some other incredibly unreasonable number?

Proposed Solution:
 In public games, but not private, after a certain amount of time, say 30 seconds, a player's position is secured, and they cannot be kicked by the host opening their slot. They will still be autokicked if their ping climbs above an autokick threshold (like 300), for more than a certain amount of time (10sec?). Also a limit on the number used in the !ping command should be put in, or just remove the ability for hosts to specify a minimum ping, 150 is more than reasonable, given the average pings of most users to the playdota.eu bots, though 200 would probably be better. To stop hosts from constantly kicking innocent people for the purposes of slotting (instead of closing the slot and using !hold) have a counter that counts the amount of times the host kicks a player within 5 seconds of them joining, at 2, it displays a warning message (ie 'You appear to be kicking players with no clear reason, if you're trying to make a slot, close the slot, and use !hold [playername] instead.), at 3 it displays the same message and additionally prevents the host from using !open for say 20 seconds. at 4 the timer goes up to 30 seconds or whatever the timer is set to for the secured position, ie if the player wants to play, they can play. I see it likely that a dick host might rage !unhost, to prevent this from affecting the other innocent players, have the host ownership transferred to the player who has been in the game lobby the longest in the event of an !unhost in a game with other players. The game should be automatically unhosted once the last person leaves under these circumstances, or if the host is idle for a extended period of time, if it isn't allready.

The end result is that admins will be forced to exercise responsibility if they want to host public games and play with friends, and the hundreds of innocents that get booted every 10 minutes will be significantly reduced.

2. The ban system has issues.
 First off, there's only 2 situations under which people can be banned currently. One, if they leave willingly, by exiting the game, and Two, if they are !votekicked. For both of these, they are still only banned if the host bans them, only the host can ban them, also, the host cannot be banned under any situation. You can apply for a ban on the forums, but I'll get to that later. So, to break it down into pointform;

-The host cannot be banned
-If the host leaves nobody else can be banned.
-If the host refuses to ban nobody can be banned.
-!votekick bans are becoming a popular alternative to ragequitting on playdota.eu bots, leading to wrongful bans. (a player will spam !votekick requests until enough people type !yes, then will harass the host until he bans them)

So, Proposed Solutions:
 Remove all ban power from the host, he's just another player like anyone else, why give him that easily abused power? Auto ban anyone who leaves the game willingly. Disable the use of !votekick while dead (if possible), and do not autoban players who are removed via !votekick, also add a limit to the number of votekicks any one player can make against any other player (in the same way that every player can only pause 3 times, I'd suggest 2 as a reasonable number). All other bans can be applied for on the forum. An argument against this might be that it would cause excessive work for the ban forum admins, but I think the amount of wrongful bans caused by the current system significantly outweighs the amount of people who would apply for bans against deserving people on the forums.



Anyways other than that the system works well I think. I'd like to say again these changes are directed at public games only, if you want to abuse admin in a private game with your friends, well what the hell go for it. These suggestions are out of concern for the power abuse that's common currently, and the overall health of playdota.eu.

So yeah, I know some of what I have to say may not be too clear, sorry that's just how I roll, if you want more clarification feel free to ask and I'll try to provide. If you see problems feel free to bring them up, though I'll just ignore them if they're baseless. I am a programmer, so if the people in charge decide the changes might be cool but don't know how to implement them or just think it'd be too much work for the benefits, I'd be happy to lend my services if you're interested, for free of course, though I might take a little while, depending on how busy I am at the time.



Edit/Further Info:

'But what about people who are just assholes in the lobby after 30sec or whatever?' or 'what about people who try to ruin the game later?'

I've played probably almost a thousand games of dota since I started (sad i know =/), with thousands upon thousands of different players, and of all of them, only about 30 or so were truly disruptive to the game. Of those 30, 20 would be taken care of by the !mute command (/hideminimapsignals is often useful too, was my favorite feature once they added it). Of the other 10, there is no good way currently or previously to deal with them, they've decided they want to ruin the game, and will give the enemy items, their life repeatedly, or destroy their items. I do see the value of votekicking the purposeful feeder out, so I take back my suggestion on disabling after 20 minutes, and replaced it with disabled while dead (if possible, not 100% sure if the bot can read that, I think it can tell when they die, but doesn't know how long they're dead for, a 30 seconds after death denial of !votekick, that also uses their !votekick chances would probably catch 90% of the rage !votekickers). The resulting log and replay from the game would make it an airtight case for permaban.

So, the answer in pointform, to save you from the wall of text:

- !mute verbally abusive players
- !votekick intentional greifers in game if necessary.
- report on forum, should be easy case for permaban.

[ek0]

Agree for both. But the numbers can be changed.

[ATeaMPlaYeR]

1. Admins being able to freely kick players in the lobby for any reason.
 This one I see as a major problem currently, as a public bot service, it seems entirely unreasonable to give the admin this much power. How many of you have been in a game where you wait for 10 minutes, then the admin kicks you to open a slot for a friend. Or how many of you have just had to sit by and watch as a jerk admin constantly opens slots, kicking players, instead of just closing slots and using !hold for their friends? How often are people with perfectly reasonable pings kicked because the admin uses !ping 75 or some other incredibly unreasonable number?

This proble has 2 solutions. The first one is making a screenshot when any admin abuse and sending it to "Fawkz". He will do the properly thing. The second one is what you say, but this could have some problems that I will explain now.

Proposed Solution:
 In public games, but not private, after a certain amount of time, say 30 seconds, a player's position is secured, and they cannot be kicked by the host opening their slot.

This has no sense. Why the host can't kick someone? It's true that the game is public, but what would happen if someone starts insulting everybody after 30 seconds? No way to this change... 

Also a limit on the number used in the !ping command should be put in, or just remove the ability for hosts to specify a minimum ping, 150 is more than reasonable, given the average pings of most users to the playdota.eu bots, though 200 would probably be better.

Agree.

To stop hosts from constantly kicking innocent people for the purposes of slotting (instead of closing the slot and using !hold) have a counter that counts the amount of times the host kicks a player within 5 seconds of them joining, at 2, it displays a warning message (ie 'You appear to be kicking players with no clear reason, if you're trying to make a slot, close the slot, and use !hold [playername] instead.), at 3 it displays the same message and additionally prevents the host from using !open for say 20 seconds. at 4 the timer goes up to 30 seconds or whatever the timer is set to for the secured position, ie if the player wants to play, they can play.

This has incredible coding, that's not easy. Anyway, the problem is that if you join a game and gets kicked you have to understand that maybe the host is holding a slot. I've been kicked sometimes in lobby because host wanted a slot for his friend and I don't care that he kicked me. I understand that and you should be more comprensible.

I see it likely that a dick host might rage !unhost, to prevent this from affecting the other innocent players, have the host ownership transferred to the player who has been in the game lobby the longest in the event of an !unhost in a game with other players. The game should be automatically unhosted once the last person leaves under these circumstances, or if the host is idle for a extended period of time, if it isn't allready.
The end result is that admins will be forced to exercise responsibility if they want to host public games and play with friends, and the hundreds of innocents that get booted every 10 minutes will be significantly reduced.

No way, this cannot be comment because has no sense. Is very difficult to make that but also create more problems than those who resolves.

2. The ban system has issues.
 First off, there's only 2 situations under which people can be banned currently. One, if they leave willingly, by exiting the game, and Two, if they are !votekicked.

Also if the player gets -kickedafked.

So, Proposed Solutions:
 Remove all ban power from the host, he's just another player like anyone else, why give him that easily abused power? Auto ban anyone who leaves the game willingly.

Agree

Disable the use of !votekick after 20 minutes of play

No sense. !votekick canno't be disabled in that situation because what would happen if someone decides to ruin the game after 20 minutes? This proposition has no sense.

If you want to abuse admin in a private game with your friends, well what the hell go for it.

What are you talking about? Abuse is never allowed. Don't call admins abusers if you do not have proofs and do not tell admins if they can abuse or not. Fawkz won't let any admin to abuse, but obviously you have to tell him if you have any proof.

[MyUberNick]

How many of you have been in a game where you wait for 10 minutes, then the admin kicks you to open a slot for a friend. Or how many of you have just had to sit by and watch as a jerk admin constantly opens slots, kicking players, instead of just closing slots and using !hold for their friends? How often are people with perfectly reasonable pings kicked because the admin uses !ping 75 or some other incredibly unreasonable number?

I disagree. These days i don't see a lot of players with ping grater then 75, most European players have ping well bellow 75, so i wouldn't say 75 ms is incredibly unreasonable ping, i often use !ping 50 in my games and none gets kicked.
And we already have a solution for this kind of problems, host the game yourself!

-!votekick bans are becoming a popular alternative to ragequitting on playdota.eu bots, leading to wrongful bans. (a player will spam !votekick requests until enough people type !yes, then will harass the host until he bans them)

Banning of !votekick-ed players is going to be disabled in the next release of the playdota.eu bot.

I am a programmer, so if the people in charge decide the changes might be cool but don't know how to implement them or just think it'd be too much work for the benefits, I'd be happy to lend my services if you're interested, for free of course, though I might take a little while, depending on how busy I am at the time.

If you are willing to offer some programming help please pm me with more details about yourself .

[DoomKnight]

lol i got 85 ping when i open forums :< 70 without anything open and 110 ping is still fine but 111 + ping inst lol
Agreed with MyUberNick

[Slavi]

Well my ping is usualy in 150-200's but i dnt disrupt game since i dnt lag inside bet u know that already

[DoomKnight]

lol same i have 145 ping i dont lag in game hahaha

[reisor.ee]

1. Admins being able to freely kick players in the lobby for any reason.
 This one I see as a major problem currently, as a public bot service, it seems entirely unreasonable to give the admin this much power. How many of you have been in a game where you wait for 10 minutes, then the admin kicks you to open a slot for a friend. Or how many of you have just had to sit by and watch as a jerk admin constantly opens slots, kicking players, instead of just closing slots and using !hold for their friends? How often are people with perfectly reasonable pings kicked because the admin uses !ping 75 or some other incredibly unreasonable number?

An easy solution to this is to host the game yourself. I got pingabused a lot before partidilla (playdota) came along and that is partially the reason i play on playdota bots now.

Also, holding a slot for friend(s) shouldn't be restricted - if you find yourself getting kicked from lobby too often, again, just host the game yourself.

And finally, "30sec rule" would prevent the possibility of kicking players who do not know how to do spoofcheck (or even speak english to understand instructions).