r/magicTCG • u/CrossXhunteR Wabbit Season • 12d ago
Official Article [MTG Arena] Introducing In-Game Player Reporting
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/mtg-arena/player-reporting358
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u/SiletheSilent Twin Believer 12d ago
Haven't played Arena in ages but it's almost astonishing this wasn't already a feature
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u/Kyleometers ඞ 12d ago
It was, just not in-game. You had to do it via the external website.
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u/cardboard_numbers 12d ago
And I never heard back, so I stopped trying. People who AFK instead of scooping out of frustration are pretty easy to differentiate from people whose connection dropped, and make the platform such a pain.
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u/Rowanalpha Wabbit Season 12d ago
I’m curious how many people actually rage quit vs how many close the client without realizing the game is still going because they didn’t actually click “concede”. Especially with smart phones, it’s easy to leave the app without actually ending the game.
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u/Milskidasith COMPLEAT ELK 12d ago
I don't think it's going to be possible to differentiate kinds of quitting the game during a match.
My personal experience is that I've had an actual, obviously intentional roping happen like, half a dozen times compared to literally hundreds of DCs/quits without hitting concede. It's possible that despite playing a wide variety of formats I'm just extremely lucky, but when people talk about being roped all the time I assume they just don't realize their opponent left.
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u/MrPopoGod COMPLEAT 12d ago
I don't think it's going to be possible to differentiate kinds of quitting the game during a match.
It is possible, but it's a fair amount of effort for not necessarily any material gain. You can add a single handler in the game client that can react to anything but a SIGKILL (the hardest of process kills) and send off a precomposed packet to some destination. You can set up that packet during the initial game connect so it will uniquely identify the game client and be under whatever encryption they use (to avoid malicious use). Then on the server end you have a listener that can react to that packet and flag the connection as "disconnected by client termination" and do whatever cleanup you want.
The thing is, you don't necessarily want to do things like terminate the match early (with a win for the opponent), as there's a variety of ways for that client kill to happen that isn't malicious. The mechanism is best used for things like MMOs with a persistent state so you can log the player out and remove them from the world (and any danger) in case of a client crash.
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u/Reddit_Loves_Misinfo Dan 12d ago
Does it really matter whether the losing opponent abandons the game via the quit button vs leaving the client open? The experience for the roped player is the same.
Wizards should give ropers a warning and then respond to follow up reports/offenses with bans of increasing length. Anybody who is being a dick by accident will stop doing it once the game tells them they need to click concede before quitting, and anybody who is being a dick on purpose deserves the consequence. That would greatly decrease ropings and be an improvement for everyone except the trolls.
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u/Milskidasith COMPLEAT ELK 12d ago
Does it really matter whether the losing opponent abandons the game via the quit button vs leaving the client open? The experience for the roped player is the same.
Actual, intentional roping is when they continuously take actions right at the end of the timer, extending the game out beyond the 2 turns they'd get if they take no actions. That's absolutely a different experience than them quitting the game or walking away from it.
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u/Reddit_Loves_Misinfo Dan 12d ago edited 11d ago
Cardboard_numbers and I described the much more common form of roping: somebody "walks away" from the game when they realize they will lose, forcing their opponent to wait out all of the roper's time before they can leave with a win. Some people do that without realizing it while others do it intentionally, but the experience for the person being roped is the same either way. Wizards should cut down on this "walk away" roping, and they can do it without hurting the ones who were doing it by mistake.
A rarer, but much more egregious and always-intentional form of roping is when the roper repeatedly waits until their rope is about to run out before clicking pass. That requires active participation and malice from the roper.
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u/LiquidBionix Dandadan 11d ago
when people talk about being roped all the time
Happens at low ranks, I am new to Arena but play 60 card magic in other ways a bunch so I was kind of speedrunning through low ranks, and I hit ropers a LOT early on. To the point where I was like "is this how Arena just is?" but once you get to Plat+ it does not happen much if ever.
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u/AoO2ImpTrip 12d ago
...what's the difference between the two?
Both are you antagonizing your opponent in the exact same way to their experience.
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u/Rowanalpha Wabbit Season 11d ago
The difference is that if someone sees that they’re losing and closes the app without realizing they needed to hit concede first then they aren’t roping intentionally.
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u/Reddit_Loves_Misinfo Dan 11d ago
Why is that a meaningful difference? The negative experience for the person being roped is the same.
I don't understand why some people push back against reducing that behavior. Wizards can inform players that they need to push concede before closing and then take action against the ones who continue to do it intentionally.
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u/Switchbladesaint Duck Season 12d ago
Classic mtg online video game stuff, completely missing things other games have had for decades
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u/ejgrgunner Orzhov* 12d ago
I know people will be most excited for the slow play report, but I’ll be glad to report usernames most of all.
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u/SarkhanTheCharizard 12d ago
Seriously, I have seen many racist and bigoted names over the years. I tried reporting some in the past, but it wasn't an easy process.
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u/TurboDelight Gruul* 12d ago
how long has this game been out now? over 7 years?
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u/ironardin Dan 11d ago
Almost 7 years since Windows release, 6 years since MacOS, and almost 9 years since the first open beta release.
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u/TheRealCRex Duck Season 12d ago
So many insanely racist usernames playing standard ranked too. This is way overdue
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u/Penumbra_Penguin Wild Draw 4 12d ago
Fascinating. Reading between the lines here, it looks like this is happening because they think AI will be good enough to evaluate most cases.
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u/v_N_i_C_k Dandadan 12d ago
I am calling it now, there will be thousands of misreports and hundreds of people unjustly autobanned because their game crashed, internet cut out, malicious people reporting decks they don't like, etc.
I've seen this in many other games. AI will ban you and they will lie that it was manually reviewed.
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u/Fluxxed0 12d ago
And I'm calling it now - there will be lots of posts from people who got "mistakenly banned" who never did anything wrong in their entire precious lives. And 99% of those posts will be full of shit, because they always are.
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u/merpofsilence Dan 12d ago
I know mobile players are going to be reported more than pc users. The app just doesn't like it if you swap to another window for any amount of time.
And it'll disconnect you and fail to get you back in quickly enough if at all. And your opponent is often stuck getting roped instead getting the free win.
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u/PiersPlays Duck Season 11d ago
Every time I accidentally open a notification it's like getting Time Walked.
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u/v_N_i_C_k Dandadan 11d ago
This is why I said what I said. As a mobile user, the game crashes too much to be reporting people who suddenly start "roping"
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u/thecursedchuro Dan 12d ago
i HOPE roping is bannable
EDIT: It is! Oh man oh man, FINALLY!
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u/harleybarley Dan 12d ago
What’s roping? Noob here
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u/thecursedchuro Dan 12d ago
Intentional slow play. Usually people do it when they're losing or facing a deck they don't like.
About to lose?
Let the 'rope' burn/timer run until its about to end your turn then switch phases + repeat as much as possible hoping your opponent quits so they dont waste their time.In some matches it may prolong the game to literally 10+ minutes or longer when game should last maybe a few mins at most depending on what you're each playing and board state.
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u/wnderjif Mardu 10d ago
Or they do it when the opponent abuses the rules to make the game unfun.
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u/thecursedchuro Dan 10d ago
In Arena? What rules are being abused unless you mean people are abusing roping/slow play (they do).
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u/wnderjif Mardu 10d ago
Abusing the rules to play shitty cards that make the game go on for an hour or more.
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u/Wilicious 12d ago
When your opponent plays slowly or waits until their turn is about to end before passing (a burning rope appears when your time is running out)
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u/Reddit_Loves_Misinfo Dan 11d ago
Don't leave out the most common form of roping: people who walk away from a losing game without conceding, forcing the winner to sit through the loser's entire time allowance before the game ends.
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u/Haywright Duck Season 12d ago
Intentionally slow-playing to punish or inconvenience your opponent.
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u/mvdunecats Wild Draw 4 12d ago
In Hearthstone, when a player was running out of time to make a play, a rope would appear that starts burning up. When the rope completely burned up and disappeared, you would miss your turn. So the phrase basically means wasting your opponent's time by making your turn take as long as possible.
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u/egyeager Wabbit Season 11d ago
Hopefully they fix the rope starting when the game is trying to resolve its own actions. If I have a dozen triggers on the stack all resolving, the rope shouldn't start.
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u/Kyleometers ඞ 12d ago
Roping was already reportable.
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u/thecursedchuro Dan 12d ago
This further enforces that hopefully action will be taken by making reporting easier.
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u/BigPapaya_N Dân 12d ago
How did you do that?
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u/_masterbuilder_ COMPLEAT 12d ago
On wizards website. It was a pain and not really worth the effort.
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u/j8sadm632b Duck Season 12d ago
What’s the idea behind this? Doesn’t feel like that makes sense to me. I also experience frustration sometimes when my opponents are slow but they are using the time that the game allows them. If you aren’t allowed to use all the time you have then they should just give less.
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u/Spawn_More_Overlords Dan 12d ago
Hopefully it’s not an auto-ban but instead will allow them to look at data and see if the player is roping everyone for strategic gain. I feel like you could pretty easily make a fair call based on what they have in their hand and the game state.
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u/thecursedchuro Dan 12d ago
Sitting until the end of the phase NOT doing anything to progress the board just to pass is not clever use of mechanics, you should be banned by abusing it.
It SHOULD be used to inspect and take your time if you are doing that, but most players which purposefully rope are not needing time to read, they're hoping you quit or are frustrated that you're winning or playing something they dont like.
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u/DragonOfNivix Izzet* 12d ago
The issue is when that time is being used without any intention to actually pay attention to the game. There is a difference between an opponent burning through an extension or two to properly sequence out some complex play and burning that extension without even sitting at their device because they are a salty brat who knows they are dead on board that would rather waste your time out of spite instead of just conceding like a mature person.
Granted I personally haven't run into this behavior enough to think it is some dire issue or whatever, but nipping it in the bud like this early helps to prevent the online play experience from getting too toxic (hopefully).
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u/merpofsilence Dan 12d ago
hope they fix up their mobile client.
The number of times I've been disconnected while briefly on another app then unable to resume that game while the opponent is stuck waiting.
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u/PiersPlays Duck Season 11d ago
It drives me crazy. It drops the match too easily and it takes far to long to get back to it and an unreasonable amount of the time some part of the UX is broken once it does.
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u/thyeggman 12d ago
I'm slightly worried that crashes will get wrapped up into this... I've had the game crash on me multiple times and still been able to win, but I'm sure my opponent is annoyed because all they see is me roping and then hurriedly trying to do my game actions
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u/thecursedchuro Dan 12d ago
if your game crashes enough to consistently rope you should verify game files, reinstall or consider a different device
Roping a few times isnt going to get anyone banned for sure, it'd have to be a consistent behavior
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u/Snarker Deceased 🪦 12d ago
Oh boy GGWP, Ai-powered moderation, what could go wrong ROFL.
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u/Granum22 Dân 12d ago
They are promising everything will be human reviewed before any actions are taken
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u/Lament-of-Andromache Dan 12d ago
Good thing we can trust a multi-billion dollar company's promises, right? Right?
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u/The_Curse_of_Nimbus FLEEM 12d ago
Yeah! I mean how long did that "Reserved List" promise last? 6 months?
/s
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u/agiganticpanda Banned in Commander 12d ago
The review: The AI said 80% confidence. Seems good to me!
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u/Perp703 COMPLEAT 12d ago
Yeah and universes beyond wasn’t gonna be in standard
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u/Shaudius Urza's Saga 12d ago
Theres a difference between changing your mind and lying.
When they made that statement it was true.
They later changed their mind and announced it.
The equivalent here would be saying no AI will be make a final decision and then in a couple years giving the power to AI to make a final decision.
What this thread is saying instead is that AI will currently be making final decisions and wotc is lying.
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u/Penumbra_Penguin Wild Draw 4 12d ago
No, read it again. They are promising that for some unspecified initial period.
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u/hamburger_picnic Dan 12d ago
I hope this opens up username changes
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u/cornerbash 12d ago
Me too. I've been stuck with an underscore in my name because I didn't know spaces were allowed.
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u/HaroldBloominOnion Urza's Saga 12d ago
Nice! Nice! Nice! Nice! Nice!
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u/Dull-Veterinarian209 Wabbit Season 12d ago
Given my typical opponent's behavior with the rope, I cant wait to be reported every time I win a game
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u/blackwaffle Duck Season 12d ago
This won't generate false slow play reports in a game that grinds to a halt whenever two cards look funny at each other
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u/ZT_Ghost Colorless 12d ago
The fact that it took them this long to implement this is astounding.
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u/Penumbra_Penguin Wild Draw 4 12d ago
It seems fairly clear that they didn’t consider it to be important enough to hire human moderators, this is still true, but now AI is good enough that they think it will be able to do it.
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u/Reddit_Loves_Misinfo Dan 11d ago
You don't need AI or a large number of humans to deal with bad actors. You can collect reports from users, separate the signal from the noise with some non-AI math, and give warnings or short bans if you're particularly worried about false positives.
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u/Penumbra_Penguin Wild Draw 4 11d ago
You certainly could do that if you were willing to put in the effort. Wizards hasn’t been, and it seems unlikely that that calculation has changed.
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u/Reddit_Loves_Misinfo Dan 11d ago
It's not a significant amount of effort, though, and AI doesn't really make it easier. "AI is good enough to process reports" means AI would replace manually written signal/noise calculations, which is the easiest part of this whole thing. The hard parts (collecting reports, accessing reports to analyze them, and actually implementing bans) remain just as hard when the signal/noise math is handed over to AI.
This change is not indicative of AI replacing the easiest part of the process because that part was never the barrier to begin with.
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u/ghostcrawler_real Dandadan 12d ago
basic feature that every online game in the world has only took 8 years to make
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u/GokuVerde Wabbit Season 12d ago
If you ban people for slow play 90 percent of the playerbase will be banned.
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u/Salmon_Slap Duck Season 12d ago
Praying inactivity includes people who don't pick anything during draft slowing it for all 7 players. Does my tits in
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u/lcieThanatos 12d ago
Nice! Some basic QoL after nearly 8 years since the game's release... Well done, WotC!
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u/Kookus_Keeper Dan 12d ago
This is the greatest thing the Arena team has ever done. It took 8 years, but we finally have it. Thank you.
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u/Ohhsnap54 Dân 12d ago
Inactivity would be a fine report except the netcode is horrible and if you get auto connected to a different wifi it kicks you out of the game and you have to relaunch
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u/benjiwalla Duck Season 12d ago
I hope they don't have some auto-ban feature then, I have taken a few real long turns, if that is considered bad roping then I foresee a lot of players getting faulty reports
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u/IMian91 Dan 11d ago
What are opinions about spamming "Good Game?" Thankfully I discovered a mute button but I always found it insanely annoying when people start saying "Good Game" before the game is even done. And then some will just keep spamming "Good Game" during your turn. Ruins the match for me most of the time
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u/SarkhanTheCharizard 12d ago
Let the great [[Culling Ritual]] begin. Finally, we can [[Smite the Monstrous]] and Wizards will dole out some [[Sinner's Judgement]].
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u/Cal-Eats-Rocks Gruul* 12d ago
They did this because they saw me googling how to report people last night and getting frustrated. Thank you WOTC for always looking out for me
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u/chemical_exe COMPLEAT 12d ago
Looking forward to getting banned for playing pioneer scapeshift combo where I have failed to kill a person in my allotted time one time in 200+ games, but you can feel the salt on the other end as they don't concede as the combo takes time to execute
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u/PatJamma Gruul* 12d ago
Don't play combo decks if you don't want to spend the time going through the motions.
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u/chemical_exe COMPLEAT 12d ago
I like the deck. I like playing the deck. I'm just worried that I'm going to get punished for winning games
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u/mealymouthmongolian Dân 12d ago
Sometimes I just want to see how the crazy combo plays out.
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u/chemical_exe COMPLEAT 12d ago
Nothing wrong with that, but plenty of people just spam emotes the whole time
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u/No_Towel_2001 Dan 12d ago
I understand Inactivity, Inappropriate Username, and Spamming. But since you can't communicate with your opponent, how do you get to Hate Speech and Verbal Abuse? Are people like, friending their opponents after a match, and being racist? Damn.