Xbox Live Is Improving But Could Be Better
Xbox Live is the icing on my gaming cake, and I imagine I’m not the only one who subscribes to and enjoys using the community-centered service. It makes sense then that Microsoft are hard at work when it comes to improving and innovating Xbox Live. Whether we’re looking at the inclusion of Instant Messaging, XNA games, or more recently, consequences to those who exploit GamerScore, Microsoft rightly have Xbox Live marked as a top priority. While I like the direction Xbox Live is taking, especially with the recent clamp-down on cheaters, I feel there’s still room for improvement.
There’s one area in particular I feel has been overlooked and could, in my opinion, benefit greatly from development; the feedback system. Reputation is flawed and rarely ever accurately depicts what type of gamer you’re playing with. Have you noticed that pretty much everyone you play online with has 5 stars of rep? Irrespective of how they behave in-game, whether that’s swearing, trash talking, spawn camping. Bad feedback rarely has any effect on those ubiquitous 5 stars presented alongside your GamerTag. An example of when bad feedback has come into play, albeit unfairly, is actually with myself.
When I first set up my CandyStoreRock account I was playing EA’s addictive skate sim, er, Skate. After cleaning up the single player Achievements I took it online where, surprise (that’s sarcasm), it was crippled with bad lag. I lost my connection so many times and was disconnected mid-game leaving the ’skaters’ I was competing against thinking I had prematurely quit out. Meanwhile, I was wondering why my 3 star rep hadn’t increased for several weeks. After checking my rep I was taken aback to see the amount of bad feedback that had been left for, you guessed it, ‘quitting early’. It’s only been very recently, and I mean within the past week, that my rep has approached 5 stars.
An example from the other end of the spectrum took place a couple of nights ago while playing Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. The team I was playing on were unfairly backed into our spawn point on Team Deathmatch by the adversary. As soon as we’d respawn we would be flanked, fragged, or sprayed (that sounds rather rude, but I just mean shot) on the spot by an aggressively unethical opposition. I’ve always felt spawn camping is unsporting conduct and warrants bad feedback so, unsurprisingly, that’s exactly what I - along with some other team mates - left them. But what exactly was achieved other than the slight sense of satisfaction you marred an undeserving gamer of good feedback? The game still carried on as normal, the physical representation of their rep never budged, no action was taken to balance out the fairness of the game…
It’s for this reason I never look to a persons’ reputation to get a grasp of what type of gamer I’m coming into contact with, because I know it’s innacurate and pretty much everyone, except new accounts, boast a 5 star rep. As far as I’m aware we don’t have access to see the percentage of players good feedback against bad, or a breakdown of why they’ve been left bad feedback, so again we have no idea what their playing style is like and if they are someone we’d rather avoid. Until it’s too late.
Even so, there’s still the issue of branding someone unfairly with negative feedback, which I experienced. So it’s for these reasons I feel the feedback system should be overhauled and perhaps made a little more intricate. Xbox Live would be far more enjoyable if there was an adequate penalty against those that don’t conform to the Xbox Live Code of Conduct and show any kind of common sense and courtesy towards other players. Surely this would give more gamers an incentive to ‘behave’ just like the consequences to those who cheat do? I’m not naive though, and I understand Xbox Live is never going to be perfect; there are always going to be one or two arseholes. But with the recent action taken to clamp-down on cheaters, surely something can be done about the rest of these idiots that hinder our enjoyment when gaming online? Or am I asking for way too much?
Tags: Achievements, GamerScore, Multiplayer, Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Skate, Team Deathmatch, Xbox Live
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Great write-up, Ashley.
It’s very true - the feedback and star rating system is flawed and pretty much useless. The only thing I can say positively about it, besides the instantaneous gratification of giving someone a bad review, is that I don’t recall crossing paths with a problem player after leaving feedback. That’s not to say that I haven’t, and we must take into consideration just how many thousands of people are playing. But who knows? Maybe it does actually insure that you don’t end up in the same game as the shit wad that was spawn camping you.
The percentages they show are totally out of whack as well. I’ve been at 94% positive for about a year and a half now. They would probably be better off to show you actually numbers. Something like eBay’s feedback system would be more appropriate. By showing the amount of actual people you’ve played games with, versus the number of negative feedback left, you’d be able to get a good idea of the type of person you’re dealing with.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Great post Ash, and you’re pretty much spot on. As far as I know leaving bad feedback will also reduce the chance you are matched with this gamer using the Trueskill system. Other than that, there’s no real action taken. I imagine it would require an awful lot of similar complaints for MS to act; otherwise, what would stop wholesale abuse of this system by bad losers or, as you eloquently point out, the many arseholes on Live?
Unfortunately I can’t think of a fair system that would encourage people to play in a respectful manner. If there *was* a feedback system like eBay, would we really check it for everyone in the match we had just been assigned to? I know in RSV2 I often don’t have enough time to change my weapon set up before the game starts, never mind check feedback. It seems a really difficult area which you’re spot on about, but I just can’t see how it can be improved at the moment.
P.S. I think me, you, and Scryypy made a good account of ourselves versus those spawn campers
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:26 pm
An excellent point well made. I very rarely check anyone’s reputation; and even if it is low I usually just assume that it’s a new account or someone who hasn’t played online that much.
A couple of nights ago I came across someone whilst playing FIFA08 online who actively refused to pass the ball at any point and insisted that we passed to them as soon as anyone else on our team had possession. Obviously I got pretty damn annoyed and after verbally assaulting the guy over my headset (probably not the best tactic to use but I was pissed off) we ended up losing the game. Imagine my annoyance when in the very next game the same guy joined again. I immediately negative repped him and I’ve not been matched with the guy since.
So maybe while the reputation system may not be the best, marking people as players to avoid certainly does seem to work.
I think using numbers like eBay instead of a star rating may be a better option, especially if players could be filtered by this number while joining and/or creating matches. (i.e. when you create a match you could set it so that only players with less than 25% negative reviews could join?)
Unfortunately, even if the system is improved you’re always going to encounter idiots and arseholes who think its fun to spawn camp or who will shout abuse/be generally annoying over their headsets. Maybe one day we’ll have eventually marked all of the arseholes as “Players to avoid” and we will never come across any of them again…
P.S. @Loud78, damn right we did!
April 7th, 2008 at 10:12 am
I would liked to have replied sooner but my internet has been (and still is) down for the past 4 days. I am going crazy! Anyway, that’s besides the point…
An eBay type feedback system would be better in some places, such as having a more detailed breakdown of rep. Also, Andy’s suggestion of filtering players below a certain % of negative reviews is good. It would certainly give players more of an incentive to ‘behave’ during the game. But, as Loud pointed out, it could easily be abused, and negative feedback could be left simply for being a sore loser. Also, you don’t really want to check a breakdown of everyone’s rep when in the lobby.
If leaving a problem player negative feedback didn’t have any effect on pairing you up with them in the future, then I really would want the whole feedback system to be dropped. As Matt mentioned, there are so many players on Xbox Live there’s really no way to know if there are any possibilities of you coming across a problem player. I can only hope that it is the single redeeming point of the feedback system.
I guess I’ll cut my losses with the bad feedback I’ve been left and continue to get pissed off at some of the idiots I come across on Live, because it really seems there is no way to improve the system. It will be interesting to think about the direction it will/could go with the next Xbox (720?).