[La Flama Blanca]

Bumping for additional commentary and potential implementation.

Please add your substantive comments and not just a comment about this being a necro. There is no need to make a new thread for this, so yes, I am reviving it.

[Beskar Baron]

Even saying "letting an Inno into the T room" is iffy, as I have used a strategy of luring people into the T room to kill them from relative safety, but it has backfired a couple of times, leaving the inno in the T room.

[ratty]

oh shit are we ready to revise the teaming rules now? I've actually spent some time before trying to devise a better guideline for teaming punishments, as I think they don't currently reflect the community. So I'll try to re-spark this conversation. I'd love any input on these ideas thx.

[Rule Concept] Severe Teaming


This is currently how the TTT Rules pages describes Teaming:
TEAMING EXAMPLES 

• Innocent players refusing to kill a completely obvious traitor that has done many traitorous things in front of them and is ignoring it. This is teaming.
  
• Defibbing innos as a T. This is teaming.
  
• Purposely letting innos in the T room, this is a form of teaming and is slayable. If they continue after a slay/warning, then a more severe punishment can be issued like a ban. Please make sure you have no doubts that they purposely let innos into a T Room if you are enforcing this.
  

In my opinion, these examples should be considered moderate teaming, as most players games will not be heavily affected by these incidents. The rules currently kind of gloss over a type of teaming that is seen occasionally especially late at night, or on weekends, which is.

Two or more players, either staying in one room, or staying within close proximity to each other, that are knowingly not on the same team, and assisting in one or the other’s kills.

To explain this more thoroughly, let’s say you’re playing on Gamer Park, and there’s a group of three people in the traitor tester room. There’s only one entrance into that room, and you  open the door to walk in, and get gunned down by a traitor, you then go into spectator, and notice that the other two people in the room are innocents, these players are also shooting with the traitor at whoever walks in. You record this to gather evidence as “Severe Teaming” you have a screenshot of the damage logs that shows Player A, Player B, and Player C, all have damage dealt involving 3+ kills. If we enact a severe teaming rule, these three players will all be banned with larger punishments than just regular teaming/RDM , as they all helped in commiting the same RDMs through shared damage or assistance.

The reason I think we need a rule for severe teaming is that I think one could argue that this could only fall under a 2 week ban through normal teaming, however, this can negatively impact people's games as much as a regular mass RDM, which is a perma, so should we punish it as such?

I think with a harsher rule for harsher teaming we could punish more malicious players easier. (We see more malicious teaming like this during times when gmod is on sale or late at night or during weekends.)

This new rule would allow us to make a different punishment guide for teaming that is less malicious.

heres an example of what this new guide could look like: https://gyazo.com/acad12880141bc19a60cf9d8dee02e91

I think smaller offences of teaming should be less harsh (defibing an inno), and more severe offences of teaming should be more harsh (helping a player commit mass RDM.)
I think it’s important to consider when we remember the fact that three simple RDMs will result in a player being banned indefinitely. Ghosters also get banned permanently because they ruin the integrity of the game, so how about we define what actually malicious teaming is because I believe a certain type ruins the integrity of the game as much as ghosting or mass.
To answer Nicky's thread more directly: I think the punishment for teaming is too broad as it stands right now, as it doesn’t leave much room for discretion under the staff team’s own judgement. Adding moderate teaming would streamline how we ban groups of troublemakers, and provide lenience for those that accidentally or jokingly bend the rules. We can keep the current teaming rules as they stand right now, but classify them as "moderate teaming with smaller punishments (and use staff discretion.) and add a severe teaming that punishes people that deliberately team to get more kills and ruin the game.

[JesseTheUndeadCowboy]

I already stated my comments when this thread was active before but I guess I could add more to it. If a traitor defibs an inno and then the traitor doesn't even attempt to kill them but the inno does try to kill the traitor, would that just be considered teaming on the traitors part or what? Of course it would probably be different by case, but I feel like it could be clarified a little bit more in the guidelines an idea on what happens when a t defibs an inno and the inno doesn't even ask to be defib and the inno does in fact kill or try to kill the traitor who defibs them. Oh, also if an inno looks at a corner while a traitor kills people behind them I wonder if that could be classified into moderate teaming. Something like that happened yesterday and while I am still not 100% sure about all the details, if the inno didn't try to kill the traitor or anyone else and the traitor didnt try to kill the inno who is looking at a corner. I feel like that probably could be classified into moderate teaming. I will probably look back at this post later on and see if everything I said makes sense or if I can add anything else. Hopefully what I said makes sense.

[Dildo Shwaggins]

I think it should depend on severity and effect in the game. If someone is teaming and it leads to a ton of RDM and the like, certainly a temp ban is fine, maybe a day up to a week. Something like a T giving a knife to an inno and then the inno not killing that T should be probably, like, a slay and only a short ban if it repeats

[La Flama Blanca]

In reading through the comments, there appears to be a general consensus that the current teaming rules are overly strict, especially for first-time offenses. That being said, there was also significant support for creating a sort of "tiered" approach towards teaming. Several commenters suggested that this could be similar to our current ghosting rules, which prescribe different punishments for "moderate" and "severe" forms of the activity.

I regret not necroing this earlier or more aggressively pushing for these rule changes to be implemented, especially since we just lost one long-time player @"Crab Nickelson™®" and temporarily lost one of my favorite regulars @"(s)tuppidy" to the current non-updated staff guidelines on teaming.

[GM Nate]

If people are scared to self incriminate, I'll do it. Everyone teams. The definition is so vague that it can apply to literally anyone. At the bare minimum there are people who enjoy 'passive' personas as well as people who are more focused on the social aspects of the game than the literal objective who simply won't attack you if you do something traitorous. 90% of the time I'm shot at I respond with "hey stop that." and fairly often it works. That is more fun to me than getting in a gunfight and is no different than me just being a poor player who genuinely can't land the shots necessary to fight back. It's technically teaming by the server rules. I also have a habit of seeing someone shoot someone and saying "hey *insert name* youre not supposed to kill people" because it's more fun to me to have a bit of banter that might lead to a good laugh than to just call KOS and fight them right away. This also is teaming. Of course in either case when the round has drawn on too long I'll say "okay it looks like i gotta fight you to finish this round" because my goal isn't to delay, it's to have a fun time with the other players, but nonetheless I have allowed the T to go about killing other innos without making an effort to fight them.

If you are seriously going to claim that you have *never* avoided engaging with someone who did a traitorous act because either you didn't want to fight, you thought it might be entertaining, they were your friend, or you thought they might spare you.....you are lying. Literally everyone has done it and denying that would only be damaging your own credibility. 

On to more extreme examples it is not rare at all for me to see a traitor kill an inno and tell them i wont shoot them if they give me a t weapon. That is definitely teaming but it could easily be considered a tactic for the T. After all, I can be a pretty good shot at times and if they fight me head on they may be at a serious disadvantage compared to letting me go and trying to get a t buddy to take me out or ambushing me later. Now if you're their t buddy and you get stabbed by me you'd probably be pretty pissed, but if I go stab my friend with it and later get gooned that's more fun for everyone, me and my friend because we get to be silly, and the T because he didnt have to die to a sick nasty head tap, so it is ultimately just another dynamic of the game. I get that the sticklers may take issue with that, since it puts the innocent team at a disadvantage, but no more of one than if I RDM my friend then kill bind, which I do far more frequently and is perfectly allowed. 

I'm here to have fun not to win. TTT has always been about the social elements firstly and the gameplay elements secondly ever since i started playing it in 2012. Sometimes I feel like some people have lost sight of that, and if you're one of those people, it's safe to say I'm not gonna do anything that counts as teaming with you because I know youre no fun, which is why I've never gotten in trouble for teaming and also why most people haven't even though, again, everyone teams at least sometimes by this server's definition.

I also like to give C4s, Jihads, and similar super destructive T weapons to known wildcard players. There are plenty of people who will always arm a C4 if they get one and as a traitor it is a huge benefit to my team if I can get an inno to do it for me so that I am not at risk of being caught. Am I teaming just because i use the innos to my advantage or is just the inno teaming? I think he is just RDMing, but that meets the standard for me to get banned for teaming.

I can also definitely say I have told traitors if they give me a knife I'll go stab whoever they want. It's funny and they pretty much always send me after one of their friends so I end up not even getting a slay for it since they always forgive when I tell them who sent me. That is definitely teaming and is just good fun.

One controversial element that is often ignored is that the only people who get in trouble for teaming are people who are good at the game. If a player with poor mechanics teams no one bats an eye, but when the one-deagers do it people get salty because they are frustrated because they cant fight back.

In my opinion, teaming rules should work like they do on most servers. Teaming is when people make a conscious effort to be their own team and work together against some other segment, or the entire rest of the lobby, regardless of assigned roles. It used to be synonymous with ghosting. If an inno works for the traitors that inno is RDMing. If a traitor doesn't kill certain innos that T is delaying. Both should be punished with a slay, not a ban. Teaming is when people choose to ignore their roles and collaborate against others. Frankly I think this should be a pattern of behavior before it results in anything but a slay. If people 'team' for one round there are countless possible excuses that might make it justifiable in specific circumstances. Give em a warn if you gotta. If it is a recurring pattern of behavior then go ahead and ban.

[~$$~ BlackCatTheGreat ♣♣]

I'm all up for a less severe teaming rule set. If it leads to some bad rule breaking then ya the rules apply, but if it is something simple like some things mentioned above where it's some banter between friends and the like no one should really care. This isn't CSGO tourny finals or anything, if something funny happens your career isn't threatened, someone wants to let a inno into a T room then whats the problem? If the Inno rdms someone with a T trap thats on the guy hitting the button. If said inno kills other T's that isn't their man letting them in and the T letting said inno in doesn't do anything else to stop it or if the T buddies are really malding that hard then ya the T could get a slay or two. Really no reason for either parties being punished unless another rule gets broken or it gets in the way of the game so badly that people get upset.


Same could be said for T equipment, if inno rdms with it then rules apply. If another T is killed with said equipment and they are sad enough then sure the T being funny could get the slay. No reason for some non discriminating super ban to be applies to both.

If someone doesn't shoot a T being a T then that should go under normal in game KOS stuff.

[YourMateMurph]

I think Dandy Doug would like a more lenient teaming rule because he knows he’s very close to possibly getting hit with something

[.cee]

Intentional teaming should be treated similar to ghosting in my opinion.

EDIT: Read some comments and it has been said... you guys have some big noggins.