RE: Comms Rating

The Bunker Design Tool has been taken offline to protest the Comms Rating system

For those unaware, "Comms Rating" is a tool designed to restrict chat usage in order to reduce toxic communicating in chat. It is related to the up- and down-vote arrows next to global chat messages. Players start with a "Good" comms rating. Presumably if enough downvotes are recieved, the player's Comms Rating is lowered to "Poor", at which point the player is no longer able to use cross-region chat channels (World, Intel, and Logi). Over time, Comms Rating is restored to "Good", and the player regains the ability to use all chat channels. The details of this system are purposefully not explained.

For over a year, I have been unable to complete any war where I put in a serious amount of my time and effort without recieving a "Poor" Comms Rating and being restricted from chat. There may be a "cooldown" element to Comms Rating, as it seems that even once "Good" comms are restored, only a few messages sent shortly after send me back into "Poor" comms. In effect, recieving a "Poor" Comms Rating restricts my ability to use global chat for a week or more.

Every troll spins a story about how they're so unfairly penalized for their completely innocent actions. This protest is not a demand to have a specific "Poor" Comms Rating reversed. It is not a demand to remove Comms Rating entirely. I am committed to communicating in a positive, constructive, and helpful way. I want to do everything I can to be the best community member I can be. If I am not living up to that goal, then I want to improve.

However, there is no feedback on what messages are negatively affecting Comms Rating. There is no indication that my Comms Rating is going down, or that I am close to recieving a global chat mute. I don't know what I am saying or doing that causes me to deserve a mute. I play Foxhole, and then one day I log on and I can't send messages to World anymore.

I understand the necessity and difficulty of moderation in a large multiplayer game. Community moderation is a difficult problem, especially for a small indie developer like Siege Camp, and I support efforts to reduce bad behavior.

My requests for Siege Camp are short, simple, and broad in scope:

• Players must be given feedback on what messages or series of messages are lowering their Comms Rating, so that they can improve their communication and avoid further penalty.
• Player must be given feedback on the progress of their Comms Rating, so that they can understand when they must use global chat sparingly to avoid losing access entirely.

I will not pretend that these are the only definitive solutions to the problems created by the Comms Rating. I will be satisfied and intend to restore access to the Bunker Design Tool when the developers have indicated in any way, through any public medium that they intend any concrete steps, whether those requested here or otherwise, to at any point improve the fundamental mechanics of the Comms Rating system. Previous responses to this topic have been extremely vague and noncommittal and no longer suffice.

Thank you for your attention, and I apologize for the disruption,

rust developer