Left 4 Dead 3 : The Griefer Solution.

Okay,

So I was trying to finally finish 'You got something to prove?' on Left 4 Dead last night, on the XBOX360. Everything was going okay, I only had a reasonably good team - and with dropouts there tended to always be one bot on side.

We got through though... Until the final part, the bit with the finale in. Now one of our team had had to leave, two folks joined... And proceeded to kill the survivors. Not cool - unusually they were seperate XBOX Live accounts - not two griefers on split-screen on one XBOX.

This persisted for quite some time, in the end I ran out of time and couldn't finish the level. It posed something of a problem - originally I thought the solution to the griefer situation was to only allow one vote per XBOX, so two split screen players would only get one vote.

In this case that would NOT have worked.

I was thinking about an alternative, and I think it could be weight of vote. The way this works is it rewards good play with weight of vote, and griefing with a reduction in weight of vote.

So I would suggest a system something like:-

1. Started the lobby : + 300 weight of vote.

2. Joined at the lobby stage : + 200 weight of vote.

3. Completed the a section part of a campaign : + (100 x Sections have completed) WOV. So it you if go from lobby to end of section 2, you got 100 WOV for the first part, then 200 for the second part - total 300 WOV. If you joined in the second but stay until the end you get 100 WOV. If you joined in the first then stay to the last part you get 100 + 200 + 300 + 400 WOV (1100 total) This represents an investment you made in the play session.

4. Damaged the tank : + (damage dealt to tank/100)

5. Damaged the witch : + (damage dealt to witch/100)

6. Killed an infect : + 1 WOV

7. Healed a survivor : + 10 WOV

8. Revived a survivor : + 5 WOV

9. Gave pills to a survivor : + 2 WOV

10. Dealt friendly fire : - 100 WOV per incident.

11. Incapped a survivor : - 1000 WOV per incident.

12. Killed a survivor : - 1000 WOV per incident.

13. Got kicked from this session : - 1000 WOV.

So what does this do? It means anyone griefing basically has to do it in the first couple of sections of a campaign - and if you play well, they'll struggle to do this. Say you and a friend make it to part 3 of a campaign. You might acrue the following:-

You:-
-------
1. Started the lobby : + 300 weight of vote.

2. Completed one section : + 100 WOV

3. Complete the second section : + 200 WOV

4. Killed 120 infected : + 120 WOV

5. Dealt 2100 Damage to the tank : + 210 WOV

6. Revived 4 survivors: + 20 WOV

7. Gave pills once : + 2 WOV

Total = 952 WOV.

Your friend:-

1. Joined at the lobby stage : + 200 weight of vote.


2. Completed one section : + 100 WOV

3. Complete the second section : + 200 WOV

4. Killed 117 infected : + 117 WOV

5. Dealt 1150 Damage to the tank : + 115 WOV

6. Revived 2 survivors: + 10 WOV

7. Gave pills twice : + 4 WOV

Total = 746 WOV.

Now Johhny griefer and his friend join the game, play through one campaign section and then proceed to start griefing.

They might get 100 for the camapaign section they do, and maybe 100 infected and 100 tank dam WOV each. Maybe a bit more? That means they will acquire 400 or so WOV each if they play properly and help out a bit - 0r 800 in total?

Now as it stands you and your buddy have much more time invested in the game, so it's right that you should be able to vote them off. Which you could do as you would have at least another 400 WOV at the the of that campaign section each.

At the same time, so long as they're half decent, they'd be be better than bots? So you let them stay! Now they decide to grief you - one of them shoots you, incaps you and kills you - straight away they are in the negative, they can be voted off immediately.

They come back? Well they need to find another game, because you can vote them straight off again!

Now if the reverse happened and the two who joined first were griefers, yes they could vote joiners out easily - but then the joiners can start their own campaign and have the protection that gives them. If the griefers decide to start killing the joiners - then very quickly the joiners will usurp them as the ones with the authority over the campaign as they are playing the game as intended.

I think a system like this would not only be beneficial, but is needed - if it can't be patched into Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2, then it should be in Left 4 Dead 3. In extreme scenarios - as the system is now, you can be 90% through a campaign, have some assholes join and grief so much your buddy gets frustrated and leaves, then vote you out and quit - losing all your time invested with very little defence about it apart from the rather limited XBX Live Feedback system.