Pink Name Thing?

[Rex Seattle]

I'm a longtime DCS and IL-2 player, and just downloaded World of Warships on Thursday (3 days ago), and have just had maybe 15-20 battles, mostly in Co-Op. I also downloaded the Tank and Plane games, but have yet to actually play them. It's a real nice game, and quite fun to play. I was getting kind of into the ships and was going to buy the Premium Account when the free time ended in 10 days, and I was eyeballing the Tirpitz once I got good enough, but I logged in this evening and have a Pink Name for Inactivity in a Battle and Quitting a Battle early. The message goes on to tell me that if I do it again that I will lose access to all battle types except Co-Op or Clan, whatever that is.

The thing is, when you get sunk, it offers you to leave the battle early, and a couple of times I took them up on it. Then it says "Back to Port", "Battle on", etc. I chose "Back to Port" at least a couple of times as well. Never did it say anything about a penalty.

As for Inactivity, I'm not sure what that is about. I made a printout of the controls that I sometimes refer to, and I'm sure I'm a bit slower than other players overall, but not appreciably so. I also often stack the autopilot waypoints at the very beginning of the battle and just concentrate on shooting, so I guess they don't like that. These are just best-guesses though.

With that being said, proceeding to humiliation without so much as a warning or education on a 3-day old account playing mostly against AI is a pretty negative experience for the user.

On the other hand, they did it before I even had an opportunity to spend any actual money, so maybe this is their way of saying "If it would anger you if we locked you out of content that you paid for, this game isn't for you".

And to be honest, that would really annoy me.

So, I apologize for whatever I did, I assure you it was out of ignorance and not malice. I attempted to do my due diligence and read through docs and watched a dozen YouTube vids in the hopes of not humiliating myself, but if the way I played is enough for a warning like that ... I'll be perma-banned before the week is out.

I realize that customer hostility is the new norm these days, and with the huge amount of players the game has, clearly the game won't even notice the absence of people like me. Still, you may want to experiment with assuming good faith. Especially with new users who are genuinely trying to do the right thing. You might win some loyal customers. Or maybe you already have and it didn't work out?

Remember, this is entertainment. A hobby. An escape. Many of us work long weeks, and lots of us just got done holding our nose and paying our taxes, some of us lost loved ones during "the virus",etc,etc. Life can be punishing enough ... we don't need from our entertainment.

Attempts to embarrass 3-day players with these scarlet-letter punishments is just going to subject the player to ridicule from other players when they try to play thought their "punishment", and it's just going to be another negative experience on top of another. I'm a little surprised that this was the idea that got implemented.

In time of economic contraction, discretionary spending is the first to go, and all signs are pointing to a significant downturn in the not-too-distant future. Also remember, hostility begets hostility. If you're going to be overly-punative to customers, they'll return the favor and be less forgiving when the company makes a mistake ... and you will make one. I guarantee it.

If you have enough players to not have to worry about any of this, then forget everything I've said and keep doing what you're doing. You certainly don't need my advice.

Otherwise, I dunno, maybe think it over.

Very nice game, though. Very beautiful ships and it's pretty good fun. Most of the time at least.

[henhovla]

you are probably fine, it will go away after a few battles and its in the game to decentevise quiting while your ship is still alive, so dont worry as long as you are alredy dead you souldent get a penalty. (sorry for the bad english)

[Banzai]

Hi there. Forgive me if I dont address everything in your long post above, but I will try and explain the warning system.

You will go pink if you leave a battle early, are AFK for a decent amount of time or if you attack friendly ships. Dealing with each of those in turn:

- You can leave a battle without penalty if you are sunk. You dont have to hang around for the match to end. If you leave when you are still afloat then a question will pop up on screen to say "are you sure?" and then if you leave then you will get a warning (will explain how that works below).

- You need to be AFK for several minutes for the automatic system to trigger. As long as you are moving and steering you should be fine. Using autopilot waypoints shouldnt matter if you ae actually shooting and taking part in the match (although honestly you are better off keeping direct control of your ship unless playing a carrier to be able to dodge fire etc). A small number of people used to just AFK in matches and still get full (albeit low) rewards while leaving their team with 1 less player. Someone who is AFK will now get pretty much no silver/xp for the battle in question and will again get the warning.

- Hitting your own team repeatedly will also attract a warning although you really have to be trying to go pink from this. A stray torp or two wont trigger it.

So, now onto the warning. On a first offence you will be pink for 3-4 games in which as long as you dont do any of the things mentioned above you will attract no penalties and the pink status will be removed. You can be confined to coop if you keep breaking the rules.

Occasional issues happen and sometimes people are turned pink due to disconnecting (or maybe having to go and answer the door or whatever) but unless it happens over and over again you wont have any problems.

As for the rest, it sounds like you enjoy the game so please dont let an automatic warning put you off. Being pink means nothing as long as you dont keep going afk etc.

Good luck to you.

[~T~D~]

We all have been pink, and The deal is to just don't care or try to avoid it. I think it is your Auto navigation that either people mass report u they confuse you to a human bot behaviour. Or the system think you are one.

Another issue is the WG use of the color pink, to EU and the civiliced world this can be rather insulting it means A color for Suppor tto those unfortunate with Cancer etc. Farmer's here have Pink hayballs.

[Banzai]

Reports wont make you pink unless you are throwing around profanity in chat and in that instance you will be chat banned rather than anything else. But yes, the auto piloting thing is maybe the issue.

[christof]

Slight correction and addition on the afk thing: From checking replays people have linked for when they did get a penalty and considering my own games, the limit you are allowed to go without any kind of manual input (so yes, driving by autopilot or just moving with a set rudder and speed do not count) is somewhere around the one minute mark. Not several minutes.
Though as far as we could figure out, using chat for example does count. Just quickly tapping one of your stearing keys definitely does, no matter whether you are moving or not. And just using the mouse to look around may actually be enough. (Though I wouldn't count on the latter being true.)

It is however proven that some people did get penalties for not landing a single hit on an enemy, despite active input for the whole battle. Mostly this happened to new players trying CVs for the first time.

[Banzai]

Ive seen people who were afk for well over two minutes who didnt attract the zero silver/xp penalty so it certainly doesnt trigger after 1 minute, or at least doesnt always.

[L.o.D.]

Originally posted by Rex Seattle:

I also downloaded the Plane games,

World of Warplanes is pretty dead now. Was once a great game, gone to crap and only a few hundred remain, if that.
Tanks has around 12k most often but no wheres near what they used to get.
I just recently went back to tanks due to warzone not having any modes I like atm.
Also went back to ships for a bit, I started there during the closed beta weekends.

[Jackson]

Originally posted by Banzai:

Ive seen people who were afk for well over two minutes who didnt attract the zero silver/xp penalty so it certainly doesnt trigger after 1 minute, or at least doesnt always.

I concur, it doesn't happen after 1 min because I do that regularly at the start. I play on three screens though, so I have the minimap up on the right while I'm doing whatever on the center :) I don't think I've ever done it long enough to become pink from it.

[christof]

I honestly believe that the start of the game has a mercy period where you're not flagged at all, no matter what. Which would make sense, considering.

But I have seen replays where someone did in general participate. Did do damage. Did play both at the start, mid-battle and in the end. And never disconnected. But had one or two phases where they were only running around on autopilot. Never making any entry for movement. Not looking at the map or using the mouse to look around. Not using chat. No input at all. Those phases going for around 80-90 seconds at the longest. And they did get flagged as afk in the end.

[Engine-ear]

I was playing WoWs and was controlling my ship like usually in COOP and stuff, but then I woke up and saw my game finished with my name in pink since I was afk. It was all a dream~ Remember kids, get enough sleep before doing COOP else you gonna sleep while you dream doing COOP instead.

[rebelyell]

I would like too add. That recently noticed alot of people getting disconnected from game server alot more than usual lately. it actually happened to me the other week and with top shelf internet. wg issue not player issue. ! And yes it will turn you pink due to issues on their side.

[christof]

There was a number of players mentioning problems. More than usual, but not a large number even so. Still, WG actually looked into it and couldn't find any faults on the servers. Interestingly enough, many of those players could play without problems again using a VPN for a very small detour of their connection. So at least in those cases it's been proven to not be a WG problem but a bad node on the way.
Only one of all players complaining that I saw in the three places I frequent (here, official German Discord, German WoWs community forum) did try that and not solve his issue. Though a large part just complained, insisted that it was a WG problem and that they needn't do anything, it being all "Fix your game, WG!" So we won't ever know whether they might have been able to easily and quickly solve the problem as well, since they purposely never even tried.

[jaquig]

just ignore the pink, and the "this is your final warning" because an ally ran into a torpedo for the first time in any battle for the day. ( the latest warning )

[Shark!]

So the pink name is a punishment? I played for a week or so, and often saw the pink name when playing AI mode, and I thought it was pretty good. I was like, "Why is his name so cool? I want to get one."

[christof]

It is a sign that the player in question broke a rule (whether on purpose or by accident) and got warned for it. You can get it either for leaving a battle early, for being flagged as afk in a battle or for landing too many hits on allied ships.
It goes away as soon as the player in question is out of probation.