“Toxicity management” as many call it is a prevalent issue in gaming, especially as the gaming industry and its communities continue to grow evermore diverse. Though mean-spirited behavior has always been a problem for multiplayer or online modes in particular, developers  have been proactive in making games more enjoyable for everyone. In an effort to do so for Rainbow Six Siege, Ubisoft recently implemented several different methods to combat toxic behavior in the short- and long-term end of it. Here are a few they’ve listed:

Chat Monitoring

• We are currently tracking the frequency at which racial or homophobic slurs are used by individual players, and will be applying bans with increasing severity on a case-by-case basis. This is clearly outlined in the following section of the Code of Conduct: “Any language or content deemed illegal, dangerous, threatening, abusive, obscene, vulgar, defamatory, hateful, racist, sexist, ethically offensive or constituting harassment is forbidden.” The bans for this will fall within the following durations, depending on severity:
  • 2 Days
  • 7 Days
  • 15 Days
  • Permanent

Mute Text Chat Function

• We want to put more power in our player’s hands to manage their own online experience. As such, giving you direct control over communication channels is important. We are working on allowing players to mute players individually for each player in the game. For example, you can mute the text chat of player A, the voice chat of player B, text and voice for player C, and neither for player D.

Chat Filtering

• Our team is working on the creation of an automated system that will censor text chat in game based on a chat filter list. This will replace words that have been identified as offensive and provide players with a notification that their language was found to be unacceptable. We will also be tracking the number of times players trigger this filter and will take action as necessary for players that are intentionally having a negative impact on other player’s gaming experience.

Team Killing

• Intentional team killing is an issue in Rainbow Six, and our current method of addressing it is being improved. The goal is to track long term offenders across multiple games and sessions that slip through the cracks of our current team kill detection system. We cannot provide too many details on this, as it will lead to exploiting.

According to the Ubisoft blog, these are just a few short-term changes they’ve decided to implement to help mitigate current problems players have been facing in-game. They are intent on “tackling the issues surrounding the potential for a negative player experience”. For those with insight or feedback on their systems thus far, make sure to discuss it on the Rainbow Six Siege sub-Reddit!

What do you think of the methods Ubisoft have decided to implement? Have you had trouble with childish or otherwise virulent behavior? Let us know what you think in the comments section below or start a conversation on DFTG Facebook page. To stay up to date on gaming news as it happens, follow us on Twitter! Here’s some of our latest:

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