The single biggest problem with this game right now: Admin Abuse (not just the kind you think, detai - Rust

Ok, so I know we've all seen dozens, hundreds even, of these threads, but I'd like to make sure the developers know that this needs to be a priority on their Trello list. I encourage people in this thread to discuss the issue, and come up with how to solve it. My story is that I'm 36, have been online gaming since Doom on dialup and not once used a cheat. I've played on a handful of servers, and on almost all of them, some form of admin abuse has been a problem, or claims of admin abuse. Be it spawning items, kicking people for being good, kicking people for confusing game issues with hacks (rubberbanding), helping friends by spying, or players claiming good admins are abusing, etc. Just last night I was banned from a server because my name resembled another players name, as well as the player, because he changed it in response to my name. I had been running around the server with him, and he was not using any cheats that I could tell. They banned him of super jumping, but it was just rubberbanding and admins who apparently have never seen a lagging user before. What they need to add, or this problem is just going to get worse, is some sort of tracking system that is an option for servers to enable. It needs to tell players when the admins use any sort of admin ability. It needs to require the admin to list a reason why someone is banned and tell the users when someone is banned. All of these things should be alerts in game, but also it needs to be logged, so that if you log back into the server after some time, you can see what the admins have done. This list could get big, so you need filters for "spawn item" "banned user" etc. I know this game is in Alpha, I get it, but this problem is only going to get worse. It is not just some isolated issue, and if you haven't seen any signs of it yet, tell me what server you're playing on. Even the best servers people constantly scream admin abuse, which is almost as bad, because it becomes the boy who cried wolf. There has to be a way to know for sure. EDIT: I fixed some typos, and edited it because I realized I was not clear that I think this should be an option that servers can run, basically something to add to their title "Rust++ admin tracking, PVP/doorshare..." along those lines. Admins would not be required to run it, but it would be something players who want that accountability for admins, could choose to play on.

Yes we keep seeing these threads, and they keep getting blown off because THEY CANT DO ANYTHING. Also.. - THEY WONT DO ANYTHING. Admins pay.. pay real money, to own a server. They can put what-ever mods possible in the game, they can do WHATEVER THEY WANT. They OWN... THE... SERVER. Just like you can make up whatever rules you like in your own House. So complaining/offering suggestions to add something "Perma" to community servers.. is... silly. That's the point of community servers, freedom to do whatever you like. If a Admin wants to pay money to buy a server, just to abuse people, that's up to him/her.

unfortunately i think the only problem to abusive admins is more responsible admins who take the time out of their game play in order to properly spec a suspected player and confirm that they are using hacks. However most admins id wager who also play the game dont want to take time out of their game to do this. So instead of spending the half hour spectating them they just outright ban them out of ease and laziness. Im on one server where the admin actually does responsible admin duties. If there is a suspected hacker he talks to other players to see if they had seen them doing anything shady, and also spectates them for a while to confirm if anything questionable is happening. This is another one of those "change the game because people are assholes" posts. Its not the game, just how people choose to use the tools the game provides abusively. I agree that abusive admins are an issue and are the scourge of this game behind actual cheaters, but there are servers with responsible admins who take the effort to maintain an equal and fair gaming experience

I'm hosting a server right now, not very high population yet but we do have a solid group of 13-14 regulars every night. I have also found that in the majority of rust gameservers administration has not been up to par, due to the large influx of players/servers. It sounds like the admins you had were very inexperienced, and as an owner of several servers past and I present I would love to change your opinion. net.connect 23.105.128.219:28015 [highlight](User was banned for this post ("stop advertising your server in random threads" - postal))[/highlight]

[QUOTE=DaddyC;43689364]Yes we keep seeing these threads, and they keep getting blown off because THEY CANT DO ANYTHING. Also.. - THEY WONT DO ANYTHING. Admins pay.. pay real money, to own a server. They can put what-ever mods possible in the game, they can do WHATEVER THEY WANT. They OWN... THE... SERVER. Just like you can make up whatever rules you like in your own House. So complaining/offering suggestions to add something "Perma" to community servers.. is... silly. That's the point of community servers, freedom to do whatever you like. If a Admin wants to pay money to buy a server, just to abuse people, that's up to him/her.[/QUOTE] Sure they can do something. If they add the tools for the game to track and report all admin tools, then they can choose to run THEIR SERVER, with those disabled, BUT the community will completely ignore those servers for the most part. The community wants admin abuse free servers, so if you give the tools to make those servers, the admins will have no choice if they want an active server. [editline]27th January 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=MrSandman70;43689389]unfortunately i think the only problem to abusive admins is more responsible admins who take the time out of their game play in order to properly spec a suspected player and confirm that they are using hacks. However most admins id wager who also play the game dont want to take time out of their game to do this. So instead of spending the half hour spectating them they just outright ban them out of ease and laziness. Im on one server where the admin actually does responsible admin duties. If there is a suspected hacker he talks to other players to see if they had seen them doing anything shady, and also spectates them for a while to confirm if anything questionable is happening. This is another one of those "change the game because people are assholes" posts. Its not the game, just how people choose to use the tools the game provides abusively. I agree that abusive admins are an issue and are the scourge of this game behind actual cheaters, but there are servers with responsible admins who take the effort to maintain an equal and fair gaming experience[/QUOTE] This leads me to the previous reply I just made, but my point is, I see what you are saying, BUT if you provide an environment that is conducive to abuse, people will abuse it. If they provide an environment conducive to accountability, people will demand it.

Ill concede and agree that some form of tracking would be useful. Maybe like an 'active admin' rating or something. If that admin drops the banhammer alot as opposed to other admin abilities like the invis armor or teleport, both of which should be used to spectate before banning. then their score could reflect it. Or just like you are saying a list of what they do to who, for what reason and when. Also, with that, you would also possibly need a way to track players too. To see what admin actions have been taken against them. A player that has been kicked/banned from every server they play in, well its probably legit. I may have misinterpreted what you were saying as implying that some kind of restriction should be instituted to combat abusive admins, but if its just a tracker then thats different

TexRob, You're missing the financial aspect of ownership. Server owners can do ANYTHING on their server within whatever general guidelines that facepunch requires. That's what ownership means. So, if you don't like the admins on your server, go find another one. HOWEVER, what is a good answer to your issue is a "ratings" system for servers. Trying to implement a tracking system would take far too many resources away from important development, however just adding a simple star rating system would give players the ability to rank servers and you could choose what server to go to. Sound good? Good. **EDIT** Or buy your own server.

[QUOTE=TexRob;43689425]Sure they can do something. If they add the tools for the game to track and report all admin tools, then they can choose to run THEIR SERVER, with those disabled, BUT the community will completely ignore those servers for the most part. The community wants admin abuse free servers, so if you give the tools to make those servers, the admins will have no choice if they want an active server. [/QUOTE] No. They can't do that. Every single server provider for Rust would have to agree. Plus if your PAYING for a server, it doesn't come with a set of guidelines on what you can/can't do on your own server. It's yours to do whatever possible in the limits of the game. Just like if your BUY a house, it doesn't come with a set of guidelines on what you can/can't do in your OWN HOUSE. Your free to do whatever, within the limits of the Law.

frankly i don't care about ownership. if you wanna talk ownership the game is owned by its creators and they can implement any kind of rules for the use of their product. As for admin abuse i think the OWNERS of the GAME need to step up and do something.

[QUOTE=Valorx;43689499]TexRob, however just adding a simple star rating system would give players the ability to rank servers and you could choose what server to go to. Sound good? Good. **EDIT** Or buy your own server.[/QUOTE] Star Rating would be the best possible thing. But I doubt even that, if anything there would be a bunch of non-offical RUST review websites for servers.

[QUOTE=Valorx;43689499]TexRob, You're missing the financial aspect of ownership. Server owners can do ANYTHING on their server within whatever general guidelines that facepunch requires. That's what ownership means. So, if you don't like the admins on your server, go find another one. HOWEVER, what is a good answer to your issue is a "ratings" system for servers. Trying to implement a tracking system would take far too many resources away from important development, however just adding a simple star rating system would give players the ability to rank servers and you could choose what server to go to. Sound good? Good. **EDIT** Or buy your own server.[/QUOTE] I think some people are missing my point. I'm going to use an analogy that will hopefully help. Lets say there are two banks. One bank can remove money from your account, and there will be no entry in your statement or online banking, the money just disappears. The other bank, to remove money from your account, would have to have it show up on your statement, and in your online banking, and you'd get an email when it happened. Which bank would you rather use? It's not the best analogy, because "hey, I don't want them taking any money" but at least one tells you about it so you can talk to them about it. Which bank would be more popular? People still have the choice to use that other one, but not many would. My point is, again, don't require admins to use this feature, but provide the feature. If the feature is provided, the majority of players will only want to play on servers they know admins have accountability, therefore those servers will likely become the norm. It's basic supply and demand. [editline]27th January 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=DaddyC;43689548]No. They can't do that. Every single server provider for Rust would have to agree. Plus if your PAYING for a server, it doesn't come with a set of guidelines on what you can/can't do on your own server. It's yours to do whatever possible in the limits of the game. Just like if your BUY a house, it doesn't come with a set of guidelines on what you can/can't do in your OWN HOUSE. Your free to do whatever, within the limits of the Law.[/QUOTE] Again, read people, I said they can choose to disable it, or not enable, whatever semantics you want to use.

I know a server that was run by an Abusive Admin... I won't name names. He somehow ended up getting all the players to get Kevlar except the ones who were not online, then accused the programers them selves that getting kevlar was too easy! He then turned the server to a Hardcore server against all the players wishes. It was so bad there was a player revolt and it ended with my friend Eyyaz to create his own server for everyone. The moral of the story is to be responsible and never look for scape goats out of your own users.

This isn't a democracy where players that feel they are being treated unfairly can impose their rules on the owner of a server. If you have a great idea for a type of server, go pay for hosting, make your mod and run it. If other server owners like it, they will implement your mod as well. But your whining does not equal ability to force your desires on others. Go pay for your own server.

You can't do anything about abusive admins so you might as well not worry about it. Go to another server, not every server owner is going to be abusive. It is handy to have that sort of stuff logged though.

[QUOTE=Grinning;43689749]This isn't a democracy where players that feel they are being treated unfairly can impose their rules on the owner of a server. If you have a great idea for a type of server, go pay for hosting, make your mod and run it. If other server owners like it, they will implement your mod as well. But your whining does not equal ability to force your desires on others. Go pay for your own server.[/QUOTE] It sure is, it's in development. We are the ones who own the game. That's fine, lets have a vote about it if the devs want, I guarantee you a vote in game (not on these biased forums) would yield a HUGE landslide of people being in favor of an OPTION, READ PEOPLE, an option for servers to have admin accountability.

[QUOTE=TexRob;43689817]It sure is, it's in development. We are the ones who own the game. That's fine, lets have a vote about it if the devs want, I guarantee you a vote in game (not on these biased forums) would yield a HUGE landslide of people being in favor of an OPTION, READ PEOPLE, an option for servers to have admin accountability.[/QUOTE] Start a vote then. Get on trello and post your idea. Come back and tell me how this democracy is working for you. Just remember, for every item up for vote, all parties need the opportunity to cast their vote. I vote NO. If you want fair servers without admin abuse, play on an official server or make your own server.

[QUOTE=TexRob;43689817]It sure is, it's in development. We are the ones who own the game. That's fine, lets have a vote about it if the devs want, I guarantee you a vote in game (not on these biased forums) would yield a HUGE landslide of people being in favor of an OPTION, READ PEOPLE, an option for servers to have admin accountability.[/QUOTE] Even.... EVEN if they wasted all there time, making it a "Option". What makes you think every community server is going to put this option on? Most people want to moderate that stuff them-selves, away from public eyes. Also if they did put in this "Option", again... they would have the freedom (BECAUSE THEY OWN THE SERVER) to alter the "Option" in there favor at any given time. IE: Deleting logs of Admin Abuse. You can't force people to do something a certain way on there OWN SERVER they pay for. You just can't, option or not.

I agree with the idea of having an on/off option for showing all admin activity in the chat feed. It would have to announce it's status to players when logging in and also if it's turned on/off while the server is live. Logging it all may be asking a bit too much and open to abuse anyway but would be cool. Of coarse server owners have the right to run the servers how they want. This is just another option they can choose to use or not. I know a few admins who would jump at the chance to have this feature as an option as they get accused daily of admin abuse and have no real way of proving they aren't. Again nothing would change for server owners. They can use this feature or they can choose not to. Its not rocket science.

[QUOTE=PeteOdeath;43690223]I agree with the idea of having an on/off option for showing all admin activity in the chat feed. It would have to announce it's status to players when logging in and also if it's turned on/off while the server is live. Logging it all may be asking a bit too much and open to abuse anyway but would be cool. Of coarse server owners have the right to run the servers how they want. This is just another option they can choose to use or not. I know a few admins who would jump at the chance to have this feature as an option as they get accused daily of admin abuse and have no real way of proving they aren't. Again nothing would change for server owners. They can use this feature or they can choose not to. Its not rocket science.[/QUOTE] Somebody gets what I am saying! I want to point out your point about the good admins would likely LOVE this. I knew a server that people screamed admin abuse where it was not happening, and it snowballed into more and more believed it based off of a lie. That server is now dead.

[QUOTE=PeteOdeath;43690223]I agree with the idea of having an on/off option for showing all admin activity in the chat feed. It would have to announce it's status to players when logging in and also if it's turned on/off while the server is live. Logging it all may be asking a bit too much and open to abuse anyway but would be cool. Of coarse server owners have the right to run the servers how they want. This is just another option they can choose to use or not. I know a few admins who would jump at the chance to have this feature as an option as they get accused daily of admin abuse and have no real way of proving they aren't. Again nothing would change for server owners. They can use this feature or they can choose not to. Its not rocket science.[/QUOTE] I agree with this. But still think it is a waste of time. Whiners will whine. Regardless.

I agree with this, "server statistics" would be a very useful feature when choosing a server, there could easily be a "rating" system: player capacity / average players online ping server uptime kicks / bans # of admin spawned items since X and then for details: list of mods enabled number of airdrops decay speed day speed average length of life of a player Think those would be a nice starting point. I would agree with anyone who says "the devs have better things to worry about" though, this is definitely one of those "nice to haves" than a necessity. Eventually I want most gaming on an official server, not a private

[QUOTE=Grinning;43690275]I agree with this. But still think it is a waste of time. Whiners will whine. Regardless.[/QUOTE] I hardly think it would require too much time to code a text output to chat. I'm not a coder though.

[QUOTE=Grinning;43690275]I agree with this. But still think it is a waste of time. Whiners will whine. Regardless.[/QUOTE] (But arent you whining about whiners, though?)

[QUOTE=CaptainAwesom;43690336]I agree with this, "server statistics" would be a very useful feature when choosing a server, there could easily be a "rating" system: player capacity / average players online ping server uptime kicks / bans # of admin spawned items since X and then for details: list of mods enabled number of airdrops decay speed day speed average length of life of a player Think those would be a nice starting point. I would agree with anyone who says "the devs have better things to worry about" though, this is definitely one of those "nice to haves" than a necessity. Eventually I want most gaming on an official server, not a private[/QUOTE] I have hesitated to comment about the last part, because honestly that is part of the problem. I support these ideas I have listed, but in the end I'd like to see the official servers be playable. Right now, they are all riddled with hacks and the biggest problem for me, they are on the west coast. I know they had to scramble to get servers up, but they have our money, and as a result, need to turn up true regional servers. 150-170ms ping servers from the East coast is a joke. I get 25-50ms to central and east coast servers, but the official servers are the absolute worst. People can argue all day long that "the game is in alpha" but the simple fact is, the game is 100% online, so you can't have terrible official servers after making millions of dollars on this game already.

[QUOTE=PeteOdeath;43690356]I hardly think it would require too much time to code a text output to chat. I'm not a coder though.[/QUOTE] If it is something that can be easily done, I think it could be a good feature. Mind the "feature," as it doesn't mean rule. [QUOTE=klinkvonstal;43690394](But arent you whining about whiners, though?)[/QUOTE] I was making a valid point about the efficacy and value of a proposed feature. What's your point?

The problem here goes both ways mate! As a admin and server owner myself, I can tell you how easy it is for players to scream "Admin abuse!". I can't be a admin and kill players, the first thing that pops to some of the guys mind is "admin abuse". There is also two sides of a story, whenever I have banned someone its never their fault(The exact thing as it is in the RL), and its always the other player/admins fault, which then again results to "admin abuse". Couple of weeks ago(before VAC came into play), there was so many cheaters playing Rust. Us admins spent our entire days spying and trying to get the ID of players who was reported/seen as hackers. Even hackers that obviously went through doors/speed hacked(No lagg, you could clearly see it), shouted out admin abuse once we got a hold of them, and stopped their motion. Nomatter which server you go to, there will always be players that consider something a "admin abuse", and that is why such a system would not work at all. Anyway, I do really hope you find yourself a server that you can settle down on, and I do understand your frustration. Atleast we have never banned people for being too good, even though we might have wrongly banned people for hacks, when it was at the worst! :) -Noctis

Every time I see a thread like this I think of the people complaining like "Im a leach. I don't want to pay for a server but I want someone else to pay for one and dictate how they run things even though....Im a leach and Im not contributing a single penny towards it." Stop with the ridiculous garbage already.

I think we boiled down to most people's issue with this suggestion. Right now, it is not a priority, nor should it be. Rating system would be easier with 1-5 stars ect.... that is why I suggested it. But, for the most part, it's just not important enough right now.

You need to find a better server, there are plenty that have no sort of admin abuse.

[QUOTE=Zechs;43691293]Every time I see a thread like this I think of the people complaining like "Im a leach. I don't want to pay for a server but I want someone else to pay for one and dictate how they run things even though....Im a leach and Im not contributing a single penny towards it." Stop with the ridiculous garbage already.[/QUOTE] - So the game sells well, I hear we talks millions. - The software security is apparently something planned for beta (after all, in Rust, you can have foundations of your buidling on top of boxes you can destroy afterwards...). - The number of servers running is limited to a chosen few. - There are apparently no real admins on the officials servers. Then how many pennies is one player supposed to pay to be considered as something but a leach in this context? I really wonder what the devs of Rust thinks of all this ridiculous garbage, actually.