Here’s Why the Ignore List Can’t Be an Exclude List

Recently I have come across more threads than usual that suggest making the ignore list work as exclude list for dungeon and PVP queues. I think it’s a topic worth talking about because it keeps popping up from time to time. Generally it’s something that makes sense. If you ignore a person for whatever reason, you probably don’t want to play with them in the future. So why doesn’t the queue respect a player’s ignore list?

Bots? Yes! Bad Players? Questionable…

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The argument for such a system is obvious. It would enable you to not only ignore, but also exclude bots from any future runs for example. Bots that frequently get ignored would have much longer queues times, and run inefficiently. It’s something Cryptic could use to fight bots without even banning them. But players of course would also use such a system to exclude “bad players”, and that’s where we run into trouble. I know it’s super annoying to random queue for a skirmish, get Throne and then see all those pugs directing Hulks to nowhere. Trust me, it drives me crazy. But you can’t just ignore and exclude them either.

Bad players are more likely new players that heavily rely on pug queue to get into any runs. If queue times lengthen considerably because they get ignored too often, it makes for a miserable gaming experience. Not having a functional queue system even makes players quit, that’s part of the reason why the devs reworked it. So having superior toons carry newbs through dungeons is much better than the alternative. Plus experienced players have an easy way out as they can build premade groups, which by the way is much easier than ignoring a gazillion bad players.
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Doesn’t Work at All for PVP

Also it doesn’t work at all for PVP. You can’t introduce manual exclusion and then expect the matchmaking to work properly. So as much as I personally desire such a feature, it doesn’t make tons of sense. What you could think about is a time-limited exclusion for PVE only. Separating the ignore and exclude function would be a requirement anyway because there are indeed situations where you want to ignore players, but don’t mind playing with them (Winter Festival scammer for example). And then you could probably limit the exclusion to 14 or 30 days or something. That means you can get rid of bots or annoying players for some amount of time, but give them a chance to come back more experienced and geared later. I would think that not many players actually keep track of their excluded handles and continuously re-ban them.

Overall though, the ignore list can’t be an exclude list. It just comes with too many issues to justify it.


What’s your opinion on an exclude list? Do you agree it’s not a great system or would you sign up for something like this? Share your thoughts in the comments below and visit the corresponding thread on our message board.

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j0Shi

j0Shi plays the Neverwinter MMORPG since the open BETA in 2013 and is a regular contributor to the blog and the whole UN:Project. Originally a Guardian Fighter, he has built up ALTs of all classes and plays on BIS/near-BIS level.

4 thoughts on “Here’s Why the Ignore List Can’t Be an Exclude List

  • February 7, 2018 at 7:24 am
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    Players should try to ask to add comment section to ignore list, because sometimes its impossible to remember why you added someone handle there…

    • February 7, 2018 at 7:26 am
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      So true

  • February 7, 2018 at 7:44 am
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    When I started playing, I thought the Ignore List would do just that. But it didn’t.

    I did NOT know it could be used by Scammers to false-flag non-spammers for spam! When that happens, you cannot look for groups or even mail stuff to yourself for 24 hours. Ignore Player and Report for Spam should be separated, and misuse of Report for Spam (easy to check from chat logs) should be bannable for repeat offenders: 3 days, 7 days, 30 days, Permanent, under the No Griefing rules.

    But your article seems to show why perhaps Ignore SHOULD not exclude players, not that it CAN’T be used for that, technically.

    There are far too many toxic players in the game and if I ignore someone I do not want to play with them ever again. I have never Ignored a poor player for being a poor player. I like to help new players. It’s easy enough to type

    “WHEN YOU SEE THE RED BEAM STOP HITTING IT!”

    and

    “WHEN YOU HAVE RED BEAM, POINT IT AT DOORS/SPHERE!”

    Putting someone on Ignore for blowing away and scattering trash mobs you just rooted/stunned/froze/dazed etc is also poor practice. Teach them. The times a good HR has rooted mobs but my DC’s triple-Empowered Daunting Light has killed nothing but worms in the ground because of some noob OP’s Relentless Tickle or some GF/CW, or another DC’s normal Sunburst, well, I’ve lost count.

    People who block poor players are probably the sort of people I do not want to play with anyway.

    The funny thing is, on the rare occasion I do PvP these days, if I have a decent team, sometimes 2 or 3 of them are on my Ignore List! On my own team! Probably from the first 5 mods!

    Bur come on! The PvP match-making has never worked properly! If it did, every player would have the same approximate Item Level and their TIL would exclude companions. When they tried that, when PvP was probably 10 or 20x more active than it is now, it took over an hour for the queue to fill and they said they would never try balanced match-making again. At least now we do not get 2 Mod 2 DCs, a TR in greens and two under-geared HRs in blues against 3 BIS TRs and 2 BIS CWs. They seemed to have fixed even the Solo Domination queue to have no more than 2 of any one class.

    Now, we just get BIS SH PvPers trolling the solo queue, which I think is meant for PvE players to give it a try. Still have the toxicity in there, though, mostly from the PvP Guilds.

    And it can still take hours for a queue to pop, and then it is usually cancelled due to declines, or non-acceptance.

    But maybe a time-limited exclusion like you suggest would work.

  • February 8, 2018 at 12:12 pm
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    IT IS AN EXCLUDE AND WILL BE AN EXCLUDE as far as I’m concerned and that is that.

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