Player Bans and the New Player Experience (Thoughts)

I'm of the opinion that a 2-week ban doesn't actually do a whole lot. Many players will just use that time to play on smurfs and damage the game's new player experience more than it already is, since 2 weeks is a short amount of time to kill in the long run.

If they';re going to be doing that anyway, you may as well just make the 2-week ban longer so that they'll have a greater chance of burning themselves out. A month or so after my own ban and my previous feelings were past me, letting me feel like a new person.

Maybe combine a lengthened ban with a variation on the old level 20 challenge Extend the tier 3 punishment to a month ban, but if the user can provide proof of positive play/good sportsmanship on another account, the ban can be shortened. That way, you can tell people who actually DO care are working to reform, while the ones who just want to troll are locked out longer, and someone who just doesn't play during the ban still gets a month to cool off. (For the record, I myself would fall under that third group.)

Just my two cents, having seen what a month's time can do for someone who's been on a negative streak.

(Moved a post of mine from another thread to its own.)

Basically, what I got to thinking was that, for a player who actually DOES care about the game in any capacity, a month feels a lot longer than 2 weeks despite only actually being about twice as long (I learned this from experience). Giving such players a longer ban, but providing an out to it in the form of working to improve the new player experience seems like a win-win as far as I'm concerned.

To prevent people from just cheating it, though, you'd probably want to make it very easy to go to a permanent ban after this modified step 3. The idea being that if the reform actually worked, that person shouldn't cross that line. Kinda the same as it is now, but with the possibility of benefiting new players too. Make sense?

As for the potential 'downside' of keeping trolls down there longer, there isn't actually anything stopping them from doing that now, so I don't see it as actually being a downside.

This was only an idle thought of mine, so it's not really ironed out. That's why I wanted to discuss it instead of merely pitching it as a completed idea.