Crash Teams

Crash Teams – The Reckoning

Now, I kid about the crash bounty between Kenan and John but, in the last few weeks, it’s come to our attention that so-called “crash teams”—Forza players who group up and want nothing more than to get in a lobby and ruin innocent player’s online races by running them off the road—are becoming more of a problem in Forza Motorsport 4. The last thing we want to see is a minority of players intentionally ruining the experience of others online so we’re putting together a plan to deal with crash teams, the details of which we’ll be sharing soon. Thanks for your patience and stay tuned.

Crash Teams Update
As I mentioned in the July 20th edition of the Week in Review, we’ve been investigating ways to deal with so-called “crash teams” within Forza Motorsport 4—folks who’s only goal is to come online and grief other players by incessantly causing accidents. After a lot of discussion with key members of our community, we posted our official plan for dealing with crash teams in the forums earlier this week. Here’s the process we’ve put together for those who want to report “crash teams”, as stated in the official announcement on the forums:

If you come across a "crash team," or an individual crasher in Forza Motorsport 4, save the replay at the end of the race, upload it to your storefront and send a report via PM with the replay Filename and the Description/keywords to: T10 CrashTeam

This process is not for public discussion or debate, so do NOT put "Crasher Report" in the description - use something innocuous such as "race at Sebring" or "Friday race" or "coo coo kachoo," and do NOT post about it in the public forums.

When filing your report, feel free to include comments about what to look for. Keep in mind, though, that we're looking to clamp down on the crash teams and intentional wreckers. "This guy spun me out on the final turn" does not qualify. If it's not clearly obvious who is doing the crashing, and you have to be really detailed and precise to point out an incident, it's probably not an appropriate replay to submit.

And now for the "preachy" part, because we want this to improve the situation, not make it worse:

This is not "vigilante time." We don't want to hear that players are jumping into lobbies and immediately threatening to file reports.

Avoid retaliation, which is always good advice anyway. If a replay is submitted with two or three players "going at each other," it's going to be very tough to determine who the "crasher" is. Finish the race, encourage other players to just ignore the crasher(s), and then save the replay.

Do not get into arguments with the crasher(s), or send them messages. File the report, and let us handle it.

Not everyone follows the forum or reads the news section, so spread the word to your friends and club members.

Watch your saved replay before submitting a report. Make sure it is obvious that intentional crashing is going on. Be aware that "lag" can often make it appear that someone is ramming; players can be bumped into other players; races in the hoppers are short, and first-turn carnage is common even without intentional crashers; and so on. A good rule of thumb: if you're thinking "hmmmm... should I submit this replay or not?" the answer is "probably not."
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Thanks to everyone who has brought this problem to our attention as well as to those who follow this policy and help us identify and weed out crash teams. I’m happy to say that we’ve already had our first crash team bans this week, thanks to the diligent work of our dedicated community members. We hope this process will go a long way towards making Forza Motorsport 4 online play a better place to play.

As mentioned in the July 20 Week in Review, it has come to our attention that so-called "Crash Teams" are becoming more of a problem in multiplayer races. With the help of the community, we want to improve the MP experience for everyone.

Please note that we are talking about the players whose goal is to ruin the fun of others by intentionally crashing and ramming other players off the track - not the "lesser-skilled" players, or the normal bumps and scrapes which are a part of close-quarters racing.

If you come across a "crash team," or an individual crasher, save the replay at the end of the race, upload it to your storefront and send a report with the File and Description/Keyword details via PM to: T10 CrashTeam. This process is not for public discussion or debate, so do NOT put "Crasher Report" in the description - use something innocuous such as "race at Sebring" or "Friday race" or "coo coo kachoo," and do NOT post about it in the public forums.

When filing your report, feel free to include comments about what to look for. Keep in mind, though, that we're looking to clamp down on the crash teams and intentional wreckers. "This guy spun me out on the final turn" does not qualify. If it's not clearly obvious who is doing the crashing, and you have to be really detailed and precise to point out an incident, it's probably not an appropriate replay to submit.

And now for the "preachy" part, because we want this to improve the situation, not make it worse:

This is not "vigilante time." We don't want to hear that players are jumping into lobbies and immediately threatening to file reports.

Avoid retaliation, which is always good advice anyway. If a replay is submitted with two or three players "going at each other," it's going to be very tough to determine who the "crasher" is. Finish the race, encourage other players to just ignore the crasher(s), and then save the replay.

Do not get into arguments with the crasher(s), or send them messages. File the report, and let us handle it.

Not everyone follows the forum or reads the news section, so spread the word to your friends and club members.

Watch your saved replay before submitting a report. Make sure it is obvious that intentional crashing is going on. Be aware that "lag" can often make it appear that someone is ramming; players can be bumped into other players; races in the hoppers are short, and first-turn carnage is common even without intentional crashers; and so on. A good rule of thumb: if you're thinking "hmmmm... should I submit this replay or not?" the answer is "probably not."