How much do you use player notes and ratings?

While I have been playing this game almost since launch, I'm only now really starting to seriously use the player ratings and notes system, and I'm curious about how other players use it.

Whenever I join a PuG, I give everyone on the team 3 stars out of 5 to start with, and then adjust up or down from there depending on their behavior, and add a note explaining what that person did to warrant gaining or losing stars. When teaming with my SG, fellow SG members start with 4 stars and a note that they are in my SG.

So, my ranking system is something like this:

5 stars: Real life friends, SG officers, and other especially helpful people.

4 stars: SG-mates, and other players who have been generally helpful and friendly toward me.

3 stars: Players I've been on a pick-up group with, but didn't really stand out one way or the other. This is the only rank for which I don't include a note explaining what warrants the rank, since it is my default.

2 stars: Players who do things that, while generally inconsiderate and annoying, are not things that violate any actual game rules.

1 star: Those who have commited petition-worthy offenses such as griefers, trolls, RMT spammers, cyberstalkers, and people who spew threats and abuse.

On a side note, sometimes, when I see someone being 2 or 1-star worthy over a public chat channel like Help, I'll try to set a note about them, only to find that they are hidden, which causes the note to list their local name as their global handle. Is that working as intended? And if I ever ran into such a person again on a different character on a PuG or something, would the rating and note about them still show up?

When I try to use the "get global handle" command from the menu that pops up when I click on the name, I still get the global handle (except it says "@GlobalHandle is hidden, offline, or does not exist" instead of "Local Name has the global handle, @GlobalHandle"), so I would still be able to use a slash command to create a proper note if I knew what that command was. Is there such a command?

But on the main topic, how do you use your ratings and notes? Do you rate everybody, or just those that stand out? What warrants a 1-star rating, or a 5-star, or anything in between, to you?

I am fairly liberal in my use of these things. I don't rate everyone I come in contact with, but do rate alot.

My definition of elite is does something impressive repeatedly (MoITF in under 40 mins.....normal ITF in 20 mins.......any MoBSF....soloing a GM.......that type of stuff)

5-star = elite player who I am on very good-terms with.

4-star = player who is very-friendly/fun or is elite and I'm on ok terms with.

3-star = player who seems solid enough. Occasionally an ex-4-star who acted like a jerk a lot.

2-star = barely used ranking...........jerks or grossly incompetent people who do things like insult a PUG for not finishing a mish set for +4 at level 20 or so. Go away when you quit their group and dont pursue you.

1-star = real jerks.....do things like 2-star above but then keep talking after you've quit. Or do something completely egregious like tell me they'll pay to join a skyway mayhem....I relog to a toon with it....they enter without paying....get the badge and then pretend to pay and then log. Or who started a lib TV farm back in i11 and charged good inf without sharing with the kin (me) and then logged without doing anything other than zoning in. THEN logged back in and was recruiting a new group in GV to do the same thing to. You know who you are! Also not used much (since you can see I remember details on like 1/2 of mine) but I quit when one comes into a group. I tell group leader I dont group with X and its X or me......if person isnt kicked in 60 seconds I apologise to group and quit.



I date all notes so I can see if someone has changed over time easier. And so I can remind people who got 1-starred who object as to why they have the rating. "So you're denying that you recruited groups for paid PL in GV on 11/14/07 and then failed to actually level anyone....also that it couldnt have been a mistake because you were relogged and recruiting more in broadcast?" Reply: Wasn't me....I only played like 3 mos. Checked vet badges and person had 51 mos of vet badges..."O.K. now you have a new note and 1-star for being a weak liar or a ebay account buyer"

The notes are very useful.

I've never used them

I could count my number of uses of the rating system on one hand.

That said, it is a very good system in-game that I'm glad is available.

I have 1-starred people who I thought were complete jerks or otherwise too annoying for me to ever want to team with them again. Only once have I had the chance to leave a team because someone on it was previously 1-starred, and at that time he wasn't the team leader and it was just a bank mission so I just kept quiet. He was a good player, just sometimes a jerk.

I have 5-starred a lot of my regular friends. Occasionally I've confused them by saying hello when they were on some alt I don't necessarily know. More often I see a bunch of stars as I'm running around, pause to see who it is, target them and type /e bonks $target on the head, then continue on. ^_^

I've sometimes 4,3,2-starred people simply for various degrees of annoying. Like the guy who was a SG mate and a good player, but a complete blowhard. Or another SG mate who was friendly but completely clueless and constantly asking the most inane questions. People that are in my SG that quit a task force, that's worth 2 stars -- I might wind up teamed with them again, so I won't 1-star them, but I won't run another task force with them if I can help it.

Usually the star system is just there to tell me to look at notes, where I've typed something that specifically says what I like or don't like about that player.

Overall, though, I've probably rated less than 50 players total.

I use the notes much more frequently than the ratings. Friends and acquaintances get notes, explaining how I know them for people I barely know... and terrible players get notes reminding me of how they're terrible. I don't like having the stars display all the time, so I rarely use them.

It's a nice feature, but I never use it.

Except for friends, I 5 star them, as it helps me spot them in "traffic" every once in a while.

I am pretty laid back with my playing and teaming so I really haven't ever been worked up over something a player did. Especially to the point where I am going to waste my time typing up notes on them.

I only use it if you're really good, or really bad.

Everyone has a bad day, so I don't judge to harsh.

I would be interested to see where my past teammates have ranked me. I know I have ticked off more than one out there.

I typically use ratings to identify the globals of players I tend to team with, so I recognize them if they create a new character or I team with a character I hadn't seen before. I don't know that I've ever used it to rate someone on a PUG. (Although if I did it would likely be to one star them)

I pug almost exclusively, so I see no reason to rate decent players. I just run across too many people to bother rating the vast majority of people I wouldn't mind teaming with again.

I rate instead from minor annoying behaviors (1 star) to 1st class jerk on ignore that I never want to play with again (5 stars) and notes as to why.

Surprisingly (to me, at least) I rarely run into 1-2 stars again, which I'll play with if the rest of the team is good... maybe they just had a bad day when I made the note. I almost never run into 3+, but when I do I'm glad the notes are there so I can quickly excuse myself from the team and find something more fun to occupy my time.

I find player notes invaluable for those rare occasions, and I'd only change a couple things if I could... the annoying tendency to display a "blank" note (text scrolled up out of sight, forcing you to click and scroll it back down to see), and the way it stores names in such a way that it doesn't recognize spaces in names, and therefore filling up the known aliases field with redundant clutter.

It's one of the best features of the game, it once saved me from a TF with two 5-stars on it... Although based on the notes of those two players, it might have been an interesting train wreck in the making, I almost wanted to stay and watch.

I mainly use the Notes feature to check the global name of a character. Most of the time, I don't put any remarks in.

I will make a note of players who play very poorly or act clueless. For example, the 5 year vet who kept getting lost in basic mission maps. Or buffers-type characters who don't buff or aren't even aware of the statuses of their team mates, some of whom may be right in front of them getting pounded. I'll make a note of players with slow reaction time, but I'll usually give them the benefit of the doubt (possible young players or people with disabilities) if they react at all. I'll also make a note of players who seem to be more interested in chatting outside the team, than playing with the team.

I will rate anyone on a team fairly favorably if they participated through out a Dr Q. Either the team was so good that we steamrolled it or they had the perseverance to stay and slug out a tough, long run. If they bailed without a word, it will also be noted (well, depending on how many hours they had put in).

Apart from the usual uses, I often temporarily 5 star PUG team leaders or lead tanks as well as leaders of the other teams on MS raids and the like. Handy in the clutter so I dont have to keep my map open.

people I've run great TFs with: 5 stars.

occasional pugs who aren't bad but not good.. 4 stars.

Everyone else gets no ranking. Although I do add notes to nearly everyone I see standing around the blackmarket/WW just because I want to be able to know people's various toon names.

I don't use them at all for various reasons.

1.) The playernotes are stored locally on your computer in the playernote.txt file, so I wouldn't even see the same notes when using a different computer. Not only that, but since the file is stored locally, it does not get automatically updated when people perform name changes.

2.) Since it was released, there has been an issue with names with spaces in them. Global names get mixed up, character names get separated as if they are 2 different characters, which causes ratings to not display correctly on those toons, and also for those rankings to display on the wrong characters. For Example, "Cool Dude" might not display his own ranking, but some random unrelated "Dude" could show it instead.

3.) When they were released, the various local files that are regularly changed by the user had a tendency to get corrupted and cause issues with game stability. I know the playerslot.txt issues were mostly fixed, and maybe the various playernote.txt issues have been too, but I probably still wont use the feature due to Reason #1.

I'm not saying the feature doesn't have it's good uses, but its just not fitting for me. I prefer to use the getglobalname command to find out who people are. I even have it bound to a key for quick use (getglobalname $target$$info). If I remember the name, then I already know what I'm getting into. If I don't remember the name.. well.. I give everybody a chance, and if you didn't do anything bad that made me remember you, it's worth giving you another chance anyway. lol

I've never rated anyone.

I guess if I ever ran across someone absolutely stellar or abysmally terrible I might remember the system exists, but probably not.

I can't recall ever rating another player myself. It's possible I 5-starred a few friends when the system was new, but I really don't use the system.

I've 1 starred folks that went out of their way to harass my SG, coalition, or myself. Using playernotes to avoid such unfun conflicts seemed an excellent use of the system.

I use it intermittently, in general I use the following:

5 stars: Excellent player, well skilled and nice

4 stars: Good player, always someone I'm happy to team with

3 stars: Problematic player, either someone who annoyed me or someone who is nice enough but really bad. Will generally team with them but will not join a team they are leading.

2 stars: Someone who's opinions on team/character building conflict with mine. Mostly people who play "pure healers" or try to form exceedingly precise teams (i.e. someone who says something like: we need 1 tank, a controller, 2 defenders and 4 DPS).

1 star: Generally a combination of bad attitude and lack of skill, mostly comes with a global ignore. I'm pretty easygoing so I don't think to many people have earned this.

ive never used this really, i have a good memory and i usually get to know poeple by their global name and just remember if they are good, if they are good i usually add them to global friend list, if they are bad or spammer, they go on ignore list, everyone else i do nothing

5 Star: I have to have known you for a long time in-game or else know you IRL.
4 Star: Someone I enjoy playing with and consider a friend.
3 Star: Someone that I recently met but thought they were fun to play with.
2 Star: I don't use this.
1 Star: Jerk and/or moron.

I seldom use it, but the few times I do I have a real good reason.

5 star - the people I regularly team with. This is generally redundant since they're all on my global list as well. There are about 5 people with this rating; they're the ones I team with most nights.
4 star - players I don't see often but who impress me with superior ability.
3 star - I haven't used this rating
2 star - players I've teamed with who were poor players or incompetent at playing a character. There's actually one player I've noticed who rated a 4 star from his blaster and a 2 star from his tanker. Great blaster player but incapable of surviving 20 seconds against an AV with his 50 tank.
1 star - true idiots who are grossly incompetent.

The rare abusive jerk simply gets /ignored, possibly /petition as well if it's really extreme. I've only had two players ever end up in the latter category.

I've never used them. I guess I just haven't run into anyone who was either so awesome or so awful that I felt the need to keep track of them.

I one star idiots who make my life miserable in Wentworth's/the Black Market. Come tax time I'll have cash for a whole new computer and maybe won't lag out so bad with everyone rocking all their auras and giving their pets a play date together.

But I'll still know who the idiots are.