Proposal Discussion Dealing With Griefers

[Alien]

*NOTE TO MODERATORS* I am posting this in ED General so it gets people's attention as I have started to see people labelling others as griefers. If you feel this thread should be in another section, feel free to move it.

The following advice was originally written by me for a game called Myst Online Uru Live (again) you can view the original here

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Now I will tell you the best way to deal with griefers.

The sad truth is that even if you do all of the above advice, (<--- see original article)
the griefer could still come back. Frontier cannot keep them out permanently.

Remember, you can choose to not let it bother you.

So how do you convince a griefer to leave you alone?
First think about why they do it. It isn't to annoy you, despite how it might seem.
No, they do it for attention. If you can deny them that attention, they eventually move on.

(note this next bit might be possible in Elite Dangerous)
You can happily put the griefer on ignore, this will help you.
It is very important you do not react to them, that gives them attention.
When I say do not react, this includes talking to them or moving your avatar.

(This next bit is explaining that you should not react to the griefer, no matter what. Not really possible in ED)
If the griefer is standing very close to your avatar, do not move.
If you move you give the griefer attention and they will move with you.

This method of not reacting may take some time, but eventually they will get bored.
You have to be determined to out-last them.

The result of this method, is that the griefer moves on, looking for attention from someone else.
I know this is not an ideal solution, but you are not being hassled anymore.
If you know who the griefer is targeting next, you can help that person with this article.
If we all take this approach towards griefers, they'll either leave the game,
or start behaving in an appropriate manner towards everyone.

 

[P4UL]

The problem I have with putting someone on "ignore" is that by doing that, it simply moves the problem onto someone else.. they are still free to go and annoy someone else.

The unpleasant trolls should simply be BANNED to stop them harassing other players.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Some good suggestions in there, however unfortunately whilst they are ignorable in the normal game, they are a bit of a disaster if you plan on playing ironman. It is the attitude of people like them which puts me off many multiplayer games, and imo this mentality can be made even worse when you get whole groups of them teamed up.

but c'est la vie.

I am not in the alpha so feel free to ignore, but in defence of people possibly labelled as griefers at the moment, this may not be their normal behaviour.

Remember this is only an alpha, basically a big sandpit of shooting. Really if you are shot there is no lasting downside, and it is an alpha, and one of the points of it is to abuse it, find out what is irritating and then feedback, with a view to changes in the main game.

"griefers" now may have no intention of acting like this in the main game. Indeed if they are annoying enough now, it may make people feedback to FD and allow them to improve defences against them. (indeed if half a dozen guys teamed up as an "experiment" and deliberately set about griefing it may actually demonstrate the point that some of us lone gunmen type players are really worried about in another thread if tools are put in place in the game to allow permanent groups of players (I am trying to not use the g***d word )

 

[Erimus Kamzel]

Good advice. I actually don't think griefing will be as large a problem in Elite Dangerous as we've seen in other games. The game mechanics seem designed to make such playstyles tediously boring - anyone who griefs someone will soon find the only interactions they'll get will be with NPCs as he ends up on more and more ignore lists. I fully expect to see forum name and shame lists pop up too with people identifying who did what and when. Just check those posts and update your ignore list regularly and the chances of meeting such and such are instantly reduced.

Finally the sheer size of the game may make encounters rare anyway. Its not like Eve where 60,000 players are squeezed into a tiny gameworld (compared to ED). So there are a lot of new factors being thrown into the mix with this game, and as far as I can tell not one of them favours anti-social playstyles.

But I do agree with Mad Mike that ironman mode could well attract the bulk of griefers that can't get any twisted fun from normal mode. It takes little effort for an unknown idiot to create a disposable ironman he cares nothing about and purposely go looking to ruin a legitimate players day in that gameworld. But I guess that's the nature of IM mode - living on the edge against all sorts of scum & villainy.

 

[Oss133]

I am posting this in ED General so it gets people's attention...

...

So how do you convince a griefer to leave you alone?
First think about why they do it. It isn't to annoy you, despite how it might seem.
No, they do it for attention...

Hmmmm.

 

[Bingo Brewster]

Some good advice from Alien that I'm sure will help people in the future, although I'm confident griefing wont be as big an issue as in some other games.

However.....
A word of caution, don't be too quick to label someone a griefer.

Remember, combat and piracy (and I believe one the Devs even mentioned psychopathy (not Psykokowy)) are part of E: D and to be encouraged.

Just because you are being robbed/attacked does not necessarily mean you are being greifed.

 

[Bikky]

As I play FPS games normally, my resulting action with griefers, will be the same as ED...... Shoot them, they die...

If they come back for more, I shoot them again. It's my score/points/credit/ranking/rating/skill levels that are increasing whilst theirs deminish.


Other than that, It's not a bad post. Ignoring them is good if possible.

 

[Dr Wookie]

You make griefers sound like wasps!

I think Frontier have a couple of good measures in place for the main game:

--- killing innocents will result in bounties, and being forced into the all group, where anyone can have ago at them.

--- DB mentioned in the Edge interview that people with bad reputations will be more likely to be instances together

 

[Oss133]

You make griefers sound like wasps!

So, I should run, screaming and waving my arms, from griefers?

 

[noodle]

--- killing innocents will result in bounties

Do we know if bounties will persist for any length of time, or are they wiped as soon as the player's ship is destroyed?

 

[irongut]

The unpleasant trolls should simply be BANNED to stop them harassing other players.

One man's griefer is another man's pirate, bounty hunter, freedom fighter, etc. All too often in pvp games people are labelled griefers for simply playing the game the way it is meant to be played. Don't fall into that trap.

 

[Cody]

I now have a song by The Doors and a song by Del Shannon in my head.

 

[Razorwire]

...But I do agree with Mad Mike that ironman mode could well attract the bulk of griefers that can't get any twisted fun from normal mode. It takes little effort for an unknown idiot to create a disposable ironman he cares nothing about and purposely go looking to ruin a legitimate players day in that gameworld. But I guess that's the nature of IM mode - living on the edge against all sorts of scum & villainy.

I don't think it'll be a problem even in Ironman.
Griefers are unlikely to play properly for long enough to get a ship that'll compete with an IM player who's had time to upgrade their ship, and if they are picking purely on newbies just for shiggles, the griefers will get vapurised by the police vipers in the starter zones.

I have faith that the in-game sanctions, combined with the gameworld size, will make E-D a game that griefers won't enjoy enough to hang around in.

 

[Sir.Tj]

Title changed as requested by OP.

 

[Erimus Kamzel]

I don't think it'll be a problem even in Ironman.
Griefers are unlikely to play properly for long enough to get a ship that'll compete with an IM player who's had time to upgrade their ship, and if they are picking purely on newbies just for shiggles, the griefers will get vapurised by the police vipers in the starter zones.

I hope you're right but griefers by nature are cowards. What I've seen them do in games like Ultima Online, WoW, and Eve is wait until their target player is already under attack and badly damaged by NPCs before nipping in and and making the kill shot. That's how a lot of them get their kicks. Its not about fighting fair to those types sadly, quite the opposite. As for vipers and consequences, like I say, griefers care little about their own character, they'll re-roll a new one without a second thought.

 

[Argon]

Most likely if you can get as far as a couple of upgrades to your ship, griefers will need to gang up to take you out.

So surviving for a few weeks in IM mode should be enough.

 

[Razorwire]

I agree with that on the whole but griefers by nature are cowards. What I've seen them do in games like Ultima Online, WoW, and Eve is wait until their target player is already under attack and badly damaged by NPCs before nipping in and and making the kill shot. That's how a lot of them get their kicks. Its not about fighting fair to those types sadly, quite the opposite. As for vipers and consequences, like I say, griefers care little about their own character, they'll re-roll a new one without a second thought.

Agreed.

My point is, if they are re-rolling in IM, they'll never survive long enough in the more dangerous systems to go looking for PCs to zap who are already in a fight, as PC encounters will be rarer than NPC ones. They are likely to get boiled by NPC pirates before they find a juicy PC trader.

And ganking newbies in the starter areas... Depends a lot on police reaction times in those areas, I guess. I'd hope they are on the ball and quick to assist.

I truly believe it'll be more hassle than fun for the griefers in E-D, especially when there are other games far more suited (and cheaper) for griefing.
Just the effort of finding someone to grief is going to put off a lot of them.

Time will tell.

 

[Alien]

Title changed as requested by OP.

Thank you T.J.
[nitpick mode] I did say [DISCUSSION] not [PROPOSAL DISCUSSION] (or I'm sure I did) but it's OK as it is now[/nitpick mode]

 

[Sir.Tj]

Thank you T.J.
[nitpick mode] I did say [DISCUSSION] not [PROPOSAL DISCUSSION] (or I'm sure I did) but it's OK as it is now[/nitpick mode]

No problem.

The only option for this section is Proposed Discussion.

 

[Chock]

Many people appear to be assuming that the only thing a griefer will do, is try to shoot you, and therefore it won't be a problem. But they could not be more wrong if that's what they think a griefer will limit themselves to, because they will not, griefers won't limit themselves to anything. Do not underestimate the inventiveness of such antisocial types. These people have cross-platform guilds which move from game to game, witness Goonswarm, Starfleet Dental, etc, etc. They've shown up in EVE, Guild Wars, STO, and at least one of those organisations (and believe me, they are organised) is now looking at Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous as new potential targets.

Think just being a new player with a starting ship will stop them griefing? It won't. You don't need a fancy ship to kite a load of npcs toward another player, or to aggro things on purpose during cooperative play, or make stuff spawn repeatedly to cause an FPS slow down or crash a server, or to spam chat, or hack someone's account and then cyberbully them, or spectate on other players and give their position away, or block a mission goal by parking in the way, or deliberately block shots etc, etc. Trust me, these guys will find a way to mess things up, it is what they do.

Of course they do get bored and move on to the next big thing, but they often leave a severely smaller player base in their wake, caused by people not playing the game because of their activities.