Griefers hiding as NPCs

[CaptainSodom]

There's a pure comedy gold thread about "griefing", which [edit] I won't spoil for those who haven't read the first page [/edit].

But that actually might hide a bit more serious topic. As there are plans to introduce ident on/off, you might not know if you're being attacked by NPCs or PCs. That way griefers* might be able to hide their status as a PC, and thus avoid detection and evade repercussions. This would frustrate the victims, and attempts to investigate griefing reports, resulting in a poorer gaming experience for non-griefers (99% of playerbase).

Anyone who understands how ident on/off is supposed to work can shed light on that?

DISCLAIMER: no disclaimer, read the above again if you feel the urge to rant about PvP, Goons, forum metagaming or the price of rice in Thailand.


* griefing defined as "repeatedly killing the same individual or individuals over and over again, or camping their corpse to prevent them from retrieving it, or otherwise performing actions in a game to prevent the player from enjoying the game." from Urban Dictionary.

 

[Commander Dave]

There's a pure comedy gold thread about "griefing", which turned out to be a player getting ganked by NPCs.

I'm so glad you linked to that.
My guts hurt with all the laughing I've just been doing.

The poor sod.

 

[Anthony Jones]

There's a pure comedy gold thread about "griefing", which turned out to be a player getting ganked by NPCs.

But that actually might hide a bit more serious topic. As there are plans to introduce ident on/off, you might not know if you're being attacked by NPCs or PCs. That way griefers* might be able to hide their status as a PC, and thus avoid detection and evade repercussions. This would frustrate the victims, and attempts to investigate griefing reports, resulting in a poorer gaming experience for non-griefers (99% of playerbase).

Anyone who understands how ident on/off is supposed to work can shed light on that?

DISCLAIMER: no disclaimer, read the above again if you feel the urge to rant about PvP, Goons, forum metagaming or the price of rice in Thailand.


* griefing defined as "repeatedly killing the same individual or individuals over and over again, or camping their corpse to prevent them from retrieving it, or otherwise performing actions in a game to prevent the player from enjoying the game." from Urban Dictionary.

Will it not just say. Killed by CMDR ......... ?

 

[VR jefranklin18]

I do wish you could filter this forum by your own defined keywords. Griefing would be top of my list as I am bored about hearing about it

 

[Yaffle]

Would it not precipitate either the victim trying to "ignore"that player/NPC and only succeeding if it was the former?

NPC names will be generated from a large database of backers' suggestions, so it would be unlikely an NPC would repeatedly appear on one poor player's six and shoot him/her.

It may have an upside if people don't know, they won't come here and moan about it if it's possibly an NPC.

 

[M3SS3NG3R]

Yeah I don't see how this is a problem. Let's say PC and NPC are indistinguishable, as long as you can identify the ship that killed you, you can always come back and try to blow up that ship in return. Doesn't matter if he's NPC or not. It might take a bit of time to locate him on radar in a target rich environment, but all it takes is just a bit of patience.

 

[CaptainSodom]

Would it not precipitate either the victim trying to "ignore"that player/NPC and only succeeding if it was the former?

NPC names will be generated from a large database of backers' suggestions, so it would be unlikely an NPC would repeatedly appear on one poor player's six and shoot him/her.

If the game is persistent the way I understand the word, the same NPCs might remain in the same system or nearby for hours, if not days or weeks. It would make sense from the game world perspective to have the same group of bandits patrol a certain route, for example.

Yeah I don't see how this is a problem. Let's say PC and NPC are indistinguishable, as long as you can identify the ship that killed you, you can always come back and try to blow up that ship in return. Doesn't matter if he's NPC or not. It might take a bit of time to locate him on radar in a target rich environment, but all it takes is just a bit of patience.

That's my response to griefing reports on forums 99% of the time.

But there are sometimes cases of true griefing, where a player seeks out another repeatedly just to make their life miserable, and/or exploits game mechanics. It is these edge cases I'm concerned about.

 

[Bromley86]

There's no real problem here that I can see.

If anyone, player or NPC, fires without reason they will trip the criminal justice system. Depending how FD structure it, there may be ways to avoid actually getting a bounty on your head. However, that'll only be possible out in the depths of the system. So unless a player repeatedly flies past the same part of space, no problem.

There is scope for someone to take a disliking to a person and repeatedly follow them through hyperspace. However, that almost requires the mark to cooperate as when he's destroyed he respawns in a station whilst his tormentor is out in deep space.

There is a good chance that the game will be structured so that players who attack IDENT-off players will not receive a Pilots' Federation bounty on them (they will still get the normal bounty though). That's because it's unfair to punish someone for attacking something that looks like a NPC but is actually a player. Here there is scope for someone who's confirmed that the blip is a player (say Commander names are shown and this pirate knows that Bromley is a player) to repeatedly attack and yet avoid the Pilots' Federation bounty. Again though, the pirate will have great difficulty following me to repeatedly kill me and will still get the normal bounty applied.

 

[Yaffle]

If the game is persistent the way I understand the word, the same NPCs could remain in the same system or nearby for hours, if not days or weeks.

Only if they get promoted to Teir 2:

TIER 2 CHARACTERS
Tier 2 characters are characters that persist for players, but can be interacted with directly. There is a per player list of tier 2 characters and they are identified by the following characteristics:
Players can interact with the character directly.
Character can be killed by players or by events.
Character can be created via an event, by the game or promoted from tier 3.
Character can be promoted from tier 2 by being known to a large number of players.
Characters can issue missions.

TIER 2 CHARACTER EXAMPLES
Faction leader underlings that the player deals directly with
Mission targets
Mission providers
Pilots of NPC vessels that the player has previously interacted with
Player contacts

TIER 3 CHARACTERS
Tier 3 characters are transient characters that are created when traffic is generated, these are typically pilots for NPC ships. Tier 3 characters are randomly generated from a global pool as needed.

If the player interacts with a tier 3 character then the character may be promoted to a tier 2 so they can be encountered again. They may also shift back down to tier 3, if the interact is minor, as their importance will diminish over time.
They are identified by the following characteristics:
They are not persistent
They can be promoted to tier 2 (and thus become persistent)
They are randomly created according to the required archetype

Which is suitably vague so as not to be clear to me if "getting shot by during an interdiction" (for example) would count.

Emphasis added for clarity.

 

[PhanttoM]

Well, wouldn't you still be able to scan a target and see if they have a ridiculously high bounty?

Personally, I already scan every ship that comes into range, regards of them being a player or NPC.


I have an old un-uploaded video laying around, where a player with a bounty tried to 'pretend' not being hostile.
While he carefully and calmly positioned himself behind me, he of course did not know I had him targeted the whole time and was flying with full shield power.
*EDIT* The end result was him escaping with 23% hull because he had the faster ship. (Him Eagle, me Sidewinder)

 

[SeraphymC]

I do wish you could filter this forum by your own defined keywords. Griefing would be top of my list as I am bored about hearing about it

Yeah, the only thing more boring are people who take the time to come into threads and tell us there aren't interested in them.

 

[Iain M Norman]

Anyone who understands how ident on/off is supposed to work can shed light on that?[/SIZE]

My understanding is:

Ident on/off is to control the immediate presentation of the hollow or filled triangle. A scan will determine whether or not someone is actually a Pilots Federation member or not regardless of ident status I thought.

That's my understanding of the latest proposals.

Not sure even Sandy could say for sure 100% how it's going to work, it's a bit up in the air and will need testing.

 

[RaynMaykr]

Would it not precipitate either the victim trying to "ignore"that player/NPC and only succeeding if it was the former?

NPC names will be generated from a large database of backers' suggestions, so it would be unlikely an NPC would repeatedly appear on one poor player's six and shoot him/her.

It may have an upside if people don't know, they won't come here and moan about it if it's possibly an NPC.

Except ignoring only really affects if you get placed in an instance with someone if it's already capped. They'll be able to interdict and attack you 1 v 1. Around stations they're less likely to be matched since stations will likely be where instances are most commonly full.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Can we get rid of term "griefer"? It is subjective and speculative.

If we want to talk about player killers, with or without context, yes, it will be allowed - with consequences. So there's no point to argue that hiding as NPCs will change much.

Thread OP mentions is hilarious, but not only one. There were bunch of these at the beginning of Premium Beta, and later a little bit.

 

[RaynMaykr]

There's a pure comedy gold thread about "griefing", which [edit] I won't spoil for those who haven't read the first page [/edit].

But that actually might hide a bit more serious topic. As there are plans to introduce ident on/off, you might not know if you're being attacked by NPCs or PCs. That way griefers* might be able to hide their status as a PC, and thus avoid detection and evade repercussions. This would frustrate the victims, and attempts to investigate griefing reports, resulting in a poorer gaming experience for non-griefers (99% of playerbase).

Anyone who understands how ident on/off is supposed to work can shed light on that?

DISCLAIMER: no disclaimer, read the above again if you feel the urge to rant about PvP, Goons, forum metagaming or the price of rice in Thailand.


* griefing defined as "repeatedly killing the same individual or individuals over and over again, or camping their corpse to prevent them from retrieving it, or otherwise performing actions in a game to prevent the player from enjoying the game." from Urban Dictionary.

I read that other thread. I think parts of this community are going to have to re-evaluate their definition on what griefing is or their head is going to explode. This is a multiplayer openworld sandbox where players can play a whole range of roles.

See this dev post on scamming and griefing:
http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showpost.php?p=147803&postcount=138

If you're opting in to multiplayer all group then everything is fair game. People are just going to be influenced by in game rules and repercussions which is totally fine. "Griefing" implies the griefer shouldn't be in the game and/or should be reprimanded or punished by GMs. To me this includes killing of new players in starting zones or continually harassing an individual for no in game benefit. But flying around and attacking people, while certainly not the only thing a player can do in game, is a legitimate role someone can choose.

To answer your question about the opting in to show if you're a RL player... All PCs should be identified otherwise we'll have this weird meta of hiding with NPCs as you mentioned. And while I think it could be interesting, I don't think players getting attacked would enjoy not knowing what kind of intelligence is attacking them.

The next question to ask IMO is for people that think they're being griefed... should they be able to drop in to a private game and have the same influence on the background simulation? I don't think so. But perhaps that's for another thread.

 

[Iain M Norman]

Thread OP mentions is hilarious, but not only one. There were bunch of these at the beginning of Premium Beta, and later a little bit.

Can't wait for Beta 1!

Perhaps we should post a list of NPC names for people to check against before launch.

Of course the NPC list might change from the Sci-Fi character influenced small list we currently have and start to use our Kickstarter NPC names?

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Can't wait for Beta 1!

Perhaps we should post a list of NPC names for people to check against before launch.

Of course the NPC list might change from the Sci-Fi character influenced small list we currently have and start to use our Kickstarter NPC names?

I think in big letters:

"YES, THIS IS THE GAME IN WHICH NPC WILL ATTACK YOU FIRST"

over ED Launcher will be fine.

 

[prasak]

So, if someone is hiding and pretends to be NPC while he is a player and you attack him, you are a victim ?

 

[CaptainSodom]

I read that other thread. I think parts of this community are going to have to re-evaluate their definition on what griefing is or their head is going to explode. This is a multiplayer openworld sandbox where players can play a whole range of roles.

This is so true. The old hats (vast majority of current player base) are in for a rude awakening when they realize their beloved solo game has been turned to a multiplayer game, and they are getting attacked "for no reason OMGZ". Some of them will go to solo and be happy, but many will come to whine on forums.

If FD doesn't stick to their guns and vision, it'll dilute the game, turning it into My Little Ponies in space.

 

[Cody]

<chortles>