Griefing is generally defined as behavior intended to cause grief (irritation, anguish, etc) to another player.
Generally speaking, a single incident involving two specific players is not considered intentional or deliberate griefing. Normally, for a griefing to be actionable there would have to be a pattern between the two individuals in question. That would notionally require at least 3 incidents or other corroborating evidence in order for intent to be established.
If anyone genuinely believes that someone is engaging in harassing behaviours by using the 15 timer, then the problem in question is the individual's behaviour rather than the timer itself. Arguing for the timer to be changed because of such behaviours only plays into the hands of those that engage in other behaviours, and unreasonably penalises players in other cases.
Let's take some simple illustrative incident use cases for reference:-
- Player A engages Player B near spawning place X and kills them, waits for them to respawn and repeats the process ad nauseum. This would most likely be consider griefing by any reasonable person
- Player A engages Player B, player B combat logs on Player A, Player B relogs into ED, finds themselves in the same instance and combat logs after Player A engages them again, etc. Combat Logging is the offence in this case.
- Player A engages Player B, player B menu logs on Player A, Player B relogs into ED, finds themselves in the same instance and menu logs after Player A engages them again, etc. Player A could be considered guilty of harassment in this case, depending on the precise circumstances but ultimately Player B is not essentially at fault since they have not gone out their way to put themselves into the situation even if they did choose Open.
- Player A engages Player B, player B combat logs on Player A, Player B relogs into ED into a different mode/instance, and continues as normal. Player B is guilty of combat logging but proving it as such is tenuous.
- Player A engages Player B, player B menu logs on Player A, Player B relogs into ED into a different mode/instance, and continues as normal. Player B is not guilty of anything in this case.
- Player B engages Player B, player B combat logs on Player A, Player B relogs into ED, finds themselves in the same instance and combat logs after engaging Player A again, etc. Player B could be guilty of both harassment and combat logging in this specific case.
- Player B engages Player B, player B menu logs on Player A, Player B relogs into ED, finds themselves in the same instance and menu logs after engaging Player Aagain, etc. Player B could be considered guilty of harassment since they have gone out of their way to create the circumstances.
[*=left]Player B engages Player A, player B menu logs on Player A, Player B relogs into ED into a different mode/instance, and continues as normal. Player B could be guilty of combat logging in this case but proving it as such is tenuous.
[*=left]Player B engages Player A, player B menu logs on Player A, Player B relogs into ED into a different mode/instance, and continues as normal. Player B is not really guilty of anything in this case, but if they do this to different people habitually then it is not really a good thing to encourage.
In the cases 2, 4, 6, and 8 the complication is proving that the combat logging is not the result of some technical issue as opposed to a deliberate action on the Part of Player B.
In the cases 1 to 3, Player A could be found guilty of either harassment or griefing regardless of what Player B is guilty of.
In the cases 4, 5, 8, and 9 there would be nothing notionally actionable against Player B - additional corroborating evidence may change that but in cases 4 and 5 it could also incriminate Player A as being a griefer.
This leaves us with the odd-ball case 7, where Player B is going out of their way to harass another player then exit the game on them. Whether it can be considered griefing or not is another matter but ultimately the menu timer is not the problem. As with case 1, it is the pattern of behaviour not the game mechanics/balance at fault.
In short, griefing typically is considered to require the intentional destruction of another player's in-game assets through deliberate action. Any other form of repetitive targeted behaviour is just harassment - whether considered harassment in the legal sense of the term or not.
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