Griefing is a valid way to play

[deMangler]

Well, that's just a side effect of another implementation issue, to some of us at least. I want to play the game making in-game decisions for in-game reasons. Having your ship identified as being a PC prevents this: I am selectively attacked not because I am a juicy target flying expensive cargo with no defences, but because I am a PC. And even worse, even though I don't want to do it, I do notice some ships are PCs, and I inevitably react to that in a way that I wouldn't if they were NPCs. We had lots of design discussions about how to support multiple different playstyles here, but we have just ended up with the one style to the detriment of how I want to play the game.

Agreed. The idea that there would be transponders for those who wanted to be identified as in the Pilots Federation was a good idea, and one that would have solved a lot of issues and created gameplay opportunities. Also, from the way the discussions were going I thought it seemed like a done deal. Don't see how FD could implement it now without people kicking off but it is optional so maybe...,

 

[LEV]

Griefing is valid as far as it is integral to the game as it stands at the moment. Wheter it's a good idea for Open Play in the long run, is another discussion. My feeling is, that griefing is going to be adressed in a further update to make life for griefers much, much harder than it is now.

 

[Britannkic]

Greifing is not a valid way to play. By definition if you are griefing you are not playing you are trying to cause another player to not have fun.

Have E: D defined Griefing? And if so have they indicated a penalty for doing so?

If not then, great opinion you have, but it's just another opinion to add to the pile of powerless opinion that clouds people's view of the fact that still, any player, having drunk too much Lavian brandy and faceplanted his Rares laden Type 9 into a station wall, can snap and go murder some people using nothing but the available tools and mechanis in the game. It's part of the game whether your opinion tolerates it as so or not.

 

[pdizzle]

Have E: D defined Griefing? And if so have they indicated a penalty for doing so?

If not then, great opinion you have, but it's just another opinion to add to the pile of powerless opinion that clouds people's view of the fact that still, any player, having drunk too much Lavian brandy and faceplanted his Rares laden Type 9 into a station wall, can snap and go murder some people using nothing but the available tools and mechanis in the game. It's part of the game whether your opinion tolerates it as so or not.

 

[SpiralRazor]

It's up to Frontier to tweak the mechanics of it, if/when they decide to. I just see it as silly to call a game mechanic that is operating as intended to be "griefing".

One important thing to remember (and I think it gets lost on many people), just because a dev implements consequences for a behaviour, it doesn't mean that the devs disapprove of said behaviours. As players, we sometimes get trapped in the "player thought" box, and forget that the devs are basically gods. If they don't like a behaviour, they can shut it down totally. They aren't sitting up in Dev Land going "Gosh durn it, we hate PvP, but the only way to curb it is to implement higher bounties!"

Way back when,I used to run a MUD with PvP aspects (anyone remember those?). I decided to implement some consequences for killing other players, not because I wanted to curb it, but because I wanted to generate some new, interesting styles of play. Even with coming right out and saying that, I *STILL* had members of the playerbase saying "PKing is wrong cuz the guards chase you, obviously the staff don't want you PKing!"[/QUOTE




Are you aware of all the myriad ways people are exploiting the system to grief other players? no, i dont think you are so ill clue you in about a recent one i read here.

Some players are firing missiles at other players, from inside the station, by abusing the code for docking...yep..thats right..from inside the stations. Just one example ive read.

Another is the mine/missile exploit, by gettting stations to fire on other players simply for the automated Point Defence modules going off...again from inside the stations.

Man...people need to read up on things before they comment that things are working as "intended" and declare there is no griefing going on.



Ill be continuing to play in Group/Solo until all these exploits etc are fixed. Shame, because more interaction generally makes a game better, but not here thats for sure.

 

[DimGook]

Some players are firing missiles at other players, from inside the station, by abusing the code for docking...yep..thats right..from inside the stations. Just one example ive read.

Yes, it's important to separate meta-game griefing like this, vs in-game "griefing" where you gank someone repeatedly, vs in-game "not griefing" where you blow up some unshielded trader for no apparant reason.

More precisely, there's

- Causing someone harm/annoyance outside of game mechanics
- Causing someone harm/annoyance inside game mechanics, in a way that violates all reasonable standards of fairness
- Causing someone harm/annoyance inside game mechanics, in a way that violates the victim's standards of fairness

 

[Rivka]

Are you aware of all the myriad ways people are exploiting the system to grief other players? no, i dont think you are so ill clue you in about a recent one i read here.

Some players are firing missiles at other players, from inside the station, by abusing the code for docking...yep..thats right..from inside the stations. Just one example ive read.

And I would plant that quite firmly in the griefing category myself. Unintended use of gameplay mechanics and/or exploits used solely to cause annoyance to another person.

Yes, it's important to separate meta-game griefing like this, vs in-game "griefing" where you gank someone repeatedly, vs in-game "not griefing" where you blow up some unshielded trader for no apparant reason.

Exactly. People have the bad habit of just lumping everything they dislike under the "G" heading.

In the end, griefing is a "motivation" based call. I mean, say I know that blinking my shiplights at you bothers you. I fly around, constantly flicking my lights in your direction. Technically, it's griefing, because I'm only doing it to annoy you. It's most likely not going to be punished as griefing though, because..well, it's a pretty silly thing to be annoyed about. You really have to apply a reasonable person standard, within the bounds of the game mechanics, to call something "griefing".

 

[Kayweg]

Have E: D defined Griefing? And if so have they indicated a penalty for doing so?

If not then, great opinion you have, but it's just another opinion to add to the pile of powerless opinion that clouds people's view of the fact that still, any player, having drunk too much Lavian brandy and faceplanted his Rares laden Type 9 into a station wall, can snap and go murder some people using nothing but the available tools and mechanis in the game. It's part of the game whether your opinion tolerates it as so or not.

That's exactly the thing, FD will decide on a case to case basis what is and what isn't griefing.

Kill a guy just because you can, certainly not griefing.....follow him around, kill him 5 times over and harass him in every possible way, different case.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

It's up to Frontier to tweak the mechanics of it, if/when they decide to. I just see it as silly to call a game mechanic that is operating as intended to be "griefing".

But it is not operating 'as intended' if by 'as intended' you mean the published (in the DDA) design intent. It is certainly working 'as implemented', and what was implemented was not driven (as far as I can tell) by changes to the design, but by the arbitrary feature cut-off to enable them to declare the game GA before Christmas. That is, I do not think they changed their mind, they just did not get around to implementing the consequences yet. I certainly do expect them to implement at least some of those consequences eventually, but we may have quite a wait.

FWIW, I think ANY conversation that focusses about the G word will be a waste of time, simply because there is no universally agreed definition of what the word means (despite the attempt by Midnight-shadow to impose his definition on the rest of us). Worse still, even if we did have such agreement, it would still be very difficult to agree for some activities whether the player was griefing, since many attempts to define what it is focus on the intent, and the only person who really knows that is the player doing it.

 

[Rivka]

But it is not operating 'as intended' if by 'as intended' you mean the published (in the DDA) design intent. It is certainly working 'as implemented', and what was implemented was not driven (as far as I can tell) by changes to the design, but by the arbitrary feature cut-off to enable them to declare the game GA before Christmas. That is, I do not think they changed their mind, they just did not get around to implementing the consequences yet. I certainly do expect them to implement at least some of those consequences eventually, but we may have quite a wait.

FWIW, I think ANY conversation that focusses about the G word will be a waste of time, simply because there is no universally agreed definition of what the word means (despite the attempt by Midnight-shadow to impose his definition on the rest of us). Worse still, even if we did have such agreement, it would still be very difficult to agree for some activities whether the player was griefing, since many attempts to define what it is focus on the intent, and the only person who really knows that is the player doing it.

You have good points there. I was using "as intended" and "as implemented" to mean the same thing. I mean, case in point, we have two guys at the same company making what seems to be (depending on how you interpret it) two contradictory statements. The only thing we as players have to work off of is what we're given in the implementation of the mechanics.

At it's core, we have the ability to target, fire on, and destroy another PC in open. To me, this ability, regardless of anything said, means that Frontier intended people to target, fire on, and destroy other PCs, for whatever reason. Now, Frontier may not have planned on it happening as often as it is, and that's a legitimate view. It's up to Frontier to correct that, if/when they feel its not in alignment with their views on how the game should go forward.

There are many different ways they could have implemented a "Mostly co-op but with some PvP" style of gaming, from early on. Flagging systems, PvP consent checkboxes, a rep system that prevents weapon fire on certain "classes", all of these are different ways they could have hard-limited PvP. Instead, they went with a free fire mode.


As for your second paragraph, I don't feel like it wastes time, really. You (metaphorical) just have to keep in mind that, outside of some clear-cut cases, it's often a very subjective declaration. The only person who knows if someone is truly griefing is the person committing the action. I think it's a good idea to see all different views on the subject, if only so that a compromise can be established as to what griefing is, in regards to the game being discussed.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

There are many different ways they could have implemented a "Mostly co-op but with some PvP" style of gaming, from early on. Flagging systems, PvP consent checkboxes, a rep system that prevents weapon fire on certain "classes", all of these are different ways they could have hard-limited PvP. Instead, they went with a free fire mode..

FWIW, I'm not a fighter by desire or aptitude. But I accept that some people are, and that's fine. But I do always play in Open, and have no intention of running away to hide in solo, unless the G-Word gets intolerable, which it has no signs of doing as far as I'm concerned thus far. But then I tend to avoid highly populated areas (the Lave group, for example) since I spend most of my time exploring, or doing rare runs to power up the ship to do more exploring. So I think the decision to not do all those artificial PvP classes stuff was probably the right thing to do. If anything, the game is already too fragmented with Open, solo and groups, without all those other bells and whistles too. But griefing could become intolerable if they do not implement the promised consequences, and the game will be much reduced because of it, because of the numbers of players who will feel the need to go and hide in Solo.

 

[DefiledDragon]

Interesting idea..

It's a terrible idea. Let's say I want to engage in some action with a friend of mine and we start blowing each other up. We have to pay the full cost of our ships again? Why? And let's get something straight here. Destroying another ship isn't "griefing", it's destroying another ship. Repeatedly destroying a ship belonging to the same commander over and over again would be griefing, but a chance encounter in the big black? Nope.

 

[Templer]

There indeed is a different between PK and griefing. PK's happen, just suck it up and go on. Repeated PK on the same player over and over, however, I would consider griefing - up to the point of harassment. That's the point where a GM should step in, imho.

That said, in a world where lethal punishment is given for not clearing the way fast enough, a 6K fine or bounty for murder is in high contrast to say the least. I'm all for a more active approach towards towards dealing with PK. Why not mark players 'Pirate' or 'Murderer' after say, 5 kill counts, make them freely attackable in all systems but anarchy ones, and have murder counts wear off over time. If combined with a report system where a killed player can choose whether or not to report his murderer, befriended players can still goof around without consequences other than insurance money.

 

[gilpster]

I think debating the semantics of griefing is beside the point - 'Weaton's Law' is more useful here - i.e. don't be a .

For me a simple moral test would be that if the other CMDR was sitting next to you, playing on another computer, would you still act in the same way? Would you still blow their ship away because you felt like it, even though you have cost them an hour of their time in credits?

Perhaps i'm getting old (class of '84) but I never treat someone on the internet differently to how I would treat them face to face in real life.

 

[McDosy]

... but if you want to play the role of a sociopathic killer, the in-game authorities should treat you as such. For example:
- A 'kill on sight' order issued to all stations
- More prolific serial killers get increasingly heavy hostile NPC "kill teams" interdicting them or jumping to their location
- The most prolific of all get a mention in Galnet news
- Anarchy systems are the only places that offer refuge

I'm not taking about a meta-game hatred of griefers, or introducing gameplay mechanics to artificially stop griefing. I'm saying give grief play some validity. Let them play how they want, but beware the consequences. Some grief players may even like getting some in-game notoriety.

I agree on all counts. I wouldn't class anything you've described as being griefing anyway. People might as well call pirates griefers.

Frontiers, outer space and crazy people all go hand in hand. The problem is there's nothing stopping this happening in the safe, central systems either.

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I think debating the semantics of griefing is beside the point - 'Weaton's Law' is more useful here - i.e. don't be a .

For me a simple moral test would be that if the other CMDR was sitting next to you, playing on another computer, would you still act in the same way? Would you still blow their ship away because you felt like it, even though you have cost them an hour of their time in credits?

Perhaps i'm getting old (class of '84) but I never treat someone on the internet differently to how I would treat them face to face in real life.

That's certainly my way of playing, but I heartily defend anybody else's way of playing too - as long as it fits within the mechanics and the fiction. Combat loggers can get knotted, but anyone being a psycho in an area of space where I would reasonably expect there to be a psycho is adding to the variety and colour.

 

[aeshec]

I think debating the semantics of griefing is beside the point - 'Weaton's Law' is more useful here - i.e. don't be a .

For me a simple moral test would be that if the other CMDR was sitting next to you, playing on another computer, would you still act in the same way? Would you still blow their ship away because you felt like it, even though you have cost them an hour of their time in credits?

Perhaps i'm getting old (class of '84) but I never treat someone on the internet differently to how I would treat them face to face in real life.

Well said. To me it's like board game night. When you play board games with someone across the table you can compete without being a jerk. Picking up the pieces of a board game and throwing them at your friend across the table and then punching him in the face is not acceptable and in fact would make that person not want to play with you again. Same goes for online. I'm so glad FD actually thought this out and put in functionality so that you can address to some extent who you play with.

 

[Comrade Napoleon]

The PVP was fun and ok in Gamma, It just took a slide for the bad on release.
Too many senseless idiots now, I am sorry to say.
Fools interdicting and shooting just for the lulz. And they dont even have a bounty worthwhile
OPen has grown into a wast of time.
The only thing you see are Vipers looking for prey, no traders, no friendly hails, just pew-pew
FD this game is .
(now I can take another 2 month rest from forums )
I am leaning more and more to Groups and Solo, Simply because the majority of the Cmdr's I meet are sociopaths.
Very few friendly hails mostly a barrage
( I think iam to old for this)

Cheers Cmdr's

 

[Commander Yog Sothoth]

How definitions change over time. I've played MMOs for 13 years. Griefing was always the repeated killing of a single player over and over and over. It was also the intentional 'blocking' or 'camping' of a player respawn point. Now it seems to include every killing without warning. That was defined as PvP.

'Zerging' was when you would seek to respawn faster than your enemies to take advantage of their wounded state (from the last encounter) to kill them. The faster you (or your team) could zerg, the more likely you were to win a battle.

 

[Zeeman]

With all the reputation stuff... I think we should have a "Griefer" rep along side our "Elite" status.

Griefless
Mostly Griefless
Nuisance
Annoying
PITA
Griefer

That way, when we scan another player, we have an idea of what we are in for...

Paying off fines/bounties does not clear Griefer status.

Based on clean players attacked/killed.

I'm taking the mickey here, btw...

Z...

 

[c64orinoco]

I have no problem with that at all!

What I DO have a problem with is the attitude of the Mods on the boards here - that naming in-game psychopaths as such constitutes some form of offensive behaviour.

It is somewhat mitigated by the re-appearance of the in-game bounty lists, but without good beyond-system comms or Group comms, or even reliable comms, it is here, on the discussion boards, where the coordination of any vigilante posses must be done.

Which can't when we keep getting slap-droned or have posts deleted for naming names!

Such as : CMDR Gunzbngbng last seen in Leesti, Bounty of 160,000 or thereabouts - which is taken directly from the in-game bounty board at Kappa Fornicus , their haunt for quite a few days. I can't help but notice that as soon as the bounty boards returned, that cmdr was very suddenly on the other side of known space, presumably because they were worried about the number of honest traders who wanted to have firm 'chat'.