Guild war - It's all fun until you meet the exploiters

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Antrax Artek, Aug 23, 2019.

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  1. Bow Vale

    Bow Vale Avatar

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    Factions was mentioned the other week in a stream..Finally!!! i hope they will start working on them soon...BUT, it will be a total waste if BASIC pvp mechanics/exploits like this exist. Faction system has a good chance of attracting old players back and new ones in, but again, if these simple abuses of pvp gameplay exist then its wasted effort as people will just walk away from the game and not look back. These exploits/bugs aren't the hardest to code against that i can see and should take priority over any additional pvp content, get the foundation in place before building the house....Keep shouting loud and hard about topics like this to give the game the best chance of success.
     
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  2. Knud Mikkelsen

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    Alright, I was going to stay out of this but I'm sick of the slander and harrasment.


    You brought accusations of exploiting against other players masked as feedback. Yes, you didn't name anyone but people know what guild you are at war with and people know who is in that guild. Why did you feel the need to post the guild war image? Why did you feel the need to post in SotA's General Discord calling the guild out by name and what exploits you were accusing us of? Seems like you didn't get a response from Atos so you yelled even louder to more people. Hence this post.

    One point I'd bring up is mayhaps you should have bug report it in the section that bugs are reported at? Common sense it seems like, don't you think? Instead, rage and ulterior motives fueled Antrax's post. Just a question, did Antrax yell at you again for dying so much last night? I only ask because giuseppe pantano said that Antrax and him got into a fight and he left the guild and giuseppe was there with you dying just as much, not to mention it's happened in the past while I was in a party with you fighting Mangar in The fall.
     
    Last edited: Aug 24, 2019
  3. Antrax Artek

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    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/guild-war-pvp-flag-exploit.158158/
     
  4. Vesper

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    I actually agree with some of this to an extent, War should force PvP and eliminate the private mode option. However before that can be the case the flag has to be between the guilds at war only, and not flagged to everybody.
     
  5. Rixa Ultima

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    :triple facepalm
     
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  6. Antrax Artek

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    @Alistair Creagin I've just read your edit.

    Are you trying to derail the thread about what is happening in game, broken game design and exploits talking about me as person without having the slightest idea of what happens in my guild, in my chat and in my social circle?
    I would say that the assumptions, speculations and personal attacks you have made in this thread without anyone even mentioning you have reached the allowed limit.
     
  7. Dhanas

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    I don't know why are you calling my name here, since i haven't called anyone exploiter and i haven't pointed any name, i am talking just to highlight that this bug has to be fixed ASAP because there are not at all PVP contents, and the few ones we have are totaly bugged and broken. No one yelled at me cause i fought honorably, like no one did on Giuseppe, he takes decision on his own, like i do, probably it is a thing in your guild to yell at people who fight and get kills instead to hide.

    I honestly don't care to play this war based on who is the better exploiter, i suck at exploiting the system and this is not what i am interested to do in this game, there is no point for me to go in a map and find members of the guild we are in war with, unflagged, trolling, or clicking on basements to avoid fights, relying just on the fact that they can grief new players while afk: I don't see the point of doing this if not to sacrifice lot of new players ( that will probably rage quit or maybe don't want to join PVP anymore after have seen all the exploits around ) just for the purpouse of show how your "ego" big is.

    The fact is, the war has always forced PVP to all the guild members after accepting it, the fact that the group flag overwrite the war flag it's clearly a bug, and anyone who uses it to avoid a fight is clearly abusing it, how did I xp since today without the necessity of remove my flag? I think you can do that too, private mode is lame enough.
     
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  8. Sara Dreygon

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    The title of this thread implies my guildmates and I are exploiting. I take offense to that.

    The night the war started, I got home, teleported to The Fall, popped one of the last 40 aether poisons I had and started fighting. "Exploiter!". I had no idea what he was talking about, and upon being told and despite not being 100% in agreement it was bugged, I stopped using it. My guildy purposely stopped using Corpion due to calls it was bugged but when changing to Spider poison thinking it was a safe poison, "Exploiter!".

    Someone in my locked house shooting out... someone in New Heaven in a locked house shooting out.

    Unflagging during a guild war for any reason... I'm in a UT party with Mac, finish, teleport to New Heaven, try to stab an AA from stealth, realize I'm not flagged, cuss at myself, go hide, drop party, wait the 60s, "Exploiter!", kill four waiting and ready players at dock. Three unflagged AA in New Heaven two nights ago.

    Escaping zones to avoid death? I swim out of the zone to not die. I teleport to my house and immediately click my basement because I know people wait there, sometimes with meteors and fire raging. AA member swims out of Ravensmoor to avoid rend kill. AA members teleport to Verat to find 6 OCX on dock, they click on Novia boat.

    Every point has a counterpoint so can we please stop pointing fingers at each other...? We're not purposely trying to exploit anything and other than one AA player gusting people across the map neither is AA.

    You can't call many of these requested improvements exploits because they're how you think they should work. If 1 member of OCX wants to leave OCX during a guild war... have fun. Three AA members verified as not in AA now. It's not an exploit that this is allowed. This goes for many more points too but I'm typing this on my phone and it sucks.

    Sara Dreygon, non-exploiter
     
    Last edited: Aug 24, 2019
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  9. Knud Mikkelsen

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    @Antrax Artek @Dhanas

    I'm sorry for the personal attack. After being called an exploiter for the last 4-5 days and not eating this morning it finally got to me(I was hangry). I've reflected upon what I said after having a sandwich and doing so me dishes, while the 2nd part wasn't warranted and I regret typing it.. I stand by the 1st part of my post.

    "You brought accusations of exploiting against other players masked as feedback. Yes, you didn't name anyone but people know what guild you are at war with and people know who is in that guild. Why did you feel the need to post the guild war image? Why did you feel the need to post in SotA's General Discord calling the guild out by name and what exploits you were accusing us of? Seems like you didn't get a response from Atos so you yelled even louder to more people. Hence this post."

    You guys remember how mad I got when CrowCrow accused me of using an exploit? Well, I get really pissed when people accuse my friends of exploiting more so. I feel that you guys should know my play-style pretty well(and my guild mates for that matter) that I personally like to use tactics (and cowardice) and to have a challenge all above using exploits. Exploits are not fun to use as PvP is some much better than AI, it's all about the human factor.

    With that said this will be my final post in this thread. I wish that one day we can put this past us as I had massive respect for you guys and enjoyed our chats.
     
    Last edited: Aug 24, 2019
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  10. Antrax Artek

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    Fact of the matter, and was the purpose of the thread since none was specifically accused before someone went here exposing names, chats and personal accusations, was that unflagging during a guild war that has the purpose to force flag pvp all partecipants is something that wasn't intended, and since there were virtually no guild wars there was no way to find out before.
    This can be understandable when it happens once by mistake or if you are actually with someone to exp, but when used in town when enemies are there becomes easy to understand the purpose, especially when someone and still I don't name names he passes in front of you back and forth not flagged like teasing you.
    And it is even more annoying when this person is the first to intervene, to mention people and facts trying to denigrate those who pointed to the problem.

    You know what would be a nice thing? Delete any personal attack or post references (including mine) and keep the war inside the game instead of on the thread that tries to expose the problems encountered during the guild war.

    I just wanted to clarify two things:
    I do not yell against my guildmates, friends nor against my girlfriend, i treat the game as a game and friends as friends. I do not impose my will on the guild, but on the contrary I willingly expose their thoughts and comments by going beyond the language barrier, I undertake to satisfy them in everything, often even against my will. t's not war, it's not exploits, but the accusations received based on incorrect assumptions that really worry and shock me.
     
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  11. Marcus SaintClaire

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    My daughter showed me this thread this morning. I thought it was going to be something she hoped might persuade our old guild-mates and I (from UO) to settle here in Shroud of the Avatar. As a group we have decided to keep looking at other games. She's been the lone voice in our little group advocating SOTA as the best choice for our return to gaming together. After reading through the posts here I realize she was actually saying, "Maybe you're right...".

    I doubt anyone will pay much attention to the ramblings of an old man who comes from a time most of you probably don't remember, and frankly, I don't really blame you. In your shoes I probably wouldn't either. But I do have something I'd like to say before I go. As you can see from my profile, this will be my first and last post here, and it's not a complaint. If the thoughts in my head find themselves on this page, they will be mostly an observation and maybe a little prophesying as well. So here we go.

    A Little Backstory

    Back in 1997 my youngest son, then 9, had received a disk for a new game from a friend down the street. I helped him load it and set up an account. I remember thinking at the time the game looked like something he would enjoy and as the parent of a 9 year old, anything that can occupy your kids time and give you a break is welcome indeed. A couple of weeks passed and one day I wandered into his room and noticed he was typing less than appropriate language onto the screen. My reaction was something like, "Whoa! What's up with the language buddy? And who are you talking to? Are those real people?" It was at that moment I decided my boy would not be playing Ultima Online alone. Thus began my journey into the budding new world of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Play Games.

    I opened my own account and set up 2 computers side by side in the family room so I could monitor my sons language and keep him out among the family. The unexpected result was that the entire family became fascinated by our adventures in this new online world and spent countless hours standing behind us shouting "RUN!" or "Look out!".

    I started my life in Sosaria in the woods of Yew just outside the entrance to the Yew Crypts. I was a lumberjack. After gaining some skill in Bowcraft/Fletching we saved enough gold to place a small house there in the woods and planted our first guild stone. The Royal Knights of Britannia, RKB were born. We attracted a few players from there in the woods and set about creating a plan for our guild. Our plan was based on my observation that other than Brit Bank, the towns and cities of Sosaria were all but abandoned. Players generally ignored the fabulous cities in the game and opted instead to hang out in their own player housing when they wern't out raiding dungeons, PKing or questing with guild-mates. I puzzled over this for some time and devised a plan to lead players into the cities and make use of these incredible spaces the Origin team had spent so much time creating.

    The plan was simple. We created, purchased and assembled an army's worth of iron plate armor, blue capes and white horses and started a slow and meandering march (in 2X2 cavalry formation) to Lord British's castle in Britain. We left Yew with 8 players and 2 days later arrived in Britain (by way of all corners of the game) with close to 40. Our march to Britain had exactly the effect I had hoped it would. Everywhere we traveled players came running to see who we were, what was going on, and most important to me, how they could join. And we were ready for them, with armor, capes, white horses and "Royal Knights of Britannia" above their heads. Silly? Yes, certainly. Fun? Without doubt. Effective? Absolutely. We rode across the bridge and past Brit Bank in procession and entered the castle. As we stabled our horses we accommodated the "join requests" from numerous other players who followed us through the city and joined us in the castle, asking questions, wanting to join, and still wondering if this was some sort of game sponsored quest or event. We all gathered in the Great Hall and I spoke very few words to all our new members that went something like this.

    "Fellow citizens! Royal Knights! I have grave news. Our Lords British and Blackthorn are missing and presumed dead!" I stood silent for a few moments and let the gathered crowd shout and murmur a bit before bidding them all go forth throughout the land with this news and to let the people know a council would be formed to govern, and to send emissaries to Britain as soon as possible. I informed the gathered citizenry that dark forces were afoot in Britannia and the Royal Knights stood ready to defend the realm, come what may, blah blah blah.

    To make a very long story short, the guild flourished and lasted many years on the Great Lakes shard. We occupied the castle in Britain for quite some time, using its halls and chambers, training ground, stables and nearby bank as our home. I asked that all RKB members log in and out of the game inside the castle. The overall effect was that Britain became a hub of activity and countless other players and guilds engaged us in role play, quests and adventures. Several other guilds were "spun-off" from RKB who filled likewise vital roles in a vibrant and seemingly ever growing community dedicated to serious fun and RP. At one point we formed a governing council and website called "Quest for Britannia" and organized quests, role play and fan fiction on the shard. Ultimately I engineered my own demise by way of a cowardly assassination (poisoned) by one of my own valets, thus retiring Lord Marcus and allowing room for new leadership and ideas. I stayed in the little world we created though, as other avatars and characters whom I shall not name.

    My son and I were later joined by my daughter, their cousin and a few friends from our neighborhood here in Las Vegas. We left Great Lakes and played several "free shards" after concluding EA Games would never undo the damage they had done to a fabulous game. And of course, finally, we stopped playing all together, as is inevitable. Our tenure in Ultima Online represents some of the best times of our lives, and in my case, a catalyst for family bonding and served as a role model for my children in more ways than I can count. We made life-long friends of guild-mates, allies and enemies alike. One of my best friends is a PK who killed me more times than I know. We've had the great privilege of visiting with some of them in real life in our travels around the country. It turns out our bonds transcend the avatar and are as strong and enjoyable in person as they ever were in the game. The memories, the nostalgia and the longing to return fill my old mind and compel me to bore you today with my meandering tale. So I'll get to the point.

    The Point of my Post

    We came here to Shroud of the Avatar in hopes of establishing a new guild and enjoying new role play and new adventures here. We're a group of 17 including my daughter and I. As of last Thursday all but 3 of us, after peeking into the game and doing a bit of exploring on the accounts my daughter created for that purpose, have decided this is probably not the game we're looking for. This is a bit of a disappointment considering we all see this as the obvious choice considering the legacy of the production team here. My daughter and one other of our group would like to stay and see if they can find new horizons and experiences here. Over the last couple of days we have had some deep discussions about all this and I have decided to follow the rest of the group wherever they may land and I would like to have at least this one chance to say why, and this thread Maya showed me is a good place to do that, as its quite relevant to the topic at hand.

    An Old Dudes Message

    @Kara Brae suggested that perhaps a set of rules may be adopted by all parties, thus appealing to everyone's honor, as a means to keeping engagements fun and satisfying for all. That's a very reasonable observation and it parallels my own view of the situation here in SOTA very well.

    Let me make something very clear before I get too far into my message to this community. I do not see the arguments by either side of this debate on this thread, or any of the other myriad debates and/or discussions on these forums as being more right or wrong than any other. To me, and to the rest of my group, they are all just pointless and counterproductive. In fact we see the forums themselves as being entirely counterproductive to the health and welfare of this community as a whole. All of this talk leads everyone away from the basic truth that never seems to get addressed in this game, because far too much is said and added upon by far too many others. From this old mans perspective, the culture here is destructive rather than constructive and it is getting worse not better. That's simply something a group of old men, and a young lady, are not keen to participate in. We know better. And what is this basic truth I speak of?

    In the old days of UO, and other games some of us have played, we all concentrated on actual game play, and role play and not clambering to a public forum where we can air our complaints, suggestions and all manner of criticism of this, that or the other thing. Were there problems with the game itself, back in the day? Probably, though to be honest I never really paid all that much attention to those things. I was having too much fun and far too busy actually engaging with other players inside the game to think about this or that aspect of the game being insufficient or broken. I'm sure some players may have contacted the developers with suggestions, on some sort of a private channel, probably email. I never did, and those complaints were certainly not in an open public forum which literally begs other players to jump in with their opinions. As a guild-master, I never brought any individual players complaints or grievances to the entire guild to debate and to muddy the waters. That would have been unthinkable. The end result would have been chaos, anarchy, and totally counter to our goals and objectives. Just as it is here.

    This game is more than sufficient to have meaningful and thoroughly enjoyable interaction among players. The doctrine of Res ipsa loquitur indicates it's this open forum, lack of moderation in chat, lack of supervision or monitoring, and the hands off approach to the population the publishers have taken that has led to this anarchy and contaminated culture in Shroud of the Avatar. In other words, this is what you can and should expect when human beings are left without guidance, rules, consequences and any form of moderation. I believe Maya said as much in another thread.

    For what it's worth, I wish you well, all of you. My wish for each and every one of you would be to have the chance to enjoy what we enjoyed in old UO. But in order to do that, you would have to stop posting here on these forums, stop reading Universal Chat, stop focusing on what you think is wrong with this game, and start engaging each other in respectful, meaningful and "fun" ways. @Kara Brae was right. @Maya SaintClaire is right. @Jaesun is right. Many of you do understand what I am saying, but many of you don't. The question is, can this community turn itself around and establish a healthy, productive culture suitable to having the kind of experiences that we enjoyed in Old Britannia? My feeling is that it cannot, and while that saddens me, and dashes my naive expectations of what I hoped we would find here, I have to be realistic and admit the prognosis for what ails this community is not great.

    So farewell to you all. I wish you all the best of luck, including my own daughter and my lifelong friend Colin, should they decide to stay.

    Well met, Avatars
     
  12. Mimner

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    @Marcus SaintClaire Thank you for your thoughtful post. I read it in its entirety, and thought you made some very good points.

    I am so sorry that your first impression of the SotA community has been tainted by many of the threads you will read on these forums. Unfortunately, the loudest and most obnoxious voices tend to dominate in such places, as you have pointed out in great detail. I would like to tell you that these voices are not representative of the SotA community as a whole.

    I've been with SotA since the Kickstarter. I've been here from the first release where we basically just had a single room with a bunch of chickens in it to run around in. I've watched this game evolve, one monthly release at a time, to the game that it is today. It has been a truly unique experience in the gaming world, with the community and the dev team informing each other from the very start of development. Not only has this community provided feedback which the devs have listened to and resulted in major improvements to the game, but also the community has pitched in countless ways to make their own contributions. We have radio stations which broadcast directly into the game, dance parties, theater troupes, costume contests, fishing contests, dungeons with vile inhabitants and bosses, a pvp system with a solid foundation but which unfortunately has been neglected for far to long, etc. There's a crafting museum where one can see every crafted piece of gear in the game and what different materials it can be made out of. There's a blade's museum with nearly every sword skin in the game. There's a giant player property set up like a boardgame very similar to Candy Land. Players have written all kinds of third party helper apps, check out sotahelp.org as there are way too many to list. There is a plethora of veteran players who are happy to go out of their way to help new players out. This includes the outstanding streaming community which has grown considerably in recent months. I could go on and on as this list just scratches the surface of the amazing contributions this community has made to the game, but I think you get the point.

    Anyway, thanks again for your thoughtful words. You put some time into that post and made yet another community driven contribution which I have no doubt will result in the improvement of this game which I have come to love. I hope that you'll not judge us too harshly on these emotional outbursts related to pvp and other frustrations.

    God speed and happy gaming to you and yours, where ever you land. The land of Novia will surely be a little less bright in your absence.
     
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  13. Boris Mondragon

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    *Reads entire thread and groans*

    As an outsider to this entire fiasco, I feel that a lot of things could be fixed here before this thread goes further south than intended. I was not privy to what happened but we need to fix this quickly as this kind of warfare minus the negative outcome is what I have been looking for and similar to what we did in New Heaven, Dragomir x 2 and Luna City. To Antrax Army and to Organized Chaos. I have a lot of fiends in both guilds and hope we can 1. Let the dust settle, 2. Come up with some rules for future engagement with verification. Folks, we are all we have in the search for large scale warfare. I will give you my humble proposal so once cooler heads prevail both groups can come up with a set of rules of engagement.

    I may not have much PVP experience here but we did this in UO Chesapeake Shard every other weekend and never had this much beef that was not settled quickly. We usually had 20 on 20 battles and our rules were simple, you died, you got out of the way to an agreed location until the battle ended. With our current party rules I think you are limited to a free for all or a more civilized approach until the party size is upped and the bugs fixed.

    So here goes my proposal: Agree to what buffs, poison etc can be used then pick a neutral site and announce the fight 8X8 two out of three claim the win. Have spectators and judges if you so wish who can identify future exploits. I see what could lead to future battles with other guilds throwing their best 8 forward and meaningful PVP. Who knows maybe we can get @Chris to give what is needed (Raid Parties) but in the meantime we can be civilized about it. Remember when it comes to PVP we are all we got.

    I will not take sides on this quarrel but instead offer solutions as we say "You are either part of the problem or part of the solutions". I learned a lot about human nature in my 2o years with the U.S. Air Force and in my 24 years with Department of Defense especially the last 12 working daily with Marines.

    R/Boris/El Pirata/Black Sails Forever.
     
  14. Hemswal The Descended

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  15. Sara Dreygon

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    • On-hit poison was tested today based on Antrax's thoughts that it was bugged and that it was being exploited
    • Mac, Vesper, Alistair, and me in my basement - four players in total, or three if I'm not counted
    • I hit Alistair 13 times - one after another very deliberately - with auto attack off and corpion poison applied
    • Below is the combat log showing it isn't bugged
    • This test took all of 5 minutes to complete if anyone wants to test for themself
    • Please continue using on-hit poisons without fear of being called an exploiter
    • Alistair and I have already accepted no apology

    [​IMG]
     
  16. Margaritte

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    Well, you might get called one, but that doesn't make it true ;)
     
  17. Barugon

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    One thing looks broken to me: poison is applied even though Alistair dodged. I noticed the same issue when fighting boars and their charge attack stun is applied even when I dodge. It's the same for other effects too. I made a bug report that has subsequently been ignored.
     
  18. Sara Dreygon

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    I could see that being bugged but believe it has always worked that way. Would make sense to not apply on dodge and parry but that seems a minor nuisance that affects me as much as everyone else so I'll still be using.
     
    Last edited: Aug 25, 2019
  19. Hornpipe

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  20. Chatele

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    "antrax-artek said:" PVP is not consensual in a guild war, it is intended to be forced PVP or the war itself would make no sense.

    That is why I will never join a guild in this game. I do not PVP, nor do I ever care too. I was in a guild that flagged for guild war, and I got flagged for it, even though I don't want to or care about PVP EVER, so I left the guild and refuse to join one because of it……. THE END ….
     
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