Disruption of Events in PvP POT's...

Hey, I meant nothing personal. I see fluff as anything that isn't essential to the game launching. Bugs are not fluff. Extra controls are. That's my terminology. My opinion is my own and you obviously see these controls as essential and important. I don't. You don't need to have 10k people... you just need 30. Why? Because the instances are unplayable for PvP beyond 60 people. I've tried it. I've had FFA tournaments with 100 people in an instance... it isn't playable. I don't know what the scene caps are but they're not beyond 128 if the devs are paying attention to performance.

That said: my solution wasn't my guild... my solution was a strong community network and allies. I am fully aware of the issue. That's why my response wasn't "go fix this on your own" it was "Hey, how can we help, tell us who's bothering you, let us work together as a community"

Nothing personal here. Just my opinion that those systems should be episode 2.

 

I must have been confused by the report I received of his recruiting pitch and the "we are a Game of Thrones style group" Guild post. I just assumed that he was all-in-on PvP. I guess I stand corrected.

PvP in Shroud of the Avatar isn't great. The only good thing is free PvP once people opt into the system. The recent, you stay flagged until you go to the Oracle thing is just as big a joke. Regardless, I feel:

Opt-ing into PvP makes you fair game anywhere, anytime, and versus anyone likewise opt-ing.
#1 Once you opt-in their are no rules. Technically there is no fair, no foul, only opt-ing in or opt-ing out. In general terms rules in PvP are for people that can't win without crutches.
#2 Now all that said, it would be nice to have some controls for event organizers to allow PvP style events to occur with minimal impact from troublemakers that violate the social norms of the community that enjoys PvP but doesn't want to be hassled by random attacks at events. There aren't enough PvP-ers in the game and there aren't enough PvP style events to allow folks to interact beyond just random hunter/killer type stuff. Without some reasonable controls less events will be organized, less people will PvP, and everyone looking to join the game will realize the shocking secret "Shroud is a PvE game!"

V/R Brickbat

 

This is all in the eyes of the event holder vs the "griefer". Now if it s controlled fight and players are just running in an jumping in and healing or killing the participants that is griefing.

The mentality that you are PvP and therefore I can do whatever I want, wherever, whenever is exactly why PvPers in general get a bad rap and therefore the 95% of the rest of the community wants nothing at all to do with PvP. And the rest of the "righteous" PvPers basically get screwed.

If you disrupt and event weather PvP or anything else, Port has stated they will deal with it. Record a Video, Submit it, and wait for the reaction .

As for the player solution - hang the same video on these boards and let the community decide how to deal with them. Eventually those that are here to do nothing but be disruptive will be banned from just about everywhere and the game for them will just die out.

Oh and PvP POTs should still have the right to ban, but it should only last for 24 hours, that way they are removed for the entire even time.

Res killing them is not the solution.

they have already banned players who want nothing more than to be disruptive - DLTDHYOTAOTWO.

 

When you left vengeance harshly the other day you painted OoV to be strictly PvP when we had 35 members who didn't pvp and 3 who had PK playstyles and they've left. It's going to happen. You guys (3 or 4 of you) left "to get away from PvP" and then recruited pvpers and went around telling everyone you are at war with us... you PK'd me while I was afk (didn't even know it happened until over a week after because I was afk so long I d/c'd and never saw it) and took a screenshot as a guild standing over my body... William took that screenshot... A LOT of people want you dead now. You can't get mad you're in that box. You also, as a guild, paid for contracts to be carried out during the monthly auction which took place IN BRITTANY (a non pvp town)... you can't attack this guy publicly for saying what you did just 3 weeks ago to someone else

(p.s. I love the fact you guys gave gold to get PvP players to PvP so I'm not trying to discourage it. I just think you should be careful jumping this guy for putting you in a box when you put yourself in that box on your own)

Also, you can claim all you want that OTC and OOV are one guild... but we're not. We're a far cry from one guild. You can continue championing that your guild master is innocent in this matter I've done absolutely nothing to respond to your attacks and claims until this moment. I've simply defended myself once extremely vaguely in our guild thread because you guys were lying to our allies saying we wanted war. Not cool.

I don't think Serenite has a place in this conversation. They're not a pvp town and you guys have been trying to stir the pot a lot lately. As a PvP town owner I can speak to the fact that you guys stated very clearly you wanted nothing to do with pvp towns and you didn't want to participate in them just less than a month ago. Be careful to say otherwise because I have a LOT of documentation on all of this. If you attempt to champion a change in this game that negatively impacts PvP there is a large enough community that will stop it that I'm not concerned. If you attempt to paint a different tale than the truth I will come in and have a few words because I RP an avatar of Justice: TRUTH and love.

My love has kept me silent this last month while the lies have spread. My truth has caused me to post this now. I appreciate that you guys have created pvp but I do not appreciate you claiming your guild that has a guild master who screenshots a PK on an afk player and stirs up riots and wars amongst guilds is anything but an RP-PVP guild. When your "armies general" comes into my teamspeak and says they will continue to kill us every chance they get and we both agree it's good for the pvp in the game to allow this... you can't turn around and claim anything else. No grief here. Just a guy who talked way to big for his own britches getting killed because he couldn't stop talking

Oh, and the kills weren't in the tournament field... and it didn't involve tournament attendees, participants, or anyone who didn't directly try to kill them for killing your GM. And, after they got the kill, they left... they didn't come back until the next event... and the next week they got 1 kill and left... so I'm 100% sure that's not the issue EVL is bringing up because that's not even close to grief.

EDIT: P.S.: I just confirmed with them that they didn't even target anyone else... they only targeted William. They also got paid in the game to do this so it was RP-PVP.

 

I would like to see this system revisited sometime after launch. I think FPO should be anyone on your friends list being allowed to teleport, with a scroll, into your scene.

 

I'm actually in favor of an open world PVP game where everyone that wants the safety of PVE has to earn it through quests.... that would be awesome.

One thing I really don't agree with is waiting for Ep2 to sort it out. If anything, this should get some resolution rather quickly - at least an acknowledgment and some Q&A. People have POTs for their own reasons, and if that's PVP or PVE or a combination of the two - we all paid lots of money to write our own stories. However this turns out - none of us should have to wait for Ep2 for answers or solutions to what we can all agree is essential to how we play.

 

I like the open world pvp idea you have. As for this issue, it has been hashed and rehashed over several yrs and threads. I will try to find some links, but the current solution is the culmination of yrs of discussion already. I agree that the bugs and limited groups at the moment are causing havoc, but thats stuff that can be worked out. *goes looking for old threads*

 

I get that. I just prioritize it lower. I feel like I'm playing this game either way... that said, I get it... we have a lot of money tied up.

yeah... this has been talked about a lot... I don't think there will ever be a solution for everyone lol.

 

Drocis the scaling thing seems reasonable. If they own a metropolis or a city it is not likely that setting up npc guards is enough.

However why not let a guild have a PvP metropolis and let them get slaughtered by 20 camped PvPers IF big IF, they don't build defenses.

Perhaps paying for NPC guards might work in a holdfast since it is a smaller space. But a large city might need something else. Baracades, shield generators... stiff that needs to be broken into. Instead of an NPC guard what about NPC guard towers that send off alarms.

All stuff that might be really expensive and take time to aquire.

Or maybe there needs to be a purchasable control point type thing that makes it more and more difficult for the enemies the loger they camp the town. If not waves of guards something.


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However since this is their town, why not allow town owners to aquire special pasword protected teleporters like UO had pasword teleporters in T2A. The password teleporters could be used to teleport players up to the rooftops to shoot arrows and spells down on enemies and also buildings with arrow slits that allow players to have a tactical advantage against larger numbers of enemies.

So these bunker buidlings could be a serious advantage and cause attackers to be at a disadvantage. But make them expensive enough that the whole town cannot be fitted with it but when undersiege the guild can retreat to the center of town or to the castle or werever the fortifications are concentrated. Then some well placed traps and bombs too.

So a well fitteed PvP town shouldn't be taken over by bandits, and if the fight gets nasty then they can retreat shut th gates and hope the have enough food to hold them over till the threat dies down... or whatever.

I'm sure the devs have ideas that will make something work that is fun. This is just imagery of ideas I got from what they've already talked about and expanded upon ideas from history. Whatever it ends up looking like will probably be more fortifications and tactical advantages. That's my guess.

 

We did this with locked doors and adding people to a lot. I used my duke keep walls. The issue is that the game wasn't up for the task. It's nearly impossible to fight from the top of a wall to a floor without finding issues... major issues. either the walls can be overcome with skills like they weren't even there OR the player can not be targeted OR the person above cannot be hit when they can clearly be seen OR... bugs. Which is why I vote for fixing bugs first.

 

As a Person who runs a town that is supposed to be pvp and is not due to the loss of restrictions for banning players from a pvp town I understand the issue being raised.

Now as a guild leader of one of the guild's at war with the House of lanister err sorry house of serinite. The only time he flags is when he is at the event. Yes i killed him 2 or 3 weeks ago at the event we killed him and left. it was about killing him and it was done between fights. I even notified amara john that he would be killing me in a few mins. was waiting for the current fight to end.

I was not there at the last event as i had other events i had commitments to and could not attend. The event was attacked again by a different guild. they were attacking an individual player at the event. and then they left.

there are 4 more guild's at war with this individual. I highly doubt they will not take advantage if that player shows up. I am not attending the event cause i know my self well enough that if i see him anywhere i doubt i would not attack and kill him on sight when he is flagged.

I have had 4 contracts put on my head coming from his guild so yes any time i see one of his players i will kill them. Him hiding in your event and bragging how i cant kill him there makes it all that much more enticing to hit him there.

Hate to say this but if you banned 1 person from your event the major issue would be gone as there would be no reason to go to your event to head hunt the individual and we would go to spectate or participate.

However in the future when we have 1,000's of players playing the game the kumbieya phase of honorable pvp will be gone. there will be players who will go to these events just to kill people cause it will have a large population of people in a single area that are flagged. that will be a huge draw to true griefers not the players that have been killing william.

 

Yeah additing new stuff is just going to add more bugs. Yeah fixing the bugs is probably better than having them spend their time to break PvP before fixing the bugs.

In fact why even plan on fixes for pvp until we experience PvP after the bugs are fixed? The issues people want to fix might not be the same once the bugs are fixed.

 

@Solaris Aeternum

When I talk about scaling, I'm talking about does the supply meet the demand. If a "player only" solution is the best we can do, then the answer is clearly no. Think of it like this. If you have 2,000 users that want to play SOTA but can only provide bandwidth for 200 of them, that's not good. The same thing applies here. If the "community solution" is all we have, then a huge percentage of people are going to be getting spawn camped while some areas are "just fine" or "competitive" or "also not doing well". It's not a good solution if you're thinking about more than two feet in front of your face. It doesn't allow PVP to thrive at all hours of the day, regardless of playstyle.

Also, don't mistake what I'm saying about NPC guards. I'm not trying to get NPC guards to lock everything down so that no one can PVP. What would be the point of that?

Let's use Rats Nest as an example because this is something that I have to think about on a daily basis. It's not a guild, it's a free town where anyone that wants to live there can so long as they're capable of following two very simple rules. 1. Pay your taxes in full and on time. 2. Don't attack the owner. I'm sure some people don't really understand what I'm trying to do in my POT, so I'm going to break down for everyone.

I'm not trying to create a pvp arena. I'm not trying to create a place where my will is law. I'm trying to provide a place where the players ARE the solution. HOWEVER, I'm not being stupid about it. I realize that if every step you take in Rats Nest involves someone stealing from you or stabbing you in the back, no one is going to want to live there. People will live someone else that can keep their stuff safe (like a non-pvp town) and they'll come visit Rats Nest when they feel like being tough or they feel like ganking whoever happens to be there. And I understand that some people really enjoy that type of pvp and that's fine. But that's not what I'm trying to build.

What I want is a place that is very dangerous but that has areas where people can shop and trade and actually sit down and talk to one another without random acts of violence completely screwing it all up. In order to provide that type of atmosphere I can't possibly expect to have "players" that will guard and protect those areas 24x7. But I can expect to have NPC's that are really buff patrolling those areas (not the whole town) where I want trade and conversation to happen. It doesn't mean that there won't still be fighting in taverns and at the bank, there will! But if it happens to be you vs. 5 guys that just want to kill everyone, the guards should be on your side and even the odds. Maybe it just gives you time to escape, maybe it just gives you an opportunity to hide, but the point is that you don't have to call anyone, you only have to be smart about where you are in the town.

The same exact logic applies to "events" in these other towns that are not geared towards "open pvp" as much as Rats Nest. They might have a stage or an open air arena and having players stand around waiting for trouble makers that may or may not show up is fine, but it's not scalable across the world and it's not reliable (or stable) because of all the things I mentioned before. What NPC guards do is they augment a POT owners ability to provide REASONABLE protection against a force that only wants to disrupt whatever is happening in that area. It doesn't stop people from setting up ambushes on the way TO that area. It doesn't stop people from planning something devious AROUND that area. It just provides a place where people can sit down and relax a little instead of being on high alert and running through the area for their life.

Without NPC Guards, the ability for PVP towns to have a viable commerce and trade is near zero. As no merchants are going to want to stock vendors there because the no one is going to want to go there to buy things. It's not safe enough. Without NPC Guards, players are not going to want to craft in the town. It's all risk and no reward.

Look, there's a lot of nice ideas floating around that have some value. But the biggest positive impact for PVP would be to create NPC Guards that will provide reasonable protection in defined areas. If we do that pvp will take off.

 

In general terms I don't think there is bad blood between EVL and anyone else over this.

The Assassins - A few people got lot banned, nature of the beast. As hosts for the event EVL as any other host would tries to ensure the safety of our guests. Most of the events like this in the past I have seen with troublemakers showing up, the hosts usually run them off and bloodthirsty PvP crowds usually gleefully help. I completely understand the motivation of hitting at a target whenever, wherever, however you can and salute your efforts.

The Target - I don't think Lord Robin, Lord of the Eyrie, Defender of the Vale, and Warden of the East intentional came to our event these last few weeks in some Machiavellian plot to get a war started or negatively impact our political relations/hurt people's feelings. Your welcome to keep attending as is anyone playing the game.

Spoiler

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Robert_Arryn

This thread is about the fact that as event organizers we lack the tools to make a fun, exciting, safe for our guests, staff, and participants environment to hold events in. To my knowledge we're hosting the only weekly PvP event in the game. All are welcome at the Virtue League, those wish to attend as spectators or participants. A lot of creative energy is being put into solutions to overcome the hurdles that the game mechanics throw at us.

Sometimes you can only go so far - blood might be spilled on occasion, it's a video game...the immersion crowd is on the way with torches to ensure you experience it the way they (the immersion crowd) want you to, not the way you want to.

V/R Brickbat

 

POT owners should be able to do whatever the hell they want with their POT including temporary or permanent bans. It's their town. They paid for it. Their rules. Simple. Don't like it? Visit another POT.

 

The owner (governor) of a POT should be able to ban whomever they want whether it be pvp or not. They paid for it so they have the right to run it how they choose. Yes, I'm lawyering bro.

 

That was my stance too before they put the rules in that said you couldn't ban anyone in a pvp POT.

I was looking forward to being one of the only POTs that would never ban anyone for any reason. I felt that was going to be a huge advantage that my POT had over other POTs that talk like they have freedom but don't actually carry through with it when push comes to shove. Which is fine, to each their own.

But now that no PVP POT is able to ban players, the solution is not to simply allow them to ban players. Without the proper tools in place, no POT owner can have meaningful PVP. Banning players for PVPing is not a proper tool, it's a way to further segregate players without needing to build the proper tools. In short, it's a very lazy way of giving POT owners control, but it turns PVP into a black and white event in the process. If I were only interested in staged events then banning players would be wonderful, but because I'm interested in roleplaying and pvp, that's not a good option. It's too restrictive for people that want balanced risk and reward.

 

Which is why, as someone who ran pvp events weekly (and daily for over a month), for over a year... I assure you if there is an issue that you or someone else doing a PvP event is having... until the systems are in place you should just let us know who is causing the issues. Let us, the community, work to make this pre-alpha (and soon to be early release) game as functional as possible.

There were attempts to make the PvP "Arena" basement safe for viewers on the outside... I remember there is a tournament arena in-game somewhere (I think it was in Braemar) that they actually achieved this functionality. The issue was the one-sided event type that could be held because it wasn't a player-owned or operated environment. The system was so limited in what type of event we could have I never found a use for the place. The devs have tried over-and-over to solve this issue without halting production on the game.

I had a LOT of issues with griefers for a few months and got to the point of quitting the game for almost 4 months over them. I've had people trash talk me, DOS my voice servers, threaten me IRL, and brute force my business servers (never cracked an account... STRONG PASSWORDS FTW!), and more... and it all traced back to this community. That is grief. Threatening my IRL mother, who was not RPing as my mother, and killing her and standing over her corpse in her own house waiting for her saying "call for your son, mommy can't save herself"... that's grief.

These are things I've faced and I'd love to help you guys with connecting you to the amazing people in the community that are WAY better than the trolls and griefers. The good people of the PaxLair Guards, 2600, Memento Mori, Pax Et Veritas, Order Through Chaos, OWL, 4B, Order of Vengeance, and countless others will step up and help you.

 

I just wanted to point out that technically I don't believe these actions were griefing, and I carfeully looked through several definitions to check this. This may only be a minor point, but in a sandbox roleplaying game with pvp elements I think that you need to be mindful of what true actions constitute griefing.

Having said that I support your call for temp bans in order to assist with staged events, but only if the temp ban on the player lasted for a few hours, then couldn't be repeated for a cooldown period (say a few days).

 

Open PvP is open PvP. The rules are global and not zone specific. Having an event in open PvP and expecting a different set of rules is confusing.

That being said, I fully support adding venues for structured events of all kinds.

If they are adding theaters that can be used to put on a show and charge admission then they should be able to add something similar for PvP events.

Maybe something a POT owner could place in the POT, list fields, where rules could be enforced.