This isn't meant to come off as rude, but is the fighting that results from a jumping more exciting than smacking someone with a gauntlet or having a war game in the arena? Or do different people participate inside the arena compared to outside? I was trying to think of ways to draw people into a fight other than jumping someone, but this question floated up.

So yeah, why is it ok to encourage griefing for family honour but not ok to encourage griefing for achievements?

"On the plus side" literally means it wasn't the point of the kill. It's a bonus.

Edit: My post was in response to this




Fighting outside the arena is different from inside. For one, cures get used up. Your exp is at stake. Different people have different ideas, of course. For some, an arena duel is just as srsbznz as OOA fights, for others, they live only for OOA. Deaths of any kind are usually demoralizing. Wins of any kind are usually thrilling. The exact degree differs for most people, but as a general rule, OOA fights are usually more exciting. Alot of people PK, whether in arena or out, for this thrill and this thrill alone. RP reasons and stuff might be icing on the cake instead of being the real motivation for PK. Means to an end, so to speak.

There are people who are willing to sit with you in neutral territory and RP out conflict with emotes, but there are others who would jump you the moment you set foot in faethorn. It varies from person to person, both the jumper and the jumpee. I know I've talked with Xiran once or twice before, rudely, of course, but I'd not hesitate to start out swinging with other individuals.

This is pk-griefing. I know they're not killing me to stop me doing quests/helping novices. They're killing me bacuse thay can.

I'm a non-com, and my enjoyment of the game (IE doing quests and helping novices) is being taken away from me because every time I go to Faethorn I get jumped and killed. I feel bad when I have to say to a novice 'Sorry, I can't help you with your plane quest, because is watching Faethorn and will kill me if I go there'. I feel bad whenever I see people with a Flame, and think 'I may never get my full quota of Serenwilde honours lines because Faethorn is death'.

The only griefing I'm getting is from being in Faethorn. So on the one hand I'm being told here 'Don't complain about dying off-prime because off-prime is supposed to be dangerous' and on the other hand the game itself is telling me 'You have to go off prime in order to to do the non-com parts of the game you love'. And that sucks.

There are loads and loads of quests. If you cannot do the Epic today, do it tomorrow. Not sure I understand that. That others have a Flame (and quite a lot of them) should tell you that it's not an impossible feat to finish the quest. Or do you think each of those single-handedly fought the endless masses of griefers on their own while questing in Faethorn?

I can't do it tomorrow, because tomorrow, Full Moon is at 3:00 when I am sleeping, or between 7:00-16:00 when I am working. Full Moon does not often coincide with the times I am available to be in the realms. It happens once a week if I'm lucky. I've attempted the quest every time I possibly could since i've been back in the realms, and managed to do it twice.

But this is beside the point. The point is that someone who has repeatedly said on the forums that she is a non-com, who has sent a message to the person killing her, and who has other people ask the griefiers to stop killing her, is still being killed because people can kill her.

I have suggested rather simple solutions that will keep me away from areas I can be killed in, or give me flexibility to take advantage of griefers not being around at certain times. Because I'm perfectly happy to work around griefers as long as I can quest and help novices.

If only this thread was about the serenwilde epic quest... but.. it's not..

'Griefing' has nothing to do with mechanics, it has nothing to do with wether your quest is easy or not, it doesn't even have to do with who has choke. It's a players mindset and attitude at any given time. This cannot be changed by adding in 'tether' or a 'npk flag'. We are real players, with real feelings and sometimes people are hateful, sometimes they get frustrated or sad and/or just feel put out with said hateful person. We could also call this life.

I'm not arguing against or for anything. My point is simply that any added mechanic or even any amount of admin backhand slap of justice, just won't reach through the screen and change someone's personality. And we all need to be aware of this, acknowledge the fact that the only way 'Griefing' is going away is if the entire world holds hands and sings some sort of angelic hallelujah song of happiness and joy. And we all know the odds of that, right?

You can always only change behaviour, never intentions. That's what laws are for, not to create morality, but to force people to behave in certain ways. You cannot change the mindset of a griefer, but you can mechanically limit their means and thus make others feel less... griefed.

EDIT: Intentions and mindsets can be changed, too, don't get me wrong. But that's a whole different process, and people can always disagree.

I'm not really sure if epic quests constitute "non-com". The fact that you can look at the Seren quest line up and say this is probably a bit aggravating to cities who need to do the sea battle or the mirror quest in the skarch. If the only thing stopping you is getting a few fae, well... quite frankly, that is nothing. And I'd be more inclined to think it is very strange that no one is willing to help you get those few fae, or plan around it in advance if it is absolutely the only thing.

PS, Seren-side of Hilfarae should totally take 3-hours of repops to complete for no reason other than making you wait three hours. That or make Glom's doable in one.

The Serenwilde Epic Quest is not a good example of 'Griefing in Lusternia' as it's pretty hard to disrupt provided you prepare well in advance. It is also something that org mates can easily chip in to help. ( And it's a lot easier than the other organisations'. )



For the most part you can quest and help novices without being 'griefed'. It seems like it's already pretty good when the exceptions are when you can get griefed, rather than the other way round.

Serenwilde epic is easy compared to the others. Getting that last one fae should be simple if you just get someone to help.

While I tried to read through all of the posts, I'm afraid quite a few of them seem to be lobbying for personal issues which are only slightly related to the topic at hand, only because Estarra said she will be monitoring the thread. Despite that, I think that there are some good suggestions in the thread which tackles the main issue that can be addressed with mechanics: griefing of newbies.

- Raise the level cap for Innocence. Level 20 can be easily achieved by just about anyone in a short amount of time. Either raise it to level 50-60, or instead of basing it on level, base it on playing time.
- Modify Innocence so that newbies above level 20 but want to bash outside of Newton/vermin do not have to reject innocence. Suggestions which have been raised include allowing newbies with innocence to bash only non-loyal and/or non-enemying mobs. Personally, I'd lean towards just non-loyal mobs, because that would still allow them to do quests like those in the Verasivir Valley.

Bolded to point out the part I particularly liked. Innocence does end too soon, but putting it at a higher level is kind of unwieldy. If I'm not mistaken, you can pick a mentor at any time up until you have 50 hours of play complete. I think 50 hours might be a good time to comparatively say that you don't need innocence anymore, if you are at the point where you can no longer claim a mentor for yourself.

EDIT:

For the second point, it should probably be made so that you can't bash mobs that are off-prime as well. Just imagine having some rebellious novice taking essence from your respective plane and only being able to enemy them, but not properly remove them. Yeah, that's not going to be abused...

No one seems to be understanding what I am saying. You are focusing on my examples, and not on my meaning. Forget about the quest.

I will try again:
The game itself is telling non-combatants to go to/through Faethorn for various non-combat reasons, but is providing them little defence because non-prime is 'dangerous'. Prime has the Avenger to protect you. Faethorn does not. This is why griefers are able to take advantage of people.

It's all very well adding mechanics like tether and so on, but that is like treating the symptoms whilst ignoring the underlying problem. For as long as non-coms are being encouraged to go to areas where griefers can target them, we will have problems.

I would say a large issue here is faethorn specific (to starfire Q). Its incredibly easy for people to spot who's in faethorn without putting in any extra effort and then they can just jump no problem and escape. Having said that, I think its important to have a faethorn-like area that the orgs can easily hop onto and acts as a battle field. I tend to have fun in those faethorn brawls (most of the time anyways).

Somebody mentioned ideas of making it harder to scry - which I think is the way to go to be honest. Lowering aethersight so its more reasonable for everybody to get - and remove locations from who list would go a long way in lowering random jumpings on astral/enemied bashing places on prime. Scrying enchantments are easy enough to get.

Is it asked too much that you even only try to take care of yourself up to a certain point? Which means, to keep your eyes open and RUN when in danger? You'll still die sometimes, that's something you'll have to accept, it happens to everyone, combatant or not.

If your point is that no quests should ever involve going into PK territory, then I'm going to have to respectfully disagree. The game isn't telling you to do anything. The game is giving you the opportunity to do something. And it involves going off prime. The rewards for going off prime to do this thing should be higher than, say, the rewards for completing a quest that doesn't pull you off prime to complete it. But I think specifically anything labeled an 'epic' quest should probably involve a high degree of risk. I mean, the quest for the golden fleece would not have been nearly so epic if it had turned out to be a couple blocks down the road and in the candy shop. And the reward is a lot nicer than the rewards I've seen or heard about from most quests.

You can't entirely divorce the circumstances from the argument. Or if you do, it ends up coming across as "quests shouldn't go off prime cuz it's dangerous" and I don't agree with this. There are lots of quests in this game. Some of them will involve going into risky, dangerous territory.


For good or ill, the communes have decided "to hell with maeve's wishes, faethorn is a battle ground" and you're in one of those communes. I don't think it's being griefed if you walk across a battle field in the area between two opposiing armies, and your enemies take you out. Does it suck? Ayup. But if we try to police it too hard, or try to shift all non-pk content into avenger protected space only, the game is going to lose a lot. Lusternia isn't a happy world. If you've read the lore (and I'm not saying you haven't, nor that I'm an expert) you can see that this is a pretty crappy world to live in. When the premise starts off with "this valley is the one place where civilization has stood up" you're making a pretty bold statement away from sunshine and rainbows.

So... yeah, battlefields happen. And expecting someone to let you through just because you don't want to fight is a little naive. Sure, I don't doubt you just wanna get the quest done, but as an army on one side of the battlefield, could you really take that chance?

just my two cents.

Starfire Q, I think you're asking for a bit too much here. You're basically asking for a free pass as a non-com.

Back when I first started, I was a faeling Shadowdancer influencer. Zero combat ability with Wicca up to Sprite (for the mana regen), and Night up to Cauldron (for the coolness of having a cauldron) and Inept Hexes (because flinging Fear hexes was fun enough for non-com me). That was back when Serenwilde was the top organisation in Lusternia, and Glomdoring was the tiny runt of the Basin. Although people back then mostly kept to Maeve's instructions to keep our fighting out of Faethorn, I pretty much lived in Faethorn gathering fae non-stop, and I was enemied for gathering Moon fae, so I always run the risk of being ganked. However, to make sure that I survived, I always carried a few spores from the mushroom circle at Ethereal Ravenwood. I also spammed WHO and SCENT pretty much all the time, so the moment I see a Serenwilde combatant, I immediately snort my spores and wait at Ravenwood until they leave (and then get back to 'stealing' those fae ). I don't always manage to snort spores in time, but I still manage to be on Faethorn safely enough.

While the circumstances may not be exactly the same, being a non-combatant doesn't mean that you get to be invulnerable. In fact, it is more realistic that the 'good' non-combatants are those that learn how to survive. Holding up a card that says 'I'm a non-com, don't hurt me' doesn't work as a viable shield or protection, and you should find ways to escape and run in order to survive as a non-combatant.

This is the reason why I don't feel that there is a need for more mechanical ways to avoid griefing if you're no longer a newbie. And this is why I only advocate for mechanics to prevent griefing of novices, who are new and unable or do not know how to avoid griefing. That way, Innocence would allow for a long enough buffer time for the novice to get the hang of a text game, maybe find a mentor, and learn from their city and guild mates how to survive in the conflict-driven world that is Lusternia.

Just read through most of the thread, would like to make a few points out of what has occured to me:

This is a free game, being required to spend money on things (Gem of cloaking, aethersight) so that people can't be as annoying as possible to you and so that you can actually find the game enjoyable is not the right idea. Especially when it comes to younger people where it shouldn't even almost be expected of them (Aisons alt that got griefed for example)

The tethering idea doesn't really 'solve' the problem of griefing but it does go some way to making life better. I for one would be glad to have it but I would also be feeling a bit cheated if finally it was decided that the issue of griefing would be adressed and all we got was something that would save my life every once in a while. The intention behind the griefing is still there and the people doing it would still be achieving the same result (keeping you holed up in your city until your tether comes back).

Is griefing a problem? Yes, yes it is. But not because I've been ganked and not because anyone I know has been ganked. Griefing is a problem solely because someone has been emotionally upset enough to email Estarra and say "I am upset at this, this is a problem.", you don't get to decide how hurtful or infuriating something you do is to someone else, nor do you get the right to defend your actions and say "Grow up.".



Now, I also liked the idea that someone came up with to be able to brand yourself with semi-permenant grace. I had some thoughts about what could be added to the idea, I skipped the last few pages so sorry if they've already been come up with:

-If someone has taken the grace they physically cannot enter enemy territory, nor can they enter any domoth or any village that is revolting.

-Entering the grace takes one year/month/some other long time, within such time you cannot take an offensive action, nor do anything that would be restricted upon taking the grace.

-Leaving the grace will take all your power reserves but can be done instantly. Meaning you can come back to combat but you'll be weaker for a little while, reasons for that should be pretty obvious.