Can anyone think of any mechanical solution to help people like Donovain?

What if players in each main org could 'tether' themselves to their respective nexus and, if attacked by another player, they would boomerang back to the nexus? This would only work on the known planes (i.e., not manses or aetherbubbles). Once you are boomeranged, you cannot tether yourself until the next game day so going immediately back would be at your own risk. (This is just off the top of my head and I haven't really thought it through. Maybe some bad unforeseen metagame potential?)

See thats the thing...I hear that a lot. "Don't go off prime if you can't defend yourself...bring a grouap etc..."

By the way Vadi, you are by far not the worst offender. I flirted with posting my deaths list but that would just be ranting. I will post that I have 117 deaths in 5 months.

And I am trying to learn combat actually and its kinda fun. I am not only complaining for myself. In fact my complaint is because I do not want good people to leave. And your argument breaks down, logically, to this:

"If you don't like the way the game is now, then just leave, we like it that way."

And thats fine...and if I call you on that...if I actually leave, and these other people leave, and the playerbase drops like a stone or at the very least doesn't grow, is that what you want??

Not me. In 5 months I've fallen so in love with this game I want to bring all my friends in. Problem is, most of them won't play under the threat of "If you don't like it leave." If you stop and think about it, that is a terrible platform to take. It leaves no room for compromise or growth. And if thats where we are then, hey fine whatever man..like I said I'm a newb. I don't expect anyone to care if I go.

Then you're in essentially the same spot. You didn't get killed, so you avoided that, but you're still stuck not being able to go anywhere offplane without getting ganked until the next game day when you can tether yourself again.

EDIT: I think one good solution would be to change blood house honour gains to only earn points when you kill someone within a certain might range (ie. no gains for killing someone who's might is less than 10-20% of yours). Some of the people I see doing the killing lately (not saying the are griefing) makes me think they want blood house honour gain. Blood houses have the same inclination toward unwanted behavior as achievements for number of player kills. I think limiting who you can kill for honour gain might help mitigate things somewhat.

This is basically the reason why I help. I like to show spite to certain people.

Nah.

Tether to nexus, raid a village for the dwarves, pop out with miners. Or any of various other activities where having one 'free' escape with items is worthwhile. Also could use it to run into Serenwilde and just flit around looking for trees to chop until someone takes a swing at me. While I'm sure it would be amusing the first time or two, it would probably get tiresome after a few weeks.

Correct but I don't think that's 'essentially the same spot'. Off prime should be risky IMO.

That said, this was an off-the-top of my head idea. What about if you couldn't re-tether for 15 minutes?

Or what would your solution be? Or don't you think there is a problem and no solution is needed?

Mechanical Solution? That's incredibly easy when it comes to individuals. Remove the capacity for only two or three individuals to completely and instantly prevent any hope of escape. There's a huge difference between getting jumped and running, and getting jumped and helplessly slaughtered with no way to escape. The org issues are a different ball of wax.

That sounds good, but then Arel would say, "why can they only do this once? They still are afraid to go out and etc etc etc..."

I'd say that you choose how you are treated by joining an org and doing politics. If you want a peaceful life, go rogue. If you want a fighting life, go join an org that fights all the time like Donovain did. For benefits come duties.

Or if you really want a solution, follow a well-trampled path that works. There's a reason why so many Gloms have cloaking gems - not from an easy life.

There is no mechanical solution. The problem is player attitude. If you put in a mechanic to stop what they are doing, they will find another way to do it. You cannot change a player's attitude.

The players who act this way are well known to the playerbase, and I suspect the admin. It's a pattern that appears over time, then never goes away. It will take Admin intervention, saying, "Hey, knock it off" to get it to stop. No one can be the police except the Admin. They need to understand that what they are doing is toxic and harmful. And what if they quit? One player lost in a rage over their own actions is better than multiple players lost over actions not their own. The playerbase and game will be healthier for it.

Could you be more specific on what the 'incredibly easy' solution is?

Maybe tether wouldn't work in enemy territory to prevent that?

Fix the major issues your envoys have been telling you need fixing for years. Really can't get more specific than that without losing my cool and ranting. I have issues with that and don't want to end up breaking out my frothe emote. At least not in public.

It would still be a stop gap for the real problem. With a tether in place, the griefers would find other ways to do their thing, and we'd be in the same place. How many changes have been made to enemy territory, deaths, conglutination, distortion, Avenger, and skills to stop people from griefing? They work for a while, then the griefers find a new way to do it. Because they can and area allowed to. Mechanics just don't stop griefing.

BTW, to the person who saw someone tell their buddies to get the killing blow in order to avoid Avenger, I'm fairly certain that's issueable.

Currently, I don't think the issue lies in griefing as much as how it is done. Currently, there are some highly unbalanced skills and the minority who choose to attack for no other reason than they can. Currently, this minority uses these abilities to make situations where it is impossible to escape or fight back, which causes much of the frustration I have heard from others in OOC communication, including the individual who sent you this email, as well as several others. While the unbalanced skills need to be looked at, and currently are being reviewed by the envoy system, the major problem is said individuals who kill others for no reason other than they can, which is causing this... problem in the mind of certain players.

I will admit, I have been attacked and killed by several of these individuals. It's not really "griefing" as much as killing because they enjoy it, as I see it. However, I am rarely one of the ones targeted - usually only while defending or during revolts/aetherflares. I can name other individuals who are killed relentlessly by certain individuals should they even step foot off Prime, and because of the aforementioned abilities, have no chance of fighting back. This individual is currently taking a break from Lusternia because they no longer find they can enjoy the game in the current environment. I can name three individuals who have gone as far to take a break/stop playing because of griefing/constant killing, and it's not coming from one side, but a few.

The fact is, though these individuals may center around a certain organization, it is not the organizations themselves, or even a majority of the members of them, but small groups within these organizations who do so. These individuals and groups, however, sometimes do take it to an extreme. Currently, it is my view that recent changes only reinforce the goal of "griefing", such as the "House of Blood" role of great houses which allows houses to gain honour for killing indiscriminately. I do not intend to speak out against the house system, but this does seem to reinforce it.

The attacking of newbies, non-combatants, and such is a problem, but as non-combatant is not exactly a supported role coded in, it is near impossible to prevent. Newbie killing, as I understand it, has been punished in the past and continues to be punished should it occur. Avenger, while useful for Prime, is useless in protecting those who step off plane, which can be a necessity for certain individuals (see: planar collegium quests, essence hunting, certain guilds who require extraplanar travel).

Currently, the most I could recommend is addressing balance concerns that make combat in the game extremely one-sided, and possible monitoring of certain individuals as complaints come up. The tethering solution you posted is not a bad idea and could be useful, but it would be too easily abused. Add to that the fact that demigods can divinefire and not be affected by guards (it is not an uncommon occurance that a few demigods go in and slaughter 40 guards), and it will likely not work unless it slings them back to the prime nexus. However, I do agree with Everiine that it is a problem with player attitudes more than something that can be mechanically solved. Another individual stated in Skype the idea of a "non-com" flag that acted like a form of grace, but this can be easily abused and I would personally oppose it, hopefully before the idea is mentioned here.

Are you suggesting the admin should subjectively determine who is and isn't griefing, tell them to cut-it out, and then if they do not curb their griefing (as subjectively determined by the admin), they should be punished? Just asking!

For one, admin our volunteers and do this as a hobby, and I am not sure any would volunteer to make such subjective determinations. Thus, it may totally fall on me, and my personal experience has shown, that could open a floodgates of complaints demanding I arbitrate who is and isn't griefing, as well as people trying to game how to make it appear as though people are griefing. Trust me, the situation would end up worse!

Thus, I have preferred to look at mechanical solutions wherever possible.

Subjectiveness is very bad in any mud involving PK. Very bad.

wut

Do Not Like

I think there is a different between "risky" and "ganked for little to no reason every time I go off-prime" (which is what I understand the complaint as).

I can't really say I think there is a problem at this point (but I'm only one person and have a limited scope to what I see). I've seen some increased activity from Krellan and assorted Glom killing non-enemies and some people who aren't combatants, but like I said, I haven't seen it so frequently for it to be discouraging and it's only happened to me a couple of times. My solution to that would be a minor to change how honour gains work for wonton killing in Blood Houses (see my above edit if you're at all interested in going that route). But again, this is all just my single perspective. I've been through a lot in the game, so I haven't been more than slightly annoyed at what I've seen lately.

Maybe Innocence could be extended? People can hit circle 20 really quick without much effort.

With any mechanic or change you did implement, I would say to be much harsher with punishing people who attempt to exploit them for unintended purposes. Especially with repeat offenders.

I'm definitely not a griefer (I'm basically as non-com as they come), but I wanted to address this... How is it Glom's fault that the Furies rejected report 556 (which had basically everyone's support) and Estarra decided to sell the pliers at the auction? Or are you referring to the people on the forums that convinced her to sell them as regular artifacts for 1500 (as opposed to them being limited and likely to sell for 4000+)?