the trouble with balance, or, I'm the ha-aa-at! I'm the hat!

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 8:07 pm

Sadly, RO's and WoW's PvP systems are miles better.

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 1:05 am

FrankTrollman wrote:NIN, that's a bad example. First Person Shooters do not normally give your character unlockable bonuses for holding Dance Offs in CTF arenas. If people were running those danceoffs on a regular fucking basis in order to unlock new guns and uniforms for their characters, you're damn right that sniping them in the middle of a line dance and then saying "Red Wins gg!" would be a dick move.

-Username17

It really depends, in an FPS match the dancers are the jerks since they take up spots that could be used by people who actually want to play ctf. I can't play ctf if half my team isn't helping and beating a team where half of them aren't playing is no fun either.

MMOs can be similar. I'll help out cross faction in WoW since there isn't any real competition between the factions. In WAR I'd stab the other team in the back at every opportunity since its meant to be two groups fighting.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 3:50 am

I've never been one for ganking. In fact, I did it only once, in Ultima Online. Waited until this guy was fighting a lich and then flamestriked him. I am not sure whether I enjoyed it or not.

Stealing from people and having them chase you around the graveyard, on the other hand--now that was some funny shit.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 5:32 am

The limit of my obnoxious behaviour in those kinds of games was in PSO on the Borg Cube. 3-4 people on split-screen mode, all within pass-the-chips distance of each other.

I was the mage. I'd run ahead into the room, then tag every monster with one fireball (this meant I'd get my cut of the XP when they died). I would then ignore the monsters and proceed to the chests full of treasure (accompanied by a shout of "TREAZHORE!") while the others handled the monsters.

Note that we shared the loot at the end, anyway, we were just being dicks about *getting* the treasure.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 7:22 am

Ahhh, I have wonderful memories of playing a rogue on an AOL MUD, Gemstone. I would pickpocket people in healing areas or dress up in crappy equipment and do it in newbie areas (I was just barely out of newbiedom myself). The best was when I could help out fledgling pickpockets or got attacked by newbies who couldn't hurt me and they'd panic when I put on some snazzier equipment.

One party of high level characters killed me and got sent promptly to jail after I made a speech that got a large crowd of bystanders cheering for me, the thief who stole from them and started it all.

The best griefing was between or shared with friends tho. I had a few school friends who were trying to get each other in game. One guy gathered a posse to hunt down the other and the when he ambushed him the posse got swayed by some b.s. made up upon the spot and they betrayed the guy who hired them. Sometimes one of us would go and make speeches about the end of days coming to Gemstone and invariably the rabble rouser would get followes to a PvP zone and attacked... and I would be lying in wait to gank the gankers. That was the most fun MUD evar.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 3:39 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:The thing is, people weren't stopping him from capturing the damn flags. They were doing off the hook breakdancing moves in a corner to unlock shit for use in other games, and then he took time away from the flag capturing to go murder peoples' characters for nothing.

This is in no way different from people who log into Hardcore servers on Diabo II battlenet and then go aggro on peoples' characters and then go hunt their characters down for their ears. The game allows it, but that doesn't mean you aren't being an obvious twat for doing it.

-Username17

Bzzt! Wrong. PKing people on hardcore is fine. The problem is that most of them are cheating to do it (shoot projectile, warp to town, hostile) and otherwise using hacks. Most of the players of D2 hardcore would welcome a legit PK, even if they weren't interested in being targeted.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 11:17 pm

Bzzt! Wrong. PKing people on hardcore is fine.

PKing is always a gigantic dick move. (PVPing is not.) Especially on a server where you have permadeath. Especially when people are busy trying to PVE. Gank squads are also giant dick moves.

The problem is not whether something is or is not allowed; the problem is that the people doing it are obviously dicks. They are doing it to be dicks. (That professor was a griefing troll, and his paper was ass. Seriously, were his findings anything outside of what was completely obvious?) If there are a group of kids who are having races in the public swimming pool and you plop down an innertube in the middle of them because you want to float, then you are being a dick, even though floating is a perfectly acceptable function for the pool.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 11:36 pm

PvP can be a dick move so to speak, but it can also add excitement to the game. Presumably, the feature is added in for people who want to do it, and part of the reason you're playing that game or wandering in a PvP zone is because you wanted to do it, and you knew the risks.

I personally find the threat of PvP adds some risk and uncertainty to the game, and can be interesting if handled right.

I mean I enjoyed Ultima Online for the thrill of trying to survive PKer raids. You could be in a dungeon minding your own business when suddenly a group of PKers rushes in and you run for your life. That to me was more fun than the usual PvE grind. But then, I hate grinding.

Now there are lots of people who don't agree with me on that, but that's fine becuase there are plenty of MMOs that don't allow PvP.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 11:37 pm

Now there are lots of people who don't agree with me on that, but that's fine becuase there are plenty of MMOs that cater to pussies.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 11:44 pm

Psychic Robot wrote:
Bzzt! Wrong. PKing people on hardcore is fine.
PKing is always a gigantic dick move. (PVPing is not.) Especially on a server where you have permadeath. Especially when people are busy trying to PVE. Gank squads are also giant dick moves.

The problem is not whether something is or is not allowed; the problem is that the people doing it are obviously dicks. They are doing it to be dicks. (That professor was a griefing troll, and his paper was ass. Seriously, were his findings anything outside of what was completely obvious?) If there are a group of kids who are having races in the public swimming pool and you plop down an innertube in the middle of them because you want to float, then you are being a dick, even though floating is a perfectly acceptable function for the pool.

Get the fuck out of the pool if you don't want to play with the big boys.

Seriously. All games that have PvP zones have to accept the fact that you can and will be ganked while inside of them.

Many MMO's, like WoW deals with this by having PvP and non PvP servers, and/or PvP and non PvP areas. You made your choice well in advance, crying afterwards is because you fucking suck and got the shit kicked out of you.

A good player will learn from being killed; a bad one will bitch. No, that doesn't mean that being killed is fun, it's just that if you can't accept the fact that you can die due to other player actions, then don't play in such areas.

In the study mentioned earlier, the author fails to mention that PvP is not equal in terms of what players want, compared to what they are doing in the PvP zones.

The goal of an MMO is to get more powerful. If you can abuse the PvP area to do so, by fighting the very high treasure/XP/Whatever Mobiles (mobs); then you will do that, once you realize that you get more by not doing what the game expected you to do.

Only a horribly bored, mentally deficient, or poorly fixated on the "purpose" of the "game" will think that PvP just of PvP's sake is fine, when you can use the PvP for other, real, rewards.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 12:00 am

Maybe you haven't played in UO with the Goonsquad populace. Gank squads are little different than, "We happened upon this guy and killed him." Gank squads are the guys who kill you four (or more)-on-one and then follow you around, trying to kill you again and again. When someone is trying to ruin the game for you, there is dickery afoot.

I'm all for good PVP, a fun challenge. Even fleeing from powerful characters can be damn fun, especially when you get that teleport spell off a second before you get stabbed in the face. But when you've got people who are trying to make the game unfun for you, then they're being dicks. And yes, that counts for blues vs. reds, too--if the blue players are ganking a red, they are being dicks. (Though the red probably deserves it.)

Think of it this way: is spawn-camping a dick move?

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 2:32 am

Are there no guilds clans or whatever? They have 4 guys you get 6 and hit em back, and soon things escalate into larger wars which can be fun.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 2:45 am

This was a private server. There were two main good guilds, and both of them were very RP-heavy with annoying restrictions, such as...

1. You can't play a mage to start. You have to earn the right to play a mage by playing a non-caster and advancing through the ranks.

2. Some casters are druids. That means that they can't cast Energy Bolt because they're druids. They also have to wear funny animal helmets to show that they are druids.

3. YOU CAN ONLY WEAR THE GUILD COLORS.

And the list goes on. There was no way I was subjecting myself to that kind of nonsense--it might be fun if you were interested in RPing that, but it sounded more like working a job, to me.

Ganbare Gincun · Post by **Ganbare Gincun** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 7:12 am

Psychic Robot wrote:There was no way I was subjecting myself to that kind of nonsense--it might be fun if you were interested in RPing that, but it sounded more like working a job, to me.

Every MMORPG feels like having a second job to me. Unless there's something particularly compelling about the game world, the story, or the game mechanics, why should I spend your time and (possibly) my money for the pleasure of knocking monsters over their heads and taking their teeth and giving them to someone in order to get a better magical cloak or sword or whatever?

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 2:07 pm

Being a minmaxed badass while your comrades were flailing tards was a pretty awesome experience in CoH. The whole team eventually goes down and then its you vs everything left. Totally awesome.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 4:08 pm

mean_liar wrote:Being a minmaxed badass while your comrades were flailing tards was a pretty awesome experience in CoH. The whole team eventually goes down and then its you vs everything left. Totally awesome.

Wait, CoH has Monks? What the fuck.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 5:32 pm

Judging__Eagle wrote:Sadly, RO's and WoW's PvP systems are miles better.

RO = Ragnarok Online?

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 7:07 pm

Roy wrote:
mean_liar wrote:Being a minmaxed badass while your comrades were flailing tards was a pretty awesome experience in CoH. The whole team eventually goes down and then its you vs everything left. Totally awesome.
Wait, CoH has Monks? What the fuck.

They're called Scrappers, though I left around the point where they had their more egregious power combos balanced downwards.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 7:51 pm

Ganbare Gincun wrote: Every MMORPG feels like having a second job to me. Unless there's something particularly compelling about the game world, the story, or the game mechanics, why should I spend your time and (possibly) my money for the pleasure of knocking monsters over their heads and taking their teeth and giving them to someone in order to get a better magical cloak or sword or whatever?

Yeah honestly I'm just not a MMORPG person. I hate grinding with a passion, and even if you've got some guy dicking you around, it's better than just grinding, because at least you get to feel rage or sadness or something. Grinding just makes you into a mindless drone. I'm not enjoying the game, I'm bored out of my mind... it's just grind, grind, grind, grind.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 3:27 am

Previn wrote:[Except that it's a PvP zone. It's like going into a warzone and then complaining when an enemy soldier shoots you. If you didn't want to be shot by an enemy soldier, don't go into the warzone/PvP. Much like expecting the axis and ally players in a WW2 shooter to actually shoot at each other and not hold picnics.

And yet, don't we complain when the sniper shoots the medic, the local kid, or the rookie?

And don't we complain more when that guy actually stops shooting at the more experienced guys, to the point that they can stride around in impunity, yet the newb has to keep their head down?

Lastly, the PvP zones in CoX are the only places the H/V characters are allowed to talk.

-Crissa

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 6:21 am

Unless I miss my mark, we are all talking out our asses hear.

There is a PvP zone. This zone has a PvP minigame. Winning that PvP minigame is an objectively good thing. There are levels. Leveling is an objectively good thing. Leveling fast is as well.

If he ignored pillboxes to teleport enemies, he is a dick hole, but not even that big of one. If someone tried to stop him from getting pillboxes, and he therefore killed them, he is totally and completely right.

Now, do any of us know what exactly was going on? I don't know how things started, but according to one article I read, they seriously would gang up on him the whole villains group while heroes would watch and not participate as part of a collective effort to drive him away.

Maybe this only started after he went around teleport killing people who weren't in his way. But maybe this also started after people got tired of him ending their talky sessions early by winning while they were all distracted.

It really depends on how things started, and no matter what, everything he did to kill people who actively attacked him first is totally justified.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 7:26 am

As far as I know, it's not possible to solo win the CoX PvP zones.

-Crissa

MartinHarper · Post by **MartinHarper** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 9:00 am

Myers paper says that the consequences started out with 'reprimands' and then 'name-calling' in response to his 'breaching behaviour'. Three months later, he was expelled from his group and started receiving death threats and spam. It was only right at the end when 'kill twixt' became the new socially defined objective in the zone.

So, if we're looking at "who started it", it becomes clear that Myers started it.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 4:37 pm

MartinHarper wrote:Myers paper says that the consequences started out with 'reprimands' and then 'name-calling' in response to his 'breaching behaviour'. Three months later, he was expelled from his group and started receiving death threats and spam. It was only right at the end when 'kill twixt' became the new socially defined objective in the zone.

So, if we're looking at "who started it", it becomes clear that Myers started it.

Right, but if they were using reprimands to punish him for capturing pillboxes, it's still their fault.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 4:45 pm

Psychic Robot wrote:
Judging__Eagle wrote:Sadly, RO's and WoW's PvP systems are miles better.
RO = Ragnarok Online?

Yeah, specifically the War of Emperium bit. That part got people really into building different character builds, and changed the pace of the game. The free for all PvP areas are more about testing your build for WoE I find, even the most serious people about building characters for PvP didn't really hang out in the PvP areas non-stop, going there instead to have pre-arranged fights, while the noobs would be running around trying to cause shit.

Now, each game will be different, if in CoH/CoV the PvP room is the only place to "chat"; then yeah, I can see why no one does PvP there.

Myers never actually explained what the other people were doing, nor why they were doing it. So he was intentionally acting like a dick, especially if the PvP room allows for things that are much more important than the PvP rewards.