
This is one of my biggest pet peeves about honor rules and server cultures. They exist because someone is exploiting them. The ones who don’t are useful idiots for the ones who do.
I’ve spoken about this story a few times, but I’m glad it happened so very early in my online gaming experience that I was able to learn from it. But back in the mid to late 90s I was playing MechWarrior 3 in online leagues and even a few tournaments. The culture of the community was that shooting the legs off an opponent was considered a cheap and disrespectful way to obtain a win.
I used to run the HTAL display instead of the 3d model or the classic MW2 wireframe model. My display would show total armor in a green bar with it coloring red as they took damage. If they had no armor, in a location equipped at all, it would show it, the other target info displays did not give that information.
I noticed quite a few players had an empty bar on their legs. Meaning they had no armor in them. They would remove the armor, because they knew players would avoid shooting them. Using that tonnage savings for extra weapons, armor elsewhere, or more heatsinks to fire more often.
I start shooting their legs off, and obviously they got ticked off. Screenshots showed what they were doing. More people started getting smart about what was going on and legging became a legitimate tactic in more and more circles. By the time MW4 came around, the stigma all but vanished.
Whenever there is a culture against doing something. Always, ALWAYS question why. Always investigate why. Always seek to see how it could be abused and then watch for it. Always assume that your opponents will use such things against you (they are more often than not doing just that).
And most importantly, always assume strangers will mistake kindness for weakness. That is the default human state. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t be showing kindess, mercy, and compassion. But always be aware someone will use it against you. Especially in competitive environments.
Also anyone running a PVE-C server should consider having player damage on all the time. It provides for a much better competitive environment and does away with the playstyle of only logging in when its safe until they can build themselves up. It forces people to interact with one another, and either fight it out, or to negotiate. You want this. Any server host should be encouraging player interactions as much as possible. A social server is a thriving server. A server of hermits is in danger of dying out.