Working as intended?

So I have a question for the admins. The terms say it’s against the rules to harass people. But on PVP servers, there’s no way to see who they are until they swarm over you and drive you off yet another base. The names have been turned off. I know many casual players and who enjoy PVP where under normal circumstances their servers are self policing. However, for some months now, groups of server wipers have been diligently working their way through the 15 hundred series of servers. Much of it is due to the afk raid rule set. However, when they meet opposition they ring the gong and other groups join them until the server is completely destroyed. Then they move on.

This can kind of work for a huge open sandbox like EVE Online. For CE, not so much. Especially with so many people on vacation, how will they stop the afk raids on their bases?

As a moderator for Ulfhedinn, it’s brought quite a bit of new players to the server, so I should be grateful. However, I’ve had to run these off my server as well…which isn’t hard as I can see who they are, what their steam name is, and can deal with them as their activity merits. Still I wonder, what is a truly casual player to do? Many folks don’t like private servers. They can’t compete against 30+ players, and some I’ve talked to have been driven to 4 different servers at this point; a few stopped by Ulfhedinn as a last resort and I’m glad they did. Some tell me they’ve tried grabbing some gear and thralls, crawling in a hole and waiting a month or so to start over again. But it’s not really working for them.

I just want to know if Funcom is going to do anything about it or if this is their intent. To allow harassment, to allow gangs of players to go from server to server wiping everything, rinse and repeat. In the long run, it hurts the entire CE community as folks think any server tagged PVP is toxic…even private servers.

I don’t have any answers, but would like to know how Funcom is going to support the harassment rule when players can’t even identify those who are harassing them - without re-instituting the name list with steam name, no one could ever really prove that they were being harassed…unless Funcom wishes to see their servers wiped one after another after another…maybe Funcom, too, likes to watch it burn.

Which in the end does not serve this community.

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The old PVPer in me is reminded of a policy enacted by 989 Studios/Verant for their PVP servers. The policy was that moderators will not get involved if there is a PVP solution to the problem.

So here’s the thing. If a group can get together and ‘wipe’ a server. Theoretically couldn’t a group form to oppose them? If you cannot get a group larger than theirs, wouldn’t put merit in the fact that you might be in the minority?

It used to be in the older days of PVP about 20 years ago that people would band up against what we called PKs in those days. But it seems in more modern days, the aggressors are not dealt with in the same way. We rely on automated systems, moderator interventions, and just about everything but ourselves to deal with aggressive playstyles.

Organized PVP targeting indiscriminately doesn’t sound like harassment to me. Now if the group was following you specifically from server to server, that would be something else, and even in the old days, that would have been actioned.

But if they’re just going down server by server PVPing everything they can find. That’s just PVP.

It reminds me of the Murder Herd in Age of Conan back when it first came out. Two people in my unit’s company were in that clan, and they were interesting when they’d roll through a zone. It was a join them or die situation, more of a force of nature than an actual coordinated effort.

Taemien, I agree, the value of self policing PVP is that you should be able to ban together and find a PVP solution to the problem. Normally, this happens; but in this case, not so much. Evidently there are now server surfing Alpha’s (entire clans of them because of the usual 10 member limitation) that are going from server to server and destroying everything. The old definition of alpha’s can’t resist, no one can, and they seem to hammer server after server.

Folks like these have their enemies, and the enemies try to counter them. But Funcom’s policy permits this…just as they ruined Age of Conan by caving to the casters (I remember a time when melee ruled in AoC) they’ve found a way to keep the “elites” playing/ paying by allowing them to ravage the servers and letting them “watch it burn” as official policy (or so it seems - the purpose of my post).

No doubt if they went back to the EA method of reflecting steam accounts (not to be confused with steam names) the “travelers” like Aba and all his copy cats would be faced with a conundrum: those who counter them, and there are many, would be able to see where the “travelers” are going and so counter them before they can spend weeks/ months building up an unfair advantage.

And in this way, I’ve asked Funcom to answer - unless you are a member of Funcom and answering on their behalf - why they instituted the removal of “who’s online” anonymity and actually (largely) supported this behavior. More importantly, what they intend to do about it, or if this is their intent…burn down the servers, reduce server population and then consolidate servers (then profit!).

I understand that even with Tencents resources they have new masters and new bottom lines and so need to appeal even more to the crowd who brays for such things - boosting revenue while cutting costs. I’d just like to know if they have plans of ending the unfair advantage or if it’s working as intended.

The summer, as is life, is too short to waste being content in someone else’s game…time we knew so those who have no alternatives can decide if it’s worth it or not, whether it will be addressed or not, and whether we need to abandon yet another failed Funcom platform.

As someone who doesn’t play PvP - where’s the line between “acceptable” PvP and harassment, especially in a free-for-all sandbox game?

If they murder you, murder your pets, murder your thralls and burn down your house, isn’t that just PvP? But if, after doing all that, they keep following you around, insulting you and your family and otherwise making life a pain, that’s a different story (but that’s not PvP-specific behavior, that can just as easily be done on PvE).

Raiding bases whose owners are offline seems like standard operating procedure.

Based on what I’ve seen on the forums over the last year is that people often have issues with PvP being unfair. This thread is another example of that.

So to answer the question in your title: to a certain extent, yes, it’s working as intended. The intention was to give players a playground and let the players survive, build, dominate and make their own rules. It just turned out that we weren’t ready for such a responsibility.

Reality is with tbuilding refreshing being easy as a 5 mintue log in, non decaying mats , and the ability for a clan to work out of a 5x5x2 room inside of 2,000,000 HP protection of walls and ceilings, it becomes a game of who has more time, not more skill. I think the OP just wants a more balanced way to actually enjoy pvp melee. Some one posted a better name for official PVP, Player vs User generated content. Because that is what happens 3/4th’s of the time. Offline raiding. The player list actually helps counter this tbh , by not having people showing it at least they have to research if the players are online. But once they do a hammer check, they can tell the last time a player was at the base. That should be removed as well. One should only be able to see their own decay timer, and not see other clans. But in the end, offlining is still meta until Funcom adresses it if they want more pvp players. And the fact a clan can play 10 players * 20 hours in 2 days means they can body vault enough mats to be able to attack when the opportunity presents itself. Most of these “server wipers” do not play the game for lore, and that is where the game is broken. It is catered to the non lore players PVP wise.

Am pretty sure the event log shows names.

I think the OP is talking about player list (not event log) on PC. It does not show as far as i remember reading. PS4 it still shows the tattle tale of who is on.

The question wasn’t balance. It was harassment.

And its pretty clear to me what legit PVP and Harassment is. Harassment is when you are specifically targeted and continuously wiped by the group. But this is indiscriminate. That fact takes harassment out of the equation entirely.

When a set of players targets a server and focuses down everybody, then moves on. There was no harassment, no one was targeted specifically, no one was continuously attacked over a period of time, thus no harassment. Its basic PVP.

In this case if players are not wishing to be targeted by this behavior, the solution is to play PVE.

I was just stating why players can do these things with ease. All it takes is 10 hours a day available to play. If there was more balance in grinding and allowing casual gamers to have a life, there would be more resistance. Play more or find something else that whets competitive casual gamers appetite is not an answer if i was running the business model. Why would i not want to bring in as many more gamers as possible. Not one person who uses the the play more = advantage can explain how FUncom makes more money with 1000 players playing 10 hours a day vs 10000 players playing 1 hour a day? Funcom does not make money per player hour, but by traffic thru the game to create buying opportunities.

You know why Fortnite and games like that have huge player counts? Mainly because one can play at thier liesure, and not be tied to the game as a 2nd job. Free play is part of it, but the whole idea of that structure is create traffic, that equals more buys on microtransactions and dlc’s.

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Maybe PvP needs new servers? Some with offline protection and some with 24/7 raid or maybe 24/7 with offline protection?

And that is why they have PVE servers. PVP for PVP, PVE for PVE.

I’m sorry but destroying bases is PVP, ganking people is PVP. If you don’t want your base being destroyed, then don’t play on PVP. If you need something with nuance, find a private server with a ruleset you like, and play there or found one yourself.

I get it, you all want to have your cake and eat it too. You don’t want to be offline raided by hobos. You want to meet in the field of battle and do honorable combat with matched numbers, you want to set little rules like what potions can or cannot be used, whether elixirs can be used, and what weapons and equipment and whether mounts are in play.

You can have all that and more. Just not on official. Its not practical for Funcom to match dozens of dozens of preferences. Its simply all or nothing. With that weird PVE-C thing thrown in.

But at the end of the day, PVP is NOT harassment. You all consent to having your bases vaporized when you’re offline, your sleeping bodies looted, and the possibility of being zero’d out when you clicked Join on the PVP server.

If you’re going to keep on about balance and player preferences, I recommend making a thread about it. I do have ideas for that. But I won’t discuss those here. The OP was wondering what constituted harassment. And its been pretty well explained.

Well he said he was being driven from his base, figured the enemy actually attacked him and would show up in the log. Guess maybe a bunch of guys showed up at his door and he ran off, knowing he couldn’t win.

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Harassment in PVP? Please…good luck crying to the Devs about that. You either find a way around the “Bro zerg” or you run to the forums and cry.

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