PK Suspect and You

Kaina

I believe that if you declare someone and make aggressive actions towards them, you should be an open pk target to the organization the person belongs to.  If, say, Kreaton is a suspect to me and I go and try to kill Glevich who's standing right next to him, Kreaton should be able to defend Glevich within context of the action at hand.  The PK Suspect system should be there to defend people who are not pvp players or characters.  However, for the side of the game that is a part of the pvp playerbase, Vengeance becomes a different tool entirely as the risk of dying is now simply a part of their career in the game.

Now, with the above example, let's say Kreaton turns off his pk careful to help Glevich and they both kill me, so I go and use the Avenger to have him exact Vengeance on Kreaton to kill him back.  How does the situation constitute a punishment?  Glevich and Kreaton are city mates and the theme for any organization is that one looks out for each other to some degree or another.  This completely ruins the context of city commraderie because there is a mechanic in the game that would punish someone who does happen to pvp through declaration due to them abiding by the setting Lusternia has.

One might think that the people involved should just not pk openly and that openly pking someone should be removed entirely, but this isn't the issue.  Open pk in a roleplay setting provides tension and story when it serves its purpose properly  If Tridemon is causing problems for Magnagora in the Sea of Despair during the sea battle, then I go to stop him and he runs outside of enemy territory, I should be able to step outside the boundaries and kill him.  I'll accept the suspect and I'm okay with that as it prevents me from just constantly hunting him down for no reason, which makes sense because the context in why I killed him is completely gone.  However, if Tridemon is attacking Nymerya while she's working on something, I should not be punished for defending her based on the sensible action that took place prior.

Neos

You can defend someone if others have declared them, but unless you're Security/Protector/Champion, they have to have you allied. I do think the non-allied defending should be expanded to all fellow citizens and only require the allied defending for cross-org defending.

Kaina

That's the point I was trying to make with the entire organization.  There was a situation that happened where a hunting party was attacked and Shiawase, for one reason or another, had suspect on the attacker and when we killed her, she got Vengeanced.  Shia's a non-combatant but the act of helping out like that is within theme of the roleplay of a city, so the punishment is not something that should happen.

Elanorwen

Kaina said:

That's the point I was trying to make with the entire organization.  There was a situation that happened where a hunting party was attacked and Shiawase, for one reason or another, had suspect on the attacker and when we killed her, she got Vengeanced.  Shia's a non-combatant but the act of helping out like that is within theme of the roleplay of a city, so the punishment is not something that should happen.

The Avenger doesn't protect anyone in enemy territory. That said, you again show your misunderstanding of the way the whole situation happened. Performing an aggressive action of -any- kind against a person you have 'bullied' i.e. killed/helped kill grants vengeance upon you. Killing them a second time grants TWO vengeance acts against you. The person in question aided in killing someone, then decided to try and attack them further. Now, either they had PK CAREFUL OFF (something that a non-com should never under any circumstances have. Technically, anyone that has that is inviting vengeance freely as even a kick after a vitae death means you just got vengeance. I've literally had it happen where someone lagged while killing another and ended up attacking twice - one which killed, and a second time - which was after the vitae) or they declared after the death and performed aggressive actions after it happened. Either situation means that they deserve all that they got.

Kaina

Once again you choose to ignore what I'm saying here.  As with my Tridemon example, I said he would leave enemy territory as he's prone to do so when he sniffs trouble, so the 'no Avenger when in enemy territory' point is null.  No one who helps a fellow city mate defend themselves is deserving of vengeance in any scenario I've given, period.  This game has fighting and it's very combat driven, but it is, first and foremost, a role-playing game.  Why should someone get punished for acting as their character should just because of completely separate elements?

Elanorwen

Kaina said:

Once again you choose to ignore what I'm saying here.  As with my Tridemon example, I said he would leave enemy territory as he's prone to do so when he sniffs trouble, so the 'no Avenger when in enemy territory' point is null.  No one who helps a fellow city mate defend themselves is deserving of vengeance in any scenario I've given, period.  This game has fighting and it's very combat driven, but it is, first and foremost, a role-playing game.  Why should someone get punished for acting as their character should just because of completely separate elements?

There's some cooldown to chasing people out of enemy territory though, if you managed to hit them in it. Like the situation where Kio attacked me in the illithoid prison, I got all the way out, 3 areas away to be precise, then got disconnected and came back dead and I didn't have him on my suspect list. It's about the same time it takes for masochism to come back after being attacked. That said, if they manage to continue attacking you in any fashion while you're moving, the cooldown resets. Anyway, that is really not the important bit in the situation.

The important bit in the situation is that Shiawase got her vengeance status because she performed an aggressive act again after the kill had gone through. If she had PK CAREFUL ON, that means that she had to declare and attack. If she had PK CAREFUL OFF, well... that's an entirely different matter altogether. Still, you can't expect to attack people and not have repercussions. Especially if you're going to hide behind the "But I'm not a fighter" excuse. You attacked someone, that automatically means that you are a fighter, even if a bad one.

Akyaevin

Specifically, if you're in enemy territory and someone hits you, you "autodeclare" them, so it takes about five? minutes to wear off under normal circumstances. Even after you leave the territory, people can defend the person you autodeclared to assist them. Turning off pk careful means you autodeclare anyone who hits you ever, which is very bad.

Kaina

This is not an idea on if you attack someone of your own volition.  I agree that if you consistently attack someone, you will deserve whatever you get, vengeance or otherwise.  This is an idea of defending OTHER city mates.

Reyl

Speaking of city mates, why do I get the feeling this is somehow going to result in me getting killed repeatedly again........ >_>

Uruk

Honestly, being as I've seen Elanorwen abuse the very thing Kaina's discussing in this idea post I kind of think her point is moot. She ran in solo and attacked a single member of a four or five (can't quite remember) person hunting party specifically in order to get status off of as many of us as possible. The party, of course, defended the member then she avengered Shiawase, likely after an accidental secondary attack. Lets face it, nobody wants to see their cheese nerfed.

I completely agree, however, that you should be able to defend a city mate and/or allied person against any attacks done upon them -providing- that you are in the room (or reasonably close, 4-5 rooms) when they are declared and initially attacked by someone. This should be allowed regardless of whether or not the group is in enemy territory, which is likely where the loop hole being abused is stemming from. This puts a little more thought behind engaging someone while they're not alone, rather than the current system of being forced to eat a bully status or standing by and watching an enemy kill an ally. It doesn't make much sense that, in the above case, Elanorwen could have come back and attacked the group one on five once again and none of us would have been able to do a thing without her avenger killing all of us. 

Edit: Typo.

Edit Edit: Added the bit about enemy territory, to clarify in regards to Neos' earlier post.

Reyl

In my opinion anyone who has openly sworn that they'll kill innocent bystanders to get what they want and that they "don't care" how anyone feels about it probably shouldn't be abusing the technicalities of the pk rules.....

Maybe we need something where 'hardcore' combatants can play by a different set of rules? Kind of like the assassination system in Achaea or something?

Scax

The part I'm not getting is..Elanorwen came in and attacked you guys while you were in enemy territory? Avenger does not protect you in enemy territory..You are open pk, you chose to get enemied to that area(hunting area) so why are you complaining? This has been going on for a long time, it's nothing new. Why should you get to defend someone who is an enemy to that area from someone, that defeats the purpose of enemy status.

Kaina

It was neutral territory.

Kio

Kaina said:

It was neutral territory.

It wasn't. I was online during the whole Amazonian death sight fun times and to see Elanorwen die.

Y'all were in a hive. If you've killed a kephera before, you're an enemy to the kephera. That means being in a hive means you're in enemy territory.

The best tip here is this: when you're hunting anywhere, SURVEY. Survey will give you big red warning of you're in enemy territory. Anyone can kill you in you're in enemy territory.

Edit: Yea, it was a bit of an underhanded move. It's pretty easy to get people who don't know a lot about Avenger suckered into status, but that's the system we have. Death isn't permanent, though. Take it as a learning experience.

Lerad

One thing everyone is forgetting is that the avenger system is not meant to protect against aggressive PKers or to protect non-coms, or to encourage RP-based PK.. It is not a system to prevent griefing at all. It is a system to automate PK issues.

All the talk about enemy territory and how the character (not the player) chose to be there and is thus in an RP sense "taking a risk" is irrelevant. The avenger system is simply here to free up admin time from dealing with the nonsense that is being discussed now, and allow them to perform more important tasks like debugging, coding and building. And yes, the entire situation that spawned this thread, and the abuses of the avenger system in general, are all pretty nonsensical and ridiculous. No one should be pretending that people who get vengeanced "deserve it" in any way, shape or form. I've been playing for years and I cannot remember the last time the avenger system was used by a real non-com to punish a griefer. Every vengeance I personally know of have been PKers vengeancing other PKers because they can.

If you're somehow labouring under the delusion that the system makes the game a better place by policing players, you need to wake up: the avenger system has always only had one, and only one, benefit. And that is the fact that Lusternia's admins are the only ones in all IRE games that do not have to deal with stupid PK issues. It makes the game a better place indirectly, because it empowers our volunteers to do better things with their time, not by making jerk PKers less jerky. (It makes them more jerky, in fact.)

Claiming that you're somehow not the aggressor because the hunting group you attacked are in an enemy area is as ridiculous as it gets. Claiming that you should be able to defend citymates without restriction and regardless of enemy area is also just as ridiculous. The current avenger system isn't going to change, period. If you feel like someone is being griefy, issue them for grief and back it up with evidence and logs. If not, just suck it up and eat the death, because these types of jerks aren't going anywhere either, avenger or no avenger.

Uruk

Claiming that you're somehow not the aggressor because the hunting group you attacked are in an enemy area is as ridiculous as it gets. Claiming that you should be able to defend citymates without restriction and regardless of enemy area is also just as ridiculous. 

But having two separate people, at two separate times run into a group 1 v 5 to farm PK status isn't ridiculous? I was under the impression that RP based conflict was what this game revolved around. I don't see how it makes any sense for someones character to foolishly throw themselves into a fight, regardless of enemy areas.

I guess we're all entitled to our differing opinions.

Edit: Quote formatting is wonky.

Xenthos

Uruk said:

Claiming that you're somehow not the aggressor because the hunting group you attacked are in an enemy area is as ridiculous as it gets. Claiming that you should be able to defend citymates without restriction and regardless of enemy area is also just as ridiculous. 

But having two separate people, at two separate times run into a group 1 v 5 to farm PK status isn't ridiculous? I was under the impression that RP based conflict was what this game revolved around. I don't see how it makes any sense for someones character to foolishly throw themselves into a fight, regardless of enemy areas.

I guess we're all entitled to our differing opinions.

Edit: Quote formatting is wonky.

That's because you're in enemy territory; it's set up in such a way that you are not supposed to defend yourself in enemy territory.  By roleplay you are the aggressor.  You're the one invading someone else's home and murdering the populace.  Someone attacking you there is actually the defender.

The intent is that you just leave under such circumstances.

It'd be kind of nice if non-PC enemy territory did get tweaked a bit somehow, but that is extraordinarily unlikely right now.

Ssaliss

Haven't really been in that situation, but is it a requirement that the defender isn't enemied to the area in question? Or can two enemies go at it in an area they're both enemied to?

Xenthos

Ssaliss said:

Haven't really been in that situation, but is it a requirement that the defender isn't enemied to the area in question? Or can two enemies go at it in an area they're both enemied to?

Two enemies can go at it and neither will get suspect on each other (it becomes free-for-all basically).

Elanorwen

Xenthos said:

That's because you're in enemy territory; it's set up in such a way that you are not supposed to defend yourself in enemy territory.  By roleplay you are the aggressor.  You're the one invading someone else's home and murdering the populace.  Someone attacking you there is actually the defender.

The intent is that you just leave under such circumstances.

It'd be kind of nice if non-PC enemy territory did get tweaked a bit somehow, but that is extraordinarily unlikely right now.

And I told that to Kaina at the time... that is, you get attacked in enemy territory, you leave or eat your status with a cherry on top. Why do I run when I get attacked in prison? Because it's pointless to fight. I fight back, I kill the person attacking, I get status. 30 seconds later, they're back in and are wailing on me and I can't do anything or get vengeance. That is the part that is silly about avenger in my opinion, but eh... I don't see it changing either.

@Kaina - There is no such thing as defending city mates. You either are a combatant or you are not, there is no middle ground. That's kind of the same excuse as low levels try to pull when they're defending against a raid... "But I'm not dangerous/am only defending/am not a combatant/am only webbing" You're there and you're taking an aggressive action against someone. There was a point when I cared about not killing low levels, just sort of throw them an afflict or two, nothing deadly, just something to prevent them from attacking me... but that doesn't work either. You kill them quickly to stop their hindering, then move on to tougher targets. Especially since the last time a low level tried to pull something like that, I saw them portals to cure afflictions and they were back in 15 seconds, doing the same thing all over again.

@Reyl - I'm trying to understand how I "abused" the PK rules. I mean really... if you got status on me, then it was probably something wrong that -you- did, not the other way around. Just because I'm aware of the way the rules work and you aren't doesn't mean I'm abusing them.

Xenthos

Elanorwen said:

Xenthos said:

That's because you're in enemy territory; it's set up in such a way that you are not supposed to defend yourself in enemy territory.  By roleplay you are the aggressor.  You're the one invading someone else's home and murdering the populace.  Someone attacking you there is actually the defender.

The intent is that you just leave under such circumstances.

It'd be kind of nice if non-PC enemy territory did get tweaked a bit somehow, but that is extraordinarily unlikely right now.

And I told that to Kaina at the time... that is, you get attacked in enemy territory, you leave or eat your status with a cherry on top. Why do I run when I get attacked in prison? Because it's pointless to fight. I fight back, I kill the person attacking, I get status. 30 seconds later, they're back in and are wailing on me and I can't do anything or get vengeance. That is the part that is silly about avenger in my opinion, but eh... I don't see it changing either.

That's a bug-that-is-not-a-bug.

In some enemy-areas, if you attack someone who is on your bully list, you lose the bully status / they lose the suspect and they can murder you again.  In other areas, the bully status stays and that person cannot defend themselves.  Every time it is bugged we are told it is intentional, but I don't really see why it would be intentional to have inconsistent rules (especially with no visible sign as to why one area is one way and another is the other).

Rivius

Lerad said:

One thing everyone is forgetting is that the avenger system is not meant to protect against aggressive PKers or to protect non-coms, or to encourage RP-based PK.. It is not a system to prevent griefing at all. It is a system to automate PK issues.

All the talk about enemy territory and how the character (not the player) chose to be there and is thus in an RP sense "taking a risk" is irrelevant. The avenger system is simply here to free up admin time from dealing with the nonsense that is being discussed now, and allow them to perform more important tasks like debugging, coding and building. And yes, the entire situation that spawned this thread, and the abuses of the avenger system in general, are all pretty nonsensical and ridiculous. No one should be pretending that people who get vengeanced "deserve it" in any way, shape or form. I've been playing for years and I cannot remember the last time the avenger system was used by a real non-com to punish a griefer. Every vengeance I personally know of have been PKers vengeancing other PKers because they can.

If you're somehow labouring under the delusion that the system makes the game a better place by policing players, you need to wake up: the avenger system has always only had one, and only one, benefit. And that is the fact that Lusternia's admins are the only ones in all IRE games that do not have to deal with stupid PK issues. It makes the game a better place indirectly, because it empowers our volunteers to do better things with their time, not by making jerk PKers less jerky. (It makes them more jerky, in fact.)

Claiming that you're somehow not the aggressor because the hunting group you attacked are in an enemy area is as ridiculous as it gets. Claiming that you should be able to defend citymates without restriction and regardless of enemy area is also just as ridiculous. The current avenger system isn't going to change, period. If you feel like someone is being griefy, issue them for grief and back it up with evidence and logs. If not, just suck it up and eat the death, because these types of jerks aren't going anywhere either, avenger or no avenger.

You tend not to see actually aggressive griefers getting hit by vengeance because for the most part it's being successful in deterring them. Were Avenger not present, people would kill others with the same ease and lack of consequence as anywhere else in the game, and obviously there needs to be somewhere where people can feel at least protected from constant harassment. No question that it isn't perfect, but I'm not sure there is a perfect automated way to deal with what it's intending to do.

Reyl

@elanorwen those were separate trains of thought. Although when you bring it up, it does sort of look like the system failed - you EXPLICITLY said, to me and others, that you were "griefing" me as punishment, yet the avenger was unable to do the one thing it's put in place to do - deter griefing? Why? Because I was off-prime, I know, and I wore those deaths even though your bullying attitude left a really bad taste in my mouth.

Why do I feel like it's going to happen again?

Enyalida

It deters the from doing it... On prime. I'd argue that avenger's presence promotes No-rp, no holding back griefing style attacks in all the places (like enemy territories) it isn't an outright presence. Overall, it increases the super aggressive pk people because of what Lerad points out, there is no disputing totally open or free pk in no avenger areas, by definition. Basically, I agree with Lerad.

Elanorwen

There is a reason the avenger protects only Prime. That is certainly not the problem being discussed here. I don't recall ever saying that I was intentionally griefing someone as punishment. I did mention that your city needs to learn to better control the people that live to do one thing - annoy others. I'm usually quite amicable otherwise, but whatever... believe what you will.

Reyl

You said I was going to keep dying unless I stopped hunting with my friends (in OOC terms), or Reyl stopped obeying orders to join in hunting (in IC terms). We both know this was an OOC motivation for killing me, since mag isn't really known IC for shedding tears over dead midbie non-combatants. The avenger did nothing to prevent what amounted to like four deaths in 48 irl hours.... And now you're defending YOUR right to use the avenger on someone YOU attacked. That's the problem. That's why I thought it was relevant. Sorry.

You belittle me about not knowing how pk rules work.... Well that sounds to me almost like an admission that you've studied them closely to work out all the ways you can make people miserable without ever facing repercussions.

Elanorwen

Reyl said:

You said I was going to keep dying unless I stopped hunting with my friends (in OOC terms), or Reyl stopped obeying orders to join in hunting (in IC terms). We both know this was an OOC motivation for killing me, since mag isn't really known IC for shedding tears over dead midbie non-combatants. The avenger did nothing to prevent what amounted to like four deaths in 48 irl hours.... And now you're defending YOUR right to use the avenger on someone YOU attacked. That's the problem. That's why I thought it was relevant. Sorry. You belittle me about not knowing how pk rules work.... Well that sounds to me almost like an admission that you've studied them closely to work out all the ways you can make people miserable without ever facing repercussions.

Interesting claims right there... as I said, believe what you will. The issue would have been solved much simpler if the person who was aiding Reyl would have just said... "Sorry for annoying you" I told the one person from the Iron Council that contacted me that I'd expect an apology, and was told that such can be arranged. Something that never happened. I tried to fight the individual in question, and he kept running. There is no way for me (Or really, anyone) to control an enemy that keeps ghost forming or running for 20+ rooms every time I use a TK combo. I told you not to go with him and I felt like I was in the wrong for looking into the person in question apologizing to continue a friendship... but apparently, that didn't work. Still, do I also need to mention the amount of annoyance that was flung my way by your friend? If his primary reason for being on Lusternia is to annoy others, then he's certainly picked the wrong game to play. He claims he wants to resolve the matter IC-ly, but all I saw of his attempts to resolve the matter IC-ly was taunts, mocking and spamming emotes in my face every time he came by to steal something from me.

Either way, the Avenger has some very simple rules that you can use to protect yourself when such a thing happens. Don't hunt off prime, don't hunt in enemy territory. Even then, I wouldn't have cared even the slightest if you were doing it on your own and not on Hallifax territory. Am I in the wrong? Partially, for attacking people that someone else is bashing with when said someone refuses numerous challenges against him. Am I in the wrong to use the Avenger when five people jump on me in enemy (to them) territory? I doubt it.

As to me belittling you... touchy a bit much? I merely stated that you weren't aware of the rules, that's hardly belittling you. Anyway, this conversation has veered way off-topic, so I think this is where I stop posting.

Silvanus

There are a lot of things wrong with the Avenger system, and many things that could be abused by it and will be abused by someone eventually.

Pk Careful On should be automatically set on for everyone.

If you attack someone, regardless of the territory or not, they should be able to attack you back without fear of Avenger.

If you are in your territory and attack someone that is in enemy territory, that someone should not automatically declare you for you attacking them. Because of this, any ally of yours can defend you and chase that person down ---anywhere--- on prime and kill them without fear of Avenger.

If you, for whatever reason, actually get Vengeance'd, you should actually have to be peaced, and not have the option of circumventing it because of certain conditions. But we all know that only happens to privileged players.

And finally,

You have to be extremely gullible to believe that ONE person goes and jumps FIVE people in enemy territory looking to accomplish anything other then getting Status from those five. The fact that you are still defending your actions as being something other then "suspect farming" is laughable at best, but mostly depressingly pathetic that a renowned combatant who wanted to become a Vernal would swoop to tactics like that.

Uruk

Silvanus said:

If you attack someone, regardless of the territory or not, they should be able to attack you back without fear of Avenger.

Honestly, this is something I wholeheartedly agree with. -Especially- when concerning non-Org territories like Kephera Hives or Illithoid Prison. If you leave your city/commune in order to pursue and attack someone based upon organisational RP then you're openly showing your willingness to engage in PK and your target should not have to worry about the consequences of the Avenger system.

Shaddus

I agree with this as well.

For instance, say I'm hunting kephera, and a Shofangi sees it. They want to play guardian and come defend the hive. If I manage to kill them when they attack me, they just aren't a very good guardian and I shouldn't be punished for it.

Karlach

That said if you're in a group and they attack one of you, does it require a declare from your friends to defend you? Because said person could pick you off one by one still,