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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Definition of Griefing
maouw
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
https://clips.twitch.tv/ResourcefulBoxyZebraThunBeast-6jZ7whi4c5uAgfFO
Steven: "...impacting your gameplay in a negative, harassing and repetitive manner - [where] the motivation to do that action is less about their personal advancement, and more about impacting your gameplay because when they elicit the response of anger or rage from the player, they feel a sense of accomplishment. That, imo, is what griefing is."
Context: what is healthy risk, and where does it become unhealthy griefing?
Takeaways:
This is really clear, and I appreciate it - but humans be human - we are rarely motivated by 1 pure motivation, despite such a clear definition of griefing. So I have a question:
The corruption system aims to curtail griefing from the offender's end, but there's a secondary way we can disrupt a griefer:
Have there been other games that helped you keep your cool? How did they do it?
Steven: "...impacting your gameplay in a negative, harassing and repetitive manner - [where] the motivation to do that action is less about their personal advancement, and more about impacting your gameplay because when they elicit the response of anger or rage from the player, they feel a sense of accomplishment. That, imo, is what griefing is."
Context: what is healthy risk, and where does it become unhealthy griefing?
Takeaways:
- healthy risk - other players have the right to impact my progress
- unhealthy risk (grief) - other players using these rights to elicit a response from me
This is really clear, and I appreciate it - but humans be human - we are rarely motivated by 1 pure motivation, despite such a clear definition of griefing. So I have a question:
The corruption system aims to curtail griefing from the offender's end, but there's a secondary way we can disrupt a griefer:
- Bolster the victim's ability to remain calm when being griefed.
Have there been other games that helped you keep your cool? How did they do it?
I wish I were deep and tragic
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Comments
People might reply to that with "but they waste my time and I don't have much of that", to which I'd say "I was a 12y.o. who could only play in a PC cafe on a very limited budget (1-2h a day, if that) and one death would set me back several hours". If I could live through that w/o getting mad at a simple game - your grown ass better be able to too.
A reminder that you possibly have a very specific rarer psychological profile.
This is the equivalent of telling someone to 'git gud' irl.
I actually am pretty aware that as the community stands now, it explicitly intends to include any people with social anxieties, specific types of 'anger issues', etc.
Ashes isn't for everyone.
As always I say, don't do it UNNECESSARILY. If the game's design does not NEED to exclude people with such issues for it to function, then find a way not to.
People whine about nearly nothing, that's what it is.
If it is a competitive game then everybody is supposed to wreck each other, you have your guilds, your friends, an entire world to hide or fight.
YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO DESTROY OTHERS
If you can't find out how to fight back then you are just a bad player.
Griefing can exist.
There's only griefing in perfectly PVE games, example Minecraft servers where you can destroy other people's homes but can't do pvp
The solution can be working together with other people since it's a MMO, the same way other people can make your game harder they can make it easier.
But I get what you're saying. And Steven hopes that his changes will limit griefing to a big extent and anything on top of that would be caught by GMs, though I feel like Steven himself might have a profile similar to mine so his base understanding of what "griefing" is might not match what other people think of when they hear the words quoted in the OP.
We'll have to see how it works out closer to release. That is if the community doesn't implode on itself before that, which is definitely a possibility considering the current design and all the potential prospects of how the newcomers would react to that design when they learn about the game (and the counter reaction of the oldtimers).
In my experience this is EXACTLY what happens to games.
By natural selection, after about 5 months, all remaining serious players of a game tend to have the same psychological profile if the game contains real strain-points.
Then you have to reset the whole thing to 'make new players feel like it is worth joining'. This is not from this genre, though. So maybe it doesn't apply to MMOs. Let's hope it doesn't apply to MMOs.
Griefing is just something that generally doesn't happen to me. I'm sure it's happened here and there over my 25 years of mmo gaming. But it's just never been a big deal, for me.
But I can say, if I was griefed, the one thing that would help me keep my cool is if each and every time I'm griefed, that it's actually hurting my griefer more than it's hurting me. Ashes' system accomplishes that, mostly. Customer Service and GM's will take care of the rest.
PVE games like Factorio if you log int he server and sabotage the factory, then it's griefing.
If you play PVE only games and just sabotage structures, pull mobs away, etc, just in PVE games there's griefing.
You say this is really clear.
I disagree to the point of being concerned about it, for the same reason you mentioned.
I go out into the world, I see someone I don't like, I notice they are also doing something that has only the tiniest minimal chance of affecting my profits.
I bother them anyway. Every time. I want them to leave my Node so I keep bothering them.
Unless Intrepid's stance is 'you can push someone out of your Node but going after them consistently beyond that is harrassment', idk what they want here.
The idea IS explicitly to 'hound them out of the Node' in my mind. I figured Ashes would work because 'exiling a player from your area' wouldn't stop them from playing the game.
Of course I want a response from them. I want them to leave the Node (or get others to tell ME to leave instead). Increasing their ability to remain calm about it probably just frustrates ME. It doesn't involve any 'story', it doesn't cause any 'growth', it's just the same old dumb stalemate with people annoying each other 'just slightly less than the rules say isn't allowed'.
I think that community type is more toxic ON AVERAGE in the long run than one where you can grief someone out of an AREA, and Ashes has the almost-unique design where 'there is always another area to go to'.
You don't think the decision to leave an area can be driven by rational cognition without emotional outburst?
Surely encouraging stronger resolve is healthier long-term, which although makes it harder for you to chase people away, doesn't this also indicate:
- reduced potential for dominant powers to maintain their dominance
- fostering of a healthier playerbase mindset in the long term
?
Or to zoom out from your example a bit: Where do you see the emotional outburst of the victim being important to intrusive gameplay?
I don't think we can say griefing doesn't happen in full PvP. There's definitely grief in LoL
-harvesting more is a fight
-leveling your node is a fight
-destroying the other node's enviroment is a fight
-getting the best gear in a dungeon is becomming richer than your enemies
-making better allies is fighting other nodes
-bringing better pvpers to the guild is stealing good pvpers from the other guilds
Intrepid has to teach people that being the top dog in PVE is infact destroying your enemies in the long run, then if people get killed they will be fine with it.
It's moreso that the 'fight or flight' response happens in nearly any unexpected situation for most humans, and even if the frustration part does not happen, that reaction can linger easily.
More importantly, I'm sort of saying the opposite.
I believe that people grow faster when they are NOT given the impression that they should 'toughen up'.
They should run away FIRST, then do that. And rational decisions to leave therefore can also come after. As the player with the intention to strain and 'push out', all that would happen if the game added more ways for people to stay calm and stick around BEYOND the current 'TTK is high, you can fight back' and 'group up and try with a group'...
Is that I must now 'make the person more miserable in more targeted and serious ways' if I want them to leave the area, if I don't want a stalemate. I don't think that's good. Maybe it's hard to explain but, it is close to 'fail faster'.
Your nodemates don't like you and kill you randomly when you try to level in the dungeon? Sure, try to work out why once or twice, but after that, I think it's better if you move on sooner and 'accept that you didn't really belong there'. In a big game with lots of content, 'sticking around a dungeon that you keep getting killed in' (since we're talking about the Griefing tier of behaviour) because the game 'gives you tools that are supposed to make you feel less stressed about it', seems like a bad outcome to me, not a good one.
Things to avoid:
- being able to spawn camp
- being able to attack people while in a cut scene/speaking with quest givers
Biggest one is number 1. You have to make sure you can't lock someone down to keep them dead.
Things you avoid:
- being able to attack someone when they have no control of their character (cut scenes, quest givers, respawning, zoning).
- being able to attack into areas that are supposed to be safe (so no PvP within nodes, but you can shoot projectiles into nodes)
- having a locked respawn. A choice of where you respawn solves a lot of problems
Those are some off of the top of my head.
Yeah. I only feel griefed when I'm pushed to PvP when I'm not in the mood.
Non-consensual PvP.
Typically, the stuff PvPers list as griefing doesn't affect me.
Also the stuff RPers list as griefing doesn't affect me.
So. It was great to get a clear definition from Steven, but...
Well, to answer the question better, I think...
Usually a game has this 'baked into the core systems' for me.
I'll give three situations, one from Elite Dangerous, one from Absolver, and one from BDO.
When someone chooses to attack you in Elite Dangerous, you're almost always in a situation where you can 'avoid the situation' to an extent, and even if you don't have the skill or build to do so at step 1, you should probably have the ability to do it on step 2.
If you don't, it doesn't feel like 'the player is doing something they shouldn't be doing'. They might be attacking you for no 'real reason' other than being a ganker, and they might definitely set you back, but the game's NPCs do this just as often, and you're in comparable danger if you're the sort of player that has the tier of skill or ship that even CAN be 'griefed'. Other than that, it's relatively difficult to do this, so it's easy to stay chill about it when it does happen, it's just 'part of the game'.
In Absolver, you can be attacked anytime by any player, but there is no loss for this. If anything you're encouraged to fight. But I've had situations where people attack in the middle of trying to do something else against a PvE 'boss' or similar. The situation I refer to today, though, was two players who 'ran up to me and indicated they wanted to fight'. Now, being really used to this game, I expected a 1v1 and it started that way, but then the other jumped in.
Then, because you can 'raise' your opponent after you beat them, they did this. I thought this was it. They did the 'raise' and I took it, and they immediately started to BOTH attack again. Then beat me, then did some taunt emotes, then did it again. About... five more times I think. I let them, because... I don't even know what they wanted. It has no benefit to either them or me, but I can see how this sort of thing would be very annoying to a specific type of person. Except that there's no real loss in the game of that specific type. It's moreso 'you are unable to make progress when you lose a fight'. The only loss is potential gains from winning. So while I could have 'not accepted their raise', I just kept going with it because I pity this sort of person.
In BDO, same situation as above. I think it was entirely valid because I think these were Guild War opponents. I left town, they instakilled me because it's BDO and TTK with TWO attackers when you are stupidly in gathering/riding gear is instant. I had other things to do and was not planning on doing anything serious anyway so I just logged off, I didn't feel like 'giving them kills to check if I outgeared them enough to win'.
The last one is the closest to 'griefing' but the previous counts too in parallel. The Absolver players probably DID just want to 'laugh at potentially making someone else miserable' so I just let them imagine whatever they liked until I actually needed to prep for stream.
The BDO pair was doing what the game wants them to do. I can't complain at them, it's BDO that is broken. So I was pretty 'mad'. If you combine the two situations, where it was 'Two people attacking because the game says they benefit from doing so', and 'These two people can keep attacking over and over', I'm pretty sure it's the game that is trash, EVEN if the players are like the ones from the Absolver example.
But much like Dygz, the thing that keeps me calmest when being griefed is that I 'die quickly' and 'my opponent gains little for continuing after the first such death'. Because if the game isn't terrible, I always have a counter to anything on the 'griefing' tier, and if the game IS terrible, who cares?
There is no griefing in PVP games, people have to stop whinning that's all!
If the other guy spawn camp you, kill him then spawn camp him.
People go play Street Fighter and they don't say they were griefed.
People go play Counter-Strike and get headshotted by the scout rifle and they don't say they are being griefed.
When there is full open PVP you get beat up a few times then get up and give back all the punishment, it's just this simple.
When you can't push people back not even with the help of your guild then that gives space to real griefing.
In general people just whine because they lost a bit of lumber and had to respawn a few times and walk a bit.
Seems legit!
This is what Intrepid Studios has to make people understand that everything is a fight!
Fight for resources, fight for the land management, fight for the best gear, fight for controlling a node politcally and everything else is a fight too.
When you understand that you are inserted in such enviroment then you won't cry if you die a few times, just like while playing Battlefield or Halo.
You guys die 57 times trying to raid a dungeon but then if someone kills you half a dozen times then it's griefing?
We better start waking up.
griefing exists...in mobas when your own teammates take your shit while you are jungling and you cant level up hahaha, then follows you around taking all your shit and then runs it down mid 10 times
Post this part into the griefing thread too
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/51714/dev-discussion-39-griefing
The pvp game can also be badly designed where players find ways to act and the others cannot counter those actions by working together.
I hope AoC will stay with the initially intended way of having the same penalties when killed by an NPC as when killed by a player
-Killing someone whenever they travel with a fully-loaded mule
-Killing someone for the opportunity to harvest a rare resource or fight a rare spawn
-Killing someone to prevent them from harvesting/grinding in your area
-Killing someone who is trying to obtain a siege scroll for your node
-Killing someone whenever they enter a dungeon you're farming
-Killing someone for roleplay reasons (e.g., hating orcs)
-Killing someone repeatedly to prevent them from leveling up a node that's competing with yours
-Killing someone repeatedly to reduce competition for housing in your area
A player could feel like the target of griefing even if their killer has no interest in generating an emotional response.
The various corruption levels are not clear to me yet.
If however you followed a player around, consistently attacking them until they were low hp and then stopping, training mobs on them, basically anything you could think of to annoy them and make their game experience unpleasant without getting any corruption, that would probably be actionable harassment.
I don't play PvP-centric games.
So... yeah, Intrepid needs to be clear that Ashes is a PvP-centric game.
I agree.
If both parties have systems that let you flee-or-flight then it's fine
My only concern is that green griefers come to your area and completely poop on you and walk away laughing at you. At least in some cases guild wars and node wars will help.
Well if you are a carebear then in your case what will help you is stick to player driven content.
Join a guild that has actual pvpers and they will deal with people for you, you just gotta to befriend people like that and support their actions.
You can profit from it and stay away from stuff you don't like.
Players can clear or obstruct the path for you.
We know that any of those are NOT griefing, those are just simple kills.
What Steven has to wake up about is that he has no say in what goes on in the player's mind, how you roleplay and play your content is up to you, it's not Steven's business.
He is just a CEO and a developer, he is not the master of my inner experience as a player.
Yeah, when a game is that broken that leaves no counters then finally it's griefing and it's bad game design, it's the company's fault.