Greifing or Legitimate Strategy?

[Edymnion]

Greifing is easy to avoid.

Step 1: Acquire some resources to build a small fast ship with a decent jump drive.
Step 2:Travel to another galaxy, preferably 2 away to decrease probability of someone finding you
Step 3: Build up and prosper
Step 4: Set up faction jump gates to take you close-ish to spawn
Step 5: Good luck

This kind of attitude doesn't help the problem, it just sanctions it.

"Yeah, griefing exists, but instead of trying to do anything about it, just run away and hide and hope they pick on somebody else instead of you."

We need to address the issue head on, not ignore it and hope it happens to somebody else.

 

[Minsc]

It all depends on the rules of the server. If I go do a server and the existing player base enjoys picking off new players at spawn I'll quickly learn that. While it causes me grief, I suppose it's all part of the game so whatever. They are allowed to have their little nook so I (and most others) will leave and find a more respectable server.

In my mind a respectable server is not one with 10,000 written rules which attempt to appease the whims of every player. Keep it simple. For example, all +x, +y, +z systems are a no fight zone and -x, -y, -z are anything goes. Of course this doesn't prevent a person from going into a designated safe area and cause havoc. This is where it's important to have a firm, but forgiving player base and administration. Griefing is not desired but it can happen.

Personally I'd like to give griefers a chance to turn away from their griefing. If they legitimately stop griefing, awesome. If not then see you later buddy, I gave you a chance. Note, being given a chance to redeem is not permission for one free griefing pass.

As players it's important to remember that crap can happen. One can be furious and seek vengeance or let it be and move on. Any player who keeps causing trouble the admins/mods can give the boot. If the management doesn't do their job then it's time to abandon ship.

 

[Sgtwisky]

The best identifier of griefing I can think of is the following:
If a person is taking an action, in order to aggravate a person, with no other purpose, then it is griefing.
If a person is taking an action with clear motivation (examples latter) that cause agravation it is NOT griefing.
Also the "don't be a D**k" rule. If all the player is doing is being a d**k then odds are its griefing.

I think some consideration needs to be made for players who want to play the villain. I tend to ether play Law full good OR the joker(Chaotic Evil) lol. As a few rules I keep for myself to prevent my antics from being griefing:

1. Try to not attack lowbies. Exceptions can be made if they keep attacking me though. Sometimes if they keep verbally trying to make me mad, then to hell with edict they die until they learn their place.

2. Don't take/destroy everything a player has. Doing this just makes them quit. What I want is for them to build up again, so I can ether profit from them again or have a good challenging opponent.

3. Play within whatever the server rules may be. If the rules say "no attacking a station when no players are online to defend it" then I don't touch it. I will say if you have this rule you should also have a "if you log out WHILE under attack then don't expect the attacker to stop" rule.

4. Even though I play the villain, I Never go back on my word, and never lie about what I have done. This is important if you want to be trusted by an admin when they inevitably confront you about "griefing". If you have always shown yourself to be "honest" while being the "Villain" then you will if nothing else have the respect of the community that fears you. And you don't have people afraid to make a deal or trade with you. If you say "I won't shoot you so we can trade" they will believe you and you can still trade with people.

5. Profit....

Playing this way gives me strong rivals, and thus challenge. It allows me to become "infamous" and have my name known on the server. It generally gives me the benefit of the doubt from admins. And overall it allows me to be the "bad guy" without people raging over chat or leaving a server.



As for torpedo's and methods of stopping that one guy that built the cloaked and is trying to put holes in people for no real reason (Thus a griefer) I have a long winded post I'm working on, on my hard drive. Been trying to figure out good methods to handle it. So I am not going to hijack the thread with that. (question was "what is griefing").

 

[jorgekorke]

Since the day that the Faction Security update has gotten into the game, " Griefing " is a word that belongs to Minecraft.

 

[Edymnion]

Since the day that the Faction Security update has gotten into the game, " Griefing " is a word that belongs to Minecraft.

Faction permission levels are broken, more often than not they don't work at all. Locking your ships is useless since they added the cutting torch.

The *ONLY* protection this game actually has against griefers running roughshod over everyone without anything to stop them is the faction home base immunity.

 

[Fireshock]

There are 2 kinds of PvP:

1. Game World PvP/Unstructured:

This is what Starmade has now. There are NO rules. You do what you must to survive and prosper. Hit & run, destroying unprotected property, stomping/abusing weaker players, spawn camping, warp gate camping, ganging up on someone, betraying your allies, stealing ships and constant harrasment are all legit effective game strategyes here. Open world games are not fair and they can NEVER be fair. By loging in to PvP server you accept these terms and give consent to being victim of all of those strategies. Servers may have their own rules about what is forbidden, which may have various levels of harshness, all the way up to no PvP at all. It is up to them to enforce those rules on to their players. Devs just need to give them tools to do so.
​

2. Arena PvP/Structured:

This is what Battle Mode is made for. Solo players or teams of players face off each other in prearanged sector/arena with both teams having exactly the same prearanged resources/abilities aviable to them. There are no consequences for losing, only shame. This kind of PvP is made to be fair, luck is completly eliminated out of equation. Only factor that affects victory here is player's skill.​

Both types of PvP can be very fun and both types require skill. What some people here want is Structured PvP in an Open World game. That is IMPOSSIBLE. I think starmade needs more hosted Battle Mode events. Starmade's PvP players need place to blow off steam somewhere away from PvE communityes.

 

[EricBlank]

More battlemode PVP/events in open world servers sounds fun, and devs need to help us develop some ways to enforce server rules and identify culprits. You've got it down as far as I can see, Fireshock.

 

[Sgtwisky]

Well Fireshock, I agree with point 1 and 2. However, I do believe that you can add "Optional" structuring to combat and PvP. An example could be when quests are a thing, and you have NPC factions. Imagine the ability to "ally" your faction to an NPC faction. Givving you some benefits, but setting you at war with anyone that NPC faction is at war with. The NPCs could give out quests/missions to hunt down their enemies, or to help "Build" their defense ect.. Doing something like this, could allow for more structured PvP. BUT you would still have unstructured going on at the same time.

I think any tactic that is both low risk and high reward, is unbalanced. This would include the OP's version of torpedos with (imo) massive boosts to damage and blast area. I think these could be balanced to be "Medium Risk, Medium Reward".

An example of this that I am looking into (relating to warheads and torpedos) is to increase that overall damage output, but lowering the blast size. SO although it CAN blast through 2 layers of advanced armor, and hurt a handful of blocks (think like 5), its still not over powered. The idea is that its effective, but not so effective it can be exploited. SO a few torpedos to your hull isn't going to even come close to crippleing a well designed ship. MAYBE a smallish turret, but not a ship.

IF proper balancing is done, then all you have left are the asshats that go after fresh spawns. AND the guys that only want to attack people's stuff while they are offline. Those two things lie in the realm of server admins. Although Better tools are needed to aid in this area.

I want to be clear and say I do NOT think being a pirate and going after people is griefing. Doing it to the point that people are quitting the server IS. The only way to police this is with good, active admins, and good admin tools.

Anyway... just my rambling 2 cents.

 

[Lecic]

But lets look at real life a second.

Hahahaha, NO. Games do not and should not be balanced primarily on real life unless you are attempting to make a realistic game. Real life is not always conductive to fun gameplay. Having your battleship get killed by a swarm of cloaker kamikazes is not fun or balanced.

Fighters should not be useful outside of large swarms, with a weakspot in the form of the carrier controlling the fighter drones. Warheads could use a minor buff, but should not be useful outside of very specific uses- namely, blowing the external doors of ships for speedier boarding.

 

[GRHayes]

Hahahaha, NO. Games do not and should not be balanced primarily on real life unless you are attempting to make a realistic game. Real life is not always conductive to fun gameplay. Having your battleship get killed by a swarm of cloaker kamikazes is not fun or balanced.

Fighters should not be useful outside of large swarms, with a weakspot in the form of the carrier controlling the fighter drones. Warheads could use a minor buff, but should not be useful outside of very specific uses- namely, blowing the external doors of ships for speedier boarding.

You are missing the point. If the power & shield systems were also balanced on reality and you didn't have to dedicate so much of your ship to shield because of the poor rate and so much to power. You could have a lot more fire power. A single fighter wouldn't be a threat by itself it would require them to come in swarms because they would have to account for their losses just trying to approach.

The only real difference is right now you can send a swarm of fighters to attack say a titan class. And you are going to take so long to get the shields down you are going to run out of fighters. However going the other way if one fighter manages to make it through they could potentially have the ability to damage the ship as in RL.

 

[Lecic]

If the power & shield systems were also balanced on reality and you didn't have to dedicate so much of your ship to shield because of the poor rate and so much to power. You could have a lot more fire power.

Hey, want to know something neat? The game already allows you to trade off your shields for more firepower and vice versa.

A single fighter wouldn't be a threat by itself it would require them to come in swarms because they would have to account for their losses just trying to approach.

So... how the game already works?

 

[GRHayes]

Hey, want to know something neat? The game already allows you to trade off your shields for more firepower and vice versa.



So... how the game already works?

I didn't say you would be able to I said you wouldn't have to. Just the opposite!

No the game doesn't work the way I said. A single fighter doesn't have the fire power to take out a Capital ship if it gets close. Once its rest of the fighter are gone it is just a chew toy for the larger ship.

From your response you obviously didn't bother to either read it or you just made it into whatever you wanted it to mean.

 

[Lecic]

No the game doesn't work the way I said. A single fighter doesn't have the fire power to take out a Capital ship if it gets close. Once its rest of the fighter are gone it is just a chew toy for the larger ship.

And this is a bad thing because...? A single fighter SHOULD be a chew toy for a big ship's turrets.

 

[Fireshock]

However, I do believe that you can add "Optional" structuring to combat and PvP. An example could be when quests are a thing, and you have NPC factions. Imagine the ability to "ally" your faction to an NPC faction. Givving you some benefits, but setting you at war with anyone that NPC faction is at war with. The NPCs could give out quests/missions to hunt down their enemies, or to help "Build" their defense ect.. Doing something like this, could allow for more structured PvP. BUT you would still have unstructured going on at the same time.

My point about Open World games was that whatever structure you put in, there will always be posibility of random stronger player coming by and completly ruining you and ruining what ever structured content you were doing for no apparent reason. That's why it will always stay unstructured.

An example of this that I am looking into (relating to warheads and torpedos) is to increase that overall damage output, but lowering the blast size. SO although it CAN blast through 2 layers of advanced armor, and hurt a handful of blocks (think like 5), its still not over powered. The idea is that its effective, but not so effective it can be exploited. SO a few torpedos to your hull isn't going to even come close to crippleing a well designed ship. MAYBE a smallish turret, but not a ship.

One guy already posted MIRV Torpedo missile on to forums. I can make Torpedo weapon which splits in to multiple smaller torpedos which hit same point one after the other to dig huge hole in the ship. You could say "that is overpowered" because I heavely damaged your big expensive ship with a tiny almost worthless ship.
But there is another angle to that: It is NOT overpowered because I needed high game knowladge and enginering creativity to do that. Aka. I outplayed you with my skill which is higher than your skill since you didn't even realize something like that is possible. Now will you admit that you were outplayed.... or will you go cry on forums how I abused an overpowered weapon to grief you????

Big majority of people will chose second option and thus we have threads like this. My point is you HAVE TO GIVE UP ON FAIRNESS because you will never achieve it and inevitably get frustrated because of it. If PvP occurs, if both parties don't back off, one side will have to lose. It is in people's nature to then blame something/someone for loss of their precious ship/resources and do all other things EXCEPT accepting that it's just how this game is and move on.

I want to be clear and say I do NOT think being a pirate and going after people is griefing. Doing it to the point that people are quitting the server IS.

If a player choses a server whose rules dont align with his playstyle then he should be destroyed so he can quit and find a server which actualy suits him. If someone wants to "play PvP", but is too stupid to dock his ships, cryes first time when he loses something, gets emotional beyond roleplay reasons at every PvP encounter or any unmature stuff like that. Then he should be allowed to quit the server because unstructured PvP is not for him. High agressivenes/constant harrasment is just another strategy. It's weakness is being very predictable.

 

[Lecic]

But there is another angle to that: It is NOT overpowered because I needed high game knowladge and enginering creativity to do that. Aka. I outplayed you with my skill which is higher than your skill since you didn't even realize something like that is possible. Now will you admit that you were outplayed.... or will you go cry on forums how I abused an overpowered weapon to grief you????

There is a difference between outplaying someone and doing something that is unfair and cannot be counted without severe, bullshit negatives. How would you propose someone counters a factionless warhead torpedo? Being hostile to neutral, causing you to blast any random stranger to bits with your turrets when you come across them? Setting your ship to have its entire hull covered in logic fired damage pulses, causing lag, ruining aesthetics, and being a general nuisance to do?

Only the first person needs "high game knowladge" and "enginering" to create a system. Once it's public, everyone can use it, whether they're a super genius or a chimp slapping a keyboard.

Your resource expenditure to kill/maim a ship was significantly lower than their cost to make said ship. This is called a "severe imbalance" and is recognized as such by anyone with a decent capability to understand how balance works.

 

[GRHayes]

And this is a bad thing because...? A single fighter SHOULD be a chew toy for a big ship's turrets.

Wow you are so good you can take something out of context. Yes, a fighter should a be a chew toy on a 1 on 1 battle with a ship however it should also be able to carry adequate firepower to do the job it is intended for or it is pointless to have them.

Cutting out the first part of what is said doesn't make you look smart. Or maybe you just have problems putting things together like that. Who knows from this point forward. You are considered troll and I won't respond to you!

 

[Lecic]

Wow you are so good you can take something out of context. Yes, a fighter should a be a chew toy on a 1 on 1 battle with a ship however it should also be able to carry adequate firepower to do the job it is intended for or it is pointless to have them.

Cutting out the first part of what is said doesn't make you look smart. Or maybe you just have problems putting things together like that. Who knows from this point forward. You are considered troll and I won't respond to you!

Fighter swarms can already carry enough firepower to take down a big ship. A single fighter should not have the firepower to take on a big ship, regardless of whether or not it had a bunch of friendly fighters with it on its way to the destination. If you've only got a few fighters left by the time you start even firing on the big ship, guess what? YOU'VE LOST.

 

[Edymnion]

It boils down to fair play.

Someone who spends more time and resources *SHOULD* have an advantage over someone that just slops some stuff together in 10 minutes and calls it done. People who work harder at the game should get bigger rewards than those who just flit in every once in a while.

 

[Zaphord]

Fighter swarms can already carry enough firepower to take down a big ship. A single fighter should not have the firepower to take on a big ship, regardless of whether or not it had a bunch of friendly fighters with it on its way to the destination. If you've only got a few fighters left by the time you start even firing on the big ship, guess what? YOU'VE LOST.

Technically, a fighter's job should be to keep attention off the bombers attacking the titan. Giving it's turrets something to shoot at other than the heavy hitters that can and should be able to dent it's hull. In the case of attacking a carrier, like in a previous post, those fighters have to keep the enemy fighters from shooting down the bombers they're escorting.

I don't think it should be purely a matter of size. A missile or bomb in the right place should be able to do some real damage to a larger ship, the hard part is making it past everyone and everything trying to snuff you while you do it.

In short, I think to balance out torpedoes would require a slight boost to damage and blast radius, nothing like a nuke but better than the firecracker we have now. To compensate, up the price of warheads and/or make them harder to produce. If I have to spend a lot of time and money to make warheads, I might be more picky about that I fire them at.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

Generally, I'd say griefing is killing other players or doing major harm to their structures (ships and stations alike) using methods and creating situations that allow no or almost no chance of avoidance or counterplay. This includes, but isn't limited to, basecamping, newbie sniping, battleship bullying, trapping ("Free stuff! Free ships!" Yea, for me after I blow up anyone who shows up with my inhibitor-equipped megaship), and abusing bugs and exploits in the game code or game mechanics to do harm (bypassing homebase protection, for example - although I hope that was only a scare and not a real thing)

Now, using a cloaker tipped with buffed warheads to ram your ship, could be considered griefing, since if you're outside your claimed system, you get absolutely no warning of a cloaked ship around unless you frequently tap your scanner (if you have one) and hope you randomly catch someone who might as well arrive and pull the stunt off between 2 scanner recharges. Again, it's a MAYBE.