So, Etiquette. Your Thoughts?

Linkster79

fight4thedream wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

liminal_lad wrote:

Also, this line sounds so... gangster?

Had he been obstinate and refused to participate, obviously things would not go well for either party. He would face constant bombardment and that alliance would have to waste time and resources keeping him down.

Whew, thank you, so it was not just me who thought that. That whole post sounded like "It doesn't have to be that way, friend; just kiss the bejewelled hand of the don and become part of the family. You'll be protected, you'll get favours and well, sometimes we may need favours from you. But if you choose not to be part of the family... ah, sadly one must protect one's family at all cost, yes? Especially at the cost of those who are not family, you understand," in heavy Sicilian accent.

@f4td: If we were talking about being retaliated once or maybe a couple times after a careless sniping, I guess that I'd understand. But people were talking about systemic ganging that would continue not only for the rest of the even, but throughout the rest of the season; literally thousands of points lost and dozens of prizes missed in punishment for grabbing 75 points from the wrong person. I'm sorry but that's bullying of the worst calibre no matter how nice you want to paint being part of such apparently helpful and friendly community (to insiders) and how you use loaded language such as "lone wolves" or "anarchists" to talk about those who "obstinately refuse" to join or are unaware that they should. "Join and enjoy, don't join and stomach the unfortunately consequences" is, again, a bullying tactic even if you are actually not intending to sound threatening.

Pylgrim, I'm not going to continue to butt heads with you over this. I will say that your gangster analogy while funny is very misleading and your characterization of these alliances as bullies is also not fair. For starters, there are only two rules that I am aware of when you join a battlechat:

1.)If you have someone in your node who is part of the battlechat, check to see if they are shielded or not before you hit them.
2.) If they are unshielded, wait until they shield before hitting them.

That's it. Perhaps other alliances have other rules but I doubt it. I fail to see how these two requirements make these battlechats oppressive organizations.

As for hit lists, have you taken the time to consider the point of view of these alliances? They have spent most of the event building up points. They have invested a significant amount of HP, time and effort. Then you have late comers who wait to play the event because: 1.) They don't want to or can't spend the same amount of time or HP playing the event, and 2.) they know there will be a lot more points at the end making for a quicker progression. These two groups do not have to be in opposition. However, if you are a commander of a top alliance which players have spent probably more HP then they will earn from the event and are getting reports of your members getting sniped during their shield hops by the same player, what are you going to do? Tell them "Sorry, that player isn't in our alliance or battlechat so he or she is probably unaware that they are hitting us so we are just going to have to let it slide" or try to find a way to rectify the problem?

As I have stated before, most if not all of these alliances are not out to hit single targets, they are focused on maximizing points. The reason they reach out to other players not in their alliance to join battlechat is not because they are trying to bully them, but because they are trying to protect their interests. Would you rather they just not say anything and give you the beat down in hopes that you quit the game? Why should they roll over and take it from people who have not invested the same HP and time in the event? And furthermore, as it was explained to me hitlists are cleared after each event unless an alliance encounters a repeat offender.

What people that "just want to play the game as it was intended" don't seem to understand is that these points they are getting are not being produced out of thin air. Someone has to set the track for people to reach 1000 and 1300 and most of this work is done by the top alliances who have players who spend a lot of time and HP coordinating shield hops. These alliances have imposed no great laws or rules on pVp. You do not have to kiss the hand of the don because there is no don. You just have to ask if the person you have lined up for a hit is shielded or not.

Finally, I'll ask you to re-read each post in this thread. I found two that I thought reflected the two different attitudes concerning this matter rather well:

Linkster79 wrote:

There is no etiquette. PvP is a dog eat dog world and I will nail anyone I deem suitable as many times as possible if need be. Friends, alliance members I have attacked them all and I would again if I had to. I know that by saying this I will most likely be placed on some sort of hit list, I couldn't give a fig, if folks want to do that kind of thing then good luck to them.

franckynight wrote:

Im sorry if i sounded like a jerk to some of you but what i told again is about high end pvp.. im talking about guys with strong enough rosters to be in top50 alliances.. Newbs/transitionners are invisible to us anyway the way mmr is set now.. This a world apart full of intricacies, dramas and subplots.. There are individual truces.. Multi battle chats.. Alliance truces.. Wars.. Etc.. The guys i'm hunting are repeated offenders.. Not random ppl that will hit one of us inadvertly on his way to 1k.. Enforcing is now part of the game.. Thats how it is.. Is it good? I dont know.. What i know is that it lets us protect our climbers by limiting the number of hits they could get.. As long as ppl feel entitled to hit ppl for 75 without consequence you ll have top teams that will take those points back.. Again high end pvp is a world apart..

And then I ask you, which of these people comes off as a bully? The person who proclaims he doesn't care who he hits or the one who apologizes for coming off aggressively and further tries to explains his position?

You mentioned at the beginning of this thread that you were going to try battlechat for the Jean PvP. I only ask that if you do plan on continuing to do so, you do with an open mind and a willingness to communicate.

Peace (=^‥^)ノ☆

Being a lone player and attacking anybody they see in their queue worth points is a big difference to calling on other members of their alliance (or family of alliances) to specifically single out and target an individual for the simple reason of having the sheer nerve of making them lose points.

Don't even get me started on how much hero points some people use for a PvP event as that is a non excuse for bullyin. Coordinated shield hops, battle chats and using friends to help boost I have no issue with at all but bullying in any form is wrong, and as a forum moderator I find it terrible that you would condone these actions in game. Yes I know you are a player too but as somebody who has moderated several forums in the past I also know your conduct on the forums should be above reproach.

Ebolamonkey84

sagapo wrote:

Malcrof wrote:

If they are climbing or hopping, when i queue them , and they are worth 38 points , but when i finish the fight, i get 61 (like last night), then i risk getting my but kicked by 15 people even though i was no longer worth the hassle, which is pretty much what happened to me...

I am not sure what you are saying here, you can search for your target while shielded (at this point you should still be invisible to other players assuming you've been shielded for a while now), find some good targets for points, then once you fill up all 3 nodes with good points, they want you to wait a little before you remove shield and attack so that those people you just found have finished their hop and have shielded, when you win your match against them, you should get more points since they also should have increased in points (assuming they didn't get attacked), at the same time you aren't taking points away from them.

Personally, I agree with you on hitting whoever without regards to who it is or what they are doing. I don't feel like this should be an extra task for you to do to play a game, just to be nice. And really..... the whole point of PvP is to attack each other, it's called Player vs. Player for a reason, not CareBearClub trying to reach progression rewards. If someone can't handle the attacks in PvP, then they shouldn't be playing PvP, this is true for any game, especially MMO's.

The concept of PvP which makes it fun is to have a winner, and a loser. Doing what people are suggesting just makes everyone winners by working together, and that might as well be PvE.

It's not just to be nice, though. I couldn't care less about being nice to people outside of the people I climb with. I am trying to hit my progressions goals. By waiting until someone is shielded, I benefit in two ways: they will be worth more when I hit them, and I will potentially avoid attacks from other people while I'm hopping who show me the same courtesy I showed to their alliance mate.

This may be what makes it fun to you, but other people can have fun by working together to achieve a common goal. Other people can have fun by repeatedly hitting people who try to take points from their alliance. Progression rewards are currently better than placement rewards for anyone who even has to consider all of this when playing. For many, progressions rewards are all we even have to play for anymore.

Apparently people don't want their PVP to be cooperative and they don't want their PVE to be competitive. To those people I say:

Unknown

Ebolamonkey84 wrote:

sagapo wrote:

Malcrof wrote:

If they are climbing or hopping, when i queue them , and they are worth 38 points , but when i finish the fight, i get 61 (like last night), then i risk getting my but kicked by 15 people even though i was no longer worth the hassle, which is pretty much what happened to me...

I am not sure what you are saying here, you can search for your target while shielded (at this point you should still be invisible to other players assuming you've been shielded for a while now), find some good targets for points, then once you fill up all 3 nodes with good points, they want you to wait a little before you remove shield and attack so that those people you just found have finished their hop and have shielded, when you win your match against them, you should get more points since they also should have increased in points (assuming they didn't get attacked), at the same time you aren't taking points away from them.

Personally, I agree with you on hitting whoever without regards to who it is or what they are doing. I don't feel like this should be an extra task for you to do to play a game, just to be nice. And really..... the whole point of PvP is to attack each other, it's called Player vs. Player for a reason, not CareBearClub trying to reach progression rewards. If someone can't handle the attacks in PvP, then they shouldn't be playing PvP, this is true for any game, especially MMO's.

The concept of PvP which makes it fun is to have a winner, and a loser. Doing what people are suggesting just makes everyone winners by working together, and that might as well be PvE.

It's not just to be nice, though. I couldn't care less about being nice to people outside of the people I climb with. I am trying to hit my progressions goals. By waiting until someone is shielded, I benefit in two ways: they will be worth more when I hit them, and I will potentially avoid attacks from other people while I'm hopping who show me the same courtesy I showed to their alliance mate.

This may be what makes it fun to you, but other people can have fun by working together to achieve a common goal. Other people can have fun by repeatedly hitting people who try to take points from their alliance. Progression rewards are currently better than placement rewards for anyone who even has to consider all of this when playing. For many, progressions rewards are all we even have to play for anymore.

Apparently people don't want their PVP to be cooperative and they don't want their PVE to be competitive. To those people I say:

It's nutella. Thank you very much.

Unknown

Ebolamonkey84 wrote:

Apparently people don't want their PVP to be cooperative and they don't want their PVE to be competitive.

You sir, are correct. The gameplays are mixed right now and shouldn't be. The only real PvE that I've seen is the Ultron event, working together as an alliance to achieve a common goal.

Malcrof, it looks like you are finding targets when you are unshielded, that increases your time spent while you are exposed to the world. If you know your shield is expiring, you should be looking for targets before that happens.

Another possibility is that your roster could be filled with squishies, if you are running loki, hood, etc, a FistBuster team could take that out in 1-2 minutes, even if you were to shield hop perfectly, you would still get hit and lose points.

Best practice is to find targets, then spend less than 5 minutes shield hopping especially at the end game level, unless its one of those cage events, then everyone will be slow so you can manage to take a little longer.

Wonko33

jimstarooney wrote:

puppychow wrote:

Puerto Rico, I assume you have been talking to the crew on line, because you don't strike me as the type of person to presume to speak for others w/o checking with them.

So far I've been hit 23x by Crewsaders. My last shield break I attacked Phraeg, but his professor x managed to throw his pink tile on board and stretched my 2 minute push into a 4 minute push. So I wasn't surprised to see a bunch of crews popping up. My fault for not finishing the match faster.

If Crewsaders wanna to pursue a grudge against me, that's fine. But don't go around and paint yourself as punishing bullies because it's the reverse right now. Xmen were infamous because of the way they gangbanged people, and if Crewsaders choose to act like Xmen that's their right. Again, don't go paint yourselves as victims and insult people's intelligence.

As far as the gangbanging offenders are concerned, Viral hit me 6x on day 1, Misstique hit me 6x on day 2 (plus a bit past midnight on day 3), and Shamsali hit me 4x. These guys (and gal) are getting lumps of coal for xmas.

And Lawyer is the spy on me. He broke shield at 11.30 pm (and I politely avoided sniping him), then a second time at 12.40ish. Even though he didn't attack me directly, he's helping to coordinate the hits and therefore Lawyer also deserves a lump of coal for xmas.

As I said before, I have no interest in either first place or the 1300 cover. I already broke 1k and grabbed a cover I didn't need. I'm playing Fresh Cuts for the entertainment value. See you crew guys in a few hours! 8-)

lawyers actually a girl lol just felt i had to point that out.

Her LINE notification icon just reached 5000

Unknown

Just registered the LINE that I downloaded about a month ago. We'll see if a desire eventually develops to pursue this. I figure with at least having a registered account & my handle in my sig, I at least have an open door to communication.

nwman

Lots of useful information in this thread, I have a line account now, hopefully I can help out, I do jump around pvp time slots, so I'll likely see a bunch of you over the next while.

Malcrof

downsouthman1 wrote:

Just registered the LINE that I downloaded about a month ago. We'll see if a desire eventually develops to pursue this. I figure with at least having a registered account & my handle in my sig, I at least have an open door to communication.

i did this last week when i merc'd for JG. Not sure what else it is used for, i have sent exactly 1 message so far since i have had it..lol

fmftint

Malcrof wrote:

downsouthman1 wrote:

Just registered the LINE that I downloaded about a month ago. We'll see if a desire eventually develops to pursue this. I figure with at least having a registered account & my handle in my sig, I at least have an open door to communication.

i did this last week when i merc'd for JG. Not sure what else it is used for, i have sent exactly 1 message so far since i have had it..lol

A lot of alliances use it for general communication since IGC is so bad.

morph3us

A lot of interesting points in this thread.

First thing I want to say is that I agree with most, if not all of the etiquette that's been raised by the major alliance members here. Having said that, I'm going to stir the pot a bit.

The main issue I can see is that you're enforcing unwritten rules that most people outside of this forum and Line would not have any idea about. These rules are desirable, granted, but the vast majority of people playing this game are never going to hear about them, and are most likely to be the culprits in terms of the mid-hop snipe. If I get hit mid-hop, it's very rarely by a member of the Crew or the X-Men etc, it's always by a random somewhere. Now, I'm not part of a major alliance, but if I were, and the random was then targeted for retaliatory strikes, there's not going to be any recourse to actually feed back to them why they're being hit. They're just going to think that PvP sucks, and rage-quit (which might be the intended result, I don't know).

Either way, I think it possibly poses an issue for the devs. As pointed out, in game chat is terrible. Shield hopping is a necessary part of the game in PvP, first in reaching 800 for the 2-3* transitioners, then for the 3*s attempting to build a 4* in reaching 1000 points. Is the solution to improve in game chat? I'm not sure. Contest of Champions has a general chat line, and it's so full of teenage trash talk that I muted it straight away ("yea well my hole class did ur mom!" blargh). Just interested to hear if anyone has any ideas around this that doesn't involve downloading an app that has no association with the game at all, and isn't going to occur to the majority of the playerbase to use.

As an aside, when I was climbing to 1K in Fresh Cut last night, I saw a forumite in the top ten break shields to try and hit 1K. I lined them up, and waited for them to hit 1K and reshield, then watched as they got sniped from just below 1K to the low 800s, poor sod. As a second aside, I also appreciate everyone waiting for me to hit 1K before beating the **** out me (since I didn't want the placement rewards, I totally haemorrhaged points afterwards, lol).

acescracked

With the way MMR in PvP is the vast majority of the player base won't run into those situations.

For the most part the players capable of hitting someone that has 1300 or more points has played for awhile, is in a top 100 or better alliance, and most likely knows these unwritten rules.

Stax the Foyer

The only thing worse than being in a shard with a high-scoring alliance is not being in a shard with a high-scoring alliance.

Pylgrim

After reading what everybody has to say I think that there is a main divide in philosophies caused principally by differences in wealth of time available to play. I play PVP when I can, mostly when I commute, in the can or before going to sleep. I could theoretically play at other times but that would be interrupting other things happening in my life and as I've said before it is bad enough already that I allow that to happen every two weeks when a PVE releasing a new character comes around.

This means that for me "it's just a matter of waiting 10 minutes before hitting your target, people!" is almost inconceivable. I wait 10 minutes, I spent a significant amount of the time I could have been playing and advancing, doing nothing and then I have very little time left to play. And I certainly don't believe in the mantra of shielding every 2-3 fights when you are under 900. A climb from 500-600 to 850-900 in one go, before shielding has proved for me to be the best use of my time and HP, hopefully only needing one more hop to reach 1k (for which I do try to line targets in advance, though that has betrayed me a few times when my target ended being much less valuable than I expected.)

This is not a "dog-eats-dog" mentality and I am not out to be a maverick, defying rules and spitting on the face of the ruling families. I am simply playing the game as it is presented to me, using the amount of time and resources that I am comfortable with and that have proven to work best for me. I have nothing against people allying and cooperating, as I've said I'm going to give it a go, though I really expect it is going to clash with the timing of my playtime, but we'll see.

What I am truly against, even though I haven't been a victim of it, is the vendetta style of enforcement. I assure you that most of the players that cross such alliances are not the kind to stalk alliance players and rub their grubby, filthy hands together going "oooh, a rich fat morsel, how much I love hunting these hopping fattened calves!" but rather, hapless players, ignorant of meta-policies, just trying to get ahead in their own. Any kind of ganging retaliation policy is wrong, especially those that will keep ongoing after an event. I don't care if you are apparently so generous that if the "offender" bows and asks for forgiveness, it will be granted to them. Have you thought that there may be players that don't even speak English? Or that don't come to the forums and read every thread to be aware that they NEED to install an additional third-party app just to try to find whomever they accidentally crossed to ask for reprieve? Hell, the sole idea that everybody should be aware of these alliance politics and "etiquette" and that the way they play may be considered by some as "offending" or "anarchist" is unspeakably arrogant.

Cooperate together as much as you want, but creating an aggressive enforcing policy to try to make everybody else cooperate with you (even if they will benefit as well) reeks of mob thinking, if not plain fascism.

Ludaa

Anyone else worried Phaserhawk has found forums for LINE and is calling for nerfs?

lokiagentofhotness

franckynight wrote:

i don't understand all this mafia talk.. if you don't interfere with the team, you'll never hear from us.. we are shileld hoping exclusively between us (that meant a whopping 20 guys/gals, no cross BC, no sister alliance).. sometimes we invite one or two guests in our BC if they are willing to put some points or simply because we find them cool.. we re not riding any coattail.. once again, we chase repeated offenders.. if you come to our shard and hit us multiple times for 70-75 pts, what are we supposed to do? bend over? its because a lot of ppl have taken an habit to target us thinking they are in for easy points that we decided to push back.. so, yes.. we are ferocious and anyone who have been under the fire of the crews patrol, like we jokingly called it, will tell you how hard it is to put any kind of points.. but we re not an arrogant bunch and if the guy/gal reach to us, we happily stop and socialize with him/her.. i cant recall how many ppl i hit very hard (when i said hard its maybe 25-30 hits on a pvp) and now with whom i playfully joke on some random chat.. no beef.. nothing personal.. its just a game.. you re cool with us (shield checking or not bracket sniping), we re cool with you.. otherwise, we re doing what we have to do to protect our points.. nothing thuggish in this..

...eh nevermind

fight4thedream

Linkster79 wrote:

Being a lone player and attacking anybody they see in their queue worth points is a big difference to calling on other members of their alliance (or family of alliances) to specifically single out and target an individual for the simple reason of having the sheer nerve of making them lose points.

Don't even get me started on how much hero points some people use for a PvP event as that is a non excuse for bullyin. Coordinated shield hops, battle chats and using friends to help boost I have no issue with at all but bullying in any form is wrong, and as a forum moderator I find it terrible that you would condone these actions in game. Yes I know you are a player too but as somebody who has moderated several forums in the past I also know your conduct on the forums should be above reproach.

Yes, there is a big difference between a lone player shooting for points vs a whole alliance. I don't disagree with you there. But once again, it brings me back to the question of "What do you think alliances are for?" For most casual players, they are just a group of random people who help them get their daily ISO and maybe a few event rewards. However the further to the top you get, the more those people stop being "random" people and actual alliance mates and friends who you work with to achieve a goal.

You keep calling the hit list tactic a form of cyber bullying but unless some verbal exchange where threats or teasing is made I don't think you can call it that. I see it as a defensive practice to try and ensure your team's ability to get points. If this were basketball, it would be like double or triple teaming a player you know is capable of getting points and costing you the game.



I understand that you want to play pVp free from the hassle of having to worry about alliance strategies and unwritten rules but unfortunately alliances are very much a part of pVp. What do you think seasons and event alliance awards are for?

You may think that pVp is "a dog eat dog world" but I'm here to tell you that the top alliances and players don't think that way at all. They have a goal and prefer to work together as a team to achieve that goal. Unfortunately for you, 20 people working together can do a lot more than one person who doesn't even care if they hit their own friends or alliance members.

I'm not saying bullying does not exist in this game. It does and as mods we take such matters very seriously. But unless there is some sort of threat or offensive language used against a player that goes beyond "Good luck getting points pal" you cannot call it bullying. We can try to mediate on your behalf but as I have said before just as a player is free to snipe whoever he or she likes, alliances are also free to double down on players as they see fit. There is nothing in the rules against this practice.

To further extend the basketball analogy, pVp is the basketball court and you come wanting to play a game of one on one. But since alliances are permitted to exist, the game can easily become a game of 1 on 3, or 1 on 10 or 1 on 20. Love it or hate it, that's just the way it is. So if you want to do well in pVp, it behooves you to either a.) find a good alliance that's got your back so you can play 20 on 20 or b.) get invited to a battleroom chat where the game becomes more of a simple shooting contest.

Of course, all this depends on how much you want to cooperate with an alliance(s). If you want to fly solo, that's your prerogative but you shouldn't expect everyone to play the same "dog eat dog world" way that you do. Because they don't.

Stax the Foyer

Pylgrim wrote:

Have you thought that there may be players that don't even speak English?

Of course. That's why you hit people.

Hitting people is the universal language.

morph3us

Stax the Foyer wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

Have you thought that there may be players that don't even speak English?

Of course. That's why you hit people.

Hitting people is the universal language.

You need to hug it out, bro!

Stax the Foyer

morph3us wrote:

Stax the Foyer wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

Have you thought that there may be players that don't even speak English?

Of course. That's why you hit people.

Hitting people is the universal language.

You need to hug it out, bro!

Okay, but only as long as it's not some sort of group hug.

Wonko33

So... Any rules for LIghning Rounds? Is it the last true bastion of PvP competition?

How about Shield Simulator?