PVP "etiquette" only works if you use Line.

Unknown

I'm usually a lurker on these forums but this time I thought I'd actually say something.
While I actually agree with OPs viewpoint, I also see why the etiquette is there to benefit everyone as a whole (at least in theory).

Problem is, not everyone who plays this frequents these forums to even know what a cupcake is let alone be knowledgeable about these "unwritten rules", even I myself don't know a lot of the terms being bandied around the forum in regards to PVP because I spend more time playing the game as opposed to reading about it.

To me, this isn't much different from playing someone on a fighting game online. I play many of those and this thread reminds me of tekken players complaining that it's bad practice for anyone to use a throw.
This game doesn't have a pop-up on launch suggesting that players should visit the forum to get the best out of their experience in PVP, nor does it have a warning against what is understood (at least to those here) to be bad sportsmanship.

But I do try not to double-tap others that I come across more than once however, if I'm not being given a reasonable battle to participate in after 30+ skips, then I'm sorry, I'm taking that match again.

Yesterday I hit 800 for the 2nd time in over 20 seasons and I did have to double tap a couple of people to get there after taking numerous hits once I got to 750. I didn't complain though, that's how this game is and that's how this cookie crumbled in that bracket.
Sorry to those I did that to but hey, I'm pretty sure you've had to DT a few people in your time, it comes with the territory so I think it's kinda unfair that everyone is supposedly expected to play with this imaginary ruleset that most casuals are never gonna hear about unless they go in on this game. 80% of my alliance don't know about it, they just play the game as its presented to them, they can't and should not be blamed for that.

GrumpySmurf1002

DrStrange-616 wrote:

Part of me wishes they make it anonymous. That would eliminate all of this.

Player A has a 269 Jean and 268 HB
Player B has a 270 Jean and 269 HB.
Player C has 270/270 and a 222 featured
Player D has 270/270 and a 224 featured

etc....

They'd still figure it out. There is a TON of communication going on. You'd have to hide everything, names, teams, rosters, the works. Does anyone really want to play a system where you just see a point total?

TxMoose

I don't use line and I try to play with as much etiquette as I can. doesn't mean bad timing doesn't happen but for...

theo199 wrote:

So you know what you have to do now.
Playing the game and having fun (yeah, the actual purpose of any game) or follow such "etiquette" written by and for a tinykitty minority of harassers alliances.

I find it much more fun to score higher and cooperate with others. having much more fun now following non-line 'etiquette' than I would otherwise. its not a either/or, can be both...

GrumpySmurf1002

As someone in a main battle chat but never been in love with *having* to use a battle chat:

- If you're a 3* player climbing to 1k and done, they're of little use. The nature of these things is you have to sit on targets while waiting for responses, which can take as long as 15 minutes. 3* players don't have the luxury. Yes you can shield and wait, but the easiest way to get to 1k with a 3* roster is to go directly from 500-600 to 1k before anyone catches what you're doing (because queue lag won't show you worth the hassle until it's too late to pick you off). Refreshing the server so that you're at 850-900 or wherever you'd first shield is detrimental.

-Without a battle chat, you can still adhere to some level of decorum. If you find a high value target, keep him and move to the next node. Find another, then repeat on the 3rd. Once you have 3, hit the first guy. That's generally enough time to give someone. Hopping takes 7-10 minutes tops, so while you might hit the 1st guy unshielded, chances are the 2nd and 3rd will be clear when you're done with your first match.

-If you're a 4* player, it's essential for next level (so, 1300 progression). It can be the difference between having to use your first shield at 900 and 1200+. The more you're in, safer you are. And shield hopping becomes well more efficient, because you know when higher targets are out (well, sometimes at least, many still reserve announce their hops for internal alliance communication)

-That said, climbing is B.R.U.T.A.L. As I said, you're just sitting for countless minutes waiting for targets to respond. You need a strong group to hang in there, or need to get a lucky with your timing vs when others are hopping.

-As far as understanding the etiquette, the names that pop up for "seek and destroy" behavior are those in top 100 alliances that go back two, three and sometimes four times against the same opponent. If you're not on LINE and hit once, you're usually forgettable, and written off as cost of business.

Ruinate

Using Line and cooperating is much more fun.

When I first joined NJL I played in a different slice than them. I didn't want to play by the rules. I just wanted to play when I can and hit who I can. At this point, I would only score 800 and shield to quit. They told me to come play in their slice and that my scoring will go way up. And this happened-

"Ruinate! you just tripled a friendly man!"
"**** you Ruinate you just ruined my personal best"
"Is Ruinate out dumping points?" "Probably not, he friendly fires at least once per event"

It was stupid, wasn't fun, I thought I was going to get kicked out.

Then one day I decided to pay close attention to Line. The very same day I hit 1300 for the first time. Next event 1500, next 1700. All without using more than 3 shields. I also made new friends. We talk about ponies, foot fetishes, hot Asian chicks etc. Skipping targets doesn't bother me anymore either because I know something good is about to show up. All around it is a better experience. Ruinate happy.

Tilesmasher

Fake rules for a cell phone that exist only in the minds of a few are hilarious.

I don't go out of my way to attack anyone, but if you're unshielded all bets are off.

SnowcaTT

Totally agree with OP...but this perceived etiquette can hurt alliance-mates as well. I've had folks that don't use line "sniping" large alliance members, and had those alliances consider kicking anyone who -is- using line out of any communication channels.

Which is still better than having those entire large-family alliances turn and retal vs small alliance over one member not using line, and I've seen similar happenings go on.

Again - remove all names from PVP! Anonymity removes revenge reasons!

JVReal

Pylgrim wrote:

Today, I had the biggest blowout in Sticks and Stones. Climbing to 919 points I lined three 50-ish points battles and though I could keep going, I decided to follow etiquette and shielded. A couple hours later, I unshielded and battled my first node. It gave me only 41 points instead of 50 but that was fine. I just needed one of the other nodes to give me the 46 points it was then showing to go over 1k. I quickly finished the second battle to find out that it gave me 10 points! Quickly scrambled to fight the third... and it gave me 12 points. By then I was attacked for 30 points. Tried one more desperate battle for supposedly 40 points and the AI got an 18 red Ap cascade in the first turn and I was Star-Spangled to death shortly after. Lost 40 points there and 50 more from attacks that came through in the meantime. No more time, no more shields, no more health packs, so sitting at 870 points, I had to give up.

Hi Pylgrim, I did hit you last night. It was around the 3 hours to event end mark, and I was getting close to 800. I queued you, and moved to another node, queued someone else, and went to the third node and queued someone else. I hit a lower scoring node first, came back and then hit your node. I intentionally left you alone hoping you'd shield before hitting you. I only recognized your name from the forum, so that's the only reason I remember hitting you. I was hoping you were shielded by the time I hit you. After I hit 800+ I shielded until the end.

I do apologize if you were not shielded when i hit you. Most of my alliance mates are in a different time slice than me, so the shield check rooms don't help me out too much. I can only go by basic etiquette. I didn't hit you twice, I waited an extra fight to hit you since you were my highest point value node at that moment, and I was shielding almost immediately afterwards, so my points were safe for your retaliation on a hop if you wanted it.

I've had those events like you had too. I usually only like to use one shield, usually after 800+ when I start getting hit while fighting and points are netting negative points. A few PVP's I've hit 800+ tried that one more fight... then just end up back sliding to low 700's.

As a F2P person, I don't shield hop. I shield my score for my alliance, but I can't afford to hop. If I did have a more fluid flow of HP, I would join the slice with my alliance and join their shield check rooms and I'm sure the points would come and I'd be hitting 1K every PVP... but I'm content with 1 shield. Yeah it's frustrating when you hit your threshold and you stop making progress in points in PVP... when I do 3 fights and my score hasn't changed... I shield up and walk away... usually until the end of the event.

I see where you're coming from, and I do apologize if I was one of the guys that took your points at a frustrating time for you.

simonsez

Pylgrim wrote:

Climbing to 919 points I lined three 50-ish points battles and though I could keep going, I decided to follow etiquette and shielded. A couple hours later, I unshielded and battled my first node.

If you hit targets you queued hours ago, you're increasing your chances of getting the results you did. Queue up targets while you're shielded and hit them 10 minutes later.

san

Phantom rules. I like that term.

I don't use LINE too coordinate. I do use LINE to communicate (mostly merc channel and intra-alliance banter). However, I do try, and I'll say it again, I TRY to avoid hitting players that are worth a lot of points, immediately. Now, I tend do climb in spurts, so I generally do hit a few of these guys, but when shielded, I try to avoid smacking them right away. They tend to be worth MORE points later, not less. The trick is picking the right players. By OP stating he picked some 50pt fights, without clearly checking the name/alliance, he shows that he is still new to this idea of how to hop. 50pt players can be anyone, but you're safer picking, say, and [insert top 10 alliance name] player with 35 points than someone else. With such folks, you KNOW they'll rise in points, and all you need to do is wait until they shield. Remember, they are doing you a favor for giving you that many in the first place.

TxMoose

keep in mind there is a small chunk of the player base who don't care about season ranks and shielding to the end (limited hp resources). some only care about hitting their 1K or 1300 progression goal and then letting it drop. these are the danger when you hop on a queue who isn't from a top alliance or is at least a familiar name who consistently scores points. I think fmftint said it best:

fmftint wrote:

If you're going to play on your own and prequeue nodes, you need to stick to players who's points you can verify, someone in your bracket or in a T10 alliance where you can check global leader board

Unknown

If you can verify or at least have a high degree of confidence of the scores (e.g. someone just popped up on your queue as worth 50 is probably still worth close to 50 if you beat that guy immediately) there's no need to follow any rules. But if you've 1 or 2 nodes whose value you're no longer sure, you might as well give the newest guy you queue up some time to reshield (assuming you're still shielded) simply because you already have no idea what your nodes are worth so why take a high probability of screwing someone else when you still need to get lucky on your out of date nodes to even get anywhere?

Aside from top 10 alliances, you should also pick guys in your bracket's top 10 or even guys near you in your own bracket. Being able to verify someone's score is far more important than how much they appear to worth because it's unlikely to have 3 guys just pop up for 50 points at the same time, and 3 guys you know for sure that's worth 30 each is better than hitting 3 guys that claim to be worth 50 and found out it's 10, 15, and 55.

The meta gaming of arbitrarily pumping up scores against the gravity of ELO is kind of silly but then the reward progression is already setup to account for that. If you've full point losses and no way to influence your opponent selection (e.g. the game does blind matchmaking and you have to accept whoever you get like most competitive games do) it'd be hard for anyone to even reach 1000, and while that's okay too but I guess it's not done because D3 figured it'd take too much effort to figure out where to set the progression thresholds and why go through the risk when they've something that vaguely works already.

whoami24601

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

DrStrange-616 wrote:

Part of me wishes they make it anonymous. That would eliminate all of this.

Player A has a 269 Jean and 268 HB
Player B has a 270 Jean and 269 HB.
Player C has 270/270 and a 222 featured
Player D has 270/270 and a 224 featured

etc....

They'd still figure it out. There is a TON of communication going on. You'd have to hide everything, names, teams, rosters, the works. Does anyone really want to play a system where you just see a point total?

You'd need to remove the name and access to the roster. If somebody wants to make a list of what level their characters are then let them. The pool is so big there is bound to be overlaps there. Especially when you consider that a huge number of people will already just be at 166 and 270.

Sherlock1

I think every player who would know about this "etiquette" would understand the benefits for everyone, it seems pretty obvious
Now, problem is about this retaliation/punishment applied by some players or alliances: I know that there are some real snipers who enjoy to ruin players pvp progression, or people a bit heartless who won t hesitate to hit intentionally 4or 5 times a juicy target. But there are also players who just play, without any bad intentions, players who don t pay attention to names when they hit...

If there are personal issues between some players or alliances, it s a kind of game between them, ok: but why trying to punish players you don t have any problem with, except the fact that they prevented you from making your 1500 points in 4 hop???? The worst, in my opinion, is that those who usually retaliate are those who can easily reach high scores, so i don t understand they interest, except a sadistic pleasure to make someone pay...

Not everyone have envy or want to use Line, not every player who hit a Line user needs to be "teached" something, according to me...
Don t be paranoiac, don t see a terrorist in every hitter: please be indulgent!

Stax the Foyer

The "PvP Etiquette" is two things: (1) best practices for maximizing points in the shard, if you want to do so, given that progression rewards are more valuable to high-scoring players than ranking awards, and (2) a good way to play if you want to minimize bad results for other players. Most of the people who play in a semi-cooperative way have both goals in mind, in my experience. They're not going to be jerks just for the sake of being jerks, and an eye for an eye leaves the whole world ISO-starved.

If you don't play that way, that's totally fine, but there's no room to complain if it comes back to bite you. Besides, paying attention to the names that hit you seems silly if you're not paying attention to the names you're hitting.

DrStrange-616 wrote:

That's where I disagree. A set of phantom rules have been established. No player has to follow them. They are artificial to the game itself. There is no way to know the intent of the player or the circumstance of the match, unless they tell you. Enforcing these phantom rules because you want to play the game your way and not the way it was designed, strikes me as unfair and a little bullying. That's not to say some people don't actively seek out and destroy targets for their own amusement, but this idea of ostracism based on assumptions worries me. Unless, of course, you're just joking and I'm too tired to see it. In that case, never mind.

I see what you're saying, but you can't really have it both ways. It's silly to say that that unwritten rules don't need to be followed, but then say that it's unfair for people to play in a way that enforces their unwritten rules. Either you treat it as a free-for-all, or you don't.

DrStrange-616

Stax the Foyer wrote:

The "PvP Etiquette" is two things: (1) best practices for maximizing points in the shard, if you want to do so, given that progression rewards are more valuable to high-scoring players than ranking awards, and (2) a good way to play if you want to minimize bad results for other players. Most of the people who play in a semi-cooperative way have both goals in mind, in my experience. They're not going to be jerks just for the sake of being jerks, and an eye for an eye leaves the whole world ISO-starved.

If you don't play that way, that's totally fine, but there's no room to complain if it comes back to bite you. Besides, paying attention to the names that hit you seems silly if you're not paying attention to the names you're hitting.

DrStrange-616 wrote:

That's where I disagree. A set of phantom rules have been established. No player has to follow them. They are artificial to the game itself. There is no way to know the intent of the player or the circumstance of the match, unless they tell you. Enforcing these phantom rules because you want to play the game your way and not the way it was designed, strikes me as unfair and a little bullying. That's not to say some people don't actively seek out and destroy targets for their own amusement, but this idea of ostracism based on assumptions worries me. Unless, of course, you're just joking and I'm too tired to see it. In that case, never mind.

I see what you're saying, but you can't really have it both ways. It's silly to say that that unwritten rules don't need to be followed, but then say that it's unfair for people to play in a way that enforces their unwritten rules. Either you treat it as a free-for-all, or you don't.

I understand the reason these phantom rules were developed and how they usually benefit the larger picture; it's the two statements underlined above that trouble me.

You can enforce the rules only on the people who have agreed to abide by them (and just playing isn't enough). It is unfair and a little bullying to "enforce" rules on everyone because it's how you want it to be. Players agree (except the cheaters) to play by the game rules. That's all. Anything above and beyond that is an artificial construct (no matter how well-intentioned or beneficial) and should not be "enforced". That puts you "above the law" so to speak and that's an ugly place to be. Now, that's a dramatic way to put it; no one here is doing real harm (either the enforcers or the people ignoring the phantom rules), but the point is still the same.

It's not okay to punish someone for your perceived slight or breaking your rules, that's vigilantism.

And I'm not trying to have it both ways. I'm suggesting that only the people who have agreed to play by the rules of this "fight club" should be subject to them and the potential fallout for breaking them. The general population is not part of this game within a game and should be left to freely enjoy the game they downloaded (as much as one can at this point. Despite assurances that you can tell when someone is a rando, I'd bet there are plenty of times you can't. Am I one? Do you know? Do you really know?

Anyway, it's been a really interesting discussion.

jojeda654

Stax the Foyer wrote:

an eye for an eye leaves the whole world ISO-starved.

ISO what you did there

Stax the Foyer

DrStrange-616 wrote:

I understand the reason these phantom rules were developed and how they usually benefit the larger picture; it's the two statements underlined above that trouble me.

You can enforce the rules only on the people who have agreed to abide by them (and just playing isn't enough). It is unfair and a little bullying to "enforce" rules on everyone because it's how you want it to be. Players agree (except the cheaters) to play by the game rules. That's all. Anything above and beyond that is an artificial construct (no matter how well-intentioned or beneficial) and should not be "enforced". That puts you "above the law" so to speak and that's an ugly place to be. Now, that's a dramatic way to put it; no one here is doing real harm (either the enforcers or the people ignoring the phantom rules), but the point is still the same.

It's not okay to punish someone for your perceived slight or breaking your rules, that's vigilantism.

And I'm not trying to have it both ways. I'm suggesting that only the people who have agreed to play by the rules of this "fight club" should be subject to them and the potential fallout for breaking them. The general population is not part of this game within a game and should be left to freely enjoy the game they downloaded (as much as one can at this point. Despite assurances that you can tell when someone is a rando, I'd bet there are plenty of times you can't. Am I one? Do you know? Do you really know?

Anyway, it's been a really interesting discussion.

But saying that it's not okay because it's vigilantism presupposes that vigilantism is wrong. That's an unwritten rule right there, and it's probably not a universal opinion.

Also, if there is any retaliation, it's not really in response to the unwritten rules being broken, it's in response to the harm caused by the action. (Setting aside for the moment the absurdity of referring to losing points in a phone game as "harm") If Player A hits Player B immediately after they pop in their queue, without waiting or shield checking, but Player B happens to shield before the hit comes in, there's no harm, and almost certainly no retaliation on the part of Player B. The unwritten rules are just a way for players to minimize harm to others. It's "Don't be a jerk" as applied by people who understand the game mechanics.

In fact, a big disconnect between new players and experienced players is that the new players usually don't realize that there's a way in which their PvP victories don't cause harm to other players. That shield bounces give points without taking points away isn't intuitive, or well explained.

That's why it seems strange to me to see people worrying about facing consequences for breaking unwritten rules, because anyone breaking those unwritten rules is doing so with the expectation that they're harming someone (or with willful ignorance of the possibility).

And it is a fun discussion. There's a game theory-type level to all of this that's interesting to unpack.

Konman

So people are expected to follow unwritten, and apparently un-write-able rules? To just understand this etiquette when all the evidence presented to them is contrary to what that supposed etiquette is?

By the time I reach the 800-900 mark, all the top scorers have shielded long ago, and are invisible to me. So I skip for about 5 minutes in search of a node worth more than 30 odd points. When I finally find one, I feel sort of obligated to attack, after that much iso, and that much time, just to find the match in the first place. Meanwhile, if I'm unshielded, I get hammered and lose way more points than I am capable of winning in the same time span.

Necessity dictates how people play, not amorphous, poorly established game decorum. If you have your own little chat room, and want to coordinate things within you group...fine, but it's sort of silly to expect anyone on the outside to have any idea what you're doing.

XandorXerxes

Here's what I've come to understand:

Player vs Environment is a brutal marathon where you compete with other players to see who can clear the most nodes in the most optimal way over a period of several days.

Player vs Player is a mode where players coordinate together to achieve optimum scores while minimizing damage to each other.

I feel like the names are backwards.