A Trial: Defender Default

[mkaxeman 1106]

RIP anyone trying to fight elves or magic users

[E__V__O 2000]

I think this'll stop some bandits going across just wanting "pixels" on the server as now the defender gets to choose the combat, though this does not mean everyone and their nanny will do it.

 

People came to this server to RP and to PvP it holds a factor in each. I like this choice of defender gets to choose and hopefully this trial period isn't abused like the first few weeks when PvP default was implemented for the first time.

 

Good luck folks.

 

--==--

 

Also Rp scenario.

 

If you antagonize people (mentally) without causing any real physical damage and then a guard comes up to you and requests you to stop and you resist. Who is the defender?

[TeaLulu 1783]

i like the idea of defender default. why?

 

because it discourages random ass pvp attacks. you can still raid, whatevs. the major PvP events that pvpers enjoy is still available. this discourages anyone who is just bored from going out, attacking someone, and going "lol pvp default".

 

the point is you are never going to satisfy both the rp-preference people and the pvp-preference people. never. defender default i think is a good middleground. it prevents random ass pvp. it keeps small groups/guilds/settlements who have regions with some level of safety from people who are just bored and want to go in and cause trouble so they can pvp without having to officially 'raid'. 

 

in the end lotc is an rp server. not a pvp server. give the players a chance to renew combat rp and give the staff a chance to prove they can moderate the powergaming if it's reported. 

 

 

the problem with majority default is it still allows the people who want to just solely go out and find some pvp action the ability to do that.

 

PvP on LoTC is different from other servers; I have heard a lot of pvp-inclined players say its a lot more exciting and fun to pvp on lotc than other servers. Mostly because the pixel items hold so much more value to people as it's their character's livelihood, than pixels do to people on other servers. Whatevs.

 

Either way, you cannot deny the fact some people like to PvP just to PvP. Its not about making it easier or not wasting their time RP fighting, or avoiding powergaming., its literally about the PvP, for whatever reason. 

 

If long-ass fights and powergaming are your only concerns, you shouldn't be upset about this TRIAL without giving it a chance. Give the staff a chance to prove they can moderate the powergaming, and give the players a chance to actually RP combat with more frequency and improve their roleplay.

 

If a PvP exception is made for raids, then I think this is fine. I can understand why raids should remain PvP default, considering all the other restrictions on them already

 

It isn't a matter of "Don't raid" or "Don't bandit" or "Don't attack" people. Its about don't go out and do those things unless you want to roleplay, which is what this server is- a roleplay server. Trust me; Most people do not want a long, drawn-out fight either. Some people will still just opt for PvP default in a situation just to move on with their Roleplay. Others will want to RP the fight, because of some reason or another; They're a mage, they've got power that can't be represented in mechanics. They're a skilled swordsman who has been in the army for years IC but are on a ducking laptop IRL. They just enjoy combat RP, just like some people enjoy PVP. The solution winds up being; Choose your marks carefully. Don't attack the damn lich if you don't have an aurum weapon IC. Don't stop the mage on the road to threaten him; Ducking sneak attack him before he can use magic. Don't attack the GIANT OLOG by yourself. Its called tactics; People have mostly forgotten about it due to the o-so-lovely pvp default.

 

I say give it a chance.

[AGP 3169]

21 minutes ago, Tahmas said:

Thoroughly dissatisfied with the uninformed and unprecedented stubborn behaviour in which this reply and statements made outside of the thread were conducted.

-

As for a less sassy response: As I have stated numerous times, in public and in private, the numbers on the survey were not what the survey was made for. 

 

The survey was made to take in suggestions to the previously disputed and often complained about topic that is Combat Default. A partial suggestion was made, which Pandan and I then refined, which was then taken to a vote among the GMs. 

 

I wrote it in broken down sentences, I know you don't like my super paragraphs because people will just believe it without reading. :)

(If this is still too 'super' for you, I'll happily dumb it down further for you.)

I don't appreciate being insulted.

 

In my opinion, the manner in which the initial survey was conducted, the manner in which this proposal was developed, and the manner in which this proposal was presented to the community was inadequate, manipulative, and deceptive. I do not think the actual wishes of the community are being represented and I have been stubborn in the damned community relations chat because that's what I am there to do. If I were to simply roll over instead of voicing a concern I had then I might as well excuse myself from that responsibility.

 

From my point of view, it seems that you've taken my words as a personal attack. I can understand why that is the case, though I am not intending to attack you or insult you. I am simply critical of the content in the surveys you conducted, primarily because of what questions were excluded. I do not think the survey did a good job of gauging and collecting opinions on our then current method of pvp default, for reasons I won't restate here.

 

Finally; If you feel that I am uninformed, then I request that you provide me with the information that I apparently lack.

[ARCHITECUS 4788]

Good thing guards can choose their method against criminals and troublemakers within their sphere. I would probably have my guard hang himself if he had to rp fight against openly homosexual elves in felsen any more.

[Wavejammers 328]

So in the process of deleting my past posts I came across this topic sitting in the top screen and I'd thought to give my two cents.

 

For the record, I've been playing since 2011, just to give you some perspective on what I've been through.

 

PvP default was never meant to be what it is today. It was first introduced to be a final solution to solve a physical voilent dispute.

 

However, some players wielded this like a club against others, and since PvP was the default and rightous solution to all problems. A lot of players felt thrown under the bus by the system. A lot of players left, or simply turned into off-season casual RP'ers. Including me and the people I hang out with at the time.

 

A lot of players have joined the server since, and that couldn't make me anything other than happy. But few of said players know about how RP and the server looked before the introduction of PvP default back in late 2013.

 

One of the striking comments I see is that raiding will die out or take too long. To sound like a total granpa: Back in my days, we didn't need PvP to raid. 

I played a grey-area villian for a bit (Without an app, you never caught me, suckers!) And I clearly remember raiding Haelu'nor back in Asulon. We didn't kill anybody. All we did was wander into the city, steal a princess, fend off some guards (Retreating) and lock her in a cell. My character was about to stage a proxy wedding with her, until her prince charming came and saved her, which he eventually did. At the end of the day, we went OOC and thanked eachother on the fun RP, and went on with our day, even though I died and lost some stolen iron armor.

It wasn't all butterflies and roses. The prince had to contact a GM to remove perms and supervise our (Unfair) barricade. The important part is, that at the end of the day, we enjoyed the roleplay and went on with our lives. Even though my party lost.

 

Another complaint I see is Powergaming & Edgy elves. Truth be told, we've had both of those back in the day, if not more. All I really have to say to that is: If you need a GM to supervise your fight for powergamingm, there's something wrong with both parties. Yes, that includes you. I've always RP'd without items on, simply because it removes the fear of loosing gear. If some dark elf with shurikens approaches you, simply shake your head and turn away. The worst thing /damage 20.can do to you is to spawn you back at the cloud temple. You can't always win. Heck, you don't even roleplay to win, you roleplay to expand your character. All interesting encounters i've come across have never been motivated by a need to win, but always a feeling of letting a breeze take you to wherever.

 

If I could change one thing. I'd remove item and mina loss on death. Gold corrupts the mind.

 

Feel free to prove me otherwise.

 

Edit: Christ people. Are all you ever care about fighting? Is that and memespeak the only intresting roleplay you can come up with

[Lego XBOX 915]

This makes sense;

 

Recurring complaints about RP default are people having to 'endure long fights always filled with powergaming'.

 

With defender default, you don't have to endure them as long as you aren't the one starting the fight.

 

This reminds me of the Villain Application clause back in the day; you are a villain to provide roleplay and enjoyment.

[AGP 3169]

1 minute ago, Lego XBOX said:

This makes sense;

 

Recurring complaints about RP default are people having to 'endure long fights always filled with powergaming'.

 

With defender default, you don't have to endure them as long as you aren't the one starting the fight.

 

This reminds me of the Villain Application clause back in the day; you are a villain to provide roleplay and enjoyment.

The assumption there is that by attacking someone you are a villain, and that you therefore exist to provide enjoyment for the other person. That's very black and white thinking that is often not applicable to a genuine Rp scenario. 

[Lego XBOX 915]

The only other case of attacking someone is to dispatch them, being a guard, and they have the right to dictate the default in that case.

 

Explain to me in which instance you would attack someone without being a villain or guard?

 

I agree with TeaLulu with what she said in the above post.

[Harri 4815]

1 hour ago, Space said:

 

hahaha +1

 

n e ways

 

Scenario: A darkstalker who has webbed feet IRL comes into the Druid Grove, starts talking ****, they had been in the grove threatening to kill people before. The Druids ask them to leave. They don't leave. So the Druids attack to try to get the dude to leave.

 

Who is defender, who is attacked? Is it counted as a 'guard force' so, even though the Druids attacked first, they get to decide the default? Or is the darkstalker who has webbed feet IRL the defender, cause he was attacked?

 

Or is it PVP cause it's not entirely clear?

 yeah this is a good point, how does one exactly determine a defender?

 

also **** you space

[Destroyer_Bravo 1054]

8 minutes ago, Lego XBOX said:

The only other case of attacking someone is to dispatch them, being a guard, and they have the right to dictate the default in that case.

 

Explain to me in which instance you would attack someone without being a villain or guard?

 

I agree with TeaLulu with what she said in the above post.

 

Assume that you are walking along the road, and encroach on territory that is of another nation's unknowingly.

 

Some non-guardsmen rangers only loosely affiliated with the nation pop out of the bushes and demand your money or your life. The man being attacked is a t5 firemage or something who could legitimatly fry the entire forest and dog the rangers. The three rangers outnumber and outgear the firemage by yards. Who is the assailant? Whose land is it really, the road's or the rangers? Who is the defender?

 

 

 

another one

 

Somebody takes your wife to bed, and you want to say something about it. The man who fucked your girl is some sort of mage or some ****, and you outgear/outskill him in pvp. A long rp ensues between you while you both argue, simultaneously prepare to fight, and simultaneously argue about who gets to determine combat style.

 

 

 

P.S. Tahmas unless there are actual numbers I cannot really take you seriously when you say "numbers were evident due to complaints on the forums" when saying that "the community" wanted this default, when from my knowledge most people were fine with the current default.

[AGP 3169]

1 minute ago, Tahmas said:

I do not appreciate being insulted either.

Does anyone? I have not intended to insult you at any point in this situation. If I have, or if you perceived that I have, then I apologize.

 

Was Pvp default perfect? No. Was it good enough? Not in its then current state (Though I think it was still better than defender default). I think our system needed some serious improvements, but I think the base idea was sound. In my eyes, defender default solves one problem that pvp default had, that being banditos and whatnot that would attack someone and immediately pvp default them. At the same time, it fails to solve any of the other problems that pvp default had (in situations where the defender chooses pvp), and opens up a whole host of unique problems that wouldn't exist in Pvp or Rp default (hence why I've said that Rp default > Defender default). That's all a bit irrelevant now though as we've decided to test it for a month. In a month we'll know how we feel about it for sure.

 

5 minutes ago, Tahmas said:

The system, as evidenced on the forums and via the feedback on the thread I made and on this one, was broken in it's previous state and it needed a change, it needed to be molded into something new.

Though I will state one more time, just so it's clear, the survey was made to get text suggestions, not numbers. The numbers were already evident based on the complaints on the forums, and the lack-thereof player retention. 

This is where my primary complaint lies. What you have said here is an assumption. It is very possible that the people making feedback posts about Pvp default were a vocal minority, and the majority was fine with Pvp default as a concept. I feel that your initial survey failed to ask two essential questions that it needed to ask, those questions being 1) Do you think Pvp default needs to be changed? and 2) Do you think we should maintain some form of Pvp default (even if our specific version of it needs fixing and changing)? You assumed that the community's answer to question 1 is "Yes," and the answer to question 2 is "No," and it is this assumption that leads me to believe the surveys and proposal do not necessarily reflect the community's opinion. Would the community answer those questions in that way? Maybe, but the LotC staff's primary problem comes from assuming community opinion without polling first, as evidenced by the scene21 scandal. The very chat we discussed this in was created to prevent such lack of communication, which is why I have been so vocal in my concerns.
 

15 minutes ago, Tahmas said:

I mean that's kinda the case. If you attack someone in real life, that's against the law. Why should you get to decide, is the question. Why should the person attacking get to decide the way the roleplay works? If I wanted to roleplay a bandit, I could grind for hours to get gear and roflstomp noobs because 'lolololol my character is a bandit with a lust for blood'. That isn't fair, to anyone. This system isn't 100% fair either, but neither is just attacking someones character. If that character gave you reason to attack them, then that would be seen as instigation of a combat scenario, to which you would then decide the method of fruition. 

Once again, this is very black and white. You can have morally valid reasons for attacking someone, such as getting revenge for someone who murdered one of your family members (even if that situation didn't /just/ happen). The decision to attack someone in Rp is an Rp decision, and should not reflect on you Oocly. The decision on what method of combat to choose is an Ooc decision, and I do not therefore believe it should be at all tied to the Rp situation. 

Also, you bring up an interesting point here. People who grind nexus skills will have gear that makes them significantly better in a Pvp situation than someone who doesn't grind. This is a fault with our system of Pvp (but not Pvp default), in that people are inherently better or worse at Pvp based both on what race (or creature) they are playing, as well as how much Ooc time they have spent getting a mechanical advantage. I am firmly against these mechanical advantages as they make Pvp and especially Pvp default significantly less fair. It is important to remember that this individual problem is not a problem with Pvp default itself but a problem with the way we treat Pvp and grinding in general.

[Blundermore 2741]

I rarely comment on topics at all anymore but I'll make an exception here. 

 

I have to wonder looking at all these people spouting remarks about this decision, some stubborn others straight up rude at the concept of actually maybe needing to RP on an RP server?! I wonder, maybe if the concept of RPing seems like a terrible thing to you perhaps LOTC might not be the server for you? Just a thought.

 

 

On the plus side allowing the defender to decide what method of combat to use is a very good idea, now hear me out before you just tut and move on; this server has had a major problem with combative RP ever since the PVP default rule was first introduced. You had people just forcing PVP at any moment even if it didn't make sense to the situation. There was little consequence for starting a fight as an aggressor and RP basically devolved to who had the biggest stick and the numbers to back them up. 

 

Stories are not forged through conflict alone. You need a dialogue, you need something more than just "321 go". 

 

At the very least rampant amounts of pointless fighting will at least be lessened to some degree, allow the more peaceful characters from sort of break from the warlike characters constantly charging in causing a problem knowing oocly most peaceful characters won't have the ooc equipment to deal with them in PVP.

 

 

Again LOTC is an RP server first and foremost. The staff here are obligated to try and run the server in a way that promotes RP. Like it or not straight up PVP usually doesn't promote RP. It just gives you an excuse to not RP at all. And really that's more or less what a faction server is really. 

 

If you feel the need to play on a factions server there are many of them out there for you to choose from easily enough. LOTC doesn't need to cater to every playstyle, and given that it is an RP server the highest priority should always be given to RP first and foremost.

 

 

 

 

 

A suggestion to staff:

 

You may want to define what is an aggressor or a defender... The terms though sound it are not entirely black or white. The grey areas are where most of your problems are going to start coming from shortly. I'd deal with that now whilst you can.

 

 

-Blundermore

[Shalashask 1112]

56 minutes ago, NoSpoonNeo said:

What is the rule regarding rolls? Is that one of the options the defender can pick? 

Rolls are normally only used for projectiles. Don't see why people would use them for anything else.

[AGP 3169]

2 minutes ago, Blundermore said:

I have to wonder looking at all these people spouting remarks about this decision, some stubborn others straight up rude at the concept of actually maybe needing to RP on an RP server?! I wonder, maybe if the concept of RPing seems like a terrible thing to you perhaps LOTC might not be the server for you? Just a thought.

 

Again LOTC is an RP server first and foremost. The staff here are obligated to try and run the server in a way that promotes RP. Like it or not straight up PVP usually doesn't promote RP. It just gives you an excuse to not RP at all. And really that's more or less what a faction server is really. 

We call the 'emotes' method of handling combat 'rp' and the 'mechanical' method of handling combat 'pvp' but that doesn't mean one is any more inherently roleplay than the other. Just because we've labelled emotes fighting 'rp' does not mean it is roleplay and pvp is not. Mechanics are part of our Rp experience and to say that it is not roleplay to use mechanics instead of text to resolve a dispute is honestly a bit silly.