Meta-gaming ! Not a nice thing to see

[GodBeastX]

If I'm standing 10 feet from a fighter, about to run, what actions can he take to stop me?

[Kaeldorn]

That depends on who wins the initiative. If he wins it he can charge/bull rush/trip/grapple you before you can get away

Otherwise, he can pursue and hope he wins by outlasting your stamina. Something that area transitions and loading times put a huge disadvantage on if running player is a bad sport and makes use of it. Actually, stamina isn't even factored in mechanics-wise either. Which makes for one more reason that always gives the upper hand to the runner who offers the persuer no chance.

[Phantom Lamb]

The person who is running just has to run. The person who wants to capture them has to finish typing, flag them hostile for actions, AND send them a PM tell (Per our PVP rules)... it's unfair and against the spirit of role play. The DM staff wouldn't say you broke any rules, but they'd be very disappointed if anyone did this.

[GodBeastX]

Heheh

Anyway, my point isn't that this guy deserved to get away. I was just offering an other side to the coin.

My point was you can staple rules, and flows, and charts, graphs, even try to emulate turn based play, and in the end it won't get desired results. Either someone is going to play with you as much as they can, or they're going to play for their own gain. PVP tends to be very stressful for people (Though I don't know why) and for some reason, both sides always want to win. It's usually the person who doesn't win who posts on the forums about it.

You can't make a rule to play nice because some people won't. When people upset you in PVP and nothing bad really happened, just take a breath and move on, not much can be done other than DM just banning them, and DMs don't really like to ban people if they don't have to because it's kind of cruel. If something happens you can live with, maybe poke a DM and let them know and just live in peace No need to ruin your game play worrying about them.

[TheBlankStare]

*nod nod* Kaeldorn is right. In fact, it would be nice to have a button to click on to roll initiative. With feats like Improved Initiative available rolling a dex check just doesn't make much sense.

The biggest problem seems to be that people who play the good guys want to catch the bad guys and people who play the bad guys don't want to get caught. The good guys are more than happy to play by the rules but the bad guys don't care about rules at all.

It's something that I've seen happen on other servers too. I've seen bad guys (and some good guys) get caught after months of cat and mouse going on. I've seen players leave because of a capture/lost fight/imprisonment/slaying. Instead of RPing the thing out they get mad and walk off. It's one of the reasons I tend to stay out of PvP type of RP situations. The inevitable backlash is hardly ever worth the effort to go through it in the first place. So I don't usually bother.

Like GBX said it's the losers who always seem to make the stink about things. And the losers are mostly the ones who put things like, "This seedy looking character gives you the feeling that he can't be trusted," in the character bio. Eventually they get caught and then wonder why no one trusted them.

One more thing I'd like to recommend to the slower typists out there is that there are a ton of free typing tutors out there on the net. I'll admit that I can type pretty darn fast. If you find yourself lagging behind in the chat box check out some of the tools that can help your keyboarding skills go faster. It's worth it in the game and as a real life skill.

[GodBeastX]

The good guys are more than happy to play by the rules but the bad guys don't care about rules at all.

That's a bad generalization to have. There are people banned to this day that were good guys picking on bad guys. It's usually that bad guys don't post grief often because they expect to be on downside of the slope or that everyone is out to get them anyway. I know a lot of bad guys who were more willing to lose than good guys

I agree though, a button to initiate conflict is probably a good thing to save on all the rolling. Like as soon as someone clicks it, everyone is frozen in place and initiative rolls are made to determine who gets unfrozen first

[amirlach]

I am not sure as to how it is done on this server, however i have seen it on others that if you try to detain another player's CHR. you actually subdue them. This leaves no question about running away or using a transition to escape. This also allows time for questioning, searching and for the detainees friends to attempt a rescue.

This sort of action should be taken without thought given to the detainees enjoyment of the RP oppertunity. He should be given a chance to talk his way out or even escape. If he can come up with a good story or bluff his way out give them a chance and make it fun for both sides.

It can lead to gradual build ups in PVP between CHR's and Factions. On CoA i have seen some Epic battles that began with small exchanges and a slow buildup to the Full Death final showdown both players wanted.

One of the best examples was a Duel between a Purple Dragon Blade and a Green Dragon during the Civil War Arabel had. The two met during a large battle in the City. They fought one on one while most every one else stopped to watch. In the end both were killed during the War but the Epic battle was remembered by all who seen it.

They fought back and forth for weeks before the War gave them the IC chance to end it in an Awesome way that was entertaining and involved many other players.


amirlach

[Allielliot]

Wow this thing really exploded...Well I"ll give my take on it i suppose. I don't think that he was trying to say that running away was out of the question i think that he was just trying to say that it is irritating that there is no real way to stop them from getting away. I had a similar experience a few weeks ago. I had a PC who was angry at me for killing some veritas, so he tried to hunt me down and kill me. He is a shadow dancer so there was no way that i could know that he was coming IC, even though i knew thart he was following me ooc. SO me and the group i was with went into the cartel caves and fought like normal until he decided to show himself. Once he did show himself He tried hit and run tactics, using HIPS to attack and run away. We surrounded him with our pcs, but he just HIPSed and ran away, and when we tried to roll for grabbing at him or anything he just logged....UBer irritating from my standpoint becasue if my ac had been lower i would have died from hit poisoned weapons, but i had no way to do anything back becasue he ignored any rp options i would have had. NOt a very fun experience for me all in all. I feel like TCAT is simply ranting on simular situations where the other player takes advantage of a game engine tool to escape with no rp side to it. YEs you can run away, and if can't catch you all good and well, but at least give us an rp chance to roll something so that when you get away we feel good playing off our failure IC instead of just being irritated at being robbed by the game engine. thanks.

[TheBlankStare]

Mhmm. HiPS is something shat should really not be allowed in a multiplayer environment but it's so not worth the effort to ban it because of all of the complaints that would be voiced by the people who abuse it so much. The game is really really terrible when it comes to stealth.

The reason that I don't really like the stealth faction is that it's so antisocial. The nice thing about it though is that it makes it really easy to ignore people when they're hiding.

I propose a new rule. If someone is involved in RP and are nearing the point of getting caught/killed/dismembered in a PvP type of situation and then they chicken out and log off an instant bounty of about 100,000 stags gets put on their head. Or something.

[Doubtful]

There are firm rules on the use of HiPS, if people are not following these rules then they should be pointed in the right direction.

Now, I have to ask, an any of the cases listed by the OP or by you Allielliot; did you contact the person and talk about this OOCly?

[joker]

I do not know who the person was that attacked Sain and his group, but if I use my HiPS for hit and run tactics on PCs it has always been at the Veritas Mountain.

As for logging out when you are surrounded by PCs, I think that should be against the rules.

[Allielliot]

Oh man looks like we're stirring up all sort of issues with this. Okay i didn't tell my experience in hope of anything being done about it i was just trying to support TCAT. The person wasn't Corvus, and I'm not going to report them because it wasn't my intention to cause them any trouble. I definitely understand not wanting bad things to happen to your PC, and I"m 100% sure that i've been guilty of trying to avoid it. So, I"m good with this being a good learning experience for people. When you suffer you have a chance at Revenge or redemption. Those are good chances for rp growth and character development. just keep it in mind. And don't abuse flaws in the game engine when enteracting with other players. Thanks ALL.

[GodBeastX]

I am a firm believer HiPS is okay. Why not stack spot if you don't like it? Have a wizard cast clairvoyance on you? Maybe some potions of stealth detection could help, but as always, getting rid of something like that basically makes some classes absolutely useless, like Shadow Dancer who really has nothing but that ability.

I'm a fan of HiPS in multiplayer, and since it's supposed to basically make you operate on the borders of the shadow plane to vanish into shadows and crud, I imagine that it's perfectly valid to hips in situations of combat.

I just don't like the idea of taking away everything to level the playing field 100%. That's what takes the flavor out of being who you are in PVP. Sure a fighter might have trouble with a Stealthy rogue, but they absolutely dominate other situations. It tends to be a rock/paper/scissors scenario.

"I can't do anything to you so that ability should be removed" isn't something I think is needed.

I am COMPLETELY against logging out when drama ensues, however. I wouldn't have any remorse for banning somebody for that. That's clear cut case of "Crap! I'm losing!" and basically uses the real world to save your skin. Then again, did he log or crash? I mean, if he was stealth and you couldn't find him, seems like an odd time to log to save yourself when you're in no danger. It might explain why he wasn't replying to requests to RP actions against him. I wouldn't always assume the worst since we have a buggy medium of play.

[joker]

HiPS on this server is an investment, since you have to take 4 level of Shadow Dancer to get it (or 8 as an assassin). Sundren also has a custom spell that makes it useless. I will let you figure out which spell. As for avoiding people all together, I have done this but I have had more fun, spreading rumors about people and the Legion, investigating my lover's death, and causing chaos than I ever did just Soloing!

Slow down and enjoy the RP. That is what has kept me around. There is always some trouble to get into, even if you do play a do-gooder Paladin.

[KimKandor]

This is the age old problem with HIPS, at least we were in a cave, not back out in the sunshine. I used to play sd in nwn1 and it was a total hack, no player could ever and I mean ever hit mine, you could target, knockdown, sneak, unattack and hips again all in one round, at least nwn2 as solved it a little.

The total lack of RP on that event was pretty poor, as I was there at the time. I actually thought the staulking was fun, and managed to hit the fellow a few wacks. I do agree, it would have been much more fun, and RP appropriate had he been willing to let rolls and such descide. In the end his assasination was a failure, but it gave us much more to think about than grinding the npcs.