PK Rules and Consequences

Eld

Bukariin said:

Eld said:

Well, not exactly, to the bolded. HELP PK says "If players are repeatedly attacking others with no justification whatsoever, this is the point at which the administration should be involved." If someone's hunting, say, Blackrock or Enverren, unaware that Mhaldor claims protection over the denizens of those areas, and a Mhaldorian comes along and kills them without warning, it's unwelcome, and will certainly seem unprovoked, but filing an issue instead of trying to find out IC why they were killed isn't going to get them very far.

Yeah, but here's the problem with your example: If I were hunting Enverren and a Mhaldorian came along and told me "Hey, this place is under the protection of Mhaldor, if you hunt here again I'll kill you" that would be acceptable.

If this person came to Enverren and found me hunting there and killed me without warning, I'd definitely seek to hire on this person right off the bat.   That's my IC resolution, and if he doesn't like it, he shouldn't be killing midbies without warning for obscure RP reasons.

E: I think my point is that, regardless of the situation, there's an expectation of warning, of some sort of "heads-up, what you're doing will get you killed" which should present itself in most situations if it hasn't already.  Obviously if you're raiding a city you don't need to be told that you can be killed, and if you're defending a city you could be killed in it.  If you happen to be in a city that is being raided (but you aren't defending) you have a reasonable expectation of a warning to leave before being killed.

Sure, you'd hire on him, kill him, insult his mother, whatever. But if, instead of doing any of those things, you just immediately file an issue, you're probably not going to have much luck. In general, yes, people having an idea of why they're being attacked is a good goal. But people are going to slip on that from time to time (maybe the Mhaldorian in the example thought you'd been warned previously or something), and the idea is that issues should generally be reserved for cases where the incident is part of a pattern of bad behaviour.

Triak

Ernam said:

if you're being issued repeatedly, you're repeatedly doing something to people that is unwelcome.

Or the other way around maybe?  If a player has filed dozens of issues against people across multiple characters and factions perhaps they are the problem?

Think about it this way.  Since the start of this year I would estimate that you have issued other players about 15 incidents involving your characters.  Contrast that to 95% of the other players who have filed less issues across their entire time playing time.

I think you really need some introspection about how you 'play' this game.

Jukilian

Eld said:

I think a lot of you are hitting on something with the whole "fuzzy line" between what is acceptable and what isn't, but the PK rules are not really that fuzzy.  In this and other recent threads, multiple people state that "He is a soldier" or "He is a citizen of Targossas" or "She walked into the room with me", or "He actively defended Targossas last week" are all acceptable reasons to kill people.  None of these are acceptable according to either the game rules, or the general sentiment of this thread.

That's a pretty wide variety of things, and depending on context, any of them could be perfectly reasonable reasons (though "She walked into the room with me" on its own wouldn't be). Being a soldier or getting involved in defense of cities other than your own are both instances where your character should expect to be involved in conflict pretty regularly and to die some, and there will be a higher expectation to brush off a few such incidents and move on. Yes, you can still issue for them if there's no justification, but the bar for showing that the attack was unjustified will be higher than if you actively avoided combat.

Sure, depending on context those could be reasonable.

However, just because someone is enlisted as a soldier and defends when they can/every now and then should not be justifiable reason for someone to enter a City and kill you straight off the bat. I've been on the receiving end of that, and the reasoning behind it was simply "You are Hashani. You are a soldier. You belong to this and that. Therefore, I'm going to kill you." No RP reason behind it other than "I indiscriminately kill Hashani (soldiers?), especially of X organisation" (almost verbatim, and HELP PK specifically states reasoning like this is terrible). As far as I'm concerned with the PK laws as they stand right now, using someone's soldier status as a reason to kill them is no-go unless you're in a war or the two of you have some sort of understanding. Similarly with defending. If they're maybe a defense leader or something, then maybe (see aforementioned 'some sort of understanding')

All in all, I agree with the section of Ernam's post you've quoted. Context matters, certainly, but if those are the sole reasoning for attacking/killing, then not cool (IMO).

Ernam

In truth, I don't think issues like that really happen very often.  If they do, they're certainly an exception.  I can't know for sure, of course.  I can promise you that I've never personally filed an issue over anything remotely close to something like that - at least not since the new PK rules were written several years ago.

Bukariin

Razha said:

Defiling a shrine is basically saying to the world, hey, I'm looking for a fight. If you're in an order you're expected to treat that as an attack on your god and resolve it (in the preferred way of your god). This pretty much makes orders pk organizations, which is obviously gonna be a problem as they are also great for roleplay. You know it's a shame the Bal'met saga wasn't used as a god renaissance like the house one, where you have a strong combat orders vs more rp intensive ones. Just my two cents on it, take it with a grain of salt.

Probably doesn't need to be noted that there's a ton of divine Orgs that aren't involved (at least not directly) in Good vs. Evil or Chaos vs. Creation conflicts that you can join and RP your heart out without having to worry at all about PK.

Nim

Bukariin said:

Razha said:

Defiling a shrine is basically saying to the world, hey, I'm looking for a fight. If you're in an order you're expected to treat that as an attack on your god and resolve it (in the preferred way of your god). This pretty much makes orders pk organizations, which is obviously gonna be a problem as they are also great for roleplay. You know it's a shame the Bal'met saga wasn't used as a god renaissance like the house one, where you have a strong combat orders vs more rp intensive ones. Just my two cents on it, take it with a grain of salt.

Probably doesn't need to be noted that there's a ton of divine Orgs that aren't involved (at least not directly) in Good vs. Evil or Chaos vs. Creation conflicts that you can join and RP your heart out without having to worry at all about PK.

People will even pick fights with Scarlatti's or Pandora's Orders, the Orders of (respectively) artsy things and silly things.

Jacen

Razha said:

Defiling a shrine is basically saying to the world, hey, I'm looking for a fight. 

This is said a lot, but I don't think I wholly agree with it. I mean, it is announcing your intention to take part in a conflict, but I don't think its much different from solo raiding or anything like that. For smaller, less skilled cities (mine), its really the only mode of conflict you can expect to have any level of success in. It seems like a lot of people take defiling a shrine as a sign of someone choosing to be Open PK to an order, which just... sucks.

If your shrine is being defiled and you're gonna defend, go fight and that'll be that. If you're not going to defend, go witness and pass on the writ. Should be simple as that.

Jovolo

Ernam said:

In truth, I don't think issues like that really happen very often.  If they do, they're certainly an exception.  I can't know for sure, of course.  I can promise you that I've never personally filed an issue over anything remotely close to something like that - at least not since the new PK rules were written several years ago.

You issued one of my characters for killing you once on the same day you defiled, a few months ago...

Inb4 abuse flag

Jukilian

If you're going to defile a shrine, people are undoubtedly (and within reason) likely going to witness you defiling X times, then attack/kill you while you're defiling, and then make as much use of the writs as possible.

IMO the above I mentioned is perfectly within the rules. If you get hunted after writs are done and all that and you haven't defiled again, then sure I see a problem.

Ernam

Jovolo said:

Ernam said:

In truth, I don't think issues like that really happen very often.  If they do, they're certainly an exception.  I can't know for sure, of course.  I can promise you that I've never personally filed an issue over anything remotely close to something like that - at least not since the new PK rules were written several years ago.

You issued one of my characters for killing you once on the same day you defiled, a few months ago...

Inb4 abuse flag

I appreciate you so clearly exemplifying so many different problems all at once.

Jovolo

You're welcome

Ruth

Carmell said:

The easiest way to deal with the whole problem is if people all people realize that we all play to enjoy the game and PvPer's don't push conflict on those that play more for RP for hours a day.  I'd be a lot less annoyed if I was allowed to do things I enjoyed in game besides dealing with someone defiling a shrine just to see who will come fight them or the two or three hour raids we've been getting lately.  Yes the PvPers do seem to think that just because they like it everyone should and don't take RPers thoughts into it.  Anyways i'm going back to doing things I enjoy.

You'll notice that if you destroy shrines to Sartan, sometimes you'll get people who respond and sometimes you don't. Obviously, we treat defilement of a shrine as an attack on our god, but common sense (to Sartai and following Mhaldorians) dictates that even if there's one or a whole group sitting on that defiled shrine, you're going to get attacked/killed the moment you step in - regardless of the ruling that states you can't be attacked for witnessing unless you initiate it (i.e dropping rites in a room).

We have those amongst us as well (for example: Orzaansyn) who aren't very PK-inclined as well. Keeping that in mind, while RP dictates that we are to take part in defending shrines, we aren't obligated to rush in like lemmings and die (and lose essence, along with the shrine) if we cannot take that group. We sometimes go ham and do it anyway because why the heck not. The mindset that there is absolutely no way of roleplaying "letting shrines drop" is probably something that needs to be looked at if you consider yourself as one that plays more for RP for hours a day.

Kayeil

Witnessing shrines can be a pain in the ass because a lot of people don't respect the rule about not attacking the witnesser.

Razha

I think it is kind of stupid to keep score when you defile every day and then issue when you get killed once or twice more than you technically deserved. It's like who cares, just get better at PKing since you love it so much.

Aktillum

Jacen said:

I think it's becoming clearer with time that there are PK rules hidden behind the veil of "RP reasoning", and I don't particularly enjoy playing a game where I wager a hard earned resource and don't even know what the rules are. I'm creating this thread for two reasons: First, to try to compile a list of "Do's and Don'ts", acts that have been determined through admin forum posts or issue decisions to be acceptable or against the PK rules, and Second, to determine what the appropriate response is when you've been a victim of a PK offense. There's a very big anti-ISSUE attitude on the forums, but... is this not what ISSUEing is designed for? Especially now that the Mark system is... well, much less effective than it used to be, and it never was guaranteed retribution.

I'm gonna attempt to answer the OP.

The current "rules" are a stark contrast from the PK rules of several years ago (particularly circa 2006ish). There was a time in Achaea when quite literally anything that wasn't retribution for being physically attacked was 100%, no questions asked illegal. This led to many situations where people involved themselves in PvP situations but used the PK rules as a shield. You practically needed a lawyer's degree to navigate the field of PK rules. I'll give some examples of how bad it was:

-A certain player quite often stood in group skirmish rooms and picked up corpses for resurrection, then issued anyone who attacked them.

-This player also threatened with issue if any non-targeted room attacks hit them, such as chaosrays.

Based on the old PK rules, that player was technically in the right. The admins who handled the issues felt that during group skirmishes, you should refrain from using room-attacks, or atleast be aware if there are non-coms standing in the room, to prevent hitting "innocent bystanders". Of course, the notion that you can be an "innocent bystander" while corpse-grabbing is generally accepted to be ridiculous and silly these days, but back then, the rules were the rules.

Another example of the old PK rules:

-I personally was once issued, and punished, for killing a player who had attempted a Judgement (instakill) on me, while I was fighting their friend. Common sense would tell you that they tried to instakill me, and whether or not they were successful, they tried to kill me. I had cause for retribution, right? Not so under the old PK rules. The admin who punished me told me that because I left the room, thus cancelling the Judgement, I never died to it and thus it didn't count as an attack. Their intent to kill me did not matter, what only mattered was that they didn't kill me and I later killed them, without "cause".

There are a ton of other examples, but that was back then. The old PK rules, while being extensive and covering many situations, also created a toxic atmosphere of people either finding ways to bend the rules to kill people, or people finding ways to interpret the rules to let them issue someone that killed them. Like I said above, you honest to god needed a lawyer's degree to participate in PvP.

The rules today, as I understand them, are a lot more lax and open to player interpretation, or "common sense". We can all debate on what is and isn't common sense. For example;

-Some people feel it is wrong to attack shrine witnessers, and consider shrines to be PvE conflict. Others, like myself, feel that people shouldn't witness shrines if they don't want to be attacked, because shrine conflict is PvP conflict.

-Most people would agree that its not cool to "cause count" from group skirmishes. If there's an Eleusis vs Mhaldor skirmish on the clouds, I wouldn't expect to later be hunted by the Mhaldorians who "didn't attack me first" during the skirmish, because everyone was just attacking each other wildly. Under the old PK rules, they could. Some players were notorious for sending you tells after a skirmish, "well you attacked me and I died during that group fight, so thats 1 cause for attacking me and 2 causes for you landing the killing blow".

The absence of strict rules that attempt to govern every possible situation has exposed that the community is quite capable of creating common sense standards that the majority adhere to.

So to answer the "do's and dont's", I think its really quite simple, and explained well enough in Help PK and Help Grief;

-Don't grief people. Don't repeatedly kill someone for being in an opposite faction.

-Don't summon people into locked rooms they can't escape so you can 5v1 them

-What happens in Annwyn/UW/Nish, stays in Annwyn/UW/Nish

-If someone snubs you, they don't want to play with you anymore. Don't go pick-pocketing them and looking for ways to PK them after they've snubbed you. Unless, of course, they're one of those people who use snub as a way to get involved in PvP and then claim harassment. The admins will probably know if they're the latter type.

Now, the appropriate times to issue;

-If you're being griefed / repeatedly killed, for absolutely no reason (which is probably quite rare), you should probably issue. But before you issue, you should be 100% certain that they are in fact griefing/harassing you without any justifiable reason. Could you, perhaps, be perpetuating the cycle by sending them angry/threatening/FUCK U BUDDY EAT A FAT DICK U PIECE OF SHIT tells after they killed you the first time? Not victim blaming, just saying to be 100% sure that you are indeed a victim before you claim to be a victim.

-If you're being summoned into **locked** rooms (not merely icewall/piety/totem) and ganked, its a clear violation of HELP GRIEF and you should probably issue. People feel this way or that way about kill-rooms, but the admins only feel one way.

And finally, the things you should do when its just a death or two, and you're not being harassed;

-Hire (obviously). Of course, you might not get retribution if they're an elusive Serpent/Occie who sits inside all day and is extraordinarily difficult to pin down. That always sucks, yes, and its a problem with certain game mechanics that sorta need 

-Buy a level 1 arte bow, wait till they get involved in a duel or group skirmish, and shoot the hell out of them. Its cheap / lame as hell, but you'll feel good afterwards.

-Invite them to a duel, then have 5 of your friends backstab them when they show up. Another cheap, lame thing to do.

Basically, if you're seeking retribution against a lame Serpent/Occie who just sits inside all day and you have no hope of getting retribution through the mark system, you gotta sink to their level and think of the lamest, cheapest way to get that retribution you crave. Otherwise, you don't really crave it that bad.

Suladan

should be the basic motto here.

I agree that:
1) There should be xp loss for death. Current amounts are fine. I've died at every level from newb up to Dragon and unless you're just about to level or just did level or die like 5 times in a row, it's not that big a deal - BUT it is something that you'd rather avoid. 

2) Issues should be reserved for griefing type situations.

Achaea has PvP built into it in A LOT of ways, hell- in most cases at least 1/3 (or more) of your class skills are ONLY usable in PvP situations. PK'ing is going to happen. More if you have a deathwish or are learning combat, less if you're happy just chatting with people as your reasoning for coming to Achaea.

I've never issued or been issued, so I don't even know what the "penalty" is for losing an issue argument. But I've never really had reason to as RP has solved every "injustice" I've run into. 

Few examples: When I joined Naga I thought that fact alone made me open PK as I got attacked by 3v1 in Cyrene when I went to shop for minerals as Mhaldor was out (wasn't enemy'd to city yet). 

Next day got jumped by some random BM in Delos for no reason I could figure out (though Hasar saw the deathsight and helped me kill him back).

Next day Rangor attacked me while I was hunting dwarven camp - again randomly and for no reason. I ran, he tracked me down and finished it. No warning or communication. I was frustrated and had no idea how to get back at him, so I tracked down one of his novices, killed him and mailed Rangor his head with a letter saying if he wanted to randomly kill me for no reason I could match him head for head (didn't know about mark system, didn't know about issues). 

Granted this isn't "legal", but it was "good RP" and I just learned to be more careful and pay attention to my surroundings. 

Anyway - this wan't meant to be long. So, to sum up: Unless you're getting grief killed over and over and over by the same gank squads: chill out and roll with it. (And if you are, then you should most likely look at what you're doing to be that much of an asshole to piss people off so much - whether you issue or not). 

Nim

Why do writs still exist?

Melodie

The very very few times we ever have shrines being defiled, I always go fully intending to fight, not to witness. You are disrespecting my God in a public, humiliating way - you're gonna die, or I'm gonna die trying (assuming you stick around, which unfortunately isn't what usually happens with us). I'm assuming writs existed to help for later revenge against a larger group of people when there's only, say, 1-2 of the God's followers about. Unfortunately, like many things that rely on player restraint, that's just not how it's done anymore.

Nim

Melodie said:

I'm assuming writs existed to help for later revenge against a larger group of people when there's only, say, 1-2 of the God's followers about.

Although you might be technically right that this was the reason they were made, I'd disagree with this on the basis that writs take time to gather, carry the risk of death (by going to the enemy in person), and require someone around to actively pursue them.

Writs do not exist to enable anything. They exist to restrict orders' abilities to seek retribution. They also exist to record attacks, but are not strictly necessary for this purpose (after all, shrines already report they're being attacked - reporting the attacker's name along with it would not be a very complicated change).

Melodie

Well writs also exist from the days before the new PK rules, where you had to have a very exact reason to attack someone. Writs helped with that.

Writs are more or less outdated now, though.

Cynlael

Jovolo said:

Ernam said:

In truth, I don't think issues like that really happen very often.  If they do, they're certainly an exception.  I can't know for sure, of course.  I can promise you that I've never personally filed an issue over anything remotely close to something like that - at least not since the new PK rules were written several years ago.

You issued one of my characters for killing you once on the same day you defiled, a few months ago...

Inb4 abuse flag

Bruh.. He issued me IG for trolling him on forums.. I still even have the message of Anytus dismissing it.

Aktillum

Melodie said:

Well writs also exist from the days before the new PK rules, where you had to have a very exact reason to attack someone. Writs helped with that.

Writs are more or less outdated now, though.

Writs mainly existed for non-PvP players to participate in shrine conflict. They could run to a shrine and witness defilers, and legally they couldn't be attacked for witnessing. Of course, the playerbase has sort of evolved to accept that shrine conflict is an extension of PvP, so the generally consensus these days is that if you witness, you deserve to be attacked.

Strata

Aktillum said:

Melodie said:

Well writs also exist from the days before the new PK rules, where you had to have a very exact reason to attack someone. Writs helped with that.

Writs are more or less outdated now, though.

Writs mainly existed for non-PvP players to participate in shrine conflict. They could run to a shrine and witness defilers, and legally they couldn't be attacked for witnessing. Of course, the playerbase has sort of evolved to accept that shrine conflict is an extension of PvP, so the generally consensus these days is that if you witness, you deserve to be attacked.

Entire groups attacking a lone witness is just dumb. So I disagree that witnessing makes someone deserving of attack. If someone has the balls to witness vs. a large group, don't just lolsmash them. RP with them. Talk shit. Try to convince them their God/Godess is a fraud. Draw straws to pick one of your team to duel them. All of those things are cool ideas that never happen. If you're just showing up because lol if I start defiling Targs they're gonna come out so I can kill them, you're perpetuating the moron stuff.

Aktillum

Strata said:

Entire groups attacking a lone witness is just dumb. So I disagree that witnessing makes someone deserving of attack. If someone has the balls to witness vs. a large group, don't just lolsmash them. RP with them. Talk shit. Try to convince them their God/Godess is a fraud. Draw straws to pick one of your team to duel them. All of those things are cool ideas that never happen. If you're just showing up because lol if I start defiling Targs they're gonna come out so I can kill them, you're perpetuating the moron stuff.

I don't disagree, but its all in context. When I go with Rangor on defiling sprees, we operate under the assumption that Mhaldorians are going to come en masse, and start swinging swords before asking questions. So we're instigating PvP through shrine conflict against a group that enjoys PvP. You're probably right when it comes to defiling Orders full of non-coms. Its not cool to just loldefile an Order like Scarlatti or Pandora and then PK the lvl 50 nubbies who come to witness. I think they're a better example of what you're trying to convey then Targ, considering Targ's theme is Shallam on 'Roids and they're supposed to have people willing to fight/die for their shrines.

Silas

I've ignored so many defilings, and I'm the OH. Sure you should look to respond, but shrines go down so often that it's just not worth getting so worked up about every one. Ignore one now and then - it's pretty liberating.

Also, ty to @Triak for saying what needed to be said. If you're filing a dozen issues, the likelihood is that you are the problem. Some people just need to grow up and realise this is a multi-user dungeon - you're not always going to have it your own way.

Also, @Austere, everybody comes around to accepting my genius eventually. Don't fight it. Just let it happen. You'll feel better this way.

Klendathu

My thought is that if you go defiling, you're asking to be attacked, non-com or not. There shouldn't be actual attacks AND writs from witnessing, that's double-bubble. It boils down to three simple points:

1. If you're witnessing, just witness.
2. If you're attacking, just attack.
3. If you're defiling, expect to be attacked OR witnessed.

Silas

So you expect peope to witness and then just stand by while you defile in front of them?

Mishgul

Yes, if we aren't allowed to attack as per the complaints division of Achaea.

Bluef

Aktillum said:

Writs mainly existed for non-PvP players to participate in shrine conflict. They could run to a shrine and witness defilers, and legally they couldn't be attacked for witnessing. Of course, the playerbase has sort of evolved to accept that shrine conflict is an extension of PvP, so the generally consensus these days is that if you witness, you deserve to be attacked.

They also exist because (just as the Help scroll says) there was far too much he said/she said about who was defiling shrines going on. People were hiring and attacking right and left based on nothing but hearsay or who they could easily spy in the area at the time. This created the wrong kind of conflict and a lot of issues by people who weren't in any way engaged in shrine conflict and who didn't appreciate having it foisted upon them by the culprit chameleoning them, etc. 

If you defile, you deserve to be attacked. Personally, I think that if you hold a writ you do too - and that there should be a way for witnessers to more easily witness and yield writs simultaneously so that orders can follow up as they see fit. Those people who want to witness/defend could then hold the writ and be considered fair game in shrine conflict. 

I'm not sure our order does much with writs to be honest. Shrines are not that worrisome when defiled and easily put back up later on. For some orders though, that can be a pain in the ass if someone has already erected nearby and you're trying to stay true to the roleplay environs where your God's shrines should exist.

Klendathu

Silas said:

So you expect peope to witness and then just stand by while you defile in front of them?

No, you either witness, or attack, not both. If you're a more direct action type person, attack rather than witness. If someone's being attacked, they're probably going to stop defiling at that point