Gametiquette guides? Player DOs/DON'Ts?

leeux

I'm a new player to this "MMO" thing, never played one before so I don't know some of the implicit social rules about player behaviour in this games...

So I've been wondering if someone made some game playing etiquette guides for new players yet?

My own experience through this game the last days has been just soloing, and I've never been quite sure if is OK to help others randomly, or is considered rude for the XP/kill stealing, f. e.

I mostly tried to leave others alone and only help if it looked like they'd need it (Like, f. e. being near dead, or overwhelmed by mobs, etc.)

Heh... I'm still regretting not helping a random player nearby yesterday, which let him/her to die

So, just wanted to know: what are your rules? Or there's some general guide somewhere?

Thanks!

Best wishes,
Leandro.

Sarenia

@Leeux

General etiquette applies.

Not stealing kills is a good tip. Sadly, you'll find plenty of people who don't respect this.

I try to help people when I see them in trouble, and leave them alone otherwise. Again, sadly most won't lend a hand if you're dying -- they'll just wait until your dead and take the enemy after, or run by.

Basically, be a decent person, try to keep an eye out for other good people to make friends, and expect the majority of people you meet to act like morons. It's one of those ironies of life that the more people there are, the less communication and respect there tends to be.

tarkak

You don't have to worry about kill stealing in ESO. If the other player gets a hit on the enemy that player gets loot specifically for them; much like how you can go around looting every chest and basket and someone else can come right behind you and do the same thing.

Sarenia

tarkak wrote: »

You don't have to worry about kill stealing in ESO. If the other player gets a hit on the enemy that player gets loot specifically for them; much like how you can go around looting every chest and basket and someone else can come right behind you and do the same thing.

Are you sure?

I've attacked enemies, had someone nuke it right after for most of it's hitpoints, and then I couldn't interact with it (quest requires you to "kill" an enemy then "use" it).

Anthony45122

I'm pretty sure you have to do a certain amount of damage to get credit for the kill. If you only get one auto attack in you're probably not going to get credit, if both you and the other person do equal amounts of damage you will both get the kill credit.

leeux

Thanks for the replies!

Sarenia wrote: »

@Leeux

General etiquette applies.

Not stealing kills is a good tip. Sadly, you'll find plenty of people who don't respect this.
<snip...>

Yeah, I thought as much... I do not have too much free time to play sadly, and that's why I just focus on the game play and mostly ignore the chat and surroundings... But I'll try to get better at that, if I can

Sarenia wrote: »

tarkak wrote: »

You don't have to worry about kill stealing in ESO.<snip>.

Are you sure?

I've attacked enemies, had someone nuke it right after for most of it's hitpoints, and then I couldn't interact with it (quest requires you to "kill" an enemy then "use" it).

Yeah, I've been wondering too...

I had some cases that just for standing near a quest target while being killed, the quest was marked as complete (kill 'this' enemy type of quest), without me having hit it.

And in other cases in which I hit the enemy with a group of other players (also in a quest) the others finished it (as judged by them going) and for me still was marked as pending...

Cheers!

Elsonso

I'm not so concerned about kill stealing as I am about people who hang back until the monster attacks me, run past me to get whatever treasure is behind the monster, then turn around and run past me again on the way out, leaving me to finish off the monster.

If someone steals my kill, at least I know they were willing to get their hands dirty.

My policy is that if I have to walk past, or through, your combat to get where I am going, you will get my help whether you want it or not. I will not just stand there waiting for you to finish, or run past as if you were not there at all.

And, while on the subject, thanks to the person who stopped and saved my bacon today when I was down to my last hit few points with too many adds to handle.

phermitgb

sadly, you'll receive a great deal of different, and often conflicting, advice on the above question, but if I were to offer *my* advice...

Kill stealing is less of an issue in ESO - as far as I know, there's no experience loss, and loot is individually generated for anyone that "tags" a mob, so there's no *mechanical* reason not to assist someone.

That being said, different people have different feelings about other people intruding on their gameplay - some people welcome a helping hand, even if they didn't need it, other people would much rather face an opponent and die trying rather than have some random passerby turn their heroic last stand into a face-roll victory.

In the end, *I* generally follow the following rule - engaging random mobs (general enemies), I share with anyone in the area that happens to be in my way or along my path - they're not losing anything, and the shared instances mean that I'm frequently sharing dungeon spaces with other people who are recklessly agressive - if I want to get anything done, I have to jump in whenever I can. When it comes to "boss" battles, if there's a fight in progress and it's almost done, I usually wait - if someone is nearly dead, I rush in to save them - I figure *most* people are generally thankful or at least polite if you saved them from defeat, and those that aren't, well, turns out I don't care much what they think.

if people muscle in on *my* fights, I'm generally thankful or at least polite about it...sometimes I wish they'd have stayed out of it, but it's not the worst thing in the world, and I can get over it.

As for other points of etiquette - asking for help or advice is generally welcome - and in fact, a reasonably nice way of making some connections with some of the people around you...SPAMMING (i.e. making the same request often enough that it fills up more than half of your current default chat window) is almost universally rude

DON'T SELL GOLD!!! you probably already figured that one out, but just in case...
DON'T SELL GOLD!!!

RP'ing in a public place - in general, as long as your RP is generally inoffensive, MOST people will either welcome it or ignore it. as long as you're not filling the local space with your RP constantly, most people are generally okay with it. Those that aren't may ask you to stop or take it somewhere else, but are generally at least initially polite.

anyone that's a jerk to you right away, about almost ANYTHING...is probably a jerk, and you have my permission to ignore their complaints if you feel so inclined.

OFFENSIVE RP - that is, things that might get to people, like playing a racist nord (or racist Dunmer or Racist Aldmeri or...well, frankly, there are a lot of racists in Tamriel in general), or anything sexual...well, quite frankly, I'd avoid that entirely unless you're ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN about your audience and everyone that can hear you. It's probably that anything sexual is against the TOS as well...just so you know...

I think the trade channel usage is going to be a sore point for awhile as well. In general, follow the above rules about spamming. If you want to sell something, or buy something, probably best to keep it so that your local messages are separated by at least 5, maybe even 10 minutes or more. In time (possibly even now) there may be places in Tamriel that are "shopping hubs", where people are hawking their wares all the time - in locations like that, I'd match your own sell/buy messages to whatever rate the people are using there.

that's...a little list of basic etiquette rules I would recommend ...

oh, one last thing - some rules I live by on the internet in general...
1 - NEVER post angry - you almost always end up sounding like a jerk, and everyone pretty much blows off anything you have to say when you do

2 - the internet is a DIVINE TOOL FOR MISCOMMUNICATION - if you have *anything* important to say, take your time, use every word you think you need, anticipate anything that may sound offensive or confusing to the thinnest-skinned person in the world, and be PAINFULLY POLITE. if you've ever read letters by, say, the American Founding Fathers - that's what you want to sound like. you want to sound like every thought in your head was planned out well ahead of time, and that you live in a society that treasures polite interactions, even with people you hate. ESPECIALLY with people you hate.

leeux

@lordrichter Yeah, I have to thanks a few players too!

Several people helped me, at different times, while I was struggling with my low-level char in an "a bit above my level" zone

After that I grew some sense and started doing questing more appropriate to my level

And that's a good rule of thumb :agree: I'll start putting that to practice too.

Cheers.

leeux

@phermitgb Thanks for the awesome good post! I'll be sure to keep in mind all you wrote there during my play time.

And yeah, about the gold selling, I didn't have a clue about what it was! But I found other topics on it and been reading them.
Of course I've seen the spam in the chat, but I never payed much attention to it so I didn't know what it was being posted... And no, of course, I'd never do that

Cheers.

phermitgb

leeux wrote: »

@phermitgb
And yeah, about the gold selling, I didn't have a clue about what it was! But I found other topics on it and been reading them.
Of course I've seen the spam in the chat, but I never payed much attention to it so I didn't know what it was being posted... And no, of course, I'd never do that
Cheers.

glad you found it useful...


yeah, I still remember the first time someone explained gold selling to me...I just about had an anurism. "People...pay REAL money...for...game money?...no, seriously...you're serious?...no, really, what is gold selling? You CAN'T be serious..." I'm pretty sure I went into a loop there for awhile.

sadly, it didn't surprise me at all that people were willing to SELL game money for real money - I was just baffled that people actually bought it. I'm still baffled, honestly...but, sadly, my expectations for the human race have dropped drastically the last 20 years or so...

Sarenia

lordrichter wrote: »

I'm not so concerned about kill stealing as I am about people who hang back until the monster attacks me, run past me to get whatever treasure is behind the monster, then turn around and run past me again on the way out, leaving me to finish off the monster.

This is a major issue in online games.

I had suggested the following to ZOS:
- When a player enters 'n' radius of a treasure or collectable, 'flag' that as belonging to said player for 'x' seconds and/or until monsters within that radius are defeated. If they do not collect it within 'x' seconds, or the monster is not killed, it is open for someone else. A player cannot 're-flag' the object for 'x' seconds after their previous flag expires (to avoid abuse).

That would cleanly solve the issue. Feel free to suggest the same to them.

Alyrn_Grey

It is impossible to steal kills in TESO. The way it works is anyone who damages the critter gets experience for the kill and the phasing means each player gets separate rewards.

leeux

@Alyrn_Grey‌

I take your word for it, and I believe you, but just for curiosity sake: is there some document (manual?) in which this kind of mechanics is spelled out? I'd hope if it exists it will be freely available, as same as for other games (I know not about other MMOs, but all the same, I think...)

I'm being totally honest if I said that I didn't even take look at the in-game help, not even a glimpse
I doubt it would contain this kind of details, but maybe I should take a look...

EDIT: spelling

Alyrn_Grey

It is something the devs have mentioned in their question and answers.

Jessabella

I think a good one applies to chests and harvest nodes and such. If you see a treasure chest and someone fighting a mob near by it, don't run up and open it while they are battling. You can not interact with nodes and chest while being attacked so if you start to open one and get hit, you will have to kill the mob first.

Many times I see a person battling mobs, in front of a node or chest and another player runs up and snatches it. I think it is extremely rude! I will stand by and maybe offer a hand and then stand by while they open the chest. And you know what, when they realize i am not gonna ninja loot them, they leave behind some stuff for me that they do not want!

Aureli

The game has an open tagging system. You cannot steal kills, exp, or items, as each person who contributed to the monsters death, no matter how small or insignificant the contribution, gets full credit for it.

One suggestion I would make is this: Don't stand by while someone kills the monsters to grab a quest item, and then take the quest item while they are clearing the monsters. It's not cool, it's terrible behavior and player etiquette. Example: there's a quest in Stonefalls where you need to tie a harness to 6 guar and find 6 dead guar corpses. A lot of the guar for both parts are surrounded by spiders. So I'd start fighting the spiders in order to activate the guar, and another player would run up and take it while I had agro. He then followed me around apparently for the next 10 minutes, every time I tried to get a guar by killing the spiders he'd run out from some rock or a building and take it.

EDIT: @Jessabella‌ Absolutely agree, I posted before I read your comment. Consider mine an addition to yours. Don't ninja loot quest items either while someone fights the mobs.

Hexcaliber

Kill stealing is not an issue, everyone that does damage gets their own copy of the loot, the same is true for containers, the exception being unlock able chests.

One point I would raise as we have public dungeons, and that is mob trains. Avoid picking up adds and running them behind you through dungeons, if you are attacked deal with them. With aoe attacks nothing is more annoying than some tard dumping a train of mobs in your lap while you are already fighting.

@Jessabella As to node jumping, ignore folks standing at nodes, if they are looting it you cannot access it, if you can access a node that someone is standing in front of, have at it. You are not playing for their convenience, nor do you even know if they are afk, a bot, timed out and so forth. Players have a responsibility to ensure they loot a node when they approach it, then move on. Standing in front of a node hogging it or hanging about doing god knows what holding others up is rude, not the other way around.

However looting while someone else is fighting a mob next to a node is not cool, it is clear they had to kill the mob to access the node, if not for them you would have to deal with the mob first.

If you loot a node, clear it out, do not leave crap in it simply because you do not want to carry it. It is not fair to others to loot a harvest node leaving nothing but worms or other garbage on the node. Clear out the node and delete the crap from your inv so a fresh node spawns in its place.

DO NOT INVITE RANDOMS WITHOUT ASKING FIRST, it is incredibly ignorant, you do not know what the other player is doing, why should they have to deal with pop ups interfering with their game because you are impatient, others are not there to serve you.

If you have ranged skills pay attention to the melee players in your area, do not tag kills and pull them when a melee player is about to hit them. The melee player has to run around chasing the mob, ranged players do not. It is just as easy for you to wait a moment and attack after it is tagged by the melee player, he doesn't end up having to run around and you both share the kill.

LIQUID741

Hexcaliber wrote: »

Kill stealing is not an issue, everyone that does damage gets their own copy of the loot, the same is true for containers, the exception being unlock able chests.

One point I would raise as we have public dungeons, and that is mob trains. Avoid picking up adds and running them behind you through dungeons, if you are attacked deal with them. With aoe attacks nothing is more annoying than some tard dumping a train of mobs in your lap while you are already fighting.

@Jessabella As to node jumping, ignore folks standing at nodes, if they are looting it you cannot access it, if you can access a node that someone is standing in front of, have at it. You are not playing for their convenience, nor do you even know if they are afk, a bot, timed out and so forth. Players have a responsibility to ensure they loot a node when they approach it, then move on. Standing in front of a node hogging it or hanging about doing god knows what holding others up is rude, not the other way around.

However looting while someone else is fighting a mob next to a node is not cool, it is clear they had to kill the mob to access the node, if not for them you would have to deal with the mob first.

If you loot a node, clear it out, do not leave crap in it simply because you do not want to carry it. It is not fair to others to loot a harvest node leaving nothing but worms or other garbage on the node. Clear out the node and delete the crap from your inv so a fresh node spawns in its place.

DO NOT INVITE RANDOMS WITHOUT ASKING FIRST, nothing is more annoying than having to deal with popups becasue someone assumes you must be there to group with them.

QFT! Obviously a vet gamer...my only advice is Be Cool, and don't be a D$ck! Seems this age of MMO player is all about the ME attitude...which is sad. It's actually nice to run into people that will talk, be friendly, and treat people with common courtesy. Haven't ran into too many C'suckers as of yet..it's giving me hope!

Shaun98ca2

I overly strongly recommend in public dungeons HELP people around you. NEVER run past somebody in combat. I seen this happen to a me a few times and it is incredibly rude. I just made note of who it was and decided I wouldn't help/heal them if they needed it. It wasn't that I needed the help it just common curtsey.

As for node/chest stealers its gonna happen, its rude and they are horrible people. Just ignore them and move on don't even try to get upset its not worth your time.

In a dungeon NEVER leave your group during combat for a chest...EVER. I think that entitles you to my ignore list. If somebody does it to your group call them out on it they apologize accept it move on they don't...well don't get upset and maybe even ignore them and move on.

MMO's are strangely full of these anti-social people. Just gotta learn to live with it and move on.

zaria

leeux wrote: »

Thanks for the replies!

Sarenia wrote: »

@Leeux

General etiquette applies.

Not stealing kills is a good tip. Sadly, you'll find plenty of people who don't respect this.
<snip...>

Yeah, I thought as much... I do not have too much free time to play sadly, and that's why I just focus on the game play and mostly ignore the chat and surroundings... But I'll try to get better at that, if I can

Sarenia wrote: »

tarkak wrote: »

You don't have to worry about kill stealing in ESO.<snip>.

Are you sure?

I've attacked enemies, had someone nuke it right after for most of it's hitpoints, and then I couldn't interact with it (quest requires you to "kill" an enemy then "use" it).

Yeah, I've been wondering too...

I had some cases that just for standing near a quest target while being killed, the quest was marked as complete (kill 'this' enemy type of quest), without me having hit it.

And in other cases in which I hit the enemy with a group of other players (also in a quest) the others finished it (as judged by them going) and for me still was marked as pending...

Cheers!

As I understand if you do 10% damage on target you get loot.
if you was unable to do 10% damage on first strike you should be grateful for the help.
Not all enemies drop loot, npc usualy drop some gold but animals are random.

And yes just being near give quest credit, this is fun with the kill 20 player daily.
You can complete it without doing anything.

Thete

lordrichter wrote: »

My policy is that if I have to walk past, or through, your combat to get where I am going, you will get my help whether you want it or not. I will not just stand there waiting for you to finish, or run past as if you were not there at all.

This really. It actually stops me killing mobs near a chest if other players are about because of the annoyance factor of seeing them just waltz past and get the chest while I'm doing all the work. If they pitch in, then let the fastest to click the chest get it, at least we both did some work clearing up to it.

McI

I am a vet of more MMO's then I care to admit... And TESO uses the same type of mob "tagging" as another action MMO "DC Universe Online" as long as you have done damage, you will get your own xp, and loot without taking anything from someone else.

That being said, the things that make a MMO player not want to group with you, or help you out in the future are:

-Do not "ninja" something that someone else is clearly fighting towards. If they are fighting something next to a locked chest, or a material node, wait for them to finish their fight and give them the chance to loot it.

-Do not "ninja" invite someone to your group/guild. This means if you want to invite someone, at least send them a message and ask if they would like to join. It gets very, very, irritating to have things pop up on your screen when you are trying to fight.

-Do not say "When I play that class I play it X way" That is a big pet peeve for almost all players. We do not care how you play the class that I am currently playing. Giving advice on tactics and gear/enchantments is welcome, but telling someone how to play their character is a big no no.

All the other stuff will come to you while you play. Just do your best to not be a jerk, and ignore all the jerks out there. You are bound to run into some while you play. Cheers dude.

Dominicsal

The other day I saw a player who was on the path of dieing, he was attacking a mob to high for his level and was not doing to hot. I at the time was not at a level to attack the mob either, but knew that we both could take him. So I jumped in and agrod it, just them the other player ran away and left me to die. Don't be that other player, that is my tip.

FlameStar

I find killing enemies gain a minimal amount of exp anyway.. I usually help out when I can and cast healing spells afterwards. Same goes If I need help.

Also If I come across a chest and find someone else is there attempting it, I just ride on by

Jessabella

@Hexcaliber, I am pretty sure you misread or misunderstood what I wrote I was talking about when you or another player happens upon a node, a chest or a quest item with a mob in front and you have to kill the mob first in order to interact with the item. Its rude for another player to come up an steal the item from you while you are busy with the mob.

If another player is already battling a mob in front of an item I need I will wait for them to move on and then complete my quest.

Coggage

Sarenia wrote: »

@Leeux

General etiquette applies.

Not stealing kills is a good tip. Sadly, you'll find plenty of people who don't respect this.

That's because killstealing in ESO doesn't exist.

leeux

Sorry for the late bump, I've just come home from work, and I didn't have access to my forum account to reply from there.

I lot of extremely good advice, thanks! It's really appreciated.

I wanted to reply to some posts:

Alyrn_Grey wrote: »

It is something the devs have mentioned in their question and answers.

Ah, didn't knew that. I was not paying too attention during the development of this game, and missed all the info released during that time. Thanks for mentioning it.

Jessabella wrote: »

I think a good one applies to chests and harvest nodes and such. If you see a treasure chest and someone fighting a mob near by it, don't run up and open it while they are battling. <snip>

Several posters remarked upon this, and I find myself agreeing now that I was made conscious of this...
But... yes, I might be guilty of doing that a few times during my short playtime (about ~ten hours). Now that I know, I'll try to pay more attention to this, so I don't do it anymore.

Also, good to know that kill stealing doesn't apply here: that means that doesn't make sense to avoid helping others in a fight when it may be needed.

Dominicsal wrote: »

The other day I saw a player who was on the path of dieing, he was attacking a mob to high for his level and was not doing to hot. <snip>

Yeah, something similar happened to me and I didn't intervene in helping. Next time this happens I'll be sure to help in cases as this.

Thanks again for all the suggestions and helpful advice. I'll be sure to put them to practice this weekend when I next play the game.

Best wishes,
Leandro.

dysphorya

One of my favorite DOs: if you're a healer, slow down by players in combat and see if anybody needs a heal or a buff. Like taking the time to answer questions or give people a tutorial if they're stumped on something like crafting, it goes a long way to building an enjoyable playing community.

(As a healer, this is hands-down my favorite thing to do in an MMO.)

leeux

@dysphorya‌ I'm currently playing a Dragonknight in Daggerfall as main, and trying experimenting with a Sorceress in Ebonheart as secondary.
But yes, whenever I create a third char for playing the Dominion part, I'll try a healer (those are the Templar, right? Still wrapping my head around the classes and abilities )

And thanks for the tip

Sockmunkey

Dont be a *** and use that chain attack to literally pull a mob away from someone who clearly doesn't need the help. If you want to help, fine, help. But dont literally snatch the critter away forcing the original player to go chasing after it.