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One Way To Grief While Killing NPCs

Innocente
Innocente
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I am posting this in a new post as the original one is getting quite long. Lots of folks don't think it will be possible to grief other players using the new Justice System. I would like to describe an easy, and probably unpreventable, way to do it.

Point: There is NO targeting in ESO. Everything is AoE of one sort or another. This is an important basic mechanic of ESO and unlikely to change.

1. Head into a heavily populated banking area. Or any heavily populated area, like a market.
2. The griefing team (and this will be done by a team of six to ten VR12 players) starts laying down just a load of AoE damage. They take out any guards that happen along and all the other killable NPCs. They cause all NPC interactions to break.
3. Other players decide to join in and 'teach the griefers a lesson!'
4. Other players start throwing around attacks, and since the crucial NPCs are not actually dead, they are hit by the anti-griefers AoE hostile spells.
5. Other players are flagged now; they die and are penalized.
6. Or, they could flag themselves as 'Guards' and be immediately destroyed by the griefing team.

For you folks that think that human behavior is basically good and that people will 'play nice', I reference you to the Stanford Experiment.
  • hk11
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    The scenario you describe sounds like it would probably be one of the most fun things to happen in eso. No matter which side you are on.
  • SFBryan18
    SFBryan18
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    And you have proof that the NPC shown on my screen will be the same on yours? Because I don't think NPC's are synced. I believe whatever system they put in, players will have the option to just move through without participating. At this point, I'd like to see some proof of anything they are planning to do, because it all seems like speculation and rumors.
    Edited by SFBryan18 on July 22, 2014 2:23AM
  • Innocente
    Innocente
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    SFBryan18,

    Does it matter? An AoE you cast trying to hit the criminal is going to hit any NPCs you ARE synced to.
  • SFBryan18
    SFBryan18
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    Innocente wrote: »
    SFBryan18,

    Does it matter? An AoE you cast trying to hit the criminal is going to hit any NPCs you ARE synced to.

    So your point is that NPC's will get caught in the crossfire when "good guys" try to bring justice to the streets? It's a fair argument to make. Many abilities do have a radius, but I think this could be fixed if players marked as guards had friendly fire off.
  • Audigy
    Audigy
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    Innocente wrote: »
    I am posting this in a new post as the original one is getting quite long. Lots of folks don't think it will be possible to grief other players using the new Justice System. I would like to describe an easy, and probably unpreventable, way to do it.

    Point: There is NO targeting in ESO. Everything is AoE of one sort or another. This is an important basic mechanic of ESO and unlikely to change.

    1. Head into a heavily populated banking area. Or any heavily populated area, like a market.
    2. The griefing team (and this will be done by a team of six to ten VR12 players) starts laying down just a load of AoE damage. They take out any guards that happen along and all the other killable NPCs. They cause all NPC interactions to break.
    3. Other players decide to join in and 'teach the griefers a lesson!'
    4. Other players start throwing around attacks, and since the crucial NPCs are not actually dead, they are hit by the anti-griefers AoE hostile spells.
    5. Other players are flagged now; they die and are penalized.
    6. Or, they could flag themselves as 'Guards' and be immediately destroyed by the griefing team.

    For you folks that think that human behavior is basically good and that people will 'play nice', I reference you to the Stanford Experiment.

    Again you are hostile, why is this?

    What has happened to you at a different MMO that you assume every person doing PVP is a griefer?

    Seriously, the scenario you describe is based on so many unknown variables, that its very unlikely to happen.

    1. You assume everyone attacks in a group of six or ten VR 12 players? How do you come to that conclusion?

    2. You assume that those 10 could instantly kill every guard, not knowing however how many guards there actually will be or how strong those are.

    3. You assume that Guards can attack Guards, in our example we players defending the NPCs. How do you know this? Do you really think player guards can kill NPCs?

    4. Then you assume random people get flagged for PVP. How is this supposed to happen? Unless you sneak nothing you do will trigger anything.

    5. Last but not least you assume that those "10 VR 12 players that always attack our cities" not only kill all the guards, but also all the players! I really want to meet those super heroes one day, they seem to be really great players fighting off hundreds of enemies! I am sure they also killed Molag Bal with their pure presence in the char creation screen. >:)


    No offence but whatever happened to you in another MMO, get real please. Its not the fault of ESO that you were killed by another player, nor is that player here looking out for you to bully you around.

    You don't even know how the system will work, yet you assume that people will pick on you because of it.
    Edited by Audigy on July 22, 2014 2:51AM
  • Archaole
    Archaole
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    The justice system is coming. Prepare for it or don't. Welcome to TES. Not everything is fair or fun to everyone. But you can still choose how it effects you.
  • GnatB
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    Innocente wrote: »
    2. The griefing team (and this will be done by a team of six to ten VR12 players) starts laying down just a load of AoE damage. They take out any guards that happen along and all the other killable NPCs. They cause all NPC interactions to break.

    How/why would this cause any, much less all, NPC interactions to break? Game would proceed as normal, just with the killable NPC's/guards dead. Most players wouldn't care and would just continue interacting with their unkillable quest NPC's.

    Whole argument derailed in step 2.

    Now, granted. If players could kill quest NPC's, there would be griefing, but it would simply be people repeated killing quest NPC's preventing others from doing the quests. As such, it seems almost certain that quest NPC's will be immune.

    Innocente wrote: »
    Point: There is NO targeting in ESO. Everything is AoE of one sort or another. This is an important basic mechanic of ESO and unlikely to change.

    I'd also point out that this isn't true. There is definitely targeting, it's just done using the cross hairs and not using the tab key. If I'm hovering the mouse over NPC Bob, all my regular weapon attacks/single target skills will hit Bob. Even if NPC Sam is closer. And if I really want to make sure, I can lock on to Bob, so even if Sam steps in the way, so I'm pointing at both, as long as I'm still pointing the crosshairs at Bob, I'll hit Bob and not Sam. Things are only AoE if they SAY they are AoE.
    Edited by GnatB on July 22, 2014 3:29AM
    Achievements Suck
  • Innocente
    Innocente
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    It has been stated by ZOS that attacking NPCs will cause them to 'react'. This will break any player interactions currently going on.

    When I say 'targeting', I meant target-lock as implemented in other MMOs. Like WoW, EQ2, and such.

    And while true that there are reticule targeted abilities, they are extremely hard to pull off against moving targets. And if I was griefing, I would be sure there were NPCs between me and the rest of the sheep. And, I would keep on the move, making reticule targeting virtually impossible.

    And, once again, for those of you that think people are going to 'play nice' here, I reference you to the Stanford Experiment.

    Or heck, look at what is happening in EVE, where advanced multi-millionaire players are ganking newbies in Hi-Sec space with little regard for any penalties.

    There is a reason that PvE Theme-Park games do not have open world PvP. ZOS needs to wake up and do some research on previous attempts to implement this sort of thing.
    Edited by Innocente on July 22, 2014 5:30AM
  • SFBryan18
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    Innocente wrote: »
    It has been stated by ZOS that attacking NPCs will cause them to 'react'. This will break any player interactions currently going on.

    Proof?

    From what I've seen in this game, everyone has their own NPC's.
  • Innocente
    Innocente
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    Once again, what does it matter? The point is, if you shoot at me, and hit YOUR NPC instance, you are hosed.
  • SFBryan18
    SFBryan18
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    Innocente wrote: »
    Once again, what does it matter? The point is, if you shoot at me, and hit YOUR NPC instance, you are hosed.

    It matters because what I read was that when players are talking to NPC's, other players will be able to grief them by harming the NPC, but I don't think this will happen if we all have our own NPC's. You are saying that players who choose to fight the criminals will suffer from some kind of friendly fire, but if they are on the good side, the NPC's will probably be marked as friendly just like other players.
  • Samadhi
    Samadhi
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    Innocente wrote: »
    ...

    And while true that there are reticule targeted abilities, they are extremely hard to pull off against moving targets. And if I was griefing, I would be sure there were NPCs between me and the rest of the sheep. And, I would keep on the move, making reticule targeting virtually impossible.
    ...

    I PvP on a regular basis, and I do not find it difficult to target enemies.
    It's made even more manageable by locking onto the target with tab.

    And that is presuming that Guard players can even attack NPCs at all.
    Playing as a guard may lock players out of the capability to be hostile to NPCs in order to preclude guards on killing sprees.
    "If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion." -- the 14th Dalai Lama
    Wisdom is doing Now that which benefits you later.
  • Innocente
    Innocente
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    Ok. Let us say that ZOS solves all the accidental fire and friendly fire problems. I would still bring a team into the populated area. Any player foolish enough to flag himself would be dead within seconds. Remember, this will not be happening in good old PVP zone; it will be happening dead in the middle of the happy time PvE areas.

    MMO history has shown that this sort of thing has failed time and time again. I for one do not think ZOS has the chops to pull it off. Virtually everything they have done in ESO has looked/sounded good on paper, and pretty much failed when implemented.

    Why should this be any different?
  • SFBryan18
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    And imagine the opposite being played out as well. One criminal being chased by a whole squad of guards. We just don't know what it will be like until they release it on the PTS.
  • Innocente
    Innocente
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    I don't think the PTS is going to help. The sort of folks that do this sort of thing are not the sort that play on PTS realms.

    Sadly, only when the system reaches live will the gaps, holes, and flaws be discovered.
  • ZOS_ShannonM
    ZOS_ShannonM
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    Greetings!

    We are closing this thread because there is already a thread about this issue. We ask players to try to respond to existing threads before creating a new thread. That allows us to help players more efficiently and facilitates the visibility of different issues. 
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