17 replies to this topic

[Rofl]

I've seen a lot of threads popping up about friendly players shooting 'mechs either right at the start of the game or less than a minute in.

Official response posted in http://mwomercs.com/...ploitsgriefing/

"However, we will not be tolerating players who repeatedly abuse this mechanic to grief their team-mates by killing them. Please refrain from retaliating against somebody who may have accidentally shot you due to a bug or confusion."

It could be interpreted two ways:

1. Firing upon someone who is on your side by trying to destroy you is akin to their behaviour, and will be viewed as such. IE, just sit there and take it.

2. The second sentence gives us a little leeway, because it says don't do it if they are firing upon you because of a bug or confusion. It stands to reason that anything other than an accidental shot would still be provocation, and repeated provocation is not necessarily covered within the text.

The problem in situations like this is twofold:

1. There is no clear-cut IN-GAME response to griefing.
2. The proof of burden lies with the accuser with little to no tools at our disposal, only the assurance from above that something is being done. No proof has been given in any case that anything has even been done, just the word that it has.

Here would be my suggestion:

If you are fired upon by a friendly, and can successfully identify who it is, do these things:

1. Try to block LOS between you.
2. Open peaceful communications stating you are a friendly target. Request to stop.
3. Distance yourself as much as possible from the aggressor.

If no response is given within a short time (maybe 15 seconds or less, depending on the firepower of the aggressor) declare your intention to retaliate. Don't use cuss words or negative language. Something like "If you do not stop, I and my teammates will be forced to fire on you."

4. Disable the enemy mech IF possible
a) If the mech has all weapons in it's arms like a splatcat, blow them off.
Blow a leg off and run away
5. If no good option to disable the mech presents itself, destroy it.
6. Inform in alltalk the event as soon as possible, advise all parties.
7. Take screenshots.
8. Here is a grey area: I suggest all 14 others players to report the offender. This of course generates 14 tickets for support which may bog them down. HOWEVER, in order for you NOT to get reprimanded yourself, this is the best way to cover your own actions. Until an in-game option is added, this is what I would consider a necessarily evil. Sucks for support, but that's what happens.

Any other suggestions welcome. I'd love for some clarification from above. I understand this is not exactly the PGI recommended procedure, but truthfully there isn't much of a documented plan except for: "Let 'em shoot ya, sucks to be you."

[Zolaz]

PGI should put a penalty in the game for any damage you do to your team mates. The penalty should be great enough that people wont be attacking team mates. The game should track how often you damage and kill team mates. After you hit a magical number you should be flagged a team killer and your team should be able kill you with no ill effects.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

In my experience it's usually enough to ask in team chat what a person is doing when they shoot you. The vast majority of the time it's accidental. If they shoot you a second time you can tell them to stop or you'll retaliate. After a third hit, it's open season (but it's been a long time since I've run into anyone who went past two shootings).

[Ransack]

I can accept a twitch or what ever that puts out A shot that hits a friendly. The other night my back was completely red less than a minute into a match at the graveyard. Some ID10T thought that it was amusing to keep shooting me in the back with med Lasers. I stopped turned around, said "WTF is your problem" in team chat, and put two Gauss Rounds in his CT. I then slowed until the ID10T passed me. I didn't kill him because I don't like see Red text, but the other team did soon enough.

That's my solution to them, since there seems to be apathy on the PGI side. I'm not gonna kill you, but I'm damn sure gonna wound you in a critical area. We lose we lose.

Edited by Ransack, 29 March 2013 - 08:12 AM.

[Ph30nix]

Zolaz, on 29 March 2013 - 08:10 AM, said:

PGI should put a penalty in the game for any damage you do to your team mates. The penalty should be great enough that people wont be attacking team mates. The game should track how often you damage and kill team mates. After you hit a magical number you should be flagged a team killer and your team should be able kill you with no ill effects.

yes that wont be used to grief people at all....

or your in the middle of a brawl where your firing while enemy is under ECM bubble but your just outside it so you get no targeting info, there is haze and you can barely see. If you dont take the shot your teamate dies and your then outnumbered and going to lose, If you take shot and hit enemey you win, if you hit teammate you lose. thats already a punishment there.

not saying something else doesnt need done but a blanket penalty isnt good enough

[Valleye]

Nah, suck it up and move on it is only one round of many many rounds you will play. Report and play on.

These are not bullies that stand down when you grow a spine. They get even more satisfaction when you fight back. There are no in-game consequences for them should you retaliate. The laugh at you, and call you a rage-baby.

Like I said report and move on.

V.

[Kylere]

This may not be PGI approved, but I hit them just as hard as they hit me, and if they keep it up I do too. I have been killed multiple times by some loser screaming out "SQUAAAAAAWK: and such that I no longer have any tolerance, We have a testing environment so no justification exists for weapons test, and the losers who claim they "HAVE TO" because they alt-tab out are just idiots who are incapable of using a computer.

The only way teamfire happens is via intentional ignorance or laziness, I refuse to tolerate either.

[AlexEss]

The proper way

Report the player and move on. At worst you have a extra death/loss and a bit less Elo.

Do not retaliate as that put you on the same level as the other player,

[Ransack]

Kylere, on 29 March 2013 - 08:18 AM, said:

The only way teamfire happens is via intentional ignorance or laziness, I refuse to tolerate either.

This I disagree with. I have had a target in sight, shoot, but the target goes down before my ordinance has reached. So it then hits the friendly. That is unavoidable. Friendly fire during close combat is going to happen. It's the friendly fire with no enemies in sight that annoy me.

[Mercules]

Don't respond.

Report and move on.

What they want is attention. Firing upon them gives them what they want and encourages them to keep doing it.


This should be basic knowledge for all parents. Attention even negative attention for behavior done to elicit such a response is rewarding.


Firing back also muddies the waters when you do report them. If you never fired upon them and they fired upon you when reported it is clear what has happened.

[Rofl]

My problem is this part:

http://mwomercs.com/...ploitsgriefing/

"We follow-up all such cases with an investigation and privately contact the abusive players. Continued abuse results in increasing sanctions being imposed. Please be patient while we investigate each report: we review all cases, and in these situations we will be following-up with users privately. In order to protect user privacy, we will not share the result of your report with anyone."

I understand protecting the plaintiff, but not the defendant (excluding cases where identifying the latter will surely identify the former). I also understand not posting the name of someone who has been warned/temp banned/etc because it may invoke unnecessary and unjust retaliation later from parties not involved in the altercation. The part I don't understand is why there's no openness between PGI and the community in regards to what measures have actually been taken vs what they say the punishment is.

Hell, for all I care, if someone's UN is permanently banned for griefing, put it up on a wall (post) where everyone can see it. It's not like the name will be recycled (at least one would HOPE that is the case). The identity of the defendant is secured because that identity can no longer be used: they'll be known by a different name no longer associated with the listed one.
*OR*
Do something along the lines of what MMO companies have done regarding botting practices: Post numbers. "X" number of players were banned this month due to violations. Any sort of clear, available info that something is being done is better than nothing.

I know it seems odd but I trust PGI enough to post this information is the most accurate manner they have, but I don't trust the fact that something is being done with no info posted. Call me crazy.

------------

P.S.
I know a lot of people threaten to report and never do. This must be the case. I've been told by others when I teamkilled them (on accident, and I apologized, was in the middle of a brawl.) that they were going to report me anyway. Nothing from PGI ever hit my email account.

Edited by Rofl, 29 March 2013 - 08:43 AM.

[Mercules]

Rofl, on 29 March 2013 - 08:41 AM, said:

In order to protect user privacy, we will not share the result of your report with anyone."



I know it seems odd but I trust PGI enough to post this information is the most accurate manner they have, but I don't trust the fact that something is being done with no info posted. Call me crazy.

You are crazy. In the years I worked for an Internet Service Provider and was the "Abuse" department (No really it was my job to handle all the internet based cases that concerned our customers using our service improperly). I never once released what measures were taken. I assured the person who reported it that something will or was done, and thanked them for notifying us of misuse of our service. I did this because the legal department told me this was how to handle this.

In other words this is standard practice. You don't trust PGI to remove offending players, but you trust them with your personal information? Hmmmmmm....

[Rofl]

Mercules, on 29 March 2013 - 08:47 AM, said:

You are crazy. In the years I worked for an Internet Service Provider and was the "Abuse" department (No really it was my job to handle all the internet based cases that concerned our customers using our service improperly). I never once released what measures were taken. I assured the person who reported it that something will or was done, and thanked them for notifying us of misuse of our service. I did this because the legal department told me this was how to handle this.

In other words this is standard practice. You don't trust PGI to remove offending players, but you trust them with your personal information? Hmmmmmm....

Quote

I understand protecting the plaintiff, but not the defendant (excluding cases where identifying the latter will surely identify the former). I also understand not posting the name of someone who has been warned/temp banned/etc because it may invoke unnecessary and unjust retaliation later from parties not involved in the altercation. The part I don't understand is why there's no openness between PGI and the community in regards to what measures have actually been taken vs what they say the punishment is.

I actually *DO* work at an ISP as well and used to have to contact customers regarding abuse if a tech needed to stop by for some reason (as dispatch). Depending on the abuse, we usually had to legally let the plaintiff know the end result. I mean, it would oftentime involve local law inforcement, but that's a whole different issue.

For other kinds of abuse like IP duplication or email spam, we'd tell the person it affected exactly what happened ("Another user connected to our network attempted to use similar information as your account to connect. He didn't have access to your account blah blah blah just like writing your address on a piece of mail and putting in a mailbox type analogy"). Of COURSE we told them, but only if they asked.

It's not the same as reporting abuse not affecting you as it is reporting abuse that directly affects you. We of course never gave out the information of who was doing the abuse (in most cases it was impossible to know the WHO), but we did let them know. Now if for instance our network was breached in some way or some major failure occurred, we'd let our customer know via facebook/twitter/sms/email that a problem had indeed occurred, the issue was investigated, and the problem resolved. Often times for things like power outages we'd say exactly that: Power went out at x location, power company restored at y time, everything up and running.

The point is that we did communicate and give customers satisfactory information without impairing the privacy of any side. It's not that hard.

--------------
P.S.
Damn I do look crazy in these posts...

I'm just looking for some more transparency. I know it's not required of PGI, it'd just be nice. I understand the conflicting nature between giving a company personal info like my e-mail, but questioning them on other practices. However the fact remains that they ARE a company and if they do indeed ban people, especially people who have shown a tendency to purchase MC, it will affect their profit. They have to look at it saying "Is it worth it to enforce harsher sentences or better to let them pass given details outside the occurrences"

Edited by Rofl, 29 March 2013 - 09:17 AM.

[Kill Dozer]

Id like to add the following PSA to this post (this does not apply to greifers obviously):
If a mech on your team has long range weapons (LRMs, PPC, LRG Lasers, Gauss etc) and is trading shots do not, I repeat DO NOT, walk in front of it. Doing so is begging to get shot, more than likely that player is zoomed out to max range and wont see you coming until its too late.

I shot the same team mate at least 3 times last night in the same game for the very reason above. He kept trying to sneak in between me and the edge of the cover I was using, both of us in Atlas'. I'm zoomed out and cant see him, I fire and he eats the right arm's PPC because he's standing in front of it.

As a rule, never walk in front of a friendly mech that is trading shots, always go behind.

[Kommisar]

Murphy's Law of Combat No 3: Friendly Fire Happens. Friendly Fire is not so Friendly.

There has always been FF. Yea but upon an age ago, eveneth the merry bowman would striketh down a wayward footman with a stray arrow. Humans are imperfect. You get them shooting ranged weapons into complex situations... they are going to miss. They are also going to hit friendly targets. In MWO, it gets even harder given the usual circle running brawls that develop and almost complete lack of peripheral vision.

Now, beginning of round FF. There are some glitches that propagate this issue beyond the run-of-the-mill griefer/hater. For one, the Alt-Tab issue. Coming back in can cause the weapon fire if you click on the start bar to do so. Pro-Tip, hit Alt-Tab to cycle back to MWO. Also, please note, there are some bugs that cause guys to drop back to the Windows screen. Happens to me every once in a while. Very annoying in a fire fight.

Then there are what I call the "My Two Year Old Loves Daddy!" incidents. This is a catch all for any crazy event that can happen. Named after my daughter who became fascinated by my keyboard and, one day while playing, ran up next to me and "BLAM!" palm struck the keyboard... including my alpha-strike key. To respond to Kylere up there, I'm not sure if falls into laziness or ignorance. He seemed very sure that no other reasons could exist. I will admit, I could have elbow struck my little daughter in the face when I noticed her in order to save some random guy on the internet some make believe armor during a random 7 to 15 minute drop fight... But I just don't have that in me. So, I'm leaning towards laziness I think?

Mind you, the response I got from the guy my daughter shot was for him to turn and dump near half his UAC5 ammo into me, blowing me to pieces. He had a Ilya with 3 UAC5s; so that was a lot of ammo. Fortunately, my team mates were more mature and didn't end his run right there.

Some guys are just going to be haters. Their parents don't talk to them and they are lonely. They need attention, even if it is for all the wrong reasons. Nothing is going to stop them. You can ban their account... and they will make a new one. They don't care. Fortunately, theses guys are a small minority. At least for me they are.

Yes, there are some idiots. But it is not malice. I think it is cute that you have no tolerance for idiots; but you have made the choice to interact with the rest of society. At some point, you have to accept that there are a LOT of idiots in the population. Or, you can go live alone in the hills and hollers and raise goats. But, goats can be sort of dumb at times too. Okay, grow soy beans. No brain, can't be an *****.

Then, finally, we have someone that just flat out makes a mistake. They line up on their keyboard wrong and realize they hit "fire" when they meant to hit forward. I'm going to come out against a harsh and violent purge of people that make small, inconsequential mistakes in video games. I know, no tolerance. But I would really think that one through. Pure statistical probability states that you, yes you Kylere, have made a mistake at some point in your life. You've been "That Guy". You caused someone else to rage scream at their screen. Or moan about the future of our species. It's been you. So, tread carefully less you find you have no tolerance for yourself and having to call a suicide hotline to help you figure things out before you jump.

Just saying. Bless your heart. (note: Here in The South, if you end any comments with those two phrases, it's OK. No matter what you said, it's just okay now. Hey, I didn't make the rules!)

[Zolaz]

Kill Dozer, on 29 March 2013 - 11:03 AM, said:

Id like to add the following PSA to this post (this does not apply to greifers obviously):
If a mech on your team has long range weapons (LRMs, PPC, LRG Lasers, Gauss etc) and is trading shots do not, I repeat DO NOT, walk in front of it. Doing so is begging to get shot, more than likely that player is zoomed out to max range and wont see you coming until its too late.

I shot the same team mate at least 3 times last night in the same game for the very reason above. He kept trying to sneak in between me and the edge of the cover I was using, both of us in Atlas'. I'm zoomed out and cant see him, I fire and he eats the right arm's PPC because he's standing in front of it.

As a rule, never walk in front of a friendly mech that is trading shots, always go behind.

It is a shame that PGI does not penalize players for shooting their own team. You are responsible for the shots you are shooting down range.

[Kylere]

Ransack, on 29 March 2013 - 08:23 AM, said:

This I disagree with. I have had a target in sight, shoot, but the target goes down before my ordinance has reached. So it then hits the friendly. That is unavoidable. Friendly fire during close combat is going to happen. It's the friendly fire with no enemies in sight that annoy me.

This is about the people that shoot you in the back at the starting base, not about people who actually do it by accident DURING combat.

[Kristov Kerensky]

There is a process set up for dealing with abusive TK/TD players, use it and it works just fine. I had some issues with some smacktards who would TK me for the Kerensky name, I reported them..every single time they did it, which was every single time they saw me.

I got the little impersonal responses back from PGI every time and I let them do their job.

Those smacktards haven't been in the game in months now, so the system does work, provided the smacktard keeps doing it. One off events aren't going to get them banned, but if they repeat and get REPORTED, they get banned.

Report..don't resort to TK/TD yourself, because they can then report YOU for it and you'll be catching trouble for it as well as them.