Dealing With Kill Stealers during Migration...

So every migration, no matter how good MindArk makes the spawns, no matter how spread out, no matter how dense, some people will do whatever possible to exploit MindArk's systems to gain a financial advantage, including Kill Stealing.

KSing is an exploit, make no mistake. If you spend peds damaging a mob and taking armor decay but then someone purposefully comes along, ignores mobs standing right next to them that no one has shot, and then starts shooting your mob there is a specific reason. That reason is they are trying to save themselves a few ped on the kill... at your expense. It is an exploit in the system that MindArk has created.

I shouldn't have to use my top DPS all of the time, especially when hunting small Longtooth. Small LT are the perfect mob for skilling Melee, MindForce, and other professions that most of us are a bit lower in skilled on. With that said, I do make a point to bring a 80-90 DPS weapon with me to deal with the occasional Kill Stealer and for most of them, that's sufficient.

So we can deal with KSers in various ways. We can out DPS them and we can ask them in chat to stop. For most that works, but others continue, so then we can move to a different area... but then some will follow you. Some still continue, so you can argue it in chat.. but then some still continue and this is the point in which it breaks the EULA because they are ruining the game play experience of other participants.

At this stage after experiencing this, some people will get into an all out argument in chat with the KSer, leave the hunting area completely, do mob trains, call in others from their soc and form a team, file a support case, etc.

Today I decided to try something new, using new features that MindArk has made available.

First, I opened Contacts and unchecked all the radio buttons except for "Nearby"



From there you can click on the persons name and navigate your way to Society Info about their soc just the same as if you were at the society terminal. Most good societies will boot a member for this kind of behavior but every once in awhile, it's the society leader who is doing it


So in situations like this, its easy to condemn an entire society, especially when its the soc leader/founder who is acting like this because one would assume this isnt the first time this has happened. Yet, in this example I recognize some of these names and believe they are good people. So maybe they just dont know?

So with the new features available to us, I also opened up my Message Center which is the little button that looks like a WiFi logo on the top left of our screens. While standing out among the LongTooth spawn, I composed a new message and using the list of society members, I sent an offline message to every person in that society I possibly could. Thankfully we can send bulk messages to numerous people at once.

I think the normal reaction people would have to this is to message me back and ask questions and ask for proof. Instead the reaction I got was one of the Sanctuary Colonels, Alan Moe Malcolmson, decided to come help his society leader Ericarrie Saoirse Saoirse by finding me in the LT spawn, waiting until I tagged a mob, and then started shooting it himself.

So at this stage, I'm just not gonna play their game, a small chat argument ensued and ended like this



From that point, I just stood there without moving, shooting, or doing anything until they got bored and left. I suppose I could have asked others in my soc to come help with DPS but thats a bit childish.

Unfortunately until MindArk starts more diligently enforcing its own harassment policies, there just isn't a whole lot we can do aside from spreading awareness of these issues. Thus, here we are in this thread.

 

I agree that MindArk usually does little to nothing in these situations, with their response usually ending with a simple warning email. This is a big reason why when people spot this kind of behavior its important they shine a big light on it. Unfortunately its up to us as players to do something about it.

 

When you take advantage of game mechanics in order to gain/save financially at the expense of other players, it is in fact an exploit.

 

My only problems with shared loot are that only one person gets mission credit for the kill and more importantly, you likely wont be the one who gets any items of value that loot.

 

Well, it turns out that Alan Mo has created a new thread on the topic over at PCF

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?263411-How-would-you-Define-Kill-Stealing

What a joke.

That is the guy that came to help his society leader kill steal from me.

Saoirse from Sanctuary is the one that originally KSed me several times. Alan Mo is the member of Sanctuary that came right after, stood right next to me shooting only what I shot at, waiting to shoot until I shot. Furthermore, what I learned last night is that Spassy from Sanctuary also came out there and ran mob trains on members if my society that had nothing to do with any of this.

 

From over on PCF:

Its quite the twisted perspective that he has here.

I really question the sanity of a person who first tries to kill steal, fails to do enough DPS, and then tries to accuse the hunter that originally had started doing damage to the mob of being the kill stealer.

Based on the conversations that I have had with some of the people in Sanctuary, they dont all agree with your opinion of not having to save face and being able to do whatever you want.

A society leader is accountable to the members of his/her own society... plain and simple. It seems that you are lying in order to save face in front of them.

 

You are aware that Longtooth aren't located in PVP, right?

 

It does thanks, and I'm glad we are back on topic.

I often hunt in PvP amongst other players, both in shared loot and non-shared loot situations and in PVP I don't have any problems with people Kill Stealing.

 

Well, even though I've not been experiencing it, I'm hearing from a lot of people about wide spread blatant kill stealing in the Minopolis Longtooth spawn. It's kinda frustrating that people don't know how to stop acting like a douchbag