Confused about “griefing”

[Old Crusty]

   Call me ignorant, stupid, or a Troll. Fine, but I have still never heard of griefing until the thread today about players from Country C joining Country A hostility mission against Country B.

i have seen the definition:

griefing

1. Purposefully shooting or otherwise sabotaging your teammates in an online game. 

2. In online gaming where one repeatedly killing the same individual or individuals over and over again, or camping their corpse to prevent them from retrieving it, or otherwise performing actions in a game to prevent the player from enjoying the game. 

3. In online gaming, someone who takes pleasure in creating grief for an opponent via various "cheap" tactic

 

Here is what I don’t understand. If C joining A hostility against B is griefing, then why isn’t it griefing for C to screen out A from their port battle with B?

Why isn’t it griefing for a Rear Admiral to join an Enemy 6th rate combat mission? No Rear Admirals that I know need Experience or raise gold by doing 6th rate missions. So it is safe to assume that as a Rear Admiral joining a 6th rate mission you are going to fight a newbie. 

Why isn’t it griefing for Nation A to tell Nation B that they will screen them into a port battle against C and then turn around and attack Nation B port battle fleet?

 

i can think of a few things that go on in this game that is worse than A joining B hostility against C with the intent of screwing B 

 

please set me straight

[Christendom]

Griefing is in the eye of the beholder.  Some might think ganking noobs qualifies, but that would just be life in the NFL (NA PVP server).  

I'll give you some examples of what I would classify griefing as.  Generally it would be abusing allowable game mechanics.

- joining an allies hostility mission and taking up slots that would normally go to the defenders (you can only have a max of 10) and removing their ability to defend.
- joining a patrol mission with no intent to fight and just shooting sails and kiting away (this was kinda fixed however)
- allies tagging each other on the OW and physically blocking enemy ships from joining or ramming friendly ships in battle to help your friends on the inside
- using alts to tag in other players or lure players out of zones (partially been fixed).
- tagging an opponent over and over again despite having no chance to catch them inside the battle.  more than say 3x is a bit much.

This list could be endless, but it's subjective.  Which is why we have a tribunal forum where we sometimes (but not often) sort things out (only ex-SORRY members get punished though).

The incident in which you are talking about basically involved Spain joining a hostility mission of an ally and taking up most of their slots so the defenders would not have been able to stop them inside the mission.  Why is this different than joining up on the OW and screening out the defenders together?  Well because it removes the defenders ability to choose how to respond.  If my fleet goes out and gets ganked by Russians and Spain, that sucks but shit happens.  Spain joining that mission and abusing game mechanics that are otherwise allowed restricted the pirates in this case, from being able to determine how they want to play.  This is griefing.  It's also could be against steam EULA if you want to get technical.  While it seems that everyone BUT @admin is aware of the bullshit "mistake" that happened in them joining, it was deemed an unfortunate mishap and nothing will be done.....until next time.  
 

Edited September 10, 2018 by Christendom

[Old Crusty]

16 minutes ago, Coraline Vodka said:

You clearly missed the point the group in question joined a hostility battle to possibly intentionally block anyone from countering hostility. If they had joined, fought and tried to sink people it's kosher.  The rest of your examples are just combat.

I really didn’t miss that point. I also think that is wrong. What I don’t get is why other bad behavior gets a pass. 

I also have never heard of griefing before today. I do understand that I don’t get the difference from my other examples I gave and that other people see it plain as day.

[Old Crusty]

Christendom

Thank you very much for the kind and detailed response 

[Christendom]

10 minutes ago, Banished Privateer said:

This case griefing would be tagging someone with no intention to fight (just wasting time or trying to delay) or shooting at maximum range into sails trying to keep someone in battle but avoiding any hull engagement. 

 

Go re-read one of the previous tribunals.  Admin mentioned being tagged multiple times over and over MIGHT be considered griefing. 

As for the other stuff I merely am mentioning griefing in the broad sense of the word.

[Macjimm]

Crusty,

I too came to NA with little to no understanding of gaming or the jargon.  I learned about Ganking, Sealclubbing, Nerfing, Buffing and Griefing right here in these forums and with  the chat in game.

I'm not a gamer ... but basically a kid at heart who loved to pretend, playing games like army, or that we were on a ship at sea in a storm, or lost in the wilderness somewhere.  All our play revolved around imagination.  I think that lots of other kids enjoyed sports and would have grow-up to really enjoy e-sport competitive gaming, but for me recreation it is still about imagination and a virtual world.

So for "griefing",  I think it really depends on the goals that you or your group are striving to achieve.  In a world where the whole focus is simply on repetitive fights, endless battles for no reason other that the thrill of combat, the rational for what is acceptable and what is offensive can quickly become murky and confused. If we had some sort of foundation economy, that required nations to defend territory, then many tactics that are currently unacceptable would seem reasonable.   Delaying actions like tagging and fleeing to harass would be useful.  Sailing in large squadrons and devouring traders and smaller fleets would be sensible and positive methods of addressing the enemy.  Reduce their wealth and assets to gain an advantage militarily.  Grudges and politics would add colour and content to the story that we create. 

But in the current culture of NA the distinction between griefing and fair play is confused.  It can be self righteous and arrogant to presume to tell someone that they are intentionally trying to irritate others.  The perception that someone is griefing can often be a misunderstanding,  just a difference in what we value as pleasure.  We currently have no over reaching objectives.  No targets.  Easy to lose direction.

The first two of the examples that you used could be viewed as legitimate if the intention was to succeed.  And conversely then could be considered griefing if the actions were done in bad faith just to cause anxiety and without regard for success. 

1. Purposefully shooting or otherwise sabotaging your teammates in an online game.  This could be acceptable in a game that has spys, or covert operatives, incorporated into the mechanics.  Most communities consider this to be teamkilling, not griefing,  and is a basis for expulsion from the community.   NA prohibits intentional teamkilling.
2. In online gaming where one repeatedly killing the same individual or individuals over and over again, or camping their corpse to prevent them from retrieving it, or otherwise performing actions in a game to prevent the player from enjoying the game.   This is a gaming etiquette unwritten rule and can ignite passionate anger in some some players ... although ... respectfully ....depending on how the game is structured this could be a very skillful and cunning way to gain the upper hand on another team.  The key to determining if it is griefing depends on the purpose of the "spawn camping".  Is it done to win and a clever way to seize on a opportunity when an opposing team fails to protect a spawn point? OR  Is it done just to infuriate and anger with a blatant disregard for winning?  It can really upset some players, even if it is not griefing.
3. In online gaming, someone who takes pleasure in creating grief for an opponent via various "cheap" tactic ... this is griefing,  and I would argue it matters not if the tactics are cheap or legitimate.  It is the mindset of creating grief for it's own end.

I think griefing is when a player is deliberating trying to piss off others .... and it doesn't matter how.  The challenge is;  How do we determine someone's intent?

Apologies in advance to use Wiki.  But it seems pretty close ....

A griefer or bad faith player is a player in a multiplayer video game who deliberately irritates and harasses other players within the game.   A griefer derives pleasure primarily or exclusively from the act of annoying other users, and as such is a particular nuisance in online gaming communities, since griefers often cannot be deterred by penalties related to in-game goals. 

 

[Guest]

For Crusty, one citizen to another...

Well I understand all the jargon having played games since Doom and Red Alert, all types of MMOs, genre and meta.

Where most are happy with the victory, some dwellers are in it for the infliction, that defines “griefers” for me.

For them you have to have a somewhat “Thick Skin” approach.

 

For developers, Crusty is quite right in bring this subject to light for I can see parallels with another game, Conan Exiles, similar meta, forum, griefers have what they need.

I’ve just canvas CE forums, the playerbase is GONE!  oh dear.

 

 

Edited September 11, 2018 by Guest

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Griefing is when a player forgets what games hobby is for - a kid at heart who loved to pretend, playing games like army, or that we were on a ship at sea in a storm, or lost in the wilderness somewhere.  All our play revolved around imagination.  (...)  recreation it is still about imagination and a virtual world. - as Jim well puts - and makes his daily mission to bend the rules to the maximum.

By bending rules and not playing "as intended" - aka. this feels odd, then it is odd. - one might propagate waves of grief and be perceived as a non sport.

During development phase and early accesses this type of bending is necessary though, to test some loopholes. But sure one abusing them all the time - to claim "esports" victory - is not.

 

[Old Crusty]

I really do appreciate the the responses and explanations that you all have taken the time to give.

with these explanations and the definition itself I start to see a picture of what the idea is. Friendly fire being the most obvious. The big theme is “mean people suck”. 

Jumping in and then out of someone’s hostility mission is taking advantage o game mechanics that are not intended to be used that way. I don’t think that is mean and done to make your game experience miserable. I think that is done to make your RvR more difficult. That being said it is definitely misusing game mechanics and I agree should not be allowed. 

By the definition of griefing and the explanations of you players I would think (and obviously I am wrong ) that an experienced player joining an enemy 6th rate combat mission is the very definition of griefing. I am not talking about catching the rookie in the OW and showing them what the big leagues are like. I am talking about purposely sailing to the area where it is known that rookies do combat missions to earn gold, and jumping into there missions and easily sink them. 

In the Hostility mission example the players being “griefed” are not losing anything but time in game and possibly the failure of a mission that will deny a port battle or ensure that one happens. A Rear Admiral that joins a rookies combat mission not only denies them of the gold and experience that would have been earned, but it takes there ship away and any repairs that and upgrades that were on it. It can really hurt that player for days trying to scrape together the gold to buy another ship. 

To me, this game seams to be off on what is considered right and wrong.

[huliotkd]

21 minutes ago, Old Crusty said:

I really do appreciate the the responses and explanations that you all have taken the time to give.

with these explanations and the definition itself I start to see a picture of what the idea is. Friendly fire being the most obvious. The big theme is “mean people suck”. 

Jumping in and then out of someone’s hostility mission is taking advantage o game mechanics that are not intended to be used that way. I don’t think that is mean and done to make your game experience miserable. I think that is done to make your RvR more difficult. That being said it is definitely misusing game mechanics and I agree should not be allowed. 

By the definition of griefing and the explanations of you players I would think (and obviously I am wrong ) that an experienced player joining an enemy 6th rate combat mission is the very definition of griefing. I am not talking about catching the rookie in the OW and showing them what the big leagues are like. I am talking about purposely sailing to the area where it is known that rookies do combat missions to earn gold, and jumping into there missions and easily sink them. 

In the Hostility mission example the players being “griefed” are not losing anything but time in game and possibly the failure of a mission that will deny a port battle or ensure that one happens. A Rear Admiral that joins a rookies combat mission not only denies them of the gold and experience that would have been earned, but it takes there ship away and any repairs that and upgrades that were on it. It can really hurt that player for days trying to scrape together the gold to buy another ship. 

To me, this game seams to be off on what is considered right and wrong.

you are confusing griefing with un-fair...griefing is if i attak you,sink you and you come out again from port with X mark and i attak you again just to sink your ship without earning any PVP mark...and repeat until i don't se you coming out from port anymore.

joining a mission is intended to be used that way...if you are doing hostil in enemy waters you can be jumped by defenders, quite normal.  jumping in a rookie mission is impossible to prevent due to absence of info when tagging someone in OW, and once joined you aim for pvp marks...nothing about showing what the big leagues are like

[Old Crusty]

34 minutes ago, huliotkd said:

.  jumping in a rookie mission is impossible to prevent due to absence of info when tagging someone in OW, and once joined you aim for pvp marks...nothing about showing what the big leagues are like

How many Experienced players that you know make gold or experience by doing 6th rate combat missions? There is no OW tag when you join a combat mission. I am not talking about an open world battle, just combat mission. A player must click on the ⚔️ and then it shows what that is. Open world battle, or Combat mission. If it is a 6th rate Combat mission you know that 99% or more that is a Rookie. If it is not a Rookie then it is the worst player in the game.

[huliotkd]

if i'm not wrong, combat order close immediatly if in reinforcement zone and deny join of any ship bigger than 6th rate if in OW...

so if someone join a 6th rate mission is cause he also has a 6th rate, so it's quite fair battle

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

I am developing my crafted Cutter, that's a 7th rate.  Been working on a Brig and Navy Brig. That's 6th rates. ( not really doing missions, but you get the point )

Do i NEED to sail big ships just because I am a "admiral" ?

 

[Sven Silberbart]

Oh "Griefing". I've heard so much different interpretations about that..i cant count it.

A Griefer has the INTENTION to stop others having fun in the game. But not every situation where a player lost his fun because of another player is griefing.

A group of players killing a single player with lower rank are gankers, not griefers. Maybe..

..they want to fight for their national puposes (sink the enemy nation's economical power)

..they want to train their own communication in a battle

..they want to sink a well known player

..they have just nothing else to fight and dont like arranged fights

..etc

Its hard to differ that. Let me give a real examle:

Long time ago, me and my mates in small ships attacked a bigger group of players sailing much bigger ships (There were no min. BR for tagging in the past). We had no chance and we knew it, so we started to shot sails from distance. They opened a thread here and called us griefers, because they didn't found a reason why we attacked them without the intention to fight. At this point, most players would call this griefing. The reason why we attacked them: Our shallow water PB fleet coming closer and closer (out of sight of the enemy) and we wanted to prevent them to get tagged and sunk by the enemy lineships. It worked fine and we felt to to something for our nation success. Are we griefers now?

@Old Crusty ..maybe it reduced your confusion a bit 🙂

 

Edited September 11, 2018 by Sven Silberbart

[Licinio Chiavari]

Based on my quite long (almost 20 years) (hard) in and (sometime) out online gaming I think there's some misunderstanding about a few words as I always saw used in online gaming: Exploiting, Griefing, Ganking, Cheating.

- Exploiting is abusing/misusing an intended and fine feature or a bug.
A friendly fleet joining hostility mission as "defender" and not fighting the "attackers" banning real defenders from joining it and try to stop "attackers" (the starting example) is exploiting a fine and intendend feature: it's intended that others could join the hostility mission to stop farmers from triggering the PB. It's abused if someone joins it to not fight and ban so real defenders doing their "job".

Discovering a game bug (like one - in the past of NA - that allowed to duplicate items), not reporting it and purposely and aknowledgedly using it to get an advantage over other players is (bug) exploit.

Exploiting is considered punishable (how, depending on circumstances and effective knowledge of being exploit and real gain got on a case by case basis usually) in most online games.

Industry policy is usually correcting the bug or modify the feature to make it no more exploitable outside its intended use. Or altogether removing a feature impossible to be re-balanced.

 

- Cheating is using hacks/client mods/secret devs command (like God-modes in the past of a lot of "ancient" games). So using unintended (or simply not existant pre-hack/modding) features to have an edge over other players.

So this means, in the end, unlawfully modifing the game to get an edge over other players. I'm unsure if we had ever something like it in NA.

Cheating is considered I think always harshly punishable in all online games. Especially granted majority games EULA does clearly states what is allowed to be modified by players (if ever something).

AFAIK Industry policy is cancelling accounts (aside corrections to avoid further uses).

 

- Ganking is literally being a group ("gang") to kill ("k") numerically inferior or lone enemies. For extension it can be considered (sometimes) using far superior force against a far inferior one (also gear or skill wise).
The usual 4v1 OW tag in NA is literally ganking.

It's considered totally fair in any open/sandbox PvP online game. Only arena-like instanced PvP games avoid uneven (numerically and sometimes "ranking" wise) matches.
Otherwise is plain normal. Can be (and often it is) criticized "ethically", but I never found a PvP game punishing players being unfair (within game intended features).

Depending on games, Industry adds usually some features (in our case Capitol/Reinf Areas; in others can be rewards based on rank/power of killer and victim... possibilities are a lot) to not favour this behaviour. In other games is literally an intended feature totally unrestricted.

 

- Griefing, as stated, is killing not for personal (or faction etc...) gain (as intended feature) but, in the end, to harass other player.
As a sidenote: can be seen as griefing a lot of other ingame activities aside the simply "killing", depending on circumstances and game.
So, in truth, what can be considered "griefing" vary a true lot from game to game.

Even if surely it's always ethically criticized by player base, AFAIK Industry policies varies a lot, from clearly stating what griefing could be in their game, and that it could be punished (or not) up to nothing at all (still granted it's within boundaries of intended features - otherwise it could be an exploit).
Often (like in NA with "recently killed status") Industry adds features not banning "griefing" actions but making them not advantageous nor useful.

 

Hope this could be found correct and useful.

Edited September 11, 2018 by Licinio Chiavari
typo

[Old Crusty]

1 hour ago, Licinio Chiavari said:

 

Hope this could be found correct and useful.

Your post is very useful. I have come to the conclusion that bad behavior is bad behavior no matter what it is called. 

Obviously the hostility battle example is an exploit, but no matter what it is called, it is wrong and punishable. Makes sense.

my example of Veterans joining a 6th rate mission may be distasteful but it is not griefing because the intent of the Attacker is purely selfish but not necessarily aimed at making another miserable. So even though people may find it to be bad behavior, technically it really isn’t.

I appreciate the time you spent writing out your response. Thank you.

[Sir Malachy Karrde]

On 9/11/2018 at 3:13 AM, Banished Privateer said:

Yes, MIGHT BE CONSIDERED. For example: I tag you and sail away from you in battle and escape. You leave and I tag you again AKA keeping someone in battle instance WITH NO INTENTION TO FIGHT. Repeat procedure = griefing.

But actual chase, trying to catch someone and kill is not griefing, it might be caused by game illness of dual instance worlds with different speeds for both that we have in NA.

It depends on how long it takes. If you chase and tag over and over again for many hours, it is griefing. Eventually, you'll wear anyone down if you grief them long enough. This game needs a 1 tag rule. You can't seal the deal in 1 tag, tough sh*t for you.

for myself, I don't chase anyone longer than the 2 hour window that you get with a single battle instance. If I can't catch them inside 1 or 2 tags max, I let them go. There is zero reason to waste another players entire day just because luck MAY shine on me 6 hours down the road.

Edited September 22, 2018 by Sir Malachy Karrde

[Sir Malachy Karrde]

Just now, Banished Privateer said:

The chasing game is broken due to differences in speeds in OW and battle... Sail Forces, Navy Loodsman...

I totally agree. The entire game is broken if you want to get right down to it. 

[Sir Malachy Karrde]

Just now, Banished Privateer said:

It's hard to call something griefing if I catch up to you in OW, but you get away from me in battle and it repeats X times. It's the flaw of the game, not player abuse/griefing/exploit

My position is that chain tagging like that is griefing. In that scenario, the guy who gets away in battle but gets tagged over and over due to your loodsman is being griefed. He can't break the cycle and log off from the game as you are going to just tag him over and over again. Using broken mechanics like that to waste a players time is the definition of griefing. 

[Sir Malachy Karrde]

14 minutes ago, Banished Privateer said:

If he can't get away, he should try to fight, but the escape-catch paradox needs to be fixed by Developers, not Tribunal.

Maybe he should maybe he shouldn't. Maybe he knows he has no chance in a fight and running is his only option. Him turning to fight is what YOU want. So your solution is to grief him until he can get to a port (which can take hours when you get tagged every few seconds), or he makes a mistake, or you can get a gank squad together. Just because the game is broken and allows abhorrent behavior like that is not any excuse to engage in it. I've been on the receiving end of that  behavior and it's zero fun. The only people I do it to are Danes because they did it o me the other night. I chain tagged one poor sot for 5 hours last night. I doubt he's ever going to log back in. 

The developers in this game are notoriously slow to recognize issues and slower to fix them. I've been campaigning for chain tagging to be fixed for awhile now and it's just as much a problem now as it was 8 months ago when I took a long hiatus from this train wreck of a game.

Edited September 22, 2018 by Sir Malachy Karrde