My friends don't want to play anymore (griefing)

@nofears-fun said in My friends don't want to play anymore (griefing):

@arecbalrin Interesting question. When or what defines PvP. Well, Player vs Player is what PvP is. The act of chasing in hopes of catching is you, the player, chasing them, another player. Therefore, that act, while not combat, is in fact PvP. You are trying to best them at sailing. So PvP most definitely happens once you start to chase another player. Once that chase starts, you are trying to best them. You are not trying to best anything else in the game, just trying to catch them. You vs them.

I will warn you now: do not do things in bad-faith. The question was not an invitation for justifying whatever fits the conclusion you want. I don't know if that's what you were doing, but your argument misses out on inferential points that would be critical to arguing in good-faith. Namely, the reason why you choose to draw the line there, is not given.

If I were to use the same reasoning, I could argue PvP begins the moment a person looking for PvP loads into the game with a person looking to just do their voyages and hand-in whilst avoiding any confrontation. Now we've gone from PvP as a fox-and-hound chase to it being hide and seek. There was no reasoned point added for why if PvP without a fight can be PvP, then PvP without a chase can also be PvP. Further still, that reasoned point telling us where the line between PvP and not-PvP should be drawn still hasn't made itself, so we can keep going.

PvP can occur when someone who is not looking for PvP loads into a game session with at least one person that definitely wants no confrontation, but there is still the possibility of one because they are not as adverse to it as the other guy. This is starting to look ridiculous; we need to draw a line somewhere. Well seeing as we've already moved what PvP is from being a confrontation into being a dialectical pursuit/avoidance of confrontation and then the extreme of seeking/hiding from it- it all seems to revolve around the confrontation itself. So that's where it is.

Once we start coming up with reasons why the confrontation is not the beginning and the end of PvP in an open-world with other activities going on and uncontrolled encounters, what limits we choose to put on those reasons says what we really believe. In another version of this post where I chose to believe your absence of such reasoning demonstrated bad-faith on your part, I would have argued that 'basically, PvP is whatever someone who hates PvP says it is'.

I would have argued that point by taking the moving-line of what PvP is supposed to be and highlighting that in the absence of a reason for where that line should come to rest, we can argue the fact that PvPers even exist is PvP. We're doing PvP on the forum right now and the anti-PvPers are ironically winning, because the devs are on their side. If in admission of the ridiculousness of this(a convenient time for such a realisation), we agree PvP has to at least only be possible in-game, we're still left with the most permissive and all-encompassing definition of PvP: the mere possibility of PvP is what PvP is.

Only when removing the possibility of PvP, as is the net-effect of suggestions such as 'PvE servers', is there an absence of PvP. Funny enough, this means seeking and chasing other ships is no longer PvP in such circumstances because the resulting confrontation is no longer mechanically possible or severely discouraged: almost as if that confrontation is actually what defines PvP. So for this whole argument to stand-up, PvP must be defined from the viewpoint of someone who does not want PvP in this game.

And if you want to do so without letting on as such; argue that the line can be pushed back but don't say where it should stop.

@nofears-fun I specifically do not say that I assumed bad faith on your part. I did not assume bad-faith because this was my first interaction with you here. I brought it up because if what you had posted was posted by certain other people, it would indisputably be in bad-faith for the reasons I've already outlined. There are problems with the suggestion you offered and your statements in support of it. I don't think you realised the subtlety of what you were suggesting and the brevity with which you expressed it resembled a way some people tend to sneak their condensed simplifications past scrutiny.

Your revised suggestion has a similar problem: where do you draw the line on what constitutes someone else affecting your gameplay? As you didn't define it, then even someone who isn't looking for a fight coming towards you is PvP if you decide it's not worth the risk to find out.

@khompewtur As I suspected, the same argument made by @NoFears-Fun when made by an anti-PvPer is a transparently bad-faith argument.

If PvP is defined as any action which can affect another player, then PvP is defined as whatever an anti-PvPer thinks PvP is. It's to enclose the entire game with PvPers outside and say to them "This is ours". Reasoning is not required, nor compromise because the playing-field that is set up for only one side.

@nofears-fun said in My friends don't want to play anymore (griefing):

@arecbalrin I think I clarify that though mate, when I say, if we are competing. You need the versus part too. If I play a sports game, and we are on opposite teams, playing to win, then we are in fact in PvP. The definition is rather simple. I am playing directly against someone else in the same game, therefore we are in PvP.

That is not simple at all. Well when you are playing directly against someone, you know that you are doing so. The person on the other side doesn't. You don't know their intentions but can only read their behaviour and make a determination. They have to do the same in a PvPvE open-world.

We know from all these threads that get made demanding more and more restrictions on PvP that people who tend to be on different sides of these engagements have vastly different experiences and opinions about them. We know the anti-PvPers define PvP as whatever they say is PvP, no reasoning needs to be given according to them except that which circles back round and supports their notion that they should be the ones that decide.

I've not seen any PvPer argue anything equivalent to this, effectively saying that PvPers decide what PvP is, but instead wanting there to be a reasoned standard for it and offering one in arguing why it should be the confrontation itself.

@lobane said in My friends don't want to play anymore (griefing):

@khompewtur said in My friends don't want to play anymore (griefing):

If you change your course of action (either offensively, defensively, or trollololy) based on interaction with another human, that is PvP.

(i.e.)
I was sailing to Camden Cay to dig up my chests, when a PvP situation caused me to reroute. I fired a single EoR shot from the stern that dropped in the water well before it reached the enemy ship. it was the world's most drawn-out, pointless firefight, but the whole thing constituted a PvP exchange starting from the moment I first altered my course, as if the encounter had never happened, I would've already completed my original PvE objectives and dug up my Camden Castaways.

I think you need to refine this definition a bit. What if I encounter a friendly pirate, and through conversation we decide to both alter our plans and embark on a new endevour together. Your definition would classify this as PvP, would it not? Where as I would say this is more simply a multiplayer interaction, but devoid of any actual PvP. Your thoughts?

Of course it does, but it doesn't matter. It's not an attempt to construct a reasoned standard based on objective facts relevant to this game specifically, but make a definition so broad that a compromise that works in-game is impossible. Under this definition, the only thing which can happen in SoT which is not PvP is only possible on a PvE-only server.

@watcheyewendigo said in My friends don't want to play anymore (griefing):

@lobane

So, if you were going to go play say, Overwatch, or Call of Duty, or any other myriad of FPS, strictly-PVP game that exists right now. You log in, you enter a game. You see a target but that target cuts and runs, or quits, you're suddenly not playing a PVP game?

This is a bad-faith argument. Lobane used the faulty logic they were criticising by showing a scenario where if it applied, the conclusion would be ridiculous as no reasonable person could actually say two players who could fight instead cooperate is still PvP.

You using that faulty logic that Lobane criticiqued in reverse does nothing to refute the point.

In a nutshell:

• You can say PvP doesn't have to mean just the confrontation itself but the chase too because the chase is what leads to the confrontation
• Without a reason to stop there though and with the movable-line established, this allows for the mere seeking of a target to also constitute PvP
• As there is still no reason to stop the movable-line then this allows it to move further back
• The line moves back to encompass the entire game itself, simply because PvP exists at all
• Now anything that is not PvP is tautologically only possible when PvP is impossible
• In that counter-factual scenario the only thing that would be actually changed is the player-to-player confrontation
• Yes the thing which PvPers themselves argue is essentially what defines PvP without the dishonest ducking and diving

@lobane said in My friends don't want to play anymore (griefing):

@khompewtur said in My friends don't want to play anymore (griefing):

@vorondil1 said in My friends don't want to play anymore (griefing):

There are people looking only for PvP, and they are disappointed when they can't find people to fight
There are people looking only for PvE, and they're disappointed when they get attacked
There are people just setting sail and taking what the ocean offers, and they tend to be pretty happy no matter what

It is completely fine to be in either of the first two camps, but you have to understand that the game was designed for people in the third camp. You can seek out whichever interaction you prefer, but the game is designed to give you both indiscriminately.

The semantic difference is: people in the PvP extremist camp can indulge in as much PvP as they can drum up, with their aggression they can force any other players they encounter to convert to PvP mode. There is no restriction to them subverting the pacifist wishes of a PvE'er. PvP'ers are never denied a PvP setting, when they make an encounter.

Whereas PvE'ers must always yield their preferences to the most violently inclined party in the confrontation.

Let's look at the permutes:

In the following conflicts...

-When a PvP engages a PvP = result PvP
-When a PvP engages a PvE = result PvP
-When a PvE engages a PvE = result PvE

*(PvPvE player must choose a course of action, either PvP or PvE, and then encounter categorizes as above)

There can be no compromises between food & poison. mixed together, it's still poison.

I think you've summarized this incorrectly. If I were to guess, I would say it's because you are viewing this strictly from a PvE players perspective.

What I'm referring to is your statement that 'PVP players can force any other player into a PvP encounter'. This is not the case. If I want to PvP and a ship decides not to, yes I can chase them. As many have pointed out, I can literally chase them for hours. Note that endlessly chasing another ship is not what many PvP 'extremists' would consider PvP. PvP starts when the other ship stops, turns, and engages. Chasing another ship is an 'attempt' to PvP, but that attempt is being foiled by a PvE players attempt to avoid it.

Maybe I catch up, and I do 'force' PvP on the other party. Maybe I don't catch them, and I log out after an hour of fruitless chasing, in which case I've had no PvP 'action' despite my efforts. Or in other words, the PvE player has 'forced' me to not to engage in PvP. It's a stalemate, if you will, where potentially neither side is getting what they want.

Which is, I think, the original posters message. Anyone who approaches this game thinking they can simply focus on one of those activities (PvP or PvE) is welcome to try, but there is far from any guarantee that you'll get what you wish for as the game was intended to be mixed, and generally at the discretion of the other players on the server.

Note, the example I provided (chasing down another ship) doesn't cover other actions like scuttling your ship, or migrating to another server, both of which also effectively stop a PvP player from being able to simply 'get their way' as you seem to imply.

Again, I understand if this doesn't entirely make sense to you, if you are not a PvP player at heart. You might think PvP players are getting exactly what they want by chasing you around. I won't speak for anyone else, so I'll let others add their own voices as to whether or not chasing ships that don't result in conflict, having players refuse to fight back, or simply log out or server swap would really be considered a viable or satisfying PvP encounter.

I'm coming back to this brilliant post now because I want to address it in the other direction. I agree completely with it, with my own point of view as a starting-point, meaning I should also think about is another way too because on first-reading I'm not going to see most of the picture.

If I had a ship full of loot, I would have a reason to avoid a confrontation with another ship. I would be trying to avoid PvP. Or would I? They want any loot I have, I want to keep it; even if the odds in a fight were 50/50(I'm outnumbered 20 to 1 and playing with a Guitar Hero input as one of the PC Master-Race), I have so much more to lose than they do. The risk is not worth it, so if my initial bluff(I always bluffed..or did I?) of acting aggressively doesn't work, I'm out of there.

Is it still PvP? One problem with these forum discussions is that they do get framed as tension between PvPers and PvEers, when it's actually people who want open-world PvP specifically to be central to the game and those want it segregated off. Because many of the games that once had it, then had it diluted to the point of making it meaningless and therefore not fun, it's always a shame to see it happen. I've not come back to SoT because I've seen a relentless march in that direction from Rare, egged-on by people who think fighting other players in the game should be subject to a veto by one side.

When I choose to run from a fight, I am being a PvPvEer. If I just want to PvP I can play games that give me that, same for PvE. Almost none have the meaningful open-world PvP with the environment factor and objectives, there to give overriding purpose to it.

@khompewtur said in My friends don't want to play anymore (griefing):

@arecbalrin said in My friends don't want to play anymore (griefing):

In a nutshell:

• You can say PvP doesn't have to mean just the confrontation itself but the chase too because the chase is what leads to the confrontation
• Without a reason to stop there though and with the movable-line established, this allows for the mere seeking of a target to also constitute PvP
• As there is still no reason to stop the movable-line then this allows it to move further back
• The line moves back to encompass the entire game itself, simply because PvP exists at all
• Now anything that is not PvP is tautologically only possible when PvP is impossible
• In that counter-factual scenario the only thing that would be actually changed is the player-to-player confrontation
• Yes the thing which PvPers themselves argue is essentially what defines PvP without the dishonest ducking and diving

If you walk into a cafeteria and pick someone and announce "I'm gonna beat your a**!", and start advancing on them, and they start running away, and you chase them around the cafeteria, that's not a peaceful encounter.

It doesn't matter whether you caught them or any punches were thrown. You interrupted their lunch and they were forced to defend.

It's like what Gurney Halleck said "Mood??!?! Not in the Mood?!! Mood is for lovemaking, and music, DEFEND yourself!!"

(i.e. when you are the defender, you dont get to voluntarily decide to participate, the attacker has already made that decision for you)

All analogies on the internet are stupid. I don't demand that they be 1:1 like-for-like, but they are all just so stupid. Your post hasn't changed that. It's just there to avoid discussing why the line should be movable past the confrontation itself and where it should stop, based on reasoned logic.

@lobane said in My friends don't want to play anymore (griefing):

@khompewtur

Yes, I generally agree about the 'footwork' (great analogy), but I do still think it's a bit of a grey area. I mean, scanning the horizon and even docking your ship in a defensive fashion is honestly part of the entire process on some level, but at the same time I'm hesitant to define those actions as PvP. It's certainly interesting, but I'm tapping out so as not to derail the thread any further. Great chatting with you!

Well this is why I am seeing bad-faith in the other side's arguments: they seem to be intentionally putting in these grey areas. They are obscuring, not clarifying the ins and outs of the topic. They are not pointing out ambiguities which are already there, they are adding them in.

This is why I ask if the line is movable, then for what reason? Then if the movable-line stops in a specific place, then for what reason? PvP starts in an open-world sandbox environment when the thing(the fight, the confrontation, the PvP) that people are pursuing and avoiding does and it ends when it does. If an argument says that line is to be moved, it should contain reasoning for why, followed by specifying where it stops and the equally-valid reasoning for why.

Instead we get false equivocations and whataboutery.

@watcheyewendigo said in My friends don't want to play anymore (griefing):

Well nothing in your opening post enables me to believe this is genuine.

@watcheyewendigo said in My friends don't want to play anymore (griefing):

@arecbalrin Nothing about your avatar makes me think you're genuine but hey, here we are.

I already admitted I needed to give more info in my opening post, and clarified those things later in the thread. As I have already said, I figured people would be capable of knowing what category they fell in, PVPer or flat-out griefer that plays only to make people quit. I also said I was wrong in that assumption.

You gave the information you thought was most important in your opening post. That you 'clarified' later simply looks like you trying to salvage. People didn't know you meant something else, because you didn't mean something else. You described behaviour that was almost entirely just normal PvP and called it 'griefing'. You've continued making suggestions that would be completely detrimental to the PvPvE of the game and not listened to those who have explained how it is so.

I had sympathy for what you said in the later post regarding the 4-man galleon hijacking your sloop. I'm not going to criticise; I've fallen for scams in other games as have many others. Our vast experience of open-world sandbox games informed our suggestions to the devs for how this could be smoothed over without compromising the freedom and thrill of such games. We were utterly ignored. Your situation might have been avoidable if you had some indication of what they were like without taking their word for it. Rare however have not given any indication that they will put something like ship names and wanted posters identifying players with high or recent kills, sinkings and thefts.

That crew were however only using what the game gives them to their advantage. It doesn't matter what Rare intends: everything they put in the game will potentially be used for something unintended. When they are told by experienced players how each one is likely to play out, they should listen but they don't. Brigs are just like vote-kicking in other games, it's a 'three wolves and one sheep' scenario, implemented because Rare can't look past a lone random person annoying a group.

People who hate PvP and want to see it gone from SoT have practically been holding the game hostage since release. They are not the people who will provide suggestions in everybody's interests and your thread shows why.

@mc-leggers said in My friends don't want to play anymore (griefing):

This game would literally fall off the planet without pvp, so yeah pve server do impact servers in a negative way

Agreed, but I don’t share your optimism that they will understand it. This has been covered so many times before and after the game was released. Most players who understand the PvPvE mix also understand the impact PvE only servers would have. I have yet to see anyone, during any of the past megathreads on this topic, grasp how getting their wish would change the player-mix of the game, or how a PvE server would create a griefing haven. Once they get them and realize other crews will creatively use the PvE aspect to their advantage (so many examples have been provided in past threads), that is when they start demanding private servers.