@dakkorie said in Why do people grief. (An introspective on human behavior and society):

@fantome-of-blue you do realize at this point your engagement with him is just adding wood to the fire.

Yeh, but it's stuff that's been brewing for a while. I had to vent.

@nobanob said in Why do people grief. (An introspective on human behavior and society):

@urihamrayne said in Why do people grief. (An introspective on human behavior and society):

i want this meme to die, pvp is not griefing, stop saying it is.

Sitting at shark bait ruining others chance to do the quest is griefing.

Regardless though calling it grief or PvP. I think it ruins the experience and would instantly opt into a PVE server.

The best days on sea of thieves are the days I don't see a single sail on the horizon. I don't like that, I want to see sails and go meet them, say hello how's it going. But anyone approaching "friendly" or not are sunk on sight due to the lack of trust anyone has.

So while you call it PvP literally causes me infernal grief to see sails coming my way.

Pretty much sums up my feelings. If I see a ship coming I'm either dropping what I'm doing and take off, or I fire cannons and stand my ground. There is no making friends because you can't trust a pirate.

I'd like to point out that internal grief...that's anxiety. I get that without playing SoT. I'd rather the game not give me more.

Why is hunting pirates and wanting ship combat griefing?
Why does it have to have a reward other than entertainment?
Hunting ships and sinking them is the most entertaining part of the game.
It doesn't have to be about loot.
As a PvP game, I think this is what was intended.
Meeting other pirates is part of the dangers in SoT.

If you are been hunted.... Embrace it, and become better. Or run away.
Both valid choices.

No need to call it griefing, unless it truly is.
And then there is a very easy solution.
Scuttle or change servers.

@f16-hunter said in Why do people grief. (An introspective on human behavior and society):

@jeccckk According to your stats, you've put in way more time than 3 hours. You're more on the lines of 30.

I never said I played only 3 hours, but there's only 3 hours of worthwhile content to do. After that you pretty much just go after other players.

@fantome-of-blue said in Why do people grief. (An introspective on human behavior and society):

@jeccckk doubtful. A) I've got more years at gaming than you. Meaning I'm more skilled, my skin is thicker, so I can typically take a little more punkishness, and B) when a ticket did get open up against you, you're suddenly on the moderator's radar, not me.

I get no satisfaction from filing complaints. I hate it. It eats up my time when I could be gaming and enjoying whatever game it is I'm on, and all it does is put the miscreant on alert, and push him into a "criminal" like mindset of how to game the complaint so he, or you, can show off how clever you are to everyone, when in reality if you just keep being obnoxious you'll just get a permanent ban.

Solution; either leave or enjoy the game as it was meant to be for what it is.

1. No, you definitely don't have more years at gaming than I do, especially considering that I've made a career out of it (winning tournaments and developing games for a living).

2. Thicker skin? Obviously not, considering how upset you are over the realization that people don't get banned for griefing. Sorry, but it doesn't happen. People even shout racist stuff over voice coms, get reported and nothing happens.

Solution: Continue doing what I'm doing, which is being a jerk of a pirate in my spare time until maybe (unlikely) some worthwhile content is released that will keep me busy, all while avoiding any form of ban.

;)

@fantome-of-blue you do realize at this point your engagement with him is just adding wood to the fire.

@jeccckk doubtful. A) I've got more years at gaming than you. Meaning I'm more skilled, my skin is thicker, so I can typically take a little more punkishness, and B) when a ticket did get open up against you, you're suddenly on the moderator's radar, not me.

I get no satisfaction from filing complaints. I hate it. It eats up my time when I could be gaming and enjoying whatever game it is I'm on, and all it does is put the miscreant on alert, and push him into a "criminal" like mindset of how to game the complaint so he, or you, can show off how clever you are to everyone, when in reality if you just keep being obnoxious you'll just get a permanent ban.

Solution; either leave or enjoy the game as it was meant to be for what it is.

@fantome-of-blue said in Why do people grief. (An introspective on human behavior and society):

@jeccckk said in Why do people grief. (An introspective on human behavior and society):

@fantome-of-blue said in Why do people grief. (An introspective on human behavior and society):

@jeccckk said in Why do people grief. (An introspective on human behavior and society):

I grief because there's nothing else fun left to do in the game. After all, I played the game for 3 hours.

Well, this is a problem. Why are you even playing? I mean why not log off and go do something else?

I'm getting my $60 worth, either from your tears or from decent content.

Well, I'm not crying. I play when you're asleep. And also solo; i.e. no crew.

But this is kind of my whole point, if you can't appreciate the visuals and the world dynamic, then you might be better served buying a can of spray paint at the local hardware store, and taking your chances with the cops by tagging the local buildings.

Truly, I don't care if you are griefing on my server, because if I get your name and catch you doing it for me, then you a get support ticket filed against you, and you can go cry to Rare about having your account suspended, and that you'll either have spend another $60 to play immediately, or run the risk of getting caught again when the suspension is over.

Or what would actually happen, is you'd get griefed, get mad and open a support ticket, followed by nothing happening at all. I find that whole process much more satisfying than anything to do with paint.

@dakkorie
It's quite hard to classify something as griefing in this game as the ship respawn mechanic is done in a way that it gives people getting killed the idea of trying to "fight back" and it's an annoyance for pirates that are just there to rob you. Apart from that currently the easiest ways to steal someone's loot is to sink them and pick up the loot afterwards or board and kill them to check if they have loot afterwards. Neither of those things are thing I would consider griefing.

I truly think the amount of true griefing in this game is very very limited and usually doesn't actually involve the killing of enemy pirates but mostly the annoyance of their own crew members throwing stuff overboard or deliberately igniting a gunpowder barrel in their own ship to mess with their crew.

I think though that most of the kill on sight mentality (which isn't griefing) is just the way people are used to play. Either by playing competitive shooters or by just experiencing the way the game was played in the first couple of weeks. By positive reinforcement of rewards that you'll only get by working together, that mentality can slowly change.

As for the Why people would deliberately go out of their way to annoy or troll people. I'm no expert on psychology so I can only speculate here. I think there's several reasons why people would diliberately mess with others for the sole purpose of messing with them:

1. Boredom
   Either being bored with the game and only finding a "challenge" in killing everything around them or forcing their boredom on others because they can't understand others actually enjoying the game

2. Power
   Insecure people that feel the lack of control or power in their real life might get seduced by the virtual power they can have over others. Showing off how "powerful" they are or how they can inflict misery on the click of a button probably gives them satisfaction they're missing in their day to day life.

3. Lack of empathy or other mental issues
   Some people that just can't relate to other people's feelings or have actual mental problems that just feel the need to hurt others in any way possible.

I think it's almost impossible to 100% prevent people from deliberately trying to ruin the game for others without limiting the freedom for everyone. However I think it's not as big of an issue as people portrait it on the forums. I also think Rare is doing a great job on creating incentive to make crews work together and adding more content will combat boredom. I've already seen a change in behaviour after the first couple of weeks and also after the release of THD.

@babyleggs-ghost said in Why do people grief. (An introspective on human behavior and society):

When I board a sloop and spawn camp the crew, I am not griefing.

What's the motivation behind the spawncamping?
I'm not having an opinion on it, I'm just interested.

there is very little i would consider griefing in this game, how am i supposed to know you dont have loot, am i supposed to just leave once the fight has began and i have already boarded, im a pirate legend with nothing left to buy, the only thing i have left is pvp and i love the pvp on this game, i love that i just stole a fort from a galleon while on a sloop, i dont need the loot, i just like pvp, if you dont like pvp, dont play pvp games

People grief because they have been beaten either too much or to less in their life.
But still not enough in any case.

@jeccckk According to your stats, you've put in way more time than 3 hours. You're more on the lines of 30.

@dakkorie Humans are inherently selfish in every action they do its hardwired into us and arguable impossible not to be in some way. Its survival we are after all animals with table manners well you'd hope so. Its also to do with risk vs reward which in a game were the risk is minimal ie you don't actually die then the reward almost always outweighs the risk. Look in modern society do we all work together in harmony? Of course not. There is no concrete solution to this problem and in some ways there never should be.

@th3franch1se
Thats not griefing. I circled a skullfort for hours last night and killed anyone that tried to do it. It brought all the pvp to me.
I made my own adventure like rare wanted. So i switched to the skelly team last night and made sure the fort was safe

@dakkorie

I love the idea of the "have-nots" taking from the haves. it is Pirates after all. What I think was not intended was for the "have-nots" to pursue other "have-nots". I don't think it was in the games spirit.

...or indeed: The "haves" pursuing the "have-nots".

I think that's an excellent way to summarise it!

Sadism nothing more nothing less being able to annoy or upset an unknown across the world with no repracusions (failing English language at its finest) I mean we all do it some how ganking one player till they leave most trolls can actually be solid people who just want to vent

@jonaldinho

Well said.

It seems that the honest cases of griefing do indeed come from your own team mates, especially difficult on a sloop to deal with.

Part of me wishes there was a way to remove players from session as a result of this.

The other part realizes that would make it easier for people to troll.

Having closed sessions I think was a good way to deal with that but it’s not a complete fix and I can understand the difficulties of finding a true solution to this problem.

I didn’t mean to say griefing doesn’t happen, that’s ignorant, but I feel griefing from enemy players is extremely limited to the point of being nearly impossible. Griefing your shipmates on the other hand is the risk we unfortunately have to take when grouping with randoms. Good luck out there

@warlordwoody22 said in Why do people grief. (An introspective on human behavior and society):

I feel it is nearly impossible to actually grief in this game. ... What I do see is a lot of people upset they were sunk by pirates who wanted nothing more than to be a pirate, and are upset enough about it to start calling out grief. ... So in fairness of honesty, what examples can you give me of your experience, maybe I’m wrong.

I would agree that the word “grief” is way overused in this forum. However I have, in fact, been a victim of true griefers on a few occasions.

In my first week of playing I was solo slooping in an open crew. I sailed around for about an hour collecting chests and then a random joined my crew. As soon as he joined I caught him tossing booty off the ship! I started talking, asking what he was doing and that only made it worse. He probably heard the frustration in my voice and that was what he was looking for. I then tried to turn the boat around to get my booty and he just wouldn’t let me. He would drop anchor, raise sails, grab the helm and not let go. There was literally nothing I could do at that point to sail the boat. I tried to swim back to my chests and then he just took off in the boat. When I respawned on the ship he just dropped anchor again and looked at me and started dancing. I cut my losses and left.

On another occasion I was solo slooping and a random joined my crew. He started doing some weird things - it seemed like he was a newbie who didn’t know how to play, however I noticed he was wearing legendary clothing, so he clearly knew how to play. He started dropping anchor and raising sails in the middle of the ocean I called him out on it. At that point he admitted to me that he only joined my crew to troll me, but said I seemed like “a cool guy” and decided to actually play. He then proceeded to give me a lesson in trolling and showed me all of the tactics trolls use to grief people, and he even asked if I wanted to join a galleon and troll people with him because you can only troll a galleon if there is more than one person doing it. We did actually play, and when we had a bunch of loot on board he even said “man, my troll side is wanting to come out” which was nerve racking. We went to an outpost and I left. I dodged that bullet.

I’m just trying to demonstrate to you that, yes, there are trolls and griefers out there on the seas, but not everything people claim to be griefing is actually griefing.

@jeccckk said in Why do people grief. (An introspective on human behavior and society):

@fantome-of-blue said in Why do people grief. (An introspective on human behavior and society):

@jeccckk said in Why do people grief. (An introspective on human behavior and society):

I grief because there's nothing else fun left to do in the game. After all, I played the game for 3 hours.

Well, this is a problem. Why are you even playing? I mean why not log off and go do something else?

I'm getting my $60 worth, either from your tears or from decent content.

Well, I'm not crying. I play when you're asleep. And also solo; i.e. no crew.

But this is kind of my whole point, if you can't appreciate the visuals and the world dynamic, then you might be better served buying a can of spray paint at the local hardware store, and taking your chances with the cops by tagging the local buildings.

Truly, I don't care if you are griefing on my server, because if I get your name and catch you doing it for me, then you a get support ticket filed against you, and you can go cry to Rare about having your account suspended, and that you'll either have spend another $60 to play immediately, or run the risk of getting caught again when the suspension is over.

@fantome-of-blue said in Why do people grief. (An introspective on human behavior and society):

@jeccckk said in Why do people grief. (An introspective on human behavior and society):

I grief because there's nothing else fun left to do in the game. After all, I played the game for 3 hours.

Well, this is a problem. Why are you even playing? I mean why not log off and go do something else?

I'm getting my $60 worth, either from your tears or from decent content.

It's not grief its stupidity. People play a game about being a bloody pirate and expect it to be an ocean of friendlies. People don't play and FPS and wonder why the other team is shooting at them.

Piracy - Wikipedia

I've updated the OP to help hash out what I considered the term "griefing" in hopes of focusing the thread a bit. While I myself have had little experience with it aside from the frustration of getting spawn camped (something I think rare should attempt to mitigate through various tactic). TBH I see posts of griefing being called out by solo players who do not accept the concept of being outnumbered as something that should put them at a disadvantage.

I love the idea of the "have-nots" taking from the haves. it is Pirates after all. What I think was not intended was for the "have-nots" to pursue other "have-nots". I don't think it was in the games spirit. I'm not arguing that you cannot do it but more that while coding and designing the game in such a way it it allows the game to be used in an unintended negative way.

The thread is hopefully not to discuss what is greifing but how to reduce it in a societal way rather than a "hardcoded-into-the-game" way.

Which is why i brought up the idea of more quests and objectives that require co-operation.

@elchupacabraj86 said in Why do people grief. (An introspective on human behavior and society):

@th3franch1se said in Why do people grief. (An introspective on human behavior and society):

@babyleggs-ghost The grief I’ve experienced lately was when 2 legendary status pirates ran up on us during a skull island instance. Fought us for a while and finally beat us. Then they proceeded to sit at the instance and not actually do it. They literally went to make sure no one else could do it. Which isn’t cool in any way. So there is some grief happening on the game, but to call all of it griefing is a little bit of a stretch.

Thats just sounds like two pirates looking for some solid pvp, forts draw pirates in, if they want to occupy and fight to keep the fort for their own personal amusement its not really griefing.

People don't understand the point of this game. If they want to position themselves between a goal and a player I don't see how that's not "pvping". It's considered griefing if 1 player is forced to work for it? W*F is going on here.