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Let's assume for a moment, there was no neutral option and everyone had to decide for one side.

So former "neutrals" would have to chose one side and tag up. They can be targeted and attacked by the other side. They would however still stay neutral in terms of actions. This means no supporting or attacking. Sounds like a fair tradeof, doesn't it?

However, does this solve any mentioned problems?

- A tagged player soakes up heals like a neutral did.
- A player can tag for the enemy team and act as scout, target assist and so on.

I think it creates new ones instead.

- What happens if a player gets banned and no neutral option is available?
- The Op Area affects everyone in range, foragers, treks, I see the abuse potential even worse here.
Imagine mass declares to block known routes to bosses or forage places.
People have to tag up to pass and become involuntarily targets.

While I understand and respect the concerns that brought this topic up, I don't see how removing this option solves these. It's the player who decide to abuse given mechanics, fix one, they find a new one. As long as people don't play fair, finding solutions is a futile patchwork.

Well, I can decide not to heal someone who is obviously a plant on our side. Without heals they will die due to "friendly fire".

I agree the question of banning is something I did not consider. I assume they would be "pushed' or auto tagged for the otherside. This fits well actually because if someone is kicked from a side due to disruptive behavior well then they can be killed by that side.

A player should be bannable by both sides and this creates the same problem again.

Otherwise the side the player is working for would ban the character foresighted and have the player pushed and stuck to the other side. To me all of this is patchwork and does not adress the real problems. People decide to cheat and today it's neutrals, tomorrow macro programs and the day after something else.

Granted. Thank you for the thoughts and debate on the issue.

Or we could just return to the old way of having a CSR present at all battles to deport the offending players as was the way before.

Nothing like having a CSR on location to lay out some seriously savage punishments on abusers. The other option would be a name a shame system where anyone found, screen shooted and reported is named and shamed them, their guild published so that others know their dishonour. Though this will just lead to folks using free trial alt accounts.

Heal Soaking is a really pain for our healers, and if multiple folks turn up and stand neutral it becomes a serious problem for the healers that are having their heal bombs taken by Neutral players. Over the years and hundreds of OP war's i've attended i've seen folks abuse this and whole guilds abuse it knowing that they are doing it and knowing its wrong. The annoying problem is that these folks could just as easily be assist targetting your healers at the same time and normally are.

You can't ban the neutral choice because some folks want to watch but should do so from the sidelines and should never be close to or mixed in with either forces as that is rather obviously cheating. Some folks want the area for digging/hunting etc and the actual battles are fairly short compared to the area being PvP'd

I do think that both the owning guild and the attacker should have the right to ban neutrally tagged players from the OP zone, but as a recourse for the neutrally tagged player they should first screen shot the offending player who is breaking the rules as evidence should the Neutral player dispute the claim.

Simply put though if your standing in either army it should be taken as your not playing fair and aiming to disrupt the flow of battle - stand to one side, its safer, you won't get abuse from either side for possibly cheating and you can see a lot more watching from the side than in the middle of an army anyway.

Y'know, if wanting to give neutrals the option to watch is the choking point here, then all we need is binoculars :P

Much more realistic way of watching a battle too.

In my opinion just keep it as it is.

There is no problem with 'neutral' status during outpost battles, but more how Multiple Target stanzas choose the additional valid targets.
 
Currently a Celestial Missile Bomb selects non-offensive targets. Maybe adjusting the selection algorithm to prefer 'friendly' targets over 'neutral' targets would solve this issue. Maybe that could an option to 'fix' the other less reliable Multiple Target stanzas (Ricochet and Spray) as well.  I should point out that this should not change the behavior toward the initial target.

Please point out every aspect I may have overseen, since this would be a global change to how Celestial Missile Multiple Target stanzas work.

how about limited the numbers on each side, pay dappers for your superstars :o)

Aye Trini that would def solve the problem it would be nice for the Dev's to recognise this as an issue but that only resolve the healing soakers, it doesn't resolve the target slaves.

The quick and easy solution that doesn't require any Dev work that can be implimented right away is no Neutrals standing inside or close to either armies if they do then they are accepting that they could be reported by whomever they are close to and whatever punishment the CSR's hand out (which i hope is fairly harsh seeing as they treat agro dragging harshly this is of a similar calibre as it affects many others).

Then the Dev's can get to work on re-writing the code so that when in PvP any healing AoE targets Friendlies over neutrals and trying to write code that stops folks targetting others who are PvP tagged while they are not.

But it will at some point require the Dev's to interceed to help the majority of honourable players here resolve the issue of the dishonourable.

Waylanda
The Soul