IDEAS FOR RYZOM

When your outlook is confined to a narrow point of view, it's easy "not to see" anything. An obvious neutral bias is quite evident in the negative connotations & "labels" attached to neutrals in some posts.

Throughout time most people didn't see a problem with things that didn't affect them. The slave owner for example, had a different outlook as to what was reasonable / unreasonable with respect to conditions slaves lived under.

Again, consider an example.... back in the day I am digging in FF when an attack on Magic Pole is going on. Though I am some 400m away from the OP, I am continually aggro dragged on simply because I am in a direct line between the kara TP and the OP. Where's the call to make any critter aggro'd by a PvP player to "ignore" neutrals ?

Please, don't forget that any change to the neutral option in OP fights would also affect the other shards. On leanon we got a large faction of neutral non-pvp players and many of us like to watch op battles.

We dont have the mentioned problems with heal-soaking und neutral flagged forward targetters anymore as they are forbidden by the op fight rules now (i think they are the same on all 3 shards).

That's the reason i suggested an option to ban neutrals as this would never happen to true neutrals because they are respected by all fighting factions. If anyone doesn't like me to stay inside asking me to leave is sufficient - which never happend by the way.

Staying far is not an option as I can't see what is going on during the battle. Flagging for the side currently inside the op area isn't working either as blood rage, grenades and bombs don't identify targets properly.

An option to ban neutrals would allow us to watch and you to remove mentioned pseudo-neutrals from the battle. The only problem I can see are players banned from all sides (example: forward enters neutral - gets banned - flags for defender - get banned - is forced to flag offender - gets banned from his own faction - what now?) Possibly they can be flagged as renegades comparable to the yrkanis arena.

You just gave it. =P

As you said, we all see our own little fraction of the world. I have never experienced aggro being dragged on me by PvPers while trying to dig, so I did not foresee that problem. Nor am I trying to cheapen or lessen anyone elses concerns. I was simply trying to suggest a solution for a problem I saw in my tiny tiny sliver of Atys. In my opinion, it remains the best solution presented here, but that is only my opinion and I guarantee it differs from the opinions of others based on what we value.

This, being the suggestion forum, is the place for anyone to make suggestions about the game. As far as I know, everyone is free to suggest solutions to problems they might see. I will admit, my ability to see might even be more limited than most...sure...but it does not change the fact that I saw a problem, and so I offered a solution; narrow as my vision, understanding, or reasoning may be.

If anyone disagrees with my suggestion, argue why the bad outweighs the good of solving the problem, how it does not solve the problem, or even (and this appears to be part of the concern here) how it creates bigger problems...but accepting dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter fallacies in arguing creates slippery slopes...saying no one should suggest improvements or fixes to the game because other problems (which may or may not have had a suggested fix) have not been fixed leaves us not fixing or improving anything.

At the before mentioned OP battle, there were, I would estimate, at least 120 people participating in PvP, I saw around 5-7 untagged individuals (including the ones who were suspiciously standing in the middle of our heal pods). If the developers feel the ability of those 5-7 to sit and "watch" the OP battle from middle trumps the 120 players right to have a battle unfettered by the repercussions and possible exploitation of overlapping changes in game mechanics (namely the fact that everyone now can have a multitude of unidentifiable alts, the game mechanic which allows neutrals in active OP regions, and the ability of teams to be comprised of PvPers and neutrals within this region), well then...that is their choice. I stand by my suggestion, until someone logically explains to me why it is lacking.

Just sayin'.

And I apologize for letting what appear to be biases slip out. Not intended if I offended.

But seriously, I am starting to feel like a troll in my own thread. I guess I could just unwatch it...

As indicated in the prev. post, were those players asked to leave ? Did the heal pod move and then the players followed so as to maintain their "link" to the pod, thereby confirming their nefarious role ? Could it be that the players just went afk or took a nap after putting toons in a safe place ?

I can understand your suspicions and frustrations but any solution that invoves restricting player's legitamate choices should not be considered.

No, I admit I did not ask them to leave, I did not imagine that someone who is willing to exploit such a broken game mechanic would care if I thought they should be there or not. Especially if there is no accountability due to having the character on a trial account. Perhaps I failed there, but I did not want to be attacked with,"QQ, cry mor. ur tear mak me happy"s...and yes, they seemed to stay with our healpods.

I think I mentioned previously that I failed to ask them to leave and perhaps should have. I admit that that was an opportunity wasted.

Just for the sake of discussion...At the last OP battle in Zo Kian, TI did ask the group of Karavan "Neutrals" to leave...they did not, but they also did not act in a suspicious manner, nor did they target anyone that we noticed. Therefore, assuming they were truly AFK, the matter was dropped. There were also severla well know "neutrals" who came to watch, no one complained because of their well respected neutral position (and they also stayed out of the way and did not act suspiciously). No one including me noticed concerns with anyones actions there.

We will see if this continues to be sufficient.

they moved up with the pod i was leading as i moved and called the pod to move they came with us

Khandie, that sounds to me like something that is inappropriate and "ticket worthy".

Agree Freddy, but what is to keep them from just claiming they were watching? How can we prove otherwise? And we looked, there were no CSRs on at the time.

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.