Now that NDA is lifted...grief system

[Cyanide]

Ok, now that the NDA is gone. How do you beta testers feel about the way the grief system works. I read a thread in the official PS forums that had many people complaining that it is too harsh. They said that proximity mines (which can be set off by ally and enemy players) cause a lot of grief points. They also said that splash damage from tank shells and stuff give a lot of grief points and that getting to 1000 grief points (the limit at which you incure serious reprocutions from grief points) is very easy to get to if you're using powerful weapons and takes a long time to lose all the grief points.

My personal feeling based on what i've read is that the grief system sounds really stupid. I mean, sure griefers are annoying but i'm paying my monthly fee just the same and i should not be punished and disallowed from enjoying the game because some idiot ran into my line of fire or i accidently misjudged a tank shot, or somebody steped on one of my mines. That is just plain gay. It would be so much better if they would do one or more of the following:

1) Make the grief system based on number of hits instead of damage delt. That way one mine would not give you 250 grief points instantly.

2) Friendly fire only did 10% damage to allys. This would make it much harder for griefers to kill people and it would allow for stupid people who like to stand in the way of allied chainguns.

3) Completely turn off friendly fire.

You do realize what's going to happen don't you people? The griefers are going to switch from killing people to getting other people to kill them. They will purposefully run through your line of fire. They will purposefully run infront of your vehicles. They will find and detonate allied mines just so others incure grief points. The people that are griefers are just plain assholes in every sense of the word. They don't care how they piss you off and screw you over. Their only goal is to piss you off and screw you over, through whatever means are the most effective. Unless the grief system is changed i will seriously be second guessing my purchase of this game. I REFUSE to pay for a game that is going to impose penalties on ME for OTHER PEOPLES stupidity.

[ABRAXAAS]

Greif system is way to harsh it makes you afraid to shoot at all cause once you get that first weapons lock (30 min) the moment you accidently hit someone you have the lock all over again, the other day I got the lock 3 tmes in a row without ever leaving a base becuase people would run out infront of me when i wa driving away and bam its back again, even being carefull I still managed to get half way to the 1200 points i beleive it is for weapons lock , personalay you should only get points when you actuall kill a friendly or destroy a friendly vehicle. becuase i have never killed or destroyed a friendly anything, and thats the only thing that should matter.;)

[Hamma]

They are fixing it :\

[Warborn]

The grief system is being changed. However, as it is, it's very easy to grief people by abusing the grief system. People purposely running in front of your vehicle so that you run them over and people running into your line of fire are both the bane of my existance in PS right now.

[Squeeky]

The way it was, It sucked, But its being fixed

[OneManArmy]

maybe one day far into the future Computer games will be able to detect when someone is being a smacktard and the Game will reboot thier PC....

[Tieom]

So, during the beta you had people who were/acted like griefers to catch this kind of stuff, right?

[Destroyeron]

It sounds like the greifing system sucks...But I know that If I REALLY hated someone I'd run into their line of fire. :D

[AcidCat]

Yeah, it punishes using heavier weapons, thats for sure. I didn't have much problems with grief until I started using the Devastator and Thumper. Accidents happen ... and just today I had to take out an enemy Deliverer that had come right up next to our AMS and started pounding it. Well I destroyed the thing with a few Devastator rounds but must have damaged the AMS too, because suddenly its all "+250 " Damn, that sucked. And I've had several occasions where enemies will use an abandoned friendly vehicle as cover, and of course you take grief shooting at them because you hit the vehicle.

I'm glad they are tweaking grief points. It isn't serving its purpose in its current state, that's for sure.

[BlakkyZ8]

shooting an abandoned friendly vehicle shouldn't incur penalties for the same reason as posted earlier, plus if its in the middle of nowhere and you dont have the right certs and an enemy could easily hack it you may as well dispose of it... am I right?


<<<wishes he had beta....

[�io]

I myself don't see the fuss, so far i've got a total (in like 1 week playing) of 500-600 pts tops, and it drops pretty fast so no problems for me.

[NeoTassadar]

Originally posted by Warborn
The grief system is being changed. However, as it is, it's very easy to grief people by abusing the grief system. People purposely running in front of your vehicle so that you run them over and people running into your line of fire are both the bane of my existance in PS right now. I hope I didn't put that idea into that guy's head by griping about the possibility. They need to put limit on much grief the individual can distribute to other players within a certain period of time (hopefully enough to prevent intentionally inflicted weapons lock, but I doubt that will happen).

[Cyanide]

Originally posted by �io
I myself don't see the fuss, so far i've got a total (in like 1 week playing) of 500-600 pts tops, and it drops pretty fast so no problems for me.

Well you're like the only person that hasn't had problems with it. Seems like everyone in beta has complained about it.

[BUGGER]

Originally posted by Hamma
They are fixing it :\ Thank god.

has anybody ever got armor lock? or booted cause too much grief points?

[Arthell]

Was in a galaxy that didnt have any more MAX slots open, so the other MAX in our squad got ontop of the galaxy. Pilot started flying up, then started to fly forward. Obviously the max fell off, but the pilot was given the grief points of killing a full health MAX. We were then stuck at moving at 10%.

Later on i saw a cloaker trying to knife a fellow soldier. I opened fire (after he got a swing in) and ended up killing both of them. <shrug>

[r3d]

I got locked once, when they had the old unpatch striker, I was locked onto an enemy lightning, its about to hit it and then BAM a teamate ina reaver comes in and the rocket decides it really good to hit the reaver, well all THREE of them thoght it was good.

And yes they ARE fixing the grief system, I head that it will ease up on casual griefers, you know the ones that REALLY do it on accident. As of now I have about 700+ grief cause the bursters splash :\

[wasupx]

grief accumulates fast using vehicles...or destroying enemy vehicle that a friendly is near and thus dies from blast radius. Picked up something like 250 in my deliverer when a mag driver nudged me from side, i know i didnt kill anyone. After 1000 is weapons lock...and any incident when u have over 1k is lock. Also shooting terminals tends to rack up grief, especially since battles always rage in towers or in bases around equipment terminals. Personally i think if they make the grief go away faster, or have ways to work it off, would be just enough.

[Matuse]

Seems to me that one of the easier ways to eliminate a lot of accidental grief would be to have the game check to see if the action which caused the grief also hurt the enemy. Area effect weapons like grenades, missie splash, vehicle detonations, etc would be a lot more tolerant.

If you blow up a AMS, and the explosion takes out a friendly, no grief for you because you hurt the enemy in the process. Will teach your people to not stand so near the AMS when it goes up ;)

Advantage is that it can't really be abused by someone deliberately trying to manipulate the system to grief people.

[Ruthless]

i got an idea for a solution

Make the game record timestamps everytime playerA gets killed by teammates. if playerA is killed 3 times in 3 minutes, then playerA = reversegriefing, hence playerA= ban.

[Melbourne]

I think one of the best examples to look at right now is America's Army after all the tweaking of its grief system. Very rarely do people begin to TK in the game because of 2 things, the insta-kick if you damage someone in the first 30-40 seconds and your rank goes down if you have a long time accumulation of ROE points.

The timestamp doesn't really help because it'd taken dozens of people just looking over the files to be fool-proof. Plus there is always the chance you get that entire SQUAD of morons who enjoy each causing a bit of your damage until you are dead. That way they can take turns and avoid the boot.

I think the most effective measure here is the one presented by OneManArmy... but rather than merely rebooting their computer I think it should just be a pair of electrodes hooked to the nipples in order to play. Area effect damage of a friendly? Minor tickle, hitting a friendly with a precision weapon? Fried human nipples.

Well, the thing about the whole system is that some of the blokes just can't learn how to adapt to the system. Rather than carrying 2 weapons(1 for close range and 1 for long range) they continuously use the large area effect weapons when they are inside the base or near your own guys. Firing off a rocket launcher at an enemy tank when a friendly is nearby(probably shooting at someone on the other side) isn't thinking ahead. All of these things are problems today and valid tactics. When outgunned by the enemy, tanks are encouraged to rush the lines to make people think twice about firing. The system encourages that sort of thing... thinking. The result though is that in an FPS focused on action too many people just don't want to think...

The two really problematic areas I noticed was A. Guy running into your line of fire and B. Guy running in front of your vehicle. Those are major issues that are really hard to fix. I'd say make a friendly mechanism so that when you hit a guy, the guy gets 'bumped' over the vehicle and the guy is injured slightly while the guy in the vehicle takes a small grief point increase. As for people running into your line of fire... well thats a matter of submitting a grievance with the group because there is no gameplay mechanic that I can think of that would maintain the integrity of a FF environment yet manage to keep people from doing that...

I'll finish this off with one final idea that might make a dent in the grief griefers. Have a mechanic so that anytime your crosshair is aimed at a guy your gun ceases for a moment... possibly a 1/2 second to a second. Just enough so that someone could react to the person moving into your screen. It would require a forceful action to override that... also, add an option to disable that. If you think you are skillful enough to go with out it... let people do it because it is only the shooter who is being hurt. So, rather than having a 30 minute weapons lock you merely get a 1/2 second weapons lock that prevents you from griefing. Personally, I like this idea the most(aside from the nipple roasting).

[Ruthless]

you dont need people to monitor timestamps. very easily automated.

[MilitantB0B]

I keep hearing about grief points going away over time. Is this game time or Real Life time? For instance, I just ran my reaver into a fully loaded freindly galaxy, killing all occupants. Needless to say, I have a weapons lock. Can I just log out for 30 mins, play CS, log back in and continue killing? Or do you have to be logged in for the points go away?
Thanks for all the info on the grief system by the by. I think I will be avoiding the thumper and other AoE damage until they get this whole mess sorted out.

[slytiger]

When i had the stupid weapons lock i tried to quit and come back after it went away but it didnt work. It was based on ingame time not real time. They need to make it so the grief points drop like 5 every hour in real time not game time and raise the weapons lock penelty to 2k points. One time i had a 30 min w/lock so i left my game runing while i landed outside the HART facility and i came back 10 minuts later and some how the timer was back at 28 min and counting. I know the devs are working hard and i appriciate their work, but if they dont fix the grief system im not getting PS.

[Streamline]

Is there no other way to distinguish between a TKer and a stupid fucktard that runs right in front of your line of fire. Remember some of them tower takeovers??? You know the one. The spawn room is at the bottom of the stairs. Theres a couple flights and turn as you go down. Yeah... thats the one. So i'm rushing with everyone else right. NC MAXs just rollin out. Seems only natural to me. Destroy the terminals so they cant do that shit. Thumper works incredibly well for it. Right up till a dozen suicidal morons rush the terminals and spawn tubes only to get totally owned. And fuck... i can't just stop my assault in the middle. I need that saturation of fragmentation all at one fucking time. This is not the time for you to grow a pair. Get the fuck out of my way you fucktard. I mean, just what the hell do you think you're gonna hack in teh middle of all this?!?!

And trigger-lock??? For non-leathal shit!!! You can't so much as repair....??? Thats just fucking ghey. You already spend so much fucking time doing nothing. Though, it's commonly refered to as traveling. Now i gotta run around, hide, and get owned cuz i can't shoot back. More fucking gheyness.

I believe in a grief system. But come on. And i'm not deliberate TKer. But fuck man. If fired a rocket from way the fuck back there. How the fuck would i know you're gonna step out in front of it? Particularly when you probably shouldn't have been ther in the first place.

One other thing... i used to have this friend that since he had no skills. He would just mash his avatar you against yours. Forcing you to kill via suicide. Or forcing a team8 to kill you both. So any idiot can just run into the middle of a group of your team8s and have his way with you, forcing a posible TK. But wait!!! you don't actually have to kill to get grief. Splash damage works just fine. If you shoot, you're fucked. If you don't shoot, you're fucked.

The way it is now is pathetic. Sure as hell doesn't promote "warfare on an epic scale" just makes me wanna stay away from everyone, friend of foe. :mad:

[LiquidThunder]

I don't see what the fuss is about

I've been playing longer than a week with several heavy weapon certs, flying certs, and driving certs, and i've never gotten more than 500 total points and that was due to my own stupidity.

If you're getting a lot of greif, you're not being very careful.
-LT

[Civilian]

If you're getting a lot of greif, you're not being very careful.


That's really the point, imo. This is a game, you shouldn't have to be so careful that it detracts from the fun of the game. All it takes is a few mistakes and you are stuck on weapons lock. It may deter someone from constantly tking, but it is a detriment in FPS where you have to constantly move to "dodge" bullets because in large squads, there's a good chance someone will walk in front of you.

I would also contend, it's highly unlikely a person will pay $13 a month, just so they can tk.

[OneManArmy]

of course you must remember that some people DO find it fun. The challenge of not hitting friendlies while taking out enemies can be a real thrill to some people. :)

[Agent]

I thought there was no grief for killing your own squad mates? If thats the case then make sure you go with a squad when you attack a base instead of just being solo. Of course its not only going to be your one squad but you'll have a better chance of not getting grief.

I must say 30 minutes for everyone 1 point of grief taken down is ridiculous.

I don't know about you guys but the highest grief I have gotten so far is 96. Probably because I haven't been in a really big battle yet but I think you have to watch your fire, even though it is just a game.

[Cyan8313]

There would be nice if there was a forgive command though.

I must say 30 minutes for everyone 1 point of grief taken down is ridiculous.
If that is true then it truely is ridiculus... And it should be real life time not in game time, you dont want ppl logging on and letting the comp stand overnight...

But I agree with Agent and LiquidThunder you goto watch your fire... But I understand that in large battles it might get a bit chaotic and greif might come easier, maybe they should have some sort of equation with the number of friendly players in the vincinity vs the ammount of grief points...


:)

C

[MrVulcan]

I am sure that the system need to be changed in some ways, and some way for finding if people just get in your way, or jump on your grenade, but the no greif for squad mates helps, and I am sure that eventually, the PS teem will have things worked out so that it works well enoguh. We need some sort of system there, the trick is getting it to work right ;) jsut give it some time.

[Subliminal]

The greif system=teh suck.
They are working on it so thats a relief. I killed a reaver the other day with astray phoenix rocket by the time i saw the reaver it was too late. The reaver must have kit and killed another player because i got 300 greif!. A few stray bullets later after a big battle on cyssor left me with a wep lock. Ive only had it once and i try to keep my greif down now. I have only intentionally TK'ed once and it was because this n00b A$$hole tk'ed me 3 times in a row with his gauss. I hopped into my harraser and mowed him down. I got greif for that too :D

[Phenom]

Hmmm i never had a problem with the grief pts. I stay under 100. I have been playing for about 2 weeks, and i never went over that. I guess u guys just lag so much u cant see people in front of u and u hit them..

[Ruthless]

hmm Phenom, just by chance, did you use to play Global Ops?

[Streamline]

This is a good one... i was doing an ANT run. I strayed of the main road and went threw a swamp cuz of a fire fight on Hossin. Then all of a sudden wham!!! i drove straight into an deployed AMS. Weapons lock!!! 10% speed!!! ...Mission over! >:|

Yeah... i shoulda noticed it on the radar and i did. But i didn't seee anything so i thought it was like a bug or something. It would be nice if there was some kinda audio proximity alert when driving near the AMS.

[alphabet]

I got an idea...

Make it possible to work off the GP by killing enemies. Like 10 GP points worked off for each enemy killed. That way you wont have to walk on pins and needles for a week after throwing a granade right when you buddies decide to rush. :D

I personally like getting spanked for firing on friendlys. I mean what fun would it be if friendlys were invulnerable?

pfft.. wadda I know.. Im just a damn noOB!

alph

[Vollestrecker]

Best system I've found to date in any FPS is the /forgive type command.

Why not just have a window with the past events of TK's or FF done against you that you can forgive?

Obviously that wouldn't work against those who purposefully grief, but it would fix a lot of the 'hi i'm a dumbass' or 'stupid mistake' incidents.

This wouldn't be the golden bullet, but I definately see it helping for a LOT of the scenarios you guys have listed.

[Prowler]

Not a bad idea.

[Shoddy]

When I was placing more turrets I was earning grief from those. Occasionally a friendly would get in their way. It wasn't a huge amount of grief, but it was definitely more than 1 point per 30 minutes so it would accumulate.

When you're fighting in the basement of a tower, it is really easy to get grief because there is equipment everywhere. If you are picking only safe shots versus a dancing, spraying opponent, he is almost certainly going to kill you.

[Havs]

Don't forget to petition the griefers as well. Sony's been pretty good in getting rid of asswipes in Everquest. If they're blatantly abusing the rules and a GM catches em there's a good chance they'll get in trouble. In EQ it generally started out as warnings, then escalated to one week bans, and eventually going to permanent ban for the really slimey people. They have a permanent record for each account, so that warnings accumulate over the life of the account. A person can't simply create a new avatar to avoid penalties, its with em for life.

After we see a few permanent bans I think people will start to get the idea and tone down the griefing considerably. Its not like counterstrike where you're an asshole on one server, get banned, and then run off to be an asshole on another. Once you're banned the game is OVER for you. Sorry about your 50 bucks you spent on the game, its now a coaster!

I know alot of you will say "well they'll never permanently ban someone, that's taking money out of their pocket because of the monthly fees", I've witnessed the direct opposite. Sony has realized that the overall happiness of the masses is worth banning a few dipshits. Granted, a good number of the griefers will get away with their actions, a GM can only be in one place at one time, but I think the threat of losing 50 bucks on a game because you're banned should deter some of the lesser griefers. The people you'll have to worry about are those who quit the game by going out with a bang.