2) Powergaming - Amendment/Confirmation Regarding Script Fights.

[BINGBONGBALONEY]

37 minutes ago, i dont wanna od in LA said:

Bro honestly what is the point of emoting in order to start a fight or ask for some kinda mutual confirmation. whats gonna come next, having to ask somebody if you can shoot them or what.
why are you trying to fix something that isnt broken to begin with 

 

Are you attempting to read with your eyes closed? Lemme quote one of the first things I clarified when making the thread:

On 8/7/2021 at 7:00 AM, BINGBONGGHOST said:

I personally believe multi-party brawls and premeditated assaults - like shootouts - should only require a single emote before players allow the script to take over and fight with melee.

 

 I want the rules to give a clear indication of how fights should/shouldn't be started, read the post above yours to get a feel for what I'm talking about.

 

Player X emoted, attacked a player, and everything was deemed fine by an admin.

 

Player Y in a separate report emoted the same, attacked a player, and was punished for it.

 

Player X's scenario is how it SHOULD be but I want staff/management to CLEARLY DEFINE how you're supposed to start fights to avoid situations like the one's I linked above, if they don't you're going to be eventually warned/ajailed for something that was fine with 3 other admins but not the rest, it's really not hard to understand. Rules shouldn't be a roll of the dice.

Edited November 20, 2021 by BINGBONGGHOST

[Topinambour]

1 hour ago, BINGBONGGHOST said:

Bro honestly what is the point of emoting in order to start a fight or ask for some kinda mutual confirmation.

The whole point is to make sure people don't base their entire strategy on "Bitch-slapping others quickly while they're typing", which is sadly very (very) common 😕 

Quite a few fights start and end while the downed person was typing an emote or something like that, which is... not really great RP and not really great combat. It's not really great anything. 

[Shagglehod]

Since I was mentioned I'll throw in my two cents as a player: I'm inclined to agree with some of the points here. We are on a roleplay server. I don't see an issue with roleplaying attacking someone. Sure, use what the game gives you, but I find no-RP interactions to be just... I dunno, lame? The more RP the better, always.

 

That said, from an admin perspective, I also find it a bit difficult to enforce rules that are not codified, personally. I don't like the idea of unwritten rules. I'll do it when precedent has been set, but that always has made me uncomfortable.

[Valkyria]

/me swings. gang rise up

[Triple Seven]

Really have to be careful to not make a rule for everything, it leads to players (the people that aren't here to RP), to look for ways to abuse the rules to their advantage. Admin discretion has to exist, there's no way around that, and it works best if admins using it, choose to discuss the situation with other admins (and not constantly discuss with the same staff member, but in a rotation of sorts so it's always as fair and unbiased as possible). 

 

It boils down to common courtesy and common sense.

[BINGBONGBALONEY]

13 hours ago, Topinambour said:

The whole point is to make sure people don't base their entire strategy on "Bitch-slapping others quickly while they're typing", which is sadly very (very) common 😕 

Quite a few fights start and end while the downed person was typing an emote or something like that, which is... not really great RP and not really great combat. It's not really great anything. 

Think you've quoted the wrong person.

[BINGBONGBALONEY]

The rest isn't relevant to what I'm asking so I'll just quote this:

10 hours ago, Triple Seven said:

Really have to be careful to not make a rule for everything, it leads to players (the people that aren't here to RP), to look for ways to abuse the rules to their advantage.

 

The problem here is everybody suffers, not just the rule breakers. Players intentionally breaking the rules are always going to find loopholes regardless.

 

Despite my fuckery on the forums I play by the rules IG - never received a punishment or warning - and after 4000+ hours clocked in to GTAW still have no idea how I'm supposed to initiate an attack on another player's character. If I type an emote and start attacking them from behind one admin's going to say that's fair game while another is going to warn/ajail me because the PG'ing rules surrounding fist fighting are extremely vague, if not defined at all.

 

I'm not asking for a step-by-step plan on how ALL fights should start, I'm asking for clarification on how a player should attack another player's character "out in the wild" so to speak within the PG rules. We've clearly defined how RP around shootouts should work, emoting before pulling your gun and letting the game take over, so why haven't we got the same for brawls, something I'd argue is more integral to escalation and conflict considering PK'ing each other with guns is deemed the very last option players should use within a conflict. 

 

 

[Triple Seven]

6 hours ago, BINGBONGGHOST said:

The rest isn't relevant to what I'm asking so I'll just quote this:

 

The problem here is everybody suffers, not just the rule breakers. Players intentionally breaking the rules are always going to find loopholes regardless.

 

Despite my fuckery on the forums I play by the rules IG - never received a punishment or warning - and after 4000+ hours clocked in to GTAW still have no idea how I'm supposed to initiate an attack on another player's character. If I type an emote and start attacking them from behind one admin's going to say that's fair game while another is going to warn/ajail me because the PG'ing rules surrounding fist fighting are extremely vague, if not defined at all.

 

I'm not asking for a step-by-step plan on how ALL fights should start, I'm asking for clarification on how a player should attack another player's character "out in the wild" so to speak within the PG rules. We've clearly defined how RP around shootouts should work, emoting before pulling your gun and letting the game take over, so why haven't we got the same for brawls, something I'd argue is more integral to escalation and conflict considering PK'ing each other with guns is deemed the very last option players should use within a conflict. 

 

 

the only definitive way of tackling it mechanically is by making a /brawl command similar to /rob, which can be accepted once the other party is ready and after sufficient roleplay (consented by the involved players). This way it can also warn the initiating party about the need to properly roleplay to the start of a fistfight.
 

My problem with things like this however is that it’ll be seen like a holy grail and deter players from choosing to fully roleplay fighting through emotes, which is perfectly possible if they’re not out to classify roleplay scenes in the (sadly too common) win and lose outcomes. A good roleplay scene only knows winners because the players had fun.

[BINGBONGBALONEY]

50 minutes ago, Triple Seven said:

My problem with things like this however is that it’ll be seen like a holy grail and deter players from choosing to fully roleplay fighting through emotes, which is perfectly possible if they’re not out to classify roleplay scenes in the (sadly too common) win and lose outcomes. A good roleplay scene only knows winners because the players had fun.

Without going too off topic as my suggestion is for clear rules/guidelines for initiating melee, not which is better, the problem here is you're assuming players who prefer fighting through gameplay opposed to typing out their fights are only using said gameplay to win OOC'ly, when the majority of people in favour of fighting-over-typing prefer it because nobody likes dragging RP to a crawl, especially considering how fast-paced GTAW is when compared to other forms of RP.

 

Like I mentioned before, rule breakers are going to break the rules regardless of the systems in place. The amount of times I've been in a conflict, sucker punched a totally unaware character with a detailed emote and had them "shrug it off" to fight my character face-to-face like nothing happened is embarrassingly high, bad apples reside on both sides of the argument and I don't feel a set style of play is better or worse than the other, just more appropriate for what's happening in the moment.

 

You're not going to throw down a quick /me rushes and start punching your IC wife to the downed state over a dispute about laundry when you just wanted to give her a shove in the same way you shouldn't have to write paragraphs upon paragraphs and convert RP to bullet-time when fighting in the middle of a situation that's moving in real-time and somehow everything moving in real time is still effecting your fight.

Edited November 21, 2021 by BINGBONGGHOST

[Triple Seven]

2 hours ago, BINGBONGGHOST said:

Without going too off topic as my suggestion is for clear rules/guidelines for initiating melee, not which is better, the problem here is you're assuming players who prefer fighting through gameplay opposed to typing out their fights are only using said gameplay to win OOC'ly, when the majority of people in favour of fighting-over-typing prefer it because nobody likes dragging RP to a crawl, especially considering how fast-paced GTAW is when compared to other forms of RP.

 

Like I mentioned before, rule breakers are going to break the rules regardless of the systems in place. The amount of times I've been in a conflict, sucker punched a totally unaware character with a detailed emote and had them "shrug it off" to fight my character face-to-face like nothing happened is embarrassingly high, bad apples reside on both sides of the argument and I don't feel a set style of play is better or worse than the other, just more appropriate for what's happening in the moment.

 

You're not going to throw down a quick /me rushes and start punching your IC wife to the downed state over a dispute about laundry when you just wanted to give her a shove in the same way you shouldn't have to write paragraphs upon paragraphs and convert RP to bullet-time when fighting in the middle of a situation that's moving in real-time and somehow everything moving in real time is still effecting your fight.

 

Like you're saying, and rightly so: no two situations are the same, then how do you expect a clear rule on this? It's impossible and it's already part of the powergaming rule, perhaps even the common courtesy rule. The current rules, coupled with common sense, already cover this.

 

I know you linked some reports with different rulings, of which one I don't agree with because the characters must have had a typing indicator overhead while they were just script punched down after a single emote of someone starting to hit them, although one lacks video evidence and shows a rp response. Not all reports will be concluded with a satisfying outcome to everyone's opinion, and roleplay containing conflict will often bring out reports, that will never change. While I feel it's pretty clear the preferred standard is not followed in one of said reports, others will have a different opinion, and even opinions of it within the staff team will be different. That's the admin discretion I mentioned before and something that probably means it should be an ongoing discussion with the staff team. And honestly, when it comes to this difference in from what I can see pretty similar situations, despite not being the same, both players were typing from as far as we can see in the reports, which means the aggressor (of the script fight), didn't have the common courtesy to wait for an emote response before starting a script fight, which could be combatted with a /brawl command (although I would hate it if that were to be necessary).

 

At most I can see the rule be clarified by forcing the prioritizing of roleplay (even when hitting someone from behind, they can still respond with an emote first, I had it happen to my character and I didn't respond with my character shrugging it off and punching in return, that's obviously an easy powergaming offense, which is an example you mentioned before iirc). That would mean the aggressor in a script fight has to wait for the roleplay response (and yes that might cause a little bit of time fuckery, but it's roleplay, we can't do everything at the speed it happens), before knowing how to continue. If someone is dazed and falls after being hit from behind, not a single script punch has to be delivered, but a single one might make sense due to the inflicted damage going into the logs.

 

This is of course just my opinion, and others will have different ones. I understand your wish to clarify things, but I don't think there's one answer to this, and piling rule on rule and example on example just forces roleplay down set paths without freedom for players.