Kill Stealing Solutions

[MagicUser]

I was just thinking about kill stealing, and how in some cases its nearly impossible to prevent currently.

For example:
If a new player is attacking an ancient wyrm, they may not want be able to square up toe to toe with it. A common tactic, would be to run up, do as much damage as possible and then run away.

What happens when they are out of range? If you can't see the player, but can see the mob.. that's pretty much always fair game. Not in this case though.

I was discussing potential solution with someone (well they came up with mostly them). I was wondering what y'alls thoughts are out there on the ether were.

Recall delay, it takes longer before you can recall.

• Pros: More reaction time for manual players.

• Cons: Harder to get away once you know a player is there.

Makes it inconvenient to gather npc artifacts.

Flag, marking an area as your own.

• Pros: Easy to see when another player is staking claim.

• Cons: Easy to abuse.

Probably will just have a bunch lieing around on the ground like the exex bags.

Corpse like time limit after hitting, but with distance restriction as well.

• Pros: Easy to detect when a mob is already claimed.

Prevents killing a mob entirely.
Running players have time to come back and hit it, but can't just hang around.
Teleporting players can't claim everything.

• Cons: What happens in an informal party setting?

[Nick]

Don't really see kill stealing as an issue, rules are fairly straightforward. If someone has damaged a critter it belongs to them and you may not engage it unless they abandon the kill by not engaging for 2 minutes. Most ppl abide by the rules quite well and if they don't you can PM them or report depending on if you feel it was accidental or purposeful. These rules don't apply at champs or Halloween dungeon.

The only time I really run into this rule anyway is at blood dungeon with a para that I notice is missing some HP before I kill it. I go look around for some dead pets and chill out for a little to see if someone is coming back to finish their fight.

As far as I know, all rune hunters have a player check-in local area as part of their script that toggles out of war mode and recalls them out if there is a player engaging a target in the local area. As far as ppl hitting a target a few times then running away and then reporting a "kill steal" when a player recalls in and kills the target because there is no player on screen the staff really has no sympathy for that type of self victim status claiming griefing.

all in all, this sounds like a solution for a nonexistent problem that would be a waste of coding time. Time I would rather be spent on actual event development. However, That's just my opinion.

[Wil]

I've only had a kill stolen once in the past year and once I explained the rules (and gave him the codex URL to confirm) he apologized and was perfectly decent about it. If you run into the rare person actually being a jerk about it, take a recording and report it.

Also bear in mind that the rules have exceptions. For example, in the Halloween dungeon that recently closed, folks are trying to complete quests and everybody who lands a hit gets credit. Not just on the bosses, on the trash mobs too. So if you see someone gunning for the same mobs, land your hits and then back off and let them land some hits too. It'd be rather rude to section off a spawn as exclusively yours.

[ButteryBiscuits]

So I will throw a couple pennies into the discussion.... most people are here to play and actively avoid the drama that infests the rest of our lives. Like Wil said, the only ones that I have run into doing this are newer players that don't realize the rules on this shard.

I personally have had multiple problems when I was still figuring out how to recognize other players so I could get out of the way or having such bad lag that I was unable to manually able to drag myself away before bonking something that another player was already targeting. When I pm'd the other player and apologized and told them my problem(s) - they were all very gracious and some even tried to help with my pitiful scripting skills.

Every single veteran I have run into on this shard is very concerned about kill stealing- that is, they are very serious about making sure their scripts get them out of the area as fast as possible if there is someone on the screen when they port in. They are not really bothered by occasional instances of other people overlapping into their kills. They have been on long enough and are around often enough that they realize even 3k off a balron is easily made up along the way and is simply not worth being a twit about.

I would hate to see a solution implemented that makes the shard even more fractured and discourages people from interacting. Solo play is not nearly as much fun. With the instanced dungeons, it cut down on the drama and some unsavory behaviors but it also contributed to a more separated play environment. Maybe instead of creating huge coding projects and reworking game dynamics to eliminate opportunities for people to be obnoxious, maybe punish the people who are doing it. Make it illegal (which it is) and then prosecute if it happens.

But that is just me. Sometimes the best solution is to pour a beer and just relax.

[Melkor]

I’m not very good with scripting, I use Blaze’s old recall script that doesn’t have the feature to see if people are already there, so sometimes I get an arrow or two off before I can get away from a spawn that’s already taken. Never had anyone complain though. I’ve also never had anyone try and steal my kill either, it’s pretty civilized around here I find.

[Johnny Warren]

I am with Nick and Melkor here. Seems like solutions and discussion for a problem that doesn't really exist. I have only had one instance in the last year of kill stealing . I arrived at netopir and nobody was around so I started killing it. A few mins into the fight someone shows up and just starts randomly attacking it. I explained that I didn't want their help and asked them to stop stealing my kill, and they explained they had been hidden nearby waiting for the spawn and this was their kill. I disagreed with them, told them by hiding you aren't claiming the spawn, told them to stop attacking and they didn't. I just got on with life, didn't bother paging as they were non English speaking and a newer player. That's the only time it's happened in my memory. I just don't imagine there are gangs of players going around obnoxiously stealing kills.


On occasion, especially when wearing a costume, while I'm recall leveling or recall farming Balron gold someone will hit my mobs, sometime s even killing them. I pm them, let them know, they say sorry and we move on. It happens the other way too My recall macro is mediocre and sometime as I land in a new spot I'll attack a mob another player is on. I manually move away. When possible if I help kill their mob I apologize. It they are griefed I'll give them the equivalent gold/loot for the mob even when I know I didn't loot it just to keep the peace. They say thanks and we move on.

I don't think this needs a coded solution, especially when there are serious problems to code fixes for ... Such as the never ending hue issue and the distinct lack of auctions.... Just use the PM feature and be a good human about it...

[Nick]

Yeah the most common problem is someone thinks they own a spawn or next kill but they don't (regardless of if they feel they are entitled to it or not) in situations like this I just switch to the [claimall script and poof the corps before it even hits the ground.

ppl crying about being inline whilst being elsewhere fighting mobs, being hidden but still in line or just planning on kill that critter next once they get there are all examples of common "you stoll my kill" situations that aren't actually kill stilling at all.

When bally hunting or runebook scripting in general most macros don't detect a player that is polymorphed or criminal and that is why sometimes if you are wearing a costume (Halloween costume polymorphs you crim) ppl will sometimes shoot at your target. Some ppl tried to inhibit the runebook scripters by standing there polymorphed and waiting until a scripter recalled in and then attacked "thier" target and then reporting it; +C is pretty understanding that if someone goes out of their way to deliberately set up a report like that it is griefing on their part, not yours and you don't get in trouble. I kill macro and walk away when it happens as thats the right thing to do as they do legitimately own the kill.

[Jantra]

Personally the fact that we allow scripts to have people recall around and kill things without needing to actually be doing the killing themselves seems a much bigger problem than steal killing by a million fold.

[MagicUser]

Now that everyone has pretty much got a word out on what they think.

I was wondering if anyone had any additional solutions (with their pros and cons) or additional pros and cons to the solutions listed.
Assume that there is infinite time for coding this and that it is a problem to fix. Thoughts and concerns are welcome . I suppose we could look at other problems, but I feel like that would be better done in another thread. This thread is about potential kill stealing solutions. Whether these solutions are ever implemented is outside my or anyone else's control.

This is just a discussion.

[Nick]

My opinion is nothing needs to be done because it's not a problem, in the very rare cases it happens its dealt with appropriately by systems already in place.

If I could make any change (for the fun of it) it would be if you attack any critter that someone has (or rather will have when it dies) loot rights to then you go grey and any player can try and kill you.

Player interactions are a key part of UO (and with no PVP here a lot of that is removed on this shard) further coding to prevent potential kill stealing would remove even more and take away from the game.

[Silent]

I honestly believe that's not a big problem here. Has long has players communicate and apologize or even refund the kill I see no problem. And I don't see it happening very often too.

Regarding hidden players, well perhaps instead of saying "while hidden players may bla bla bla" it could say "if hidden you are no longer entitled to hold a farming spot" would be the only viable solution here because its just a reminder of what is the normal functioning of the shard ...

[Wil]

Personally the fact that we allow scripts to have people recall around and kill things without needing to actually be doing the killing themselves seems a much bigger problem than steal killing by a million fold.

That scripts are welcome here is one of the two things I like most about UOEX. Plenty of servers around where scripts are limited to Razor. I like this one because it's NOT like them.

Recall delay, it takes longer before you can recall.

• Pros: More reaction time for manual players.

• Cons: Harder to get away once you know a player is there.

Makes it inconvenient to gather npc artifacts.

I'm unclear what you would set a recall delay to that would be an imposition on folks bouncing around to kill stuff? 10 seconds? 30? A minute? Which of these would NOT get in the way of ordinary game play?

Flag, marking an area as your own.

• Pros: Easy to see when another player is staking claim.

• Cons: Easy to abuse.

Probably will just have a bunch lieing around on the ground like the exex bags.

You flag the next spawn as yours by standing on the same screen un-hidden. The game engine doesn't enforce it but it's enforced nevertheless. Do you propose folks should be able to flag areas where they're not? Or hold areas exclusively through multiple spawns even when other players want to use them? I'm very much against that!

Corpse like time limit after hitting, but with distance restriction as well.

• Pros: Easy to detect when a mob is already claimed.

Prevents killing a mob entirely.
Running players have time to come back and hit it, but can't just hang around.
Teleporting players can't claim everything.

• Cons: What happens in an informal party setting?

You have a period after killing a mob during which no one else can loot it. That's already built into the game.

Your description here is not entirely unlike the champ spawns where you can only join up to a certain number of candles after which it's locked to the folks who got in hits. I don't know that we need a system like that for ordinary trash mobs.