Let's talk about Griefers and ways to avoid them

[Kittemz1 10]

So I spent about 30 hours building a base on an official server.

Found a new Yland. Made a 4 large mast ship (purple!).

Locked all stations and stone chests with locks.

Hid myself inside a stone fortress which was also locked.

Went to sleep.

8 hours later, I am dead, my fortress ruined, chests destroyed, ship has all sorts of random build materials sticking out of it.

I will never play multiplayer again.

 

I was under the impression that stone cannot be destroyed, but I guess I was super naive.

 

Questions:

- Assuming the dude who did this to me did not have explosives, how long would it have taken him to destroy everything (7 stone chests randomly located, stone building made of about 400 stone blocks).

- Why can't I destroy my own friggin' stone buildings but other people can?

- In a game propelled by creativity and diversity, why is losing all of your stuff even a possibility?

- How was he able to destroy two work stations (weaver and spinning wheel)?

- And lastly, what does the community recommend for protecting yourself against these bastards?

 

* I know protective fields are coming soon and this should sort the problem out, but I am asking what do you guys and gals recommend without using such protective fields.

 

Discuss.

 

Thanks and I hope you continue to have uninterrupted fun!

[kimbuck 746]

This is exactly  why  I do not  participate  in MP. games.

There are some  whose mentality must be still in the infancy.  They cannot  create but  have to destroy.  Unfortunately  its  in ALL games that are mp orientated.

What can you do ?  Well  they cannot play  fairly with others   so don't play their game. That's why I am in single player exploration...  i don't want to give  childish pleasure to the ones  who think they are smart, but in fact they have yet to have the truck that delivers maturity and puberty arrive at their front door ...if it has, they didn't  answer the knock!

But what can the game  developers do?  As much as they can, but they  can never  keep these  feeble-brained "kiddies"  out.

All i can suggest is that they develop dedicated  servers   that allow  only mature  like minded players  access, and   boot   out and   block the griefers etc.  and they  you look for  such  servers

I am enjoying the game ...i might be lonely, but  i did  find a pet rock

 

[WijkagentAdrie 384]

How sure are you they didnt use explosives? Destroying a stone base manually is quite a lot of work.

I think that as soon as there will be player/community hosted dedicated servers with whitelisting, the MP experience will be loads better. Alternatively you can play with a few people on your own game now.

[Dustin Michael 22]

6 hours ago, kimbuck said:

This is exactly  why  I do not  participate  in MP. games.

There are some  whose mentality must be still in the infancy.  They cannot  create but  have to destroy.  Unfortunately  its  in ALL games that are mp orientated.

What can you do ?  Well  they cannot play  fairly with others   so don't play their game. That's why I am in single player exploration...  i don't want to give  childish pleasure to the ones  who think they are smart, but in fact they have yet to have the truck that delivers maturity and puberty arrive at their front door ...if it has, they didn't  answer the knock!

But what can the game  developers do?  As much as they can, but they  can never  keep these  feeble-brained "kiddies"  out.

All i can suggest is that they develop dedicated  servers   that allow  only mature  like minded players  access, and   boot   out and   block the griefers etc.  and they  you look for  such  servers

I am enjoying the game ...i might be lonely, but  i did  find a pet rock

 

Same here, only play singleplay.. I got wilson to keep me company! 

[BigBoss87 68]

Until I reach the barrier I play only single, or with friends who want to build and do not destroy everything. The other day I tried to create a server to go online and in 5 minutes had a number of tombs that I lost count.

[Kittemz1 10]

I can't tell you I didn't enjoy interaction. Most players out there are really cool if this week's experience is any indication. Helping, fighting for you... Pushing you harder . Strangers can be awesome.

But... can you remind me why we need explosives in this creation game? Maybe certain exploration modes should have such shenanigans disabled. Just a thought...

When you finally reach locks (I mean, Sulphur seems to be rarer than diamonds sometimes), you think locking something will actually matter...! But nope... Someone friggin' explosive-droned you while you slept around all these sweet locks.

And he\she probably found those kegs randomly digging under their spawn point!

Just doesn't feel right to achieve them accomplishments only to have it all go to waste. Definitely not intended, one must presume...

Or, another suggestion: Am I bitching too much about a difficult and robust survival game through which I failed to properly defend myself?

[Kittemz1 10]

9 hours ago, kimbuck said:

I am enjoying the game ...i might be lonely, but  i did  find a pet rock

 

Wanna play?  Can you access PA region?

[hallie 25]

15 hours ago, Kittemz1 said:

Questions:

- Assuming the dude who did this to me did not have explosives, how long would it have taken him to destroy everything (7 stone chests randomly located, stone building made of about 400 stone blocks).

- Why can't I destroy my own friggin' stone buildings but other people can?

- It would have taken him/her a whole lot of time to destroy all that!

- You can... it just takes a loooooot of hits... 120 hits per stone block with a war axe to be exact  (and yes, I counted To see if there was a difference between the iron axe and the war axe - and there is... 30 hits IIRC )

[DanteYoda 0]

Thanks for this i'm new to the game op.

You helped me determine not to use multiplayer ever, glad i found this out early and the new bubbles will be useless because they only protect you offline, you are off exploring online and you lose stuff bubble will not help us at all, and people attacking our houses how can you defend them alone vs many people.. eh singleplayer all the way these days, multiplayers are just too toxic now.

[Fishlock 0]

Isn't the answer obvious? They should implement an option to turn friendly fire on or off, then filter the server list accordingly.

[kimbuck 746]

You usually  find  the   griefers  are more prevalent   during  school holidays ...  especially  when  the  parents are at work and the kids are home alone.  but then  some of the kids  can be  30+....

[Loitering 1]

I actually enjoy human adversaries and the thrill of avoiding griefers, so I don't really find preventative mechanisms a boon to the game experience. All the solutions of the sort that turn off friendly fire or create safe bubbles are not the sort of things that work on public servers. There are  two typical outcomes when games go these routes: A) miles and miles of abandoned monstrosities on every inch of available real estate or B) griefing by other means (I'm looking at you Arc).

In Arc, 7 Days to Die, and Space Engineers, I have a combined play time nearing 10,000 hours, and thousands more in minecraft. None of those games could stop griefing without creating a dead game space. The key to a creative game, I would say, is to remember that you aren't creating art to be looked at and admired, but are creating objects for people to interact with--a security bubble doesn't help that. I'd like to suggest a different sort of solution.

The basic idea here is that every faction/guild/township/whatever has an indestructible chest they can put gold into, and an engineer NPC who will deplete that gold to automatically rebuild any hardened structures in its range that were hardened by a member of the guild, and destroy any blocks built by non members.

So what happens is this: griefers offline attack, they destroy everything but the chest (because it's indestructible when there's gold in it); the Engineer hasn't even begun rebuilding because they keep killing him; they then can wait the 24 hours or so it takes for the engineer to rebuild or go home. I would also provide a chance of dropping gold for each block destroyed by raiders as a reward for their piracy (some blocks have a higher chance of dropping gold than others).

The Benefits:

• What this effectively does is allow players to calculate how much gold they need to put into their chest to protect their base for X number of days of constant attack. Because the system knows how many blocks it has to protect and how fast the NPC could possibly repair them, it can tell the guild how many hours of protection they have. So, it provides security and respect for people's artistic work and a viable option for people who want to use a defensive strategy.
• It allows players to build dungeons and fortifications for other players to play against, play in, and adventure with. For me, an essential part of the creative experience is creating a living world that wants to murder strangers and allows strangers to murder it back. 

Limitations:

• It doesn't do much for online griefing. But I'm of the mind that online griefing is what *public* multiplayer is all about. Allowing each playing a hidden stash container that only they can access can alleviate early game harassment.

There are a bunch of technical details that would need to be ironed out, and maybe guild members would need the ability to ACTUALLY destroy blocks in their territory. Maybe it's the sort of thing you can turn on and off (so a snapshot of what will be repaired is taken), or maybe it has an adjustable range. And maybe we have NPC defenders that can slow down the destruction process.

Long story short, I think this sort of route (if not precisely this) is a better way to go. The philosophy is this: don't shut griefers down; use them as a sort of interesting antagonist.

EDIT: this occurred to me. Guilds (I actually like calling them Townships for some reason) could provide vendors that allow players not in the guild to pay gold to park their vehicles or mounts, have the guild take a snap shot of its state, and rebuild it after any attack. It might also be an idea that containers would be rebuilt with their contents intact.

Edited December 17, 2017 by Loitering
Added a thought

[Beningging 0]

Kittemz after we landed on your island apparently i got teleported back to first island, and dced while getting into my base with the door open. after that i can't log in back because server's think im still in there (bug issue),  would've join you defending base if MP is actually playable right now  - Rachmaninov

[Kittemz1 10]

17 hours ago, Beningging said:

Kittemz after we landed on your island apparently i got teleported back to first island, and dced while getting into my base with the door open. after that i can't log in back because server's think im still in there (bug issue),  would've join you defending base if MP is actually playable right now  - Rachmaninov

That is exactly what happened to me! I saw you in the room and figured you had the same experience. It's my ship's fault, if you wondered... She has a built-in bug in her ladders and when used can teleport yourself and apparently also other people to random locations! I have a similarly bugged ship on another server. Friggin' ladders...!

 

As for Loitering's intricate idea - you seem to think that the protective barrier will effectively leave around much abandoned space, and you are probably correct in that assumption, but an easier way to solve this will be:

- Removing all player structures from a server once a player chose to "Remove" the game from his "Continue" list

- Removing all player structures from a server after a (long) period of being AFK

I don't know if the above is feasible using the current engine, but I believe the method you suggested, albeit it being well thought out, is overly complicated and does not seem to prevent the theft of your precious cargo - but to only rebuild what was destroyed.

I did however enjoy your combative approach and I hope you're showing these bastards who's boss!