The Term "Griefing"

THE EXACT same thing happened to me. I was digging a tunnel towards the enemy base, and just before I got there and to dig into it, I went back to get the spawn and said in team chat " guys lets try the tunnels, we can spawn right under their base and avoid the giant wall we keep failing to breach "

So I am walking down the tunnel with a couple of knights who I guess are on board with it, when people on my team began to yell that 'Vanguarde is GRIEFING "He is 'stealing' the spawn! Kick him! Oh damn he is gold we can't kick him"

One guy said that the way to deal with 'gold griefers' is to ruin their name on every server you go to, informing them if ( player name here ) comes to the server, he/she is a 'KNOWN GRIEFER' and to be aware of him/her!

So yes, I get what you are saying 100%. People are yelling 'GRIEFER' FOR STRATEGY THEY DO NOT AGREE WITH.

 

Sometimes your actions may not seem apparent to other players, especially if they're not reading the chat due to fighting. If you're taking a spawn from the front line on the top level, I would be pissed off for removing a spawn that we were using. I always find someone moving the spawn very worrisome, since I've seen griefers who would take the spawn out to the enemy. Even if they do have a good intent, there are some people who would bring the outpost right to where the battle is going on without any protection at all.

 

Players can be pretty touchy about their 'siege weapons'. It is upsetting to find that somebody has moved the OP you were reliably spawning at. In general, it is good practice to build a second OP, and leave the first one alone, so that your teammates can have the choice where to spawn.

(ninja'd by Mellian-Quar-Xililililx)

But I digress; With great power comes great responsibility, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We must all keep a vigilant watch on our selves and our own behaviour, because there is a difference between outright obnoxiousness (griefing) and poor strategy, which, though it causes 'grief', is not in and of itself a bannable offense.

We were all deuces Henries, once.

 

Does it matter who built the spawn or siege? As long as the team wins, and you suggest another strategy mid game as the one that was being tried ( direct assault on a very well made castle ) was draining lives badly - is that bad? People forget this is a team game and if the team is being pasted by the enemy, perhaps a change in strategy is needed?

Next time though I will make a second spawn, to give people a choice. I know and have seen many times people stupidly taking the spawn directly into battle, but I often try to think from their perspective. Perhaps they see a weakness I do not? Perhaps they have been on the front lines the entire battle and sense a pattern of spawning by the enemy, and felt it was OK to move the spawn really close to gain advantage? I really don't know. Of course, sometimes it is clear the person is either a griefer, is a new player, or perhaps is terrible at strategy.

I think we need to be very careful when we see someone doing something that we personally might consider a 'bad' strategy, but to them they might see a new way of building or a new strategy. I also think we need to be very very careful on labeling someone who is not following the 'usual' patterns in the game in terms of building. I do not think we can call that griefing, nor can we call someone who made a bad choice a 'griefer'.

I think the basis of what a true griefer is is someone who is directly destroying the teams buildings in a consistent, ongoing manner. Or a so called 'stealth' griefer someone who cuts trees and puts a ladder down to 'stump' the tree. He/she does this over time, slowly denying the home team wood. That is clearly griefing. But someone who is down below digging towards the enemy might ( depending on who you ask ) be using bad strategy, he/she is NOT griefing in my opinion.

Education is the key!

 

LMFAO "Oh damn he is gold we can't kick him"

This is why I don't kick people with out making sure they're actually not griefing. After someone says GRIEFER I just keep a firm eye on them. And give them the look.

 

You know you have a great point, if we oppress and treat people in such manners, we' be locking ourselves in an iron cage of perfection leaving everything around us as less being. Eventually, players will not trust anyone into working with them resulting in this game being parted further away from the teamwork aspect into an individualistic scheme. I'm not saying individualism is completely bad, but judging how much a team's performance is base on communication and compromising attitudes towards different strategies, I'd say there isn't much choice in it. This leaves only agreement or disagreement, which I believe seems to be the only 2 problems people have hard times dealing with.

 

As jerloch stated, griefing, in THIS game at least, is anything that is considered a hinderance to the team.

Or, for example, a noob keeps trying to break through the base of my Strathos Repairable Tower I'm working on. I tell him to stop, I explain 5 times why it's built the way it is, and he continues to ruin the tower and puts a door tunnel at the base. This, in my eyes, is griefing, because the person is blatantly ignoring everything I'm telling him, and doesn't care because he doesn't think there will be consequences.

This isn't like Minecraft where the only griefing is tearing down/burning giant, decorative structures. The tower Strathos designed works like this;





The team doors allow you to reach the front of the tower for repairs WITHOUT risking taking damage from the enemy. Noobs take that and do this...





It completely ruins the functionality of the tower, adds a door tunnel, AND makes the tower incredibly vulnerable and easily destroyed.


That, good sir, is griefing, even if the player thinks he's doing the right thing.

 

I get called a griefer for knocking down some obviously inexperienced players giant turd structure, to make way for a skilled builder or myself, but I explain to them that their structure is useless or inhibiting to our team and I've never been kicked.

I also get called a griefer for aborting skybridges if an enemy is building one over over my own teams one. But I've never been kicked as I explain why I did it.

Some people just don't appreciate the fact that sometimes knocking down your own structures is the best thing to do.

It's not really a problem that can be avoided, its just young/inexperienced players with an itchy blaming finger...

 

Nope~ You have to think about universal definition and understand that there are new builders out there who are unaware of what you speak of.

Definition for griefing:

A griefer is a player in a multiplayer video game that purposely irritates and harasses other players..


Again, you can easily do the team a favor and fix it, and this brings up the problem in which people think you would be the one griefing.

I pretty much agree, I myself know the physics of this game and know ways to build good defenses. Unlike you however, I got kicked even as a premium member, which is quite awkward. I guess majority didn't like me protecting the team below a 1 unit sky bridge. Like I said, it's pretty much a "Salem Grief Hunt", one builder with a flawed blueprint, the other builder is charged with treason.

 

You obviously didn't read my post. Do you know how often and how long it takes me to fix this? I fix it, go out and fight for maybe 5 minutes, come back and it's been fucked up again. I waste time, resources, energy, and sanity dealing with this. I explain to these new guys CONSTANTLY, but they either say, "Hahaha, u mad? Not listening!" or, "It's too hard to get up." In which case, I add a back wall and SPAM THE FUCK out of trap bridges so there should be no excuse. And yet, still the same few people that I keep telling not to do it, do it. And they do it to cause me GRIEF.

You following yet champ? Do yourself a favor. If someone in game tells you something and they seem like they're a bit more experienced, maybe you should listen and not put a stone roof over a skybridge...

 

Again, you didn't read the my post either. I said I build my roof to protect the team passageway FROM a sky bridge. I said nothing about building a roof over one. I even explained myself more than 2 times now that the roof was below the bridge to protect a paper thin sky bridge that was above us. I'd also calm down if I were you, there's no need to burst an internal nerve mass and bleed to death.

If those people didn't listen to you, than the best thing I do is leave the game and join a new one. Besides, it would be wiser to leave during the build phase than waste another half an hour or so playing with an incompetent team.

 

I'm cool as a cucumber, I'm just letting you know that if more experienced members are telling you something, you should listen.

Also, it's not possible for premiums to be votekicked at this time. Sooo... Yeah.

 

You're still not understanding the situation, the roof was below the sky bridge, in case it gets destroyed, everyone who's trying to leave our base can huddle underneath it. It's about the fourth time I've mentioned this.

 

Yeah, I got that part. I'm completely aware. Notice how I didn't say skybridge? Yeah, I didn't. I'm saying to LISTEN instead of TALKING and DOING.

cough

 

Basically, you're still telling someone to do something better after you are proven to have misunderstood context. Anyways, I'm done with you. Moving on.

 

Why am I not surprised that you were booted?

As I've stated, if I sit there and consistently tell someone not to do something the way they're doing and they continue to do it, I call grief. I don't give a fuck what the "universal" definition is. If there's a guard there, generally they'll agree that after you tell someone something so many times, it's considered griefing.

 

You're both dumb. Stop arguing.

 

Hey i think i was in that server.... some idiot put a stone roof over and we lost dramatically...

 

I agree with you on this. How can someone know if someone else is far more experienced than they are? What if they think you are trying to trick them to get them kicked out of the game?

I think to expect everyone on a open public server to bend to your wishes as soon as you say it is naive. If it bothers someone to this degree, there are plenty of organized servers with active clans where one can play high quality team games. Also, some people just don't like to take orders from someone else, they prefer to learn the game on their own. These people are pretty cool, as they probably played with Lego growing up.

I understand it can be frustrating but no one on any team is the one and only 'leader' that everyone MUST obey and listen to in terms of tactics. And while I agree that the Strathos setup is better, it is not intuitive to new players as setting up simple doors on ground level for people to walk through. That is how we do things in reality, and some people cannot think outside the box in terms of the Strathos setup. I know that sounds absurd, but it probably is true.

I just am very weary of calling someone a griefer because they are not following your orders on a free and open to the public server, even if you know the tactic is weaker than the one you know of. You can try to teach them, but if they do not listen they are not greifing - just using inferior tactics. ( Unless like said they are clearly taunting you, with 'u mad' and the like ) If we do this, where does it end? Will we all be forced to play exactly the same way, each game because the setup is the most optimal available? The freedom will be gone, every game will be the same.
Again the solution is to use locked clan servers where everyone is on the same page.

Just my opinion

 

What about buildings out of back walls? I once made some swords out of back walls along a bridge, as ornaments. Someone took them down. I asked him what he did that for and he said they were useless. He did get kicked for griefing, but although the buildings weren't usefull, they didn't hinder anyone either.