View Full Version : So Ninja Hacking non emo discussion
Hi Guys,
I wanted to have a theological discussion with everyone playing now that we're all grouped on one server and we all want the game to continue as a lot of us have been around (with some gaps) for nearly a decade, there is a core of people that is integral to making neocron what it is and what it potentially can be, a server with no one benefits no one.
Now I don't want this to turn into a you hacked me, they ninja'd them arguement that is not the purpose of this thread, what I want to address is the detrimental effect things like this can have on people and clans and the sheer pointlessness of it when we are all striving for the same thing.
Neocron has always been a game of ruthlessness, I can stand here and say yep i've ninja'd ops in the past and yep i've had ops ninja'd as well as pretty much every clan on any of the servers and even titan now can attest to. Back in the days of pluto this spate of ninja hacking became an almost epidemic, it didn't matter who fought who and who won because come the next morning it was reverted back. Of course came the shouts of if you can't always defend you can't always own it and sure that is a fair shout. But we're all playing this game to have fun, to gear up, to have epic fights, to make clutch plays and all in all have a good time. The problem came in it caused people to not want to op fight as the pointlessness of it became apparent, op fights became so non-existant we had to start putting on arranged op tournaments of 5 v 5 v 5 v 5 for any clans interested and winner would win the op. Now I loved these 5 v 5 scrims but really there should have been no need for them in the first place.
Lets not let the game and the players within the game get to the same depressed cba to fight state that pluto got into many moons ago.
What I ask and feel free to chime in with counters and arguements for and against, but if clans that are looking for op fights look to see who is on from the clan they are attacking first and at least give them a fighting chance. So not bringing 10+ more people to a fight than they have online, I realise there is a factor of they could log on x amount of people but maybe have a second though towards it, I mean we all want a good fight to win an op with a result is a great satisfaction and no one feels satisfied hacking 4 layers only to see no one zone up from the UG.
And I realise there is no exact science behind it and you can't always know how many the enemy will bring but if you get one op unopposed, just say don't take anymore of that clans ops fight when they are online over the next one.
I'm sure there will be people that will tell me to stfu and stop being a carebear but really this is the state of the game not just my own well being i'm trying to plead for here, lets keep it challenging make it tough for ourselves, proove our 6 people can beat their 10 and claim a massive moral victory and bragg about it till they log off crying in ooc lets re-live old neocron bring it back to its former glory, tempt other people back that used to play and have op fights on a grander scale!
Also if people haven't seen it there is a thread in brainport about would it be possible to remove ug's, if you haven't go weigh in over there, for people that never played nc1 I can understand this is a big change but please trust the people that did play it that back then it was a simpler, funner, just wholly more awesome time and the closer we can get to that the better!
Cannings out
This topic always brings up some interesting arguments. I have a couple opinions on the matters. Firstly, I don't like how a few clans own most of the outposts on the map. There's no real need to own more than 2 or 3 OP's. I'd like to see more diversity of clans on the map, perhaps put a limit on the number of OP's any one clan can own at one time. I occasionally see an OP here or there get taken by a smaller clan only to have it disappear back to the larger clan who already owns half the map.
Fairness doesn't seem to be a popular notion in todays version of NC. All day everyday people bitch and cry on OOC about OP fights that they deem unfair in some way. Then the endless shit talk pursues adding to the already diminishing atmosphere. There's such a negativity involved with PVP nowadays, it seems to bring out the worst in people.
Another point that always comes up when OP fighting with fair numbers is the timezone difference. Most of the people in my clan are PST or EST timezones, thats literally a night and day difference from most other OP fighting clans. So when we take an OP here or there I can already hear the screams of "ninja" from the Euro clans, even though they already own the entire map. I have nothing against the Euro clans it's just that we operate in completely different timezones, which will inevitably cause problems with OP fighting.
Then there's the number of people in general. We have about 6-8 people actively playing everyday in my clan. Is it even possible to contend with the larger clans who have 2 or 3 times our numbers? Perhaps not during their prime time but during ours it should be quite possible, but I already know that they won't see it as right or fair.
So whats to be done? The only way to ensure the future of a productive OP scene is to trust to the different Clans of the community to make it so. And that, unfortunately, doesn't seem to optimistic. But who knows, this game and community constantly surprises me :)
Doc Holliday
19-02-13, 04:56
Well. This threads gonna descend in to flame bait before long. However. Im gonna try and do my best here to keep this one civil.
First off. Our clan (not mine. Ours) operates on a no ninja policy where ever possible. We will look whos on from what clans and if its a choice between 0 online and 1 online the clan with one person on gets it. I dont care if that persons afk thats not my issue. We are gonna look for a fight if we can.
We are an international clan. We have members spread across the globe and who all have different play times due to this. Example we had 10 members online last week at 10am UK time. go figure. When we have that many its natural to want to fight someone. We did our best to find a decent fight and we got one (props to Infected)
Now. On to this whole dominance thing. Well i have seen it before plenty of times. What ever the mentality is certain clans down the years must always try to own every op. Its sad but true. Humans are territorial it seems too.
My next statement does fly in the face of what i have said and does contradict what i just said but in certain situations and with good justifiable cause we will ninja hack an op. If we need the use of one (generally its a factory purely for the bonus for half an hour) and we have the members on we will go and get one for use. We don't care if its taken back later either. we encourage that as it wasn't fought for but we WILL do it. We have every right to do so and i truly don't give a shit what anyone says on that point.
If you want to avoid this then you need to open your factories to offer up a bonus. this will eliminate us from doing this. you scratch my back and i will scratch yours.
Finally. Totally agreed with faids point about limiting op ownership to a certain number. costs should be involved also. However this has been said over a number of threads down the years and has still never made it to the forefront of the "To Do" List. I don't see this changing so we must police this as a community ourselves.
All we want is good decent fights. Be it in ops or otherwise. Lately there seems to be a growing animosity towards our guys and thats totally cool but we have also seen this alliance at work and we realize that this animosity is born out of the fact we agreed to take sides with the other side.
That's how we take an op with a fair fight from a merc clan. later that day when we have few people online for reasons mentioned above a BD clan comes along and takes it off of us yet the zone further over holds another op which is also held by CA but a different clan and is left alone.
I'm pretty sure it wasn't left alone because no one was online but i could be totally mistaken. when stuff like this happens you have to ask yourself is this thread/plea/request really gonna impact ANYONE in the wider community?
The most important reason ninja's happen is because some clan feels some other clan doesn't deserve them, because they somehow dont play fair. This can be either be because their opponents always come in much higher numbers, because they call in out of game people that weren't logged in yet, or because they feel the other team exploits or uses game tactics that don't seem fair.
Really the only way to stop or minimize these things happening is to grow up. Stop acting like you were wronged somehow. The current state of the game and the support makes it so no clan can be REALLY unfair for long, and there are more than enough clans to fight that if you feel another clan doesn't deserve a fight, simply don't fight them. ignore them. fight someone else. It is not your task to police the game, it is your task to have fun at the game. And the easiest way to do that is to put all the people that you think are assholes, on your ignore list.
Smack talk is part of any game, but the sad state of trolling that has been the norm for too long is so counter productive. If someone is trolling you, ignore them. If someone is zerging you, don't give them the pleasure of a fight, or hire some mercenaries to pad your numbers. If someone is ninja'ing you, see it as a way to get another fight in the morning.
Op ownership doesn't mean anything, except that you had a fight for it. Remember, status is in the respect of other people, not in pretending to own the map.
do not play the game if you are not having fun. Noone can ruin the game for you, you are the only one who can enjoy yourself or not.
A troll that you respond to, gets satisfaction. A clan that ninja's, gets bored of the game and will be gone in a few weeks. A clan that constantly zergs can get beaten easily with some skill, because if they didn't need to zerg, they wouldn't.
Choose to fight on your own terms, without enabling trolls, and you will find you will enjoy the game far more.
A Fair point definitely, as stated it is all about the fights not really about the ownership, and while yep i'm sure it is nice to see a nice smear of your home colour on the map its not a loss to not have any ops either or even 1 that you call home.
For example we had a fight last night against FF at redrock, was pretty balanced imo they won and props to them, its a fucking horrible op to fight at, then we heard that infected was heading there so instead of making it 50 people in an op built for 2 people and a cow we went to another op.
I can see you point about bonuses from ops and personally don't have a prob with that, but I also see docs point that its almost a YOU NINJA'D US SO WE NINJA YOU kind of reaction to most things, which then has the same reaction the other way round and basically an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. Personally I'd like to see these bonuses removed, the reason for owning ops would be lesser and the focus would be back on the enjoyment and the fight.
It's quite simple, enable lockdown timers on Outposts.
A clan successfully hacks an Outpost, a 30(or 60, or whatever) minute countdown is started. If the Outpost remains in the ownership of the clan that hacked it, it's locked down for the following 24 hours and cannot be re-hacked until then.
Leave the lockdown timers invisible except to the owners et voila, taking over an outpost is not just for Christmas.
Interesting idea, while I like how it promotes a quick response and denies retaliatory ninja hacks does this not also protect the ninja hackers?
Doc Holliday
19-02-13, 13:03
So what happens when a clan ninjas it in the first place.
Edit. On my phone didn't see cannings post.
I personally do not like the idea of lockdown timer after an OP has been taken.
I have been to several opfights, where the Whole defending team were alive by the time the attacker gets the last layer, by luck.
I would hate if it wasent possible to keep on fighting, and take the OP back.
Yeah that's a problem that has been introduced by the SI-less GR'ing to the underground, back in the day that a defender if they lost would have to regroup at a near outpost and become the attackers per se made things a lot different
It's quite simple, enable lockdown timers on Outposts.
A clan successfully hacks an Outpost, a 30(or 60, or whatever) minute countdown is started. If the Outpost remains in the ownership of the clan that hacked it, it's locked down for the following 24 hours and cannot be re-hacked until then.
Leave the lockdown timers invisible except to the owners et voila, taking over an outpost is not just for Christmas.
That would be too easily abusable, every 24 hours get some alts in their own clan, hack your own outposts then re-hack them with the real clan and your OPs would be 100% safe for another 24 hours.
So what happens when a clan ninjas it in the first place.
Edit. On my phone didn't see cannings post.
Who cares? They have 'your' outpost for a minimum of 24 hours and then they have to defend it against you (or not). At least when you take it back and defend it, you can stop worrying about someone logging on at 5am and taking it uncontested.
As for an alt clan hacking it, that would seem quite exploitative and worthy of GM sanctions. Similar goes for having allied clans take over your OP.
The 'problem' of only having a set time to counterattack the OP you just lost...tough titty! If you haven't taken it back in 30/60/90 minutes, the likelihood is you simply don't deserve to get it back and you're relying on the attackers logging off for the night.
Or waiting on members to log on?
Or waiting on members to log on?
What's the difference when we're talking on the timescale of an hour or more? Either way you obviously can't win the battle and you're waiting for external factors to change that. Whether it's the enemy logging off/getting bored, or more of your people logging on.
Fair enough
As in, the battle is lost but not the war.
*shrug*
There's a reason most MMOs with conquerable territory include lockdown mechanics - it would have made much of my nc1 life a lot easier and more fun as I generally played in smaller clans that would beat bigger clans in a fair fight but inevitably lost when attacked by 10-20 enemies with 1-2 people online. (ps: hi rabbi fang/rabbi vamp/kublai, and fw/doob/psyker :D)
If I am not on to fight you, then it does not matter the OP was taken, and vice verse. If I attack an OP, and no one shows up, then who cares if I hack the OP, or walk away after taking first layer.
My point is that taking OPs is about PVP fighting and nothing else. There are no other reasons to take an OP,other than GR control which is negated by vehicles and public GRs. There is no XP gain, no financial game. There are some subskill bonuses, but these are not a good enough reason to take an OP unless the clan is highly active in crafting and has to have a research or construction base.
I should like to see old clan HQs in the Dome reused as a form of outpost, but from what I recall this is improbable due to game design restrictions ( or spagetti ). I think that there are few too many OP type places to control, and the benefits, whether control or financial aspects, have little reason to control an OP.
Who cares? They have 'your' outpost for a minimum of 24 hours and then they have to defend it against you (or not). At least when you take it back and defend it, you can stop worrying about someone logging on at 5am and taking it uncontested..
Unless you play in CET and I play in PST :D
This is a horrid idea. I really enjoy taking an OP, then attacking another OP, whilst at the same time the OP I just took is under attack. Which one should I take back? Should we divide our forces? Is it a ninja attack just to try and split our troops up? Your suggestion stops this type of game play action.
Ninja all you like. I won't care.
Your point is rather ludicrous.
No-one uses tradeskill bonuses?
Ops don't provide a financial gain?
Ops don't provide useful bases for levelling alts(depending on which one obviously)?
GR control doesn't matter because you can run somewhere from much farther away or drive from even further...
I don't know what game you've been playing but judging by your post - it hasn't been Neocron ;)
Your whole post seems predicated on the fact that ninjaing isn't an issue and that no-one actually cares about it - a fact that seems to have absolutely no basis in reality. Hell, you're in a thread created to discuss how to avoid ninja hacking posting about ninja hacking not being an issue..
If Outposts were solely about PVP fighting and nothing else... outposts wouldn't exist in the first place.
Also, do please at least try read my posts before responding. I quite clearly stated that there would be a timer before an OP became locked down. By all means, disagree and whatnot - but at least do it logically and with enough respect that you'll actually read a post before rambling on about it in reply.
Cheers!
William Antrim
19-02-13, 23:58
I am going to echo Doc's points here but I honestly can see where Cannings is coming from. I tried to ask for this sort of sportsmanship on Uranus many years ago and I was essentially shouted down by the "horde" that played there at the time.
These days I dont give a fuck about ops.
If I want an op I will go and get myself one. If your clan owns it I will contest the rights to it.
If I want a fight I will look who has an OP and pick a fight or I will go and shoot the Mercs at Military Base.
I dont give a toss about faction alignments and he said she said. I tried to be a diplomat for twenty minutes in 2004 and got bored rapidly. These days I prefer plasma to politics.
Unfortunately due to some players having a "win at all costs mentality" these sorts of threads will fall on deaf ears.
See you on the field chaps.
I think there are some players with a win at all costs mentality but I think they are also the same people that wouldn't like to see NC become smaller due to people hating the fact they lose the ops in this way. I mean don't get me wrong this is in no way anywhere near the likes of how it used to be, but I just wanted to make a post that hopefully will sit at the back of people's minds so that we don't get to that point
Doc Holliday
20-02-13, 05:14
This needs to be brought up in the German forum then. Infected and co need to see it. I know dafuse is on the forum.
William Antrim
20-02-13, 13:42
Without wishing to sound racist we have already seen out of game loyalties seep into faction alliances and politics. I am a firm believer that there is a section of the community that wishes to retain those loyalties and keep that status quo. I realise it is not everyone but it has happened and will most likely continue. It does ruin the game but it is all a part of the win at all costs mentality. I hate being a doom sayer but this is my experience of it over the years.
tbh it's so incredibly meek nowadays, people complaining about ninja'ing and alliances looks so incredibly good to me compared to the two years before... This is neocron, it is the home of trolls, asshats and people who think they are a big deal but have to go back to a 10 year old game to prove it to themselves. If you are not one of those people, don't get pulled in, and remember how much better it is now than it was only half a year ago. The game offers so much for people who play the game for their own enjoyment, and yes, for some that enjoyment comes from messing with others, but those kind of people get bored soon anyway, especially if you don't give them the satisfaction.
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