Kill/Mob stealing

[Mauricgriff]

I was just wandering what the policy is in regard to this. Myself I have witnessed blatant kill stealing, reported it, but seems that nothing ever happens except i get a reply saying this is being looked into and nothing else.
My understanding is that if one person is in combat with a mob, it is not allowed for another player to come in and steal that mob particularly if it is a higher level player, who can then out damage the mob and take the loot.

[Barrak]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but usually the first person to engage the mob gets the xp and loot. So if you are already engaged with a mob and someone else attacks it too, they are just helping you kill it. If you are fighting the same mob as someone else and they get the xp and loot, then they engaged it first.

That's how I understand it anyway.

[Sigi]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but usually the first person to engage the mob gets the xp and loot. So if you are already engaged with a mob and someone else attacks it too, they are just helping you kill it. If you are fighting the same mob as someone else and they get the xp and loot, then they engaged it first.

That's how I understand it anyway.

That's definitely not true. I've been fighting mobs, getting them half way their health and another player, way higher in lvl barged in and killed the mob. leaving me with hardly any xp and not being able to loot. I asked the person why he did that but didn't get any answer. I left the area after the third time that same person did steal my mob. It's extremely annoying!

[Mauricgriff]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but usually the first person to engage the mob gets the xp and loot. So if you are already engaged with a mob and someone else attacks it too, they are just helping you kill it. If you are fighting the same mob as someone else and they get the xp and loot, then they engaged it first.

That's how I understand it anyway.

after having many mobs stolen from me it appears that when the higher level gets there with a massive hit while the mob is above 50% even 51% he gets the kill, loot and all, and I been left with nothing. Only if I can get the mob to 49% before the kill stealer reaches me I get to keep the mob/loot

[CallakDW]

I find this as a grey area sometimes. I agree it would be annoying if someone kept doing this, but there are times it I see someone fighting a loosing battle, and rather than let them die, I might jump in and help them kill what they are fighting. At this point I don't really know if they want assistance, but I have to say, I've recieved thanks more than once for this. If I stopped and asked and recieved an answer, they would probably have been dead by the time I got a chance to help.

Now if it's pretty obvious, like the offender keeps butting in several times over, then I can understand your feelings.

[Sigi]

You can easily check the health of the one you want to help. If near to death helping is nice though healing - if possible - is better.

In my case my health was fine, I just lacked attack power (rating/level problem) so it was a slow process killing the mob. (which made it even more frustrating loosing the xp)

[CallakDW]

You can easily check the health of the one you want to help. If near to death helping is nice though healing - if possible - is better.

That's exactly what I do. But it still is not a guarantee they want help. And not all my charactors can heal.

[Justa Mirage]

Barrak... that is WoW... first person hits it gets the XP and Loot...

Istaria follows the old school system of "Who ever does the most damage wins"

Most of the time you can resolve problems with a player by talking to them, if they don't respond, they are probably running an illegal macro bot program and you won't be able to negotiate with them. If it's a huge field, try fighting the mobs elsewhere. If it's a tight field where the mob is concentrated in one spot, leave and come back later. If that character is still there hours and hours later, send a ticket reporting a combat macro bot at this location so a world master can go in and investigate.

[GalemThawn]

I was just wandering what the policy is in regard to this. .....

http://community.istaria.com/pg.php/game_policies

Players May Not:

13. Engage in “disruptive behavior� that is deemed to include, but is not limited to, conduct that purposely interferes with the normal flow of game-play or interferes with other players’ use and enjoyment of the Game. Such behaviors include, but are not limited to, "camping" a certain spawn or spawn area for lengthy periods of time, kill stealing, loot stealing, and/or resource stealing.



There is also a section for Disciplinary Actions.

[Mauricgriff]

I find this as a grey area sometimes. I agree it would be annoying if someone kept doing this, but there are times it I see someone fighting a loosing battle, and rather than let them die, I might jump in and help them kill what they are fighting. At this point I don't really know if they want assistance, but I have to say, I've recieved thanks more than once for this. If I stopped and asked and recieved an answer, they would probably have been dead by the time I got a chance to help.

Now if it's pretty obvious, like the offender keeps butting in several times over, then I can understand your feelings.

There are times when things are a little loose, and it can be a grey area, in such case you may give the benifit of the doubt, but many times it is blatant and repeated again and again. It is the blatant repeated kill stealing which I personally have issue with.

[Creme]

51% damage does not seem to be consistent.

I think it's actually first to reach a certain amount of front end damage.

I'm not sure why the loot window is not just set to the first player/group to initiate combat and not "reset" until either the mob is dead, or the player/group that initiated combat is dead (or out of range of the mob, i.e., fleeing out of view).

I wouldn't suggest locking exp, as it leaves room for abuse, i.e., a lower level player ungrouped could pull (have the exp/loot locked to him), and have a higher level player bomb said mob out of existence.

Locking the loot window seems to be reasonable.

Whether or not it's actually "doable", I don't know, but it would alleviate problems as well as "misperceptions".

With lag and latency, it's difficult to determine who actually pulled a mob first; however in a case where a player's been whacking on a mob for some period of time only to have another player kill said mob, that's a different story.

I would like to point out a few things; however.

1. Not all characters/mobs render. I don't know what the limit is before "objects" start going invisible, but I see this EVERY time I hunt. I can be pulling spiders and gruoks and the first 4-5 will all be visible, then I'll see another mob pop, click on it and then have it go invisible with my selectors still targetting it. I've also tried to click on a visible mob, only to have my selector target an "invisible" mob that's in front of it.

2. If you see a large group of mobs all clustered in a single location; odds are they're engaged, yes it IS too good to be true. Even if you cannot see that that another player is in the middle of that tight circle, mobs don't generally congregate naturally in such a perfectly placed circle ripe for a multicast bomb.

3. Player comes out to join another player in that part of the world and sees a bunch of mobs fighting, figures it's his buddy and rushes to wipe out the baddies, only to find that it's not his buddy after all.

4. A mob that's closer to 1 player than another player does not mean that it "belongs" to anyone. Mob positioning is wacky. What you see on your screen doesn't mean that another player sees the same thing. I've also seen mobs warp, i.e., you target nearest, cast and then the mob vanishes only to pop up (still selected) in a totally different position.

5. Aggro "floats". If a low level player is out and doing very little, or no damage and another player in the area is spamming heals/doing lots of damage, the mob can be drawn to the other player in the area. Some mobs are more "finicky" than others and it might have to do with the sociability/cry for help function. Also someone can "pull" a mob with a non damaging attack, if another ungrouped player is in the area, depending on that player's level difference, combat status (engaged/doing damage or healing), the mob can be "attracted" to the other player without that player initiating any action against said mob.

Another possible solution? More mob spawn locations, with different sized fields so that players can "choose" the field that's best suited to their abilities. With that, players should GO to the locations that are best suited to what they can handle. If you're killing wolves and you can only handle 2-3 at a time, then go to a location with fewer spawns/groups (if available). Leave the field with 10 to those that can handle all 10.

[Steelclaw]

Sometimes a little communication goes a long way. There are other reasons besides being a jerk for 'kill stealing', some of them are mentioned above. It's also possible that the person doing it doesn't know it's wrong. Try sending a tell (not a private chat invite) and be non-agressive. Something like "Hey, stop stealing my kills, I don't like it and that's not permitted too.". If you don't get a response within a few minutes, fine, you tried. Snap a few screens (and logs, if you got em). Note their guild (if any) and ask around too. Bring the issue up with their guildmaster, guildmates, and their friends (or acquaintences). If the behavior persists, then open a ticket.

Do, by all means, try to resolve your issues with a player before involving a CSR. The outcome might not be favorable to either party, or for the rest of the players for that matter.

Also, keep in mind that while you can 'claim' a mob, you can't 'claim' an entire field. If you're out hunting and someone is mass farming the field you want to hunt, go right ahead and pull a mob that isn't engaged, then drag it off away from the farmer and go beat on it. If you're the one farming, pull less and don't complain if someone else comes along and takes on the stragglers or winds up picking off a couple of the mobs you have engaged. It's not like you (the farmer) are being deprived of all kills.

[Creme]

Also, keep in mind that while you can 'claim' a mob, you can't 'claim' an entire field.

No mob that is unengaged can be claimed, nor can the entire area.

If you're out hunting and someone is mass farming the field you want to hunt, go right ahead and pull a mob that isn't engaged, then drag it off away from the farmer and go beat on it.

Very true, but very frequently, if a player sees that someone HAS a group of mobs beating on them, rather than trying to go find a newly spawned mob or an unengaged one, they'll feel "it's not fair that someone has all the mobs engaged" and start trying to pull or attack one of the ones that are attacking the other player.

If you're the one farming, pull less and don't complain if someone else comes along and takes on the stragglers or winds up picking off a couple of the mobs you have engaged. It's not like you (the farmer) are being deprived of all kills.

I disagree with some of this.

Pull less. If a player is fully capable of handling all the mobs in a given area why should he pull less, especially if there are other fields where the same mobs spawn? Someone leveling off multi mob bonuses is going to be affected by having to kill less than what the field supports. One cannot blithely say that the "farmer" is NOT being deprived.

Everyone that plays has different goals and a different pace to achieve those goals. Some players don't mind tacking on an extra week to leveling or getting trophies. Other players want to get things done as quickly and as efficiently as possible. There's nothing wrong with either mentality.

As far as the complaining. I agree, no mob is owned, no field is owned, if another player comes into the area, then they have every right to try and pull and kill what they can.

What I find often happens though is another player coming into the area will EXPECT that he be able to get however many mobs he wants and complain if he's not getting "enough". There's plenty of mobs in game, go to an area that has mobs of that level if you want more than what you can get because another player is out where you want to hunt. Otherwise, be happy with what you can pick up and don't killsteal or whine.

[Vahrokh]

I'm not sure why the loot window is not just set to the first player/group to initiate combat and not "reset" until either the mob is dead, or the player/group that initiated combat is dead (or out of range of the mob, i.e., fleeing out of view).

WoW "first comes takes the mob" style has implications in several parts of the lower level code that make it longer and more difficult to write.

Who played WoW since day 1 will recall about whacky unlootable mobs, un-diggable minerals and similar happenings all due to quirks in that implementation of looting.

[Creme]

Well, this game does have some unique loot aspects:

1. Each player can get their own random loot opportunity (reference the original Daknor loot window)

2. Each player can get their own loot window based on quest status (I was doing the breath quests on 2 dragons at the same time, figuring that if the "other" type of comp dropped the helian/lunus could loot it) only to find that if the splinter dropped that the lunus needed, the helian didn't see it in it's loot window and vice versa. I hadn't realized that the loot window was so customizable.

3. I believe sometime last year a change was made to loot window "lock/unlock" depending on whether the player that engaged the mob left the area or died, in which case the loot window was supposed to be reset to any player upon death of that mob. NOTE: I don't think this is working 100% as intended as I've killed mobs and gotten the "unable to loot this corpse" message and there were no other players in the area.

Anyway, all I'm saying is that there does seem to be variability to what can be done with the loot window and perhaps this is do-able or not, but whether it is do-able and has merit is up to someone else to decide.

And also the first come-takes the mob model is not limited to WoW, as I believe that Age of Conan and LOTRO also use this model.