3. Unwritten rules of conduct?

Unwritten rules of conduct?


  • This is really bothering me, and I'm starting to think that I'M the crazy one here. Someone give me some help here.

    I'm not going to name any names, because I don't want to make this about my personal issue with someone. Those of you that do know what I'm talking about, please don't drag that into here. This topic, removed from the personal issue, is about trying to find out what the unwritten rules of decency here are.

    Currently, I am aware of at least one predatory player that is preying on novices. They spawn in an area, attack any novices that were unable to build up to a tower fast enough to defend, and respawn when they run out of weak prey. And again, I'm not going to name any names, because I do not want my personal grievance with one of these to muddy this topic. Again, those of you that know of the situation, leave it outside this topic.

    The main problem here is I can't get anyone to agree that this is a bad thing. I get told it's a competition, that they're playing within the rules, and that I'm imposing my moral standards of human decency on others. They tell me that I'm being inflexible in my beliefs, and that I shouldn't be bothered by this kind of behavior.

    WHAT?

    This kind of behavior CAN'T be good for the playerbase. First off, the protective walls are only 20000 ticks, which at the game's current average 1 per 3 second rate of ticks means about 16 hours, give or take depending on tick rate fluctuation. A player can NOT build a tower until RCL 3, which even assuming 10 of your average 2-source room's 20 energy per tick income is going into the controller, takes 4520 ticks to accomplish. That's almost 4 hours at the average tick rate. A new player who codes a little, gets their controller up to level 2, sets up their base at that level, and then decides that, since RCL3 is going to be a while, they'll come back tomorrow to finish their initial base setup is well outside of protection by the time they return. This kind of player has not had the time for the game to grow on them, has little invested in the game (especially if they bought on steam), and if they come back the next day to find their base in ruins after another player attacked them, they may well quit and try to get a refund. It's a rare few players, given the target market, that will dust themselves off and try again; those players are the rare gems that are at the higher end of the programming skill curve, and won't be frustrated as much by being killed in a game they're struggling to understand.

    We have players that are SPECIFICALLY targeting these players. Is this against the rules? No. But is it good for the game? Most assuredly not! Is it against the general standards of human decency? That's what I'm trying to determine here. Is it predatory? Most definitely yes.

    Now, I understand that this is a competitive game, and that there is going to be collateral damage here. It doesn't make any difference to the player described above whether the attacking player is doing so because they're being predatory, or because the new player was unfortunate to place themselves in a room the attacking player wanted. But in the case of the predatory player, they're not even playing the game as intended, in my personal opinion. They're abusing the fact that they can still spawn in novice rooms, and using their advantage in experience in coding for the game and their already built scripts to bully players that don't have any of it figured out yet. They're not doing collateral damage, they're attacking the trickle of new players into the game at the source.

    I think something should be done about this, but I can't even get anyone to agree that this is a problem. IS this a problem as I've lined this out? I submit this for developer and general evaluation. Are these players playing the game as intended, or is this an oversight on the part of the developers? Does this bother anyone else, or am I barking up the wrong tree here?

    If something should be done about this, does it need to be social, or programmed? Again, I can't even get people to agree that this is an issue. It's allowed within the game rules, so it must not be wrong, right? Human standards of honor and decency? Those have no place in a GAME. So, if this is determined by the developers to be a problem, I'm leaning toward the solution needs to be programmed into the game.

    Apologies for this long-winded post, but I am having to call my own sanity into question here, and would REALLY like to get more general feedback on this. And yes, I understand I'm opening myself up to possible trolling here, and can only hope on the miniscule chance that I get any reasonable replies.

  • Culture

    Here is a complete list of the unwritten rules-

    *

    - That's it, all of the unwritten rules.

     

    Now, as some quick notes-

    * Saying you aren't going to drag the personal drama in and then going out of your way to bash that "predatory" player is incredibly disingenuous. It's basically a way for you to rant without allowing people a chance to respond.

    * This player is not going out of his way to just kill new players. He has respawned for reasons.

    * You have respawned multiple times, and when you do it's in areas with weaker players. Please explain how this is different.

    * If your script can't survive keep iterating until it does.

    * Turning this into a morality issue instead of a game mechanic issue lessens your point significantly. Just because people don't do what you want does not make them bad people.


  • I agree with tedivm, there's no such thing as unwritten rules. The only rules that matter are those the Dev Team explicitly writes.

    Also, if you can't reach RCL 3 before your protection expires, then you just have bad code. Rewrite it, improve it, and then you'll easily do so. I'm a crappy coder, with little experience in JavaScript, and I still managed to get RCL 3, walls/ramparts and tower with ~3k ticks left on my protection.


  • You need just an option to change nickname (and avatar), that would've solved all your "predator" issues

    (I guess that might not work, like, new nickname would show on forum)


  • I agree that respawning into a newbie area and harassing inexperienced players is detrimental to the longevity of the game. I believe that newbie protection is too short.

    On the other hand, it is that short, and re-spawning to a new location has very few costs associated. If the player did not have a tower up then in less than a day they could recover their previous glory in a new location with their improved code. What I do think should be clarified and emphasized to players is the importance of their code being able to bootstrap itself from nothing-to-defenses on its own in a new room. If players have that as their goal then having to restart is simply another chance to see how well their code bootstraps a new room. That goal is under-emphasized I think, and that can lead to players thinking that starting over really means starting over, rather than 'another chance to test my code'. It's a perception thing, and I don't think the current tutorial and documents encourage the right perception.


  • It probably would be a type of trolling to continuously respawn just to attack novices in the area, but I don't think it is clear that is what anyone was trying to do. Either way, I think the protection walls are enough of a safeguard. It is true that a novice may not have adequate defense the first time, but that will be a challenge for the next time he/she respawns.

    I think the best possible conduct for a community like this is to not take attacks personally. Even if you have to respawn, you take the majority of your progress with you, which is your GCL and more importantly your code. It is just as problematic never to get attacked, because then you don't know how well your defensive code holds up, and you miss out on that aspect of the game.


  • You seem to be under the impression that getting attacked is a mean thing and getting wrecked is a huge issue. It shouldn't be though. The game is competitive, attacking and defending is a big part of it, especially early on. If you can't manage to have a tower up before the walls go down, you are doing something wrong, and its actually good to learn that as soon as possible.

    I have no idea who you are talking about but I do not believe that he or she just respawned (multiple times?) to kill more newbies - there is absolutely nothing gained by that. You don't get points for killing people, it is something you waste time and energy on to achieve some bigger goal. Goals he can't have if he just respawns again. But even if he did: so what. Be the better player. You certainly can.

    I would support newbie protection being longer, at least the very first time you spawn, not after respawns though.

    As for unwritten rules, there's just my personal list:
    * Don't take defeat personal, take it as motivation to do better, and as a learning opportunity
    * Don't be too cocky when you win.

    Whenever I wiped somebody out or cleared a room, I made sure to send them a friendly message, making sure there's no hard feelings, and giving them hints and tips on what their weakspots were and how to improve or solve them.

    But other than that... All is fair in love and war...


  • Regardless of whether the player which determined your post is really doing this, the truth of the matter is that someone can indeed make use of the mechanism you describe to engage in noob bashing.

    It does feel like specific restrictions should be placed to limit such potential abuse.

    At the same time, should such a person be identified with clarity, it should without a doubt be reported to the development team.

    The community of this game is shamefully small and it's growth should be carefully nurtured.


  • Here is a classic article that is applicable just about everywhere, although based on "street fighter", and well worth reading http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub 


  • the truth of the matter is that someone can indeed make use of the mechanism you describe to engage in noob bashing.

    Yes, they can, but there is absolutely nothing to be gained from this and it isn't even "unfair", since that person has to respawn himself and start from scratch to do so. He has no advantage other than experience, and experience is what his target is gaining as well - very valuable experience at that. You won't get far in this game if you don't learn certain lessons early, or if you take being attacked personal, and blaming the other player.

    It does feel like specific restrictions should be placed to limit such potential abuse.

    There are. You are in a newbie zone that experienced players can't enter without restarting themselves, and you get walls that defend your room against everything for about a day. A day is more than enough time to spin up some defenses: a tower, some walls, that's very achievable IF you manage to optimize energy gathering to a somewhat useful level and organize the construction. If they do not manage to do that, they won't come far anyway. Instead of being salty about being attacked, people need to realize this is part of the game, and that they can learn from it and be better next time. Nearly everyone of the players that are now considered big went through those lessons.


  • Forgoing the OP. As I do believe a player can get a tower and walls up with the basic tutorial creeps + one repair/maintenance creep... which really should be added to the tutorial... just sayin.

    The rest of the posts... Do you actually believe you're "helping" a new player out with "valuable experience" by going and roflstomping them when they clearly don't know what they're doing yet

    Experience in a game like this is only gained from learning and understanding how the code works and how to make yours better. Popping in to find that you're dead... not exactly a learning experience
    I highly doubt most of the players who play to kill actually bothers to take the time to try and school the newbies in what exactly they were doing wrong to help them with their next spawn.

     

    Course in general, it really doesn't help that outside of throwing yourself into multiplayer, there's actually no way for you to test code outside of the sim room. And thats heavily limited by both the fact there's only 1 room, and you can't test any long running automation without leaving your machine running for possibly a few days. (something not possible for many people)

     

  • Culture

    > Do you actually believe you're "helping" a new player out with "valuable experience" by going and roflstomping them when they clearly don't know what they're doing yet?

    Here's the thing- most of us who saw this situation as it was unfolding do not believe the premise of that statement. We do not believe the person in question was "roflstomping", and that player has in fact "settled" on an area. That's why we've been addressing this more as "getting attacked is part of the game".

    Frankly, anyone who was spending their time "roflstomping" would quickly loss interest in the game due to an inability to advance or make progress, and eventually the people who were being attacked by this person will get better. As such this is really a nonissue- the behavior is easy to counter and there's no real evidence that the issue is even real to begin with.


  • I wasn't addressing the situation in the OP. I was merely pointing out that, thinking wiping out a newbie who clearly doesn't know what they're doing, is hardly a "valuable experience" as the person above me had posted.

     


  • I wouldn't do it. I can't/won't think of a rule/law/etc to put in place to stop it that would not hurt other players more.

     

    I re-spawned and immediately killed a newbie because his tower code wasn't prioritizing correctly. I sent him my tower code and explained why he died.