Implement in Future Possible solution to town owner abuse

[Magpieman]

There has been much discussion about town owners taking items from new joins and kicking them out of the town. While we have lots of protection for those who own towns, which is designed to encourage them to recruit players, we have very little to protect the players joining these towns. Bellow is a recent thread on the topic.

https://lokamc.com/forums/index.php?threads/town-owner-abuse.3652/

The best solution I could come up with is to make it so players keep inventory when killed by a town member within the town. Betraying your town is against the rules so there is no reason you should be able to kill a member and take their items unless you are the owner. If you are the owner and someone has taken something they shouldn't, you can pop a report in and an admin can recover the items under the town betrayal rules since the owner technically owns the contents of the town. (this is much easier for admins to track and make a decision on compared with making a rule where owners can't steal from players who are new to the town or members can keep their things when they leave the town)

The main issue I could see with this is if you are being raided. You and your town members could kill each other to avoid the raider from getting their items. This does seem like a fairly edge case situation.

Would like to hear others thoughts and if there are any other pro's or con's I have missed.

 

[MasonMcBadbat]

I haven't seen the insta-killing of players as they join a town happen to anyone that I know of. I think the posts that have come up recently have been more about repossession of items.
(Correct me if I'm wrong Otaku)

So the issue I figure lies in cases like Teyuh, who joined Silverhand for some short time. When he kept his items in storage, they were taken by the owner, and there's not much to be done about it. The self regulation by the community theory didn't hold up in this situation because Teyuh was considered part of the enemy faction. And so the repossessing faction as a whole wouldn't care or would even promote the action. And what more can the opposing faction do? They already shun one another to an extent, being on opposing sides. Not to mention that MrP conducted the repossession and he's a guardian now. So it's pretty clear that letting the community sort it out doesn't counter that behavior.

Having no item drop for member vs member killing could definitely help in combating those insta-kills but I don't see it being the more prevalent of the two cases.

 

[DeceitfulPear]

I haven't seen the insta-killing of players as they join a town happen to anyone that I know of.

There was an event a few weeks ago in which this happened, I would say what happened but since Otaku refrained from using names, I feel that I should as well. But there was a case in which someone befriended to lure them into accepting an invitation to a town and once they arrived with an inventory of shulkers containing what was supposedly a year worth of possessions, they were killed and instantly removed from said town.

All cases though that have been said I feel are few and far between and I honestly don't have much of an idea on HOW to solve this but I at least agree that it is a problem that I think should be solved if at all possible

 

[OtakuBookWorm]

I am very glad to see this suggestion. I think it's a fine one and definitely a step in the right direction. I know as the person brought up by Pear's response that with this it will at least be safe for people to know that they won't lose their things instantly. This will also add so much trust back into the community since the worst feeling on a server is feeling unsafe in your town.

 

[ModernMozart1787]

Would like to hear others thoughts and if there are any other pro's or con's I have missed.

Magnus, High King of Hyrule and Emperor of Grammar

 

[marblesack12]

Item ownership is definitely a tough topic to tackle. We've parted with a lot of great and not-so-great town members over the past year and a half, and it has been difficult almost every time. It is easier for newer players to the server, just set them up with a bit of a severance package and send them on their way to another town which hopefully fits better for them. For older players, however, who bring in their own personal items, it can get tricky to sort out what belongs to them and what belongs to the town when it is time for them to move on.

I think that's probably why it is left up to owners to decide: it's a bit of a mess. If owners part ways in a not-so-awesome way, word gets out and bridges get burned, so there is some pressure on town administration to keep things above the board. Shoutouts to Mason for his long memory, but I imagine that if I joined old Stromgarde with even the chance of having lore in my inventory, I would never see it again. Free advice for anyone reading this: If you wanna join enemy towns as a meme, keep your gear out of your invent.

Intra-town keep on death is an interesting idea, and it solves the issue of towns ganking new members and sending them on their penniless way, which is nice. But I think it may just introduce more headaches than it fixes. Here are some problems I foresee.

Firstly, town betrayal is a big deal, at least to me. Without the ability to peek into a sketchy players inventory, I have at times had to resort to killing them to check if they are stockpiling, stealing, or misusing town resources. I can't imagine the admin team would be very pleased or very effective at checking player inventories on-command, with no context, in real-time. Without the ability to check their invent via killing,

Also, his change would introduce a new, faster way to get to spawn. Instead of travelling through town to get to a portal, we could all just gank each other to get there faster. Taking an exp hit just doesn't matter that much with this server's economy.

Finally, the raiding issue Mag mentioned. I really don't think it would be an edge-case scenario. It would be the optimal way out in a lot of circumstances to just drop fellow town members to ensure inventory protection. Raiding would get a lot less enjoyable if everyone who had a friend nearby permanently has the equivalent of a recall stone.

Anyway, all these problems are probably easily workshop-able. Glad to see everyone taking issue with this problem in the first place, and thanks for brainstorming solutions admin team.

 

[OtakuBookWorm]

I think you have a great opinion to this marble and definitely brought more issues with the implementation of this. However, I've mentioned this on the forum I posted, not everyone thinks the same way you do. As much as I'd like to say, people will follow the moral code of letting their old town members take their stuff even if they leave on bad terms. There are plenty people who believe that it's their right to hold onto others things even if they haven't town betrayed because of the issues that have gone on between the two.
I do agree with you, however, that someone should not be taking all of their important belongings into an enemy town even if for a meme. It's an idea that most should have that if you're not starting long term, do not take your items with.
I do think that the killing to get to spawn may become an issue, but I know even if you may not value the amount of xp you have on you there are also plenty of people who do. Mtn for example always seems to have large amounts of xp on him. I don't think someone can be so care free onto how much do they lose. At a certain point, there is a idea that you can't lose your levels. And not even that I'm sure people could already use that strategy with just killing a town member and then the other places their items in a g chest.
Finally, I will move onto the raiding point cause why not. I know from experience that when you're getting raided your first response is not to go to spawn but rather hide in a building (or try to fight them off if you deem yourself a good pvper). I cannot say what people may do in the future, but as of right now, I don't think people immediately think of going to spawn whether it be by ganking or town portal. There's also the fact that people generally place radars outside their town since the territory around your town is the first to be claimed. It's a way of knowing which plan you want to do. Go to spawn or hide.
Now I'm going to stop rambling on whatever thought comes to mind. I really do enjoy everyone's feedback. It's the feedback that makes the solution better.

 

[OperaGhost2004]

As I have been an owner of two towns before, I think that town betrayal would be a large problem with this. Several times, I've had to kill players who took from other's chests, just to get their items back for them. I think that if you don't want to lose your stuff, you should join the town of someone you know very well, or simply make your own town. the best solution, as I see it, is to just be careful what towns you join.

 

[Walkers]

As I have been an owner of two towns before, I think that town betrayal would be a large problem with this. Several times, I've had to kill players who took from other's chests, just to get their items back for them. I think that if you don't want to lose your stuff, you should join the town of someone you know very well, or simply make your own town. the best solution, as I see it, is to just be careful what towns you join.

Admins can help retrieve items in cases of town betrayal and stealing items.
You also cant expect new players to 'join the town of someone you know very well' or 'simply make your own town'. They should be able to join towns without being abused and having their items stolen.

 

[DFG1125]

Also would like to note that you can't always rely on reporting something. Some of these situations could be time sensitive, and let's be real. It can take a long time to get a report answered which is very annoying and bothersome to me as an owner or member who reported a player stealing stuff and then leaving town/never logging back on.

 

[OtakuBookWorm]

Also would like to note that you can't always rely on reporting something. Some of these situations could be time sensitive, and let's be real. It can take a long time to get a report answered which is very annoying and bothersome to me as an owner or member who reported a player stealing stuff and then leaving town/never logging back on.

In that case, there is discord that you can always contact an admin. They tend to be very fast at responding. In a case of town betrayal, I highly suggest you message an admin rather than making a report and waiting. There is rarely time admins aren't at least online on discord. If they aren't, it's a time that rarely anyone is on to begin with.

 

[Skuhoo]

Call me lazy but I prefer less work over more work if the less work option just requires common sense on the part of the players.

 

[OtakuBookWorm]

Call me lazy but I prefer less work over more work if the less work option just requires common sense on the part of the players.

Sure, I agree this can all be solved by common sense. Don't kill and steal from your town members when they leave. However, people aren't very sensible when clouded by their emotions. There are a lot of people I know on Loka who believe that because of a disagreement or something that may have accidentally gone wrong, they have the right to hold onto their belongings. Then, there are always the untrustworthy that somehow seem to keep luring people into trusting them. You can't change them because they find it fun. You can try to warn people about the sneaky ones, but they somehow still get a grasp on others. My point is, you can't expect everyone to be perfect and somehow regulate things that happen in other's lives. People make mistakes. We're supposed to learn from those mistakes, but we can't learn from them if it's always a different person experiencing the abuse who are either unknowing or ignorant. It's the endless cycle of new victims.