Thoughts on Kill Stealing and the Map Ownership System

Rule 5 of the Terms and Conditions clearly states that is illegal to

Engage in rude, unlawful, harassing, vulgar, obscene, hateful, threatening, abusive or otherwise objectionable behavior, including, without limitation, looting, kill stealing, making sexual comments; Punishment: 1st offence - 3 day ban, 2nd offence - 7 day ban, 3rd offence - permanent ban

However, it does not mention anything the map ownership system and this poses a problem because new players being ksed are unlikely to know the proper format to report someone for kill stealing because they are unaware that typing ~mapowner will show who owns the map. It can also lead to ignorant players being banned for kill stealing because they might afk temporarily for 3+ minutes in a map they have been training in for hours which leads to a transfer of map ownership.

Theoretically, I could find a Lv.120 Bishop killing a Manon and I could just kill Manon if he does not know how to use the map ownership system. Obviously, the Bishop would be pissed, frantically telling me to cc pls, and he might even file a report. Ultimately, I would remain unbanned because the proper format would not be followed because of the tedious requirements for reporting kill stealing. A GM would reply and link him the proper format for reporting kill stealing and he'll file a proper report next time.

The Lv. 120 Bishop would probably head back to find a Manon, angry. He might find another Manon and this time he'll have the knowledge to properly file a report. However, if someone comes in to steal his Manon, he might be forced to choose between dpsing Manon and typing the necessary information explaining map ownership, ksing, and telling the kser to leave. He'll have to choose between dealing enough damage to the Manon or having the kill stealer banned.

A Bishop who has been training at Skele for hours decides to afk temporarily to get water or go to the washroom. He comes back and he finds someone, let's say Akira attacking in "his" Skele map. He tells them to cc pls and some weird message saying "This map belongs to Akira". Akira tells the Bishop to change channel because it's her map now. The Bishop is obviously pissed because he was training in this Skele map for hours and suddenly someone is telling him to CC. He is probably unaware of the map ownership system and adamant that the Skele map belongs to him. He tells Akira to leave because it's his map because how many hours he's been pouring into the map. Akira files a report and since she is aware of the how the map ownership system works, the Bishop gets banned because of his lack of knowledge.

I think the map ownership system is an objective way to proper determine who is in the wrong and I have no problems with it. It is problematic for new players because the knowledge of how it works is absent from the T & C. Therefore, reporting someone for kill stealing is requires much more effort than reporting someone for other offences.

If I wanted to report someone for hacking, I would just SS it and post it on the forums (under the proper format).
If I wanted to report someone for harassing, I would just SS it and post it on the forums (under the proper format).
If I wanted to report someone for any offence other than kill stealing, I would just SS it and post in on the forums (under the proper format).

If I wanted to report someone who was killing stealing (probably in Manon), I would record a video while explaining to the offender how the map ownership system works, that I am the owner of the map and I don't want them in the map in any capacity and how staying would be in violation of the T & C and bannable for 3 days. Then I would upload the video to youtube, and post a report on the offender (under the proper format).

I think it's a bit ridiculous to have the person reporting the offender follow tedious guidelines because a proper explanation is warranted for a kill stealing ban. It says in the T & C that kill stealing is not allowed and yet any person who understands the map ownership system can abuse players who are unaware. The information about kill stealing shouldn't be found on the report abuse forums where players will only find out about the relevant information after filing a lacking report.

The onus should be on the offender to follow the rules. I suggest having the relevant information about the map ownership guidelines and the proper format for reporting kill stealing to be included in the T & C.

 

After reading this and thinking about it, it doesnt quite make sense to have to explain the rules to someone for a ks report to be valid. I understand that its ment to help players who dont know to understand that its against the rules to KS/loot, but then again they did agree to the T&C when registrering an account, so they should know already. When it comes to KSing at a map like petris, id try to explain the rules and all that before ~gming or making a report, because id try to solve the situation myself before involving any GMs, and i'd try to avoid banning a player who just didnt know better or didnt speak my language, but when it comes to manon that isnt quite as doable.

 

The KS reporting is fine when it comes to regular maps and I can see that change is required when it comes to boss maps because majority of the time the boss will be dead before you even explain all you need to.

This has been discussed before and staff did ask for solutions to the issue but as far as I'm aware nothing easier has been implemented.

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/can...ution-being-a-devil-to-kill-the-devils.71491/

Remember the changes to the KS reporting format was to protect people from being banned for absolutely nothing. Too many were being unfairly banned for ksing just for afking on a map or killing a couple of mobs while passing through a map. If you have solution that would prevent this occuring again then by all means share it.

 

Unless you're hacking or someone else played your character to 4th job, im pretty sure everyone is aware that KSing is not allowed by the time you get to the level you need to kill a manon anyway. People who actually do KS probably only do it because they know how the system works, and because they can abuse the fact that it takes way to much evidence for someone to get them banned in the first place, and they probs gonna get away with it 9/10 times.

 

Why should it take so much evidence to enforce a ban on someone for KSing? I mean surely "cc plz" is more than enough to let the KSer know you want them to change channel.

Take a look at this abuse report for example.

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/folkmusic-ksing-manon.76927/

There is a three minute video of someone KSing and he walks away free. If that is not sufficient evidence, then what is? Why does "cc plz" not qualify for evidence? The excuse of "Even, I think he still does not understand why your partner said he will get banned." does not settle right with me. Like you said @LonelyCloud, s/he should know by now that KSing is against the rules and should not be trying to abuse the fact that they haven't asking them to "change channel please, otherwise this is a bannable offence". It's pathetic. Clearly KSing and they walk away free. Why bother having a rule where only X people get caught.

Edit: Also ignorance isn't acceptable to avoid being banned. Actively not changing channel is still bannable regardless of which language they understand. If anything being banned will encourage them to read the rules. It shouldn't have to be a pain staking process to report and ban someone for breaking the rules.

 

We are in the process of rewriting the T&C completely to provide more clarity and create less loopholes in the rules, from what I've seen so far it will mention the usage of the ~mapowner command like you mentioned in your suggestion.

I also happen to notice that you and many other players mention the issues around Manon, and I'd like to share a tiny bit of information regarding this issue.
We have recently had a discussion among Staff members about the state of Manon and how there are multiple issues with the area boss as it currently is.
To deal with the issues around Manon we are considering some changes which would solve the Manon Cry droprate issue, the different item id issue regarding first time and repeatable version of Manon's cry and also the issue regarding killstealing on this map. If we are to go through with these changes we have considered, they will take some time to be fully implemented but it should be worth the wait. That's about all I can share regarding these few issues mentioned in this thread, but I hope it will suffice for the time being.

 

Rule 5 of the Terms and Conditions clearly states that is illegal to

Engage in rude, unlawful, harassing, vulgar, obscene, hateful, threatening, abusive or otherwise objectionable behavior, including, without limitation, looting,kill stealing, making sexual comments; Punishment: 1st offence - 3 day ban, 2nd offence - 7 day ban, 3rd offence - permanent ban>>>>>>>>>>>> If this is already specified in the T&C I don't see the need for people to have to explain that Ksing is a bannable offence in order to properly get someone banned. They are expected to have read this before when they agreed on T&C, so it is redundant and not always working like in this particular case of mine....

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/ksing-at-manon-forest.76560/

 

Unpopular opinion here, but Im of the mind of allowing KSing on non boss maps and let players settle the disagreements in game. I feel like GM's have too much of an influence on the communities back and forth with one another when it comes to handling KS issues. Feels like more often than not KS reports are written up because the person knows we ban for it, and instead of trying to resolve the issue, or heck just leaving the situation and finding another channel continues to escalate the situation as a way to get more dirt or pad the report they're inevitably going to fill out. Having everyone on the same level new or old removes the need to spend your precious time copy and pasting the ToS into chat in order for your KS reports to be valid and lets players handle the issues in game where the problems will more often than not blow over and people will move on.

Dealing with KSing at Boss maps is very different however. And id be fine if we kept the KS reporting on Boss maps the way it currently is. There is no room for mistakenly ksing on boss maps. It was never allowed on GMS or anywheres else. Losing half of a bosses XP because someone KS'd is a lot more impacting than if someone Gen'd a few times at Skelegons after a map was "sold" or someone took a break longer than 3 minutes.

I'm well aware this will never take place as many players would not like it. Just kind of how we used to manage ourselves on GMS a long time ago. Felt less painful then when we handled stuff on our own than it does around here sometimes with GM intervention.

 

Have Manon drop an entire map of Cries which can only be looted once by a player. Cries last for 10 minutes and announce to the server what channel it dropped on

 

that would cause lag probably, i think and hope they have something better in mind.

 

Yes, we most certainly have something better in mind than just dropping an entire map worth of quest items : )

 

But i enjoy watching a Boss explode into an entire map of goodies

 

I'm seeing that some people think saying "cc plz" or anything similar should be enough evidence of ks, but i think it should stay the way it is now. Just saying CC won't tell the ks'er what he/she is doing wrong or why he/she should cc. There is no rule against just being in someones map. If someone said "can you stop killing" or "can you stop attacking" it tells the ks'er what he/she is doing wrong and why you want them to cc or leave .

As a summery i think the requirements for a report are fine as they are now, minus the explaining the rules part. I'd still explain the rules to try to solve a ks'ing situation though, but this isnt as easy for boss ks'ing as many probably know

 

May I just quote this part and say that it isn't theoretical but had actually happened to another fellow player @jiejiefu https://royals.ms/forum/search/4133330/?q=jiejiefu&o=date This is probably happening to many other bishops who are helpless to the situation too.

I saw him camping manon channels for almost a week and was lvl 124 without genesis so I asked him what happened. He told me his manons got stolen (cry fell off map and helper didn't leave) and while he eventually tried to report, his first report was rejected because he didn't specify "KSing is bannable under the T&C", which is, in my humble opinion, not necessary at all. Seeing that "Royaltip" are always showing that already.

Like vitalemonade mentioned, in the video in his second report, he had to prepare the "required" statements by typing them out before he started killing the manon even though nobody was actively ksing him but simply because of how demanding a ks report requires and presumably he didn't want to lose dps if he got ks.

I'm highlighting jiejiefu's cases not because I want to bring up closed cases to have gms review them again or imply that gm(s)' actions on his cases were inadequate, I understand gm(s) was trying to be to be fair to everyone else who might have gotten their reports rejected similarly but the same requirements are very difficult to fulfil in boss maps.

The requirements for a ks report in boss maps needs to be shorten, having a must to say "ksing is bannable under the T&C of mapleroyals" shouldn't be necessary at all. "RoyalTip(s)" are already showing these "KSing is bannable..." messages, what's the difference of having a player saying it out? If multiple requests for someone to leave between a set time stamps are ignored completely, it clearly shows the person having intention to ks and should suffice for a punishment.

Also, I assume the purpose of the lengthy requirements in the first place is to prevent petty reports that only have screenshots to convincingly prove the kser had malicious intent in the first place. However, seeing screenshots may not show the entire story but video recordings may do so. If a person is recorded purposefully ksing a boss for a full minute while being repeatedly asked to leave (although not fulfilling the requirements) and yet, deliberately ignores the map owner, shouldn't he be punished based on a separate set of requirements (if not, gm's discretion perhaps?).

 

I believe if you are distracting enough, either by trading the owner, or even moving about and talking, you are breaking the rules. I can't find these written down at all other than here:

Now I know this isn't written in the T&C however I'm sure you could report them for not changing channel.

I don't understand why there is even a prerequisite for this type of behavior anyway. You don't need to warn someone before they scam you that scamming is against the rules. You don't need to warn someone before they bot that botting is against the rules. It's not the map owners fault if the KSer hasn't read the rules found on the very site they used to download the private server.

 

Just posting to say that my post Dervy quoted above is based off of a discussion on the cc rule in shoutbox. I don't think anyone could find such clarification anywhere else, but I was a part of that shoutbox conversation when a GM specifically told the people there that mapowner has the right to order people to leave for any reason. As I recall, that GM said mapowner could order even afk people to cc, but I highly doubt anyone would be banned if they were truly afk in someone else's map.

 

That was exactly my point when I told those guys "Please leave my map, I'm asking you to leave the map" and they ignored my warnings. Although I was not part of that conversation, I recall it.

 

This is something I simply don't understand. Under any other part of the T&C you don't have to explain why someone is being banned for what they did. But you have to for KSing? If you look at any ban appeal they'll ask if you have read the T&C regarding the thing that they did. So why do we as players have to explain? If it's our map and someone is attacking on it I don't need to explain why. It's my map. And I'm sorry if you don't know what ~mapowner is, then it's your fault for not reading the T&C.

 

The reason for the new report abuse format was to get rid of some loopholes, which were enabling people to abuse this rule in order get others banned, without them doing anything wrong. I believe that justifies the part of you actually having to provide proper evidence, consiting of multiple screenshots with timestamps or a video of someone ksing you, basically everything thats needed to report someone for ksing at the time except the part were you have to educate them on how ksing is against the t&c.

I'm guessing that the part were you have to tell the kser about how ksing is against the t&c, might have been added to the new format in order to educate people instead of banning them for their ignorance. This lead to a new loophole in favor of the kser (if the mapowner don't know what his report has to contain the kser gets away unpunished). In turn this loophole could've been justified by the fact that the mapowner will be told how to properly report someone for ksing untill next time. This way educating the whole server about ksing and how its against the t&c. Eventually this could lead to less people getting banned, less ban appeals and less people ksing. Is it working? I don't know I don't really read report abuse or ban appeal threads.

I think you as a mapowner should be able to just say stop attacking/leave my map after using ~mapowner command, followed by a couple of screen shots proving that the person is actually ksing you or stealing your drops at multiple occasions (not 2 seconds apart) in order to file a proper report and have the kser banned. The kser is not breaking the rules any less if he stays in the map when mapowner tells him to leave, than he would if the mapowner were to inform him about how ksing is against the t&c. Only difference is that the kser will not get punished for breaking the rules if you're just telling him to leave your map. Not knowing the rules doesn't mean that you're not breaking the rules, people should already know about the rules regarding ksing and if they dont I say let them have a ban, hopefully they wont do it again after that.

 

Okay I understand that. But How come I have to explain that KSing is according to the T&S? Why not just make it so that all the player has to do is say "KSing isn't allowed please cc" not go "According to the T&S you cannot KS please cc or i'll report you." It just seems like a lot and there's also the fact of losing your map during the time it takes to report. I'm suggesting that ~mapowner become a part of the KSing section of the T&S and if you don't know what ~mapowner means, that's on you man.