It's not stealing....it's sharing

Ok...so this has been a thing for a while, and it came up during another thread so I figured I'd bring it up on it's own thread.

Why do some players feel like other players 'assisting' with what they are doing is 'stealing'? Mainly referring to when one person is fighting a fight, and a 2nd person grabs an objective. Oh, don't get me wrong, there is 'stealing' or 'freeloading' in game (i.e. squatters in the stablizer duo....people who just stay in the 1st room of an Event run...or move slightly but don't really participate), but I'm talking about outdoor or event content where someone can walk up and assist in what you are doing.

The 2 big examples:
1) Event outdoor things like the pots of gold, X-Mas trees, Star Sapphire crystals...etc. If person A and person B both roll up around the same time and get some hits in, then person B touches whatever the objective is to finish the job, both A and B get credit. Even if person B doesn't work very hard, or is in a non-damage role, if they are getting some hits in, and picking some items up, it assists person A if even slightly.

2) Outdoor mission objectives. These have been here since game launch with green lantern missions to protect the recruits or defusing Joker bombs or whatever...If person A is knocking out the goons that are on whoever we need to protect, or whatever gear we need to press, and person B presses that gear, both get credit. The more recent DLCs (starting with WoL1 I believe) we started seeing the daily missions where they were in open world every day. While there might be 1 or 2 examples where someone could actually 'steal' something, in most cases it's just a matter of who gets there first, not a person being busy with a fight, then a 2nd person grabbing the objective out from under them. Picking up the Manhunter parts is one of those as they are lying about, not particularly tied to a group of adds you must fight before the grab. The minefield mission in AF1 is another. Again, that's not really 'stealing' as it is 'sniping' and someone getting to the switch faster than the other.

I wasn't going to comment on this except last night I was running a farming toon and was doing the Atlantis cages mission. I came to the area and started hitting some adds near cages...another guy was also working on the same adds. He still had some non-guard adds on him, so I grabbed the gear and I"m positive we both got credit...I then get a message 'Axehole' sent to me (but not Axe). I say back 'you know we both get credit, right?' to which I get told I'm being lazy and stealing his cages. Ok, so besides the fact that I was jumping in and also doing damage (although not as much as he was I'm sure), should I just leave the cage be until it times out if he retains his agro? Better to get no credit I guess, right?

What's your feeling on this? Stealing or sharing? I'm fine with anything that gets things done faster, so even if I'm killing all the guards and you are just grabbing the cages, be my guest, as long as I also get credit. I personally enjoy it when someone else and I roll up on an objective and don't need to group, or even send a message that we will be working on it together (and yes...even if they are a villain), it's a MMO...isn't it?

Reinheld

Meh, they are not worth your time Reinheld. Ignore them and keep "stealing" their objectives while they take the time to sit there and qq to you via tells. lol. All the time they sit there crying via typing to you, they could spend finishing their objective up and moving on to the next one.

For me it’s all about the result rather than the principle; If we both get credit it’s sharing, if not it’s stealing. Usually the developers are pretty good at programming in joint credit so I don’t mind most of the time personally.

The only time I mind if someone else rolls up is when they pop the whole damn pot of gold when I just started it...

^^ Me when I see someone coming near my pot of gold in Metropolis. Thankfully I do not see hardly anyone ever because I do all my open world stuff in the PVP phase but it does happen from time to time. lol.

me thinks - the other player is selfish AND self centered
AND really doesn't understand how the game works...

but I also think their nonsense is spreading as they tell each other and convince each other their truth is true

and me thinks it'll get worse - since these are usually younger players or first time players and the delusion spreads...

it's like having to have all the roles for 4 man alerts - when in fact you don't need to... you need smart players...

count yourself among the smart and you can keep venting - maybe the devs will notice and really make ignore work, as well as task force x disabled, etc. etc.

I ignore them and keep going.

I love doing that. Obviously there more people around makes getting the golden coins one by one (a few taps at a time) inefficient.

depends, definitely stealing if it's something like the atlantean citizen mission (defeat a guard and assure a citizen) as players DON'T both get credit for those, so if somebody accidentally "snipes" the citizen thinking both get credit, it's definitely stealing as they don't. green lantern/sinestro corps outside of cao dam and city hall is closer to griefing as only one faction can get credit (who ever defeats the opposite factions recruit first gets the kill credit) so if you're hero and trying to keep up a green recruit or villain and trying for yellow, either of the opposite factions can ruin each of the other sides' individual objectives. both mind sets are equally detrimental, but only one of them (thinking every mission and objective is a "social" or "group" effort) is occasionally harmful, not by much but it's still inconveniencing at times. my general rule of thumb is if it doesn't say "need X" amount of players by it, i usually just do it solo, including the "kill X" amount of mobs missions, npc hunting season just opened up and i'm going for a critical XD.

For me, it's not stealing but it's also not sharing. It'd be sharing if I did something like inviting a person to group up to do it.

The vast majority of the content that gets the "stealing" complaints is something that can be (and in many cases is intended to be) run by a solo player. It's also content that tends to have a lot of spawns available in large part because of the "can be/is intended to be run by a solo player" nature. That way there's much less of a chance of selfish players monopolizing a small group of spawns and keeping other players from being able to participate.

Speaking personally? I don't need or particularly want any help when running that kind of content. It's freaking. Solo. Content. Players that jump in on seasonal spawn points that I'm working on or mugging NPCs in open world areas annoy the living daylights out of me because their efforts tend to disrupt what I'm trying to do or how I choose to handle the spawn/NPC. And even though I know that in most circumstances we both get credit it ends up feeling like they're just leeching off of my own efforts, even if that wasn't their intent. Finally, the aggravation ramps up because they jump on what I'm doing (sometimes swarming in like locusts) when there's plenty of spawns to be had all over the place, sometimes covering the length of a whole city like Metropolis or Gotham.

So no, it's not stealing or sharing. For me, it's rude, disruptive, annoying, lazy and completely unnecessary and the only thing that keeps my frustration in check is thinking about how bent out of shape some of these folks would be in games where the person who first tapped the spawn would be the ONLY one to get credit.

That is incorrect. As long as you are beating on the guy guarding/harassing the citizen, you will get credit if someone grabs it off you. I run into this often and have no issue continuing to the next guy to beat up the baddie while someone is grabbing my citizen, I'll see the counter pop when the civ is grabbed.

And you can say 'well it didn't for me' which is fine...I can't prove otherwise, but I've run this enough to know that it counts for both as long as you get some shots in on the baddie...same for the cages, and I'd guess the 'kill acolytes/kill lieutenants, although there is no pickup in that scenario...only killing. The propaganda screens?....maybe not there as the guys by those are not specifically guarding them...I guess there a 'steal' is a thing. Personally I try to avoid the fight and just grab the screen from behind or pop a shield grab and go, so I can't say I've noticed one way or the other.

Yeah...that's greifing or just negligence of the impact to the opposing side. And yes...it's not the same thing. I'm talking about issues where the goal is the same "help X....pick up Y...knock out Z"

Reinheld

unfortunately that's not how the "defeat 10 atlantean guards and save citizens" works, only assuring the citizen counts in that case.

For me, as long as both get credit, its sharing. In Atlantis, I can easily defeat the cage protectors fast. I go down the line and let other players just activate the cage. Its a win-win for both since I dont have to go back and activate the cages. Plus, my supercharge gets charged up. The other Atlantean mission for the brine fish, I dont care if I activate and carry it into the pen. If the other guy wants to take my fish to the pen and get credit, so be it. I can just continue to capture the brine. That is a team effort, even though we are not grouped. Again, as long as we both get credit, I dont mind it.

The only downside are the idiots during the St. Patrick Day seasonal event, when they decide to unload all of the coins and then run away or just stand there. And the HL mission sucks if a different faction is there doing the same thing.

No, wasn't losing sleep over it. The topic came up in another thread, so I followed it up on it's own thread here. Funny thing is the guy also made fun of my alt's name which is something very 'junk toon' like asdfasdfasdf (couldn't spell it if I needed to)....duh, it's a junk farming toon. Me - "I'm so stung you don't like my name, but at least this is a junk alt on one of my premium accounts....your crappy name is on your 'main' toon more than likely"...no reply.

Reinheld

Again...I believe you are wrong....you believe you are right (incorrectly), I don't have a way to 'prove' it to you. It works just like the cages as long as you are hitting the guy harassing the citizen or guarding the cage. Other adds in the area don't count but obviously can get mixed up in the fight.

If you want to shoot me a message later when I'm on and we can test...I'm sure I'll have the mission today as I run on a bunch of toons.

Beside the point though, even assuming it worked the way you thought, and yes...in that case it would fall under 'stealing'... the majority of outdoor missions are the ones were it counts for both regardless of who makes the grab.

Reinheld

When I do relics, I would leave the last hit for the one behind me, after hitting it he flies away and lets me pick up all 3-4 for him, so that tells me he knows how it works. When I follow him to ht next box, he has already broken it and is picking up the pieces even though Im standing next to him. When I see the same guy on the next treasure box, I break it and take everything inside to "return the favor". So I don't mind sharing as long as the person isnt an idiot. If you're an idiot, I'm an idiot as well, its as simple as that.

that's just it though, while it's a negligible impact, the idea that "groups are necessary for everything" and "We all get the credit regardless" is indeed inconveniencing to a degree, an acute degree but a degree nonetheless. you indeed DON'T get the credit if the person activates the citizen far enough away (with guards sometimes going quite a bit past the citizen in either direction). i could just as easily ask you why you "need" this group mentality to be correct?

I only consider it stealing when , if I remember correctly, they reach every single interact button beore you and you don't get credit. So say someone is near me doing pots of gold or treasure chests. I won't get credit for that group/bundle until I get one of them. If by chance I miss every cog due to luck or being outnumbered. I've had like 3-4 straight treasure chests I've had "stolen" by groups during reset days.

sorry about the multiple snips there. I agree with much of what you said: it's an MMO, peeps should get used to other peeps being around doing stuff when you are doing stuff. Sometimes it's assisting, sometimes it's sharing. But two simple points:

1)Sometimes it IS stealing.
on the ps4, the help 10 citizens stop being bullied quest is an example of stealing. It doesn't matter who kills the bully, it only counts for the one person that talks to the bullied citizen after the bully is defeated. I've had hoodlums follow me around on that quest, and steal the citizen after I beat the bully.

2)Sometimes, peeps don't want "assistance"
some of the content, I would much rather just chill out, relax a little, and do it solo. I actually preferred to casually do the treasure chest scavenging solo, and when no one else was around. Much more peaceful, even if it took a little longer.


But yeah, generally speaking, a fellow should not be upset about "shared or assisted" stuff.
If someone else is stealing, though... or harassing you... that's a different story.

I'm all for that... as long as it isn't directly negatively impacting someone else's gameplay.