Kill Stealing is now 100% acceptable. Thoughts?

It is not just that. Ask yourself, would you even want DB involved in camp disputes?

Isn't it obvious? They find the cost of investigating and resolving each camp or mob stealing issue to be prohibitively expensive. They tried a software solution with the First to Engage software in hope it would remedy the situation. So they are not afraid to spend SOME money on the issue but the First to Engage had issues I guess.

Most games seem to rely on technological solutions to prevent cheating or bad behavior because it IS expensive doing it all with boots on the ground. When Sony had free labor to handle most of the camp stealing/mob stealing issues it was cost effective but labor laws in California changed that as I understand it.

Where I think Daybreak CAN be called out is that they try to act like DPS races are a good thing in a PVE type of game. That is NOT PVE, it is PVP to dps race. And not surprisingly, is not enjoyed by the majority of the player base in a PVE game. Daybreak doesnt want more player push to enforice Play Nice so they act like dps races are a good thing. NOT IN A PVE GAME. Regardless of the issues it may cause them I think they should be requesting and trying to help along the whole PVE mentality and not pit players against players as the solution. That is just my thoughts on it.

It would be one thing if they actually provided a decent customer service experience, but they literally don’t. They routinely close out tickets with real complaints without any usable justification. They also routinely suspend people things they didn’t do, complete ghost you, then realize they messed up, but refuse to compensate you for the time wasted. That’s my 2cents on the issue.

honestly if you played TLP when they did police kill stealing you don't want them involved. The only answer to kill stealing that has kinda worked was the one TLP.

Two things,

1. The OP left out all information regarding exactly what was in the original petition, it is entirely possible that what they described to the GM was not actually Kill stealing as it has always been defined by the company or most players, but instead camp stealing.
2. I think that the GM's statement doesn't make any sense and was actually a misstatement of the policy. Kill stealing has always been against the stated and posted policies of Daybreak in all current and previous iterations. The wording there sounds like they pulled something from the Oakwynd server responses and applied it to a standard server/FV. Killing the faster is no the standard server policy.

Your guildie lied and got a suspension for doing something else.

A "misstatement of the policy" ?? I have this EXACT gm reply (copy and paste) in my support log from 2021 when I turned in pieces to spawn an escort quest and a guild came in at the last second and "DPS raced" the final mob. I didn't even use the word kill steal in my original petition, i just asked if the DPS race rule also applied to spawned mobs that i escorted around a zone for 20 minutes before getting "raced" and it does. This has been their reply to any question that relates to anything about taking mobs for at least 3 years and probably longer.

if a mob isn't loot locked, it is available to DPS race. they had code to limit training and they took it out. behave accordingly

Interesting to have some kind of force field around your mob once engaged.

aye, I only had an issue where the program running a guys team ran and took my mob on a pull. That got verbally ugly as they KNEW they were program playing and didn't stop his auto pull. But as far as walking up to a mob at 80% I'm killing and their dps is faster then mine, yes I had that happen a few times but not many. The Play Nice rule is played. I wouldn't have any idea why anyone would take your kill unless botting. I would stick around with my cell to record their next moves... This is when I test the bot group Fun times. I'm not touching the players.. I'm playing nice!

Nothing wrong with disagreement and I totally take your point on self-policing, it's just far too tempting for some to behave like complete Richards in my experience.

I'd take a different view on your examples - I'd say that with the boosts that have come in to character power, 20 levels on older content is ~40 levels when it was current, you can walk through almost anything. My current pair are 72ish at the moment, with mercs I'm pulling 6-8 red mobs continuously in TBS, without really trying or paying much attention and at a burn rate that I can do it all day without medding - that's level appropriate. A level 95 in the same zone could probably pull several dozen mobs at a time, not a huge loss in effective power, but a nod in the right direction.

And farming mats - this is an example where it could be useful to boost the lower end of the economy. People who use the options and become still massively OP in power for a zone if they choose to level-down through alts / personas / shrouds etc can farm very effectively. For those that don't want to, they can pay other people in the bazaar, producing a small, natural uptick to the turnover in the economy. It may not be what you want / like - but was the game ever designed for one person to clear half a zone at a whim?

Only when they have achieved unlimited power, like Emperor Palpatine

I do get your point, and yes, it would be nice to have some sort of an economy based on selling lower level mats in the bazaar. I have tried, with mixed success, to sell some rare ingredients for maxing out the AP trade skills, but there isn't much of a market for it, at least on Vox. I think part of the problem is that people don't normally see these items for sale, so don't bother looking for them on the bazaar and instead just go farm their own items. I always try to look first, and get lucky sometimes, but that is a rare occasion.

Unfortunately, the game is so top-heavy on live servers that it really is just going in at max level and pulling an entire zone to slaughter.

When I started playing EQ I was on Rallos Zek. Such disputes were easily solvable on that server within the confines of the game. People had to play nice or they would be more than just socially shunned. There was a reason people considered Rallos Zek to be "bluer than the blue servers" in regards to civility. But... Since EQ abandoned any semblance of PvP balance I currently play on a "PvE" Live Server.

But if you think about it.. are "PVE" servers truly that or did the PvP just take on a different form..

Its not kill stealing isnt against the rules they just so lazy now they dont wanna do anything anymore eq is a shell of what it once was!

Alternatively... the expectation that you "own" a piece of a zone because you were there first is dumb.

...not if the game was designed around that mechanic. It's not an issue in WoW, Eve etc as it was never designed to be that way, but for 90%+ of EQ, zone and mob dispersal design was around... camps.

I don't think that the game was designed around a group owning a camp for 6+ hours where people just cycle in and out of the group and anyone not lucky enough to be in that group doesn't get a chance.

LOL. Not own. Using. If I am using a toilet stall it would be dumb for you to try and use it at the same time. That is dumb. And I doubt there is a law saying you cannot use the toilet stall at the same time it is just common sense and common courtesy. Thinking otherwise is dumb.

But this is exactly how we played in the early days. We would form a group at a camp and other players would come and go to the group as their playtime time allowed.

If you were in kindergarten and grabbed a toy first, then tried to tell everyone "you can't play with this cuz I grabbed it first" you would be told to share. And I doubt there is a law saying you cannot use the the toy all day it is just common sense and common courtesy. Thinking otherwise is dumb.

Metaphors are stupid, but if you were occupying the only toilet stall for 6+ hours and I had to pee... I'd 100% kick you right off that toilet.

How many things did the players do that the developers didn't expect or intend? Just because the players one group would control a camp for days on end with players rotating in and out doesn't mean that the devs actually intended it to be that way.