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I think you're misunderstanding what Tiur is saying there. I believe Tiur is saying that when he is looking through code and finds a command isn't force-protected which could be abused without consequence to the offender due to a lack of the problem being known, he finds that the situation has already been reported, or that no one has abused it. KICK not being force-protected is known, and there is already a rule in place that disallows someone to force another player to attack a guard in any way (not just specifically via kick). So your situation isn't one he is referring to.
It seems like the problem with what happened in that scenario you're describing isn't the problem with KICK not being force protected, but that a player disobeyed a rule and didn't get punished for it as severely as you felt was warranted while you felt like your complaint was shrugged off.
In a theoretical, say I find a way to FORCE the transfer of iron coins unprotected (highly unlikely). I would look up and find that it had either A: never been attempted, or B: has like 2 old bug reports I didn't see, and surrounding conversation is "That's just griefing and wrong, don't do that." being said. Whereas in my past experience with other communities, I would have only learned of its existence after an ISSUE.
But most people on Shadow know it's pointless to even voice these complaints. Regardless of how many negative scenarios and concerns we voice, we generally get brushed aside, kind of like what's happening with these last two posts. My complaints aren't valid because of additional circumstances (not sure what those were), and that we aren't -really- talking about how force is bad in -that- way, so we're going to ignore that you think force is bad.
This, again, in my opinion, circles back to Bulrok's initial complaint. It doesn't really matter what him or his tether does, in good faith or otherwise. He or his tether are always wrong or overreacting.
You interpreted that he said "The misuse of force abilities is never a big deal", whereas he was making an entirely unrelated point about undiscovered coding flaws and we were trying to clarify that for you because you had seemingly misunderstood what he was saying.
I don't really think it's appropriate to say the points are unrelated. Acknowledging that force is an abusable ability, whether it's through coding flaws or not, but then saying that it's fine because no one actually uses it that way, is a little odd. Drawing a line to say that forcing kick in a griefy way isn't technically breaking the code, so they must be separate things, muddies the waters on what Tiur has already admitted to in his previous post: Force is an abusable ability.
We have pointed this out in the past, we have asked for it to be addressed, and we have been denied and brushed off, much like is happening now. Perhaps instead of spending time to find instances were force is abused, Tiur could simply remove the abusable mechanic that has had complaints lodged against it for a while now.
You're trying to rebut my posts with a technicality, that Tiur meant a certain thing in a specific way and therefore I am misrepresenting. Ironically, the whole point of my post is to show that Shadow complaints (or at least mine) are brushed aside.
But again, I don't want to be too off topic by discussing an issue that has been brought up and ignored for probably around a decade now, which is why I try to circle back to Bulrok's intial post. So I'll try to summarize the point of my posts:
Tiur said force can be abused, but it isn't and isn't that great? I gave examples of when it has been abused, just not in the exact way Tiur meant. I used my personal experiences to show how these sort of concerns are often brushed aside or dismissed, and how that can lead to at least some players on Shadow feeling that some sort of bias exists. My point of abusability is ironically ignored because, technically, that's not what Tiur meant.
The problem I'm having now, admittedly, is that this only loosely ties in with Bulrok's initial post, and I'm not trying to get too off topic, for fear that the spirit hivemind (or "groupthinkers" since I've seen that term thrown around on here a bit) will come out to click disagree or off topic or flag, so they can then pat themselves on the back for another successful defense of the horribleness of shadow players.
This is not helpful and is exactly why we have this "tether tribalism". You already see the other side as being full of horrible people who are out to get you and are creating situations for yourself where you can paint yourself as the victim. No, this doesn't prove your point. It just proves that the solution to "tether tribalism" starts by looking at ourselves and wondering what we can do to stop it (and this includes me and all of my friends too).
My old character started on Spirit tether, granted it was a very long time ago. Before the tether mechanic even existed. I have, or at least had, quite a few friends on the Spirit tether. But the last time I came back to play, I found that some of the people I could claim as friends I suddenly couldn't, and it felt that this "tether tribalism" (a new term to me, btw) is what pulled them away from me. Simultaneously, I had enjoyable interactions with new people on Spirit during this time, despite what was going on at the time.
I'm far from perfect, I know that. I don't really mind taking the hits and having my points ignored, especially since I find the idea that I would be claiming victimhood hilarious, since I have been an agressor around as often as the victim. What I really ask for is fair play, and actual consideration of concerns instead of dismissiveness. Maybe I'm not in a position to do that? I don't know. I am willing to look at myself and consider that maybe my complaints should go ignored. But it's tough to do that when other people that I would consider more rational and reasonable than me (and Bulrok, to be fair), also have their complaints go ignored.
I think evidence of people taking your advice and looking at themselves will become apparent as we actually start to do it. I personally would love to see it happen, especially if it means writing less posts.
my previous character fell victim to this a lot. before i retired her, she was extremely active, a feared PKer, GM overseeing the resurgence of a very old shadow-tether guild that now no longer exists (guess who i am lol). the more """important""" my character was, the more it seemed like her behavior got read into on all sides.
for example, in the lead-up to some events where my behavior was utterly indefensible, Tiur approached me to say there were concerns in the pools that i tend to 'take over' or 'dominate' events, and so he wanted to give me a heads-up that he'd authorized them to remove me (or others) for 'making trouble'. i asked for clarification about what behavior was the problem, but ultimately, he kinda just peaced out. i was left to scratch my head.
you may wonder - well, what went wrong there? in my opinion, a couple things.
first, there were no specifics given. if we want to see behaviors changed, we need to be able to speak about the specifics. making general statements that someone is dominating without pointing out *how* they're dominating is likely to leave them guessing about what they need to fix.
second, and relatedly, there was no attempt to question the assumption that i was intending to be disruptive. sure, we can't always know what people are thinking, and sometimes it doesn't matter. however, if i'd been asked whether i understood that X behavior came across as dominating, i would've been shocked and apologetic. it's part of my personality or way of thinking about things that, even if i don't *mean* some particular offense by something i'm doing, i will almost always stop and apologize when i'm told it's bothering people (see, for example, my post earlier in this thread about the time i was solo defiling shrines). if you don't ask the question, though - if you just accept the assumption that someone is deliberately misbehaving - it closes you off to being mollified, and it puts the accused in a defensive posture by default. sometimes you need to be willing not to be angry, or to be wrong about what someone is meaning, in order to productively move forward.
[[N.B. i'm not using this example to air some personal grievance as, for me, this particular occurrence is in the past, and besides, how i reacted was way more of a problem. i'm also not trying to pick on Tiur - who i genuinely believe is nice and trying his best. i mainly chose this example because, well, i know my experiences best, so i talk about them rather than guessing at others' experiences. the other reason is that i think we sometimes need to remember that the Pools are part of the community - they need to remember this when they think about and act toward regular players, but we also need to remember that in our own behavior.]]
anyways, i see both these things a lot in how we relate to each other. it comes up across tether the most, i suppose, but i've even experienced it with people on my own side (notably, i was once accused of being a megalomaniac dictator for my character sending a message to three members of my guild requesting to talk to them about a city decision they'd been involved with). if we could simply speak to each other, though... well, who knows? i think there's a lot of value in honestly, non-aggressively saying "i feel x when you do y" and hearing what the other person has to say about it without trying to perform armchair psychoanalysis or being completely, utterly certain we know their motivations.
just, like, give each other the benefit of the doubt as much as possible. ask questions without without assuming you know the answers. when you do have a problem, be specific so someone who has a good faith desire to fix things can actually act on the conversation rather than feeling like they've gotta walk on eggshells because they don't know what the issue really is.
and for the love of god, if all the above is a bit much and you only take one thing away from all this, remember that i'm just a giant goofball. i never, ever start out malicious, so please tell me if you're hurt or upset by something i'm doing ICly, because that's 1000000% not what i'm about.
EDIT: If you want to know how that's relevant, it's this: that's not an expectation I would make at all if I were a PvPer thirsty for PKs going to gank someone. If I jump someone like Swara, who does go to lessers on the regular, but doesn't sect, in an open PK zone, I am going to fully expect her to run away/call for backup - yes, even though I know she essentially opted into being PK'd when she did whatever she did to gain aura, because rarely do the things that get you these auras necessarily need to involve PK - they just invite it. I'm not going to expect a 1v1, and I feel this kind of determination should be common sense and very easy to make to anyone who PKs or fights to the degree Mazzion and I do. To see that someone did NOT have this expectation tells me that people on the other side of the game, or who even people on my side that I don't talk with a lot, have wildly different ideas of what's acceptable and what's appropriate, ideas that I can't possibly guess.
No where in Mazzion's post does he state "I expect non-coms to 1v1 me." To try and frame his message as that is just... I don't know. Mazzion explicitly states "I think there is a mentality now that any form of losing is toxic, and most people will do anything to avoid it. A couple of examples." He's suggesting in the context of conflict (particularly this war), people are going to the extreme lengths to avoid losing. He then goes on to list his examples and specifics to highlight that while he was acting in good faith to engage his aggressors, few afforded him the same. The reason why this matters goes back to the context of what Benedicto said earlier and what Mazzion prefaced everything with: He's basically saying that the aggressors aren't acting in good faith for a number of reasons and that this could have been handled much better for the betterment of everyone involved.
And to put everything into perspective for those that still don't quite understand. Orders can have a max of 100 shrines. 6 Templars simultaneously going around destroying shrines at 5 per to complete a task means at the VERY LEAST, the guild is destroying 30% of the Order's total shrines. More if the Order did not have the max shrines erected. This hits even harder when the Order in question wasn't the aggressor nor the numbers to directly field the assault. Regardless of Benedicto's intent, I can see why the optics look bad and why Shadow might be upset and feel the Templars are bullying one of theirs. That said, I disagree with Mazzion on the Order's ability for recourse. Iosyne's forces shouldn't self-handicap and engage the guild alone. Defiling a shrine grants an aura and while under that aura, outside of holy wars someone correct me if I'm wrong, you're open PK. Granted, in our culture it's generally in bad taste to involve yourself outside of the offended order but I think in this instance where the guild outnumbers the Order and is hitting hard, it's perfectly valid and okay for the Order to call in the cavalry to curbstomp the participants of that guild.
I don't know how you can read that and get anything but 'wildly different expectations'. If that was an example of 'any form of losing is toxic', then I think it's a terrible example. Explicitly, he's stating that because people who don't fight on the regular don't 1v1 him, that that was toxic, and that's 'doing anything to avoid losing'. Really? The only person he cites as 'respecting' because they did stand and fight was Benedicto, and guess what? He's someone who Sects, who can be expected to ENJOY PK. But all the people who might not enjoy it as much, or 1v1 at least, they're toxic for not standing and fighting when they have absolutely no plausible chance of beating him 1v1? To go into something and expecting behavior that you should not reasonably expect, and then calling out the other people and disparaging for it is really bad form in my opinion.
I know you (@Haven) enjoy diving hopeless odds when you don't even have a chance for success by any definition (Carnifex training in Bloodwood/Tiyen Esityi, that one lesser near Spines), but I'm confident in saying that the majority of Aetolians prefer to have some chance of success before going into a fight. I'm confident in saying this based on the number of times I've seen spirit or shadow dive wildly outnumbered fights - on shadow side, I've seen Hawa poke around a few times and Nerakh once or twice just plain bum rushed us solo 3 times over. On our end, I've seen you and me, and I'm not going to solo dive unless I have a real solid plan and think I can snag a kill (a success, by some definition). But I do not think this is a common way of thinking, nor do I think that it should be misrepresented as 'you should be willing to throw yourself to the wolves to satisfy someone else' or that people should be implicitly judged for it, as it seems like a lot of people in this thread seem to be doing. No one likes losing, and to expect people to just fling themselves into the jaws of defeat to satisfy you is supremely arrogant and dickish.
When he says 'there is a mentality now that any form of losing is toxic', he's not saying those that don't engage him 1v1 are toxic. He's saying because people view the act of losing as toxic, they in turn then do anything they can to avoid it. Whether his examples are good/bad for the point is up for debate. And while the example does involve 1v1, the message wasn't about his ego.
Also, I don't play really but can I point out coming as a combatant who was midling at best, that was expected to be antagonistic because they played a tether and had a role that required them to be, I went in on things ALLLL the time that I was not going to win.
The game would probably be more fun for everyone involved if people stopped worrying about it as a win/lose and instead approached it from the angle of a story. Which... is a tall order since the majority of the game does not actually play this as an RP game. Instead it's endless king of the mountain and people get upset when they lose since there's no story line being told.
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I mean from what I can tell here is the story thus far:
Templar's went after Iosyne's order and destroyed close to 30% of the shrines erected across Sapience dedicated to her. Her order was caught off guard, shamed and angry! Her Bloodletter went after those who sinned against Her, sending them fleeing back to their homes to garner help, but this was not enough to sate the blood thirsty, Maliveolent worshipers. No, they wanted more, the Templar would pay!
Word spread and many who had cocooned themselves away in the dark places they go felt the call for blood, a cry for war and awakened for a chance to worship as only the Malevolent's know how. Their sights were set on Damariel, the Templar's patron as a measure to side step the politics of protection city's often provide their citizens and guilds alike.
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When I look at it from a story angle, it's interesting! The Templars went after Iosyne's order during a time when not many were around, and low and behold, they woke a sleeping giant. I logged on and saw like SOOOOOO many names I hadn't seen in forever; so cool! I logged off because actually this entire story is getting metagamed to all hell because the players are reactionary and can't handle the stress of pvp; so uncool!
A million times this.
Kind of a spoiler but ultimately, it is via cross-tether RP that this will all be brought to a close. Both parties, the Templar and Iosyne's Order have been amazing and in the privacy of communication between the two orgs, we've settled on an amazing conclusion. Oddly, the people who you would think would be the most angry and indignant at what I chose to do have actually been the most chill about it and have been great via both an OOC and IC medium.
I mean, hell's bells, @Mazzion even called me 'Fish and Chips!' again - that's not happened for a couple of years! (Completely OOC reference to me being British) and we've been reunited as 'Ed & Ted' (don't ask). @Tatia has also been utterly fantastic and a delight to work with.
ETA: i hope it's clear that this is tongue-in-cheek. so, SO tongue-in-cheek.