Getting rid of ALT+BS.

[Spuz]

Im unsure on how difficult it would be to get rid of this. But from, a hardcore perspective I feel this should not be a thing. Not to mention it causes uneeded drama within and outside of Hardcore with other players.

In situations for example:

• When the party crashes and your left alone in a quest impossible to solo the /lobby command would still be there to utalise.
  
• If people really want to RQ or get out of said group/party because of toxicity they can utalise the /lobby command.
• Logging out can still be done via the main menu (F12>Disconnect).
• Closing the login screen can still be done via 'exit game'

There is literally no need for ALT+BS and I know alot of people would agree that it isn't what they see as hardcore, and as it can save your scape (ALT+BS upon dying due to scape having a 2 second time to revive or w/e) it should not be allowed. If as a compromise it was able to be blocked from in a party only this would also be acceptable.

There is also other approches like.. some sort of machanic which makes you loose your doll even if you ALT+BS or somthing. I just feel doing nothing about it can give people the impression its acceptable when it should not be.

 

[emoticon]

This is a problem that's plaguing the server for a long time now, so I agree that something should be done sooner rather than later.

The problem: Upon death, a Hardcore player can alt+backspace (or /lobby with shortcut) to avoid consuming a Scape Doll.

Why this is a problem:

• It's an exploit that defeats the purpose of Hardcore mode.
• Players who abuse this inconvenience other players in their games by quitting early.
• Abusers tarnish the reputation of HC players as a whole, discouraging partying with HC players.

Possible solutions:

1. Remove alt+bs and /lobby. While this would make it more difficult to abuse the exploit, it would still be possible to force quit or disconnect from the game upon death. This would also inconvenience non-abusing players by removing QoL functionality.
2. Make the game consume the Scape Doll instantly upon death. This is probably the cleanest solution, with the least collateral damage, but it does require dev work. People could still alt+bs or /lobby whenever they're close to death to circumvent it.
3. Ban the behavior and punish abusers. I think this could stamp out alt+bs abuse completely, but it requires additional moderation.

Out of the possible solutions above, I think a combination of (2) and (3) would be most effective.

 

[Matt]

I personally think (3) is a step too far, as "policing" something like quitting games is not really something I'd want to do, and chances are the community would probably take it the wrong way and start reporting people they don't like who just simply disconnect.

Perhaps what could be done, if Scape Doll isn't consumed immediately upon death (because being able to moon to save Scape Doll is a thing, as aspect of teamwork), is to make it so that for Hardcore, Alt+BS doesn't work and /lobby only works from Pioneer 2 once again (though still with no cooldown, so you still get out of quests quickly).

People who quit the game through the F12 menu are fine, or crashing the client or whatever, those can't be done instantly like Alt-BS.

I have definitely started seeing some ragging on HC players lately though. Many people don't like playing with them because it's common to just quit if you die or run out of Scape Dolls, than seeing a quest to the end. The user "Magaki" is very common example of this, quits as soon as they die to save their dolls.