Is the online intended to encourage griefing?

[zPhoenix]

I am fairly new to this game and the infestation of griefers that dedicate themselves to ruining people's bounties and stranger missions got me so annoyed that I almost quit the game.  Then somebody mentioned the Defensive mode and that seemed to improve things a bit. 

 

But then I selected a stranger mission (nothing fancy) and it warned me that it was setting me back to Offensive mode.  Next thing I know I had just finished a bounty and had only enough time to take my bounty back to the sheriff and this scumbag comes and rams me out of the horse, then picks up a fight.  I did not get the option to report him so that he'd get a bounty set on him, and when I tried to use the reporting system it just had canned options of the type we normally see in games that don't enforce griefing rules.

 

So it seems that griefing is actively encouraged by the game's design, giving the illusion of protections against it but disabling them when you are trying to do certain activities and leaving them disabled afterwards.  Is that a bug, or intended?

 

Also, is there a way to report these griefers with additional details so that perhaps they would get banned?

[Lonely-Martin]

Partly, the anti-griefing additions are a bit of a smokescreen as they'll never stop a determined griefer. Not when you can be killed when in defensive mode.

 

I'd say the game just enables it. Especially when things like parley are manipulated or glitch with R* not in any hurry to fix things. 

 

It's all part of R*'s way, GTA:O no different either, they'd rather players slow other players progress.

 

Makes it hard to role play though when others impose their will on you. 

[kcole4001]

Greedstar love griefers. They pretend they don't but we all know it's very much encouraged.

Competition is one thing, stealing goods at least benefits the bandit player. Destroying goods or ruining another's mission is just sh*t behaviour.

Bandits and robbers don't destroy the money or goods worth selling.

Those people are terrorists, or in time of war, raiders. If the game were set during the civil war, then that's a completely different set of parameters, but it's not.

It's set in a relatively peaceful time in the west, when civilization is really taking hold and rampant banditry is obsolete and becoming pretty much extinct.

 

========================

 

I don't think there is an option to report someone who just killed you while you're in offensive mode (some missions and freeroam events put you in offensive).

 

The most effective way to report is to take screenshots, keep note of their names and then report with details and the screenshots using social club.

If they are using a cheat menu and you report within the game there's a good chance they will just crash your game instantly and the report doesn't go through, in fact it apparently only goes to them.

 

Greedstar's anticheat is basically nonexistent.

They rely on banning people after investigation rather than preventing cheaters in any way.

Be forewarned that apparently cheaters on PC can find your actual IP address just by using your gamertag. A VPN (or solo sessions ) is needed to prevent this.

 

I very much doubt they will ban anyone for griefing, but cheating and using exploits (off the radar glitch, circumventing defensive or parlay, etc.) will eventually cause them problems.

I keep a list of cheaters & repeat griefers I encounter and always check the player list before commencing anything, especially sales of any kind to be sure there aren't any repeat offenders about, or even red name players (they have high hostility from killing multiple players) because they will probably be trouble.

The majority of the names on my list have either gotten banned or just bored and dropped the game, very few have been spotted again.

[slowburn29]

Haven't encountered this. I just give people plenty of space and wave or something if I have to cross them, but I probably don't have enough hours in where I did anything worth

griefing. I also play at night so the western cowboys are sleeping

[jazzbone]

My take is that RDO like GTAO were designed for posse/gang play.
With that design your posse/gang is suppose to protect against or attack others.
That design however only works some of the time for some of the players.

Instead of private lobbies like GTA has R* added a defensive mode to RDO
Overall defensive mode and Roles being added reduced griefing a lot.
That was a huge improvement as before RDO was one big grief fest.

There are still griefers so just keep ready for when one may attack you.
Some want to sabotage what you are doing while some want to get you out of defensive mode.
Check your status after any mission to change back to defensive if needed.
Quickly exiting out of your session may save your product destroyed or about to be destroyed.

What has worked well for me is to file charges when killed in defensive mode.
I only do so if i am out of a mission and i take it as unprovoked aggression.

My play has been on console, PS4.

Edited December 6, 2020 by jazzbone

[CaliMeatWagon]

6 hours ago, zPhoenix said:

I am fairly new to this game and the infestation of griefers that dedicate themselves to ruining people's bounties and stranger missions got me so annoyed that I almost quit the game.  Then somebody mentioned the Defensive mode and that seemed to improve things a bit. 

 

But then I selected a stranger mission (nothing fancy) and it warned me that it was setting me back to Offensive mode.  Next thing I know I had just finished a bounty and had only enough time to take my bounty back to the sheriff and this scumbag comes and rams me out of the horse, then picks up a fight.  I did not get the option to report him so that he'd get a bounty set on him, and when I tried to use the reporting system it just had canned options of the type we normally see in games that don't enforce griefing rules.

 

So it seems that griefing is actively encouraged by the game's design, giving the illusion of protections against it but disabling them when you are trying to do certain activities and leaving them disabled afterwards.  Is that a bug, or intended?

 

Also, is there a way to report these griefers with additional details so that perhaps they would get banned?

There is no such thing as Griefing in Red Dead or GTA Online. 
The games are open world games where players can be whatever type of character they want.

That includes murder hobo's. 

[Lonely-Martin]

44 minutes ago, jazzbone said:

My take is that RDO like GTAO were designed for posse/gang play.

RDRO was heavily advertise as a game for both solo players and posse play though. 

 

41 minutes ago, CaliMeatWagon said:

There is no such thing as Griefing in Red Dead or GTA Online. 

And yet, both games have the ability to report griefing, and this game even has (alleged) anti-griefing features.

 

Why add those if griefing doesn't exist?

[CaliMeatWagon]

25 minutes ago, Lonely-Martin said:

RDRO was heavily advertise as a game for both solo players and posse play though. 

 

And yet, both games have the ability to report griefing, and this game even has (alleged) anti-griefing features.

 

Why add those if griefing doesn't exist?

Let's start with this. 
Define griefing...
I define it as players going out of there way, often abusing mechanics, to disrupt other players gameplay and cause them grief. 
And here is the online definiton:
"Griefer: (in an online game or community) a person who harasses or deliberately provokes other players or members in order to spoil their enjoyment."

This is where I have a problem with griefing in RD:O/GTA:Online... the game actively encourages you to go after players. So if another player attacks you and "disrupts" your gameplay, how are you to say they are griefing? 
Especially since griefing isn't defined as how YOU feel about the action, but the intentions of the provocateur. And how do you know the other players intentions? 
How can you ASSyouME that their intentions are to "spoil your enjoyment" of the game when R* actively encourages players to kill others? sh*t, they even give you special awards for attacking other players...

Edited December 6, 2020 by CaliMeatWagon

[Lonely-Martin]

5 minutes ago, CaliMeatWagon said:

Let's start with this. 
Define griefing...

Not hard, plenty here...

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griefer

 

You failed to answer the obvious though. If no griefing exists, why did R* create anti-griefing measures?

Edited December 6, 2020 by Lonely-Martin

[CaliMeatWagon]

1 minute ago, Lonely-Martin said:

Not hard, plenty here...

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griefer

 

You failed to answer the obvious though. If no griefing exists, why did R* create anti-griefing measures?

Because people are whiny little bitches and it makes them feel better? *shrugs*

I added more to my reply above. 

[Lonely-Martin]

Oh, I agree, it is a subjective thing, hence I posted only my opinion on the topic initially.

 

As for this part...

 

19 minutes ago, CaliMeatWagon said:

So if another player attacks you and "disrupts" your gameplay, how are you to say they are griefing? 

Easy. You already answered it for me...

 

19 minutes ago, CaliMeatWagon said:

And here is the online definiton:
"Griefer: (in an online game or community) a person who harasses or deliberately provokes other players or members in order to spoil their enjoyment."

Simply by ruining my fun. 

 

14 minutes ago, CaliMeatWagon said:

Because people are whiny little bitches and it makes them feel better? *shrugs*

I added more to my reply above. 

Well, I feel the pussies being called out for griefing are the whiny little bitches, many just can't accept what they are.

 

Regardless, R* clearly agrees the potential to grief was enough to offer mechanics to attempt to reduce it. But as I said in my initial post, it won't stop a determined griefer.

 

We agree about the abusing of mechanics though, something GTA:O is widely known for and it's present in RDRO as people can remove/glitch the parley others select which is yet to be fixed.

[CaliMeatWagon]

7 minutes ago, Lonely-Martin said:

Oh, I agree, it is a subjective thing, hence I posted only my opinion on the topic initially.

 

As for this part...

 

Easy. You already answered it for me...

 

Simply by ruining my fun. 

But that is not the definition. The definition requires their intention to be to ruin your fun. Not how you felt about it after words. 

The definition YOU sourced:

Quote

A griefer or bad faith player is a player in a multiplayer video game who deliberately irritates and harasses other players within the game (trolling), using aspects of the game in unintended ways.[1] A griefer derives pleasure primarily or exclusively from the act of annoying other users, and as such is a particular nuisance in online gaming communities. To qualify as griefing, a player must be using aspects of the game in unintended ways to annoy other players—if they are trying to gain a strategic advantage, it is instead called "cheating".

If we use your extremely open definition, then anybody who has ever beat me in any multiplayer mode is a griefer... because by them winning they are ruining my fun...

You don't get to decide other peoples intentions. 

 

7 minutes ago, Lonely-Martin said:

Well, I feel the pussies being called out for griefing are the whiny little bitches, many just can't accept what they are.

If this was a lame ass attempt at talking sh*t to me, surely you could do better...
Further, you are talking to a person who pretty much only PvE's in both games and can't stand/doesn't PvP in most other games. But please, go off. 

Edited December 6, 2020 by CaliMeatWagon

[Lonely-Martin]

1 minute ago, CaliMeatWagon said:

If this was a lame ass attempt at talking sh*t to me, surely you could do better...
Further, you are talking to a person who pretty much only PvE's in both games and can't stand/doesn't PvP in most other games. But please, go off. 

Oh, no. Not my intent to sound off on you at all. Apologies if that's how it came across. Griefers grief and often start bitching or talking crap when called out on it was all I meant by that.

 

3 minutes ago, CaliMeatWagon said:

But that is not the definition. The definition requires their intention to be to ruin your fun. Not how you felt about it after words. 

If we use your extremely open definition, then anybody who has ever beat me in any multiplayer mode is a griefer... because by them winning they are ruining my fun...

You don't get to decide other peoples intentions. 

When I'm fishing in defensive and another takes cheap shots, I parley, they find a way to break parley timers, and come back to kill me, that to me is deliberately spoiling my fun. Griefing. And I do get to call it that legitimately as that griefer's intent is to ruin my fun. 

 

If I/you enter into competition with another and lose, if I accept the fight when another takes shots, that's just not griefing, that's just not being good enough in the moment, lol. I'll never call another a griefer for beating me, I lost, simple. 

 

Like you, I'm a PvE chap, and a large reason why I play this game far less than I'd like is because there's too much potential unwanted PvP that to me is griefing as it does ruin my fun.

[zPhoenix]

29 minutes ago, CaliMeatWagon said:

Let's start with this. 
Define griefing...

Griefing is any action taken ***against*** a player that is not engaged in PvP, usually intended more to ruin that player's fun and not usually for profit. 

 

The exception is missions that intentionally allow attacks from other players.

[CaliMeatWagon]

2 minutes ago, Lonely-Martin said:

Oh, no. Not my intent to sound off on you at all. Apologies if that's how it came across. Griefers grief and often start bitching or talking crap when called out on it was all I meant by that.

 

When I'm fishing in defensive and another takes cheap shots, I parley, they find a way to break parley timers, and come back to kill me, that to me is deliberately spoiling my fun. Griefing. And I do get to call it that legitimately as that griefer's intent is to ruin my fun. 

 

If I/you enter into competition with another and lose, if I accept the fight when another takes shots, that's just not griefing, that's just not being good enough in the moment, lol. I'll never call another a griefer for beating me, I lost, simple. 

 

Like you, I'm a PvE chap, and a large reason why I play this game far less than I'd like is because there's too much potential unwanted PvP that to me is griefing as it does ruin my fun.

Part of my problem is it still requires determining intent. 

See, I've been randomly killed numerous times in GTA:O for no reason. And sometimes I'll ask "Why?". 
Quite often the response I get back is "Because it's GTA bruh!".

 

And they are right. One of the many possible ways to play GTA, and Red Dead, is to run around and mess everything up. And this is something that is ingrained in the community. It's how we used to play multiplayer GTA before there was one. Enter in the weapon cheats, see how long you can mess everything up for, then when you die you pass the controller. 

I may not like it, you may not like it. It may suck because the game has so much more potential, but it is what it is. And quit often, it's not griefing. It's players playing the game in one of the many multitudes of ways it's supposed to be played. 

Does that mean it's impossible to grief in GTA/RD? No. But it's almost impossible to determine accurately if that is what somebody is doing. 
 

[Lonely-Martin]

2 minutes ago, CaliMeatWagon said:

Part of my problem is it still requires determining intent. 

See, I've been randomly killed numerous times in GTA:O for no reason. And sometimes I'll ask "Why?". 
Quite often the response I get back is "Because it's GTA bruh!".

 

And they are right. One of the many possible ways to play GTA, and Red Dead, is to run around and mess everything up. And this is something that is ingrained in the community. It's how we used to play multiplayer GTA before there was one. Enter in the weapon cheats, see how long you can mess everything up for, then when you die you pass the controller. 

I may not like it, you may not like it. It may suck because the game has so much more potential, but it is what it is. And quit often, it's not griefing. It's players playing the game in one of the many multitudes of ways it's supposed to be played. 

Does that mean it's impossible to grief in GTA/RD? No. But it's almost impossible to determine accurately if that is what somebody is doing. 

I can agree in part, but when players abuse the mechanics to persist, like with parley here or passive bailing in GTA, that is showing intent. I can't agree that it's not griefing when their intent is that obvious.

 

I'm using the mechanics provided to avoid the conflict and show I don't want it, yet some continue to impose it on me, that is griefing and I strongly feel R* half ass it too much as they don't fix bugs in the game to deter people enough.

[StyxTx]

3 hours ago, slowburn29 said:

Haven't encountered this. I just give people plenty of space and wave or something if I have to cross them, but I probably don't have enough hours in where I did anything worth

griefing. I also play at night so the western cowboys are sleeping

A majority of them are from Russia and Asia so playing at night puts you there in what is the morning for them.

1 hour ago, CaliMeatWagon said:

But that is not the definition. The definition requires their intention to be to ruin your fun. Not how you felt about it after words. 

The definition YOU sourced:

If we use your extremely open definition, then anybody who has ever beat me in any multiplayer mode is a griefer... because by them winning they are ruining my fun...

You don't get to decide other peoples intentions. 

 

If this was a lame ass attempt at talking sh*t to me, surely you could do better...
Further, you are talking to a person who pretty much only PvE's in both games and can't stand/doesn't PvP in most other games. But please, go off. 

Let's see. The player is dark red before they get to me. I'm in defensive not doing any mission or anything that would be considered a target, just fishing or whatever and they kill me with a sniper rifle from up on a cliff, OR....this dark red blip just appears out of nowhere, bounces around erratically for a second or two, and then kills me. Yeah, they have no intention of screwing with people. Sorry, but it is not hard to determine intent most of the time.

Edited December 6, 2020 by StyxTx

[jazzbone]

Yes R* marketed RDO as both for posse/ gang play and solo play.
When i viewed that i figured there would be a private lobby option like GTA has.
Then i created a character, found there was no private lobby option, but found chaos instead.
Open world with players running amok on killing sprees? Yes.
Nice place for pleasant solo play? No.

What then was R* even thinking?
Defensive helped as griefer type behavior was much less after than before.
Private lobbies was needed from day one as well as now.
Private lobbies also perform better as well as providing seperation from undesirables.

So with lobby choice one can play the way they desire.
In a public lobby it can be do what you want, to whom you want , and whenever you want. Anything goes.
In a private lobby also do what you want, but solo or with players you invited.
My only real issue with some players and their behavior is being forced to share a lobby with them.

Edited December 6, 2020 by jazzbone

[netnow66]

17 minutes ago, jazzbone said:

Private lobbies was needed from day one as well as now.
Private lobbies also perform better as well as providing seperation from undesirables.

Rockstar might eventually come after solo lobby users but I'm willing to risk it to avoid griefers (and you can find a few different definitions of what griefing is online, so I don't get hung up on definitions that I find self serving to griefers).

 

There are a few ways to get solo lobbies, some temporary that won't get you in trouble with Rockstar and some permanent ones that eventually might. If you're on PS4 and are looking for ways to do that, I'd recommend joining a community that helps players find a solo (I'm a PS5 user now and haven't found a way to access communities yet).

[zPhoenix]

41 minutes ago, jazzbone said:

Defensive helped as griefer type behavior was much less after than before.
 

 

The problem is that the implementation of Defensive is badly flawed:

 

- Missions that allow player attacks don't just temporarily disable Defensive, they switch it off and leave it off.  It should take very little effort to turn it back on at the end of the mission.

- Even when defensive is on you (or your horse) get attacked.  Today I was posse'd up with my son and we were just in front of the jail waiting for the clock to run down.  The screen message said that nobody could interact with us because we were close enough to the destination... but bull... the moment I got off the horse to take down the prisoner they fired, first to spook the horse, then to kill it, then to kill me, repeatedly.  Luckily we managed to kill them off, recover the prisoner and deposit it with seconds to spare, but the intent was pure and absolute to grief.

- There is a mechanism that lets you report the players that griefed you to the sheriff, so that a bounty is placed on them and everybody starts hunting them... but the mechanism only works maybe 1 time out of 10.

- Also, it is extremely common for players to ram into you and by doing so they either kill you or they are able to initiate combat without the penalties.

- Finally, to add insult to injury, you can report a player but there is no clear way to explain what happened and the severity of the behavior, so it is too easy for a griever to claim innocence.  I have been told that there is a field on that screen that allows freeform text but I simply cannot see it.

 

If defensive only worked properly... it might be a good thing.  As it is today, it helps a little but it is largely worthless.

 

There is also a major problem with PvP:  Those who play with a controller are at a massive advantage due to aim assist.  Those using pure keyboard and mouse will usually get creamed in a due against a player on a controller... due to the auto-lock-on.

[The Artist]

11 hours ago, zPhoenix said:

I am fairly new to this game and the infestation of griefers that dedicate themselves to ruining people's bounties and stranger missions got me so annoyed that I almost quit the game.  Then somebody mentioned the Defensive mode and that seemed to improve things a bit. 

 

But then I selected a stranger mission (nothing fancy) and it warned me that it was setting me back to Offensive mode.  Next thing I know I had just finished a bounty and had only enough time to take my bounty back to the sheriff and this scumbag comes and rams me out of the horse, then picks up a fight.  I did not get the option to report him so that he'd get a bounty set on him, and when I tried to use the reporting system it just had canned options of the type we normally see in games that don't enforce griefing rules.

 

So it seems that griefing is actively encouraged by the game's design, giving the illusion of protections against it but disabling them when you are trying to do certain activities and leaving them disabled afterwards.  Is that a bug, or intended?

 

Also, is there a way to report these griefers with additional details so that perhaps they would get banned?

Yes it is designed that way so that people will buy sharkcards

[Veleno]

1- no private sessions and they'd rather break their game than give you that option

 

2- bullsh*t ability cards/tonics that should've never been in the game

 

3- Defensive is a joke. you get killed close or long range by c*nts with any aiming ability

 

Answer: Yes

 

these are reasons why some friends wont touch this game.

[roggek]

The main problems right now is that RDO:

- was released on PC, big mistake...

- and is offered right now for $4.99...another big mistake

 

R* is aiming for poor children...

Soon we see the nail in the coffin...

I don't play RDO anymore...

Edited December 6, 2020 by roggek

[Van_Hellsing]

R* copies the GTA game model in RDR2. If you attempt to make money, shout out to the entire lobby: come to me and blow up my stash. 

 

R* is hellbend not to activate private sessions. A determined griefer can run you over to break you out of defenseive. 

 

R* is using griefers to throttle your progress and money generation. If you are actively griefing, you don't have time to make money. Both contribute to shark cards/gold sales. 

 

R* doesn't want to acknowledge that RDR2 attracts a different crowd as the fortnite kiddos. RDR2 has a more mature audience. 

[1898]

Maybe they could reduce griefing simply by giving them something to do. Something similar to Land Grab from RDR1 except keep it out of the main settlements.  I used to like LG, one reason being it was one of the few PvP modes I could occasionally win.

Edited December 6, 2020 by 1898

[kcole4001]

17 hours ago, CaliMeatWagon said:

Let's start with this. 
Define griefing...
I define it as .....
.... And how do you know the other players intentions? 
... ASSyouME that their intentions are ...

And therein lies the problem with these semantic arguments.

It's all opinion.

You're welcome to your opinion.

I'm welcome to mine.

Lonely Martin is welcome to his.

 

There's an awful lot of assumption going on there, and that doesn't mean that people should be able to impose their way on everyone else and that they get a pass, or that one group is right to the exclusion of the other.

 

And there clearly IS griefing in RDO: players using ways to follow others from session to session, off the radar glitches, using whatever long range sniping glitch to kill defensive players in their camps, not to mention outright cheating.

Saying that in your opinion it doesn't exist doesn't make it so.

 

 

[AmyStone]

On 12/5/2020 at 6:51 PM, zPhoenix said:

I am fairly new to this game and the infestation of griefers that dedicate themselves to ruining people's bounties and stranger missions got me so annoyed that I almost quit the game.  Then somebody mentioned the Defensive mode and that seemed to improve things a bit. 

 

But then I selected a stranger mission (nothing fancy) and it warned me that it was setting me back to Offensive mode.  Next thing I know I had just finished a bounty and had only enough time to take my bounty back to the sheriff and this scumbag comes and rams me out of the horse, then picks up a fight.  I did not get the option to report him so that he'd get a bounty set on him, and when I tried to use the reporting system it just had canned options of the type we normally see in games that don't enforce griefing rules.

 

So it seems that griefing is actively encouraged by the game's design, giving the illusion of protections against it but disabling them when you are trying to do certain activities and leaving them disabled afterwards.  Is that a bug, or intended?

 

Also, is there a way to report these griefers with additional details so that perhaps they would get banned?

I don't think it's encouraged. Anyone who's been around since the beta will know they have made changes that make it harder to grief. But this is a miltiplayer open world game. If people want to grief they will. 

[Direwrath]

23 hours ago, CaliMeatWagon said:

There is no such thing as Griefing in Red Dead or GTA Online. 
The games are open world games where players can be whatever type of character they want.

That includes murder hobo's. 

I am laughing and shaking my head at this one...

 

Are you a murder hobo?

 

4 hours ago, kcole4001 said:

And therein lies the problem with these semantic arguments.

It's all opinion.

You're welcome to your opinion.

I'm welcome to mine.

Lonely Martin is welcome to his.

 

There's an awful lot of assumption going on there, and that doesn't mean that people should be able to impose their way on everyone else and that they get a pass, or that one group is right to the exclusion of the other.

 

And there clearly IS griefing in RDO: players using ways to follow others from session to session, off the radar glitches, using whatever long range sniping glitch to kill defensive players in their camps, not to mention outright cheating.

Saying that in your opinion it doesn't exist doesn't make it so.

Facts! There is a time and a place for PVP combat, and I am not playing this game to school players with infantile brains who cannot keep to themselves. 

[AmyStone]

2 minutes ago, Direwrath said:

I am not playing this game to school players with infantile brains who cannot keep to themselves. 

But it's a lot of fun

[Direwrath]

Just now, AmyStone said:

But it's a lot of fun

Lol, yes it is.