Guild Wars 2

It seems as though we might have a saboteur in AG from another server. Last night I lead a “why not?” attack on SM just before I had to flag off. Once we reached the inner I put down the usual 2 sup rams. Almost as soon as I did this a golem was placed behind me (90% of the force were pugs and were not in TS, so obviously everyone used their supply on the golem instead). As soon as I asked them not to they placed another one (and I did ask nicely). We had 1 ram built, 1 50% ram build site and 2 20% golems. I’m not sure if 2 rams would have gotten us in – but it was a close call.

Someone in TS mentioned it wasn’t the first time it had happened this week. So either AG has a new/fresh troll (in which case, we simply wait until next week, see if it is a troll, report and move on); or, we have a saboteur from another server.

According to the COC this is probably allowed, and I applaud inserting saboteurs into your enemies’ ranks – it’s exactly the type of dirty play that war is supposed to be about. The problem is that pretty-much all of the ways you can deal with a saboteur are reportable behavior (essentially making them feel unwelcome) – in real life you would torture them (or kill them), neither of those options are open to us. The only way to “torture” them would be abuse via map chat – and it would probably have to be very extreme verbal torture (racism etc. comes to mind). That is very clearly not in line with the COC.

So how are we allowed to deal with them? Or are we going to see a firmer stance on sabotage (essentially saying that transferring to a server is pledging allegiance to them)? Or am I going to be making siege ram art in keeps during the tournament?

Got some high class trolls over there on the Euro ladder. Our just drop 20c ballistas.

Peetee.9406:

Got some high class trolls over there on the Euro ladder. Our just drop 20c ballistas.

xD

As I said, we are not exactly sure if it is a troll (a troll being someone who’s home server is AG who is maliciously doing this) or a saboteur (being someone from another server who transfers over for the match).

Trolls can be reported, saboteurs cannot – at least according to what I see as the current interpretation of the COC (war is a dirty business: form alliances, back stab, sabotage are all acceptable behavior).

What can you possibly do about them other than reporting?

I’m just curious because you sound like you have a lot of actions to choose from but not sure if some of them are not allowed

all’s fair in war

except it’s not a war, it’s war game. With some rules attached (CoC). Even wars have these.

The most interesting thing about it is that you can’t prove anything. So called saboteur will deny it and say he was just playing the game. The only thing anet could do about it is giving players way to dismantle siege machines, but that would be a tricky mechanic hard to balance. Maybe give the ability to ‘take out’ your siege supply with 20% loss?

all’s fair in war

Yea, but it’s unfair in >game< as there are no mechanics to counter it.

PhoenixDown.5467:

Maybe give the ability to ‘take out’ your siege supply with 20% loss?

Good idea – although I think I might have seen it before and it was (obviously) ignored. I’d still like some sort of indication as to how far we can go to deal with these guys if undoing their sabotage isn’t a reality.

Zackie.8923:

all’s fair in war

I never said “it shouldn’t be allowed,” what I said is “I agree this is viable gameplay” and want to know how dirty we are allowed to play in response. Try actually reading the OP, before replying.

zamalek.2154:

I applaud inserting saboteurs into your enemies’ ranks – it’s exactly the type of dirty play that war is supposed to be about.

Doubt it will happen but all Anet needs to do is put a minimum cap limit so the real dedicated trolls have to put in the time and grind levels to join wvw whereas at the present they can just roll a throwaway level 1 character and do as they please.

zamalek.2154:

According to the COC this is probably allowed, and I applaud inserting saboteurs into your enemies’ ranks – it’s exactly the type of dirty play that war is supposed to be about.

BTW I do not agree with that. Because switching servers is out-of-game experience, it is closer to cheating than RP (if anything).

If there was actual in-game mechanic that allowed this kind of infiltration and sabotage, I’d be all for it though. Wouldn’t it be cool if there was an infiltration specialist who had camouflage abilities which legitimately would change their appearance. And say each sabotage act would have a reveal chance or would decrease camouflage up-time.

Unfortunately, there’s a number of challenges associated with it like chat visibility, but as an idea – dayyym!

It’s easy to troll with 2 accounts (1 as primary, 2nd as spy throwaway). Won’t be surprised to see an increase when leagues start.

2nd troll account highest level character across the board is level 1, just use this account and login to the opposing teams server and troll them daily. Once the league switches by way of new opponents, delete your level 1 characters and start fresh ones on the new opponents server, never have to pay server transfer fees ever again.

Yaro.3251:

BTW I do not agree with that. Because switching servers is out-of-game experience, it is closer to cheating than RP (is anything).

It’s hard to say without official word – I was trying to apply what ANet have said in the past though (e.g. they encourage forming alliances), but could obviously be completely wrong.

If they don’t encourage this type of behavior a system like yours could work; although you would still have the throwaway accounts like scootshoot mentioned. A possible way discourage that would be to have either a 1-week long debuff applied to players who recently transferred (similar to dishonorable discharge, but less flamboyant – this would allow commanders to use different tactics in the presence of a spy/saboteur) or disallow transfers to play WvW for 1 week.

Either way, I am more interested from an official standpoint if sabotage is allowed, and if it is, how far we can go in terms of retaliating against it (without being reported and banned ourselves).

zamalek.2154:

Either way, I am more interested from an official standpoint if sabotage is allowed, and if it is, how far we can go in terms of retaliating against it (without being reported and banned ourselves).

I cannot give you a source (cannot be bothered to dig them out) but you’re not the first player to bring this up on the forums. From what I remember, responses were quite straightforward. And honestly, CoC leaves little space for interpretations in this regard. If you are joining the server in WvW battle, you supposed play nice with your fellow mist warriors, not against them.

Enforcement is huge issue here however. So probably only repeated/mass offenses would be worked on. Catch them red-handed, take screenshots/videos, report. As much as you can do without breaking CoC yourself. Btw I’m still interested what specific actions you have in mind when asking about “how far we can go dealing with them”?

i am kind of curious too:
1. what can we do about obvious trolls/saboteurs
2. what can we do about people obviously abusing glitches

like yesterday: i saw enemy thief keeping our keep contested, eventually i managed to get on group with him and saw him glitching inside our keep as well as saying on party chat that he glicthed inside

the problem is, even if i report him, he probably will just get warning…because he said he done it many times and was reported many times and nothing happend

or another example: my server has commander guild, entire server donates gold/mats etc. for wvw and it is stored in the guild, when wvw commanders need sieg they can take it out the bank for wvw… few days ago a guild xfered to our server, a person with commander tag joined the guild claiming he is wvw commander etc., next thing that happend is that he cleared entire commander guild and bailed… i somehow really doubt that despite multiple reports anything will be done about getting sieg and money back to commander guild nor anything about that player…

i saw a lot of trolls lately spaming random sieg when commander clearly said they don’t need it to save supplies

i see all of those actions as major griefing, what should we do now since support apprently doesn’t do anything about it?

Yaro.3251:

zamalek.2154:

Either way, I am more interested from an official standpoint if sabotage is allowed, and if it is, how far we can go in terms of retaliating against it (without being reported and banned ourselves).

I cannot give you a source (cannot be bothered to dig them out) but you’re not the first player to bring this up on the forums. From what I remember, responses were quite straightforward. And honestly, CoC leaves little space for interpretations in this regard. If you are joining the server in WvW battle, you supposed play nice with your fellow mist warriors, not against them.

Enforcement is huge issue here however. So probably only repeated/mass offenses would be worked on. Catch them red-handed, take screenshots/videos, report. As much as you can do without breaking CoC yourself. Btw I’m still interested what specific actions you have in mind when asking about “how far we can go dealing with them”?

I experienced a pretty hardcore troll on Jade Quarry earlier this year. Flame rams were the thing back then. It took thousands of reports, multiple posts in this forum, hundreds of screenshot reports through player support and after months he was banned. The guy couldn’t have been more blatant. Oh, and he was resetting siege to make sure the map stayed siege capped, which was an issue at the time.

Same thing went on in Blackgate recently. Still completely blatant. Thousands of reports, forum posts etc etc. Took around 1 and a half months and apparently he was recently banned.

Its almost not even worth reporting it with the timeframe it takes to get action from Anet. Most of these trolls will get bored of doing it before they are banned.

Yaro.3251:

Btw I’m still interested what specific actions you have in mind when asking about “how far we can go dealing with them”?

Exactly, I try to be a nice person in the game – but if they are going to “all is fair in war” into WvW as a saboteur does that give me right to act as, say, a general would in real life – which as I said would likely be torture (verbal in the case of a game). The other option would be to appeal to authority – but that only works if the authority you are appealing to agrees that sabotage is unwelcome. Unclear.

Spies are one thing: if you suspect you are being followed you can feed false information to the enemy. You can’t exactly feed false supply to the enemy in the case of a saboteur.

Thanks for the thoughtful response though.

sostronk.8167:

I experienced a pretty hardcore troll on Jade Quarry earlier this year.

Thanks for the post, but I’m not really referring to trolls (even though I do feel for you guys). Your point is valid though. Reporting spies/saboteurs will probably achieve nothing – if it takes months for the reports to be acted on, the match will be long in the past and their mission would have succeeded.

I guess the ultimate solution would be to “repay in kind.” Camp outside their spawn for hours, form an alliance – play absolutely dirty against that server and make their game so unenjoyable that they don’t attempt to plant players again (or deal with the rogue element themselves). That is certainly in line with the CoC.

zamalek.2154:

Exactly, I try to be a nice person in the game – but if they are going to “all is fair in war” into WvW as a saboteur does that give me right to act as, say, a general would in real life – which as I said would likely be torture (verbal in the case of a game)

In case of determined spy/saboteur, this “torture” can simply be ignored. In case of a troll, it may be exactly what they are after.

So meh, doesn’t look like a viable counter.

The one on Jade Quarry was definitely a sabateur/spy. When this was going on there were very rigid caps on siege weapons and he basically single-handedly siege capped an entire map for months by building siege and then resetting it so it didnt decay and despawn.

The one on BG Im not so sure about. Its rumored to be an alt account from another server but as far as we know it may just be a troll.

I call both sabateur and trolls the same thing in my language because the end result is the same.

I use spies to determine where the enemy will attack next. There are typically three kinds of spies:

1. The map opener: This guy will park a low level toon on map spawn area and open up his map on a second monitor, then log into his main account and play — alerting his enemy teammates where the commander is on the map at all times.

Counter to this: Since this player is effectively afk and often using heal regen to prevent logging, just right click report him as botting. Anet pays particular attention to the bot report, with good reason. Have your teammates report this guy in a similar fashion. It will soon be resolved. Do NOT falsely report people who may be afk for 10 minutes to deal with RL stuff. But definately report the ones that are afk for hours. They are patently obvious at your spawn. Another solution if it’s been verified that this is happening is have commanders drop their icons on the map. It’s hard to report enemy movement while parked at spawn if there’s no visible icons on the map.

2. The siege griefers: These guys will try to cap your siege count on a map by building useless siege in areas that will never get used.

Counter to this: You will need patience with this one. Siege despawn timer is 1 hour. Take screen shots or fraps of this person building the useless siege. Document it for about a week. Take plenty of screens, take note of which map, what time and which server and account name of the griefer (you add them to friends list). Watch the siege after the hour countdown timer is up and see if the player comes back to refresh it. Document that as well. Attach all this evidence and send in a support ticket under “violations.” You can do the same with these guys who drop siege over top of your rams and other blueprints. The key is here is documenting a pattern of behaviour and showing a chat log conversation where you at least attempt to explain this isn’t the proper way to do things. If, after the conversation, this person still does it, you have a solid case for Anet.

3. Enemy scouts: These guys will go and scout out empty towers and keeps, then group up with their teammates to relay this info via teamspeak or simply showing up as a blue dot on the map. You can usually tell these guys by the fact that they stand in empty towers or keeps for long periods of time and never refresh siege, but run past it constantly.

Counter to this: Not much you can do reportable wise, but you can certainly buddy up with them the minute you see them zone into a map, meaning that they’re never alone and neither is your tower or keep. Most players welcome another teammate along to help. This kind of spy will avoid you and even sometimes tell you to go away. These guys are especially the most useful of spies, particularly if they don’t know you are on to them. Tell map chat not to announce their presence, just watch them. Typically these guys will scout out an empty tower and within a short time the enemy will attack it. They are useful for predicting where the enemy will attack next and are best left unexposed to the map so you can counter the enemy push easily.

There are also, of course, the morale eroders, but you can report those guys for verbal abuse — same thing as #2, document it and submit a ticket via violations.

zamalek.2154:

We had 1 ram built, 1 50% ram build site and 2 20% golems. I’m not sure if 2 rams would have gotten us in – but it was a close call.

Seems like an easy solution is to tell your zerglets to stop watching TV long enough to pay attention to what they are building?

Lazy bit of sabotage if you ask me. If he was a creative he would drop rams so he owns them, then use them in turn to bump off people trying to swing the ram.

Zackie.8923:

all’s fair in war

Nuclear and bio weaponry isn’t, just saying (darn those moral issues).

Ontopic: You can’t do anything. You can try to report them, hell even mass report them but anet doesn’t give a rat’s buttock. There are some topics on the forum where ppl have posted obvious proof but nothing is being done.
You don’t even have an option to report hackers lol.

Solution, get a free trial account and retroll the enemy server’s troll.

Anet can easily stop this behavior by putting an ingame report option for griefing. If someone gets enough reports, Anet sends them a warning explaining what they did wrong (in case the guy was just clueless — this does happen from time to time). If they do the same thing again: ban.

But of course, this assumes Anet cares enough to put resources into stopping the griefing. The only way I see Anet putting any effort into this is if it gets so bad it begins to seriously affect matches. Maybe the griefers/spies will come out in force in T1 when the Leagues start and ruin the matchups — that’s the best we can hope for, unfortunately.

Glenn.3417:

Nuclear and bio weaponry isn’t, just saying (darn those moral issues).

I seriously doubt its the moral issues stopping anyone. Rather, these weapons are so devastating that, in the end, their use hurts everyone: serious collateral effects as well as retaliation.

Unfortunately, a WvW server is not as organized as a whole nation and anyone can grief, so we require Anet to step in and stop this behavior.

zamalek.2154:

Almost as soon as I did this a golem was placed behind me (90% of the force were pugs and were not in TS, so obviously everyone used their supply on the golem instead). As soon as I asked them not to they placed another one (and I did ask nicely).

well sabotage is annoying as trolls can prevent u from pretty much doing anything. they will order upgrades to prevent supply in keep or in camps. they will build siege on top of yours so u have a hard time to grab the right one. they are crippling already outmanned servers…but i doubt there is anything that can be done about that.
after months of this we are kinda used to it….

Report them. ANet won’t (can’t) do anything until someone reports them.

And disregard what anyone says about it being ‘fair’ or ‘in the rules’. ANet make the rules, and they can change them too.

If enough people report trolls, the powers that be will probably do something, even if they’re only doing it to clear the ticket queues.

A-net/NcSoft proposal on how to get rid of exploiters:

Write a formal compaint in triplicate on glossy paper, put it in an envelope, seal it with wax, roll it up and stick it where the sun don’t shine, we have better things to do then to fix things that doesn’t involve gems.

oh look we got another such troll

he drains all supplies from our keeps and builds 1000 trebs inside that serve no purpose..

zamalek.2154:

It seems as though we might have a saboteur in AG from another server.
[…]
So how are we allowed to deal with them? Or are we going to see a firmer stance on sabotage (essentially saying that transferring to a server is pledging allegiance to them)? Or am I going to be making siege ram art in keeps during the tournament?

I’d say it is much more likely that this is just a simple griefer instead of an elaborate clandestine ploy of your opponents. On Riverside, we had our fair share of trouble with such sad, sad individuals in the past.

If I were you I wouldn’t expect to much action from ANet addressing that problem. Although I advise to report the individual, even very obvious cases (like, building ~50 useless trebs in a keep to drain all of its supply and block the upgrades) have not lead to a suspension of the griefer. Instead, tickets were closed with the information, that one has to respect that “different players are enjoying the game in different ways”.

However, players who lost their nerve and insulted griefers via map chat have been suspended before. So I advise your server to just ignore the obvious troll, and to not let yourself get lured into trouble. After all, it is mainly the attention that these sad individuals are desperately looking for.

To some degree, I can understand ANets unwillingness to address such problems. After all, those are mainly social problems of a servers community, and ANet cannot start playing the kindergarten teacher and solving a servers quarrels. Also, from a technical standpoint, it is simply impossible to distinguish a griefer from a just very, very dumb player. And any suggestion of adding game mechanics to hinder such griefplay that I have read so far do backfire on the regular game play in one or another way, so they may not be worth it. It’s a dilemma, and I don’t have a solution, either.

~MRA