Stealing kills should be against the rules

[ShareYourHead]

You're level 19. You're grinding flufflepuffs. It's taking a while because monsters around that level are kinda unbalanced (Or you just suck at the game idk. When I say you I mean me ;] ). You get one down to six health and then some hot shot shows up out of no where. He has some fancy looking gauntlet, and steals your kill before you can get one more shot off. This loser has been watching you fight for a little bit just waiting to jump in. You just wasted one minute of your life, but more importantly, that flufflepuff just dropped the last piece of fur you needed!

Just to be clear this happened to me. I talked to a mod and they said they can't do anything! That's SUPER annoying especially considering that I had killed about 8 fluffles without any luck. Also I died when trying to ask for my stuff back in chat so now I'd have to walk back to the forest again which is super obnoxious, but I digress.

Anyway, why isn't this against the rules? Surely a mod should be able to help sort this out but nope. I'm offering a technical solution to this problem. I'm not sure if it's possible, so if it isn't I ask that at the very least this be written as against the rules. Anyway here's my hopefully feasible solution; When you get the last hit on a mob the items can only be picked up by you. My original thought was just "whoever gets the first hit on a mob is the only one who can damage it", but that would make it so people can't work together which is no fun if you are playing with nice people or friends. So how about instead of assigning the drops to whoever got the last hit, just assign them to whoever got the first hit! Again not sure if this is possible or not, but at the very least
It should be against the rules to camp and steal people's kills

Tl;dr: look at the bolded text above

 

[luckiestblock]

Ehhhh, I am a grad so maybe I am biased but I don't think it is a big issue. I feel like a lot of the time "kill stealers" do it on accident because there are only so many mobs that can spawn (especially fluffle puffs and thestrys) and it often can turn into a kind of free for all even if there are good intentions. Usually if someone comes to a mob spawning place I just switch worlds which is the advice I would give to everyone in your situation. If the problem persists and that player switches worlds to annoy you or ignores your request to leave, that is trolling which is already against the rules.

 

[Somnambulist]

Yeah, it sucks when another player does that to you.

I can see another alternative such as locking the mob from being attacked by other players whilst trying to kill it yourself, but that can cause some issues in the end where someone may try to gather all the mobs to attack them whilst other players have to wait until those mobs get killed.

Also, I think a reason why mods seem to say that they can't do anything about it is that it's harder to moderate a kill steal unless the player was being recorded doing it multiple times to warrant any action. Plus @luckiestblock makes a good point on switching to a new world to see if the player follows you and ignores your request. If the player is persistent and trolls you on kill stealing then definitely ask staff for help with that situation.

 

[MattyPoltergeist]

annoying thing to happen but dum suggestion wud explain but its 6am and i cant be bothered

 

[Honey_Dwarf1]

I think that there's a problem with every solution offered, and I can't think of any more. I agree that when people steal kills, it is very annoying. I've never had someone wait for me to get a mob down to low health though.
Having it so that the loot gets automatically given/can only be picked up by whoever hurt the mob first could be a problem because people don't always kill a mob before leaving the area, so if someone comes after that, they wouldn't be able to pick up the loot. This is as well as what Psycho said about one player hitting all the mobs so nobody else can get the loot.
I think another problem with making mobs so that they can only be damaged by the person who hit them first is that it would be impossible to fight harder mobs in groups, which is what lower level players or players with less gear might do.
I also usually swap worlds when I find someone at the same mob area to me - but this can be annoying when there are no other worlds to switch to, in which case you have to either coexist or leave and come back once they're finished.

 

[MattyPoltergeist]

I think that there's a problem with every solution offered, and I can't think of any more. I agree that when people steal kills, it is very annoying. I've never had someone wait for me to get a mob down to low health though.
Having it so that the loot gets automatically given/can only be picked up by whoever hurt the mob first could be a problem because people don't always kill a mob before leaving the area, so if someone comes after that, they wouldn't be able to pick up the loot. This is as well as what Psycho said about one player hitting all the mobs so nobody else can get the loot.
I think another problem with making mobs so that they can only be damaged by the person who hit them first is that it would be impossible to fight harder mobs in groups, which is what lower level players or players with less gear might do.
I also usually swap worlds when I find someone at the same mob area to me - but this can be annoying when there are no other worlds to switch to, in which case you have to either coexist or leave and come back once they're finished.

also it wud probably make dungeons harder to do as iu gotta hit mobs other plays have hit, its just too much restriction for smth that is normally easyily solved, in the past ive just PMd the person and been like, aight u have the west and ill have the east

 

[FlatJambo]

Personally, I don't think this would work. I sometimes help my lower-level friends to kill mobs by getting them down to around 100 health so they are easier to kill. Sometimes I accidentally kill the mob, so making this against the rules would basically get me banned. I just try to help out as much as I can. Even if I do kill the mob, I give all the materials to the person I was trying to help. That is just me though. When I was lower level, I was very frustrated with kill stealing I will admit. But by making it against the rules, many people would get banned, and some would be banned for solely the purpose of trying to help.

Yes, it's annoying if someone is doing it on purpose. But banning people because of it would create a ton of issues.

 

[Joshios]

If the first person who hit it was the one who could damage it, then that would become extremely unbalanced. Someone could just go hit all the mobs in the area, and then no one would be able to kill them. If you have trouble getting the materials, you may want to check out the marketplace in London.

 

[Salmandingo]

If there is someone else hunting mobs near you, you can swtich worlds via /worlds. Works for me all the time.

 

[Honey_Dwarf1]

If there is someone else hunting mobs near you, you can swtich worlds via /worlds. Works for me all the time.

this is usually good, but there's not always a world available to go to, especially not at a peak time, in which case you can't do anything about it

 

[Salmandingo]

this is usually good, but there's not always a world available to go to, especially not at a peak time, in which case you can't do anything about it

True that's a good point

 

[Aurora]

Hello everyone!
Thank you for suggesting this and leaving your feedback and further suggestions on this thread. We appreciate it!
I will now be bringing up this idea to the rest of the Poltergeist Team and we will inform you once a decision has been made.
Enjoy your day!

 

[nathan1e]

I didn't see this suggestion until now and I have something to add that hasn't been said before, so here I go.

I have spent some considerable time on the server grinding runespores, and it is something I want to do a lot more in the future. With the gear I have and the way this mob works I can easily grind them, and their drops give me quite a good amount of gold in return for the time I spent fighting them.
Now, consider the runespore spawning area:

The purple circle indicates the area in which I personally most frequently move around to fight runespores. I find that in this area, a good amount of runespores spawn and I have been rather getting used to this area which means I don't need a lot of brainpower to grind runespores when I stand here.

Here comes the tricky bit. It does happen that I've been in this spot for 2-3 hours, continuously grinding runespores, when suddenly someone jumps in with gear that doesn't allow them to kill runespores as fast as I can kill them, and this person tries to kill runespores within the area that I have highlighted in the map. In such cases, I tend to kill runespores before their nose before they get a chance, simply to indicate that I am killing runespores in that area, and would like them to move on.

To give some more context: The gear and spell point division I currently use allow me to kill runespores in an instant, usually multiple runespores at the same time. Furthermore, the highlighted area is relatively small compared to the entire area where runespores spawn; if more people want to fight runespores, there's plenty of room for everyone.

I think that "kill stealing" isn't always bad for a situation. I understand where you're coming from and understand the pain and frustration of seeing a mob being killed in front of your eyes when you've worked so hard to get this mob's health down, but in my situation kill stealing is usually a solution for the better. In all cases such as the one I described, whoever tried to kill a runespore in the highlighted area simply moves on to kill runespores somewhere else, and we both get to kill runespores.

All in all I simply do not think that what you're suggesting is beneficial to the entirety of the playerbase, and I think you should try to look for a different solution for your problem. As said previously, switching worlds is a good idea. Otherwise, try seeing if you could maybe grind a different mob? Or stand in a different position within the mob spawn area? Maybe try asking this person nicely not to steal your kills?
It's a difficult situation and I don't know what the optimal solution would be, just trying to suggest some things. If all else fails, you could always simply try logging off and coming back on another day to see if nobody else is around so you can continue grinding.

 

[ShareYourHead]

@nathan1e Yeah I see where you're coming from, but in my scenario I was there first, and the person was not actively grinding. He just sat there and matched me whittle it down before quickly body blocking me and stealing the loot

 

[Aurora]

Hello @ShareYourHead,

Thank you for leaving feedback on certain situations and making a suggestion. We truly appreciate any and all feedback brought up to us by players!

Unfortunately, we will be declining this suggestion for a couple of reasons, most of which were already mentioned in this thread. Firstly, we believe that it would be incredibly difficult to actually prove that a player is purposefully stealing kills, even with a recording. It would be incredibly easy for players to say that they may not have seen the other player or that it's only a coincidence or that they were actually there first.Additionally, we do not see this happening very often, so taking into consideration the above, we do not think it is worth a rule addition for this.
If this ever does happen, we also think that there are enough alternative measures players can take to solve the problems themselves. Most mobs have multiple spawn points that are fairly spread out, so players are able to spread out from others who are taking their kills and there is always the possibility to switch worlds, as almost all of the time there are at least 2 worlds open.

We hope this makes sense and does not dissuade you from posting your ideas here in the future!