Ganking and PvP
Thomas Malby over at TerraNova has got a got a good writeup on ganking, or more specifically, why “ganking” isn’t just “emergent play that some folk don’t like.” Raph managed to post a very nice and rather lengthy response quickly… (I’m beginning to think the man has access to a review copy or has a whole library in the queue for just such an occasion.)
(For those unaware of MMO terminology, ganking is essentially a very very powerful character going around and killing much weaker characters that offer no challenge and no reward.)
Two elements in Raph’s writeup that I’d like to build on:
- Reducing each side to “a token” -no different than a PvE encounter- lessens the pain of being “ganked.” When the target is just “a token” - just another object in the game, there’s no sense in taunting. Likewise, when you fully see the person on the other side as a human being and hold empathy for him, you wouldn’t taunt. In the middle ground, we have the dehumanizing behavior “reminiscent of all those dehumanizing psych experiments.”
- Eliminating the ability to chat between sides helps establish the foe as a token.
I’ll start with #2. I disagree with that claim… or at least the effectiveness of it. In City of Heroes, you have the option of enabling hearing communication from the foe or not. It’s disabled by default.Â
I enable mine- I prefer to congratulate an adversary, encourage a foe to keep trying, and occasionally engage in witty banter. In essense, I humanize my foes and encourage them to see me as another player that’s providing them with what they love- PvP. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but I’d have to say that about 9 out of 10 comments broadcast are positive.
However, many players I know are religious believers in that DAOC “no chat with the foe” mindset. They’re convinced that it protects them from negative “griefer” taunting, but I’ve noticed that they still assume it’s there. In our hero-side chat, they’re expressing assumptions on some deep negative sentiment in their adversary while I’m seeing that same adversary saying “good match” in the villain-side chat.Â
It doesn’t help us see the foe as a token. It helps us believe the foe is a jerk.
On To The Dehumanizing Factor
I don’t believe you can effectively reduce the other player’s character to “just a token” no matter what artificial barriers you put up. The best you can accomplish is that state”reminiscent of all those dehumanizing psych experiments.” That’s a state I don’t want to encourage.
There’s a frequent debate on dehumanizing enemies for the military. One school goes that if you see the foe as less than human, you won’t hesitate. You’ll kill when you’re needed to kill. The other school argues that you’re also less likely to recognize human rights, treat a prisoner according to military law, and risk extending the dehumanizing to the civilian population. Since the soldier’s mission extends far beyond the barrel of a rifle, and the bad PR from an unlawful act can be so much more costly, I’m strongly against dehumaization- in or out of the game.
The avatar isn’t human, and we shouldn’t cringe when engaging in a PvP kill, but we shouldn’t forget what controls that avatar- another human being that has chosen to participate in play with us. If we choose to alienate that other person, he could very well decide that there’s more fun somewhere else. Some will try to rationalize that such “control of the battlefield” is a sign of victory. It isn’t. It’s a sign that you’re such piss poor content that people would rather battle against predictable pre-scripted AI. You failed as an opponent.
The ganker HAS dehumanized his foes to that extent. He’s failed to see the value in his adversary, so his actions drive them off. I’ve never found PvP in any game so broken as to be “unplayable” but I’ve known many systems that facilitated the ganker so much that most people just opted out of PvP in disgust. Â
It Isn’t Just Gankers That Drive People Away
In Star Wars Galaxies, there was a point when the Combat Medic ”disease AOE’s” were just game-ending. They so debilitated a character that one kill by them left you out of commission for a good half hour. That was fine for many that sought strategic control or defense of a base, but it was abysmal for those of us that just wanted a fun engagement… where we could keep the fighting going by returning to battle quickly.
We asked disease-throwers to let us engage each other in peace. They didn’t.  It wasn’t really ”ganking” and wasn’t intentionally mean, but they felt they were working within the rules of the game, and they just decided not to honor our request. That was their decision, but we had no way to deal with them besides avoiding PvP altogether and seek our fun elsewhere.
A similar issue appeared when we wanted to actually PvP as uniformed Rebels and Imperials. The Stormtrooper armor, for example, was woefully inadequate compared to PvP-level gear. We tried to make our own rules to experience fun our own way, but other more prepared PvP’ers made mincemeat out of us. The choice was to not play at all.
There are many different motivations in PvP. To organize it as “PvP-on or PvP-off” forces many people that would like some aspect of PvP just to opt-out to avoid the unpleasantness that comes from holding different values than the hardest-core.
What To Do
I want to redefine PvP somehow- put it in the context of an ametuer sport. If someone gets so aggressive in your softball game that other players take offense, he can be asked to leave. If YOU don’t find the off-color banter of your bowling league, you can find another group that has standards to your liking. The obnoxious bunch can compete among themselves, you can compete among those of your own liking.
I want to give people the ability to self-sort who they will and will not compete with. I want them to be able to tell the borderline-ganker to shape up or ship out. I want that borderline ganker to be able to either find others that share and appreciate his point of view or conform to the community standard of those he wants to compete with.
Inter-guild PvP mechanics had many flaws, but they had elements that might serve as a starting point. I wouldn’t use guilds- they’re frequently too diverse- people are temporarily quitting to avoid PvP while other “friends of guildies” are temporarily joining just to participate. It could all be a real mess…
But player-defined, player-managed factions… Well, I’d like to explore that idea a little further.
February 7th, 2007 at 4:52 am
I perceive the typical ganker as simply someone enjoying the malevolence of his actions (it’s fun because it’s unpleasant for another person). We see such behavior in non-gaming life (such as with bullying), and it’s understandable that it would occur with greater frequency in contemporary virtual environments.
In reality, malicious behavior like that is usually sanctioned by informal, and often creative, intervention. Virtual worlds don’t allow the same range and forcefulness of sanctions. Even in real life, one may have noticed an increased frequency of malicious behavior as our culture has become less accepting of forceful informal sanctions (like physically throwing a kid out of a theater if he’s talking during the movie).
Virtual worlds are also commonly free of non-legal, non-social, non-willful restraints (I’m sure there’s a better way of saying that, but I couldn’t find one). For example, in reality, a person might have the personality of a bully but lack the semblance of power necessary to effectively bully someone. In a virtual world, power, and thereby the capacity to threaten or bully, is more easily attainable.
Ideally, we should all do what’s right because it’s right, but the reality is that human beings often reject evils only for fear of punishment. Legal sanctions (which, in this case, would refer to game mechanics and moderators) are never as effective as non-legal sanctions (community-initiated sanctions). Unfortunately, I don’t think methods of verbal or passive exclusion (”you can’t join our group/guild”) are enough. Sometimes, force is the best diplomacy.
February 7th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
“Sometimes force is the best diplomacy” I disagree with, if you mean hunting down the ganker and beating on him. I know many gankers IRL (unfortunately) and they like to brag on how many people it took to bring them down… how easy it was to get back, and how much they “tied up an entire guild.”
By exclusion here I mean that PvP is inherenet with the player factions. If you aren’t part of the warring faction, you’re excluded from their PvP. You can’t gank. Your only choice is to find a faction that accepts your mindset and play against factions that also accept your mindset.
For people who are just more “hardcore” or more aggressive players, they’d enjoy the game more playing with and against people that share those philosophies. If gankers are in the minority as much as I think- and if they really only get their rocks off attacking others that are weaker, that won’t be a pleasant option.
February 7th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Well, PvP has the greatest appeal to me when it is tied into the lore, like it was in SWG. It doesn’t have to be limited to just two or a few factions, but having a roleplay motivation for PvP suits me personally. Purely player-centric factions for PvP sounds interesting, and I like your idea of choosing your faction’s enemy factions. But the second you add an NPC-world tie-in to a few factions, then ganking becomes an unavoidable possibility.
Force can mean more than simply beating on somone. For example, it can mean intentional embarrassment, which is also an aggressive act. Avoiding embarrassment is a strong motivation, but you have to know someone personally to know whether or not it would be an effective sanction.
And that’s what I mean about informal sanctions tending to be the more effective. In real life, when the local community, rather than a distant government or static code, handles problems of justice, they’re usually able to do so with fuller knowledge of the miscreant’s personality, the conditions of his or her life, and the conditions surrounding the incident. Sanctioning is most effective when one understands that different sanctions work on different individuals in different situations.
Hence, in a virtual world, the answer isn’t to create a new set of necessary sanctions or refine the old code. Instead, developers should try to empower virtual communities through tools and moderator support to be able to respond creatively to different individual gankers.
March 1st, 2007 at 2:44 am
I have yet to enjoy PvP in any MMO purely because it is inherently unbalanced. The old “rock-paper-scissors” approach to balance works fine for PvE but is easily the single worst idea ever instituted for player versus player. That’s what leads to ganking, as your examples above amply illustrate.
The only good model for PvP is one where everyone is effectively equal. Most First Person Shooters are the standard here. The only way an MMO can have gank- and grief-free PvP is to limit everyone’s abilities to the same basic level.
Player self-regulated PvP only works in MMOs where the contests are instanced. The Arenas in City of Heroes are a good example. By recognizing the rock-paper-scissors approach is inherently unbalanced, many groups in CoH have instituted their own rules. Participants obey or are kicked, period. A couple years ago there was an excellent Arena competition in CoH known as the “Arena Foot Brawl League.” Teams were organized and matches determined, following a pro sports model. Only certain powers were allowed, levelling the playing field for all contestants.
That levelling of the playing field is what has to be done in order to eliminate the immature. If developers won’t do it, then they need to give the players the tools to do so.