I checked the people in question. The one who has killed a sizable number of people has worked almost exclusively solo, or less commonly with one person. I'm not seeing anything to imply that a permagroup is present-- and if I've ID'd everyone correctly, one pair of those characters actually later fought (and killed) one another.

I'm a lot more inclined to believe what other people posted: that you walked in on a ranking group who may have had a reason to think you were on the offensive. It's often the best time to attack a group when you're solo.

I'd hesitate before calling anyone "children" unless you know more than you've posted. Publically crying "Wolf!" about cheating is far from constructive.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

My rant was directed towards the seeming degradation of gameplay and ever increasing gank-squads. I did not mean to imply that these particular people were perma-grouping. They were used as an example, just as I alluded to the recent Imperial gank squad formed by Yagharak and his cronies. There have also been Maran gank squads and Tribunal ones as well, but I can't recall any great recent ones at the moment.

As one of the posters of the group in question already posted, I will publicly apologize to them for using them as an example, as it seemed misplaced. I was trying to group with several others and I got a couple of responses that they were just killed by one of the group members, so when I saw them show up in the same place I was passing through twice, I assumed.

However, does this change the fact of an ever-growing trend of multi-kill groups? Gank, kill, full-loot. Its frustrating being on the end where you get permalagged and everything of yours is taken. Even not-so-decent sets, food sacks and water skins being looted. Is this roleplay? Maybe if it were a horde of orcs, or a couple of Imperials fighting together, but when you see the ethos of "Hey, we'd make a powerful death squad, let's go kill everyone," I don't see how this could be construed as valid roleplay.

So, Valg, my rant was not directed towards the Immortals, as a prayer didn't go up about it, it was not posted on the "Ask an Immortal" board, etc. It was directed towards the negative direction the game seems to be taking because of the playerbase and what I believe was a personification thereof. I was wrong about the latter.

However, does this change the fact of an ever-growing trend of multi-kill groups? Gank, kill, full-loot.

Honestly, I think you're inventing a trend, and that it's not a fact at all. My impression is that ganking is mildly down (*) since we started tracking and publicizing it, large-scale looting/sacrificing is less common than any time I've seen, and that the lower ranks are no more or less bloody than before.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

(*): Also, it's less effective now than ever due to a number of code changes we've made to address the issue.

Top three of us were ranking at Orphans, naturally, the closest remote resting spot being where we ended up killing you. Why? Cause you were like right there. Duergars orcs and drow kill elves. Especially ones resting just a few steps from them. Orcs have skills that make them autoattack elves. They drink elf blood to heal themselves. Drows get autoattacked in certain elven cities. These races are supposed to hate each other's guts. Ignoring you would have been bad rp.

Soon after, we moved, ranking there wasn't giving us enough xp, we moved to Tir Talath and started ranking there, when the 4th guy, the rank-sitting duergar warrior came and killed the drow transmuter, who was the only one in his range.

That's why you see the transmuter as a ghost there.
In fact, guess what, if you came for us then, you'd have caught duergar shaman or orc at low hp and without haste.

So, here we realize that some hasty assumptions we make about other folks are not always true. I don't know about the other two but I personally 'never' form random gank squads to go kill random people. That's just not what I do.

Don't want to fight groups? Stay away from obvious evil ranking spots if you're a glaringly good race. What the hell are you doing in Tir Talath as an elf unless you're hunting for ranking evils anyway?

PS> There are easy ways to get detect invis now as a warrior thanks to the barter system and new shopkeep mobs. Figure em out.

You do notice that these people are in a ranking area of that level? So it is likely to find three of them in Tir-Talath. And a group of three is likely to be formed to rank, not gank, though they might do latter as well if the opportunity arises.

If you are anywhere near a ranking area, and you see corpses or body parts laying around, that probably means its occupied, even if you can't see the people actually ranking there (they may have left for a moment or are invisible). Look for mobs missing. The group could be invis to be resting, and to keep protection, so that if someone does show up, they can have the upper hand--which it sounds like they did. You shouldn't be going to any major ranking areas alone. There are a ton of elements in carrion fields that need to be taken into account to simply even be survivable. When you start needlessly overlooking these elements, bad things tend to happen.

The way I always view carrion fields is that it is medieval times, and only a few people have a banner that they fight for. The rest are just mercenaries looking to get the kill. Obviously there's some good apples in the bunch, but they are fewer and farther between than the bad apples. Just keep your head up, and keep at it. We all run into rough moments like these, when EVERYTHING is lost, and we have to start from scratch.

If you are in the ranking area of someone in your PK range, the people there don't want you to stay there to stab their backs while they are fighting mobs. They will kill you, just in case, if you are an enemy or a potential enemy. If they kill you and you return to loiter in their ranking area... That is a good way of getting multi-killed by the same gank.

>If you are in the ranking area of someone in your PK range,
>the people there don't want you to stay there to stab their
>backs while they are fighting mobs. They will kill you, just
>in case, if you are an enemy or a potential enemy. If they
>kill you and you return to loiter in their ranking area...
>That is a good way of getting multi-killed by the same gank.

If you assume your foe to have balls and they don't..

That's when you get multikilled and disappointed. Not everyone gives a warning and it is not smart to expect them to do. Some people go after cheap kills. I don't approve of it either, but sometimes it is just safer to expect the worst.

If I hadn't been killed in a completely different place earlier, I wouldn't be ranting. Also, since when do ranking groups start having four in their group?

Four is unlikely for ranking group, though such groups can be born naturally at times(e.g. Maran herds and Imperial gank squads often have 4 or more people). I admit that group of 4 is rare in teen ranks, though. But as always, the only anwer is suck it up and live on. I hope you feel better now.

Level sitting is less than it used to be - who remembers level 30 thieves at the zenith of their power with dual backstab? They'd level to there and do nothing but pk. Warriors rarely ever ranked past 40

Permagrouping is now illegal - there was a time this wasn't even frowned upon, and even skilled players looked to form perma groups to fight other perma groups

Ganking used to be an art form. The phrase "sylvan death squad" wasn't alluding to their pk prowess, more the 6 or 7 chameleoned sylvans that would gank you down once you walked into their wall of thorns.

So while it sucks, and shows an element of the playerbase would rather score an easy kill than a challenging kill, we can't really call it anything new.

>Permagrouping is now illegal - there was a time this wasn't
>even frowned upon, and even skilled players looked to form
>perma groups to fight other perma groups

And kept a nice easy balance.

That was practically put into place for level 15 rank sitting duergar warriors chewing up their range. Then they just ranked to 29 to avoid it, hence distention came about.