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Plunder party

  • Thread starter DeletedUser10720
  • Start date

DeletedUser10720

I have tried to set this idea up in different hoods from time to time, but have had very little luck with responses or setting up a successful team. So I wanted to float this to the wider audience of the forums to see if people think it's a functional idea.

Similar to the weekly GB donation teams some guilds setup. I have thought of the plunder party.

The basic idea being a team of 4 ( yourself plus 3) all (ideally) with voyager and Atlantis GBs.

Each day you agree to a predetermined building to target. Such as a terrace farm on a 24hour cook. Share defensive army details and collection times to allow a successful attack and plunder.

You will be plundered 3x daily. Once by each of the other members in the party, and in return you plunder 3x. Earning the same / equal reward to what was lost, plus the goods from voyager and the chance of double output from Atlantis.

I know that a lot of people attack and plunder indiscriminately and wouldn't want to lose their productions, but many are also hesitant to do so, based on their place in a hood, attack levels, fear of retaliation or whatever other factors effect them. That said I still think it could be a fun idea to get more hood activity going.
 

DeletedUser

I don't think it's abuse... no more than any GB clubs are. It's just people sharing resources and trying to maximize their profits.
But it is kinda close.
If you think that a mutual plundering club is the ethical equivalent of a GB club...
Although, lot's of people must agree with you, or we wouldn't have the White House resident that we currently have.
 

DeletedUser10720

I don't know if it's any less ethical than regular plundering. If you're just attacking and plundering people at random you're effectively stealing the rewards of their time and efforts. With a team, it's mutually shared and rewarded. I'm not going to compare it to any horrible modern political figures or parties.

A GB club is nothing but people agreeing to share their resources and collaborating to ensure all members mutually earn the best rewards for their actions. Especially when we start getting into those helping each other get ridiculously high level GBs.

This is just another idea of how more people can cooperate and use the tools given to them to earn the highest rewards they can for their actions. Especially when daily challenges and events are starting to more frequently give 'win x battles without losing' quests. A guaranteed 3 consecutive wins can go a long way to improving your expected cost to reward rate.

I see no ethical difference in this. Before people built GB clubs it was a lot of self levelling and entirely competitive sniping and many people trying to one-up each other for a little bit more. Much like the current style of plundering. Everyone trying to get more at the expense of someone who can't actually compete on the same level. If anything a plunder party is more ethical than most people's current system of attacking the weaker players and keeping them from being able to progress as rapidly.
 

DeletedUser

I don't know if it's any less ethical than regular plundering.
Oh, give me a break. If you're smart enough to come up with this little doozy of a scheme, you're smart enough to know that's BS. How many plunder victims deliberately let others plunder them? And how many plunderers deliberately let their victims reciprocate? Exactly zero. That's how many.
If you're just attacking and plundering people at random you're effectively stealing the rewards of their time and efforts.
Yes, within the rules and intent of the game features, and with the risk of losing the battle or not being able to plunder due to timely collecting by the victim. Not the same thing at all as what you're proposing.
I see no ethical difference in this.
That is perhaps the saddest statement I have ever read on here. It's one thing to have no ethics, or to have none and just straight up admit it. But it's very, very sad to have no ethics yet pretend to, as you're doing here. I sincerely hope this isn't your philosophy in real life.
 

DeletedUser10720

[QUOTE="Stephen Longshanks, post: 194884, member: 18005"That is perhaps the saddest statement I have ever read on here. It's one thing to have no ethics, or to have none and just straight up admit it. But it's very, very sad to have no ethics yet pretend to, as you're doing here. I sincerely hope this isn't your philosophy in real life. [/QUOTE]

Well, my real life ethics can be called questionable at times. I'll freely admit that. I don't claim to be morally superior. I'm just as flawed as the rest of us.

Zero people allow plunder and retaliation because the battle mechanic in the game plays on our natural competitive instincts and pushes us to want to prove we're a stronger opponent. This is a different tactic to, yes manipulate that and bring in the concept of collaborative rewards.

It's beneficial to work together and help people, if that is a scheme or exploitation of the mechanic, then I'll accept that and be ok with trying to scheme, exploit or manipulate things to my advantage while minimizing damage done to others. And if we can cooperate and both benefit I don't think that's immoral or unethical.

Typically for something to be considered exploitation or unethical, there should be a party that is clearly losing. A targeted individual or entity that is taken advantage of and winds up with significantly less than the others. ( say a low level hoodie being plundered by the top of the hood. Who has no chance of successful retaliation.) There have no doubt been collaborative efforts made to punish individuals or groups and guilds, by many people. Based on anything from GvG activity, guild grudges, or general behavior in global chats, and many other reasons. Is that not as ethically questionable? If not flatout exploitation and abuse?

That said, I do love the way this conversation turned. The issues I've had in my previous attempts to make something like this stem mostly from a great amount of distrust amongst hoodies who are very unwilling to share the information. Not so much about the ethical side or concept of if the team would be exploiting something. This is pleasantly surprising.
 

DeletedUser

Typically for something to be considered exploitation or unethical, there should be a party that is clearly losing. A targeted individual or entity that is taken advantage of and winds up with significantly less than the others.
Not accurate. Unethical includes using unintended loopholes to gain an advantage for yourself that others who use the feature as intended don't get. No different from something like loan officers at different banks giving each other discounted interest rates, or executives at different companies giving inside information to outside investors or using their insider knowledge to take advantage of stock fluctuations.
 

DeletedUser10720

Not accurate. Unethical includes using unintended loopholes to gain an advantage for yourself that others who use the feature as intended don't get. No different from something like loan officers at different banks giving each other discounted interest rates, or executives at different companies giving inside information to outside investors or using their insider knowledge to take advantage of stock fluctuations.

Fair point.

However the key difference I see in the two as a comparison is that in theory, everyone has the same ability to become part of a plunder party and gain. The insider trading and lending rate fluctuations rely on a majority of the people not being able to participate.
 

DeletedUser

Fair point.

However the key difference I see in the two as a comparison is that in theory, everyone has the same ability to become part of a plunder party and gain. The insider trading and lending rate fluctuations rely on a majority of the people not being able to participate.
That's hardly relevant in a discussion of ethics. That would be like saying that war crimes are bad because only a few people can engage in them and benefit, but knocking over a liquor store is okay because anybody can do it and make a few bucks. It's always interesting to me how far people will go to try to rationalize their unethical thinking.
 

DeletedUser13736

I see only a slight ethical difference between GB clubs and "Plunder Parties". The GB club uses FP and trust to level each other's GBs mutually. The plunder party uses GB mechanics and trust to produce goods and/or other stuff for each player in the party. I personally don't think using this game mechanic is abuse outright-it is just a clever twist of the rules we have come to accept as standard. It does feel slightly cheaty however, that may just be because I played FoE plundering the unwilling lol. I see @Stephen Longshanks point, but I also see @THEKYLe point. It is a tough decision.
 

DeletedUser

I personally don't think using this game mechanic is abuse outright-it is just a clever twist of the rules we have come to accept as standard.
This should say that you have come to accept as standard, not "we". As @Algona would say, don't speak for me.
 

DeletedUser10720

I do see your point @Stephen Longshanks , and it does twist the rules and traditional way many have played. If I had to compare it to a real-world crime it would not be war crimes or even holding up a liquor store. Maybe a low level form of insurance fraud.
 

DeletedUser

I did not mean to speak for you stephen. I was referring to the "royal" we. I apologize for the misunderstanding.
And I wasn't really specifically meaning me, I know a lot of players that have not accepted this type of thing as standard. And the trouble with accepting a little "twisting" of the rules as "standard", is that then the rules get twisted a little more...and a little more...and so on, until there basically are no rules.
 

Algona

Well-Known Member
When I read this thread the second thing that popped into my head was Salvor Hardin's famous epigram about morales.

This should say that you have come to accept as standard, not "we". As @Algona would say, don't speak for me.

You can make the royalty check out to Algona's Mercenary Legion, LLC.*

Carry on.



How high do you want the bodies stacked? Call 555 AL4 HIRE.
 

DeletedUser10720

I do admit it feels slightly cheaty. It clearly is an attempt to stir up some thoughts on it's fairness. I kind of pride myself on trying to find clever new ways to use the tools given to me and if I find a way to do something new or better, I'll try to. If it comes to be decided as a bad idea, that's better than not going anywhere with it.
This game has a lot of things different people consider problematic. As mentioned above, high level arcs and teams dedicated to plunder targets have both been brought up, there are countless threads dedicated to issues with plunderers, defensive army A.I. GB capping, camping in ages for near endless timeframes... all of these can be considered a form of twisting and manipulating the rules. All of which are considered pretty standard things to do, if not recommended. This is just a new form of one of these ideas to throw into the ring. No player has to adhire to it, some may attempt it, some may try to adjust it to their style and some may ignore it entirely.
 

DeletedUser13736

And the trouble with accepting a little "twisting" of the rules as "standard", is that then the rules get twisted a little more...and a little more...and so on, until there basically are no rules.
That is true. If rules get bent then they will no longer have any effectiveness. Perhaps I misspoke earlier, when I said it twisted the rules. I think that plunder parties could be considered in the same boat as high level Arc groups. The developers did not intend to create the "monster" that they did, but players took the idea that they made and ran with it (All the way to Lvl 80:p). As long as this game is played by us (those that put actual thought, time, and effort into it), it will constantly be changed in different ways, not always exactly as the developers intended.
 
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