Eject Command

[Elystole]

Can we have the ability to "eject" individuals from a group without disbanding the whole group?

[jilliana]

I'm all for this. It's particularly handy for when that random person joins your group when they weren't invited.

[Lae]

I'm not saying that this is a bad idea, but it still makes me sad. Especially in terms of events.

People want to be involved, or with the group, because it's safe. If you really dislike a person that much I think if they're on your enemies list they can't join you. IIRC.

But still, sad.

[Kiyaani]

I'm glad you said it, Lae because I was thinking the same thing. And it's true - enemies can't join groups. If you want to exclude someone, please RP it. Most people would be courteous enough to leave if asked and probably wouldn't join without permission in the first place.

[Elystole]

I'm not saying that this is a bad idea, but it still makes me sad. Especially in terms of events.

People want to be involved, or with the group, because it's safe. If you really dislike a person that much I think if they're on your enemies list they can't join you. IIRC.

But still, sad.

The person I was trying to eject was Jill because she has this habit of going into dangerous situations without her armor and Elystole is tired of leading one of his friends to her death. So wanting to eject someone from a group isn't necessarily about trying to exclude them from events.

And since following someone has a command and isn't something just RPed then preventing someone from following you should have a command as well to put some weight behind that RP.

[Lae]

I'm not saying that this is a bad idea, but it still makes me sad. Especially in terms of events.

People want to be involved, or with the group, because it's safe. If you really dislike a person that much I think if they're on your enemies list they can't join you. IIRC.

But still, sad.

The person I was trying to eject was Jill because she has this habit of going into dangerous situations without her armor and Elystole is tired of leading one of his friends to her death. So wanting to eject someone from a group isn't necessarily about trying to exclude them from events.

And since following someone has a command and isn't something just RPed then preventing someone from following you should have a command as well to put some weight behind that RP.

You have to excuse me for not knowing the specifics, but couldn't you just ask her to leave the group?

[Rias]

Regardless of social and grouping-during-events dynamics, expect something like this soon. It's always been a bit goofy that you could, say, join a hostile Elemancer or Rook's group to avoid their area of effect spells, and the group leader couldn't do anything about it. They could disband if they were otherwise alone, but if they were in an actual group before, that'd put the rest of their previous group members at risk from the spells as well.

Same as if someone was harassing you and your buddies - they could just join you and follow you around. It would be a hassle and take time and communication to disband, have the others join you, and try to run away, all while hoping the offender didn't just join you again as well.

[Lavi]

Regardless of social and grouping-during-events dynamics, expect something like this soon. It's always been a bit goofy that you could, say, join a hostile Elemancer or Rook's group to avoid their area of effect spells, and the group leader couldn't do anything about it. They could disband if they were otherwise alone, but if they were in an actual group before, that'd put the rest of their previous group members at risk from the spells as well.

Same as if someone was harassing you and your buddies - they could just join you and follow you around. It would be a hassle and take time and communication to disband, have the others join you, and try to run away, all while hoping the offender didn't just join you again as well.

I hope people don't decide to use it to shut down RP, or be a captain jerk-face because they don't necessarily like a person for the sake of not liking them. I guess I agree with Kiyaani and Lae. if you don't like a person, or have a reason for a person to not be in your group say so. if they stalk you, i'd rather there be a flag list or something that prevents that character from ever joining you or another person. to be honest with you it's how I've gotten to meet a lot of random players they just joined me. if I didn't want them hanging around i'd let them know in game. While I understand the point I could see how this would head in a very negative direction.

[jilliana]

I think Rias got to the cusp of the situation really.
Ejecting someone doesn't have to be negative in the least. Sometimes the circumstances would call to where it's necessary for everyone in a group to be safe.
Call it what you want, but I'm still all for this.

[Elystole]

You have to excuse me for not knowing the specifics, but couldn't you just ask her to leave the group?

Sure, and I have. But since she's a stubborn Faewyr woman and doesn't always do what I ask her, what then?

That isn't something I'm willing to kill-list someone over - which is what putting someone on the enemies list does. It makes them kill-on-sight and your attacks will automatically target them.

if you don't like a person, or have a reason for a person to not be in your group say so. if they stalk you, i'd rather there be a flag list or something that prevents that character from ever joining you or another person. to be honest with you it's how I've gotten to meet a lot of random players they just joined me. if I didn't want them hanging around i'd let them know in game. While I understand the point I could see how this would head in a very negative direction.

It seems like people are failing to understand that just because you tell someone not to follow you doesn't mean they will listen. And you may like having random people just join you, but I generally want there to at least be introductions first. Otherwise it is a case of "Who the hell are you and why are you clingy?" I guess I could kill everyone who tries to follow me without my permission but that seems excessive.

Regardless of social and grouping-during-events dynamics, expect something like this soon. It's always been a bit goofy that you could, say, join a hostile Elemancer or Rook's group to avoid their area of effect spells, and the group leader couldn't do anything about it. They could disband if they were otherwise alone, but if they were in an actual group before, that'd put the rest of their previous group members at risk from the spells as well.

Same as if someone was harassing you and your buddies - they could just join you and follow you around. It would be a hassle and take time and communication to disband, have the others join you, and try to run away, all while hoping the offender didn't just join you again as well.

Precisely. I had thought of the group combat dynamic, but didn't mention it since that is one of these situations where I could use the enemies list.

[Vertebrate]

I guess it is realistic to be unable to just bar someone from joining your group. If some drunken beggar just joins the group of wealthy looking adventurers, what else can you do but take him in a dark alley an bludgeon him if he won't leave? On the other hand, the combat implications of joining a group to avoid area spells is a dirty trick and should be addressed somehow. Perhaps there is another way to address it without implementing an "eject" command?

[Isiaa]

Perhaps if a member of a group has attacked you in the last ten minutes you can't join? That would at least solve the AoE problem. I'm thinking anything else can be RPed.

[Elystole]

I guess it is realistic to be unable to just bar someone from joining your group. If some drunken beggar just joins the group of wealthy looking adventurers, what else can you do but take him in a dark alley an bludgeon him if he won't leave? On the other hand, the combat implications of joining a group to avoid area spells is a dirty trick and should be addressed somehow. Perhaps there is another way to address it without implementing an "eject" command?

There is absolutely nothing stopping people from manually following someone if they really want to RP being an annoying hanger-on. If we want to talk about whether or not something is realistic, automatic following isn't realistic and eliminates a few of the RP options that would normally be there to deal with someone following you. You can't outrun someone who is automatically following you. You can't go home and slam the door shut in their face. You can't hide from them.

I am having a hard time seeing why people are so opposed to the implementation of an ability to selectively remove people from a group - unless these people are worried that they'll be removed from groups. In which case I wonder why they are so adamant about following someone who doesn't want them around. Do they wish the disband command was removed?

Actually, the more I think about it, the more a simple "eject" command or its equivalent won't work. Someone could just rejoin you, so either ejecting them would have to have a cooldown period where they can't join you or you would need a toggle that prevents people from joining your group at all. I'm thinking the easiest, most elegant solution would be to simply make join something that the group leader has to accept. So someone would try to "join" you and then you would "join accept name." And you could make it so that when you beckon/invite/recruit someone they could likewise accept your request.

[Lae]

As I said in my first post, I don't think this is a bad idea. It just makes me sad that after 3 years of being around that we have to implement something like this.

Asking someone to leave or disbanding the group has always worked until now.

[xavier]

I actually like the idea of the leader of a group having to accept the request and the recruit/beckon command being an invitation. It is more fitting for the RP sensitive as well as the most fool proof way to keep group mechanics from being abused.
I don't even think a cool down is a great idea simply because a persistent troll, and I've seen a lot of them being a newbie guide on another mud, will just come right back in and join up just because it annoys you.
having the ability to accept or deny a request to be followed or an invitation to follow seems like a more realistic way to handle the situation. you could also give them arguments if you wanted so they aren't just default messages.

recruit Elystole eyes
Xavier points a finger to his eyes and asks you if you want to watch his back.
follow accept great
Elystole jumps in with you and exclaims, "Great I need the practice!"
or have it tied to an emote argument in which you could join with the emote

join Elystole asks, "Mind if I tag along?"
follow accept waves a hand in encouragement.
Elystole waves a hand in encouragement.

[Kent]

I agree with the idea of controlling who follows you or not. I think some good ideas were presented above with invitations and requests to join, as well as the ability to eject someone without disbanding the group. Hopefully we will have these mechanics in-game someday.

Conversely, I would like to suggest there be created a 'tail' command to follow after another character or NPC or mob. There ought to be a success roll for 'tail'ing someone else, based on the average of the tailing player's Perception and Stealth scores, versus the Perception score of the person tailed. Each room that the tailee moves results in another check for success or failure.

[merin]

I think after some thought, I'm going to have to come down on Lae's side of things. If you don't want someone in your group, do something about it. Making a join/leave/whatever mechanic isn't going to fix things. There have been more times than I can count where I was training something very specific and another player walzes in, joins me without asking, and screws up what I was trying to do. There have also been instances where said player didn't join me, so, it would only do nothing to fix the situation. I do understand and agree that it would be handy, however, if the stubborn Fewar woman isn't wearing armor and is truly stubborn, she's going to go get herself killed with or without the group, so, again, it doesn't matter. Also, no to the tail command.

[criticalfault]

I don't mind the tail command as long as they are still subject to my AoE blasts. They will not be tailing me soon after that I'd imagine. As for a skill for like the Claw or what not, seems alright, just make it a guild skill.

[Dakhal]

It just came to mind that this is here, and that it would be particularly nifty to have the ability to remove a particular person from a group- whether this barred them from returning for a set amount of time or not. I see this mainly because sometimes you come across points in time where there's one person you're with that you don't want to be with, or if you've come to the end of an adventure and want to dismiss them. It seems just a bit silly that you'd disrupt the whole party to drop somebody off at their doorstep, essentially. There's also the case where if you're leading a mount, you'd have to disband the group rather than just telling it to stay.. and I'm not 100%, but I don't think you can disband the horse if you are not the party leader.

[Rias]

Added a card for this to our Trello thing. It's in the Planning stage, meaning we plan on adding it, but it's not yet in progress.

Card link: https://trello.com/c/HuxWchoV

[Rias]

Group leaders can now GROUP REMOVE/EJECT a person, FYI.

[jilliana]

Yes! Thank you! :)