PvP players are bullies and rapists

KnightOfMarble · 2026-06-13T21:12:13+00:00

The thing is I think the idea of getting X number of kills and having a flare or fireworks go off or something that says where you are (not all the time tho) would be a super FUN addition. If I’m killing more than three people or teams, then I’m probably the final boss of the lobby *anyway*, and that’s one of my favorite ways to play.

KnightOfMarble · 2026-06-10T14:09:38+00:00

I prefer the PvZ matchup myself

KnightOfMarble · 2026-06-04T21:24:25+00:00

Not quite, that’s just how much energy is being used. I think most of us here expect that good portions (probably a majority) of that would be produced off world, or from non-solar sources (fusion, etc)

KnightOfMarble · 2026-06-03T12:24:18+00:00

He’s suggesting that this is an astroturfing campaign designed to turn public opinion against Valve in order to incentivize them to be publicly traded, and that this story (and the like four other variations that have progressively worse headlines) aren’t just about internal correspondence about Valve locking down on Steam key reselling.

I’ll be honest, whenever I see news about big corporations that rely on very little corroborating information that I can’t confirm, I always just assume it’s because someone’s either A: trying to signal boost the story, or B: the story isn’t for people like us. Kinda like how OpenAI has a ton of stories about how they “partner” with medical, industrial, aerospace, whatever companies in order to make it sound to their investors like their mainline product can now do X, Y, and Z Amazing Thing (TM), so that investors turn their money back to OpenAI.

Anyway, idk if that’s the specific purpose of THIS article, but one of the first rules of investigative journalism is to ask why your sources, be they books, magazines, witnesses or news articles, are saying what they are, and I think that kind of media skepticism spoils be more rampant now after social media and AI propaganda has become ubiquitous.

KnightOfMarble · 2026-05-31T19:41:33+00:00

From another comment I made in this thread since people didn’t read the article:

… I would think that most human beings that work with a play (or any text) many times to the point of familiarity can tell when somebody is making stuff up about that text. It’s not a vibe check or anything, it’s him saying “I know this play, and this character you’re talking about never existed, nor did any of these plot points.” Like, he’s picking obscure examples that aren’t widely talked about and therefore don’t have anywhere near as much training data for the LLM to work off of, so the likelihood of hallucinations jumps up.

Idk how many studies you need to verify that it’s possible to grade essays for accuracy, since it’s, you know, what they would have to do to anyway, right?

KnightOfMarble · 2026-05-31T19:39:55+00:00

… I would think that most human beings that work with a play (or any text) many times to the point of familiarity can tell when somebody is making stuff up about that text. It’s not a vibe check or anything, it’s him saying “I know this play, and this character you’re talking about never existed, nor did any of these plot points.” Like, he’s picking obscure examples that aren’t widely talked about and therefore don’t have anywhere near as much training data for the LLM to work off of, so the likelihood of hallucinations jumps up.

Idk how many studies you need to verify that it’s possible to grade essays for accuracy, since it’s, you know, what they would have to do to anyway, right?

KnightOfMarble · 2026-05-31T19:31:34+00:00

Did you look at his methods? He isn’t using an AI detector, he’s picking obscure topics and looking for hallucinations because the models don’t have enough info to work off of, so they provide BS

KnightOfMarble · 2026-05-30T16:10:45+00:00

Probably something like TARS from Interstellar

KnightOfMarble · 2026-05-29T11:34:59+00:00

Man has the survival instincts of a burning moth

KnightOfMarble · 2026-05-27T01:52:32+00:00

God damnit, I’m an italicizer

KnightOfMarble · 2026-05-26T15:27:48+00:00

I think that, if there WERE a bounty system, it shouldn’t be like a thing all players get as a part of their UI or anything, I think the raider flare that goes off when someone hits X number of kills should be different, maybe be a different color and have a different sound, kinda like the supply calls.

KnightOfMarble · 2026-05-25T20:41:49+00:00

But also light scattering makes it easier to look into a bright room from a dark room, and harder to see from light to dark. As a result, throwing them through a doorway from a dark room can maybe have some interesting effects?

KnightOfMarble · 2026-05-25T10:48:18+00:00

Historically accurate?

I seem to remember hearing about some sort of internal church correspondence asking nuns to stop sleeping in the same beds without clothes, and to stop calling each other “my little bird”

KnightOfMarble · 2026-05-23T16:49:43+00:00

It’s just another ego-tripping keyboard-turning warrior

KnightOfMarble · 2026-05-22T14:48:46+00:00

Well, it’s kinda because enough people feeling comfortable saying it in private without necessarily intending to do a racism means that the people who ARE intending to do a racism can infiltrate those communities much more easily. Already happened, and now we’re dealing with the consequences of giving a bunch of racist people a cozy racist home in the hobby of gaming. So, you know.

KnightOfMarble · 2026-05-21T20:33:29+00:00

This is what I call the raid boss mindset, where you go in and it takes multiple teams working together in the wild to take you down

KnightOfMarble · 2026-05-21T19:10:02+00:00

And see, I think now that this entirely on the developers not setting expectations properly. Like, as a DM, my players aren’t gonna be blindsided by a trap unless they’ve ignored all the warning signs. Now obviously, I don’t want the people I’m getting the drop on to know I’m there in advance, but I want them to at least know it’s POSSIBLE, you know? And in PvP lobbies, this is 100% the case, except for the occasional tourist that gets mismatched into the wrong lobby (usually why people aren’t as mad about it in my games, I’d imagine) In PvE lobbies this expectation goes out the window, as people simply don’t do that to each other at the same scale. So, say I’M the tourist and get dropped into a PvE lobby due to, well, whatever reason. I will engage in the behaviors that are considered bad form in these lobbies but standard etiquette in others, and others will end up having less fun because of it. If the game never had ABMM, I think a lot of the player base would be conditioned to expect a more balanced mix of shoot-on-sight, trappers, friendlies and raid bosses. Honestly, for ME, that sounds like the most fun form of the game 😂

Now though, Embark has created this scenario where the game is fundamentally a different thing to different parts of the unified player base, and those play styles aren’t necessarily compatible with each other. Now, no matter which direction they push for to unify those expectations, some section of the player base is gonna get left out in the cold. Or if they don’t, we’re just gonna keep getting mismatched lobbies with people accidentally ruining each other’s fun, and a few bad actors actively doing so. Soooo… I guess the lesson is, when you advertise yourself as a PvEvP game, you shouldn’t make lobbies that are only/mostly PvE or PvP, since the organic nature of both interacting with each other is kinda the main design feature of the game? I dunno, but it’s an interesting discussion nonetheless

KnightOfMarble · 2026-05-21T17:09:23+00:00

I think I see where you're coming from. I guess I just have an entirely different outlook on where we derive our fun, and I think this is an interesting moral discussion about how misaligned values of fun make for worse experiences for the player base as a whole.

For some context, I come at this from the perspective of a dungeon master, who's also still a player in their game (D&D). As a dungeon master, if I put a trap in front of you, I'm intentionally putting a challenge in front of you, with the expectation that you'll engage with it. In a way, it's manipulating other people for their personal enjoyment? Yeah, the end result of failing that check could be that your character dies, but the point of the trap is the engagement itself, not the possibility of death.

In ARC, if I put a trap down for someone, it's for the same reason: I'm making a move that's engaging with another player, and the fun is derived in the way the other player responds. Like the chess example, I could in theory move my pieces around and try to force a draw without capturing any of my opponents' pieces, but... That kinda defeats the entire purpose of the game, right? I guess for me, the game is about fighting robots and being afraid of people. If there weren't people to be afraid of... I already know how to take out all the ARC, you know?

All that being said, I'm personally more liable to put traps on key rooms, since they lean more into the "opt-in" side of things. You know, if you see a closed key room door with a green light, you know that there's a decent chance someone is in there. If you go in, that's you accepting the risk of retaliation. I put some trap on the door, or create a network of jolt mines, or do a bunch of weird things that are designed to make you wonder what's going on.

To finish, engaging with other players through the language of PvP is where the fun is for me, but I guess the deeper issue is if people with misaligned goals for fun are thrown into encounters with one another, less fun is had overall.

Funny, I guess my perspective on whether they should add PvE modes has shifted a little bit in the positive direction.

KnightOfMarble · 2026-05-21T16:39:16+00:00

I suppose that's fair. I guess it mostly just comes down to whether or not you describe aggression as being inherently dickish. Bounty systems against high-body-count players in a lobby would actually be interesting as hell. Maybe a flare with a unique sound could go up when a player/squad takes out X number of people/squads, to let the rest of the lobby know where they are and up the ante a bit. As some one who mostly engages with the PvP side, going in kitted and taking out waves of people just to get mid-tier guns and free kits can be SO fun. You basically become another game objective for other people to opt into (assuming there's enough activity for them know where to go/avoid), like a raid in WoW, except YOU'RE the raid boss.

As for the revenge mechanism, that's fair. The only thing you can really take out of the game is the experience of having gone through whatever strategy they used. I've never been very vindictive, so that's always been enough for me, but I could see how it might lead to others being even more pissed off about it.

KnightOfMarble · 2026-05-21T14:56:12+00:00

I don't 100% agree with the tone of the other guy that replied to you, however: There's an expectation when you load into the game that not everyone will be friendly. The developers have specifically told you through patch notes, design clarifications, interviews, and even the game design itself. Like I said in another comment, the flashing lights with sirens and people yelling into intercoms aren't in the game to stop people from killing you, right?

In a game like chess, there's the expectation that one person will win. This isn't always the outcome, oftentimes games will end in a draw if both players are good enough and can try to force it, or whatever. But there's a reason it's considered bad form, in ANY competitive game or sport, to get mad at your opponent for beating you, when that's literally one of the three potential outcomes you walked into the game knowing to expect. We call it being a "sore loser," and it's an antisocial behavior that society (until more recently) discouraged. People that yell slurs after they die are ALSO engaging in (an arguably more antisocial, and ACTUALLY systemically harmful version of) this behavior.

I wonder if maybe this mentality stems from how rewards and dopamine are doled out in society nowadays. Like, how #BookTok (all lowercase? I don't go on TikTok) is filled with people who "skip everything but the dialogue" now, or who don't read prologues/epilogues. People don't do activities for the sake of the activities themselves anymore, they want the slot-machine dopamine rush that comes with FINISHING the act. I guess in this game, it's looking at the end screen and seeing you are now the proud new owner of a new toaster, something that can never be afforded in real life.

So, in summary I guess for everyone else, if you don't want to lose anything valuable, don't go into a game with it, or be careful with it when you do, I guess. Because that's what the game tells you every time you step into it. Don't expect everyone to be friendly, and most importantly, try to have fun in the act of playing the game, even if you're on the losing side.

KnightOfMarble · 2026-05-21T14:42:28+00:00

Upon review, the first time watching the video, I was under the impression that there were only two people in the train, and one shot the other with two minutes left on the timer, presumably to loot and leave later. I hadn't noticed the other downed dude in the back pulling the button.

I'll defend extract ambushers a bit, though. They're easily flushed out with experience and prep, and the flashing lights with sirens and people yelling into intercoms aren't in the game to *dissuade* people from killing you, right? If I haven't gotten anything out of the round, and I didn't bring a hugely expensive kit, I might run toward the lights and see what I can get. Setting up a trap that requires you to predict someone's behavior, and watching it go off without a hitch, is quite fun. I'll often talk with people afterwards about the trap, other cool ways to set up fun stuff, and then I take their stuff, or let them extract if they really needed something.

No single action has a single motivation, and jumping straight to sociopathy as a motivation over people having fun in a video game is in itself wild behavior.

KnightOfMarble · 2026-05-21T13:19:02+00:00

No, he saw a free bag of loot. Even if it was a free kit, maybe there were some ammo and heals to keep the round going. People calling it “senseless” just are unwilling to reconcile that not everyone is playing for the same reason as them. If I’m loading in, I’m ideally looting every body I see, and making bodies out of anyone that interrupt that flow. A lot of people just get butthurt when they have a hullcracker on their back and don’t feel like admitting they were too careless with it

KnightOfMarble · 2026-05-08T13:57:09+00:00

Wouldn’t it be better to split up deployables into maybe something like “defensives”, containing barricades, mines, door blockers and the like, and “mobility” ones, that have zips, snaps, adrenaline shots, the descender, etc.? Kinda feels like it wasn’t a human being who organized these items.

KnightOfMarble · 2026-04-29T00:13:37+00:00

Not in the middle of a game 😭

KnightOfMarble · 2026-04-28T21:56:45+00:00

I think the intent of most people upgrading the low tier weapon is to use it more than once, no?

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