Teamkilling penalties - bad public policy.

[Shaddowknight]

aparently sharks are exempt from this tax.

[Azov]

Yeah I was just talking about the repped mine situation. There is absolutely NO intent whatsoever on the part of the mine layer to TK. The intention is on the ENEMY SHIP to cause a teamkill, but that guy won't be hit with the fine, it will be the person who laid the mine.

So it punishes people for using Jav's, Lev's, and LTing.

[Shaddowknight]

I recall every time this idea being brought up that it was shot down, as penalising people for accidents was bad. Also being a shark or jav in a very busy base is going to have some teamkills.
I agree this is a bad idea and tk tax shouldnt be done. It's staff's job to handle intentional or excessive teamkillers.

This does hit a lot of problem areas, but the spash damage on others is not worth it. It's like nuking a whole country when only 10% of it is causing problems.

Repped bombs/mines will also trigger this, which is another huge flaw in it.

[Azov]

So today I encountered a little surprise: If I accidentally team-kill somebody, I lose $20 dollars. So I sent a ?help request and didn't get many clear answers. The leave a !comment feature was advertised by the TW-Pub bot about recent changes and I of course left a few comments about this change. But I'll go into some more detail here so everyone can read my view on it and judge the merits of the policy based on another way of looking at things.

As a matter of public policy, fining or implementing sanctions for what may otherwise be an accident is not smart. Staff has regularly stated as of late goals to confront teamkilling is mainly to dissuade intentional teamkills. Some others have opined that the new Levi settings are contributing to an increase in teamkills. So, okay, let's take both of these positions one by one and look at them.

If staff and development are implementing fines against players for teamkills because the new Levi settings have created a higher percentage of them, then why are we keeping these settings? If Dev is going to change the Levi settings then PUNISH players for using those settings, what sense is there in that? There isn't any, and in fact, it's terribly short sighted and very bureaucratic. But I am not ready to concede the new Levi settings are bad, I rather like them. So I propose keeping the new settings.

If the objective of staff is then to target players intentionally teamkilling, then that needs to be where fines are assessed. The staff member who answered my ?help call today acknowledged on this point that the bot can't determine who intentionally and accidentally teamkills. That is a shocking admission because it confirms that players who accidentally teamkill, with no basis in negligence, carelessness, or any wanton and willful conduct, are being penalized. And when you are LTing, teamkills WILL happen - that's part of the nature of LTing. So if we are punishing people for LTing with fines, then we have gone astray.

These fines need to be scrapped immediately. We can't punish rule-abiding players because a few intentionally teamkill. Punish those who deliberately offend, not those who innocently make a mistake.

Azov