Claim System + Call for Help Code = Win

[Frost]

I have seen so many threads recently about losing claim on monsters and people 'stealing' pops etc. I am proposing a solution in a new thread, rather than posting this idea in the seven other threads.

First off, let me poison the well here and scorn Square Enix for not exercising a simple concept of:

"The Spirit of the Law"...

When a monster goes unclaimed by ways of a, I will call "faulty" game mechanic, and the GMs take the side of the group that 'steals' the monster, when the party originally fighting it are still in complete control of the monster; is it so hard to exercise the spirit of the law on that? Set a few examples, temp ban some of the more unsavory, dare i say sociopathic, folks playing that thrive on that behavior? I mean it's not specifically stated that you can't do this, but that's not really an excuse...

This is silly kids' stuff you're enabling, Square. Letting these guys wave their fingers extremely close someone's face saying "I'M NOT TOUCHING YOU!" repeatedly... Only the scenario is closer to someone straight up punching another in the face and the assailant saying, "they were in the way of my fist, they should have moved if they didn't want to get hit"...

The simple solution is the leave a monster claimed until all combatants have been defeated.

The next best thing, would be punishing people that exploit a game mechanic for personal gain.


The proposal: Turn the "Call for Help" code into the general claim code.

What I mean by this:


Here's one of several typical scenarios of how claim gets lost:

1) Fighting a monster.
2) Main tank starts to disconnect, can't move away from the monster, can't move the monster.
3) One of two things happen here:
>> a) The tank is forced out of the game and the monster goes unclaimed.
>> b) The tank is forced out of the game, the monster goes unclaimed and all party members are forced to disengage because the current coding makes the disconnecting member drop party before they drop off the server....
4) Sociopathic player/group takes advantage of this and claims the monster, kills it.


Here's what happens when someone calls for help on a monster:

1) Player calls for help.
2) Monster remains in the 'open' status for people to attack it until either:
>> a) Monster is killed.
>> b) Monster kills anyone that took action on it and goes idle for a certain amount of time.

SO....

Why can't a monster stay claimed until it kills anyone that took action on it and goes idle for a certain amount of time?

There's many reasons people lose claim:

Disconnects
Taking a melee off the mob, and they disengage after having been the last to act on the monster.
A player dies after being the last to perform an action on the monster.
The monster runs out of range, causing a player to disengage.
A player runs out of range to avoid a devastating ability/spell*.

*Meteor, Astral Flow, and several other things encompass the maximum "stay engaged" range, if you run out of range of them, you are forced to disengage, and you don't have the luxury in most cases to check if you're the last person to take action on the monster, disengage, then run.

It's so easy to say "just don't lose claim". But there's so many situations where 'it just happens'...

The truth is, this should have never been an issue.... but Square has enabled these people who openly steal popped monsters causing this problem to grow rapidly. There's even a saying: "If it's yellow, claim that fellow" because this practice is so accepted...

This problem is tantamount to a burglar saying: "Hey man, if you didn't want your things stolen, you shouldn't have locked them up in your house" and the police agreeing...

Or a guy suing his employer for "Wrongful Termination" after intentionally burning down the office, because there was no rule against it...

Fix that which is broke.

Please.