Kill stealing
Encyclopedia
In online game
s and especially first-person shooter
games, MMORPG
s and MUD
s, kill stealing is the practice of arranging to get credit for killing an enemy, when it should have clearly been another player's kill. An example is when a player in a first-person shooter whittles an enemy's health down and is about to kill them, when another player comes along and shoots that enemy once. The second player gets credit for the kill despite having done almost none of the work of killing that enemy. Kill stealing occurs when the rewards for defeating a foe are limited or highly desired, and many players are competing for that same reward. The term is most often heard in MMORPGs and MUDs, where rewards of items and experience point
s can be substantial, but can also be found in first-person shooter
s where players are rewarded a point for a kill. Many players feel that kill stealing is a dishonorable practice.
s kill steal as only one of their tactics in annoying other players.
One of the most prominent games where the term kill stealing is heard is the fantasy MMORPG EverQuest
. In this game, the experience points and right to the rewards for a kill goes entirely to the player or party that did the most damage to the defeated mob
. Some player classes were designed to do more damage than others and could find it quite tempting to "help" other players kill monsters. For example, a warrior might be battling an orc
only to have a spellcaster come along, blast the orc to death in an instant and get all the reward, while the warrior walks away from the fight, having lost time and hit points, and gained nothing. This current system is still considered to be an improvement over the original method of awarding experience and right to the rewards that the game began with. In that system, the determining factor was which player did the most damage. If that player was in a group, then that group got the experience. However, if one person outside of the group did more damage than any single player in the group, the experience went to that outside person, even if their damage was far less than the combined damage output of the party. Widespread killstealing of entire groups by single players led Sony to implement the currently used method, which considers the combined damage output of the entire party.
Complaints of kill stealing are sometimes heard in online first-person shooters. In most of these games, the credit for a kill goes to the player who deals the killing shot. Players usually ignore complaints of kill stealing in FPSs because the rewards are less significant and because these games move much faster (i.e., it was probably accidental). Furthermore, in FPS combat, players are usually either allies (in which case the kill's credit going to one player or another has no in-game meaning beyond ego) or in direct enmity with one another. (providing both a justification for cutthroat tactics, and a generally immediate means of redress) By contrast, in most MMORPGs, players may be competing for the same in-game resources, but are not generally in direct conflict with one another. (In situations where they are, such as two opposite-faction players in a World of Warcraft
player-versus-player server, there is usually little animosity towards kill-stealing, as there is a means of redress and prevention, and it is seen as part of the general struggle between Horde and Alliance)
Kill stealing is a rare event in real-time strategy
games (for similar reasons as with FPS games, but also due to the larger amounts of killable entities), but does however appear in some forms. In the Defense of the Ancients
map in Warcraft III, kill-stealing can frequently happen due to the money reward given to the player that delivers the killing blow to an enemy hero or creep (although kill stealing creeps is not considered a big event, as the kill would often go to the AI and thus give no money reward to any player). There is also a particular version of kill-stealing called denying, which comes from the fact that friendly fire
is near non-existing (harmful spells generally must be targeted at enemies, and regular attacks can only be performed on allies with a low amount of hit points). Because of this, there is no additional penalty for killing someone from your team (as in many FPS games) beyond the penalties suffered by the player killed. Players will therefore attempt to kill a friendly player or tower who is deemed impossible to save, thereby denying (hence the name) the enemy team the gold and experience rewards for the kill. It is also possible for certain heroes to commit suicide (through abilities costing them hit points, or which kill them outright, or by running into "neutral creeps" with no team affiliation in such a manner that these kill the player). Suicide is the most frequent form of hero denial, while creeps and towers (as they are impossible to control) are generally denied by attacks from a friendly hero. As denial only hurts the enemy and is harder to pull off, it is considered skill rather than griefing.
Kill stealing is usually not heard in situations where a cooperative goal is being sought. One member of an MMORPG hunting party will not argue that another member of their party is "kill stealing" from them. Any help towards the cooperative goal is desired with the understanding that the rewards will be shared fairly amongst the participants. The focus of some classes on damage dealing, others on withstanding punishment, and still others on healing or assisting the others even encourages this activity. However, in situations where individual goals are sought concurrently with cooperative goals, as in the online artillery game Gunbound
, accusations of kill stealing and requests to refrain from kill stealing are common.
). A game might have a more sophisticated way to measure a player's contribution to the fight as well. A character whose primary task is healing other characters might be judged based on how much he healed combatants during the fight.
In primarily player versus environment
games where player versus player
conflict is possible, PvP may be advocated as a remedy for kill stealing in the absence of technical interventions.
EverQuest 2 has a system of locked encounters that prevents players from helping others in killing a creature unless help is requested. Once the warrior attacks the orc, the wizard cannot attack the warrior's orc unless the warrior uses a special yell command for help. Tales of Eternia Online
and Final Fantasy XI
both use similar systems.
Guild Wars
has a system where the item rewards from kills are randomly assigned to a player and the gold is shared among the party. This means that also a supporting character such as a monk or ritualist will get their fair share of loot, even if they didn't damage the enemy at all.
MapleStory
awards experience to any user who attacks the monster when the monster dies. For example, if you attack a monster only a few times and walk away, while another person comes up and kills the monster, you receive a small percentage of the experience, while the other person receives the rest. Also the person who does more than the most damage will receive the right to all rewards. E.g. a beginner does 10 damage to a Blue Snail (which has fifteen health) and a warrior does 200 damage, although the warrior did more damage, only 5 of that was on the monster; therefore the beginner has ten seconds to pick up the rewards before it is open to other players.
Flyff
has a system where if one player has targeted a monster, no other player can attack that monster unless they are in the first player's party.
In World of Warcraft
solo play, the player who "taps" an NPC by attacking or using an offensive ability on it gets experience points for the kill and the ability to loot it, NPCs remain tapped until they leave combat. NPCs under the player's control — called minions or pets — do not fulfill this requirement. The monster is "greyed out" to other players. If the monster is skinnable, no other player can skin it until the original player loots it, but there is nothing, so far, to prevent another player from camping
the corpse and stealing the skin. In group play, each living party member near the monster on its death gets experience and kill credit, as well as loot. The default loot setting is round robin starting with the party leader, but rare items are rolled for by a percentile die (d100). In the loot system, some items are freely tradable ("BoE," or "Bind on Equip"), whereas others cannot be traded to other players, and can only be used or sold to NPCs ("BoP" or "Bind on Pickup"). It is considered bad form to roll on a BoP item without clearing it with the group first, or to roll on an item that your character cannot use when another character has expressed a need for it, akin to ninja looting.
In Disney's Toontown Online
, if the player has already attacked a cog and another player joins in and finishes the cog off, the first player still gets the experience points for the damage done to the cog, effectively ensuring that players that partake in the combat get their share of experience points.
In Dystopia
, players are given points for kills or assists. At least one point is given to the player who deals the fatal blow, but other points are distributed according to damage, ensuring that a kill stealer will only get a limited amount of reward.
In RuneScape
there are single-combat areas where only one player may attack an NPC
or a monster at a time, which makes kill stealing impossible. There are also multi-combat areas where any number of players can attack an NPC together, in which case the player that inflicts the most damage sees the loot and can take it; after 30 seconds all players can see it. Players working as a team to defeat powerful monsters generally use LootShare, which shares the loot from killing monsters among all members of the team, and automatically tells everyone else on the team what the loot was, and who actually received it. Which team member gets the loot from a particular kill is somewhat random, but it is also based on that player's previous loot, and that of his teammates. If a player has received valuable loot in the past he becomes less likely to receive the loot from a particular monster kill when using Lootshare.
In Perfect World International experience is distributed according to one's contribution so that a player who merely runs in and lands only the killing blow gets relatively little EXP, as opposed to if they had taken on the target all by themselves and won. However for quest purposes kill is counted to whoever touched the mob first and also the loot is protected for some time in their favor. For example, weak Blademaster started killing some beast and a Wizard comes and does the most of the damage - most of the EXP goes to a Wizard, but a Blademaster still gets his kill and also can take the loot first. Also, while one may enter a dungeon regardless of whether or not they have the relevant quest (referred to as the infamous "fb"), those who do so for their quest receive a special quest item that will let them enter an instance of the dungeon exclusive to the party ("squad"), and the holder of the quest item will upon successful completion of the quest be guaranteed to receive their quest reward(s) along with certain future quests and interactions.
Many competitive shooting games divide points for killing enemies. In some cases such as Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
, players who deal damage to enemies but fail to complete a kill are given a static amount of points regardless of the amount of damage done. In other cases, such as Call of Duty: World at War
and Gears of War 2
the amount of points awarded to assisting players corresponds to damage dealt to enemies. There is further variation to these systems, shown in Call of Duty: World at War rewarding players fully for kills and awarding bonus points to assisting players while Gears of War 2 splits points proportionally by damage (although a guaranteed 10 points out of 175 are given to the killer) and thereby ensuring that the player who got credit for an assisted kill does not receive as many points for such a kill as an unassisted one. Further deviations of such systems exist in other games of the competitive shooting genre.
Online game
An online game is a game played over some form of computer network. This almost always means the Internet or equivalent technology, but games have always used whatever technology was current: modems before the Internet, and hard wired terminals before modems...
s and especially first-person shooter
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
games, MMORPG
MMORPG
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
s and MUD
MUD
A MUD , pronounced , is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, with the term usually referring to text-based instances of these. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction, and online chat...
s, kill stealing is the practice of arranging to get credit for killing an enemy, when it should have clearly been another player's kill. An example is when a player in a first-person shooter whittles an enemy's health down and is about to kill them, when another player comes along and shoots that enemy once. The second player gets credit for the kill despite having done almost none of the work of killing that enemy. Kill stealing occurs when the rewards for defeating a foe are limited or highly desired, and many players are competing for that same reward. The term is most often heard in MMORPGs and MUDs, where rewards of items and experience point
Experience point
An experience point is a unit of measurement used in many role-playing games and role-playing video games to quantify a player character's progression through the game...
s can be substantial, but can also be found in first-person shooter
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
s where players are rewarded a point for a kill. Many players feel that kill stealing is a dishonorable practice.
Overview
There are two main causes for kill stealing: the desire for the reward and the desire to cause other players grief. Kill stealing is predominantly done to gain the rewards from a kill. GrieferGriefer
A griefer is a player in a multiplayer video game that deliberately irritates and harasses other players.-History:The term was applied to online, multiplayer computer games by the year 2000 or earlier, as illustrated by postings to the rec.games.computer.ultima.online USENET group.-Overview:A...
s kill steal as only one of their tactics in annoying other players.
One of the most prominent games where the term kill stealing is heard is the fantasy MMORPG EverQuest
EverQuest
EverQuest, often shortened to EQ, is a 3D fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game that was released on the 16th of March, 1999. The original design is credited to Brad McQuaid, Steve Clover, and Bill Trost...
. In this game, the experience points and right to the rewards for a kill goes entirely to the player or party that did the most damage to the defeated mob
Mob (computer gaming)
A mob, mobile or monster is a computer-controlled non-player character in a computer game such as an MMORPG or MUD. Depending on context, all such characters in a game may be considered "mobs", or usage may be limited to hostile NPCs and/or NPCs vulnerable to attack.-Purpose of mobs:Defeating...
. Some player classes were designed to do more damage than others and could find it quite tempting to "help" other players kill monsters. For example, a warrior might be battling an orc
Orc
An orc is one of a race of mythical human-like creatures, generally described as fierce and combative, with grotesque features and often black, grey or greenish skin. This mythology has its origins in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien....
only to have a spellcaster come along, blast the orc to death in an instant and get all the reward, while the warrior walks away from the fight, having lost time and hit points, and gained nothing. This current system is still considered to be an improvement over the original method of awarding experience and right to the rewards that the game began with. In that system, the determining factor was which player did the most damage. If that player was in a group, then that group got the experience. However, if one person outside of the group did more damage than any single player in the group, the experience went to that outside person, even if their damage was far less than the combined damage output of the party. Widespread killstealing of entire groups by single players led Sony to implement the currently used method, which considers the combined damage output of the entire party.
Complaints of kill stealing are sometimes heard in online first-person shooters. In most of these games, the credit for a kill goes to the player who deals the killing shot. Players usually ignore complaints of kill stealing in FPSs because the rewards are less significant and because these games move much faster (i.e., it was probably accidental). Furthermore, in FPS combat, players are usually either allies (in which case the kill's credit going to one player or another has no in-game meaning beyond ego) or in direct enmity with one another. (providing both a justification for cutthroat tactics, and a generally immediate means of redress) By contrast, in most MMORPGs, players may be competing for the same in-game resources, but are not generally in direct conflict with one another. (In situations where they are, such as two opposite-faction players in a World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994...
player-versus-player server, there is usually little animosity towards kill-stealing, as there is a means of redress and prevention, and it is seen as part of the general struggle between Horde and Alliance)
Kill stealing is a rare event in real-time strategy
Real-time strategy
Real-time strategy is a sub-genre of strategy video game which does not progress incrementally in turns. Brett Sperry is credited with coining the term to market Dune II....
games (for similar reasons as with FPS games, but also due to the larger amounts of killable entities), but does however appear in some forms. In the Defense of the Ancients
Defense of the Ancients
Defense of the Ancients is a custom scenario for the real-time strategy game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, based on the "Aeon of Strife" map for StarCraft...
map in Warcraft III, kill-stealing can frequently happen due to the money reward given to the player that delivers the killing blow to an enemy hero or creep (although kill stealing creeps is not considered a big event, as the kill would often go to the AI and thus give no money reward to any player). There is also a particular version of kill-stealing called denying, which comes from the fact that friendly fire
Friendly fire
Friendly fire is inadvertent firing towards one's own or otherwise friendly forces while attempting to engage enemy forces, particularly where this results in injury or death. A death resulting from a negligent discharge is not considered friendly fire...
is near non-existing (harmful spells generally must be targeted at enemies, and regular attacks can only be performed on allies with a low amount of hit points). Because of this, there is no additional penalty for killing someone from your team (as in many FPS games) beyond the penalties suffered by the player killed. Players will therefore attempt to kill a friendly player or tower who is deemed impossible to save, thereby denying (hence the name) the enemy team the gold and experience rewards for the kill. It is also possible for certain heroes to commit suicide (through abilities costing them hit points, or which kill them outright, or by running into "neutral creeps" with no team affiliation in such a manner that these kill the player). Suicide is the most frequent form of hero denial, while creeps and towers (as they are impossible to control) are generally denied by attacks from a friendly hero. As denial only hurts the enemy and is harder to pull off, it is considered skill rather than griefing.
Kill stealing is usually not heard in situations where a cooperative goal is being sought. One member of an MMORPG hunting party will not argue that another member of their party is "kill stealing" from them. Any help towards the cooperative goal is desired with the understanding that the rewards will be shared fairly amongst the participants. The focus of some classes on damage dealing, others on withstanding punishment, and still others on healing or assisting the others even encourages this activity. However, in situations where individual goals are sought concurrently with cooperative goals, as in the online artillery game Gunbound
GunBound
GunBound is a free-to-play, turn-based, room-to-room, multiplayer online game with many similar features to the popular Worms game series....
, accusations of kill stealing and requests to refrain from kill stealing are common.
Preventing kill stealing
Many newer MMORPGs implement game designs that distributes the reward more fairly to those who fought a creature. Rewards can be distributed based on how much the player contributed to defeating the creature. A player that does 30% of the damage gains 30% of the money and experience points rewarded for defeating the creature (as it is in City of HeroesCity of Heroes
City of Heroes is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on the superhero comic book genre, developed by Cryptic Studios and published by NCsoft. The game was launched in North America on April 27, 2004 and in Europe on February 4, 2005 with English, German and French language...
). A game might have a more sophisticated way to measure a player's contribution to the fight as well. A character whose primary task is healing other characters might be judged based on how much he healed combatants during the fight.
In primarily player versus environment
Player versus environment
Player versus environment, or PvE , is a term used in online games, particularly MMORPGs, CORPGs, MUDs, and other online role-playing video games, to refer to fighting computer-controlled enemies—in contrast to PvP .Usually a PvE mode can be played either alone, with human...
games where player versus player
Player versus player
Player versus player, or PvP, is a type of multiplayer interactive conflict within a game between two or more live participants. This is in contrast to games where players compete against computer controlled opponents, which is correspondingly referred to as player versus environment...
conflict is possible, PvP may be advocated as a remedy for kill stealing in the absence of technical interventions.
EverQuest 2 has a system of locked encounters that prevents players from helping others in killing a creature unless help is requested. Once the warrior attacks the orc, the wizard cannot attack the warrior's orc unless the warrior uses a special yell command for help. Tales of Eternia Online
Tales of Eternia Online
is an MMORPG set in the world of the popular Namco PlayStation title, Tales of Eternia...
and Final Fantasy XI
Final Fantasy XI
, also known as Final Fantasy XI Online, is a MMORPG developed and published by Square as part of the Final Fantasy series. It was released in Japan on Sony's PlayStation 2 on May 16, 2002, and was released for Microsoft's Windows-based personal computers in November 2002...
both use similar systems.
Guild Wars
Guild Wars
Guild Wars is an episodic series of online 3D fantasy role-playing games developed by ArenaNet and published by NCsoft. Although often defined as an MMORPG the developers define it as a CORPG due to significant differences from the MMORPG genre. It provides two main modes of gameplay—a cooperative...
has a system where the item rewards from kills are randomly assigned to a player and the gold is shared among the party. This means that also a supporting character such as a monk or ritualist will get their fair share of loot, even if they didn't damage the enemy at all.
MapleStory
MapleStory
MapleStory is a free-to-play, 2D, side-scrolling massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by the South Korean company Wizet. Several versions of the game are available for specific countries or regions, and each is published by various companies such as Nexon...
awards experience to any user who attacks the monster when the monster dies. For example, if you attack a monster only a few times and walk away, while another person comes up and kills the monster, you receive a small percentage of the experience, while the other person receives the rest. Also the person who does more than the most damage will receive the right to all rewards. E.g. a beginner does 10 damage to a Blue Snail (which has fifteen health) and a warrior does 200 damage, although the warrior did more damage, only 5 of that was on the monster; therefore the beginner has ten seconds to pick up the rewards before it is open to other players.
Flyff
Flyff
Flyff is a fantasy MMORPG by Korean development company Gala Lab .Flyff is a fairly typical party-oriented grinding game where no character can do everything, and efficient play requires working in groups to level up by killing monsters, or Masquerpets...
has a system where if one player has targeted a monster, no other player can attack that monster unless they are in the first player's party.
In World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994...
solo play, the player who "taps" an NPC by attacking or using an offensive ability on it gets experience points for the kill and the ability to loot it, NPCs remain tapped until they leave combat. NPCs under the player's control — called minions or pets — do not fulfill this requirement. The monster is "greyed out" to other players. If the monster is skinnable, no other player can skin it until the original player loots it, but there is nothing, so far, to prevent another player from camping
Camping (computer gaming)
In video gaming, camping is a tactic in which a player will obtain a strategic position anywhere on the map and wait for characters to arrive and be killed, or waiting for useful objects to appear in an area rather than actively seeking them out....
the corpse and stealing the skin. In group play, each living party member near the monster on its death gets experience and kill credit, as well as loot. The default loot setting is round robin starting with the party leader, but rare items are rolled for by a percentile die (d100). In the loot system, some items are freely tradable ("BoE," or "Bind on Equip"), whereas others cannot be traded to other players, and can only be used or sold to NPCs ("BoP" or "Bind on Pickup"). It is considered bad form to roll on a BoP item without clearing it with the group first, or to roll on an item that your character cannot use when another character has expressed a need for it, akin to ninja looting.
In Disney's Toontown Online
Toontown Online
Disney's Toontown Online is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game created by The Walt Disney Company and billed as the first such game intended for kids and families. Designed for children as young as seven, but teens and adults also play this, the depth of the game's content has drawn...
, if the player has already attacked a cog and another player joins in and finishes the cog off, the first player still gets the experience points for the damage done to the cog, effectively ensuring that players that partake in the combat get their share of experience points.
In Dystopia
Dystopia (computer game)
Dystopia is a team-based, objective-driven, first-person shooter video game, developed as a total conversion modification on the Valve Corporation's proprietary Source engine. It is based on the cyberpunk literary genre; somewhat based on popular role-playing game Shadowrun, created by an amateur...
, players are given points for kills or assists. At least one point is given to the player who deals the fatal blow, but other points are distributed according to damage, ensuring that a kill stealer will only get a limited amount of reward.
In RuneScape
RuneScape
RuneScape is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game released in January 2001 by Andrew and Paul Gower, and developed and published by Jagex Games Studio. It is a graphical browser game implemented on the client-side in Java, and incorporates 3D rendering...
there are single-combat areas where only one player may attack an NPC
Non-player character
A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
or a monster at a time, which makes kill stealing impossible. There are also multi-combat areas where any number of players can attack an NPC together, in which case the player that inflicts the most damage sees the loot and can take it; after 30 seconds all players can see it. Players working as a team to defeat powerful monsters generally use LootShare, which shares the loot from killing monsters among all members of the team, and automatically tells everyone else on the team what the loot was, and who actually received it. Which team member gets the loot from a particular kill is somewhat random, but it is also based on that player's previous loot, and that of his teammates. If a player has received valuable loot in the past he becomes less likely to receive the loot from a particular monster kill when using Lootshare.
In Perfect World International experience is distributed according to one's contribution so that a player who merely runs in and lands only the killing blow gets relatively little EXP, as opposed to if they had taken on the target all by themselves and won. However for quest purposes kill is counted to whoever touched the mob first and also the loot is protected for some time in their favor. For example, weak Blademaster started killing some beast and a Wizard comes and does the most of the damage - most of the EXP goes to a Wizard, but a Blademaster still gets his kill and also can take the loot first. Also, while one may enter a dungeon regardless of whether or not they have the relevant quest (referred to as the infamous "fb"), those who do so for their quest receive a special quest item that will let them enter an instance of the dungeon exclusive to the party ("squad"), and the holder of the quest item will upon successful completion of the quest be guaranteed to receive their quest reward(s) along with certain future quests and interactions.
Many competitive shooting games divide points for killing enemies. In some cases such as Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a 2007 first-person shooter video game, developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii. A handheld game was made for the Nintendo DS. The game was released in North America, Australia, and...
, players who deal damage to enemies but fail to complete a kill are given a static amount of points regardless of the amount of damage done. In other cases, such as Call of Duty: World at War
Call of Duty: World at War
Call of Duty: World at War is a first-person shooter video game developed by Treyarch and published by Activision for PC, PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360. It is generally considered to be the fifth mainstream game of the Call of Duty series and returns the setting to World War II. The game was...
and Gears of War 2
Gears of War 2
Gears of War 2 is a third-person shooter video game developed by Epic Games with lead design by Cliff Bleszinski, and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. It is the second installment of the Gears of War series. The game was officially released in North America, Europe and...
the amount of points awarded to assisting players corresponds to damage dealt to enemies. There is further variation to these systems, shown in Call of Duty: World at War rewarding players fully for kills and awarding bonus points to assisting players while Gears of War 2 splits points proportionally by damage (although a guaranteed 10 points out of 175 are given to the killer) and thereby ensuring that the player who got credit for an assisted kill does not receive as many points for such a kill as an unassisted one. Further deviations of such systems exist in other games of the competitive shooting genre.
See also
- CampingCamping (computer gaming)In video gaming, camping is a tactic in which a player will obtain a strategic position anywhere on the map and wait for characters to arrive and be killed, or waiting for useful objects to appear in an area rather than actively seeking them out....
— another practice that arises when players compete for rewards - Ninja lootingLooting (gaming)Looting in a gaming context, specifically in massively multiplayer online games and MUDs, is the process by which a player character obtains items such as in-game currency, spells, equipment, or weapons, often from the corpse of a creature or possibly the corpse of another player in a PVP situation...
— improperly taking the reward from a defeated creature - Powerleveling — powerlevelers are frequently blamed for kill stealing
- Team killingTeam killingIn video games, team killing or TKing refers to the act of purposely killing another player on the same team as their own. It happens mainly in First-person shooters and any game where players have the ability to kill either players on a different team, or Artificial intelligence...
— player who intentionally attacks and/or kills his own teammate in multiplayer computer or video games
External links
- "Kill Stealing: A Logical Deduction", an opinion article on kill stealing in City of HeroesCity of HeroesCity of Heroes is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on the superhero comic book genre, developed by Cryptic Studios and published by NCsoft. The game was launched in North America on April 27, 2004 and in Europe on February 4, 2005 with English, German and French language...
and MMORPGs in general.