The guide to making Pkilling fun
(Note: If you are against Pkilling, I advise that you do not read this as it might corrupt your mind...but that's your choice.)
Okay, now I'm sure there's more than one of you out there that just ignored that warning and just want to read this so you can send me a massive flame letter...so be it. Everyone has there own opinion and if you do send me a letter against this, please think it out and it will more than likely end up on The People's Say page. I enjoy a good debate.
Anyways, here's the guide.
CONTENTS
(click on the section you wish to view or just drag your scroll bar down.)
pkilling and bounty hunting: using them to your advantage
defense against other pkillers
Let's face it. Diablo is a great game but after a while, some of us tire from slaying Diablo over and over again to reach that mystical, unattainable, level fifty. Most of us have played Quake, Doom, Duke, etc, deathmatch and do it just to kill the other guy. So why not apply that to Diablo? The option is there. If Blizzard didn't want it to happen, they wouldn't have put it in! Killing someone of equal intelligence is much more satisfying then killing the mindless drones of he mazes. To put it bluntly, Pkilling is an entire other aspect to the game which might add that originality that people are looking for after a while. From what I can see, Pkilling in Diablo is the closest thing we have to compare to a deathmatch in the future Crusader 2.
Before you start anything, make sure your character is good enough to take out your target. If you are level one and the target is level 20, there is no chance in hell you are going to beat them. You can select targets of a lower level, but that's your choice. A level 20 Vs a level 5 is like shooting ducks in a barrel, which can be fun sometimes.
Playing deviously can be buckets more fun then just flat out killing left, right, and center. Devious is playing mind games with your opponent. Be nice and friendly and they will just consider you to be so. This will drop their guard. When you are dungeoning, if you encounter a large group of monsters, shoot a couple shots at your partner to liven things up. Make sure that it would be an obvious mistake too because if your partner is picking off monsters from a distance, shooting at him will give you away. Also, make sure to say sorry after you do or they might just turn on you at that instant. You might have to heal them just to keep their trust.
If you are heavily using spells, playing deviously is much more easier. Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning are the ultimate "Whoops, I'm sorry I hit you...but you were in the way," spells. You have an excuse to cast them if you partner is sitting in your way, blocking a door or hallway. Chain Lightning automatically selects your partner as a target if you are on player hostile. If not, use it when he is in front of a monster and it will hit your partner and the monster.
Using a distraction tactic can also be useful. Doing something like casting a firewall in the middle of nowhere is bound to get someone's attention. Or, swing at the air and say "GET THEM OFF OF ME!!!." Not only is it amusing to say, people usually start to do the same thing.
The ultimate way to distract someone is to ask them "What kind of items do you have?" and while they are typing in a response, take them out. If you are quick enough, they won't know what hit them. Or if you want more of a guarantee to catch them off guard, say "Wait here for a sec, gotta take a pee break." (This might be true anyways).
Something else to try (yet untested) is to disguise yourself as a Town Portal. What you do is this. Cast a Town Portal right beneath you. If you did it right, you should be hidden by the portal. Then you can lure people to the portal saying something like "I've got a (insert powerful item here) for you that I found in Hell. Come up the Town Portal for it cause I've got to leave soon." When they approach the portal, blast them with your favorite spell or bow. This will NOT work with close range weapons. You also have to be quick since they might be able to jump in the portal before you finish them off. You may have to remove your weapon to completely hide yourself behind the portal. You can also use this tip to escape other Pkillers. Just **DON'T** have a mana shield on. Remember, everyone sees the little globe above your head.
If you are looking to kill them off without suspicion, go into a challenging area where you can only survive if you stick together. When you find a large group of monsters, teleport away and let your partner get killed. Then, just say something like "Oh no! I had my spell macros set wrong!" Another sneaky way of doing pretty much the same thing is to wait until someone new comes into the game or someone gets killed. When this happens, find a large group of monsters and cast a Town Portal in the midst of them. Then tell the new player "Come on down, I've sent you a portal." The results are the same. I do not advise this though since the player will lose their items. If that is why you are Pkilling, then this is for you. If not, ignore this paragraph.
The whole point in playing deviously is to make your partner in the end curse up a storm that would make Andrew Dice Clay blush. I've seen it happen. The key to this is to keep that trust going all the time. Heal people, give them cash, give them weapons, and help out with monsters. And then after a key point, blast them when their back is to you. If you've been playing for a half hour or hour, this will make them so angry it's not funny. They'll say things like "I feel betrayed", etc etc. To add insult to the kill, carry some resurrections with you. Cast Firewalls all over their body, resurrect them and then kill them right away again. If you are just collecting ears, blast someone, get their ear, resurrect them, drop some healing stuff and say "I'm just collecting ears, thanks," and most people will be pretty cool about it, oddly enough.
pkilling and bounty hunting: using them to your advantage
Pkilling- The act of killing another player, higher or lower level. The class of that person does not matter. Pkilling is usually considered a malicious act of violence.
Bounty Hunting- The act of killing another player, higher or lower level. The class of that person does not matter. Bounty Hunting is considered to be an honorable thing to do since you are striking out against someone who did something "wrong."
What is the difference between these two things? Pretty much absolutely nothing aside from the fact that if you are a bounty hunter and you kill someone, that's okay. When you do kill them, you just say you are a bounty hunter and everyone is cool. On the other hand, if you just sit there and cackle after you kill someone, tempers rise. In both cases you will earn (or just take) some reward for your troubles. SO....until someone tells me otherwise, they are the same thing.
Here is a tip if you don't want to end up on everyone's s**t-list: Whenever you kill someone, do the following. Proclaim yourself a bounty hunter who is striking out against the plague of Pkillers on Battle.net. Say that the person you just killed was killed due to a bounty on his ear because he:
A) Killed someone else
B) Stole something from someone
C) Is a cheater.
That person will probably swearing up a storm right now. If there is anyone else in the game, they will most likely be pretty cool with you and turn on the other guy you just killed. To add to the insult, put the other players on mute and make fun of the guy you just killed. To add even more insult to it, cast a Firewall over the corpse and say some stupid thing like "Burn in Hell like your kind should." That'll piss off more than a few people.
If you don't know, people get REALLY angry when they get killed. They go as far as to say "If someone brings me Player X's ear, I will give you 10000 gold." This is how web pages like Diablo's Most Wanted (DMW) showed up. You want to avoid being posted at places like these since people will start recognizing our name more often and eventually, you might not be able to find new prey. If you are looking to get on a list, that is easily accomplished by killing randomly and stealing stuff.
So here is a list of possible ways to look innocent or trying to stay somewhat clean.
1) DON'T STEAL PEOPLE'S STUFF. This makes people much more angry then anything else. If you lost your Zodiac Ring or Royal Circlet that you found honestly, you'd be pissed too. Leave their items where they lay and if you are not sticking around after the kill, leave a portal by their body.
2) MAKE UP EXCUSES. Say you are a bounty hunter and there was a bounty on their head or think of something more creative since not everyone will buy that.
3) BE FAIR AFTER THE KILL. If they want an honest rematch, you should accept. But, after some kills, people start turning on their cheats temporarily and that fair rematch may not be so fair after all. If they don't want a rematch, **if you want to**, just resurrect them, leave a full rejuvenation and leave the game or use any of the above annoyance tactics. Resurrecting them sort of defeats the purpose of creating general anarchy, that's why that section is highlighted.
4) CREATE MULTIPLE CHARACTERS. This may take a while, but it might be worth it. If you use one character and then kill some people and it gets attention, let tensions cool for a while by using another character.
5) AVOID PICKING ON THE SAME PEOPLE ALL THE TIME. Try not to have TOO many repeat customers because you're bound to be posted on DMW or in the Bounty Hunter's channel. I'd say you could probably kill someone one to five times before you really piss them off, most likely less.
On the other hand, if you are looking to get into that number one slot on DMW, do the exact opposite of the above mentioned tactics.
defense against other pkillers
Sometime when you are pkilling, you are bound to come across someone cheating or someone a lot more powerful than yourself and you will underestimate them. How to avoid? DON'T UNDERESTIMATE OR ASSUME ANYTHING. That little level one guy wandering around in the dungeon might have maxed out stats and full equipment. Keep your guard up at all times even if you feel that you are suckering some guy into a trap...they might be doing the same.
Basic defensive kit:
At least one town portal scroll
Four slots of your belt filled with full healing
Four filled with full magic
Several infravision scrolls
Whatever high level scrolls you can find
Being able to use your equipment quickly is a must.
Defensive maneuvers:
Learn to use phase and teleport quickly. Teleport will let you easily get out of a sticky situation while phase may let you confuse your opponent while you fire off shots from all angles. If some guy is beating you bad and you can't put a dent in him, run away or press ALT-F4. It's nothing to be embarrassed about.
As mentioned above, you can use a Town Portal to hide yourself from roaming Pkillers. Just cast a portal right beneath you and voila! Some people may notice this though and start beating on you. Just jump into the portal.
Walk on horizontals. If the guy firing fireballs isn't on the same horizontal line, they will have a really hard time trying to hit you. For some reason, this let's you also avoid Diablo's Apoc. You also seem to move faster while walking horizontally.
(WHitE ZoMBiE) If you are on a hit list. kill yourself by standing in a fire wall and take your ear. Give it to your other character (assuming you have 2 characters) with help from a friend. Like drop it on the floor, tell the other guy youll be right back, and return as your other guy and pick it up. Return the ear to the guy that you previously killed and get your bounty...he'll never know!
(Mr.White)There is only one way that two characters should do battle and that is if they both agree to do so. What you suggest is devious, sneaky and dishonest - terms that are used for creeps who have no feelings for other people - creeps who feed on other people's good nature, inadequacies or inabilities. You are as insidious as the two monsters who shot up the town in North Hollywood with no warning last week. I know that Diablo is just a game but most people play it as though they are really the character they portray and what you do is a betrayal of their trust in people. You are just another reason for more and more people to become more and more cynical. It's hard for most people to believe that there are persons out there like you. You are a monster sicko that sucks on humanity.
TO MR. WHITE: I acknowledge your opinion. I am glad that you know Diablo is just a game. This is what I'd like to point out. I am nothing like the guys in Hollywood. That is quite extreme to say. Since you know Diablo is a game, as do I, I will tell you this. In the Diablo world, anything goes. You may not like it, but that's the way it is. There is no perfect virtual world and there is no way to create a perfect virutal world using such an environment. No matter where you go, there are people wanting to do evil. I use Diablo as a getaway to do just that. In REAL life, I am probably one of the nicer people you could meet. I would never kill or back stab anyone. But in Diablo, I am playing in a game with strangers. I understand that there is a large amount of the Diablo populace against Pkilling, but just because someone says "I don't like it" doesn't mean anyone will adhere to that. Note in the guide I also included a section on how to avoid Pkillers. I am not completely insensitive. I kill to take out the days anger on someone and also kill others since they are more of a challenge then the normal monsters. Well, not unless they notice those ten fireballs flying at them. So, yeah, in Diablo, I am a monster. But does that make me the lowest of the low just because I am devious? You said, "most people play it as though they are really the character they portray." Alright. What if people want to play an evil character? Two words: Role Playing. And finally, I would also like to add that I do play fair too. I have played with groups of people and gone and killed Diablo like the rest and also even help out newbies. I am not trying to tell you that you are wrong, but to tell me that I shouldn't do what I'm doing in a computer game, now that's wrong. Chaqu'un son gout (to each his own).(Zee)
FROM SLEEPER: Well i dont approve of pkilling or tkilling. i've read your statements about pkilling and i think what you are doing is quite unfair. If you want to kill someone, why are you picking on lower level characters? and why stab them in the back? you just catch them off guard and that just ticks a lot of people off. When i get pkilled, it's usually by a level 30+ character while i am level 10 or whatever. people stop picking on me when i get to about level 25. To me, i think pkillers are cowards! even bounty hunters who just sneak up on other players are cowards (althought if the prey is using cheats, i can understand). If you want to pkill me, announce yourself! i think i can even beat you (even though my level 34 rogue only has one zodiac ring and a windforce!) this would of course instantly become 'friendly duel'. I'm just sick of pkilling because i just want to play a game and some idiot comes along and messes up things. don't you have a sense of dignity?
TO Sleeper: Well, sorry to say, but you obviously did not read my guide to closely, if at all. I specifically said that "killing newbies/lower level characters is like shooting fish in a barrel." I am not one to encourage or do so myself. I don't think you can call Pkillers cowards. They are being devious and deceptive. It all depends on how you look at it yourself. Any pkiller takes a risk trying to take someone out due to cheated items, invincibility, etc. I also stated quite clearly on my page that if you pkill with cheats, then yes, you are a coward. You say you just want to play a game. Well, there are a few options for you. Join a guild of non cheaters, play serial link offline, or make your game private. If you did look at my guide, you would have noticed the section about AVOIDING pkillers as any pkiller can be pkilled also. You say you wanted a fair duel insted of being snuck up on? Well, i guess thats not possible since there is no such thing as a perfect world. In any virtual environment their is the bad asses. Pkillers piss people off and thats how they get their kicks. I myself will offer a reduel to any person I even pkill (this is even mentioned in the guide). (Zee)
FROM LAPTHANA: I agree with your position on pkilling: I think pkilling adds a whole new level of danger and excitement to the game. If you are smart, you don't really have to worry about it either; what I do is if I get attacked by a pkiller, I don't activate player attack but shift-click at him (this works especially well if you are a rogue). This way you can easily fight back, but don't have to worry about losing your stuff.
end of guide
If you find something objectionable in this guide, something I forgot to mention, or something is not clear, please, send me an E-Mail ASAP at diablat@geocities.com. I think it is very important to include as many opinions as possible on this page and sending mail (good or bad) is the only way to improve it. This guide will most likely be long when I think of some more stuff to put in it.
See My Opinion on Pkilling for more info.