A Developer’s Guide to Fixing the Justice System: Part 1 – Breaking Reputation Exploits & Fixing Forced Criminality

[WeAreAllMortal]

Fix #1: Decouple Justice and Reputation (The Core Structural Fix)​

Right now, Mortal Online 2's justice and reputation systems are fused together, creating a self-devouring ouroboros of bad design. Criminals can erase their records by grinding faction tasks, while the justice system fails to hold offenders accountable.

The result? Meaningless justice, exploitable reputation, and a balancing nightmare for developers.

The Core Problem​

Justice should regulate player-to-player actions.

• If a player commits a crime—murder, theft, assault—it should be tracked by a dedicated system of consequences: bounty hunting, guard enforcement, and criminal penalties.

Reputation should regulate player-to-NPC interactions, NOT compensate for player-to-player actions.

• If a player serves a faction by completing tasks, killing its enemies, or maintaining loyalty, it should affect how NPCs see them—but NOT erase their criminal record.

Right now, the two are merged—breaking both.

• Reputation influences justice, allowing criminals to "buy back" their innocence.
• New players are baffled when a red player waltzes into town like nothing happened, thanks to banking sufficient faction rep.
• Justice is reduced to a faction grind, rather than meaningful consequences for player actions.

The Exploit: How Criminals Game the System​

Imagine a notorious murderer, his crime tally enormous—he should be hunted, ostracized, and fearing for his life.
But instead of facing actual consequences, he just grinds faction tasks:

Step 1: Murder and rob a dozen players.
Step 2: Kill a few wolves and/or deliver some supplies.
Step 3: Congratulations! Your record is wiped clean. Guards no longer care. You can now stroll into town and do it all over again.

This is not justice—it’s bureaucratic insanity.

The Fix: A Clean Separation Between Reputation and Justice​

Justice must be based purely on player-to-player actions—reputation should not influence justice status.
However, justice actions can impact reputation in meaningful ways—just not the other way around.
Guards should treat criminals as criminals, so a player can be KOS to guards for two separate reasons—either for low reputation or for being red. These two systems remain independent:

• Low reputation makes a player KOS only to that faction.
• Red status makes a player KOS to both currently active factions (Khurite and Tindremic), regardless of reputation.

This means:

Killing reds, bounty targets, or rival faction members can grant reputation rewards.
Murdering neutral players or allies can cause reputation loss.
Raising reputation affects faction rapport, allowing players to interact with NPCs and avoid guard hostility. However, it does not override justice status—NPCs react separately to both.
NPC hostility is triggered by either low reputation or red/grey justice status:

• A player is KOS to guards if they have red or grey status OR very low reputation.
• To interact with NPCs, a player must be both blue AND have sufficient reputation.

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The Result: A Functional, Balanced System​

By breaking the link between justice and reputation, we:
✔ Make crime and punishment meaningful—no more wiping records with faction grinds.
✔ Prevent criminals from exploiting reputation as a loophole.
✔ Give developers the ability to fine-tune each system without needing to consider how it affects the other.

This is the first and most critical step to fixing Mortal Online 2’s justice system. Without it, every other justice reform is like locking the front door while the back door is wide open.

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Fix #2: Stop Forcing Blues to Become Criminals Just to Play the Game​

Right now, Mortal Online 2 actively forces lawful players into criminality.
This isn’t just an unfortunate side effect—it’s a deeply flawed system that turns justice into a joke.
Players who should be protected by the system are instead penalized by it, while griefers exploit every loophole to avoid consequences.

How the System Actively Punishes Lawful Players​

1. AOE Users (Mages, Tamers, Necromancers) Are Criminal by Default​

• Any lawful player using AOE abilities—whether a mage, a tamer, or a necromancer—must enable illegal actions (IA) just to function.
• This allows griefers to exploit the system by deliberately stepping into the AOE effect, causing the game to flag the lawful player as the criminal.
• A mage’s fireball or a tamer’s beast attack can be used against them, as blues deliberately position themselves in the effect zone to force a grey flag.
• This often results in apprentice mages being guard whacked while practicing their spells near towns.

If the poor caster hasn't been guard whacked, a griefer can then attack them freely under the guise of "self-defense," while the victim—the person just trying to play their class—suddenly becomes an outlaw.

This isn’t a justice system; it’s a griefing tool disguised as game mechanics.

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2. The Revenge Timer Is a Joke​

• If a criminal kills and loots you, by the time you’re geared up and ready to retaliate (five minutes later), he’s blue again.
• To fight back, you now have to go red yourself, racking up murder counts just to reclaim what was stolen from you.

This doesn’t just protect criminals—it actively punishes their victims.

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3. Grey Status (Due to What is Essentially a Mandatory IA on Toggle) Creates More Criminals Than It Catches​

• A lawful player accidentally hits a teammate while fighting? They go grey.
• If they wait five minutes, turn blue again, and then get killed by an actual red murderer, the system does something utterly ridiculous:

➡ It offers a murder count only against the formerly grey teammate, as if they were the real threat.
➡ The actual red murderer—the one who deliberately killed the victim—is not even listed as an option for a murder count.

This isn’t just bad logic—it’s outright bugged.

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The Fix: Let Lawful Players Stay Lawful​

✔ Players should never be forced into criminality just to play the game normally.
✔ AOE-based skills should not require criminal mode. Just have them do 0 damage to blue players/objects in the splash zone if the caster has illegal actions turned off. How hard can this be to program?

Example logic:​

nginx
CopyEdit
if targetJusticeStatus == blue AND attackingPlayerIA == false THEN
cancelDamagetoTarget
send error msg "Your damage has been cancelled because you have Illegal Actions toggled off."

There's no need to cancel the whole AoE, just the damage to blue targets in the splash zone. This way, AoE users can function without having to become criminals.

✔ Only give MCs to the player striking the killing blow, not everyone contributing to the damage.
One murder = one MC!

For a full breakdown of how to fix local grey and prevent unwanted MC stacking, see Fix #5.

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Final Thought​

Star Vault, fix this, and you don’t just improve justice—you remove an entire class of balance headaches.
Right now, the justice system is less about punishing criminals and more about trapping normal players in an endless cycle of nonsense.

Folks, we’re gonna fix this. It’s gonna be tremendous. Believe me.

 

[Teknique]

Just want to quickly address the aoe issue. This was commonly used in the first game to freely nuke players without having to actually watch where youre aiming. Specifically when it came to thieves who were “hidden grey”. You could be constantly harassed as hidden grey because there was no consequence for the blue player getting it wrong.

 

[WeAreAllMortal]

Just want to quickly address the aoe issue. This was commonly used in the first game to freely nuke players without having to actually watch where youre aiming. Specifically when it came to thieves who were “hidden grey”. You could be constantly harassed as hidden grey because there was no consequence for the blue player getting it wrong.

I've been wondering for a while why SV decided to lock AoE abilities behind the Illegal Actions toggle. Now we know: it was a preemptive nerf to counterbalance an as-yet nonexistent problem—because MO2 doesn’t even have stealth, pickpocketing, or thieves.

This perfectly illustrates the core issue with SV’s approach to balance:​

They fear lawful counterplay more than they fear unchecked griefing.
They implement game-breaking nerfs as “solutions” to problems that don’t even exist yet, while leaving actual, game-breaking mechanics untouched.

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Was AoE’ing the Bank a Perfect Solution to MO1’s Stealth Thieves?​

No. It was a blunt and disruptive workaround.

But it was still a workaround—one that players came up with to counter an otherwise unchecked grief mechanic.

SV didn’t try to refine it. They didn’t attempt to balance it.

Instead, they preemptively nerfed the entire justice system in the sequel to MO1—in order to prevent one single “exploit” that wasn’t even an exploit.

And they did it before MO2 even had stealth thieves.

Meanwhile, actual, truly disruptive mechanics—like suicide-fast travel—remain untouched, because, in their infinite wisdom, SV has declared that:

Dropping AoE in the bank, with IA toggled off, to reveal thieves? “Game-breaking, must be removed!”
Mass suicides for instant fast travel? “Totally fine, it’s a feature! Here, have a special button for it to make it more 'convenient'!”

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The Hypocrisy of SV’s Design Philosophy​

✔ Legal Mage Bombs Disrupting Thieves? “Game-breaking! Must be removed!”

"Let’s lock AoE behind an IA toggle—problem solved! Want to nuke hidden thieves? Hah! Now you’ve got to nuke everyone and get guard-whacked, just like any other self-respecting mage bomber! That’ll teach you to mess with our finely tuned (not) perpetual grief mechanics!"

"Oh, but this completely breaks the justice system? Bah, who cares! This is a PvP game, non-consensual PvP is what it’s all about."

Forget the sandbox aspect—where players should be able to engage with the world however they want.
Forget the RPG aspect—where not everyone wants to roleplay a psychopathic killer (though this may come as news to SV).

Let’s just ignore the sandbox MMORPG elements entirely and pretend this is actually Counter-Strike—except with hours of upfront preparation, so when you lose a match, it really hurts! Because at the end of the day…

That’s what this game is really about!

It’s a sandbox sado-maso simulator, pretending to be a roleplaying game—like a ‘classy’ escort who swears she’s only in it for the stimulating conversation.

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Now, About this Suicide Meta ...​

A system where characters canonically kill themselves en masse every day is, however, apparently realistic and a highly desirable feature.

Suicide for fast travel? “Totally fine, it’s a feature!”
AoE’ing the bank to reveal active thieves? “Nah, gotta protect those poor thieves—they’re playing the game as intended!”

Apparently, mages trying to bomb them are not playing the game as intended.

Well, they would be—if that’s what SV retrospectively decided they intended.

But instead, SV decided they didn’t intend that, so now every AoE requiring criminal status is the way the game is intended.

Until, of course, SV intends something else—then that’ll be the way the game is intended.

Because game design isn’t about balance, consistency, or immersion—it’s about whatever SV decides was always intended after the fact.

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What Happens If SV Ever Adds Thieves to MO2?​

Well, SV already torpedoed the easiest counter before it was even needed—so expect an even worse mess down the line.

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SV Has Let Griefing Consume the Sandbox​

The tragedy is, MO2 wasn’t meant to be this. It was supposed to be a true sandbox RPG, where non-consensual PvP was just one part of a broader experience—an element of risk in an open-ended world, not the entire foundation of gameplay.

Instead, through a lethal combination of tunnel vision and incompetence, SV has let grief-driven PvP metastasize into the defining feature of the game, while the sandbox and RPG elements have been reduced to mere window dressing.

The result?
✔ Murder is more immersive than actual roleplay.
✔ ‘Player freedom’ really just means ‘freedom to grief without consequence.’

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Final Thought​

What started as a sandbox RPG with PvP has devolved into a griefing simulator with RPG window dressing.

The worst part?

SV still seems to think that’s a good thing.