Henrik, MO2 isn’t brutal enough. Not even close.
If true brutality defined MO2, crime would be just as dangerous as being a victim. But right now, the game doesn’t work that way. Griefers have a near-zero risk-to-reward ratio. They can rampage unchecked, knowing that "player-driven justice" is too slow, too inefficient, and too weak to ever catch up to them.And most of all, both the numbers and the reasoning here are all wrong. Neither adds up!
The Myth of "Player-Driven Justice"
Some will say, “That’s what player-driven justice is for!” But it isn’t. It can’t be. Why?Because for player-driven justice to balance the brutality, lawful players would need to outnumber griefers by a massive margin—something that is never going to happen under the current system. The way things are set up, griefers always maintain the advantage because justice is slow, disorganized, and completely optional.
The actual griefer-to-lawful ratio in MO2 is much worse than it appears because the game naturally filters out non-PvPers over time. Every time a PvE player, casual gatherer, or new player gets ganked repeatedly, they are more likely to quit rather than adapt.
Meanwhile, many lawful players don’t truly count in the active game world—they stay locked inside towns or guild keeps, avoiding the open world entirely because they know stepping outside makes them prey.
This means that while lawful players may still exist in theory, they aren’t balancing the ecosystem in practice.
On top of that, opportunistic griefers—players who don’t PK full-time but will gladly take an easy kill when it presents itself—contribute heavily to the problem.
This is why in high-risk areas like Fab Sewers, about half of the players encountered on average are griefers.
In reality, the effective griefer-to-lawful ratio out in the world isn’t 1:5 or 1:6, but closer to 1:2 or even 1:1. When half or more of the active world is predatory, self-policing cannot function.
Why Player-Driven Justice is a Fantasy, Even Under Perfect Conditions
It gets worse, because self-policing cannot function even under far more favorable griefer-to-non-griefer ratios.Let’s suppose that instead of the 1:2 ratio that MO2 currently has, the game had 1 griefer for every 10 lawful players—something far better than reality.
Now, how does a griefer select his victims?
Easy: He attacks anyone who looks vulnerable.How does a justiciar select his target?
He can’t just attack the first player he sees—he needs to identify specific criminals.Some justiciars might argue, “Well hey, half the players running around are griefers, so if I drop the lot of them, I have a 50% success ratio!”
But that line of reasoning doesn’t make him a justiciar—it just makes him another griefer, but with delusions of grandeur.
And some of these so-called justiciars?
That’s exactly what they are—griefers with a self-righteous paint job, swelling the griefer ranks even further while pretending to be the solution.
At best, real justiciars are rare, inefficient, and always a step behind.
At worst, they’re just griefers with a hero complex, making the problem they claim to fight even worse.
This means real justiciars need to memorize names of griefers, hunt only those names, and somehow track down players who might not even be online.
The griefer, meanwhile, has no restrictions—he attacks whoever, whenever.
Even if a justiciar finds his target, he still needs to win the fight—which is far from guaranteed.
Now Consider the Ratios:
- A genuine justiciar—someone who actively hunts griefers on behalf of others—is, at best, 1 in 100 players.
- A griefer is, realistically, 1 in 2.
- That means one justiciar is expected to track down 50 griefers.
Meanwhile, griefers continue killing at full efficiency.
This is why player-driven justice is an illusion—it is mathematically impossible to balance the brutality in MO2 through players alone.
MO2 Needs More Brutality—In Both Directions
For MO2 to be a true hardcore sandbox, brutality needs to cut both ways.If crime has no real risk, then it’s not crime—it’s just a rather distasteful farming method disguised as PvP.
A real hardcore world would ensure that crime has consequences just as harsh as the ones it inflicts.
It wouldn’t drive griefers out—it would force them to be smarter, more strategic, and more careful.
It would turn crime into a real risk-reward system, rather than the mindless, near zero-risk slaughter it is now.
MO2 doesn’t just want more brutality—it needs it. But it needs to be applied fairly, to both sides of the equation.
The Bricking Hypocrisy
And yet, every time punitive mechanics like more guards, or an in-game jail are suggested, griefers cry:Or the old favorite:
Really? Because the majority of the playerbase is already bricked inside blue towns or guild keeps—not by game mechanics, but by the wall of grief that surrounds them the moment they step outside.
Worse, that’s just the stubborn ones who stuck around—the real majority of players aren’t bricked in, they’re bricked out of the game entirely.
They left. They’re gone.
So let’s be clear:
The only people who never get bricked are griefers themselves.
They roam freely, killing at will, without risk.
Yet the second they face even the slightest movement restriction, suddenly they’re concerned about fairness?
Spare me.
So How Do We Make MO2 Truly Hardcore?
We’ve already laid out the solution in detail—a system that keeps full-loot PvP brutal, but balanced by making crime a real high-risk, high-reward playstyle instead of a no-risk slaughterfest.A full breakdown starts here:
A Developer’s Guide to Fixing the Justice SystemSo the real question is, Henrik:
