Why we should talk about HCIM status refunds.

[Madvillain]

First of all I want to make it clear as water: This thread isn't targeted at the players that got hardcore status refunded. I only use the refunds that I know of as an example, and thats why I won't mention any names. My goal here is to bring up this topic so we can discuss it and Zaros Staff team can handle this type of situation with more transparency.

 

So, since I started playing Zaros my main goal is to get a High Level / End game HCIM. Just like any other server Zaros has some flaws, but overall it is a great server to grind and I can't think of a better rsps to play.

Recently I started seeing one thing happen that made me very frustrated: other HCIM players get their status refunded. When you first look at it from a regular player's point of view, the first reaction is to get confused as fuck and start asking questions about the refund, trying to understand why they got it.

I can totally understand refunds happening because of bugs. This isn't an issue to me, as much as I personally hate to see refunds, if you look at it, this can be seen as fair, since it wasn't the player's fault.

What triggered me to make this thread was the last situation I saw. A player from my cc died days ago (32 to be more precise, according to the player himself) to the random Green Phase Zulrah that spawns during one of the four rotations. This is a bug I experienced myself, Zulrah does spawn a random jad phase during one of the rotations and I agree this could lead to death.

This specific player got his status refunded TODAY. According to the player himself says he died 32 days ago.

Now, how can this huge delay between his death and refund can be an issue? 

If this is true, this specific player had 32 days of regular iron gameplay, just to get his hcim status back after. Even if he did not abuse that and played the same way as his hcim, this creates so many 'What ifs' that it makes me question, why am I wasting time playing hardcore? Why am I trying so hard and playing so safe not to die, when this happens? 

This type of situation can hurt the integrity of Hardcore gameplay A LOT. The only reason why it doesn't it's because the majority of players aren't even aware that this happens.

So, in my opinion theres some things Zaros Staff could do to handle this type of situation way better:

• Make it very clear what type of situation could lead to a refund or not. Be it a specific type of bug, what type of material could be used to report it and claim a refund, whatever can be used in this type of situation.
• Handle this faster, or if not possible, lock the hcim account while the bug is under investigation, so the player can't abuse the reg iron status to do stuff he wouldn't as hcim.
• Simply say fuck it and don't refund any hcim status that are lost, be it a bug or not, but treat EVERYONE the same.

Please share in this thread your thoughts about this situation, as it is very important, since it hurts A LOT the game integrity of those who play hardcore or elite hardcore.

I wanna remember again: I'm not targeting the players that got status refunded. Please don't take this personal, I'm just trying to share my thoughts about this and help make this situation more comfortable in the future.

Edited February 15, 2021 by Madvillain

[Sesame Bagel]

+1 don't refund 

[St Starlin]

You are refunding players their rank because of a dc mainly. HOWEVER, how many people have lost their hc on osrs because of a dc only to never see their status refunded. That is the risk you take when playing a hardcore Ironman. Famous twitch streamers don’t even get their status back why should any of us. Dying because of a dc is an unfortunate way to die as a hardcore, but it is a part of the game and the risk that you take. If you want to avoid that bring a ring of life. One life turns into 5 or 6 and it’s not fair to the other players

[Zdrf]

I agree with this post, I don't think hardcores should get their statuses back in any way. 

[HRD]

If the server supports refunds to deaths caused by something wrong in the game, it should be refunded.

How they handle the fallen HC's deaths is completely up to them, and altough I agree they should've sorted the issue out earlier, this player had zero fault that there was a custom phase in Zulrah. Same proccess occurs when you buy a faulty item in a store, and after you've used it you found out there was something wrong with it, and you get refunded.

All this is up to personal opinion, and in my opinion we'll go nowhere with this argument. If Zaros allows people to request a refund, I guess we've got to deal with it.

[no friends]

I completely agree with this. The whole point of playing a hardcore or elite hardcore is knowing you risk your status with every move you make. Now this player above had 32 days to play as a regular ironman, Meaning they could go to the wilderness without worrying about dying, Try out bosses they would not have attempted as a hardcore. ( Tob for example ) It should not matter the reason you may have died, either restart on a new account or play as a regular ironman.

[Irons Clan]

I must agree with this thread in a certain way.

I honestly believe that hardcore ironman ranks should never be given back, upon death.
For example: If you would die on Oldschool RuneScape, your rank would never be given back, under any circumstance.

Though, this is a Private Server.. They therefore react a bit more mildly, and that's okay. But make sure that there are certain requirements set when requesting your hcim status back.
Such as:
If your Hardcore Ironman died to a bug, or any other circumstances, the following should happen in my opinion;

• Your account must stay logged out upon death, untill you heard back from administrators. To prevent unfair advantages over other HCIM
• You must gather all the prove you could possibly obtain, to prove you weren't at fault when you died
• You must report your "wrongful death" within 24 hours
• If you continue to play on your account, you will lose the chance of being refunded.

[Madvillain]

Removed the screenshots cause it was 'personal' lmao it doesn't really matter anyways, staff doesn't give a fuck about this issue.

Edited February 15, 2021 by Madvillain

[November]

Well, they can't stop refunding HC deaths now, after so many people have gotten refunds, some people have gotten more than one HC refund.

It was a slippery slope to begin with, but I guess they can't deny HC refunds to friends and content creators during the 2.5k+ player peak days, and that just makes them accountable to normal players asking for a refund.

 

Also, your friend is a bullshitter, he died because he is bad at Zulrah, a 'random' green phase which does happen doesn't mean you automatically die to it, he was either botting Zulrah with a pre-made script fixed to OSRS's Zulrah's phases or DC'd because there's no way he wouldn't be paying attention that hard.

Edited February 15, 2021 by November

[Mastav]

Tbh I don’t think there should be “refunds” regardless. Life isn’t fair. If you make a HCIM you know the risks, especially on a rsps that could have issues. What’s the point of the experience if you can just get your status back?

[Andreas]

Hi!

Refunding hardcore status to players that lost their status due to a bug makes a good customer support, OSRS might not do this but we/the RSPS community is relatively small and works a lot different than Jagex. I don't think following Jagex on that regard would be a good thing. The developers do NOT refund player disconnects (not caused by Zaros servers) but only if it's due to a game bug that caused the player dieing.
December 2020 was a hectic month for the developers with loads of bug reports/refund requests and other account related issues. A lot of these requests stacked up and took quite a long time to handle, it should be much better/faster now on new refund requests. I don't think we should not refund a player because it took us to long to handle their request. The case you talked about is a rare occurance and hopefully doesn't happen to often in the future, but these types of bugs should all be fixed by now on current content.

• Make it very clear what type of situation could lead to a refund or not. Be it a specific type of bug, what type of material could be used to report it and claim a refund, whatever can be used in this type of situation.  Explained it above all we de require is evidence as stated in rule #10.
• Handle this faster, or if not possible, lock the hcim account while the bug is under investigation, so the player can't abuse the reg iron status to do stuff he wouldn't as hcim. This would be a double punish for the player; not a good idea.
• Simply say fuck it and don't refund any hcim status that are lost, be it a bug or not, but treat EVERYONE the same.  Everyone is treated the same if 2 players have the same issue they get the same treatment.

Hopefully these answers helped you.
Enjoy the rest of your day and thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed feedback thread!