So this guy comes into my grind spot, flags up and attacks me, I win. But he doesn't leave, he keeps grinding in my spot so I have to flag up. I kill him, but it's pretty close, because he can kill me like immediately after one grab as a Ninja, and it takes me like a full combo to kill him. So it goes back and forth a bit, but he would keep running away and de-flagging, then re-flagging and coming back at me. I eventually die again and lose a crystal, and I get back up and he kills me again and I lose two more crystals. I lost like 2% XP and over a billion silver in crystals. He claims he wasn't karma bombing but why was he able to kill me so much easier than I was able to kill him, and how could he have La Orzeca if he wasn't geared?

I'm really frustrated about this and it's actually made me seriously consider quitting the game for the first time. I've been playing for years and never actually encountered a player that behaved like this before but it's left such a bad taste in my mouth I'm legitimately reconsidering everything that's lead up to this point. I know it's not a big loss overall but just the fact that this kind of behavior is possible and that someone would act like this is what made me feel that way.

Unfortunately there is nothing you can do.  The Karma Bombers and Griefers have more power than people who just want to grind.  The problem is, how do you protect the weak players that are not at grind spots while protecting grinders from griefers?  

I suggest saving Marni Realm for when you can't find an open rotation.  When someone shows up at your spot rather than just flagging, talk to the person ask for a DFS or swap if you can.  If the player is in a guild War Dec the guild. 

There have been many suggestions on how to fix forced PvP but KR doesn't want to implement any of them, they view this as a strictly silly western problem.

Some people do take some gear off or most of it to tank your karma harder. But most of the time, just don't flag, grind over them and keep going. They'll eventually give up or go red themselves. Or just hop servers.

Thanks for the replies. I normally wont flag under just about any circumstance, even when I grind on Arsha. I guess I did it in this situation mostly because I was worried they were just waiting for me to be busy fighting things to try to attack me again because he was doing the trick where you de-flag and then flag up right before you're going to attack someone. I was worried about that plus the possibility of being fed to mobs while he's attacking me, because I had lost a crystal earlier in the week to something like that happening.

I personally don't really like to flag up or gank people. If someone is in a spot I want I tend to just switch servers because I don't like the conflict, though I will fight back if someone is harrassing me in a spot I was already in. I think PA should at the very least do something to address the situation where if someone flags up and attacks you they can't de-flag right after and re-flag to keep harassing you when you're vulnerable.

Don't get me wrong by the way. I don't dislike PvP, I just dislike fighting over grind spots. When I wanna grind I just wanna grind, and I don't like ganking people who are grinding because I realize that it's another real person on the other side and I would genuinely feel bad about it even if I could take the spot from them.

The only other way to deal with Karmabombers is by feeding them to mobs. Sadly thats not possible in all spots, as in many cases, mobs dont do much damage to people with enough gear. It also is less effective nowadays because the karmabomber can just unapply his crystal build and have nothing to fear any more. But at least it doesnt affect your karma then, so there is still an upside.

Depending on the players you know, declaring war, or calling in support from people who are known to deal with karmabombers may be another option.

But as the others have said, as the one being griefed, your best options are just to give in and leave the spot, because otherwise you waste more of your time than the other person is worth.

The real loss and red line here is the Crystals lost.

Imagine you're a casual log in after work or something and once in a while you make your silver in this game in which case those couple billions could be a weekly thing and you just lost your progress they way that involved acquiring those crystals and the silver you made for them.

And you just lost them because someone random you dont even know decided that your time online and real life time isnt worth it.

Its not only personal it also creates a cancerous toxicity.

Now the solution would be to grind without crystals because of it but then again grinding is the only PvE part were you can use crystals the safest. That and regular Bosses. So overall the problem here is the Karmabombing mechanic in combination with the crystal loss.

First of all i would remove the Crystal Loss.

Its a bad mechanic loosing your progress just like downgrades and dissapearance of expensive accesories. After all it costs anyway there's no need for it to punish you double. At least protection for Crystals is something that should be introduced even if things remain like that.

Its a mechanic that doesn't motivate.

PvP is where Crystals are technically not only safe to use but also the best place to use them and where you benefit the most from them.

What you described is like Crystals would break in PvP even. Imagine how silly that would be. 

This is sad.

I know its supposed to protect from people going Red Karma however ''it just backfired'' which is a fail of this mechanic.

Rather than combating the symptons the source of the problem should be fixed and i hate to admit it but we do have an open world pvp enabled server already.

I doubt anyone has the intention to PvP while his goal is to actually grind. So the solution is more than obvious. No one wants to PvP for his spot unless he chooses the ''risk'' because of the drop benefits in which case he chooses Arsha Server. Thats the truth of it.

As Minarya said above, "fight fire with fire". There isn't any other effective way against such griefing bishes. And this will keep goin as long as the karma system has such huge exploitable gaps.

... Based on what you wrote, I fail to see the problem and the so called "Karmabombing". 

He came on your spot, flagged you, you won the first bout. He then kept coming and he grinded AND fought with you? Oh boy, I'd love to have this behavior more often, usually people come back and only tries to outgrind me without fighting back.

One thing though : did you lose your crystal through mob feeding or did you go red? 

Simple, If he is becoming a fire and you just need to be a flood! meaning, keep grinding non-stop and ignor his existance. Grind FASTER then him, if he flags and comes to attack you, well... remove enough DP to keep grinding and let him kill you... after awhile he should leave, if he doesn't then no problem.. let him keep killing you until he is in negative karma, then you can flag instead and keep grinding mobs... if he comes while you grind then grind him like a mob and keep doing your rotation... You will not lose any karma and he will have to risk of losing crystals and money everytime he dies while being in negative karma.

_

I call this stragtegy "Have you seen jesus tabel-flipping?"

I still dont understand why there is no simple flag system. Just when someone come and hit you, if you rreturn you flagged automaticaly. Both players are flagged , both lose nothing in dead...

Yes it could be abused, but its way less harm than now.