[Bryce_Hego]

Bryce_Hego

There's almost nothing about SL2 ganks that contribute to really anything good

I think most of your points stem from this, and honestly that's fine. I understand that not everyone will respond well to ganking. I try to be understanding and make sure it's fun for the other side as well, but in the end this might happen. Being an antagonist means knowing your audience, and that's why you need to be cautious when interacting with others to try gleaning whether they are enjoying it or forcing themselves. Still, there's a fun and spontaneous element to ganking that I enjoy, and I know many others do, as well. I don't plan on stopping ganking entirely, but I'll take your post into consideration.

As a note, no, we don't gank people with optimized comps. I like to just play whatever build I feel like making.

Even with unoptimized builds ganks are still genuinly oppressive because 2 is twice as much as 1. Momentum economy has always gone crazy and a whole extra player is almost always way more effective than a summon or engineer bot. You'll usually be able to turn any fight into a recreation of any jujutsu kaisen gank. Again, Antagonists can get an eventmin boost to deal with the staggering odds of a gank, but anyone else is ineligable for that kind of treatment.

Consent only does so much for mitigating the salt or complete drops in motivation. New players tend to go in with a mentality of don't knock it till you try it, and can feel pressured even when the choice to omit is given directly to them. Once the Danger Level 2+ Kicks in post battle they might be feeling bullied and unwelcome. Anyone that holds themselves accountable OOC will also consent, regardless if they think they have some chance of winning or not, leading to bitterness and salt with consequences they didn't want but got to deal with uncontested.

Hell I hate the thought of 2+ characters I don't know ganking me on a low end character, but I would still let it happen unless I thought it was metagamed, and I'd still probably get salty unless I somehow clutch (I won't)
Sawrock is a cool antag to most people but I have not interacted with their characters much especially since Korvara came out. I just firmly stand by the idea that randomly ganking someone is a completely un-necessary way to establish yourself. If you're in a rush to get your name out there as a baddy that's the easiest way to end up with "heros" breathing down your neck ready for the chance to murder you, and I don't think that's a great narrative for either party, the gank victims or the soon to be deceased antagonists the moment a party looking for them appears.

Of course my argument isn't that killing a player is a taboo, but half the time it's handled poorly on RP games and I heavily believe a ganking mindset will only fuel more oceans of salt and hate than anything else on the long run. I'd honestly go so far as to say that you shouldn't be ganking a character you have not already met on your own and established a prior reason leading into it. Planned ganks especially when the victim is kino with it are of no issue of course.

I also will say that I don't mind sporadic conflict of any kind. It is exciting, like you say. I just don't like "hey you walked into the wrong spot and have a 100% chance of getting fucked up unless you take the offer to omit and leave." What even is the angle of that? I guess there's some powerful muggers out here, never know if that resource cave you like visiting is infested with the buggers.

Edit: I will note that Sawrock offering ways to creatively escape post gank is actually extremely commendable and does solve a lot of issues. Though usually once a danger level is called the victim has no right to deny it. It is important to take note that the people reading your flowchart are not you and sawrock, and can take completely different meanings and approaches to what is given. In my case, I could very easily take a good chunk of it and find that it is in favor of ganking of any variety with being a good sport with your victim optional.