Rifleman Archive

I am not a noobie... I just have never gotten into the PvP thing... YET. I've spent most of my "career" soloing and hunting MOBs with friends. I am master marksman and 3/1/0/2 in Rifleman tree, and am also master medic.
I am a covert Rebel (a friend wanted me to join and I thought "what the hell") and now have been jumped twice unexpectedly after running Imp missions out of Anchorhead. Bloody welcome to PvP! I read these forums occasionally, but I do not understand exactly whatTEFs are and how they work.

So please excuse me if the following questions are completely insane, but I would appreciate it if someone would take the time to address each one:

1.Are there different kind of TEFs ?
2. How do I know if I have a TEF ??
Is there any visual indication on MY screen? Do I need to look in a menu or window somewhere?
3. If someone is looking at me in a game, what do they see if I have a TEF?
In other words, how (visually)can they tell I am a covert rebel?
4. What different thingscause me to get a TEF?
5. How long does a TEF last?
6. Anything else I need to know about them ?

My limited understanding is this:


1. There are not different flavors of TEF. There is only Zuul one type so far as I know. When you have a TEF, you are attackable by Overt Agents of the opposing faction. NOTE: You cannot initiate combat with a TEF, at least from my understanding. (I could be quite wrong about this, so someone please correct me if so.)

2. There is no direct indication that you are under a TEF. Indirectly, if you know where NPCs of the opposing faction are, you can watch them on your CTRL-M map. If your TEF is active, they will be red. If your TEF is inactive, they will be yellow.

3. If you have a TEF, you will appear as a red triangle on the CTRL-M map to OVERT agents of the opposing faction. Covert Agents and Neutrals won't be able to tell; you'll still be a light blue triangle to them. Your faction symbol may also appear next to your name if they target you, but I don't know for certain.

4. If you are covert, and (A) you attack an opposing faction NPC [Covert Reb attacking Imperial NPCs, for example]; OR (B) you heal up an allied NPC [Covert Imp throwing heals at the Imp NPCs being attacked by the Covert Reb mentioned previously]; OR (C) you heal up an Overt member of your own faction, you gain a TEF. I think you may also get a TEF if you're grouped with an Overt and they get attacked by another Overt.

5. "A few minutes" according to the minimal documentation available from SOE. General consensus seems to be around 4-5 minutes.

6. I have heard of things called "Revenge TEFs." I am not certain what these are, but from context I gather that they are normal TEFs gained for the specific purpose of ganking the person who just ganked you. Not sure how they work though.

Volsted...

My heartiest thanks for the valuable info! I did not know most of that. I appreciate you taking time to help me out. If you're ever on Eclipse I will buy you a Jawa Beer!

Here's the super short lowdown on enememy flags:

A) TEF = Temperary enemy flag

You get this by either 1) attacking something on the side of the opposite faction or 2) healing a overt or a TEF'ed person of any faction.

It lasts about 5 minutes-ish (we think) and allows any overt member opposite in faction to your TEF to attack you while you cannot initiate combat with them until they attack first.

TEF killing is a general practice although some people consider it griefing. Personally I'm for it because if you're a rebel and see an imp shooting rebel NPCs you should be allowed to jump in and try to save your "friends". It also adds a little more excitment and risk to the game.

I wish there was a visual TEF counter though so you can see when you're safe or in danger of being killed due to do TEF.

B) PEF = Personal enemy flag

If I kill you, you get a PEF against me. That means that for a certain amount of time (5 minutes?), you get to hunt me down. And if you find me, you get to initiate the attack while I can't do anything until you attack me. So if I'm an overt reb and I kill you, you don't have to be an overt imp to kill me back within that time frame.

PEFs I think is a stupid idea because it really messes up PvP. This allows people to do raids, lose a battle, and still win by killing all the raiders since they don't get the first shot. It creates a viscious cycle of I-kill-you-you-kill-me until one person gets sick of it and runs away to hide. PvP should only be able to be initiated by overt faction members but this creates a loophole that makes a definitive victory next to impossible.

-- A6

PEFs where the person you just killed can attack you without going overt are in fact a bug. There was a post by a dev (test center guy I think), saying that it was a bug, but it was hard to fix so they are not planning to fix it soon.

Thanks guys.... beers for everyone!

Thanks Sef,

I always thought that the PEF was too stupid an idea for anyone to implement on purpose... good to know that it's confirmed to be a bug...

Bad to know they don't care about fixing it... sux when the devs can make something, but complain that fixing it is "too hard".

It should be easy. If someone dies, remove any TEF flags from their character upon cloning. How hard can that be?

-- A6