PKing: Let's Talk About the State of It

[Inky]

City-based roles die to pk more often than anything else, guaranteed.
Hunters die to random Raptor #13548 more often than not.
Which one is more satisfying?

I'll take a pk for any reason versus my pc ending in storage from boredom/age or getting whacked by an npc. The game is way more fun when you stop worrying about the end of your pc. I get more pissed when I kick up a shitstorm of excitement for my pc and get whacked by a gith when I know for sure there were a handful of characters in the game that wished they had the satisfaction of cutting me into little pieces themselves.

I can think of a few where I would have preferred the raptor.

[Vex]

The vast majority of players are pretty responsible and do not wantonly kill people for dumb reasons.  I can only think of one guy who is otherwise.

What would staff consider, dumb reasons, and why?

I think, it can only be healthy to get it out, where people can get an idea of expectations, vs, their own view on what is and is not OK.

[evilcabbage]

i gave a pretty grand example in my little synopsis, but i guess i could go into more detail including my suspicions, and "if" that was the person, the way they did it and why was pretty shady.

i was in the legions at that time, playing a new recruit with a couple of privates who were showing me around, and we went out "hunting". i mentioned it was kind of odd for the legions to just be actively out hunting, since we had people like salarr (at the time, hunting ranks were a thing).

i mentioned i would ask the faithful lord about this, and i don't recall if i ever got the chance to bring it up - i doubt i did, but inside partisan's rest? dead.


i was killed for planning to ask the faithful lord if it was okay for us to hunt.



if they aren't the ones who did it? i have no idea, then, and that means the reason was even more stupid - they saw a sleeping guy in partisan's rest in a tabard and killed him in front of a toooon of virtual npcs.

[Inky]

If by dumb reason you mean wholly unnecessary and taken place in lieu of dozens of other intriguing options.

Then yeah, I'd reckon about 80-90% of pk's are dumb.

[Heade]

If by dumb reason you mean wholly unnecessary and taken place in lieu of dozens of other intriguing options.

Then yeah, I'd reckon about 80-90% of pk's are dumb.

I really wish I could PM you. Sort of interested in your perspective on things.

[Inky]

Feel free.

[seidhr]

The vast majority of players are pretty responsible and do not wantonly kill people for dumb reasons.  I can only think of one guy who is otherwise.

What would staff consider, dumb reasons, and why?

I think, it can only be healthy to get it out, where people can get an idea of expectations, vs, their own view on what is and is not OK.

Mostly just being irresponsible about it.  I don't really want to get into specifics, but in general if people send in a quick PK report and follow the guidelines Brokkr laid out in his "Best Practice" post about a page back, there aren't going to be any problems.

Nobody participating in this thread is that "one guy," incidentally.   

[Bebop]

There's been a lot of feelings expressed here but it unnerves me a bit that it's seeming to go the way things often do.  A ton of pages and prose then kind of a staff consensus of well, nothing is wrong.

Are we going to discuss the coded part of my post?  How you can get killed for tavern sitting?  How there are no soldiers stationed where nobles hang out?  And how maxxed sneak and hide make it super easy to defy crim-code in broad daylight?  Or how poison is widely available now but the cure system seems a bit broken?  Or how support characters have no real way to defend themselves or any where they're remotely safe or where the Crim code might assist them?

The above reasons are why I feel the same is PK > RP a bit right now.

If a person uses common sense it shouldn't be easy to walk into any major watering hole and kill them without repercussion.

[seidhr]

There's been a lot of feelings expressed here but it unnerves me a bit that it's seeming to go the way things often do.  A ton of pages and prose then kind of a staff consensus of well, nothing is wrong.

Are we going to discuss the coded part of my post?  How you can get killed for tavern sitting?  How there are no soldiers stationed where nobles hang out?  And how maxxed sneak and hide make it super easy to defy crim-code in broad daylight?  Or how poison is widely available now but the cure system seems a bit broken?  Or how support characters have no real way to defend themselves or any where they're remotely safe or where the Crim code might assist them?

The above reasons are why I feel the same is PK > RP a bit right now.

If a person uses common sense it shouldn't be easy to walk into any major watering hole and kill them without repercussion.

The code and mechanics of the game continue to evolve, slowly, over time.  Inevitably, players gravitate to things that work well - and yes, I think poison and stealth are currently those things.
I do think that you point out some valid critiques of certain code aspects.  None of them are easy and quick fixes - but rest assured we are always discussing these things and the game (again, gradually) changes as a result.

From a gameworld perspective, we could drop a trio of half-giant soldiers in every bar, but that also cuts back on opportunities for every other type of crime and is awfully heavy handed.  At the end of the day, no PC should be immortal - even if you engage in no risky behavior.

[Synthesis]

The cure system is definitely a pain in the ass, now.

I feel like the only reason anyone has cures at all is because there are a few NPC merchants in game that still sell some of the legacy cures.

I can't even imagine how you're supposed to figure out the recipe for cures that aren't sold, and therefore you can't analyze to reverse-engineer.  Like...the cure for saltworm gas.  What am I supposed to do, make tablets out of the bazillion possible combinations, then go out and intentionally get gassed by saltworms to see which one works?  It's really absurd.

Also, heramide seems like it's way too common, for something that is essentially an instant win button vs. anyone without maxed-out defense.

[Delirium]

We don't need "a trio of half-giant soldiers" at every bar, that is hyperbole, but there should be more militia presence in the higher-end bars. Less soldiers in the Gaj, more soldiers in the Red's and Arboretum. I think it is an obvious oversight that the Gaj is more heavily policed than the higher-end establishments.

Not that it will save anyone if the assassin is good enough, but at least it provides a reasonable deterrent.

[Bebop]

 

There's been a lot of feelings expressed here but it unnerves me a bit that it's seeming to go the way things often do.  A ton of pages and prose then kind of a staff consensus of well, nothing is wrong.

Are we going to discuss the coded part of my post?  How you can get killed for tavern sitting?  How there are no soldiers stationed where nobles hang out?  And how maxxed sneak and hide make it super easy to defy crim-code in broad daylight?  Or how poison is widely available now but the cure system seems a bit broken?  Or how support characters have no real way to defend themselves or any where they're remotely safe or where the Crim code might assist them?
The above reasons are why I feel the same is PK > RP a bit right now.

If a person uses common sense it shouldn't be easy to walk into any major watering hole and kill them without repercussion.

The code and mechanics of the game continue to evolve, slowly, over time.  Inevitably, players gravitate to things that work well - and yes, I think poison and stealth are currently those things.
I do think that you point out some valid critiques of certain code aspects.  None of them are easy and quick fixes - but rest assured we are always discussing these things and the game (again, gradually) changes as a result.

From a gameworld perspective, we could drop a trio of half-giant soldiers in every bar, but that also cuts back on opportunities for every other type of crime and is awfully heavy handed.  At the end of the day, no PC should be immortal - even if you engage in no risky behavior.

I was all for crim-code going away at night except for near soldiers.  However, making it so that all taverns, even nicer ones where nobles maybe spotted are the wild west is not correct code or RP wise.  Part of privilege is additional safety and protection from risks of the poor.  Taverns where you must be coded nobility to enter certain rooms having no guards or crim-code?  Make no sense.  No PC is immortal but being able to creep in, kill a noble and creep out in those places, makes no sense.

You wouldn't have to creep.  At this point you could literally walk in and walk out laughing.

Additionally, taverns would arguably be more crowded at night.  The streets no.  Taverns, yes.  If a support role character is using good common sense and not walking alone at night and not going to taverns where there are less guards it shouldn't STILL be super easy to just walk up and gank, gank a character that already has pretty much no defenses.  Aides and nobility should have access to the privilege their roles entail.  Currently, commoners can't use good sense and go to taverns with better security --- because there are none even though RP wise there absolutely should be.

From what I understand of how the code used to be, there are items that combined with max sneak and hide make you impossible to see.  You might as well have the invisibility spell.  Gotta love the Batman insta-disappear.  None of these things is conducive to good RP.

Also I agree with Synthesis.  Not only are cures not working and the poison skill super available, on top of that poisons are super easy to find and use IG now.

[Armaddict]

Also, heramide seems like it's way too common, for something that is essentially an instant win button vs. anyone without maxed-out defense.

I'm not sure why it's as common as it is; a few years ago, it was being sold in a shop every reboot, but that was fixed.  It's pretty difficult to get, if I recall.

However, the reason I was in favor of changes was to make it easier to make 'rare' poisons noticeably rare and perhaps in non-potent forms that needed brewing to ferment them and mix them into their potent versions...at suitable risk to one's self.  That would make common poisons, the things that don't just take you out, the norm.

There's a 'weird' spot somewhere in the implementation that didn't make it work out that way.


As far as the soldiers thing, I'd agree with moving soldiers from bar to bar, but all it means is that you'll see people who are worried about PK (there seem to be a lot of them) all migrating to where-ever you put the soldiers.  So I don't think it's really a fix.  But I do disagree that it's in a state of no risk to the criminal; I play criminals, and I have to be extremely careful about my shit to not get insta-fucked up.  The Gaj is tremendously safe unless you are a griefer who doesn't want your character to survive the ordeal.

I think of 'character doing crime' in the city as very similar to climb checks.  Easy crimes, you're essentially climbing up; most of the time, even with failure, you aren't really punished that hard.  At the most, it's minor inconvenience and some lines of reaction that you type up that you can, if you wish, turn into a little mini-scene.  But as the crimes go upwards, so too does the risk factor.  When we're talking about killing PC's in the city proper...we're talking about a multi-room drop, where your climb check is probably at the most, advanced.  Failing has bad consequences.  Critical failure, where things just go wrong all over, -will- result in the death of your character.

Talking about it like there's 0 risk is not accurate; the risk is actually littered all over the place, and made moreso by active players.  Patrolling members of the Arm, i.e. players in the clan, can actually make a passive criminal's day turn real bad.  Stealth is powerful, but ultimately the only form of defense they really have against a stacked, imperfect system; used for offense, they are secondary if not tertiary skills.

However, when we changed hide to stick from room to room at the cost of having it switched to a before delay instead of after delay, I -did- warn that it was gonna cause people to complain.  The way it was, where self-movement took you out of hide, at least gave a way for vigilant PC's to notice their entrance before they tried to hide away.

There is a challenge of balance here; a lockdown on crime to promote safety is bad, and a complete failure of crime-stoppage is also bad, but I don't think we're anywhere near the latter.

[Krath]

If the poisons are too readily available in the game, then perhaps you should find out who the distributors are and deal with them. I know first hand, getting Heramide and Peraine are difficult, Heramide more so. As characters DIE, via PK or Gith#152532532352352, the supply and demand imbalance should change. That being said, I think the longer you hold on to taints that are unused, if they do not, their ability to act as a taint should subside over time.

The cure code I do not even bother with. It it too much a pain in the butt to even begin to try and test out. And lets be honest, unless we are bringing in OOC info, if we test out a poison and the cure does not work and die, we should have to start over with the next character not knowing anything.  The old code made it easier to know what taints and combos went with what poisons. Now, while it is more realistic, I feel that the playability aspect of it is non-existent, unless you are using ooc knowledge gained over multiple characters.

To the point of PK in the taverns, The only tavern in Allanak that should always have guards posted there is the Arboretum in my opinion. And that should only be the case of House Rennik and the other noble houses are PAYING the AOD or Byn out of their coffers to have soldiers stationed there. The same should be said of the Gaj, Reds, and the bakery.

There will always be an imbalance in the game, and that is the point. While I do agree, poisons are fucking terrifying, It is good to always have that threat in the game. It ensures you are going to those curemasters and keeping them in business. Gone are the days of single player survivability. Everything, because of the new class system comes at a cost, and that includes your PCs safety against PKs.

[puella]

Re: heramide & poisons.

1. Make heramide & other poisons decay, both when stored and also when applied to a blade.
2. Go through the stashes in the few clans that have the big stash of them and remove all but five.

Use it or lose it.  It'd make things a lot more exciting; some assassin gave me a tainted blade five years ago.  I don't have the poison skill to tell.  Is it still poisoned?  Beautiful.

[Inky]

I'm a guy that likes assassins in general. They used to be unfun to play and skill up. And if you had the wrong stats, were kind of crippled. But now I wonder if the pendulum has swung a bit far in the wrong direction.

The cure system is definitely a pain in the ass, now.

I feel like the only reason anyone has cures at all is because there are a few NPC merchants in game that still sell some of the legacy cures.

I can't even imagine how you're supposed to figure out the recipe for cures that aren't sold, and therefore you can't analyze to reverse-engineer.  Like...the cure for saltworm gas.  What am I supposed to do, make tablets out of the bazillion possible combinations, then go out and intentionally get gassed by saltworms to see which one works?  It's really absurd.

Also, heramide seems like it's way too common, for something that is essentially an instant win button vs. anyone without maxed-out defense.

I'm pretty sure all the known recipes are out there. Characters have them and eventually they'll filter out to become more widely known.

Re: heramide & poisons.

1. Make heramide & other poisons decay, both when stored and also when applied to a blade.
2. Go through the stashes in the few clans that have the big stash of them and remove all but five.

Use it or lose it.  It'd make things a lot more exciting; some assassin gave me a tainted blade five years ago.  I don't have the poison skill to tell.  Is it still poisoned?  Beautiful.

They did it with spice and food. I suppose poisons (applied and object) should decay.

[Dar]

The poisons applied to poison 'do' decay. If you poisoned a blade, with time that blade will lose the poison sheen. The poisons in object form remain though.


Making the spice decay made my last character completely invalidate spice for anything, but recreation. As someone who was interested in 'actively' using warspices, I've written spice off completely, as being too hassle prone. The speed of the decay is considerable, the windows of efficacy too low, and all together too much hassle, for too little benefit. At these points, the only spice of use became thodeliv and krentakh for social scenes.

Heramide is hard to get, but not impossible. I think someone figured out how to get it and got powerful enough to overcome the difficulties. Something I warned right away will happen when the mage subguilds were introduced. Some guild combinations make you extremely capable to any kind of hurdles the world and it's creatures and terrain can ever throw at a person.  And once that happens, heramide can be produced as quickly as it respawns. So this isnt really a standard practice, it'll just last as long as the characters who are actively doing it continue doing it.

Stealth.
I keep hearing the opposites of this. Some say that HG militia can see people through maxed hide with 100% chance. Some say killing people is as easy as attacking someone, 1 round killing them, and then popping hide.  Are you guys speaking from empirical evidence, or are you guesstimating? I havent been privy to the southside tavern scene for the last 2 years, so I might have missed some significant changes, but I do recall crime code triggering in the Reds with suddenly 7 soldiers coming out of nowhere, some of them hidden or triggered by a script.

[Krath]

The poisons applied to poison 'do' decay. If you poisoned a blade, with time that blade will lose the poison sheen. The poisons in object form remain though.


Making the spice decay made my last character completely invalidate spice for anything, but recreation. As someone who was interested in 'actively' using warspices, I've written spice off completely, as being too hassle prone. The speed of the decay is considerable, the windows of efficacy too low, and all together too much hassle, for too little benefit. At these points, the only spice of use became thodeliv and krentakh for social scenes.

Heramide is hard to get, but not impossible. I think someone figured out how to get it and got powerful enough to overcome the difficulties. Something I warned right away will happen when the mage subguilds were introduced. Some guild combinations make you extremely capable to any kind of hurdles the world and it's creatures and terrain can ever throw at a person.  And once that happens, heramide can be produced as quickly as it respawns. So this isnt really a standard practice, it'll just last as long as the characters who are actively doing it continue doing it.

Stealth.
I keep hearing the opposites of this. Some say that HG militia can see people through maxed hide with 100% chance. Some say killing people is as easy as attacking someone, 1 round killing them, and then popping hide.  Are you guys speaking from empirical evidence, or are you guesstimating? I havent been privy to the southside tavern scene for the last 2 years, so I might have missed some significant changes, but I do recall crime code triggering in the Reds with suddenly 7 soldiers coming out of nowhere, some of them hidden or triggered by a script.

Point 1: So very true
Point 2: Correct as well. Any long lived character can get any taint, much like anything else.
Point 3: Both sides are correct. I can say the OHK Backstabs do create a delay, and if no guards are around, you can pop a hide, but if there are guards around, you will not have time to pop a hide before you are caught. That is -not- a gestimation

[Delirium]

The Gaj is tremendously safe

Yeah, this is backwards. The Gaj should be the dirty wild-west bar, the high-end establishments should be bristling with soldiers or even an "off-duty" Templar.  Who cares about policing the Gaj besides working a few grubby commoners over for drinking money bribes?


I like the idea of poison decaying, but make the timer a lot more generous than spice or food. Otherwise that swings the pendulum too far in the other direction of making poisons extremely rare/difficult to maintain a supply of.

I love that poison is more prevalent. I love that you have to trust your medic. (disclaimer: I was one of the first to test out the new cure code even before you could analyze the results and hey, I didn't die. I just looked at the helpfiles and was very careful. It's a puzzle that I enjoyed, and it even makes a bit of sense where as the old cure code was purely nonsensical.)

What I hate is that blowdarts are so easy to cheese. Same with throwing knives, especially when it doesn't make a whole lot of sense based on the location. At least if you backstab someone, you still have the risk of that after-attack delay before you batman away into the shadows like some ridiculous 80's cartoon.

If a character is playing it super safe and careful, then lure them out somehow. Use roleplay and cunning, not just the code.

[Dar]

wrong thread

[Armaddict]

I think -some- unused poisons should decay.  Not necessarily all of them, or their decay times should be really quite long.  Used poisons (i.e. on blades) should definitely at the least lose potency over time.

But I'd say the same for cures, in that light.

Maybe make brewed poisons in vials applicable to blades while stealthed, making importance in preparation or hiring someone good at preparation.

Still like the idea of capping all classes at jman/advanced poison and brew except for apothecary.

[Bebop]

Also, heramide seems like it's way too common, for something that is essentially an instant win button vs. anyone without maxed-out defense.

As far as the soldiers thing, I'd agree with moving soldiers from bar to bar, but all it means is that you'll see people who are worried about PK (there seem to be a lot of them) all migrating to where-ever you put the soldiers.  So I don't think it's really a fix.  But I do disagree that it's in a state of no risk to the criminal; I play criminals, and I have to be extremely careful about my shit to not get insta-fucked up.  The Gaj is tremendously safe unless you are a griefer who doesn't want your character to survive the ordeal.

It doesn't matter if people migrate to where soldiers are to avoid PK.  That's IG.  Aides and nobles should be sticking to taverns with more IG guards but as it stands right now at night the Gaj is safer than the Arboretum which is insane.  Like Delirium said - this is backwards. 

[Armaddict]

...okay?

I literally said do it and people would migrate to there, but I don't see it as a fix for what your concern was...because it wasn't stated as 'some people should die in bars, but not these people', it was addressing tavern violence as a whole.

At least that's the way I read it, so I was going into how the whole tavern safety thing is a weird problem because they should not be -safe-, but they are not -lawless- either.

[lairos]

I haven't personally witnessed a large stemming issue of poisons being too available, but I assume the new code surrounding them does make some more available or even able to possibly be made? I can't confirm that of course, but I can assume. I do know that cures are still a strong point for people which does make people nervous, which I think was part of the intention, but it still confuses me.

I think causing poisons on weapons to decay is cool, but poisons themselves is going to be hard to figure out and they are not easy to get for many people. I think it all boils down to the supplier at that point and how much they are bringing in to disperse into the thick of it.

Regarding crime code and not enough soldiers. I've heard complaints on both sides of this. I've seen threads of people saying crime code is too harsh and people can't even get away with small things and now I am reading a flip side to it saying there isn't enough. Focusing that down to PK only, it is not easy to PK someone in a tavern and it requires a good bit of effort to do and get away with. That being said, I have known people to be killed in the Gaj, not heard of it in the Arboretum once. I don't feel Taverns should be PK proof either, but as I said, even if there are a bunch of soldiers it won't fully stop anything. I see off duty soldiers in Red's all the time, but the higher end establishments, such as the Arboretum would only be there during a tavern patrol shift, but not a place where a soldier would go spend their pay and hang out. So yes, it makes sense that more off duty soldiers are in the Gaj, because that is where they hang out. The Arboretum has guards, but maybe the nobility don't want soldiers crowding them in their relaxation and they have their own guards for that very purpose. If it's the nobility that see an issue they should petition House Rennik or the City Ministry if they feel unsafe in the city. If its the commoners? Well, unless they are commoners with some pull, I don't see why anyone would care. As far as I am aware, the players in such as the AOD have patrols into such places for this very purpose. It doesn't help when numbers are down, but I don't think swarming every place with NPC soldiers is the answer either.

[Derain]

I have to agree I have never once seen someone PK'd in the aboretum. And the way it is actually does make sense.. As far as PKs in he Arboretum, hold my ale.