all PVP is surprise attacks. Not lame, but what do we do?

[Heade]

I agree with a lot of what you're saying Heade except with filing player complaints or whatever for what those other players have said with their characters.

I don't think the right answer here is to place any blame whatsoever on the behavior or actions or RP of the players revolving around this issue.

"Blaming the players" is never the answer.

It never fixes the problem.

This isn't "blaming the player" for the situation. They aren't responsible for the code. However, the examples given above were for people approved to play a Noble and a Templar. From what I understand, players playing such roles are expected to have a deep understanding of the game world and a respect for the vNPC population. The comments said by players of those roles demonstrate that they do not, and therefore should not be playing those roles.

It's not a "blame" issue. They aren't at fault for creating the "gamey" issues surrounding things like apartments. That is the code's fault. But what IS their responsibility is how they choose to address the issue of apartments in character. And nobles/templars are held to a higher standard than the rest of the playerbase, from a staff perspective. I, personally, think that ALL people who play this game should be held to a higher standard of RP than that, and discouraged from spreading such nonsense IC. But I don't make the rules.

It might be worth doing to simply expand the number of apartments in the game by about 10 times. This would reduce the number of instances of "incidental" apartment PKs by giving random burglars far more apartments to cycle through before randomly running into an active, online PC. When paired with the elimination of shadowing into apartments, this could potentially make apartments feel much less like deathtraps.

I know that I personally noticed that the number of "random" breakins in Allanak is often absurd. In one RL day of playing, I once had 6 different people pick the lock on my apartment door, see me in there, and run away. A 7th tried to backstab my merchant PC and failed. All different characters breaking in. This sort of thing would be less likely to happen if there were a LOT more apartments to go through before you just "randomly" stumbled onto a PC.

It would still allow people who put in the time and effort to know where someone lives to target you, but it would severely lessen the "random" encounters, and the elimination of shadowing into apartments would lower the cheese factor, requiring people who want to pickpocket your key and backstab you in a locked room to prepare in advance, find out where your apartment is, break in while you're gone, and lie in wait for you there. Or, alternatively, follow you in, but give up the opportunity to surprise backstab you.

[Heade]

Instead of compromising your RP, have a little integrity. RP a living, breathing character, and die from time to time. And if things like apartment deathtraps are a problem, address that issue. Bring it up on the forums and discuss ideas to bring that coded situation in line with the RPed reality that you're encouraged to roleplay, rather than reducing your RP to twinky, ridiculous actions that brings down the overall RP quality of the RPI.

Death SHOULD be quick and brutal. That is a reflection of reality. But roleplayers shouldn't let coded issues compromise their RP. That makes them just as bad, if not worse than the twinks who they're responding to.

I think the point here is that you can just as easily say that assassins should have a little integrity, not use only coded-instawin opportunities, fail from time to time, and not just be twinky PKers. But the code pushes people into the extremes - it's pretty dangerous for an assassin to come out and say, "Time to die. Lord Oash sends his regards." Because someone will just type <look person> <contact friend> and then that assassin PC is written off, or draw weapons, or just flee.

I think both sides here have room to ease up a bit on the coded hijinks to protect their characters.

There is a difference. On one hand, an assassin KNOWS for certain that a life or death situation is imminent, because they're causing it with their attack. On the other, a person playing a PC that is taking all of the "precautions" that the OP suggested is presumably doing it 24/7, just IN CASE something happens, to the detriment of their PCs social interactions. I've seen PCs played as if they're completely in love with another PC, but they refuse to go into an apartment with the object of their "love" just because they're following the "rules" that the OP listed out. It's absurd to think that characters would refuse to go into private residences.

The fact of the matter is that even places like the Gaj SHOULD have lockable doors that could trap a PC if one is taking the vNPC population into account, and so there should be virtually no difference between going in any other building and going in an "apartment" in game. But the fact that we have a limited number of storytellers and code limitations causes people to think they should be able to act that way IC, when they really shouldn't be. It's metagaming. It is NOT roleplaying, and it is completely ignoring the vNPC world.

The entire idea of it makes me want to wish up to ask for someone to animate the bartender/soldiers at the Gaj, so that I could bribe them to leave for 5 minutes and lock the doors when my "friend" comes in. If we had 24/7 access to storytellers for animating, things like this could happen, and people would relax about the idea of apartments being deathtraps, because all BUILDINGS are potential deathtraps if we're taking the vNPC world into account. Society is a deathtrap. People are deathtraps. If you don't want to be in a deathtrap, learn to live on the dunes and run away a lot. But if you're living in society, every location with doors and locks IC should be considered just as dangerous as an apartment.

[Harmless]

Lots of hyperbole to defend practices that can also be criticized for their ignoring of the vnpc world. Shadowing someone in doesn't even check against the apartment gate guard's scan skill -- if you successfully hid from the victim you are shadowing and follow them into the apartment complex, the gateguard doesn't even try to stop you. If the gate guard ignores you following a tenant in, the assumption I make is the guard assumes you are "with" the victim. But why can't the victim see this mysterious passenger at all? Because they lack a scan skill or because they didn't pause to scan and type "look" a dozen times to check their six?

An assassin who truly took the virtual world into account would voluntarily stop shadowing at the lobby, roleplay some act to get past the guard and break their hide maybe, then check their coded skill at hide (which to me doesn't just mean being under a table, since after all you can stay hidden and move, so to me it represents disguising, sneaking, being unnoticed and acting "normal" all in one).

But assassins don't do this, do they? Why are victims being accused of metagaming when assassins take just as much advantage of the metagame as victims do?

Moreover you say Templars have a higher standard. But why doesn't an assassin, with the power to end storylines, have the same high standard?

I still think that this comes down to how code and therefore rules work, and really has nothing to do with players, because arguing with hyperbolic statements of players failing to take the virtual world into account can always be flipped around on its head. It is an RPI but it is also a storytelling experience and to claim that expecting players to dial down their "cheese" when it comes to life or death is not going to get us anywhere. People very rarely voluntarily disadvantage themselves when the outcome means losing the chance to ever enact a character's story again. The changes need to come from the top down.

[Heade]

You're posing a straw man, as I've already said that it shouldn't even be possible to shadow someone into their apartment. And yes, I think that it is cheesy and miserable RP to do so, just because you can if you consider how people use doors. But many people don't even think about that, and so they assume shadowing someone is a legit action. But, that said, they are again entering into a situation with a 100% risk factor that constitutes probably at most 1% of their playtime, whereas the person who is following your "rules" for character longevity are doing so just IN CASE something happens, 100% of their playtime.

Compound gates are a bit different, because there is often only 1 coded entrance into a compound despite the IC reality being in 3 dimensions. So there needs to be some way to get in to represent the various avenues someone would have for infiltrating such a large place. Ideally, there would be coded rooms with secret entrances, climbable walls, windows or drainage grates and such instead, but in the absence of such options, an option to clandestinely get in needs to exist.

[Is Friday]

State of PK sucks right now. Don't have a solution to propose. It's a zero sum game so it's just not all that fun.

Also: I have and will continue to recommend underlings from engaging in dangerous behavior if that's what they want to do. If there is a trend of murders in apartments or out on the streets at night -- guess what my PC tells their underlings to stay away from? Pretty IC. You can go ahead and file your complaints about it.

[BadSkeelz]

"Rash of home burglaries prompt police to recommend getting rid of homes."

The problem of PVP sucking is definitely a mix of culture and code. Of the two, the former is more readily changeable. Back after the Tek Serak Laser Light Show debacle I suggested we move to a form of honoru duels where soldiers meet and fight on even ground, but that obviously went no where.

[Inks]

Hey guys. PK is pretty awesome, and was way more prevalent a few years back, in my opinion, in fact the capacity for sudden pk seems reduced now, which is almost certainly a design decision. That being said. Permadeath and the risk of PK is why the roleplaying is so strong, and years ago imms never had a problem with shadowing into apartments or anything of the sort. Especially with the delay sometimes accidentally putting you in a locked room before your follow me command is registered. I remember once almost starving to death when I accidentally followed someone into an apartment, and they mudsexed for three real life hours. That sort of memory and stories like that, as well as pks by and against, are lingering memories for me. This game is great, and so is PK (as long as it isn't scrubs RDMing.)

[Riev]

I don't know that SUDDEN PK is reduced now. I think the capacity and execution still exist. As staff expectations have changed to require PCs being alive for RL months before full support kicks in, I think some players are becoming cognizant of that, and not resorting to outright One Hit Kills.

Not that they don't happen.

[tapas]

Armageddon is a competitive deathmatch pretending it's a roleplaying game.

[valeria]

Also: I have and will continue to recommend underlings from engaging in dangerous behavior if that's what they want to do. If there is a trend of murders in apartments or out on the streets at night -- guess what my PC tells their underlings to stay away from? Pretty IC. You can go ahead and file your complaints about it.

Would you say they can die mad about it?

[Hauwke]

Also: I have and will continue to recommend underlings from engaging in dangerous behavior if that's what they want to do. If there is a trend of murders in apartments or out on the streets at night -- guess what my PC tells their underlings to stay away from? Pretty IC. You can go ahead and file your complaints about it.

Would you say they can die mad about it?

The apartments one is crazy, where the hell else are people going to live? Because I am near certain that most PC characters aren't going to at all be role played as being homeless.

The streets one is fine, it's the streets.

[Bebop]

There's been like 3 - 4 threads recently pointing out that the state of PK is not in a good spot at the moment.

General complaints are as follows:

-Instakills can't be saved from in many cases
-PKing is overly used, even if there could be a different response/consequences to a scenario
-Poison is overly available
-Certain PCs are unsafe in the nice parts of town, while you're overly safe in other parts of town
-NPCs are bugged and duplicated, representing on unrealistic element of protection in some places
-It feels like a coded game, posing as a RP game

I don't think these issues are coming up again and again for almost two years now for no reason.  On the flip side, you also have some leader PCs that are alive for real life years and years and Armageddon is one of the few games that seems to think it realistic to set forth objectives for a character that can take RL years to achieve.  I absolutely don't approve of that.  I think it's toxic and unhealthy.  The timeline of Armageddon needs to be sped up or something.  When my IG objectives take as long my real life objectives something is wrong.  I can finish Horizon Zero Dawn in a month.  Armageddon is a game, there needs to be a balance.  Things shouldn't take four real life years to achieve.  And then, when certain PCs do get to a certain point they're stored.

That is my biggest issue with the game at present.  It feels unbalanced.  Although I like the new classes a lot of it seems unfinished and now the meta is struggling to catch up.  I don't know why so many classes start with poison, one of the most deadly skills in the game, while crafting/city based characters don't even have listen now.  It took a lot of advocating for artisans to be able to even custom craft.  It feels like certain types of characters were punished while others were made incredibly powerful.  Poison used to be a skill you branch, now it's a starting skill.  But nobody starts with brew.  It's so frustrating.  I have a lot of recommendations for the new classes but I have neither the time nor energy to comb through them all and start pushing for them.

I also think that how things are staffed right now is a little arbitrary.  Rules get put in place just to have them in place.  Playability sometimes is put to the wayside.  I feel like if the game were balanced, you'd see less of flagrant PKing because the game world would react better and codedly those focused on the code wouldn't be able to instakill people left and right in like two months.  So while, if you're a leader starting say a shop or engaging in a marriage contact can take a real life YEAR.  Hunter McGee can become an insta assassin in eight weeks.  Which means the timeline is off.  Code is god, RP players have to waddle along far behind and every tiny, itty bit of power they achieve will be 1) arbitrary and up for interpretation, 2) ignored by everyone.  I don't GET it.  I don't get soldiers scoffing at nobles, or slaves thinking they're above Kadians.  The social mores of the game, the game world and how it's enforced is constantly secondary to code and staff interpretation or grotesque longevity of certain characters.

I also don't understand having certain leaders around for like 3-4 real life years.  It causes the game to stagnate.  If leaders aren't killing one another off, or politicing each other into corners there's a problem.  Leaders greatly effect the meta and when they never leave it causes areas to stagnate.  Given that there's only one city-state open right now, there is also no "other" to oppose them.

In general, I guess what I'm saying is the game feels unbalanced in many ways.  Not to mention coded skills you can't even roll a save on so some people can just walk in and boop your dead.  This leads to a lot of aversion.  I don't feel like there's enough thought given to will this be fun for the player?  Will this be fun for the characters around them?  Is this playable?  It's fun to roleplay drama and pain at times, it is not fun to have an experience of drudgery on an OOC level.  I don't want to put a month into a character, just to have someone to come along and have two months into a character and be able to kill me because they've spent every waking moment sparring or kill me with a skill I can't even possibly save from or even procure until I've had the character like three real life months.  I don't want to go into the salt flats and get attacked by six scorpions and pay 120 coins for one cure as a newb.  Why is certain shit so ridiculously hard and some shit so ridiculously easy?

Half the time the rules on an OOC overly solid, and the other half of the time there just seems to be no rules and everything is open ended and subjective.  Just like on the PC art forum.  One character was taken down after art was posted by a former player.  Another character that had been alive within that one year time frame stayed up for months until I pointed it out.  The game didn't suffer for the art of either being up.  But one character was taken down, while the other remained.

I really, really wish as a community we would decide what our priorities are, and the intention behind our actions and then go from there.  Is Armageddon supposed to be accessible?  Is it adult?  Is it foremost an RP game or foremost a coded game?  From there, you can start making good decisions.  This trying to be everything to everyone gambit doesn't work.  Like having sex and violence but saying the game isn't just for adults.  Or saying its an RP game but letting people breech social mores constantly in some respects or getting on people's cases OOC for superfluous reasons.  I think all of this ties into PK because I think we have a cultural problem in addition to a coded one.  But I really don't have much hope considering staff decided that an entire city-state, pretty much the other half of the game world wasn't "thematic" to the game after being a part of its lore and player base for decades.

I just don't get a lot of the decisions being made, and I don't feel rewarded for RPing my heart out generally.  But the reward in code grinding is clear.  Put some hours in and be able to instakill.  Instakill power > social power.

[Is Friday]

Also: I have and will continue to recommend underlings from engaging in dangerous behavior if that's what they want to do. If there is a trend of murders in apartments or out on the streets at night -- guess what my PC tells their underlings to stay away from? Pretty IC. You can go ahead and file your complaints about it.

Would you say they can die mad about it?

The apartments one is crazy, where the hell else are people going to live? Because I am near certain that most PC characters aren't going to at all be role played as being homeless.

The streets one is fine, it's the streets.

If you are an employer who provides housing (barracks, etc.) then why would they want to live out in town where it's dangerous? This applies to GMH or noble house.

[Hauwke]

Also: I have and will continue to recommend underlings from engaging in dangerous behavior if that's what they want to do. If there is a trend of murders in apartments or out on the streets at night -- guess what my PC tells their underlings to stay away from? Pretty IC. You can go ahead and file your complaints about it.

Would you say they can die mad about it?

The apartments one is crazy, where the hell else are people going to live? Because I am near certain that most PC characters aren't going to at all be role played as being homeless.

The streets one is fine, it's the streets.

If you are an employer who provides housing (barracks, etc.) then why would they want to live out in town where it's dangerous? This applies to GMH or noble house.

Because a Kadian is rich enough to rent or buy his own apartment and not have to get it stunk up by the cleaning slaves?

You could argue for Aides specifically not having apartments, because they should be ready and on hand at all times for their noble, but a merchant hasn't got that kind of work load. Not realistically. They get to go home at the end of the day if their work is done. If it isn't finished? So what, I am the boss man I get to go home and shove the work onto Amos the knife sharpening slave because he is a slave and I am not.

[WarriorPoet]

I love the thrill and danger and Permadeath. I do not like the state of PK right now. Poison is lame. So is that one spell. Lame af.

I am here for the storytelling. If there is no fun scene to accompany the murdering, I feel disgusted, unfulfilled, and discouraged. It makes me play less.

[Is Friday]

Also: I have and will continue to recommend underlings from engaging in dangerous behavior if that's what they want to do. If there is a trend of murders in apartments or out on the streets at night -- guess what my PC tells their underlings to stay away from? Pretty IC. You can go ahead and file your complaints about it.

Would you say they can die mad about it?

The apartments one is crazy, where the hell else are people going to live? Because I am near certain that most PC characters aren't going to at all be role played as being homeless.

The streets one is fine, it's the streets.

If you are an employer who provides housing (barracks, etc.) then why would they want to live out in town where it's dangerous? This applies to GMH or noble house.

Because a Kadian is rich enough to rent or buy his own apartment and not have to get it stunk up by the cleaning slaves?

You could argue for Aides specifically not having apartments, because they should be ready and on hand at all times for their noble, but a merchant hasn't got that kind of work load. Not realistically. They get to go home at the end of the day if their work is done. If it isn't finished? So what, I am the boss man I get to go home and shove the work onto Amos the knife sharpening slave because he is a slave and I am not.

I'm really not arguing a blanket statement for all PCs. My post was in response to high end noble house and most GMH employees -- who by and large have no real "reason" for an apartment.

As a sidenote: The upkeep cost of an apartment isn't really worth it to most PCs.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

A couple thoughts from somewhere out in the dunes:

How about no hiding in apartments? Yes, I know it's technically possible, but still, how about no hiding in apartments? Or, perhaps better, an automatic decrease to your hide/sneak skill in apartments and other rooms flagged as quiet/solo/whatever. So yes, maybe you can hide under the bed, but maybe you can't hide under it as easily as you hide behind the wall out in the street.

How about PC combat not being able to end in death? How about it drops you to, say, -5, and leaves you there? Then, PKers who just want to do the deed can finalize you with kill YourNameHere, or, if they just want to rob you, they can do that, and you leave with your life, assuming nothing else happens between you going down and your HP recovering (provided your constitution allows that to happen).

How about crimes generally staying in their social stratosphere? So no nobles contracting out hits on the guy who robbed your gatherer. Nobles could still take out hits on the guy who mugged Sally Blond-tress Aide, but that's a different social class. Or, hey, simplify it ... it's considered socially stupid to worry about someone more than a class step below you.

And finally, maybe get rid of the deadliest poisons. Oh, wait, nah, I don't like that. Make poisons applied to weapons be an aide, not a killer. More like bloodburn, less like perrain. Perrain on a weapon might, for instance, slow down your foe - in their food, it does it's whole thing. Give poisons more nuance in different applications.

And, back to apartments, make doors breakable.

[triste]

-PKing is overly used, even if there could be a different response/consequences to a scenario

I've half-arsedly skimmed this thread a while and this point (raised by Bebop and a few others before her) is the only point I agree with. I am fine with unfair and instant mechanisms of death. That is like real life, even back in the days of medieval warfare. This is an RPI, not DOTA where we have to meticulously balance gameplay mechanisms so that PK is "fair." Murder and death in real life is not fair.

But lately, since coming back from my hiatus, I've found some characters are way too PK happy, and it is particularly frustrating coming from characters with power who could devise more clever punishments and plots to entrap their foes. I've noticed metagamers who twitch and run from certain characters without good roleplay, often, are twitching and running from characters who kill without good roleplay. PKing people without a second's thought to alternatives, and choosing to kill people rather than an alternative, doesn't foster roleplay, it damages it. It might convince people who came here for the RP and not the PK to give up.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

You're posing a straw man, as I've already said that it shouldn't even be possible to shadow someone into their apartment. And yes, I think that it is cheesy and miserable RP to do so, just because you can if you consider how people use doors. But many people don't even think about that, and so they assume shadowing someone is a legit action. But, that said, they are again entering into a situation with a 100% risk factor that constitutes probably at most 1% of their playtime, whereas the person who is following your "rules" for character longevity are doing so just IN CASE something happens, 100% of their playtime.

Compound gates are a bit different, because there is often only 1 coded entrance into a compound despite the IC reality being in 3 dimensions. So there needs to be some way to get in to represent the various avenues someone would have for infiltrating such a large place. Ideally, there would be coded rooms with secret entrances, climbable walls, windows or drainage grates and such instead, but in the absence of such options, an option to clandestinely get in needs to exist.

I've always thought you should have to get you a cloak or armband or a number of clan objects in order to shadow your way into a compound.

[kahuna]

You're posing a straw man, as I've already said that it shouldn't even be possible to shadow someone into their apartment. And yes, I think that it is cheesy and miserable RP to do so, just because you can if you consider how people use doors. But many people don't even think about that, and so they assume shadowing someone is a legit action. But, that said, they are again entering into a situation with a 100% risk factor that constitutes probably at most 1% of their playtime, whereas the person who is following your "rules" for character longevity are doing so just IN CASE something happens, 100% of their playtime.

Compound gates are a bit different, because there is often only 1 coded entrance into a compound despite the IC reality being in 3 dimensions. So there needs to be some way to get in to represent the various avenues someone would have for infiltrating such a large place. Ideally, there would be coded rooms with secret entrances, climbable walls, windows or drainage grates and such instead, but in the absence of such options, an option to clandestinely get in needs to exist.

I've always thought you should have to get you a cloak or armband or a number of clan objects in order to shadow your way into a compound.

Been staying away from this thread as I don't think there are any solutions to the problems proposed, however, I want to voice my support for cool features like this. In fact it would be great if there were some automated way to "gain" a clan flag if you wear the clans equipment. Perhaps that is making it too easy but the complete lack of disguise and subterfuge is unfortunate. Could a player put in a request if they have clan gear to gain the clan flag and enter a clan compound? I suppose that would be just as good.

[valeria]

Honestly, I think if some of the really debilitating poison effects were changed from a hard effect (nope, can't do anything my dude!) to a fail chance/added delay on attempt, it would solve a lot of my issues with the current meta. Sure, getting instadeath backstabbed sucks, but assasinations should be a real and valid threat. And it looks like door/sneak issues might get addressed from that other thread.

[Riev]

You're posing a straw man, as I've already said that it shouldn't even be possible to shadow someone into their apartment. And yes, I think that it is cheesy and miserable RP to do so, just because you can if you consider how people use doors. But many people don't even think about that, and so they assume shadowing someone is a legit action. But, that said, they are again entering into a situation with a 100% risk factor that constitutes probably at most 1% of their playtime, whereas the person who is following your "rules" for character longevity are doing so just IN CASE something happens, 100% of their playtime.

Compound gates are a bit different, because there is often only 1 coded entrance into a compound despite the IC reality being in 3 dimensions. So there needs to be some way to get in to represent the various avenues someone would have for infiltrating such a large place. Ideally, there would be coded rooms with secret entrances, climbable walls, windows or drainage grates and such instead, but in the absence of such options, an option to clandestinely get in needs to exist.

I've always thought you should have to get you a cloak or armband or a number of clan objects in order to shadow your way into a compound.

Been staying away from this thread as I don't think there are any solutions to the problems proposed, however, I want to voice my support for cool features like this. In fact it would be great if there were some automated way to "gain" a clan flag if you wear the clans equipment. Perhaps that is making it too easy but the complete lack of disguise and subterfuge is unfortunate. Could a player put in a request if they have clan gear to gain the clan flag and enter a clan compound? I suppose that would be just as good.

I have felt for years that there should be a certain "combination" of insignia checked for most gate access, like how Tuluk would check for tattoos in certain locations, or deny entry.

There are hundreds of Bynners, and the Gate Guards are able to know every face of every Runner that a Sergeant just hired out of the Gaj last night? Nah. But they got an aba, and a patch, so let 'em on through.

It might make for more break-ins, but that sounds like an IC issue. Stop hiring idiots who go into the 'rinth and get killed, letting them pretend to be whoever they want.

(This is also because for 10 years I've wanted to run a Guild shop full of 'costumes' which is just a place you go to rent House-specific items. Trooper Sleeves, AoD patches, signet rings, etc.)

[Shabago]

For the record, I've been following this and have brought some points here-in to others on the team. We'll be reviewing if/what/how changes will come about.

[Brokkr]

As far as peraine.  Before I made changes, there were around 50-60 objects used by the poisoning skill to poison stuff with peraine sitting in save rooms.  Now there are less than 10, and they are all in advances states of decay.

It will take awhile for already poisoned objects to flush through the game, but once we have some of that, we'll see where it gets us and what the game state with respect to use of peraine for trivial reasons is.

It took a lot of advocating for artisans to be able to even custom craft.

It was less about advocating and more about letting time pass to see where the game stabilized at.  I am pretty sure I said when classes were rolled out we'd come back and relook at it.  My expectation to do so was always after a year. Our time frames can be fairly long.  For instance, it could easily take a real life year for objects that have already been poisoned with peraine to work their way through, without some sort of coded change to them.

[kahuna]

Just throwing this out there (as it may have already been stated) but what if insta-paralyze was changed to a gradual over-time effect that took 20-30 seconds to take hold and go thru the nervous system of the victim to eventually paralyze rather than immediately?