player-staff meeting on September 16th, 1998 --- Nerf Look

[Dresan]

This idea has been floating around forever. People wouldn't even need stealth as much if they had mdesc hiding masks but even I feel this would devastate people.

The alterantive which I know has been proposed in the past is to nerf look.

Speicifcally:

• Divide look into glance and study
• Study will work as look does today but will have a short before delay out of combat. In combat it will be 2 rounds of delay.
• The act of trying to dtudy will be obvious to the person being studied, allowing the other person to move or act before they suceed
• You cannot study someone while bashed/charged
• You cannot study shadows or blurs, but you can interact with them and bring them out of hiding
• Glance will not have a delay but will not provide mdesc information, only gear information.
• Glance will be obvious to those with high watch skill

I think this increase the willingness to perform attacks even those that have a good chance of failing but not the feeling of needing to murder someone to keep your identity a secret.   Flee, return and look  before running will also be prevented. I believe  this will help relieve the need for high stealth all the time while increase the need for more then one wardrobe.

In short, I am okay with the other person taking the risk identifying me in exchange for a more time to succeed in my attack if they do or a chance to run my self before they do.

[Narf]

I haven't really pondered this specific suggestions, but I do think moving things to allow greater anonymity for certain types of ne'erdowells would have the dual benefit of increasing that sort of activity in game, and decreasing the need to kill every single one of your victims to keep your identity secret from the powers that be.

[Dresan]

There could be a toggle for threaten so if you noticing the other person begin trying to study you it would trigger threaten to attack/bash them increasing the delay accordingly.

It really would lessen the need for perfect stealth or maxed out abiltiies all the time with people being willing to risk failure and not feel the need to act when they are positively sure they can succeed.

Again this doesn't stop victims from fleeing immediately and running the hell away instantly so I really do believe this will promote more non-fatal conflict and aggression.   

[Patuk]

I really think you're barking up the wrong tree here.

People who are sneaks, assassins, pickpockets, and the like, are always quite recognisable. The vast majority are either poor pieces of work from the 'rinth/warrens, or layabouts with no real day job - an mdesc hiding mask means nothing when people fucking hate your guts for daring to pick and use your skills already.

A character I played not so long ago was a fairly shady man, and ended up dying a fairly shady man's death: blamed for a bunch of stuff he didn't do, and then he died. Yay. A mask to hide my mdesc would have changed nothing: people would still viscerally hate the guy who knows to use steal or sap, will still go to unreasonable amounts of trouble to make your life hell, and will in fact do what they can to have you murdered.

It's not the descs being known, it's a good deal of the playerbase really wanting to kill you. They'll do it whether they do your sdesc or not. They'll do it whether you sneak well or not. People just really hate shady characters. As long as that's true, no amount of buffs will make a big difference, and I don't see this working out particularly well.

[Dresan]

What about those character that don't act like a shady but instead open and friendly. Maybe performing other jobs like grebbing or hunting?

Or perhaps have other legit jobs and roles they do most of the time like byners and  just need to do some shady stuff for the boss/client once in a rare moon?


I think this would help them make sure the innocent but shady guy no one seem to like gets the blame instead instead of them.

[Bogre]

This idea has been floating around forever. People wouldn't even need stealth as much if they had mdesc hiding masks but even I feel this would devastate people.

Just again jumping into say that mdesc hiding masks are not broken, would increase skulky shenanigans and raiding, and overall add to the game world.

[Inks]

Post not to nerf miscreant, post to nerf look, I am sensing a pattern here.

Maybe post this on the post to nerf stealth and the people there and you can battle it out. Rawr!

[hyzhenhok]

The change to contact means it's basically impossible to live a double life through the use of masks or cloaks or even stealth. We need a more comprehensive system redesign if that's the goal.

[Inks]

Not to mention contact x

You contact a blur.

It should always just say someone no matter what, then have to way to see if you have the right head. This would put contacters and contactees on equal footing. The seeing cloak thing is damn stupid. Good luck shadow artists.

Also good luck to anyone trying to disguise as another group or house to cast blame on them.

[Maso]

Not to mention contact x

You contact a blur.

It should always just say someone no matter what, then have to way to see if you have the right head. This would put contacters and contactees on equal footing. The seeing cloak thing is damn stupid. Good luck shadow artists.

This.. I still can't over. It's so nuts that this is a thing now.

Agreed, it should always just say someone. It's insane that you can be immediately guild sniffed by someone contacting you at the wrong time.

[Inks]

Not to mention contact x

You contact a blur.

It should always just say someone no matter what, then have to way to see if you have the right head. This would put contacters and contactees on equal footing. The seeing cloak thing is damn stupid. Good luck shadow artists.

This.. I still can't over. It's so nuts that this is a thing now.

Agreed, it should always just say someone. It's insane that you can be immediately guild sniffed by someone contacting you at the wrong time.

If they scan you down....over the way...because it makes so much sense that you can use scan in combination with contact....yep.

Change it to always be *someone* stealthed or not. Please.

[Dresan]

Changing it to just 'You contact someone', removing sdesc and anything else  even when you chat over the Way with them might be a real good change.

It would mean you need to know their name before you contract them and introduce yourself by name as well in every converation.

Maybe even meet in person at some point( perhaps even in a tavern) and establish a code word to ensure you are speaking to the right person. People can have the same name or add a new name to keywords (which might need to be adjusted a bit to avoid abuse).

This idea deserves its own thread though.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Changing it to just 'You contact someone', removing sdesc and anything else  even when you chat over the Way with them might be a real good change.

It would mean you need to know their name before you contract them and introduce yourself by name as well in every converation.

Maybe even meet in person at some point( perhaps even in a tavern) and establish a code word to ensure you are speaking to the right person. People can have the same name or add a new name to keywords (which might need to be adjusted a bit to avoid abuse).

This idea deserves its own thread though.

I am so behind this. So seriously behind this.

[Lotion]

Changing it to just 'You contact someone', removing sdesc and anything else  even when you chat over the Way with them might be a real good change.

It would mean you need to know their name before you contract them and introduce yourself by name as well in every converation.

Maybe even meet in person at some point( perhaps even in a tavern) and establish a code word to ensure you are speaking to the right person. People can have the same name or add a new name to keywords (which might need to be adjusted a bit to avoid abuse).

This idea deserves its own thread though.

+2
Would would be really fun is how much contact ceasing would be removed.

[Maso]

I'm so behind the idea of having the initial contact be "You contact someone" and needing to actually speak to them before it confirms their sdesc and who you have contacted.

Having it always be 'someone' even while you are actively Waying them is taking it way too far (pun intended), that just brings up all kinds of playability issues that aren't worth the hassle, it makes communication more difficult in a game where finding people is already hard enough, everyone would just be sitting around inadvertently having Way conversations with NPC's half the time.. Just no.

Changing the initial contact to 'someone' though solves the 'dipping in peoples heads' just to see if they're online problem, it solves the old sdesc sniffing problem and it solves the current guild sniffing problem in one fell swoop. Why this wasn't done initially to solve the sdesc sniffing problem - I don't know. The fact that it was 'solved' with a solution that created an even bigger problem (guild sniffing over the way) is somewhat baffling to me.

[Lotion]

bah, I didn't read it. Someone for initial contact is fine but for it staying someone shouldn't be the case unless redacted does redacted.

[Inks]

I think only Dresan wanted it to stay as someone after waying. But it starting as "someone" no matter the state of the person you contact also seems to be widely agreed on.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Guild sniffing ? Why are ... first I don't know how the hell a guild is gonna get sniffed over the Way (and don't tell me) ... but why are we so worried about guild sniffing? I just have never understood why that ever mattered.

[Alesan]

Guild sniffing ? Why are ... first I don't know how the hell a guild is gonna get sniffed over the Way (and don't tell me) ... but why are we so worried about guild sniffing? I just have never understood why that ever mattered.

How else are we to figure out what skills you have or don't have so we can treat/prepare for you accordingly?

[Hauwke]

Guild sniffing ? Why are ... first I don't know how the hell a guild is gonna get sniffed over the Way (and don't tell me) ... but why are we so worried about guild sniffing? I just have never understood why that ever mattered.

It can be surmised that a person has the hide skill if they show up as hidden in the contact, because it jusr gives their current sdesc, which should be shadowy figure.