Nerf City Listen

[Fragmented]

Hi,

I'm sure this has probably already been suggested, but I couldn't find any such threads in any recent posts. These ideas are for the city version of listen, and possibly the wilderness, as I'm not sure what the differences are.

I would like to see listen nerfed. It makes very little sense to me that a person listening can hear every conversation at every table in a busy tavern. My ideas are as follows:

In a room flagged tavern (if there is such a flag) require listen to be directed to -one- table, or the bar. As someone gets really good at listen, perhaps they can catch -snatches- from other tables they aren't focusing on. Whispers spoken inside a tavern would be impossible to hear, ever. There's just too much background noise. The same would go for detecting someone sneaking away. If I'm in the local pub on a friday night and there's a football game on, I'm not going to hear someone -run- out the door, let alone leave very quietly.

In a room -not- flagged tavern, then sure, let listen catch conversations from any sittable object, althought those with newbie listen skills might miss a word or three now and then. Also, in these non tavern rooms, let things be heard from another room, or even through doors as the code seems to allow now.

Any thoughts? Changes? Additions? I really think listen as it is now is very unrealistic, and I'd love to see it changed.

[Cale_Knight]

I agree. I think certain rooms should be flagged "noisy," and such rooms would have listen restrictions similar to the one you described.

It would also be impossible to listen into or out of a noisy room.

[Seeker]

Yeah, there have been quite a few recent threads.

Without overhauling the existing system, which I'm not opposing or suggesting, I do think that this thread about toning down ranger's listen made good sense.

I tend to agree that the ranger guild's listen should be the "wilderness version" and nerfed pretty severely within the gates.  Rangers have an awful lot going for them, and this limitation makes sense, giving city-based characters at least something that they chould do better than the universal tool ranger.

Seeker

[Cale_Knight]

Another interesting idea would be to make bard listen slightly different, where it works normally in taverns but is slighty nerfed everywhere else.

[Tamarin]

That would give bard rangers fine listen in most places.

[Cale_Knight]

True - maybe make the ranger listen supercede the bard listen?

[Fragmented]

Honestly, I'm not so much concerned with rangers having listen as I am with listen as a whole. It's too powerful. It's unrealistic. You'd have to be superman to pick out every conversation at the bar, table A and table B in a tavern that's -supposed- to be busy.

[mansa]

I always thought that Listen was not just LISTENING to conversations, but a multiple of skills combined together in one.  It's lip-reading, and body-language reading, as well as training your ear to pick up special key phrases in discussions.

I'm sure you've all heard your name in a crowd.

I do think it's more powerful when you hear -each- and -every- table, and if you could target tables, that would be neat.  More tables for the higher levels of listen.

I think that the recent changes to listen over the past couple years are excellent.  Listen six years ago was a lot different than listen NOW.

[EvilRoeSlade]

Without overhauling the existing system, which I'm not opposing or suggesting, I do think that this thread about toning down ranger's listen made good sense.

I tend to agree that the ranger guild's listen should be the "wilderness version" and nerfed pretty severely within the gates.  Rangers have an awful lot going for them, and this limitation makes sense, giving city-based characters at least something that they chould do better than the universal tool ranger.

I do believe rangers already have a negative skill modifier when they use listen in a city.

[Cale_Knight]

I think that the recent changes to listen over the past couple years are excellent.  Listen six years ago was a lot different than listen NOW.

Do tell. I'm curious.

[Folker]

Having experienced the power of listen myself with my recent characters. I thoroughly enjoy how powerful it is, and I thoroughly agree that it is too powerful.

[Anonymous]

I suggest that instead of getting rid of a skill which frankly makes a major part of the game, tavern sitting, more interesting, some sort of 'sotto voice' feature is added so that if you're sitting at a table and use this feature, someone at the next table listening wouldn't hear what was said (or maybe only have a chance of hearing it if her ability to listen is well developed).

If you speak at a normal level, you should expect to be vulnerable to being overheard.

[spawnloser]

Anon, there is such a thing...it's called whisper.

As to the rest?  The responsibility is on the player listening.  If the person hears everything because the code allows him/her, they're doing bad.  Just like the person who hunts for a span of 5 days IG, yeah, that person's responsibility to cut down on that too.  Should we codedly stop them?

I'm thinking, no?  Listen is powerful for what it does, but it isn't THAT powerful, and not everyone gets it.  I'm fine with things the way they are.

[flurry]

I'd like to see it tweaked a little.  Targeting seems like a really neat idea.  The "noisy" factor does too.  I like the idea of giving rangers a penalty for indoor listening.   I don't think it needs a total overhaul, but some changes would be welcome.

[X-D]

Rangers already have the wilderness version and do take negs in the city, more then one kind of neg I might add.

[Malifaxis]

Rangers are super cheesy and shouldn't even be allowed to carry ears in to town.  Ranger ears should be considered more illegal than spice in Allanak, and they are obviously magickal because they can hear everyone whispering three rooms away in towns, which means that all rangers should be slain in Tuluk.  

Rangers should be branded, and forced to wear something that distinctly announces that they are rangers.

[ale six]

Rangers should be branded, and forced to wear something that distinctly announces that they are rangers.

You mean like desert-camo gear and anakore-claw gloves?

They don't all do that already?

[Supreme Allah]

I agree. Listen is too powerful. Forcing it use targets might solve this.

My ideas:

Listen <person>: You attempt to pick apart anything this person says. At low levels, this will be what they're saying to their table or the like, and it will be the initial option. At high levels, you'll be able to hear their whispers.

Listen <table>: You'll hear everything spoken in "talk" at this table. You'll need a slightly improved listen skill to do this. At high levels, listening to one table in a room that is not "noisy" will allow you to hear what is being spoken at all nearby tables.

Listen <direction>: You'll hear everything spoken in this direction for one room. You'll need a slightly improved listen skill to do this. At high levels, this will allow you to hear through walls when not in or toward "noisy" rooms.

Listen room: This will help in detecting the movements of persons using the "sneak" skill in movement, albeit much less so or maybe not at all in "noisy" rooms.

[spawnloser]

You're making it too complicated, Supreme Allah.  Should we do the same sort of thing to scan?  I mean, you can see things others can't when you have that skill, just like people with listen can heard things others can't.

I really just think people need restraint.

[Supreme Allah]

If it's available in its fullest extent in all areas, even to the point where it is overwhelmingly unrealistic (which it currently is), people will continue to use it to its fullest extent.

Why should players be subject to information they must decide they can or cannot use? It's like a hidden emote of someone doing something flagrant like punching you across the jaw - it's there, so you're gonna react to it.

If somebody in a neighboring tavern room full of VNPCs through a wall while you're outside in a sandstorm says that they just killed your character's best friend and spat on his corpse, while someone in the same room as as you whispered to their buddy very quietly that they just raped his mate, and someone on the bench over there's going on about how they murdered his brother - all spoken simultaneously -, are you gonna have your character ignore any of the three even though codewise you'd be competely legitimate in not doing so?

Sorry man, but I doubt it.

I do buy that a skilled listener could probably pick apart an individual's voice, or the conversation at a particular tavern table, or maybe even a conversation from a neighboring room with a door seperating it, all with some degree of clarity - but not all at the same time.

[Maybe42or54]

I've had a lot more bad experiences with listen, than I've had good ones.

[mansa]

I've had a lot more good experiences with listen than bad.

I'm not convined that it needs to change.  Give more examples and analogies.

[EvilRoeSlade]

I'm not convined that it needs to change.  Give more examples and analogies.

Here's an example.  I was sitting in the Gaj cooking room talking quietly with my buddies about how scary magickers are, and then some magicker hears our conversation and contacts a templar, who arrives on the scene to yell at us.

I thought it was really stupid on the part of the magickers involved.

[Larrath]

Nerfing listen by making it harder to use and giving some guilds penalties to their listen skills is really meaningless.  It doesn't matter if rangers were capped at 15% for their Listen skill, because they could still spam 'listen on' until it worked.  They'd even be able to interact with the environment while doing so, with the new way command queuing works.

The listen skill needs to be completely changed.  Outdoors (and indoors in unpopulated rooms) listen should primarily alert people to sneakers.  You have listen up but you suck at seeing things?  "You hear footsteps."
In a populated room, every character should be able to listen at a single table of their choice.  This is because it's just possible - most people who don't blast their ears with loud rock music on earphones can usually do those things without even trying too hard.

To people with the listen skill indoors, they should either be capable of listening in a single direction away, or listen to multiple tables, or target one or two people and have a moderate chance of success at hearing what they whisper and are whispered to.

Make people choose what aspect of the listen skill they want to employ (and on what) instead of giving everything at once, and the skill would get pretty balanced, I think.

[ale six]

I still don't get why it's all or nothing.

Let everyone be able to turn listen on. Then, depending on skill percentage, let the code determine whether you catch a specific talk at another table or not.

It already works this way with whispers (sometimes you hear, sometimes not.) Why not just change it to be the same way with talk?

Then the lower skill percentage that rangers and whoever else has listen might have would actually mean something.