Yet Another Veil Thread

Nitro

People with veils are able to avoid any direct contact/conflict they would like to avoid.

Someone steals of a novice of the House.
Novice asks in the House channel what to do.
You have to say there's not much you can do because the offender has a veil (and avoids all interaction that would make them accountable for their actions).

This is not my idea of a roleplaying game.

Antonius

@Nitro: If they want to avoid all interactions with other people afterwards then they're going to do so with or without a Veil. Also not as though theft is in any way meaningful any more.

Kyrra

You only need to jump on a ship, ferry, go north, and you're untraceable to any form of location that requires the target to be on the same plane of existence. Which is most of them.

Mishgul

contracts don't go down off plane anymore iirc.

Nitro

Kyrra said:

You only need to jump on a ship, ferry, go north, and you're untraceable to any form of location that requires the target to be on the same plane of existence. Which is most of them.

That is true. Going off-plane however, also removes that persons ability to do things on the main-land. You could also become untraceable by simply logging out, but then you're no longer able to play.

It is the combination of being untraceable, and going around Sapience doing your normal daily business which is the real problem. A Veil makes you basicly immune to 98+% of the population of Achaea.

Removing veils and simply reimbursing the owners might appear to be a bad move for Iron Realms, financially. Many players will appreciate it though, and it will leave the game in a better state. Less players will become frustrated, and might actually spend more time (and money) in Achaea because they finally feel they can actually make a difference when dealing with raiders/attackers/thieves/ etc etc.

Mishgul

Well at the moment ashtan and targossas have groups of veiled raiders to our 2, which makes it tough on our midbie population whenever they defile/raid, and eleusis had the same problem when we had the current ashtan group

Nim

Penwize said:

@Nim:
Aside from the veil bit, I'm not sure why you say wings detract from the game.  I can maybe see the argument that they provide an escape that only others who have wings can access, but honestly wings are fairly inexpensive and are a reasonable goal for people to obtain even with solely IC gains.  They're so common I'd hardly say they detract from things.

I wanted to disagree your post for this bit, but then you were cool and suggested ideas regarding all three of the artefacts I listed, so now I want to like your post. I demand a tsundere button. <

Anyway, to address what you said, here are my reasons for thinking so:

• The bolded part is not necessarily true. Level 1 wings are 800 credits, which is a pretty long-term goal for IC gains. Level 2 wings are 2000 credits, the same price as veils. ETA: and in terms of real-life money, they're about $250 and $580 respectively. I could get a new computer for the price of Level 2 wings.
• They function as an artefact that people get because other people have them. They're literally an opt-in, in this regard. They also grant travel powers and convenience, and I'd be cool if that's all they did - I just don't like the opt-in part.
• Everyone who uses them goes to the same room, allowing people with wings to trap or capture other people with wings. This is almost a parallel to the fact that people with veils can reveal other people with veils.

In essence, wings are an artefact that allows people to avoid conflict, but also allows people to partially cancel out other people's use of their own artefact. The problem is, I will admit, not nearly as bad as it is with veils, but it is there.

Also, the cloud rooms are personally kind of immersion-breaking to me. I dunno if they have lore that would make them actually make sense, but they're supposed to be, like, sky rooms or something. Maybe the clouds are solid? Regardless, you can put runes on the clouds, drop a totem on the clouds, sit on the clouds, have a nice cup of tea on the clouds, etc.

And you don't even need wings to get there. Although you cannot follow a flyer into the sky, you could have an entire army of wingless, ground-bound individuals with no means of flight whatsoever follow you to these clouds. Your artefact wings are just that awesome. And once they get there? They no longer need you! They can get back to the continent themselves, thank you very much, or just sit there forever if they'd prefer.

However, this is all unrelated to veils, so while I'd be happy to continue this discussion in more depth, if we do so, we should probably take it elsewhere (a topic of its own, or PM - I'd be happy with either!)

Edit: I almost ended this post with black magic, but then I realized being an evil magician on the forums is bad.

Tael

Wings present a relatively small problem as compared to veils (or, for that matter, earrings - which are easily the worst offenders for artefacts used for a seemingly unintended purpose of allowing consequence-free escape in any situation).

Crucially, wings take you to a single room. There are already abilities that do that, albeit usually taking a bit longer (you can do them indoors though). More importantly, hiding in that room means not doing other things. Veils let you go about your normal business largely unhindered.

But really, the lack-of-consequences issue has been beaten to death already - the problem I was trying to highlight was the issue not of the escape potential afforded by veils, but of the newer problem with finding groups that are actively engaged in destruction/combat. If veils help people dust a shrine and run away, that might be a problem, but I don't think it's nearly so large a problem as knowing that there's a relatively large group destroying shrines, but having absolutely no way to track said group to try to stop them (and since shrines go down so fast, messages that they're under attack don't help much). And the same applies to forest conflict, city raids, border raids, and absolutely any kind of group combat.

Veiled individuals are an evil that I think we probably have to live with for all of the oft-stated reasons. I don't think they're that huge a problem either (don't get me wrong, I am absolutely on the bandwagon and would love to see them removed or discontinued). Veiled groups, however, are a problem that we shouldn't have to deal with. A veil affords plenty of individual utility without allowing for completely-veiled groups and, if anyone bought a veil specifically to enable all-veil raiding, they should be mocked, not catered to.

If being followed made veils non-functional, you would still have protection when acting outside of group combat and would also retain the incredibly powerful ability to break off from the pack (either while continuing the offensive action or to escape) and reap all the consequence-free benefits.

Froh

Tael said:

If being followed made veils non-functional, you would still have protection when acting outside of group combat and would also retain the incredibly powerful ability to break off from the pack (either while continuing the offensive action or to escape) and reap all the consequence-free benefits.

Alternative: a certain number of people using veils in the same place negates the effect, possibly combined with other actions to distinguish between a secret meeting and a violent raiding party.

The point of a veil is stealth.  Doing things which otherwise defeat the idea of stealth could very plausibly undermine the effectiveness of the tool: forming a small army and going out pillaging, doing things which draw massive attention to yourself rather than merely stealthily infiltrating in an area where many NPC's and/or PC's are specifically on the lookout for you, etc.

 

Iocun

Veils are already problematic with single people using it for stealth purposes though. Undetectable thieves/trespassers, particularly in your city, are such a bother.

What I'd love is something like a tattoo that allows you to roughly detect the location of another person, which works through veil. You'd do "touch <tattoo> <target>" and it would give you one of four possible messages:

- <target> is not detectable. (Meaning logged out/off-plane/journaled/etc.)

- <target> is distant. (Meaning around somewhere, but not in your local area.)

- <target> is reasonably close. (Meaning in your local area.)

- <target> is very close. (Meaning within something like 5-10 rooms from your current room.)

The first three are already possible anyways through various means, but they are usually bordering on "skill abuse", since that's not really the purpose of those abilities, so you feel like abusing a bug if you use them. The fourth would make finding veiled people quite a bit easier, while still keeping it a challenge.

Froh

Iocun said:

Veils are already problematic with single people using it for stealth purposes though. Undetectable thieves/trespassers, particularly in your city, are such a bother.

 

Oh, I agree.

However, the problems with a single individual having them mostly seem to be "working as designed, expected, and paid for" even if problematic.  If abused (consistently griefing and using them to escape) hopefully the existing ooc mechanics (issue, snub) are sufficient if the admins do keep track of things.

An invisible, untrackable army roaming the lands?  That seems more like something that wasn't anticipated when veils were implemented.

To summarize: for individuals I don't really like veils but I respect management's balance and revenue decisions.  In terms of balance, the effect is annoying but probably more limited in scope than some other artefacts which even affect balance design between non-owners for entre skillsets and classes (certain weapons, etc.) and so less of a problem.  For groups, veils seem to be getting out of hand beyond what was intended when implemented and what is reasonably expected by purchasers.

Tael

I think Froh is right on the money. Also, individuals are not quite as problematic since individuals take (at least slightly) more time to do things that raise alarms (dust shrines, kill denizens, etc.).

I do like Iocun's tattoo suggestion, though it remains somewhat unclear to me how you would give IC justification for the tattoo working when no other form of tracking does (following/grouping works since you can swing it as something that "makes stealth harder" in light of the amount of associated life-force/soul/brains nearby).

A nice way to do the tattoo thing might be something like a replacement for bell (I realise that it has a function, but virtually no one uses it) where you do TOUCH BELL <target> and you get a room-wide message about a bell-ringing sound with different messages of perceived loudness correlated with distance to the target. I'd also want to see a slightly finer gradation of distances revealed since it would presumably already impose multiple balance costs and movements to track someone down with it (best would be if it actually gave something like a number of rings equal to the distance, though that might be computationally expensive for longer paths).

That said, I still think a "followed" flag that disables veils would be a much better option. The tattoo is a relatively weak bandaid fix to a problem that just shouldn't be allowed to come up at all and it does effectively nothing to help with things like invisible armies zipping around dusting shrines.

Trevize

Tael said:

That said, I still think a "followed" flag that disables veils would be a much better option. The tattoo is a relatively weak bandaid fix to a problem that just shouldn't be allowed to come up at all and it does effectively nothing to help with things like invisible armies zipping around dusting shrines.

Hate to say it, but that sounds like just as bad of a bandaid fix.

Penwize

I actually really like @Iocun's tattoo idea, I don't see that as much of a bandaid.  It works as a lowbie locating ability, or a locating ability that doesn't depend on mappers, on top of its functionality of cutting through veil.

Tael

Trevize said:

Tael said:

That said, I still think a "followed" flag that disables veils would be a much better option. The tattoo is a relatively weak bandaid fix to a problem that just shouldn't be allowed to come up at all and it does effectively nothing to help with things like invisible armies zipping around dusting shrines.

Hate to say it, but that sounds like just as bad of a bandaid fix.

It explicitly solves the problem of invisible groups by making the status of being a group defeat the invisibility.

It's a bandaid fix compared to "veils don't work when there are x of them together in a room" or the perennial favourite "delete veils", but neither of those seem likely to go in.

I guess there are degrees of bandaid. On the one hand, I'd really like to see any fix at this point. On the other, I do admit to a worry that a lacklustre stopgap measure is going to lead to "there I fixed it" and preclude further discussion or adjustment.

Rispok

One thing that bothers me about this thread is the general avoidance of people like myself who aren't contributing to the problem. Something like the following solution would be a pain in my dick. Tattoo, less so.

Katzchen

All Vaehls should be deleted, especially Ayoxele.

(I jest. He's not really that bad :P)

Trevize

Tael said:

Trevize said:

Tael said:

That said, I still think a "followed" flag that disables veils would be a much better option. The tattoo is a relatively weak bandaid fix to a problem that just shouldn't be allowed to come up at all and it does effectively nothing to help with things like invisible armies zipping around dusting shrines.

Hate to say it, but that sounds like just as bad of a bandaid fix.

It explicitly solves the problem of invisible groups by making the status of being a group defeat the invisibility.

Well, there's always the possibility of people scripting moving together, and stop actually following. And the fact it means veils don't work in many other situations where people are following.

Trevize

Don't get me wrong - I want to see it fixed. At least, some of the problems. I just don't see any true solutions here.

Tattoo generates the problem of someone using veil/gem to avoid being visible entirely. Unless using it on the someone not logged in/offplane could give the same message as the furthest distance does. Or limit the distance to say, 20 rooms, at which point it returns 'no echos found' or some such.

Tattoo also creates potential problems with solo stealth that I don't think should be altered at all by any fix suggested here.

I'm still partial to the people blowing up due to 'feedback' from too many veils in one room, and not swiftly departing the room.


Potential deathsight!

Due to the close proximity of other veils, Trevize's veil grows exponentially in power and permanently hides him.

Tael

Trevize said:

Tael said:

Trevize said:

Tael said:

That said, I still think a "followed" flag that disables veils would be a much better option. The tattoo is a relatively weak bandaid fix to a problem that just shouldn't be allowed to come up at all and it does effectively nothing to help with things like invisible armies zipping around dusting shrines.

Hate to say it, but that sounds like just as bad of a bandaid fix.

It explicitly solves the problem of invisible groups by making the status of being a group defeat the invisibility.

Well, there's always the possibility of people scripting moving together, and stop actually following. And the fact it means veils don't work in many other situations where people are following.

Scripting moving together would be really ugly and would definitely limit the speed at which the group could move. Any lag would mean losing members of the group too.

I'd still rather see something like that or the "x number of veiled people", but the tattoo alone would be a nice improvement, even if I can't think of a way to justify it working on veiled people.

Tael

Trevize said:

Don't get me wrong - I want to see it fixed. At least, some of the problems. I just don't see any true solutions here.

Tattoo generates the problem of someone using veil/gem to avoid being visible entirely. Unless using it on the someone not logged in/offplane could give the same message as the furthest distance does. Or limit the distance to say, 20 rooms, at which point it returns 'no echos found' or some such.

Wait - I'm confused. How would gem/veil create problems for the tattoo? I don't think anyone was proposing that it wouldn't work on gemmed people, though I might have missed that. If that was the proposal, that's silly.

A nice compromise would be something like: for normal people, it gives a different message for out-of-range and offline; for gemmed (and/or veiled possibly) people it still works, but the out-of-range appears the same as offline.

Trevize

Tael said:

Scripting moving together would be really ugly and would definitely limit the speed at which the group could move. Any lag would mean losing members of the group too.

I'd still rather see something like that or the "x number of veiled people", but the tattoo alone would be a nice improvement, even if I can't think of a way to justify it working on veiled people.

On a more serious note, what if too many veiled people in the room simply causes the veils to stutter, and eventually stop working. I'm not sure what numbers would be best, but an example:

At 8 people in the room, veils stop working sometimes, starting at say, 10% chance and 2 minute timer, re-determines every 2 minutes.
8-16 people, the frequency increases as the number of people does, and the chance of failing increases similarly.
Over 16 people, they stop working altogether.

Trevize

Tael said:

Trevize said:

Don't get me wrong - I want to see it fixed. At least, some of the problems. I just don't see any true solutions here.

Tattoo generates the problem of someone using veil/gem to avoid being visible entirely. Unless using it on the someone not logged in/offplane could give the same message as the furthest distance does. Or limit the distance to say, 20 rooms, at which point it returns 'no echos found' or some such.

Wait - I'm confused. How would gem/veil create problems for the tattoo? I don't think anyone was proposing that it wouldn't work on gemmed people, though I might have missed that. If that was the proposal, that's silly.

My bad - I meant it would mean those people wouldn't be hidden as completely as desired - ie, people don't know they're logged in. I don't understand that desire, but I know it's relatively common.

Trevize

Tael said:

A nice compromise would be something like: for normal people, it gives a different message for out-of-range and offline; for gemmed (and/or veiled possibly) people it still works, but the out-of-range appears the same as offline.

I like.

edit: I really need to figure out how to combine posts. Every time I try, it looks so horrible I just give up and make a new post.

Tael

Actually, a cleaner way to do it might just be to have location abilities start having a percentage chance of success depending on how many veils are there (assuming that all location abilities cost balance). Then just use an exponential function so you can never locate 1 veil, very rarely locate 2 veils, still quite rarely 3, but once you get up to something like 8 or 10 it becomes reasonably likely.

That seems more sensible than server-timed stuttering and it also means that defender can actively try to get a location by repeatedly trying to locate rather than trying to locate, then sitting around for two minutes, then trying to locate again, and repeating. Active things are good. It also imposes a cost-benefit tradeoff to trying to locate veiled groups in that getting more chances costs you balance (time) instead of being able to run around and do other things while you wait for the timer to tick again. Cost-benefit tradeoffs are good. It also prevents groups from having someone track their visibility and just running away whenever the stuttering happens and coming back whenever it's over. That too is good.

Finally, it means that the collective ease of tracking veiled groups when you don't have any veils yourself is proportional to the size of your group, which seems desirable to me (if four veiled people are doing something against two people, the veil problem isn't so ugly - if thirty people can't locate four veiled people, that seems like a bigger problem).

Santar

None of the ideas in this thread are addressing the issue directly. It's a headache to read through all of these ridiculous proposals that offer needlessly complex ideas that still don't even solve the core issue here. The problem isn't limited to group combat, cities, or anything else in specific. If veils are to be balanced, the change that needs to be made is -very- simple.

 

The most flagrant problem with veils is that they allow a veil user to actively attack or antagonize someone while still being able to hide within the area and not be located. Numerous area attacks can be used on a player and there's not even a chance of retaliation unless the person being attacked wants to suicidally prism into the other person's room, which can still be dodged.  This scenario is quite simply unfair to the victim. It is extremely difficult to find a veil-user if they move even 3-5 rooms away from you during a fight.The solution here is obvious: Veils shouldn't stop other people in your local area from locating you. This would allow a fair conflict to take place where two parties can actually engage each other without such an extreme advantage being awarded to one side. However, I would amend to this that a veil should still override abilities such as trace, presences, and mindnet from working since the goal isn't to nerf the veil-users abillity to remain undetected, but rather to prevent them from remaining completely unfindable after they have already made their presence known.

Rispok

Part of the reason for having a veil is so I can hide in my subdivision and have sex, right? I kid. I don't like the idea of it being useless in the same area, however. This is far, far too broad, negating much of the reason people get these. I understand that ideas are being tossed out to try to fix what can be a problem, but this is not the solution.

Santar

Your reluctance to have your artefact nerfed is understandable, but you have to realise that other artefacts have been nerfed in the past because they were similarly ruining the game for other players. I'm not personally advocating that veils be balanced or not balanced, I'm just stating that if they are to be changed, that the above change that I posted is really the only way to go about it. Being hidden from all tracing abilitities as well as from anybody that doesn't know what area you're in is still a very useful artefact without it being completely unfair to people that have to fight against you. Do you have any idea what it's like to be in a large area and have a person attacking you that you have virtually no method of finding? Or a raider in your city that you can't find until you stumble into their room and just instantly die? It's been abused for years and it's really time for some progress with veils.

 

Look at Shields of Absorption, Earrings(believe it or not, as much as people complain about them now, they used to be 10x more powerful), all stat scaling artefacts in general. All of these artefacts were being abused in the past and all were balanced to be more reasonable. The precedence is definitely there to balance out veils, and I don't think there's any reason that veil owners should feel entitled to keep their game-breaking advantage. Think about what's good for the game.

Xith

So, I Ctrl+F'd and looked for the word "reset" on all pages. Didn't see it, so I'm guessing my idea hasn't been brought up. Here goes:

A city-owned veil artie that resets to a specific room for such emergencies.

Stipulations:

- can only be used from another room in the city, sufficiently far away

- semi-quick reset (2-5 minutes) so they must return to the reset-room to grab the artefact again

- only usable by citizens

- alerts any target it detects that they have been detected

- possibly a two-part reset. Vanish first, reappear in source room 2 minutes later, allowing for "blind spots" in the city's emergency scrying

Tael

New idea: please just hire Santar.