No Mark notification

Eurulis

I've had this idea for a year or so, but I didn't really feel confident in posting it due to my previous absence. After getting back into the game for the last six months or so, though, I'm a bit more confident that I know what I'm talking about.

When you hire a mark, the victim gets a message along the lines of "X has hired Y as a Champion/Assassin on you". It can pop up on screen as a little notification you can easily miss in spam, or as a message if you're offline. I see this as a problem, as the victim can just go "Oh, no problem, I'll just stick to guard stacks and leave when I don't see the Mark any more". This is more or less plausible depending on timezone differences, though.

While the current system is pretty decent, I think it would be improved by removing the message completely. Or heck, even just replace it with "Someone has hired a Champion/Assassin on you". To prevent abuse of this, if the Mark is sucessful, the victim will get something like "You have been slain by Y, who has had his martial services paid for by X". or "You have slain Y, and have found a contract for your death signed by X on his person".

I suggest this so the victim in question doesn't know when he should hide, or collapses into a paranoid mess on a guard stack. The victim should be ready for this kind of attack from, well, anyone. I've had experience with this when I would go to hire a Mark just to be told "You want to hire on this guy? He's just going to stay in his city. I don't think I'll be able to get him". and so on.

What do you guys think?

Kyrra

I know enough people that hunt down the Marks hired on them to nullify the contracts.

I think games of cat and mouse can be exciting. Should keep it as it is.

Iocun

Some problems with this:

- It robs the target of a chance to avoid the killing by talking to the hirer and/or mark and working things out peacefully. Not all hirings are "just" and even if they are, the hirer might sometimes still be convinced diplomatically. And talking's a good thing.

- As Kyrra said, it also robs the target of the chance to hunt down the mark preempttively.

- You won't get that explanatory death message unless the mark actually kills you. So if the mark just attacks repeatedly, but doesn't succeed, you won't know it's a contract and assume you're just being randomly harassed - and possibly even hire a mark on the mark. I guess this can be solved by simply asking your attacker why he's attacking you, though. But in that case, the advantage of this system is gone, and you can still start to hide from the mark.

Eurulis

Those are good all points that I had neglected to take into account. Well damn. This is why I posted as a thread rather than simply IDEAing it. Thanks for the input.

Edit: Feel free to continue with the concept if there's some worth in it, though. I just don't really have an answer for the points raised against it to really say that this would improve the mechanic rather than simply leaving it as is anymore.

Tesha

Trying to chase people makes me wish I was an occultist with tentacles. Anonymity would make things so much easier!

Salindera

Eurulis said:

 After getting back into the game for the last six months or so

:-w

Kyrra

Eurulis is clearly the love child of Sylvance and Xith.

O:-)

Sylvance

Kyrra said:

Eurulis is clearly the love child of Sylvance and Xith. O:-)

Took me a full five minutes to decide whether to LOL or WTF.

On topic:

Just brainstorming here. It's probably a hair-brained no-goer, so you shouldn't even waste your time reading it:

Implement Eurulis' idea. Because it's awesome. I mean the "Someone has hired on your ass" version. Then give the Ivory and the Quisali (sp?) a motto that has to be spoken to the target before opening combat against them in order to validate the kill. That way, they don't know who's coming for them, but when the Mark does come for them, they know that this is the drop. Essentially, once Mark takes the contract, he cannot attack Target (much as if he is Grace'd versus that one person) until he's spoken the line to him.

Sylvance enters from the in.

Eyes brimming with retribution, Sylvance points at you and proclaims, "<Something awesome>".

Sylvance whoops your ass.

Main problem I can see is "How can the Mark open up with ranged?"

Xli

As well as opening up with ranged, there's also the point regarding nullifying contracts by killing the mark - how can the target strike at their assassin / champion if they don't know who it is?

Sylvance

Xli said:

As well as opening up with ranged, there's also the point regarding nullifying contracts by killing the mark - how can the target strike at their assassin / champion if they don't know who it is?

Easy. They hit their "RLF" macro and put as much distance between themselves and the Mark (whose identity they now have), and then attempt to resolve things diplomatically... or gank him back... The idea of you receiving an assassin's name in the post is sheer madness.

Xli

Sylvance said:

Xli said:

As well as opening up with ranged, there's also the point regarding nullifying contracts by killing the mark - how can the target strike at their assassin / champion if they don't know who it is?

Easy. They hit their "RLF" macro and put as much distance between themselves and the Mark (whose identity they now have), and then attempt to resolve things diplomatically... or gank him back... The idea of you receiving an assassin's name in the post is sheer madness.

And bipedal armoured lizards swinging around envenomed rapiers is sanity exemplified? 

Sylvance

Yep, okay; I'll take that one on the chin

Eurulis

Well in general, Iocun and Kyrra bring up some good points. There -should- be a way to know who to hunt down, or negotiate with, and this system does put a bit too much power into the Mark's hands in that regard. Sylvance has a decent idea where the Mark has to be in the same room and declare the intent to get the contract kill, which would eliminate a bit of the confusion on who is attacking you because they are an enemy or who is attacking you because they are.

I recall essentially bothering some Marks about this a while back, and in retrospect, I think they were just having a run of contracts hiding in the cities like I suggested. Don't ask me to remember names, it was years ago.

Still, I like the concept. Let's try tweaking it. How about this. Name stays anonymous for one fourth (More or less) of the contract time, and after that the names of hiree and Mark are revealed. Would that balance the concept a bit more?

Dolomar

What if instead of removing the dynamic there was a way to punish the target for avoiding the mark? IE, if the mark has no opportunity to confront the target within so and so much time, the target receives a small disfavor or something similar? I don't know, don't take that suggestion at face value--I don't understand the mechanics or purpose for the mechanics enough to offer a good one, just idle suggestions based on the conversation and points raised here.

Eurulis

Sadly, that kind of thing would be difficult to really figure out. How do you tell if they are actively avoiding the Mark, or if they are just busy with paperwork or something else? Or heck, maybe they had to go on a work trip or vacation or something for a while? There's entirely too many variables at hand here for something like that to work out, sadly. Thanks for giving it a shot, though!

Edit: You know? That last sentence sounded rather condescending. Sorry, man. Seriously, thank you for commenting.

Sylvance

Another idea: make a quest that the target has to complete to find out the name of the Mark and hirer. By definition they have to leave their city to complete it. Or create a third player organisation that controls the flow of said information.

Shirszae

Dolomar said:

What if instead of removing the dynamic there was a way to punish the target for avoiding the mark? IE, if the mark has no opportunity to confront the target within so and so much time, the target receives a small disfavor or something similar? I don't know, don't take that suggestion at face value--I don't understand the mechanics or purpose for the mechanics enough to offer a good one, just idle suggestions based on the conversation and points raised here.

This makes no sense. Why should I be under any obligation to make things easier for an assassin who has been hired on me? Because thats what the marks are, in the end. 

Iocun

Sylvance said:

Another idea: make a quest that the target has to complete to find out the name of the Mark and hirer. By definition they have to leave their city to complete it.

Selling a script that will automate the quest in 20 seconds and move you back to your city. 100 cr.

(Not that this would be helpful anyways. You already need to leave your city to let the contract expire. You just make sure not to do it while the mark is around. During that time when the mark is logged out, you might then just as well also do this quest.)

Dunn

Just make the hirer wait until you are one room away from the target. Problem solved.

Iocun

Dunn said:

Just make the hirer wait until you are one room away from have summoned the target into a kill room.

Jules

Iocun said:

Some problems with this: - It robs the target of a chance to avoid the killing by talking to the hirer and/or mark and working things out peacefully. Not all hirings are "just" and even if they are, the hirer might sometimes still be convinced diplomatically. And talking's a good thing. - As Kyrra said, it also robs the target of the chance to hunt down the mark preempttively. - You won't get that explanatory death message unless the mark actually kills you. So if the mark just attacks repeatedly, but doesn't succeed, you won't know it's a contract and assume you're just being randomly harassed - and possibly even hire a mark on the mark. I guess this can be solved by simply asking your attacker why he's attacking you, though. But in that case, the advantage of this system is gone, and you can still start to hide from the mark.

The "just" part of this seems like the key reason it may have to remain as is.  But from an RP standpoint, how could one *ever* be "robbed" of the opportunity to hunt down someone secretly hired to kill you?  Just sayin'.  

Antonius

From a roleplay standpoint it only makes sense for assassins to be secret. Champions should be publicised since they're, you know, Champions - people should know who they are and they'd have no reason to hide the fact that they're coming to kill you. It would be nice to have that kind of distinction between the two (since there isn't that much of one right now), but as has been previously posted there are pretty specific gameplay concerns that make it unfeasible.

Triak

Maybe this isn't a popular opinion but I feel like the Mark system is simply a relic of the old PK rules.  It really doesn't add anything to the game anymore.  While I understand that death should have meaning as an RP device, it doesn't.

What we have now is better anyway. (everyone can be killed within valid RP reasons, just don't be a jerk)

I'd much rather have the powers that be looking into a new system than working on Mark.  (even if what you mention is merely cosmetic)

Santar

Triak said:

Maybe this isn't a popular opinion but I feel like the Mark system is simply a relic of the old PK rules.  It really doesn't add anything to the game anymore.  While I understand that death should have meaning as an RP device, it doesn't.

What we have now is better anyway. (everyone can be killed within valid RP reasons, just don't be a jerk)

I'd much rather have the powers that be looking into a new system than working on Mark.  (even if what you mention is merely cosmetic)

QFT.

I was eventually going to get around to making a post saying something similar to this. Contracts are definitely an outdated concept, given the fact that there's no real cause to count. The only current purpose for contracts are for order writs and clear, flagrant one-sided PKs for no reason(how often will this occur?)

I'd be in favour of a total re-work of the Mark system.

Edit: And yeah, if you and I are the one's advocating this, then it's probably not popular opinion. Har.

Sylvance

Marks could remain an awesome part of Achaea. They just need some love and revisioning.

Jules

So under the current PK rules, I wonder if admin would allow someone who is low might or just not a good fighter to have someone go hunt someone down (and hopefully kill them)?  

EDIT:  If that is the case, I guess we really wouldn't need any formal system - and it completely solves the OP problem as well.

Achilles

Probably best to just delete the mark system entirely and just leave in writs (and in excessive cases issues).  Only a small percentage of those being hired on will accept a duel from your champion/assassin.  And people who want to hire usually have pretty questionable motives for doing so to begin with.

Antonius

@Jules: I don't see why you'd scrap the Mark system and then allow something that serves essentially the same purpose but with far more complications and potential for bad things to happen.

I just don't think there's a problem that needs to be solved here.

Jules

I was just commenting on what Triak said, and curious what admin's take on that would be.  It definitely does have potential for bad things to happen - which I'd sort of worried about when PK rules were streamlined.  That seems to have been fine, but then again, I am very careful to only involve myself in conflict in raid defense...

Cardan

There's already been a whole thread about revamping the Quisalis and Ivory Marks and it was listed - http://forums.achaea.com/discussion/107/quisalis-mark-anonymous