Change To Contracts / Marks

Shecks

Odds of every contract made going to the guys who notoriously handle contracts by bringing a group of people to help just went down too. At least, until the success rate starts to affect things. Then it will be just like that again. I expect within a week or two Santar will be back to getting half of the contracts again. 98% chance of easy experience for 5,000 gold, anyone?

@Katzchen It was me pondering about online status / plane affecting contracts. I'm kinda happy that you can be hired while offline, but it makes me a little concerned about the highly inactive/dormant marks eating up a big chunk (over half) of the contracts. I'm sure this is a consideration that went into the change, because we really have no way of seeing what goes where.

Regarding top tier combatants being at an advantage... That is kinda how it's supposed to work, I think. Things like veils are specifically designed for activities such as avoiding marks (or finding targets), so I don't see how it's doing anything outside of what they are intended to do. As far as combat skill and experience, there should be absolutely nothing wrong with the actual good ones filtering to the top, and the wannabes "wasting" less and less contracts as they consistently fail. Only issue at all I have with this system is that teaming / raids are going to destroy the ranking system.

Wysteria

@Shecks maybe the contracts go to any Mark who are still Ranked? There might be some internal timer system the contracts use so the chances of a dormant Mark won't get a job because, well it's impractical and incredibly redundant.

Makarios

Some clarifications:

- Marks who have not been active in the last few days will not be contracted ever.
- You're just getting unlucky if no contracts as of yet. The difference in reputation between the top few people is so small still its not going to influence the selection process noticeably.

Responses:

- Making ivory x orgs and quisalis y orgs won't work. It shoehorns factions into teams and potentially obstructs future ability to become hostile with someone in your "team".
- Writs will be getting a thorough looking at (they've been problematic for a while now), we'd like to sort out the issues (perceived and otherwise) with this first though.

Thoughts:

We could quite easily make it so members of the Ivory Mark will never receive contracts from people who are enemied to their orgs or from people whose orgs they are enemied to. That may solve some of the issues there, if people want a more rigid alternative when it comes to that.

Antonius

Shecks said:

Only issue at all I have with this system is that teaming / raids are going to destroy the ranking system.

It's supposed to be a ranking of how effective you are at completing contracts so the methods you use shouldn't be relevant.

Aerek

I'm still mulling over the new changes. On one hand, I think the new system is cool and much more fitting for paid-for assassins, but I'm not deaf to the laments of factions who don't want their citizens killing their allies for their enemies, so to speak.

The question that keeps coming to mind as I think it over is, "Has Achaea out-grown the Quisalis vs Ivory dichotomy?" As has been stated, the RP identity of both is nebulous at best, (Sorry, Sobriquet, I know you tried) mechanically there's never really been a difference between them, and now with the changes we're seeing the RP issues with impartial assassin organizations when viewed through the eyes of the more scrupulous factions. (This problem was always there, really, the previous mechanics just made it easy for us to ignore it) I'm sure they were originally setup to wage a sort of gang war between the two marks, but that was never really the case, with Ivory and Quisalis marks hunting and killing themselves just as often as the other. It was really more of a "hardcore PK" flag than any real RP or organization.

I think the entire premise of Quisalis vs. Ivory has been flimsy from the start, which is why everyone in this thread is calling out the other side for their "flimsy" justifications. Targossass can't hire Quisalis because they kidnap or whatever, but that could be hand-waved away with the smallest "reformation event" to make them less "evil", because there's very little established RP for the Quisalis outside the Mythos and the event that spawned their underground base. Maldaathi must be Ivory, which is it's own strange reality, but again, that's only the case because the Ivory has never really been defined from the get-go. If the Ivory was clarified to be for the "Good" guys, the Maldaathi would have to drop it like a hot rock.

So that's my rhetorical question: Would it be better or worse for the situation to axe the half-developed RP for both Marks, and consolidate both of them into a single, neutral, Mark organization that would facilitate the hired revenge killings for individuals and orders? Drop the Quisalis' "evil" flavor and the Ivory's "good" flavor, and merge them into an impartial Mark org that doesn't inherently offend the sensibilities of any one faction, but does take members and contracts from all factions. Yes, there would remain the reality that a Targossian mark may complete a Mhaldorian contract, but I do tend to agree that's only an issue because of "old thinking" caught in the Ivory/Quisalis false dichotomy. If we close that era and embrace the idea that there is just this one impartial, principled guild of assassins, then the Quisalis (I would like their name to remain, given their Mythos origins and Thoth is a pretty neutral guy) become a "necessary evil" that no one likes but everyone needs, like the Dark Brotherhood from the Elder Scrolls, the Ankh-Morpork assassins from Discworld, or House Dimir from Magic: the Gathering.

If that can't work, would it be better just to dissolve the global Marks, entirely, and go with a "Quisalis chapter" in each city? Contracts from each city would only go to that city's Marks, which would ensure that every city needed at least a few able combatants. That would solve Targossas' and the Maldaathi's qualms, but it would open up the possibility for abuse if a city ensured that only a few top-notch fighters were allowed to be city marks and would get all the contracts. (Effectively reverting to the old system where only a few Marks got contracts)

Edit: Makarios posted while I was composing. That seems like a reasonably elegant fix.

Shecks

@Makarios That actually would solve it pretty well... Can't believe nobody came up with that sooner.'

Antonius said:

Shecks said:

Only issue at all I have with this system is that teaming / raids are going to destroy the ranking system.

It's supposed to be a ranking of how effective you are at completing contracts so the methods you use shouldn't be relevant.

While that's technically true, game mechanics can definitely encourage methods one way or the other, and that encouragement can most certainly impact the game either negatively or positively.  As for keeping an accurate ranking of which marks are "effective" - I don't think that being the random guy to land the successful kai choke in a 10v10 raid makes you any more or less of an effective mark, and shouldn't be recorded as such.  All that tweak would require is not changing mark rating during sanctioned raids (but still completing the contract as per normal).  It's a relatively insignificant issue, so I wouldn't get hung up on it either way.

Strata

Shecks said:

@Makarios That actually would solve it pretty well... Can't believe nobody came up with that sooner.'

Antonius said:

Shecks said:

Only issue at all I have with this system is that teaming / raids are going to destroy the ranking system.

It's supposed to be a ranking of how effective you are at completing contracts so the methods you use shouldn't be relevant.

While that's technically true, game mechanics can definitely encourage methods one way or the other, and that encouragement can most certainly impact the game either negatively or positively.  As for keeping an accurate ranking of which marks are "effective" - I don't think that being the random guy to land the successful kai choke in a 10v10 raid makes you any more or less of an effective mark, and shouldn't be recorded as such.  All that tweak would require is not changing mark rating during sanctioned raids (but still completing the contract as per normal).  It's a relatively insignificant issue, so I wouldn't get hung up on it either way.

It's a frivolous change in my opinion - because you still have the teaming aspect. It should be expected that specific individuals who need not be named with do whatever it takes to maintain top rankings in the new system. That includes teaming, raid kills, afk meteor snipe. Nothing (not even code) will stop cheapshots/gimmicky people.

ETA: I view mark rank as "how skilled of a mark are you" and not necessarily "how skilled of a combatant are you". Hypothetically, if there were some judging panel made up of players in the realms that decided who gets into the mark system and who doesn't, you can bet your ass the both of us would NOT be in the mark. Not because we are capable, but because we're simply not liked. Those who don't have anything to contribute to so-called "combat expertise" and rely on cheap tricks would prevail because they're... well... cheap. And cheapest shot wins.

Strata

Makarios said:

Some clarifications:

- Marks who have not been active in the last few days will not be contracted ever.
- You're just getting unlucky if no contracts as of yet. The difference in reputation between the top few people is so small still its not going to influence the selection process noticeably.

....

I'm assuming this means "anyone who didn't have pending contracts before the change will not be contracted ever." That's cool. At least we can still kill infamous people!

Shecks

I can't wait to see this turn into combat rankings, for marks.  I feel bad for the admins, having to code around two nearly opposite concepts... allowing loose, character-driven roleplay, and preventing douchebags from ruining it for everyone.

Antonius

@Strata: It seems infinitely more reasonable to assume it means "Marks who have not logged in in the last few days."

Makarios

Correct. If you've not been logged in, you'll not be in the runnings for a contract that comes up.

Jules

Makarios said:

Some clarifications:

- Marks who have not been active in the last few days will not be contracted ever.
- You're just getting unlucky if no contracts as of yet. The difference in reputation between the top few people is so small still its not going to influence the selection process noticeably.

Responses:

- Making ivory x orgs and quisalis y orgs won't work. It shoehorns factions into teams and potentially obstructs future ability to become hostile with someone in your "team".
- Writs will be getting a thorough looking at (they've been problematic for a while now), we'd like to sort out the issues (perceived and otherwise) with this first though.

Thoughts:

We could quite easily make it so members of the Ivory Mark will never receive contracts from people who are enemied to their orgs or from people whose orgs they are enemied to. That may solve some of the issues there, if people want a more rigid alternative when it comes to that.

Makarios, I hope you don't do that last, even if some of the players are screaming for it.  The "enemy of my enemy, through anonymity" part of what you guys have done is what makes this new system so promising.  The best fighters are almost always stacked in a few places (especially Ashtan) and your system attempts to mitigate some of that.  

EDIT:  also, what about the veil issue that was mentioned?

Shecks

I can't wait to get some of these contracts.  Hire away, Achaeans.

edited: something that was already fixed, nevermind.

Shecks

Derillin Yu'tar tells you, "It is bad for business to kill off your own assassins. The Quisalis will not take that contract.

Cool.

Tecton

We've adjusted the Ivory Mark a little, based on feedback:

1 - The Ivory Mark Logistics Division (IMLD) will no longer assign contracts to Champions who are enemied to the hirer's city (and vice-versa).

2 - IMLD will now refund half of the Champion's cut back to the hirer upon completion of a contract.

Enjoy!

Jules

What I get from this is that if I'm serious about getting a contract completed, I'm going to hire Quisalis every time... I just have a greater chance of getting the contract fulfilled (unless I actually am Ashtani, in which case I'd probably go Quisalis anyway).  Eh, I haven't had to hire since I was a newbie anyway, but still excited to see admin trying to make Mark more effective at completing contracts for people - its purported reason for existing.

Shecks

As it stands, there is little to no reason to hire for more than the absolute minimum, 5000 gold.  Why would anyone pay higher than that, if they don't know who's going to get hired?

I submit that the more gold is paid, the more likely that the contract will go to a higher ranked mark.  If they offer the absolutely minimum, it should go to lower ranked marks.  Hirers get what they pay for, and good marks don't keep getting contracts that don't offer payment relative to their skill and reputation.

Shirszae

Shecks said:

As it stands, there is little to no reason to hire for more than the absolute minimum, 5000 gold.  Why would anyone pay higher than that, if they don't know who's going to get hired?

I submit that the more gold is paid, the more likely that the contract will go to a higher ranked mark.  If they offer the absolutely minimum, it should go to lower ranked marks.  Hirers get what they pay for, and good marks don't keep getting contracts that don't offer payment relative to their skill and reputation.

Yeah, @Xer suggested this about half a thread ago. Would be great if they implemented it that way. 

Mathonwy

The absolute biggest issue is the weird, is-it-or-isn't-it RP nature of the two Mark orgs. Why is it that the only way to be an assassin in the game is if you apparently don't care at all about principles? Why is it that the only way to be a champion of the weak is to embrace honor, or for the honorable to champion the weak?

This wouldn't be an issue in any other factional aspect of the game, really, because people would roll their eyes if some upstart org went to the public boards and said they have a monopoly on anyone calling themselves 'champions' or 'assassins.' But because the Mark orgs are the only two orgs through which the vast majority of players can get any sort of IC resolution and because it's IC all the way down, as it were (and because the notion of hiring is also supposed to serve as the main IC deterrent to people running around and just killing the shit out of whoever they want to kill whenever they want to kill them, especially given the new PK rules), it's a part of the game you have to approach far differently than an anonymous credit market.

But I'm pretty sure there have been about three orgs that have ever found the two Mark orgs perfectly acceptable as-is, or for whom the Marks have actually advanced any sort of roleplay, and the rest have had to handwave away the RP conflicts the best they can-- or else not participate in a major and hardcoded part of the game. It's like alignment all over again!

As for the specific concerns of various Targ players that have been presented here, people had been calling for Shallam to be destroyed, by my guess, since approximately ten minutes after it was introduced, and yet it persisted for like a decade. I'm forced to conclude, then, that for the betterment of the game, the admin (for whom I only have respect, and with whom I sympathise for trying to turn a not-very-engaging aspect of the game into something interesting and with nuance), not the players, who went forward with creating a new Good city and wanted to distance it from Shallam. These changes would've been absolutely perfect for Shallam. But Targossas isn't Shallam. Hell, it isn't Shallam almost by admin decree. Is it wrong to ask that, given those considerations, these changes not be allowed to undermine the process they initiated? I don't think it's that unreasonable, personally.

Both the Good and Evil factions (the latter perhaps less so) have had to struggle for years against the persistent notions that Good is always Lawful Good, and Evil is always Chaotic Evil, and the revamping of the Mark orgs, while interesting, doesn't really help that struggle at all. Personally, I'd rather see a number of Mark organizations splinter off with their own unique approaches on why they do what they do and how they do it. The nice bonus this would provide would be that they would all be RP orgs from the get-go, and membership in them would actually provide the sort of meaning that the admin seem to want to inject now.

Shecks

@Mathonwy I've actually taken quite a few contracts in my days, without using the mark system.  I just killed the guy, and collected my payment.  You have to be careful to play within the rules, or at least choose targets that aren't going to immediately hit their Issue hotkey, but it's far from out of the question.

My point here is that you can go off and do it your own way, just don't be griefy about it.

Bluef

Shecks said:

@Mathonwy I've actually taken quite a few contracts in my days, without using the mark system.  I just killed the guy, and collected my payment.  You have to be careful to play within the rules, or at least choose targets that aren't going to immediately hit their Issue hotkey, but it's far from out of the question.

My point here is that you can go off and do it your own way, just don't be griefy about it.

City patrons have been known to use mercenaries in exactly this way. As long as it isn't overly abused, and there is roleplay justification, thumbs up from me.

Kuy

We don't need to argue about the RP anymore.

Mathonwy

The part to which you two are responding isn't about whether or not you can't run off and do your own thing, because you obviously can. It's that you shouldn't have to, and it makes no sense at all to have the two Marks as your only options-- and, of course, experience gain for the person hiring provides some sort of restitution so they're less likely to lean on any issue buttons going forward, because there are people who, for whatever reason, do get upset about losing it.

Greys

I know the thread is long so apologies if it already has been stated but main thing Targossas (maybe other orgs as well) needs is something that ensures the contract does not go to an org enemy.   Perhaps the mark orgs make a surcharge for being particular on this matter?

Dunn

My only complaint is that I still haven't been assigned a contract.

Kuy

Greys said:

I know the thread is long so apologies if it already has been stated but main thing Targossas (maybe other orgs as well) needs is something that ensures the contract does not go to an org enemy.   Perhaps the mark orgs make a surcharge for being particular on this matter?

It's already been taken care of.

Greys

Teaches me not to update before posting!

Jules

As someone who would be on the "customer" side, I want hiring a Mark to mean I have a pretty darn good chance of seeing the target killed.  I want it to WORK.  If I hired in the wrong, I get smacked, of course, but I want the system to be effective, and it seems like people are immediately trying to dismantle something that might actually create a system that makes Mark effective at its one and only job.  I freely admit that I can't hire other goddamned Cyrenians for that, and that most of the people actually capable of completing the contract are probably enemied to Cyrene.  I imagine other cities are largely in a similar situation.

Triak

Tecton said:

We've adjusted the Ivory Mark a little, based on feedback:

1 - The Ivory Mark Logistics Division (IMLD) will no longer assign contracts to Champions who are enemied to the hirer's city (and vice-versa).

2 - IMLD will now refund half of the Champion's cut back to the hirer upon completion of a contract.

Enjoy!

I don't like this.  It seems this change was made specifically to appease Targossas - a hard coded change in response to their choosen player RP.  What about the negative consequences to the other Ivory Marks?  Let's take @Jhui for example.  As a member of Ashtan he doesn't really care who he does business with, as Ashtan doesn't have any set laws on deals with enemies.  If you want to kill someone for a city enemy, knock yourself out.  Under this change he can only get contracts from Ashtan or Hashan or non citied characters.  This is even worse for Mahldorian characters like @Tirac.  Their only option to remedy this is to tell them to change Mark orgs - highly unfair and also completely metagame.

I feel like this is a knee jerk reaction tailored specifically for one small set of players, instead of considering the rest of the players.

Jovolo

Allowing Ivory Mark's the choice of whether or not they accept contracts from city enemies seems like a better alternative than catering specifically to Targossas' roleplay whims. With traveling to the head of the organisation and asking them for this exemption, as a way of implementing it in game.