Bounties for Writs

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Comments

  • Maybe the solution is to steeply increase the cost of sanctifying and defiling a shrine. That way it potentially becomes a more daunting task to defile/sanctify, you get a larger time window to come save it. What I know is that 'it undermines my RP' sounds lazy in comparison.

    Like the D&D player who decides that his RP is to backstab people for gold, and god knows, 'sorry party member, I have to backstab you. I don't care if the whole party hates me, not being an asshole would undermine my RP'.

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  • edited September 2014
    Jovolo said:
    It baffles me that some of you are arguing you shouldn't be responsible for conflict you instigated because the command WITNESS wasn't entered in the ~15s time-frame it takes to down a shrine, or the ~5s window it takes to defile a few times and run away. If the defenders of the shrine know that it's you actively trying to take down one of their shrines, then why are you complaining about being attacked by them?

    Help common sense and roleplay consistency should always take precedence before your dumb technicalities and cause counting.
    I'm not complaining about being attacked my them. If only they attacked...

    To be clear: I'm saying the system will need to be changed if you want things to go your way. Until them, be responsible adults, and play by the rules of the game instead of making excuses for your behavior.

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  • AktillumAktillum Philippines
    @Jovolo Completely agree, but thats how the rules currently are, and we can hate people for following the rules to a T but it'd be much more productive to offer solutions.

    Just a couple nights ago I was defiling Twilight shrines with Rangor, Ryuke and Darkender, when Andraste came and witnessed Ryuke, then dropped vibes against the whole group. He never actually saw me defiling, and I didn't attack him because I don't really believe in 4v1, technically I could claim cause on him for his vibes hitting me (ignoring the fact he's Quisalis and already open PK). But I'm not gonna do that because whether or not he actually saw me defiling, I was with a defiling group so he had probable cause to enemy me for his vibes.

    Not everyone operates like that. A cause-counter could easily say he never witnessed me defiling, and I don't mean the WITNESS command, I mean literally the only reason he knew to enemy me for vibes was because I was standing there. For all he knows I could've just been watching the other defilers. But I was clearly guilty by association.

    So while I don't operate through "you didn't see me so you can't attack me" cause-counting, other people do, and they're within their legal right in Achaea to do so because the writ system exists, which is what this thread should be about changing. Gotta change the system through the system etc etc.

  • edited September 2014
    Siduri said:
    Jovolo said:
    It baffles me that some of you are arguing you shouldn't be responsible for conflict you instigated because the command WITNESS wasn't entered in the ~15s time-frame it takes to down a shrine, or the ~5s window it takes to defile a few times and run away. If the defenders of the shrine know that it's you actively trying to take down one of their shrines, then why are you complaining about being attacked by them?

    Help common sense and roleplay consistency should always take precedence before your dumb technicalities and cause counting.
    I'm not complaining about being attacked my them. If only they attacked...

    To be clear: I'm saying the system will need to be changed if you want things to go your way. Until them, be responsible adults, and play by the rules of the game instead of making excuses for your behavior.
    So what's the complaint? - not being attacked? 

    Needing excuses for the behaviour of attacking defilers implies that the behaviour is wrong. Labeling it as playing like a responsible adult is a leading, disingenuous statement. You either agree that a person who defiles should only be attacked as they defile, or you believe that they should be held to a reasonable amount of accountability following the defile should defenders be unable to counter in that instance. Which is it? Don't hide behind dumb PK Rulings and Mechanical technicalities to facilitate cause counting. It's a backslide.

    To better articulate why this kind of behaviour frustrates me - it's condoning the current system to say that "we should just all follow rules and play like responsible adults". Let's acknowledge that the system is bad, and that the way a lot of people enact it is bad, and that we need to look for a way to change it. 

    Removing writs altogether and creating an "Order Infamy" is a great way to go about it, I think. It's a fairly easy solution, too.
  • AktillumAktillum Philippines
    edited September 2014
    I wish you could post polls mid-thread. So far we have:

    1: Make defiling give infamy

    2: Make defiling just auto-log writs, like how killing city guards just writes "Aktillum has slain a guard loyal to your city" in the logs.

    3: Screw writs altogether and just attack anyone at the scene of the crime.


  • Instead of generating general infamy, what do you and others think about the Order Infamy idea? Going to throw out how it's working in my head. If we equate Order Infamy to "Points". These are things that increase points:

     + Assisting defilement of shrine. (+1 points)
     + Building a new shrine on top of a recently defiled shrine via sanctifying. (+2 points)

    Things that reduce points. 

     - Deaths (-.5 point per death). 
     - Time. (-1 point per six rl days - or half an in-game year)

    There would be five levels of Order Infamy. The purpose of these are to lower the reduction in the amount of points that death and time remove from Order Infamy, and also to give the person cool titles and perks that are yet to be decided.

    First level: One point to reach. All point levels remain the same.

    Second level: Two points to reach (+1 from previous level). All point levels remain the same.

    Third level:  Four points to reach (+2 from previous level). Death reduction remains the same. Time now takes 12 rl days to reduce by 1 point.

    Fourth level: Sixteen points to reach (+8 from previous level). Death reduction now -5 every 2 deaths. Time remains 1 point per 12 rl days.

    Fifth level: Twenty-eight points to reach (+12 from previous level). Only time reduces this level of Infamy. 1 point per 12 rl days.

    I would give Order members the ability to reduce infamy points. This allows the use of fines and rp interactions to reduce infamy level to an Order. 

    On the flip side, something I would introduce are perks to increasing levels of Order Infamy. I'm not sure exactly what, but just things like increased health regen, or slightly increased stats or max health levels near shrines to which you have a high Order infamy level. Like, at level five you could have +2 to con/int/str/dex, level three health regen, etc. There is a lot of room for ideas regarding these perks, so please give your input!

    Still a very rough draft


  • AktillumAktillum Philippines
    edited September 2014
    Its not entirely bad, I mean it would allow an Order to jump someone who just dropped 15 of their shrines (and is hunting to drop #16), instead of waiting to see where they'll hit next and hope to witness. The admins, of course, would have to agree that you cannot anonymously defile shrines anymore, though.

  • I don't agree with the numbers, because one defilement should net you exactly one death. Not two deaths simply for standing there to assist in case of need.

    However, the rest of the suggestion has merits. Thanks for taking the time to write it.

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  • edited September 2014
    The numbers and such are all adjustable as necessary, it's a framework for the time being. Personally, I think the ability to anonymously defile shrines is a hindrance to healthy conflict and not conducive to a fun game environment. It's a relic from the past that we should just get rid of, but should there be more disagreement to that opinion than I assume there would be, then we can keep the anonymity but instead provide counter play for Orders? Such as the ability for an Order to create a sort of 'Shrine mindnet' at a reasonable essence cost that will capture anyone entering or leaving the area of where all recently defiled shrines are placed (it could last for fifteen minutes, and include any shrines defiled in the last thirty?). Should a person enter or leave the temporary shrine mindnet who has acquired 'temporary' Order Infamy points (I say temporary, because they wouldn't be visible to the org unless the defilers were caught) then the points are made known to the Order and retribution is allowed. Something along those lines...

    Oh, additionally ETA: My reasoning for shrinenet in the area is to force the defilers to actually stay in the area for a period of time unless they want to / don't care about acquiring points for increased OI (Order Infamy) levels. This would let the defenders enter the area and seek out potential defilers. A fun game of cat & mouse.. We could also keep the WITNESS command to work the same as entering/leaving shrinenet (causing temporary points to become permanent), but please for the love of god make it cause the witnesser to become open pk to the defilers. Then reduce or remove the eq/balance cost of witnessing. Necessary adjustments regardless of whatever happens to a shrine rework.

    ETA2: I strongly suggest the perks idea for OI levels too. This provides an incentive for defilers to actually be caught defiling, instead of just defile/running, defile/running.

    I prefer we just get rid of anonymity in defilement for simplicity, but should a good argument be made for retaining it then there are potentially interesting work arounds
  • AktillumAktillum Philippines
    @Jovolo an Order power that cost a fair little bit of essence and alerted you to people entering shrine rooms would be totally 100% reasonable imo. It should work only for the person using the power, of course, to prevent spamming OT.

    Beseech @Tecton for Shrinenet
    JOVOLO HAS ENTERED SHRINE LOCATION "SOME WATERFALL ROOM"

  • Couple of issues with that:

    1) This is a game, which means that there are periods where an Order won't have any members logged on. I don't think that should be a free pass to defiling without consequences.

    2) Shrine defiling is currently the only method of overt organizational conflict that hides the name of the aggressor. Killing city, House (and presumably Order?) denizens write your name to logs, as does killing guards and declaring sanctioned raids. You could argue that organizational theft is hidden, but that's something that requires opportunity, and happens much less often.

    3) If the defilers wall up the area, and you now support defilers attacking defenders on sight (which means propped totems, vibes, rites, etc up while defiling) then you're gonna see a lot of ranged happening. Problem here is that it gets easier to mistake who is actually defiling. I don't think its unreasonable to assume everyone in the room is defiling, but chameleon tattoo throws it off if all you have is thirdeye to check.

    4) I don't necessarily think you shouldn't be able to chase the defilers without a writ for a short time. I you're sure they were defiling, it really doesn't make sense to say "Damn, they walked one room away, can't fight them now." After 15/20 minutes or so, if you haven't killed the defilers by then, its time to let it go, if you don't have a writ.

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  • AktillumAktillum Philippines
    edited September 2014
    @Silas Totally agree, the problem is that the writ system and admins currently considers witnessing a non-aggressive action.  I might be wrong, clarification could be necessary.

    Basically it'd be great if Help Writs was updated to reflect that RP triumphs PK cause. Don't go to witness shrines if you don't want to get involved in PvP conflict and then use "I was only witnessing, not attacking anyone".

    issue me what is the current admin feelings on attacking shrine witnessers? When defiling a shrine, do you need to wait until you are attacked by a witnesser to retaliate? Many people currently feel that shrines are group conflict, and that anyone who shows up to witness is open for attacking - does the administration support this? Is it an ISSUABLE offense to attack people who only  show up to witness?
    Thank you, your issue has been submitted.

    Lets see what happens.

  • I'm going to play devil's advocate here and bring up the fact that one of the major components of the current Writs system is that people can get away with defiling. Under this new proposed order infamy system, that's impossible. 

    I'll take a page from Florentino and ask why you'd want to shut down such RP avenues? A young Targssosian serpent too shiny and new to aid in combat, who just wants to do their part in fighting evil so he/she defiles once and then phases/evades away. A Cyrenian bard (figurative, not the class) with no combat experience who has been inspired by a recent poem he wrote on the corruption of Oblivion to do a small amount of defiling.

    By the standards I'm seeing proposed here, every single person who defiles could get hammered hard for the action via PK. I'm not sure I see the need for that. The mechanics of shrines make them fairly easy to erect and sanctify. Sure it's a bit boresome to have to hunt up corpses to re-sancitfy, but isn't offering to one's divine an expected duty of RPing allegiance?

    If you want to toss in the argument that defending to earnestly is a RP-thing, then couldn't it also be argued that there may be much more RP-value in actually roleplaying something out with the aforementioned Targossian and Cyrenian rather than launching into PK directly? Writs do allow Orders the chance to do that already, but I think it's rarely done.

    I personally like what @Jovolo is proposing here, but there are some Orders that are widely noncom. How would Order Infamy allow them to seek vengeance? 

    A quick follow-up to this: Certain Orders and their establishment of shrines in areas every few rooms (inside and outside of cities) means they can essentially control those areas any time they choose to do so. For some divine this kind of land grab may make sense, but I'm wondering if anyone knows if this was one of the purposes for which shrines were originally devised? I'm really speaking more to those with shrines one atop another outside cities, which it makes a little less sense unless there is a roleplayed alliance to a region (such as Mhaldor and Enverren, for example). 

  •  Bluef said:
    I'm going to play devil's advocate here and bring up the fact that one of the major components of the current Writs system is that people can get away with defiling. Under this new proposed order infamy system, that's impossible. 

    This is exactly what we're trying to achieve. No one should get away scott-free. Making it impossible is a good thing and serves to further enhance PK. Shrines are a PK device... they are not a device for you to poke at and run away giggling like a non-com fool.
  • The intention of the writ system is to let people get away with defiling. But in practice, what it does is let people -technically- get away with defiling in an OOC way that doesn't really make sense. "You caught me, but you didn't say the magic word so you can't do anything." If you want to allow people to get away with defiling, add a way for people to defile more stealthily, don't do it though bureaucracy and legal technicalities.
  • Sorry, but there should never be an instance where people can get away with defiling without having to engage in combat, whether it be group or solo PK
  • edited September 2014
    I don't know, but maybe, and really... maybe it's about time Mhaldor changes its own perception of shrine warfare. So far, you are, pretty much, the only faction that firmly believe that they are entitled to PK anyone touching their shrines whenever it suits them, but gods forbid not when they might lose the fight.

    IE: City bounties for having been spotted there.

    I'm seeing quite a lot of interesting suggestions, but I'm starting to see where the problem most likely rests: at your perceived entitled rights.

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  • Aegoth said:
    Sorry, but there should never be an instance where people can get away with defiling without having to engage in combat, whether it be group or solo PK
    I disagree here. As my (lvl 78) Naga, I have brought down shrines alone and no one has shown up to defend. I've walked away knowing I've done that myself and got away with it. Shrines can open up conflict, and should open up conflict, but I think at times there is nothing wrong with being able to "get away" with it.

    The problems I see have already been mentioned in the thread so I won't repeat verbatim, however, having a group of 10 people drop a shrine in seconds, or people defiling a few corpses at a time just to see who shows up to fight them are certainly things to address. I feel this could be more a player run change though, rather than a game mechanic

    (Party): Mezghar says, "Stop."
  • @Bluef - you could hire out contracts on peiple with OI! 
  • edited September 2014
    @Jacen: Why should Orders be protected by an absence of Order members? If you don't have enough people in your Order to defend your shrines, you lose the right to keep those shrines.

    Also, killing denizens is noted in org logs, but that's for enemy records more than it is for gaining retribution. Plus, what are you going to do, 'witness guard' and gain a writ? I have no overriding objection to names being added to the Order logs, since I thrive on attention and want everyone to know everything I do, but the current system of required player vigilance is preferable to me because making it a game mechanic takes away the possibility of errors being made, and diminishes interaction between players. If you want to gain the right to kill someone for defiling your shrines, you should be expected go out and earn it.

    In the same vein, if you're tagging along on a defiling run, you're putting yourself in the line of fire, and should expect to be killed when people come out swinging. It's just obnoxious to scream that you didn't actually type out the defile command so you can't be killed.

    But yeah, I meant that people have to actually get away - i.e., to run back to a safe place so that the Order members can't kick their teeth in. If the Order members didn't get a writ, that's on them. If you have 40 shrines, losing one where you can't kill someone for it because you failed to kill them right then is not a bad thing - if anything it forces you to deal with your loss and strive to do better next time. That's a good thing.

    I don't like Order Infamy because it sounds clumsy as fuck and puts the onus of vigilance onto the game mechanics rather than on the players who commit their characters in service to a god. It's just another way for people to refuse to lose.

    ETA:
    Sobriquet said:
    The problems I see have already been mentioned in the thread so I won't repeat verbatim, however, having a group of 10 people drop a shrine in seconds, or people defiling a few corpses at a time just to see who shows up to fight them are certainly things to address. I feel this could be more a player run change though, rather than a game mechanic
    Why are these problems exactly? They both seem perfectly fine to me, considering what shrines represent. It's like saying we have to address the ability for 10 people to raid a city.

    Taunting an Order and trying to draw them out by defiling once or twice is kind of obnoxious, but it's very easy for the Order to ignore it if they don't feel like pandering to Proficy today.

  • @Silas I'm not saying any Order is entitled to -have- shrines, but I think they are entitled to have opportunity to defend or avenge them. Even the most active Orders have dead times. Shrines exist to promote conflict, and its too easy to circumvent that now.

    The addition of the bounty system.means that org logs -can- be used for retribution. Thats kinda the whole purpose of it.
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  • edited September 2014
    Promoting conflict is only one aspect of shrines. They also exist as a visible representation of the influence of that god, etc. My Order has dead times, and I expect(ed lol) to wake up most days to a bunch of shrines being defiled while everybody was logged off. Our job then is to restore what was lost in service to our patron. It's not a big deal to put shrines back up when they're defiled without you having the opportunity to defend them. It takes 60k essence (vs 91k essence to defile) and 50% willpower from one of the Order members. Chump change.

    ETA: And yes, org logs can be used for retribution via bounties now, sure, but that's because there's no witness command for cities whose denizens are killed. Plus, denizens are living, breathing, text-people, whose deaths should be reason for their city to go out and seek vengeance. Shrines are something Orders can place anywhere in the world to act as a symbol of their god, and are something the order must sally forth to defend. Overextension should remain part of shrine conflict, or we'll just have more ridiculous Orders like Indrani's with shrines everywhere because nobody can be arsed to find their 5000 shrines.

  • I don't see what changes in that regard to having an overhauled shrine conflict system that enables retribution and sustained conflict after "ninja" defiles or defile-and-run tactics? The shrines are still dropped, and they still need to be raised.
  • Jovolo said:
    I don't see what changes in that regard to having an overhauled shrine conflict system that enables retribution and sustained conflict after "ninja" defiles or defile-and-run tactics? The shrines are still dropped, and they still need to be raised.
    Because it's essentially a free pass to only PK when -you- deem your target killable, instead of partaking in actual conflict surrounding the shrine. It screams, "I don't want to take risks, so I'll ask for a system that tells me who I can gank when least expected, instead of, I don't know, moving my ass and risking my skin when it's the crucial moment."

    Pretty much as cheap as deserting the city, and then ganking the raiders one by one over the following week.

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  • For me, it's more a matter of it hinging on game mechanics to ensure the defenders never really lose. The shrine might go down, but you get to kill somebody for it later so you never just have to let something go.

    People seem to believe that they have an inalienable right to kill someone for anything they do against them, which I find just as absurd as the people who believe they cannot be killed for anything they do. There should be give and take for both sides, because it's boring if one side will always be able to chalk up a win in every conflict because a note in the Order logs, or in somebody's honours or whatever, says they can kill somebody for defiling now.

  • AktillumAktillum Philippines
    edited September 2014
    Aktillum said:
    issue me what is the current admin feelings on attacking shrine witnessers? When defiling a shrine, do you need to wait until you are attacked by a witnesser to retaliate? Many people currently feel that shrines are group conflict, and that anyone who shows up to witness is open for attacking - does the administration support this? Is it an ISSUABLE offense to attack people who only  show up to witness?
    Thank you, your issue has been submitted.


    Message #3041       Sent by Meletus
    9/23/14:34 Regarding issue 70106: It is the witnessers right to show up and witness, since the 
    defiler is the one who is starting the conflict. It is not considered RP justification to attack 
    someone based on conflict you instigate on its own. Hope this helps!

    @Carmain @Silas prepare for the RIP of shrine conflict...
    issue me A follow-up to issue 70106: Based on that issue clarification, only the witnesser has rights to attack the defiler first. However, does the actual command WITNESS need to be performed before attacking? It is not uncommon for orgs thematically loyal to a deity (Mhaldor, Targossas) to bring a truckload of people to a shrine fight, even those who are not in the Order. Based on the "rules", am I correct in assuming that ONLY the witnesser has PK rights on the shrine defiler?

  • The issue response to me was that unless you held a writ yourself, it is a hirable offense to attack/kill a defiler, though you likely wouldn't lose an issue over it unless they weren't actually defiling (ie. saw them at the shrine, attacked, but they were just passing thru)
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