Synaptic lock

Ahmet

Don't remember if bell showed who was spying on you or not. I know bell in one of the other IRE games tells you who's spying on you and what method they're using to spy on you, but things like phase or mind cloak would hide the person's name (not the method or the fact that they're spying).

Jacen

Jonathin said:

Sapience itself isn't really a huge issue. It's the people using it that I have a problem with. There are already enough people out there that have nothing better to do than try to find ways to make you feel like shit about yourself (just do a pastebin search if you don't believe me) because they get a kick out of it. 

This prompted me to do a search on myself. Apparently I hold the top rank of the "Ashtan Cry Baby List" as of a couple weeks ago!

Micaelis

Daeir said:

I'd consider the loss of being able to view clt prefix messages appropriately weighed by having full mindread on the target via sapience (sent AND received), as well as full (as in both sending and receiving) armytell, partytell, citytell playback from the perspective of the target. That'd actually be a significant buff to the ability's use as a spying tool. Probably too much, if I'm honest.

99 percent of that is retarded, obviously, but I'd happily be all for the removal of clan name tell, CLT, issue and reply, as sapienced things so that sapience can see tells going out and in. Fair compromise since, as you said, the vast majority of clan communications are OOC. A single person being able to see the entirety of an organizations things is a stretch tho lol.

Keorin

Makarios said:

As for sapience spying - monks have been using sapience to spy with impunity for years. Maintaining a lock outside of raid conditions if you have a good grasp of lock break mechanics and the artefacts/buffs to back up that understanding is pretty trivial vs 99% of Achaea's population.

At least to me, this feels like how a lot of high-level combat techniques end up working, that even if something is very doable, the skill/knowledge/arties/code significantly reduce the number that can or will do it. Obviously I don't have any real data to back this up, but I think a lot more people are going to be willing to blow a few hundred credits for some of the best spying in the game then were willing to set up the scripts needed and the artifacts to manage decent uptime.

The biggest change I see from this artie is the lack of risk. Even if before it was possible to sapience fairly safely, you were always running a risk you might get caught/killed/enemied. I obviously can't speak for anyone else, but that slight bit of risk, plus what I'd need to set it up right, made sapience never feel safe enough to be worth using extensively. Even if it's not entirely logical, there can be a big mental difference between a 1% chance to get caught/enemied/lose people's trust and perfect invisibility.

If I had this artie, I could walk into any city and spy on whoever I liked with next to no chances of repercussions, and that just seems a little silly to me. I don't think that means the skill is inherently broken, but I think some form of counterplay makes things a lot more interesting for everyone. Maybe if telesense had some chance of picking up when sapience goes up, without saying who the monk is? I think measures of risk and counterplay make things more interesting for everyone involved.

Draqoom

Suddenly I feel pretty glad I have no secrets, and I'm beginning to realize a lot of people do have secrets.

Jonathin

Daeir said:

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but what you don't search on pastebin can never hurt you.

That and words from anonymous benefactors are simply that - words. If you give prerogative to them, that's your problem.

No, the toxicity that certain people want to bring to the table is everyone's problem.

I'm not saying that Sapience should be deleted. I'm saying that clans should get a new toggle flag for ooc and those clans along with messages shouldn't be shown in sapience. I don't mudsex, I don't send dirty tells. I just talk about stuff that's none of your damn business.

On that same token, I was stalked by a former Achaean and even had my ssn stolen by that person, so I'm a bit paranoid about who I take things outside of the game with. What's more, some of the people that don't use discord are my lifelines when I'm having a rough day and I start to get flashbacks to when I was assaulted.

There are good reasons why you shouldn't be able to see every damn thing I say to anyone ever.

Frederich

If you were in a city/order/house that did anything of actual importance, you might understand why spying is bad (TM).

Jovolo

now I can't even mudsex safely? What the fuck is this artefact? 

Frederich

how to mudsex in achaea:

Step 1: Don't.

Krypton

Frederich said:

If you had an enemy city/order/house that did anything of actual importance, you might understand why Spying is Essential™.

Verquisse

Step 2: Realize that all the cool kids are doing it, and prepare yourself to mudsex.

Step 3: Find hunny

Micaelis

If anything this artefact will probably increase mudsex instances. Achaeans are known exhibitionists O.O 

Tahquil

He said as he fondled his keyboard lewdly.

Jhui

i haven't read many posts in this thread, but the fact that this artie makes me worried that someone is potentially listening in on me at all times is awesome.  The game becomes too stagnant if people don't have reasons to go out and do risky things (go into enemy territory and sapience someone).  Add more of these things plz.

Excluding some OOC things sapience shows is a valid argument, but i'm sure that can be fixed.

Siduri

As Eminent Master, it's pretty damn certain I will look at anyone with that gimmick with extreme caution and even prejudice.

Torinn

Yeah I'm not a huge fan personally, but only because there is little risk to the monk. I don't have anything to hide, and don't really care what people see me doing with my e-wife.

Trey

I don't much care about this either way, but lolvd at the idea of shrouds cost growing higher. You can find people regularly giving that shit away, which I've never understood since they're useful, even though they're one shot.

Kyrra

What's wrong with giving things away?!

Trey

Daeir said:

It sort of ruins the economy a little bit if services and consumables have 0 effective cost to some people.

It sort of ruins your defense of what you think is reasonable if part of it is you talking out of your ass. Regarding the shroud cost that is, I don't really care about the rest.

Farrah

I don't know about shroud cost, but it isn't as if they're infinitely available to everyone to spy with all the time. Acting as if being lvl 2 veiled is just a given is a bit of a stretch. And if they were that common, then countering them with your own shroud would be just as easy.

The thing about spying is you never know when you'll catch something so if you want to have success, you have to either be extremely lucky or do it all the time. If you're doing it all the time, you're going to run out of shrouds quickly. So any veiled mindnet presents an obstacle imo.

Obviously every city won't always have a veiled mindnet, but it's an advantage of serpent to be able to bypass that.

Alrena

I don't think shrouds matter if the monk is a citizen, or simply not an enemy. A rogue monk who doesn't look for trouble could probably spy anywhere, at any time, at no risk. He can stand at your most popular gathering spot, he won't have to bother with hiding, veils or shrouds. Unless Sapience has some kind of message that shows when the monk is using it in the room. Otherwise, so what if you see him? 

Farrah

Yeah, but I agree there. It wasn't what the shroud argument was about. Hence:

Farrah said:

Monks should also have an active command they can use to detect current mindlocks in the area. The command could be added to the sense font power too.

Farrah said:

Another idea is to have Sapience appear on LOOK. The monk is focusing intently or something. If it's someone you don't notice in your city at all, you'd be vulnerable, but people can't just spy in plain sight in cities they aren't enemied to.

So did Makarios:

Makarios said:

Farrah said:

Makarios said:

Aegoth said:

that just sounds like monk telepathy needs to be beaten hard with a nerf stick, if its that trivial

edit: making an argument that "it's always been this broken, so its fine" really stretches the boundaries of logic, imo. It is, of course, your prerogative to have a game-breaking mechanic in the game, but let's not use faulty arguments to defend its existence

At no point did I say sapience was broken. That's an opinion and it is an opinion I disagree with. I am reading this thread because I am willing to be convinced otherwise (as always).

I will be frank though. It is unlikely we will be swayed into a knee jerk change to a mechanic that has proved to be one of our least problematic contravertial skills for over a decade. Discussion never hurts however, and is good for flagging up issues that may have been missed. We do appreciate the discourse.

Personally, would just like a better way to detect citizens spying on other citizens. Enemies, if you catch them in the city, they're caught. Citizens are always there, and the only real way to detect is with another monk. And the other monk would have to break the precise law they're trying to enforce to detect the issue.

The allied use is something I do agree with. I will give that some thought.

So just have to wait and see what he does in that respect.

Micaelis

It having an appearance on LOOK is a great idea, I must've missed when you said that. Others are good too. That way we can see Daeir allied monks actively fishing, which I think we can all agree is the biggest hurdle here. 

Krypton

POSE ^ is in ur city, sapiencing ur d00dz.

Exelethril

Not sure about the hype
Just use ooc Skype
Ain't got nothing to hide
Not worth taking a side

Micaelis

"Any society that will give up a little liberty to gain a little mudsex log will deserve neither and lose both."

- Benjamin Franklin

Antidas

A few people have brought up serpents, and how they can listen to conversations from the safety of phase, where no one but another serpent can detect them. However, I don't feel that this is a very fair comparison. For a serpent to listen to your private conversation, they have to be either in the room with you (if its in tells) or in the room/adjacent if you're talking aloud. Sure, its hard to detect a unique serpent listening in, but all you have to do is walk a couple rooms and throw a few eyes, and if someone is there listening in, you'll find them - don't have to know who to look for. Additionally, if you take even a small amount of precautions and talk only when surrounded by guards or other friends, its pretty much guaranteed that the serpent will die if you unphase them at your location.

My problem with the synaptic lock isn't so much that it makes it easy to mind sapience someone - its that, while eavesdropping as a serpent has a reasonable risk of being found and dying, the monk can literally pick any room in the area to sit in and listen to your conversation. Sure, they might be discovered by someone, but the way it usually works is the person who finds the monk shouts to CT that an enemy is in, and one by one people sprint to the location to try to kill them. Because this is almost always an individual effort and not organized, one person is bound to arrive there before the others. If the monk is smart, they just gtfo at this point, and there is very minimal risk. Hell, if they want to be really safe, they could even barricade themselves behind walls and watch full sense to see if people are coming their way.

I don't think the solution is to get rid of or otherwise nerf the synaptic lock - this entire problem would be solved if there was a limit to how far the monk can be from the target to activate sapience. Give them a 5 room radius or something like that. Still plenty of room to find a decent room to sit, but at least they can't sit on the other side of the city in almost complete safety.

Cooper

You guys act like high level artied monks can't already perma lock 99% of people.

Draqoom

Siduri said:

As Eminent Master, it's pretty damn certain I will look at anyone with that gimmick with extreme caution and even prejudice.

*cough* Be jealous of your old leader

Ryldagh

So most other spying methods can be counteracted with another artifact.  Anake's hood.  Doesn't cover helm of telepathy, but that's not really a class ability.

Also doesn't cover sapience.

Should it?  Or at least, the things like says, tells, etc. that sapience reports that would be a part of subterfuge and recon. outside of the immediate raid info?  There's an artifact that has the sole purpose of stopping people from spying on you with most forms of assclownery, but doesn't even bat an eye at Sapience.

Instead of nerfing Sapience, why not buff Anake's Hood?