Goblin Squad Member
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PC's in MMO's aren't generally like people in real life. They don't go home on a regular nightly/weekly basis. They'll wander hundreds of miles away for "weeks" on end, barely ever stopping by their home town.
With that in mind, how do we make an assassin/bounty hunter able to track down a PC in order to kill them?
Obviously we don't want to put homing beacons on pc's that track their movements down to exact spot on your minimap. But at the same time, leaving their location completely unknown renders assassins both neutered and largely un-fun to play.
So, some thoughts.
A bounty contract will allow you to see "last town visited" (LTV) by the target, at the time the contract was written. From there we rely on the streetwise skill.
A person hunting a target goes into the LTV by the target and starts talking to various npcs. For each success, you build up a little bit of information, for each failure you build up a little bit of "notice". (i.e. Hey man, some guy's been asking around for you). When you reach enough success, one of two things happens:
If the person has been active in a different town since the contract, it becomes the new "LTV" and the cycle restarts.
If the town really is the LTV, you are given a 7 hex "super hex" that has his general location in it. With a bit of searching through those hexes, you can narrow that tracker down to that one single hex that contains your target. Beyond that, your on your own.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think this will be much of a problem for assassins. If you rank high enough for me to get a contract desiring your death, then I will be able to find you (and hopefully you'll die easily).
That being said, here's what I think of the bounty hunter issue you've raised. How will you find me if I go to ground?
Firstly, I don't expect you to find me if I assassinate someone; I'll be masked.
Secondly, if you try and chase down a professional bandit, it shouldn't be too hard to get a bead on them. One major bandit company will go so far as to advertise themselves and plenty of caravans will be happy to help you find the people that SADed them.
Definitely don't involve NPCs. If players can do it, then ONLY players should do it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I also agree that skills should take precedence in searching and tracking. Talking with PC's and NPC's is fine for me, and tracking shouldn't give you my GPS coordinates, but maybe give you like a path to follow or something for a short time, then you recheck and continue. I kinda like the idea presented with narrowing down the search to a hex and what not, I am into involved tasks. Basically, I like the challenge of working for my money, not getting it handed to me.
Side note, the assassin especially SHOULD be a master of locating and studying his target before he strikes, BH should be awesome trackers. Similar but different too.
Hmm perhaps as an idea to provide some colour, assuming settlements have npc gate guards, those with the correct skills would be able to question the guards and find out if the quarry had entered or exited that gate and how long ago probably with a maximum time of 12 hours or so.
Not suggesting this should be the only info available but it means the tracker has to do a little work rather than the eve method of just "oh so and so he is in Teonusude"
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Goblin Squad Member
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Something else that would be neat. So Survival skill makes it easier for you to hunt and track, makes sense. However if someone is looking for me, I think survival would also help in hiding my tracks.
So I think Survival can work in both a Offensive and Defensive manor.
In the most Extreme Tracker Favored case. I can see their Skill check opposed to the targets as being so great that the tracker essentially gets a nice path straight to the settlement that person is at.
In the Most Extreme Target Favored Case where the Tracker has pitiful survival but the target is very high. The Tracker will Get a path to a settlement where the target was, but he will always seem to be 5-10 settlements behind or so. If the Target stays in one place, after 5-10 checks the tracker will catch up to him.
and of course when their skills are more close the Tracker will only be delayed by about 1-3 settlements and will be able to catch up much more quickly.
Might even be neat at higher levels of Survival, You could get a Active notification when your Target has left or entered a new settlement, prompting you to go ahead and perform another check rather to remain hot on his trail. / Then the defensive side would be a prompt that your tracker has just entered or left a settlement where you were previously which would make it advantageous for you to leave. Again the greater the divide in skill the More/Less notice that is given, respectively.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Clever, it appears you stumbled upon the name of my Destiny Twin Crafter Alt. Vereor Umbra
Yes the skill is less important. Heck they could even be entirely different skills or a set of skills. I just think it would be neat to have Counter Measures to weapons.
So if you consider Tracking a Weapon. If I am a Master of Tracking I should be able to hunt you down very efficiently.
Then there should be a skill to counter tracking, separate from stealth. where stealth lets you remain hidden and unseen for combat or sneaking around. There should be an ability to make you hard to find, or track down.
So if you are a Master at "going underground (hider for shortness of term)" it should be nigh impossible to hunt you down and find you.
Then if a Master Tracker hunts down a Master Hider their abilities sort of cancel each other out; so the Tracker is tracking the hider at average efficiency and the hider is remaining underground from the tracker at average efficiency.
But I am totally in favor of skill diversity.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Yes the skill is less important. Heck they could even be entirely different skills or a set of skills. I just think it would be neat to have Counter Measures to weapons.So if you consider Tracking a Weapon. If I am a Master of Tracking I should be able to hunt you down very efficiently.
Then their should be a skill to counter tracking, separate from stealth. where stealth lets you remain hidden and unseen for combat or sneaking around. There should be an ability to make you hard to find, or track down.
So if you are a Master at "going underground (hider for shortness of term)" it should be nigh impossible to hunt you down and find you.
Then if a Master Tracker hunts down a Master Hider there ability sort of cancel out so the Tracker is tracking the hider at average efficiency and the hider is remaining underground from the tracker at average efficiency.
Expand the scope; if searching is the counter to hiding, fleeing could be the counter to searching. Chasing could be the counter to fleeing, hiding the counter to chasing, and searching remains the counter to hiding.
The hunter must choose between chasing with speed and searching the area carefully; the hunted must choose between fleeing and hiding.
Two choices cannot mutually counter each other; if the way to find someone who is hiding is with tracking, then the way to escape someone tracking you cannot be to hide.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Decius, While I don't see Chasing and Fleeing as being very good skills for this example; you make a very good point.
a System where A<B<C<D<A sort of Circle of Power is Far more effective then the two skills mutually Countering on another,as I stated.
I guess Fleeing could work as a Movement speed buff when you break hiding, while chasing could work as a movement speed buff while someone is fleeing. That could actually work fairly well.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Another consideration: a few years in, dedicated pros would have a single skill or a pair of skills maxed, making it in practice impossible for newbies to track us. A circle of skills would make that situation more difficult and therefore more fun for OE folks a couple of years in. "Yeah, I caught the Assassin that y'all couldn't. I rock!"
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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@cartomancer: Right. I would go one further though; one skill would be 'evade and escape' but offer several different abilities, while the other skill would be 'tracking', and would likewise have several abilities available. The two skill trees could even share prerequisites and intertwine; spotting where a good hiding place could be is the same action, whether you're looking for a place to hide or looking for the place where someone hid, and likewise for rapidly leaving an area.
If this were Thief Online, I'd suggest making those skills and abilities very detailed and complicated. The focus is on other things, and the trackers will also have to be combatants.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Tracking should be a skill available to anyone who trains the skill, with no one race or class more adept at it without good reason. That said, any creature could be tracked as a normal tracking skill (perhaps all creatures on the map leave an invisible trail, but it can only be seen or sensed when the skill is trained and active).
Higher levels of tracking could follow more elusive trails, and could do so through more difficult terrain (rainstorms, deserts, other water obstacles).
Those not wanting to be tracked could train in the skills, "Stealthy Movement", "Cover Tracks", or "Move Unseen" (near invisibility).