Goblin Squad Member
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I mean people are denied access (in the meta-game in-game sense. basically "you aren't on the list" type bouncer thing.) for whatever reason. How would you enforce that beyond just killing all the undesirables? Because I don't want to do that. That would be pointless and plain undesirable.
Think of it as a one-instance limit to who can enter a building/settlement. I also give the example of a mountain pass between nations. Basically is there a non-hostile way to ambush, and thus make it so people DON'T have to fight or SAD or is that just how it is.
I think I mentioned it before, but with this "blind" system this problem should be solved. Just have blinds that are not for SAD purposes/don't give bonuses to SADs and the problem is solved.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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@Drakhan
I am one of those "Bandit crowd" types by most peoples' standards.
@Decius
I'm afraid I don't agree entirely.
Is a guard who stops people to check if they are "hostile" or of a "feuding" company automatically criminal? I mean there are plenty of cases where yes, gov't crime is still crime, but I don't believe it is universal enough to warrant a blanket.
I will point out this is a non-pvp system I am proposing, and at no point in it would a person be considered hostile/criminal unless they were hostile already or they tried to run away during inspection (if you run from the police when they are searching your stuff, especially after they shout "halt in the name of the law" or "you are under arrest", then you are committing a crime in whatever country you care to name)
A rule that members of a certain company are not permitted to use a road is, within the River Freedoms, a declaration of war. Put into PFO terms, that would be a feud. I'm assuming that you don't need to stop and inspect anybody to know when you are at war with them, as a concession to game rules over real logic.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I mean people are denied access (in the meta-game in-game sense. basically "you aren't on the list" type bouncer thing.) for whatever reason. How would you enforce that beyond just killing all the undesirables? Because I don't want to do that. That would be pointless and plain undesirable.
Wait, so characters would encounter an invisible wall that only applied to them? I might see that justified at the gate to a settlement, but not in the world.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Stephen,
Thanks for the Dev Blog quality post. I'm sure that I (we) can work within the system as you have laid out. I do have a few questions.
1. I noticed that there is no mention of the reputation bonus for an accepted SAD. Has that been changed or just not mentioned?
2. Can the SAD be interrupted while in the trade window by a third party?
3. If a third party can interrupt, who gains hostility? Obviously the interrupter would, the bandit already has the criminal flag, but what of the traveler being SADed?
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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@ Stephen,
Thanks for the Dev Blog quality post. I'm sure that I (we) can work within the system as you have laid out. I do have a few questions.
1. I noticed that there is no mention of the reputation bonus for an accepted SAD. Has that been changed or just not mentioned?
2. Can the SAD be interrupted while in the trade window by a third party?
3. If a third party can interrupt, who gains hostility? Obviously the interrupter would, the bandit already has the criminal flag, but what of the traveler being SADed?
2: Clearly being in the process of demanding a SAD would not create invulnerability on the bandit. But neither should the attack interrupt the SAD by itself- that also leads to an easily abused situation.
Therefore, the only reasonable course of action is that the bandit can engage third parties while the SAD negotiation is going on. He will probably have to remain in range during that time (or issue the SAD again after defeating the attacker).
It also might make sense for the caravan to drop the agreed demand as a world item that the bandit has exclusive loot rights to (meaning only that anyone else who takes it gains hostility to the bandit). That way there's no non-local transfer of items, but there's still a way for the merchant to pay in all cases involving more than two mutually hostile parties.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Decius
Your first point of not needing to stop people to check them? flawed on two counts (That I can see)
1) Disguise skill
2) I was specifically talking about a fast travelling army. You should be able to break them out of fast travel and ambush them/checkpoint them somehow. Or are guards supposed to SAD an invasion force xD
Your second point
Nah, not an actual barrier per se (unless someone in-game actually makes one). Like if somebody wanted to sneak around back through the forest that is fine. I'm just talking about setting up a place where people have to stop/slow down and the person(s) at the point can visual/perception-skill them over a little.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Decius
Your first point of not needing to stop people to check them? flawed on two counts (That I can see)
1) Disguise skill
2) I was specifically talking about a fast travelling army. You should be able to break them out of fast travel and ambush them/checkpoint them somehow. Or are guards supposed to SAD an invasion force xD
Your second point
Nah, not an actual barrier per se (unless someone in-game actually makes one). Like if somebody wanted to sneak around back through the forest that is fine. I'm just talking about setting up a place where people have to stop/slow down and the person(s) at the point can visual/perception-skill them over a little.
We haven't seen much about how fast an army can move, how much warning there could be of approach, lead time on war decs, etc... I am not positive, but I think that they have made it clear that "surprise" won't get you a settlement.
We have heard that attacks/raids on POIs and outposts probably can't expect much warning at all. Other than that, all I can think of for masses of troops is zerging around in their hexes to kill their citizens for lolz...
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Stephen
How many 6-character groups can be connected to the Blind / SAD mechanic?
If we have two characters, one from each group of 6, does this mean if the deal goes south we can bring all 12 into the fight?
Same question for the caravan. Does this group size of 6 mean that caravans will have up to 6 members, or could there be more?
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Goblin Squad Member
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2) I was specifically talking about a fast travelling army. You should be able to break them out of fast travel and ambush them/checkpoint them somehow. Or are guards supposed to SAD an invasion force xD
I hope armies can't fast travel. Just doesn't feel 'realistic' to see an army with siege weapons moving faster than a small group or even a caravan.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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2) I was specifically talking about a fast travelling army. You should be able to break them out of fast travel and ambush them/checkpoint them somehow. Or are guards supposed to SAD an invasion force xDI hope armies can't fast travel. Just doesn't feel 'realistic' to see an army with siege weapons moving faster than a small group or even a caravan.
I can't imagine anyone being able to fast-travel into or through 'hostile' territory.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Stephen
How many 6-character groups can be connected to the Blind / SAD mechanic?
If we have two characters, one from each group of 6, does this mean if the deal goes south we can bring all 12 into the fight?
Same question for the caravan. Does this group size of 6 mean that caravans will have up to 6 members, or could there be more?
Good questions. Six seems measly. What about guards? Can they be separate? Can a whole or large part of a Company be an "entity" for a bandit group or a caravan?
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Goblin Squad Member
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From the traveler's side, I'd expect that you'd often see each traveler running a separate party with his share of the guards and responsibility for his own wagons/beasts.
I think that when you get to robber company vs. merchant company + guard company you're probably into feud territory.
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Goblin Squad Member
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From the traveler's side, I'd expect that you'd often see each traveler running a separate party with his share of the guards and responsibility for his own wagons/beasts.
I think that when you get to robber company vs. merchant company + guard company you're probably into feud territory.
That works fine for everyone but the bandits and targets of opportunity. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Exactly my point gentlemen.
And we need to move away from the thought that "fast travel" speed is always "fast"
A moving army marches at a snails pace. fast travel for them would be 5x snails pace then. In other words, caravan speed. This is not "fast" but it is "fast-travel" for the army.
The point I am bringing is that people DON'T want the army to march up directly to the hex they are in, so why can't a group of skirmishers or guards set up shop at Y distance outside of the territories and ambush the army, slowing them down further, or even stopping them, giving the settlement more time to build defenses?
This is but a single example that applies not specifically to armies.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Bringslight I'm thinking multiple parties of travelers moving together would certainly be possible. Multiple parties of bandits hiding in the woods is certainly possible as well, maybe some under the same blind, maybe some off the road but doing S&D on the second and third party caught in the same blind. It doesn't seem horribly difficult.
edit to add: If, say, 2-4 parties are fast traveling together, they leave from one settlement stable to another settlement stable (once this is implemented). They might not be perfectly synchronized, but they don't have to be. If a S&D demand timer is 30-45 seconds long, the parties only have to be within 15-30 seconds of each other's place on the fast-travel track. The second party will hit the blind before the first party has said yes or no to the robber.
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@Stephen
Thank you for bringing us all this great information.
The system sounds very balanced and workable for different types of situations (I'd almost expect BrotherZael to blind every road in his own settlement so bandits that "aren't his" can demand taxes from travelers)
Even if a few tweaks are needed, that's not something we'll really see until we can test it out (which of course won't be for a while)
I'm really happy with the solutions proposed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Bringslight I'm thinking multiple parties of travelers moving together would certainly be possible. Multiple parties of bandits hiding in the woods is certainly possible as well, maybe some under the same blind, maybe some off the road but doing S&D on the second and third party caught in the same blind. It doesn't seem horribly difficult.
edit to add: If, say, 2-4 parties are fast traveling together, they leave from one settlement stable to another settlement stable (once this is implemented). They might not be perfectly synchronized, but they don't have to be. If a S&D demand timer is 30-45 seconds long, the parties only have to be within 15-30 seconds of each other's place on the fast-travel track. The second party will hit the blind before the first party has said yes or no to the robber.
I am interested to see exactly how the blind works with multiple parties incoming. How fast travel works and whether you can voluntarily "jump off" at any point.
There are lots of interesting possibilities dependent on things like that.
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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1. I noticed that there is no mention of the reputation bonus for an accepted SAD. Has that been changed or just not mentioned?
Since we added the rep recovery over time we've moved away from rep-on-action, as those would be much easier to game, and would require more complicated systems to try to prevent gaming rep with them. We may find out that the rep-over-time system isn't enough, and make the leap to trying to add them in to other systems, but they aren't on the table for anyone right now.
2. Can the SAD be interrupted while in the trade window by a third party?
3. If a third party can interrupt, who gains hostility? Obviously the interrupter would, the bandit already has the criminal flag, but what of the traveler being SADed?
Don't have enough visibility on trade windows right now. It will probably work like any other trade. If it's a screen obscuring window, you probably want it to close in most cases if you get attacked. Attack by your target should count as a refusal of the S&D.
Spin me a rationale why getting jumped by a third party shouldn't abort the S&D?
How many 6-character groups can be connected to the Blind / SAD mechanic?
Don't have enough visibility on the Blind right now, but I don't see a huge reason to cap it, since the stealth radius is small enough it'd potentially be hard to fit a bunch of people in it anyway. Even if you pack a couple dozen people into one Blind's Stealth-radius, it doesn't mean that they'd be able to jump in on another group's S&D. Being in the radius is an implicit buy-in that means we don't have to put up a prompt for the whole party and delay the whole enterprise ("Bluddwolf is issuing a Stand and Deliver. Would you like to participate? You will be marked Criminal."). It's not meant that everyone that can pack into the Blind gets to pile onto the S&D.
If we have two characters, one from each group of 6, does this mean if the deal goes south we can bring all 12 into the fight?
Not as designed. Why do you think that's desirable?
Same question for the caravan. Does this group size of 6 mean that caravans will have up to 6 members, or could there be more?
Limit of bandits to a group of six is predicated on merchants being limited to a group of six. If we make caravan formations that can use units larger than six members, we'll likely pivot to create commensurate size for bandits targeting them. But, again, caravans and formations are so far out, I can't say anything usefully definite about them.
Hmm. Thinking about it, I assume the general thrust of your questions is that this system may not handle caravan guards in an appropriate way. I'll have a talk with the crew tomorrow and see if we can solve that.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Spin me a rationale why getting jumped by a third party shouldn't abort the S&D?
Assumption: It's impossible to tell if the third party is colluding with either primary party.
Case 1: An attack by a third party aborts the SAD, leaving the bandit flagged criminal (for trying to initiate it), but no other changes.A ranged character taps the bandit just enough to break the SAD every time he initiates one.
Case 2: An attack by a third party counts as a refusal of the SAD by the merchant.
The bandit has an alt attack him to force the merchant to count as refused.
Case 1 can't be covered without adjustments to the niche of skirmisher. It's possible that those adjustments are in line with what the rest of the game needs, but I doubt it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So it appears that the system is set up for 6 v 6 grouped combat, with possibility of have reserve squads in the wings (behind their own blind) ready to jump in if needed.
I still don't see why two individuals, each from a different group of six, can't stand in the radius?
When the criminal flag / hostility gets triggered the whole group will be flagged anyway. Yes this will make the SAD less effective, but that is assuming SAD acceptance is the goal.
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Goblin Squad Member
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To reword the intent behind Bludd's questions concerning getting more "groups" into a SAD, bandits have always been known to use numbers as their main weapon. 2-1 odds is the minimum desired ratio, especially if training is going to be scarce and we are an open target for anyone at any time. Having a "fair fight" due to even numbers might not be doable for a bandit's job as the risk would be much higher than desired. Then again, with divine magic being fairly readily available, maybe that can offset it some. However, following TT lore, evil and "dark neutral" clerics can't channel positive energy, so limited or no healing from those likely to be aiding bandit types.
I know that might be considered an "advanced system" but will all clerics be able to heal allies or only good ones as it is in TT? It isn't really an off topic question as it pertains to group composition for bandits and caravans and groups in general.
Again, thank you Stephen for the more detailed description for the mechanic. Just another example of why I still believe this is the game most of us have been waiting for. I can't wait for these next 6 months to fly buy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Goodfellow,
Yes it is about numbers, but not just about our desire to outnumber our target, but also not to be able to match numbers due to third party interference.
Step 1: Party A (Bandit) and party B (Merchant) enter SAD
Step 2: Party C (3rd party) comes along and sees Party A criminal flagged.
Step 3: Party C intercedes into interaction.
What happens?
I would assume...
Step 4: The SAD interaction has been broken. This counts as a "rejection" of Party B.
Party B now appears hostile to Party A.
Party C probably appears to be Hostile to Party A
How does Party B see Party C?
Scenario Possibility 1:
Party A (bandits) had another group up the road a bit. If Party A1 ends up in hostility state, will Party A2 also see the same contacts (Parties B and C) as hostile?
Scenario Possibility 2:
What if Party B was perfectly happy with their arrangement with Party A's SAD, only to have it voided by Party C. Does Party B have the ability to "see" Party C as hostile and even to register Party C as "Criminal".
In relation to PFO's setting it is likely that the River Kingdoms, which is practically run by the Outlaw Council and Bandit Kings, that over zealous policing might actually be viewed as a crime and violation of the River Freedoms (Have What You Hold).
I'm not suggesting that they should be mechanically denied from interfering, but they should enter a hostile state to both parties, as soon as they breech the radius of the SAD.
Only Party B should be able to decide if that interference deserves the Criminal Flag.
Party B can also decide if it even wants to react the Party C's hostile state.
The power is in the hands of Party B, the alleged victim in this case.
If Party B truly is a victim, they would welcome the interference and not attack Party C or attach a Criminal Flag to Party C.
This would leave the bandits at a 2:1 disadvantage, unless the bandits have back up and that back up can help defend their brethren (same company, but different 6 character group).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Since we added the rep recovery over time we've moved away from rep-on-action, as those would be much easier to game, and would require more complicated systems to try to prevent gaming rep with them. We may find out that the rep-over-time system isn't enough, and make the leap to trying to add them in to other systems, but they aren't on the table for anyone right now.
Very glad to hear it!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Spin me a rationale why getting jumped by a third party shouldn't abort the S&D?
The robbers have the travelers fixed in place with the S&D. When the third party attacks, the travelers might choose to also attack the robbers, in which case the robbers can freely attack all members of that party. But what if the travelers try to run while the third party fights the bandits? I'd think that should be a refusal and the bandits can pursue to freely attack. (An alternative for the traveler might be to give the bandits a lousy counteroffer and hope they accept it in their rush).
As Decius points out, an automatic refusal could be easily gamed by the bandits.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Since we added the rep recovery over time we've moved away from rep-on-action, as those would be much easier to game, and would require more complicated systems to try to prevent gaming rep with them. We may find out that the rep-over-time system isn't enough, and make the leap to trying to add them in to other systems, but they aren't on the table for anyone right now.
I don't see that Rep over time will be a big issue, since it appears that it would be fairly difficult to lose rep to begin with.
If Rep over time does become an issue, just increase the amount of the recovery instead of creating a new system. (I kind of expect that to happen actually)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thinking about it, I assume the general thrust of your questions is that this system may not handle caravan guards in an appropriate way. I'll have a talk with the crew tomorrow and see if we can solve that.
A party of 6 robbers who have specialized in PvP might almost always have an edge over a party of 6 travelers who haven't focused on PvP. If some of the travelers have focused on gathering or trade instead, the robber's edge grows.
The bandits always have the initiative; the ability to trigger the blind or not. If they don't think they can take the travelers and their guards, then they can let them pass.
But considering a group of 6 travelers with 2 additional parties of 12 guards total. Say 18 robbers lying in wait. 6 robbers can S&D the travelers, and those 6 robbers are legitimate targets for the travelers and their guards, 18 total. The remaining 12 robbers have no target, unless they can S&D the guard parties. Additional robbers wouldn't be able to pile in.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thinking about it, I assume the general thrust of your questions is that this system may not handle caravan guards in an appropriate way. I'll have a talk with the crew tomorrow and see if we can solve that.A party of 6 robbers who have specialized in PvP might almost always have an edge over a party of 6 travelers who haven't focused on PvP. If some of the travelers have focused on gathering or trade instead, the robber's edge grows.
The bandits always have the initiative; the ability to trigger the blind or not. If they don't think they can take the travelers and their guards, then they can let them pass.
But considering a group of 6 travelers with 2 additional parties of 12 guards total. Say 18 robbers lying in wait. 6 robbers can S&D the travelers, and those 6 robbers are legitimate targets for the travelers and their guards, 18 total. The remaining 12 robbers have no target, unless they can S&D the guard parties. Additional robbers wouldn't be able to pile in.
Are you seeing a problem with that or you accept that as being "working as intended"?
I believe the remaining 12 bandits, if in the same company but not the same group, will see the caravan (6) + the guards (12) as hostile when their original 6 members are attacked.
Otherwise what is being said here is that the 6-character grouping is compartmentalized or independent of the company as a whole.
I don't mind getting ganked by superior numbers from time-to-time, it is going to happen. That will just be our bad luck or a result of poor planning on our part.
I'm just hoping that the system works for both sides of the conflict evenly. If we have the numbers to get an 18 on 6, we want the means to do it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thinking about it, I assume the general thrust of your questions is that this system may not handle caravan guards in an appropriate way. I'll have a talk with the crew tomorrow and see if we can solve that.A party of 6 robbers who have specialized in PvP might almost always have an edge over a party of 6 travelers who haven't focused on PvP. If some of the travelers have focused on gathering or trade instead, the robber's edge grows.
The bandits always have the initiative; the ability to trigger the blind or not. If they don't think they can take the travelers and their guards, then they can let them pass.
But considering a group of 6 travelers with 2 additional parties of 12 guards total. Say 18 robbers lying in wait. 6 robbers can S&D the travelers, and those 6 robbers are legitimate targets for the travelers and their guards, 18 total. The remaining 12 robbers have no target, unless they can S&D the guard parties. Additional robbers wouldn't be able to pile in.
Are you seeing a problem with that or you accept that as being "working as intended"?
I believe the remaining 12 bandits, if in the same company but not the same group, will see the caravan (6) + the guards (12) as hostile when their original 6 members are attacked.
Otherwise what is being said here is that the 6-character grouping is compartmentalized or independent of the company as a whole.
I don't mind getting ganked by superior numbers from time-to-time, it is going to happen. That will just be our bad luck or a result of poor planning on our part.
I'm just hoping that the system works for both sides of the conflict evenly. If we have the numbers to get an 18 on 6, we want the means to do it.
All speculation:
I believe that there will be ways to utilize your numbers, even if there are some difficulties in using the blind's stealth bonus with more than one party of bandits. You must already be churning out possible ways in your crafty mind. If I can think of a few, certainly you can think of twenty. ;)
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Goblin Squad Member
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...The remaining 12 robbers have no target, unless they can S&D the guard parties. Additional robbers wouldn't be able to pile in.Are you seeing a problem with that or you accept that as being "working as intended"?
It's a problem. If there are 18 robbers in the brush, they should have a way to deliberately link their efforts to pile in. If they were all linked (say, 2 parties 'supporting' the primary S&D company), they should be able to attack the primary party's target. Of course, they'd also pick up the criminal flag when the primary party does. Such support linkage should have to be made before the S&D is launched, I'd think - but maybe that's not an hard issue for the devs.
I believe the remaining 12 bandits, if in the same company but not the same group, will see the caravan (6) + the guards (12) as hostile when their original 6 members are attacked.
I'll wait until they tell us that is the case.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Would an arrangement where two or more groups could link and share hostility states (and alignment and reputation shifts, but not group UI or group buffs) work around the perceived issue with group size? I don't think it would create balance issues as long as positive multitarget effects either applied to everyone (including enemies) or only members in your 6-man group.
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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On getting attacked by a third party while you're mid-S&D: It's almost never going to be to the bandit's advantage to have this happen, so I can't think of a reason why the bandit would collude with someone to be attacked. It's almost always going to be to the advantage of the person receiving the S&D... but it's also crazy to say "excuse me, sit there in the trap while I finish fighting your friend here and we'll finish the S&D whenever I get done; if you jump in or try to leave, it's a S&D rejection." And not pausing the S&D while the bandit's attacked means you're having to work a trade window that may take up a lot of your screen while fighting.
So I think the easiest solution is that getting attacked during a S&D is a cancel (neither reject nor accept) that resets the cooldown on the issuer's S&D. After the fight, if you can catch back up to the merchant, you can issue it again.
On tagging in everyone when there are a bunch of guards: Working on this with the crew, should have an idea to post a little later.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Would an arrangement where two or more groups could link and share hostility states (and alignment and reputation shifts, but not group UI or group buffs) work around the perceived issue with group size? I don't think it would create balance issues as long as positive multitarget effects either applied to everyone (including enemies) or only members in your 6-man group.
I'd think that's what I'd like to see, but there are nuances. It might be reasonable for a second group of robbers to link into a first group, collect the Criminal flag that the first group has while also picking up the view of a S&Ded traveler group as targets/hostiles. It's not so reasonable if the first group's hostility state is due to feud, for example.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would say that if the SAD target joins in the attack on the bandit, at the very least there should be no Reputation loss if the bandit wins the fight.
There would be no reputation loss regardless, the bandits can defend themselves without reputation loss.
I would hope to see that the third party entering in gets the hostility state as an attacker. Perhaps even a criminal flag, thus allowing the bandit's allies in the area to also jump in.
If the bandits are not given the ability to match force with force, they will almost always be outnumbered. They would also never get an accurate picture of relative strength because the merchant group of 6 would never be linked up with his additional 6 guards.
The bandits would have to daisy chain there blinds in order to defend against interlopers.
Again, I don't have a problem with it, if we can bring our own additional groups into the fight.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would say that if the SAD target joins in the attack on the bandit, at the very least there should be no Reputation loss if the bandit wins the fight.I would hope to see that the third party entering in gets the hostility state as an attacker. Perhaps even a criminal flag, thus allowing the bandit's allies in the area to also jump in.
We've already been told that the bandit gains a Criminal flag when triggering an S&D. Why in the name of Pharasma would someone attacking a Criminal-flagged bandit gain a Criminal flag themselves?!? Or an Attacker flag?!?
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Goblin Squad Member
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We've already been told that the bandit gains a Criminal flag when triggering an S&D. Why in the name of Pharasma would someone attacking a Criminal-flagged bandit gain a Criminal flag themselves?!? Or an Attacker flag?!?I would say that if the SAD target joins in the attack on the bandit, at the very least there should be no Reputation loss if the bandit wins the fight.I would hope to see that the third party entering in gets the hostility state as an attacker. Perhaps even a criminal flag, thus allowing the bandit's allies in the area to also jump in.
As long as another member of my company can come to my aid, by seeing those attacking me as hostile, I don't have a need for them to be flagged criminal.
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Unless your company members all get flagged as Criminal when the S&D is triggered, it makes no sense for them to be able to come to the aid of the Criminal elements of the company that are in a separate party together. (edit to add: I say it doesn't make sense because it's so obviously exploited. One bandit triggers an S&D on 4 merchants and gets the Criminal flag. 49 members of his company can attack anyone who attack the flagged Criminal, but otherwise aren't affected?)
I think I'd like to see something like a raid group or band, that is made up of some number of parties. When one of the parties in a band does something to trigger a flag (like executing an S&D) - that party gets the flag. At that moment, all other parties in the band get a query: "Party A is gaining a criminal flag. Do you choose to [accept the flag] or [leave the band]?" If you accept the flag you'd gain the flag and targeting on the same groups as Party A.
Hostility from Attackers, for example, might go against an entire band, depending on the nuances of hostility (which I'm waiting to see.) I think the 6-person parties make sense for AOE spells, for example, but our ad-hoc groups should certainly be larger than 6. So raid groups/bands/whatever.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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It's complicated. Surely your company should be able to help out by attacking someone who's Involved with you, but that should also make them fair game for the Involved character's company.
And coming to the aid of a Criminal should obviously be a Criminal action, but there might be cases where you are coming to the aid of someone who happens to be Criminal, but that's not why he's in the current fight. That might be an edge case that needs to not really make perfect sense.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Unless your company members all get flagged as Criminal when the S&D is triggered, it makes no sense for them to be able to come to the aid of the Criminal elements of the company that are in a separate party together. (edit to add: I say it doesn't make sense because it's so obviously exploited. One bandit triggers an S&D on 4 merchants and gets the Criminal flag. 49 members of his company can attack anyone who attack the flagged Criminal, but otherwise aren't unaffected?
I also see it the other way. The bandits SAD a merchant group of 6, and then 49 members if the merchants company can then freely join in. Meanwhile the bandit's other 49 members can not come to their company members' defense.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yup. The bandits just S&Ded the merchant group of 6. They now have a Criminal flag, right? The other 49 members of the merchant's company can freely attack someone with a Criminal flag. Heck, THE ENTIRE SERVER can now attack the bandits wearing the Criminal flag. That's what a Criminal flag means.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If the target accepts at any point, the currently selected items are traded to the bandit (might want to set a max range on this). The target gets the Fleeced flag for the next X minutes (20 might be too long; basically just needs to be long enough to get out of the hex in most cases). While this flag is going, he's immune to further S&D inspection and ANY Attackers take double rep loss.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Unless your company members all get flagged as Criminal when the S&D is triggered, it makes no sense for them to be able to come to the aid of the Criminal elements of the company that are in a separate party together. (edit to add: I say it doesn't make sense because it's so obviously exploited. One bandit triggers an S&D on 4 merchants and gets the Criminal flag. 49 members of his company can attack anyone who attack the flagged Criminal, but otherwise aren't unaffected?I also see it the other way. The bandits SAD a merchant group of 6, and then 49 members if the merchants company can then freely join in. Meanwhile the bandit's other 49 members can not come to their company members' defense.
Bandits are not victims, they are victimizers. Why on Earth should it be even odds? You refuse to understand the concept that bandits are choosing to insert themselves into the merchant's gaming experience. And you want to offer them a cookie too?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Good catch, BrotherZael. Although his attackers likely get the Attacker flag, not the Criminal flag? And I wonder what happens if someone attacks him thru feud or war; they don't gain the Attacker flag - I'd guess they can attack him with no rep loss (or double their normal rep losses = no rep loss).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Spin me a rationale why getting jumped by a third party shouldn't abort the S&D?
Assumption: It's impossible to tell if the third party is colluding with either primary party.
Case 1: An attack by a third party aborts the SAD, leaving the bandit flagged criminal (for trying to initiate it), but no other changes.
A ranged character taps the bandit just enough to break the SAD every time he initiates one.Case 2: An attack by a third party counts as a refusal of the SAD by the merchant.
The bandit has an alt attack him to force the merchant to count as refused.Case 1 can't be covered without adjustments to the niche of skirmisher. It's possible that those adjustments are in line with what the rest of the game needs, but I doubt it.
Perfect example and still the same loophole, in essence. Forcing unflagged into a fight without reputation consequences.
We have been chewing on this for some time. Is there no other solution and keep the mechanic than to not allow ANY interference?
Edit: Or to accept that it may happen occasionally and report suspect examples? That is, if GW feels that it is an exploit?