Can you pve under disguise to set up confidence capers? Can you keep the same generated name until the disguise is broken?
This would be an interesting usage... At least allow Disguise users to 'place a hold' on one or a few names they have used, to be able to choose them at future points in time.
re: procedurally generated names, I guess this can tie into Paizo's name conventions for different ethnicities/races, it may also make sense to include a broader array of names (since not every player will choose uber-Golarion-esque names for their PC), possibly just 'harvest' names from Facebook/other MMORPGs? (if any player chooses a name for their real PC, then the name is removed from the list of Disguise 'aliases')
Does the observation debuff effect all damage, like from a pve source? Basically I want to pretend to be a cleric and party with my mark and have him killed by a pve element.
I'm pretty sure it doesn't apply vs PVE. That said, if the target is suffering PVE damage at the same time, it just makes the Assassin's job easier.
This type of scenario does bring up the question of flags and allegiances, Disguises supposedly 'remove'/conceal all your own real flags, but while in a Disguise can you join other groups and thus add flags on top of our Disguise? Would actions you take (attacking, etc) while Disguised show up on top of your Disguise? If not, those are dead give-aways of a Disguise. (of course, if you gain the Attacker flag while Disguised, those should still apply when the Disguise is dropped)
Goblinworks Game Designer
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Very good stuff here. Im impressed with the direction over all. As I will mostly be playing a Bandit I still have some direct use for this blog as it seems I should be able to use the disguise skill for recon and possibly black market deals/smuggling, if I understood correctly. Cant wait!
Yep!
One question though. I am a little jealous about Assassins being able to get training from these shady assassins groups. Never liked the idea of Bandits NEEDING a settlement to train.
Any chance Bandits will be able to get thier training from NPC factions as well?
Couple of answers:
- The majority of your training will still need to come from a standard Role: the Assassins only provide the feats mentioned in the blog. You'll likely need at least some Rogue-related stuff for prereqs and then either be a full Rogue progression or mix it into another Role to have full combat viability.
- Alliances may still need a building in order to provide Alliance-specific training (which is a building you can only construct in a settlement that has an overall good alliance with that faction based on membership). But we're not 100% sure on that.
- All that said, we were just discussing bandit alliances this very day, so there is likely to be something similarly cool available to those that go full bandit.
Side note about the NPC thingy, I 100% agree with the idea that PCs would need to "Play the role" of NPC to lower chance to be noticed. I think what myself and Golnor was asking for is "Will there be random NPC's in the towns for us to blend in with, or will we be the only 'Bob the builder' in plain cloths walking around trying to blend in?"
Possibly. We're still looking into the various resource and performance costs to displaying NPCs mostly for flavor. At the very least, there are likely to be NPC guards in many places. However, all NPCs are likely to be pretty easy to distinguish from PCs: among other clues, they won't need to display Reputation, will have different context menu options (you can't invite them to your party, ignore them, send them a private message, etc.), and so on. So we'd need to do extra work to truly disguise you as an NPC in a way that wouldn't be obvious on a minimal interaction.
I'd like to run an LE Assassin, but I'm wondering how hard it will be to find the alliances. Any ideas yet on where I would go to locate them?
There may be more expedient methods for groups where it makes sense, but all Alliances will have various ways to raise your rating with them (possibly including getting points every time you kill their enemies), a method for both players and settlements to select them as your primary alliance when your rating gets high enough, and some way to interact with them to obtain their high-alliance rewards. The specifics are still in progress.
1. Is there any cost to putting up a contract (beyond the assassin's fee) that would deter an assassin or his buddy from just putting out "pro bono" contracts on whomever they like?
Uncertain at this time, as we're still working out the details of the contracts. Even if there's not, you will likely have to create the contract at a specific location, pick it up there, and go to your target rather than just saying on the fly "I offer to pay me 0 coin to assassinate those three guys I'm behind right now. Very well, sounds generous and perfectly lawful, I accept!"
2. These NPC groups, will it be possible for others besides assassins to interact with them - for example, will groups be able to wage war or otherwise hamper their training facilities like they themselves are vulnerable to?
As mentioned, training will probably take place at a building that you can probably try to destroy. You likely won't be able to make assassin training impossible across the whole game without significant effort, but you can certainly try to make it harder for assassins to get trained in your neck of the woods.
3. Will someone with the Disguise skill be able to Disguise someone else (perhaps with a skill penalty) ?
We'll need to make sure it's not abusable before saying for certain, but you can probably make a Disguise for someone, and have them put it on. And then they'll use their minimum skill as their defense against Perception (probably very quickly getting discovered unless they're super careful).
What happens if the potential assassin targets (master smith, expert farmer, etc.) are alts who only come on long enough to do their chore as needed?
We're going to try to give every PC, even a crafter alt, good reason to be online more than once every blue moon (if for no other reason, you need to go get achievements to spend your XP on the things you want). We may look into inactivity falloff on the benefits of a manager if this becomes commonplace anyway.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So who will be the other side of the coin?
Rangers, Thiefs ?
There should always be a counter, say Rangers as scouts get a better chance or easier Training for detecting these killers, or whoever.
I hope the role of Spymaster will be viable in a settlement (any settlement) for this purpose, whatever their class - as Tony's fond of saying, even Lawful Good types have need of some shady skills occasionally. Hence my question about disguising someone else, having someone disguise a VIP so they can escape a dangerous situation like assassination is at least as strong of a fantasy trope as having assassinations in the first place :)
It would make things more interesting if people could create "doubles" of them selves (like have other PCs use disguise to look like another PC) and then assassins (and BHs too) would have the extra step of making sure their target is THEIR target.... I like it.
I guess Illusion magic is still 'up in the air', but it seems like a spell which effected a Disguise would be pretty obvious...
(without needing the skill at all, or enhancing the skill if you have it trained, similar to tabletop)
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While in Disguise, you'll be constantly contesting your Disguise skill with the Perception skills of other players and NPC guards. Each time you lose, you'll gain a few stacks of the "Failing Disguise" debuff; this isn't visible to other players, but if it exceeds the quality rating of your Disguise outfit, your Disguise is blown and you'll suddenly lose all your anonymityWhat exactly happens when somebody sees thru the Disguise (but it isn't blown yet)?
Do they see your true identity and all flags, etc? Do you retain (some?) anonymity, but they know you are Disguised?About the Assassinations in War scenario, I think a good balance to make it not just too good would be to enforce logistics of assassination contracts, so assassination contracts can't just be issued in the field, accepted, and instantly kill the next dude, and you can't use the Assassination Death Attack without a contract (kind of hokey, but if all Assassination is tied into mystical murder cults, it seems plausible... blessing of Achaekek et al).
Perhaps the contract logistics could key in with the Assassin Cults, that the contracts must be 'activated' by the Cult: Assassins must go to these Cults to receive/pick-up the order, and buyers (or an intermediary agent of the Cult to keep buyers at arms-length), must go there as well to deposit/activate the contract at the Cult). Buyers need to know a contact who can 'deposit' their contract at the Assassin Cult, or be given a 'key' to enter the Guild themself...?
This results in a good amount of transit to and from a site of battle (unless it's raging nearby the Assassin's Cult). Or actually, since that creates the scenario where a Cult's area could be surrounded to disallow Assassins to transit (or only Assassins of the Settlement surrounding it), it's probably better to just allow ad-hoc Cult 'Franchises' to be built anywhere... Some of them could be publicly 'visible' buildings, but others could be 'hidden' buildings to represent cult hide-aways, and work similar...
These are actually really good ideas. I love the idea of "cult invasions" in Inns and other buildings throughout the lands. Maybe membership can be kept secret and if your a member, then you are given info as to these locations.
I really like the idea of "going to get contracts." as that gives all assassins a central place to get contracts.
I really hope at least some of these ideas are not too tedious and able to make their way into game. You could do something similar with BH, although BH isn't normally a secret organization. But the concept of going to a central office or sub-office throughout the lands to place a bounty would be nice.
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I wonder, if you're 'being observed' and you have a good idea of who it is that is doing it, what are your options?
Is there some way to definitively determine that 'yes, this disguised character is observing you' and what can you do with that information?
Looking only at what we know from the blogs, it seems the options are to:
-Run out of line of sight and wait for the stacks to tick down (once every minute or so)
-Sound the alarm that you are being observed and have more people come to your area (or flee to a more populated area) so that there are more perception checks going on to potentially pull down any disguises.
I'm not sure there needs to be anything else. I'm just curious.
The observation thing brings up that settlements should be able to ad-hoc 'blacklist' characters from their settlement (although if the character is disguised, the black-list only applies vs. the disguise alias) if they don't have 'proof' but suspect ill-will and want to eject them from a settlement... That goes for more than Disguises as well, even if a character 'passes' any alignment/rep rules for settlement entry, they should be able to be 'blacklisted' (either permanently or for a given duration) and treated as criminal trespassers if they remain/return.
Only thing that bothers me in this blog is this bit...
You're going to have a harder time recognizing a guy you've seen before as an inch-tall face on your screen using a limited pool of art assets than you would a person in real life
I've got visions of Wyrm's character selection system running through my mind :P While I know the character creation program will be better then this, I wonder how limited it will be?
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All that said, we were just discussing bandit alliances this very day, so there is likely to be something similarly cool available to those that go full bandit.[/list]
Any more good news coming out of this Big, and I won't be able to contain myself!!!
Never go full Bandit. :P
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The counter to Assassins are the Enforcer and Champion flags. As an assassin gets bonuses to stealth, they get bonuses to perception. I am sure these roles will have just as much depth as the Assassins, and if they are good they have the ability to make an assassin's job much more difficult. These flags can be used by anyone, but I would think that Fighters, Paladins, Monks, and Rangers would be quite good at these roles.
Tracking is an old standby for finding stealthers of all kinds, so I'm hoping my ranger can track the odd man out with some practice.
About the blog, what is stopping gratuitous bounties... specifically , the assassin wants to kill some of the enforcers guarding her target, but has no contracts for them. Thinking fast, she asks some friends to drop bounties on a short list of names. Mere moments later she gets to keep her flag and go on a murder spree ?
(There are issues with a lot of the 'top of my head' fixes like scaling up fees for multiple bounties, or a central clearing house to place or accept them, or a time limit for activation.)
Related: can you keep placing a bounty on the same guy over and over ?
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Goblin Squad Member
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About the blog, what is stopping gratuitous bounties... specifically , the assassin wants to kill some of the enforcers guarding her target, but has no contracts for them. Thinking fast, she asks some friends to drop bounties on a short list of names. Mere moments later she gets to keep her flag and go on a murder spree ?
Since having the Enforcer flag means you're openly flagged for PvP, I suspect an Assassin killing Enforcers probably falls in the same category as killing war targets - i.e., it's allowed without losing the flag, so no need to resort to circuitous means.
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Ooh! Just got an idea! A few assassins with very good disguise sit around watching a target, then a assassin who's better at combat comes in and taps the target.
You know, if you can make a poor-quality disguise for someone else, it would be possible to slip it on to another Assassin. By placing a low-grade, easily seen through, disguise on someone waving the Assassin flag (the "fall guy"), you could possibly convince the target that the fall guy was the one putting on stacks of Observer, when in fact someone else was doing so. The target would be alerted to the fall guy when it saw through the disguise, and would flee/call for reinforcements. The fall guy might die, but the rest of the team (I'm sure it would be a good size) could test the waters of a target's defenses without necessarily ever flagging themselves.
That would be fun for everyone.
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Since nobody walks in an mmo is it safe to assume anyone walking is probably an assassin?
If I attack a disguised assassin who is flying the assassin flag in a settlement will the NPC guards attack me?
Kill all Walkers!
I would assume that by "walking animation" they meant "Normal Move Animation." So if you saw a disguised assassin trying to be unnoticed, you wouldn't see him walking in that funny half-crouch that games love to use to show someone is sneaking.
Also, how do you know that that guy is a disguised assassin? If you saw through his disguise, the NPC guards would immediately see through it as well. If not, then they are seeing random guy A attacking random guy B and move to intervene.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Since nobody walks in an mmo is it safe to assume anyone walking is probably an assassin?
If I attack a disguised assassin who is flying the assassin flag in a settlement will the NPC guards attack me?
Kill all Walkers!
I would assume that by "walking animation" they meant "Normal Move Animation." So if you saw a disguised assassin trying to be unnoticed, you wouldn't see him walking in that funny half-crouch that games love to use to show someone is sneaking.
Also, how do you know that that guy is a disguised assassin? If you saw through his disguise, the NPC guards would immediately see through it as well. If not, then they are seeing random guy A attacking random guy B and move to intervene.
I wouldn't KNOW he was an assassin but maybe I'm paranoid and I attack some random guy who just happens to be a disguised assassin. Does it not drop the disguise?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I wouldn't KNOW he was an assassin but maybe I'm paranoid and I attack some random guy who just happens to be a disguised assassin. Does it not drop the disguise?Since nobody walks in an mmo is it safe to assume anyone walking is probably an assassin?
If I attack a disguised assassin who is flying the assassin flag in a settlement will the NPC guards attack me?
Kill all Walkers!
I would assume that by "walking animation" they meant "Normal Move Animation." So if you saw a disguised assassin trying to be unnoticed, you wouldn't see him walking in that funny half-crouch that games love to use to show someone is sneaking.
Also, how do you know that that guy is a disguised assassin? If you saw through his disguise, the NPC guards would immediately see through it as well. If not, then they are seeing random guy A attacking random guy B and move to intervene.
Maybe if he attacks back. It said in the blog that entering combat would cause your disguise to decay very quickly, but if I was a disguised assassin, I would just run away and let the NPC guards take care of you. Hopefully "entering combat" means attacking back.
I do believe that you would only get the involved PvP flag if you attacked someone with an Attacker flag, so I should be safe by running.
And then you are dead, and I have a good reason for running straight to my target.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Great blog, glad you've once again taken what we've all been talking about, and blow away our expectations.
Also,
Upgraded masks give you the option to have your husk automatically destroy itself on death, removing all evidence of your existence and keeping your killers from getting your stuff.
Ah, the old turn to dust when you die technique. Beautiful.
Slight lore question: Will those training with the Red Mantis be unable to take contracts on a player who's straight up declared a king?|
Goblin Squad Member
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The issue with attacking "random guy" because he is walking and MIGHT be an assassin, If I understood the blogs right, you would gain the attacker flag, for attacking an unprovoked target, which means the target can fight back without issue, and the NPC guards would attack you, unless attacking someone isn't an issue in that town. However, the decay to the disguise would be significant and most likely run out before the fight was over, which would then cause actual flags (such as assassin) to show as well as your true name and you would have to deal with things at that point.
If your in a LG town, attacking what looks like a random guy because you THINK he is an assassin "Should" grant you the attacker flag and a small shift towards chaotic. Once the disguise is broken, you should be ok, but for the time being, I would assume you would follow the "suspected assassin" and wait for your perception to beat his disguise enough to break the disguise. At which point you can openly attack him, if he is in fact an assassin and not just a CE merchant trying to get better prices.
As far as assassins taking out guards, if they are pvp flagged, like being enforcers or champions, then the assassin CAN attack and remove them without issue, though their disguise might still suffer for being in combat. The way the current system is being described, the assassin could go through and observe the enforcer to get the bonus when he attacks him, just like he does when attacking the contract target.
I am not saying this is how it is, or will be, I am saying this is my understanding of how the various blogs have explained it to be. I am sure, especially if I am wrong, that one of the devs (probably Stephen by the looks of it) will correct me soon.
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Goblin Squad Member
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No I was not thinking of using assassins as internal enforcers, although that is not a bad idea either.
What I'm asking us, what if I am an assassin and someone ends up on my enemies list. Can I create my own assassination contract, and then take that contract myself?
This way I would have the AC for myself, and all of the benefits that go along with it.
As for the other scenario, attacking those that walk. As the blog suggested, say several assassins are working together. Then Mr Lawful Good but paranoid warrior just attacks someone because he thinks hr is an assassin. Lets even say he was right. The warrior now has the attacker flag, but finds himself facing a death squad instead of just one assassin.
A group of assassins should be able to kill him before any of their disguises wear off. They then just blend back into the background, without any sanction.
Moral of the story.... Don't think that just because you are supposedly the good guy, you can have free reign to go off half cocked.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm curious, can an Assassin create his own Assassination Contract, and then collect it himself?
I would think that if an Assassin has been wronged by the leader of a rival CC or settlement, he may want to take revenge into his own hands.
If not in game terms, Tony intends to facilitate this procedure in a meta game way.
Mostly good I do have one concern however....this phrase forced out of a war.
In my view going to war is a player decision and voiding that decision shouldn't be forced by a game mechanic. By all means apply penalties which may make the community reconsider whether they wish to continue the war but on no account should the action of an assassin force a no choice dropping of a war
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is not something I will likely be diving into any time soon as it's not in my character concept but it's great knowledge to have. Each class looks like it's going to have a deep setup involved and understanding the mechanics of each is going to take some serious time.
I love it!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Did you mean via the killing of a person, or the destruction of a building, ZenPagan?
I don't think the assassin can force a war to stop, ZenPagan. I think it is the destruction of the building/structure used to initiate (or control) the war effort that can trigger this. The assassins role is to assassinate the manager of that building/structure and weaken that sides ability to wage war. This in turn allows the enemy forces to breach a settlement and destroy the building/structure in question.
I actually like this idea. There needs to be a goal behind a war - a way to beat the opposition besides killing them over and over. I would advocate a time limitation being set after the building/structure is destroyed. If it takes 2 hours to completely rebuild, then give them 3 hours to get it done. If the building manager has been assassinated, they may not be able to do this at all. Might even pay to assassinate them after the building destruction. Force them to rez and be in a weakened state and give them a tough time rebuilding.
Bottom line, guard your building managers and your settlement leaders well.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like the ideas in this blog, but it seems doomed to failure. Wrote this over a few separate sittings, so sorry if it's repeats of what has already been said.
Unless the game is forcing random names on everyone, the disguised name system will eventually get figured out. It could work great for a while, but eventually people will start to recognize which names are original, and which are generated. Players should be able to set their own disguise names, and tailor their new identity based on how high their skills are. A player should be able to create a disguise that is indistinguishable from a normal character, and can only be revealed by super advanced skills.
It seems like the 'Being Observed' mechanic will hurt the profession, the 'spread paranoia' idea is all well and good, but the big organizations will lock up and do a role call when a single person gets that debuff. I think perception should be the key defense against assassinations. If people get the 'Being Observed' debuff there should be some way for the assassin to get past OOG verification methods, like appearing to be a wandering NPC, and these NPCs wander EVERYWHERE in the settlement, including inside EVERY building and IN AND OUT of the settlement for seamless entry.
The development index thing seems nice, but it raises a question on how the game will handle offline players. I don't think it is fair to keep characters in game and at risk at all times, and I don't want to see indexes only seeing a bonus while the character is in game, features that greatly award high play times drive a spike in the community between the casual, and heavy players. A Master craftsman shouldn't get turned down for a position running a crafting index, simply because they only play 3 days a week for a few hours. What is going to stop these index leaders from logging off during sensitive times, and only logging in under heavy protection?
This also seems like it could be abused to halt other organizations from gaining a foothold in the game. One thing that will keep new players away is knowing they will have to affiliate with existing organizations to gain a foothold in the game. There should be mechanics that prevent perma-locking a settlement, except in a time of war, and I would like to see a war system very different from EvE, you shouldn't just be able to randomly pick people and exploit the war tool for PvP in lawful areas.
I'm also curious where the perception vs. stealth balancing will end up. This is the paradox that every game has, stealth is fun and all for early and mid game, there are always people passing eachother up, but once you get to the end of the line there are only a few possible outcomes for the end-game.
1. Stealth can go higher than perception, stealth becomes overpowered
2. Stealth can go higher than perception, but is next to useless, and can only be used in very specific situations
3. Perception can get greater than or equal to stealth, and stealth becomes useless in high-level play, and is mostly used to abuse lower level players.
I prefer option 1 with the highest levels being absurdly difficult to obtain, the Master Assassins should deserve the ability to use indistinguishable disguises and take down a settlements production single handed. I want stealth to be viable at the highest levels of play, and I don't think I have ever seen a system where this was both possible, and not tedious. There should be a 'hump' that assassins have to get over(that is much larger than most others), and after they pass this hump their job becomes easier.
I think the blog is a step in the right direction but not all the way there. Stealth and assassinations are probably going to be the most variable system for the development and early life of the game.
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Our job should never be easy. The life of an assassin is VERY high Risk vs Reward. Even if the "hump" we had to get over was large, more people would flock to it. I can't have that. I'm pretty happy with the way they have it set up. There is no 100% way to tell how things will end up till we actually play.
Did you mean via the killing of a person, or the destruction of a building, ZenPagan?
I don't think the assassin can force a war to stop, ZenPagan. I think it is the destruction of the building/structure used to initiate (or control) the war effort that can trigger this. The assassins role is to assassinate the manager of that building/structure and weaken that sides ability to wage war. This in turn allows the enemy forces to breach a settlement and destroy the building/structure in question.
I actually like this idea. There needs to be a goal behind a war - a way to beat the opposition besides killing them over and over. I would advocate a time limitation being set after the building/structure is destroyed. If it takes 2 hours to completely rebuild, then give them 3 hours to get it done. If the building manager has been assassinated, they may not be able to do this at all. Might even pay to assassinate them after the building destruction. Force them to rez and be in a weakened state and give them a tough time rebuilding.
Bottom line, guard your building managers and your settlement leaders well.
I refer to this quote
"Each settlement has a series of Development Indexes that are central to its strength: They're required to build structures, declare wars, and reap several other benefits. If they're reduced—either by permanently removing a structure or artifact that gave a bonus, or by inflicting temporary damage on them—buildings might stop working, wars may be cancelled"
This implies that a war can be cancelled due to game mechanics...sorry this is in my view not right a war should only be cancelled when the aggressor loses the will to fight it. I have no problem with assassins causing damage which makes it harder to wage war or more costly but taking the choice of of players hands as to whether they can even wage war is not right
I think they mean the Settlement CHOOSES to stop the war. Either they don't have the funds or the resources to maintain warfare.
They may well mean that however that is not how it comes across to me in what they have written. Therefore I have raised the subject and if they come back and clarify that your interpretation is correct I am quite happy. However if not....
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I expect that there is a difference between
- a) a group of players collectively deciding that another group of players are enemies and should be attacked - this is all roleplay with no game mechanics required
- b) a kingdom (game mechanic) formally declaring war (game mechanic) against another kingdom, with all that implies for pvp, flags, siege warfare, and hex conquest (game mechanics)
It's the second sense of being at war that might require a settlement building, such as a War Room or Marshal's Hall. If it requires a building to make that formal, game mechanic, declaration, then that could be disrupted by an assassin, canceling the 'formal' war. You can still go and kill the players you don't like, you can still call it a war; but you will no longer qualify for the specific game mechanical benefits of war.
Makes sense to me, anyway.
The second sense is exactly what I am talking about. It doesn't make sense thematically for it to happen
if for instance the "war master" gets assassinated the war is cancelled how does this make situation sense?
kingdom A has declared war on kingdom b conquered and taken all the settlements surrounding the capital and is now surrounding kingdom b's capital with overwhelming force...kingdom A's warmaster is assassinated. The entire army then goes oh we had better give up then despite our overwhelming force. It just does not make sense from a role play perspective. Assassination of a major figure is more likely to make the attackers be particulary brutal in their taking of kingdom B's capital if anything.
The other thing is it is one sided kingdom A declares war on kingdom B.
Kingdom A hires an assassin and takes out kingdom B's war master. Does kingdom B now have to surrender as they can no longer fight a war?
Apart from the thematic aspects of roleplay whereby the players of a kingdom should be able to rp how they deal with the assassination of a the "war master" rather than being forced into a capitulation we also have the other problem of content. Wars are player generated content for potentially 50 to 200 players or more depending on the size of the entities. How does it make sense to remove this content from these players because of the action of a single assassin.
This is why I fully support the assassination making war more difficult (for instance units having a 10% debuff on formation combat) or more costly. The moment the action of a single player can dictate an in character response which cancelling a war amounts to then the mechanics are wrong
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The issue with attacking "random guy" because he is walking and MIGHT be an assassin, If I understood the blogs right, you would gain the attacker flag, for attacking an unprovoked target, which means the target can fight back without issue, and the NPC guards would attack you, unless attacking someone isn't an issue in that town. However, the decay to the disguise would be significant and most likely run out before the fight was over, which would then cause actual flags (such as assassin) to show as well as your true name and you would have to deal with things at that point.
I actually hope this is not the case. It effectively allows the disguised character to get the benefits of the voluntary PVP flags, without actually having the primary drawback of the flag.
The primary concern stopping people from attacking anyone in a disguise is, just because someone is in disguise, doesn't mean they're PVP flagged, so if you just attack anyone in disguise, you may very well be attacking an unflagged target. You don't know. I think that will prompt enough caution in people.
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@ZenPagan- Which is why my comments referred to the destruction of a building as the trigger event to bring a close to a war, and not the assassination of a character.
I agree with you. The killing of a single person should not mechanically bring about the end of a war - it may cause the players to take that option, but the game shouldn't decide that.
I still advocate that a building of some sort should be available for destruction to bring about the end of a war - the war masters keep or some such. Build it deep inside your settlement and guard it well.
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The issue with attacking "random guy" because he is walking and MIGHT be an assassin, If I understood the blogs right, you would gain the attacker flag, for attacking an unprovoked target, which means the target can fight back without issue, and the NPC guards would attack you, unless attacking someone isn't an issue in that town. However, the decay to the disguise would be significant and most likely run out before the fight was over, which would then cause actual flags (such as assassin) to show as well as your true name and you would have to deal with things at that point.
I actually hope this is not the case. It effectively allows the disguised character to get the benefits of the voluntary PVP flags, without actually having the primary drawback of the flag.
The primary concern stopping people from attacking anyone in a disguise is, just because someone is in disguise, doesn't mean they're PVP flagged, so if you just attack anyone in disguise, you may very well be attacking an unflagged target. You don't know. I think that will prompt enough caution in people.
Yeah, I'm with your Dario. If you are flagged, you are flagged - even if you're hiding it somehow. Of course, some chaotic nutters might not care too much and attack you regardless.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ZenPagan- Which is why my comments referred to the destruction of a building as the trigger event to bring a close to a war, and not the assassination of a character.
I agree with you. The killing of a single person should not mechanically bring about the end of a war - it may cause the players to take that option, but the game shouldn't decide that.
I still advocate that a building of some sort should be available for destruction to bring about the end of a war - the war masters keep or some such. Build it deep inside your settlement and guard it well.
War should be until one side surrenders or their settlement is completely destroyed. You can't take over a territory if any of the original settlement is still built there.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The second sense is exactly what I am talking about. It doesn't make sense thematically for it to happen
if for instance the "war master" gets assassinated the war is cancelled how does this make situation sense?-snip-
Apart from the thematic aspects of roleplay whereby the players of a kingdom should be able to rp how they deal with the assassination of a the "war master" rather than being forced into a capitulation we also have the other problem of content. Wars are player generated content for potentially 50 to 200 players or more depending on the size of the entities. How does it make sense to remove this content from these players because of the action of a single assassin.
This is why I fully support the assassination making war more difficult (for instance units having a 10% debuff on formation combat) or more costly. The moment the action of a single player can dictate an in character response which cancelling a war amounts to then the mechanics are wrong
Rereading:
Each settlement has a series of Development Indexes that are central to its strength: They're required to build structures, declare wars, and reap several other benefits. If they're reduced—either by permanently removing a structure or artifact that gave a bonus, or by inflicting temporary damage on them—buildings might stop working, wars may be cancelled, and those miscellaneous benefits become lessened. A settlement has several leadership positions that in part serve as representatives of one or more indexes, potentially improving them if they have the right traits...
...We'll talk more about these systems later, but, essentially, settlements (and freestanding points of interest) will work better if skilled PCs are associated with various aspects of building control and overall settlement management. You'll want to fill those positions.
We don't have sufficient information to ascertain how it will fully work.
That said, I think you are asking 2 questions:
1) Role-play sense
2) Game mechanic consequence
1) I believe it DOES makes sense with respect to our Heroes and chief amongst them the "Warmaster" for "War effort logistics" being representative of the "common people" and how their logistical ramp up during war dictates the running of the war effort on the front lines (our heroes and soldiers). Second, you can add some psychological damage that causes HQ to "pause" or pulling another idea out of the RP hat, possibly a "War Protocol" eg "Surrender Your Sword" if the opposite settlement's warmaster represents the formal head of the chivalrous running of a war and agreeing the appropriate battlefield etc - hence pvp flag go without reputation once agreed (I suspect War will have some form of agreement going...)
2) I'm not sure cancelling the War effort is absolute or temporary depending on how quickly the development index, war leader, vip war building can be "put back online"? Hence during this time, the loss of reputation etc without the war flags makes game sense to deter further aggression. More so the more LG slant of the alignment the settlement affected is?
I guess that a successful assassination puts the war effort out of whack both flags and supplies? And that it is more of a major set-back than a complete cancellation?
Why do you put out an assassination contract on someone? Because you want to cripple the institutions he represents, either for temporary competitive advantage or to make it easier to win a war.
It sounds like it's a major set-back ie "temporal cancellation" until fixed? We don't know how the entering into a formal war works, and how re-submitting that works further. Possibly the "formal war" is cancelled and the settlement can still fight but with the penalties associated outside a formal war? Maybe the devs could clarify this?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I actually hope this is not the case. It effectively allows the disguised character to get the benefits of the voluntary PVP flags, without actually having the primary drawback of the flag
First, a lot of checks vs the disguise skill are made, leading to deterioration and potential blown disguise. It is no easy task and takes a good amount of managing as the disguised character moves through a settlement.
Secondly, if the disguise did not mask the assassin or other pvp flag, it would not be very much of a disguise. Without this and assassin would never be able to get to his target.
That being said, what would be your solution?
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Goblin Squad Member
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War should be until one side surrenders or their settlement is completely destroyed. You can't take over a territory if any of the original settlement is still built there.@ZenPagan- Which is why my comments referred to the destruction of a building as the trigger event to bring a close to a war, and not the assassination of a character.
I agree with you. The killing of a single person should not mechanically bring about the end of a war - it may cause the players to take that option, but the game shouldn't decide that.
I still advocate that a building of some sort should be available for destruction to bring about the end of a war - the war masters keep or some such. Build it deep inside your settlement and guard it well.
Agree completely on the surrender part, and not really fussed either way with the entire settlement being razed to the ground or a specific structure being destroyed - as long as that option is there.
I've seen too many 'wars' just become a drawn out affair where one side refuses to surrender and fights on as a guerilla force. Normally I would be happy with hit and run guerilla tactics, but in the few cases I've seen, it's more a griefing 'you will never defeat us' annoying factor than anything else.
Having a single structure being the key to war would stop this. Destroy it, and if it cannot be rebuilt in time, you win. Same net effect with wiping out the whole settlement.
Roleplay question associated with this though: If a bunch of bad guys attack a LG settlement and find they're outmatched, but for whatever reason do not surrender, would the LG side raze an entire settlement to the ground, potentially killing innocents (NPC's - remember, we're roleplaying here), or would it be preferable to destroy one structure and force the enemy to surrender?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I actually hope this is not the case. It effectively allows the disguised character to get the benefits of the voluntary PVP flags, without actually having the primary drawback of the flagFirst, a lot of checks vs the disguise skill are made, leading to deterioration and potential blown disguise. It is no easy task and takes a good amount of managing as the disguised character moves through a settlement.
Secondly, if the disguise did not mask the assassin or other pvp flag, it would not be very much of a disguise. Without this and assassin would never be able to get to his target.
That being said, what would be your solution?
I definitely think it should mask the flag from visiblity like it says in the blog. But if I attack you, you should still be treated as having the PVP flag. The risk I take is that the disguised person may or may not be flagged.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Agree completely on the surrender part, and not really fussed either way with the entire settlement being razed to the ground or a specific structure being destroyed - as long as that option is there.I've seen too many 'wars' just become a drawn out affair where one side refuses to surrender and fights on as a guerilla force. Normally I would be happy with hit and run guerilla tactics, but in the few cases I've seen, it's more a griefing 'you will never defeat us' annoying factor than anything else.
Having a single structure being the key to war would stop this. Destroy it, and if it cannot be rebuilt in time, you win. Same net effect with wiping out the whole settlement.
So, you're suggesting that if I take out this structure, the entire settlement just self destructs? If it has the same effect as wiping out the settlement, then it's just the easy version of win. Settlements should be difficult to destroy.
Roleplay question associated with this though: If a bunch of bad guys attack a LG settlement and find they're outmatched, but for whatever reason do not surrender, would the LG side raze an entire settlement to the ground, potentially killing innocents (NPC's - remember, we're roleplaying here), or would it be preferable to destroy one structure and force the enemy to surrender?
Offer them the surrender. If they don't take it, and you don't feel good eliminating their support base, then they're going to keep attacking you. Eventually they'll win, or you'll get tired of it and take them out and just say you're letting noncombatants go free (since noncombat NPCs will not, for the most part, exist in game). Or you can pursue another avenue. Cut off their trade, shut down their gathering operations. Eventually they'll be unable to continue funding the war.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Can't believe peeps are actually proposing that the destruction of a single building, no matter what it was, or the assasination of a single manager, no matter who that was, would win somebody a war. In a world built on player interaction it is extremely limiting to implement a system with a one-track winning strategy. Now, does it make sense that an assasination could seriously hamper war operations? Of course. Might destroying a fortress or manufacturing facility force one to reconsider warmaking? Certainly. But these among many other important considerations-so there are a lot of possibilities for involved player conflict. I also think that no matter what the final level of NPC presence the game has, an assasin at some point needs to be able to disguise themself as a PC, period. If naming conventions are enforced, computer generated names I have seen in other games have been fine. To make it worth the time to become a master killer it should be possible to switch between an NPC and PC disguise-otherwise how do high level professional murderers ever get close to a ruler/structure manager? If I'm walking around my settlement and see a bathroom attendant jumping on a pegasus and yelling "Yah mule!" I'm not reporting a bug to Goblinworks, I'm going to kill that bozo. Oh, and this from a guy who has no intention of being an assasin. Probably gonna hire a few, tho.
@ZenPagan- Which is why my comments referred to the destruction of a building as the trigger event to bring a close to a war, and not the assassination of a character.
I agree with you. The killing of a single person should not mechanically bring about the end of a war - it may cause the players to take that option, but the game shouldn't decide that.
I still advocate that a building of some sort should be available for destruction to bring about the end of a war - the war masters keep or some such. Build it deep inside your settlement and guard it well.
See this I am just as unhappy with declarations of war shouldnt even be necessarily dependent on having a settlement. If an alliance of chartered companies without settlements wish to declare war on a settlement then that should be perfectly allowable. Think mongol horde or other nomads here.
As the game progresses there will be a move to a small number of large kingdoms. Eventually there will be times where if a group of companies don't want to join an existing settlement they will have to destroy an existing settlement in order to build their own. I see this as perfectly legitimate action. Likewise a settlement may wish to declare war on an annoying group of bandits. If wars are limited to fights between settlements then they need to go back to the drawing board
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Goblin Squad Member
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The issue with attacking "random guy" because he is walking and MIGHT be an assassin...
It seems a universal assumption that everyone will run all the time, and that is normal movement.
Despite my expectation of widespread protest against it, it is possible that running will not be the default movement in this game.
Running uses stamina, and stamina may be needed for every action a player character performs.
If stamina is used by running, and a stamina refresh occurs only every six seconds, then running might not be normal movement.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If I'm walking around my settlement and see a bathroom attendant jumping on a pegasus and yelling "Yah mule!" I'm not reporting a bug to Goblinworks, I'm going to kill that bozo.
This may be my new favorite line on the forums.
@ZenPagan, I think you need to fix your quote tags there.
See this I am just as unhappy with declarations of war shouldnt even be necessarily dependent on having a settlement. If an alliance of chartered companies without settlements wish to declare war on a settlement then that should be perfectly allowable. Think mongol horde or other nomads here.
As the game progresses there will be a move to a small number of large kingdoms. Eventually there will be times where if a group of companies don't want to join an existing settlement they will have to destroy an existing settlement in order to build their own. I see this as perfectly legitimate action. Likewise a settlement may wish to declare war on an annoying group of bandits. If wars are limited to fights between settlements then they need to go back to the drawing board
Under the current design, a Chartered Company cannot exist without being attached to a settlement, hence, "chartered". Arguably, they could attempt to persuade their host settlement to declare war and allow them to take the territory when they're done. But if you had an unlanded organzation declare war, how would you defeat them? You can't kill them all. They've got no territory to take away. What is the win condition for the target settlement?
The issue with attacking "random guy" because he is walking and MIGHT be an assassin...It seems a universal assumption that everyone will run all the time, and that is normal movement.
Despite my expectation of widespread protest against it, it is possible that running will not be the default movement in this game.
Running uses stamina, and stamina may be needed for every action a player character performs.
If stamina is used by running, and a stamina refresh occurs only every six seconds, then running might not be normal movement.
Even without the stamina it is not uncommon for roleplayers such as myself to move around safer areas such as towns at a more sedentary pace than the customary frenzied run