Goblin Squad Member
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I expect the residents of Thornkeep and Fort Inevitable to swarm like locusts over the resources in the hexes surrounding their protected zones, safe in the knowledge that the reputation system and the nearby hex border will protect them unless caught in the very act of raiding an outpost. What tools if any should we be given to protect ourselves from this scourge?
Someone proposed a couple of weeks back that players who declined to participate in the world's social structures should not be offered the protections of the world's social systems either. I'm not sure if declaring all safeholders to be hostis humani generis if caught outside of a guarded hex is quite the right level of response, but we need some way to make a credible threat if we're going to be able to effectively discourage undesirable and antisocial behavior.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not entirely sure what the intended behavior is here, but my gut says there shouldn't be an easy way to make a random person gathering nodes 'attackable' because the node happened to be in 'your' hex. Doing so indicates a particular level of closed borders and control, if you want to to do that you should either be feuding every company that offends you or SADing any gatherers coming in and out of your hex or caught gathering a node.
It should not be easy to shutdown a hex's basic gathering nodes. POI and structure based resources sure those should be locked up by the ones controlling the hex, but random one time nodes? Not so much in my opinion.
Thought I suppose if you could make anything that is essentially 'poaching' illegal in your territory via some sort of settlement governing action that would be cool, but only so long as it also has a downside to it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think it's already been postulated (thought possibly not by a dev?) that if your settlement declares harvesting by non-citizens illegal, then they will gain a criminal flag for doing so. Outside our controlled hexes, they have as much right to harvest as we do. Aside from that, I'm not sure what ought to be available in a world of meaningful choices.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Guurzak, when that was discussed back in February, Ryan said:
I don't think being a member of an NPC Settlement and walking outside the Settlement's security zone should flag you as killable on sight by all everywhere.
I do think maybe there's a worthwhile idea to examine that a PC Settlement can define NPC Settlement members as hostile within the territory the Settlement controls so they can be killed on sight as a policy of the PC Settlement.
That ties back into the question of how and if we can enable Settlements to have security policies as a mechanic and not a social compact, and if they can how players are informed of them.
My bolding for emphasis. If that were applied, my company could attack NPC settlement members in hexes where we controlled the POIs if the settlement laws were set up that way. We couldn't kill NPC settlement members in hexes we didn't control.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not so concerned about the gathering nodes- I figure those are probably a lost cause. But Outposts are designed to be raided and the only things stopping people from doing so are either defensive forces actually present on site, or fear of reprisal which is meaningless in the context of safeholders.
Would it make sense to code an exception where safeholders mechanically cannot raid an Outpost?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think being a member of an NPC Settlement and walking outside the Settlement's security zone should flag you as killable on sight by all everywhere.
I do think maybe there's a worthwhile idea to examine that a PC Settlement can define NPC Settlement members as hostile within the territory the Settlement controls so they can be killed on sight as a policy of the PC Settlement.
A selective no-trespassing policy where you can kill members of specified groups on sight in hexes where you hold sovereignty would be interesting and useful, and I think that would address my concerns as much as is reasonable to hope.
The mechanics of security policies are going to be a very interesting system to play with, once we get to that point.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ah, I see.
Hmmm that is an interesting issue. Have they said anything about how a raid affects you? Even if it's a 'legal' reputation maneuver I think it should have some sort of side effect when it comes to the settlement you raided. Feud cost reductions or something?
Can always just block certain mechanics from unaffiliated players to discourage specifically using them in such a manner as a tactic.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As far as raids go, I'd prefer that raids be handled two different ways. Either the raiders are feuding an enemy, in which case the feud rules and costs apply, or the raid is a globally-criminal act and the raiders pick up stacks of the Criminal flag based on the amount of time they spend (and the amount of loot they get). So the criminal-flagged raiders can't just duck back into NPC-controlled lands without risking being attacked by guards. Raiders coming back from a feud can run to NPC territory and not be attacked by guards, but they can be pursued and engaged (and by definition they belong to a company that can be feuded in return).
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the solution is giving settlements control over resource extraction in their territory.
You do this by:
1. Giving them the ability to criminalize resource extraction by people under a certain diplomatic status in their territory.
2. Allowing them to sell or give away items that grant temporary harvesting rights within their territory.
If you don't have the diplomatic status to harvest, and you don't have an item granting you rights, you get criminal flagged and a bump toward chaotic for doing so.
It doesn't solve them swarming over the resources inside the safezone but I don't believe that should be discouraged. If they go outside the safezone though, most of that is claimable territory.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You do this by:
1. Giving them the ability to criminalize resource extraction by people under a certain diplomatic status in their territory.
2. Allowing them to sell or give away items that grant temporary harvesting rights within their territory.
I suppose I had assumed this would be part of the game; a settlement could sell Harvesting Rights for resources within the territory that they controlled. These would be by contract, and would specify the resource, area, and time period as well as the specific company/individuals.
If it is not already intended to be in the game, it absolutely should be.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Settlements might be able to issue "Mining Rights" or similar contract to extract resources from its controlled hexes. Any character harvesting without one of these contracts would be criminal flagged, and thus exposed to PvP.
A settlement could also choose to have free harvesting within their lands, and others may choose to not issue any contracts.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Harvesting Rights and Mining Rights are something the settlement should have to enforce themselves rather than rely on the game to ensure compliance.
That's fair. I think it might also imply that harvesting without permission might/could trigger a Criminal flag (like Bluddwolf says), allowing the settlement to enforce their claims. Of course, if they don't enforce their claims (ie, they don't kill the law-breaking gatherers), then they suffer Corruption.
I don't think a settlement and its companies should have to open feuds and wars with every single harvester that jumps over the line to grab something.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Harvesting Rigths and Mining Rights are something the settlement should have to enforce themselves rather than rely on the game to ensure compliance.
I have to be able to rely on the game to permit enforcement. I'm perfectly willing to enforce my harvesting policies myself; all I ask of the game is that it stay out of my way while I do it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the solution is giving settlements control over resource extraction in their territory.
You do this by:
1. Giving them the ability to criminalize resource extraction by people under a certain diplomatic status in their territory.
2. Allowing them to sell or give away items that grant temporary harvesting rights within their territory.
If you don't have the diplomatic status to harvest, and you don't have an item granting you rights, you get criminal flagged and a bump toward chaotic for doing so.
It doesn't solve them swarming over the resources inside the safezone but I don't believe that should be discouraged. If they go outside the safezone though, most of that is claimable territory.
I think that is reasonable, although I do think some form of warning regarding harvesting rights would also be reasonable so those that do not intend to illegally harvest can bypass those nodes.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I can see node poaching generating a criminal flag. I'm less comfortable with the node's "owners" being notified at a distance that poaching is occurring. If the owners aren't notified of the theft, then I'm not comfortable with the owners receiving a "mysterious" increase in their corruption rating. If the owners are notified of each poached node, then I'd hope for some rationalization in the message ("One of the invisible, anonymous peasants just reported trespassers harvesting his grain," for example).
(Yes, I occasionally harbor simulationist leanings.)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Malrunwa, for now I'd honestly prefer the system where the owners only find out about poaching if they spot a poacher with a criminal flag, but they don't gain corruption for poaching that they weren't aware of.
Later on, when it's possible to set up harvesting operations that consist of bunches of invisible peasants, I think it would be more reasonable for the settlement to be notified after a short delay. A camp full of gatherers or miners is much more conspicuous than one person with an axe or a shovel.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Harvesting Rigths and Mining Rights are something the settlement should have to enforce themselves rather than rely on the game to ensure compliance.
They would, if they could set "poaching" as a criminal offense. Then they still have to enforce the criminal flag by capturing them in the act and killing them or driving them off.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Malrunwa, for now I'd honestly prefer the system where the owners only find out about poaching if they spot a poacher with a criminal flag, but they don't gain corruption for poaching that they weren't aware of.
Later on, when it's possible to set up harvesting operations that consist of bunches of invisible peasants, I think it would be more reasonable for the settlement to be notified after a short delay. A camp full of gatherers or miners is much more conspicuous than one person with an axe or a shovel.
I think one of the unspoken premises of the game is that there are invisible commonfolk everywhere anyway. They're the people that pump the bellows in the forge and weed the crops in the fields.
The Unrest and Corruption mechanics specifically have to do with how efficiently and expensively those commonfolk do their jobs. I think it makes sense that they could be expected to observe the player behaviors which would make them unhappy, whether or not any player citizens happen to be there too.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah I was having a vision of arriving to late to catch the poacher but being to be able to track him with a skill. This could even lead to some interesting ambush moments.
That could end up as a great contest. Your tracking prowess vs. the fugitive's stealth, your movement speed and buffs vs. the fugitive's speed, the speed at which you catch up or fall behind vs. the countdown timer of the criminal flag, plus the effects of other PCs on both sides (dragnet, ambush, etc.).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Malrunwa, for now I'd honestly prefer the system where the owners only find out about poaching if they spot a poacher with a criminal flag, but they don't gain corruption for poaching that they weren't aware of.
Later on, when it's possible to set up harvesting operations that consist of bunches of invisible peasants, I think it would be more reasonable for the settlement to be notified after a short delay. A camp full of gatherers or miners is much more conspicuous than one person with an axe or a shovel.
I think one of the unspoken premises of the game is that there are invisible commonfolk everywhere anyway. They're the people that pump the bellows in the forge and weed the crops in the fields.
The Unrest and Corruption mechanics specifically have to do with how efficiently and expensively those commonfolk do their jobs. I think it makes sense that they could be expected to observe the player behaviors which would make them unhappy, whether or not any player citizens happen to be there too.
That's a good point, but it also borders on the principle that negative effects that you can't do anything about aren't fun. If the settlement is primarily organized around Oceanic players, and European poachers descend on their hex while they sleep*, bumping up their corruption score, that's not much fun. Any mechanic that requires every settlement to have players logged in 24/7/365 to avoid bad stuff isn't much fun (thus the PVP window).
*Or while they're at work, I suppose. As a lazy, provincial American, I admit that I didn't look up the relative times for those two regions while drafting the post.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What I like most about this thread it has really started the cogs working in my brain on this issue (I can tell, because I smell smoke!).
Anyway, a lot of good points have been made. I think what this fundamentally comes down to is what mechanics exist that allow a settlement to enforce their laws. It seems to me a settlement needs to be able to designate an individual or company as criminal for breaking its laws. I'd be somewhat concerned about abuse of this, but I don't have a good foundation from other games to gauge it against. I don't recall any details on how settlements can enforce laws from the blogs, if there are some perhaps someone will post a link.
As far as resources within a settlements area of control and notification of node poaching, I don't like the "fuzzy action at a distance" notification thing. If a settlement can't patrol its territory to identify and stop node poaching, well, too bad. "You have what you hold." I think @Guurzak's point about NPCs being existent in the settlement is a good one in support of this notification, even if delayed somewhat as some have suggested or perhaps not incredibly specific (e.g., "there is node poaching in hex xx,yy"; type of node, exact location, and extent of poaching is non descript). This gives the settlement an option to address it but also gives the poachers some leeway.
Lastly, regarding settlements issuing or selling mining/gathering rights for resources of they choose, absolutely a must have I think. And if a settlement issues few of these, and can patrol and enforce them effectively, they have more value than at another settlement that perhaps sells gobs of them and/or can't patrol their territory effectively to enforce them. I think it this a very good thing to add to the economy for settlement and incentivizes better control over their territory (although maybe that benefits lawful settlements more than chaotic ones, have to think more on that).
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Goblin Squad Member
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What are the options for a non-sponsered company owned POI? Can they set "laws"? What issues/forces (besides SAD) can they bring to bear on poachers or even trespassers?
How to tell difference between a dozen wandering trespassers and a raiding party coming together after entering on 6 hex sides?
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Goblin Squad Member
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... I think @Guurzak's point about NPCs being existent in the settlement is a good one in support of this notification, even if delayed somewhat as some have suggested or perhaps not incredibly specific (e.g., "there is node poaching in hex xx,yy"; type of node, exact location, and extent of poaching is non descript). This gives the settlement an option to address it but also gives the poachers some leeway.
It could even be more vague than that. "Commonfolk are worried about criminals in hex xx.yy". Maybe with Aristos with advanced settlement management skills you get more details.
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Goblin Squad Member
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How to tell difference between a dozen wandering trespassers and a raiding party coming together after entering on 6 hex sides?
A while back, people on this board were advocating two very different approaches to strangers in "your" hex.
One side said "If they're not hostile or criminal-flagged, let them travel through our hex, visit our settlement, and pay us for training and crafted goods." The other side said "If their company isn't allied to our settlement, shoot them before they get too far into our hex, much less our settlement."
Taken to extremes, the first approach is very vulnerable to an attacking force that enters the hex a few characters at a time, and the second approach is going to require a pretty wide alliance network to avoid financial collapse.
The best balance of security and trade will probably vary between settlements. Finding that balance may be tricky.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Some discussion I found on this issue in the blogs:
Screaming for Vengeance touches on this somewhat:
“…the settlement might establish laws to make murder (and several other actions) illegal. Thus, players might be nearly as safe in certain player-controlled hexes as they are in NPC territory…”
So, form this clearly a settlement can establish specific laws that apply to their own territory. However, it may be that these law only apply to the one hex that contains the settlement. It’s not clear whether these laws would apply to hexes outside/adjacent to the settlement hex as well.
I Shot a Man in Reno Just to Watch him Die has a little more on this:
“Behavior we don’t want…Players willfully committing crimes or evil acts under the shield of reputation or alignment penalties so onerous no one would try and stop them.”
So, it seems from this statement that GW wants to keep people from committing “crimes” under “protection” of the reputation system. I didn’t see any further detail on how this would be accomplished or whether this meant game-defined crimes, NPC settlement-defined crimes, or PC settlement crimes.
“Each time a character commits a crime, they … get the Criminal flag; this can be anything from assaulting someone in a settlement to being a member of an outlawed faction or race in the wrong place. What gives you the Criminal flag will vary from settlement to settlement based on the rules set in that settlement, so it's a good idea to learn the local laws, invest in Knowledge (Geography), etc., before visiting a new settlement.”
So, from this I take it that criminal flags may be automatically applied if a law is broken in settlement hexes (at least); it’s not clear how this mechanic will work (e.g., how are settlement laws defined and how are the areas which they apply to defined, or is it just the hex containing the settlement?).
“Enforcer (Lawful) - Enforcer is for characters who want to enforce the laws of their own settlements or others.”
I’m not clear if this Flag is still going to exist, and from the description it seems as if these Enforcers would only be able to attack those with a “Criminal” flag to avoid Reputation loss.
So, I guess from all this, how settlement laws are established, how flags are applied, and how those laws are/can be enforced is still about as clear as mud. I think we’ll need to wait and see.