With wounds improving and worsening three times (!), effectively removing character from the game for the week's time, I have to ask the public what is the whole point of such "feature".
Logging once to see that wounds worsened, next time it improved, than worsened again, and three times in such a manner. Is that an ultimate test of player's patience :-[ ?
How old is the character?
Old characters, by design, are more likely to have their wounds worsen, and less likely to have them improve, until they have been wounded for quite some time.
This is specifically intended to encourage players to retire older characters and make room for new ones.
i always believed it is more human to kill character than to harass it that way, pushing patience to the very limits.
if i have in-game reasons to retain some character, i will retain it, otherwise it makes no sense to play at all.
such a concept is similar in some other materializations and in my humble opinion, it counters basic logics of playing - formally, we have multitude of choices, but in reality we are heavily pushed to make one and one only choice. it really degrades playability - are we allowed to create some small stories with our puppets, with all limits which anyhow exist, or we, players are puppets of game mechanics? :(
Quote from: Stue (DC) on January 06, 2014, 08:32:58 PM
i always believed it is more human to kill character than to harass it that way, pushing patience to the very limits.
if i have in-game reasons to retain some character, i will retain it, otherwise it makes no sense to play at all.
such a concept is similar in some other materializations and in my humble opinion, it counters basic logics of playing - formally, we have multitude of choices, but in reality we are heavily pushed to make one and one only choice. it really degrades playability - are we allowed to create some small stories with our puppets, with all limits which anyhow exist, or we, players are puppets of game mechanics? :(
Certain things are encouraged for good reasons. In Atamara there are rulers who have had the same ruler for many years such that even if they autopaused due to inactivity as soon as they came back they were made ruler again. The same rulers in many of the realms causes stagnated politics which can result in realms becoming extremely boring as nothing changes. Dukes can not removed and many who are inactive will log in once a week just to keep their position which results in stagnation as they are holding a valuable powerful position and not even playing. I would bet most retire their old characters and make new nobles in realms they haven't been in instead of just replacing their old character will have a much more fun time.
They do understand that there are nobles that while old are still doing things and making the game a better place which is why its just encouraging retiring old characters and not automatic death after a certain age.
Quote from: Penchant on January 06, 2014, 09:23:08 PM
Certain things are encouraged for good reasons. In Atamara there are rulers who have had the same ruler for many years such that even if they autopaused due to inactivity as soon as they came back they were made ruler again. The same rulers in many of the realms causes stagnated politics which can result in realms becoming extremely boring as nothing changes. Dukes can not removed and many who are inactive will log in once a week just to keep their position which results in stagnation as they are holding a valuable powerful position and not even playing. I would bet most retire their old characters and make new nobles in realms they haven't been in instead of just replacing their old character will have a much more fun time.
They do understand that there are nobles that while old are still doing things and making the game a better place which is why its just encouraging retiring old characters and not automatic death after a certain age.
But doesn't that point out the problem with the current system? Do nothing dukes aren't going to get seriously wounded. Inactive older characters get off Scott free while active ones who are still doing things in game get punished with a very frustrating feature.
What if they just made it roll a fixed period you'll be wounded for? Would that hurt the balance so much? The other players will still have no idea when the character will be back, but the player of the wounded character can just note the time and not have to log in to check every day. I agree that this frustrating to keep logging in to find they're still wounded, or more wounded, or to see them starting to recover only to get worse again. I'd rather just see "you'll be able to move again in 6 days".
We can also make it a rule that you can't relay this information should you have another character in the same game world.
Quote from: pcw27 on January 11, 2014, 02:50:53 AM
But doesn't that point out the problem with the current system? Do nothing dukes aren't going to get seriously wounded. Inactive older characters get off Scott free while active ones who are still doing things in game get punished with a very frustrating feature.
This is a really good point.
I think it's an attempt at some level of realism. I mean, realistically speaking, even a healthy, young human being suffering a wound could be put out of commission for months or years, or suffer from permanent injury. You never hear about Nobles losing limbs. In most respects, characters in BM have it comparatively easy, except when it comes to the slow torment of worsening wounds.
That being said, I've always thought that mortality in this game was not common enough, and that time spent suffering wounds was too common. Wounds just become an annoyance; death has actual meaning. It's hard to argue about whether or not one is brave when the stakes are so low.
I say, more death, less injury. Especially from assassins. I don't think I've ever seen an actual successful assassination attempt in the entire game. I'd prefer not to imagine a fantasy world where every assassin is spectacularly incompetent.
Quote from: pcw27 on January 11, 2014, 02:50:53 AM
But doesn't that point out the problem with the current system? Do nothing dukes aren't going to get seriously wounded. Inactive older characters get off Scott free while active ones who are still doing things in game get punished with a very frustrating feature.
What if they just made it roll a fixed period you'll be wounded for? Would that hurt the balance so much? The other players will still have no idea when the character will be back, but the player of the wounded character can just note the time and not have to log in to check every day. I agree that this frustrating to keep logging in to find they're still wounded, or more wounded, or to see them starting to recover only to get worse again. I'd rather just see "you'll be able to move again in 6 days".
We can also make it a rule that you can't relay this information should you have another character in the same game world.
I've always been of the opinion that the game is too rewarding to those who play it safe and too harsh on those who take risks to live things up.
It would be nice if the system tended more towards you staying lightly wounded for longer, or maybe being immobilized while lightly wounded but still able to send messages.
Or at least be able to read messages while wounded, gives something to do...
Yeah maybe adjust it so severely wounded gets only some messages, and wounded gets all messages.
Quote from: Bendix on January 11, 2014, 06:57:05 AM
I think it's an attempt at some level of realism. I mean, realistically speaking, even a healthy, young human being suffering a wound could be put out of commission for months or years, or suffer from permanent injury. You never hear about Nobles losing limbs. In most respects, characters in BM have it comparatively easy, except when it comes to the slow torment of worsening wounds.
That being said, I've always thought that mortality in this game was not common enough, and that time spent suffering wounds was too common. Wounds just become an annoyance; death has actual meaning. It's hard to argue about whether or not one is brave when the stakes are so low.
I say, more death, less injury. Especially from assassins. I don't think I've ever seen an actual successful assassination attempt in the entire game. I'd prefer not to imagine a fantasy world where every assassin is spectacularly incompetent.
My characters write it off as the miracle of "modern" medicine :p
Quote from: Bendix on January 11, 2014, 06:57:05 AM
I say, more death, less injury. Especially from assassins. I don't think I've ever seen an actual successful assassination attempt in the entire game. I'd prefer not to imagine a fantasy world where every assassin is spectacularly incompetent.
I agree with everything you said, ergo my mortality feature request some time ago... but I wanted to point out that "successful" assassination attempts have been confirmed to be impossible. It's not even in the code to cause someone to die as a result of infiltrator action. In fact, "assassination" has been called a misnomer propagated by players. I'm too lazy to find any one of the several threads where this was analyzed, but
most of the infiltrator text says nothing about killing, only about wounding or crippling. It was never intended for infiltrators to be assassins; if I remember right, Tom had explained that outright murder (duels to the death at least give the other guy a shot and militia is disposable) would be beneath a noble, but a little handicapping to get ahead is a-ok.
So think of it this way: It's a fantasy world where there really are no assassins, just a bunch of normally respectable nobles willing to pick up the medieval equivalent of a lead pipe to kneecap the competition.
All that said, I don't necessarily buy that explanation, either. In my mind, it should either be full-on assassination with weighted chances to fail, wound (varying degrees), or kill... or nothing at all. If the intent of an infiltrator was to be a spy, playing the game of intrigue and espionage, give him options to gain information and sabotage things, not attack people.
There was talk of revamping the infiltrators as spymasters and organizers of uprisings. I don't know what came of it.
Quote from: pcw27 on January 16, 2014, 09:11:22 AM
There was talk of revamping the infiltrators as spymasters and organizers of uprisings. I don't know what came of it.
Several people, myself included, argued that this would be a good way of recycling the subclass, given how the reforms made to it have rendred it... handicapped.
I think think the dev team ever really commented on the idea, though.
I remember Tom really liking a version of it but I don't know if he implemented it.
Quote from: Chénier on January 16, 2014, 03:03:19 PM
Several people, myself included, argued that this would be a good way of recycling the subclass, given how the reforms made to it have rendred it... handicapped.
I think think the dev team ever really commented on the idea, though.
I thought there was a comment in one of the mortality threads about it being not a priority because Infils aren't necessarily broken, just require skill and caution.
Quote from: Eirikr on January 17, 2014, 04:37:25 AM
I thought there was a comment in one of the mortality threads about it being not a priority because Infils aren't necessarily broken, just require skill and caution.
A subclass that requires forever in training and mountains of gold in order to have mediocre odds of inflicting minimal damage is most definately broken. A subclass that require the presence of a lot of other nobles in order to succeed in its purpose of being secret, through plausible deniability, yet which ends up having minimal chances of success as soon as there are but a few other troop leaders present, is most definately broken.
Skill and caution tells one to simply not pick that subclass.
Quote from: Chénier on January 17, 2014, 06:52:06 PM
A subclass that requires forever in training and mountains of gold in order to have mediocre odds of inflicting minimal damage is most definately broken. A subclass that require the presence of a lot of other nobles in order to succeed in its purpose of being secret, through plausible deniability, yet which ends up having minimal chances of success as soon as there are but a few other troop leaders present, is most definately broken.
Skill and caution tells one to simply not pick that subclass.
If you listened to others that actively play infiltrators, you would know that's not true. Indirik actually trained his infil through field training (actually doing stuff) and I see successful infil attacks on Atamara all the time, where often people aren't sure who did it. Could there certainly be infil actions that aren't so risky? Yes, but the class isn't broken and I am aware of the rarity of field training an infil.
Quote from: Penchant on January 17, 2014, 07:02:30 PM
If you listened to others that actively play infiltrators, you would know that's not true. Indirik actually trained his infil through field training (actually doing stuff) and I see successful infil attacks on Atamara all the time, where often people aren't sure who did it. Could there certainly be infil actions that aren't so risky? Yes, but the class isn't broken and I am aware of the rarity of field training an infil.
Of all the infil actions I've witnessed, since they ceased to be invisible, I only had doubts for maybe 5-2% of the cases, and even in those I pretty much always had it down to two potential culprits. As soon as you get caught ONCE, and banned for it, it's own your family history, at which point it's like walking around with a huge sign saying "HEY GUYS, BTW, I'M AN INFILTRATOR!"
And of all the successful infil actions I've witnissed, I don't think a single one proved to be anything more than an annoyance. The wounds usually don't matter, and the rest of the actions usually aren't noticeable either.
Quote from: Chénier on January 17, 2014, 07:29:08 PM
Of all the infil actions I've witnessed, since they ceased to be invisible, I only had doubts for maybe 5-2% of the cases, and even in those I pretty much always had it down to two potential culprits. As soon as you get caught ONCE, and banned for it, it's own your family history, at which point it's like walking around with a huge sign saying "HEY GUYS, BTW, I'M AN INFILTRATOR!"
I am not going to argue about the percentage of doubtful cases because neither have any real data on it. As to it usually being between two people, two is all you need because it creates doubt. As to family history giving everyone away that's not true. Don't try and tell me you look at everyone's family page and keep list of infiltrators. People know who the infiltrators are because they build up notoriety, but that's not bad because I have heard of times of notorious infils being blamed when really it was a younger infil that was unknown to be an infil.
QuoteAnd of all the successful infil actions I've witnissed, I don't think a single one proved to be anything more than an annoyance. The wounds usually don't matter, and the rest of the actions usually aren't noticeable either.
It's very rare for some random knight to be attacked, it's rulers, generals, marshals, dukes, margraves, and on rare occasion priests being attacked all due to the power they hold and stopping them from using their power, most often communication, or simply as an attack by a realm or (rarer) a religion/guild. I know of an infil who once attacked CE's military leadership and IIRC, took out two marshals and the general within a turn or two, severely hurting CE's ability to lead their military for a short time. Some times it's a margrave to take them out before a siege so they can't recruit militia.
FWIW: it wasn't me that field trained an infiltrator. I think that was delegro. My infil academy trained all the way to 80/80 before doing anything.
Quote from: Indirik on January 18, 2014, 02:31:41 AM
FWIW: it wasn't me that field trained an infiltrator. I think that was delegro. My infil academy trained all the way to 80/80 before doing anything.
My apologies on getting the name wrong, I recalled someone saying they did that and thought it was you for whatever reason.
Infiltrator action done?
Option 1: infiltrator caught, identity revealed, banishment or worse to be given in a few turns
Option 2: infiltrator free, identity revealed.
Option 3: infiltrator free, identity not revealed, proceed:
Step 1: Look at the nobles present in said region
Step 2: Sort nobles according to which realms they belong to
Step 3: Look up the family histories of nobles, starting by those without units and those of enemy realms and moving down the list towards the less likely. Say "bingo" every time you spot "banned by blablabla for being a lowly saboteur"
I don't "keep a list" of infiltrators. I don't recall the last time an infiltrator action was done in a region with more than 6 nobles without his identity being revealed automatically. Looking up the family histories really doesn't take any time at all.
Besides, what's plausible deniability good for anyways? Infiltrator actions don't increase skill when working in friendly regions, so you have to work in enemy lands. Infiltrator or not, you will be treated as an enemy there regardless. And if you aren't in enemy lands, and you are trying to cause a scandal? I've personally had my characters targetted by realm-mates and allies on various occasions. I never made a fuss about it unless it was my intent to do so anyways. A rogue infil isn't worth making diplomacy on. In reality, the plausibility is more a weapon of the attacked than the attacker: it gives one a lot of range to falsely accuse people he wants to frame. After all, usually the infils don't go around shouting "Hey, no, I was the one who attacked you!"
The whole "plausible deniability" shenenigans is really pointless.
Quote from: Chénier on January 20, 2014, 09:43:11 PM
Infiltrator action done?
Option 1: infiltrator caught, identity revealed, banishment or worse to be given in a few turns
Option 2: infiltrator free, identity revealed.
Option 3: infiltrator free, identity not revealed, proceed:
Step 1: Look at the nobles present in said region
Step 2: Sort nobles according to which realms they belong to
Step 3: Look up the family histories of nobles, starting by those without units and those of enemy realms and moving down the list towards the less likely. Say "bingo" every time you spot "banned by blablabla for being a lowly saboteur"
I don't "keep a list" of infiltrators. I don't recall the last time an infiltrator action was done in a region with more than 6 nobles without his identity being revealed automatically. Looking up the family histories really doesn't take any time at all.
Besides, what's plausible deniability good for anyways? Infiltrator actions don't increase skill when working in friendly regions, so you have to work in enemy lands. Infiltrator or not, you will be treated as an enemy there regardless. And if you aren't in enemy lands, and you are trying to cause a scandal? I've personally had my characters targetted by realm-mates and allies on various occasions. I never made a fuss about it unless it was my intent to do so anyways. A rogue infil isn't worth making diplomacy on. In reality, the plausibility is more a weapon of the attacked than the attacker: it gives one a lot of range to falsely accuse people he wants to frame. After all, usually the infils don't go around shouting "Hey, no, I was the one who attacked you!"
The whole "plausible deniability" shenenigans is really pointless.
Or you know, you be smart about your assassination and do one of these:
option 1: wait until right before turn change and leave the region
option 2: only assassinate nobles after large battles to keep them from fleeing with their units, allowing your army to stay and massacre them
option 3: carry a scroll of teleport or 12.
Are you all yapping about infiltrators again? Think your in the wrong thread *coughs*
Note* Best to be a infiltrator who is sponsored by your realm and do activities to benefit it, at least till that day arrives and you smote some noble who annoyed you. Eh if you get revealed just escape, if you have enough skill it appears to you ever so often, however, until then it's a roll of the dice. Plus stabbing nobles if ever so fun.