Guard Changes!

Dhar

ANNOUNCE NEWS #2100

Date: 2/27/2013 at 2:20

From: Razmael, the Synthesist

To  : Everyone

Subj: Guard changes

I have made several changes to the way maximum guards are determined,

with the aim of fixing a gross disparity between cities in regards to

how many guards they can hire vs how many rooms they need to protect.

Maximum guards are now based on accessible rooms. This means any room

you can walk to, from the city barracks, without encountering a door.

This change is going to result in most cities having to cut some guards,

as you can no longer block off portions of your city and still have them

count towards your guard total.

With this change, we also introducing a new mechanic for guards: Guard

complacency. A summary of this new mechanic and all the changes are as

follows:

* When guards are attacked and killed, every other guard in the city

grows less complacent.

* Decreased complacency confers:

  - Increased damage done.

  - Decreased damage taken.

  - Bigger response radius.

* Guards at 100% complacency are the same strength as they are now.

* A guard death will decrease the city's complacency by 2%.

* Complacency will increase at a rate of 5% per Howling.

* Maximum guards are now based on accessible rooms.

  - If you are over your guard limit, guard complacency will

    be 200%.

  - A room is counted as accessible if there is a path from

    the barracks to that room, with no doors in the way.

* Security can check CITY INACCESSIBLE to see where the city is

considered inacessible.

* GUARDS RETURN no-attack time has been lowered to 1 minute.

  - It will now increase complacency by 5%.

* Security minister and its aides can now add doors to the entrance of

houses and buildings.

  - CITY PLACE DOOR <direction>

  - Costs the ministry 10,000 gold.

* Security minister (but not aides) can now dismiss guards.

  - CITY CONSCRIPT DISMISS <guard>

City complacency will be locked at 0% for the next few days, to give all

the cities time to adjust to the new situation.

 

Penned by my hand on the 11th of Lanosian, in the year 384 MA.

----------

Let us know what you think/ask questions/become concerned within reason here.

Daskalos

Did I do that? *Steve Urkel*

Daskalos

How are guildhalls counted towards this, since they require special entrances?

Dhar

At this moment, anything you can't normally walk to is not counted in the total of allotted guards. So, guildhalls with special entrances are not counted.

Daskalos

Hrm. Ok. Noticed most of ours are in shop stockrooms, not many rooms otherwise unoccupied.

Daskalos

Do neighborhoods that can be openly pathed to count towards the total?

Dhar

No, thus the ability for cities to finally raise doors to blockade such places.

Daskalos

Can you make them count? Enorian, in particular, has lots of areas that are regularly used and hung out in that were added by players as 'additions' to the city - the Yaslan's Gardens, Sahmie's Lighthouse (which had a quest in it last I checked), et cetera.

Dhar

Unfortunately, for now, they won't count.

Daskalos

But it's open for discussion to change at a later date?

Azrael

Woo wee, talk about making it easier to raid and grief others. Well done.

Daskalos

Conflict, yay!

Arbre

The Yaslana Gardens is part of a house - that's why they added the ability to make your own doors there.

Dhar

Azrael said:

Woo wee, talk about making it easier to raid and grief others. Well done.

That certainly wasn't our intent. Think of it this way; cities with large disparities because of door blockage will now be able to open up and become more defensible because of it. Highmage class guards have a chance to stop raiders who go incorporeal. Aggravated guards leads to a bigger response radius among other buffs, and with the changes to allow cities to block off annoying 'neighborhoods' raiding spots, we expect maintained and solo raiding overall to become significantly more difficult.

Lin

Azrael said:

Woo wee, talk about making it easier to raid and grief others. Well done.

Except that it should be doing the exact opposite, if I understand this system correctly.

Say Daskalos kills three guards in the corner of Bloodloch, decreasing the city's complacency by a total of 6% (2% per kill). The guards begin to do more damage and it's taking him longer to kill them. And of course, more and more are being alerted, because suddenly they're able to respond to further rooms. Mind you, guards were also changed to occasionally try to eye sigil him out of lightform.

As opposed to the previous system, in which Daskalos can simply kill guards all he pleases as long as he's careful, there will eventually come a point where he cannot, statistically, handle what he's fighting.

Daskalos

I wonder how much it would cost to get an artifact so guards I kill don't affect complacency. <.< 

Damonicus

What about cities killing off their own guards to make sure they are at a low level. I am sure that will exploited quite soon, so might as well nip it in the bud right now.

Lin

That's really horrid roleplay. I would hope that the Minister of Security is appropriately recognizing such an act as grand treason against the city.

Dhar

Damonicus said:

What about cities killing off their own guards to make sure they are at a low level. I am sure that will exploited quite soon, so might as well nip it in the bud right now.

I'd hope players weren't willing to sink that low to try and exploit mechanics. If they do, they can expect some pretty serious consequences.

Macavity

@dhar, if I am understanding this system correctly, if there is a door between whatever section of the city and the barracks is a good thing....so what about a door at the barracks itself, like Bloodloch has.  Would that not just bypass the need to put doors anywhere else?  Thus undermining this change?

Ilyon

Well. If I close that door, I get this:

Maximum guards: 1.

Not a good idea!

Macavity

Ilyon said:

Well. If I close that door, I get this:

Maximum guards: 1.

Not a good idea!

oh ok, thanks....just trying to understand the system!  heh

Calipso

You know a mechanic is broken and abused when admin intervention is needed to change the system.

Yes this is directed at you @Daskalos.

Ezrax

@daskalos WE HATE YOU.

Dhar

I'd hate to be the one to deflate @Daskalos' ego, but these things don't happen overnight and we've been planning to deal with the guard disparity for quite some time. One of the biggest issues was how silly it was forcing players to block off entire sections of their cities for the sake of security. I'm sure there will be plenty of tweaks to it down the road when complacency finally fires up.

Also, if you didn't check the changelog in-game, @Razmael boosted the allowed guards:room ratio.

Xavin

Really, a change of this nature has been needed for a long time. Bloodloch in particular has almost -always- had the ability to cut off large portions of their city from use to scrimp on guarding them. Thus they were able to have a much beefier guard layout in the areas that actually matter. Combine that with the choke-point heavy layout of the city and you have a recipe for a very easy to defend area.

As I see it, areas like the prisons in Bloodloch that have traditionally been locked up (for the last 5 years, at least) now no longer contribute to guard totals. This is a good thing. I would imagine the same could be said of places in the other cities: the museum in Enorian, etc.

Daskalos

For the record, I did a count about a week ago on the raidability of each city. Spinesreach had to defend 309 rooms, Enorian 303, Duiran 261, and Loch only 215. So I love this change. The guard density in Loch was far above what any other city could pull off.

Also, the museum was only 8 rooms. Enorian is, for the most part, open.

Also, @Calipso, I didn't abuse any mechanics, I simply used the skills in front of me. Sort of like you using direcall all the freakin' time and yanking people all over the place.  Obviously, the administration didn't like the idea of a one-man raid, so they changed it, but I'll be the first to point out that I count for two people in most bashing situations. Either way, I like the change.

Macavity

Just so I understand this change....the more open a city is the more guards you get??  Or is the object to close off sections of the city so to use guard totals to protect what is open?!?

Dhar

That's correct. For each accessible room, your city is allowed to deploy more guards.

edit: While I can't really tell you guys how to plan your defenses, right now the ratio is 1.4 guards:room, so in general having more accessible defendable rooms could be seen as better in addition to the complacency changes which adjust guard response radius.

Rivas

Dhar said:

I'd hate to be the one to deflate @Daskalos' ego...

Oh well that's just not true. EVERYONE loves doing that.

Angwe

Just try not to get burned by all the hot air rushing out