Make Syssin RP more robust

edited September 2021 in Idea Box
I know, I know. The Syssin are everyone's favorite guild to hate. Let's talk about why that is.

Espionage is a time-honored tradition throughout the ages, with an incredibly valuable and valid purpose: they who know, can make preparations. Those preparations, of course, come as nasty surprises to those who come against them.

The Syssin are spies. Yes, they are also watchdogs against Ohlsana, but they are indisputably designed mechanically and in lore to be covert operators at their core. And that- RP and gameplay alike- is utterly hamstrung by things like APIs. With systems automated to spit out someone's guild, even the youngest Syssin with zero reason to be known as such is treated with suspicion and avoidance.

That's metagaming, folks.

I've run into it overtly- people greeting me as a Syssin when I'm in Archivist, a shimmering orb, no indications of guild or class- and less overtly. When you know someone is a spy, you're going to be far, far more closelipped as a player because you don't want your character to be the one who gave something away.. even if your character has absolutely no reason for that suspicion.

To make matters worse, our espionage abilities have been nerfed into the ground by unblockable and prolific defenses against phase and eavesdropping. When an entire guild's RP and gameplay abilities can be utterly derailed by a novice quick-wielding an eye sigil or one single person in a city with a bracer, there's a problem.

I know this is going to be unpopular. No one likes being spied on.

But let's be realistic.. with the ability to inline a command to run into the room, quickwield and throw an eye, and begin attacking while they're off balance? There's *nothing out there that can stop it from happening, and that's just plain unrealistic*. These are highly trained, Severn-shaped operators, and they should be able to see someone pulling an eye from their belt and evade away with the same speed that someone can inline doing so.

Since eye sigils, inline commands, bracers, and APIs aren't going anywhere, let's talk about ways we can make Syssin RP more robust for both the guild and individual Syssin as a whole.

Some suggestions to discuss:


1) Let's get this one out of the way, since it's the one that's going to piss people off the most. Sanctioned Syssin should have a way to avoid being pulled from phase. Phase Anchor. Give it a painfully high drain like Phaseveil to will/endurance and mana, so that it's impossible to have it up as a standard defense. But a skilled operator will be able to assess the riskiest moments if they are staying properly alert, and put it up for short periods.

2) Slightly less controversial, but.. historically, espionage has collected as much or more information from newspapers than from individual conversations. Make a newsroom in each city that gives anyone standing in it permission to see the city's public posts.. even make it so you need to be unphased to NSTAT them. But make them accessible. And this can be harnessed by -anyone-, not just Syssin.

3) Make something like nacreous windchimes a researchable ylem upgrade- that the city entrances will have a phase chime. It wouldn't give information on who it was, and someone would still need to be there to see it, but it's a realistic extra layer of defense that will force Syssin spies to be more cautious (which they should be) and give cities an additional resource.

4) Make a skill that cloaks you from bracer detection while in phase. Make it only last for a few seconds and give it a crazy cooldown, so that it can't just be used to hop in and out of an area willy nilly. Once per several hours, or even once per day. Sell artis that reduce the cooldown.

5) Be more diligent as players about separating what you from what your character knows. If your character has no reason to move a public conversation away from a Syssin they don't IC know is a Syssin, don't do it. If your character hasn't learned IC that someone is a Syssin, try not to be more close-lipped than you would have been if they were not. In short, metagaming kills RP. Try to be more consciencious?
The Divine voice of Ictinus, the Architect echoes in your head, "I think you are cursed."
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Comments

  • edited September 2021
    Lenoriel said:

    4) Make a skill that cloaks you from bracer detection while in phase. Make it only last for a few seconds and give it a crazy cooldown, so that it can't just be used to hop in and out of an area willy nilly. Once per several hours, or even once per day. Sell artis that reduce the cooldown.

    Bracers should just flat out not work on people in phase. It's too good a counter to casual espionage. There's no way to get into somewhere sensitive except... wait until everyone's asleep, which is just a poor thing to incentivize.
    Lenoriel said:

    1) Let's get this one out of the way, since it's the one that's going to piss people off the most. Sanctioned Syssin should have a way to avoid being pulled from phase. Phase Anchor. Give it a painfully high drain like Phaseveil to will/endurance and mana, so that it's impossible to have it up as a standard defense. But a skilled operator will be able to assess the riskiest moments if they are staying properly alert, and put it up for short periods.

    I think anti-phase actions need rebalancing across the board. Some sort of channel/windup, a limit on how many targets can be pulled from phase per-action, and/or a chance of failure per-phased-person should be standard. Right now, all anti-phase just pulls EVERYONE in the room out of phase INSTANTLY. It's a great big "no phase" button, which means you can never really rely on phase.

    Just to throw out some ideas:
    * Eye sigil: Must now READY EYE while wielded. While readied, you can be seen in room to be wielding the eye sigil, ready to throw it. They may be thrown readily, once ready. Eye sigils now hit only one phase person. If that phased person abducted or was abducted, the person who they abducted or who abducted them is yanked by the same eye sigil throw. Additionally, you may READY EYE TO THROW, which will throw your eye if any phase detection (i.e. that little orb, failed Truth, that one glyph, Bell tattoo) detect phased movement. It will hit the person who moved (and not anyone who was already in the room) or a random person (for Bell tattoo).
    * Truth: Is now a channeled action with periodic ticks. While ticking, you can be seen in the room to be chanting or whatever. Each tick is a 25-50% chance to pull a person in the room from phase. A failure warns the whole room that someone is in phase here. If that phased person abducted or was abducted, this raises to a 100% chance.
    * That little orb: Must now rest on the floor of the room. Dropping it still uses one of its charges, however it also operates as a constant warning of phased movement while it is down, pulsing menacingly when someone enters the room phased. If someone is abducted in the room, they are instantly pulled back out of phase, using another of its charges.
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  • Absolutely agreed to all of that- I was trying err heavily on the side of 'very reasonable' to begin the discussion cordially, but yes. Agreed to all of it.
    The Divine voice of Ictinus, the Architect echoes in your head, "I think you are cursed."
  • Seurimas said:

    Lenoriel said:

    4) Make a skill that cloaks you from bracer detection while in phase. Make it only last for a few seconds and give it a crazy cooldown, so that it can't just be used to hop in and out of an area willy nilly. Once per several hours, or even once per day. Sell artis that reduce the cooldown.

    Bracers should just flat out not work on people in phase. It's too good a counter to casual espionage. There's no way to get into somewhere sensitive except... wait until everyone's asleep, which is just a poor thing to incentivize.
    Not comfortable with a Phase buff being sold under the guise of 'helping espionage RP'.
    TetchtaSryaenXavinReaveRhine
  • TetchtaTetchta The Innocent
    edited September 2021
    So! There's a lot going on in this OP, so I think the best way to tackle this is linearly.
    Lenoriel said:

    And that- RP and gameplay alike- is utterly hamstrung by things like APIs. With systems automated to spit out someone's guild, even the youngest Syssin with zero reason to be known as such is treated with suspicion and avoidance.

    That's metagaming, folks.

    I pretty much unambiguously agree with this. There are some things that give Syssin away aside from the API that are arguably not metagaming (anything that shows up in your Honors, I believe, is considered "publically available IC information", so if you see some random Spirean running around without a title, kinda gives the game away), but the API definitely gives a lot of unfair information out that you can't get any other way. Should people ignore it? Absolutely. I think it's probably expecting too much of people to have them ignore it, however, and even if they try, meta knowledge can seep into how you RP even if you try to avoid it (and by trying to avoid it, that itself can impact how you RP). Overall I think the guild field in particular should be deleted from the API.
    Lenoriel said:

    When an entire guild's RP and gameplay abilities can be utterly derailed by a novice quick-wielding an eye sigil or one single person in a city with a bracer, there's a problem. ...

    1) Let's get this one out of the way, since it's the one that's going to piss people off the most. Sanctioned Syssin should have a way to avoid being pulled from phase. Phase Anchor. Give it a painfully high drain like Phaseveil to will/endurance and mana, so that it's impossible to have it up as a standard defense. But a skilled operator will be able to assess the riskiest moments if they are staying properly alert, and put it up for short periods.

    This assessment of phase seems way off to me. Phase is one of the most powerful spying abilities in the game. It's essentially uncounterable. A "novice with a bracer" is going to have no idea where a phased person is, even if they know enough to have every Spirean enemied somehow. Even without an artifact investement, it's nearly impossible to get caught while phased if you're even remotely trying. WITH an artifact investment, you will literally never get caught. And if "a novice with a bracer" manages to pin down your location (Guilded/Sanctioned Syssin already have a counter to phasesense, mind you) and throw an eye sigil, I kinda feel like getting caught off-bal is a decent punishment.
    Lenoriel said:


    2) Slightly less controversial, but.. historically, espionage has collected as much or more information from newspapers than from individual conversations. Make a newsroom in each city that gives anyone standing in it permission to see the city's public posts.. even make it so you need to be unphased to NSTAT them. But make them accessible. And this can be harnessed by -anyone-, not just Syssin.

    I don't know how I feel about this idea. Kinda neat. But also I think it should be plausible that a Syssin should put some RP work into making contacts in an enemy city so that they find out news organically. This one's def up for debate.
    Lenoriel said:

    4) Make a skill that cloaks you from bracer detection while in phase. Make it only last for a few seconds and give it a crazy cooldown, so that it can't just be used to hop in and out of an area willy nilly. Once per several hours, or even once per day. Sell artis that reduce the cooldown.

    Not a bad idea, honestly. 5 seconds of not pinging bracer one per IRL day or maybe on a really long cooldown is pretty neat.
    Lenoriel said:

    5) Be more diligent as players about separating what you from what your character knows. If your character has no reason to move a public conversation away from a Syssin they don't IC know is a Syssin, don't do it. If your character hasn't learned IC that someone is a Syssin, try not to be more close-lipped than you would have been if they were not. In short, metagaming kills RP. Try to be more consciencious?

    Honestly I still think the "guild" field should be taken out of the API. Also do I get to make the joke about the Syssin discord server being a major haven of OOC metagaming, and that Metagaming has been a part of the guild culture for years? 'cause while I know that while this is a good faith post with good ideas, the complaints about metagaming do feel a little "stones flying in glass houses"y to me.

    SryaenIazamat
  • Iesid said:

    Seurimas said:

    Lenoriel said:

    4) Make a skill that cloaks you from bracer detection while in phase. Make it only last for a few seconds and give it a crazy cooldown, so that it can't just be used to hop in and out of an area willy nilly. Once per several hours, or even once per day. Sell artis that reduce the cooldown.

    Bracers should just flat out not work on people in phase. It's too good a counter to casual espionage. There's no way to get into somewhere sensitive except... wait until everyone's asleep, which is just a poor thing to incentivize.
    Not comfortable with a Phase buff being sold under the guise of 'helping espionage RP'.
    Phase needs buffing for many reasons. More importantly, bracers need nerfing. Maybe make anti-phase bracer detection a togglable defense with a mana/willpower/whatever drain to keep it viable for combat situations.
    Didi has expressed her esteem of you for the following reason: Smart organized leader.
    Experience Gained: 47720 (Special) [total: 2933660]
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  • TetchtaTetchta The Innocent
    Can someone ELI5 why bracer is such a big deal? 'cause I'm not seeing it.

  • Tetchta said:

    Can someone ELI5 why bracer is such a big deal? 'cause I'm not seeing it.

    If you're a Syssin of any note, someone has you enemied. If that someone has you enemied and is in a city, they are immediately alerted when you enter the area. Even if they are a novice with a bracer, they can just ask in web/clan/city tells who came into the city. If the answer is no one, people will search for people in phase. One allied Syssin can find an enemy Syssin pretty easily, even with phaseveil. There is also an ability in Spirituality that lets them detect through phase (not blockable with phaseveil), I believe.
    Didi has expressed her esteem of you for the following reason: Smart organized leader.
    Experience Gained: 47720 (Special) [total: 2933660]
    Needed for LVL: 122.00775356245
    Sryaen
  • TetchtaTetchta The Innocent
    edited September 2021
    Seurimas said:

    If you're a Syssin of any note, someone has you enemied. If that someone has you enemied and is in a city, they are immediately alerted when you enter the area. Even if they are a novice with a bracer, they can just ask in web/clan/city tells who came into the city. If the answer is no one, people will search for people in phase.

    Ah okay, so it's what I was thinking it was. It doesn't seem like that much of a hurdle for me, but I do think a skill that lets people temporarily slip past bracer detection would be a decent addition that would probably change very little about PK balance. It seems possible to counter this in other ways, but I get the complaint. It should definitely be painfully expensive in some way if it were to exist. THIS however:
    Seurimas said:

    There is also an ability in Spirituality that lets them detect through phase (not blockable with phaseveil), I believe.

    If this is true, this is some BS and should be deleted immediately if it's the case. That's dumb af. Why even have phaseveil then? LOL


  • edited September 2021
    Tetchta said:


    This assessment of phase seems way off to me. Phase is one of the most powerful spying abilities in the game. It's essentially uncounterable. A "novice with a bracer" is going to have no idea where a phased person is, even if they know enough to have every Spirean enemied somehow. Even without an artifact investement, it's nearly impossible to get caught while phased if you're even remotely trying. WITH an artifact investment, you will literally never get caught. And if "a novice with a bracer" manages to pin down your location (Guilded/Sanctioned Syssin already have a counter to phasesense, mind you) and throw an eye sigil, I kinda feel like getting caught off-bal is a decent punishment.


    'You will literally never get caught' is way off base. Again, when a major event is going on in a room with only one or two exits, and someone can just inline a command to jump out randomly and eye sigil.. with no way to avoid it.. it effectively hobbles the ability to even spyglass what's happening for any length of time. And this isn't a combat thing. It's the entire purpose of this guild. This isn't a matter of being alert and clever- even evasion reflexes triggered to eye sigils aren't fast enough to stop the inroom->quickwield->throw at ground inline command. It's unblockable, and reduces espionage from skill to simple crossed fingers that someone who does it will be too caught up to do it. Having ways to prevent this makes absolute IC sense, and should be doable without borking combat balances. Maybe something about aura speeding up the readying of the eye sigil or something.
    The Divine voice of Ictinus, the Architect echoes in your head, "I think you are cursed."
  • Lenoriel said:


    entire purpose of this guild.

    If the entire purpose of your guild is to idle in phase collecting information instead of genuinely interacting with the world, your guild needs a better purpose. This isn't a fault of your class skills or class flavor - in terms of class fantasy fulfillment, Syssin is probably the very best class in the game. You have more RP tools than most other classes.

    The fault isn't the tools to fulfill your purpose - the fault is in the purpose itself. 'The spy guild' is a really one-dimensional concept.
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  • SibattiSibatti Mamba dur Naya Amidst vibrant flora and trees
    I haven't thought this through fully, but I feel like there's a creative solution somewhere involving adjacent rooms, because I'm a big fan of moving away from "everything has to happen in the same room" gameplay. I think a player should be able to protect the room that they're in fairly easily (eye sigil, or whatever), since they would be realistically keeping an eye on their surroundings. Adjacent rooms, though? A bit harder to keep an eye on.

    Again, just going off the cuff here / still working through my first cup of coffee, but what if Syssin could manipulate local/short-range wormhole magic for more short-distance spying abilities? Not long-distance aka safe, not in-room aka where everyone is in high alert.

    Lenoriel sets up a hasty, temporary wormhole that allows her to tune into something happening a few rooms away (for added challenge, maybe she has to 'direct' the wormhole to the room she's trying to listen in on via some setup mechanic). She can monitor it in phase and optionally, maybe have to keep attuning it to its source to keep up a reliable feed of information.
    LenorielReaveXeniaTeaniTaiyang
  • Eliadon said:

    No, because someone will go overboard and abuse it.

    Phase is already strong enough and if you hold still long enough for someone to phasesense you and eye it's your own fault.

    Phase isn't just used for spying, it's used for walking into an enemy city and getting all the defenders trying to chase you for three hours. :(

    Phase is already strong enough and if you hold still long enough for someone to phasesense you and eye it's your own fault.

    I've never been caught with phasesense. But I have been caught over and over by random jumping into the room and quickwield/throw eye literally so fast that even triggers set for evasion can't fire. That's not 'strong enough'. It's literally just one single step up from the hiding defense, in that someone can't glance in and see you even with goggles. But in practice, it's far from this powerful, infallible thing people seem to think it is, and countering it is child's play with system mechanics.
    The Divine voice of Ictinus, the Architect echoes in your head, "I think you are cursed."
    Seurimas
  • I would be curious if this supposed skill that Luminaries have to seek phased syssin is angel seek or angel presences. Because as far as I can tell, angel seek is identical to the antiquated goggle artifact seek which has all the usual exceptions - phase, hood, plane, etc. Angel presences definitely is effected by hood so if presences is finding people in phase, that's likely a bug.

  • Yeah, phasesense has a message when you get sensed. I have gotten phasesensed less than 5 times in my entire career. I can't say I understand how and why the things Lenoriel describe happen with such regularity and frequency, but that's generally how you get caught.
    Didi has expressed her esteem of you for the following reason: Smart organized leader.
    Experience Gained: 47720 (Special) [total: 2933660]
    Needed for LVL: 122.00775356245
  • TetchtaTetchta The Innocent
    edited September 2021
    Lenoriel said:

    'You will literally never get caught' is way off base.

    I suppose I should clarify: under almost all circmustances, if you're careful, getting caught while spying phased is something that is very unlikely to happen. Its' a very strong skill with very few ways to detect. If someone's on high alert and does "w;;qw eye;;throw eye", yeah, that's going to be hard to counter against. But the alternative to me seems like making phase-spying utterly unstoppable under all conditions and circumstances.
    Lenoriel said:

    'And this isn't a combat thing. It's the entire purpose of this guild.

    So while I generally agree that eye sigil quickwielding is essentially impossible to run from, and maybe that's worth taking a look at, it also seems that a lot of things are being left unexamined. Does this have to be the guild RP? 'cause you're going to invite paranoia and scrutiny when your entire guild is "We're the CIA and the NSA." I'm a little skeptical that the solution to this is "make tapping phones in Aetolia unstoppable." There's lots of ways to do information gathering (like you said above!), and I think you're going to have a hard time convincing people that phase should be stronger because spying on important events is impossible if any of the people in that room has two brain cells to rub together.

    From an RP/counter perspective, I see the argument for having .45 seconds to react to eye sigil, but what I also hate about that is that it's literally one regex trigger away from making phase literally have a 100% success rate as opposed to its present 95% success rate. I think there's some legwork that needs to be done (that's hasn't been done) to prove that phased, guilded syssin need/deserve to have more invisible access to events here before we accept that phase needs a buff.

  • Xavin said:

    I would be curious if this supposed skill that Luminaries have to seek phased syssin is angel seek or angel presences. Because as far as I can tell, angel seek is identical to the antiquated goggle artifact seek which has all the usual exceptions - phase, hood, plane, etc. Angel presences definitely is effected by hood so if presences is finding people in phase, that's likely a bug.

    Angel Trace? I seem to recall it being used during Orrery once, while I was trying to hassle you guys.
    Didi has expressed her esteem of you for the following reason: Smart organized leader.
    Experience Gained: 47720 (Special) [total: 2933660]
    Needed for LVL: 122.00775356245
  • I mean, that's absolutely fair. 'The entire purpose' was hyperbolic to the extreme. But it is an important aspect of it, and the ability of people to counter what should in theory be a spy's trump card through system mechanics should at least be looked it. I think that the numerous ideas I mentioned in the OP cover more than just 'BUFF PHASE TO GODHOOD', though.
    The Divine voice of Ictinus, the Architect echoes in your head, "I think you are cursed."
  • Seurimas said:

    Xavin said:

    I would be curious if this supposed skill that Luminaries have to seek phased syssin is angel seek or angel presences. Because as far as I can tell, angel seek is identical to the antiquated goggle artifact seek which has all the usual exceptions - phase, hood, plane, etc. Angel presences definitely is effected by hood so if presences is finding people in phase, that's likely a bug.

    Angel Trace? I seem to recall it being used during Orrery once, while I was trying to hassle you guys.
    I just tested it and it cannot target someone in phase.

  • Lenoriel said:

    the ability of people to counter what should in theory be a spy's trump card through system mechanics should at least be looked it.

    I did not mean to distract from your other, very good more RP-focused suggestions by focusing on phase. However, the balance of phase has been a sore point for a while for me and many Syssin. I love phase, but it's such a disappointing experience when people can (and do, very often) just w;;qw eye;;throw eye right into your room. There's no counter to the counter. There's just luck and hope and not bothering.
    Didi has expressed her esteem of you for the following reason: Smart organized leader.
    Experience Gained: 47720 (Special) [total: 2933660]
    Needed for LVL: 122.00775356245
    Lenoriel
  • edited September 2021
    Seurimas said:

    Tetchta said:

    Can someone ELI5 why bracer is such a big deal? 'cause I'm not seeing it.

    If you're a Syssin of any note, someone has you enemied. If that someone has you enemied and is in a city, they are immediately alerted when you enter the area. Even if they are a novice with a bracer, they can just ask in web/clan/city tells who came into the city. If the answer is no one, people will search for people in phase. One allied Syssin can find an enemy Syssin pretty easily, even with phaseveil. There is also an ability in Spirituality that lets them detect through phase (not blockable with phaseveil), I believe.
    I think that regardless of your guild or class, if you do something to wind up on someone's enemy list, that's really a product of your own actions. I can only speak for myself in that about 9/10 when the alarm goes out that there's an enemy phased in the city, I'm not in Syssin so I can't check. Also, bold of you to assume we have enough active, allied Syssin on Spirit for this to even be a thing.

    In regards to the Spirituality skill, I have never heard of such a skill existing where it tells you the name of the person who's phased on you. But if you're referencing it just showing there's somebody phased there, I'd also like to point out that's essentially a class bell tattoo and the Carnifex/Wardens have it as well, not to mention having hounds/simuls who can pull people from phase (that also doesn't have a 1p message for when you get pulled out, afaik. Unless they fixed that)

    I do like the idea of these ylem wind chimes, but not a fan of having it operate only if someone is in the room. We already have enough problems with people going AFK as is, so what's to stop someone from sitting AFK on a chime and just web or clan reporting any phased Syssin who walk by? That doesn't really solve the problem here, and would make it more difficult if you think about it.

    One of my biggest gripes with the Syssin guild is that they're so easily identifiable. No title, wearing scalemail, probably walking around with dirk or whip wielded. Or even if they have none of that, most lowbie Syssin don't have orbs of concealment so all it takes is a quick APPRAISE and bingo, you figured out their class. My second biggest gripe is how much eavesdrop/listen has been utterly nerfed into the ground over the recent years. Any successful Syssin will pretty much need to dump 400cr to get the spyglass arti, otherwise you're pretty much guaranteed to get caught by anyone with a bell tattoo.

    I'm in agreement with Iesid - not a fan of mechanically buffing ANY class under the guise of 'but it'll make our RP better'. Phasing and abducting people in combat is a tactical decision and oftentimes it doesn't work, but when it does it can drastically change the outcome of a battle - same with any other CC skill. The reasoning that Syssin should be able to be MORE undetectable in phase because they're 'elite operators' is such a silly argument. Yeah, I get that your RP is tied to Severn and you're literally an assassin-style guild, but I wouldn't say that right out of the gate that makes any newb with access to a 900cr to trans 3 guild skills or a pill of omnipotence an 'elite operator'. If you spend a fair bit of time refining that arc, sure. But you could also argue that any Knight class should be able to Double Parry again because our RP dictates mastery over a broad spectrum of weapon types.


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  • edited September 2021
    Xavin said:

    I just tested it and it cannot target someone in phase.

    I'll have to dig through my logs and try to guess what was happening, then. What I do remember was walking in Scidve in phase and getting sneezes in time with each movement of mine. There is also no shortage of instances where I get eye-sigiled immediately on entering a room, with no obvious glyph or detection up. Angel watch, maybe?

    I think that regardless of your guild or class, if you do something to wind up on someone's enemy list, that's really a product of your own actions.


    Enemying someone is free, easy, and done to anyone who regularly shows up at Lessers. Sure, that's my own choice to participate, but the cost of that participation should not be a bell around my neck, even in phase.
    Didi has expressed her esteem of you for the following reason: Smart organized leader.
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  • TetchtaTetchta The Innocent
    Ugh, so, like, I wanna be sympathetic to this "bracer makes it hard" thing, like, a lot, but I'm not 100% convinced the answer to it is "I should be able to enter an area phased and immediately have unstoppable access to all important conversations." I can get behind a skill that counters bracer a bit (again, super costly, huge cooldown. Like def once a day type stuff), but a lot of this comes across as "I don't want to think creatively or critically about how to do information gathering in game." That may not be the intention, but some of this seems both reductive to what Syssin guild RP can be, but also what spying as a craft is as a whole.

  • Seurimas said:

    Xavin said:

    I just tested it and it cannot target someone in phase.

    I'll have to dig through my logs and try to guess what was happening, then. What I do remember was walking in Scidve in phase and getting sneezes in time with each movement of mine. There is also no shortage of instances where I get eye-sigiled immediately on entering a room, with no obvious glyph or detection up. Angel watch, maybe?

    I think that regardless of your guild or class, if you do something to wind up on someone's enemy list, that's really a product of your own actions.


    Enemying someone is free, easy, and done to anyone who regularly shows up at Lessers. Sure, that's my own choice to participate, but the cost of that participation should not be a bell around my neck, even in phase.
    I'm sort of confused here as to who's feeding y'all the information that we're basically handing out 4 bars of ilmenite to every novice who comes through the academy, because it's taken me MONTHS to even scrape together 2 pieces of that relic. And if enemying is a problem, I guess that's really on you to weigh the decision of whether or not it's more worth it to your RP to go to a lesser or not. Bracer already doesn't ping if you have your enemylist off, so I'm sort of on the fence about having it take a resource drain to upkeep because that's like.. literally the whole point of having the relic. It's not easy to gather and on the low end, it'll cost you 350-400cr minimum.


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  • edited September 2021
    Sryaen said:



    I do like the idea of these ylem wind chimes, but not a fan of having it operate only if someone is in the room. We already have enough problems with people going AFK as is, so what's to stop someone from sitting AFK on a chime and just web or clan reporting any phased Syssin who walk by? That doesn't really solve the problem here, and would make it more difficult if you think about it.

    One of my biggest gripes with the Syssin guild is that they're so easily identifiable. No title, wearing scalemail, probably walking around with dirk or whip wielded. Or even if they have none of that, most lowbie Syssin don't have orbs of concealment so all it takes is a quick APPRAISE and bingo, you figured out their class. My second biggest gripe is how much eavesdrop/listen has been utterly nerfed into the ground over the recent years. Any successful Syssin will pretty much need to dump 400cr to get the spyglass arti, otherwise you're pretty much guaranteed to get caught by anyone with a bell tattoo.

    I'm in agreement with Iesid - not a fan of mechanically buffing ANY class under the guide of 'but it'll make our RP better'. Phasing and abducting people in combat is a tactical decision and oftentimes it doesn't work, but when it does it can drastically change the outcome of a battle - same with any other CC skill. The reasoning that Syssin should be able to be MORE undetectable in phase because they're 'elite operators' is such a silly argument. Yeah, I get that your RP is tied to Severn and you're literally an assassin-style guild, but I wouldn't say that right out of the gate that makes any newb with access to a 900cr to trans 3 guild skills or a pill of omnipotence makes them an 'elite operator'. If you spend a fair bit of time refining that arc, sure. But you could also argue that any Knight class should be able to Double Parry again because our RP dictates mastery over a broad spectrum of weapon types.

    First of all, thank you for your thoughtful answer. As for the chimes making things harder for Syssin- well, yes. That was the idea. I want to make things more -interesting- than just a war against phase and eye sigils. Having to stop and check an entrance for a watcher should be standard anyway- it makes sense for it to be. Encourage alternate sources of entry, like sneakily planting wormholes in remote areas for avoidance.

    I personally really like the news room idea lots, and it's hardly been touched here- that, too, invites avenues of RP to get invited there to read. And it's -any- org.

    I also agree with all of your gripes, and also in general agreement about not making things super easy. I just want to add layers of complexity that reward both RP and skill.

    Like the super high-drain phase anchor. Like phaseveil, that drain will keep most people from using it until it's too late, or if they're paying close and careful attention to the scene they're watching. Or Seurimas's idea about limits on eye sigils pulling every single person instantly.

    I don't want to make the Syssin overpowered or just pigeonholed spyglass-spiers. I want things to be complex and interesting. Infiltration should be a puzzle to solve, not a 'sit in phase and hope no one inlines eye sigils'. It should reward cleverness, and the kinds of skills that make them better at their other purpose: guarding against the Shadowbound.
    The Divine voice of Ictinus, the Architect echoes in your head, "I think you are cursed."
    Seurimas
  • EliadonEliadon Somewhere Over the Rainbow
    edited September 2021
    Lenoriel said:

    Eliadon said:

    No, because someone will go overboard and abuse it.

    Phase is already strong enough and if you hold still long enough for someone to phasesense you and eye it's your own fault.

    Phase isn't just used for spying, it's used for walking into an enemy city and getting all the defenders trying to chase you for three hours. :(

    Phase is already strong enough and if you hold still long enough for someone to phasesense you and eye it's your own fault.

    I've never been caught with phasesense. But I have been caught over and over by random jumping into the room and quickwield/throw eye literally so fast that even triggers set for evasion can't fire. That's not 'strong enough'. It's literally just one single step up from the hiding defense, in that someone can't glance in and see you even with goggles. But in practice, it's far from this powerful, infallible thing people seem to think it is, and countering it is child's play with system mechanics.
    Usage:
    ENCHANT FOR EYE
    ENCHANT CREATE

    To use:
    THROW EYE AT GROUND

    Type:
    Created item.

    Comms:
    1 obsidian

    When thrown at the ground, the eye sigil will be consumed and will bring incorporeal beings back
    into the corporeal world.



    Eye sigils add up in price if people are doing it every room. You've already accomplished a goal of wasting enemy resources =)

    edit: Unless they're also phased, in which case 'welp, that sucks.'
  • edited September 2021
    Is this a confirmation bias, maybe? I've had Syssin across every character I've played earnestly and primarily Syssin on one character, and outside of growing pains I'm only assuming I had because I don't remember, the only time I've ever been caught spying, like revealed, was when I saw Lin manually wield an eye sigil and I was so shocked that someone actually bell tattooed for a scene happening in public that I just gave up and let them throw it. Maybe there was another time, but I don't remember it if there was.

    I've heard from numerous other long time Syssin that more happens with their information gathering than most of the community suspects even OOCly.

    Besides that, most everything that needs to be kept in private is always going to be kept to ways that you can't spy on anyways.

    I'm not against new ways of spying, but I'm not personally sold on phase needing buffed, or bracer being nerfed for that matter. I do think the API crosses a line with the information it gives you, too.


    Edit: The only bracer that shows phase enemies entering is the combined one, if that wasn't clear. 4 piece bracer does not detect phase.

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  • Sryaen said:

    I'm sort of confused here as to who's feeding y'all the information that we're basically handing out 4 bars of ilmenite to every novice who comes through the academy, because it's taken me MONTHS to even scrape together 2 pieces of that relic. And if enemying is a problem, I guess that's really on you to weigh the decision of whether or not it's more worth it to your RP to go to a lesser or not. Bracer already doesn't ping if you have your enemylist off, so I'm sort of on the fence about having it take a resource drain to upkeep because that's like.. literally the whole point of having the relic. It's not easy to gather and on the low end, it'll cost you 350-400cr minimum.

    The point is not how hard or easy the bracers are to get. The point is that, once you have the bracers, you can just enemy anyone, willy-nilly. Once I am enemied, there is no counter play. If we are caught, we might not even know that we were caught because of bracers, since we have no indication that we were detected by them. Maybe bracers aren't even part of the problem, and it's some other skill. The point is that one artifact all but wrecks whole avenues of play for Syssin specifically, for the low low cost of being enemied.

    It's also worth noting that, because of the API, it doesn't even have to be something I did that led to being enemied. It would be trivial to just scrape the API for everyone online, and keep an active list of anyone with the Syssin class.
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  • Bulrok said:

    Is this a confirmation bias, maybe? I've had Syssin across every character I've played earnestly and primarily Syssin on one character, and outside of growing pains I'm only assuming I had because I don't remember, the only time I've ever been caught spying, like revealed, was when I saw Lin manually wield an eye sigil and I was so shocked that someone actually bell tattooed for a scene happening in public that I just gave up and let them throw it. Maybe there was another rime, but I don't remember it if there was.

    I've heard from numerous other long time Syssin that more happens with their information gathering than most of the community suspects even OOCly.

    Besides that, most everything that needs to be kept in private is always going to be kept to ways that you can't spy on anyways.

    I'm not against new ways of spying, but I'm not personally sold on phase needing buffed, or bracer being nerfed for that matter. I do think the API crosses a line with the information it gives you, too.

    The thing is... once something works, more and more people start to do it. And more and more people are starting to do that random room checking. ESPECIALLY in places with only one or two exits. I don't know how often they do it outside of big events, because I'm not there to see it, but as it becomes standard practice- after all, it only takes a moment, they won't even miss an emote- the unblockability of it becomes an increasing handicap.

    People are focusing on the bracer arti, and honestly, that was just one tiny part of what I was talking about.
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