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Make Syssin RP more robust
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?
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."
3
Comments
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.
Experience Gained: 47720 (Special) [total: 2933660]
Needed for LVL: 122.00775356245
Experience Gained: 47720 (Special) [total: 2933660]
Needed for LVL: 122.00775356245
Experience Gained: 47720 (Special) [total: 2933660]
Needed for LVL: 122.00775356245
'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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Experience Gained: 47720 (Special) [total: 2933660]
Needed for LVL: 122.00775356245
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.
Experience Gained: 47720 (Special) [total: 2933660]
Needed for LVL: 122.00775356245
Experience Gained: 47720 (Special) [total: 2933660]
Needed for LVL: 122.00775356245
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.
Tell me how I'm doing!
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.
Experience Gained: 47720 (Special) [total: 2933660]
Needed for LVL: 122.00775356245
Tell me how I'm doing!
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.
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.'
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.
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.
Experience Gained: 47720 (Special) [total: 2933660]
Needed for LVL: 122.00775356245
People are focusing on the bracer arti, and honestly, that was just one tiny part of what I was talking about.