Make Syssin RP more robust

Bulrok · September 2021

Lenoriel 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.

I did try to make sure I said I'm not against new ways! Just primarily against buffing/nerfing existing mechanics.

Eliadon · September 2021

Evade used to avoid all notification - mind net, etc.

It was nerfed to not at some point. It's extremely obnoxious for everyone who isn't the Syssin to have to deal with, even if we're finding you by move -> eyesigil.

We'll be off balance every time we eye. Sprint to the opposite side of the city as soon as you know you're being tracked. They won't be able to keep up with you unless they're also a Syssin and phased.

Tetchta · September 2021

Lenoriel said:
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.

I think this is my problem with the general argument that phase needs some sort of buff, and why it seems like it's maybe a lazy solution to the problems with spying. Spying, like any sort of PVP, in both real life and in game, is going to have a metagame to it. Like if you start getting caught being a spy, of course people are going to start taking more precautions, especially during important events/conversations. Personally, I think this is a challenge to find ways to adjust the approach to information gathering. Instead of going "I keep getting caught phased, and I want to not be", I think it's more helpful to consider other roads to walk down. I mean, eventually, like, Sryaen's gonna get tired of eye sigilling every time he wants to MUDsex. He's gonna get lazy about it six months from now, which is when the meta shifts back in the other direction.

My concern about having a tick that allows you to be warned that an eye sigil is coming is that (I think I said this above) it's literally one regex trigger away from making eye sigil competely useless, and making phase spying 100% successful. Something as brazen as listening in to a private conversation while phased in an enemy city should carry risk. It shouldn't be easy. And there's a lot more to spycraft than just tapping phones.

Validan · September 2021

Hi, fellow Suspicous Masked Man here.

While the bracer in question may be a hard stop to waltzing right in, have you ever considered espionage to not simply take place -in- phase?

Have you tried to learn your surroundings or interact with said marks or targets in broad daylight?

Have you considered you can attract more bees with honey than vinegar?

Phase is not the end all be all in regards to intelligence gathering or spying as you see it. ((Queue spyglass from adjacent.))

While yes artifacts and relics are alive to make our lives as sneaks easier, you have to think outside the box and not simply expect a singular approach to get the job done. Finesse is key in more ways than one here.

With a litany of covert skills, your own languages and texts, cloaking and concealing abilities... and phase is the only solution to spying? I implore one to find a more open mind to the lore and lifestyle of the guild/class. Embrace its strengths, work around the weaknesses.

The classes kit is great when fully invoked. Yes, you run around getting yanked from Phase or wield a whip people will think and know you're a Syssin, own it. Learn to use and manipulate this fact.

My character is by far sketchy at best, and known to be Syssin and on everyone's enemy or radar list... yet there are ways to make things "work".

Sryaen · September 2021

It sucks to be the target of inline commands being used against you and making it difficult (or nearly impossible) to defend against, but there should be some level of risk involved when you decide to spy on people. But yeah, @Bulrok pretty much has the right of it - any conversation that's worth spying on, will typically be held behind closed doors where you oftentimes can't get to, and the participants will be checking bell/using eye sigil regularly to ensure it remains private.

Also, I wish that eavesdrop would let you see the spoken part of emotes through doors, because currently it only works with says.

Lenoriel · September 2021

Tetchta said:

Lenoriel said:
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.
I think this is my problem with the general argument that phase needs some sort of buff, and why it seems like it's maybe a lazy solution to the problems with spying. Spying, like any sort of PVP, in both real life and in game, is going to have a metagame to it. Like if you start getting caught being a spy, of course people are going to start taking more precautions, especially during important events/conversations. Personally, I think this is a challenge to find ways to adjust the approach to information gathering. Instead of going "I keep getting caught phased, and I want to not be", I think it's more helpful to consider other roads to walk down. I mean, eventually, like, Sryaen's gonna get tired of eye sigilling every time he wants to MUDsex. He's gonna get lazy about it six months from now, which is when the meta shifts back in the other direction.

My concern about having a tick that allows you to be warned that an eye sigil is coming is that (I think I said this above) it's literally one regex trigger away from making eye sigil competely useless, and making phase spying 100% successful. Something as brazen as listening in to a private conversation while phased in an enemy city should carry risk. It shouldn't be easy. And there's a lot more to spycraft than just tapping phones.

This is why I prefer the idea of a high-drain skill to ward against phase pulling rather than the tick. The skill would have to be something far too demanding to just keep up at all times, thus making it something you need to be alert and clever to make use of successfully.

Tetchta · September 2021

Sryaen said:
Also, I wish that eavesdrop would let you see the spoken part of emotes through doors, because currently it only works with says.

Is this true? I could swear I could hear "emote says" with eavesdrop. Or does that currently only work if you're eavesdropping through not-a-door?

Reave · September 2021

Bulrok said:
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.

I don't have much to comment on the rest of this thread, but coming from Achaea, I do not see why a player cannot control if their guild or city is shown on the API. And, currently, as it stands the hide_honours artefact is circumvented too by API and really has no point. Could allow the hide_honours artefact be a little more valuable by putting the toggle 'hideorgs' or something of that nature in it. Players get control of what information is shown and the game gets credits. Win-win.

Lenoriel · September 2021

Validan said:
Hi, fellow Suspicous Masked Man here.

While the bracer in question may be a hard stop to waltzing right in, have you ever considered espionage to not simply take place -in- phase?

Have you tried to learn your surroundings or interact with said marks or targets in broad daylight?

Have you considered you can attract more bees with honey than vinegar?

Phase is not the end all be all in regards to intelligence gathering or spying as you see it. ((Queue spyglass from adjacent.))

While yes artifacts and relics are alive to make our lives as sneaks easier, you have to think outside the box and not simply expect a singular approach to get the job done. Finesse is key in more ways than one here.

With a litany of covert skills, your own languages and texts, cloaking and concealing abilities... and phase is the only solution to spying? I implore one to find a more open mind to the lore and lifestyle of the guild/class. Embrace its strengths, work around the weaknesses.

The classes kit is great when fully invoked. Yes, you run around getting yanked from Phase or wield a whip people will think and know you're a Syssin, own it. Learn to use and manipulate this fact.

My character is by far sketchy at best, and known to be Syssin and on everyone's enemy or radar list... yet there are ways to make things "work".

I know and agree with all these things, yes. However, this was talking about one specific aspect of it that seems like it should be able to be countered with something, even a tricky or demanding or expensive something.

And again. I'm talking about more things than just phase pulling here.

Seurimas · September 2021

Validan said:
Hi, fellow Suspicous Masked Man here.

Right, so I will once again offer that my focus on phase is a personal pet peeve about the balance and fun of phase counters. Lenoriel had more thoughts on espionage in general. I will also readily admit that my musings on phase counters come about 75% from a place of combat balance (hence the focus on counter Abduct more readily), rather than espionage balance. The mention of phase counters just brought my thoughts on how boring phase counters are out. Lenoriel is plenty capable as a spy (sorry to out you :P ), and had other great ideas about making spycraft more interesting in general, besides phase.

Validan · September 2021

I'm just going to throw this tldr out there, this felt a lot like phase needs buffs and counters when guilded Syssin have a counter(Veil). This also felt more like not using the full kit. I'm not trying to throw shade, but the rp is there to make spying "more interesting". A counter to bracers, queue spyglass and adjacent. Hostile territory comes with hostile actions, risks comes rewards. If you're wanting more organic RP it won't be found in phase. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Tetchta · September 2021

Validan said:
when guilded Syssin have a counter(Veil).

Yeah honestly if bracer and eye gets a nerf, something really ought to be done about phaseveil. Being detected in phase is already partially counterable with an artifact investment (gem). Coupled with all these things, veil (an extremely powerful skill) seems like it ought to be wholeass deleted if anything resembling the proposed buffs went through.

Lenoriel · September 2021

Only 1 of my 5 suggestions had anything to do with phase *buffs at all, so your comments about not using RP seem a bit in bad faith, and condescending.

And as not using for the full kit... I have hood, cloaking gem, spyglass from adjascent, use phaseveil, and never ever AFK while spying, so.. not sure what else you think I should be doing when utilizing this specific line of espionage?

Eliadon · September 2021

Lenoriel said:
Only 1 of my 5 suggestions had anything to do with phase at all, so your comments about not using RP seem a bit in bad faith, and condescending.

And as not using for the full kit... I have hood, cloaking gem, spyglass from adjascent, use phaseveil, and never ever AFK while spying, so.. not sure what else you think I should be doing when utilizing this specific line of espionage?

From my PoV, I don't really have any strong opinion about the non-phase options. I just have extremely strong opinions about phase, having had to deal with it for the past 20 years (and/or playing characters with it).

Xavin · September 2021

I'm just going to point out that if someone has a level 20 set of goggles, a 4000+ credit investment, if you don't have a gem of cloaking they're going to be able to find you regardless of if you're in phase or not. That is probably what is letting people find you. Personally, I think that phase is plenty powerful enough even with that caveat because a 400 credit artifact can defeat it.

Tetchta · September 2021

If you're a guilded Syssin, I believe that level 20 goggles are still useless against phaseveil. It grants the very basic "phasesense" ability, to which Sanctioned Syssin (do those exist?) and Guilded Syssin have a 100% success-rate counter to. Gem does a decent amount of countering to goggle/phasesense in that only people with gem will be able to find you. There's also a lot of practices you can adopt to get around bracer that I don't really feel comfortable discussing here (because, hey, you learn by doing and failing!)

If we're going to circle back to something that's not focusing purely on Phase and all that, it might be worth pointing out that the Guild of Spies thing might...just not be a good enough theme for an Aetolian guild in 2021. There's a LOT of other themes in the Syssin guild that I don't see getting a ton of play, and continuing to hammer down on "we're the best spies who ever spied" is also going to lead to this sort of frustration. You're gonna take L's spying or doing any other sort of PVP, and that itself is interesting, but also I think it might be worth exploring whether "We're a Guild of 007's, both in the sense that we're spies, but also in the sense that everyone knows our names and knows that we're spies" isn't something that might be dialed back.

The Guardians of Spinesreach/Guardians Against Shadow Who Happen To Have Some Espionage Skills To Help Out In Those Tasks has a ton of rich potential in it. I'm not sure the Secret Agent Man thing has ever been all that exciting for Syssin. On top of it, for whatever reason, over the years the syssin has pinged a specific subset and mindset of the playerbase that makes themselves a beacon for people who hoard information to talk shit on other players or metagame heavily. Changing some guild culture might also help redress some of these issues by emphasizing other ways to get Ws.

Spying in Aetolia can be massively fun and a rush, but defining an entire guild on that behavior is going to pidgeon hole its role in the RP pretty badly, and I think that is an avenue that isn't being explored here.

Xavin · September 2021

@Tetchta there is a difference between using phasesense and literally doing WHO TETCHTA. Divinesight doesn't care about phase or chameleon or being on a different plane. The only thing that stops it is the gem of cloaking.

Edit: That said, phase is still probably one of the single best scouting abilities in the game. The fact that it takes such freakin' expensive artifacts to defeat it is a testament to how good it actually is.

Tetchta · September 2021

Xavin said:
@Tetchta there is a difference between using phasesense and literally doing WHO TETCHTA. Divinesight doesn't care about phase or chameleon or being on a different plane. The only thing that stops it is the gem of cloaking.

oh oops

edit: although I'm not too shaken up about a 2000 credit artifact countering something that costs 4000+ credits with limited distribution. If anything that's a slant in phase's favor.

edit edit: your edit basically says what I said so YEAH TEAM AGREEMENT

Lenoriel · September 2021

Well, we need admin support to do the 'guard against Shadow' RP. 100% of the Syssin guild would ABSOLUTELY LOVE to lean into that, but it just doesn't happen outside of events, and until very recently, plots and events were an absolute wasteland. What was left was espionage RP.

You can only RP being on high alert for Ohlsana or a Shadowplague that mechanically isn't happening or going to happen due to no event for it for so long before you find other things to be interesting.

Lenoriel · September 2021

THANK YOU to admin for the new changelog!

The web API for characters no longer shows information that you cannot get through HONOURS.

Seurimas · September 2021

Lenoriel said:
Well, we need admin support to do the 'guard against Shadow' RP. 100% of the Syssin guild would ABSOLUTELY LOVE to lean into that, but it just doesn't happen outside of events, and until very recently, plots and events were an absolute wasteland. What was left was espionage RP.

You can only RP being on high alert for Ohlsana or a Shadowplague that mechanically isn't happening or going to happen due to no event for it for so long before you find other things to be interesting.

Lenoriel said:
THANK YOU to admin for the new changelog!

The web API for characters no longer shows information that you cannot get through HONOURS.

I'd say there's still more to being Syssin, but espionage is just a lot of fun (in theory, and, often, in practice). It's just very two-note. It's basically just phase-spying or... convincing people to talk. Which, not to knock getting people to talk (it's whole "path" in Syssin), more mechanical avenues for espionage would still be fun. Espionage is stagnant, but the nerfing of the API is HUGE. Just HUGE. It's been a constant subject among Syssin that we can't really hide ourselves any more, and now we can again! Everyone can! I'd love to see even more things to open up more espionage routes, not just to Syssin (classed or guilded), but to everyone.

If we could rename the thread, I'd say it should be "Make espionage more robust", which is most of what's being discussed. Syssin RP is pretty good, imo. I think there's more I could do as a GM, but that's on me.

EDIT: In the spirit of "espionage, not Syssin", here's a couple random ideas for non-Syssin espionage:
* Buff Psionics Psychometry: Each time someone talks in a room with a grabbable item, that item has a chance of picking up one line of dialogue. When you PSI TOUCH later, you get the last holder, as well as an echo of that line of dialog. Every item becomes a bug! Probably ridiculous and prohibitively CPU/memory intensive, but maybe it could only work with a specific kind of item, like jewelry (which is pure enough to hold sound psionically for a long time) or have a very short duration.
* New Woodlore Attention: While in a forest, listen far and wide. Some sort of LoS or all-outdoor-room eavesdropping.
* New Thaumaturgy Convocation: Similar to Spirituality Mindread, but at your fulcrum.

Xavin · September 2021

Not really a fan of major API changes based on unfounded accusations of metagaming but okay.

Iesid · September 2021

Lenoriel said:

The web API for characters no longer shows information that you cannot get through HONOURS.

In contrast, I am not particularly happy about this change. It's not particularly difficult information to get one's hands on and the previous access to it was useful to have for the purposes of, say, a public system being able to highlight names of players based on their faction. We're never going to let random people linger around in a city without suspicion being cast on them, API or no API, and I don't think the issue was what this thread made it out to be; by misrepresenting that issue the way it has been here, I think it led to what I perceive as a kneejerk change.

Reave · September 2021

Seurimas said:

Well, we need admin support to do the 'guard against Shadow' RP. 100% of the Syssin guild would ABSOLUTELY LOVE to lean into that, but it just doesn't happen outside of events, and until very recently, plots and events were an absolute wasteland. What was left was espionage RP. You can only RP being on high alert for Ohlsana or a Shadowplague that mechanically isn't happening or going to happen due to no event for it for so long before you find other things to be interesting.

THANK YOU to admin for the new changelog! The web API for characters no longer shows information that you cannot get through HONOURS.
I'd say there's still more to being Syssin, but espionage is just a lot of fun (in theory, and, often, in practice). It's just very two-note. It's basically just phase-spying or... convincing people to talk. Which, not to knock getting people to talk (it's whole "path" in Syssin), more mechanical avenues for espionage would still be fun. Espionage is stagnant, but the nerfing of the API is HUGE. Just HUGE. It's been a constant subject among Syssin that we can't really hide ourselves any more, and now we can again! Everyone can! I'd love to see even more things to open up more espionage routes, not just to Syssin (classed or guilded), but to everyone. If we could rename the thread, I'd say it should be "Make espionage more robust", which is most of what's being discussed. Syssin RP is pretty good, imo. I think there's more I could do as a GM, but that's on me.

Not certain why it was available for so long, but yeah in Achaea we actually had to ask the person, look at their title, or meta it by seeing if they had a banner on the forums (and hopefully not hidden by hidebannerorgs) 😂

Maybe it is a little fancier and they have more api information available, but that was my experience when I played.

Tetchta · September 2021

edit: the info in the API was always bad and if it was information we were meant to have ready available to us, it'd be in HONORS. This creates some work for folk, but come on, just make a table with people and their known affiliations. The API info was never necessary, and I've definitely seen it used for metagaming.

Seurimas · September 2021

Xavin said:
Not really a fan of major API changes based on unfounded accusations of metagaming but okay.

Iesid said:
it was useful to have for the purposes of, say, a public system being able to highlight names of players based on their faction.

"Unfounded". Basically any IG use of it is metagaming. Your character shouldn't instinctively know whether someone is friend or foe. The ease and widespread use of it made it very easy to forget that.

Bulrok · September 2021

I want to see a good, solid reason to have the API display that information, rather than reverse.

Xavin · September 2021

If you can know in an instant if someone has graduated from X city's academy or is a member of Y city's militia, I don't see why city membership shouldn't be common knowledge.

Tetchta · September 2021

While militia membership is a giveaway, the Academy info is borderline meaningless, unless you're telling me you're comfortable running an entire system's IFF on which academy they graduated from. Militia does give you that info, yes, and maybe that could be added to the API, but not everyone's in militias, and what city they're in if they're not in leadership in some way is definitely not common knowledge otherwise.

Also you could do an honors-scrape of people and if they're in a militia, pipe them into a table with that info or whatever. I don't think that's a solid enough argument for why guild and city info should be in an API though.

Seurimas · September 2021

Xavin said:
If you can know in an instant if someone has graduated from X city's academy or is a member of Y city's militia, I don't see why city membership shouldn't be common knowledge.

If you don't want to be known as a member of Enorian's militia, you can quit the militia. The academy gives some irrevocable information, but people side hop/city hop often as well, so it's not even all that telling. Although, maybe we shouldn't know which academy someone graduated from.

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