Sleaze-Sneak Counterpart

It's not a glaring issue or anything, but I have noticed that players tend to be slightly more interested in causing minor troubles (ie. non-lethal fighting, theft, messing with one another) in locations without door fees. I notice this by comparing the past activity in popular locations without door fees, versus locations with them, and trying to filter for larger lethal conflicts between property owners.

There is a LOT of potential causes for this certainly but I do think (from experience) that at least one of them is not being able to sneak into a location with a door fee, which I believe was a consequence of the change making fee doors block sniping 5-6 years ago. This basically limits the options for approaches and I think filters for a very slight amount of conflict, particularly non-violent theft which could stand to be a bigger part of the game in my opinion.

There are two potential ways that I see to approach a change here: One is to have fee doors take a stealth action that is mechanically similar to sleaze with a different skill check (ie. the exit has a special sneak verb), the other is simply allow a fee payment while hidden. The former being more realistic, the latter being possibly simpler to implement.

By 0x1mm at Oct 24, 2023 2:58 PM

"You manage to sneak in with a bunch without the bouncer noticing you."

Yes please.

By Ociex at Oct 24, 2023 3:00 PM

Thieves are still able to steal from people completely undetected without sneaking, it's just another layer of security on top of two others that already protect them. No thanks, it's already essentially impossible to tell who a thief is when they have the UE leg up on you and want to farm you every day for money.

As for other forms of conflict, I don't think catering to risk-averse behavior is going to do us any favors. If people aren't doing dirty work in bars because they're scared of consequences, that's their own fault. There are ways to avoid those consequences, but also, the game is way too addicted to chasing the perfect crime. There's nothing stopping you from walking into a bar with a disguise on, and that should be more than enough.

By batko at Oct 24, 2023 3:10 PM

Having played a thief for a long time in the past, I found it a bit frustrating at first to have to vis up to get into paid doors. That said, I learned how to work around it with the structures currently in place. There are ways to use stealth without getting a free pass to enter clubs.

As powerful as the skill is, I'd lean toward keeping the status quo as is and urge people to be creative with applying it inside.

By RatchetEffect at Oct 24, 2023 3:13 PM

There's nothing stopping you from walking into a bar with a disguise on, and that should be more than enough.

I don't see these as equivalent skillsets (and they aren't mechanically) and I don't necessarily think the game's over-reliance on disguise is particularly ideal and actually see stealth as more interactive and better balanced mechanic for 'hostile' actions.

That is to say if the solution to all hostile action wasn't just 'put on a poncho' but was also sometimes 'remain hidden', I think the outcomes are actually better because sneak is a more interactive and contestable gameplay mechanic than disguise is.

By 0x1mm at Oct 24, 2023 3:18 PM

Disguise is far more contestable, as you actually see someone. Someone who is sneaking and therefore invisible, on top of being disguised, on top of additionally having a skillcheck to prevent you from knowing they are even doing something to you, is essentially impervious to all forms of retaliation. So, while I agree the game relies too much on disguises, that doesn't mean buffing other skills is the answer. Especially ones that can be used in conjunction with disguise to compound on the issue.

By batko at Oct 24, 2023 3:21 PM

"As powerful as the skill is, I'd lean toward keeping the status quo as is and urge people to be creative with applying it inside."

I don't believe automatic fee doors breaking stealth was actually meant as a balancing mechanism to reign in stealth, but rather was a consequence that was just not seen as a big enough issue to develop further on at the time. I have noticed however a difference, over several years since, and while it's not a big difference and can be sometimes worked around, it would be overall an improvement if the impediment wasn't there.

By 0x1mm at Oct 24, 2023 3:21 PM

If memory serves, the automatic fee doors were setup due to a combination of sniping (which is now nerfed into oblivion with even the top-tier sniper rifle being actually useless), and stealth.

By ReeferMadness at Oct 24, 2023 3:24 PM

"Disguise is far more contestable, as you actually see someone. Someone who is sneaking and therefore invisible, on top of being disguised, on top of additionally having a skillcheck to prevent you from knowing they are even doing something to you, is essentially impervious to all forms of retaliation."

This is essentially true of combat for characters with underpowered combat skills. If players have neglected to build their own characters to account for stealth detection (combat focused characters are notoriously bad for stat dumping here), this doesn't make stealth itself overpowered it just means they left weaknesses.

There are no contested skill checks on disguise or disguised actions, so the counterplay is mostly metagaming oriented (ie. you know they're there as a disguised player and you focus suspicion on them).

By 0x1mm at Oct 24, 2023 3:24 PM

Stealth is not overpowered by itself, and I didn't say that. I just think that being able to perform a PVP action (stealing from a player) without breaking stealth, while also disguised, without any messages being emitted to the victim player, is not a 'conflict' it is simply farming, and having bars be very slightly protected from that behavior in a very nebulous way is absolutely okay by me.

By batko at Oct 24, 2023 3:27 PM

I personally feel stealth is quite overpowered by itself. Even if you literally take zero other skills. On a long enough timeline, it's plenty easy to do some wild stuff with nothing but stealth and chrome. Or stealth and appropriate data.

By RatchetEffect at Oct 24, 2023 3:33 PM

I think that is really simplifying how theft actually works, it's much more involved than that in terms of what is happening mechanically and there is several hurdles to clear before it becomes a "perfect undetectable crime" which is very rarely true. Theft is no more farming than murder or mugging is, and is treated similarly both in terms of mechanics and oversight.

I suspect players tend to feel like it's true because of how they built their characters, in the same way they feel like being dragged into the sewers and choked out has no counterplay even though it does also. I would considered these two scenarios as involving similar UE advantages before they become 'trivial' actions, so it seems rather arbitrary to me to say well, killing players is fine but stealing from them needs certain buffers on top of the skill checks they're already making.

If anything I'm starting to think now that more stealth allowances is actually a very good counter to the overpopular combat-focused character metagame.

By 0x1mm at Oct 24, 2023 3:34 PM

"On a long enough timeline, it's plenty easy to do some wild stuff with nothing but stealth and chrome. Or stealth and appropriate data."

Don't you think that is way more true of say, a weapon skill? I think the builds of characters strongly backs up that combat is far more powerful and seen as being far more useful than stealth is. I actually think characters habitually neglect stealth skills because they're less useful in practice, and this can seen in how adverse combat-focused characters are to stealth counters because they tend to know they didn't account for them.

By 0x1mm at Oct 24, 2023 3:36 PM

I'd like to hear from people who've had recent experiences in leasing clubs and bars after the dynamic weekly earnings changes implemented over the last two years.

Whether or not adding an additional skillcheck to bypass modest entry fees is positive gameplay for those areas.

But I'd also like to see a return to sniping through club doors, but probably better suited for a different thread.

By crashdown at Oct 24, 2023 3:37 PM

It is much more farming than murder and mugging, since it is very possible (as I have seen it be achieved many, many times) to achieve undetectability with the vast majority of the populace, and therefore treat each bar like a piggybank. Combat takes time and combat requires yourself to be detected, neither of which is true of pickpocketing. Absolutely unnecessary to make it any more powerful than it already is.

Combat focused metagame is just flat-out untrue, as well. The game has a severe lack of combat-focused characters and the game as a whole has turned towards slice-of-life vastly more than it has ever turned towards a 'combat focused metagame'.

By batko at Oct 24, 2023 3:39 PM

By combat focused metagame I mean the game heavily incentivizes entirely combat focused characters because there are very few alternative skill counters (ie. there are not non-weapon skill combat utilities like in other RPGs). That players habitually neglect stealth counters speaks more to what is actually good, rather than an issue with the power of stealth mechanics.

I see this objection as kind of misplaced regardless though because stealth entries don't have any effect on pickpocketing at all except in the metagaming sense of looking for players who you may suspect might be pickpockets.

The types of minor conflict I'm talking about trend way more towards other types of interference anyway, no one is seriously working as a pickpocket inside a bar regardless of if it has a fee door or not.

By 0x1mm at Oct 24, 2023 3:53 PM

While I do agree in that I view stealth and combat similarly in terms of not being 'farming' skills, I do also think that's highly determined by the player using the skill. We don't like the word farming because it implies cheesing or rule breaking in some contexts, but when you're so good at the skill that you can't be caught, it can start to feel that way even from the side of the dip (again, my own experience). So much so that I liked to create RP with it beyond just the taking of something and the 'dipping out' so to speak. Certainly not a hundred percent of the time - that's kind of an unsustainable goal imo, but enough to make it compelling and fun for others when I could.

A whisper in the ear on the way out. A calling card. Ballsy broad daylight dips, sans stealth, in crowded places while having conversations with people. Shifting stolen goods to people that didn't do it then framing them because fuck you, why not? Ransoming gear back. Whatever. There's so much you can do with it to create RP, it's really kind of boring to just dip and slip out.

In short, and this is from my own experience, you absolutely can reach a point where you're practically guaranteed to not be caught a lot of the time, and that's why I think it's very important to inject RP into it when you can. Even if it's just leaving breadcrumbs to a dead end.

By RatchetEffect at Oct 24, 2023 3:55 PM

Just a point of reference.

Being able to dip from someone without being seen requires two skills, not one.

As for being able to "steal from the majority of the population (at a high skill levels)."

Well, yeah.

Have you ever seen a really good pick pocket work?

Nope. Me neither. ;)

By Hek at Oct 24, 2023 3:59 PM

I don't disagree Ratchet, but I also think that is true of weapon skills and in fact a huge amount of complaints coming from current and past players involve feeling like combat is a non-interactive non-roleplaying necksnap.

Now I personally see the reason for that as being those players not being as interested in the combat side of things, and therefore not having the knowledge to understand where the weaknesses, difficulties, and counterplays are against combat characters.

I believe some of the resistance here comes down to essentially the same thing, which is fear of the unknown skill. When players don't really understand how theft skills work (which is sometimes even true of players who have used them), the outcomes seem rote or non-interactive because the process to arrive at that was unknown.

Any character with extreme levels of specialization will have advantages against characters who have weak counterplays, this is by design and something that is often taken for granted by players pushing their weapon skill up to A.

However right now, even with fee doors, characters who are vulnerable to casual pickpocketing remain so regardless of how doors work and any changes to them would be largely impactful to other types of screwing around with characters.

By 0x1mm at Oct 24, 2023 4:04 PM

Combat has infinitely more counterplay because it still hinges on being detected in the first place. Being able to invisibly antagonize other players is not something that should be looked upon kindly. Imagine if you could engage combat from stealth without breaking it. That would be ridiculous. Much like combat, however, pickpocketing can be forced on other players without consent, but the difference is that pickpocketing has the unique ability of disallowing even the faintest idea of who might it be that stole your wallet.

It does not generate roleplay, it does not drive conflict, it is simply a method of reappropriating resources from one player to another without any sort of interaction whatsoever. When people abuse combat, social consequences ensue, but when people abuse thievery, literally nothing happens because nobody even has the faintest idea who is doing it.

Doors break stealth, and that gives people in the bar the slightest hint of who might be robbing them blind. That is often the only indication they will ever get. And even then, it is often yet another poncho that gives no identifiers whatsoever. It does not need to be made easier to get away with.

By batko at Oct 24, 2023 4:09 PM

I would argue that it's not correct there's no social consequences for pickpockets. Historically the game has overreacted horribly to pickpockets who are caught, moreso than murder.

But I think your whole post, batko, speaks to a larger issue of culture surrounding a lot of pickpocketing and theft of any kinds (of which I myself have been guilty) not having any clues or RP crumbs to pick up on to continue the thread.

By crashdown at Oct 24, 2023 4:13 PM

The game overreacts horribly to pickpockets because there's always a mountain of hateful debt towards pickpockets stored up from the countless times people have been stolen from without purpose, roleplay, or even a slight idea of who it might have been. Social consequences only ensue for the few lowbie pickpockets who actually get caught. I am otherwise knowledgeable of pickpockets who just about never got caught, and routinely farmed entire sectors for phones and wallets for years without anyone even knowing who they are.

I say again, there does not need to be any buffs to thievery or by extension stealth, it is quite powerful as it is.

By batko at Oct 24, 2023 4:17 PM

For the record, I'm not arguing for buffs to theft or stealth. I think it's pretty fine as is, personally. As I said above, I'd really love to hear from people with recent lease experience on clubs/bars and how they think this would impact the economy and audiences in those areas if another skillcheck, this one for stealth, was added to get in for free.

But I do think there's also a discussion, but probably not for this thread, about the hateful debt you speak which is spewed towards low pickpockets who are caught. And does that create a self-fulfilling prophecy, a cycle which never ends, of people who were once lowbie pickpockets and received overreactions moving on towards silent theft when they can't be caught? Because they're fearful of the times they were and the overreaction?

By crashdown at Oct 24, 2023 4:20 PM

Keep in mind too that while it can't be detected the way you expect combat to be, it's restricted by the rules to compensate. 1 dip per day per PC. You don't stand to lose more than one item or a portion of your carried flash when you get dipped. Combat characters can clean you out entirely. Full inventory swipe if they put you down. And that's on top of the cost of a clone if you're killed.

Back to the topic though, I do see the benefits of being able to sneak into a club for tomfoolery other than dipping, like Ox1mm said. I might not be seeing it in the same way though, because I consider any establishment with multiple rooms capable of being suitably used as if you could sneak into it. Again, if you're clever.

Crashdown raises a good point too with door fees and lease holder income.

By RatchetEffect at Oct 24, 2023 4:27 PM

I would like to argue that combat is not that different - if you kill your opponent, they will not remember. It's not invisibility, but it can be just as anonymous.

By duck at Oct 24, 2023 4:28 PM

Yeah that's true, duck. Good point.

By RatchetEffect at Oct 24, 2023 4:32 PM

As someone who has interacted with club leases recently, here's what I think on that front.

- Door fees do make up a large portion of club proceeds, and the recent trend towards making door fees extremely cheap has been damaging altogether. I won't put numbers up, but door fees used to be three or four times higher than they are today for Red clubs.

- Sleazing, as far as I am aware, narratively has an ambient NPC pay your entry fee, so there is no damage there, unless I am mistaken. This would likely not work the same way since you are simply sneaking past the bouncers (somehow).

- People exit bars the moment they are in danger of anything at all. If one person gets dipped, many will scatter. Bars in Red have already been quite sleepy for a long time now.

By batko at Oct 24, 2023 4:36 PM

And that is true if you manage to kill someone with no signal and with no witnesses, duck. That is infinitely harder to attain than being able to dip someone in a bar totally crowded with players without a single one detecting you. It is not the same, at all.

By batko at Oct 24, 2023 4:37 PM

Yes I very much think the cultural dislike towards pickpockets is heavily based around the fact that the characters most vulnerable to them are combat-focused characters, who tend to excuse their own gameplay as fair because they're much more common and so make up the status quo of what is acceptable among themselves.

This can be seen any time an idea of deckers doing something damaging comes up and they revolt over the idea of the combat meta being distributed away from them.

Anyone who is familiar with both skillsets will know they pretty much have the same numbers of counters, counter skill checks, character skill requirements, and player skills needed to be successful with them. I would argue casual theft is sometimes hilariously overexagerrated in impact by players who will then freely excuse total murder.

The essential different from their perspective is they had the ability to counter one, but lacked the ability to properly counter the other and so then saw it as 'unfair' even though it is usually the much more limited hostile action in practice.

It's sort of immaterial though because this sort of change wouldn't impact the types of pickpocketing that seems to bother people so much.

In any case, I don't think a change to fees is necessary for the outcome. I only offer sleaze as a similar ready-made function that could be adapted but the idea is not really to dodge the cost, and I'd be just as happy to see leaseholders compensated like usual.

By 0x1mm at Oct 24, 2023 4:45 PM

"And that is true if you manage to kill someone with no signal and with no witnesses, duck. That is infinitely harder to attain than being able to dip someone in a bar totally crowded with players without a single one detecting you."

Your own experience is strongly coloring this certainly, but it's not really an accurate assesment of the checks involved with theft which I would call comparable to combat for lower advantages -- knowing as I do what is involved with both sides of the equation.

By 0x1mm at Oct 24, 2023 4:47 PM

I have heard nothing but universal disdain for the utter lack of decking content in this game. I'd like to see where anyone has said deckers need less, because I don't think I can recall a single time that's been true, so I don't think your argument holds water that this is simply a 'combat character versus the world' scenario. If I need to spell it out for you to stop bringing that up, I am not speaking from a position of self preservation, because my character is not affected by the shortcomings you keep talking about. I simply do not wish for the rest of the game to suffer the consequences of thievery being even more powerful than it already is.

I don't know how else to reiterate the fact that while combat is abusable, it is never done from a position of total undetectability. You cannot sneak into a bar and kill someone without someone present witnessing it. You can sneak into many bars, currently, and dip everyone's phone without anyone realizing it even happened before you're long gone, let alone having even a slight clue such as a short description, which was going to be disguise anyways.

I don't like it when anyone overreacts to pickpocket characters, I don't think it's fair to new players to be stomped out for the sins of the ghost-like oldbies that conditioned people to see red when they detect any trace of the thievery skill. I also don't think that's something that has even happened with any frequency lately, but it is tragic when it does happen.

However, that doesn't change any of what I am saying. I don't think this is necessary in the slightest as it would be an undue buff to an already extremely powerful set of skills.

By batko at Oct 24, 2023 4:57 PM

I don't think I could be any more overt that believing this is a buff to pickpocketing specifically derives from a misunderstanding of how that skill works. Anyone with the skills required to pickpocket in a bar undetected now is equally able to do so whether or not they can stealthily enter in the first place so it is something of a red herring.

By 0x1mm at Oct 24, 2023 5:01 PM

In that, I agree with Ox1mm mostly. You can use stealth inside a bar even if you can't get through the door with it, and in multi room clubs that's pretty much the same thing.

The thing I'm seeing here is applications where you want to have something in your hands upon entering, and don't want people to see you with it when you do. That's really the only benefit I can see from allowing stealth through club doors. Beside that, it doesn't change anything except the cost of getting in.

By RatchetEffect at Oct 24, 2023 5:09 PM

If someone enters a bar, which is a message played to the entire bar, and then conspicuously disappears afterwards, and along with them goes your belongings, it is a pretty strong indicator that you just got dipped by them. That is counterplay to the undetectability of thieves. They can still steal from you, but you at least have a slight idea of what just happened. While small, that is a significant benefit and it should not be removed.

By batko at Oct 24, 2023 5:12 PM

The big disadvantage of stealing while visible is that whatever you stole is now visible in your hand to anyone looking at you. And when you put it away, there's a message.

By duck at Oct 24, 2023 5:18 PM

"The thing I'm seeing here is applications where you want to have something in your hands upon entering, and don't want people to see you with it when you do. That's really the only benefit I can see from allowing stealth through club doors. Beside that, it doesn't change anything except the cost of getting in."

I can think of a few minor things but in general I'm arguing from the position of observed outcome rather than something specific I want people to do. I've just noticed more tomfoolery and fuckery going on between characters when characters can stealth back and forth through entrances. I don't think that's the only cause (for example, the culture also tends to enforce no conflict allowed in clubs, which tend to have door fees), but I feel like I have enough observed instances of stealth entrances preceding low-level trouble compared to fee doors that this seems to me to be a real phenomenon. I suspect it's like 20% mechanical and 80% psychological but sometimes the first 20 enables the latter 80.

It's funny that Crashdown mentions the sniping thing though because thinking about wanting that rolled back is what led me to this which I thought was the easier sell.

By 0x1mm at Oct 24, 2023 5:18 PM

I mean yes, that's true too it's just. Well I'll leave it at this. That won't matter for people that see dipping as more than a single faceted skill. Social maneuvering, mental slight of hand, accomplices, whatever. The best dips you'll never find aren't using the skill as a point a to b in RP.

But yes, it still offers a measure of protection against some dips, in that case. I see your point. In any case, I'm find keeping it as it is. My stance hasn't changed.

By RatchetEffect at Oct 24, 2023 5:19 PM

"If someone enters a bar, which is a message played to the entire bar, and then conspicuously disappears afterwards, and along with them goes your belongings, it is a pretty strong indicator that you just got dipped by them. That is counterplay to the undetectability of thieves."

That's a metagaming counter. It's like saying disguised kills are balanced because you can check the who is online and see what weapon someone has to narrow it down.

By 0x1mm at Oct 24, 2023 5:20 PM

That's not metagaming, that's deduction. If someone dips a person who is having a conversation with another person, and that person notices and assumes it is the person they're talking to, and they get in a fight over it, are they metagaming? No, they're making assumptions based on their environment and roleplaying accordingly. It's not metagaming to react to the game world as it is presented to you.

It is metagaming to know that there is only one pickpocket player good enough to dip you and then assume it is them whenever you get pickpocketed. That is completely different than using the actual game cues and messages to investigate an issue.

By batko at Oct 24, 2023 5:22 PM

Tracking every character entry and exit to filter for changes to the character list to work out who could be stealing is completely metagaming because you're fundamentally isolating players from ambience and taking the limited amount of player cues to narrow it down. Something being deduced doesn't mean it's not metagaming.

Your character can't track every single person in a club, nor can they know someone was pickpocketing (when they failed the many skillchecks to actually see if it happened) just because someone wasn't on the player list at a specific moment. I'm curious how you don't see that as an obvious issue of trying to circumvent the actual skillchecks for detecting theft. That this is a tool players are actively using to prevent thefts they shouldn't otherwise notice tells me it's actually a real problem rather than an annoyance.

In either case, that doesn't work anyway against someone who can steal in a crowded bar with no one noticing, which doesn't rest on the circumstances you think it does.

By 0x1mm at Oct 24, 2023 5:29 PM

You're right, your character can't track every single person in a club. They can track the ones that the game puts in front of your face, though. You are never metagaming for acknowledging the messages the game displays to you, that is absurd. Players are always isolated from the ambience. If we always acted like players are supposed to be ignored unless we pass a skill check to acknowledge their existence, we would have no game.

How is this argument any different than it being metagaming to pickpocket someone standing in a crowded bar? Is that not isolating players from the ambience? If the game displays that you saw someone enter the bar, you saw someone enter the bar and if you choose to ignore that then that's your personal preference. If you notice a connection between someone entering the bar, your shit going missing, and that person suddenly disappearing after wordlessly standing in the bar for a few moments, that is not metagaming, that is reasonable suspicion.

By batko at Oct 24, 2023 5:34 PM

Because two different things are happening in those cases.

Performing the theft on a player you can see on the player list is using feedback both the player and character are given. Your character can see them there, and the player can use that information to single them out for the theft. Both are given the same information and both arrive at the outcome justifiably.

Detecting the (theoretical) theft by someone else you as a player cannot see on the player list is the player taking feedback and using gameplay meta analysis (they can check there was no exit message on the scroll so they must now be stealthed somewhere) to arrive at an outcome they can make as a player but their character would not be able to make.

If this is an active tool that players are using to block and catch thieves with, then I think it's actively harmful since there are coded systems to detect thievery that are essentially being circumvented in utility. This is no different than trying to metagame out someone's identity versus using the mechanical systems to ID them for any given action.

By 0x1mm at Oct 24, 2023 5:41 PM

I'm sorry, but the assertion that it's metagaming to deduce what is happening from basic visual cues and logic is absolutely preposterous. If you didn't notice someone leave that you saw enter a room, in real life, you would likely find it somewhat odd, if not startling, that you didn't hear or see them exiting, like they simply disappeared. That is no different in the game. Especially in a game where crime is king, it is absolutely not metagaming to assume they intentionally were avoiding your notice. Just like it is not metagaming to assume someone you can see with your own two eyes is the one who has your wallet. People correctly and incorrectly make these deductions and it leads to roleplay which is the point of the game.

By batko at Oct 24, 2023 5:48 PM

I'll put it another way:

If a character had the ability to notice someone hiding, the player would have feedback about noticing them hiding.

If a character has the ability to notice someone stealing, the player would have feedback about noticing them stealing.

A player noticing something doesn't mean their character can, or should. If you're not being given feedback about something that has feedback, your character isn't noticing it. There is mechanical feedback about noticing stealth, noticing stealing, and other related similar types of feedback with sufficient skills so it's basically circumvention to take player cues and derive an outcome your character didn't make.

By 0x1mm at Oct 24, 2023 5:52 PM

The distinction here is what you are calling visual cues.

Player facing 'visual cue' feedback is not necessarily known or understood or seen by the character. For instance with disguises, players are given many types of feedback that can, in effect, circumvent disguises but them actively doing so and having their character notice a disguise is metagaming in the same way because it's parsing player-only feedback to arrive at a character side conclusion.

By 0x1mm at Oct 24, 2023 5:55 PM

I can sort of see two sides of this.

On one hand, yes, you get feedback when ICly, the game actively tells you when someone is hiding or stealing.

On the other, people passively notice when someone is gone too. Like if you're having a conversation with a chum and they suddenly ghost you.

The difference here is attention. Imagine the watch command. If you don't have the skill to hear twenty people in a room, you don't get to hear what 20 people are saying. You have to pick and choose who you pay attention to with watch or by talking to them.

At the very least, give your character time some time time to naturally notice a person exists in your area before you give them that attention ICly. That includes watching to see who's still visible.

If you're doing that in a way that honors the ambpop and gives your character some measure of realism in terms of recognizing specific people are in the room, I think that's fine to notice if they vanish into thin air - whether the game actively informs you of it or not.

If someone walks into bar and your first reaction is to instantly 'watch ' in what is is supposed to be a crowded room, or to 'look' every ten seconds to make sure all visible characters are still visible - especially if you are unable to ICly focus on all of them at once? That's heckin meta imo.

By RatchetEffect at Oct 24, 2023 7:31 PM

Oh yes for sure if you're talking to a character, or emoting at them, and there is suddenly no one there that is something different I agree. In that case you're not responding to player-facing feedback, you're very much taking character-facing feedback (I no longer am talking to/interacting with someone) and making a character-side decision (where did they go?).

In the prior example the metagaming would arise in two places:

1) Comparing entry messages versus glance to track who is absent from the pRoom listing; plus,

2) The player-side understanding that an entry message with a missing pRoom entry meaning that character is stealthed, and may be making a theft attempt.

In both these cases the player is circumventing the spot check their character failed to make, by analyzing player data their character could not reasonably have.

This is actually a very apt example of a metagaming counter in the wild that is highly comparable to some of the past counters to disguise, where disguised characters had very slightly different entry/exit message that was used to circumvent disguise itself and also to avoid using the mechanical tools for identifying characters and their disguises appropriately.

By 0x1mm at Oct 24, 2023 7:45 PM

I really didn't want to respond any further, but this is simply making me mad at this point. I guess with the impervious logic being displayed here, it should be considered metagaming to even acknowledge you are missing an item in your inventory if you didn't have a message explicitly telling you that it's suddenly missing. It is not circumventing anything to look at what the game is telling you. It is not metagaming to check your inventory to see if something is missing. It is not metagaming to check your chyen count to see if something is missing. It is not metagaming to look at the room to see if someone is missing. It is not metagaming to act on blatant suspicion.

If you don't want someone to suspect you, don't act suspicious. Get creative with your thievery and make up a disguise persona and strike up a conversation. Stop expecting everyone to sit still and close their eyes to any hints or leads as to who it was that just robbed them. That is all I'll say for now.

By batko at Oct 24, 2023 7:54 PM

Well no, noticing a missing item is character-facing feedback (you're checking your inventory both IC and OOC), likewise the same for chyen counting. In both situations your character can know the complete contents of their person, and performs the affirmative action to verify it.

However that can't be extrapolated that a character can know the exact person contents of a room at all times, especially when the player is cross-referencing enter messaging versus the glance persons count to deduce omissions. That would be explicitly metagaming, because your character cannot reasonably know to the individual who has entered and left a crowded location at all times to the point of being able to detect anomalies... and if they have the aptitude to do so, they would have the stats to have noticed the stealth attempt pretty much by definition.

You can notice the absence of a character you're actively engaged with, but not all characters at all times, universally everywhere. If you were able to do that, the game would provide feedback to that point.

In any case as I mentioned, I think the protest is kind of misplaced because the concern over advanced theft being too powerful is not really effected one way or another by what I'm proposing, and simple theft has an incredibly simple workaround. Virtually all of the circumstances I've seen come out of feeless doors are other types of interactions, because the best pickpockets don't work in the situations you're describing to begin with, for reasons unrelated to the doors.

By 0x1mm at Oct 24, 2023 8:06 PM

It's a crowded club. You're not going to notice everyone who is coming and going. People are going to be in and out all the time. Maybe they need to take a piss, left for a quickie, went to pick up some candy, want to talk to a chum in the other room and you just didn't notice them leaving. Or they're still there, but you can't spot them because they're surrounded by people blocking the view.

You can only assume they're the dip because you know people don't randomly disappear without using the stealth skill, and the game always displays a message when someone leaves the room.

By duck at Oct 25, 2023 1:15 AM

My approach would be:

1. Enter through paid entrance

2. Mill around for a while

3. .wave my hand in parting, and .head for the door.

4. hide

5. wait a while as people forget I was there having had the visual cue that I was leaving from my pose.

I wouldn't go so far as to pose the exact message someone automatically does when they leave the room though, as that would be meta.

Also, please keep in mind just because you can't sneak in to a place doesn't mean you can't sneak out. So it is not a guarantee that someone is still there just because you can't see them anymore.

On top of that, stealth is a roll, as is detection of someone who types 'hide'. Anyone can get a bad roll or a critical success at any time, so it's always a roll of the dice and is never a guarantee. The person hiding gets no indicator if someone has seen them.

Also, there is a 'pointout ' verb which allows you to point a hidden person out to everyone in the room, if you happen to detect them.

I don't see a big problem here. I personally don't have an issue with there not being fee charging entrances on most places, but I also think the reasoning for it (reducing sniping, fixing issues with people camping and pickpocketing resulting in people not going out in public because they don't want to get dipped as often) are fine as well.

By Slither at Oct 27, 2023 11:13 AM

Just my two cents...

Stealth is not just about dipping. Some of the best combat characters I can recall in Sindome history have been very stealthy too. Same with some fixers/candymen.

Regarding the dip hate/fear, I have almost completely agree with 0x1mm on this. You can and should build with these dangers in mind. I can't build a character with no combat skills and complain that it's unfair combat characters crease/mug me. So I don't understand why players thing that protection against other builds should be automatic and free.

I have played at least three dips and it's not as easy as many want to suggest. There are a lot of ways to work with the current coded systems but I honestly find most of these limitations annoying and catering to players who want to min/max character but still have protections against dips (mostly combat characters but also doctors, fixers, candymen, mechanics and MANY more builds).

I honestly feel like these coded systems that reduce a min/maxed character's exposure to stealth further encourages min/maxing. I don't need to build a well rounded character, I can just complain OOCly and get coded defense built in that doesn't cost UE.

I want to stress that not all players go this route but enough have that such coded protections are now built in. I also don't think it is malicious or bad or wrong. Just a difference in playing stye and OOC priorities.

And regarding RP in terms of dips and other stealth focused characters... This is the same to me as when people complain about the lack of RP when it comes to being engaged in combat and killed with little to no talking to posing before, during or after. I get how it can feel that there is no RP value here but in my experience there almost always is. It's just not focused on you at the moment.

I get it can be a bitter thing but I always try (and it takes real effort) to think about other PC's stories and that I managed to be a part of theirs in a way that was interesting for them.

In a game like Sindome where everyone is the good guy to some and the bad guy to others and nobody to most, I think it's important to set the expectation to oneself that there WILL be times when things will happen to my PC that seems unreasonable, unsporting, unfair, unexplained and lacking in direct RP. It's not usually characters being murder hobos or unsporting dips. It's you being the redshirt in other PCs stories for a bit.

Overall, I'd prefer for a lot of changes like the one proposed here to reduce the handicap on stealth builds and to encourage rounding out character builds. I'd love to see disguise rebalanced to encourage more players to invest in heavily in disguise as they have to in stealth. At the same time, as Slither has mentioned, I think stealth characters can work well enough with the coded limitations as they are.

By Grey0 at Oct 28, 2023 4:03 AM

But there is protection against combat archetypes just as equally as there is protection against dips here. The door fees significantly slow you down, prevent sniping, and make it so it's easy to get up and leave before someone even types 'kill' into their client. It's not all about dips here, the door fee system blocks both types of problem behaviors in a minor way to give those who took a risk on chilling in a public place a minor advantage, and that's a good thing.

By batko at Oct 28, 2023 10:28 AM

I hear the justifications and I understand them, but I still believe the sniping/sneaking door block ended up being a too-blunt adjustment made for a different era.

Theft, guns (especially long guns), and conflict in general have all declined in popularity in the last 6 years, and the presentation of this kind of impediment has (along with players being far too strict about cracking down on conflicts in venues, in my opinion) been a contributing element to those declines. It is frustrating typical now when characters do experience anything other than typical bar RP that they respond with entitled outrage and demands about what the venue is going to do about whoever.

I think there are ways to tune theft and sniping individually that don't involve blanket venue protection, because more and more I feel like the game is excessively catering to players who don't want to experience conflict at all, and when it does happen, for it to be as cosmetic and uncostly and convenient as possible so it can be ignored.

Not that I think anything like fee doors blocking sniping and sneaking are to blame for that overall, but I think in this case it did have perhaps unintended consequences. The short term may have encouraged more characters to go to bars and remain in them, but I think over several years that that and other mechanics tended to very slightly select for players who were more adverse to being messed with, and very slightly filtered against players who liked to mess with other players.

It doesn't have to be necessarily through this mechanic exactly, but I do think theft and sniping could both stand to be quite a bit more popular and common than they are now and would help to clear up some stagnation in how players have been approaching the game over the last couple of years.

By 0x1mm at Oct 28, 2023 1:14 PM

I actually feel like long guns have been much more popular recently, and guns overall have been a very common choice among players. The marriage to one single type of melee weapon skill is no longer a thing, in my eyes.

I come from a time where these changes were already in place and Red was a constant warzone regardless, including with dips crawling all over the place stealing everyone's everything everyday, regardless of door fees.

You're right that conflict has declined, and while I do usually support code changes to try and inform cultural changes, this isn't likely to have any impact. The issue with lacking conflict, from my perspective, is that the game is addicted to perfect crimes; players do not want to take risks unless they know they can get away with absolutely no retaliation or consequence. Gone are the days of loud personal feuds between mixers or even gangers, gone are the days of gangers insulting corpies without getting pasted by a solo five minutes later, gone are the days of bickering on SIC beyond dogpiling the latest entertaining spiral.

This is also partly due to the tendency for people to involve half the game into any small conflict that crops up. The mark of a good endbie is to sit back and watch to see what happens instead of taking sides and instantly winning things for your favorite immy. Or, to thumb the scale a bit from afar.

The current playerbase also needs some serious coaching on not having panic attacks when they get vatted, and not perming out after a realistically small setback.

There's not any concievable benefit I can think of from reintroducing sniper firing lines (as much as I think sniping being nerfed in other ways is unfair) and silent bar entries. Slither's post is exactly what I think of when I think of a good dip, roleplaying and using misdirection instead of relying solely on invisibility to shield them from consequence.

By batko at Oct 28, 2023 1:42 PM

I agree that there is not any specific change I can think of that would immediately make existing players more conflict-engaging, and you're right that the inclination towards total anonymity is a big contributor to that. I don't think the new fee doors killed conflict overnight or anything, I was certainly there for a share of bloodbaths that happened afterwards, even if they were some of the last major ones to occur.

I just think that these very slight pressures do select for a certain type of player over time, and the opposite can be true: That it is possible to subtly select for players who do the kinds of things you want to have happen, though it might be incredibly difficult to isolate what does that, just as it's possible to accidentally select for players who want the opposite things the game wants.

I think, inevitably, coded pressures to increase true hostile conflict (that is conflict involving actual hostile skill rolls of various kinds, not political roleplaying) will somewhat decrease player activity and engagement in the short term because players have on average become accustomed to a rather safe and predictable environments. However I also think that over years (like we've seen here) those pressures will either cause players to 1) adapt to the changes and become more embracing of those elements, or 2) be replaced by players who prefer those elements.

Because of this there will always be indicators and evidence that some improvement to hostile actions will have downsides or negative outcomes (in the short term), or not have immediate clear advantages to the current player base, but can still have an overall positive effect on the game in the longest terms.

By 0x1mm at Oct 28, 2023 2:00 PM

"I actually feel like long guns have been much more popular recently, and guns overall have been a very common choice among players. The marriage to one single type of melee weapon skill is no longer a thing, in my eyes."

I would find that very difficult to believe unless the time frame is a few months and the differing levels are just noise. If the total number of attacks made with long guns in a given year has increased since the fee door change than I would readily abandon this argument; but I'm very sure it hasn't.

My experience was there was a very slight uptick in the general usage of firearms after the reskin on them (cool names have underrated effects on weapon usage), but these skewed heavily towards small arms and declined again afterwards. I also believe that firearms skew massively towards objects that are owned and skilled into, but never used, and that the actual total number of attack actions made by players skews massively towards melee attacks overall.

Likewise I am very expectant that the number of theft actions per year has gone down in the last six years, and not up.

Of course this is all arguing in the dark since we're simply stating our own observations against one another, and it's possible I am very wrong on these and senior staff have data that says otherwise, but every discussion had about conflict and players engaging in it leads to believe there isn't.

If there is a considerable and continuing trendline upwards that staff have noticed of players shooting one another and stealing from one another, then I could probably be convinced this type of change (or changes like it) is not necessary right now.

By 0x1mm at Oct 28, 2023 2:16 PM

Slither's post is exactly what I think of when I think of a good dip, roleplaying and using misdirection instead of relying solely on invisibility to shield them from consequence.

Part of Slither's recommendation was creating poses for leaving the room, but he added that posing the exact thing you'd see from game generated exit message would be metagaming.

@batko You've said that you use the game generated entry/exit messages to determine when someone enters/exits and to keep track of PC presence in the room. What's to stop players from OOCly differentiating between the game generated exit message and poses to do this anyway?

I feel that's one question worth asking. The next one involves the following BGBB link.

https://sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/game-problems/display-name-is-not-identity-478/

In short, it's meta to identify characters by display name. A dip (or any sneak that knows what they are doing - which seems to be the thing we're afraid of here) that wants to hide will not be identified or ICly identifiable if players are honoring this rule.

Why? A sneak that walks into a bar/club and has the command 'hide' preloaded in their command box is going to be gone from sight before anyone has a chance to look at them for a character description. So long as they pass their skill check against everyone in the room, no one gets to even identify them.

All that's left for people afraid of a sneaks to do at that point is leave or deal with it because you have no IC info to identify the sneak with. Honoring this rule largely negates the benefits that people are concerned about losing in the first place with regard to door fees and entry/exit messages.

By RatchetEffect at Oct 29, 2023 4:24 PM

-	zxq	13s
-	F9DFCQ	23s
-	Emily	23m	I lost myself, in the dark charade.
-	NightHollow	25m
-	mercuri	1m
-	Napoleon	9m
-	Bruhlicious	5h	Deine Mutter stinkt nach Erbrochenem und Bier.
-	SacredWest	3h
And 24 more hiding and/or disguised