Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

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Anachorn
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Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by Anachorn » Fri Nov 06, 2020 8:18 pm

Hi all,

So its been a few weeks and we would like to hear your feedback on the cover & disguise changes.

All feedback will be appreciated but I would also specifically like you to answer these questions:
  1. Did you notice any increased griefing by players using cover?
  2. Did PCs (and guards in particular) behavior to covered individual change? ("Remove your cover or else..."), do you find this change improves or harms RP?
  3. Are you pleased with the "DisguiseName" rather then DisguiseName (Disguised) change?
  4. How often do you use the -cover flag? to you change between states with the same armor appearance? please specify when and how.
  5. What's your thoughts on the difficulty level of penetrating cover and its affect by distance? please specify if you are usually using it or trying to break it.
  6. Does cover make you believe investing in bluff is a less useful? what did you previously use bluff for?
  7. In general, are you pleased with the new system?
In addition I would like to have your input on a few changes that we have planned:
  • We will be removing the need to use -cover enable and have it enabled automatically when fully covered. The main reasons for this are to both keep things simple and so PCs won't sometimes be suspicious and sometimes not while looking precisely the same (Therefore slightly harming WYSIWYG). This change will be reviewed again and may be reverted or changed in a few weeks depending if we believe its better or worse than the current system.
  • As part of the change the cover text will seem less "dangerous" and will simply specify this this person is covered and you can't tell much about it in gray color. Covered individuals should now therefore be treated as if they are covered and you can't see most of their features, but they don't act suspiciously in any way other than that. (A Paladin fully covered in armor and helm may just be a... Paladin in full armor and helm, nothing nefarious must going on there.)
  • This isn't a change but I will mention it here again that if you don't want that covered text to show and have your appearance and description hidden just make sure your neck is visible, that's a barely visible change that will make you sure you are uncovered.
  • As requested in the previous thread, the cover text will be moved to the top of the examine window and everything else will follow.
  • When their cover isn't broken, half-elves will now appear as human.
In addition we have a new feature for disguise that is affected by cover:
  • You can now disguise your race using the -disguise_race RACE_NAME command. This has a few limitations:
    1. You must have at least 20 base bluff/perform to use this feature.
    2. This feature works with the existing disguise system, if you broke the disguise you can see the real race.
    3. You can only disguise your race as a similar race, this include all subraces with the same parent race (Drow->Moon Elf, Shield Dwarf -> Gold Dwarf) and in addition Half-Elf -> Human.
    4. You must be covered for this feature to work, but...
    5. Breaking the cover without breaking the disguise won't reveal your real race.
  • The main reason for these limitations is to maintain WYSIWYG - we don't want you to be able to differentiate races with different appearances (for example humans and elves) visually only to have the description say you didn't. The same goes for having Drow with dark skin disguised as moon elves when you can clearly see their dark skin and know them to be Drow.
  • Limiting this feature to covered PCs of the same appearance makes sure you only see a hooded figure of about the same size and need the description to tell its precise race.
  • If you broke the cover and didn't break the disguise you should treat it ICly as if you saw something of the player's skin but you still believe him to be whatever race he disguised himself as.
  • This isn't a change but I will specify it here again because it will probably come up, as before if you didn't break the cover you can only see that PCs parent race (Elf, Dwarf, Human) so that disguise_race won't have any affect until the cover is broken.

And that's it for now!

Please let us know what you think, we will update when this change will go live after hearing your feedback.


Update - The Changes are Live

This happened slightly sooner than I expected, I have gone through your comments though and will discuss them with the team and make the needed adjustments in the coming days, the most apparent ones are:
  • Automatic Description Hiding - this will most likely change now that cover is automatic, either by removing the feature, making it opt-in, allowing automatic alternative description under cover or in some other cooler way.
  • Hoods - we got brand new hood models that completely cover the face, so the old models that didn't completely hide it can now be made not-covering.
  • Lore Needed to Identify Races - The values of some races were already adjusted (such as Drow which was lowered considerably), more adjustments may be coming.
  • TS & Clairvoyance spells + Cover Break DC - In essence breaking cover that way makes sense IG but I agree this being done without RP at all sounds rather annoying, I will discuss this further with the team.

Other than that thank you all for the feedback! and keep it coming if you have more to contribute,

I will update once the adjustments are implemented.

Update #2

These changes will go live next reset, the first may still change further after more discussion but for now its better than always removing the description it as before.
  • Being covered no longer hides your description automatically
  • Hoods that do not hide your face no longer count as cover, the new masked-hoods added to all races do.
Last edited by Anachorn on Sat Nov 07, 2020 9:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Scurvy Cur
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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by Scurvy Cur » Fri Nov 06, 2020 9:48 pm

Caveat on my feedback:

My current main character has a spot score over 50, sometimes greatly over 50 depending on equipped gear, so I very routinely break cover's 40-60 spread. My own experiences may be more positive than someone playing a character that has no hope of breaking cover has had (and I imagine I'd be a lot more negative on this feature if I were playing a character that couldn't break a DC 40 cover check routinely).
Anachorn wrote:
Fri Nov 06, 2020 8:18 pm
Did you notice any increased griefing by players using cover?
No more or less than normal. Admittedly a surprise for me, but see above. I break most cover, so what unsporting/griefing/hostile behavior I've noticed I've also been able to respond to and punish ICly.
Anachorn wrote:
Fri Nov 06, 2020 8:18 pm
Did PCs (and guards in particular) behavior to covered individual change? ("Remove your cover or else..."), do you find this change improves or harms RP?
Yes. Mostly in the form of wordlessly walking up to -covered individuals, casting true sight and clairvoyance for +25 spot, and trying to break cover/disguise at point blank range.

So far I have killed one PC for doing this; the other cases I've observed have been at the Shadowvar trade post so a reprisal has not been possible.

I don't like this dynamic very much. I don't think TS/Clairvoyance should factor into the cover/disguise checks at all (and that cover checks, which seem to have been balanced around every PC having +25 spot available in buff form should come down by an appropriate amount to compensate). But I also understand that, if being fully covered is IC grounds for suspicion, it makes a certain degree of sense to cast spells to penetrate that cover. I would remove this from consideration by just disabling these spells as part of the check.
Anachorn wrote:
Fri Nov 06, 2020 8:18 pm
Are you pleased with the "DisguiseName" rather then DisguiseName (Disguised) change?
Yes. This is good. It's aesthetically less jarring without changing the basic functionality of the tag.
Anachorn wrote:
Fri Nov 06, 2020 8:18 pm
What's your thoughts on the difficulty level of penetrating cover and its affect by distance? please specify if you are usually using it or trying to break it.
I both use and try to break cover.

ATM, I think it's probably too difficult; partly, though, I'm trying to be mindful of people without spot ranks/gear/gift. A DC of 40-60 (according to rough experimentation I've done with a friend) is imo too high. It also feels as though you reach the maximum distance too quickly. You appear to be at max distance from about the summon range on a gate spell, which isn't all that large. A couple of points here:

1) the fact that cover will sometimes bounce the attempt of a 50+ spot skill character to get through it suggests that the upper number is too high. While it is nowhere close to "as much spot as possible", 50-55 spot is not a trivial number, representing for most characters, full ranks plus some gear and maybe a feat or gift, depending on the wis mod. This should not be defeated, imo, by a free feature, not even sometimes.

2) The max distance seems to happen too quickly. I would strongly suggest reducing the dependency on range. Testing of the feature suggests that distance makes up a 20ish point difference in the DC. This number should be significantly smaller.

3) I've got some concerns about the lower range as well, though these mostly pertain to "this feature has obviously been calibrated with a level 30 character in mind"; a complaint I also have about the DC 40 disguise check to break through an exile: yes, just about everyone that buys all the ranks in the skill will beat this at least some of the time at 30, but a DC 40 check for low level or even low-epic level players is very steep, and it has lead to some awkward situations in which a midlevel city guard has been unable to identify what turned out to be a very low level pickpocket because the pickpocket functionally got a free DC 40 disguise.

4) Finally, since I'm already in full support of removing TS and Clairvoyance as ways to respond to cover/disguise, I think the target values for breaking cover should go down a little.

Suggestion: calibrate to a 30-45ish DC range, push "maximum" range out a bit.
Anachorn wrote:
Fri Nov 06, 2020 8:18 pm
How often do you use the -cover flag? to you change between states with the same armor appearance? please specify when and how.


I use the cover flag most of the time when I'm going to be somewhere I shouldn't be and expect to be free to respond to TS/Clairvoyance use with violence. I rely on bluff otherwise.

I don't use cover on my main armor appearance, only when I'm swapping over to a specific and more ambiguous appearance.
Anachorn wrote:
Fri Nov 06, 2020 8:18 pm
Does cover make you believe investing in bluff is a less useful?
It depends on how much bluff is possible. If you're able to go 40+ in bluff, it's still worthwhile because you still get the d20 roll to that check and you'll still get some good use out of your bluff. If, however, you're tight on skill points, low on charisma, or unable to gear for bonus bluff or perform, you should probably skip given how many skills are necessary or quasi-necessary. If you can't make your bluff significantly stronger than a DC 40 check, I don't think it's worth the points in the current skill environment.
Anachorn wrote:
Fri Nov 06, 2020 8:18 pm
what did you previously use bluff for?
Depends on the character, but mostly killing people or avoiding identification when in a place I shouldn't be.

Also masquerade Pufferfish social gatherings with music and dancing (thank you very much swear filter, and your dislike of spheroidal objects with which games are sometimes played).
Anachorn wrote:
Fri Nov 06, 2020 8:18 pm
In general, are you pleased with the new system?
Not really, but I think it could be good if you tweaked the numbers and discouraged some kinds of behavior like TS/Clairvoyance use.
Anachorn wrote:
Fri Nov 06, 2020 8:18 pm
We will be removing the need to use -cover enable and have it enabled automatically when fully covered. The main reasons for this are to both keep things simple and so PCs won't sometimes be suspicious and sometimes not while looking precisely the same (Therefore slightly harming WYSIWYG). This change will be reviewed again and may be reverted or changed in a few weeks depending if we believe its better or worse than the current system.

Please don't do this.

Some characters are fully distinguishable even fully covered, and should not be flagged as particularly suspicious in that state.

I would rather retain control over whether I'm trying to conceal any distinguishing features about what I wear, or whether my decision to dress in full armor and a helmet is in pursuit of purely aesthetic ends.

Re: WYSIWYG, I think the rule should give way to limitations of the engine in this case. There's only so many appearance options available (even with recent admirable improvements) that I don't think it's really worth trying to be meticulous about "all covering is the same" when players have such limited ability to portray exactly what their character model looks like in game.

I get that you will be changing the cover message to make it seem less like a knight in shining armor is exactly as nefarious-looking as a rogue in a 63 black jumpsuit, but I still think the benefits of leaving players free to decide whether they'd like to use their cover system with their appearance outweigh the benefits of slightly higher WYSIWYG fidelity.
Anachorn wrote:
Fri Nov 06, 2020 8:18 pm
This isn't a change but I will mention it here again that if you don't want that covered text to show and have your appearance and description hidden just make sure your neck is visible, that's a barely visible change that will make you sure you are uncovered.
This strikes me as purely contradictory to the stated aim of the change mentioned above.

You want to make the system simpler, but also you want people to remember that they can dive through 4-5 dialog menus to remove the neck covering from their character and/or reapply it when they want to be covered?

How is that not drastically more complicated than a -cover toggle?


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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by ReverentBlade » Fri Nov 06, 2020 10:49 pm

I don't really have any specific feedback other than that I don't think the system has added much. The removal of descriptions makes it so that I would never use it. When I see a "fully covered" PC my instinct is frankly to just leave the area. The character is either going to be problematic of the person behind the character just isn't interested in giving me anything to work with.

AstralUniverse
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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by AstralUniverse » Fri Nov 06, 2020 11:18 pm

Anachorn wrote:
Fri Nov 06, 2020 8:18 pm
We will be removing the need to use -cover enable and have it enabled automatically when fully covered. The main reasons for this are to both keep things simple and so PCs won't sometimes be suspicious and sometimes not while looking precisely the same (Therefore slightly harming WYSIWYG). This change will be reviewed again and may be reverted or changed in a few weeks depending if we believe its better or worse than the current system.
Please reconsider this because in many occasions a character is fully covered simply because of the weather and are not doing it with any conscious intention to hide anything and they shouldnt trigger the 'suspect' alert. If you must do it for the sake of wysisyg consistency then please at lease leave the hood models out of it unless its specifically the one hood with the mask beneath it.
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I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by Xerah » Sat Nov 07, 2020 12:41 am

I think it is an improvement to switch to auto cover. Being fully covered is something you can and can not do but because of meta knowledge, everyone undercover is actively choosing it. A Knight with a helm on is just as covered as that rogue in all black. As long as it's an active choice, people will always meta knowledge it to be only a bad guy doing it. And that ruins the entire point of the system (much like previously, joining the RH aux meant auto good).
AstralUniverse wrote:
Fri Nov 06, 2020 11:18 pm
Please reconsider this because in many occasions a character is fully covered simply because of the weather and are not doing it with any conscious intention to hide anything and they shouldnt trigger the 'suspect' alert. If you must do it for the sake of wysisyg consistency then please at lease leave the hood models out of it unless its specifically the one hood with the mask beneath it.
It's not always meant to trigger a suspect alert. But that's how it gets RPed because you know anyone who uses -cover is trying to hide actively.
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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by mjones3 » Sat Nov 07, 2020 12:43 am

With the addition of cover and the ability to disguise your race, will there be a change in identifying races? It was initially implemented because people were being cheesy and just jumping drow and such when they come to the surface (as far as I know). But now there are ways for folks with and without bluff/perform to hide what their race is. And for me it makes very little sense for characters who can very often come into contact with drow and duergar to not be able to recognize them unless they are of the same base race or a ranger.

As it is now even with base lore over 15 on a gnome I can only tell there race of other gnomes, with an elf with 3 lore (from int) I can't even tell what kind other elves are, I'm not even identifying other moon elves.

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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by Nevrus » Sat Nov 07, 2020 12:49 am

+1 to everything Cur said. Please don't let me accidentally nuke my description due to wearing well-designed armor.
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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by AstralUniverse » Sat Nov 07, 2020 1:34 am

Xerah wrote:
Sat Nov 07, 2020 12:41 am
I think it is an improvement to switch to auto cover. Being fully covered is something you can and can not do but because of meta knowledge, everyone undercover is actively choosing it. A Knight with a helm on is just as covered as that rogue in all black. As long as it's an active choice, people will always meta knowledge it to be only a bad guy doing it. And that ruins the entire point of the system (much like previously, joining the RH aux meant auto good).
AstralUniverse wrote:
Fri Nov 06, 2020 11:18 pm
Please reconsider this because in many occasions a character is fully covered simply because of the weather and are not doing it with any conscious intention to hide anything and they shouldnt trigger the 'suspect' alert. If you must do it for the sake of wysisyg consistency then please at lease leave the hood models out of it unless its specifically the one hood with the mask beneath it.
It's not always meant to trigger a suspect alert. But that's how it gets RPed because you know anyone who uses -cover is trying to hide actively.
I can understand your point but that's also why I said leave hoods out of it. A hood doesnt conceal a face (I suppose some of the hood models do but some dont as well, and the last helmet model just leaves the face blank and open for interpretation and follow-up by description if the player wishes). This all goes away if my, supposedly, priest wears a robe, gloves and a hood without any attempt to hide anything, and they will start passing as "suspicious" for absolute no reason. People would start leaving an empty neck model just to not trigger it. I say why go there to begin with.
Svrtr wrote:

I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by mjones3 » Sat Nov 07, 2020 1:50 am

AstralUniverse wrote:
Sat Nov 07, 2020 1:34 am
I can understand your point but that's also why I said leave hoods out of it. A hood doesnt conceal a face (I suppose some of the hood models do but some dont as well, and the last helmet model just leaves the face blank and open for interpretation and follow-up by description if the player wishes). This all goes away if my, supposedly, priest wears a robe, gloves and a hood without any attempt to hide anything, and they will start passing as "suspicious" for absolute no reason. People would start leaving an empty neck model just to not trigger it. I say why go there to begin with.
To keep a hood up in a place you know they are trying to ascertain who you are will always be suspicious. How many fantasy shows have the trope of someone entering a town through the main gate and holding their hood down creating a highly suspenseful moment because they, and you as the viewer, know they are doing something suspicious? Just leave the neck slot empty if you plan on using a hood, its not even visible with most of the hoods as far as I am aware.

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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by malcolm_mountainslayer » Sat Nov 07, 2020 2:45 am

So does auto full cover block people from seeing my description? Like what if a fully armored knight fully covered but has symbols on his armor that was included in his description?

DC for cover sounds way way way too high unless the feature that lets you watch someone for pickpocketing would give you a significant bonus to uncovering.

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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by AstralUniverse » Sat Nov 07, 2020 3:24 am

mjones3 wrote:
Sat Nov 07, 2020 1:50 am
AstralUniverse wrote:
Sat Nov 07, 2020 1:34 am
I can understand your point but that's also why I said leave hoods out of it. A hood doesnt conceal a face (I suppose some of the hood models do but some dont as well, and the last helmet model just leaves the face blank and open for interpretation and follow-up by description if the player wishes). This all goes away if my, supposedly, priest wears a robe, gloves and a hood without any attempt to hide anything, and they will start passing as "suspicious" for absolute no reason. People would start leaving an empty neck model just to not trigger it. I say why go there to begin with.
To keep a hood up in a place you know they are trying to ascertain who you are will always be suspicious. How many fantasy shows have the trope of someone entering a town through the main gate and holding their hood down creating a highly suspenseful moment because they, and you as the viewer, know they are doing something suspicious? Just leave the neck slot empty if you plan on using a hood, its not even visible with most of the hoods as far as I am aware.
Not a lore expert here but arent there a lot of places in FR in which people also wear hoods as show of humility/modesty as a part of the culture? Doesnt this apply to Arelith as well in that regard?
Svrtr wrote:

I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by Arienette » Sat Nov 07, 2020 4:26 am

For sure “John Doe” is better than John Doe (Disguised).

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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by Party in the forest at midnight » Sat Nov 07, 2020 4:42 am

Did you notice any increased griefing by players using cover?
Yes, and always from guards.


Did PCs (and guards in particular) behavior to covered individual change? ("Remove your cover or else..."), do you find this change improves or harms RP?
Whenever people bring out the "Remove your cover or else" RP, it is absolutely detrimental to RP. I think it's happening more frequently now with cover than with disguise alone, but that's anecdotal. I know people metagamed disguise in the past, but I never personally saw it. Now I see people who are covered get specifically targeted.


Are you pleased with the "DisguiseName" rather then DisguiseName (Disguised) change?
I love this change, disguises feel a lot more immersive in the game world now. It reads better in chat too.


How often do you use the -cover flag? to you change between states with the same armor appearance? please specify when and how.
I don't use -cover. I'd rather rely on bluff or perform, -cover only encourages people to truesight to try and break the disguise.


What's your thoughts on the difficulty level of penetrating cover and its affect by distance? please specify if you are usually using it or trying to break it.
My spot is only 50ish so it's hard to say, I've not done a lot of experimenting with it. I've been able to break covers, but most of the time I can't.
Personally I don't mind it being high, because being covered is an IC invitation to be harassed, it comes with its own risks that make it less desirable than -disguise.


Does cover make you believe investing in bluff is a less useful? what did you previously use bluff for?
The question shouldn't be if cover makes bluff less useful, it should be if perform makes bluff less useful. Bluff needs more gear options.
But regarding traditional disguises, I will stick with using those because cover is just inviting people to harass you.


In general, are you pleased with the new system?
I'm indifferent to it. I won't use it because of how players react to covered people. I love the idea, I like that it gives options for people to be sneaky. But I'm really disappointed in what I've seen from people, the win mentality in trying to break cover. And if that fails, demand the covered person lower their hood or else.


We will be removing the need to use -cover enable and have it enabled automatically when fully covered. The main reasons for this are to both keep things simple and so PCs won't sometimes be suspicious and sometimes not while looking precisely the same (Therefore slightly harming WYSIWYG). This change will be reviewed again and may be reverted or changed in a few weeks depending if we believe its better or worse than the current system.
I'd rather it not be automatic, I'll have to go through all my disguise outfits and make sure they're not covered.


As part of the change the cover text will seem less "dangerous" and will simply specify this this person is covered and you can't tell much about it in gray color. Covered individuals should now therefore be treated as if they are covered and you can't see most of their features, but they don't act suspiciously in any way other than that. (A Paladin fully covered in armor and helm may just be a... Paladin in full armor and helm, nothing nefarious must going on there.)
I think it's a bit late for this. Cover was advertised as "You can do it, but it'll make you look suspicious!", and so that is how people are going to treat it whenever they see a covered person. They're intentionally covering themself, that makes them suspicious, which gives the green light to hood check them.
Unless you intend to have "this person's bodily features are fully covered" appear any time a person fully covers their body in armour or clothing, I don't think the paladin example will ever really work. And even then, people will purposefully only use the neck piece if they're wanting to be fully covered. The actual paladins won't be covered, just people trying to use the mechanic, therefore paladins will never be suspicious. I don't think it'll change anything.



I'm sorry if this reply is negative, I am just very disheartened by what I have seen. The biggest thing I could ask for, regarding to -disguise, would be more and improved bluff gear.

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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by Skibbles » Sat Nov 07, 2020 6:13 am

I have mostly been playing during the off hours so I've, probably simply by that fact alone, seen no griefing by cover - but also I've rarely seen it in the past with disguise either. It could be an Andunor versus Cordor thing as well, as I'd imagine the UD at times may give way less cares about a random sketchy person doing shopping than the Cordor Guard who's job might be to specifically watch for random sketchy people. It might help if people added where these experiences were happening.

According to the last feedback thread it was stated very clearly that being covered was suspicious. Therefore I'm not sure if we can categorize being treated as suspicious as griefing. It seemed like an adequate balance for using a free relatively high-dc mechanic to block a character's features by also being allowed to be treated with a degree of suspicion.
Anachorn wrote:
Fri Nov 06, 2020 8:18 pm
1. Did you notice any increased griefing by players using cover?
2. Did PCs (and guards in particular) behavior to covered individual change? ("Remove your cover or else..."), do you find this change improves or harms RP?
Therefore I'll go with 'I don't know.'
Anachorn wrote:
Fri Nov 06, 2020 8:18 pm
3. Are you pleased with the "DisguiseName" rather then DisguiseName (Disguised) change?
Yes. So much Yes. I can just feel how much better this is in mah bones.
Anachorn wrote:
Fri Nov 06, 2020 8:18 pm
4. How often do you use the -cover flag? to you change between states with the same armor appearance? please specify when and how.
Any time my PC goes to the surface to explore. Before the cover change I was using disguise in exactly the same manner, even with -1 bluff. It usually involved modifying the outfit with full coverage, and a vague description to match.
Anachorn wrote:
Fri Nov 06, 2020 8:18 pm
5. What's your thoughts on the difficulty level of penetrating cover and its affect by distance? please specify if you are usually using it or trying to break it.
Spot is rapidly becoming a must have skill, with the pickpocket rework on top of a universally usable cover system, while also been a difficult skill to acquire. My concern hardly has to do with cover so much as four very powerful mechanics branching off of one skill to counter (hide, PP, disguise, and cover).

Since none of my PCs have spot (and only one is capable of having it), and I just finished leveling to 30 on listen merely a month before spot became the absolute META, I can't comment - I've never beaten a disguise or cover check ever anyway so I'm quite used to it.
Anachorn wrote:
Fri Nov 06, 2020 8:18 pm
Does cover make you believe investing in bluff is a less useful? what did you previously use bluff for?
I don't think there's any right answer for this. The skill bloat is real right now. I can easily see people dropping bluff for those desperately needed skill point in virtually any other skill in favor of cover.

However if I was making a character that wanted to incognito a lot I'd still personally be heavily invested so as to better create an alter-ego without covering the entire body.

#######
General Feedback - Cover
#######

I'm sort of in line with what Scurvy highlighted. Usability and the New Player Experience could quickly become unwieldy with all these features (especially with 'just remove the neck piece' part). I've already seen plenty of tongue in cheek 'don't forget your cover collar!' due to the humorous nature in which you can wear a torso that reveals all your skin, throw on a little choker, and bam - covered. I expect the latter of this could just be part of a polishing of the system in the future.

If cover does become automatic then please, please, make the system give a popup or feedback 'You're fully covered,' when covered. Maybe a quick combat log tooltip saying to '-cover ?' for details.

Another idea, based on a very frequent complaint, and now especially in the light of cover being automatic, is allowing for a description. Perhaps, and I hate to recommend this given the overwhelming negative opinion of the animal language, is to allow descriptions of a limited character count. Obviously more than 15, but enough so that taking into account the OP example:

"A man covered in shining armor with Torm's holy symbol displayed."
or
"She is covered head to toe in black leather with a deep hood, and bears no allegiance."

Just a little something for people to work with.

Generally, however, I kind of like the direction. I feel like, given time, the suspiciousness of the cover system might alleviate (by redirection) a lot of the winning mentality when it comes to breaking disguises - oddly making bluff more valuable. This could just be optimism.

I know the team doesn't like to make explicit rules, but cover will absolutely need a firm ruling: is it suspicious, or is it not suspicious? If we're asking about guards griefing, but also saying that it's resolutely suspicious to see someone covered, are we really being fair here?

#######
Feedback - Disguise Race
#######

As someone pointed out earlier most characters already have no idea they're staring at an obvious drow or obvious duergar already, even when they live in the Underdark and deal with them every minute of every day, leading them to simply metagame their racial knowledge anyway just for the sake of getting to the RP.

Therefore disguise race seems particularly underwhelming in all regards because everyone is already metagaming races - the system is bizarre, counter-immersive, poorly understood, and seems to mostly just be universally disregarded.

I would postpone race disguising until identifying races is taken more seriously, or better yet completely reworked or just discarded, in the first place.
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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by Tyrantos » Sat Nov 07, 2020 9:00 am

Still curious of how cover will work for monster races such as goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds and such! :) I cant give much feedback on it. Ive not seen it used that much.

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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by Kalopsia » Sat Nov 07, 2020 9:38 am

Nevrus wrote:
Sat Nov 07, 2020 12:49 am
[...] Please don't let me accidentally nuke my description due to wearing well-designed armor.
In my opinion, if the feature is to be enabled automatically, the current description removal should likely be reconsidered as a fairly large fraction of people would suddenly be unable to read the descriptions of many knights in shining armor and other people they come across. I believe automatic -cover could potentially remove quite a few RP hooks people currently include in their descriptions, like the aforementioned knight wearing a symbol of Lathander: Information these characters would not try to hide unless disguised.

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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by Eira » Sat Nov 07, 2020 10:11 am

Perhaps there could be something like -savedesc corpse or -savedesc familiar that is -savedesc cover so you're able to add a description specifically for cover?

That way, people who don't care just won't have a description, and people who like to put more detail into their being fully covered will be able to add it

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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by Nitro » Sat Nov 07, 2020 11:09 am

As someone with a high amount of bluff, I've avoided using cover since it's basically a get out of jail free card for people to buff up with spot buffs before looking at me without it being metagaming.

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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by mash » Sat Nov 07, 2020 2:27 pm

So far, I think the cover system is a great addition to the server, not much else to say about it. However, I would like to argue against some of these proposed changes.
We will be removing the need to use -cover enable and have it enabled automatically when fully covered. The main reasons for this are to both keep things simple and so PCs won't sometimes be suspicious and sometimes not while looking precisely the same (Therefore slightly harming WYSIWYG). This change will be reviewed again and may be reverted or changed in a few weeks depending if we believe its better or worse than the current system.
As others have commented, this change is in my view mainly a nuisance for characters who do not wish to disguise themselves (i.e. people wearing proper armor) and does little to achieve the goal of reducing metagaming the cover mechanic. The disguise tag is already a much stronger indicator for suspicion than the cover status. A non-disguised paladin with no description will still not be thought as suspicious as a disguised covered person. Instead, I suggest it would be much more effective to remove disguise tags entirely or force any covered toon to get a disguise tag. I do not see how hiding the description alone helps much. It also would probably trip up players unfamiliar with the sorver a lot.
This isn't a change but I will mention it here again that if you don't want that covered text to show and have your appearance and description hidden just make sure your neck is visible, that's a barely visible change that will make you sure you are uncovered.
This solution appears very arcane and confusing to me. If this is meant to be a de-facto option, why not make it into an explicit command instead. Then again, if most who do not like to get their description squashed do it, again everyone who is covered will be suspicious.

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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by CorsicanDoge » Sat Nov 07, 2020 2:41 pm

  1. Did you notice any increased griefing by players using cover?

    - Not really.
  2. Did PCs (and guards in particular) behavior to covered individual change? ("Remove your cover or else..."), do you find this change improves or harms RP?

    - Only one time and that was coincidentally when my drow was, in fact, sneaking around Cordor. I imagine they do this because of monster PCs like the one I play. It doesn't really hurt my RP, I can just throw a darkness and scatter into a sewer.
  3. Are you pleased with the "DisguiseName" rather then DisguiseName (Disguised) change?

    - Yes. Definitely.
  4. How often do you use the -cover flag? to you change between states with the same armor appearance? please specify when and how.

    -I use it to nuke my descriptions because I'm too lazy to switch between my normal drow description and another description.
  5. What's your thoughts on the difficulty level of penetrating cover and its affect by distance? please specify if you are usually using it or trying to break it.

    -I have listen on my bard. So there's no breaking anything.
  6. Does cover make you believe investing in bluff is a less useful? what did you previously use bluff for?

    - Not in the slightest. I wouldn't get around on my midnight shopping sprees if it weren't for absurdly high perform in the first place.
  7. In general, are you pleased with the new system?

    - Yeah. It certainly wasn't the end of the world. Nobody in Andunor really cares about a -covered person unless they're hunting for someone specifically.

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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by Inordinate » Sat Nov 07, 2020 8:23 pm

I have better feedback for a different time but I did want to note that as of this post the automatic cover activation is live on the servers right now. People ought to start examining everyone to see how widespread its forced description blanking ends up being and how long it takes for people to realize that's the case.

For the record I find its automatic state + that to be very negative.
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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by Anachorn » Sat Nov 07, 2020 8:32 pm

Inordinate wrote:
Sat Nov 07, 2020 8:23 pm
I have better feedback for a different time but I did want to note that as of this post the automatic cover activation is live on the servers right now. People ought to start examining everyone to see how widespread its forced description blanking ends up being and how long it takes for people to realize that's the case.

For the record I find its automatic state + that to be very negative.
Yes the forced description removal will change very soon, everyone please see my update in the first post regarding this and some of the other feedback you gave.

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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by Miaou » Sat Nov 07, 2020 10:45 pm

1. Did you notice any increased griefing by players using cover?
I've not noticed any increase, nope.
2. Did PCs (and guards in particular) behavior to covered individual change? ("Remove your cover or else..."), do you find this change improves or harms RP?
I've not experienced the "remove your cover or else" style of interaction yet. I've noted a lot of hesitation in people when seeing a covered person which can sometimes lead to wary behaviour, but that might be a good thing and intended. I mean if someone is being sketchy and fully covered, then of course you're going to be wary and hesitant.
3. Are you pleased with the "DisguiseName" rather then DisguiseName (Disguised) change?
I am! Best change. However I hope this change gets applied to illusionary clones, who still get the (Disguised) tag. I sent in a bug report about it, as it limits the usability of that ability some.
4. How often do you use the -cover flag? to you change between states with the same armor appearance? please specify when and how.
I honestly still forget it exists, so I'm getting used to it still. I feel the automatic system will help with this, especially if there is a popup saying as much when you become fully covered.
5. What's your thoughts on the difficulty level of penetrating cover and its affect by distance? please specify if you are usually using it or trying to break it.
The cover system seems to work pretty well, though I've not been able to test how it works with distance so far. I have noticed that I can't break people's covers at times when right beside them, which I feel like I should be able to, being that close. My characters have average spot/listen, nothing terribly high.
6. Does cover make you believe investing in bluff is a less useful? what did you previously use bluff for?
Investment in bluff is still very much needed. I feel cover simply adds a more interesting aspect to the game. I enjoy it! Bluff is still used to appear as someone else, while cover is more trying to hide who you are. I think cover compliments disguise properly.
7. In general, are you pleased with the new system?
Other than the possibility of a few value changes and working on ease-of-use for covers activation, I think it's pretty neat. If the illusionary clones can be updated as well, the system would be double neat.

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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by CNS » Sun Nov 08, 2020 9:12 am

I like the effort and think its got potential.

"Player Name" is a fantastic change and I think has huge all round approval.

With cover, I actually like the idea of it being automatic, if you're covered - you're covered even John McPaladin the most noble and well known Paladin in the realms if he's full covered you might recognize his armor and markings but until you can see his face you don't know for sure its actually him inside it.

Having -cover be initially launched as "This is suspicious and clearly a person you should worry about" was probably a mistake, however fixing that message and having it apply to all is good. If this is then/now combined with an ability to set a description for when covered, or leave your original description or whatever then I think this is the right way for it to be. You can indicate you are John McPaladin via your description, but someone could take the time to study your outfit and description and mimic it and pretend to be you.

I'm actually strongly opposed to being able to turn off -cover by removing a neck piece, unless John McPaladin has a unique and incredibly individual tatto or marking on his neck how does that help me beyond "Yeah its something with pale flesh inside that armor suit". It just returns us to "Only bad people are covering their faces, this person isn't bad because they have a 1cm sliver of flesh showing"

DC wise, strong agreement with Scurvy, remove TS/Clair from helping but lower the DC to compensate. Not only does it encourage some strange, but justified behaviors, it seems odd. Also, worth keeping in mind that someone running up to you and starting to cast spells can be taken as an overtly hostile act. This leads to scenarios that seem fair but end up in strange no-RP pvp. James Guard runs up to a -covered person and starts to cast truesight. Dave Underdark isn't a mage and doesn't have a bunch of spellcraft so has no idea if that spell is truesight or hellball or harm or any of a bunch of spells and so he attacks back. Everyone seems to have followed the rules but there we are, no text, no real RP, PVP. Not what I expect was the intention of this.

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Re: Cover Feedback and New Upcoming Changes

Post by AstralUniverse » Sun Nov 08, 2020 10:09 am

Xerah wrote:
Sat Nov 07, 2020 12:41 am
I think it is an improvement to switch to auto cover. Being fully covered is something you can and can not do but because of meta knowledge, everyone undercover is actively choosing it. A Knight with a helm on is just as covered as that rogue in all black. As long as it's an active choice, people will always meta knowledge it to be only a bad guy doing it. And that ruins the entire point of the system (much like previously, joining the RH aux meant auto good).
AstralUniverse wrote:
Fri Nov 06, 2020 11:18 pm
Please reconsider this because in many occasions a character is fully covered simply because of the weather and are not doing it with any conscious intention to hide anything and they shouldnt trigger the 'suspect' alert. If you must do it for the sake of wysisyg consistency then please at lease leave the hood models out of it unless its specifically the one hood with the mask beneath it.
It's not always meant to trigger a suspect alert. But that's how it gets RPed because you know anyone who uses -cover is trying to hide actively.
I get what you meant now and I like how its working.
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