Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

An area to facilitate free-form feedback on systems (in-game or out) related to Arelith.

Moderators: Forum Moderators, Active DMs, Contributors

Anomandaris
Posts: 436
Joined: Sun Oct 06, 2019 10:56 am

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by Anomandaris » Fri Apr 16, 2021 5:58 pm

I may be in the minority that thinks if you’re a notorious/“active” good/evil pc, it’s awesome that you need to be careful of where you are and your state of readiness at all times knowing that people want to get you. The fact that some group/individual may at any point track you down and murder/kidnap you from your front door to a random place you’re gathering herbs in the forest is spooky and freaking awesome. Same goes for secret meetings and espionage. It’s a risk so accept the other side of that.

Chances are if you’ve managed to make IC waves that big you’re a savvy enough player to ward yourself from scry and be a “hard target.” It’s a dark world, bad things happen to good people. You wana play hero or arch villain? You better be ready to ride the roller coaster because you’ve just kicked a bee hive.

I love this dynamic so I constantly pull the tiger’s tail. If you don’t then don’t overtly and continuously antagonize powerful organizations with vast resources... no ones dedicating gank squads and scrys to hunt the guy doing a writs on a roll PC with no invested rp. Play dangerous games win dangerous prizes. Really it’s ok...

User avatar
Hazard
Posts: 1866
Joined: Wed Oct 24, 2018 8:27 am

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by Hazard » Sun Apr 18, 2021 12:34 am

There are commonly known exploits to render conversations/RP scry proof.
Last edited by Hazard on Sun Apr 18, 2021 7:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Zavandar
Posts: 785
Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2016 2:12 am

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by Zavandar » Sun Apr 18, 2021 2:22 am

well that seems incredibly meta
Intelligence is too important

User avatar
DangerDolphin
Posts: 505
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2019 2:10 am

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by DangerDolphin » Sun Apr 18, 2021 3:14 am

First of all, wanted to agree with the OP that failed scry shouldn't both burn components and trigger cooldown.

On the matter of scry immunity bard song, which I'm directly responsible for, bards already have this through one of their spells - and it lasts 3 times longer without metamagic. The spell is also useful in combat, whereas the song forces you to swap from a battle song to activate.

The overarching issues with scry though:

Risk

If you want to spy on someone by following them, you run the risk of being spotted. They could feed you false information, kill you, or trap you somewhere. Each round has a spot/listen check, and you have to weigh how long you want to listen and learn for, versus the chance of being seen. How close you want to get, against missing whispers. The concern that someone else will turn up to the meeting who has great detection. That if you're killed, you won't be able to act on the information.

If you're scrying, you hit the button and off you go. You can only be caught by other scriers, and even then it doesn't matter, as you're safe in your room.

Counterplay

If you're being scried as a mundane, you have no warning - until the gank squad turns up and kills you. You can certainly block it afterwards, by carrying around four or five crafted cloaks, but really it's too late by that point.

There is of course 'counterplay' by using blocking, but that's not so much counterplay as outright walling yourself off.

What scry is good at

Ganking people. Change servers, check the player list, find your enemy who's off doing some PvE in part of the server you would normally not think to look for them, and PK them while they're injured. This doesn't really generate any RP, but more meaningless PvP - PK is the endgame to any conflict - it can't escalate past that.

Another thing it's great at is spotting necromancers and warlocks PvEing. Fantastic to spot them when they're low level and have little access to countermeasures, as the spells expire quickly. Screwing over low levels is exactly what you don't want epics doing with their buckets of spare time.

What Scry is bad at

It's terrible for listening to plots and plans. Provided someone is actually silly enough to not use countermeasures, or go to a scry-proof room, it will last a few minutes and you'll get a snippet out of context. This isn't like a movie where the hero listens to the villains for one minute and is lucky enough to hear YES, WE'LL PLANT THE BOMB AT THE EIFFEL TOWER AT NOON TOMORROW, HEY, WHAT WAS THAT NOISE?
You're far more likely to get *Scratches nose* Yes indeed.

Chances are, you won't often get anything that can be acted on in a fun way.

The solution

Scry should have back and forth counterplay, require effort and provide clues and conversations.

Let anyone have the means to detect it, so you're not sure if you're getting great information, or being fed lies because they noticed you.

Let people lay traps for scriers to reveal their identities, or cause a backlash effect on them.

Let it last longer, 30-60 minutes, but hide the location and identities. You just hear voices discussing plans, not find out where they are so you can go and kill them. Give clues about who they are, where they are. It's a dark room or a bright forest, one figure is female, another is male and sounds orcish. Link them to figures from the deck of stars.

Remove the outright blocking of scry, have silent rolls to defend against and penetrate it depending on the strength of the defences. Once scry is no longer overpowered, this becomes feasible and reasonable. Nobody can be entirely certain they're not overheard when they speak, but the longer the scrier listens, the more risk they're detected.

If you want the current scry of zoning in on top of someone, you should have to do something risky, like getting a cut of their hair that only lasts 24 hours, or asking them to carry a ring you enchanted, so you can watch allies freely.

User avatar
Party in the forest at midnight
Posts: 1384
Joined: Thu Mar 29, 2018 4:55 pm

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by Party in the forest at midnight » Sun Apr 18, 2021 4:17 am

If there was no way to block it, that would lead to people using discord to plan things. I think this is a terrible idea.

Aelryn Bloodmoon
Arelith Supporter
Arelith Supporter
Posts: 2028
Joined: Thu Sep 11, 2014 4:57 pm

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by Aelryn Bloodmoon » Sun Apr 18, 2021 6:18 am

As far as the detection of scrying meta goes, I always thought it would be best served just going by the core rules on how scrying sensors work.

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOvervie ... tm#scrying
Scrying

A scrying spell creates an invisible magical sensor that sends you information. Unless noted otherwise, the sensor has the same powers of sensory acuity that you possess. This level of acuity includes any spells or effects that target you, but not spells or effects that emanate from you. However, the sensor is treated as a separate, independent sensory organ of yours, and thus it functions normally even if you have been blinded, deafened, or otherwise suffered sensory impairment.

Any creature with an Intelligence score of 12 or higher can notice the sensor by making a DC 20 Intelligence check. The sensor can be dispelled as if it were an active spell.

Lead sheeting or magical protection blocks a scrying spell, and you sense that the spell is so blocked.
Emphasis mine, in the prevalent meta of Arelith where most people have 14 Int or higher and almost no one has less than 12 unless it's an RP quirk that they accept relegates them to not noticing this kind of thing, this equates out to a 10% chance minimum for probably something like 85% of the population to notice when they're being scried on. Per round. So, you might not get noticed right away, and you might get some juicy information- but the longer you listen, the more likely you are to get pounced on (with appropriate countermeasures) or intentionally fed misinformation.

I like a lot of Danger Dolphin's ideas (although we have to agree to disagree about scry not revealing the person since the spells specify they target a specific creature of your choosing, rather than a general location - not that I would complain about a table-top version of clairaudience/voyance). A lot of them actually already have PnP rules (like the backlash/reversal traps) to source from, and I'd hazard a guess that with some very minor tweaking to account for gear inflation of stats in NWN (PnP does not accomodate stacking +12 enhancement bonuses +1 at a time across 12 pieces of gear) it would hold up well here, if it was attempted.

While I'm throwing out things that already have paperwork written up, there's also this.

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/detectScrying.htm

And this, which although psionics, could easily have a magical spell parallel - Forgotten Realms uses the Psionics/Magic transparency rules.

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powe ... ewTrap.htm

My pipe dream is for the scrying system to be fleshed out enough some day for ESF to allow for an actual epic scrying spell that works something more like this...

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/soulScry.htm

Edit: Also, I'm just gonna throw this out there. The whole FOIG aspect of the scrying counters seems needlessly pedantic to me and it seems to me to probably aggravate the situation of newer players not in the know. Wouldn't it be fair to consider the information automatically available at Spellcraft X, making it wide-spread enough that characters would have a more organic opportunity to learn IC from someone who does if the need ever comes up?
Bane's tyranny is known throughout the continent, and his is the image most seen as the face of evil.
-Faiths and Pantheons (c)2002

Nitro
Posts: 2800
Joined: Mon Sep 08, 2014 7:04 pm

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by Nitro » Sun Apr 18, 2021 6:33 am

Hazard wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 12:34 am
There are commonly known exploits to render conversations/RP scry proof
That's actual metagaming.

User avatar
Hazard
Posts: 1866
Joined: Wed Oct 24, 2018 8:27 am

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by Hazard » Sun Apr 18, 2021 6:36 am

Unfortunately, people do metagame and it's almost impossible to prove that they're doing it.
Last edited by Hazard on Sun Apr 18, 2021 7:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Dreams
Posts: 1083
Joined: Sun Jul 30, 2017 3:13 am

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by Dreams » Sun Apr 18, 2021 6:57 am

It's probably not a helpful thing to the server to propagate knowledge of an exploit like this by sharing it on the forums.

Scry in general has received recent changes in light of how it was being used. Behaviours take a while to change, and if the -scry cooldown is triggered regardless of a successful spell or not, it will go a long way toward making the diviners on the server a little more careful about the way they do things.

People using this ability just need to be a little more thoughtful in the way that they make use of it. Maybe it will even help people stop introducing metagaming into their roleplay, such as when a diviner will claim 'I can't feel this person on the leyline' before they try to use the spell (meaning 'This person is not online', which they can't possibly know/doesn't make sense for the setting, since you don't know that until you cast the spell).

xanrael
Posts: 507
Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2019 5:13 pm

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by xanrael » Sun Apr 18, 2021 7:00 am

DangerDolphin wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 3:14 am
Let it last longer, 30-60 minutes, but hide the location and identities. You just hear voices discussing plans, not find out where they are so you can go and kill them. Give clues about who they are, where they are. It's a dark room or a bright forest, one figure is female, another is male and sounds orcish. Link them to figures from the deck of stars.
I think making a placeable that works similar to a town crier but looks like a crystal ball could work well. So someone with ESF: Div would interact with the crystal ball and state the name of the target and then the crystal ball would just "say" what it hears nearby. So it could be something like:
Male Human: *nods* Yes, that's it.
Female Human: Wonderful
That way the one scrying isn't stuck in a cutscene for any length of time and multiple people could listen in. Placeable could be carried about as well and plopped down wherever to start the scrying.
Last edited by xanrael on Sun Apr 18, 2021 7:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Hazard
Posts: 1866
Joined: Wed Oct 24, 2018 8:27 am

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by Hazard » Sun Apr 18, 2021 7:03 am

Dreams wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 6:57 am
It's probably not a helpful thing to the server to propagate knowledge of an exploit like this by sharing it on the forums.

Scry in general has received recent changes in light of how it was being used. Behaviours take a while to change, and if the -scry cooldown is triggered regardless of a successful spell or not, it will go a long way toward making the diviners on the server a little more careful about the way they do things.

People using this ability just need to be a little more thoughtful in the way that they make use of it. Maybe it will even help people stop introducing metagaming into their roleplay, such as when a diviner will claim 'I can't feel this person on the leyline' before they try to use the spell (meaning 'This person is not online', which they can't possibly know/doesn't make sense for the setting, since you don't know that until you cast the spell).
You're right. I'll edit that out.

User avatar
Hazard
Posts: 1866
Joined: Wed Oct 24, 2018 8:27 am

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by Hazard » Sun Apr 18, 2021 8:02 am

DangerDolphin wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 3:14 am
First of all, wanted to agree with the OP that failed scry shouldn't both burn components and trigger cooldown.

On the matter of scry immunity bard song, which I'm directly responsible for, bards already have this through one of their spells - and it lasts 3 times longer without metamagic. The spell is also useful in combat, whereas the song forces you to swap from a battle song to activate.
I think the difference is the spell needs to be cast on individual people, taking up spell slots, and it does eventually wear off, needing resting and recasting, while the bard song (from what I'm told) can just be kept up permanently and covers the entire group without using any rest or spell slots. If true, then dropping a battle song to keep a group immune from scrying permanently seems like a no-brainer.

How many of "FOIG spell" can be cast and maintained on an entire party, vs the effort of just keeping a song up?

I haven't played the new bard so I could be wildly wrong here.

And I don't think -scry being easy to block is the real issue. It's just the one people are focusing on because we're told scry will not be getting a longer duration.

5 minutes, 7 for diviners is my opinion. If someone isn't hitting enter enough in a 5 minute peek, then they're probably afk or not fully invested in the RP anyway. Increase the CD to 15 minutes, resulting in scry actually being nerfed but also being made more functional. This is a 3 minute increase to observation time, with a 5 minute increase to CD time. You get to scry less often (and it's worse for ganking moving targets this way and you need to be more careful who to scry or you get locked out ((RISK))), but the scry you do get might actually reveal something.

User avatar
-XXX-
Posts: 2113
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 1:49 am

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by -XXX- » Sun Apr 18, 2021 10:46 am

DangerDolphin wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 3:14 am
The solution

Scry should have back and forth counterplay, require effort and provide clues and conversations.

Let anyone have the means to detect it, so you're not sure if you're getting great information, or being fed lies because they noticed you.

Let people lay traps for scriers to reveal their identities, or cause a backlash effect on them.

Let it last longer, 30-60 minutes, but hide the location and identities. You just hear voices discussing plans, not find out where they are so you can go and kill them. Give clues about who they are, where they are. It's a dark room or a bright forest, one figure is female, another is male and sounds orcish. Link them to figures from the deck of stars.

Remove the outright blocking of scry, have silent rolls to defend against and penetrate it depending on the strength of the defences. Once scry is no longer overpowered, this becomes feasible and reasonable. Nobody can be entirely certain they're not overheard when they speak, but the longer the scrier listens, the more risk they're detected.

If you want the current scry of zoning in on top of someone, you should have to do something risky, like getting a cut of their hair that only lasts 24 hours, or asking them to carry a ring you enchanted, so you can watch allies freely.
I don't think that this solution would've made anyone happy - it would have completely ruined scrying for those who like it and it would have triggered a paranoia induced psychosis for those who hate the notion of being spied on.

Actual scrying in the above proposed form would ask people to jump through unreasonably complicated hoops just to see all that effort undone immediately:
"So you managed to get a lock of my character's hair? That's cute, I can just spend the rest of the evening doing mundane stuff or even spend it on my alt. There's nothing so urgent for this character that wouldn't wait till tomorrow anyway."
How'd you even translate such thing into mechanics? Players will always look for outs that benefit their character. It's the primary reason why -disguise and -cover are mechanically enforced. Relying only on RP here just wouldn't work.

That being said, this would have practically reduced scrying to receiving chunks of text. I wouldn't bother with the feat for that - I bet that not many people would. The visual part is essential for scrying.
You're also proposing the removal of absolute countermeasures. People who are lamenting over the current version of scrying would be absolutely losing their minds over that!


I do agree that everyone should have the means of passively detecting when they are being scried and IMO there should be a risk of revealing the diviner's identity too! However, as I noted earlier this can't be happening in real time as most people just immediately drop everything and start pretending to be AFK the moment they receive the message that they are being observed.

ElvenEdibles
Posts: 107
Joined: Sun Apr 04, 2021 6:32 pm

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by ElvenEdibles » Sun Apr 18, 2021 2:13 pm

DangerDolphin wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 3:14 am
Remove the outright blocking of scry, have silent rolls to defend against and penetrate it depending on the strength of the defences. Once scry is no longer overpowered, this becomes feasible and reasonable. Nobody can be entirely certain they're not overheard when they speak, but the longer the scrier listens, the more risk they're detected.
I think Xerah's original idea of having a 5% chance to penetrate Scry blocking is reasonable. That's rolling a 1 on your scry-defense. Very few things in the game have 100% chance of success and Arelith has changed most of them already to involve some kind of chance of failure.

In my opinion, secret meetings/cloak-and-dagger rp aren't worth having if there isn't some chance of discovery. As it stands the current: locked-door, true seeing/familiar sweep + [self-redacted] is basically foolproof and to this there is no counterplay that I am aware of. It feels very "I must win" over "collaborative storytelling".

edit: for the record, I don't play Diviner. Even if these changes in the thread are implemented I think the rare scry-block pierce would still yield blank results or *scratches nose*

edit 2: maybe also knowledge deities could allow for a godsave to penetrate scry-blocking.

User avatar
DangerDolphin
Posts: 505
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2019 2:10 am

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by DangerDolphin » Sun Apr 18, 2021 4:18 pm

ElvenEdibles wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 2:13 pm
I think Xerah's original idea of having a 5% chance to penetrate Scry blocking is reasonable. That's rolling a 1 on your scry-defense. Very few things in the game have 100% chance of success and Arelith has changed most of them already to involve some kind of chance of failure.
I was actually the one to kick up a fuss and stop this from going in. As it stands scry is just too powerful to have it break defences, as you could spam it until you get lucky. The gank potential makes it a death sentence in the worst case, or a self-imposed house arrest in the best case. It's also a very powerful tool to allow PvP focused groups to hunt down those with little interest in PvP.

Until it's limited to hearing conversations and picking up other tidbits that aren't the end of the world but generate roleplay, it does need readily available hard counters.

magistrasa
Posts: 667
Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 8:59 pm

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by magistrasa » Sun Apr 18, 2021 4:25 pm

DangerDolphin wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 4:18 pm
scry is just too powerful
God, I didn't actually think the reason for the scry nerf was because of gank squads. Even if I heard it, I thought that was just too absurd to be true. I don't even know what to say here anymore. This is just a shame.

× Career Sharran × MILF Supreme × Artist (Allegedly) ×
Will Trade Art For Groceries Again Eventually


User avatar
-XXX-
Posts: 2113
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 1:49 am

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by -XXX- » Sun Apr 18, 2021 4:37 pm

Following that logic players who are not interested in PvP ought to have the means to toggle 100% damage immunity with a console command because attacks are too powerful.

ElvenEdibles
Posts: 107
Joined: Sun Apr 04, 2021 6:32 pm

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by ElvenEdibles » Sun Apr 18, 2021 6:16 pm

DangerDolphin wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 4:18 pm
I was actually the one to kick up a fuss and stop this from going in. As it stands scry is just too powerful to have it break defences, as you could spam it until you get lucky.
How does one "spam until they get lucky" when they have a maximum of 6 attempts in a RL hour, per target? That seems grossly inefficient.
-XXX- wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 4:37 pm
Following that logic players who are not interested in PvP ought to have the means to toggle 100% damage immunity with a console command because attacks are too powerful.
please. stop praying for my grandpa!!! you are making him too strong. he broke out of the hospital and cops can't get him. he's too powerful

User avatar
DangerDolphin
Posts: 505
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2019 2:10 am

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by DangerDolphin » Sun Apr 18, 2021 8:53 pm

-XXX- wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 4:37 pm
Following that logic players who are not interested in PvP ought to have the means to toggle 100% damage immunity with a console command because attacks are too powerful.
There is a balance of effort to reward in tracking someone down.

If you put in the time to send spies and scouts, follow them until they're vulnerable, infiltrate their group, etc, then send a wisp bottle, that's cool. This is all pretty valid with counterplay and chances to get caught watching them, or exposed as a spy.

Likewise, the victim has agency to counter the above by being less predictable, going to areas they don't normally frequent. If they don't want to get into PvP, they can back down and avoid X contested area and hide out somewhere people wouldn't think to look for them, or use a disguise, or invest in stealth skills.

Scrying currently is just sitting in your quarters and hitting a button occasionally and you'll blow through all of that.

Blossom
Posts: 60
Joined: Sat Feb 27, 2021 2:56 am

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by Blossom » Sun Apr 18, 2021 9:01 pm

Something I would like to see added: scrying a location. Maybe a list of public locations where characters commonly congregate and you have to visit it to add it to your list. Being able to see who's in the Hub or in the square at Cordor at the moment and eavesdrop remotely would be interesting and I don't think too abusable. Obviously quarters would be off limits and I'm thinking only certain high traffic areas could be allowed.

ElvenEdibles
Posts: 107
Joined: Sun Apr 04, 2021 6:32 pm

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by ElvenEdibles » Sun Apr 18, 2021 9:28 pm

DangerDolphin wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 8:53 pm
..
Hello there o/ hi! Excuse me, but I asked you a question that you seem to have missed, which I will helpfully quote for you here:
DangerDolphin wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 4:18 pm
I was actually the one to kick up a fuss and stop this from going in. As it stands scry is just too powerful to have it break defences, as you could spam it until you get lucky.
So I will also helpfully re-iterate and expand on my question here:

How does a person spam something when they are limited to 1 attempt every 10 RL minutes? How does a person spam something when they are limited to 6 attempts in a RL hour? 6 attempts with a 5% chance of success will rarely produce results. Many, many, many destroyed Master Damask Scimitar's can attest to this. That is a very, very, very small chance of scry-ward penetration. You cannot circumvent the scry cooldown once it has begun.

Please do not ignore my question because it is inconvenient to answer, that would be quite rude.

Thank you in advance for answering my question.

tl;dr: You in fact, would not have been able to spam scry to fish for 1's, because the scry cooldown persists through rests; Ignoring inconvenient questions is rude.

User avatar
DangerDolphin
Posts: 505
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2019 2:10 am

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by DangerDolphin » Sun Apr 18, 2021 9:40 pm

ElvenEdibles wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 9:28 pm
Please do not ignore my question because it is inconvenient to answer, that would be quite rude.
Apologies, I didn't mean to be rude, I just thought the answer was obvious as you answered it yourself.
ElvenEdibles wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 9:28 pm
6 attempts with a 5% chance of success will rarely produce results. Many, many, many destroyed Master Damask Scimitar's can attest to this. That is a very, very, very small chance of scry-ward penetration.
It's a great comparison. And you'll notice lots of people are running around with 5%'d Masterly Damask Scimitars, because it only takes one - and they can roll the dice for as long as it takes to work. Scrying omits the millions of gold though!

ElvenEdibles
Posts: 107
Joined: Sun Apr 04, 2021 6:32 pm

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by ElvenEdibles » Sun Apr 18, 2021 10:33 pm

DangerDolphin wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 9:40 pm
It's a great comparison. And you'll notice lots of people are running around with 5%'d Masterly Damask Scimitars, because it only takes one - and they can roll the dice for as long as it takes to work. Scrying omits the millions of gold though!
This only works as a justification if you start with the premise that there should be a no-risk method of 100% completely blocking scrying, which is incongruent with the point of adding a 5% chance of penetrating scry-blocking in the first place.

I'll go into detail here point-by-point:
DangerDolphin wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 9:40 pm
And you'll notice lots of people are running around with 5%'d Masterly Damask Scimitars
This phrase is a bit confusing to me because I actually don't notice/know who's running around with 5% masterly damask scimitars, on account of not having access to their item's properties, and I'm curious if you can and have actual data on this, or if this is one of those 'Many People Are Saying' things....
DangerDolphin wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 9:40 pm
because it only takes one
That's the nature of RNG. That's the whole point of inserting a 5% chance of failure, so that there's at least some risk. For every person who got an M Damask Scim Keened on the first try, there's five, probably ten more who burned through significantly more materials than that. I personally blew up nine before I opted to instead give up and hope to find one a blade rune, until someone told me I'd be better off trying to 5% it. Succeeding on a 5% roll is a big deal for a reason: it rarely happens.
DangerDolphin wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 9:40 pm
and they can roll the dice for as long as it takes to work.
This is the crux of the matter. There's an enforced cooldown that prevents spamming. You still can't go fishing for 1's. If people seriously want to burn 3 RL hours of their lives waiting 6 RL minutes just to catch an emote of someone scratching themselves, let them. It's a non-issue.

RE Ganksquads: I think the frequency with which it's being purported they occur is a strawman/gross exaggeration. But let's assume they are so frequent it calls for removing any risk to the scry-ward mechanic(s). I will explain why I think that is still uncalled for with a 5% chance of failure: the amount of time a group of players would have to invest on average in order to get that lucky roll will on be frustratingly (for them) high. Incredibly boring. They'll have to be ready to go for potentially many RL hours. Member's of their squad will have to go do RL things. They'll have to eat, go to the bathroom, go to sleep. If they want to be miserable for hours on end while they wait to find a target by scrying... let them. They're definitely paying a steep cost for it.

Further, there's no guarantee their target will even be where they were scried by time the squad shows up. And then what? Are they going to wait another 3 RL hours to penetrate the scryward? Oh no, 1 HR in they logged off.

These hypotheticals ignore the fact that everything has to go right for the gank-squads to get their kill by scrying, when in fact something almost always doesn't go according to plan.
DangerDolphin wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 9:40 pm
Scrying omits the millions of gold though!
Yes, this is very true! There is a massive disparity in value between a 5% M Damask Scimitar and the information you get from scrying. I would hope scrying doesn't cost millions of GP.

xanrael
Posts: 507
Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2019 5:13 pm

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by xanrael » Sun Apr 18, 2021 10:57 pm

I suspect most people wouldn't want mind affecting spells to have a 5% chance to ignore mind immunity or death spells and death immunity. Scrying to gank is a PvP action and if it works it's going to strongly influence the result unless the gank team is inept.

Having played Eve Online enough, yeah, there are groups of people who are happy to chill about semi-afk in game waiting to screw over someone. If you commit to spending 2 hours of scry attempts can pop on a movie to watch on the other monitor and make an in-game comment every 5-10 minutes. Your squad can sit in a nearly unbreachable location like a quarter to perform the scrying too.

You can easily keep 5% of your attention on Arelith and 95% on something else while in this sort of holding pattern. Or they could sit there and RP out playing a dice/card game for 2 hours and social RP or host a meeting that they know will be interrupted if the scry happens to stick. Their bi-weekly progress report and scry-and-die.

Anomandaris
Posts: 436
Joined: Sun Oct 06, 2019 10:56 am

Re: Scrying: Warded Target shouldn't start cooldown

Post by Anomandaris » Sun Apr 18, 2021 11:43 pm

DangerDolphin wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 9:40 pm
ElvenEdibles wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 9:28 pm
Please do not ignore my question because it is inconvenient to answer, that would be quite rude.
Apologies, I didn't mean to be rude, I just thought the answer was obvious as you answered it yourself.
ElvenEdibles wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 9:28 pm
6 attempts with a 5% chance of success will rarely produce results. Many, many, many destroyed Master Damask Scimitar's can attest to this. That is a very, very, very small chance of scry-ward penetration.
It's a great comparison. And you'll notice lots of people are running around with 5%'d Masterly Damask Scimitars, because it only takes one - and they can roll the dice for as long as it takes to work. Scrying omits the millions of gold though!
The 5% damask you keep... and use forever, the successful scry may show your "target" standing around 10 friends in the Hub and thus deliver no value towards hunting them down. It's hardly a useful comparison in any real way, in either direction.

It's a little concerning to hear balance related decisions are so highly subjective and within a fairly small circle of people. I am just gonna throw it out there and say I've been a perpetrator of the behavior many have decried as a "poor" use of scry. I'm sure I'll get flak for it. I've used it (through allied PCs and as a past diviner) to hunt and kill PC's. Furthermore, it's still used that way today to effect. In fact I'd argue it really isn't limited in it's capacity to be used for a kill squad that much. I think the CD on failure makes it harder to use for everything else to a greater degree, e.g. actually collecting meaningful intel from discussions.

Using Scry for these infamous "gank squads" is an alignment of several circumstances that can take RL week(s) to happen:
-Target must be online
-Target must be scried when your "cronies" are also on.
-Target must be scried when they're actually vulnerable (not surrounded by allies or in a dangerous location to infiltrate)
-Target must be scried when they're not warded from scry
-You then must track them down before they move, relocate or circumstances change to be unfavorable

NOW the hunt starts. You've scried someone and it's time to herd the cats that make up your "gank" squad into position. Now you need to actually kill them (assuming that's your goal). Half the time people just pop an attunement potion or lens out unless you -ward_teleport BEFORE RP even starts. Others just drink a haste pot and sprint away when you ward teleport, or do that from the jump and run for area trans. If people don't want to interact, they have a lot of options to at least have decent odds to avoid it. And yes, we've also gone from different portals to pen someone in to avoid them fleeing etc etc, but still. It's tricky.

The amount of effort that goes into this is prohibitive. You need:
-A scrier
-An abjurer
-Tons of time
-A skilled, active party to hunt the person

All this theory crafting is about how scry is used and how "gank" squads play out isn't particularly representative of reality. It gets thrown around a lot like it's just step 1 press scry, step 2 gank target. But as someone who has organized a lot of them (for kidnapping, killing, interrogations etc), and successfully I'll add, it ain't that easy or pretty. I expect to be judged for saying all this, because it seems to be a "deplorable" thing to do, but as a disclaimer I always try to give people outs and make things interesting in conflict RP. So judge if you like, but some realism needs to be interjected into what this "spooky" practice of "gank squads" actually looks like.

And by the way you can also just stalk their home/shop.... property is easy to hunt people at and a wisp is used and the same result achieved. Or any of the myriad other ways to hunt someone down.

If you're getting this treatment 9/10 times you have it coming because it's a pain in the neck to do. And if not, someone's griefing you and you should report it. If you are causing problems IC, there are, and always will be, a LARGE number of ways to track someone down and kill/kidnap them. And you should accept that.

There's nothing wrong with scrying showing the targets location. It's perfectly reasonable and canonically accurate that you'd be able to perceive the surroundings and go look for that area. I don't get why we're trying to protect our characters so aggressively. It's ok if they die, really. Use it to create interesting RP and drive the story forward. Punish rule breakers don't soften what is a conflicted and violent setting. All these hyperbolic examples of really shady metagaming, rule breaking, griefing or just horrible behavior doesn't get fixed by a mechanical changes. It gets fixed with player bans and rule enforcement.

Post Reply