Arelith

Feedback thread for the following change:

Assassin's Guild changes
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• The minimum contract value has been increased from 10k to 100k.
• Assassins who complete contracts will now receive 100% of the bounty value.
• The price for paying off contracts has been changed to double the contract value. An exception exists for settlement leaders who will instead be required to pay triple the contract value to cancel it.
• Any single character is only allowed to place a single contract per real-life week.
• The Guild will no longer send messengers to inform targets that they have pending contracts. This aspect will be left to assassins to roleplay. The Guild's reception agent will still inform of any existing contracts and allow them to be paid off.



Assassin
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The 24-hour window for PvP post RP on contracted targets is suspended as of this update. Assassins will be beholden to the same PvP rules of engagement as any other character.

I'm not sold on the removal of advance notification. Token process or not, I'm not sure I trust any kind sufficient warning being left to the efforts of players alone. Otherwise I don't have any real problems with the changes.

Maybe it'll actually be cheaper to hire bodyguards now. It'll be nice to see if this is given enough time to see how it's played out.

But make no mistake, I think there'll be a lot of new bounties now that it's no longer a futile effort up-front. A lot of old scores to settle.

I think the changes are interesting. It gives a lot more power to the guild, but it also makes it more difficult for people to use it to grief since someone can only use it once per RL week. That is a really good consideration. I hope it ends up playing out well in-game. The alert being gone means hits will actually stick on a person now unless they check daily.

Good changes, like them a lot. There simply needs to be more elements of danger/conflict, if only to normalize the idea that there are real dangers within in the world. This will lead to political RP, bodyguard RP, information/espionage and a whole load of other uses for characters that before was simply removed by a notification in the chat log that made people either turtle away and hide almost instantly, or simply run to pay off the bounty as soon as possible.

I know some people dislike the idea that control might not be entirely in their hands in the "not knowing" that they are being targeted, but surely this will simply place much more weight on assassin RP and hopefully those players who do not adequately provide engaging RP for victims will be exposed by such changes. It makes little sense why anyone outside of the guild would get notified about contracts, especially the targets and it simply expands roles for a whole load of players around the system.

If we want really high quality role-play to exist, then we need to allow players the chance to step up to the task and deal with the ones that can't on a case by case basis, rather than stamping out all of the opportunity in fear of what "might" happen. That only leads to a bland world where nothing ever happens because everyone feels safe 99.9% of their time playing and when something unexpected does actually happen, it's often met with disdain and anger, because it's a shock out of the comfort zone.

When conflict is normalized and players get used to the idea that they are not going to be in control of every little part of what they do 99.9% of the time, it becomes easier as a whole for more than the day to day mundane plots/plans and conflict to naturally occur.

Will there likely be some who do not live up to the expectation? Very likely, but as long as assassins are being monitored, I see this as a real positive change to Arelith & I hope there are more systems being revisited in this way to encourage interaction/politics and character agency.

Great changes overall, except for one. If anyone cares to elaborate. But my assassin is purely reliant on his sneak attacks to get the drop on an opponent.

The way the rules are set up is that I can only attack from stealth is if another party member is initating the combat with the other PC or vice versa.

I really don't like the lack of notification, because I can easily imagine scenarios where being assassinated in game is a wildly confusing event for the player. Confusion and frustration are very dear friends, and this seems like a breeding ground.

Not every assassin target is a settlement leader or big mover and shaker (they'd probably be very unsurprised to be attacked) but average characters in brief conflict now have to check the assassin's office every day just so they don't get blindsided by an assassin over a miscommunication, small spat, trivial encounter, or something?

It would be like hanging out and having a character you've never met before coming up and repeatedly saying 'You know what you did!' before killing your PC. What kind of thoughts is this likely to brew in a player?

"Is this some mixup? Did they get my PCs name wrong? Is this some OOC vendetta? I haven't been online for a week and a half, why is this happening? I can't think of any reason for this."

Being ganked by well prepared and ready enemies when you're expecting it is one thing, and still tends to go over poorly, but begin ganked, seemingly randomly, with no recollection or memory of a connecting event to make sense of it, or any expectation whatsoever, is a motivator for great, heavy, negativity.

Arelith needs much, much less of this. Not more.

I see this as a pretty serious issue. It's hard to imagine almost any kind of assassination 'out of the blue' not being a pointless drama for DMs to sift through.

I agree with the others here about the removal of notice. When large amounts of gold is at stake, I suspect the lure of ‘winning’ over making a fun encounter for the target will increase the questionable encounters. Leave the wisp warning in game.

I'm torn about the removal of notice, if only because I think, personally, surprises are fun. And I enjoy RP where actions have consequences. If someone puts a hit out on you, it's probably for a reason. Especially now that they have to sink 100k or more into it.

Like anything, the assassin's guild is meant to be a tool to use to facilitate RP and create good moments. In much the same way that advance notices warn the target and make it easier for them to remove their bounty, they also make it easier for the target to prepare themselves largely in advance or play Arelith sparsely or sporadically to avoid being on long enough to get assassinated. It'd be poor sportsmanship, but it's sort of the other side of the coin of the whole idea of people just gaming these mechanics to maximize their chances of winning.

I lean on the side of the removal of advance notice being a good thing, or some sort of compromise, like a delayed notice. Or, at the very least, some sort of FOIG method that's more readily accessible than traveling to the assassin's guild on the regular if you're a high-ranking government official for x settlement. Otherwise, you might have paranoid people running to the assassin's guild all the time to check if they have a bounty on their head.

I agree with this in a vaccuum, but I have a story from seven years ago that is very related to what I'm alleging is a very, very bad idea.

One time I had a character of mine tricked into killing a character that was not in any way related to... well, anything.

It was a masterful feint of RP, and I believed 100% that my character was justified in murdering this other character. Everyone was well intentioned, there didn't seem to be any bad blood or metagaming, but the way it played out in practice was a horror show I still remember vividly.

So I did it, and assumed they'd just been lying about not knowing about the crime or offense my character was avenging.

On the other side, however, we have a literally random character, random player, accusing something neither the player or character has any clue about whatsoever, effectively gaslighting both character and player from top to bottom before going to the fugue.

It took us twenty minutes to figure this nightmare out OOC, and each minute of it was just as confusing and unpleasant for me as it was for them. Nobody shold have to deal with this, and doubly-so as an actual baked in mechanic.

If we have to deal with characters shutting themselves in or buying off contracts to avoid a contract, which is kinda annoying, sure, I think this is a vastly preferable alternative to the hellscape I've just described.

TLDR; People, humans, need context to process events. If people are completely robbed of context they have no recourse but to use emotion. Terrible, terrible emotion.

Sure would hate to be a settlement leader right about now.

Paint wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 8:37 am Otherwise, you might have paranoid people running to the assassin's guild all the time to check if they have a bounty on their head.

Good.

As an Assassin player, I am glad we're all on the same page PVP wise. The 24 hour-no-RP-PVP rule was only necessary when you had to rush to the target before other Assassins logged on, try desperately to get some semblance of whatever RP you could cook up for the mark, and then one- or no- line PVP them when you saw them sit down to rest.

I have to date only ever had, and been able to give, one satisfying Assassin storyline to someone. This way, we have time to plan and offer a collaborative storyline with back-and-forth. I hope people DO check the Guild every day, if they think they might. I hope people DO start hiring bodyguards and trying to figure out who's who. Giving the Assassins obstacles to overcome is FANTASTIC. I hope that the marks stay up longer and that working towards the kill itself takes longer. Far longer.

To the people that aren't sold on the no warning: Assassin is given on the basis of applying for a token. It is incredibly disheartening to read posts like this:

VibeKings wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 4:25 am I'm not sold on the removal of advance notification. Token process or not, I'm not sure I trust any kind sufficient warning being left to the efforts of players alone. Otherwise I don't have any real problems with the changes.

If our RP is poor, or we don't do things properly, we'd have our tokens revoked. Posting something like that feels very bad faith. The changes we have now are a massive step up from what we had before, in terms of being able to provide RP for a mark.

I know other Assassins have been wanting changes like this for some time so that we can actually RP out storylines like we had hoped to do from the moment we sent in our applications, rather than treat it as a fastest dagger first whack-a-mole when we see new names pop up in the Guild.

TooManyPotatoes wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 9:25 am Sure would hate to be a settlement leader right about now.

Settlement leaders have treasuries to fall back on and were borderline untouchable even with huge funds collected to put on their heads. The onus, however, is still on the Assassin to provide engaging RP.

How does this affect settlement candidates if they run for office? Do they also have to pay triple the price?

Evianna wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 9:35 amIf our RP is poor, or we don't do things properly, we'd have our tokens revoked.

The staff has proven absolutely reticent in policing class RP. Harpers do evil deeds and clerics and paladins routinely flaunt the rules of their own faiths. I'm skeptical that there is any evidence that shows assassins receive any more attention than the rest. I do not fault the community for being short on trust on this point. Its not "bad faith", its just not being naïve.

As for the changes itself, I would like to see the act of placing a Contract for Murder to be an immediate alignment shift to Evil.

As always, I encourage players to report things that they feel go against some facet of the server.

In regards to alignment and actions the context of a situation dictates what actions are appropriate at any given time. An assassin called to put down the reign of an evil tyrant would be lauded as a hero and therefore Good. Sometimes you have to suspend your disbelief in order to partake in the world, knowing that your perspective is subjective.

We owe it to each other to respect other people's RP and their take on things unless it falls outside the scope of the rules in which case you report it to us and we step in and deal with it. RP is a two way street.

The system can now support something as minimal as a simple typo to an NPC, literally no RP involved, as the catalyst for a pvp encounter.

So even if assassins were perfectly policed, which only happens after something bad has happened anyway, there's room for the mechanical equivalent of what is essentially no RP pvp on the receiving end.

I've had entire weeks of receiving at least half a dozen messengers intended for someone else, I've sent (and received!) gold transfers to the wrong character more than once. I've even received a contract wisp on a character entirely uninvolved with anything important at all.

It is a virtual guarantee that characters will be killed by typos.

There's nothing being added by making people have to visit some faceless NPC in the assassin dmv once or twice a day when they could be doing actually interesting things with actual PCs.

Skibbles wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 11:44 am The system can now support something as minimal as a simple typo to an NPC, literally no RP involved, as the catalyst for a pvp encounter.

So even if assassins were perfectly policed, which only happens after something bad has happened anyway, there's room for the mechanical equivalent of what is essentially no RP pvp on the receiving end.

I've had entire weeks of receiving at least half a dozen messengers intended for someone else, I've sent (and received!) gold transfers to the wrong character more than once. I've even received a contract wisp on a character entirely uninvolved with anything important at all.

It is a virtual guarantee that characters will be killed by typos.

There's nothing being added by making people have to visit some faceless NPC in the assassin dmv once or twice a day when they could be doing actually interesting things with actual PCs.

This is such an anecdotal personal grievance that I don't even know how this could be construed as constructive feedback. I'm sorry that happened to you, but I can't possibly imagine that this is an commonplace occurrence.

ReverentBlade wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 10:54 am
The staff has proven absolutely reticent in policing class RP. Harpers do evil deeds and clerics and paladins routinely flaunt the rules of their own faiths. I'm skeptical that there is any evidence that shows assassins receive any more attention than the rest. I do not fault the community for being short on trust on this point. Its not "bad faith", its just not being naïve.

We are watched closely. There is a standard to uphold and if we don't fit the criteria of "fun for both parties" it would be picked up on. Being "skeptical" just feels like thinly veiled code for "I think Assassins just want to dome people and also the DMs let it happen."

I think these changes are GREAT.

Now my action trying to defend people like a bodyguard will finally mean something. This will generate more rp and be fantastic for the setting. We are actually going to fear the Guild now!

I really like the fact that it costs a lot to remove the contracts and the settlement leader penalty is a stroke of genius. Im not an assassin player yet but this breaths life into something that was clearly not working in my opinion.

Removing notifications - Thank the gods, that was so aweful getting a magical message warning you an assassination attempt was coming. Now if your concerned about such things you can simply go check, with bodyguards... if you dont check this gives the assassins time to work there rp into the narrative without you instantly being on guard for some magical message and shunning everyone you dont know.

As for players being concerned about random attacks and not understanding whats happening when they finally do come for you. That should be a surprise in some cases, the RP youll have had before such an attack will be setting you up for such an ambush, I have faith in the assassin players to stick to the rules and the new life theve been given here. If they don't, the DM team will follow up, they can see everything if they want too.

Excited to see this in action.

Evianna wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 11:51 am This is such an anecdotal personal grievance that I don't even know how this could be construed as constructive feedback. I'm sorry that happened to you, but I can't possibly imagine that this is an commonplace occurrence.

You seriously haven't gotten the wrong messenger before, been around people that have, or never made a typo in your life?

"Nobody is perfect" is hardly an anecdote.

I think that the min contract being 100k now will get rid of typo mistake pvp.

common sense, in that we are all mostly fluent in typos, that all that may happen wont make dropping 100k for a random hit as payback. Most characters unless long played merchants of a sort simply dont have that coin handy to just spend on a whim.

Ebonstar wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 12:19 pm I think that the min contract being 100k now will get rid of typo mistake pvp.

common sense, in that we are all mostly fluent in typos, that all that may happen wont make dropping 100k for a random hit as payback. Most characters unless long played merchants of a sort simply dont have that coin handy to just spend on a whim.

I'll concede on that point since a typo is hardly the real point I'm interested in making anyhow.

These are welcome and needed changes.


It is as much a setting for the world as it is mechanics. Having a contract on your name is not supposed to be a joke but horrifying, and I'm pretty sure these changes will push it in the right direction. In -most- cases, characters with a contract on their name are involved in conflicts. See it as a consequence of participating in such.

In my opinion, we could have gone for x3 payoff for everyone, not just settlement leaders, or perhaps include government employees in that schema. But let us see how things work out in the first iteration.

I'm failing to see how removing the notification is a bad thing. On the contrary, I find it immersive breaking that an assassin's guild would warn the targets. Furthermore, I question why someone would need to check the guild several times per day to ensure there isn't a contract on them.

Perhaps we have become too accustomed to knowing what one of the supposedly most dangerous and secret organizations is doing, last least if it includes our character.

Personally, losing the 24hr assassination rule is a shame, but I'd gladly trade it for the above-mentioned, but only if the notification is not reintroduced.


Finally... Please have some faith in your fellow players and the DM team. If you feel like you're being mistreated, then report it.


Thanks to those involved in making these changes, they were quite needed, and I look forward to the next iteration. One big step towards making the assassination system better!

This looks awesome! I like to drum up conflict in hopes of becoming the target of the assassin's guild, with whom I've had nothing but great interactions.

Now the message to the assassin's target - the pivotal moment of building dread and paranoia - can be customizable: it can be a stranger slipping you a note on the street, an expected speedy from a friend, a warning from a city guard. It's one of the most fun parts of those storylines.

I really like these changes

The fact that someone does not get a notification and can actually find out in game through visiting or informants that there is a target on their head is a much easier to follow sense of RP.

It creates RP as ppl suggested. Love it.

Good change. This will create more opportunities for RP and add mystique.