Some balance

[Taipion]

About crimes:
Right now, the crime mechanics basically prevent most people from participating.
Yea, most people are carebears, but they might not be if it would not require you to use an alt for every crime, and require you to be able to reproduce that alt in reasonable time.

It is obviously broken, in that even the slightest theft is about as dangerous as an act of murder.
Larceny should become something that is not all too serious, whereas murder should be a last resort, something that you only do if you really mean it, like being really mad at someone, like mad enough to break through several brick walls protected by tons of braziers.

I do not claim to be all knowing about crime mechanics and game design, so take the following ideas only as that, ideas.
If you think they are bad, come up with something better.


Crimes need to be more different in terms of risk/danger.
- Continuing to use the stocks-mechanic, different crimes should have different cost in stocking/releasing and different times that the criminal is stocked.
- TbC should only be viable for more serious crimes.
- Theft should not be summonable at all, if you can reach the leanto of a thief, you can get your stuff back anyways. And if you can't, TbC and kill him does not really help you either. (I know this only applies to "smaller scale" thefts.)
- "Stealing" items that were stolen from your claim/leanto should not be a crime.
- all in all, theft should be not too dangerous, ... waste should be dangerous enough to not break everything you see, ... murder should be outright lethal if you make even a slight mistake whereas making none is no guarantee


About TbF:
It looks a bit broken, that you need to commit crimes to defend yourself.

Without changing the mechanics too much, I would propose the following "fix" for this:
- Under TbF, "fresh" walls that do not yet splash as they are less than a week old, can be attacked without a crime.
(This should apply in the waste claim area and in an area slightly around the TbF.)

This would allow anyone to defend without having to commit crimes in self defense, whereas it would not "break" anything like taking the "protection" of really new players claims.
I mean, building a walled TbF to raid a less than 1 week old claim is probably not that rewarding, whereas you cant tell the age of a wall without breaking it anyways.

And if someone has a 1 week old protected claim near his town that is now used for a TbF, you can at least say he did not pay attention to his surroundings.


About alts:
Alts are bad, hands down.
In conjunction with some balance to crime mechanics, a certain change in the requirements of crimes could encourage people to not simply make/use alts for that.
- Crime skills should require a reasonable amount of other proficiencies, this very well works already for the carrying skills that require (almost) all at a certain level.
- MMori, that is something that really promotes the use of alts, it should be taken out of the game.



Instead of raging on this, I encourage everyone to think of something better instead.
At least, I guess we all can agree that crime mechanics need a little more love.

[jakhollin]

I can agree to some extent and offer some statements and an excuse for my knowledge.... My mom insisted on really boring vacations as a child and visiting colonial Williamsburg seemed to be her favorite place to go resulting in many trips to jamestowne....

For one the stocks in the game are actually pillory which was intended to be a a worse crime then stocks. Stocks were actually a similar but on the ground and civilians in most cases were not allowed to throw or whip the offender. Next for more severe cases of crime where the whipping post and then the ducking stool.

So my suggestion for changes is not to change the system drastically but instead offer a few changes.

Theft & assault/battery - add real stocks that make a character online but not gain insanity or be able to be whipped or Tomatoes thrown at. For a 24 hour period that has a bail out of base level 1500s. Upon release character should be immediately given 5 madness levels. That prevents the person from using an alt to go out and steal again without having to clean up the madness a moment. summonable on the person's claim letting you kill them. (If someone spends the time to chase you down and find your location and break in dropping scents to exact revenge then good for them.)

Waste & poison craft - Make the stocks only eligible for waste offenses and the person will spend 3. Whipping and tomato throwing are allowed but the person does not gain insanity. Instead when they are released they are given 6 levels of madness immediately. Still 2000 silver base to bail out. Also still summonable to a person's claim to kill them.

Murder & whichcraft - Should have a more severe crime that uses something like the whipping post which should cause the person to be locked in for 3 days. At which point people can whip the person once a day and throw tomatoes. The person should also leave the whipping post with a level 8 madness max. Having a 5000 silver bail out.

In addition no one should be eligible to get sick in any of these cases. One of the issues with the current stocks is that a person who has a scent that is going to last 11 days for waste can serve in the stocks for the crime a 10 times. 11 if the person times it perfectly. This results in a person who cannot fight against the madness they are incurring if they decided not to wear a mask they are immediately made sick. I do not believe the average punishment for a crime in colonial days was screw that guy he is sick and talking to himself let him just die there. Also second should be once a scent has been summoned and the crime has been paid for it should not be summonable again through the judicial system but still be available for summon at the persons claim for murder.

As for trial by combat the person should be able to summon for murder only trading a murder scent for a murder scent or making the murder eligible for eye for an eye and just taking away his ability to murder others by removing the hand.

[TotalyMeow]

- Under TbF, "fresh" walls that do not yet splash as they are less than a week old, can be attacked without a crime.
(This should apply in the waste claim area

At first glance, this actually looks like the best suggestion so far for making 'donut' towns invalid. I would say they still give crime debuff, but don't leave a scent, if we can code that. That way, Claeyt won't complain for weeks that 'building more walls in a raid does no good because I got what I wanted'. Now, this does mean that new towns could be attacked and their walls destroyed with no scents dropped, though they would still be dropped for theft and such. I'm not sure if 'under a TbF' can be an exception either. It might be necessary to just do this for all new walls, TbF or not, which would bring Pclaim bases into the vulnerability.

[Judaism]

At first glance, this actually looks like the best suggestion so far for making 'donut' towns invalid. I would say they still give crime debuff, but don't leave a scent, if we can code that. That way, Claeyt won't complain for weeks that 'building more walls in a raid does no good because I got what I wanted'. Now, this does mean that new towns could be attacked and their walls destroyed with no scents dropped, though they would still be dropped for theft and such. I'm not sure if 'under a TbF' can be an exception either. It might be necessary to just do this for all new walls, TbF or not, which would bring Pclaim bases into the vulnerability.

This indeed might, just might make sense.

[Taipion]

That way, Claeyt won't complain for weeks

That,
worth a try!

Now, this does mean that new towns could be attacked and their walls destroyed with no scents dropped, though they would still be dropped for theft and such. I'm not sure if 'under a TbF' can be an exception either. It might be necessary to just do this for all new walls, TbF or not, which would bring Pclaim bases into the vulnerability.

Yea, I thought of that, too.
You just have to draw a line somewhere, and I doubt it would be that much of an issue.
Just as I doubt that townbelling newbie claims is an issue, at least since it costs so much, you can just as well increase the cost for a TbF a bit, it does mean after all, laying waste to a town, and it should not be cheap, that would pretty much make newbie claims (almost) safe because it is simply not worth it.
And yea, you'd still have the larceny, too.

[TotalyMeow]

As good as the idea is, and John did like it when I told him about it, it would actually be very very difficult to code. But we didn't have much time to talk about it today so maybe thinking it over will help.

[Taipion]

As good as the idea is, and John did like it when I told him about it, it would actually be very very difficult to code. But we didn't have much time to talk about it today so maybe thinking it over will help.

[Rubberduckbandit]

I could see this somewhat mitigating the alt wars, i don't agree with the kid with the beavers rambling as much, but taip has some pretty good ideas going on.

[Heffernan]

i do not agree with Theft not being summonable, if you prepare to commit crimes by steal from other players, u should also prepare to defend that character with walls

also since JC once said there illegal we could need something to prevent Donutclaims like KKK/Dawat have been using by placing 2 claims around a TBC/TBF and then walls and houses to close it down so u cant reach it without crime.

TbC should only be available for Murder (and maybe witchcraft) tbh anything else makes no sense at all

i especially love the stealing ur items back from the thief is not a crime



also if you make TbC unavailable for Theft theres no reason not to use mains for crimes or stealing anymore so there goes the altuse

[Taipion]

i do not agree with Theft not being summonable, if you prepare to commit crimes by steal from other players, u should also prepare to defend that character with walls

I have to slightly disagree, if you managed to steal only with leaving larceny scents, then there were no walls and no defense, otherwise you won't get away without waste scents, which is a whole different story.
Half-heartedly protecting you stuff, only with claim but no walls, makes ist easy so that is fine.

also if you make TbC unavailable for Theft theres no reason not to use mains for crimes or stealing anymore so there goes the altuse

There still is enough reason, at least for some people, to use a different char, probably not too closely related to your main, so that no one knows you are a thief.