Salem

It's become apparent from a quick look at the 'Pilgrims & Planters' forum that towns simply do not recruit much, people were openly surprised to see ONE recruiting thread and when their are recruiting threads the towns are invariably lead by clueless newbs. Recent posts from disgruntled players complain that towns feel they can not recruit because any recruit is highly likely to be a spy which will bring disaster. Now I don't know how common spies actually are, but if the feeling that they are present and the negative consequences are nearly infinite (complete destruction of the town and death of all members) then naturally people will be hyper cautious.

The main fears seem to be three fold
1) Spies can simply form a party with their co-conspirators to produce a party arrow and guide a hostile group to the town
2) On top of this the Spy will use any key given to them to open the town gates and let attackers in
3) Stupid newbs will be tricked into compromising security by either Trojan-horses or Scent-Fishing

I think this is slowly killing the group play aspect of the game and without towns we have less politics, less feuds, less utilization of end-game content and ultimately a narrower playing experience for most players.

Fortunately the Developers have already stated their intention to address the core problem, that defenses are so all or nothing and just about any breach by hostiles results in a total wipe. This is a great start but I would also add that reducing the importance of keeping a location hidden would be another benefit as it would largely eliminate the whole avenue by which #1 damages security. But more direct and immediate measures might also be necessary and I'd like to lay out some ideas to reduce the security risks of recruiting.

PARTY FIX: Fairly simple here when you think about it, new trial members of a town are unable to invite non-town members to a party. Senior town members can invite freely and trial members can inherit leader status of a party that includes non-town members, trial members just can't expand it a non town member without the assistance of senior members. This fix stops the trivial revealing of towns cold while imposing the least restrictions of the use of the party function, and their is still the potential to trick the seniors if your clever.

GATE FIX: Gates no longer operate by changing between an open and closed state, instead gates are simply collision-less for any person (and their dragged objects) who is keyed to the gate. A gate without a lock is collision-less for everyone. This eliminates the trivial gate opening vulnerability while having the very positive side effect of making gates less of a pain in the ass (particularly when dragging things) for everyone.

FISHING FIX: Items that have been stolen and could be tracked by scents can't be teleported back to ones homestead from Boston, the items will be graphically marked 'Hot' (with literal flame graphics if you like) so you can discard them and return home, this prevents both tricking newbs and intentionally passing a hot item to a spy. It is ok to bring hot items to Boston, trade them and consume them in Boston or craft with them or any other usage that would normal eliminate the ability to track them so a healthy market in fenced goods can still exist.

Lastly their are going to be a certain number of people who have played conventional hermit style and decide that they want to get into more high level content and start looking to be recruited by a town, or people may simply want to leave their old town and emigrate to a new one because living conditions are better. But this necessitates grueling long walks across the map which will both discourage joining towns AND necessitate revealing the towns location to any character that isn't brand new. Currently we get one free usage of the Wilderness Guide NPC, but if it could reset for each character every ~60 days, possibly also requiring that you have no personal-claim to use it then we would have a viable way to switch towns while not making it practical to use the Guide as a substitute for horses and other normal means of day-2-day travle.

I don't think people knowing the location of your town is as big of a problem as you think it is.
Also the idea about allowing people to have an extra port every so often will likely benefit raiders a lot more then anyone else as they will only have to send a single scout to the town they want to attack and port the rest of the group in.

I definitely appreciate the thought and energy that went into this post. I consider towns mostly fixed now with the trial member system. There are several towns and groups on this server that are able to grow, recruit, and leverage new players just fine. There are then players who lack the general intelligence, leadership, or dedication to replicate what these other groups are doing. I have little to no intention to cater to the later group of players.

ImpalerWrG wrote:PARTY FIX: Fairly simple here when you think about it, new trial members of a town are unable to invite non-town members to a party. Senior town members can invite freely and trial members can inherit leader status of a party that includes non-town members, trial members just can't expand it a non town member without the assistance of senior members. This fix stops the trivial revealing of towns cold while imposing the least restrictions of the use of the party function, and their is still the potential to trick the seniors if your clever.

Players may want to play with their friends outside the town when some of their town members are not online. They may want to party for the simple pleasures of chat. There is a world in which I could imagine all town bells simply have an arrow that points to them from Boston and I wouldn't really mind it. I do not consider "hiding" your town to be a viable strategy, nor one I have any interest in preserving or encouraging it.

ImpalerWrG wrote:GATE FIX: Gates no longer operate by changing between an open and closed state, instead gates are simply collision-less for any person (and their dragged objects) who is keyed to the gate. A gate without a lock is collision-less for everyone. This eliminates the trivial gate opening vulnerability while having the very positive side effect of making gates less of a pain in the ass (particularly when dragging things) for everyone.

There is a high probability that walls may be scale-able and gates may be lock-picked in the future. In said event braziers would trigger from hostile fight relations on a town claim. If you cannot trust somebody to not open your gate, then you have either failed in your town design, or failed in just how and when you gave that player keys. Probably both. The chances I make it harder for a spy to open a gate are slim to none. Buy springs and understand that said vulnerabilities and coordination must be perfectly timed.

ImpalerWrG wrote:FISHING FIX: Items that have been stolen and could be tracked by scents can't be teleported back to ones homestead from Boston, the items will be graphically marked 'Hot' (with literal flame graphics if you like) so you can discard them and return home, this prevents both tricking newbs and intentionally passing a hot item to a spy. It is ok to bring hot items to Boston, trade them and consume them in Boston or craft with them or any other usage that would normal eliminate the ability to track them so a healthy market in fenced goods can still exist.

Again. This game is not about 'hiding'. This game is about defending your location and/or forming political alliances for your protection. In the event you don't care to defend your claim and don't care to get into politics, then this game will be about revenge when you inevitably get hit. Hiding might be fine and good for a noob to have the time required to get his feet wet, but the idea that the mechanics are based around ones ability to hide is not something I am considering. It will be remarkably easier for a player to take negative action against a player with a scent, thus, there should be justice for those who do find and transgress against you.

ImpalerWrG wrote:Lastly their are going to be a certain number of people who have played conventional hermit style and decide that they want to get into more high level content and start looking to be recruited by a town, or people may simply want to leave their old town and emigrate to a new one because living conditions are better. But this necessitates grueling long walks across the map which will both discourage joining towns AND necessitate revealing the towns location to any character that isn't brand new. Currently we get one free usage of the Wilderness Guide NPC, but if it could reset for each character every ~60 days, possibly also requiring that you have no personal-claim to use it then we would have a viable way to switch towns while not making it practical to use the Guide as a substitute for horses and other normal means of day-2-day travle.

Rent a horse.

I like some of these suggestions, though one thing is the scent fishing one, i personally think its OK at the moment but id prefer items having a created by tag so that instead of saying hot/stolen item, it means that if you know Mr potato was robbed last week and you are being sold an item made by him then there's a good chance its stolen property. This eliminates simple stolen not stolen tag and makes the buyers have to be wise to the world instead of getting told fire BAD. Also helps tell you who a good crafter is to make something you want.

I also think we need CTF map.

JohnCarver wrote:There are then players who lack the general intelligence, leadership, or dedication to replicate what these other groups are doing. I have little to no intention to cater to the later group of players.

Their are indeed no end to wannabee mayors who can't do the job of leading a group even before external threats are present (I've lived under some), my intent isn't to cater to them but rather to cater to players who want to join a town, their seem to be no avenues for them or at least so few that most players will never live in a town simply from lack of availability (and yes I know not everyone will make the cut and be accepted either). Letting towns grow to bigger populations can accommodate people without creating more towns and more Mayors. Also do you have metrics on how town counts and town populations are changing?

JohnCarver wrote:There is a world in which I could imagine all town bells simply have an arrow that points to them from Boston and I wouldn't really mind it. I do not consider "hiding" your town to be a viable strategy, nor one I have any interest in preserving or encouraging it.

As I said in the outset reducing the importance of hiding is my preferred solution too and I'd even encourage you to go for the very aggressive solution of just making town locations totally public. I had not known if you were going to go down that route though, the game is currently in a state where hiding is a major element of defense and my suggestions are were in that context, if your able to undermine the hiding paradigm then it obviously eliminates the need for any of the mechanics to hide locations from recruits.

JohnCarver wrote:There is a high probability that walls may be scale-able and gates may be lock-picked in the future. In said event braziers would trigger from hostile fight relations on a town claim. If you cannot trust somebody to not open your gate, then you have either failed in your town design, or failed in just how and when you gave that player keys. Probably both. The chances I make it harder for a spy to open a gate are slim to none. Buy springs and understand that said vulnerabilities and coordination must be perfectly timed.

Again this is good, with alternative means to achieve entry the use of a spy become less critical and less paranoia might exist about spies, but I'm doubtful if it remains a such a glaring hole in the defense mechanics, your basically allowing outside meta-gaming to nullify your in game defense mechanics. Spies that get some information, or sow treason and decent in a town are fun because your using meta-game activity vs my opponents team cohesion which is their meta-game, when meta-gaming directly intrudes on in-game mechanics it's going to be perceived as unfair, just as if someone used a Phishing attack to acquire someones login information.

Also I don't see how springs are remotely relevant as their is no difficulty in the spy opening a gate repeatedly every 15 seconds as his co-conspirators walk into the town, the spring is only a defense against a gate being left open accidentally and perhaps as a limiter for how many people can get in after a lock-picking.

If towns don't open up a bit after you've implemented your fixes then stronger medicine should be applied.

I really must agree that joining towns is extremely difficult. I have played salem for close to a year and been a part of 2 different towns. The first was in the previous world and the other was after the wipe. I haven't been in a town for close to 5 months. It is quite difficult so I just remain a hermit. A new solo player coming in will have a difficult time. There has to be a way to make the game more group friendly. New players should be desired by towns not slaughtered. Effective recruiting or to out recruit the opposition should be desired. If you don't come in with a friend it is tough. And to join anything established is a rarity. Then the recent update want to promote group play and trade, go figure. Big towns, mutilated competing factions, large groups, ect no chance. Other than the the small current existing. JC repeatedly says towns are fixed. Alrighty then.

ImpalerWrG wrote:I had not known if you were going to go down that route though, the game is currently in a state where hiding is a major element of defense

People may use hiding as a major part of their defense plans, but hiding is in no way an effective form of defense and never has been.

ImpalerWrG wrote:you're basically allowing outside meta-gaming to nullify your in game defense mechanics.

Spying is not some outside force messing up the game, it is very much part of the game.

Terp65 wrote: New players should be desired by towns not slaughtered.

How town can desire newbies whit no skill or experience. How they are usefull? + most of them leave game after 1 month of playing so you are wasted time recruiting them.

Only use of newbies is recruit them to spy others.

Its like in RL whitout skill or experience and education only job you will get is cleaning public toilet.

vienradzis wrote:

Terp65 wrote: New players should be desired by towns not slaughtered.

How town can desire newbies whit no skill or experience. How they are usefull? + most of them leave game after 1 month of playing so you are wasted time recruiting them.

Only use of newbies is recruit them to spy others.

Its like in RL whitout skill or experience and education only job you will get is cleaning public toilet.

A town has a lot of toilets that need cleaning so newbies should still be useful.