Salem

Lets someone somoene stole, a sword, someone bought the sword, went home, logged off. Could someone who has stolen item scents track that item while its offline?

If they can't, they should. A stolen item should have scents tied directly to it, and not the player that stole it, which is why you should be able to track the item separately. (This would also be a good way to point out what traders are dealing in stolen goods.) Note: I'm basing this off of the idea that the scent and crime concepts have come directly from Haven nearly unaltered (Tracking changed, scent specifics have changed slightly).

You don't track the item, you track the person. Anything other than that would be ridiculous. An item can't commit a crime, only a person can commit a crime. When a person commits a crime, they can't just wipe it clean by simply giving the item away or selling it. The fact remains that they committed a crime whether the stolen item is still in their possession or not.

The crime can't be tied to an "item", only to a "person".

Slayblaze wrote:You don't track the item, you track the person. Anything other than that would be ridiculous. An item can't commit a crime, only a person can commit a crime. When a person commits a crime, they can't just wipe it clean by simply giving the item away or selling it. The fact remains that they committed a crime whether the stolen item is still in their possession or not.

The crime can't be tied to an "item", only to a "person".

When tracking a scent of larseny (?) It shows "TRACK ITEM" lrn2ranger

rogoku wrote:When tracking a scent of larseny (?) It shows "TRACK ITEM" lrn2ranger

I know it does, what I am saying is that it is beyond ridiculous that the item is tracked instead of the criminal.

An item is innocent, an item can't be guilty of a crime, an inanimate object can not be brought to justice.

It also basically means "don't buy or trade anything from anyone because if the item you just bought was stolen, then there'll be somebody knocking on your door in the middle of the night to slit your throat" = there goes the trade market, down the drain.

An item leaves no footprints, no fingerprints, no smell - only people leave these things in real life, the game should reflect that.

rogoku wrote:When tracking a scent of larseny (?) It shows "TRACK ITEM" lrn2ranger

Which is why is should be persistent through trades, etc. until the item is destroyed.

Slayblaze wrote:It also basically means "don't buy or trade anything from anyone because if the item you just bought was stolen, then there'll be somebody knocking on your door in the middle of the night to slit your throat" = there goes the trade market, down the drain.

A bit too much hyperbole in that statement for me. You could do the same thing in HnH and it didn't effect the trading one bit. A smart raider will either alt-vault the good for X days until the scents wear off (3-4 days if I recall right) or only trade them to people he/she knows isn't going to fuss over having the stolen goods.

MagicManICT wrote:You could do the same thing in HnH and it didn't effect the trading one bit.

1. Why does the answer to almost everything have to be "we did XYZ in HnH and it worked just fine"? I'm so sick of hearing that being used to counter a perfectly logical point. Use logic rather than saying "well some game that nobody played or even heard of did it that way, so Salem should too!". That's not a logical rebuttal.

MagicManICT wrote:A smart raider will either alt-vault the good for X days until the scents wear off (3-4 days if I recall right) or only trade them to people he/she knows isn't going to fuss over having the stolen goods.

2. You see, here is a fatal flaw I've noticed. I do hope you realize that this type of sandbox game will have a range of players with a wide range of differing playstyles, right? On one side of the spectrum you will have the "smart raider" who takes part in criminal actions and on the other end of the spectrum you will have those who play as a lawful citizen who refuse to lie, steal, cheat, scam, and raid. Those are the two extremes and there are many shades of gray in between. The point is that each gamestyle variation should have recourses available to them equally, or the balance of the game gets thrown off. Stealing an item and then "either alt-vault the good for X days until the scents wear off (3-4 days if I recall right) or only trade them to people he/she knows isn't going to fuss over having the stolen goods" allows the smart raider to safely bypass consequences by using a loophole - it favors the raider and punishes the raidee, leaving them no recourse. You could say 'the raidee should have protected his stash better', but that misses the point that there should be equal recourse open to everyone on either side of the spectrum.

I believe that true equality will never be achieved with perfection of course, but one side should not be so heavily favored over the other side. The fatal flaw I mentioned is that most of the community seems perfectly fine with game mechanics that favor the raider and even seem fine with using whatever little loopholes they can find, such as using alts to insta-port themselves which had to be patched out of the game it was being abused so badly. This is why we can't have nice things.

MagicManICT wrote:A bit too much hyperbole in that statement for me. You could do the same thing in HnH and it didn't effect the trading one bit. A smart raider will either alt-vault the good for X days until the scents wear off (3-4 days if I recall right) or only trade them to people he/she knows isn't going to fuss over having the stolen goods.

but some people actually did use "hot items" to find their enemies whereabouts it did effect some, not all though.

Un1ted wrote:The fatal flaw I mentioned is that most of the community seems perfectly fine with game mechanics that favor the raider and even seem fine with using whatever little loopholes they can find, such as using alts to insta-port themselves which had to be patched out of the game it was being abused so badly. This is why we can't have nice things.

"most of the community" is an exaggeration for sure.

Un1ted wrote:1. Why does the answer to almost everything have to be "we did XYZ in HnH and it worked just fine"? I'm so sick of hearing that being used to counter a perfectly logical point. Use logic rather than saying "well some game that nobody played or even heard of did it that way, so Salem should too!". That's not a logical rebuttal.

you know more people play hnh then they do salem right?

Un1ted wrote:

MagicManICT wrote:You could do the same thing in HnH and it didn't effect the trading one bit.

1. Why does the answer to almost everything have to be "we did XYZ in HnH and it worked just fine"? I'm so sick of hearing that being used to counter a perfectly logical point. Use logic rather than saying "well some game that nobody played or even heard of did it that way, so Salem should too!". That's not a logical rebuttal.

Because, despite what many people want to argue, this is effectively HnH 2.0. Many mechanics are changing and will find their own way of working, but many of these mechanics are completely identical to the way things worked there. What's not logical about that? It's taking a working example from a current game and applying it to an identical mechanic in another game: A therefore B. You can't get any more logical than that without months of experience behind you. Granted this is a correlation and not a direct causation, but it still follows the rules of logic.

Also, I don't think I've seen many say "it worked just fine". I see a lot of people using Haven as a basis for what to expect out of a mechanic, but I only see a few people that have stuck around saying that they think game mechanic X worked just fine or better in Haven (they've usually given up on Salem and gone back). Be careful of where you tread, sir. Don't accuse someone of making logical fallacies and then try to "read between the lines" of lines that don't exist. (Just want to state: not threatening anything, it's just YOUR reputation on the line.)

[A whole lot of nonsense...]

Where ever did you get that spiel? What did I say to set that off? All I'm talking about is raiders because they're going to be the only people that are dealing with stolen goods. I'm leaving out the odd individual that might haplessly buy from the black market because I believe it to be a rare case. Most non-casuals are usually wise enough to know who they're trading with if they're actively participating in that part of the game. Of course, the addition of easily accessed and secure trading stalls in Boston will likely change up this dynamic a good bit. I'll have to see how that changes the game before making any real judgements on it, though. I'm also failing to mention that only a small percent of goods that are "stolen" will actually hang around to be tracked. Curios and food will be consumed, ingredients stolen will soon be used up. Exceptions do exist, of course. Someone might make off with a large stash of iron bars. Those could be hard to consume quickly or they could be quickly turned into nails or consumables, it just depends on the raider.

The person that got raided always has recourse. The scents might only last a couple of days, but that's the design of the game. Loss of a few items really is inconsequential compared to getting murdered or having half your town laid to waste. Of the four summonable scents, only battery ranks lower. As a note, evidence does last a good bit longer than the time the scents do. All you need to do is find the base once. You can come back with evidence and the posse later to summon the perps (assuming you're prepared to commit murder).

Tonkyhonk wrote:but some people actually did use "hot items" to find their enemies whereabouts it did effect some, not all though.

I'm quite aware of this, which is why you should be careful of who you trade with. Got a new player moved in near by but can't quite figure out where he's hiding out? Slip him an item you "stole" from your own property and then trade it to that player (or leave it somewhere for that player to take). Track the item down and find out where he's logged out. Maybe you get lucky and catch the person online. Having a stolen item is about as "inconsequential" as trespassing, though, except there is that about three day timer instead of an eight hour one.

Dallane wrote:you know more people play hnh then they do salem right?

And this is important why?