Changing / Adjusting cloaking gems

Aeldra

As many people have doubtlessly noticed time and time again, cloaking gems are both a blessing and a curse. A blessing as you can go about your business as you like, a curse as everyone who seeks to interact with you or any newbie really has no proper way of knowing that people are about. The cwho changes help a bit in that regard, but it still is rather obscuring as to who is about and even just trying to find people to interact with can sometimes be tedious.

I've been thinking about making a report to provide an option or change to the cloaking gem, but as this will likely affect a lot of people and also I know that people have very different opinions about it, I thought I might first start a discussion about it and gather people's opinions about it.

As a background I have heard several times from people that they would've loved to interact with me if they knew I was about but did not and alerting everyone to my presence is highly impractical. rpwho, as much as I like the idea, is also not something I feel is going to solve that problem as it's -yet another who-, let alone help other problems.

Thus, I suggest the following solutions, I'm glad for any input people are willing to give as well as for any objections. In the light of this, one could wonder if it would befit of also allowing normal who to reach across the planes like cwho does... but that's another story.

Ess

Leave it as is

Sell a more expensive version with more functions

Kagato

I don't agree with reworking a gem so that you are still visible - certain people hold a level of notoriety and have a gem of cloaking so that they can do certain conflict quests without worrying about being pounced on by other people to sabotage their attempts *cough*Cay of Cloadahi*cough*  All having someone visible but their location cloaked will result in is them being scried far more often.

Aetolia completely changed how their gem of cloaking works, if anything I'd like to see something like what they did there

Long story short, here is a rundown of what the gem now does:

Gem of Cloaking remains activatable with TULAHUAR, but this gives: 
- Activation removes owner from Who lists.
- 10 minutes concealment and an hour on cooldown.
- This is a per person cooldown and does not stack.
- Gem ownership will always remove the owner's location from Thirdeye.
- The gem functions innately and always when on Treacherous Planes (their equivalent of being off-prime)

Aeldra

Ess said:

Leave it as is

Sell a more expensive version with more functions

then we can save ourselves the trouble of changing anything. Because nobody will spend more money to be more visible, in my opinion.

Deichtine

I like it as it is. Currently Enemies have to search you out when using it. Friends in your organisation can see you are there easily.

Aeldra

Veyils said:

I like it as it is. Currently Enemies have to search you out when using it. Friends in your organisation can see you are there easily.

the stress is -in your org- here. people you're friends with outside your org will not find you. I didn't have the impression that cwho does work as well as people think it does either, given that newbies regularly ask where everybody is and mention that the game seems empty. While I get that some people don't want to ever show up on who lists out of org, in the end we're hurting ourselves if the game appears consistently empty, especially in orgs where the in org population is rather low.

Jaspet

I've had an intense dislike for how empty the game felt since I started. This was mitigated somewhat with the cwho changes, but I still dislike the 45 people on / 4 people nature of who.

Deichtine

Hmm you could expand the who list a bit.

You sense 5 people from gaudi, 7 from glom etc etc and it does this no matter how many cloaking gems are about. Cross plane etc

Arkh

Achaea recently changed its gem of cloaking mechanics due to concerns that it made the game look less populated, and thus detracted from the first impression that newbies got. Achaea, the most populated of the IREs, did this.

Lusternia should follow suit. We are too small a game as is.

Ejderha

I've never been especially sympathetic to this concern, even before the cwho change. I'm probably below median social and above median 'try stuff until you figure it out on your own' though, so I realize that's not the best position around which to design systems for newbies.

I voted for option 1. If I understand it correctly, the effect would be:
1. QW and WHO would show all players (who are not in a manse) as 'online,' regardless of gem.
2. Locations would only show IF thirdeye AND same plane AND no gem.
3. Either the above would only be true on Prime (and gem would function as now off Prime) OR QW/WHO would behave the same on all planes, showing all players online (otherwise seeing players on plane even without location would defeat the primary purpose of gem).

So, if I want to interact with Danquik, assuming he is not in his manse, I would be able to see if he's online. I would have no idea via WHO/QW where he was, even with thirdeye. Even if I was on the same plane, I wouldn't be able to tell from WHO/QW. If I want to interact non-verbally, I would need to use currently available scrying methods etc to do so.

I think this solution would be palatable. Again, I'm not personally against the current functionality, but if it is going to change, I think the change should not substantially affect locating players in conflict zones/off plane if they have invested in the gem already.

Cyndarin

More options = almost always better

Riluna

It's already fully toggleable. If you want to be visible, you can be completely visible. Having an extra option isn't going to change how available you are for people. If you want to be around for people, you already can be, with or without this artefact.

And I 100% bought this artefact to hide from Celina's griefing. (Good job driving sales, @Cyndarin lol ) There is no need to make it weaker in any way.

Cyndarin

I bought it because people would see me lurking on faethorn to gank them

Moi

Solution 4: Make cloaking gems hide you only from non-allies when off prime or in enemy territory and from enemies everywhere. Personal allies can see you everywhere; personal enemies can never see you; and everyone else can see you if and only if you're somewhere Avenger-protected. Actually this is a terrible idea

Ejderha

Moi said:

Solution 4: Make cloaking gems hide you only from non-allies who you're open PK for and from enemies everywhere. Personal allies can see you everywhere; personal enemies can never see you; and everyone else can see you if and only if you're Avenger-protected.

Given the current state of Lust, passive Lust, and the cost of rejecting, I don't think this is a good idea at all. Huge buff to psymet monks that they don't need.

Moi

And in retrospect, Gloomtide. Consider the idea retracted.

Aeldra

Riluna said:

It's already fully toggleable. If you want to be visible, you can be completely visible. Having an extra option isn't going to change how available you are for people. If you want to be around for people, you already can be, with or without this artefact.

And I 100% bought this artefact to hide from Celina's griefing. (Good job driving sales, @Cyndarin lol ) There is no need to make it weaker in any way.

Honestly, that's the main problem of 'fully toggleable'. Toggling it completely off exposes you to everybody see where exactly you are without noticing. The 'part way toggle' allows people to see you around, while them still not being able to tell -where- you are without triggering your aethersight/mindfield/etc. That's the main difference.

Riluna

Aeldra said:

Riluna said:

It's already fully toggleable. If you want to be visible, you can be completely visible. Having an extra option isn't going to change how available you are for people. If you want to be around for people, you already can be, with or without this artefact.

And I 100% bought this artefact to hide from Celina's griefing. (Good job driving sales, @Cyndarin lol ) There is no need to make it weaker in any way.

Honestly, that's the main problem of 'fully toggleable'. Toggling it completely off exposes you to everybody see where exactly you are without noticing. The 'part way toggle' allows people to see you around, while them still not being able to tell -where- you are without triggering your aethersight/mindfield/etc. That's the main difference.

What difference would it really make, though? If you have enough reason to be unseen with the artefact when you otherwise would be seen, those who matter for the purpose stated already have ways to know you are around.

If you want to be available, you still can in the current system. It's not the fault of the artefact (or the person who might want to reach you!) that you're unreachable.

I don't agree with the need, largely because I have always strongly felt that the onus shouldn't be on the new person (or whomever) to reach out to us. It's we established players who should reach out to them. If we're actually willing and able to do so, we already can. The problem stated, IMHO, seems to be pushing the responsibility of these connections on anyone else, but we can already take that responsibility, if we want to.

We're not unavailable because people can't see us.

Aeldra

We're not unavailable because people can't see us.

The game still feels empty. You of course can turn off your cloaking gem so others see you and, as a side effect, know exactly when to gank you because thirdeye shows them exactly when you are in areas where it's easy to just jump you. I'm willing to bet a good deal of people don't go through the trouble and turn on/off their gems when it's appropriate, otherwise there'd be a lot more 'well known' names on who.

Sidd

Option 5: change the function to be limited. Something like 3x a Lusternian month, you can activate your gem (with the same phrase) now and you'll gain the current benefits but only for an IC day. 

Solves the problem, people can be sneaky and run around when they need to, other times, they are visible on WHO.

Crek

Have gems function like normal anywhere there is no Avenger protection and give Sidd's suggestion on Prime.

Deichtine

https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/77xeEP45

Deichtine

Jaspet just made a really good point to me.

EWHO really shouldn't be an artifact, that should be useable by newbies right away.

Ianir

Veyils said:

https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/77xeEP45

For context, this log was from an A/B test I did where I disabled gem protection on QW game-wide for about 2 minutes (leaving <> around anybody gemmed to distinguish them). No plane or continent changes were made on top of this, this was just disabling the gem effect on QW.

After the test was over, I posted a strawpoll in game asking if this made the game feel more full. With 21 votes, 62% responded yes.

--

As for non-data inquiries, this post actually comes at an interesting time. We are aware of the Achaea changes, and have been discussing making gem changes ourselves for a couple months now. The feedback on this thread, and from discussion on envoys, has been intriguing to say the least, and we are factoring this into the decision.

The feeling of emptiness in the game is one that has been brought up many times in the past on these forums. It gets brought up on newbie a few times a month, new players asking "Does anybody play this game?" It's less that newbies should be seeking people out, and more that they should be seeing people. It's not that they need help, it's more that they need to not seem like they're alone. If you walked into this game and felt like nobody played it when you started, would you have continued? That is our concern when we consider these changes.

Still, we do not want to neuter the artifact, and that is why we discuss it and not blindly make the change. We will continue to watch the feedback here and consider all available courses of action. We may or may not make any change. We may or may not go any particular route. I do feel this test was at least somewhat useful however.

Remmiel

I got the gem to hide when I didn't want to be bothered and just do my own thing. When I want to socialize and RP I turn it off. People will still look for me, but they aren't as likely to when they don't see my name on QW. I get that the game feels empty to novices, but that's what happens when you have a different list for each plane and sub-plane of the game. If  novices really feel alone, give them EWHO until level 50, and if they really need to continue seeing people, they can get the artie for it. If they cannot afford the EWHO artie, at least they know the game is actually full of players, plus there's the window enchantments and scrying globes and probably other ways I don't know of to find people once you know who you want to look for.

edit: Just looked back and saw vey already posted an ewho thing, gonna leave it anyways though.

Sylandra

I'm fine with toggling. I would very much like to keep an option to use the gem as it currently is. I don't log in for long stretches of time these days, so I try to avoid a lot of attention if I can help it.

Anita

I would like the option to be a toggle, because I do often turn off my gem of cloaking when I'm on Prime if I want people to find me, specifically if I want my friends/allies of other commune/city to see that I am awake and available, but it'd be nice to still remain hidden via location.

Sometimes I'd like to hide from everyone, which is my main reason for buying the gem of cloaking in the first place and not just for combative reasons. I like to log in and work on IG projects/design/read stuff without being poked at.

As another note, I believe CWHO addresses the problem of knowing when your city/commune is online, I don't think we need to see a list of allies, as there are clans and other means of communication to see if they are available. If they're not replying, that's a sure indication of they're NOT available. And even if someone *is* visible, it doesn't necessarily mean they are *available*, it still doesn't address the fact that people go AFK (and still on Prime), or you know, they just outright ignore you.

Minkahmet

I pretty much only turn mine off is when I have free time(usually three days out of the week) with nothing else to do or when I'm not being pulled away with rl stuff to handle at home, but I'm of the same mind with Riluna and Remmiel. I mean, there's already a newbie channel that bypass any plane if I recall correctly like.. omniscience or whatever that skill is called. It won't hurt to also give them a skill to see anyone/anywhere until a certain level, if this applies to an actual true newbie and not some troll metagamer for whatever reason otherwise.  So yeah, a skill/command that works until a certain level would definitely be a welcome for novices. I know I would use it and the channel if I am needing help getting adjusted to the game with information required to keep me interested.

Arkh

Again, the main point isn't to be available when a newbie asks a question. The point is to be visible, and so make it appear that people actually do play Lusternia.

Ianir said:

The feeling of emptiness in the game is one that has been brought up many times in the past on these forums. It gets brought up on newbie a few times a month, new players asking "Does anybody play this game?" It's less that newbies should be seeking people out, and more that they should be seeing people. It's not that they need help, it's more that they need to not seem like they're alone. If you walked into this game and felt like nobody played it when you started, would you have continued? That is our concern when we consider these changes.

Tenaka

Having a toggle between full hidden and location hidden is pointless, because nobody will pick location hidden only, if they have the option of picking fully hidden.

It's a stupid option to include in a poll on changing the gem.

Options should be:

Leave it alone.
Change it.

Minkahmet

I suppose manses are for that reason to be invisible or even the option of deleting the gem to appear visible. Of course that'll not be an option on the table, but the thought is there.