Quest investigations

Saran

Alrighty spinning away from tweets.

Cliff notes seem to be that people are leaning towards having something which enables people to be caught for doing contentious quests, but, ideally, is not on the extremes of either through just checking quest rankings (too simple) or by having to catch them in the act (unlikely to ever happen).

Also, ideally it'd have the ability to both catch someone but also get away with doing the quest.

So like... ideas?

Maligorn

When people SPAM especially trolly quests like the one that leaves aurawarp puddles all over the place, they need to easily be held accountable for universal shunning and pariah status (i.e. without having to constantly keep vigil over the area, either by watching for the person or stealing quest items or w/e).

Doing contentious quests once or a few times even for the honors is obviously something that should be encouraged - then it gives people the opportunity to do the counterquest and get that honors if they want it.

Saran

So one I was thinking about last night.

You could give each org their own thematic variation of an "investigation" that fundamentally works the same way. (Seren does a ritual at the scrying pool, Hallifax has some kinda temporal sympathy lab, Celest has angel inquisitors, etc)

At the beginning you'd target the investigation on a specific quest which would also lock in who the targeted player is.

Then you move on to gathering "evidence" which would be really just be objects or mobs linked to the quest and through org specific methods you convert these into clues.

The clues that come to mind are like... org, race, class, guild, order, demi or not, family, and name. You'd randomly get one of the clues from the list and that'd remove it from the list with the "name" clue being a chance to immediately complete the investigation (with the odds improving the more clues you get). Or maybe it just marks the clue as known so you just get a "no new info" result.

All it'd really do is check the latest completion and give clues linked to that player and because it's connected to orgs rather than specific quests it seems like it could be made to work with every quest as long as there's a link between them and the stuff that'd act as evidence.

You could also tweak further and make it so like, maybe different orgs have different affinities for quests and so they get an extra clue. (Like for the Eaf quest, maybe when the communes target the investigation on that they immediately get a clue from Faethorn)

Maybe when the clue list is generated the number of "name" clues is increased relative to the number of completions that player has, not necessarily as a 1 to 1.

Could also go simpler and just have the org side give you an item which you use in the quest area that can give clues, but I kinda like the idea of having to scour the area for the quest items and stuff.

Saran

Maligorn said:

When people SPAM especially trolly quests like the one that leaves aurawarp puddles all over the place, they need to easily be held accountable for universal shunning and pariah status (i.e. without having to constantly keep vigil over the area, either by watching for the person or stealing quest items or w/e).

Doing contentious quests once or a few times even for the honors is obviously something that should be encouraged - then it gives people the opportunity to do the counterquest and get that honors if they want it.

Yeah, it's why I think completions as a modifier is relevant, someone who's done the quest once should be less likely to get caught than someone who does it as part of their daily routine. (Though the possibility should still exist)

Also, if they're not already, there feels like there should be some level of "danger pay" with these quests that makes them more rewarding than an equivalent quest that is not really contentious.

Anaklusmos

Up the rewards before you slap any more punishment to questing.

Kethaera

Perhaps each quest could store all the relevant information on the last person to do the quest that Saran mentioned, and you'd be able to choose at the start of the magic org ritual/sciency time thing which one you wanted information about. If all it is "org, race, class, guild, order, demi or not, family, and name", I imagine that'd be very simple to track.

I love the thought especially of it being used to generate genuine conflict between orgs, rather than to be used to harass members of your own. There are better ways to "punish" people than disfavours/gold penalty/removing them - make them sit through a lecture, do the opposing quest or one that is thematically in opposition x number of times. Recently Celest made me influence angels for X amount of power in order to get unenemied, and I think that's a more interesting and useful task than handing over a bunch of gold. Plus it generated actual roleplay, which should be the real goal here.

Saran

Kethaera said:

Perhaps each quest could store all the relevant information on the last person to do the quest that Saran mentioned, and you'd be able to choose at the start of the magic org ritual/sciency time thing which one you wanted information about. If all it is "org, race, class, guild, order, demi or not, family, and name", I imagine that'd be very simple to track.

I love the thought especially of it being used to generate genuine conflict between orgs, rather than to be used to harass members of your own. There are better ways to "punish" people than disfavours/gold penalty/removing them - make them sit through a lecture, do the opposing quest or one that is thematically in opposition x number of times. Recently Celest made me influence angels for X amount of power in order to get unenemied, and I think that's a more interesting and useful task than handing over a bunch of gold. Plus it generated actual roleplay, which should be the real goal here.

I was figuring you could just store their name and do a live check up for the relevant stuff so you'd just store the most recent completion, if the quest system isn't already just logging completion times (so you'd grab the most recent at the start).

Kethaera

Saran said:

Kethaera said:

Perhaps each quest could store all the relevant information on the last person to do the quest that Saran mentioned, and you'd be able to choose at the start of the magic org ritual/sciency time thing which one you wanted information about. If all it is "org, race, class, guild, order, demi or not, family, and name", I imagine that'd be very simple to track.

I love the thought especially of it being used to generate genuine conflict between orgs, rather than to be used to harass members of your own. There are better ways to "punish" people than disfavours/gold penalty/removing them - make them sit through a lecture, do the opposing quest or one that is thematically in opposition x number of times. Recently Celest made me influence angels for X amount of power in order to get unenemied, and I think that's a more interesting and useful task than handing over a bunch of gold. Plus it generated actual roleplay, which should be the real goal here.

I was figuring you could just store their name and do a live check up for the relevant stuff so you'd just store the most recent completion, if the quest system isn't already just logging completion times (so you'd grab the most recent at the start).

Yeah, that's true, that'd be simpler. 

Steingrim

I think this is looking at it too far from the other side.

People getting away with something isn't inherently the worst thing that can happen.

There's not much play for the person trying to do the quest here. This seems to amount to throw the dice and see if you get away with it. Trying to do one of these quests can require a lot of effort to keep underwraps and just having some random dice roll divorced from the actual effort by the quest doer seems misplaced to me.

If there's some quest that is particularly problematic then I seems to me it might be better to address the issue within that quest rather than some blanket snoop code.

Saran

I mean, this came up in relation to the Eaf quest which is massively contentious for the forests (especially serenwilde given, you know the whole nature wars thing) and only has the counter of "steal the quest items".

A org focused solution that can be used on any quest also resolves the request without creating the mass of extra work for the admin to go through all of the potentially contentious quests and develop individually tailored solutions for each of them.

Dys

Treaties and penalties are already pretty strong disincentives. Only 11 people have done the eaf quest in 4 1/2 years which is a shame because it's fun and not hard, though it takes a while waiting for respawns. Making it easier to catch people after the fact would strangle it down further and that seems like a waste of a good quest to me.

Kethaera

Dys said:

Treaties and penalties are already pretty strong disincentives. Only 11 people have done the eaf quest in 4 1/2 years which is a shame because it's fun and not hard, though it takes a while waiting for respawns. Making it easier to catch people after the fact would strangle it down further and that seems like a waste of a good quest to me.

This doesn't necessarily make it easier, it would depend on how an org would go about finding out. What it could do is make it more interactive for the people investigating.

Steingrim

Kethaera said:

Dys said:

Treaties and penalties are already pretty strong disincentives. Only 11 people have done the eaf quest in 4 1/2 years which is a shame because it's fun and not hard, though it takes a while waiting for respawns. Making it easier to catch people after the fact would strangle it down further and that seems like a waste of a good quest to me.

This doesn't necessarily make it easier, it would depend on how an org would go about finding out. What it could do is make it more interactive for the people investigating.

That's my point though. If they're running around with it there you go. If they don't, then either the fae or nature cares enough or maybe players shouldn't have it so easy to find out.

And I don't mean this at a slam against Saran or yourself, but here's a thread where if the admin had implimented what was asked for (and maybe they will) the effect would be across all manner of quests that I don't think either of you probably feel need that sort of protection.

Lastly, I don't even know if the eaf quest itself was meant to have this effect in game. Did the admin really want to spend those resources on a quest only to have it done 11 times in 4 and a half years?

Perhaps some fae could be introduced that the forests would agree should be removed from the collective or somesuch (aka corrupted fae)?

Saran

It's also pretty doubtful that people would particularly care about investigating who did the nature reserve quest recently.

But it's also one mechanism that would let Serenwilde, if they wanted, investigate who's recently done quests like the "bad-side" of the tar pits, hifarae, mornhai, eaf, mount dio, etc quests. Similarly, I imagine other orgs would have at least a few quests they'd also be interested in being able to sleuth out.

Arguably, having a mechanism in place also means you can they spread out some stuff to help subvert detection and could choose to remove the basin-wide name and shaming that happens with some quests because they can be investigated.

Lycidas

the "bad-side" of mount dio is either someone from Mag, or a person that was like, "I feel like being a troll and screwing the world."

Saran

Steingrim said:

Perhaps some fae could be introduced that the forests would agree should be removed from the collective or somesuch (aka corrupted fae)?

Corrupted fae and non-Maeve fae already exist and have for quite some time.

I don't imagine Serenwilde would particularly be okay with taking their essence and merging them into something else as an alternative quarrantining them til a solution can be found or excising them.

Steingrim said:

Lastly, I don't even know if the eaf quest itself was meant to have this effect in game. Did the admin really want to spend those resources on a quest only to have it done 11 times in 4 and a half years?

I mean, who ever designed it developed something that's offensive to both forests, who are generally expected to be on opposing sides of alliances and so would logically always do their best to ban the quest being performed. Afaik, some stages are even things which have always been banned by forests when they're in an alliance.

Also, there's the context of the inspiration for the zone. The nature wars are a heavily significant part of Serenwilde's history, even before we knew about them we had events trying to deal with the aftermath of what happened during them so why would they ever be okay with anyone doing anything with the quest. Keep in mind, there's no real alternative side to the quest unlike so many others around the game.

Anaklusmos

I'm maintaining the position that if you want to screw over a quester who spends at least an hour figuring out and doing a quest, then you should have to sit there and keep an eye on things. All of this (this proposal, as well as quest rankings) has to go.

Saran

Anaklusmos said:

I'm maintaining the position that if you want to screw over a quester who spends at least an hour figuring out and doing a quest, then you should have to sit there and keep an eye on things. All of this (this proposal, as well as quest rankings) has to go.

Yes, it has been well noted that you are demanding that people who actually want to uphold RP must invest 24 hours a day into the quest you only spend maybe an hour on.

Anaklusmos

Not exactly hard to keep watch. Grab a melder. Meld watch on. Go do whatever you do while also having the quest area under surveillance.

Eaf quest, which is what this thread discusses specifically, is even easier to watch because you need to visit areas on more than one plane to do it. So, the melder in question isn't tied to just Prime, for example.

Saran

Anaklusmos said:

Not exactly hard to keep watch. Grab a melder. Meld watch on. Go do whatever you do while also having the quest area under surveillance.

Eaf quest, which is what this thread discusses specifically, is even easier to watch because you need to visit areas on more than one plane to do it. So, the melder in question isn't tied to just Prime, for example.

And as a reality check when I log in and check everyone's classes, there aren't any melders. I mean if there's more than one or two people on it's honestly surprising.

For melders it also means not being able to use your meld for things like the influencing benefit if you're trying to do that.


edit: Also, given your view seems rather clearly that people should only be able to be caught doing contentious quests if people literally catch them in the act, you're saying it's trivial for Seren (for example) maintain more than twice as melds than the forest seems to average people online lol.

Lycidas

Only slightly off-topic but in response, the melder bonus to influencing is negligible, considering you can't go beyond 'like royalty' prestige, which is most most influencers are at anyway.

Saran

Lycidas said:

Only slightly off-topic but in response, the melder bonus to influencing is negligible, considering you can't go beyond 'like royalty' prestige, which is most most influencers are at anyway.

Alternative benefits of a meld, you can leave it up somewhere and teleport back to it as part of your influencing/bashing cycle if you're fast enough. Demesne watch can also be important if you're liable to get jumped while doing so.

Lycidas

Saran said:

Alternative benefits of a meld, you can leave it up somewhere and teleport back to it as part of your influencing/bashing cycle if you're fast enough. Demesne watch can also be important if you're liable to get jumped while doing so.

That's more like it! The meld benefit to influencing is just bleh, anyway, back to topic shall we? While we could use melds to effectively watch over a quest area, you are also then demanding that they spend their time doing that more than anything else. Not directed at Saran, obviously.

Saran

Lycidas said:

Saran said:

Alternative benefits of a meld, you can leave it up somewhere and teleport back to it as part of your influencing/bashing cycle if you're fast enough. Demesne watch can also be important if you're liable to get jumped while doing so.

That's more like it! The meld benefit to influencing is just bleh, anyway, back to topic shall we? While we could use melds to effectively watch over a quest area, you are also then demanding that they spend their time doing that more than anything else. Not directed at Saran, obviously.

Yeah, the demand to watch is just so disproportionate in terms of time/resource investment it's entirely unreasonable. It's why I suggest a middle road like investigations.

Kethaera

Steingrim said:

And I don't mean this at a slam against Saran or yourself, but here's a thread where if the admin had implimented what was asked for (and maybe they will) the effect would be across all manner of quests that I don't think either of you probably feel need that sort of protection.

Yeah, but, it'd be literally adding a single line of code to the quest. Unlike many things, I have a reasonably good idea of how much trouble that part would be. Yes, you would have to do this to every quest(if we had to include them all), using the means I'm thinking of, but it'd still be a single line. 

Although, I don't think it's necessarily the highest priority right now, and the quest/mechanic to investigate someone would be the far more difficult part. I just think it's worth considering how this might be done better than say, creating a useless meld for hours every day, or standing around in an area for hours every day. 

Saran

If the system is already tracking the most recent completion you'd just reference that, if that's what you're talking about for a single line.

Kethaera

Saran said:

If the system is already tracking the most recent completion you'd just reference that, if that's what you're talking about for a single line.

Depends. I don't know for certain if the system(if I know what you mean by this) is tracking *every single completion for every quest- but I doubt it. The quest itself would still have that information.

*Edit: The most recent completion. Either way, not terribly likely.

Saran

Kethaera said:

Saran said:

If the system is already tracking the most recent completion you'd just reference that, if that's what you're talking about for a single line.

Depends. I don't know for certain if the system(if I know what you mean by this) is tracking *every single completion for every quest- but I doubt it. The quest itself would still have that information.

*Edit: The most recent completion. Either way, not terribly likely.

True, my assumption is that there's just a big completions table somewhere that's got like...

quest ID | player | completion date stamp

Which the quest system then references to figure out the completion numbers when queried making the most recent just a different query on the same data set.

Steingrim

edit--already said.

Steingrim

Kethaera said:

Steingrim said:

And I don't mean this at a slam against Saran or yourself, but here's a thread where if the admin had implimented what was asked for (and maybe they will) the effect would be across all manner of quests that I don't think either of you probably feel need that sort of protection.

Yeah, but, it'd be literally adding a single line of code to the quest. Unlike many things, I have a reasonably good idea of how much trouble that part would be. Yes, you would have to do this to every quest(if we had to include them all), using the means I'm thinking of, but it'd still be a single line. 

Although, I don't think it's necessarily the highest priority right now, and the quest/mechanic to investigate someone would be the far more difficult part. I just think it's worth considering how this might be done better than say, creating a useless meld for hours every day, or standing around in an area for hours every day. 

I'm not talking about admin effort. I'm saying the request is to effect hundreds of quests rather than what seems to be a very few.

Kethaera

Steingrim said:

I'm not talking about admin effort. I'm saying the request is to effect hundreds of quests rather than what seems to be a very few.

But I'm saying you could do just a limited number of quests. If it is the case - and it probably is - that you have to access that information by each individual quest, then it makes sense to do this for just a few quests. Have players of each org vote on which ones they care about. Other than the admin effort, I don't understand your objection?