"Legal" Unauthorized Lot Access

So you're argument is that it's ok to teleport through a locked door, if the door has a window or is open? Or you can teleport through a wall so long as it has a window?

See how convoluted this can get? Is it a teleport skill or not?

 

I asked Starr if COTO's were lootable and he publicly said all COTO's are lootable.

 

Wow. I have no words.... But I do have thousands of COTO with an in game value of ZERO and I've been flagged for Open PVP since R35 without incident. I uhm... just wow.

I'm pretty sure there's a 100% chance he was talking about in game COTO drops from mobs. Otherwise, there's no way to know if something isn't lootable or not. I guess all pledge items and add-on store items could be at risk now? Anyway - you're taking the the thread off topic.

Are you trying to t e l e p o r t it somewhere else? hahaha

 

No, I'm saying that's no ok. I'm saying that you need clear line of sight, and even that is debatable because that could mean that someone could teleport to you as you're sitting on top of your walls, which again completely defeats the purpose of having walls.

If there's no way to use the walls for any type of advantage, then there's no point in having the walls. Something that I personally would be upset about since I bought so many walls.

BTW, the reason this is still balanced and not pay to win (because I know that's what someone will say immediately after I post this) is because 1. Players can craft walls in-game, or buy them from other players. 2. There's nothing that says someone has to attack me in my town. I have no resources, I have no mobs to farm, I have nothing that can be taken from storage. There's only ME in my home. In order to get out of my home I have to travel to and from areas that are open pvp and have no walls. So if someone is hell bent on killing me, all they have to do is wait for me to come outside. Meanwhile, I have the right to sit in my home in peace and enjoy the game in other ways. Just like everyone else should have that right if they own a home. That's my "time out" spot. That's where I go to do "other things".

Now if I happen to invite someone into my home and they decide to attack me there, well that's something I'll deal with. If I screw up and leave the doors open, or someone follows me in, again I'll deal with that. But those are going to be uncommon occurrences that I personally can control. That's balanced. What's not balanced is telling the entire world that no matter what a player does, no matter what walls they have or what type of home they have there will always be a very simple way into that home and whoever decides to show up can just ignore everything you've built and walk right in. That's lame as hell.

 

Welcome to the Duke Walls argument.... have some pancakes and try the veal.

 

Pledge and store items are protected. COTO's are the exception. That's my understanding based on Darkstarr's response.

Here's one response concerning COTO's in-game:

I'm still looking for the one where he addresses the reward COTO's.

 

I've tried to pickpocket them, but they were the ones from a founders account reward. No dice. Said target had no items to steal.

 

The answer is simple. Do not craft while you are flagged for PvP. Do not talk to NPCs when you are flagged for PvP. Live close to Oracle or better yet change your playstyle... keep valuables in bank, move stealthed and steal from those who are flagged but dealing with clunky UI and kil lthose who are weaker while there is not risk to that... I hate the PvP that comes down to this, yes, there are ways to minimize risks and maximize rewards in PvP, sadly many spells and abilities do not have proper counter and even more so some playstyles do not have proper consequences yet...

 

Exactly.

And that translates into "only PVP when you have nothing to lose". Don't wear anything of value, don't have lootable stuff in your inventory, don't live in a PVP town, don't visit a PVP town unless you're there to kill everything. It reduces all PVP into an arena death match. Which is fine for people that have a playstyle where that's all they want anyway, but what those people fail to understand is that it actually removes a large part of our population from participating in pvp in any type of meaningful way.

Honestly @Kinkara, @Duke Avery if the developers make a balanced world where players can have relative safety, you'll have more people to steal from and more people to kill, not less. More people will come out of the wood work and PVP participation will skyrocket if we have NPC Guards, safe housing, and skills and spells that have reasonable counters.

 

The stack of 1000 COTO is from a pile that is a collection of pledge and add-on COTO. The stack of 5 is a stack I just purchased from the add-on store a few minutes ago. They both have ZERO value. If add-on store COTOs are lootable and subject to the Oracle ransom system then that is just wrong.

 

I'll throw this idea purely for discussion's sake. If Nightstep only works if there is a clear line of sight to the target then the type of house the PvP flagged player lives in becomes part of the gameplay mechanic.



The rowhouse greenhouse is terribly vulnerable compared to the more ordinary rowhouses beside it. Nightstep mechanics then becomes a game of skill & countermoves are possible (given the right house architecture) by simply closing the window shutter.

The right type of limits enhances gameplay by giving both players choices. And no I do not consider becoming a prisoner in your own basement a good or desirable countermove.

 

BTW, here I am last night asking for the stealing side of the equation to be balanced out so that it's more fun for thieves.

Why am I doing this? Because I want a balanced and working system. If either side has it easier than the other the system will not be fun.

It's just as important for thieves to have fun as it is for the people they're stealing from. But in the case of Night Step that's not happening because of the bug. In the case of Moon Beams and Dazzling Rays, that's not happening because of a bug. This all comes back to creating a game, in this case "Cops and Robbers" where both sides have tools at their disposal and it's up to the players to use those tools to win or lose. If the tools are bugged or poorly designed so that one side gets the easy button and the other side is just powerless against it, that's not right.

 

so why is it so difficult to return to this? Locked = no access.. simple

 

I think because it also made the square box complete impassable which was really lame. You'd be walking around a town and run into an invisible wall and get a message that someone had locked doors and you were not permitted to enter. Well you were just trying to walk on the grass at the corner of their lot, you weren't trying to steal their rose garden.

It was really annoying.

 

In real life there's something called Defense in Depth. It's a concept for protecting against cyber attacks where you realize that no matter what defenses you have you're never 100% secure. There's always a way in. If you build a 10 foot wall, they'll use an 11 foot ladder.

And eventually if we're making a balanced system, that's really what we want to do here in SOTA. You'd have your locked doors that could be opened with pick locks. You'd have your walls that could be climbed over with some kind of skill. You'd have traps that could be disarmed with a skill. You'd have NPC guards that could be sapped or killed. You'd have all that kind of stuff that made getting into someone's property (only in a pvp zone) possible, but not at all easy. It would take time, probably a lot of time, and you'd need help, probably significant help, and you'd also need (and this is VERY important) consent from the home owner.

Just telling home owners in a pvp town that because they're flagged their home no longer gives them reasonable protection is not fun it's imbalanced. It would be like if we told thieves that just because they're stealthed that no longer means anything and players can simply hit G over and over again and target them immediately. Same concept.

So by "consent" what I mean is that for those players that are fine with having their homes broken into, they would have to have something in there that activated that consent. A special item like an artifact. Something that was worth having and gave the player a benefit of some kind, but something that was special and could be guarded specifically knowning that it would make the home a huge target for thieves. Not to get too detailed about every aspect of this, but another important balancing feature in a system like this would be that the players guarding this item would be online. It's not PVP if only the thieves are online. It's then just PVE and human players are going to easily get through all the defenses if they don't have to watch out for players trying to improve them or augment them.

That's where I think we're headed eventually. But until then, yes, locked doors should mean that no one gets in. No one fires through walls. No one teleports into your living room. It should be a safe area. If they want to trick you or sneak in when you're going into your home, I think that's fair game.

 

Not a huge PVP'er or a thief, but wouldn't it be cool if there was a mechanic for traps or other security mechanisms in a home to thwart would-be thieves? It would make it much more interesting. I would put traps in my house just because

 

LOL I have seen a couple REAL rl knock down drag outs over tresspass.... err cutting across a lawn. I'm talking Hatfiel McCoy ****...hehe

 

I don't blame them - personal space is personal space. It's not a trivial thing when a complete stranger or someone you don't like invades it.

 

aye indeed.. which.. idk.. for the life of me I can't figure out how people would line up and cheer for any idea that includes making a game mechanic that allows somebody to break into my house and steal .

 

You can say the same thing about pick pocketing and murder too.

It's a game of cops and robbers, and I think when we look at it like that it's far less difficult to understand the appeal. Humans like competition and challenge. But they don't usually enjoy masochistic grief, which is what unbalanced systems of crime can quickly become when designed poorly.

Surly you can see how a game where you control an area and your goal is to keep out intruders might be fun, right? It's only when we tell you it's your home that it becomes too personal and it's no longer a game where we keep score. That's where the development team needs to balance home invasion, it needs to be on a level where everyone involved can have fun and people are not forced to choose between having no personal privacy or space and participation in "the game".