Tracking & Vault-Hopping

[DDDsDD999]

Problem:

People who commit crimes can hide in a vault, and if the vault is under-siege, they can just go to a new vault, rinse and repeat until scents run out.

Most people don't raid a place for the sole purpose of JUSTICE! that is actually defended. Scents are usually just bonus kills if you just happen to find them to a place you were already going to raid, or free kills if their hearth is in a palisade or unprotected.

My suggestions:

1. Increase scent times. They really are quite short. With the window of time to find the scents, to get to the perp's home, to prepare to siege and to actually siege the place, it's very unlikely to actually raid a place in time, unless you have raid supplies piled up.

2. Scent stacking. Basically scents of the same perp and same type stack into one conglomerate of inventory tile. If one of the scents of the make-up die, the scent is lowered by the amount lost.

3. Hearth ashes and "repairing" scents. When a perpetrator moves their hearth fire, a greenish ash is left in the fire's place. It can only be seen if you have scents to the perpetrator that were collected before the ash was left. You can "repair" your scents by left clicking your scent, and right clicking the ash. After a few seconds, the scents power and time will be reset to when they were picked up. Each scent can only be repaired by each ash once.

You can also left click scents, and right click on the perpetrator, and after a few seconds (perp must not move) the scents will be repaired, just as with the hearth ash.

4. Dead scents. If the scents hit 0 power or run out of time, they leave a dead scent. This cannot track hearth fires, hearth ashes, or the perpetrator, cannot summon and cannot be repaired. More explanation for purpose below.

5. Labelling scents. Pretty self-explanatory. Maybe only you can see what you label the scent. When you see the perpetrator, their hearth or their skeleton with the scent in your inventory, it shows the label like they were memorized or were kin, with a scent icon next to their name, like the banner of being in the same village. If they are memorized or kinned, you can still tell from the scent icon, and maybe with the label shown in parenthesis outside the name? Dead scents still show the label on the person.

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This would make rangering a bit more important, and lets you make a ranger "trail" to perps who go to new villages. With an actual siege system, preferably based upon authority, it would make village hopping a lot more difficult, and would only be really possible by real villages being friends. It'd also make it possible for perpetrators to still be recognized, but only if you carry their scents around (I'd only see this possible if the scent is just recently dead, or if the crime is personal.)

I'm not exactly sure on the fine details, and if/how it should be possible to track to hearth ashes. The problem with repairing scents, is you don't know if you still have scents out. But if you can't do the time, don't do the crime, I guess.

[SuperNoob]

wouldn't it be better if a person couldn't move their HF while they have active scents(summonable only?)? that would stop them from being able to hop to a new village if they're being raided and you have scents...

I know this would be a nuisance if you're legitimately moving from 1 village to another(ie you're being exiled from your village for your crimes) but with the longest scent being murder and it only lasts 1 week it shouldn't be too big of a deal.

[AnnaC]

wouldn't it be better if a person couldn't move their HF while they have active scents(summonable only?)? that would stop them from being able to hop to a new village if they're being raided and you have scents...

I know this would be a nuisance if you're legitimately moving from 1 village to another(ie you're being exiled from your village for your crimes) but with the longest scent being murder and it only lasts 1 week it shouldn't be too big of a deal.

The only problem with this is for scents that aren't summonable this would be too severe for them (like trespass). Also even a summonable scent like Battery I think would be too severe; as you could cause Battery scents even if you're not an aggressor or have initiated combat; it might be you're forced to KO some asshat that attacks you and you can't escape and otherwise have to defend yourself. As you can't leech kill them without leaving theft scents in this regard, it's possible to leave Battery scents behind when you are not the aggressor (like I remember one of the few times I attacked someone in world 3, was to get some griefing newbie to get off my lawn).

[NOOBY93]

wouldn't it be better if a person couldn't move their HF while they have active scents(summonable only?)? that would stop them from being able to hop to a new village if they're being raided and you have scents...

I know this would be a nuisance if you're legitimately moving from 1 village to another(ie you're being exiled from your village for your crimes) but with the longest scent being murder and it only lasts 1 week it shouldn't be too big of a deal.

The only problem with this is for scents that aren't summonable this would be too severe for them (like trespass). Also even a summonable scent like Battery I think would be too severe; as you could cause Battery scents even if you're not an aggressor or have initiated combat; it might be you're forced to KO some asshat that attacks you and you can't escape and otherwise have to defend yourself. As you can't leech kill them without leaving theft scents in this regard, it's possible to leave Battery scents behind when you are not the aggressor (like I remember one of the few times I attacked someone in world 3, was to get some griefing newbie to get off my lawn).

Actually, when someone aggros you, you don't leave any scent upon KOing them.

[Sikelh]

Scents are fine as they are in my opinion. Maybe you should just get good?

[SuperNoob]

Maybe you should just get good?

so you're saying that tracking someone across a supergrid just to have them warp a few supergrids away when you camp a ram outside their wall means we're bad players?

@Anna I did put in that summonable only part...I mean I hate it when people trespass on my land and I always track and warn them first time(KO if I catch them online on second offense) since trespassing is really all thats needed to forage on someone's land. thats sort of minor though, what would you think of someone leaving theft murder and vandalism scents not being able to build a new hf while those scents are active? that gets around minor offenders being punished, but keeps the real 'bad guys' from using a serious mechanic abuse to just say "fuck you" to anyone who cares to get any type of revenge/justice.

[DDDsDD999]

wouldn't it be better if a person couldn't move their HF while they have active scents(summonable only?)? that would stop them from being able to hop to a new village if they're being raided and you have scents...

I don't think it would be better, because it makes a distinct line between "CRIMINAL SKUM!" and "rabbits are people too" that is obvious and debilitating. Being forced into certain roles is something from other games I hate, and shouldn't be in H&H.

[SuperNoob]

wouldn't it be better if a person couldn't move their HF while they have active scents(summonable only?)? that would stop them from being able to hop to a new village if they're being raided and you have scents...

I don't think it would be better, because it makes a distinct line between "CRIMINAL SKUM!" and "rabbits are people too" that is obvious and debilitating. Being forced into certain roles is something from other games I hate, and shouldn't be in H&H.

if you want to be criminal 'skum' be criminal scum, I don't care. if you want to screw everyone over and then warp to the other side of the map when they come after you then I do! there are plenty of ways to defend yourself even if you're a criminal and leave lots of scents. abusing a game mechanic that lets you move across the world to get away from those seeking justice shouldn't be 1 of them.

long story(you don't actually have to read it):
I haven't done much tracking this world, but I remember early in the middle of W5 I tracked a guy's hearth for over 3 hours(he was really far away), and as I approach the place I thought he was all of a sudden the scents start pointing the direction I just came from...I confirmed with a vilalge mate that the direction had changed and that I wasn't going crazy. so I warp back home, grab fresh scents, head out tracking the hf again tracked for about an hour(maybe a little less) then he goes off in another direction. so I figured I'd wait for this guy to log off and then track him, so I did that the next day. found his village, he had a BW and a small camp not far from him had a pali wth an unsealed corner so I 'borrowed' it to protect my ram, finally justice will be served right? came back about 4 hours later guy had moved his hf again...this time back toward that first village I tracked that was so far away and annoying to get to.

[Xcom]

Another suggestion would be to make sents created by a person also have a new option besides tracking perp, tracking HF and tracking stolen items have the 4th ability to force lockdown the player. By that it would mean you cant build new HFs. When used it would show up as a buff on the offender and have a moderate cooldown. You could simply use the sents to lockdown a player and force them to stay put while you try and get to them.

Clearly it would have a specific range so you cant just sit on top of the offenders sents and lock him down permanently clear across the supergrid.

Easier to code I think so it might be the simplest solution from the options there are.