Shattered Kingdoms

I had originally posted this in the Faction Leaders forum, but that forum doesn't see much activity so I deleted it and posted it here. I have observed a tactic recently, which I consider nothing short of meta-gaming. A tribunal member of a faction that has no coins left in their tribunal account logs on, scurries off to the bank, and deposits a paltry amount of coin in order to get bounty hunters to spawn. The amount deposited is only enough to spawn three or so bounty hunters, giving them early warning to make a hasty departure or log off.

I would like to see some sort of delay between depositing coins into a tribunal account and the subsequent appearance of bounty hunters. This could be justified in any number of ways in character: the logistics of the quartermaster delivering payments, negotiating a new contract with mercenaries, etc. It shouldn't be anything prohibitive, but I think thirty minutes or thereabouts is reasonable.

If following an innkeeper to foil rogues is considered exploiting mechanics and/or meta-gaming, I can't fathom how this is not meta-gaming too.

Yes, this "tactic" is clearly BS.

Hell I'd like for it to take a RL half day even

This does not seem like meta-gaming to me. Bounty NPCs are useful for early detection and for slowing down an enemy trying to get through your city. Having money in the bank means that you have bounty NPCs. So you put money in the bank. Do you put 50 obsidian in the bank? No, because when you log back out, your enemy will just kill enough bounty NPCs again and you're basically out 50 obsidian for nothing. So you put a little bit of money in the bank. What exactly is the problem with this?

Completely different from following an innkeeper. There's no IC reason that following an NPC would stop someone from following you. That's the reasoning behind that rule.

Having an early warning Log Off Alert seems pretty twinkish, especially if that is the desired intention.

It's about as twink-ish as you can get without hiding in Kytar to avoid PK.



There's no IC reason that depositing coins at the bank in Menegroth should instantly cause bounty hunters to show up in Tlaxcala, Seawatch, Seaside or anywhere else either. As Gann already pointed out, it is both reasonable and plausible that there should be a delay to account for delivery of payment from the tribunal's quartermaster and/or negotiating a new contract with the bounty hunters.

I lean on the side of metagaming because bounty NPCs aren't mercenaries hired by the day. It'd make sense that the size of a country's militia should depend on average upkeep, not a payment at any one time. IMO, having a faction's bank account run out is just an OOC limit on how many suicide NPCs it has, in lieu of a much more complex IC solution.

That said, if defending players would rather log out than fight, how do you propose to stop them? Find a way to make battles more fun for them, and this ceases to be an issue.

It's every bit as much meta-gaming as farming tribunal coffers is. Ban one, and you better ban the other. Previous staff position has been "fair game" for both acts, iirc.

Non sequitur. Farming tribunal coffers is an active, initial decision. Using tribunal coffers for early logout radar, on the other hand, is ultimately a reactive decision. The game doesn't stop you from killing bounty guards when tribunal members are offline, but it has always stopped you from logging out during or immediately after combat. What people are allegedly doing is displacing the combat to exploit mechanics and be able to log out before that ranged attack on their faction(s) finds its way directly to their characters. It is every bit as potentially exploitative and out-of-character as following NPCs.

I've been told the game isn't responsible for finding ways to entertain us. If someone doesn't like being in faction warfare and metagames to avoid it, he or she may benefit from knowing that wert already suggests better ways to approach the dilemma.

I would go so far as to suggest that characters in factions shouldn't be able to use the quit command until 5 minutes after a combat alert goes out without getting automatically tarnished. That'd stop this behavior dead in its tracks while allowing for whatever alleged fair uses of account exploitation are possible.

As much as I'm against people logging out the moment that trib bounty peeps, it is your responsibility to report this behavior. If you don't want to report the behavior, then don't complain about it. Their is no fix needed for this. Just people letting the IMMs know when it is happening. Sticking money when you log in is actually very helpful since if you aren't online your coffers will be depleted. Putting money in when you log on is no better/worse than those that farm the tribs when trib members are offline.