Hi there Siddhe!
Okay so let's get to what you were asking about, shall we? First of all, I've always felt like this system needs a serious look-through and updating. As far as jailtimes and fines, some of these things are off-balance, there are some missing... And then there are the constable and soldier NPCs.
I'm going to start with constable and soldier NPCs. They need a serious skills upgrade. It looks to me as if they've never received an upgrade since their inception into the game in the beginning? If that's the case, before you say no, consider that some people in TEC have been playing for a long time and have a LOT of skill to bring. So let's say, for example, we have a player constable, Kevinator, chasing a bad guy, Evil Tony, who has burned down an entire village. Kevinator is a newer player with less skill, while Evil Tony is a very old player with tons, so Kevinator enlists the help of an NPC constable because no other player constables are awake and this is a good chance to capture Evil Tony. As it stands now Kevinator has no chance in hell of being able to arrest Evil Tony, or even to last a single hit against him even with the help of a street constable. Why? Because Evil Tony is a hell of a lot stronger than any NPC constable will ever be. He has been playing since the very beginning and easily has 10,000+ combat ranks to his name. Does Evil Tony deserve a chance to get away because he's been working that hard? Sure! But the new constable should get a chance too, and I feel like the street constable should give him that chance. After all, hasn't the street constable in this scenario been around since the beginning, too?
Now for jail times, fines, etc. For some reason a lot of people believe that they should be able to do whatever they want in TEC and not pay the consequences of their actions. As this is an RP-focused game and not a PvP-focused game (I wouldn't play it if it were), I believe the consequences of actions that break the laws in the game should be reflected in the punishment given. Just like in the real world, ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES!
Missing from this list includes:
Fencing - An arrestable offense already but needs its own charge.
Abetting - An arrestable offense already but needs its own charge. You aren't interfering with an investigation, but you are doing things like agreeing to be a lookout for bandits, taking coin to give them easy targets... You don't help them plan things. You do help them get away with it.
Current changes needed:
Petty Theft - 1.6 real-time hours. Upgrade to at least 2hrs. Give constables a way to ONLY charge a set fine (higher than the fine of doing jail time too) if items are returned and it's a first offense.
Heavy Larceny - I think 3 days and a 1t 500d fine is way too low for this one. Upgrade to at least 5 days and increase fine.
Harassment - Needs a jail time upgrade to 1 day and a fine upgrade to 1t. This has become a very serious problem in the past real-life year and the current jail times and fines just don't make it worth bothering to arrest people for it if they actually deserve it.
Minor Assault - Upgrade to 2 rt hours and fine to 200d
Major Assault - Upgrade to 1 rt day and fine of 1t
Assault of an Official/Patrician - Honestly, I'm surprised the jail times are only two days. I'm not really sure what'd be fair for this one.
Attempted Murder - Kidnapping and Confinement is 4 days and so is this..but they are two different levels of aggressiveness. Raise this.
Murder of Foreigner - If you raise Attempted Murder you might want to raise this, too.
Impersonation charges - Considering the class system in place, Patrician impersonation needs a higher jail time. 5 days?
Jail Time Outstanding - Not sure how I feel about this one. Should there be an increase in jail time? Yes. What? Not sure. I've never actually seen this charge applied to anyone that was arrested, though. At the same time, I do think it's needed. Maybe you should make it an automatic application instead of an extra warrant?
Use of Outlawed Magics (Minor) - Why is possession 3 days and USE of them only 2 days? Keep Possession 3 and raise USE minor to 3 or 4 days. Alternatively, lower Use (Minor) to 2 days depending on how heavily you want Erealite lore to affect the laws.
I don't think that it should matter at all whether or not your character is a citizen as to how much jail time or fine you get, as it's already difficult to get sponsorship to become an Iridine citizen if you are not already. I've known some people to shrug at some of these fines and/or jail sentences and say they don't care, it's nothing to their characters, they're going to do the IC crimes anyway.
There's one final suggestion I want to make but I'm going to send it via an @Request because I'm not sure how to send in suggestions otherwise.
Thanks for your time Siddhe! I look forward to seeing this updated!
As a person who finds time valuable, both in the RL and IG.. I'm going to disagree with a need to bump up any jail time. This is an RP focused game sure, with a high PVP value, from bandits, to gangs, to gladiators. There's a bit there for everyone. That said, for an RP focused game, locking a character into a jail cell where often there is 0 RP aside from possibly a passing of words through the window for business purposes. To add more jail time to a sentence is taking away more time than this game already sucks away for tedious and quite frankly meaningless things (think the long wait time for ferries and drovers.. I know, I know, realism..)
I'm going to start with constable and soldier NPCs. They need a serious skills upgrade. It looks to me as if they've never received an upgrade since their inception into the game in the beginning? If that's the case, before you say no, consider that some people in TEC have been playing for a long time and have a LOT of skill to bring. So let's say, for example, we have a player constable, Kevinator, chasing a bad guy, Evil Tony, who has burned down an entire village. Kevinator is a newer player with less skill, while Evil Tony is a very old player with tons, so Kevinator enlists the help of an NPC constable because no other player constables are awake and this is a good chance to capture Evil Tony. As it stands now Kevinator has no chance in hell of being able to arrest Evil Tony, or even to last a single hit against him even with the help of a street constable. Why? Because Evil Tony is a hell of a lot stronger than any NPC constable will ever be. He has been playing since the very beginning and easily has 10,000+ combat ranks to his name. Does Evil Tony deserve a chance to get away because he's been working that hard? Sure! But the new constable should get a chance too, and I feel like the street constable should give him that chance. After all, hasn't the street constable in this scenario been around since the beginning, too?
As someone who played a constable (captain too) for multiple years, and someone who has played a "criminal" for multiple years, I can say with complete certainty that law NPCs do NOT need an upgrade in skill. In fact, their abilities need a downgrade. They have been increased CONSIDERABLY since their inception, and to say otherwise is a complete falsehood. Saying something is true does not make it so.
In terms of your example of a newbie lawkeeper vs an oldie criminal - Good does not always have to win. I think that needs to be said quite firmly here because from what I have seen, the mentality of some current lawkeepers is that they should continue to get to play TEC easy mode. The constables have some of the best combat player characters in the game. I don't see why when there is law vs bad that the law cannot win without using NPCs. The legio do it a lot. The constables do it a lot. NPCs are not required and I think that's been proven to win against "baddies".
In your example, the new constable's chances should be extremely low going it alone (or with a NPC). The NPC guards were designed to help protect newer constables, not do their job for them. Over the years, this use seems to have changed when people use NPCs.
Now for jail times, fines, etc. For some reason a lot of people believe that they should be able to do whatever they want in TEC and not pay the consequences of their actions. As this is an RP-focused game and not a PvP-focused game (I wouldn't play it if it were), I believe the consequences of actions that break the laws in the game should be reflected in the punishment given. Just like in the real world, ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES!
As long as lawkeepers arresting criminals have consequences too, I love this. Bring back PKs and tongue cuts for trigger happy or tough talking newbie constables and I'm good here.
Missing from this list includes:
Fencing - An arrestable offense already but needs its own charge.
Abetting - An arrestable offense already but needs its own charge. You aren't interfering with an investigation, but you are doing things like agreeing to be a lookout for bandits, taking coin to give them easy targets... You don't help them plan things. You do help them get away with it.
The last thing we need is more "specific" charges. If constables cannot intepret a current charge and place it on someone, then maybe they need to be trained better.
Current changes needed:
Petty Theft - 1.6 real-time hours. Upgrade to at least 2hrs. Give constables a way to ONLY charge a set fine (higher than the fine of doing jail time too) if items are returned and it's a first offense.
Heavy Larceny - I think 3 days and a 1t 500d fine is way too low for this one. Upgrade to at least 5 days and increase fine.
Harassment - Needs a jail time upgrade to 1 day and a fine upgrade to 1t. This has become a very serious problem in the past real-life year and the current jail times and fines just don't make it worth bothering to arrest people for it if they actually deserve it.
Minor Assault - Upgrade to 2 rt hours and fine to 200d
Major Assault - Upgrade to 1 rt day and fine of 1t
Assault of an Official/Patrician - Honestly, I'm surprised the jail times are only two days. I'm not really sure what'd be fair for this one.
Attempted Murder - Kidnapping and Confinement is 4 days and so is this..but they are two different levels of aggressiveness. Raise this.
Murder of Foreigner - If you raise Attempted Murder you might want to raise this, too.
Impersonation charges - Considering the class system in place, Patrician impersonation needs a higher jail time. 5 days?
Jail Time Outstanding - Not sure how I feel about this one. Should there be an increase in jail time? Yes. What? Not sure. I've never actually seen this charge applied to anyone that was arrested, though. At the same time, I do think it's needed. Maybe you should make it an automatic application instead of an extra warrant?
Use of Outlawed Magics (Minor) - Why is possession 3 days and USE of them only 2 days? Keep Possession 3 and raise USE minor to 3 or 4 days. Alternatively, lower Use (Minor) to 2 days depending on how heavily you want Erealite lore to affect the laws.
All I can say here is...wtf? I agree with fine upgrades on -some- of these charges. Theft crimes are fine jailtime wise. I'd up the value of what is considered "Heavy Larceny" and "Larceny" and not touch the jailtime on each. Harrassment is a bs catch all charge. It should be removed completely. Any constable handing out harrassment charges was suspended back in my day unless it was extremely warranted and -not- against a constable. Cause, you know? Thick skin was a pre-req.
Assaults should be defined better. Assault of a patrician should be upgraded a little, I agree here. The rest are fine or too high. Impersonation of a pattie should be a big charge, too.
Attempted murder should -not- be raised unless the temple stops being able to revive comatose patients. It should be downgraded as long as this "magic" save for people is in force. It was designed to punish people for oocly hurting the RP of a person put in a coma. This RP harm could be as little as five minutes now, so this is completely stupid to still have such a harsh penalty for.
Murder of a Foreigner? Keep it low. Foreigners are dirt. They should be considered dirt, and citizenship should be something to strive for. I say this playing a dirty foreigner.
Jailtime outstanding - this is administrative.
I'd lower the outlawed use and possession. It's absolutely stupid. Same with contraband - redetermine what is contraband.
I don't think that it should matter at all whether or not your character is a citizen as to how much jail time or fine you get, as it's already difficult to get sponsorship to become an Iridine citizen if you are not already. I've known some people to shrug at some of these fines and/or jail sentences and say they don't care, it's nothing to their characters, they're going to do the IC crimes anyway.
There's one final suggestion I want to make but I'm going to send it via an @Request because I'm not sure how to send in suggestions otherwise.
Thanks for your time Siddhe! I look forward to seeing this updated!
Being a citizen or foreigner -should- matter. It's ancient Rome. Citizenship was highly valued. So much so that soldiers served in the Roman armies so their children could receive citizenship.
And why do you insist on people doing crimes or not? It's an RP point for characters to be white hats, black hats and grey hats. I learnt quickly the sooner you appreciate the RP aspect of the game, the quicker the game becomes fun. Using your argument I could just complain that the constables won't RP things out in any other way than jailtime for those they consider bad. It's amount to the same argument, just from a different point of view. Characters should RP the grey, and if they don't want to, they should accept the consequences to their character, regardless of whether they are "good" or "bad".
Constables are already way to out of check, the npc's are silly with heat seeking misslies. There have been more cases of constables breaking the law that goes ignored in the last year alone its silly. Warrents don't go away. so if you can't take down Evil Kevin warrent him and let the npcs do it themselves, they dont stop chasing.
harassment - any constable warrenting this should be fired, stupidest charge ever.
Jail times shouldn't punish people unneeded.
Est 1999
@kyna Did you write your forum post in-character? As @celticdark wrote, you should want less jailtime, not more. You, as a player of a constable, should want to encourage more criminals, not less, as it gives you more opportunities to roleplay your constable character.
Side note: I've only ever seen one PC wreck an NPC constable and he was 500/300.
Whenever it comes up on the forums (mostly speaking of the old Skotos ones) of constables needing their powers checked or jail times needing to be increased or heat-seeking constables needing to be nerfed, it's always the players playing constables that defend their overpowered abilities and circumstances. That to me is telling.
I'd love to play more criminal characters but it's just so easy to shut them down for long periods of time. You get ten minutes of roleplay for a month IRL of prison time. Cool.
I've never been attacked by another player in the game that wasn't a pc constable.
How're you gonna say these consequences aren't one sided when I can't even stand
up from the NPC constable to pk you. I have the lowest combat ranks in the game
most likely and I know for two occasions the PC constable used an NPC terminator
to get me. I'd like a fair fight too.
Auburn to the CWS! War damn eagle.
I'd like a fair fight too.
But it doesn't work like that, you see. You play a criminal character, you must always lose. Always. If a wet-behind-the-ears constable cannot dominate and desecrate your characters' existence then, surely, there must be something wrong with the game.
Okay, so no.. The good guys do NOT always win. Believe me, I know that very, very well! I'm not saying they should. I'm saying they should be given a chance to at least try to keep up. Most constables hired in the last couple of years are starting off with practically NO experience, combat or otherwise. So then the new constables have to spend RL years shoving training down their throats in combat in hopes of trying to catch up to at least some people combat-wise. This is not fun. Trust me when I say I'd rather be out RPing than having to shove training down a character's throat.
Posted by: @ioulinus
As long as lawkeepers arresting criminals have consequences too, I love this. Bring back PKs and tongue cuts for trigger happy or tough talking newbie constables and I'm good here.
Lawkeepers arresting criminals should have consequences? For what? Doing their jobs? You've seen the real world, right? There are trigger-happy people everywhere, and not just lawkeepers. It's just a temporary by-product of some professions I guess you could call them. Most get over it. Some don't. And just like in the real world, those that do get reprimanded and those that don't face consequences -- but that's an internal constable thing and should never be allowed to be dealt with externally. Otherwise you're going to have people running around cutting tongues of whomever they want and proclaiming it justified. There's a reason the GMs have to approve things like brands, PKs... People have abused the hell out of them. That isn't going to stop if the GMs just open it up to free PK. It'll get worse and I'd rather play a FUN game. Not a PK game.
Posted by: @ioulinus
The last thing we need is more "specific" charges.
The point of separating out those three suggested charges is so that they can actually receive different fines and sentence times that would better reflect the crime. I stand by my statement.
Posted by: @ioulinus
Harrassment is a bs catch all charge.
I can say with absolute certainty that I wholly disagree with this statement. I've seen IG harassment with a non-constable character plenty of times. Also, just because a character is a constable does not give anyone the right to harass them. There is a difference between RP and taking it too far. I've see that, too...but I'm not going to get into that. That's not what this post is for.
Posted by: @bottlecap
Side note: I've only ever seen one PC wreck an NPC constable and he was 500/300....it's always the players playing constables that defend their overpowered abilities and circumstances. That to me is telling.
There are PCs that can wreck the NPC constables. Most can't, but some can. I doubt they'll get an upgrade, anyway.
The reverse of your statement can also be true. The people doing the complaining is also very telling.
Posted by: @sigsauer
I've never been attacked by another player in the game that wasn't a pc constable.
How're you gonna say these consequences aren't one sided when I can't even stand
up from the NPC constable to pk you.
Do the pretender Boukoloi Bandits ring any bells? They currently attack players in-game constantly and quite a few people have lost custom items to it. I don't understand how you can say only PC constables attack people. If non-constable players didn't attack people there wouldn't be a need for Assault warrants. And yes. Player characters have been known to assault constables, too.
"Heat-seeking constables"... Personally, I rather like those NPC Constables being "heat-seeking." I have played a criminal character, actually, who had to deal with those heat-seeking constables. I had an absolute blast RPing it out, running around, trying to do my best to avoid them... Now why should they make a criminal character's job easier by not doing their duty and seeking you out if there's a warrant on you? This does not make sense. Would a real-life policemen stop chasing you suddenly and go, "Oh well!" if he saw you and you had a warrant? Hellllll no! He'd chase you to the ends of the earth or until you lost him. So go enjoy the RP of it!
"Heat-seeking constables"... Personally, I rather like those NPC Constables being "heat-seeking." I have played a criminal character, actually, who had to deal with those heat-seeking constables. I had an absolute blast RPing it out, running around, trying to do my best to avoid them...
If you can provide proof successfully having a blast escaping and RPing while a heat seeker is chasing you with your criminal in video form. I will paypal you $100. You got a week.
Newflash; they open closed doors, locked doors, go anywhere you can think of.
Disclaimer:. Offer only available to Kynas player.
Auburn to the CWS! War damn eagle.
"Heat-seeking constables"... Personally, I rather like those NPC Constables being "heat-seeking." I have played a criminal character, actually, who had to deal with those heat-seeking constables. I had an absolute blast RPing it out, running around, trying to do my best to avoid them... Now why should they make a criminal character's job easier by not doing their duty and seeking you out if there's a warrant on you? This does not make sense. Would a real-life policemen stop chasing you suddenly and go, "Oh well!" if he saw you and you had a warrant? Hellllll no! He'd chase you to the ends of the earth or until you lost him. So go enjoy the RP of it!
Haha. As long as NPC gang members can start getting the same ranks as NPC constables, gang members can "warrant" PC constables, and the NPC gang members can then heat seek constables past Hanna and into the connie HQ, then I'm fine. We should absolutely promote fairness and equality across the board.
This is also a test to make sure everyone is being treated fairly. As we seen this week in my stream, 3 constables teleport into my room behind closed doors. They didn't walk just walk in. I better see some of that footage in your great escape, too.
Auburn to the CWS! War damn eagle.
So go enjoy the RP of it!
Yeah, I'll enjoy going to jail and getting my weapons stolen by constables. All for testing a syntax on an afk that I literally just learned from the trainer to see the mechanics. To be repeatedly knocked KO during my stay with the pc players aiming for my face so I can't speak and my my limbs so they break. Then again, for collecting the bread and being script checked for it, which I passed. It becomes a rule breaker for the to toon to turn vincidictive about it. If you think someone's going to RP through the window, that would be Aleas but where is he? Probably tired of RPing through windows. Why aren't thoughts on anyway?
Auburn to the CWS! War damn eagle.
jail would be completely ineffective at getting people to stop disturbing the peace, if they could just keep disturbing the peace from jail.
If you need reminded you participated in the no consequence one way rp avenue scenario stated above.
Auburn to the CWS! War damn eagle.
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