Aweful lot of pirate attacks lately

[The Industriallist]

I really don't understand the huge resentment towards programming an automatic retaliation feature. If I just happen to be awake when someone hits me, then I hit back. No-one has a problem with that. But if I was offline, and told my character to 'guard' or something and therefore hit back when someone attacks me, that's somehow ruining Cantr?

Well, if it's optional it's only something dangerous to use and potentially detrimental to RP and society. If it becomes natural for characters to be set to 'guard', then not only will hitting back at authority figures happen by accident, it would aquire an OOC justification.

The rest of that post seemed (and seems) like you have a problem with the totally reasonable use of violence in cantr, to which I responded.

The fact is that the way that the piracy raids were done (they know that if they attack and undock before someone wakes up they're safe) is manipulating the violence system. It is exploiting a flaw in the game to your own advantage, and this would simply redress that flaw. Where's the problem in that?

Redressing the flaw: good, though I would say by allowing naval interception, not by slowing undocking or equivalents.

Redressing the flaw and in the process adding a feature that upsets many other things, without thinking through all implications: not so good...and I think I like cantr violence as is more than that variation.

[ephiroll]

The fact is that the way that the piracy raids were done (they know that if they attack and undock before someone wakes up they're safe) is manipulating the violence system. It is exploiting a flaw in the game to your own advantage, and this would simply redress that flaw. Where's the problem in that?

Somethings been bugging me, this "exploiting a flaw" stuff, what about being able to break the lock on a boat that isn't there anymore? I don't hear anyone complaining about that "flaw". Way I see it things are pretty even between attacker and defender if the defender wakes up at least once a day and has more then half the recommended brain cells. If you don't at least take a 2 sec glance at things at least once a day and your char gets killed it shouldn't come as a surprise, animals can kill you in one day depending on the circumstances.

To make things really even, the error (and yes it is a <b>major</b> error) of being able to break locks on boats that aren't there should be fixed and any boat should be allowed to dock with any other boat this is moving more slowly, then things would be even as they can ever be when one group of individuals have surprise on their side.

[Surly]

Way I see it things are pretty even between attacker and defender if the defender wakes up at least once a day and has more then half the recommended brain cells. If you don't at least take a 2 sec glance at things at least once a day and your char gets killed it shouldn't come as a surprise, animals can kill you in one day depending on the circumstances.

1. That is offensive, and unfair.
2. It is also blatantly untrue. I check my account at least once per day - so either I'm stupid as you suggest, or what you said is untrue. I do not have the time to sit online 24 hours per day waiting for them to dock and then try to attack them. So unless the ability to go "well, looks like they've attacked again. Fantastic" means things are even then I'm wrong.

I think my opinion on the violence system has become fairly clear so I won't talk about it again. However, this is a matter of the violence system, its a matter of me not being online in the middle of the night, or the middle of the day, meaning there is a huge gap between those with time and those who can't stay online all day. Your characters work when you're offline, why can't they defend themselves as well?

[Cheshierekat]

Perhaps you should consider moving your chars into LOCKED BUILDINGS after a first attack happens. Especially if they aren't well protected with shields. Then, after they heal, they can always go back outside, and you as the player could keep your fingers crossed that if another attack happens, it happens while you are awake and can strike them back, or drag them into a jail. Or you could just hope that they don't attack again.

To make things really even, the error (and yes it is a major error) of being able to break locks on boats that aren't there should be fixed .

I agree. It's only fair that the pirates have an advantage of a locked boat since the towns people should have the advantage of a locked building. If they are smart enough to use it of course.

[The Industriallist]

It's hard to control when you come into port, too. I can't generally tell in advance what hour I'll make port, and when in the hour ships dock seems to drift from time to time. So the pirates only get an advantage in that they can choose to disengage, while the town can't (except by hiding). Unless characters played by people with more time on their hands tend toward piracy more than others.

[colonel]

Plus in rl if you are sleeping and someone attacks you, you can not attack them until you are awake right? Well why should Cantr be any different from that?

[ephiroll]

Way I see it things are pretty even between attacker and defender if the defender wakes up at least once a day and has more then half the recommended brain cells. If you don't at least take a 2 sec glance at things at least once a day and your char gets killed it shouldn't come as a surprise, animals can kill you in one day depending on the circumstances.

1. That is offensive, and unfair.
2. It is also blatantly untrue.

You missed the entire point, and it is the truth so I don't care if anyone finds it offensive, people are argueing on the side of what <i>will keep your chars alive while requiring a minimum effort from themself</i> while at the same time those same people are using an <b>obvious</b> error to their advantage yet not a single word has been spoken about how unfair that error is to the people on the boat. You and others makeing this argument aren't making it for game balance, only to benefit yourself and your chars. I have <i>never</i> lost a char to a massacre because of a simple little reason, if they aren't able to offer a defense they run like hell, they don't stand there like cattle.

[Bowser]

I have always been against piracy for one reason, the quickness of undocking. On the home page, the game is described as slow-paced:

Cantr II is a slow-paced game. Many players only play for a few minutes per character each day and one meeting can take a week to play. The game is designed for players who have more on their agenda then just gaming.

Docking, stealing & killing, then undocking in mere seconds without having to fear any retaliation seems like a exploitation of a programming issue.

Institute an undocking project needed to get your boat back in the water or allow guards to shoot the pirates with arrows. You follow a thief down a path an hour after he leaves and deal with him, you can even drive a car to the next town and wait for him... but that selfdefense does not exist when it comes to a pirate.

[Cheshierekat]

Isn't Aweful actually spelled Awful?

Spelling is not my forte though so I could be very wrong.

[Lumera]

Plus in rl if you are sleeping and someone attacks you, you can not attack them until you are awake right? Well why should Cantr be any different from that?

Well, to be fair, if someone hits you IRL, you're going to feel it, wake up, and respond. Just because I normally only get up at six, it doesn't mean I'm going to be completely unaware that someone is stabbing me until the alarm clock goes off and I can suddenly fight back.

Though I do recognize that the automatic response could cause problems, it may not be as bad as everyone thinks. If someone walks up to you and starts slugging you in the face, for most people the instinctive reaction would be to try and fend them off, even if that person "outranks" you and you're sorry for it afterwards. And if a community wants to make laws that it's illegal to fight back then I don't see a problem with that, but citizens may only go along with it if they trust their leaders to protect them from an outside attack.

I don't know if any of this is a perfect solution, but you do have to admit it sucks to lose a favorite character without any chance to fight back or even RP out their death. Personally, if I ever had to kill someone, I would try to get their health down really low and then wait for them to wake up and have some final words before I actually finished them off. Just seems the polite thing to do.

[The Industriallist]

Cantr II is a slow-paced game. Many players only play for a few minutes per character each day and one meeting can take a week to play. The game is designed for players who have more on their agenda then just gaming.

Docking, stealing & killing, then undocking in mere seconds without having to fear any retaliation seems like a exploitation of a programming issue.

Note suggestion of naval interception...much more interesting than slow undocking or giving real range to weapons and in my utterly clueless guess easier. Also note that that only happens if the pirate can bo logged in at the moment of docking, but no one else can. There's not much way for the pirate to guarantee that.

[Appleide]

But when you attack back instinctively you don't usually use anyweapons, you usually just punch them or something, so you would have to make it a bare fist, but a bare fist don't make much difference anyway. What i really want to a new weapon called a catapult. It cannot be moved from one location to another, can see all ships within a set distance from the catapult and can hurt people in those ships, thats what happens IRL. Alternativvely you could make bows shoot a little into the water and hopefull hit someone.

[Lumera]

Good idea. Though I don't know if making them portable would be balanced, if you could just build them as a permanent fixture on a harbor that let you shoot at people in nearby undocked ships I'd be happy.

And if gun powder is ever introduced...well, I think you all know where I'm going with this...

Fire in the hole!

[myst]

I agree that there are many better ways to prevent piracy from running amok than allowing hitback, because of the implications to other areas of fighting. It sounds like something should be done, however, since at the moment the system is very unfair on coastal towns. I don't see many of the suggestions being simple to implement, but hitback is.

Hitback does actually allow more interesting tactical situations if it does not apply to ranged weapons. If soldiers don't want to get hurt - well, don't run right up to people to kill them unless they are unarmed! It makes perfect sense to allow hitback - getting stabbed is quite likely to wake you up. But if you are shot with a bow then you can't necessarily see who shot you and it can be hard to shoot them back. At the moment, I see no difference between melee and ranged apart from on roads. (But I'm no expert)

If you wanted to give town officials a way of controlling people without getting hurt themselves, you could introduce a disarming action, like dragging only requiring say 4 people rather than 2, and it drops all visible weapons to the floor. I don't know the mechanics well enough to be sure thats a great idea yet, but I've often thought something like that would be useful.

Are all weapons visible to all? Shouldn't there be some (dagger, etc) that aren't? THey could be taken out after being disarmed... but I've gotten off topic...

[TheTheorist]

And if gun powder is ever introduced...well, I think you all know where I'm going with this...

Fire in the hole!

Cannons! Best idea!

The ability to build cannons on boats and forts.

A fort can be a stone building built the same way as a normal building and can have cannons built inside which are aimed through gaps in the fort wall... Each fort can house 12 cannons and towns can have a number of them...

Cannons need Iron & Gunpowder (1000g Iron?)
GunPowder (required to make cannons) needs Saltpeter (From bog or swamp area's such as Reniov Swamp), Sulphur (Mountains) and Charcoal... Fire up those kilns!

I would love to see a naval warfare, boat & fort warfare system introduced. Love it!!

Big towns such as Seatown would say have a fort with say 10 Cannons, a daunting challenge to even the most fearless pirate! Just like it was back in the 1600s... It would also make Galleons the Pirates ship of choice being able to hold up to 16 cannons compared to smaller boats with only a few?

Pirates would pray on small unprotected area's and big towns would sit quite secure under the shadow of their forts....

PLEASE develop this!