Justice Update?

Okay friends,

As always, feel free to shoot this idea down. But it was inspired by three things. First, a comment Ozaru made on a Justice's log a while back. Second, by the fact that I've never rolled a Justice due to purely mechanical reasons. And third, the fact that every cabal except Justice has been (or we assume is getting) updated to bring them up to speed with the times.

The heart of the issue that I think exists with Justice is this: they serve a very good purpose in the game, but man are they boring to play as. Again, I've never played as one, but I'm speaking from the outside looking in. The vast majority of the time, it seems like Justice just sits in town 'on watch'... I imagine that this is actually quite fun if there are lots of 50s logged on and the potential for multiple lines of combat in town is really high. But that's a very rare occurrence. Instead, this 'watch' often ends up looking like camping in town as maybe one other person in your PK range roams freely around the world going about their business. Again, I'm inviting former Justices here to pitch in and let me know if I'm wrong. But I can say after playing a Knight for almost a year, with a good 1/4 of that time being an Outlaw... I'm pretty sure I was having way more fun than y'all were.

Getting straight to the issue at hand, Justice provide a key service for the game, and that's protecting anyone, no matter their ethos, from unwanted aggression. Sure, that also means aggressors can use Justice to their advantage when they're getting spanked, but I think that's a pill we're all happy to swallow for the service Justice provides. The issue, I think, is that Justice end up playing the role of 'party pooper'. They can't really get into the fight themselves unless you're willing to take a flag, at which point the odds tip drastically in their favor. You've got to be really confident or really bored to take a flag willingly, because there are just so many downsides to it.

I think, to Oz's suggestion at one point, you can make Justice a bit more interesting with some slight tweaks. The goal here is to get Justicee involved in the fight more easily by incentivizing people to take the flag. I can see a couple of ways of doing this:

1) Make the guards fighting you in town only trigger when a Justice is currently logged in - as Aerysen, the most frustrating thing about having a flag was getting slowed down by the guards in town. Then Aerysen's numerous other enemies would just run through town to get distance from him. It was repetitive, annoying, and drew out fights way longer than they needed to be. At least for me, this was the biggest drawback about taking the flag. It made me objectively worse at fighting every other person in the game. And often times, this was the sole driving factor stopping me from taking a flag. If you bar this from happening except for when a Justice is logged in, I think you'll find a lot more people readily taking flags. Sure, when the Justice is logged in, the criminal's main concern is the Justice (as it should be). But at least their PK experience outside of that isn't being completely crippled. It's even easy enough to RP too. The guards are simply too scared to take on a criminal of that caliber when their boss isn't around.

2) To Oz's suggestion, you just make Justice weaker. This can be done from a variety of angles. While it hurts the service they provide to the game, it's a pretty direct way of incentivizing people to take the flag. Using a carrot and stick analogy, this is just a way of shortening the stick.

3) Give players special access to something previously inaccessible by becoming an Outlaw. Maybe they get access to special gambles or consumables in Darkhaven. Maybe they have to do a quest first to unlock it, but the idea is the same. Again with the carrot and the stick, this makes the carrot bigger.

4) Split up Justice powers in some way so that players feel like they're getting a unique experience with each Justice they fight. Maybe some have access to the special guard, while others can rally the town guard to their side more effectively. Since I've never played Justice, I don't have a good answer for this. But it is in line with updates that other cabals have gotten lately.

In my opinion, the only reason most people roll justices is so they can have the advantage against the heavy hitters in pk. They prey on the weak, and just sit in town when the big guys are on waiting for them to get Flagged so they get the use of special guard and Dagnir, and hoping another justice arrives. If they don't get bored and take the flag, the justice will sit in the shaman guildhall "on watch", and do absolutely nothing while you hover around town.

Dumbest thing about being wanted is in Grand Thalos(other side of the void, 500 years away from current Serin time), those guards over there know you are wanted somehow?? And can't use shopkeeps for appraise... Brought this up on last 2 or 3 chars that got Wanted. Always gets shot down quickly.

Justice is not just boring, it is long periods of boring plus occasional interrupts of fines and flags (i.e. "terror"). Those are the exciting moments that give you a useful jolt, that help you to keep on tolerating it. Its like being trapped inside a horror movie. As far as sitting in the guildhalls with a criminal on, that's an uninduction offence obviously.

As somebody who has actually played Justice...

*********Edited by Dogran Don't post Cabal Secrets please**********

Justice is the only cabal I know of which can use some of its special abilities while their item is captured.

Regarding shopkeeper appraisal... Does the fence in Seringale, the merchant in the Sewers, or the goblin in Gwidry offer such services? I know the fence at least offers some of the same goods as other shopkeepers (I think to criminals as well), but those goods are also more expensive. If I'm remembering correctly, the fence and the smuggler in the Sewers both sell to criminals... If they do, appraisal should be made possible if it is not already (presumably for a suitable markup).

I get that fighting the guards is frustrating... But look at it this way: would the sheriff's posse stop trying to apprehend an outlaw or desperado who came into town shooting people just because the marshal was out of town in a Western? I dare say they'd keep fighting or even pick up a fight if the outlaw came into town. They don't need their leader (or even so much as a deputy) to know who's causing problems, and being a wanted criminal means they KNOW who you are. I don't see good logic with your RP suggestion either... Why would they throw themselves at the criminal when the marshal or sheriff is around but get cold feet otherwise? Fear alone isn't a good motivator if you ask what motivates them to even throw themselves at the criminal in the first place? One of my first characters (because I had yells turned off and somebody else attacked me but I didn't yell first so their yell was heard and I got flagged) managed to get wanted in the 30s ranks and the guards threw themselves at me but they didn't even harm me. Once a posse has been organized against a criminal, I dare say they ain't gonna back down until the criminal is dead. In short, I don't agree with the logic behind #1 (would Tir ignore a criminal who came into his headquarters? I think not, and neither would anyone else who can apprehend criminals, such as Alycla or the Thain.).

Regarding #2: give some examples.

Regarding #3: in that case, why not just have permanent outlaw status as an option? Undead used to be permanent outlaws and as such were unprotected by the law but could still be punished for breaking it.

Regarding #4: seeing as you haven't actually played a Justice, I can't ask you to provide examples, but as someone who has played Justice a number of times, I don't know any way to reasonably split the existing powers.

Couple of things to note here. I also have not only been mortal leader of justice, but have had at least a dozen justices over my career in AR.

1. There are shops that will still interact with and sell to criminals, you just have to find them.

2. The guards are a hindrance, but not dangerous. The biggest problem is it slows you down moving through protected cities allowing for capture/free murders.

3. Undead are still not protected by the law, they are just not Outlaw. The only basic difference, is Justice is not required to hunt them now, but they are still not protected.

4. I don't see a way to reasonably split powers, most of the big problem I see are activity issues. When a lot of people play, people get wanted more, when no ones playing it's not worth taking the flag most of the time.

5. With the current system in place, the penalties for a 1 star criminal are not too severe, but it can advance quickly if you don't play your cards right.

6. Xenyar wasn't saying people are hiding in cabals instead of hunting criminals, he was saying that if no criminal was around they couldn't be forced to fight, after all, if you invade and kill a justice while intruder you are now wanted.

Capturing the justice item should allow you the ability to remove flags. Kill the Justice, capture their item and boom all existing flags online are purged. The only real downside here is that then the keepers would align with the justices more often to get the item back.

Definitely should not lose wanted status just because you capture the cabal item. Especially considering how easy it is to capture. No logical basis for criminals not being criminals just because they killed the lawman. Just makes their notoriety bigger for when they do finally get taken down.

If actual Justice players are cool with the current setup, then don't mind me. I figured y'all might be looking for more of an excuse to get your hands dirty. But it looks like a few of my points were misconstrued so let me clear that up.

1. I'm emphasizing here that yes, the guards aren't dangerous. But they're annoying and enough for any enemy to get away from you in relatively short order. This, in my opinion, is the single biggest penalty to being flagged. My PK, the whole thing I liked about the game in the first place, gets severely hamstringed. So even if I wanted to RP a cool Outlaw type, putting my life and all my sweet gear on the line to stick it to the man, mechanically it's so frustrating that it's rarely worth it. Making it just a thing when Justice is around still benefits Justice without completely crippling the criminal's PK experience. Agree to disagree that the RP doesn't make sense, we've made far flimsier RPs work in this game (like Xenyar's example, why your wanted status still affects you past the Void).

2. I'm aware that certain shops will still sell to an Outlaw... I'm saying there could be a vendor that ONLY sells special equipment to Outlaws or criminals. They could sell some consumables, maybe cool gamble rings that have rotdeath but great stats. Those benefits shouldn't be so good that people just take the flag for them (I'm not suggesting a new cabal of outlaws here). But, should someone find themself flagged or outlawed, it's a nice perk.

There are a lot of things in place that take care of the things you're having issues with.

Hmmm, you were actually serious about having special rewards vendors for criminals? I legitimately thought that was just a joke post. Let me just take a big ol' shit in North Square and then run on over to Darkhaven to collect my pony

I actually would like some changes to Justice. I'm not actually gonna read into anything in here though, as a lot of people have kneejerk reactions... It's been a topic before that I'd like to touch base with Dav again when I have more time.

Thought 1:

I've played AR for a long time and I've seen a lot of changes to justice and here's one thing that's really been grinding my gears for a long time. I had planned on trying to change this from within justice on the guys I played recently (Grimple, Linisan, Zstrxriq) but they didn't stick it out to leadership positions either due to conflict of interest or boredom or whatever but here was my thought:

It's dumb that justices cover Timaran and Solace in addition to Seringale. I think they should cover Seringale only. I think it's also dumb that any mob at all outside of Seringale refuses to sell to criminals and also auto attacks criminals and alerts justice of their presence. Seriously, why the fuck would Alycia in illusionary isle give two shits about some criminal from Seringale. I don't remember when or why the jurisdiction expanded to outside of Seringale but I think it's dumb.

Thought 2:

Justice is only a fun cabal when you have players with the balls to get wanted and when you have edgy justices willing to mix shit up.

I've loved Ozaru's justices. Our chars were always in enemies in game but I totally enjoyed all the fights and intrigue.

I don't know exactly how to mechanically change justices to make them 'more fun' other than perhaps make wanted less lethal (nerf dagnir, changes in thought 1, maybe make special guard weaker but let it dirt kick/bash/disarm?).

Thought 3:

Yes justice is the elo equilizer. Super easy to get rared and super easy to survive - it doesn't take much effort to get and keep amazing eq. It's harder to keep yourself entertained and interact with others in a meaningful way where they don't just think you're a lame duck that's there to ruin everybody's fun.

I think its easy to make Justice more fun, just turn the traveler's rest into a police station. Then, on top of special guards, they will also have exceptional bouncers and several layers of guild guardians. Thinking of being able to "watch" (aka hoard inside) that palace ought to give any respectable Justice player a stiffy.

That's an oddly specific example you're giving out Xenyar, is there something in particular you need to get off your chest, since I'm here right now to listen?

Also, there's a massive trade off to being a Justice, and that is, I can't be a minotaur or fire giant for the wildly inappropriate strength boost I'd get. Best a lawful can do is a duergar or human with 21 strength.

Mad shout out to my boys Naugroth and Farusse, these guys keep me company all day, and without them, I'd go crazy from no one to talk to.

I wasn't talking about you specifically. But if the shoe fits, wear it. I've seen many Justice perch up in the shaman guildhall.. Popular camping for the law ground I suppose. You are just the most recent to do it.

Lionspyre> my point about the vendors that sell to criminals was in response to Xenyar's comment about being unable to appraise items specifically. I was saying with that point, if you can't appraise at those vendors while wanted, you *should* be able to.do so.

As for the edited part... The overall point I was trying to make is that dealing with subordinates who have broken laws is a downside of playing a Justice, and the perks are not great at higher ranks. It's incredibly easy to acquire a demotion or uninduction in Justice (I've also seen people fail to get in because they did not obey explicit orders), perhaps more so than any other cabal. If you're OCD like I am, Justice can be a good cabal to play, though if you're the type who doesn't always obey the letter of the law, it is too easy to fail.

Also, the thing about Ozaru's Justices... I forget which shadow got ganked by the Consortium and Kalist's character, but characters like that are the ones we need if we want Justice to be spicy. Ungar created conflict as well (though in his case I'd say for possibly the wrong reasons). A certain amount of conflict is fine so long as it doesn't get too toxic, anyway.

That's fine then, it just sounded like you had a specific encounter to offer up that opinion. Also, I've only been a Justice for a few months, but I'm not really familiar with anyone "preying on the weak" (pk'ing easy targets outside of town), in years? Maybe a necromancer justice did it in the last decade? Possibly an Ozaru thing? I couldn't offer any names as examples if you asked anyways. I just sit in the guild and answer the odd newbie channel question, unless there's something specific I find to go do. Definitely not a cabal for people lacking patience.

Citeros- The "preying on the weak" thing, I remember there being a drow dk justice, can't remember his name but had a custom title like 'the Dark Sentinel' or something who did that often. And when asked why they attacked them, the answer was if you want safety, stay in the towns. Kinda loved it. When I found out his roleplay, he was a pretty cool yet quiet guy.

Citeros> Tell me why exactly it's impossible to be a fire giant shaman in Justice? We had an evil half-elf recently...

To Blackwidow, its a choatic thing, I think. Don't fire giants have to be chaotic?

They don't have to be chaotic, but they can't be lawful.

I also don't think "not being a giant" is necessarily a weakness. FG warrior only looks so strong because Kryton has been playing one for so long. Plenty of FG warriors came and went before him with more or less a glass-cannon play style- insane damage output at the cost of very exploitable vulnerabilities. In most cases I've seen shamans slice through giant warriors like butter.

I don't remember the suggestions I made, but here are a couple of suggestions.

1. Eliminate special guards from assisting in combat with 1 wanted criminal. If you get 2+ wanted criminals then you can get a special guard. The guard only becomes active to loot the criminal.

2. This seldom happens but its incredibly boring to try and chase someone who is outside of your pk range. Remove level restrictions to hunt down a criminal, you can attack them and they can attack you. Maybe reserve death sentences for lvl 50 only.

3. Legions should be chaotic, if they should be the elites of PK then prove it no excuse if a justice doesn't have a special guard.

4. Legions, Warlords, Keepers, Knights if their target is hiding in seringale they should act regardless of getting a flag. Cabals are supposed to be for elite people act like it and prove that you are better.

5. Eliminate guild sitting for justice, you can still stay invis or hidden, but you can't be in a guild

6. Create something worth getting wanted for. You can rob the bank and get 500k, kill the juggernaut and get 500 medals, kill some mystic thing in seringale and get 500 relics

lionspyre, Kryton has quite a well-balanced set for resisting spells and still outputting decent damage. Hopefully with what I read about them fixing broken math in the pvp coding regarding hitroll, as well as the set changes from the big patch, a rematch would be a little closer of a fight. Still not sure if I'd win, he is quite good.

I disagree with Ozaru's suggestion that Legion should be chaotic only, it'd almost even make sense if they could be lawful, it's a structured group with the intent of subduing resistance to their control of the realms. I also disagree with 2nd suggestion regarding removing pvp level restrictions while being wanted, and his sixth suggestion about robbing the bank or killing the juggernaut for some sort of gain.

I like guild sitting, because it beats being the chump who gets rolled by a thief at north square, but that's a personal preference, if it's something Kedaleam and Davairus agree to put in, I'd make due.

Special guards aren't overly helpful, majority of the time they're there to loot, using apprehend with them is very slow. So I actually wouldn't care if they implemented some sort of restriction on them in combat, except you'd still need them summoned to confiscate gear.

I have no strong opinion on the fourth point of his, I have nothing but respect for people willing to get wanted, but cabals are no longer just for elite people, and getting wanted basically guarantees you're going to lose some gear from the experience.

You guys definitely wrote some interesting and cool suggestions. However I think they all missed the obvious huge elephant in the room, which is that town RP and PK are both in steep decline. So the Justice cabal's significance has similarly diminished. Whenever there are some arena duels or Mocker's Tavern poker going on, Justices have something interesting to be involved in. Otherwise, town's probably just sitting empty. Also, this isn't complaining, but let me just say this. I said the town RP is declined, but I didn't say that all the RP is. Right now I can see event in three days called "The Rest-Oration Launch Party". Since that obviously doesn't look likely to involve Seringale in whatever RP it is, I wouldn't feel inclined to log in a Justice, at all. Its much too late now, but I think in future, it would be nice to see stronger Seringale involvement.

Here is what I thought of to effectively revitalize Justice:

- making sure that more community events involve if not revolve around Seringale's hot-spots specifically
* e.g. instead of using travelers rest as a de facto default hot-spot for event RP, use mocker's tavern by default, so it isnt leaving Justices out in the cold who have to watch Seringale
* e.g. we could have a town hall where laws/fines could be actually revised during a monthly meeting, shop taxes could be set and collected over time to pay people for coming to these meetings. I think it would be cool if we had some sort of player governance.
* e.g. for religions, we have the temples, but we dont really have any RP in them. We could have interesting ceremonies at these temples. An example I can think of is religion initiation, which is currently allowed anywhere. That could require Seringale temples. Then some other RP stuff for religions in these temples. Funerals, weddings, whatever. More hotspots, more RP, more reason for a Justice to be needed around to keep order.

- making sure the storylines involve Justices players
* e.g. if you had a bunch of void magic that is causing a disruption to the fabric of reality, you might have a Justice looking into that to restore order. Thinking of the Loki show where they had the TVA which was much like a justice cabal.
* e.g. if you have a "trial of kalist windbreeze", you have a justice player in the role of the judge

- make more interactive RP things to do in Seringale
* e.g. Justices have a currency, it is called "sovereigns", it does not really do a whole lot for anyone else. It might be cool if other players could earn sovereigns when they are deputized or witness crimes and the like, then have them do something useful for you - like let you buy a cast of detect invis (not a potion - put the actual spell into effect on you).
* e.g. add more games. Poker, pontoon (blackjack), roulette, etc, are a nice start. I made a "wheel of misfortune" a bit ago. I think tag was always cool?
* e.g. we could have a talent show hotspot. A room in Mocker's Tavern where you can actually cheer, boo or yawn a herald performing on the stage. and it gets recorded like a Warlord record.

- clean up its turn-offs
* e.g. we could do away with some of the more ridiculous fines (like confiscating wild items) so that we are not cultivating resentment for Justices pointlessly, as that can make people want to avoid town
* e.g. remove some of the spam from town, especially north square, the citizens are repetitive and kinda annoying, and players might become inclined to just sit in the guildhall or avoid town completely
* e.g. I might be wrong on this one, but I think there might be lingering consortium resentment on Justice over the high profile Consortium deletes and that may be a psychological blocker for their current / long-term willingness to collaborate with Justices and lead ultimately to, again, avoiding town. we might need to get Solmundi out of Justice and just into a full blown brooding vampire edgelord character. Even better if he actually wants to go that route, just trying to think of ways to be practical here and remove road blocks.

And by the way, I'm not just writing all this because of Justice. Just think of the newbie who logs in for a passing glance, knows enough about muds to find the town and type "where" - but if it turns you guys are RP'ing in the holy grove it will seem like a dead MUD. That kinda RP used to be present in Seringale without the Justice cabal members even being logged in, importantly. It was a point of pride to have the courage to plant your ass on North Square come hell or high water. I think we have to recognize that the Justice cabal being boring is actually just a symptom of town RP decline and that's the thing we need to find some ways to revitalize, as well as look for ways to improve the game for newbies... focusing on addressing both those things will directly help the Justice cabal be less boring without having needed to actually change the justice cabal.

If I was just going to do the easiest thing to make Justice a bit more interesting for me, it would be sort of take ozaru's "no special guard" suggestion, but I think by incorporating the old Assassin cabal to join Justice (no cabal powers, no vault BS, doesnt has to be lawful, just gives a green light to gun for the criminals and ignore laws). I think that would be appealing for someone who just wants to be an executioner, without all the baggage. I could probably also just tweak Strife a slight tad for that, so we have a Warlord/Justice bridge coterie (assassins but with honor).

@Dav re: assassin cabal incorporation is an interesting idea. I enjoy neutral characters mostly and wish to join a cabal for comradery and mentorship, but find the current choices lacking for neutrals. Where would you guys put a neutral bard, thief or druid?

For those options, Zooka, you're really only able to do Keepers. Tweak those ideas a bit though (maybe shadow instead of thief), and you can definitely roll a Justice. They're looking fairly active right now, and it's always fun to get in on an active cabal. The two players there also seem experienced, so guidance and mentorship is possible. This thread and some recent activity in game has shown me that while Justice may not be the most exciting cabal, there's lots of fun to be head when there's lots of players online with active tension.

Keeper can (and has been) its own discussion thread, so I don't want to go too off topic here. But from my experience, Keeper is a very difficult playstyle where you lose gear very easily and don't make a lot of friends along the way. It's not particularly active at the moment, so I wouldn't exactly recommend it for guidance and mentorship. However, it seems we were teased that changes are coming when we received a fun note a month or so ago indicating that Phostan has taken control of them, and Davairus wrote a well-received idea about how the whole RP and mission of Keeper could change in the future.if that happens, though, it'll happen when it happens.

Thanks lionSpyre, I appreciate the feedback.

Kornhole> fire giants can definitely be neutral, I've seen Kryton carrying orderly equipment such as the Adjudicator's polearm...

Getting more to my point however: did anyone actually *try* asking the Immortals if they could play a lawful evil fire giant? I could see it being plausible (but not a minotaur). It used to be that custom races had to be requested on a case by case basis, and they came about because people had imaginations that went beyond the game parameters and the Immortals allows new ideas to come forth.