Sabbing protection - is always abused ... cheating?

[Brisi]

That realm has had so much covert activity against them recently that even your intelligence sources know about some of it! They are surely ready and waiting for additional operations - your Intelligence Officer warns you strongly against proceeding, and you are compelled to agree...for now....

targets do love it, sabbing peeps do hate this message!
indeed its almost only unfair for the sabbing peeps - let me explain why:

1. the target is protected against further sabs
2. the target cannot be spied for an amount of time
3. the target cannot be sabbed anymore but is able to sab back!

(in my eyes the next points are cheating)
4. the target can ask a good friend to sab him/her as much as needed with just one spy ... then we come to point 1
5. using method number 4 makes it possible that noone can spy/sab you almost all of the time ... you just need 2-3 good buddies


let me suggest a way to solve this and minimize the ways it can be abused:
at the moment every covert activity seems to be counted ...

just count those activities which caused real damage and ignore every other covert activity which causes 0 damage to the target.
if the target starts to sab back, then remove the sab protection at once.

its still possible to abuse this "sab protection" but it will makes it more complicated, more expensive and more risky to do it!

[raistlin majere]

this has its points, but then they will just sab back and jump on PPT

[Spoon]

This is part of the game, rather than edit this why not just have the people who are bothered by it work on their strike instead so they have a way of hurting people other than just sabbing them.

Other than the complaining about a perfectly reasonable anti sab protection the suggested fix to the problem is actually probably the best way to deal with this, though I am not certain its a problem.

[Ryushinaka]

Because Spoon, as Brisi said this isnt exactly fair gameplay. Covert abilities exist in the game for a reason, the same as Strike power does. If the game system is setup so that it can be creatively manipulated to protect a player better than others would be protected, then it needs to be looked at and possibly redesigned. Otherwise it is quite possibly an imbalance in the game.

Personally I think Brisi's idea is a pretty good one. If the sab protection only counts the number of sabs performed recently, then it probably should be adjusted to be just those that are successful. I think that would be a good step towards balancing this.

[Flavar]

the idea is great and should be implemented if you ask me

[Kirklandkie]

thing is, the current system allows some time for the user to come online to defend himself

-kirk

[Wolf359]

I suspect it is only the sabb-ers as opposed to the sab-ees that do not like this phenomena within the game.

Kirk - I dont think Brisi is saying that the fact you get too much covert activity is wrong - he is saying it is being abused by friends doing meaningless sabs/recons on each other just so that nobody else can.

The problem is, Brisi - you said to not count those sabs which cause 0 damage to the target - this may involve some additional, maybe complicated coding - assuming that currently it is recognised what type of covert activity is taking place, each type of covert activity is awarded a value, and these are totalled up until a specific value is eached - at which point there is too much covert activity.

This brings me on to my next point - The type of covert activity. You only mentioned sabbing, but reconnaisance also counts towards achieving too much covert activity (although to a lesser degree than sabbing). During recon, no damage is done, so how would you factor this in?

[KnightValor]

This is part of the game, rather than edit this why not just have the people who are bothered by it work on their strike instead so they have a way of hurting people other than just sabbing them.

And where's the "this user has had too much ground action recently that even your second in command suggests you do not attack them"?

I agree this should go up. And wolf, it'd actually be really easy. Just store the final damage into a variable, and isolate the code that adds the log, and put it all into an IF statement to see if any damage was done. and *pop*! Done!

The code may work by checking the actual spy logs, though. If that's how it works, all admin will have to do is add "... AND `success`='yes'..." to the mysql statement that checks for recent attacks. and, *pow*! Its done!

Now, admin may have it set up in a very complicated way, but I doubt he would have done anything other than those two options. Most likely he'd have thought of that when he coded it.

Then again, sometimes coders don't think of the best ways to do things...

But yeah, I like it!

[Sleipnir]

Actually, I thought recon no longer counted, it's just blocked when the realm is maxed out. You can recon a person 1000 times in a row without maxing them out (I believe, never actually tried). I thought that had taken care of this problem, but of course, there's always smartasses who come with a way around it. Like I said in an old thread on this topic, my intel officer doesn't need to improve security when someone comes in and stumbles over countless alarm bells, or when someone comes and takes a look at things without being noticed. By the time parts of my armory start collapsing all around, I think he should move his ass and put up the "Sab my neighbour please" sign. So, only count the intel reports that say infiltrated, not those that say repelled.

[Wolf359]

Actually, I thought recon no longer counted, it's just blocked when the realm is maxed out. You can recon a person 1000 times in a row without maxing them out (I believe, never actually tried). I thought that had taken care of this problem, but of course, there's always smartasses who come with a way around it. Like I said in an old thread on this topic, my intel officer doesn't need to improve security when someone comes in and stumbles over countless alarm bells, or when someone comes and takes a look at things without being noticed. By the time parts of my armory start collapsing all around, I think he should move his ass and put up the "Sab my neighbour please" sign. So, only count the intel reports that say infiltrated, not those that say repelled.

I can't remember it being removed - certainly last time I tried it (yes I have used it as a tactic) it worked - but takes about 25 attempts! That was quite a while ago though - it may have been removed since. I'll try and find out - unless someone beats me to it!

[12agnar0k]

gr8 idea brisi , let me just clear soemthing up , some peopel think you mean that sabs should be unlimiyed

im sure what he means is this ..

Only covert activities that count towards the realm being protected should be successful sabotage missions,

Unsuccessful sabotages and Recons should not count towards the anti covert activities bonus ...

This will stop abuse of the current rule which is stopping the abuse of sabotaging until they have no weps, without taking away the first abuse prevention.

Whether or not any covert missions are allowed against the player once the anti covert has been activated is irellevant it will do no harm to be recon'd whilst being sabbed, ....

All covert missions should still count towards your covert turns though , so no one has unlimited recons/failed sabs .

Another kink in the game is solved admin please add this asap if you approve..

[WeedSeed]

i like the idea it gets annoying when ur trying to mass sabo then it says they have to much covert activity on that relm...

[Brisi]

i thank 12agnar0k for understanding my intention!

would be great if this covert protection can not be abused anymore!