I think a good job quest for higher level characters should be to do occasional guard duty near an area where low levels of the same faction do their hunting.
Perhaps the job giver will loan some special armor and weapon that can only exist in the zone that needs guarding. This armor would protect you from PKing attacks and the ranged-weapon will instant-slay any character of an opposing faction.
Thus protected and armed, you can go about protecting and helping newbies. newbs might still be killed if you aren't actively guarding them, but maybe that could factor into the quest, so you'd have to do that much more guard duty for each of your charges getting slain..
Suggestion for city defense
As Wolfarus already said: Ask yourself how long you would stay logged on with nothing to do but patrol the same limited number of streets. What is the chance that after 15-30 minutes you'd go off elsewhere exploring and gaining XPs? When is that raid due? 
You really need to think about the long periods of time that expire between raids. Generally raids are separated by real life hours of inaction, occasionally almost a day (especially in the middle of school term weekdays).
Worse player guards will not need to fight the current longer duration raids of 30-90 minutes -- because the small number of raiders will suffer rapid attribtiion and usually respawn a great distance away. If raids are met with quailified defenders the average length of raid will likely decrease to about 10 minutes (mostly search/chase time) and half the raids will be outright aborted as unprofitable. Hmmm....six 10 minute raids in 24 real hours....
Bluntly in simplest terms the problem with straightforward DUTY assignments is that is terminally BORING.
So boring that I would not blame any assigned character for killing their own city guard and griefing their own faction NOOBs for lack anything more interesting to do.
All of which is why I suggest either a bounty on raiders or some sort of guard alert with magic to assist the return of faction defenders to homebase. Again to prevent exploits, return magic should only be available to that faction city's defenders (job assigned?) and return magic would only be active when a raid was in progress.
You really need to think about the long periods of time that expire between raids. Generally raids are separated by real life hours of inaction, occasionally almost a day (especially in the middle of school term weekdays).
Worse player guards will not need to fight the current longer duration raids of 30-90 minutes -- because the small number of raiders will suffer rapid attribtiion and usually respawn a great distance away. If raids are met with quailified defenders the average length of raid will likely decrease to about 10 minutes (mostly search/chase time) and half the raids will be outright aborted as unprofitable. Hmmm....six 10 minute raids in 24 real hours....
Bluntly in simplest terms the problem with straightforward DUTY assignments is that is terminally BORING.
So boring that I would not blame any assigned character for killing their own city guard and griefing their own faction NOOBs for lack anything more interesting to do.
All of which is why I suggest either a bounty on raiders or some sort of guard alert with magic to assist the return of faction defenders to homebase. Again to prevent exploits, return magic should only be available to that faction city's defenders (job assigned?) and return magic would only be active when a raid was in progress.
Last edited by Mortree on Wed Jul 07, 2004 9:12 am, edited 2 times in total.
The only way I can see POSTING GUARD as being tolerable would be to restrict the hours that a city can be raided by other factions (can't enter/transition area). While that would relocate raid action to short well known guard shifts -- it seems HORRIBLY artifical. "Sorry while stores are open 7am-9pm every day, the city is only open for raid from 9am-6pm on days evenly divisible by 3" 
I do think quests that involve protecting NOOBs with postive and negative XPs has good potential. But not for long duration jobs without any guaranteed schedule or events (post guard and nothing happens for real 2 hours).
Protection quests probably need to be better defined as a specific group of NOOBs in the same party or in a small, easily observed area (fort?). It also needs to have specific end conditions, perhaps either time limited scenario (e.g. script of NPC assault waves against fort) or specific destination waypoint (e.g. escort misison through dangerous areas).
I do think quests that involve protecting NOOBs with postive and negative XPs has good potential. But not for long duration jobs without any guaranteed schedule or events (post guard and nothing happens for real 2 hours).
Protection quests probably need to be better defined as a specific group of NOOBs in the same party or in a small, easily observed area (fort?). It also needs to have specific end conditions, perhaps either time limited scenario (e.g. script of NPC assault waves against fort) or specific destination waypoint (e.g. escort misison through dangerous areas).
Alternatively to boring POSTING GUARD -- maybe they could use crafting to increase high level character presence. Make crafting increasingly the MAIN way to get items for higher level (13+) classes and make that crafting elaborate, slow, and level restricted...rather than very optional.
Now put the (free?/better?) crafting stations in open air markets where raiders will likely pass. AND make battles likely to spoil or setback crafting projects (jiggle elbows, stray arrow in cauldron, stray magic on item). Now you will see some high level folk present frequently and interested in revenging on raiders. Heck they might even hire/respond to NOOBs acting as lookouts while the NOOBs hunt rats in outer areas.
Heck if you really want to twist higher level tails make several of the better items for each level "personal" that is nontransferable (got to make it yourself).
Now put the (free?/better?) crafting stations in open air markets where raiders will likely pass. AND make battles likely to spoil or setback crafting projects (jiggle elbows, stray arrow in cauldron, stray magic on item). Now you will see some high level folk present frequently and interested in revenging on raiders. Heck they might even hire/respond to NOOBs acting as lookouts while the NOOBs hunt rats in outer areas.
Heck if you really want to twist higher level tails make several of the better items for each level "personal" that is nontransferable (got to make it yourself).
Celorn does have a point about potential exploitation for bounties if two players were to cooperate.
The best approach might be to limit how often you can attempt to enter a particular faction city other than your own. This provides direct control of exploits and rate of city raids. It should be easy to script. Every character would get timestamped when they attempt to enter a city other than their own. If a timestamp exists for that foreign faction city that is less than (for example) 10 game days old they are unable to complete entering the city through any of its gates. You could of course enter your own faction city as often as you want. This approach is a bit artifical though you could say that player bodies accumulate and then expend some strange personal energy when they breach the city shields which are keyed to pass new faction members.
Or maybe the city protective spells force raider respawns to be in the faction home city rather than normal more recent nearby rift bindings -- such that exploiters would at least have long walk.
I guess another solution is to revoke the "no XPs lost for PKs" if a player is in an opposing faction city or on a bounty list. The bounty awards need to balance awards to hunter/guards with penalties to the raider -- otherwise two players could take turns letting each other kill them. I do note that exploitation inside the defended city does presume the clearing of NPC defenders who could claim the kill. Rapid NPC defender respawn would interfere with both legitimate and exploitation bounty collection as NPCs got the kill.
The best approach might be to limit how often you can attempt to enter a particular faction city other than your own. This provides direct control of exploits and rate of city raids. It should be easy to script. Every character would get timestamped when they attempt to enter a city other than their own. If a timestamp exists for that foreign faction city that is less than (for example) 10 game days old they are unable to complete entering the city through any of its gates. You could of course enter your own faction city as often as you want. This approach is a bit artifical though you could say that player bodies accumulate and then expend some strange personal energy when they breach the city shields which are keyed to pass new faction members.
Or maybe the city protective spells force raider respawns to be in the faction home city rather than normal more recent nearby rift bindings -- such that exploiters would at least have long walk.
I guess another solution is to revoke the "no XPs lost for PKs" if a player is in an opposing faction city or on a bounty list. The bounty awards need to balance awards to hunter/guards with penalties to the raider -- otherwise two players could take turns letting each other kill them. I do note that exploitation inside the defended city does presume the clearing of NPC defenders who could claim the kill. Rapid NPC defender respawn would interfere with both legitimate and exploitation bounty collection as NPCs got the kill.
I think awarding xp when defeating enemy faction members in your own city would be a good idea. One way to help negate the ability for people to exploit it would be to have the invader lose 2 or 3 times the xp that the defender gained. Possibly include a transfer of gold from the invader to the defender as well.
This way both factions involved have incentive to fight. Invaders are trying to earn xp and loot from slaying the npc guards while the defenders earn xp and gold by defeating the invaders.
This way both factions involved have incentive to fight. Invaders are trying to earn xp and loot from slaying the npc guards while the defenders earn xp and gold by defeating the invaders.
The one problem with the pure (that is no other scripts or rules) XP-gold incentive-penalty is that you need to offer very large rewards to attract high level players to boring duty.
That means the penalty to raiders becomes so large that raids may never occur again or get so widely spaced (2-3 times per real world week) as to make guard duty impractical. This is especially true when penalties have 2-3 times multiplers rather than just 1 to 1 ratio to the reward.
I guess a key question is what is minimum and maximum frequency of raids that the GMs want to have occur.
Keep in mind that below a certain frequency of raids you re-enter the problem of raiders being able to camp out for hours in a city. Why?
A) With penalites raids would occur so infrequently that no PC spends time just standing guard.
B) Because raiders only have to leave the city gates to negate rewards-penalties. I think the shout channel in particular would be more of an advantage for raiders than returning defenders (guards returning via area X). Ollie-Ollie-Oxen-Free and "keep away" games are not appealling as a NWN feature. -- especially when spaced out half a day or more apart in realtime. This could be handled by setting a bounty that remains active regardless of area until collected or, for example 2 hours, real time expires.
C) City defenders off on adventures would likely have many areas to traverse as well as adventures to interrupt. And most PC guards won't return immediately when raiders can evade so easily. If a raider gets two areas away from city they are likely safe from even rewardless PKs outside the city. Even if PC guards do start return immediately there is likely a long delay in their arrival.
That means the penalty to raiders becomes so large that raids may never occur again or get so widely spaced (2-3 times per real world week) as to make guard duty impractical. This is especially true when penalties have 2-3 times multiplers rather than just 1 to 1 ratio to the reward.
I guess a key question is what is minimum and maximum frequency of raids that the GMs want to have occur.
Keep in mind that below a certain frequency of raids you re-enter the problem of raiders being able to camp out for hours in a city. Why?
A) With penalites raids would occur so infrequently that no PC spends time just standing guard.
B) Because raiders only have to leave the city gates to negate rewards-penalties. I think the shout channel in particular would be more of an advantage for raiders than returning defenders (guards returning via area X). Ollie-Ollie-Oxen-Free and "keep away" games are not appealling as a NWN feature. -- especially when spaced out half a day or more apart in realtime. This could be handled by setting a bounty that remains active regardless of area until collected or, for example 2 hours, real time expires.
C) City defenders off on adventures would likely have many areas to traverse as well as adventures to interrupt. And most PC guards won't return immediately when raiders can evade so easily. If a raider gets two areas away from city they are likely safe from even rewardless PKs outside the city. Even if PC guards do start return immediately there is likely a long delay in their arrival.
You got to think of the big picture beyond "I am killing a raider and collecting a reward".
How are most players going to react if they know about this server raid-defense feature?
Hmmm, I suppose the big XP penalty-rewards on raider PKs could be used to make raids and city defense quest driven rather than player free-will.
Raiders could be motivated by quest XP rewards that combined with XPs for NPC guard kills exceed the XP penalty for being caught and killed by PC guards. Thus raiding is attractive when quested but not very attractive when you don't have a quest.
Defenders could then automatically be issued quests based on the "rumors" of quests issued to raiders. That is a city messenger appears to various (matching group rather than all?) adventuring defenders with information that city spies expect a raid soon. Messengers could have a droppable message tube treasure if you want to allow ongoing battle to kill the messenger. Surprise you've just been issed a new quest.
Note that raid quests should be issued in home towns or at some distance from the target city in order to give defenders some travel time. Ideally the expected travel time should be roughly equal. I suppose some very low-priority process on the database machine could track and match PC levels and distances from cities. Thus raids would be rare and wonderful high level events since you need both a rough match AND opportunity to issue the quest to raiders...though you could fudge it and have a messenger issue the raid quest as well.
Another advantage of quests would directing raids middle level characters against gate where NPC defense is weaker (temporarily?).
How are most players going to react if they know about this server raid-defense feature?
Hmmm, I suppose the big XP penalty-rewards on raider PKs could be used to make raids and city defense quest driven rather than player free-will.
Raiders could be motivated by quest XP rewards that combined with XPs for NPC guard kills exceed the XP penalty for being caught and killed by PC guards. Thus raiding is attractive when quested but not very attractive when you don't have a quest.
Defenders could then automatically be issued quests based on the "rumors" of quests issued to raiders. That is a city messenger appears to various (matching group rather than all?) adventuring defenders with information that city spies expect a raid soon. Messengers could have a droppable message tube treasure if you want to allow ongoing battle to kill the messenger. Surprise you've just been issed a new quest.
Note that raid quests should be issued in home towns or at some distance from the target city in order to give defenders some travel time. Ideally the expected travel time should be roughly equal. I suppose some very low-priority process on the database machine could track and match PC levels and distances from cities. Thus raids would be rare and wonderful high level events since you need both a rough match AND opportunity to issue the quest to raiders...though you could fudge it and have a messenger issue the raid quest as well.
Another advantage of quests would directing raids middle level characters against gate where NPC defense is weaker (temporarily?).