Tracking

[plague]

I think that the best solution is to make tracking more difficult within cities than in the wilderness, not impossible, and I think a higher skill ceiling or a limit on tracks in the city (perhaps, even, make them just fade naturally faster in the city, such that you have to catch them quicker?) is probably the best way to go about it, as mentioned.

[Starstarfish]

There had been city tracking the entire time I've actively played so I was not aware that something I'd always presumed was a feature was indeed viewed as a bug.

So, I'm pro-tracking myself if that wasn't otherwise clear.

The fact is as noted 99% of RP happens inside the city, and "tracking" could involve not just physical clues but asking the NPCs quick things like "Which way did he go?" for things that don't involve a full scale RPA investigation. So many part of it could be considering what "tracking" is meant to all include.

[Whateverosaur]

In what probably has no bearing on anything, something I try to keep in my for my tabletop games (both as GM and for my players) is that the skill effects, at least in a lot of game types, are meant to be somewhat abstracted. Heck, even damage, to-hit, misses, etcetera are better in a lot of games when you abstract them away from reducing HP equaling losing actual blood.

So I instinctually lean towards Star's thought that "tracking" encompass something more than just footprints. Full disclosure, I'm not Urth's best tracker; I know that some information is specifically about footprints/footwear at certain levels, but is the verbage something that could be adapted in part to more general/abstractable results? Could the policy be adapted to reflect the 'adaptable' nature of results (ie, a 'track' is not a 'footprint' necessarily, but perhaps word-of-mouth from shopkeepers or snaggings of material)?

That coupled with some of the earlier suggests (reducing track list in city areas especially) would get my backing.

[LANS]

The fact is as noted 99% of RP happens inside the city, and "tracking" could involve not just physical clues but asking the NPCs quick things like "Which way did he go?" for things that don't involve a full scale RPA investigation. So many part of it could be considering what "tracking" is meant to all include.

That's the thing, yes. If tracking in the city is impossible (snow? mud? rain? hooves vs boots?), and 99% of RP happens in the city, I am going to RPA to go around this limitation like crazy. And I think staff doesn't want that.

[Geras]

By the way, the spell that leaves funny tracks has no benefit in the city. So at the very least it would be nice if it didn't leave funny tracks in the city.

[Geras]

And "which way did he go" doesn't explain knowing he left hoof shaped footprints.

[Asteris]

Hello, champion tracking here, I just want to echo many of the things Lans has already said. Tracking is often the only concrete investigation and roleplay leads I as a player can do especially when moods that get left are usually brief and uninformative. If it doesn't work in the city at all it's an incredibly wasted skill, it already didn't work indoors even in generally dusty and poorly trafficked areas and in places like sewer rooms which are far less trafficked and far more... mushy.

The limit of number of tracks in a room seemed like a fair enough trade for 'city conditions' if someone crossed a heavily traveled road the track would go very quickly cold for all the back and forth of people and their pets/retainers.

Better tracking when infrastructure is low, worse when it's high maybe?

[Kinaed]

We primarily announce all changes in the MOTD, and we always have. You can also check changes with HELP NEWS (or HELP CHANGES MMMYYYY, ie HELP CHANGES MAR2020), but otherwise I don't think it's reasonable to say that Staff were being secret squirrel because someone didn't read the MOTD where we've announced changes since 2006.

With regards to this, as previously mentioned, the change was a bug fix because the original spec explicitly said that tracking was supposed to error on city streets. I'm happy to discuss alternatives, what's good and bad for the game, what we need to do, etc, but please keep the accusatory stuff out of the discussion.

Beyond that, I'm not certain that I agree that tracking should be usable in cities. For ages, tracking didn't even exist and knights went about their business arresting mages. When tracking came in, we were told it was too powerful, but not the specific reasons why. We recently discovered the bug, which I assume most players didn't know was a bug, and went 'oh, well, that explains it'. Logically speaking, however, how does someone track someone else on a bustling Roman street without literally following them in line of sight? Tracking was designed to be a wilderness skill, not a mage-hunting skill. Whereas we're happy knights could use it, it was more designed for scrappy ranger-types interested in observing who passed through their forest and what they were up to.

[Taunya]

Tracking was designed to be a wilderness skill, not a mage-hunting skill. Whereas we're happy knights could use it, it was more designed for scrappy ranger-types interested in observing who passed through their forest and what they were up to.

Funnily enough, it's a lot less useful to such types, outside of yeah, curiosity things. It's good for tracking people, but pretty much worthless for game and the like. When hunting, I only used scan (direction), since animals don't really wander far or follow any kind of game trails.

[plague]

My main concern is that players have invested into Tracking with the express (and, it seems, primary) purpose of utilization within the city, and while I am unsure of the precedence on things like this, if something that was previously a strong part of someone's character concept (strongly enough that it took up 1 of 3 valuable grandmaster slots, for instance) is no longer accessible for the thing they were using it for, that investment might not have been made in the first place, and as such, I ask:

Is it still worth having invested in for those players who have invested a great deal of time and effort into it? Does it make sense for these characters to have the tracking skill, if their primary usage of tracking was not, in fact, supposed to have been part of the tracking skill in the first place? If not, then are refunds possible? This bug fix, despite being a bug fix, removed what seems to be the primary functionality utilized by the playerbase, to the point that it seems like it would retcon a great deal of character activities and abilities as established by their IC.