I know this has been brought up several times before this time. I know I may repeat some of the old things but I know I haven't seen anyone compare starting up stats before in a thread. 

First, my suggestion is something that has always irritated me because it never made sense. Pure info against pure stealth as it is currently, cancels each other skills out. If I post, I get to see more people. If I post enough, I'll be able to see stealth Godfathers and the rest of the game. But why should the info character have to put in time to post and post, when the stealth account virtually doesn't have to do a single thing and has one of the biggest advantages in the game; not being seen. Along with that, I'd like to compare the starting stats between the two characters. These are based on the rolls you do before you start the game.

Stealth:

Marksmanship 49% Physique 54% Stealthiness 100% Defense 68% Breaking and Entering 38% Intimidation 36% Street Smarts 63%

Vision:

Marksmanship 19% Physique 44% Stealthiness 33% Defense 41% Breaking and Entering 35% Intimidation 53% Street Smarts 100%

To me when comparing the two starting stats, it shows that stealth has not only a huge advantage of not being seen, but can also see the vision character quite easily. The stealth character has 63% vision while the vision character has 33%. This is telling me the stealth character doesn't have to do a single thing to see a vision character, while the opposite is not equal. I say not equal because of my previous statements of having to post to see a full stealth character. Work is required by the vision character, when the stealth character needs little at all. 

Along with that, vision characters have to do 81 ranges/MIAs before they are maxed at the ranged. They are do even more work because they chose to start with the vision boost. To compare the stats even more and if I added up all the skills you are granted while picking your roll, stealth characters are given 408 stats (percentage points) in their overall character while the vision character is granted 325 stats.

My suggestion is to give vision characters the leeway of seeing their counter part without doing as much work. Why? Because it isn't balanced whatsoever in the game. The vision character is constantly having to do more work than their counter parts just to be able to see them, while the stealth character doesn't have to do a thing to remain unseen. And just to be clear, this goes for all aspects of seeing a stealth character vs. an info character; pickpocking, wack attempts, witness catching.

Please give feedback in my idea. I'd love to see some counter arguments or even some support in this long battled debate with stealth vs. vision.

I think when you mean train, you mean temporary boost. You have to constantly post to keep your skill up. The further you are away from maxed vision, the more you have to post. You cannot train stealth, sure. But to see even the highest stealth characters, you have to post quite a bit. And then even so, you have to continue to do it to see other characters. 

I'm trying to get at the basis that stealth characters don't have to do anything to have such ability to not be seen. They can literally do nothing to keep their stealth up, while someone has to work continuously to see them.

I have always maintained that consistently writing quality posts should result in a permanent increase in your base vision stat. Making it a temporary thing is both punishing and counterproductive; punishing in that after 300 good posts, one's vision should be better than FullInfoAnswerAndy who has just signed up, and counterproductive in that when one needs the boost to be able to see people, they will likely make shitty BD contributions purely for this purpose.

I agree entirely with green. I think we should make the increases permanent, but require more quality to make it happen. 

There is very little in the way of history that has shown that accounts that are on stealth have an inherent advantage over others in wartime.  People have fallback strategies that are implemented almost immediately if there isn't a verified location on somebody.  Stealth accounts die all the same as accounts on info, or other skill sets, and it is not incredibly difficult to put together a takedown list, and finding those that are on stealth is not very difficult in the broader picture.  It requires some amount of work, which I believe is fair, if you are trying to hunt someone down.   But there are few historical instances, if any, of war efforts being hampered by stealth accounts due to a lack of "eyes", and perhaps this suggestion would have more merit to it if there were.

But I take the view that the perceived advantage of stealth over info is primarily superficial, and may aid in the "out of sight, out of mind" principal, but game-world experience has shown that there is very little advantage in general, if people are hunting you down.  The payoff for stealth is not entirely evident when people can simply get your location from pickpocketing or from launching jail after jail to find someone. 

Daria forgive me if I'm not correct in this but I think you can no longer see someone's status about being in jail. You'd have to be in the city that person is in to see them, sure. But I still think they may no end up in jail? 

green I think that is a great idea to fix this problem. Make posting more permanent could definitely work. Perhaps make people with answers other than stealth, a tad harder to get to the top or something? I just think there needs to be some kind of reward for those on vision answers. 

Yes, the imprisoned status is no longer available as a tool, but you are still able to throw jails and observe if they are caught in the net.

Granting permanent info boosts for posting tilts the playing field significantly into info's favor.  Making it easier to "see your counterpart", when it is already not very difficult to locate them with other methods to begin with, is simply a giveaway to info accounts, and makes stealth even less useful when users on stealth have historically, rarely, if ever, have experienced advantageous scenarios that benefit them in game-world/war situations, save for them being offline and off of the online list.

Is it tilting at all when a stealth character can see a vision character with no need to post anything?

Not particularly, as people who knowingly sign up with info answers are aware that they are easily visible regardless of another character's starting info stat, and going down this line of thinking leads to simply punishing accounts that are on stealth.  Again, regardless of your stealth, it is not difficult to locate a player, and stealth, for its sake,  has never been the difference between a war lost and a war won.  Info, on the other hand, is a different story. 

As an aside, because the discussion of marksmanship was brought up: Info accounts also have the added bonus of being able to see Durden members out of the gate, whereas stealth accounts do not.  Even considering the 81 trains required, it is not quite as bleak as it is made out to be in the long term.

...Why would a ROLEPLAYING game want to encourage you POST REGULARLY....right?

Daria; if someone is prepared to consistently post decent things over a sustained period of time, why shouldn't they benefit from a permanent reward for doing so? That is pretty much how every other normal stat works.

Posting grants experience towards one's character and is permanent, if I remember correctly.

This conversation keeps going back to a false dichotomy that it only seems "fair" that the info gained should be permanent, when the core of my point seems to be repeatedly ignored; the benefits of being on stealth are exaggerated and with the exception of witness statements (which will still be generated)/staying offline during a war, the stat does not confer any signficant advantage when the accounts are engaged in war.  Though the suggestion attempts to compare the two skills as equal, they aren't, and this suggestion asks to make a person's job even easier than it already is to find people. 

Posting may grant experience but that can be replaced with jailbreaks. We are talking about a character's skills here. 

I really don't see how the benefits of stealth are being exaggerated at all. There are countless times when targets could not be found for war. More than I care to admit. And even when we thought our ranked vision people could find them, they couldn't. Even after the posting and so on. Back to the premise of my complaint. Stealth characters have no real work to put in to remain stealthy unlike their vision character counter parts. Vision has to be boosted over and over again constantly so that you can see stealth individuals. It is tedious and a lot of work while stealth characters don't need to do a single thing for their stealth abilities. 

I don't see it being a major issue if posting were to grant more permanent boosts if everyone can take advantage of it. 

When there will be no vision blindness will rule...

The experience gained from posting is minimal - ditch crimes and jailbreaking and you'll see just how minimal it is - and if anyone is posting purely for the experience boost, they are a complete idiot.

I'm not advocating this suggestion in particular is adopted, just that you should be able to increase your base info skill after X amount of work over X amount of time. I don't think it is "fai"r that your base vision reverts to dogshit if you've invested time and effort into boosting the skill because that premise is runs counter to pretty much everything else in the game. I think that at some point the effort should be recognised permanently.

That was a horrible second paragraph. I will try again:

I'm not advocating this suggestion in particular is adopted, just that you should be able to increase your base info skill after X amount of work over X amount of time. I don't think it is "fair" that your base vision reverts to dog shit if you've invested time and effort into boosting the skill because that premise runs counter to pretty much everything else in the game, where work equals reward.

Until the mechanics of running with stealth evolve into anything more than the minor annoyance that it serves now in actual gameplay, the suggestion is simply a giveaway with no counterbalance.  The mechanics and usefulness of stealth must be changed when you are making alterations to the info stat, otherwise the stat will be truly worthless. 

I understand the sentiment of wanting to reward work in a more meaningful way, but it is disingenuous to boil the debate down to "he doesn't have to do work, I do" when you take into perspective the actual way these two stats perform in the game, and until you address and have a conversation about the relationship between stealth and info and how the two stats should function and balance out, you won't get anywhere productive.

At one time, I brought this subject up to Squishy on irc, as there clearly is a problem. I suggested that for someone to maintain max stealth, they should in fact have to do something to "hone" their skills, like a person on max info does. I believe it was pickpocketing/wacking/range, something along those lines in order for them to maintain not being seen by a max individual, non-boosted. 

The system is very broken in this regard, a Godfather chairman on max info, cannot see everyone in his city, even though his rank is far above a lot of the other population.

How much further would you like to take it? In my experience "running with stealth" can be a total ballache to those who are in the chasing pack, which seems just reward for a skill you did absolutely nothing whatsoever to hone, build or in any other way maintain. Conversely, if I have worked hard for a consistently long period, my work has outdone yours and I should be seeing you so fuckin'-large that you look like Andre the Giant. 

Currently however, unless I've started on top info answers and recently spammed the business district, the only way I can find you is by the process of elimination. I don't think that is right.