Certainly nowadays, most people build their guns quickly and huge through the obscene amount of durden spawns and increased MIA count. 

In addition to you DD'ing a shit ton of potential targets for various reason before they can be raced for, if the amount of RIAs has remained the same they definitely aren't as important as they used to be.

Info is really only decent for finding the odd free MIA or for finding locals for a take down. That only really needs one team player a district/city in theory to just private to all 6 cities in quick succession and provide the necessary information. 

Squishy you can build a gun with any character on any answer set/roll. Info characters may find the odd MIA like Jaquesgreen said but theres no real upside of having info when Durden Mapping and/or Street VIP is available. I can find any durden by asking a crew member or an associate. And not to mention info characters have to post still to see all the RIAs that are spawned. Some of them have stealth that cannot be seen by some info characters.

The real use of an info character is to find people during wars and takedowns. However that isn't always the case; finding your stealth opponent. I understand what you're saying Squishy, but the balance between stealth and info just is not there. Training/posting for info boosts is just being out weighed by the untrainable stealth character. Stealth characters don't have to do a single thing while an info character has to continually work towards something that isn't always a guarantee, and its not permanent. If there isn't a way to balance it, could we look at other options to help offset the character skills? Like only have full info characters be able to see stealth characters. Or even make posting give a more permanent vision boost. Something just needs to be changed in the direction of the info character. 

I don't think anyone is saying that vision doesn't have it's uses Squishy. Or at least I'm certainly not. I've chosen to go vision on my last two or three runs. The discussion seems more around how to find a balance so that going vision has an incentive just like stealth does. Stealth cannot be trained. It doesn't have to be upkept in anyway. So if you go stealth, you can figure everything else out. You say only 18.1% of the players are full stealth. How many are full vision? I'd like to see a comparison. 

Going vision is great for an IA list, for Durdens, whatever. Doesn't negate the fact that every other skill sucks and I still have to post constantly to get my vision to stay current. Even the locals during wars has a work around, with jails and such. 

The suggestions I've seen so far include:

1) Make stealth something that has to be trained (through PPing, mugging, or something new) and that decreases without that training, just like vision decreases without posting.

2) Make it so that only full vision can see a full stealth GF or GFC (I'd even say only full vision can see a full stealth player of the same rank, maybe making the exception that a full vision Don can see a GF/GFC (since there's only a few GFC at any one time)). That makes stealth AND vision more advantageous. 

3) Make posting give a more permanent increase to vision

I'm less a fan of #3 as I do like seeing people post and I feel that some people will stop posting once they are fully trained. But I don't see why #1 or #2 can't be looked at in more depth and one, both, or some combination of all 3 be put into place. 

I'll be totally honest; I'm not even sure if there is an imbalance. I've read other peoples' opinions here, and I'll ultimately defer to Squishy. I can't say I agree with him 100%, but it seems like the balance of the game is pretty great at the moment so I'll trust his judgement.

But I'll throw out another possible comprise. If info decreases over time- perhaps info could only "decay" to your starting level of info. 

So if you start with your info at 63% and post a bunch of quality things to get it to 100% then it could decay back to 63%- but if you start with info at 100% it would stay there. It'd be trainable for people who didn't max if they want to put in the effort- but those who just want to be naturally good at seeing things would be able to keep their skill like those with stealth.

As I said, I'm not even sure this is a huge issue. I'm not sure if everything I said is factually correct. But I keep seeing this discussion pop up, so I figured I'd take a stab at another compromise.

Well then, Squishy, I would like to say you're absolutely brilliant for implementing my suggestion before I could say it.

And now I'm less certain what all this fuss is about.

But then a stealth account can do nothing at all and yet to be seen. 

Someone has to put in further work to see stealth accounts who did nothing other than select a certain answer set. It just doesn't make it fair to those who continue to put in work with posting to lose an advantage over time while stealth accounts will never lose their advantage over anyone at any time on their character. And that goes for pickpocketing, wacking, and so on.

Neveah had some good suggestions to the topic as well.

I feel that this suggestion's tone and direction is more about airing a grievance for having to do work than it is about discussing a rebalancing of the stats themselves.   

In gameplay, the stats appear to be balanced, and I would defer to Squishy as well when it comes to how these two stats operate in the game; if 81.9% of the game is going towards other answer sets, it would seem to undercut the argument that it is overpowered.

I really feel like the Player Commission would have a great impact on this conversation. Too bad they are not around anymore.

KateLogan, the key is understanding that having 100% vision does not allow you to see everything. You can be 100% vision and not even see all the Durdens in your district unless you post. It's like being 100% wack...doesn't mean you can hit everything, still gotta train your gun, just means you're not starting in the negative. Stealth doesn't have to be trained at all. That's the difference. 

And Daria, I certainly have no grievance. If I cared about having to do the work, I wouldn't choose vision at all, but I have chosen it on more than one occasion. 

My last x number of characters have all been stealth. GFs, Cls, Hands, all stealth. Has it helped me live during a war, ever? No.

I choose stealth because I like to PP people, particularly muggers, gives me my jollies to PP someone and walk away unseen. I've yet to witness this huge imbalance that you are crying about first hand. Sure if I was to waste millions and fly around all the time it would make killing me harder, but not impossible. 9 times out of ten though, I die in the 1st wave when I'm attacked. they have my location pinpointed before the attack.

Didn't know anyone was crying about anything. 

Thanks for clarifying that for me.

Someone has to put in further work to see stealth accounts who did nothing other than select a certain answer set. It just doesn't make it fair...

sounds like crying to me. And you're welcome

I didn't result to name calling, i stated my opinion, if I had said you are a whiny little bitch, that would have been name calling, but I didn't. I have nothing beneficial to add to you topic because I agree with Izzy. It used to be that stealth was hugely overbalanced, but then Info was increased in order to counteract the power of stealth a couple of years ago. Personally I think the balance is rather good.

Info seems quite powerful to me, my initial info as a Stealth Character was around 60%. I could hardly see anyone, however a few short posts in the LV business district later, and I seem to have pretty good Info for LV. Having to Improve info through posting in a RPG seems like a great way to get people posting, which lets face it, is a core part of any RPG... no man is an island after all.

As Izzy also stated, the easiest way to counteract people starting on pure stealth, is to start on pure info.

And no, not everyone is a cry baby. I never said or implied that. I merely said that I failed to see this huge imbalance that you were crying about, you were the one who took that statement personally, and used that single sentence to try and derail my support for the status quo. Its a sad fact of life, but in every suggestion not everyone will agree with you. I should know, I've made dozens over the years, some were enacted, most weren't.

Anyone who starts on a maximised stat automatically has a huge advantage over someone who didn't. Max Wack vs Non max Defence, Max Stealth Vs non Max Info, Max info vs non Max Stealth. If you aren't prepared to put in the work, perhaps you should just go full info from now on. I choose full stealth because you cannot train it, as I said, i like to pick pocket people and mess with them.

You stated an opinion of which I was mere crying on the fact that I had to do more work than others. You disregarded any information I brought to the table. You just stated I was crying. How else is anyone is supposed to take that? Like seriously, give me a break.

I'm happy you decided to give your opinion. Thats what this forum is for. Not just banter about how someone wants it one way over another. I understand the concept of not getting anything done as well. I knew after several replies from others and from a couple from Squishy that this was going no where. I accepted that and wanted to move onto other's suggestions; Neveah's or even green's. Even if it is beating a dead horse...

Thanks for giving your input into the suggestion.

I didn't want to post a new suggestion thread for a similar idea to this one.

If an info character is able to see someone in their city locals, who is a stealth character, why can't they see them pick their pockets? I'll admit I may be wrong in this but I thought I read somewhere that if an info character is pick pocketed by a stealth character, odds are heavily weighed in the stealth character to not ever be seen. Actually I thought it said the stealth character would always have the upper hand.

Is this true? And/or is there anything that could help info folks counter their stealthy assailants? 

My assumption, and mind you this isn't based on some inside knowledge just my assumption, would be that Stealth is exactly that, the ability to sneak around unseen. Info isn't awareness, its not the ability to see everything, its the ability to gain insider information (Hence the name, Info). You 'seeing' me in the locals isn't you actually seeing me, more that your spies and contacts have seen me around town, in bars etc, so you know I'm here. Those same spies and informants aren't worth squat if I sneak up on you and pick your pocket, unless you see me, which is what happens when you get some letters in your Personal.

A common theme among game changes and introducing new game features is "Work in vs. work out" in balance. Though we can't account for all use cases we can see, in a general sense, how much work goes into accomplishing x for each answer set.

Info gains you such more more than stealth though.  With info, you are self sufficient with finding targets  (wack, PP), you can do IA lists and help your crew as a whole build better guns.

You're making a good point here; that stealth can only really benefit one person while info can benefit many. If info were untrainable, I'd say the conservation ends here. But it can be trained. Individuals on stealth can be that IA list guy as well as being the stealth guy. In fact, stealth answers aren't unbearable for training vision.

Why not change the way stealth works instead? Defense has BGs, wack has kills, and vision has posts, and each of those are treated differently. BGs can be shot and your defense drops, kills are permanent, and vision drops over time. What if a new resource were introduced to provide increases in stealth? It could be bought like BGs, where you buy something and your stealth has a temporary increase. It could be earned, like posting in BDs or interacting with city-specific NPCs. Or it could be time-sensitive, and stealth just gradually increases as you do crimes (so more active players get stealth faster), obviously in very small amounts.

Seems like stealth offers an opportunity to create a new game mechanic, something that people will demand badly if available in some acquirable resource.