From images we've seen such as this one, guards immediately aggro as soon as you attack one or do some other bad thing. The current behavior can be summarized as: Existing System's Drawbacks: It is impossible to correct minor mistakes (such as mining 1 block of an NPC house) without aggroing everyone and getting to the point of no return (since you'll be attacked and have to defend yourself, and thus commit even more crimes against the guards) It reduces opportunities for stealth play, where you can slide by NPCs in an "alert, but not aggroed" state, or perform a stealth kill before a guard has a chance to react. Proposal: I suggest implementing a Commandos-style approach to aggroing guards: Guards which are an immediate victim or witness to a major crime (e.g. being attacked) will get a red exclamation mark. This is a "pre-aggro" mode and is irreversible, meaning that after a short delay (e.g. 0.5 seconds) they will become aggroed and you cannot undo this. However, during this short delay, they will still be surprised and not fighting or calling or help, so you will still have an opportunity for a quick stealth kill before they raise the alarm. Guards which are indirect witness to a crime (e.g. hearing noises), or which witnessed only a minor crime (e.g. 1-block vandalism) which can be punished with a warning, will get a yellow question mark. This is an "alert" state, meaning the guard has heightened attention and may come over to investigate. However, the "alert" mode is reversible, meaning that if the signals stop and the guard doesn't find any source of trouble, the yellow question mark will disappear and the guard will return to a normal state and go back to his original post. If the guard keeps hearing signals or finds the cause of trouble, he'll switch from an "alert" state to a "pre-aggro" state, and after a short delay become aggroed. Guards located further and further away will take longer and longer to become alert, pre-aggroed, and aggroed. This will allow you to localize trouble and avoid aggrowing the whole village at once. Higher tiered guards would have a better reaction time and and shorter delays between states. For example, a basic watchman could have a 1 second delay between "pre-aggro" and aggro, an advanced guard would take 0.5 seconds, and a Captain could take a mere 0.25 seconds, meaning that a stealth attack on a Captain would be much harder to execute than against lower guards. To help illustrate this: 1. Crime + 0 seconds: The closest guard just witnessed you commit a minor crime (if this was a major crime, skip this step and go to Step 2 immediately). He enters an alert state and gives you a warning to stop. If you stop and walk away, the guard will return to a normal state after a while, and everything will be peaceful once again. Otherwise, continue to Step 2. 2. Crime + 2 seconds: Since you didn't stop causing trouble (or committed a major crime such as attacking the guard, for which you don't get any warnings to stop), the guard immediately witnessing the crime went into pre-aggro mode and will become aggroed shortly (irreversible). The guard further away heard trouble and so become alerted. The guard captain is too far to hear anything yet, so stays normal. 3. Crime + 3 seconds: The closest guard went into full aggro and started fighting, and also called for help. The middle guard heard calls for help which confirmed his earlier suspision, so he went into pre-aggro mode and will be aggroed soon. The guard captain noticed the middle guard reacting, so he himself went into alert mode. 4. Crime + 4 seconds: The closest guard is still fighting. The middle guard is aggroed and starts running to help. The guard captain went into pre-aggro mode and will join the fight soon. I also propose the ? and ! marks would be visible to players (I'm not just using them to illustrate the game state, but actually suggest they become part of the UI). This way, players can gauge the state of alertness of guards, which will help stealth gameplay. Potential list of minor crimes: For these offenses, guards first go into alert state, and will not aggro if you stop committing it very soon: Minor vandalism (e.g. mine a block from an NPCs house). Littering (dumping objects/liquids on NPC property). Theft (pick up an item without paying) - must return stolen item for crime to be considered "stopped". Tresspassing (enter a locked NPC house without permission). Swinging/shooting weapons in town (which didn't actually hit anyone yet). Curfew violation (walk around town at night for towns which forbid this). Potential list of major crimes: For these offenses, guards will go into pre-aggro state right away, and will become aggroed after a short delay (you cannot stop it at this point, except by escaping or killing the guard): Killing or attacking a guard or another NPC. Major vandalism (e.g. completely knock down a house), or dump lava/acid on NPC property. Use of explosives in town. Failing to obey orders to stop minor crimes discussed earlier. (Not crime per se, but guards hearing others calling for help will react as to as major crime). Such a system would help to: Allow walking back from minor trouble which merely alerts but not aggroes the guards. Allow stealth slipping by guards (while they are in "alert" mode), or stealth kills without raising alarm (while they are in "alert" or "pre-aggro" mode). Allow making higher-tiered guards harder to take out by surprise than lower-tiered ones. You can think of these crimes similar to yellow and red cards in soccer. A single minor offense will get you a "yellow card" (warning) which you can fix by playing better, while either repeated minor offenses or a single major offense would get you a "red card" (pre-aggro) which you can't fix except by leaving the game (or in Starbound's case, killing the referee ) Overall, this would allow village exploration/fighting to be a more flexible approach, with more tactical choices and the idea of "limited engagement" through localizing conflict, as opposed to an only choice between "perfectly peaceful" and "slaughtering the entire village". What do you think?
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