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Building a Better Theft System
Vayne
Rhode Island
I know there has been discussion ad nauseum on the topic of theft and its recent changes from hypnosis to pickpocketing, but there is one jewel that shone among the frey @Alynna's idea which actually got some people thinking of constructive ideas for how to improve the theft system and make it enjoyable, fair, consequential, and profitable for all parties involved. I would like to work off Alynna's base for theft and @Corbeaux's idea(I think, could be wrong, feel free to step up and claim credit) for the mark system to give a comprehensive, or as comprehensive as I can, idea for improving theft as well as the mark system. I would appreciate your constructive comments on things I might have missed or been inaccurate about and try to make a solid proposition for the admins to consider.
I. Theft
Pickpocket remains as is mechanically:
-Success dependent on the thief's subterfuge skill level, active stealth skills, sufficient mana, the target having selfishness down, and items being accessible in their inventory.
-10 second execution time with balance cost during which an action on the thief or the departure of the target cancels the attempt.
-Upon success the target is given a message indicating they were robbed.
The thief is allowed to drop the target's defenses and manipulate their inventory using action in hypnosis and with proper timing and other tricks or just the carelessness of the target able to steal 50% of the target's gold, letters, sigils, and keys if successful.
Proposed Changes:
-Allow all "loose" items in the target's inventory to be able to be pickpocketed or expand the items able to be pickpocketed to have some more appeal than the current potential items.
This alone would once again give theft great appeal to Serpents but would be arguably much more powerful than the old system. Again, someone disconnected could be robbed of every item they had by a patient pickpocket. This is where Alynna's idea comes into play.
II. Post-Theft
Stolen Items:
-Tag any stolen item as "stolen from X."
-Give a command for the thief/victim to list their stolen items and who they came from. STOLENLIST
-Stolen items cannot be dropped, given, or put inside any container.
-The thief may RETURN <ITEM> for X gold/credits.
-"Hot" items have a cool down time that works similarly to contracts. The item does not cool down while in a city, off plane, in a house/ship etc.
-Once the item has cooled down, it may be kept by the thief permanently.
Killing the Thief:
-The Thief is free PK to the victim until all items are returned or cooled.
-Being killed by the theft victim anywhere would allow the victim to receive one of the stolen items randomly.
-The thief loses significantly more XP/essence upon death.
-Bursts count as deaths
Fences/Pawnshops: Certain seedy establishments may take "hot" items and put them up for sale.
-An NPC run shop specifically designed for stolen items.
-The thief may submit a "hot" item to a fence for a set price, the fence taking a percentage of the profit for his risk, perhaps a set standard for certain items that are rarer/more valuable.
-The items cools while in the shop,perhaps at a slower rate, but until it does it may only be bought by the victim.
-After the item has cooled, anyone may purchase the item.
-The thief does not get the item back after submitting it to the fence.
This would create more consequence for the thief by making him wait and protect his stolen items, and allow the victim a way to retrieve his lost items. The fence would add a layer to theft making things a bit more interesting and allowing thieves an alternative way to sell their ill gotten gains. The drawback to fences is that they may be in a city where the victim is not allowed to go because of enemy status.
III. Marks and Theft
Marks hired on thieves:
-Change the contract system so that victims must go to either of the mark HQ's and submit a request for a mark.
-Allow the victim to likewise see a list of their stolen item via STOLENLIST
-Allow victims to submit a request for a mark for specific items. Ex. REQUEST MARK FOR STOLEN ITEM medallion12345
-Allow all mark requests to be submitted this way with various arguments for the crime committed against them. Ex REQUEST MARK FOR <target> MURDER/ASSAULT/HARASSMENT/ETC.
-The mark would be able to go to the HQ and view available contracts and choose whichever one they wanted. Ex. ACCEPT CONTRAC 123 FOR X GOLD.
-The person who submitted the request would be notified that a mark is interested and either accept the fee the mark asks or deny it.
-If the mark takes it, he has until the item cools down to kill the thief.
-Once a contract is accepted a stolen item can no longer be fenced
-If the mark kills the thief, the specific item is returned to the victim as opposed to a random item the victim would have received by kill the thief himself(granted the thief had more than one item).
-If the mark is defeated by the thief, then another contract cannot be put out on that item and the victim must retrieve it themselves.
I believe this system would make a more level playing field where thieves would be encouraged to steal, victims would have the power to get their items back potentially, and marks would have a more vital role in the process of championing their hirer all with a better RP base in my opinion
I. Theft
Pickpocket remains as is mechanically:
-Success dependent on the thief's subterfuge skill level, active stealth skills, sufficient mana, the target having selfishness down, and items being accessible in their inventory.
-10 second execution time with balance cost during which an action on the thief or the departure of the target cancels the attempt.
-Upon success the target is given a message indicating they were robbed.
The thief is allowed to drop the target's defenses and manipulate their inventory using action in hypnosis and with proper timing and other tricks or just the carelessness of the target able to steal 50% of the target's gold, letters, sigils, and keys if successful.
Proposed Changes:
-Allow all "loose" items in the target's inventory to be able to be pickpocketed or expand the items able to be pickpocketed to have some more appeal than the current potential items.
This alone would once again give theft great appeal to Serpents but would be arguably much more powerful than the old system. Again, someone disconnected could be robbed of every item they had by a patient pickpocket. This is where Alynna's idea comes into play.
II. Post-Theft
Stolen Items:
-Tag any stolen item as "stolen from X."
-Give a command for the thief/victim to list their stolen items and who they came from. STOLENLIST
-Stolen items cannot be dropped, given, or put inside any container.
-The thief may RETURN <ITEM> for X gold/credits.
-"Hot" items have a cool down time that works similarly to contracts. The item does not cool down while in a city, off plane, in a house/ship etc.
-Once the item has cooled down, it may be kept by the thief permanently.
Killing the Thief:
-The Thief is free PK to the victim until all items are returned or cooled.
-Being killed by the theft victim anywhere would allow the victim to receive one of the stolen items randomly.
-The thief loses significantly more XP/essence upon death.
-Bursts count as deaths
Fences/Pawnshops: Certain seedy establishments may take "hot" items and put them up for sale.
-An NPC run shop specifically designed for stolen items.
-The thief may submit a "hot" item to a fence for a set price, the fence taking a percentage of the profit for his risk, perhaps a set standard for certain items that are rarer/more valuable.
-The items cools while in the shop,perhaps at a slower rate, but until it does it may only be bought by the victim.
-After the item has cooled, anyone may purchase the item.
-The thief does not get the item back after submitting it to the fence.
This would create more consequence for the thief by making him wait and protect his stolen items, and allow the victim a way to retrieve his lost items. The fence would add a layer to theft making things a bit more interesting and allowing thieves an alternative way to sell their ill gotten gains. The drawback to fences is that they may be in a city where the victim is not allowed to go because of enemy status.
III. Marks and Theft
Marks hired on thieves:
-Change the contract system so that victims must go to either of the mark HQ's and submit a request for a mark.
-Allow the victim to likewise see a list of their stolen item via STOLENLIST
-Allow victims to submit a request for a mark for specific items. Ex. REQUEST MARK FOR STOLEN ITEM medallion12345
-Allow all mark requests to be submitted this way with various arguments for the crime committed against them. Ex REQUEST MARK FOR <target> MURDER/ASSAULT/HARASSMENT/ETC.
-The mark would be able to go to the HQ and view available contracts and choose whichever one they wanted. Ex. ACCEPT CONTRAC 123 FOR X GOLD.
-The person who submitted the request would be notified that a mark is interested and either accept the fee the mark asks or deny it.
-If the mark takes it, he has until the item cools down to kill the thief.
-Once a contract is accepted a stolen item can no longer be fenced
-If the mark kills the thief, the specific item is returned to the victim as opposed to a random item the victim would have received by kill the thief himself(granted the thief had more than one item).
-If the mark is defeated by the thief, then another contract cannot be put out on that item and the victim must retrieve it themselves.
I believe this system would make a more level playing field where thieves would be encouraged to steal, victims would have the power to get their items back potentially, and marks would have a more vital role in the process of championing their hirer all with a better RP base in my opinion
8
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
I assume gold would not be included as a hot item. What about quest items? What determines an item's timer? Would this require the Divine to make tables to determine the worth of items, included crafted and easily consumable items like platters from cooking?
-The thief loses significantly more XP/essence upon death.
What about in cases of misadventure? Would the thief consistently lose XP while having a hot item, or would they only lose more XP when killed by a mark or assasain?
Items could be categorized in general groups with varying cooldown times so some bloodroot does not carry the same weight as a house item. Quest items could be unstealable.
It could be made that as long as a thief holds a stolen item they lose more xp or only If they are killed by the victim mark.
Also, while I like a lot of this idea, I feel like artefacts might unbalance it still in the theif's favour. Have a veil and a couple pairs of earrings, and the theif would still be nigh uncatchable, even by a mark. I'm not sure there's much of a solution to that - just a concern.
That love soon might end You are unbreaking
And be known in its aching Though quaking
Shown in this shaking Though crazy
Lately of my wasteland, baby That's just wasteland, baby
Other types of theft are fine and have their own checks and balances. Houses and shops have security measures that must be eluded to get to and are difficult enough to do as is. In fact I think there are too many house defenses right now between nonprism rooms, denizens selling only to house members, and layers of member only entrances.
And this is what happened in the past. Even without a veil, most thieves could slip away from the "heat" and wait out mark contracts if they really wanted too. They would just do this to wait out "hot" items, or offer it back at insane prices and the victim has no choice if the item is irreplacable(which they did in the pre-existing system).
When Canada rules the world,
things will be... nii~ice.
It also seems very complicated. I forsee many newbies, or even midbies being stolen from, and just throwing their hands up in disgust at trying to figure out how the whole system works/how the hell they can get their items back.
Honourable, knight eternal,
Darkly evil, cruel infernal.
Necromanctic to the core,Dance with death forever more.
- Theft becomes easier because instead of snap/delay/give, it's no message/delay/take.
- Tying in with the above, thieves are still encouraged to find afk people. Ideally they would be interacting, roleplaying.
- Midbies, or the inexperienced, are still the easy target.
- You propose this "heat" system, but then immediately undermine it by allowing thieves to offload items to an NPC.
- Thieves can still evade around the wilderness while "heat" ticks down, and still have zero reason not to dash/warp/phase back to their city/temple/ship any time anyone tries to kill them, avoiding reprisal. Heat won't tick down there, but it won't tick back up, either. Essentially, the effort required to counteract theft after it occurs is incredibly, unsustainably high.
- Thieves with veils still make a mockery of the system.
- Most people have no chance of killing a competent multi-trans thief who is more familiar with the game than they are. So getting your stuff back is a chore of going through one of two sterile, hard-coded systems: you buy from the fence, or you pay a Mark once per item and sit around and wait. Any charm of being robbed by Raffles/Arsene Lupin/Robin Hood/Max Guevara does not exist.
It's an improvement over the previous theft system, no doubt, because there are more ways to recover your stolen stuff - one of them by force. But it still seems pretty crummy, with many of the frustrations (from the victim's perspective) of the previous system.
Singling this out because it's an important point on its own: thieves are plying their chosen, specialized (OOC knowledge, skills, equipment, artifacts, etc.) trade against victims opportunistically chosen by them.
It's hard to imagine making that work in a way which is balanced mechanically (thief and victim have a fair chance to come out feeling like they "won") and fun.
The bottom line is, the vast majority of thefts benefit the thief and not the victim. I can't recall meeting anybody, ever, anywhere who WANTED to be robbed and pay to get his stuff back. I've also not really met anybody who enjoyed the process of buying his stuff back. Thieves generally treat you badly, and I've heard of instances where the guy who bought his stuff back got robbed by that same thief -- again; fun RP, eh?
The bottom line is, if you have a real-money driven game, and you don't make that real-money stay in the hands of those who purchased it, they will feel cheated and possibly leave the game.
I've never RPd with a thief. I've RPd with murderers, but thieves in this game are basically like IRL muggers who beat you up, steal your wallet, then the cops come and let him go in front of you because he apparently had the right to do that to you. And then the guy gives you this roguish smirk and tells you he's going to buy a pack of Dunhills with your lunch money. You can draw false distinctions all you want, either way the thief stole real cash from the victim. These people are not after RP, they're after free Hoods of the Sphinx or lvl 3 weapons.
Theft is a thing that really needs to stay nerfed and be a very small part of this game, if any. If it doesn't stay nerfed, we will lose players because losing real money -- especially lots of real money -- to a rude and nasty person (or maybe they're only RPing being rude and nasty?) through admin-sanctioned methods is not something that will be tolerated by anybody who is not deeply obsessed with this game to begin with. There are other games on the net. You want to send our players to them, this is the swiftest way to do it.
Most of Achaea's PVP things such as the raid system (or raiding in general)and theft give better rewards when the aggressor takes advantage of the victim being in a weakened state. That's just how things work, and people wanting to win etc. It's not something I would class as a bad thing.
Thieves aren't really that much fun to interact with, since it's a text game. It's better done silently than verbosely. The majority of things that a thief will steal merely equates to time spent, so when a thief steals 2k off a level 40 player, he's essentially stealing an hour on an OOC basis. Psychologically, the gold feels important because the time spent earning it was quite considerable, and that is where the real value lies.
No matter what really happens afterwards, the thief is now the proud owner of an extra hour of someones life. Where items are concerned, if a thief does bargain with his victim, he's essentially stealing more time so that the victim might get a little bit of closure, and ends up just taking a double whammy out of someone.
There is no such thing as a fair system in this case really. As once any form of theft has occured, people have automatically lost time, and may end up losing more time to resolve anything with the thief if that avenue is even open to them.
In the interest of being constructive, stolen items could always automatically go to a fence near the Quisalis den, marked with the victim it was stolen from, with the thief being paid a few depending on what kind of item it is, and the victim having the option of buying it back automatically from a denizen, taking out one facet of douchebaggery, but that's horribly one dimensional and takes away from the kind of thing Tenebrus and Ulrike used to pull off regarding blackmail and stuff.
Also obligatory you should always be roleplaying and saying "I've RP'd with you" just makes me imagine some dude typing in ROLEPLAY ON and putting a suit on and talking in a London Accent instead of a working class accent until he does ROLEPLAY OFF.
-
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important
You guys want your real money forcibly divested from you for some weird standard of roleplaying, you go right ahead. Kindly leave me and my real money out of this. And please don't make such decisions for me or people like me, it's not really nice of you. You might think it's one guy on the forums saying something weird or unpopular, it's really not. I am actually pretty certain the vast majority of this game would say the exact same thing as I am saying now, if you actually bothered to ask them (you didn't.)
@Antidas : I am not known as one of this game's rougher people, but I only contact you when it's absolutely necessary for me to do so and that's precisely because you are a thief. You're doing something I consider morally abhorrent. It leaks into real-life morality in this particular game mechanic because it's real currency involved, for all intents and purposes. And I don't think it's any more acceptable because there's a game mechanic justifying it or because you're now working with my allies, cleaning out Ashtan instead of Cyrene. I've never agreed with theft in this game except in the extremely narrow avenue where a thief is specifically after items that have been stolen, with the purpose of returning those items to the people they were stolen from.
I just missed a point there, I think.
Don't afk, pay attention. Majority of most thefts can be easily avoided, and I am speaking from experience of growing up with Ulrike and a zmud folder full of single line triggers. You pay attention, you move, you don't be ignorant. Almost all orgs had fantastic antitheft advice, some still do.
I can sympathise on losing items but there's few excuses for it happening in the first place - and grats to the thieves that have to really work for it. You earn it when you earn it.
For example, if you are killed by a player and lose 3 hours of bashing, who's fault is it? Easy answer is that it is the fault of the player who killed you, right? Fine. Say they kill you again in exactly the same manner, who's fault is it now? You would be perfectly reasonable to say that it was once again the fault of player who killed you. However, you should feel slightly stupid for falling to the same trick twice. Either you need to learn to make better use of your given skills to defend yourself or work harder to learn skills you are missing to succeed. It is perfectly fine to acknowledge you are a victim, but it is quite another thing in a multiplayer game to say the other person does not have a right to exercise their skills because they exceed your own and you must bear the consequences.
Now back to theft specifically, it sucks to get robbed. I know personally having only been robbed once, a failure I am still ashamed of to this day. I lost the manuscript of a book I was writing and never got it back; I didn't even have it backed up on Word or anything. As much as it sucked, and as much time as I put into it, I was forced to resolve to move on and played it out, another experience for Vayne to grow and learn from. If you have something you value, you need to keep it safe, and that is your responsibility. Anti-theft was widely taught during the old system, and as @Silvarien has pointed out for us, only the careless and young were the successful targets of theft for the greater majority. This is because with relatively little knowledge, situational awareness, and a few triggers you could effectively foil any theft attempt; selfishness was even pushed to the bottom of Survival to stack the deck against thieves. Some changes to theft like the ones I and others have proposed would give you increased opportunity to retrieve lost items even if you were irresponsible with them and allowed them to be stolen.
Just as in my example with PK, as long as their is a way to prevent something, you are responsible for preventing it. This does not mean you are not a victim if you get robbed, it just means you are not a helpless victim. The job of the admins is to make sure that the tools available to players are as balanced as possible.
As the revered @Cobra says, if you wish to be elite, no whining.