Building a Better Theft System

Kresslack

Shirszae said:

Katzchen said:

@kresslack I don't know if eye sigils disrupt blackwind, but that would be largely irrelevant anyway, as I believe they got in as I came out - there was no point where I was in the same room as them long enough to throw an eye sigil. I don't even -know- if that's how he got in, but I can't see any other way he could have without the door slamming after him, and getting me stuck in there as well!

  @Katzchen If thats how it happened, then simply evading down would have down the trick as well, since doors don't close automatically when you evade. Also, as far as I remember, eye sigils don't work for blackwind/astral, only phase. Blackwind/Astral I think is negated by flash or some such ability druids have. 

If Blackwind/Astralform are negated by a grove ability only, I think that's a bit absurd. In essence, they're a lot like Phase. I'm not sure if you can open doors while Blackwinded, but I know you can while Astralformed/Phased. Eye sigil might actually work on Astral, because I think I caught Hirst with one last night, or maybe he did something to drop it.

I honestly thing Eye sigil should work on them all, as this gives everyone the ability to utilize it instead of having something that significant limited to only one class skill.

Jurixe

Just going to stop the eye sigil misinformation before it goes any further. It does not work on blackwind or astralform.

I greatly disliked the pickpocketing system when it first came out, but in hindsight it was probably a reflex reaction more than anything else. In its current incarnation, it is very easy to stop. Yes, it still punishes the afk people, but to a much less harsh degree than the old system did, and you lose much, much less if you should ever be caught in that situation, assuming it's a disconnect. If you're afking by choice...well then.

Really, I think the only thing that needs to be changed with the current system is perhaps increasing the types of things that can be pickpocketed, and it would be a good enough balance between the OP system of old and the current, much-watered down incarnation. Nobody that is aware enough and always has selfishness up should ever be able to be stolen from. Immunity from conflict is not something that you can take for granted in a game that revolves around conflict. It is something that you should have to work for, just like anything else, and even that is minimal.

Shop theft is also completely preventable. You just have to speak to the correct people about it to find out what you need to do to keep your things safe. It really isn't the fault of the thief if the shop owner was taught the wrong protective methods, and really, you can even figure it out yourself if you do a little investigating into what the relevant abilities do.

Granted, not all thieves are paragons of RP and it does suck to lose things. However, the things that can be stolen right now are all largely things that have close to zero possible sentimental value, and as for shop theft, see above. It's entirely unreasonable to tar all the thieves with the same brush when you don't know how or why the skills work or how we operate.

Katzchen

@Jurixe so how do you stop someone blackwinded/astralled/phased from entering the shop as you leave? As far as I can see, aliasing to unlock, open, leave in one go is the best you can do, and  that clearly wasn't enough.

@Kresslack you can't open doors while blackwinded, or do anything - like enter grates, or subdivisions. You can only choke, move, and return to your regular form. There is also a -very- high willpower drain to it. I can't stay blackwinded for more than maybe five minutes before my willpower is all gone? And you die if you run out of willpower in blackwind.

Silvarien

Look everyone... I am really sorry I got so flipped out in this thread. Yeah, I haven't had very good experiences with theft, to put it mildly, but taking it OOC to this extent was too much.

You guys probably don't care, but sorry to have nuked your thread and gotten into arguments with you. I am considering leaving the forums to prevent stuff like this from happening in the future. I've stayed this long only because this forum is a better way to suggest ideas than the in-game IDEA command and I've managed to suggest stuff that did get implemented.

Vayne

Katzchen said:

@Jurixe so how do you stop someone blackwinded/astralled/phased from entering the shop as you leave? As far as I can see, aliasing to unlock, open, leave in one go is the best you can do, and  that clearly wasn't enough.

@Kresslack you can't open doors while blackwinded, or do anything - like enter grates, or subdivisions. You can only choke, move, and return to your regular form. There is also a -very- high willpower drain to it. I can't stay blackwinded for more than maybe five minutes before my willpower is all gone? And you die if you run out of willpower in blackwind.

Ask someone knowledgeable in game, preferably about shop security if you would! I can think of one sure fire way to avoid it off the top of my head though.

@Jurixe Expanding the list of items that one can pickpocket would be nice, but the way I see it, that would make it extremely OP given the lack of skill involved in pickpocketing as well as the lack of message indicating the perpetrator. There needs to be more of  a expanded system if it is to go beyond gold and trinkets.

Katzchen

@Vayne I have spoken to people about it IC... Maybe they were the wrong people to ask, but they sounded like they knew what they were talking about. Also makes it awkward when the solution is x amount of triggers/aliases to discuss it IC.

Vayne

Silvarien said:

Look everyone... I am really sorry I got so flipped out in this thread. Yeah, I haven't had very good experiences with theft, to put it mildly, but taking it OOC to this extent was too much.

You guys probably don't care, but sorry to have nuked your thread and gotten into arguments with you. I am considering leaving the forums to prevent stuff like this from happening in the future. I've stayed this long only because this forum is a better way to suggest ideas than the in-game IDEA command and I've managed to suggest stuff that did get implemented.

The forum gets even the best of us at times, it is a horrible, horrible abyss. Gods forbid @Hirst ever masters its pact.

Jurixe

The old theft system didn't exactly require any real skill to steal items off afk people/people without selfishness, though, and this is still ultimately the only way anyone ever would be stolen from. I don't think pickpocketing as it currently is is OP. If the issue is that there's no name given, most items worth stealing will be in containers/worn, and you need to snap them to take it out/remove - plus you can't target particular items, only hope that you get them. If you're just holding them, with no selfishness, afk, then I don't know what else to say.

@Katzchen, ask me IG.

Vayne

Well, the argument is that hypnosis took more finess in setting up the target, then snapping, then beating out the delay, whereas PP you can time the action commands and the 10 second delay pretty easily. Though major difference currently is that you cannot target things specifically, not to mention the items are extremely limited in scope with having a few sovereigns out or some simple tricks acting as an easy buffer.

Naisar

I maintain that the only way to make theft a positive mechanic is to implement it in such a way that both parties have potential benefits.  But I still have no idea how to do this

Kresslack

I was a thief for a good number of years. The current theft system came as a result of people constantly complaining about being stolen from, when in fact theft was much more difficult to accomplish with the old system. Couldn't strip selfishness, couldn't force give/throw items. If you used a top hat, you had to wait and hope they didn't notice, or fill it with rubbish and hope you got it back in time. You really had to be creative to pull off any worthwhile theft unless the target was completely afk.

This current system is more like a button mash system that doesn't really give that opportunity for creativity and reward yielded based on effort put into the attempt. There's also very little reward gained as a result unless, again, someone is completely afk. It's very bland, and was in a very small part, one of the reasons I changed class. 

Jarrel

Silvarien said:

Jarrel said:

Silvarien has made this into the most ridiculous discussion ever. Please dont feed the troll anymore.

Right everyone, Silvarien has made this into the most ridiculous discussion ever. Please don't feed the troll anymore.

So, let's not feed the troll, let's all get back to the "productive activity" of robbing people and laughing in their faces! Right, @Jarrel ? Or is popular sentiment of you deeply misguided and you only do it to feed your starving children or because your daddy beat you as a child? There's obviously complex socioeconomic reasons behind you taking that guy's journals and non-decay stuff and killing him for added fun. And that time you snapped me near the cave, you were just lonely and cast out by society and you needed someone -- anyone -- to have a cup of tea with and tell all your problems to.

I guess all those real life dollars people spent non-decaying their stuff that ended up in your pack against their will, that's all just "play money" that actually didn't cost them anything, but which you "worked" so hard to get. You're such a hero to have pulled off all your heists. So look, I hang around people that you do shit to, and we just plain don't like you very much. With the sort of "RP" you treat us to, most of us prefer you weren't around. Sorry you're morally outraged about it. And welcome to the world of taking shit that doesn't belong to you.

This conversation reminds me of Jules. 

Why would someone make something non-decay but not resetting? 

Also, people who make 1-2 items non-decay usually used in-game gold, those who have multiple items usually used credits and can usually stand to lose 10$, it's what they'll go to the pub and piss away on most days.

I'm also going to point out, if someone is going to quit if I stole his vial or some gold you really think he'd be a long term player (if he lost a substansial amount of gold, he's old enough to have been wiser about keeping it safe)? He's most likely going to get 'butthurt' when he finds out how tough it is to pvp, how tough it is to bash to dragon, how tough it is to get decent weapons, how tough it is to skill up. I can honestly say more people have quit when they have been frustrated trying to skill up than from ever being robbed. Why don't you start a crusade to fix that first?

Maybe we should shut down the stock market? I can show you statistics of suicide after people have lost everything.

Maybe we should shut down the casinos? Bet them indians don't say 'hey, Bob - he not having fun, maybe we shut down casino, spare him butthurt'.

Let's close down the schools while we're at it, statistics show how many kids either suicide or turn firearms on others.

Let's continue to foolproof Achaea so it can become an Utopia for people who just want to bash, chat and have a stinking good time without any sort of negative experience because, god forbid, they might quit if they get a dose of realism.

Silvarien

Jarrel said:

Silvarien said:

Jarrel said:

Silvarien has made this into the most ridiculous discussion ever. Please dont feed the troll anymore.

Right everyone, Silvarien has made this into the most ridiculous discussion ever. Please don't feed the troll anymore.

So, let's not feed the troll, let's all get back to the "productive activity" of robbing people and laughing in their faces! Right, @Jarrel ? Or is popular sentiment of you deeply misguided and you only do it to feed your starving children or because your daddy beat you as a child? There's obviously complex socioeconomic reasons behind you taking that guy's journals and non-decay stuff and killing him for added fun. And that time you snapped me near the cave, you were just lonely and cast out by society and you needed someone -- anyone -- to have a cup of tea with and tell all your problems to.

I guess all those real life dollars people spent non-decaying their stuff that ended up in your pack against their will, that's all just "play money" that actually didn't cost them anything, but which you "worked" so hard to get. You're such a hero to have pulled off all your heists. So look, I hang around people that you do shit to, and we just plain don't like you very much. With the sort of "RP" you treat us to, most of us prefer you weren't around. Sorry you're morally outraged about it. And welcome to the world of taking shit that doesn't belong to you.

This conversation reminds me of Jules. 

Why would someone make something non-decay but not resetting? 

Also, people who make 1-2 items non-decay usually used in-game gold, those who have multiple items usually used credits and can usually stand to lose 10$, it's what they'll go to the pub and piss away on most days.

I'm also going to point out, if someone is going to quit if I stole his vial or some gold you really think he'd be a long term player (if he lost a substansial amount of gold, he's old enough to have been wiser about keeping it safe)? He's most likely going to get 'butthurt' when he finds out how tough it is to pvp, how tough it is to bash to dragon, how tough it is to get decent weapons, how tough it is to skill up. I can honestly say more people have quit when they have been frustrated trying to skill up than from ever being robbed. Why don't you start a crusade to fix that first?

Maybe we should shut down the stock market? I can show you statistics of suicide after people have lost everything.

Maybe we should shut down the casinos? Bet them indians don't say 'hey, Bob - he not having fun, maybe we shut down casino, spare him butthurt'.

Let's close down the schools while we're at it, statistics show how many kids either suicide or turn firearms on others.

Let's continue to foolproof Achaea so it can become an Utopia for people who just want to bash, chat and have a stinking good time without any sort of negative experience because, god forbid, they might quit if they get a dose of realism.

@Jarrel : If you go down a bit on the response roster you'll notice I admitted I over reacted and opted out of the argument some time ago.

Kaie

I see a bunch of people arguing they should be able to take more than what they can. How about you guys get jobs and do stuff yourselves in achaea? There.. problem solved actually, create jobs in achaea where wouldbe street trash can spend all that energy that's directed at stealing the possessions of others into being productive and earning what they want. hahaha. Seriously though, I'm not into the idea of bringing back the griefy thefts. things like journals and decks should remain unstealable. There's no real reason to steal a journal unless you're pretty creepy and want to learn about some one elses fake life and decks take too much work and are like the worst thing. It takes time to gain gold to buy the deck you want then more time to buy the cards, and then the time to sit and inscribe the cards. When you have a deck 2000+ cards get jacked cause you ripped.. that's pretty shitty.

Vayne

I would actually make things non-decay but not resetting. The chance that they could still be lost or stolen made them more valuable to me.

Naisar

Here's the thing, @Jarrel.  I have no problem with people wanting more danger injected into Achaea.  Everyone's free to have their opinion, and I don't really care either way.  But come on dude, if you really want to live on a knife's edge, you should be looking at making life difficult for the thief.  The entire goddamn crux of the problem is that the interaction is only dangerous for one party.  If we can make it so that each is taking different but relatively equal risks, and each can expect rewards proportionate to the risk they take, then we can make it as cutthroat as we want!  The 'dangerousness' of theft and Achaea in general is certainly something we can discuss and deal with, but it's really just a modifier laid on top of an unhealthy interaction.  Fix the underlying problem and you'll probably find people much more receptive to your vision of an Achaea with lasting consequences.

Sena

Here are the qualities I imagine an ideal theft system having:

• Requires innovation and creativity (preferably for both the thief and their target), not just something mundane like a simple pickpocket/steal command.
  
• Requires or strongly encourages thieves to target active, experienced players, rather than AFK/disconnected/newbie players.
  
• Requires the theft targets to do something to open themselves to theft, rather than the thief choosing anyone they'd like as a target. This way the thief has to react to the target, instead of the thief choosing when and how to initiate the interaction and the target just succeeding or failing in preventing it, and it prevents thieves from targeting AFK or disconnected players who haven't otherwise made themselves vulnerable.
  
• A theft target can potentially benefit mechanically from an attempted theft somehow. Right now, the best possible outcome for the target is being slightly inconvenienced (maybe a bit of experience if they kill the thief).
• Theft should be a viable profession, something that can be the primary source of income for a good thief.
• A person who is successfully stolen from can suffer significant losses, but only infrequently, and can't lose everything they have.

Pickpocket mostly succeeds at the 5th point, and is somewhat close on the 6th (the target can mostly only lose gold, and large amounts of gold will take a long time to steal).

Old theft succeeded at the 1st point, having nearly infinite possibilities and requiring innovation for thieves to get around the large number of protections against the large number of theft methods, and also innovation in finding new ways to protect against the ever-growing number of theft methods. It was a fun and interesting arms race, at times.

Shop theft is a sort of example of the 2nd and 3rd points. New or inexperienced players are much less likely to be owning/restocking shops, and the thieves target people who do something that very obviously comes with the risk of theft (entering a stockroom). There is the chance of being disconnected in the stockroom, but that's a pretty small window, so the thieves mostly can't target disconnected or AFK (unless they're really stupid) players.

I have no ideas for how to achieve the 4th point, or how to combine all of these into a single mechanic.

Kaitali

Katzchen said:

I have used every method I've been told to protect a shop from theft - I still had someone break in somehow. Thankfully they were Mhaldorian, and all I lost was my head over it.

I use eye sigils. Search. I triggered unlocking/entering/leaving, have everything ready to change before I go in, so I'm only there a few seconds. Keep the important sigils in the shop. Somehow someone still managed to get in as I left, without me even seeing. Blackwinded, I supose. This is why I won't rent shops anymore. The payoff can be nice, but it's not worth it if you can take every precaution, and still be thwarted by someone sitting there and spamming 'down' in astral/blackwind, losing a good 300k of stock.

There are multiple ways to prevent the "down" method. I can think of at least 5, one of which is the one I use to stock and which means I never have to actually go back UP. Also, the "down" method requires a LOT of luck for the thief if the person has everything aliased for coming back up. Granted, most thieves are probably going to be more knowledgeable about how to prevent this than average people, but that seems to be more of a problem with people being taught the wrong anti-theft techniques.

I'd like to clear up a few things I've seen in this thread about how thieves are jerks and only target the inexperienced, etc. There is a mental checklist that both Jarrod and I go through before we even consider robbing someone. Ofcourse, I don't steal nearly as often as he does.

First off, neither of us targets any Hashani or Ashtani (I only really target Mhaldorians). We don't target low might or low levels. Usually around 70+ AND high might are the only ones we even bother to notice. If we have recently robbed someone (shop or pickpocketing), we don't target them again for quite awhile. As far as I know we've never robbed the same person or shop more than once ever, even when I've personally noticed MOST times it's always the same people doing the same insecure things like AFKing outside a city, etc. Jarrod has sold back the shop wares from two shops he has robbed in Cyrene, including the first shop he ever robbed in which the owner spammed him with cussing at him in caps lock when they noticed he had robbed them. 5 minutes later he was selling back their shop stock at a huge loss, because he felt bad.

This sort of behavior is not what you'd see from a "jerk" that wants to ruin the game for everyone else, it's someone that just enjoys the mechanics of the game and wants to have fun with it, but also tries to be reasonable to targets. We would have a lot more combined thefts, but we don't want to ruin anyone's game or make them stop playing, so we put restrictions on ourselves to avoid potentially griefing someone. It takes a REALLY long time to find targets and we spend a lot of time thinking of new strategies, the vast majority of my time spent in Achaea is watching people's habits. It's not as if we're logging in and instantly finding tons of people to rob over and over again.

Restraint has to be shown by the thief in order to prevent a lot of the issues people see with theft and not all thieves are willing to show that restraint, but some do. When it comes to shop security, there are a number of ways to better protect yourself that most people either simply don't use or don't seem to know about. Even if I were not a thief, I would have still probably thought of ways to better protect my shop because I DO value the contents and don't want them robbed. If you value something, then you should be trying to think of better ways to protect it and doing so pretty regularly.

Nakari

^this is the mindset of how all theft should be. I would love to be in danger of anything at all similar, in terms of danger and recourse after the fact, occurring to me.

Mishgul

A blackwinded apostate with a gem and a veil could probably break into a shop with almost no notice if he knew when someone was about to stock a shop, and if the shopkeeper wasnt a monk or BM. Interesting.

Sena

Can shopkeepers lock the door to the shop as well as the stockroom door?

Kaitali

Sena said:

Can shopkeepers lock the door to the shop as well as the stockroom door?

Some of them can but I believe only if they haven't had a lock change in RL years. All the new lock changes, as far as I know, only lock stockroom doors and not the outside door.

Trevize

Katzchen said:

@kresslack I don't know if eye sigils disrupt blackwind, but that would be largely irrelevant anyway, as I believe they got in as I came out - there was no point where I was in the same room as them long enough to throw an eye sigil. I don't even -know- if that's how he got in, but I can't see any other way he could have without the door slamming after him, and getting me stuck in there as well!

Something that tends to help... when you send a batch of commands, the first one goes through, there is a slight delay, then all the rest go through at the same time. Set your alias to do something unrelated to getting in the shop before doing the rest.

Katzchen

Trevize said:

Katzchen said:

@kresslack I don't know if eye sigils disrupt blackwind, but that would be largely irrelevant anyway, as I believe they got in as I came out - there was no point where I was in the same room as them long enough to throw an eye sigil. I don't even -know- if that's how he got in, but I can't see any other way he could have without the door slamming after him, and getting me stuck in there as well!

Something that tends to help... when you send a batch of commands, the first one goes through, there is a slight delay, then all the rest go through at the same time. Set your alias to do something unrelated to getting in the shop before doing the rest.

Actually had that. I do average a 0.3s latency. Perhaps that is why he managed to get in anyway?

Sena

With such high latency and not being able to lock the outer door, I wouldn't leave the stockroom through the door at all. Get someone to prism to if you don't have some other way of leaving the room.

Shirszae

I thought not leaving the way you came in was standard procedure. 

Sylvance

I'm not a textThief, but I'm just slightly distraught that a 'Building a Better Theft System' thread has turned into an OOC discussion of how to avoid theft in game. All of this exchange of information is excellent RP fodder.

Valden

Sylvance said:

I'm not a textThief, but I'm just slightly distraught that a 'Building a Better Theft System' thread has turned into an OOC discussion of how to avoid theft in game. All of this exchange of information is excellent RP fodder.

Perhaps but it's hard to RP the fact that you just can't be the physics of latency and I think this has come about because all known IC resolution was exhausted.

Sylvance

Right... but you could RP learning why it isn't a good idea to leave through the same door you went in by if you can't move at a certain speed

Blujixapug

Sylvance said:

I'm not a textThief, but I'm just slightly distraught that a 'Building a Better Theft System' thread has turned into an OOC discussion of how to avoid theft in game. All of this exchange of information is excellent RP fodder.

In my experience discussing the nuances of ability and other game mechanics is not so much excellent RP as barely IC.