Newbie experience from another IRE.

Matias

Let them pickpocket newbies, but always have the thief receive a note (EDIT: instead of anything else) from the city mobs (the ones from the intro) which states something along the lines of "You shouldn't pick on the weak and young." 

OR

Have the gold stolen returned to the person via a letter signed by the intro mobs (and have the thief notified that although their theft was successful, because the person was still under the protection of the mobs, that they took the gold back)

Marax

In the second case, would the gold actually be stolen back from the thief? It's a rather large suspension of disbelief in that scenario.

Thieves just shouldn't be allowed to make theft-like actions against young'uns...I like the "time played" idea. Because by x amount of hours, you should absolutely have Selfishness and knowledge of theft prevention.

Antidas

I disagree with making playing time visible in any means to other people. I can see a number of reasons why someone may want to keep how much time they've played to themselves lol.

From the perspective of a thief, I definitely would support moving the "open for theft" mark up from level 30. To note, however, the way a thief knows if you're over level 30 is because you become ranked once you reach that point; thus, it is against the rules to rob someone who is unranked due to their level. If we were to increase this to level 50 or whatever, we would either need some other way of checking someone's level, or we'd need to move the "unranked" line to level 50 rather than 30.

In regards to the solutions of increasing the level limit to 50 or making it based on age rather than level, and the problems that were noted with both those solutions, why don't we just make it based on both a level AND a certain age? Something like must have reached level 40 and be at least 21 years of age or whatever. Gives them PLENTY of time to learn about things like theft and the like, assuming they're playing in an organization that will help them learn what they need to learn. I mean, its not perfect either because yeah, someone could level up to 40 in a day and then go dormant due to RL things till they're older than 21, then come back and be robbed. No solution is gonna be perfect, but that seems like a pretty good compromise.

Ahmet

Antidas said:

I disagree with making playing time visible in any means to other people. I can see a number of reasons why someone may want to keep how much time they've played to themselves lol.

From the perspective of a thief, I definitely would support moving the "open for theft" mark up from level 30. To note, however, the way a thief knows if you're over level 30 is because you become ranked once you reach that point; thus, it is against the rules to rob someone who is unranked due to their level. If we were to increase this to level 50 or whatever, we would either need some other way of checking someone's level, or we'd need to move the "unranked" line to level 50 rather than 30.

In regards to the solutions of increasing the level limit to 50 or making it based on age rather than level, and the problems that were noted with both those solutions, why don't we just make it based on both a level AND a certain age? Something like must have reached level 40 and be at least 21 years of age or whatever. Gives them PLENTY of time to learn about things like theft and the like, assuming they're playing in an organization that will help them learn what they need to learn. I mean, its not perfect either because yeah, someone could level up to 40 in a day and then go dormant due to RL things till they're older than 21, then come back and be robbed. No solution is gonna be perfect, but that seems like a pretty good compromise.

One's level is public knowledge, both through IC channels and OOC channels. It may take more than 3 seconds to check, but that doesn't mean the information isn't available.

Antidas

Ahmet said:

Antidas said:

I disagree with making playing time visible in any means to other people. I can see a number of reasons why someone may want to keep how much time they've played to themselves lol.

From the perspective of a thief, I definitely would support moving the "open for theft" mark up from level 30. To note, however, the way a thief knows if you're over level 30 is because you become ranked once you reach that point; thus, it is against the rules to rob someone who is unranked due to their level. If we were to increase this to level 50 or whatever, we would either need some other way of checking someone's level, or we'd need to move the "unranked" line to level 50 rather than 30.

In regards to the solutions of increasing the level limit to 50 or making it based on age rather than level, and the problems that were noted with both those solutions, why don't we just make it based on both a level AND a certain age? Something like must have reached level 40 and be at least 21 years of age or whatever. Gives them PLENTY of time to learn about things like theft and the like, assuming they're playing in an organization that will help them learn what they need to learn. I mean, its not perfect either because yeah, someone could level up to 40 in a day and then go dormant due to RL things till they're older than 21, then come back and be robbed. No solution is gonna be perfect, but that seems like a pretty good compromise.

One's level is public knowledge, both through IC channels and OOC channels. It may take more than 3 seconds to check, but that doesn't mean the information isn't available.

Checking it OOCly isn't easy or known to everyone, and will result in people not giving a fuck and doing it anyways because its stupid to figure out how to do if no one has explained it to you. ICly, its only public knowledge if you're a higher level than them, assuming you're referring to rankings experience. In most cases the thief will be, but they may not be, and I'd prefer not to assume that they always will.

If its going to be something we're going to make into a law about who you can and cannot rob, it needs to be a 3 second check, or else people aren't going to check and things will keep going the way they are currently.

Kafziel

Not sure if it's been mentioned but it's also mechanically impossible to rob level 30 and below right now.  You get some message about grace of the gods blah blah, so I would think the conditions on this defence could just be changed to whatever is deemed the right point to start robbing people.

Also I'm unsure if it expires after a certain time or when they reach level 31 (guessing the latter) but it is also impossible mechanically to rob level 30s that are ranked, even though technically it's legal by the rules.

Skye

Antidas said:

I disagree with making playing time visible in any means to other people. I can see a number of reasons why someone may want to keep how much time they've played to themselves lol.

From the perspective of a thief, I definitely would support moving the "open for theft" mark up from level 30. To note, however, the way a thief knows if you're over level 30 is because you become ranked once you reach that point; thus, it is against the rules to rob someone who is unranked due to their level. If we were to increase this to level 50 or whatever, we would either need some other way of checking someone's level, or we'd need to move the "unranked" line to level 50 rather than 30.

In regards to the solutions of increasing the level limit to 50 or making it based on age rather than level, and the problems that were noted with both those solutions, why don't we just make it based on both a level AND a certain age? Something like must have reached level 40 and be at least 21 years of age or whatever. Gives them PLENTY of time to learn about things like theft and the like, assuming they're playing in an organization that will help them learn what they need to learn. I mean, its not perfect either because yeah, someone could level up to 40 in a day and then go dormant due to RL things till they're older than 21, then come back and be robbed. No solution is gonna be perfect, but that seems like a pretty good compromise.

Level  Name
-----  ----
...
   30  Courageous
   31  Distinguished
   32  Intrepid
   33  Dauntless
   34  Unflinching
   35  Dynamic
   36  Prominent
   37  Prestigious
   38  Superior
   39  Radiant
   40  Grand
   41  Salient
   42  Heroic
   43  Golden
   44  Valiant
   45  Marvellous
   46  Luminary
   47  Shining
   48  Scintillating
   49  Eminent
   50  Paragon

rankings xp 2560

Rank      Player                                       Title

---------------------------------------------------------------------

#2560     Zalupa, of Targossas                         (Paragon)

#2561     Quincy, of Targossas                         (Paragon)

#2562     Traine                                       (Paragon)

#2563     Mason Steinar                                (Paragon)

#2564     Traveller Ainaon                             (Paragon)

#2565     Alston                                       (Paragon)

#2566     Xorten                                       (Paragon)

#2567     Boes                                         (Paragon)

#2568     Seros                                        (Paragon)

#2569     Mischievite Eshta, the Pyrite                (Paragon)

#2570     Gorkiy, Alchemical Initiate                  (Paragon)

#2571     Sapling Muirghein, of the Edelweiss          (Paragon)

#2572     Archdruid Rhenn                              (Eminent)

#2573     Rini Seris                                   (Eminent)

#2574     Korosu                                       (Eminent)

#2575     Elaeejah                                     (Eminent)

#2576     Ranthann                                     (Eminent)

#2577     Phein                                        (Eminent)

#2578     Crannos                                      (Eminent)

#2579     Shield Bearer Adeve                          (Eminent)

It's not hard. The effort just has to be made. And given that what they're doing makes light of other player's efforts, I don't see any problem in the slight inconvenience.

Antidas

@Skye as I said before, none of this addresses the problem that if you're a lower level than the person you're targeting as a thief, you won't be able to check what level they are. Sure, this isn't an extremely likely scenario, but its also not unheard of, and if it happened even once, that'd be too often. We need a solution that doesn't make it impossible for certain people to confirm their target is actually potential theft target.

That said, I didn't actually realize it was mechanically impossible to steal from someone under level 30, as @Kafziel just pointed out. Probably because I never try to rob them lol. Easy enough solution would just be to use that code to make it impossible to rob people under whatever restrictions T or Sarapis decide is necessary.

Kafziel

Hey it was for antitheft tests I wasn't just robbing nubs

Zuko

Antidas said:

I disagree with making playing time visible in any means to other people. I can see a number of reasons why someone may want to keep how much time they've played to themselves lol.

Lol.. I can just imagine recommending the game to a friend, and I finally convince them to log on and they see:

Zuko has played for a total of 134 days, 21 hours and 49 minutes.

"Uhh uhh I can explain I swear."

To think my 134 days is small compared to most. 

Xaden

Zuko said:

To think my 134 days is small compared to most. 

I'm only at 70! 50 of them were in the past 3 months, sure, but still only 70!

Worves

To continue on my point, people are assuming that I meant people would be able to see your exact playtime. I simply meant that either you would have something that lists you as under the requirement or not. There would be no way to view specific numbers. However, I didn't know that you couldn't pickpocket people under level 30. I'd rather see that changed to where you can't pickpocket someone under something like x amount of playtime.

Tahquil

Maybe just when your flag gets set to 'stealable' there is a bigger OMG FLASH FLASH sign that you can now be stolen from and should look into skills and strategies such as the selfishness defence?

Trey

Speaking as someone who's had giant sums lost because of theft, I enjoy it being part of the game.

Rispok

Add NPC thieves to the newbie areas. The thief nabs your cash, a cutscene ensues, and another NPC kills it and hands you back the gold. The saviour NPC demands you pay them 28 lessons or they will rob you of your head. You either die or learn selfishness.

Tecton

We've tweaked the definitions of newbiehood for a couple of things, including CITY NOVICE checks and pickpocketing immunity to include a playtime component alongside the straight experience level, so those who do power through quickly (or attend a bashing trip with the city) won't exclude themselves from many aspects and safeguards of newbiehood.

Kiet

Tecton said:

We've tweaked the definitions of newbiehood for a couple of things, including CITY NOVICE checks and pickpocketing immunity to include a playtime component alongside the straight experience level, so those who do power through quickly (or attend a bashing trip with the city) won't exclude themselves from many aspects and safeguards of newbiehood.

Is there a way for a thief to check this in honours somehow? Having to check each person individually in person seems a bit clunky, especially since some people are going to be in their 30s and still have little playtime sometimes.

Tecton

Not visible in honours, will stop you from pickpocketing though.

Razzlo

After reading this I think an addition to the Tutorial talking about selfishness should be added. I think it would be a neat little scenario and instructive.

I think selfishness should be an inept skill in Survival. Screw the lessons, give it to them right off the bat and let them have it up as they leave the tour.

I think that a thief should not be able to steal from someone until level 50. That the ranking system should be changed accordingly.

I think age and play time are not the best ways to judge such things. My first character got stolen from and I had no idea what was going on and I had been playing a while. 

I think the newbie areas should be open until level 30. They are a good place to get gold with quests and such and will give even more time to earn gold and experience with hunting. 

The first interaction with a player should be about welcoming them, keeping them, teaching them rp and a little about the factions, and making sure they are prepared to play a game with an immense learning curve (most of my friends who sit down to play are turned off by the learning curve alone). I think all of the above does that.

Jonathin

Achaea has already been bubble-wrapped enough. If someone doesn't learn to protect themselves before level 30+new playtime requirement, they'll learn after they've had their stuff stolen.

Not only that, but 99% of people are not going to go from level 0-30 without ever interacting with anybody.

Tecton

Razzlo said:

After reading this I think an addition to the Tutorial talking about selfishness should be added. I think it would be a neat little scenario and instructive.

We're actually in the middle of adding something like this already, alongside other tasks such as using the server-side curing system.

Nataliia

Melodie said:

Just to clarify, you can't steal from someone under level thirty.

That said, with how easy it is to get to thirty, maybe it'd be nice to change it to a time-based limit instead of a level-based one. Whether that's age, or something like an irl week, or something like 20 hours played. Either way, whenever you hit that milestone, some sort of message that informs HEY YOU CAN BE STOLEN FROM NOW, YOU SHOULD READ THIS HELP FILE would be spiffy.

Sorry to hear your experience went a bit sour, but hope you give us another try. Achaea is kind of crazy and overwhelming, but if you can learn to spin minor negative experiences into positive lessons for your character as a roleplay standpoint, you'll generally have quite a lot more fun!

Disclaimer: This is literally the only post I've gotten to in this thread so far, so I apologize if I wind up repeating something that's been said after this one.

I'm not sure if it's a bug I should have filed (@Tecton @Sarapis) but I actually would have been stolen from prior to level 30 if I hadn't been paying attention. I was only level 14 when I was standing in Delos shopping and Driden came in and hypnotised me. Now, I've already made no secret of the fact that I'm one of the recreated noobs, so when a hidden player started endlessly sipping mana in the room I was standing in, I knew it was for something scandalous. I moved rooms, and then a couple seconds later saw the sipping of mana. I waited, just to see if I was right, and sure enough I got snapped and was taking gold out of my pack against my will. At the time I hadn't learned to selfishness yet, so it was only due to my being aware of what was going on that I got my gold back in my pack before the giving it away bit came.

I will say that right after that I went right to Cyrene, bought a shimmering orb (which is a little expensive for a newbie with all the other equipment there is to buy), learned selfishness, and got some reflexes set up. But what about those who aren't familiar with how to offset theft? There are likely help files in every organization about it, but there are also a million others you're supposed to read right out the gate, and let's be honest... that doesn't always happen if you'd rather just bash for a while as a newbie and get a feel for your class and the game you're in.

I am a bit disappointed in the serpents of Achaea though, if I'm being completely honest. I know most of them (that choose to be thieves) don't have any scruples about stealing from newer or lower level players and certainly lack integrity. I've noticed a lot of them skulk around Manara, where most players are between the levels of 40-60 give or take. I'd love to tell them to grow a pair and go steal from people who are going to offer a challenge, because most people in Actar and Manara are still just trying to start out and get by.

The last thing we want as a community is a single mechanic driving new players (and customers from the business standpoint) out of the game. A lot of other classes who had the ability to steal have been nerfed in that regard. I wish they'd do the same to serpents.

Sena

It's actually impossible to pickpocket someone with too low a level (and now, thanks to this thread, it's also impossible if their playtime is too low), the pickpocket simply fails. You can be forced to get your gold out and drop selfishness, but they can't actually finish it unless they use a method other than pickpocket (which isn't common).

Tahquil

Guess there a difference between hypnosis and pick pocket then?

Kiet

Pickpocket was literally put in as a nerf to serpents that didn't completely remove the ability, though. It was a conscious choice.

You can only lose 5000 gold per pickpocket unless you're carrying around absurd amounts of gold, and 5000 gold is not much after you do the minia quests for gold. Also, any city can just easily replace 5000 gold if someone completely clueless loses it. Or, alternatively, teach newbies to make that money back in a short round of questing.

Dairon

Nataliia said:

Melodie said:

Just to clarify, you can't steal from someone under level thirty.

That said, with how easy it is to get to thirty, maybe it'd be nice to change it to a time-based limit instead of a level-based one. Whether that's age, or something like an irl week, or something like 20 hours played. Either way, whenever you hit that milestone, some sort of message that informs HEY YOU CAN BE STOLEN FROM NOW, YOU SHOULD READ THIS HELP FILE would be spiffy.

Sorry to hear your experience went a bit sour, but hope you give us another try. Achaea is kind of crazy and overwhelming, but if you can learn to spin minor negative experiences into positive lessons for your character as a roleplay standpoint, you'll generally have quite a lot more fun!

Disclaimer: This is literally the only post I've gotten to in this thread so far, so I apologize if I wind up repeating something that's been said after this one.

I'm not sure if it's a bug I should have filed (@Tecton @Sarapis) but I actually would have been stolen from prior to level 30 if I hadn't been paying attention. I was only level 14 when I was standing in Delos shopping and Driden came in and hypnotised me. Now, I've already made no secret of the fact that I'm one of the recreated noobs, so when a hidden player started endlessly sipping mana in the room I was standing in, I knew it was for something scandalous. I moved rooms, and then a couple seconds later saw the sipping of mana. I waited, just to see if I was right, and sure enough I got snapped and was taking gold out of my pack against my will. At the time I hadn't learned to selfishness yet, so it was only due to my being aware of what was going on that I got my gold back in my pack before the giving it away bit came.

I will say that right after that I went right to Cyrene, bought a shimmering orb (which is a little expensive for a newbie with all the other equipment there is to buy), learned selfishness, and got some reflexes set up. But what about those who aren't familiar with how to offset theft? There are likely help files in every organization about it, but there are also a million others you're supposed to read right out the gate, and let's be honest... that doesn't always happen if you'd rather just bash for a while as a newbie and get a feel for your class and the game you're in.

I am a bit disappointed in the serpents of Achaea though, if I'm being completely honest. I know most of them (that choose to be thieves) don't have any scruples about stealing from newer or lower level players and certainly lack integrity. I've noticed a lot of them skulk around Manara, where most players are between the levels of 40-60 give or take. I'd love to tell them to grow a pair and go steal from people who are going to offer a challenge, because most people in Actar and Manara are still just trying to start out and get by.

The last thing we want as a community is a single mechanic driving new players (and customers from the business standpoint) out of the game. A lot of other classes who had the ability to steal have been nerfed in that regard. I wish they'd do the same to serpents.

I don't steal, but there is one comment I'd like to make. Targetting people between 40-60 isn't intentional, I think. Rather, most of the higher level (more experienced) players are at guard stacks/journaled or on ships. This is entirely fine for the people that are staying safe from thieves.. it just lessens the pool of potential targets to a niche (30-60 relatively unaware folks) 

Kiet

Dairon said:

Nataliia said:

Melodie said:

Just to clarify, you can't steal from someone under level thirty.

That said, with how easy it is to get to thirty, maybe it'd be nice to change it to a time-based limit instead of a level-based one. Whether that's age, or something like an irl week, or something like 20 hours played. Either way, whenever you hit that milestone, some sort of message that informs HEY YOU CAN BE STOLEN FROM NOW, YOU SHOULD READ THIS HELP FILE would be spiffy.

Sorry to hear your experience went a bit sour, but hope you give us another try. Achaea is kind of crazy and overwhelming, but if you can learn to spin minor negative experiences into positive lessons for your character as a roleplay standpoint, you'll generally have quite a lot more fun!

Disclaimer: This is literally the only post I've gotten to in this thread so far, so I apologize if I wind up repeating something that's been said after this one.

I'm not sure if it's a bug I should have filed (@Tecton @Sarapis) but I actually would have been stolen from prior to level 30 if I hadn't been paying attention. I was only level 14 when I was standing in Delos shopping and Driden came in and hypnotised me. Now, I've already made no secret of the fact that I'm one of the recreated noobs, so when a hidden player started endlessly sipping mana in the room I was standing in, I knew it was for something scandalous. I moved rooms, and then a couple seconds later saw the sipping of mana. I waited, just to see if I was right, and sure enough I got snapped and was taking gold out of my pack against my will. At the time I hadn't learned to selfishness yet, so it was only due to my being aware of what was going on that I got my gold back in my pack before the giving it away bit came.

I will say that right after that I went right to Cyrene, bought a shimmering orb (which is a little expensive for a newbie with all the other equipment there is to buy), learned selfishness, and got some reflexes set up. But what about those who aren't familiar with how to offset theft? There are likely help files in every organization about it, but there are also a million others you're supposed to read right out the gate, and let's be honest... that doesn't always happen if you'd rather just bash for a while as a newbie and get a feel for your class and the game you're in.

I am a bit disappointed in the serpents of Achaea though, if I'm being completely honest. I know most of them (that choose to be thieves) don't have any scruples about stealing from newer or lower level players and certainly lack integrity. I've noticed a lot of them skulk around Manara, where most players are between the levels of 40-60 give or take. I'd love to tell them to grow a pair and go steal from people who are going to offer a challenge, because most people in Actar and Manara are still just trying to start out and get by.

The last thing we want as a community is a single mechanic driving new players (and customers from the business standpoint) out of the game. A lot of other classes who had the ability to steal have been nerfed in that regard. I wish they'd do the same to serpents.

I don't steal, but there is one comment I'd like to make. Targetting people between 40-60 isn't intentional, I think. Rather, most of the higher level (more experienced) players are at guard stacks/journaled or on ships. This is entirely fine for the people that are staying safe from thieves.. it just lessens the pool of potential targets to a niche (30-60 relatively unaware folks) 

Yeah, this is true! The more experienced you get at Achaea the more likely you are to AFK on a huge stack of guards rather than on the delos bridge. Pretty much every thief I know would rather rob a high level high might player, because they simply have orders of magnitude more potential gold. If we're being honest, any thief that's also a combatant isn't exactly going to be scared of most people anyway.

Skye

Kiet said:

Pickpocket was literally put in as a nerf to serpents that didn't completely remove the ability, though. It was a conscious choice.

You can only lose 5000 gold per pickpocket unless you're carrying around absurd amounts of gold, and 5000 gold is not much after you do the minia quests for gold. Also, any city can just easily replace 5000 gold if someone completely clueless loses it. Or, alternatively, teach newbies to make that money back in a short round of questing.

While I've generally been fine with losing the 5000 gold or sigils or whatever. What I've really hated about this pickpocket ability is this.

For a newbie with no defs and no clue, something like this comes out of nowhere. It's probably not as distressing as uncontrollably handing over your entire inventory like I've encountered on one pre-pickpocket alt (For srs. I just hit 30 and was learning at Thera and this guy hypno'd me for everything: vials and all. Talk about griefer mcgrief)

However, it's an attack that you can't put a face to if the thief is just looking to take something/anything from you with a random pickpocket.  You wouldn't know who did it, you wouldn't know how to react. You can't even hire (because you don't know who did it). For those Marks who wonder what happened to all their thief contracts. And these are the ones who get robbed the most.

Tahquil

@Skye : Babygrl, your links ain't there.

Qwyn

You do know who does it. You see them snap.