Casing and Fencing

Maajida

If you bid on a lot and lose, does your gold get mailed back to you? Is this just a big goldsink? 

Edit: I guess this discourages people from bidding unless they really want it but... without any metric to go on, people trying to get their stuff back are going to lose more than its worth and people who want it (the thieves) will lose more trying to overpay to ensure the owner doesn't get it. There has to be a better way. 

So if I'm a third party, trying to bid, and the owner is notified that someone other than the thief won and decide to buy it out, does that person get their gold back? I can't see any valid reason to bid, in any case, unless you are super rich and gold means nothing to you.

BTW: Seems like only Profit is taking part so far. 

Sobriquet

Why on earth would you not get your gold back on a losing bid?

Cooper

Maajida said:

If you bid on a lot and lose, does your gold get mailed back to you? Is this just a big goldsink? 

Edit: I guess this discourages people from bidding unless they really want it but... without any metric to go on, people trying to get their stuff back are going to lose more than its worth and people who want it (the thieves) will lose more trying to overpay to ensure the owner doesn't get it. There has to be a better way. 

So if I'm a third party, trying to bid, and the owner is notified that someone other than the thief won and decide to buy it out, does that person get their gold back? I can't see any valid reason to bid, in any case, unless you are super rich and gold means nothing to you.

BTW: Seems like only Profit is taking part so far. 

Why would you assume that your gold doesn't get returned to you? I'd like to know your thought process on how you arrived at that conclusion.

Maajida

I overlooked a line that says it will be returned to you. I don't understand the responses to my question, I'm just trying to get answers. The wording for the whole win and lose scenarios was a bit confusing in the post.

Cooper

Okay, but why would you assume that gold wouldn't be returned to you even if that line wasn't there?

The wording was not confusing to others, and there is no precedent for not having gold returned.

Qidaxt

Okay, but why would you continue to pursue this line of questioning when she's already admitted to being mistaken and confused?

Maybe you should just...

Cooper

I'm asking questions on their reasoning so that I can coach them why that thought process was wrong.

If I don't know their reasoning it is hard to explain outside of "no reasonable person would assume you would lose gold on a bid".

Thaisen

      

Cooper

I'm asking questions so I can help this person, everyone giving me shit for that can fuck off.

Jiraishin

Cooper said:

I'm asking questions so I can help this person, everyone giving me shit for that can fuck off.

The person doesn't need help. They were confused. Now they are less confused. Nothing in her wording suggests she wants to be coached on why their thought process is wrong, as you put it, so you're more likely to irritate or offend with unsolicited advice than you are to be actually helpful.

Silas

I really like the changes, but I think that uninvolved third parties should lose their gold regardless of whether or not their bid is successful. Letting people steal someone's shit risk-free by being richer than the mark seems counter-productive to this system.

Cooper

All that would do is make the chance for them to get their important items back worse, as the rich would just make sure they overbid and had no chance of losing the gold.

Would probably help get less valuable items back though. 

Silas

But that's the thing. You can pick up items literally risk free now by overbidding because if the thief or the mark still outbids you you don't lose anything, and it won't even be considered theft if you do win so there are absolutely 0 consequences for doing so. At least this way you're risking whatever gold you put up for any given item.

Sophi

Also prevents potential griefing of the original owner via bid inflation

Tahquil

Isn't bid inflation only possible if you are allowed to make mutliple bids on one thing? My interpretation of the fence was you offer your highest price and that's it. No second bids in case you lose out.

Edit : If you want to be that dick that bids 100,000g on an item to make sure you win it you're on the hook for the entire 100,000g, not the 10,005g (5g over the second highest bid).

Sophi

That's what friends are for

Tvistor

I want everyone to lose their bid if even if they aren't the highest bidder so we see dollar auction scenarios.

Kresslack

Silas said:

But that's the thing. You can pick up items literally risk free now by overbidding because if the thief or the mark still outbids you you don't lose anything, and it won't even be considered theft if you do win so there are absolutely 0 consequences for doing so. At least this way you're risking whatever gold you put up for any given item.

It's an auction. Why would you lose your bid if you don't win? There shouldn't be any risk involved in bidding on stolen items. The risk was in getting them stolen to begin with. What you're suggesting would likely end up with people not only losing their items, but their gold on top of it when trying to get it back. That sounds horrible.

Shirszae

Kresslack said:

Silas said:

But that's the thing. You can pick up items literally risk free now by overbidding because if the thief or the mark still outbids you you don't lose anything, and it won't even be considered theft if you do win so there are absolutely 0 consequences for doing so. At least this way you're risking whatever gold you put up for any given item.

It's an auction. Why would you lose your bid if you don't win? There shouldn't be any risk involved in bidding on stolen items. The risk was in getting them stolen to begin with. What you're suggesting would likely end up with people not only losing their items, but their gold on top of it when trying to get it back. That sounds horrible.

From what I understood, he means third parties bidding should lose their gold, not the mark itself who lost the item.

Kresslack

Yeah, that still doesn't sound like a good idea.

Asmodron

Kresslack said:

Yeah, that still doesn't sound like a good idea.

A lot of it doesnt

Keorin

I can't say I really like the new system. It's -better-, but I feel like this is an overhaul for theft that doesn't really fix the fundamental issues. There's still no meaningful repercussions or risk for the thief, no recourse for the target stolen from beyond "you lose money", and interactions with the thief, which were the one sometimes neat part about the old system, are gone.

In practice, this still means that a thief is going to run out, try and case people not on guards, then go bury themselves in the wilderness or stand on guards, and sometimes get a payday, so the core dynamic that made theft a frustrating mechanic is still there. And you may have a better chance of buying back your stuff, but there's an added chance of some rich person coming in to try and snipe something, and at worse hiking up the price for the person stolen from.

If nothing else, one change I think would make it a lot better is if the person stolen from had the chance to match the thief's bid on the item, not just when it was a third party. My fear with how things stand is that for anything truly valuable, a thief will just use superior buying power to snatch the item up for plenty of money, and then add that to how much it'll cost the original owner to get it back. As things stand, we've basically turned theft into one more mechanic where OOC disposable income gives you a leg up, and that's frustrating to see.

Asmodron

Recently I've been inquiring and testing with casing to see just how it works, in order to give a valid opinion of it.

- When someone cases you, the 'case' lasts for about 1 RL day from the last time the case was done. As there is a cooldown of 50 mins between casing someone, this means the thief is required to target individuals that are often around and not on guards. This would make hunters a primary target.

- The first case (level 1) cannot be seen (unsure if vigilance shows it), and so you wont know if you are already being 'added to someone's list' for future casing. It takes other applications of casing before a name is even shown.

Once again, protection from theft is gained by sitting on guard stacks or avoiding to be around.  The only other option is to 'kill' the thief...yet let's be real here...any thief that knows what they are doing knows how to avoid being touched.

I understand this system was placed to supply some form of 'counter-measure' to theft of items but  as it stands, it doesnt provide much. You cant find the thief to kill them, nor can you avoid being cased while hunting. You basically need to wait for the timer to tick down...or hope you have enough to afford what they swiped.

Illarion

Huh, I never in a million years thought the admin would put effort into bringing theft back, even in a limited way.  That's intriguing (from a game direction standpoint if nothing else).  Also so weird to see @Profit, @Silas and @Cooper arguing on the forums about theft mechanics.  Did I fall asleep and wake up in 2012?  Anyway, is this good?

I want someone who's opinion I trust to tell me if it's any good.  It looks... interesting anyway.  Also, there's an RP NPC theft org now?  I'm going to have to log in and read the news.  Hmph.

Profit

Asmodron said:

As there is a cooldown of 50 mins between casing someone, this means the thief is required to target individuals that are often around and not on guards. This would make hunters a primary target.

Yes, the purpose of case is to target people who play the game.

- The first case (level 1) cannot be seen (unsure if vigilance shows it), and so you wont know if you are already being 'added to someone's list' for future casing. It takes other applications of casing before a name is even shown.

The first case can be seen if you have Vigilance up. Even after the first case, though, the percentage chance of success on a targeted pickpocket is below the original percentage chance prior to the change.

Once again, protection from theft is gained by sitting on guard stacks or avoiding to be around.  The only other option is to 'kill' the thief...yet let's be real here...any thief that knows what they are doing knows how to avoid being touched.

Protection comes in the form of awareness and alertness. It's no longer possible to simply roll up on someone and steal something incredibly valuable without providing them with some chance to avoid it. There are now three layers of security between the thief and their target's items, as opposed to the two that there were previously.

You basically need to wait for the timer to tick down...or hope you have enough to afford what they swiped.

Yes, a thief can build cases on you if you're out and about. Cases aren't theft, though, they're an early warning system. They exist to tell you, "Hey, Thief is interested in something that you have." You can take those signals and act on them in any number of ways to thwart future attempts. You can stash your valuables in a house, you can purchase extra backpacks to confuse the thief, you can create selfishness and rewear triggers, you can trigger snaps to run home, you can trigger snaps to stay off balance to avoid generosity, you can trigger snaps to paralyze the thief, or - yes - you can stay home and wait for the case timers to tick down.

There are a lot of solutions and approaches that exist now that didn't exist in the prior system. Complaining about casing is complaining about a system that benefits the victims... it's like throwing away your smoke detector because you don't like fires.

Khel

I don't like that case doesn't respect paralysis, there was only one way I could  find to actually stop it. Otherwise I'm pretty fine with these changes, other than the obvious "killing the thief" not being particularly viable.

Sophi

Why would case respect para, your eyeballs still work just fine. Does anyone have numbers on % success per casing? Or a comparison of how many casings it takes to have an  equivalent chance to pick before the change?

Khel

Because case is a channel, and most - not all - are stopped by certain afflictions, such as paralysis.

Also to be equally nitpicky:

A shadowy figure circles you, taking inventory of your possessions.

EDIT: Also, it means that you can't really be proactive. If you catch the thief walking in, you have 5 seconds to kill them or lock them, because they can just unpause/shrug affs/duanathar out, and increment their case counter with no counter (ha) play available to you.

Sophi

I guess I just dont understand why being cased is the worst thing in the world in everyone's eyes. People hide from bounties/contracts for literal days but a couple hours for casing and it's now it's a problem. 

I'm not saying it's a perfect system either but nothing will ever be good enough for this playerbase. 

Khel

Sophi said:

I guess I just dont understand why being cased is the worst thing in the world in everyone's eyes. People hide from bounties/contracts for literal days but a couple hours for casing and it's now it's a problem. 

I'm not saying it's a perfect system either but nothing will ever be good enough for this playerbase. 

I can kill the person with the bounty/contract on me. I mean, I can't, but the theoretical me can? I think it's mostly fine, just the ability to actually stop someone from doing it- you can stop behead, I don't think paralysis stopping case is going to be game-breaking, and otherwise it seems like a pretty fair system. You get a warning (if you're paying attention, like you should be) that someone wants your junk, and you can either take (violent) steps to correct that, or hide on guards.

But right now I could just olive branch, walk into you on guards, case and tank guards for 5 seconds, then as long as you don't get the killing blow I got another case on you, and I guess that feels kind of weird? If you're not sneaky, or they're paying attention, you shouldn't get cases.