Forums Home Forum Rules Achaea.com Lore Wiki Vote for Achaea! IronRealms.com
Home› Everything Achaea› North of Thera

Much steal. Very hide. Wow.

13567…13

Comments

  • JonathinJonathin Retired in a hole.

    Theft is the dumbest mechanic in the game. There isn't any good reason for it to exist, yet it persists. Every few years we get these threads and the general sentiment from the vast majority has always been the same with like 2 people objecting with the same arguments. The admin have made a lot of good decisions over the years, but the lack of real action toward a part of the game that the majority of people dislike is not one of them.

    Theft has been a shit mechanic for years and years and words have never worked. I suggest that the people who hate theft just start talking with their wallets. It has been made abundantly clear over the years that Achaea is a business and you can use that knowledge to effect real change.

    I am retired and log into the forums maybe once every 2 months. It was a good 20 years, live your best lives, friends.
  • SobriquetSobriquet

    I understand that, but I think the numerous downsides and frustration that come with theft is not balanced at all by this feeling of danger. There is still danger walking outside the city, with Bella or Big Z walking around, getting caught in fights as you walk past, falling down waterfalls, world events etc, it's not limited to just theft.

    I personally don't see there being a fair balance between "Going shopping in Delos might get me mugged" and "Going to Delos shopping could actually cost me everything I've collected due to a simple mistake"

    Having played a thief I saw up close how it affected some people and quickly realised I didn't want to be part of that game play mechanic.


    (Party): Mezghar says, "Stop."
  • SheveradSheverad

    Yes, theft should be moderated, not removed. It never even crossed my mind that someone could steal legend deck cards, always thought they're like artefacts in this regard. Makes you skeptical about holding on to any. Also, people need to know that up front or that even buying in game gold with real life money via credits you can lose them that easily like that.

    And the problem is, it doesn't apply only to the world outside cities, but even if you're in your own city, on a quiet room with no guards or whatever. People keep forgetting Achaea doesn't see the player numbers it had before, you can find times where there's just 2-3 people in a city only, half of them novices, and there's nothing anyone can do to prevent a thief sneaking in and robbing someone blind like that. If the average player can't log in to have their fun, relax a bit in their city before going off on adventures and hang out with friends, and have a good time in they game, they will move on.

    So many online games out there that offer this, and the extreme lengths it can take, with it being nigh un-punishable offense given those that really do this, keeps driving people away. Theft makes someone logging into Achaea paranoid and thinking about what they should do efficiently in limited time all the while being, and not a place to go in and have some fun, enjoy the world etc. Quite the opposite in fact, making it a chore at times.

    That's bad, if one can't get this, they have a problem.

  • GallidaGallida

    The only people in danger from theft and really, the world outside of guardstacks, are the people most likely to lack proper defenses (reflexes, skills, and/or combat experience) or fast escape arties to get them out of danger. Coincidentally, the people in this thread advocating that there needs to be a sense of danger in the game are marks and thieves, who are both skilled in killing people *and* getting away from ganks.

    Theft overly punishes new and inexperienced players, lacks the opt-in of any other conflict mode in the game, and seems to be perpetuated because the answer to griefing and non-consensual interactions in this game remains "lol don't put yourself in that situation, put them on ignore, just log out and quit playing the game".

  • KogKog

    Buff theft, take it out of serpent and make it a miniskill, and you can only steal from infamous/mark/other thieves. Now the people who think it's fun and exciting can preserve that sense of danger!

  • EuriceEurice

    It's hard to really contest the fact that theft does sort of target the vulnerable in the worst sense of the phrase. Code burden in games to effectively defend against something is kind of yuck. This is also probably not the best game to have that attitude in on my end, but oh well.

    I could definitely support some changes to theft that even the field a bit and make pursuing thieves actually possible post-theft to get your stuff back without having to camp fences for it and spending more gold that you might not actually have (because the thief stole your pack with all your gold in it). I have nothing constructive on offer to how to achieve this though, it doesn't really seem possible to reconcile making this properly engaging for both parties.

    And I suppose that's the heart of the theft issue really - being engaging for both parties.

    What concerns me on the other hand is removing a potentially potent tool for political shenanigans. I know not a lot of that happens in Achaea anymore (IC at least, much to my chagrin), but not having the option to indulge in potentially things like correspondence forgery and well... you know, on second thought, there's not really that much that theft enables in that regard either because of what the game has become over the years.

    So after thinking about it a while, I guess I will tentatively dip my toes into the "maybe we just shouldn't" realm of things as far as theft goes. I really innately dislike the idea of removing conflict-promoting tools, but it is admittedly far harder than it should be to actually resolve that conflict from an individual POV without just handing it off to marks.

  • TaryiusTaryius
    edited July 2021

    Having though about it more, I think a cooldown on pickpocket could be very useful. If theft remains something you can do against anyone for any reason, there should be a limitation.

    I can't go around killing someone as many times as I want, but I can follow someone around and snap them and try pickpocket until they QQ, go to guards, or I get bored. It really lends itself as a griefing tool, over something that could generate interesting conflict or relations.

    A cooldown doesn't seem like a terribly hard thing to implement, and it makes sense if someone saw you rummaging in their pockets that it wouldn't be a wise idea doing it again.

  • GreysGreys

    @Eurice I'm all for meaningful conflict, after all, meaningful combat is the soul of drama. The problem with as it stands is there is nothing ante'ed up on the other side. If a novice gets stolen from, there never satisfactory conclusion to the event.

    I was thinking in terms of combat the same things are being ante'ed (experience, dying). So in this case, the thing that would be required to make it equal is gold. Perhaps having a required guild that has dues to the thieves that get paid out to whoever hires the mark upon a successful kill?

  • KogKog

    The biggest issue with theft isn't what they can get, it's what they risk in return. If you can drain a city's gold by pickpocketing someone, and the recourse is maybe 1 death, hit that button nonstop. Even if it's just a 1% chance.

    Maybe killing a thief should give you 1 item out of their inventory, like when that asshole NPC kills you and steals your vial of lucky.


    On a more serious note, I can't think of anything that balances out the risk:reward ratio, just because *stuff* matters so much more than xp- didn't a thief have a motto about 'death is fleeting, gold is forever'? Everything else has (supposedly) proportional risk to the reward. Sink my ship? Not if I beat you. PK me? I'll gank you back later. Rob my shop of 1000cr worth of items or steal a letter with damning political consequences? Best I can do is 1 death, if I can get you through guards/goonsquad/wings/urn/ship/etc.

  • TahquilTahquil

    Sticky sigil? Like a fist sigil you attach it to an item and if a thief tries to take it they take the sigil instead and it gives them a celerity disadvantage for 30 minutes.

  • CereliaCerelia
    edited July 2021

    The following is rather long, so I ended up sectioning it to help readability.

    (One. Theft as currently implemented perpetuates a fundamentally unfair power imbalance.) To follow up on @Kog's comment on the ridiculously-skewed theft risk-reward ratio: while I fundamentally disagree with the premise that the existence and risk of theft is necessary to maintaining the sense of Achaea being a "dangerous, living, breathing world", supposing for the sake of argument that I did: how would it be possible to ensure that thieves feel a similar sense of danger from engaging in theft, to which everyone else does, from being potentially subject to it?

    I think, for me, this is the most difficult problem to overcome in fixing theft, addressing the power imbalance between those who possess the agency over the danger posed by theft (i.e., thieves), over those who are at the mercy of thieves' decisions (and thereby, their feelings and whims). Nowhere can I see Elyon expressing that he has felt anywhere the same level of risk from the consequences of being a Sapience-wide infamous thief.

    Rather, in the series of WHTYT posts that spawned this thread, Elyon even wrote: "Consequences? I embrace that you're all trying [to k]ill me. I just do my best to avoid it...[It's] been part of the game since the game came out, [it's] why I play the game and well, honestly you should be better. As if "being better" is all that is needed to overcome, as @Sobriquet put it: "the gluttony of items the Administration have allowed into the game" that facilitate thieves "further remov[ing] themselves from repercussions".

    Again: why does theft remain the only arena of adventurer conflict in which a certain few players are permitted to have such influence over the entire rest of the playerbase? I submit this unfairness is the reason theft continues to be this problematic, even after it has been nerfed to near-unrecognizability from its initial implementation in the "Wild Achaean" past.

    (Two. All other conflict in Achaea, the game, is quasi-realistic at best. Actual "realism" and having a "sense of realism" should be distinguished.) To rebut the idea that conflict in Achaea is at all "realistic": as I raised previously, all the other conflict systems I know of are clearly deliberately structured and/or restricted by the Administration so as to allow all of those who choose to participate (of their own free will, rather importantly!) a relatively level playing field and fighting chance.

    A quote from Ender's Shadow comes to mind: "...we don't give a shit about fairness here. We're soldiers. Soldiers do not give the other guy a sporting chance. Soldiers shoot in the back, lay traps and ambushes, lie to the enemy and outnumber the other bastard every chance they get." If conflict in Achaea was actually permitted to be conducted in truly "realistic" fashion, these boards would be so flooded with tears that the Administration could make a killing selling water to ease the ongoing drought in California... that is, if all but the most hardcore pvpers did not simply leave the game. (You may replace this part with any similar exaggerated hyperbole of your choice.)

    (Three. Is it really feasible to keep theft, even if limited to IC communications only?) I am quite sympathetic to those who have shared a desire to reduce but retain theft, limited to IC communications only (i.e., letters, journals, maybe even city tells), to not entirely eliminate the potential for conflict arising from the theft of supposedly private information, "political shenanigans", etcetera.

    However, this also makes me wonder: (a) as a honest question, from someone without much history in the Realms: have any proponents of this actually experienced some meaningful IC event, character development, or such that came about from the theft of information? (Is it even reasonable to expect any such substantial outcome from information theft, considering the characters of Achaean thieves past and present?) Are there historical examples of information theft being a positive mechanic for the game, or is it wishful thinking on proponents' part? And (b) if information theft were kept in the game, what would prevent players from simply abandoning the use of letters altogether and confining themselves to organizational newsboards and private messages?

    (Four. At what point do attempts to save theft in Achaea start falling into the trap of the sunk-cost fallacy?) As posted in the recent Mid-2021 Update, Achaea will mark its' 24th birthday in September. While I do believe the Administration has done and made much progress developing the game we all (claim to) love, to be proud of and celebrate, given how the same conversations about theft have been repeated ad nauseum even over just the history of these forums, I also feel that the Powers That Be should really, seriously, consider whether theft is truly a mechanic worth keeping in Achaea, and if any further attempts to fix the theft system do not fall actually into the trap of the sunk-cost fallacy. My own position is that theft is far beyond saving, and I sincerely hope removing it would provide room for and free up additional Administrative time and energy to be devoted to planning events, activities, and adding new features to the game that the majority of players will genuinely enjoy, as they have frequently proven able to do in the past.

  • ArgwinArgwin

    @Cerelia You get bonus points for quoting Ender's Game.

  • ElyonElyon

    @Taryius there is already a cooldown on pickpocket that works exactly like that...

  • ElyonElyon

    @Farrah




    1. Maybe make targeted theft only usable on infamous/marks. Let sigil/letter theft still be used on anyone for the espionage/rp it can bring. - This would basically render targetted theft unusable. It is, in its current state, very hard to use with the fact that casing someone effectively enough for it to be possible to steal a food item or such takes at least four to five hours without dying. I'd counter it and maybe have certain things easier to steal than others (I suspect that this is already the case but have no insight into the mechanics of the game) where food, jewellery and other assorted stuff is easier to rob than backpacks or stacks of minerals for example.


    2. Cap gold theft per X period of time. - This exists and is called a bank .



    3. Maybe there could be some kind of automatic "insurance" for gold stolen. If you get robbed, you get compensated gold-wise by your city's coffers. That way, theft still exists as a conflict mechanism, but it doesn't hurt those who are most vulnerable. The city could get something like an order writ against the thief for the harm caused to the city which makes the thief open pk to them while the writ is there. If a citizen slays the thief within the alotted time, the writ is completed and the city gets the gold back. If not, the thief keeps it.

    -This pretty much exists for targetted thefts already in the form of fences.


    4. Add something new for thieves to do that's rp focused but not as harmful to others. Maybe they could steal "missives" from people that show glimpses of the person's city's CT history. Would still be stopped by selfishness but wouldn't be an actual item people carry around. Just something generated when the theft goes through. This makes the conflict more org based rather than focused on harming the vulnerable. But adds something that can only be obtained through theft. - That'd be prety cool



    5. Allow theft of other things that are earned IG only and not a big deal but still useful like mementos, foray talisman pieces, and the impermanent tome of muses pages you earn from forays. Maybe Delosian eagles. - mementoes are doable but very hard to actually achieve the theft of. Muse tome pages are basically worthless at this point but I wouldnt hate to see them added to untargetted theft along with food items and other low value stuff maybe. Talisman pieces, caches, paid for items and such have all been upgraded to essentially unstealable.




    Frankly if you were to make severe changes to theft as in making it "journals only", with the current theft mechanics you won't see many, if any at all, thieves. Casing for a targeted theft takes too damn long for it to be a viable thing without at least some chance of a big reward at the end of it.

    Again, I implore anyone who thinks that its too easy to steal as a thief to come and do it for themselves.


    Tell me how there are "no consequences for theft" when can't do a quest without getting ganked.


    Solution? Don't do quests. Rob more people.

  • ElyonElyon

    I'll reccomend that, if anything, the best additions to the game, in terms of theft would be:


    Returnee protections: So that those returning to the game don't get caught up in a theft mill by some rampaging thief. I idea'd this, it went through. Hopefully we'll see something.

    Improved novice protections: If you guys don't think level 30 is a reasonable time by which someone should have learned to antitheft then make that known. Failing that, actually spend your time teaching your novices on how to avoid it instead of complaining. Every city that I've been to has a novice quest about this, too. All your novices keep getting robbed? Do something about it yourself.

  • ElyonElyon

    @Sheverad Legenddeck cards cannot be pickpocketted. This got patched last year some time IIRC when theft got overhauled.

  • TreyalTreyal

    if all theft can be countered by a few basic reflexes why should it exist

  • ElyonElyon

    @Treyal because people are clearly opting into theft by not using those basic reflexes.

  • SaonjiSaonji

    You don't need to make a new post for each person you respond to.

    Disappearing from Achaea for now. See you, space cowboy.


    smileyface#8048 if you wanna chat.

  • AccipiterAccipiter
    edited July 2021

    I think theft is one of Sarapis' golden cows and it isn't allowed to be gotten rid of. If it could it would have been by now.

  • ElyonElyon

    I don't have to, but I will.

  • ElyonElyon

    I mean the opt-in clause is bashing your way to level thirty. That seems no different to the opt in of punching a blackrock denizen. It isn't as if the game doesnt go out of its way to say "when you're level 30 bad stuff will happen"

    but ok yes, for you theft is the most unfulfilling type of conflict. so unfulfilling that you pursued me for literal weeks on end over it.

  • NaminoNamino
    edited July 2021

    Bashing to level 30 does not make you Open PK, whereas it makes you totally free game for theft. Nor does hunting Blackrock make it so Mhaldorians can kill you outside of Blackrock. You know what those sound like? Reasonable limitations. Smile.

  • ElyonElyon

    yup. and the reasonable limitation for theft is that you reach level 30. its quite a similar principle.

  • AccipiterAccipiter

    @Elyon , that isn't a reasonable limitation, that is saying you can't play the game. You literally can't do anything except mudsex without eventually getting over level 30.

  • ElyonElyon

    you can do plenty under level 30, you just miss out on the violent aspects of the game.

    what's stopping you doing quests etc?

    roleplaying?

    merchanting


    Can you mine under level 30?

  • AccipiterAccipiter
    edited July 2021

    Quests give xp, xp gives levels, levels mean you opt in to theft.

    Also if you reach level 15 you will need to get food, which needs gold. So your reasonable restriction requires buying OOC credits to sell in order to get gold initially, or to beg for food or to true die to reset hunger/lose enough xp to keep below 30.

This discussion has been closed.