Much steal. Very hide. Wow.

Thaisen

Oh no, what will we ever do without this last great bastion of hope that makes the game “dangerous”… that can also be mitigated by a few trivial triggers…

Akri

Clearly we need to introduce a new ability, called MUGGING, allowing me to live my dream of becoming the Bandit Queen. The ability allows anyone to take an item/gold on the killing blow when starbursting/truekilling an infamous character. The higher the infamy, the better the chances of getting something good/more gold.

There you go, risk is balanced and we get to go mugging.

Otha

What the heck are people even complaining about? Theft is so watered down now (at least pickpocket, obviously other methods are fine) who cares?

If you have enough to be worth stealing from using other methods, you aren't a newbie and should know better - and I don't know how you eliminate those methods without breaking other mechanics.

Hell, I pickpocket and just give back whatever it is at this point. I'm just in it for the renown. (Sidenote: It is pretty funny to get hired on after giving the items back, by some of the people complaining of theft here, but whatever. Death doesn't matter any more in this game either.)

tl;dr: If you want to, get rid of pickpocket but give me more renown some other way. Because it is all about me, that's why.

edit: FFS, I robbed multiple shops within 2 weeks of coming back after 10 years because people don't eye sigil. I don't feel sorry at all.

Adrik

I am of the opinion that theft (pickpocketing) is a bad mechanic because there is no opt out.

I am also of the opinion that theft (stealing from a shop via soul-rezzing inside)) is fine because there is a mechanical way of just not-fucking-dealing-with-it. IE: Throw an eye sigil at the ground, always. Put an eye in the shop.

The difference here is that one has an opt out mechanic of just upkeeping security (Break ins happen. Ask Hashan about their lab or Cyrene about their house halls.) The other has no opt out feature except not logging in.

I would probably like to see some input from the admins though, instead of just ghosting the shit out of this thread.

Gurklukke

Honestly, this is the first time I have 100% agreed with @Archaeon in a thread.

Otha

I mean, there are mechanical ways to stop pickpocket (walk to CITY, re-selfishness, whatever). If you're AFK and get stolen from I really don't feel sorry for you.

I still think pickpocket is lame and am completely comfortable with seeing it removed. It feels like the worst compromise, it is shitty for the thief and shitty for the victim. Bring bag top hat theft or just delete.

Archaeon

@Gurklukke Honestly, this is the first time I have 100% agreed with @Archaeon in a thread.

i am wise and all knowing

Elyon

@Ognog I'd say that the issues were dealt with already.

My experience was: get robbed a few times, become thief.

Draqoom

New theft system is a resounding failure. Time to end the test run and return it back to its original format.

Elyon

@Akri Isn't this like already possible if you order them to get their gold out of their pack? I wouldn't be adverse to a relaxation of theft rules on infamous characters, i.e. can force them to outgold or whatever.

@Otha As a thief I am fine with it. Its not easy to work around by any means but it's pretty fun

@Adrik So you're saying that theft that is stoppable by performing basic actions is okay? Great.

@Caelan What? Theft of real money? Is this a joke?

@Issam want to fake being not AFK on the who list? Just make a timer for it. problem solve

Treyal

you can't stop pickpocket attempts by basic actions, which was the entire point of Adrik's post which I assume you read but could not process because that seems to be the theme of your responses in this thread.

Elyon

@Treyal you absolutely can, though.

Eurice

In the interests of keeping this vaguely constructive since the dumb cycle is happening again, here's a brief list of basic changes that I've gleaned from this thread that don't involve "lol remove theft" or mention the word "opt" in any way:

• Randomize everyone's place on WHO or any related commands to prevent people see codedly who is AFK. This stops returnees, newbies and other people from being immediately scoped out as vulnerable.
• Consider adding something to selfishness or survival in general that automatically rewears unworn items while it is active after a very short delay (1-2s). This removes the code burden aspect from theft entirely.
• Have fences automatically send someone who gets something stolen from them a letter that details some basic referencing to the FENCE system so they can at least try to bid for it back. This informs victims that there is a recourse for them to immediately go for.
• Give theft a per person cooldown, maybe no more than 5 or 10 actual pickpocket attempts per 24 hours. Successfully casing someone adds an extra 2 attempts to this value that do not expire until the thief successfully steals an item and expends the case uses. This stops AFK people from immediately getting cleaned out by a thief.
• Increase the newbie theft protection threshold until they have embraced a class instead of just requiring level 30.
• Give unranked players who log on a 2 hour immunity to all theft attempts. This stops returnees from getting cleaned out while they get situated again.
• Consider expanding theft into more subterfugey things like giving snippets of clan or CT history instead of gold as an option.

If your response to any of these things involves the word "opt", maybe consider not posting and hear me out for a sec. Achaea is a multiplayer game centered around conflict and when you log into it, you are opting in to being involved in conflict. Theft is one of the axes of said conflict. This does not mean we have to grief everyone that logs into the game either out of it again however, nor does the response to one system being perhaps too punishing from a code and counterplay POV necessitate removing the entire thing from the game.

There is a balance to be struck in dealing with this stuff and this thread has so very little of it presently.

Thaisen

That isn't true though...you specifically have to opt into literally everything except theft. You can't base your argument on a lie.

Fairweather

Everybody seems to be on the same page that dying is pretty meaningless overall, but we have whole paragraphs devoted to the mechanics of killing another player.

I just have yet to see a good reason in this thread why theft has no such system for regulation.

Adrik

Message #10191   Sent by X

2021/7/14/20:03 ((I'm new to this realm, but have a small bit of experience elsewhere. Is theft

allowed on lower levelled individuals?)).

      Name: X

     Class: Pariah (Level 19)

      City: Eleusis

Snapped and attempted to force them to take gold out of their pack. Guess even sub-level 30 you get dickass thieves trying to steal from literal fucking novices talking to city denizens about beku.

Big Papa Jomi

I’ve never been stolen from. Obviously you all are just losers.

Elyon

@Adrik yeah there is actually protection in game so that you can't actually steal from them. I'd 100% support a way of actually seeing peoples levels and have idea'd it in the past.

Inuad

I know two people will disagree with this, but:

Add a resetting cooldown for escape abilities after the first pickpocket attempt. Want to 'brush' by someone and grab whatever? Sure, you can flee away! Want to stand in front of someone frisking them? Naw, all those instant travel abilities are on cooldown!

No consequences for thieves? After a successful pickpocket and for 24 hours logged in, non-ship, non-city, etc etc time, on death, everything drops from a thief. Gold, promo items, packs, journals, everything.

And solved.

Veldrin

it's called RANKINGS XP <person>

If they aren't ranked, they aren't level 30 (or they've just come back from more than 30 days away from the game)

as an example

then HELP LEVEL LIST

aka, Elyon is level 87

and again HELP LEVEL LIST

she's level 30

Only caveat is you need to be higher level than them to be able to see their level this way (but that again can prove that they are above level 30 so..)

Also theft is stupid, but such things as being able to 'acquire' documents as a spying thing is valid

Inuad

Looks like you could just create some triggers to know someone's levels, @Elyon . As a long running thief, it's surprising you haven't.

Elyon

how would you do that, exactly. If you can help me code them I'll add it.

Veldrin

here's something for mudlet

make that trigger then https://ada-young.com/pastebin/r9y6KK4i copy the stuff there and put it into a new script.

It should work up to level 100

yadda yadda

Atalkez

Embrace sequence should be 15 minutes. #MakeDeathMatterAgain

Accipiter

@Eurice greatly expand the list of items that can't be stolen.

Adrik

Gaia, Goddess of Nature says, "I forgot why I came here in the first place, now."

Gaia, Goddess of Nature says, "Oh. I was going to rob Adrik, yes."

Gaia snaps Her fingers in front of you.

You say to Gaia with a Jaruvian accent, "Though, I would be remiss to call it robbery. All I have is Yours- given freely."

Gaia, Goddess of Nature says, "Even better, then."

Gaia pats a Stormspear in a friendly manner.

Man, even Gaia's bullying me now.

Kog

Hire on her you coward.

Draqoom

There it is. Theft is garden approved by Gaia.

Also make death just running around in old Pit. That's enough pain.

Argwin

Just to add a point of clarification - you can embrace class at level 30 if you are in a House, regardless of House rank. Houseless it's level 50. Regardless of what you've heard or what a scroll says, I have embraced class at HR1, level 30 on multiple alts.

If we're going to suggest preventing theft mechanically until someone can embrace you are not recommending an actual change.

Ognog

Inuad wrote:

Add a resetting cooldown for escape abilities after the first pickpocket attempt. Want to 'brush' by someone and grab whatever? Sure, you can flee away! Want to stand in front of someone frisking them? Naw, all those instant travel abilities are on cooldown!

No consequences for thieves? After a successful pickpocket and for 24 hours logged in, non-ship, non-city, etc etc time, on death, everything drops from a thief. Gold, promo items, packs, journals, everything.

@Inuad Really like your thinking on instant travel, but consequences seem a few steps too far. Maybe just return "a package of ill gotten gains" containing what was stolen to the original owner, and maybe for less than 1 hour.

Maybe a successful pickpocket should return gold and replaceable items with a calculated combined value of 10K-50K gold which is sealed off in "a package of ill gotten gains" for an hour ready to be returned upon death.