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Let's Fix Pickpocket
It's been a while.
Currently, theft via pickpocketing is pretty all right. When you're not targeting specific items, it can still be a fairly lucrative endeavor. But, to be lucrative, it requires you to do it all the time. After a while, this starts to feel exploitative in that you're just targeting people when they're vulnerable and moving on, over and over. There's virtually no incentive to target bigger fish because you're not going to get anything different and, even if you do, there's a limit to how much you can get. The driving mantra, then, is quantity over quality. I think everyone will agree that it's super boring and tedious to have a thief running around trying to rob the same people ten times per day.
So, the problem then is the lack of targetability. With the ability to target high-value items in people's inventory, the focus shifts from quantity (rob everyone) to quality (rob the rich). The current targeted pickpocket system is horrible. It lacks fundamental mechanics to make the interaction fair, predictable, preventable, or interesting for anyone involved. When it succeeds, it's a miracle and the target is pissed because there's not much they could've done to avoid it. When it fails, it's expected and there's nothing the thief could've done to make it succeed.
To be successful, a good theft system needs three things: fairness, predictability, and preventability. Here's an attempt at creating that.
Remains unchanged.
Change the base success percentage to 1%, which I suspect is lower than the current success percent.
When you case a target, you (roughly) double the percentage chance of pickpocketing a specific item. After one case, the chance is 2%. After two cases, it's 5%. After three cases, 10%. After seven, it's 85% and that's the maximum. Cases last for one real life day: at the serenade, they all automatically reset.
Targets receive a message for every case used against them. The first two cases have messages to the target. The next three have messages to the room. The next two might do something unique, like forcing the character to yell that they're being cased.
This system is fair in that it allows the target to avoid the thief: after they see the first case, they have 14 full seconds to avoid being fully cased. It is predictable in that it allows the thief to prepare for and depend upon the performance of their skills, while still having some element of randomness involved. It is preventable in that it it still relies on bypassing selfishness, rewear triggers, and so forth; moreso, it is preventable because the target is notified well in advance about what is happening.
Anyway, there's an idea.
Currently, theft via pickpocketing is pretty all right. When you're not targeting specific items, it can still be a fairly lucrative endeavor. But, to be lucrative, it requires you to do it all the time. After a while, this starts to feel exploitative in that you're just targeting people when they're vulnerable and moving on, over and over. There's virtually no incentive to target bigger fish because you're not going to get anything different and, even if you do, there's a limit to how much you can get. The driving mantra, then, is quantity over quality. I think everyone will agree that it's super boring and tedious to have a thief running around trying to rob the same people ten times per day.
So, the problem then is the lack of targetability. With the ability to target high-value items in people's inventory, the focus shifts from quantity (rob everyone) to quality (rob the rich). The current targeted pickpocket system is horrible. It lacks fundamental mechanics to make the interaction fair, predictable, preventable, or interesting for anyone involved. When it succeeds, it's a miracle and the target is pissed because there's not much they could've done to avoid it. When it fails, it's expected and there's nothing the thief could've done to make it succeed.
To be successful, a good theft system needs three things: fairness, predictability, and preventability. Here's an attempt at creating that.
Pickpocket (not targeting an item)
Remains unchanged.
Pickpocket (targeting an item)
Change the base success percentage to 1%, which I suspect is lower than the current success percent.
Case (new skill)
Syntax: CASE <target><br>Balance: 2 seconds<br><br>Case your target, watching how they react to your presence and, more importantly, how they choose to safeguard their possessions.When you case a target, you (roughly) double the percentage chance of pickpocketing a specific item. After one case, the chance is 2%. After two cases, it's 5%. After three cases, 10%. After seven, it's 85% and that's the maximum. Cases last for one real life day: at the serenade, they all automatically reset.
Targets receive a message for every case used against them. The first two cases have messages to the target. The next three have messages to the room. The next two might do something unique, like forcing the character to yell that they're being cased.
This system is fair in that it allows the target to avoid the thief: after they see the first case, they have 14 full seconds to avoid being fully cased. It is predictable in that it allows the thief to prepare for and depend upon the performance of their skills, while still having some element of randomness involved. It is preventable in that it it still relies on bypassing selfishness, rewear triggers, and so forth; moreso, it is preventable because the target is notified well in advance about what is happening.
Anyway, there's an idea.
0
Comments
It is impossible to burgle someone who takes the proper precautions, and yet it still happens. I'm convinced it doesn't happen more only because thieving tends to make one targeted by a lot of very angry people.
The soul of Ashmond says, "Always with the sniping."
(Clan): Ictinus says, "Stop it Jiraishin, you're making me like you."
What if casing is a channeled ability that requires you be in the room with the person and the percentage goes up overtime, doing checks against Vision regularly (With Vigilance drastically increasing victim success rate).
Successes for the serpent mean the theft chance goes up 1%.
Successes by the victim means a message alerts the victim. You could do the scaling based on the cased item's current success rate like mentioned. (0-25 second person message, 26-50 third person, 50-75 different third person and stops the channeling).
Failed theft alerts the person to the attempt and resets the percentage to 0 and adds a defense against theft (per item, maybe?)for a duration.
To be honest, I don't like any of these suggestions, because they're ultimately the exact same situation - some coding knowledge and experience renders it pointless, and it has to be because of the nature of the exchange - nobody wants to be in a situation where they stand to lose so much and have not been able to do anything about it. Putting people in one-sided situations like that is bad for the health of the game, and I believe that's a driving force behind why almost every mechanical method of theft has been constrained to the point it has. I would rather not see it swing back in the other direction.
Being a dick without recourse, especially one that has a permanent veil that means you cannot be sensed, is not fun for anyone but the thief.
"HAHA I GET 2 STEAL UR STUFF AND U CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT!"
Hunting? Evade into room, hypno, force them to take gold out, or whatever whenever they are on bal (it's pretty easy to tell). Steal from them. Run away.
Now no one is willing to hunt, because guess what. Now they're at risk of just having most of/if not all of their proceeds from hunting stolen.
Being an asshole should have recourse. Not having any way of recourse (because contracts would require you to buy that one mayan crown temp-veil to hunt you for an hour)... etc etc. The way it is now, with houses/shops being potential options, there is an actual way to stop it.
So let's.. not do any of this.
Also maybe nerf Profit's Auction-Veil.
*Except by killing things that rob adventurer corpses and claiming whatever random thing -they- stole.
But @Kaedan's right, theft's never coming back. Too many people used or reacted to it badly.
Oh, and I kind of feel like pickpocket is the worst of both worlds. It makes people feel cheated and frustrated while not having any impact on the game world.
The soul of Ashmond says, "Always with the sniping."
(Clan): Ictinus says, "Stop it Jiraishin, you're making me like you."
Building on Skye’s idea of being able to potentially buy back the items- which I think sounds like a good idea- highlighted in these discussions, there has been pointed out the worry about prized possessions (non-resetting) or a valuable diary being stolen, which seems to drive much of the vitriol that follows. This leads to fear, negativity, ect, towards any sort of aggressive theft mechanics as you can never be sure if your reflexes will work properly or if some novel clever way has been developed to trick your reflexes into screwing up and handing over the goods. Currently, one of the safest ways (to my knowledge) to store stuff long term is- if you have a house or boat, you can obtain magically locked containers to keep much of your prized possessions quite safe -which is good and allows you to relax that those shouldn’t get lost and they can hold quite a bit. However, obtaining these can be a little cost prohibitive and I’d be curious to see the theft statistics, but they likely skew towards the newer and/or middle of the road progressed player in terms of what they’ve been able to buy and achieve so far, meaning they’re less likely to have boats and houses yet.
-What if you added a safe deposit box mechanic to banks? Limit it to be a very small space, say no more than 3 items total across all banks- this isn't meant to be your personal storage unit! Included would be a small per item, IG year gold fee- say 1500 gold/year/item. Three items would equate to per RL year (365/12)*(3 items*1500 gold) = ~137,000 gold or roughly 10 market credits. I don’t know the global gold economics of the game so this could be adjusted to make more sense if needed, but it would provide the whole player base some way to store at least a few items with relative care free concern of losing them doing day-to-day stuff, and means be vigilant when the item is on you. Just a thought on how to settle the whole fear around losing some prized item across the broad player base skill level. And if you’re thinking- well they’ll just sit in the bank and steal before I can even get it safe?- I don’t know- temporary cool down on being forced after lock box interaction?
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.
On the other hand, if you're trying to build everyone into a state of constant paranoia and hyper vigilance, always making sure they have every possible defence, this would likely do that. For those that would like to see theft expanded, would you put forward some thoughts on what it would bring to the game, as opposed to bringing entertainment to the person playing the thief?
The soul of Ashmond says, "Always with the sniping."
(Clan): Ictinus says, "Stop it Jiraishin, you're making me like you."
Some are saying shop robbing is better or something, and if it really is 100% preventable I suppose that's legitimate - I'm super paranoid about it but I seem to be doing all right. But any huge loss (like the contents of a stockroom) is really difficult to take in stride. I'm a mostly f2p player, and a lot of my enjoyment comes from carefully saving up a few gold coins at a time, spending hours and hours working away at it, all with the hope of a shiny new artefact I'll be able to buy, maybe soon! And to have that wiped away in the blink of an eye is a bit hard to swallow.
So yeah it's hard to balance theft. It can be devastating. But I sympathize with the desire to make it into something better, something that works for both sides, especially something that creates better RP and not just hurt feelings.
The soul of Ashmond says, "Always with the sniping."
(Clan): Ictinus says, "Stop it Jiraishin, you're making me like you."