Casing and Fencing

1246789

Comments

  • edited August 2019
    I would love to see Theft gone entirely. The mechanic is not fun. It might be fun for a few, but that's at the expense of many.  Even if CASE has a lower chance of working, it's still a chance and might just work every single time. Or never. Just because it's harder for the thief doesn't mean the system is going to be loved by the victims. I don't understand why thieves don't understand why this isn't fun.

    EDIT: TLDR One idea is to make NPCs pickpocketable, the other is to offer a toggle to be a theft target in exchange for perks.

    Here's a fantasy idea I came up with to keep the RP/Fun for a thief in the game without griefing real people who just want to play their game: Open up thievery to NPCs! Have it function similar to deepsea diving, in the sense that you can get lots of reward or nothing. It would work like this: You case an NPC and depending on how strong it is relative to the person different things can happen. It can detect you and attack right away. If it doesn't detect you, then you'll see what its carrying: gold, junk, and a small chance at something cool (like in deepsea diving).  Until that mob is killed, that inventory will stay the same. Aside from the mob attacking the thief (and being unstealable after that) have stealing from them increase that villages hate of the thief. This will prevent someone stealing from everyone as they'll eventually become hostile and unpickpocketable. Now the honors mobs, like Belladona or Ugrach, have a higher chance at more gold or special items, since being caught will get them on your case. If they have a lot of gold, you have to make a judgment choice on getting the gold or the item as you risk exposure after to many attempts. I'm not entirely sure how this works with already aggressive mobs. 


    Here's another idea born from my limited experience with Achaea. This is for the "Opt-in" issue of theft:

    Make theft a CONFIG option. CONFIG THEFT ON/OFF. Have a timed restriction on it so you can't just toggle it on and off on a whim. 

    While the toggle is on, your honours will have a new line below, "She is an extremely credible character.":
    "She is brazenly carrying her valuables around with her." (Or something better)
    When off, it would just not exist or have something counter.

    Why would anyone toggle it on? Well, provide some incentive that's not game-breaking but generally beneficial. Perhaps it could raise the daily gold-cap or provide a flat experience bonus or/and give them a discount at the new auction? I don't know enough to offer up good incentives as to why you'd want to be open to theft but I'm certain someone could make the argument.

    The goal is to make this fun for -everyone-, not just a small group. It could just have better rules and restrictions because most of the worry comes from being unable to predict how a thief will cheese the rules to take something incredibly valuable that you didn't know was at risk for being stolen. For example, because one of the benefits of an artefact pack was I could always recall it before a thief could GET 100 items out of it, if I happened to get it taken off me, has just been removed from the game. I will probably not bother to invest 100 credits into an artefact pack since the thief will get 100% of my gold and all my items will just be auctioned in another pack. (Makes no sense).



  • Man, let's just bring back puppet shake please so these whiners are thankful for what they have. Pretty please
  • @Maajida pickpocket can already be used against npcs though...

    Also to everyone saying PK is opt in, it isn't really. People can attack you at any time and if they have no reason they will generally suffer very little backlash unless they do it to the point of harassment. You should delete your system, turn off curing and switch to an unfamiliar class before deciding if you can say it is opt in or not, because that is what you are doing by not implementing theft prevention.
  • I was leaning on the side of being fine with theft since it is pretty easy to avoid....until I found out how much Profit has stolen in credit equivalent over the years... insane!

    Im not sure of any other game where that magnitude of “legit” theft has been allowed.
  • Thaisen said:
    I was leaning on the side of being fine with theft since it is pretty easy to avoid....until I found out how much Profit has stolen in credit equivalent over the years... insane!

    Im not sure of any other game where that magnitude of “legit” theft has been allowed.
    Do share.
  • Maajida doesn't have a problem IC. My idea was just something I wanted to throw out in case it was good. I don't know enough about Achaea to add much more than I already have to the thread so I'll back out for now.



  • AFAIK profit also managed to swipe promo items, so I'm not surprised if he's amassed thousands of credits from theft.

    A+ achaea
  • Puxi said:
    Thaisen said:
    I was leaning on the side of being fine with theft since it is pretty easy to avoid....until I found out how much Profit has stolen in credit equivalent over the years... insane!

    Im not sure of any other game where that magnitude of “legit” theft has been allowed.
    Do share.
    He estimated between 15,000 to 20,000 on the conservative side.
  • AustereAustere Tennessee
    edited August 2019
    Thaisen said:
    Puxi said:
    Thaisen said:
    I was leaning on the side of being fine with theft since it is pretty easy to avoid....until I found out how much Profit has stolen in credit equivalent over the years... insane!

    Im not sure of any other game where that magnitude of “legit” theft has been allowed.
    Do share.
    He estimated between 15,000 to 20,000 on the conservative side.
    Profit has played a -long- time, and realistically, that's like hitting the gold cap and buying credits at today's prices every day for 5 rl years, with plenty of skip days built in.  It is a lot of credits, but I'd be willing to bet he'd have made more if he'd just hunted instead. 

    Edit: I'm not trying to devalue the amount; that's a lot of credits taken out of other people's pockets, just trying to put it into context.
  • edited August 2019
    15,000cr:

    $3750 (.25c/cr)
    150 million gold (10k/cr)
    2.8 years of bashing to gold cap every day

    That isn't generated reward either, that is reward transferred from other people who bought or earned it. That seems like a win for one person and a lot of losing for a lot of others, and I still can't see what non-thieves get out of theft. If you want a sense of risk and danger, pk with your gold out or something?

    Edit: Theft doesn't seem to be going away though, so as long as we get perma open season on thieves I think this is as good as it'll get.
  • Khel said:
    If you want a sense of risk and danger, pk with your gold out or something?
    I see a lot of people sharing this kind of sentiment, and I think this comes from confusing two different things.  I think there are two very different types of risk a game world can have, and it's important to make that distinction.

    First, there is opt-in risk.  This covers everything from "high risk, high reward" scenarios like big raids, to little things like gambling.  You stand to lose something, but gain something else.  You make a choice to do that.  PvP in Achaea falls into that category a lot, because you stand to lose xp and gain xp, kills, or something of that sort.  Going after honours mobs is another good example.

    Second, there is unavoidable risk.  Games with permadeath, forced always-on pvp, survival mechanics like hunger, that sort of thing.  This sort of risk adds a layer of danger and tension to a game world, often where even if you're idling you stand a chance of losing something if you're not careful.  You may not like the results of that risk, but just the fact that it's there is what makes the game's atmosphere what it is.

    I think theft falls into the second category mostly.  We can certainly argue that the magnitude of theft is too high, and perhaps there should be mitigating factors for that.  You only lose so much to a death, maybe there should be a cap on how much you can lose to theft in any given time slot.  However, removing theft entirely would really hurt the tension in Achaea's atmosphere, which is one of its biggest draws for a lot of people.  The very fact that you can't opt-out (but can actively defend against it almost perfectly) is what makes it dangerous.

    I do think there's significant room for improvement here, but I don't think outright removal is the answer at all.
  • If your argument is that theft contributes meaningfully to Achaea's overall atmosphere, then name for me one other unavoidable risk like it in all of Achaea.
  • there are a lot of sources of tension to contribute to Achaea's atmosphere without leaning on a borderline abusive mechanic, i'm pretty sure
  • Lenn said:
    If your argument is that theft contributes meaningfully to Achaea's overall atmosphere, then name for me one other unavoidable risk like it in all of Achaea.
    Except it's nearly completely avoidable if you aren't lazy. I've had literal thousands of credits worth of stuff taken from me in my playtime, nearly all of it was because I hadn't bothered to set up the very rudimentary triggers necessary. I have never been an active thief (aside from playing jokes on citymates and immediately giving stuff back). I still think it's fun.

  • edited August 2019
    Huh? Can't you be cased and stolen from pretty much.....whenever. It's unavoidable.


    more idea: allow us to set our config timeouts by seconds rather than minutes. No more DC thefts
  • It is your responsibility as a player to implement personal safeguards to your property. Make appropriate anti-theft triggers. Turn your gold into credits. Put your gold in the bank. Remain selfish. Buy a shimmering orb. Actively play the game. Write journal if you feel that you can't look at your screen. Buy a banded chest, and place up to 50 items inside of a backpack, within that chest. If you have a spotty internet connection, set your timeout to 2 minutes if you need to. The list really can go on. 

    I do not participate or steal from people, but I'll tell you what. The tension, risk, and danger that Penwize explained previously is exactly what got me hooked on Achaea in the first place. Things can always be improved, and I think they have with this latest change. There used to be a time a thief could force you to outr one plant at a time and pick you dry. They could take anything they wanted, as long as you weren't selfish. Casing is such a neat, and better concept.

    But you also know what made that incredibly fun, back then? There used to be thief-hunting Marks. Who did nothing but chase these people down all day, every day, until they themselves didn't want to come out of their hidey-holes. It was really wild, interesting and fun. People had something to constantly talk about.

    I think there should be a give and take here, and I personally don't want to see theft removed. I think it's in a good place now.
  • Morsul said:
    Huh? Can't you be cased and stolen from pretty much.....whenever. It's unavoidable.


    more idea: allow us to set our config timeouts by seconds rather than minutes. No more DC thefts
    You're right, it's impossible to make rewear triggers for the things you own, as well as keeping stuff you don't want stolen somewhere other than your bare hands. Aran'kesh cards are incredibly common, meaning you have access to a storage space that is literally unreachable by anyone but you for at least ten items.

    On top of that, thieves now need several stacks of case in order to have a reasonable chance of getting what they're after, meaning that you will always have advance warning that someone is after your belongings and can take steps to avoid it.

  • I didn't know about the Aran'Kesh card! How cool is that? I guess I know which card I'll be buying next. Thanks for mentioning that. :)
  • Iohanna said:
    I didn't know about the Aran'Kesh card! How cool is that? I guess I know which card I'll be buying next. Thanks for mentioning that. :)
    For sure! It's not a non-decay space or even stasis, so I'd reserve it for things you've preserved, but other than that it's invaluable.

  • edited August 2019
    boy I sure am glad it takes more than 2 minutes for pickpocket to go through and that my triggers fire even when I get booted from the game
  • Jiraishin said:
    Lenn said:
    If your argument is that theft contributes meaningfully to Achaea's overall atmosphere, then name for me one other unavoidable risk like it in all of Achaea.
    Political betrayal.
    Politics are opt-in. If you don't like them, I suggest playing a rogue.

    You can avoid cities entirely, if you don't mind dealing with thieves.
  • Morsul said:
    boy I sure am glad it takes more than 2 minutes for pickpocket to go through and that my triggers fire even when I get booted from the game
    If your fear is that a thief gets a bunch of stacks of case on you (without you knowing) and you find yourself somewhere the thief can get to (like not being on guards because you didn't notice ANY of these attempts), and that your internet just so happens to shit out at the exact moment that thief decides to try to shoot their shot, I don't know what to tell you my dude.



    @Vinzent I'm not saying that you're inherently wrong, but Achaea survived nearly two decades without serverside curing. It can survive this.

  • I'm legit starting to hope that everyone arguing that theft is good, gets all of their items stolen. You'll understand why theft is bad then.

  • They're welcome to steal all my items.  They'll just get a bunch of vials and stuff that resets back to me because I take proper precautions.
    Deucalion says, "Torinn is quite nice."
Sign In or Register to comment.