PlaneShift
Gameplay => Wish list => PvP,PK and Thieving => Topic started by: Under the moon on November 08, 2004, 01:59:56 am
-
I neither aprove nor disaprove of PvP or PK if it is done fairly to RPs who want nothing to do with either. However, if PS was to have such activities (doubtfull), there should be severe punishments. Thieves chance losing a hand, and PK would result in a LOSS of exp. instead of a gain.
Also, it would be a good idea to limit the number of PKs and theives allowed in the game at one time.
As for verbal abuse, I like the idea of an comand. Greaving should not be allowed ever. Excommunication is the best way to deal with these people.
-
if iam not wrong, punishment IRL for thieving in a state of malaysia is haveing one of your hands choped off ...
\"severe punishments\" would be a to great a discouragement for thieves. Thieves are a class that are generaly weak aginsts monsters and don\'t last long in fights giveing them more disavantages would \"KILL\" the charater classe\'s saveing grace, which is \" the ablity to get rich quick\" not the right way but its RPing for you. Thieves/rouges also have a Steeper LVLing curve then many other classes, as they have a generaly low HP and staticaly average attack as compared to warriors and mages.
a better idea is to have players able to \"locate\" the theives to chase them down.
Think
-you sense your items being stolen-
and 15 seconds later (to allow the guy to get a head start) a mini map pops up and that bleeping red dot is him. Go ! Track him down you got 15 mins to get him !!! If you manage to \"touch\" or his dead body(ask a friend), the item is returned and he cant thieve for another 20 mins or more + He gets his name on your \"hate list\".
I DARE YOU TO BOT :D
Feels fun don\'t it ? Ill be dammed glad to enjoy the \"HUNT\" even if iam the \"Hunted\". (it would be Avp 2 all over again)
Noted some immature players would player grief but thats nothing a gm can\'t fix.
-
What stops them from passing/logging off/hiding in a guildhall untill the time limit runs out.
-
The clock stops if he is in an unreachable place or logged off.
-
I believe a possibility is to have a chance of being caught thieving (allowing the person who you stole from to chase you) and then a chance of being seen by guards (or equivelent) and they catch you and give a punishment according to the size of the theft ie. jailed for 5 minutes for 20 rubies or a hand for 500 diamonds
ps. please reply on how good you think this strategy is.
-
Not a bad strategy to be sure, but it would be rather hard to balance the amount of guards. Also, I think two 500 diamond thefts would be rather... difficult to cope with.;)
@ Jagean
That would simply cause grief and general mayhem as the victim would have to stay in the same place he was to be able to catch the thief. If the thief logs off it would be worse, as the victim would have to happen to be on at the same time as the thief. If the victim is not on, the thief will simply run off to some distant area, and that would not do.
Idea Crushed.:P
One more thing, and that is player speed. Thief and victim are both racing at the exact same speed. One has a head start. Which will win?
-
C?mon... who will still be a thief if you cut his hands :( That\'s like banning him ... and for what? For doing his job :P . Thieves are human too :) I say we give them a chance.
Hmmm?? Where is my watch? You THIEF, I\'LL KILL YOU BASTARD!!!! STOP RUNING YOU COWERD! SOME1 STOP HIM, CUT HIS HANDS :P
-
@snow_raven
What, PS should have a GPS locator on theif players? PS is a RP environment, I feel strongly against all kinds of minimaps with point locations.
If theiving is allowed, it should be so that it\'s always possible to see that somebody is snooping you and stealing from you. So if you are 100% in theft skill(for example) there should be 30% that you can steal undetected and percentage is taken away as the item being stolen gets bigger. So I think whole process of stealing should last about 10 seconds, and it can be easily interrupted by walking away. Sure, inconvenient, specially to afk players, but there should be afk status that does not allow stealing at afk time.... Still might be bad concept, but better than a gps locators on players.
-
Instead of chopping their hands of.. you could let shopkeepers ignore the thief.
-
If there are thieves in planeshift they need to do their job (steal people)
my idea is:
After steal some1 the thief name become black (he is wanted for a time if someone (or a guard) kill him while he is black named this guy go to jail and the item goes back to the real owner (or maybe put in the lost and found :-) ) this make pking or pickpocketing more exciting.
im a thief in planeshift so i want
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!pk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I want pk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!dont cut their (our) hands!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-
on the side of pvp i think that when a pk player kills someone they should have a specified amount of time where if they die they lose stats. This would raise the risk factor for pking, but the reward factor would have to be that the player they kill lose some items. The risk/reward ratio would have to be set for pking, otherwise to be a pk would be quite dumb... i know that if i had a 100% chance to kill someone and later die and loose stats without the possibility to gain something from it i would not even try.... so if pking is put in the game a Risk/Reward ratio would have to be included.
-
Originally posted by snow_RAveN
if iam not wrong, punishment IRL for thieving in a state of m
you are wrong... i spent 5 years there and have heard of no such case... they have high penalties for drug trafficing thiugh
-
Originally posted by TheCreation
so if pking is put in the game a Risk/Reward ratio would have to be included.
sure!
-
When thieves get cought the old punishment wich works the best cut of a hand with loss of skill lvl or pp. It\'s a risky bussiness and they better be aware of it.
Though I do think they\'re should be a way (very expensive magickal way perhaps) to get the hand back or something.
But I would go for Public display complete with rotten fruit, egg\'s and vegetables all we need is a throwing skill :D
-
i think that there should be a potion/spell/somthing you can use on you self so that if you are theifed the theifs name lable goes red so if someone kills the thief the killer gets money and the owner of the item gets it back. The theif is running a risk becuase he doesn\'t know if this potion/spell/somthing has been used and people would want to kill the thief to get money.
-
As one who plays rogues almost exclusively when given a choice, it seems simple to me.
This is indeed an rpg. as such, the rogue should be allowed to thieve and to pickpocket at will. he/she should also be ready to accept consequences of his/her actions.
the victim should be able to post wanted bulletins and/or bounties for the purloiner of his property. the act of thieving should nullify the thief\'s no pk settings (but not auto-hostile unless caught in the act AND it was in the presence of the party hostiling) insofar as the victim and his/her allies are concerned. the rest of the gaming world should have to rely on acceptance of any bounty to be able to override the thief\'s anti-pk settings.
should the victim not immediately catch the thief, said victim should be able (if he/she can afford the beareacratic fee) to file for a bounty on the thief.
remember, there\'s some other thief out there with knowledge of my rogue\'s whereabouts. a decent rogue\'s gotta have some political ties and alliances. make the bounty high enough and you\'ll get the info necessary to retrieve your item AND the rogue\'s head, perhaps. there is, after all, only limited honor among thieves.
the fee could be a percentage (OHHHHH OR A MULTIPLE) of the take, and a npc could act as the arbiter of the bounty. if the AI would be too hard, then perhaps a non-hostile/neutral certified-public-accountant-like player who could volunteer for that job as an additional role in citizenship in the game world.
the thief could also return the item to that third party with a fee or premium to wipe the slate clean for that particular infraction.
think of it as a baldur\'s gate-esque cowled wizard\'s like thingy...only thievery, not spellcasting, is the infraction involved.
if nothing else, it would add serious depth!
i\'d kill to lay out such an underlying system...i can\'t code though!
sorry about the lower case... am emailing from a tungsten.
-
Originally posted by nosecret
As one who plays rogues almost exclusively when given a choice, it seems simple to me.
This is indeed an rpg. as such, the rogue should be allowed to thieve and to pickpocket at will. he/she should also be ready to accept consequences of his/her actions.
the victim should be able to post wanted bulletins and/or bounties for the purloiner of his property. the act of thieving should nullify the thief\'s no pk settings (but not auto-hostile unless caught in the act AND it was in the presence of the party hostiling) insofar as the victim and his/her allies are concerned. the rest of the gaming world should have to rely on acceptance of any bounty to be able to override the thief\'s anti-pk settings.
should the victim not immediately catch the thief, said victim should be able (if he/she can afford the beareacratic fee) to file for a bounty on the thief.
remember, there\'s some other thief out there with knowledge of my rogue\'s whereabouts. a decent rogue\'s gotta have some political ties and alliances. make the bounty high enough and you\'ll get the info necessary to retrieve your item AND the rogue\'s head, perhaps. there is, after all, only limited honor among thieves.
the fee could be a percentage (OHHHHH OR A MULTIPLE) of the take, and a npc could act as the arbiter of the bounty. if the AI would be too hard, then perhaps a non-hostile/neutral certified-public-accountant-like player who could volunteer for that job as an additional role in citizenship in the game world.
the thief could also return the item to that third party with a fee or premium to wipe the slate clean for that particular infraction.
think of it as a baldur\'s gate-esque cowled wizard\'s like thingy...only thievery, not spellcasting, is the infraction involved.
if nothing else, it would add serious depth!
i\'d kill to lay out such an underlying system...i can\'t code though!
sorry about the lower case... am emailing from a tungsten.
i very much agree with this desription of possibilities...
please?
--- keder maloy
-
An eleborate system with bounties and hand chopping would make PS unique but will not solve the main problem of what happens when a player has something of value stollen. The victom will not bother reading the instructions on how to post a bounty. They will simply shout in chat \"My Armor of invincibite was stollen!!!!!! Who did it!!!!!\". This will be followed by a pettion to the the PS personell.
A good thief will pick an easy target, and easy target will be one who can not catch him. What ever the rules are, the thieves will find the sweet spot in the system and exploit it. The game Devs will be force to \"nerf\" the thieves untill all the non thief players are happy and all the Thief players give up an make new non-thief players.
Haveing said all that...
This is my favorite board. I am all in favor of a system that lets the players dispence there own justice. If guild leaders had and ability to send out bounty hunters that could chop off the hands of thieves that would be great. Here is how I imagine it could be done
The victom who I will call Wimpilton is level 10 warrior. His pack is stollen one day by none other than Drakklar ;) unfortunatly for Drakklar he was not entirely successfull. Yes he got the pack, but his thieving ability was not good enough to escape detection. This gives Wimpilton the option of dueling Drakklar. Drakklar does not get the option of refusing since he initiated the combat with pickpocket ability. Wimpilton is not very bright, but he is not foolish enough to accept the duel. Drakklar is disappointed, because he stole the pack hoping Wimpilton would duel him. He really does not have a use for the 100 giant rat tails that were in the pack.
Since Wimpliton saw Drakklar steal the pack and declined the duel, Drakklars name is put on a thieves list in the guild hall, and the guild leaders can now issue a bounty on his hand. Now anyone who goes to the guild hall will be able to \"Duel\" Drakklar and if successfull they will be able to \"loot\" his hand.
The hand can be sold to the nearest thieves guild NPC who will trade the hand for some Tria. If Drakklar wants his hand back he will have to go to a simmilar NPC and buy it back pluss a fee for reattaching it! If Drakklar does not reattach it he will only able to fight with one hand and can not steal or pick locks or any other cool stuff.
I think this would work, but most thieves probably would not enjoy the challenge and commplain the system is too harsh. The thieves would just have to hope that they are successful in stealling without being noticed. a usefull percentage might be 30% chance to get away scott free. 30% chance to get caught red handed. 30% chance to fail and nothing happens.
-
the total amount of skill over several areas should be the determining factor in how often you get caught instead of the chance-of-getting-caught-while-stealing skill. say....
thieving+agility+stealth(just anything else related to stealing) / 3= X
100-X= % of getting caught
yes im a genius i know :D hehe
-
Originally posted by Kura
the total amount of skill over several areas should be the determining factor in how often you get caught instead of the chance-of-getting-caught-while-stealing skill. say....
thieving+agility+stealth(just anything else related to stealing) / 3= X
100-X= % of getting caught
yes im a genius i know :D hehe
stealth has little to do with picking a lock. i can arrange for ... say ulbernauts to come into the plaza, then while everyone is distracted, pick the locks on the doors and storage chests at the inn and make off with everything, stumbling around and making as much noise as i care to. such equations need to be tailored to the specific case.
and i don\'t care how good a pickpocket you are, i doubt you\'ll be able to lift a suit of armor while the person is wearing it, again, a different equation.
... need blowdarts with a sleeping agent...
--- keder maloy
-
I used to play a game called The Realm (and by used to I mean back in 1999).
They had a nice system for both PKing and Theiving.
Normally, you could turn PK on or off whenever you wanted, but if you tried to steal something from someone, PK for you would be on for a month.
It worked rather well, though a month would probably be way too much for PlaneShift.
-
Ratster,
i think that this is a great idea, because then thieves are punished for theiving, and people can pk for a good reason.
-
Originally posted by derwoodly
The hand can be sold to the nearest thieves guild NPC who will trade the hand for some Tria. If Drakklar wants his hand back he will have to go to a simmilar NPC and buy it back pluss a fee for reattaching it! If Drakklar does not reattach it he will only able to fight with one hand and can not steal or pick locks or any other cool stuff.
And what happens when someone gets smart and DOESN\'T sell his hand back after looting it? The guy is crippled, possibly for life (someone make a mule account to jsut store hands ffor your guild, etc. to prevent others stealing from you, etc.)
-
Huuummm, good point. The \"hand of Drakklar\" would be a unique item and it would be very tempting to not sell it. Perhaps a thieves hand quest, that ends in a powerfull NPC summoning the hand back to its original owner. As part of the quest the thief would have to sware an aliance to the Black flame or something.
-
I neither aprove nor disaprove of PvP or PK if it is done fairly to RPs who want nothing to do with either. However, if PS was to have such activities (doubtfull), there should be severe punishments. Thieves chance losing a hand, and PK would result in a LOSS of exp. instead of a gain.
Also, it would be a good idea to limit the number of PKs and theives allowed in the game at one time.
As for verbal abuse, I like the idea of an <ignore/\"name\"> comand. Greaving should not be allowed ever. Excommunication is the best way to deal with these people.
1. There are role-players who combat other payers.
2. Pacifists are not protected from violence.
3. A failure can still be a learning experience.
edit: wth? How was this thread bumped?
-
i think maybe one place to PVP would be good where you don't have to ask for a challenge.
lol Zanzibar...haha...a person could have posted, then deleted afterword...don't know though...
-
Only mods can delete posts, and if a post that bumped a thread is deleted, the post gets unbumped back to its rightful place. An edit somewhere will revive a thread too, however.
Kymizer, such suggestions are numerous and plentiful :}
-
The easiest system is to let failed pick-pockets on NPCs go ballistic on a thief and failed pick-pockets or other thefts on PCs more or less give that character a message and the two of you can roleplay it as best as you can. Anyway, the PC should be off-limits to that theif in perpetuity. Screw up with everyone and you're out of business (you should be dead, but that's undoable) as a theif.
-
I dunno, IMO, the first three rules of good game design are:
1. Never punish a player for actions beneficial to the game (not the same thing as 'actions that would be 'beneficial' to other people...').
We WANT them doing certain actions, including being 'thief-like'
2. Never give other players the power to punish a player.
This will lead to abuse. Punishment should only ever be meted out by someone who is answerable to some form of authority outside of the game.
3. Never punish a player for actions outside his control.
A player cannot control the actions of another player, never EVER cause one player loss through the actions of another. This is a corollary to rule number 2. It's open to abuse.
Let's look at PvP Theft, PvP-T for short. There are a couple of fairly major differences between players and mobs. First and foremost is that players represent, in game terms, a time consolidated, upwardly racheting gear system. What do I mean by that? It means that players, as holders of gear are MUCH more valuable than mobs are when someone is out looking for gear. Because the gear a player has can be seen as a direct representation of the time spent aquiring it. Mobs on the other hand, are not nearly so rich a resource for aquiring gear. The result of this gear availability imbalance is very likely to be smart players stealing gear off of other players because
a) one always knows where to find players, just hang around a merchant, they'll show up, and
b) players have great gear, mobs MAY have great gear.
So, what have we established? That given the opportunity, the smart player will try and aquire his gear from other players, not other mobs. It may take a little while to find a player with gear, but consider when gear-relevant meshes are installed: Players become walking signposts of 'Come get my great stuff!'
That's the side of the prospective thief, and it does indeed look slick and juicy. We have enouraged PvP-T and Thieves will indeed act like thieves. \\o//
What about the side of the 'victim'? Let's give our victim a Greatsword of Ubar-Leetness. It's a quest reward from a quest chain that's no longer available (the greatsword was deemed to be too good for its level) but the two or three players who had finished the quest before this was determined were allowed to keep their prizes. This is a not-too uncommon occurance in small gaming communities - people like to be nice when given the chance. Would you allow a thief-type player to grab that? Remember, there are only two or three examples of this item in the entire game. This object is, quite literally, priceless. Do we let a prospective thief have an opportunity at aquiring such an item at another player's expense? If so, how is this different from griefing? If not, then at what level of 'rarity' do we allow items to be stolen? A drop rate of 1 in 100? 1 in 1000? How about items that are rewards from non-repeatable quests? Are those items up for grabs too? These are just SOME of the reasons why PvP-T isn't necessarily a good idea.
The best reason, however is simply this: By allowing a thief to steal an item from another player, you allow communities to form witch-hunts. Someone does something that the community at large doesn't feel is acceptable, it doesn't matter WHAT that is, it could even be trivial, the fact remains that you have now allowed people to log onto their Thief type characters and steal another players gear as 'punishment'. It doesn't even matter if there are limits put in place. All sorts of limits can be placed, but they can ALL be worked around in some form or another. Just to prove a point, let me show you how:
1. A 'Thief' can only steal one item from any player within 24hrs.
Easy, get your friends to do the same.
2. A 'Thief' can only steal one item from any player ever.
Then why bother allowing players to steal from one another?
3. A player can only be the 'vicitm' of a theft once per 24hrs.
Then you do it again tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow (as it creeps in this petty pace from day to day)
Other variants of the above merely slow the process down.
It isn't up to us - the community as a whole - to determine who can and cannot play a game. If you don't like someone, /ignore them, problem solved.
THAT's the problem with PvP-T. As long as a process is open to abuse, given enough time, it will be abused, that's a guarrantee. Better to not allow it in the first place, when it's a game we are talking about. Games are meant to be fun, but fun is never had at another's expense. :'(
So, what's a person who wants to play a 'thief' to do?
Well, there are several options that follow all three rules of good game design.
1. Allow would-be thieves to 'steal' money from other players. This money isn't actually taken from the accounts of the 'victim', but generated on the spot by the game, as a reward for a risky activity. Failure can mean an imposed penalty equal to some multiple of the amount stolen - enforced by the guards. To further allow for thiefly activities, if the thief can elude the guards for a period of time, they 'forget' - it's a large city, with many things going on and a pick-pocket nabbing a few (or even a lot) of tria from some overly rich adventuring type isn't really high on the priority lists of the guards. This isn't Smallville, USA where robbing a convienence store is news for the month, this is Hydlaa, where invaders from above are a very real problem.
2. Create in-game activities generally open to just thief-types (but circumventable by others with some real effort). Create mobs that carry keys that, if killed, lessen some reward that players like. A highly skilled pick-pocket can be a real asset here. Create doors that are locked, and chests that are trapped. Make them common enough that it really pays to have a rogue-ish type around, but not so common that it's ever a necessity - no type of class should ever be a necessity.
However, you should allow say, blacksmiths or another artisan type, to create single use skeleton keys (of varying levels for varying locks) out of expensive materials that anyone can use.
3. Allow thieves to get a 'free' draw from a mob's loot list by using the pick-pocket skill. Failure 'enrages' the mob and makes it much harder to kill, but success brings great reward. Using a three-valued logic, it's simple to create a small chance at total success (you get an item or two), a large chance of partial success (you don't get anything, but you don't anger the mob either, allowing you to kill it normally), and another small chance of total failure (you don't get anything and you got caught, good luck killing that mob!).
4. Create situations that can be 'solved' just as well by being sneaky as by being overwhelming. Don't consider it 'cheating' when a clever player uses his stealth skills to sneak past the guards and then uses he open-lock skill to unlock the 'Chest of Great Renown' from within the King's bedchamber. He's playing the game using his skills as much as someone else is using theirs.
There are plenty of ways out there to make it highly worthwhile to be a rogue-ish type. Just remember, none of the GOOD ways involve hurting another player of a game.
-
very nice points made :thumbup:
just a few sugestions:
theft should be allowed on money and inventory slots and house storing objects when it gets implemented. (basicly stuff that is laying around dead.. old stuff should have high chance of getting robed since most probably the owner wont use it anyways.)
theft should not be allowed on gear items since they are in very contact with the body. and it would cause griefing situations.
a switch hands slot slot should be implemented for switch gears, off limits to theft also.
a hand bag or object to hold glyths or other type of items that may be used in general professions so they arent free game for thieths should be implemented in game before theft is alowed
right now only remenber this :D
-
Another great post, Rockhoof. (I'm seeking out your posts now. :D)
I agree completely. Our intent is to basically do #2 and #4 on your list. These are already partially implemented and will get more focus when other areas are more stable and complete.
- Venge
-
Some of what I'm about to say may have been said in other posts but, I didn't see it here.
PVP should perhaps be restricted to a certain area. A wildnerness zone, so to speak. It may seem a bit arbitrary and 'unnatural', however, as this is a game some aspects will need to be slightly unrealistic in order to be fun (for the majority of players). This has been implemented in other games and works well. Another options is: PVP can happen anywhere but only between players that have a 'flag' up. Again, I'm sure many of you are familiar with these systems from various games.
I'd then suggest that PVP-T was restricted to such a zone if it is implemented. That way, people that go to this zone know full well that they are going to risk their life and money. Stealing items is a little disturbing. I'd say 'no' to weapons and armour and perhaps 'yes' to smaller items, such as money and potions. I favour this over the method of theving by discernment of droprate. I think this, as I see it being less harmful and less of an annoyance to players yet still allow theives to have some fun. If the droprate scheme was implemented as proposed, then the theive would need to carry an encyclopedia of knowledge on each and every item in order to know what he can and can't steal (given that he can see someone carrying it).
Otherwise theiving from NPCs and trap detecting/setting is a pretty good idea. It seems to work in quite a few other games.
-
I dunno, IMO, the first three rules of good game design are:
1. Never punish a player for actions beneficial to the game (not the same thing as 'actions that would be 'beneficial' to other people...').
We WANT them doing certain actions, including being 'thief-like'
2. Never give other players the power to punish a player.
This will lead to abuse. Punishment should only ever be meted out by someone who is answerable to some form of authority outside of the game.
3. Never punish a player for actions outside his control.
A player cannot control the actions of another player, never EVER cause one player loss through the actions of another. This is a corollary to rule number 2. It's open to abuse.
Very good post.
I question the rulebook that you are using for good game design. Player vs player combat is a given in most of the games I play. MMORPG’s are more of an exception to your rules of game design than they are the norm. Games like baseball, soccer, dodge ball, and tag, are all player vs. player. Limiting the rulebook to computer games, does not change anything as most of those have player vs. player options. If you limit the rule book just to MMORPG’s then your points have truth to them. However, despite the challenges most mainstream MMORPG’s at least pay lip service to PvP.
MMORPG’ PvP combat can be thought of as a card game. Depending on how the deck is stacked one player will have a significant advantage over the other. Knowing when to go all in and when to fold is key to winning. Punishing each other for not playing the game correctly is what true PvP is all about. Finding examples of PvP MMORPG’s is not hard either, and some of them are fun to play. The real challenge to PvP is making a PvP game that people will not whither and die over time.
It really comes down to what the PS dev want to see as their creation. If raw numbers is what counts then PvP is not the way to go. As games like Shadowbane have shown, the player base for a PvP MMORPG is smaller than a PvE MMORPG. If role-play is important then PvP is also a bad choice. Some would argue that PvP can add to role-play but the added headaches that come with PvP detract more then they add to the role-play experience.
However, I believe Guild Wars is proving that with the proper controls on the MMORPG parts you can have a successful PvP RPG based game. Of cource the argument could be made that Guild Wars is not a MMORPG. Going back to the card game analogy, MMORPG PvP can work if you give players the ability to fold or go all in.
How does this apply to the post? Well the solution I had posted a while back included the option to back out of a PvP fight initiated by a thief stealing one of your items. I had originally thought that a 33/33/33 chance would work. However, I think this is way too high. Thieves should be like predatory animals. A one in ten would be better I think. Restated, 70% of the time a thief should fail, with no detection, 15% chance of fail with detection, and 10% chance of success with detection, and 5% chance of success with no detection. 70% of the time the thief would just have to wait for his pick pocket skill to refresh. 25% of the time they would be targetable and could have their hand removed. 5% of the time they would get away free and clear. The victom would then have the option of combating the thief or posting a reward for their hand.
What is lootable is another debate, but my preferences would be any non-equipped items including money up to 100 pieces.
-
From reading the past few pages I've seen some very, very interesting points that I would like to bring up again briefly.
The punishment of removing a hand with a high price to have the severed hand replaced seems a bit obsurd to me. From the vantage point of someone whose pockets are getting picked, the punishment would seem fair. From the point of the thief, say a new thief for example, it's a price that you couldn't possiblly afford to pay because you are very likely to fail on account that you lack the experience. Everybody has to start somewhere and with a pretty low level to begin at. If at first you fail catostrophically you would never try again on account that the character got mutilated to the point where it would be an obscene amount of work just to get back to the zero point of having your hand back. I think instead of having mutilation as a punishment, a new rating could be put in place. The new rating would be reputation. If you fail horribly when there is only one person around you become freely available for PvP only by that person for a while if they so choose it and the reputation would spike negatively for a while. If you fail horribly in a large group the entire group would have the PvP option so as to stop the thief and the reputation would remain strongly damaged for a much longer amount of time. This would be because word of mouth would get out exponentially quicker than just one person starting it.
The Reputation rating could possibly also be linked into a bounty system. If the rating were to reach a certain point a bounty according to the rating would be issued. If a bounty were issued but the rating dropped back down/rise up to an acceptable level the bounty would become inactive and no longer valid.
The random drop ideas along with the score for steal-ability on an item could possibly be put through a system of 4 points-
1.) Evaluate all items in the player's inventory to see what is present.
2.) Randomly select X number of items to be visible to the thief.
3.) Re-evaluate the randomly selected items using a scoring system on the items due to value, availability, and method in which to acquire said item to determine if it is even able to be stolen.
4.) Assign a proper value for chance of success and failure. (perfect success, mild success, mild failure, horrible failure, etc)
This would also take into consideration such things as visibility of the object(hidden item maybe Vs. something hanging freely off of a belt), if the object is able to be moved or not (a dagger in a sheath or a set of armour), and so on.
Another part that this would help with is how often a thief is able to strike. If a thief were only able to strike once per day it would take far too long to become any good at the craft and also finding a good mark would be increasingly difficult. If a character could only be a victim once per day what would keep them from finding a thief, having the thief steal a small item only to be returned immediately after it was stolen to make sure that they would become impervious to theft for another 24 hours? It would of course be against the rules to pay off the thief to basically give you immunity, but since when have rules stopped someone who was serious about committing to an act?
Another thing that should be taken into consideration should be the fact that if the target is in a mob, this person is in a mob! A mob consists of a large number of people and any large group outside of town would undoubtely see something fishy going on when a stranger wades between the members of the group and gets a little too friendly with a few coin purses. In town it would be harder to spot the stranger, but still it would be easier to spot a poor quality thief with a few dozen pairs of eyes wrather than just one pair. In the case of towns if the thief was caught and began to flee, wouldn't the victim shout and act to the best of their ability to point out and stop the thief from getting away? That would probably even entail having a few good citizens who might hope for a reward step in to kill the thief.
There's my two bits.
-Ziljaden
-
You bring up a good point about fledgling thieves being forced to play one handed for 1000's of hours to be able to buy back their hand. I think the fix for this would be to make the "new hand quest" scaled to the players skill points. As they progress in total skill points then the dificulty of the new hand quest would get harder. Maybe at high levels, the quest would not be available at all, forcing higher level thieves to nagotiate with the guild that has their severed hand.
Ideally, both the thief and the victom would enjoy the whole process at least as much as people currently enjoy crafting skills in most other mmorpgs.
-
Some ideas:
1. give all items in PS an 'Ownership' field. when bought or traded then ownership is properly transferd over to the recipeant. When stolen then it retains the origional owners name on it and ownership doesn't change when traded.
2. NPC shop owners have persistant inventories. So if you sell an item to them then it becomes possible to buy it back. Also, it is possible to steal from NPCs.
4. When a player is victimized, the theifs name and the stolen item is recorded and the victim has a certain amount of time to report it to the police and place a reward. At this, then the police generate a specific quest. [Find <theifs name> and recover <victims name>' s <stolen item name>] People can then get the quest as normal and then find the item.
5. If an NPC gets the stolen item [such as through the thief stealing it] then they automatically go to the police to return it, the victim gets their stolen item back for free.
6. When a player with the quest finds the thief, they can automatically bypass the no-Pvp and attack the thief [though they automatically say something like "Take this Thief!" in different colored text so people know what is happening] if they defeat the thief and they have the stolen item then the stolen item is dropped or made lootable by the one with the quest.
7. The one with the quest can then return the item to a policeman to get the reward, the police then '/tell' the victim the item was recovered and they can pick it up. Note that the quest-taker can easily just keep the item for himself and the quest never gets completed. Then others that accept the quest get a free shot at pvping the theif even though he no longer has the stolen item.
Not sure how to handle if money is stolen.
Basically, if a person steals then others can get quests that let them bypass their no-pvp option. There is also the risk that if they don't have the item that it might not get returned by one with the quest and they really get in trouble. Perhaps add a way for them to replace the item they stole to make the police stop giving the quest.
But there should be the option for thieves to steal from NPCs like Harnquist [If he's going to keep wandering around like this he deserves it...] or from enemies like Rogues [I think it would be pretty understandable to steal daggers from a rogue without having to kill him... though stealing the hide off of a tefusang would be pretty unrealistic]
Beginner thieves should be able to target NPCs and enemies to train their theiving skills and then work up to stealing small change from players who agree with it. Add a Thieving/non-theiving option as well Just like how we currently have PvP/non-PvP option.
And as for cutting off hands... just don't. Adding something like that to this game will likely cause all sorts of bugs and weird effects that will bite everybody. Simple fines and limiting the PvP option should be the main punishment unless it doesn't work when the skill actually becomes available.
-
Some ideas:
And as for cutting off hands... just don't. Adding something like that to this game will likely cause all sorts of bugs and weird effects that will bite everybody. Simple fines and limiting the PvP option should be the main punishment unless it doesn't work when the skill actually becomes available.
Having a visuall effect that showed a missing hand is not absolutly nessasary. Nothing has to change visually when the thief is killed. The killer would just loot a hand icon from the corpse. I am sure people would complain about the realism factor, but sometimes you just have to use your imagination. Although I think it would be technically possible to have a thiefs hand transparency set to 100% I would prefer any graphical fixes to the game be done to more important items than thieves hands.
I think the general idea by the original poster, UTM (tm) was that cutting off a hand was more in character than going to the police/guards.
[edited to improve grammer and clarity]
-
I like RockHoof's ideas about making rogue specific areas or tactics on missions. The one thing I don't like is how you could steal from another player and get money that is not theirs, as he pointed out, people will take advantage of these options, especially the rogue characters, after all, they are thieves. What is to stop a rogue from just running around stealing from everyone, If it doesn't hurt the player, then they aren't going to care, so there would be no reason for them to challenge the rogue. I think that there should be a thieving or non-thieving marker like shadow noes suggested, but that only common or uncommon items that are not equiped should be allowed to be stolen, such as food, some money, potions, or other unequiped items that could possibly be stolen. This will keep people from stealing rare and ultra rare stuff, which would upset everyone. It would be better if you could set it so that your rare stuff could be stolen, but I think no one would use this option, so its not worth the time it would take to code it. also, if a theif choose to attempt to steal items such as an unequiped weapon or set of armor, which are large items, then it would greatly decrease your chances of taking it.