Thieves

[Fiere]

Sounds good to me. I think the items that are pickable by a thief should be limited to coin and mundane items. Otherwise it\'ll be a problem no matter what you do.

If the thief decides to pick someones pocket in the tunnels the guards won\'t be close by, will the player be able to drag the thief back to Yliakum?

[Kiern]

Originally posted by Vengeance
 then the victim can hold the thief and the guards come running!  :-)

So....what would the guards do then? send them to jail, kill them on the spot, poke their eyes, or just tickle them a lot?

[BaretteDeBeurre]

I think that thieves should be able to:

-Set traps: so it could protect or at least warn a resting party in a dungeon. In case of PvP steal included, and house robbering, they could set traps in houses to protect it; but it adds PK system

-Unset traps: for dungeon traps, and, in case of PvP, other thieves traps(guild war, house robbering,....)

-Steal: at least monsters. They could steal items we couldn\'t get another way. They could steal the mob weapon to handicap it, too. In case of PvP, only a certain amount of money or little items they couldn\'t choose. They should be able to be caught, and it would reduce their \'karma\'. They could only be able to steal from PCs with less or equal \'karma\'.

-As they have good agility, better archery, evasive and 2 light weapons handling skills

-Hide in shadows: To sneak into dungeons, come back safely and tell his party what awaits them. To escape combats he would lose. To reach places without having to fight. In case of PvP steal and house lockpicking, it should be a primordial skill, as not only the victim can see him doing so, but other players too

-Wall/tree climbing

-Poison making: to enhance their weapons\' damages for a short time or poison their victim with an arrow before fighting it. Poisons of different types should be able to be made, to damage or blind or put a mob strengthless or remove the spell capacity for a given time, and so on. In case of PvP, they should be able to poison food and water.
They should be able to heal poisons too.

-Backstab: If the player hit a mob before it has seen him, enhanced damages. If the player observe the creature a long time without being seen, more enhanced damages. Of course, hide in shadows is primordial to use with this skill. They could even do enhanced damages if they\'re doing a \'pincer attack\' with party members.

-They should be the only one able to use the finest daggers

-They could use some acrobatics manneer to avoid/escape combats

For the karma-PK system:
-your karma go down if you PK someone with better or equal karma than yours
-your karma go down if you\'ve been caught stealing, robbering,....
-your karma go down if you accomplish certain amounts of \"bad\" quests
-your karma go up if you PK someone with a lower karma than yours AND if you karma is negative
-your karma go up if you accomplish certain amounts of \"good\" quests AND if your karma is positive or null
-More you heal people, more your karma go up IF your karma is positive or null
-More you donate to \"newbie helping guilds\" and temple, more your karma go up IF your karma is positive or null

-With a negative karma: guards and PCs \"police\" attacks you at sight, shopkeepers don\'t sell/buy items, temples don\'t allow you to enter them. Allow you to access to the \"baddest\" quest, to enter secret guilds and \"bad\" places.

-With a positive karma: shopkeepers lower their sell prices and buy from you at higher prices. Temples allow you to use some type of services(higher is the service, higher karma you must have). Allow you to access the \"goodest\" quests.Get higher rank and fame in society.

I think it should balance the PK. The bad way is possible and give some advantages, but more you\'re bad, more you risk your life. A way of redemption is possible. And the good way gives advantages too. The neutral way give neither risks nor advantages, i think that\'s the big problem of this system.

edit: as someone tells a word about it in this thread, i\'d like that anyone could become a merchant and pass all his life without having to fight but only keep his shop, tavern,....... Same for crafters(in fact i think crafters will become merchants in a logical state of things). But about craft, i\'d like that we could personnalize items by look and power. We should be able to craft or make craft the exact weapon, armor, shoes,.... that would best suit our character and our way to play. Stealer could have an important place here, as they could steal primary materials to monsters without having to fight them, and then sell it to crafters. And we should have to nourrish ourselves, too(don\'t know if it was already mentionned)

[Lord-Shem]

i think to make theiving fair and wouldnt require to much of a balance system is that theives can only steal money! nothing else! only money!

if someone has no money than the theft attemp will not work,
but if someone has alot of money a sufficient amount will be stolen depending on the thieves lvl ,skill, so on.

i think only money should be stolen, its a good idea, and fair to, so u won\'t loose your uber sword of impaling lol so dont fret.


what u guys think, good eh?

[Kada-El]

Gotta say I do like the karma system ideas (as anyone who visited my old forum will testify to )

I like the fact that the really low down and dirty quests would only be open to those really striving to be completly evil and have worked hard on getting their karma to rock bottom and vica versa with the truly angelic quests

Nice idea, but whatever happens I hope that what we do in the game world will affect some kind of reputation rating - it could form the basis of many in game interactions with NPCs, quests and the like.

[Aduin]

As has been said before, balance is the core issue here. I think that Pc stealing should be allowed, but on the same token, retaliation should also be allowed. As has been said, no one really wants this to turn into a PK or a PVP game, but i agree with comments that thieves should be able to steal. Perhaps, a percentile type system, based on the Thiefs stealling skill, and the target\'s observance, or anti-thief skill. A certain percentage is success not caught, another is success and caught, failure not caught, and failure caught. If the thief is caught, the target should be able to retaliate. Because of this, even a skilled thief would think twice before trying to steal from a high level warrior, or an archmage. This is again where the balance comes in. Maybe killing won\'t be the end of it, because i do like the idea mentioned about guards. If someone captures a thief, and brings them to the guards, the theif should probably spend some time in jail. Maybe only a few hours for first offenses, but progressivly more time for each successive offense(this is where the karma idea fits in.) Making someone spend a day or two in jail will make them seriously reconsider stealing.

As for what should be stealable, I dislike the idea that it should be coin only. Thieves should have a maximum that they can steal, and that depends on their skill level. Then, assign all items with monetary values. So your newly aquired sword of deamon-slaying or whatever, would be worth like 1000 circles, making it virtually impossible to steal, by all but the most skilled thiefs. Probably make what is stolen random too, because realistically, a thief doesn\'t open someones pack, look arround for a bit, pick what they want, and leave. Its more of an open, grab something, book-it routine. Also, equiped items shouldn\'t be stealable, namely a sword, shield, or armor. I don\'t think there\'s a thief in the world who could get a suit of plate armor off of someone, or get a sword out of someones hand, without being noticed. Jewlery should be fair game, but the difficulty on it should probably be harder.

To keep everyone from being thieves, the pickpocket skill should be fairly expensive in terms of points. The counter skills should be relatively in-expensive, at least for the first couple levels in it. That way a Newbie can afford to spare a few points to protect themselves a little. Also, by making the counter skills cheap, it allows fighters and mages and such to keep the focus on their primary ability, while being able to protect themselves a bit.

Breaking and entering should be equally limited. Traps, alarms, and whatnot should definately be in. I think it would be amazing to be a thief casing out a house, and then slowly working your way through it, carefully disarming traps and alarms. If ya screw up, as before, the penalty would probably be jail time and or a fine of some kind.

As for other rogue skills, like hide in shadows, poisoning, and disarm traps and such, these should be cheaper, because these are, in most cases, very helpful for teams. I think poisoning weapons is good, but poisoning food should be out, because that definately would yield a good amount of pvp.

All These things together make thieving very difficult, but if successful you can make good gains off of it. Just like real life.

Anyways, that\'s my two cents expressed in an epic post. Keep posting the ideas people.

[BaretteDeBeurre]

I think guys, about stealing, that you always forget something: steal someone in a city couldn\'t be notice only by the victim, but by other people around too. That\'s why having a good steal skill shouldn\'t be enough. The stealer should have other skills at a good level, like hiding. Of course, a thief could only steal little random items and/or money. But what i think is the most important is to allow to steal monsters, so you can be a thief without \"harming\" people.

I\'d like to note that, with the karma system, \"Baddest\" guys would have access to items/guilds/quests others don\'t, like best poisons, best leeching weapons, best assassin weapons,assassin guilds and quests,..... as the \"Goodest\" would have access to best sacred weapons, best healing spells/potions,........

I think it would be great to balance good and evil and not simply punish the bad ones. Evil should be as risky in good cities as Good should be in evil places. Each side should have advantage/disavantage. And the most important should be that you could follow a path and then, go another.

[Aruneko]

I agree with everything in your post, Aduin.

But about the karma idea, what about those who wish to remain nuetral?  They must have something extra also.  Or those who wish to be between good and nuetral?  Or between nuetral and evil?

I don\'t really like how you can only execute PvP acts upon those with less karma than you.  If that were to be done, Thieves would only prey on other thieves, which is not at all realistic, and is just as much unbalanced.  Theives will be good at noticing theivery, since they are agile and with sharp eyesight.  Also, thieves always try to pick on the lowest level possible.  If a skill limit is made, then players will start dreading that 50th skill point where they will be a target for theft.

Noble, lawful people will never be victims of thievery if the karma system previously mentioned is implemented.  Once again, it is unrealistic.

Something besides karma must be used to limit thievery, unless anyone can think of a better way.

And about deeds done for karma, something must be able to distinguish between morally good and lawful and vice versa with evil.  If an official is  bending the law to punish someone and you intervene, what will happen to your karma?

[Aduin]

I agree, Aruneko, that karma shouldn\'t be the basis for thieving. Karma should still be in the game, because it does add a lot, but to use it for restrictions on items, and Pk abilities and such, just doesn\'t make sense. Having separate quests for high and low karmas is cool though. I also disagree with the idea that people with negative karma should be Kill-on-sight by guards. That makes it very difficult for people that start down the path of wrong-doing to change their ways. Guards should only kill, or capture on sight, people that have recently done something unlawful. Just like with real life, a criminal is caught, they do the time, they\'re released. They still have that noteriety of being a criminal, but the police can\'t do anything to them at that point, unless they do something else wrong.

All that being said, I think a karma system could be very difficult to implement, because you can gain reputation as a good or bad person through many, many different ways. Ultima Online had a decent fame/karma system, but that was based entirely on killing things. Good and bad, unfortunately, isn\'t as black and white as what you kill. I\'m really looking forward to see if/how this will be implemented in game.

[Aruneko]

Did karma and fame actually do anything in UO besides giving you bragging rights?

[Aduin]

I don\'t know exactly what that system did in UO, because I only played on free Sphere based servers, not the actual servers. That system could have serious potential though, if done right. Unfortunately, fame and karma are often too qualitative to really be used, or measured. That\'s the problem with games that have large player bases. In small games, everyone knows everyone, and there\'s no need to put a number on how good or evil a player is. No one will argue that a small player base will be good for PS, so we need some way of quanitfying karma, and maybe even fame as well.

[BaretteDeBeurre]

yeah, true, sorry, my mistake

PvP steal shouldn\'t be limited to less karma people and guards should kill on sight only a certain amount of time after an \'evil\' act, depending on the act, and, perhaps, the victim\'s karma. \"Police players\" karma shouldn\'t be influenced by the people killed \"in duty\".

Like i said before, that\'s the big problem of this system: neutrals have no advantages in this system. And i don\'t have any little piece of what would be a clue of how we could balance it. There should be a neutral guild(with nature loving people like druids) that only them could access, but what else?

[Aduin]

Yes, finding some kind of advantage for neutrals will be difficult.

Going back to stealing though. The point is to make it a gamble. Just like when going to a casino, the odds are always against you. So if you keep up indefinately, you will always end up loosing.

One problem with putting fines, on a thief, is that if they can transfer the money to another charecter quickly, before they\'re caught, they could get away with the money. For that reason, a thief shouldn\'t get out of jail untill they return what has been stolen, as well as a fine to the community. Lets say then, that someone made this as a temporary charecter, and jailing them means nothing, they\'ll just go and make a new one, and transfer the stolen cash to their main charecter. Stealing must take time to get up, to prevent 1st day thiefs. People who play thiefs must actually care about doing it. For that reason, I think that pickpocketing, or stealing, shouldn\'t be something you can start with. Perhaps a quest or something to earn the skill later on, and then work on it. No one could easily ditch a charecter they put a few months into getting up, and no one would waste a few months for the relatively small gains made by that steal. Doing this will keep the number of thiefs relatively small, and it will keep them from randomly stealing. They need to be sure the gains are worth the risk, which will keep them from preying on newbies.

[Aruneko]

Following Venge\'s idea (which is very good) maybe when the theif is caught, a gaurd comes running, and runs the thief through.  The dropped items (such as stolen things) transfer to the gaurd and then to the character that was stolen from.

Only one flaw I can think of about Venge\'s idea is that some people may walk into a highly populated place and hit the button repeatedly, and wait for thieves so they can grab some dropped loot.

[Aduin]

I also like that idea, however, to prevent people from abusing it, maybe when a persons awareness, or anti-thief skill gets triggered, the guards are automatically called. So that way, a thief that isn\'t actually caught, wont get caught. And rather than killing the thief, i think they should be dragged off to jail, and items returned from there. Keeps people from abusing the guards.