Thieves!!

Balance alone isn't nearly enough. You need the players to enjoy the game, otherwise they will leave it, no matter how balanced, how fair, the game is.

With thieving, as well as any way in which a player can directly and intentionally cause a setback to another player, the problem is that you will always have a reasonably large part of the player base for whom such interactions will nullify any enjoyment they could have with the game, for any of a number of reasons. You add something like thieving, without a fairly sure way for players to opt out of it, and those players will leave, either due to the risk or else the first time they take a meaningful loss.

BTW, I've taken part in a fair number of pen and paper RPG groups since the 80s. In any of those groups anyone that stole from a fellow player (or did anything resembling PK, for what matters) without GM instructions to do so would be unceremoniously kicked out of the group.

 

You must have had a poor GM. If I was playing the thief and stole from the others in my group I was rewarded for playing my class correctly. After all why did they trust me when I was a known thief. Perhaps I was raised in a different era when responsibility for ones actions was actually important lol.

 

Opting out of every bad thing another player could potentially do in multiplayer.. It doesn't make sense that thieves should only be able to play with other thieves.. but if an 'opt out' is provided, anyone who isn't playing a thief would take that option, because it would increase their own chances of success. I'm sorry, but this is going too far. Thievery is dishonest, a criminal act, and their individual virtue will be effected, whether they get caught or not, providing consequences that make things much more difficult for them. Then, if they are caught, they would be thrown in jail, and/or killed.. (by NPCs or players).

As long as the consequences exist and are strong enough, players can all play together happily, just as people all live together in the real world without having to 'opt-out' of the ability to kill/steal from others.

I'm certainly not downplaying this issue, I believe it will take quite a bit of development to ensure an environment exists where virtuous and non-virtuous acts are stored and consequences are adequately implemented to keep the gameplay moving in an entertaining, and exciting way for everyone.

I'd definitely like to see plenty of NPCs interact in the ways we expect players to be able to interact. rogues and thieves and killers don't have to be limited to monsters.. maybe there's a Nobleman who's looking for some 'fun', or enjoys darker, carnal pleasures after too much meade. These NPCs should create interesting mysteries to solve in the world, but they should also target players as their victims. NPCs in general need to be much more unpredictable, and act more like a player might act. If development works to eliminate the differences between NPC-to-player interaction vs. player-to-player interaction, I believe the game will be much better.

I've said this before, but players should be playing the game seeing 'characters' on their screen to interact with. It shouldn't be, 'oh, there's an NPC I can talk to' , or 'hmm.. that's a player, not sure what they might do but at least I know I'm safe because I opted out', they should just see a character.. some adventurer, could be player, could be NPC, either way, there's no telling if they want to rob you or kill you, or help you for sure.. you'll just have to judge that by in-game context. All you know for sure, is if they do something bad that's against the virtues, they will suffer consequences, and if it's a criminal act, they will likely be caught and punished severely, (whether they are NPC or player). And that should be very exciting, yet reassuring enough.

 

Correct. Which is why this game will let you pick directly and indirectly (by list and by style) who you want to play with. Those that don't like being in danger of having another player obliterate them (instead of let's say, a dragon), can play in their Barney version of a game if they wish.

 

we'll have to see this play out. I agree I hate thieves camping out at banks stealing all your stuff and you know they are doing it and you can do nothing about it.

They need to fix thieves. Don't allow it to work like UO. If it becomes obvious that somebody is a thief we should be able to attack them or call the guards. Thieves should be stealthy and not running around naked at a bank. If we see a guy like that we should be able to at least call the guards for indecent exposure. That was the problem with thieves in UO. You knew they were thieves and you for some reason could not do anything about it unless they failed a skill check.

If they change that in SotA then the thief skills might become more of a clandestine operation that you don't notice rather than some naked jerk running around stealing your stuff. If the rules for stealing were changed giving players a "reasonable" ability to detect a thief who is currently using their skills even if the thief is successful. Suspicion should be enough. Then people may stay flagged for open pvp and not switch back in the cities. Otherwise you're 100% correct they shouldn't have stealing at all because it's stupid to have thieves running around naked stealing your stuff. I'll switch back from open pvp too if thieves were like they were in UO.

 

Not sure why you (Isaiah) had such a hard time with thieves in UO, I created a detective who could change greys hiding as blues back into greys. Called the guards or killed them ourselves. This is why I want thieves back in SotA, not so I can play one but so I can hunt them down and kill them once again for being evil criminals

This is the same reason I want PK's - I want to bounty hunt their butts to extinction. Not everyone who PVP's is an evil wicked B, some of us want to actually hunt them down and make them pay for their crimes!

 

Off the top of my head, if you want thievery and no herd/flock/hive of bank thieves, only allow players to steal from all NPCs, including all humanoid monsters and any NPC in any village, town or city. That gives thieves thousands of targets. (just like Burglary)

Of course, if the point of thievery (for you, whoever you are) is to directly harm (by theft or otherwise) another player... that's an entirely different problem to solve.

If you want to include PvP enabled players as targets, just make it so the only land hexes you can use thievery in are the several thousand open-world-land-hexes that are > 10 overland-map-hexes away from any village, town or city. That way, once in the wilderness, only the people you see there will be potential thieves or victims.

 

And to whomever you are as well lol - If you had actually read my post you would already know it is about the hunt, cat and mouse/cops and robbers not about the kill sheesh. RP/PVP/PVM all in one world so that all can enjoy themselves as one community no matter where we find ourselves.

For a detective/bounty hunter character to succeed within this new SotA world the world will need to be open not switched for only the pleasure of the few.

 

I think thievery if handled as it was in UO would cause people to opt out of PvP mode out of frustration, and just because you can stop that thieving activity with switching to non-pvp. If the devs and RG want to create an incentive for people to open themselves up to PvP they need to really consider the rogue skills as a deterrent if the system isn't changed.

 

It was not the GM, but the other players that would attempt to kick the thief out. The usual result was that the GM would "roll back" the encounter after the player promised to never do that again, as a compromise for allowing that player to remain in the group at all. Once or twice the player was unrepenting and was effectively kicked out.

As you said, it's a question of trust. Why trust someone that has harmed the group before? With the obvious follow up, why allow him to play in the group at all?

There are at least two already promised ways to "opt out" of any potential thieving action: to not engage in PvP at all, and to play in single player online mode. If thieving is always enabled in PvP, I believe the main result will be just making players that would be otherwise willing to engage in PvP, but that don't want to be stolen from, refrain from engaging in PvP at all.

 

I guess you weren't playing with friends then. Or you have some really humorless friends. How immature do you have to be to kick out a player who is RPing a thief for stealing an item? Bonk him on the head (in game)! Make an alliance, threaten to kill him next time theres a monster, cast a blind spell on him... i mean, damn, you're ROLE-PLAYING!

As to your question, it is because risk is fun and strife makes for better adventuring. You are roleplaying, right? What is the point if there are no surprises. Spontaneity is the birthplace of risk and reward.

@Isaiah MGT470

I'm not sure you knew how UO worked all that much.

Thieves were permanently fagged as criminals if they stole anything, until they were killed. So if you knew a thief was stealing, or have seen them steal, you could attack them flat out and kill them even in the middle of town.

Furthermore, you could kill any known thief anytime you wanted without receiving any murderer penalties (thieves could not give murder counts). That is actually why they were naked most of the time, because they always died and did bother wearing anything.


If what is bothering you is naked people running around, I doubt you will find any solace in this game haha


There is a little too much ignorance and misinformation about how UO functioned. I think people should try out some private UO servers that harken back to the olde times to see that just because you can steal and PK, does not mean you cannot have a cohesive RP community that adventures and has fun without taking part in such dubious activities.

Just because a couple of thieves robbed and/or killed you because you didn't know how to PvP does not mean the system was broken. I went on entire thief-killing sprees with friends (just to turn around and go on massive robbery sprees in dungeons the next day). It was very very fun. Any game that gives you such freedom is timeless.


You can stay and cower in fear or you could join us and fight to gain a better foothold in the world. Fortune favors the bold, my friend.

 

In the real world thievery and murder are deterred by the fear of imprisonment so unless SotA has a similar form of punishment to deter thievery and murder it should not be allowed. My thoughts on this is that thieves and murderers should be temporarily imprisoned (suspended from the game or lose several levels of XP) if they are got stealing from or killing either NPCs or other players as such a harsh punishment should help to deter them.

 

lol, yeah that would make the whole thing pointless.

PvP encourages strife, interaction and competition between players. Just because the game allows you to attack and kill a player does not mean it is wise, or that you will succeed. It is more than bad vs good (although that is a big portion of it), it more about player versus player instead of player versus cpu controlled orc. It exists for those players who are bored fighting trolls in a dungeon or even dragons, but want to try their hand at some *real* game.

You will never know how good you are until you meet another player on the battlefield. But Arenas aren't fun, so you roam the countryside.... spontaneity of player interaction, positive or not, is infinitely more exciting than killing orcs and mongbats.

If you do not agree, and that will continue to be your stance on PvP/thievery you are better off just disabling public pvp matching because you are missing the whole point.

I think there is a little too much fearmongering going on here and misinformation. Too many people never played a truly open game like UO and do not understand how it will work. Reading about it is not enough, go check out an old school UO free player run server that is populated (message me for information).

 

I agree with having a justice system, and also having imprisonment in the form of small jails for small crimes, and being thrown into the nearest dangerous dungeon for big crimes.

However I don't agree with punishing a play style that is part of the game. Any type of imprisonment should have an element of fun for the player, like ways to escape or have a mini-adventure solving some problem in jail resulting in you getting a cool tattoo or title.

Remember it is a game and why punish a person for doing something the game is designed to do. Punish people who violate the terms of the game, not legal players.

 

My UO thief`s motto was "Stealing stolen property is not a sin"
I stood and watched someone steals and runs after him, and in the moment he stole something I was trying to steal from him.
It was pretty fun
Thievery is very funy part of the game.

 

Let's say, just for the sake of argument, that thieving from other players is allowed in one form or another. What are the usual penalties for thieves? Death? That won't deter anybody as you merely respawn in this world. So how do you address it?

We currently have 1 character per account, so if a player decides to be a thief, that is is main and not his alt. That is a large commitment for the majority of thieves out there who just want to joyride or explore the darkside for kicks.

Imprisonment is just a flat out bad game mechanic which stops people from playing your game. If you stop them from playing guess what? They will stop playing. It's not fun and nobody likes it. As realistic as it may seem, this is a game so why even have stealing in the game if the punishment takes the game itself away?

The best way to penalize a long term thief should be done economically. Becoming a known thief could lock out interaction with some NPC vendors and increase the cost of buying from others. Severe cases could possibly raise the rent on housing so it's really going to cost you. NPC vendors selling the thief's stolen goods may demand a large cut since they are fencing stolen property so it is not as profitable.

When you inevitably die, what should happen? Getting killed when stealing might force you to respawn in a really crappy spot as the citizens of the world take extra steps to try and ensure your sociopathic immortal avatar's corpse can't return to their village so easily. Roving NPC bounty collectors could attack you almost anywhere, making this lifestyle inconvenient.

I believe if the penalties and deterrents are fair and fit the crime, while remaining fun and challenging, then we have a chance of being more comfortable accepting player vs player thievery.

 

@LordSlack

A couple of things:

Dying sucks. You lose all your ****, including what you just stole, and you have to get yourself resurrected, healed, re-equipped and drag your ass back to wherever you were. If dying didn't suck this much, no one would ever run away after stealing in UO (or after being attacked). This game is a spiritual successor to UO, not WOW (where being killed by another players means diddly squat).

You make a good point about no alts, this is why I am vehemently fighting to add addition character slots to the game. It is also fundamentally bad game design to craft a fantasy online (from the point of this argument) Role-Playing Game and cut players off from exploring different paths (whether it be story, online personas or character builds). There is nothing wrong with "exploring" in a video game, whether it is your choices or "the darkside". It's a video game and the whole point is to play it for "kicks". We can argue this point till the end of time, that isn't the point of this thread however.

Being marked as a thief sucks. It was painfully obvious in UO who the thieves were (especially if the player playing a thief didn't care about roleplaying a thief) and you were killed often for just 'being there' without any reprieve (killing a thief did not register as a murderous act). People would not deal with you, sell you ****, or let you adventure with them. Being in the thieves guild (you needed to do so to be allowed to actually steal from other players) meant all NPC store prices were a lot higher too. In SotA they will no doubt introduce further reason that being a thief would suck, a couple I can think off the top of my head are bounty boards and a karma system which impacts where you can shop and who will speak with you (which coincidentally kinda existed in UO as well, if your karma was low enough, you were unable to interact with NPCs).

So I agree with you on most parts.

One thing I'd like to add, is becoming a thief is hard. Getting your character trained to a level (at least in UO) at which you could successfully steal anything took effin forever. It required a bunch of different skills which were quite difficult to raise, including stealing, hiding, snooping and stealth (a few other useful thief skills exists such as disarm). Being a thief was hard as well. While stealing was super FUN to do, your character wasn't very viable in any other ways. Choosing to be a good thief meant you were bad at pretty much everything else. This is why a limited skill system works.

Thieves were very balanced in UO. While there were thieves, there wasn't an overt abundance of them. Granted this was because of many gameplay elements and decisions beyond the thief profession itself, but it worked and it was FUN. No one liked being robbed, but you ventured outside with the knowledge that it could happen and you were ready to kill the SOB that did it to you. Whichever player exerted the largest amount of care, preparation and skill... was on top. I find that kind of world fun but I realize others do not, which is OK. In UO, you had Trammel and in SotA you have selective multiplayer. Those who do not like the dog-eat-dog gameplay will choose not to partake at all (or seldom partake). Those who revel in the idea that going outside of town should be dangerous, want thieves to be viable and present.

Now I understand this isn't UO, but I feel that because UO worked so well and is still so highly played (and playable, try one of the more popular player server!), and this is in fact its spiritual successor... that SotA should be modeled, at least in part, after UO. Especially in terms of PvP interaction.

 

@postulio

All your points are perfectly represented for UO. The main issue, like you said, is that this is not UO. Although it is a "spiritual successor," I really don't believe we are going to have full loot and ffa PvP like UO based on everything the devs have revealed so far, so the established penalties for being a thief there are not what we are going to get here because we may not even be able to steal from other players based on these new systems. I'm just applying my opinions and recommendations towards how I believe this game is going to shake out and not copy UO, as it has already been confirmed this will not be like UO, especially the full loot and pvp. People are still arguing all day about this but I'm already preparing for the realistic result.

So a lot of "probablies" coming up: We probably will be restricted to 1 character to start. We probably won't lose everything when we die. We probably need new ideas on how to balance new penalties since most of the old ones won't apply anymore, that's all I am saying. I agree it used to be super fun tho

 

@LordSlack

Well put, but this game might very well turn out to be like UO when it comes to PvP due to the selective multiplayer nature of it...
(yes, including loot and thievery etc.) It really is too soon to make such statements. Many of us very much hope the PvP portion will indeed be as ruthless as it was in UO. Besides, UO's system of dog eat dog, limited skills and use to gain skill system was a great way to balance gameplay. Some characters were really hard to build so there were few of them, and even then they were terrible at pvp so you died a lot. There are many different ways of balancing classes

We wait and see... we wait and see


P.S. Having said all that, I totally don't think we should lose EVERYTHING when we die. Just some things like bandages, reagents, gold, armor/weapons we're not wearing etc. So if you are out adventuring and get killed, you lose the stuff you've found but not the stuff you came with.

 

Good point. Other classes have a type of gold sink attached to them in the form of consumables and repairing items etc. Theves could just walk around in their clothes (hopefully), and do their stuff. So it would make sense to be fair they should have some kind of economic burden upon them in some way.

Still will that be enough to keep thieves from causing people to turn off PvP? We want to encourage the PvP flag so there still needs to be a reasonable defence that wasn't present in UO.