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Pickpocket

Discussion in 'Release 28 Feedback Forum' started by Gix, Apr 5, 2016.

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  1. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

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    Some people don't handle loss particularly well. If it happens because of an NPC, they can generally figure out how to win the next time. Players are too smart, and if you read many forum posts here, you'll find that nothing makes people madder than when you point out how stupid they are.

    Some people come to play this game to escape the realities that they may not be very smart.
     
    Last edited: Apr 18, 2016
  2. Abydos

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    For the moment, Pick Pocket is annoying in SotA. Hope we will see thiefs and robers on New Britannia like Uo was.
     
  3. Time Lord

    Time Lord Avatar

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    ~Pickpocketing and Grief~
    What is this you ask? ... Then why is the pickpocketing of a player so much different than pickpocketing an NPC?
    The answer becomes simple from those opposing points in the same direction, which is grief. Grief has been eliminated as an option of anyone's fun within SOTA.

    Pickpocketing an NPC, is a totally different subject, which should be supported by this same standard as being griefless to any player. To ask for anything else, is to ask SOTA to invite grief into a game where it is not.
    ~Time Lord~:rolleyes:
     
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  4. craftymethod

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    I would love to see pick pocketing a sweaty hand affair in all places. Some places would be incredibly difficult to pickpocket in, (function of lighting conditions, distance from watcher patrol/guard etc, alertness level of victim, usage of camoflage, victim using defense measures - that people could carry as personal protection devices, or hire a Guard Spirit to defend against pick pocket attacks etc etc.

    How much would the watcher be aware of? could perhaps the victim gain knowldge of their recent thief encounters for a cost? What about true punishment for crimes, item insurance... prison sentences and gladiator fights for the criminals. prison sentences that are based on item value, and a criminal record? (stat reduction penalty?)

    The people need to know these lands be dangerous, but there is -almost- always justice.
     
  5. Gix

    Gix Avatar

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    But how does that make any difference when, in the grand scheme of things, I just want to pickpocket NPCs, not players.

    The fact that it's a PvP-specific skill makes the situation even more ridiculous (and impractical). It makes even less sense when you consider that people flag themselves for PvP to fight other players... meaning anyone who's NOT killing anyone in favour of their own gain is detrimental to the team he or she may be in, and the opposing party isn't being satisfied either.

    Allowing players to steal from one another just promotes distrust and griefing.

    Should pickpocket not be allowed to be in PvP? I'm not here to argue that. The idea is still appealing, but they specifically prioritized it as a PvP skill over a PvE skill. Oddly enough, you don't even need the skill because you can still kill the other guy and loot his corpse.
     
  6. craftymethod

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    Maybe if at lower levels, a pick pocket could only relieve people of gold only.... later you can attempt from players packs.

    Might heavier items be harder to steal?
     
    Last edited: Apr 19, 2016
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  7. Time Lord

    Time Lord Avatar

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    Grief Ain't Here in SOTA, So we need something different... as well as pickpocketing NPCs (which we do need, but it's not programed yet)...

    ~NPC Bank Robbery & Shop Hold-Ups~
    Safe Cracking, Distraction, Pickpocketing, Diversion, Tunneling... it's all needed, yet these's more that's needing done before any of that could ever happen... o_O
    All griefless to others and all on NPCs... No grief, just cops and robbers with NPC guards, where other players couldn't get involved, except as spectators if they are lucky enough to see one happen ;)
    ~Time Lord~:rolleyes:
     
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  8. Ancev

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    Would be nice to have the ability to steal from NPC's for sure. But how do you balance it? What if a thief only wants to steal things and not kill things? Perhaps if a thief sapped it's opponent then pulled off a successful steal he could knock that NPC opponent unconscious and the loot would be deposited into the thief's inventory automatically. An elbow/KO type animation could be added to the end of the steal animation to show that the opponent has been knocked out on a critical success. The NPC 'corpse' would fall to the ground and disappear the same way as them being killed, but wouldn't count as a 'kill' on the avatar's karma or whatever.

    The critical success threshold would need to be fairly high I'd guess...like 20-25% to start? A normal steal would just steal one or two items at a time. In this situation the thief could be working on skills like healing, dodge, evasion, pick pocketing, sap, stealth, etc. This sets up a situation where thief has to decide: Do I want skill gain? Or do I want loot? The same way a player does by deciding to kill the monster instead of prolonging it's death by using the monster as a training dummy.

    In this scenario - pick pocketing might have the following results:

    PvE
    1. critical failure: the thief is stunned
    2. failure: try again
    3. success: steals an item...or two? Depends on pickpocket skill. (including items that might not be in the standard loot table?)
    4. critical success: steals multiple items and KO's opponent (including items that might not be in the standard loot table?) Perhaps the KO would only work against standard monsters, against more difficult opponents it would knock them down instead of unconscious?

    PvP
    1. critical failure: the thief is stunned
    2. failure: try again
    3. success: steals an item...or two? Depends on skill.
    4. critical success: steals multiple items and knocks down opponent.

    Also PvP related:
    I'd like to see stolen items have the potential to be "knocked out" of the thief if the thief takes a critical hit. Perhaps this would apply to unsettled ransoms. Once the items are dropped to the ground the thief would have to run back and get them, creating an additional element of conflict/contention between players. If another player gets them first, that player can settle the ransom (return the items to the original player, or keep the items for themselves) If an unflagged player picks up the ransomed items, it activates their PvP flag.


    If you've read some of my posts in the past you might know that I advocate for POT owners to determine their own laws and government. In addition to the above, I'd like to see a Concealment skill, and 'illegal' items. Town owners can deem certain items (such as stolen goods, poison, blackjacks, assassin type items, etc) as illegal. If a thief is caught by town guards with these items they can be fined or thrown in the town jail, depending if the town has a jail and what their laws are. If a town guard hits a thief with unsettled ransomed items or stolen goods, those items can drop to the ground similar to the way it works in PvP concept above.

    Perhaps POT owners could also create 'town limits' or guard zones. The player would get a message saying they are leaving town limits which would setup logical areas inside of their POT environments that are affected by the laws of the town and areas that are lawless. eg: Places that are too dangerous for guards to patrol, or the town simply does not have the resources to patrol these areas. But inside of these guard zones, guards might be able to KO a player for committing criminal actions - depending on the guard intensity.

    Also it would be cool if a high level pickpocket who gets confronted by npc guards had the opportunity to try and steal from the guard, but face even more severe punishment. Like if the guard asks the thief to return the stolen items, maybe an option would be "return the items and steal from the guard" or something to that effect. Guard confrontation dialogue was something I wanted to see based on another concept I had of POT owners being able to configure their town guard's intensity.

    I love the idea of a transition between static to dynamic worlds. Perhaps you could have a town that is almost entirely static (PvE), with a few dynamic rules. Or perhaps your town is entirely dynamic (PvP) and you add some structure to it.

    To get back to a 'Concealment' skill - I'm not sure if it would be active or passive, but it would aid players in the following situations:

    1. Carrying stolen goods or illegal items in guard patrolled areas, especially if they are confronted by the guards and searched.
    2. Allows players to perform 'criminal' types of actions without being noticed. Eg: if pickpocket takes 9 seconds, a thief could remain stealthed for a few seconds before other players, NPC's, (or guards) see what's going on? Or maybe that could be something associated with high level stealth skills.

    I've only had stealth and pickpocket at very low levels so my observations are limited but what I've noticed so far:

    1. The stealth timer is pretty rough. After I use silent movement or shadow form it seems to set off a timer that prevents me from using other skills... so trying to stealth then get back into combat is painful. Does this get better at higher levels in silent movement and shadow form? Seems like you should be able to sap, stealth and steal but all of that takes a lot of time. But if you've trained those skills to high levels and it reduces the process to an acceptable amount of time this would make sense.

    2. Some of the subterfuge skills should be usable without breaking stealth...that was one of my ideas behind a concealment skill.

    3. I can't seem to stealth even if I sap my npc opponent.. is this due to my silent movement/shadow form not being high enough? Maybe this is just due to the way the monster AI works.

    4. Also not sure how far you want to go with it, but some monsters/animals might have a very keen sense of smell...such as wolves, so if it is possible to stealth against a wolf maybe there should be some method to throw off your scent in these cases (escape skill? maybe some kind of item too)...and some supporting in-game lore that explains it. It's a lot of different powers to try and squeeze into one combat bar. But maybe some of these factors could contribute to your sneak attack damage too eg: I sap my opponent (bonus damage), then stealth (bonus damage), then move to their back side (more crit chance) then try to distract them (chance to break stealth, bonus damage) then backstab. Basically the more actions you try to perform while stealthed, the greater chance you'll break stealth, and the concealment skill would hedge against this. But setting up your opponent in a more vulnerable situation to ambush them should have some benefit.

    Also if you sap a wolf, then try to stealth near it, I'd like to see an animation of the wolf trying to sniff you out when it 'wakes up.' Then you could try using your escape skill or something to throw off your scent to prevent it from finding you. Just some thoughts on dynamic worlds and some of these ideas are long term hopes.

    And the fact that the npc corpse would be KO'd and disappear wouldn't be very realistic I guess but in a multi-player environment you don't want to encounter a zone full of monsters with no loot on them. This way a pickpocket could still get the full amount of adventure xp from a monster just like killing them. But maybe this encourages the pick pocket skill too much... /shrugs. Another post I almost deleted but instead it's more flawed logic for you guys to peruse!
     
  9. Time Lord

    Time Lord Avatar

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    ~Yes to the Above~:rolleyes:
    As a structure of Cities and towns, I would like to see the outskirts being more thief friendly targets, while gaining access to a target with more bounty should be more within the center of town/city and thus protected quite well... yet not impossible for a gang of thieves to co-operatively penetrate... with some hidden surprises coming on and off. If it can be done, it should have a super element of danger which would foil the attempt more often than not when penetrating the center bank or such. This would prevent repetitive grind robbery.

    ~Repetitive Grind Robbery~:confused:
    This is the main thing that gets in the way of my fully supporting limitless crime. Whether by plunder amount restrictions, by instance or area or city, such limits would prevent a grinder thief.

    ~Bad Time Lord~:cool:
     
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  10. Gix

    Gix Avatar

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    How do you balance it for PvP? Yet, there it is; a PvP only skill (the only one, I might add).

    @Time Lord
    If the NPCs had a caste system, then difficulty and reward could be balanced based on that. For the online portion of the game, you could refresh their inventory every 24 hours or so with a diminishing return. Diminishing returns in the sense that, if the NPC is too "popular", then don't refill that NPC's pockets. If I pick someone's pockets and it's empty, I would immediately think: "okay, that guy was already a target and may be too obvious, lets try someone else.. a noble instead?" but at least I got feedback.

    Reward wise, it'd be like killing/pillaging mobs out in the wilderness, yet you'd have to content with guards and loot that will most likely never be a weapon or anything special. Notes (hints?), coins, keys, etc.

    Is there a limit on how often you can murder people? No, so why is everyone afraid that a non-lethal method would break the game?
     
  11. StrangerDiamond

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  12. Time Lord

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    ~We Ran Into Similar Obstructions With Our Cannibalism~
    Now I just attempt to adjust my ideas to this structured environment we find ourselves in...
    NPC assaulting seems our only source expansion.
    ~Time Lord~o_O
     
  13. StrangerDiamond

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    Yea but it at least needs to go both ways, NPC can steal from you if we can steal from NPCs...

    Like how you say "our cannibalism" lol...
     
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  14. Favonius Cornelius

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    Portalarium thinks it can have its cake and eat it too with this game. It thinks that it can make both a single player game and a multiplayer game, but remove any and all conflict between players. This belief defies the basic tenants of existence itself, and though we play a game, we live in the real world and are yet affected by reality. In other words, are you familiar with the concept of YIN and YANG? The theme has been visited by all cultures of the world in various ways, but I will quote wikipedia as it seems to do a fine job of it:

    "In Chinese philosophy, yin yang (yin-yang or yin yang, never yin and yang, because they flow into one another) yīnyáng "dark—bright") describes how opposite or contrary forces are actually complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another. Many tangible dualities (such as light and dark, fire and water, expanding and contracting) are thought of as physical manifestations of the duality symbolized by yin yang. "

    How this relates to SoA? You can't make a game without risks that is fun and engaging. Even the smallest child gets tired of eating pure sugar. Its a flawed philosophy to think you can protect a player from any and all loss and still maintain their respect. So there are a few cowards that balk at any and all loss? To hell with them. With proper consequences and balance, one can create a great game as Ultima Online was. This game will never reach WoW size so who cares about trying to make everyone happy? Accept the niche status this game is in and make a great game for that niche audience. I promise you, no one here will leave.
     
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  15. Womby

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    No. Pickpocketing is a form of PVP. In SotA PVP is consensual.
     
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  16. Gix

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    Considering that the word (beyond grieving for the dead) means: to trouble or annoy, I'd say yes.

    However, the main point I was trying to make is: Why does it exist as a PvP mechanic BEFORE it's even remotely implemented as a PvE mechanic?

    Not to mention that we already have a way to steal items from people; it's called looting their corpses.

    Well, for one, that would be incredibly annoying busywork.

    I can understand people not wanting to get items stolen from them, for the same reasons why people wouldn't want their houses to be looted & demolished while they were offline. As a thief, I love the idea of stealing from other people but I also understand how impossibly annoying it would be if I got my own stuff stolen without me being aware of it; possibly even failing a quest because I lost that one key I looted 2-3 days ago.
    • Did I misplace it?
    • Which bank might I deposited it?
    • Maybe it's in another backpack?
    • Maybe its in a chest somewhere in one of my houses?
    • Maybe some guy looted off of me?
    No, I don't want that. You risk wasting too much time.

    I got no problem with gold, though.
     
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  17. Black Tortoise

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    Highly doubt it. I think whats "holding them back" (if you can call it that) is time.
     
  18. tekkamansoul

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    I like all of these ideas. I also like the Final Fantasy esque method of making the primary target of sleight of hand type skills be normal enemies.

    Many more people would take pickpocketif if it led to a Pilfer or Plunder attack that stole items, gold, or rare drops from an enemy's loot table.

    Of course, many more people would PvP if players had loot tables too, instead of simply losing their gear.
     
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  19. Gix

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    Guild Wars 2 probably has the best version of that mechanic: The Thief class's unique ability is to "pickpocket" a target and the skill gets replaced by a pseudo-random skill (unique for the thief class) based on the weapon their opponents are wielding. Keeping that new skill until consumed.

    Doing it on engineers would grant nets or small grenades.
    Doing it on people wielding maces would grant a sort of sap/stun.
    Doing it on birds would grant a blinding powder.
    Doing it on a lizard would either be a lightning attack or a bleed.
    Etc.

    Probably the most imaginative pickpocket mechanic I've seen in modern games. It made the class feel more like a thief and less like an assassin.

    For a game like SotA, though, I'd kind of like a more traditional system. I'd certainly be happy with both :)
     
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  20. Anvar

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    Agreed, pickpocketing needs to have a lot more added, Should be possible to steal off anyone really, infact could be an interesting take that you could only steal off non PvP enabled players, might encourage a few more to enable PvP mode :p

    Maybe have a thieves guild that you get given targets to steal from, maybe anyone whose non pvp flagged but attacks someone whose pvp becomes a thief target...
    So many possibilities but there needs to be some risk for the non pvp players, thats why you keep your good stuff in boxes and banks, and trapped containers (hopefully)

    Also the PvE thieving needs a purpose, stealing from npcs, shops etc, maybe later uo stealable type rares.
     
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