Stealing

Stealing in SotA is not fun.
I don't know exactly how much the fines are, but I think I've seen my gold drop by over 1,000 coins, which seems excessive considering that most of the time the coolest thing you can steal is a candle. or a pair of spider silk.

We break or open containers in all cities, sometimes it is allowed to take their contents and other times it is a crime. When it is a crime, it should be worth the risk and there could even be different levels of fine depending on the item stolen. For example:

2,000 gold fine for items sold by Housing Decorations Merchant (limited to chandelier, chair, crate, floor torch, barrel bookcase, small and large bed, small and large dark cabinet, table, sack, and stool, maybe a larger fine for Mosaic of the Avatar). The amount of the fine is based on the approximate average of the lowest and highest prices of those items, so we could be forced to pay a fine that is much higher than its price or, on the contrary, benefit from the crime. That would make the robbery more exciting.

Fine of 6,000 gold for new articles. Deploy materials such as stealable decoration items: dye vials, ingots, coils of rope, planks, logs, wax, gemstones, unicorn horns, bowls of unicorn blood, chunk of coal, caltrops, cotton spools, leather bits, a bowl with black pearl, a small pot of mandrake, some hanging dried garlic , a plate with Sulfurous Ash, pecans, mushrooms, butter…

Both types of items should be able to be found in random containers marked "private" or "steal" in NPC cities. There are thousands of containers scattered throughout the cities, it would be much more fun to search everywhere and the lootable items would not always come out in the same container.
And if the player is stealthed, he would have less chance of getting caught by the guards. This would give stealth a new utility, and make it much more attractive.

Jail sentence if the guards catch you stealing for the third or successive times: 3rd time 10 minutes in prison, 4th time 15 minutes… increase 5 minutes for each time you are caught stealing in the same city in the same game session (or such time in the same city in a period of 4 or 6 hours). There are empty NPC buildings that could be used as a prison by drawing some cells on them (or whatever).
There could be prison keys that could be found in the world and could be used to escape from the cell or ask another player to come and free you. If a player comes to free you, he too risks getting caught and fined or jailed. Keys should have a very distinctive name to differentiate them from other keys.

This would achieve several things: a new way to play with our characters, more adventure and excitement, encourage a new use of the stealth ability in PVE, a new market niche (new items, prison keys), more customization in decoration, encourage exploration (especially Player Run Town, many of these towns are unknown to many players), new bonds of friendship with the person who risks freeing you from prison...

They are some ideas, they can be improved, and suggestions and debate about them are welcome, but I think something like this would be super cool and a lot of fun.

 

The medieval punishment for a thief caught in flagranti by the city guard could have been to lose your hand (like e.g. for poaching in England) or to be put in a stock on the market place for a day or more where passerby´s could throw rotten tomatoes and salad at you. Having the guard take a fee should be seen as a service in lieu of corpreal punishment that would be the norm for normal people.

And I would not say that the coolest thing to steal would be a candle or a pair of spider silk - as far as I know you have the same chances for content of a crate or barrel regardless if it is marked private or not - and I got a few common Rings of Jones or Recipes for Yellow Dragon Conversationalists out of those.

Important is that you can make your own decision if you want to steal or not, after you have seen what there is to steal. 1 gold and a part of wood scrap? Not worth the risk and pass.

If you rate the fines solely on the price of the stolen property there are difficulties - a new guy who steals something might not have 6000 gold. For someone playing for 10 years even 10000 might be nothing.

If we scale fines, they need to be scaled according to
1) Number of prior criminal offences. First time get reprimaned by the guard and get off free. 2nd time a basic fine of e.g. 100 gold and then raise the fine every time you gt caught commiting a crime (+1 gold for each crime).
2) Adventurer Level: A starting player might not have 4000 gold, a player playing for 10 years to get wealth might not miss even 6000. So add the adventurer level to the fine.

Currently you come out of stealth if you open a crate or barrel and the opening makes a loud noise that alerts anyone close around, e. g. dogs, guards

There is a currently unused cage with a lockable door on the market place of Castle Atos. And there are specific Jail buildings in some towns with iron bars for prison cells. Not that you *need* iron bars...

The Undead could carry Skeleton Keys...

 

What exactly is defined as stealing in the game currently?

 

Taking items from crates, barrels and sacks that when opened with E show in red "Steal items" (instead of "Take items" which can freely taken).

 

And what it the current rationale in the game between stolen ones and freely available ones?

 

The stolen ones are usually in houses of NPC´s or next to merchant stalls so that one can usually say that they would belong to the owner of that house or that merchant stall.

The freely available ones are usually in hostile zones or in towns where noone is nearby observing them.

 

How about for 12 hours during the Aether comet, we enact a full loot, full pvp, purge style gameplay? Anything goes!!!!

 

I just want a popup that says "Are you sure you want to steal this?" with a "Don't ask me again" checkbox.