or you could just let some of the trammel go and make the skill era accurate because it should be in a ren/fel server why not just take out pking, stealing, and looting all together and make a server where you guys can farm pixels 24/7 with no chance at loss to another player.
Yar, 12hrs per individual character that a plat could possibily be dropped by...? And forensic evaluation needs a perk, to boost the detectives of sosaria into a thief hunting lynch mob! Say you discover a thief with forensics (does that work like that here?) and you give them a time out via a dirt nap, you run the chance of getting a plat drop for the victory, again within a set timer per character but less than the stealing one. Also the thief needs a chance at a plat if they save their hide and dirt nap the detective instead, providing its defence nah, that's called trammel and we don't like it.....cept the wearables.
and the blessed runebooks house moats and cys combined with blessed runebooks that never need to have the doors opened ethys rare items over 10 stones inaccurate and poor stealing mechanics clothing that is nearly impossible to break instanced events blessed runics so on and so forth yet out of all of that stuff, all I really would like to see is the skill adjusted to how it should be with successes and fails, stealing stacked items, at gm stealing low rates of auto guard deaths (hence the term grandmaster, if guards can be called on you 3/4 steals, it takes 3-4 tries to steal a stack of 20 regs, if you fail stealing 1 stone items, you fail on low weight items 3-4 times in a row, stuff like that isn't era accurate and by no means deserves a grandmaster status.) The always go grey thing wasn't a system on prodo either.
A thief here plays against the system more than it plays against other players, the system is stacked against them more than any other class here in a really unbalanced fashion. That's not really that fun, the player interaction is what is fun. Teaching people how to handle thieves and pks correctly - the right thing to do. Patching in massive amounts of nerfs and trammel - wrong thing to do.
Don't need a courtyard to be secure, you never made it in my tower Ban list was wiped too! *preps the traps*
As a new player here, I was personally shocked when I couldn't steal a runebook directly out of my guildy's backpack. "You cannot steal that." Nah man. This isn't felucca... What a disappointing joke. Runebooks that aren't newbied or blessed should be open game. I had to random chance steal the item, which took about 15 minutes. My disarm thief is pointless here; might as well turn him into an ID Chef. You have safe zones, player guides, and a helpful community, so breaking the thief mechanic isn't necessary. It is disturbing, however.
Runebooks aren't directly targetable because they are 0 stones, much like BOD books. Also, disarm thieves are great during overworld events.
Also, Begging can turn npc's around if you have either the points or coordination for it. It is a lot less noticeable than a big honking wall.
I've had quite a bit of success stealing in towns - not really sure where some of the complaints here are coming from. Am I absolutely swimming in loot after running around Occlo for 30 minutes on my thief? Certainly not, but I have made some sizable scores. Stealing is not an instant gratification profession by any means, it requires a rather high degree of patience. I certainly don't play my thief as my main, just for the lulz on occasion. Challenging? Sure that's true. Infeasible? That I don't agree with.
If you're asking about the referencing of "LOS" by players, then I believe it's about the player created LOS loss via wall of stone. That or (typically) complaints about how NPC's have no LOS rules applied by building structural walls and seemingly can see crime through the bricks and mortars as they happen signaled by their calling "GUARDS!" from inside.
LOS = Line of sight. The actual orientation of the NPC mobile doesn't matter, only whether it has a free line of sight. Even if you turn the NPC around, it still has a free LOS, as I said, the actual orientation isn't checked ingame. The Wall of Stone blocks the line of sight. Most items and other spells like this Energy Wall thing doesn't block LOS and get you still guardwhacked. I hope that clarifies the ingame mechanics that are applied here. Above said only applies for stealing attempts. Afaik, murder/attack attempts are still seen through walls by NPCs. This has been modified on purpose by Staff here.
The problem with town thieves -- and probably the reason people can't stand them -- is that they get to harass other players, and their victims can't do anything back (or maybe I'm just missing some game mechanic? I've only been on this server for a couple months). A PK can die and lose gear. A thief in a dungeon can be revealed and killed. A town thief, though, I can't do anything to, because attacking them gets me an instant guardwhack. When I see a player I know is a thief, all I can do is run away or recall to another bank. Or... hope the RNG is in my favor? They don't even have to be sneaky about it - they just ride up to you and start peeking into your bags, and then follow around when you move away. Nobody steals in town so they can get awesome loot. They do it so they can have fun messing with other players. So complaints about how they don't make any money are nothing more than a misdirection designed to convince the staff to give them a buff. The real equation should be about how much they get to mess with other players VS how much other players get to mess with them right back. So no, don't give town thieves any buffs. They're already OP. If the staff wants to buff town thieves, here's a suggestion make it more fun for everyone: add a command for players to target a known thief and revoke their thieves' guild status for a short period. Might be a heavier lift than the staff is willing to put into it, but here's an idea of what I'm thinking: • Saying "thief" while in a guard-zone brings up a target selection. • If a player in the thieves' guild is targeted with it, they can't steal from players for X units of time. • If a player not in the thieves guild is targeted with it, nothing happens and the command goes on cooldown to prevent players from spamming it. If something like that went into affect, I'd be fine with thieves getting a buff to their stealing chances. At least with this, thieves would have to actually be sneaky. If they're too obvious, someone's going to call "thief" on them, and they'll be shut down for a short while. And if a thief becomes too well known, then they'd better start packing a disguise kit.
Hello @Willard , First off welcome to UO:R! There is a skill called forensic evaluation http://www.uorenaissance.com/info/Forensic_Evaluation This skill allows you to target a character to see if they are a "wanted criminal" and in the thieves guild Although the thief may appear blue, they are in fact actually gray. The skill will let you know if they are currently wanted by the law and you can freely attack them in town even if they are blue. To be a criminal you must have stolen something and gotten away, waited out your gray timer and reverted back to being blue. There is a person who plays a detective around the Ocllo bank who specializes in hunting thieves. He may be able to provide more information. Some people keep a list of "known" thief names and when they come on screen immediately use the forensic evaluation skill on them to see if they can be killed/hunted. Be aware though, there is a disguise kit which thieves may use. Although this changes their physical appearance and name, it does not fool your forensic evaluation skill. Be sure to use it on random passersby to catch that extra sneaky thief! -------------- Also, to address your concern about people snooping your bags. Some players have tied the word "Guards" to a macro. Should a thief successfully steal from you within town simply press your macro key and yell Guards. A city guard will appear and whack the thief. Be certain your macro has it set to "Yell" not "Say". If a thief is killed shortly after taking something from a player, upon death I believe that item is returned to the player's inventory bag. -------------- UO has a lot of balancing acts going on the in background to accommodate all play styles. Often there must be skill points or a character slot sacrificed in order to counter another play style. Its just a matter of trying to out think the opposing player. Its one of the reasons so many of us old time players love this game.
Hey @Alvien, thanks for the solid post and warm welcome. On forensic evaluation; I think it's unrealistic to expect people to pick up a skill just so they can detect the presence of a thief. It's usually pretty obvious when someone's a thief - most of them don't even try to hide it. Most often, they ride up, start snooping, grab something and run like hell. I thought the item is only returned if they fail the stealing check. If they go grey and you manage to chase them down and kill them, I thought it goes on the body, which is free for anyone to loot (e.g: their dual-boxing alt). I should poke around the test server and try town thieving mechanics. I didn't know there was a difference between yell and say, so that's good to know. I've never had calling guards do anything, so maybe that's my problem?
If the thief dies within a certain time window (5-10 sec?), his loot will return to the victim, yes. A really interesting discussion has been going on here. Welcome, Willard, your input is very much appreciated. As a somewhat known and experienced thief, I have to agree with most of what Willard wrote about town stealing. It is very often done in a open, harrassive, annoying way - especially around Ocllo. The purpose is to provoke other players and the only solution is to get away from the location and the idiotic thief. Now this thread was about something else though. I believe it started when we talked about automatic-whacks triggered by NPCs. And these whacks prevent succesful town stealing (even if it's done properly sneaky in the shadows etc). I believe what many people favour that thieves can be whacked by active players that call guards and watch their bags and system notifications, while AFKers shouldnt be protected by a grid of tightly spaced NPCs (especially around the banks).
