The original post was about changing the thieving chances (which, yes, included removing the insta-whacks): The point I'm trying to make is that these outcome rates give even more power to thieves to harrass people in town. I think it's a really bad idea without giving victims more power to do something about it, other than try to chase them down and kill them (which is difficult even on a pvp char, and impossible on a crafter).
PROTIP: You do not have to be a member of the thieves guild to steal from thieves who are perma-gray. If someone is harrasing you, try to random steal from them (use steal skill and target their name). If the message you receive is: "You must be in the thieves guild..." let him be. If the message is "you fail to steal the item" you are free to kill the thief with no repercussion.
Thieving has been very profitable for me. It's just the right balance. There are only few minor tweaks that i think that would make it better and i would consider them to be minor. 1) ludicrously rare items such as vampires sash should not be newbied. If you are dumb enough to roll around with that in a place that's reachable for me well that's on you. I don't see a reason why rare drops like that should be newbied except for literal newb gear you start with or blessed items. ( i don't mind ethys etc being blessed) 2) checks should have a very small chance of successfully being stolen but at least a chance. Too many people rolling around with big checks in their bags. 3) a stack of regs should able to be stolen in whole. Or increase the overall stone limit 4) murder counts shouldn't suspend from the thieves guild. At least right now i can't think of a good reason for this mechanic to be in place. Overall, it's been more fun and profitable than I ever thought it would be.
I have always hated this. I really enjoyed playing a thug on another shard and just random steal while starting fights. Maybe a good compromise would be to allow anyone to steal anything outside of guard zones or in dungeons, and only require the thieves guild to steal in town or other guarded regions?
1) Since it's an armor piece, it has to be newbied since it can't be blessed. If it was neither newbied nor blessable, then it falls flat as a reward, since any PK can kill you and take it. It becomes a collector piece, and not something you can actually wear like you can a MoW. 2) This could be abusable, though. You could scam someone into bringing a 20mil check to buy your keep, have a couple thief friends stealth up and pop all his trapped pouches while you paralyze. Then stand around taking turns trying to steal the check. 3) If thieving is already profitable for you, why this change? Stealing reagents doesn't seem like a big money maker anyway, so this really just sounds like a way to empower thieves to annoy other players even more. Or do you actually use it to steal regs in pvp? 4) Yeah, I also can't think of a good reason.
1) I get what you are saying. Still i think the very rare items like that should have a certain chance of successfully being stolen. Maybe I'm just obsessed with thoughts of granduer by relieving someone of a million dollar item. I wonder about a mechanic that would allow items to be stolen but just not available on loot? 2) i concede this is a good point. I don't see a way around that unless checks are only vulnerable in town but at that point might as well leave it be. 3) Oh I'm not above stealing reagents. However, i think the success ratio is often too small for a GM. I always succeed at stealing regs but sometimes it's a total of 3 and then sometimes its a total of 80. I also think for PVP it could be quite effective to successfully steal an opponents entire stack of bloodmoss. 4) Also can a murderer steal?
I think murderer's should be able to steal, definitely. Doesn't make sense that they can't. For stealing checks, maybe stealing a check lets you make a forgery worth a small % (5-10%?) of the original check, up to some limit (10k max?). Check is stolen: • The real check is placed back in the owner's bank, minus 5% (capped at 10k or so) of the original check's value. • The thief gets a non-blessed 'stolen check', worth whatever amount the original was reduced by. Downside is, it's custom code (seems like all my 'great' ideas require custom code). It's also a buff to thieves, which I'm not advocating unless the rest of us get some way to root out thieves without gimping our characters by picking up forensic eval. Here's another idea for that: Give forensic evaluation a shown-skill stat bonus, somewhere around 15-25 skill bonus for high stats. Make successful forensic eval turn a member of the thieves' guild grey even if they aren't 'wanted', but only to the forensic eval user, guards not callable. Players who notice a thief can have fun following them around, using forensic eval every 10s. And if one lands, they can fight the thief. Of course, as soon as they attack a thief, the thief could fight back! You never know which thief is prepared to fight back.
@Pirul This only tells me if they're perma-grey or not. So... I can only counter a thief after they've stolen? That really doesn't seem to solve the problem. Plus, do I have to be in stealing range to do this? 'cause if so, then in my attempt to counter a thief, I've just given the thief a great opportunity to steal from me. I was planning to test these things on the test server before replying to your suggestion, but I haven't had time. How long is the perma-grey timer, before they can just suicide to clear it? If it's not like 30mins or something really long like that, then it seems like perma-grey really doesn't do much, especially when everyone has 3 accounts.
Until they die. Forensics (or the stealing trick) can tell you if they are capable of stealing from you so you can just "don't stand near them" or "go near an npc so their chances to steal something become almost 0". Outside of town, you can murder them without any fear of a murder count whether they are perma or not.
I remember once on Lake Superior before the insta-kill guards were implemented I had a guard pop in to kill me and she just stood there with halbard drawn back... I took off running and she followed me at about 3 paces obviously lagged. I led her all the way to the Brit Cemetery where all the bad kids hung out and we laughed and laughed as I walked around with my pet guard...
I actually managed to swipe a decent sword from Ocllo bank the other day without magery. On the town side, too. So it's not impossible. But it is literally just a crap shoot. I'd be tremendously happy with the state of the thief if line of sight could be directional. Distractions and timing would feel a lot better than the options available now. edit: though, what the thief really needs is a more active victim pool. When everyone is just afk with an empty pack, you might as well take tasteid and cooking.
