I appreciate the graceful simplicity of Basoosh's idea but I think it might be a little too basic and really not what most of us expect as far as stealing mechanics. Unless I'm just too caught up in my own traditional beliefs, I think UO veterans expect for theives to have a variety of 'criminal' statuses. This should also make sense to new players; sometimes somebody's gonna steal from you when you aren't looking. This is pretty much how theft works in real life. Pickpockets aren't gambling on being able to outrun their mark, they're counting on not being noticed. As I said before, maybe I'm just stuck with antiquated ideas about what's right from mechanics that were always broken but going grey with every attempt just doesn't seem right to me. I'd actually like to see a system wherein a thief could be blue (perma-grey) but unable to bank or recall. I'm offended by BaldSOB's assertion that thieves should be able to bank and recall at all times. That's a mechanic that affects us all! If a generally non-aggressive player, like myself, has to fend off the vultures before I can recall out or bank when I go grey then something much worse should happen to a bank thief. I also wouldn't mind seeing a 'grey to target only' mechanic for stealing. Being able to hide to avoid the guardwhack seems appealingly logical to me, though. Perhaps guards could be called but wouldn't attack until they gained line of sight to the criminal? Personally, this doesn't seem unbalanced by itself and I think would allow for much more interesting in-game encounters. Also, it seems to me that the trade window delay is a matter of combating exploitative scammers. Despite popular belief, all thieves do not fall into this category. I can see how it would be extremely frustrating for a mark to abuse this mechanic to avoid theft. However, I'm not sure how one would go about modifying the mechanic to be fair to everyone. Perhaps the trade window items would only become unstealable if one or both of the check boxes were clicked? Edit: Thanks for making sure snooping while stealthed worked here, Chris. Now, that was preposterous. . .
Thanks for this thorough response Chris! I understand you have many variables to take into account but it's encouraging to see you're not making yourself(-ves) impossible in this matter. Great stuff! BaldSOBs request for a stealing mechanic guide to help an "educated discussion" would be great.
There seems to be a lot of confusion going on, and I think it ties into the standard RunUO mechanics you mentioned elsewhere. Using the stealing skill (on a playermobile?) while in the thieves' guild should set "perma-grey" status until the thief's next death. There is no RNG or other chance based mechanisms involved here, in era this was an inevitable outcome. So on production shards, there was no way for a thief to lure people into a guard-whack via stealing from them; unless he left, suicided, waited out the grey flag on death and then returned to town. In answer to the bolded part, this depends a lot on perspective. On production shards, you had a relatively high chance to notice thefts from your own backpack, with the thief turning grey to you only. That aside, there were several possible outcomes, as far as flagging goes, and thieves only turned proper criminal when there was a bad RNG-roll involved. From the perspective of the victim, it more or less looked all the same, however. Era accurate flagging process (in my opinion) would be: Upon successful theft... - perma-grey flag is set - check is performed on whether the victim notices (thief turns grey for victim only) - check for other player mobiles within X tiles (possibly modified by distance (and detective skills, if you feel like it)) The actual criminal status (which is "perma-grey") is the same all along. The checks just determine who can see the thief as grey for the duration of a regular criminal status, without having to attack first. Whether or not the thief goes global criminal is a separate issue.
I stand by that simplicity is the way to go. As evidenced by the many IRC complaints, the forum threads, and apparently the mass amounts of pages that the staff receives, the multiple criminal states of thieves is too confusing, even if it matches old school production UO. The system is too complex and has too many moving parts, even after all the (much appreciated) work the staff has done on the system. Basically, my two biggest beefs with the system are: - As a victim, there is an obvious criminal right in front of me, but nothing happens when I call the guards. This aggravates victims. - As a thief, I live and die by the RNG. That isn't fun. I would much prefer a system that rewards skill, deceit, and elusiveness. A variety of criminal statuses adds 'superfluous depth' to the system. UO is a great game, but its 90's-era game development shows through in many of its systems and stealing is definitely one of them. It's complex for the sake of being complex. It's complexity doesn't add any engaging gameplay or player interactivity.
I believe you are contradicting yourself. As Godric mentioned, a theft (or pickpocketing, to be precise) is rarely noticed by the victim in real life. More often than not, the victim ends up confused as to where the belongings disappeared to, and who might be responsible for it. So if the original stealing mechanics in UO simulated this outcome to such a degree that the player in question isn't altogether sure what happened, who did it, or how to react to it.. then that is hardly "superfluous depth" or "complex for the sake of being complex". It's ingenious game design in its own right, especially considering how relatively simple the mechanics on the back end are. Throwing this overboard in order to re-invent the wheel, just because RunUO got some minor details wrong in the default settings, seems to be inefficient use of development resources, to me.
Weight of the item is the key factor here, and it should be in the control of the thief: we should have the option to determine how many items we want to steal from a stack, just like how we can split a stack. Having the grand master skill I shouldn't be so clumsy as to try to steal a complete stack of reagents instead of just a handful. For argument's sake, and to be honest, I thought the undetected (read as not auto guard whacked) stealing of stacked items was intended, and quite clever. The way I saw it, a skilled thief had the innate ability to grab just enough items not to be detected; if there were 300 gold pieces in a backpack, or 3000 for that matter, I was never able to steal all of it in one attempt with GM stealing. Usually I only grabbed around 120 gold per attempt, but it varied from as little as 50 or so, to maybe 175. Similarly for reagents, it varied from less than 5 to about 30 per steal attempt, regardless of the size of the stack. I don't see what's so bad about this to be honest. If someone is AFK they should be vulnerable to theft just as they are vulnerable to being PKed. I understand the stealing in town is more problematic, but the town is not your home after all. While it remains permissible to steal in town, why make an arbitrary restriction on stackables but continue to allow the stealing of other items? The system in place now means I cannot steal any reagents from someone as long as they have stacks of over 50 each. If you don't want to lose 1000 gold worth of reagents, then don't AFK with them, just as I presume you don't AFK with your 1000 gold sword in your backpack. If someone is not AFK, then they would easily notice me stealing their stackables, as I would have to literally stand next to them for five minutes, stealing every 10 seconds, in order to steal 8 stacks of 50 reagents and another 50 potions. If a thief wants to risk stealing 50 or 100 reagents in one go, and then try to make a run for it, let them face the consequences. On the other hand, if a thief wants to steal 5 reagents, he should be able to get away without being auto guard whacked, and leave the detection and guard calling to the other players. Having said all that, the "big scores" in stealing from players are not the reagents and potions, but rather the keys, weapons, and special coins. Anyone who goes around stealing reagents is doing so only for fun, not profit. And I can't imagine anyone who loses a restock supply of reagents is all that upset.
You can see my input in the thread (in trash talk) that got blown up by a few folks here. I know you could steal in town and stay blue a lot. I also know that unless it was a 10 stone item, fails were rare. Town stealing was fun and do able. And you could steal and still have regs or supplies on you. Thieves do have a tendency to get over powered, but they also have a tendency to get nerfed into worthlessness too, or made into a pve char. I like the changes with the los through walls, I'd like to see a few tweaks like disarm succeeding more, weights adjusted for less fails and more weight on stacks. I'm glad Tela and Co. are working to balance the class though. My one era accurate complaint is across the board though, I feel like things err here on the side of fails, maybe it's a product of being part of the power scroll era when I quit, but I know with everything from provo, to casting spells at gm, to crafting gm items, to not failing med, etc worked where fails were less often than successes. I think it's frustrating to have a grandmaster char who apparently sucks. *you just fizzed gate 8 times, then failed a med, grandmaster my ass*
You're looking at it from the point of view of "How would this real-world action make sense in a game"? That's good, but that's not all there is to game design. We also have to ask: "Is this mechanic engaging/exciting?" "Is this mechanic tedious?" "Is this mechanic balanced?" "Is this mechanic easy to understand?" And most of all, "Is this mechanic fun?" That's why our characters don't need to eat or drink. That's why our characters never need to sleep. That's why our characters never go to the bathroom. Tons of victims have complained that the existing mechanics of stealing are confusing. Most thieves, I would wager, are not a fan of RNG deaths. The staff has already made several changes to the system based off of the feedback thus far. It's clearly a problem. As a slight side note: Sometimes games with unknown rules are fun. Figuring out the rules in those kinds of games is the entire point of the game. I'd say that design is not good practice for something as important as Stealing, where players can unwillingly have valuables taken from them. EDIT: Reworded this post.
I think we can agree to disagree on this, and I appreciate your attempt to come up with a comprehensive solution to a situation which is being perceived as problematic. But I would like to address some of your points regardless, because I'd rather not let them stand uncontested. While it is true that our characters do not have to eat, drink or sleep, they can do all of that in UO - and each of these actions has (more or less relevant) gameplay mechanics directly attached. I daresay if the potty was not such a taboo in American culture, you would be visiting it in-game, too. As it is, I rather fondly remember the debates about whether a character being hungry had any influence on skill successes; and while the official answer somewhere down the line was "no", I know a fair few people kept superstitiously nibbling at fishsteaks when the Gate spell fizzled for the third time in a row. Do the documented food mechanics score a positive result on any (let alone all) of the questions you put forward? I'm not even sure most of them are directly applicable, but the feature added immensely to the gameplay experience regardless. Let me start this off by saying: I'm a strong believer in player feedback. Most projects are lucky enough to have a sizeable group of followers with excellent understanding of the game's underlying mechanics and their effect on gameplay, so ignoring their evaluations would be less than wise. However, complaints are also what got us Trammel. It is an unfortunate fact that complaints are not necessarily justified, and as such do not mandate action simply by virtue of existing. (Likewise, trying to respond to justified complaints is not guaranteed to improve the overall situation, as game balance is a notoriously tricky beast.) What you are currently doing, is advocating to alter the game to suit the lowest common denominator (i.e.: "This is too complicated a mechanic for people who don't understand it, so let's change it."), which is rarely a good thing in my eyes. I'm all for fixing current bugs or inconsistencies, and providing a level playing-field for everyone to enjoy; but I am in no way convinced that a mostly era-accurate representation of the Stealing skill can not fit this bill.
I have no opinion on era accuracy, but I like this general approach. I would tweak it a bit though: 1. NPCs only call guards when a thief steals from *them*, not when a thief steals from someone else. 2. Only the victims can call guards (no one else), but they can call guards as long as they have LOS, are within 120 seconds, and the thief is still within a guard zone. None of this stuff about the server computing whether you notice the theft. You, the player, either notice it or you don't. 3. Even if the thief manages to hide, if you figure out where he is you can call guards. No need to reveal him first, you just have to yell guards with LOS to the hiding place. Yes this means the mark can run around spamming guards. So you better have a clever hiding place or a quick way out of the guard zone. 4. Can't cast recall or enter a gate within 10 seconds of a successful theft. Regards, Wil
OSI staff's failure to act early and effectively to complaints are what got us Trammel. They decided to "minimize the down side of being dead" instead of keeping griefing activity (aka sadism) to a tolerable level. The complaints and cancellations eventually reached a crescendo where the orders came down from on high that involuntary pvp would stop. Period. Without nuance. It's that "without nuance" that gave us most of what we hate about Trammel. Not the decision to impair griefing. Imagine if early on they'd nerfed PK so that no PC could directly attack a blue except in a few designated PvP zones. You could still attack a gray or a red, and they could fight back against a blue. Still steal. Still drag aggressive mobs to a victim's location. Still loot the corpse. But paralyze and flamestrike simply wouldn't target a blue PC. The game would have evolved very differently and there almost certainly would never have been a Trammel where any potentially negative act impacting another player was simply verboten. There would never have been enough of a groundswell of complaints to bring it about. IMHO, Wil
This was an interesting point! Especially the bolded part is exciting! Would definitely reward and motivate to develop sneaky tactics and skills! However, about the last part, as a thief you're most often the slower part since you (obviously) can't stealth while mounted. Most people are mounted. Upon theft the thief is revealed and "Yay, good luck running away from a horse!". This is of course possible to get around by first stealthing up to the victim and setting a target on a particular item, then do a drive by with a mount. This takes time though and many stealing situations wouldn't allow it (unless it's some AFK guy). One could live with it, but if the possibility to even gate would also be removed it'd be a bit too much.
I like all of this! I'm glad actual thieves are chiming in on this topic to perfect this. I think this perhaps would be the most simple of all the ideas so far (excluding item 3). See my tweaks above in red and see if they make you think "Hmmm good point Jupiter" or "OFF WITH HIS HEAD GTFO!" Thanks Jupiter
I'm afraid as long as you label non-consensual PvP "griefing", we won't be having any meaningful discussion. Especially if you develop hypothetical scenarios like.. .. where the actual griefing (spawn luring and dry looting) would be perfectly possible and condoned - while the victim has absolutely no means of recourse whatsoever. Because casting Flamestrike on players is a bad no no. Ehm.. your suggestion IS Trammel. You have no idea how many people were killed by having spawn lured on them, and subsequently looted. Both was perfectly possible under early Trammel ruleset, and luring could only be prevented by GM intervention. Which was a drag on human resources and unreliable to boot.
I think going gray every steal is perfectly fine. The only complain i would have is the amount of guard whacks. When someone goes afk with a pack full of regs (which is almost all anyone mostly has on them) you cant even fleece them for their regs anymore, you get a couple successful steals on a stack of root then boom guardwhackd , which brings the afk person back from AFK and then they loot their regs right back off of you. You cant bank the regs inbetween because you are gray after each steal, and you cant steal many of them at all before a guard whack comes in, so its lose/lose. Its basically lead to me never stealing regs now and just endlessly looking for one item worth risking the guard whack for (which is rare).
Eh, you could just get a pack horse and put the regs in there after you steal them, and/or have an alt gate straight to the chaos shrine to res your thief. Or block the LOS of NPC's when stealing, et al. I don't think there is anything wrong with stealing stacks of items getting you whacked, that's how it's always been in UO, and in fact stealing is actually better HERE in that respect, because of the LOS needed for NPC's to call guards on you. I'm assuming here that stealing stacks is the default runuo setting though, where it just sort of picks a random number from the min to max of the stack you could possibly steal, then performs the check on that weight/quantity of item. I basically stopped stealing due to the trade-window-trammel stealth-patch, so if it's different now I wouldn't know. I think everyone here sort of has a crazy opinion on just what "griefing" actually is.
I'm going to say lying to someone to get them to initiate a trade so you can set their item to last target and CHOOSE when that item hits their pack, is griefing. Provide a gump to close a trade window with confirmation and the trade-window-trammel will not be needed to stop people from exploiting that oversight in game design.
