Thief Content Discussion

@OptimisticSam Be more optimistic

But yeah, this thread helps. Shows more players wanting similar things.

*waits for orange name for dev forum*

Anyone know if only donation gets that? Or sub too?

I would assume yes, but you know how those work out.

There's a form you can fill out linked in one of the donation discussion if you haven't received your badge yet.

http://uorenaissance.com/contact/

@Killian Heh, I do.

Thanks for the link, I'm happy to wait. No particular rush, I subbed to support the server not for a shiny name. Although dev forum access will be nice

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@One Yeah, I thought as much. I've seen the title difference, just that I saw an old post where someone mentioned somewhere that it was for Donors only, I assume that was just a reference to both.

Thanks for clarification

Jimmy has an orange name! Oh yey! My favorite new up and coming thief! Watch those table walls!

Oooh just happened!

Thief quests and other nonsense will not stop what staff see as the problem. Make all the thief content you want, I still just want to rob other players. All you are going to create is more quests for PvMers and Rares-collectors to make thieves and do themselves. (And that's fine, I am sure they would appreciate the content)


The CTF stuff makes sense. Though you can't really add stealing of items to CTF in a manner that is feasable, they should at least be able to steal the flag or hide/stealth though.


PKs are also a big problem causing players to quit, but that has been shown to not be addressed given that even statloss has lost all functionality here on UOR and that most shard vets also play a non-statloss psuedo-PK. Anyone can roll a few alts, get some friends, and gate around killing 3 to 9 players per day. Not everyone can play a successful thief. The "If you can't beat them, join them" attitude that makes PK's tolerable is not present for the thief class. Fortunately this means there will never be many thieves at any one given point in time that can cause a lot of problems. Death-robe bank thieves not included, they are tons of them, and they are just players new to the thief class bothering people at banks. 95% of them will quit (at least the class) anyway, so it's a self-solving problem, except for the problems they cause in further damaging the thief class's good name.


Problem staff has is with the "totally loot popular shard vet's fortress and put his murderers into statloss" thief. One could say it's the vet's problem for having a lapse in house-security, and it is. The root problem is players quitting after being the "victim" of such actions. I feel no guilt stealing from players and their homes, even if they threaten to quit, though I do not steal from what I believe to be good, reasonable, players. And I shouldn't, stealing is a game mechanic, it's not my problem is someone else feels wronged.


So on to my victim-blaming: People feeling especially wronged by thieves is the problem.


Bart can PK you once a day all year, taking 5000gp worth of loot each time, earning himself a hefty ~1.8 million GP. But if a thief steals 1 million GP from a player, one time, in 1-2 years, it's the end of the world. Quick turn on the waterworks, set up a gofundme page, hire a copywriter for the "I'm quitting and this is why" forum post.



Hold a candle-light vigil for the loss of Gideon Jura's ridable polar bear



Guys think a thief like walks up to your house and just poof, all your stuff is gone. Nay sir. There is a TON of work involved. When I played heavily, I put in at least as many UO hours as hardcore farmers grinding mongbats at a champ spawn, or the LoL pk squad in their heyday. My profits? Basically a tiny tiny percentage of what they make. Barely enough to live on in the game, and only possible as a non-farming player because I have literally no care for rares or any such fancy things.

People see a thief making 2 million GP in a house loot as a player that just made 2 million GP in 30 minutes, when in reality it was a player putting in hundreds of hours scouting the map, tracking players, keeping track of their activities, just waiting for a good opportunity. Patience is the key to being a successful thief and enjoying the playstyle. You do not see all the failed attempts, of which there are MANY. You do not see all the loot I loose on each death, of which there are MANY. You see a forum post staying that "snapdragon just looted my house in 30 minutes and now has my 2 million gp rare dirty pan collection". If there is any problem, it's bad thief PR, we really need to hire a guy for that.


Of all the shard vets that play thieves, how many of them are rich? Right, basically none of them. The ones that can sometimes have net worth into the many millions, Jack of Shadows, @OptimisticSam, pockets, that one guy that is pals with Blaise, whatever his name is, and so on.... they all also farm, a lot. They are not primarily 99% of the time thieves. (Which is totally fine). Thieves put in a ton of hours, and get little in return. It's okay to play many classes.


It's like thieves take the lump-sum payout from lottery, where-as the rest of you are doing smarter thing and taking weekly payments without getting a 95% lump-sum tax.



Thief content will solve none of this. If you add thief quests and rares, and use that as a means to justify further nerfing the thief class, what you're going to get is no thieves, at least not any real ones. We will all leave the shard, which is likely not an issue to a majority here. The problem is a lack of understanding from the playerbase, and generally toxic community that takes things too personally, and can't see beyond the mane of their own pink cupid's steed.

The idea behind content for the thief class, is exactly that, content for the thief class. It should probably be renamed to "Rogue Content".
It isn't intended to be content for house looting focused thieves, or pvp thieves, or bank stealing death robe thieves, or any specific template. It is intended to be content for the rogue related skills, such as Hiding, Stealth, Snooping, Stealing, Lockpicking.

You mentioned you still want to rob other players, is there something preventing you from doing this? The one thing I do see as a problem are the locked boxes/crates being accessible whilst locked, as well as armoires not being able to be snooped in to. This doesn't make sense and if everyone did it, would totally destroy the entire thief community.

Regarding actual stealing mechanics, I've adapted and make decent income from it, but more important than that is: I have fun doing it.
Could I farm and make more? Certainly.
Do I wish some things were stealable? Definitely.
Have I learned how to still play the class effectively? Sure have.
Do I think content designed for and around the skills I use to achieve this effective playstyle would be good? I sure do. Why wouldn't I?

Even if every player on the shard makes a rogue character to participate in this content, they will still suck at actually stealing from real live players. Something has actually been discussed regarding a "proving phase" where real live players are marks, being unable to complete this phase will prevent progression.

Now, concerning people leaving or whining because they were bested by a thief. You're 100% correct, people don't understand the effort that goes in to successfully thieving. Anyone who plays a thief will agree with your post. I agree that there is a big problem regarding Thief PR. A problem that goes hand in hand with this is:

Thieves don't want to tell everyone how they did it. Sure, we could, it would potentially make people realise the effort that went in to a) learning how, b) pulling it off. However if we did choose to publicly release this info, we'd soon have zero marks left as everyone would know how to counter us.

True thief players, as you said, are very few. It's difficult, I've recently had a bunch of people ask me on IRC as well as in forum PM's about details of building a thief, what build do I use, etc. I tell them my build and let them know that they need to find a playstyle that suits them, but I know that 95% of them will give up once they realise it's not about what build you have like the rest of the game is. I really like this aspect of thieving, I hate that so many games revolve around a "perfect build", or a guide on how to do content, etc. I see this as playing someone else's game rather than your own.

To reiterate: Developing tactics that work for you and your playstyle takes time and effort and there is no guide for how to play a thief correctly as every situation requires a different approach and thinking. You cannot look up "best build" and expect to suddenly be effective.

So! I think we do need a thread about how people view thieves. I recently tried to address this in my thread "Griefing". A lot of people seemed to understand about the overuse of this term, however there were a few that remained steadfast in their opinion that, specifically, stealing was griefing. I was also told privately that I was actually looking for drama by creating that thread, which, just wasn't the case.
If a thread is made about this topic, I'll be sure to chime in and support the thief community. I'm not going to start it myself, someone else's turn!

Last; I don't see how any content being added should, or, would be used to justify additional nerfs to thief play. If it is... well... yikes.
I don't see how any part of it would ever cause to happen. If you have an example of this, please let me know.

Now that all of that is addressed, I think we should return this particular thread to the intended purpose. Rogue content discussion. If we don't it's just going to continue to devolve in to a "Thieves have it rough, make thieves era accurate" crapfest, like every other thread does.


Apologies if any of this doesn't read well or seems disjointed, I was cutting and pasting stuff all over the place whilst doing data recovery on a PC

Hey! I don't farm!!

@snap dragon probably confused you with @Hoominaga

Why is it taking paragraphs to explain this is a PvP game?

@wylwrk coz forum needs more snowflake slayers

I think the thief content is just something to have fun with when there isn't really any action going on. It's also a good way to introduce some good thief related dress, deco, rewards, titles, player achievements, etc.



Brainstorming on what the quests might be and the rewards would be fun.

totally agree with u man.
most of the time a thief need hours to enter in a house (that sometimes is empty) or steal a good weapon.

so, im agree with an anti-bank-thief policy but not with a risk free bank zone or city, but if u think that if u want to steal a weapon u have to play with a PVP THIEF... whaaaaat? this is not a thief.

i reach some very good goal, also if im new in this shard.
maybe some adjustment is really needed.

Why are house looters considered thieves? Any toon can be at the right place, at the right time, and become a house looter. Hiding and stealth isn't just on thief chars.

Lol, I said farm, not mow!

@Hoominaga @Jakob

Speaking of mowing, I am closely watching my yard to get the first mow of the year in... it's about time.

Why is this even a thread?

Any PvP or Thief related threads should be deleted as they are pointless.

Snap and Mr.UO resume have been waiting 5 years for stealing to change. Simple changes.

Others have been waiting for 5 years for a slight change to factions.

I left for 5 months to come back to more trammelized events and no real mechanic changes.

Threads like this have just become silly.

It has not nor will ever change in the benefit of people who enjoy the interpersonal side of UO.

This server is designed in almost all facets to be played solo and safe. Give up.

Thread is about content for rogue skill based characters. Anything else is thread drift.