bounties on thieves.

I'd love to see a bounty system for thieves, to make hunting thieves worth it. Thats all.

From a flavor perspective, this is a cool idea.

The problem with the murderer bounty system though is that people don't really contribute much. And I think this is because (a) they don't care enough to give someone gold for seeking justice for them, and (b) the system is so easy to take advantage of. I would guess the majority of the time you put a bounty on a murderers head, the money is going to go to the murderer themself, via an alt or a friend/guildmate.

I'd love to see an un-abuseable bounty system developed (though I have no idea how to do so, the staff here is pretty adept at such things), and if it can be, I think a thief bounty is a great idea for it.

Agreed. I don't think anybody would complain about a bounty system overhaul, nor a thief bounty system. I'd imagine the thief bounty system being used much more than the current bounty system anyways. Nobody likes losing runebooks or vanq weapons to thieves

I made a detective but I can never find any thieves to stab :evil:
He's doesn't have magery so the dungeon thieves are pretty much out of the question.

I've got one too Bankshot. Tracking/Detect/Forensics/Anat/Tact/Fence/Heal.

If we roll in a squad, we can survive better. We'll have to run there though or get a gater to help us around.

I would love to see any good form bounty system or punishment for thieves, more than the piddly 2 minute time-out they get presently when they get guard whacked or slain while perma-grey.
I've suggested things such as putting them in a public jail for an amount of time if they are 'aprehended' by a law abiding player. A bounty system would be cool too, but easily exploited by the thieves themselves.

What if the bounty system worked like this:

If a perma grey thief is killed all items he/she has stolen within last x hours are placed in a lost and found status of some kind. If the item is not claimed within 1 day then it cycles into the monster loot or just decays.

The person who killed the thief would get a "thank you" message and a notice that because of their deeds x number of items were sent to lost and found. I do not propose that the vigilantes receive the stolen goods because it simply would not be right. Most thief Hunters would be motivated by the fact that they did more than just put a two minute timer on a thief. You would find that intelligent thieves will go into hiding for at least an hour after a big score or risk losing it all.

Oh and b and b I'll be making a detective soon too!

OR

If perma grey thief is killed his/her bank box is locked for thirty minutes and if they call bank they get a message from the banker: "Thy bank box is currently due nefarious activities reported. Your box will be unavailble for thirty minutes whilst we examine the contents"

During this window a victim of the thief could reclaim stolen goods. that are in the thief's bank. Does this mean thieves will resort to stashing things in their personal homes? Hell yes! Which would give thief Hunters an excuse to track down thieves' homes.

As a reward the thief killers could have a custom title that can be displayed from the [wallet. After killing x number of perma grey thieves they would get a title bump. Adversly, if a thief hunter is killed by a perma grey they would get a message saying "you have lost a lot of credibility" and would bump down their title. Yes? No? What do you all think?

I like both ideas but leaning more toward the first one. I don't think thieves should be able to bank any 'hot' items for x amount of time after clipping it. Where's the risk if they can just steal/bank/die/repeat?
Having to actually make an escape with your stolen merchandise would provide a challenge more than slapping a couple hotkeys and laughing your way to next victim.

Couldn't agree more. They should have a block on recalling as well. (standard criminal timer)

All in all, there's some significant changes coming to Stealing and Forensics in the next patch. I'm thinking some of our ideas may change or get more support, post patch. For starters, successful theft is going to flag you grey for the standard criminal timer. Hopefully that includes restriction from bank access. Of course, a good thief will already be a Hider/Stealther so they have a fair shot at avoiding the long arm of the law, but that's why my town cop has Tracking/DH.

It's gonna be fun as shit, hopefully for both sides. I look forward to Jack's thieves guild picking up steam and members and the cops of UOR having their work cut out for them.

I favor my second idea more, or at least a hybrid of it and i'll tell you why:

With this second option, thieves are not completely nerfed. I don't want to nerf a viable play style no matter how much I despise them. However, with this second option, a thief cannot bank steal for 30 minutes if justice is served so it will significantly reduce the frequency of a deathrobed thief sitting at the bank every 2 minutes. I think that is enough to make it painful, but not so long that it deters people from ever bank stealing or even considering a thief template.

Also, during this thirty minute interim, you can TAKE back what they stole from you but if nobody claims it, it gives the thief one last chance to 'keep' their ill gotten gains. And Finally if a thief wants to continue to steal during this thirty minute window and use their 'personal' house as their storage place, they will have to walk to their home from the closet healer or risk exposing their alternate characters they send to 'help' their thief - (assuming that when the thief dies any runes they may have had are gone, unless they have a million dollar blessed rune book) and they won't be able to access their bank box to get to their house runes.

Also, the second option provides opportunity for risk not only for the thief, but the hunter as well. If a hunter takes on a thief that they can't kill, then the hunter will lose 'credibility' and title status if they lose their battle with the thief.

In final I'd like to see some thieves weigh in on this issue. Jack of Shadows? Star? where are you?

Seems like every suggestion here is making it *harder* to be a thief. IMO, it's too hard/unrewarding as it is. What's the use of a thief bounty system if you dissuade everyone from being a thief?

Should be two sides to this coin, IMO. Give thieves a reason to want to steal, and give them a reason to not want to get caught. I.E., raise the risk and raise the reward. Right now, risk and reward are both are piddling for thievery.

For example, every time a thief steals something from a player, two things happen:

- a platinum coin goes into their pack, or onto their bounty
- they do not get this chance at a coin from any character on the account or in the guild of the player they just stole from; the account and guild are "blacklisted" from providing the coin for them ever again

Upon killing a thief, the killer gets the platinum bounty upon turning in their head to a guard.

Upon dying as a thief, they suffer stat loss in some manner similar to the murder system - either they burn the counts, or suffer stat loss.

That's my first crack at (a) making it more rewarding to be a thief, (b) making it more rewarding to catch them, (c) not letting them just steal from willing guildmates and alts, and (d) dissuading them to just let their alt or guildmate kill them for the bounty.

Of course, all numbers can be modified (chance to have a coin in pack/bounty, amount of hours or skill loss, number of people you need to steal from before the coin and stat loss system kick in, etc.)

I definitely don't want to ruin the thief class as I find it essential. However, I find that the class has 0 risk aside from time spent. They require no gear at all to steal and all of the training can be done in a couple of days. The risk nothing but some piddly 2 minute window of time if they fail and stand to gain anything from a bandage, to a high end vanq, or better some platinum piles. I'm sure ShadowJack and Upgrayedd are borderline exploding over all the gimping suggestions going on in this thread and I hope they can weigh in with something that supports their side as well as agrees with the need for some challenge to be on the table for them. Setting my sword as your last target and chasing me around a bank with nothing in your pack to lose, spells 0 risk to me.

Not every playstyle needs higher risk and reward, just a balance between the two, hence the term "risk VS. reward." Bank thieves risk nothing but time and gain very little for the most part. These players are not aiming to gain fulfillment from the riches earned but rather the thrill of the steal (and perhaps knowing they've suffiently aggravated someone else.) This doesn't seem broken to me.

If that was the case, then there wouldn't be $5 blackjack tables and $5,000 blackjack tables at Vegas. After all, the risk vs. reward is precisely the same ratio at each of them.

The only reason I suggested increased reward in my proposal is because others seem to have a strong interest in increased risks as well.

yeah thats why i want to agriviate them, and get paid for it bwhaha

I just think players here should have the choice to play at the $5 table if they want to. That's what bank thieving is, right? There's at least a little more for a thief to do besides that with greater stakes.

Low class, annoying-as-hell bank thieving has a long and inglorious history in UO. While I don't understand it, many players seem to love it and I wouldn't want to do anything to screw it up for them. They already get guard whacked on most of their stealing attempts. A pack of platinum hungry amateur detectives viewing the thief as a coin mint could be the death of bank thieving.

That being said, I do very much appreciate the changes and additions that staff has made here. They've already tried to make thievery more satisfying and I'm sure will continue. I actually like the ideas presented here but felt the need to speak up for the status quo. Could it be better? Probably. Do I think there's something wrong currently? Not really. . . Were it up to me, further additions to the stealing skill would go in a direction requiring thieves to have more varied tasks to accomplish or take part in new strategies rather than just add new mechanical systems around what they currently do.

And a bounty system, while an appealing idea to me, is for everyone but thieves which is why all these suggestions seem to make it harder to be a thief, Dalavar.

*Is not sure why he's sticking up for bank thieves*

What if the penalties discussEd here only apply if a character is the member of an npc guild that requires some kind of regular upkeep? This would balance the risk so that only a smaller group could have a chance to cause the punitive actions.

I would contest that the bank thief is flawed. There is no other negative action skill that is miss matched. bank thieves always win even if they are outclassed.
Because they can just keep coming back every two minutes and have lost nothing