Think they need to add more synergy with sneak (with reworking it ofc) and add roll for sneak skill when trying to peak in victim's inventory.
First because of stealing effeciency it should have requirements on par with crafting proffesions ( which always req. 2 skills to work standalone ), because you can steal from more than just players...
Later because it'd fix much of abuse and allow offended players to win over thief ( by making thief sooner or later revealed ).
This makes stealing virtually impossible. People sneaking are always visible on a 3 hex range.
Not all professions require 2 skills, BG and SG require 2 and armorer requires 1.
Also something like bartering also requires only 1 skill and it is even more efficient than stealing as it's always 100% successful.
You can be 100% successful against any thief by simply putting 1 hex distance between you and the thief.
I don't think the devs need to meddle much with the thieving mechanic rather than just let us exact vengeance upon whoever steals from you for longer periods of time (ie. hours), so that the person who steals doest just leave area and come back to bug you again. Sure, the "global" timer should remain short, but you should personally be able to engage him for a long period of time.
Only this is needed to stop excessive abuse imho.
Thieves lose protection when they fail. I think that stays the way now after you die for about 1 real-time hour.
Yes, you can come back to try to steal again, but you can shoot the thief than, even before he tries to steal again.
Main problem with the stealing skill is people abusing it for grieving.
I've tested rep thingy. It goes like this:
You get reputation bonus when you sell items to a merchant, who normally DOESN'T sell them. When you sell guns to a doctor you get reputation bonus (but much less cash than you would get by selling it at gunshop), but if you sell jet/stims to this doctor you don't get rep, but he pays more money for drugs.
So basicaly you sell stuff cheap, but instead you get some reputation bonus.
Thanks for letting us know that. That's useful information.