Then why is the player's point of view implemented in sneak? Player can't see sneaker if the char can't see him. But player can tell who stole from him even though the character can't.
Can't the principle of sneak be used on steal aswell? Players are able to spot and catch thieves the same way they can search for sneakers. But thief can also try to perform actions that help him not to get caught.
If players can't use their own awerness to affect ingame situations like stealing, it will just cause annoyance among players and lead to suicide-killing of thieves and third party methods that look even sillier than thieving.
I'm not sure I'm quite following you here.
Perhaps sneak needs to be changed? I never played a sneak alt, so I can't really comment on it.
It's pretty much impossible for a thief to perform an action that helps him not to be caught. He can stand behind his victim, but as long as you're talking from the player's point of view it can be noticed. Theft should be prevented by the potential victim instead of letting it happen to avenge it afterwards.
The only thing that affects the chance of thieves to be caught right now are their perks, the direction their victim is looking at and their victim's PE.
Awareness perk should give a higher chance to catch a thief.
This is pretty necessary at least now since death means nothing to thieves and they just spam their presence in towns. The names of unprotected could be listed somewhere in town to help fending off wrongdoers.
People who come into town after someone lost protection shouldn't know about it. Perhaps with the exception of the unprotected person not being killed yet after he got unprotected.
They don't have to be shot on sight by the guards, they'd be just unprotected. It could be up to players to defend their home.
By shooting unprotected players when they enter town, guards protect their homes. It would make sense, similar to shooting players in encounters when their rep is below -300 with that faction or shooting players in towns when their rep is below -1500.
It also gets rid of the entire problem of people being harassed by the same unprotected thief over and over.
Perhaps the server could "remember" what were stolen from who. When the thief was shot and looted, the victim needs to walk to the sheriff and name the lost items to get them back. It could work like lost and found.
If a thief manage to get a nice bunch of stuff from various victims before getting shot, "remembering" those could seriously clog the database.
If such a feature would be implemented, it should be limited to something like 24 real-time hours or less.
The victim shouldn't be able to choose or list anything. He pays a fee to get everything back or he doesn't get anything back at all. All he needs to do is ask the sheriff if his items got pounded and how much it will cost to get them back.
Also the victim might be able to pay the sheriff not only in caps, but also in:
- certain 0% deterioration none repaired tier 2 or 3 weapons,
- ammo
- HQ ore/minerals/GMP/HQ alloys/advanced gunpowder
- superstims
The value would be calculated as the normal nominal value, for instance 310 caps for a superstim or 9 caps per shotgun shell. The weapons and ammo should be limited to what NCR guards, army, rangers and caravans use.
Items paid to or pounded but unclaimed at the sheriff should NOT be put into traders. Perhaps the pounded and paid stuff could result in some small changes in the weapons and armors of NCR guards, rangers, army and caravans over time. For instance NCR Rangers giving Remnants a harder time or simply more NCR related encounters.
