5 happy players compared to 1 unhappy Rascal (thief) - which way should we go ?
No they are not. For me , it seems like they are camping city 24/7. Not to mention there is often more than one thief.
You should read better, he's not the only unhappy thief.
Stealing is nerved enough.
I trade regularly in the Hub, Junktown, VC and to a lesser extend NCR and SF in the evenings (GMT +1, which are busy hours) and am hardly harassed by thieves.
The only bad incidents I had recently were with Greens and Blackcaty who are indeed not only stealing but also grieving and exploiting.
I think Stealing in general is kinda useless. Why?
Well experienced players know how to deal with thieves, and only newbies tend to be robbed, but they also tend to have only poor gear in their inventory. This makes PvP Stealing kinda useless for getting items, and only useful if you want to troll another person.
Now about PvE Stealing, you can actually get some items form it... but with the current Reputation system, well you can just kill the NPC and loot his corpse, without worrying about the consequences.
In other words, Stealing is just for trolling.
Stealing isn't useless, that's just your opinion.
As for stealing from newbies, that depends on the player. I know many thieves, including myself, who don't do that.
Stealing is regularly useful for getting good items. I got a bunch of rockets and caps yesterday, get ammo regularly (not a BoS member) and other stuff too. Whether or not that's useful or not depends on the characters you play and the faction you're in. Still even a stack of weak healing powders can be useful if it's a high number as you can than use it for trading.
Killing an npc results in -100 instead of -25 rep for a failed stealing. Also you can't be alone as someone else will have to loot the npc.
I've seen more trolls in the game who aren't thief than who are.
Also, once again I repeat, it sure was a good story, but how many thief players use their skill like that? Most thieves' stories would be something like "that n00b raged after I stole his 9mm" or "lawl that guy had to just leave the shop cos I was trolling him so he couldn't trade".
As someone said before, PvP stealing should be cancelled at least until a better stealing system is made.
If trolling is your argument, this whole game should be canceled. Every single skill which can be used in any kind of PvP is used for trolling.
As for the "he couldn't trade" trolling, sure some thieves do that (the Greens and Blackcaty make a good example). However there are plenty of none thief players who also do this.
Yesterday someone with a rocket launcher did that too me. I didn't know the guy, so he could be a thief with a broken rocket launcher or he could be a BG build. I wouldn't know.
Thieves say "I steal for the thrill." Non-thieves say "thieves steal because they are trolling jerks who like to annoy others." I say they are both right. Trolling jerks who steal for the thrill of annoying others and getting free stuff.
Thieves do not steal in PVP towns. Lest they die as they are no match for most builds in a fight and are in a bluesuit.
You're wrong here. Thieves say non-thieves are whiners who should pay more attention when playing.
I trade regularly and regularly someone pushes me away from the trader or pretends to use steal on me to scare me off. When I use steal on them they often start whining and demanding their stuff back. As far as I'm concerned, what goes around comes around.
Thieves steal in the town where players do their trading. The more players around, the more interesting for thieves. There are hardly any players around in unguarded towns, so why should thieves hang out there?
People whine a lot about trolling and yes there's a lot of trolling going on.
But to say it's only thieves is plain lame and I could even argue that some people use these threads for trolling thieves.
The steal system is okay the way it is now. It has been nerved enough.
Someone comes standing next to you, at a trader or not, you walk away if you're smart. It might be a thief, it might also be a suicide burster. You can never be sure and basically can't trust anyone in this game.