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[Sius]

Hello,
I was curious about this skill since I never really tested it. So I started character to test sneak and stealing. When I reached decent skills I decided to test it in real action. But here is the problem - when I steal from people that are friendly with particular faction, it gives me INSANE amount of -karma even when steal is successful and no one detects me. Thats pretty lame and make stealing absolutely useless skill since only paces you are able to steal are guarded towns where people are not afraid to trade with NPCs and such.

So here is the case:
456 caps
3 brahmin hides
3 minerals
32 broc flowers
15 xander roots

I've stolen these items from brahmin parked near NCR vendor. Stealing was successful and nobody noticed a thing but my karma went from -400 down to -6000 only from this particular items I listed above. So guards shot me and I can never get to NCR again until next wipe. Imho stealing needs A LOT of rebuilding in order to be useful and not overpowered skill.


Now its easy to steal anything when you have proper perks but its useless since you can't steal from people because of karma drop, that totally ruins your char. My idea is something like this:

- stealing should be weight/size based so small items like caps or ammo should be easy to steal
- Pickpocket perk should get nerfed so without it you can steal only smaller stuff (caps/ammo...) and with it big stuff will be still risky even with high skill (when you want stuff like CA or rifles then you have to risk getting caught while stealing)
- karma should not decrease when you steal successfully
- karma should decrease not per item stolen but only when player/guard notice and shoot/notify, also karma should not decrease that insanely but for something like 200/300 points so when you get caught you can still get your karma back to neutral
- stealing should be boosted by sneaking since more invisible you are less chance others will notice

So eventually when you steal, you risk and you risk even more when you try to steal something big and valuable. But in the end you should be able to steal smaller stuff without any problems but when you get caught you still risk getting killed by player or flagged by guard = karma drop. So when you steal too much without keeping an eye on your karma you will soon be hated at that area making it even more risky to walk around there. But when you are really pro thief some smaller robberies should not be any problem for you if players themselves are not cautious enough to spot you.

This way you could pretty much exist in wasteland as thief but it would not be only pure stat based skill.

[Drakonis]

i support this idea

[Kharaam]

sounds good, even I don't use it

[avv]

Well no problem, thieves deserve a chance to exist in our world. It just gets stupid when somebody with 300 steal is running around fingering people and nobody can get him caught because his stats are so high. If I know someone is a thief and is attempting to steal from me, just running away constantly is damn retarded. So what if my char, nearby players and guards don't have enough PE or whatever skill required, it's still retarded.

But I agree that only failed stealing attempts should reduce reputation.
The item weight makes sense aswell.
Sneak boosting steal would also make sense, unless you could be invisible for players.
Reputation should indeed drop, but over time. Not so that you go kill some ncr enemies as an apology for stealing.

[Sius]

Reputation increase should be guaranteed by normal means like trade at NCR, killing NCR enemies etc. And "invisibility" should not be the case. Sneaking should only boost stealing by some little +bonus since stealing itself should not be enough.

Lets say that you should be able to steal small things with no problem and large stuff like 50:50 with 240+ steal/160+ sneak and ofc. Pickpocket perk.

[Sius]

Can some dev take a look at this and say his verdict? I think stealing should be possible but current situation makes it just another useless skill...

[Ombra]

I support this idea 

[vedaras]

first of all - how can you lose karma when none know that you used steal on somebody? (i mean if you didint get caught none know you are thief, thus your karma cannot decrease) And then lets listen to suggestions...

[Lexx]

You loose reputation, if someone sees you stealing.

Karma isn't used for stealing / in general, right now.

[Sius]

You loose reputation, if someone sees you stealing.

Karma isn't used for stealing / in general, right now.

Well then it should be defined somehow what it means "if someone sees me stealing". If that means players/guards need just to look at my direction then whats the point of stealing? I got 260 stealing skill and Pickpocket perk. I can steal pretty much anything no matter the size/weight of an item and stealing window gets closed rarely when I fail.

But when I steal items listed above in a row from brahmin and no one says a thing, nor guards or players, then I assume no one noticed. Whats the point of stealing when you get magically flagged every time you use the skill no matte what... its just dumb. And I don't know if what you say about karma is current change or its been there from the beginning of this season. But I can assure you, that -karma was there some 3 days ago and it was based on amount of items you stolen and numbers of -karma went sky high deep. For one successful thievery from this particular brahmin and I'm forced to avoid NCR to the rest of this season because its at -5700 karma point right now and there is no way how I can get it back to neutral.

Make stealing more useful but also more risky when it comes to bigger objects like guns/armors/materials. Also some "disturbance" check could be done when you try to steal from people in crowds (10 hexes radius). More people running around = more sneak bonus for stealing purposes = stealing unnoticed with more ease. Simply stealing skill should be based on thief's agility (not the one from special) and his inventions. If someone just masses points up to the max and then tries to rob alone standing NPC/player then he will fail more or less every-time. But when one focus on his pray and waits for his moment he should not have any "moral" barricades standing in his way of making fortune (aka insane karma drop).

[Lexx]

Well then it should be defined somehow what it means "if someone sees me stealing". If that means players/guards need just to look at my direction then whats the point of stealing?

"If someone sees you" means, if your stealing roll failed.

And I don't know if what you say about karma is current change or its been there from the beginning of this season.

We don't use karma since we introduced the reputation system.



I am not saying, that stealing is perfect. In fact, it's broken, just like many other things. But we can't concentrate on that now anyway. Beside this, pvp stealing is annoying. If you as a player know that someone is trying to steal from you, but you can't do shit, then it's very much the top of the ladder of annoyance. The only way I see to make stealing more useful is introducing better pve stealing. We have plans 'n shit for it, but until someone from us will touche it, a long time might pass.

[Sius]

"If someone sees you" means, if your stealing roll failed.

If my steal roll fail then it should close inventory window and guards should shout at me as they sometimes do right? But in this case i just used skill at the brahmin, taken some stuff and then closed the window. No guard yelling at me, no player shooting at me, no nothing... but few seconds after this guard burst me for no reason. Then i check my stats and karma dropped for -6000 from one successful robbery. That kinda sux.

We don't use karma since we introduced the reputation system.

Karma or reputation thats all the same and its doing no good right now. Same case happened today. I went to SF since I'm banished from NCR until summer ends and I was checking what local NPCs are carrying. I saw laser pistol so I decided to take my chance: 260% skill, pickpocket perk, that pistol is already mine I thought. But that lousy NPC noticed and closed inventory window leaving laser pistol where it was. But again for this single thievery my reputation went down from 0 to -1500, guards killed me and I can't enter the town for next 2 weeks. Now there is only VC left but even there it will be the same. 1 robbery and I'm done.

So not only stealing is broken (= pure skill based with overpowered perks) but combined with reputation system it makes all thieves as useful as photograph of oxygen to a drowning man.

[Ganado]

So basically one of your points is that you are loosing Reputation even if you are successful in your steal. Yeah, I agree that should definitively be reworked.

[Haraldx]

I support this, I wanted to be a thief too, but then I saw that I get killed over and over again for doing succesful robberies.