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[Neuromancer]

At first I want to share a story.
Long time ago ... ( about 1-2 wipes ago )
I've been making some shopping in hub. I actually wanted to sell some weapons so I went to south of hub and started trading. Everything was perfect - merchant had some caps, he gave me a good price ... and then I see weapons disappearing from my backpack ( actually from trade window ). So I turned back thinking "What the hell?" and I saw some stranger running out of shop. I started to chase him, ignoring everything else. He went to a hotel where he had room reserved. He entered room and then locked himself. I was really furious ... shouted to him to come out ... so I won't hurt him when he gives my stuff back etc. nothing worked - he just laughed ... so I asked some of my mates if they know a good lockpicker - luckily one of them was a thief/burglar so I gathered a party behind his door - all of them ready for execution - lockpicker arrived and opened the door ... I don't have to tell you end of this story ... but this was fucking most satisfying thing that happened to me in fonline.

Yes ... vengance is sweetest thing.

I always was concerned about details, RP, plot in all games ... actually only games I really enjoyed were cRPGs. So I find that these little things like stealing really needed despite it makes people mad/angry/furious when they get robbed. After that particular situation nobody ever succesfully stealed from me - because I was really paranoid when I had lot's of caps with me - trading only with window at top - while seeing my character - running away when someone entered shop etc ... then flags were introduced so it was even easier - because if someone really managed to steal from me - he got bullet between his eyes. So it depended on player's perception and caution if he got robbed or not and I believe that should stay that way. Of course many people were robbed and discussion started upon forums ... present situation is result of these negotiations ... which is really really bad - making game easier ( step towards casual players ) doesn't mean making game better.


PS: And I personally dislike such solutions. Similar is guards with 5000hp etc. there is always a better way than pure power/strenght solutions. This is field for roleplayers to fill ( with help from gm's ) - for example instead of spawning 10 more guards just make a NPC who survived massacre who will tell everybody what happened - make a prize for killing those vigilants, or if junktown got raided - they sent help for BOS so if one of their patrols spot them they'll execute them, make whole wasteland know that people responsible for massacre would be punished - make THEIR karma -5000 at all except of raiders INSTEAD of making little robbers karma -4000 after taking few caps.

PS2: I've never had thief and never wanted to play as one, but I realise that even if I got robbed - fonline will be more interesting game to play ( even if somebody plays as a crafter/trader etc. )
 

[Midnight]

Wrong Viewpoint? lol
The only real viewpoint for a game is making it balanced, fun and if possible hve diversity allowing to play many different ways because it's your style not because it's the only way to success.
Fallout2 was the perfect exemple for monoplayer.

Now Fallout2 is the same as realty? don't think so.


For stealing, the fact is not making it easier or harder it's to make it more interresting and balanced were you are not face to situation you have simply no option.
You can't steal if you have not at least 200% cause it would screw completly the game if you can steal with 100% and the actual though is almost no one will play Thief cause of this. I can't understand guys who find this good. On the other hand 200% stealing and you can do what you want no one can do anything against you, and again, be cautious is not enough, moving do not interrupt thief and so you simply stop speaking to NPC, crafting or else cause you  have no option.

[Tyler]

I completely agree with everything Neuromancer just said.It used to be a part of the world and I miss players like Lutik and Jasin even if they were annoying as hell.If a player cant be bothered to pay attention to his surroundings then he is responsible for what he lost almost as much as the thief who took it.Receiving negetive karma for a succussfull theft is also strange because if its successfull then how the hell does anyone know about it?I can kill and murder players all day long and suffer little for it but taking a few stims will ruin a man?We talk about lack of variety in the wastelands characters and I think this is a good example of something we should add back into it the world for a little extra flavor.

For the record Ive never had nor will I ever have a thief character because I despise them and will always kill one whenever I have the chance.

[Neuromancer]

Generally speaking - forcing people not to steal or raiding towns makes game flat. Those situations ( stealing, raiding etc. ) are some kind of player involved, self inducting events - which shouldn't stay unpunished but should be allowed. Please keep in mind when developing - make this game more complex not flat.

[Spoonman]

This guy has 0% speech, don't listen to him!

Ok now seriously. First of all that "if this was real" is the worst argument ever used to backup your game development suggestions (and I used it too and I feel that eternal pain awaits me for that).  Its nice if game copy reality but only there where it serves as a feature that brings fun and opportunities. If it should work as some of you want then we should be making suggestions for "Second Life: The Wasteland" edition and not FOnline. If this was like a real wasteland most people would give a shit about others being robbed even in "guarded" cities. And how the hell they should share such info with other factions? And why on Earth would other factions give a shit about some guy that tried to steal something in city that is half continent away from them? Mainly if this was like a real wasteland you would not respawn and thats it for this "argument".

If game features some skills and abilities then I suppose they are there to be used by players that desire it. And I'm pretty sure that devs are aware of that current stealing is useless. So I think its just a matter of time until we will find some steal boosting changelog.

Alright, just because I tried to use a "real life" example doesn't make the statement untrue.  No, I'm not trying to make this a Second Life clone.  Where there are cities with laws, the people (or at least the guards) should give a shit about someone not following the rules.  And they should share info with other factions the exact way I said so in my post.  Obviously caravans and traders travel from city to city and patrols must overlap sometimes. 

You're also wrong on your Fallout lore on a couple areas on your post.  Fallout 1/2 took place within the state of California, so nowhere on the whole map is "half continent away" from anywhere else.  Factions would give a shit about helping out eachother when they depend on eachother for survival in terms of trading for goods that they can't product themselves.  As the world is pretty small news would travel fast, especially with working radios and constant travelers.  Also, according to the lore of 2238 there are the resurrection hubs which end up bringing us back.  So no, not everything has to be exactly realistic, but it would be stupid to ignore a good idea just because it would have relevance in the real world.

[Spoonman]

Wrong Viewpoint? lol
The only real viewpoint for a game is making it balanced, fun and if possible hve diversity allowing to play many different ways because it's your style not because it's the only way to success.

By "wrong viewpoint", I mean that things are being changed just because people perceive them to be unfair or imbalanced.  However, these quick fixes have a tendency to make a skill go from overpowered to useless.  All I wanted was to show an argument that made sense, didn't gimp the steal skill, and allowed for a fairer gameplay. 

People could choose to take risks with stealing and either have no penalty when succeeding or a great penalty when failing.  This would leave stealing a viable "career" but still keep the general public relatively safe, as if the thief fails even once he has to avoid that city for a long time until the npcs forget about his crime.

[Sius]

By "wrong viewpoint", I mean that things are being changed just because people perceive them to be unfair or imbalanced.  However, these quick fixes have a tendency to make a skill go from overpowered to useless.  All I wanted was to show an argument that made sense, didn't gimp the steal skill, and allowed for a fairer gameplay. 

People could choose to take risks with stealing and either have no penalty when succeeding or a great penalty when failing.  This would leave stealing a viable "career" but still keep the general public relatively safe, as if the thief fails even once he has to avoid that city for a long time until the npcs forget about his crime.

Yeah but how often do you get lucky enough to steal something valuable so you can live without stealing for days? I mean people don't wear CA in inventory and same goes for caps or weapons and I'm not talking about shitload of skill % and perks that you have to sacrifice in order to be successful. And also you can always fail at small robberies too and getting banished for 1 week (currently with -4k reputation for like 5 items its more like a month than a week) is just not something you could as a thief suffer. Also the problem is you can steal only in NCR since people are paranoid everywhere else.

[Spoonman]

Well sure you wouldn't likely get something great all that often, but that's part of the game.  How often do you find combat armours laying around in random encounters?  And you sure as hell are in risk of dying in those.  A game mechanic being fair doesn't mean the game should be made easy.

[Midnight]

Also the problem is you can steal only in NCR since people are paranoid everywhere else.

All is tie together. People are paranoid everywhere cause wastelands are safer than town cause of bombing, PKs, thief. I'm in this case i'm paranoide the only area i'm a bit home is my tent, i think it's pretty a nonsense.
I never go in NRC too cause there is too much people you can't check everyone.
And in encounters what i really fear is another player joinning :/

The start point is situation where you can do nothing. Attacks you have no chance even the weaker to fight back, thiefs you can't attack the list is really long, what goes around comes around.
The fact is if everyone agree this is getting wrong, devs will have to start changing things somewhere, but noone will ever accepte to loose their little avantages even on a short perdiode time all come in order.
It s a fact on running games you can't really make something else than quick fixe or everyone cry about it :/

The only way would be to make a place to think about all things going wrong and posting what will be the outcome so no one would cry before all is ok.

[Sius]

Well sure you wouldn't likely get something great all that often, but that's part of the game.  How often do you find combat armours laying around in random encounters?  And you sure as hell are in risk of dying in those.  A game mechanic being fair doesn't mean the game should be made easy.

Making ANY game aspect based on waiting is just ridiculous no matter what you say about it. It already gets boring if wait time is counted in minutes or hours but days and weeks? What am I supposed to do in meantime? Steal stuff from Lone wanderer encounters? Remember even if the thieves would be overpowered as hell such as 1 steal = empty inventory no matter what, then you can't do it endlessly. Namecolorizing will make your char useless in less then a weak even if there is 0 reputation drop. Until there is something like disguise and such stealing will be always short term profession. Just look at this topic. People already remember some well known kleptomaniacs. We can defend our property but we are lazy - its more comfortable without the need of looking after our stuff so why not make it that way right?

I think that thieves are way too nerfed when it comes to active playing for the whole season. Even without reputation drops you can pretty much steal only in NCR, you can get always shot and loose everything and you can get marked right away someone sees you with hands aimed towards someone else's back. Some serious boosts AND nerfs should be considered here. As for boosts its mainly reducing reputation drop to reasonable and revertible counts and also possibility not to perform stealing animation from certain skill upwards. Like from 110% and above you would get 0.5% chance not to trigger stealing animation per skillpoint raised. So 110 skill=0% chance not to trigger animation, 150=20% chance to avoid animation, 200=45%, 250=70%, 300=95%.
And as for the nerfs: Steal skill should determine what we can steal and also how much we can steal. So with higher skill we should be able to steal bigger/heavier stuff and in greater amounts. Right now its just check, if you succeed then it does not matter if you are taking 1 or 10 minerals same goes fo 5 or 50 000 caps. So imho 300 skill should be considered as an ultimate point where you can steal anything "regular" with no restrictions in amounts what so ever. And from this point downwards amount and stealing possibilities should decay in reasonable rate. Some of you might say how do you want to steal 50k caps or 2k ammo from inventory but I believe if it can be placed into inventory in such amounts then it can be stolen from there. Also i used word "regular" back there. It because of Pickpocket perk. Right now perk is a must for any decent thief. Without it even desert eagle will be problem for you. But I think our ability to steal such small things like pistols/ammo/caps/drugs and such should depend also on skill and perk would only add possibility to steal bigger and more expensive stuff.

So I think combos could be like this:
Small skill (around 140%) without pickpocket perk = small time robber, easy to get caught if he reaches out for something more than 300 caps or pack of stimpacks.
Small skill with pickpocket perk = more dangerous one, small or mid sized items are not such a problem here but amounts will not get sky high.
High skill (220% and more) without pickpocket perk= can take pretty much anything from 10mm pistol to leather armor or high amounts of caps or ammo. But he will succeed in like 1 out of 2 tries when it comes down to shotguns, rifles, metal and better armors or anything larger (larger and more expensive thing=lesser chance to steal it).
High skill with pickpocket perk = you won't even notice, possibility to steal small or mid sized items with no problems, amount is not an issue here, big and expensive gear stealing chance is somewhere around 2 successful tries out of 3.
300 skill with pickpocket = where is your blue suit?

Also I've suggested that sneaking should affect stealing too so numbers would alter a lot if something like this should be considered but I think you got the idea.

[Tyler]

Im with you on almost all points except no animation for stealing.Go back to NMA and look up the posts made by Jassin about all the things he stole.A good thief is successful enough without making it so we cant see him.

[corosive]

how about instead of losing a shit load of rep why not have to spend time in JAIL ?! time a crafting countdown but you still get to access the town to a certain extent... its more RPGish ....

[FischiPiSti]

Jail? Disguise? Hmm... I smell another brainstorm approaching..

What if... There was a command(as WIP, like: '~namechange name') to change your name temporarily. Name = appearance(imagination, rp stuff.), like in the hitman games, or the spy class from team fortress 2. The higher the steal skill, the more time you could be your alterego. Like 1 steal skill =1 second(useless). 300 steal = 300 seconds. Add a high CD ofc, and cannot be done while beeing seen->high sneak.
Effects:  Picked name colored from namecolorizing for that period. Neutral NPCs(like guards) would ignore you for that period. The thief can go into low rep towns this way, for a maximum of 300 seconds, to well..steal stuff, before he is discovered and hunted down. zOMG just think of teh possibilitys PvP wise, teh chaos :O Factions need a password because nobody could be trusted. With high sneak, it would mean the perfect scout.

As for jailing: Based on the idea i brought up a few posts ago, when guards chase the thief unarmed shouting stop thief, if they catch and kill them, they would respawn in a jail area.

Whaddayathink?
I should have been a game designer.. XD

[avv]

Whaddayathink?

Skill% determining cooldown instead of pure success rate sounds much more feasible in this case.

[Neuromancer]

There is a pattern here: hardcore games like this start out great, but then the devs start listening to suggestions like, "Oh just put a little bit more restriction on PVP", or "Oh, just give us a little more of a tutorial", or "Just make thieving a little bit harder, just this once".

"Dumbing down" comes in small bite-sized pieces, that don't seem to harm anything at first, then 5 years later you realize your game has morphed into care-bear land, and the excitement is gone. Remember how you boil a frog alive? Try to throw it in boiling water and it will jump out. Turn up the heat slowly, degree by degree, and the frog will never notice until its dead.

That's ... about stealing ... about nerfing big guns ... about sneaking ... about ... first aid etc. etc. etc.  ...