Ideas To Make Stealing Useful Again

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Not sure how many were at the Meet & Greet yesterday and saw the following:

[Barth]: Are there any plans to make stealing useful again?

[Mesanna]: we want to yes

[Mesanna]: anything solid no

[Mesanna]: but we would love to

[Kyronix]: Very tough to do in the current rulesets

[Barth]: Shame

So, I figured I would start a thread where we can all spitball some ideas that hopefully the Devs will see and possibly get them implemented. I came up with a couple of ideas.

1 - Make gold in characters backpacks stealable on all facets. I mean in a game where folks have Mils and Bils does a 10-40k stack really mean THAT much?

2 - Create random things (ranging from common to rare) that can be stolen from a player character (that the character does not actually have to carry in their pack - kind of like the unseen pack on a mob when you steal from them) but include the line of "A 'insert item name here' Stolen From 'insert characters name here'" ... not sure of how that would happen or how it would be 'carried' by the player.. but just an idea. Could possibly create an in game bounty system... say player A does not really like player B or just wants "bragging rights over them".. so they post a bounty to get a thief to steal X from them (of course for the Thief the rarer items would be worth a good bit more than the common items).. players would try to run off and avoid getting it stolen... Revives the old bounty system that many liked but does so in a way that does not get the T rating pulled.

3 - Create a new dungeon with Tram ruleset as far as attacks go with great drops but allow all items to be stolen. Implementation? Ummm... make the items "Cursed" or create a "can be stolen" property until the item is taken out of the dungeon. Once they are taken out of the dungeon they go back to insurable type loot. Probably a pita as far as programming.. but throwing it out for the heck of it.

Just some quick ideas I came up with... Feel free to away... just trying to get the conversation started

 

[Dot_Warner]

Most players do not want to be stolen from, nor are they likely to be encouraged to go somewhere where that is even an option. Case in point: Felucca. Dead on nearly every shard aside from a few pockets of PvP. Two entire shards of Fel and they're ghost towns (to the extent that Mesanna once said that Mugen would be the first shard to go should they ever shut any down).

While I have multiple thieves, I acknowledge the fact that stealing from plsayers isn't going to come back in any meaningful way.

Right now, dev time would be better spent fixing UO's issues, rather than creating new layers to conflict with the old.

The best thing they could do is spawn new, interesting and useful stealables all over the maps.

 

[Captn Norrington]

Maybe they could reverse stealing, and allow thieves to put items into other players backpacks? This could be useful for pvp, have a thief drop an explosion or poison potion into a targets backpack and watch them explode or get poisoned a few seconds later. With limits of course, so they don't grief by adding 124 individual gold coins to your backpack or drop runes advertising their shop.

 

[skittles1337]

I wish instead of making items antique they made items vulnerable which allowed them to be stolen by a thief and held for ransom, which required the player to pay a ransom fee based on the weight of the item.

 

[Tyrath]

Something useful in dungeon chest that have to be stolen like ML ingedients, minor arties and Fuse Cords for ships cannons

Reverse the thieves guild rules and make it anyone in the thieves guild can steal from any other player, anywhere in the thieves guild and those not in can't be stolen from. Basically if you want to steal from other your consent to be stolen from as a risk.

Pick pocketing NPC shop owners while holding a smugglers edge and a 50/50 chance of getting something or getting guard whacked.

Tag stuff stolen as "acquired from stealing" like the stuff begged from the elves.

Build some repeatable rogue quest that can be done Daily, weekly or Monthly that require all of the rogue skills stealing, snooping, detecting hidden, remove trap, hiding and stealth. Nothing overly complex or grindy but with a decent reward at the end.

 

[Tyrath]

Maybe they could reverse stealing, and allow thieves to put items into other players backpacks? This could be useful for pvp, have a thief drop an explosion or poison potion into a targets backpack and watch them explode or get poisoned a few seconds later. With limits of course, so they don't grief by adding 124 individual gold coins to your backpack or drop runes advertising their shop.

Or used to overload people and get them killed

 

[Riyana]

Maybe they could reverse stealing, and allow thieves to put items into other players backpacks? This could be useful for pvp, have a thief drop an explosion or poison potion into a targets backpack and watch them explode or get poisoned a few seconds later. With limits of course, so they don't grief by adding 124 individual gold coins to your backpack or drop runes advertising their shop.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

YES!! Add this! Really tick the PvP crowd off for a few months

 

[Archnight]

We should be asking the king of thieves @TheScoundrelRico ...la

 

[Tina Small]

Not sure how many were at the Meet & Greet yesterday and saw the following:

[Barth]: Are there any plans to make stealing useful again?

[Mesanna]: we want to yes

[Mesanna]: anything solid no

[Mesanna]: but we would love to

[Kyronix]: Very tough to do in the current rulesets

[Barth]: Shame

So, I figured I would start a thread where we can all spitball some ideas that hopefully the Devs will see and possibly get them implemented. I came up with a couple of ideas.

1 - Make gold in characters backpacks stealable on all facets. I mean in a game where folks have Mils and Bils does a 10-40k stack really mean THAT much?

2 - Create random things (ranging from common to rare) that can be stolen from a player character (that the character does not actually have to carry in their pack - kind of like the unseen pack on a mob when you steal from them) but include the line of "A 'insert item name here' Stolen From 'insert characters name here'" ... not sure of how that would happen or how it would be 'carried' by the player.. but just an idea. Could possibly create an in game bounty system... say player A does not really like player B or just wants "bragging rights over them".. so they post a bounty to get a thief to steal X from them (of course for the Thief the rarer items would be worth a good bit more than the common items).. players would try to run off and avoid getting it stolen... Revives the old bounty system that many liked but does so in a way that does not get the T rating pulled.

3 - Create a new dungeon with Tram ruleset as far as attacks go with great drops but allow all items to be stolen. Implementation? Ummm... make the items "Cursed" or create a "can be stolen" property until the item is taken out of the dungeon. Once they are taken out of the dungeon they go back to insurable type loot. Probably a pita as far as programming.. but throwing it out for the heck of it.

Just some quick ideas I came up with... Feel free to away... just trying to get the conversation started

How about some ideas to beef up the Forensic Evaluation skill, just to be able to balance out additional new ways to use the stealing skill? Instead of a bounty system, how about throwing a thief who gets caught by use the Forensic Eval skill in jail and letting him pay bail to get out and then have a magistrate hand down a sentence that involves performing some type of "community service" (e.g., something like the escorts to gain compassion). If you get too notorious, maybe "wanted" posters for your character show up at the jail and you can acquire the poster by "mending your ways" (even if it's just a temporary walk on the straight and narrow).

 

[Scribbles]

If they would rework VvV to not only make it fun and sustainable but to better incorporate thieves into the actually playing... this would solve a lot of issues and its already half way done.

 

[MalagAste]

How about some ideas to beef up the Forensic Evaluation skill, just to be able to balance out additional new ways to use the stealing skill? Instead of a bounty system, how about throwing a thief who gets caught by use the Forensic Eval skill in jail and letting him pay bail to get out and then have a magistrate hand down a sentence that involves performing some type of "community service" (e.g., something like the escorts to gain compassion). If you get too notorious, maybe "wanted" posters for your character show up at the jail and you can acquire the poster by "mending your ways" (even if it's just a temporary walk on the straight and narrow).

I like this idea... I'd say make them do trade runs for the town they are caught near... or something...

IMO reds and thieves ought to have some consequence other than oh I can't recall or anything or go to tram... boo hoo... not like they care... I think more people would be out hunting them doing PvP if it actually meant something...

Being red and having a wanted poster of you or something perhaps they could make a way to have it work with VvV and have it work that the money gained from bringing in wanted criminals went to support a Fel based Trade Deal... I still don't get why if you win a town you ought to have won a right to a deal like the Trade Deals... set bounties and such for thieves and murderers... and when you catch with forensics a thief or kill a murderer you should get a certificate to turn in for those points... or collect for fun... "The thief Xyz was caught by abc" or "Abc killed the Murderer XYZ bringing him to Justice" or some such.

 

[Merion]

We should be asking the king of thieves @TheScoundrelRico ...la

I agree - does he still play?

 

[afk]

Well I do not have a thief anymore, and no interest in training another up, still i guess they could add them to the bod system. They would get orders for items(which can only be stolen) and fill these for rewards. I think, Depending on difficulty, you could have some nice rewards(even add forged pardons as a reward).

 

[Uvtha]

Not sure how many were at the Meet & Greet yesterday and saw the following:

[Barth]: Are there any plans to make stealing useful again?

[Mesanna]: we want to yes

[Mesanna]: anything solid no

[Mesanna]: but we would love to

[Kyronix]: Very tough to do in the current rulesets

[Barth]: Shame

So, I figured I would start a thread where we can all spitball some ideas that hopefully the Devs will see and possibly get them implemented. I came up with a couple of ideas.

1 - Make gold in characters backpacks stealable on all facets. I mean in a game where folks have Mils and Bils does a 10-40k stack really mean THAT much?

2 - Create random things (ranging from common to rare) that can be stolen from a player character (that the character does not actually have to carry in their pack - kind of like the unseen pack on a mob when you steal from them) but include the line of "A 'insert item name here' Stolen From 'insert characters name here'" ... not sure of how that would happen or how it would be 'carried' by the player.. but just an idea. Could possibly create an in game bounty system... say player A does not really like player B or just wants "bragging rights over them".. so they post a bounty to get a thief to steal X from them (of course for the Thief the rarer items would be worth a good bit more than the common items).. players would try to run off and avoid getting it stolen... Revives the old bounty system that many liked but does so in a way that does not get the T rating pulled.

3 - Create a new dungeon with Tram ruleset as far as attacks go with great drops but allow all items to be stolen. Implementation? Ummm... make the items "Cursed" or create a "can be stolen" property until the item is taken out of the dungeon. Once they are taken out of the dungeon they go back to insurable type loot. Probably a pita as far as programming.. but throwing it out for the heck of it.

Just some quick ideas I came up with... Feel free to away... just trying to get the conversation started

This is pretty far fetched, and will never happen, but...

Create a new off shoot of the dungeon Covetous. This offshoot will be full of traps, locked doors, yellow boss level reveling monsters, at the end of area you meet manifestations of the Shadowlords Nosfentor, and Astaroth standing between a ghoulish golden altar. They give you a quest to steal 20 cursed items (Only the first item stolen from an individual each day counts toward this 20), and return said stolen items... and your life for sacrifice. Once you accept to the sacrifice you are killed, and your ghost is teleported to a random spot in the world.

When you resurrect you find a strange item in your bag that appears to be a small copy of the idol you found between the shadowlords. When locked down in your home you can click the alter, and when you do so it offers for 25k a "blessing of shadow", which grants you the ability to steal non blessed/insured item in tram for 1 hour, stacking up to 4 times, as well as a much higher resistance to passive detection. After expending a blessing the altar must recharge for 1 hour.

A hidden side effect of being under the blessing of shadow, any time you steal an item there is a 1% chance that the golden "Covetous eye" will be placed in your backpack. When double clicked the eye will allow you to target an insured item in another player's pack, and uninsure it. The same individual stealing check as the cursed items as above applies for the chance to be awarded with an eye, so no scripting them.

The blessing comes with a downside, when you accept the blessing you become instantly grey, and freely attackable even in tram without flagging your attackers to your counterattack. Your body takes on a shadowy appearance, and you suffer -25 to all resists, and any insured items equipped or in your bag become uninsured, and you are unable to insure items while under the effect of the blessing. Any stolen items on your person at the time of your death return to their owners.

Thematic reason for the breaking of trams protection, fairly limited impact, give people a reason to fear the shadows a bit once more, but not so much that their play would be really all that impacted. It would never happen.


I also wish they would put in more stuff for non pvp "adventure hunter" rogue-ish stuff, like reasons and rewards for lockpicking, detect hidden, and remove trap, first and foremost removing the skill requirements from remove trap, and allow a chance for it's use to not unhide you.

Hidden rooms, more complex traps, secret hidden stashes like in kotl, but in more places.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

How about some ideas to beef up the Forensic Evaluation skill, just to be able to balance out additional new ways to use the stealing skill? Instead of a bounty system, how about throwing a thief who gets caught by use the Forensic Eval skill in jail and letting him pay bail to get out and then have a magistrate hand down a sentence that involves performing some type of "community service" (e.g., something like the escorts to gain compassion). If you get too notorious, maybe "wanted" posters for your character show up at the jail and you can acquire the poster by "mending your ways" (even if it's just a temporary walk on the straight and narrow).

I like this idea as well.. but would run it along with the bounty system. The greater the thief's rating for completing the snags of player's "named loot" the greater the reward for the detective that catches them.... also would caution against the 'community service' being TOO grindy. Something like 5-8 escorts or something would be ok I think.

 

[Uvtha]

How about some ideas to beef up the Forensic Evaluation skill, just to be able to balance out additional new ways to use the stealing skill? Instead of a bounty system, how about throwing a thief who gets caught by use the Forensic Eval skill in jail and letting him pay bail to get out and then have a magistrate hand down a sentence that involves performing some type of "community service" (e.g., something like the escorts to gain compassion). If you get too notorious, maybe "wanted" posters for your character show up at the jail and you can acquire the poster by "mending your ways" (even if it's just a temporary walk on the straight and narrow).

Man I always wished that they would have implemented some kind of random "murder mystery" quest generation when you find or have to examine a body, and talk to random npcs about the deceased and question the suspects, then at the end you get some sort of reward from the city for your work.

 

[MalagAste]

This is pretty far fetched, and will never happen, but...

Create a new off shoot of the dungeon Covetous. This offshoot will be full of traps, locked doors, yellow boss level reveling monsters, at the end of area you meet manifestations of the Shadowlords Nosfentor, and Astaroth standing between a ghoulish golden altar. They give you a quest to steal 20 cursed items (Only the first item stolen from an individual each day counts toward this 20), and return said stolen items... and your life for sacrifice. Once you accept to the sacrifice you are killed, and your ghost is teleported to a random spot in the world.

When you resurrect you find a strange item in your bag that appears to be a small copy of the idol you found between the shadowlords. When locked down in your home you can click the alter, and when you do so it offers for 25k a "blessing of shadow", which grants you the ability to steal non blessed/insured item in tram for 1 hour, stacking up to 4 times, as well as a much higher resistance to passive detection. After expending a blessing the altar must recharge for 1 hour.

A hidden side effect of being under the blessing of shadow, any time you steal an item there is a 1% chance that the golden "Covetous eye" will be placed in your backpack. When double clicked the eye will allow you to target an insured item in another player's pack, and uninsure it. The same individual stealing check as the cursed items as above applies for the chance to be awarded with an eye, so no scripting them.

The blessing comes with a downside, when you accept the blessing you become instantly grey, and freely attackable even in tram without flagging your attackers to your counterattack. Your body takes on a shadowy appearance, and you suffer -25 to all resists, and any insured items equipped or in your bag become uninsured, and you are unable to insure items while under the effect of the blessing. Any stolen items on your person at the time of your death return to their owners.

Thematic reason for the breaking of trams protection, fairly limited impact, give people a reason to fear the shadows a bit once more, but not so much that their play would be really all that impacted. It would never happen.


I also wish they would put in more stuff for non pvp "adventure hunter" rogue-ish stuff, like reasons and rewards for lockpicking, detect hidden, and remove trap, first and foremost removing the skill requirements from remove trap, and allow a chance for it's use to not unhide you.

Hidden rooms, more complex traps, secret hidden stashes like in kotl, but in more places.

You think your play wouldn't be effected having parts of your armor or your weapon stolen?????? How would that not effect or impact my play???

No if I wanted that I'd play more on Siege... but I'm not interested in that...

I have well over 90 characters on my shard you have any idea what it's like to outfit that many characters??? If I had to redo their suits every other hour because someone stole something I needed that's all I'd ever have time to do in the game.... redo outfits... not exactly "fun" gameplay sorry....

But I agree about adding more things to non PvP rouge like play... I enjoy working trapped chests and the hidden ones in Exodus... puzzle boxes and such things...

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Gotta agree with Mal on that one.. would say give them a slight chance of stealing a copy of the item they are trying to steal.. but could see that getting taken advantage of QUICK. Would just be legal duping lol.. so that's out as well imo.

 

[Uvtha]

You think your play wouldn't be effected having parts of your armor or your weapon stolen?????? How would that not effect or impact my play???

Can't steal equipped stuff, can't steal blessed or insured stuff without use of the uber rare item, plus a thief in my scenario would be pretty easy to kill and get your item back, even for a trammie.

Don't see how it would effect your suit.

 

[Gidge]

It could be a Robin Hood type thing. Steal from the rich give to the poor? Not every thief has bad intentions?

 

[Eric Ravenwind]

Instead of getting random items/gold from monsters, make snooping possible that way we can pick items out of a monsters inventory. This is just a quick thought.

 

[MalagAste]

Can't steal equipped stuff, can't steal blessed or insured stuff without use of the uber rare item, plus a thief in my scenario would be pretty easy to kill and get your item back, even for a trammie.

Don't see how it would effect your suit.

NO just NO... this would be duped and abused to no end.. uber rare item my eye... I happen to carry on many of my characters an entire arsenal of weapons... NO it would effect me ..... trust me... I could just see that abused as all get out in the middle of some cluster at EM Events... easy way to insure yourself a drop steal the slayer of 1/2 a dozen you know good players... who probably wouldn't notice you or couldn't move to do anything to you in the lag... no..... absolutely NOT.

Fel BS stays in Fel... if I wanted that crap in Trammel I'd play more on Siege.

 

[Uvtha]

NO just NO... this would be duped and abused to no end.. uber rare item my eye... I happen to carry on many of my characters an entire arsenal of weapons... NO it would effect me ..... trust me... I could just see that abused as all get out in the middle of some cluster at EM Events... easy way to insure yourself a drop steal the slayer of 1/2 a dozen you know good players... who probably wouldn't notice you or couldn't move to do anything to you in the lag... no..... absolutely NOT.

Fel BS stays in Fel... if I wanted that crap in Trammel I'd play more on Siege.

I think your fears are dramatically over exaggerated, but I would be fine removing the item, and just allowing for the stealing of unblessed items.

 

[Nirot]

EMs, Mesanna and team should always have candies in their backpack. So we can steal from them, when they show up!

 

[MalagAste]

I think your fears are dramatically over exaggerated, but I would be fine removing the item, and just allowing for the stealing of unblessed items.

Are they? Are we playing the same game?? Because I happen to see plenty of scum playing all the time, scamming, cheating, and willing to do anything to make a buck and ruin someones gameplay... exploiting to no end... still constant.

 

[Uvtha]

Are they? Are we playing the same game?? Because I happen to see plenty of scum playing all the time, scamming, cheating, and willing to do anything to make a buck and ruin someones gameplay... exploiting to no end... still constant.

I think we are, and I think people sometimes find what they are looking for. Honestly though, the amount of negative feelings you seem to have for this game, the players, the developers, I think tints your vision from time to time.

 

[MalagAste]

I think we are, and I think people sometimes find what they are looking for. Honestly though, the amount of negative feelings you seem to have for this game, the players, the developers, I think tints your vision from time to time.

Really I'm willing to bet that within a week this "uber" rare item would be for sale on any number of illegal 3rd party websites... and YOU KNOW IT.

 

[Uvtha]

Really I'm willing to bet that within a week this "uber" rare item would be for sale on any number of illegal 3rd party websites... and YOU KNOW IT.

I don't actually. Anyways, like I said, I'd concede to it's removal (or make it a rare ability not an item) in my idea if it would matter. Honestly though, it's just a potential loss of an item. It's not as big a deal as people seem to want to make it out to be. I really doubt someone would use their one time item to steal your imbued demon slayer sword anyway, or that it would be a loss worth mentioning if they did.

 

[MalagAste]

I don't actually. Anyways, like I said, I'd concede to it's removal (or make it a rare ability not an item) in my idea if it would matter. Honestly though, it's just a potential loss of an item. It's not as big a deal as people seem to want to make it out to be. I really doubt someone would use their one time item to steal your imbued demon slayer sword anyway, or that it would be a loss worth mentioning if they did.

Obviously you play on other shards... where I play this would be exploited and used as a harassment tool.

 

[Anonymous UOPlayer]

most ideas people present r variants on 'let me screw up other players.' stealers never or rarely have ideas go beyond that. & that's why stealing's been down-graded over years. had 2b 4 game survival.

 

[Mervyn]

cap lower reagent cost at 95-99%, then you could steal reagents.

 

[Captn Norrington]

cap lower reagent cost at 95-99%, then you could steal reagents.

LRC still works at 95-99% it just doesn't let you cast more than once every few seconds. I don't know why it's like this, but one of my characters lost a piece of their LRC suit and is still able to cast with no reagents.

 

[Tyrath]

Gotta agree with Mal on that one.. would say give them a slight chance of stealing a copy of the item they are trying to steal.. but could see that getting taken advantage of QUICK. Would just be legal duping lol.. so that's out as well imo.

The first thing I would do is line 21 characters up with slithers, cameos, and other expensive gear and just steal dupe 23/7

 

[cobb]

Definitely need some new Fel only content for thieves to have something to steal.

 

[dukarlo]

I think making stealables spawn in Fel dungeons in random spots would be good. They need to do it right though. I see the blackthorns turn in as a failed system that could benefit greatly from bumping up thieves. Spawn minax arties (stealables) randomly in fel dungeons or spawn some kind of ingredients that would allow altering of existing items so they are more customizable. Maybe start with a few pieces like the hawk winds robe which is extremely ugly and headpieces I'd be for allowing it in Trammel at a reduced spawn rate. The fel rate should be enough to draw good numbers of thieves.

A lot of the fun of pre ren thieving was hanging out with other thieves. If its done right fel would have some pk thief interaction while Trammies could still play trammel thieves be it at a significantly reduced rate.
Heck, maybe even thug thieves could be viable again. It's all about making it easy enuff to see progress in the steals but difficult enough keep the system relevant. Make all items cursed and add a few high end pieces that are cursed until put in a secure container or bank or maybe make a crafter have to do something to un curse them.

 

[dukarlo]

There has to be content in fel that only thief templates can do. Puzzles, chests that require the stealing skill, and random location stealables. I would add content that other builds can do in the same areas as to promote the interaction of classes. Every drop or stealables should be cursed until it is safely secured in a secure house container.

I would propose having stealables include ingredients that allow the customization of armor. For example being able to change a hawk winds robe into another robe slot item with the same mods. Also some mid level to high end level arty drops that spawn in random spots as well as loot on corpses.
I think the specific mobs that drop arties and ingredients should drop on the mobs corpse and the corpse should be viewable by anyone with gm snooping. The item should be lootable or stealable by thieves with the proper skills.
A system like this allows people to keep their gear but throws thieves a nice bone while promoting some old style uo vibe. You can add some similar in Trammel which doesn't allow the stealing or looting of other players but spawn rates need to be greatly reduced to keep the rewards of the system relevant.

 

[dukarlo]

Blackie, in reguards to the disguise kit i thought i read somewhere that the kits effects can be removed with an oil cloth. I haven't tested this myself as I don't use the kit since it makes it so you cant use forms.

 

[Morgana Grim]

I stopped playing a thief on production shards not long after insurance. A cool down timer on sending bags and insuring on looted / drops in Fel. Would give you a few to grab a newly acquired item from a player. Would not affect any item you enter Fel insured with. And of course some interesting thief related quests would be nice.

 

[Cymidei]

Do you not remember how annoying it was to lag at the Britain Bank and get picked clean by thieves? Remember fondly how we had to stack cloth, bags, and trapped boxes in our packs? It sucked. No thanks!


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