The original idea was that the thief would play a support role that would foster teamwork amongst a PvP squad much like american football. In our case the thief is the player with the ball (the sigil) and the rest of the squad would try and protect them while trying to return the sigil, as opponents tried to kill the thief. While this cat and mouse game was fun for some, others found the thieves abilities to evade detection to be a turn off, so we altered the first order optimal strategy towards actual combat encounters forced as a result of the altars and occupation of a city.
Moving forward we hope to address some other concerns such as the value of match points awarded for straight up kills, allowing VvV pets to be res'd without having required skills in veterinary or animal lore, as well as adding new rewards and providing more impact as a result of the city battles and perhaps adding more lengthy siege/base defense style battles for those who enjoyed that aspect of factions.