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Thief Suggestions

Stinky Pete

Babbling Loonie
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
I recently made a post regarding the developer's comment on changes to thieves. In that post, I mentioned that I was not willing to discuss my ideas there, mainly because I hate that forum. Between the moderators, the posters, and the fact that I couldn't figure out how to change the language from German for a year, I've decided not to discuss things at length there. That being said, I would still like to discuss them and I thought that here would be a much better platform for that discussion. So I'll just get right into it:

First and foremost, let's talk about snooping. I think that it is dumb that snooping works 100% of the time at GM. There should always be a chance to fail, even a small one. Snooping should also be a criminal act if I get caught. I can understand not going grey if I look into a pack and decide there is nothing worth taking and sneak away, but if I fail, I should go grey, period.

Speaking of going grey, if I steal something, I should go grey 100% of the time. I should remain grey to the person I stole from and everyone in their party until either they kill me, or after at least an hour. It's dumb that I can steal something lightweight from someone in town with almost no chance of even flagging. There is nothing the mark can do about it. Sometimes they'll even attack me and get guardwhacked.

Which leads me to guardwhacks. Getting guardwhacked for stealing is lame. I have to have roughly 500 skill points dedicated to steal from someone with any reasonable chance of escaping, typically that leaves me with about 200 or so points that I can dedicate to combat if I so choose. I'm basically a strong mongbat at that point, why do you have to call the guards? If you want your stuff back, outmaneuver me and kill me, it shouldn't be that hard.

Just those 3 changes would make stealing more enjoyable for everyone involved. Most of us do it for the thrill of the chase, the item isn't nearly as important. These 3 simple changes would allow for more chases and make the encounters more meaningful without making the thief overpowered as 2 of these ideas are essentially nerfs. It would also increase the amount of encounters, because if I'm in town and wearing a decent suit, I'm not even going to make an attempt to steal because it is likely that whatever I am stealing isn't worth the loss of the suit when I inevitably get guardwhacked. While I'm on the subject of increasing the amount of encounters, I think that thieves should be able to steal gold from people even if they aren't carrying gold. It doesn't have to be much, maybe 2K max based on your stealing skill. That way even if I encounter someone that doesn't have anything worth stealing, I can always get a bit of gold and invoke a chase. Just that in itself would allow thieves to log in for a little bit, go to Fel Yew gate, have some fun, and log off. The way it is now, unless you collect bandages, it takes a lot of time and patience just to find a mark who is carrying anything of value.
 

Stinky Pete

Babbling Loonie
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
I would like to continue where I left off yesterday with some ideas to add more content for the PvP thief. To add more content for the thief, I believe that there would need to be a sort of anti-thief character. The anti-thief template would need to be somewhat weaker than a regular PvP toon so that the thief has a chance to best him in combat. I would make the anti-thief a bit more powerful than the thief since they will specialize in finding thieves and bringing them to justice. To purposely gimp out a template, you would need to require non-combat skills in order for them to do their job. The skills I am thinking are tracking, detect hidden, and forensic evaluation.

Tracking, as it stands, is poor at best. It is probably fine in it's current state to implement the content that I am explaining, but it could definitely use some work. It should be completely passive, I shouldn't have to open a menu and click what I'm looking for, it just takes too long. If I'm following someone who is in stealth or not, I have to stop and click through multiple gumps in order to track the target, often times that gives them a head start on me and I end up losing the target. Also, when does anyone use tracking on anything but players? I don't have an all-inclusive solution for how to fix it but it should at least be considered. Detect hidden could also benefit from some improvement. When I detect someone, I need to wait for the 10 second timeout before I can detect again, so a lot of the time, I reveal someone, and they just hide again while I stand there and wonder where I went wrong. When I reveal someone, it should stop them from hiding for a much longer period of time.

So once those skills have been worked on, you could begin to build content for the anti-thief character. I would begin by putting hidden NPCs all over the Felucca wilderness. Make players use tracking and detect hidden to find them. When you find them and reveal them they are invulnerable until the player uses forensic evaluation on them to reveal that they are indeed criminals. Once they reveal them and determine that they are the criminal that they are looking for, they kill them and receive some type of reward. The anti-thief would use the same process on players, the only difference being that when the anti-thief uses forensic eval on a player who is in the NPC thieve's guild, both the thief and anti-thief will flag grey to each other and their respective parties and a fight or chase ensues. The grey flags would last an hour or so or until the character dies.
 

kershin

Visitor
Hi, I created a thief and frankly I was excited to go and steal stuff and other players. Rare items in dungeons are rare and for what it's worth. Stealing from other players is really fun. until the cooldown to hide you. It takes magic to hide or ninjitsu. What if a melee fighter / thief? EI: Mace or fencing / tact / healing / snooping / stealing / chivalry / hiding? So in the middle of a fight, you are stronger and you steal your opponent? Why stealth? for the approach when everyone is riding ...
What do you think?
 

Stinky Pete

Babbling Loonie
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
@kershin

That template is worth a try, though the tactics you would use would be much different than what I am used to. I guess what I am not understanding is, how do you eventually get away? As a fighter, that template is gimped, you aren't going to be able to hold your own against a trained fighter who uses all of their available skill points to kill you. I always tell people that if they want to fight, make a character for fighting. The thief is built for getting away. Also, I'm not so sure about healing without anatomy, I have never really tested the effectiveness of it. I would do some tests on that before dedicating actual points to it.
 

Ghost of Gramps

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I would like to continue where I left off yesterday with some ideas to add more content for the PvP thief. To add more content for the thief, I believe that there would need to be a sort of anti-thief character. The anti-thief template would need to be somewhat weaker than a regular PvP toon so that the thief has a chance to best him in combat. I would make the anti-thief a bit more powerful than the thief since they will specialize in finding thieves and bringing them to justice. To purposely gimp out a template, you would need to require non-combat skills in order for them to do their job. The skills I am thinking are tracking, detect hidden, and forensic evaluation.

Tracking, as it stands, is poor at best. It is probably fine in it's current state to implement the content that I am explaining, but it could definitely use some work. It should be completely passive, I shouldn't have to open a menu and click what I'm looking for, it just takes too long. If I'm following someone who is in stealth or not, I have to stop and click through multiple gumps in order to track the target, often times that gives them a head start on me and I end up losing the target. Also, when does anyone use tracking on anything but players? I don't have an all-inclusive solution for how to fix it but it should at least be considered. Detect hidden could also benefit from some improvement. When I detect someone, I need to wait for the 10 second timeout before I can detect again, so a lot of the time, I reveal someone, and they just hide again while I stand there and wonder where I went wrong. When I reveal someone, it should stop them from hiding for a much longer period of time.

So once those skills have been worked on, you could begin to build content for the anti-thief character. I would begin by putting hidden NPCs all over the Felucca wilderness. Make players use tracking and detect hidden to find them. When you find them and reveal them they are invulnerable until the player uses forensic evaluation on them to reveal that they are indeed criminals. Once they reveal them and determine that they are the criminal that they are looking for, they kill them and receive some type of reward. The anti-thief would use the same process on players, the only difference being that when the anti-thief uses forensic eval on a player who is in the NPC thieve's guild, both the thief and anti-thief will flag grey to each other and their respective parties and a fight or chase ensues. The grey flags would last an hour or so or until the character dies.
All great ideas. Thank you for the time and effort putting that in such easily understandable and doable terms.
 

Miretar

Journeyman
I never steal from players—my thief is only after rares from npc vendors & those that spawn in dungeons—when she is not rescuing captive gargoyles that is.
 

Cork

Sage
Professional
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
I only steal from players in certain guilds at champ spawns. Recently added a new guild to that list on Chessy :)
 

MoonCres

Sage
UNLEASHED
We call that "picking stuff up off the ground" in the circles I hang out in.
Haha I tried explaining to a friend that going to ranch with elk on it that it isn't hunting its gathering... some ppl think using the same skill is doing the same thing.

Clarify this is private ranch which elk stay on cus they like never get hunted except when someone pays ranch a crap load of money to kill one. Then they proceed to go out and stare at the herd from about 100yrds deciding which one is best.
 
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