Locks and Doorways

[Brokkr]

Had a key stolen right out of my hand immediately after I locked the door.

So.  Suggestions for lock/doorways?  Heade made a suggestion in the other thread, that I think basically comes down to a flag to put on a doorway such that it can't be sneaked through...or at least shadowed through.

As I was reading the thread, it struck me that all our doors are sort of old time locks.  Must be locked/unlocked on both sides.  Rather than like a deadbolt, locked/unlocked on one side with a key, and with a handle on the other side (so no need for a key).

I will admit while we have made some strides on how our locks work, they are pretty basic.  I always liked locked doors in the Thief series.  Looking for variety of ideas on how locks might have more variety.

[Hauwke]

It shouldn't be 100% impossible to shadow through behind someone. It should however be very difficult. Maybe apply a sizeable penalty to shadowing through exits identified as having doors?

[Veselka]

Some ideas, taken with a grain of imaginative salt:

-Similar to crafting recipes, higher end locks require different types of lock picks to successfully open, let's say 4-6 types. So an angle-tipped lock pick, a slim, flat lock pick, a long, flat-ended pick and so on. The combinations can change with every IC month, to prevent door combinations from becoming a known quantity. ICly, Landlords change the locks periodically.

The combinations might be achieved with [EDESC] attached to each lock pick type, and a rotating match of [EDESC] on doors. When the descs match, the lock pick functions on the door.

It creates a challenge to picking a lock -- Doing research before breaking in, gathering the proper tools/materials, and then going for it. The lock you picked a month ago may be the same, it may not. You have to come prepared.

Lower grade locks would only require one kind of pick, and sometimes any old lock pick will do. Average locks might require 1-2 different styles of pick. Advanced doors would require 2-3 varying tools. Master doors would require 3-4 tools, either in your inventory or in the room.


-Make it so some lock picks can be crafted into other lock picks, but not with unlimited longevity. So, say an angle-tipped pick to a flat-ended pick, but not flat back to angled.

-As with stealth, I feel there should be some cool down timers to using the skill repeatedly.

-The delay should be much longer, or % chase to instill some form of crime code on failure in 'Populated' rooms, as I believe it doesn't currently on a failure.

-Flatten Lockpicking / Lockpick Making, so that people don't need to esoterically divine X PC for their supply. Open up Lockpick Making to custom crafts.

[rinthrat]

Let us unlock doors while holding/wielding the key, if that's not possible already.

[Lizzie]

I think it'd be great if there was a way to make doors lockable/unlockable without a key from the inside (only). But if you unlock it and leave the room, and don't have a key or can't pick it locked, then it stays unlocked til someone can do one or the other thing.

It should ALSO be lockable/unlockable from the inside with a key. The same could be true for gates - perhaps if you are a certain rank you can "bar the gate" from inside the clan compound.

[valeria]

It would be cool if doorways were more granular in their ability to sneak through them.  In the sense that a builder could assign the exit a value representing easy, medium, or difficult to sneak through.

Having an ability to bar a door might be cool.  Like, you would just put a piece of wood in a set of latches to bar the door, provided that the door latch could be broken with someone with enough strength, or slipped with a tool, and automatically reset when the apartment or whatever gets re-rented.

You could also equip a door bar with a latch, aka a piece of rope you put through a hole in the door, that would allow the door to be opened from the other side.  You could pull the latch in and it wouldn't be openable from the other side, put the latch out and it would be.  These are both methods for keeping a door closed to unwanted entrants that are even lower tech than locks.

[ScramblesForPurchase]

I think it'd be great if there was a way to make doors lockable/unlockable without a key from the inside (only). But if you unlock it and leave the room, and don't have a key or can't pick it locked, then it stays unlocked til someone can do one or the other thing.

There are some apartments that work like this already.

The key is not needed to lock/unlock when on the inside. Only the outside.

[Delirium]

Having 'shadow' keep you one coded room away from your target would solve a big chunk of this problem. You would have to deliberately decide and execute the command to follow someone into their apartment before they shut the door behind them, or, you'd have to break into it (via lockpicking).

[Heade]

As I've said numerous times, I don't think people should be able to shadow through apartment doorways simply due to the way people utilize their residence doors IRL. Unless people are carrying massive amounts of groceries or something, they generally only open the door wide enough for them to slide in, and they instantly close it as they pass through it. In such a case, there is literally no physical space for an intruder to "shadow" someone into the apartment. Doing so straight up defies the laws of physics.

Other doorways, like public areas where the door is often left open to the public, or bars where patrons are constantly flowing in and out should be able to be shadowed through. It's only private residence doors that I think should be impossible to do.

I'm also not suggesting that someone shouldn't be able to follow you into your apartment, but doing so should require physical contact with the door, preventing the person you're following from closing it and locking you out, which would be a dead giveaway that you were following them. If you shadow someone into their apartment, there should be a room echo saying "a figure in a dark cloak forces their way in behind you" as you enter the room.

As for various types of locks, it would be nice to see some of the more upscale apartments fitted with deadbolt style locks that can be unlocked from the inside without a key.

I also think that, while it is a large undertaking, increasing the number of apartments in the game by about 10 times would help alleviate the sense that break-ins are completely out of hand. Many people playing burglars and such want to practice their lockpicking and score some loot, but if they had to perform 10 times the number of breakins before finding a random PC's apartment, it would make such encounters a bit more sparse, instead of the current situation, where sometimes you have several random break-in encounters in an apartment in a single day. I once had 7 different random people break into my PC's apartment in 1 day. That's pretty excessive.

It would also assist with some of the economic issues when it comes to burglars becoming super rich super quickly.

[number13]

The player population isn't big enough to support burglars. As such, decent lockpicks should become a holy grail that are almost impossible to find and make, on par with something like a magic metal sword. In fact, that could be the trick -- in order to pick a high end lock, you might require a magical metal lockpick.

In the kayfabe, the Nenyuk should invent new locks that are impossible for current techniques to breach, and apply those locks overtime to apartments, starting with high end rooms. Shitty locks off in the Rinth or rat-hole apartments can remain as they are.

Meanwhile, failure for shadowing someone through certain rooms, such as the thresholds of apartments or the gates of a clan area, should become very high, even at max stealth. Just like a flat 50% chance that you'll be discovered, on top of other checks, maybe. The victim should be alerted that someone is shadowing them when that failure occurs, and the sneaking character should be stopped in their tracks before entering the room, with a delay applied to further movement or hiding.

Finally, the delay on hiding should be longer, and there should be a significant stamina cost for sneak-hiding across the city. Floating invisible gickers is stupid, reverse fart pully magic is stupid, and the entire Whiran sub-guild should removed from the game.

I'm typing all this as a person who plays exclusively sneaky characters, pretty much. I'm not the victim. I'm the one who knocks.

[Vex]

Make apartments impossible to enter through SHADOW command. If an apartment murder is going to take place, it should be done with guile and tactics, as well as a suitable degree of risk. Winning trust, being invited in and betraying said trust is much more interesting, than shadow in > steal key > murder.

I would like to see apartment doors operate on a key/bar system. When manipulating the lock on an apartment door from the outside, you would require a key or pick to lock or unlock it. When you're within your apartment (or someone elses), LOCKING or UNLOCKING would engage a door bar.

This would:

A) Prevent someone picking or unlocking the door from the outside, so you can log off in your home and not be worried someone will clean you out when you're offline and sleeping. It would also make planning a heist a thing, as you would need to know when they leave, so you can break in and plunder while they're gone. The improved safety would give people a reason to use apartments as homes, once again, so there is at least something to steal when you do break in.

B) Eliminate apartments as execution chambers, as you would NOT require a key to LOCK or UNLOCK the door from the inside, so both attacker and victim, regardless of ownership, have a chance to flee the situation. It will also eliminate people fearing being locked into their own place, because someone stole their key, as the key would not be necessary to unlock the door and escape.

C) It means even if your rent runs out whilst logged out or you junk your key by accident, you can still leave your apartment without requiring staff to be online to answer your wish for assistance. This is especially beneficial for people who play off-peak, who could be stuck waiting for some time for help.

There are, of course, pros and cons, but I feel as though this would address the broadest range of complaints, with the most benefits, with the least amount of codework required. It doesn't eliminate burglary or murder, but does up the bar required to be successful at either, insofar as apartments go. It'll let people have more confidence in decorating their 'home', as well as using it for their intended purposes.

A peep hole, as well, would be nice, since shouts are anonymous, but we should, ICly, know if its our lover yelling 'I'm here!' and not a random, 'rinthi accidented elf.

[Dune Bunny]

Thanks for this thread, Brokkr!

I think, on the shadowing thing; I agree fully that shadowing through a door shouldn't happen. But also believe that sometimes a shadowing person might try and force their way in, if it's a doorway they can't shadow through.

Perhaps a nosave flag for 'forced entry' could work with this. When you're shadowing someone, you can have your nosave set so that when someone enters a doorway you can't shadow through, you automatically 'force' your way in behind them. Or you can turn it off, so you'd be stopped from trying to enter, and alerting the pc to your presence.

I'd like to second the idea of some doors having bars on the inside too. Head inside, close your door, slide the bar shut. I'd also be cool with a countering skill/command for breaking down doors as well, one that likely could have crimcode retaliation, but an option nonetheless.

A big fan of sneak/hide costing stamina. Not a huge drain or anything, but still a drain.

And lastly, I'd LOVE to see a more complex lock/picking system in the game. Veselka seems to be pointing in the right direction on this for sure.  I'm not sure what I'd personally come up for this, but it seems like an area, that while more difficult than what we have now, could be a bit of a puzzle to figure out, like how cures work. A thief having a 'lockpick set' that they could fill up with different picks/tools would be really neat.

This could also lead to more of a 'sid sink for characters with more than they need. Something could perhaps be attached to apartment renting codes, where you can pay additional rent on your home to have an 'upgraded lock' installed on your place, making would-be thieves have to plan ahead, scope out what the locks on each apartment are like, and execute their plan from there.

[number13]

>And lastly, I'd LOVE to see a more complex lock/picking system in the game.

There aren't enough players to support burglary, or even pickpocketing, as a profession. A more complex system won't hold back the tide...it'll get figured out, quickly, and just make it slightly more interesting to be a burglar. What's needed isn't increased complexity, but a flat out nerf.

I was one of the ones who touted for combining the Burglar, Assassin, and Pickpocket as a single class. I was wrong. Splitting them out into weaker classes made them rarer, and it made it easier to pin down who was responsible for what crime. Now, it's just a mess of criminals, many of them not even from the Rinth, endlessly raiding. It makes taverns and apartments all but useless. And these criminals can have a magicker sub-class that makes them into super-criminals. And these super criminals can have deadly poisons.

And what's worse, there's no need for the institutional backing of an elf tribe or the Guild. So these organizations can't even offer protection for money, with any reasonable expectation of actually providing protection.

That's not the fault of any individual PC who is taking things too far, but rather a system that, in aggregate, emergently, has ended with the Miscreant class winning the game.

[Heade]

or the gates of a clan area

I don't think the "no shadow" flag should apply to the gates of a clan area. There should be clanned NPCs who react to violence against a clan-tagged PC like a guard reacts to criminals, but it shouldn't be impossible to shadow someone in or otherwise sneak in to a clan compound. Compound gates are a completely different story from apartment doors because clan compounds are often huge, manor or villa style things, rather than a box with no windows and a single doorway. But because there is often only 1 coded entrance into a compound despite the IC reality being a 3 dimensional building with multiple potential entrances, there needs to be some way to get in to represent the various avenues someone would have for infiltrating such a large place. Ideally, there would be coded rooms with secret entrances, climbable walls, windows or drainage grates and such instead, but in the absence of such options, an option to clandestinely get in needs to exist, I think.

[tapas]

There should be alternative routes into clan compounds.

Even just wishing up and asking staff to let you in over the ramparts with your master climb skill should be doable.

[Mr. Fancypants]

Okay, as long as staff gets to roll a percentage chance to have you ganged up on and slaughtered by the guards that would be patrolling any avenues of access and egress. Clan compounds have one gate to reflect the fact that they're secure enough that anyone hoping to break in needs to use non-coded subterfuge, coded subterfuge, magick, or all three, and you should most certainly wish up before trying anything in a clan compound-- so that the gameworld can react appropriately to a lone wolf attacking some of the most powerful organizations in the Known World. You might get away with it, if you're smart and lucky, but it definitely shouldn't be as simple as shadowing someone in or climbing a wall, especially if you're not even disguised.

[Hauwke]

or the gates of a clan area

I don't think the "no shadow" flag should apply to the gates of a clan area. There should be clanned NPCs who react to violence against a clan-tagged PC like a guard reacts to criminals, but it shouldn't be impossible to shadow someone in or otherwise sneak in to a clan compound. Compound gates are a completely different story from apartment doors because clan compounds are often huge, manor or villa style things, rather than a box with no windows and a single doorway. But because there is often only 1 coded entrance into a compound despite the IC reality being a 3 dimensional building with multiple potential entrances, there needs to be some way to get in to represent the various avenues someone would have for infiltrating such a large place. Ideally, there would be coded rooms with secret entrances, climbable walls, windows or drainage grates and such instead, but in the absence of such options, an option to clandestinely get in needs to exist, I think.

The exact same could be said of apartments. Many of them are described as having a large hole in the wall for a window, minus the glass and often merely covered by a curtain.

If you remove shadowing into an apartment you remove an entire route of entry.

[wizturbo]

Here are some suggestions in no particular order:

• +1 for eliminating the ability to shadow someone through a door.  I never understood why this was ever possible.
• Lockpick quality could dramatically limit the types of locks you can successfully pick, regardless of skill level.  A good lock may repel all but the finest lockpicking tools, and those tools could be quite expensive, fragile, or rare.
• Picking a lock could have a much longer delay time than it currently does, to extend the amount of time the picker is vulnerable to someone wandering by.
• Picking a lock could change your ldesc to something suspicious, similar to how crafting changes your ldesc.
• Doors could be barred from the inside for added security for the resident while they're at home.  Maybe these could be bypassed with enough skill/tools.
• Unowned apartments could have hostile NPC's inside, or NPC's that spawn when someone breaks in.  The danger of these NPCs could be random.  Sometimes you break in to a place and find a puny baker with their granite rolling pin, other times it's a Byn Sergeant with a maul.

[number13]

• Lockpick quality could dramatically limit the types of locks you can successfully pick, regardless of skill level.  A good lock may repel all but the finest lockpicking tools, and those tools could be quite expensive, fragile, or rare.
• Picking a lock could have a much longer delay time than it currently does, to extend the amount of time the picker is vulnerable to someone wandering by.
• Picking a lock could change your ldesc to something suspicious, similar to how crafting changes your ldesc.
• Doors could be barred from the inside for added security for the resident while they're at home.  Maybe these could be bypassed with enough skill/tools.
• Unowned apartments could have hostile NPC's inside, or NPC's that spawn when someone breaks in.  The danger of these NPCs could be random.  Sometimes you break in to a place and find a puny baker with their granite rolling pin, other times it's a Byn Sergeant with a maul.

Great ideas. In particular, changing the ldesc of a suspicious character automatically is a good idea, and not just for lockpicking, but pickpocketing, sneaking, and starting a backstab as well. But honestly? This will just mean the most successful burglars ply their trade in hours when player population is sparse.

As far as lockpick quality, it's a big backwards right now. The best lockpicks are essentially unbreakable, no matter how delicate and thin they seem in their desc. It's a good idea for good locks to have a flat percentage change of degrading your tool's quality, regardless of success or failure.

But...Miscreants can make their own picks. So breakage won't solve much of anything. They really shouldn't get pickmaking...forcing Miscreants to at least involve a Fence in the process would mean that they have to deal with other players, and with that wider network, there's an increased chance of discovery.[/list]

[RogueGunslinger]

Somewhat related: If someone is guarding a doorway, picking that lock should be impossible, and using a key should be nearly impossible. You should need to physically remove them from guarding that exit if you want to spend the time unlocking it.

[Heade]

If you remove shadowing into an apartment you remove an entire route of entry.

No, you don't. People can still break in through that route, or even "shadow" a person in. They'd just be seen as they push their way inside, or have to pick the lock to take the route potentially unnoticed. But there is no one in the world that could "shadow" me IRL into my house without me noticing. They might be able to break in without me noticing, but they couldn't follow me through the door without my knowledge. That's all we're talking about eliminating, here.


The issue with clan compounds is that there are often other code issues with stealth entry as well, where things that should work don't, so shadowing should be a thing as a workaround until some effort is put into making infiltration through other means possible.

[LindseyBalboa]

This isn't "the world." It's a place where elves and dragons run around. It's fine to me that someone could be so stealthy they sneak in behind me into my apartment. You can't bash a door down, you can't climb in a window, you can't bribe the apartment guy for a spare key (or maybe you can, but not consistently, as there isn't really investigative procedure in Arm to balance this that I know of), you can't jimmy a lock or pry a door.

Taking away avenues of conflict resolution is not good for the game until there are valid and comparable avenues of conflict resolution offered as replacement.

[Alesan]

There seems to be a miscommunication between people who want to "shadow" in and handwave that as climbing through a window, and people who say "no shadowing in period". I'm inclined to err to the latter side despite the window being a feasible approach, because I don't really care much for handwave maneuvers. You are literally, mechanically, shadowing through a doorway. I don't think you should be able to handwave that.

[Heade]

This isn't "the world." It's a place where elves and dragons run around. It's fine to me that someone could be so stealthy they sneak in behind me into my apartment.

There is no "so stealthy" you can sneak through a doorway where there is no physical space for you to move through. That is breaking the laws of physics. And we're not complaining about magic doing it, here. This is normal sneaking. No dragons, not magic. Just sneaking. And it shouldn't work.

[LindseyBalboa]

Taking away avenues of conflict resolution is not good for the game until there are valid and comparable avenues of conflict resolution offered as replacement.

[Heade]

Taking away avenues of conflict resolution is not good for the game until there are valid and comparable avenues of conflict resolution offered as replacement.

There are already ways to kill people inside an apartment. You can pick the lock and break in, then wait for them to get home, pickpocket their key, and do the exact same thing. The only difference is that it takes effort, and it should. We don't need to "replace" cheese that shouldn't have been there to begin with, when there are perfectly valid ways to do the same thing that just take a little effort.

[wizturbo]

The game becomes less fun when conflict is resolved, not the opposite way around.  Also you have to think about the implications for new conflicts by having locked apartments be significantly more "safe" than they are today.

If locked rooms were safer:

• People may actually store real valuables there, so breaking in could actually be worth something
• The need for clan compounds becomes less essential, and may become workplaces instead of impregnable fortresses that PC's never need to leave
• Players may not immediately logoff the moment they enter their apartment out of fear someone is about to backstab them
• The death rate of aides improves dramatically
• Less cheesy deaths, which may mean we have more players to have conflicts with...

[Greve]

To be perfectly honest, the whole idea of shadowing someone through a doorway is patently absurd; it's physically impossible, you couldn't ever do that in real life unless you were literally invisible and incorporeal. But what's the solution? If you make it impossible, you just change the shadow "meta" into 'fol self, north, re-shadow amos' and solve nothing. It would take a full redesign of the entire stealth system.

This game's stealth system is very primitive. More often than not, it leads to situations that are silly and unrealistic. I don't think it's worth trying to come up with solutions to individual aspects of it without a total rework of the whole stealth code. Without that, any possible fix would just be another strange code quirk that has no basis in realism. If the general framework of the stealth system is to remain the same, I'm not sure it's worth trying to address its fringe problems.

If I were a real Zalanthan individual walking down a corridor to my apartment, I would be able to glance over my shoulder and check with 100% certainty that nobody is following me, unless they're affected by the actual Invisibility spell. Not so in the game. Any idiot with the hide skill can completely overcome the fundamental concept of human vision because the game cannot discern between a bare hallway and a crowded city street unless a builder had the foresight to render the room no_hide, which is quite the rarity. Unless we can count on staff to go through the entirety of the game's playable grid and judge every room's stealth potential on a one-by-one basis, there's no easy solution.

Ideally, every room would have a coded hiding place for every eligible thing that could possibly be hidden behind/under/inside, but that's kind of an unrealistic expectation. As much as I would love for that to be a thing, it just isn't. As long as that's the case, the question remains: on whose side of an unrealistic mechanic should the game err?

You walk down a street that's supposed to be filled with travelers, dozens or even hundreds of people, but you can immediately spot the only other PC in the crowd and react accordingly. Innumerable times throughout the history of this game, people have taken advantage of this fact, fallen victim to it, or otherwise been affected by it. Is this fair?

You walk into a room that contains a rickety wooden chair and a bag of short bone lengths, but there's a deadly assassin hiding somewhere holding a dagger dripping with peraine. There's no possible way he could have removed himself from your field of vision, but the code let him, so he leaps out of nowhere and stabs you in the eye. Is this fair?

There's no solution that satisfies both sides of the equation. The scan skill is fashioned entirely from shit, and the hide skill is a bunch of idiotic nonsense. This discussion does not seem to have any merit until it's one of many patch notes in a full re-design of this game's stealth system, which was probably designed in the 1990s. Before that day comes, I frankly think everyone's better served sticking with what is at least familiar, if not sensible.

But until that day comes, the one thing I would suggest changing is the fact that the hide skill easily gets a bonus of ten, twenty or more points from various sources while bonuses to the scan skill are extremely limited, leading to a situation where anyone with guild_miscreant and some combination of bonuses to hide will practically always defeat even the highest possible scan skill available to any sensible combination of class, race and stats.

[Brokkr]

The topic is doorways and locks, not stealth.  To the extent stealth impacts those two things, feel free to comment on it.  To the extent it doesn't, keep your opinion to yourself and stay on topic.

[mansa]

Had a key stolen right out of my hand immediately after I locked the door.

So.  Suggestions for lock/doorways?  Heade made a suggestion in the other thread, that I think basically comes down to a flag to put on a doorway such that it can't be sneaked through...or at least shadowed through.

As I was reading the thread, it struck me that all our doors are sort of old time locks.  Must be locked/unlocked on both sides.  Rather than like a deadbolt, locked/unlocked on one side with a key, and with a handle on the other side (so no need for a key).

I will admit while we have made some strides on how our locks work, they are pretty basic.  I always liked locked doors in the Thief series.  Looking for variety of ideas on how locks might have more variety.

I'd like to have the ability to break down doors with strength or with weapons, or have the ability to upgrade the locks on the doors. 
I'd like to see more one-way locking doors, aka 'barring' the doors to prevent people from unlocking it from one side -> You can still open the door, but being able to 'unlock it' from one side is impossible.

[Hauwke]

I think the bash skill could be quite nicely used to break doors down, that would prevent it being a purely strength based check, so that smarty elf guys can still kick the handle in if they know what they are doing.

But it also lets a half giant just straight wreck the door with no skill at all. Because half giant.

That said, It does leave dwarves out of the mix a little, if it would also go off of height like bash does.

[ShaLeah]

I've seen people pop locks with a toothpick sized thing, in seconds but always with sound. I know I've also been in a room alone and looked up at someone who walked in that I didn't notice.  My cat can run out of the door in a split second, someone could definitely walk in behind me most days and I wouldn't notice.  Fantasy and fun trump realism in my opinion. 

However!

I always wanted a CHANCE to hear the lock or NOTICE the door opening.

Happens every time and directly tied to your perception skills and smarts but a ..

You notice: The soft click of a lock.
You notice: Someone opens the door.
You notice: The door closes.
You notice: The soft click of a lock.

I'd be thrilled with just that.

[Hauwke]

I've seen people pop locks with a toothpick sized thing, in seconds but always with sound. I know I've also been in a room alone and looked up at someone who walked in that I didn't notice.  My cat can run out of the door in a split second, someone could definitely walk in behind me most days and I wouldn't notice.  Fantasy and fun trump realism in my opinion. 

However!

I always wanted a CHANCE to hear the lock or NOTICE the door opening.

Happens every time and directly tied to your perception skills and smarts but a ..

You notice: The soft click of a lock.
You notice: Someone opens the door.
You notice: The door closes.
You notice: The soft click of a lock.

I'd be thrilled with just that.

My kid, 1m tall sneaks by me all the damn time. A child, not trying to sneak, because I'm just not paying attention because guess what? I'm in my own home, why would I be super on edge.

I have been wanting to say this for awhile, But couldn't think of a decent way. So I just am going to say it as best I can.

The world is populated by elves, beings with crazy levels of spatial awareness and body control in the form of super high agility. If a child can sneak past me on accident through a door that I open most of the way because I am not some super paranoid weirdo about Just sliding into my own damn home, Then an elf intending to do it absolutely could. Would it be difficult? Certainly. Is it impossible? No. It is not impossible and if you think it is, then you clearly spend your entire life crushing yourself with the door to get in your own damn house.

People absolutely are not half as perceptive as we think we are. And its a goddamn elf.

[Heade]

My cat can run out of the door in a split second, someone could definitely walk in behind me most days and I wouldn't notice.

There is a difference between a 5 pound feline and a 150 pound man with a large sack and an axe. Namely: The ability to fit between your legs without you noticing.

We're not talking about noticing so much as it being physically impossible, since people shut doors as they go through them. You might be a different story, if you go in first and have a member of your kid parade close the door for you.

[Heade]

To be perfectly honest, the whole idea of shadowing someone through a doorway is patently absurd; it's physically impossible, you couldn't ever do that in real life unless you were literally invisible and incorporeal. But what's the solution? If you make it impossible, you just change the shadow "meta" into 'fol self, north, re-shadow amos' and solve nothing. It would take a full redesign of the entire stealth system.

It wouldn't take a redesign of the entire stealth system, because I'm suggesting a flag that can be placed on doorways that would prevent sneaking/shadowing through them.

But you did bring up a good point. I originally only said "shadow", but it should probably apply to sneak as well, since the number of circumstances in which sneak could be appropriately applied to an apartment doorway would be pretty slim anyhow. Either they're inside in an open room, where they will obviously see you open the door and enter, or they aren't, and sneaking would be superfluous anyhow. If it wasn't made to affect both shadowing and sneaking, you're right, people would just abuse the system to sneak in instead, once they shadowed you to the door.

I think that change, paired with the idea someone else suggested about being able to bar the door while you're inside would be a great change. It would make it so that burglars didn't specifically focus on robbing people at 5-6am when there are only 5 people on the server.

If the "bashing doors" thing was added, that could counter a barred door, with the downside that it causes a lot of noise, and so could get you crim flagged.

[Alesan]

The argument for shadowing through a doorway doesn't even allow for paranoid individuals to purposely only open a door wide enough for themselves alone to slip through. In a world like Zalanthas, where death is seemingly around every corner, wouldn't you naturally take a little more care in your surroundings than just opening your door full wide, strolling in, and giving enough space for someone to breeze right through?

At the very least, shadowing should occasionally fail just for that reason alone. But you who are advocating for shadowing to be a fully possible thing are asserting that everyone leaves enough space for your sneaky murderer to slip through.

[Brokkr]

Locking this for now.  Maybe I will reopen it tomorrow.

On topic mean on topic.  Not arguing tangents, FFS.

[Brokkr]

Re-opening.  Stay on topic.  Think of this less as shooting the shit with friends and more as a business meeting.  I am looking for feedback/ideas on specific topics.  I am not looking for feedback on stealth generally.

[kahuna]

I would like to mention one thing: This is a low-technology setting for the most part. Locks made of bone/chitin/anything-else-not-metal would be quite easy to just break with a crowbar. I think the pbase has been relatively unanimously in favor of strong characters being able to bull down flimsy doors. Might help with some of the situations mentioned in this thread. Of course some doors could be immune to this, such as city gates that are reinforced or that have security bars across them.

[Alesan]

I am in favor of disallowing sneaking AND shadowing through small doorways AND giving most commoner-accessible apartments a barrable from the inside lock.


Addendum: Yes, certainly make them breakable, as long as it is VERY audible and/or possible crimflaggable.

[Brokkr]

How do doors that are bashed in get fixed?  How does the world respond to such actions?

[kahuna]

How do doors that are bashed in get fixed?  How does the world respond to such actions?

Above my paygrade! I'm just in favor of adding realistic counter measures to things that people see as unrealistic.

[RogueGunslinger]

Just dont break the door or lock when its bashed. Unrealistic sure, but playability trumps. And auto crimflag non militia and give echoes to adjacant rooms for noise. After a door is bashed give it temporary sdesc in the rooms that shows its ajar until it is closed again.

Seems like a lot of coding though.

[mansa]

I think it would be interesting if you could rent an apartment AND be able to pay extra to have different types of locks on the door.

Here's examples of things you could potentially have as options:

a) easy lock (0~20%)  (included for Free)
b) medium lock (21~50%) (extra 100 per month)
c) complex lock (51 ~ 80%) (extra 500 per month)
d) profession lock (81% higher) (extra 1000 per month)
e) one-way lock (cannot lock from the inside, only from the outside, aka the warehouse lock.  You wouldn't have a quit safe room in these types of locks.) included for free!
f) double-sided lock (locks on both sides (extra 100 per month)
g) barred door (not pickable, but able to be bashed by strength check) (extra 500 per month)
h) double-barred door (not pickable, strength check to be dwarf/giant) (extra 1000 per month)

Each time you renew your apartment you can upgrade/downgrade/fix your door if it's broken, or you can release early and rent it again to get a new door installed.



I'm still thinking about different ways to have one-way doors and locks - I've seen doors that cannot be opened from the other side and that is interesting for sure, but I'm not sure if apartments/warehouses would have that as an option.

[kahuna]

Just dont break the door or lock when its bashed. Unrealistic sure, but playability trumps. And auto crimflag non militia and give echoes to adjacant rooms for noise. After a door is bashed give it temporary sdesc in the rooms that shows its ajar until it is closed again.

Seems like a lot of coding though.

I would be fine with just bashing the door opening/unlocking it simultaneously. Crimflags are all good. We can suspend our disbelief for a thousand other things why not this as well?

Some examples of those things:
-You can smoke tubes/pipes without an actual flame item. Everybody just emotes it anyway.
-We skin corpses in mere seconds. Dressing a carcass would take hours. We ignore this simple fact for playability purposes?
-Magick/spells are some crazy stuff but it leaves no mark on the environment? Obviously there would be evidence of flames erupting around a person, or any other of the hundreds spells that would leave investigating it possible.
-Mining literal shards of glass/obsidian with zero danger to the person involved. This would be a high risk act yet the game treats it like minecraft.
-Wagons are treated like some grand thing because of code reasons, yet the relative simplicity of a wheel and axle wouldn't be that hard for crafters that are making masterpieces with their master woodworking skills? Wagons should be more commonplace but just aren't for some inexplicable reason?

So just a few examples of things off the top of my head, I am sure there are plenty more we could come up with and we're worried about how breaking a door will affect the game world?

[Bogre]

I think shadowing through a doorway is kind of unrealistic. However, -sneaking- through a doorway isn't.

If you shadow through a doorway, it's hard to mentally explain how the person you followed a second behind it didn't notice you.

But if you unlatch, or if it's standing open and you enter, it's imaginable that you ghosted in when they weren't looking or were at a table or in another room (those that have it). Compromising a bit between realism/playability.

[Vex]

How do doors that are bashed in get fixed?  How does the world respond to such actions?

The same way locks are instantly changed when a lease is released, and re-subbed.

Rather than bash SHATTERING THE DOOR into a MILLION PIECES, it simply forced a non-metallic lock to bend enough to pop open. You can, at least on some of the older models, do the same to camper trailers, various makes of screen AND security doors (Bar-like screen doors), due in large part to mediocre engineering, and those are made of metal, quite often steel.

A half-giant BASHES the door, forcing the lock to pop open.

The door is now open to be rushed into, and can be closed and re-locked as per normal, due to the relative flexibility of bone/chitin.

It's a 'bit' flimsy on realism, yes, but is no less plausible than unbreakable obsidian swords AND avoids a code heavy investment of a complete re-work of the lock mechanics, as well as the troublesome advent of 'door repair' skill that is likely more work than reward.

A "bash proof" door, such as a large gate or high end engineering (entrances to various non-estate noble properties, ie tor and oash barracks), would simply have locks made of  thick, reinforced granite and other materials. As is said, it is a low-tech environment and, I would think, the locks are similar in many cases to medieval and prior locks, which are less delicate metal key goes in refined, fine-toothed metal slot, and more hand-size key goes into bulky, usually wooden lock with very basic mechanics.

This is why, imo, an exterior lock/key that requires key/pick (or bash) to unlock/lock when entering/departing, with a heavy door bar from within (no key required, it is simply one or more heavy bars laid across the door to resist entrance, even if key/picks are used from the exterior by would-be assailants) is the best case for Zalanthas.

Editing it add: BASH DOOR should, imo, be 100% crimflag and potentially give alerts to Templars, and give alerts to Templars even if its an AoD member doing it, as it is essentially breaking and entering and potential destruction to House owned property, so they aren't doing it for funsies all the time.

I would, also, not allow BASH skill to be raised, when engaging in door bashing, to avoid suspect behaviors.

[Brokkr]

Well, if you have a barred door, unless it is a very flimsy bar, I am not sure how you would expect anyone to "bash" it open anyways.  Unless they are a half giant.  I get the locks.

Now, if it is barred...how does Nenyuk get in? And if they can get in, what is to keep a thief from replicating that?

[Vex]

Well, if you have a barred door, unless it is a very flimsy bar, I am not sure how you would expect anyone to "bash" it open anyways.  Unless they are a half giant.  I get the locks.

Now, if it is barred...how does Nenyuk get in? And if they can get in, what is to keep a thief from replicating that?

This is the idea, it would be next to impossible to get in when barred, short of uninstalling the door or assaulting it with titanic force. A player could log out with some confidence that, whilst their character is at home and in their bed, their bed, dresser, table and three bags of obsidian slag, won't disappear and leave them in a situation where they grasp for how to respond.

You don't burglar a house with people in it unless you're brazen, you wait for them to depart. If they've departed, the door is secured only with it's limited value lock, and thus, open to invasion. Invade to plunder, invade to lie in wait for an ambush, invade to nap on their comfy couch, whatever the case, learning the basic routine of people should play into the role of a rogue, be they thief, murderer, pervert, or all.

For violent home invasions, you would required SIGNIFICANT strength to break a door-bar, and an advanced knowledge of how to throw your weight, as represented by STRENGTH and the BASH skill. It would be loud, potentially with adjacent room echos, especially INTO the WHOLE apartment being assailed, and cause the landlords to alert the authorities, but should still be possible for those brazen enough to risk it.

If the person isn't at home or logged out, the door is only secured by lock and would be easier to bash open, but have no less noise/echos/alerts involved.

When door is simply locked (player active and out of their home), access would be more or less unchanged, except with the advent of violent access (BASH) as an alternative to finesse (lock picking). Kicking open a door held by a bone or chitin latch would not be done casually (BASH skill requirement), but wouldn't necessarily require herculean strength (celf infiltrator using that BASH skill). No damage on fail.

When door is barred from within (player at home or logged out at home), access would be restricted to violent access of a much higher check for success than otherwise. Potentially with a chance to inflict damage on fail, in proportion to applied force, based upon your BASH skill. Higher = better chance of success, and reduced damage on fail.

Nenyuk gets in, in the same way they change locks instantly: Magickal ninja locksmiths. If we can hand wave this, we can hand wave how they unbar apartments for new renters. It's a trivial thing, and not a detail I would sweat over, especially if BASH vs DOOR may become a player option for PvP RP situations, ie hostage situations, etcs, where waiting on staff animations of nenyuk may not be practical to begin with.

Tbh, the code changes required to account for EVERY aspect of doors, locks, and applications of various forces, would be impractical, at least imo. With the skills already in game and, I presume, some additional hooks in their code, barring of doors, bashing of doors, and general improvement in both dynamic gameplay and player satisfaction can be achieved, at a much, much reduced time/work investment.

It is like, I suppose, advanced rock, paper scissors, weighted towards player satisfaction, at the cost of requiring a little more thought and effort from everyone involved.

Edited to reassert that it would, as well, eliminate the constant problems, associated with apartment murders: Door bars could be unlocked or locked from within by anyone, without a key. It not only eliminates apartments being 100% sure murder rooms, but opens significant inroads to betrayal via seduction and other social means.

[mansa]

Tbh, the code changes required to account for EVERY aspect of doors, locks, and applications of various forces, would be impractical, at least imo. With the skills already in game and, I presume, some additional hooks in their code, barring of doors, bashing of doors, and general improvement in both dynamic gameplay and player satisfaction can be achieved, at a much, much reduced time/work investment.

Don't sell your ideas short.  There is what, maybe 200 doors in the game?
Someone might like this as a project, and run with it.  Krath, Shabago did the whole armours system and that was ..what..  3000+ items?

[Heade]

I like Vex's take on the doors/locks/doorbars thing. I think all of those ideas are a good basis on how to handle it.

Well, if you have a barred door, unless it is a very flimsy bar, I am not sure how you would expect anyone to "bash" it open anyways.  Unless they are a half giant.  I get the locks.

Now, if it is barred...how does Nenyuk get in? And if they can get in, what is to keep a thief from replicating that?

A barred door could be forced open with enough force. As you suggested, dwarf, mul, or half-giant strength, or an application of significant strength with knowledge of how to apply it to breaking down a door(bash skill). Some doors might be made of such quality as to disallow bashing without a ram or something. Since the bar could only be applied from the inside, and Nenyuk owns the place, the bar wouldn't be in place without the occupant being home. So they'd be able to get into unoccupied apartments with a normal key. If the occupant was there, they'd likely be let in. Otherwise, if a tenant made Nenyuk bash down the door to their Nenyuk-owned apartment, said tenant would probably be in heaps of trouble.

Bashing a door in an apartment building, unless you're Nenyuk or AoD/Garrison, should get you crim flagged, I think.

I also like Mansa's idea of being able to pay a premium for an upgraded lock on your apartment. Not sure on the proposed prices, though.

But if you unlatch, or if it's standing open and you enter, it's imaginable that you ghosted in when they weren't looking or were at a table or in another room (those that have it). Compromising a bit between realism/playability.

If they're in another room, they already won't see you come in unless they're literally watching the door, in which case, any attempt to sneak in should auto-fail anyhow. The number of situations where you could potentially sneak through a door to a Zalanthan apartment while someone is inside and not be seen are so minimal as to NEARLY be a non-factor. In most circumstances, if they're in the room and you try to sneak into the door, you should be seen.

The one case of the person who just leaves their door wide open while they prance around their apartment with their back to the door is an obvious fringe case. I'm willing to sacrifice my sneaky character's ability to sneak in that fringe case for the greater good that comes from, in general, not being able to sneak through an apartment door.

If the person is sleeping on their bed, they won't see you come in even without sneak. So, the couple scenarios where they wouldn't see you are already covered, without mechanical use of the sneak command, even if a flag is placed on the door that doesn't allow you to sneak through it.

[9001]

Now, if it is barred...how does Nenyuk get in? And if they can get in, what is to keep a thief from replicating that?

A barred door could be forced open with enough force. As you suggested, dwarf, mul, or half-giant strength, or an application of significant strength with knowledge of how to apply it to breaking down a door(bash skill). Some doors might be made of such quality as to disallow bashing without a ram or something. Since the bar could only be applied from the inside, and Nenyuk owns the place, the bar wouldn't be in place without the occupant being home. So they'd be able to get into unoccupied apartments with a normal key. If the occupant was there, they'd likely be let in. Otherwise, if a tenant made Nenyuk bash down the door to their Nenyuk-owned apartment, said tenant would probably be in heaps of trouble.

Having a half-giant bust down the door seems like something that'd only be done in extreme situations, like when soldiers need to get into a barred room right that minute. Under normal circumstances I think they could do something like saw or drill through the door, removing it and replacing it in a bit of a more time-consuming but less crude manner. Or perhaps the door could be designed in a way that it can be removed from the wall with time, effort, and a half-giant, if it's made of something like stone - time and effort that would be prohibitive for a thief. If it takes an IC hour+ to accomplish and is very obvious and noisy, it's not something they could believably get away with.

The cost for Nenyuk for replacing the door could be covered by a security deposit type of thing - something paid up front when someone first rents an apartment with a door that can be barred, and returned when they do a 'rent release' that frees up the apartment completely. Nenyuk needing to get through barred doors should be pretty rare, on a virtual scale at least.

[Inks]

What is with all the stealth nerf threads lately? I noticed very recently that picking a lock echoes to the entire room now (or a balcony levels up when someone in a courtyard picks a lock) I did not know that was changed.

I think you should need to hold a key to use it. Also with the ability to get key pouch es where it goes straight into the hand. Get anything anything es would have so many uses, glows, torches, vials, etc. Also usable with slight of hand skill.

[Armaddict]

As far as I know, pick has always echoed.

I am also a big proponent for the doorbar, and that's me as a player who really enjoyed every burglar I played.  'Casing the joint' is something that I put into my roleplay over time, but not out of necessity; I just thought it made the whole process more interesting, learning who lived where and what they did.  The side bonus was that it also made me a purveyor of information because I'd collect so much random info that was pertinent to someone else.

I do not have qualms with people being unable to get in while you're logged off.  While that could become restrictive in those scenarios where someone is actually asking you to burgle someone, most of the time, burgling is an independent endeavor.

[Dar]

I am definitely for dead bolt idea. Let the apartments be robbable only if the owner is logged on and able to catch the thief.

Make it an echo. If you are trying to pick a door without any owners logged in, then you get an echo that there is someone in the corridor and you think better of it.  Boom. Yes, it won't make sense, since you can succeed in picking the door across the hall, but it's okey. Worth it.

[Brokkr]

I mean, that doesn't make a lot of sense.

The lock and the deadbolt would have to be independent.  Sure pick the lock, and once the lock is picked, you can figure out if the door is deadbolted.

[JohnMichaelHenry]

I'm thinking the best solution is in the lock upgrades. One upgrade for each 'descriptor' or whatever. Novice - Master. Along with more advanced picks, maybe even a set of picks at advanced and/or master to pick the master locks. The better picks and sets of picks could take more rare materials (not metal. Thats way over the top) and be more difficult to make, also master level.  Along with a greater amount of time necessary to pick a more difficult lock, and the inability to stay hidden while doing so.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

How do doors that are bashed in get fixed?  How does the world respond to such actions?

Somebody with the carpentry skill could remove the broken flag for you.