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.