The stealth meta

[Dresan]

Sounds like your are making a lot of assumption that are very beneficial to certain characters and detrimental to a race and class and a starting location .

Believe it or not certain locations has extra challenges other don't (find out IC).

Just remember, just because you think your RP especially RP that seems to be incredibly beneficial to a certain group of character it correct doesn't mean others agree. I certainly do not agree with a couple of your points.

If anyone is repeatedly stealing after they've failed or doing something -you- think is wrong, report it to staff, let them decide.

[Hauwke]

There is a line in the help steal file, or somewhere similar that says not to take a coin pouch if the person for example emotes putting a hand on it. I've seen that happen and their coins still go missing.

Stealing and stealth rp are a two-way street. You must be respectful of your victim and your victim must also be respectful to you on an OOC level. None of this crap with sending 30 players various messages all of a sudden because your 37 coins you had left from drinking went missing.

I don't mind being stolen from, in fact it can make for an interesting plot point and then a good laugh years later. But the entire contents of a backpack cannot be stolen subtly in just 5 minutes. It's the same thing as don't steal a goddamn bookcase from someone's apartment.

[Dresan]

Its not like i don't disagree with you people on a couple RP related things.

But I think you are assuming a lot, and often don't see hemote or anything else. Or assume there is just one thief and another one didn't just walk in as the other left.

Basically stop making the assumption that your shit doesn't smell, and that other people's RP is bad. Just send a complaint to staff if you feel someone is RPing incorrectly or abusing a skill.

I mentioned before thieves are very much watched by staff, especially now with all the complaints.

[ABoredLion]

Sounds like your are making a lot of assumption that are very beneficial to certain characters and detrimental to a race and class and a starting location .

Believe it or not certain locations has extra challenges other don't (find out IC).

Just remember, just because you think your RP especially RP that seems to be incredibly beneficial to a certain group of character it correct doesn't mean others agree. I certainly do not agree with a couple of your points.

If anyone is repeatedly stealing after they've failed or doing something -you- think is wrong, report it to staff, let them decide.

I'm trying to consider how starting location would make any of my points any more or less valid.

Whether you start in Red Storm (where people are taught to stay away from each other and mind their own business to an almost religious degree), the rinth (where people in general wouldn't want anyone up in their personal space for fear of shanking), the far north (where thievery was a practiced artistry for a long time), or Allanak's general commons (where many a rinthi makes their mark), none of them by their nature limit either the basic principle of what I suggested.

If it doesn't make sense IC, don't do it. Stop. End. Finish. If you can't possibly, reasonably be in an area to repeatedly perform an action in a given roleplay situation, don't do it.

No race, no class, no magick, no gainz, no starting location, no biography addition, no request will make it reasonable. If you do something because you OOCly can, and not because you ICly should and would be capable(of that action in the roleplayed situation), you're not roleplaying.

Lifting something off a noble is great. I'm not saying it shouldn't ever happen. It's a thing that super stealthy people should look forward to having achieved once in their lifetime (if they're a true marvel of their art). Maybe more, if they're clever about catching them elsewhere. I encourage you to rebel against the system and generate conflict. Similarly I encourage people in the position of being stolen from to not care about every little object they have, and to not go on a full-freak hunting spree because something got lifted.

I don't have a bad story personally of interaction with a miscreant or whatever lifting things from me. I did however once watch a person sitting in a tavern patting themselves down and repeatedly closing and trying to keep a thief from rifling through their things, only to continue to get stolen from despite all RP. We literally had to look at each other like, 'HOW ARE THINGS JUST DISAPPEARING? WHAT IS THIS? THERE'S NO ONE NEXT TO ME TOUCHING MY THINGS! GICKERY!' because some thief wanted to be unrealistic to the highest degree. This was an old school pickpocket build though, and now years ago to be fair.

I'm just saying that the point I'm making holds true still.

If I'm misunderstanding your point here, and you're actually just saying that by limiting your theft to reasonable situations that it's impossible to play an elf from the rinth, living in major Allanak, who is a thief? I....beg to differ. Seen it. Dealt with it.

As it stands, I feel fine making this commentary because I'm going to believe it hasn't affected me or any characters and we are not discussing current events. That would be bad. As I have remained woefully unpilfered and rather subsequently loot phat across all of my PCs for much time(perhaps eternal), I feel relatively safe.

Though, to be fair to Hauwke's point, I have had apartments completely emptied out by burglars before. Thinking on it, I'm fairly sure that's happened to just about all of my (long lived) characters at some point. I don't tend to raise a stink or send in a request over it, but I definitely wonder at those pesky miscreants/pickpockets/burglars sneaking out with three chests, two trunks, a bookcase, 2 rugs, a separate bed, and all of my wine in one week. How miraculous they must have felt their roleplay chops were!

...did you really have to take all my wine doh random person from 5 years ago?

I do however trust the opinions of staff members chiming in on situations like this, and if for some reason I feel the need to send in a request to go, 'Was this reasonable?' and they respond it was, I'm the kind of person to drop it. On the other hand, I think many people just wouldn't ever bother sending in the request and bad play gets glanced over. I'm fairly confident staff members have other things they're doing, and they're not always sitting around watching intently -- even less so likely if they don't particularly find whatever roleplay compelling or interesting.

TL;DR
All I've gathered from your post is that you think people should send in complaints if they didn't like how someone performed an action using code. I think that's reasonable. The suggestion that I believe my 'shit doesn't smell' is a bit out of whack, because me being bad at resisting the urge to smack a spider with a stick when I'm bored is not equilaterally as olfactory offensive as compulsively bad thievery. Our metaphorical triangle of bad roleplay has different impacts. One of them is bad, and I can resist most days, but it ultimately harms no one's urge to play the game or stands out. My shit is buried out in the desert you could say. If we're speaking of your imaginary (again, assuming this is not something your PC does, but rather an argument you're making) character's potentially bad thieving, it impacts multiple people, can shatter immersion in the game, and ultimately leave people with a bad taste in their mouth (or their nose, you could say, if I haven't beaten this dead horse of a metaphor to death already) that lingers and can make them overreact to future good thieves.

If it's not 'bad' thieving in the sense that you're ignoring any RP of the other person, and it's reasonable IC, then we're not disagreeing Dresan, rather you're agreeing with me. I think. My urge to be amusingly wordy seems to have gotten out of hand on this post.

[Dresan]

There are a lot of things you are saying I do not agree with at all.

But when discussing RP saying how PC should you do this, or do that, what if, what if....its a hyperbole, every time you imagine something that specifically benefits your character, I can imagine a way it can instead work in my favor. There is no point.

You guys calling out so called bad RP in the forums and trying to direct how other people should RP their character which just happen to very much benefit a choices in class/subclas is just lame.

You do kinda make it sound like this is going on in game right now, and basically if anyone is playing a thief, they must be twinking which is also lame.

If you have a problem with someone's RP or use of a skill, send a complaint.

Editted to add: As someone mentioned this isn't a MUSH. You want to laugh at miscreants?Play a laborer and prioritize wisdom. Its really that simple,PC will fail to even steal coins on you regularly, even if they are master steal/max agi elf even while you sit. Their stealth skills fail and on top of that you'll kick their ass in the fight. If you decide to play a stalker sitting in a tavern, and are advertising yourself a country bumpkin in desert camo don't cry when a city slicker steals your stuff. 

[ABoredLion]

We're getting really off subject, so I'm just going to chime in once more on your points, conclude my thoughts on the 'stealth' meta, and call it there.

Re- your post Dresan:

I said at separate points in this post that I am utterly uninvolved with any aspect of this in game currently. I know nothing of the thiefy meta if there is one currently ongoing, beyond the fact that steal works pretty amazingly at master in the hands of an AI agi elf. (You seem to think it's terrible. It's not. Otherwise, we wouldn't be having this conversation.)

Note that you seem to say we're imaging things to the benefit of our characters, and you can combat that with imagining it to the benefit of yours. This is silly, because I'm not imagining to my benefit and I've said already I've literally not been stolen from or heard complaint of any kind IC recently. I'm considering the game world, the nature how stealing actually works, and commenting on realism. It's true, we're playing a fantasy genre, and everything within it can be fantasy. But a miscreant is a fucking thief.

Unless you ARE magickal, you are NOT magickal, and you are ultimately reaching in to someone's things, taking something physically off of them, interacting in a physical way with this imaginary physical world. You're right in the sense that we're all imagining things. But you're not imagining your elf(since that's the example you gave, AI agi elf) into have time-space manipulation to reach into someone's pockets from across the room. You're not moving so fast that a blink of the eye makes you disappear like a (again magickal) teleporting ninja from across the room, into someone's personal space, rifle through their things, and appear back at the other side without a sound or them feeling a touch. While much of zalanthas is beyond the human norm for their sturdiness mentioned or otherwise, there are still limitations of story realism. You get to 'imagine' more crazy things of your PC to tell a story, by sacrifice. By karma, by trust, and by giving to the game world or bringing some section of it to life. In all of those examples, they come with heavy negatives usually (generally called the drawbacks of having magicks or psionics).

The code for what you can do is written to allow you to tell a story. That's the nature of roleplay. It cannot account for every minor thing and would have never been intended to do so. In fact, generally when it comes to roleplaying mediums, there are little holes left in these things and 'open' aspects of it kept that way for player manipulation. It is still expected that you can do your due diligence as a roleplayer to tell your story in a way that's reasonable. If you use it poorly, that's why you get talked to. It's worth noting that staff rarely talk to you the first time they see a thing they don't like.

How does this all tie into the 'stealth meta' of this post? Well, in the sense that stealth characters should treat their stealth like what it is, the same. Everyone should try to tell their story in a way that can make sense ICly, and I hope that there's no need to nerf hide/sneak or boost scan further. I prefer stealth characters (having played 35/50 of my characters as assassins at one point) despite their weaknesses and love to see them impact the game in ways that are outside their usual.

There may be a meta currently of leaning on stealth, but given the nature of combat in the game they tend to die. The amount of 'very powerful' high stealth characters you know that are nonmagickal are going to be low. In fact, I'd feel confident saying most stalkers/miscreants/etc (high stealth) PCs probably don't last more than 6 months. Those that do are outliers. Every other PC (of a higher stage of combat) will absolutely destroy them within a short period. Having looked at the skill lists and how they're arranged, I do believe miscreant was given a little more, but I suspect that was an intentional thing by staff to encourage more 'city' roleplay as the game world is primarily centered around Allanak for the moment, with some plots elsewhere being the outliers. A clear effort to consolidate player base and generate more conflict and fun, I believe.

I for one hope staff don't nerf hide/sneak. I hope scan isn't boosted. It would only invalidate scout and similar's hide/sneak further and leave stalkers/miscreants without the ability to do what their whole purpose is. As Brokkr generally mentioned and I said before, to adjust these things would seemingly require some kind of major overhaul. If there's a simpler way, I admit I don't know it. Then again, I'm no staffer.

[NinjaFruitSalad]

Well, you've made interesting points, ABoredLion, but Dresan disagrees, so I'm afraid that nullifies your whole argument.   

Kidding aside, I think this thread should be less about nerfing hide/sneak, but more focused on those skills which physically affect players: steal, plant, latch...  all those things mentioned when people go on high alert and item manipulation should become physically impossible for thieves.

The way I see it, if there is a certain situation we want to avoid in the game world, where people frequently send in complaints about certain behaviors and staff have to get involved and make judgment calls, at some point it would just be easier to change the code so that it's no longer something up for debate, no longer something which must be RPed nor ruled upon possibly inconsistently, and it just becomes another staple mechanic of the game, just like hunger/thirst or hit/miss in combat.

Imagine, having to keep tabs on players because they haven't ate or drank enough!  Or having to reign in players who like to be beasts at combat but who always RP that somehow, they miraculously never get hit and decapitate all their foes! This is why code exists. It removes the temptation and capability to RP and abuse players unfairly. We have a flaw in our code when it comes to stealing, and just telling people to RP better and send in complaints is a shoddy patch over something that should be fixed.

[Dresan]

Well, you've made interesting points, ABoredLion, but Dresan disagrees, so I'm afraid that nullifies your whole argument.   

This is true , however I do admire him taking the time to write out his thoughts.

I really think its about scan though, if you had a chance to spot the person, its on you whether you can do anything about it or not.

Again elf already has a hard time stealing from people with high listen and wisdom, it should be impossible for humans, dwarves and even breeds. Equally it should be hard for humans and dwarves to steal from anyone with high advanced listen and wisdom. If people who are investing in classes with listen and wisdom stat are not finding this to be the case then I agree that definitely needs to be looked at. It is not a RP issue, its a code balancing issue.Overall wisdom is lackluster as it is, and even loses more of its value over a certain amount of days played. I sincerely feels it need a rework. While it does provide a good measure of defense against stealth attacks coupled with listen, in truth I would rather just prioritize endurance and just not carry anything I cannot afford to lose.   

As mentioned, this is not a MUSH, its an RPI and the code needs to support the game. I know some players and even staff disagree with that statement especially since it creates more effort and more work that could otherwise just be RPed or written into with the description so people use 'common sense' but  there are other MUSHs out there that would do it better with more people.

The surprisingly robust code is the strong point of this game. Additionally the lack of consensus even among staff of what is a good RP of skills is a weak point of this game.

help pick for example should have additional RP information about the appropriate use of the skill such as do not steal furniture from apartments. Decades ago playing people on the forums decided it was bad and expect players not to do it. Sucks if you don't want to read through the forums huh?

Basically if code isn't going to cover it, more effort needs to be put in the help files so the RP rules agreed on by ALL staff are clear.

[rinthrat]

I don't think Listen actually helps with detecting attempts to steal (just, possibly, with anyone sneaking into the room). High watch definitely helps, though. Even when you're not explicitly watching anyone. It's an underrated and usually neglected skill. I'm not sure if it works on hidden thieves - if not, that would be a nice thing to add.

[Dresan]

Its either watch or listen depending on the skill in question, but if you play enough thieves you notice failure rate on certain people is very very high even on things like coins or tablets.

However the desert camo guys and the strong beefy people wielding those large two handed axes....its often payday whenever you find one. 

Again what is probably happening is that either people aren't picking classes with the right skills, or  are using wisdom as a dump stat while all thieves prioritize agi. It is making steal and its associated skills just seems so freaking strong. It is clearly very intentional none of the wilderness classes have city listen after all, making them very vulnerable within cities.

Again if you have high listen/watch with high wisdom and a dwarf is able to rob you blind, then peace. This needs to be looked at and improved but in my experience this is not currently the case. 

[Doublepalli]

I tried to steal from an OG merchant several times (yes it was roleplayed out), while they were sitting with AI elven agi and master steal.

Failed everytime. Listen and watch are HUGE. Also if your victim has higher agii it's harder. And if they have steal too, again it's harder especially if theirs is higher

[triste]

I tried to steal from an OG merchant several times (yes it was roleplayed out), while they were sitting with AI elven agi and master steal.

Failed everytime. Listen and watch are HUGE. Also if your victim has higher agii it's harder. And if they have steal too, again it's harder especially if theirs is higher

Yes, it is strange that my more wary and agile characters rarely get stolen from, while my half-giants get robbed blind 🤔

I was eating taco salad with an arm player once and he made a good critique that Armageddon's success/failure breakpoints are too choppy. He had a good technical guess as to why this is, and anecdotally it feels very true. Just like you described here, you couldn't steal from this guy at all. This thread was started because people probably commonly feel they have no chance of detecting a thief at all.

But almost like IRL and mastery, even when you are a master you are very, very likely to meet someone who is more of a master. Similarly if you are a failure you are likely to meet someone who is more of a failure eventually. Maybe you are playing a super fat and slow nearsighted elf who sucks at steal. You never succeed but one day you meet a half-giant so oblivious it works!

I think the lack of gradation in success and failure rates leads to very skewed perceptions and I think it may be why we periodically have these nerfing talks. Possible the solution is to address what is common to these complaints.

[gotdamnmiracle]

That is double funny, because despite having seen the 'there's an invisible person here' sign across various characters, I have never once seen a player character look at that thing in the distance and immediately go, 'Nothing but the wind. Just needed to wipe my eye real bad. Got something stuck on it that won't come off.'

They always immediately go, 'Whiran!' And then run home to talk about to to as many people as possible. I've had some underlings come running to me with this before and I've had to address it like, 'It's a desert. There's always wiggles on the horizon. What're you on about?'. I'm specifically avoiding stating the coded room showing of what an invisibility fail looks like here though.

Why would you ever assume it's nothing in a world with a magickal means for invisibility.

Ever play D&D? There's a dice roll related to illusions because everyone knows that they live In a world where magical illusions are a thing. If anything you could role play your PC as constantly paranoid that the wind is a rogue whiran come to mess up their day and it's equally as reasonable as your assertion of everyone immediately identifying an invisible creature.

[Hauwke]

That is double funny, because despite having seen the 'there's an invisible person here' sign across various characters, I have never once seen a player character look at that thing in the distance and immediately go, 'Nothing but the wind. Just needed to wipe my eye real bad. Got something stuck on it that won't come off.'

They always immediately go, 'Whiran!' And then run home to talk about to to as many people as possible. I've had some underlings come running to me with this before and I've had to address it like, 'It's a desert. There's always wiggles on the horizon. What're you on about?'. I'm specifically avoiding stating the coded room showing of what an invisibility fail looks like here though.

Why would you ever assume it's nothing in a world with a magickal means for invisibility.

Ever play D&D? There's a dice roll related to illusions because everyone knows that they live In a world where magical illusions are a thing. If anything you could role play your PC as constantly paranoid that the wind is a rogue whiran come to mess up their day and it's equally as reasonable as your assertion of everyone immediately identifying an invisible creature.

The vast majority of people shouldn't know though. They wouldn't know that there is a whiran spell for invisibility, because to them its just some gemmed. They have all the magick and curses. The layman does not know about the subclasses and does not know what spells are available in the game.

They do know (incorrectly) that touching a witch will rot your fingers and anything you touch with those fingers.

They do know (also incorrectly) that pissing one off results in your whole family starving for awhile because you get cursed.

[Dresan]

After some thought I've been thinking that Whiran invisibility should be absolute invisibility.

Hide/sneak is currently absolute invisibility and it never really broke the game despite some current complaints.

I think there are already enough checks and balances to keep whiran invisibility from being as powerful as hide/sneak currently is now.

[th3kaiser]

I don't disagree with that. Whirans are pretty shafted in the current meta.

[gotdamnmiracle]

The vast majority of people shouldn't know though. They wouldn't know that there is a whiran spell for invisibility, because to them its just some gemmed.

Where in the docs does it say this? No one is saying anything about subclasses. I think it's reasonable to assume that, if it's common knowledge (even if incorrect) that all vivs can make water, and all krathis can summon hellish fire, that all whirans can fly and turn invisible.

Unless you're assuming that all commoners don't know there are different types of witches. Which implies they've never heard of Allanak, the center of the world right now, where witches are split into their temples.

No. If you're acting like every farmer doesn't know there are different witches and each has something innate to it then that's ridiculous. You're incorrectly assuming something that is readily available knowledge for most players and their PCs. There are well known organizations IG that define the different witches and plenty of beliefs surrounding those.

[Doublepalli]

Whirans don't need buffs. They can still cast while invisible and it isn't easy for someone with master scan to spot them.

[LindseyBalboa]

Conversely, instead of a buff, there could be false Whiran invisibility signs sometimes floating around the desert when you look. I've always liked the idea of false magical signs showing up from time to time. It helps a potential meta problem, while also adding fun RP hooks for people from time to time.

[gotdamnmiracle]

Conversely, instead of a buff, there could be false Whiran invisibility signs sometimes floating around the desert when you look. I've always liked the idea of false magical signs showing up from time to time. It helps a potential meta problem, while also adding fun RP hooks for people from time to time.

I like this. Alternatively, more invisible things than simply magick users...

[Hauwke]

Just because the Temples are there, doesn't mean the uneducated and moronic masses understand.

The average Zalanthan is a good deal less intelligent than we are just based on the fact almost all of them have very little knowledge of anything outside their daily life.

The real world has many different kinds of Temple, and even as an educated and reasonably intelligent human being, I don't understand the difference between most of them.

[gotdamnmiracle]

Just because the Temples are there, doesn't mean the uneducated and moronic masses understand.

The average Zalanthan is a good deal less intelligent than we are just based on the fact almost all of them have very little knowledge of anything outside their daily life.

The real world has many different kinds of Temple, and even as an educated and reasonably intelligent human being, I don't understand the difference between most of them.

"Stories of travellers vanishing without a trace or falling to their deaths over unseen falls are widely regarded as the work of magickers with power over the wind."

Directly from the document about Whirans. Check it if you like.

[Hauwke]

Does not remove the fact that many wouldn't know the difference between the types. "That guy can just do wind stuff better than other guys"

[triste]

[gotdamnmiracle]

Does not remove the fact that many wouldn't know the difference between the types. "That guy can just do wind stuff better than other guys"

No one is talking about the different subclasses.

I really don't know how you can miss the phrases travelers vanishing, widely regarded, and power over the wind other than intentional ignorance or possibly trolling. So instead, if this is the win you need to get a leg up in your personal life go ahead, champ. I am not interested in trying to fix your bad opinions.