This came up in another thread, and it sounded like a lot of people wanted to discuss it. Here's the short and sweet of it: stealth seems too good, at least at the upper end of the spectrum. People with the right skills and stats become completely undetectable, and the game lacks ways to search a room or otherwise counter stealth that you can't spot with scan. After all, quite a lot of classes lack the scan skill altogether and are completely unable to even attempt to do anything about a hidden player in the room.
From what I can tell, the issue seems to be that agility adds way more to stealth than wisdom does to detection. I've had a miscreant with maxed master scan and above average wisdom, and he simply never detected any hidden PCs. I suspect it's because people who play the classes with sub-master stealth don't really go around stealthing in the city, while those who play classes with master make sure to "build" their characters to be undetectable. Maybe I could have scanned better if I'd prioritized wisdom, maybe not; prioritizing wisdom is such an unappealing prospect that I wouldn't have done it either way.
But I think the discussion has to come down to this question: do we want undetectable stealth in the game? Is it balanced? If it isn't possible, is stealth good enough? Could you really rely on stealth if it was balanced such that anyone with a similar level of scan would spot you some of the time? Alright, that's more than one question.
I'm not sure which side of the fence I'm on. On one hand, I think it's a little bit ridiculous that there are characters who just get to be completely invisible at will. There's quite a lot of things you can do and remain hidden, such as stealing. As we know, most skills when maxed out pretty much stop failing. The ability to safely help yourself to the inventories of anyone and everyone sounds really unbalanced. But what if that weren't possible? Would people play criminals if getting caught hidden was a regular occurrence? Would it be possible to use stealth in life-or-death situations if anyone with high scan probably spots you?
One thing I'm certain about: the randomness of stats affects your character's potential too much. Your agility roll decides whether your miscreant is detectable by anyone with master scan, or noone. That's a really big deal. Stats are similarly instrumental to combat, and the fact of the matter is that for character concepts that rely on certain categories of skills, stats will absolutely determine whether you're great or alright. That's a shame. I could make a miscreant and prioritize agility first, giving me a pretty good chance to hit the stealth ceiling; or I could prioritize another stat first and agility second, and if I'm lucky I still hit the stealth ceiling while also landing another high stat that suddenly makes my character way better at detecting other stealthers, or at combat, or surviving large chunks of damage.
In a game where class balance and skill distribution is designed as carefully as this, I think maybe stats just matter too much. It was recently suggested to give master scan to the soldier class because it's a little lacking in uniqueness, and everyone was like "hell no, way OP." But at the same time, a toss of the dice determines whether or not my miscreant is detectable by master scan. Or whether my raider hits you solidly or grievously. That seems wrong. We have these painstakingly designed classes and then statrolls matter way more.
Then there's the matter of what's good for roleplay in general. I don't think I'm causing anyone to gasp when I say that city play is a bit of a tame affair at the moment. There's not much going on and not many people around. I might venture to suggest that this stems, in some small part at least, from the fact that there's an overly pampered city-based class that happens to get super-stealth and master in every criminal skill. Miscreant, I've heard, is the most played class. Stalker apparently comes in second. You know, the two classes with master stealth. Every other person you meet probably has master hide, sneak and scan. I wonder if this hasn't proven unhealthy for city play. Hasn't this created the so-called stealth meta? We know raiders and enforcers are not behind that, at least!
Quite a few classes get advanced scan. This seems completely worthless. Some on this forum even say that master scan is worthless, for the reasons outlined above. Advanced scan - and especially journeyman; talk about pointlessness! - just counts for nothing. It seems you generally need your scan to be one level above the next guy's hide in order to have a chance at spotting them. Nevertheless, I still see people suggesting giving this or that class advanced scan. I even saw mansa recommend journeyman scan for a class. On my last character, it wasn't until a ways into advanced scan that I began to be able to detect rats!
To put a TL;DR on it, I think the issue with stealth comes down to the fact that with enough agility, you boost your hide beyond the reach of scan which doesn't seem to enjoy the same benefits from wisdom as stealth does from agility (and potentially equipment). And when it ends up being such a binary thing, too much rides on the roll of the dice. It feels bad when you enter the game, see your stats, and instantly realize that your character will not be one of the ones who get to participate in the stealth meta.
The answer is yes I want stealth to beat scan.
Strong stealth adds much more danger and mystery to to the game. This game cannot be just about prioritizing strength and using etwo on combat heavy characters.
But....
What did that person invest in to get that unbeatable stealth and what did that other person invest in to be able to detect stealth is what we should really be looking at.
For example:
If the person is playing an elf and is sacrificing a bunch of potential RP (exploration,riding, skimmers clans, shit strength, shit endurance, no tribes etc) that come with playing this race, AND they are prioritizing agility AND they are playing something with master hide or advance hide(+gear), then yes their stealth should beat human master scan, even if the human is prioritizing wisdom. But equally an elf with only advance hide should probably have a much more difficult time with other elves/breed that have master scan AND prioritized wisdom.
The other problem is with scan itself. Its too all or nothing.
Unless scan+wisdom bonus is way WAY higher then the hide+bonus, you should be able to notice something from the corner of your eye, but not just be able to 'look shadow'. Unless you are hiding yourself while looking for someone, searching for someone hidden should have its own command with a before delay and should be very noticeable by anyone with high watch.
This means that even if hide fails a check, unless their wisdom and scan is way higher then your hide and bonuses you'll be able to walk away before someone fully finds you. On the other side, someone looking should have an increasing chance to find someone they've spotted after searching the same room repeatedly, but again it would take time and be very obvious unless they were hiding themselves. That said, if you have not invested in a class with master scan or used wisdom as a dump stat then only thing you might notice and find is a rat scurrying about for all your time and effort put in.
Currently though its too easy to have unbeatable stealth, and on the other side of the coin its too punishing when you don't have unbeatable stealth.
All it takes is a drovian or a templar for that 1% stealthies.
You can't scan a high agi human miscreant either.
Elves can't scan a human max hide unless max wisdom. Elves can't even scan other elves. And if you assume all elves are on the same team, reread elf docs.
Wisdom is def broken (not in a good way) in regards to stealth.
But a stealthy exposed is a stealthys dead or blacklisted socially, politically, ooclly.
Not playing a stealthy rn, but I feel they need a certain level of protection granted via stealth.
Ask yourself. If you are spamming look 10 times with master scan should you?
A professional is a professional. Advanced hide should be scannable. But like a heavy, no one should be on par with your trade.
Still tons of factors and penalties in regards to where stealthiest are, you will fail at master too. let alone the fact you can fighter/drovian(or whiran) and mess a stealthys day. Or a templar.
Stop the "we can't scan a true stealthy with our one hit kill heavy" meta.
Did we forget about 'gicks?
Quote from: Doublepalli on June 13, 2020, 11:20:40 AM
Elves can't scan a human max hide unless max wisdom.
I fixed that part for you, since wisdom really feels broken. i don't disagree with the rest of what you said.
The game is not supposed to be balanced. If we want a completely balanced game that is a different discussion.
That being said, it has always been weird to me that max hide cannot be seen with scan, but Mon Invis can. It should be opposite, meaning 20% success rate of seeing max hidden pc with a max scan pc and it goes up with wisdom, and Mon invis, hell all invis, should be seen only with detect invis.
There is balance in this game. Its just not always coded balance, as with the case with magickers.
Quote from: Dresan on June 13, 2020, 01:37:52 PM
There is balance in this game. Its just not always coded balance, as with the case with magickers.
We will have to agree to disagree on this point.
I see the issue as a balancing act. We want to make stealth useful and succeed a lot, as it has been pointed out that stealth characters quickly wind up dead once they have been detected. I would propose this...
Normal stealth abilities, like hiding, sneaking, or otherwise moving around undetected should be the same. Extremely difficult, if not impossible to detect by most people.
However, once you start directly affecting people.. as in, stealing from them, planting items, opening containers on them, etc, these stealthed abilities have a significantly lower chance of working undetected. Even with "maxed" skills. Perhaps there wouldn't be any danger against people without scan or who are otherwise unsuspecting, but people with scan, especially maxed scan, should have a fair chance of noticing. Once this happens, that stealthy character is then open to being watched for a brief moment before they inevitably slink back into the shadows.
What this means is that a stealthy person simply being sneaky can do so practically "invisibly" as before, though all they are really capable of doing is gathering intel. Or perhaps, simply moving around, eluding capture and guards undetected, for whatever reason. But, once they start acting like an a-hole, there could be a chance they are discovered, if only briefly. At the very least, this will help prevent tons of people being picked clean by the master thief that decides to give everyone grief at the Gaj.
The way I'd rather have it designed, stealth characters will have to pick and choose their targets carefully, in the right time and in the right place, rather than have a hayday at everyone's expense every single time, except when there's templar or a drovian. I'd kind of like to let them have a feeling of "invincibility", but only so long as they aren't getting too close to people and messing with their stuff. Then, when it comes down to maxed stealing with high agility and maxed scan with high wisdom, I'd rather it be more like a coin toss.. and that, a stupid cocky thief is bound to lose eventually.
I think that active stealth should remain a trump to passive scanning on the same level, for the reasons previously discussed. You are completely screwed once you're outed as a thief or assassin, to a ridiculous level. But as it currently stands, it's just stupid that you can know you're getting robbed and do nothing about it.
There are a couple of different ways you could handle the thief stealing you blind with no recourse issue. Ideas I've seen and like include:
watch self - you are now watching your own bags and pockets, you have a higher chance to see when people mess with you, a lower chance to notice everything else - this would be sensible because when you feel a hand going through your pockets, wouldn't you hold your purse closed?
search room - you start tossing the room/going through the people in it, it echoes to the room when you start, giving the sneaky a chance to escape if they can - would also be useful for when you have someone cold in an apartment and there's no reason you shouldn't be able to find them
There is already a skill that helps protect against many sneaky attacks and that is listen.
Peek fails a lot at master. Wisdom doesn't seem to help with this skill at all. It has the potential to break hide every time it fails and if you spam it more then 3-4 times the staff will harass you about it. Steal can also surprisingly fail a lot even at master with elven agility, I think high agility helps you over come high listen skill+wisdom but never really sure when it comes to wisdom these days. Of sleight of hand fails at master too regardless of stats it seems on either side of the coin.
In short just because you might have found you pockets open doesn't mean the thief was able to see anything. They probably lost karma just for the attempt and if they continue playing a thief, they will eventually get caught or spotted and hunted down by everyone. If steal ever gets nerfed even more then I hope people will have no complaints when they combat weak pcs begin getting killed just so their shoes get taken.
Basically. despite the fact that one helps the other, theft and stealth are two different concepts in my books as stealth leads to a lot more other things then just finding your undies are missing.
I feel instead that a stronger formula could be implemented to define what rooms you can feasibly steal / hide in, and apply the appriate freezing cooldown where approrpiate. IMHO, the less weight of objects in a room & lack of crowded flags, the bigger the delay after stealing - failing or succeeding.
Whereas if you're in a crowded crafting room with 1000424929429342 objects, stealing something from someone or hiding from them should be quick.
Think about it IRL:
You are in a private booth with a person. You want to steal something from their pocket. You have to take your time, slowly, and if you attempt to steal from them, they should reasonably have all the time in the world to grab your hand, slap you in the face, subdue you, etc. It's one on one. However, the same scenario, in a crowded room, all you need to go is to bump against them, steal from them. They might feel you, but you're gone.
I feel it'd be cool to have realistic formulas like this so that theft IS possible, reasonable, and even somewhat OP in a poor world such as ours - but not in every setting. Someone shadowing you into a tiny booth should be incredibly difficult, IMHO, due to the infrastructure of the location.
I am okay with theft being nerfed, but in exchange searching for a thief should cost stun points for every attempt. And all miscreants should get master backstab with extra damage bonus if they stab someone busy searching.
If you notice something strange in the room, and want to risk your lives searching for it instead of running away, by all means go for it. There needs to be risk with the rewards.
Again stealth which was the topic is different then theft after all, if i had my way theft skills should work perfectly without the need to hide. That way you wouldn't know if it was someone hidden or one of the other people just chatting who you weren't watching.
Yes, we are aware stealth has issues.
Personal opinion:
Wilderness stealth is more balanced than city stealth. Major reason being something that hasn't been explicitly touched on here. That said, both borked.
Stealth/scan bonuses could use a rework.
Scan power can't really be increased without putting in place some sort of scan vs stealth check memory, so you can't just spam scan.
Scan vs stealth could use at least one if not two intermediary steps. Most beneficial would be a step where you can see there is a shadow, you can target them, but you cannot clearly look at them for desc/equip. Less beneficial would be a step where you can see a shadow but not target them.
I think the current problem is that to fix stealth, you'd have to change a bunch of things.
Maybe stealth wouldn't have to be so bonkers difficult if it weren't for the fact that scan detecting people even 1/10th of the times didn't result in people spamming look room 30x the second anything seems up. I don't need to be a staffer to know that's exactly what everyone does.
I do think active bad behavior with stealth characters should be addressed. You should never be stealing from a target that there's no way you can steal from IC, but you're doing it because you have coded power. That's just bad behavior. Should definitely be addressed on a player by player basis.
I'd happily support some changes to stealth if there was an added in-built timer that when you tried to 'scan' out a stealthy in a room (and failed to see them) looking again in the next 10 minutes (or 20, or whatever) yielded you nothing. As it stands, if you even had a 1/20 odds of spotting that master stealth guy (who btw, definitely did give up tons to get that), 90% of players are just going to spam look at the room and then try to get a glance before calling out their whole sdesc/mdesc to everyone within Waying distance. Spoiler: That's everyone.
So to put it lightly, I think stealth is strong in the sense that people can avoid being found. That's always going to be inherently strong. I think they currently give up quite a bit for that, though. Too much, almost, in some cases.
In the case of silly/bad stealth/thievery, I'd encourage some code to go in that successively stealing from the same person scales massively in difficulty, so that you can only ever manage one or two reasonable moments of pickpocketing before moving on for a new mark. I don't know how that'd get codedly handled, but it's a thought.
I just can't get behind the idea that master scan can scan out master hide even 1/20th of the time currently, because when 5 soldiers are searching for someone, they're all spamming look ten times a piece. And it's all over.
TLDR; I think much like Brokkr on this issue.
Quote from: Brokkr on June 13, 2020, 08:23:33 PM
Yes, we are aware stealth has issues.
Personal opinion:
Wilderness stealth is more balanced than city stealth. Major reason being something that hasn't been explicitly touched on here. That said, both borked.
Stealth/scan bonuses could use a rework.
Scan power can't really be increased without putting in place some sort of scan vs stealth check memory, so you can't just spam scan.
Scan vs stealth could use at least one if not two intermediary steps. Most beneficial would be a step where you can see there is a shadow, you can target them, but you cannot clearly look at them for desc/equip. Less beneficial would be a step where you can see a shadow but not target them.
How about add some functionality to search? If you think wilderness sneaking is pretty balanced, give search a new feature where you can search the room (indoors only) for people instead of exits. Give it a nice long delay, plenty of time for sneaky sorts to vacate the area. Now they have a choice, get revealed or leave. It doesn't invalidate stealth entirely, just gives it a very limited way to counteract it that's useful in certain contexts only.
Since you can be miscreant/magicker, I find it interesting that people think there should be PCs in the city that shouldn't be touched. The PC that should be hard to steal from nobles/templars/sponsored roles are already hard to steal from for a number of reasons, so do so at your own risk.
For every IC reason you can think of why someone's stuff in their pack should be safe, there can be many IC counter arguments to it. Just a battle of imagination and bias which often turns into a hyperbole.
Thief skills do tend to have a big reliance on stealth for extra bonuses. I would consider removing any reliance on stealth, with no chance of noticing them if you are actively watching the wrong target(others may still notice). That way the person robbing you could have just as easily been that sleepy grebber at the bar while you were busy chatting up a storm with that other PC with the nice ass.
Some additional thoughts for those playing wanting to play or bash thieves:
- Active thieves are eventually exposed. Skills fails or people just 'know'.
- Playing an active exposed thief is sometimes no different then playing an rogue mul or exposed magicker. There won't be very many places where you can sit and relax.
- Years of playing dumbass ranger/fighter #10202 made me wonder if staff are even watching. Well,just play a thief and you'll realize they are watching and they each have very strong opinion on how a thief skills should or should not be used/RPed.
- It is an antagonist role with very little support and very little thanks. People hate their virtual shit stolen. insta-gib a PC? Sure why not, but steal someone's virtual thong and they will try to cut you ICly and OOCly. Even if they are supposed to be immensely rich. Which will ultimately lead to more of the above.
I recommend playing an a active thief if you don't mind a very isolated thankless role. The game needs antagonists that are not just resorting to high magick attacks or murder to become notorious. It gives people things to talk about, complain about and work against ICly and the only PC that needs to die at the end is probably you.
As far as hide is concerned, how hard would it be to put in something that lowers (for a time) the "level" the hide is at after performing an action? Not breaking it mind you, but just setting it at a more easily scannable level for a while? Actions other then look BTW, be that movement, peek, palm etc.
Scale it by what the action was, Palm -10% for 5 seconds movement -40% for 10 seconds (period of finding best hiding spot) peek -10% 5 seconds steal -25% 10 seconds...stackable for all.
Quote from: Narf on June 14, 2020, 01:06:18 AM
Quote from: Brokkr on June 13, 2020, 08:23:33 PM
Yes, we are aware stealth has issues.
Personal opinion:
Wilderness stealth is more balanced than city stealth. Major reason being something that hasn't been explicitly touched on here. That said, both borked.
Stealth/scan bonuses could use a rework.
Scan power can't really be increased without putting in place some sort of scan vs stealth check memory, so you can't just spam scan.
Scan vs stealth could use at least one if not two intermediary steps. Most beneficial would be a step where you can see there is a shadow, you can target them, but you cannot clearly look at them for desc/equip. Less beneficial would be a step where you can see a shadow but not target them.
How about add some functionality to search? If you think wilderness sneaking is pretty balanced, give search a new feature where you can search the room (indoors only) for people instead of exits. Give it a nice long delay, plenty of time for sneaky sorts to vacate the area. Now they have a choice, get revealed or leave. It doesn't invalidate stealth entirely, just gives it a very limited way to counteract it that's useful in certain contexts only.
Suggested something like this here: https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,55715.0.html
Please note that it includes not being able to even see the persons true sdesc/mdesc unless they fail at getting out of there, and seems like what I would do in RL if I thought I was being stalked or stolen from. Of course you are going to keep looking to see if you can find who's doing it. No one is going to just say oh I just got stolen from and I think someone is stalking me, but meh, I can't see them so I'll just sit here and finish my ale....
I think it would be great if the search command could be used for this instead of creating a new 'reveal' command.
Quote from: Miggy on June 14, 2020, 09:09:22 AM
Quote from: Narf on June 14, 2020, 01:06:18 AM
Quote from: Brokkr on June 13, 2020, 08:23:33 PM
Yes, we are aware stealth has issues.
Personal opinion:
Wilderness stealth is more balanced than city stealth. Major reason being something that hasn't been explicitly touched on here. That said, both borked.
Stealth/scan bonuses could use a rework.
Scan power can't really be increased without putting in place some sort of scan vs stealth check memory, so you can't just spam scan.
Scan vs stealth could use at least one if not two intermediary steps. Most beneficial would be a step where you can see there is a shadow, you can target them, but you cannot clearly look at them for desc/equip. Less beneficial would be a step where you can see a shadow but not target them.
How about add some functionality to search? If you think wilderness sneaking is pretty balanced, give search a new feature where you can search the room (indoors only) for people instead of exits. Give it a nice long delay, plenty of time for sneaky sorts to vacate the area. Now they have a choice, get revealed or leave. It doesn't invalidate stealth entirely, just gives it a very limited way to counteract it that's useful in certain contexts only.
Suggested something like this here: https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,55715.0.html
Please note that it includes not being able to even see the persons true sdesc/mdesc unless they fail at getting out of there, and seems like what I would do in RL if I thought I was being stalked or stolen from. Of course you are going to keep looking to see if you can find who's doing it. No one is going to just say oh I just got stolen from and I think someone is stalking me, but meh, I can't see them so I'll just sit here and finish my ale....
I think it would be great if the search command could be used for this instead of creating a new 'reveal' command.
+1
I backed up the `reveal` command in that thread Miggy linked, and I've also always been in favor of applying more usefulness to `search` as Narf and others have mentioned. In my years of playing this game on and off I have not figured out how to successfully use the search command once [and I've tried in spooky ruins, nearly every room of the sewers, interesting looking spots outdoors, no luck]. Nice two birds with one stone type idea you both have here.
The most important idea in this thread is the mention of the effect this trend is having on the more public city role-play aspects of the game, and the effects that has on accessibility and optics.
City taverns are far emptier than they were a year ago, people are hiding away in their respective clan spaces or avoiding cities entirely, and roleplay is occurring behind closed doors more often. Imagine what 40-50 players online but not one to be found looks like for a new player entering what is assumed to be the main hub of activity for the first time. If you have walked the city recently you've likely experienced this exact occurrence. I know if that were the case when I joined I'd be supremely turned off.
Stealth is what it is, but thievery needs to be addressed ASAP for the overall health of the game. It's having far more negative effects than people just losing their items, the latter of which I personally couldn't care less about. Never aired a single grievance publicly in my time playing, but this is getting out of hand and it's a shame.
>:(
I guess if we remove steal people will come to taverns. The sap and backstab could potentially skills cause people to die or lose their stuff so many that should go.... just so people come out to RP. Blowguns and poisons that can probably lead people to hide in their fortresses too so that should go so people feel comfortable about sitting in taverns. ::)
How about if we remove the clan compounds safe hangout areas so that being around tavern with dozen's of people with high watch is more safe then just hiding behind closed doors?
Additionally maybe we should begin looking at limited the way much much more to just messages at 25 stun points each with much slower recover so that people aren't resorting to having full conversation over the way and are actually forced to meet somewhere....like perhaps a tavern.
I am okay with having a very limited space safe option in banks that would cost 500 coins to keep per month , just for those one or two items people cannot afford to lose for some odd reason if that will help. Your virtual stuff should not be sacred in this game, waking up naked should be a more common occurrence not a unique event. :-\
Removing or hampering a bunch of content over a single issue doesn't seem like a logical conclusion over just attempting to fix the issue. Again, the lack of publicly accessible drop-in role-play wasn't so much an issue say a year ago.
I don't know anything about code but something along the lines of making thievery harder without revealing your identity, or an action cooldown like backstab or sap has after the fact, so a failed attempt must lead in an escape. Maybe a break of hide or something. I'm not sure, much more code-smart people than myself have to be able to come up with something though.
The problem with this logic is that as long as one item from your pack can disappear, people's behavior won't change.
There are characters who find themselves at death's door, and refuse to strip and hand over their shit to raiders despite the fact they are facing death. Its nuts.
You can limit steal all you want, but people will still continue to hide in fortresses as long as there is even one item they could lose. The fortresses need to go away. RPing over the way needs to be limited.
One top of this sort of action is a slippery slope for the game, people asking for certain things to nerfed so they can feel 'safe' to RP. This is a game with permadeath. You aren't supposed to win. Losing stuff from your pack should be the least of people's worries. There is cheap shit sold in the shops....buy that instead of the bejeweled maces of doom.
No one is talking about forcing a behavioral change. Being stolen from many times by thieves who hemote and emote and the like, I never felt it was malicious from that player OOC.
What should change is the risk involved and potential consequences, so people feel safer or at least like they have a chance to deliver some justice upon the act. To remove "fortresses" such as GMH compounds or noble estates would be removing a ton of character and role-play opportunity from the game. The appeal of public roleplay is the variety of people and faces, but no one should be forced to interact in such a manner. Why have one when you can have both?
Seems silly to cut content rather than fix it.
The consequences are pretty severe when you are caught. An exposed thief needs to live their life like a rogue magicker probably worse.
If someone loses a fancy dagger of doom, they can always buy another that is just as functional for 30 sid. But materialism is definitely something people cannot disregard in their RP it seems.
My point is you mentioned thievery as a cause for people hiding in compounds and leaving areas empty, we'll i disagree that nerfing stealth or theft will address this problem at all.
Having played heavy stealth characters I'm well aware of the likelihood of getting caught. Certain archetypes, the elf and even human miscreant most of all, are incredibly difficult to be caught as. It's just how the stats and skills work. Throw on a face-cover, fail a steal, nothing happens except you waltz away. That shouldn't always be the case.
To mention item's mechanics isn't the point. It's about the role-play aspects. People are leaving cool items that took care and effort to make, and should be shown off, at home because of how thievery works currently. It's a blow to what makes this game what it is, and that's creativity. Should those items be stolen sometimes? Absolutely. Should they be expected to be stolen every time you set foot outside of a locked room? No. Yet I'd say we're at the point where it's the latter.
Seeing the trends of the past year I am almost certain one of the main causes of a lack of independents and general player publicity is because of thievery, and I believe announced changes would ease minds in a way to draw players back out.
Edit: Also "But materialism is definitely something people cannot disregard in their RP it seems." I mean we're talking about a world where people own slaves and one where coveting anything remotely shiny is expected. I don't think materialism is a stretch as a character trait, as it would seem unrealistic for it to be anything but.
I completely disagree with you with many of your statements. Your logic is completely flawed in my opinion.
It isn't always the case, considering the state of elves as whole there need to be some pros. You want risk? There is maybe one or two elves in the game, you steal from someone, all they do is hunt and that one one elf is practically exposed. You talk about creativity, in order to steal that one bit of virtual nothing that you can replace, these PCs live their life in some remote corner because the moment they sit down in a tavern they will get hauled in and killed in allanak.
What you are suggesting is a slippery slop in a game where there is perma-death. We are just going to have to agree to disagree in this case, but I feel your thoughts are dangerous for the long term health. I sincerely doubt you'll get those people to come out and RP but guess what you'll definitely lose some people that are here for the harsh unforgiving environment.
After all a couple weeks ago they were hiding because of fear of Pk? Whats next at this point?
Quote from: Dresan on June 14, 2020, 04:31:49 PM
The problem with this logic is that as long as one item from your pack can disappear, people's behavior won't change.
There are characters who find themselves at death's door, and refuse to strip and hand over their shit to raiders despite the fact they are facing death. Its nuts.
You can limit steal all you want, but people will still continue to hide in fortresses as long as there is even one item they could lose. The fortresses need to go away. RPing over the way needs to be limited.
One top of this sort of action is a slippery slope for the game, people asking for certain things to nerfed so they can feel 'safe' to RP. This is a game with permadeath. You aren't supposed to win. Losing stuff from your pack should be the least of people's worries. There is cheap shit sold in the shops....buy that instead of the bejeweled maces of doom.
Thought I'd quote this, because while you
may be correct in pointing out how materialistic people are, this is nothing we can really change even if it's true. If many people choose death over losing all the items on their character, then this is a very informative piece of information that can help predict overall player behavior.
But it's utter strawman hyperbole to say that even if we nerf stealing, and it's still possible
to lose just one item that people still will not go to taverns! Rubbish. Absolute rubbish, I say.
At some point the risk/loss becomes tolerable. It's like the difference between having a 20% chance of getting eaten by a mek when leaving city walls and a 0.1% chance of being eaten by a mek. Obviously a 20% chance of death is quite significant and extremely risky, but if the chance is made small enough, at least a very large chunk of people are willing to brave it. Assuming there's some kind of reward or goal to fulfill at the end of the trek.
This is another aspect to RPing at taverns. Generally there's not too much to gain out of it other than some socialization. Why do you expect people to go to places, especially nobles or merchants, when they probably gain nothing and only expose themselves to risks? It's absolute madness. This isn't people RPing badly, it's really just common sense.
I'm not sure how you could go on about slippery slopes after saying what was "cut out a hefty portion of the locations in the game" but alright.
You also go from talking about how sad it is poor criminals are sought for their crimes then jump to how you wish to preserve the harsh environment. ::)
If you can't imagine how the harsh environment of the game of the game could be maintained without changing what is simply an overpowered thievery system, then you might be biased.
No i am right. Because even if one thief can only steal one item from you. Once there are two or three thieves, then that is two or three items lost.
And frankly there is more then just one thief in the game. So your logic goes out the window with reduced chance. If there is a chance of losing shit, people will continue to play as they currently are and nothing will change.
I just don't agree with you, I don't believe you will see the results you are expecting. But we'll see what comes out of it.
If steal is nerfed to make it riskier than it already is, you'll just lose that aspect of the game entirely.
Why do people sit in a clan compound and not just - leave their extremly valuable daggers there, then come out in public?
I'm very anti-baubles sitting on shelves to only be looked at occasionally and traded hands (or not) upon storage or death.
I'm also not really aware of the risk you speak of. Perhaps it's a matter of smart character building but with certain stat combinations, preparations including identity hiders, and class choices there is little risk involved in the steal code at present if the skills are anything above mediocre. And they take little time at all to make not mediocre. You fail, there is no delay afterwards, you leave without a trace, and come back later.
Quote from: rinthrat on June 14, 2020, 05:41:16 PM
If steal is nerfed to make it riskier than it already is, you'll just lose that aspect of the game entirely.
Why do people sit in a clan compound and not just - leave their extremly valuable daggers there, then come out in public?
Why do they even care, about their daggers, on such an OOC level, in the first place? They aren't real, they have no value, except for them being in play between players, in one fashion or another.
There is, rarely, some idiot who is just being an idiot, and flashing and taunting about how he can steal anything/everything invisibly, but that is RARE and usually, VERY short lived. To believe the GDB, these idiots walk the streets in large packs, ransacking rooms full of people down to their (very bunched) panties, and walk away laughing manically, whilst Templars despair dramatically over their own impotence. A shadowy, hateful menace, out to ruin innocent socials RP experiences, and forcing them to cower in componds, desperate to their precious valuables.
Only stealth nerfs can save us, staff! Save us staff!
You must be fucking with me, GDB. Get real.
Think it was stated very clearly that malicious OOC intent isn't the issue, Vex. Nor are stealth and thievery nerfs the same thing.
"They aren't real, they have no value, except for them being in play between players, in one fashion or another." isn't that all videogames doe... :-[
I don't really get the "it's just text" argument. It's all just text. It's a text game. Lol. People put roleplay value on items in the same way they put roleplay value on characters. They should get stolen because that's good roleplay, but there is an issue at present with how easy that is with little effort. Not everything has to be so polarized dude, there can be a middle ground where you aren't shooting an entire class archetype into the sun to solve one issue. That's all that's being asked for.
Quote from: SodaDogARM on June 14, 2020, 05:57:12 PM
I'm very anti-baubles sitting on shelves to only be looked at occasionally and traded hands (or not) upon storage or death.
I'm also not really aware of the risk you speak of. Perhaps it's a matter of smart character building but with certain stat combinations, preparations including identity hiders, and class choices there is little risk involved in the steal code at present if the skills are anything above mediocre. And they take little time at all to make not mediocre. You fail, there is no delay afterwards, you leave without a trace, and come back later.
You fail, you get instantly arrested (or attacked, you chose by setting your nosave status), and end up dead or in a cell for templars and the Arm to stop by.
QuoteBut I never fail!
Large items. Closed containers. Someone putting a watch on you while you're not hiding, and failing the hide as a result.
QuoteI'm very anti-baubles sitting on shelves to only be looked at occasionally and traded hands (or not) upon storage or death.
This is really only a problem for very specific baubles. And I don't think "I want to show off small baubles hanging off my belt" is a good enough reason to nerf criminals into oblivion.
If it makes the anti-theft people here feel any better these threads can make staff take a long hard look at anyone playing a thief.
Since every staff member has their own opinion on how to play a thief, this can inadvertently lead to interactions with staff where people playing thieves might store or leave the game.
And while the number of players might go down slightly, at least you'll solve the theft problem for a while,right?
Meanwhile we cannot yet have certain new nice things in the game because the economy is still broken and people can generate too many coins and not have enough things to spend it on. :-\
All I'm saying is that when it comes to stealing, a bit more thought and care should be put into it, not unlike planning an assassination. The difference is that when PKing is involved, everyone gets riled up, and there are going to be bounties and more proactive measures. But as much as people claim to hate thieves, at the end of the day most people are just forced to grumble and move on with little recourse.
edit: Well, at least the topic has successfully moved from nerfing all stealth to just simply nerfing stealing.
People are always going to complain, no matter what happens, the same happens with player killing.
You could make it so that thieves only have a 5% chance to successfully steal and people would still complain.
Only one person could complain and people would still complain about people complaining. ;)
I'm inclined to say that it's probably necessary for stealth to work the way it does, but there's room for some tweaks. If it wasn't possible for characters built around stealth to be reasonably confident in it, we might ruin the stealth playstyle entirely. After all, what good is it if you know you're going to be spotted by anyone with master scan?
At the same time, I'm very much in favor of X-D's suggestion: certain actions should temporarily lower your "stealth level" and make you easier to spot. That's a great compromise that would let people feel comfortable with their stealth if they know they haven't done anything risky, but won't let every Amos and Malik with agility prioritized feel immortal when hidden.
There's one elephant in the room, however: the miscreant class. It just gets too much of everything. I think the current stealth meta comes from the fact that so many people play this class. Does it need to master basically every utility skill in the game? Does it need master forage, hunt, poisoning, etc? If you have a concept in mind that doesn't need combat or crafting, it's just so obvious that you take miscreant. It should probably be pigeonholed a little more into actual crime and not be such a catch-all for noncombat city play. I suspect we have too many characters that choose this class just because it gets everything you could possibly want as long as you don't need to fight or craft. And even if you do, it's not like the class is totally deficient. Advanced combat skills and you'll do alright as militia private. A crafting subclass and you'll pass just fine as a GMH employee. And you get to be a city ninja on top. Hell, pick the right subclass and you get wilderness stealth as well.
Back in the day, people used to ask for pickpocket and burglar to be combined into one class. Both of those guilds felt a little underwhelming because they could only really do one thing. Then they were combined but also received a huge pile of extra stuff that neither guild had before. Why not give infiltrator mastery of the burglar skills? Why not leave master poisoning to the stalker? Why does miscreant have master forage instead of scout?
These kinds of things are the reason too many players pick this class, and when half the city has master stealth, of course they're going to use it. And as a result, the place seems empty and players are tempted to go overboard with thievery because they have the skills available to them on characters who might not even have been intended as such when they began. The miscreant is due for a nerf is what I'm saying.
Miscreant can still be rediculously overpowered in a combat sense as well. I'd argue they do better as assassin's than infiltrator.
Absolutely agree they could use a tweak
Quote from: Greve on June 15, 2020, 08:21:07 AM
I'm inclined to say that it's probably necessary for stealth to work the way it does, but there's room for some tweaks. If it wasn't possible for characters built around stealth to be reasonably confident in it, we might ruin the stealth playstyle entirely. After all, what good is it if you know you're going to be spotted by anyone with master scan?
At the same time, I'm very much in favor of X-D's suggestion: certain actions should temporarily lower your "stealth level" and make you easier to spot. That's a great compromise that would let people feel comfortable with their stealth if they know they haven't done anything risky, but won't let every Amos and Malik with agility prioritized feel immortal when hidden.
There's one elephant in the room, however: the miscreant class. It just gets too much of everything. I think the current stealth meta comes from the fact that so many people play this class. Does it need to master basically every utility skill in the game? Does it need master forage, hunt, poisoning, etc? If you have a concept in mind that doesn't need combat or crafting, it's just so obvious that you take miscreant. It should probably be pigeonholed a little more into actual crime and not be such a catch-all for noncombat city play. I suspect we have too many characters that choose this class just because it gets everything you could possibly want as long as you don't need to fight or craft. And even if you do, it's not like the class is totally deficient. Advanced combat skills and you'll do alright as militia private. A crafting subclass and you'll pass just fine as a GMH employee. And you get to be a city ninja on top. Hell, pick the right subclass and you get wilderness stealth as well.
Back in the day, people used to ask for pickpocket and burglar to be combined into one class. Both of those guilds felt a little underwhelming because they could only really do one thing. Then they were combined but also received a huge pile of extra stuff that neither guild had before. Why not give infiltrator mastery of the burglar skills? Why not leave master poisoning to the stalker? Why does miscreant have master forage instead of scout?
These kinds of things are the reason too many players pick this class, and when half the city has master stealth, of course they're going to use it. And as a result, the place seems empty and players are tempted to go overboard with thievery because they have the skills available to them on characters who might not even have been intended as such when they began. The miscreant is due for a nerf is what I'm saying.
I disagree, Miscreant (M) and stalkers (S) are great for what they are, utility characters. The disparity, when it comes to combat prowess, both ranged and close, compared to Infiltrator, Scout, Soldier, Raider, Enforcer and fighter is huge. M and S are great if you want to survive, but that is all you will really be able to do: survive.
In my previous post I said that Sneak/Hide is the new invis. To clarify that statement I did not mean that Sneak and hide needed to be nerfed, but that Invis should only be detectable by detect invis, not scan.
Sneak and Hide are fine and scan is broken, that is the problem. As it is the game has been nerfed significantly over the past decade, nerfing stealth and sneaky skills even further will likely end those classes being played. I do like the following two suggestions:
1. Using Search to find hidden people
2. Lowering your stealth for a set time after attempting a sneak skill.
Please remember this game is a RPI Mud, not a Mush. If you do not want your items stolen from you, do not keep them on your persons if you go to the tavern. If you want an environment where your characters will never die and all you do is emote and socialize all day safely, there are other games.
I disagree too.
The moment the gith fire nation attacks everything will change and wilderness/combat classes will probably become very popular again.
If the focus of the game is currently nobles/festivals and political intrigue with very little of interest seemingly going on outside the walls, you can't complain if miscreants seem strong.
They have their strengths, inside cities and outside of combat. Once focus shifts to events like copper wars, gith wars, etc etc, miscreants would feel horrible to play in these situations.
Additionally as mentioned in another thread if the sewers nder allanak (or addition of caverns) allowed more chances for high adventure and opportunities for combat within cities, or at the very least dangers or threats to deal with and explore down there then perhaps more combat savvy classes would pop up more in the city rather then just utility.
Quote from: Dresan on June 15, 2020, 11:28:51 AM
The moment the gith fire nation attacks everything will change and wilderness/combat classes will probably become very popular again.
If the focus of the game is currently nobles/festivals and political intrigue with very little of interest seemingly going on outside the walls, you can't complain if miscreants seem strong.
They have their strengths, inside cities and outside of combat. Once focus shifts to events like copper wars, gith wars, etc etc, miscreants would feel horrible to play in these situations.
+1
Thank you so much for saying this. This is exactly why I've been wailing for 1.5 years [as someone who mostly plays outdoorsy types], but more positively, this is also why I have kudosed all the great miscreant/criminal types I've met. If you consider this a game of Rock Paper Scissors, and the staff are always going to put up role calls for Paper, the players who opt to play Scissors have found an excellent way to cut out a piece of power for themselves. It is
jolly good fun being a miscreant right now with all these frilly fancy f---s and their diamond encrusted riding crops hanging from their belts. Just going to, ah, take and resell that, who is winning
now?
[The ones who aren't winning in this analogy at all are the ranger PvE types, as you mentioned. God rest my wilderness RP loving soul, may it find peace. But that is not the topic here.]
Quote from: Dresan on June 15, 2020, 11:28:51 AM
Additionally as mentioned in another thread if the sewers nder allanak (or addition of caverns) allowed more chances for high adventure and opportunities for combat within cities, or at the very least dangers or threats to deal with and explore down there then perhaps more combat savvy classes would pop up more in the city rather then just utility.
+1
I love playing rinthers, but the only combat options are rats, sewer rats/critters, and humanoid NPCs. While killing humanoids and selling their organs is completely in the spirit of the 'rinth, not
all rinthers are psychopathic enough to kill people and not all rinthers are pathetic enough to hunt rats. I do think addressing this gap in hunting/mechanics will indeed cause more variation in concepts, agreed.
Quotebut that Invis should only be detectable by detect invis, not scan.
Mixed feelings about this.
I feel that it should probably not be all or nothing. Like you notice something is there but not get full description perhaps not be able to fully target.
But you can run away! If you have detect invis then yes, you should see them clear as day and target them.
Additionally scan needs to be properly split and have wilderness and city flag like sneak/hide/hunt.
Quote from: Dresan on June 16, 2020, 01:25:34 PM
Quotebut that Invis should only be detectable by detect invis, not scan.
Mixed feelings about this.
I feel that it should probably not be all or nothing. Like you notice something is there but not get full description perhaps not be able to fully target.
But you can run away! If you have detect invis then yes, you should see them clear as day and target them.
detect invis should be geared in such a way, that a person is fully visible to you, and you would only know that they are actually enchanted with invisibility by going into the room, looking at them, and seeing an aura or something similar.
Scan should give the players a pre-generated s/mdesc about the person being unable to be seen, but they should still very much be detectable and targeted. Whiran invisibility always strikes me as something reminiscent of: (https://www.halopedia.org/images/4/4f/HCE_Camo_Sniper.jpg)
Except.. Like.. Wind and shit.
Quote from: Dresan on June 16, 2020, 01:25:34 PM
Additionally scan needs to be properly split and have wilderness and city flag like sneak/hide/hunt.
No. This would only make the disparities between scan and sneak/hide even worse. Wait until staff rolls out any changes they are going to make to balance out sneak/hide/scan, first.. And even then. Just.. No. There's so few classes that get any scan that's worth a damn, so to then divvy it out to only be effective in x area would only further damage gameplay and roleplayability.
Quote from: Cabooze on June 16, 2020, 03:33:55 PM
Bunch of stuff.
Lol that is funny Cabooze because when I think of invis I think of the predator from the Predator movies. *Highfive* That being said it is magic, it is not some equipment that you can turn on and off, thus I am of the opinion that you should not be able to see an invis person, specifically at sul or mon, unless you have detect invis. The lower tiers should be visible via scan though.
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.
I'd support that when someone's literally 'invisible' that they have a replacement desc that is the 'whiran' invisibility and must be broken to reveal their actual description, unless you have see invisible. Otherwise, they remain the invisible equivalent of 'a strange shadow' even when you look at them.
That's getting a bit off subject though.
The stealth meta comes at a heavy cost. It sounds like a lot of people have issue with miscreant specifically, which to me comes across as an issue with unrealistic thievery more than the actual 'value' of hide versus combat effectiveness.
Just out of sheer curiousity in a world with dwarves, elves, mekillots and even magickal invisibility what exactly do you guys feel is unrealistic about stealing?
Again, my last exceptional agility elf with master steal did not have an easy time stealing from anyone with high listen and very likely high wisdom. Was it possible? Yes. Did he fail? Regularly.
Again perhaps the wisdom bonus for listen can be looked at too, someone investing in wisdom and a class with high listen should be a bit more safe against anyone but elves.
Listen is one of the upsides to choosing city classes but since wilderness class and stalkers are so popular I can understand why people think steal has no defenses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cASDlhw8v8g
I've seen that act. And it's important to note that for this kind of repeat thievery to occur, you have to blend in with the situation.
Unrealistic thievery (since you asked) would be an elf miscreant in a tavern that only allows humans, dressed like a rinthi rat with a dark hooded cloak, repeatedly lifting from nobles or their aides despite their guards standing about who would probably never allow an elf within arm's reach of them to begin with. It'd be continuing to lift from the person who has already realized they're being stolen from and looking around for you (the thief in that moment), where if you were going to continue stealing from them, you would have to somehow be considered not responsible by doing exactly what is shown in that video -- distracting them while appearing to be their friend and not the thief. If they're no longer willing to allow someone close to them physically (by being alarmed) and you continue to thieve, you definitely are doing a no-no. You're not magicking things out of their inventory (unless you are) so the only way you get that close is by them not looking for you.
Just remember, don't do things based on what code allows. Do things based on what is realistic for the given scenario. Especially when it comes to these things, or staff will be forced over time to limit them further. It wouldn't be the first time umbrella-style fixes were applied to handle a broad series of issues.
Don't be that figure in the area that is repeatedly coming in to bump up against them and jostle their watch loose, then their tie, then their belt, etc while they're already looking for you? That sums it up.
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.
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.
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.
Quote from: Dresan on June 17, 2020, 05:56:15 PM
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.
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.
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.
Well, you've made interesting points, ABoredLion, but Dresan disagrees, so I'm afraid that nullifies your whole argument. :P
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.
Quote from: NinjaFruitSalad on June 19, 2020, 03:22:59 AM
Well, you've made interesting points, ABoredLion, but Dresan disagrees, so I'm afraid that nullifies your whole argument. :P
This is true :P, 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.
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.
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. ;D
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.
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
Quote from: Doublepalli on June 19, 2020, 09:38:00 AM
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.
Quote from: ABoredLion on June 17, 2020, 02:12:08 PM
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.
Quote from: gotdamnmiracle on July 06, 2020, 03:45:00 PM
Quote from: ABoredLion on June 17, 2020, 02:12:08 PM
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.
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.
I don't disagree with that. Whirans are pretty shafted in the current meta.
Quote from: Hauwke on July 06, 2020, 06:11:13 PM
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.
Whirans don't need buffs. They can still cast while invisible and it isn't easy for someone with master scan to spot them.
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.
Quote from: LindseyBalboa on July 06, 2020, 07:59:47 PM
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...
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.
Quote from: Hauwke on July 06, 2020, 11:10:51 PM
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.
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"
(https://media.giphy.com/media/wTn9Fv2s9DfVu/giphy.gif)
(https://media.giphy.com/media/VGfc1Ia4HjgvC/giphy.gif)
Quote from: Hauwke on July 07, 2020, 04:20:56 AM
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.
Quote from: gotdamnmiracle on July 07, 2020, 10:49:28 AM
Quote from: Hauwke on July 07, 2020, 04:20:56 AM
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.
I posted dumb, meaningless gifs because this argument is pretty heated for what it is. I think the docs you found here are neat [thanks for citing them], and that there is also flexibility in what you roleplay, AKA a yaroch villager may not have as sophisticated knowledge as a magick accepting tribal. Agreed, those docs are a good guideline and indication that everyone would know at least a bit about magick. I'd argue even someone raised by gortoks would have the vaguest sense of what magick is given that magickers occasionally pass through the woods.
Quote from: gotdamnmiracle on July 07, 2020, 10:49:28 AM
Quote from: Hauwke on July 07, 2020, 04:20:56 AM
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.
I am just going to note that the docs i
ntentionally don't say stuff like
invisibility. They say
travelers vanishing and that can be interpreted a variety of ways, as intended. It also better represents general knowledge, which isn't sure exactly what they can do, but there are rumors of spooky stuff like
travelers vanishing that the average commoner can gossip about without really having any clue what it means.
Bringing up another universe, Pirates of the Caribbean....
Have you not heard the extent of gossip (true or not) from sailors, pirates and common folk of the uneducated and uninformed?
If there's already speculation to the powers of wind, I don't think a common zalanthan thinking a wind gick is invisible is far fetched.
Anecdotally, that blurb in the docs makes me think first of invisibility simply because of the context.
This is a silly argument, I think. Why is it perfectly fine to play a character that is so mentally disabled it can hardly speak, or a character that believes themselves to be the living avatar of the Red moon, or a dwarf with stupid orc mutations for the millionth time, but playing a character that has an understanding of things clearly implied (to me, at least) by the docs is not a given?
Maybe a direction should be adopted to make a clearer What You Should Know document for different locations in game because this is another tedious bit of fallout by the mishandled OOC shift to magickal subclasses that had zero IG reference. Or alternatively start updating documents to take hard stances on the knowledge of commoners in different locations so we don't have misinformation accidentally spread around and no one needs a bachelors in 4d chess and a minor in doublethink to figure out "would my character know Vivaduans can make water?".
To keep this from derailing, I miss having scan on more characters more for hunting than PVP and think even at low levels it's great. That said, I've never experimented with watch enough to get any kind of benefit out of it. I'm torn on the subject of high stealth being impossible to spot as the alternative turns it to crap immediately because of the bipolarity of crime code in certain locations and the dangers of putting your PCs life in even well bribed hands.
QuoteI miss having scan on more characters more for hunting than PVP and think even at low levels it's great.
Statements like these make me wonder how much actual experience goes into people's posts on these forums. I've experimented
extensively with scan, and my conclusion is that until at least mid-advanced, the skill is
literally worthless. As in there are no things you can detect with scan until that level. RATS become detectable at advanced. Jozhals at high advanced. These are things I've carefully tested, knowing the locations of just about any hidden creature in the game. To hear someone say "even at low levels it's great" when, in my deliberately tested experience, there is nothing you can detect until the skill is pretty high... it just really makes me think that a lot of what gets posted here is just complete fiction. Sorry, but... come on. What are you detecting with "low scan"? What NPCs and creatures have a low enough hide skill to where, say, journeyman scan can detect them? In my experience, the answer is: literally none. Like NONE.
QuoteI'm torn on the subject of high stealth being impossible to spot as the alternative turns it to crap immediately
This I agree with, though. If everyone playing the guilds with top tier scan could just spot everyone with top tier stealth as a matter of course, stealth would definitely become trash. I think the main problem here is the fact that scan is too passive to serve as the sole mundane method of stealth detection. If instead it required a search, which takes time and can be escaped by the hiding party, it would be a lot more reasonable to say that anyone can be found no matter how proficient they are at hiding. The search skill serves far too few purposes as it currently stands and could be turned into an activated counter to stealth, one that you have to go out of your way to use but may be more effective than just squinting (i.e. scan).
Sorry. Been a while since I've had scan on any characters. I miss being able to identify salt worms and shit.
I mean, to be fair, not everyone takes scan so they can identify miscreants and stalkers.
But I still don't trust scan to expose most wilderness fauna until about advanced, either.
Even there it can be a crapshoot to actually see things.
I think I'll also weigh in that sure, while it's possible for common, ignorant folk to come up with completely "outlandish" stories, which may sometimes be true, it's like the saying, "Even a broken clock is right twice a day." The amount of rumors and speculation must be rampant, with all sorts of crazy superstitions.
If an ignorant common folk is to believe that a Whiran can vanish before one's eyes, chances are they also believe a large multitude of completely false rumors as well. How do they differentiate from truth and fiction? Unless they have direct experience and knowledge to prove otherwise, they can't sort out the good information from the bad.
So I guess what I'm saying is, just firmly believing a Whiran can turn invisible might not help so much, because you'd also probably believe they can summon huge sandstorms at will, or maybe suck the air out of your lungs, or curse your family and its bloodline for seven years, or shoot jets of air from their fingertips.
If a Whiran can do all that, but.. such things didn't happen, would you be suggesting that some person with only the ability to turn invisible robbed you? Absurd!
[ Redacted details about DIKU code implementation of hide/scan ]
Secondly I want to say staff are free to remove my post with the old code above, but I think even outdated facts and data are relevant to debates, particularly when the only evidence thus far has been anecdotal. TLDR on the code post if it is removed: most games have modifiers in the 0-200% range but DIKU code tends to have more dramatic 50-500% modifiers, leading to jarring success breakpoints as people noticed.
Lastly I love the magick derail -- yes people should roleplay wacky superstitions about magick, and sometimes toss truth in there.
Lastly forreal, note that the stat bonus for scan in the code comes from wisdom. Y'all joke about dumping wis as a stat and complain about scan being broken at the same time? SMH
I'm probably the twinkiest person out there, but even I draw the line at digging through code. Fml.
Quote from: Dar on July 10, 2020, 10:23:24 AM
I'm probably the twinkiest person out there, but even I draw the line at digging through code. Fml.
Thanks for the feedback, I've removed it.
Quote from: triste on July 10, 2020, 10:25:29 AM
Quote from: Dar on July 10, 2020, 10:23:24 AM
I'm probably the twinkiest person out there, but even I draw the line at digging through code. Fml.
Thanks for the feedback, I've removed it.
Didn't mean to press you, or anything.
You know these iron realms muds? You need to learn scripting languages just to be competitive in combat. Yeah, it Arm gets close to that level of code exposure, I'm outtah here.
Quote from: Dar on July 10, 2020, 10:30:06 AM
Quote from: triste on July 10, 2020, 10:25:29 AM
Quote from: Dar on July 10, 2020, 10:23:24 AM
I'm probably the twinkiest person out there, but even I draw the line at digging through code. Fml.
Thanks for the feedback, I've removed it.
Didn't mean to press you, or anything.
You know these iron realms muds? You need to learn scripting languages just to be competitive in combat. Yeah, it Arm gets close to that level of code exposure, I'm outtah here.
Full agree, I knew it was risky to post code, but I am also mildly autistic and work a full time job coding + two part time jobs coding and so it's on my mind a lot. I kept seeing the debate and knowing that more programmatic details could be found and provided and genuinely did not know the right thing to do, so your feedback is valuable! I'll try not to look at the code again.
lol, looking at code isn't an invalid way to go about this when determining if something is broken or not.
The problem is, it's rather foolish to assume ARM still uses some kind of DIKU mud code you dug up from decades ago, completely unmodified.
Quote from: NinjaFruitSalad on July 10, 2020, 11:02:28 AM
lol, looking at code isn't an invalid way to go about this when determining if something is broken or not.
The problem is, it's rather foolish to assume ARM still uses some kind of DIKU mud code you dug up from decades ago, completely unmodified.
Yup, there was a disclaimer about this in my original post. But literally any quantitative information is higher quality data than anecdotes by definition. I now understand it is also data that can't be shared sorry.
I disagree. Data like THAT is worse than anecdote.
Quote from: NinjaFruitSalad on July 10, 2020, 12:04:25 PM
I disagree. Data like THAT is worse than anecdote.
K. Well the data also explains the anecdotes. No need to get so worked up we are all in agreement.
Yep stealth is broken, as is demonstrated by the fact that nobody takes risks they know will get them killed or stolen frkm. Empty bars, no interactions to be found for hours in the city, underfilled law enforcement clans, etc etc.
As was discussed in my "all PK is surprise attacks, what do we do" thread, the brokenness of stealth is what leads to the breaking down of the game interaction.
Greater Anonymity, which is in essence a NERF to look when a hidden person is spotted, is a great suggestion in that thread which could directly address the main concern totally filling the first page of this thread. Better ways to disguise or partly evade detection besides this all or nothing system would work, to protect the stealthy but also protect the non stealthy against being robbed blind at a pindrop or backstabbed dead with no defense but to never go out at all. Old discussion, no recent changes to the system to correct it. The old days of Rangers with their Master scan are gone, and good for that as it made stealthing a deathdance, but since rangers were removed we have been seeing a Hunger Games of stealth kills for years.
You know there are a number of counters against backstab and sap. In fact nerf stealth won't really help in this regard as the best sappers/stabbers are already not that great at stealth to begin with. If you don't want to be robbed blind just pick something with high watch/listen.
At this point if you just outright nerf miscreants or stalkers stealth, as well as reducing the number of criminals and crime, you'll probably cause another decline in the player base without something like copper wars event to fill that void.
If people aren't going to taverns its mostly because when you go to a tavern there is practically nothing to do or talk about, the ONLY thing that can happen is someone comes around and steals from you. By removing stealth you are removing something else that can happen in the game.
Instead of just removing yet another part of the game, make taverns exciting, put fighting pits in taverns so people come duel each other, gamble on, make being a good fighter meaningful again. Then people will probably go to taverns fight or watch the fights, and leave all their nice belonging in their nice safe clans that no one would dare break into unless you want staff to smite you and/or your karma.
Nobody sits in taverns anymore because if you're seen sitting in a tavern for any longer than absolutely necessary, you become a "tavern-sitter" which is an inferior type of player than others who are actually doing "meaningful" things in the game.
Quote from: Dresan on July 10, 2020, 09:14:03 PMBy removing stealth you are removing something else that can happen in the game.
Instead of just removing yet another part of the game
I don't believe anyone has ever so much as hinted at "removing stealth."
I am in fact asking for a reduction in how much one sees if they succeed in looking at a hidden person. Instead of getting the full mdesc, maybe just a shape, the cloak, the mask, the build. One piece of information only. It would be a nerf to the LOOK command.
It would be best counterbalanced by a boost to scan, but then the thief would be less likely to lose their life because all the detecting/scanning party got is a vague sense of a creeper about at that time wearing this or that. The thief could, with adequate perception themselves, realize they are spotted, escape, change costume, then return for more. There would be more interaction because near misses would be a more frequent occurence instead of all or nothing detection as it is now. Thieves would be free to take more risks, and so would the non thieves.
I am sorry I didn't spell it all out clearly, because it is a years old idea. It was more thoroughly discussed on a mechanical level in prior threads, such as one I started recently. Link to that thread is here: http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,55215.0.html (http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,55215.0.html)
Reply to Harmless's tangent at the end.
I was bitch slapped for talking about code and math, but
the issue here is clearly about the code and math as described by OP.
If the code today is even 10% like the code I posted and was shamed into removing, the problem still exists as described.
If you
aren't afraid of math and code -- what this discussion is about -- here is some analysis, x axis is your character's current scan skill level and the Y axis is your character's skill as modified by penalties and bonuses.
In the old code, your scan score gets hit by pretty brutal penalties, the worst I saw was `skill /= 4`, these is also a case where it is halved. Similarly, there is this huge bonus if you have the same stealth skill as the opponent, up to a maximum of 20 points or 20% maximum. To model this in a crude way, we see a spread of penalties and bonus like this (green is bonus, blue is no bonus, red is penalty):
(https://i.ibb.co/dkTcpVt/currentfailtown-Capture.png) (https://imgbb.com/)
In the way the old code worked as modeled here, if you had master scan at 100 and were suffering from just one of the possible penalties, you can only see people who have a hide skill of 30 or lower. That is a huge #fail for someone with master scan. Similarly, if you scan caps out at 60, you can only see people with hide 15 or lower under just one of multiple possible penalties. The max bonus of +12 in this scenario can't really outweigh these huge -45 penalties, etc. This fully explains the "Scan either works or it doesn't, and I've only seen it work at master" phenomenon others anecdotally reported.
Let's imagine they've made changes to make these penalties less than half as extreme than they are now:
(https://i.ibb.co/ZVVQ6VD/reduced-Capture.png) (https://imgbb.com/)
Here we see the same problem can manifest. If you have middling to high scan skill, the penalties are still huge and would lead to the situation we all know and describe. It would take pretty significant drift from the old code to get even to this spread, and if I had to guess as to which of the models we're closest to today it's something like this.
Lastly, when most of us play RPGs, we're used to seeing bonuses and penalties like "+2% to hide" or "-3% to scan". To model a system like this with a max bonus of 10% and a max penalty of 20%, this is the distribution:
(https://i.ibb.co/QfPXDGt/smallspread-Capture.png) (https://imgbb.com/)
This is the spread we're most used to seeing because it is the most fair, and logically a distribution of bonuses and penalities like this would likely address most concerns. Example, if you have a scan skill of 80, but are suffering a 20% penalty, you still have a chance of seeing someone with a stealth skill of only 60. This feels fair, in contrast to our system today, where even at skill 80 you face penalties that prevent you from seeing anyone.
While recent numbers and data are hidden, and hidden for good reason, old data points indicates how egregious this problem used to be. Because the previous state of these bonuses were "totally fucking extreme," I am willing to bet the state of these bonuses today are "less fucking extreme but still extreme." Given that my data is old, if my data is even 50% like or 25% like the code we have today, we're seeing some out of proportion bonuses and penalties. Modeling these bonuses and penalties leads to situations people describe where scan is broken at low levels before it will suddenly seem to work.
Anyway, this is just food for thought for staff and players. We're talking about an issue of a "skill being broken," which is fundamentally a question about code and math. I did some research and ran some models, my recommendation is if bonuses and penalties greater than +/- 20% still exist [and in the old code they were
everywhere], they should probs be tweaked.
Quote from: Harmless on July 11, 2020, 09:41:00 AM
I am in fact asking for a reduction in how much one sees if they succeed in looking at a hidden person. Instead of getting the full mdesc, maybe just a shape, the cloak, the mask, the build. One piece of information only. It would be a nerf to the LOOK command.
It would be best counterbalanced by a boost to scan, but then the thief would be less likely to lose their life because all the detecting/scanning party got is a vague sense of a creeper about at that time wearing this or that. The thief could, with adequate perception themselves, realize they are spotted, escape, change costume, then return for more. There would be more interaction because near misses would be a more frequent occurence instead of all or nothing detection as it is now. Thieves would be free to take more risks, and so would the non thieves.
I am sorry I didn't spell it all out clearly, because it is a years old idea. It was more thoroughly discussed on a mechanical level in prior threads, such as one I started recently.
In favor of something like this if we buff scan per my proposal. Scan is already abused in annoying ways, like players having MUD client GUIs that spam scan, or players that do `scan;l n; l n;l n...` and `l n` 2000 more times until they manage to see something. While Harmless's proposal wouldn't fix that abuse, anything that we can conceive of to [1] fix the issue of scan not working at lower levels ALONG WITH[2] fix the abuse of scan with new features like this or the `point/reveal` feature, that would be ideal.
eh, the green line should start with the formula `x + 20` instead of `x * 1.20`, but my argument is mostly concerned with the penalties so it doesn't need to be edited.
Yup. In the thread I linked I suggested that we make scan entirely passive, such that it continually scans for you instead of relying on you manually typing LOOK to activate it. By the end of the 12 pages of that thread I think there were several good suggestions to help fix the pvp stealth environment. Difficult to code maybe but lots of options within to fix a kind of dead system.
Quote from: Alesan on July 10, 2020, 09:18:12 PM
Nobody sits in taverns anymore because if you're seen sitting in a tavern for any longer than absolutely necessary, you become a "tavern-sitter" which is an inferior type of player than others who are actually doing "meaningful" things in the game.
+ 1
Thank you so much for this post. It really made my day. In fact, it made my week! ;D I loved it for the truth it expresses but even more for the wonderfully sardonic tone.
A scale of depth I feel is with in reason, is in simple factors such ass room size, level of capacity in the room, number of people in the room. Would like to see a coded depth added to each door in a room.
-Your PC is in a three person tent alone, no fly goes unnoticed if they are sitting at the 'door'.
= Resting or sleeping would be done in the middle of the tent. Can still sit on mats/rugs at the door.
-Standing at any 'door' would give your Apprentice Joe Watchmen a solid view of passers by.
=Make anyone standing at the door a easy shot for ranged weapons. Unless shield in hand.
- Huge room capacity, room is %90 at capacity, a armored half-giant may slip-in if they wanted to.
=Will always be easy to watch a door way for a HG. PC might learn to shut doors more often.
Where are all these numbers coming from?