Why has a lot of the thief-friendly treasures been nerfed out of curiousity?

Also, why can't you steal items from shopkeepers? I know its been this way a long time, but out of curiousity why?

Honestly its like, if I roll something like a city ties thief the only thing I'm good at is stealing. Can't fight worth a damn. So why can't I at least be able to steal from NPC's? In exploitable scenarios you just jack up the level of the NPC, seems fair enough. Its already annoying that 3/4 of NPC's see hidden and 3/4 of locks you'd actually want to pick can't be picked or have like a 33copper piece treasure.

I just feel like as a necro, I'm great at killing, as a healer, I can survive awesome, but as a thief I'm only good at stealing stuff from PC's.

>Why has a lot of the thief-friendly treasures been nerfed out
>of curiousity?

For the most part, it's just bringing overall values into line.
Stupidly easy to get treasure hordes sometimes get adjusted.
If you want to email me recent examples, I can take a look.

>Also, why can't you steal items from shopkeepers? I know its
>been this way a long time, but out of curiousity why?

Mostly the way the code works. The rationale in an RP sense is
that there really aren't NPCs who have had more experience in
dealing with thieves than shoppies. They've seen every trick
in the book, yada yada. But maybe someday.

>Honestly its like, if I roll something like a city ties thief
>the only thing I'm good at is stealing. Can't fight worth a
>damn. So why can't I at least be able to steal from NPC's? In
>exploitable scenarios you just jack up the level of the NPC,
>seems fair enough.

As a city ties thief, I never had any problem stealing from
NPCs. E-mail me some logs of like 10 successive attempts to
steal from a non-shoppie NPC and the associated city ties
skill list.

>Its already annoying that 3/4 of NPC's see hidden and 3/4 of
>locks you'd actually want to pick can't be picked or have like
>a 33copper piece treasure.

They see detect invis a lot too. It is a game balance thing and
I don't have much pity there. It might be that some doors could
be readjusted (with area author consent if available). email me.

>I just feel like as a necro, I'm great at killing, as a
>healer, I can survive awesome, but as a thief I'm only good at
>stealing stuff from PC's.

That's pretty much the design, though I am skeptical about not
being able to steal well from non-shoppie NPCs as a city ties
thief. That said, I don't consider thieves "done" by any means.

>Honestly its like, if I roll something like a city ties thief
>the only thing I'm good at is stealing. Can't fight worth a
>damn. So why can't I at least be able to steal from NPC's? In
>exploitable scenarios you just jack up the level of the NPC,
>seems fair enough.

-As a city ties thief, I never had any problem stealing from
NPCs. E-mail me some logs of like 10 successive attempts to
steal from a non-shoppie NPC and the associated city ties
skill list.

Yeah I was mostly talking about shoppies. I fail a lot on normal NPC's but not that bad. Thing is, there isn't stuff I want to steal from normal NPC's usually. If they have anything I want, they're wearing it, unless they're a shoppy. Its mostly that every game I've played you can steal from shops, since that's sorta the point of being a thief. If I wanted to get items from PC's, I'd just kill them. I guess though its a good choice for people who don't PK very well, but I tend to have a pretty easy time killing most people so I don't see much appeal to it. Binder seems somewhat interesting for the fact that you can just bind up people and leave them to rot, but generally speaking the only way I can get much gold as a thief so far is by stealing from PC's (at least, only way I can get much gold that I couldn't get as any other class). I'm just trying to find the niche mostly.


Added: Basically what it boils down to is I can kill NPC's (and therefore attain their items), kill things with a lot of gold, kill PC's and get their items, etc a lot better with other classes. So basically I get hide and lose a lot of fighting power to get it. For doors and stuff the general theme is that if its too hard for me to find the key, kill the mob, etc then its going to be unpickable anyway, so its like, I have these skills but they are so restricted I may as well just play something else. Having hide is OK, but having tons of offensive/defensive PK'ing power just appeals to me a lot more, I was hoping to be more cunning and stealthy and useful in exploring but I'm chop-blocked by the restrictions into just mostly pestering PC's.

>>Honestly its like, if I roll something like a city ties
>thief
>>the only thing I'm good at is stealing. Can't fight worth a
>>damn. So why can't I at least be able to steal from NPC's?
>In
>>exploitable scenarios you just jack up the level of the NPC,
>>seems fair enough.
>
>-As a city ties thief, I never had any problem stealing from
>NPCs. E-mail me some logs of like 10 successive attempts to
>steal from a non-shoppie NPC and the associated city ties
>skill list.
>
>Yeah I was mostly talking about shoppies. I fail a lot on
>normal NPC's but not that bad. Thing is, there isn't stuff I
>want to steal from normal NPC's usually. If they have anything
>I want, they're wearing it, unless they're a shoppy. Its
>mostly that every game I've played you can steal from shops,
>since that's sorta the point of being a thief. If I wanted to
>get items from PC's, I'd just kill them. I guess though its a
>good choice for people who don't PK very well, but I tend to
>have a pretty easy time killing most people so I don't see
>much appeal to it. Binder seems somewhat interesting for the
>fact that you can just bind up people and leave them to rot,
>but generally speaking the only way I can get much gold as a
>thief so far is by stealing from PC's (at least, only way I
>can get much gold that I couldn't get as any other class). I'm
>just trying to find the niche mostly.
>
>
>Added: Basically what it boils down to is I can kill
>NPC's (and therefore attain their items), kill things with a
>lot of gold, kill PC's and get their items, etc a lot better
>with other classes. So basically I get hide and lose a lot of
>fighting power to get it. For doors and stuff the general
>theme is that if its too hard for me to find the key, kill the
>mob, etc then its going to be unpickable anyway, so its like,
>I have these skills but they are so restricted I may as well
>just play something else. Having hide is OK, but having tons
>of offensive/defensive PK'ing power just appeals to me a lot
>more, I was hoping to be more cunning and stealthy and useful
>in exploring but I'm chop-blocked by the restrictions into
>just mostly pestering PC's.

Gotcha. I'll roll this stuff into the ongoing discussion on
thieves. Like I said, I don't think they're done as is.

Qaledus, you are really ####in cool. Thieves have tons of potential with this system, but it seems non-thugs (perhaps exception for binders) just can't quite cut the mustard.

>Qaledus, you are really ####in cool. Thieves have tons of
>potential with this system, but it seems non-thugs (perhaps
>exception for binders) just can't quite cut the mustard.

No promises. I'm just saying I hear you guys.

Save your praise for the coders.

Being a big fan of the sneaky classes, I've played a decent number of thieves. One thing to consider is that sure...you *could* kill that guy for his stuff. (I'm mostly talking pcs here) Theives are pretty much the only class that has an alternative way of liberating things. There were several times with one of my thieves that being able to grab the one item I wanted from someone without having to find them at a point where I could whack them easily saved time and a bit of effort. Additionally, steal can be used as a pretty radical method of securing the kill. I won't go into details, but steal (while somewhat frustrating when you miss) is a lot more potent than you may realise.

I agree, however I would note: In exchange for the ability to gather things which are spares and in the inventory of your enemies you give up quite a bit. The question isn't whether thieves are horribly annoying to play, they aren't, it just feels like you choose advanced pick locks and steal for a bunch of reasons only to find out they're restricted against doing those things. Its just a matter of cost versus gain. I'll illustrate further.

Cons of being a thief in general:

- Weak melee fighter.
- Poor hit points, most lack shield block, so tanking isn't good.
- Small amount of weapon choices - see above. Tanking is bad, hitting often is hard to do.
- Lack of many attacks per round, lack of landing hits often in melee, generally makes poor ranking partner comparitively speaking.
- Lack of lagging techniques (trip and cheapshot are great, don't get me wrong, but what they lack compared to warriors and orcs is methods to lag *anyone*). Flight negates the ability for a thief to lag you at all, except for those that have weapontrip and waylay.
- Lack of protection from lagging techniques and damage reduction.
- Lack of utility and support abilities. (They have detect hidden, peek and steal, which are nice, but they don't have the utility that say, transmuters | conjurers | rangers | druids have).

Benefits to being a thief in general:

- Peek. This is actually may favorite part of being a thief.
- Ability to get items from very hard to kill PC's.
- Ability to get rid of inventory potions, helps a lot in ganging.
- Ability to pick locks.
-Problem with pick locks is 99% of the things I'd like to pick, can't be picked. The ones that can be picked, often can be passed with pass door potions which are easy to get. The few treasures you can pick seem to be getting nerfed, which to me is boggling. They were put there to reward thieves and explorers and knowing that if I do find a sick treasure location and an Imm sees me it'll get nerfed takes all the joy out of searching for these things.

- Ability to steal in general.
-This is good but from PC's its sorta a moot point. As a necro I can kill most PC's. Its nice to be able to steal from the really hard to kill people, but does that make up for all the cons I've listed above? Can't steal at all from shopkeepers. This I don't get. If anything was truly overpowered it wouldn't be sold at shops. Easy access to money and items is the best, best reason to play a thief. Its that access that is why thieves aren't supposed to be strong fighters, because a warrior with unlimited money and unlimited access to awesome items would be very powerful. Still, they have all those cons, I don't think it would break the class to steal from shopkeepers. You used to at least be able to steal their gold. I don't see why thieves should have only a slightly better time at getting money than other classes, (invokers seem better at gaining money than thieves at high ranks), afterall, thats why they give up a lot. If I'm playing a pickpocket, my whole career revolves around getting items, getting money, selling items, bribing people, etc. That's why I rolled up a thief, cuz I thought that'd be fun as hell, but I just feel like its a losing battle because half the time I can't steal from NPC's that are far higher level than me so I tend to only steal from NPC's that I could have just outright killed with another class and the rarity of NPC's with lots of money and good items in their inventory is frustrating because the vast majority of merchant NPC's and etc that aren't aggro and aren't real merchants are few. If I was a warrior for instance, I could kill certain nobles with .5-1 gold each on them. As a thief, I can't until I'm higher in rank than them and I only get a 10th that before they catch me so I wind up killing them anyway.

- Specific subclasses :

-Thugs

-Thugs are fine as it is IMHO. They shouldn't be great fighters because a thief just plain shouldn't be. Honestly though, to go all the way in the thug path boggles me. If I wanted a fighting char I'd roll a fighting char. I tend to look at thug as the type of one that should predominantly be taken to cheapshot and thats it and if thats the intention for thugs then I'm cool with that.

-Poisoner's

-I think these are fine as it is as well. There's tons of nasty stuff you can do with these. I still wouldn't play one though, because in my opinion if I want to roll someone who can PK I'd just roll up a necro/assassin/etc from the start.

-Trapper's

- I think its rather self evident that there's not enough ways to do damage with traps. Really if there's a trapper defending in a raid, you should have more to worry about. I used to just walk through traps and laugh because 99% of them never went off. I think when it first came out it was too overpowered, then when it was changed now its too underpowered, so it could use some tweaking but the tweaking I'd do would be to make more nasty effects from traps or at least more damage.

-Binders

- These I don't know about. Its such a hard thing to balance. They're nasty as hell bordering overpowered if they just leave you alone and don't attack. On the other hand, if they do attack you solo, they're retardedly easy to smack up because all the bindings fall off in like one or two rounds. On the other hand, if you make the bindings better and people use it to gang or use it to have a warrior attack then its a mess to balance because you get some retardedly overpowered situation where the guy just has to sit there and die. I don't know, this one I can understand why its hard to balance.

-Pickpockets

- I've talked enough about these really, I think though that for what they give up I'd like to see a situation where these are more useful in exploring and treasure gathering. There's just so few good treasures that don't get nerfed that its depressing. It'd be cool to be able to like, scout ahead, pick nasty locks when you can't find the key, pick chests and get items and treasures, etc. I always view this as a burglar, and if it was really like that I'd be happy. However, what it really winds up being in practice, is someone who can steal a ton from PC's, annoy the crap out of them, but is a ####ty groupmate in general and can't fight solo or really dish out damage. This should be a handy utility char and someone who can go have fun exploring stuff solo so long as they don't have to fight, the guy crawling through the ducts and stealthily robbing your safe, and right now its more like the guy that empties out your inventory which, honestly, I can do as a binder thief or poisoner thief or any other thief that can knock people out.

I think you get what I'm saying, I just don't see how it'd be overpowered to let them steal from merchants and pick more locks. That's what it boils down to because that would open up a whole world of being able to go out exploring and scouting and doing a whole bunch of fun (to me at least) stuff without feeling like groups are just dragging you around out of friendship/pity/to detect other thieves. I'm fine if these things are disabled from questy areas like Hell and Silent Tower but not every friggin area/quest/etc has to be locked down to only doing things the 'legit' way. I can do the 'legit' way a lot better with other classes, I want to do it the thiefly way cuz thats why I rolled a thief.

nt

>-Binders
>
>On the other hand, if they do
>attack you solo, they're retardedly easy to smack up because
>all the bindings fall off in like one or two rounds.

Someone up there (Nepenthe) did a good job in making bindings work better when you are attacking solo. In my last binder, I noticed a big difference. Also, bind legs and hands might fall off rather quickly, but getting your victim trussed will ensure they stay on a little more.

http://www.qhcf.net/cforum/logs/vpost.pl?58906

Looks like in combat they lasted 3 rounds.

It's variable, FYI.

http://www.qhcf.net/cforum/logs/vpost.pl?55321
(I don't know how to HTML or whatever, sorry.)

Agreed. This is a lot longer than 3 rounds.

>For doors and stuff the general
>theme is that if its too hard for me to find the key, kill the
>mob, etc then its going to be unpickable anyway, so its like,
>I have these skills but they are so restricted I may as well
>just play something else.

As you might guess, in the olden days, a lock was either pickable, or it wasn't. With the advent of new thieves, this changed to a variable difficulty.

Team Thief erred (as they should) on the side of leaving most previously unpickable doors/chests unpickable. That said, I'm not opposed to revisiting some of those down the road, and I'll try to revisit those in my own areas before too long.

I just want to see some backing off of the concept that everything needs to be blocked. Thieves have steal and pick lock, so they should be able to steal and pick locks and denying them at the code level on so many things may be more fun for the area designer but it isn't for the playerbase.

We'll see.

There's one particular thing in one of my areas that I'm thinking of allowing to be picked that someone playing a thief might come to wish I hadn't let them into.

Bwahahahahaha.

Did all of my areas plus one or two more this morning. Some things I looked at are now obnoxiously hard to pick, but few if any are impossible.

You're a pimp.


Added. Muchos gracias, case it wasn't apparent that that was a compliment.

I'll be working on revisiting some of these as well over the next several months as part of another project I'm involved in.

Kastellyn the Devourer of Magic, Lord of Legends

Thank you very much. You rock, can't wait.

I don't want thief guild donations to be like Empire, but is there any way you guys up there could see your way into allowing things like jewels to be donated? Or other items flagged "treasure?"

For the record, I agree with a lot of what DC said.

Now remember I am a new immortal on staff and really don't have the experience to comment on a lot, but I can tell you my opinion on this topic.

I remember things being told to me by other thieves..that didn't work with Desmonn. I also remember doing things with Desmonn that were changed throughout the course of his mortal life. Sometimes people get too good at doing something, that it needs to be toned down. It could be something exploitable or it might just be something that the immortals want to tone down for various other reasons. As a newly risen immortal I'm beginning to see these reasons as very necessary and far greater in scope than the average player actually realizes. It's honestly like going from the 8th grade into High School and the Big Picture kind of hits you.

To be honest, as a city ties thief..you should be able to garner MUCHO gold from your enemies and stealing items from them. You also CAN steal gold from them if you so happen to know they have a lot. I remember Hipsin holding something like 3000 gold at one time and just for fun I wanted to see how much I could get in one swipe. It was something silly, like 275...

The economy is a beast that you're not going to conquer and the way it is designed is to benefit every one in some way. So, the fact that the city ties thieves have a hard time getting their dues money is not going to be enough to constitute a change.

Btw...thieves are supposed to be good at stealing items from PC's And as a city ties thief, you should be able to blackjack them, and clean out their ENTIRE inventory before the blackjack wears off. I always thought that was much more valuable than mass amounts of gold in my pocket.

Just my opinion...by no way is this the 'Immortal Answer'

Thieves CANNOT steal from shopkeepers. This, to me, is lame. Add to this steal being extremely nerfed for every path but city ties since the revamp, and it seems like you have a problem. I don't see a problem with thieves being able to steal that return potion, or that nice new scroll with the pebble on it that costs an arm and a leg. This, even by the wildest stretch of imagination, is a long way from making thieves the uber dominating class.

I remember playing D&D waaaaaaaay back in the day. I played exclusively thieves. Why? Because I loved being the one to nab that treasure, picking the lock while the warriors just stood there dumbfounded. Now you would be lucky to find a treasure chest in CF, let alone a pickable one, let alone a mob that has a stealable key, let alone one that isn't guarded by mobs that will mercilessly crush you. In other words, a dumb warrior-type class has more of a chance to grab that treasure than you, the cunning thief, do.

Add to this places like a certain area south of Seantryn, with 'a huge treasure' that has been nerfed to zero ($0!), and it's like, 'Why in the world did I bother with a thief? I can't steal good stuff from mobs or pcs (an exception to the latter is if you go city ties), I'm not an uber pk'er, I may as well have rolled an assassin.' In other words, the exact OPPOSITE of the problem with thieves 3+ years ago that lead to the revamp.

>To be honest, as a city ties thief..you should be able to garner MUCHO gold from your enemies and stealing items from them. You also CAN steal gold from them if you so happen to know they have a lot. I remember Hipsin holding something like 3000 gold at one time and just for fun I wanted to see how much I could get in one swipe. It was something silly, like 275...


The only problem I have with this is that if I wanted solely to get items and coins from players I'd just roll a necro and kill them and have a much bigger selection to choose from. Honestly, I wanted to make a real thiefly thief, but when I found out I can't even steal items from shopkeepers I'm like what's the point? So I wound up deleting. It just seems like a pointless class, you give up a lot of fighting power just for the ability to steal from PC's and while its good, I don't see how it'd be massively overpowered to let them steal from shopkeepers and stuff.