[CF-Devel] Stealing Idea + simple patch

[crossfire-devel-admin at archives.real-time.com]

Adam Ashenfelter wrote:

>
     
      If your a thief, do you care about reputation?  I'm thinking if you are a 
     
     >
     
      thief character you are stealing from the store to gain experience for your 
     
     >
     
      stealing skill.  Plus make some cash.
     
     
  Thieves may not care about reputation.  But at the same time, if they have a 
poor reputation, costs would probably be higher.


>
     
      Why have a steal skill or thiefs in the game at all if is pointless to steal?  
     
     >
     
      Higher level players will probably need another outlet for the stealing 
     
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      skills.
     
     
  Not everything in the game makes sense.

>
     
      + Here are some quick ideas to keep down the money supply.
     
     
  This has been discussed before.  To get a game were the economy is perfect is 
IMO very difficult.  I really don't want to open up that discussion as part of 
stealing - I'm just pointing out that money is highly available, so that will 
probably diminish the usefulness from stealing for shops for the reasons I 
mentioned (like everything else - might be difficult to balance stealing from 
shops for the reward vs penalty.  If I can go and steal spellbooks or potions by 
the truckload, that is a problem.  IF the best I can reasonably steal is 
something with 2 pp, then that probably isn't worth it.


>
     
      Thief monsters in higher level dungeons.  Pay the price for the experience.  
     
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      Thiefs steal and run.  They prefer money, but take other items if money isn't 
     
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      enough, or backstab player in retaliation  could avoid newbies. (Don't jog in 
     
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      central park without cash!! :).  Once out of site thief hides,or is gone.  
     
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      Kill him quick if you want your items back!  Anti theft spells and items 
     
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      could help, but not 100%.
     
     
  This is what I would agree with more - more places where thieves can use their 
skills for some useful purpose.

  It goes back and forth - at one time, the skills were very powerful, but then 
the complaints that players can just bypass quests and mosnters.  So some number 
of monsters were then made immuned to stealing and whatnot.

  Really, players should be able to steal from anyone, just some monsters may be 
very difficult to steal against.

  Likewise, if there are NPC's in towns that give items necessary to finish a 
quest, being able to steal those items also makes sense to me.


>
     
      Will this reset when the map resets?  I don't think stores should be cleaned 
     
     >
     
      out by thiefs.  Maybe just a stealing limit instead of difficulty?
     
     
  Depends - it can reset/not reset, depends on how it is set up.

  Arguably, a store getting cleared out by thieves is no different than a store 
getting cleared out by a player with lots of money.

  I'm not sure how to do it, but arguably, one shouldn't be able to sell stuff 
stolen back to the same shop.  OTOH, if stealing is balanced right, it seems 
unlikely a store would be cleared out.

  Presumably, a really good thief could steal cheap items with relative 
impunity.    But a good theif (say level > 10) presumably wouldn't get much 
benefit from stealing 1 pp items.  So he'd go for the better stuff, which then 
increases his risk.

  If something like the jail is used, which locks away the players for X minutes 
of real time, this starts to be self limiting.  Shops reset after 2 hours, so if 
the characters are tossed in jail for several minutes for getting caught, this 
sort of limits how often the player could steal/how much stuff.

  Also, some noticable time penalty could be imposed when using the stealing 
skill (eg, takes 20 ticks of player time for example) - this means at best you 
can only steal some limited number of objects.

  One could also limit it other ways - mark stolen items as such (flag_stolen or 
the like).  If the player is caught stealing, all those stolen items are 
returned.  This means that a player could more safely steal by stealing one 
item, and putting it someplace safe (outside the shop), go back, steal another, 
etc, which would also limit the number of items they steal a bit.

  OTOH, you don't want to make it too much a pain.



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