Theft

by Xenthos

Back to Common Grounds.

Estarra2010-02-03 21:55:50
What about lowering selfishness and making selfishness un-forceable?
Anisu2010-02-03 21:57:15
QUOTE (Estarra @ Feb 3 2010, 10:55 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
What about lowering selfishness and making selfishness un-forceable?

Sounds like a good idea.
Unknown2010-02-03 22:02:55
Sounds good.
Doman2010-02-03 22:03:03
I dun like the unforceable idea
Unknown2010-02-03 22:05:29
I think at this point, given the shop change, might as well go for an 'all or nothing' approach.
Tervic2010-02-03 22:05:38
QUOTE (Azoth Nae'blis @ Feb 2 2010, 06:15 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Happened to me once when I got killed at the Portal of Fate while AFK. Came back later and found I'd been dropped from level 92 to 89. The whole 'losing xp when you're out of mana' thing is utter bull**** and makes no sense. Why is it even there - to punish people who die to mana kills?

It's there to punish people who afk and to discourage people from using soul-form to 'spy'. World knows I've done soul-spying when I was guaranteed a resurrection on request.


QUOTE (Doman @ Feb 3 2010, 02:03 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
I dun like the unforceable idea

Why?

I was personally going to suggest lowering selfishness, unchanged, then adding a near-trans discipline skill, Stubbornness, that would make Generosity unable to be forced, or perhaps to add a second layer of protection. Making Generosity unforceable is good too though.
Iktomi2010-02-03 22:08:08
QUOTE (Trasse @ Feb 3 2010, 04:35 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
As for my two cents on how to mitigate personal theft, maybe do away with the 2% "service fee" on bank accounts, so personal bank accounts actually get used more for safety?


Call me cheap, but this right here keeps me away from banks. That's what locked chests in a manse for. If the 2% were done away with, or maybe counteracted with some kind of interest gain, then I think banks would be used more as well.
Tervic2010-02-03 22:09:29
QUOTE (Iktomi @ Feb 3 2010, 02:08 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Call me cheap, but this right here keeps me away from banks. That's what locked chests in a manse for. If the 2% were done away with, or maybe counteracted with some kind of interest gain, then I think banks would be used more as well.


The 2% is a service fee that you pay to keep your gold absolutely 100% safe. It's never bothered me before, and doesn't add up unless you're making lots of in-and-out transfers.
Atellus2010-02-03 22:17:15
Making selfishness unforceable is almost the same as just making force commands unable to take/drop items. While not everyone will have selfishness, and it is possible to forget to raise the defense, such a change would be a nerf to force commands. This change would also make theft all but impossible.

Having said that I always set up a trigger and alias pairing that will automatically reapply selfishness if it is dropped without use of my alias. It is not 100% foolproof but it is close. So if those who use systems, or who know how to code their own, selfishness is already effectively unforcable.

If you can be sure selfishness will always be up then you also no longer really need a pack. The entire point of putting gold in a pack is to make it harder to steal, I honestly am not sure what other use packs serve (beyond a safe way to manipulate the order of items in your inventory).

In addition with permanent selfishness there is no reason for a personal bank account.

I am not sure I disagree with the change, but it does make a few other systems in the game weaker.

In my perfect world theft would be dealt with mechanically from a different direction.

1. Items that are stolen are marked by the game for a time
2. If you die holding a marked item it drops
3. Marked items can not be placed inside anything or dropped in a storeroom
4. You may not give away marked items
5. If you are holding a marked item safe rooms are no longer safe nor are you protected by the Avenger

I might be missing a few points in that but you get the general idea. Such a system would require a lot more code support however and would not add a lot to the game so I doubt it would be worth it.
Anisu2010-02-03 22:26:04
QUOTE (Atellus @ Feb 3 2010, 11:17 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Making selfishness unforceable is almost the same as just making force commands unable to take/drop items. While not everyone will have selfishness, and it is possible to forget to raise the defense, such a change would be a nerf to force commands. This change would also make theft all but impossible.

Having said that I always set up a trigger and alias pairing that will automatically reapply selfishness if it is dropped without use of my alias. It is not 100% foolproof but it is close. So if those who use systems, or who know how to code their own, selfishness is already effectively unforcable.

If you can be sure selfishness will always be up then you also no longer really need a pack. The entire point of putting gold in a pack is to make it harder to steal, I honestly am not sure what other use packs serve (beyond a safe way to manipulate the order of items in your inventory).

In addition with permanent selfishness there is no reason for a personal bank account.

I am not sure I disagree with the change, but it does make a few other systems in the game weaker.

In my perfect world theft would be dealt with mechanically from a different direction.

1. Items that are stolen are marked by the game for a time
2. If you die holding a marked item it drops
3. Marked items can not be placed inside anything or dropped in a storeroom
4. You may not give away marked items
5. If you are holding a marked item safe rooms are no longer safe nor are you protected by the Avenger

I might be missing a few points in that but you get the general idea. Such a system would require a lot more code support however and would not add a lot to the game so I doubt it would be worth it.


1. The idea is to make theft impossible though.
2. You can still steal from people in stores, when they offer at shrines, etc.
3. They are trying to make lusternia simpler, so the if you can code it is virtually impossible would be translated to just make it a game mechanic
4. The personal back account has pretty much been obsolete since we nolonger drop gold on dying. With stores being 100% safe now it is a fair tradeoff imo

Tervic2010-02-03 22:38:44
QUOTE (Atellus @ Feb 3 2010, 02:17 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Making selfishness unforceable is almost the same as just making force commands unable to take/drop items. While not everyone will have selfishness, and it is possible to forget to raise the defense, such a change would be a nerf to force commands. This change would also make theft all but impossible.

Having said that I always set up a trigger and alias pairing that will automatically reapply selfishness if it is dropped without use of my alias. It is not 100% foolproof but it is close. So if those who use systems, or who know how to code their own, selfishness is already effectively unforcable.

If you can be sure selfishness will always be up then you also no longer really need a pack. The entire point of putting gold in a pack is to make it harder to steal, I honestly am not sure what other use packs serve (beyond a safe way to manipulate the order of items in your inventory).

In addition with permanent selfishness there is no reason for a personal bank account.

I am not sure I disagree with the change, but it does make a few other systems in the game weaker.

In my perfect world theft would be dealt with mechanically from a different direction.

1. Items that are stolen are marked by the game for a time
2. If you die holding a marked item it drops
3. Marked items can not be placed inside anything or dropped in a storeroom
4. You may not give away marked items
5. If you are holding a marked item safe rooms are no longer safe nor are you protected by the Avenger

I might be missing a few points in that but you get the general idea. Such a system would require a lot more code support however and would not add a lot to the game so I doubt it would be worth it.

I use my pack to make it so that I can't interact with my enchanted cube for purposes of quests (namely xion and the puzzles within) and also to put stuff I carry around for sentimental/collector's obsession reasons but have no real reason to carry around in inventory. Yeah.
Xiel2010-02-03 22:40:39
QUOTE (Estarra @ Feb 3 2010, 01:55 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
What about lowering selfishness and making selfishness un-forceable?


thumup.gif

Edit: Still won't save people if they don't put it up though.
Iktomi2010-02-03 22:42:32
QUOTE (Atellus @ Feb 3 2010, 05:17 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Making selfishness unforceable is almost the same as just making force commands unable to take/drop items. While not everyone will have selfishness, and it is possible to forget to raise the defense, such a change would be a nerf to force commands. This change would also make theft all but impossible.


I don't remember if it's unforceable, but in Achaea it was illegal at least to force someone out of selfishness, and thefts still occured -all- the time. I used to be one of the thieves!

If anything selfishness made theft more of a demanding process. If you hit up someone who had selfishness, then you the thief just ended up looking foolish, and it was time to gtfo. If you happened to find a big name who didn't have selfishness up, then it was a rightfully earned jackpot.

Making it unforceable would make it more difficult, but far from impossible.
Xenthos2010-02-03 22:53:23
QUOTE (Estarra @ Feb 3 2010, 04:55 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
What about lowering selfishness and making selfishness un-forceable?

Can we do something about vestiphobia? pray.gif

Like, make it always just drop stuff to inventory, never to ground.
Anisu2010-02-03 23:42:58
QUOTE (Xenthos @ Feb 3 2010, 11:53 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Can we do something about vestiphobia? pray.gif

Like, make it always just drop stuff to inventory, never to ground.

I thought when you have selfishness up it drops it in your inventory, or am I thinking of another game?
Doman2010-02-03 23:45:45
no, that's true
Xenthos2010-02-03 23:48:31
QUOTE (Anisu @ Feb 3 2010, 06:42 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
I thought when you have selfishness up it drops it in your inventory, or am I thinking of another game?

Hence the "always," of course. Otherwise I'd have not bothered with that word choice, heh.
Desitrus2010-02-03 23:49:58
Even my broken down, raggedy-taggedy cmud system will constantly spam selfishness if generosity goes through and it isn't turned off on the system.


Good lord people.
Xenthos2010-02-03 23:53:55
QUOTE (Desitrus @ Feb 3 2010, 06:49 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Even my broken down, raggedy-taggedy cmud system will constantly spam selfishness if generosity goes through and it isn't turned off on the system.


Good lord people.

Apparently the system that 90% of Mag uses... does not.
Unknown2010-02-03 23:54:57
QUOTE (Sephrenia @ Feb 3 2010, 07:47 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Saying that they should have been better prepared for it is the easy way out of the issue. It puts the onus on the victim, and nicely washes the hands of everyone else.

The problem I have with theft isn't that there's ways that it can be stopped, but as Anisu said twice and everyone keeps ignoring, there is absolutely nothing you can do about the incident directly during or after it occurs. You can't kill them to get your stuff back. If you don't have similar skills, you can't even try to steal the stuff back. All you get are indirect social/political pressures, which generally turn around and revictimise the person, as this thread has shown. And like it has mentioned, that can severly detract from someone's motivation to play.

Welcome to the discussion. I actually did address this. The reason why the person can do nothing in direct retribution to the person who wronged them is BECAUSE we've made the game so theft safe now MECHANICALLY. Again, if there were a lot less mechanical limitations, there would be options for more effective use of force and politics. This is why I always argue that imposing mechanics to limit an action just because it's negative puts more in than just "protecting victims". Because the offender knows that they can keep the item away from the victim or anyone else forever with no chance of them getting at it mechanically, it empowers the offender, not the victim. Because the offender knows that they can hide in a manse from now to eternity, entirely safe from any mortal player MECHANICALLY, they are again empowered - not the victim. Every single time you try to protect victims and potential victims, you protect the predators as well.

Once again, Lusternia is far, FAR too down the path of outlawing theft entirely. Suggesting that we modify Avenger to some how handle it might have been something to consider in Lusternia's infancy, but it's just not viable now really. There are entirely too many mechanics in place to modify the game where a reasonable amount of theft and freedom to be a thief exist in a relatively non-volatile balance. With that said:

QUOTE (Estarra @ Feb 3 2010, 09:55 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
What about lowering selfishness and making selfishness un-forceable?

I heard this thrown out after the event happened. I'm not sure selfishness needs to be lowered, but I agree with making generosity an unforceable command. Why do I agree with it, after railing against limiting freedom? Because of my point above. Lusternia is down one road - far down it - and has made that choice. Whether I agree with it personally is irrelevant. Estarra, the administration, and the player base as a MAJORITY are the ones who shape the world, and a world of non-theft is the one that a majority has obviously chosen. So, barring just outright banning it completely in policy and further nerfing force commands, simply putting generosity on the banned command list should be sufficient. Which brings us to:

QUOTE (Xiel @ Feb 3 2010, 10:40 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
thumup.gif

Edit: Still won't save people if they don't put it up though.

QUOTE (Iktomi @ Feb 3 2010, 10:42 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Making it unforceable would make it more difficult, but far from impossible.

I agree. It won't make things 100% safe. But really, it's the solution that is least harmful overall while providing a great deal of protection. If people can't be bothered to put selfishness up if this change goes through, I'm honestly at a loss for words if they get robbed. I will personally post scripts in every client language I can find to automatically put up selfishness after a certain amount in inaction on the player's part so that I don't have to see another thread about this.

I still don't think selfishness needs to be lowered, it honestly isn't that high up. I guess it really doesn't matter to me personally, though.

Re: Xenthos' latest post that I didn't see before I started replying - if generosity becomes unforceable, they will never drop things to ground with selfishness up and afflicted by vestiphobia, so it would seem fine to me. Someone is going to cry, "What about the newbies!!!111!" to which I will again reply - Someone needs to show me this wave of newbie robberies before I'll consider it a valid argument. It is still an issue I don't think exists, and anyone who is relatively old and actually into combat (The situation where you'll most likely be hit with vestiphobia OR make people want to attack you while you're not paying attention to strip you or whatever), you probably have selfishness because you need at least focus mind to participate in combat. If you don't, you should make it a priority.