Hi all, been a lurker for awhile, played W7 and this world as a duo with a friend, here are my thoughts. I know, first post
I think an issue is that siege and raiding/thieving are all mixed up and somewhat less fun for all parties because of the binary nature of the current mechanics. You either prevent a raid, or you lose everything. I have a proposal to separate out thieving and raiding from true siege. In my opinion, siege is for factions/villages who want to destroy each other. Raiding/thieving is for getting loot and shouldn't totally ruin the victim.
Here is what I propose, please critique/expand upon this as I am not one to think of exploits so may be missing something that we can try to remedy via discussion.
1) Begin by allowing thieves to access other peoples/village claims regardless of walls. Instead they need thieving skills and tools. Dexterity/stealth/int (whatever) and a good lockpicking set (yes new item). These skills and items can be checked against the locks on the gate/buildings/chests, and lock quality and type matters (add better locks, ranging from wood block lock to steel locks, with multiplying benefits based on better locks). If the thief has a successful check against the lock (his skills/equipment v. the lock), he gains access to the claim via a teleportation (NOT opening the gate). Once successful, the thief gets a thief debuff.
2) with the thief debuff, the thief is able to only steal items, and not vandalize or murder, and those items cannot go into his regular inventory. Instead, the # of items he's able to steal are again limited by his skill and equipement (yes more new items . . . thiefs cloak, hat, pants, etc.),including needing charisma. This is to simulate his ability to convince onlooking villagers (imaginary of course) that the lump in his pocket isn't a stolen item
. Perhaps a maximum of 10 or so items in total with lots of skill and all the equipment and high q (guessing at numbers). The items go into his "thiefs" inventory, which scales based on the above, and cannot be accessed with the thief debuff.
3) Items that the thief attempts to throw on the ground or put in his regular inventory are instead put back in the container where they came from (or some other reasonable mechanic).
4) Each lock that is picked puts a stacking debuff on the thief that handicaps his ability to pick more locks. The incents locks on houses, chests, etc. Cupboards cannot have locks on them.
5) when the thief is done, he leaves through the gate (teleported out, he can never open the gate) and the thief debuff is removed, allowing him access to his thief inventory.
6) If a villager/claim owner spots him, they can go to the gate and click to have him evicted. He is instantly telported out, and everything in his thief inventory is returned, either to the cabinets, hearthfire, or whatever. This simulates him getting "caught" by the constable. The thief debuff is removed once evicted.
I think this can have a number of positive effects:
1) Allow raiding without completely destroying the victime. Makes raiding meaningful. Do you really need to raid the sprucecap for his q12 carrots?
2) Normal scents and associated skill/attribute impacts are all in play, perhaps bringing back the need for rangers too
3) New items and an entirely new dimension to raiding. Most importantly, you need skills to raid effectively, and can't alt spam to raid (I don't think).
4) independent of sieges, which should require significant time and resources (in my opinion).
Please, let me know where I'm crazy! But I think this helps separate a lot of the issues that I read people griping about and leaves us with a possibly fun mechanic that achieves a lot of what raiders want but allows those defending against raids a chance to defend themselves. All the numbers will need to be tested and tweaked for balance of course.
Thanks!
by jorb » Wed Jan 20, 2016 1:21 am 
