Fixing and balancing theft/tracking.

[PoisonedV]

I hate to be the devils advocate (as far as my usual side goes), but I agree.

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Sorry, this is not a troll, just a heads up, you may not be 100% on what that phrase means

I am well aware of what it means. I wasn't being the devils advocate for his post, i meant my usual side.

[bentalbot]

Warning: This post is going to turn into a mish-mash of ideas.

What about the relationship between a thief's exploration and stealth? Honestly I'm not too sure on how it is currently, but can a thief always see where he's leaving scent markings behind? I'd imagine it's broken now anyway because you don't need high exploration at all to be able to find scents. The way I see it, if a thief has terrible exploration he shouldn't be able to tell where he's leaving clues behind. And inversely, if he has equal or better exploration and can tell where he's left his mark, it should be tamperable to make it harder to follow (ala wiping down fingerprints.) Currently, if you leave a scent then you're just shit out of luck as far as removing it goes, which is pretty backwards when you're staring right at the evidence.

Although that said the thief would then only need to have their stats level at 1/1 to be able to tamper with the clues. Perhaps there could be a minimum stealth skill value for being able to tamper with each crime, so say tresspassing could be 10, theft 50, assault 100, whatever. Or maybe just make the degree to which the clues are thrown off be a facet of the stealth skill, so someone with a skill of 10 would barely be able to damage the tresspassing scents where as someone with 100 could completely remove the trail.

Yes, this would give the thieves an option to completely avoid detection and get away scot free, but that would be at the cost of them having to dump even more LP into their exploration/stealth than they currently have to anyway.

I don't know how easy it would be to implement, but if possible then a crime that has been tampered with could borrow from the idea of the radar wedge growing bigger at lower skill levels. A completely fresh, untouched scent could have the current fairly precise radar blip that shows their direction, where as one that has been almost completely removed would give almost a 180 degree chunk. It's still followable, sure, but you're going to have a much harder time if you don't have a completely perfect clue.

Or hell, just break up the kinds of clues that are left behind. Make distinctions between footprints, which would show the ranger the direction that the person headed off in and clothing or hair samples to check whether a suspect was the perpetrator. I know what I'd really like is if the tracking was more of an actual trail as opposed to just a radar beacon, so basically you'd have a trail of smoke like that rises from the current scents just leading in a path where the thief walked. It could be stronger in forest area where the thief is breaking branches and stepping in mud, and almost completely gone when they are on a paved road. Maybe keep the current scents as a way of refreshing your trail if you lose it, similar to how a bloodhound needs to be reminded of the scent if it drops it. I suppose this would lend itself more to an actual progression of actions than just a straight shot to the person's hearthfire. I don't really know why you'd be able to go straight to someone's hearth from the scene of a crime, and not have to follow their actual movements first.

[Potjeh]

Because most people simply teleport out as soon as they get their hands on the goods. It is a nice idea, however, and could work, if teleporting meant you leave your loot behind (ie that loot bag idea implemented).

[bentalbot]

Because most people simply teleport out as soon as they get their hands on the goods. It is a nice idea, however, and could work, if teleporting meant you leave your loot behind (ie that loot bag idea implemented).

Well ideally thieves would be completely prevented from logging out for a time after having stolen something. The loot dropping in a bag aside, having someone just pop out of existence when you can't do much to punish them for trying to steal from you is incredibly frustrating.

Perhaps they could both drop the stolen goods in a loot bag and the server keeps them logged in for a few minutes after they exit the client, kind of like summoning someone to a hearthfire when they're offline has them in the game without them actually being there. That way if you're in the middle of attacking someone and they try to exit out, they're just going to find themselves unconscious/dead when they come back.

Or make it so that while you're carrying stolen goods, you can ONLY log in where you logged out. Make it so that thieves physically have to walk back to their stash instead of just teleporting across the map. That would discourage thieves a little right there.