What is the gameplay purpose, or necessity, of theft?

[VDZ]

Okay, so this is going to be a hot take. I'm not necessarily advocating any specific change, or even any change at all, but this thought occurred to me as it seems inconsistent with the devs' stated design intentions.

The devs have stated that the purpose of PvP is conflict resolution. They've explained this in the classic post Developer Thoughts on PvP, and it was recently discussed at length in the latest devstream, where they noted that they would be open to the removal of PvP if people could bring up a viable alternative form of conflict resolution that is not human moderation. I agree with the notion that only PvP is really viable for this and I certainly don't advocate removing it entirely.

However, if we dive deeper into it, as far as I'm aware, there are four types of PvP acknowledged and facilitated by the game:
1) Trespassing - The non-destructive interaction with property (including land) another player has claimed for themselves, without their permission. (Acknowledged by the game as 'Trespassing' for movement and certain interactions (like opening gates) and as 'Rummaging' for some other illegal access crimes.)
2) Theft - The moving of items out of a claimed container, the moving of objects off a claim, and the taking of held or equipped items off a person, without their permission. (Only called 'Theft' in game for all types.)
3) Vandalism - Destructive interactions with property (including land) another player has claimed for themselves, without their permission. Primarily involves the destruction of objects, though other destructive interactions (such as digging or harvesting) are also included. (Called 'Vandalism' in game for all types.)
4) Aggression - Attacking and harming another player outside of agreed-upon sparring. What people generally think of when 'PvP' is mentioned, though it's only one part of it. Indirect aggression (e.g. breaking their boat to drown them, bringing a wild animal to attack the player) is not acknowledged by the game. (The game separates this into Assault, Battery and Murder depending on severity.)

Now, Aggression is easy to explain. It's the general-purpose conflict resolution method; beat someone up, and as long as there's a sufficiently significant penalty for losing in combat, it will discourage the other party from upsetting you again. Should aggression turn out to be insufficiently convincing, or should the player be unreachable for direct punishment, one can resort to Vandalism, forcibly removing a player's indirect presence by simply destroying whatever they've created, compelling them to relocate elsewhere. These two to me seem sufficient to resolve any conflict. To avoid unnecessary escalation, there is certainly also something to be said about Trespassing, providing some leeway in the claim system and putting the incentive to escalate on the owner of the disliked claim. (It would certainly be inconvenient to have to beat someone up whenever they place a claim somewhere I just want to pass through.)

So the purpose of Aggression and Vandalism is clear, and Trespassing could also contribute to conflict resolution (by reducing the need to resolve the conflict). But what about Theft? How does Theft resolve any conflicts? In the case of claimed-item and claimed-object theft, Vandalism is - from the perspective of the other party - equivalent to Theft, denying a player their item or object. In the case of held-item and equipment theft, it can only occur after already having performed Aggression, which by itself should be sufficient to resolve the conflict. It adds to the injury inflicted by Aggression, but is that really necessary? The only two use-cases I see for Theft either a) Could be resolved without Theft; or b) Only apply after conflict resolution has already been applied.

Instead, rather than resolving conflicts, Theft seems to only incentivize conflicts. In particular, it gives players a reason to harm those who have not wronged them, particularly if the victim is weaker than the aggressor. A strong player ganking a weaker player is rewarded by gaining whatever they were carrying or had equipped, and conversely, in addition to receiving wounds the victim also loses anything of worth they were carrying or had equipped. (In most cases this will be trash to the stronger player, but the weaker player loses the items either way - at the very least gankers take items just to drop them on the ground - and every so often they do hit the jackpot (see e.g. Snail boasting about 'rare drops', comparing it to grinding monsters in combat-focused MMORPGs which usually drop nothing of note but which players go out of their way to hunt for the occasional valuable drop) which makes it worth it to attack players who have not wronged them. Similarly, while it doesn't happen often due to siege being tedious, players are rewarded for infiltrating other players' bases with the opportunity to loot whatever they can find there, even if the victim has not wronged the aggressor in any way. When viable, people will do this simply because the game rewards them for doing so.

If PvP exists solely for conflict resolution, and Theft does not resolve conflicts but only allows players to harm each other, incentivizing PvP beyond mere conflict resolution, should it really be in the game? It would of course be a radical change to remove such an influential mechanic that also makes perfect thematic sense (after all, you can attack players and vandalize their property; theft would be an unusual exclusion (though then again, some other harmful interactions like confinement are also disallowed for practical reasons)). But I can't help but think: What would Haven & Hearth be like if the possibility to commit Theft were removed, or severely nerfed to disincentivize it?

[Massa]

the gameplay purpose of theft is to take the items of other people by force on claimed land or their bodies

i really hope jorb doesn't start listening to you unhinged weird non-pvpers. find another game, there are a million shitty games you can make a funny number go up for.

[VDZ]

the gameplay purpose of theft is to take the items of other people by force on claimed land or their bodies

But what benefit does the forcible taking of items bring, not to the player, but to the game as a whole? In what way does theft make the game more fun?

[jordancoles]

the gameplay purpose of theft is to take the items of other people by force on claimed land or their bodies

But what benefit does the forcible taking of items bring, not to the player, but to the game as a whole? In what way does theft make the game more fun?

Try stealing some shit that's of value and then come back

[Massa]

the gameplay purpose of theft is to take the items of other people by force on claimed land or their bodies

But what benefit does the forcible taking of items bring, not to the player, but to the game as a whole? In what way does theft make the game more fun?

conflict is part of this game and needlessly instigating it is too, and these are good things.

there are few instances in which theft is actually theft, usually it's siege->theft or theft from an abandoned claim anyway. raiding a village should earn one the spoils left inside.

[Vigilance]

while i think the entire premise of this thread is pretty stupid, i'll humor you

scenario:
my neighbor lives twenty minimap grids south of me.
we both mine down to l6.
i prospect schrifterz on l7, thick ass node i hope!
i minehole down to it a week later, i realize it is gone, and there is a tunnel leading directly south to my neighbor's village.
option A: he has it secured in his wall, on the surface. my beloved gold! it is time to siege him. this is one reason siege exists.
option B: he has it sitting in ore stockpiles on a claim. my gold is within reach! time to just wheelbarrow it off.

imagine the game just tells you "lol, no" in option B, or there are no means to breach his wall for option A. there are very many instances where theft can be used in entirely non-malicious (or justifiable) ways that cannot be forced arbitrarily by disabling theft and whitelisting certain circumstances. if anything, the game is already too forgiving for this scenario because my dude could literally just altvault it the instant it becomes bars (which is what most people i'd imagine do about their easily-stored riches, in smaller quantities)

[Nightdawg]

Don't wear tsacks + lynx belt + merchant's robe on week 2 if you can't defend yourself omg what the actual fuck is this topic

"What's the purpose of shooting eachother in counter-strike?"

Seriously though

[wonder-ass]

tbh I feel like posts like this shouldn't be shut down so harshly. the state of the game is such a mess there is a huge divide between farmer larpers and pvpers, that said most stuff has 0 value to me I steal it just because I don't want you to have it anymore.

[Vigilance]

tbh I feel like posts like this shouldn't be shut down so harshly. the state of the game is such a mess there is a huge divide between farmer larpers and pvpers

i agree but also disagree heavily because talking shit at these kinds of ideas is important for discourse. just depends on the flavor of shut-down. i really like some of the people that champion pvp in modern times but there's a lot of pants on head retarded bullshit that further opens the gap because motherfuckers on both sides pretend it is literally black and white

that said most stuff has 0 value to me I steal it just because I don't want you to have it anymore.

same, pillaging is more of a denial thing than a "I want this" thing 99% of the time.

[Nightdawg]

same, pillaging is more of a denial thing than a "I want this" thing 99% of the time.

this depends on the person, and now that I think about it, it's probably the reason this thread exists lol