RPGs that do stealing right.

[Shillitron]

I do have to applaud Skyrim for one instance of reactivity, sometimes you'd steal an item of worth from somebody thinking you were in the clear only to be visited by hired thugs later on.

Sometimes dead people you killed via stealth archery will hire thugs to attack you.

I remember when the jarl's wizard hired thugs to literally kill me.. by name.
But I still had to return the golden claw to him

AWKWARD!!!!


--

The worst part is this feature could easily be fixed with zero effort.

Instead of making the bounty literally say "KILL THEM AND BEHEAD THEM" ascribing murderous intent to the NPC that you stole from - you could of just had it be a "reclaim of property" bounty and then have the mercenaries take back the item / demand gold / be evil and decide to kill you and take all your stuff instead.

That wouldn't fix "The ghost of mercenary D in cave L hiring mercenaries beyond the grave to get back an apple" though.. for that they need someone with a brain to actually fix it unfortunately.

The fact these problems exist at all just shows how lazy and uncaring Bethesda is. They really don't give a ****.

[Vergil]

That wouldn't fix "The ghost of mercenary D in cave L hiring mercenaries beyond the grave to get back an apple" though.. for that they need someone with a brain to actually fix it unfortunately.

Surely it wouldn't be too hard to add a flag to check if the actor is dead before selecting them as the person who hired the thugs.

[Shillitron]

That wouldn't fix "The ghost of mercenary D in cave L hiring mercenaries beyond the grave to get back an apple" though.. for that they need someone with a brain to actually fix it unfortunately.

Surely it wouldn't be too hard

https://ck.uesp.net/w/index.php?title=IsDead_-_Actor

Bethesda is just lazy and doesn't give a ****.

[TKVNC]

I won't pretend I'm not a Kenshi shill.

I think Kenshi does a pretty ok job, it's a bit confusing at times since the visibilty and sound mechanics are not particularly intuitive - but NPCs can notice you for believable reasons, and post-theft, your gear is flagged as stolen from a certain faction (or individual) and it makes fencing it slightly more difficult.

Consequences are also relatively realistic, some factions will simply kill you, others will beat you up and arrest you, and others will sell you into slavery.

All in all, it fits the world, and is at least somewhat logical.

[Tweed]

I won't pretend I'm not a Kenshi shill.

I think Kenshi does a pretty ok job, it's a bit confusing at times since the visibilty and sound mechanics are not particularly intuitive - but NPCs can notice you for believable reasons, and post-theft, your gear is flagged as stolen from a certain faction (or individual) and it makes fencing it slightly more difficult.

Consequences are also relatively realistic, some factions will simply kill you, others will beat you up and arrest you, and others will sell you into slavery.

All in all, it fits the world, and is at least somewhat logical.

1. Sneak into the limb shop in Deadlands
2. Steal everything
3. Repeat

[TKVNC]

I won't pretend I'm not a Kenshi shill.

I think Kenshi does a pretty ok job, it's a bit confusing at times since the visibilty and sound mechanics are not particularly intuitive - but NPCs can notice you for believable reasons, and post-theft, your gear is flagged as stolen from a certain faction (or individual) and it makes fencing it slightly more difficult.

Consequences are also relatively realistic, some factions will simply kill you, others will beat you up and arrest you, and others will sell you into slavery.

All in all, it fits the world, and is at least somewhat logical.

1. Sneak into the limb shop in Deadlands
2. Steal everything
3. Repeat

I try not to do it too much anymore, it's too cheesy. That said, I normally play Holy Nation these days, so prosthetics are strictly Haram, and anyone who loses a limb is now taken out back and hacked to death, as the good Lord Phoenix LXII (blessed be his name) asks.

[Norfleet]

Matter of perspective though. What you see as taking you too much time to get around it, I see as a natural barrier to reasonable play. That is, if a person really wants to "grind" themselves to death to pinch every penny, well... if that is something they are willing to do, I guess that is what they will do, but I don't consider such min/max level of grinding to maximize currency as reasonable play. The enjoyment isn't lost, its just a hassle for those who don't want to have to make a decision on the issue (ie they want all the cash and none of the consequence). That is exactly what I mean though in terms of "tedious" being used to justify a change that really only serves an individuals tolerance or personal goals within the game.

Using tediousness as a means of trying to balance the game is a really WEAK way to balance the game, and tends to come undone when you realize that a fairly sizeable section of gamers have decidedly obsessive tendencies, of which "No Loot Left Behind" is an extremely commonly seen one. This means that you're in a position where you're trying to balance a game where you have the impatient and careless players. vs NLLBs, and the power gap between the two widens dramatically when the only thing stopping people from leaving no loot behind is the tedium.

[Xenich]

Matter of perspective though. What you see as taking you too much time to get around it, I see as a natural barrier to reasonable play. That is, if a person really wants to "grind" themselves to death to pinch every penny, well... if that is something they are willing to do, I guess that is what they will do, but I don't consider such min/max level of grinding to maximize currency as reasonable play. The enjoyment isn't lost, its just a hassle for those who don't want to have to make a decision on the issue (ie they want all the cash and none of the consequence). That is exactly what I mean though in terms of "tedious" being used to justify a change that really only serves an individuals tolerance or personal goals within the game.

Using tediousness as a means of trying to balance the game is a really WEAK way to balance the game, and tends to come undone when you realize that a fairly sizeable section of gamers have decidedly obsessive tendencies, of which "No Loot Left Behind" is an extremely commonly seen one. This means that you're in a position where you're trying to balance a game where you have the impatient and careless players. vs NLLBs, and the power gap between the two widens dramatically when the only thing stopping people from leaving no loot behind is the tedium.

Thing is, tedium isn't being used in these cases. What I am saying is that tedium is a manner of play that was developed over gaming attitudes from MMOs mostly, if I had to narrow it to where it became a focus as their systems designed around it as a method of play (ie massive grinds to achieve small results in order to gimmick players in content). This then became the standard of play style for many gamers of those generations and it translated over to how they would play other games.

Like I said, a lot of this is in terms of reasonable occurrence. That sort of tedium in play is taken care of by a lot of traditional features (random encounters and time being a component in the games system of play). So it was never an issue in a lot of older games.

For instance, I think an easy change to current systems would be to put more "time" based influences that might create consequences for such practice such as simple random encounters. In BG3 for instance, spawn based Ambushes in places where players are excessively running back and forth hauling loot. Not to mention, another system I think that has lent to this form of play is travel points. If a player had to run back and forth across the entire map, all the while this causing an increase of running into encounters, it is a layer of management in play. Add in additional negatives for weight that effects combat abilities, spell casting, etc... on top of speed and you make it impractical to even apply this approach.

This adds more "Game play" to the game rather than simply removing yet another component of play because people apply generic, excessive exploitation of system play.

I honestly think that games have these problems specifically because we have attended to "convivence" which has created numerous other problems with system balance which leads to more and more solutions dumbing down the systems and making them more generic, eventually becoming nothing more than combat simulators or adventure games rather than an RPG.

[WhiteShark]

For instance, I think an easy change to current systems would be to put more "time" based influences that might create consequences for such practice such as simple random encounters. In BG3 for instance, spawn based Ambushes in places where players are excessively running back and forth hauling loot. Not to mention, another system I think that has lent to this form of play is travel points. If a player had to run back and forth across the entire map, all the while this causing an increase of running into encounters, it is a layer of management in play. Add in additional negatives for weight that effects combat abilities, spell casting, etc... on top of speed and you make it impractical to even apply this approach.

This just translates to more tedium unless you have a time constraint for game completion, permadeath, or at the very least, crippling consequences for failure and random encounters of threatening strength.

[Xenich]

For instance, I think an easy change to current systems would be to put more "time" based influences that might create consequences for such practice such as simple random encounters. In BG3 for instance, spawn based Ambushes in places where players are excessively running back and forth hauling loot. Not to mention, another system I think that has lent to this form of play is travel points. If a player had to run back and forth across the entire map, all the while this causing an increase of running into encounters, it is a layer of management in play. Add in additional negatives for weight that effects combat abilities, spell casting, etc... on top of speed and you make it impractical to even apply this approach.

This just translates to more tedium unless you have a time constraint for game completion, permadeath, or at the very least, crippling consequences for failure and random encounters of threatening strength.

Seemed to work well in many older games though. I mean, weight used to be an integral component of play and it layered into having an effect on many other systems (Travel, combat, money, party makeup, etc...).

That is the thing I dislike about the "Tedium" argument. I watched it over the years force out previous systems of depth in play (choice and consequence) which gated such behaviors be removed, creating more problems with other areas of balance, causing more systems to be removed until the games became bland.

Don't get me wrong, I hated having to choose, but... its a basic component of life and play. You can't always have your cake and eat it too. I guess that I am from the school that negatives can produce positive play mechanics.

Ultimately this leaves the solutions with continued removal of systems, continued addition of circumvents, and more problems arise.

edit: I have played many pen and paper campaigns where the loot was far too much to carry out, so the party had to pick and choose due to time, practicality, etc... I guess it has always been a component of play in my games.

[TKVNC]

Matter of perspective though. What you see as taking you too much time to get around it, I see as a natural barrier to reasonable play. That is, if a person really wants to "grind" themselves to death to pinch every penny, well... if that is something they are willing to do, I guess that is what they will do, but I don't consider such min/max level of grinding to maximize currency as reasonable play. The enjoyment isn't lost, its just a hassle for those who don't want to have to make a decision on the issue (ie they want all the cash and none of the consequence). That is exactly what I mean though in terms of "tedious" being used to justify a change that really only serves an individuals tolerance or personal goals within the game.

Using tediousness as a means of trying to balance the game is a really WEAK way to balance the game, and tends to come undone when you realize that a fairly sizeable section of gamers have decidedly obsessive tendencies, of which "No Loot Left Behind" is an extremely commonly seen one. This means that you're in a position where you're trying to balance a game where you have the impatient and careless players. vs NLLBs, and the power gap between the two widens dramatically when the only thing stopping people from leaving no loot behind is the tedium.

You know, I think the whole 'NLLB' crowd (of which I belong) do so because it's about making sure you miss nothing to account for the simple linear nature of games. Because there will always be something which you cannot avoid, you would suppose you'd liked to have had everything that could be available to you at that time.

But then maybe I'm just making excuses for having a hoarding addiction of pixel currency.

[WhiteShark]

Don't get me wrong, I hated having to choose, but... its a basic component of life and play.

In life and in tabletop, you're on the clock. You have to pick and choose because there is a time constraint. In most video games there isn't, so one willing to put up with the tedium does not have to pick and choose. That's why it's not a good balancing mechanic on its own.

[Xenich]

Don't get me wrong, I hated having to choose, but... its a basic component of life and play.

In life and in tabletop, you're on the clock. You have to pick and choose because there is a time constraint. In most video games there isn't, so one willing to put up with the tedium does not have to pick and choose. That's why it's not a good balancing mechanic on its own.

Well, I disagree (as I have explained ways to deal with the excessive abuse of it). The alternative is where we have gone in many systems, which is why I guess I don't relate as well to many newer adaptations of mechanics over the years. Also consider some people may like that style of play as well (much like the exploiter who loves to find breaks in the system to help them overpower content or the like). For me it was never a big issue as I always saw it as hording excess, and so I could choose to spend an enormous amount of time on that play, or I could just continue on. In most cases, it never really caused me to be unable to succeed in the game. Though I can understand for those who love to min/max the economic play, it would create issues. Though to be honest, I honestly don't think games should be designed around extremes in play, or if they are.. it should be a setting option.

It is funny how a lot of these discussions could be solved with a few selective options in the games setup. Would be nice to see a company put as much attention into modularizing game mechanics in settings as they do in play. I think this would remedy a lot of issues between varying opinions on style of play.

[Acrux]

It is funny how a lot of these discussions could be solved with a few selective options in the games setup. Would be nice to see a company put as much attention into modularizing game mechanics in settings as they do in play. I think this would remedy a lot of issues between varying opinions on style of play.

InXile did a great job of this on the Bard's Tale Triology remaster. Not about stealing (thieves are marginally useful in these), but you can select Legacy options to either have game rules like those from the original releases, or zoomers can use options that reduce the XP needed for leveling, have a single inventory, etc.

[Tweed]

Don't get me wrong, I hated having to choose, but... its a basic component of life and play.

In most video games there isn't, so one willing to put up with the tedium does not have to pick and choose. That's why it's not a good balancing mechanic on its own.

Carrying out all the bars of gold from the Sierra Madre in a severed leg is what happens when you tell players they're on the clock and can't have something.

[Xenich]

It is funny how a lot of these discussions could be solved with a few selective options in the games setup. Would be nice to see a company put as much attention into modularizing game mechanics in settings as they do in play. I think this would remedy a lot of issues between varying opinions on style of play.

InXile did a great job of this on the Bard's Tale Triology remaster. Not about stealing (thieves are marginally useful in these), but you can select Legacy options to either have game rules like those from the original releases, or zoomers can use options that reduce the XP needed for leveling, have a single inventory, etc.

I would love to see this standardized and expanded upon in games being made. It might increase a little bit of development time with design and testing of systems, but once implemented it provides a lot of flexibility in game setup and could be adapted to future engines more easily. I know for myself, a granularized list of options as such would greatly improve my own experience (and make some games I skip over actually worth playing).

Don't get me wrong, I hated having to choose, but... its a basic component of life and play.

In most video games there isn't, so one willing to put up with the tedium does not have to pick and choose. That's why it's not a good balancing mechanic on its own.

Carrying out all the bars of gold from the Sierra Madre in a severed leg is what happens when you tell players they're on the clock and can't have something.

Which naturally ends up attracting the local wild life due to the smell of the wound.

[Norfleet]

Which naturally ends up attracting the local wild life due to the smell of the wound.

I am not sure rewarding the player with more combat XP and loot is the right answer to this.

[Xenich]

Which naturally ends up attracting the local wild life due to the smell of the wound.

I am not sure rewarding the player with more combat XP and loot is the right answer to this.

Who says they have to drop loot or even give enough exp to be viable?

[Norfleet]

That is the thing I dislike about the "Tedium" argument. I watched it over the years force out previous systems of depth in play (choice and consequence) which gated such behaviors be removed, creating more problems with other areas of balance, causing more systems to be removed until the games became bland.

Don't get me wrong, I hated having to choose, but... its a basic component of life and play. You can't always have your cake and eat it too. I guess that I am from the school that negatives can produce positive play mechanics.

I don't necessarily disagree with this, but I still maintain that it's bad as a balancing mechanism. There's a certain argument to be had against making things TOO convenient, but making things INCONVENIENT is NOT a good balancing mechanism. Inconvenience is a means of tuning the experience. NOT a means of balancing the game.

Who says they have to drop loot or even give enough exp to be viable?

Well, if your game has any survival elements, wildlife drops meat. If your game doesn't, then they're just a petty annoyance, meaning tedium. And you can't count on tedium to balance in the game. Also, in the specific example given, this would literally be a nonfactor because the severed leg is only used as far as the front door, which means anything the severed leg was going to attract was already going to be attracted anyway since the severed leg only moves, like, what, 20 meters?

[Xenich]

That is the thing I dislike about the "Tedium" argument. I watched it over the years force out previous systems of depth in play (choice and consequence) which gated such behaviors be removed, creating more problems with other areas of balance, causing more systems to be removed until the games became bland.

Don't get me wrong, I hated having to choose, but... its a basic component of life and play. You can't always have your cake and eat it too. I guess that I am from the school that negatives can produce positive play mechanics.

I don't necessarily disagree with this, but I still maintain that it's bad as a balancing mechanism. There's a certain argument to be had against making things TOO convenient, but making things INCONVENIENT is NOT a good balancing mechanism. Inconvenience is a means of tuning the experience. NOT a means of balancing the game.

Who says they have to drop loot or even give enough exp to be viable?

Well, if your game has any survival elements, wildlife drops meat. If your game doesn't, then they're just a petty annoyance, meaning tedium. And you can't count on tedium to balance in the game. Also, in the specific example given, this would literally be a nonfactor because the severed leg is only used as far as the front door, which means anything the severed leg was going to attract was already going to be attracted anyway since the severed leg only moves, like, what, 20 meters?

Well, I just disagree with balancing around excessive play as I said.

What about those who like that? That is, they enjoy the fact that if they grind grabbing every single piece of junk they can so they are able to overpower things a bit to make purchasing more comfortable? Are they wrong? Some could argue it is even a feature, a boring mundane one, but well... have you ever played an Asian MMO? Some people really like that.

[WhiteShark]

What about those who like that? That is, they enjoy the fact that if they grind grabbing every single piece of junk they can so they are able to overpower things a bit to make purchasing more comfortable? Are they wrong? Some could argue it is even a feature, a boring mundane one, but well... have you ever played an Asian MMO? Some people really like that.

Yes, they are wrong.

[Xenich]

What about those who like that? That is, they enjoy the fact that if they grind grabbing every single piece of junk they can so they are able to overpower things a bit to make purchasing more comfortable? Are they wrong? Some could argue it is even a feature, a boring mundane one, but well... have you ever played an Asian MMO? Some people really like that.

Yes, they are wrong.

Ok, so then I assume the people who think it is wrong don't do that then?

That would then leave the people who do it as being people who think it is wrong, but do it anyway and then complain the systems need to be changed because they purposefully play the game wrong to overpower it?

[WhiteShark]

That would then leave the people who do it as being people who think it is wrong, but do it anyway and then complain the systems need to be changed because they purposefully play the game wrong to overpower it?

The question was whether enjoying tedious grinding is wrong, and it is. The problem is that when tedium is used as a balancing tool, the dev has made the right (optimal) way to play the least enjoyable. Games should be designed to make the optimal playstyle fun, not miserable.

[Norfleet]

The optimal playstyle is never fun, because losing is fun. Winning involves the systematic extinguishment of fun.

[Xenich]

That would then leave the people who do it as being people who think it is wrong, but do it anyway and then complain the systems need to be changed because they purposefully play the game wrong to overpower it?

The question was whether enjoying tedious grinding is wrong, and it is. The problem is that when tedium is used as a balancing tool, the dev has made the right (optimal) way to play the least enjoyable. Games should be designed to make the optimal playstyle fun, not miserable.

I guess that is where we disagree then, I see some approaches to play while "technically" optimal, also excessive. I also don't like to restrict people if they choose to do it, but I also don't want to make it comfortable for that excessive play either. It should be a pain to min/max at that focus of play (buying everything you want without the need to choose), especially when doing such doesn't make the play more successful, it just makes it more ideal. I think the apex of balance should be a tad below optimal to give room, otherwise all play is forced to optimal to succeed and while that is a style of play some like (reloading encounters excessively because they keep getting wiped, or mechanics that are designed around lots of deaths because of the success requirement), I think that is something better reserved for the extreme difficulty settings, and so naturally this takes us back to the idea of settings configurations to balance for ideal play styles.

The optimal playstyle is never fun, because losing is fun. Winning involves the systematic extinguishment of fun.

Well, fun is subjective. I loved EQ, but many people hated it, said it was not fun because it was "tedious". Same was said about many of early WoWs game play, and so on.

While I completely disagree with them, for many reasons (some I touched on here), I wouldn't consider them wrong in what they want, rather they just have different styles of play. That is why I don't think these systems should be eliminated, rather there should be a focus on trying to provide a means to tailor ones experience.

[Oyster Sauce]

Ever since this thread was made I've been trying to think of the RPG that had the best implementation of thievery, and I've finally come to a conclusion I'm happy with: Runescape scamming

[Norfleet]

Ever since this thread was made I've been trying to think of the RPG that had the best implementation of thievery, and I've finally come to a conclusion I'm happy with: Runescape scamming

So, PvP.

[Tweed]

Ever since this thread was made I've been trying to think of the RPG that had the best implementation of thievery, and I've finally come to a conclusion I'm happy with: Runescape scamming

UO did it first.

[Norfleet]

MUDs had this well before UO. Robbing players was how you got top-tier gear in those days, because some helpful individual would compile the gear into a single suit, and all you had to do was rob him for it.

[Analogue Dreams]

The optimal playstyle is never fun, because losing is fun. Winning involves the systematic extinguishment of fun.

In theory losing should be fun in RPGs, but in practice there's very few games where it is, since for some reason players of single player RPGs hate losing more than the players of pretty much every other type of game. They hate losing, being punished, or having any real consequences to their choices, and they want to get everything and do everything and not miss out on anything, and since devs have trained players to think if they fail they will miss out at best while they cater to losers who hate losing, even players who can tolerate failure are nudged into the same way of thinking.

I can't think of many games where failure is its own fun. Especially recent games since gamers in general, not just of RPGs, are more loss averse than they ever were in the past, and that's saying something. Daggerfall is a game that does it well. Haven't had many better experiences than being new to that game, catching plagues and struggling to cure them in time, failing quests meanwhile, and getting lost in dungeons and everywhere else. Most who go back to play Daggerfall now probably miss that experience and look up guides and read everything on the internet ahead of time, then reload whenever anything goes wrong.

You need both game support for failure plus the right player mindset. Devs think players don't care to lose without understanding how they use reinforcement learning to worsen the problem. No wonder barely anything does crime systems like theft well.