Player character/party should be punished for making themselves walking targets

[DraQ]

First thing first, in order to have NPC thieves game needs a bit of asshole UI - player shouldn't be helpfully informed the moment he loses something from inventory, unless he willingly gives that item up.

The consequence of this would probably be a legion of casuals flooding the forums, claiming that the game is bugged, because their item disappeared. :D

Then make noticing automatic the moment player tries to equip/use hotkeyed item, tries to hand it over (for example to a quest giver) or enters any relevant barter interface.

You'd probably need the game to acknowledge it anyway in order to make tracking the thief down work - for example by letting you ask if anyone has seen an item matching description of your artifact.
So basically, getting your stuff stolen silently sets up a quest trigger that is tripped the next time you perform any of the relevant actions like described above.

The bottom line is don't let player know right after the fact, tell them after the thief has likely made his getaway and likely after they have already saved over so they can no longer render your crafty mechanics/procedural quest irrelevant by reloading.
The player should only notice theft right away if the thief botches the theft itself (meaning you start by effectively grabbing the guy by the hand and go from there) or snatches his prize but gets noticed in the process (we start with thief trying to make a getaway).
It might also be nice if killing the fucker outright could be considered excessive by the authorities or people witnessing it (depending on circumstances).
It always irked me how there was no meaningful reaction to, for example hacking that drunken fella in an inn to pieces in BG or cutting down that thief during the fair in Nashkel.

Anyway, the game should definitely react to player stuff like wealth (people asking for loans/donations, a distant relative pops up and asks you to fund his business...), fame (you get admirers and enemies, powerful people start to notice you...), gear (for every artifact, there are bound to be some people who want it bad, ranging from "Please sell it to me!" to assasination attemps) or any other assets (why confront the badass hero and risk getting killed when you can just rob his house? Living thieves aren't stupid. And you get a possible quest of tracking them down.)

There is a wealth of interesting quests that could be initiated this way, especially if their challenge rating is relative to what initiated them, making you think twice about what you can and cannot pull off.

Results in a nice feeling that you aren't the center of the universe and there are other/bigger things than you, something I'm sorely missing among the random-generated, level-scaled crap today.

The most ironic part here is that Bethesda is probably the closest company out there to actually trying to implement such stuff.

 

[laclongquan]

That's just scalie boy talking~

First thing: engine note that thief as hostile, regardless of successful of that action.

Second: if you set up autopause at appearance of hostile, you have a chance to catch it. If not, that bugger will be out of range for you to do any good.

Third: it teach you to always keep Detecting at max, and invested in that detection char.

 

[JarlFrank]

First thing: engine note that thief as hostile, regardless of successful of that action.

No. No, no, no.

When YOU are a master thief and steal a noblewoman's socks, panties and bra right off her body as she's wearing them, without being detected because your skill is over 9000, the engine will NOT switch you or her or anyone in the room to hostile: because it was an UNDETECTED action! This is the rule that applies to the player: if you are not detected, you get the item and nothing more happens. If you are detected, you either switch to hostile or a dialogue window confronting you as thief opens.

The very same rules that apply to the player should apply to NPCs, too.

Btw, I am not in favour of generic "thief steals your crap because lol he thief" events. I do fully approve of events like this firing due to pissing off powerful people who hire someone to rob your artifacts, possession of something powerful that someone else wants (and knows you got it), etc. Generic "lol I steal random item" is merely an annoyance that doesn't add much to the game and grows old very, very quickly, no matter if it's undetected by the player or switches to hostile right away.

 

[Norfleet]

Btw, I am not in favour of generic "thief steals your crap because lol he thief" events. I do fully approve of events like this firing due to pissing off powerful people who hire someone to rob your artifacts, possession of something powerful that someone else wants (and knows you got it), etc.

Well, you have to figure seamy places that the players often hang out in are full of random lowlife pickpockets, but it seems unlikely that they would manage to steal anything immensely valuable, especially not intentionally, and they certainly won't put up much, or any, of a fight, if noticed. Random street urchins don't put up a fight when confronted, they just run for it, or if they can't run because you've managed to grab them, they'll probably cough it up and try to get away without causing even more of a stir.

After all, they want to live to steal another day, not wind up in jail or be beaten to death.

 

[laclongquan]

I am of two minds about this:

If engine wont autochange status... that means we will have a flood of players complained their craps get stolen. This could lead to solution of a sort which is ransom your crap back from your familiar fence. because if it's gone for good the mod will get uninstalled in no time flat, or game get reloaded.

 

[Norfleet]

Well, just because it doesn't helpfully flag things Red and Blue for you doesn't mean you can't take action. I mean, whatever did people do in games before color was invented?

 

[DraQ]

First thing: engine note that thief as hostile, regardless of successful of that action.

No. No, no, no.

This.
lac', has Grampybone finally poked you in the brain or something?

If an NPC did something to the player undetected, player should not know this. Any design breaking this rule by actively notifying the player is failed design.

When YOU are a master thief and steal a noblewoman's socks, panties and bra right off her body as she's wearing them, without being detected because your skill is over 9000, the engine will NOT switch you or her or anyone in the room to hostile: because it was an UNDETECTED action! This is the rule that applies to the player: if you are not detected, you get the item and nothing more happens. If you are detected, you either switch to hostile or a dialogue window confronting you as thief opens.

The very same rules that apply to the player should apply to NPCs, too.

Also symmetry.
I once argued that symmetry is what separates true cRPGs from H&S.

Btw, I am not in favour of generic "thief steals your crap because lol he thief" events. I do fully approve of events like this firing due to pissing off powerful people who hire someone to rob your artifacts, possession of something powerful that someone else wants (and knows you got it), etc. Generic "lol I steal random item" is merely an annoyance that doesn't add much to the game and grows old very, very quickly, no matter if it's undetected by the player or switches to hostile right away.

Well, it has potential of being interesting, procedural questhook (not random item, though, something valuable), especially if it can drop on your lap while you're doing something else, complicating your quest and adding to the replay value (because it is random, after all). Having your crap stolen, especially an item that can't be easily replaced (or at all), is also a good way to push player out of their comfort zone, because they potentially have to do without something they have learned to rely on and cannot be sure when (or sometimes even if) the item will be reclaimed.

I am of two minds about this:

If engine wont autochange status... that means we will have a flood of players complained their craps get stolen.

That's good.
If players complain it means that you're doing something right. If your aim is to stave off all complaints you end up with this:

And we all know where it leads.

What you don't want is players mistaking feature for a bug, but that should be easy enough to prevent:
just give a notification/journal entry/quest "someone has stolen my %itemname, I probably should try to track the thief down" at the next barter window, when player tries to use this item from hotkey or when player opens inventory at relevant tab.

This could lead to solution of a sort which is ransom your crap back from your familiar fence. because if it's gone for good the mod will get uninstalled in no time flat, or game get reloaded.

Anything unique should usually be possible to track down (by the virtue of being unique) and reclaim. Might vary with non-unique crap.

As for reloading, it depends how much time passes between item disappearing and player noticing - which is another reason to keep player from noticing for as long as you can - otherwise your meticulously crafted inconveniencing mechanics/content is rendered irrelevant by being trivially avoidable.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

Then make noticing automatic the moment player tries to equip/use hotkeyed item, tries to hand it over (for example to a quest giver) or enters any relevant barter interface.

You'd probably need the game to acknowledge it anyway in order to make tracking the thief down work - for example by letting you ask if anyone has seen an item matching description of your artifact.
So basically, getting your stuff stolen silently sets up a quest trigger that is tripped the next time you perform any of the relevant actions like described above.

The bottom line is don't let player know right after the fact, tell them after the thief has likely made his getaway and likely after they have already saved over so they can no longer render your crafty mechanics/procedural quest irrelevant by reloading.
The player should only notice theft right away if the thief botches the theft itself (meaning you start by effectively grabbing the guy by the hand and go from there) or snatches his prize but gets noticed in the process (we start with thief trying to make a getaway).
It might also be nice if killing the fucker outright could be considered excessive by the authorities or people witnessing it (depending on circumstances).
It always irked me how there was no meaningful reaction to, for example hacking that drunken fella in an inn to pieces in BG or cutting down that thief during the fair in Nashkel.

Should work fine, if you let the player know on the next action that probably includes rummaging through his inventory, like bartering, resting, travel between map locations...

You'd probably need to mess with the theft difficulty too, as my Preciousss is going to be better secured than my healing potion No. #34. And stealing the artifact weapon the character is waving around should be (near) impossible.

And then design a few meaningful, non-extreme reactions if you catch/find the thief... and only apply all of this to valuable items, not petty theft... maybe thats why the devs don't bother to do this.


That BG thief pissed me off too. And then I met Noober.

The most ironic part here is that Bethesda is probably the closest company out there to actually trying to implement such stuff.

Kind of sad, that is. Bethesda "trying" may still end up worse than another company leaving it to the cleaning lady.

 

[DraQ]

Well, you have to figure seamy places that the players often hang out in are full of random lowlife pickpockets, but it seems unlikely that they would manage to steal anything immensely valuable, especially not intentionally, and they certainly won't put up much, or any, of a fight, if noticed. Random street urchins don't put up a fight when confronted, they just run for it, or if they can't run because you've managed to grab them, they'll probably cough it up and try to get away without causing even more of a stir.

After all, they want to live to steal another day, not wind up in jail or be beaten to death.

Indeed. And yet another reason to not autoflag them as hostile. Basically a thief confronted with a bunch of well armed guys is going to run away and, failing that, try hard to persuade them that he isn't worth killing or might be useful alive - which, generally involves giving up whatever they stole unless they are dead sure they can convince player it's a misunderstanding (if they aren't dead sure, the chances are they may soon be just dead, stuff like swallowing a valuable item is generally not recommended if you're held by a bunch of pissed of people who keep their sharp steel handy).

You'd probably need to mess with the theft difficulty too, as my Preciousss is going to be better secured than my healing potion No. #34. And stealing the artifact weapon the character is waving around should be (near) impossible.

That's what master thieves are for - theft that borders on ridiculous but isn't, strictly speaking, physically impossible.
Also, waving weapons around in NPC faces should be met with adverse reactions encouraging player to keep their weapons sheathed when not in use.

And then design a few meaningful, non-extreme reactions if you catch/find the thief... and only apply all of this to valuable items, not petty theft... maybe thats why the devs don't bother to do this.

Even seemingly unimportant shit like this is important as it reinforces the atmosphere.
Fiction co-created by the mechanics being meaningful and compatible with background/plot fiction is something many devs just don't seem to get (yeah, DraQ talks fucking "ludonarrative dissonance" of all things, deal with it).
They see their system design, flowcharts and all shit, but seem blissfully oblivious to stuff like why universal ammo may be bad, why killing 100s of random dudes in between plot points dealing with the protagonist's inability to come to terms with killing of an obvious enemy just doesn't work, or why is it better to weave fluff regarding usefulness of different gems for different enchantments into the game, than relying on "ruby is fire coz' it's red" or even worse having "fire gem", "lightning gem" and so forth.

The most ironic part here is that Bethesda is probably the closest company out there to actually trying to implement such stuff.

Kind of sad, that is. Bethesda "trying" may still end up worse than another company leaving it to the cleaning lady.

Except no other company has even the cleaning lady doing it.

 

[JarlFrank]

Basically, to get back to the general topic of this thread, what I would like to see more are scripted or semi-scripted reactions of the gameworld to certain things the player can achieve. A famous player getting invites from power-hungry nobles who might need his services, owning a powerful artifact and behaving in a way that makes this known to others attracting people who want that thing, etc. More consequences to the actions and achievements of the player, going so far that sometimes being discreet and not revealing everything about yourself is a lot better than letting everyone know who you are. Devs actually thinking about what could logically happen to an overleveled and over-equipped hero, and how to make the late game more interesting.

 

[MrMarbles]

Nice thread! Like some have hinted at, challenges from individuals or small groups wouldn't often make sense. But how about factions or armies?

In some fantasy settings (Steven Eriksons Malazan series etc.) powerful people often become rulers. If you're an adventurer and you choose to wear your Helm of Unlimited GodRape around town, those powerful people could start taking an interest (i.e. they always want the best gear for themselves). The leader of a Magehold could show up with a cabal to take your staff, or a warlord with a platoon or an army to take your new fancy armour. Most rpgs feature enough factions to not be too predictable.

Too few games throw challenges at you that can be truly impossible. It would be great to have a situation where you risk being swarmed by an ambush, and have to make a real choice as to whether you need to flee or not. If you flee, another cool mechanic would be the option to end the threat by remaining in hiding and then assassinating the faction leader.

 

[DraQ]

Basically, to get back to the general topic of this thread, what I would like to see more are scripted or semi-scripted reactions of the gameworld to certain things the player can achieve. A famous player getting invites from power-hungry nobles who might need his services, owning a powerful artifact and behaving in a way that makes this known to others attracting people who want that thing, etc.

Well, if it's, for example, a sword and you carry it equipped (not drawn, but reachable and ready to be drawn), or armor, or ring you're wearing people will notice it and spread the news through their daily gossip. If you're selling your loot, it might also get noticed.
An interesting, but limited and non-straightforward mechanics would be wrapping weapons you keep in inventory (not equipped) to protect them from prying eyes as well as elements, but making you unable to access them easily (forcing you to spend time not only accessing them in inventory, but also unwrapping them).

Basically each weapon carried by the player would be in one of 4 possible states (slots):
-drawn - automatically draws attention and affects NPC reactions by making them feel threatened.
-sheathed, but equipped - may randomly draw attention of any NPC in visual range triggering spread of rumours (if it's the kind of weapon that is rumors-worthy).
-stowed away - may only draw attention if the player is actively managing inventory (so at merchant, when getting a weapon repaired, when opening inventory for any reason) or when resting (having your baggage peeked into in an inn)
-stowed and wrapped - doesn't draw attention, but needs to be removed from this state if you want to do anything with it (which automatically draws attention, just like the inverse), if a thief is already coming after it specifically they will replace it with a dummy instead of straight out stealing it which the player will learn only after unwrapping.

Equipped and sheathed concealable weapons behave like stowed and wrapped in terms of drawing attention (so actually better than keeping them in inventory - one of small perks of otherwise inferior backup weapons like daggers - when designing a system it's good to consider incentives to having a dagger or something along its lines on your person regardless of build and other weapons).

The main caveat is that such mechanics might prove to just be busywork - still, it meshes well with all the legends involving artifacts kept secret by their wielders.

Other than that I'm always a proponent of using bare minimum scripting necessary. In this case just checking for player having the weapon and its visibility.

More consequences to the actions and achievements of the player, going so far that sometimes being discreet and not revealing everything about yourself is a lot better than letting everyone know who you are. Devs actually thinking about what could logically happen to an overleveled and over-equipped hero, and how to make the late game more interesting.