Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

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CNS
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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by CNS » Sat Oct 17, 2020 7:50 am

Its just a sucky experience. I've been robbed a bunch of times never had any positive RP experience from it.

But even if you leave clues (either forced or not) what then? I can kill bash the person that broke in (assuming they ever log in outside house breaking) and... what? I strongly believe the type of person that makes that kind of house breaker isn't the sort to suddenly offer some curtesy beyond what's mechanically enforced and gives you your stuff back once caught.

Fixture theft is also real and equally ridiculous. Often when robbed you don't REALLY care about the 20,000 gold value of whatever got taken, you care about the in world meaning of items and/or the time and effort and what your character went through to get them. Fixtures often very much go into that category of high personal meaning as well as time and effort to get the quarter looking how they want.

Also the amount of times someone has 'stealthily' stolen a 8ft high by 6ft wide bookcase and walked past numerous NPCs is ridiculous.

The only positive RP experience I've had with house breaking came from a character that I've recently learned (OOCLY) couldn't even break into houses. I think that says it all.

the grim yeeter
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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by the grim yeeter » Sat Oct 17, 2020 11:50 am

Scurvy Cur wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 5:23 pm
And yes, I'm entirely in favor of an environment in which looting quarters for items/fixtures is impossible. It remains, perplexingly, the one form of PvP in which no face-to-face interaction is required beforehand. I'm not sure why breaking into someone's quarter and removing their GP with no roleplay beyond leaving a note that says "haha thx for ur stuff" is ok, but breaking into someone's face and removing their HP with no roleplay beyond leaving a note that says "haha thx for ur skull" isn't.
This.

There is absolutely nothing good or fun about quarter-looting (or PvP thievery in general, really), and I have a hard time comprehending people who dislike combat PvP so much, but are in favour of thievery PvP, while the latter is, chiefly, more toxic and griefy, and principally yields significantly less (and often simply none) roleplay than the former. Perhaps these people prefer it because there is no chance of losing, whereas in combat PvP there is?

And I say this despite almost never having a quarter on any of my characters, nor have I noticed items of significant value suddenly missing from my inventory. I go mostly by the times I've been told by others during which it happened to them.

One of the few instances that I do recall where something had been stolen from my character's quarter, some standard, bland note (that the player would leave in every quarter that they stole from) was left behind, which gave me no other option than to go "ok", continue what I was doing, and be annoyed by the lack of creativity and the fact that I had to gather a stack of a few dozens of some cooking ingredient again.
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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by Scurvy Cur » Sat Oct 17, 2020 4:43 pm

GrumpyCat, thank you for posting.

While I'd like to engage with all of your comments soon, time's a little limited right now, so I'll engage with what I think is probably the most important.
The GrumpyCat wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 8:17 pm
4) It's generally not IC to activly leave clues ect to reveal who your character is, in the vast majority of thefts. In fact often it really /isn't/ IC to leave any 'clues' at all, especialy when linked to 3. Your jolly thief of Brandaboras might want to say, leave a riddle to reveal where he put Billy's golden statue of Sharess, but why would your Maskarran ever be interested in being caught? There's been a bit of critisism about this - people stealing items and not leaving any rp for it , and I do get it, but on the other hand - can you blame them?
I absolutely can blame them.

We routinely require people who engage in PvP activities to do things that do not make any IC sense at all/surrender an IC advantage, because it's just not fun for the other party otherwise.

1) Combat PvP - It makes no sense for any character who has already determined that they wish to engage in pvp to first interact with their target. The chance of losing goes way, way down if you just attack from stealth or invis without warning, and I'm pretty sure that every single character in existence knows that hostile interaction before the PvP is likely to put the opponent on guard and turn an effortless murder into a challenging fight. We've even decided that allowing guild assassins to attack their targets without first interactively roleplaying with them was a mistake, and have since implemented a requirement for hostile roleplay sometime in the 24h period before the attack takes place.

For example, imagine that you are playing a Banite who has just been ordered by his superiors to walk into a settlement and kill someone who has been blaspheming the faith. You know that the target is likely to flee or fight back if they are warned, but should be a pretty easy kill if you just go in hasted and attack from invis. You know further that escape of the target or defeat at their hands will be a failure, and your faith does not treat failure well. The fully IC thing for you to do is to attack without warning and with as little chance given to the other party to respond as possible. There is, furthermore, plenty of RP surrounding the attack (you've been ordered to go deal with a religious blasphemer, and have probably RPed a lot with your faction buddies on the topic); it's just not RP with the victim.

Yet, we do not allow this character to proceed with a wordless sneak attack, and for good reason. Instead, we require that they do something which makes no IC sense, but which we have determined is more likely to be fun/feel fair to all involved. They must interact first with their target. They must roleplay a little with them (and per recent DM team statements, the roleplay cannot be a banal "Hi how are you, nice weather today", but must instead convey some level of hostility) prior to the PvP. And if the character decides to "just do what is IC", we punish the player for breaking the rules. We do this because, over the long life of this server, we've decided that simply "be IC about your PvP" is not enough. It carries too much risk of PvP that, while it might make sense from a narrative standpoint, does not offer the target any roleplay beyond a quick trip to the fugue.

2) Exile - Similarly, it often does not make sense to deliver IC notice of exile to characters in a face-to-face fashion. Many times, exile is used to kick people with a violent history out of settlements, because it no longer makes sense for those settlements to allow those characters to remain. Like property eviction, however, delivering an exile in person both a) requires the sometimes-challenging task of personally tracking down an exile target, who may for reasons of timezone mismatch, intentional evasion, or simply the fact that they often roleplay in different places than those seeking to exile them, be difficult to reach; and b) carries a risk
that the character to be exiled will respond with violence.

From a purely IC standpoint, it makes little sense for a character to put themselves through the trouble or risk of finding a person they intend to exile to tell them to their face. The much safer and more ICly prudent response is simply to go to whichever settlement NPC handles exiles and implement the exile. We have determined, however, that this is a PvP action which requires interactive roleplay first, and that the interactive roleplay must be conducted by the person issuing the exile, must be in person, and must unambiguously mention the exile.

Why?

Because we've seen the following behavior from people delivering exiles:

a) Exile completely without roleplay.
b) Exile notification delivered through a powerful pvp intermediary who nonetheless is not the one administering the exile.
c) Exile notification delivered by speedy messenger/illusion messenger/goblin messenger

And we have determined that, no matter how much IC sense any of these approaches might make in any given exile situation, and no matter how much roleplay supports it on the part of the parties delivering the exile, it is unfair to and unfun for the target of the exile to be treated this way. And so we require people imposing an exile to do something that sometimes makes no IC sense

Example: Varith Fletcher was exiled multiple times from multiple settlements, often either with no interaction, or an interaction that did not mention exile even a bit. These settlements often had very good reason to do so, and very good reasons to avoid personally confronting him about it. It was fully IC for them simply to implement the exile without ever going near someone who very well might kill them over it. The DM team overturned multiple exiles imposed in this fashion, entirely regardless of the very good amount of IC sense that it made to impose them. Why? Because it deprived the exile target of roleplay.

3) Property Eviction - It likewise makes no IC sense for people to hold off on property eviction until face to face contact has been had. Once the decision has been reached to evict someone from city property, it makes full IC sense for the evicting party simply to proceed: the process of tracking down someone who may suspect that they are about to be evicted can be a challenging task, since they may do their best to make themselves hard to approach. Furthermore, since losing one's home/shop can be a serious blow to players for much the same reason as losing a prized item that they worked hard to obtain, property evictions sometimes lead to pvp and the death of the evictor. And sometimes the purpose of the eviction, IC, is to secure property for your friends and supporters; ICly, your character has no interest in being "fair" or "sportsmanlike" about the eviction.

Given the amount of effort that tracking down an evictee can sometimes take, and the danger that delivering notice in person can sometimes require, often the most sensible IC option is simply to release the property without any interaction at all. We don't allow this. Instead, we require that eviction notices be: a) accompanied by interactive roleplay; b) conducted in person; and c) made by the person actually making the eviction.

Why? Because at some point, people have decided that it was fully IC to:

a) Evict completely without roleplay.
b) Deliver eviction notice by speedy messenger/illusion messenger/goblin messenger
c) Have a subordinate without eviction powers, who may not be known to the eviction target "ambush" the target with notice.

So, no matter how much IC sense it makes for a character simply to evict without first providing some interactive roleplay to the target, we require a modicum of interactive roleplay in the first place.

The only exception to this requirement is when the DM team decides that a player is purposefully avoiding contact to make eviction as difficult as possible, and in this case the DM team handles the property release themselves.


You may ask why your Maskarran would risk getting caught. I would ask in turn why a Banite would risk failure or a Cyricist would risk defeat by letting their opponent know what is coming for them, or why the mayor who has been killed before by Varith Fletcher would risk dying again to exile him when he could just safely do so without interaction. It's generally not IC to interactively roleplay with the victim in those case either. The answer in all cases is: because we have decided that it is desirable to require such characters to surrender part of their advantage to facilitate more satisfying RP for their victims.

Why do we not have any such requirement for the burglar?

tl;dr summary: We have long since come to the determination that PvP action without interactive roleplay is not good because it is grossly unfair to and unfun for the victim, no matter how IC it is. Adequate guarantees that the victim gets something in the way of RP out of the interaction has been built into every pvp system we have.

Except quarter theft and pickpocketing.


CNS
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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by CNS » Sat Oct 17, 2020 5:52 pm

I'm it's current state a script that runs once a month and has a 5% chance or deleting 1 item in your chest is an improvement over the current state of things.

You get the same amount of interaction and lose less stuff.

strong yeet
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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by strong yeet » Sat Oct 17, 2020 8:48 pm

tl;dr summary: We have long since come to the determination that PvP action without interactive roleplay is not good because it is grossly unfair to and unfun for the victim, no matter how IC it is. Adequate guarantees that the victim gets something in the way of RP out of the interaction has been built into every pvp system we have.

Except quarter theft and pickpocketing.
Basically this.

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Scylon
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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by Scylon » Mon Oct 19, 2020 5:22 am

I see a lot of the discussion is around peoples homes. I think it's more an issue around dungeons. Its seriously baseline to take 1 open lock and 1 disable trap. You can gear the rest of it with no issues. I think the whole system needs to be redesigned to add value into putting actual points in it vs just slapping on items when the need arises. The only way to do that (especially in the dungeon space) is to rebuild how you acquire loot.

Add multi solutions to issues that don't just require a locksmith:-
So some loot needs a lockpicker, some requires strength, Some requires high intellect or wisdom etc. And you can't get everything (or even the best loot) with out 3 or more. This would promote people to form groups because you can't get past certain places without a mixed team. Also if you had some seriously awesome loot behind locks, high intel, wisdom, con etc etc etc

Remove the ability to gear for lockpicking/disable traps:-
Doing the above would completely change the idea of locks and dungeon progression in the game. Right now the gear is just so anyone and everyone can do content and get the chest at the end open. Sadly, lock pickers aren't always available and bashing isn't an option because the server destroys the loot if you do that. If loot could be obtained with a wisdom check for example behind door A, or strength in chest B it rewards people for playing a certain class without forcing them to carry a lockpicking and trap disarm set.

Tweak DCs to be more realistic:-
Across the board you would then want to make all DCs different numbers. Rewarding pure locking picking/trap disarming masters, however letting people who dabble still profit from it.

Regarding Player homes:-
Just make the chests unpickable and make the doors more realistic in DC. You could add "hot points" in the homes for them to use slight of hand. These points would just take gold directly from the players bank (can make the amounts based on players worth vs thieves skill). No items would be lost, the thieves would get something and you could even add an anti theft system or REAL use of traps. So if you die on a trap in my house, well that is the risk you run braking in there.

Finding Thieves:-
You would need a Crime point/detect system. So if you break into a home AND steal something you would leave something like tracks. The reason it is based on the fact you stole something is because just breaking in for RP purposes (spying) would be metaed bad if it instantly left something saying you were/are in there).
So the system would be the thieves skills vs a detection heavy character. so the more you do it, the more clues that build up till eventually details start coming out. Size, Race, Class etc all leading up to eventually your name. Could add that to some crime metric the sticks with the player till they are captured or what not. Not sure from that point on.

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-XXX-
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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by -XXX- » Mon Oct 19, 2020 10:48 am

Eh, quarter robbing is a headache inducing issue. It's probably a good habit to store all valuable property in the bank and only ever use the quarter storage for disposable items.
:arrow: as outlined by Scurvy Cur, it seems to be exempt from the usual rules and/or social contract often associated with other forms of PvP activities.
:arrow: even in the exceptionally rare instance of the thieves being identified and found, there's no way of making them return the stolen property.

At this point, the only retort that the victim of a quarter robbery has is to file a DM report in the odd case that rules were actually broken in the process, but in either case the stolen items are gone forever.

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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by The GrumpyCat » Mon Oct 19, 2020 10:54 am

Here's an interesting theoretical question - and I'd be very, very, very much appreciative if people who would like to sort of play this concept, and see quarter stealing happening more often - would be honest in their responses here...

If the above to points - thieves being impossible to track down, and items being very difficult to return - were not true, would do you still think you'd be eager to do it?

Pulling a random example out of my head. Let's say that with an -investigate roll, someone with high spot could tell exactly (knew the name of) the person who had stolen the item, and then with say uh... the 'Billy Club' item, could use it to bop said thief and retrieve the item, would you be ok with that?

Would that mean you just wouldn't do it?

Would you take as many steps as possible to avoid t his happening? (Maxing out bluff to the extreme, and putting stolen items in citizen storage for example.)
This too shall pass.

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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by Seven Sons of Sin » Tue Oct 20, 2020 4:13 am

In a world of timezones, RL commitments, and juggling playing schedules -

I really sometimes ask: are there just types of roleplay that are not conducive to a persistent-world, multiplayer environment?

I would say "yes."

I think theft falls into that.

Even if you can -investigate, even if the other person drops clues, even if their is benevolence all around, you might just never ever see them again. They might have to go on a vacation. You might have to play more erratically.

Theft roleplay requires a prolonged conflict to find any kind of resolution (whether the victim regains their stolen goods, or the thief escapes/eludes). This isn't good or ideal.

Theft imho should be restricted to only on-person items. This mandates interaction, and means any outcome at least had a shared experience.
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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by Hinty » Tue Oct 20, 2020 5:15 am

I think maybe a slightly, and I really do mean slightly, better option might be to remove the ability to steal from quarters, and perhaps put some NPC houses into the game that can be broken into.

As things stand there is almost 0 capability for thievery RP outside of pick pocketing (which almost always results in you getting killed if spotted) or the affor mentioned quarter robbery.

A few houses with a chest or two in with some gold, maybe some hostile house guards for more upmarket houses.

Sure, a character with high skills will be able to farm them for free gold, but it at least gives thieves SOMETHING to do.

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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by Chomper173 » Tue Oct 20, 2020 10:34 pm

I dont see what the issue is with just locking the chests, make the doors be easier to open. This makes quarters less of the impossible fortress they are now (literally, 99% of pcs cant break in, and you can ward your quarters and its 100% safe from any spying) -

There is a server rule against using discord and other out of game means to communicate because it shuts down the opportunity (even if its rare) for people to spy or come across your plots and plans IG.

Quarters effectively provide an ingame discord to plot. The .00001% chance that someone can get into them in the first place is also effectively meaningless because any player whos really concerned about their plotting being heard not only will have the area warded, they will also true seeing sweep their house.

Peoples concern is the fixtures. Theres a rule about fixtures and breaking them already. If the concern is that theres going to be players going in and griefing peoples fixtures, let them - this just would put a big shiny spotlight on the kind of rule breaking player that probably isn't wanted on this server to begin with. Consider it as putting down a mouse trap with bait to catch the mice.

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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by Nitro » Wed Oct 21, 2020 7:38 am

Taking one fixture per day isn't a rulebreak in the current rules, and often it only takes one for it to suck really badly. Someone breaks in once and steals a messageboard that represents dozens of hours of ingame work to assemble, a fixture made over 100 IG years ago by someone famous, that big statue you were working all night on and so on.

That still sucks, a lot.

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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by Chomper173 » Wed Oct 21, 2020 8:22 am

If you're sitting on a 100 IG year old fixture in your house it might as well be smashed anyways - you're doing a disservice to the 99% of the player base by hiding it away in your house where the vast majority of players will never get to experience it for your own personal ego because you snagged it.

Quite frankly if people are really hoarding 100 ig year old fixtures, this is a great reason to make houses easier to get into to begin with. Because such objects could have IG knowledge and or have good value to sell in a thieves black market.

We as players are not entitled to keep these things without risk indefinitely in a safe house. For you to even of gotten such a thing in the first place means you took advantage of the rule regarding fixtures to steal and move someone else's creation. Its absurd to propose just because you put it in your house you have a greater right to it and that it shouldn't be subject to the same rules as anyone else's placeables.

A message board makes perfect sense to be stolen because it represents written down IG plotting. It has already been expressed by the rules that the team wants plotting done IG on the off chance that it can be discovered IG.

As far as a statue you worked on goes, I'll give that that "sucks" but so does losing a pvp. This is a server that sometimes bad things happen, and it doesn't seem to be the intent that housing is to he an untouchable safe space or there wouldn't even be the ability to break in to begin with. Its not like it can't already be done and your fixture destroyed, its that to do so requires time investment in a meme build.

Housing as it is seems already constantly "trolled" anyways, as tons or pcs who are rarely online hold homes and seem to only log in to refresh them, even if they aren't active thus denying them from availability from active pcs.

Maybe I'm wrong, but from what I can gather, housing is a privledge that you can get lucky with and enjoy. It can be forcibly taken away via in game mechanics such as exile. It does not seem that the design intent is to have an impenetrable fortress that is a right, not a privledge, available.

Outside of these very obscure scenarios, the rule could be amended to fixtures in owned homes are off limits period.

Either way this shouldn't be a major impediment to essentially keeping spying in homes as impossible as if ig meetings were held on discord.

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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by ReverentBlade » Wed Oct 21, 2020 9:11 am

Your above points would have merit if there were ways to investigate housebreaks and guarantee fair turnabout. There are not. Your entire premise that "everything should have risk" is utterly invalidated.

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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by Nitro » Wed Oct 21, 2020 9:21 am

Chomper173 wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 8:22 am
If you're sitting on a 100 IG year old fixture in your house it might as well be smashed anyways - you're doing a disservice to the 99% of the player base by hiding it away in your house where the vast majority of players will never get to experience it for your own personal ego because you snagged it.

Quite frankly if people are really hoarding 100 ig year old fixtures, this is a great reason to make houses easier to get into to begin with. Because such objects could have IG knowledge and or have good value to sell in a thieves black market.
Firstly. Something being in a private location doesn't mean it's not being used for RP, there's plenty of such fixtures in various quarters and guildhouses that create a great deal of RP for the groups in control of those places and the people they invite in there.

Scondly. The reason these are often kept in private places are because if you leave them out anywhere public they will be wordlessly stolen by a thief that's impossible to identify, often to never be seen again.

Having quarters more easily broken into just means that you're cutting out what RP could be gotten from these items by storing them in a chest to prevent their inevitable theft.
As far as a statue you worked on goes, I'll give that that "sucks" but so does losing a pvp. This is a server that sometimes bad things happen, and it doesn't seem to be the intent that housing is to he an untouchable safe space or there wouldn't even be the ability to break in to begin with. Its not like it can't already be done and your fixture destroyed, its that to do so requires time investment in a meme build.
It's a matter of proportional loss and effort. If you upon losing PvP also lost say 5 items from your inventory to your attacker completely at random, then it would be the equivalent "loss" from having someone taking your stuff from your quarter. And the meme investment means that while it is possible, it's a rarity that requires significant sacrifice from those that do it.
We as players are not entitled to keep these things without risk indefinitely in a safe house. For you to even of gotten such a thing in the first place means you took advantage of the rule regarding fixtures to steal and move someone else's creation. Its absurd to propose just because you put it in your house you have a greater right to it and that it shouldn't be subject to the same rules as anyone else's placeables.
Ok, I guess things like trading for fixtures, auctions or inheriting them with a quarter isn't a thing. Must have been stolen if I got my hands on it.
Outside of these very obscure scenarios, the rule could be amended to fixtures in owned homes are off limits period.
This is about the only part of your post I do agree with. If fixtures in quarters were safe from stealing and chests had a higher DC I think lowering the DC's for quarters would be interesting for espionage and snooping.

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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by The GrumpyCat » Wed Oct 21, 2020 11:04 am

Just a small reminder of Fixturs vs Items stealing

You are only allowed to steal one item per player per OOC day.

You are only allowed to destroy/ steal ONE fixture per day.

Now the second rule we've loosend up a bit of late, as most bashed fixtures can be reparied. And also because, unlike the first rule, there's a lot more flexability about it. IF someone decides to destroy three fixtures from an abandoned camp and no one cares well... no one cares!

But my point really, is this.

If someone could break into a quarter and access chests, they could steal as many items as there are quarters to break into (e.g. they break into five quarters they can steal five items, one from each quarter)

If someone could break into a quarter and steal fixtures, they can still only, by the rules, steal ONE fixture per OOC day.

So oddly enough I think the damage is far less.

And I'm still not convinced about the argument anyway. Yes for mass fixture losses that'd be awful. But for one offs, even rare fixtures? I get it could be frustrating for the owner, but it could be really cool for the thief.
This too shall pass.

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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by ReverentBlade » Wed Oct 21, 2020 12:07 pm

The GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 11:04 am
But for one offs, even rare fixtures? I get it could be frustrating for the owner, but it could be really cool for the thief.
I know that fixture theft is supposedly logged by the databases. I would love to see some actual research done, using the data, about what happens to those stolen fixtures. I'd put doughnuts on the vast majority of them getting renamed and resdescribed to whatever the new owner wants, rather than preserved for any RP.

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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by Chomper173 » Wed Oct 21, 2020 12:46 pm

ReverentBlade wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 9:11 am
Your above points would have merit if there were ways to investigate housebreaks and guarantee fair turnabout. There are not. Your entire premise that "everything should have risk" is utterly invalidated.

In the future you might want to cite some sources on your opinion before throwing around terms like "utterly invalidated" it comes across very awkward.

there exists ways to open the doors right now if players want to meme and spend the time making the builds.

So not only should everything have risk, including nigh impenetrable houses, but they already do have risk associated with them. Its just small enough that you haven't been negatively effected by it.

And regarding fixtures, the rules clearly express that they are intended to have risk associated with them, given the fact were allowed to the limited bashing and stealing of them.

Just because you stick something into your house (which is a privledge its not even something you're entitled to have) doesn't mean you and your fixtures are suddenly exempt from the rules.

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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by Chomper173 » Wed Oct 21, 2020 12:53 pm

Nitro wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 9:21 am
Chomper173 wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 8:22 am
If you're sitting on a 100 IG year old fixture in your house it might as well be smashed anyways - you're doing a disservice to the 99% of the player base by hiding it away in your house where the vast majority of players will never get to experience it for your own personal ego because you snagged it.

Quite frankly if people are really hoarding 100 ig year old fixtures, this is a great reason to make houses easier to get into to begin with. Because such objects could have IG knowledge and or have good value to sell in a thieves black market.
Firstly. Something being in a private location doesn't mean it's not being used for RP, there's plenty of such fixtures in various quarters and guildhouses that create a great deal of RP for the groups in control of those places and the people they invite in there.

Scondly. The reason these are often kept in private places are because if you leave them out anywhere public they will be wordlessly stolen by a thief that's impossible to identify, often to never be seen again.

Having quarters more easily broken into just means that you're cutting out what RP could be gotten from these items by storing them in a chest to prevent their inevitable theft.
As far as a statue you worked on goes, I'll give that that "sucks" but so does losing a pvp. This is a server that sometimes bad things happen, and it doesn't seem to be the intent that housing is to he an untouchable safe space or there wouldn't even be the ability to break in to begin with. Its not like it can't already be done and your fixture destroyed, its that to do so requires time investment in a meme build.
It's a matter of proportional loss and effort. If you upon losing PvP also lost say 5 items from your inventory to your attacker completely at random, then it would be the equivalent "loss" from having someone taking your stuff from your quarter. And the meme investment means that while it is possible, it's a rarity that requires significant sacrifice from those that do it.
We as players are not entitled to keep these things without risk indefinitely in a safe house. For you to even of gotten such a thing in the first place means you took advantage of the rule regarding fixtures to steal and move someone else's creation. Its absurd to propose just because you put it in your house you have a greater right to it and that it shouldn't be subject to the same rules as anyone else's placeables.
Ok, I guess things like trading for fixtures, auctions or inheriting them with a quarter isn't a thing. Must have been stolen if I got my hands on it.
Outside of these very obscure scenarios, the rule could be amended to fixtures in owned homes are off limits period.
This is about the only part of your post I do agree with. If fixtures in quarters were safe from stealing and chests had a higher DC I think lowering the DC's for quarters would be interesting for espionage and snooping.

Theres at times over 400 people on arelith in game and it has something like 6000 players. Even if you're actively using the fixture to RP in your home (which is great), the vast majority of the playerbase is having no interaction with it.

As far as getting the fixture goes, ok, yea, you could of bought it from an auction or traded for it. Honestly didnt even think of this as something cause I've not seen anyone doing that. But how you acquired it and putting it in your house still doesn't change the fact that its subject to the same fixture rules as any other fixture.

Its allowed to be stolen. Its allowed to be bashed. Within the rules. And just because you own a house (which tons of arelith pcs do not) doesn't give your fixtures some ooc right to be exempt.

Infact the above things can already happen. You just haven't been effected by it cause its rare.

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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by The GrumpyCat » Wed Oct 21, 2020 2:15 pm

ReverentBlade wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 12:07 pm
The GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 11:04 am
But for one offs, even rare fixtures? I get it could be frustrating for the owner, but it could be really cool for the thief.
I know that fixture theft is supposedly logged by the databases. I would love to see some actual research done, using the data, about what happens to those stolen fixtures. I'd put doughnuts on the vast majority of them getting renamed and resdescribed to whatever the new owner wants, rather than preserved for any RP.
Probably a lot. But here's another question - how much fixture move that people care about?

Stories about really cared for fixtures being removed bashed do happen definatly, but they don't seem /that/ common.

I'd say 90% of fixtures are things that players don't really care about. That would be an inconveience to be loss, but nothing much more.

Keep in mind the following points
1) Most fixtures people don't really care about
2) There would still presumably be a decent lock dc on the door. Just one that is bypassable to a focussed thief, rather than someone who's literally had to use every single aspect of gear/equipment to make this concept occur some of the time. This is still however, a smallish populace of the server.
3) Each person would be able to take/destroy only ONE fixture. Not one per pers. One per OOC day. Period.
4) Citizen storage exists. So if you're desperate to save your precious Fixture, you can keep it in there.
5) Likewise the chest

Yes, this could be abused. Yes we'd have to be a lot more careful about keeping up the fixture rules. But I do think that over all it's a good idea and could make interesting story.
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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by Drowboy » Wed Oct 21, 2020 2:30 pm

I disagree. It would make for an as-interesting story as any other bit of non-interactove thievery, that is: not.
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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by the grim yeeter » Wed Oct 21, 2020 3:31 pm

Drowboy wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 2:30 pm
I disagree. It would make for an as-interesting story as any other bit of non-interactove thievery, that is: not.
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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by Scurvy Cur » Wed Oct 21, 2020 3:33 pm

Hard concur with drowboy.

I'm on record as saying that I fully support making quarters easier to break into for spying/pvp purposes, but that it would have to go hand in hand with a complete nixing of fixture and chest theft.

I also think you're forgetting something, Grumpy.
The GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 11:04 am
If someone could break into a quarter and access chests, they could steal as many items as there are quarters to break into (e.g. they break into five quarters they can steal five items, one from each quarter)

If someone could break into a quarter and steal fixtures, they can still only, by the rules, steal ONE fixture per OOC day.

So oddly enough I think the damage is far less.
You're looking at it from the standpoint of "What does the thief gain?", not "what does the victim lose?", so it's not surprising that you've misdiagnosed. What grates about quarter theft is not so much that a thief can get MEGA STUFF by taking 1 item from each quarter in a city, it's that the victim has up to 1 item per day vanish with no RP. Put another way, what sucks about the system is how it treats the victim, not how it rewards the thief.

This is, therefore, a meaningless distinction, unless we change something about the rules required for roleplay both beforehand and after the theft. There's neither risk nor chance involved with the first break-in, nor will there be any risk involved with subsequent break-ins. If you can get in once, you can get in as often as you'd like. The only real difference is that instead of 20 fixtures vanishing all at once, they'll vanish 1 per day over 20 days (unless you go ahead and put the ones you care about in settlement storage).

I'm not really any happier with being griefed slowly than I am being griefed all at once, and the amount of interactive roleplay that has been done with me is the same (0, for those of you keeping score).

To bring up a parallel, this is kind of like saying "It's ok to pvp with no roleplay, because it can only be done per 24h." It's is obviously absurd in that context, and equally absurd in this one.

And this brings up a second point:
The GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 2:15 pm
4) Citizen storage exists. So if you're desperate to save your precious Fixture, you can keep it in there.
This is not helpful. The point of fixtures is for them to be viewable and present in the IG world, for a player's enjoyment and that of guests/visitors/etc. If you're putting your fixtures into storage to "keep them safe", you really may as well not have them at all.

Basically you're suggesting "If you don't like having your nice things taken, you can try not having nice things". Which is a little dubious, at best.

Finally:
The GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 11:04 am
And I'm still not convinced about the argument anyway. Yes for mass fixture losses that'd be awful. But for one offs, even rare fixtures? I get it could be frustrating for the owner, but it could be really cool for the thief.
As has been explained at length in this thread "It could be cool for the thief" is not really a compelling argument in favor. The issue with the theft system is not that it's currently insufficiently cool for a thief, it's that it too often really miserable for the victim in ways that are quite unfair. It leaves the victim with no roleplay, no clues to follow and (as Seven has aptly explained), even if there is roleplay and some sort of clue to follow, there's often no recourse to get your stuff back, it's just gone.

If I'm getting my stuff jacked while I'm offline or not actively in my quarter, I've basically been treated like an NPC. At that point, I'm not really inclined to be all that concerned about how cool it has been for the thief, since the thief has shown no sign of being concerned about how cool the experience has been for me. In fact, I'm probably sort of hoping that the thief had as little fun as I did.

We would not smile on RPless killbashing because "it could be really cool for the attacker". The same logic applies to this sort of pvp as well.

tl;dr: I don't see a good way to dress up our current iteration of house theft. Until we address the core problems of: 1) victim gets no RP beforehand and usually little to no RP afterwards; 2) thief subjects themselves to zero risk during the breakin; and 3) victim has no real way to respond/get back at the thief/get the stolen items back, it will remain the worst pvp feature on the server. None of the proposed caveats and solution deal at all with these problems.


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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by Chomper173 » Wed Oct 21, 2020 4:15 pm

You're looking at it from the standpoint of "What does the thief gain?", not "what does the victim lose?", so it's not surprising that you've misdiagnosed. What grates about quarter theft is not so much that a thief can get MEGA STUFF by taking 1 item from each quarter in a city, it's that the victim has up to 1 item per day vanish with no RP. Put another way, what sucks about the system is how it treats the victim, not how it rewards the thief.

The issue with this line of thinking is you're examining the situation through the lens of owning a house.

House ownership is not a right, its a privledge. Tons of players do not own quarters. Buying a quarter does not suddenly make you and your fixtures exempt from the rules the rest of the player base, who don't own a house, have to play by.

You buying a quarter does not mean you are exempt from an RP encounter with a theif anymore than someone who puts down a tent and cooking pot in the woods.

It seems like people don't understand that fixture theft from homes is already in the game. It can be done. Id argue it can even be done without Gimping yourself mechanically.

What the anti-break in argument seems to be asking for is for a rule exemption/change for home owners only.

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Re: Is Open Lock/Disable Trap basically redundant? Or am I mistaken

Post by Inordinate » Wed Oct 21, 2020 4:37 pm

Chomper173 wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 4:15 pm
What the anti-break in argument seems to be asking for is for a rule exemption/change for home owners only.
The rules/guidance surrounding fixtures are no different inside of quarters or in the public space. Quarters just define a boundary of who explicitly controls the fixtures and thus directly ties who the RP should be directed towards when interacting/stealing/bashing a fixture - at least that is what I would assume based on how things are usually handled on Arelith. Welcome to be corrected there.
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