Mechanic Revision - Pickpocketing

[Chrononaut]

There's an RPG currently in development called Underrail which uses a 'suspicion meter' for pickpocketing, every time you pickpocket an NPC his suspicion goes up, if it goes to a certain point combat begins. This kinda idea could easily be extended to a an entire vicinity like a town, so if stuff gets stolen in a small town all the local townsfolk all get more suspicious, so there's a result of the whole town turning on you (the thief).

[Kjaamor]

Stealth on the other hand really has no place in an isometric cRPG. Every cRPG I can think that offered it... I never once was able to use it. Namely because it's only really effective if your entire party can stealth. If they all can't stealth, then it can only be used to initiate encounters. Maybe I could see it being used to allow thieves to access certain levels or rooms that are guarded by monsters, in order to spring a trap on them or something, but that seems like an awfully niche function of the skill. Theives generally aren't good at initiating fights, since they get focus fire'd...

 

For all I personally don't tend to use stealth in isometric games, I can't agree that it is ineffective as a single character skill. The whole backstabbing mechanic, especially combined with fighter skills and/or invisibility, can be very powerful.

[Walsingham]

 

In the new XCOM game they have a mechanic that stops "save scumming" without saving the game each time.  

 

Save a game just before taking a shot at an alien and miss. No matter how many times you reload the game that shot will always miss. 

http://xcom.wikia.com/wiki/Random_vs_Seed_(XCOM:_Enemy_Unknown)

 

That's easy to implement by pre-generating a key for each possible action and Xor-ing that with a key generated for the game; the modified key is used to generate the random result, so that you always get the same outcome.

 

As rjshae says, this is very very simple. It's to do with saving the sequence of random number seeds along with everything else.

[jamoecw]

strategy games have had theft for quite some time, all you have to do is decouple the roll for getting caught and the roll for succeeding.  then change the auto hostile into a hidden reaction penalty.  if you succeed you can still piss off the guy, and him being a civilian and you an armed menace he may just inform the cops at a later date instead of jumping on your sword.  you may fail and he may be none the wiser.

 

as for the dialog stuff, just have the pickpocketing click bring up an option to do pick pocketing option for both dialog and for non dialog, and any other options/modifiers.  so if you choose dialog you have a greater chance of succeeding, but less chance of getting away without him realizing it.

 

then add feats that increase the range of items you can go after and then you have different variables to make pickpocketing more nebulous as far as consequences are concerned and then you won't know all the time whether or not you should reload.  you also increase the expense at getting ahold of massive quantities of cash and items (instead of it always being the cheap and easy way to finance yourself).  that way you have depth more natural consequences and little extra development resources being spent.

[Lephys]

Frankly, and this could be considered pretty poor form, I've done an awful lot of tldnr in this thread. The only reason I'm here is just to remind devs that while pickpocketing could evidently use a serious overhaul, there's a very good chance many of us would continue to ignore it. In any game where my hand hasn't been forced, I have never put a single point into that skill, and despite the passion of the thread's other contributors I feel I am hardly alone.

I believe the lacklusterness of pickpocketing in most existing games is specifically the point of this thread. Not, "Since pickpocketing is so great in existing games, we should overhaul it and make it even greater!"

 

You seem to be suggesting that only things that can benefit the least from improvements (things that are already oodles of fun) should be benefitted, and that anything that seems like it could use a lot of improvements isn't really worth improving because it probably inherently sucks. Seem...

[tajerio]

 

Frankly, and this could be considered pretty poor form, I've done an awful lot of tldnr in this thread. The only reason I'm here is just to remind devs that while pickpocketing could evidently use a serious overhaul, there's a very good chance many of us would continue to ignore it. In any game where my hand hasn't been forced, I have never put a single point into that skill, and despite the passion of the thread's other contributors I feel I am hardly alone.

I believe the lacklusterness of pickpocketing in most existing games is specifically the point of this thread. Not, "Since pickpocketing is so great in existing games, we should overhaul it and make it even greater!"

 

You seem to be suggesting that only things that can benefit the least from improvements (things that are already oodles of fun) should be benefitted, and that anything that seems like it could use a lot of improvements isn't really worth improving because it probably inherently sucks. Seem...

 

 

I think his point is more that even if pickpocketing can be tremendously improved, at its core it's still not a very interesting or fun mechanic for a cRPG--a point with which I agree.  So then, is it worth developer time and effort to try to improve pickpocketing, given the layers of complexity that would need to be added for pickpocketing to be enjoyable?  Or are they better off treating it like the very minor part of the game it is?

[Lephys]

Yeah, and that's a fair point, I suppose. It's just a bit strange. The OP suggests that pickpocketing in previous games has been far from interesting because it is lacking in what is needed to make it interesting. Then, Kjaamor disagrees, suggesting that pickpocketing, itself, is just lame, but backing this up with "previous games have not made it fun, so it's probably the case."

 

That's kind of like telling someone that bullet-proof armor probably won't do you any good when wandering through a war zone, because all the other people who've wandered through warzones without bullet-proof armor died to stray bullets. Or... building things out of wood just causes fire, because all the people who threw torches at the things they had built out of wood ended up with fires. *shrug*

 

I don't see how lacking oversimplified pickpocketing implementations provide us with any evidence that pickpocketing just can't be fun. If most games made combat so simple that it was no fun, would we be saying the same thing about it? Or would we think "You know, I bet this COULD be much more exciting than it is, if stuff had more than 1 hitpoint, and there were a variety of attacks."?

[tajerio]

I don't see how lacking oversimplified pickpocketing implementations provide us with any evidence that pickpocketing just can't be fun. 

 

I think you're probably right.  There's nothing absolute that prevents pickpocketing from being fun--I've just always thought that improving pickpocketing ought to be very low on the list of mechanic prioritization.

[Walsingham]

In lieu of a sensible reply, here's an awesome video about pickpocketing.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Yh1bRNhRpU

 

EDIT: Link didn't embed. It's Hey Ash Watcha Playin' - Skyrim.

Edited August 13, 2013 by Walsingham

[Walsingham]

 

*snip*

 

I actually think that's a bit more complicated than what I proposed. But yeah, I know my post up there was all over the place.

Let me try to sum up the most important points...

 

1. Decide whether to play it safe or take the risk.

2. If you play it safe, three options: Wait till you're better, use (quest-related*) distractions or only take the easy stuff.

(This is basically all that's related to "pickpocketing" as the crime, everything below should be part of the usual crime system.)

3. If you take the risk, prepare to run away and hide. [basic combat with the guards, only you try to run away from it]

4. If you run, don't let the guards knock you out or corner you in such a way that you can't run anymore.**

5. If you can hide, lay low for a while. [Not sure yet what "getting away" and "laying low" mean gameplay-wise]

6. If they do corner you, they'll put you in jail.

7. Once in jail I guess there can be several ways of making it interesting - a trial you can weasel yourself out of, escaping, whatever.

*snip*

 

 

You've described what goes through the player's head. but I'm not sure you've described what should be going through the engine.

 

Plus we've both left out 'Don't be recognised'. Or when you come back...

 

"Hey! Isn't that the douche who stole your pants?"

[Lephys]

I think you're probably right.  There's nothing absolute that prevents pickpocketing from being fun--I've just always thought that improving pickpocketing ought to be very low on the list of mechanic prioritization.

Well, I agree. But, before I even look at the priority list, I ask "was this implementation even worth the time and effort spent on it?"

 

I mean, using some of the examples already cited in this thread, if Pickpocketing draws from the same pool of points as the other skills, and all it lets you do is basically get more free money the more points you put into it (even if you're stealing items, if they're pretty much just useful to sell because keys and the like could always be obtained in other ways and/or bypassed), then why was that even in there? I mean, if you have 5 whole NPCs with all their own flavorful dialogue and animations and voices (for example), but all they do is ask you to fetch a few things, then give you money, wouldn't it have been easier to just put 5 more locked doors/chests/containers in the game, with that money within them?

 

So, yeah. I guess I'm looking at it from principle; Is it even worth "keeping the same," or should simply be either improved or removed? If it's in just so you can feel thiefy, I think it's already a waste of resources. If it's just as viable of an option for skill points as any other skill, then, yeah, at that point we can say "Hmmm... okay, improvement would be nice, but let's put it at the bottom of the list."

But, first you've got to decide whether or not it should even go on the list, in whatever spot.

 

 

Plus we've both left out 'Don't be recognised'. Or when you come back...

 

"Hey! Isn't that the douche who stole your pants?"

Haha... what if you could build up a pretty decent level of heat/suspicion in the area, and, to cool everything down, you just plant something easily noticeable on someone else, to make it look like they're the thief, so the locals would switch to "YAY, WE CAUGHT THE THIEF!" mode and lose their suspicion/worry?

 

Obviously you couldn't do it with pants.

 

"Wha- I wasn't wearing these a MOMENT ago! How in the...!!!"

Edited August 14, 2013 by Lephys

[Lephys]

Also, I believe that separating the perception aspect of knowing what someone is carrying and what they aren't from the Pickpocketing skill is one of the simplest things that can be done to improve the typical implementation. The whole "rummage through pockets as if a treasure chest" thing is not only silly because of the time element, but also because of the "how would you even know what is in this tiny pocket without actualy STEALING whatever's in that pocket and looking at it?"

 

As many have mentioned, that's kind of the whole factor with a literal cutpurse. You know that person's carrying a purse, filled with SOMEthing. So, you take it. It's a gamble. There's probably SOME money in there, but you don't know how much. Maybe they're a super stingy person who carries none. They may not catch you swiping the purse, but they're definitely going to notice their purse is missing, at some point in the near future.

 

Picking your mark should definitely be a separate aspect, reliant upon perception and research. Shadowrun, the PnP game, has an entire Concealment factor. It applies heavily in instances of getting weapons past security, but it could easily work for Pickpocketing. You get bonuses to concealment from things like cloaks/coats, and things inside containers/bags would not be able to be noticed. I dunno, you could have some kind of expertise element to Pickpocketing -- a kind of street knowledge/experience type thing -- so that you might be able to recognize whether or not a small pouch is carrying money, or gemstones, etc., based on the shapes. Or, maybe when you get good enough, you get access to some kind of "test" ability, to basically feel up a pouch to get an idea of what's in it. Or, maybe you have access to that early on, but it's quite risky, and as you get much more skilled at it, it's much less risky. Still, the least risky thing would be to just find out what that person carries around via word of mouth, etc. Or by stalking them, *shrug*.

 

I wouldn't want this to get TOO in-depth (i.e. the stalking), with you following people around for an hour to find out all the things they do, and what all they take with them when they leave their house, THEN going for a risky Pickpocket.

 

But, I think Pickpocketing could definitely be much more useful in utility than it is in most games, like for altering quests and the like. Steal a key, go unlock an outer gate, then put the key back on the guard's belt. The higher ups think he left it unlocked, so they fire him and hire a new guard. One that's either a member of your party, or an ally who's helping you. Now you have access to EVERYTHING that guard has keys to. Or, just more simple deception. You know a person's doing bad things, but you can't prove it. So you steal stuff from them to plant evidence. Boom. Now everyone believes you, and now they investigate that person further, and discover all the truths about them. OR, the "evil" kind, where someone's innocent, but it serves you for someone else to think they're guilty of something, so you frame them.

 

It's kind of like hacking in tech-savvy games. You can do a lot with pickpocketing/sleight-of-hand, beyond just boosting your funds/item pool, or more easily completing simple "get this thing from this person" quests, but most games leave it at that.

[Hormalakh]

another thing they can do is to make near-misses or mear-successes cost a defined resource, a la what they plan on doing with pick locks and the lockpick resource (if you're close to the win requirement, you'll use 10 lockpicks instead of 1 lock that you'd use if you rolled a win).

 

So for example, each character has a "thief reputation" resource. If you're going to pick the pockets, each mark will either cost no resource (easy marks) and more difficult marks will cost more resource (i.e. your thief reputation increases) until you hit a threshold at which you're marked as a thief in that community with its repercussions (guards attack you on site, you have to bribe officials, merchants won't talk to you). That way players have an understanding of how much they can risk with pick pockets and the punishments aren't too severe.

 

You can also hide the "thief reputation" resource counter and only notify the player at the end of the day (during camp/resting at an inn) so that unless the player pick pockets each individual and rests each evening, they won't have an exact idea of how much each mark cost them but have an idea of how nonchalantly they can pick the pockets of the citizenry out in town. It also helps with the rationalization of "certain citizens found out that you/someone stole from them and notified the proper authorities later" concept that some were concerned about.

 

you'd also have a way to reduce the reputation counter (maybe time is the only way to have the counter decrease?)

 

i think a mixture of the different ideas here would actually make for an interesting pickpocket mechanic. i'll have to say that i rarely use the pickpocket skill precisely because it's so easy to cheese it.

Edited August 14, 2013 by Hormalakh

[Kjaamor]

Yeah, and that's a fair point, I suppose. It's just a bit strange. The OP suggests that pickpocketing in previous games has been far from interesting because it is lacking in what is needed to make it interesting. Then, Kjaamor disagrees, suggesting that pickpocketing, itself, is just lame, but backing this up with "previous games have not made it fun, so it's probably the case."

 

The OP suggests that pickpocketing is, if nothing else, conceptually exciting. While I share his view that the implementation is lacklustre, is seems more likely than not that he still finds it interesting or else he wouldn't be power-levelling his thieves so. I was pointing out that I have never found it interesting or conceptually exciting, and that the passion of the OP and others does not necessarily reflect a majority feeling towards the skill.

 

I appreciate that there is a lot of text in this thread to read, Lephys, but it is disappointing to watch someone misunderstand my posts, reconstruct them, and then offer barely disguised criticism for points I am falsely said to have made.

[Lephys]

OP says (paraphrased): "I happen to subjectively value the idea of pickpocketing in games, but the implementation pretty much dampens it into being uninteresting in every game. I think maybe a game could NOT do that, and it would, indeed, be more than just a subjectively interesting concept, and would make for interesting and fun gameplay."

 

Then you say (not paraphrased): "In any game where my hand hasn't been forced, I have never put a single point into that skill, and despite the passion of the thread's other contributors I feel I am hardly alone."

 

I apologize for somehow drastically misinterpreting that as "No game has ever made Pickpocketing desirable, and I think many others feel the same way." Which is, conceptually, the exact same thing the OP said. Maybe if you had said something like "even games that didn't do it crappily, such as (example here), I still have never felt the desire to pursue Pickpocketing," that would've obviously expressed purely your subjective disinterest in the concept of Pickpocketing gameplay, in general.

 

I truly do apologize if my tendency to miss your intended meanings causes frustration, but it is not a voluntary thing. If I knew what you meant, then I would've reacted accordingly. My reaction to what you didn't mean, or suggestion that maybe you meant something different than what was said, is hardly criticism. I can sadly only suppose your intended meaning from the actual meaning of your words, and not the other way around. If I happen to be mistaken, then anything beyond simply correcting me is a rather unconstructive waste of effort.

[Kjaamor]

And you're still failing to understand my point, and still going ahead with your own personal setup that you have a contrary answer to. Also;

 

 

Then, Kjaamor disagrees, suggesting that pickpocketing, itself, is just lame, but backing this up with "previous games have not made it fun, so it's probably the case."

That's kind of like telling someone that bullet-proof armor probably won't do you any good when wandering through a war zone, because all the other people who've wandered through warzones without bullet-proof armor died to stray bullets. Or... building things out of wood just causes fire, because all the people who threw torches at the things they had built out of wood ended up with fires. *shrug*

I don't see how lacking oversimplified pickpocketing implementations provide us with any evidence that pickpocketing just can't be fun. If most games made combat so simple that it was no fun, would we be saying the same thing about it? Or would we think "You know, I bet this COULD be much more exciting than it is, if stuff had more than 1 hitpoint, and there were a variety of attacks."?

 

...if that is not criticism of a point (albeit one, despite your introduction, that I did not make), then I have missed a meeting.

 

At any rate, since any continuation of this might be suggestive of either a reasonable debate or spam, I'm leaving it there.

[Lephys]

And you're still failing to understand my point, and still going ahead with your own personal setup that you have a contrary answer to. Also;

 

Then, Kjaamor disagrees, suggesting that pickpocketing, itself, is just lame, but backing this up with "previous games have not made it fun, so it's probably the case."

 

That's kind of like telling someone that bullet-proof armor probably won't do you any good when wandering through a war zone, because all the other people who've wandered through warzones without bullet-proof armor died to stray bullets. Or... building things out of wood just causes fire, because all the people who threw torches at the things they had built out of wood ended up with fires. *shrug*

 

I don't see how lacking oversimplified pickpocketing implementations provide us with any evidence that pickpocketing just can't be fun. If most games made combat so simple that it was no fun, would we be saying the same thing about it? Or would we think "You know, I bet this COULD be much more exciting than it is, if stuff had more than 1 hitpoint, and there were a variety of attacks."?

 

...if that is not criticism of a point (albeit one, despite your introduction, that I did not make), then I have missed a meeting.

 

At any rate, since any continuation of this might be suggestive of either a reasonable debate or spam, I'm leaving it there.

 

If you say so. I won't say a continuation of this would be pointless, but this definitely wouldn't be the place to do it. It would yield only a personal understanding to either of us, unrelated to the topic at hand.

[moridin84]

I truly do apologize if my tendency to miss your intended meanings causes frustration, but it is not a voluntary thing. If I knew what you meant, then I would've reacted accordingly. My reaction to what you didn't mean, or suggestion that maybe you meant something different than what was said, is hardly criticism. I can sadly only suppose your intended meaning from the actual meaning of your words, and not the other way around. If I happen to be mistaken, then anything beyond simply correcting me is a rather unconstructive waste of effort.

[Lephys]

Speaking of perplexing faces...

 

What if a failure to pickpocket could result in not the discovery that you were, in fact, attempting to steal from someone, but a confrontation nonetheless? You know, "What ARE you touching me for?! Guards! Pervert!"?

 

Just a simple thing. A chance to either recover from your mistake, or suffer a temporary negative reputation in the area (now everyone's watching out for Mr. Grabby Hands, until they forget about it in a day or so). Or maybe failure to recover just leads to extra caution from that particular person, meaning stealing from them, now will either be impossible, or much trickier. It could still be temporary. I can't see "that rude guy who was possibly trying to grope me and at the very least quite rude" being something you burn into your memory for months to come. I would think if it were that serious, the guards would be sent after you, and you'd be thrown in prison. *shrug*

 

I just think maybe failure should matter within the lockpicking system, but not be so devastating as to prompt extreme outcomes for a simple skill use (almost as extreme as if you just blatantly stabbed someone or something) and/or encourage reloading and retrying umpteen times for every little person you'd like to pilfer from.

 

Maybe factored directly into the skill check is the fact that your character isn't going to knowingly cause a scene. Kind of like how you might send someone who can't swim to cross a river, and they might wade into it a bit, then stop when the water gets above their chest. For pickpocketing, this would result in "I obviously alerted them to my presence, but they don't know for sure I was stealing, because I didn't get that far" as the worst-case scenario. Again, resulting in some kind of modifier to your ability to pickpocket in that area, perhaps, but preventing overly extreme outcomes.

 

I mean, you know when you've bumped into someone or something. You're not just going to keep going. So, while it's still a bit of an abstract exaggeration for you to never actually full-on get caught, I don't think it's too much of a stretch.

[Silent Winter]

Just thinking out loud:

 

What might be fun is if different societies/settlements act differently,

e.g. - In a close-knit village, if you try to steal from one person (let's call him 'Bob') then everybody becomes alert (since Bob tells his mates) or comes to Bob's defence.

 - In a big and heartless city, it's only the one person, Bob, who becomes alert as everyone else ignores the situation 'nothing to do with me, I'm off')

Guards might be more effective in the city (better trained) and more likely to side with the local in the village (his mates).

[Protection]

I almost never pickpocket, because it's such a save'n'reload fest. I'd rather not do it at all.

 

I can understand leaving it in as is. But to get me fired up I'd want to be able to think tactically and improve or decrement my odds sensibly.

 

FWIIW I believe it would make much MUCH more sense to follow someone and wait for them to put stuff down than try and lift it off them. Or to con it off them.

 

I sort of feel this way as well, and that's not a good thing.

 

Pickpocket as a skill never seems to have enough utility in these sorts of games.  The juice is never worth the squeeze, except for like one specific NPC per game, and even then there's usually a dozen alternatives.

[Gavinfoxx]

If you could do the sorts of things in conversation that Apollo Robins does... that would be totally awesome.  Just talk people up, and as you do, lift things from them or move items around or whatever... that would be fantastic!

 

Hell, if you could flat out do one of those skits as an entertainment scene at some point in the game, it would be hilarious and awesome.

Edited August 24, 2013 by Gavinfoxx

[jamoecw]

Yeah, and that's a fair point, I suppose. It's just a bit strange. The OP suggests that pickpocketing in previous games has been far from interesting because it is lacking in what is needed to make it interesting. Then, Kjaamor disagrees, suggesting that pickpocketing, itself, is just lame, but backing this up with "previous games have not made it fun, so it's probably the case."

 

That's kind of like telling someone that bullet-proof armor probably won't do you any good when wandering through a war zone, because all the other people who've wandered through warzones without bullet-proof armor died to stray bullets. Or... building things out of wood just causes fire, because all the people who threw torches at the things they had built out of wood ended up with fires. *shrug*

 

bad examples, here's a better one:  more like if you watch other people stick their hands into fire and then getting burned, then you thinking that sticking your hands into fire will get you burned.  in other words past experiences lend weight to an outcome, without any sort of experience to the contrary results in a conclusion being drawn that prevents further experimentation.  if some random discussion talks about wrapping the hand in water soaked cloth, the person who has decided that hands always gets burned when sticking them into fire might just decide that it probably wouldn't work and thus not try it, while someone who was open to experimentation might be convinced with further discussion that the superior thermal qualities of oil might work better than water and try that under the assumption that it would work better than water.

[Lephys]

bad examples, here's a better one:  more like if you watch other people stick their hands into fire and then getting burned, then you thinking that sticking your hands into fire will get you burned.  in other words past experiences lend weight to an outcome, without any sort of experience to the contrary results in a conclusion being drawn that prevents further experimentation.

That example completely skirts the actual point of mine. Fire burns. If you touch it with bare flesh, it will burn your bare flesh. However, people being near fire don't necessarily stick their hands in fires. That is something you can intuitively know without any first-hand experience with fires. You are aware that you have direct control over your hands, and you know enough about fire to know it doesn't posses your mind and compel you to reach into it with your hands. Therefore, a good example would be "I knew of some people that built a fire, and then they reached into it and burned their hands. So, I think building fires just inherently results in burning your hands."

 

To put it simply, whether or not a gameplay mechanic is fun is dependent upon MUCH more than simply the fact that it was attempted in the first place. Successful implementation is not needed to reveal the sheer possibility of its existence, just as knowing someone who built a fire and DIDN'T burn their hands isn't needed to know that one can build and light a fire without burning their hands in it.

[jamoecw]

 

bad examples, here's a better one:  more like if you watch other people stick their hands into fire and then getting burned, then you thinking that sticking your hands into fire will get you burned.  in other words past experiences lend weight to an outcome, without any sort of experience to the contrary results in a conclusion being drawn that prevents further experimentation.

That example completely skirts the actual point of mine. Fire burns. If you touch it with bare flesh, it will burn your bare flesh. However, people being near fire don't necessarily stick their hands in fires. That is something you can intuitively know without any first-hand experience with fires. You are aware that you have direct control over your hands, and you know enough about fire to know it doesn't posses your mind and compel you to reach into it with your hands. Therefore, a good example would be "I knew of some people that built a fire, and then they reached into it and burned their hands. So, I think building fires just inherently results in burning your hands."

 

To put it simply, whether or not a gameplay mechanic is fun is dependent upon MUCH more than simply the fact that it was attempted in the first place. Successful implementation is not needed to reveal the sheer possibility of its existence, just as knowing someone who built a fire and DIDN'T burn their hands isn't needed to know that one can build and light a fire without burning their hands in it.

 

see you made the conclusion that reaching into fire = getting burnt.  which isn't necessarily the case, if done right you can reach into fire just fine without getting burnt, which is why it is a good example.  he has seen many the same result several times and thus assumes that the result is guaranteed, much like a lot of people and reaching into fire.  he then advocates that people shouldn't reach into fire because you will get burned, when the conversation is about reaching into fire without getting burned.  he is using his past experience to come to a conclusion about the subject matter at hand, not a related one (building the fire).

 

the bulletproof vest analogy has him stating that the bullet proof vest probably wouldn't work, because those who wandered through a war zone got shot.  he advocates not walking through the war zone, he thinks that a bullet proof vest is a good idea if one has to walk through the war zone, but why when you're probably going to get shot with or without the vest?

 

as for the wood=fire example, he never talks about people doing things wrong (throwing fire at wood), in fact he operates as if everything is operating as expected, so unless people are supposed to throw fire at the wood it is an unrelated analogy.  he mainly says that that aspect of the game doesn't seem balanced or fun, so while balancing it may work, it probably won't be worth it.

 

so while you can find a way to reach into fire to do something, it isn't guaranteed and so why not just get some tongs and then not have to spend all that time preparing to reach into the fire in the first place?

 

he hasn't disagreed with any of the suggestions, only that resources spent on them might not be the best use of resources.  i agree that most suggestions are resource heavy solutions, which is why i suggested looking towards other genres with similar issues with theft and using a low resource solution that has worked elsewhere and adapting it to this genre.  his judgement is sound, yet he has decided to avoid the problem and hopes it doesn't impact the areas he actually enjoys, instead of thinking of a solution or even taking the time to listen to some (which he admits isn't the most polite thing to do).

Edited August 28, 2013 by jamoecw