One of my annoyances with boxes, is the risk vs. the reward. Especially as you get to the more HLC style traps, the critical fail that could happen (if I understand the system right) is FAR more severe then suffering from the same type of fail in combat. I guess depending on how those locks that could be sold (also like the concept that perhaps eventually they could be included in the Crafting system [probably need to separately suggest to Kodius]) might make this whole thing nicer.


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"I think anything that forces you to do something no sane adventurer would do just in order to train is ridiculous."
DR-SOCHARIS

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Victory Over Lyras, on the 397th year and 156 days since the Victory of Lanival the Redeemer.

>> If you can give me some specific verbs, I can approach the idea of modifying them to look at your stealth, wounds, and agility to do stuff like that.

Definitely anything that changes your position (stand/sit/kneel/etc). Being able to activate some magical devices unseen would be amazing but maybe not in the Thief wheelhouse, idk.

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Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com

"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

The odds of NMUs getting a skill analog to arcana which uses a completely not-magic system to produce magic results are probably roughly specifically zero.

I'd like something like that. I'm just suggesting you not get your hopes up.

>* What skills are hard to train?

Nothing I think of offhand is HARD to train, but things have varying levels of annoyance.

Stealing is top of that list because of random guaranteed fail that doesn't care about your skilkl, warrants and arrests wasting your time, wasting your gweth charges, and wasting your coin to pay fines, having to wander the entire realms, and lastly, the 1 hour cooldown timer.

Followed by stealth because of difficulty of STAYING hidden and stealth caps vs critter's combats, though that's more a general combat issue than Thief specific. And Thieves already have Khri Dampen.

>* What do you do to train them currently?

Stealing: A big personal script to go around hiding, sneaking into a shop, steal 1-4 items I feel is the most challenging and teach the best, and move along. At ~400 ranks, I have to cover essentially the entirety of Zoluren from Crossing to Knife Clan to Leth to Kaerna and all places in between. Every now and then I go around by hand and check marks to see if I should change items and number of items, possibly add gotos to skip shops or comment shops back in to the chain. By far the biggest script I've ever made for the sake of a single skill and some incidental app/stealth training. When I lost it twice, destroying all my copies of it in less than a month because of FE corruption deleting my stored scripts, I put my Thief on the backburner for awhile, 6+ months.

Stealth: TBH I am too rusty to comment on it.

Thief Bonus systems: It's not a skill, but I basically ignore these entirely. I am not caught enough nor bin enough to have my Guild Reps change. I can't do anything about the Urban Bonus, I either have it or I don't. And Confidence is only trained by backstabbing and ambushing challenging levels of critters, which I basically don't fight enough often enough. Frankly, I just assume I'm running around at my baseline confidence level because nothing else I do, which is more than I do combat, changes confidence.

Binning: I don't bin because I don't see the point. So I MIGHT get reputation if the item hasn't gone cold, but the reputation doesn't do anything except offset negative rep. I'm not going to be lugging around thousands of stones of burden from a huge mass of random junk from 30-40 or so shops to bin.

Thievery: I don't think that anyone should EVER be caught on a trivial item when they have an empty suspicion pool in that shop (AKA, their first try). It's ludicrous to get a charge for stealing incense at 395 ranks. I'm fine with subsequent tries once there's some suspicion, even on trivial items, but it cuts into the utility of an occasional grab of convenience when I'm trying to grab a 1 silver item because I can do it quick without going to the bank and back.

Kaeta Airtag

"I have faith in the current crop of GMs to not screw people over"

>>Actually an opinion cannot be changed or corrected. Nice try back of line.-VERATHOR
>>But it can be wrong.-Starlear

I'd love to see the Disarm Harvest Easter Egg chance turned up a fair bit. It's been years since I grabbed a black cube or stoppered vial.

// Backstab
I personally don't really have a problem training backstab. It's caught up to my level now, but I still train it faster then some of the other things I have per level. I would like to see more things that are bipedal. Especially bipedal box droppers that are within city limits.

// Expanded Sleight of Hand
I would love to see more slips and tricks that would fall under slight of hand. As someone mentioned eariler, the ability to do small tricks with our small edged and crossbow weapons. Even super fluffy stuff like making a small show of palming an item for someone. Card tricks. I'm obviously going for more close-up magic tricks.

// Thievery
I can't wait to see what's in the works for this. Like I mentioned a while ago, I would love to see thievery expanded out to bi-peds at some point. Allowing us to work stealing in combat areas on critters the way we can work it on like the beggar.
As to a quick fix, most people have mentioned an exp boost. I think a level boost on items would be helpful in area's like Crossing. Working from cold to mindlocked, I can do it in about 30 minutes stealing from Hib to Shard. If I try that in Zol, it'll take me almost twice as long and I have to do the run from Leth all the way up to Haven. I can't lock myself in any one mainland city alone in one run.

//Contacts working outside of town
Please, thank you, we love you.

// Loss of unique crafts
I would like to throw in a quick vote for being able to get a bonus in tinkering instead of in carving. I feel like it makes far more sense considing locks and crossbows will be there.

// Locksmithing training
There are things like frostweavers that could stand to have their boxes upped. I'm sure there are a ton more things like that around.
Love the idea of making locks, I know that was something that was talked about years and years ago when people use to sit at the doors. Small crafted practice locks. I really wish that we could repurpose components into something also. It'd be neat to be able to build a small practice lock and then try to rebuild a trap in it. Disassemble/reassemble until you break the component.

~Niktika

I think the QoL might get hit for gweths and whatnot if I can construct a bribery system and get it approved, since by ~normal~ standards, that kind of item "wear and tear" is intended.

I've picked out a few projects from the threads so far that I've identified as things I'd really like to do, and a few other GMs are taking notice as well.

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NaOH+HI

I'd like to second that. Thanks to Naohhi, and the GMs who work silently in the background. Just being asked for input goes a long way, but knowing you're working on things goes further.

And I don't just mean that for thieves, I mean it for the Rangers and the races and the Paladins.

> Even at level 75 and 50 discipline I still fail to be able to put up the lowest level combination khri.

That seems wrong to me. My baby thief could put up a combination khri by level 25. Try sitting, hidden, in town or use delay. Same problem?

No that's standing but that's another point I'm getting at. Kill the sitting mechanic. It's a pain.

I just think the barbarian system is so much smoother.

You have some some valid complaints about the problems with Thieves, but you also seem to have some misinformation about some things.

>>Even at level 75 and 50 discipline I still fail to be able to put up the lowest level combination khri.\

Neither of these things have anything to do with how many khri you can start with a single command. That's purely based on your Inner Magic, and to be honest your magics are a bit on the low side for your circle compared to most people.

>>While I realize it is no big deal to put it up individually. I'm left asking myself how in the world will I ever activate spar in combat in the wilderness when I can't do secure in town.

It's going to take you ~350-400 ranks in IM (with high confidence) to start putting up combos while standing outside of urban areas.


>>I think the bonus system needs to be expanded to other things (player stealing, shop stealing etc.)

Our bonus/confidence already affects stealing, stealth, and backstabbing. This is what they originally did, and Khri was added to the system when 3.1 was released.


>> There is NO point to evasion moving fast for combats because you are too weak to move on to the next hunting tier due to slow moving shield. This is because 1) thieves lackluster toe to toe buffs that allow them to move up. Instead you wind up letting evasion move after the slow cap at a slow rate while you wait for everything else to catch up. Rangers and barbarians do not experience this problem at all.

Every guild except those two guilds suffers from the same problem. They are blessed with not having any defenses in a tert skillset, and it's why they are both generally considered the most combat focused guilds (with Paladins added on because their heavy focus on armor makes up for lack of evasion). These kind of differences is kind of the whole point of skillsets.


>> Here is another complaint. All of the useful combat khri are augmentation. So, you either choose to move all magic and gimp yourself or you just move augmentation.

This is a matter of opinion, though I can understand that lower tier Utility Khri may not be all that useful in PvE, but I find that the Utility Khri have a lot more interesting and useful abilities than the +skill/stat of the Augmentation Khri. It sounds like your real complaint is the concentration pool that Khri run on, and how limited it is below 300 max concentration. I get that and it sucks.

>>Debilitation has limited abilities and the duration is super short.

Prowess is a game changer for PvE and our Ambushes are very potent in PvP, the durations will improve with more skill. Again concentration fueling Khri does make it painful at the low levels.


>>Why in the world would I waste my time training lockpicking then? Skinning is easier to train, less time consuming, and more profitable overall.

I find this to be quite the opposite, but you might not be at a level where box payout starts to pick up. I earn much more from boxes than I do from skins/loose gems/coins at the higher levels. I will say that the Skinning skill is more useful, especially with crafting, than the Locksmithing skill is, but if you are talking about gaining wealth from critters then Locksmithing wins hands down. Getting just one super box (they're rare but range from 20-50 plat) and it will pay better than a full day of skinning.


>>Regardless, I regret not rolling a ranger. Basically because of the reason I just stated. Oh and they have a better set up having armor secondary.

I play a 150+ Thief and ~90th circle Ranger and I can understand your issues. Below 100th circle the Ranger is less painful to play and magic is more useful. Magic 3.2 is only going to make it that much easier on Rangers with magic, too. Beyond 100th I have to say that Thieves pull ahead and their magic becomes much more useful mainly because having enough concentration to use more than just 2-3 Khri at a time, the skill to get decent potency/durations, and not having to deal with sitting/kneeling/starting khri individually. Really, I enjoy the stealth system in DR and Thieves are much better with stealth than Rangers are.


>>Khri Hasten/Dampen suggestions.

Honestly I find these two to be the most useful khri we have. Your argument against Hasten could just as well as be used against raising Strength, but lowering RT overall is useful. I'm at a point where I don't have to worry about getting tired and Hasten lowering my RTs below the minimum is very nice and I use it in PvE and PvP all the time.

I don't really see a reason for Dampen to affect both armor hinderances. It's possible for Thieves to get their maneuvering hinderance down to insignificant with the right light armor on, and Dampen drops stealth hinderance to none. Being Armor tert I don't think it is really thematic for us to be better in armor than Armor secondaries. They can only get down to minimal maneuvering hinderance (one range below us) in light armor, and can't get anywhere close to us in stealth hinderance. Hell, Dampen even lowers my stealth hinderance down to just above none wearing a 4 armor setup. I think we're in a pretty good place with armor considering our skillset placement, but we could use other ways to make us tougher while out of hiding.

<<Getting just one super box (they're rare but range from 20-50 plat) and it will pay better than a full day of skinning.

And a super jackpot box can range from 150 to 250 plat, give or take. Got one in normal rock trolls worth ~200 plat including trader bonus.

I still stand by my original post.

My magic is low for my liking but certainly not low for my circle.

You need 185 inner magic for 75. I'm 100 past that.

My point still stands magic is geared toward high level players.

Also, the point of lagging behind because of tert shield. I realize other guilds have it worse combat wise. But they also have much stronger buffs.

Your point about hasten though is invalid. You are high level. For lowbies it's useless. Yet you are stuck using it for nearly ever to train utility. I can't activate sagacity standing in the wilderness yet and even if I did use it the duration is like 2 minutes.

Also, I'd rather kill the super box for a more steady payout. What's the difference realistically. But I think you guys may be right because I miscalculated the money gain because gems can be hard to quantify because I do mass sells.

Regardless I put emphasis on locks and train skinning for fun yet....

Locksmithing: 257 93% very rapt
Skinning: 325 33% clear

Also, the time consuming point. I do lockpicking for skill not for speed. Yes, I could pop through boxes super quick if I wanted to...I think all thieves can. But what was the point of me farming boxes if I don't get xp.

>> Can't you bring perception in line with the stealth caps for creatures?

That would be awful nice, huh?

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Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com

"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

Oh when I said expand bonus. I was referring to confidence.

The only thing I notice any noticable gains to confidence is from backstab. If it applies to stealing or stealth the effects are not noticeable.

>>Oh when I said expand bonus. I was referring to confidence.

I was, too.


>>The only thing I notice any noticable gains to confidence is from backstab. If it applies to stealing or stealth the effects are not noticeable.

The effects are very noticeable when comparing tanked vs. full confidence in a PvP environment. You won't see much difference in the levels between neutral and top-end on confidence but the boost is there.

>>I think he's talking about gaining confidence. As in stealing runs don't seem to raise it significantly, while backstabbing will bring it from neutral to max state fairly quickly.

If that's the case then that's a pretty valid complaint. Those actions should raise confidence more than they do (if they do at all).

>>...as stealth is capped ages before I have enough weapons to move up. I find I actually 'train' on one critter, and Backstab/hide on something bigger for boxes to keep stealths moving.

A tip: Use poach/snipe to extend the teaching caps for stealth. I've kept my Stealth locked with it well past when my Evasion has hit teaching caps. It really only exacerbates the problem in the long run, but it's useful for when you don't want to have to use two separate hunting grounds just for Stealth.

Just because you "like" it doesn't mean your damage output is improved.

You're damage output has not increased if your fatigue has drained quicker.

I'm not even going to respond to the comments on my IM, which basically equates to "train harder newb."

<300@75th is kinda low. My thief at 45th has 240 which is closer to average.

Not that sure about that. Unless the average just like to sit around a lot. Myself currently at 66 with most reqs besides skinning and outdoorsmanship for 70th has magics in the 220-250 range. I also have 11 weapons at 200+ and main survivals around 300's. I also have pretty decent skills in most other relevant skills that a thief would want in lores, such as tactics and mech. Since I've started the character I've pretty much had him doing everything and keeping it moving at all times. I like others just probably want to circle a little quicker and use those tdp's to compensate for some of the inadequacies of low disc for khri and reflex / stam for survivability.

Maybe that's not the average, but Its mostly straight up skill gain differences besides some of the time having to be spent out of combat doing random survivals like thievery and outdoors, with some mech.