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Posts
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
LockeZ
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CloseA lot of people like the way stealing works in RPGs like Final Fantasy, where many enemies have a chance to give you rare equipment. However, many other people don't like the idea of trying to keep enemies alive while you fail at stealing five or ten times in a row, only to then get a potion because that enemy had nothing. There's value in a treasure hunt - people like finding things - but it can be really tricky to keep them from being extremely easy to get without making the process of finding them really boring.
Instead of debating the merits of the Final Fantasy stealing system... let's try to come up with ways to improve it without removing any of the good feelings it gives. There must be plenty of ways to create that feeling of a treasure hunt, of finding a rare item through perserverence, without the other 99% of the time being nothing but depressing failure, and without encouraging you to stop progressing in the rest of the game until you're done confirming that the monsters you're fighting have nothing to steal.
I did Steal this way in one game:
- By default, Steal can only steal basic healing items.
- There are missions you can do to unlock "leads" on stealable equipment. Each completed mission gives you one lead.
- You can do one mission each day. You're given three random missions with different rewards, and it tells you up front what the rewards are, and you can choose which one to do. So you can kinda choose which reward to get, but you don't have full control. (Actually, it tells you what two of them are, and the third is a mystery reward.)
- Getting a lead on a piece of equipment tells you exactly which monster you can steal it from. Without the lead, you can't steal it, even if you looked it up on GameFAQs.
- If you have a lead on a piece of equipment, the chance to steal it is 100%. However, you can only steal one piece of equipment per day.
I felt like this left in the "hunt down rare enemies to get steals from them" thing that people actually enjoy, but added in a way to actually figure out which ones to do instead of having to just try every enemy in the game. But then instead of just creating a simple list you can check at the pub, which would make it effortless, I tried to create a method of unlocking the steals that required about as much effort as going around stealing from a bunch of random enemies.
Another side-effect of this system, which I think is *really important*, is that you have visible progress on what you're doing. This is something lacking in 99% of stealing systems - until you get your reward, nothing you do brings you any closer to it. You might narrow down which enemies don't give rewards, but that doesn't progress you towards getting a reward, it just progresses you towards not having to steal any more in this zone. Players can't stand to work for twenty or thirty minutes at something, and then be at the same place when they're done as they were when they began. It's extremely disheartening.
I've seen other solutions also. What are some ways you've used, or seen, or thought of?
Instead of debating the merits of the Final Fantasy stealing system... let's try to come up with ways to improve it without removing any of the good feelings it gives. There must be plenty of ways to create that feeling of a treasure hunt, of finding a rare item through perserverence, without the other 99% of the time being nothing but depressing failure, and without encouraging you to stop progressing in the rest of the game until you're done confirming that the monsters you're fighting have nothing to steal.
I did Steal this way in one game:
- By default, Steal can only steal basic healing items.
- There are missions you can do to unlock "leads" on stealable equipment. Each completed mission gives you one lead.
- You can do one mission each day. You're given three random missions with different rewards, and it tells you up front what the rewards are, and you can choose which one to do. So you can kinda choose which reward to get, but you don't have full control. (Actually, it tells you what two of them are, and the third is a mystery reward.)
- Getting a lead on a piece of equipment tells you exactly which monster you can steal it from. Without the lead, you can't steal it, even if you looked it up on GameFAQs.
- If you have a lead on a piece of equipment, the chance to steal it is 100%. However, you can only steal one piece of equipment per day.
I felt like this left in the "hunt down rare enemies to get steals from them" thing that people actually enjoy, but added in a way to actually figure out which ones to do instead of having to just try every enemy in the game. But then instead of just creating a simple list you can check at the pub, which would make it effortless, I tried to create a method of unlocking the steals that required about as much effort as going around stealing from a bunch of random enemies.
Another side-effect of this system, which I think is *really important*, is that you have visible progress on what you're doing. This is something lacking in 99% of stealing systems - until you get your reward, nothing you do brings you any closer to it. You might narrow down which enemies don't give rewards, but that doesn't progress you towards getting a reward, it just progresses you towards not having to steal any more in this zone. Players can't stand to work for twenty or thirty minutes at something, and then be at the same place when they're done as they were when they began. It's extremely disheartening.
I've seen other solutions also. What are some ways you've used, or seen, or thought of?
Waaaahhhhh I gotta copy and paste my answer from the other topic.
In my game stealing is...
-Influenced by Agility, so there are never any static 1/265 chance screw you items. By a rule, as long as Agility can be increased or buffed, so does your chance to steal.
-Your chance to steal a given item is shown as a percentage on the enemy before you attempt to steal it, so you as a player can decide if it's worth it.
-There are usually more than one item to steal from an enemy, and you can select what item you want to go for.
-Items are a great way to find cool shit, but never hair pullingly the only way ever.
In my game stealing is...
-Influenced by Agility, so there are never any static 1/265 chance screw you items. By a rule, as long as Agility can be increased or buffed, so does your chance to steal.
-Your chance to steal a given item is shown as a percentage on the enemy before you attempt to steal it, so you as a player can decide if it's worth it.
-There are usually more than one item to steal from an enemy, and you can select what item you want to go for.
-Items are a great way to find cool shit, but never hair pullingly the only way ever.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
The transparency is good, but does that mean you can see what you'd be stealing before you try?
If so, doesn't that just make it almost effortless, except for the random chance of failure? It also seems like that might severely damage the discovery aspect, though you probably still don't know what a lot of the things *do* until after you get them.
If not, you still end up with mostly the same situation as Final Fantasy, just with multiple items to steal per enemy. Making the items be obtainable elsewhere helps make it so repeated failure at stealing isn't as big a deal, but also makes it so success isn't as big a deal, which seems like a wash.
If so, doesn't that just make it almost effortless, except for the random chance of failure? It also seems like that might severely damage the discovery aspect, though you probably still don't know what a lot of the things *do* until after you get them.
If not, you still end up with mostly the same situation as Final Fantasy, just with multiple items to steal per enemy. Making the items be obtainable elsewhere helps make it so repeated failure at stealing isn't as big a deal, but also makes it so success isn't as big a deal, which seems like a wash.
author=Locke
The transparency is good, but does that mean you can see what you'd be stealing before you try?
If so, doesn't that just make it almost effortless, except for the random chance of failure? It also seems like that might severely damage the discovery aspect, though you probably still don't know what a lot of the things *do* until after you get them.
If not, you still end up with mostly the same situation as Final Fantasy, just with multiple items to steal per enemy. Making the items be obtainable elsewhere helps make it so repeated failure at stealing isn't as big a deal, but also makes it so success isn't as big a deal, which seems like a wash.
You're thinking too deeply into it, which is good, I guess!
I think I may have programmed it so you don't know what the enemy has until you actually steal it, but the percentage is still visible. If not, then that's something I wanted to do. Subseqent steals though, they're visible.
Making the items be obtainable elsewhere just gives the players a measure of choice. Do you want to steal an item from the enemy with a certain party member? Do you want to forgo that party member for another one you like and try to see if you can find the item in a dungeon or from a trader? Failure is a big deal because you're not getting the item you want when you want it, but not so much as its unattainable. SOME rare items are only gotten by stealing, but those are rare cases that I'll let the player know about.
I don't usually have steal in my games because I tend to allow more than one enemy drop (and at decent rates) but in the few that I do have it in, it's usually in the form of not knowing until you meet a certain person. That person will teach you a skill if you have stolen enough times, and that skill will allow you to 'scan' an enemy and tell what kind of item they will drop/you can steal.
Enemies have a random 3 items available, one is a measly drop (usually a healing item), one is a decent drop (light armour like accessories or shield/helms and some rarer healing items) and a great drop (weapons/good armour - usually next and a half tier stuff).
The deal is that while you don't know what, exactly, you will be getting, you know what tier you can get and the higher the tier, the more likely the enemy is to counter-attack you if you try to steal. That said, you do get steal boosting items (stealing from thieves~) that can increase the chance of success, and also in late game there's a skill that you can use that will boost your stealing chance by up to 50% (it consumes an item for 'bait' - that is, you pick what item you want to throw out on the field and the better the item, the higher percentage you get boosted. A potion would give 10, for example, but an old piece of duplicate armour could give 30 and a new duplicate piece would give the full 50.)
Also, some of the great tier items would not be available anywhere else. These were indicated by a star next to the 'name' and thus you'd know which items were best to put out a good item for and which ones wouldn't.
(Sadly, the project that had this system fully created was lost to a computer failure many, many years ago. :< It's actually one of the reasons I don't use steal systems anymore, but talking about it I kinda want to remake it again...)
Enemies have a random 3 items available, one is a measly drop (usually a healing item), one is a decent drop (light armour like accessories or shield/helms and some rarer healing items) and a great drop (weapons/good armour - usually next and a half tier stuff).
The deal is that while you don't know what, exactly, you will be getting, you know what tier you can get and the higher the tier, the more likely the enemy is to counter-attack you if you try to steal. That said, you do get steal boosting items (stealing from thieves~) that can increase the chance of success, and also in late game there's a skill that you can use that will boost your stealing chance by up to 50% (it consumes an item for 'bait' - that is, you pick what item you want to throw out on the field and the better the item, the higher percentage you get boosted. A potion would give 10, for example, but an old piece of duplicate armour could give 30 and a new duplicate piece would give the full 50.)
Also, some of the great tier items would not be available anywhere else. These were indicated by a star next to the 'name' and thus you'd know which items were best to put out a good item for and which ones wouldn't.
(Sadly, the project that had this system fully created was lost to a computer failure many, many years ago. :< It's actually one of the reasons I don't use steal systems anymore, but talking about it I kinda want to remake it again...)
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
I suppose random item drops have a lot of the same problems. Just, instead of sitting there stealing from a single enemy while your other party members defend, you're at least killing stuff and grinding other rewards at the same time.
Zephyr
1241
Failure-rates are always annoying cause of the potential wasted turn getting nothing in return. I have a suggestion.
1. It would seem best that the character with the skill actually would have experience with stealing, so there's some reason behind this.
2. Give each enemy that you can steal from a list of items. Start with minor, rather useless item and end with more valuable ones. Now...
3. Steal will always work if there are items to take, but there can be different approaches.
a. Steal in successive order. You will start taking the lesser items. Keep stealing and you will eventually net the valuable ones.
b. Randomize which of the items you grab. You might get lucky and get the valuable ones on the first try, or you might have to keep stealing to get what is more worth.
No matter which approach, the round will not be fully wasted. You will always get something in return. At least until you've ransacked your opponent fully.
1. It would seem best that the character with the skill actually would have experience with stealing, so there's some reason behind this.
2. Give each enemy that you can steal from a list of items. Start with minor, rather useless item and end with more valuable ones. Now...
3. Steal will always work if there are items to take, but there can be different approaches.
a. Steal in successive order. You will start taking the lesser items. Keep stealing and you will eventually net the valuable ones.
b. Randomize which of the items you grab. You might get lucky and get the valuable ones on the first try, or you might have to keep stealing to get what is more worth.
No matter which approach, the round will not be fully wasted. You will always get something in return. At least until you've ransacked your opponent fully.
I'm probably overthinking this again, but I never really understood why someone would try to steal an item from an enemy they were going to fight and defeat anyway. Wouldn't you get that item either way after you kill the enemy that carries it? And why can some items in some games only be obtained by stealing them from living enemies, but not looted from their dead bodies?
The only answer I could come up with is that attacking an enemy could bring the risk of destroying the valueables they carry. As an example, there is a passive trait in The Drop (I think it's called "Forceful Blows") that increases a character's attack power but lowers the item drop rate, because the character hits so hard she tends to damage their stuff when she crushes enemies.
A principle like this could possibly make for an interesting twist of a battle system, where each attack has a chance to decrease enemies' item drops. Defeating an enemy the normal way would then still be very possible, but result in getting less loot. That would make stealing interesting as a "safe way" to obtain an enemy's valueables without running the risk of destroying them.
The only answer I could come up with is that attacking an enemy could bring the risk of destroying the valueables they carry. As an example, there is a passive trait in The Drop (I think it's called "Forceful Blows") that increases a character's attack power but lowers the item drop rate, because the character hits so hard she tends to damage their stuff when she crushes enemies.
A principle like this could possibly make for an interesting twist of a battle system, where each attack has a chance to decrease enemies' item drops. Defeating an enemy the normal way would then still be very possible, but result in getting less loot. That would make stealing interesting as a "safe way" to obtain an enemy's valueables without running the risk of destroying them.
Desertopa
775
Here's a method which I think might address some of the absurdity of only being able to steal from enemies while they're still alive and resisting, and limit some of the frustration of keeping an enemy alive to steal from it over and over. Instead of having a "steal" technique which takes an item from the enemy during battle, have a skill that represents marking them to be carefully stripped of valuables after the battle is over. The skill always works- if the enemy type carries any kind of item, you increase your chance of receiving it at the end of the battle, and if they never drop anything, you get a message telling you so (possibly the enemy is marked as an invalid target so you can't eve use it on them in the first place.) Some enemies such as certain bosses may have their drop chance changed from 0% to 100% when targeted with this skill (after all, you're only going to fight them once,) and possibly some uncommon enemies with noteworthy items will have their drop rate changed from 0% to something lower than 100%, to enforce a bit of extra effort in acquiring the item (since at least within reason receiving an item may be more satisfying if it took some effort to get,) but depending on whether it's something that would be gamebreaking to collect in large quantities, further enemies of the same type might be marked as invalid targets for the skill after that.
Desertopa
775
Well, if your success rate is 100%, and some non-unique enemies carry really valuable stuff, that can be rather game-breaking. If you compensate by not making any enemies carry anything especially valuable, the player stops caring so much. And if things are too easy to get, you don't care so much when you get them.
Interesting..in my latest project, I've tried to get a decent balance between value and battle difficulty in terms of items held by enemies, employing a 100% steal success rate. My logic was that the player, with the thieving character, could either steal an item or try to attack an enemy/perform a buff instead - but with each turn being vital in battle, there were certain risks involved.
I will definitely be interested in reactions to this mechanic when my project is released (tomorrow hopefully).
I will definitely be interested in reactions to this mechanic when my project is released (tomorrow hopefully).
Final Fantasy X had a pretty cool thing where enemies carried an infinite amount of a set item to steal, starting at 100%, but the steal rate went down by half for every successful steal.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
author=Yellow Magic
Interesting..in my latest project, I've tried to get a decent balance between value and battle difficulty in terms of items held by enemies, employing a 100% steal success rate. My logic was that the player, with the thieving character, could either steal an item or try to attack an enemy/perform a buff instead - but with each turn being vital in battle, there were certain risks involved.
I will definitely be interested in reactions to this mechanic when my project is released (tomorrow hopefully).
If the game is quite difficult, and turns are extremely valuable, then I can definitely see this working fine. In most games though, if the players are at all decent at RPGs, they can spend a lot of their turns screwing around without any real repercussions.
I mean, even in most really hard games, I could probably go into a dungeon, steal from the first two or three enemies, kill them by using my powerful high-MP-cost spells that I'd usually save for bosses, and then leave and sleep at an inn. And then go back in and do the dungeon for real while conserving MP normally. I could see your plan working really well in a tactical RPG, though, or any other game where every battle was balls-to-the-wall hard but you got fully healed between fights (or maybe if inn access were limited/penalized).
RyaReisender
200
I really hate stealing in all PRGs. Literary.
I just ignored stealing altogether in Final Fantasy, just never took the Thief job. I guess I used Steal with Locke a few times because you needed to (story-related) and also I think in some games you could get an accessoire that automatically tried to steal each attack which I used too.
Stealing in such games is really boring. You just try again and again and it lets battles drag on forever.
But even in better implementation I still hate Stealing. Let's take this wonderful WRPG that super open world and you can do anything. Even there it ruins my enjoyment because if you steal people will like you less. I run around towns for hours just figuring out how to get all the items without lowering my popularity. It's really tedious for me since I don't really like that kind of gameplay at all, I want to go out and fight monsters. Grmbl.
So yeah, stealing is bad. Don't add stealing to your games.
I just ignored stealing altogether in Final Fantasy, just never took the Thief job. I guess I used Steal with Locke a few times because you needed to (story-related) and also I think in some games you could get an accessoire that automatically tried to steal each attack which I used too.
Stealing in such games is really boring. You just try again and again and it lets battles drag on forever.
But even in better implementation I still hate Stealing. Let's take this wonderful WRPG that super open world and you can do anything. Even there it ruins my enjoyment because if you steal people will like you less. I run around towns for hours just figuring out how to get all the items without lowering my popularity. It's really tedious for me since I don't really like that kind of gameplay at all, I want to go out and fight monsters. Grmbl.
So yeah, stealing is bad. Don't add stealing to your games.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Thanks for that valuable input. What a great and well thought out solution for improving the standard RPG stealing system and solving the problems you mentioned.
Oh wait, no.
Oh wait, no.
author=LockeZ
Instead of debating the merits of the Final Fantasy stealing system... let's try to come up with ways to improve it
Anybody remember Star Ocean: The Second Story and how it handled stealing? Well, instead of selecting a stealing command and steal from enemies like the traditional sense, you could buy something in stores or create something called the “Bandit’s Glove” and use it to steal items / etc. from townspeople in towns – and even your own party members! I always thought that was a more realistic approach to the whole stealing mechanic in RPG’s that I haven’t seen too much of. Of course, if you fail in your attempt to steal items from townspeople or your own teammates, they’ll usually just say something to you and it will lower their relationship level with you, so it’s a definite risk. I did it a couple of times, but not that much. But still, it’s a nice twist on the whole stealing mechanic.
Kaempfer
1932
I don't much care for stealing in the traditional sense, but I do like LockeZ idea of it becoming more a treasure hunt than a repeated roll of the dice. I also like MOG's "select what you want to steal", as it's a nice twist on the "classic" system which, despite not being great, is definitely suitable in nostalgia-summoning games.
I don't know if I'd be quite as restrictive as LockeZ is, though (in terms of time). I think combining MOGs and LockeZ ideas would be interesting: You can steal like normal, with a drop-down list of two or, maybe, three items. Healing potion? 80% chance. +1 Hat? Stupid low Agility, only a 5% chance. Have a lead? Add Curmudgeon's Mace at a 60% chance. You can only steal it once, and this particular lead gets a bonus from your Wisdom stat instead of your Agility, owing to its unique properties. You got it on try 2! Congratulations. You can now pick the enemy clean, if you can survive their onslaught for enough turns to get that +1 hat.
I don't know if I'd be quite as restrictive as LockeZ is, though (in terms of time). I think combining MOGs and LockeZ ideas would be interesting: You can steal like normal, with a drop-down list of two or, maybe, three items. Healing potion? 80% chance. +1 Hat? Stupid low Agility, only a 5% chance. Have a lead? Add Curmudgeon's Mace at a 60% chance. You can only steal it once, and this particular lead gets a bonus from your Wisdom stat instead of your Agility, owing to its unique properties. You got it on try 2! Congratulations. You can now pick the enemy clean, if you can survive their onslaught for enough turns to get that +1 hat.
author=Rys
But even in better implementation I still hate Stealing. Let's take this wonderful WRPG that super open world and you can do anything. Even there it ruins my enjoyment because if you steal people will like you less. I run around towns for hours just figuring out how to get all the items without lowering my popularity. It's really tedious for me since I don't really like that kind of gameplay at all, I want to go out and fight monsters. Grmbl.
"Doing bad things in open world games that simulate a functioning society has consequences! I hate this!!!!!!"
You know, I rather enjoyed stealing in certain games - usually in the games where you could get some great loot if you did. FF7 and 9 in particular were games I enjoyed stealing because I have a thing for not paying for weapons/armour I can find later (even if by the end of the game I have more than enough money to buy three Costa Del Sol manors ;p ). It's actually the reason I love exploration in games - finding stuff before it's buyable - so making thievery worth the time it takes is always a good idea.
If all you get from stealing are potions and healing items or gold, then maybe I'll steal if I'm low on them or have a null turn in battle, but otherwise, not likely.
Another stealing I like is that of HP and MP. I was considering a 'Steal State' skill the other day, where you can steal the enemy's current state. Of course, that would work best in a game where enemies actually have beneficial states a lot, and used them. This would also be a good strategy in a boss fight where the enemy layers defences - use Steal State to take those buffs and deal big damage with your other characters. Of course, you'd have to be careful in case they had some negative states, and certain enemies would be able to steal your states as well - say a boss fight with a minion. The boss hits hard so putting up defences is a great idea, but the minion will occassionally steal your defences and leave you unprepared for the boss's attack. Bonus points if the boss points out who they're going to attack beforehand and the minion aims for that person.
Back to HP/MP/Gold - the 'normal' stealing types - I have indulged in the ol' MP/HP steal a few times, as well as the Gold theft. They're pretty generic and they help add an extra strategy to battle - a thief is usually faster than most enemies so they get to go first. If they're injured they can quickly heal by stealing life from the enemy. The only issue is if there's no indication of how much health an enemy has, or if the theft-amount is too low. (Oh, how I hate it when they give you this skill and then you end up stealing, like, 20 HP when you have hundreds worth to heal. It becomes a null skill. At least make the use worth it!)
And MP steal (or Absorb if you're not a thief class) can be very handy in a pinch.
Gold steal is usually the most generic steal skill but usually it doesn't give you much more than what you get by finishing the battle and isn't worth the turn it takes to use it.
If all you get from stealing are potions and healing items or gold, then maybe I'll steal if I'm low on them or have a null turn in battle, but otherwise, not likely.
Another stealing I like is that of HP and MP. I was considering a 'Steal State' skill the other day, where you can steal the enemy's current state. Of course, that would work best in a game where enemies actually have beneficial states a lot, and used them. This would also be a good strategy in a boss fight where the enemy layers defences - use Steal State to take those buffs and deal big damage with your other characters. Of course, you'd have to be careful in case they had some negative states, and certain enemies would be able to steal your states as well - say a boss fight with a minion. The boss hits hard so putting up defences is a great idea, but the minion will occassionally steal your defences and leave you unprepared for the boss's attack. Bonus points if the boss points out who they're going to attack beforehand and the minion aims for that person.
Back to HP/MP/Gold - the 'normal' stealing types - I have indulged in the ol' MP/HP steal a few times, as well as the Gold theft. They're pretty generic and they help add an extra strategy to battle - a thief is usually faster than most enemies so they get to go first. If they're injured they can quickly heal by stealing life from the enemy. The only issue is if there's no indication of how much health an enemy has, or if the theft-amount is too low. (Oh, how I hate it when they give you this skill and then you end up stealing, like, 20 HP when you have hundreds worth to heal. It becomes a null skill. At least make the use worth it!)
And MP steal (or Absorb if you're not a thief class) can be very handy in a pinch.
Gold steal is usually the most generic steal skill but usually it doesn't give you much more than what you get by finishing the battle and isn't worth the turn it takes to use it.
