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HOW TO FIX THIEF
Posts
Darken
3952
Darken
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CloseBeen thinking about this and realized this is pretty relevant. Okay so the Thief archetype right? Either a character or class in an RPG where they typically have the steal skill and maybe a high dodge rate, weak melee damage but generally speaking they suck compared to the straight up gigachad warrior that can just end the battle quickly instead. They are usually a joke and contribute nothing. Keep in mind I'm talking in complete conventional classic JRPGs like DQ3 or FF1 where the balancing is usually in the raw stats and fairly straight forward battle system.
What I'm wondering is, is it possible to balance them in a fairly conventional RPG (say a classic Dragon Quest or FF) without compromising the "class fantasy". By balance, I mean is there a good enough reason to pick one over the other classes to the point where meta knowledge players would at least have debates about it. By conventional I mean an RPG where you don't invent a brand new mechanic or crazy skill to make them useful. Are there any examples of RPGs doing it before, RPGMaker games even? I'm kind of thinking from a more: stuck with RM2K3 but you can at least change the formulas sort of design problem. Maybe you can add a skill or two, but you're taking turns whacking each other and thats what the battles boil down to. MMOs have mostly ""solved"" this by simply just changing the role dynamics to make room for more roles. That's too easy though, I want to make the stat components like dodge and stuff matter rather than delegating it to the warrior to threat whack a mole.
So I'll tackle some components on what sounds good on paper, but also kind of what makes them suck.
Low damage
RPGs are really just about dealing as much damage as possible, and they simply do not offer this or enough of this. They have to do something though right? One idea is to simply just make them wildly accurate or give them an option to use bows for outright 100% accuracy. Basically like high def low MDEF enemies. Now the overall RPG would probably blow if the main fighter class missed all the time, but maybe have certain monsters have a high dodge rate. The fighter can still kill them but, for some sections of the game it just helps to have a thief around. Generally though I find console JRPGs tend to be careful about making misses too frequent (this is super evident by games like FF8 where Squall cannot miss! He starts at 255 hit at the start of the game!) but if misses aren't frequent a character that specializes in not worrying about it makes it a moot point.
High dodge
This is the similar problem with the last one, yeah it's cool to avoid damage outright completely, but in a tense endgame scenario it sucks to have a character die due to bad luck as opposed to a character that can take multiple hits anyway. But the principle solution still applies, have enemies that are usually accurate and high damage, miss the thief most of the time. With a multi hit formula system you could probably mitigate the one time the thief actually gets hit. There are just maybe fights where it would be handy to have a thief in the front row.
First turn order
So this really depends on how the battle is structured. But generally speaking a character that can act first is pretty fast right? Problem usually is that beyond throwing a healing item out a typical thief can't really do much to turn the tides much. But again, with some monster encounter design, what if you had an enemy that was pretty fast, did a lot of damage but only has 1 HP. I kind of like this more because it relies less on making chance based mechanics to be more prominent in favor of something that can still be solved by a mage or fighter but, it'd just be very late and not ideal. There could also be a thing where making the first hit in a fight is always a critical strike. Picking a thief based on this is also a little more apparent to the player, avoiding the "okay how useful is the dodge stat?" choice paralysis.
Steal
Okay does anyone like this mechanic? They tried really hard to make it the whole point in FF9 where some of the best equipment can be stolen by the main character. However it's mostly a chore, you waste a turn to potentially not be able to steal it assuming the feedback is any good. Then when you do steal something it's just something you could have gotten in the shop. Even when your eyes are glued to a guide telling you which bosses are worth stealing from it's kind of just delaying the battle to do this one thing that has nothing to do with actually winning the battle.
There's probably a million solutions, make steal also do damage, make attacks have a chance to give you money. Make stealing a debuff or "strip" skill that could especially work on high def high mdef enemies. etc. Though is does beg the question of increasing the overall power of the party as a decent role. FF5 has tons of utility (run speed, hidden passages, 100% escape) for the thief sure, but generally speaking they still really suck to have in the actual battle, so much that I've seen people swap classes when they get to a boss. I don't know if it addresses the class fantasy as much one would think. None of the other classes typically have a weird utility crutch to rely on, unless you think magic is some kind of bullshit.
--------
I'm rambling but my not so great take is to just add in enough problematic (probably just annoying) encounters that having a thief would make for a better experience in them but worse in others. What are your thoughts? Are there ways to make thieves useful beyond reinventing the whole foundation of the game? Have they been useful in games before and I just don't know about it? Is there a case to be made for "just make a better RPG where speed isn't a dumb dice roll stat"? Comment in this thread below (please and thank you).
What I'm wondering is, is it possible to balance them in a fairly conventional RPG (say a classic Dragon Quest or FF) without compromising the "class fantasy". By balance, I mean is there a good enough reason to pick one over the other classes to the point where meta knowledge players would at least have debates about it. By conventional I mean an RPG where you don't invent a brand new mechanic or crazy skill to make them useful. Are there any examples of RPGs doing it before, RPGMaker games even? I'm kind of thinking from a more: stuck with RM2K3 but you can at least change the formulas sort of design problem. Maybe you can add a skill or two, but you're taking turns whacking each other and thats what the battles boil down to. MMOs have mostly ""solved"" this by simply just changing the role dynamics to make room for more roles. That's too easy though, I want to make the stat components like dodge and stuff matter rather than delegating it to the warrior to threat whack a mole.
So I'll tackle some components on what sounds good on paper, but also kind of what makes them suck.
Low damage
RPGs are really just about dealing as much damage as possible, and they simply do not offer this or enough of this. They have to do something though right? One idea is to simply just make them wildly accurate or give them an option to use bows for outright 100% accuracy. Basically like high def low MDEF enemies. Now the overall RPG would probably blow if the main fighter class missed all the time, but maybe have certain monsters have a high dodge rate. The fighter can still kill them but, for some sections of the game it just helps to have a thief around. Generally though I find console JRPGs tend to be careful about making misses too frequent (this is super evident by games like FF8 where Squall cannot miss! He starts at 255 hit at the start of the game!) but if misses aren't frequent a character that specializes in not worrying about it makes it a moot point.
High dodge
This is the similar problem with the last one, yeah it's cool to avoid damage outright completely, but in a tense endgame scenario it sucks to have a character die due to bad luck as opposed to a character that can take multiple hits anyway. But the principle solution still applies, have enemies that are usually accurate and high damage, miss the thief most of the time. With a multi hit formula system you could probably mitigate the one time the thief actually gets hit. There are just maybe fights where it would be handy to have a thief in the front row.
First turn order
So this really depends on how the battle is structured. But generally speaking a character that can act first is pretty fast right? Problem usually is that beyond throwing a healing item out a typical thief can't really do much to turn the tides much. But again, with some monster encounter design, what if you had an enemy that was pretty fast, did a lot of damage but only has 1 HP. I kind of like this more because it relies less on making chance based mechanics to be more prominent in favor of something that can still be solved by a mage or fighter but, it'd just be very late and not ideal. There could also be a thing where making the first hit in a fight is always a critical strike. Picking a thief based on this is also a little more apparent to the player, avoiding the "okay how useful is the dodge stat?" choice paralysis.
Steal
Okay does anyone like this mechanic? They tried really hard to make it the whole point in FF9 where some of the best equipment can be stolen by the main character. However it's mostly a chore, you waste a turn to potentially not be able to steal it assuming the feedback is any good. Then when you do steal something it's just something you could have gotten in the shop. Even when your eyes are glued to a guide telling you which bosses are worth stealing from it's kind of just delaying the battle to do this one thing that has nothing to do with actually winning the battle.
There's probably a million solutions, make steal also do damage, make attacks have a chance to give you money. Make stealing a debuff or "strip" skill that could especially work on high def high mdef enemies. etc. Though is does beg the question of increasing the overall power of the party as a decent role. FF5 has tons of utility (run speed, hidden passages, 100% escape) for the thief sure, but generally speaking they still really suck to have in the actual battle, so much that I've seen people swap classes when they get to a boss. I don't know if it addresses the class fantasy as much one would think. None of the other classes typically have a weird utility crutch to rely on, unless you think magic is some kind of bullshit.
--------
I'm rambling but my not so great take is to just add in enough problematic (probably just annoying) encounters that having a thief would make for a better experience in them but worse in others. What are your thoughts? Are there ways to make thieves useful beyond reinventing the whole foundation of the game? Have they been useful in games before and I just don't know about it? Is there a case to be made for "just make a better RPG where speed isn't a dumb dice roll stat"? Comment in this thread below (please and thank you).
Strak
1560
I guess it sort of depends on what you consider a "Thief" job. One of the things I liked about FF1 was that the thief was almost the mirror image of the warrior, in that Warriors could eventually learn some white magic spells, whereas thieves eventually became ninjas and could learn black magic spells.
In my own games, I've always considered agility based characters to be the "Jack-of-all-trades" classes. Definitely faster and more evasive than other characters, and using lighter armor and weapons that increase evasiveness and critical rates, but also having a nice balance between attack and magic. Not as strong as a fighter, not as powerful as a mage, but flexible enough to cover both. Especially when the spells they know are focused more on character buffs or status ailments, as opposed to direct damage or restoration.
Stats wise, I consider AGI based characters to be far more useful in ATB games, but in a classic turn based rpg, you could still substitute raw damage for high critical hit chance, and raw defense for evasion, then focus the build of the character around maximizing the usefulness of those traits.
And in regards to stealing... Yeah, I personally hate it. It just adds to the idea of item hoarding if there's an item that can only be stolen and not dropped, and can't be bought from shops. Some games pull it off well (like final Fantasy tactics advance, where you can get high level equipment early on), but ultimately it just feels like a gimmick to me.
In my own games, I've always considered agility based characters to be the "Jack-of-all-trades" classes. Definitely faster and more evasive than other characters, and using lighter armor and weapons that increase evasiveness and critical rates, but also having a nice balance between attack and magic. Not as strong as a fighter, not as powerful as a mage, but flexible enough to cover both. Especially when the spells they know are focused more on character buffs or status ailments, as opposed to direct damage or restoration.
Stats wise, I consider AGI based characters to be far more useful in ATB games, but in a classic turn based rpg, you could still substitute raw damage for high critical hit chance, and raw defense for evasion, then focus the build of the character around maximizing the usefulness of those traits.
And in regards to stealing... Yeah, I personally hate it. It just adds to the idea of item hoarding if there's an item that can only be stolen and not dropped, and can't be bought from shops. Some games pull it off well (like final Fantasy tactics advance, where you can get high level equipment early on), but ultimately it just feels like a gimmick to me.
Shinan
4314
Isn't the answer just to add debuffs to the thief? I know debuffs also generally suck and in most of these games you almost always want pure damage over a slight enemy discomfort. But low damage, high initiative works great with adding a debuff to attacks (Poison attacks or defense lowering attacks would actually be alright if your guy is the first in turn order meaning you can just hit goons with one 'future damage' attack and then finish them off with your brawly dude)
It's very easy to justify the debuffs from a lore perspective too. Just add a bunch of poison and shit to those throwing knives. And which other "basic" class has natural debuffs anyway. (perhaps the cleric, but they are there to heal and sometimes buff your guys. And don't go bringing a bard into this because we all know the bard is just a thief subclass)
It's very easy to justify the debuffs from a lore perspective too. Just add a bunch of poison and shit to those throwing knives. And which other "basic" class has natural debuffs anyway. (perhaps the cleric, but they are there to heal and sometimes buff your guys. And don't go bringing a bard into this because we all know the bard is just a thief subclass)
AubreyTheBard
1801
One thing I've tried to do with a thief character is make it so that he can literally steal the weapon an enemy is using, thus making them weaker. In RPG Maker engines, this involves somehow transforming the enemies into disarmed versions of themselves, which isn't easy to do in the vanilla combat system -- I created the DynRPG plugin DynBattlerChange in some part to facilitate that. Even with the technical hurdles aside, I'm not sure how well the disarming mechanic will work in terms of making things fun for the player, as I haven't gotten around to implementing and testing it in my game project yet. Still, it's an idea.
I love playing thieves in RPGs, but it's hard for me to explain why. I always gravitated towards them in these classic RPGs. So when I make an RPG, I always have a "thief" like class.
Here's what I try to do to buff them:
First turn order is very important, imho. It's handy to have someone that can clean up enemies with just a little bit of HP left before they can inflict more damage, or emergency healing to a critically depleted ally that could mean the difference between life and death. And what Shinan suggested about giving them debuff skills is a great idea that I am going to steal. (ha!)
I try to offset the low damage with high critical % (yeah yeah RNG) or AoE weapons that are class-specific. This is what DQ3 does, iirc. The Thief is the only one than can equip whips (and boomerangs?) which do group or all AoE physical attacks. Being able to go first and do AoE damage is very handy for low-HP cleanup. I also tend to give thieves interesting skills (like stealing gold or items) or traps (which in my game cost 0 MP, which help differentiate from a mage-type). In Baldur's Gate, I LOVED the backstab mechanic of a thief. The chance to insta-gib an enemy with some careful planning (and a little luck) was a lot of fun. Having some sort of guaranteed critical attack on the first turn if the thief attacks first could be an approximation of that.
Out of battle usefulness is another area where I try to make Thieves appealing. While a typical RPG might not have a robust lockpick system or stealth, they could still have a passive bonus, like a chance of finding gold or extra treasure after a battle. DQ3 does that, too. FF5 Thieves could run (handy!) and find hidden paths. In Hellion, thieves have the best stat growth for out of battle skills.
Thinking on it, I guess that part of the appeal of those classes is that they always have an interesting choice to make during their turn. Other classes have straightforward roles (healer will heal, warrior will war), but a thief has to make a choice in what they do.
Here's what I try to do to buff them:
First turn order is very important, imho. It's handy to have someone that can clean up enemies with just a little bit of HP left before they can inflict more damage, or emergency healing to a critically depleted ally that could mean the difference between life and death. And what Shinan suggested about giving them debuff skills is a great idea that I am going to steal. (ha!)
I try to offset the low damage with high critical % (yeah yeah RNG) or AoE weapons that are class-specific. This is what DQ3 does, iirc. The Thief is the only one than can equip whips (and boomerangs?) which do group or all AoE physical attacks. Being able to go first and do AoE damage is very handy for low-HP cleanup. I also tend to give thieves interesting skills (like stealing gold or items) or traps (which in my game cost 0 MP, which help differentiate from a mage-type). In Baldur's Gate, I LOVED the backstab mechanic of a thief. The chance to insta-gib an enemy with some careful planning (and a little luck) was a lot of fun. Having some sort of guaranteed critical attack on the first turn if the thief attacks first could be an approximation of that.
Out of battle usefulness is another area where I try to make Thieves appealing. While a typical RPG might not have a robust lockpick system or stealth, they could still have a passive bonus, like a chance of finding gold or extra treasure after a battle. DQ3 does that, too. FF5 Thieves could run (handy!) and find hidden paths. In Hellion, thieves have the best stat growth for out of battle skills.
Thinking on it, I guess that part of the appeal of those classes is that they always have an interesting choice to make during their turn. Other classes have straightforward roles (healer will heal, warrior will war), but a thief has to make a choice in what they do.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
Whenever I compare the thief and warrior, I see warriors as simple and reliable damage dealers who don't require much brainpower to utilize effectively, and thieves as the more technical, strategy-oriented damage dealer that requires a player to have a deeper understanding of the system mechanics than a warrior would. Problem is not every player is willing to engage with those mechanics. Especially first time players who don't really know what the mechanics are, let alone willing to engage with them. If you just compare thieves to warriors, you can even look at the two classes as a sort of pseudo difficulty selection.
Low damage
Whenever I compare the thief to the warrior in a traditional RPG setting, my preferred dynamic is "warrior is tank, sub-DPS, thief is main DPS." So to compensate for the low damage, I usually like to make up for it with multiple hits per turn.
South Park, the Stick of Truth has a cool idea where, when attacking, you can choose to hit once for big damage or 3 times for small damage. You would hit once if the enemy can negate a certain amount of damage per turn, and would hit three times if an enemy can negate a certain amount of hits per turn. You could split up those two attack functions to the warrior and thief class, respectively.
High dodge
Sure, dodge rates that aren't 100% means you're relying on luck to negate an attack, but there are still benefits to building a good dodge tank. Attacks that inflict debuffs/ailments will still land on a warrior, meaning you're already relying on luck to avoid getting hit by those ailments. You can create a damage sponge tank and also a dodge tank and have the party switch between them depending on the necessity with an aggro control skill.
In addition to dodging, you could implement a counter skill where the thief would use a skill every time they dodged. These skills could deal damage, inflict buffs/debuffs or even steal automatically from the enemy to help solve the last bullet point. A warrior could then learn a skill to step in and take damage for low HP allies in case the squishy thief gets squashed more than they'd prefer.
First turn order
I think this mostly boils down to other skills beyond the common thief toolset, but a thief could use that first turn to use a buff/DPS setup skill on the first turn, or scan an enemy to learn their weaknesses. Like you said, though, this point is going to vary wildly depending on how battles are structured.
Steal
Solving the problem of the steal skill not stealing anything useful can be solved with a single mechanic change: let players view the item(s) that can be stolen before the actual steal attempt is made. Housekeeping's Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass handles this perfectly. Enemies can have multiple items, each with their own chance of success. You can view the list of stealable items and know exactly what you can steal before you waste a turn potentially falling for a gacha scam. For more instant gratification, it could be set up for the thief to immediately use the item that was stolen, or equip and attack immediately if the stolen item was a weapon the thief could use.
Aside from that, thieves are a more practical bunch who usually have a set of tools they use to open locks and infiltrate buildings, right? Why not have thieves use attack items on an enemy that you can retrieve using the Steal command? Example, have a thief throw a shuriken at an enemy, then use the Steal command to take the shuriken right back for use the next turn. Sure, you would lose a turn of damage by retrieving an item instead of hitting the enemy, but it would help alleviate the age old problem of not wanting to expend useful items just in case players might need it later.
What about turning the whole "steal" concept on its head and implement a "reverse" steal where a thief would dive into an enemy's inventory and plant an item of their own instead? For example, the thief could plant a bomb in an enemy's inventory which would explode during the enemy's next action, interrupting their action and inflicting damage at the same time.
Low damage
Whenever I compare the thief to the warrior in a traditional RPG setting, my preferred dynamic is "warrior is tank, sub-DPS, thief is main DPS." So to compensate for the low damage, I usually like to make up for it with multiple hits per turn.
South Park, the Stick of Truth has a cool idea where, when attacking, you can choose to hit once for big damage or 3 times for small damage. You would hit once if the enemy can negate a certain amount of damage per turn, and would hit three times if an enemy can negate a certain amount of hits per turn. You could split up those two attack functions to the warrior and thief class, respectively.
High dodge
Sure, dodge rates that aren't 100% means you're relying on luck to negate an attack, but there are still benefits to building a good dodge tank. Attacks that inflict debuffs/ailments will still land on a warrior, meaning you're already relying on luck to avoid getting hit by those ailments. You can create a damage sponge tank and also a dodge tank and have the party switch between them depending on the necessity with an aggro control skill.
In addition to dodging, you could implement a counter skill where the thief would use a skill every time they dodged. These skills could deal damage, inflict buffs/debuffs or even steal automatically from the enemy to help solve the last bullet point. A warrior could then learn a skill to step in and take damage for low HP allies in case the squishy thief gets squashed more than they'd prefer.
First turn order
I think this mostly boils down to other skills beyond the common thief toolset, but a thief could use that first turn to use a buff/DPS setup skill on the first turn, or scan an enemy to learn their weaknesses. Like you said, though, this point is going to vary wildly depending on how battles are structured.
Steal
Solving the problem of the steal skill not stealing anything useful can be solved with a single mechanic change: let players view the item(s) that can be stolen before the actual steal attempt is made. Housekeeping's Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass handles this perfectly. Enemies can have multiple items, each with their own chance of success. You can view the list of stealable items and know exactly what you can steal before you waste a turn potentially falling for a gacha scam. For more instant gratification, it could be set up for the thief to immediately use the item that was stolen, or equip and attack immediately if the stolen item was a weapon the thief could use.
Aside from that, thieves are a more practical bunch who usually have a set of tools they use to open locks and infiltrate buildings, right? Why not have thieves use attack items on an enemy that you can retrieve using the Steal command? Example, have a thief throw a shuriken at an enemy, then use the Steal command to take the shuriken right back for use the next turn. Sure, you would lose a turn of damage by retrieving an item instead of hitting the enemy, but it would help alleviate the age old problem of not wanting to expend useful items just in case players might need it later.
What about turning the whole "steal" concept on its head and implement a "reverse" steal where a thief would dive into an enemy's inventory and plant an item of their own instead? For example, the thief could plant a bomb in an enemy's inventory which would explode during the enemy's next action, interrupting their action and inflicting damage at the same time.
Merlandese
3235
I think a big part of Steal sucking is because of the relationship between battle systems and items systems in general.
Using items in most JRPGs is like a literal pocket that reaches outside the confines of the battle itself and borrows aid. The thief is a person who takes the item from in a battle an puts it outside, but for what? So you can bring it back in again. It's always going to be adding an extra step to a system of item/equipment juggling you might not love to begin with.
My fave "steal" variant ever is a really niche thing in Romancing SaGa 3 where if you counter an armed enemy, you have a chance to steal their weapon—handicapping them—immediately equip it for future use in the battle, and counter-attack with that weapon as soon as you trigger the steal. This bypasses the entire inventory loop where stolen items usually go, and that feels good.
Using items in most JRPGs is like a literal pocket that reaches outside the confines of the battle itself and borrows aid. The thief is a person who takes the item from in a battle an puts it outside, but for what? So you can bring it back in again. It's always going to be adding an extra step to a system of item/equipment juggling you might not love to begin with.
My fave "steal" variant ever is a really niche thing in Romancing SaGa 3 where if you counter an armed enemy, you have a chance to steal their weapon—handicapping them—immediately equip it for future use in the battle, and counter-attack with that weapon as soon as you trigger the steal. This bypasses the entire inventory loop where stolen items usually go, and that feels good.
Red_Nova
What about turning the whole "steal" concept on its head and implement a "reverse" steal where a thief would dive into an enemy's inventory and plant an item of their own instead? For example, the thief could plant a bomb in an enemy's inventory which would explode during the enemy's next action, interrupting their action and inflicting damage at the same time.
The example you provide of setting a bomb, and "reverse stealing" it into an NPC's inventory is a legit a thing I remember seeing as a solution to dealing with an NPC in one of the Fallout games. Of course, there was supposedly also a pair of kids in front of a store entrance that had a chance of using Steal on you, and what they stole from you showed up in said shop.
Being a thief is all about being surreptitious, right? How about automatic actions that the player doesn't even notice? Level of thief skill could be the amount of actions.
Automatic stealing - No more wasting a turn. Thief activated the steal command while you were busy inputting "Fight". Find out the spoils at the end of the battle.
Automatic attacking - Opponent #2 is suddenly covered in itching powder. Thief suddenly disappears one round and opponent #3 has his throat slit the next round.
Automatic support - Character #4 needs a healing potion and, surprise, suddenly has one.
Automatic stealing - No more wasting a turn. Thief activated the steal command while you were busy inputting "Fight". Find out the spoils at the end of the battle.
Automatic attacking - Opponent #2 is suddenly covered in itching powder. Thief suddenly disappears one round and opponent #3 has his throat slit the next round.
Automatic support - Character #4 needs a healing potion and, surprise, suddenly has one.
Darken
3952
All very interesting ideas.
I'm definately leaning towards a guard break mechanic via multi-hits. Have some sort of mechanic where a block value determines how many hits an enemy can block (per battle) but a thief character can break through it easily even if they do less damage (maybe they even ignore block while depleting it hmmm hmmm). I'm very attached to the idea being regulated to a physical attack, maybe not top tier DPS MMO rogue, but something that can solve certain problems.
Debuffing again I guess goes back to my personal subjective head-cannon of that being reserved for another role like a wizard or warlock type character. Sure stuff like poisons and trickery is very much the class fantasy but I feel like thieves should be more quick and dirty.
I think my hangup with Steal or any kind of thing that makes the thief into a Ninja Wizard is that the turn to turn or moment to moment gameplay for them can just turn into a "uh I guess I'll do this?" Something like stealing + using a skill can get very situational, and the more engaged and longer I get into the game the more those types of utilites get ignored unless they're absolutely necessary. If I have no idea what I'm gonna get and they turn into a temporary blue mage or something it would probably feel like I'm just using whatever skill sounds good to use, which sorta lacks agency.
For example being able to use an item in the battle after using the steal command sounds at least more useful but what if its a measily potion and everyone is already topped up? You could add a variety of items to give a tradeoff but then it's eh its just an item menu that's free I guess. Like Merlandese said, items are a dime a dozen and using them for free isn't usually a huge player value proposition. The planting a bomb in an enemy is cool, but also it's kind of an elongated UX of just going through submenus. There's something not engaging about that to me unless every battle is fine tuned to give you options to think about each time you steal. Which sounds good on paper but also, kind of slows down the pace.
I guess with the trademark Steal(tm) I'm still looking for something that feels slotted into the rotation (as in something I actually use 50% of the time that doesn't have you go into submenus) but has something to it that occasionally makes me opt for attacking instead based on the situation. It doesn't need to actually be a steal command, but just something suited for the thief that also doesn't make them a ninja wizard. Just thinking out loud though.
I'm definately leaning towards a guard break mechanic via multi-hits. Have some sort of mechanic where a block value determines how many hits an enemy can block (per battle) but a thief character can break through it easily even if they do less damage (maybe they even ignore block while depleting it hmmm hmmm). I'm very attached to the idea being regulated to a physical attack, maybe not top tier DPS MMO rogue, but something that can solve certain problems.
Debuffing again I guess goes back to my personal subjective head-cannon of that being reserved for another role like a wizard or warlock type character. Sure stuff like poisons and trickery is very much the class fantasy but I feel like thieves should be more quick and dirty.
I think my hangup with Steal or any kind of thing that makes the thief into a Ninja Wizard is that the turn to turn or moment to moment gameplay for them can just turn into a "uh I guess I'll do this?" Something like stealing + using a skill can get very situational, and the more engaged and longer I get into the game the more those types of utilites get ignored unless they're absolutely necessary. If I have no idea what I'm gonna get and they turn into a temporary blue mage or something it would probably feel like I'm just using whatever skill sounds good to use, which sorta lacks agency.
For example being able to use an item in the battle after using the steal command sounds at least more useful but what if its a measily potion and everyone is already topped up? You could add a variety of items to give a tradeoff but then it's eh its just an item menu that's free I guess. Like Merlandese said, items are a dime a dozen and using them for free isn't usually a huge player value proposition. The planting a bomb in an enemy is cool, but also it's kind of an elongated UX of just going through submenus. There's something not engaging about that to me unless every battle is fine tuned to give you options to think about each time you steal. Which sounds good on paper but also, kind of slows down the pace.
I guess with the trademark Steal(tm) I'm still looking for something that feels slotted into the rotation (as in something I actually use 50% of the time that doesn't have you go into submenus) but has something to it that occasionally makes me opt for attacking instead based on the situation. It doesn't need to actually be a steal command, but just something suited for the thief that also doesn't make them a ninja wizard. Just thinking out loud though.
Shinan
4314
author=Darken
Debuffing again I guess goes back to my personal subjective head-cannon of that being reserved for another role like a wizard or warlock type character. Sure stuff like poisons and trickery is very much the class fantasy but I feel like thieves should be more quick and dirty.
I feel like in the traditional party (Warrior, Thief, Healer, Wizard) it makes sense to give the debuffs to the thief because after all a wizard is a DPS AOE Glass Cannon. I can count on my fingers the number of times I've wanted to spend my MP on "silence" or "confuse" over throwing a third level fireball at the whole enemy party. (one can of course fix this by adding a debuffing effect to spells (burn, freeze etc) but it's not like wizards are the ones that need to be buffed. They are too good already)
In the basic jrpg party the roles (at a glance) would seem like the Warrior does a lot of damage (to usually only one enemy) and can also take a lot of damage. The healer... heals (and buffs your buddies), the wizard has low hp but can cast massive damage on (all) the enemy (and is the one that has to deal with MP management the most) and the thief... yeah. In this scenario it makes sense that the thief would go first, do a little damage and add a slow or poison effect at the same time. (and with some RNG stuff like added crit chance and a dodgy disposition. But players rarely factor in the rng stuff to their thinking.)
Merlandese
3235
author=Darken
I guess with the trademark Steal(tm) I'm still looking for something that feels slotted into the rotation (as in something I actually use 50% of the time that doesn't have you go into submenus) but has something to it that occasionally makes me opt for attacking instead based on the situation. It doesn't need to actually be a steal command, but just something suited for the thief that also doesn't make them a ninja wizard. Just thinking out loud though.
You could make it so the Mug command from FF (hit and steal at the same time) is the default Attack. Every normal attack has a chance to steal, but is weaker. Maybe it steals on a Critical Hit instead of doing extra damage, like a normal Crit would, and getting equipment to buff Crit improves chances to steal.
As for what you steal, it could be a rethemed debuff. In Vagrant Story, if you attacked body parts you could also handicap a stat. Handicap the body and reduce Physical Def. Handicap the head and reduce Magic Attack. Maybe for the thief, they can steal a piece of armor associated with the stats of the enemy, reducing the stat. Steal their Talisman, reduce their Mag. Steal their Boots, reduce their Speed. The flavor of stealing to make a debuff might be cool.
They tried really hard to make it the whole point in FF9 where some of the best equipment can be stolen by the main character.
Also just wanted to add my two cents on this design: FF9 took a weird step in Steal because Zidane is arguably one of the best characters for DPS. He has great strength, and he's super fast. I think most bosses are designed around this idea where Zidane is supposed to be "inactive" (not doing damage) for 2/3rds of the fight because he's trying to steal, and then once he has all the goods, he jumps in and turns the tide. It doesn't work, especially with the balance of the game being overall too easy, but there's a nugget of a good idea in there.
With FF9, I can maybe see people performing Steal if the party consists of Zidane/Blank/Marcus/Cinna, if only because each of these characters have the "Steal" command. That party structure is also early enough in the game that players might take a "turn off" to use Steal with all four characters just to have more stuff to work with. Though, that might be true of Zidane in the early game in general. However, as the game progresses, I feel Steal just becomes less and less of a relevant action, even if you do attach damage to it.
I dunno if I ever had the patience to steal all the items that were able to be stolen from a boss. Even if I knew they had the best items to steal, one also figures that the rate at which you can acquire such items are low. It's kinda a weird balance between how much time/effort players need to put forward to steal those items versus how much value they can get from that time/effort.
The idea of turning "Attack" into "Mug" was touched on with FF8. I don't know if Mug inflicted less damage than Attack in that game. However, it's not like stealing/mugging an item was ever certain in FF games. Mugging is slightly more viable, because if, or when, the steal attempt fails, the command still does something instead of a regular Steal command that makes players gamble that something good would come out of it. The character's LUCK very rarely has anything to do with the outcome, and is more on the player's luck, and how much RNGsus is willing to bless said player.
I dunno if I ever had the patience to steal all the items that were able to be stolen from a boss. Even if I knew they had the best items to steal, one also figures that the rate at which you can acquire such items are low. It's kinda a weird balance between how much time/effort players need to put forward to steal those items versus how much value they can get from that time/effort.
The idea of turning "Attack" into "Mug" was touched on with FF8. I don't know if Mug inflicted less damage than Attack in that game. However, it's not like stealing/mugging an item was ever certain in FF games. Mugging is slightly more viable, because if, or when, the steal attempt fails, the command still does something instead of a regular Steal command that makes players gamble that something good would come out of it. The character's LUCK very rarely has anything to do with the outcome, and is more on the player's luck, and how much RNGsus is willing to bless said player.
A lot of really cool ideas here! :D I thought I'd throw in how I'm handling the Thief job in Izrand Allure. I've tried to make the thief more viable myself but it's hard to know how well it'll hold up over the whole game, so time will tell.
You'll notice I kept Steal. I know you said at the start "who likes this skill?" but I actually enjoy it, if for no other reason than it feels classic and it's fun to get free stuff off of the enemy. Here's what I changed with Steal:
Steal Always Damages
The Steal equivalent is more like Mug, always doing 80% of a normal attack's worth of damage. That way you're still moving the fight forward even as you are stealing.
See the Enemies' Stealable Items, Choose What You Want
You get to see a list of the target's available steals and try to steal what you want to steal. Don't want another potion but do want that rare helm? Grab that and ignore the rest.
Consistent Steal Rate
The steal rate is consistent, no matter what you are stealing or from whom. It starts at a base 40% (plus a tiny bonus from Luck stat) and grows as you learn passives that boost it from the Thief job.
One thing that drove me nuts about FF9's Steal is that you could try to steal from a boss for like half an hour and possibly get nothing from it. So a consistent Steal Rate was important to me.
As for other things about the job that I hope make it more worthwhile:
A Bag of Tricks: Steal isn't the only skill a Thief learns. Thief has a variety of skills, including multi-hits that deal blind or bleed.
Agility is More Valuable: The game used a Charge Time Battle instead of the standard turned-based, more akin to FFT or FFX. So the Thief's boosted agility will allow them to take more turns over the course of the battle than other classes.
Again, that's just my attempt and the game's still in it's infancy, so time will tell if the Izrand Thief job ends up being worthwhile, but I certainly hope so :D
You'll notice I kept Steal. I know you said at the start "who likes this skill?" but I actually enjoy it, if for no other reason than it feels classic and it's fun to get free stuff off of the enemy. Here's what I changed with Steal:
Steal Always Damages
The Steal equivalent is more like Mug, always doing 80% of a normal attack's worth of damage. That way you're still moving the fight forward even as you are stealing.
See the Enemies' Stealable Items, Choose What You Want
You get to see a list of the target's available steals and try to steal what you want to steal. Don't want another potion but do want that rare helm? Grab that and ignore the rest.
Consistent Steal Rate
The steal rate is consistent, no matter what you are stealing or from whom. It starts at a base 40% (plus a tiny bonus from Luck stat) and grows as you learn passives that boost it from the Thief job.
One thing that drove me nuts about FF9's Steal is that you could try to steal from a boss for like half an hour and possibly get nothing from it. So a consistent Steal Rate was important to me.
As for other things about the job that I hope make it more worthwhile:
A Bag of Tricks: Steal isn't the only skill a Thief learns. Thief has a variety of skills, including multi-hits that deal blind or bleed.
Agility is More Valuable: The game used a Charge Time Battle instead of the standard turned-based, more akin to FFT or FFX. So the Thief's boosted agility will allow them to take more turns over the course of the battle than other classes.
Again, that's just my attempt and the game's still in it's infancy, so time will tell if the Izrand Thief job ends up being worthwhile, but I certainly hope so :D
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
author=Darken
I guess with the trademark Steal(tm) I'm still looking for something that feels slotted into the rotation (as in something I actually use 50% of the time that doesn't have you go into submenus) but has something to it that occasionally makes me opt for attacking instead based on the situation. It doesn't need to actually be a steal command, but just something suited for the thief that also doesn't make them a ninja wizard. Just thinking out loud though.
Then what about expanding what can stolen beyond just items? Prayer of the Faithless had a series of skills that lets you drain stats from an enemy temporarily. You could apply the same principle here by having the thief steal an enemy stat buff or even a resistance to an element, awarding more damage from your black mage or any other party member that can use elemental attacks.
Aside from that, if you're looking for a new "command" for the thief and not just a new/better skill, then you'd have to start incorporating elements from other similar classes, like an assassin or a rogue. "Mark" a target instead of attacking to increase damage from other sources like an assassin, "shadow clone" the thief to repeat the next action taken like a ninja, "fight dirty" to take a cue from geomancers and perform various actions depending on the environment, like kicking dirt in an enemy's face or grabbing random chemical beakers and throwing them at an enemy if you're in a laboratory like a rogue.
Darken
3952
Yeah that actually sounds good, a buff stealer or a debuff redistributor is in line with the role without outright replacing a buff/debuffer. There shouldn't be a whole lot of inputs either which makes it more elegant. Coupled with maybe a delay action if there's no buff to steal, then there could be something neat.
As a side note I just got Rikku properly in FFX and they introduce her stealing mechanic. The gimmick is just: treasure chests as monsters, the battle ends without you getting the item if you don't steal from them. So it incentivises you to know whens a good time to steal but it's still busy work switching Rikku in, and then prolonging the battle by one turn. Not great but eh it does inspire some ways to hint to the player rather than assuming the player will steal from everything, or just never at all except boss fights.
As a side note I just got Rikku properly in FFX and they introduce her stealing mechanic. The gimmick is just: treasure chests as monsters, the battle ends without you getting the item if you don't steal from them. So it incentivises you to know whens a good time to steal but it's still busy work switching Rikku in, and then prolonging the battle by one turn. Not great but eh it does inspire some ways to hint to the player rather than assuming the player will steal from everything, or just never at all except boss fights.
LordBlueRouge
2143
author=Darken
As a side note I just got Rikku properly in FFX and they introduce her stealing mechanic. The gimmick is just: treasure chests as monsters, the battle ends without you getting the item if you don't steal from them. So it incentivises you to know whens a good time to steal but it's still busy work switching Rikku in, and then prolonging the battle by one turn. Not great but eh it does inspire some ways to hint to the player rather than assuming the player will steal from everything, or just never at all except boss fights.
Dammit, this was the one thing I wanted to contribute to this thread, lol. Yeah Rikku was kind of cool. On my OG save file for Final Fantasy X. My final team line up was Tidus, Wakka, Yuna and Rikku, because those 4 were the fastest and Rikku by the end of the game, became my main party healer, because she had that potion where she could heal the whole party in one turn before swapping her out for someone more useful, or just using an extra turn to do something.
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 don't think it'll surprise anyone that the dude who named himself after Locke from FF6 actually likes how Steal works in traditional Final Fantasy games. I like the idea of sacrificing your turns now and taking a single weaker character in order to gain long-term benefits and get better equipment to increase the strength of the rest of your party. I feel like that's a reasonable trade-off. You just have to get the ratio right, so that the amount of power you're giving up and the amount of time you're spending feels mostly OK compared to the amount of power you're getting.
I think telling players what they can steal and removing all of the randomness are bad solutions in a traditional RPG. Players who do and don't take a thief with them both have to feel like their choice is reasonable. They shouldn't know it was the right or wrong choice. Too much information kind of ruins it honestly.
Treasure chests in battle that give nothing if you don't steal from them before the battle ends are a really good solution though, if you don't want the player to know WHAT they can steal but do want them to know WHEN they should steal. This would go a long way towards freeing up the thief to actually fight enemies the rest of the time.
Just limiting the Steal ability to once per battle would accomplish a similar goal, though.
I will also share an alternate stealing system that I used in the Unofficial Squaresoft MUD, which is an open-world RPG. The open world aspect combined with the huge number of enemies made a traditional Final Fantasy style Steal ability not work, so instead I put a thieves' guild in the central town (actually it's Tantalus from FF9) that sends the player on missions. These missions are all theft-related but usually only in a thematic way. Each mission the player completes earns them one "lead", which unlocks the ability to steal a specific piece of powerful equipment from a specific species of monster. Then the player has to hunt down that monster and use the "Steal Equipment" ability on it, which might take 20 or 30 tries to work, making the monster slightly stronger each time it fails. Because it's basically an MMORPG, you can only do one mission every 60 hours and can only steal one piece of equipment every 20 hours, but in a single-player open world game I think it would be better to let the player do the missions one after another and make each piece of equipment stealable only once.
Aside from that equipment-stealing system, the rest of the Thief class in the Unofficial Squaresoft MUD is mostly based around stealing combat items and then using them. The game only lets you hold one combat item at a time, and which one you get from an enemy is random but is weighted based on the enemy's creature type. The class also gets a few other powerful abilities on cooldowns as you gain levels, such as a Pilfer MP ability that steals MP and a Free Energy ability that deals damage based on how much MP you stole with Pilfer MP, meaning that you can't really use it until you've expended your MP with something like white magic spells. And also Steal Coins, which steals money once per minute based on how much money the monster would drop when killed, and Coin Toss, which tosses the money you just stole for massive damage, expending it. And Thievery, which just deals physical damage based on how many times you've use any steal skill since the last time you used Thievery, to a maximum of about 20.
I think telling players what they can steal and removing all of the randomness are bad solutions in a traditional RPG. Players who do and don't take a thief with them both have to feel like their choice is reasonable. They shouldn't know it was the right or wrong choice. Too much information kind of ruins it honestly.
Treasure chests in battle that give nothing if you don't steal from them before the battle ends are a really good solution though, if you don't want the player to know WHAT they can steal but do want them to know WHEN they should steal. This would go a long way towards freeing up the thief to actually fight enemies the rest of the time.
Just limiting the Steal ability to once per battle would accomplish a similar goal, though.
I will also share an alternate stealing system that I used in the Unofficial Squaresoft MUD, which is an open-world RPG. The open world aspect combined with the huge number of enemies made a traditional Final Fantasy style Steal ability not work, so instead I put a thieves' guild in the central town (actually it's Tantalus from FF9) that sends the player on missions. These missions are all theft-related but usually only in a thematic way. Each mission the player completes earns them one "lead", which unlocks the ability to steal a specific piece of powerful equipment from a specific species of monster. Then the player has to hunt down that monster and use the "Steal Equipment" ability on it, which might take 20 or 30 tries to work, making the monster slightly stronger each time it fails. Because it's basically an MMORPG, you can only do one mission every 60 hours and can only steal one piece of equipment every 20 hours, but in a single-player open world game I think it would be better to let the player do the missions one after another and make each piece of equipment stealable only once.
Aside from that equipment-stealing system, the rest of the Thief class in the Unofficial Squaresoft MUD is mostly based around stealing combat items and then using them. The game only lets you hold one combat item at a time, and which one you get from an enemy is random but is weighted based on the enemy's creature type. The class also gets a few other powerful abilities on cooldowns as you gain levels, such as a Pilfer MP ability that steals MP and a Free Energy ability that deals damage based on how much MP you stole with Pilfer MP, meaning that you can't really use it until you've expended your MP with something like white magic spells. And also Steal Coins, which steals money once per minute based on how much money the monster would drop when killed, and Coin Toss, which tosses the money you just stole for massive damage, expending it. And Thievery, which just deals physical damage based on how many times you've use any steal skill since the last time you used Thievery, to a maximum of about 20.
Merlandese
3235
I woke in a cold sweat at 4:58AM, also known as the Crazy Cat Hour. And it struck me. I know why we can't fix the thief.
THE THIEF SHOULDN'T BE IN BATTLE TO BEGIN WITH!
We're trying to train a fish to fly here. It's futile! The thief has no business in a battle queue!
The best solution is to keep the thief doing things external to battles, like pickpocketing NPCs and unlocking doors. And if you MUST put the thief in battle, they should have their own parallel asymmetric plain of activity, similar to analyzer roles in Persona 3/4/5. Lining a squirrely little thief alongside R'othgar the Berserker and expecting them to have some sort of balanced routine is nonsense.
We're all fools, and should be pitied!
THE THIEF SHOULDN'T BE IN BATTLE TO BEGIN WITH!
We're trying to train a fish to fly here. It's futile! The thief has no business in a battle queue!
The best solution is to keep the thief doing things external to battles, like pickpocketing NPCs and unlocking doors. And if you MUST put the thief in battle, they should have their own parallel asymmetric plain of activity, similar to analyzer roles in Persona 3/4/5. Lining a squirrely little thief alongside R'othgar the Berserker and expecting them to have some sort of balanced routine is nonsense.
We're all fools, and should be pitied!
me, a genius, a month ago:
author=kentona
Out of battle usefulness is another area where I try to make Thieves appealing. While a typical RPG might not have a robust lockpick system or stealth, they could still have a passive bonus, like a chance of finding gold or extra treasure after a battle. DQ3 does that, too. FF5 Thieves could run (handy!) and find hidden paths. In Hellion, thieves have the best stat growth for out of battle skills.
