You know, I'm flipping through TESNexus listings, and you see sweet mods that overhaul combat. Stuff like the pure-gold Deadly Reflex, and magick overhauls like StrategyMaster's Magick. Real good stuff. But there are other sides to Oblivion, where the flash of a dagger is a reluctant and shameful act - trades like burglary, pickpocketing, and con artistry.

They walk among you, and you never know it. They bump into while you're looking at a market stall in a crowded street. They ask for directions that you obligingly give them without a second thought. And for your troubles, they walk away with your purse, and you'll not recognize it for minutes...maybe hours. More than enough time to fade away. But...in the world of Nirn, where are these people? They don't exist, except for maybe the player themself, and there's only so much you can do with the stunted pickpocketing skill.

We have combat overhauls, magick overhauls, stealth overhauls, but where are the thievery overhauls and mods that favour con artists? There are no mods that I know of (and I look often!) that add Fallout 3-esque [Sneak] (skill based dialogue checks) topics that allow a thief a chance to ask something like "Where can I find the guilds?" while slyly slipped their new wallet into their pockets. Or mods that allow the player to press a new key while near an NPC, and run a percent/chance/luck script to see if the player gets a fat wallet or an expenses paid trip to the stocks.


I'm not formally requesting anything, but more trying to spark a discussion about things that would fit in with the topic. I'm thinking this to be more in the lines of the "Let's Talk horses" thread (or summat like that) from a while back. I'm looking for some good thief-oriented discussion, is all. If we get mods in the process, sweet. But it's about the conversations, this time.

I agree....usually why I avoided many things related to steal and/or light armor was because it seemed to lack a lot of what made bashing people with swords...and in vanilla oblivion...it was kind of fun to zap enemies with lighting...but thievery and marksmanship fell short, most definately...and magic barely passed. Ofcourse there are plenty mods that fix magic, and countless mods that improve bashing people with swords...but thievery failed, and archery (with mods) barely passes.

I would actually like to see a complete overhaul on stealth on archery.

I think TIE is based heavily towards thieves. No time for a link now but search it

TIE doesn't actually do anything for thieves except that it adds stealth entrances to cities, if I remember correctly. I think the reason why it's mentioned in every Stealth thread is that the author said that it was catered towards thief characters... but he was talking about the fact that with the way TIE unlevels the spawn points, there might be MUCH stronger monsters awaiting you than in vanilla, which leaves you no choice but to be stealthy. So that's kind of a very big difference.

I fully agree with the OP. And I think there are two main problems with pickpocketing in Oblivion:
1) If you succeed, it usually isn't worth it. You might get 10 gp or something like that. Also, if you pickpocket a guard or a house owner in hopes that he's carrying a key, you're mostly out of luck, which just svcks.
2) If you get caught, there's NO way to disappear in the crowd. Guards all over Cyrodiil will suddenly know that it was you who did it. This completely destroys any attempt of playing a petty thief - in Cyrodiil, petty thieves get caught, end of story.

I think the first part is something that can be corrected with Enhanced Economy, if I'm not mistaken. The second part, however could be changed pretty easily I guess, but I don't know of any mod that does it.
Practically, all you'd need was a mod that removes your bounty if it is lower than a certain value after a certain amount of time. That would be a little bit like getting 1 star in GTA... just don't get caught long enough, and you'll be fine.

TIE is indeed pretty wicked. 's why I use it.

But it doesn't add to the skills or workings of a thief. It changes loot, adds some really cool paths into and out of cities, and some hideouts. But nothing really that makes a massive difference in how you steal. I used Enhanced Economy to reduce the amount of gold found ingame, and make things really expensive. So pickpocketing is a bit more lucrative than in the vanilla game. But it just doesn't have that realistic feel that it should.

I was thinking that if anything at all was done, it would be dialogue based. Ask a certain topic to this effect: [Pickpocket Jewels] What's the latest rumours? or something like that. And disappearing might be an interesting thought - if you're wearing a hood, and are around more than five people, you have a chance to blend in. I'm just tossing out ideas.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16137 has a bounties decrease over time option, not to mention regional bounties...

Excellent ideas you have there Ashven.
And, like you, I agree that doing it dialogue-style to initiate pickpocketing would be the best way.

The way I see it could be done, is that there's indeed some sort of "Pickpocket Pouch" topic, as you mentioned, and that when you click on it, the dialogue ends and a script initiates to determine if you succeeded or if you failed. Using a combo of Sneak, Agility bonuses and Luck. A message box would pop up, telling you if you failed or succeeded.

It would need to be script that gets initated by dialogue because it is not possible to make a calculation of sneak, agility and luck factors in dialogue mode.


I'd prefer this way of pickpocketing instead of being in sneak mode, getting around an NPC (Who clearly sees you sneaking but does not turn around to see where you're going), and pickpocket him.


Disappearing in the crowd when pursued by the guards is something I miss from Daggerfall. You could pickpocket a citizen and then manage to outrun the guards by dissapearing in alleys, the streets or entering a shop. Or my favourite: Climbing a house and jumping from rooftop to rooftop.

Let me introduce to you folks this nice little gem I found the other day. This should work with what you're looking for. Or at least hiding in an alley or something.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20303

I also believe there's a few other mods that do similar things. One is Attack and Hide, which is a bit hard to find the latest version. It's v2.1, but I've heard theres problems with this mod.

And then there's Jog's Stealth Overhaul.

From what I understand, SM Combat Hide has a pretty good system compared to the other two.

On the topic, I always did feel that theivery was lacking something fierce, even with all the mods out there. Pickpocketing too seemed somewhat lame.

I have just made a script that removes any bounty on your head between 0 and 50 gold (i.e. relatively small bounties) if you are able to stay undetected for 10 seconds. (Numbers might still change.)
Together with a mod that makes guards lose sight of you if you're hidden, this will allow you to escape justice e.g. by running into the canolisation or hiding in an attic, or casting an Invisibility spell. It also works without such auxiliary mods, but it will be almost impossible to stay undetected.

If there was a way to allow pickpockets to keep what they stole even though they were detected, this would basically allow you to play the type of thief who simply walks up to a person, cuts off their purse, and then runs away until the guards lose track of him.

(While SM Regional Bounty is a great mod, its bounty removal doesn't apply in such situations - it's simply not realistic to have to hide for a whole day just because you stole 10 gp. I guess using that and a script such as mine in combination will be perfect.)

Here's the script, in case anybody is interested:

scn BountyRemovalScriptfloat BountyTimerbegin GameModeIf ( Player.GetCrimeGold <= 0 )	set BountyTimer to 0	ReturnElseIf ( Player.GetCrimeGold > 50 )	set BountyTimer to 0	ReturnElse	If ( Player.IsActorDetected == 1 )		set BountyTimer to 0		Return	Else		If ( BountyTimer == 0 )			set BountyTimer to 20			Return		Else			If ( BountyTimer > 10 )				set BountyTimer to ( BountyTimer - GetSecondsPassed )				Return			Else				Player.SetCrimeGold 0				Message "The guards gave up looking for you."				set BountyTimer to 0			EndIf		EndIf	EndIfEndIfEnd

Make this a Quest script, create a new quest and assign this script as the quest's script (next to "Priority" on the first page of the quest). "Start Game Enabled" must have a tick in front of it. Done.

maybe that whats can be done about a thievery overhaul.
Just small bits n pieces completed at a time, a whole lot of brainstorming, and eventually we might wind up with something good.

As someone who is obsessed with the stealth/thief/etc aspect of Oblivion, I have always felt that the method of escaping the law was amongst the weakest mechanisms implemented by the game's designers; the only way you can lose a bounty is by being apprehended by a guard or talking to the Doyen. One of those methods involves losing all your stolen items, and another requires you be in the Thieves' Guild, and as such you're pretty much screwed if you break the law as a non-Thieves' Guild character. SM Combat Hide and Attack and Hide, while valuable additions to Oblivion's stealth mods, don't help here, as you still accrue the bounty no matter what, and Reneer's Guard Overhaul, while amazing, causes CTD's in almost every mod setup.

I also agree the Oblivion pickpocketing method is awful; to successfully pickpocket someone there can't be anyone watching you, whereas in real life pickpocketing occurs most easily in large crowds where the victim doesn't notice one more person bumping into them, and even if they did they wouldn't know who it was. Anyway, here are my thoughts on what should be made into a mod, or at least some elements whichcould be included or indeed I would consider making;

1) - When someone witnesses you thieving you will not immediately accrue a bounty. The person will call for guards, and, based on Aggression and Energy Level they will attack/chase you. Based on high Responsibility, Aggression, and Energy Level nearby civilians may join in the chase. Guards will, of course, join if within earshot. If enough people get close enough to you or if a guard manages to stop you you of course receive the bounty. Based on your Athletics, Acrobatics, Agility, Sneak, and Speed, people chasing you will wind up getting confused and stopping/going the wrong way. If someone gets a certain distance away from you or was a portion of that distance away when you changed cell they will stop chasing you. There is also a limit to how far anyone will chase you (number of cells/distance units). If you aren't identified and nobody is left chasing you, you got away.

2) - Rather than bounties going down over time (which makes no sense from a real world perspective), they will instead be slowly forgotten. By that I mean something like this; when you first accrue a bounty in an area, there is a 100% chance that guards will recognize you from afar and a 100% chance that they will recognize you in conversation. Every day the likelihood of being recognized by each individual guard from a distance goes down (say) 10%, and the chance of being recognized in conversation goes down (say) 5%, so rather than saying your crime gets less "bad" over time, the guards just start to forget about as more crimes have probably occurred since then, and you certainly aren't the Most Wanted anymore. I would also say the % by which the chance of being spotted decreases should be based on the size of the bounty. Of course once you reach a 0% chance of being spotted the bounty disappears.

3) - If you get caught pickpocketing there are three possible outcomes (based on your stealth and luck as well as some of the NPCs stats); victim recognizes you, victim notices your race but not your identity, or victim has no idea who you are. When he calls for guards they will come to him directly first, and based on what just happened the guards will either chase you, stop everybody nearby of your race, or stop a few random people, then go back to their posts. If they stop you before you get away, there will be new guard dialogue that results in them checking you for the stolen goods, and based on Luck having a very small chance of not finding it on you. Essentially if somebody notices they were pickpocketed you want to get away asap, but you're not totally screwed unless they recognize your identity.

4) - Even if you successfully pickpocket, the NPC will eventually notice the items are missing. When he notices is based on a timer, the length of which is determined by a combination of player character and NPC stats. Once this happens he go to the nearest guard, and the guards will start talking to random people and searching them.

5) - Fame and Infamy should play a role on if the guards search you; being very famous will make it less likely for you to be searched, as no guard would expect the champion of Cyrodiil to stoop to thievery, whereas a high infamy makes them more likely to stop you. Personality plays a role in this too.


...anyway, those are my thoughts on how thievery and bounties should be handled in game, and I plan to look at the CS a little bit to see what I am capable of implementing, but I would love feedback on my ideas or even someone more capable than myself to take it upon themselves to realize some of these

CC

EDIT:
Oh, forgot a few;

6) - Paying off your fine through the Thieves' Guild shouldn't be immediate, it should take 24-48 hours.

7) - How is it the Doyen manages to remove your bounties? Through friends in high places and influence, right? The player should (ideally) be capable of reaching that status as well. Between Fame/Infamy, Personality, Disposition with high ranking NPC's, their responsibility level, and maybe some additional bribes you should be able to persuade them to have your bounty revoked.

8) - Finally, as the Grey Fox, if you invoke a bounty on yourself (as opposed to the Cowl) you should be able to pay the Doyen to have it removed at a much lower price (you are his Guild Master after all)

A thief overhaul would be really great.


The amount of time and the number of people the guards talk to should depend on what you stole and from whom you stole. If it's only a few coins from a beggar the guards wouldn't do anything, but if you steal an important artefact from the archmage the whole district would be closed down so you can't just leave that easily.
Would be cool if it sometimes happend random without you stealing anything, so you're not the only thief out there.

What also could be added would be some confidence tricks like the shell game.
You would need help of the thieves guild for something like that. Best would probably be a repetable miniquest for this.

The shell game or short-con is a scam pulled of by groups. One person is the operator, one looks out for the police and the rest trick the player so that he thinks that he has a chance to win. The operator places three shells one the floor or on a cardboardbox. Under one of those shells a small ball about the size of a pea is placed. The operator changes the places of the shells and the player has to guess under which shell the ball is. The others form a group around them to attract more people and to give the victim a chance to watch as some of the group pretend to play and either win most of the time to let it seem easy or loose when it was actually quite easy to follow the shell with the ball beneath to get the victim overconfident. When a victim starts to play he doesn't stand a chance cause the operator is skilled enough to easily hide the ball. The operator always gives the money to somebody else who can get away easier if the police came.

The player could take any of those roles in a group. Like with high speed and sneak he would be the one to take the money, with high agility and security the operator and so on. You would have to look out for the guards and talk to some NPCs to get them to play. But I don't know how to implement the actual trick.
Other idea would be to have some allies do a street performance and you go around and pickpocket the crowd.

What really would be needed is that guards won't follow you everywhere. The captains would probably not go down into the sewers and if you hide in the house of thieves guild member who helps you and tells the guards that nobody is there and that they should leave the guards shouldn't charge straight where you are.

As always, R4C, you always leave me wishing that stuff like that (that makes perfect sense!) was vanilla workings.

And being able to actually outrun guards would be really neat. With Reneer's on, when a guard chases me, he dialogues me to death. There is no way of getting away short of attacking him (thus increasing my bounty) and then taking off. And the forgotten/remembered bounty thing sounds simply amazing - you never lose the bounty, but you have a chance to keep on going about your business. Stuff like hoods (which should be essential thief gear) would decrease the chance of recognition by a few extra points.

The other thing that gets to me is lockpicking. There are no prybars or anything, just apparently extremely weak metal picks that break at the slightest mistake. You can't kick in a door (Like you could in Daggerfall!) or climb through windows (there is a mod or two for that, though). And just about everybody doesn't mind a complete stranger just walking into their house. I can understand country hospitality, but a big city would have nothing to do with a random passerby.


But we're really only talking about the player's endeavours thus far. How come thieves don't break into the vanilla houses and steal things? I think TIE and Reneers does an interesting job, where some people will steal things and then have to pay a fine/go to jail. As far as I know, there aren't any mods that allow a chance for low-responsibility characters to pickpocket the player. [ On a side thought, that would be cool, where an NPC picks the player's pocket, and the only cue to what happened is a light rustle sound or something. Something a player in the know would learn to hear. ]

And apparently, infamous thieves can buy expensive houses and walk about in any town without issue. I've got a mod that checks fame/infamy at the gates to see whether you can go in or not (making TIE's entrances actually useful) but the house issue is still a bit irritating. It just seems like a crime to be able to buy much more than the IC shack, Bravil's shack, or Leyawiin's shack with a moderate infamy level. And renting inn rooms seems pointless. You can only rent them for a day at a time, and most feature nothing more than a chest and a bed, rarely with a little food provided.


Thievery is all about the little things, in my opinion. Pennyweighting is pointless (replacing valuable objects with junk things) and most of the time you'll never get caught for it. Burglary in general is a rather safe crime. In the Imperial City, a person could be upstairs alseep, and you're downstairs flinging everything around and the owner of the house won't even roll over for it. And you can carry much more than is humanly possible. It would be interesting if armours started featuring a Fallout-ish scripted weight system - when you're wearing armour, it's weight isn't fully tallied. Meaning, you couldn't carry the armour by itself, but when you wear it you can carry some things but not a terrible lot. That way you could have realistic carry weights (75-200?) and not be a walking armoury.And give backpack mods a real use.

I'm still drooling over R4C's post...:drool:

That's all pretty complex stuff. I'd rather see existing places better geared to thieves really.

Better Cities and OOO add more places to break into, and better handplaced loot in some places respectively. SM Combat Hide and Regional Bounty make evading the law possible already by the way. Thievey In the Imperial City and Thieves Arsenal add a few quests, unfinished and slightly buggy as they are. TA in particular always causes problems for me, particularly with the blackjack. Things aren't that bad for a thief.

The only problem I have is self defense. Bows are criminally underpowered without a pretty big sneak multiplier boost at higher levels. Of course a good thief never gets caught, and on those rare occasions he does, has a backup plan. The flash bombs from the Thief series are probably my most desired item. Non-lethal solutions are vitually ignored in modding.

The thing I'd most like to see with thievery is more of the only thing a thief cares about - treasure. I'd love to see tons of unique but functionally useless treasure items in castles, vaults, ruins and forts I could sell for cash or display in my home. There's already one that does this for a few locations but I'd love more of the same.

First of all, YES to the happening randomly; it always bugged me in Vanilla Oblivion how the player is the only person who does anything, which is why I run stuff like TIE4MODS and Crowded Roads Advanced and all that; they add more people doing different things. It would be awesome if these things could occur randomly. I also agree that it should have to do somewhat with the person from whom it was stolen. I would use the person's gold on-hand and the value of their apparel to determine how seriously the guards take it (and would avoid making scripts that determine specific NPC's as that could easily cause problems with other mods). The idea of closing down a district/city/cell is brilliant, although I don't imagine guards doing that unless it was murder (note that the Gold-on-Hand + Value of Apparel formula could also be used to determine how seriously the guards take a murder if you're caught. although it would have to be calculated immediately as if you kill someone you'll probably take their valuables afterwords).

You're con-games idea is really good too, although I think that would be better implemented as a separate repeatable quest mod.




I'm glad you like the "forgotten bounty" thing

Anyway, yeah, making hoods useful would make sense, however here are my thoughts on why that wouldn't work;
If you set a script to run when you have a clothing item in your head slot it will run on any clothing item and no helmets which, as far as I'm concerned, do a better job of masking your identity than a hood.
If you set it to run on all head items it will run on things that don't make sense at all like tiaras
Either way stuff like tail-slot masks and such won't be factored in.
I do agree though that it is a good idea, I just don't see how to implement it without selecting specific items in which case it will only work on vanilla/supported mod items.



Varied lockpicking tools and locks would be really awesome. Here are my thoughts on how it could possibly be expanded; if you run a script whenever the player successfully unlocks (via lockpick or magic, not key) there is an X% chance that it will have a deadbolt, in which case the only way to open it will be with a prybar tool. The prybar can only open deadbolts, and can result in the following possibilities based on Luck and Security; opens lock, doesn't open lock and you drop the prybar, the lock doesn't open and you injure yourself, or the lock doesn't open and the prybar breaks (small chance of the last three). No matter which happens there will be a noise that alerts NPC's within a very short distance that you opened a lock, and you will of course be in trouble if that lock was to a restricted area or someone elses chest. Players with high enough strength and hand to hand don't need a prybar to do what I just described. Of course I'm not trying to take your idea or anything, but these were just my thoughts in reading what you posted




I believe there was a mod that made it possible for beggars to pickpocket the player, but I don't recall the name :/ That said, yes, expanding NPC scripts on low responsibility characters in any way to make them more thief-like would be great! I think it could potentially cause problems if we allow them to break into house or anything like that as they could end up in problematic places, but adding pickpocketing or mugging or stuff like that to all characters based on their responsibility as opposed to just making certain AI's built to do this would be great!



In my mind infamy is about the way you are perceived as opposed to what you've actually been caught doing; I don't think guards should be able to interfere with you if you're debt to society is fulfilled, but they'll still dislike you, and merchants will make you pay more if your infamous because it drops their disposition. I actually am fond if this decision, I mean I can't think of any Real Estate company that would reject a sale in cash just because they think the buyer is a bad person



Everything you just said is true, but I feel the armor thing is too much of a general gameplay change (and potentially framerate eater) to be something I would feel obligate to use as a thief, or at least it's not something I would want as a required feature for a major overhaul if our ideas ever turn into that. It would also be nigh on if not impossible to implement a script that allowed you to wake someone from a different cell, sadly :/



I am very strongly against hand placed loot in vanilla places as I feel that takes the spontaneity out of the game and causes too many conflicts; for me mods like Item Integration and Armametarium Complete and Runeskulls that work all their objects into the game randomly are the best suited to thieving. It takes all the fun out of the steal if you know exactly where it is from the moment you step out of the sewers imho (I mean I've hardly even glanced at the Vaults of Cyrodiil in my recent saves just because I already know what's there and how to get it; it's less fun for me now ). I agree though; things aren't BAD for a thief, but we're just wanting them to be better Thievery in the IC is amazing, by the way, I agree, but again, I've done it all before; there's nothing I don't know about acquiring the items, so its boring now :/



I must admit I disagree about the bow being underpowerd, in fact if you use a few archery-geared mods it's quite the opposite; JogX's Stealth Overhaul makes arrows faster and stronger, and lets you set the multiplier (which I keep setting lower and lower because it's too easy), MOBs increases the damage of everything in the game (which helps archers immensely as their whole purpose is burst damage), and something like Conduit Magic or Arcane Archery coupled with the fact that you still have 6 other major skills which could easily include Resto, Illusion, or a melee wep leads me to believe arechery is almost overpowerd, I mean in a full FCOM setup I cleared the first 10-12 IC Arene matches in one sitting at level 2 using just Light Armor, Marksman, and Resto skills

I do, by the way, agree that more unique items would be great, and would think it would be good to implement them in a similar way to the Amber/MAdness MAtrices in that they could randomly occur in any of _____-type chests, but don't want them stuck in specific places if it can be helped.

CC

Try Strategy Master's http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16136 if you haven't already - it allows you to bash locks on containers as well as doors. I'm not sure if breaking a lock would alert nearby NPCs, but I think the author would consider adding the feature in if requested.

Of course, a mod that would make use of a prybar or a grapple hook would be nice Like breaking in from the roof or through the second story window.



I recommend kuertee's http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22193. Coupled with a backpack mod (he's got one of those too) and with a fatigue mod, you should be set in that department.

On having NPCs do nasty stuff, Reneer solved the problem by having them taken to jail instead of being killed in the streets. TIE gave up on having pickpockets in cities because there was too much fighting, but still has pickpockets in the wilderness. Would be nice to see some burglars as well, and maybe have NPCs replace the stolen stuff when they notice it's gone missing?

Perhaps even add traps to the containers or improve the locks. Adding personal guards might be too much of a stretch.

However, if you've robbed someone blind and left their house without a trace of food, they should buy some more, right? This might be workable checking when items owned by someone change owership.
Not sure about implementing the part where other NPCs steal. It could be a sort of background thing - you'd have some random stuff (based on value, perhaps), disappear from houses while adding a certain value to a thief's inventory. Again, a random chance he'd get a bounty once in a while. This could take place each day at midnight for all the "thieves", and would add a more dynamic economic environment. Not to mention new jail mates.

Ideally, if a thief npc is in the same cell as the player - say the IC Elven Gardens - at things look ripe for stealing (it's night), he would actually go into a house and loot the place.

This thread is really interesting and I'll be following its progress. Sadly I need to sleep so I can't linger anymore.

Ah, one more for the road: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=27732 - so you don't actually see them sneaking. Well, kind of.

Cheers all! Good ideas!

cc

I'd like to see random competition theivery as well. There is a theives guild afterall, why don't they do anything? I think this is actually a problem with the other guilds too. There's all these guildies, but none of them actual do guild activities. As a matter of fact, why aren't there more sneaking/stealth wars going on anyways with NPCs both in city and dungeon? Is it me or are you the only person who really sneaks? Taking this idea, I'd love to see random sneakers either trying to steal from you or kill you. Is there a mod for that already?

Anyways, it'd be pretty cool to break in somewhere and find a thief already in the house.

I also love finding treasure, whether the chest is in a dungeon or in that rich person's house.

And concerning Reneer's mods, I'm always a bit nervous with his mods because of my particular mod list I use. They don't sometimes always get along, but that is a common problem with all mods, not just his.

What, is this the "Talk about Reneer" thread?

No, it doesn't. It CTDs in your mod setup. If RGO caused CTDs, I would be experiencing them myself. If it caused CTDs in a wide variety of mod configuration, then I would be getting a massive number of complaints. But I don't. Even if only 1% of people who use RGO complained to me about CTDs, that would be well over a thousand complaints. Which I don't get through e-mail, private message or any other forms of communication. So I tend to view people's CTD complaints with a big grain of salt in regards to RGO somehow being the primary fault.
This bug has been fixed for a long while. It frequently occurs with Bashed Patch / Load Order issues.
For the love of... the way I script things is done in many other mods. While RGO was probably one of the first mods to heavily rely upon scripted tokens, I've devoted over three years of my life to this mod. I've fixed countless bugs, worked with probably hundreds of users and taken the time to work with many individually to try and sort out what is causing their in-game problems. And yes, some of my mods do break from time to time. I do the best that I can with what I have available to me, which, frankly, isn't much. I don't have people working for me to fix bugs. I don't have endless time to devote to figuring out which mod out of a 200+ load order is causing issues with RGO. I just don't. Especially with users constantly complaining about bugs in RGO and who then go on to list their Load Orders with 200 mods and the Bashed Patch and somehow expect me to magically know what the problem is and don't feel it necessary to provide any more detail than "It's broken."

No dising meant there. And I probably should have worded that differently. But..... do you not sort of encrypt the way you do your scripts?

Uh, no? Unless by "encrypt" you mean "write complicated scripts to accomplish complicated things." Then, yes, "encrypt" would be a good word choice. It's really rather easy to explain how RGO works.

1. AoE script gives guards and civilians scripted tokens.
2. When guards / civilians see the player, they add themselves to a list which is in a quest.
3a. If the player commits a crime and no guards / civilians see him, the crime-gold is removed and the crime is absolved.
3b. When the player commits a crime and is witnessed, RGO checks the list to see which guards can see the player, then gives the player a crime-ring that keeps track of those particular guards and if they can see the player (and the ring then keeps variables regarding each of those guards). If no guards see the player, the Ring removes its crime-gold from the player and if a guard does see the player (and the Ring has its reference) then the Ring adds the crime-gold again. The Ring also keeps track of where it was added / what the in-game date was in order to see if it should "activate" if the player is in the same region where the crime was committed and if the "time" the crime is remembered is past (and then the Ring will remove itself).

Reneer, I promise I wasn't trying to attack your mod. I'm just lazy and haven't updated in a while. I should probably check into that.


And about static objects - I'm definitely not against it, but as R4C said, once you know where everything is you tend to avoid it like the plague. I like random things and random things means different experiences every time. I wish there were random static objects - objects that when taken are replaced or are different every so often. You take the gold vase, and next time there's a clay vase or a pot of flowers or something like that.

But the objects are only one facet of the discussion. What I was really pointing to was that thieves have an extremely limited arsenal of tools to work with compared to fireflingers or swordsmen. Off the top of my head the best things to use are the tools from Thieves Arsenal and P-Froggy's Climbing mod. The latter is practically essential in my game. I haven't used TA so much because he keeps giving me the same target location over and over again. The abilities thieves get are really just filler : there's only a few things vanilla, and really no major overhaul that sets out to fill up the tool pouch.

What I would like to see more focus on are things that expand what thieves can do: pickpocketing and sneaking. A sneak that's more of a slinking motion, where the player walks full speed but gets a minor sneak bonus, and when the player sinks into full sneak gets a larger bonus. If that makes sense, good, because I can't think of a way to word that better. Pickpocketing where the player can be slightly more up front about things, and bumps into an NPC. (Because it's a lot easier to pickpocket like that than it is to pull something out of someone's pocket)


The vanilla fences also irritate me as well. Now, before I start a rant on it, I know of and have a lot of mods that add new and better fences. The thing that gets me is that the vanilla fences never seem to have any real thing going for them. Imagine, if you're a guard. About midnight, every night or every other night, that complete strangers (the PC isn't the only guild thief) walk into a house and leave ten or twenty minutes later. They're going to be watching closer or taking down whatever is going on - I mean, it's either drugs or some other illegal activity like smuggling or something.

Thankfully, TIE does fix that, and most excellently. I like the traveling fences. It's hard to keep finding the same one, and making friends with them is practically pointless unless you make friends with all of them (and I think there's at least ten permanent ones). And that's a lot of gold, if your speech is low. So it's a really good fix for that. And it allows for proper freelancing.

Ah, I can't think of anything more to rant about right now.

Hmm, perhaps I have gotten you, Reneer, mixed up with another modder then as far as the encrpytion thing. I just seem to recall something about a modder that flat out refused to help another modder who wanted to alter the scripts to help the original modder out and the scripts were really unnecessarily hard to understand. The original modder said something about doing that on purpose. Regardless, the mods you do make are known to be buggy, but so is just about everyone else's. haha. Again, no disrespect here, I'm just stating my observation of other's experiences.

EDIT: Now that I've thought about it, I know it wasn't you that I'm thinking of for the encryption part. It is another modder.

Ashven, did P-Froggy ever put the climbing animations in or does it still appear as if walking up straight?

I realize you're just stating what everyone apparently already knows (except for those who don't experience any bugs in my mods - notch) but do you really have to go shouting it from the rooftops? You don't see me complaining about people's mods. You see me actually trying to fix mine. Make it better. Improve upon it. I have consistently updated RGO for the past three years - every month or so, until recently, has seen some sort of update / fix, based upon user feedback. But unless you're using my mod and experiencing bugs... how about toning down the abject criticisms?

As for some of the (very) neat ideas in this thread, I'll look into a few of the ones that piqued my interest (though, to be honest, getting the Guards to do anything "intelligent" is tedious work). I especially like the idea of "bumping" into NPCs and getting a random small item from their inventory. Like... maybe a house key or some coins. I always found it odd how you could steal a sword from an NPC...

*munches on popcorn*

this great, I have not seen a face off like this on the forums for some time.

IT'S DELICIOUS

but in all seriousness, Reneer has been modding here for a long time folks, a long time, his was one of the first mods I used, and he provides people with a lot of help. think before you speak, personally I think a lot of the problems that SEEM to stem from RGO is CPU overload or mod overload.

I'm a bit sad to say there are still no animations (which is mostly due to lack of an animator) but when you play in first person you never notice. I personally don't care - I'm a die-hard first person player.