I'm a fan since Morrowind and I am worried of the implementation of thieving this time arround. In Morrowind in Balmora alone you could have hours of fun by stealing from buildings of merchants, guilds and even find quests by breaking in. Clever use of sneak and cameleon made thieving great. Who didnt try and steal that 60000? septim soul gem in the mages guild?. In my opinion it was great, but in Oblivion the devs made thieving useless, yes the guildquests where still fun, but breaking in in a random house would always end up in dissapointment. You would open a 100 lock and you would be rewarded with a a few crops even in castles where nobles lived and gaurds patrolled the corridors you wouldn't find worth while equipment. One of the biggest dissapointments in Oblivion was when you would open a vitrine and there would be FAKE Ebony armor, i mean .... come on. Even lockpickings in caves and such weren't very rewarding. In combination with the level scaling you would get the best tressure by killing highwaymen. I still entered everything I could, because out smarting the NPCs was still fun. it just didn't feel the same.

Am I the only one that felt thieving was murdered? What do you want changed compared to Oblivion, or is it fine the way it was?

I love playing as a thief and my first character will probably be stealth-oriented, most likely a Bosmer.

Mah boi! This lettuce is what all true thieves strive for!

I did feel disappointed quite often by the loot I would find in some of the posher houses in Oblivion - would be nice if the richer the house, the more valuable the contents; but that's also combined with it being much more difficult to steal from them.

Oblivion destroyed any interest for thieving because of extreme level scaling. Since the WHOLE world was level scaled, the manor guards were level scaled. So at level 1 the richest places where only guarded by level one guards and so any fixed loot they placed there had to be of a quality that wouldn't "overpower" a level 1 player. AKA useless once and forever.

Edit: forgot the end

Since level scaling will be much closer than how it was in Morrowind and Fallout 3, I say that thieving will be useful.

I love playing sneaky characters in the elder scrolls... black coats, black leather armor... sneaky sneaky...

If not all monsters are leveled to your level I don't see the problem. If I as a thief steal a nice little ebony dagger, that is still only an ebony dagger on a level 1 thief. It will give me advantages on low level enemies, but not on the higher ups. Being overpowered in a singleplayer game is hardly a problem. Just make sure a level 1 thief can't get to it easily. Use strong gaurds, a lot of gaurds high level locks, but I should be able to try and if I succeed I want that advantage of having a high level item!.

Don't worry, you're not alone on this one, I too feel that there weren't adequate rewards for thieves in Oblivion, the stealth mechanics may have been improved over Morrowind, and I even really enjoyed the stealth oriented quests in the game. But for freelance thefts, there just wasn't that much to make it worthwhile. I've always found that some of the greatest rewards for any aspiring thief in Morrowind were the great house vaults in Vivec, while it might be argued that the vaults weren't really as hard to break into as they should have been (Especially that one where he key is located in someone's dresser.) I blame a lot of that on the bad AI in Morrowind coupled with the fact that a strong fighter with a moderate speachcraft skill could easily break into the vaults by taunting the guards and killing them, then looting their keys instead, without any concequences if you can handle a fight against an Ordinator, but the rewards were the kind of thing that really made breaking into them feel worthwhile, no matter what means you use to accomplish it, Oblivion simply never offered anything like that, without mods.

Part of the problem might be due to the overuse of level scaling, but I wouldn't say that's the only cause, in the end, one gets the impression that Bethesda wanted to make it so the best items can only be acquired to exploring dungeons or doing quests, which admitably is a pretty common trend in RPGs, but if you're going to let players steal things in your game, with the risk of getting arrested involved, you should make sure that there's rewards that are worth those risks. It's okay to let characters get good items from stealing too, after all, it's not like you can just walk into a house and steal things without concequence, theft has risks involved too, and requires skills, different skills from fighting monsters and bandits, mind you, but it still needs skills, so there's no excuse for it to not be possible for stealing to be rewarding too. Obviously, not every house should have the best loot in it, just like how you shouldn't be able to find Daedric armor in every cave. In general, upper class houses should tend to have better items than lower class ones, but these items should be better guarded, just like how when exploring dungeons, you should find the best loot in dungeons with high level enemies, as oppose to ones which are easy to take care of.

I had a Khajiit thief who did no adventuring or questing. She had to eat evey day and she loved fine dresses and good wine, and she could easily live of stealing alone. It's not realistic to think that every house will have awesome weapons and diamond jewelery to steal. Stealing from a house or two in Imperial City a couple of times a week is more than enough to sustain my thief with all she needs. So I think stealing in Oblivion was fine, although I wouldn't mind certain houses with awesome loot. (Although your "woo, a lettuce"-comment made me laugh).

I love you.

Anyways it needs to be a little bit more worthwhile but it should be fine.

in morrowind almost everything i had was stolen, although later in the game i used loot


in oblivion, it was all leveled loot

I used to roleplay that my character had a fetish for silver to give thieving more meaning. His house was full of the stuff. :hubbahubba:
I would like something more akin to the Morrowind house vaults in Skyrim, perhaps banks or moneylenders. :ninja:

The rewards of thieving should be great,however it should take a hell of a lot of time and effort to be able gain entry to places with items of great value..... Though not always

For one, there should be expensive fabrics, gems and such so that going into a noblemans house will reap some reward and not leave you only 6 coins richer.

Nor does it make sense that common bandits should use the most expensive armour and weapons available. You are right that not every household is going to have uber expensive items to pinch however this wasnt the case in Morrowind either, however you would expect some of the richer houses to contain some good loot and if not them then surely the castles would have something worth stealing, unfortunately this is not the case in Cyrodiil.

Oblivion killed thievery.

"Stop! You violated the law. Pay the court a fine or serve your sentence!"

Oblivion thievery wasnt good but it only needed a bit of improvement.

I'll cry if we still have to use a fence. I want to be able to sell my stolen loot to normal merchants.

I was just about to post this! I reckon if you steal from a shop then you shouldn't be able to sell it back to them, but everything else should be fair game (although it would be fun if you did try to sell it back to them, and they recognised it...)

Sure there was hardly no valuable things for you to steal, but then again there was no hard place to steal.

So the solution to these both problems would be this:
There are some hard places (cough Bank cough) and then there would be like some easy places like the Umbarella (name escapes me) Manor
So the Banks would be filled with guards (atleast 7) and would have a very hard lock to the vault and there would be alternative ways to do it.

This also makes me wonder what happens if you get caught thieving? Skyrim comes across as more ruthless than Cyrodiil.

If they make it so you can sell everything to almost anyone, there will be tons of losers players who will ignore the storylines to priorly steal tons of loot and garbage to get rich, and there you have a broken game. BTW, they will also complain about the game after that.
In a game with so many objects scattered in the world, houses but especially castles and stores should be heavily guarded without exhibiting too much valuable stuff at bare sight.
I reckon Oblivion's thievery was broken, pretty much for the well-known 2 reasons; leveled world and telepathic guards.
I don't remember thieving in Morrowind cause i played as a barbarian, but it's a delicate balance problem.

There needs to be measures to counter the average boob from killing the system - but I don't mean level scaling or [censored].

If you're a silver tongued devil of a thief, you might just be able to convince the local pawn to take your hot property, BUT you lose a fraction of the value (the owner basically trying to cover his ass if he gets caught). Or you can just deal with certain kinds. The kinds you'd be spending a game week looking for, loitering about a tavern blowing your money on food and wine whilst you wait.

Thievery isn't only about the actual theft, but the entire process from snatch to scratch. If you burglarize a home, it doesn't make you a thief - but if you break into a home, go for certain items of priority (or in certain cases a specific target), and make the bail without overextending your stay (meaning sticking to the damn plan - do NOT go back for something spur of the moment). Then you spend time making connections to the right people (this could be the Guild or freelancers, or guild fences who work with freelancers) to meet the right fences.

I may just be more passionate about it than most, but in my mind thievery isn't an act but a lifestyle. As a professional in my own game, I say with utmost urgency that thievery needs more oomph. Oblivion basically made it where there was no RP to be had, no passion for the art, no entertainment - outside the guild. Beth basically said "Guild or GTFO" to thieves. And RP is what makes it worthwhile. I'd love the to go to a seedy tavern in the heart of the local slimehole (whatever the "Bravil" of Skyrim is) and sit down with people I've compadre'd with, and listen to them exchange ideas for thefts or targets, or just shoot the breeze and roll dice with them.

I totally agree.
And that brings us to item prices... Noble clothing, jewellery and other expensive stuff should actually be... you know, expensive.
Hell I want all items in the game to be much, much more expensive than they were in Oblivion.

I loved Vivec in Morrowind for thievery due to the great houses' vaults. It was so rewarding to break in and steal everything inside.
Would LOVE more high value targets in Skyrim.