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I thought it might be a good time to start up a thread regarding how to fix stealth skills. Sneak, hide, and steal, for starters.

Currently, hide gives you a check every time you look in the room. I think an easy fix would be once an hour you get a roll, or once an IC day for a hidden object, much like searching gives you one chance to do this.

I'd also like to see it become easier to sneak or hide, the more people that are around you. Currently everyone receives a check every step of the way if I were to sneak, then try to hide. Maybe make it so with a few people around the check is left on the player, and if failed, checks are given to those around to see if they observe the stealth attempt? The point being here to encourage people to use these skills.

And lastly, steal. I believe that currently, steal gives everyone in the room a chance to see it, which means pilfering in a crowd is less likely to succeed. That is only through my own previous use, and also observation of thieves in crowded rooms. To make this a skill people want to use, it needs a better chance of success, and when someone is pick pocketing in a crowded room I think that should be again dependent on how hard it would be to pick someone out in a crowd. If it becomes too easy to steal there could even be a random 10-30 min timer that drops on the target, where they 'go to pat XXX item/their purse and realist something is awry!'

Anyway, this is more of a discussion starter. I imagine there are a lot of great ideas on how to improve the criminal/sneaky system.

It definitely seems strange that more crowded areas are *harder* to steal or hide in. Likewise, aren't hidden characters given away by the RPXP meter if only one other person is in the room? I've heard this mentioned offhand elsewhere, and while it's probably definitely cheating to use that info, I feel like in the best-faith case that's going to be awkward.

On the subject of hiding and with changes to hide/sneak in the works, I'd like to see this paragraph of the helpfile get an update:

"Please note that coded skill results are not the be-all and end-all in the
game. They must be RPed in a realistic manner. For example, it would be
physically impossible to disappear while in plain sight; doing so would be
tantamount to magery. Instead, be respectful of your RP partners and at
least emote stepping behind some object in the room from where their vision
would be well obscured and your character could logically sneak away
unseen."

In particular, I disagree with the suggestion that you should have to emote stepping behind something first. The act of finding a good spot is part of the threaded command. If someone sees the thread, then they see the attempt. If they don't, then you've managed to step behind something while they weren't looking. I don't think that should have to require any further elaboration in emotes. The thread itself is several seconds long, which already feels like an eternity when you're doing something potentially risky.

I really hate to suck all the fun out of these commands by qualifying that everything needs to be perfectly obvious to everyone all the time. If we need to change the culture around this the same way we did for cloaks and hoods, then by all means. That's how I feel about it.

And to follow up... stealth is one of those systems (like combat) where I think it'd be helpful if we actually COULD rely on coded success/failure as the be-all end-all, since we're not all likely to agree on what seems realistic at any given time. Meaning, any room where it'd be physically impossible to hide would be flagged as no-hide and print out a message like, "So-and-so doesn't see any possible way to hide here." Everywhere else would be fair game, with the presence of guards, etc., making attempts more difficult or vNPC crowds/traffic making attempts easier.

This would still leave the onus of interpretation on the person left standing there wondering where Jimbob suddenly went, but at least the question of 'should it be possible' wouldn't be one folks could split hairs over. If it happened, it was possible.

I like where this is going. Being left confused when someone sneaks out could be fixed with something as simple as "suddenly you notice Jimbob isn't here anymore" 10-15minutes after Jimbob exits the room while sneaking.

Or maybe in certain circumstances you potentially see something out of the corner of your eye as the hide succeeds? Doesn't stop the person from succeeding, but you're made aware of their absence after? Less magey than simply going poof...

One command many folks might not be aware of is MARK, which is actually a way of codedly pointing out someone in hiding or, if used on them BEFORE they hide, preventing them from hiding undetected. It's basically a way to indicate (and not just via emotes) that you're paying close attention to someone.

One way that hide and steal could maybe be made more realistic -- a little more naturally (as opposed to just demanding realism via helpfiles) -- would be to actually tie the commands to emotes.

For example, 'steal leans toward /jimbob and gives him a hearty pat on the shoulder.' or 'hide ducks behind a passing carriage.'

Right now, hide and steal are completely disconnected from RP. Tying them to emotes would require players to put more thought into how they're used.

Agreed on everything. Stealth is a bit useless unless you start hiding/sneaking alone in a room. And even then just spamming 'look' will spring you.

The helpfile the general populace sees about steal and not requiring emotes et al, may or may not be the case.

Given that it's a Guildskill with a Guild specific version of the helpfile just a thought on that one.