SC, Looting people but not able to steal from shops? Realistic and a necessity.

NaffNaffBobFace

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I've been talking about the whole looting thing over on Spectrum (I know), and it has occurred to me...

...If we can loot players wholesale, why are the shops not able to be stolen from?

The more I have through about it, the more Shoplifting in SC makes sense - the food, drink and Wowblast darts on the counter tops, the armour on the dummies, the hats on the shelves, the coats and shirts on the hangars... if it has a price and you can have hands on it, it should all be stealable. It doesn't make sense I can't thust walk off with that 3UEC can of Fizz Cola but I can wait for a player to walk up and buy one, then knock them on their ass and then pull it out of their pocket.

You can pick a gun off a display and inspect it in your very own hand, why can't you inspect it all the way out the door without paying? It might not be easy to do as the shop keeper would have something to say about it, but so does the player you are trying to knock down to take that exotic gun off.

Shoplifting isn't just needed for realism, it's also a favourable Balancing mechanic to stop players using each other as pinatas for basic necessities in the final game - Say a player is down on their luck and has a zero UEC balance, the insurance ran out on their ship and it went boom and they'd run out of fuel anyway and they basically have no way of making an income. Right now no money means no food or water = a death sentence, you will starve or dehydrate to death. Shoplifting food and drink is needed as a lowest viable resort to keeping yourself alive and if you are making everything in a players inventory lootable and food and drink shopliftable, you might as well make all items in the 'verse shopliftable from the 3UEC Fizz Cola cans all the way to the 1 million + UEC ships sat on display at New Deal.

I've popped the suggestion on Spectrum if you want to upvote it. If I'm going to have my pockets emptied by an asshole, I don't want it to be prompted by them getting a bit thirsty and seeing I have a bottle of water in my bag.

 

Bambooza

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I've been talking about the whole looting thing over on Spectrum (I know), and it has occurred to me...

...If we can loot players wholesale, why are the shops not able to be stolen from?

The more I have through about it, the more Shoplifting in SC makes sense - the food, drink and Wowblast darts on the counter tops, the armour on the dummies, the hats on the shelves, the coats and shirts on the hangars... if it has a price and you can have hands on it, it should all be stealable. It doesn't make sense I can't thust walk off with that 3UEC can of Fizz Cola but I can wait for a player to walk up and buy one, then knock them on their ass and then pull it out of their pocket.

You can pick a gun off a display and inspect it in your very own hand, why can't you inspect it all the way out the door without paying? It might not be easy to do as the shop keeper would have something to say about it, but so does the player you are trying to knock down to take that exotic gun off.

Shoplifting isn't just needed for realism, it's also a favourable Balancing mechanic to stop players using each other as pinatas for basic necessities in the final game - Say a player is down on their luck and has a zero UEC balance, the insurance ran out on their ship and it went boom and they'd run out of fuel anyway and they basically have no way of making an income. Right now no money means no food or water = a death sentence, you will starve or dehydrate to death. Shoplifting food and drink is needed as a lowest viable resort to keeping yourself alive and if you are making everything in a players inventory lootable and food and drink shopliftable, you might as well make all items in the 'verse shopliftable from the 3UEC Fizz Cola cans all the way to the 1 million + UEC ships sat on display at New Deal.

I've popped the suggestion on Spectrum if you want to upvote it. If I'm going to have my pockets emptied by an asshole, I don't want it to be prompted by them getting a bit thirsty and seeing I have a bottle of water in my bag.

I don't see why they can't enable stealing from vendors or players and I am sure it should incur the same penalties depending on the jurisdiction bylaws. Just like mugging or murdering will have its own penalties and then the looting of said victim might include further crimes.

I guess what I am having a hard time with is this knee-jerk reaction to a game system being implemented (looting) that has been known for years as being the intended game state. And while other game systems notably reputation and spawn closets for NPC police force to introduce the risk part of mugging, murdering, and stealing, there is this outcry from the community as if they A. did not know looting was going to be possible, and B. the possibility of some other player being able to loot and use their entitlement. As if their golden gun is unique to them and how dare anyone else gets to walk around with it (even if they can go get another golden gun just like buying any other gun). In fact, a lot of them are totally ok with said gun being destroyed along with their ship and thus not bootable and are ok with having to reacquire said gun (some do want it to always be in their inventory and never lost)

But back to the topic, CIG has said they are ok with stealing, but who knows if or when it will be introduced into the game. And just like the green zone with the removal of armistice restrictions, it's the reputation system tied together with dynamic missions and prison that is meant to keep people from just treating most zones as an fps freeforall. IE I would be free to shoot you and loot all of your stuff and take your ship while on Hurston, but in doing so I am now flagged as a criminal and more than likely also generate a bounty and thus will have to deal with Hurston security forces increasing their attack and numbers on my location (spawn closet are limitless). The chances of getting away with any of it are very small and the time spent in prison will be long indeed. So yes I ruined your day and maybe made off with your gear/ship however unlikely it would be. I am now forced into a game loop that's going to keep me busy for hours and thus not able to be a dick to others. And most likely after one or two of these experiences, I'll realize it's just not worth it and go be a bastard in Pyro.

At the same time, this kind of freedom also opens up for dynamic gameplay possibilities where you have been bragging at the bar about the golden Chalice you found on your last expedition deep into the void. And I being of a more seedy type decide that I am going to get my group of unsavories and liberate golden chalice from your hanger or at least try. And from that whole bunch of possible stories can arise that are far more memorable than any scripted event the developers can achieve.
 

Sky Captain

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I just see the gaming new site headlines now: "As funding lags, Chris Roberts changes Star Citizen vision to create what players crave, *the best damn crime simulation ever*!"

My view: If we can steal it, why bother exploring the universe to find and earn things in game? I didn't pledge for CrimeCitizen, sorry. We see that going on at the local Walgreens. And its not fun.
 
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NaffNaffBobFace

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I just see the gaming new site headlines now: "As funding lags, Chris Roberts changes Star Citizen vision to create what players crave, *the best damn crime simulation* ever!"

My view: If we can steal it, why bother exploring the universe to find and earn things in game? I didn't pledge for CrimeCitizen, sorry. We see that going on at the local Walgreens. And its not fun.
If we can steal it, why bother exploring the universe to find and earn things in game?
That's the thing - you will be able to do that to any other player you see with something you want even without shoplifting. Why travel to the other side of Uranus to collect some Unobtainium the old guy at Hurston needs to build you the BlitzKiller-5000k Bazooka when you see another player who already has one and pop a cap in the back of their head while they are busy eating a burrito.

But with Shoplifting, it takes away the drive for those players who won't pay for anything anyway to cap you just for the burrito - they'll already have stocked up on them at the local Five Finger Discount whereas without shoplifting their pockets will be as empty as their stomachs and your packed lunch is on their menu.

I don't want it to become a crime sim either, but it risks becoming a Mugging sim. Happy to hear suggestions on how lootable people but non-lootable shops does anything but make anything with arms and legs in the 'Verse a target for supplies.
 

Sky Captain

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If we want shoplifting in-game, then also remove the crime stat for my subsequent aggressive response to a criminal stealing my stuff, as I'll be looting it back from that criminal corpse right away.

But honestly, I play to be flying very expensive space ships somewhere in the 'verse. Not standing in my shop with a shotgun every minute. Shoplifting would kill the player vendor game entirely.
 

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If your on a station, and someone shoplifts they can just keep you from leaving until you turn yourself in. If you are on a planet you should get a crimestat bounty based on the cost of the item you stole. You would have to deal with local authorities and bounty hunters plus even if you sell it to someone else you are still being held responsible for the theft. Sooner or later you will have a record in game and that will determine how ai and ppl treat you in the game just like real life.
 

vahadar

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@NaffNaffBobFace There is that video from this year Citcon where you see someone in a shop in Pyro, with 2 ways of getting an item (an artefact worth a few millions) either buy it, or steal it from the shop counter, with different outcomes for each obviously :)

It is not really shoplifting as you get spotted straight it seems, but it is stealing shops at least ^^
 

Vavrik

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In other games that include item purchases from a website, there is typically an exchange of real money for the in-game currency, which you can also earn in the game. Then whatever you do with the in-game currency is your business in the game. Also, if you remove in-game money for real money (some games allow that too), you are charged taxes by the Government.

The problem in CIG's case is there is no conversion to an in-game currency when you make a purchase from the website. You pay in real money, and are charged tax. Right now that's not a big problem but when the game goes live it's got potential to become one.
 

BUTUZ

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Shoplifting is going to be in the game, one of the cit con videos had the player buying an item from the shop - and then reran it with the player kiling the shopkeeper , lifting it and fighting his way back out?

Just gotta wait man why is everyone in such a rush I'll be happy to wait 10 years for shoplifting.
 

Thalstan

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Personally, full loot isn’t going to work in SC. You are always going to be worried about someone ganking you because you have xyz item in your backpack. Therefore, you are going to shoot them before they shoot you.
Thus, cooperative gameplay is gone as you need to assume that if you meet another person, you are going to need to kill them if you get the chance…because you must assume they will do the same to you.

no medical gameplay, because people who respond will get killed. One person removed and dropped the weapons carried by someone who put out a medical beacon…told them this and that they would get their guns back…and when revived, they entered melee combat and killed the responding person. This is happening now in game.

CR wants a world where you need other people, but has designed a world where you can’t trust other players. He need to make a decision. Either this is a full loot game with open PvP everywhere, but you no longer need others to play the game or even pilot big ships and this turns into EvE online 2.0, or you dial it WAY back. Looting player corpses of all stuff is gone. You might get a drop or two, but the player retains their good on revive. PvP gets banished to small areas in-game (only certain systems don’t have immediate consequences against PvP actions) or becomes a 2 party consensual system. DoaS gets reworked. CRs ideas did not work out back in 1997 and they don’t work today for MMOs, at least, ones that have a decent number of players.
 

NaffNaffBobFace

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...putting theft in piecemeal isn't going to work. Someone will always find a way to game the game if not implemented properly.
I think you are spot-on there, hence why we are having this conversation right now as theft is going in piecemeal - all mechanics are going in piecemeal, they can't just flip a switch and have feature complete sets pop into the game all fully formed as the game is in active development, not a finished product. If the hope was for the players to inform the directions of this, my response is that for some major game play aspects such as big game impacting mechanics like this, you just have to take charge and provide the direction from the creation team saying "This is our intention and this is how it's going to be" and minimise the 'We'll work that out later' as that is almost an invitation for players to theorycraft a gap to fill the void.

Some things the Devs might have needed to/might have considered when making this Loot Mechanic decision:

- DOASM is a fixed point. We know we got one life and a certain undefined number of close-shaves. Making everyone loot pinatas encourages a higher turnover in death rate, makes the game more dangerous for players from other players. Anything that artificially increases a players direction to end-of-life needs to be balanced and being a walking loot crate for stronger players is going to see some players meet a premature end outside of their own actions and their own control which is not a satisfying way to end a play through especially when DOASM is such a big penalty for losing your in game life.

- Casual gamers, trolls and people genuinely harassing people online is also a fixed point. As noble as some intentions for bold, genre defying legit gameplay are, they cannot override the fact that some players are there for their own amusement and don't give a flying hoot about grand visions - they are there for fun and some peoples fun is using the best literality works humanity has ever produced as toilet paper for nothing more than their own personal amusement. Even if most don't, some will dump on the vision and in the process sour it for those who are on board with it.

- Making 100% of items on a person lootable including flair and cosmetics deincentivises players from buying from a Flair and Cosmetics market with Real Life cash the Devs could leverage to run the servers after the game goes live. Cosmetics are not consumables in the current game market and one of the pillars of the SC project is no publisher dick moves. Making cosmetics consumable/semi consumable to force repeat sales of said cosmetics is a way big publisher dick move. It won't come to that, as you are supposed to be able to get your flair back eventually if it goes walkies, but from the outside it looks like a sales tactic rather than their trying to plug a loophole they only just discovered (if that is what happened, seems so), but potentially they have just killed the thing which was going to keep SC alive beyond the first few years. I'm not kidding, that's what I think potentially this could do. How are they going to keep the lights on once the last ship has sold and the last retail unit has been through the register?

- And finally the balance between realism and fun. It's realistic to have all your crap stolen from you in Real Life but in a computer game that is not realistic because having to go pick up all your crap from your corpse or replace it from 12 different shops is not fun, it's an inconvenience at best, and indeed when I'm dead I'm not going to be able to go find whoever took my Casio from my cold lifeless wrist and take it back off them. At the end of the day there are many things that make Real Life suck. Games are an entertainment and an escape from that suck. If something in a game sucks, unfortunately, there are other games to play which don't feature said suckage. SC doesn't exist in a vacuum it has to be able to compete with other entertainment properties. It is unique, but so is the uncompromising Durian fruit. People still in the main reach for Apples and Bananas before the Durian as although it is the "King of Fruit" some of its features still suck more than other options.

My suggestion of shoplifting is to remove the risk of everyone being targeted for literally anything down to food and water without which our characters would die, and going back to DOASM, there is a driving force to make sure your character doesn't die and if that means killing another player for their Cheese Puffs so be it. Shoplifting is a way to ensure everyone no matter what their circumstances as constrained by the game are always fully stocked up with the basics. Just pray you don't run across a dude who ate his last pretzel a few hours ago and is too busy to get back to the The Five Finger Discount to stock up.

"Your burrito or your life" - the strong will always prey upon the weak, especially in a game where there are no consequences for them in reality and it gives them entertainment and joy doing so. How to ensure a good game for the weak as well as the strong? The weak'll walk if the only reason for their existence in the game is to be someone else's play thing.

Personally, full loot isn’t going to work in SC. You are always going to be worried about someone ganking you because you have xyz item in your backpack. Therefore, you are going to shoot them before they shoot you.
Thus, cooperative gameplay is gone as you need to assume that if you meet another person, you are going to need to kill them if you get the chance…because you must assume they will do the same to you.

no medical gameplay, because people who respond will get killed. One person removed and dropped the weapons carried by someone who put out a medical beacon…told them this and that they would get their guns back…and when revived, they entered melee combat and killed the responding person. This is happening now in game.

CR wants a world where you need other people, but has designed a world where you can’t trust other players. He need to make a decision. Either this is a full loot game with open PvP everywhere, but you no longer need others to play the game or even pilot big ships and this turns into EvE online 2.0, or you dial it WAY back. Looting player corpses of all stuff is gone. You might get a drop or two, but the player retains their good on revive. PvP gets banished to small areas in-game (only certain systems don’t have immediate consequences against PvP actions) or becomes a 2 party consensual system. DoaS gets reworked. CRs ideas did not work out back in 1997 and they don’t work today for MMOs, at least, ones that have a decent number of players.
There are many contradicting directions being pulled in. We have a drive for co-op play with things like ships built only to work their best with a large crew but everyone is vulnerable to everyone else friend and foe alike. We have a RL money paid for cosmetics system but they are almost consumables losable to other players. We have a limited number of close shaves in game before what is basically a reset, but the push is for PvP battle which ends in frequent death.

It's either very intended and an audacious move that means Star Citizen is not only going to bring never before seen technology to gaming, but also never before seen freedom and consequence where people really will have to live with the permanent repercussions of their actions in game as they do in Real Life, which is the only way having totally free play can function without anrchy, or... or it's all unintended and... and...

I'd prefer to presume the first option of real and lasting consequence in a game and they are aiming for the Org system to become a major way of making teams and factions of people who can trust each other (In which case TEST needs to prepare a robust system for kicking out people who only join to disrupt the Org and ruin its reputation for us being able to trust and play with each other) but with it going in bit by bit rather than as a feature set, they need to tell us that's what's going on and to have at least an intended plan, the full intention which can be communicated and that everyone understands that's the direction which can then be modified as issues come to light - and although feedback is welcome for some things stop with the 'We'll work that out later' response as that just invites the community to fill in the gap, have a direction which doesn't rely on gauging the salt level to it first or salt is going to be the only flavour some players ever taste... maybe consulting trusted players/evo before even starting to implement the mechanics of the plan if it's going to be a big mechanic, so when the larger portion of players push back they can already have a thought out informed response prepared.

I think something which may have to be taken more account of is: even if in game consequences are made concrete they still don't effect a players Real Life. After they click the "Shut Down" button there are no consequences - and just as in a Hollywood Movie, the man walking away from the gas station flicking the lit cigarette over his shoulder ending in a fiery explosion, he doesn't have to assist in the cleanup, he doesn't have to witness a family running out of fuel on the road because the station was a crater, he doesn't have to shoulder the insurance claims and the rebuild or the restocking or the grand reopening. He just walks away and gets on with the rest of his life. There will be players who have an exploding gas station moment and go off and live the rest of their lives leaving SC and the 'Verse behind. Even if there are real and lasting game consequences, nothing in the world is going to force them to come back to the game world to suffer them.

I understand and respect the Devs desire to make something the community drives and include them in the process of mechanics being made, but at 3.3 million accounts it ends up being like the UK voting system: In 2019 Only just under 70% of the population were registered to vote in the first place and with the "First past the post" system it means that with 41% of the registered vote, the incumbents did win, but in real actual terms that means that the 2019 general election was won by a party who got the vote of only 20% of the backing of the whole population of the country - Only a certain number of users are active on Spectrum. Only a few certain types of players are represented vocally on there.

Blessed are the noize makers, for they shall be seen as the community of SC. But blessed also are the meek, for truly they shall inherit the 'Verse 🙂
 
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Sky Captain

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The challenge CrimeCitizen has right now is .... that is all we hear about ... crime.

Looting corpses, the stealing of ships, the drugging of newbs, the griefing of miners, the stealing of cash items ...

The inclusion of even more crime gameplay is fine enough. But if that's all there is, this game is dead on arrival IMHO.

So I'd offer that it is just really bad timing right now for CIG to even tackle this topic further before fixing crime bugs.
 
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Sirus7264

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Personally, full loot isn’t going to work in SC. You are always going to be worried about someone ganking you because you have xyz item in your backpack. Therefore, you are going to shoot them before they shoot you.
Thus, cooperative gameplay is gone as you need to assume that if you meet another person, you are going to need to kill them if you get the chance…because you must assume they will do the same to you.

no medical gameplay, because people who respond will get killed. One person removed and dropped the weapons carried by someone who put out a medical beacon…told them this and that they would get their guns back…and when revived, they entered melee combat and killed the responding person. This is happening now in game.

CR wants a world where you need other people, but has designed a world where you can’t trust other players. He need to make a decision. Either this is a full loot game with open PvP everywhere, but you no longer need others to play the game or even pilot big ships and this turns into EvE online 2.0, or you dial it WAY back. Looting player corpses of all stuff is gone. You might get a drop or two, but the player retains their good on revive. PvP gets banished to small areas in-game (only certain systems don’t have immediate consequences against PvP actions) or becomes a 2 party consensual system. DoaS gets reworked. CRs ideas did not work out back in 1997 and they don’t work today for MMOs, at least, ones that have a decent number of players.
If they make it so that items are also insurable then i dont think it will be as big of an issue looting wise. players who steal it run the risk of losing stuff forever if they die, vs players who get it legit and insure it. they could put a tracker of some type on stolen goods etc. There are alot of things that can be done with the law system that we have seen in other games. I do think though that if you die that your gear guns and what not should be lost forever it doesnt make sense to wake up and having all that stuff again. All CR needs to do is put some type of insurance system which rewards players with buying stuff vs finding/stealing it.
 

Thalstan

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If they make it so that items are also insurable then i dont think it will be as big of an issue looting wise. players who steal it run the risk of losing stuff forever if they die, vs players who get it legit and insure it. they could put a tracker of some type on stolen goods etc. There are alot of things that can be done with the law system that we have seen in other games. I do think though that if you die that your gear guns and what not should be lost forever it doesnt make sense to wake up and having all that stuff again. All CR needs to do is put some type of insurance system which rewards players with buying stuff vs finding/stealing it.
I am fine with insuranceof some type, and them waiting for you back at your home port, but I don’t see CR doing that…. He thinks he knows better than an entire industry that has moved away from full loot and heavy death penalties. even some very new games (late 2021 release dates) that were going to be full loot have moved away from it.

Simply put, CR and CIG have made it very easy to destroy what someone else has built and have seem very reluctant to put systems in place that would have the consequences that are severe enough to warrant thinking twice or even more before dropping that bomb or firing that torpedo. Even EvE is better at this, and they are what I would consider the bottom of the barrel for this.

it’s all about what he wants. A game where Cooperative gameplay exists and is common, or one where people refuse to group up with each other because it’s too adversarial a game.
 

Vavrik

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I am fine with insuranceof some type, and them waiting for you back at your home port, but I don’t see CR doing that…. He thinks he knows better than an entire industry that has moved away from full loot and heavy death penalties. even some very new games (late 2021 release dates) that were going to be full loot have moved away from it.

Simply put, CR and CIG have made it very easy to destroy what someone else has built and have seem very reluctant to put systems in place that would have the consequences that are severe enough to warrant thinking twice or even more before dropping that bomb or firing that torpedo. Even EvE is better at this, and they are what I would consider the bottom of the barrel for this.

it’s all about what he wants. A game where Cooperative gameplay exists and is common, or one where people refuse to group up with each other because it’s too adversarial a game.
I'm not going to speculate about how this turns out, but I'm certainly watching it.
 
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