Shattered Kingdoms

I logged in today to find a gift from someone named Aiden had been stolen by thieves. My character had been wielding the spear. I only have just learned to get around exile, and barely just figured out what the world map display image is. I'm still really new. From reading I can see the goal is to prevent hoarding on older players, but this only penalizes your newer players. Let me explain this as best I can...

Given, a younger player somehow acquires a decent weapon either via gift or purchase after working their butt off gold coins at a time.
Given, the player might get some use of it. They log out with it equipped and not sitting in inventory.
Given, they log in to find it was stolen by thieves.

In this scenario first, you have an angry newbie. Something gifted to them has disappeared leaving them with no weapon. Its more frustrating however if they ground coins for a week or two to buy the weapon themselves. If a newbie gets past this initial frustration, they have to figure out how to get a new weapon in a price range they can afford. Not everyone is available and expecting someone to drop what they are doing to give you money or walk you to a blacksmith (if you have no clue where it is which is probable on newbies) is undesirable.

"You can get another weapon" isn't really a good answer here - because sure you can. But if you have to spend two weeks getting coins every time to replace the weapon (after spending what coins my may have left to get a weapon to work with) or a piece of gear, OR annoy a veteran every time it happens (some of us don't like bothering people regularly), your newbies will be frustrated with thieves and go away.

The best I can offer is to set a threshold where thieves can begin taking things, while not making your newbies gear-less. Sort of like the death threshold just not limited to the academy phase. Mules are dealt with already by multiplaying rules, so I would not expect people creating alts to stash their stuff to be a non-punishable issue.

I hope the admin will consider this feedback provided. Cheers.

It sucks to get hit by the thieves, it happened to me plenty of times on my first character. It used to be a lot worse! Now, there are safeguards in place that should make it pretty unlikely to happen.

For one, there is a "threshold" of sorts where items won't get stolen, I think it's around level 20 or so: A level 20 item won't get stolen by thieves no matter if the person holding it is level 1, if I recall. As well, the current code should inform you when you try to buy something that is higher level than you, and is viable to get stolen by thieves, so at least the one option of grinding coin for a week only to have something stolen shouldn't be possible with the current code (If it is, it should be a bug).

For vets giving items to new players however: This is perhaps something that familiar players should make sure they address properly if they give a gift to a lower level player. Either they need to stick to items that aren't limited/high level (a good idea anyway) or they should tell the person they're giving the gift to that it might be stolen, and they should hang onto a backup. It's Aiden's fault! As well, if it makes you feel better, you really shouldn't need anything beyond the simplest of weaponry for quite a while: The much more helpful thing is to make sure your weapon gets enchanted properly, because an enchanted steel weapon from a newbie area will be much more effective (and won't get stolen) compared to an unenchanted mithril longsword of many fates or whatever. And, in case you're wondering, the first ten levels of enchantments on an item don't count against it's level for determining whether it gets stolen by thieves.

Hope this helps!

Yet it did happen. And Ashir is not the first noob to get hit. Clearly , it more common than desired or you think.



Sounds like there is a bug; and even if that's not the case the cold hard fact is the game has gone out of its way to make items unidentifiable and so noobs are not able to even know what level things are. How is a new player supposed to know what level something is? Simply put, they cant know as even the methods people pass around to know - while scared of telling others out of fear its somehow against a game rule - are often incorrect or fail tests.

OOC: I'm the spouse of the player who is complaining. So mods if you see our IP's are the same, that why.

The ahlspiess she had?

One of you should play a class wih identify. Also, lots of items are over level 20. If you lose something, it truly doesn't matter, because it means you aren't high enough level yet for it to matter, so just roll with it.

Unless the item has been enchanted/consecrated, then it will start increasing the level of the item after so many casts.

I went on a roam to see if I could find someone selling a weapon I could afford. The two cities I found were meridia and teron - I didn't find a weapon shop in either during my time there. The blacksmith of exile sells weapons, but many are several platinums worth. The only way I got anything new was the generosity of strangers, or the inn bin which still puts me at risk of losing my weapon and being SOL.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to put int a new command to communicate some information on item thieves of all kinds. This information does not need to be very specific just a general hint for new players to work with most of the vets have a very good idea of the level thieves formula already.
Assess <item>

There are 2 areas of responses you would get from it.

The first would be in regards to the hoarding code. This is an item others might consider valuable (considered by hoarding code). This is a common item (not considered by hoarding code)

The second two would be regard to the level thieves. You assess the value of the item is unlike to attract thieves given your current strength (item below your level). You assess the value of the item may attract thieves given your current strength (item with in a few levels of you). You assess the value of the item will likely attract thieves given your current strength (item is significantly higher level than you)

A few example Assess dagger: This is a common item. You assess the value of the "practice dagger" is unlikely to attract thieves.
Assess Mithril: This is an item others might consider valuable. You assess the value of the "Rusted mithril coif" may attract thieves given your current strength.
Assess Dragonscale: This is an item others might consider valuable. You assess the value of the "Dragonscale vest" is likely to attract thieves given your current strength.

If you want to find armor/weaponry that is guaranteed to be low-level, then check the newbie academy in Taslamar, which is north of the center of town. Also, pretty much anything that is steel/iron should fit into that category, including a good many weapons sold in the southwest section of Nerina in the market.

Duane, don't forget that there's a big difference between the "hoarding code" and the level thieves. Level thieves are what the OP here has posted about, and it's the hoarding code that got you, according to the IMMs. You could stand to take a step back and calm down, because the advice we're giving you is the advice that all players have been using for years, and it works.

If an item is not expensive to buy, and consists of steel/iron/brass, you're probably good to go: And again as a reminder, if you buy an item and the shopkeeper doesn't tell you that it's too high-level, then you will not have it stolen from you by thieves. The only things that should cause you problems are items given to you by other players: My advice is that if someone gives you something that is tanso/cold iron/mithril or otherwise "looks fancy" then you will probably want to keep a backup of whatever you were using before just in case.

SK is a big world, and it's likely to take some time trying to find low-level shopkeepers in some of the larger cities like Teron, and it's also likely to miss a low-level shopkeeper in a small place like Exile. You're usually going to have a much better time spent if you ask other characters in-game where items can be found if you're low-level and looking around, if you find yourself at a loss after a while.

There is a few shops in Teron. On the road north of the center is a weapon and armor shop that sell low level iron for cheap.

Level thieves affect all characters right up until GM (lvl50) depending on the item level and its enchantments on top of that. Admittedly also most shopkeepers in cities sell quite high level armor and weapons that cant be kept until youre veteran/expert.

I think people outfitting newbies should take more care also, not to outfit true newbs with high level items they wont keep until that newb has a decent grasp of game mechanics and has levelled up sufficiently.