Steal, Aurasteal, Despoil & Mug Discussion

[Ziero]

TLDR; don't go giving devs the idea that thf has super powerful abilities that don't need to be adjusted up. They do.

I don't think anyone in here even came close to suggesting that, I know I certainly didn't.

The thing that bugs me, is something about aura steal seems to increase the accuracy of steal, but only on buffs. Mobs with no buff to steal in dyna >>> almost never successfully steal. Mobs with buffs, like crawlers cocoon, steal rate is really really high, like eyeballing 80-90% high.

Part of Aura Steal is a drastically increased success of Steal landing on buffs. Even with a single merit, Aura Steal is a close to 95% dispel. All additional merits do is increase your chance of actually receiving the buff you stole instead of just dispelling. The only problem with Aura Steal isn't that it's an addition to Steal or even the choices of Buffs we can steal, it's the fact it's stuck on a 5 minute timer. That leaves the utility of the ability incredibly low. Just lowering Steal's recast to 1 minute will fix Aura Steal so that it's actually useful...even if it's mainly for the Dispel.

This game is in such dire need for certain ability adjustments because the game has changed so much in the past 4 years. Said adjustments worked fine in the past but for today's standards they are extremely sub par at best, and it doesn't help one lick for them to go untouched as months continue to pass. I really do not want to hear another balance excuse out of SE about it. All those excuses ever are is excuses for not having to bother fixing things.

To be perfectly blunt, as someone who's been playing Thf for over 8 years, I can honestly say that Steal and Mug have never been useful in this game. Nor has Despoil despite being added fairly recently. Of all the "Stealing" abilities, only Aura Steal has actually had any use in any kind of fight, however that use is almost worthless due to it's absurdly long recast. All that said, in this day and age, Steal and Mug have only become more useless since most mobs have neither items nor cash worth taking.

All that said, while the actual ideas to fix these problems seem to vary, we all (save for SE) seem to agree on one thing. None of these abilities are useful and all of them need to be fixed.

[Nebo]

The only problem with Aura Steal isn't that it's an addition to Steal or even the choices of Buffs we can steal, it's the fact it's stuck on a 5 minute timer. That leaves the utility of the ability incredibly low. Just lowering Steal's recast to 1 minute will fix Aura Steal so that it's actually useful...even if it's mainly for the Dispel.

Disagree. There is no logical reason that the attempt to dispel an effect should be dependant on the success rate of stealing an item. There is no logical reason for aurasteal and item steal to be combined the way they are.

Steal on a 1 minute timer is still going to get you bone chips when you want to dispel ice spikes. It's still going to tell you that your inventory is full so you cannot attempt to steal those ice spikes until you sort your inventory.....by which time you are paralyzed and your steal timer resets (5 F***ing MINUTES) without accomplishing anything.

This is unacceptable.

These two (three, really) need to be seperated. Even if they share one, drastically lowered timer but are seperate abilities....the actions themselves need to be seperate. If I want to dispell a buff, I want a command that ONLY tries to dispell a buff. If I want to steal an item, I want a command that ONLY tries to steal an item.

To be perfectly blunt, as someone who's been playing Thf for over 8 years, I can honestly say that Steal and Mug have never been useful in this game.

This is not true at all.

As a mater of fact, stealing beastcoins and hiding used to be SO powerful that they had to nerf it because it was changing the balance of the game. Pros used to camp Jagedy Eared Jack night and day. People happily paid several million gil back then for steal +1. Thieves made HP convert (akin to sorcerer's ring) sets to activate the +3 steal ring. I myself, used to rob goblins all day long without having to kill them...and made good money.

Aparently we are still being punished because this is STILL reason why we can't have nice things.

By adding attractive items to monsters, we fear that it would be re-creating the scenario from the past regarding beastcoins (stealing and then hiding right after)

Mug also stole relatively good amounts from NMs for the times.

Picking treasure chests also used to be one of the best money makers in the game. Which is why they took everything worth while OUT of treasure coffers.

Thief abilities used to be SO game changing that SE either deliberately nerfed or phased out every single one....without ever properly adjusting them or giving anything of real value in return. They just took all that semi-overpowered utility and never gave anything back to replace it.

The REAL issue here is that the game has changed drastically and most Thief job abilities (even sneak and trick attack) have not. In the era when we we were the masters of the SATAVB Distortion Skillchain, running around popping chests, stealing coins, mugging HNMs....THF truly was an amazing (if somewhat overpowered) job.

No other job I can think of has seen such a drastic fall from grace due to nerf after nerft after nerf. And we are STILL bound to cumbersome job abilities, bottleneck JA timers and positional restrictions based on irrelvant battle dynamics that no longer exist....and haven't existed for a long long time.

The ONLY desireable thing that survived the years has been Treasure Hunter. But even the almighty TH has been marginalised over and over....more and more with each event released post-level cap, and given away to other jobs etc etc.

The reason for this issue? The developers still actually think its still possible to steal and hide over and over for some reason....even though they removed the possibility to do this many years ago.

Why is this the problem? Becuase it means the developement team has NO. F$&#ING. IDEA. how the game is played, how the abilities they dream up translate into FFXI 2012-2013 but most importantly, how useless the crap they have given to THF really is.

On these very forums they ACTUALLY told PLDs and RNGs in two seperate threades to "Invite a THF to help you control enmity" as if that's a real, viable, actual thing. As if anyone has EVER invited a THF to control enmity at any event since a 2004-5 exp party. As if the heavily restricted and SEVERELY limited enmity related abilities we currently possess could CONTROL enmity in ANY situation. in FFXI 2012.

The problem is that they think this....when it is so far outside the realm of reality.

The problem is that the developement team knows verylittle about THF as it exists today, and they still view it as the financially overpowered job that needs to be heavily restricted (positionally/Timers/Dependant on the party) for justification. This was their origional design and it is that place in their minds THF still holds....The unfortunate reality is that this concept of THF just doesn't exist anywhere else other than that place in their minds.

All that said, while the actual ideas to fix these problems seem to vary, we all (save for SE) seem to agree on one thing. None of these abilities are useful and all of them need to be fixed.

Agreed

[Ziero]

Disagree. There is no logical reason that the attempt to dispel an effect should be dependant on the success rate of stealing an item. There is no logical reason for aurasteal and item steal to be combined the way they are.

As I clarified earlier, the Dispel effect should take priority over the item stealing. In the current gameplay dynamics, stealing items is more or less a non-existent thing as most newer monsters and events don't even have steal-able items. Seeing as SE has made it clear there are limits to the amount of recast timers a job can have, and the fact that very few things can actually make taking an item a useful tactic in combat nowadays, there's no reason Aurasteal should be removed from Steal.

With Steal/Aura Steal, reducing it to a one minute recast and making the Dispel effect take priority would more or less fix the issue with that ability specifically.

This is not true at all.

As a mater of fact, stealing beastcoins and hiding used to be SO powerful that they had to nerf it because it was changing the balance of the game. Pros used to camp Jagedy Eared Jack night and day. People happily paid several million gil back then for steal +1. Thieves made HP convert (akin to sorcerer's ring) sets to activate the +3 steal ring. I myself, used to rob goblins all day long without having to kill them...and made good money.

Again, I was there doing just that (still have my ring actually). I used to LIVE in Oldton, targeting the Gurneymen for Platinum coins (which were 20k a pop back in the day) while mining between recast timers. At minimum, it would take a Thf an HOUR to get a single stack of coins...and that's assuming a 100% success rate on steal (which we all was impossible). I found that while the coins were a nice supplement to my income, the real cash came from the actual mining aspects of my time in that zone where Hide works on almost everything (it would fail on Bst gobs if you didn't kill the bats first!).

Even at it's peak, Steal had very limited use to normal players. It wasn't because of us that SE felt the need to nerf it, it was due to rampant RMT usage of the technique which utilized bots and 24/7 farmers...much like what they used in any quick money making scheme back in the worst days of XI's economy.

While there is certainly a lot wrong with Thf right now, and there was definitely a lot done to harm the job overall, I personally won't go as far as to say that the current devs are completely blind to the job and it's woes. It's clear they know something is wrong, they're just unsure of how to fix it without breaking it even more. But small things like the addition of Bully(including the changes made to it compared to it's original concept), changes to the merit JAs usefulness and most recently the delaying of the newest 2 hour from the test server so it can be noticeably reworked shows that they're taking (baby)steps to fix the job in ways that would actually be worth while.

The bottom line is SE has kicked thf in the balls so often it's like they're making videos of it to post on youtube or something. As one of the consistently lower end jobs in the game, Thf could certainly use a LOT of love right now. With concerns over RMTs being largely a thing of the past, it's high time SE took the chance and gave Thf a nice big overhaul and make it's less useful abilities actually something worth having.

[Nebo]

While there is certainly a lot wrong with Thf right now, and there was definitely a lot done to harm the job overall, I personally won't go as far as to say that the current devs are completely blind to the job and it's woes. It's clear they know something is wrong, they're just unsure of how to fix it without breaking it even more. But small things like the addition of Bully(including the changes made to it compared to it's original concept), changes to the merit JAs usefulness and most recently the delaying of the newest 2 hour from the test server so it can be noticeably reworked shows that they're taking (baby)steps to fix the job in ways that would actually be worth while.

I'd like to believe that, but they keep saying and doing all these crazy things that lead me to believe otherwise.....like:

"Our vision of THF is a stealthy pick pocket...but we won't give them anything desireable to steal" (This is my favourite)

"Bring a THF to control Enmity"

"Aurasteal seperated from Steal on a lower timer would be overpowered"

"THF will stay dependant on out dated party mechanics that are no longer relevant to fulfil its (relatively weak) damage potential."

They added despoil as a post level cap ability. They added conspirator as a post level cap ability. They then spent ANOTHER 2 updates on despoil....yes, despoil was even more horrible than it is now at release (you had no idea what it did until the enfeeble wore off, and the success rate was much lower.)

When they added bully, it was garbage. It was the sheer amout of outrage on these forums that gave them pause and caused them to change it. Their idea of Bully in its origional form was horrible. THVs all over Vana'diel can kindly thank us for Bully's usefullnes now.

But I'm concenred with what that change to Bully means. It says to me that the Devs sort of understand that the positional restrictions imposed on us are tough to fulfill in lots of situations and that we'd like more opportunities and ways to make use of our core DD abilities. (or the addition of new ones since we haven't seen one since lvl 30 <.<)

But then it also says "1 in 3 Sneak Attack is all you get, no love for Trick Atack" Which, yes, is better than what we had, but I am looking for something more to address this issue on a fundamental level, not just a bandaid on a shotgun wound.

All I have to go on, is what they are saying, and the updates they put out. And these things lead me to believe that they really don't play their game, they haven't got the first clue what THF really needs, and they have very little interest in listening to us when we tell them what is wrong.

[Yenecol]

And these things lead me to believe that they really don't play their game, they haven't got the first clue what THF really needs, and they have very little interest in listening to us when we tell them what is wrong.

^This. How many pages does this thread have to be before we get a dev response? I too am sick of useless thief abilities that have no bearing on the game.

[Babekeke]

I found a use for Despoil! While levelling Leathercraft and farming Peiste skins at a terrible drop rate, I discovered that I can despoil them

[FrankReynolds]

I found a use for Despoil! While levelling Leathercraft and farming Peiste skins at a terrible drop rate, I discovered that I can despoil them

New job description: "Thief - Masters at obtaining otherwise useless crap for crafting".

[Delvish]

I found a use for Despoil! While levelling Leathercraft and farming Peiste skins at a terrible drop rate, I discovered that I can despoil them

I wonder if Wild Onions can be obtained the same way from goblins...

Edit: According to the wiki, I'll only get goblin foods. >.>