LE a change in the way we approach pickpocketing

[Corynorhinus]

One very specific thing that kills the mood for me in skyrim, is that really, when it comes to pickpocketing, the difference between 15% success rate and 85%, is the amount of times you'll hit the quickload key. And the act of pickpocketing itself feels disengaging. At least to me.

 

For this, I propose, a change in the way pickpocketing works.

 

I think it would be awesome if pickpocketing was more like lock picking. A more involved interaction, although without necessarily having to create a completely different interface, i propose something that simply alters what the game already has.

 

Basically, it'd work like this; when you pickpocket, the interface is same as ever, but with 3 major changes:

 

 

 

First, the "attention" bar. You can only steal a certain amount of things, before the person realizes. There's a bar, which represents the NPC's perception. Each item you can steal, has a number associated with it, based on its weight and value, and which represents how difficult and dangerous it is to steal. We can call it "risk"

Whenever you attempt to steal an item, it's risk value gets deducted from the NPC's attention bar. If the attention bar hits zero, you get caught. There's a catch thought. You do not know the value of the attention bar. So you have to guess based on how stealing affects it. But there's another catch... Which brings me to the second change...

 

 

...there's a timer. You've only got precious seconds to steal or place items through the interface. This creates a sense of pressure.

 

The third change to the interface? Some items in the NPC's list, are unknown, represented with a question mark only. Because your character isn't lookong inside the pockets of its victim, you're instead, sensing. Most of the time, you can only see the risk value of an item, without limiting what the item actually is. The better you are at stealing, the greater your chances of also knowing what the items are.So you either risk taking the unknown ones or go for the easy ones. Play it safe or take risks.

 

 

Finally, each time you close the pickpocket interface, the items in the NPC get reshuffled and reloaded. So if you did not pickpocket what you wanted the first time, it may not be there the second.

 

 

So, your pickpocket skill manages the following:

 

1. Which NPCs you can pickpocket.

 

2. The size and weight of what you can pickpocket. Some things, based on your skill will be beyond your reach, you'll have to train to get the best stuff.

 

3. How much time you've got before you get caught.

 

4. How many random items you can identify when you activate the interface.

 

 

So this is my idea, opinions?

Is there anyone interested in developing it?

 

Suggestions?

[BigBizkit]

Hm, the time pressure thing could be done easily imho. I don't think it would make pickpocketing more involved though.

 

In my game, I took a completely different approach, changing Pickpocket to Dexterity and making it govern skills like placing traps and counterattacking.

[Hexxagone]

interesting

[Corynorhinus]

Hm, the time pressure thing could be done easily imho. I don't think it would make pickpocketing more involved though.

 

In my game, I took a completely different approach, changing Pickpocket to Dexterity and making it govern skills like placing traps and counterattacking.

It's not so much the time limit on its own, but rather the combination of all factors, which, put together, I think, would create a more "involved" interaction. One where there's player skill, on the sense of calculating risk vs reward; rather than the current setup, which involves merely chance. Chance I think, is generally only good for real time combat, because it's fast enough that you act on muscle memory more so than thoughtful tactical approach. Pickpocketing feels contradictory in this game, in that sense.

 

 

In fact, of all the changes I mentioned, I even think the timer to be the least essential.

 

I wish I had it in me to learn enough about modding that I could learn how to implement these myself. Hopefully, someone may find it interesting enough to try to tackle it.