Thieves suck and are annoying

[krieglich]

Thieves rob the game of all its fun. There, I said it.

[Piperbird]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Myst:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Piperbird:

I just had a moler steal a 5 piece skeleton with perks, there's a security guard standing next to it and a camera on it, but still stole it anyway. I'm SO looking forward to going on a dozen trips to get those pieces back. It's just the funnest mechanic ever.

So then what does your camera room look like? is it upgraded? Do you have perks slotted? 1 detect and 2 range buffs? etc? Does your guard have peripheral vision trait as well as walking detection skills taught and is allowed to pursue criminals?

Level 2 camera room (I don't have level 3 yet), all three perks installed. 12 security guards, 11 of them all set to pursue criminals (one is on bins only), Most have strolling surveillance and fast feet.

I just went back in to check, the guard who was standing next to it when it happened does have all of that. peripheral vision trait, surveillance and fast feet. Directly under a working camera on the other side of the camera room wall.

Screenshots of all of it are on the discord channel.

[Lisa Mockingbird]

While working on the science museum - I somehow turned up this perk BOLT DOWN that makes exhibit immune to theft - I only ever saw it one time and have no clue where it came from (there are a million perk expeditions on this map but it also could have been from a random deconstruction If anyone knows how to turn it up consistently it would sure solve a lot of the issues of multi-part pristine exhibits being instantly targeted and stolen before you can respond

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3454934210


It needs to be a lot less rare - I've gotten all museums to level 5 star and only ever seen it once.

[GhostWolfe]

I desperately want to know where you find more. The one you get in the science museum is a reward for getting 3 stars. I also have one in my space, but that one seems to have appeared from the aether.

[Wyatt~]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Typha:

For me, it just seems to off-theme and ridiculous to have to turn my museums into basically maximum security facilities. It's not fun and it heavily contrasts with the rest of the game.

Sooo much real time is wasted when a thief steals something, it's just plain frustrating. I would save scum if I could. Honestly it makes me want to turn the game off and play something else. It feels like an aspect of some third-rate game that doesn't respect the players' time.... which totally doesn't fit the rest of the TPM experience at all.

I think you put it right with the word "frustrations". I don't play TPM for stress and frustration, nobody does. This is people's after-work chill experience.

Decreasing how often this happens isn't going to feel much better, because the problem is that it happens at all.

For what it's worth, my feedback is:

1) to remove thieves from the game completely
2) or let us turn them off (I suspect the vast majority of players will)
3) or have thieves... do something else other than steal exhibits

Think big on a solution because this isn't a small problem.

I think managing security for your museum is thematically appropriate, and there's fun to be had in the idea, but I agree that the current implementation isn't fun. I think removing the aspect from the game entirely would be a very extreme over-correction, but as an initial step just adding some difficulty options to the game that include tweaking the frequency of thieves, with the option of taking it all the way to 0% on a slider would definitely give options for players in the short term while the team considers larger changes to the system.

My main problem is that thievery seems WAY too punishing. You spend a lot of effort/time collecting high value exhibits, and having a thief be able to undo all that work in a single go sucks.

I'd be OK with criminals doing minor annoyances. Stuff like vandalizing exhibits so an expert has to come by and maintain them sooner, swiping some dosh from the donation bins, swiping stuff from the gift shop, or just harassing other guests and making them unhappy. Annoying stuff that you definitely want to stop, but if you don't catch them, it isn't going to actually take a major time investment away from you.

Someone swiping an exhibit should be a very rare and extreme situation. I'd be OK if this happened maybe once every 2 years with some sort of prep time, like you get a notification that a certain thief is planning to steal a certain type of exhibit. "Criminal X is on the prowl, stealing Botany Exhibits from local museums!" would be enough for me to know where I need to focus my security efforts in the short term, and once I catch (or fail to catch) Criminal X, I know I can drop the extra security in the area and let my guards go back to doing their usual thing. Attach a reward for a successful capture, maybe?

[twopointjo]

Thank so again for all the feedback - we really appreciate players taking the time to share thoughts and ideas! I’ll share these with the rest of a team so we can continue to plan for QOL updates :)

[CarolusRex#2333]

Toilet only too the Buiding entrece.

Then you build 2lins off detectore after an other, too that 2 Wathching sit posts(3-4 at main Entrece), noting will pass that, and the mans out the flor? just Camera. finisch. Why are you all cry, you just must understand that.

I wisch i can set it difikulter.

Watch at Workshope Scecure oneway dor, if you want play withe oneway, i wish i can post you a pic from my main entrece.

[Friendzie]

I have fully completed the game and my thoughts are that I think criminals are a good idea, but they need to be far less adept at stealing and running away. You shouldn't lose a whole exhibit unless you have a major lapse in security.

The thieves who run once they're spotted aren't as big of an issue other than causing annoying pop ups, but the mole thieves are horrible. They won't run once spotted by security, and in higher level museums five will show up simultaneously, so you pretty much have to manually handle it every time since you can get all five showing up in the same general area. It's unreasonable to have that many guards stationed in one area, and the guards react way too slowly once the camera room spots them. I'm not even sure that a guard will always respond at all.

I would actually prefer it if thieves only tried to steal money from donation stands rather than exhibits because of the RNG involved in getting a pristine exhibit, it's too deflating to risk losing one, and causes too much anxiety. If a thief made off with a whole 10k full donation that would still be less money on average than getting an exhibit back from expeditions. Thing is, I NEVER actually lost an exhibit, because the couple times it happened I reloaded a recent save, so the impact on my gameplay was small, yet I still felt annoyed by the mere prospect of it.

Love the game, overall.

[Rasg0s]

skill issue, its too easy to have good security. redo the tutorial.

[-Digital¹]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Friendzie:

It's unreasonable to have that many guards stationed in one area, and the guards react way too slowly once the camera room spots them. I'm not even sure that a guard will always respond at all.

It's probably allocated the task to a guard who is miles away rather than the nearest one. If you have your camera room guards set to pursue sometimes even they will be the ones to give chase. Problem is they will of course leave the camera room empty.

You unlock an item that sort of implies security rooms should be made bigger and staffed by more guards but unlike the marketing room you can't put more than one staff in the room. It would be good if we could allocate 5 guards (or however many you choose) and if a thief is spotted then there is dedicated guards deployed from the security room to chase them down.

[thalliana]

Ich bin generft von den Dieben. Einfach in den Einstellungen die Möglichkeit geben, Diebe auszuschalten. Ich habe mein Museum in ein Hochsicherheitsgefängnis verwandeln müssen, das mach aber null Spaß.
Und an alle, die Diebe gut finden: Schaltet es dann halt einfach unter Einstellungen ein, aber nervt uns, die wir in Ruhe spielen wollen, bitte nicht.

I'm annoyed by the thieves. Just add the option to disable thieves in the settings. I had to turn my museum into a maximum-security prison, but it's no fun at all.

And to anyone who likes thieves: Just enable it in the settings, but please don't annoy us, who want to play in peace.

[jwwo0o0]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Lily:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von -Digital¹:

I thought this but i never seen their experience increase during the act of catching, or escorting them away. If there is an exp increase it's smaller than what they get for collecting donations.

Confirmed, in-game atm, 0 xp gain.

Ohh this a bug! Thank you! We're fixing now and will get in to a patch ASAP (Sorry about that...)

[Myst]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jwwo0o0:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Lily:

Confirmed, in-game atm, 0 xp gain.

Ohh this a bug! Thank you! We're fixing now and will get in to a patch ASAP (Sorry about that...)

Yall need to completely redo your staff XP system it takes FOREVER for people to level up and even the missions that cost 20K barely give decent experience compared to exhibit missions. I am watching many staff do their job and not get any points for it. And doing the trick with the analyzer is just annoying to do and makes it dumb to level up your buildings since you get less exp from upgraded analyzers.

[Björn15]

In my point of view, you should be able to turn of thiefs so that you can explore and enjoy the most of the game because as soon as you reach +2 Star Museum, checking your Museum when there are like 400 guests around is already difficult

I even have guards levelling up to x2 running speed and they don't even catch the thiefs...

What is also confusing for me is, that they sometimes tell me, a thief stole something but all my stuff is still there.

Maybe change the thiefs so that they only steal/aim for the money from donations because as some players mention, you aim for a good quality Items and if this gets stolen, it is really frustrating to continue playing this game

It would also be nice, if there are players out there who like the challange, get some kind of reward of catching thiefs.
The only thing you get (or I get at the moment) is a notification letter to let you know, you caught a thief

[GhostWolfe]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Björn15:

In my point of view, you should be able to turn of thiefs so that you can explore and enjoy the most of the game because as soon as you reach +2 Star Museum, checking your Museum when there are like 400 guests around is already difficult

You can turn thieves off in sandbox mode. I’ve made a suggestion to the devs to let people “switch” their games to sandbox and turn it off because by the time you realise you want it off, it’s usually too late to restart. Fingers crossed?

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Björn15:

What is also confusing for me is, that they sometimes tell me, a thief stole something but all my stuff is still there.

The announcer may say that a thief was caught before they got away or that an exhibit was returned. This seems to trigger even if the thief didn’t actually steal something, to the point that I completely ignore and thief-related announcements and only pay attention to the on-screen notifications.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Björn15:

It would also be nice, if there are players out there who like the challange, get some kind of reward of catching thiefs.

Apparently, guards are supposed to get XP, and that the devs are trying to fix this in the next patch.

[stb155]

2 short questions regarding thieves, i could not confirm myself 100% so far (70h)
Can thieves go trough staff doors ?
Do "Toilet Thieves" spawn in Staff only set toilets ?