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Jun-28-2004 16:03

It seems that pick pocketing is a COMPLETE waste of skill points, at least for experienced detectives.
It hasn't proved useful to me, NOT EVEN ONCE. For hard cases where there are many suspects the chance that the client is guilty is very low.
12 skill points is too expensinsive for such a useless skill.
I should have known better.
In my opinion, either it should be much cheaper, or it should be complemented with extra abilitities (e.x. being able to pick pocket your witnesses to get back money you gave for information).

Jun-29-2004 08:58

Pick pocketing would come in handy if you are not in an agency and you tend to gather false accusations. I got pickpocketing as the last tough skill. I have been able to get money from my guilty clients, but since I have never had a false accusation yet, I really have more money than I know what to do with. In my case, a smart skill would have been a better investment.
(Knocking on wood... I'm sure as soon as I gather a couple false accusations, I will appreciate the extra cash.)

Jun-29-2004 14:37

I am not in an agency, and I have much much cash. Personally I get much more money from selling favor items than the cases themselves. Even if it happens at some point that my suspect is guilty (which hasn't happened since I got the skill), the $1000 dollars worth of the case won't make any difference to me.
The issue is not about the money really, because as I said, I have enough already. I just like to see my skills work. This is the excitement I get from the game now, because I can now solve practically all cases that I get.
The point I want to make is that people play the game and want to advance to get more skills and see something different. And for the experienced players who have most of the basic skills, these new ones were supposed to make some difference. Unfortunately this "advanced" skill is not really addressed to advanced players.

Jun-30-2004 05:55

I've talked to others with the knew skills in my agency and I think pick pocketing is the only skill that gives you personal advantage. Hypnotism gets witness to reveal suspects in quiker time thou you can solve a case with out it. Safe Cracking in the right circumstances helps with the hunts thou you can find the treasure with out it. You cannot get the guilty client's money without the pick pocketing skill.

Jun-30-2004 11:37

Well, advanced hair analysis shows you if a hair is curly or straight, but you still can find who it belongs to without it. It just makes it easier.

Anyway, my point is not to say that pick pocketing is the worse of the new skills. I don't really know because I haven't seen the others yet. All I'm saying is that I would like to see my skills working. That's all the issue here. Maybe I had more expectations from the new skills than I should...

Jul-4-2004 11:03

Sorry you wasted skill points on something useless; but I'm glad to know it's not worth getting. I almost got it too, but thanks to your information, I will avoid it. Good luck!

Jul-4-2004 13:07

What do you guys think the top 5 or 6 skills are?

Jul-4-2004 15:17

lock picking and research should be the top two

Jul-4-2004 16:30

i dunno, stress detection helps, and to have either both interrogation and intimidation or both rule bending and sweet talking (if the latter, flirting helps too)

Jul-4-2004 19:05

DaRu, what level cases are you playing? I do ridiculously hard, which means I have 11 suspects. This means that the probability of the client being guilty is 1/11, which is very very low to make the skill useful for me.
Maybe at lower levels it would be more useful.
My personal advice is to invest on the basic skills first. I think they are far more useful to the gameplay than the new skills.

Jul-7-2004 09:06

skills and archtype go hand in hand. but just as in real life, if you can get people to tell you things, that's an invaluable quality....so my vote is for advanced sweet talking & advanced rule bending