I haven't been around for that long, maybe 4 weeks? I guess I have never felt the same issues that you bring up. As I said, starter cash robbery isn't new, but I have started from scratch many times over the past 4 weeks, but can fairly consistently survive the early game without using the "protect your wife" strat. I can see how this can be tricky for new players, and there is definitely a sharp learning curve. But the game isn't broken, just hard (maybe too hard, I don't know).
Players scouting early cuts both ways in that it means there is a decent amount of free $1000 vaults ($2000 if you are happy to get the wife as well) and you can create a pretty good façade for $4000. I guess it does require a bit of consistent playing and checking in to get started, and this makes it harder for people who just want to build a house and leave it to see how it goes. I guess the other thing that can make or break an early house is when it is build. Activity throughout the day isn't consistent, and if you build your house when it is quiet your less likely to be struck.
Anyway, despite dying many times I've had a lot of fun over the past 4 weeks despite the games problems. I have been able to rob top houses a couple of days after starting a new house, very recently there wasn't a house on the list that I hadn't robbed, despite my current house being around for less than a week.
I'm not sure as I can't see my name but from other discussions I think I must be Mr Johnson. I've fixed my house up and someone very quickly got figured out my dance (didn't get to my safe though ). I agree that the game should have stopped me from buying paintings till I fixed up my house, but I was interested to see what would happen.
It looks like you have been exploring my place, were you the one that got to my vault and died soon after? Not all rich houses are "impenetrable" to starter cash (though mine is more so since I rebuilt it).
Yep, knew it was you : P, the guy who figured out your dance was me XD, hit up the last door on the last corridor T_T. Were you seriously up at 2 am just making sure nobody robbed you XD. I was so frustrated, I waited till late when you'd be asleep and only managed two runs before you fixed the dance behind a wall of pits T_T. Point is, you are the richest of the rich, currently sitting at rank 1 in money basically, and your house is probally worth the most. More people have died in your house than every other currently on combined XD. Your house has also been there as long as I've been playing the game (over a week now, a huge amount of time for this kind of game thats still in a constantly evolving alpha) Forgive me, but I think your the last person who should be apart of the discussion concerning the viability of starter houses XD.
At best your biased, at worst your a lobbiest for your own cause XD. If you do wanna become apart of this discussion, by all means, start a new house, I assure you I could crack a 2000 in just two runs no matter what with starter smash. Thats not bragging, I'm sure you and every other vet could do so in one run, and thats the problem / :. Again, I'm glad the game has treated you kindly, Your right about it bieng hard and at times extremely fun, like how you had to wake up at 2 am or not sleep at all to stop me with a new reworking of your design. Thats skilful, thats difficult, thats fine, defending a starter house isn't difficult or fun though, it's just unviable. The only way to do so is to get extremely lucky, and it's pretty darn silly that a game that takes so much skill relies so heavily on blind luck to get the player off the ground.
]]>Players scouting early cuts both ways in that it means there is a decent amount of free $1000 vaults ($2000 if you are happy to get the wife as well) and you can create a pretty good façade for $4000. I guess it does require a bit of consistent playing and checking in to get started, and this makes it harder for people who just want to build a house and leave it to see how it goes. I guess the other thing that can make or break an early house is when it is build. Activity throughout the day isn't consistent, and if you build your house when it is quiet your less likely to be struck.
Anyway, despite dying many times I've had a lot of fun over the past 4 weeks despite the games problems. I have been able to rob top houses a couple of days after starting a new house, very recently there wasn't a house on the list that I hadn't robbed, despite my current house being around for less than a week.
I'm not sure as I can't see my name but from other discussions I think I must be Mr Johnson. I've fixed my house up and someone very quickly got figured out my dance (didn't get to my safe though ). I agree that the game should have stopped me from buying paintings till I fixed up my house, but I was interested to see what would happen.
It looks like you have been exploring my place, were you the one that got to my vault and died soon after? Not all rich houses are "impenetrable" to starter cash (though mine is more so since I rebuilt it).
]]>You say Starter smash isn't a problem with "enough money". And your right, but how do you get that money? By robbing rich players, oh wait, you cant do that with starter cash(as you said), you also cant build a house off 2000 that can defend against starter smash.... So i guess your only option is to get lucky? Starter smash is a massive problem precisely because it only affects new players... I'm sorry if I wasn't clear on that. Also I agree that getting to the wife should be different( perhaps a wife escape run), but it needs to be interesting 0_0 or it needs to not matter at all, otherwise it detracts from what makes that game good(SAFE DEFENCE).
Also I agree that as things are the rich are probably robbing the rich, I suppose the game is just so stagnant lately that it's been impossible to tell / :. and why is that? Perhaps montoya cantrell and maccartney are taking an extended break, more likely the game in it's current state is impenetrable/ :. And it's impentrable because wife mechanics are dull and abusive, starter smash discourages new houses (to the point where rich players would stick with a smashed house and a dead wife because thats still better that starting over) and the rich houses are currently impossible to crack without a ludicrous bank. The amount of time I've been playing the game in no way changes the issues that are clearly plaguing it.
]]>While it is a concern that rich players will robb poor players with this agressive income, they currently do that and will continue to do that either way, because it costs them virtually nothing to do so, they currently wont rob other rich players though because the gross amount of money they spend risking thier lives could just as easily be spent securing their fortresses/income.
From my experience this is just not the case. There is an upper bound on how much people tend on their home defence after which point money tends to go towards robbery and paintings. "Brute force" robbery by the rich is not much of a risk to their lives as they generally bring enough tools to secure an exit and blast through any traps. This happens fairly regularly amongst rich houses, I've done it a bit myself while I've had a good house and had others brute force me. It is in fact more likely that the rich will be robbed by the rich then by $2000 suicide runs.
Concerning the "starter smash" I don't really see this as a problem at all. With enough money, houses can be built basically invulnerable to countless $2000 runs, meaning that they are only a problem to newer houses and richer houses that allow for cheap ways to see how they work/by-pass security. $2000 runs have existed since I started playing and yet I've been able to consistently build houses from scratch that rarely if ever get robbed by $2000 starters. Once you have 4 pits and a 5 thick concrete wall you are set and it takes a lot less to scare people off/kill them off so that can't get at you again for another hour.
I agree with you that protecting your wife is too powerful at the moment and there isn't enough incentive to put money towards defending your vault. I don't think wife mechanisms need to be changed though, I think it is fine if getting to the wife is very different from getting to the vault, partly because I don't think wife killing should be an integral part of the game, just something that you can choose to do or not do.
I wouldn't be surprised if the current lull in houses is only temporary, some of the consistent players are having a break. It seems to go up and down quite a bit. What happened to Montoya, Cantrell and Mccartney?
]]>You can't balance a game with only 3 players. With a maximum of 10 at the most.
Of course you can 0_0, you balance the problems that are eliminating new players(safe abuse and starter smash), then when new players come in, you balance the problems that arise from them. Aside from that there are some forseeable abuses (ie purposely killing children) or uninteresting elements ( wife defence) that can be adressed in advance.
]]>Thus the over reliance on dependable schemas.
]]>It would be contrary to Jason's concept for the game and I do support the notion of being thrown into the deep end (which is even modeled on the real life experiences of moving into a tough town) but if it makes it easier for newbies, an unofficial server is a good solution and I don't think anybody would mind that.
This concept is a catch22. New players don't want to newb stomped within one hour of playing a game. I gave up playing because of this. It seems that is the consensus with only 3 house currently active. Its either cater to the newer players or have a dead game. Sad part is the latter seems to be the chosen path by the game designer. It's to easy for a veteran player to loose sight of how brutal the game can be and how that makes new players just walk away.
There needs to be a Hardcore mode and a Softcore mode. Problem Solved.
]]>The "newbie problem" is a huge one. Maybe somebody with a server should just set up a newbie server, with unlimited starting cash or something like that and permanent houses to try one's skills on where damage isn't saved, and maybe where the shroud can be deactivated. I'd definitely contribute a few houses to that (and there are already lots of castlefortify & castledraft links in the forums that could just be inserted). I'm not anything with IT and don't have the resources but there must be others...
It would be contrary to Jason's concept for the game and I do support the notion of being thrown into the deep end (which is even modeled on the real life experiences of moving into a tough town) but if it makes it easier for newbies, an unofficial server is a good solution and I don't think anybody would mind that.
]]>gumshoe wrote:Ok, no problem, your house is awesome, what about ray carl jhonsons bieng harder to break now thats it's broken? (I loved that house man T_T) Or the two exploit houses? Are contributing/not actively hurting the game enough not be adressed? As for the 10 k.... it was never there... dont come looking for it.
Thanks mate.
Yeah, there was one house with an openly accessible wife carrying 5k or so and another similar one which I didn't want to take since I just logged in to blow some of the accumulated cash. But those get snatched up quickly I guess. I'm all with you on the exploit house and Johnson front. Both are problems. Johnson still has a wife which could have been killed using about 10k or so. I might have done that instead of building. Well, next time. It's a shame he doesn't repair it because it looks interesting and I almost got to the safe once I think between houses.
Either way, it's sad that the creativity seems to have gone from the game somehow. Little tidbits strung together are a perfectly viable house now. E.g. do something like this by blip http://castlefortify.com/c/1c4b775 in a 2k fashion as a first step into a house, followed by something else etc. The climate for this is more or less perfect, but it doesn't happen...
It doesn't happen because new players have no idea wtf that is, and the enviroment in game doesn't encourage the growth neccecairy to grasp and reproduce that. Meanwhile better players generally don't die, and therefore dont experiment, even if thier house does get robbed they're better off sticking with it because at that point it's worth tens of thousands, and they're wife is still likely secure..
I loved watching your house evolve (as I said, it's the only viable one out there), it started out with some good ideas that could be brute forced through, but stuck around and is now quite formidable. Would you agree that currently wife defence does nothing for the game? Even if it wasn't so abusive, which it is, it;s just wholly uninteresting. Do you think a wife check would be cool? Would it be the wife escaping from inside of the house upon spotting an intruder or should it just be the husband reaching her like the safe? Is a family needed at all gameplay wise? It really seems like it's just taking away from the core right now.
Alot of people have been defending the game in it's current state, saying it would be fine if it acrued a small dedicated intelligent player base and that the game is much more viable then it used to be. I have a huge problem with this mentality in that it radiates contentment at a time when the game should not be nearly complete and in fact isn't. I also wanna say that I do not have a master degree, and I am not an electric engineer, but I have learned things just by playing the game, the game itself is not as impenetrable as it it's been made out to be, it's the top players cheap designs that are stifling newbie growth . So long as you have the means to poke around someones house with starter cash you can learn from them, and get better. But these three or so unviable houses at the top two teach you nothing but "lol walls, pitbulls and wives are good son" and the Jhonson house doesn't even teach you that T_T.
]]>Ok, no problem, your house is awesome, what about ray carl jhonsons bieng harder to break now thats it's broken? (I loved that house man T_T) Or the two exploit houses? Are contributing/not actively hurting the game enough not be adressed? As for the 10 k.... it was never there... dont come looking for it.
Thanks mate.
Yeah, there was one house with an openly accessible wife carrying 5k or so and another similar one which I didn't want to take since I just logged in to blow some of the accumulated cash. But those get snatched up quickly I guess. I'm all with you on the exploit house and Johnson front. Both are problems. Johnson still has a wife which could have been killed using about 10k or so. I might have done that instead of building. Well, next time. It's a shame he doesn't repair it because it looks interesting and I almost got to the safe once I think between houses.
Either way, it's sad that the creativity seems to have gone from the game somehow. Little tidbits strung together are a perfectly viable house now. E.g. do something like this by blip http://castlefortify.com/c/1c4b775 in a 2k fashion as a first step into a house, followed by something else etc. The climate for this is more or less perfect, but it doesn't happen...
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