Discuss the massively-multiplayer home defense game.
You are not logged in.
Pages: 1
I feel like the problem you are having with balancing is partially due to inflation, with (X*all players) entering the system every (20 mins/hour) and the X being greater than the cost of getting through a concrete wall (or 5+ concrete walls). People make too much money stealing so the cost of tools needs to go up to balance the risk/reward. HOwever at the same time your basic defense costs are fairly balanced (other than pitbulls, way overpriced).
The cost to force a house should be more than intelligent "finesse" of it, as such tools such as bricks, water, wire cutters and drugged meat should stay fairly cheap. Other than electric flooring, they don't bypass the main defensive blocking mechanisms, instead they target the support ones (cats, chihuauas, wires, pressure switches). The electric flooring is cheaper than all those tools so that doesn't seem like it would be broken.
The ones that break blocking mechanisms (walls, pits, pitbulls, doors) should be more expensive than the cost of the homeowner to place them, after all, who would install a 200$ lock on a door with the hinges facing outwards...
So bricks, water, wire cutters, door stops costing between 100-150 seems appropriate to me, the rest should probably cost at least double the items they break into (depending on their functionality bonuses).
Allo,
I thought I'd give my starting thoughts on this so that hopefully it will be of some help. I like the concept of the game but you can tell that there is definitely more work to be done (as expected of alphas everywhere).
As a new player, I would say my starting frustrations with the game are twofold and I'll go into more details after the summary. Loss of tools upon entering houses forces me to scout (which is punished by chills).
a) I can't practice breaking into houses due to the chills locking down even houses that I entered and immediately left.
b) It is fundamentally impossible to make any reasonable defense with starting cash.
A) Breaking into houses
When you first start playing, you enter houses without tools, see a pitbull and leave OR you wander around until you find something you can't just go through (electric floor, pit, etc) and then leave. This is effectively scouting and thanks to the chills, is utterly killed for a new player. You'll likely end up scouting a few places before you settle on trying one, if that one kills you, you are effectively locked out of all those places for the next hour. If you go into a house blind, you've just wasted all of those tools because you can't leave with them even if you crack the safe (how is it a good thing to arbitrarily punish players for successfully getting to the goal?). So you could enter with a drugged meat and there be 3 pitbulls or none. I recognize that brute forcing houses is a bad thing, but removing scouting as an option seems overkill. Change chills to only count the house if you've interacted with a non-door item inside the house and let people keep their tools! Everyone I've mentioned the loss of tools both on leaving and on success have basically agreed that it doesn't actually make any sense, which to me at least breaks immersion.
B) Defending your house
Your wife is more important than the safe, she makes the money and holds just as much cash as the safe (until that first person kills both pitbulls). You can't defend the wife, for 200 bucks to kill a pitbull, you are half the cash richer, likely all the cash since why bother worrying about the rest of the meager/nearly non-existent defenses. Now assuming you have the time to babysit your account every 20 minutes, you might be able to get the money to defend the house over the next few hours. That is a lot of sitting around and a lot of time out of a new players life not actually doing anything. If you don't babysit, your wife is dead, you are bankrupt and suicide the next time you log in (effectively restarting having learnt nothing except how your time could be spent playing another game which doesn't punish you for having a real life or wanting to sleep). The amount of money earned per hour either needs to be heavily reduced so you aren't an instant target every 20 minutes OR the method of the cash being paid out needs adjusting (likely a combination). I saw a suggestion on the forum to have a certain amount "not available" to be stolen, I would like to suggest the idea that the money you make goes to vault, the money your wife makes doesn't UNTIL you log in. Once you log in, it's open for stealing. This way your house would increase in value but not at instant theft proportions. Assuming a house isn't robbed in 2 hours, you could just buy 5 saws, 1 club and still see profit.. that is.. for the babysitters.. You also should put a timer on it so I can actually know when to expect the next cash deposit since those that play for a while have the timing down and rob the new houses as soon as it's worthwhile (and usually before I get any feedback of money in the bank).
Pages: 1