The Castle Doctrine Forums

First of all thank you for making this; I have had hours of enjoyment from it. And maybe everything I am going to be saying has been suggested before, but I am an enthusiastic new player, and want to say them anyways!

I am a new player to the game but this is an old idea to me. When I first read about this game I was extremely excited. I have tried this same idea with other games, like Minecraft, (but in practice the unpredictability of placing /destroying blocks/ maps size/ and other things made it impossible).

Unfortunately when I started playing your game, and getting to a higher level, I realize that some things had not been thought through for a smooth gameplay all the way to “end game”. I would like to share my thoughts, and make some suggestions.

My understanding of the fundamental game idea: first) having lots of puzzles to try, and second) making / watch people try to solve your puzzle. three) give a serious “bite” when you die and lose it all, making it worth while to be careful.
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Problem 1) I understand if you're going to give one Robber three chances of solving a puzzle (one per family member killed) but why do you give the entire community of robbers three chances to each ad up all break-ins? This seems like an unfair dilapidation of defenses until some lucky SOB walks in with 99% of the puzzle solved. (and I see in a post on steam http://steamcommunity.com/app/249570/di … 407286638/ you say walking into a broken house is an intended side effect of unknown, this will still be true with this solution with “no money” to do proper-repairs)

Solution 1) each robber gets a fresh house and three family members to rob, until the home-owner returns and views the house.  When the homeowner returns, The robber who had gotten the farthest (killed family members /vault/ destroyed house) is what you come home too. The gameplay idea would be something like this;.
Example:
break-in 1)  START: $1000, 3 Family - END: $0, 1 Family, $800 damage, broke vault
break-in 2)  START: $0, 3 Family - END: 3 Family, $100 damage, $250-dead robber
break-in 3)  START: $250, 3 Family - END: $125, 3 Family, $150 damage, broke vault
Owner comes home to: $125, 1 Family, and the house broken in Example 1, as if that were the most resent robbery, or Your Family died from injury’s sustained in robbery #1) but put up a good fight, until the end. Then the homeowner tries to fix things and everyone try’s to rob the new fixer-uper with 1 Family.

This would help provide content (puzzles) for people to solve, Even when the owner is offline. I mean what is the point of leaving a defenseless (puzzle-less) house open for people to rob? One robbery and it could still build value. You might as well never reset anything, until the player does it himself when he logs in again.
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Problem  2)  although death and the loss of all your property is a good motivator to be careful. IRL the problems are much more complex, and interesting, then that. (not that this game needs to copy real life, RL is just something to get/ copy game ideas from)
2a) A time limit is set, when seen, in that the cops could be coming to help the homeowners at any moment.
2b) you have less permanent outcomes that make it attractive: You risk your freedom, bail money, and reputation, every time you enter a house. 

Solution 2a) i propose introducing three color-coded, family activated, and silent alarm buttons. Each more expensive alarm calls the cops faster, (turns.) (i read you have added a 20 min time limit now, I know we are on the same page.)

Solution 2b) cops are basically the same as dogs (but MAYBE instead of killing you they take bail money???). Bail money like reward money is based on your reputation a.k.a. number of kills, robberies, houses broken into, net worth, lawyer. Causing a financial hardship no matter how rich (>50% loss?) and if you can't make bail you can still suicide in jail. But I see a lot of people ending the robbing part of gameplay simply because you don't want to risk it all, or putting 5K worth of tools into robbing a 1K house to avoid any risk....

yes i know this changes the fundamental emotion, and the SINGLE out come you wanted for the game,  but consider it for just a min... it would only happen in the situation where a cop entering the door could "get to you", and "chase you down"... perhaps ending with you making a mistake in death. or getting shot. but it would add a new element, and strategy to the people who can afford it. it would end the problem of rich do-nothing retirement or "end game" people not having anything to do: not robbing because it is to big of a risk to start over, and with no option to “spend” a part of the money on a “failed robbery”, they sit on a big pile of money and “burn” it, so as not to become to attractive a target. This effectively stops the gameplay.

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Problem 3) I see and understand how you're trying to balance the fairness of the game by increasing the cost of the robbery tools and ditching them at every house. But I think making it unrealistically expensive to be a robber is the wrong way to go about this solution, (again RL is just something to get/ copy game ideas from) learning to pick locks might be tough, but we are talking about throwing a brick, and swinging a lead pipe. (I personally like your idea of a limited backpack, but i am new and maybe have not seen the REALLY big homes)

Solution 3) rather than (as well as?) penalizing the robbers, you should give more advantage to the homeowners.
A) One successful robbery per house per robber, Per (1-3 day??) time limit. (After all your face is on videotape for neighborhood watch)
and B) multiple purchasable safes, (multiple Houses???) to equally split your money around, although costly, (and need one home validation per safe) it allows multiple puzzles and rewards per player or per house, maybe one harder, and one experimental.

This (maybe) would also help prevent the problem of "risking it all" rich homeowner only having one big 8-16bit cipher lock copied from the Internet… it would give him options. (Or the homeowner planning/ allowing his house to be locked into “impossible”, because he will not reset it after the puzzle is broken).

All this helps gameplay keep moving, allowing the homeowner, and robber (after a point) to divide the risk, helps keep game play active. it prevents the rich home owner, from becoming a prisoner of his own house, needing an equally rich Robber to simply break the puzzle to give him gameplay. Both sides of gameplay (puzzle solving and puzzle making) could continue even at this high level, for all to enjoy.

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Another thing I think might be a good game change would be to list the ‘cost of the house’, not the ‘amount in the safe’ after all, if your feeling “lucky” you go to a rich hood, not a rich safe. And a search function for amount, would be helpful.
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i understand that i am being a backseat driver, it's not my game and I am trying (like a lot of people) to change the content of your hard work and brainchild. Maybe everything I am suggesting to be changed is a well thought out and intentional reason for being here (yes I have read some of the message boards, and see some of your reasons), but IMHO I think this would be some good addition. And would keep gameplay balanced, interactive, and most of all: give lots of content for everyone to try.

Cam_X