Discuss the massively-multiplayer home defense game.
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Oh, I got an idea: How about adding a kidnapping element! Killing the wife gets you nothing, but you can kidnap her and ask for ransom (half the vault). The owner decides what to do and the killer decides to kill her or let her go. (Would work with kids as well.) Holding her could drain the holders funds because he has to feed her etc. until the house owner logs on and makes his choice.
Apart from that, yeah, the benefit of the wife (fund increase) is not well balanced with the trouble she represents to the house owner.
This popped up in my mind in the middle of some different thread and I think it's an idea well in the spirit of the game:
I noticed that killing family doesn't really feel bad psychologically so wives get clubbed for a few bucks. How about a simple edit: Since you turn into a murderer, your personality changes. This causes your wife and children to leave you with half your cash. They will never return. So it's an easy choice if you want to have them around or not. Assuming some changes to their mechanics, that would make it slightly less attractive to kill somebody elses family for petty cash or at least emphasise that you accept turning into a monster.
It might mean at the current state of things that people take this as a positive chance to get rid of the burden of family but upcoming edits should change some things about family so I still think it should work fine.
My wife was clubbed for $31.
Weird idea and a bit off-topic, but I noticed that killing family doesn't really feel bad psychologically. How about a simple edit: Since you turn into a murderer, your personality changes. This causes your wife and children to leave you with half your cash. They will never return. So it's an easy choice if you want to have them around or not. Assuming some changes to their mechanics, that would make it slightly less attractive to kill somebody elses family for petty cash or at least emphasise that you accept turning into a monster.
I think a big part of the problem is the amount of starting cash. With 2000 one can either try and build a "playable" labyrinth with wooden walls that can be cut through with cheap tools, or one can build a magic dance defence. This just leads to people building essentially unplayable houses from the start. It takes at least 10000 to build a house that's both playable (as in walk around, solve things) and reasonably robbery-proof.
Idk, I just like the idea of a robber carrying a cat in his pockets to be fried instead of him. Ha ha. And it wouldn't require new sprites or new behaviour.
There could be something high-techy like a robotic cat, but it resonates less with the low-tech feel of the game.
Story of this game: I successfully robbed a well-stocked house and build my own using the cash.
Since the house I robbed was quite a lot of fun to take, being a labyrinth requiring thinking but allowing for some tool use, I built a house of the likes, relying on a simple principle, decoys and a labyrinth that could be survived. Sadly, all people attempting to take it just died by walking into dogs behind doors and the more capable people didn't trust it. Frustration.
Finally, somebody successfully robbed it using some tools but figuring out the main design. I wanted to watch the replay, therefore I had to patch up my house and towards the end, I must have overlooked something and fried myself. No house, no replay. Frustration.
However, being able to go on robberies again, I then discovered that the previous owner of the paintings and such was the one who successfully robbed my house. He got his paintings and cash back instead of some undeserving bit-locker or magic-dance creator. Happiness.
For the time being, I left it alone because I don't have the time today to turn the cash I'd gain into a house that's fun to play again. This is the situation the game should produce - mutual challenge that is fair.
+1
Usual mechanics seems to me to be that one dies a number of times trying to raid a well-stocked house, then one builts a house of one's own with, say, 15k of plunder and has too much to lose to go burgling anymore in a proper sense.
After playing a few hours, I find myself stuck in two "modes" of gaming: Either trying to crack stacked houses after having died because of some misfortune or then building up a house but being dicouraged from any burglary because of that tendency towards cheap doggie switches / leap of faith items etc.
(I don't bother with the complicated locking systems - I just leave.)
I have a quick suggestion to make this MUCH less of a bother without changing much about the current gameplay:
My proposal is to introduce a cat as an inventory item that can be placed anywhere and will then speed away attracting the attention of the dogs i.e. triggering hidden switches. It would probably have to cease being interesting to the dogs after a few steps (or upon death obviously).
I do love the leap-of-faith as a construction principle, yet I have no interest anymore in simply trying out which field a player has rigged in what way. An item like a cat would be a cheap way to find out if that first step is designed to kill you or not and being able to exit alive if it's not designed in a way to give the player a fighting chance. Considering that players take along multiple guns, torches etc., it also seems in the spirit of the game.
Sound reasonable?