The Castle Doctrine Forums

I really hope Mr. Rohrer removes this undocumented feature very soon.

If maps are introduced for all houses, my current house design (which so far has been pretty effective at killing people and preventing robbery) will be nearly-instantly defeatable.  It does not rely on a complex series of interconnected switches or anything that takes time to figure out. 

A big part of house design is that you know the robber cannot see it, and so misdirection and decoys are effective.  If you can see behind the curtain, all you have to do is identify where the vault is, and then it is a very simple matter to solve how to get there.  Maps will reduce the kinds of viable map designs while making it even harder for new players to compete.. unless maps are only available for the most valuable houses.

I hate that people can see maps in the current version, and think overall it hurts the game.  Maps remove one of the biggest psychological elements of robbery which is that you don't know what's around the corner.  What's the point of fog-of-war if you can see everything in advance? 

I like this.

Having unlimited money is totally not balanced, but they'd have to pay money for it AND play a boring mini-game where they farm money every time they die.

Combo locks and dance traps aren't balanced either, but they're still widespread.  I disagree that these house designs are the result of having "too much money".  People use them because they are effective. 

I want to get away from this talk of alt-farming.  I've realized that I've been basically defending alt-farming, which I don't care about, because it kind of relates to a problem I've been having with the game.  So allow me to transition a bit. 

Having easier access to money early on might encourage players to actually play instead of just turtling behind their impregnable fortresses.

My current house has more money than I know what to spend it on.  It's all concrete, with more dogs than needed.  It doesn't even feature a combo lock or electric floors in the entryway.  Now what is there for me to do?  I don't want to rob houses because I don't need the money and don't want to risk losing all my hard work.  So basically I just camp now.  I log in once in a while so I can see if anyone has died in my house lately.  I am not actually playing the game much. 

If starting over was more desirable, I might be more willing to take risks and actually play the game more.  I primarily rob a bunch immediately after I die, and then stop robbing as my house becomes more complete.  The most likely way out for me (based on how I play) is that I'll make a change in my house and die accidentally during self-test (which has happened more times than I care to think about).  I feel a little stuck, so I guess all this talk is really just trying to address my situation.   
     

Kenneth Robert Wells has been gradually increasing his loot while afk for weeks, and his house is unrobbable because it was all dogs and the dog position has not been reset since the last successful robbery/murder.  He even has a pitbull on the entry square.  Basically, he's getting to the top very slowly by not playing the game.  That, combined with all the combo locks and dance traps, makes me not care much about the leaderboard. 

I like the aesthetic/thematic reason for hiding the name better than to discourage alt farming.

This thread is talking about two things.  I'm responding to them separately.

1) farming cash with alts and its potential effect on the game

I don't see how having a pile of money helps you "beat the top houses", nor does it necessarily make your house superior or more interesting.  Most top houses right now are electric-floors at the entrance or combo locks.. both have dead families, and both are boring.  What having tons of money does do is encourage other players to rob you, and it means you can build your house with no money restrictions.  Neither of these things seems particularly hurtful to me if you want to pay extra for it (and perform a lame mini-game of repeatedly suiciding with your alt). 

Other MMOs don't have permadeath and I think that balances the effect of farming here.  If you could use an alt to quickly and permanently put you in the top ranks, then I would agree that it would be hurtful.  But I think it's safe to assume that most people who would bother to use this strategy like the game enough to want to keep playing it, and they aren't going to want to just put up a combo lock to guard their ill-gotten riches and log off.  They will want to continue to work on their house and/or rob other houses.  Both of these activities risk death and starting over, regardless of your cash.

Please keep in mind I'm not arguing that this proposed farming behavior is awesome.  I just don't see it as being necessarily something to actively prevent.

2) "It doesn't matter who I am, because I'm just like everybody else."

The irrelevance of your avatar as a story-character and the hidden identity of you and other players is interesting.  I guess my instinct is to attempt to care about my avatar (particularly because of permadeath). 

In many games, your avatar progresses or changes overtime (become a hero!).  Making your avatar static, faceless, or silent (Half Life/many arcade games) can work just fine, but usually something tells you what you should care about.  There isn't much of that in this game thus far and I'm not saying that it needs it.. only that unconsciously I was looking for it. 

I have fixated on trying to defend my family because they are one of the few plot-like bits in the game.  I love that they are optional.  Basically, I'm looking for things in-game to care about and drive my actions.  I don't at all mind the lack of explanation or your anonymous avatar.  I do think there is room to further develop the themes and to have more potential/optional goals.

I think different sortation options are an obvious feature suggestion.  Vault cash is not the only goal of The Castle Doctrine, so I think the sortation options should reflect that.  Many interesting house designs come and go like fragile snowflakes and never have $100,000 on-hand, so it's silly to say that we all should spend our time busting combination locks or discovering mystery dances for a bunch of money I can't usefully spend.  In this alpha, a random house with no cash could be much more interesting than a house with 100k in the vault.

I'm totally in favor of double-click-to-rob.

"If everyone could easily access 0/0 houses then there would be even more abuse of changing a single tile to make your house reset."

How is reseting your history "abuse"? 

Farming is already a reality.  It functions as a tutorial.  It's part of this being an mmo.  pvp is one of the foundations of the game.

I love the idea of decoy-vaults, particularly in light of Mr. Rohrer's upcoming addition of maps.  To balance them against overuse you'd have to make them prohibitively expensive ($2000 a piece?). 

I think alt versions of the various wiring switches is an obvious suggestion (sticking pressure plates that start on would allow simpler trap design that uses doors or trapdoors), but I'm not totally against having certain restrictions on trap design parts either.  It makes it more challenging to find ways to use the existing tools. 

The lockbox concept sounds like it would make home design more fun as well as giving the robber different priorities, so I'm all for it. 

I'm interested in the rubber-boots object to save you on electric floors because it would weaken defenses that rely exclusively on them (which is the case for so many houses in the current build), and because electric floors are overpowered.