Thoughts on a weekly reset?

jasonrohrer · 2013-05-24 10:08:16

This is a little premature (with v6 almost out), but steakbbq brought this idea up in a different thread.

We have a problem with houses going stale over time, and building up. Even a really hard or unbreakable house can become stale, if the owner goes away forever, leaving it at the top of the list.

In general, the problem of dealing with players who leave is a hard one. Maybe they just went on vacation. I don't want to penalize people for this. Imagine coming back to the game a week later to discover that you lost everything?

Still, I don't want stale houses cluttering the list. It muddies the game.

I could just quietly de-list (not destroy) houses that have gone stale (owner not returned in X days), but then there's the problem of paintings: if the owner never comes back, that painting is never even SEEN again, let alone stolen by someone else. And yet, I don't want to penalize someone who goes on vacation by confiscating their paintings.

It SEEMS like a weekly hard reset, at a known time, would fix this. Everyone back to 0 at the same moment, and a new life to begin for everyone. Auctions for paintings could decay across the whole week (instead of 6 hours).

Looking at the database, I see:

---
+---------------------+----------+
| dayname( rob_time ) | count(*) |
+---------------------+----------+
| Wednesday           |      829 |
| Friday              |      713 |
| Thursday            |      641 |
| Tuesday             |      458 |
| Saturday            |      413 |
| Sunday              |      299 |
| Monday              |      197 |
+---------------------+----------+

Seems like "hump day" is the biggest day, and people actually don't play that much on the weekends. So maybe the hard reset could be every Tuesday night at 3am New York time.

On the other hand, this will turn many more people into "slaves to the game," and it will also be annoying to new players (anyone who buys the game on Monday or Tuesday will be in for an unpleasant surprise on Tuesday night).

Blip · 2013-05-24 11:14:29

I only have time to play a couple times a week, so a weekly reset wouldn't let me reap any rewards for a good house design. I think a reset every three weeks might be more reasonable; it would allow people to rise in the ranks and profit from good houses before the reset without seeming rushed. It would also allow players to succeed without requiring obsessive rebuilding every week.

colorfusion · 2013-05-24 13:29:41

I really dislike the idea of a hard reset, I normally build up my house slowly by taking care in mid-low range houses and letting people fall into my traps. I'd never get anything done if every week it all reset. It would also kind of feel worthless building anything if you know it's just a few days away from being completely destroyed through nothing that you can help.

It might also discourage people from trying to rob the high value houses; you'd only get the money for less than a week and it's likely to be too late to set up a good trap to see people fall for it.

Delisting would be the better idea. Delist the house after a week or so of inactivity, then auction off any paintings after two or so weeks. People who are inactive may lose their paintings, but I feel it would be a much better solution than hard resetting everything.

Edit: I mean I'm against a timed reset, I think the reset for V6 is required.

Last edited by colorfusion (2013-05-24 13:36:40)

zed · 2013-05-24 14:22:55

I also don't think periodic resets are a good solution.

I would suggest instead:
(i) remove the rule that house state is saved when a family member dies;
(ii) pay wages only on login.

That way the only impossible houses would be those with nothing in their vault.

(i) would also solve the problem that children are currently purely a liability.

If (ii) leads to problems with the economy (and with maps, I'm not sure it would), I'd suggest finding other ways to solve the problems (increasing salary, say).

jasonrohrer · 2013-05-24 14:36:04

Interesting idea about not saving cut walls, animal moves, etc. when a family member is killed but the vault isn't reached.

However, what if the robber cuts through walls to get to the family? (May be necessary in v6, because family doesn't move until they see the robber). You'd come home to find a dead family member, but no obvious way that it happened (no hole in the wall).

That's the main reason that damage to a house is permanent sometimes.... because the first thing you do in the game is come back to your house and see the damage... that's a really strong moment in the game. Then you watch the tapes to see how it happened.

Also, if you just reach the vault without touching the family, then half the money survives (wife holds half). So, if the house is one-time robbable with $100K in it, it will become an impossible house with $50K after the first successful vault run.

Maybe the idea of de-listing houses will work.... not just after a week of no owner visit, but after a week of no successful robbery, after it has been robbed at least once. And then paintings (but not house or money) could be reclaimed a week after that.

We'll see how things go in v6.

The Castle Doctrine Forums

#1 2013-05-24 10:08:16

Thoughts on a weekly reset?

#2 2013-05-24 11:14:29

Re: Thoughts on a weekly reset?

#3 2013-05-24 13:29:41

Re: Thoughts on a weekly reset?

#4 2013-05-24 14:22:55

Re: Thoughts on a weekly reset?

#5 2013-05-24 14:36:04

Re: Thoughts on a weekly reset?

Board footer