New "cheatproof" test server

zed · 2017-02-23 12:46:36

I've just put up a new version ("35002"), source and windows binaries
available from
http://tcd.thegonz.net/~tcd/ .
The main change is the addition of competitions, essentially as described in
this thread.

I found a nice way to thematicise them: your "friends" in more-organised crime
are planning jobs on rich houses, for which they have blueprints, and will
give a cut to whoever can find the cheapest plan for a robbery.

Currently the base maps are some old ones of mine I found on my hard-drive.
Many of them are from old versions of the game and don't really work anymore,
but the random noise means they still kind of do the job. Any house worth at
least $4000 whose owner suicides will get added to the pool.

I'm hoping the competitions will suffice to deal with the problem of getting
things going.

So anyone lurking on this thread - now would be a good time to give this
version a go!

monkey · 2017-12-05 02:48:42

Made an account and had a look around... the competition houses are weird, some of them clearly have no path to the vault, like one with a metal wall on the doorstep that must be cut through to enter, or an open pit in the same 1st square. Cool stuff though, looking forward to seeing how it works online, assuming the competition bounties are enough to let me go rob.

zed · 2017-12-05 12:39:37

The competition houses have some random noise applied to make finding an optimal solution difficult even if you're familiar with the base house.

How did you find robbing others' houses? Any annoying lag?

monkey · 2017-12-05 16:20:41

Only did a couple, there's only a few on there. The lag was noticeable but short enough not to be a problem playing from Australia. You *could* ease the sense of lag by playing a short animation, just sliding the robber to the tile over 100ms based on client input before playing out the results of the move from the server. But really, 100 - 200ms delay is not a problem in a turn based game.

Seems the rules are quite different here, I had a guy come in and die in my "one trick pony" starter house, only to have the same guy come back 5 times until he eventually robbed me... If he had died a second time would he have been reset? Or can you just keep wailing on a house until you break it? (money for tools allowing)

Last edited by monkey (2017-12-05 16:21:58)

zed · 2017-12-06 11:12:30

If you die you just lose tools. That necessarily includes the backpack, which is quite expensive. Permadeath doesn't make sense as a penalty, because we're assuming everyone can have sockpuppet accounts to risk rather than their main account; losing the backpack is the substitute.

monkey · 2017-12-06 19:45:50

Yeah, I understand the problem, but can't say I like the solution. I can't play the way I did on the main server which was to build a house that kills people and progress almost exclusively via bounties.

I know that Jason, cullman and yourself have put a lot of thought, time and effort into fixing things, but bear with me a minute while I think this through myself, not just sockproofing but addressing a few other things as well.

The biggest problem over all is not enough houses to rob in a small player base.

As someone who played before, then drifted away, but would like to play again now, my problem is quite the opposite. I want to make more content, but I can't.

I have a bunch of starter house ideas I'd like to try out, but on both servers I am limited to building 1 house and waiting. On the main server nobody is coming in anymore after 3 or 4 kills - my mistake, I added an obvious scout killer that scares most people away, so I either suicide or I'm stuck waiting for what would have to be either an idiot or someone very new to the game.

But on your server, my house made only one kill but it meant nothing at all - because the guy robbed me anyway, and my balance is negative. I guess I could make 10 accounts on your server, but if none of them can progress by fooling robbers, what is the point?

In both cases I am locked out of playing, unless I go robbing - which I do, but I don't take risks. There is no case where I would value one saw over 200 wood walls or one wirecutter over 20 electric floors - with the exception of coming back with a club if I see an unprotected wife in the entryway of a house worth over $500.

What would suit my playstyle is letting players build multiple houses on one account, but rather than permadeath, have "permachill" - so that if one of my houses kills you, that's it, you're done there. You can try rob my other houses, but you can't come back to the house that killed you until after I've reset it manually via a new self test - probably after I've spent the bounties to upgrade the house.

Another thing I see as a problem with the original game design is allowing players to spend practically unlimited amounts to protect very little left over in the vault. My current house on the main server is an example of that. It's most likely going to sit idle for a long time because I spent too much on defences. From a robbers point of view, the relationship between risk (house cost) and reward (vault contents) is an extremely variable unknown. It would be better if a certain percentage of all earnings must go in the vault - unavailable for defences or tools. it would not have to be a lot - maybe 10%.

This could carry over to fix yet another problem I have with the game - where a $2k starter house might work as intended, but one guy it kills has a five figure bounty meaning that while you are away your house moves briefly to the top of the list, before other players (or a multi of the same player) comes in with tools worth dozens of times more than the original house and contents combined.

So, you force players to maintain 10% in their vault, but when someone does get a bounty - only 10% of it goes straight to the vault. The rest is held in reserve (at the police station?) until the house owner logs in and has the opportunity to deal with their new wealth. That way it is not possible for player A to trash players B's house in order to transfer funds to player C who may or may not be collaborating with, or a multi of player A.

Anyway, just some ideas. I am actually considering making a mobile game in many ways similar to TCD, so I see this forum as the ideal place to work out solutions to some of the problems built into TCD.

Last edited by monkey (2017-12-06 19:49:32)

zed · 2017-12-07 11:45:06

Thanks for your thoughts. I think you're right to identify the problem that
players who can afford enough backpacks to bruteforce their way through a
house in the end don't risk anything, because they get all the backpacks they
spent along the way back when they finally get to the vault.

I've just implemented a simple fix for this: now when you die in a house, your
backpack and its contents are auto-sold and the proceeds go into the house's
vault. So a proportion of their value disappears and can't be won back.

Chills don't work if we assume players have sockpuppets.

Forcing players to leave some money in their vaults is a good idea. It's
actually already part of the system I implemented on this server. You have to
leave 200+(0.1*houseValue) in your vault before you can buy anything.

monkey · 2017-12-07 21:38:15

Another thought, this time on deceased estates.

On the main server yesterday I had a house that was starting to take shape nicely, maybe $20k to rebuild. Then I made a dumb mistake while scouting another house and died. The problem here is the "content eating machine" intrinsic to the design of TCD. Fair enough that I died and lost everything, but a perfectly good house I'd spent days on, with a living wife and untouched safe just got lost to the void before anybody ever beat it.

What I think could work nicely in this situation is for those houses owned by people who died while robbing (or the last known working version when someone dies during self test) to become deceased estates.

Instead of appearing on the list as a name, it appears as an address, so that it is obvious to all that it is a different category. Tapes from this address are still sent to the owners "next of kin" but they can no longer collect bounties or edit it.

As an aside, any house of significant value in this category is probably not a multi, since multi players would not be risking the life of their primary in the first place.

Anyway, the idea here is to preserve that content for as many other players as possible, in a way that is difficult to abuse with multi accounts.

So, for deceased estates you get one shot, "permachill". If you rob the safe, or die in there, it is gone from your list forever. On top of this, if you manage to rob the place you take only 10% of the vault. ie deceased estates are listed at 10% of their "real" value. As more people successfully rob it, it gets progressively broken down as it slides down the list in value, giving players at all levels a chance to have a go at it. And as long as it is still killing people it is still collecting bounties too, albeit at a rate of 10% so good houses may last a long time as deceased estates.

Awarding only 10% of the vault will in most cases make these places not worth robbing as soon as they transition into a deceased estate, so when a player dies the value of the property should be taken into account, let's say 50% - before it is further reduced to 10%

eg I have a house that costs $20k to replace, with $1,300 in the vault and die during self test.
In my next life I see the deceased estate 23 Franklin Street, it shows a vault value of $1,130 (20,000 * 50% + 1,300) * 10%
I rob that house for $1,130 with no tools, it belonged to my "uncle" so I know the layout.
The "real" value of the house is now 11,300 minus my 1,130 = 10,170
That same house is still listed for everyone but me, but it's displayed value is now $1,017
Another player comes to rob it, he has a $6,000 bounty and dies, leaving behind tools with a resale value of $500
The house vault is now worth (10170 + 6000)*0.1 + 500 in tools = 1,717.
3 more people die with bounties of 800 total and no tools, house value is now 1,797
I'm kicking myself at this point. Watching the tapes from 23 Franklin St. I see that if I'd waited a few days to rob my "uncles" house, I could have made more from the bounties and tools it collected after he died.
5 people in a row successfully rob it for 1797, then 1617, then 1455, then 1310 then 1179 dropping 10% off the value each time.

Because of permachill, eventually, the house runs out of robbers. Maybe it is deleted after sitting idle for a week. Alternatively the vault could award 10% rounded up to the nearest $10 so that it can get robbed down to zero while still giving diminishing returns.

This wont stop people with 10 accounts, but it will seriously hinder those with 2 or 3, and by allowing someone to rob their previous house for a fraction of it's value, gives people a chance to recoup a fraction of their losses after a catastrophic death. But most importantly it keeps the content alive for as many people as possible.

Last edited by monkey (2017-12-07 21:53:53)

Korean · 2019-02-04 04:03:13

Is it still possible now?

zed · 2019-02-04 15:28:03

Yep, everyone's welcome!

Korean · 2019-02-04 23:11:06

Thank you.
I have a few questions.
1. How do I save money?
2. I used $1,800/2000 to build my house, but the remaining amount is displayed as -336$.
3. Everything You Need to rob another house

Last edited by Korean (2019-02-04 23:12:33)

zed · 2019-02-05 11:41:27

The initial $2000 is your building budget; you don't get to keep what's left
over. You need to leave some money in your vault (how much depends on the
value of your house, i.e. how much you've spent on it), and can only spend
excess beyond that; that's why you appear to start in debt. To rob other
players, you need to buy a backpack. You can fund this by winning a
competition or two ("View jobs" on the house list page).

The game is otherwise like vanilla, except that there's no permadeath (you
just lose your tools, backpack included, if you "die" while robbing, and
there's no penalty for "dying" in a self-test).

Last edited by zed (2019-02-05 11:43:28)

Korean · 2019-02-07 06:21:18

I didn't understand much about getting money from home.
So I have a few more questions.
1. When do I get paid to clear the 'view job'?
2. Why does the 'view job' disappear?

p.s I'm going to promote this game to people around (not purchased castledoctrine).

Last edited by Korean (2019-02-07 06:22:16)

zed · 2019-02-07 12:40:46

Can you explain what it is you don't understand, or understood only with
difficulty? I can believe that some things need better signaling.

As for the "jobs" - each has a timeout, displayed on the list, and when it
runs out the money goes straight into the vault of whoever submitted the
cheapest plan. If no-one submitted a plan, the prize "rolls over" and is added
to the prize money for the next job.

It would be great to have some more players. I'd be interested to see how well
it works.

Korean · 2019-02-07 22:14:04

As I continued, I fully understood it.
Thank you

HELP!
I can't get in the house.
The screen that appears after logging in.
"ERROR: Unexpected response from server"

After this, I feel a little sad that I received only one code.

Last edited by Korean (2019-02-07 22:21:46)

zed · 2019-02-07 22:41:19

Sorry about that, I accidentally broke the server. Fixed now.

Korean · 2019-02-08 22:36:33

Thanks.
I ask some questions to introduce the game later.
If it's wrong, please let me know.

(What I understand, what I am curious about, etc.)
1.The house is on the move to the safe after design and modification. It is not initialized even if it dies (unlimited challenge)
2.Does death occur in other people's homes?
3'view job' is a random problem, and the person who reaches the safe with the least amount gets the prize money.
4.exactly how long does it take for the prize money of 'view job' to arrive?
5.How long does it take for someone else's home to be re-try?
6.(Personal Opinion) Too many accounts per person are likely to cut half the fun.

I am grateful for your game operation.

Last edited by Korean (2019-02-08 22:39:20)

zed · 2019-02-09 02:43:24

1.The house is on the move to the safe after design and modification. It is not initialized even if it dies
(unlimited challenge)
2.Does death occur in other people's homes?
3'view job' is a random problem, and the person who reaches the safe with the least amount gets the prize
money.
4.exactly how long does it take for the prize money of 'view job' to arrive?
5.How long does it take for someone else's home to be re-try?
6.(Personal Opinion) Too many accounts per person are likely to cut half the fun.

1. Correct.
2. Instead of dying you are "injured", meaning you leave your backpack and
contents. This is autosold and added to the vault, in place of bounty.
3. Correct.
4. I think there's currently a delay of up to 6 minutes, because it's only
processed on server flush. I might be able to fix that.
5. Could you rephrase that question? I don't understand.
6. The idea is that although you can have multiple accounts, it doesn't bring
you any advantage.

Korean · 2019-02-09 03:59:08

Thank you very much.
I thought five questions would take time to re-run like the old game.
-An injury is only an injury, is it always possible to challenge with a bag?

+ take bag, walk into someone else's house, and come out right away.
Is the bag gone?
(Is it true that bags are considered like tickets?)
(Is there any advantage in carrying multiple bags?)

Last edited by Korean (2019-02-09 04:16:17)

zed · 2019-02-09 04:31:48

"Chills" are disabled - you can try again to rob a house immediately after
"dying". You keep any tools you walk out with, including the backpack. There's
no point in taking two backpacks.

I've just enabled flushing on client calls, which means competition money
should now be distributed within 2m of the competition ending.

Korean · 2019-02-09 21:29:19

Good.
I was surprised today.
I found that my house was used as a sample of the 'view job'.

1.when is the case when used as a sample of 'view job'.?
(When I proved my house after I completed it.)
(when someone else's theft was successful and the house was stolen)
(when restart to suicide)
(etc)

2.When will the "Chills" be resolved?
(n minutes later?, n hours later?, n days later?)

Last edited by Korean (2019-02-09 21:35:50)

zed · 2019-02-10 00:24:25

Excellent. Any house which cost over 10000 will go into the pool of 'job'
houses if the owner suicides.

There shouldn't be any chills. Did you see chills?
EDIT: ah, but "force ignore" was still enabled, which is another way you can
be prevented from robbing (or even seeing) a house. I've disabled that now.

EDIT: I also decided it was pretty unfair that I could steal your 'job' prizes
from your vault while you were away, before you'd had a chance to make use of
them... I've just changed it so winnings get added to your vault only when you
visit, or after 24 hours if you stay away.

Last edited by zed (2019-02-10 06:32:49)

Korean · 2019-02-10 16:26:07

Thank you for the good patch.

I'm thinking of accessing the house after I've finished designing it.
(I don't know who it is, but he keeps coming to my house......)

P.S. The house to be completed this time will be pretty good, Mr. Zed......
(Because I think Mr. Zed is the only one with scary skills.
Do you know how the safe feels when theif come home each time?)

Last edited by Korean (2019-02-10 16:27:53)

zed · 2019-02-11 13:22:45

Yes, I had worried that removing permadeath would dampen the brutal core of
the game - but the painful violation of having your vault robbed remains
intact, and in fact the reserves and backpacks make it even harsher, as you
can easily be left in serious debt with little chance to recover.

zed · 2019-02-16 07:19:19

New client version (35006) up at https://tcd.thegonz.net/~tcd/ .
There are now a couple of convenience features to make competitions ("jobs")
smoother: all possible tools are now shown in your "backpack", so you don't
need to use the tool picker, and I've implemented a primitive undo feature.

The Castle Doctrine Forums

#51 2017-02-23 12:46:36

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#52 2017-12-05 02:48:42

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#53 2017-12-05 12:39:37

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#54 2017-12-05 16:20:41

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#55 2017-12-06 11:12:30

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#56 2017-12-06 19:45:50

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#57 2017-12-07 11:45:06

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#58 2017-12-07 21:38:15

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#59 2019-02-04 04:03:13

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#60 2019-02-04 15:28:03

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#61 2019-02-04 23:11:06

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#62 2019-02-05 11:41:27

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#63 2019-02-07 06:21:18

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#64 2019-02-07 12:40:46

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#65 2019-02-07 22:14:04

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#66 2019-02-07 22:41:19

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#67 2019-02-08 22:36:33

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#68 2019-02-09 02:43:24

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#69 2019-02-09 03:59:08

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#70 2019-02-09 04:31:48

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#71 2019-02-09 21:29:19

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#72 2019-02-10 00:24:25

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#73 2019-02-10 16:26:07

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#74 2019-02-11 13:22:45

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

#75 2019-02-16 07:19:19

Re: New "cheatproof" test server

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