Encouraging desirable player behaviour

bey bey · 2013-06-21 03:59:43

That was one of the first conclusions I drew from the early events in v9, and since Jason himself was aware of the possibility before introducing it, I'd say it's a viable way of thinking. One can put it in the safe for a trip around the block, but when logging out it's just safer to have a little something tucked away. Also, since items seem to suggest their BUYING value on the leader board, you put your house in twice the danger for having items in the safe. (Since 40k cash suggested by the board is worth WAY more than 20k in tools.)

To be fair: I only used to have about 5k worth of cash, 10 guns in fact, in the backpack, the amount needed for eventual repairs, but I had just stacked it to the brim with ladders and tnt to blow it on one of those concrete box houses that had been on the top for so long but I felt I needed some more (30 each at least) so I wanted to wait for another 10k or so to accumulate. Lucky coinkidink there.

edit: since the cash one some of those concrete block houses grew way slower than it should have, I wouldn't wonder if they all just bounced back with a new 50k house fresh from the backpack.

Last edited by bey bey (2013-06-21 04:03:52)

dalleck · 2013-06-21 04:19:17

Oops.. I think the cats out of the bag now...

There are only 6 houses to rob and not much cash in sight!

Shove ya tools down ya pants peoples!

Edit: Oh and thanks for the boom booms bey bey.

Last edited by dalleck (2013-06-21 04:23:05)

bey bey · 2013-06-21 04:26:43

Hide ya guns, hide ya boom booms, hide ya ladders cuz they be robbin EVRBODY out here!

ps. You're welcome, nothing much else to do right now and I still have just about enough for another repair.

dalleck · 2013-06-21 04:35:36

This gets me thinking now though...

It is now possible to hide in the shadows for the entire game, as long as you have a house that would cost to break.

You can then emerge from the shadows when you feel the time is right and bring down any house in an instant.

In fact you can be batman.
(if he robbed houses and murdered families.)

Last edited by dalleck (2013-06-21 04:36:11)

ukuko · 2013-06-21 04:41:16

I can see where this is going... The hardware store will longer be accepting returns...

bey bey · 2013-06-21 04:55:58

Hm, no returns sounds like a solution to this problem, but I don't think that's the big issue here. Repairing houses, after all, is an essential thing to the game and one could still stack up on crazy amounts of tools (give me 30-40 each and I'll break any house) while keeping a low profile and then take down any house within reach, because one can always collect the surplus tools on an immediate second run if the house is thoroughly plowed through. That possibility is the bigger problem imho, let's call it the nanananananananaBATMAN problem.

The cash stacked away for repairs takes money out of the game in no other way than paintings do, and I don't really see the harm in that since broken houses vanish entirely whereas a repaired house shows up again and provides content.

bey bey · 2013-06-21 05:00:28

Probably a better way to stop the whole thing would be that the backpack is only taken with you while you go on robberies and otherwise is still in the safe. After all, you don't take your robbery tools to work.

(Even though this would eliminate the nest egg I used to cherish even in previous versions come to think of it.)

Last edited by bey bey (2013-06-21 05:01:11)

ukuko · 2013-06-21 05:06:56

bey bey wrote:

The cash stacked away for repairs takes money out of the game in no other way than paintings do, and I don't really see the harm in that since broken houses vanish entirely whereas a repaired house shows up again and provides content.

You can't repair your house with a painting.

dalleck · 2013-06-21 05:11:58

bey bey wrote:

Probably a better way to stop the whole thing would be that the backpack is only taken with you while you go on robberies and otherwise is still in the safe. After all, you don't take your robbery tools to work.
(Even though this would eliminate the nest egg I used to cherish even in previous versions come to think of it.)

It is a strange quirk in the game (where is your character anyway when you aren't playing??) but I don't think this it should be eliminated, just realised as existing (mainly by Jason).

One solution I thought of was limits for each slot, by item. So, you could carry up to 50 of items < $20 per slot, 25 of items $20-$100 per slot, 10 of each item over $100 per slot and only 5 guns per slot.

It means the max you could carry on you is $20,000 resell value.

Also, the number of slots could be revisited. I would be quite happy with only 6. It is rare to need any more.

----

I think it would be a real shame to remove the selling of items, though.

Last edited by dalleck (2013-06-21 05:13:09)

bey bey · 2013-06-21 05:15:13

ukuko wrote:

bey bey wrote:
The cash stacked away for repairs takes money out of the game in no other way than paintings do, and I don't really see the harm in that since broken houses vanish entirely whereas a repaired house shows up again and provides content.
You can't repair your house with a painting.

I was just voicing the opinion that house repairs aren't the problematic issue here. You are free to disagree.

I'd say that repairs to houses are in themselves positive as they are the way of returning content to the game that was removed. Seeing as there are about 6 houses atm that seems a good goal, especially if the stacking of tools favours world-emptying robbery sprees - something that would be untouched by any returns policy. The counter-argument that I could think of against the nest egg (which existed before) was that it takes cash out of circulation, but then again paintings do the same. That was my argument.

bey bey · 2013-06-21 05:31:18

dalleck wrote:

bey bey wrote:
Probably a better way to stop the whole thing would be that the backpack is only taken with you while you go on robberies and otherwise is still in the safe. After all, you don't take your robbery tools to work.
(Even though this would eliminate the nest egg I used to cherish even in previous versions come to think of it.)
It is a strange quirk in the game (where is your character anyway when you aren't playing??) but I don't think this it should be eliminated, just realised as existing (mainly by Jason).
One solution I thought of was limits for each slot, by item. So, you could carry up to 50 of items < $20 per slot, 25 of items $20-$100 per slot, 10 of each item over $100 per slot and only 5 guns per slot.
It means the max you could carry on you is $20,000 resell value.

Also, the number of slots could be revisited. I would be quite happy with only 6. It is rare to need any more.
----
I think it would be a real shame to remove the selling of items, though.

Fair enough, seems viable, if a bit complicated.

The problem is how to limit the unlimited build-up of tools while not disadvantaging the robber too much. Seeing those restrictions, 30+ trapdoors would be a lot more problematic to cross with some other tools for whatever lies behind to spare. Possible, but problematic - will you take crowbars and wirecutters, or will you take water bottles? Or boomboom-juice? It would be very frustrating to spend so much on ladders and then realise that one pitbull, or one electrified floor etc. foils everything. I could just put 30 trapdoors and three more different obstacles and lean back for the laugh of a lifetime.

We're back to the problem that people who have been playing the game for a while don't unlearn the defense strategies of previous versions, so as long as the 30 deep trapdoor corridor is safe, people will build it even though a new version might encourage other houses.

dalleck · 2013-06-21 05:59:43

bey bey wrote:

Fair enough, seems viable, if a bit complicated.
The problem is how to limit the unlimited build-up of tools while not disadvantaging the robber too much. Seeing those restrictions, 30+ trapdoors would be a lot more problematic to cross with some other tools for whatever lies behind to spare. Possible, but problematic - will you take crowbars and wirecutters, or will you take water bottles? Or boomboom-juice? It would be very frustrating to spend so much on ladders and then realise that one pitbull, or one electrified floor etc. foils everything. I could just put 30 trapdoors and three more different obstacles and lean back for the laugh of a lifetime.

Yeah yeah, sounds like the direction it should head in.

For instance, should one create a trap with 11 trapdoors (robber would need to take up 2 slots), followed by an electric floor puzzle (1-2 slots) and then a pack of dogs (2 slots)? (here we are coming up against my fictional 6-slot limit) This means the robber may have room for 1 other kind of tool, probably a destructive tool like the boomboom or torch.

It has been mentioned elsewhere, that this would just lead to an 'ideal' strategy where you do things such as have all three types of walls, but I just see that as the meta-game playing out; this is where that Magic The Gathering vibe may come from:- certain strategies emerging from managing this known limitation and robbers learning to come up with working solutions to forms of traps.

I am a big believer that limitation is the mother of invention.

Last edited by dalleck (2013-06-21 06:44:37)

bey bey · 2013-06-21 06:48:30

All I'm worried about is that limits like those might make it possible to design factually unbreakable houses since the amount of tools can't be carried. At least, the limits would then have to also be imposed on building.

I had another odd idea right now but I'll start a new thread for that I think.

dalleck · 2013-06-21 07:25:47

bey bey wrote:

All I'm worried about is that limits like those might make it possible to design factually unbreakable houses since the amount of tools can't be carried. At least, the limits would then have to also be imposed on building.

So I tried to scrape together a house off the top of my head to thwart a limited tool set:

>>>>house design<<<<

There are some electric floors (Slot 1 Water) and some doors (Slot 2 Crowbars), then finally there are 33 trapdoors to be overcome (Slot 3-6 Ladders). Now, if you had the cash and wanted to break in, you could, but you would have to either solve the first part of the maze or else risk taking on the dogs without meat.

Either way, though it may be a hard choice, this particular layout is certainly not impossible within these limits.

ukuko · 2013-06-21 07:29:42

bey bey wrote:

I was just voicing the opinion that house repairs aren't the problematic issue here. You are free to disagree.
I'd say that repairs to houses are in themselves positive as they are the way of returning content to the game that was removed. Seeing as there are about 6 houses atm that seems a good goal, especially if the stacking of tools favours world-emptying robbery sprees - something that would be untouched by any returns policy. The counter-argument that I could think of against the nest egg (which existed before) was that it takes cash out of circulation, but then again paintings do the same. That was my argument.

I just meant that paintings take the money out of circulation for good. There is no real tactical benefit to the house owner.

At the moment we have a situation where there is no money to rob but plenty of cash stuffed into logged out backpacks. People are spending many times the value of the vault just to smash up someone's house.

dalleck · 2013-06-21 07:33:21

ukuko wrote:

At the moment we have a situation where there is no money to rob but plenty of cash stuffed into their pants. People are spending many times the value of the vault just to smash up someone's house.

Fixed that for you.

bey bey · 2013-06-21 07:42:25

ukuko wrote:

bey bey wrote:
I was just voicing the opinion that house repairs aren't the problematic issue here. You are free to disagree.
I'd say that repairs to houses are in themselves positive as they are the way of returning content to the game that was removed. Seeing as there are about 6 houses atm that seems a good goal, especially if the stacking of tools favours world-emptying robbery sprees - something that would be untouched by any returns policy. The counter-argument that I could think of against the nest egg (which existed before) was that it takes cash out of circulation, but then again paintings do the same. That was my argument.
I just meant that paintings take the money out of circulation for good. There is no real tactical benefit to the house owner.
At the moment we have a situation where there is no money to rob but plenty of cash stuffed into logged out backpacks. People are spending many times the value of the vault just to smash up someone's house.

Yup - the tool build-up and the destructive potential associated with it is the huge problem imho. That was all I wanted to say. I burned 20 or 30k on paintings regularly in earlier versions if I felt my house had become too exposed and that took cash out of the game in the same way that "harmless" hoarding of stuff would do but without the edge of being able to annihilate half the block whenever I felt like it.

zed · 2013-06-21 10:08:37

zed wrote:

Bonus I forgot to mention: this would foil death-dumping nicely.

bey bey wrote:

And as Jason said, if you don't kill yourself in the houses but
in your own home, this wouldn't be hindered by the timeout on entering houses.

Aargh yes, it wouldn't do anything to prevent death-dumping after all.
Maybe tools should only go in the vault if you die, and are otherwise just
lost? Would that be too much of a bleed on the economy?

Good points Jason wrt scaling down to few players. Although wouldn't making
this a configurable option on the server deal with that?

And yes, hiding tools in your backpack while you're not playing does seem like
an exploit. It was a nice little insurance mechanism when the best you could
stash was $1680 worth of guns, but now it's ridiculous. Automatically emptying
the backpack into the vault after a period of inactivity would deal with it -
and also with the problem of forgetting your backpack is full and wasting your
tools on what you meant to be a toolless scouting trip.

jasonrohrer · 2013-06-22 13:36:42

Maybe tools are only left in the house if:

A) you die in the house
or
B) you reach the vault

If you run out the door, it seems sensible that the tools would be ditched in the street, not into the vault. Combining that with a 1-hour chill only if you died in the house would both make robbing more tense AND prevent any form of fresh-start tool dumping, I think.

And yeah about the hiding tools in the backpack when you log out. That's not an intended side-effect. I'll have to think of how to fix it.

ukuko · 2013-06-22 15:15:32

jasonrohrer wrote:

And yeah about the hiding tools in the backpack when you log out. That's not an intended side-effect. I'll have to think of how to fix it.

If you 'check-in' backpacks on logout folks could still idle to take advantage of that loophole.

bey bey · 2013-06-22 16:09:31

Well, I'd say people checking their stuff out 5 minutes at a time is not really an issue as long as the stuff becomes avaiable during some times of the day. If a house goes from 2000 to 50000 even for a few hours I wager it will attract all sorts of attention.

dalleck · 2013-06-22 21:55:34

Grrr, well some random whose name I do not recognise as having a house (sure doesn't now!), just spent $25,000+ to break into my house for a measly only $2000.

Last edited by dalleck (2013-06-22 21:56:24)

bey bey · 2013-06-23 04:16:32

Hahaha, shit happens. Make it to 10000 and I'll come for you.

It's funny, somebody said some time ago that the changes would lead to rich people robbing poor people just to keep them down. I never thought I'd end up on top of that pyramid and I don't see it lasting for long. Still - Mr Smith seems rife for the picking again. Finger's crossed I'll survive.

jasonrohrer · 2013-06-23 14:03:09

In this game, there is no such thing as a "log out" operation.

Idle is the same as being logged out (when you're idle, no pings are sent, and any house you have checked out is revoked after 5 minutes). When you quit the game, from the server's point of view, it just looks like you went idle for a long time.

The idea would be to force-return-to-vault anyone's backpack contents who has not executed some kind of game action in the last 5 minutes (and also do the same as soon as someone views a tape---of course you can't take your backpack through the metal detector at the security office where you view the tapes).

Essentially, if you are not in your house, or browsing the to-rob list, or in the middle of a robbery, your backpack should be empty.

ukuko · 2013-06-23 14:35:29

jasonrohrer wrote:

of course you can't take your backpack through the metal detector at the security office where you view the tapes

Or to your $70 an hour desk job!

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