The Castle Doctrine Forums

zed

Member

Registered: 2013-04-16

Posts: 171

Re: Dealing with too-hard houses

And don't get me wrong, I also support the idea that the game itself should be changed, but even combining all compatible suggestion within this thread still allows a player to make an unbeatable combo lock house.

no wires through walls + animals only move within 6 spaces
still possible

You're right. I thought this wasn't possible in a tool-proof way, but I see
now that it indeed is.

So, unsatisfactory though it is in some ways, introducing maps still seems to
me the best solution suggested so far.

One worry is that the effect might be that rather than give up on combination
locks, players make the logic of their combination locks as difficult to
decipher as possible. With clever use of the details of electricity and pet
processing, you could make this pretty complicated; plausibly sufficiently to
withstand the scrutiny of those few who will be able to afford maps. You could
also make even easily decipherable combination locks just one part of a
difficult puzzle, making sure that only those with maps have even a chance at
solving it. So I'm sceptical that introducing expensive maps would actually
entirely remove combination locks from optimal play.

I fear that the only real solution I see is to drastically revise the design
of the game by introducing *free* maps.

Matrix

Member

Registered: 2013-04-06

Posts: 137

Re: Dealing with too-hard houses

One worry is that the effect might be that rather than give up on combination
locks, players make the logic of their combination locks as difficult to
decipher as possible. With clever use of the details of electricity and pet
processing, you could make this pretty complicated; plausibly sufficiently to
withstand the scrutiny of those few who will be able to afford maps. You could
also make even easily decipherable combination locks just one part of a
difficult puzzle, making sure that only those with maps have even a chance at
solving it. So I'm sceptical that introducing expensive maps would actually
entirely remove combination locks from optimal play.

I agree, I pretty much said the same thing when I shared my thoughts on this matter:

Introducing maps won't make "ultimate defense" systems obsolete or vulnerable, they will still be "ultimate defense" systems until someone can afford the map. The change only happens when someone can afford the map for a specific system. At that point only that specific system becomes obsolete or vulnerable for the map owner only. So the best defense will still be creating an "ultimate defense" system so that you can protect against all players who can't (or won't) buy a map. And against those who do, you can't really defend anyway, you can only make the logic as complex/weird as possible so that they will spend more time to figure it out. All the mind tricks that you can play with players when they have limited knowledge about your system is gone now because they have full knowledge of your system.

I fear that the only real solution I see is to drastically revise the design
of the game by introducing *free* maps.

Yes, if we can't come up with reasonable changes to the game mechanics that is something worth trying.
I think we are close to something that might work, but I am not sure that those changes are reasonable

Madeus

Member

From: Bristol, UK

Registered: 2013-04-06

Posts: 8

Re: Dealing with too-hard houses

I have been observing my behavior, basically I do not invade any house. The only ones I rob are the low $ ones, which usually have no defense. Why do I do it? To build my own house. Once I have built a fortress, I have an extra disincentive to try the high paying and hard houses: if I die, my fortress also dies.

Maybe there should be a disconnect between house and robber, in the sense that if you die robbing, you lose money (maybe you give every penny you have or a % to clone your body or whatever) and not your house. It basically stops me from playing the game, I only watch people die at my security tapes or rob very easy houses to build a better house.

I tend to do this too.  I had the idea of (for example) being able to conceptually hire burglars to rob houses on your behalf - which may require spending a lot of money to do so.  The player then controls the hired robber, but if they die the hiring player's house remains intact and the money is lost.  I asked Jason about this (and related ideas) and he replied with:

I have thought about this, but I really want there to be a strong, tense sense
of drama in the game.  I want you to have a lot on the line when you rob a
house.

I agree that when I've built my fortress at great expense and go robbing it is a very tense process!  On occasion I have lost it all in an unexpected trap due to lack of casing. After playing the game for a few weeks I see that with most houses the risks are too high when many traps are impossible to foresee or impossible to escape from after an attempt.

It's virtually impossible (without cheating) to counter the "9-thick walls", "combination", "magic dance" and "no escape" techniques.  However, when building my own house it's hard not to use some of them otherwise people will fairly easily get through my defences.  Perhaps I'm not very good at designing houses...?