Electronics is too complicated/not in spirit of the game

Amatiel · 2014-02-24 03:39:28

When one takes a look at the current electronics wiki, it is very discouraging for new players and I believe it detracts from the rogue-like style of the game that the developer intended for it, pulling it more in the direction of a puzzle game.

It is visible in player behavior as well. It is now simply too dangerous to take more than a few steps into someones house, even with tools unless you are totally aware of how the advanced electronics functions. Unless of course you are suicide robbing.

Previous to the propagation of advanced electronics, players were far more willing to take a decent look into peoples houses with minimal or even no tools. It was still very easy to die to new ingenious traps that players even now are still coming up with (that dont involve advanced electronics) but now, aside from the occasional suicide robber, it has become prohibitively unpredictable to take more than a few steps into a players house.

The game is hard enough with even relatively new houses having a specific magic dance where thousands worth of tools are required to bypass it as the animal is too far away to brick and is behind pits with the trap itself being surrounded with concrete/steel walls.

I believe that advanced electronics like paradox switches and clocks should be removed to help make the game a bit more new user friendly. I am already seeing a decline in players so please stop the rot now.

MMaster · 2014-02-24 04:05:09

I don't understand how you can see decline in players (I would understand if Jason would see that). Electronics (even paradox circuits) are part of the game for quite long time and I don't see reason why it would make the players leave just now. It's not too complicated - you just have to learn it just as you have to learn things in any other game. IMHO electronics are important part of houses and they make solving them more fun (as well as building them).

And they are not invisible - I have built house that uses a advanced electronics and announced that I want you all to crack it and most of the better players were able to bypass the advanced electronics and survive (so no sudden kill without you knowing what happened or what is probably going to happen if you don't cut that wire/electric floor).

Last edited by MMaster (2014-02-24 04:11:00)

Amatiel · 2014-02-24 04:12:22

Electronics are fine, its the advanced stuff like clocks, paradox and tricky switches that is the problem and makes the game too unpredictable and puzzle like.

Within a few days of the steam release, you could expect up to 25 people robbing your house an hour provided it was worth more than $200.

Now, your lucky to get 5 robbers an hour. This signals that the game hasn't retained those players who purchased the game when it came out on steam.

This game gets better with a larger player base imo so losing players is bad for all of us.

Kimenzar · 2014-02-24 04:26:40

Amatiel wrote:

When one takes a look at the current electronics wiki, it is very discouraging for new players and I believe it detracts from the rogue-like style of the game that the developer intended for it, pulling it more in the direction of a puzzle game.

New Players need to learn, that's nearly every game that have no implemeted tutorial and a try and die architecture. Isn't it a puzzle too to get through a labyrinth with doors and dogs? What kind of traps do you want to build?

Amatiel wrote:

It is visible in player behavior as well. It is now simply too dangerous to take more than a few steps into someones house, even with tools unless you are totally aware of how the advanced electronics functions. Unless of course you are suicide robbing.

Same here, advanced electronics are for experienced players and if you die to those you will either learn about that kind of traps or don't evolve as a advanced robber.

Amatiel wrote:

Previous to the propagation of advanced electronics, players were far more willing to take a decent look into peoples houses with minimal or even no tools. It was still very easy to die to new ingenious traps that players even now are still coming up with (that dont involve advanced electronics) but now, aside from the occasional suicide robber, it has become prohibitively unpredictable to take more than a few steps into a players house.

First of all, you nearly have everytime the chance to move forward and backward to look for a clockworktrap. If not ignore that house or try it with risking your life. If you see that there could be a paradox circuit, try and cute the right wire not standing on it. You take away a lot of electronics and trap ideas without advanced e. By the way a.e. have the disadvantage of taking much place. So if you see a 8 bit clock, you know there is less space for you needed to scout.

Amatiel wrote:

The game is hard enough with even relatively new houses having a specific magic dance where thousands worth of tools are required to bypass it as the animal is too far away to brick and is behind pits with the trap itself being surrounded with concrete/steel walls.
I believe that advanced electronics like paradox switches and clocks should be removed to help make the game a bit more new user friendly. I am already seeing a decline in players so please stop the rot now.

To be fair, I see many guys come with saws in hightier houses. Why? Most of times there are pits and concrete or steel walls. Scout out and if you see a magic dance, take wirecutter and water, and these magicdances are a piece of cake, if there is no trapdoor at the end(and you can scout out the combinations, if poorly designed).

There is NO way to excuse players that are not willing to learn traps, and imo paradox and clock circuits are not that difficult as the 32substep exploit that is fixed. The other thing is to overcome the frustration after a death.

HaterSkater · 2014-02-24 04:42:25

Amatiel wrote:

Electronics are fine, its the advanced stuff like clocks, paradox and tricky switches that is the problem and makes the game too unpredictable and puzzle like.
Within a few days of the steam release, you could expect up to 25 people robbing your house an hour provided it was worth more than $200.
Now, your lucky to get 5 robbers an hour. This signals that the game hasn't retained those players who purchased the game when it came out on steam.
This game gets better with a larger player base imo so losing players is bad for all of us.

From my point of view lack of players can be explained in many ways. For example i don't play now because i'm in the middle of hard work, and this game is really time consuming for me, i.e. you need to waste few hours to even build up (die several times, find robbable mid-tier house, rob it, build yours, and only then you probably can make a break without losing everything). this game is time consuming, but i won't say it is difficult at all.

About 5 robbers an hour: people got smarter, so you need to invent new entrance tricks, so your house will look completely defenceless for newb, but will also guarantee his death after some steps taken

Deuteros · 2014-02-24 05:23:38

Getting killed by a paradox circuit is something that only catches out fairly advanced robbers. Most of the newbie robbers usually don't even have wirecutters, and even if they did they don't even try to cut themselves out when caught out the by the old electric floor/cat on a button trap. I'd say most new players die to the dancing dog triggering an electric floor trap, it just doesn't seem to occur to them that an animal can follow you while out of sight. I think a tutorial that teaches you how to escape some of the more common traps would help a lot to keep new players. I would never have figured out half the stuff if I hadn't read the wiki and most of these forums.

Amatiel · 2014-02-24 05:31:20

The fall in player numbers speaks for itself. i believe this is one of the reasons for it.

The game is unforgiving enough without overly complex electronics. That learning curve is too long and punishing for a roguelike game, yes ofc there should be a decent learning curve but i think this crosses the line. Not everyone wants to sit and figure out how these advanced electronic systems work, and they are quite complex! The game is supposed to be a rogue-like game according to the dev, not something that reminds one of the high complexity electronic systems of minecraft.

Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?

More players = being able to play the game continuously instead of playing the game for 20 mins then waiting 4 hours then playing for 5 mins then waiting another 4 hours.

The point I'm trying to make i suppose is:

To be able to sit and play this game continuously, you need a large player base. Otherwise you spend large amounts of time waiting for people to try to rob you so you can save enough money for tools/improvements. Unless you want to keep mashing up/down arrows looking for the occasional soft target which is snapped up in the blink of an eye.

These advanced electronics systems are, I believe, a significant contributing factor towards poor player retention. They cater for a minority of players at the expense of the majority.

Hippasus · 2014-02-24 05:32:40

Of course the player base has dropped, simply put this game isn't for everyone. (That is easy to see from the mixed critical response) But the droves who have left were the low hanging fruit. You can see just by looking at this forum that those of us who have remained have scaled the worst of the cliff which is this games learning curve and are perhaps even starting to enjoying themselves. I imagine the population will begin to plateau, as the players who remain will tend to be the ones that are into it more.

Regarding the the electronics system I know personally that I would probably stop playing if advanced electronics were eradicated. Advanced electronics add a lot of the depth to higher level play, without it things are more likely to grow stale. That is a REAL danger for the longevity of the game.

I'm totally biased though, because I LOVE TCD's electronics. 8D

Amatiel · 2014-02-24 05:41:03

Hippasus wrote:

You can see just by looking at this forum that those of us who have remained have scaled the worst of the cliff which is this games learning curve and are perhaps even starting to enjoying themselves.
I'm totally biased though, because I LOVE TCD's electronics. 8D

Well id like to see the cliff be less like mt Everest and more like grand canyon.

Yea you are the minority that the advanced electronics caters for. I am SURE you would continue to play the game without some of the high end electronic complexities because you, like me and everyone else who continues to play this game, will rise to the challenge as we did when we first looked up this Mt Everest.

There will still be plenty of room for creativity and new house designs. In fact i am still caught completely off guard by simple yet new traps that people keep coming up with that ARENT made from clocks, tricky or paradox switches.

Last edited by Amatiel (2014-02-24 05:41:43)

Kimenzar · 2014-02-24 05:49:53

Dwarf Fortress is Everest, Castle Doctrin I learned relatively fast compared to that(Steamsaleplayer). If you don't like the challenge, don't take it. You don't need to understand why it works, you only need to see the signs and how to react to it. That's not an high learning curve. To use or expand an idea or an a.e. that's the real learning.

And.. these "new" traps are often easy to avoid at higher lvl houses.

RevealingGekco · 2014-02-24 05:51:17

Maybe the advanced electronics are a little confusing for new players, but you hardly need any of those to create a pretty deadly house... cats and dogs stepping on buttons is pretty damn effective.

redxaxder · 2014-02-24 07:27:33

RevealingGekco wrote:

Maybe the advanced electronics are a little confusing for new players, but you hardly need any of those to create a pretty deadly house... cats and dogs stepping on buttons is pretty damn effective.

I'd go even farther. Cats and dogs stepping on buttons is effective enough to make advanced electronics almost irrelevant.

I've spent a lot of time in this game playing around with the electronics system and trying to use it to design traps. I think I have a pretty strong understanding of it. I rarely use advanced electronics in my houses.

Why would I?

A cut detection trap is great if it tricks the robber. But if the robber cuts the right grate he can then use water to get the rest of the way through. If I use an animal instead I can make them cut -every- grate. If I set up the trap correctly they have to keep cutting even after they trigger it. Animals set up a stronger barrier to progress here.

Clocks take up a gigantic amount of space. They are rarely worth it. And if there's a lot of stuff hooked up to the clock it introduces a gigantic saw vulnerability throughout the house. "But clocks discourage tool use", you say! Not really. If you use an even number of tools then you fix all your tile parity problems and you can pace around to get back in sync with it. I can see a clock making a good trap if the robber doesn't know there's a clock -- but then you only get one trap like this. It's not worth it to devote that amount of space to making a trap more tricky and less robust.

A combo lock is less space efficient than the equivalent animal trap. It's also not a practical trap.

Electronics are only good for tricking and confusing people. They aren't good for making a robust defense. Cats, on the other hand, are good for tricking and confusing people, and can create a robust defense at the same time. Seriously. Use cats instead of electronics. You won't regret it.

Last edited by redxaxder (2014-02-24 07:38:06)

Hippasus · 2014-02-24 07:56:10

A cut detection trap is great if it tricks the robber. But if the robber cuts the right grate he can then use water to get the rest of the way through.

That's why you have to use even MORE advanced electronics to make it so the floor turns itself off again.

redxaxder · 2014-02-24 08:20:16

Hippasus wrote:

A cut detection trap is great if it tricks the robber. But if the robber cuts the right grate he can then use water to get the rest of the way through.
That's why you have to use even MORE advanced electronics to make it so the floor turns itself off again.

Animals still reign supreme over TCD. Maaaybe that would change if we had rotated gate tiles. Maybe.

iceman · 2014-02-24 09:08:44

I'm pretty sure that the main reason that you're seeing less people rob you is that all of the new players from Steam have actually learned how to play the game. They have houses that they want to keep, they realize that that powered door by the entrance is extremely dangerous, and they just are much more careful in general.

colorfusion · 2014-02-24 09:42:43

Clocks are pretty much all of the advanced electronics you ever need to know, and they're not too hard to understand. Even if you don't understand them then it's incredibly easy to realise that a house is using one simply by not rushing ahead; it's a mistake you only really need to make once.

The game does have a pretty steep learning curve, but I'd hate it for depth to be removed simply to cater for new players; the game is really unique as it is. House design would be pretty boring and limited if we had no wiring, the majority would probably be "guess the right route or have a lot of tools". Keep in mind that magic dances require just the very basics of wiring.

I have no doubt that there are less people playing now than there were at launch date, that happens with every game, but it won't be as dramatic as it looks. The new list mechanics will now spread out robberies more evenly, new players that were throwing themselves at everything will have learnt how to play better, and it's almost been a month since launch.

Keep in mind that, really, you should be expecting a 1:1 ratio for an average player. Every house you die in, you have one person dying to your house. The super accelerated bounty gaining where you could just sit back and wait was only existent because of the huge amount of new players just starting to learn the game. When you are getting robbed less that doesn't really mean there are less people, because 100 houses with 100 people should get robbed roughly the same amount as 500 houses with 500 people, what it means is there are people who are dying more than they are claiming lives.

Last edited by colorfusion (2014-02-24 09:51:55)

LiteS · 2014-02-24 11:12:06

redxaxder wrote:

A cut detection trap is great if it tricks the robber. But if the robber cuts the right grate he can then use water to get the rest of the way through. If I use an animal instead I can make them cut -every- grate. If I set up the trap correctly they have to keep cutting even after they trigger it. Animals set up a stronger barrier to progress here.

Care to let the rest of us in on your ultimate magic dance wiring setup?

JoyOfTrapping · 2014-02-24 11:41:18

iceman wrote:

I'm pretty sure that the main reason that you're seeing less people rob you is that all of the new players from Steam have actually learned how to play the game. They have houses that they want to keep, they realize that that powered door by the entrance is extremely dangerous, and they just are much more careful in general.

I agree with Iceman here. Watching the list and tapes the last week, I think I see strong evidence that people have "skilled up" and are turtling up in their houses. This may be the first time that some players have created a decently defensible house, and they are defending their fortunes, being cautious, and not being enticed so easily by the foyers of houses.

Second, I'll say what I always say, which is to parrot Kimenzar, "There is NO way to excuse players that are not willing to learn traps." You can learn by dying, by reading the wiki, reading the forum, trying to apply wiki electronics by creating them in your own house until they work properly, or asking questions on the forum. You have these opportunities; if you legitimately want help, there are helpful players on the forum who are obsessed enough with TCD to cater to your every need. It is your responsibility to learn.

NOW, on the OTHER hand, I will also say that the some of the current tutorials and explanations on advanced electronics come off as a little arcane and jargon-y, a little technical and dense. This is not a criticism of the information in them, because it is correct. I happen to have a fair science and math background so my brain can translate that type of languaging fairly quickly and extract the information from it, even if I have to re-read a couple sentences. It does seem that some people are experiencing mental shutdown when reading some of the explanations though. I've been thinking it might help some people build their skill sets if someone (I may do so myself) would take a stab at creating pages that were more layman friendly, had more effective linguistic transitions and better flow. These tend to be more effective teaching devices especially when more technical material is being covered.

Last edited by JoyOfTrapping (2014-02-24 11:52:03)

Kimenzar · 2014-02-24 11:45:24

Hippasus wrote:

A cut detection trap is great if it tricks the robber. But if the robber cuts the right grate he can then use water to get the rest of the way through.
That's why you have to use even MORE advanced electronics to make it so the floor turns itself off again.

Teach me this magic
Hopefully this more advanced takes not too much more space =P

redxaxder · 2014-02-24 12:57:54

LiteS wrote:

redxaxder wrote:
A cut detection trap is great if it tricks the robber. But if the robber cuts the right grate he can then use water to get the rest of the way through. If I use an animal instead I can make them cut -every- grate. If I set up the trap correctly they have to keep cutting even after they trigger it. Animals set up a stronger barrier to progress here.
Care to let the rest of us in on your ultimate magic dance wiring setup?

http://castledraft.com/editor/N6sEtg

Here's an example. The important thing is to turn the grates back off after they trigger. As long as the robber lets the animal stay active he's at risk of them triggering again at any step.

If your goal isn't to kill anyone, but just to make a careful robber use a ton of wirecutters, you could always just do this: http://castledraft.com/editor/51D4A6

Of course, you could alter that trap to make it lethal. But that's not nearly as funny.

Last edited by redxaxder (2014-02-24 13:00:24)

MMaster · 2014-02-24 13:48:56

One thing that goes with steam sales is that people buy games that they don't really want to play, but they buy them because they are cheap and are mentioned on the front page. Then they find out that it's not the game they like to play and simply buy another. Some people simply work this way and they enjoyed the game for a week (or not enjoyed) and now there is something else they want to play.
I don't understand why everyone suddenly thinks that all games should be for everyone and if they don't know how to play it the creator should change the game to something completely different that they would like to play.
The world is quite crazy recently - people even buy things that don't even exist yet and they don't know what it will be, but it's in presale and it has nice advertisements.

JoyOfTrapping · 2014-02-24 14:16:36

MMaster, yes. We seem to share a lot of perspectives on the state of gaming, lol.

MMaster wrote:

One thing that goes with steam sales is that people buy games that they don't really want to play, but they buy them because they are cheap and are mentioned on the front page. Then they find out that it's not the game they like to play and simply buy another.

Yes, this is for sure true. I've seen so many 1-2 day surges on featured games, then the players never return. There are a lot of kids using dad's debit card to scoop up anything on the front page whose ad photo held their interest for 5-10 seconds. There are a lot of instant gratification type people that just hoover up featured games like vacuum cleaners and poke at them until the torrent for this week's episode of their favorite show pops up.

MMaster wrote:

I don't understand why everyone suddenly thinks that all games should be for everyone and if they don't know how to play it the creator should change the game to something completely different that they would like to play.

Yes, this is interesting. I think because the forum and game have been open to suggestion posts for so long, it's easy to sort of feel justified in following the trend and "suggesting" that the game be patched to include (or remove) X feature because it wasn't tailored to meet their specific expectations.

MMaster wrote:

The world is quite crazy recently - people even buy things that don't even exist yet and they don't know what it will be, but it's in presale and it has nice advertisements.

Damn you, early access Steam releases! You've tricked me into fronting $20 for the last time... Never again.

#GamingCynicism

MMaster · 2014-02-24 15:12:40

JoyOfTrapping wrote:

I think because the forum and game have been open to suggestion posts for so long, it's easy to sort of feel justified in following the trend and "suggesting" that the game be patched to include (or remove) X feature because it wasn't tailored to meet their specific expectations.

That's fine. Suggestions are perfect everywhere, but I would not call post like this a suggestion. I think there is much better english word for that - demand (I can see people leaving, stop the rot now).

EDIT: Maybe I see it too dark however, I had a rough day :-)

Last edited by MMaster (2014-02-24 15:15:33)

Lord0fHam · 2014-02-24 20:23:37

I tried to use some advanced electronics in my house (a clock). It worked really well but they take up way too much space. Now I'm remodeling and it's all going away to make way for basic electronic traps like cats on switches. And my house is just as deadly! Even more so! This may not be the game for you, but if yo are persistent, you make make plenty of great traps with little or no knowledge of advanced electronics.

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Electronics is too complicated/not in spirit of the game

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