The Castle Doctrine Forums

jearr

Member

Registered: 2013-04-18

Posts: 42

Suggestions and discussion about the player browser

The player browser (not sure what to call it) where you select people to rob has a couple limitations that make it awkward.  It has only one search filter (name) and the sortation of the list cannot be changed (always shows most money on top).  I understand it receives this list in chunks in realtime from the server, and so it may be impractical to add player-controlled sortation options.  I have an idea for that below.

Having options on how to sort the house lists might make finding ideal houses to rob easier.  For example, there are many abandoned homes which can be farmed, but they reside far down in the list, requiring you to click the down-arrow 15 times or more.  This becomes annoying after performing this click-fest repeatedly for multiple robberies.  Additionally, it might be fun to be able to locate houses that are more or less challenging based on their attempts-per-death ratio.  Finally, it might be nice to find all recently-updated houses that are 0/0. 

So, for continuity with the existing server feed, it might be easiest to offer the choice of a few different pre-set sorted lists as selectable buttons, instead of having only one master feed.  This would allow the server to still generate discrete blocks of houses (and not give the player any way to manipulate the list), but offer the player a couple different ways to browse through houses.

It also occurs to me that there might be a good reason to keep the sortation method the way it is, and to not offer different options.  Security through obscurity protects new houses when they keep their wallets sufficiently small by hiding their homes below the threshold of all but the most dedicated list-clickers.  I have used this tactic to help protect my house before it has matured enough to accept regular robbing attempts.  As long as I have no money, my house can go unrobbed for days.  My suggested sortation options might possibly destroy this tactic.

colorfusion

Member

Registered: 2013-04-02

Posts: 537

Re: Suggestions and discussion about the player browser

I would like some more search tools, but I think part of the idea of having high money houses always on top is that they're the ones that should be robbed.

If everyone could easily access all low value houses then there might be an even bigger clot of high-money impenetrable houses and it would be hard to start off as a low value house.

If everyone could easily access 0/0 houses then there would be even more abuse of changing a single tile to make your house reset.

One thing you can do in the current situation is search a common letter combinations (E.G: "ER") in the search box. This narrows the search down a lot and you should be able to find plenty of low value houses on the first or second page.

Last edited by colorfusion (2013-05-03 09:24:07)

setz

Member

From: NM

Registered: 2013-04-03

Posts: 121

Website

Re: Suggestions and discussion about the player browser

@colorfusion. all of your reasons are SPOT ON. I totally agree with you even though Jearr raises some good ideas. I think one thing that would be a great, albeit simple addition, is the ability to just double click on the house you want to rob instead of click on the "Rob House" button.

jearr

Member

Registered: 2013-04-18

Posts: 42

Re: Suggestions and discussion about the player browser

I think different sortation options are an obvious feature suggestion.  Vault cash is not the only goal of The Castle Doctrine, so I think the sortation options should reflect that.  Many interesting house designs come and go like fragile snowflakes and never have $100,000 on-hand, so it's silly to say that we all should spend our time busting combination locks or discovering mystery dances for a bunch of money I can't usefully spend.  In this alpha, a random house with no cash could be much more interesting than a house with 100k in the vault.

I'm totally in favor of double-click-to-rob.

"If everyone could easily access 0/0 houses then there would be even more abuse of changing a single tile to make your house reset."

How is reseting your history "abuse"? 

Farming is already a reality.  It functions as a tutorial.  It's part of this being an mmo.  pvp is one of the foundations of the game.

Last edited by jearr (2013-05-02 20:22:52)