Robbed by a multi-account & suggestion to combat them.

Pohaku · 2014-04-16 12:26:21

Okay guys, please bear with me - I know the issue of multiple accounts is like a bad smell that crops up in almost every thread, and I'm also a relative newcomer to the game so I'm not going to start bitching and moaning and demanding changes. The bottom line is some people use multiple accounts to enhance their own enjoyment of the game.

Some do it in order to enjoy the fun of scouting and robbing while maintaining a top house without the risk of blowing it, some (ab)use it to manipulate their income, bounties, etc. Some deliberately use suicide and low-value accounts to scout, then take down the score with their main account secure in the knowledge that they are safe to do so. Whether these things are fair, right, or allowed is not the point of this thread. They happen, there's no way of stopping it, and that is that.

I personally don't like it, as I think it detracts from the game as a whole and makes players unequal. I have a single account. If I go on a robbery, the stakes for me are much higher than they are for someone using an alt account, and therefore it will be more difficult for me to conduct a big heist because I am forced to be very conservative and consider the cost of tools, escape route, etc.

A short story: today my vault was taken for just over $10,000 by Robert Dale Bishop, on his first ever visit to my house. The italics are the story - skip this part if you're not interested in details.

Robert Dale Bishop has at least two alternative accounts that he used to suicide-scout my house first. Their names were Michael Leslie McClain and Daniel Ernest Gill. My house is modest, and I knew it would struggle to stand up to the attention that a $14,000 tag would bring. It is not a fortress, but it has some tricks and traps that make the tool-less solution very difficult.

Gill came in naked, checked out the entrance, and left. He returned with a 2K toolset, and fumbled around the house, drugging dogs and smashing windows. He happened across my first (crude) magic dance and solved it by trial and error with lots of jiggling about. He then got into my 'endgame room' but had no way of beating it because he needed a particular combination of tools to brute force it. He died.

Right away, McClain came in, and his first 30 steps were IDENTICAL to Gill's, right down to smashing the same windows from the same side, and taking a dog to the same location to drug it. I have not seen anyone else tackle my entry by this particular route. He then got directly to my 'endgame room', using the same tools as Gill had done, but this time he nailed the initial magic dance first time. In the endgame room, he used a tool to ascertain which one of several one-time-chance multiple choices would lead to the vault, but he was now lacking in the final tool he would need to brute force it. He jumped into a pit.

Immediately, Bishop came in (first ever visit) with the exact combination of tools required to brute force his way through the lot. The average number of steps for previous intruders who have made it into my endgame room is 300-400. Bishop took my vault in 89 steps, including no hesitation on the multiple choice which his McClain account had already narrowed down for him. This is not down to Bishop scouting in a previous life and returning after the chills, either - I change the multiple choice frequently, and only one person has ever picked the right one before anyway - and that was when my house was very very simple.

In summary - Bishop is a triple account holder and uses two accounts to suicide scout and then take down the money with his main. We all know it happens, opinion is divided on whether it's fair or not.

So what to do about it? Well, why don't those of us who disagree with it try to fight back a little? I mean, I knew my vault would probably be taken while I was out today - my house needs work, and I am aware of the weaknesses. But it pisses me off no end that Bishop used three accounts to do it. I've been alive, with my house growing, for several days now. I've put a lot of hours into it, and when I go scouting and burgling other houses - which I do - I risk it all with every step. Why should Bishop be able to hack at my house with impunity and stroll in with a successful robbery once he's learned the secrets?

Here's what I suggest, I'd like to know what the community think: If someone is clearly (ab)using multiple accounts to spoil the game for single account users, let's out them. Let's flag up their main account houses and crowd-source it. When I get back on my feet, I'll scout Bishop with a few tools and post a map of what I see. Then if someone else wants to go in with different tools to scout some more, add to the map and update it. I can only afford to scout with a few tools every few hours at the most. If I die in there, I can't go back in for 24 hours. But if a dozen or more people mucked in, using the publicised maps and adding to them as they go, people like Bishop would lose their houses much quicker.

This is only a suggestion. I'd like to know what the community thinks, and I'll take that into account before posting any such thing, but I think it would add an extra dimension to the game.

And finally - if you're Bishop: Fuck you.

StefanLindskog · 2014-04-16 13:13:28

I've debated account abuse and crowd sourcing of maps on this forum. Sift through my posts if you're interested. I'm done debating both.

Regardless of my vehement refusal to accept crowd sourcing of houses, I'm willing to participate (I know - double moral standard) in taking down obvious abusers. Count me in.

pagedMov · 2014-04-16 13:51:40

Yeah, I'm in on this too. Here's the map I have so far: http://castledraft.com/editor/DY7fB0
Bring in some saws/drugged meat to find the right path but bear in mind that the right path requires a dog to get past because of a leap of faith dog commit trap.

Pohaku · 2014-04-16 14:02:33

Ah okay... I've just blown most of my cash on house upgrades but I'll look into adding to it as soon as I can afford tools. I'll also wait and see if anyone has strong opinions against this, and if so what they are... I know some established forum members openly multi-account, but I want to be clear that I am only interested in attacking those who abuse it to spoil the fun for others, not those who use them for legitimate enjoyment of the game.

Apologies if I've covered old ground - I'll scroll down older topics, cheers Stefan!

EDIT: re: 'obvious abusers' - I'm not posting the videos yet because remodelling my house will take some days, but once the significant traps are altered from how they are now, I'll post the videos - there is no doubt at all, and I am usually he one to doubt foul play!

Last edited by Pohaku (2014-04-16 14:03:58)

cullman · 2014-04-16 15:15:41

Robert Dale Bishop is a known cheater. Undisputed. He used my test/trap house to transfer himself a $60k bounty. He has three accounts in my opinion. I will use my network of vigilantes to destroy him.

cullman · 2014-04-16 16:24:17

Retribution realized.

BoxDrunken · 2014-04-16 16:34:37

Not that many people play anymore I only have one account and i only see a small number of people die in my house daily and its all the alts of other people. If it wasn't for them no one would be robbing sadly, I mean i have a video of howe to get to my vault up on this forum and i m on the front page for houses..

cullman · 2014-04-16 16:37:03

BoxDrunken wrote:

Not that many people play anymore I only have one account and i only see a small number of people die in my house daily and its all the alts of other people. If it wasn't for them no one would be robbing sadly, I mean i have a video of howe to get to my vault up on this forum and i m on the front page for houses..

If it wasn't for alts there wouldn't have been droves of people that quit this game. There wasn't an alt problem in February or at least a major one and I was getting robbed 10 times an hour. Look at the number of people who quit cause of cheating. This argument has gotten old. The creator of the game is anti-alt, what more is there to discuss. If you guys want to cheat at a game, go buy a crossword puzzle book with the answers in the back.

Cylence · 2014-04-16 17:48:10

cullman wrote:

If it wasn't for alts there wouldn't have been droves of people that quit this game. There wasn't an alt problem in February or at least a major one and I was getting robbed 10 times an hour. Look at the number of people who quit cause of cheating. This argument has gotten old.

The player base could be small for any number of reasons. 8 bit graphics, no tutorial, steep learning curve, it's a niche game, the permadeath, the lack of sales or marketing, the attention time required to spend watching or having your house torn down, the tedious and monotonous rebuilding because of the lack of ui features (intended), no robber leaderboard, no stats, no teams, no avatars, no achievements, no rewards, no customization, no leagues, limited mods (by the way, awesome work iceman and company).

Feb is right after launch. People could just not like the game after trying it. It's pretty punishing.
I have no research or statistics to back up any of the reasons I stated. Therefore, I can't compel you to believe any of those things have to do with our player base.

cullman, if you have any meaningful research or statistics that will support your claim, it will be helpful.

Back to the thread.
I think setting up teams would be cool, if not just to play against one man teams (multi account users).

I've had this idea of having Painting Posse's. Eh stupid name but anyway... wait. Set Syndicates. Ooh, That's better.

Set Syndicate members will each have to acquire one painting of the set to join the group. And they try to take down other teams by stealing the paintings eventually having all of the paintings collected in one house.
Imagine. RYB vs Dermotillomanian (sp?).

gyuri · 2014-04-17 02:03:14

I'd love to be on Team Geovisage with iceman ;-)

largestherb · 2014-04-17 03:45:12

your solution to dual accounts or two people sharing information is...

...to share information with the whole community in an effort to destroy them.

the ironing is delicious

cullman · 2014-04-17 05:15:42

Cylence wrote:

cullman, if you have any meaningful research or statistics that will support your claim, it will be helpful.

Would you like me to point out all the threads where people say they are quitting because of cheating vs. all the threads where people are saying they are going to quit because of the 8-bit graphics? Additionally, all the other factors are well represented before you buy the game, the fact that it's 8-bit graphics, the fact that's it's permadeath, the fact that Jason himself said that the average person wouldn't even understand the game until 10 hours in (that was the article that caused me to buy the game). All of the other things you have named are right on the label of the game practically. Yet, every day someone throws up their hands and a thread complaining about cheating and says they are giving up. I see no other threads saying that there is any other reason to quit. Again, I think another huge problem is the community just shrugs their shoulders at this as the game slowly dies. I will say that Jason's fixes to the bounty have already had a massive impact. Notice how many paintings are all the sudden very affordable in the auction house. Just one week ago, when I said that dual accounts were free money, everyone was arguing with me that, sure maybe you can pick up an extra couple $100 a day dual accounting. I think we've shown that was not the case - so why are people still arguing with me about the next sticking point. I have one goal, it's to make this cool game mechanic of puzzle maker and puzzle solver survive in some form or another. My preference would be for that surviving version to be this version of the game.

Cylence · 2014-04-17 07:31:09

To cullman, moved our discussion to another topic

To Pohaku, I hope this team robbing starts up.

uncastlebar · 2014-04-17 07:44:36

Hello Pohaku,

welcome to the experience club

A good analogy for this problem is:

Like playing monopoly in real life:
And one person is playing for two players. He can give his alt credit, sell houses for nothing, and on and on.
Nobody will do this in real life.

But this is a computergame with anonymos players.
And some of them will ever try to get an advantage also by not fair things.

This is just a small indipendent 8-Bit game.
And the players should have a moral to play it fair.

But it isnt. And so for me the game is broken.
Correcting the bounty issue will nothing change.
You can try around a bit but dont play serious.

mala · 2014-04-17 08:01:03

i've adopted a funny way to deal with chain robbers and every other robbers as far as i can tell.

My house project is made so that in some areas i can swap the power flow direction, thus house solution, by just moving a couple of wires/walls.
Each day i trow a couple of dice to randomly decide the "state" of those areas (north/south, east/west, on/off, etc.) so that you cannot trust the solution you've found so far.

My house has been on top of the list for almost a week now (i'm Earl John Mitchell), i've had a tons of suicide robbers, a couple of serious try, only 1 disconnect scout, and as far as i can tell no one has ever seen 1/2 of the house.

uncastlebar · 2014-04-17 08:38:25

Hey mala,

this is exacly what I m doing now with my code switches.

So all the theories and discussion about figure out by trying are useless

Edit: BTW why are the paintings so cheap now?

Last edited by uncastlebar (2014-04-17 08:40:28)

Blip · 2014-04-17 08:49:20

Don't feel so safe, mala. You're my next target, and your house design telegraphs more info about it than you think...

Uncastlebar, that was my doing. I stole lots of paintings and put them to auction.

Last edited by Blip (2014-04-17 08:50:00)

Lord0fHam · 2014-04-17 09:10:51

uncastlebar wrote:

Like playing monopoly in real life:
And one person is playing for two players. He can give his alt credit, sell houses for nothing, and on and on.
Nobody will do this in real life.

My sons of bitches friends did this to me. I always beat them at Monopoly so what they did was give all of their money and property (from 4 people) to one guy that way he had so much cash that i couldn't win.

Lord0fHam · 2014-04-17 09:12:08

mala wrote:

i've adopted a funny way to deal with chain robbers and every other robbers as far as i can tell.
My house project is made so that in some areas i can swap the power flow direction, thus house solution, by just moving a couple of wires/walls.
Each day i trow a couple of dice to randomly decide the "state" of those areas (north/south, east/west, on/off, etc.) so that you cannot trust the solution you've found so far.
My house has been on top of the list for almost a week now (i'm Earl John Mitchell), i've had a tons of suicide robbers, a couple of serious try, only 1 disconnect scout, and as far as i can tell no one has ever seen 1/2 of the house.

I got pretty far into your house, mapping of course, then the next day i came back and was like "Aw shit! It's different." I probably could have figured it out my i noticed to late.

mala · 2014-04-17 09:34:46

Lord0fHam wrote:

I got pretty far into your house, mapping of course, then the next day i came back and was like "Aw shit! It's different." I probably could have figured it out my i noticed to late.

have fun finding your way

sometime i also change the entrance, but right now i'll stick to my "futurama suicide booth", too much fun

Last edited by mala (2014-04-17 09:45:27)

Pumaroma · 2014-04-17 09:55:32

Is there any proof that he is dual accounting? Couldn't it be a group of friends playing together and sharing information? You mention "teaming" up as a way to combat dual accounting. By your logic it is OK to have a group of people team up to beat a house, but not OK for one guy to have 2 accounts to beat a house.

pagedMov · 2014-04-17 14:27:47

Question: did bishop died???

I can't find his house anymore and I was this close to looting his shit

pagedMov · 2014-04-17 14:31:16

Pumaroma wrote:

Is there any proof that he is dual accounting? Couldn't it be a group of friends playing together and sharing information? You mention "teaming" up as a way to combat dual accounting. By your logic it is OK to have a group of people team up to beat a house, but not OK for one guy to have 2 accounts to beat a house.

As uncastlebar has stated in a previous thread, dual accounts is like playing monopoly but controlling two players. You could easily sell properties to your other player for literally nothing and get tons of rent. Not to mention you get double starting money. However, in a team both players in a team are equal. It's not like "hey buddy wanna come die in my house and waste your fortune so I can buy 50,000 walldogs?" obviously the answer would be no, but with two accounts the idea is completely different. It's fairly obvious that it isn't a team of players since, like he said, only the one that robbed anything actually cared about his life.

Cylence · 2014-04-17 14:52:40

pagedMov wrote:

However, in a team both players in a team are equal. It's not like "hey buddy wanna come die in my house and waste your fortune so I can buy 50,000 walldogs?"

Um, you scan still form a team where one person scouts and the other defends. You're under the assumption that everyone wants to have a house or has a fortune to waste.
A team could consist of anything that a group of people agree on. Could be a temporary team with a big goal and plans to split the profits at the end and then house build.

Pohaku · 2014-04-17 15:12:44

I realise that there is some hypocrisy in saying I disagree with multi-accounting and then suggesting collusion against those who do it, however I'll try to explain my thinking.

Firstly, just because I don't like people using multiple accounts in this way does not mean it is 'wrong'. My opinion on the matter holds no more weight than someone who disagrees with me and who uses dual accounts themselves.

Secondly, what I suggested is not an exact like-for-like response. The reason this game has the 'Chills' feature is to prevent players from repeatedly scouting and dying in a house until they know enough of it to go and rob it right away. The 24 hour rule means that it will take them days to do so, which will give the house owner time to review the tapes, identify what has been scouted, and make changes if they wish to defend against the next intrusion. By abusing dual-accounts, people circumvent the Chills feature - this means that players like me, who cannot be constantly reveiwing their tapes, are vulnerable to a multi-account attack while they are working, sleeping, eating dinner, etc. In the space of five minutes, Bishop did what should, by rights, have taken at least 48 hours to do: scout me twice and die, learn enough to come back and rob me. If he hadn't been dual-accounting, I would have changed things after the first or second scout got as far as he did, before his chills ran out and that player could return armed with knowledge. This is why it is *my* opinion that dual-accounting in this way is wrong.

Bishop was one person using multiple accounts to gain in-game credits and gain an in-game advantage over other players.

I am suggesting a collective of people use their own accounts to team up against people like this, with the intention of restoring the balance and redistributing the funds that they got, in my view, unfairly. If it spoils the fun for them at the same time, great.

As for whether Bishop was one guy or a few friends sharing information - obviously I can't say who was sitting at the keyboard for each occasion, but it is quite obvious that the first two scouts entered the house with no expectation of surviving, whereas Bishop - who was the only one with an established house - came in with no expectation of encountering a problem. He brought four tools with him, and used four tools to get the vault.

If people are forming a team where one person suicide scouts while the other one defends a castle and carries out the final robberies, then sure - it isn't strictly multi-accounting, but it IS exploiting the system to circumvent the Chills feature which exists in the game for a reason. People are free to form such teams if they like, and those of us who don't like it are also free to gang up on them.

The Castle Doctrine Forums

#1 2014-04-16 12:26:21

Robbed by a multi-account & suggestion to combat them.

#2 2014-04-16 13:13:28

Re: Robbed by a multi-account & suggestion to combat them.

#3 2014-04-16 13:51:40

Re: Robbed by a multi-account & suggestion to combat them.

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#20 2014-04-17 09:34:46

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#21 2014-04-17 09:55:32

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#22 2014-04-17 14:27:47

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