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Matrix

Member

Registered: 2013-04-06

Posts: 137

Buyable maps in v6. What are your thoughts on this?

So what do you guys think about the idea of introducing maps in v6?

In v6, buyable maps will help robbers deal with these kinds of houses.

So, the buyable maps fix this.  They'll only be available for houses that are rich and no one has yet been able to bypass (like, 50+ deaths or whatever).  And, they'll be expensive (like, 25% of house value, maybe).  So, they will coax the rich people back out into robbing (because only rich people will be able to afford them) and set a new goal for poor players (become slightly rich in order to take a crack at a top house).  The map will only be viewable "offline", in your own house, in a static pan-around mode.  You won't be able to walk through it or test it.  So, a really good house design can still be tricky, even if you have seen the map.  It will then be about designing real puzzles instead of stuff that can be brute-forced.

I thought about this a lot and in my opinion this change is not in line with the whole game idea (as presented in v5) of breaking into a house, exploring it with your own tools trying to figure out the mechanism/puzzle behind it while risking your life in the process. Possibly repeating the process to put together bits and pieces of the "whole" puzzle (or just enough to reach the vault).

Buying a map takes away the exploration part of the game (since you are solving a map instead of exploring the target's house) and also takes away a lot of the risk involved with it (you risk only once when and only if you decide to execute the attack after you have most likely already solved the map). It also changes the whole game type - from a partial information game to a perfect information game (assuming the maps will show entire houses).

When we talk about game balance we always need to assume that the player is smart and knows the game mechanics. If this becomes a perfect information game it will mean that once a player buys a map he will figure out the way to get to the vault. The only way he can fail is by making an execution mistake. In the current implementation however the attacker needs to gather information about the defense system(s) by himself (no map) and he risks his life for every bit of extra information he wants to gather and usually has to use tools to make (safe) progress. So to get more information about a target house he needs to use tools and spend money to replace them and put himself in danger over and over again until he gathers enough information to make him confident that he can go for the vault. So it's a risk/reward min-maxing problem where he doesn't have perfect information but can get more information if he spends some money and puts himself in different kinds of danger. Not to mention the family mechanics that can help him achieve the goal but introduce another layer of decision making in order to get the most advantage out of it.

I think that the map solution is like introducing "a legal way to cheat" into the game. You can buy a ticket to cheat if you have enough money to afford a map.

***

The game designer, Mr. Rohrer, made a few assumptions in the post I quote.

Assumption 1: they will coax the rich people back out into robbing because only rich people will be able to afford maps
Assumption 2: they will set a new goal for poor players to become slightly rich in order to buy maps
Assumption 3: the game will become about designing real puzzles instead of stuff that can be brute-forced

I don't think that maps will force this behavior on their own. There will need to be other changes/fixes made to achieve this (see suggestions below for ideas). I also think that maps are not necessary to promote "real puzzle" design. Actually, I think that maps might limit the amount of creativity that the v5 implementation allows.

Exploring a stranger's house with limited visibility and limited number of tools creates a unique gaming experience, on both the attacker and defender side. The attacker risks his life with every step he makes but can make things safer by being smart and using tools that are available while optimizing costs. He also needs to explore the house to gather information about the defense system in unique, sometimes ingenoius, ways. The defender on the other hand has to design a defense system and add some tricks and traps to it. Then they need to make sure that the logic is hidden, hard to access and, in case it is accessed, hard to figure out. But it doesn't stop there, a good designer will also try to play mind games "in advance" with the potential attacker by incorporating dummy elements, "safe" traps, false signals etc. into their design.

I think that what I describe above is an unique feature of this game. Please don't make those go away or limit them by introducing maps. Maps trivialize most of those and the game becomes about making as complex logic as possible that can't be disabled with the amount of tools available and can only be figured out with a map. This creates an environment where maps bring a lot of advantage to rich players since they can buy many maps and they can also afford to make complex systems while at the same time it doesn't solve the problem of "ultimate defense" systems for all other players. This will make the game even more newbie unfriendly as it is currently.

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. Maps won't force players to build "real puzzles". Also anyone can build "real puzzles" in v5 already, there is nothing that prevents that.

***

But even if we put aside the "v5 game idea" and if we assume that maps won't display perfect information I still don't think that the maps will address the core issues of v5. I think that the core issues that promote the kind of metagame that we are seeing in v5 are:
1. Impossible to disable/secure an Electric Floor tile while in the unpowered state (with the right pattern it's possible to create impassable regions that no tool can deal with - so in the unpowered state they are overpowered and once the family is dead they simply break the game)
2. Impossible to disable/secure a Wooden Doors tile with a Pit Bull behind it (slightly less overpowered than #1, but once the whole family is dead it can achieve the same result as #1, just in a different way)
3. Hiding the whole logic behind (N+1)*7+1 walls (N = number of family members still alive). Since houses are 32x32 tiles in size it is possible to create (with enough money, ~20k is enough for the whole system) walls thick enough that no matter what direction the attacker takes he cannot breach the wall with the (N+1)*7+1 tools at his disposal.

To address #1 and #2 my suggestion would be to introduce a new tool (or change an existing one) that will be able to deal with these situations.

To address #3 I have 2 ideas:
A) Instead of maps make it so that top/rich houses get a tool penalty over time or in response to the amount of burglary tries/deaths. A tool penalty would mean that attackers attacking one of the rich and still to be bypassed houses would be allowed to bring more tools than just 8. This number would keep increasing over time so that eventually someone will be able to figure out the solution or reach the vault with X tools. The challenge would be to reach the vault with as less tools as possible in order to be able to reach in sooner than others. This would reward skilled and/or daring players who come up with good ideas on how to optimize the amount of tools used.

B) Add 3 or 4 windows to each outer wall of the house (evenly distributed, with only 2 windows on the left wall since the door entrance is already there). When attacking a house the attacker can choose to enter through the door or through one of the windows. Everything else stays the same. The defender still only needs to prove that the house is fair from the door entrance only, and the family still runs for the door entrance as they do now. Some players will probably still go for the codelock protection, hide the vault in the center and surround it with walls but if they want to hide all the logic they will need to hide it inside a smaller space. Also killing any family member would give a lot more advantage in this situation so protecting the family would be more important as well (once there is actually a way to protect them).

As opposed to the map solution the above suggestions don't change the game to a perfect information game and keep the exploration, risks, thrills and mind games of the v5 implementation. They also promote players to rob a house by playing the game "online" instead of solving an "offline" puzzle/map that they bought beforehand.

Personally, I would go for suggestion A first because I see more potential for new features if it actually turns out successful. Imagine having a Hall of Fame with the best robberies of all time. The list would include the attacker's name, the amount stolen, the defender's name and the amount of tools allowed at the time of the robbery (maybe also the amount of failed attempts until then).

Feel free to comment on any of these suggestions. Maybe share you thoughts about the state of the (meta)game in v5?

Wyld Stallyn

Member

From: Fuldatal

Registered: 2013-04-06

Posts: 28

Website

Re: Buyable maps in v6. What are your thoughts on this?

Suggestion A looks like a more refined version of the "deluxe tools" proposal in another thread. Looks very good.

zz

Guest

Re: Buyable maps in v6. What are your thoughts on this?

I agree that complete maps which can be studied for an arbitrary amount of
time would break the game. It is possible to make some interesting puzzles in
this system, but nothing could stand up indefinitely to a determined player
who knows the mechanics well. So the only way to protect your house would be
to go in regularly to change up some key feature in order to invalidate old
maps. This would not be fun.

The only way I can see whole maps working is if the purchaser doesn't get to
take the map home and study it at leisure, but rather has to pay per minute of
study. That would be highly effective against simple combination locks and
such, but less so against more intricate traps.

Of course cheaters could save a copy - but then we already have the problem of
cheaters getting full information, and already have to rely on the honour of
thieves.

Alternatively, how about paying according to how much map is revealed? So
rather than buying maps from some mysterious guild of criminal building
surveyors, you go onto the roof with a drill and make a peep-hole at a
location of your choosing, and get, say, 8x8 vision centred on the square you
picked. Interface could be a matter of a new "case joint" button which only
appears when you're on the doorstep (and possibly only when you've just
entered), pressing which lets you select a square and buy these partial
map-reveals. Preferably, revealed areas would stay shown in the state you last
saw them, but greyed out. Cost for a reveal could be something like
max(3000, vaultMoney/8), so you can't reveal a whole house by repeatedly
suiciding, and so paying to reveal the whole map this way (which would take 16
pops) is foolish.

I think that could work pretty well. I name it Suggestion P (for Partial).

But even with something like this, tool use to handle unpowered grids
certainly is needed. That needn't be a new item - a metal ladder would do
fine, shorting the grid out when it's turned on. Similarly a saw could let you
cautiously detach a door from its hinges without blundering straight through
it.

Matrix

Member

Registered: 2013-04-06

Posts: 137

Re: Buyable maps in v6. What are your thoughts on this?

Alternatively, how about paying according to how much map is revealed? So
rather than buying maps from some mysterious guild of criminal building
surveyors, you go onto the roof with a drill and make a peep-hole at a
location of your choosing, and get, say, 8x8 vision centred on the square you
picked. Interface could be a matter of a new "case joint" button which only
appears when you're on the doorstep (and possibly only when you've just
entered), pressing which lets you select a square and buy these partial
map-reveals. Preferably, revealed areas would stay shown in the state you last
saw them, but greyed out. Cost for a reveal could be something like
max(3000, vaultMoney/8), so you can't reveal a whole house by repeatedly
suiciding, and so paying to reveal the whole map this way (which would take 16
pops) is foolish.

I think that could work pretty well. I name it Suggestion P (for Partial).

I like the idea. I think that might work.

vraeden

Member

Registered: 2013-04-05

Posts: 23

Re: Buyable maps in v6. What are your thoughts on this?

So what do you guys think about the idea of introducing maps in v6?

When we talk about game balance we always need to assume that the player is smart and knows the game mechanics. If this becomes a perfect information game it will mean that once a player buys a map he will figure out the way to get to the vault. The only way he can fail is by making an execution mistake. In the current implementation however the attacker needs to gather information about the defense system(s) by himself (no map) and he risks his life for every bit of extra information he wants to gather and usually has to use tools to make (safe) progress. So to get more information about a target house he needs to use tools and spend money to replace them and put himself in danger over and over again until he gathers enough information to make him confident that he can go for the vault. So it's a risk/reward min-maxing problem where he doesn't have perfect information but can get more information if he spends some money and puts himself in different kinds of danger. Not to mention the family mechanics that can help him achieve the goal but introduce another layer of decision making in order to get the most advantage out of it.

I think that the map solution is like introducing "a legal way to cheat" into the game. You can buy a ticket to cheat if you have enough money to afford a map.

I'm not saying I have a solution, but I want a few things kept in mind as we try to develop solutions.

1) Assuming each player is smart is a false assumption.  That is precisely the problem in this game.  The game IS balanced with everything except the player himself.  The smarter, more cautious, and occasionally lucky player is going to consistently rise to the top in this game.  People are not equal in skills, but this game gives everyone equal opportunity in a way that life does not.  As the game stands now, it IS balanced in every reasonable way.  Every player has a chance to do exactly what the top player has done, if they can just figure it out.  We aren't talking about balancing the game, we are talking about changing it to make it more fun to rob the big, currently impenetrable houses.   Frankly, tools seemed added to the game for the sole purpose of helping out the player for not being smart enough to figure out the puzzle.  How much more do we want to take away from encouraging smart and creative thinking to encourage brute force methods such as tools and outright guessing?

2) This is a game.  The more we worry about making it mimic real life, the less of a game it will be.  There is something to be said for things NOT working the way they do in real life.  So if maps are the solution, it's probably okay that there's an imaginary criminal survey guild.  As long as the game is fun, which I think is the goal everyone on these forums is interested in.

Right now, I also think there are two types of players.  The house designer and the persistent thief.  The persistent thief has to be willing to die over and over to figure out how to beat tougher houses.  (Combo locks are presumably beatable this way, 16 pitbull houses less presumably so.)   Right now, the "leaderboard" doesn't necessarily reflect glory for the successful thief, b/c his riches were probably unprotected.

SmokestormX

Guest

Re: Buyable maps in v6. What are your thoughts on this?

I'm not sure how these maps are going to be an advantage to the game, we will have to wait and see. I mean just outright buying it.. I think i would like a different way of compiling your own map whilst robbing.

If the different voltage triggers made different sounds when triggered you could break a safe combination quite easy, I think that's all it needed.

colorfusion

Member

Registered: 2013-04-02

Posts: 537

Re: Buyable maps in v6. What are your thoughts on this?

I'm not sure how these maps are going to be an advantage to the game, we will have to wait and see. I mean just outright buying it.. I think i would like a different way of compiling your own map whilst robbing.

If the different voltage triggers made different sounds when triggered you could break a safe combination quite easy, I think that's all it needed.

That would be easy to get around, just have a useless extra switch of the opposite type that gets triggered when you push the button.

DrNoid

Member

Registered: 2013-04-06

Posts: 56

Re: Buyable maps in v6. What are your thoughts on this?

I'm not sure how these maps are going to be an advantage to the game, we will have to wait and see. I mean just outright buying it.. I think i would like a different way of compiling your own map whilst robbing.

If the different voltage triggers made different sounds when triggered you could break a safe combination quite easy, I think that's all it needed.

That would be easy to get around, just have a useless extra switch of the opposite type that gets triggered when you push the button.

But that would take up quite a lot of space, forcing either thinner walls, or simpler locks. both of those are good things.