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#1 2013-09-04 19:42:27

zed
Member
Registered: 2013-04-16
Posts: 171

On salary and pace

This game currently has a serious flaw: if you don't log in every few hours
and spend your accumulated cash, you will lose.

I'm sure this wasn't Jason's intention. I think he's stated as much.

The salary mechanic is the obvious culprit. Left alone, the value of the house
rises until it becomes worth someone's while to bruteforce it. So you have to
log in periodically to spend your salary.

The obvious solution would be to pay salary only when you log in. But recall
why the salary mechanic is there - it's precisely to make sure that there's
something to steal. If salary were paid on login, everyone would just make
sure they had $0 in the vault at all times.

So I think we very much need a different way to solve that problem of making
houses worth breaking in to.

I have a suggestion for this, though I'm not sure it's the best one.

I suggest making a distinction between stealable and disposable money. If you
think about it, the immediate effect of being robbed - assuming you're one of
the paranoid maniacs making up the world of CD, who don't believe in banks and
keep all their money in a box behind deathtraps - isn't that you won't be able
to build that trap-ridden extension you were dreaming about, it's that you
won't be able to pay the utility bills or the mortgage. Your next few
paycheques, or a large slice of whatever your wife managed to secrete on her
person, will be going towards dealing with that before you can think about
spending more on building work or tools.

So I suggest having a corresponding mechanic here. I'm not sure how most
clearly to represent it in-game, but in short the rule would be that you can't
buy anything if it would put your cash reserves below a certain value. That
value should depend on the value of the house, i.e. the sum of the costs of
the tiles and mobiles. Scaling linearly sounds fine to me, with the cutoff
being some fixed proportion (1/5?) of the house value.

Salary could then be paid on login. So the effect would be that everyone is
forced to leave some cash in their vault, but that there's no advantage in
logging in every few hours.

But now there's a new problem: it's now in the player's interest to
*avoid* logging in. If you've been robbed to below the cut-off point and then
log in and have your salary paid, you effectively have to leave some of that
salary to robbers.

A second drastic suggestion to deal with that: don't let salary accumulate
while you're away; on logging in, you get at most one paycheque. This isn't
enough on its own, since it would still encourage logging in as soon as the
next paycheque is due. So I suggest it works like this: your next paycheque
becomes due once your house has been robbable for n minutes. At this point,
*your house stops being robbable*, and disappears from the list. When you next
log in (or rather, when you next check out your house), you get the paycheque
and your house becomes robbable for another n minutes.

I suggest n be something like 360, and the paycheques correspondingly be
pretty big.

With these mechanics, there's no incentive to log in any more or less often
than you want to; logging in once a week becomes entirely viable, and
conversely there's no penalty for logging in every few minutes.

Another important effect: it becomes rational to deliberately leave a decent
chunk of money in your house, beyond what you're forced to, assuming your wife
is alive - that way if your vault is robbed once or twice but your wife
survives, you're more likely to have enough left to get back over the
threshold and pay for any repairs.

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#2 2013-09-05 07:39:58

jere
Member
Registered: 2013-05-31
Posts: 540

Re: On salary and pace

Salary could then be paid on login. So the effect would be that everyone is forced to leave some cash in their vault, but that there's no advantage in logging in every few hours.

You've suggested a lot of complicated stuff which I can't evaluate, but this suggestion seems reasonable and simple. It should allow people to select their risk/reward precisely instead of being tied to the game. You get to decide exactly how much you leave in the vault, how tempting that is to others, and how much interest you get paid for it.

But, crucially, time is taken out of the equation. If you leave for a week, your house doesn't magically accumulate money. Cashing paychecks when you return to the house makes more sense anyway.


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#3 2013-09-05 09:59:18

Blip
Member
Registered: 2013-05-07
Posts: 505

Re: On salary and pace

I agree fully. I really like the idea of your house going on the list for x minutes before getting a paycheck and being removed. However, with the small player base, I worry that there would be too few houses to rob.


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#4 2013-09-05 13:34:12

Negative
Member
Registered: 2013-09-05
Posts: 7

Re: On salary and pace

What about an insurance payout when you log in that is x% of what was stolen.  And the percentage would drop off for higher dollar amounts.  Then the early game goal changes from designing a house that will last until you log in next, to designing a house that will last long enough for the insurance payout to cover repairs, plus some profit.

Of course the wife would still be vulnerable, but at least you won't log into to a vandalized house and no cash just because you weren't able to log in one day.

It would keep houses on the market, and help new players get an easier start.

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#5 2013-09-06 18:12:30

Axious
Member
Registered: 2013-08-01
Posts: 12

Re: On salary and pace

To deal with the issue of having to log in multiple times when starting a house just to survive, you could allow the player to pick the amount of money they make when they are gone, it can be a simple selection screen between different hourly wages.

So on days where you know you will play a lot, you can set it to the max (the current in game values), and when you know you wont be able to play for a few days, you can set it to the minimum, and know that when you get back, your house wont be 100% robbed because it accumulated $50k and your house only takes $4k to brute force, so obviously you know you will be robbed with the current system having been gone for that long.


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#6 2013-09-09 14:31:18

jasonrohrer
Administrator
Registered: 2013-04-01
Posts: 1,235

Re: On salary and pace

The whole reason salary exists is to give people something to steal.

It is NOT there to give you money to build a better house.

The game existed without salary for a while, and then everyone would spend down to near $0 building their house, and then no one would risk robbing a house (because getting through was more expensive than what you would get), and the whole game froze.

That said, it is strange for the accumulated salary to get so big overnight.  There is basically nothing interesting that happens overnight.  You wake up to a robbed house, guaranteed, if you built a $2000 house before going to bed.

I've thought about players picking their own salary... but I imagine that most players would pick the lowest possible number.  After all, you don't earn it while you're actively playing the game---only while you're NOT playing for extended periods, which is exactly when you don't want money building up in your house.

Maybe there should be a cap based on how much you've spent building your house so far?  Or maybe the accumulated money should never grow above $2000....

Still, it seems like more wealthy players will exploit this to keep their house value eternally down.  Like, blow money on tools, and waste those tools, to prevent spending more money on their house (which would up the accumulated salary limit).

But the idea of "receiving" your salary only when you return to the game... that defeats the whole point of salary (which is to make your house worth robbing).  Or taking a house off the list after some short amount of time?  No, this is a game about getting robbed.

This is NOT a game where there should be some way for you to remain safe from robbery forever.


Maybe the salary should just be a lot smaller for lower-level players so that so much money doesn't build up over night.  Right now, they earn 50% of the max, even if they have $0.... which means 630/hour or about $5K (not counting compounding) over an 8-hour night.  It's kind of ridiculous.

It was originally 10% of the max, so they earned only $1000 or so (ignoring compounding) over a night.  That was much more in line, but someone talked me into raising it.  I can't remember why!

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#7 2013-09-09 17:58:19

zed
Member
Registered: 2013-04-16
Posts: 171

Re: On salary and pace

> But the idea of "receiving" your salary only when you return to the game...
> that defeats the whole point of salary (which is to make your house worth
> robbing).

Sure, which is why you'd need some other mechanism to keep the house worth
robbing.

Here's what I think is a clinching argument that the current salary system is
problematic:

Currently, it makes sense to log in every hour and spend all your money, even if
you just waste it. That's grinding. So the current system motivates grinding.
I think we agree that that's bad.

> Or taking a house off the list after some short amount of time?
> No, this is a game about getting robbed.

Well it still would be, if the amount of time isn't too short.

> The whole reason salary exists is to give people something to steal.
>
> It is NOT there to give you money to build a better house.

Right, but currently it *does* have that effect - but only for people who log in
to spend it frequently enough.

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#8 2013-09-10 00:42:55

joshwithguitar
Member
Registered: 2013-07-28
Posts: 538

Re: On salary and pace

jasonrohrer wrote:

Maybe the salary should just be a lot smaller for lower-level players so that so much money doesn't build up over night.  Right now, they earn 50% of the max, even if they have $0.... which means 630/hour or about $5K (not counting compounding) over an 8-hour night.  It's kind of ridiculous.

It was originally 10% of the max, so they earned only $1000 or so (ignoring compounding) over a night.  That was much more in line, but someone talked me into raising it.  I can't remember why!

It was me that complained earlier about the 10% salary being too low: http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/vie … 3860#p3860

The reason I gave was that due to it being hard to get a house started as a $2000 house is extremely vulnerable and it would have to stay in that state for much longer:

joshwithguitar wrote:

I know was for these changes initially, but with v16 it just means that you have a longer period to survive through where your house is vulnerable to suicidal $2000 wife killers that don't give a damn how much is in your vault. It takes so long to time build enough money to properly defend your wife now.

This made the game even more punishing to new players. The fact is there will always be people who are happy to destroy houses with starting cash regardless of whether they will make any money off it. I think it is fine that there is a short period in which you are somewhat vulnerable to this, but having to earn a couple of days wages to earn enough money to survive against starter smashes is gruelling. The game is much better when you can start making interesting houses fairly early on in your life. The wage allows you to do this without needing to rely on robbing other houses. Further, if the wages were lower for starters there would be a lot less accessible money around to rob.

At the moment you really have three choices to begin with (if you are not lucky enough to rob a house to start)
(1) - abandon your family and build an interesting vault defence,
(2) - buy one pitbull to create a façade of family defence and invest a little in home defence
(3) - buy two pitbulls and put very little money into protecting your vault

With a lower starting wage (1) might become the only viable strategy. Not even two pitbulls can really defend your family against starters over an extended period if your vault is vulnerable. All it takes is one to shoot your first pitbull or smash through your walls before stealing from your vault to make it extremely vulnerable. And with a low starting wage you will be in this vulnerable position for a long time as it will take a long time to build up enough money for another pitbull.

Number (2) also does not work on a low salary. A façade can only work for a short time before someone eventually has a go with starter cash. With the amount of time that you need before you can afford that second $800 pitbull makes it pretty much inevitable that your family won't survive.

Thinking about it now, I cannot even construct a $2000 house in which the house cannot be killed in one $2000 run. If the dogs are close, a gun, some dog food and two clubs will do it. If the dogs are apart a gun, a saw and 2 clubs will get you through. If you put a cat in front of the second dog, it can be killed with a club and a brick or two clubs. So I guess if the second dog is not visible it you might not know whether to bring a second club or a saw. Still, the fact that it is possible means that someone will likely do it given enough time.

So, overall, a low starting salary will mean that defending your family will become all but impossible unless you happen to log on when someone leaves their starting $2000 accessible (which happens less often with the 5min timer). It will also mean that there is a lot less accessible money in the system to rob as only the rich and well defended will have any money so building up a house to start will be excruciatingly slow, especially with you wife dead.

The only problem with a high salary is that it leaves you vulnerable when you leave the game for a while which encourages grinding. If you don't want to go down the route of choosing your salary (so that you can switch it to low when you leave the game for a while) one possibility is to have your salary decrease over the time that you haven't logged in down to a minimum. This way if you keep logging in to spend your cash you can relatively quickly build up a somewhat interesting house but it will also mean that your house will have quickly have money to rob. On the other hand, if you leave your house over a longer period, say overnight, it shouldn't build up enough cash to make robbery from a rich player inevitable.

Last edited by joshwithguitar (2013-09-10 01:11:26)

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#9 2013-09-10 12:01:58

Negative
Member
Registered: 2013-09-05
Posts: 7

Re: On salary and pace

What if you start with a family dog?  That would give starting players a little more breathing room, while keeping starting robbers the same.  You could even give them a name and everything.

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#10 2013-09-10 14:20:16

largestherb
Member
From: england
Registered: 2013-05-27
Posts: 381

Re: On salary and pace

i would love to see the dog name census..

1. Rex
2. Dog
3. Lassie
4. T-Bone

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#11 2013-09-10 14:25:47

jere
Member
Registered: 2013-05-31
Posts: 540

Re: On salary and pace


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#12 2013-09-12 07:26:50

jasonrohrer
Administrator
Registered: 2013-04-01
Posts: 1,235

Re: On salary and pace

Yes, I agree that grinding is bad.

It seems like.... almost like.... the money should build up on a house like a bounty, but NEVER be available to the owner of that house??? 

One problem with a bounty that the owner can't get is that you're not really stealing from the owner anymore.  Taking that bounty doesn't involve taking something that the owner wants....


Really, the idea of this game is that you get more money to build your house by risking your neck robbing others OR trapping others in your house to get their dropped tools.

That sounds great and really well-balanced.  There is no "grinding" there, because the only way to get more money in the game is to play well (either as a robber or a house designer).

BUT, that was broken early on by an ever-dwindling economy.  Tools get spent, meaning that the total money in the system shrinks over time.  Yes, each new life brings in $2000, but that is usually chewed up buy building a house and buying tools (which are spent).  Well, the "building the house" part is bad enough, because that money never comes back.

Maybe tools used in a house could be dropped in that house's vault?  But then it sees like tools would build up and up forever.... but maybe this would counteract the money sunk permanently into walls.  And "Tool snowballs" would still be destroyed when someone died.  And also, after picking up a tool snowball, you'd probably "spend" that snowball across multiple houses as you use those tools for robberies.  And of course you'd sell some to buy walls.




HMMMMM......


This would be a huge change.  Goodness, how many "huge changes" are left before this game actually works?  This is by far the hardest design that I've ever worked on.


(Also, one free dog is interesting, but it's a special case of non-linear pricing.... where your first dog costs $0, and then the next $400, and the next $800, etc.... we could extend this to everything, which would automatically enforce house diversity.... you couldn't afford to build 200 concrete walls... you'd have to have a mix.... nor could you have 20 pit bulls)

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#13 2013-09-12 08:02:37

jasonrohrer
Administrator
Registered: 2013-04-01
Posts: 1,235

Re: On salary and pace

Oh... wait...

Tools being dropped in the vault when they are used (so that they don't disappear and suck money from the game) wouldn't help with the fundamental problem:  where does the initial money come from that makes a newly-built house worth robbing?

Here, the tools building up would eventually make it worth robbing.  But what would motivate the first robbers to bring those first tools?

Same is true for robber deaths adding value to the house (maybe by upping a bounty, or maybe owner gets all robber's possessions at death, etc.).  This still doesn't help with the fundamental problem of making a house worth robbing in the first place.

Chicken and egg problem.


So, this brings me back to the idea of a bounty that grows on the house that the owner can't touch (or even see).  This would eliminate grinding.

But, thematically it's so weird.  Where does this bounty come from?  And the owner would watch a tape where someone came in with 20 saws just to steal the owner's $10.

Maybe this is money that would build up over time, but the owner could get it eventually?  Maybe like "savings" that can be stolen, but get transferred into the owner's main account once per day?  Still, this would just change the game from 10 minute grinding to daily grinding.

Maybe the owner can see it, but can't ever touch it.  Like savings bonds being sent by a great uncle or something.

But... really, you should get money ONLY by robbing others or tricking others in your house.  I'd really like the "just last X minutes to get more money for building" thing to vanish entirely.

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#14 2013-09-12 08:54:26

jasonrohrer
Administrator
Registered: 2013-04-01
Posts: 1,235

Re: On salary and pace

Anyway, for the time being, salary has dropped down to 10% of max salary (down from 50%).  So, if you have $0, you earn 10% of the max possible salary.  That scales up linearly as you have more and more value in your house, until you have $9000, at which point, your salary hits the max (it used to hit the max at $5000 in house value).

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#15 2013-09-12 16:25:39

zed
Member
Registered: 2013-04-16
Posts: 171

Re: On salary and pace

Jason Rohrer said:
> Yes, I agree that grinding is bad.
>
> It seems like.... almost like.... the money should build up on a house like
> a bounty, but NEVER be available to the owner of that house??? 
>
> One problem with a bounty that the owner can't get is that you're not really
> stealing from the owner anymore.  Taking that bounty doesn't involve taking
> something that the owner wants....

Well, my suggestion about not being able to spend down below a certain amount,
determined by house value, acts a bit like this. It's money which the owner
can't get at but which robbers can, like a bounty - but having it stolen does
hurt the owner.

I'm not sure how to present that mechanic to the player in a non-confusing
way, though.

> Really, the idea of this game is that you get more money to build your house
> by risking your neck robbing others OR trapping others in your house to get
> their dropped tools.
>
> That sounds great and really well-balanced.  There is no "grinding" there,
> because the only way to get more money in the game is to play well (either
> as a robber or a house designer).

Right, that would be really interesting if it could be made to work.

But I'm not sure I like being forced to rob or kill to play the game... why
shouldn't I be able to sit tight behind security based on difficult but
safe puzzles, and earn my way with an honest job?

As I understand it, the main motivator in this game is meant to be the desire
to keep your family alive, with larceny and murder of intruders being means to
that end which you may find yourself resorting to. I feel that would change if
they were forced on you so bluntly, by having them be the only source of
income.

I find these days that when I do play, I can't bring myself to rob a player
with a living family - since I know it's only going to bring their deaths
closer. Do you really want to prevent people from playing that way?

Tricky!

> This would be a huge change.  Goodness, how many "huge changes" are left
> before this game actually works?  This is by far the hardest design that
> I've ever worked on.

I know... It's been fascinating to watch!

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#16 2013-09-12 21:22:53

joshwithguitar
Member
Registered: 2013-07-28
Posts: 538

Re: On salary and pace

One way injecting putting money into the system which thematically make more sense than house bounties is to do the opposite - robber bounties. The idea could simply be that each time a robber dies in your house you get a bounty payout based on their previous robbing history. So if you are clever enough to catch a robber in your house that has been previously successful you get a large bounty but if someone dies on a cheap run you only get a small minimum amount.

This would encourage luring people into your house, especially people who actually have something to lose. It would also reward clever house design.

Thematically this has the issue of encouraging players to have people die in their houses, which is kind of odd. People might be happy to defend their wife with lethal force, but I don't imagine too many would be just as happy to put a deadly electrocution trap on their home vault. And although the idea of police paying out a bounty for capturing a robber makes some sense, paying one for killing a robber seems a bit extreme.

For the above reason one idea I have is to replace the "suicide" button whilst in another house with a "surrender" button. If you surrender in someone else's house you do not die but instead some form of punishment is dealt against you that scales with the bounty on your head. How to implement this would be tricky as a fine might be hard to pay off if you just spent your money on tools for the robbery and "jail time" - stopping the player from playing for a bit - seems harsh. One way you could implement a fine system is to also implement a system in which whenever you remove or replace static tiles in your house you are refunded half their value (similarly to tools). If someone has to pay off a fine that they don't have the money for they can sell off chunks of their house until they get in the clear. Before they pay off the fine they are treated as if they have a broken house and negative money so that they cannot test it until they are have paid it.

In this system you could make bounties only paid out to home owners when they "capture" a robber as opposed to killing them. This would also allow the building of more "humane" houses that do not intend to kill robbers and this gives the player more options. Am I happy to kill someone just because they want to steal my money? You could also make wife killing dramatically increase you bounty, meaning that if you kill wives then getting captured will be much more punishing.

Even if a "surrender" system is not appealing I think a "police" bounty on robbers could be a fun way of injecting money into the economy. And it makes a lot more sense than a house bounty.

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#17 2013-09-12 22:06:31

jasonrohrer
Administrator
Registered: 2013-04-01
Posts: 1,235

Re: On salary and pace

This is a really interesting idea.

I think the "bounty" for killing a notorious robber is thematically clear enough.  This is a slightly bent world already.  It doesn't have to make real-world sense.  So, we don't need stuff about capture.  Also, suicide button is a key emotional moment in the game that I cannot lose.

So.... the core idea is that for each crime committed by someone, the bounty on their head increases.  And then when they finally die in someone's house, that house gets a bump in funds of that bounty.

I don't think the bounty will actually discourage robber behavior (because it's not like you can actively "go after" a robber with a high bounty).  So, there's no sense in having the bounty be larger for murder.

I wonder... wouldn't it just be enough to pay a house for each death that happens there?

Well, I do see how a "really good house" might trick a high-level player and thus gain even more money (if a high-level player had a huge bounty built up on them).  So this would seem to encourage "really tricky" house design.

A house that looked scary (a look and leave house) would not earn much money at all.  A house that caught only small-time players would earn more.  A house that caught the very best players would earn the most.


ERRR.... and.... the wife could earn bounty money (and hold it until you return) for each robber that she kills with her new shotgun!


Zed:

As far as the "honest job" option.... well, that wasn't thematically intentional.  That was a side-effect of me trying to keep the economy afloat.  If there's a better way to do it, the honest job can happily go away.

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#18 2013-09-13 02:43:59

ukuko
Member
Registered: 2013-04-06
Posts: 334

Re: On salary and pace

The problem I see with this is that the serial robber is unlikely to live long enough for the bounty to add up. It also excludes a large percentage of players (the house-builders) from the reward economy. The players you REALLY want to catch are those sitting at the top of the house list, who I doubt are high-risk robbers.

Why not base the bounty on a percentage of the player's lifetime cash total — all money held/spent on their current life.

This wouldn't need much explanation. It's quite 'gamey', and equates roughly to player rank. Plus there are real-life parallels — studies into the value of a human life to a country's economy etc.

Another aspect of it that appeals to me is that your own value would be hidden from you. You'd never know how much your life/family is worth. No spending down to zero. It also adds nice payoff to those doing more with less. Clever use of cheaper materials will leave you less of a target than 200 concrete walls.

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#19 2013-09-13 06:19:04

jasonrohrer
Administrator
Registered: 2013-04-01
Posts: 1,235

Re: On salary and pace

ukuko:

The idea here was that the bounty would build up on the ROBBER over time... not on the robber's house.  And then that bounty would be dumped into the house where the robber eventually dies.  So, a "concrete fortress" that kills a lot of people would have a bunch of money dumped into it over time, making it more desirable to rob.

The bounty wouldn't pile up in the robber's house.  It would be untouchable money until the robber dies, and it would be given to the house that killed the robber.



Well, there's the BIG problem that I keep forgetting about:

If a bounty builds up on a robber...

And that bounty is dumped into the house that the robber eventually dies in...

And this is the sole source of money that builds up over time in houses...

THEN...

WHAT motivates a robber to come into a house in the first place? 

Some house with $10 left in it...  What robber would go in there and risk dying? 

So, everyone would still spend down to $0 (only natural---you will build as much security as you can possibly afford).  And then no house will be worth robbing.  And no killed-robber-bounties will get dumped in houses.  And then the game will freeze again.

Arggg...

This is that same chicken and egg issue from before.  Money can't only build up on a house based on it being robbed.

However, this is slightly different, because it would motivate people to build "trick" houses that only have $100 left in them, but LOOK worth robbing, but are really not, which would catch robbers.

But I don't think this would be enough to overcome the general downward feedback loop.  People have a strong desire to be as secure as possible in this game, and spending down to $0 is the best way to be as secure as possible.  Maybe a few "better" players would try to get ahead by building "looks worth robbing" trick houses, but that wouldn't be enough.

Josh:  what are your thoughts here?

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#20 2013-09-13 09:00:11

joshwithguitar
Member
Registered: 2013-07-28
Posts: 538

Re: On salary and pace

One thing that might work is to leave a small salary so that the house builds up enough money to attract starter robbers with nothing to lose. As long as starter deaths in your house get a decent minimum bounty they would still be your primary source of income on aside from robberies. Once a few starters have died in your house it will start to build up money and become attractive to more established and wealthy robbers who, if they die in your house, will give you quite decent bounties. So even a very small income might the nudge that is required to get the ball rolling.

I can see that this might cause people to build fortresses that actively discourage people dying in the house (say a combination lock that opens an electric door) in order to make sure it doesn't build much money to rob. I don't think too many would pick this strategy though as I think most would appreciate the bounty income.

Another thing that might work is the idea of house "valuables" that build up over time, similarly to the house bounty idea I guess. This would represent things like jewellery which can be stolen (and instantly converted to cash) but cannot be used to purchase anything. Similarly to a small income, this would not have to be a large sum to get the robber bounty ball rolling. So a safe could hold four things: money, tools, paintings and valuables. The only problem I can see with this approach is that, as opposed to paintings, there is no real incentive for a player to want to protect their valuables.

Perhaps there can be a certain minimum amount of "valuables" that all robbing and bounty income must go into replenishing while it is under it. For instance, just say each player starts with $500 worth of valuables and whenever their vault is robbed they will not be able to do any repairs or buy any tools until the minimum $500 has been restocked. It might help here if you can sell off parts of your house to make this money up (whenever static parts of the house are removed half the value is refunded).

I think all you really need is something to kick start the bounty-income feedback loop, I don't think it needs to be much.

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#21 2013-09-13 09:08:14

ukuko
Member
Registered: 2013-04-06
Posts: 334

Re: On salary and pace

I guess what I was trying to address was the money-hole that is house building. I would wager that most of the money in the game is spent on house materials. That money disappears forever. Not only that but it disappears many times over for each house (wood replaced by steel replaced by concrete over time).

Tools left in a house will lose 50% of their value and then likely be spent on more house materials.

I think what I was trying to get at was a system where the inherent value of a house added to its robbable cash value. You can sort of assume that an expensive house is going to have a bunch of expensive stuff in it. Perhaps that value gets hit by 50% every time the vault is successfully reached, until the owner completes another self test and it resets. A kind of home owner parallel to the bounty.

Admittedly the house owner wouldn't lose anything each time, though having a more expensive house would make it a tempting rob even if the owner had spent all their cash.

On another note: I LOVE the idea of a robber's bounty increasing if he starts killing folks.

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#22 2013-09-13 10:13:57

jere
Member
Registered: 2013-05-31
Posts: 540

Re: On salary and pace

Another thing that might work is the idea of house "valuables" that build up over time, similarly to the house bounty idea I guess. This would represent things like jewelry which can be stolen (and instantly converted to cash) but cannot be used to purchase anything.... there is no real incentive for a player to want to protect their valuables.

I have long thought heirlooms would be amazing. You log in one day to a message

Your great aunt DORIS has passed away. She has left you a RUBY NECKLACE.

You can't sell heirlooms for X hours because of sentimental value, but it's instant cash for any robbers. Protect it long enough and you can sell it (it moves from a small row below your vault to your actual vault). These jewels could be cheap enough to provide respectable incentives but not enough to crush new players (maybe $1000). And value of jewelry wouldn't grow... the current problem we have.

Perhaps you get one of these jewels every day. Or you could start off with one. Having it be a one off wouldn't offer sustainable incentives though.

It would be really neat to be a jewel thief, by the way. Kind of like how you can ignore money in the game and go after paintings exclusively.

Last edited by jere (2013-09-13 10:31:13)


Golden Krone Hotel - a vampire roguelike

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#23 2013-09-13 13:25:27

largestherb
Member
From: england
Registered: 2013-05-27
Posts: 381

Re: On salary and pace

i am le mole

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#24 2014-03-07 13:02:52

Smegskull
Member
Registered: 2014-02-10
Posts: 9

Re: On salary and pace

the salary is supposed to simulate you working while logged off right? so why would that money be in the vault to rob.

I like the Idea of your salary being paid in when you log in (i.e. you put your money in your vault when you get home from work).

I think the flaw is people can see how much money is in your vault and rob you based on that. It would feel more risky and interesting if houses were listed by cost of parts (you could be a pro robbing a mansion with no money in it while some lucky noob robs a wooden shack with a fortune in it)

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#25 2014-03-08 13:01:22

Vegeta9001
Member
Registered: 2014-01-31
Posts: 123

Re: On salary and pace

Why post on a one year old topic? As far as I know the salary was remove a long time ago.

Last edited by Vegeta9001 (2014-03-08 13:01:39)

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