Bulldogs

Dantheman · 2013-10-17 02:18:22

I have to say I think they are nerfed too much. At current it seems rather too easy to break from their sight and evade them. Surely a real dog would quite easily keep on the trail once it has got the sight or sent of an intruder.

jasonrohrer · 2013-10-17 07:34:37

So.... I think I'm on the verge of going back to "once an animal sees you, it follows (or flees) you forever", like it used to be back in v16 or whatever it was.

They still won't follow you "smart" in that they always try to walk straight toward you, so they can get caught behind stuff (dogs actually do this in real life---at least some do). BUT, it will be much harder to escape from one, and much easier for them to pop out and surprise you after they have seen you once.

Also, this will still prevent totally blind magic dances (where you have no idea where the animal is that could possibly be triggering this stuff), BUT allow some of the more clever animal switching gizmos (assuming that the animal can see you at least once before running into the gizmo).

Essentially, for a long time, I've been trying to trim the building part of the game down to thwart "uninteresting" house design, but it turns out that uninteresting house design is possible no matter what. So, now I've changed my line of attack on that problem through the metagame, and I'm going back and reconsidering all the stuff that I trimmed out.

Dantheman · 2013-10-17 07:50:56

jasonrohrer wrote:

Essentially, for a long time, I've been trying to trim the building part of the game down to thwart "uninteresting" house design, but it turns out that uninteresting house design is possible no matter what. So, now I've changed my line of attack on that problem through the metagame, and I'm going back and reconsidering all the stuff that I trimmed out.

That's really exciting to hear.

Just the ability to make money from killing invaders will encourage people towards venus fly trap like houses at least I think. Certainly something better than the old combo locks.

jasonrohrer · 2013-10-17 08:11:29

Yes, here's hoping!

zed · 2013-10-17 12:36:42

> Essentially, for a long time, I've been trying to trim the building part of
> the game down to thwart "uninteresting" house design, but it turns out that
> uninteresting house design is possible no matter what. So, now I've changed my
> line of attack on that problem through the metagame, and I'm going back and
> reconsidering all the stuff that I trimmed out.

I'd be careful with that. Bounties are a nice idea, but they don't quite
provide the right motivation. There's currently no reason other than cost to
have an accessible vault at the end of your fly trap, rather than having an
uninteresting bitlock-style barrier between the end of the trap and the vault.

If there were some way to prove to the robber that the house is "fair", then
it might work - you'd be motivated to build a "fair" house in order to lure
robbers in to their deaths. But I don't see a neat way to do that. Giving out
partial blueprints, with the owner deciding which bits of the house are shown,
might work - but would be cumbersome.

jasonrohrer · 2013-10-17 13:13:46

Well, point is that people built bit-locks no matter what restrictions I threw at them. Did you see those crazy v18 things where cats at the edge of the screen jumped on buttons, and they were protected by long pits, and you effectively "pushed" a button by opening a door to let the cat see you? Even with no wiring through walls, people found a way. And at that point, I had already castrated much of the rest of interesting house design.

SO....

The idea is that you may have a bit lock eventually, but it's not going to get you anywhere unless there is other, more alluring stuff to explore in front of that. Bitlock by the front door (a world with no houses even worth poking into) will not earn you any bounties.

ukuko · 2013-10-17 13:57:24

jasonrohrer wrote:

The idea is that you may have a bit lock eventually, but it's not going to get you anywhere unless there is other, more alluring stuff to explore in front of that. Bitlock by the front door (a world with no houses even worth poking into) will not earn you any bounties.

This was actually a common model towards the end of V5. The "I'll give you something fun to explore but there's a bitlock at the end just in case" house.

zed · 2013-10-17 16:10:56

Actually, I wonder whether we won't end up seeing higher-end houses making
clever use of pits to safely demonstrate to a robber that the vault isn't
hidden behind a bitlock. Of course, it's hard to prove that absolutely, given
the constraints of view distance, but you might be able to demonstrate it
enough to convince a robber who thinks he's clever and well-tooled that it's
worth a try.

Should be interesting to see how this develops!

The Castle Doctrine Forums

#1 2013-10-17 02:18:22

Bulldogs

#2 2013-10-17 07:34:37

Re: Bulldogs

#3 2013-10-17 07:50:56

Re: Bulldogs

#4 2013-10-17 08:11:29

Re: Bulldogs

#5 2013-10-17 12:36:42

Re: Bulldogs

#6 2013-10-17 13:13:46

Re: Bulldogs

#7 2013-10-17 13:57:24

Re: Bulldogs

#8 2013-10-17 16:10:56

Re: Bulldogs

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