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#1 2013-10-25 17:44:54

awesomebill
Member
Registered: 2013-10-22
Posts: 35

exploits

If your using dual accounts you are killing this game. Its no mystery why the player base is so low, clearly everyone got feed up with this kind of crap. In the 4 days since Ive started playing, its become clear to me that the 2 top houseowners can break into my home whenever they want. Its also clear that someone is not robbing homes with his main account, instead using dummy accounts so he does not risk his own home.

This is supposed to be the last weekend of beta testing, how about you stop acting like a prick and play the game the way it was meant to be played? That is all-

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#2 2013-10-26 21:46:52

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

Re: exploits

Well, it makes sense that people play the game that others will play it after release, this way Jason will be aware of all of the problems of having dual accounts and be able to (hopefully) counter them. I have been one of the top two home owners for a few days now and have never had a dual account. Thelargestherb (aka Mr Temple) does use a second dual account although I'm not sure how much he exploits it at the moment.

I can definitely see it is open to exploitation at the moment - build a strong house and then use your second account to rob as many places as possible killing as many family members as you can. Now spend all of the money you made on tools and commit suicide in your main house giving yourself both a large bounty and a bunch of tools. With enough accounts available to rob you could make large amounts of money this way. Secondly, if you want to use that money to rob/trash places safely simply buy a bunch of tools with your main account, rob the house with your second and use the tools.

I think once the price of an account is double less people will be willing to fork out the money for a second account, although with a large enough player base there will be people who do this. So it looks like it will be a problem after official release, but probably not game-breakingly so.

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#3 2013-10-26 22:02:49

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

Re: exploits

majority of steam buyers will probably not even be aware of the ability to purchase the game from its own website, i doubt many steamies will even think about having more than one account.

i purchased a second account a long time ago because i found watching people try and solve my dances and button pushing thingies way too interesting. i didn't want to die foolishly and miss out on all the potential tapes!

it became a tool of revenge after 'the great laddering' when one user went through every house that featured 100000000000000000 trapdoors (pretty much every house at the time) and laddered them up.
it then became a means of further exploration as some very intriguing houses popped up that i just had to get in and see how they worked.
as of late it has mostly been just to poke around and carelessly rob attempt a robbery on every house in the neighbourhood.

byron died off due to forgetting that power supplies are flat which lead to an unfortunate incident with a cat sleeping on top of one at a very inopportune moment, so there is no impenetrable temple right now. although a house has popped up on the list that looks very much like it. that old 'gotta see how it works' bug is crawling around my ankles looking for a place to bite..

aaaaaaaanyway, i brought up the dual account question a while ago and jason didn't think it was an issue at the time. i can potentially see it changing, it all depends what our new steam friends get up to!

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#4 2013-10-26 23:25:13

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

Re: exploits

Well, the point is, there is literally nothing I can do about it!

I can't track IP addresses, because that would mean two people playing from behind the same NAT (one shared external address) would block each other.  And even if I did that, people could play the game through a proxy or TOR or other means to give their second account a second address.

All I can do is make it a pain to use a second account.  Chills help somewhat with this (can't keep using suicide to pass money between accounts more than once per hour).  The timeout before a new house shows up on the house list also helps.

And, with more players, figuring out the name on your second account will be much harder (and I'm fixing the protocol to hide the user ID form the house list---I just noticed this).

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#5 2013-10-27 12:57:06

awesomebill
Member
Registered: 2013-10-22
Posts: 35

Re: exploits

I understand that this is not an easy problem to fix, but it seems like someone is coming in every hour on the hour and robbing their own dummy account. I would not really have a problem with this, but whenever they feel like it they can drop tools/money to their dummy account and rob houses worry free. This completely destroys all rogue-like elements of the game.

Considering how much work and tinkering you have to do to figure this game out, I would say that plenty of people are going to figure this out when the game goes live on steam, and there will be no shortage of people willing to do this.

  One simple fix for boosting could be to show all homes on the neighbor list even if they have someone building inside, that way everyone has the same chance to rob their booster family, thus discouraging them from doing it.
 
    No clue how you would stop people from robbing with their dummy accounts but that is the bigger issue. You will have a huge chunk of your steam population abusing in this manner, and I guarantee the only players that will be able to stand up to them will be the other exploiters.

    While Im aware that blocking ips would hurt lan users, this is a rogue like, so any chance for exploitation should be limited as much as possible. And sure there would be ways to get around this, but they are far more complicated then just getting a 2nd steam account and paying 16$. Everyone has money, not everyone knows how to ip mask.

Last edited by awesomebill (2013-10-27 13:02:39)

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#6 2013-10-27 14:16:48

colorfusion
Member
Registered: 2013-04-02
Posts: 537

Re: exploits

I think that not seeing people from the same IP's house on the list wouldn't be too bad of a solution. It's just one less person on the list - and that's only if someone else on your connection actually owns the game, and then only if they have an active house at the time you're looking on the list.

Even in its current state you could probably hide a whole lot of users at random before people start noticing a difference since most aren't on the house list. You won't even be able to tell that anything is missing, especially once steam brings a load of new users.

I think having to make a new steam account and change your IP will stop pretty much all dual account users from exploiting it. Especially if the latter restriction is left fairly unknown. It wouldn't really be worth the effort.

Last edited by colorfusion (2013-10-27 14:17:19)

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#7 2013-10-27 17:22:24

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

Re: exploits

colorfusion wrote:

I think that not seeing people from the same IP's house on the list wouldn't be too bad of a solution. It's just one less person on the list - and that's only if someone else on your connection actually owns the game, and then only if they have an active house at the time you're looking on the list.

Good idea colorfusion, this would also stop people who are LANing from feeding each others accounts. I imagine it would be hard to have 2 accounts running at the same time on the same computer through seperate IP addresses. Thinking about it though, if I had two computers and wanted to get around it I would simply run one on my ADSL connection and the other through my mobile (cell) phone's data connection. I could do that now with my desktop and laptop if I had two accounts. So it is pretty easy to work around.

Exploitative behaviour would leave a fairly obvious trace I imagine. If, say, one account was to regularly die in another's house with a full backpack of tools which are never used, then it is obvious feeding. It should be fairly obvious to track how much one account is feeding another. Those that stand out could be checked for obvious feeding behaviour such as suiciding on entrance, regularly dying in the exact same manner inside the house, regularly over a number of days stealing the $2000 from the other as soon as it is available etc. Once feeding has been confirmed in this way the two accounts could be barred permanently from seeing each other on the house list.

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#8 2013-10-27 17:28:17

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

Re: exploits

jasonrohrer wrote:

"And, with more players, figuring out the name on your second account will be much harder"

This won't create too much of a problem for abuse though. For dumping into the safe house, you just need to figure out once who you are and you are set. You can easily approximate your house value to do this. For starter robbing simply scroll down till you get to $2000 houses and rob any [$2000  0  0] houses that come up.

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#9 2013-10-28 04:45:36

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

Re: exploits

Hmm, looks like Mr Wagner is an exploit account. I robbed him blind earlier today and then saw him with $16,000 in his vault after disappearing from the list for a while. Then I was robbed soon after and while I was waiting to get back in my house noticed Wagner's money drop to less than $70 without changing his house. Once I could get back in my house I found that someone had robbed me with an insane amount of tools and only gave me a $500 bounty.

Largestherb, I am pretty sure this was you. Mr Wagner's house was a lot like Mr Temlpe's and it's got all the right hallmarks.  If so, I thought you said you wouldn't do this any more? If it is because of that dog next to the door I can get rid of it if it pisses people off that much.

Anyway, it is strong evidence that dual account abuse is far from fixed. I'd be interested to know how whoever it was got the money so fast.

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#10 2013-10-28 05:05:40

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

Re: exploits

The bounty is basically invisible money. With a second account you can boost it up and claim it whenever you feel like it without it ever going public.

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#11 2013-10-28 05:08:03

colorfusion
Member
Registered: 2013-04-02
Posts: 537

Re: exploits

I think I've just been dual account robbed, although I'm not completely certain.

A person came in with a starter cash worth of tools and scouted around my house; with 20 meat they managed to get all the way to the vault. Then, rather than taking the money, they suicided and left behind a $500 bounty.

I thought they were just being kind at first, but it looks like almost instantly after that another robber comes in and picks the exact correct path through the house and takes the money including the bounty and what was left of the $2000 of tools. This second robber seems to have been playing for a while and had a house set up.

Either way I probably would have been robbed, although it seems they got more money by leaving the first account's bounty and tools without wasting much money on tools on their main account. They could also be more reckless on their secondary account without facing much consequence.

Last edited by colorfusion (2013-10-28 05:09:34)

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#12 2013-10-28 05:18:11

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

Re: exploits

the bounty system needs some fixing indeed. i was just going to rack up a good $100,000 bounty and tell jason to have a look, because that is a lot worse than robbing 2k every 5 minutes tongue
and yes, i also said 'maybe i should go back on my promise' because one turtle house ruling the roost and smashing people below isn't fun for everyone else tongue

you have been the only target of this attack though. might've ran into a few other houses and tried to solve them with starter cash while waiting for the 5 minutes to go grab another $3k bounty, but certainly didn't bombard anyone else.

quick and simple solution i can see: add chills tied to accounts you have committed murder in. - only side effect i can think of quickly is new names popping up on the list that you have chills on... perhaps these chills can take the form of the house simply not showing for an hour?

perhaps another consideration, new houses do not appear on the neighbourhood list for 20~40 minutes, or some other random window? would make it REALLY not worth it to sit and wait a specific time (5 minutes is too easy when you have nothing to do but read the news and wait in all morning for a delivery). right now the neighbour seems slow enough that it wont notice, and if we get an influx of new players.. well it shouldn't really notice then, either.


OH, for the record, i would be happy to forfeit my extra account thingy codes~ if jason prefers a single account only neighbourhood, either now or when he goes steaming! i meant to say that the other night smile

Last edited by largestherb (2013-10-28 05:26:03)

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#13 2013-10-28 05:53:02

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

Re: exploits

Well, you've certainly just showed that the game is broken, robbing me with $100,000 from nowhere. I imagine you had Mr Wagner kill the entire family every time he robbed your second account. So while he collected $1200 per robbery he got a $3500 bounty, finally building it to $100,000 and then dying in your second house.

And yes for everyone else he then proceeded to use that $100,000 to trash my house where $32,000 had failed to get to my vault.

You've certainly shown that the game is broken and this is important at this stage of development. Still, you could have done it in a less dramatic fashion tongue. I think it is important that Jason is aware that the possibility of multi-account abuse is a serious problem and will remain so without a serious attempt to combat it. Forfeiting your account won't help much if there are a large number of new people with the same idea.

I hope you didn't record the inner workings of my house, you didn't really earn the right to see all of that. I spent a fair bit of time on that design and was hoping to baffle a good many more people with it before someone finally got to see inside. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve that I haven't tried out yet, though you have made me cautious to try them before multi-account abuse is dealt with. I don't want people to just figure out my secrets soon after they get killed by them with no real effort.

Last edited by joshwithguitar (2013-10-28 06:01:41)

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#14 2013-10-28 08:49:59

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

Re: exploits

Hmm...

Well, the 5 minute thing can be fixed pretty easily (just randomize it and make it longer before a house becomes visible).

I'm really hesitant to block shared IP addresses from seeing each other (because roomates robbing each other, or two friends playing at the same Starbucks, is a really cool part of the game---"That was YOU who just robbed me?").


I've been worried about this since day one, which is why many of the game features are in there (not knowing your own name, house values rounded to nearest 00 value, etc.)

BUT... those features only work when there are tons of players.

Yes, with tons of players, you can still scroll down to look for the $2000 0 0 houses, but there will be multiple houses down there, and everyone will be looking for them.  Those houses won't last long, and there's no guarantee that the house you pick from the list will be your own (not that it will matter, anyway).


Obviously, this all breaks when there are only a few players.  And I do want the game to scale both up and down.


One problem with making the time-until-listed window longer is that it gives a fresh start player "breathing room" to go out and scout around without risking their wife or vault (they know that no one can rob them for the first 5 minutes now, and if it's longer, there's very little motivation to build something before scouting).  I liked how it felt before, where if you left your new house for one minute, you'd come back to everything gone.  Instantaneously brutal!  But too easy to exploit with a second account.

I'm hesitant to add any of the suggested heuristics (watch automatically for an account A that steals $X within Y hours from account B), because the heuristic can be learned and exploited.

Or tracking "the last person who robbed you" and blocking them.... then to exploit it, you just let the house be robbed by someone else in between, then respawn the dummy account again and rob it yourself again.


Seems like you could show a new house in the game to EVERYONE instantly, EXCEPT for the list of people who have robbed that account (not that house, but that account) during their current life.  Make them wait 5 minutes.

So, if you're trying to feed yourself starter money with a second account, everyone else in the game gets to have a go at that account for 5 minutes before you can see it yourself.  But then the EXCEPT list would fill up eventually with everyone else, meaning that everyone would wait 5 minutes together....  yuck!

Or maybe new house visibility could "roll out" slowly in some random order each time.  So that different players would see it first each time (but SOMEONE would see it right away, making it instantly vulnerable with no "safe" breathing period).


And none of this really would deal with using a second account to "play it safe" when scouting!

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#15 2013-10-28 10:44:45

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

Re: exploits

largestherb...

Can you spell out each exploit for me?  Just to make sure I'm not missing something.

Like, to exploit bounties, exactly what do you do?  How many accounts?  Which account robs who, and then dies where?

Same for exploiting starting money (though that's more clear, I still want it spelled out).

What about using a second account for scouting?  What about a second account for actually committing robberies?


Essentially, I'm looking for an exhaustive laundry list of all multi-account exploits that you're aware of.

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#16 2013-10-28 13:59:49

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

Re: exploits

I'll get you started:

Starting money exploit
Take your second account's starting money.
Payoff: $1800 every 5 minutes = $21600 per/hr

Bounty exploit
Rob and murder your second account to increase your bounty. Eventually die in your second account's house to release the bounty.
Payoff $3500 bounty every 5 minutes, plus starting bounty of $500, plus $1200 cash = $42500 bounty, $14400 cash per/hr

Scouting
Scout houses using your second account. Waltz in when you've worked it out and clean up. Rob your second account and leave tools there if necessary.

Robbing
Rob folks with your second account as to not incur the wrath of your neighbours. Rob your second account if you want your ill-gotten gains.

Figures take into account the $200 club needed to rob the wife and the three needed to club the whole family.

The bounty exploit is particularly cunning because your bounty is not publicly visible. You can safely leave it on a dormant account for as long as you like and nobody can steal it. Perhaps a 'Most Wanted' list is needed?

Last edited by ukuko (2013-10-28 14:00:38)

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#17 2013-10-28 15:24:23

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

Re: exploits

Excellent!

Other folks, if you think of stuff Ukuko missed, please add to this thread.


SO.... the solution that I'm working up for this is:

1) Fix it so that you can't dump tools in a house without dying there.  This prevents a main account from feeding tools to a dummy account (via reaching the dummy's vault) so that the dummy account can carry out big robberies.  Dummy accounts will have starting $2000 only (or a full 50% of the main account's stuff, but NOT a hand-selected batch of tools, which means the dummy account will need real security to prevent the 50% cash from being stolen).


2) Add a one hour "invisible" timer after you successfully rob/murder in a house that blocks you from seeing subsequent houses from that account (after that victim account respawns).  This will slow down both starting-money-harvesting and bounty-pumping exploits by a factor of 12 from what they are now, while also removing the current "5 minute invisibility timer" that has the bad side effect of making people's houses invulnerable for 5 minutes.


I don't think there's any way to block the sharing of scouting information between accounts or the delegation of risk/reputation.  Even if I try to block matching IPs or whatever, there's nothing to stop two friends from collaborating in this way.  And I'm not as worried about this, because it still involves player skill (you have to figure out how to rob a house, and deal with chills while you figure it out, etc., and if hand-selected tool transfer between living accounts is blocked, then it requires even more skill on the part of both accounts).

The big problem with the money harvesting is that it is a skill-free way to progress in the game (and potentially rob every house, once you harvest enough to cut through anything).

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#18 2013-10-28 15:50:11

awesomebill
Member
Registered: 2013-10-22
Posts: 35

Re: exploits

colorfusion wrote:

I think I've just been dual account robbed, although I'm not completely certain.

A person came in with a starter cash worth of tools and scouted around my house; with 20 meat they managed to get all the way to the vault. Then, rather than taking the money, they suicided and left behind a $500 bounty.

I thought they were just being kind at first, but it looks like almost instantly after that another robber comes in and picks the exact correct path through the house and takes the money including the bounty and what was left of the $2000 of tools. This second robber seems to have been playing for a while and had a house set up.

Either way I probably would have been robbed, although it seems they got more money by leaving the first account's bounty and tools without wasting much money on tools on their main account. They could also be more reckless on their secondary account without facing much consequence.


also this, there have been numerous vhs feeds showing people seem to clearly suicide in my house. Then someone else shows up, wastes no time and robs me for that bounty money. Ive also watched wagner for about 2 days now, and he seems to be clearly exploiting.

Last edited by awesomebill (2013-10-28 16:08:00)

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#19 2013-10-28 16:13:44

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

Re: exploits

Well, if it's someone using a second account, they are limited to doing this at most once per hour (due to house chills---they have to wait an hour before suiciding with that second account again).

HOWEVER.... this makes me realise that the $500 that everyone starts with is money for nothing.... but I guess it's no different than $2000 for nothing (which you could spend on tools and then suicide in a house to drop those tools there).  Chills deal with both in the same way.

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#20 2013-10-28 17:17:32

awesomebill
Member
Registered: 2013-10-22
Posts: 35

Re: exploits

Yes its limited to once an hour, but when they do it, they stay on for hours boosting every hour on the hour. I had one booster all timed out yesterday, and I would just keep checking back every hour. He was boosting at about the 45 mark(4:45 ect) of the hour, every hour within 5-10 min A house would come up and I would try to beat whoever it was to their booster house. I did this for like 7 hours yesterday, and it happened like clock work. I also found paintings in empty homes that had no business being there. Paintings that I saw in some of the top homes earlier in the day. Proof positive that the guy on the top of the list was boosting, and robbing himself to support other robberies. All with out endangering his own home.

    You should follow up with your idea to change the way new houses are presented on the list. Also just extending the chills for 2 hours would cut down their potential gain through boosting substantially. and to be honest, I think an hour is too soon for the chills to wear off anyways. I understand with a small player base its kinda necessary but for steam release this should prlly be extended.

on another note, Ive watched both of the top tier homes more then double their money today, with out seeing the player base to back up that kind of gain.

Last edited by awesomebill (2013-10-28 17:21:09)

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#21 2013-10-28 17:20:29

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

Re: exploits

jasonrohrer wrote:

1) Fix it so that you can't dump tools in a house without dying there.  This prevents a main account from feeding tools to a dummy account (via reaching the dummy's vault) so that the dummy account can carry out big robberies.  Dummy accounts will have starting $2000 only (or a full 50% of the main account's stuff, but NOT a hand-selected batch of tools, which means the dummy account will need real security to prevent the 50% cash from being stolen).

I'm sorry Jason but even with these changes tool sharing will be a piece of cake.
From dummy to main: Load up with tools, die in main house OR have main house rob you (a little more dangerous as someone else might get there first).
From main to dummy: Hand pick and buy tools in the main account and then have the dummy account rob you. This way you can transfer all of the value from the main account in one go and have the tools you want. The fact that your main account will now have $0 in the account doesn't really matter when you can just boost it by an easy $1500 from your dummy.

So, the whole idea of having a safe house that brings in the cash and a dummy which uses it to rob without putting your main at risk is still extremely easy. I don't imagine you'll be changing it so that you cannot steal tools out of the vault any time soon so there is no easy fix.

jasonrohrer wrote:

2) Add a one hour "invisible" timer after you successfully rob/murder in a house that blocks you from seeing subsequent houses from that account (after that victim account respawns).  This will slow down both starting-money-harvesting and bounty-pumping exploits by a factor of 12 from what they are now, while also removing the current "5 minute invisibility timer" that has the bad side effect of making people's houses invulnerable for 5 minutes.

This sounds like a great idea and should deal with the extreme accumulation of wealth over a short period of time pretty effectively.


There will still be a distinct advantage to dual account holders though, it will just be a bit more subtle. They will still be able to feed themselves $1500 safely or $1800 with a bit of risk every hour. This will still be enough to get a clear advantage over everyone else over a long period. The whole down to $0 thing will not hurt as much when you can just feed yourself a quick $1500. Also, you can still safely scout and tool share.

What I think really needs to happen is that accounts which are known to be feeding/tool sharing are permanently blocked from seeing each others houses. Sure, some people might figure out ways of doing it inconspicuously but this will limit the amount of exploitation they can do and also make it a lot more work to pull off. You can also make it so that black listed transfer their list to all other accounts that they are black listed from, so that, for instance, if someone creates a third account after their two accounts are blocked from each other and then starts feeding one, once this is discovered it will be blocked from both other accounts. I can't think of any other measures that could deal with this issue beyond banning accounts.

You could keep your methods of discovering multi-account exploitation secret so that no-one knows exactly how to get around them. Hopefully the $16 price tag will be enough to stop players repeatedly trying to work around it.

Also, have you thought about introducing an acceptable behaviour policy once the game leaves alpha? I think it is good to try to make exploitation as hard as possible  and so it is good that you have been letting people do as they wish for now, but in the end there will always be things you can't work around and the threat of suspension/banning for repeat exploitation might be the only thing to prevent it.

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#22 2013-10-28 17:21:49

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

Re: exploits

Yeah, chills can be extended at any time with a few keystrokes server-side.  Right now, with so few houses to rob, I'm keeping it relatively short.  But it could become much longer once we get back to a list of 20+ houses to chose from.

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#23 2013-10-28 18:10:57

awesomebill
Member
Registered: 2013-10-22
Posts: 35

Re: exploits

jasonrohrer wrote:

Yeah, chills can be extended at any time with a few keystrokes server-side.  Right now, with so few houses to rob, I'm keeping it relatively short.  But it could become much longer once we get back to a list of 20+ houses to chose from.

very nice. This seems like it could be a very elegant and simple solution to a very big problem. Also how about looking into adding a cooldown time before you can successfully rob someone again, tie it to the the actual account and not just the players life and this would stop or at least slow folks boosting efforts. Also it seems kinda silly that you can rob a house and just run right back in looking for the wife or what have you. Someone mentioned a notice "the police are still here you cant rob now" something like that should pop when you try to rob a house or account that you have just robbed. Other people should still get access but the actual robber has a cooldown period to wait out.

Last edited by awesomebill (2013-10-28 18:21:41)

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#24 2013-10-28 19:39:46

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

Re: exploits

Looks like Jason might have missed my last post as he was responding to the one above it when I posted it.

Extended chills is definitely a good idea and should deal with a whole bunch of exploitative behaviour and give people reasons to be a bit cautious in houses even if they have just started. This will hopefully mean that houses will be encouraged to build in such a way that they can't just rely on gung-ho suicide attempts for income.

There have been a number of times where I have been able to reclaim my own bounty after accidentally dying in another persons house. I'd just return in an hour and use my $2000 to get to the vault. It's also possible to do things like dumping tools every hour into an inactive house for which you know the safe route to the vault and then stealing them all at once.

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#25 2013-10-29 08:50:43

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

Re: exploits

Sorry, Josh!  I did miss your other post.

Any exploit that involves letting money sit around in a house for one hour is okay---because that money is still at risk.  As the number of active players grows, these exploits will become less and less effective (back in the early days of the game, when we had something like 500 active players, you couldn't leave your house for more than 10 seconds without getting robbed---I got robbed while demoing the game live at GDC).


Tool transfer to a dummy account is far less effective if the dummy account also gets all your vault money.  Let's say you have a $100K house.  You don't want to give the dummy account $50K.... you just want to give it 4 ladders and 3 guns.  So, letting the dummy reach your vault does not do exactly what you want.... now you have $50K sitting in a dummy account with no defenses.  You could quickly send the dummy out with the tools to rob the target, and then quickly "rob back" your $50K while the dummy is out.  But there is a huge moment of risk there where some other player can get into the dummy house first and take the $50K. 

UNLESS you build real security in the dummy house.  Which is no different than two friends sharing money to help each other.  It's not so much of a dummy account at that point.

OR, you could put all your money in tools, and put all your tools in your backpack, and leave only what you want to give the dummy in the vault.... but this sacrifices 50% of your money value (tool resale rate to get the money back) which is not ideal.  There's a big penalty for doing it this way.

In the current game, you can give the dummy a hand-picked set of tools and $0 by reaching the dummy vault.  That, at least, should change.


The idea of a "police chill" on a house after you reach the vault or kill someone is interesting....  that would hobble a lot of this kind of stuff.  On the other hand, I really like the freedom players have to scorch another player's earth with repeated visits (and a tape list filled with one name that clearly is asking for revenge).  And the threat of that, after the first breach, makes a homeowner all that more nervous.  I don't want to change the game in a way that is "kinder" to the homeowner.  Also, I want to allow quick, back and forth revenge cycles, etc.


As far as heuristics go for "detecting" this kind of thing.... well, I don't even want to go there.  In my experience, that kind of stuff never works.  Is it tool passing, or two players robbing each other repeatedly in a revenge cycle?

I'd rather conceive of hard and fast rules for how the game itself works (like chills, etc.) that naturally curbs these exploits.  If we have a knob where we can adjust the curbing level (like, how many times a day will it be possible to pull off the exploit?), we're in a pretty good place.


The only one we don't have a knob for is passing 50% (or 100%, if wives are dead) of money and a set of tools back and forth between houses.

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