New dual account exploits

joshwithguitar · 2013-11-04 00:07:28

I have discovered a way to feed one account using the second that bypass the measures Jason has put in place.

One thing that is common, and will be more common when there are more houses, is to have a number of houses around that are easily broken into but there isn't enough money in them to be worth robbing. Sometimes they have a broken vault and a wife with a shot gun and less money that it will cost for a gun to shoot her.

With two accounts you can utilize these houses to make large amounts of money fairly quickly. The simplest way is to have one account start a new life, buy a full set of tools, enter one of these houses, find their way to the vault and die leaving the rest of their tools there. The safe account now jumps in as soon as the other leaves to grab the tools and $500 bounty.

If, however, you find a house with accessible children you can try a different tactic: enter with two clubs, kill the children and leave. Now return with a bunch of tools and suicide, leaving the tools and a $2500 bounty in the house for your other to grab. If the house disappears before you return, simply unload the bounty in the next house on the list. Also, if you find a house in which the vault is difficult to get to but the children easy, simply kill them to build up your bounty before moving on.

For a sure bet of quick money you can also scour the neighbourhood for easy wives and children taking them all out before suiciding in the main house.

With enough easy houses on the list you can basically just keep feeding money to the main account with no time restrictions. Sure, sometimes others will get in during the very short window from leaving with the dummy to entering with the main, but this won't happen too often. The more people playing, the more accounts there will be to perform this trick with. And once you have used up all of the houses as long as you have left living wives in them you can just wait until chills wear off and do the whole thing again.

I've tried it with my brother acting as account no. 2 and it does work, especially when there are children within easy reach. In a fairly short time, with only a few houses around I was able to build up $20,000 to take out Mr Dickman.

I really have no idea how to fix this one. All I can suggest is making taking the whole family out give a smaller bounty, but this will only make it a little less effective. Even blocking known dual account from seeing each other will not stop this from happening.

ukuko · 2013-11-04 01:44:56

This seems very close to natural play to me. The only thing nefarious about it is controlling both accounts. If you were to cooperate with a friend (like you did with your brother) then I'd argue that there was nothing wrong with it.

It does exploit the system a little, but I don't think it's game-breaking. It's also nigh on impossible to detect and deter! If the game gets an influx of players from the Steam release you'll find that it's suddenly very easy to acquire $20,000 from thin air without relying on collusion.

joshwithguitar · 2013-11-04 02:35:03

I'm not so sure it would be that easy to make money with more players. I've found it often easy to make money as it currently is because easily accessible money can be just left around but with more players the easy cash will be grabbed very quickly. Although perhaps sitting there farming $2000 starters will be enough to make money fast. Maybe Jason should reintroduce the 5 min delay before houses appear to lessen the effect of suicidal starters on the games economy and discourage repetitive farming.

ukuko · 2013-11-04 03:02:41

If you have an influx of players learning the game the middle class (in wealth and house difficulty) is going to expand. All of those training wheel deaths will be going straight into the pockets of any half decent house. So as an owner or a robber (or both) I'd expect to see much more cash flowing in.

joshwithguitar · 2013-11-04 04:25:27

I think bounties will have to down scale with the number of players and this will fix it so I don't think this will be an issue. I guess if they bring a whole bunch of tools each time this could add up to a lot. I remember watching videos of the game back when there were lots of players and when people left there account and came back their vaults were often loaded with tools but this was also back when you took a full backpack of tools to each house and kept them when you left. I don't think new players are likely to spend all of their money on tools when they start out.

jasonrohrer · 2013-11-05 12:25:06

Yes, bounties can be adjusted as needed.

I don't see this as being as bad as the other stuff. It is limited by the number of available houses and chills placed on the second account, plus the fact that each wife and child can only be killed once.

Before, the exploits were more like, "make guaranteed $X per minute, no matter what other players were doing." What you're describing depends on what other players are doing... depends on them building and leaving certain types of houses.

joshwithguitar · 2013-11-05 15:07:08

It might not be as bad as the others but it is still pretty bad. Just say there are 10 broken houses with the wife alive (I'm sure this is a small number compared to what is likely with a large player base). The only time restrictions are based on how quickly you can find the family and vault and enter and leave. Just say from each house you get an average payout of $3500 ($2000 from tool, $500 initial bounty and an extra $1000 assuming an average of one killable child per house). In probably less than an hour you could build up around $35,000 - something comparable to what you could make by robbing your second house with 5 min time restrictions.

arakira · 2013-12-28 21:36:25

I can imagine an even simpler way:
players A and B cooperate. A starts a new life and puts, for example, 2 trapdoors (so that the 560$ left is easy to find for player B on the list). B comes in, clubs the whole family and picks up the vault (to buy 3 new clubs). Then A commits suicide, new life, puts another 2 trapdoors, etc. B would very quickly have a huge bounty (3500$ per house, right?) while keeping a low profile (nobody would notice it on the house list). When the bounty is large enough, B finally enters A's house and suicide. A is rich.
Is there a limitation to this?

joshwithguitar · 2013-12-29 00:03:06

Largestherb tried this trick ages ago and made a quick $100k so Jason fixed it so that if you rob someone and they later die you won't be able to rob their new house (or even see it) until an hour after the original robbery.

largestherb · 2013-12-29 03:29:36

tried?! i did it for ages

most ways of building vast stacks of cash incredibly quickly are now gone.

arakira · 2013-12-29 04:31:56

Ok, it seemed too easy to be possible.

Simoon · 2013-12-31 02:18:14

Yesterday I did some cooperative play with my brother's account.
I broke the top house.
Usually I do not go for the kill when I visit a top house (especially with “unfair” stuff) but its owner was such a painting hoarder that it was an obvious deathwish (sorry for him if it was not the case).
It was a nice house, with a very high complexity (6 bit lock, walking dog / cat, dogs tricks etc.) but very easy to read (I figured out the location of the vault during the first scouting) and not too hard to brute force with tools (I did a complete overkill).
Dual accounting is still very strong. I would strongly advocate to diminish the bounties (should be easy after the steam release) and to bring back the random delay. Unfortunately the information and the security advantage will remain. I do not see how to solve these points.

Then I searched for more powerful exploits and found a real one. I mailed it to Jason.

Last edited by Simoon (2013-12-31 02:21:52)

arakira · 2013-12-31 03:14:17

Don't be sorry, I'm pretty sure Ecker/Forester was using dual accounts or cooperative play too (when rampaging my house). Anyway, nice to see the paintings back!

arakira · 2013-12-31 03:17:13

I was able to scout to the pitbull-electric floor-trapdoor combo in the south-east corner just using one saw... Was I far from the vault?

Simoon · 2013-12-31 05:14:17

arakira wrote:

I was able to scout to the pitbull-electric floor-trapdoor combo in the south-east corner just using one saw... Was I far from the vault?

No, you were close. The vault was in the south-east corner after several trapdoors.

The Castle Doctrine Forums

#1 2013-11-04 00:07:28

New dual account exploits

#2 2013-11-04 01:44:56

Re: New dual account exploits

#3 2013-11-04 02:35:03

Re: New dual account exploits

#4 2013-11-04 03:02:41

Re: New dual account exploits

#5 2013-11-04 04:25:27

Re: New dual account exploits

#6 2013-11-05 12:25:06

Re: New dual account exploits

#7 2013-11-05 15:07:08

Re: New dual account exploits

#8 2013-12-28 21:36:25

Re: New dual account exploits

#9 2013-12-29 00:03:06

Re: New dual account exploits

#10 2013-12-29 03:29:36

Re: New dual account exploits

#11 2013-12-29 04:31:56

Re: New dual account exploits

#12 2013-12-31 02:18:14

Re: New dual account exploits

#13 2013-12-31 03:14:17

Re: New dual account exploits

#14 2013-12-31 03:17:13

Re: New dual account exploits

#15 2013-12-31 05:14:17

Re: New dual account exploits

Board footer