Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

Antiblitz · 2013-12-31 08:23:07

So this man, of course whom i do not know, has been in my house now, for over an hour. At this point im sure he is a goner, or he is screenshotting my entire house, idk, what i do know, is that it should have taken less then 3 minutes to complete my rather simple trap, yet, here we are going past an hour.

Could it be, this man is circumventing the afk kill by using a macro to constantly push buttons for him? it is a theory, one i believe is a possibility.

Also, what started this nonsense was me logging on to find my house had a bit more money in it, and while reviewing the secuity tapes, from my house, i was robbed. Would be nice if i could review the tapes to see what was broken before i fixed my house, while being safe doing so.

Antiblitz · 2013-12-31 08:52:10

coming up on 2 hours now, his perseverance is commendable, however i want back into my house.

Antiblitz · 2013-12-31 09:17:22

well over 2,500 steps later, and nearly 2 1/2hrs, they have finally left......

i just watched the video, seems he was the most thorough man thus far, im some what impressed, though 2 hours to do all that was a long wait.

Last edited by Antiblitz (2013-12-31 10:08:41)

Antiblitz · 2013-12-31 10:15:16

so after waiting that long, and now beginning yet another wait, ive come up with another suggestion.

Bring tools with you, to your "car" or whatever you use to get from house to house. I am stuck out of my house, with nothing i can do, and when i scout out other houses, i cant come back later to get any tools for them, because my house is locked under robbery for hours. It would be a nice function to simply bring a bunch of crap with you, leave it in your car, scout the house, then go back to the car and grab what you think you need. This would alleviate this waiting because im simply locked and cant do anything now crap.

Another suggestion, if i click to enter a house, and never leave the floor mat, why must i run away with my tail tucked between my legs and leave everything on the floor in doing so? to me that doesnt make sense, what if you had a change of heart about trying to the place, or you clicked on the wrong name, simply because at times, there are alot of them, or names that are similar.

arakira · 2013-12-31 12:03:13

Sorry Antiblitz, that was me. At first I went to scout your house and died stupidly. The bounty was quite big so I waited one hour to come back for it (after the chills had gone). I spent a lot of time optimizing the tools I had bought, and I didn't see the the time passing. It is true that it can be frustrating when you have to wait for a robber to leave the house. Maybe a robbery could be limited in time? Like for example a countdown of 20-30 minutes before the cops arrive, and it would add some adrenaline!

Antiblitz · 2013-12-31 13:19:41

you took forever lol, at first i thought someone disliked the idea of me getting their bounty, so they decided to troll me with a macro guy, but after i watched the tapes, you were just being very safe, and trying to figure it out, up until the end. Though, which saddens me, the top guy at the moment came in, and knew exactly where he had to go, and just drilled straight for my vault, which made me skeptical as to how he just knew.

jasonrohrer · 2013-12-31 16:57:58

So... This is an interesting issue, and one that has never been foregrounded in this way before.

Obviously, there is currently nothing stopping a robbery from literally blocking your house FOREVER, if they want.

A timer is an interesting idea. I would be tempted to keep it pretty tight... maybe even 5 or 10 minutes. If you want to poke around more... well, come back later, right? That will give other people a chance at the house, too, as well as the owner.

Obviously, this would be a pretty big change to the feel of the game. But otherwise, this "griefing" technique would be wide open.

pottage · 2013-12-31 20:17:03

I think some sort of timer to prevent legitimate griefing could be acceptable, but 5 or 10 mins is too short - there's been plenty of times robbing houses that I've spent a good bit of time moving around large parts of the space making sure there's been no annoying hidden dogs in some part of the map, or making a few exploratory cuts into the electronics, then want to spent a fair while examining the wiring and planning my next moves.
When I've tried to log into my house, only to be told that there's someone robbing it, and I've just got to hang around waiting until they're done attempting to violate my house and possibly family, these are the moments that make me feel the most aware of the threat that my house is constantly under, and having to wait 15, 20 or 30 mins to see what damage they've done is a very powerful suspense-building thing.

jasonrohrer · 2013-12-31 21:38:52

Good point about the owner dread/suspense part!

Still, I imagine that robbing houses in real life has a very tense sensation of time pressure, which this game currently does not have at all. Yes, I too have wandered carefully around a house, but in a real robbery, you wouldn't have time to be that careful.

The problem is that if I put the timer at 30 minutes on the screen, there will be no feeling of time pressure for the vast majority of robbers... it would feel like all the time in the world. And a half hour is a long time to be without any supplies for robbing others, on the owner's part.

Obviously, whatever I do would be tweakable server-side, so we could experiment with various times.

Also, I like the idea of the "owner coming home" being the thing that catches you... and also the idea of that being a surprise (trying to guess how long the owner would be away). BUT... I also see how that would be endlessly abused by owners to ambush people in their houses. Just try to come home over and over all day and make every robbery really short. Still... "You hear the owner coming.... 3 minutes left" would be pretty cool. And then at night, while the owner is sleeping, you could do longer robberies. Though I imagine owners would just build bots to come home over and over all night long. Hmm....

Antiblitz · 2013-12-31 22:21:49

if something like that was implemented on the owner being able to come home, i would hope that people who were cut short in their robberies could leave with their tools, unless it was meant more as a suspense builder for an actual time limit. While on this topic, maybe it could be something that based the time limit on the amount spent on the build of the house, essentially allowing houses with more construction, more time.

Also, idk how you felt about bringing along lots of tools, but it would be nice to bring lots of tools with you, but only actually bring so many with you when you enter the house, as to alleviate just waiting for your house to be enter-able to grab some, because as i ran into, i couldnt play the game for hours, because i couldnt get any tools.

arakira · 2014-01-01 09:08:14

I like the idea of the timer starting when the owner wants to come home. What about a flexible timer to avoid the owner coming in and out constantly? The initial timer would be for example 5 minutes (so if the owner wants to come home while his house is being robbed, the robber will have 5 minutes to leave the house before being caught). Every time the owner wants to enter his house while being robbed, you increase the timer by 5 minutes. Also, every hour spent out of the house/game reduces the timer by 5 minutes.

jasonrohrer · 2014-01-01 11:43:47

Something like this.... though I'd want to keep it pretty simple. I'm not sure that the owner should have any influence over the time of a robbery...

jere · 2014-01-01 17:51:31

The problem is that if I put the timer at 30 minutes on the screen, there will be no feeling of time pressure for the vast majority of robbers... it would feel like all the time in the world. And a half hour is a long time to be without any supplies for robbing others, on the owner's part.

Ever played Uplink? One of the most intense parts of the game is when you're trying to crack a password and you have X amount of time before your connection is tracked. Except, in the beginning of the game, you don't see the precise time. All you get is an audio cue, a beeping that increases in frequency as the countdown gets closer to zero.

You could do something like that with a combination of audio + flashing icon. If one somehow made it to 29 minutes, the stress level would go through the roof.

Antiblitz · 2014-01-01 22:27:51

my suggestion from earlier for being without tools was to allow you to have a "car" or means of transportation, you could fill up the car with tools to bring on several robberies without ever having to go back to the house to get gear. The car wouldnt actually be something in the game, but a piece of lore to explain why you can bring tools with you. Just a button like the vault storage to fill up.

jasonrohrer · 2014-01-02 09:54:52

The Van!

Well, the problem is that people would use this to protect their stuff from being stolen while they are out. Why not put everything in the van?

You can already put "everything" in your backpack, but then you risk losing it all when you need to flee a house (which is the balance point to an otherwise unlimited backpack).

Unlimited backpack is needed so that you can eventually cut through the hardest possible house.

Would be weird to have the van MORE limited than the backpack.

Maybe some way to buy tools into the backpack while you are out... But where does the money come from?

Antiblitz · 2014-01-02 12:01:20

maybe you could have some money in a wallet, unfortunately it would be protected, but it could be limited to a certain amount of money. Im not sure how else you could do it. On another note, if you rob someones house, while your house is being robbed, does it place the money you just robbed into your house being robbed? where does he keep it? could you use this as a way to buy tools while your out of the house?

jasonrohrer · 2014-01-02 14:27:11

Stuff you steal while out is put in a "holding bay" that no one (including you) can access until you return home and deposit it. It's not in your backpack... it's in a separate bin.

If your house is being robbed and you can't get back in, you might rob 5 houses while you wait... and all that money and loot builds up in this untouchable holding bay until you return home.

largestherb · 2014-01-02 16:33:29

woooow i don't like the idea of a timer at all! i can easily spend twenty minutes exploring a house!

however, those moments when you rob a house successfully and then attempt to go home but.. you can't go home. why not be able to visit the shop with your 'on hand' cash?

oh and a way to grab some tools you just robbed would be cool.. perhaps forcing a user to take them all, or dump some? hmm.. oh, i guess you could sell the extra ones to the shop keep

Last edited by largestherb (2014-01-02 16:34:57)

jasonrohrer · 2014-01-03 08:49:41

Well, the idea with the timer would be that you'd have to come back later and scout another time if you really want to explore for 20 minutes. Robbing a house would be more of a calculated, note-taking, drawn-out effort. Casing the joint several times, in little bursts. You know, walk into the bank and take a quick look around. Come back next week and repeat.

You don't spend all day in the bank snooping around!

tmattheeobrien · 2014-01-30 19:45:47

This is probably a bit too late for a response since the game is already out, but I think it would be cool if after a time limit of 5 or 10 minutes the owner is able to come home and is able to try and kill the robber. This would create a lot of suspense because you don't know whether the owner of the house will come back when the timer is up or whether he is not on. If he did come then the robber would have to hide or sneak his way out of the house in order to survive. I hope this is helpful (even though it's probably already too late).

setz · 2014-01-30 20:46:07

In terms of the idea of the "Owner coming home timer" maybe the owner would have to stay in the "your house is being robbed screen" for the timer to actually work? This way both parties would be "giving up" something and the owner couldn't really spam it because they would have to leave their game on a solitary screen waiting to get back into their house. If they leave that screen the timer would go away and start over if they came back?

Last edited by setz (2014-01-30 20:46:20)

setz · 2014-01-31 13:53:32

In terms of this thread and ALOT of other changes happening/discussed in the last week (expecially after launch), I am wondering if changes are going to happen the same or as often? One thing I love about this game is how often it has changed to accomodate new ideas and throw away bad ones. I like that Jason is willing to experiment with adding and removing content so often as well as being very communicative when so.

The Castle Doctrine Forums

#1 2013-12-31 08:23:07

Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

#2 2013-12-31 08:52:10

Re: Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

#3 2013-12-31 09:17:22

Re: Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

#4 2013-12-31 10:15:16

Re: Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

#5 2013-12-31 12:03:13

Re: Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

#6 2013-12-31 13:19:41

Re: Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

#7 2013-12-31 16:57:58

Re: Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

#8 2013-12-31 20:17:03

Re: Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

#9 2013-12-31 21:38:52

Re: Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

#10 2013-12-31 22:21:49

Re: Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

#11 2014-01-01 09:08:14

Re: Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

#12 2014-01-01 11:43:47

Re: Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

#13 2014-01-01 17:51:31

Re: Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

#14 2014-01-01 22:27:51

Re: Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

#15 2014-01-02 09:54:52

Re: Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

#16 2014-01-02 12:01:20

Re: Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

#17 2014-01-02 14:27:11

Re: Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

#18 2014-01-02 16:33:29

Re: Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

#19 2014-01-03 08:49:41

Re: Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

#20 2014-01-30 19:45:47

Re: Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

#21 2014-01-30 20:46:07

Re: Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

#22 2014-01-31 13:53:32

Re: Longest Robbery ever, and a sound suggestion.

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