244 k$ ! WTF?

Simoon · 2014-01-21 14:37:03

Here we are !

I stopped playing for a while, waiting for the correction of the most obvious security leak (property edition, corrected in v29).

When I connected again, I was astonished to see that my house was still here. It is a very crude and boring design but obviously it resist quite well to brute force.
Several seasoned players came with up to 60k$ of tools... and the house resisted !

The bounties and the tools of the suicidal robber piled up and my house grew up to 200k$.

10 minutes ago, here came Mr. Robert Kevin Kovacs with more than 100k$ of tools (dual account? robber of Mr Elias who seems to be missing ?). This gentleman started to dig holes in my concrete... and suddenly jumped in a trap ?!?

I do not know why he did it. Maybe the burden of the tools was too heavy and he was exhausted ? Maybe he thought I would do a better use of all these tools?
He had like 10 time the tools to cross the trap.

Ironic joke : after a trap, a wooden door, after the wooden door a safe

Last edited by Simoon (2014-01-21 14:44:39)

arakira · 2014-01-21 15:27:26

LOL. That was me. I had just robbed Elias, and with 130k$ of tools I thought it would be a quite easy robbery, and a nice feeling to finally take down Mr Mahan. But after a long day of burglary and coffee, I was quite stressed. The final blow came when I saw the "Sirens?" warning and 1' countdown. I cracked and hit the wrong key. Quite funny to jump into a pit with 10 ladders left in my backpack.
What strikes me is the high level of tension this game gives me sometimes!

Last edited by arakira (2014-01-21 15:29:47)

joshwithguitar · 2014-01-21 15:44:47

Yeah, those sirens make pulling off big, tool heavy robberies much harder now and don't really allow time for tactics, it's basically have lots of money and bash through any obstacle or don't bother entering.

arakira: Did you intentionally disconnect from the game in previous attempts at my house (Elias) so I wouldn't see your progress? Before Mr Kovacs came in with an intimate knowledge of my last magic dance the only person who came in with the right tools to get behind there was Mr Veal who "suicided on my doormat" (ie disconnected).

I certainly pulled in a lot of money last night with a couple of big bounties, I'm sad I didn't get to try it out on Mahan (I'm sure I would have gotten to the vault with that much money). My house is certainly less well defended since "use brick to open door" changes.

arakira · 2014-01-21 15:55:39

Josh, I never disconnected from your house. 1 hour before reaching your vault, I came in and break through walls to your last pitbull to inspect the dance. It was funny because I could see the vault 2 tiles further but I was short one saw, and had to suicide. I had no connexion problem, so I don't know why the tape didn't make it to the server.
I'm sorry I have wasted all your money

joshwithguitar · 2014-01-21 16:28:26

That's odd, I guess we'll have to get Jason to look into it. One possibility is that directly after suiciding you left the computer rather than clicking "ok" and left it to time out?

arakira · 2014-01-21 16:44:05

No, I'm sure I started a new life right away and I continued to play... I had to "wait" one hour before I could try your house again.

jasonrohrer · 2014-01-21 17:09:39

So... do you guys think that 10 minutes is too short and that it legitimately harms tactics in the game? Obviously, that value can be tweaked to my heart's content. Should it go up to 15? What would the ideal be?

joshwithguitar · 2014-01-21 18:42:08

This is tricky as the sirens certainly change the dynamics of the game and we've not really had much time to get used to them. You no longer have time to create a map while inside the house which makes figuring out the best places to bust through more difficult. When I tried Mahan's house I ended up running over my recorded game to put a map together after leaving. I still left with a pile of tools unused, although I was perhaps being overly cautious and slow?

I can imagine creating a houses with a large commit gates will become a more viable strategy to scare people away from seriously trying your house. The fact that you might run out of time and have to pay to get past the gate again for a second try could lead people to just not bother.

15-20 minutes might be good, it is hard to know having only tried one major robbery since it started. There was certainly something nice about big robberies with only a limited set of tools that you had to use very carefully. These would sometimes take me over an hour to complete, so in the end what the sirens achieve is forcing players to spend lots of money to rob the top houses with minimal thought involved rather than slowly and carefully working through them on a budget, figuring out where I can lure dogs to get around them, checking to see if circuitry is isolated or whether it could be influenced later on to open trapdoors behind me etc.

Sirens do add an element of suspense though and in mid range houses they make thinking fast important which can be fun. I've gotten to a vault before with only seconds to spare which was quite exhilarating. Overall it depends on what sort of game you want it to be. A slow paced thinking tactical game where you intensely explore houses for weak points and try to figure out how they work or a suspenseful game where you have to think on your feet but won't get too deeply involved in any single robbery attempt.

One possible compromise is having a way to "buy time" to allow for that bit extra when going on major heists.

jasonrohrer · 2014-01-22 08:56:10

You could imagine a "light backpack" that only had 4 slots but gave you more time (because you could move quicker).

I don't think I want to bifurcate the experience like that, though.

The timers were added mostly as a way of preventing owners from being locked out of their houses.... forever. A forever lock-out was totally possible in v28.

Also, I don't want the game to degenerated into super-slow robberies where you check and double-check and all that. That doesn't FEEL like a robbery in real life would feel (they are almost always time-pressure affairs, unless something really creepy is going on).

So, I need to find something in between. We went from infinite down to 10 minutes. I'll try doubling it to 20 minutes and see how that feels.

ukuko · 2014-01-22 09:57:30

I don't think I've ever spent longer than 10 minutes robbing someone.

arakira · 2014-01-22 14:22:30

What happened to you Simoon? I saw your painting in the auctions...
Funny thing is that less than 1 hour earlier, I took Burgess's money to fund a new robbery on Mr Mahan. With 70k$ of tools and a good knowledge of your house, I was ready to come (this time with enough bricks, at least 70) and pretty sure to get to the vault. I just had planned to break a few walls first and look around, to make sure nothing important had changed since yesterday. Then, I realized I had forgotten about the chihuaha in the first trapdoor... ooops. I think your house was cursed!

arakira · 2014-01-22 15:09:09

Concerning the sirens, I like it being 10 minutes. Robbing top houses is quite stressing. When I watch the screenshots of my failed robbery attempts, I often find that I missed winning tactical options because I was not expecting this or that trap, so figuring it out for the first time would have taken to much time. If I had had more time, I would have found the correct way to break through. Therefore, I think that with a short limit on time, you reward both the experience of the robber, and the ability of the house designer to build traps that create a surprise or force the robber to have a deep think.
The phase when you come home after scouting and you try to build a map of the target house is still here and is as important as before. The difference now is that houses that contain good or uncommon puzzles force you to spend more because you have to scout several times.

jasonrohrer · 2014-01-23 11:45:37

Arakira, what do you think now with the 20 minute limit. Is it too long?

arakira · 2014-01-23 12:05:54

I haven't noticed it is 20 minutes now, I didn't need long robberies today. Anyway, I guess it should be fine.

colorfusion · 2014-01-23 13:19:52

Does the timer also happen in self test? If not, it would be fairly easy to create a back and forth house that 100% required tools.

I personally think the timer should just be there for the event that someone is trying to camp in a house overnight, not something that most users would see and not just to create tension. It doesn't really feel right being under a time limit on a turn-based game with a lot of planning and tough choices; I often like to write things down and scout places rather than rush through with a ton of tools.

jasonrohrer · 2014-01-25 14:22:47

No, there's currently no timer on the self test. Do you think there could be a back-and-forth house that really took more than 20 minutes to solve with complete knowledge? :-)

Well, camping all night in a house is the worst case, and I haven't heard about that actually happening yet. I DID get some complaints about being locked out of a house for an hour, though... and that seemed a little excessive to me. Right now, the timer is 20 minutes.... 20 minutes is pretty long, I think.

colorfusion · 2014-01-25 17:24:36

jasonrohrer wrote:

No, there's currently no timer on the self test. Do you think there could be a back-and-forth house that really took more than 20 minutes to solve with complete knowledge? :-)
Well, camping all night in a house is the worst case, and I haven't heard about that actually happening yet. I DID get some complaints about being locked out of a house for an hour, though... and that seemed a little excessive to me. Right now, the timer is 20 minutes.... 20 minutes is pretty long, I think.

I imagine you could make a large up & down corridor thing with a button either end, wire it up so you have to press them alternating to progress a counter, which would then power a pit to the vault when it reaches the end.

Probably not a huge problem because it would be costly to make and easily broken with tools, but it would be something that couldn't technically be beaten without tools.

The Castle Doctrine Forums

#1 2014-01-21 14:37:03

244 k$ ! WTF?

#2 2014-01-21 15:27:26

Re: 244 k$ ! WTF?

#3 2014-01-21 15:44:47

Re: 244 k$ ! WTF?

#4 2014-01-21 15:55:39

Re: 244 k$ ! WTF?

#5 2014-01-21 16:28:26

Re: 244 k$ ! WTF?

#6 2014-01-21 16:44:05

Re: 244 k$ ! WTF?

#7 2014-01-21 17:09:39

Re: 244 k$ ! WTF?

#8 2014-01-21 18:42:08

Re: 244 k$ ! WTF?

#9 2014-01-22 08:56:10

Re: 244 k$ ! WTF?

#10 2014-01-22 09:57:30

Re: 244 k$ ! WTF?

#11 2014-01-22 14:22:30

Re: 244 k$ ! WTF?

#12 2014-01-22 15:09:09

Re: 244 k$ ! WTF?

#13 2014-01-23 11:45:37

Re: 244 k$ ! WTF?

#14 2014-01-23 12:05:54

Re: 244 k$ ! WTF?

#15 2014-01-23 13:19:52

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#16 2014-01-25 14:22:47

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#17 2014-01-25 17:24:36

Re: 244 k$ ! WTF?

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