HELP: Rethinking the tool dropping stuff

jasonrohrer · 2014-01-31 12:42:01

So... the tool dropping rules are a bit counter-intuitive. Owner gets them when you die, but not when you leave or reach the vault.

BUT, they have to be that way for very good two-account-thwarting reasons, right? Right??

Now I'm starting to realize that with the chill changes that have been added since then, the tool dumping rules may not be necessary anymore.

Originally, it was there to prevent starting houses from "pumping up" the value of a house with tools by dumping them in the vault and then suiciding at home, repeat. If you only dump the tools when you die, and you get a chill when you die, then problem solved. But now that chills come on whenever you carry tools into a house (and not just when you die there) if you die later, this pumping isn't a problem. You can do it once per 24 hours. And, you can do it by dying in the target house.

So... there's also the thing about transferring tools between accounts. This is the main justification given in the change log for keeping the dumping rules post-chills. If you could pass tools by running out the door, isn't this a problem? Reaching the vault to pass tools could also work (you know how to reach the vault on your second account, and you could just empty the vault on the target account first, into the backpack, to prevent two-way transfer).

But... can't you just put those tools in the second account's vault and then rob the vault from the target account? A potential chill and force-ignore is created either way, so why stop one without stopping the other?

Yes, reaching the "big vault" on your target account to give the target account tools is inconvenient, because then the second account will get cash and paintings. But you can just steal them back right away.

SO... it doesn't feel like the tool dumping rules are really stopping two accounts from sharing money in their current life (though chills prevent it from happening across multiple lives).

The final thing to consider is vandalism. Vault reach saves damage. If a robber could easily put tools into an empty vault (during the reach that made it empty in the first place, or simply by leaving), then a robber could return over and over to "chip away" toward the family. Or just to be a jerk.

BUT... what is to stop the robber from just bringing 100 tools the first time, before the vault reach? All damage would be saved then. I think the "chip away" worry came from back before chills. You could chip away across multiple lives by reaching the vault over and over and leaving tools in there each time.

So... it's time to rethink this.

What if left over tools were ALWAYS given to the owner, no matter what? What new problems would be created by this change?

jere · 2014-01-31 12:51:12

I'm not sure what the benefit is here to changing the rules back. Is it just too make the rules more intuitive/consistent?

BUT... what is to stop the robber from just bringing 100 tools the first time, before the vault reach?

Well the fuel surcharge idea would prohibit that.

Blip · 2014-01-31 12:55:36

If tools were left upon fleeing, the "Scary Turtle" would become a viable option again. Instead of building the clever deathtraps that we build currently, people would just try build the scariest looking stuff they could and get tools from robbers just leaving after seeing the first part of the trap.

I think that tool transfer on vault reach would just cause people to break through your house once with lots of tools, leave the extra, then come back again to pick them up. It would allow for people to bring ridiculous amounts of tools to any house, decimate their way to the vault, then come back to reclaim any tools they didn't use! Under the current system, bringing too many tools means that you lost the ones you don't use; thus, there is an incentive to use the minimum amount of tools for a robbery (until you get up to the ultra-rich, where you just destroy houses to eliminate the threat of the same happening to you.) And it usually works; lower houses are rarely, if ever, robbed with a massive amount of tools. If they were, the game would get even harder on new players and easier for the veterans.

SmokestormX · 2014-01-31 12:57:21

Well you wouldn't get that $0 suicide feeling. You'd always have some cash to get back into the game with if they left tools? Is this a good thing?

I had a big house earlier the guy that finally robbed me had at least $15k worth of tools on him, if those were left what is stopping him from coming back 60 seconds later and picking up the left over tools?

I have thought about getting a second account myself, but mainly didnt want to do this account trading stuff, i kinda wanted to make it without any kinda of shenanigans and help (that and its double the price in the UK)

Last edited by SmokestormX (2014-01-31 13:00:31)

jasonrohrer · 2014-01-31 13:20:41

Yeah, Blip, you're right! That is the reason why tools must vanish when you reach the vault. So that people have to think carefully about what tools to bring and not "bring too much" just to "come back later and reclaim the extra."

Though, I don't know that this particular reason was ever articulated back when this system was put in place. There were other reasons that were more pressing at the time.

Okay, then, I'm NOT going to change this.

RockyBst · 2014-01-31 13:24:16

The big issue I have at the moment is that there is essentially no cap on tools. While I agree we don't want to go back to the days of 8 tools total, being able to bring in 800 swings waaaaay too far the other way. A 32*32 grid is only 1024 tiles, after all!

It wasn't so much an issue with the smaller alpha community, but now its out on steam we're seeing a lot of brute forcers ripping through the top houses. And when you spend three hours building that house just to see it die to 50 explosives, you lose a lot of motivation. I'd be a whole lot happier if stacks of tools were limited to 10, bringing back some more tactical thinking - 20 meat, or 10 meat and 10 water?

With regards to dropping tools, I agree with Blip. You put that back in, you scare off a lot of low level players with turtle houses.

EDIT: Just learnt that the tool cap is actually a 32-bit integer ... yeah, so you can quite literally bring in one of all the 6 tools required to break a house for every single tile.

Last edited by RockyBst (2014-01-31 13:48:43)

Nilyari · 2014-01-31 13:42:35

Random thoughts:

1) What if you got chills after anything that saves damage? While the "owner" may still be away, hopefully someone heard you blowing up everything and/or shooting your wife. There is currently a 10(?) minute limit on a single robbery but when you're scouting it makes sense that you didn't get "caught" when browsing, but once you go all in, that's it. So if someone brings $700K worth of tools and leaves them for the owner, that person can't directly come back.

2) Robbery time limit could be accumulative. So you can't scout for some max amount before chills take effect. (The only concern I would see is dying because you didn't know you ate the timer down to 1 second. Maybe once alarms set the house goes on chill.)

3) Houses that save changes can stay off the list for ~1hr or something like that unless the owner saves a new house. Obviously the robber would know that and could check back later at the correct time but it would give someone response time. I feel like this takes away from the narrative, though.

4) Dropped tools could have a statistical chance of showing up in the safe. Makes dual accounts less abusable since you would only have x% chance of transferring the tools. This also could help people who make scary houses earn some nominal amount, without rewarding them fully as if they got a kill.

5) If you plan on reducing tool resale, that will help account abuse and may make dropped tools ok again. Maybe combined with RNG chance, it would be hard to abuse beyond simply creating an undefended house and hoping you grab it before it disappears.

jasonrohrer · 2014-01-31 14:36:02

Interesting ideas, Nilyari!

Blip, I just realized something big:

There's another "bin" for each player in the game, which is "carried_vault_contents".

Essentially, when you rob another house but haven't returned home yet, that stuff you stole isn't put into your vault yet. You might not be able to come home, because a robber could be in your house, and it would be weird for the stuff you just stole to be stolen by this robber, even though you haven't even been home yet.

SO... you carry it with you, invisibly, even if you rob multiple houses before returning home (you usually don't, because you'll likely have your own house open up at SOME point). As you rob more, that bin keeps accumulating what you take.

Then, when you FINALLY return home, it gets put in your vault. After you leave home again, it can be stolen.

SO... what about using THIS bin to keep tools that are dropped by a robber reaching the vault? They aren't really in the vault... they're kindof on the floor around the vault or something, so other robbers (or the same robber returning) cannot get them.

But, when you finally return home, you get them. Whatever extra the robber who reached your vault had. Something to sell and rebuild with, maybe.

And the, from the OWNER's point of view, it would all make sense. You'd see people leave with tools (you don't get those), and die with tools (you get those), and then some guy reaches your vault, you'd get those extra tools too.

Or maybe ALL tools, from both deaths and vault reaches, should go into this protected bin? So what you see people drop on your tapes is what you have? This would slow down the accumulation of house value due to failed robbers...

The thing about the vault reach is that it stops subsequent vault reaches.... until some other robber dies with tools to put more in the vault (or puts a bounty in the vault). So, this property would be preserved.

But the tools would not just vanish strangely.

Hmm... maybe after the vault is broken, it stops accumulating money and tools, and from there on (until the owner returns), the bounties and tools are held for the owner? The wife still gets her bounties.

So, after being broken once, the vault never "functions" until the owner returns. That would make the whole thing consistent (tools dropped up before the first vault reach are stolen by the first vault reach, but anything dropped after that cannot be stolen).

ANYWAY, the other good thing about this is that robbers have further disincentive to "over tool" when robbing a house (because the owner will be given a gift basket of stuff to rebuild with and potentially seek revenge with).

Nilyari · 2014-01-31 15:00:44

I guess another random thought -

While I do think if you have $100K and a house that cost $250K and you get truly owned, sometimes being at $0 means your best gameplay option is suicide, which in reality seems legitimate (I mean, someone did just ruin your life quite literally) but if they drop a bunch of tools it does give you something to go on with, possibly even rebuild the whole house. If you still want this as a result you may not like such a change. But if you go ahead with the resale value reduction, unless they bring absurd tools, they might be more likely to attempt robberies than rebuild, which is still a realistic response (revenge).

It is definitely strange how you have the issue of balancing feelings and fairness in the game. (I know why you can't club sleeping dogs, but it still seems really silly in context to other things....)

jere · 2014-01-31 15:06:45

ANYWAY, the other good thing about this is that robbers have further disincentive to "over tool" when robbing a house (because the owner will be given a gift basket of stuff to rebuild with and potentially seek revenge with).

Or they'd just burn down the house with the remaining tools.

Blip · 2014-01-31 20:28:48

jasonrohrer wrote:

Blip, I just realized something big:
There's another "bin" for each player in the game, which is "carried_vault_contents".
Essentially, when you rob another house but haven't returned home yet, that stuff you stole isn't put into your vault yet. You might not be able to come home, because a robber could be in your house, and it would be weird for the stuff you just stole to be stolen by this robber, even though you haven't even been home yet.
SO... you carry it with you, invisibly, even if you rob multiple houses before returning home (you usually don't, because you'll likely have your own house open up at SOME point). As you rob more, that bin keeps accumulating what you take.
Then, when you FINALLY return home, it gets put in your vault. After you leave home again, it can be stolen.
[...]
So, after being broken once, the vault never "functions" until the owner returns. That would make the whole thing consistent (tools dropped up before the first vault reach are stolen by the first vault reach, but anything dropped after that cannot be stolen).

ANYWAY, the other good thing about this is that robbers have further disincentive to "over tool" when robbing a house (because the owner will be given a gift basket of stuff to rebuild with and potentially seek revenge with).

This seems like it would work! Of course, that's assuming that the "carried vault contents" can be utilized while the player is offline, and that its use in this manner doesn't mess anything up. For example, if somebody robs you with excess tools, then you rob a house, that would need to contain both the money you robbed plus dropped tools. If that works properly, it should be fine.

However, as jere said, this would just make people absolutely destroy houses if possible, using all of their tools to before reaching the vault, making it even harder for somebody to rebuild; more of their house would be destroyed and they would still have the same amount to spend fixing it.

arieltonglet · 2014-01-31 21:05:00

interesting how this thread and these other two threads are kinda merging to the same point

ChartaBona · 2014-01-31 21:48:51

Have you thought about tools having an intrinsic "Noise Level" . This noise level would affect how long before the cops came. Also actions like, say, shooting the wife, could significantly decrease your time limit.

Or similarly, the tools could have a cumulative "evidence" or "heat" level that sticks with the robber after the robbery. Certain tools you use could count as evidence against you, and your future robberies would have shorter and shorter time limits, because the cops or neighborhood watch have been keeping a closer eye on you. "That looks like Bob's ladder." or "Didn't Jim buy 20 crowbars the other day," or "I think I saw Bill buying a metric ton of C4 the other day"

Possibly the "Noise" and "Heat" levels could both be used, so the loud robbers that go through a house like a tank are "punished" and the stealthy cat-burglars who TACTICALLY use their tools are rewarded. The heat level would decrease over real time(minutes, hours, idk), or perhaps by performing certain tasks, like robbing a house with no tools. Heat would be erased completely on death.

Also, for houses that still have a wife, if you shoot the wife, or rob the vault, maybe give that house chills so that the person can't immediately come back to finish the job? That way the robber has to think about whether he will use his tools (and time!) looking for the safe or the wife. If he's quick and skillful, he'll be able to accomplish both.

arieltonglet · 2014-01-31 21:54:03

ChartaBona wrote:

"That looks like Bob's ladder." or "Didn't Jim buy 20 crowbars the other day," or "I think I saw Bill buying a metric ton of C4 the other day"

THIS! nice quotes XD

The Castle Doctrine Forums

#1 2014-01-31 12:42:01

HELP: Rethinking the tool dropping stuff

#2 2014-01-31 12:51:12

Re: HELP: Rethinking the tool dropping stuff

#3 2014-01-31 12:55:36

Re: HELP: Rethinking the tool dropping stuff

#4 2014-01-31 12:57:21

Re: HELP: Rethinking the tool dropping stuff

#5 2014-01-31 13:20:41

Re: HELP: Rethinking the tool dropping stuff

#6 2014-01-31 13:24:16

Re: HELP: Rethinking the tool dropping stuff

#7 2014-01-31 13:42:35

Re: HELP: Rethinking the tool dropping stuff

#8 2014-01-31 14:36:02

Re: HELP: Rethinking the tool dropping stuff

#9 2014-01-31 15:00:44

Re: HELP: Rethinking the tool dropping stuff

#10 2014-01-31 15:06:45

Re: HELP: Rethinking the tool dropping stuff

#11 2014-01-31 20:28:48

Re: HELP: Rethinking the tool dropping stuff

#12 2014-01-31 21:05:00

Re: HELP: Rethinking the tool dropping stuff

#13 2014-01-31 21:48:51

Re: HELP: Rethinking the tool dropping stuff

#14 2014-01-31 21:54:03

Re: HELP: Rethinking the tool dropping stuff

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