Bruteforcing too easy, a proposal

arieltonglet · 2014-01-31 20:18:36

ChartaBona wrote:

I had an idea, what if every time you used a tool, it affected how long before sirens? Someone firing 10+ gunshots would alert the neighbors I think. This could also prevent people from just trashing the rest of your house once they find your safe.

This is something!.. maybe only with "noisy" tools, like when you are crashing a wall or killing a pet/family member, but not when you are cutting wires

ChartaBona wrote:

Or what if an owner got to KEEP any ladders used to successful rob him. Something to stop people from just laddering all your pits for the heck of it.

I think this only makes sense with some items, like the ladder... or maybe only with the ladder at all.. But, if you think like that, carrying several wire cutters and trowing them away at each use doesn't makes sense too..

EDIT: Sorry, ChartaBona, I think I was typing when you were editing your post XD
The noise level is interesting.. but something to think about.. a crowbar used to break a glass makes the same noise that one used to open an electric door? The balance here would be hard, as it can't use the trap/tool value as parameter. (I think the tools values are based on how many/how expensive traps it can disable). That wouldn't be correct for the ladder and the trapdoor, maybe..

Anyway, that could apply some nice dynamic to the robberies

Last edited by arieltonglet (2014-01-31 20:28:59)

ChartaBona · 2014-01-31 20:31:51

arieltonglet wrote:

ChartaBona wrote:
I had an idea, what if every time you used a tool, it affected how long before sirens? Someone firing 10+ gunshots would alert the neighbors I think. This could also prevent people from just trashing the rest of your house once they find your safe.
This is something!.. maybe only with "noisy" tools, like when you are crashing a wall or killing a pet/family member, but not when you are cutting wires
ChartaBona wrote:
Or what if an owner got to KEEP any ladders used to successful rob him. Something to stop people from just laddering all your pits for the heck of it.
I think this only makes sense with some items, like the ladder... or maybe only with the ladder at all.. But, if you think like that, carrying several wire cutters and trowing them away at each use doesn't makes sense too..

The more I think about the ladder thing, the more I realize how it might disrupt the game in its current state. Essentially you'll never be broke ($0) if someone robbed you using ladders.

Just the whole part where a person systematically destroys your house seems a little too mean spirited, even for this game.

Maybe using/bringing too many tools could put "heat" on you, such that for a certain period of real time, you'd have your siren timer temporarily reduced for ANY house you tried to rob afterward as well. Maybe your tools have partial prints on them, or one of your neighbors saw you driving off with a pickup full of ladders, crowbars, guns, etc. It would also make the BIG heist have more riding on it, since if it failed, you couldn't go back for a while, not because of CHILLS, but because of HEAT. You could TRY, but you wouldn't have enough time to perform the robbery by smashing through it all.

Last edited by ChartaBona (2014-01-31 20:36:50)

jere · 2014-01-31 20:38:07

I had an idea, what if every time you used a tool, it affected how long before sirens? They could have a loudness rating or something. Some tools might not have a loudness rating

Yea, I thought about that something that reduced sirens also, but noise? Very clever. The effectiveness of tools lines up almost perfectly with the expected noise, ladders being the big exception. If it was flat amounts though, that would put a hard cap on how many tools you could bring in. And it would have to be a pretty big time penalty to discourage excessive tool use robbers. Also, this would prevent griefing, but not someone bringing in a ridiculous amount of tools and using just enough to bruteforce.

Overall, I think fuel is a more coherent way to handle this though. You're bring 50 ladders? I think you're going to need a bus....

arieltonglet · 2014-01-31 20:38:35

Yeah, a 'heat' on the player could be nice... but would heat + chills be a little too much?

A heat system was suggested in another thread, but a heat to the house, which I don't think is a good idea.

ChartaBona · 2014-01-31 20:42:23

arieltonglet wrote:

Yeah, a 'heat' on the player could be nice... but would heat + chills be a little too much?
A heat system was suggested in another thread, but a heat to the house, which I don't think is a good idea.

My idea of "heat" would be more like a wanted level in something like assassin's creed or GTA. It sticks to the player, not the house. This would NOT be carried through death, like chills is.

Last edited by ChartaBona (2014-01-31 20:52:53)

arieltonglet · 2014-01-31 20:46:26

jere wrote:

The effectiveness of tools lines up almost perfectly with the expected noise, ladders being the big exception.

maybe with some pitfall sound effect when you cross a pit thru a ladder? XD

ChartaBona · 2014-01-31 20:55:57

Anyway, I'm just throwing ideas out there. There should be SOME limit to how many tools you can use in a house.I'm not saying 8, I'm not even saying 100, but there should be more than a monetary consequence for using tools. It would reward the stealthy cat burglars and limit how often you could do a massive, violent, and destructive heist.

joshwithguitar · 2014-02-01 00:20:09

If it is so easy to brute force, how have I managed to stay at the top of the list for over 24 hours, most of it with over $500,000 in my vault?...

... but I guess the reason I now have $1,000,000 again is because once I've decided to rob a place I haven't failed yet, so, yeah, brute forcing is kind of easy.

Part of the reason for this is that people in general are not very good at building high level houses. The thing I'm learning is that if you want to defend your house against top players - don't make the location of your vault obvious. Having had some time to think, my current house is far from optimal in the current game and yet it is still standing.

In terms of the original proposal, I haven't bought tools in a long time. I get enough from the houses I rob. Transport fees would work better but are fairly inelegant.

You have to remember that the game for top players was balanced before the sudden influx of new players, which to me implies it is a problem of scale - there is too much money in the system which means two things - top houses have more money than they can legitimately defend and have excess money to rob the other top houses.

One thing I have noticed is that it is impossible to keep your wife alive at the top of the list in the current climate. If someone comes into your house with 40 guns your wife is dead, full stop. It would be the easiest thing in the world for for me now to go through and shoot every alive wife in the top 16 houses on the list if I wanted to.

joshwithguitar · 2014-02-01 01:29:48

It looks like Mr Wilson decided that having over a million dollars and all the paintings he ever wanted that there was nothing left to live for and hung himself on Mr Johnson's doorstep.

... that is I lost my internet connection mid robbery and didn't realise until it was too late. I guess this is an effective method of removing money from the game... godbye $1M.

GoogleFrog · 2014-02-01 03:08:01

This does not necessarily have to hurt poor robbers. The first few tools could be cheaper than their current costs. That said, I don't particularly like the idea of increasing tool cost because such a system would lack the elegance of the current one.

Last edited by GoogleFrog (2014-02-01 03:09:09)

protox13 · 2014-02-01 16:15:57

jere wrote:

I had an idea, what if every time you used a tool, it affected how long before sirens? They could have a loudness rating or something. Some tools might not have a loudness rating
Yea, I thought about that something that reduced sirens also, but noise? Very clever. The effectiveness of tools lines up almost perfectly with the expected noise, ladders being the big exception. If it was flat amounts though, that would put a hard cap on how many tools you could bring in. And it would have to be a pretty big time penalty to discourage excessive tool use robbers. Also, this would prevent griefing, but not someone bringing in a ridiculous amount of tools and using just enough to bruteforce.
Overall, I think fuel is a more coherent way to handle this though. You're bring 50 ladders? I think you're going to need a bus....

Why not combine noise, fuel, and heat? They would compliment each other in creating practical/soft limits depending on a robber's priorities (scout? brute force? conserve money?) and restore more tension on the robber's side without, I feel, making the (rich) home owner too complacent. Fuel would limit tools to a reasonable amount, BUT with fuel alone there is no reason a patient (and rich) robber could not just make multiple consecutive trips instead of one big one with fewer tools. Tools $200 or less could cost 1 second; $400 tools would cost 2 seconds, $800 4 seconds, $1200 8 seconds, $2400 12 seconds. It's likely using tools would still save a robber time over puzzling out a trap, but this would force robbers to be very strategic about what they bring, how much they bring, and how often they use it.

Heat (like a mini-chill) is a bit separate, but I think it is necessary to compliment fuel and noise. The second (and so far only) successful robbery on my house was due to the robber making 4-5 consecutive trips with all the tools he could carry. Even if you limit the time and tools a robber can use, there still is little to no downside for a robber who keeps rushing back to your house and locking you out of it. I doubt it's Jason's intent for top players to obsessively keep trying to get into their house once they notice the same robber is hitting their place. Since there are no real-time notifications to tell you when you've been robbed or when the robber has left, heat to keep a specific robber away for, say 10-15 or 30-60 minutes from a particular house after each robbery will at least give the home owner a window of opportunity to view the video and one shot to alter or strengthen their defenses (assuming they have enough money).

Even with these three mechanics, there is still little stopping a sufficiently skilled, equipped, and persistent robber from pulling a successful heist. I prefer 30-60 minute heat because even combined with the limits of fuel and noise, it allows a persistent robber several chances to break into the house, assuming a player is at work or otherwise unable to check on their house more than once or twice a day. (9 hours away is effectively up to 17 or 8 chances, which I think is more than reasonable even with fuel and noise restrictions, considering there will be MULTIPLE robbers going after top houses). This creates tension on the side of the home owner as well as you'll need to be playing for at least 20 minutes to notice/check if someone returns with more tools and/or gets further into the house. Even if you do react, what do you change or strengthen? Then you'll need to wait and watch again... The fuel mechanic will always allow a sufficiently rich robber (and I think there would be enough of them) to go for broke after enough scouting runs, so no home owner can ever feel completely safe. 20-30 minute heat may be the best balance for robbers and home owners.

An added bonus is that you are now not only competing against the home owner, but also other robbers to be the first to successfully crack a house; at this point it's more about who is the first to have enough money to brute force a given house. I get the point Jason's trying to make about insecurity being the theme of this game, but it shouldn't have to translate into being tethered to your computer and being constantly logged into the game. That's obsessive and shouldn't be necessary.

Also, I noticed that idle players are not kicked out of their house with changes unsaved, but killed; is this only for people with starter houses or anyone? Especially without a warning, it's a bit unfair to someone who's lost their internet connection or who's legitimately been engrossed in beefing up their house defenses.

Last edited by protox13 (2014-02-01 19:57:55)

ladida · 2014-02-01 16:52:04

Against bruteforcing: When you finally reach your goal with no tools left..

dead end

Last edited by ladida (2014-02-01 16:54:43)

jere · 2014-02-04 09:22:12

Concerning the recent ideas of fuel, noise, and heat.

Noise is interesting thematically; not sure how effective it would be. I think heat is the wrong approach because it discourages scouting, which is IMHO The Right Way™ to take down a house. I'm probably biased because it's my idea but I still think fuel is ideal.

I didn't explain fuel very well initially, so here is a spreadsheet to help explain the numbers. If you make a local copy you should be able to tweak things.

protox13 · 2014-02-04 10:20:26

jere wrote:

Concerning the recent ideas of fuel, noise, and heat.
Noise is interesting thematically; not sure how effective it would be. I think heat is the wrong approach because it discourages scouting, which is IMHO The Right Way™ to take down a house. I'm probably biased because it's my idea but I still think fuel is ideal.
I didn't explain fuel very well initially, so here is a spreadsheet to help explain the numbers. If you make a local copy you should be able to tweak things.

I honestly believe you need all three. Fuel is just going to spread brute forcing over several trips. As for heat, I think it encourages efficient scouting. Maybe forays less than 1 minute shouldn’t count towards your heat score, but anything longer should.

jere · 2014-02-04 10:57:41

Fuel is just going to spread brute forcing over several trips.

Maybe we're not using the same terminology here. Here's how I see these terms personally:

Brute forcing: Using an exorbitantly large amount of tools to cut through anything you happen to find in one go. Requires zero planning or thought, just a bunch of money.... but you usually make more than you spend anyway.

Scouting: Going into a house to acquire pieces of knowledge about that house, which you can later piece together to plan a heist. Especially repeated trips to explore. Scouting is actually already cost prohibitive because you have to repeatedly use the same tools on consecutive trips to get past initial traps. Brute forcing doesn't have that problem.

So when you say multiple trips are brute forcing, that's what I consider scouting. It's the more interesting play style and I think it should be encouraged.

I honestly believe you need all three.

Adding three new mechanics to the game is pretty heavy in terms of extending the learning curve.

Last edited by jere (2014-02-04 10:58:31)

colorfusion · 2014-02-04 11:05:13

protox13 wrote:

jere wrote:
Concerning the recent ideas of fuel, noise, and heat.
Noise is interesting thematically; not sure how effective it would be. I think heat is the wrong approach because it discourages scouting, which is IMHO The Right Way™ to take down a house. I'm probably biased because it's my idea but I still think fuel is ideal.
I didn't explain fuel very well initially, so here is a spreadsheet to help explain the numbers. If you make a local copy you should be able to tweak things.
I honestly believe you need all three. Fuel is just going to spread brute forcing over several trips. As for heat, I think it encourages efficient scouting. Maybe forays less than 1 minute shouldn’t count towards your heat score, but anything longer should.

Damage isn't saved, brute forcing over multiple robberies isn't really possible and I don't see how it's such a bad idea to encourage multiple trips anyway.

Heat could discourage scouting, and probably encourage both brute forcing and suicide runs.

I don't think any of the solutions so far are ideal, but fuel is probably my favourite idea.

Maybe it's just me but I feel that using a time limit in a turn based game shouldn't be used to rush people through. Everything else around this game seems to have been designed where time isn't really a factor. I also don't think I'd feel that it was my fault that I died because I didn't have enough time check something.

Last edited by colorfusion (2014-02-04 11:07:07)

protox13 · 2014-02-04 11:14:15

jere wrote:

Fuel is just going to spread brute forcing over several trips.
Maybe we're not using the same terminology here. Here's how I see these terms personally:
Brute forcing: Using an exorbitantly large amount of tools to cut through anything you happen to find in one go. Requires zero planning or thought, just a bunch of money.... but you usually make more than you spend anyway.
Scouting: Going into a house to acquire pieces of knowledge about that house, which you can later piece together to plan a heist. Especially repeated trips to explore. Scouting is actually already cost prohibitive because you have to repeatedly use the same tools on consecutive trips to get past initial traps. Brute forcing doesn't have that problem.
So when you say multiple trips are brute forcing, that's what I consider scouting. It's the more interesting play style and I think it should be encouraged.
I honestly believe you need all three.
Adding three new mechanics to the game is pretty heavy in terms of extending the learning curve.

Hmm, fair point; fuel does raise the threshold. However, a robber can still systematically throw enough money at a house across multiple trips until he finds the vault with little to no thought or planning behind it, which in my mind is just a variation of brute forcing. I guess what I'm trying to get at with the idea of heat is answering the fact that someone can still be sure of cracking any house, given enough time and money. I believe fearless robbers represent an inbalance, but maybe that's what Jason wants. Maybe a fuel surcharge and wheelbarrow burden are enough.

Last edited by protox13 (2014-02-04 11:18:48)

colorfusion · 2014-02-04 11:23:48

protox13 wrote:

jere wrote:
Fuel is just going to spread brute forcing over several trips.
Maybe we're not using the same terminology here. Here's how I see these terms personally:
Brute forcing: Using an exorbitantly large amount of tools to cut through anything you happen to find in one go. Requires zero planning or thought, just a bunch of money.... but you usually make more than you spend anyway.
Scouting: Going into a house to acquire pieces of knowledge about that house, which you can later piece together to plan a heist. Especially repeated trips to explore. Scouting is actually already cost prohibitive because you have to repeatedly use the same tools on consecutive trips to get past initial traps. Brute forcing doesn't have that problem.
So when you say multiple trips are brute forcing, that's what I consider scouting. It's the more interesting play style and I think it should be encouraged.
I honestly believe you need all three.
Adding three new mechanics to the game is pretty heavy in terms of extending the learning curve.
Hmm, fair point; fuel does raise the threshold. However, a robber can still systematically throw enough money at a house across multiple trips until he finds the vault with little to no thought or planning behind it, which in my mind is just a variation of brute forcing. I guess what I'm trying to get at with the idea of heat is answering the fact that someone can still be sure of cracking any house, given enough time and money. I believe fearless robbers represent an inbalance, but maybe that's what Jason wants.

What you describe essentially just sounds like scouting, but on richer houses. If they don't bring enough tools to 100% reach the vault then there is still risk, strategy and planning involved. They'll also be focussing on making efficient use of tools, and it will cost them a whole lot.

If someone scouts out a house a bunch, and has a whole lot of money, then it seems to me that they probably should have a good chance at defeating the house. If I'm understanding it correctly, heat would just put more focus on needing to idle and discourage scouting.

joshwithguitar · 2014-02-04 17:57:31

I'm currently finding the challenge of building a house that can survive steam roll robbing and top player brute forcing really interesting and it is more viable than it used to be given that there is less excess and easy money in the game. Gravely survived at the top for a while with a house that could be brute forced with 13 saws (or more realistically ~60 saws if you didn't know where the vault is. Still only $24,000 worth of tools).

The last thing that I think will help is reducing the sale value of tools, meaning you it is harder to convert your excess doorstops water/dog food/saws into explosives/ladders/crowbars.

'Heat' will encourage brute forcing even more - medium level scouting gives a chance for the owner to see what is happening before you get to re-enter and so going all out on the first trip will be a good idea. 'Noise' will make time pressure more of a thing, and I personally don't like that idea.

'Fuel' might be interesting, but is not particularly elegant, and perhaps not necessary. There is already reasons not to go all out with tools for every robbery you do. Picking the right selection of tools is the more clever way of playing and will lead to more money overall. This will become more the case as house values come to reflect how hard the houses are to break.

If you were going to implement fuel this is (approximately) how I'd do it:
Whenever you leave a house with a backpack with over $10,000 worth of tools in it you have to pay a fuel charge based on how much over $10,000 you are paying. No fuel charge will be given to backpacks worth less than $10,000.

Fuel charge could be calculated in a number of ways:

One is progressing tiered system - 10% of value between $10k and $20k, 20% of value from $20k to 30k, 30% from 30k to 40k etc.
So $45k of tools would cost -
0.1 * 10,000 + 0.2 * 10,000 + 0.3 * 10,000 + 0.4 * 5000
= $8000
100k of tools would cost
(0.1 + 0.2 + 0.3 + 0.4 + 0.5 + 0.6 + 0.7 + 0.8 + 0.9) * 10,000
= $45k

Another method would be simply to make fuel cost based on a continuous polynomial function:
So - Fuel = ((Backpack-value - 10,000) / 10,000 + 1) ^ 2 / 2 * 10,000 (where fuel values of less than $0 are set to $0).

Perhaps exponential functions would be more interesting, such as having the tiered system instead 10k-20k = 5%, 20k-30k = 10%, 30k-40k = 20%, 40k-50k = 40%
So now, $45,000 would cost:
(0.05 + 0.1 + 0.2) * 10,000 + 0.4 * 5,000
= $5,500
But $100,000 would cost
(0.05 + 0.1 + 0.2 + 0.4 + 0.8 + 1.6 + 3.2 + 6.4 + 12.8) * 10,000
= $250,000

One interesting element of this system is that staying up the top of the house list with $1M in cash becomes a lot more viable, so there could be a much stronger and more obvious hierarchy based on how good the houses are. Working on a house piece by piece would be strongly encouraged as it would allow you to do it with many robberies with a small backpack. The disadvantage of this is that it will discourage houses with lots of small segments and strongly encourage houses that are simply a hard to get to or figure out mechanism used to open a single very long and expensive to brute force gate.

Of course, all of these numbers could be tweaked, although I'm not sure how you'd decide what works 'best'. I think there could be a lot of disagreement.

This all sounds interesting and I'd be interested to see how these different ideas play out, but I'm also interested to see how the current situation will go as well. I personally don't mind the ability to wipe out all of the top houses in one rampage if they are not well designed. You don't want to make it too easy to defend a house and end up with a neighbourhood of houses holding $100,000 that find it too expensive to rob each other.

DethBringa · 2014-02-04 18:53:02

Well I just got steam rolled today. Then, once they finally smashed their way to the vault they still had tools left. So they decided to rampage around destroying everything so the only option left is suicide and restart. I mean robbing someone is fine but why trash the house into oblivion. Maybe a tool cap would be good, say 10 of each tool as a cap?

Last edited by DethBringa (2014-02-04 18:53:29)

jere · 2014-02-04 18:56:29

Maybe a tool cap would be good, say 10 of each tool as a cap?

This would be like the early days where you could make your walls N+1 thick and nobody can get through a patch of wall without legitimately solving your puzzle.... which for all intents and purposes might be impossible. It would absolutely suck, which is why I'm proposing fuel. It lets you bring more tools if you want but you're going to start paying a hefty premium for bringing a ridiculous amount.

I kind of see what jwg is saying. The game is about vulnerability. And surviving at the top is a unique challenge, completely different from surviving at the bottom. I'm just wondering if it's even possible with excellent play to stay at the top for more than a week. Unless that top house systematically wipes out all competition, it doesn't seem likely.

Last edited by jere (2014-02-04 19:02:26)

DethBringa · 2014-02-04 19:10:01

yea I see what you are saying... If you cant brute force then defending a house is too OP. If you can brute force then robbing is too OP. I guess the fuel option is the best that can be added without breaking the balance.

Drakol · 2014-02-04 19:51:22

Em... wouldn't a weight system work just as well?
As in, a Character can only carry 150 lb, or something. *shrugs*
Or even simpler, 100 Items.

Though this would curb the game a bit, seeing as Combination locks would skyrocket in effectiveness.

joshwithguitar · 2014-02-04 20:18:46

jere wrote:

I'm just wondering if it's even possible with excellent play to stay at the top for more than a week. Unless that top house systematically wipes out all competition, it doesn't seem likely.

Challenge accepted . (Although I won't promise not to wipe out the competition, however futile that might be...)

jere · 2014-02-04 20:20:48

Challenge accepted smile. (Although I won't promise not to wipe out the competition, however futile that might be...)

I see. Good to luck to you, sir. And what did you say your name was...

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