The Castle Doctrine Forums

#30! Not a bad haul for a newbie house that was only collecting money overnight.

Without Big Heat or an equivalent, fuel and wheelbarrow burden will not prevent a robber from making several consecutive attempts at cracking a house- it's just spread out over several trips instead of one big one. Fundamentally, a rich robber is still unstoppable. Given enough time and money a robber can still be confident that he can crack a house with no fear of death or being beaten to it by other robbers, which IMHO is unbalanced. Other robbers and the homeowner are left out in the cold.

Two more thoughts:

For Big Heat, a color-coded scheme (yellow for 5 min or less, light orange for 5-15 min, dark orange for 15-60, red for 60+ min) and a message about the cops still being at the crime scene.

For wheelbarrow burden, first 5 free, 6-15 1x a set multiplier, 16-25  1.3 x set multiplier, 26-35 1.6 x set multiplier, etc. So you can bring a lot of tools but more than 50 or so, you've got say 3-5 minutes to use them.

Why not start the heat timer after, say, 15-30 seconds? That's a reasonable time to scout and see what tools you'll need initially; any longer and folks are probably not just scouting.

Also, no penalty for the first 3-5 tools; that's how much a person could carry on their person and enough for a second, more in-depth scouting run. But then you'd have to wait a bit, which would be fine because you're reviewing what you've scouted.

What about a cumulatively increasing Big Heat score, a function of how many times you've raided a house within a certain amount of time. A Big Heat point drops after, say, 12 or 24 hours; the first one makes you wait 0 minutes, the second 1 minute, the third 3 minutes, the fourth 5 minutes, the fifth 15 minutes, the sixth 30 minutes, the seventh 60 minutes, the eighth 120 minutes, and so forth. I like that because at first, it's not a problem (people will want to plan around what they've discovered anyway), but after a certain point you're being punished for not scouting effectively or efficiently (because if there's no penalty for many fast raids with few tools, that's exactly what players will do). Bored? Review your notes, go have dinner, or go case other houses.

Yeah, imagine you're walking in, armed to the teeth and with the sirens already blaring- that would be a tense, high stakes raid! I think an effective result of this is forcing the robber to find at least part of the safe path via scouting to save time and money later, instead of just brute forcing. Maybe a timer and fuel surcharge at the loadout screen?

Hi Jason,

Thanks! I can't take credit for originating the ideas of heat, noise (which is why I didn't explain it ), or fuel; I saw them on other threads (but I will gladly take credit for combining them).

Regular Heat: I was thinking of heat as a fixed time for any failed robbery and combining it with the other mechanics, but it's certainly possible (and thematically sound) to set it to the amount of time one's spent in a house (and/or the amount of tools used/brought- evidence, you know). I gave two ranges of time (10-15 or 30-60 minutes) because I wasn't sure what would be optimal for game balance, and the two ranges were supposed to be more favorable for either the robber or home owner, respectively. I'm personally in favor of a heat time of 10-30 minutes because this should give two or three other robbers a shot at the house in the meanwhile- the homeowner is by no means protected!

Big Heat: after 3-5 attempts block out an individual robber for, say, 6-8 hours- thematically, neighbors and police will start to notice someone who keeps coming back). Let them try again later in the day or the next day- other robbers will have a crack at the same (presumably lucrative) house and the homeowner will have a chance to respond.

Noise: Your guess regarding what I meant by noise is correct. It's unfortunate that this appears unimplementable since there is no communication with the server, though. This still leaves wide open the problem of someone with enough tools not only brute forcing a house but also wrecking it out of spite or just to burn through his tools.

Fuel: Finally, regarding fuel, I think the way it was originally suggested was quite good and wasn't offering any changes to it.

Wheelbarrow burden: Dock the amount of time one has to work through the house based on the amount of tools one brings. Makes thematic sense and provide extra incentive for a player to only bring what they'll need (this could compliment or replace the fuel surcharge). Think about it: even with a wheelbarrow (or several), hauling around 800 things is going to slow you down, right?

Also, I think it's quite fair to give a person 20 minutes to solve a house if they're not relying on brute force, but deducting time based on the expense and amount of tools (either on a linear or geometric scale) is reasonable, because you're not going to need 20 minutes to brute force someone's house- 5 minutes maybe, 10 tops. This will also discourage malicious razing of someone's house or hunting down a person's family (who does that in real life, anyway? hardly anyone)- just grab the goods and go!

In short:
Regular Heat (mini-chill) = base time + "amount of time" and/or "steps taken" and/or "number/expense of tools" used.
Big Heat: after 3-5 attempts, block out an individual robber for 6-8 hours.
Fuel = escalating change based on value/number of tools brought to house
Wheelbarrow burden = 20 minutes - number/expense of tools brought

With these changes, in the space of 1-2 hours (which is probably a reasonable play session) a robber can make several raids and at any point still go to town with all the tools he wants, but there are soft limits (time and money) which will force him to think more tactically. A skilled, lucky, persistent, or rich enough enough robber will still succeed, but this gives other robbers and the homeowner a shot. What do you think, Jason?

Honestly, I don't know if the player base will get large enough to support this, or if Jason can come up with a way to disrupt their formation because it kind of goes against the theme of his game, but the logical extension of heist cooperation would be thieves' guilds (5-10 people). Makes sense to me: you have enough players to overcome the disadvantages of a heist-sized group: enough vets get together to pull heists, support players who die or need money, and punish players who break the rules or the poor solo bastards who break into a guild member's house. You would even have different roles: the bankers, who passively collect bounties and fund active robbers (enforcers), and people who do both. They would rob each others' houses regularly to distribute any gains and maintain trust. The next step? Guild wars! This would result in a hierarchy of of players: cooperative hardcore, hardcore solo/cooperative average players, average solo players, and newbies.

EDIT: Just tested, and you're both right. This is helpful to know- I build and don't rob.

$1000

No. I mean you drug the dog, walk up, club it, walk up, then shoot the wife. $1,500. That's it.

I think a similar setup with three dogs should do it. I'm not sure if it costs more than $2k, but don't think it does.

It still seems one would be able to drug and club the dog, then shoot the wife for a total of $1500. So I could still kamikaze the wife regardless of the cat. Unless I'm missing something?

Maybe he invests in paintings?

I have to say, the anxiety I have when self-testing and frustration/loss when I die self-testing is quite strong, but I am strangely inspired and compelled to make better and better house designs after every death. I can't quite remember when I've been engaged by a game, both intellectually and emotionally, like this one.