#More Complex Fingerprints

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unique perch
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As it stands fingerprints are overpowered as most people have pointed out. Of course, I would assume this balancing would get worked out over time. But it has been brought up a few times by different people to make fingerprints less reliable. Since at this time you can always get a perfect fingerprint from every scan, and each scanned finger print is added to your list of known prints (A, B, C, D, …)

The two things to make Fingerprints both more interesting and possibly less reliable would be more complex prints and the ability to only find partials.

Instead of listing prints in the order you scan, everyone gets a finger print code assigned to them at generation. Fingerprint codes can be 4 or more letters or numbers long depending on how complicated you want them. (Though even 4 letters gives you more possible combinations than you would ever need for a single playthrough)

So Suspect A’s fingerprint could be: GTQE
While Suspect B could have: GTZE

Than with partial prints you could say in that case with those two suspects, the best print you found was GT_E.
Would help bring forward other evidence types in order to link the crime to a suspect since prints alone could be not enough... Especially if we start seeing people visiting others for more reasons other than murder.

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Could also set finger print complexity to 'simplifeid' (how it is now) or 'Advanced' something akin to above

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for who don't want added difficulty.

gusty bobcat
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I really like the idea of partial prints, even moreso if advanced prints complexity can be adjusted.

There's always going to be one of us that wants to find W_R____IR_Z_T

noble knoll
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Could even make a temporary advanced version that'd require very little coding simply by not linking people to prints so they just stay A B C D etc. Would make another difficulty easily too, like easy(current) medium(this) hard(yours)

sage shoal
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Adding more depth to fingerprints while also making them less accessible would be great for balance for sure. Especially since fingerprints will almost always be one of the most decisive pieces of evidence even if things are overhauled, making getting the whole print a more intricate process would greatly help the gameplay loop.

solar birch
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another suggestion was a 5 symbol code and you don't get a full read out of any of them

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so every read you get some blanks and can't do a case with a single print

sage shoal
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Possible have generated fingerprints that are consistent, but slightly varied (like angles, smudges, etc), so the player can eyeball it and maybe rush a case. But a more thorough player would want to confirm a match.

unique perch
# sage shoal Possible have generated fingerprints that are consistent, but slightly varied (l...

Culd be that finger prints you scan could have general somewhat predictable pattern of distortion...

Like say someone's full fingerprint is ABCDE

So status for prints like: Partial (Edge, Center, faint) which creates predictable patters you could puzzle out like
Partial (Edge): ? ? ? D E // A B ? ? ?
Partial (Center): ? B C D ?
Partial (Faint) just fully random which letters are missing.

Smudged scrambles neighboring letters: B A C D E
Distorted replaces random parts of the code with completly wrong letters: A Q C D E

Then these two could be combined so you can get a a smudged faint print and such

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though that might be getting a little to complex 😄

remote cloud
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I like all of this, and a system like this seems scalable so theoretically it could support different difficulty settings

fathom spruce
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The only thing with this system is you'd have to ensure that all the partial prints at the crime scene have the same partial letters. If you found that print of GT_E and then another partial print of _TQE at the scene it becomes trivial to figure out the full print. I guess that's still doable in the programming though.

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I had a different idea for a partial print implementation. would love feedback. So you keep the existing fingerprint system but you make full fingerprints very very rare as is usually the case IRL. Or as the game already says fingerprints disappear over time they could dissolve into partial prints. You then can implement partial prints using the same code base but you'd have three types of partial prints. Type A would be like the top of the thumb type B would be bottom left and type C would be bottom right indicated by the image. Some subset of the populous would have the same partial print of type A and likewise for type B and C. But only one person when you have type A B and C making the full print unique. So after scanning a partial print if you have a full person's print maybe from their profile you could see it say matches partial print Type A where we have the "belongs to" information now on full fingerprints. This would mean you could find partial prints at a crime scene and then say you're investigating everyone at their work well maybe four out of the six people there have the same partial print type A so it can be used to reduce the number of suspects but not completely eliminate them. Maybe you'd have a really lucky time where only one of the suspects at the job has a partial a of the same type maybe not. With the four letter system without extra programming I could see it being very plausible that even without all the letters only one of the suspects you're investigating would fit the pattern. Sure there'd be other users who would fit but maybe they're at a completely different job unrelated to the suspect. With only three distinct groups overlap would be more likely without extra programming. And then those instances where you do get a full print it won't be about making the game feel trivial it'll just feel like wow I'm Super Lucky this time. Because sometimes some missions you still need to figure out which database you need to look for for that print

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In hindsight if you treated each position first second third fourth as a type as I'm doing then the systems are practically identical. then you'd only have a partial print like G___. So it really comes down to how you would implement it. Either way my idea or theirs I think a partial print system taking up the vast majority of fingerprints with an occasional full print would alleviate the fingerprints op problem.

flat sierra
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Maybe the fingerprint scans would be imperfect. It's always just one scan. Could have it be a % of the fingerprint. Like someone mentioned, simple difficulty you get 100% of the finger scan, while on harder each scan would only give 10% of the fingerprint and you need to collect more to fully form the fingerprint.

unique perch
tough magnet
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The only "issue" I can see is having several partial fingerprints is a bit jarring and that would be quite hard to convey to the player

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Like if I have scanned this print and I have only 2 Digits, why not scan all of the prints in this room to get all the digits logically. Having a partial would be confusing to players if not conveyed correctly

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This could, however, be combated by having a partial be long and each additional scan adding just a little bit of information. And having the initial fingerprint be like 1 letter with a bunch of blanks

fiery cipher
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I generally like this idea, but I am thinking if we want to make them partial so that you have to find overlaps and matches, why stick with the text abstraction? I'm pretty sure it would be feasible to write some kind of random unique visual fingerprint generator and then each scan would give an actual fingerprint image with parts missing, smudged, etc. where we then can really overlay multiple of them to visually find similarities. I would really love to do this in-game, maybe only possible with some special stationary equipment you need to buy at your apartment or something.

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In fact, a quick google came up with a simple shader code example (less than 40 lines of code) that generates random finger prints (not sure if it's okay to post a link here)

stable bone
# fiery cipher I generally like this idea, but I am thinking if we want to make them partial so...

I do really like the idea of actually having to analyze fingerprints. Leans more into the immersive sim aspect of the game than the current abstracted version of fingerprints. Also still leaves a bit of ambiguity even when you build up a full print of your murderer as sometime you might happen to have multiple suspects that have similar enough prints where you still have to collaborate other evidence to single it down.

dire lodge
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Simplified version without playing with letters.
Readable Imprint (Type a) obtained by "Take print" from hands.
Partial Fingerprints (Type a) from items. You need to scan a lot of things in order the Scanner complete Clear print (Type a). Which will then be added to the card. How many Partial Fingerprins? Dunno.

More complicated analis may be obtane on PC.

stable bone
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It also allows the game to introduce unique identifying marks like scars on prints

flat sierra
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Like someone suggested, could have the fingerprint difficulty affect how fingerprints are gathered

thin lake
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Also!! People wearing gloves during murders!!!

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Either removing the fingerprints or finding evidence that gloves were used

plush oasis
# thin lake Also!! People wearing gloves during murders!!!

Yes! I love this idea. Or having killers who clean up after themselves and attempt to remove their prints.

I also like the idea of the print scanner being an item you have to purchase as a later date, or giving it a "battery" that you have to pay to replenish, and it can only scan x number of times before running out of battery

noble knoll
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Giving an actual use to those batteries you find would be great yeah

floral violet
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I love all of these ideas. Removing the text abstraction so that you have to actually compare fingerprints yourself, with fingerprints often being partial or smudged. Killers being able to clean up or wear gloves. And having your electronic equipment run on batteries.

prisma blade
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this would also tie in well with more killer types like higher iq ones who decide to clean up and serial killers with no motive

floral violet
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Yeah i feel like killer types / killer quirks should replace the current "murder flavors" the game has.

I dont want to enter a crime seen and think to myself "ah its a red gum case, time to find the name puzzle paper"

I would much rather have the killer kill people in a unique way that says something about who they are. Like, did they break the door down and then beat the victim with a dumbell? Well they must be pretty strong then. Did they crawl throught the vents? Well they are probobly rather slim etc.

Combine that will randomized calling cards that are unique to the killers quirks and actuall motivations and i think you got a very cool and replayable game

stable bone
# floral violet Yeah i feel like killer types / killer quirks should replace the current "murder...

A system of "killer traits" would work really well and help with making killers feel more unique instead of the half dozen fixed archetypes the game currently has. You could have an arbitrary number of traits that a murderer randomly has that affect the way they operate. You could also tie these traits into the NPC's personality and have cues such as people saying stuff when asked about them that correlates with those behaviors. A killer that methodically cleans the crime scene afterwards might have people say "Oh, They are really organized and think things through" etc.

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The game already sort of has this with the game saying stuff like "they are into music" so it seems the basic framework is already there

floral violet
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thats a cool concept for a killer. You just walk into the crime scene and all of the victims stuff is just extremely organized, in like an unnatural way. like having all the cutlery lined up on the kitchen floor LOL.

floral violet
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Lets say the killer likes music, well maybe when you walk into the crime scene you notice that the gramophone left on, and playing music. And on the next crime scene the same song is playing, maybe you could check out the local record store and see whos a regular. combine that with other stuff like having them be organized, strong or intelligent and letting that play into the clues / cause of death would be really really cool and create truly unique cases for each playthought

icy sleet
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I support having fingerprints be a set of 4 or 5 letters and some being missing based on difficulty.

floral violet
twin forum
flat sierra
twin forum
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I think it would be important to make sure that every apartment had at minimum 4 or 5 different sets of prints to really scramble things so it would be difficult to tell if the killer left a few prints or if a friend was just in that room

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You could even require an estimate of all 4 letters, so if 1 is wrong you'll see prints that don't register as a match even though they're from whoever you're after

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Perhaps using less than 26 letters for each slot would also introduce more coincidences. 8x8x8x8 is 4096, well more than a single city needs but few enough to generate a lot of false positives

twin forum
flat sierra
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cause once you get 100% scan it's definite evidence and every other evidence is a formality.

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Oh and can we have the fingerprints spawn in places that make sense? I don't know who touches the corners of their doors or random spots. I get why though for gameplay reasons but as a detective game why isn't it in the logical spots more often?

serene heath
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All of these are so cool; I’m a huge fan.

It would be fun if the killer was a member of one of the clubs in game (sci-fi, books, etc). Perhaps after a particularly heated debate on Kolob Grieving one sci-fi club member would turn on his pal, and you’d have to attend a club meeting to find the killer.

vagrant sequoia
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Though fingerprints are op in real life too

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If you want harder game just make stuff with no fingerprints

willow mural
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I feel like fingerprints arent as OP as it is our access to fingerprints within a database.

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Jobs having them is weird, our easy govt access at medical ward and enforcer lobby PCs is ezmodo

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Govt databases having every fingerprint on file in 1980 (even alternate) is weird

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Felons, govt workers would have full prints, but the data base having partial prints in line with even ABCD indicators would be alright. Idk how well it would feel in practice if it had partials and we had our access restricted

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But its something to consider, Fingerprints and database access are both symptoms of the same problem, and offer different solutions in adjusting them

flint heron
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I believe you are right
The fingerprints make sense being where they are, still feel like partials would do well as well, at least sometimes.

But the key problem is the auto tie in and the ease of access to the information of them

Workplaces, home places, the gov office can all give you fingerprints, cut down the amount of work places and home places that have these on hand, maybe a random low amount of workplaces and home have these details, and amp up security to gain access to the gov databases, with higher consequences for being caught, afterall, you are a freelance detective, not a government agent.

The consequences for being in places you shouldn't be is not really a thing, and being able to get to them is currently a, well, a joke.

floral violet
flat sierra
twin forum
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but there's also a big thematic consideration. Maybe "you can't get away with shit" is part of the overall atmosphere of the world, in which case leaving your own fingerprints on a scene where you commit a bunch of your own crimes becomes a bigger problem. You can break in to get prints to prove a case for a better reward by $200 but you'll end up paying a $150 fine to do it because your prints are there now too

round bronze
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Just wanted to upvote this and say, good lord, yes, we need more complex fingerprinting. I do like the idea of having partial prints that output as "GT_B" or something.

neat jolt
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well sure, prints can make it really easy sometimes, but i imagine not everyone would like the game if they gad to search for Z_ABC__YZIG_E and if case generates with no other evidence it could make it impossible to solve without print search in gov. database...
and at this point that would make the game easy again and this change meaningless.
love the idea to have a challenging case but id keep it as it is for now
other solution... killers clean crime scenes and/or wear gloves, so then you would have to search for other clues. 🙂

willow mural
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That's a long heckin string. I think 4 is enough, simple, not hard to piece together. If we get partials, then there's room for the game to give us multiple prints from the killer unless they took precautions.

How.. how would gloves work?
Only thing I've heard is "oh and gloves" but no discourse how they would work in a balanced and mechanical sense

fiery cipher
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I suppose gloves means no prints?

willow mural
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But how do we work around gloves, do they open a new avenue of investigation or are they flat dead end tools to hamstring us?

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Top of my head, "gloves type" mixed with use of blood types

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The killer hid their prints with medical/sterile gloves. Victim has A+ blood.

Could point to someone that works in a sync clinic or medical ward to get easy access to those gloves. And finding a pair with the victims blood could serve as the smoking gun we need in place of finger prints.

fiery cipher
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How does one find the glove type though

willow mural
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Could list..
Work gloves, leather, sterile, cotton/fabric. Would leave different textures from handling objects. Or leave fabric residue behind.

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Fabric would include colored string, I see the killer used gloves, red fabric, leather.
Looking for red leather gloves.

fiery cipher
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Killer could throw the gloves in some public garbage bin on the way home

willow mural
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I think, that would get too complicated especially with random generation though

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I do wish killers would hide their evidence. Either tossing it in the nearest trash to the scene of the crime or their home. Maybe hiding the weapon in their own vents.

We seem to rarely use vents as intended, so hiding the murder weapons in the vents might get us in there. Not a topic for this thread though

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As hard as it might make it, I think partial prints, added with the use of blood types and /or DNA to try and tie more threads ourselves instead of auto connecting them, would make it that more killers aren't caught after one kill.

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Having to get evidence after multiple kills and tie the common links together is what I would like more than "oh look, another anagram"

floral violet
# willow mural But how do we work around gloves, do they open a new avenue of investigation or ...

i feel like this is the main problem with fingerprints. Its the be all end all of every case, and if a crime scene where to lack prints the case is stuck lol. There should be more ways to be able to find the killer based on deduction. Being able to tie people to the crime scene based on conflicting alibies, having crime scenes tell you something about the killer by having uniquely generated MO's etc.

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i really like the alibis idea. cause due to the simulated nature of the world you could like actually check if its true! "oh, you where at bar "x"?. Well let me check with the owner then or better yet check the cctv"

flat sierra
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one case, I saw the vent open at a crime scene and I thought maybe they escaped through the vents

fiery cipher
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Ok, I use them to rule out people as well

floral violet
willow mural
# floral violet i feel like this is the main problem with fingerprints. Its the be all end all o...

It's certainly one problem with fingerprints, finding one in conjunction with ez database access does make them and end all in an investigation. Purpose of the thread is discussing changes to make the fingerprinting process more complex. Restricting our access to databases has oft been discussed already.

Ppl lying to protect themselves or their friends/partners would be a difficult thing to detect mechanically, but I do agree it would be fun to navigate around. Maybe a sync disk to help tell if ppl are lying or such.

Maybe add a recording device as an item, allowing us to pin dialogue as evidence. Including an admission that the murderer saw the victim at the time of the killing.

neat jolt
# willow mural That's a long heckin string. I think 4 is enough, simple, not hard to piece toge...

good point.
i wanted to say that i dont think fingerprints should be changed to be impossible or too easy, not everyone approaches the game the same way... BUT ok lets think about glove mechanic.

killer has gloves, but lets say shoeprints can be tracked better.
or we get a spyglass and we find a hair.. then analyze it for dna or something in gov building.
killer could be really dumb and take the gloves off and dump them outside in closest trash.
he could have escaped trough vent (rip glowes and leave print there) for some reason like @fiery cipher said or i mentioned in other post about reppelling trouhg window.
OR we search at the workplace to see whos prints are missing.. then we can deduse who is suspect by them actually wearing glowes who may get ripped in the vents...?

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victim could fight back and injure the killer... then we use black light to search for his blood spots and then search by blood type?

willow mural
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Love the use of blood. I've seen it where victims fight back, murderer had several cuts.

Tracking blood could then lead us to the black market sync clinic for discreet medical attention, or even just the regular wards.

floral violet
# willow mural It's certainly one problem with fingerprints, finding one in conjunction with ez...

oh yeah! if alibls ever get added you should defiantly be able to record them and have that as evidence on your case board. Also i understand how if poorly implimented it could be hard to notice who is lying and who is not but personally i dont really have a problem with it being "hard" per say. Cause unless they add like some strange personality type that lies for no reason, the second someone lies you KNOW they are guilty of something which could becomes just as "be all end all" just like prints

willow mural
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Problem with allot of those ideas is implementing them in a procedurally generated game. So many ways for a script to trip and fumble the case

neat jolt
floral violet
neat jolt
flat sierra
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I suggested hair and blood too. surely they left hair somewhere, and maybe the murderer got injured during the scuffle

neat jolt
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sry.. didnt notice it i guess

willow mural
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Getting parts of a killers profile from the scene sounds like a good alternative to just looking for prints

neat jolt
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but yeah... we get blood types in npc info... there must be a reson for that.

flat sierra
# neat jolt sry.. didnt notice it i guess

don't worry about it, I meant it in the sense that somewhere in these suggestions that I made that suggestion about the hair and blood as well. glad that others agree too

willow mural
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Blood type, hair, reliable shoe sizes that don't disappear so quickly

flat sierra
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footprints could play a bigger role

neat jolt
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prints are also not as usefull IF there is no other connection to victim... like phonecalls,cooworker.... idk

flat sierra
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maybe the murder running away loses their shoe, you can go to the shoe store and ask who purchased this shoe

willow mural
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"the Cinderella killer"

neat jolt
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nice theme for a case...

flat sierra
neat jolt
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thats some noire stuff right there

floral violet
# willow mural Problem with allot of those ideas is implementing them in a procedurally generat...

see i dont think stuff like alibs would be that hard right? it would just be an option in the dialogue tree asking "where were at around (time of death)" and they will either say "piss off", tell you where they actually where (just like when you ask someone where someone else is currently) or lie about it. And if there is no clear way of proving that they where in fact then the lie goes undetected and you grow more doubtful.

willow mural
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I would suggest a new threads to not pollute fingerprint talk lol

neat jolt
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true.. phone never helped me after tutorial case

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right.... how do could fingerprint be improved for the better without us needing anything else? right?

floral violet
# neat jolt right.... how do could fingerprint be improved for the better without us needin...

exactly! Over all tho i feel like the idea of partial fingerprints is the best idea i have heard so far for fixing some of the issues related to fingerprint however, without other mechanics fleshing out the game making it so that even IF the killer where to leave NO prints you could still solve the case using other methods, it wont solve the problem but instead just make the whole process more drawn out. Instead of "who is bb" its "who is BZT_?" followed by taking the prints from all the mailboxes lol.

neat jolt
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so, partial prints? you put them together?
you need ABCD but you get AB__
... and you later find CD,
then you put them together in gov building by filtering them tough all prints that gave AB
and __CD in those places?

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am i getting it right?

willow mural
neat jolt
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ok cool... that mechanic would add to print mechanic and give a reason to add "search database for print"

floral violet
# neat jolt ok cool... that mechanic would add to print mechanic and give a reason to add "s...

well i mean, at the moment the database is pretty OP dont you think? all you need is to get one print and then check the cctv, print all the faces you see around the time the victim was killed and ask people if they know them. Then just go to the database with all the names and check them off the suspect list. More times then not this has instantly solved the case for me, and made me vow to never use it again lol.

neat jolt
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never did that tbh...

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i think that will be worked out by devs in the future, too obvious for them not to know

floral violet
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i feel like this system would introduce doubt into the players mind. Like, if you find the print "DZT_" at the scene of the crime, and you know for a fact that your main suspect is "DZTE" then you know that its probably him. However, how many "DZT_'s" are there actually out there? The fingerprint would become a piece of deduction rather then definitive proof, meaning you would have to find more clues in order to narrow down the search.

neat jolt
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true... had a situation like that, you have a point there and it would make it interesting

willow mural
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I feel like prints belong to friends might be more easily excused for being in the place of residence, and prints in public places shouldn't be easy proof of being at the scene at the time of murder. So we'd need new ways to prove the killer being at the scene.

neat jolt
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but i did have a case in offices where i didnt even have to use prints. victim was poisoned and killer was on cruncher next to him and had poison on her... so...

fiery cipher
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I still want to push the idea of making the prints actual graphical elements you have to compare and match. This is easily implemented and should be the standard for such a game, instead of gamey text representations that remind more of deduction board games

willow mural
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Thematic yes, but how to make it mechanical and fun

neat jolt
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enforcers do leave prints in the scene of the crime if they get there first... so they add elements too... even tho they do have gloves

floral violet
willow mural
fiery cipher
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No AI need, it's a simple few-lines shader to generate a unique print

neat jolt
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i have a hunch that would kinda slow up the game even more than full case board.

fiery cipher
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To be honest, I would much prefer the way it is now than the puzzle minigame with the letters

neat jolt
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same

willow mural
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Still it's adding another fail point for the generation. How do we limit them from being too similar? What about when they break? How do we split them to make partials if that's the route taken?

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Not answers I have

neat jolt
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thats a huge point there

fiery cipher
willow mural
fiery cipher
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Also no slowdowns because you generate them once when the world generates

willow mural
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They'd break bc it's procedural generation xD.

I think you're right about how simple it would be, but not about how reliable it'd be. Not my area of expertise though so I am a grain of salt.

Certainly won't discount it as an option for the devs to consider

neat jolt
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who knows, maybe they do that once they optimize the game more and add stuff to make it a good mechanic

fiery cipher
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I would accept the letter combinations for something like DNA checks, where abstraction is needed no matter what. But not for something that is already 2D visual in nature

fiery cipher
willow mural
neat jolt
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i never knew about that...

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tbh i just fumble trough cases and somehow get them right... 99% luck

serene heath
willow mural
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Well thats still prints,

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So no for the purpose of their question (That i also share)

floral violet
serene heath
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Thank u, he’s just like me fr

flat sierra
floral violet
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I mean yeah, the idea itself is good. Its just that, thinking about how it would actually need to be implimented sounds like it could lead to alot of frustrations and glitches. But hey, im no gamedev maybe its ez, only time can tell.

fiery cipher
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In development, anything can lead to frustration and glitches 😂

floral violet
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Ok yeah but there are some degrees of seperation when it comes to what can go wrong when comparing:

A. The game generates a unique string of 4 letters and ties it to an npc.

Vs

B. The game procedurally generates a unique picture of a fingerprint using shaders, that it then assignes to one of up to 600 npc, that looks diffrent enught to the other 599 prints that the player can notice and distinguish between them.

Add to that the idea of partial prints and it leaves even more room for error and possible oversights.

fiery cipher
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Well looking at what the devs have already managed to do with this awesome game (and being a dev myself, although not in game industrie), this appears as a very feasible task to me. Such a fear should not hold you back from trying to do great things. But yeah in the end the devs need to decide what is worth pursuing

neat jolt
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tbh i like the ideas, but only reason i wouldn't change anything is because after a while, game slows down... game has to work on and render the places, NPC's, items, lights.... even a 7k pc cant run that well after some time.
maybe after game gets more optimized or something, this would make an awesome option to make play life of the game much MUCH longer.

fiery cipher
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Yes of course, optimization and bug fixing is highest priority right now

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I don't think we will see any major changes to finger prints anytime soon

sage isle
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IMO stuff like this should scale with the difficulty

If you want the current game how it is now, then have it on easy.

More random chance with witnesses and complex fingerprints should be on hard etc.

twin forum
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I think the big thing to consider is that the fingerprints may not necessarily need to be more complicated, they just need to have varying levels of information about them

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Right now the fingerprints are on a variable system where it could be 1 of 18278 fingerprints. That doesn't need to get more "difficult" but perhaps an easier fix would be to then have "ranges" that the detective on higher difficulties could narrow prints down with. The desired outcome is uncertainty and the best way to achieve that IMO is if two people, say a murderer and a neighbor, could have similar data and lead you to arrest the wrong person. Maybe the data could be displayed to the player as a series of letters but if we figure ~18K different possibilities, even just assigning each block of 6K a "megaletter (A) (B) or (C)" that is all your scanner finds at first before you have a full set of prints to compare against would make it so you can't just waltz into a scene and profile the exact number of people who were in an out of there

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so I might walk into a scene and see like, a bunch of type a and type b prints, but I don't know that it's actually 3 people, 2 with type a prints. It's not until I do some sleuthing to find information on both roommates, one of the type As and one of the type Bs that I figure out that whoever Wasn't supposed to be there is a type A print. I think ideally it would require that I have to have those full prints beforehand, so each time I have a new suspect, I've either got to steal evidence from the scene with prints on it, or break back in. Maybe I've even got a bad lead, so I break into their work, find they have type C prints, and now i've gotta go back to my evidence to find someone else to investigate, but the info I'm running around with is "unidentified type A and B prints" not "Prints 3 4 and 5 of 18278, uncertain identity" that auto connects as I flip through employee records not knowing what I'm looking at.

The reason I say you wouldn't necessarily want to make it "more complicated" is that I think expert mode would be 3 groups of 6K prints, hard mode would be 6 groups of 3K prints, normal might be 9 groups of 2k prints and then easy would be a type for each letter that has up to 700 potential prints, although even then with only a single "extra" variable it means in a city of 350 people you could expect 13-15 different citizens per "fingerprint type" if distributed evenly. I'm much less likely to interpret 3 people at a scene as 2, but I'm having to do legwork to figure out who each print is

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there are probably more complicated systems that allow the expert levels to be like, "figure out the first letter, then the second, then the specific print" but it almost seems like you'd be designing a second game unto itself or putting a lot of weight on how interesting that mechanic was

fiery cipher
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I'm not sure I understood the suggestion correctly, but it sounds even more abstract and gamey than the other ones. Maybe my opinion does not reflect the majority, but I'd prefer fingerprints to work as "realisticly" as possible without extra rules. That is, a perfect imprint is 100% unique, and if you only get an imperfect one, there's chance you get overlaps. Imperfection can be introduced by inherently bad prints or by bad equipment or bad skill. The letter-approach does that really well (apart from being abstracted to some degree)

floral violet
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yeah no i dont get it either, ironically sounds way WAY more complex then the other suggestions i have seen here. the main problem with fingerprints is not that they are too "simple" or should be more "complex" but rather the fact that they are as of now the only piece of evidence that actually matters, everything else is just fluff. There just needs to be way for the player to be able to take prints from a crime scene, and then be able to take the prints of the killers own hands and still not be able to immediately solve the case. But rather it should inform the player, and help narrow down suspects so that other pieces of evidence might actually be needed to strengthen your case.

willow mural
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I do like the sudden idea of having to link even the obvious details in the style of say "Papers Please" in order to make links on profiles.

I will oft flip through file cases without reading what's written bc the auto connections.

Imagine having to pin a print, it's type AF.
Oh wait, I know someone with type AF prints. Draw the connections, highlight in the profile where the connection is relevant. Print is acknowledged and the name updates from AF to suspects name.

To speed up that process, I could click and drag to highlight multiple prints, items. Etc.

Means I have to read the files I'm otherwise flipping quickly through. Look for blood type, other identifying info.

floral violet
# willow mural I do like the sudden idea of having to link even the obvious details in the styl...

oh yeah that would be awesome. There should be an option to turn off automatic connections and prevent stuff from updating just cause you technically have seen the information in the past. Like you could link a random person to a random print and the print would now be called "name of person: type AF" even if the person does not have "AF" prints. so you actually have to pay attention to clues. cause right now youre correct, its just "scroll through all the pages of a given filling cabinet without reading anything and then check for updates in your case board"

willow mural
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Ugh. more to add in "All in one profiling" lol

floral violet
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LOL

willow mural
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But yes, more "complex " prints might not be the correct solution. As opposed to more diverse/relevant evidence.

The reason we considered more complex prints is that they are the only relevant and commonly used piece of evidence used to put perps at crime scenes and are 100% infallible.

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You make a good point

twin forum
twin forum
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I could walk into a scene realize there's squiggly prints and swirl prints, but the perp has squiggly prints and once i register those it only identifies half of the squiggly prints, and then I get the roommate's prints from their work, those are swirl prints and they match everything in the apartment, now I'm looking for a squiggly printset that I need to bring back to the apartment and compare to what's there and if I find it, then I've got my killer

fiery cipher
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Ok so you mean you just want to restrict the information you can get from a print while at the scene and force the player to go to a specific place (e.g. home) to get the full information from it?

floral violet
# twin forum I could walk into a scene realize there's squiggly prints and swirl prints, but ...

Ah i see, i get what you are saying. That could definatly work if one wanted to try and have the fingerprint be an actual picture instead of a string of letters or numbers.

Unsure how i feel about it as a whole since i feel like it would kind of hurt immersion and feel REALLY gamey, it could also be a pain in the butt if the victim, their partner and the killer all had the same "squiggly" print lol. But its definatly a smart and simple fix to alot of the problems.

twin forum
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if I walk into an apartment and see fingerprint G on three different locations, that could be a thumbprint, an index finger and a ring finger and an actual detective would have no idea that they go together without the full picture of someone's prints to say "oh they both match this database"

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So I think it's immersive to walk into a scene and get a grab bag of info that may or may not tell you roughly how many people were at the scene-- OR if you already have a specific suspect in mind and you've seen their full set of prints, THEN you can go into a scene and go "oh this is exactly where they went"

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So I guess it's two changes in 1 but they're related(Creating that layer of vague "looks like" info and then requiring the player to get a full set from a person or a database before they can confirm that prints are connected to each other), and they basically make it so that the fingerprints aren't necessarily the most logical first angle to investigate, but then if you have another route to the info, fingerprints can confirm a suspicion

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and yeah, I wasn't sure exactly how to express the fingerprint. Maybe even like it is right now where there are different shapes on the wall that ID as fingerprints. use the greek alphabet maybe

floral violet
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Ok wait hang on, now i feel like this is like WAY more complex then what has previusly been suggested. Which i thought was something you took some issue with? Maybe im wrong here.

Immerssion. does not mean realism in this case. Simply selling the Romanticised noir cyberpunk detective fantasy, is enught.

Im totaly fine with one fingerprint being used as the end all be all for each individual npc. There just needs to be some sort of way to obscured the print in a way as to force the player to use other context clues ASWELL.

twin forum
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A 4 letter combination has 456976 possible combinations, however you're forced to either only give the player specific information about that fingerprint, say, the first letter in the sequence, then it functionally works similarly to what I'm proposing, except the actual fingerprint has gotten needlessly more complicated, from a 1 in 18 thousand variable to a 1 in nearly half a million variable.

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The problem with OP's suggestion is that it basically requires the game to use intentional logic in order to mislead you about the prints, because the likelihood of two pieces of data in a pool of a half million possible outcomes being remotely similar to another piece of data is so remote that it won't ever happen randomly. If suspect A is GTQE, the chances of suspect B being GT_E or even GT__ is 1:~18K or 1:~700, which means that on average in the largest city possible, there MIGHT be a single other person with prints that are 50% similar, but I think the odds are worse if those numbers need to be in slots #1 and #2.

Now you COULD instruct the AI to create false leads that emerge like this, but again the only way that you couldn't brute force your way right back to where we started with "I know everything about this print is whose it is" is if you were prevented from getting certain letters intentionally, at which point I say why not just have two variables. The specific print (Same as now, unique identifier) and a print group that it could share with potentially 15-20 other random people within the city. I could be poorly explaining this because there's objectively fewer variables and necessary systems in what I'm proposing??

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Basically right now we have "type A, I know nothing about it" and that would have to either be replaced by "fingerprint profile (!), letters (0) (0) (0) A" or just "You see a fingerprint with the fourth letter A at the scene"

Basically this is relevant because if you grab profile (!) letter (0) (0) (0) A at the crime scene, and then go to the suspects house and get profile (!) letter. (0) (B) (0) (0) then the mystery is already solved.

But if you DON'T give them that ability to organize the data, then scanning a scene would give you I think an overwhelming amount of information

floral violet
# twin forum A 4 letter combination has 456976 possible combinations, however you're forced t...

Im so sorry but im way to drunk to respond to this atm ( please forgive me for any spelling errors) But i think im starting to understand your issue with the way the partial 4 letter system is.

So youre saying that. Becuse the chance of 4 letters generated randomly for 600 people being simmilar is so low, it essentially works the same as it does now. "You have the right prints, it was you" no other evidence needed.

I think i might not have quite understod how your proposed system would work. Could you like explain it from like a gameplay perspective?

So like, i walk into the crime scene and i start scanning. What happens, what gets put in my case board and what does it tell me to help me narrow down suspects?

twin forum
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once you get prints off of say, everyone who lives there, either their body, talking to them, or breaking into their workplace, then you would know what type of fingerprints don't belong, let's say it's one of the ! prints. You might even be able to go to your suspects apartment and prove they have ! prints as well, but in order to prove that link, you have to get the full set (Which is tbh I think how it works now, but you can also just ignore that and be savvy)

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Because if you don't have other avenues of investigation outside the prints, and you just say ''I'm gonna grab everyone with this type of fingerprint" well depending on your difficulty level that could be as useful as knowing the first letter of their name, or much, much less useful

floral violet
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Ah so its kind of like blood type. Its like "oh this person has B type prints"

And B type prints could belong to anything from 4 people to 100?

twin forum
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right

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well, hopefully more than 4, I would say like at a minimum to be useful you want 20-40 people to have that blood type or print type

floral violet
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Yeah, fair fair

twin forum
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so on the hardest difficulty, there's only 3 different types of prints maybe, but if you're on easy, maybe it's letters A-Z

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I think I gave it a shitty name but I also think this mechanic does the thing people want with a minimal introduction of new mechanics, even if it's kinda complicated to explain

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on easy you're probably not gonna mistake someone but it COULD happen. I've broken down the wrong person's door based on a first letter of their name before lol

floral violet
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Yeah no i get it now that makes sense. It is a bit of a shame to sacrifice uniquie fingerprints, but it would achive the same type of solution in a way les complicated way

twin forum
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I think it's honestly probably like, similar to how actual fingerprinting works too. You get a partial and it COULD relate to a bunch of different prints. the thing you couldn't do in this system is grab multiple partials and try and build a full print out of it

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but I don't think that's like, a fun investigation. If you have a little card that opens up when you encounter a new print and fills out a little more every time you get more info on those prints, then whatever you design for it is just, 'well I'll brute force scan everything'

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otherwise it's like, "we got this partial, once we get the perp we can see if it matches but until then it's not conclusive who it leads to"

floral violet
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Like i said before, all i want is a system where i can grab all the prints from the crime scene, and then knowingly or unknowingly grab the prints off the killer themsleves and then still be like "well, i dont know if it really was them, i need to find my evidence"

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It should be ONE peice of evidence in a pill of much more evidence

twin forum
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what I'm proposing, in my estimation would be like, if you wanted to make that connection you'd need to get the perps' fingerprints FIRST and then if you scanned a partial your device might be like, "we know who this is" but otherwise it's just giving you category info

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it's a tool to lock up a case you already have a few pins on, but if you don't have other avenues it's useless

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maybe even have the device have a limited number of "full sets" it can memorize at one time and look for to again prevent brute force breaking into offices and stealing everyone's prints to become skynet

floral violet
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That brings up another problem with the current state of the game, your charathers imhuman memory lol. I do enjoy the idea of having to physically store important informations, so that you dont just randomly walk into a crime scene and be like "oh yeah, i know whos print this is! Its the guy that works at the bar who i meet 3 weeks ago when i scanned a radom cup in the sink"

twin forum
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I proposed something like that in #🕵shadows-of-doubt and it got a poor reception

willow mural
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Well, with the four number system, that each I'd is functionality unique becomes an advantage.

We don't have to get just one number of a scan, I'd think we'd usually get two or three, could be difficulty dependent. And if you have a full print then then game could fill in if prints have more than 2 identifiers.

Avoiding "skynet" I have everyone's prints is going to be hard, unless we introduce a way besides the scanner to collect and analyze prints.

Several mentions of taking a collection of prints to city hall to be analysed have been made. Maybe the problem is the scanner being able to memorize names and give that information on site.

twin forum
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because if you get a different set of 2 or 3 numbers then if you scanned multiple prints you would eventually end up with all 4

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just by scanning a lot of prints. Also, thumbing through corporate files memorizes prints

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basically the thing you want is for a piece of information to show up at the crime scene that could be two different people and you don't know just by looking at it

willow mural
twin forum
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having a repository of data on the city is a choice you can make, but you have to go through the work of making room for and organizing that info

willow mural
twin forum
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so the gameflow is like, you go out to a location and gather as many clues as you can, a single trip won't overload your "inventory" and then you go back home and figure out how it all fits into the grander picture

floral violet
willow mural
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If it's a system where we scan the print, don't recognize it from immediate memory of ppl we've printed for investigation, then we have to take it somewhere else to be analysed from our pinboard.

twin forum
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cause like, if you get arrested for breaking and entering (maybe because your own fingerprints were left on the scene and you left a mess so someone bothered to look) maybe the enforcers find you at home and take a look around

floral violet
willow mural
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I wouldn't limit our mental board, use of the in world board would be flavor. But it would be where we stored files long term. (Home file) so

twin forum
willow mural
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Any profiles we have pinned remain easily identifiable. New prints require us to verify who they belong to instead of us know b.c we saw them before a week ago.

twin forum
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"I haven't solved a case in weeks because the enforcers will break in if I leave. I'm almost out of food. Pretty soon I'm going to have to use that shotgun I stole off a perp and fight my way down all 18 flights of stairs. maybe I'll just jump. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone dying from fall damage"

willow mural
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Once we get them analysed ta city hall and are given a name, pinning that profile would id future instances of that print as normal.

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Then the only way to "skynet" is to have a custom board just for pinning ppl.

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Still possible, but now requires work instead of happening automatically over time

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If we forgot ppls info and prints when we deleted the board we kept their info on, it would also reduce the immediate useful of prints

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Could remember that last 40 people's profiles too

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So if we look at the profiles before we delete the case board, we still know it for abot

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Abit

floral violet
flat sierra
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So you can have 2 fingers matching the crime scene but the other prints don't

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So you still get leads, but not definite without more investigating

twin forum
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or the same "print type

flat sierra
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Just a thought, but I think you had a good idea that sparked

twin forum
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my big point is that creating too many additional variables basically gives the players logical routes to get around whatever puzzles you set up without pursuing other angles of investigation, and I think what people want is to balance the importance of fingerprints so that you have to look at other stuff

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in a city of ~500 people it's very hard to have a complicated fingerprint system that doesn't immediately narrow down who you want based on incomplete information

willow mural
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Fingerprints will always be strong and important, they should be. Can't really get around that.

What we want is to have to engage with the game systems and deduce.
Alot of the problem comes from the game automatically saving, and connecting, those prints to people. Your limited ppl memory had merit there getting us to engage.

flat sierra
humble reef
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I LOVE this idea

icy sleet
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Having to manually link fingerprints to a citizen profile will solve a lot of those, mainly because you have to already be suspecting someone as relative to the case, rather than remembering someone from a random break-in four days ago.