#Homicides can be too straightforward to solve, I have some ideas for making cases more interesting.

56 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

jolly bison
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I feel like there are three major problems with replayability once you've retired multiple characters:

  1. The "business butcher" killers are ridiculously easy to find.
  2. Most cases present fingerprint evidence to you right next to the body.
  3. Gun homicides always seem to be preceded by a gun purchase, making it trivial to track down the buyer.

Because of these three things, homicides end up being trivial to investigate and solve. I have a solution in mind for all 3:

  1. Why is the killer just in-house? The cities are full of rival corporations, shouldn't they start being cut throat in their ways of beating the competition? This solves the problem of "business butcher" types being narrowed down to only 4 or 5 people, if all the business people in the population are potential killers.
  2. Less presented evidence, more found evidence. Smokers now leave cigarette butts nearby as a currently implemented example. Stalkers could have left messages to their victim that you'll find in the victim's trash, or nearby their apartment.
  3. Gun stores should be good evidence, but not the only evidence you need. Somehow obfuscate the name of the buyer. Codenames, codewords, there's got to be some noir trope here. Who is this Mr. Magenta that bought a rifle last night? WHO IS HE?!?
barren zephyr
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L: This would doso much to make the game more enjoyable.

wild canopy
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Agreed, this is a cool idea

ionic wren
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Imo, the anagram killer is the easiest to get since not only do you get fingerprints but you can just go through the city directory to find a name that matches.

static dome
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Great ideas here. My addendum:

  • for a copro, if a rival corp kills, give a random chance (about 80%) someone from the company got the tip that this corp is after their corp, so you can find some evidence pointing you the right way
  • i don't see how one can easily implement your weapon purchase idea, with "mr magenta", but at least we can make it so that its not 100% always the case that the last buyer is the killer, and maybe the buyer only bought ammo, or sometimes not at all (so its like, 33% chance last, 66% chance not last, 40% chance weapon, 40% chance ammor or accessory, 20% chance nothing)
  • make repeat anagram killers very rare

But overall, its all about randomness. due to the killers being serial, we can really afford to leave player with 0 leads in case of extreme unluck, like, no fingerprint, not the same corp, not someone they knew, no lead in the weapon store, but it should be very rare. Otherwise, the randomness should make every case fresh, because you never know where you'll find the lead that gives you the killer:

  • may be a note in the trash, like you said
  • may be a v-mail
  • may be a note /diary in their appartment
  • may be CCTV (make CCTV great please)
  • may be in a store buyer record
  • may be in their coworker v-mail
  • may be an exact eyewitness account (visual description + building they live in, where some people will recognize the description)
  • may be a rogue print on their door/workplace (if crime commited not at home)
unborn leaf
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OMg I agree so much with this. I moan every time I see a business butcher and refuse to go straight to the work place of the victim, look at the pictures there, take the fingerprint And arrest the murderer. Get me some more spice.

static dome
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Overall, the game just needs more randomness. I think the devs went for too much "scripted" stuff for their own good. Once you understand what to look for, it becomes trivial to solve almost any murder:

  • anagram: to to government db, type " X" where X is every letter in the list, go through the list of items that pop, find the killer
  • corpo: get a finger from the business card or witness account, rifle through the employee files, find the killer (if more than 1 match: cuff them and see if they talk)
  • lipstick heart: rifle through the vic's v-mails and find who they matched with
  • anything with a gun: find a record of who bought a gun, investigate his/her home/work for suspicious notes
  • old murdering young or vice versa - probably hardest, if no clues are left at the scene (or maybe there is away I dunno)

Like literally, the murders are too scripted for their own good! And devs keep adding more complicated scripted stuff (snipers). While any content is admirable, what we need is just plain old MURDER!

  • robbery gone wrong (victim fought back and died)
  • thievery gone wrong (victim walked onto the thief and died)
  • jealousy gone wrong (killer suspected victim of being someone their partner cheats with)
  • drinking together gone wrong (drinking turned argument ended up in a fight, someone died)
  • anyone just murdering someone they know (for reason only known to them)

Maybe some of these are hard to implement with the way game scripts things, but some should be possible for sure.
And then just crank the randomness up. Random if safe code is in the bed drawer or anywhere at all. Random if fingerprint or weapon is left at the scene. Random if firearm was bought recently, or ammo, or neither. Etc. To account for randomnes, add more lead options - more witness accounts, that can be used to ask "do you know this person", better CCTV, more ways to track people by their features (baker street irregulars?) etc

neon girder
# static dome Overall, the game just needs more randomness. I think the devs went for too much...

let me save you time with anagrams.

The anagram is the first letter of the first name and the full last name.

As listed in the city directory. Unless a homeless guy is the killer, this is the best method to solve anagrams, first name with all the letters wins.

We also need clearer motives imo.

because IRL 9/10 violent crime is commited by someone the victim knows or has frequented.

I approve of the list of murders, because then you can have rare acts of random violence to throw a curveball to experienced detectives.

Most murders are crimes of passion or opportunity, those without reasons are often the hardest to solve.

It would be quite a feat to replicate that ingame

static dome
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Thing is, I think it would be easy to replicate. If anything, all this complicated scripting is a feat. But making random murders is easy.

Just make some npc randomly go into the house of another npc at night, wake up the owner, kill the owner, loot some stuff, retreat - done. Or make some npc visit their friend and murder them. Or make some npc in a bar who is drunk randomly murder someone else who is drunk, retreat, done. Then add some randomness - bottle with fingerprint dropped or not, fingerptint on the safe dropped or not etc.

As long as the player doesn't see it happen, and its very rare, it will look just like what I propose, without the need to code anything complicated, like a killer choosing a rooftop, choosing a victim, placing victim near the window, shooting, spawning holes in window and on floor in proper positions, spawning notes around killer's house etc. Its really simple, all the systems are already there.

dense iron
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adding to this, contract killers could be interesting. you'd have to find the person who ordered the killing in order to find the hitman, or vice versa. either way, two arrests need to be made

distant eagle
static dome
wild canopy
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I think the issue is they keep attaching motives and means instead of keeping them separate for more dynamic combinations. Every time you find somebody killed with "put a pin in it" you know it's a business murder. Everything's too exclusive, the evidence needs to be spread out more because as it is pretty much everything you find is in the murder scene. I wish they'd more often have the murder lead me to a different place that I have to investigate further.

static dome
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I mean, the point of a procedurally generated sandbox is to have fresh experiences every time, which unfortunately Shadows of Doubt is not right now. After you've learnt the ropes, the game is too easy and predictable. 95% of time time the safe code is in the bed drawer. 95% of the time the cruncher is on at work, giving you the code. 100% of murder cases (except the "old vs young") are solvable with zero difficulty. And the more you play the game, the easier it gets as your fingerprint / name / face database grows.

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But with some not very complicated code changes, this game could shine so well, and create a truly unique experience where you'd get hooked for hundreds of hours

neon girder
# static dome I mean, the point of a procedurally generated sandbox is to have fresh experienc...

You know for people like you and me, sure. But have you looked at the achievements on this game?

Something as easy as making a very short game playing 5 side cases and getting retirement? is 1.5% on steam.

The core issue is that there is a devoted fanbase that are heavily invested, but this is a game that they need to make a living off of, and thus need to also account for less experienced players

Buying an apartment, an act you can do after your first case. 7.4%

My point is that there is a huge gap between the very skilled and the newly learning, and you cant complexify the game too fast for new comers, but you must, to keep the old guard on side.

static dome
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I think the solution is the difficulty level. Currently insignificant.

And bugfixes! Even tutorial is unplayable due to bugs unless you're smart and willing to work around bugs and google stuff.

  1. It bugged out on me when I followed the "weapon dealer" lead and didnt update, so I didn't know what to do after I got in the dealer shop
  • the whole weapons dealer lead makes no sense anyway, why does the vic have it in his house, but it is the murderer who bought the weapon there? they never explain theres only one shop in the entire game, so it makes no sense to look for clues there unless that's explained
  1. It told me the weapons dealer PW was wrong (but let me in silently).
  2. It says you should look for evidence in the suspect's flat to tie to the murder, but do you really? You don't need it, all you need is on the suspect (the murder weapon) and on the crime scene (the print).
  3. It lets you exit the crime scene initially without getting the key clue - the weapons dealer. Maybe theres another clue that will help, I dunno.
  4. Its very easy to miss going to the friend of the vic, and miss on the very important +1 inventory disc and +200 cr. It may also bug out and he won't speak to you (the dialoge wont pop up).
  5. The journal (diary) bugs out if you switch cases (maybe impossible in the tutorial but who knows)

5 side cases you say? Read the reddit, how frustrated people are with bugs with side cases. One person literally couldnt do any of the 7 cases given to him in a row! The game also doesn't explain that cases paying >3500 are literally UNSOLVABLE until you raid every single enterprise in the game or cheat the government database, because you get like a print and a shoe size and good luck figuring anything out now.

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The CCTV system isnt explained and is honestly uselss. But even if not useless, you're never explained where to look for CCTV rooms, and how they differ from each other (many people I witnessed went for ground floor business CCTV rooms thinking theyll find 4th floor CCTV footage there).

The witness questioning system is near useless, everyone gives you same one single hint, and even though you're supposed to get only truth, once lead me astray (they told me my murderer lives in the tutorial case appartment, and his description matched the tutorial case victim too).

The profiles of "unknowns" or people working at companies bug out and don't link proprly to profiles you know. Test it - F1 a business, open connections, open someone, you'll see a 4% filled profile pop up with no info, even if you have full info on the guy.

I think if they properly bugfix the game (just look at all the videos of people on youtube who played the tutorial and fix those issues) and explain the stumbling blocks, then it will be a major boost to how playable the game is.

Then, difficulty levels! Have a novice and experienced detective difficulty, aside from combat difficulty (rename it already, so its obvious what it does). Its like old games did it, may people will be pleased. Combat and puzzles separate difficulties. Maybe add Normal too. Leave current as normal, make an easier mode, and a harder mode with all what we suggest in this discord channel (more randomness, less reliable clues and witness accounts, harder stealing etc).

On easy difficulty level, maybe leave the leads there! Like, tell the person they haven't found everytrhing at the crime scene of the anagram killer until they found the note, then guide them to options to solve the anagram (city directory, govnt database).

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Currently this game is kind of an "inside joke", or rather, an "inside gem", so to speak. If you know, you know, you marvel at its greatness, and you enjoy it quite a lot. But it becomes trivial. Before you know, you think its a buggy unplayable mess, and you're frustrated, unable to solve the case even after investingating 30 people and 4 victims already piled up.

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Oh and btw, many people are clueless you can search for things from the F1. They try to find the business in the directory and get frustrated, or do not know what to do when theyre told to go to a street (and spend ages looking it up on the map)

The streets are also not very well defined, and not like we people are used to think of streets (like, where I live, streets are lines from one end to the other, a street very rarely becomes another street without at least a bend, or a lot of history behind how it happened, and i never happens that theres a T shaped crossing, and top right and bottom parts are same street, but only writteon the map in the top right part)

And finding phones on them is quite difficult because of all that

Also, leaving stuff near phones/jukeboxes bugs out, which leads to frustration with your side jobs. And throwin stuff inthe ocean DOESNT ALWAYS REGISTER but you cant retry it if you didnt save, again, why people can't reach that achievement.

hardy void
neon girder
# static dome I think the solution is the difficulty level. Currently insignificant. And bug...

I've a few objections to this

not the bugs, that's all true. Ive never actually used sales ledgers to find someone, so Not arguing there. The black market codes are broken.

My problems start here "5 side cases you say?" Plebbit have a skill issue. Very short game, 6 cases, retirement 6 hrs of game, 1st try

Reddit, has no idea how to be a detective. I studied a similar domain. Journalism. Finding things and people is the job.

I on purpose took the 3k + cases. Anything less was simply not difficult enough, my favorites are the 4k$ cases with ridiculous descriptions like "blue eyes and average height". Do i really want to print out 800 people? 50 sure, 100 ok....but more than that seems inefficient.

SO before taking the case I printed the job paper. I find the client, i find their firends, their neighbours and their coworkers and most of the time the "blue eyes average height" is one of those. the 3k + case are very much solveable. Reddit has a skill issue.

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neon girder
# static dome The CCTV system isnt explained and is honestly uselss. But even if not useless, ...

The CCTV dosent need to be explained. I did not do the tutorial. I know what a camera is, I know how it works, the Loading screens tell you to look for em and where.

The witness questioning system works to find victims , trace their last 24hrs. It also works to find street stall vendors, who's job dosent list their position. A random homeless guy once precisely told me where my serial killer lived when ask if he saw something suspicious, but it made no sense to me so i wrote it off. Now i ask homeless people all the time, Like im the gray fox or something.

And then using the CCTV you can validate what the homeless say.

Take the pic and ask people where the person is, find the workplace and residence

I didnt use F1 much, because it only keeps the last 25 things. (or so the description says)
I built large, elaborate overflowing case files. with far more than the last 25 items i looked at.

static dome
neon girder
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But if you cater too much to them you lose the splendor.

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we want that perfect Dark souls level of difficult to dopamine rush

neon girder
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it HAS to be difficult, or else like you said, Anyone with experience can breeze through the game unhindered. Even without the gov database

after retiring once, a very long game is 12hrs to me of gametime before i can retire again. The game is that easy to me, only rare cases, often because of bugs are difficult. Ingame 24 hrs is 2 to 6 cases to me. I ran into the issue that NPCs couldnt post jobs fast enough for me to get new ones, so I went to bed.

Because it is so easy, you play it once , great experience, you play it again, only if you really like the ambiance. The average gamer i dont feel will stick around in a game that rewards patience and detail observation. Not in a instant gratification market. People find making lists of names tedious on the SoD discord. The outside world arent going to actually do detective work. They door slam and bribe their way places

Further runs are not a challenge. And for a procedural experience, I feel that holds it back alot. New games post your first arent harder, cannot be made harder(combat being harder didnt affect my game, as the game rewards combat avoidance), , just a variance of the same thing you did. The questions change, the answers change, but you have nothing to push you to evolve or grow. Your methods that have worked, will work. (ive only ever used vents cause a floor was locked down and bugged forever closed)

But what of permadeath you may dilligently point out? Dont use it, game too unstable. I Used it, got pushed by an npc into a wall, teleported in a vent, except i wasnt in vent crouch. Had to grenade myself.

The game right now is top heavy. Early experiences are best. I dont wanna say it isnt depp, becuase that would be untrue. But there is nothing inherently made to justify the procedural nature.

ionic wren
# neon girder we want that perfect Dark souls level of difficult to dopamine rush

You have a point tbh, monster hunter is a great example-same for don't starve. Yeah it's tough and you'll die/lose a lot but it offers opportunities for you to explore and learn mechanics. Shadows of doubt can do the same as simply exploring and taking note of what's around let's players learn naturally. That's also what makes people have countless gameplay-because even though it's hard, it has you coming back to figure something out.

oblique nest
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the gun store problem has been worked on in the new update

wild canopy
past owl
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So I think motives need to be explored more and have more depth and variety. And this would come down to how you can track the motive.

so tracking motives needs to be varied.

  1. email evidence of a connection (angry emails).
  2. Angry neighbor. Talking to other neighbours indicates arguments.
  3. Lover dispute (either spouse or mistress/manstress). Possible CCTV and talking to friends
  4. Money, owing money, etc. Financial records.
  5. Organized Crime (mob hit).

And the means for the motive evidence can be varied from my examples. Angry neighbor could be posted notices, emails, arguments at a diner (talking to people for info). I am not sure how they work out the crimes but I would see it as pick a murder, pick a motive, and pick a defined motive track. And some of these can be one offs, so you get that level of detail. Usually when I get multilple murders from the same person, it becomes easier to track down.

gusty quartz
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I agree with you, I think I struggle with a lot of my cases because most of the time there isn't a definitive motive to the murders. I find the side missions easier even though most of the time you get way less information on the suspects l.

past owl
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My daughter is watching an old crime drama (Something about Behavioral Analysis Unit or something) where they do profiles on the killers they track. It has some good insights that can be used in this game which can drive motives and patterns. Sometimes this won't come out in the first killing, and that should be considered OK. I know its fun to quickly find evidence and tag that baddie, but there should be some cases (or maybe a main case) where you cannot get everything you need from the first killing.

spice crescent
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you made solid points

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happy to see more people

jolly bison
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Thank you everyone for all the replies and 👍 . I'll be honest, I wasn't following the thread after I posted it because I feel like if this didn't pick up momentum on its own then it wasn't a good suggestion.

Clearly the basics of this suggestion are well-liked among the community ^^

Everyone's given some great input, but there's something I left out in my original post for the sake of brevity that maybe I shouldn't have, so here we go:

Aside from the aforementioned brevity the reason I kept my suggestion short and focused on what I consider to be the mechanics that make the homicides generally too easy to solve is because they're probably by far the most harmful things to the homicide investigation gameplay.

The game has a lot of moving parts, and I have personal experience on how that can make game development very difficult. Changes too complex will either take months to develop and implement or break things. Right now the dev studio can't afford to make major changes for a major impact, so I've suggested minor changes that I feel will have a major impact.

Right now I feel like the game will benefit from the smallest changes that can make the biggest positive impact on gameplay.

As I said earlier everyone's given a lot of great input and have a lot of great ideas. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a wishlist compiled at the studio of these ideas the devs would love to implement, but they're already really busy working on just the basic v1.0 game and every new feature they try to implement is a lot more workload.

spice crescent
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great text great feedback

spice crescent
jolly bison
spice crescent
jolly bison
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Oh I forgot to say something again in my last post! Re-reading my original post I realized it seems like I called those 3 issues the only minor issues causing major impacts. That's not the case, those are just the 3 that stood out most for me during a couple long grinds to retirement in the latest version.

I think it would be great to have people point out the small things in their cases, homicides or otherwise, that they think trivializes their investigations. Making it way too easy might not be as bad as making it too hard, but it's still a bad thing for the gameplay.

spice crescent
arctic mist
hollow raft
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Yes. Just yesm We need this

arctic mist
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  1. Facts
  2. Basically
  3. Hey, they kinda fixed this by making the gun store ledgers more secure by showing partial names or initials instead of full names!
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I have a feeling that as more cases are added to the game they will become more complex than the business butcher or other current cases. I think the sniper case is a good example of this.
I believe that by release the current cases will be considered starter cases or noob cases intended to help the player get immersed in the game.

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Perhaps as your social credit increases (aka as the game progresses) players will go from receiving more of these new player friendly cases to the more difficult cases

spice crescent
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but it is going out of EA so it will be marked as full game

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maybe in DLC but who knows

dense iron
unborn leaf
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What I would do is, not every murderer needs to buy their murder weapon. Let the murderer use an item they just got a hand of at their home or the victims home.

Then the next thing I see is, murders in this game always end up being mass murders. If someone murders one person, they will murder the next one. It makes sense for the ritual stuff, but the valentines murders are not making any sense to be continous.

If there is one murder and it eitgers goes unnoticed for 3 days in row or does not leave enough clues the murderer will stop and you either have to give up, make it a cold case and put it aside for a time or a murder simply does go by unnoticed. Failing is part of the experiance.

sudden abyss