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Devs; why do you keep rolling over the small company & solo player?

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6 minutes ago, Winter Thorne said:

Thnaks to Jat and whoever else participated in rolling this back.

To fix the problem in a better way, it might halp to figure out what problem we're trying to solve.  Abandoned structures can be removed with decay, so we're obviously talking about structures someone is using.   It's hard for players to claim some of the existing islands because, while not already claimed, some of these islands are already built up with other people's bases, outposts, and whatnot.  On the other hand, there are some players who have been unable to claim an island due to company size , cost, lack of appropriately sized islands, who have taken the time to settle and build on other land.  It would be unfair on a pve server for someone to come along and wipe out months of their work, just because they can.

Maybe we can make a distinction between the case where it's someone's main settlement and people are active there, and random structures, like a bed someone just uses for their company to fast travel and gain DP, or a storage box or taming pen someone put up to temporarily gather mats or tames?  It seems like a difference in destroying a place that people "live" vs. destroying something they built far away as a convenience to themselves.

Maybe if there's a real working settlement happening on an unclaimed island, a number of people using it, taking up  all the best building spots , a potential buyer should just pass it up and look for another?

Maybe we should replace the raze mechanic with a Squatter's mechanic?  More than X buildings of X size, and more than X consecutive days of (rendering) occupation, and nobody can remove your stuff?

Conan already does this the best. Pretty simple as well. 2 week timer and if the base hasn’t been rendered in, the minute someone walks up and renders it, it disappears. Worked really well

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Something they have to stop doing is adding more big islands.  Ultimately, if the goal is to get more people on islands, adding islands that only a smaller subset of players can afford isn't going to help.  Granted, with the increase in points, that helps, but that also just made other problems worse, since they gave all companies more points.  Ultimately, all it did was put more pressure on the smaller island ownership and we still have unowned large islands.

You cannot give a solo player enough points to hold two entire islands alone (or is it 3 or 4 now after the bump?).  Having a second island, regardless of company size, should be a high bar.  You have systems in place to encourage outposts (especially without the nuke) on other people's / Allies territory.  

Larger companies should be incentivized to hold larger islands, but right now that isn't the case.  The biggest islands just aren't worth the trouble.  If they offered More diverse resources (say the 100+ point islands had 2 or even 3 variants of resources), allowed a higher tax rate (30, 40%), had a higher chance of maps spawning, or better map quality (to give more passive gold generation), really anything.  But right now, holding 2 smaller islands, to get resource variety, drastically outweighs the value of holding one bigger one.

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29 minutes ago, Archsenex said:

Something they have to stop doing is adding more big islands.  Ultimately, if the goal is to get more people on islands, adding islands that only a smaller subset of players can afford isn't going to help.  Granted, with the increase in points, that helps, but that also just made other problems worse, since they gave all companies more points.  Ultimately, all it did was put more pressure on the smaller island ownership and we still have unowned large islands.

You cannot give a solo player enough points to hold two entire islands alone (or is it 3 or 4 now after the bump?).  Having a second island, regardless of company size, should be a high bar.  You have systems in place to encourage outposts (especially without the nuke) on other people's / Allies territory.  

Larger companies should be incentivized to hold larger islands, but right now that isn't the case.  The biggest islands just aren't worth the trouble.  If they offered More diverse resources (say the 100+ point islands had 2 or even 3 variants of resources), allowed a higher tax rate (30, 40%), had a higher chance of maps spawning, or better map quality (to give more passive gold generation), really anything.  But right now, holding 2 smaller islands, to get resource variety, drastically outweighs the value of holding one bigger one.

You bring up an interesting point and some creative suggestions for how to address the issue. I like the idea of allowing a higher tax rate for the larger island because of the owners try to keep the island free of spam, it is more area to monitor, thus a larger tax reward makes sense.  I’m not as sure about the multiple types of resources. Some islands already do have multiple resource types and I’d be in favor of restricting that to larger islands, but my only objection to this idea is if you make most resources available closer at hand, it reduces one of the incentives for travel, which is supposed to be a core thing.

Edited by boomervoncannon

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38 minutes ago, Archsenex said:
10 minutes ago, boomervoncannon said:

You bring up an interesting point and some creative suggestions for how to address the issue. I like the idea of allowing a higher tax rate for the larger island because of the owners try to keep the island free of spam, it is more area to monitor, thus a larger tax reward makes sense.  I’m not as sure about the multiple types of resources. Some islands already do have multiple resource types and I’d be in favor of restricting that to larger islands, but my only objection to this idea is if you make most resources available closer at hand, it reduces one of the incentives for travel, which is supposed to be a core thing.

Larger companies should be incentivized to hold larger islands, but right now that isn't the case.  The biggest islands just aren't worth the trouble.  If they offered More diverse resources (say the 100+ point islands had 2 or even 3 variants of resources), allowed a higher tax rate (30, 40%), had a higher chance of maps spawning, or better map quality (to give more passive gold generation), really anything.  But right now, holding 2 smaller islands, to get resource variety, drastically outweighs the value of holding one bigger one.

I've been saying for a long time that the game needs more carrots and fewer sticks, but in this case, I think I'm more in favor of the stick.  It's simpler and it doesn't hand yet another reward to bigger companies.  Why not just give everyone enough points for an island that's appropriate for their company size, and then limit them to that size or larger?  Just don't let big companies claim a bunch of small islands.  It has the added benefit of showing clearly how big each type of population is in the game and would help for adding islands that are the right size and not just randomly distributed.

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7 minutes ago, boomervoncannon said:

You bring up an interesting point and some creative suggestions for how to address the issue. I like the idea of allowing a higher tax rate for the larger island because of the owners try to keep the island free of spam, it is more area to monitor, thus a larger tax reward makes sense.  I’m not as sure about the multiple types of resources. Some islands already do have multiple resource types and I’d be in favor of restricting that to larger islands, but my only objection to this idea is if you make most resources available closer at hand, it reduces one of the incentives for travel, which is supposed to be a core thing.

The resource increase does not need to limit travel, if you have the largest of the islands have all resources common to that biome.

That's going to be at least 2 of each type, add to that all creatures, herb's and vegies and you have a rich island that only negates island hopping or near server travel.

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43 minutes ago, Realist said:

Conan already does this the best. Pretty simple as well. 2 week timer and if the base hasn’t been rendered in, the minute someone walks up and renders it, it disappears. Worked really well

Because everything's not a "base".  Sometimes you have a guy dropping a bed on an island so his company can all fast travel to get the DP, and they'll be sure to render the thing enough to keep it around.  Many of them become unwanted spam.

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15 minutes ago, Winter Thorne said:

Because everything's not a "base".  Sometimes you have a guy dropping a bed on an island so his company can all fast travel to get the DP, and they'll be sure to render the thing enough to keep it around.  Many of them become unwanted spam.

Ah ok. So this situation is more ark related.

that could just end up being more complicated than it needs to be. Technically a bed is part of a home, not a house but a home.

deciding what things would be considered what could prove to be very difficult 

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2 hours ago, Archsenex said:

Larger companies should be incentivized to hold larger islands, but right now that isn't the case.  The biggest islands just aren't worth the trouble. 

Agreed. Large companies should also be disincentivized from claiming smaller islands (and thus take them away from the smaller companies they were meant for).

But i don't get the impression that "incentive" is a concept on which anyone at grapeshot had a strong grasp. (Prove me wrong. Just this one time. Please...?)

If too large a company claims too small an island, they should be losing stuff left and right for it, until they unclaim it again.

They need to suffocate from not having enough room.

Edited by user1

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2 hours ago, Archsenex said:

Something they have to stop doing is adding more big islands.  Ultimately, if the goal is to get more people on islands, adding islands that only a smaller subset of players can afford isn't going to help.  Granted, with the increase in points, that helps, but that also just made other problems worse, since they gave all companies more points.  Ultimately, all it did was put more pressure on the smaller island ownership and we still have unowned large islands.

You cannot give a solo player enough points to hold two entire islands alone (or is it 3 or 4 now after the bump?).  Having a second island, regardless of company size, should be a high bar.  You have systems in place to encourage outposts (especially without the nuke) on other people's / Allies territory.  

Larger companies should be incentivized to hold larger islands, but right now that isn't the case.  The biggest islands just aren't worth the trouble.  If they offered More diverse resources (say the 100+ point islands had 2 or even 3 variants of resources), allowed a higher tax rate (30, 40%), had a higher chance of maps spawning, or better map quality (to give more passive gold generation), really anything.  But right now, holding 2 smaller islands, to get resource variety, drastically outweighs the value of holding one bigger one.

This or large island should be broken up into territories.  That would definitely give more opportunity for PvP as companies could then fighting for full control over large islands.

I'll be honest, big islands have been disappointing as a lot of the ones I ventured around pre-Wipe had an unexpected lack of diversity when it came to resources.  A lot of empty space and not a lot of reason to build on them.

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2 hours ago, Nari said:

He has to log in, walk over to a resource box, grab gold, and put it in the flag. It's very labor intensive.

15hrs a day apparently.

I have to grind out maps all week.. or kill pods of whales.. just to allow people to get unlimited structure decay on my island that they do absolutely nothing for.

But obviously.. that's nothing.  I'm sure the guys who grind out your maps.. would understand my point.

Edited by Martyn

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1 hour ago, Winter Thorne said:

Because everything's not a "base".  Sometimes you have a guy dropping a bed on an island so his company can all fast travel to get the DP, and they'll be sure to render the thing enough to keep it around.  Many of them become unwanted spam.

Easy fix.  Remove ability to gain dp's by teleporting or dying.  Must sail into region to get dp.

30 minutes ago, user1 said:

Agreed. Large companies should also be disincentivized from claiming smaller islands (and thus take them away from the smaller companies they were meant for).

But i don't get the impression that "incentive" is a concept on which anyone at grapeshot had a strong grasp. (Prove me wrong. Just this one time. Please...?)

If too large a company claims too small an island, they should be losing stuff left and right for it, until they unclaim it again.

They need to suffocate from not having enough room.

It's great how people make demands, but never have any answers or suggestions.

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2 minutes ago, Martyn said:

I have to grind out maps all week.. or kill pods of whales.. just to allow people to get unlimited structure decay on my island that they do absolutely nothing for.

But obviously.. that's nothing.  I'm sure the guys who grind out your maps.. would understand my point.

Unlimited structure decay? Settlers have a 10 day structure decay just the same as lawless and unclaimed islands. It is no different whether you claim the island or not.

You are now showing your lack of knowledge considering you play so much, or you are just trolling, not sure which is worse tbh.

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1 hour ago, Winter Thorne said:

I've been saying for a long time that the game needs more carrots and fewer sticks, but in this case, I think I'm more in favor of the stick.  It's simpler and it doesn't hand yet another reward to bigger companies.  Why not just give everyone enough points for an island that's appropriate for their company size, and then limit them to that size or larger?  Just don't let big companies claim a bunch of small islands.  It has the added benefit of showing clearly how big each type of population is in the game and would help for adding islands that are the right size and not just randomly distributed.

Why can't the own lots of small islands? Island = number of pts.. more pts, bigger islands or more island.. Oh I see.. because you have no friends.. people who do have to suffer..

2 minutes ago, [GP] Guybrush Threepwood said:

Unlimited structure decay? Settlers have a 10 day structure decay just the same as lawless and unclaimed islands. It is no different whether you claim the island or not.

You are now showing your lack of knowledge considering you play so much, or you are just trolling, not sure which is worse tbh.

No they don't.. You see.. their stuff is protected by the island.. so even if they go offline for months, years, decades.. their stuff is still protected. After 10 days all that happens, is there's a line of text on their stuff that reads "can be demolished".

But it actually can't.

Of course, you'd know this, if you played the game.

Edited by Martyn

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2 minutes ago, Martyn said:

No they don't.. You see.. their stuff is protected by the island.. so even if they go offline for months, years, decades.. their stuff is still protected. After 10 days all that happens, is there's a line of text on their stuff that reads "can be demolished".

But it actually can't.

But you know there's a bug related to that currently. So stop acting like it is intended.

Also that is ONLY CLIENT SIDE. It is not forever protected. You need to understand this.

Also, you get free gold whenever people do treasure hunts, I lose upto 20% of that gold when I do treasure hunts on an island. You also get free resources when people farm on the island. Yet you claim no-one does anything for the island yet you get free resources?

Or do you still not believe that people are taxed gold in PvE?

Edited by [GP] Guybrush Threepwood

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1 hour ago, [GP] Guybrush Threepwood said:

But you know there's a bug related to that currently. So stop acting like it is intended.

Also that is ONLY CLIENT SIDE. It is not forever protected. You need to understand this.

Also, you get free gold whenever people do treasure hunts, I lose upto 20% of that gold when I do treasure hunts on an island. You also get free resources when people farm on the island. Yet you claim no-one does anything for the island yet you get free resources?

Or do you still not believe that people are taxed gold in PvE?

Yes.. I know it's a bug.. I've reported it.

Until it is fixed.. it is intended.

Only client side? If player hasn't been online.. thats 10 days his stuff has been in my way.. minimum.

You lose no gold.

20% is added to island.  If someone else does a map on it.  On some islands, this adds up to alot, on others.. almost nothing, because there are very few maps for my island. Or people don't like spiders.. it's one of the two.

Noone is taxed.(maybe)

Edited by Martyn

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8 minutes ago, Martyn said:

No they don't.. You see.. their stuff is protected by the island.. so even if they go offline for months, years, decades.. their stuff is still protected. After 10 days all that happens, is there's a line of text on their stuff that reads "can be demolished".

But it actually can't.

This post that you actually hit 'like' on, therefore acknowledging you had read it clearly states it is client side only.

 

unknown.png

As you can see, Jat clearly says it is client side only and they are respecting their full 10 day decay timers and can be demolished after 10 days or auto demolished after next restart. I've seen it happen for myself.

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As you can see he is referring to the 12 hours.. not the 10 days.  After 10 days.. they still do not auto demo.  There's ships, shipyards, structure, bases, pens that have been there since day 1 of the re-release and they still haven't demo'd.  There's stuff on islands that's switched owners several times and they still haven't demo'd.

The ship wrecks are still marked on my map..

When someone says something. Research it, before just believing it.

Which obviously.. my bad, you can't do, since you don't play.

Edited by Martyn

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Just now, Martyn said:

You lose no gold.

20% is added to island.  If someone else does a map on it.  On some islands, this adds up to alot, on others.. almost nothing, because there are very few maps for my island. Or people don't like spiders.. it's one of the two.

Noone is taxed.

This is where your 16 hours a day 6 days a week playing fails you because for PvE it is this:

  • Resources farmed is not taxed from player, it is additive, i.e. free resources goes to island owner.
  • Gold dug from treasure maps is taxed. Player loses upto 20% of gold from maps due to tax.

Everyone on this forum will be able to tell you this is the truth, but i'm sure you will say everyone is lieing and that none of us play the game.

Just now, Martyn said:

As you can see he is referring to the 12 hours.. not the 10 days.  After 10 days.. they still do not auto demo.

Keep reading, he does refer to 10 days, and yes they do demo. The issue you are experiencing is that it is treating it in game as a structure that should demolish after 12 hours, therefore the CLIENT believes its decay timer has expired hence why it is saying demolish. But the SERVER is seeing it as an active structure with less than 10 days having passed. But your CLIENT is preventing you from seeing that, hence why it says it can be demolished but it can't.

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4 minutes ago, [GP] Guybrush Threepwood said:

This is where your 16 hours a day 6 days a week playing fails you because for PvE it is this:

  • Resources farmed is not taxed from player, it is additive, i.e. free resources goes to island owner.
  • Gold dug from treasure maps is taxed. Player loses upto 20% of gold from maps due to tax.

Everyone on this forum will be able to tell you this is the truth, but i'm sure you will say everyone is lieing and that none of us play the game.

Keep reading, he does refer to 10 days, and yes they do demo. The issue you are experiencing is that it is treating it in game as a structure that should demolish after 12 hours, therefore the CLIENT believes its decay timer has expired hence why it is saying demolish. But the SERVER is seeing it as an active structure with less than 10 days having passed. But your CLIENT is preventing you from seeing that, hence why it says it can be demolished but it can't.

Really wasting my time with you.  I can read what is written.  The fact is, it doesn't actually occur like that.  In fact, it doesn't occur at all.  What they expect to happen, does not actually happen. How do I make you comprehend? Empty Hand, is still empty hand even if you claim you put a penny in it.. No penny, still empty hand..

As for map gold.. I'll check it.. but I seem to always get more gold for my maps.. not less.  Unless the map gold amount is an avg.

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1 minute ago, Martyn said:

As for map gold.. I'll check it.. but I seem to always get more gold for my maps.. not less.  Unless the map gold amount is an avg.

Try reading what the maps say. They say "Treasure contains at least XX Gold."

This means they may contain more. But to really test it try it on a 20% island. But the fact anyone on this forum that plays PvE can confirm what I say it's not really necessary to test.

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31 minutes ago, Martyn said:

Easy fix.  Remove ability to gain dp's by teleporting or dying.  Must sail into region to get dp.

It's great how people make demands, but never have any answers or suggestions.

Yeah.

I can give you my patreon, and as soon as there is 5.000$ on it, i will give you a month's worth of answers and suggestions, what do you say?

Oh, and coming from the top of my head when i had like 20sec spare time to think about it:

Regarding the large company on small island problem: Leak them dry. Every minute a company is being in possession of a too small island, they lose 100 gold from ALL containers in that region, they do not regenerate ANYTHING while in the sector, and their ships decay at the same rate as in freeports.

Basically, make small islands behave like freeports for them, only worse.

 

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11 minutes ago, user1 said:

Yeah.

I can give you my patreon, and as soon as there is 5.000$ on it, i will give you a month's worth of answers and suggestions, what do you say?

Oh, and coming from the top of my head when i had like 20sec spare time to think about it:

Regarding the large company on small island problem: Leak them dry. Every minute a company is being in possession of a too small island, they lose 100 gold from ALL containers in that region, they do not regenerate ANYTHING while in the sector, and their ships decay at the same rate as in freeports.

Basically, make small islands behave like freeports for them, only worse.

 

So basically you want to drive large groups of players away from the game.. ok.  Well just say that.. you want a 150 region map all to yourself.  Noone else can play there, just you.  A sort of SP massive map.   Mega companies can only live where you want.. but you, can live anywhere..

And threepwood, I'm researching stuff.. aff kinda.

Edited by Martyn
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22 minutes ago, [GP] Guybrush Threepwood said:

Try reading what the maps say. They say "Treasure contains at least XX Gold."

This means they may contain more. But to really test it try it on a 20% island. But the fact anyone on this forum that plays PvE can confirm what I say it's not really necessary to test.

Damn.. I hate it when I'm wrong.

Seems all the stuff we couldn't remove.. is now gone.  Even the old traps.  Maybe it is working afterall.

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9 minutes ago, Martyn said:

Damn.. I hate it when I'm wrong.

Seems all the stuff we couldn't remove.. is now gone.  Even the old traps.  Maybe it is working afterall.

Yup just a client side issue, but glad it is working properly.

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5 hours ago, Archsenex said:

The quickest exploit here is that you only need to destroy one square to demolish the resource box a group has been using.  Then you can loot it.

yeah it is not easy to balance.

of course one would have to place valuable boxes in buildings of reasonable size where it is very costly to remove a part or there might be a limit and parts cannot be removed once a building has reached a certain size or is considered a complete building. at least it would work on smaller obstacles that serve no real use since the fast decay system can already detects those structures.

6 hours ago, Martyn said:

Yeh I suppose if you twist anything around.. you can make it sound anyway you like.

Except for the island owners who do all the work.

Not acceptable.

A timer base instead.  Owner sets demo order, say 2-3 days hence or a week even.  If original owner doesn't log in and stop timer.  Pop goes the weasel. No more spam.  Add timer enable to log with a popup warning if player logs in.

You want to add more gold for us to grind out.. I'll be telling you where I'll be sticking my island.  Or better still.. disable protection for items already timed out..

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1804369383

Like this.. can't be demolished.. even tho it's supposed to have auto demo'd.

i thought about a timer as well but the issue with this is that most foundation spammers are online every day and often live on the same island as the person they try to annoy on the PVE network. if they log in every day and place new foundations there needs to be a way to remove them quicker than they can place them and at the same time it needs to be more difficult to remove something like an active player base than it takes to build said base to balance things at least a little bit. also a timer remove on PVE would mean players go on vacation and loose all their stuff to an free action for the current landlord which was a similar feature removed already earlier.

but yeah they could instead allow to pay the upkeep for the flag with basic resources instead of gold to reduce the gold sinks. but as it stands everything will likely be gold based in the end for obvious reasons 😉

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