Solving the PvE claiming flag issues

[Psykonalle 14]

EDIT:

Update: V10.42:

''- The time required to steal an enemy claim now decreases the more Claims that enemy team has.''

Thank you for all the support on this thread! Let's hope and see how this affects the balance of the game  

 

Original post:

The Claiming as well as the taxing systems the official PvE server are broken. There is no limit for claims, the contest timer is three days. Without having to think more about it it's clear that people can claim islands for themselves, putting 30% taxes on them and sometimes not even allowing others to build there. The taxing system on PvP is designed so that both parts earn something. The smaller (Company) earns a safety to some degree by living on the land owned by a bigger, more powerful Company. In return they pay taxes for this ''protection''. This does not apply on PvE servers, as no one is able to hurt another player.

Essentially the claiming system has led to the fastest players quickly moving to any given island, placing claims there without any consequences. At his point, 2 weeks in, it is completely impossible for new players on official PvE servers to find a spot to build on. It's not a matter of opinions, it's absolutely impossible.

PvP and PvE are not the same. That's why I've come up with an idea how to fix this, allowing (up to 40k players) to play simultaneously on their own territory.

You can't put a limit on the amount of flags a company is allowed to place, as there would be no way to have a really large company. What you CAN do, is encouraging people to have FEWER flags and therefore own smaller territories. A simple way to do this would be increasing the risk of losing territory the more you own.

Let me give you an example:

 

The less flags you have placed all over the map (all biomes), the more time others will need to contest it. One claim itself has a fairly big area for a small tribe, and a 3 day timer for only one flag is reasonable. The biggest companies have players on around the clock - even on PvE. Drastically decreasing the timer after a certain amount of claims would solve the territory problem and make the official PvE more enjoyable for everyone. Please note that these numbers are just suggestions. However, the timer should be decreasing fairly rapidly.

1 flag: 3 days
2 flags: 2 days
3 flags: 1 day
4 flags: 12 hours
5 flags: 5 hours
...
10 flags: 9 minutes

 

The update that will take place this Monday(?), that allows the land owner to allow others to build on the land is not a long term sustainable solution. The land owner can at any point revoke the rights and take over the territory. Think about this before you implement it, and may have to deal with it further on.

 

Comments? Ideas? Flaws?

Edited January 9, 2019 by Psykonalle

[TrevorJD 117]

I'd just tie it to the number of members in the company. e.g. 2 claims per member and a grace period of a week or two to recruit or remove claims if you lose people.

I hadn't read about the tenant system. That's bloody madness. It's just an opportunity to grief masquerading as a desirable feature!

[Psykonalle 14]

38 minutes ago, TrevorJD said:

I'd just tie it to the number of members in the company. e.g. 2 claims per member and a grace period of a week or two to recruit or remove claims if you lose people.

I hadn't read about the tenant system. That's bloody madness. It's just an opportunity to grief masquerading as a desirable feature!

Yes, this would also be a step forward. 20 flags is a huge area and possible an entire small island's shore.

I don't see why anyone would even need as many as 10. We were 60 on PvP and the used space was about 3 flags.

Also, people could use alts which would make the game somewhat pay-to-win.

[Psykonalle 14]

Can anyone find any flaws here?

[TalvyrDaryst 2]

They could simple have made it so that each person could only place one flag at any given time. Five people in the company, you have a five flag maximum. K.I.S.S.

[Psykonalle 14]

3 hours ago, TalvyrDaryst said:

They could simple have made it so that each person could only place one flag at any given time. Five people in the company, you have a five flag maximum. K.I.S.S.

10 flags is a very large area. Also quite a lot for 10 people, given that not everyone is online at the same time. Also, the timer can't be three days.

I'd be fine with 1-2 flags (depending on the spot) for my 4-man crew.

[Psykonalle 14]

Bump

[Skody 9]

I’d make it so each person only gets a single primary flag with a very long cool down to contest (2-3 weeks). Companies could cluster their primary flags together for larger bases.  When placing primary flags down the game would require a large buffer between your companies primary flags and primary flags from different companies. This buffer area would be primarily to maintain resource spawning. 

Each person could get a 2nd or 3rd flag but it would require significant skill points and upkeep and have a short cool down. 2nd and 3rd level flags would be to acquire territory in these buffer areas between the primary flag placements.  I’d restrict building in these areas to maintain resource spawning but companies could put a tax on the 2nd and 3rd order flags. This way the buffer region between companies primary flag placements could be used for short term land contesting and taxation for people that like that sort of thing and still keep resource spawns viable. Primary flag placements would be hard to contest in PVE and would mainly turn over when people decide to stop playing.  

[Psykonalle 14]

10 hours ago, Skody said:

I’d make it so each person only gets a single primary flag with a very long cool down to contest (2-3 weeks). Companies could cluster their primary flags together for larger bases.  When placing primary flags down the game would require a large buffer between your companies primary flags and primary flags from different companies. This buffer area would be primarily to maintain resource spawning. 

Each person could get a 2nd or 3rd flag but it would require significant skill points and upkeep and have a short cool down. 2nd and 3rd level flags would be to acquire territory in these buffer areas between the primary flag placements.  I’d restrict building in these areas to maintain resource spawning but companies could put a tax on the 2nd and 3rd order flags. This way the buffer region between companies primary flag placements could be used for short term land contesting and taxation for people that like that sort of thing and still keep resource spawns viable. Primary flag placements would be hard to contest in PVE and would mainly turn over when people decide to stop playing.  

This would also be a step in the right direction.

I don't know about the tax system, though. I don't think it should exist on PvE at all. Building on someone's 2nd/3rd flag territory would be risky, as I assume they could at any point revoke the rights or modify the taxation, making life harder or impossible for those who have built there. In worst case scenario, the owner would take control over the buildings there.

It works on PvP, because you can always turn to a violent solution, but it's not applicable on PvE. It's true that the taxation system is related to this, but I don't think it's a good long-term solution to include taxes in PvE.

I've had several ideas and I keep asking myself: How can this be abused or used against someone?

 

Do you have any comments on my idea? Any flaws or something else that needs polishing? As said, the timers are rough numbers here.

[don 12]

the claimingsystem itself has many problems ...

how to protect active players with a decent amount of flags while making it possible to easy claim land from inactive players or those with  a mass of claims

btw. the number of flags is not equal to the area you claimed wich comes from the round shape and gaps between claims. We for example have 4 landclaimes, that cover the area of abou two flags. one third of the claim is water, about a forth is a cliffside. so our actual building and farming ground is quite small.

so my first suggestion would be, to make fix claimingboarders on each island. like stateboarders in the us for example. so you put a flag inside and know the boarder to your neighbour. With this it would be much easier to set an fix amount of flags per player or company. Another fixed issue with this system would be, that one kind of griefing is no longer possible. The I playe my flag on a small unclaimed corner covering several houses of others. 

Claimprotection on PVE should be a timer from a few days thats refreshs always, when an active player of the company crosses the claim awake. If your hole Company sleeps for four days its your own fault . This of course is no option for PVP.

Also there should be no-build-zones on islands. Just to prevent what happend to some islands where there is no more vegetation because ppls drop foundations everywhere.

By the way: lower the area around foundations with no respawn of trees etc to about 5 meters and animals to 20. I hate snakes in my garden

seaclaiming will be gone today ... and that is good. 

 

ah ... count of flags ... my suggestion:

1ppl = 1 flag

2ppl = 2 flags

4ppl = 3 flags

8ppl = 4 flags

16ppl = 5 flags

and so on ....

Edited January 7, 2019 by don

[Garfy 39]

The problem isn't just that people can spam as many claims as they want, it's that in PVE if they sleep inside the claim, you can NEVER steal it. Not even after the 3 day timer is up. I sailed around the world and saw plenty of claims I could have stolen, except the owner of it built a tiny hut, logged out inside of it and never came back. Most of them have been gone for weeks but since their sleeping body counts as contesting the claim, you cannot steal from them.

 

Another problem is large companies are already splitting into two and exploiting the claiming mechanic. What they're doing is claiming an area with one group, then with the second company, they claim around the circumference of the first claim. What this does is prevent claim stealing from ever happening on PVE. You cannot contest claims with this set up because you cannot put a claim flag too close to someone elses claim (only inside of it). Problem is, since they have two different claims, if you try to put a claim flag in one, it's too close to the other. So you can never steal claims no matter how inactive these companies become.

[Psykonalle 14]

18 hours ago, Garfy said:

The problem isn't just that people can spam as many claims as they want, it's that in PVE if they sleep inside the claim, you can NEVER steal it. Not even after the 3 day timer is up. I sailed around the world and saw plenty of claims I could have stolen, except the owner of it built a tiny hut, logged out inside of it and never came back. Most of them have been gone for weeks but since their sleeping body counts as contesting the claim, you cannot steal from them.

 

Another problem is large companies are already splitting into two and exploiting the claiming mechanic. What they're doing is claiming an area with one group, then with the second company, they claim around the circumference of the first claim. What this does is prevent claim stealing from ever happening on PVE. You cannot contest claims with this set up because you cannot put a claim flag too close to someone elses claim (only inside of it). Problem is, since they have two different claims, if you try to put a claim flag in one, it's too close to the other. So you can never steal claims no matter how inactive these companies become.

I didn't even know about that second part. Not very surprising, though. Whatever one can do, one will do. 

Also the first part, with people sleeping inside their huts with 10 claims on an island... You can't even place a flag there because it won't let you. People who say ''you need to fight for the area'' don't really know what's going on. Not much of a fight if you're not even given the CHANCE to contest.

 

On another note:
We know removing the claiming system would result in pillars all over the map, so I don't know if it should be completely removed. I also know from past experience that living on someone else's ground is not a healthy long-term solution, as the land owner can at any point revoke the rights for people to be/build there - leaving them with a useless base. That's why the ''free-to-build zones'', that recently were introduced(?) won't work. You will be living on someone else's claims, paying taxes to others who have claimed more territory than they initially needed, and you won't get anything in return. It's not really a matter of opinion - it's broken and needs to be modified.

[microphobe 72]

The issue is this, If you remove claim sites, other people will just settle in your resource spawns until the entire island is worthless forcing people to go out and deforest other islands until they are worthless and then nobody can do anything.

The claim flage serve a purpose in PVE and should not be removed, just limited to one per person + 1-2 in the construction tree at around 4 and 8 points cost.

[Psykonalle 14]

13 hours ago, microphobe said:

The issue is this, If you remove claim sites, other people will just settle in your resource spawns until the entire island is worthless forcing people to go out and deforest other islands until they are worthless and then nobody can do anything.

The claim flage serve a purpose in PVE and should not be removed, just limited to one per person + 1-2 in the construction tree at around 4 and 8 points cost.

This is another way to manage the claims. Also better than the current system.

[Psykonalle 14]

Thank you for the comments, ideas and the discussion!

I updated the post, as they as of v10.42 updated the claiming flags with a timer decrease for every additional flag.

I do not know how steep the decrease will be, but if someone would like to tell us that would be great!