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strycker

How to fix islands and land claims

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I shared this idea with a friend and she encouraged me to post here.  The idea would create an enjoyable game for all players, not just mega companies and people with excessive amounts of time. so here goes my idea...

Lets be honest, the old land claim system was obnoxious, and the new system really only is useful to large very active companies.  All and all, neither system really works for anyone in between. 

Segment out islands into sections, you can own those sections by claiming them.  This is a bit of a combination of both systems without the randomly placed flags or a large company owning an entire island.

How it would work.

Keep the claim point system like we currently have. Companies have x amount of points, and islands are worth a grand total of y points.  The "grid" on the island would be worth a part of the island.  So for example, if an island is worth 60 points and is broken into a 2x2 grid.  if you math that out, 60 / 4 = 15 per section.  The grids would be made so that all grids have access to the ocean.  So grids for a large island would be 2x2, 2x3, 2x4, etc.  For islands that are broken out into multiple mini islands, you could value each island at a certain amount of points since they would essentially all have ocean access.

A company (large or small) could easily own a section of that island as their own.  Obviously difference sections of the island would have various strategic resources (lets think about the Civ games here).  This would spur trading between companies both on and off of the islands.

From a PvE standpoint it would allow all players, in all sized companies to OWN a part of the game.  This would create a dynamic economy, trade routes, land trading, and a player community built around trade.

On the PvP standpoint it would be insane amounts of fun.  As a company out for war, you would have to siege the island from sea, claim a segment of the island to set up a base, and then fight in from there.  It would literally turn islands, especially larger ones, into a legit battle royale fight for land.  This would encourage smaller companies to create alliances to hold large islands, make diplomacy worth something, and make war worthwhile.  This makes me think back to the Eve online days of taking over a system and the insane battles that would ensue.

 

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8 minutes ago, strycker said:

Segment out islands into sections, you can own those sections by claiming them.

Slicing the main grid into grids was a suggestion in the forum prior to the current system being released.

It would not be perfect and some grids would be less usable than others but you would not have over laps. I'd bet at some point we end up there.

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hexes are way more useful than square grids and why wargames have used them for decades, they can easily follow  terrain features.      It solves the problem of prior claim flags being overlapped circles

 

Edited by krazmuze

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Breaking the large grid into smaller grids is a terrible idea.  Hexes could work, but would likely over complicate things.  Keep it simple, something like this. 

 

1425078812_Screenshotfrom2019-04-1911-35-15.png.10151dddd507781c05d6b640b6c35557.png

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2 minutes ago, krazmuze said:

hexes are way more useful than square grids and why wargames have used them for decades, they can easily cover terrain features.

In most games yes, but not in real estate. And this game is already on a square grid system. So, I'd just add a square grid within the current grid. 

This idea would be second to cutting each island by hand, but that would take a lot of work.

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hexes would only cover islands so it is not an issue that the servers themselves are grids.    They are way more flexible than someone else deciding how to carve up an island, it allows the players themselves to decide how to carve up islands based on how many flags they can afford to their limit.

 

Edited by krazmuze

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Even if you decided to hand cut each island, it would literally take a single person 1 day to carve up the islands into segments.  Obviously there is the work of coding it which would take some time, but it would greatly improve the game experience.

Successful execution of an idea is not always easy, but often worth it.  The cost of coding it would be greatly regained by player experiences being improved.

 

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18 minutes ago, strycker said:

Breaking the large grid into smaller grids is a terrible idea.  Hexes could work, but would likely over complicate things.  Keep it simple, something like this. 

 

1425078812_Screenshotfrom2019-04-1911-35-15.png.10151dddd507781c05d6b640b6c35557.png

We're not talking about breaking the current grid. That was maybe not the best way to state it.. We are talking about adding dividers within the current grid for claiming. Much like you have right here but smaller. A full map overlay would never line up so perfectly as this picture. So a smaller grid but just like this and you claim sections of it. Or a group could together claim enough sections to have a block just like this.

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Some of the islands are very odd shapes and have smaller islands like an archipelago.  It would be difficult creating even spaces and most likely you'd end up with some land that is damn near useless. 

 

How many island shapes are there?  Many islands are reused, but the terrain features, resources and wild life vary.  I do not think hand carving islands for a more even distribution would be that much work as you do not have to do this on every single island.  If they did this they can setup a schedule to make modifications at regular intervals to tweak the system.  Best updated during a wipe however as it could put player built structures inside another territory.   

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I believe that this is the a good list prior to the most recent patch.

https://atlas.gamepedia.com/Category:Islands

Something like this would be a bit more complicated, but possibly do a 2x3 cut on this and weight the value of each chunk to 5 points rather than 10, 15, etc.  Each small island would be its own cut, and then cut the main island into 3 pieces.

A13_The_Shadowy_Key.png?version=0a4bbc10

EDIT: There are a lot of ways that it could be argued, but no matter how you slice it, its still better than current state.

Edited by strycker

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Agree at current yo get the whole island is a bit much and now there arent many islands left under 57 actually there are none in this price range 

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8 minutes ago, strycker said:

I believe that this is the a good list prior to the most recent patch.

https://atlas.gamepedia.com/Category:Islands

Something like this would be a bit more complicated, but possibly do a 2x3 cut on this and weight the value of each chunk to 5 points rather than 10, 15, etc.  Each small island would be its own cut, and then cut the main island into 3 pieces.

A13_The_Shadowy_Key.png?version=0a4bbc10

Honestly I don't see why you couldn't just cut into quarters obviously the Left side will get more land and the right side will get less....

But First come First serve and there are plenty of smaller company's who would be plenty happy to get one of the left quarters regardless of how little land is there!

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1 minute ago, Sulfurblade said:

Honestly I don't see why you couldn't just cut into quarters obviously the Left side will get more land and the right side will get less....

But First come First serve and there are plenty of smaller company's who would be plenty happy to get one of the left quarters regardless of how little land is there!

Totally agree.  I was editing it with the comment as you were replying.  You could even just split it down the center and one side is the large island, other side is the smaller ones.  Going back to the KISS principle of keeping it simple.

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2 hours ago, strycker said:

How it would work.

Keep the claim point system like we currently have. Companies have x amount of points, and islands are worth a grand total of y points.  The "grid" on the island would be worth a part of the island.  So for example, if an island is worth 60 points and is broken into a 2x2 grid.  if you math that out, 60 / 4 = 15 per section.  

I just want to point out, your system is the system we have. If you divide a 60 into 4x 15, then anyone who would have owned it for 60 will just simply still own it for 60.

There is only 1 solution for everyone to have thier own piece of land,  if that is your goal.

Use old system of claims,  1 claim per person. Or at least less than 3. Now everyone has a slice. 

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Not that simple.  Most companies will kill Bob's off and unclaim their territory.  Many Bob's will be forced to group up on crappy islands nobody wants.  The carnage and mayhem of all these solos in close proximity would make for good reality TV. 

 

More I think about it the more I like it.  This game needs CCTV cameras, NVR's and big screen TV's added!  Oh and lazy boy chairs and microwave popcorn. 

Edited by DocHolliday

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12 minutes ago, Chucksteak said:

I just want to point out, your system is the system we have. If you divide a 60 into 4x 15, then anyone who would have owned it for 60 will just simply still own it for 60.

Not really.  Rather than claiming the entire island you would claim a slice of the island.  You dont need to eat the entire pie, cut off a slice and its yours.  

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Most people want the entire pie and don't want people next to them they do not know or trust. 

 

Trusting someone right off the bat is a dangerous exercise that has been rewarded and spelled doom for people in the past.  Its a lesson learned the hard way.

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16 hours ago, strycker said:

I shared this idea with a friend and she encouraged me to post here.  The idea would create an enjoyable game for all players, not just mega companies and people with excessive amounts of time. so here goes my idea...

Lets be honest, the old land claim system was obnoxious, and the new system really only is useful to large very active companies.  All and all, neither system really works for anyone in between. 

Segment out islands into sections, you can own those sections by claiming them.  This is a bit of a combination of both systems without the randomly placed flags or a large company owning an entire island.

How it would work.

Keep the claim point system like we currently have. Companies have x amount of points, and islands are worth a grand total of y points.  The "grid" on the island would be worth a part of the island.  So for example, if an island is worth 60 points and is broken into a 2x2 grid.  if you math that out, 60 / 4 = 15 per section.  The grids would be made so that all grids have access to the ocean.  So grids for a large island would be 2x2, 2x3, 2x4, etc.  For islands that are broken out into multiple mini islands, you could value each island at a certain amount of points since they would essentially all have ocean access.

A company (large or small) could easily own a section of that island as their own.  Obviously difference sections of the island would have various strategic resources (lets think about the Civ games here).  This would spur trading between companies both on and off of the islands.

From a PvE standpoint it would allow all players, in all sized companies to OWN a part of the game.  This would create a dynamic economy, trade routes, land trading, and a player community built around trade.

On the PvP standpoint it would be insane amounts of fun.  As a company out for war, you would have to siege the island from sea, claim a segment of the island to set up a base, and then fight in from there.  It would literally turn islands, especially larger ones, into a legit battle royale fight for land.  This would encourage smaller companies to create alliances to hold large islands, make diplomacy worth something, and make war worthwhile.  This makes me think back to the Eve online days of taking over a system and the insane battles that would ensue.

 

I understand where you are coming from and what the Idea should achieve, but it won't. At least not in PvP. There are many points not discussed and thought about in your idea:

- You opperate with the premisse that these Island-parts would get available then and create land to own. Which they won't. Because this would mean weak defense. One piece of land in enemy hands is enough to start dooms day. It gives room for mortas, ramps for bear (those 58+ foundation range will cover a lot then) and much more. If you wan't to protect your land, you can not leave defense in someone elses hand like that. Therefore everyone that claims Islands and also actually hold them (which many don't) will claim the entire Island.

- what would happen with the war-time? south has war-time, the east-side not and so on. Do you know the mess and abuse this creates? Allready now the Peace-Phase creates some things that are not really optimal. Imagine one part of the Islands is owned by a solo-dude that leaves for holidays. His defences are not the greatest, and his war-timer is when you are all sleeping. Next morning you wake up and someone took his land. They changed the timer to counter your timer and now they besiege you. BUT their land is in peace, so you can't kill them. They just run to their land and keep nuking you.
This would also create a complete broken OP way of perma safe your ships. Every part has diffrent war-timer and you just moves your ship & tames from peace-zone to peace-zone. Ofc this is done now as well, but at least you have to sail to the next Island. How does this make good pvp? Imagine this in the hand of strong companies! Such Island will never be raidable and claimable. It will push all the big dogs that are bussy fighting each other currently, to go after the small ones. It will make them completly untouchable.

- Someone might now bring the argument: well the people will have to work together to hold the Island. I am sorry but I call bullshit on this. If this would be an option for the people not owning land now, why do you not use it now? Beause we do! We are a small company and own & hold 2 Islands. We used the entire time before wipe and on PTR to practice and plan our claim. We found our settlers all ready on the PTR and everyone was working together to our common goals. It was hard work, but it is very doable. We have 5% taxes and amazing settlers that love being with us. They are btw happy to not have the responsibilty of owning and protecting the land but still being a very big part of the Island and contribute.

- The Islands and Servers are so extremly unbalanced that Blackbeard truns himself in his grave. This would make it even worse. There are entire Islands right now that are completly useless. They have no till very few ressources. Broken spawns and so on. There are even entire servers that are worthless because key-ressources are missing (no ingots as example). And then there are this extremly broken OP servers with shit like 3 diffrent types of every single ressources (including gems). Most of the Island that are somewhat viable right now, are only viable because of their entire Island. Breaking them into peaces will not create viable land.

I think if the devs would work over the Islands in terms of ressources and spawns and fix that -> this would create new land to own and actually stay there & hold it succesfully. We have an Island on our Server that had nobody owning it more than 2 days... And it's even a big one for 46 points. During our prep-work we came accross so many small Island perfect for solo-players that are simply not viable. It is not possible to reasonable live and grow there. You are to much nerfed by the broken ressourecs and spawns that your defences will be lacking.

Again - I understand where the idea comes from. But it is not thought through till the end. There is btw still claimable land around - go get it!

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20 hours ago, DocHolliday said:

Most people want the entire pie and don't want people next to them they do not know or trust. 

 

Trusting someone right off the bat is a dangerous exercise that has been rewarded and spelled doom for people in the past.  Its a lesson learned the hard way.

This would work fine if the Server WAS WHAT I WAS SUPPOSE to be:

A PvP Server for Small groups!!!  Not a PvP server for Megas!!!

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23 hours ago, DocHolliday said:

Some of the islands are very odd shapes and have smaller islands like an archipelago.  It would be difficult creating even spaces and most likely you'd end up with some land that is damn near useless. 

Which is exactly why wargames have used hex grids for decades.  Make them small and they can very easily follow coasts, rivers, and mountains.   You could have a hex grid small enough that it cost only 1g - barely enough to fit a hut.  But spend 20g you could go up the river, down the coast and over to the mountain.  The very reason that it is arguable how you would macroslice something is why you use a microgrid.

 

attachment.php?s=d88c0ff5529d24718cdca792e9114c18&attachmentid=12584&stc=1&d=1075252605

With hexes you could have someone own the sahara, someone owns the coasts, someone else owns the middle east, someone else owns the congo with a hermit living in Madagascar.  In time that map of who owns what could change (because the game meta changes) because the grid is granular enough it has inherent flexibility to shift borders. Or you could have a several dozen solos all coexisting without building on top of each other.   Or you could have the megacorp spending 100g owning and risking it all at one location.

Edited by krazmuze
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I've had this idea too while testing PTR.  I like the idea of every company being able to own their own land. It really isn't "fun" to be beholden to a landlord.  Most of us are trying to get away from that dynamic in our games!  😆

Most islands can easily hold multiple smaller companies and the current one claim per island system encourages over-claiming of land.   More companies could easily share the existing land. Larger companies could chose to use their points claiming an entire island or have multiple holdings throughout the game. 

In PVP this would give a greater chance of a company being able to have a piece of land as a starter base and they can fight for better land claims.

In PVE it would still be whomever gets there first has the advantage.  But a company would have to keep active to retain their land claims.   (I do think a long auto decay timer should be considered for PVE flags so people don't have to contest flags - the land will just open up.)

On our PVE dedicated servers we work hard to create and maintain a system where everyone can own their own land.   It is just flat out fair. The only people who have an advantage in the current system is those who get there FIRST.  I don't think new players should be penalized that strongly.  No one probably wants to hear this but the only fair way to have a full island claim system for PVE is to have regular wipes so newer players have a chance at a land grab at various intervals. Otherwise, why continue to play a game if all the land is already owned?

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Love how viable arguments that don't agree with the idea get simply ignored and not even botherd answering...

There are many more arguments to the entire list I wrote above that explain why this won't work. Everyone here praising the idea seems to completly forget how many trolls and nasty people are around. Everyone seems to think, they would only get good neighbour and everything is love & peace. Which is never the case! What you gonna do if the one guy that has the sugar-spawns in his part feels funky and builds and entire wall around his land (metal is copper in that case)? What do you do if u have land in the middle and get built in? Can't even leave your island anymore? There are so so many diffrent scenarios that are so much more likely than random ppl sharing an Island in peace.

And if you are not random people sharing an Island then you might as well work together now allready and take an Island.

Btw still waiting for a solution of the biggest issue: how would the war-time be decided and how to prevent this being massivly abused and create Islands that are non-raidable.

People also seem to forget that owning an Island and actually keeping it has very little to do with the available land. There is enough land available. There are still Islands claimable right now - and no I am not talking about some shitty land in the Arctic-regions, good land in good regions. Actually keeping the Island is the hard part. Beside the upkeep there is the defense that is absolute key. The idea of splitting Island will actually make it harder. And nobody in their right mind will share an Island because of this exact reason.

Maybe this idea can be something for PvE - I don't know. But it is absolutly not viable in PvP.

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@Sinappia   For my part I think every section should include a shoreline. So that no one could be  land locked.  For PVP I wouldn't suggest making island residents coexist.  It is PVP.  Someone do something crappy on the island?  Raid them. 

As to PVP times?  Perhaps the map should just be split up for PVP times and then people would know where they want to ultimately settle based on their schedule. 9 hours seems a bit long for a PVP time for people that have jobs and lives.  6 hours of PVP time?  Split the map in large blocks with different raid times?   

Every major redesign is going to need to come with other changes.  That doesn't mean it shouldn't be considered.

As to there being available land now, the game population isn't near what it needs/should be to be sustainable.  Early Access is about designing for the future.

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The idea that dividing islands does not work on PVP is megacorp thinking, if colonies was actually small tribes and solos as originally promoted this would be a none issue.    Just look at the real world there is always divided lands in the world that people are fighting over to redraw the boundaries.   That is why I promote the hex grid because it allows flexible redrawing of boundaries.    Work to gain power to take over larger islands a hex at a time - it should not be given to you just because you are the faster gold farmer.

Edited by krazmuze
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