Game mode: Online PvE in Official #3731
Problem: [Misc]
I’m just trying to confirm if I’ve been hit with an intended game play consequence (ouch) or perhaps some idiotic vandalism from a player with nothing better to do on a PvE server (hmm).
I have been happily building & exploring & what not on server 3731 PvE for over a year. Lately I’ve been running through the horse addition (meh…) and now capturing, breaking & levelling up suitable fighters & bearers to find the ultimate companions to tag along with me. I spent a few days near the Temple of Frosty Bits having my latest thrall kill Frost Giants as that area seems to return the fastest experience benefits. Getting her to level 20 I headed back to my central base & yesterday I stopped at my 2nd of 3 bases near New Asagarth to find that base has been GUTTED.
I was most likely at my New Asagarth base last Sunday or Monday night (Jan 26-27) before heading N with a thrall so I would have hit the dangerous decay state this Mon night (Feb 3). I showed up to find EVERY door & gate missing along with every crafting bench, artisan, chest, crate, animal pen, Ymir temple & Sanctum of Set all bloody GONE. That’s a loss of hundreds of items & resources plus dozens of named artisans that are major pains to find (Werk of the Lost Tribe, etc.). All my old & new thralls & pets seem to still be there as well as most of the rugs & odd pots & pans I had scattered about but the only built item remaining is my water well.
In checking the Event Log it seems I hit the “item has been abandoned & reached decay state” message on some few items Sun Feb 02 around 0300h but the only significant item listed in reaching decay was the Sanctum of Set - no other benches or items are mentioned at all. Also no messages saying any of these items had been lost or “destroyed by player ___”.
What I’d like clarified is:
My understanding has been that when items hit decay state they don’t immediately disappear but you still have a day or so to recontact & possibly repair hammer?
I’m suspicious that only the doors & gates, then EVERY single valuable item has disappeared but no other building pieces. Makes it seem a wandering player came upon my base as it hit decay & just decided to destroy everything worthwhile with perverse malevolence. I’m not really paranoid (who said that?) but it just seemed unusually broad a smash based on my previous experiences. Is such sabotage that likely OR is it intentional that all our valuable craft stations & stored items just up & disappear shortly after decay is reached?
While visiting that decimated base, I also noticed that the Event Log would say “x” piece has reverted from abandoned or decayed to “normal”… but will reach “decay” again in about 24 hours. Do I need to do more (repair hammer?) to reset the decay timer to the full 7 days?
In PvE I really want the official timer set to 14 days… we’re all there to explore, build, co-op, etc. but may still actually have lives to live and jobs, family, travel & stuff to distract us from our fantasy kingdom.
Steps on how to reproduce issue:
Play PvE enthusiastically for over a year on the same server.
Ignore one base for just over 7 days.
Find 100s of hours of resource & thrall gathering effort totally evaporated.
Allow one small sniffle to escape, pet the cat, stroke the Tavor, sharpen a knife & carry on…
Once the decay timer for a building or a placeable reaches zero, it enters “abandoned” state and a different timer starts ticking. For the next 24 hours, your buildings and placeables are still there, but they can be demolished by any player.
If a building piece is demolished by a player, all connected building pieces will also be demolished right away. That doesn’t hold for placeables – they can be demolished one by one. The usual rules of stability apply: if, for example, you’ve placed chests on a table and someone demolishes the table, the chests will lose stability and be demolished too.
There are many players that keep an eye on other people’s decay timers and set up reminders to check them. Others just stumble upon a decayed building by a “happy little accident”. Some players will try to contact the owner of a (soon to be) abandoned building if they can. Others won’t even bother. Some players will only demolish doors and placeables but leave the structure standing in case the owner comes back to refresh it. Others will convert everything back into “free real estate”.
The only murky detail here is the event log. I’m not sure if the game is supposed to log everything that went into abandoned state or not. I think only the devs can clarify that. I’m pretty sure that logging everything would result in huge logspam, but I’m not a dev or affiliated with Funcom in any way.
The event log only notes 200 items. There is a player who takes great joy in looting bases in PvE these days. He will destroy chests and workstations, cherry picking the stuff he wants. That way, when the loot bag decays, his tag never shows because so much happened after he looted the items. We know, because he’s bragged about it multiple times.
Now, if you are making a pest of yourself and griefing other players, or blocking areas, your base will be destroyed.
We’ve taken to placing a bomb on other players builds when we know they are on vacation. Pro Tip: When a bomb is placed on a building, it takes it back to a full timer. You don’t have to set it off, unless you just want to do it.
I had feared this bug was back.
I was able to open a loot bag of a base that fell apart in front of me just after the Dec thrall update.
I didn’t report it as I didn’t want to bring attention to all those who railed against it’s intentional removal.
I have seen many people leave the game due to coming back from holidays to a doorless, empty shell.
You can try just ticking only “unauthorized inventory access” on your event log. That should show something, unless there has been more than 200 of those since.
Since all my installed stations & chests are gone, I will check the “unauthorized inventory access” tag only as I was unaware of the 200 item limit to see if all the disappearances may be caused by some ■■■■ waffle scum bag with nothing better to do them mess with other people’s efforts & enjoyment.
I have had a couple PS4 friends let me know that a base was in decay - silvercamaro96 I believe was one, so again, many thanks to the good people. I know many of the usual crew on #3731 but there’s been a rush of newbies here lately… so maybe I’ll be checking on their decay states every night I’m on.
@speedice can you clarify the bomb trick? Can I place a bomb on my own base that resets the decay timer to the full 7 days and then it stays at that until you set it off? Or it goes off after the full 7 days? I suppose denial of my goods if I don’t make it back in time would be some satisfaction.
You don’t need the bomb trick to refresh your own bases. You just need to hang around the base you’re trying to refresh and watch the timer (using the repair hammer) until you’ve seen it refresh to its maximum value. You have to do that for every base you want to refresh.
The bomb trick is when you want to refresh a base for a friend who isn’t in your clan. It’s really simple: take an explosive jar, go to your friend’s base, put the jar down on their foundation/ceiling/whatever, watch the timer refresh, pick up the jar. No need to make the jar explode.
If you let it reach decay, it’s your own fault. So dont insult other players for simply playing janitor. You fkd up. Dont wanna lose your stuff? Stay on top of that timer, dont let it reach decay.
You know, I don’t know if leaving a bomb on your own base keeps the timer at full. The only way to check this would be to have another non-clan player check your timer for you, since you’d just reset the timer. I smell a test to be had.
Hat tip to to @Wak4863 for finding, er stumbling across this particular method for resetting timers.
Method was known for a pretty long time… As PvPers were annoyed by it… Because you want to destroy a nearly decayed base and when you place the bomb on it, it had full decay time again
Most (myself included) only thought, that this will never work at PvE… Well, after waks video we knew it also worked there.
@Catspaw Yeah, this “you can take decayed things mechanic” is back in PvE… I was pretty sure @Wak4863 also made a video about this… But didnt find it.
Its hard to say, what is the correct way at PvE (PvE-C and PvP was always different).
I saw many lootbags from big decayed bases infront of me and was unable to gather anything… (was several months ago).
Maybe the best solution for PvE would be: You can take/open “enemies” lootbag, but you cannot demolish buildings in decay state. You really have to wait, until the building decays and turns into lootbags.
I still don’t understand why. The differences between PVE, PVE-C and PVP have to do with the degrees and type of conflict between players.
If you didn’t refresh your base and I demolished it or parts of it, that’s not conflict, that’s either scavenging or janitorial work.
I don’t want to offend people, but it’s really a minimal amount of work to log in twice a week and refresh your stuff. There are only two reasons why you wouldn’t do it:
Something unexpected happened in your real life and you couldn’t make it. Yeah, that sucks, but let’s keep the perspective here – real life has higher priority. These are bits and pixels. We love these bits and pixels and we’re passionate about them, but at the end of the day, they’re bits and pixels. You can get them back if you want. And if you don’t, it won’t have a big impact on your life.
You couldn’t be bothered to invest this minimal effort to retain your ownership of a slice of a public, shared resource. In this case, you’re not entitled to it. If people make the effort to let you know your stuff is about to decay, it’s because they’re nice, not because it’s their duty.
So I absolutely see no reason why PVE should have any special rules about decay, abandonment and demolishing.
The way I see it is that if a base has decayed, the old owners would no doubt want all the goodies inside to go to another player on the server rather than just disappear into the void.
Their resources and armour and weapons get another lease on life and live again through my efforts in looting their stuff.
They truly live on not just in memory but in my hand. For every monster I slay or every improved preservation box I build with their star metal, they live on in one way or another
That’s actually a good way of putting it, if you quit or take a break for some months or a year. I took a break for bout half a year, I didnt know you could take stuff from containers at the time, but that was my first thought when I found out recently. I hope that when I did quit someone got all my stuff so it didnt go to waste.
@Fire, I certainly wouldn’t argue that it’s my error to let a base reach decay, but not yet self-destruct. I also did not insult any particular player, merely the type of player in PvE who would wantonly destroy & pilfer another player’s hard earned efforts for personal gain (if the glitch to gain loot is back) or mere vindictive spite (even worse IMO).
As I said, that base seems to have reached decay mere hours before I was back at it so “IF” another player trashed my stations & crates they are most definitely NOT a “janitor”; they are a least a VANDAL and possibly a THIEF by any definition, ergo well-deserving of any mud I sling on them.
And thank you for the big tip…I shall endeavour to not let my idiotic real life interfere with our fantasy world again. Once more, if I lost all my goods & stations to mere timer decay, then it is absolutely my fault.
For those with smartphones, you can setup your smartphone to play your PS4 remotely. I know at least on iOS 13 you can even use your dual shock controller when you play as well.
Har har with the sarcasm in the real life statement. It takes all but 5-10 minutes to reset decay. For what it’s worth I truly do hope it wasn’t purely theft.
