One of the most recurring problems with building worlds are the “Land spammers”. People that like to claim land for no other purpose than claiming it. They destroy the whole ecosystem. And the fact is that not everyone have the time to report those players. It simply shouldn’t be that way.
Everytime a “land spammer” makes their “giant territory” dozens of players are affected. Many players simply give up playing, because it is not fun to play a game where the whole land is a “no go” for you.
And only using the report system is not enough. It takes time from the players, and takes time from the mantainers of the game.
So I suggest you use the same solution implemented in RUST GAME. In other words, you have to PAY FOR THE MAINTENANCE of your structures. I know people would complain saying “ahh… I ever dreamed about a giant castle…”. Ok.
My Sugestion is a DIFFERENT APROACH. The problem we face is not related to the structures, or the complexity of them but the area they use. So, one solution would be make the “mantainence cost” linked not to the number of structures (ceiling, foundations, etc), but the total area they use.
That wont “solve” the land spamming problem, but certainly would mitigate it.
Linking it to foundations would be a good idea since they are one of the main culprits of lag.
Pay for maintenance is good, and we can add some limitations :
- over 100 foundations, you must have 100 others building pieces to build more foundations (so a real base), and so on …
- 10x10 foundations give you 30x30 land claim for example, so over 1000 land claim to build more foundation you must have *** others building pieces, and so on …
- and a fixed limit of *** foundations per clan.
It will not harm normal players.
it has been asked since the early days of early access, to deaf ears.
I guess that technically, it could be easier to implement. But people get “inventive” allways. They can allways triple that area by connecting one foundation to 3 ceilings just to maximize the area.
Besides that, many people uses foundations in stacks. That is the case when building around mountains and trees. You simply have to use many foundations.
7 DAYS TO DIE (GAME)
I believe that one of the best implemention of an anti-abuse system in Sandbox games is the one used in “7 Days to Die” game.
There, you place a block in the soil, and it creates an area where you can CLAIM and is protected from other players. Beyond that “virtual box” your structure would be much weaker and others can build whithout restrictions.
It is simple to implement and do not destroy game performance.
A VIABLE SOLUTION FOR CLAIMING ABUSE
One of the biggest problems with an anti-abuse system is that it could consume much game performance to keep verifying the state of all structures all the time.
So I created the following logic:
a) There could be a limitation of area of use of land per individual (lets say 500m2 of land) or a “free of taxes maximum area”, and after that “tributes” have to be paid. Or there could be a “tribute to the gods” based in the total area used (whithout “free of taxes maximum area”), so if the tribute is not paid the structures would decay fastly;
b) Every player would have a “TOTAL_AREA_USED” database entry in the game. Such number would be summed only in the placement of the structure and destruction of it. So it is a simple function connected to the placement and destruction of structures, not a permanent ‘check state’;
c) HOW TO CALCULATE THE AREA (in a fair way): The solution is to make a verification if there is a previous structure above or under the structure placed.
IF there is (ceiling placed over a foundation, foundtion stacking) THEN there will not be SUM of NEW_AREA. If the area is CLEAN (up and down), THEN you sum the NEW_AREA at the “TOTAL_AREA_USED”
d) Then, when THE_LIMIT is reached, you could:
i) START_TRIBUTECOUNT and DECAY (if not paid the tribute);
ii) or simply forbid the placement of the new structure since the area limit was met;
I liked land claim flag idea… and ability to refresh decay timer from one location(so no need to visit every flag), this way didn’t need spider webs of foundations connecting all bases, and anything outside land claim flag would decay.
Not fan of whole “cost” thing, real life calls… and when you burn thru resources unable to restock and pay fees… your kinda sol.
The system need to be flexible.
But that is the entire point. If you have a ‘real life’, you wont build a giantesc china wall just because its free.
In ‘rust game’, a ‘normal’ base just need to be ‘paid’ every 4 days, and it is pretty easy. BUT… if you try to make a half-map-sized-base… then yes, you have to work 24/7.
And thats the entire point. The ‘fee’ or ‘tribute cost’ is not intended to make you grind the whole day, but to prevent abuses.
but it’s overweighting the servers’ ram and players’ comupters and also results in lags and “flying bug” my friend. Maintanance cost is mandatory to unweight the lagging servers. I believe that there definitely should be a maintance cost, even cheap one, but still. From what i know as server admin players can spam the structures and objects like there’s no tomorrow. Literally one single person can make the whole server laggy. If you tell me what server you play on i could go into it at make it extremely laggy and simply send it into the oblivion just to prove you this.
On Isle of sipta it can be even worse because there is no purge that could clean things up from time to time.
IIRC this is no a thing anymore, at least according to FC.
Where do they write about it?
I remember reading about it being fixed in a random patch note, months ago
Please no; at least not a maintenance system like Rust. This is a game, a time sink for your entertainment, and whether you’re a hardcore player or a casual, part of your gameplay time shouldn’t be grinding for enough things to prevent your base just from decaying.
It’s also worth considering that Rust’s decay system in it’s current form is one of the reasons servers have such a dramatic drop in their player base between wipes - you build, you get raided, the tool cupboard is emptied, the base decays, you log in and everything is gone, you log out.
I agree that there should be restrictions for growth of a player. He should be targeted more often by the Purge for example. It doesnt matter if it is a big clan of players aswell. (Alt accounts is a big issue aswell)
There is no problem for single player or admin setting , but its pretty much a roadblock for mmo side of the game; preventing other players enjoy the game together and have to watch some big ego player and his alts (and his friends’ alts) building sand castles allaround the map; ignoring and blockading the fun experience of other players at the server.
It would be great if developers themselves had put restrictions to ever- expanding settlements; but also resizing the scaling of the structures…smaller size please. (But also adding extra salty Purge action to anyone who try to bypass the retrictions).
Another idea would be Thrall/Pet revolt when the player over-grows too much. Attacking property and avatar of their own masters; top of those saltier purges. 
i’ve been asking for this for a long time, maybe not an exact copy to rust’s system but something to prevent spammers to stop spamming, also to discourage the other players that only build giantic monuments and castles that they don’t even use.
I don’t really know if they are going to implement some kind of “cap” mechanic for land claiming, but they day the do it, it will be a happy day.
Conan Exiles lacks the game content to put real restrictions on player bases. The main draw to Conan Exiles is it’s building simulator aspect. It’s pretty and you can build anything. PvP is secondary to that, cause the whole purpose of PvPing is to protect your base, or destroy someone elses. If Conan Exiles did a lot of work polishing things like it’s user interface, gave skills and items deeper meanings/rework, and allowed buildings to be more permanent… I would absolutely support hard limits to structures. But as it is now, placing restrictions on buildings would be removing a huge draw to even playing the game. PvP isn’t perfect, the leveling system and skill/perk system is basic at best. Nothing is permanent, or worth sticking around for. We all know the feeling of losing it all, for one reason or another. So removing the ability to go ham on your builds, without making a lot of other changes at the same time… is border line suicide.
I got 3000_+ hours of Rust. That is not the point. The servers ever get empty when we are close to a “WIPE” (the entire server is cleaned from structures). This is so true that the it happens (server empty) when you get close to the “wipe day”, so there is no point in building anymore.
The PROBLEM with Rust is exactly such “wipe” system. Because you do not build as properly or safe as you would if your base where permanente (no wipe).
And the “maintenance system” is a great invention. I was there, since the beggininig, when there was no cost at all (just like now in Conan). And what happened was prety much a previsible human behavior.
We will keep expanding, if there are no consequences. Rust EMULATES a real world. A ECOLOGICAL one. If you consume too much, you’ll end with no resources. If you spam structures, you’ll get to pay for them.
And you can build pretty much big structures. There is no “grinding” if you play NORMALLY. A normal base can be mantained with some minutes of bashing rocks…
But if you plan to ocuppy 50% of the map? Well… In Rust it’s impossible in terms of cost. In Conan, a ridiculous reality.
Human beings can not use resources with no consequences. Real or virtual. The bahavior of abuse is completely previsible.
Not really. At the present system, we can only play “IF” there is no toxic players in the vicinity. If someone wants, it is really easy to ruin a complete server within just a couple of ours. And that is happening over and over.
ECO SERVERS - A VIABLE SOLUTION
We know that there are people who would love the keep building castles of the size of half map, no matter ir destroys the experience for everyone else.
So let’s make a CHOICE for others to play. Create ECO-SERVERS, with foundations limits or maintenance costs. So, those who prefer that way can have a choice.
Wanna play in servers crowded of sand foundations everywere, laggy and impossible to walk? Go to your vanilla server and be happy.
But please FUNCOM, give us, who think otherwise a chance. Create us ECO-SERVERS. That way Funcom could make everyone happy. And make an experiment at the same time.
The original servers could have limits for the size of the structures the players could build. Today I started a new official server. Not only the riverside, but also the mid zone; the entire map ;but especially those places which used to be georgeous virtual habitats filled with rich fauna and flora was almost entirely destroyed.
There was skyscrappers anywhere I looked at and animal spawn locations were delibarelty blocked you could see the spawn locations). It would be nice if those strcutres were in the middle of nowhere far awat at far west, far east or far north. I would call that a succes and hardwork. But filling up the entire south and mid zone (the fertile lands) with junk castles and junkk skyscrappers, junk blocks and junk stairs (some of them were t3 structures!) was pretty ugly to watch.
Not only that there was armies of neverending swarms of pets and thralls making it even worse. (There was no live/online player anywhere)
As a reminder. Not only the insane amounts of lag but I got pinpointed and could not move at the open field (not between rocks, trees, whatsover…) whenever I was nearby those construction areas. Npcs could still attack but my avatar could not even move; somehow seemed to be pushed back whenever he stepped ahead of the pin spots.
I wish devs put some real rules and add more of those protected servers and keep the number of ,thrashed riverside servers, low. Isnt it meant to be log in , at admin mode or solo mode to build any type of fantasy structure, flying over the structure and share it at youtube afterwards ? Why would someone do this at south and mid zone at multiplayer server. It is a mystery.
At online servers, The Southern and Central zones should have restrictions for settlemnts ; such as a template rule for construction width and height. Also blocking animal and resource spots should be prohibited.