I’ve read that devs are working around fast fixes for claims and decay, but I felt they are running in circles with that topic. I researched a bit and though some solutions. Straight to the point. Please Read All. Each issue might be adressed with other proposals on this same text
Some definitions and aspects to understand:
Claim: Area were only you and your clan can BUILD. Structure interactions are restricted to ownership.
Owner: player or clan who owns a structure and has full access to its interactions (such as destroy, pick up, etc). In this proposal, you can build outside your building claim and you are still owner of your structure.
Decay: how a structure starts losing hp over time (if decay is enabled on the server).
How to fix Claiming area:
Claiming land should be done ONLY via altars or a specific building for claim porpuses.
Higher tier altars/claim structures will let you claim more area.
Claim Area will need an upkeep cost. Higher tier = more claim area = higher upkeep.
Upkeep costs could be: materials, boss loot, player kills, gold and silver coins, etc. The idea is that it has to be “expensive” to have a large base.
Upkeep contributions will give an X amount of Claim time. Similar mechanic as “fuel”. (I give some examples on a comment down below).
Destroying an enemy Altar/Claim Structure should not “instantly” remove its claim in order to prevent building abuses like building a vault on your enemy base (ty @Lott_Lizzard)
You wont be able to build an Altar/Claim Structure on your enemy base if you destroy their Altar/Claim Structure for a period of time to prevent base “captures” (based on the previous rule).
A “newbie” altar/claim structure should be added so players can claim their first base (with upkeep costs as well).
(optional) Claim could grow/shrink depending on its upkeep meter. If your upkeep meter reaches 0% your claim will start to slowly shrink until the claim is completely gone.
If two rival claims collide due to claim expansions via upgrades, the first claim will take prioriry and will keep its full radius overlapping the other. Possible fix for this: The minimal distance between 2 rival claim structures should be based on the maximun radius achievable from both claim structures. Example: if the maximun claim radius from a claim structure was 30 tiles, the minimal distance an enemy claim structure will need is 60 in order for both not to collide (ever).
Building in non claimed land is still possible and you will have full ownership of your structures. Read how to fix decay.
How to fix Decay:
Buildings inside a claim (altar radius) have reduced decay.
Buildings outside a claim have increased decay.
I know there are several limitations but I will mention a few benefits:
It encourages clans to have few bases because of the Altar upkeep costs. It brings balance and “wheel of pain only” bases will decay if they dont have an altar and pay the upkeep.
No more hidden foundations to claim land around your base to prevent trebuchets. Building multiple altars to claim more land will be possible, but expensive.
Both decay and claim systems benefit from each other. No need for rare algorithms to see how much decay a building have according to its size, bedrolls, campfires or whatever Funcom was thinking.
Of course this is just MY idea of how to fix the current meta and I wanted to share it so you can refine it, bash it, destroy it, reconstruct it and create something that works for all.
Added thoughts from other players
Claim could be managed from Totems or other non religious structure. Crom players would have been in “disadvantage” otherwise.
@Lott_Lizzard Well, my idea originally is to solve claim issues, not changing the whole base raiding meta.
Maybe the claim shouldnt be removed instantly after destroying someone else altar. I did mentioned restrictions for base capture, so its quite similar.
Maybe… the claim could be managed from another building like the Wheel of pain, a throne, a banner or a new structure. The altar idea seemed to fit with the theme of the game and without doubt is a core building that can be upgraded.
I like the idea. If your alter is destroyed say you have a week to rebuild it or your base and land can be claimed by another clan that builds a alter there. I would love to see it made where if you destroyed a alter you can place yours there. If in a week the defending tribe doesn’t destroy yours and rebuild theirs you get their claim. This would definitely increase the PvP and clan wars. I think this is a awesome idea.
the only issue I see with this is that it only addresses the issue on places where you can attack the altar or other players. On a pve server you can do neither so paying upkeep via player kills isn’t possible and gold/silver are rare to come across on low level mobs.
Other then that I like it, I mean so long I don’t have to spend all my time farming for upkeep and can still pay it with something like iron bars or items from from that god, human hearts, unblemished meat, yadda yadda.
Those who choose Crom as god have no alter and therefore would not be able to establish any claim. It would force all to pick a religion on the character creation screen.
Yes, I know a Crom follower can learn a religion inside the game … but why should any player be forced to pick or learn a religion if they don’t care about getting the alter bonuses etc.
The idea is to bring balance to the claim system. Owning too much land in a PVE server might be seen as “abusive”.
Upkeep costs should be thought carefully and be logical for PVE or PVP. The idea is that claim should not last forever and that it requires player activity to mantain. Making upkeep too easy would be as bad as making it too expensive.
Purely hypothetical
Newbie claim radius upkeep:
1 Iron bar = 5hs
1 leather = 5hs
1 gold coin = 40hs
1 worship your god (limited once per day): 12hs
large claim radius upkeep (meant for 3+ players):
1 steel bar = 5hs
1 skeleton key = 48hs
1 gold bar = 50hs
*Disclainer: these values arent meant to be precise or balanced. I just wanted to give an example of claim tiers upkeep costs
This sounds like shadowbane. An old ubisoft MMO that did seiging and castle building quite well for its time.
In that game you claimed land with a tree of life. The more you ranked up the tree the more HP it had and the more you could build around it.
No one could destroy your base unless they planted what was called a banestone. Once that was planted the defender set the time of the siege and the seige ended once either the defenders killed the banestone or the attackers kill the tree.
Yeah, this idea was inspired by how many MMOs out there deal with claim, base protection and decay.
Conan Exiles is quite unique in terms of building flexibility, so it needs a well though system that doesnt ruin this core feature and brings balance (prevent abuses).
Now I’m just going to post the same thing I posted in another thread that suggested something similar for a different problem:
The problem I see with limiting any core mechanic to temples is what about Crom? Anyone who picks Crom is instantly screwed. Now you might say “don’t pick Crom” but then thats just you prioritizing your own PvP preference over anyone who likes the RP and lore aspect of the game.
Actually this idea is just bad, siege weapons become unplacable, building temporary base to raid someone extremely costy, etc i can’t say that anything in this case does worth time to polish.
Current system is already working, it might need some advanced logic for claiming but it does not mean that it’s requires for complete replacement with something which wasn’t ‘battle proofed’
