About a month ago after I think the 1.15 patch Diagonal Support Beams were reprogrammed to lose functionality after a server was reset. There was no mention of it specifically in any patch notes and there have been a few posts inquiring about the “bug” on these forums since. Only just recently someone on PC found the beams have been renamed to Diagonal Decorative Beams after the “500+” patch was released (also not in the patch notes). I have been diligently looking for an answer for the last month which I recently found, not from a dev or a mod, but a player who just stumbled upon the name change in game.
These were a staple in many builders toolboxes and Funcom got lazy and disabled their functionality completely, slapped a new name on it and called it a day. Without diagonal supports this games building is no different than that of ARKs (triangles are just a cleaner way of overlapping in ARK). We need to come up with ideas to actually fix these not just give up and accept what they have done to such a significant part of the game.
I assume the reason diagonals were changed is simply because people were using them on PvP servers to build up and over other peoples bases, dropping pillars from the sky, and dropping in vertically rather than the intended horizontal method. I find this reasoning to be full of holes though as I do not see much of an advantage to this method. Examples: if you blow up one piece the whole thing crumbles; it takes more resources to build a “ladder”; the way to place diagonals from a ceiling piece is a pain in the ■■■; dropping in vertically bypasses maybe a couple walls, you still have to get through ceilings (encourages more creative base building); easy to fall and die inside the enemy base (worth the risk?). Can anyone else think of any other reason why they felt the need to disable these completely?
Anyway, I have a couple ideas that hopefully will get diagonals back in the game at least for builders. I also hope that others have ideas, or support the ideas given, to show how important these pieces are to the uniqueness of the game.
First, just lower the value of support they give to eliminate infinite building. Diagonals used to transfer 100% stability from a wall to a ceiling allowing people to build at an angle infinitely (i.e. if a wall had 100 stability it would transfer that stability to the ceiling it also connected to giving that ceiling AND the wall that sat upon it 100 stability as well). So how about just reducing the transfer of stability to 100% -10 (i.e. wall has 100 stability ceiling has 100% - 10 = 90)? This would allow builders to have the extra stability to make some great, creative structures while eliminating the infinite building problem (though i STILL do not see the “problem”). If a “ladder” of 10 blocks (or 6 additional horizontal blocks depending on how you look at it) is still too threatening to PvP players than reduce it to 100% - 15 only giving 2 additional blocks!
Second, just keep them disabled on PvP servers and keep PvP boring just because a couple people complained about it. Keep PvE out of it! Unless someone can provide one good reason why they effect PvE in a negative way what is the point? The only thing you lose from disabling these on PvE servers is paying customers. I say scratch this option because I can only see the benefits of diagonals even on PvP to keep the game more interesting. Like what type of structure would people come up with to defend against a diagonal “ladder”?
This is not a malfunctioning piece! You can even say you just disabled one of the things that made Conan building unique compared to other games! LET PEOPLE BUILD! IT IS THE SECOND MAIN FOCUS OF THE WHOLE GAME RIGHT!?
Lets get more ideas and support for this topic so the devs realize their mistake and fix it the right way!