Suggestion: Make fence foundation / ceiling stacking easier?

Maybe it was not intedned but always could happen do be when developers choose to… Many games take ideas from players and adapt to players style, impement something in game based on that, that’s not a valid argument.
I have given arguments why stacking should be part of game, you got none.

Ironically if stacking didn’t exist then builds would take up more space.
Ie stacking allows to condense footprint. So let’s say I stack 10 deep now. that is roughly 2 foundations wide. if it was “fixed” then I would just go 10 foundations out. So really stacking is better. Both cost the same, smaller foot print. And as of now stacking that deep is the only speed bump to slow offline raiding.

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I really, really don’t want them to change the building system further.

The initial patch to fix the cross fencing killed off several building options that are only possible with mods now.

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They didn’t. They disallowed overlapping building pieces, because those were being so heavily abused that it affected server performance. There’s no way to disallow overlapping pieces while allowing cross-shaped fence foundations without adding more code for that special exemption, so it was most likely easier to just let the cross-shaped fence foundations go.

And before anyone accuses me of being overly pedantic, this was an important distinction. When people start abusing a game mechanic to the point of degrading server performance, Funcom looks for a way to prevent that. Cross-shaped fence foundations don’t lead to degraded server performance on their own, but overlapping a fuсkton of building pieces in the same small space does.

Also, please don’t take this as a personal attack, but I find it ironic that you complain about PVP players requesting nerfs, yet you’re doing the same thing here with the building system. Some of us on PVE(-C) servers use these “exploits” as advanced building techniques (e.g. “laminating” the foundations with ceilings of choice).

I really don’t want building system to be nerfed because people are making their bases sturdier. If that is causing balance problems, find a way to solve those balance problems without crippling the builders. Besides, @biggcane55 hit the nail on the head: nerfing the building system would only make the foundation spam even worse.

So let’s try to think things through a little better and propose solutions that won’t screw things up for a huge chunk of people.

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I never said stacking should be patched out (or fixed). In fact I went out of my way to say that I am not proposing it be eliminated:

I understand exactly why stacking is used, I just disagree with OP that the Devs should ‘make it easier,’ I also pointed out that the reason he said it feels like an exploit, is because it is an exploit.

Let’s not pretend that stacking so many fences into such a small area isn’t having an effect on server performance. There has to be a better way to accomplish what you want without condemning server health.

I’m pointing out again that stacking is an exploit. Whether it’s a social norm in PvP or not, is irrelevant. Bringing excess attention to it, like requesting it be ‘made easier’ will likely have the opposite effect that you are looking for.

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I really wasn’t arguing about whether it’s a social norm in PVP at all, or suggesting that it should be made easier. I was replying to an argument that the ability to build like this should be removed.

As for whether it’s an exploit or not, I maintain the same position as always: the word “exploit” has a pretty clear definition in software, and I prefer to use that one. That definition requires the resulting behavior to be unintended. One way you can be sure it’s unintended is if it requires you to use a bug. The other is to have it confirmed by the devs. Everything else is a guessing game.

To be completely honest, I really don’t care at all if these building techniques are considered exploits or not. Even if Funcom came out and confirmed it’s an exploit, I would still be against their complete removal from the game, for the reasons I already explained in the post you quoted.

I am not asking for these techniques to be made easier – that’s the original poster’s position, not mine. I am simply opposing the arguments to remove it, regardless of whose arguments they are.

Anyone* who thinks these techniques should be removed from all the game modes needs to go look at the Temple of the Gods contest winners. I invite you to pay special attention to the winner in the PS4 category. That build would have been impossible without the techniques we’re talking about in this thread.

If someone abuses these techniques on a PVP server to degrade server performance, that should be reported and handled. This is just like reporting anyone who puts an enormous amount of light sources in a small space in order to deliberately cause client-side lag. These building system abuses do get reported and they do get banned. That should be enough.


* I am aware that you are not arguing for that, DaVice.

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Because math. Stacking does not occupy same space. That was why crossing had a worse impact, and could crash a server.
Stacking is limited. Fences in between cannot have ceiling for each one.

So the math says 10 fence foundations = 10 fence foundations whether 1 foundation apart each or 1/4th foundation apart. Actually to get the same effect it would have more, because now I can put in ceilings and even pillars.

The OP is saying that if offlining is going to be never truly addressed, at least allow us to fence stacked easier.

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Yes it is an exploit. Not a cheat. But so is quick travel/return home trick with beaers. The fact I can have a base without doors on exiles is exploiting the return home feature of thralls. That harms the raid mechanic, as now I do not have to have any doorway exits of base.

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@CodeMage, sorry if my post wasn’t clear. I was utilizing your quote to help me emphasize my point. But I placed your quote in the middle of a paragraph addressed to OP. I was not disagreeing with you or trying to categorize your view. Sorry.

Crossing was definitely worse, no argument there. 10 fence foundations = 10 fence foundations, agreed. Stacking however, is everything placed in a congested space, which does put more strain on the server because it’s trying to load everything at once. As you said, it’s math. If you’re not stacking, even adding ceilings to every piece, still limits you to 2 pieces per foundational square. This means everything gets spread out and the server can load incrementally as you approach, instead of all at once. Spreading everything out however, is not ideal for small hidden basses in PvP, and I am not suggesting it go away.

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Imagine… :joy:

It’s called PvE-C. Every time I join a new servers discord, and someone asks me if I want “immunity” I throw up in my own mouth. Keep your safe spaces on the college campus’ where they belong. :slightly_smiling_face:

Seriously though there is a learning curve to PvP. It can be brutal, and players should understand that beginning on day one. If you need a “safe space” PvP is probably not for you.

It depends what form the fix came in… I am mostly solo, so for me PvP is all about reducing my footprint. Often to the point that I barely exist. So building out 10 foundations… sorry I started daydreaming for a moment… probably never going to suit my play style.
Of course I use my own methods like every solo does, but it would be nice if we had more options.
To be clear, I 100% understand where you are coming from, and agree that would essentially be the result for most players.

Now that is a fact! Dbd should obviously address that. But it will never #stopthestack.

At this point, I see it is as an advanced building technique (and it should remain that way), but some people do get carried away which can cause server issues. That is when I would call it an “exploit”. (Even though technically it always is.)

I strongly stand with you! :joy: I was hoping someone else pointed that out. I’m pretty sure he came in sniffing for nerfs, then asked for a nerf.

This is one of the very rare instances where I would fully agree with that sentiment. I personally would say the result is unintended, but as long as people don’t abuse it I see no problem.

People who do abuse it should be dealt with accordingly. Just as with any other deliberate abuse of the building system.Your example of light sources is spot on.

The only other issue I can see funcom having is the same with animation cancelling, in that the skill gap is vast between someone who can, and someone who can’t.

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You could still make 10 ceilings deep without it, but your also going to have to make the walls around it 10 thick, all covered by the stacks of ceilings with significantly increases the amount of building you’d actually have to do to achieve the same protection

Stacking is a defense against offline raiding, this is true. But really it’s just a defense against raiding in general. If you can build a small base that can stand up to hours of offline raiding you are obviously going to be equally protected from online raiding, with the added benefit of being able to actively defend

On top of this, a large compound is a more tempting target, so just adding more walls and ceilings and foundations might have a similar effect, but it will also draw more attention, thus making more players want to raid you

I get no one likes offline raiding (except those people who constantly do it and then complain when it happens to them) but using a mechanic that the game never teaches players to use it, which actively requires you to fight against the building system shouldn’t be the answer in my opinion

I do really wish we could get a bit of developer insight into the issues of stacking and offline raiding. It seems very clear to me that stacking is an exploit, simply from the amount of work required to get it to happen

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The game teaches you very little. Hardened steel, steel have no 8ngame explanation of recipe. Mostly have to google or ask on first play through on howbto make bars.

And it isn’t hard to do stacking…12 triangles, a few ceiling tiles, a d.few pillars when necessary and you have the blue print fences in place. So working against the system it really is not. The OP just wants to make a gapped of sorts to save time. And with all the calls for insta travel, may have figured it was right up devs alley to make an easy button for this tried and true building style.

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I get the point behind doing it, and I don’t blame players for using it since it’s so widespread, but if the developers are going to take time to make it easier I’d rather have them spend the same time instead giving us a way to reinforce single pieces.

Rather than adding more snap points that players will constantly have to fiddle with to not accidentally snap to the wrong point, give us the ability to make single foundations that are as strong as stacked foundations.

This would allow for the same strength without the game having to render nearly as many pieces

Give players the ability to make pieces 10x stronger at 10x the cost

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That’s a bit of a contradiction there. What he just said was that he is shoving and overly large number of pieces into an condensed area to make his “footprint” smaller while still using the same amount of pieces and resources. That would, if this is the “meta” lead to degraded performance as base after base after base has crammed with over saturated pieces jammed in on top of one another in a section of space that is not designed to hold that many pieces. That being said clearly the devs haven’t deemed it bad enough to do anything about it as they did with the overlapping pieces which were a much larger problem.

Now, I am not advocating for any changes to the building system, but that goes in both directions. Not making it easier to “exploit” the building system or to overhaul it. And I put exploit in quotes because having never built in the way you are speaking I will not claim that it actually is an exploit.

That I can agree with. A change to the build system is not the solution. But making it easier to “exploit” isn’t either. There needs to be a middle ground.

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I can’t see the contradiction in what I said, but maybe I’m missing something. For what it’s worth, I wasn’t, at any point, implying that the foundation spam was going to degrade the server performance more than the stacking. True, I didn’t state that I disagree with that aspect of his argument, but there’s no point, since I ended up on his ignore list for disagreeing with him too much :wink:

At any rate, what I was pointing out here is that one of the many arguments I have against the removal of these building techniques is that it’s going to make another problem much worse: the foundation spam that everyone hates.

Yeah, I’m not arguing for making it easier, either. I personally don’t believe that the cost of development time would be worth the potential benefits for the group of players I belong to and care about :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Besides, like @OctaviousWrex pointed out, it could very well become a UX nightmare. Placing building pieces is already a pain in the ass more often than I’d like.

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ROFL! That is hilarious!

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Let’s not pretend that stacking so many fences into such a small area isn’t having an effect on server performance. There has to be a better way to accomplish what you want without condemning server health.

Everything ‘abused’ to limits will hurt server performance but did you know that stacking makes buildings use less building pieces to have same defensive power? Using ‘normal’ method to build same defensive power will use A LOT more building pieces, a lot bigger construction which will end up hurting server more? biggcane55 already explained it to you.

Excessive fence foundations stacking - #4 by Hugo - You can clearly see developers don’t consider it a bug, exploit or anything like that.

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I do really wish we could get a bit of developer insight into the issues of stacking and offline raiding. It seems very clear to me that stacking is an exploit, simply from the amount of work required to get it to happen

I think raid time window is too big. I understand there’s a lot of fun in raiding, also you need longer time for bigger bases but having to play 5 hours daily to be able to defend base is overkill. Most of people have personal lifes / work…

Rather than adding more snap points that players will constantly have to fiddle with to not accidentally snap to the wrong point, give us the ability to make single foundations that are as strong as stacked foundations.

That would be perfect yet simple solution!

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@Mefistos I concede. In that post Hugo states it is not considered an exploit. Although it was from 10 months ago, I will not argue that point any more.

biggcane55 never said it would take more building pieces to accomplish the same ‘defensive power’ if stacking wasn’t used. He said quite the opposite in fact:

Although he does hold the opinion that stacking does not hinder server performance, but I also explained why I disagreed with that. Which it sounds like you decided not to read, so I won’t bother explaining again. I do find it odd that @Ragnaguard suggested increasing foundation HP in post 13 and you didn’t like the idea, but now it is suggested again by @OctaviousWrex and you say:

Very odd indeed. :man_shrugging:

Very odd indeed.

Only increasing hp would not be solution but I also explained why I disagreed with that. Which it sounds like you decided not to read, so I won’t bother explaining again.