Suggestions for reducing server lag, making big alpha clans and their bases more manageable and making the game generally more enjoyable

[Lihak]

Lets start with the issues (skipping glitches because they belong under a different topic). Lately the biggest issue on the pvp servers I’ve played on were the lags which I suppose could have something to do with big mega bases and random landclaims being rendered by a lot of people all over. Another issue in my opinion are the big mega clans and the huge bases they’ve built over the months of being bored alphas with nothing to do except bashing weaklings and building bigger and more fortified defenses, blocking huge areas of the map and making it an almost impossible task for any new aggressor to be able to topple them.

So first suggestion, what I think would be good for the game, is some kind of a limit to how many foundations you can place and how many vaults you can place. Simply because it can’t be healthy for the game having half of the map covered in some landclaims only there to serve some already powerful clans paranoia and making them next to impossible to raid. Technically I could claim 90% of the map on my server and place a few thousand vaults all over and it wouldn’t even take so long. That would cause an instant dead server, some 40 less people playing Conan Exiles.

Of course I understand that the idea requires more thinking over than just simply placing a cap for foundations / clan. It could become hard for a clan to keep track of their already placed foundations. No one wants to be limited by foundations of whose existence they don’t even know about. So here’s an idea: a clan could be able to start 5-10 different building ID’s, each of which can have a maximum of 1000 foundations. And optionally there could even be a marker on their map showing the starting locations of their building ID’s and the number of foundations placed. These limits can be very generous in my opinion, so that we’ll still see big beautiful castles and strong fortifications, but in my opinion there should be a limit of some kind. Also, the limit could be implemented only on foundations and fence foundations, so that a clan could still expand upwards as much as they wanted, but the stuff they add from then on would not be adding huge amounts of security to their base or take over massive amounts of land. This change would result in less landclaim trolling, more fun and fair gameplay and less strain on the server.

Another measure which would reduce the crazy amount of foundation spam would be simply to make black ice harder to farm. In my humble opinion there are currently simply too many teleportation obelisks, making the map seem very small and making all farming super easy and fast. Basically when I want some black ice, which is supposed to be this rare high tier material equivalent to hardened bricks, all I need to do is click a map room and start farming, as if fetching some black ice from my own back yard. I think there should be a maximum of 5 obelisks in a map that size, making long distances less annoying to cover while not being able to instantly teleport to wherever you want. Maybe one at sinkhole, one at sepermeru, one in the jungle, one in the north and one at volcano. This would also make us appreciate horses even more.

Final measure which would make gameplay more fun and exciting for both seasoned veteran clans and newbies trying to topple those clans, would be to simply make the purge and PvE in general much stronger and much more dangerous. In my opinion purge difficulty should be measured by either the amount of blocks in the building ID that is being purged or by the amount of previous purges it has withstood, resulting in old clans with big bases getting insanely hard purges, effectively reducing the amount of blocks they have spammed instead of just tickling their walls a little bit like they do at the moment. Currently purge is just this funny little event you hope strikes as often as possible so you get a chance for some purge thralls, where in my opinion it should be something you’re afraid of and that adds excitement and intensity to your gameplay in a similar fashion as it does in the game 7days2die for example. Hard PvE also increases the need of clans and players to work with each other and creating alliances and friendships instead of just wiping each other and making each other quit the game. Also, in my opinion dungeons should be about more than just bringing a fully equipped level 20 thrall and watching it clear the dungeon for you. Would be amazing to see people recruiting help to clear dungeons in the global chat, although in that case some of the dungeon rewards should also be better or no one would bother doing them.

That is all, thanks for reading.

[Maifailun]

I agree with the motivation of your idea. But i think instead of limiting the building blocks ( from a developer perspective) to make them decay materially (as taking damage) over time would be more accurate. This can be done with a simple formula such as “buildings decayed for 12 hours, takes 1000 damage” ; “buildings decayed for 24 hours, takes 3k damage” etc. That way your main base should be relatively safe from damages but you will have to maintain whatever outpost you had built in the middle of nowhere. And we all know some griefers who block the brimstone lake after they leave the server only to come in every week to refresh them. This would also hinder their attempts.

Imagine you have to repair all the land claim you built over time. You would be bored to death in few cycles of it.

Why does the idea of limit won’t do? Because it would require a general server wipe. You know the state of official servers where there are thousands of buildings everywhere. Additionally, the limit would -in theory- would conflict with the idea of “free build” as a developper stand point. Thats my understanding of the reason why it hasn’t been implemented yet.

[q9c9p]

It was already suggested million times to switch from building blocks claiming to bench claiming, much like in rust with the tool cupboard.

Meaning: a claim bench that when placed down in the base it will enable claiming on all connected building blocks, it should also give an upkeep material cost to maintain the base, if you don’t pay upkeep costs then the base activate decay timer.

This will completely nullify foundation spamming because every foundation not connected to a claiming bench could be destroied by anyone.

[Kaivian]

A configerable server setting limiting how many foundations each player and clan (total of members) could put down would give people control over this. That way players in solo or certain servers can have massive structures, but other servers can restrict it.

I liked how in “grav” you had a land claim object that you had to feed resurces that covered a small area, and you could put down multiples. So you could grab tons of land, but then you were paying massive resources to keep it from decaying.