Hey. I’ve been thinking a lot about an elegant way to combat foundation spam. Here’s my idea.
Purge bar increase should be tied to claim area increase instead of just number of building pieces.
Here are two examples of implementation :
Let’s say everything stays the same in radius of 30 blocks of your base. However if you build a larger claim, purge bar increases x times faster (i’d use x = max(1, (total_claim_radius - 25)/5))
Blocks outside certain cumulative claim radius for a clan increase purge bar passively. Maximum claim radius for a clan could be set with 100 + 30 * clan member for example.
This will limit enormous bases in PvP - but thinking of it is it really a bad thing? You can build an enormous base in a 100-150 blocks claim radius, been playing since the beginning and i rarely see such monstrosities in PvP.
I think that will provide an incentive for people to build huge bases, because that way they get purged more often. Since the Purge is restricted to certain hours, it’s pretty easy to prepare and if you can guarantee you’ll get one each day, so much the better – more chance of catching Purge-specific thralls and even of kiting the Purge to someone else’s base.
That’s pretty much exactly what I was thinking. For a lot of people, purges are something they want more of, so this would just encourage them to build even bigger. Purges are only really dangerous if you are ill prepared for them.
You are both right. However this is easily fixed by parameters - probability of purge with good thralls decreases with the total land claim size. Let spammers have yetis and snakes all the time. Increase the difficulty of purge based on total land claim size. This would require some testing but I’m sure that a system like that could destroy spam and keep genuine bases intact.
Also don’t forget purges are dangerous in PvP because you have to divide your attention elsewhere and are vulnerable to raid.
Some of us don’t play Rust. We know of it from our pals, but Claim Bench doesn’t mean anything to me. I could say to you I’ve been asking for Town Centers since 2017, but that might fall on deaf ears if you don’t play Age of Empires/Age of Kings. Within the current framework, what would work, or is positioned to work in Conan Exiles? I would venture the PvE-C Battle Standard is a non-durable claim framework we could have moving forward.
The difficulty I have with this proposal in the OP is that the purge system is easy to divert in its current state. Anyone with the know-how can ensure it’s just low-level creatures targeting the same two sandpits. Additionally, if the purge were implemented as a more robust measure versus large landclaim, this would create counter-behavior on behalf of the players who would feel vindicated for outwitting the game’s developers. In other words, the bad players will feel empowered to spam even more.
So basically divert the purge block counting to a bench, when the bench is placed on foundations it will re-enable the claim system to all connected blocks + a little area, make sense?
This could also be developed into an upkeep system, on the basic of how many blocks you have you must pay daily material costs, when the materials end then the decay start ticking, so people can’t “refresh” decay anymore and must log in every week to place upkeep material costs. Make sense?
ERRATA CORRIGE: so any block placed out of range of the bench will be dismantlement by anyone.
Oh my goodness. As a fix for lowering the number of buildings, this would do it. Most everybody I know would leave.
That is an interesting idea though, direct the purge to an (expensive) item you must place within at least one of your base structures. No flag? Purge attacks all landclaims.
Caffeine didn’t refresh to preview, but I did, please cut them some slack. Or as we used to say in Mr Rogers’ Neighborhood, BKTOA.
I’ve said this before, but I think the way to deal with foundation spam is to link decay to active (as in interactable) placeables and building pieces within feeding radius (the one thrall pots use).
So foundations with no active elements nearby will decay within 1 hour. So, to destroy foundation spam you need to just destroy the single active piece near the foundation.
Also, create recipes so that demon fire orbs and bombs can be placed inside a station to craft a recipe which dismantles the station.
That way you need to build an active building with a door or a station which can be raided and destroyed pretty easily. Also, you can destroy a portion of a base if you can enter it and destroy the active elements in that portion.
Honestly, this seems to be one of those topics that keep popping up and the team just doesn’t care. In all my time on the forums, I haven’t seen a single month without at least one suggestion about how to deal with foundation spam, claim griefing, ridiculously oversized bases and all the related stuff.
At no point did anyone from Funcom ever signal that they have even the slightest intention of recognizing that the problem exists, let alone that they intend to do something about it.
FWIW, I’ve also tried my luck with a suggestion – I called it a PVE-C claim totem, but it could be adapted to work in all game modes – and it was received like this:
I don’t think anything will ever be done to change the claim/decay system, for the following reasons:
It’s just not important enough. There are too many issues with higher priority: bugfixes, improving AI, and balancing PVP. Whatever free time and manpower is left from that will be spent on new features and releasing DLCs to give us PVE players a new dose of “sugar rush”.
As everyone is quick to point, these issues only happen on unmoderated servers. If you don’t like the lack of moderation, go play on a private server.
Any big change to these systems will provoke a huge shitstorm from people who don’t agree with the idea of upkeep.
Bear in mind, I’m not saying I agree with these reasons or like them. For example, I strongly disagree with @Barnes’s take on #3; like many other players, I also have work and family and limited time to play, and yet I still think that we should be made to invest some kind of effort into keeping our bases on official servers, because building a base that spans 4 grid squares and refreshing it with just a few seconds per week is not good for the game.
Regardless of whether I agree with those reasons or not, whether I like them or not, the history of Conan Exiles seems to indicate that this is the way things are going to stay. In my native language, there’s a saying that can be translated roughly as “the dog keeps barking and the wind keeps blowing”. That’s how I feel when it comes to this.
It’s not that I have any problem with an advanced decay/land value system; a bench that makes players spend mats on upkeep is one thing. But to incorporate a disliked feature from Rust, we’ll definitely have an exodus on my server. Most of the new players on right now came from Rust, and the two I just asked said “get bent.” I’m not against modifications: as I’ve said here and elsewhere, please give me a Battle Standard with a landclaim solution and I’ll be happy.
Ages ago, people thought the purge was going to be the answer to foundation spam.
Land claim blocks or placeables is the easiest solution by far. Everyone in a clan can build and own one at a time. They can be stacked together to increase the building area.
A more fun solution might be purges that give nothing and excel at smashing foundations. Say, once a player or clan has exceeded a reasonable amount of land claimed, they can be attacked by sand colored versions of various enemies. They might even attack during sandstorms. When defeated, they dissolve into sand. A large clan would have the option of fighting them but there would be no logging in every few days to reset timers.
Funcom seems to care about this issue about as much as they do the interior walls I want. Keep posting though, maybe some modders will be inspired.
I’m confused. Does that mean that the “bench that makes players spend mats on upkeep” is not the same thing as that “disliked feature from Rust”? Or are you saying that it’s okay with you, but people will leave because they didn’t like it when they played Rust?
Also, FWIW, I don’t think the upkeep is half as necessary on PVP servers as it is on PVE and PVE-C servers. Maybe it could be one of those rare features that are simply disabled in one mode and enabled in another.
I was calling the mechanism a disliked feature, and if the bench is a part of it, I’m not sure that I need it explained because it sounds unappealing. The features from Rust are onerous and unpleasant to some long-term players and they have come to Conan Exiles. If those same features were installed in Conan Exiles, the players who gravitate here from there will decline, and probably rotate back there again.
I don’t think this will ever happen. I’ve played on high population and low population servers. And every so often someone comes on the high population server to complain about how cluttered it is, and how people should reduce their foundation spam. But what did you expect on a high pop server?
The choices come down to…
Play on a server with lots of players, but deal with a lot of buildings.
Play on a server with hardly any players, and have lots of freedom to build.
But the thing is, some people want a 3rd option…
Play on a server with lots of players, and force them to play your way.
So you want to play with a lot of other people, but you want to shrink the area they can build in. Which seems unfair to the established players.
There are plenty of private servers where building restrictions are enforced. Why not try one of those?
I really like your point of view the most. . It is so human and so real that most of the people are never happy or pleased with anything. But still…
There are things in this game that seem to be served half done, i don’t know if it’s the policy of the company or something else . This is a really good reason for us to communicate and exchange opinions about the game and for one point of (my) view, this is fantastic. I love the game a lot, i really do. But this… for me is one of the best exp i ever had in gaming. Thank you all.
Sure, if we redefine “foundation spam” to mean “people building big things”, then I totally agree with everything you said.
Unfortunately, the world isn’t so nice and “foundation spam” refers to much more than that, especially on a PVE(-C) server. People spamming sandstone foundations all over Shattered Springs? Foundation spam. People building a row of sandstone foundations right at the edge of what you’re building, to troll you? Foundation spam. People building a mess of sandstone foundations all around their base so that other people won’t troll them that way? Foundation spam. People building a line of sandstone foundations from their jungle base to their desert base, so they don’t have to run to each to refresh it? Foundation spam. Not to mention griefers who wall you in or wall in an obelisk or a dungeon or a POI.
All of these are problems that need a solution.
Every time a new limitation or a balancing mechanism is implemented, there will be a group that’s adversely affected by it. If there weren’t, there would be no need to implement it.
If you can build a huge castle that completely paves over a 2x2 grid square area and then nobody can do anything to it – ever! – unless you forget to stand on one of its foundations for 30 seconds a week, then there’s a problem that needs to be fixed.
And I say that as a PVE-C player whose main reason to play is building.
you should play Rust 
I’m not against modifications: as I’ve said here and elsewhere, please give me a Battle Standard with a landclaim solution and I’ll be happy.
. It is so human and so real that most of the people are never happy or pleased with anything. But still…