This is not survival game. It is foundation builder simulator

[Hel]

@CodeMage

Maybe the problem is offline raiding, so people try to design bases in such a way that they will be raid-proof without players’ involvement.

There is no such thing as a raidproof base if you are offline. I know of severall basedesigns that come close to it, but you have to be online for it to be effective.

@CodeMage

Funcom needs to introduce a mechanism that acts as a counter-force to overbuilding.

How can it be a problem on a server where your base is safe anyways? That the area is lagging as hell when somebody is building a ton of stuff and you can´t fight then? Well, guess what? Official servers are hosted by g-portal where you get the same high pings and ddos attacks every night as soon as raidtimes start. Even if you have a server almost for yourself. Have never seen a more incapable service in all the years I play online games and rent servers myself. Pvp on g-portal servers are simple spoken a waste of time.

I get your point and that you are kind of annoyed of big buildings. But its easy to say, that people need to cut back in building if the game has not much other to offer then to farm and to build.

[CodeMage]

@Hel

How can it be a problem on a server where your base is safe anyways? That the area is lagging as hell when somebody is building a ton of stuff and you can´t fight then?

What you describe is client-side lag and it’s just one of the problems with overbuilding. A much bigger problem is server-side lag, because it affects everyone on the server regardless of whether they are in the area or not.

Apart from those, there are other problems that have nothing to do with performance. Some of the builds I’ve seen cover huge areas of land, effectively removing parts of the map from public use, cutting off access to resources, or even suppressing the spawns of those resources.

Then there are other highly problematic builds, such as a road that stretches from one side of the map to another. These don’t cut off access to resources or suppress them, but their land claim prevents other players from building in affected areas – or even near those areas, because experienced players won’t want to risk being targeted by a purge that spawned to attack someone’s road.

All of these – and more – are problems that Funcom should sit down, examine, consider, and then decide which of them they can and/or should tackle, and how. It’s most likely impossible to find a “silver bullet” solution that will get rid of all of these problems, but that doesn’t mean we should accept the status quo.

@Hel

I get your point and that you are kind of annoyed of big buildings. But its easy to say, that people need to cut back in building if the game has not much other to offer then to farm and to build.

This is not just a personal annoyance. These are very real problems many PVE(-C) players have consistently complained about.

Nobody is saying that building should be discouraged, or that we shouldn’t be able to build big at all. But whether you like it or not, a server is a shared space. On private servers, good admins will ensure that the server runs smoothly and that the community is happy. Official servers don’t have admins like that, which is why the game needs mechanics to try to compensate for that. It’ll never be something that replaces a good admin, but again, it needs to be better than our current status quo.

For anyone who cannot play this game without absolutely unlimited building, single-player is the best mode, and there are also private servers where the admin and the community allow it. I am confident that any new mechanics that Funcom eventually chooses to implement will be configurable, so that the single-player mode and private servers can continue to cater to that particular playstyle.

[Smilexile]

Private Servers already have access to a huge variety of options in terms of what their rules are. They have official options AND mods. Any solution FunCom comes up with for protecting their official servers from being mutilated by exploitive gameplay can easily be program to be toggled in the option menu when someone is running a private server.

The Problem mostly plagues Public Servers and that’s what people are commenting on. The fact that you view Public servers so poorly just proves that you actually agree that explosives are NOT the problem. Not only that, but if explosives and siege were a problem, we’d probably see server mods where they were nerfed or eliminated. I haven’t heard anyone even suggest that’s a popular practice on Private servers… probably because anyone who feels that strongly about explosives would simply set the server to PvE.

Private Servers are fantastic, especially when you find a place where you click with… but the public servers are the FACE of the game. The time investment required for this sort of game makes it very unlikely for a new player to want to invest much time in finding a viable server. If they keep logging onto servers and finding unplayable conditions… some of them will go to private servers. Some may give up on the servers entirely. The community is suffering from this issue, but a creative solution can make it into an opportunity to improve the game and immersion.

Not all servers start lagging at raid times, but that is an issue obviously. Overbuilding has contributed to that on a few public servers I played on… If there was some sort of method that a server would automatically clear out pernicious or spammed builds, then you’d see less lag on servers. It’s not always going to be attacks from hackers causing ping problems. When they created Purges and other Monster Invasion events, they weren’t designed to keep Builds in check. They were designed to give established players challenges to face and increase pressure as they expand. That expansion was, of course assumed to be within certain reasonable limits with intentional goals rather than paranoid “Meta” escalation. All we need is another layer to discourage “Meta” escalation.

Again… a function that could be toggled, since private servers have different concerns from Official servers.

[Hel]

@Smilexile

Not only that, but if explosives and siege were a problem, we’d probably see server mods where they were nerfed or eliminated

You don´t need any mods you just give structures more health. Can be done in the server settings by the server owner. Also most private servers allow only 2 hours raidtime a day, because of the great damage that can be done in that timeframe and yet it is still enough to kill a server in a couple of days. But sure, we don´t have a problem with explosives.

@Smilexile

The fact that you view Public servers so poorly just proves that you actually agree that explosives are NOT the problem.

Please what? I don´t have to view puplic servers poorly, they are poorly. The run on g-portal server and this hoster is the worst in performance. Everyday pings up to 1020, nobody likes that. Funcom refuses to admin controll them. Its too expensive. The problem I see here is that Funcom doesn´t take responsibility for their own servers and try to keep them running at lowest costs. Don´t shove the problem to the players, this is Funcoms doing. If they want a good reputation for their servers they need to take care of them.

@CodeMage

Nobody is saying that building should be discouraged, or that we shouldn’t be able to build big at all. But whether you like it or not, a server is a shared space.

True, but officials are not popular and therefore most times not very populated. What gives people that play there a lot of “iddle” time and space to build. I know of people that have been online with not more than 4 people a day over months. What do you expect people will do if they have the map for themselfs and there is no regular wipes. Personally, I don´t see a way to stop overbuilding. Because even if you introduce a maintance fee or something they will build big. They then let it decay and spam new buildings. Like I said, people have not much to do other then building. The only way to stop it would be limiting building pieces. And this is something I don´t want to see in the game, because building is what keeps people in the game. Funcom needs to step up and actually controll their servers instead of hiding behind an automatic ticketsystem that takes way to long to solve any problems that occure on the official servers, thats my personal opinion ofc.

[CodeMage]

@Hel

True, but officials are not popular and therefore most times not very populated.

So what’s your argument here? If officials don’t matter, then why do you care what happens to them? If they do matter, then what’s the point of pointing out they’re not popular? Never mind that you’re saying Funcom should ignore a significant minority of their playerbase just because they’re not the majority, I’m honestly at a loss as to why you’re saying that in the context of this particular discussion. Unless it’s just for shiggles.

At any rate, official servers are the face of this game. Any newcomer that doesn’t start in single-player or isn’t following some friend to a private server will end up on an official server. When it comes to PVE and PVE-C, their lack of popularity and low population count might well be caused by the rampant overbuilding.

I’m experienced enough to scout out a server before committing seriously to it. Newcomers aren’t. They’ll play on whatever server they picked initially until the novelty wears off. If the server isn’t horribly overbuilt and has a nice community, they’ll stay. Otherwise, they’ll either move to a private server or quit the game altogether, because nobody likes to play in a sandbox that’s full of other people’s turds.

I’ve already made my argument about why overbuilding is a problem. If you look at all the non-PVP posts that complain about overbuilding, you’ll find them echoing those arguments. It’s a problem that needs to be solved, and it can’t be solved by upgrading the hardware or hosting. If anything, upgrading the capacity of the servers without implementing any mechanics to counterbalance the overbuilding will only have detrimental consequences: give the people truly unlimited freedom and you’ll end up with the equivalent of Minecraft anarchy servers.

And Funcom is at least aware that this is a problem. As Dennis said during the AMA, it’s 100% on their radar. Hopefully, they will think things through thoroughly and come up with a good solution.

@Hel

Personally, I don´t see a way to stop overbuilding. Because even if you introduce a maintance fee or something they will build big.

Of course they will. The upkeep system isn’t there to force you to build small. It’s there to present you with a tradeoff: the bigger you build, the larger the portion of the playtime you will have to dedicate to farming for the upkeep, and the less time you’ll have for everything else. Each player, each clan will have a different threshold where they say “yeah, this is good enough for me”. And at some point, the cost becomes too high to be paid by anyone.

@Hel

They then let it decay and spam new buildings.

They’re welcome to. Even that is better than the status quo, where they can spam buildings indefinitely and only spend a few minutes a week refreshing them indefinitely. The constant change might be fun for the whole server. And in the interim time between one build and the next, different people might get a chance to build different things.

@Hel

The only way to stop it would be limiting building pieces. And this is something I don´t want to see in the game, because building is what keeps people in the game.

I don’t want to see that either. Not at all. Every time I see someone propose a hard cap on building pieces, I make sure to add my voice to those who oppose that idea. Believe it or not, I want a solution that would help official servers be a nicer place without stifling people’s creativity.

I don’t build tiny, or even small. In fact, I had a period where I built excessively. I still like building big, but I’ve also learned, through experience, of what the consequences of excessive building are, so now I try to avoid that. That’s what I’m really arguing for: have an in-game system that discourages excess, while still leaving each player, each clan, and each server community enough leeway to come to their own consensus on what is excessive and what isn’t.

@Hel

Funcom needs to step up and actually controll their servers instead of hiding behind an automatic ticketsystem that takes way to long to solve any problems that occure on the official servers

They’re not “hiding” behind a ticket system. It takes long to solve problems because there are many reports and few people to sort through them, identify actual problems, and solve them. People are the bottleneck, and people need to be paid.

If you want official servers to have dedicated admins, someone has to pay for that. As I already mentioned elsewhere, a perfectly reasonable alternative would be to have a few “premium official servers” that are subscription-based, with dedicated admins. Thing is, people don’t like to pay for stuff, so I don’t think that’s likely to happen.

But it’s even less likely that you’ll get something for nothing. Sure, they’ve been stepping up their efforts, but there’s a limit on how much you can get for free.

[Smilexile]

Let’s not forget: FunCom is doing us a favor by not moderating the Servers heavily. Professional Moderation costs money, but they chose to take an unusually moral stance against “Games as a Service” in a time when many big corporations are set to drill gamers for as much cash as they can get away with.

The Ticket System Costs you NOTHING. You want moderators on the Official Servers, but you haven’t really made it clear how you envision that. Outside of Professional Moderation, which would imply some sort of subscription fee model… you also have Community Moderation which opens the game up to being dominated by petty tyrants with very little oversight. If you think it’s annoying dealing with exploits, hacks, and generally cruel people in an unmoderated system, just wait until you open up the possibility of some of those people wielding actual authority.

If FunCom wants to continue with the the ticket system, I think it’s clear they need to make some changes so their official servers don’t look like gaming ghettos. While there are certainly decay timers and hard limits that can be imposed on players, I prefer the route of soft limits are actually part of the game lore. A hard limit will be hard for the community to adjust to and can cause people to cold turkey leave. A soft limit will slowly curb their behavior and can have more fine tuned adjustments made to it until it finds it’s final form.

(Strictly speaking, Decay timers aren’t hard limits, but they are a hard limit on how long a player can be away from the game. This would eliminate room for casual players the more strict Decay timers become. The Casuals aren’t building miles of nothing just to claim territory, after all.)

More Moderators are either a hard limit you require players to pay for or a hard limit that’s completely unpredictable. Once this sort of change is made, it’s even harder to undo the damage if it turns out that the choice was wrong. Conan Exiles doesn’t need a revolution. It needs a soft touch.

[biggcane55]

@Hel

Because even if you introduce a maintance fee or something they will build big. They then let it decay and spam new buildings

Well that is not smart. Maintenance would be cheaper than full rebuilds. What this does do is make it where having huge swaths of claim would require regular farming. And that alone removes the refresher builds that take up a large amount of space. If you are playing game, then I have no problem with building big. If you can maintain the cost, at least you are actively playing.

[dniezby]

Such garbage. It’s rediculous

[Morlang]

One hundred bombs are enough for 10-30 foundations. During this time, you can farm 500 foundations (black ice of course). So no, bombs aren’t cheap at all. If they were cheap, what’s the problem with going out and demolishing all these buildings?

[Smilexile]

The qualm here is that you can’t defend your base when you are offline and people don’t like logging on and finding their base has been cracked or looted.

Yet… that’s PvP… and in more limited cases, PvE-C.

I certainly don’t think siege or explosives need to be nerfed or fortifications buffed, but it’s possible they need some sort of PvE-DW (PvE with Declaration of Warfare) where people can declare war on your faction, while you are online, for a limited time (an hour or two.) Although that just sounds like free form PvE-C, the nice thing about it would be that rather than trying to force Defenders to align with the SERVERS raid times… it shoves the responsibility back on Raiders to learn their targets online times and declare war on them at that point.

Of course, people will still abuse the build system because they can and the only consequence is they MIGHT get reported and the Moderator MIGHT decide their build is illegal.

I definitely prefer soft boundaries with major consequences… which rewards careful play for beginners, but also rewards thoughtful play for experts… while punishing obviously abusive or deeply thoughtless building. However I can see why some of the decay timer modifications or hard built limits appeal in terms of simplicity. It’s possible FunCom should test those hard limits out with some Official Servers… at least to see how people feel about playing on them without private server Moderators.

[Morlang]

There are quite a few ways to hide your resources from an offline raid. You can make caches right at the base, or be aware of a cache elsewhere, or make a reserve base. Another problem with avatars. They are too strong, considering that their preparation takes an average of 4.5 hours (I myself have made more than 40 of them myself). It’s one thing when you enter the game and realize that you have been robbed, another thing when your base simply does not exist. Some kind of restrictions for the construction is necessary, but at the same time it will be necessary to change the avatars.

[azaroth]

2 jhebals on this base and all will collapse, try set snake just move it without byte on field of vault, you will sebe surprised of result

[Vahlok]

What I see in those two screen captures is a repeat of the same old B.S. that was going on even during EA long before the first map expansion came out.
I would not be surprised if it’s the very same people who are relentless at doing it just to prove a point.
The most serious setback to it is there is really no way to stop them except reset every server affected by them and ban them as they come.
You can’t even IP ban them because they can spoof IPs.
It is doubtful they can be MAC address banned.
One thing that might stop them, would be considered illegal even by international laws.

[dniezby]

@Anu

Just let them have fun on their dead servers, playing minecraft.

Yeah, except when you’ve spent hundreds of hours leveling and gathering then finally go to explore and have fun only to find this trash. It’s an issue that is LOOOONG overdue for a solution. Also, Siptah is pretty limited to the number of servers right now.

AND if they actually do add “server transfers” it will make the offline raiding and foundation spamming even worse.

[Barnes]

How’s the situation now? Any better, or are they just hardening their tiers?

[Morlang]

I no longer remember which server it is. I checked all 60 ## servers that match my ping values. And they are all the same. In the end, I just decided not to play on siptah. But in general, the situation is similar on classic maps. it’s just that there is a larger map, and if, for example, 1 clan occupies the entire jungle, then there are a couple of biomes.

[JJDancer]

@Morlang

I checked all 60 ## servers that match my ping values. And they are all the same.

I basically did the same, looking for a quiet server, there are none. And almost every single server has builds in the exact same spots on Siptah. People are building on top of each other and having foundation spam wars everywhere, the map is just too small. I gave up on Siptah myself.

[Selene01]

Please do something to avoid building spam.
On every official server it is the same.

Some samples of what I have reported recently :

[Sir.Henry.Vale]

That appears to be spam. Which please note, may not even be that many building blocks since it appears to be 1 or 2 foundations deep but stretched all over for no apparently reason. That could feasibly be 2k blocks but take a huge space since its spread out in lines and large spaces in between.

[Sir.Henry.Vale]

That is something should be addressed and has nothing to do with building limits. Granted if it was just placing a claim so you can build is one thing but that does not appear to be the case here.