Don’t have that to worry about anymore.
Its fun reading actual constructive posts. The foundation stone idea is pretty cool.
Though also as a game developer professionally and having been in the software industry almost 30 years now I will say anytime anyone says “i can swap this out easily, its no problem and takes no time at all, this thing over here already does something similar!” that you need to run very very fast and pray that the code review standards wherever that is taking place are strong enough to protect from developers like that.
We also call them “stealth bombers” because they carpet bomb the code base with easy no problem fixes that often times wreak havoc for some time after…
I can say that I have had many projects and many applications require severe damage control after that very phrase was uttered and some very easy its no problem code implemented… developer PTSD is real and I’ve been triggered after reading that
Yep! And although I’ve seen the “foundation stone” and “claim flag” ideas many times before, this is the first time I’ve seen one that proposes to allow building even outside the area of its effect. That was a really good idea! And the whole thing can also be adapted to be useful in PVE, too.
And it’s even worse when you consider what kind of software we’re talking about: lot’s of moving parts, a fair deal of concurrency, manual memory management…
The kind of bugs you can get there – even with rigorous code reviews and good test coverage – are the stuff of nightmares. Stuff that is near impossible to reproduce, stuff that you can’t step through in a debugger because that makes the bug go away due to timing issues, stuff that doesn’t look possible because even if this cleanup function that shouldn’t be called twice has been called twice, we’re still locking a mutex that we know hasn’t been destroyed before we erase this iterator from a collection we know hasn’t been destroyed and this is the only place where we’re even attempting to erase it and HOW THE HELL DID THIS EVEN HAPPEN?!?
Sorry, but like you said:
But I really do like the idea and I would like to see it implemented, even though I’ve lost all hope.
Thanks on liking the idea. The rest of the gibberish came as a result of the destructive feedback…“Oh you’re selfish and don’t care about anyone else.” Which is clearly not true.
I truly believe the foundation flag / stone idea would solve the problem for all players…except spammers. I don’t want people to think I take the coding of something for granted, because I don’t. BUT I do see a lot of people make things seem more difficult than they really are.
If we like the foundation stone idea…Let’s work this thread to define it better. Get the attention of developers and make this concept work for everyone. It’s by far my favorite idea for reducing spam.
The only problem I see is how it will effect current builds. Will people log in one day and find half their base gone? Will RNG decide where to place the “foundation block” for existing builds? ( That would be amusing ). The issue with changing the rules mid-game is the effect it has on existing players.
I had to delete almost 100 thralls due to the thrall “limits” thing, and I am still not happy with that change.
I think this would be a sacrifice worth making. In my opinion. Besides, as a builder myself, it would affect me as well…However, building and redesigning is what I like to do. So, this would give me more to do and come up with ways to make it work.
I did some offline testing to see how big of a base I could build within 100 foundations…I make a huge layered base that didn’t take up the map and had HUGE HP numbers. By layered, I don’t mean that fence stacking cheat. I mean, separate levels and room.
And, with this “foundation stone” idea, you can still build wherever you can however, outside of it, those materials would decay at an exponential rate. For example, outside of the 100 it decays at x2 and takes constant damage. Go beyond 150 and its decay is x4 as well as damage? You know…something like that. This way, clans that try to abuse the system will spend all their time repairing the claim. The goal being, build within the limit or you’ll be too busy maintaining the claim to terrorize a server.
Some other defensive ideas have also popped up in my brain that really should just be updates to the code. Palisades (especially the Stygian ones) should have their damage increased as well as their HP. These don’t do entirely enough damage for what they do.
Nah. They can do the same thing they always do: implement the feature without activating it. Then give people a grace period, with all the usual bells and whistles, e.g. a login message people won’t read.
Then, after the grace period has expired, wait some more, and when they finally activate it, stand by for the outcry on the forum from all the people who somehow managed to not read a message that gets displayed every time they login
Make the foundation stone a placeable of its own and not part of a building. Make it an actual stone or some kind of decoration that gets planted on the ground (hell reskin it a few times to give customized versions of it so people can choose like racial versions of the founders stone).
Then make the radius spawn from that.
If its destroyed in pvp or purge, the decay timer accelerates for whats left around it until a new foundation stone is placed or until the remaining base crumbles.
Make it a one-build only per clan. I’m kind of curious to get the devkit now and play in it.
This is something I’ll always push back against. Either we need a way to get more flags or a way to extend the flag area. Or both. Make these “extension” consume some kind of “upkeep fuel”.
Without that, it’s just another PVP change that screws over PVE players.
Thats true and I only really play on PVE or PVE-C private servers so I understand where you are coming from.
Could be you get one off the bat and then have to build others and they cost something. Maybe the upkeep for them is like hearts / souls / whatever like altars. So you can’t just log in and refresh and log out. Y ou have to actually go around and get those resources and feed the stones.
Just for my personal clarity’s sake. Do you mean solo players/private players who should be able to build everywhere?
I’d imagine a simple “foundation stone” solution would be sufficient for both PvP and PvE official servers, unless I’m missing something obvious here. Much like the thrall limit this could be toggle-able so as to not hinder all players.
(I’m actually in favor of your expandable claim with upkeep proposal)
Edit:
After thinking further, it could also depend on whether or not you think each clan member is entitled to an individual base or if they should shed that right for the power that comes with grouping. Shifting it from one “foundation stone” per clan to per player would solve the former and give groups the option to claim more space.
I personally like to see a maintenance cost for building pieces or they weaken over time. More aggressive /more often purges would help also.
I think purges were supposed to kind of be like that but the purge system is … mediocre in my opinion.
Its dangerous at low level (I just started a new private server on siptah and cursed just ran my T1 building over with impunity) but once you get to top level with top gear, you can pretty much solo most purges. The guys on my server kite them away from the base to minimize damage and then just walk through them and kill them.
I think purges need to be upped in lethality and should take into account the tier of the building material. Top tier bases should get some top tier fiends attacking it IMO.
No, I mean that PVE(-C) players who join a clan don’t actually live in one base together, so “one-build only per clan” policy would royally screw pretty much all PVE(-C) clans.
If you take a look at PVE as a mode, building is one of the strongest reasons to play the game. On PVE-C, you also have PVP combat, but building is still among the top motivators for playing. So on PVE(-C) servers, people who join or form a clan will still build their own separate bases.
Maybe PVE(-C) clans living in one communal base do exist, but I haven’t met any yet. The one that was closest to that was when a bunch of us were driven off one server by a clan of PVP-wannabe griefers and trolls (in the time Before The Rules) and we temporarily banded together on a new server. There was a communal base most used for a while, and then some left the clan and others stayed but built their own bases.
Long story short, I understand how “one build per clan” makes sense on PVP, but it doesn’t on PVE. I’ve always been a proponent of “give players a sane default and ‘tax’ them for anything that goes over” approach. That’s why I would suggest having one claim flag per player – not clan – in PVE, and allowing players – in all modes – to get additional flags that would require constant upkeep.
That’s interesting. It’s functioning almost more like an alliance system on PvE-C. Given that is the case “per clan” would disincentive the clan system altogether on those servers.
At minimum a “foundation stone” system would have to run on a per player basis. I’d like to see something more complex than that, like what you suggest, but I think you are right that it would serve all modes better as per player.
I don’t think they’re remotely obsolete. I use them basically every time I play. I have a public maproom with a small building stocked and open to the public at the frost temple, and there is a public maproom on my server at every single obelisk built by others.
And even with all those public maproom a I still have one at both of my bases.
I’m my personal opinion obelisk adjacency is the single most important thing to consider when building a permanent base.
That’s one of the biggest arguments some people have for removing map rooms from the game.
Not that I agree with the removal of map rooms – over my dead body – but they do kinda have a bit of a point there
Wasn’t there a thread that they should add some type of map rooms for Siptah?
No point removing something that some people still use or want.
There were several. Here are just the last two:
Interestingly enough, there was also one against adding map rooms to Siptah. However, that one was during the Siptah Early Access, when map rooms would have interfered badly with the vault-maelstrom-surge loop that Funcom subsequently broke up on release. So I kinda feel like the original argument in that one is not valid anymore, but that’s just my opinion.
At any rate, Dennis Douthett mentioned in his AMA that they don’t plan to add fast travel to Siptah in the short term, but they do hope to add a fast travel system – for all maps – similar to the Waystones mod. Back when @den said that, there was no release date for that feature. It would be interesting to know whether that’s planned for the 3.0 update, although it wouldn’t change our expectations a lot, since 3.0 also has no set release date
TL;DR: Yes, fast travel is still something both players and Funcom seem to want