Ok here’s a counter. Guild A is a very successful, rich town. They have many resources and many trade contacts. They have the current planet capital. Guild B is encroaching on their capital prestige. Guild A decides to spend some resources (hundreds of titanium, per Karo’s example) to vote down Guild B’s inactive plots overnight and use energy suckers to take all of the resources in those plots.
I’m a griefer in minecraft so I can come up with these scenarios all day. With a fuel system the only way for griefers to take things (what I do) is to wait 2 months or whatever. And if they decide to build a phallic statue outside your base, you report it to the mods. I don’t see what the issue is here. As I’ve already stated you can stock up on fuel so it takes no active game time. It’s not shackling, it’s a minor responsibility. I think all of us are able to handle that…
Complaints are complaints and the team will need to find a way to manage them. They’ve done a pretty great job so far with support tickets and such on these forums and via email, I don’t see a need to start doubting them on that front.
Regardless, this topic is about beacon persistence, not how prepared their support team is.
I can see player camping at beacon with low fuel-level, waiting to grab all good stuff.
If i leave game for some reason, i do not want to see other player with my stuff.
The idea of saving the stuff in the shelfs sounds good, probably add those things you got in your hands to and let the other block stay for regenerating.
Maybe If only refined blocks are saved and the rest decay, no problem with losing my stones, ores and raw gem.
I agree with leaving behind abandoned plots for regeneration and other players to save/loot, but would it be possible that the content of all storage inside a beacon, including machines and crafting outputs could be archived and refunded upon a players return? This evades the possibility of exploitation and assures a player will not have to restart from nothing, while leaving behind the rest of the structure for others to deal with. Surely the contents of shelves/workbenches must already be stored in the code somewhere, couldn’t this simply be transfered to a file to be returned to the player after their plots reset?
I have a feeling that in the future, large builds like the temple will not be done with plot sharing, but with guild controls. Therefore, access would be granted through a single guild beacon control, not a dozen individual controls.
I’m a bit confused about this point - what’s the goal behind starting new beacons without fuel? Seems like it will trip up new players (drop a beacon, and be confused about why it’s not working)
On the flip side, it could be used as a way of teaching about fuel - but it’s critical to make that very clear
I think that’s ok - if you choose to lock away your beacon, then it’s fair that no one else can contribute to it
(might need some way to move beacon blocks, without removing the plots, though)
While I’m generally skeptical of any gameplay mechanic that requires player input just to maintain their current progress (however progress is measured, in this case through possessions), I can think of absolutely no better starting point for trying to work out Beacon persistence.
I think that the time-spans for removal of abandoned blocks are reasonable, both as the effort to add a couple of months seems small, but also isn’t so long that the wait for genuinely abandoned beacons to regenerate feels like forever. I think it’s worth remembering that this particular mechanic doesn’t TRY to meet the needs of players in terms of removing unwanted/hideous/deliberately placed to troll beacons. I assume that if there is a need for a system to address that issue, it can be implemented further down the line, and be introduced to compliment this one.
I think that maybe a beacon when first placed could come with a couple of days fuel. It would mean that placing a beacon is still technically claiming the land, and would also be a good way to introduce the fuel mechanic and show new users what the ‘low-fuel’ UI element looks like.
I would definitely ask that at some point Post-Launch the team looks into ways to intentionally pack up your beacons (and have somewhere to store it that won’t degrade due to a substantial planned absence), and I think that making it easier to remove old beacons and keep their contents (with some limitations to prevent abuse) might encourage people to manually remove beacons they don’t really care about, instead of leaving them to eventually degrade because they couldn’t really be bothered to collect all the blocks.
Sounds like a pretty solid foundation to build upon - and definitely the right approach to start basic with such a complex game mechanic (no need to tear down and rebuild it, just build upon it).
Time frames for decay also sound fairly reasonable. Initially I was against the idea of a fuel system, but if it’s fairly easy to get to max fuel using basic easily obtainable materials, then I don’t see too much of a problem here. I also like the idea of adding progression into fuel sources too, so you can extend the decay time.
^^ this
I’m definitely in favour of this! As mentioned in another thread, if you leave the game for an extended period and for whatever reason are not able to fuel your beacon, you shouldn’t be punished for it - I think a lot of returning players would be deterred from playing, having to start from nothing again. Maybe add in some mechanic where you need to do a set of tasks on behalf of the Central Guild, just to get your stored stuff back - like a payment for holding services rendered!
Also in favour of having information about all of your beacons fuel times available from any of your beacon controls - I know lots of players that have beacons spread across many planets, so a central source of just information would be very handy, to allow you to see when and where there are expiring beacons.
This is only an issue at present as people have become accustomed to hiding the ugly grey block with the world ‘BEACON’ emblazoned on every side of it. When it has it’s lovely new functional mesh and textures, you may not want to hide them away so much!
Personally I am against any player voting system, as I see this as just another tool for griefing, albeit on a larger scale. You’ll just end up with large groups of players preying on the weaker/smaller groups and lone players - effectively bullying them out of their enjoyment of the game - or off of a planet so that they can be the unopposed capital city. Not something I want to see.
An automated system would be much better in my opinion - that way, the same rules apply for everyone … and the less ways to abuse the system, the better.
Even if they vote for a beaconc to be removed. That player sill receive information through mail and can save his plot simply by logging in and trolls get trolled.
I know it’s says TBD, I just want to throw in that imo 2-6 months are WAY too long.
I’d say that 1 week is sufficient for the simple fuel, as it will be most likely used by new players for simple builds. Experience tells that those are also the players that are the most likely to quickly abandon the game again, probably resulting in loads of abandoned 1 plot beacons, littering everything (like @Wichall already wrote).
Further I think that 1 month is sufficient for the advanced fuel, cause chances are, that if a player doesn’t play for a month he also won’t play for a longer period of time. So blocking the plot for that long seems unnecessary to me.
I feel like this menu should also allow you to (re-)fuel them without having to be physically next to the beacon control prop. Otherwise fueling several beacons on various worlds could become quite a chore.
Besides of that it’s a great approach to beacon persistence
The purpose is to teach players about fuelling their beacons the first time they create a beacon. So that they know Beacons and Fuel go together. Instead of creating a Beacon pre-fuelled when they might not then learn about managing the fuel.
The objective will be: Place and fuel your first beacon.
We’re slightly refactoring the way new players are introduced to Beacons. We’re adding the idea of a Campfire (which is a non-refuelable, non-expandable, disposable beacon). Campfires are used to build remote bases for crafting away from home. New players will be guided to handcraft a Campfire, then craft their first beacon and it’s fuel, then go and find an interesting place to setup their base. This helps get around the issue of players losing their first beacon.
Bingo.
I think something like this is much more possible than saving the entire beacon.
Yes this. Guilds will be the correct way to have a shared build - instead of a patchwork of personal beacons.
This is happening - with a few limitations. The data will be polled when needed.
But all your beacons will be connected by portals! Additionally fuelling your beacons is possibly something you do once per 6 months. If you don’t want to visit your beacons in this time frame I’m not sure why they’re important to retain.
I want to heavily discourage manipulating a remote world from your current world. Boundless is already insanely complicated.
Im ok with the fuel system but i still dislike the fact that you lose all your proggression, i would like to get my stuff back. Yes it can be easily “exploited” but its your xp loss if you never farm these bloks.
Huh?
Last time a dev talked about portals it seemed like they are huge (community-) undertakings:
But now it seems like I’d be able to afford a portal to all my remote beacons?
Maybe fuel could be implemented as a resource that is shared across all your beacons?
Cause having to separately fuel your beacons without any GUI to remotely do so so sounds not only inconvenient but also like it could discourage players from having plenty of beacons scattered across the universe (even if you only have to refuel them every so often)
PS:
I think the fuel itself should incorporate some sort of (small) coin sink.
Way to many MMOs suffer from inflation. So every opportunity for a coin sink should be considered.
[quote=“olliepurkiss, post:1, topic:6855”] Player Control: Player Control
There is a strong case in a player-led, and community game like Boundless to have more player control in the removal of beacons. Some of the suggestions in this area have been very good, although they often end up being very complicated. It’s something we should consider adding in future; however, I do have a reservation about it, which is that if removal of a beacon is reliant on you guys “voting” or some other such process then we may fall down on the goal of clearing up the wilderness of detritus. Things would stay messy, until someone found them and took an action to clean up, that seems quite problematic to me.[/quote]
Any system with voting even if it is with a huge majority of players is likely going to cause hurt. Regardless if they do it out of goodwill or with malicious intent. Like I said in previous posts, I think it falls down to the structure and rules of the guild to implement in advance to prevent frequent mishaps to happen. Guild X has this building requirements if you don’t meet those you can not come in or you will be removed. I know this can be harsh too but you know what you are letting yourself into in advance.
I think before we discuss this further we need to take the guild beacon control into the equation. How is a guild going to be able to add, expand or ban players?
Will every guild member be needing to fuel its own beacon and/or will there be a way to sign off power of attorney to someone else.
Can a taxation system provide maybe for fuel. Say pay x money to the guild who will provide for the fuel?
[quote=“olliepurkiss, post:1, topic:6855”] Beacon Contents
The idea of returning the contents of a beacon to players when that beacon is removed is interesting and would certainly mitigate some of the pain of losing a beacon when you didn’t want to. For that reason I’m quite drawn to it; however, there are a few problems:
It would be a bit odd, and against the regeneration concept, for a whole build to disappear in an instant.
There is a possibility of an exploit where someone deliberately allows their beacon to expire to get the resources back, and transport them elsewhere, without needing to break the blocks and physically move them.
It prevents someone else beaconing, and so preserving, an awesome build. For example if whoever built the dragon is dragon’s watch stopped playing the game and the beacon expired other people in the town could club together to save their iconic statue, rather than have it disappear making the name of the town a bit odd!
It’s difficult to implement, with a new system having to be built to allow players to recover possibly thousands of blocks and items somehow. It’s time probably better spent on more fun things.
[/quote]
This:
I would include coins, amount of plots gathered and XP into that.
Basically it is a great start for an elegant solution but it needs more work, especially because I think you need two systems. One system for 1 player beacons and a system for guilds.
The whole email warning system is a good idea too. If and when it bothers you to receive those mails you simply put them under spam and forget all about them. It is rather a non-issue if you ask me.
I’m sorry if I don’t have brilliant ideas guys just putting in a few thoughts
this feels like the right approach to build upon.
