you keep believing that, I have been flagged offtopic so many times when I thought the very same way… like I said take it to PM and we can be more frank. Otherwise Goodnight.
A hand-shake mechanism might be useful here; 2 beacons should only connect as one village/town/city if both beacon owners agree (shake hands) to that. Agreements can always be rescinded by one of the two beacon owners.
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Why not just let guild aligned beacons form settlements without having to be connected? Then people can opt out AND not have their settlements broken by people opting out. 
This would allow even rival guilds to mix builds without threat to their identities.
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Yeah cities should go off alignment.
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I agree with Cactopod and Orrian on this…
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Unfortunately if chaos ensues then so be it. Somethings pain around change is required to solve the greater issue and move things towards the right path. It will not be the end of the game to implement this and only a minor hiccup. Why?
- Any settlement broken up can easily merge again with a guild aligned beacon like they do in Aquatopia. Let’s remember the key feature that already allows people to segment themselves. Those people that do this currently WANT their own settlement name and their OWN prestige and stuff. It is the current design that forces people together and opt-out solves that.
- As Peyago tried to mention about people with roads breaking up settlements because they “surrounded” people’s builds with those roads - that intentional "settlement break up sounds like troll move done to intentionally harm people. So that person could easily have their ability to “opt-out” removed and the settlement stays merged.
- Settlements already break apart with buffer zones and people can easily plot around things like that to “reconnect” the settlements. Any excessive use to stop this is a CoC infraction and would be considered trolling and fixed.
At the end of the day - those that want large settlements without “choice” only do so because the want the prestige of other people for their own good or because they are intentionally gaming the footfall system to create the biggest city they can. Any group of people that want to be a city together and have a holistic settlement can do it now with the current system and the opt-out would not affect them.
I actually started the thread against plot buffers so that various people could share the concerns. In the end most of the issues people had were fixed. There are still a few things to tweak but the world did not end with them… Plus, remember that even though many had their concerns it was still implemented because the Devs knew it was better for the game as a whole to solve root issues. Opt-out falls into that domain as well unless the are willing to redesign settlements from the ground up and they just aren’t there yet.
This can almost come off as a threat and feels predatory. I don’t see how this type of communication helps support the view of taking care of the community/game or doing the right thing. This sounds like you will intentionally break apart settlements to take advantage of a system for harm of people. All this does is increase the proof that the systems are currently broken and that the average/casual player needs to be protected from people that are willing to do things like this. It actually helps prove why opt-out and FULL settlement control is required – only strengthening my position to push the following idea after opt-out is implemented - Thought Experiment: Remove Greater Settlements and only keep Guild Settlements
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This was suggested in the original post I did where myself and the guild I am in pushed for when we brought the guild aligned settlement idea to the community. Unfortunately James was not on board with losing “larger settlements”… He still thinks bigger cities exist, so this idea is a compromise.
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Wouldn’t allowing merger by plot connection OR guild alignment still allow for our classically large cities?
(good to know it’s been considered btw, thx for the info)
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Guild alignment can create one as big as possible assuming you don’t hit the member limit. I am not sure if there is a guild aligned beacon limit.
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Plot connections (3 wide or more) would still be allowed in this model as well. But that is one of the key issues right now. Some people are stuck touching cities they do not want to be a part of and they cannot back off their plots to allow the buffer system to fix the issue. So they are stuck as part of a settlement they don’t want as well as providing their prestige to that city which they don’t want to do. So this option gives them the ability to opt-out and keep their full city name and prestige.
It is basically the next step in what the guild settlement part didn’t do. After this we will need more revisions but development time is limited so we have to take it in stages.
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You could see it as trolling, or they may just have had creative differences with others in the settlement. Maybe they felt disenfranchised and decided to set up a different town around their beacons with some others who feel the same. Whatever their reason the other group will do what you did and assume they are trolling.
Edit: This post isn’t a dig at you assuming they are trolls. It is just to show that many take everything they don’t agree with and assume its trolling against them.
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A bit extreme imo. So players shouldn’t adapt and create strategies when/if the devs change things? I don’t think it’s healthy for the community to have others accusing them of being predators and such, just for playing within the game’s given parameters.
My view would be that if so many people are having issues with a specific mechanic of the game - or spend a lot of time trying to get around it - maybe that mechanic itself needs to be re-worked, in it’s entirety. I don’t think the devs should waste time with this band-aid. Give us titans, T7s, T8s, and rental planets = best thing for the game…then rework the beacon/settlement issue.
Any small band-aid fix at this point would probably harm 50% of the current playerbase, while confusing some, and making a few happy. Not worth it.
The name of this game is to come together to create larger towns/cities so that players get more prestige, footfall, and become warden. If they want people to stop shooting for these goals & stepping on each other to achieve them, then perhaps these things need to be changed or removed. Or maybe they don’t see it as an issue = working as intended? I dunno.
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I agree that players should be expected to work around new mechanics and get all they can out of them. The content rollouts are also badly needed. I do think the plotting issues are close to being resolved though, and their resolution would make things easier going forward. Better to finish sorting out land ownership and get us out of this storm of conflicts if possible(my opinion. I’m definitely no expert). Plus it would give a good foundation to any new players we get with more content releases.
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This would be amazing for everyone.
However, I don’t see any real solutions being suggested or considered at this point. Just some minor changes here and there that would still leave a lot of frustrated users (possibly creating some new issues). Maybe they are cooking up a fix that we don’t know about? Maybe they are waiting until after we get rental planets?
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Yeah, I’m really hoping the devs just bamboozle us all with a perfect solution. Hopefully all our rambling is helpful to them.
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Summed up quite well…
Xalda, let the rental planets, private planets, (and hopefully) new public planets arrive before adding another layer of complexity…
As for my comment as a threat? Come on dude, Seriously? Any rational player will look for advantages in any change and adapt to it…
Predatory? Everything people do in this game that someone else does not agree with is considered predatory… Everyone has agendas and goals…when they conflict, Yeah they think the other guys are threatening and predatory… Do I love this? Nope, but it is the way it is…all we can do is recognize this and try to communicate…a lot of times people do things without realizing stuff…communication can go a long ways… will we not always be happy if the answer is NO, but if you do not ask the question who’s fault is that than the person who never asked the question in the 1st place…
I remember James (Dev) saying once that Boundless was a great social experiment… this means there are going to be players and groups with “advantages” and those who have far less of those advantages. TO ME it is not as important to how the less advantage act toward the advantaged, BUT more importantly how the advantaged treat those who far less advantages! Am I perfect? HELL NO! I can come off as a jerk etc, and I can be really STUPID sometimes where I feel like I need to slap myself in my own face…but in reality I try to be kind, and honorable, and treat people with respect… and that goes TRIPLE for people who reside in Axon/Iconicsburg …
In conclusion… to me Blueprints and new worlds (public, private, rental) will go a long ways to solving so much! There are planets in the live universe (lower tier ones plus many of the high) that are almost wastelands with little settlement…Blueprints and the addition of the new worlds OPENS alot of OPPORTUNITY if one is willing to give it a go!
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From your lips to God’s Ears I hope this is the case!
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I was just referencing a post by you and others stating that the person was doing it to break up the city and said that if it was for negative reasons - like trolling - then it could be fixed. I made no assumptions and was responding to an example.
In these new examples you give it perfectly outlines why opt-out is in fact needed. If that person has differences, etc then they are fully in their right to break apart from the settlement because they want their own thing…
In fairness I think none of us know the numbers behind anything. All we have is the valid proof from plenty of posts and people that have constantly complained about this issue. We know that as new people (which constantly happens and will continue) come in they will be forced into this model and face the same issues many of us have over and over and over again. We will see people find continued ways to take over settlements and steal that person’s prestige for their own use, etc. We also have the percentage of people in the poll above that can see beyond these very few concerns and understand greater good.
Yes the name of the game is to come together to create cities in an “collaborative” mode and not an annexation or forced mode. So this is just another protection solution to enforce that only those that want to be part of that city ARE. This solution does not stop people from doing it and the Devs know that. That is why it is on the list to do. It solves helps people on both sides of the fence and removes power from those trying to take advantage of the system.
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This change is overwhelmingly supported by the playerbase and is in the pipeline for the dev’s. Seems like any further debate is pointless. We know it’ll solve more issues than cause.
Not the name of the game for me 
I stay away from actually building with a big amount of people because of exactly this. My shops are the only things that end up in big cities. I really dislike the prestige aspect of this game. Dislike how someone can prestige bomb and change city name. ff I’ve never really cared for.
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If you had total control over what settlement your beacons fell under (if any) would you still prefer to play solo, or would that make group play much more appealing to you?