Re option 1: Except there are existing cities/towns/markets. If wardens are allowed to change plotting restrictions, it will affect everyone and force existing places to move or be abandoned. This would almost be like the warden has become the default owner of a public planet and all things within. Maybe this should be applied to rental planets or new public planets only, instead of existing planets.
Re option 3: This sounds very restrictive and not very fun. Especially if applied to existing towns on a public planet.
I don’t think buffer zones being toggled on & off is a solution either. What if the owner of the main road beacon in your city toggled the buffer zone on, against your wishes? What if your neighbor did it? Then their buffer zone affects/restricts you/others? Which is what’s intended, but this is possibly going to nightmare for existing places.
I dont think this is an accurate representation of what would occur. Buffer zones would not overlap existing plots. A buffer zone would instead go around the perimeter, buffering unclaimed plots. Nobody would be forced to move or lose their plots, if two plots are side by side, a buffer zone can not apply.
If a warden activates the buffer zone on their settlement, a player would not be able to establish their beacon within that zone unless the warden lowered the protection and allowed them to merge with the settlement. Upon reactivating the buffer, the new beacon would have the buffer protection around its exposed sides, expanding the settlement.
Buffer zones would only apply to wilderness, much like the reserved space above and below a plot.
the thing with that tho is unless that new person can then build in that buffer zone even that kind of sounds like a forum of plot blocking. its like great i got my home in this town/city but now i need to contact the worden anytime i want to expand it. i know that part of the CoC has always been kind of a grey area when it comes to settlements but i feel like it would hard push i re defining of the rule there
Yeah expanding the plots on the edge of a settlement seems like a sticking point. I’m assuming that the owner of a plot would not be restricted from extending their plots outward into a buffer zone, even if the zone is activated by a settlements warden. Where two beacons or settlements have overlapping buffer zones, I assume you would not be able to expand unless both settlements deactivate the buffer zone.
I didn’t create this to say it’s what is going to happen, cuz we dunno. I created it to show how much a 1-3 buffer could affect neighbors. I don’t know how it’s going to be implemented or affect existing establishments. We will have to see. I still have huge reservations.
A senario:
I am in an existing city. My friend Jimmy wants to plot next to me.
So I unplot 6+ plots for him.
My neighbor activated their buffer zone.
3 of those plots are now in my neighbor’s buffer zone.
Jimmy can’t plot those plots.
I can’t plot them back unless my neighbor says I can. I lose plots.
Yes, if specific special precautions are not made to the system, this would be the case. If my suggested option 1 is used, then the warden would have to drop the buffer to allow repotting. Coordinating with the warden is required to solve the issue.
Option 2 would detect that a gap exists in the middle of a settlement and not set a buffer. No extra efforts are required.
Option 3 would have both players join the settlement to be able to plot in its buffered zone. After this, no further efforts are required.
I think this settlement issue needs to still be revisited via another thread and the Devs seriously reconsidering their need to have “cities” that force people to have to contribute their prestige to someone when they do not want to. On Biitula we have this problem with Axon. A huge group of settlements that are not actually supposed to be part of the city are because of 3 plots and 1 road that was intentionally put to create the annexation. Either way buffer zones in our current design won’t help this problem and others that are happening now.
The off will ultimately fail because someone will turn it on and then the issues I outline could happen because you cannot reach the tperson that turned it on.
This would solve a majority of the issues I see except for any builds that are at the edge of the settlement. Unless they intentionally code a 2 chunk buffer around settlements to ensure Buffers are not created. Plus you are forgetting that on any expiring of a beacon or “unplotting” of a plot it then becomes “unclaimed” and the problem would start.
The other options will not really solve the problem because the key issue is people turning it on and no one ever being able to reach or find that person. We know it is very impossible to find every beacon owner in the game or the people that we live beside. That is a big downfall… and even if you find them who says in the city situation that they will allow you to build beside them afterward.
Plus I don’t want Wardens of a settlement to control anything. I am not the warden of my settlement. We were forced annexed into Axion and that means they control the options. Not good.
The only correct option at this point is either they share the design or we see it on testing. Or just be very real and get the point that this will not solve 90% of the reasons we wanted it and just not put in the game. That is the smarter option right now.
Fix settlements by removing the forced requirement to join them. End of story… happy players.
My thoughts still stand in my opinion it will only create more new problems. Than it will solve the problems that are causing it to even get implemented.
Even the buffer should have a buffer then. Some start their build maybe a few plots away from a settlement. And then start complaining when this settlement grows.
So if a buffer is needed there also should be a buffer radius.
Like you build in a radius of 10-30 plots of a city that doesn’t have this buffer protection active you should not be able to activate it to.
And can be expected that you will be absorbed.
This protection should also automatically disappear when there are more as 15 (or so) players (including alts) in this settlement.
Making it not a thing for city’s.
As you choose to build there and can’t complain of enough space.
I have moved several times because people build to close in the beginning. Tearing down my build and moving. Whell i aint gonna now so why should i be limited again because someone decide to place random beacons around me with those buffer plots.
Same account beacon transfer would be ok. I still think player to player will create bad scenarios and people will take advantage of it to hold land hostage and I don’t know how to stop that stuff.
The vast majority of support issues we get are about plotting.
The game isn’t doing enough in the rules of the game to restrict and resolve this.
The game basically allows you to plot anywhere and leaves it up to players themselves to understand and respect any potential claiming etiquette rules.
These rules are basically impossible for new players to know.
These rules can be ignore by players.
Players are then left relying on goodwill from others for resolution.
If not, they’re left relying on moderation to resolve issues.
This then will always conclude with 1 side being unhappy - you either had plots taken from you, or were refused action.
It’s extremely hard to moderate and sucks quite a bit of my time.
We’ve had everything from players in tears over plots to players asking for the contact details of our lawyers.
At some level you could say - it’s a sandbox! Let’s just see what happens - conflict is interesting!! But is it? There is ultimately nothing you can do - short of waiting for the other player to leave. Which doesn’t sound like fun to me.
Relying on the CoC is fine - but it can leave many players feeling frustrated. And this is just the players who actually contact us.
We do already have a reservation system - it’s called claiming plots. But players are often plot limited.
The current system is: Plot first, Fight second.
The proposed system is: Request first, Plot second.
We need a plotting system that is explicit about where you can and can’t plot.
I think the system should favour the player who was there first.
The proposed system doesn’t quite work as you’re currently debating. I’ll briefly describe the system below and this is likely the first version that will go onto Testing.
(But remember this is the version for Testing. The version before we’ve played with it in anger with other players. It might not be the version that is for Live. We can only really validate changes when they’re tested in the wild.)
Plots vertically adjacent to your beacon are already Reserved.
Plots horizontally adjacent to your beacon will now also be Reserved.
(So this doesn’t introduce any new concepts for new players. They’re still just reserved plots.)
Beacons with >10k prestige automatically get a 2 plot border that is presented as reserved.
Unclaimed plots within 2 plots of a beacon are reserved by the plots with the oldest claim.
At launch the oldest claim will be determined by the oldest beacon.
We pause for a moment because this is basically the system. However it goes a little deeper in a pretty smart way once you wrap your head around it. I’m pausing because I don’t want people getting all twisted about how complicated the next step is. It’s conceptually complicated but the result is quite natural when plotting in the game.
When new plot columns are added to a beacon (basically the first plot in an empty column already reserves the entire column for the beacon) the claim date for the new column is set to the date of claiming.
Ok let us work through some examples:
Oldest Claim has authority:
James’ beacon was created on 1st Jan.
Luca’s beacon was created on 1st Feb.
My beacon is older so plots are reserved exclusively for me.
There are no joint reservations.
Next oldest claim gets authority next:
James’ beacon 1st Jan,
Luca’s beacon 1st Feb,
Dave’s beacon 1st March
Reserved area is mine as in #1.
My beacon is removed.
Then the plots automatically becomes reserved by Luca - as the next authority.
Expanding doesn’t steal authority:
James’ beacon 1st Jan.
Luca’s beacon 1st Feb, but they’re separated by a large distance.
If I start plotting towards Luca on 1st March, then my original plots retain their 1st Jan time stamp, but the new plots get a newer timestamp of 1st March.
When I meet Luca, he retains authority because I plotted up to him. His plots are older (1st Feb) than my new plots (1st March) and hence Luca retains authority.
In short - the plots with the oldest claim reserve plots within 2 plot distance.
Additional - please note that I’ve said nothing in this post about Settlements.
Easiest fix is to allow the settlement that’s getting merge to retain their identity. For example in my town of Axon if you join the settlement as a community let’s say you’re called Dog House Village. So I would basically name your area dog the dog house Village District of Axon. That way everybody retains their identity
So this would allow people to retain their identities, or not? @james
Or would it still create a city based on the buffer zone?
It seems worth a try, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it just turns into people trolling each other by building offensive stuff 2 plots away instead of right up against it.
Then again, it’s an illusion, so long as people feel like they were protected, it might not matter. I think it’s worth trying I guess.
So if we are in an established city or a market
& want to unbeacon our space & give it to a friend,
[and my neighbor was here before me (or the city road was)]
then my friend and I have to seek the neighbor out (or the road owner) and ask for permission to plot those plots? Since they automatically became the owner when I unplotted them?
Yup nothing about settlements. It looks like a good system but as majority ground owner (Have what i want) and would have road for example i have to give every single one that starts out “permissions” so that they can build alongside side this road? Or are we able to deactivate it.
Further you where there first what keeps people from boxing you in with this mechanic. If a beacon is les then 10.000 pres. They can use single beacons every 5th plot of the previous to box you in (tba not for me but others).
Love the idea and like to test it out to but unfortunately ps4😉
Looks great! Can’t wait to test it. Thank you for taking the time to post some information. However, it is the weekend so you better get outside and relax a little…geesh. We need you rested hehe
haha
hehe