- 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.