When it comes to large numbers of people on the internet, I know there will be trolling and people trying to abuse game mechanics for their own fun. Most things I can accept, like people claiming plots around my city and walling it off, or just building intentionally ugly or malicious things. We have regen bombs, and if I don’t want someone to take a piece of land, then I can claim it myself.
I am concerned, however, about some group building close to my city, with the sole intention of becoming mayor and changing the name. Are there any plans to add a feature to choose what city your beacon is a part of? Are there any plans to add a feature to prevent people from adding their beacon to your city?
I want to make it clear that I am speculating here. It’s possible that this won’t be as big of a problem as I think it could be. I’m just curious if there have been thoughts about this issue at all…
EDIT:
I wonder if maybe we could have the existing city mechanics, and just add opt-in/allow-join for districts (new feature) within a city. Maybe that’s the best of both worlds?
Personally I think there’s an argument to leave it in its current ‘organic’ state. Is it really right in an open sandbox world for people to own such things as city boundries? Or should it be a semi ‘realistic’ idea of a lot of people are in place now it’s one city. I’m not sure one person should be able to “lock down” a city via permissions or otherwise.
This is a very controversial issue though because players living in fear of grief or just ‘hostile takeover’ of what they believe is “theirs” is also a valid point. But for example if me and my 10 friends build close to each other and naturally form a settlement - I think later down the line it’s nice for it to be able to organically evolve to someone elses settlement and we no longer have ownership. It promotes growth and helps cities bring themselves to life without mechanic/player micro-management.
In the current mechanics I don’t think you should think of anything as “Your city”, you might create one and then be steward of it. But no-one is directly entitled to it.
It’s a tough call but for me I’m okay with the current system for now.
I think we should be able to set our beacon to “join others” or “not join others” and also each beacon (and settlement) should ask each of the owners if the joining is wanted or not. If it’s in the organic state there is much potential for conflicts and frustration!
I like this point. I’m not sure if there’s a better way to solve the issue.
I think that large groups of people have stopped playing citing this kind of thing as their reason though. They added the road detection, but even that can be bypassed with 3-wide roads. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I think road detection is a band-aid for the same problem.
But you’re right, solving it my way introduces toxic city ownership… Not sure if there’s a better solution…
yeah, but I think the Asking option should be iomplemented to so that you can controll to grow in one direction without being “vulnerable” from the other side the same time.
And i agree with this point. A more complex algorithm might be a better solution? More like a… zone of control effect based on plot density? For example my settlement is say a 20x20 block that might create a lot of ‘pressure’ so that in a circular area around this if plots touch it could be considered part of the settlement. A 1 or 3 plot “road” should only create enough ‘pressure’ to absorb tiny plots of land owned by other players.
So to take over a larger section of plots… say 10x10 you’d have to be idk say 30x20 (or larger) and virtually touching.
I hope this makes sense it needs a tonne of circle diagrams in this post but I hope the general concept comes across.
I wonder if maybe we could have the existing city mechanics, and just add opt-in/allow-join for districts within a city. Maybe that’s the best of both worlds?
I also think this is relatively harmless and a good idea though, an “opt out of settlement” all-together kind of deal. It would have to be at the cost of not having one yourself though i’d say.
ok so I have a city and we all have toggled join others. If someone comes in with a 3 plot wide road, they can still absorb the city my friends and I built, since we toggled join with others. I personally would like some mechanic put in place. I can see @Lvl3-Hermit’s point but I also know from experience when you and some others have planned a community with a theme and a name, and people know that name and your reputation, you do not want to be absorbed and loose that identity.
My suggestion is that both parties have to opt in and can opt out for any beacons they have that would be affected by the merge whenever they want to. It would be a case by case, user by user process. It might take more effort to connect but would allow more control over the longer term.
YES, it is one of the things that is explained right in the wiki and design mechanics of the game. Even the finding and owning the valuable resources, is right in their original designs as intended.
I think once a beacon becomes a settlement, there should be an option in the UI (or maybe the button is always there and unlocked at settlement status) that says “do not merge with other settlements”
or something to that effect.
Yeah but is this the problem rather than a permissions system. If they actually had to build a bigger, very dense city that infringed on you ‘legitimately’ that should be perfectly fine no? Like i said a settlement represents (to me atleast) a thing of its own that no-one exactly owns and I think that premise should be maintained. But that’s my opinion.
Personally I feel a person has a right to build a bigger city, and gain capital if they desire, BUT not the right to take your city and name by simply building a larger city next to you’res, which they stopped anyway. Literally there isn’t much they could fix or prepare for for when a player moves in and builds a giant scat and is proud of it.
like when real cities get big, the smaller ones still keep their names. I think of Toronto and Mississauga. Technically Toronto Pearson international airport is in Mississauga, but everyone thinks of the whole thing as Toronto. Maybe we just need districts to subdivide a city at player discretion.
Possibly, though that runs into issues of who gets what footfall and tax etc.
My personal conclusion from the input of everyone so far is the algorithm determining what is and isn’t considered part of another city is faulty and should be much more harsh and be based on the comparable density of contiguous plots bordering you - or something to this effect.
A permissions system to me sounds like another ‘band aid’ like the road fix you brought up.
Density can be an issue. . If you have a more natural city like Eden was on Solum, then by definition roads and such were minimized, trees, grass, plants and water were preserved as much as possible. So the issue would become how to bring this group of people together if their plots touch but they are not dense (I am thinking you mean 20 non-natural blocks per plot or something like that to make it dense)?
While I know we might disagree from time to time and maybe have a bit of drama…
I completely agree with this and support a good conversation and look at this game mechanic. We have already seen situations where people do come in and take over areas like this and other dynamics. With the new influx of players and things, we will have problems like this and could lead to bad player experience. I’m not sure how it will play out but we already have seen it happen in pre-release so it will likely happen in release.
There have been some suggestions by a few of us to have a list of the settlements that are in the area (maybe 200m or so) and you be able to pick which one you become part of.
We also could have larger communities that grown together to create a different higher level settlement. This would be like we see in real cities. You have a city but it is part of a metroplex. We just need this whole thing looked at again by the developers.
I agree and i’m not a game designer and i haven’t plotted out an exact solution in this thread. I’m just trying to maybe determine if that’s at fault and can be resolved before we chuck some system and GUI over the top of it and call it solved.
Maybe this example is the cost though, maybe it is very hard to form a settlement if you have such rural requirements… wouldn’t that just make sense? To me that sounds acceptable, but to others it might not.
This. Or atleast get them to review it and address the community concerns (if they have time right now yikes) so we know what’s on their mind with this right now.
