Compactness: Testing Incentives To Merge

General
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So I spent several hours testing a few plotting scenarios on test today based on a comment made by @lucadeltodecso yesterday which revealed that the compactness algorithm is actually considering more than just the shape/density of a given beacon or settlement.

There are incentives here to either split your beacon, or to merge with other characters’ beacons, in order to relax the compactness threshold. I was only able to test one scenario with another player, and I was able to reproduce (or nearly) that same result with two of my own alts.

What this means is that if your character owns, for instance, a road, connecting it to another character’s beacon enables further expansion of the road than simply adding plots to the beacon for an equivalent increase in density.

I’m not the most adept at getting around so testing these few scenarios took me a couple of hours. I’d be willing to work with someone else, and I encourage others to get out and test these and similar scenarios.

Here are some scenarios I tested:

First, the specific scenario mentioned. It’s been reported by several people that the longest you can plot a 4 wide beacon is 45 plots. Luca mentioned yesterday that 2 players with adjacent 2-wide beacons could extend further than the 45 plots under the current iteration of the compactness algorithm.

This indicates that the compactness check is not only analyzing the shape of the beacon, but the composition, and this is a significant revelation.

Aenea and I met on Kraterradall and began plotting. I had some issues (i got trapped in a mountain and fell in a pit) but we got the area plotted, in a combined shape of 4 plots wide by 99 plots long according to her calculation. My beacon had some extra vertical plots in it but it was not wider than 2 plots at any point. This confirms the assertion that the algorithm is different when multiple players are involved, and Aenea left for the day.

Something funny happened
I wanted to go to Dand, but I had only plotted 2 wide solo, so I moved over a plot and plotted a disconnected, solo 4-wide beacon to confirm the 45 plot length limit. To my surprise I was able to extend this to 84 plots long, on a single character. More on this later.

I returned to Dand and immediately confirmed that as a solo player, i could only plot an isolated 4 plot wide beacon to a length of 45 plots. I then created an alt on the test server, and got him to my other character’s location.

Plotting 4 wide on 2 alts

My two alts together were able to cleanly plot a 4 plot wide beacon to 98 plots length.

Plotting Sequence
  • alt2 plotted 2x25
  • alt1 plotted adjoining 2x42
  • alt2 extended to 2x63
  • alt1 extended to 2x74
  • alt2 extended to 2x82
  • alt1 extended to 2x88
  • alt2 extended to 2x92
  • alt1 extended to 2x94
  • alt2 extended to 2x96
  • alt1 extended to 2x97
  • alt2 extended to 2x98
  • alt1 extended to 2x98
  • I was unable to extend further

Plotting 2 wide on 2 alts
The 4-wide test was a success, and I wanted to see if it scaled to a set of smaller beacons, so I started plotting a 2 plot wide beacon, hoping to achieve a length greater than 25 plots. This failed, 25 plots was the limit for a 2 plot wide beacon whether plotted on one or two characters.

Plotting Sequence
  • alt1 plotted to 1x15
  • alt2 plotted to 1x22
  • alt1 extended to 1x24
  • alt2 extended to 1x25
  • alt1 extended to 1x25
  • I was unable to extend further

Needs further testing. I didn’t try intermediate variations to determine if this configuration was too small to reflect a curve or if there is a hard threshold.

Plotting 4 wide on 1 character, near to a multi-character beacon

After I had done my 4 plot wide and two plot wide multicharacter test, I went to the other side of my long 2 character long beacon, and began plotting another 4 plot wide beacon. This beacon is within the range of the other large beacon’s buffer zone, but not actually attached at any point, it just runs parallel.

Once again I was able to plot a 4 plot wide, 84 plot long beacon with one character. I still have further questions about this.

Details
  • The beacon on Kraterradall didn’t have an actual buffer zone with near zero prestige.
  • The platforms used to air-plot the dand beacon gave enough prestige for a disabled buffer zone to exist.
  • In both cases, the character plotting the 84 plot long beacon was plotting near his own side of the multicharacter beacon.

image
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needs further testing

  • Would plotting on the side of the multicharacter beacon, near to the other player’s buffer zone, provide the same result?
  • Would plotting one plot further away, so buffer range intermingles but neither beacon is inside the other’s buffer provide the same result?

The system may be considering 2 beacons or settlements which do not adjoin but mingle at the buffer zone as singular settlements for the purposes of the compactness analysis.

Adding features/density to a 2 plot wide beacon

I then plotted a 2 plot wide beacon, 25 plots allowed as expected. I removed 2 plots from the end, went near the center, and created a 5x5 ‘bulge’ on one side of the road. Returning to the end of the road I was able to extend the length of the beacon by one additional plot length.

Procedure

** 2 wide road with 5x5 bulge**

  • plotted 2x25
  • removed 2 plots
  • added 5x5 near center
  • extended road to 2x26

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This is a small increase in compactness but adding width at the middle did provide an increase to available length.

Attaching another beacon to a 2 plot wide beacon

This test created an identical settlement shape to the previous test, using two beacons instead of one. Both beacons were owned by the same character. I created the 5x5 area, then plotted a 2 plot wide road along one side.

Procedure

This procedure allowed me to extend the 2 plot wide road to 30 plots long, using an identical settlement shape to the previous test. This is a significantly larger increase than that provided by modifying the single beacon to this shape.

Annexing another beacon with a 2 plot wide beacon

In this test rather than using two beacons owned by the same character I created the beacons with 2 separate characters.

Procedure
  • Plotted a 5x5 area
  • Using another character plotted a 2x30 road along one side of the 5x5
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The results were the same as the previous test, allowing the creation of a 2x30 plot road beacon. Attaching to another character’s beacon appeared to provide the same bonus as splitting the single-character beacons.

Some Conclusions:

Considering the time I spent I wasn’t able to test that many configurations. The results indicate some additional questions. However:

  • Along with considering the shape of a beacon/area being analyzed, the system is considering whether the given shape is composed of a single beacon or multiple beacons.

  • Split/Multiple beacons comprising the same shape and density as a single beacon are not subject to the same compactness requirements as the single beacon.

  • Both adjacent and non-adjacent beacons can affect the compactness score of a beacon.

  • None of the scenarios tested indicated a difference between using different alts or different accounts.

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It is definitely set up to assist folks who are building together. Having one side of a 2x4 plot beacon up against a settlement will have a different compact score depending on if the 2x side or the 4x side is attached. It may take longer for a city to expand since it cannot all be preplotted at once using only roads, but many more shapes can be achieved faster if you are building up next to others.

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This makes sense to me, more than the fact that the same shape can receive a different overall compactness ratio based on whether it’s made with a single beacon, or split in two.

I just had supper and some other evening activities and I was going to go on live for a while, but now i want to find out if i can further extend that 98 plot long 4-wide settlement with the other settlement within 2 plots of it.

I’m curious whether there would be additional allowance for 4 characters with adjoined 1-wide beacons but I don’t want to do that much more alt management and plotting on test :stuck_out_tongue:

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Add in a few small beacons at least two thick in a few locations and you may be able to expand it quite a bit after awhile. along the way and you will be able to expand them quite a bit.

Edit: If you look at the Gmall on the map, you can see an example of what it would look like to have small builds along a road that still fits into the new system.

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Yes I still would have expected the same shape, especially using the rectangles and squares I’m testing with, to have a higher compactness ratio when made of a single beacon.

It’s probably not that important but it’s nagging at me. I think I’m getting it visualized though, specifically noting that I didn’t really look into the effect of the 5x5 “build” areas attached to the “road” beacons I was testing for.

They’re still set up so I’ll check whether they’re extensible when attached to the max length road, vs. the 5x5 in the merged set.

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Conquering time!
Any non-buffer zone protection settlements on Trung are NOW a target! BE WARNED!

:rofl: Kidding, kidding, I wouldn’t do that, I do find it very funny tho that this is how it seems to work currently!

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Yeah sorry i was looking for some terms to differentiate between one character’s multiple beacons and multiple character’s single beacons.

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It allows me to extend the 5x5 attached to the 2x30 road in any free direction.

The beacon with the 5x5 ‘bulge’ on the 2x26 road can only accept new plots within 3 plots of the corner where the two shapes merge, essentially thickening the entire construct.

Sorry I would include more pictures but it’s tiresome to annotate images with the editor I have.

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image

Having another beacon fills up what could have been empty space in the normal ratio. Since it is comparing the filled ones compared to the empty plots, you can see how the second beacon helps the ratio. To note though, James did state that if a person is using multiple beacons to purposely skirt the rules to reserve lots of plots action would be taken.

As an edit: It’s going to take some time to get used to whatever they decide is a good cutoff point, but communities should rarely run into too many issues as long as they grow semi-naturally.

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I am laughing so hard at this post (not a personal offence @Nightstar; I like the research shown here). I mean, look at it; is this really the direction we want the plotting system to go? The proposed compactness system is way too complex for what it aims to achieve. I really encourage the devs to stop working on this and provide simple solutions as proposed in the other thread.

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People read the EULA/TOS and then go okay so the line is here, let me see how close i can get to crossing it with out crossing it…

People are jerks to each other in this game because they think its funny. (either that or they aren’t on their meds)

“so en so hates this color, im going ot make my house that color and ask them if they like that color every time i log in…”

“this player doesnt like floating islands… im gonnna make a giant floating sky base”

“that community wants to be left alone, im gonna merge our beacons and rename the region to something to spite them…”

“i want to be vicroy… guess that means i need the most prestige and i have to take over everyone’s beacon…”

If people would stop intentionally going out of the way to grief other players we wouldnt need this but players love reading the rules and trying to bend them to the point the devs have to do something…

literally happens in every single mmo…

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I recently plotted a very large space. I mean, no shenanigans a solid block of plots.

It’s in a mountain and I tunneled it out, plotted in some rows, then filled in the gaps. This took several hours, over a period of two days. Under this system I would have had to sort of ‘fan out’ plots I think. I have no idea how long it would have taken running back and forth filling in plots without crossing the algorithm. I think that to plot out in a contiguous square shape would have taken most of the week that it took to excavate the build.

Many of the most successful co-op builds in the game (and in real life for that matter) have been created by taking a space and turning it into something that looks attractive to people, and serves a given function. Then inviting them to fill in the gaps turning it into a functioning “social zone”.

I’m not sure what you personally mean by natural here and I don’t want to come off like I’m arguing this point. It seems like the developers must have some sort of goal in mind with this system, but IMO it’s not really in line with the stated goals that have led us down this path.

It seems like there’s this notion of organic growth where a person builds something, then someone builds something next to it, then someone else attaches, then a bunch of them maybe get together and create paths between their unplanned stuff. Maybe one or two donate some of their space into creating parks or a market, and BAM there’s a quaint, quirky city full of friendly neighbors that everybody loves to come wandering around and look at stuff?

I can’t, i mean I don’t want to come off rude or sarcastic but I feel there is, at some point, that sort of idyllic hope driving this sort of change. But that isn’t ‘natural’. And it’s not likely to be the course of the demographic attracted to any long term MMO I’ve ever played.

I’m laughing the whole time TBH. It seems to me like things have come full circle and the system that’s growing conflicts with many people’s perception of the goals that started us down this path.

The successful, well known builds that should be standing as a centerpiece of what can be achieved in this game are being wrecked by this. Whole (SUCCESSFUL) models of interaction and growth are being eliminated. Artistic and integrational builds are marked as forbidden and the people who have paved over massive squares of everything are pointed to as the ideal.

The fact that connecting to other builds with a road enables you to extend the road further is … ironic. It seems like this evolution began with a desire to keep people apart out of frustration and has evolved to the point of smashing them together in the least productive of ways.

This is fundamental. At this time it feels like it’s evolved to a point of devs against the players, which literally happens in a large number of gaming communities.

The time consumed by this appears to have been amazing. The starting point of this evolution appears to have been with the desire for the buffer system, an inelegant solution to a simple problem of sovereignty. A system that didn’t address any existing issues, and created a load of obvious issues of its own, which were immediately pointed out when the idea was announced.

This system has locked up parts of the game that are still problems here months down the road, called for additional dev intervention in many cases and areas where it isn’t warranted by player conflict or social problems but instead in the system itself, and created a series of monumental landgrabs together with feeding an amazing sense of entitlement among members of the community large and small.

In response to this, now we’re getting a system that penalizes many of the activities and interactions that seem to have been most successful in the game to date, and subtly encourages activities that have led to conflict.

And in all this time, solutions to the specific things that plague the (vocal) community the most are pushed aside, and don’t seem to be considered or discussed in order to focus on the over-arching systems to attempt to combat human nature. A complex, difficult to understand ruleset that people as a whole are bound to get frustrated with and look for ways to combat and defeat.

I had a conversation last night about the fact that once these rules are “baked in” to the engine, people on private planets and probably even creative worlds are going to be subject to them as well. For some reason they’re hesitant to tackle the last barrier to this, one of the most wanted features of the game, that would have lifted IMMENSE pressure off of these issues until the very end, when many of their most eager supporters will have left the game. And even then the frustrating, choking system that makes new players long for a private world where they can ‘do what they like’ will be subject to the exact same restrictions.

The number of QOL issues that could have been addressed with this development time seems like quite a few. The advancement in the game that’s been held back by this seems immense. Months and months of cumulative development time, at this point nearly half of the games “post release” lifespan where these ‘channeling’ systems are the main components of every advancement.

I’d guess that the hours invested into buffers and compactness alone could have given us beacon split/merge/transfer. Settlement opt in/out. Possibly blueprinting and if blueprinting can be implemented then relocation is a snap. And the admin interfaces that are apparently the last barrier to public and private rental planets. These things would solve so many issues, most of the issues that have led us down this path in the first place, and free up time for other things that add to the overall health and expansion of the game.

Instead it seems there’s become primarily a focus on the negative, and punitive methods of brute forcing some sort of harmony or … ??? I don’t personally get it.

Yeah, IDK. I’ve written a novel while I’ve had my morning coffee here. I write and delete a lot on these forums out of a sense of frustration, and a feeling that the channels are closed and in the end it’s me just pouring my heart out for nothing.

On these issues it seems there’s a driving sense of frustration fed by a feeling of “this is going to ■■■■ a few people off so really we’re not going to bother with what anyone wants”. This is encapsulated in things like calling out for feedback on the balance of the proposed system on a track record of not taking seriously any notions like feedback on the need for the system, or discussion regarding the fundamental reasons for the implementation.

It’s not about whether or not we deserve a spanking, it’s about how hard we’re going to get spanked. And I’m afraid that the game will be ground into nothing at it’s core in an attempt to suppress human nature while the systems that would channel so much of that energy into positive activity are pushed aside due to a strong focus on the negative.

A focus which, in the end, will only attract those who come at it with a ‘challenge’ mentality that feeds the very negativity we’re discussing.

Ok this has wandered way off topic, and it’s probably so long that not many people will read it or take it seriously. But I’m not going to delete it I’m going to put it out there and see if it encourages any productive discussion. along with just taking the bit of catharsis :rofl:

I’ve been in love with this game since I found it. I don’t do as much as I’d sometimes like due to concerns about being demonized in the community, and not wanting to perpetuate activities that have frustrated me myself. I can only base my perception of the developers’ feelings and directions on what’s publicly shared, so in some (many?) cases I may be completely wrong.

But in the end I honestly believe that this is a ‘downward spiral’ situation and I’m sad that things are going badly, and headed into an even more confusing and frustrating direction. I would MUCH rather be focused on the positivity of things but frankly, it’s difficult to see right now.

I’ll read back over this in a bit and if necessary, try to edit for clarity. Meantime as mentioned I think it’s as much of a “dump” as anything so sorry to those who take time to read it, if it wanders a bit.

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Nuanced contemplations and a nice read!

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yeah… Bot has unplotted his world roads. I’m sad at this loss. I was conected to his Lamblis one. Was.

And I have removed many roads I had that were stretching to the lands on the shores of my lake. Just glancing at this, the predictability of a place being compact seems far too confusing. I am trying to turn my place into large squares, but with not enough plots to go around to the whole space I want, I will and have made cutbacks. My character who owned the roads, was in yellow… she had the highest prestiege of all my alts because I wanted her to, by letting her own the worshop with all my storage as well. I am sad I have to make more beacons to cover a little less of my area, so I can have enough plots to close off the gaps that are inside my intended build zone.

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All I see is yet another balancing change that will cost us 3 players and gain us 0.

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I don’t see this as a balancing change at all. This is a new system and a fundamental change to how the game is played.

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Can’t hurt my feelings and I don’t see anything you wrote as more than expressing your opinion.
By natural I am looking more towards a town growing one personal expansion at a time. Not a city designed by a single person with roads across 1k plots where nobody lives, nor wants to live. There use to be a lot of these, but maybe they are all gone? I don’t travel to other’s cities anymore.

Edit: not to say preplanned cities arn’t amazing when done right, they just require plots and prework, or they end up another ghost town.

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Agreed, it’s the way of the world.

I personally think it’s just as wrong for someone to say “I don’t like the color of this player’s house so I’m going to tell them to leave” or “I wanted those plots, you can’t plot here” as any of the examples you gave. Then even more wrong for those people to go to the devs and call that person a troll because they claimed free plots and wanted to join the community.

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Dey Griefin’! Dey Griefin’!

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From what I personally know, they do exist, for example, Glitch World in Refgar, and it’s still growing. Afaik, it was pre-planned from the start, color coordinated with different managers for different districts (not run by one person, a group effort from what I know). Pretty huge city. Wonderful folks involved. This compact thing may damage the income they need for the Guild buffs. Current funds from guild’s footfall from when I was using those buffs wasnt enough to keep them constantly running afaik.

I’d hope this compact requirement will not be added. My efforts to change my own build to not use reservations for reserving future space I want is… reducing my creativeness. I had watched that lake for months from my little house on the shore. Months, no one claimed it. So I got together with my alts, and a friend and claimed as much as I could, using the reservations to reserve spaces inside the area I wanted,which is not covering or claiming any blocks (totally void of natural blocks above a lava lake) I didnt have enough plots to cover it all… yet. I didnt know that using reservations like this was not intended. Still working on trying to get everything filled in with my plots. I remove my blocks on my roads before I remove the plots. Crafted blocks. Bricks and lamps and such.