Hey there… So I am a bit confused on how plot removal happens in game.
Yesterday I was looking for a new place on Berlyn for a larger build and it seemed like everywhere I went there was always someone that was either right where I would like to be or very close to it. Of course after hours of running around the planet you can get a bit frustrated because you have no clue when beacons might disappear.
Anyway, I finally found 2 spots that seemed to have plots/beacons that were going away but things seem to not be working after many hours of checking in. –
In one case there is a few wood blocks, crafting bench, and a torch but clearly NO beacon tower. Yet everywhere I try to remove things it says “owned” by that person. From my understanding, once a beacon tower goes away we are allowed to remove the blocks or wait a few hours and natural regen will take place. I came back to the place every few hours and even after a 6 hours break and still nothing allows me to remove them. What am I doing wrong or misunderstand?
I came across another place that the beacon tower has no more smoke. I checked a few times but it wouldn’t disappear. Am I correct that in the next 24 hours or less the beacon tower will disappear and I can remove the few blocks?
Last question, am I messing up being able to get the “owned” by entries on the blocks to be removed because I am in the area? I thought this was only controlled by the beacon and it’s tower. I thought our presence only affected regen.
The beacon tower is just an interface for the plots, and a point of origin to start from. Once a plot is placed and fueled, no beacon tower is required.
I don’t know the timer on beacons once the light goes out, but I suspect it’s between 1-7 days.
I don’t understand your final question. Please elaborate?
Previously claimed plots were permament. Later on beacon fuel system was introduced and all beacons were turned into new beacons, fueled to the maximum from the start. Maximum protection time is set to 6 months.
In the future these claimed and empty plots will disappear. It will be also harder to fuel beacon, because you won’t be able to fuel it to 26 weeks from the start. You will have to craft better fuel so it will be less likely to meet that many empty plots.
No beacon is required to protect the plots. Once fueled, plots exist on their own until protection set by beacon ends.
@Havok40k - Yeah I was starting to understand how the tower wasn’t mandatory. So basically what you are saying is that whether I see a tower or not the plots have fuel. If there is no tower then there is no idea to know when it goes away. If there is a tower and the light is out it could go away in a few days likely. Basically, you just have to keep checking or ignore it for a while until regen…
The last question was about whether me being in the area or walking over the plot had any effect on the timer of turning it from “owned” to “wild” so the stuff could be removed.
These are not related to any of my plots and tools needed.
@Karokendo - Thanks for some of the history. So I assume all previous plots that were permanent were adjusted to have a fuel system, correct?
Plot fuel continues to decay regardless of player presence. Only world regeneration is affected by the players presence.
In the future, a beacon with low fuel will email the player so that even without a controller, they can keep somewhat in touch with their beacon’s remaining fuel.
Just to add, only if you are looking at beacon and it says wild, and you can break it (health bar depletes when you hit it) you know for sure that it’s out of fuel.
Yeah I saw something about that… while I think it is a good idea overall, I also don’t like it for those people that just don’t really play.
I know there were extensive discussions regarding how to handle beacons… It kind of feels like holding active players hostage when you have these little plots everywhere of a crafting bench and work bench and 2 pieces of wood as a wall and nothing else. When people get an email they will log in and refuel and still do nothing to actually play the game. While those of us that are trying to be active are constantly having to deal with it…
It would be nice if some other type of activity is required for very low prestige places. I mean if the house is decent or somewhat active, then I am fine with that… People with higher prestige in their house might be more willing to play the game versus someone that spent 4 hours and isn’t likely to come back. Those people need to do something else besides just log in “refuel” and log out.
One reason I wanted to move to another location was 15+ plots that were literally nothing all spread across the landscape. And that was when I started playing… you could see how inactive they were.
I think 6 months was ok for bigger builds and those that put 100s of hour into the game. They deserve something for that.
But, yeah for those 0 people or ones barely through the tutorials 3 months should be fine.
In regards to @Havok40k comment about it not being as severe… I think it would be worse because there are going to be 1000s of people. Even with the different fuel levels, etc. worlds will be worse. If, though, the fuel requirements are too extreme and everything and I can’t even log out of the game for a few weeks for a vacation or personal family emergency without losing all my stuff — I will just quit and not buy it or play it.
There needs to be some balance for sure between removing non-active stuff and allowing people some balance for emergency or other less active but still playing types.
-More worlds at release will spread players more thinly.
-Players will not automatically start with 6 months of fuel in their beacon.
-A beacon can only reach 3 months of fuel from leaves, and 6 months with trunks. The likelihood of any player fueling their beacon to max and then not putting any time at all into their build and going inactive for 6 months at a time is close to 0%.
-The likelihood of players comming back just to refuel their 0 prestige beacons back to max and not commit any time to building is likely even less.
I think your drawing assumptions that it will be worse based on deceptive data in the current version. As it is now, you only see the beacon litter from the fuel update a few months back. Hundreds (thousands?) Of more recently abandoned beacons have likely already regenerated without a trace- you would have no way of knowing they had gone away without having been around long enough to witness it, which you currently have not.
You are completely right I am making some assumptions and have only seen about a month of play so far.
But, in fairness many of the discussions throughout the forum and even in your recent reply to me are complete assumptions as well. There is no real world data until we actually are live and using the “planned system and method” and people run through the sequence of events and we check in at 3 month and then 6 months to look at the plot sprawl.
There is no likelihood or any way we can say what will happen because there are too many variables. We have no guarantee world or player counts or if the system is even followed by players once live.
From where I stand, “intention” and “planned end state” are not of importance in the current state of experience we are having with the game. It is live now and it should be looked as such. Too many people use “alpha, beta, etc…” as an excuse for problems and incomplete system and models. I paid real money for the game and am spending time I will never get back on it.
So, honestly, the intended state the developers “want” is not very important to me in regards to my game play in this moment. I respect the game is in development and give allowances for that as well as do my duty to comment on the game and raise bug issues. The developers should be clearly aware that the gap between where they are and where they “want to be” is very large. The question should be is the end state more important to them over keeping the current state as fun and functional as possible.
In my perspective from all my years in technology and programming, I always believe it is more important to make the current live game play as functional as possible over a future end state. The reality is there is no way to guarantee that future end state will even happen. And if the current game play has lots of friction in the playing of it, you cause a negative feedback loop because you lose people. Resulting in less information, data, feature requests, bug notifications, etc. Staying focused on create a positive feedback loop is critical in ensuring success.
In any event, I am basically fine with the beacon model as it stands but felt I should share my experiences so the developers can be reminded of how important bringing full functionality to beacons is. Also without any way to truly know when a beacon timer ends it creates even more perception of a cluttered in-active world. Lowering my game play “fun and satisfaction” experience cause I don’t even know if that person with the crappy front yard will be moving out of the neighborhood soon!
By all means, continue to share your opinions on current game states. I’m just basing most of my assertions on what little real world data I have seen and my own personal observations as a backer over the last few years of development. I do believe there is actually some real world data on the matter available to the devs, as they have made mention of some interesting statistics in the past. I wish I could cite sources for more of my assertions, but alas I can not. I do however believe we are trending in the right direction in respect to beacon persistence to play time invested. Accounting for those pre-fuel beacons seems to leave very few unattended plots.
My observations are based on my time as Berlyn “High Oortling” watching plots come and go over several months. I am familiar enough with the plots in this densly populated region to have observed many builds come and go as their owners settle in or move out or quite playing after the patch.
@Havok40k I didn’t mean for it to sound like I didn’t value your comments. Of course you have seen more in game dynamics than I am especially with the plots around New Berlyn City.
I guess my response came more from neither of us having actual data to show the trend, etc. As well as my belief, that really the only proof in anything and whether a system works in by live testing it in its truest form. That and making sure developers remember that people are playing the game now and some effort on making that fun should be spent over constant “new” things.
I do agree overall that this system is decent and headed in a good direction over what had existed here and what could have been done. I read a lot of the posts on this as you all were deciding.
I still strongly believe that a timer showing beacon life should be implemented. The tech is basically there with portal timers so it could be ported over. Of course I don’t know how hard it is to implement but it shouldn’t be game changing or require a major overall. It is just a visible thing for something that is already a game dynamic. I think that would provide a lot of data for those of us playing the game. And as I said help us at least know when or if something might be going away.
If by chance I had a beacon that wasn’t fueled and the timer went out and everything was regened, do the actual plots that we used get returned to us and put back in our inventory plot count? Or must we go to that area and unplot? Or do we lose the plots?
