I voted no. I do agree that this is something the devs should address but I disagree with the specific implementation.
I’m a relatively new player with a couple months under my belt; and the concepts of plots, settlements, and prestige are still confusing for me. If someone can’t wrap their head around the existing game rules two months in, adding more complexity to it will only make the system more alienating to new players.
I’m still ignorant to what’s been tried in the past during EA, so my thoughts below come with a caveat that I simply may not know any better.
I believe the recent complaints about land ownership can be broken into two groups:
- I had plans for that plot but hadn’t bought it yet.
- I’m worried another player will steal my settlement.
I think both of those are what need to be addressed, and hopefully without adding more complexity to the game.
To solve this riddle we have to find what is common between the two types of complaints. What I see is, players are demonstrating loss aversion. They care about what they’ve built so far and want to grow it. Or they want to run a city. Whatever their motivation is, they have a dream. And these land disputes are manifestations of their dreams disappearing. This is a game. We bend the rules of reality (infinite diamonds!) so that everyone’s dreams can come true. That’s why we’re here.
Ok. That’s the setup of the problem. There are potentially many solutions from here. I’ll offer one, in two parts.
Part 1: Settlement status (outlet, hamlet, village, etc) now requires both prestige and a minimum number of plots. An outpost would require both 10,000 prestige and (say) 8 plots. A hamlet both 50,000 prestige and 40 plots.
This encourages players to be intentional about the size of their dreams and buffer space accordingly.
To raise awareness of these conditions (which can grow further as needed), settlement status should no longer be automatically calculated. Players should have to go to the UI in the beacon menu and “upgrade” their settlement. The UI would look very similar to meeting the requirements for a recipe in the crafting UI. Got enough prestige? Check. Got enough plots? Check. Click the button to upgrade. [If I may, can we defer messy downgrade edge cases for another conversation.]
Part 2: Settlement leadership works like guild administration in any MMO. When you upgrade to settlement you are forming a guild per-se, and you are the Warden. When others attach their plots to yours, they are joining your guild. They can never be Warden, unless you assign it to them.
This means that people who plot directly adjacent to you are joining your settlement and nothing they can do stops it. It will cause two people with Warden ambitions to put some space between each other and even plot defensively. Two behaviors we want to encourage. And it is no change to the average player who just wants to throw their hat in with an existing settlement.