HELP! Give us your opinion on automatic protection zones around beacons?

Devlog
21

I voted yes because I think it’s the right line of thinking, but I have reservations about many of the proposed details. Especially for cities. In dense areas you might have a dozen or more overlapping protection zones over a plot. If you want to transfer that plot for person A to person B, you have to make sure all of the zone owners have turned protection off before you can complete the transfer. Otherwise the plot gets unplotted and can’t be reclaimed.

It would help in this scenario if there was a way to transfer plot ownership without unplotting. But I expect there would be other types of issues too.

3 Likes
22

This to me sounds like something that could be added with guild features as a control measure in conjunction with whatever the guild parameters are. Giving it to every single beacon would overly complicate things and could possibly cause even further issues and disputes. If people want this feature and play solo, they just make a guild and enjoy the perks.

I am not saying no to this, I’m saying no to how it is being implemented.

4 Likes
23

Already adjacent beacons sound like they’ll be a pain. I’m not a fan because I don’t mind the current system and prefer the simplicity now but I can see it’d please a lot of people.

1 Like
24

So much to Digest, but lets work on clearing up something first, a situation you kinda touched on, but didn’t get far enough.

What if a new player places down a Beacon. It’s only 1 plot big, very low Prestiage so either no barrior or a circle barrier around them.

THEN, a second much higher level player plots very close to the small gap next to the new player, and places down a whole lot of Refined Gleam and skyrockets his Prestiage and thus his own Barrier.

I ask this cause, as you said in the quote, the ‘Protected’ Plots between the two will be unowned, and if it lands on the Beacon they can still go up and down, but what if the Protected Barrier goes THROUGH the new player? Completely reaching all around him and encasing him? What then?

I ask cause, in the case I brought it, it’s totally Griefing. But what if it’s not, what if it’s two new players playing for different lengths. The more active player is going to expand his protection barrier faster, and have longer time to build and expand. What if it encases the other player that doesn’t play as often and thus doesn’t build or expand as quickly? It isn’t clearly Griefing in that situation, but if the Protection Barrier fully encircles a build, that build can’t expand anymore, right?

Next I want to talk a little bit about this quote, tho won’t have to do with 1 player plotting on top of another player, but more with permissions.

Namely, right now Permissions work from the Master Beacon, and ALL Plots attached to a Beacon. So if you made a building with multiple rooms and floors attached together under 1 beacon, then any permission given to another player, applies to the whole build, all the rooms and floors.

I wanted to know if there was any plans to maybe change that around. Where you can give players, not only permissions on a Beacon, but assign specifically what plots attached to the beacon those permissions take effect.

So as an idea of what I mean, you’d have someone making a 3 story hotel, with each room being a whole plot, could give permissions to 3 ‘Roommates’, and have each ‘Roommate’ only have permissions to build or use stuff in their specific plot/room, but not in the rest of the build, or the other roommate’s rooms/plots.

One way I could see this working, is with color coding Plots, per Beacon, much like how Prison Architech does it.
http://oi67.tinypic.com/14t4ynl.jpg

You can see from that picture how different sections of the map are color coded. It would be nice if, per person, you could assign them Permissions, And colors, or even go even farther and have it be a branching tree.

The player at the top, under him the colors he has access to, and under EACH color, which permissions he has in that color.

So if he has Access to Plots colored Blue and Green, he might only be able to interact with objects in Blue, while also being able to Build only in Green.

^ Just a suggestion, as you’re going to help keep people out of builds, you might as think about sharing builds as well.

4 Likes
25

I voted a clear yes.
As it is the case Right at this time, someone plotted 2 plots away from my build…which is in the middle of an Ocean.
That Person must have dug 500 blocks from the nearest shore, under the sea Level, trough the Lava which is directly under his beacon.
This is a totall grief beacon, sadly inside the CoD.
So yes, bring the protection onward!

2 Likes
26

To all the players, worried about Settlements and overlapping permissions already existing, I want to suggest something that might solve that.

The first is that, the Settlement itself counts as 1 big build, instead of each seperate player. So people attached together in a settlement, would be immune to the Settlement’s Protection buffer and plot in them normally as if they were the owner.

Whats more, the Warden can be give special permissions from his Master Beacon in the settlement to turn the Settlement’s Protection barrier on or off, and even have a ‘White List’ for people that are allowed to join the city, without them needing to be on his friends list, to activate the “Plotting Permission” feature.

1 Like
27

and more surface gone to afk players

2 Likes
28

I really really love this idea. However, I do wish there was some kind of system in place to allow people to claim those protected unclaimed plots if the owner of the protection wants it.

Otherwise, it would be difficult for people to make cities with different people if their friends were unable to claim due to the protection.

29

I’ve built roads to encourage development of the settlement, and one guy bought all adjacent plots, demanding money for returning them…

YES, BRING THE SYSTEM IN!!

3 Likes
30

He added this to the bottom, in case you missed it:

So people can disable their barrier and allow anyone to plot nearby. He can turn it off, the person plots, then turn it back on.

1 Like
31

Oh in that case im all for it!

32

people should be aware that blocking off others now is even more easy than before >.<

not that this scratches me much… i got my portals and only nice neighbours

33

The best protection you can get.

I voted yes, We need to stop fighting against every change and go forward.There is always a way to improve things later if something go wrong.

2 Likes
34

blocking off others could include u getting blocked from ur favored expansion direction … just the size of influence for the troll increase… now it will be 1 beacon 9 plots surface blocked

1 Like
35

Just wanted to chime in again, to make a more clear point. People ALREADY have the option to put their own buffer around their builds, using their own plots, but SOME people choose not to.

Just like the roads, people wanted them to not count if not three wide, yet, people still make roads, and people still complain. It won’t matter how wide they have to be.

Same is going to happen with beacons. Some folks will just become acclimated to the buffer and then feel encroached upon when someone builds up against their buffer. They’ll just want a bigger buffer. It will never end. If someone can’t take incentive and create their own buffer, that’s on them.

6 Likes
36

its based on prestige, read what he said kid.

37

i already see the 1 plot gleam tower forest

44

absolutely this.

I like the solution, sounds good James!
glad to hear about features coming with the guild update!

45

I really like this idea. It could be easily implemented just by a setting in your master beacon where you nominate your “vote” for warden so your beacon prestige is added to theirs for warden calculations.

3 Likes
46

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:

  1. I had plans for that plot but hadn’t bought it yet.
  2. 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.

5 Likes