I do like the voting idea, but what if the original maker of the settlement was always warden and they chose to accept or decline player builds from joining even if they are touching borders. Another comment i saw similar to voting was offering your own prestige to another beacon so they remain warden.
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Well they seem to be moving away from that sort of thing already with the protected borders and now the prestige rebalance. There’s also the who “roads don’t count” part of settlement merging, which overall shows that they didn’t intend, or at least no longer wish to allow people to just run around eating up other peoples settlements
I’m not going to debate with anyones opinions here. The devs want to hear our given opinion, to them. So , James honestly I like the prestige system. I mean we have a “casual” crafting mmo.
Jame, you are correct, some people care less about prestige, they can build with what they want. Who cares right? The problem I believe some people have, is if they think someone else is cashing in on it, even though they choose not to be part of it. Which is stupid, because if someone wants to go to the effort of making bricks and are trying to have a lot of prestige, then all the power to them. It keeps the worlds dynamic. If someone decides they don’t want part of this system, they shouldn’t expect some sort of reward and be jealous of what another player gets from his/her hard work. Your proposal of added beacon options is flat genius imo. I feel it cures so much.
I feel prestige should figure in on footfall. I am pro footfall. My opinion is for the reply to the devs, and matters not if any of you disagree with me. No disrespect but some of you are debating back and forth, when the devs just wanted your person feelings on the matter, given to them.
I thank you devs for giving those who “choose” to build in your crafting game, a small reward. How can this be measured? By prestige. Thank you devs for putting a gauge on the system so you and I can keep tract. Thank you for giving a small present of footfall coins calculated in with prestige% to to help encourage and reward “those” who choose to build and make Boundless huge.
If any adjustment, my personal opinion is maybe making sure hard to craft blocks are worth more than just rare blocks. Gleam and polished gleam shouldn’t be worth more than bricks, ( don’t know if they are or are not). I think you already have been on the right road, but have come to question yourselves because of new players believing the system is somehow broken or some do no like that others worked hard and are getting footfall from it. I kind of don’t care, because anyone can choose to do the same.
May Boundless Live long and Prosper
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Because I do not want to live in a city named “Toe Fungus.”
I’m not pulling a name I saw personally, but I have seen some pretty bad ones, and some great names changed to something cringeworthy.
Maybe they can add “sectors” or something along those lines, but then it would still need a whole name. Maybe that whole name can be a poll on a beacon between wardens and those in the sectors?
That might get complicated though…
Anyway, not to argue, I’m just stating why the name is important to myself.
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Think of it less as debate and more clarifying opinions vs expectations.
Five people can have different opinions on what color tile floor should be…but first you need to agree on what room you’re putting it in.
I’d totally live in Toe Fungus
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Ok, Here is my proposal. Gleam should be worth 1.5 x more prestige than stones, refined gleam 1.5x more than refined stone. Even though they are highly farmed, they are still “less common” than stone. I like the idea others have said about having “decorative gleam” as a third craft type for it.
Decorative blocks are now a little harder to make so adding a couple prestige to those would be very appreciated.
Natural blocks (placed by the player) should be worth 0 to 1 prestige (1 if from another planet and 0 if from the one your on). This will make it so players are not encouraged to mass use the blocks, but the -1 I get for having some bushes around my house is discouraging. This will also help players feel that creativity is not discouraged ( I know the system is “effort” based, but creativity is also a form of effort and this is one that can be measured).
So don’t live in Toe Fungus?
I think you’ve missed the point I was making. If there’s no competition over the name, then once you’ve named it as the warden you’re sorted. No one can come in and gleam tower you to take warden and change the name. If you choose to place a beacon in Toe Fungus and then want to moan about the name then that’s your problem.
I thought it already does? When I look at the footfall in my shop which I have been building up it is currently 30c per visitor. My factory which is lagging behind in building is only 20c per visitor. My alts places which are VERY lacking are only 1c per visitor.
The amount of prestige of your build does directly impact on your footfall generation.
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I see nothing at all wrong with that mechanic. The warden of a settlement SHOULD be the most popular, not whoever can spam an ugly square and forcibly take it over.
Popularity would at least fit the spirit of community and cooperation that I feel the Devs are striving for.
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Im prolly minority of the player base when i say i dont really care about prestige… i build with things i find for my place. But that is kind of the problem… i feel theres no rewards for players that actually make houses look houses. Not some gleamposts. Maybe there could be a way to add some sort of prestige “tiers” that you unlock if placing like 4k timber or stone. Cause atm i feel like i have to refine everything to have some change to “compete” my spot in settlement.
And ye i dont rly care about the prestige i just build with foliage and sand if i feel like it
Decorative Gleam could work, on a workbench that requires power so not everyone straight away can make it. It could replace the refned gleam prestige value now and gleam and refined gleam become lower.
I also really, really would like a change with natural blocks, make those 1 or 2 or something, not 0 and certainly not turn into something negative…
On one hand I kinda like that idea, on the other I totally do not. I started my settlement, I named it, everything else named has a relation with it I really do NOT want to lose my wardenship and someone renames it…
And then what is prestige used for? Only to calculate which city is the capital? Why would that then not also be replaced with a voting system?
Problem this also creates is that there is no single reason anymore to even look at the prestige value at all, then it might as well be removed completely…
If the warden is voted but the rest of prestige stays, like for capital city, and the warden of a capital is voted out they might want to pack up their stuff and leave making sure the settlement is not the capital anymore.
Tho typing this I did come up with a combination of the two!
What is everyone can vote on who’s warden of a settlement but the amount of plots and/or prestige is used to weigh your vote.
This would mean the settlement that I started where 95% of the plots, where 95% of the prestige is mine I would have a very low chance of being outvoted by people with empty plots…
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Well prestige still exists for bragging rights cause some people need a number to work with. As James said:
The problem with using Prestige to weight your vote is you are back to people spamming ugly towers to generate large amounts of prestige so their votes count for more than everyone else and we are back to square one.
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Ok, you have a nice settlemtn, worked on it from the beginning, then 10 people join, plop down a beacon and vote you out…
Sounds fair huh?
How is that different to me working hard on my shop, reaching the number 1 spot in the settlement and giving the name I wanted. Along comes someone else and plops down a huge eyesore built with only machined copper and gleam and I get “voted out” and they become warden.
With the current system 1 person can take over a settlement of a dozen or more. With a voting system the current residents can stop that from happening.
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That’s diferent since you can easily outbuild them I’m sure if you so wanted. Being outvoted you can’t do anything about…
If they ever implemented a voting system I would never ever again allow people into my settlement to prevent being voted out.
I would be very against this and see a huge problem with it. Not saying the current system is perfect, but at least I can see it happening and can start making a gleam bunker of my own…
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The point is currently ONE person can disrupt everything as opposed to your example where it takes MULTIPLE people to do the same thing requiring a concerted effort to take over. Not saying it was perfect but I do think it is still a fairer system then the current setup.
And I think people would be fine to make a settlement and “never ever again allow people into my settlement to prevent being voted out”. People actually WANT that ability to protect “their” settlement so yes that should totally be how it works!
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- Prestige is XP for your build.
- Prestige isn’t about beauty, it’s about cost.
First of all thank you for sharing this bit. Knowing these design constraints greatly reduces the problem space so that everyone can communicate more productively.
You then claim that players are free to totally ignore prestige, which I disagree with. Prestige decides who gets to name the settlement, so even players who focus on pure creativity and aesthetics must surrender the naming of their artwork to those playing the prestige game. Imagine if the Mona Lisa was named Trash Can Nelly because it only took 40 hours to paint; and another artist, with a worse painting, which they hung across the street from the museum, but who spent 41 hours painting it got to choose the name? Oh and the author displayed to everyone who walks by isn’t Da Vinci, it’s DeezLutz. Contrived, but that’s Boundless. That’s how many players feel.
I think devs should reconcile their view of settlements with the players’. The key misunderstanding seems to be that the devs consider settlements an emergent property of what players are doing. And players see settlements as social structures.
I started as a yes vote on this initiative but after typing my thoughts out I’m changing to a no vote. I don’t think prestige calculation is the problem. The disconnect between what devs and players think settlements are is the problem. If you solved that problem, prestige could be poorly balanced and it wouldn’t be a big deal.
Ok now I’m going to commit a forum faux pas and recommend an alternative way forward. My goal will be to preserve the devs’ desire for settlements to be an emergent property of game actions, but address the heart of the prestige complaints players have.
Proposal: Settlements no longer have names. The game can designate a settlement by observing a clumping of player plots like it already does; but there’s no way to name it.
Proposal: Make beacon names more prominent as prestige grows. If I walk into someone’s beacon and they built a 200,000 prestige castle masterpiece, I want to see the name of it displayed prominently on my screen as well as the artist’s name. Since it’s their beacon, they will always retain naming rights of their build. It would be annoying to see this popping up every time you enter another beacon, which is why the prominence should scale with prestige.
Proposal: Update the UI upon entering a settlement to act as a guide. When I walk into a settlement the game should still tell me. Since there’s no longer a settlement name to show me, it should show me the names of the top 3 beacons (and owners) instead. I should get marks on my compass pointing those top 3 out to me, until I leave the settlement. If I pull up the settlement screen I should see any participating beacon over 10k prestige, and I should be able to click it to set my waypoint to it. Prestige fuels the guide, and the guide brings players to the good builds, and the good builds generate foot fall. What a nice feedback loop!
With all those in place we have stopped the zero-sum elements of settlement PVP so the players are happy. There is still a reason for players to compete for more prestige than their neighbors so the devs are happy.
After implementing this we would probably find that the settlement guide isn’t that accurate. It leads us to gleam towers and other prestige gimmicks. Then is the time to revisit prestige calculation. Also we would probably find that players desire some sort of in-game social structure. But I’ve read that devs are working on a guild system so maybe that will address that.
Thanks for your time, I know my posts are long.
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@james I couldn’t help but notice that even you voted yes to your own poll. I concur with your vote.