Please also lets not put too much stock into the deliberately and unnecessarily confrontational words chosen by Sulfurblade. If people are so insecure about possible change that they immediately revert to dismissing other peoples opinions with aggravating language… then are these the people who’s opinions we should be taking stock in?
Whatever the Devs decide, and however much you might disagree with it, there’s really no need not to be civil.
It does suck its causing problems. I think it’s the basis is very cool. I hope you guys can spitball a great fix for peoples problems!
Again no fix is needed here…
If your kids are playing in a sandbox your oldest daughter is making an amazing sand castle with awesome detail and your youngest son, is lumping some sand clumps together on top of each other…
Then your oldest daughter takes your sons bucket and shovel away and tells he to leave the sandbox his building is terrible… who would you reprimand???
Your eldest Daughter for being a brat right???
So why are we considering this behavior in boundless to be okay to the point we are going to accommodate people who are old enough to know how to behave properly inside a sand box???
Personally, I’d see if I could get them to fight over it for entertainment… but I’d make a terrible parent and definitely should never have children. Or maybe tell them I saw a cat pooing in the sandbox so they don’t even want to use it for a little while. I’m not sure what the Boundless equivalent would be though.
Also, I don’t entirely think you’re wrong. I’d say there are some flaws, but the system does ‘more or less’ work for a reasonable portion of the player-base. Sometimes, that’s the best that you can hope for, but that doesn’t necessarily follow that it couldn’t still be made better.
We had quite a constructive conversation about this within our guild discord yesterday.
The outcome was that, players like to have a sense of identity - even more so when it comes to groups of players. We as players like to carve out a creative territory that we can call home. Somewhere we can feel proud of our collective accomplishments and achievements. Being absorbed by another settlement removes that identity and accomplishment and is seen as an invasion of that territory.
One possible solution we came up with was to keep the organic growth of settlements, so that players can still simply and easily build together and form great sprawling cities. In joining a settlement in this way, you are tagged as part of that settlement. That part of the implementation exists already in game.
An improvement I would like to see comes when you have existing settlements that share a border between them. I would like to see an option (which would likely need to happen at the time of the settlement bridging player placing their beacon), for the player to choose which settlement they would like to be a part of.
Additionally, any beacons that share a border between settlement would also have an option to change which settlement they want to belong to. This allows territorial progression between neighbouring settlements, but on a beacon by beacon basis, not via a complete absorption of one settlement by another.
Put the control in the players hands of where they want to belong.
Our challenge and aim is to solve this problem in a way that makes everyone happy, and we might even have a few ideas how to do this…
We’ll share the ideas once we’ve thought through them a little more.
I think you didn’t get what this discussion is about and you are missing the point. 
The discussion about themed cites is in another topic.
its the Same discussion!!!
There is no sovereignty fix needed… As the system works fine… Work hard and be the Warden that’s the answer… If your a big group then utilize those numbers and be sure one of your’s is the warden!!! Both issues are the same thing…
It’s not that easy. On Nil Zed Ka… or whatever it is called, is a capital with a quite a prestige, the biggest plot has over 120K prestige. Few days ago I started to build a tower nearby, but miscalculated plots, and had to expand yesterday. It turns out now I’m part of this capital, having second most prestige, and soon, and by the looks of it I’ll be a Mayor today, tomorrow or by the end of week. Looking at the other buildings I don’t think they be able to “combat” my prestige gain, because they are just causal players that want to have fun.
…
And the real question left is… how do I name this capital when I take it over 
…
But seriously, it’s very, very easy to take over someone’s village, hamlet, whatever. And If you are dedicated, you can do it so quickly other won’t even notice that.
And what is wrong with what you just said??? You name it whatever you want because you will be the warden… If there casual players thats on them… If there rational people they will be like oh well I am just a casual player guess I now live in the town known as “X” Because sztosz is a good player who has more prestige then me…
Or they say grrrr… they knuckle down and mine Iron hand it all to one of there guys who turns it into machined Iron and takes back the town…
Or
They could come to the forum and cry for a change to the game!
Even I, though I like to take over planets (be a Viceroy) just for fun, think that taking over the name of someone’s settlement by force (force of prestige) is borderline griefing in a game like boundless.
Its most certainly not griefing…
Its the only competition in this MMO is the prestige competition and you want to take that out???
I think there have been far too many people who have grown up in the generation of everyone gets a participation trophy instead of giving out 1rst 2nd and 3rd…
Seriously that is basically the entire point of the game… Build up and be big and strong so your the Warden and rally your town to build big and strong so you become viceroy…
Also you obviously put in more work if you have more prestige so Its griefing on there part if they complain about your right to name the town what you want… You have just as much right to do so as they do… Actually more so because your the warden!
Whilst I think competition is fine between cities to become the viceroy of the planet, I don’t think it’s a good gameplay mechanic to ruin that sense of identity and achievement people get by building their own town and competing with another.
You hit the nail on the head there… in merging two settlement it’s no longer your town … it’s now disputed between 2 or more factions that perceive it as theirs. That’s not a gameplay mechanic I want… Boundless is a game is about creating communities, not driving them apart.
I’m 35, I grew up with games that as a reward gave you credits (list of people who made the game), that often had no saves, and the participation trophy was death. But the times are changing, and I can’t say the games were better then than now. I play from time to time in the diamonds of old, and it’s more than not, just a disappointment. The only obvious exceptions are Fallout 1 and 2.
Anyway I really do think that if there should be competition it should be between communities, and not between community and tyrant, the player that just play more.
And if I/we do not want you to be the warden? Why should I/we let you generate coin (increased footfall from larger settlements) because of the hard work people put into a settlement? We have to instead of having a nice natural build now waste time creating prestige vaults or introduce materials we may not want to have in the build, just to keep the identity of the area a group of people may have invested 100’s of hours in versus someone that built a gem tower?
Not arguing you can build what you want on your plots, that is the game. But why is it such an issue to let people retain the identity of their settlement? This has already created major drama and will continue to as settlements get bigger and people invest more time in the game and their builds.
My feelings exactly, just didn’t know how to express it, thank you @Stretchious 
In a perfect world, two communities that grow into each other would be able to find a way to coexist together as one unified community. But that doesn’t seem to work well in practice from what we’ve seen so far.
You mean mindless prestige dumping?
Prestige completely fails at measuring good builds, its just a numbers game.
That means that poeple who don’t want to play the numbers game and build for aesthetic are easily screwed over by mindless prestige dumps.
It’s like doping in competitive sports, you have to do it, unless you just stop caring about who is at the top.
It’s a flawed system. That’s why I completely ignore it.
I don’t see why this thread took a spin into some discussion since it’s flagged as a Suggestion
@Xaldafax great post, aside it’s a source of an obvious settlement takeover, it will happen aswell on lower settlements (those who doesn’t even have prestige lets call it fresh cities) , taking that on account, i agree that there should be some mechanism that allows the player to chose whether if he wants to be part of that big settlement that’s absorbing him, or just stay out of it.
Throwing some idea there , maybe settlement Mayors can decide if they want to merge with another settlement, something like a confirmation screen, or just make the game totally ignore the fact that another settlement is near the first one.
Also, @Sulfurblade @Kirinvar , let’s remember therka and that 10 plot wide red gleam tower up to 200 alt to take over mayor. It definitively works (gleam has low prestige now) but it wasn’t quite a good build. As a builder i’m against prestige dump to define who rules aswell.
I think you helped build a good system that made it very easy for people to create a city. I hope you and @james can make our call next week so I can get a bit more technical details and understand a few things deeper in the original approach.
Maybe we all were a bit too naive to believe that everyone wanted to be a part of a city. Usually when people settle in an area that means they want to join that area, but sometimes it is actually for other reasons or pure selfish reasons.
Pretty much every system in Boundless is focused on allowing the player to choose their path. In fact, you all changed game dynamics to move everything into an “exchange” so a player can choose what to do with the rewards they receive from the game - plots, masks, additional characters, etc.
Settlements are really one of the only areas that are now stuck in an old model where the decision of the game is made for them and people are forced to play with others whether they want to or not. People should not be force to leave the area or quit the game because another person or group moves into the area to push them out.
People’s work should also not be taken advantage by other people so that person can be Mayor or Viceroy and get coin taxes if that system is ever turned on. A person deserves everything they can get based on the work they put into the game, but the efforts of another person should not be ADDED to that work unless it is APPROVED. Right now your system makes that the default and it fundamentally dis-respects the other person’s work by deciding where and who the spoils of that work goes to.
An opt-in system still allows those of like minds and like goals to team up and allows those that do not want to participate in that type of game to still have their own sovereignty of play style. Nothing is really lost and more things are gained. Beyond people feeling like they have a say there is the whole dynamic of actually having to work to get people to join your settlement. A whole new area of game play.
I certainly do not support moving settlement design into the exchange but I think even a super simple option of - join settlement or not should be provided on each beacon. It doesn’t even need to have the additional code I mention of giving options to select neighboring settlements based on plot borders, etc.
I hope we can talk more about this on the call and get into actual technicals so I understand what road blocks might exist and I can maybe help come up with ideas…
@marrash Thank you for the defense, but I think player responses like we have seen speak for themselves. I just smiled in this case because of the deep misconceptions and assumptions of me. My approach for this topic has been consistent on what I want for the whole community - choice and fair play. I’m know the developers see beyond the little bit of drama we all have had to the deeper message.
In fairness to @Sulfurblade his message is basically on point even though the tone and approach used isn’t one I would use. Work to be on top if you want to be on top. I support the point when you boil it down to the key message.
Unfortunately, the issue is deeper than that simple approach. I think overall people that are against the change proposed feel that the work of other players to bolster their own efforts is a fine game dynamic. Personally, I feel each person should have to work on things themselves - both in prestige building AND community building. (people can help people on building in their plots obviously that is fine.)
Additionally, each person should be allowed to play they game they want to play within this game instead of being forced to play something they don’t care to. Currently the settlement code does not allow that. It is like forcing people into PVP when they aren’t interested in it. Not all of us have something we need to prove or must play a part of the game just because others feel it is important.
Right now both myself and Sulfer are being forced into a fight that at least one of us has no interest in. If I wanted to try to beat him in fight for Mayor and Viceroy I would be attempting that and actually spending time on it. But that is not a goal I have right now. He seems to have that goal, so I support his work as long as it is HIS work and not the work of OTHER player plot prestige.
A “good” player will win the game by their own efforts and not hijacking another person’s efforts. Now if the game adds this “opt-in” option then it actually gives that person another way to team up with the other person to maybe achieve a goal they have.
Whether people think it is griefing or not is a matter of personal preference. What we do know it is, though, is not showing respect for another person and their wishes. Many approach the game in a way that “big and strong” wins the rewards. While that is true in some ways, it isn’t true in others. This “opt-in” feature moves towards respect of each.
The game has many more nuances that the big bully scenario. That mentality only proves the point more that the work of another shouldn’t be taken by the bully for their use. I mean are we really in kindergarten here where someone has to steal another person’s lunch money?
@Stretchious I am glad to see this thread has started some discussion among other players outside of the thread. I think they way you said things gives a good color to the problem. The identity you talk about is key and hence why I used the work sovereignty in the topic. Based on your response it appears your guild agrees with the system I proposed in the post! (edit: wanted to make sure it didn’t sound like I was taking credit for the idea. I know we have had many conversations around this and some form or fashion of opt-in had been discussed. I just meant the original post I did here.)