I have played since launch and have never had any problems socially. A few times people plotted close to me, we had a friendly talk and they moved up a few plots 
I’m not discrediting anybody’s experiences, but for negative social issues, it’s far and few between.
Also, I have a feeling some people bring it upon themselves - not all ofc but I’m sure it’s somewhat avoidable. Just be nice and it’s all good 
I’m rarely on the forums because it is easily the most negative aspect of this game’s community. When in game, I almost never meet anyone unfriendly, and I’ve made some seriously good friends through Boundless. If you are getting turned off by the negativity, I suggest giving the forums a break for a while. It did me a world of good.
(Note: I’m only in this thread because one of the aforementioned friends linked me here because they thought this discussion was relevant to my interests. Otherwise, I usually only come to the forums to check out Exo resources.)
I really find aggressive annexing during the holidays when people are with friends and family taking a much needed break from the rigors of real life to be a very distasteful action even if it is in the bounds of the games rules, I would implore those who have done such things to remember that the community is only as strong as its new players and having our veteran players act in this manner will only further dwindle the games population so i say onto those involved in such acts shame on you for not having the courtesy to contact those “in your way” beforehand.
I’ve been here since PS4 launch, took a 6+ month break and lost almost everything (intentionally) at some point and must say these last couple months have been the best!!! The shop scanner went live, I’ve fully re-built my base and made amazing new friends along the way. It is unlikely you will encounter these problems personally, as plot protection overall does work well. You’re just not seeing a lot of positive on the forums because everybody’s busy with the holidays. Don’t let the drama suck you in, and just enjoy the game how you want to =) have you had a chance to play around with AoE hammers yet…?
This game has the most friendly community i have ever seen and i play online game since early 2000’s. Don’t let a few individuals make you think it’s a bad one.
PS : i think it’s because the game incentives you to play and share with others (for example by having the footfall mechanism)
Great advice… my problem is I like to read so I drop into the forums to read…then what went on this morning happens…complete turn off… 
From a coding perspective, there is an easy fix for plot wars:
Beacon option for "Opt Out: ALL"
It changes nothing about settlements, or how things work at the footfall level. It simply allows people in title to name themself Viceroy of their beacon and name the Settlement Displayed for their beacon. And if you get force annexed, you simply get more coin per footfall and nothing else changes.
Aren’t guild settlements pretty much the opt out button? You control the name that appears in the compass and the popup when you enter the place, your guild settlement has its own entry in the leaderboards too.
The regular settlement name still appears in the compass, though.
Personally, I find it annoying that you can have both the guild settlement name AND the regular settlement name in the leaderboard. It only displays the Top 5, so it will likely only display 3 different names.
I’m totally up for what Krollbar suggests.
I see no downside to this.
Guild aligned folks are entitled to be recognized and not everyone in a settlement is in the same guild so they are entitled to be recognized too.
There is NO reason however that the leaderboards could not show the top 10, 20 30, or whatever everyone requests, the game has all that data so it seems a simple thing to let a higher number show up.
My opinion is get along with others and make it work if possible and PLEASE do not take it to the public forums and blast the individual(s) and turn it into a public ■■■■ show when it REALLY doesn’t need to be. PM the individual(s) either with their mailbox or hey PM them in the forum… I’d say about 95% are signed up in here. Ticking off the person in the public eyes will NOT help you. I’m just sick and tired of seeing so much negativity on here keeping new players (and current) from playing such an awesome game. To the new players trust me and many others here when I say the boundless universe in game is FULL of friendly people. 5k hrs played and I’ve met many. I’ve had plot issues in my city and a SIMPLE pm here and there goes a long way to where you find out there could have been a misunderstanding and or they are willing to move to a different location on your city/area.
Plots issues will be around we all know that but it’s up to YOU as an player how you make of it instead of taking your anger onto the forum to get everyone else worked up and to keep new players from joining…
New players and current PLEASE keep playing you will see what I and many others mean when I say there is A LOT of friendly oortians playing and running around, who will guide you when needed, who will help you with pretty much anything…
I feel that this old rule about plotting area you will need for building in future is good but same time it can be game hurting advice.
Players are plotting much areas for future mega projects and some of us are locking down surface resources, forest or just make new player confused why beacon can’t be placed on natural looking area.
Then some players are forgetting to build at all when we start accruing enough plots by leveling up by some activities so we just leave up plotted areas where isn’t been much done.
I am guilty of this manner because it is only way to have area under control for building “when I have time”. Hopefully most of my non-build plotted areas are outside of starter worlds where players already know why there is plots on air 
I have had one problem like this where another settlement tried to block expansion, then attemptes to connecy (and another totally seperate one where a VERY dubious decision was made without contact…not salty honest)
Our whole settlement of 6 players tried to be reasonable, then we tried devs, then tried being a bit aggressive. Then fortune did me a favour.
One beacon slap bang in the middle of their city expired adjacent to the leaders home with the portal hub attached. 6x6 plots of pure gold. I took it, put up a sign inpolitely explaining its ransom and told em to leave us alone if they wanted it back. 2 weeks of previous hassle got nowhere but literally 3hrs later and they unblocked everything and unplotted the road too. Rude, yes, mean, yes and deffo the wrong thing to do. But hell, it 100% worked.
Lesson learned, sometimes you have to out douche a douchebag.
Oh I didn’t get your meaning. So when you’re in a guild, that takes over the Settlement name? I never noticed that.
But maybe it would help too to give the option to a guild/settlement to not be displayed in the leaderboard if the owner thinks it would be redundant.
In any case, yes, I do agree that raising the top from 5 to 10 would be better, especially with the current display of both guild and settlement name.
I would mainly advise people to be more mindful of where they plot first, or rather near who they plot.
You can’t blame someone for loosing their cool when they log into the game and suddenly find that they lost their settlement identity.
Some might come back after a break which began before the Plot Protection update, which means it’s invalid to tell them “it’s your fault for not enabling the protection”.
Some might simply not be aware of how annexing works.
All the ToC in the world aren’t going to be enough when you don’t first do all you can to get in touch with people you’re going to annex. Maybe the devs and mods care for that, but the angry player doesn’t.
When you align a beacon to a guild, it creates it’s own sub-settlement inside the greater one. You control the name of that settlement, there’s no mention of the greater settlement when inside the guild controlled area. To me it’s pretty close to the opt out button, I don’t really see the difference. But you have to create a guild, so it might be simpler if there was a beacon setting to do the same.
Indeed, this deals with the problem at surface level.
But it still doesn’t cover for the act of someone coming to build right next to you without sharing plans first. For that, no game mechanic can help.
Those who do it will always say “hey, I’m doing things the ToC allows me to do!”, which is true. But it’s still a d-bag move.
I’ve annexed an inactive player myself, and I’m not proud of it. But the difference is that I left that person a sign with instructions on how to contact me to discuss plots if he/she wants me to move things away the day he/she comes back.
IMHO, that should be the norm.
You still count and are part of the overall greater settlement nonetheless, so even though YOUR guild settlement pops up, your prestige is still being used for the benefit of said greater settlement. This is the problem at root here. Guild settlements simply shouldn’t be permitted to be part of greater settlements, this would solve ALL of the problems AND give people their opt-out button.
I guess I just don’t get the problem since I don’t look at prestige and cities etc. What does it matter that Gyosha City gets the prestige as well, higher ff? Is this a ff issue?
I would prefer a great redesign of the entire settlement system with some settlement book and that each player voluntarily forms part of the settlement if desired, as long as it meets the conditions that are necessary for it to be considered a settlement, example: beacons together next to each other. one of the other, with no wild space between them, and all that.
The settlement book may have districts, something similar to the guild book with the factions. The possible situation that a settlement is divided by internal fights and forms two different settlements, I do not see as a problem. In real life, near my town there are two different towns, with their own town halls, separated by a road and with a hospital in the middle that belongs to both towns and nothing happens.
I prefer this to more band-aids, we already have band-aids like the guilds to conserve the name, the protector of plots to avoid being annexed without our knowledge and everything that has already been commented before as how to plot more for example. In addition, exceptional cases can be solved by developers as they did before.
