What Should Happen When A Beacon Expires

General
1

There seems to be a continuing theme that players are not returning to the game because they lost everything when their beacons expire. Should the game do something for players that have not been playing and their beacons expire? Should the game try to make a distinction between a player that has not been playing and an active player whose beacon has expired? If the blocks are stored, how long should the developers bear the cost of storing the information before letting it expire?

What should happen to the player placed blocks when their beacon expires?

  • 1 – Nothing, they should be able to come back to it anytime they want. If the character is deleted then the build regenerates.
  • 2 – The land regenerates, the build cannot be scavenged or plotted, but ALL the blocks (including what is in storage) goes into a vault system where it can be recovered by the player at a future date unless they delete the character and then the storage is erased.
  • 3 – Nothing should change, a player can buy gleam club or get a friend to fuel beacons if they want to always be sure their build and all their storage is safe from regen.
  • 4 – The land regenerates, the build cannot be scavenged or plotted, all the contents of the build are converted to a coin value (based on developer assigned values) which will be stored indefinitely as long as the player character that owned the beacon is not deleted.
  • 5 – The land regenerates, the build cannot be scavenged or plotted, but ALL the blocks (including what is in storage) goes into a vault system where it can be recovered by the player at a future date if they pay a storage retrieval fee. Some amount of money in order to help cover the storage costs and to lessen abuse of the mechanic.
  • 6 – Other option not listed above.

0 voters

If Option 2 is what happens, how long should the developers store the data?

  • 1 – Forever
  • 2 – 1 year
  • 3 – 6 months
  • 4 – 3 months
  • 5 – As long as the longest beacon fuel currently available in game would last.
  • 6 – Other but not listed above.

0 voters

Should a player have to have not been logged into the game for a certain time in order for the save mechanic to come into play?

  • 1 – Yes
  • 2 – No

0 voters

If yes, what is the minimum time they have not been playing the game?

  • 1 – 1 month
  • 2 – 2 months
  • 3 – 3 months
  • 4 – 1 year
  • 5 – Other but not listed above

0 voters

If Option 2 in the first question is implemented, how would you implement the vault system remembering that the sanctum is local and not stored on the servers so might be subject to being hacked or manipulated?

3 Likes
2
1 Like
3

The issue with this is it really does nothing to make sure a players items are there when they return. Other players can pick a build clean of whatever is really valuable or regen the entire build so I am not sure this solves this issue.

Under the suggestion you posted they can still expect to comeback to nothing so do they not come back?

4

Yes it is just a different idea for what to do on expiry. I personally prefer the idea.

1 Like
5

Fair enough. I was just trying to be clear not saying it is not a valid suggestion.

6

:slight_smile:I’m not opposed to the idea of “saving people” who lose their builds, but that would be a different kind of game. One with no fall damage or death xp loss, and with 10 free plots given per week to each player. I just don’t think it fits the rest of the game in terms of being forgiving.

1 Like
7

Maybe t1 planets could save all builds and have no fall damage or deaths; higher tier would stay as is? An idea to compromise for players who want different things out of the game.

3 Likes
8

Edit whole post here: Whoops, didn’t read option five! :flushed: Guess that changes my vote, sorry…

Yeah, there probably should be some sort of additional penalty for the storage. I say you have to bail your goods out of the vault, pay a little price for the storage - not huge, but perhaps whatever the chrysominter value is for each block? So you might have to do a little work to get your stuff back perhaps, especially if a huge amount of blocks had to be stored - but you could get it back bit by bit.

2 Likes
9

A penalty is not a bad idea. Many games require you to run to your place of death to retrieve your inventory. Maybe assign a series of quests that give a little bit back each time you complete one.

4 Likes
10

This seems like a reasonable system. :slight_smile:

1 Like
11

When a beacon expires… there should be a mad rush of scavengers, who are all madly rushing slower than me.

And i have just discovered there is no pirate emoji on android, so this post just became 21% less fun.

I will be writing a strongly worded letter tomorrow.

4 Likes
12

I heard a suggestion somewhere that I really liked the sound of…

When a beacon expires, regen starts, but is very slow. Like ~10 to 100× as slow as normal. During this time, the beaconed area is not plottable but blocks and items can be salvaged by anyone (except for the master beacon control). The only way to save an expiring build would be to find and fuel the beacon control. The player that does this, must have at least the same amount of free plots that are in the build.

If the build has regened a lot (like say half the build) once an individual plot has regened entirely, it is no longer a part of the expiring beacon because there is nothing to protect. Also saves a salvager unnecessary plots if he or she just wants to protect or salvage the remaining ruins.

1 Like
13

For the options #2, #4, #5. I have a question re:

“The land regenerates, the build cannot be scavenged or plotted…”

What would happen with these plots, just become “reserved” though now empty or did you have something else in mind?

Thanks

14

What I mean is that since the materials are being stored or converted to coin, a player in the game cannot plot the build which would duplicate the materials or scavenge materials since they are going to be stored. This prevents abuse where a build gets vaulted and scavenged which could double the materials.

Once the build is in storage and the area regens it can be plotted by other players.

If this is not clear I will try again. I am reading my response and since I know what I mean I may not still be explaining it well

1 Like
15

Ohhhh, I get it now. Thanks for clarifying.

16

I think we need to understand better why people leave and solve those things first before we change the beacon regen mechanic.

I do also feel that we should allow a small personal storage of a set number of boxes that sit out in a cloud environment and are linked to the sanctum so people can save key items in case they go away. This at least allows people to come back at any point and start with some tools, coils, or whatever. We already have a database tracking items that are in the world so maybe there is a minimal cost way to improve this for a small amount per player.

2 Likes
17

I’ve noted that none of your options corresponds to the suggestion I made, which poses me some problems.

• Option 1 will obviously anger all the players who don’t like to see abandonned builds litter the worlds.

• The “Vault System” idea mentioned with Option 2 and 5 requires, as you pointed out, that the devs start storing more data per character, which indeed makes you wonder “how long should they keep the extra data?”. Depending on the player, that might be A LOT of data. I hear some players have thousands of plots.
Personally, I’d say coming back to a vault filled with my stuff is ‘better’, but it’s not what would prevent me from screaming in anger and leaving the game forever. The blocks would be saved, but not the actual build.

• Option 3 and 4 don’t really help solve the actual issues.

If I really had to choose, I’d rather take Option 5, which seems fair enough, but really if there was no other option.
I don’t like loosing my work, which should make me vote for Option 1, but it negates the whole point of the beacon system, and that’s not something we want.

At one point, you gotta take a clear stance between “I don’t want to see abandonned builds that I would have to clean” and “well, the players who returns to the game needs to have all their things when they come back!”, don’t you think?

But it’s true, with my suggestion, when you come back after your beacon died, you might come back into the game with everything you accomplished gone, IF someone noticed your plots became ruins and felt like an a-hole, he could scavenge or bomb the living sh!t out of your build until the world-regen kicks in because of low prestige value.

But you can also be less pessimistic and hope that some players would be nice and try to contact you through the forum or Discord to warn you, or that they would claim the beacon back for you to save it and through an often suggested beacon trading feature, they would give it back to you once you come back online.

Heck, nobody might even notice your build isn’t protected anymore, and you might come back like “well, phew, everything’s still here!”.

People might also all agree that your ruins are kick-@$$ and that nobody should touch them. People might come and add blocks to the ruins (no machines, just decorative stuff), hide treasure and stuff.

Overall, I’d say my suggestion is a good comprise. With it, many interesting things can happen.

18

Maybe I am underestimating the cost to store the data. Why can’t the builds stay indefinitely? Perhaps allocated to a public/free for grabs fashion? If without fuel for X time the beacon, plots, blocks, storage, etc become public - anyone can access or claim the land. Possibly have two grace periods. One where friends or guild can claim, then release it to everyone at a later date.

19

Data costs are less of a concern over what is stored, length, and the actual technical process and how it impacts the game.

The planets would fill up and people would not be happy that the ugly build was never replaced, etc… It is a cost thing too because we can’t constantly build new planets and never have some form of attrition.

20

Land goes public, but doesn’t auto regen. If someone wants to reset the land they would first need to claim the plots to remove the public status and set them as their own. They could then unclaim your plots and toss a regen bomb.