I feel with you, imo the absolute protection from beacons system removed a lot of suspense from the building and the game in general (I, for example, didn’t even bother with placing any walls, let alone doors since the implementation of beacons).
But it seems like this is just what beacons should do. Apparently beacons are intended to allow players to thoughtlessly slam their structures anywhere, without bothering to waste a thought on the position or safeness of their place.
TBH I also think that´s the reason why the worlds are empty.
Rust, for example, features basically the same amount of content (more or less) but it´s servers are bursting with players (Rank 13. in player numbers on steam!).
Though, in general, the beacon placing & handling is fine for me.
When we get more agressive creatures (and/or better AI) you surely want to think about how to fortify your buildings^^
Just slamming down things won’t protect you from angry mobs.
Constructs in Rust are also considerably more durable, and require a great deal more time and materials to breach than what is intended in Boundless.
Add to that, couldn’t “can destroy” also be a possible toggle for beacons? I have also built a few unbeaconed cache’s of treasure and artifacts in the legacy worlds for explorers to discover and plunder. It’s a fun little treat to leave behind. I see no reason why beacons could not have toggles to control every aspect of the area they encompass.
How extremely smart of you! This could be an incredibly powerful feature. Adding an option to ‘remove’ something from a beneficial item to make it react to the variable it influences (i.e. world regeneration, player actions taken, (gravity maybe?) could very well be the way we should indeed think about this.
So I would need two specific options for this to work right?
Example Beacon options
Beacon Name: Pyramid of Chufu
Allow destruction: ON / OFF
Publicly visible: ON / OFF
That would be exactly what I suggested^^
I think that’s the best way to do it. Let the players choose how much they want the beacons to protect their areas.
I like the idea of beaconed items being able to be destroyed but regenerating exactly how the owner built them!
The alternative is that the world regen is bumped to something like 7 days (remember that regular visits delay the regen process), but users are able to report things to be regenerated quicker (something @james has suggested before).
How do you know that future AI updates won´t include a rule that makes creatures respect the borders of beacons?
It should be possible to make blocks 10x-, 20x-, 50x- times harder to brake if you are a ‘foreigner’ to the beacon.
Maybe include a rule that that prevents blocks from “dropping” anything if they are destroyed by someone without “legal” access to the beacon?
I think something like “can destroy, but regenerates” would be the best solution for this.
But even I (as PvP enthusiast) think that something like this should be exclusive to harder and/or PvP worlds (if they are meant to be).
I really hope that update never happens - creatures should be able to attack you right outside your front door imo (if you bother to build a front door that is!)
No, indeed I think I prefer to see the beacon’s influence restricted to merely what’s available to us players. Though now that I think of it…:
Would love to see creatures smell the scent of the player’s builds only to see them occasionally try to nibble on some blocks while they’re at it. Not to allow complete block destruction but maybe change the textures slightly showing creature activity. Show creature tracks in soil around beacons and show ‘different’ kinds of behavior around player beacons in general. All in all heightened senses around beacons would be cool.
I like your idea of a ‘foreigner’ being unable to break blocks easily, it’s on the right track for a train of thought.
I always had the same thought with minecraft builds. There is no point to building with stone other then cheapness and look, because it’s easily broken like wood. A stone wall is breached in seconds. It offers no anti-player defense, neither does a wooden wall. (Nevermind fire)
But, if you make stone tougher, it’s time consuming to collect or mine ores. There could be a balance to be had, with stone taking longer then a tree regardless of tool. But, make finished stonework cost more raw stone and make placed finished stonework harder to break, unless you are the builder or something.
Make caves and ravines the easiest source of minerals, and strip mining / pit mining (As I call it) more time consuming.
I like the idea of creatures being able to attack you right at your door step. However, I really hope beacons can protect my creations (home) from being destroyed by ‘the hoppers’. Imagine having your items loot from your storage chambers after a hopper creates a huge gapping entrance for all to enter and take. Or… Like what some of you mentioned, tougher materials can be resistant to perhaps a hoppers explosion.
I disagree with regeneration of your home back to what it was since it doesn’t happen in real life situations.
On top of all my rant of how precious my home is. I feel that titans should come and attack a whole village of players which causes permanent damage to homes almost like an apocalypse. When that happens, I will accept the damage, fix my home and gather all the other victims to fight back. Or I might just flee to another world for safety.
Well that’s how we humans are, We need a common enemy to motivate us to fight together. A world can be going through apocalypse, and people could be scrambling to migrate their resources to another world where it is safer. Or heroic guilds can step in to fight and obtain the titan’s core to eventually become the ultimate ruler of that world. Kind of like how countries are no longer the same after a war.
I’m just going wild with my imagination after reading through all the creative inputs above.
or beaconed areas can be altered by all in default (expect world regen). when you place your own token you claim your beacon and now you can only alter that area.
To be honest. The purpose of a beacon is always different depending on what you want to achieve. Which is also the reason I think we need some toggles for beacons.
But I agree that the default should be private because of all the people who just assume that it is private because it is in all the other games which use similar mechanics.
that’s true. people assume its private so it should already have your token in it when placing. if you remove your token it becomes neutral, sounds more right.
This is why I haven’t played much either…I am very sad alllll my hard work and my first (ever!) huge build - the capital tree on Lapas - will be gone forever at some point. I don’t want to invest tons of time and effort building something grand only to have it gone without a trace come the release.
That’s why they tell you upfront about such things. But yes, no one should get attached to anything they build or craft yet. Just use the time to learn and experiment.
I’m among the group that can’t even get the game to open at the moment. I’m looking forward to when it will.
I don’t want to invest tons of time and effort building something grand only to have it gone without a trace come the release.