The decision for public vs citizens-only crafting stations should be made by Governors, not Dynamight
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Hello, this is in response to the Winter Alpha 2021 Spotlight #2: City Overhaul
While I understand that changes were made to "make solo play more viable," in the end, Fractured is supposed to be a sandbox MMO. Group work and group effort should be rewarded.
Having the crafting stations for cities be open to use by anyone is too drastic of a change. It takes away the accomplishment of building up a city, because now when you build it up, then everyone around you benefits instead of only the people who actually worked on ranking up the city.
I suggest that Dynamight lets the governors decide whether their city will be "open" or "citizens-only" when they claim a city. This solves the issues in several ways.
A city that chooses to be citizens-only needs to make sure that they continuously work on their city's upkeep in order to enjoy the benefits of ranking up. If they do not have the required amount of citizens (and people don't want to settle in their residential areas because they are unfriendly), then it is their own choice. They would have to recruit more players in order to rank up their city. But then they would also be able to feel more secure and accomplished in their city, because they are the ones directly benefitting from their own work/efforts. They know that they are responsible for the defending of their cities against siege/raids as well.
If a governor chooses to be an open city, then they can also choose to be welcoming to all and try to build up a good environment in their territory, so that "solo" players will want to settle near them and contribute to their territory. Since the outer residential areas aren't affected by city conquest, what incentive is there for an outside resident to help protect their nearby city? If the controlling governor is the one who sets whether the city is open or closed, then this would also lead to the "solo players" having an interest in helping to protect this territory, since it is a governor who supports the playstyle they want. If the governor changes the permissions on them, the residents should be able to leave and go elsewhere.
This is something that should be up to the players, not something set by the devs. Please take this feedback into account. I have loved playing Fractured so far, and I feel that the decision to make the crafting stations like the Forge, etc, open to all without having an option to choose not to do so, would kill a huge part of interaction in the game.
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@Harleyyelrah I cannot agree more.
This decision really makes me question the overall goal behind Fractured.
The "3 planet appeal to everyone" approach is not going to work. Rules like this "Your enemies trying to kill you can benefit from the hard work you put in your city" seems to be a casualty of this design approach.
We need to stop catering to solo players. This is an MMO. They SHOULD have a hard time and they should find it much more difficult than an organized guild.
One or two more changes like this and I have to say I'm out.
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Will there be an option for Govenors to decide how they want to run their city?
If not, this is a very large blow to those that put in the effort to build up and maintain a city.
I hope you just forgot to mention it in the video.
Big change.
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A game like this cannot live without solo players.
I've made a suggestion here which potentially bridges the gap and makes owning a city desiderable without limiting solo players.
https://forum.fracturedmmo.com/topic/13248/first-impressions-on-the-new-city-system
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As @spoletta said, there are actually far more small groups/solo players than Guild players who play MMOs so the major faulty reasoning that the "Multiplayer" in the name means the games are set for big groups is actually detrimental from most Developers' standpoint.
Developers shouldn't specifically cater to either group to the exclusion of the other, however, they need to make a balanced approach that allows both groups to benefit from their particular playstyle, as well as paying certain disadvantages for said playstyle.
My own suggestion for the City Resources to balance things out is as follows:
- A City's Coffers gets a share of the 2000 gold used to buy Resident parcels in an area....not saying they get the whole nut, but some of it needs to go their way, 10-20% so 200-400 would be good.
- All Resource Processing facilities in town are open to use by anyone, however, all of these resource processing centers include a small fee for usage. The fee would vary from processing plant to processing plant, but again, this makes it so if your enemies want to use your resource development systems, they have to pay into your upkeep to do so.
- As with part 2, Make visitors pay for use of the Inn, the Stables, maybe even pay a small tithe to enter the city beyond a certain tech point. Once there's a wall and guards, many medieval cities charged a Tax or Tithe at the gate when you entered a city unless you could prove you were on Royal Business.
- Citizens of a city, those with their actual citizenship set to that city and who are in open support of the city, internal or external plot not withstanding, either waive the fee at the resource places, or get the fee reduced. (ie: In-Town Citizens get the use for free, Resident Citizens living out of the town walls pay 1/2 the normal fee to use the processing centers)
These are only minor changes that can be made to the city, specifically affecting resource conversion, but these would allow for both the Solo/Small group players to thrive in the game, AND the Big Guild/City-centric groups to profit from these hangers on to help defer their own upkeep costs. Want to use a city's resources, you should help the city pay to maintain them afterall.
EDIT: and obviously, you allow the Governor to set the pricing on resources, tithes, taxes, etc... but have an upper cap they can't set it above to make sure they aren't trying to make their city totally exclusive by overcharging and then just giving use to their Citizens for Free
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Yes, I understand that there will be solo players IN an MMO. However, there is still no reason why these permissions should not be left up to each city's governor instead of a mandated setting by the game.
Unless the worry would be that no governor would set their city to "Open." In that case, do you know why? It would be because it is NOT beneficial to the governor and actual citizens at all, so no governor would want it!
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@GamerSeuss said in The decision for public vs citizens-only crafting stations should be made by Governors, not Dynamight:
As @spoletta said, there are actually far more small groups/solo players than Guild players who play MMOs so the major faulty reasoning that the "Multiplayer" in the name means the games are set for big groups is actually detrimental from most Developers' standpoint.
Source? This is absolutely just NOT true lol.
@spoletta said in The decision for public vs citizens-only crafting stations should be made by Governors, not Dynamight:
A game like this cannot live without solo players.
I've made a suggestion here which potentially bridges the gap and makes owning a city desiderable without limiting solo players.
https://forum.fracturedmmo.com/topic/13248/first-impressions-on-the-new-city-system
False. Even fkn World of Warcraft proved that designing a game for solo players doesn't work. There game has NEVER been designed for solo players and it still stands as THE MOST SUCCESSFUL MMO OF ALL TIME regardless of what people want to say.
At the end of the day and MMO stands for MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE not Mostly Me Online. You should in no way shape or form be able to progress in end game, play on a competitive level or succeed if you refuse to join a group or guild in an MMO. If you can that MMO is designed like shit.
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No one said anything about solo players being able to do end game content or being competitive.
Obviously you need to form groups to do that stuff.In the system I proposed, you can't do anything above a certain scale without having a city.
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@spoletta said in The decision for public vs citizens-only crafting stations should be made by Governors, not Dynamight:
No one said anything about solo players being able to do end game content or being competitive.
Obviously you need to form groups to do that stuff.In the system I proposed, you can't do anything above a certain scale without having a city.
And you think solo players should be able to have cities. That's the first issue.
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What about the resources inside cities? like ingots and woods, all are able to get them freely? previous alpha only citizen could get them, now?
Starting towns could become cities for solo players where they can freely craft medium equipment, giving more buildings for smelt and smith
Players cities instead can get access to advanced buildings and equipment craft by ranking up and researching them, totally managed by city owner, this should even allow a sort of commerce of high quality items
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Err... no? Where did I say that?
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I'm a solo PvE player. I'm not really interested in combat. So I'm hoping it'll be possible to role play as a merchant or simple farmer in Fractured and spend most of my time focusing on crafting and the economy.
So I strongly disagree with the idea of any kind of forced grouping. To be forced to join a Guild just to progress would kill any desire I have to play this game.
With that said, I like the suggestions that GamerSeuss came up with:
My own suggestion for the City Resources to balance things out is as follows:
- A City's Coffers gets a share of the 2000 gold used to buy Resident parcels in an area....not saying they get the whole nut, but some of it needs to go their way, 10-20% so 200-400 would be good.
- All Resource Processing facilities in town are open to use by anyone, however, all of these resource processing centers include a small fee for usage. The fee would vary from processing plant to processing plant, but again, this makes it so if your enemies want to use your resource development systems, they have to pay into your upkeep to do so.
- As with part 2, Make visitors pay for use of the Inn, the Stables, maybe even pay a small tithe to enter the city beyond a certain tech point. Once there's a wall and guards, many medieval cities charged a Tax or Tithe at the gate when you entered a city unless you could prove you were on Royal Business.
- Citizens of a city, those with their actual citizenship set to that city and who are in open support of the city, internal or external plot not withstanding, either waive the fee at the resource places, or get the fee reduced. (ie: In-Town Citizens get the use for free, Resident Citizens living out of the town walls pay 1/2 the normal fee to use the processing centers)
I don't object to paying a small fee to use the amenities of a city, as long as I can remain independent.
In time, it's possible I might decide to become a citizen of a city, but it will depend very much on what type of people live there and if I want to associate with them
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While I see why you want to control the city and the living arounds (as in who can build/join) I can see a big issue if you can so. Let's hop in a year after release or so, now a few big clans hold EVERY territory and let nobody join. How do you craft better stuff? How do you progress gear wise to conqest anything, alone conquer a city? At the end it's just like in Albion with territorys but even worse.
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@Shivashanti Are you also assuming that if the governors are able to decide for themselves whether cities are "open" or "citizens only" then nobody would decide to open their city?
Nowhere have I said that the option shouldn't exist. What I am saying is that by limiting it to only one out of two options then it cuts out a ton of the in-game interaction. Yes, having some open cities would be good for the longevity of the game. But also having some closed cities is needed as well. It should be up to the PLAYERS to decide, it should not be forced to be completely only one way or the other. Those who put in the work to build and rank up their city should gain benefits.
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As i'm coming from the PvP department aswell i know how this will work out, there will be surely open cities in the beginning but in the long run my statement stands. Big clans will controll everything and deteminite every option of the enemys to be even able to conquest them. To be fair i don't have any good solution for that. On the other hand what really is the problem for your clan? Just get as many plots around the city as possible and gank out every "enemy" 24/7 till they leave.
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@Shivashanti Unfortunately that's not an option since the city is a "safe zone" and the personal plots even in the residential area will be "safe zones." There is NOTHING stopping someone from claiming a plot in the residential area and then just zip back and forth from the city to their personal plot in almost complete safety while leeching off of the work that the actual city owners have done. They wouldn't even need to worry/care about/contribute to the city sieges, because it wouldn't affect their residential plot at all.
Would be completely different if we could pvp within the city, and within the residential plots. Then it maybe could be solved by pure pvp.
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Well i believe there will be enough room to kill them inbetween city and personal plot, but we will see. Don't get me wrong i'm a bit confused and concerned on this change aswell. I just want to bring up the downsides of the "fixing approach" aswell.
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Copy paste from the other (same) topic https://forum.fracturedmmo.com/topic/13248/first-impressions-on-the-new-city-system (im not typing the same stuff again). Sorry if it might sound a bit unrelated to the convos above, but...its about the same topic and problems as here.
Time to do my part here as well and not only discord. Sooooo...
Lets start with the good stuff.
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I like the reduction of number of cities. It is bit drastic going from 120 to 30-something, but atleast the cities are not one-pump-chumps (I assume the territory has more than one resource in its borders now)
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Compression of the wilderness plots into residential areas around the cities. Will make the cities more alive without forcing solos to join guilds.
Now onto the bad stuff.
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Enemies within our territories. Thats just a massive no-no. There has to be a blacklist system on guilds and individuals (accounts) where we can ban specific accounts and guilds from using the processing/crafting stations and living in the territory.
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Everyone being allowed everywhere. Previous system was extremely guild-centric, current one basically takes away any reason to have a city. Why stress yourself (and it is stressful to have a city, be it as a vice/governor or guild leader) when you just ignore all of it and basically function as a leech. Just...why bother
So, here I propose a change to it to satisfy the guilds and keep the solos untouched while keeping the "new cities".
Allow us to set how open our territory is. Closed - Selective - Open. Combined with incentive system with bonuses for guilds that go Open such as buff to HP/dmg, significantly lower upkeeps, advantage during defense sieges (e.g less attackers allowed in battles), with such incentives, I belive most guilds would, at the very least, choose not be to closed.
Closed obviously...closed, basically "citizen-only" option. They would end up hurting themselves in the long run, no bonuses + lack of wide industrial/crafter base.
Selective...only some options closed and some open, such as solos allowed in residential area, but not allowed to use crafting stations.
Open obviously...opened. Anyone can settle in residential, anyone can use the stations etc.I feel like this would work really well, blacklisting for enemies (thus not worrying about them) and incentives to stay as open to solos and randoms as our insecurities allow
I am a person that tries to avoid unneccessary PvP and kill-on-sight as it just creates toxicity everywhere, but jesus, under the new (and IF unchanged) system, theres no way to live peacefully anymore. Kill on sight will be the go-to mindset, resulting in even more pain for the solos/randoms//tiny guilds than before. Pleeeease, consider changing it to accomodate both (maybe as I suggested above
), because right now, it helps noone, but it will hurt everyoneAlternatively, incentive system can be turned on its head, and put debuffs on the Closed. Debuff to HP/dmg, higher upkeeps, disadvantage at defense sieges. Buuuut...I feel like using sugar and not a whip always works better (unless youre into it...kinky)
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I have NEVER seen an MMO where the vast majority of players were NOT in a guild. Over all, the number of active non-guilded players who are above the "newbie" level could be counted with limited digits.
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I seem to remember a time when this forum community argued hard against the game steering toward large groups that dominated the landscape. It would seem logical to me that to combat that idea encouraging solo play or even small group play would be beneficial toward this end. I highly feel that solo play should not be a detriment to the point someone gets frustrated and quits the game.
