Official: Feedback and Suggestions for Bases!
By
2Negative,
Posted on: 2007-08-27 15:31 in Base Construction
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Ive known ive stated this before, but the biggest thing I want for a base is "trophy room items".
The best example is using the SG badge system where when you kill "X" amount of a factions boss, you get a static statue of that boss.
So if you defeat, say 10,000 or 100,000 Freak Tank Smashers as a SG, then you get a statue of a Freak Tank Smasher that you can place in your base. This could apply to each of the faction bosses, like, Zeus bots, Fake Nemis, Dark Ring MIstresses, etc.
On another note, the bases **NEED** some much over due love. There hasnt been alot of additions to them, and they need some great new items to help out this feature.
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Personally I would like "souveniers" to unlock a base item counterpart, which could be put in a base.
Nemsis lv50 Inv/SS
Arch-Nemsis lv 50 SS/Inv
I have two suggestions regarding bases.
1) Kick someone in the back of the [censored] head and then yell in his/her ear, "Do something, anything with bases already!"
2) Please be so kind as to let us know if something will ever be done with bases. If the answer is no then we'd like to know so that we the forum goers can quit wasting our time asking for things and making suggestions and hoping that anything will ever be done with the half-broken mess that are bases in CoH/V.
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Is it time to rescrub the list?
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For the other issues that were mentioned, but not put on the previous list, are they being looked into, have been something that's already being fixed in the next patch, or nothing to worry about for Open Beta?
My two cents: a) a base mode that allows the base editors to designate the base as either PvP raid ready (turns on the raid restrictions for placing base items) or non-PvP base (turns off the raid restrictions), b) scalable base items. The arcane set in psrticular has some very large items that cannot be used in a base that does not have an 8x8 room, c) do we really need hallways? and if we do, is it really nessesary that they can not be decorated?
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Is it time to rescrub the list?
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No offense there Ex, but whats the point....are they even paying attention anymore?
I dunno, call me silly, and definitely a novice base builder, but for me it's like ripping teeth out whenever I need to make changes to the base. The whole system is kudgy and often very counter-intuitive. I dunno if it's something that can be fixed or needs to be totally rewritten from scratch.
A few things I've noticed that irritate me to no end:
1.) Why must rooms be separated by an entire row(s) of wasted space? If you're on a small plot it's absolutely skull crushing trying to place all the rooms you need due to so much wasted space. A doorway should be just that -- a hole in a shared wall between two rooms. Right now it's more like a foyer between rooms. I don't understand why a room cannot be placed flush against another room.
2.) The preset room sizes do not match the layout of the plots due to #1, again, leaving so much wasted space and utter frustration trying to manipulate the placement of rooms. And some rooms are too small (workshops) and others too large (medical bays), considering the number of items each is designed to hold. Why can't I decide the size and shape of the room to fit my needs, where the cost of the room is dictated solely by its features (how many items of varying types it can hold), not by its size and shape. A system like this also allows you to dynamically expand or shrink a room as necessary, instead of trying to stuff everything into a tiny workshop or have a huge medical bay with nothing but a single med tube in it.
3.) Some kind of user style preset option is desperately needed. Go on, lay down multiple rooms of the same type (such as teleport bays) and try to exactly match the style and color of each room. I dare you.
4.) Why are teleporters limited to 2 beacons??? Which then leads to, why must I have 1/2 of my plot eaten up by multiple teleport rooms and teleporters cause each room only holds 2 teleporters, each which only accepts 2 beacons? And there has got to be a better way to attach beacons to teleporters other than the "keep moving it around till the teleporter you want to attach to lights up" method we now must use.
5.) Why are the costs of control items not scaled properly? Why would I ever pay more for a item that generates less control than a cheaper one that offers more? This makes no sense. Cheaper items = less functionality; more expensive = more functionality. Truly baffling.
6.) Signs. For God's sake and the love of all that's holy, we need signs. Or placeable icons on the base map. Something to tell you where things are. I am sick to death of entering a large base and running around in circles for 10 minutes trying to find the teleporters or enhancement bins. These things should either automatically appear on the map, or we should be able to edit the base map so we can indicate where things are. Even just having the map indicate which room(s) are workshops, which are teleporters, etc., would go a long way. And have you ever entered a large base's huge teleport room, with absolutely no clue which teleporter goes where? Why can't I just click on each teleporter from a distance and have it show me where it goes? No, I have to run into each and every one trying to find the one that goes where I want to go. Frustration at it's finest.
Well that's all I can think of off the top of my head.
I totally agree with everything you said. I had a base, but opted out of it. I won't try it again until after I get my infamy badge!
How about a prestige slider but not the same one as mentioned previously that gradually slides between inf and prestige.
A different prestige slider to specify how much prestige goes to the main sg and how much goes to a coalition of the player's choice. (ie: 60/40...60% prestige goes to the main sg and 40% goes to a coalition maybe that player's personal sg that's coalitioned.
This way if they want to tinker with their own base, they don't have to leave their main sg that they like.
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Is it time to rescrub the list?
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Probably. Though I believe most of whats come in has been additions more than repetition...
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then perhaps it's time to expand the list?
though with I12 about to hit Open, what's the rush?
In the mean time, have you seen the Issues list in the Dominator forum? They have a good setup with a mostly read-only list and spinoff threads for discussion. Doing something like that may keep the main list up to date, and may help organize those big threads of ideas.
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With Open Beta for Issue 12, that means that some folks on this end are moving on to future projects.
I never like to set expectations that I can't back 100 percent but I am here because I believe there is good reason to line up the ducks.
Ex
Well, that's some good news then, Ex. Good to think we have a reason to hope.
"...freedom isn't a commodity to compromise." -- Captain America, New Avengers #21
Guide to Base Teleporters
Alright, if no one else gets to it, when i get home from Iron Man tonight ill go through the list again.
@PlasmaStream
"Big Bada Boom(tm)!"
1295 Badges
http://GuardianForce.Guildportal.com - Virtue
Niska: Are you Familiar with the works of Shan Yu?
I'm willing to do it, just figured it'd wait 2 days for I12 to hit Open to include any changes.
would this also be a good time to restart and clean up the other 2 lists?
- Base Items We'd Like to See
- Decorative Items That Exist and should be in Bases.
Base disappearing bug needs to be fixed.
Advanced Database does not appear on any of the menus of any worktable I put in a 1x2 workroom.
Let us at least put wall and ceiling items in the doorway sections, with possible exception for those that hang down from the ceiling and may cause pathing blockage.
Let people that want to use thier bases for pvp have them flagged for pvp and bases that are not flagged for pvp not have to follow raid pathing rules. If a group wishes to later flag thier base for pvp then they will not be able to set the pvp flag until raid pathing rules are met.
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Let people that want to use thier bases for pvp have them flagged for pvp and bases that are not flagged for pvp not have to follow raid pathing rules. If a group wishes to later flag thier base for pvp then they will not be able to set the pvp flag until raid pathing rules are met.
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They should also clarify which pathing rules are raid pathing rules and which are non-raid pathing rules.
In fact, if they did that first, this entire request may turn out to be a rather small list of rule changes in exchange for coding that switching system.
Personally, I'd like a few extra themes for bases. My SG is themed as a government agency, and I have no "office" theme to build on. I had to make a bastardized cut of dingy factory, sewer brick (colored red) and hi-tech trim.
Being able to use some of the "Generic Office Building" stuff would rock. Nice, painted walls. Cubicles.
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would this also be a good time to restart and clean up the other 2 lists?
- Base Items We'd Like to See
- Decorative Items That Exist and should be in Bases.
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Entirely likely...
@PlasmaStream
"Big Bada Boom(tm)!"
1295 Badges
http://GuardianForce.Guildportal.com - Virtue
Niska: Are you Familiar with the works of Shan Yu?
The thing Id most like to see changed about bases is the thing that would probably be the most difficult to implement. Oh well
I would seriously like to see the base plots done away with. They are very restrictive to creativity.
Trying to be creative is hideously expensive. The cost of the unused squares on any of the plots is generally much larger than the cost of all the actual rooms combined. (Take the cost of the plot and divide it by the total number of squares on the plot. This is the cost-per-empty-square. Now, after youve designed your base, count up all the empty, unused squares on the plot. Multiply this number by the per-square cost and youll see just how much is being paid for unused space.) Thus, it is in the best interest of the SG for as many squares to be used as possible. But a layout that is the most efficient at using up the plot squares is usually not very creative at all.
For example, I would like to make a space station base laid out in a ring shape (or as close to a ring as can be done using square rooms). Picture four 3x3 rooms connected to four 2x2 rooms, arranged like a square with nothing in the center. Like a square doughnut. The 2x2 rooms are at the corners of the layout and the 3x3 rooms are at the sides. The 3x3 rooms stick out in the middle a bit.
(If that doesnt make sense, think of it this way: Picture a layout of nine 3x3 rooms arranged in a grid pattern. Remove the room in the center. Now replace the rooms on each corner with 2x2 rooms. Now imagine jogging around the base in circles while the music from 2001 plays in the background and the base computer gives you the evil red eye.)
For this room layout to work, Id need to use the 12x12 plot size (the actual footprint is 11x11). But the base rooms would only use 52 squares out of the 144 total for the 12x12 plot. Almost 2/3 of the plot squares would be wasted! And the rent for such a plot, of course, is a gift that would keep on giving
Thats a lot of expense for a concept.
Another example would be a serpentine, wandering layout (like one of the long warehouses we often have missions in). This would be a good starting point for a cave-like or sewer-tunnel-like base. But the plot layouts are all either squares or as nearly square as possible. Thus a layout like this one would require the largest plot size and tens of millions of prestige expense before ever laying down a single room. And the vast majority of the squares would be very, very expensive empty space.
Just have one standard very large plot for us to build on, without us having to pay for it. In order for costs to even out in the end, the cost of the rooms in the base would have to increase.
I also find the difference between secret and secure plots to be weird. I just cannot imagine what anyone was thinking when this idea was approved, unless it was to act as a prestige sink... If you want a base to pay much, much more for that second functioning computer or generator, just make the second power or control room cost a lot more to place than the first. Or perhaps an SG could pay an up-front fee to upgrade the free plot from secret to secure status. Or better yet, re-think the whole concept.
Rent could be charged on a per-square used basis, with the first 36 squares free (36 being the maximum useful space possible on a current 8x8 plot size).
Weve seen a lot of creativity on the boards recently that came about by the simple use of floating objects. Just imagine the sort of cool things the players could come up with if they were no longer cramped into tiny, tiny little plots and forced to use each and every square to its most efficient (rather than most creative) advantage.
"OK, first of all... Shut Up." - My 13-Year-Old Daughter
29973 "The Running of the Bulls" [SFMA] - WINNER of the Mighty Big Story Arc Contest !
- The Stellar Wind Orbital Space Platform
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I would seriously like to see the base plots done away with. They are very restrictive to creativity.
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Would it solve enough problems to get a huge variety of plot sizes? Everything now is close to square.
Sure it wouldn't give you everything, it'd over-charge for "donut" shaped layouts and such. But looking at it from the point of view of the most bang for your buck, would adding more plots be trivial to code? Considering we get very little coding attention to begin with, this could solve most of the request and leave more time for other requests.
or not. I don't know the code. but I'm trying to get at the heart of your post. Is it truely "we don't have enough layout options?" or is it "we should have infinite layout options?"
I agree that it would be better to simply do away with the base plots and only charge us for the squares (or tiles or whatever you want to call them) that we place.
One of my SGs is named "Crew of the lost starship." Our base isn't very big, but because I shaped it like a spaceship I had to expand to the 8 x 12 plot. Most of the space on that plot is unused. Now I could easily triple the amount of available space by filling the base plot with a lot of 2 x 2 rooms, but then it'd hardly look like a spaceship then.
So yes, base plots stifle creativity.
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So yes, base plots stifle creativity.
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what I'm trying to get at, though... (and this is both as I consider how to summarize items on The Big List, and just a general challenging people to back up their opinions that I seem to do from time to time...)
do you really need completely free-form base plots overhauling the entire system?
or would you be happy getting a spaceship-shaped plot within the current system?
I'm not sure what shape your ship is. Would it waste less space if there was a pyramid-shaped plot for you to use?
I see what you're saying.
But what if I wanted to shape my base like a meandering labyrinth? Or give it one of any number of non-square and/or strange shapes for whatever reason?
It just makes sense to get rid of the base plot size altogether and charge rent based on the total number of squares used. This has the added advantage that no other price changes would really be necessary.
I would love to see some techy computers (decorations, not controll items) right now all you can really use outside of control rooms are the multiple screens or a computer attached to a big platform.
I would also like to see some tech bridges, balconies and wall platforms.
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It just makes sense to get rid of the base plot size altogether and charge rent based on the total number of squares used. This has the added advantage that no other price changes would really be necessary.
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There's more to this than just rent. What about the cost of building the base in the first place?
There would be, of course, a real problem with deciding how to deal with existing bases. How do you give a refund to an SG that bought larger secure plots already? You could just credit everyone with the prestige that their plot size cost. But what if room costs were ramped up to balance the now free plot upgrades? Do you go through and examine each base, adding prestige for certain things and subtracting for others? Do you just eliminate every base in existance, refund all the prestige spent, and require everyone to start from scratch? (THAT would go over well!! 
)
Perhaps existing bases can be "grandfathered" in somehow, but any changes to layout (i.e. plot upgrades or room purchases) would require clicking on a dialog box button that says something like "Do you want your base to be upgraded to version 2.0?" If you click "no" then no changes can be made to the layout. If you check "yes" then a re-calculation of costs occours before editing can proceed.
Perhaps new bases would have to confirm to the new plot-free system, but old bases could still exist and be used. But if you want to use the new system, the old base would need to be deleted (at the SG Leaders' option).
Honestly, I know I'm trying to open a Can O' Worms here... but I've approached this from the perspective that if the devs are going to assign the resources for major work on bases, why not ask for a change in the most basic area? A change to something that never made any sense in the first place?
"OK, first of all... Shut Up." - My 13-Year-Old Daughter
29973 "The Running of the Bulls" [SFMA] - WINNER of the Mighty Big Story Arc Contest !
- The Stellar Wind Orbital Space Platform
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Is it time to rescrub the list?
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Probably. Though I believe most of whats come in has been additions more than repetition...
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then perhaps it's time to expand the list?
thogh with I12 about to hit Open, what's the rush?
In the mean time, have you seen the Issues list in the Dominator forum? They have a good setup with a mostly read-only list and spinoff threads for discussion. Doing something like that may keep the main list up to date, and may help organize those big threads of ideas.