Thoughts about Base updates.

Saw this comment on one of the beta theads:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kheldarn I think I better get myself a copypasta of this ready, since the Basers seem to keep missing me posting it... @_@ Bases will be getting few new things, and few and far between. The system is a legacy system, and they have to reverse engineer it. Any time they've tried, internally, to force something into it, things have broken in horrible ways. So yes, it sucks that base loving doesn't happen often. But there is a damned good reason why.

And it got me thinking. Obviously this is a hypothetical situation, but if the Devs gave us plenty of warning, reimbursed the prestige to Supergroups, and did the best they could to minimize loss to the player base, would you be ok if they nuked the current Base system and replaced it from the ground up? Code it so that base updates would be easier to do in each issue and have less catastrophic results.

Now I'm not saying the Devs should do this, as I have no idea how massive the workload to do this would be or how worthwhile it would be to do it in the long run, but more how would you react? I'm somewhat torn on it. If we got more regular and reliable updates to the base, maybe even some new features and such, I would be all right with it. I know there would be some loss that the playerbase would have to take, salvage used for personal items, and probably some salvage hoarded away, but I would be for it if it could mean better base updates. What do you think?

It's not just prestige and such. People have salvage stored in the bases, and enhancements. Havng a few billion in purples, rare salvage, etc. go away would make someone decidedly not happy... especially if they don't really "get" anything (like base editing permission) out of it.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Have you seen some of the bases people have made? I'm pretty sure wiping all current bases would result in quite a few long time players simply quitting the game, never to return.

Take this for example (from a quick google images search):


Yeah, I'm pretty sure more time was put into that base than most 50s.

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

That is an amazing base. I suppose that'll be the catch with a legacy system, it been around long enough that people do awesome things like that, but makes edits and updates so difficult.

Maybe they could grandfather a system, that keeps the old bases around but works all new bases under an updated system that lets the players choose if they want to clear things and start with a new base under the new system.

Well, maybe in COH2 lol. Still that is an insane base, is there a building inside of the base?

As impressive as that base is and I have also seen some pretty impressive bases, I would much rather have a new system constructed to replace the legacy system and lose my base after fair warning (so I can gather hoarded items and start planning a new base) than to have the legacy system crash without warning. It's been stated that the base system is no better than a house of cards right now. It could conceivably crash at any moment leaving us at a loss of hoarded salvage/enh that we had no time to collect as well as depriving us of a working base system until they can either reload the legacy system or make a new one from the ground up.

So, it's either:
1. Have it crash with us unprepared and leaving us with nothing
2. Make a new system, give us time to prepare, and replace the legacy base system
OR!
3. JC's Idea - give us the option to keep the legacy system until we are ready to rebuild while new bases are constructed on the new system.

They could just sell personal lairs in the Marketplace and leave the base system as is.

well, that does make sense! (Total derp moment for me, that should have been common sense!) But still, if the system becomes truly unstable to the point that is crashing, that could still cause problems, like the bug where base items were attackable and defense items were affecting/attacking the players. Although, I would not be surprised if that was just the Devs trolling us.

I think if they had significant things to add to bases I'd be okay with it, but if they tore everything down just for some relatively small changes, I'm sure most everyone would be pissed. But, as for the issue of people having to remake their bases... I think a lot of that could be fixed by adding more parts (of various types) to make rebuilding a lot easier. Go to the base editing community, take a look at what people have made, and make stuff that would make that sort of thing easier.

Room parts would be the most obvious thing. Walls, roof/floor sections, etc... but also things so you could make forest areas, windows into outer space (or things like that cool space hanger), or windows showing part of Paragon/The Isles, etc... Make it so we could do something like that quickly and easily.

It would have quite a few benefits. Personally, I wouldn't mind having to remake the rooms I spend hours on quite so much if the new tools meant I could do them in a tenth of the time, and with better looking results. And since the tools/materials would be designed for stuff like that, it would mean fewer parts used... which would probably help out with lag/server load.

I have spent hundreds of hours editing my base... and would flip if they implemented a new system and just deleted legacy bases.

The current system is NOT unstable...so please stop saying "if it crashes due to it being unstable." The base system is actually very stable so long as anything added to it is done with extreme caution (hence why base changes are done in a beta test as well to look for conflicts with the legacy code).

Yes base designers want more more more, but we also realize that the system is flawed and will not allow more features, BUT with that said we also know that adding in game items to the editing tool is a safe thing to do, but that it just has not been done. Most base designers are content with the editor as we have used it for years, but we would just like more ITEMS to play with

The last changes made to bases were well received (horizontal and vertical control)...we take what little we can get...just seems like it is usually nothing instead of "a little."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paladiamors I love you, I Burnt the Toast!

Absolutely. They should grandfather the old bases.....make new bases with code they know works.

I'm ALL for this.

Make new functionality for the new bases....and allow things like windows that give the appearance of being in space or underwater, etc.

It'd be nice if we were able to target an exact position in any zone to TP to from our SG bases....not game breaking at all, but neat. Add an ability to talk to contacts from our SG computer.....like the one SF on villian side with the metal spiky kinky chick. Forget her name.

Add reasons people will want to make a base.

I have a single man SG that only contains my alts....it's grown HUGE over the years, and I love it. I can do what i want with it....as opposed to SGs I joined when I first started "oh you can't change this or design that...nor do this." Bah, now I do what i want

I'm all for an issue TOTALLY dedicated to a SG base revamp.

A sad realization hit me this weekend after playing the DA arcs.....I was on +4 levels and 5 hero equivalent (woulda changed it to 8 equivalent, but we need a difficulty changer NPC in DA!!!!)....getting crazy amounts of Prestige from soloing the DA arc.....and then, after totaling a ton of prestige....I realized: I have nothing left to really buy for my base except useless vaults or defense/offense stuff that doesn't even function. =(



Mr. True Shot.

This is one of those things where at first I thought of all of those bases I had been in and how'd they be lost. But then I remembered something: I never go into bases or even really bother with SuperGroups anymore. The most I ever get out of it is a teleporter. All of the base designs were basically lag city on my old computer, and on my new one it is often a chore to run around these convoluted obstacles just to get where I want to go. The current SG bases are little more than decorations with strange requirements and a teleporter. Oh yeah, and the Cathedral of Pain trial, which gets run around once a week on virtue.

The storage racks get some stuff put in, but it is rarely taken out. I've seen SGs with that have 5 inspiration storage racks all filled up with just inspirations. Lets face it: We're hoarding! SGs themselves are kind of meh. Probably the funnest option is to change any of my costume's colors immediately. The SGs I join are almost always nearly abandoned, with 100 players and 80 of them haven't logged on in well over a year. I could try to form my own SG, but then I could always just join another one that is already filled and is fully functional* and use it's assets instead. It isn't like the SGs on virtue do much as a group anyway, what with being a little bit more than just a channel to form teams on.

It probably isn't like this on every server or for every SG. Just the dozen I've been in. So when I am provided with a choice to stay with current SGs or sack them for a newer model that will possibly allow things like PVP, raids, games, and access to more a lot more items, I'd go with the newer stuff. As for storage.. give at least a month's advance warning that the drop is coming beforehand, so we can store and sell all of that stuff.

I'm no fan of bases, rarely go into one and don't own one myself (or as part of an SG), but I imagine if they didn't find some way to port over all the stuff stored in a base, many players would flip out and kill someone.

I wouldn't mind seeing them work on bases though; perhaps they could intro some new tech for "any base constructed past date X" while leaving the old tech still running, maybe with a phase-out date set like six months in the furture. That might be too much for the servers though, dunno.

People would flip yes if their base was made to nothing.
I belonged to a good RP group, we had a wonderful Base that we simply called "The Maze". It gave me a warm feeling when I made tours for new members and they had "Help, I'm lost" feeling.
For us in the group the base was a part, a very important part of our group identity. We were proud of the base. With issue 13 (a good issue) the architect made new changes to the base. Sadly for some of the members a part of the joy of the old base were gone.
After a while the SG were going on the slow path of oblivion, it was tried to be resurrected, but that failed.

My point though is that if the group is proud of their base, put countless hours in its making and used it for stories, rp and what not. Then it becomes part of their chars story and fun. Remove the base and not only would it destroy the joy of the architect(s), but most likely a lot of the playerbase that used it.

I've and several others have given suggestions to the base editor. After all, there are lot of items in the game that is not in the editor. Add those and we would have more tools in the game.
But basically an idea for the Devs is... Think Lego. Give the architects blocks of various sized that we can use (in addition to the desks).
And our base had numerous crashes after issue 13. I have no idea how many times we had to get a backroll to the base prior to the crash :P

I'm of two minds on this. I'd love a better base system, but the idea of losing the bases that I've spent literally hundreds of hours working on is gut wrenching. Then there is the technical aspect of just how do you pull out and store 18 bins of stuff? I don't have enough characters to do that!

I've already lost one SG base that I built as a favor to a friend because he quit the game and passed the star to another officer who then deleted everything I did and made the SG base his own personal lair. That was only 7 or 8 hours of work, but all of my own bases were far more work. I do have 50s that I've put less time into than some of these bases.

The idea of losing all that... I'd need a padded room. I'd for sure quit the game over it.