PTR Changelog 2017-03-06


  • Dev Team

    Is there a need for that? What’s the balance or end goal? For border rooms the longer time makes sense, as they aren’t going to disrupt things, but I would really appreciate a shorter time period near already active players.

    Respawn areas don’t make any sense if you are not able to gain a foothold there.

    The problem with this is that moving in to some locations requires using jump rooms due to the limit on claim distance. The area I wanted to move into I couldn’t reach, so I built up a room in range to it specifically to launch claimers with. The same issue is going to come up when requiring reservations.

    What about being able to pay resources to unsign it? Send over a creep with 1000 energy or 100 ghodium and spend that to clear out the signatures, and if enough rooms get flipped or any of the rooms are claimed then the system can cancel converting it over.

    If you want some area to be cancelled and you are dedicated enough in your intentions, then you have to find some way to reach the area and reserve it. If you can’t do this, then your plans are considered abstract/irrelevant/non-realistic, and we’ll open the area.

    Just a resource cost mechanic is not enough here.



  • > Alright, what if we introduce a new small feature - when an inner Novice/Respawn Area is being planned, controllers are signed with the system message (sign user = Screeps) showing the warning message. 24 hours in advance. If you manage to reserve some of this rooms during this period, the area is cancelled. The sign message cannot be erased by your creeps until the controller is reserved. What do you think?

    This would be awesome! This is the missing piece out of this whole system which will help mitigate a lot of the "concern" of veteran players. An excellent idea! When can we have it?


  • Culture

    If you want some area to be cancelled and you are dedicated enough in your intentions, than you have to find some way to reach the area and reserve it. If you can’t do this, then your plans are considered abstract/irrelevant/non-realistic, and we’ll open the area.

    I agree, If you really want the area you’d already be moving there. We were already underway to the area which sparked this area in the first place. A 24~48 hour heads up (we got families/work, 24 hours seems too little time, especially in this game).

    I can’t seem to understand the question. If you claimed some rooms in an area, it will never be transformed.

    It’s a question so that you can prevent this:
    blue area
    From happening, with minimal effort.


  • Dev Team

    When can we have it?

    In the same patch on March 9.

    A 24~48 hour heads up (we got families/work, 24 hours seems too little time, especially in this game).

    You’re supposed to automate this process with all rooms that are important for you, since the sign message can be read programmatically.



  • Sounds great!
    I hope you'll be able to automate the respawn areas creation, it's a big balancing challenge to allow veterans to block some unacceptable locations but also forcing them to accept new neighbors when cleaning whole sectors. 
    What I was thinking is an automate process where you sign (or add a status as suggested by Dissi) a larger area when available since X days. Then allow players to reserve some rooms during 1 or more days (some couple of days sounds more reasonable to me). After this period, you check manually or automatically if the area is still coherent and mount the walls if this is the case. The amount of reservable rooms may also be limited but this is probably more difficult to implement. The point here is to automate to avoid players criticisms about admin behaviors ( this debate is way too much individualized, we need rules working for everybody) and to create larger areas so even if some rooms were reserved the area can still spawn under some conditions.



  • >You’re supposed to automate this process with all rooms that are important for you, since the sign message can be read programmatically.

    Yes, that's exactly what I had in mind when you made the proposal. It would be quite easy to integrate into my existing observer/scout logic and automatically reserve rooms I need in such areas. It's gonna be great.



  • "But the need to compete with established strong players will push a lot of new players back from theze zones. -- Artem"

    I do not understand what you mean here.

    This is what I'm afraid of:

    1. new player starts, joins a Novice zone

    2. never gets seriously attacked, so very slowly (with pre-boost code and limited experience in battles) reaches 4

    3. gets wiped by an established player once Novice zone drops

    4. is forced to start in a murder zone and suddenly has to deal with a greatly increased game difficulty.

    5. after several bad restarts, quits the game.

     

    Basically, the difficulty increases (even more) steeply then today.


  • Dev Team

    According to our data, most new players spend 2 months to reach GCL 4. This is more than enough to be considered an established player with understanding of the game mechanics and the PvP aspect. Not all blue zones will be placed in inner sectors, some may be created as a newly opened sector at the borders, so that everybody has a chance to find a suitable place to respawn.


  • Dev Team

    Sector E5xN3x:



  • Just wondering about the other end of this. I'm GCL 7 and I would never spawn next to Dissi.

    I don't think it matters how good your code is, if you spawn there you die.

    This really raises the stakes when you are GCL 4+ and you get wiped out because you will probably never be able to get a good start ever again.