PTR Changelog 2019-02-01: Power Creeps
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We've been assuming GPL was derived directly from total power collected.
That's correct. The internal counter is the total power processed. It's internal because only GPL is exposed to the UI/API, not the raw power processed.
It's still kinda crazy to think about how much Power Hernanduer would loose if he resets a creep. A single reset for Hernanduer might cost as much as all of the power I've collected so far.
But imagine how much power he can process every tick, considering that he will have 40+ Power Creeps working in his economy.
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Edit: another comparison: losing a GPL for deleting a power creep would be the equivalent of downgrading someone's GCL for respawning... Both are a horrible idea, and would upset players.
I don't think this is a valid comparison. When you respawn, you lose everything in the world. You lose time spent to build your previous empire, and now need to rebuild it from scratch. Frequent respawning is discouraged so greatly already, that there is no need to add some additional penalty to it.
On the other hand, if there was no delete cost (or it's too low), rebuilding Power Creeps would be painless. One could do that all the time. Think of it as if someone respawns constantly keeping all his world assets. Not fun.
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I keep wanting to weigh in here and say that I really don't like the penalty, but then I see the reasoning behind it. However, we need to make sure the cost is reasonable and scales appropriately.
There has been some confusion about the cost, since higher power levels cost more. The main thing is that if I reach level 10, then reset, it should cost the same to get back to level 10 as it did the first time. Resetting just effectively moves you back in time.
Some of us were worried that it was instead calculated like
powerLevel = getPowerLevel(powerProcessed) - numberOfResets, which would be really, really bad. That would mean every reset effectively increases the cost of all future levels - I think we can all agree that this would be madness. @artch seems to have confirmed that this will not be the case, although this perhaps needs stating a bit more clearly.HOWEVER
So far I've been assuming that resetting deletes all power creeps. I'm very surprised to see it only affects one. That seems very wrong to me, especially since you can choose to have lots of low level power creeps or one big one. If I'm at level 10 and I choose to have 10 power creeps at level 1, it should not cost me all 10 levels to reset them all!
Similarly, If I'm at level 50 and I create a level 1 power creep and then decide to reset it, I should not be reduced all the way back to level 49.
As @deft-code suggested, surely the cost should be based on the level of the power creep being reset?
This is why the higher-level players feel that this is unfair - because it is! @artch is right that higher-level players are in an unnatural situation, which is true. But they're forced into this situation. Let them make the unnatural situation natural by allowing them to "hold back" on their levels and develop their power creeps gradually, as if they were starting from a low-level.
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Some of us were worried that it was instead calculated like
powerLevel = getPowerLevel(powerProcessed) - numberOfResets, which would be really, really bad.I have no idea where this comes from. Some rumors in Slack probably. The wording is quite clear:
When you permanently delete a power creep (either from the UI or the API) you will lose 1 Power Level in your account, i.e. your processed power decreases.
You lose it for real. You were GPL 45, you delete a creep, now you're GPL 44. Fully identically to the situation when you were GPL 44 some time ago. No hidden variables.
As @deft-code suggested, surely the cost should be based on the level of the power creep being reset?
We might consider something like 4% of a Global Power Level for every level of the creep being deleted. But honestly, encouraging to have a few bigger PCs rather than a bunch of smaller ones is a good thing too.
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Update
New feature deployed: experimentation periods. An experimentation period can be activated for 24 hours, during which power creeps are deleted without cost and without delay. Each player has 30 experimentation periods initially, and we will replenish them from time to time when major balance changes occur.
@artch +1 on the experimental period, great way of handling it as long as spawning the power creep doesn't take longer than the day. If you had to delete all the PC's with one day, then test them out the next day and find out they didn't work so had to use another day it wouldn't be ideal.
Random thought: If you want to start working on goal oriented progress and more onboarding to the game, you could reward all players who reach(ed) 5 GCL with 5 free power levels. That would give players a way of messing around with power creeps and not feeling super locked out. Plays into the "hero" idea where they can get one hero creep, and understand that if they work for it they'll be able to level them up. It's harder to see the value if they don't have a taste of it, and concrete goals are great for player retention.
It's a shift from just a "raw world" type progression, but it's a thought.
@artch said in PTR Changelog 2019-02-01: Power Creeps:
Update
New feature deployed: experimentation periods. An experimentation period can be activated for 24 hours, during which power creeps are deleted without cost and without delay. Each player has 30 experimentation periods initially, and we will replenish them from time to time when major balance changes occur.
In the current state you have there, this is actually a nice solution for my problem. I understand the need for penalizing re-creation of power creeps too often, and I still disagree with losing power levels, but this seems like a generous solution that still works against anyone trying to abuse the system.
@davaned said in PTR Changelog 2019-02-01: Power Creeps:
Random thought: If you want to start working on goal oriented progress and more onboarding to the game, you could reward all players who reach(ed) 5 GCL with 5 free power levels. That would give players a way of messing around with power creeps and not feeling super locked out. Plays into the "hero" idea where they can get one hero creep, and understand that if they work for it they'll be able to level them up. It's harder to see the value if they don't have a taste of it, and concrete goals are great for player retention.
It's a shift from just a "raw world" type progression, but it's a thought.
Power will be buyable from NPCs on the market and the first few levels are meaningless in amount, so that doesn't really seem like a very useful thing to give for free and break all other "rules" the game has in place.
@hernanduer Just because it's always been that way doesn't mean that's the best way. We have heard complaints about a lack of external motivations more than a few times.
I'm not saying it's necessarily the way to go forward, but worth considering. Part of the reason I suggested it is so that accounts could have a baseline of 5 power, so no new player messes up and deletes their first power creep entirely. They'd be able to play around risk free and never drop below 5 levels of power.
I could see a new player ragequitting if they put a ton of effort trying to get a hero and then suddenly they lose it while learning. I've certainly messed up some stuff early on. I despawned entirely when I first started, I didn't realize that pressing unclaim on my controller would immediately delete me, I thought it would let me replace my spawn like when I first claimed the room. This was after a decent amount of RCL growth. And then when I tried respawning in the same room to get my stuff back everything was deleted. Very very frustrating experience.
Again, it's a departure from the current style of complete open world. I do think that a few onboarding "quests" could be valuable though. Getting a thousand market credits for free upon getting your first level 8 room, getting some power when you get to x GCL. Gives new players clearly defined goals/quests to aim for.
I'd really like to see some quests/achievements to help direct new players to try everything out. Even without any rewards I think this would be helpful.
When I read about loosing a power level, I thought it to be quite ridicilous too.
Having experimental periods or long cooldown for recreating a creep is a much better idea. As for the details - maybe 30 periods is too much, but they definetely should be replenished periodically.
@artch said in PTR Changelog 2019-02-01: Power Creeps:
Edit: another comparison: losing a GPL for deleting a power creep would be the equivalent of downgrading someone's GCL for respawning... Both are a horrible idea, and would upset players.
I don't think this is a valid comparison. When you respawn, you lose everything in the world. You lose time spent to build your previous empire, and now need to rebuild it from scratch. Frequent respawning is discouraged so greatly already, that there is no need to add some additional penalty to it. On the other hand, if there was no delete cost (or it's too low), rebuilding Power Creeps would be painless. One could do that all the time. Think of it as if someone respawns constantly keeping all his world assets. Not fun.
No. It's apples and oranges. It SHOULD be painless to rebuild a Power Creep. Just as it's painless (For a high level player) to rebuild a room. People delete rooms ALL THE TIME to build new ones... it doesn't decrement their GCL. Your example of a FULL RESPAWN is ... facetious at best.
So, what PROBLEM does Power Creeps ACTUALLY SOLVE, if any? It's not a parallel development path... in fact it increases the cost of development several fold. The only logical use in that regard is to get your GCL to a sufficient level and THEN segue to PC development.
Ok, fine. I can be down with that. But what problem does it ACTUALLY SOLVE, other than "Oh gosh. 6 months in and I've utterly demolished this game." Which does not happen in screeps. Ever.
The problem it solves is the time it takes to level a room to level 6 to get the TERMINAL. That one building that solves all your problems.
With Power Creeps, I can use OPERATE_SPAWN to blast out mules to send energy (In the form of recyclable creeps) to the room I want to get to level 6. So it can get a TERMINAL.
Just set the level for a Storage at level 3, and the level for a Terminal at level 4. Done. Problem solved. Noobs will be all "Woo! Storage!" And ignore the Terminal. After all, it's useless to them until level 6. Mid level players will be working hard to develop their terminal code early, and advanced players will just do WHAT THEY'RE ALREADY DOING. Which is use complex systems to mule up their forward bases to level 6.
@smokeman said in PTR Changelog 2019-02-01: Power Creeps:
Just as it's painless (For a high level player) to rebuild a room.
Rebuilding a room takes a lot of resources. It's not painless at all.
So, what PROBLEM does Power Creeps ACTUALLY SOLVE, if any? It's not a parallel development path...
Yes, it's a parallel development path, "wide" and "tall" empires, it was discussed on this forum many times.
Also, it's a new programming challenge and gameplay style. When you program regular creeps, you code small uniform units with primitive behavior covering only one or a few tasks. Effective Power Creeps will need smart AI with complex behavior to leverage all their various skills.
@artch said in PTR Changelog 2019-02-01: Power Creeps:
Power Creeps are now available in ptr beta branch on npm and Steam:
I cant seem to spawn a power creep on my local steam server on Windows 10. The .spawn method returns "0" but no power creep is spawned. The only reason i can think of that it should return "0" and not spawn is if the Power Spawn is blocked by another Power Creep, but there are no blocking creeps. The power creep is created, just not spawned.
@geir1983 Thanks for your report, we'll take a look
@geir1983 Is it reproducible on
3.3.0-beta.4?
@artch the latest steam ptr build does not load at all for me, it gets stuck before it shows me the servers etc, just showing the screeps logo in loop
@artch after the update on steam now launches the game correctly again, but my problem of spawning a power creep persists. Its still returning "0" but no power creep is spawned.
@geir1983 I cannot reproduce this issue. Try to delete the game and make a fresh reinstall.
I have an issue on this ptr build when trying to change the coordinates or a room position. When I change the x coordinate I have no issues but when I change the y strange things happen. I reproduced this problem on both private server and ptr with the following code: let pos = Game.rooms['W3N8'].getPositionAt(25,25); pos.y += 1; console.log(pos) -> [room W3N8 pos 27,0]
@artch Just a comment on the
Rebuilding a room takes a lot of resources. It's not painless at all.
I think one thing that makes it ok is that no matter what, rebuilding a room is still helping increase your GCL. The biggest resource sink by at least 2 orders of magnitude is the controller, and you know that is going towards permanent progress for you. So it's kinda a pain, but definitely beneficial and it feels good because even though you lost something you're also gaining.
The problem with power is that it's just straight loss. Gone, poof, forever. Recovering it isn't increasing your GCL, no longterm benefits, it's just gone.
TBH I think its an artificial mechanic that isn't needed. People's power creeps will naturally become specialized and semi-fixed, simply because they have to write code for them and design their rooms around them. I don't think you need a punishment for it.
The only benefit I could see is preventing players from swapping to wartime heroes when they decide to attack. And the 24 hour delay + respawn time already does that to some extent.
An idea if you want to limit things: Have limited power creep templates that you spawn from. You unlock more templates by processing power, like getting more room claims. You can trade out power creeps for others whose template you have defined. This gives you hero "classes" but adds flexibility to shift around resourcing. To get more templates you'll need to continue processing power, and maybe to reset templates you could spend power (if you still want to add a sink).
