Newbie Shard instead of Newbie Zones
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This post is deleted!
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S3 was for a time (as most shards were) allowed to only be spawned on for a while, walls were put up/portals disabled between the lower shards and it for a time (I want to say 1-3 months?) as folks got established. The balancing factory with S3 in general was/is the 20 CPU restriction which folks on other shards have never had to worry about before.
If it holds for like S1 and S2, if S3 is full enough, maybe there'd be an S4? But I have no idea if that is going to be the case, the forums do reveal however 'access keys' https://screeps.com/forum/topic/2930/dev-update-2020-03-08-new-account-resources Which has the promise of seasonal stuff/special events.
I don't know if a newbie only shard would help the root cause you mention with a handful of powerful players, all it would take is several newbies working in-conjunction or having access to more powerful code/codebase to establish themselves and dominate.
I do have hope though, that seasonal play / Screeps Arena would be something more akin to what your looking for, either with constantly resetting seasons or 1v1 2v2 play easier to keep balanced than MMO which by its nature will have older players.
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One suggestion might be to start new 'independent' shards which use a Shard Control Level (SCL) in place of GCL.
So for a while, everyone starts on even terms. My guess is that almost all new players will prefer these which suggests that something like this is a good idea. Old players will still have the advantage of proven code.
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The problem is that you can't simply keep adding shards. There needs to be a mechanism to end/clean up existing shards as well.
Problem with wiping existing shards is that you probably loose some paying customers which is not ideal, unless you make it an actual game feature such as NPC invasions which keep becoming stronger the longer the shard lives and eventually wipe all players.
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My suggestion would be to configure shards in a 'king of the hill' or pyramid like shape where the higher up shards offer some advantage over the lower shards (higher volume power banks, resources, increased GCL gain per energy spend, etc). This would create incentive for newcomers, or anyone really, to climb up to higher shards in turn making space for newly arrived. For everyone this would create new dynamics and potentially less of a stalemate as happens currently.
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@Atanner just created something for this ask: https://atannergaming.com/screeps/ more details in the slack #announcements channel
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@qzarstb said in Newbie Shard instead of Newbie Zones:
The problem is that you can't simply keep adding shards. There needs to be a mechanism to end/clean up existing shards as well.
Do you really need to clean up existing shards? The payment methods should have been set up so that they pay for themselves as long as people are using it. Plus if new people stop joining the old shard will likely get boring and many will leave.
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We could have a shard or section of shard 3 which only allows you to stay untill X gcl. Essentially a training ground. Once you reach the gcl you have to leave. Then you must create a spawn amongst higher level players, but you have matured code.
I also like the idea of npc creeps invaders rooms strength being determined by the GCL of nearby rooms. This way npcs will clean up the rooms for you