Cleared area re-purposed for novices
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True, it's not a full block. Although my current intention will be to move south instead until these areas reopen.
I was not aware of this mechanism at all. Glad to hear reserving will block the process. I will apply this henceforth.
In that case, the only request that I would have is that this information be somewhere in the documentation.
Kind regards,
Atavus
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Agree, we need to write an article explaining the whole Novice Area mechanics. Will do that in the near future.
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Just wanted to chime in that I also think this could be a problem. From the existing player's perspective, it is an unpleasant surprise to find your newly won conquest territory has been repurposed overnight. From the novice's perspective, there is a wolf waiting just outside once the walls go down.
I think there is a pretty easy solution, disqualify an area for re-novice if it has been occupied recently. If someone cleared it out but then waited several days before taking it, then they are at least partly to blame. Perhaps this is already the case.
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Yes, we always watch for several days before converting an empty area into Novice.
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Talking about that, I recently got into the game, and I'm having a reaaally hard time finding my first room in novice sectors, not being picky, there is literally no place to land as new player.
Please spawn/unlock more rooms for us new players, my 30 days suscription is already running and I have nowhere to go without getting eaten.
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Re: Xeiken - One of the biggest problems I ran into with spawning initially (and after my first base got torn up because I procrastinated on building a tower until AFTER my RCL3 extensions were up...) was actually that the "find another room" button didn't seem to do anything to prioritize rooms with two sources; it kept pointing me at empty rooms that were wedged between two other players, or had one source, etc.
Having a way to filter room searches while spawning would be helpful. Even if that was something that required (or allowed) writing your own script to filter it (which would be totally in the spirit of the game, but also a feature most-used by people who are still getting their feet on the ground...).
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+1 !
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Though one thing I should acknowledge - being able to zoom out on the world map DOES make things significantly easier. Working off room locations as a coordinate map with no other data was a bit disorienting. Being able to step back and see the world map as a whole gave me a much better concept of where on the rim I was looking at, or what the center of the world looks like, and which of the big empires are where. That's less of a concern for finding a starting room (where your goals basically consist of: "can I get to RCL3 and build a tower in < 20,000 ticks?" and "am I completely screwed if the guy next to me also succeeds at that goal?"). In that case I really do think it's more a problem of not being able to find the space rather than it not existing.
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Novice Areas are now documented in this article.
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This description in the "article" to novice areas is unacceptable... you guys keep spamming me with novice areas all over the place.. there is nowhere left for me to go. What is a few days supposed to be? sometimes it takes 2 weeks, sometimes only a matter of 48 hrs.
This random behaviour has screwed me over twice now. Make it predicatble !
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Had a chunk of land I just cleared out go novice less than 8k ticks after the reservations dropped from the guy I had removed. It's now unusable for about the next 400k ticks and anyone that spawns there will die once the walls drop
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Dear Artem,
I must once again voice my concern over this mechanism or at the very least request a change in its behavior.
As far as you have explained, this mechanism is not automatic. That means someone (presumably you) is deciding which areas to set as novice areas.
Creating such areas in zones where an AI has decayed naturally or where there is no intention to expand makes sense. Creating such areas in zones which have just been cleared by another AI for the intention of expansion is mean or downright cruel.
Doing this is likely to engender feelings of spite in the player who was slighted. You are creating animosity between the developed player and the ones which have just settled there. The likelihood of survival from this repurposed areas is close to 0.
This post was created as a result of a novice area generated around my position. There were around 15 AIs which spawned in this area. Do you know how many are alive today? Two.
One is about to be removed and only survived so long because his position is worthless.
Spawning in one of these areas is effectively a death sentence. Why not allow these guys a fair chance?
Please reconsider your logic for creating these death zones.
Kind regards,
Your loving fan
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That means someone (presumably you) is deciding which areas to set as novice areas.
No, not me, it’s not a one-man show.
sometimes only a matter of 48 hrs.
Had a chunk of land I just cleared out go novice less than 8k ticks after the reservations dropped from the guy I had removed. It’s now unusable for about the next 400k ticks and anyone that spawns there will die once the walls drop
That should not be the case, we’ll check it. The waiting period should be at least 3-5 days. Thanks for reporting.
Creating such areas in zones which have just been cleared by another AI for the intention of expansion is mean or downright cruel.
If you don’t reserve an area, then you intentions are considered unknown. In fact, your expanding intentions may cover the entire Screeps world, but they become legitimate only when you reserve something.
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> If you don’t reserve an area, then you intentions are considered unknown. In fact, your expanding intentions may cover the entire Screeps world, but they become legitimate only when you reserve something.
Let's take the example of W35S45, which has a novice area in NW since about 2 days ago. It is a small corner of an active sector. This was created despite the fact that there are reservations or owned rooms on the border of it. It is unrealistic to expect that players will fully reserve an entire sector to block reallocation.
Let me put this another way. I would accept the argument "why did you not reserve it?" if this was an automated system. Considering it is not, whoever is making that judgement should do it in such a way as to ensure the best experience for whoever occupies that zone.
Making a tiny novice area next to Bovius, who has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is quite effective at ensuring his freedom of movement, is bad judgement. Bovius cleared the sector, took over 4 rooms and has shown his intention to control that sector. What chance does a new player have there?
The novice areas on the borders of the world are clearly excellent grounds for player growth. These randomly shaped novice areas are clearly not.
Unless I am mistaken, user acquisition is one of the critical aspects of this game's success. Do you want this game to be a success? If yes, make sure these novice areas give the players in them the best possible experience. Let them contend with players of their level, not with me or Bovius.
Thank you,
Your admiring fanPS: Please teach me how to make those awesome quotes.
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Let me put this another way. I would accept the argument “why did you not reserve it?” if this was an automated system. Considering it is not, whoever is making that judgement should do it in such a way as to ensure the best experience for whoever occupies that zone.
It’s semi-automated. It would be very hard to track all these areas continously considering all intentions of all neighboring players. Your intention should be visualized.
And I don’t really think that respawning in 15 days to another novice area can frighten new players away. In fact, there is almost no established players who didn’t respawn at least once. It’s just like Tutorial #2.
PS: Please teach me how to make those awesome quotes.
Zendesk doesn’t have it built in, but it allows to copy-paste formatted text from outside. Personally I use this external editor.
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It’s semi-automated. It would be very hard to track all these areas continously considering all intentions of all neighboring players. Your intention should be visualized.
I’m starting to get the picture. If you think it worth it, I would propose a simple feature to address the grief this has caused. A few days before creating one of these novice areas, flag it visually on the map. Perhaps yellow or something of the sort and add a tooltip saying the area will become novice in X ticks. Should any rooms in that area be reserved in that time the area gets resized or cancelled.
This mechanism would give players a chance to “express their intent”. Some people may prefer that areas get repurposed since it may bring in new life into the area or to block off certain sections. Others may wish to expand and therefore block such an event.
Shall I add a post in the features section?
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Yes, that's a nice idea that we also debated some time ago as well. It would be cool to implement it, but right now it's just another feature in our endless TODO list. At least, you can consider it confirmed.
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Just in case some more specific details will help you find any isses, you can see the player I've just killed respawning here
> https://screeps.com/a/#!/history/E56S32?t=13828367
The room to the east (E56S32) has 4696 ticks left on the reservation, which means it would end at 13833063. The zone went novice at 13840939, which you can see here
>https://screeps.com/a/#!/history/E55S35?t=13840939
That's only 7876 ticks (aprox 6.5 hours) after the reservation ran out, or 12,572 (10.5 hours) from when he respawned
