[Discussion] Uniformity of the world

MrFaul

@tigga said in [Discussion] Uniformity of the world:

I see it as a minus. This is a game about automation. I don't see any reason why the market shouldn't be automated. Self-organization using out-of-game methods is bad IMO.

Subtokens are P2W. They let you take outside of game resources ($$$) and turn it into an in game advantage (credits). Now obviously the "W" part doesn't come without good code. I don't really see sub token trading as a major part of the game and I certainly don't think it should be promoted further.

Yes using out-of-game methods is a minus, but we have enough in-game tools that those methods are not necessary just convenient.
After all programmers are lazy by nature.
Creeps have public memory segments and the say method.
Granted implementation of a communication protocol is annoying but also very rewarding.
Even the Gmod community managed to boil down to some common interfaces for inter-mod use.
And that community is 80% based on narcissistic script kiddies, which included me at my humble beginnings

I see no reason why this community shouldn't be able to achieve something way more sophisticated.

If you view subscription tokens as p2w I can't deny that completely.
However I also view them as a really big chance to bring a coherent value feeling to the game which is necessary for a working and thriving market.
Every form of currency is a intrinsic value based on availability and demand, and currently this is totally off in Screeps economy.
It would be much more interesting if a specific amount credits in Screeps would be generated for actually bought subscription tokens.
This way the credits would be finite and inflation is based on real world demand.
At the moment inflation is through the roof since credits are somewhat infinite due to the current redistribution mechanic.
Also I think it is fair that "advanced" players have the ability to minimize their costs by leveraging sub tokens.
To put it frankly the sub tokens should be the way to play this game a infinite amount instead of the lifetime subscription.

@wtfrank I'm sorry if some of my posts seem incoherent but I assure you that my thoughts are very so.
I just have a very bad habit of using implications that are very clear for me but you can't look into my brain.
So please bear with me and ask me if you find some of my arguments nonsense.

Also how you view rooms is totally up to you, everybody uses their own metrics there

And please stop to assume that I don't play the game just because of that excuse of a script which is currently on the server.

wtfrank

The reason I asked if you play the game is because you have some strange ideas, that don't seem to have been tested by experience. For example, you're obsessed with your idea about changing subscription tokens, but if you don't really play on the MMO, I don't understand why you're interested in this idea because subscription tokens are meaningless outside the MMO.

You seem very enthusiastic about the game which is commendable. To the extent that you're writing summing-up posts of peoples' arguments in various threads, which is...something.

But then you say some things which I completely and utterly disagree with. In fact huge numbers of things. For example:

Every form of currency is a intrinsic value based on availability and demand, and currently this is totally off in Screeps economy.

The first half of this phrase is completely true, and the second half is in my opinion completely incorrect. For example, the minerals that I need the most of to run my economy are X, L and H. Guess what happens if I look at the credit price of base minerals in the market (on shard 2)? X and H are by far the most expensive. This says to me that a) other people have similar demand for base minerals as me, and b) the price in the market is well-correlated with the supply and demand of these minerals. The opposite of "totally off". What leads you to say that the value of a currency is completely off in screeps? (Surely by the definition you provided in the first half of the phrase the value cannot be "totally off" because the value is what the value is based on supply and demand, so are you arguing against yourself, even within the same sentence?)

Then you go on to say:

It would be much more interesting if a specific amount credits in Screeps would be generated for actually bought subscription tokens.

This is another thing that I completely and utterly disagree with. If you have a fixed exchange rate between credits and subscription tokens, then there is - in effect - absolutely no difference between credits and subscription tokens, and the credit value of subscription tokens doesn't vary in line with supply and demand (which it does at present). So what this change would do would be to in effect reduce the number of tradable resources by 1, and make the game slightly less complex thus less interesting. Definitely not "much more interesting".

At the moment inflation is through the roof since credits are somewhat infinite due to the current redistribution mechanic.

Do you have any evidence for this? If it were the case that inflation is through the roof, I might expect that minerals have increased in price on a particular shard by say a factor of 5x or 10x over the last year. This is not what I've observed, so it feels like you're arguing from within a different subjective reality to me. On that topic:

Also how you view rooms is totally up to you, everybody uses their own metrics there.

Yes this is 100% true that everybody has different metrics for things (wow I agree with you!), but you've just pivoted from saying "Rooms almost don't matter much," to saying that it's completely subjective whether rooms matter or not. If it's completely subjective whether or not rooms matter, then would you accept that it's completely subjective whether "there is currently nothing worth enough that could aggregate a conflict" as you argued earlier?

This brings me back to what I started off with, that your ideas don't seem to be grounded in the game that I play. It's as if you're playing an entirely different game to me!

MrFaul

@wtfrank Ah now we are getting where.
Yes I'm making suggestions to evolve this game, some which are radically trans-formativ to achieve a better overall experience.
These are based on my experiences, knowledge and opinions as it should be and I'm pretty sure you are on the same page there.

If you view this argument here abstract it is almost similar to the whole left vs. right battle raging over the non biased news. hilarious imo.

So yes almost every point you make is valid, viewing it as a rigid system that you currently like.
But I don't view screeps nearly as a finished product yet and see still a long way to go.
So I make suggestions that indeed result in vast gameplay changes. I love screeps concept and hold it dear.
But that doesn't mean that I'm satisfied with the current gameplay. (which should also be clear by now)

Almost any changes I suggest have the goal to make the game more fun in the overall picture and better sustainable for the devs.
You see, for it to be sustainable it has to attract a constant stream of new players willing to give it a try.
And I'm willing to make trade-offs here and there.

Best example the sub tokens, I don't like pay to win, I really don't.
But in my current situation I'm not able to sustain a subscription, so a sub tokens are a very good method for a win win situation with a marginal loss of fairness:
Devs get paid, I get to play the game.
The private servers I play on, are already available infrastructure with open capacity as soon those are gone so are the servers. My suggestions to strengthen low-mid lvl rooms are to an extend to somewhat mitigate the effects of p2w but also to make sure that RCL 8 is not necessarily a key goal.
They work in a system.

So what I'm missing... right my definition of a fun game:
A competition that gives clear results, without the infringement of harm to the participants.
(This doesn't count in game violence that is part of the rules, you are free to chose the games to play. So don't bitch about them)

So Screeps is a game that is deliberately in a sandbox style, with clear developed rules that allows creativity.
But the competition part in screeps is completely underdeveloped.
A sandbox game needs also a lot of possible goals to achieve.
Goals that need specific decisions to be made even if that means sacrificing some other ones.
But the beauty of this is that you can try again for a different path.

Next thing, the "Rooms don't matter much".
Yes every one has different metrics for choosing one, but in terms of gameplay the only value they boil down to is time.
By drastically diversifying the world, values like resource, strategic position etc. would get predominant in room choice. And that is my reasoning behind the rooms don't matter much.

OK this is long enough already I gave a piece of mind. I'm absolutely not hell bend on my solutions and would happily accept other that satisfy my points.
But only if they involve refining what we have instead of just adding a additional layer of complexity games are only fun if people play with you.
A complex rule set is toxic to new players since they have to spend enormous energy of learning the rules before they can play.

wtfrank

@mrfaul said in [Discussion] Uniformity of the world:

So yes almost every point you make is valid, viewing it as a rigid system that you currently like.

But I don't view screeps nearly as a finished product yet and see still a long way to go.

I don't view it as finished either.

But in my current situation I'm not able to sustain a subscription, so a sub tokens are a very good method for a win win situation with a marginal loss of fairness:

If you don't have the money for a subscription, then you don't have money for sub tokens so buying them with IRL cash is ruled out, but you can buy sub tokens with credits. If you don't have the ability to generate 8 million credits per month in-game (last time I checked) then you don't have the ability to exchange your mineral harvesting/compound construction/trading for another players' IRL cash. You have said that your code on the server is "an excuse of a script". Given what you've said subscription tokens are irrelevant to you and will always be irrelevant to you until you have substantially improved code and GCL to farm them in game, or you have access to more IRL cash.

Consider a game like EvE Online - a new player couldn't really expect to farm PLEX to pay for their subscription, unless they spend a substantial amount of time doing really tedious and inefficient farming of one kind or another. But an old player might quite easily be able to generate ISK to buy a PLEX depending on the areas of the game they've got into.

From what you've said about your code, you're not able to generate the credits to pay for a monthly subscription token, and splitting the tokens into smaller sizes won't change the rate at which you have to generate credits. So sub tokens are for now out of your reach, and there's no realistic change to the game that would put them in your reach, unless the game is redesigned to be a lot more P2W (but you say you don't like that). I don't see any reason for you to bang on about subscription tokens.

My suggestions to strengthen low-mid lvl rooms are to an extend to somewhat mitigate the effects of p2w but also to make sure that RCL 8 is not necessarily a key goal.

RCL 8 is an inevitable consequence of creating a small script that spawns creeps, harvests, and upgrades and leaving it running. If you have a script that does this you cannot avoid reaching RCL 8 unless someone wipes you from the game. You have posts in the forum that are 9 months old so you could easily have 1 or more rooms at RCL8 on MMO, even under the old 10cpu regime.

So you're asking for the limited dev and rebalancing effort to be spent on a part of the game that almost no-one plays because they grow out of it quickly, in order to make the game "better sustainable for the devs". Does that seem like a logical proposition?

The private servers I play on, are already available infrastructure with open capacity as soon those are gone so are the servers.

Why don't you just play 20 CPU shard3, which you've got for free for life once you bought the game instead of moaning about private servers that disappear for whatever reason? Alternatively if you really want to change the equation at lower RCL rooms, why don't you write a mod for the private server and experiment with changing various constants to reduce the amount of upgrading required per RCL, or decreases tower damage or whatever you want. If you did that then maybe you would have a proposition you could make about how low RCL combat should be improved. But until then why don't you figure out how to upgrade rooms at the maximum possible speed so that you get higher RCL.

right my definition of a fun game:

A competition that gives clear results, without the infringement of harm to the participants.

May I humbly suggest that competition without infringement of harm exists in form of the GCL leaderboard and the power leaderboard. The trophy of trophies is to be at the top of both the GCL and power leaderboard in the same month. I am unaware whether anybody has achieved this but it would be an impressive feat.

A sandbox game needs also a lot of possible goals to achieve.

Not necessarily wrong.

Goals that need specific decisions to be made even if that means sacrificing some other ones.

Choosing whether to compete on power or GCL leaderboards is a prime example of this tradeoff. Have you tried competing on the GCL or power leaderboards? How did you find that experience?

What other ideas do you have for this type of competition you talk about? Are you concerned that adding new ways of competition to the game, may make the game more complex? Because in just a little while you go on to talk about how the game should be less complex. Ok lets look at that:

Complexity is toxic to players since they have to spend enormous energy of learning the rules before they can play.

Ok, the game certainly is complex. This is the kind of thing that some people relish and others don't. It's not simply "toxic" full stop. Complexity can give more scope for players to figure out their own solution, rather than there being a single meta that everyone uses. Complexity can give greater rewards for mastery, rather than capping out early once a simple system is mastered (consider learning draughts/checkers vs learning chess). Complexity can cause players to stick around for longer. But yes, complexity can also put players off.

So you want the game to be more P2W but also less P2W, and you want the game to have lots more goals to achieve but also you want the game to be less complex, and you want to get rid of the market and write off development work but you also want to make the game better sustainable for the devs.

I'm very much reminded of a quote from Alice in Wonderland:

"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

MrFaul

OK you seem to have a lot of assumptions about me, and still some misconceptions what I said and what not.

So the first part of ranting about I won't be able to afford subscription tokens is true I don't have the money to buy those.
But the second is completely false on the account you don't know anything about me and my programming skills.
I haven't put any afford for the script live on the official server for various reasons that I'm not going to discuss, maybe some of them but not now.
And I have absolutely no reason to change that just for an argument.

Please don't compare this to the careful designed and constantly adjusted marked in EVE.
And you are right new players are very unlikely to gain PLEX but not unheard of especially if they found a good corp.

The idea to split the sub tokens into smaller units is to speed up the acquisition of such to give a small achievement without changing the value.
Besides that a boost of CPU a couple of days maybe just what you need, to allow you to sustain yourself.

RCL 8 is not a inevitable consequence, it is a consequence of the design choices made by the player.
That said, there is currently almost no reason to willingly stop upgrading a controller.
The botched thing on the official is clearly proof that you will reach it someday by simply leaving it be.
So you are valid to an extend there.

It is logical due to the fact that virtually "no one plays" it, all that means it is lacking a reason to be played.

What makes you so certain that I haven't done exactly that.

Stating the obvious, my point is to extend on that with i.e.: a trade rank. and various other metrics.

Sorry haven't specified exactly the complexity I mean:
Complex rule system -> rigid gameplay -> bad for new players, only provides a handful ways of best practices.
simple flexible rule system -> complex gameplay -> easy for new players, provides a myriad of solutions (hard to master)

And sorry again missed a "new" by the toxic argument. (fixed that)

And where the did you get the idea that I want to abolish the market, hell no. Look up the definition of a thought experiment.

Davaned

@mrfaul Humbly, I'm with @wtfrank on his points. I won't reiterate them, but I don't feel like you're approaching this from the perspective of a player, but rather as an enthusiast. That's totally fine, we have a number of non-coding members of the community. However, when it comes to pure gameplay interactions, it's very difficult to have reasoned and well thought out feedback without having personal experience.

I disagree with many of the core statements you've made about how gameplay works. Things like

RCL 8 is not a inevitable consequence, it is a consequence of the design choices made by the player.

Is totally incorrect. You will quite literally always reach RCL 8, and should always try and reach it. If you stop upgrading your controller it will start downgrading, so as long as you maintain a room you will slowly reach RCL 8.

I won't even start addressing the rest of it. I've never played WoW, but based on what friends say the majority of the game is after you reach max level in the game. The same can be said for screeps. Most of the complexity in the game is self selecting, you don't need to tackle everything at once, it's more about unlocking the next level.

Unlocking that next level IS the reward, the challenge you are looking for. Developing cool shit is why we play this game. Drowning in complexity is what happens when you try and take on everything at once, rather than piece by piece. It is GOOD that screeps is complex, and that the complexity is gated behind challenges to overcome. In a very rough subjective order:

1 room, mining to raise RCL and GCL
Claiming more rooms, growing them
Remote mining rooms to increase resource harvesting
Basic defense
Mining SK for resources + minerals
Terminals, market, and credits
Labs, boosting, creeps
Basic offense
Advanced defense
Advanced offense
Power
Far late game on whatever you what to tackle. Portal mechanics, intershard, market manipulation, room autoconstruction, full automation.

In most cases, you can't achieve the later steps without unlocking them by achieving the earlier ones. That is the progression of the game. Not some classic MMO "leveling up" a skill by grinding. But by actually learning a complex system, tackling real technical challenges, and writing performant code to handle it. It takes real work and results in real learning, not fake MMO grinding. I applaud @artch and his team, because this is one of the rare times when achievement in game translates to real achievements in real life.

There is plenty of room for improvement in this game, which is why I made this topic. I don't agree with a lot of the direction you seem to want though.

Ps. @MrFaul can see where some people are confused with the fact that visibly you are only on step 1 yet feel strongly about lategame. It doesn't mean that you don't have experience with it. It's totally possible you have some kickass AI on a private and for whatever reason you've decided to leave terrible code running on the main world. It's just a bit harder to believe than the alternative. If you do have one, I wholeheartedly extend an invitation to come compete in the #botarena battle royale I'm hosting at the end of this month. It's a great way to show off, everyone starts from the very beginning (RCL 1 GCL 1) so you'll be on even footing.

MrFaul

@Davaned Well yeah, we like the same things.
And I wonder where that would be compromised by my suggestions?
Only that some things will be slightly switched around.

Is totally incorrect. You will quite literally always reach RCL 8, and should always try and reach it.
If you stop upgrading your controller it will start downgrading, so as long as you maintain a room you will slowly reach RCL 8.

Not stopping to upgrade is a design choice -> it is completely up to the player.
But it is most of the time in the players interest to continually maintain a room.

Davaned

@mrfaul That's like saying staying alive is a design choice in a game. The player can choose to die rather than stay alive, and therefore it is not a core part of the game.

Or that leveling up in an MMO is a choice. You don't have to, you could theoretically avoid doing anything that gives experience. That doesn't make it not part of the core gameplay, nor does it validate complaints with lack of content if you choose to bar yourself from accessing them.

MrFaul

@davaned Yes that is exactly what I'm saying.
But I don't get why you are saying this isn't a essential part of the gameplay?

Choosing to die or not to lvl up is completely up to the player, neither is it in anyway breaking the rules of the game.
This may not be the intention the developer of the game may had, but is still a valid way to play.
Just because somebody is doing "wired things" in your point of view, doesn't invalidate his personal goals.

Limiting your actions to only what the game intend to be, is a very narrow way thought.

duckymirror

This discussion started as "[Discussion] Uniformity of the world". It's going a very weird way now.

MrFaul

Well yes it is getting more and more philosophical, and I'm clearly one of the reason for that.
But it should be clear by now that everybody cares about this game.

I know that I suggest a lot of radical stuff.
And I don't expect all aspects of such to be implemented but if just one notion of those is sticking to peoples head means I was able to push the Screeps development a bit further. I'm satisfied.

I always try to see things objective to avoid being astray by my own emotions.
Sadly I can't say that this isn't the case in this discussion, in respect of me and other members of this community.
(I leave that, up to you, to figure out when it started)

Opinion incoming:
I can't stand the notion "that things are this way, and should stay this way" without even considering alternatives.
It is a shame that this discussion degraded to a match between opinions.
Just look at the adjustment of the room constants a while ago, wasn't that a good thing?

Davaned

Yeah, this has gone a bit far afield. To wrap this up:

@mrfaul This part I totally get on a fundamental level:

I know that I suggest a lot of radical stuff. And I don't expect all aspects of such to be implemented but if just one notion of those is sticking to peoples head means I was able to push the Screeps development a bit further. I'm satisfied.

Every time I've suggested something that was picked up by the community and devs it's been an incredibly rewarding experience. I think that the alluring part of screeps is that the community is empowered to help drive development, sometimes on a very literal level. I think my most recent addition was tombstones when creeps die (https://screeps.com/forum/topic/2075/creep-death-more-than-just-a-delete). It's nice to make a lasting impact, and feel like you are driving change.

That said, I think there is a good balance to have between change for change's sake and enhancements. Honestly? It's a weakness of mine. I LOVE suggesting things for their own sake. My alliance members can attest to the literal storm of ideas I throw out (I'm so sorry @Atavus and @seancl). But from your conversations here I don't feel that you have the same experience as most other players. I struggle with some of your comments:

My main gripe with screeps is, there isn't a lot enough that rewards the players brain to keep him engaged. Read this and maybe you understand what I meant: Brain satisfaction tool

I love screeps for what it is, and I know a lot of thought/math went into the constants which are the base of the game. This appeals to programmers, but truth is, the average Joe is the one who brings the money to keep the wheel turning. A lot of people I know who tried it always said the same to me: "feels dead"

So what I'm missing... right my definition of a fun game: A competition that gives clear results, without the infringement of harm to the participants. (This doesn't count in game violence that is part of the rules, you are free to chose the games to play. So don't bitch about them)

So Screeps is a game that is deliberately in a sandbox style, with clear developed rules that allows creativity. But the competition part in screeps is completely underdeveloped. A sandbox game needs also a lot of possible goals to achieve. Goals that need specific decisions to be made even if that means sacrificing some other ones. But the beauty of this is that you can try again for a different path.

Screeps has the most freedom of any game I know. A true pure sandbox. Growth is entirely player driven, and there are no right or wrong ways of doing things. Examples are 10cpu, a player who decided his version of fun was pure optimization of the early game and the limitation of 10cpu. Some players decide to focus on the market, writing careful investments and hoarding credits. Others focus on finely tuned offense and defense, becoming mighty forces to be reckoned with. Some try and collect as much power or GCL as possible. Many turn to the most brutally efficient code possible, minimizing cpu to grow to max size. Others just want to try out interesting design patterns, writing screeps with no memory usage or strange architectures.

The combining factor is that they are all self motivated. You don't have to do anything in screeps besides keep your controller alive (although you seem to think otherwise). If you are not interested in that kind of experience then I'm not sure the core game is a good fit. That does mean that if you want a more curated experience, the private competitions the community hosts might be the best for you. I'll reiterate my offer at the end of my previous post:

Ps. @MrFaul can see where some people are confused with the fact that visibly you are only on step 1 yet feel strongly about lategame. It doesn't mean that you don't have experience with it. It's totally possible you have some kickass AI on a private server and for whatever reason you've decided to leave tutorial code running on the main world. It's just a bit harder to believe than the alternative. If you do have one, I wholeheartedly extend an invitation to come compete in the (slack) #botarena battle royale I'm hosting at the end of this month. It's a great way to show off, everyone starts from the very beginning (RCL 1 GCL 1) so you'll be on even footing.

I think this is the kind of competition you're looking for. There is a goal, everyone starts from the same spot so no one has an advantage. It's a great chance to showcase your code on a level playing field:

the current gameplay doesn't feel satisfying. Especially for new players since "high level" players seem to be impossible to beat.

Anything goes, you can do whatever strategy you want with clear rules and complete freedom It also is almost entirely combat between lower RCL rooms. You want proof that low level rooms can dominate? Ags131 has a hilarious ZeSwarm bot that explodes outwards at RCL 1 and 2 and just creates vast hordes of creeps to attack with, very fun to watch.

Come and give it a shot! I think you'll enjoy it, it seems to have all the elements you are looking for.

I'll definitely admit I've been frustrated during our discussion. You throw out a lot of opinions as facts and when questioned you cite how it's bad gameplay design. Furthermore, without ever trying anything but the most basic code on the main server I personally feel that it's difficult to have a solid experience on more complex interplayer systems, for example the screeps market. There is a big gap between having tens of players versus thousands.

All in all, a lot of respect. The more people care and want to improve things, the better they will get. Be careful not to come across as too preachy though! You seem to have some strong ideas on what the right way to make a game. If there should be many ways to play a game, shouldn't there also be many ways to create a game? Screeps is a niche game, so I don't think it's a bad thing if it differs from a cookie cutter experience.

That said, there is tons of room for improvement. The best part of screeps is that anyone can make things happen! If you have an awesome idea for a rework of competitions etc in mind, the best way to prove you're right is by making a mod or pull request and letting people experience gameplay the way you see it. I'd love to see a rework on lower RCL rooms, personally I'd love to play on a private server and make a nomadic bot that roams the map claiming and unclaiming rooms. If you're interested, I'd be happy to host the mod on the server I run so we can refine your ideas into actionable changes for the devs.

Honestly? I find debating ideas and design philosophy addicting, and I'm glad to have more people interested in it. This is totally a guilty pleasure of mine. The trick is making sure they are always constructive! Thank you for all the interesting discussions and I look forward to seeing your cool ideas come to life.

All the best.

-Davaned

ObamaLlama

@mrfaul said in [Discussion] Uniformity of the world:

Opinion incoming:
I can't stand the notion "that things are this way, and should stay this way" without even considering alternatives.
It is a shame that this discussion degraded to a match between opinions.
Just look at the adjustment of the room constants a while ago, wasn't that a good thing?

I dont think we should drastically change the fundamentals of the game because we theorised that it'd be nicer. The grass is always greener on the other side as they always say. I feel like you just have a different vision of what the game should be than everyone else here.

Id be interested to see your suggestions play out and you can always start up your own private server and change everything yourself. Screeps servers give you an incredible level of control over the game engine

Ciber

I think we should have nicer looking maps.

Davaned

@ciber +1 on this. It would be awesome to have regions. I'm totally down with different color schemes for areas.

What about simple "landmass" style coloring? Like this type: https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ It can give people a sense of identity in regions without needing gameplay balancing. Potentially later map generation could be tuned to give certain regions different predominate terrain.

deft-code

Different rendering themes would sure look cool. Especially if that played nice to create a world map feel. Then even if the world is rather uniform gameplay-wise it wouldn't look like it.

Taking this a step further. If we allow players to pick their theme we can then apply that to unclaimed rooms based on proximity. It would give alliances something to fight over. "Hey your red theme is spreading into our blue themed region, we should have a micro war". Basically use themes as a way to encourage players to develop a sense of home area outside of just their claimed / reserved rooms.

I already do this to an extent, but this would make that much more rewarding as I could influence the look of neutral rooms and close rooms that aren't worth reserving.

Davaned

@deft-code I like the idea of the visibly spreading regions of control.

How about a new parameter added to tagging controllers? You can add a message like currently, and as a new ability an RGB value. That value could either set the room to that color, OR it could increment the room's color towards that RGB value by 25 increments. If it increments, it could be a once per thousand tick type thing like attacking controllers. That would make map regions slowly shift color as players gain control of them, rather than rapid flickering colors schemes. Then alliance maps will naturally form on the world, and will engender conflict in the form of turf wars. Players could even try and sneakily blend in with the landscape around them by matching color schemes of larger neighbors.

MrFaul

That is actually a great idea, and definitely something that could result in turf wars.
But instead of RGB I would suggest hue that is only a integer between 0-360 and makes color schemes easy.

deft-code

Originally I thought that theme could just be a color because that would allows smooth transitions between them. But as I wrote my suggestion I switched from "color" to "theme".

I think themes might give the dev's (and maybe the community) more freedom to build some awesome themes. Rather just Red vs Blue you could use a Mechanical, Ice, Organic, Zerg, Tron, etc theme.

This also plays nice if (when?) the devs implement a hat economy. There could be some really nice reskins to give your creeps a unique look that also unlocked a theme you could use on your rooms. (I would shell out $20 for a good tron theme in my rooms in a heartbeat. Imagine if creeps popped into a pile of derezzed pixels when they died before their TTL. I might just start a war to watch my creeps die.).

I hadn't considered choosing the theme per room. I would also like non-controller rooms to match the dominant theme in the nearby rooms. Maybe skins/themes could be an account resource that you had buy N times. N themes to apply to N rooms, but you get them back if the controller declaims, unreserves, or changes themes.

Davaned

@deft-code Oh man don't make this TF2 XD

That said, it could be great to have some side revenue generating options for screeps. Things like reskins or custom badges could bring in some extra cash without increasing server load.