3. PTR Changelog 2017-07-20: world shards

PTR Changelog 2017-07-20: world shards

  • Culture

    What happens if a creep joins a shard and it has the same name as another creep already on that shard?


  • > I like that idea, but of course I would, I'm a 10 CPU player

    Referring to my idea above? Not that I am attached to that particular scheme, but I don't think that one gave any favor to 10 CPU players in my head (sorry!). Left unspecified was that shifting CPU from shard A to shard B only works if shard A has the CPU available to give. For a 10 CPU player after your creep crossed the portal you would have  all 10 CPU in the new shard and no way to get more (without subscribing).


  • > It can be used only once per day, thus manual usage is not much harder than scripted usage.

     

    I like the once a day limit, but I have a large objection to this statement: this is not about ease of use.

     

    If people wanted an easy game, there wouldn't be GCL1 players who are working on automatically placing buildings before they build remote mining. The appeal of this game, to many, is that a player can give themselves the challenge of doing _everything by script_.

     

    I mean, the point of practically any game is to introduce challenge - that's what's interesting. For some screeps players, those who are newer to the game, to programming, or have less time, the challenge is simply getting a programmed AI to work at all. For the more experienced players, or those who have more time to play the game, the challenge is making an AI which operates and makes all decisions independently.

     

    I think in your analysis of the situation, you are disregarding the second type of player. I'd count this as unwise - even though they do currently represent a minority, it's far more than 1%, and as more players become more experienced, the balance will continue to shift towards more and more players having full automation as the goal.

     

    This is the reason there are so many players objecting to introducing the API after the feature. If you do this, you're essentially telling these players: either give up on the challenge, or you can't use this feature (shards). It's not about how easy it is, it's about allowing for this extra level of the game you created to exist. Letting people choose to challenge themselves more.

  • int_max

    Also, a lot of the fully automated players or players getting close tend to be very helpful in the slack channel. (my opinion is quite biased)


  • I'm a little late to the party, but I just want to throw my 2 cents in.

    I also strongly believe that all game relevant actions should have an API allowing the game AI to run fully automated. This is a game about automation.

    It should not be necessary to develop web services to control the game.

    CPU and GCL are relevant game resources. Their allocation should be possible to manage from within the game API.

    It is fine to restrict this whichever way is necessary, but an API should be provided.

    I also strongly believe the same should be applied for the future implementation of power creeps.

  • Culture

    I started two new threads to break off some of the conversation-

    A discussion of minimum cpu on each shard - http://screeps.com/forum/topic/32/Shard-Request-Minimum-CPU-on-all-shards

    A request for reduced TTL lose during shard travel - http://screeps.com/forum/topic/33/Shard-Request-Reduce-TTL-Penalties

  • Dev Team

    The discussion is moved here.