A request from the devs: Do not cater to the elites
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I agree with the problem that Atavus identified, although I don't agree with the solution. I worry that this game is going to be hard for new players to join, especially if they don't have friends already in the game to help.
I have a different solution I would like to propose-
* Larger novice areas,
* Longer period of time for novice areas before they are released,
* Increase the max rooms in novice areas to 5.
This would allow new players to establish territories for themselves without having to directly compete with the big players. Once the walls drop most of them should have close to 5 developed rooms, which will be much tougher to crack than three. I also assume with the larger area and more players to start that alliances will form amongst new players.
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To bonsai's point (\o hai bonsai) I do think this game could do with a bit more scaffolding (although not too much as selection of goals is part of the game too imo) I even thing it would be cool to incorporate that into power creeps, such that completing a limited set of quests/achievements can get a player into the power game early (i.e. grants enough power to have a small/weak power creep early on).
Having said this, and having started ~3 months ago, I am more inclined to agree with atavus. I recently got dedicated upgrading, mining, and hauling up and running, and I can't imagine power creeps being more important than any of those three. I'm currently working on remote mining which until recently was much harder to test (ty artem and the screeps devs for getting the private server running). Given that remote mining at the very least (not to mention long distance scouting) is required for power harvesting, saying that power as a feature is (at the moment) "available to all players" is like saying that harvesting source keeper rooms is a feature "available to all players". While it is true, it's misleading at best.
And to artem's response about markets, any trade on power will be a sellers market, making the players selling power (the highest end players that have the time, energy, and cpu to look for and harvest it) even more powerful.
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For me, I think the biggest problem is not power in and of itself, but instead the fact that large players have had so long to stockpile it. If it's something that is spent like minerals, then we have a huge problem where some players will have enormous amounts "saved up" by the time it is finally launched. If it is something that is accumulated like GCL and merely allocated, then its effects should be marginal at best in order to prevent it from being too powerful.
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I DO NOT agree that power creeps will create an imbalance. At least not exactly. The more I play the more I see how "larger players" have a tremendous, nearly insurmountable, head start. I would like to say that I hope development continues to make sure that new players and established players can meet on equal footing. There are problems in this area, but I don't feel they stem from power or power creeps.
In essence, while I do think there is a gap between established players and new players, I think it's a kind of wait and see situation. I don't think power creeps on their own totally offset some balance. Specially when it's not released yet.
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For me, I think the biggest problem is not power in and of itself, but instead the fact that large players have had so long to stockpile it.
We probably will introduce a way to convert your account GCL points to power points using some disadvantageous exchange rate (more energy expensive than harvesting and processing it directly). Either on the launch of this feature or as a permanent account option, not decided yet.
What do you think is the appropriate energy cost for 1 unit of power?
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Well, 1 unit of power costs 50 energy to process, and let's pretend 6 energy per unit to harvest. If we round that from 56 to 100, then double it to 200 GCL (double because 1 energy = 2 GCL) I think we've got a suitably "bad" exchange. I think 250 GCL could also be an acceptable exchange rate.
6 energy per unit to harvest -> 3 generations of 1 attack creep (4k) 1 heal creep (6k) = 10k per gen = 30k to harvest an average of 5k power.
If you allowed ongoing power purchases, maybe 500 GCL for 1 power to really discourage it except in emergencies -- but I think 200 could work as a one-off thing (vs an estimated cost of harvesting it of 60 energy). What does everyone else think?
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I think a better solution would be to temporarily have terminals sell power for X amount of credits, where X is some number that encourages newer players to dump some minerals into the market to get credits. Also offering older players the option to convert their processed power into something else as way to lower theirs may be worth exploring.
As a horribly stupid but kind of amusing idea, letting people convert power into CPU credits they can dump into their bucket may be an interesting mechanic.
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What about increasing the bucket size to 10k? I reckon people might get sour if they filled their bucket with power only to have a reset storm hit (which resets their bucket to 5k anyway)
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Working around that is simple enough- just have this be a separate bucket that is only used when the primary bucket is depleted. That way if the main bucket gets refilled the bought CPU is still there.
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I'm also assuming that the bucket reset thing is temporary until the source of the global reset issue is found, although it's been such an effective solution I'm not sure that's actually the case.
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If power creeps turn out to be more of an augmentation than a real game-changer, then I think they'll make for an interesting dynamic. It's reassuring to hear that they won't disturb the gameplay balance too much.
But when it comes to the discussion of leveling the playing field for newer players vs. players that have been building an empire (and an advanced code base!), I think achievements might play into the solution. For newer players, achievements could come with rewards, bonuses, or resources that could help them establish themselves. I really don't want to see Screeps turn into some generic MMO, but ideas borrowed from other games might include power-ups like 24 or 48 hours of decreased spawn time or decreased spawn energy requirements, or an achievement that rewards a player with 100k energy- rewards that would be trivial for well established players, but could really support novice players.
Also, is there any collection of information that is established to help support novice players? I know some of us have public code bases (myself included) that have been forked by novice players, but a repository of information might be good as well. Just a thought.
