@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 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:
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.
@o4kapuk This is one of the biggest changes to hit screeps in a long time. It would be cool to get some sort of event or something to go with it. Add a little bit of story to the screeps world.
It started with a weakening in the fabric between worlds. Raw power, slowly oozing from cracks in the ground. The alien substance is incredibly volatile, and with some terribly inhumane testing, a powerful mutagen. Who knows what terrible creations will be unveiled?
That kind of thing you know? Or maybe power creeps in the form of invaders attacking players for a bit, that would give people with no power a way to collect some as loot on their death.
@mrfaul Do you have any experience using the market on the main world? You might not be getting a realistic impression of it if you've never used the market on a server with a population.
If it was suddenly removed, probably 1 in 5 empires would start to collapse over time. Many new settlements would die off, people often use boosting/terminal transfers extensively for bootup time.
Tons of people do GCL farming via market.
Any new player would be at an enormous disadvantage. Until you get 10+ rooms, you probably don't have all the minerals you need in sufficient quantities to make what you'd like. Even after 10+ rooms, you often have gaps in your supply chain where you need more H/X/etc than you have, so boosting would stall.
Finally, anyone who doesn't keep large banks of boosts on hand would be extremely vulnerable to warfare. People absolutely rely on the market for quickly gaining stockpiles of minerals on defense.
If your argument was that the market could be better I would agree with it. I'd love to see more interaction built into it. However, you said it wasn't an integral part of the game, and I disagree with that. @mrfaul said in [Discussion] Uniformity of the world:
@tigga yes it is used.
But still, I wouldn't call it a integral part of the game.
IMO that's a shame. In it current state it wouldn't make big impact in gameplay if we would get rid of it.
You always would have every necessary thing around you it is just more time consuming at all.
Of course, technically you are right in the long term. Because if they removed the official market, players would definitely create their own market after some time. The official one is just more convenient, even if it does have a 5% tax.
I do think the fundamental issue is that there isn't much of a reason to use boosts. Most challenges (SK, power banks, etc) are easily handled with non-boosted creeps. The only real need for a majority of them is for player combat, which isn't that frequent as there is no real reward for it. It's fine that there are boosts that are not frequently used as long as they are useful in their scenario, but it would be nice to have more reasons to use said boosts.
I think Strongholds might actually help address this concern by giving more of a reason for these combat boosts.
Nothing wrong with this idea, it pops up every now and then. The big problem is that almost no one would use it. CPU is a premium, so the cpu, time and energy that went into reacting those minerals in the first place is wasted, and it costs even more to unreact them. The only thing it would do is ensure market resources never cost less than their components, and slightly reduce the downsides of keeping war compounds in stock.
99% of the time this won't be useful, but then again I see no reason why it shouldn't be allowed, if low priority. I'm in favor of it being added simply because it makes sense 
EDIT: Would make it easier to store larger banks of minerals in the form of G, albiet at a very expensive CPU and energy. TBH, the only place I could see this being actually useful in crossshard transfers, where the market doesn't work. But then why would you not just send over T3 resources that you want anyway rather than useless ones that you'd have to unreact.
@mrfaul Obviously compounds are more valuable than base minerals. They represent cpu, energy, and time spent creating them. However most of them are not needed frequently, and so base minerals represent flexible options. Most people can create their own compounds fairly easily.
Consider it logically: If I'm mining all of the minerals I need to create a T3 compound I'm using, why would I bother buying it from the market during ordinary gameplay? Part of the game involves intelligent expansion to make sure your empire has access to a good spread of resources.
Now, in times of conflict etc demand might exceed your ability to supply, which is when you buy from the market. Or maybe you're short on one piece of a compound, so you buy more H from the market. That's why the market for base minerals is much more liquid, because most players are filling small gaps in their production supplies vs buying completed compounds. Most high level players are not going to waste their credits buying a premium priced completed product.
My main gripe with screeps is, there isn't a lot enough that rewards the players brain to keep him engaged.
Secondly: Screeps is inherently an openworld self-driven game. If you're looking for a hand-holding reward system it's not a good match. It gives you access to everything up front, you have to write the code to actually make it happen. I disagree with this, screeps is entirely about using your brain. Unless you know how to code without thinking, which I'd be damn impressed.
My personal gripe with pacing is two part:
Simply put @MrFaul: You're GCL 5 with 1 room and no remote mining. So the tick times are not the issue, but the code is. This is yours. If you want to do new things, you need to do it yourself. Frankly, you've taken your first baby step but gone no further. No matter what the devs change with end game content, if you don't write something that can handle having a second room you're never going to get better. My advice is think big and invest in a good design rather than duct-taping with room .name hacks, but whatever gets you off the ground.
It would be interesting to have a resource that high tech options requires to run. Like people have described, having a resource that boosts buildings in some way, or is required to create a particular building.
For example:
I can see lots of "special case" boosts that wouldn't be broken but would be interesting in very low quantities on the map.
I'm excited to see what @artch and his team have come up with, ideally I'd like to be very rare and special so that it feels closer to an event when it is nearby.
@Jaycephus I've been assuming that these sorts of things won't be in claimable room, but will rather be in contested neutral territory like power banks. That way it's not about being lucky and claiming a room, but rather players in surrounding rooms battling it out, and further players claiming rooms near it.
@Kasami I think thats a good idea. Some sort of non-spawnable/claimable shard with increased resources is a reoccurring idea, it would give players something to work towards taming and with how shard portals work, it would increase player interaction from different map regions. Between the two, I think I'd rather have it not claimable, given that once it gets saturated there will be zero chance for new players to break in to entrenched positions given your specified portal limitations.
Anyone else have any ideas or comments? I think it would be nice for something to differentiate locations/shards besides server performance.