Totems and how they should work.

[MrDDT]

Totem needs a "glow ring" to show where your borders will be!

The glow ring is a good idea, but I think the point of the ghost totem is that you can move it around, like you can projects now. It will tell you the range because as you run around it, it will say you have entered xzy area or not. Because you would temp control it. (not able to level the land or anything but prevent other totems in the radius).

Also point of the ghost totem is to prevent people from dropping totem insta, to claim resources or someones stuff. To get that stuff they would have to put resources into the totem, so it would only be done if it were cost effective.
Ghost totems would offer any protection other than preventing of other totems places in its area.
Think of it more of a "I claim this land" but its not active for protections.

[Jadzia]

Paying for tribe land is a good idea, with resources or tokens or anything.

I wouldn't even connect tribe area size to the member count. Let a tribe to upgrade their totem and have more land if they can pay the price and able to maintain it. This way smaller but very active tribes could own a big area, while tribes filled with inactive accounts would shrink.

A homestead totem should be free or require very small amount of stuffs ( like 5 grass or something) to help new players to adapt to the game. Otherwise they would be in a serious disadvantage and that may drive them away from the game.

The higher level the totem is the next upgrade should cost more and more.

[MrDDT]

Paying for tribe land is a good idea, with resources or tokens or anything.

I wouldn't even connect tribe area size to the member count. Let a tribe to upgrade their totem and have more land if they can pay the price and able to maintain it. This way smaller but very active tribes could own a big area, while tribes filled with inactive accounts would shrink.

A homestead totem should be free or require very small amount of stuffs ( like 5 grass or something) to help new players to adapt to the game. Otherwise they would be in a serious disadvantage and that may drive them away from the game.

The higher level the totem is the next upgrade should cost more and more.

Right, I dont like the free part of a homestead. I think it should take some basic resources (50 units with rock = 1 unit) This wouldnt take long to get but prevent people from dropping insta totems helps prevent exploiting.

Also a tribe filled with inactives could also have a few of those actives carry the weight of them if they choose.

I also think because of how totems have issues with growing. Leveling up should have a check to see if it can grow and if it cant, then you can still level up, and it will grow once the check is cleared (like someone moves a totem).

[darkviper1]

+1 to almost everything said in this thread.

I would even consider taking the safe zone out.. put in a non destruction aura, as mentioned by someone, and making the walls with gates provide protection.

[b_ulam]

I was discussing this with DDT earlier today. I'm glad to see everyone seems to support the idea.

[Dubanka]

Tree Maintenance

each 'rank' of totem requires more, and different, resources to maintain.

this sets the stage for a couple of things...when you 'rank' a totem you could choose to increase it's radius (cost x) or it's hps (when they are implemented...at cost y).

[MrDDT]

Tree Maintenance

each 'rank' of totem requires more, and different, resources to maintain.

this sets the stage for a couple of things...when you 'rank' a totem you could choose to increase it's radius (cost x) or it's hps (when they are implemented...at cost y).

I agree with tree ranking, but for it to up its radius, it would need to do a check to see if its ok. (Check totems in range).
I also agree with increasing its HP. I was going to talk about this once siege system is released. I covered it in another post where it would limit griefers just randomly breaking a wall or 2, it would give the area it was protection a buffer HP shield. Which a random group of a few people attacking you really would cause no damage, they would first do damage to the HP shield which would be much higher than any single unit of defense IE a wall.

So say a wall has 500HP, the buffer shield could have like 5000 HP. So for a group of random griefers to even break 1 item, they would have to do 5500HP damage. This would make it so that only people that really disliked that tribe and wanting to put real effort into it would attack it.
I remember in SB before they made walls not attackable until a siege you would have 3am groups of 5 people breaking a wall or 2. It didnt take them long and you couldnt really muster enough defense to do anything all the time during all hours.
This way it would take a couple of hours to break down the HP shield, but only maybe 20 or 30mins to break a wall. (Depending on how many people are doing it).
Anyways I think you get the idea.
So ranking your totem would help give you a bigger shield is my thoughts on it, but also cost more resources due to the heavier protection.

[wolfgar]

totems should disaper if ...1. owner unsubscribes 2. if no one else is in the tribe (plus #1) 3. totem reverts to highest ranking member if leader/owner unsubs.

Also i hear talk about decay of 6 months.. THIS IS WAY TOO LONG.. A totem needs to pop if a player hasn't logged in in a month. (30 days after last log in it popps) Or as i said above. It needs to pop soon as the owner unsubscribes.

A unsubed player should have absolutely no protection at all of his/her totem/stuff etc.

[MrDDT]

totems should disaper if 3. totem reverts to highest ranking member if leader/owner unsubs.

If the highest ranking person leader/owner unsubs it should disappear? I fully dont agree with that, it should just be passed down like it currently is.

Your other points, I agree with, but this idea is more than just "6months is way to long"
Problem also isnt about 1 person totems, we are talking about all totems, even the tribe ones. Right now each totem is a problem yes, but so is huge tribes of 50+ members not active and not playing taking up 300m+ of land.

[Trenchfoot]

I agree there has to be a determining factor to represent 'activity'.