Totems and how they should work.

[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.

[Dubanka]

gotta admit i was never a fan of the old school sb war system (assets destroyable at any time) ... since a motivated group with hammers could come in and really put a hurtin on you at 4am if they felt like...I really think the war system they had at the end was pretty ideal, with a declaration, acceptance and engagement phases.

You should always have the opportunity to defend your stuff.

but back on topic.

definitely a radius check.
and yes ranking the totem could either add more gross hps (like ranking up a bane stone in sb) or each rank could add an extra layer (your shield) of hps (like ranking a tree in sb).
The tree mechanism was tried, true, and added a lot of drama, since it took a concerted effort to take out a fully ranked tree...you had to breach walls, usually two layers of them, and then the party just started, because you then had to lay seige to the tree, protect your seige equipment all the while being under non-stop attack from the defenders. I know we had defensive banes that lasted 6+ hours, where both walls sets got breached but we managed to break the attackers because they couldnt press the advantage once inside the city (city design 4tw). good times.

But honestly, even if they just implemented a system of totem maintenance, it would be an improvement over the current system where they just sit there forever.

[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'.