Keeper's Sign

Neat already suggested this, but I think it deserves it's own topic.
Also I just came up with something to add to it.

A team-colored, 2x2 large shield facing towards the screen. Each blueprint part costs 2.5 gold, and possible metal resource.

When placed inside an artificial construction, it floodfill-detects any background bricks, and wall blocks directly connected to those.
The floodfill would however only traverse a few blocks in a narrow 1-tile wide passage.

Anything within the construction gets a defensive bonus against damage from the enemy team, and more importantly,
the enemy team cannot see what is going on inside the construction. The area of effect could be visualized with a team-colored forcefieldish effect of sorts.
Or a plain outline on the structure.
Buildings such as outpost could get tremendous boosts to health from this, and perhaps players would not be subject to near-spawn penalty when dying within it.

So, it would be in the invaders' best interest to get rid of the shield immediately. Because of the way the floodfill is done, you cannot bury the shield under seven layers of stone walls. One option is to make the building high, and placing the shield near the ceiling. But that costs even more resources.

 

While I love the additions you've made to the idea, simply saying "someone else suggested this" is not giving credit. If you saw the actual post, it's not hard to see who posted it. Please next time give credit for the idea, which I did think up.

But anyway, especially love the fog of war type aspect.

 

I tried even search, but could not remember the topic it was posted under. These forums have a lot to say about 'shield'
I did think it was you, though. Editing the post...

 

Honestly, I think it'd just be better to take the simpler route and making it so background stone is team-colored and anything behind it is invisible to enemies unless you're up close or inside of connected stone. ("Inside", possibly with an 'outer wall' graphic drawn over them.)

Possibly, anyone inside who attacks becomes visible briefly.

 

I like this idea a lot more.

i've been wanting an interesting way to add fog of war. The same could apply for caves

 

Yeah but by doing that you lose the fun of the other team attempting to find and destroy your buildings shield, and you getting to do that on the other team. It's like finding and destroying the catas.

 

This all sounds way too complicated for me. 'd like either what we have now or simple line of sight.

 

Complicated? All it is is putting a shield on a backwall. The shield stops people on your team killing your own building as it defends against team damage. It also makes insides of castles fog of war style. How hard is that to understand?

 

Not complicated in that I don't understand it, but it's very inelegant. It violates the principles of KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). Kind of like what MM was talking about in that recent blog entry. How Link Dead isn't fun because it has too many elements whereas Soldat and KAG are more fun because the game is distilled down to fewer elements, making those fewer elements more meaningful.

 

I like this idea, a good example of emergent gameplay.

People claiming that this kind of ideas are "too complicated" shall stick to Halo. This is just a "layer" of gameplay, not a crucial constraint.

 

I agree with contrary. The idea isn't necessarily complicated, but the implementation would make the game a bit messier. Inelegant was a good way of putting it.

There are concept within this that I think should be kept though.
Mainly what I said in my earlier post here which someone else had already mentioned.

If you close off an area that is coated with background wall, it should become invisible to the enemy.
ie. they can't see past the wall

 

Do you not like the idea of having some way of protecting your buildings from griefers either? That was the main point when I first came up with the idea. When findude added to it I liked the invisibility thing but you can't forget both features.

And if you were to make it so that all back-wall and stone cannot be damaged by your own team you basically make it easy for griefers to block you in.

The idea is as simple as it possibly can get while still achieving what it is supposed to achieve, grief proof buildings and fog of war.

 

I agree on both counts. There isn't much more to say, this sums it up nicely.

 

All games have griefing preventions, some of which are part of the gameplay. Friendly fire is one of them and it's the simplest in the book. You cannot fob me off with this argument.

Since when can shields completely and entirely block a bomb blast? Since when can people leap 100 feet from a cliff and survive? You can't fob me off with "more-or-less" realism either. Because you know, if I stab a pig enough it will explode into many tiny pieces.

Plus, I really do not see anything ugly about a team shield. You know, the ones you see riddling king arthurs castles, the crests of registered knights. Its the same principle. There's nothing unrealistic about it. In real life if an ally saw the crest, like the flag, they would instantly know who owns the castle and wouldn't attack it. Granted they should already know where they are, but this is a game so it sort of goes beyond normal reasoning.

The account system does not entirely fix griefing. There will always be new griefers joining the game in place of the ones who get banned, a more proactive approach is beneficial rather than simply saying "Oh once they start getting banned they'll lose heart and go away." anonymous never goes away.. Jeez.

I just thought to think up some fun, decorative new construction with some added purpose of preventing griefing and Findude helped me out. The mods were talking of new buildings and armouries and stockpiles and such, I really do not see where this does not fit.

 

I stand down based on this point, nothing else. I didn't think of this.

But personally I feel the rest of your points are bloated opinions on what is an ugly game mechanic and what is not.

 

Griefing always goes two ways.

Anyways, I personally found the idea attractive because it would encourage building an actual castle instead of a six blocks thick stone slab.