Few suggestions

[Neoxion]

1. Lithium and Oil deposits mechanic needs a rework. These are the main resources in this game and 1 person shouldn't be able to block them completely. These resources need to deplete after certain amount/time (structures in nearby region should tale increased damage as well) and change their location or building should be prevented near them in a specific region. Something like "Geoactivity in the area prevents from building". Or move them to cliffs But if it stays wide open you will need to monitore it during extraction which is definately annoying. And if 5-10 people decide to build bases around it and block it anyway - whatever, its not as easy as it is now and actually requires cooperation.
Third option - these rosources can be mined anywhere (with a much reduced rate compared to the spot), but extractor/rig buildings are limited to 1 each.
You can say - trade, but not everyone is willing to trade in pvp, because these mandatory resources will make other person stronger, or people who are sitting on this resources are simply not playing anymore and just enter the game to refresh timers.
You can say - take over from other players, which leads us to the next topic. And it's also worth mentioning that destroying t3 walls/doors without t3 bombs is a torture (and t3 bombs of course need lithium and oil to produce).
Also how are you gonna solve this problem for PVE?

2. Taking over someones base is impossible. Claim hp goes to zero - it goes invincible and person can repair it any time. This is literally the worst implementation I've ever seen - put your claim and you are the boss forever. Either remove this stupid reinforce mode completely - if you destroyed it - then you destroyed it. Or make a proper reinforce mechanic - once it in a reinforce, person can repair it up to 10-20% but cannot build anything, repair anything in this claim area  (even if they place another one nearby) or upgrade the claim. Once the timer is over there is 1-3 hour window when claim can be destroyed completely, during this time nothing can be build and repaired like in the previous phase. It gives time to react and makes it possible to capture territory.

3. Trading with money only works with huge amount of players (thousands of people, live economy) and ingame economy based on that money (ingame vendors, services) - it will never work in this game (just not a proper game for that). Change everything to bartering - in stations we should be able to place deals. Stations should take a lot of effort to destroy, but don't go crazy with their hp or people will build them instead of walls, other way is to limit their number to technology level. And they need to be lower in a tree as well - t2 for example.

4. Close russian server for now (you will have this opportunity next wipe). Don't spread small community over a lot of servers. I want to see huge wars between groups of people and 150+ online. You need some stress test for your servers. There will be a lot of spam in chat but you can make several chats so people can switch off some of them and talk in ones they are interested in. In some games people can create chats themselves and invite others in them. You can limit max created chats per person if its an issue for a server performance, but people will not create 1 each anyway.

[ojosdelcielo]

1. Lithium and Oil deposits mechanic needs a rework. These are the main resources in this game and 1 person shouldn't be able to block them completely. These resources need to deplete after certain amount/time (structures in nearby region should tale increased damage as well) and change their location or building should be prevented near them in a specific region. Something like "Geoactivity in the area prevents from building". Or move them to cliffs But if it stays wide open you will need to monitore it during extraction which is definately annoying. And if 5-10 people decide to build bases around it and block it anyway - whatever, its not as easy as it is now and actually requires cooperation.
Third option - these rosources can be mined anywhere (with a much reduced rate compared to the spot), but extractor/rig buildings are limited to 1 each.
You can say - trade, but not everyone is willing to trade in pvp, because these mandatory resources will make other person stronger, or people who are sitting on this resources are simply not playing anymore and just enter the game to refresh timers.
You can say - take over from other players, which leads us to the next topic. And it's also worth mentioning that destroying t3 walls/doors without t3 bombs is a torture (and t3 bombs of course need lithium and oil to produce).
Also how are you gonna solve this problem for PVE?

2. Taking over someones base is impossible. Claim hp goes to zero - it goes invincible and person can repair it any time. This is literally the worst implementation I've ever seen - put your claim and you are the boss forever. Either remove this stupid reinforce mode completely - if you destroyed it - then you destroyed it. Or make a proper reinforce mechanic - once it in a reinforce, person can repair it up to 10-20% but cannot build anything, repair anything in this claim area  (even if they place another one nearby) or upgrade the claim. Once the timer is over there is 1-3 hour window when claim can be destroyed completely, during this time nothing can be build and repaired like in the previous phase. It gives time to react and makes it possible to capture territory.

3. Trading with money only works with huge amount of players (thousands of people, live economy) and ingame economy based on that money (ingame vendors, services) - it will never work in this game (just not a proper game for that). Change everything to bartering - in stations we should be able to place deals. Stations should take a lot of effort to destroy, but don't go crazy with their hp or people will build them instead of walls, other way is to limit their number to technology level. And they need to be lower in a tree as well - t2 for example.

4. Close russian server for now (you will have this opportunity next wipe). Don't spread small community over a lot of servers. I want to see huge wars between groups of people and 150+ online. You need some stress test for your servers. There will be a lot of spam in chat but you can make several chats so people can switch off some of them and talk in ones they are interested in. In some games people can create chats themselves and invite others in them. You can limit max created chats per person if its an issue for a server performance, but people will not create 1 each anyway.

I agree on everything, especially with the oil and lithium, the basis of this game is pvp / raid, if you limit the c4 (without counting the primitives) you destroy the game completely, you have to find a way so that anyone can get the material , either putting ores that are hard to find etc ..

I say it clearly, if it continues like this I will stop playing, and not only me, if not a lot of people, limiting things to this level does not like people.

And about people online, it's a difficult topic but one that has to be embroidered, I've been playing for a few days, with a peak of almost 80 players, today at night, 40. It demotivates a bit, but it's totally understandable with the little that takes the game, that if you have to see when it comes out in steam and costs money, because if more people do not come this will die.

[Xargt]

Very well said, Neoxion.

You know, I've been thinking about these stuffs every since I started playing CryoFall (around Sept. 5-10).
Balancing is really difficult thing to do, that honestly I would rather try to play with this flaw and see what goes from there.

Since it's very clear now to most players that Li/Oil are the end game resources that, potentially, a lot of players (huge clan) can abuse it's power, let's discuss about this.

I assume that these resources were placed like that in order to have a big action for the players in the game. Like in "RO" for example; Emperium.

I'm not really a fan of huge wars where numbers is the key. So at first I thought, how about we just have NPC there controlling those resources, where players will have to gather a specific very rare stuff like diamonds to create two special chests, deliver one of them to the NPC, and the NPC will deliver the resources using a parachute towards the other special chest in our base. (That would be boring though. No action.)

I have also thought about "moving that resources from time to time"...
It seems we are still going to have problems...

But as I continue playing, even decided to try on my own server, I found out there's one real thing that is really weird for me. Why can a newbie player, not even completing a single tier 1, can control such powerful resources?

So, how about this?
Why don't we all have a special land claim on tier 4, which is the only type of land claim that can be built nearby Li/Oil, and only one of that special land claim can be built per player?

Please share your thoughts, people. Let's combine them into a very effective solution.
And let's discuss one real topic at a time to avoid a lot of stress.

[ai_enabled]

@Neoxion,
1. We're considering the approach with making some of oil and lithium deposits unclaimable by preventing building near them (similar to what you have suggested).
The depletable/destroyable/respawnable system for deposits also in consideration (as was discussed in Discord at least twice) but it seems we're not going to include this dramatical change right now for oil and lithium deposits and settle with the first approach for the next big update - but we will use it for one kind of new rare mineral which is perfect for depletable/destroyable/respawnable system.

2.

Taking over someones base is impossible

Yes, but balancing this is hard. Players require some kind of protection for their base as they simply cannot play 24/7 (the majority of players are login at about the same time every one-two days and play for a few hours). Do you have any suggestions which will also satisfy the majority of players?
From what I've noticed, raiding bases and taking the content from crates is already pretty much devastating to the base owners even if the land claim is not destroyed. So probably the current land claim system is fine. The issue is with the deposits only which are almost impossible to overtake but will address this issue separately as I wrote above.

3. Probably Lurler will respond later regarding his view on this issue.

4. It seems with the next big update we will see over 100 players online on every server. We're even considering launching more servers (such as for Spanish-speaking players in Latin America and EU) if current servers will become overpopulated. As we have noticed, even a relatively small youtuber/streamer can bring a lot of players to try the game (as it's free). The two recent letspays in Spanish were enough to sustain both EU and US servers at about 50-60 players online average in daytime for more than a week.


@Xargt,
we definitely don't want to have NPCs as it's a very complicated feature (requires proper AI system and resolving some serious design issues such as should these NPCs be killable and if not - why? We don't like to create artificial limitations). It also will change the game dramatically, currently, we like what we have - players stranded on an abandoned planet hiding a terrible secret .

So, how about this?
Why don't we all have a special land claim on tier 4, which is the only type of land claim that can be built nearby Li/Oil, and only one of that special land claim can be built per player?

This is an interesting idea, thanks! Though it's impossible to place T4 land claim directly so it might be a technology "perk" unlockable together with T4 land claims. Will think about it.

[Neoxion]

1. As I stated, if you make resources completely open people will whine that it takes too much time and you need to be near resource all the time. I mean in an hour you get only around 15 oil canisters. But I understand that resource depletion mechanic cannot be implemented immediately. With no build zones around resources we will see people grouping up around these resources, taking them for themselves, which is fine. But the current machanic needs to go away, because the only viable tactic is right after server wipe - rush immediately without stopping to strategic resource and place a claim on it

2. No, it's not OK to just take resources. What if I want a prime base spot like near ruins, on desert entrance or huge clay clusters? Or I want to punish someone who built on mining spots or too close to ruins, preventing any spawns there. Or I just dont like neighbors. I understand that people cannot be online 24/7 that's why I described reinforce implementation that works (concept is taken from EVE online). People know that their territory is contested and they need to defend it after certain period. If they cannot do it for a particular reason then they have time to move their valuable stuff and relocate, giving up on their previous base.

3. I don't know how difficult it is to code resource exchange, but if you do it - everything will work (you can choose coins for exchange if you so desire). I also forgot to mention that it will be awesome to implement personal contracts - for example I place an exchange order with a particular person. I know people were complaining that you need to run to trade and you can be robbed, but it's PVP in the end.

4. 100 is still not 256  I knew about this game from youtuber myself, it's actually quite hard to know that this awesome game exists. Early access on Steam will definately help, but it's up to you when you feel ready to put it there.

[leuros1988]

I agree with you, I take this message for several things:
1- My thanks to the devs of this game, there is a lot of work and to be a game without being finished has mechanics and content for many hours.
2- As you have said it is true that those lands with special resources should not be appropriate, completely break the mechanics of the game because at advanced levels, almost impossible to advance as for example the creation of C4 for raid.
3-This game has a future, devs answer and take note of the opinions shown in these forums. I worry in the future, When the game is paid, players stop playing and unfortunately this game without people is worth nothing. Currently the official 1 server with the passing of days is going down. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday the server has come to have approximately 70 players online almost all day.
Hopefully when this all and the game is more finished and advertised among more people. I would love to see the servers with an average of 150-200 players at the same time, raid, kill, collect with more difficulty and with the tension that they can kill you.

4-you have to centralize a little more servers, if there are many servers and also the unofficial, I think more servers less people will have half and faster emptied as time passes for the wipe.

5-Add the option to rotate the objects, also the arches kill animals with a gun is noisy and expensive.
You have a short way to reach even, I say short because you have taken a very good game with many hours of fun and enjoyment. Much encouragement and effort.

6-the possibility of adding a multi-language would give a lot of depth to people from other countries such as I am from Spain.

You have a short way to reach even, I say short because you have taken a very good game with many hours of fun and enjoyment. Much encouragement and effort.

Thank you.

[ai_enabled]

@Neoxion
1. Sure, that's why I'm personally looking for depletable/destroyable/respawnable resource spots. It simply sounds fairer and also should be more fun (as the players will need to balance defenses otherwise they're risking to have their precious spot exploded, but balancing is not easy - an excessive defense will cost too much and will become useless when the resource depletes). For the upcoming big update we have already implemented this mechanic for a new kind of resource (ultra-high-tier mineral) and will see how players actually using it. If we will have extra time before the release of the update we might try to change the system for oil and lithium deposits too, but the plan now is to simply introduce some new resource spots open (restricting building around them) so there will be at least some non-claimable oil and lithium extractors.

2. Yes, EVE capture system is the idea we though about (even since the previous game where we considered implementing this feature for the space stations in multiplayer) but were not sure if this is a good fit for CryoFall. Definitely it's worth reconsidering. We also have an issue with players being able to almost instantly repair the damaged structures so the attacking side has almost no chance if there are online players protecting the base.

4. Well, we also have some scaling issues as the game servers never saw such a high load and players retention (before we rarely had more than 20 players online average total across both servers, with peak up to 35 players online). The recent influx of players highlighted some serious optimization and gameplay issues which we need to address before we will be able to actually handle more than 100-150 players online without any hiccups and problems gameplay-wise. Some of the issues will be addressed in the upcoming update (including necessary server hot-path optimizations, expanded map, and some gameplay-related changes).


@leuros1988,
5. the buildings rotation (such as doors) are automatical (based on what buildings are nearby) and should not be an issue; the bed rotation before building might be added later but we don't give much priority for this task now.
Bows and crossbows are expected in one of the upcoming updates (but not in the next big one as this task actually requires special character animations).

6. Multi-language support will be implemented as soon as we finish improving the core features of the game. The game is highly-moddable so we're expecting the game will receive unofficial localization to many languages similar to our previous game VoidExpanse (which has translations mods to German, Spanish, Portuguese and some other languages).

Regards!

[MilesD37]

Here's my take and input...

Having a sprinkling of unclaimable deposits and seeps are a decent idea as a stop gap measure... Not too many, for my tastes, I would keep the same claimable ratio for map size but just add 2 or so non claimable (so, like a 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 ratio)...

I actually *like* the overall idea that you can't follow destroy a land claim immediately and take it right away, however I would suggest the following to balance it out (and hopefully something like this is an easy to implement thing).

1. Decrease the time. 24 hours is too long if even no owners log on, anyone that walks by it in that time can see it, time it, and go to take it after a player or group did the work to raid it. 8 hours, or even 12 would be more reasonable.

2. Once destroyed, it can't be repaired during the count down. Basically, the claim area becomes unclaimable for the duration of the countdown, then the raiders and the owners (and anyone else that wants to ride into the fray) has to wait and hold that area until the countdown is completed at which time the claim is removed and can be rebuilt by the surviving party(ies).

This gives players that don't play 16 hours a day a chance to save their work, or what is left of it while also not giving the raiders an instant win for camping and waiting until the group logs offline.

This also gives players an incentive to not place all their eggss into one basket, and having a secondary base with tools to defend available incase an initial is taken down and looted fully.

[Neoxion]

@ai_enabled
That's good to hear that depletion mechanic will be implemented for another resource. If you leave lithium/oil areas unbuildable - you can test simultaneously both mechanics. I mean that's what we are here for. For resources that can be depleted it's also debatable whether they should appear on the map or not - it will make people explore and if you find it first you will have some time to start building. But in order to not give advantage to previous resource owners (they can go for searching as soon as resource depletes) there may be a random time delay between depletion and spawn. Maybe there should exist a special high tech level scanner that put marks on the map if you built it . And what to do if people extract 95% of resource - get good gear and leave resource spot not depleted and claimed? Because you dont need to rush if you are already better than others, others will deplete their resource and you can get next spawn. Make something like a planet pool? For example there are 8000 units in a planet pool for a batch (or even a random number in a certain range), there are 5 resource points for any batch, any point can extract up to TotalPlanetPool/4 units (or even more). Next 5 resource points will spawn for the next new full batch and so on. This way people will definately rush extraction, but if you started to extract last (even if you just found the spot) you may not get a lot from this point. Other option is just to make resources both - amount limited and time limited.

@MilesD37
Having any permanently claimable rosources will still put others at disadvantage. And why do you need that if you have circulation?
For claims you described the same machanics basically. I dont like the idea of permanent destruction without giving you a chance either - you log in and your base was razed over the night. But I dont like the idea of not beeing able to destroy the claim at all more.

[MilesD37]

@Neoxion

But not having a permanently claimable resource takes away the tug and pull of fighting for the resources/their control and it's just a race to the next one each time with generally the only people that know another is spawning soon being the ones that deplete the resources.

making it so that the resource CAN be taken, just not immediately, fixes that imbalance more than simply making the resource deplete over time but still claimable.

@ai_enabled

Maybe a better mechanic than just fully depletable resources would be to make it easier to get them out in the world, like oil pods... instead of limiting them to a small forest area they can spawn elsewhere too, with a similar mechanic for lithium salts too. This makes exploring and foraging for limited amounts to allow you an in on a base.

Or, other reasonable options for entering a base (heavy firearms, other more powerful bomb options that don't require a seep and deposit, or other such option), though these ideas are more long-view ones that don't seem like they'd be a mechanic that could be easily be implemented quickly as they change a lot.

[MilesD37]

@Neoxion

also, i don't know that it's the right move to make it so no one isn't at a "disadvantage"... that's kind of the point of all of it, he who controls the oil controls the world... then it's on the world to take that control away (and ultimately become what they fought against).

[nosfirebird]

just make lithium spawn as ore and allow us to farm oilpods like tobacco possibly have only seeds drop from the bushes in the north to force people into pvp situations

also when a structure has been damaged it cant be repaired for 5 minutes

[Neoxion]

@MilesD37
If resources are permanently claimable, after some time on any server only people who own these resources will play. We will see a bunch of servers with 20+ online and that's it. People will either quit or wait for new servers in order to get their hands on high-level content. People who own permanent resources will claim all depletable ones easily and just conserve them, because they can extract other permanent spots. You will never be able to challenge owners of permanent resources because they simply outfarm you. PVP in these games can go pretty brutal - PVP that's currently happenning on servers is nothing. When this game goes public and we will see large groups of people taking over servers - that's when all these disadvantages of permanent system will be noticed quickly. Even now people are stopping playing because they simply have nothing to do - they cannot raid others without large amounts of lithium and oil, and in terms of progression they already reached everything.

@nosfirebird
That's an obvious solution when everyone can get everything and sit behind 10-layered walls, but where is the fun? And I like an idea of fighting for some spots over strategic resources. This can be a solution for PVE, but to make it more fun make it in a way: people are allowed to build either oil or lithium so they will need to trade resources.

[Xargt]

To all of you,

players who are trolling..
players who are serious..
players who are still learning..
players who are very good at games..
players who are born to compete..
players who are showing heart..

and the devs who I respect the most,

You guys are doing great.

I'm not suppose to say anything right now.
(...because no one wants my attention. No @Xargt.. sad face.. pfff...)

I should let this discussion continue a little bit more..

...
But, before this goes any further, let me clear some more points to all 200+ players out there.
...

• End-game gears are meant to be very stressful to craft.

(...else, why don't we just have a gun/armor that has 10+ different looks to choose from.)
(...wait dude. Wood is already making me very stressful. The early walls we have to make... The fuels we have to maintain...)

• Nothing is fair as long as there is a competition.

(or do you guys want me to be your father and.. here's for you, for you.. and for you. Do not PvP or I'll PvP your faces!)

• CryoFall seems encouraging us to form a group; players with different specializations.

(...To the players who are stuck because there's nothing else to do. You are all encouraged to look for a group, especially to the other players who control end game resources. If all fails, we have to wait for the next round...)
(...I'm looking for a group. I have many skills; many specializations. I'm a master of none. Send me a message, yeah?)

...
And finally...
...

• "...but we want to try everything right now."

You can create your own server. You can try everything there while waiting for the next round (next wipe).
http://wiki.atomictorch.com/CryoFall/Server/Setup

• "...we don't know how. It's complicated stuff."

Then please wait a little longer. Devs are already making it so much easier for you.

• "...we can't wait."

Uhm... want to play hide and seek..?

• "...shut up."

Okay. 

[Neoxion]

@Xargt
So, here is one for you

End-game gears are meant to be very stressful to craft.
It's fine - I didnt mention anything like this. Why stressful though? Difficult maybe.

Nothing is fair as long as there is a competition.
Fair - is if someone, who is better than me or have more coordinated group than mine, has something I dont. If someone placed a stupid claim and we blow up walls and this claim to see, that we did it for nothing and cannot compete because we are not allowed to, than it's not fair.

CryoFall seems encouraging us to form a group; players with different specializations.
Definately, but group also needs some goal.

I got my hands on every resource in the game, have top tier stuff and have a claim on a strategic resource myself. But I just see how this system discourages people and they just leave.

P.S. Your answer looks like a bot response btw