Suggestion: Change the "Light" action

[O_Atoba_Azul]

A simple way to prevent certain accidents would to be to remove the whole Light option from buildings, or make said option require holding ctrl.

[WoodieMain45684]

Or make it to where it makes the object smolder instead of immediately catch on fire. Allowing players to extinguish the fire if they catch the griefer setting it.

This would also raise the value of campfires in winter, since setting a tree on fire will most likely take a few seconds.

[Viktor234]

13 minutes ago, WoodieMain45684 said:

Or make it to where it makes the object smolder instead of immediately catch on fire. Allowing players to extinguish the fire if they catch the griefer setting it.

This would also raise the value of campfires in winter, since setting a tree on fire will most likely take a few seconds.

That won't stop others from griefing as they'll be still able to burn things faster than you can extinguish them: You can't be everywhere at the same time and extinguishing takes time & health. Besides that, newcomers will have a hard time to survive the first winter: Not everyone starts with a Fire Pit next to the spawn or 20x Logs in their Inventory.

[WoodieMain45684]

11 minutes ago, Viktor234 said:

That won't stop others from griefing as they'll be still able to burn things faster than you can extinguish them

I don't know, but from my experience, whenever someone tries to burn  down a base, there is rarely not at least a couple people nearby, one player can extinguish and the other can start the kick vote. Even if they are not well coordinated in who is going to put the fires out and who is going to start the votekick, they still will have a chance to get themselves in order before the griefer burns down the base. Even if there is only one person, they still have time to telegraph that someone is burning base and can get a vote started, smoldering takes a moment to take full fire, so they will most likely have time to extinguish after typing "willow is burning base" and clicking 2 or 3 buttons after that.

 

14 minutes ago, Viktor234 said:

You can't be everywhere at the same time and extinguishing takes time & health.

Lighting the fires also takes an animation of close length, the health penalty for most characters for putting out flames is 3 hp. That's nothing, in any season, in any location. Even if they set multiple fires it would take 50 to kill Wilson at full health.

15 minutes ago, Viktor234 said:

Besides that, newcomers will have a hard time to survive the first winter: Not everyone starts with a Fire Pit next to the spawn or 20x Logs in their Inventory.

You don't need that. You still only need 2 grass 2 twigs because the smoldering will eventually set the object on fire. Even if you weren't paying attention to how cold you are getting, you still have some time before it kills you.

17 minutes ago, Viktor234 said:

Besides that, newcomers will have a hard time to survive the first winter:

If by newcomers you are meaning players new to the game, then they are going to have a hard time surviving winter regardless of this change. If you mean general population, then sure, maybe just a bit harder, but what's wrong with that? It's not like I'm saying remove lighting objects in winter entirely.

[SonicDen220]

You know what's also bad? Fire staff. Because the "Light" action is on a LEFT click, which means it's even easier to misclick with it and accidently set your base on fire when you're used to opening a chest on left click.

[BeeClops]

i have this problem with warly when cooking at night while holding torch in the first days, i often light up my pot. I end up cooking the food faster tho, but losing my pot

[CameoAppearance]

I've always considered the fire staff left-click to be deliberate schmuck bait, but I think that might be how our 2800-hour, can-solo-kill-Dragonfly Willow burned down most of the base about a month ago*, and also being able to set your own inventory items on fire and thusly injure yourself in singleplayer was similarly schmuckbaity and that got taken out for DST. I have to pay careful attention to my mouseover prompt when I have a fire staff equipped, and that's why I don't generally walk around with a fire staff in my hand.

19 hours ago, Viktor234 said:

Besides that, newcomers will have a hard time to survive the first winter: Not everyone starts with a Fire Pit next to the spawn or 20x Logs in their Inventory.

Can confirm, being able to quickly set a tree on fire after spawning in winter in an empty biome has occasionally made the difference between life and death for me.

While it's really not that hard to make a hammer instead, burning down game-spawned buildings (pig/bunnyman houses mainly, I think rundown merm houses are also considered a building/structure even though they're not craftable) occasionally has its place, mainly if you're Webber or Wortox and you need them out of the way fast. That's why I'm hesitant to recommend removing the option entirely from non-PvP servers; much like the act of ctrl-attacking other players it should remain possible on PvP servers so that antagonistic play is possible.

And if the ability to light structures on fire did get wholly removed from non-PvP servers that should apply only to buildings, not natural resources like trees or even berry bushes, same as triggering the Firestarter examine status; I know this would run the risk of berry farms continuing to get torched but I think it's an acceptable loss when the game code doesn't have much insight into whether it's a planted resource farm or a naturally spawned object, and if you spawn in winter you should be mechanically allowed to survive by burning things like grass tufts and evergreens if you have no other choice. Even looking for things like whether it's capable of withering or getting diseased would probably fail in cases like "there was a setpiece with 20 berry bushes and some pig torches so we hammered the torches and set up camp there".

Holding Ctrl to pop the 'light' option seems reasonable, much like for attacking players with PvP on or slowly bludgeoning a spider to death with a magic staff. I don't really have so many problems with griefing baseburners that I think the change is necessary but it's by far the most graceful way to impede them that I've seen proposed.

*We rollbacked.