Structure Ownership

[Pasitherus]

Since I was auto logged out of my account when going to the bathroom, all my writing was deleted. Now I have to type all this out again.

Structure Ownership is the ability to control who and who can't access/destroy your buildings. If you're building a base, you don't want people coming in and burning/stealing everything, do you? It's happened to me plenty of times, and rolling back wastes all the server's hard work on that day. So instead of wasting time, just restrict access. When a player creates a structure, they own that structure. If they want to give other players access to that structure, they can press a key/button, such as O, that open up an ownership menu. This menu contains all the players who are in the server. It will show what character they are, what their name is and two options. Option one has the icon of two people shaking hands, which allows them to take control of the selected object. Option two has the icon of a palm in the "stop" motion. This option is dimmed and cannot be selected until that player is first given access to the building. The button removes the player's ownership from the selected object if they were already given ownership of it. The original owner, the person who created the structure, cannot lose ownership of it. Players who were given ownership by the original owner cannot give ownership to other players, but can lose their ownership. Players who don't have ownership cannot access the structure. This feature only applies to the following:

Walls - When the original owner of the wall gives ownership to another player, that player gains access to all other walls created by that owner, not just one. Ownership gives the ability to destroy the wall/set the wall on fire.

Crafting Machines - No matter what, everyone can use the machine to craft stuff, even if they don't have ownership over it. When a player receives ownership over a crafting machine, they gain ownership over all the original owner's crafting machines. Ownership only decides whether or not someone can burn/hammer the machine.

Doors - You cannot open the door(s) unless you have ownership. If 2 doors are connected and a player is given control over one of them, they gain control of both doors. This doesn't mean that the player gains control of all the original owner's doors though.

Chests/Fridges - You cannot open them unless you have ownership over them. Being given ownership over one doesn't give you ownership over all others. Ownership also decides whether or not you can burn/destroy them.

Chester - You cannot have ownership over Chester, even if you were the first to find and pick up his eye-bone.

Plants - You cannot have ownership over any kind of plant, even if you were the one to plant them.

Beefalo - After being tamed, they cannot be ridden by other players unless you give them ownership. They also cannot be killed by other players unless they have ownership over them.

Items - You cannot have ownership over items, no exceptions.

But what if you want everyone to be able to use your structures? Then open the ownership menu and click public. This lets everyone use your structures, even if they don't have ownership over them. This is the default setting. It can be changed to private if you want it to be.

There are three ranks to ownership:

Owner - This rank is only given to the original creator of the structure. Has full control over the structure and can add players to that structure, as well as change their structures from public to private.

Co-owner - Is able to do what the owner can do, but cannot add other players to that object and cannot change the original owners' structures from public to private or vice versa.

No ownership - Cannot do anything with the structure, unless the structure is set to public.

Yes, I saw a mod about this, but it has many faults. I don't want to play on modded servers, I want to play vanilla DST, which is where 80% of players seem to go. So, if the devs think this is a good idea, I hope they add it, assuming they see it in the first place.

 

Edit: I forgot to add that if PvP is enabled, this feature will be entirely disabled.

[JohnWatson]

If you worry so much about other people griefing, then why not play alone or with friends? This can actually be used to grief, for example you can block off important areas using walls or chests. You can even enclose the spawn portal, which would be really problematic.

Quote

Since I was auto logged out of my account when going to the bathroom, all my writing was deleted. Now I have to type all this out again.

I hate this feeling.

[Pasitherus]

I don't want to play alone, that's why I bought Don't Starve TOGETHER. I already have the original DS, if I wanted to play alone, I wouldn't have gotten DST. I don't have many friends who actually play DST anymore. My one friend who did now doesn't want to play the game for some reason, I guess he got bored. Anyway, playing with new people and creating bases together feels way better than just playing with the same old people who do the some old thing all the time. About the griefing part, I did have a solution, I just forgot to put it in the post after I was auto logged out of my account. This could be fixed by allowing admins to place areas where only admins could build, not players. I don't see how a player who wants to grief would spend days on a server that they care nothing for just to get a quick reaction before getting banned. If they were caught doing that, they would be kicked almost immediately and there would be the possibility of an admin getting on and resolving the problem. The wall griefing is possible right now. Griefers can just put walls down and restrict new players from gaining resources. If someone was banned or kicked for a good reason, all their walls could disappear or something like that. Or instead of disappearing, they would become un-owned walls which anyone could destroy. The goods out-weigh the bads in this situation, so I don't see why it's a problem. 

[Ecu]

I have to disagree with this suggestion.  I feel it goes against the the intent of the game.  On any of the official servers, you only ever have a maximum of eight people on the server at a time.  A majority of these issues almost never even come into play at all, and implementing said ability to restrict access would encourage people to do their own thing, rather than work together.

I feel like this is really only applicable to highly specific servers whom end up being more of a base building experience than a roguelike survival experience.  In these unique situations, modding provides a better option to implement these sort of restrictions.  This way, it will only impact the servers that specifically need these features and not cost official development resources which could be better put towards content a majority would utilize.

[Sinister_Fang]

I'd have to agree with @JohnWatson, something like this would just cause even bigger problems when abused. Imagine coming back to your camp only to find it surrounded by walls someone else placed to lock you out of everything. And if people really wanted to grief, then they could just set the whole place ablaze indirectly and ignore the whole ownership system. It's kinda hard to stop griefing with fire unless you disable the entire burning mechanic as a whole. If someone wants to grief you, they'll find a way.

The best solution: Don't get too attached to anything you make on public servers. Instead, use them to find new friends to play with and eventually you or one of your new friends could host and make a huge camp you guys care about. Or just go on non-dedicated servers where someone can watch over everything. Or you can just host your own world and leave it open to the public. It's not very difficult to watch over a world you own. Worst case scenario you just ban the guy who set the place on fire and rollback.

You should know that playing with randoms is like playing with fire. And I mean that almost literally. I've come back to camps I made on a public servers only to find big piles of charcoal or have the entire place looted.

[Pasitherus]

Ecu, just because something rarely happens doesn't mean it never happens and should be ignored. Like I said above, if players don't know about this feature or don't care about it, they don't have to worry because all their buildings will be automatically set to public. I don't know how restricting access to players who don't belong is a bad thing, and it wouldn't encourage players to do their own thing. If they were going to work alone, they would have done it anyway, this feature or not. I have had players tell me to screw off when I asked to base with them, I assure you this feature wouldn't cause them to be meaner. If they want to base alone, let them.

1. Sinister_Fang, these problems already exist. I have logged into a server and found that the spawn was already blocked off by walls. I couldn't get resources to break them down. An admin logged on and banned the guy, so we were fine. With this feature, if a player is banned, all their structures become un-owned and can be destroyed. 2. How would they indirectly set your base on fire? Like I said, they won't be able to set structures they don't own on fire. That means no torches, fire staffs, etc. If it's summer, your base is going to burn anyway. That's why Ice Flingomatics were built into the game, to distinguish fires, so that's that problem out the window. If you're talking about Wickerbottom griefing, that is already possible to do. The End Is Nigh can already be blocked by adding a Lightning Rod to your base. Every player who doesn't want their base to be struck by lightning and set on fire already has one in their base. Yeah, I know griefers will find a way to grief, but adding this feature just makes it harder for them to do so.

[Ecu]

@Pasitherus, the problem is that implementing protections would take a reasonable amount of development time to implement as it would affect a large amount of structures.  It isn't some simple and trivial change.  As the amount of people impacted by the current issue is quite minimal, devoting the development time to such a highly unique use case is not really a worthwhile expenditure of resources.

In addition to this, from the way you seem to indicate, this would actually make structures immune to fire and/or breaking?  The game itself uses said mechanics to challenge the player.  This would be ruining an entire element of the game that is intentional.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems you want an experience focused around gathering resources to build a base.  Something that plays out a lot like Minecraft, only isometric.  My personal stance is that this is not what the core design of the game tries to present as its experience.  However, the game offers modding specifically to allow people to customize their experience.  So to solve the issues you present, I feel modding is the best solution.

Why are you opposed to modding?  It is integrated into the game, mods download automatically for those that join even.  It also allows community development resources to be spent towards niche features, leaving official development resources to focus on content and balance changes to the core experience.  Seem kind of silly to ignore modding as a solution.

[Sinister_Fang]

3 hours ago, Pasitherus said:

How would they indirectly set your base on fire?

Drop some grass on the ground, then set the grass on fire. It'll spread to all the other nearby structures. Fire can also spread with a campfire as well. And before you mention ice flingomatics again, how often do you let those things run outside of summer? Not very often I'm sure. Keeping them on and fueled up all year round is going to cause a lot of wasted time gathering fuel for them.

[Pasitherus]

4 hours ago, Ecu said:

@Pasitherus, the problem is that implementing protections would take a reasonable amount of development time to implement as it would affect a large amount of structures.  It isn't some simple and trivial change.  As the amount of people impacted by the current issue is quite minimal, devoting the development time to such a highly unique use case is not really a worthwhile expenditure of resources.

In addition to this, from the way you seem to indicate, this would actually make structures immune to fire and/or breaking?  The game itself uses said mechanics to challenge the player.  This would be ruining an entire element of the game that is intentional.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems you want an experience focused around gathering resources to build a base.  Something that plays out a lot like Minecraft, only isometric.  My personal stance is that this is not what the core design of the game tries to present as its experience.  However, the game offers modding specifically to allow people to customize their experience.  So to solve the issues you present, I feel modding is the best solution.

Why are you opposed to modding?  It is integrated into the game, mods download automatically for those that join even.  It also allows community development resources to be spent towards niche features, leaving official development resources to focus on content and balance changes to the core experience.  Seem kind of silly to ignore modding as a solution.

I don't really see why it would take very long to implement. I'm not a game developer, so I don't know, but it seems really simple to add to the game. About buildings and structures never being burnt/destroyed, I never said anything about them not being able to be destroyed/set on fire by natural means. I simply said that PLAYERS cannot set fire to them/destroy them if they don't have permission. Flammable items will still be destroyed and set on fire by natural means. I've already said, multiple times, that I know that modding can fix this in SOME cases. But those cases in which modding fixes it, I am NOT in those cases. Like I said, 80%+ of players go on Klei official servers and vanilla servers or create private worlds with their friends. My friends don't want to play DST anymore, and I don't want to play alone. I've tried multiple times and waited long periods of time for people to join my server, which they didn't. I would rather join servers with high populations rather than sitting alone, bored in my own server. It's funny that you talk about the core experience of working together, because griefing isn't working together, that's the only reason why I made this thread. I wanted to be able to play with a lot of people without the fear of being griefed. Fixing or making it harder for griefers to grief would boost the core experience because you don't have to worry.

 

3 hours ago, Sinister_Fang said:

Drop some grass on the ground, then set the grass on fire. It'll spread to all the other nearby structures. Fire can also spread with a campfire as well. And before you mention ice flingomatics again, how often do you let those things run outside of summer? Not very often I'm sure. Keeping them on and fueled up all year round is going to cause a lot of wasted time gathering fuel for them.

That's why stone walls exist. If people are making bases that they actually plan on staying in, they will build stone walls. Not weak, flammable walls. Of course griefers will find a way, they always do, but this will make it much harder to do so.

[Trenix]

I agree with what you're saying, but this is not how you go about doing it. People should still be able to pillage you, just there needs to be more protection against it, where currently there is none. For example, blocking people from your things, forcing them to break your stuff to pillage, but also having traps or some sort of structure which spawns hostile mobs that attacks players which are only neutral to allies and the owner. Basically we need more deterrents, not limitations.

[JohnWatson]

You can break walls by hammering them or by attacking them. Using an axe or even just fisting a wall will break it easily.

Oh, and nobody builds stone walls to protect their base, they're just a waste of time and materials. You build stone walls for animal pens and decoration.

And as everyone mentioned, an ownership system will not prevent griefing, it will actually cause more griefing. You can block off areas and trap spawn using walls. You can steal someone's items then lock them in a chest. You can take up space in someone's base by building unnecessary structures around the place. You can build signs with an offensive message and nobody can remove it. You can still set fire to someone's structures by burning nearby flammables. You can still lead Bearger to someone's base.

There will always be a way to wreck your base because the game wants your base wrecked, the game wants survival difficult,  the game wants you dead. Making the game significantly easier, watering down its difficulty, is stupid just because you don't trust some pubbers.

[Ecu]

4 hours ago, Pasitherus said:

I don't really see why it would take very long to implement. I'm not a game developer, so I don't know, but it seems really simple to add to the game. About buildings and structures never being burnt/destroyed, I never said anything about them not being able to be destroyed/set on fire by natural means. I simply said that PLAYERS cannot set fire to them/destroy them if they don't have permission. Flammable items will still be destroyed and set on fire by natural means. I've already said, multiple times, that I know that modding can fix this in SOME cases. But those cases in which modding fixes it, I am NOT in those cases. Like I said, 80%+ of players go on Klei official servers and vanilla servers or create private worlds with their friends. My friends don't want to play DST anymore, and I don't want to play alone. I've tried multiple times and waited long periods of time for people to join my server, which they didn't. I would rather join servers with high populations rather than sitting alone, bored in my own server. It's funny that you talk about the core experience of working together, because griefing isn't working together, that's the only reason why I made this thread. I wanted to be able to play with a lot of people without the fear of being griefed. Fixing or making it harder for griefers to grief would boost the core experience because you don't have to worry.

This suggestion doesn't actually help people on the official servers for the most part.  The official servers generally only ever reach around 100-200 days (on average).  In my experience playing primarily said servers, the amount of griefers are minimal as well.  Your suggestions primarily benefit long running endless servers.  Not a single official server is endless mode, and a majority of non-official servers are also survival, it really doesn't feel like it would be a good use of resources.

In addition, all this would do is allow users to be annoying, without actually stopping griefers.  As @Sinister_Fang stated, if you cannot start the buildings on fire, you just start an item on fire.  Disabling that from working, means you eliminate fire as a danger mechanic.  Which ruins an aspect of the game.

At the end of the day, I feel like you're really trying to take something from the game that it really wasn't meant to be.  A lot of the methods that griefers utilize to grief are also legitimate mechanics the game uses to challenge you.  The game really isn't a base building simulator, which seems to be more along the lines of what you want.

A mod could, quite literally, implement the exact system you are asking for.  So why not seek out a mod author to create the mod you desire and suggest it to administrators of servers that could best benefit from it?  I am really curious as to why you are against modding as a solution.

[Pasitherus]

I thought it would be a harmless suggestion. If it takes too much time away from general game development and it makes the game easier, then I guess it isn't needed.