Official PVE - New Pillar Spam Solutions?

[Zed38]

We are the oldest and most developed on our server and have seen new players go through the 4 phases of pillar rage, which are:

1. Rage - new player is angry at all the pillars becos they cant place their thatch box or campfire.

2. Resentment - new players get a small box and maybe a few dinos, then start to see so many other tribes have so much land reserved.

3. Acceptance - player comes to understand why pillars are placed, starts to feel less angry.

4. Pillar Spam - player adds to pillar spam for the same reasons as established tribes do it (explained below).

 

This is repeated over, and over and over again. Every player goes through the same steps (or quits the server before stage 4).

As has been the case, explaining this to newbies (typically the under 500 hrs played ones) doesnt help much.

One recent fellow said he would visit some other official servers to see how they handle pillar spam after I had suggested there are ONLY 4 ways to handle pillar spam on PVE as the game is right now, and those are:

1. No action - dont place pillars at all. Essentially this is a non issue for anyone wanting to build on official pve.

2. First come first serve, owner does not cooperate with others (eg: placing pin coded vaults at green obilisk for other tribes to use or somesuch).

3. First come first serve, owner cooperates with others in some manner (move/remove pillars if needed or whatnot, tribe alliances and building agreements, shared access pin, etc.) Most of my server is like this (some few are #2 above). I suspect the majority of all PVE official servers are also like this to varying degrees.

4. First come first serve, pillar wars. Actively pillaring excessively to try to control land to prevent others from using the land. This is different than pillaring off Metal spawn for example. It is malicious use of pillars to deny others any use of land.

 

I am not aware of any other viable solution to this problem. There hasnt been once since I started playing a few years back.

Anyone else out there have an alternative that is actually viable, which does NOT involve not playing on official pve?

[Proxximos]

Yeah the pillar spam is never any fun when you are just starting out. Then at the same time once you are developed you don't want 100 newbies building right on top of your base  

[HiImZech]

I know some tribes pillar spawn certain location to protect certain resources like metal nodes and even bamboo trees (1 swipe in a bamboo forest is enough to fill a bronto full of berries)

I know of some tribes also pillar spam to deny access to resources. my server has been a victim of that. he even put up troll flags to let us know how WC is not working to remove him.

finally I know of some tribes who pillar spam because they want to reserve beautiful/great locations just so they can start building a base there when they have left the game

[Sh4rk]

I am on a very high pop pve server, ans our community (of those who have been around a long time) are starting to agree to pillar spam noobie areas to lower our pop. It is a bit cruel, but a lot of us have well over 2k hours there, and the lag/cap issues are painful. Nobody wants to cull dinos and lower tame counts just to be back in the same situation with less dinos bc some new tribe refuses to pick a better server to start out on.

[wrath435]

 Separate solutions for this game breaking problem ranked in usefulness.

#1 Territory Markers, basically objects that players can bulid in limited quantities that claim territory for themselves or their tribe that they can build on, there would be limits of course like if you join a tribe, you will only count for one extra marker instead of ten you would have if you were solo, if two tribes merge the smaller one would get demo timers and have to move in with the bigger one, other limits would be a minimum neutral area between different tribes markers so they can't build too close to each other, structures can be built outside of territories but they would have demo timers on them, territories can be seen just like when the devs put in the redwoods or expanded the arctic, that way you will know where yours ends and where someone else's begins.

#2 Completely remove the ability to use pillars for land claiming, if players want to land claim they will have to use foundations and ruin spawns.

#3 No change.

[DeZiLL313]

On my server the majority of spawn loactions are pillared, but most of the map is fairly open. Its always the same thing tho. Bob shows up, complains theres no where to build, yet never leaves the beach to look for a spot. I regularly scout pve servers looking for bases coming up for claim and I have yet to find a server that has no where left to build. I even found a spot big enough, right next to green ob, that I was able to build a huge building on to store my extra dinos. If the servers old, dont expect beach front property, but usually the swamps and snow region are filled with buildable land along with good portions of the red woods as well, yet everyone wants a base in the southern islets...

[Bulldogfrag]

I play on a PVE server and at times even I've had issues with a single person tribe on our server pillaring everything from one end of the map to the other and sets-up a bed at each area so he can fast travel to each to refresh. But for the most part the pillars are placed to control lag around large bases, keep noobs from putting down foundations on metal nodes, most of all I think it's true it's a population control against new people coming in build 1 thatch hut and calling it a day. Every week us and 4 other tribes go around cleaning up several abandoned thatch huts, camp fires, spiked walls, and so forth and so on from new people who play maybe 2 days and leave their mess behind. Not to mention that they log in the server for 5 mins. and demand, badger, or complain cause they decided to play a survival game and want food, clothing, tools and weapons without even trying. PVP has there ways of dealing with this problem PVE uses pillars. Now that being said I've gone out and removed pillars far people who are trying to play but don't expect a large tribe to remove pillars for someone to build a thatch hunt next to them because some new person refuses to leave the beach. As someone pointed out there is plenty of land to the north if you want to really build (built there myself just to get away from the lag in the south.

[WolfeUK]

I went into my second PVE server yesterday, after playing 500+ hours in single player, i have to say it absolutely sucks and i dont know how you guys do it, firstly i spawned in someones base, i then managed to find a clear area, only to then spend the next 6 hours constantly chopping the same tree due to lag (so to speak) when i got my raft going i decided to travel the island, and omg, why on earth do you guys feel the need to build skyscrapers ?? like one build i saw must have being 50x50x100 square box ?, and when i was trying to get close the lag made my trike lag behind my boat about 100 yards, even my raft kept jumping back and forth, this is PVE ?? no ones going to come in and destroy your dinos.....are they ??

Traveling the coast all i could see is pillars scattered everywhere, the huge gates that look really ugly covering huge areas to protect a Dodo, this isnt a dino survival game like how i thought it would be, i have a harder time surviving against humans, even on PVE, we are cockroaches of the world, and we have to take it all over, every bit of land needs to be built upon so no ones else will come into your server, even my first attempt on a official saw me dying purely cause i couldn't place a fire down anywhere due to pillars.....I get why you guys do it, but it sucks for the new players, well done guys you won, i wont be doing officials again, but the experience has opened up my eyes, we are the vultures of the land, just like in RL lol

Think i will stick to single player for now, but thanks for the experience lol

BTW my internet doesn't suck, i have a London ping of less than 10 with a 70mb down and 20mb up, when i was getting the really bad lag it said my ping was 65, but that wasnt what i felt, more like 500, so not sure how they get there ping from, or even if it was console lag due to the amount of built up areas ?

Edit i did also delete my hut and taming pen i made, all i got going is my raft now, but might pop in there and destroy it, looks like a boat festival in there atm lol
 

[DeZiLL313]

Actually people build giant buildings to put their dinos inside because of people griefing with the Titanosaur. People kite the Titan to other peoples bases and basically sacrifice themselves to get the titan to stomp and kill other peopls tames. Respawn, rinse, and repeat until they're all dead. Even if you enclose your whole base with behemoth gates, there's still methods to air life the Titan inside. 

 

[Bulldogfrag]

I have my bas on the edge of the snow biome and we also have the base enclosed in behemoth gates, one due to all the dinos in that area including gigas and titans but for the most aprt cheaper to build gates than the walls required to build that high. also keeps the build limit down

[powerstuck]

I pillar spam because...

a) Learned hard way that fence foundations and walls won't prevent a sausagehead from building in front of your behemot gate to stop you from exiting your base. 

b) Because it takes 30 hours every time I log in the game to load the neighbors 111 stories, 5 blocks wide and long base that is literally a dino garage that he uses the PVE server for. (I HATE TRADERS, THEY CAN ALL BURN IN A SUFFOCATING FART FIRE !!!)

@WolfeUK

I went into my second PVE server yesterday, after playing 500+ hours in single player, i have to say it absolutely sucks and i dont know how you guys do it, firstly i spawned in someones base, i then managed to find a clear area, only to then spend the next 6 hours constantly chopping the same tree due to lag (so to speak) when i got my raft going i decided to travel the island, and omg, why on earth do you guys feel the need to build skyscrapers ?? like one build i saw must have being 50x50x100 square box ?, and when i was trying to get close the lag made my trike lag behind my boat about 100 yards, even my raft kept jumping back and forth, this is PVE ?? no ones going to come in and destroy your dinos.....are they ??

Believe it or not, but my first ever base had a PIN coded door and a painted pathway to let people get out of my base if I was not online. I knew I was close to a spawn point so I was acting nice. 

Then one day, I found one of those raptorers with the contents of my fabricator in his inventory. A level one over-cumbered with metal inside my base...yea he totally didn't steal it. From that day on, the door got turned into a wall, and the pin code into a billboard telling them to run naked, eat their own poop and chose another spawn point next time. 

 

[WolfeUK]

Problem is when a level 1 spawns he/she might aswell despawn, cause we dont stand a chance on a server thats being running for a while, i gave up on the one i got on, level 37 and i destroyed my raft with 10+ hours worth of work, all because i circled the island and couldn't find a space to build, and the lag was real, and what do i gain playing on a PVE on my own ?? nothing really, and from hardly finding any decent dinos as the servers probably cause its close to capping dinos due to the amount of tames

70 People max on a server at any one time, problem with this is a 1000 people could pass through, and whos gonna clear up after them ? maybe a 10nth stop and play, the rest scatter the spare coastline with fire places and 2x2 thatch huts

For me, and i think it will solve some of the problems, is in the server list it could tell you how many tribes have listed say over 100 hours, how much area is filled up with builds, or even how many tames there are, cause if i knew these figures i probably wouldn't have joined that server

This would save alot of people spending alot of time in an area only to leave and find there is no space to build up, as happened to me....

Still trying to get my head around the point of playing PVE on a public server, maybe a closed one with your mates, but a public one i dont get it....

[DeZiLL313]

2 hours ago, WolfeUK said:

Problem is when a level 1 spawns he/she might aswell despawn, cause we dont stand a chance on a server thats being running for a while, i gave up on the one i got on, level 37 and i destroyed my raft with 10+ hours worth of work, all because i circled the island and couldn't find a space to build, and the lag was real, and what do i gain playing on a PVE on my own ?? nothing really, and from hardly finding any decent dinos as the servers probably cause its close to capping dinos due to the amount of tames

70 People max on a server at any one time, problem with this is a 1000 people could pass through, and whos gonna clear up after them ? maybe a 10nth stop and play, the rest scatter the spare coastline with fire places and 2x2 thatch huts

For me, and i think it will solve some of the problems, is in the server list it could tell you how many tribes have listed say over 100 hours, how much area is filled up with builds, or even how many tames there are, cause if i knew these figures i probably wouldn't have joined that server

This would save alot of people spending alot of time in an area only to leave and find there is no space to build up, as happened to me....

Still trying to get my head around the point of playing PVE on a public server, maybe a closed one with your mates, but a public one i dont get it....

Well thats where you went wrong. You circled the island. No wonder you didnt find anywhere. Move inland. I regularly start fresh on a new server every month just because I enjoy the beginnings a lot. Never once I have I not found somewhere to build. Dont expect beach front property on an old server...

[Moonie1]

Ive played on a private server most of my time. But I decided it was too easy and wanted a taste of all the hype on officials. So I chose a server that had 0 people on it very late at night. That was my big mistake. They had a very low ping for me and no people but that was because it was like 3am in the morning. I chose the north island as I was familiar with it from private play and knew there was not as many hostile dinos on it. There was no hostiles, but instead the entire shoreline was walled off well into the water and I drowned trying to swim around them. After a few attempts, I learned the lay of the bases there and was able to get to a smaller island that wasnt walled off where it showed I could place a campfire. Unfortunately it was on the wet beach and wouldnt light. I died again. Once again I spawned on the north island and swam to the center jungle island, dodging bases as I went and getting stam back when I could. I encounter NO sea life, not even pirahnas, due to how many foundations were all around under water.

Once at the jungle islands, I realized my mistake of thinking no one would be there, which was why I didnt initially spawn there, thinking all the hostile dinos there would chew me up over and over. After running around with a campfire out, I finally found a space I could place it down the river between the middle jungle and north jungle. It was a small parcel of land between two huge bases, near a big metal location I had a base at in private. Players attempted to wall off the beavers and metal entrances, but I was able to get up there using a back ramp that couldnt be blocked off due to the cave system underneath it preventing building. After one of the locals found me up there, the next day there was at least 5 ankys parked there and the metal was never seen again. I built my dinky 3x4 wooden base up, replacing it with stone eventually. I put down spikes on both sides of it to stop the few dilos that came in from getting to my paracers and phiomia. Shortly after doing that, I logged in to find that my spikes had been destroyed and in their place was Behemoth Stone Gates with no gate inside them. They were placed by the guy that has the most hours logged on the server and who's base was NOT one of my neighbors. No clue why he did it, but it screwed me out of putting up any more spikes. During these early days, global chat constantly had long time residents of the server whining and complaining about noobs and how they lagged up the server. LOL. Its not the noobs lagging it, its your colossal bases, 100 stories high with a ton of gates as outer walls that lag it.

I decided the jungles were too crowded and tamed a low level ptera to get away with. I killed myself and chose the redwoods respawn to scout out a new location. I spawned inside a series of walled in areas and was able to build a little 1x2 base to prevent freezing deaths. This annoyed the guy who had erected the massive chambers since he failed to pillar it completely. I then set out to find a permanent location. After many deaths to terror birds, I discovered my first two choices were taken. I spent quite a while trying to go deeper into the forest and finally found a prime location that wasnt taken. Next to 10 or so metal nodes along with crystal above beavers. I built a crappy wooden shack and bed ported to get my ptera over by island hopping. From there I started farming the metal and used the stone to set up behemoth gates to claim a ok sized parcel of land. After amassing enough metal and paste, I build my 4x5 metal home which currently has 3 levels to it. I am doing fairly well, tho I still only have the Ptera due to no kibble and fear of losing it while venturing too far from home. He is very squishy after all. I recently traded excess ingots for a couple ascendant crossbows and a tapejara egg. Once I hatch that, thinks should really change for the better for me. I love the Tapejara and its versatility.

A few weeks ago, I noticed someone pillared the beach down the river from my base. I also noticed someone pillared the entire cave where I had a forge and bed set up way off to the side. So I decided it was time to fight fire with fire and made a ton of metal pillars and placed them all. I didnt want to do it, but thats how it works, do it or get plowed under by those who will do it. The locals still havent accepted me but at least some of them talk to me normally now instead of like im a complete noob pos. I understand both sides of the coin here, from being a noob that couldnt get a break to finally having to pillar to prevent some massive building going up and blocking off my routes out of my base.

[Inky]

I think that items should have a decay rate. If they do not log in for a week decay would begin and the structure would slowly lose durability for as long as they don't come back. That would at least clean up all the players that build a poop shack our pillars and log off without intent to come back.

[USADave85]

I'm waiting for rentable servers on console.  

I don't see a great way for wildcard to manage the pillar issue.  Pillar spam is terrible for noobs, but no pillar spam can ruin the gameplay for the hardcore established tribes.

[DeningWei]

And yet here we are, one hundred thousand players still playing and sorting out their pillar issues themselves.  To me I think that it is mostly working fine.  There's always space to build and people make way for other players if there's a desirable pillared area.

[Moonie1]

1 hour ago, Inky said:

I think that items should have a decay rate. If they do not log in for a week decay would begin and the structure would slowly lose durability for as long as they don't come back. That would at least clean up all the players that build a poop shack our pillars and log off without intent to come back.

This. I dont even understand why this was not part of the plan from the very beginning. Structures should begin taking damage a week after they are able to be demolished. This would free up so much space.

[Nim]

3 hours ago, Inky said:

I think that items should have a decay rate. If they do not log in for a week decay would begin and the structure would slowly lose durability for as long as they don't come back. That would at least clean up all the players that build a poop shack our pillars and log off without intent to come back.

Official PvE has auto-decay for most structures. Spikes, campfires, standing torches, and some random crap like doors, gates/gateways, and sloped roofs do not auto-decay. It was disabled for a while there after some update changed something, I don't remember what, but it has now been re-enabled. Thatch huts are demolishable after 4 days and auto-decay in about another day. Storage boxes take forever to go demo, much less decay, but at least it helps servers a bit.

 

Edit: Tamed dinos in PvE are also supposed to despawn now instead of going claimable but that has apparently not been re-enabled yet, going by how a noob tribe claimed a wyvern and other good things from an abandoned base a few days ago. We need this back asap. Our official PvE server is filling up with well-established tribes already into end game or getting into it soon. For the first time in a year and a half, I'm afraid we might hit dino cap.