FFS up the decoration count on ALL GSH's

[ACGOG]

Saw the new Darth Malgus statue... can't put it in my DK GSH because it's capped on space, which is utterly ridiculous since I have 3+ rooms that are *completely* bare.

 

Please, for the love of god, up the decoration count on GSH's as a whole so we can take full advantage of what you've given us.

[Hebruixe]

It would definitely be nice if this happened. Last I heard, they chose the current deco limits to preserve engine performance...because apparently too many of them will make your frame rate plummet. Edited August 19, 2015 by Hebruixe

[Muljo_Stpho]

On a similar note, see also any topic ridiculing the way "prestige rating" works and the way that it encourages "junkyard spam" decoration to reach the cap and max out your conquest bonus (and the apparent inability of some people to understand that they don't need to throw their junkyards on the public listings to get the bonus).

 

They opted for the simplest and most straightforward options they could think of though. Raw score based on number of unlocks. Every first unlock counts for 100. Each extra counts for 2. Set a cap on how many of a stronghold's hooks are allowed to be filled. Percent filled multiplied by raw score (and multiplied by 2 if a subscriber) is the stronghold's score. Max of 25% towards the bonus for filling 100% of a specific stronghold's allowed hooks.

 

Just in that raw score, there's no attempt to distinguish between different sized objects and between objects of different quality / rarity. All objects are equal. That Basic Chair is every bit as special as that Commemorative Statue of Satele Shan. They could still keep it fairly simple even if they approached it as a number of different tiers such that tier 1 items = 10 for first and 1 for each extra, tier 2 items = 25 for first and 2 for each extra, tier 3 items = 50 for first and 3 for each extra, and so on up to however many tiers they want there to be (and with whatever values they would actually want at each tier). They could have classified items into appropriate tiers as they were added to the game and we'd get some sense of fair value for how common or unique an item is supposed to be.

 

The other stuff could get more complicated to deal with though.

 

I'd suggest having both a hard cap and a soft cap in place. The hard cap is a hook limit chosen for technical reasons. That's where we can't place any additional objects. The soft cap is a lower target chosen to count as "100%" for the purpose of conquest bonus. Extra coding would have to ensure that it sticks at 100% in between the two caps and to ensure that the bonus caps at 100% as well. We'd see that we've hit the soft cap but nothing would stop us from placing more objects. Maybe always set the soft cap at around 75% of whatever is chosen for that stronghold's hard cap?

 

And then for scoring the stronghold, that would be handled as something separate from the hook limits, possibly counting points based on the size of each filled hook (small=1, medium=2, large=3, or something like that) as well as the value of each item according to its tier (10, 25, 50, 75, 100, or whatever), possibly multiplying the two numbers together for each object (for example maybe something rare that goes in a small hook counts for 1*100 = 100 prestige while something slightly less rare that goes in a medium hook counts for 2*75 = 150 prestige). Possibly make the stronghold score be equal to the sum of those added to some percentage of the raw score (like 50% of it for free/preferred and 100% of it for subscribers, or whatever seems like a good basis for each type to start from).

 

At least that's about as simple as I could see it getting. Some might suggest adding further measures to tweak the scores of placed objects in some way based on other objects placed nearby or to diminish the value of additional placed objects if they're duplicates of other objects already placed in that stronghold.

 

Anyway, so the prestige score for a stronghold would start at something based off of your overall collection's prestige score (with subscribers still getting a bonus) and it would be increased by some amount that reflects your choice of decorations in that stronghold. Those who only want the conquest bonus only need to concern themselves with reaching the soft cap, and they'll most likely get a fairly small prestige boost on top of their collection prestige score since they'll tend to focus on filling small hooks with cheap stuff like basic chairs. Those who want to decorate something nice and show it off to the public can put some actual thought into what they put down, and they'll get a prestige rating that reflects that extra effort.

 

If they wanted to though, it could get even more complicated in an effort to really distinguish "style" and "conquest" as two separate things to strive for. Make it so that every object has two values that it contributes to your decoration collection. Prestige rating and conquest rating. They can still do the tiered value system like I suggested earlier, but in this case there's both a score for how nice/fancy something is and a score for the "battle readiness" of an item. So things like bunk beds, weapon stands, ammo crates, soldiers, etc. would count very little for style but they'd be high in value for representing battle readiness. (Possibly make it so that the prestige and conquest ratings add together to make that 10, 25, 50, 75, 100, or however many points based on rarity. Just shift how it's split up between the two sides. Some items will be purely decorative. Some will be purely for war. And some will be a bit of both.)

 

So as you place objects you're building up both the stronghold's prestige score and its conquest score. (Conquest score would be calculated similar to the stronghold prestige score but possibly with different baselines for free/pref or subscriber, like 70% for free/pref and 80% for sub.) Then maybe for translating that conquest score into a conquest bonus.... Perhaps some sort of comparison between the stronghold conquest score and the collection conquest rating? So maybe you just need to get a stronghold's conquest score up to the same value as the collection conquest rating to get the full contribution to the bonus from that stronghold? (Starts at 0% contribution from the baseline with no decorations actually placed. Reaches 100% contribution (ie 25% of the total bonus) when the placed decorations close that gap.) Or something. I'm not too certain about that and I might just go back to the "soft cap" idea which keeps the bonus based on number of hooks used.

 

edit: Man this post really blew up. It was just supposed to be a quick summary of other ideas but then it turned into a full discussion.

Edited August 19, 2015 by Muljo_Stpho

[BenduKundalini]

Have only read the 3 first parapgraphs as I'm dizzy with sleep but excellent analysis Muljo!