Writing this off the top of my head so apologies if it turns into an essay:

I have been thinking recently about how to make bases relevant, by relevant I mean useful for those who build them & also a valid target for those who want to raid them (both viable playstyles).

Currently we have a situation in PvP where it is pretty much pointless to build a base, they can be broken into FAR, FAR too easily & in PvE the mechanics are abused to block off sections of towns (good luck getting into a PD on a PvE server).

I want to start by saying that I fall into the following camp:

Bases should be a safe place where people can store their loot without too much worry, they should also be seen as a challenge for other players on the server to target & break into. This should be possible but very difficult/time consuming

The problem we have is that people are not online 24/7 to defend their bases. I heard a good argument (possibly on these forums) to this point – I’m paraphrasing so forgive me: If I log out in my base, essentially I am “sleepingâ€. Should someone come along in the middle of the night & start smashing a spear into my door I’m obviously going to wake up & be in a position to defend myself, this isn’t possible to emulate on a persistent server where it’s just not feasible for people to spend 24 hours a day online.

The best way I see of fixing the situation is to allow us to build bases with all kinds of mechanisms & traps, structures should be indestructible (via weapon damage) but have specific weakpoints which can be exploited with the correct tools – eg padlocks which can be picked.

This also then lead me onto thinking how we implement this & it got me thinking about a skill set which would ‘level up’ or increase the more you use them eg. The more you stealth around the higher your stealth stat increases or the further you run the more overall stamina you get.

Some of the skills I’ve thought of are below & the first two pertain to my point about base building:

Fotification – Improved Fortification for your base (harder to break down)
Subterfuge – Improved Lockpick speed/break in faster
Crafting – Bonuses to crafting speed
Stealth – Make less noise when moving
Stamina – Bonuses to stamina (not speed)
Looting – Bonuses to looting speed

This topic has kinda started out as one thing & has ended as two but if you have any thoughts on how to make bases more relevant for both the person who builds the base & that other person who wants to break in then list them below.

Whatever happens breaking into a base should be hard, not a simple case of logging in/out or placing a furnace.