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    Captain's Log 23: Setting A Course

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    Ahoy Pathfinders!

    We’ve seen some interesting action over the past week whilst Anarchy rules! Players have found imaginative ways to entertain themselves within this no holds barred meta whilst we gather useful data for the future. Meanwhile, the team has had in-depth discussions regarding the upcoming patch, with some specific focus on claim and war systems. There will be some adjustments to our previously announced plans and this Captain’s Log will outline the details that have emerged during this process.The specifics will be honed and adapted as we approach the PTR as well as the launch of these new systems.

         :anchor: Setting a course :anchor:

    March Mega Patch Update!

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    If you didn't have a chance to read our previous Captain's Log, please do so as it covers a lot of information regarding our massive update coming later this month, and will add some clarity to the changes we discuss below.

     

    General Claim Changes

    We’ll be making some general changes to the system which will impact both PvE and PvP servers: 

    • The boat decay system will be enabled. This means that there will be a tagging system attached to boats which will cause them to self destruct after multiple weeks of inactivity on PvE, Golden Age Ruin, and Freeport servers. To tag a boat, the owner of that boat (single player or company) will just need to enter its stasis/render distance.
    • Claim owners will be able to demolish structures (via the pinwheel) on their settlements temporarily as long as the structure has been placed within the last 12 hours. After the 12 hour period has passed, they will not be able to demolish the structures using the pinwheel, and must manually destroy it. Claim owners can do this outside of raid hours or warlike. This exists as an anti-griefing mechanism. On PvE servers, we may extend the time beyond 12 hours as players will not have the option to destroy via PVP.
    • There will be a notice sent to the Settlement Owner’s Company and also via a cross-server notification pop-up when new players/companies are building on their territory. Players will have the option to subscribe to this Company Log via email or Discord, similarly to other Company Log messages.

    PvE Claim Changes

    We received an extensive amount of feedback from the PvE community regarding our upcoming changes. The overwhelmingly clear message was a desire to retain some form of a claiming system.

    One aspect of the design we intend to stick to is the fact we want players to always have an option to build, otherwise, the game cannot be truly experienced in its current state.We understand that there are some concerns regarding how that could potentially be exploited in a PvE environment, and we’ll be working on designs and systems to ensure that isn’t the case from a technical point of view, as well as through GM involvement.

    With the Mega March update, the claim systems on PvE will change from being lawless-esque servers to the following:

    Use the same claim system as PvP, but remove the raidable hours and war aspect. This means that players will be able to claim islands, and anyone can build on those settlements. Each settlement will have an upkeep cost which is based on a variety of factors such as the islands ranking, the number of settlements that company has, and how many different companies are building on the settlement. Settlement owners will be able to set a tax rate, and also players will be able to place their player run shops on the claimed land.

    However, we are planning some PvE specific changes

    • We’ll be imposing a hard limit of Claim Points equivalent to one small island for single players. 
    • Companies will be able to own multiple settlements, but there will be a hard limit (lower than PvP) and it will be based on Island Points and the number of players who are currently in that company. This means that larger companies will have access to more ‘Claim Points’ and are therefore able to settle on more islands with higher rankings, however, we will still be imposing a relatively low cap.
    • Company alliances will no longer be enabled on PvE servers. We understand that there are some legitimate use cases, however, in this sandbox environment, we believe they will primarily be used to game the system and get past company rules/limitations. We recognize that this may impact how trading communication takes place on PvE servers and we are looking into an alternative option for players.

    PvP Claim Changes

    We’ll also be adding some new options along with changing how cannons are used during raidable/wartime hours.

    • Give claim owners the option to enable allied companies to build cannons on their lands
    • Give company owners the option to allow allies to use their cannon (governance setting)
    • Enable an activation timer on cannon structures placed by non-allied companies during wartime and raidable hours to prevent instant FoBs. Similarly to battery-powered heavy turret activation timer on ARK.
    • Delay on joining a new company or alliance after leaving one (24 hours)
    • Company owners and admins can now set other companies as neutral. This is done via the in-game pinwheel, similarly to alliances when targeting another company’s structure or player. Companies which are marked as neutral will have a different colour display HUD, as a way for players to indicate they are non-hostile, however, they will not have other benefits which the alliance system would provide. In summary, there will now be three states in which other companies can appear: ally/neutral/enemy.

    We acknowledge that there has been a lot of feedback regarding alliance limitations and how they impact mid-sized companies along with the role they play when sharing territory. This is something we are currently discussing and we may have an update for you closer to the time of the patch. 

    Player to Player Secure Trading System

    This update will also include our first phase of the Player to Player secure trading system! We regard this is an important aspect of the game, alongside our Player ran shops, which you’ll be able to experience later this month on the PTR!

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    Procedurally Generated Shipwrecks

    The March Mega update will also be introducing a new environment objective for players to explore whilst out at sea! Procedurally generated shipwrecks exist as a new source to loot for items and blueprints. You’ll be able to find them randomly populating throughout the sea floor, with a higher density present around the underwater trench. You can find them by diving deep into the ocean or looking out for their visual indicator on the surface of the water, or successfully completing the sextant mini-game which will point you in the direction of nearby shipwrecks (procedurally generated or player-made).

    We’ll have various types with their own unique looks. Players will need to swim into them to locate the chest to loot, which will vary based on the shipwreck.

    The structural pieces (planks) will not be able to be harvested, and the submarine can just directly attack the shipwreck to harvest the loot. Once the chest inside the wreck has been activated, it will begin a timer which will destroy the wreck, additionally, looting it entirely will also cause the wreck to be destroyed.

    Please keep in mind that this will be our initial implementation for these procedurally generated shipwrecks and we’ll be expanding on them in a future update, as well as introducing more PvE content for players to explore and experience. 

    Public Test Realm (Test Live)

    This update, including the war system and claim changes, will be making its way to our Public Test Realm before it hits the entire Official Network and will be accessible for all players for both PvP and PvE. It is anticipated that Test Live will be available to play around the 20th of March and we will keep you posted should there be any more updates as the time approaches. 

    We appreciate all of the feedback you’ve shared regarding the update and will continue to work on improving the systems, and the game by incorporating aspects of that feedback into our existing developmental pipelines as well as our vision for the game!

    Upcoming Major Version

    We’ll also be releasing a major version update on the 8th of March, which will contain a massive overhaul to the way items are replicated on our networks. This should result in a considerable performance gain and reduction in bandwidth on servers, and due to the scale and necessity of the changes, a major update will be required.

     

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    Additionally, we will be rolling out the Peg Leg and Hook Hand cosmetics which can be acquired at your nearest Freeport!

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    Dynamic ATLAS Maps

    Our roundup of the Dynamic ATLAS Maps will be on a temporary hiatus due to the current Anarchy patch and the fact we have announced the wipe. It will be making a return when the ATLAS relaunches with the new claim and war system.

     

     

        :pirate_mask: SHOW 'N' TELL #5 :pirate_mask:

    We enjoyed the variety of creative submissions in this fortnight's Show 'n Tell. It's awesome to see all of your originality and talent. Feast yer eyes on  th' best o' th' bunch below! Congratulations to our winners who have scored themselves cash prizes!

     

    WINNERS

    PCHELA LESNAYA

    large.753291797_PCHELALESNAYA.jpg

    We were stunned by this beautiful piece with its skilled use of light and shadow displaying the artist's impressive talent and attention to detail. This art both formally and conceptually points to being awarded first place! 

    PRINCESS SUGAR

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    If joining this Company means we get an adorable map like this in order to learn locations on the Island for clear comms during defense, we're in! 

    MARNII

    large.MARNII.jpg

    A well situated and architecturally impressive offering from an imaginative builder who is obviously honed at their craft. 

     

    HONOURABLE MENTIONS

    OTAWA72

    large.OTOWA72.jpg

    ARGH!

    large.ARGH!.jpg

    GLOBYTHEOLDPIRATE

    STRITE

    large.STRITE.png

    ABYSIAN

    large.ABYSIAN.jpg

    Congratulations to the winners and runners up and thank you to all of the entrants; we love looking through everything you guys send in! 

     

    :wheel:

     

    Alrighty, that wraps up this log! Thank you so much for becoming a part of our crew and we can't wait to show all you scallywags, landlubbers, captains, and seadogs what lies ahead!

    Happy Sailing,

    Grapeshot Games

    🏴☠️For the latest dispatch on #playATLAS keep yer one good eye trained on this here information🏴☠️

    Natter n' chatter on Discord: https://discord.gg/playatlas
    Navigate ye olde Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/playatlas
    Hear ye, hear ye on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sailtheatlas
    Watch us scallywags on Twitch: http://twitch.tv/sailtheatlas
    Plus ye can band with us Pirates on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playatlasgame

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    Big Thanks for PVE change, know need to see how it's work in game, but that will be better for PVE players ! 

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    • Company alliances will no longer be enabled on PvE servers. We understand that there are some legitimate use cases, however, in this sandbox environment, we believe they will primarily be used to game the system and get past company rules/limitations. We recognize that this may impact how trading communication takes place on PvE servers and we are looking into an alternative option for players.


    You're making it worse and worse, who the hell came up with is ? "we believe they will primarily be used to game the system and get past company rules/limitations." THEN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT INSTEAD OF JUST TAKING IT AWAY FROM PVE!!!!

    If Alliances are really gone for pve, that will be my clue to leave the game. It's clearly showing that you guys have no interest in the players that are playing pve.  



     

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    So wipe isn't happening on 20th March then, PTR is happening on 20th? So wipe will not be before 27th March? 🤔

    In regards to the PvE land claim change, now that there will be a claim upkeep that players building on that land will have to contribute too, is that in addition to the upkeep for structure decay? If so does that now mean we've got 2 upkeeps to keep paying towards?

    Also people wanted PvE claim flags but I don't think they wanted it like the PvP claim system. :classic_blink:

    Edited by [GP] Guybrush Threepwood
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    The claim system is a joke, just make it all lawless one flag per company and a set area radius to build in with a one week decay timer.

    Simple as that.

    Edited by Rats
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    I personally don't think that land claiming and taxing other players on pve is what the community wants or needs. We all just want to be able to build and use resources with out pillars/ foundations being needed/used to ensure so. People that want land that doesn't get any are going to complain all over again and the ones that get it are going to pay for there up keep with other peoples gathering. Give us x number of resource boxes with a radius per server and as long as its full we have no decay each person[company] can distribute them on all  one island for a large base or multiple on different islands on the server for small bases.

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    16 minutes ago, Abysian said:

    You're making it worse and worse, who the hell came up with is ? "we believe they will primarily be used to game the system and get past company rules/limitations." THEN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT INSTEAD OF JUST TAKING IT AWAY FROM PVE!!!!

    If Alliances are really gone for pve, that will be my clue to leave the game. It's clearly showing that you guys have no interest in the players that are playing pve. 

    Stay calm - they mentioned that they are looking into another option, and it seems that they finally consider our feedback. So there is a chance that they will come up with another idea, if enough people complain and come up with a better idea.

    I'm glad about most of the PVE changes. Thank you!

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    Just now, Tinschn said:

    Stay calm - they mentioned that they are looking into another option, and it seems that they finally consider our feedback. So there is a chance that they will come up with another idea, if enough people complain and come up with a better idea.

    I'm glad about most of the PVE changes. Thank you!

    They aren't exactly listening though. People that were saying they want land claim flags still in PvE but limit it to 1 to 3 per company have now got the same as PvP. How is that listening to the community? Yes they listened to the fact people want claim flags back, but they then went and took the easy route of copying PvP system.

    Is that what the PvE community was asking for? 🤔

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    Just now, Tinschn said:

    Stay calm - they mentioned that they are looking into another option, and it seems that they finally consider our feedback. So there is a chance that they will come up with another idea, if enough people complain and come up with a better idea.

    I'm glad about most of the PVE changes. Thank you!

    Other options ? They are taking away a core mechanic from pve, use the excuse that they do it because it gets abused to get past company limits etc. But pvp gets even more ally option, so that excuse is false ? And what other option ?
    In an alliance you are able to talk with everyone you work together with and lives in a other grid, you could help people that are stuck by inviting them into an alliance and help them by letting them on your ship. You could do treasure maps etc together and share the loot. There was so much potential for having ally's and they're taking it all away, and for what ? This will ruin pve even more. A lot of smaller company's relied on their ally's, they worked together with them without being forced to be in 1 company. Now they are forcing everyone in 1 company to be able to play together

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    1 minute ago, Yomaz said:

    I personally don't think that land claiming and taxing other players on pve is what the community wants or needs. We all just want to be able to build and use resources with out pillars/ foundations being needed/used to ensure so. People that want land that doesn't get any are going to complain all over again and the ones that get it are going to pay for there up keep with other peoples gathering. Give us x number of resource boxes with a radius per server and as long as its full we have no decay each person[company] can distribute them on all  one island for a large base or multiple on different islands on the server for small bases.

    I think the idea behind this is that they can't figure out a way to stop that "pillarmaggedon" on ressource spawns and ruins.
    So at this point, they need someone to take care of that - an admin who is constantly removing those pillars is too much. So i assume the owner of the settlement will be the one who is responsible for that in the future. And the settlement owner can't forbid anyone to build on the settlement, so there will be enough space.

    My only concern is, that surely not all owners are nice and friendly persons. There will be some guys who want the whole island for themselves, and as ever, they will find a way.

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    PvE taxe rate is a bad idea IMO.
    It's a PvP feature, people will be taxed because other came first, and can't be take off, seems a bit unfair.

    Taxe system should be, at least be set max at 10% for PvE if it stays.

    30% taxe for PvE is.. meh..

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    4 minutes ago, Abysian said:

    Other options ? They are taking away a core mechanic from pve, use the excuse that they do it because it gets abused to get past company limits etc. But pvp gets even more ally option, so that excuse is false ? And what other option ?
    In an alliance you are able to talk with everyone you work together with and lives in a other grid, you could help people that are stuck by inviting them into an alliance and help them by letting them on your ship. You could do treasure maps etc together and share the loot. There was so much potential for having ally's and they're taking it all away, and for what ? This will ruin pve even more. A lot of smaller company's relied on their ally's, they worked together with them without being forced to be in 1 company. Now they are forcing everyone in 1 company to be able to play together

    I'm sorry if my words have upset you.
    We are 2-6 people in our company and have not ever needed an alliance, so this point is not really important for me.

    But you hopefully will understand that there is a way to use the alliance system in a way that it was not meant to be used.

    So I personally don't have a better option, because I don't care much about this aspect, but as the devs are finally listening, you and others could give them better input regarding the alliance system. That was all I wanted to say with my previous post.

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    Ahoy Pathfinders!

    Quote

    We’ve seen some interesting action over the past week whilst Anarchy rules! Players have found imaginative ways to entertain themselves within this no holds barred meta whilst we gather useful data for the future.



    Ehm.. Most players left the day you announced the wipe and the only people left where griefers/raiders and suciding ppl that wanted to get rid of their stuff before anyone else wiped it. Gaining any data from this period is stupid. Period.

    Listen to your community.. 

    Edited by parabellum
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    2 minutes ago, Tinschn said:

    I'm sorry if my words have upset you.
    We are 2-6 people in our company and have not ever needed an alliance, so this point is not really important for me.

    But you hopefully will understand that there is a way to use the alliance system in a way that it was not meant to be used.

    So I personally don't have a better option, because I don't care much about this aspect, but as the devs are finally listening, you and others could give them better input regarding the alliance system. That was all I wanted to say with my previous post.

    No i'm not upset with you. Just with the changes a bit. And yes you may not have needed it or used it much. But others like me did.
    I enjoyed helping people, making friends, invite them in a alliance so we could talk in game to each other, have some fun. Do some trading, do stuff together.
    I liked to help people, invite them to an alliance, let them come on my ship, and sail them to my island or somewhere save. In my opinion they are taking away a big part from the game, and again only from pve. While some may never used, others really depended on it.

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    Also still no word on Discovery Points and Player Characters. 

    Anyone who played much knows the real deal is in Discovery Points and not in XP.

    We need current characters discovery points kept either actually, or just as a raw number.

     

    As to the PvE changes, does this mean there is only 1 'flag' per island? (You claim an entire island?)

    How are they going to stop resource points being griefed if people can still build anywhere within a claim?

    What most PvE players want is the CURRENT flag system (minus the sea flags) but with a REALLY low cap like

     

    1 player = 1 flag

    Companies:

    2-3 player = 2 flags

    4-5 players = 3 flags

    6-10 players = 4 flags

    11-25 players = 5 flags

    26-50 players = 6 flags

    51-100 players = 7 flags

    101-150 players = 8 flags

    151-200 players = 9 flags

    200+ players = 10 flags

     

    Is there still building health decay? Cause that was another silly idea, can you imaging trying to repair a really intricate building.

     

    Flags should also cost resources / day AND should cost resources to BUILD the frikken flag to start with.

     

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    4 minutes ago, parabellum said:

    Ahoy Pathfinders!

    We’ve seen some interesting action over the past week whilst Anarchy rules! Players have found imaginative ways to entertain themselves within this no holds barred meta whilst we gather useful data for the future.

    Ehm.. Most players left the day you announced the wipe and the only people left where griefers/raiders and suciding ppl that wanted to get rid of their stuff before anyone else wiped it. Gaining any data from this period is stupid. Period.

    Listen to your community.. 

    Absolute rubbish. People may have stopped playing but they made their voices clear on the forums, twitter, discord and reddit. It wasn't just the people left playing that raised thir voices.

    39 minutes ago, [GP] Guybrush Threepwood said:

    In regards to the PvE land claim change, now that there will be a claim upkeep that players building on that land will have to contribute too, is that in addition to the upkeep for structure decay? If so does that now mean we've got 2 upkeeps to keep paying towards?

    Just to confirm there is still a structure upkeep on settlements so there will be 2 upkeeps if building on a settlement. Jat confirmed this on Discord.

    Make sense because settlement owners will have a 12hr+ window to destroy structures, but after that window the structures will still need a decay time otherwise they will be there forever after inactivity.

    I just hope both upkeeps aren't ridiculous, I don't want to be farming for multiple upkeeps constantly.

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    14 minutes ago, True Sonja said:

    As to the PvE changes, does this mean there is only 1 'flag' per island? (You claim an entire island?)

    How are they going to stop resource points being griefed if people can still build anywhere within a claim?

    As I already said, I think the settlement owner will be responsible for that.
    It seems that even in PVE the owner has 12 hours to remove buildings.

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    Good changes for PVE Grapeshot !

    Some will like it, some not. Let´s see how it will be working out ingame.

    Edited by Harloc

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    14 minutes ago, [GP] Guybrush Threepwood said:

    I just hope both upkeeps aren't ridiculous, I don't want to be farming for multiple upkeeps constantly.

    that simple have 2 or 3 claim max and the farming for restor claim be simple 

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    Not really happy about the PVE changes at all, this doesn't encourage me to come back. So we will still be competing with other players for those claims? A single player can take a small island? That's far too much - and we know people will have multiple accounts. And the large companies will take all the prime land elsewhere? We're still paying tax to landlords? There will still be confrontational gameplay around taking over someone else's claim?

    Settlements are NOT a good idea for PVE. Let's just have limited claims, no contesting, no tax, claims decay / can be demo'd when abandoned. Claims should just be to have a limited secure building and trading area, nothing else in PVE.

    I won't be coming back under this new system.

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    @Jatheish

    Considering you have gone the PvP claim system route as this means that we have 2 upkeeps, one for structures, and the other for settlement please remove taxation.

    Do you really think it's fair that people have to pay 2 upkeeps and taxation on top? The settlement upkeep should count as taxation not in addition to it. Unless of course that is what you mean by setting taxation, but I don't think it is.

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    22 minutes ago, Tinschn said:

    As I already said, I think the settlement owner will be responsible for that.
    It seems that even in PVE the owner has 12 hours to remove buildings.

    But anyone can still build on the claim past the 12 hour point, so after 12 hours what is stopping somebody from running round and plonking down thatch foundations everywhere?

     

    Also the 12 hour demo window has a massive exploit that should be obvious to everybody.

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    Just now, True Sonja said:

    But anyone can still build on the claim past the 12 hour point, so after 12 hours what is stopping somebody from running round and plonking down thatch foundations everywhere?

     

    Also the 12 hour demo window has a massive exploit that should be obvious to everybody.

    It's 12+ hours after the individual structure has been placed down. So if the settlement owner is active they'd have a 12+ hour window to get rid of any pillar spam.

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    3 minutes ago, [GP] Guybrush Threepwood said:

    It's 12+ hours after the individual structure has been placed down. So if the settlement owner is active they'd have a 12+ hour window to get rid of any pillar spam.

    So somebody can own an entire island and if anyone builds on it they can have it removed / raided after 12 hours? How exactly does that equate to allow more people to build vs the old system?

     

    Unless I've misunderstood the whole 'settlement' changes they've got planned?

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    Just now, True Sonja said:

    So somebody can own an entire island and if anyone builds on it they can have it removed / raided after 12 hours? How exactly does that equate to allow more people to build vs the old system?

     

    Unless I've misunderstood the whole 'settlement' changes they've got planned?

    You've completely misunderstood.

    When someone builds on a settlement, from that point there is a 12+ hour window where the settlement owner can destroy the structure using the wheel selection. After that 12+ window the settlement owner can no longer destroy it.

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    1 minute ago, [GP] Guybrush Threepwood said:

    You've completely misunderstood.

    When someone builds on a settlement, from that point there is a 12+ hour window where the settlement owner can destroy the structure using the wheel selection. After that 12+ window the settlement owner can no longer destroy it.

    Oh good, then the obvious exploit that I feared will work...

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