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Ankhwearer

Changes to AOD mean solo players must engage in taming

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"AoD are now immune to anything except gun (non-puckle), melee damage and tame damage."

My technique for fighting the Army of the Dead for treasure hunting was building walls and grenades after they spawn. Guns don't do enough damage to be able to effectively take out a squad of Warriors of the Damned (although they will handle the other mobs, like archers--if you don't miss!) and trying to solo three or more level 25+ Warriors with melee weapons leads to pain and misery.

I have been playing Atlas without taming, instead depending on the gear and my skills and tenacity. The harvest bonus and good (journeyman+) tools mostly makes up for the advantage that tames give for harvesting. Only bears out perform me on fiber-over-time; the rest of the animals move so slowly I can about match for bulk collection them if my weight and stamina are high and boosted with gear. And considering that I no longer have to hunt high level animals, spend time taming, worry about the animals being killed, and save the weight of carrying animals around on my ships, I feel that this is about an even trade in game play. Plus I have about 24 skill points I don't have to lock up in the Taming tree, thus I can be more versatile in the other skills needed for the game.

But you just can't solo a journeyman map without animals following the immunity to grenades and explosive kegs that was instituted in the changes this week.

What exactly was the purpose of this change to AOD? What were the devs trying to fix that was exploitative? And now that there is a Single Player mode in the works, is locking out this style of play really a smart direction to go? I feel it is not.

 

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We've tested yesterday and it further limits the level of the treasure map you can successfully do on your own (not just in your case, but also in the scenario where you use a mount to bite and claw through the Army of the Dead). Even the crossbow is useless against them now.
I wonder how the powerstone acquisition will fare now ...
BTW: hats off to you ... after the 1.5 update I gave up on doing treasure maps on foot ... I never even considered building on the fly as part of a fight tactic against them.

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That change is kinda annoying if you have 2 treasure Map spawns on top of Ruins close to where you build. Can understand the Nerf except that Grenades Dont work now too. Maybe Oil jar And Fire? And are you skilled Into Bonus dmg for them? 

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If you consider NPC Crew as tames too im Running out of Ideas to kill them on foot, yet you caught my interest in killing them on foot

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1 hour ago, zottel said:

If you consider NPC Crew as tames too im Running out of Ideas to kill them on foot, yet you caught my interest in killing them on foot

At one point I had considered using NPC crew with plate armour to tank in the power stone caves. I’d not thought about using them for treasure maps. With a decent level, good armour and weapons, they may do surprisingly well. Or unsurprisingly poorly.

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1 hour ago, Salty Del said:

At one point I had considered using NPC crew with plate armour to tank in the power stone caves. I’d not thought about using them for treasure maps. With a decent level, good armour and weapons, they may do surprisingly well. Or unsurprisingly poorly.

Except the fact that its annoying to get them to some locations a decent one Level 115 or above does more than well. We had One Equipped with Common Armor And sword And he does Hit for 167 And has over 500HP. And you can Level them on melee And Give them better than Common Gear 

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On 6/29/2019 at 12:49 PM, Ankhwearer said:

I have been playing Atlas without taming, instead depending on the gear and my skills and tenacity.

I know how you feel, I have been trying to play without my keyboard and mouse- they sure are shafting the little guys...

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3 hours ago, Nutcutt3r said:

I know how you feel, I have been trying to play without my keyboard and mouse- they sure are shafting the little guys...

And i thought i am sarcastic. But after Reading this post my Company And i did some Without tames And it Takes ages but also way more fun. Will definitly try Doing that more often.

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11 hours ago, zottel said:

If you consider NPC Crew as tames too im Running out of Ideas to kill them on foot, yet you caught my interest in killing them on foot

I actually was using the NPC crew before I leveled up to explosive barrels. A couple of grenades into the fresh mob and then command the crew to attack.

Plate armor, swords/shield or with pikes, and leveled in melee only gets you so far. Once you start reaching level 45+ AOD, I was losing too many crew per fight and had to change tactics. That's when I pushed up to explosive barrels and just building a wall around the spawn site. Where I can't build at all and have to use grenades and campfires, my odds of winning really go down drastically.

But now grenades don't work at all.

I have a MW boosted map to D12. No way I can solo that, even with a strong mount. That frustrates me.

5 hours ago, Nutcutt3r said:

I know how you feel, I have been trying to play without my keyboard and mouse- they sure are shafting the little guys...

Please don't thread jack.

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I have heard from a wise woman @blitzed909 that you can box yourself in, and use a mace to kill them off at the outside. I havent tested it bc i dont mind using a bear.

I also rather spend my points in taming/breeding then in explosive barrels. Tames can be bought also, riding is how many points, like 15!

I you want to play crippled it is not the games fault. I do it at some points too, but i know it is my will and the game do not need to change to fit my needs.

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6 hours ago, Kummba said:

I you want to play crippled it is not the games fault

There you go.

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It is always people exploiting one mechanic to screw up the gameplay in other ways. People were taking new ships to powerstone islands and kiting AoD spawns to the shore to let their cannons take care of them. Many companies max leveled ships in a single day this way. They are making the classic mistake that so many other failed games have made in prioritizing PVP over PVE when it comes to balance issues. The 30% stat nerf to armor is another example. Took a mythic intelligence crafting set we had been upgrading to reach current max bonus (also nerfed to max 60% after exploits) and made all that effort worthless. Only so many times you can tell people who hang around for progression "Fuck you and your time spent!" before they get pissed off enough and move on.

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9 hours ago, Kummba said:

 

I you want to play crippled it is not the games fault. I do it at some points too, but i know it is my will and the game do not need to change to fit my needs.

According to Jat, tames are not supposed to be big in this game.  It shouldn't be "crippling yourself" to not use them.  There are a whole bunch of weapons and tactics that we should be able to use in pve, except they keep yanking them out for pvp reasons.

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4 hours ago, Winter Thorne said:

According to Jat, tames are not supposed to be big in this game.  It shouldn't be "crippling yourself" to not use them.  There are a whole bunch of weapons and tactics that we should be able to use in pve, except they keep yanking them out for pvp reasons.

It is really unclear how making AOD immune to grenades is a PVP issue. Any insight?

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14 hours ago, Kummba said:

I also rather spend my points in taming/breeding then in explosive barrels. Tames can be bought also, riding is how many points, like 15!

I you want to play crippled it is not the games fault. I do it at some points too, but i know it is my will and the game do not need to change to fit my needs.

It's 24 for a bear. 36 for a tiger.

If a style of play was working, one that you call "crippled", and then a change to the game makes it utterly impossible, that is a consequence that the game designers should be aware of. As a conscientious player (and former employee for both Nintendo and Xbox) I am doing my part to make them aware of the consequences of that change.

Please re-read my post. It was not about blame or anger or "you're doing it wrong!" I just explained what my game experience was like before the change and what it is now after the change. You know, feedback.

Be aware, you call this crippled even after I listed four advantages you get from not taming. 

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i have animals. Found them abandoned for long enough I could claim them. They're heavy, noisy, and boxed up to keep them safe from mobs. That's why I know how much I can harvest in comparison. (Tied, except for bears) And that it is easier to solo green maps with a tiger or bear than to do it with grenades and walls.

But I spec'd out of those skills so I could actually run my base and ships solo, build what I need to build, and equip what I need to equip as a solo. (As for explosive barrels, I built 40 over a 2x weekend and then spec'd out of that too. Unlike bears, you can still use explosive barrels and grenades when you are no longer spec'd in the skill.) Spec'ing is a pain in the ass once you are at the level cap. I don't want to switch back and forth by sailing to the Freeport every other day.

There is this ONE thing now, the only place that I am required to have animals. That's pretty narrow to be calling it "crippled".

Edited by Ankhwearer

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How about just reducing the fucking xp that skeletons give to boats?

Making cannons do no damage to AoD is the most wankey fix to this "exploit" of leveling boats that I've ever heard of.

I mean what an arse-backwards fix. What a bunch of marooons. Do they not know how to use UE4's visual scripting system? Is the programmer unable to put a few lines of code that would nerf the fucking xp given by AoD?

Here's a tip, int he function that gives the fuckign ship XP, check if it's a ship, check if it's an AoD, and learn to write a fucking IF conditional, modify the value inside that IF conditional, and call it a day. Don't forget to add a comment ##Bugfix AoD Ship XP; or something for it being shitty spaghetti code.

Zero fucks given to anything but losers whining about pvp "exploits" is going to kill this game. Fucking crybabies, should have just blasted their ships at golden age ruins, and Wildcard should be so happy that people are even going to golden age ruins after getting the powerstone.

Also, leveling ships the right way might actually occur if sinking SotD were a worthwhile experience. They literally only exist to grind XP, what a fucking horrible game design for a "sandbox" game, and i say that in "" because right now it's just a PVP game that makes you wonder why you're not playing APEX or Chiv. Seriously, give us a reason to kill SotD, it's okay if a PVEr gets his boat sunk on a PVP server doing PVE things.

Not like their grasp of PVP gameplay is much better, with fire arrows and swivels being the only viable weapon in PVP after combat actually starts unless you're aim-botting due to the stupid af reload times.... a mini-game to reload, i mean wtf?

Oh and they might as well just remove melee from the game, it's garbage. Worst melee system in any game I've played, Ark's was better. PVP meta is literally the fucking bola as of right now, and flame arrows. Honestly you shouldn't even be able to bola players at full health.

They did stupid things like this in Ark, literally the Whip ruined Ark PVP.

Not to mention that killing stuff on land with your boats should level it. It should be a viable way to level boats. It's not like SotD are a challenge anyway, you just slap two cannons on the back of your boat and fiddle with the sails until they are all dead.

Edited by Bleakwise

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That said, the changes are inspiring, such as gold/berries on flag, and I look forward to what they have to show us. I want Atlas to succeed, I want them to show the industry that the Survival MMO (and I mean MMO, not 30 people on a private server) is a feasible genera of games (they've already shown there is an interest in it). I had to take a break because I could not find all the hydra locatoins and all my friends quit the game, so i have no one to nude run the golden age ruins to find hydras before gearing up and killing them since no amount of preperation or group size makes the content defeatable.

If they also made it so Cyclops and Hydra and Drake can't take damage from ships then the game is even more broken, as those were the only ways to kill Drake and Hydra and Cyclops without cheesing the game's AI by glitching them out/getting them stuck. PVE in this game shouldn't be based on how it feels to tame Gigas in Ark.

I guess we're supposed to spend 100k gold on cyclops tokens and get their health down with well placed carbine shots then tame them. LOL yeah right, people are just going to run around with climbing picks and cheese the fucking AI. Programmers and Asset Creators probably have no choice and are not allowed to fix the game unless a supervisor gets a call from shareholders telling them to explicitly do it. Another case of Wildcard designers not even playing their own games.

The studio is talented, they got us this far, I honestly don't think they even got to implement Golden Age Ruins how they wanted, some share holder was like SCALE THE CYCLOPS HUGE and they probably still haven't updated the damage and health from the prototype phase.

Edited by Bleakwise

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9 hours ago, Ankhwearer said:

It's 24 for a bear. 36 for a tiger.

If a style of play was working, one that you call "crippled", and then a change to the game makes it utterly impossible, that is a consequence that the game designers should be aware of. As a conscientious player (and former employee for both Nintendo and Xbox) I am doing my part to make them aware of the consequences of that change.

Please re-read my post. It was not about blame or anger or "you're doing it wrong!" I just explained what my game experience was like before the change and what it is now after the change. You know, feedback.

Be aware, you call this crippled even after I listed four advantages you get from not taming. 

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i have animals. Found them abandoned for long enough I could claim them. They're heavy, noisy, and boxed up to keep them safe from mobs. That's why I know how much I can harvest in comparison. (Tied, except for bears) And that it is easier to solo green maps with a tiger or bear than to do it with grenades and walls.

But I spec'd out of those skills so I could actually run my base and ships solo, build what I need to build, and equip what I need to equip as a solo. (As for explosive barrels, I built 40 over a 2x weekend and then spec'd out of that too. Unlike bears, you can still use explosive barrels and grenades when you are no longer spec'd in the skill.) Spec'ing is a pain in the ass once you are at the level cap. I don't want to switch back and forth by sailing to the Freeport every other day.

There is this ONE thing now, the only place that I am required to have animals. That's pretty narrow to be calling it "crippled".

First off i respect your playstyle.

Second, i did the same for a long time prewipe. When i hit the wall you are hitting atm, i switched to use tames, it opend up a complete new game.
Third, when progession faster, the respeccing becomes a nonissue, at least for skills, it can remain for attributes tho.

I also dont like the changes to the AotD, or to the PVE aspect in generall, but devs are deaf for PVE changes atm. May our time come.

 

PS: You can use a tame to reduce the respec hassle too, the sailing part that is.

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They need to add a tool tip to all the items that don't work in PVE anymore that say "only effect players and player made structures and tames" or something.

It sounds stupid as hell vs just nerfing xp given to boats, but it's better than a player making a bunch of spear bolts to kill hydra or cannons and grenaids to kill elemental and finding out they don't work in PVE and quitting the game.

Edited by Bleakwise

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21 minutes ago, Kummba said:

They dont?

 

If they only did it to AoD then I hardly see the reason of boats getting XP as a valid reason. The amount of XP you get is so paltry, you would have to afk the process on an AoD spawn or something, in which case you're chances lean towards being sunk before max leveling your boat. Not like you can carry more than 500 or so cannonballs anyway on anything less than a brig.

Last time I played it all still worked on Cyclops and Rock Elementals and I was doing it because any other method was going to take hours and hours to just down one, but then again hey you can just level your boat on wolves and shit now? More than likely they just made them PVP only items.

Whole thing reeks of the "middle school programmers" meme that floats in game chat.

Also, not all spawns are reachable by bears as the random map generator likes to stick maps in locations requiring climbing pick ALL THE TIME, and being required to have a crab to do maps is pretty fucking ass, especially when crab can't even reach them all.

They really need to add a UObject to the game called "map location" and tag a bunch of them all over the islands (and make them de-activate with structures around), and stop using a random number generator to do it.

Sailing for hours to find out the map is in a base or in-accessible by tames is not fun, especially with how easy AotD clip through and get stuck in cliff walls making you have to reset a  map that was more than a pain in the ass to get to.

It's also going to seriously fuck the end-game content as oil jars and flame arrows were the best way to take the yetis down in the ice dungeon.

Edited by Bleakwise

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On 6/29/2019 at 10:49 AM, Ankhwearer said:

I have been playing Atlas without taming, instead depending on the gear and my skills and tenacity.

Once I figured out that there were creative ways to engage the undead without losing any more of my tames, my interest went way, way up. So much so that I was almost too engaged in coming home to play the game every night.

Now that they eliminated them, my interest couldn't be lower, and I stopped picking up bottles entirely. There is very little sand left in our sandbox.

Edited by Sleepinator2000
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10 hours ago, Sleepinator2000 said:

There is very little sand left in our sandbox

I blame PVP, i too want to build sandcastles again!

BUT exploits happen.

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