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ATLAS Roadmap

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Ahoy Pathfinders, 

Thank you for tuning in to our Dev Livestream this week. In this pre-recorded announcement, we’ll be summarizing the new roadmap we discussed in the Livestream as well as clarifying a few things raised by the Community.

First of all, for those who didn’t catch the Dev Livestream, it can be viewed here

The primary purpose of this stream was to bring you up to speed on our new direction and let you know what areas of the game we’re going to address moving forward. We opted to answer many of your questions from our Livestream Q&A forum thread by working them into the conversation in the stream (rather than reading them out verbatim and answering each one) for the sake of flow and clarity. We recognize that this format didn’t translate as well as we’d hoped for, so we’ll be improving on the structure of our streams in the future.
 

  :anchor: The Mega Update and Xbox Launch :anchor:


Let’s get straight to reiterating and clarifying details in regards to the next Mega Update/Xbox launch which is coming very soon. The Xbox launch will include:

  • Crossplay support between PC Steam and Xbox players for ATLAS.
  • Parity between both platforms. Xbox players won't have to wait for updates as they will happen simultaneously with PC
  • We’ll be working on bringing day one Keyboard and Mouse support for the game, otherwise, it’ll arrive shortly thereafter.

The Mega Update includes content and changes currently on the PTR, as well as some additional content we’ve discussed, and this will go live on our Official Network at the time of the Xbox Launch.

We’re incredibly excited to launch crossplay; we designed the ATLAS engine for crossplay across all platforms from the outset and ATLAS will be one of the very few games with full crossplay between Steam and console.

There have been many questions about whether this update will be bringing a wipe. To be frank, this is not something we’ve decided on yet. We’re currently exploring ways in which we can handle this release without wiping and there are quite a few technical considerations which may make this a possibility, but we’ll share more info with you as soon as we’re able to.
   

  :anchor: Livestream Recap :anchor:


ATLAS’ DNA

The first point we covered on stream was revealing where we think players spend most of their time in ATLAS, and where we wanted it to be at a 1.0 launch (post-Early Access). This is the conclusion we came to:

large.604334155_ATLAS8-28StreamDeck2.jpg

Essentially, we feel like players are currently spending too much time in certain areas of the game, and not enough time in the areas we think should be the most fun, such as Sea and Combat. Players can expect to experience more fun and engaging content out on the sea, and a cut back on the time spent on land or with creatures. This doesn’t specifically mean we’ll be removing certain areas completely, but instead reworking existing systems and adding new gameplay/content for the areas we want to increase.

Now you’re probably wondering, how do we plan to get from A to B? Well, here’s our roadmap:

large.74419923_ATLAS8-28StreamDeck.jpg

Some important factors to keep in mind:

  • This roadmap will begin after the release of Xbox
  • We’ll be looking primarily at making tweaks towards the Official Network and Multiplayer modes, but of course, those will still benefit our other game modes and unofficial networks. However, the main official networks are our priority
  • Tackling bugs and major performance issues will always be an ongoing effort.
  • This isn’t everything. We’ll be able to reveal more details as we go along, plans can change, and there are going to be more phases but for now, we want to discuss our immediate plans for developing ATLAS.

Phase 1: Quality of Life Improvements, Bug Fixes, & Performance Increases

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Arguably our shortest phase and has already commenced in part with performance fixes and some bug fixes, with some work on the Xbox, and some you’ve experienced on the PTR. Our plan: 

There will be no new content with this initial phase. This is because we’re going to be spending time fixing and adjusting already existing systems in the game. This means tackling pain points that you (and we) are already aware of, ranging from quality of life changes, balance, and polish on existing parts of the game.

Reducing the tedium and streamlining getting to the fun. We know that there are aspects of the game which are frustrating and the solutions we can take to fix them (such as the Silo we implemented in a previous update to help with feeding crew). We’re making some meaningful changes here that will impact the player’s experience in the game, some larger than others, but all with the same goal in mind to improve the overall game loop. 

Just a few of the changes and fixes (both small and big) we’re planning to make:

  • Fixing speed sails and increasing overall wind speed effectiveness.
  • Adjustments to blueprint stat rolls and crafting requirements.
  • Making improvements to logs for companies.
  • Increasing max stack sizes for certain items.
  • Removing the negative effects of status effects, including vitamins.
  • Giving players the option to choose which Kraken to fight.
  • Reducing the frequency of surface attacks by sharks.
  • Increasing the treasure map spoil time.
  • Cargo Container adjustments.
  • Replacing the text in the game with a universal font style.
  • Hiding more text behind the “Extended UI” function
  • Making ladders easier to climb.

Keep in mind that some of these items are things we want to address quickly, even if we consider them to just be temporary fixes for now. The changes in this phase will provide a much better experience in the present; however, we’ll be circling back to these areas in later phases to make much more extensive changes to these systems. 

One example of this would be “sailing.” We’ll make some early improvements to sailing during Phase 1 (such as fixing speed sails and increasing overall wind speed) and then we’ll loop back to sailing during Phase 2 for a more thorough pass on sailing functionality. 

Some more examples like this include:

  • Tames and breeding will get a general balance pass, then we’ll do a larger update on tames and creatures in Phase 4.
  • Blueprint scaling will get some early adjustments in Phase 1, then we’ll address it some more in Phases 2 and 3.
  • Temporary fixes for certain combat meta pain points (until they can be further ironed out in Phase 3) such as: stat scaling, torpor, NPC swivels, harpoons gliders.

 

Phase 2: Seas, Ships, and Sailing

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Phase 2 is when we’ll start to reintroduce new content to the game. The general philosophy of this update will be:

  • Ensuring that you all are spending more time having fun on ships and out at sea.
  • Making the ocean feel less repetitive, more inviting, and more rewarding.
  • We want ships to feel like homes! If players want to spend all their time at the sea, they should be able to play that way successfully.

There are quite a few ways we’ll be doing this, but you can expect changes along these lines:

  • Improvements to existing sailing and ship systems.
  • Introducing more NPC encounters on the ocean (and different types too).
  • Introducing more activities you can do on your ship.
  • Exploring ways for players to store ships safely when going offline and taking a deeper look at overall travel times and ship functionality (such as sails/wind/cargo containers).

These are just a few examples of what we’ll be tackling in Phase 2 and we expect that players will feel a welcome and marked difference in their experience out at the sea once these changes are made.
 

Next, we’ll be covering Phases 3 and 4. Please keep in mind that a lot of the details in these phases are very early and we’re still figuring out our exact priorities, but there are a few things we’re relatively certain of and are exploring right now: 


Phase 3: Skills & Combat

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Here are some things we’re pretty confident we’ll be doing in some form:

  • A skill tree rework. We’re interested in something more akin to specializations and roles to give more depth to the skill choices you make. 
  • Improvements to make combat feel more fluid and impactful. We want it to feel even more fun when you’re fighting!
  • Changing the ship combat meta to embrace stronger piracy gameplay:
  • A shift to a “boarding” combat meta.
  • New incentives for choosing between sinking, pillaging, or outright stealing ships.
  • Potentially adjusting the ship stealing process/claim time.
  • Changes to encourage more fighting on ship decks.

 

Phase 4: World, Claiming, and Tames/Creatures

large.globe_trans.png

This phase is perhaps the largest section of our new roadmap. As the furthest phase out from right now, it is definitely the most subject to change over time, but we’d still like to share an overview of our current thoughts on these areas of the game. In this phase, we’ll be exploring various subjects such as:

  • The world layout and network. Some of the points we’re currently exploring are a possible combined PvPvE network and different continental world layouts.
  • Factions, which are very early in design right now, but are something that we’re very interested in from both a gameplay and a narrative perspective as a means of giving players across multiple companies shared goals.
  • Adding more MMO-esque elements to the game such as more populated ports/towns, deeper in-game economies, additional storage options, etc.
  • We’ll also be making some significant changes to the claiming system, adjusting how much of a role it has on the world and addressing some of its biggest problems such as “pillar spamming” and "honeycombing".
  • Reducing the importance and role of tames and creatures in the game, as well as polishing other PvE content in the game such as Golden Age locations, boss fights, the Fountain of Youth, etc.

 

:wheel:

 

We wanted to acknowledge the issues that we’ve identified in the game and outline our plans to address them. It’s important to note that this roadmap is not fully inclusive: we have a lot of other plans, content, and surprises in store for you all. We’ll be sharing more details with you as we go along and you can expect to see a more active presence from our team in regards to acknowledging the current issues with the game and discussing how we plan to address them. 

We hope that sharing our new roadmap and details on what’s coming soon for ATLAS (and also further down the road) offers a further “glimpse behind the dev curtain” so to speak.

 

:wheel:

Happy Sailing,

Grapeshot Games

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

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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Thanks for the updated explanation.  Much clearer and look forward to seeing this all play out.   I know it's a ways out, but phase 3 and 4 sound like the game my friends and I thought this would be.  I hope survival is increased a little more than the graphic shows though.  I know I'm in a minority here, but I miss docking on an island in 1.0 and having crazy wolf packs led by an alpha, or triggering an alpha horse from across the map.  Hope to see some islands with higher environmental difficulty that aren't Golden Age, like that again down the road.

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Its a shame that you are not happy that some people are enjoying part of your game a little too much for your liking.  PvPvE??  Nerfing tames?!  If you nerf all my PVE gameplay and force me into being nothing more than content for your PVP players to consume, then I will quit and go play another game. 

Edited by Dhara
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i dont want more water, man that is boring, but is your game, if you ask me i want a arktlas, i want to tame water animals and swing across the ocean with my mossasaurus, why ark has 40,000 players after 4 years and you 2,000, we like to tame, we like to explore, we like ark, we like a ark of the sea, focus in tame awesome animals, not spend 2 hours sailing in a boring ocean, forget my poor english

Edited by eri556
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Did anyone manage to record the post stream Q&A Dollie and Jat did on discord?

would be nice to have all the info provided by GS in one official location.

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I would like to have save zones from enemy at the borders of servers.
The problem on changing the server with the risk of being dead on the other side because of longer loading time and a npc waiting right there and shooting you while  loading in let me give up the game some time ago.

If this is done maybe i come back.

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I wish you a goodluck and to success with it! Atlas is great game and has no analogues. It needs this changes!) You've made a goddamn right desicions in this roadmap. Long live Atlas! Love you developers! ❤️

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4 hours ago, eri556 said:

i dont want more water, man that is boring, but is your game, if you ask me i want a arktlas, i want to tame water animals and swing across the ocean with my mossasaurus, why ark has 40,000 players after 4 years and you 2,000, we like to tame, we like to explore, we like ark, we like a ark of the sea, focus in tame awesome animals, not spend 2 hours sailing in a boring ocean, forget my poor english

Play Ark then. Bye!

Making it more like ark wont help the game and especially not the naval experience. 

There is no need for a second ark. The actual one is nice. Maybe a atlaslike modmap would help you.

If there is an ocean full of islands to explore, ships to enter and settlements to raid, then i dont need a tame at all. They to big for the small doors and decks on warships anyway.

I love having horses to ride on land. Cows, pigs, chicken and co do a great job to populate my pirate hideout. Monkey, parrots and others look great on the captains shoulders. So I am ok with having them ingame, but pls easier to tame and breed. I dont wont to waste to much time on shore.

But for the rest, in a pirate mmo, I dont give a fuck. Only wont to kill them for exp and loot.

And for game mechanics, it is a real fun killer, If I cant dig for that treasure chest without riding a bear.

It is the right decision to put the focus on more pirate, navalbased content.

Edited by Samstag Freitagsson
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Thank you a lot! That did answer most questions that the live stream threw up. I love the direction you are going and cant wait to see more details about it.
You totally showed us you understand the problems of us players and have a great vision with possible solutions to all of them.

Do you plan now to release captains logs again every one or two weeks to keep us updated and share some details?

For the livestream i would suggest to post the summary first (its more suitable to explain new things) like you did with new content streams and then talk about details and show us wip in the livestreams so it doesnt throw up to many new unanswered questions ;)

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So basically...wait a year, come back and all this will be done.

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you still didn't finish the last "Mega Content Update" that was suposed to be release on May but got slowly part by part released during summer, and still not all of what you said that will come did come. So why talking about another Mega Content Update when you still didn't finish last one?

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i'm back to ark but i still check the news here. This new roadmap sounds good, a lot of aspects that can change the game in a very good way. Let's see if it will be all right when put into practice. 😉

 

Until there, my pirate outfit is resting... maybe I can use it again someday! :classic_tongue:

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Some people love building boats, some building towns with shops, some like taming, some like sailing and fighting. Deciding HOW people are going to play will have the devs playing this game by themselves. 

If the purpose is to have people be at sea, then you devs have done everything in your power to keep us ported:

1) You have cloudy skies that threaten rain with cyclones that do more overall ship damage than a full-on fleet fight. So, you PORT to avoid all that damage until you figure out whether 7 cyclones are going to literally follow you around a grid until you port. OR you PORT and twiddle your thumbs for the duration of a storm. 

2) Living at sea requires us to carry enough ammo, supplies for repairs, and enough food and gigantic tables that the only size that can handle all that is the SLOWEST ship in the fleet (the Brig) or force everyone to build server-clogging galleons. 

3) In order to have an awesome ship, you have to PORT, have a base to store the ingredients until it is complete and to build. To avoid spending the rest of your life with an axe and pick, you have to make tames to make that go faster so you can build your awesome ship to live on. Now you have tames that must be stored and protected and fed, and presto, you are landlocked and PORTED. Fast travel to feed is the only thing that saves the day, but you are naked, so whatever.

4) You made everything so heavy that "sailing" is more like watching dolphins passing you and laughing. You solved this with an awesome cargo box that you cannot even access unless you are PORTED.

5) Only you can repair your ship at sea, so if you are not keen to spend all your time after fights or storms or rocks making repairs to hundreds of single pieces, you must PORT.

6) If you lose your ship and everything you so lovingly built, you must have a place to rebuild. That requires a base that stores all duplicates of your goodies, blueprints, farming for cooking, clothes, weapons, etc.... again, you must PORT. 

7) Scavenging wrecks overload boats, gold to pay crew overload a boat, supplies overload boats. So unless you are willing to dump all this (WTF), you spend all your time calculating how to keep the weight under 50% of the capacity to keep a decent knot. 

8} Going around massive builds, avoiding squabbling neighbors, avoiding aggressive builds to block content, all double or triple your time on land and not in a good way.

9) Placing Treasure Maps in ridiculous locations, like inaccessible mountain tops, under rocks, squeezed ledges, in bases make it under a 50% shot that you can ever get access to it. And forget getting the good ones alone without a tame to help or drag some NPCs behind you getting stuck in everything from a bush to a turtle. It increases ported time.

BONUS: The re-vamped island ownership did not work out as you planned, I think. Instead of a big company claiming big islands, they claimed all the little ones and they left the big ones free for folks that cannot even claim them. How about the large companies only being allowed to claim the large islands and leave the little ones to the little tribes?

Thank you for addressing some of these issues, but taking away things that people like doing instead of limiting the things like over-active cyclones or weight and speed issue is a mistake. Make all things possible and all will come and play THEIR game. Totally get this is a work in progress, Beta and there are growing pains, just please remember:

LAST and I think most important: NO one wants to spend ANY time playing and building and farming to have a wipe looming over them like a Black Plague. Most I have talked to say they will wait until these devs get their ship together, then come and play.  

Edited by PoE
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9 hours ago, Maji said:

So basically...wait a year, come back and all this will be done.

Nah, wait just 3 months, come back and see the new roadmap, rinse repeat and maybe in 2 years they will finally settle on something

 

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I learned many years ago to eat in a busy restaurant not an empty one. If certain areas of your game are getting more play or attention then they are the areas you should be expanding on, not the areas that are less used. People aren't mice to be led this way then that way at your bidding, and even though I enjoy your game as many others do If I felt that I was being forced down a path I didn't like then i'd stop playing. I play pve only on atlas and if you enforced pvp on me i'd quit. And i'm sure i'm not the only one. As they say there are many more fish in the sea. I understand you as the devs have suffered an undeserved barrage of toxicity which has been unfair. But if my perceptions are right about certain areas of the game you are thinking of changing, then i'd say you should seriously consider again. I genuinely hope your game succeeds on any and every platform and wish you great future success. But please don't forget the people who first backed Atlas and still do, regardless of any negativity surrounding it.

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I dropped the game because it's just ate so much time with no purpose. It was like this - 800 hours of game. 700 hours of pure calm sailing along the border. I went youtube, search some atmosphere music and listen for it (all those Jeremy Soule, TES OST etc) and I listened like all of it available, while sailing. I really enjoyed the idea and for some point - atmosphere of game, I wrote here my suggestions and buggs reports alot, but...

20 minutes prep for journey...

3 hours of nothing, but ocean...

5 minutes of treasure hunt...

3 more hours of nothing but ocean...

It's just not for me... So I keep my visits here, see some news about game improvements, and hope - one day it will be changed enough for me to join the party again. Even with a lot of useless time wasted - I keep my memories about hours here and some adventures (especially in the beginning) with warmth in my heart...

So 'm looking forward to 2nd phase.

Edited by George Catcher

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The 2 main reasons i stopped playing ATLAS was the taming and the stone structure recipe change (it took a couple hours at high wind to get sap so me needing so much organic polymer for stone structures was annoying), the rest of the mechanics were fine and i actually didn't mind them. Change the taming mechanic and with some bug fixes you will have me and some more people back! (and by bugs i mean the wolf you spend hours taming doesn't just fall under the world) [You don't need to change the taming it is just a request, thought i would say it before someone comments about it!]

Edited by Rock Drake Gaming YT

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