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Cantore

Spawning into a region, only to load into cannon fodder

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Hi Devs,
Sailing in this game takes time... as a matter of fact - a lot of it. We all design our ships, but I've noticed a common theme. Some ships are designed for hauling, and some for different types of fighting (whaling vs SotD hunts).
As we sail resources for blueprint builds, we typically haul great quantities of resources after 1 - 2 days of gathers, and sail them to our Tropical base 2 hours sail north. These hauls are VERY pricey in resources, time, and include our tamed animals as well. We are ALWAYS on the look out for threats (whales and SotD), and avoid confrontations through seamanship.

HAVING SAID ALL THAT:
Would it be too much to ask that the Ship of the Damned NOT SPAWNS SO CLOSE TO THE EDGES OF REGIONS?!! Our leader has suffered the loss of 2 of his ships FULL of resources in the last 2 weeks, one was last night as he spawned into a group of high-level SotD. As such, he has rage quit the game since there was NO opportunity to spot the threats before they were in his face and physically shooting at him before even rendering into the region! His top deck broke, and he lost his cargo and steering wheel. He was unable to steer the ship, and shortly thereafter, it eventually sunk after all the cannon fodder and leaks.

This is not a bug, but I DO think that if you want to keep players playing your game, you REALLY NEED to address this issue, and other issues that cause people to rage quit (like disappearing ships, for example).

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This might be best in the feedback and suggestions section.

I do agree though as its happened to me crossing over only to find myself smack in the middle of a bunch of SOTD. Had a Brig spawn in right behind me the other day after zoning through and stopping at the wreck I spotted 100m from the zone wall. 

However you could have all gone back with a dive platform and cargo rack and rescued it all. The cargo racks float you just dump your empty one and pick up the full one.

 

Edited by Namoni

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It is double-plus bonkers that the ships camping the zonelines also get a firing window while you load the zone. I have seen comrades take two full galleon volleys before they had fully loaded in. Surely they could have the AI ignore a newly zoned player for 15 seconds, or better yet, path out of firing distance from a zoneline when there are no players present.

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All you turtle speed hauler create this problem, they dont (all) spawn at the boarder, mostly they get kited there by slow moving ships. Faster ships loose aggro way earlier.
SotD at boarder are bad, polar whale at boarder are worse.
We sail with spare planks ,deck and wheel for a reason.
15 seconds peace periode will not be enough for some PCs. But you can avoid this problem by spending RL money. I only need like 5 seconds transfer time normaly.


 

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1 hour ago, Kummba said:

All you turtle speed hauler create this problem, they dont (all) spawn at the boarder, mostly they get kited there by slow moving ships. Faster ships loose aggro way earlier.
SotD at boarder are bad, polar whale at boarder are worse.
We sail with spare planks ,deck and wheel for a reason.
15 seconds peace periode will not be enough for some PCs. But you can avoid this problem by spending RL money. I only need like 5 seconds transfer time normaly.


 

That's the unlucky truth. If you have a old or slow PC, you get a lot of loading issues. When you cross the border, come close to a shore with buildings and harbours on and several ships.

I know the 15...45s delay while crossing the borders. But I upgraded my hardware and now I need 3...5s until it's loaded and can ride with a horse thru sturmberg-city without a bigger lag.

It's a new game, produced for actual hardware and upcoming. Playing it with a 3 yo PC is just a pain.

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7 hours ago, Forb Hidden said:

That's the unlucky truth. If you have a old or slow PC, you get a lot of loading issues. When you cross the border, come close to a shore with buildings and harbours on and several ships.

I know the 15...45s delay while crossing the borders. But I upgraded my hardware and now I need 3...5s until it's loaded and can ride with a horse thru sturmberg-city without a bigger lag.

It's a new game, produced for actual hardware and upcoming. Playing it with a 3 yo PC is just a pain.

I have an awesome PC, and so does he. He actually works as a Tech, and gets the best hardware for his PC every year. It's not ONLY the PC that slows down a load time guys. It's ALSO the limitations of the server and the time it takes to load and render the information from that server.

While a delay would be nice, it STILL doesn't account for the fact that I couldn't avoid them at all even after the proposed 15 second delay either. It would be nice to know BEFORE I cross the border if there are threats there waiting. Getting ganked and sunk because you couldn't use your own skills and seamanship to avoid the battle in the first place is actually a BIG DEAL to a LOT of people playing the game right now.

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39 minutes ago, Cantore said:

Getting ganked and sunk because you couldn't use your own skills and seamanship to avoid the battle in the first place is actually a BIG DEAL to a LOT of people playing the game right now.

While I agree they need to fix it, there is a certain element of seamanship that everyone should be using when crossing a zoneline: Don't blunder in at a 90 degree angle, instead turn to a tight angle with favorable winds before crossing. I usually blunder through with my Galleon, partly because of the poor maneuverability and excellent survivability, but when crossing into Golden Age or Polar regions, this is still something I do. If I find myself in a more delicate ship, I generally use it everywhere I go.

The 10 seconds of extra time is worth not finding yourself in the middle of three galleons, a monstrous sperm, and a cyclone in the freezing fog.

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While playing on the official servers I remember that I started to open the gunports and enabled free fire for all cannons before crossing the borders.

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13 hours ago, Cantore said:

I have an awesome PC, and so does he. He actually works as a Tech, and gets the best hardware for his PC every year.

So how long do you load in? Dont you think you can do something else to avoid losing a ship then complain here? There are 3 good suggestions allready.

BUT i also hate going into a storm or out of a storm at servercrossing. I would also like to have Server crossing addressed, with low prio atm tho.

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13 hours ago, Kummba said:

So how long do you load in? Dont you think you can do something else to avoid losing a ship then complain here? There are 3 good suggestions allready.

Posts like this are insulting to the community at large and should be shunned. A post about a game mechanic problem is NOT complaining. It's a factual evidence-based argument that something needs to change to allow for a better gamer experience - which is EXACTLY what Early Access is all about.

Storm mechanics could also use some improvement in my opinion. Having cyclones that miraculously follow you and spawn directly in front of you is: 

A) Stupid B) Unrealistic C) Not randomized enough in relation to the size of the open sea.

If a cyclone does occur, it should be visible from afar, random, and only occur in a single, very large, avoidable, and VERY deadly cyclone; instead of 12 that continuously spawn at and around you while you move.

 

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My company went down on escourt duty for the recovery of this ship. I have to say their was a higher than normal concentration of sotd and they were hanging around the barriers.  I can see how the ship went down and was not preventable as their  were to many to dodge or go around all tactics we use. Instead we used our Armed ship to plough our way through the packs something an unarmed Hauler could not do.  There was so many of them that even having spares you would have gone through  them pretty fast on border crossings such as was happening that day. I do have to say I havnt seen that many near borders as a rule.

I have very good hardware on my computer but I have noticed going through the barriers is taking longer and in fact on our armed ships some of my company open their doors before going through to give themselves a chance. 

 

I agree it would be nice to have a window of opportunity to get through the border without being ganked into oblivion. I know Davey Jones would be happy but I would rather live to tell the tale when I got back to my base.

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16 hours ago, Cantore said:


Storm mechanics could also use some improvement in my opinion. Having cyclones that miraculously follow you and spawn directly in front of you is: 

A) Stupid B) Unrealistic C) Not randomized enough in relation to the size of the open sea.

If a cyclone does occur, it should be visible from afar, random, and only occur in a single, very large, avoidable, and VERY deadly cyclone; instead of 12 that continuously spawn at and around you while you move.

 

OMG... so much this... I know off the original post topic.. but... yeah cyclones are so f'd up.

 

As for  the SOTD by the border. I've had similar issues. Thankfully there were only four and I managed to plow through them and thankfully the wind was in my favor and I escaped.

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12 hours ago, Lethal Angel said:

My company went down on escourt duty for the recovery of this ship.

Recoveries, escorts, and desperate bailing with friends are my favorite memories from ATLAS. The few times I have been able to picture myself as a true hero. Those memories will live on long after they shut down the servers.

Once they fix the problems with gate camping SoTDs and stacked deck cyclones, I do hope there will still be places where players can still get over their head, but maybe with mechanics that aren't quite so cheap and unpredictable.

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On 9/11/2019 at 11:04 PM, Cantore said:

Posts like this are insulting to the community at large and should be shunned. A post about a game mechanic problem is NOT complaining.

 

On 9/11/2019 at 11:04 PM, Cantore said:

It's a factual evidence-based argument that something needs to change to allow for a better gamer experience - which is EXACTLY what Early Access is all about.

 

On 9/7/2019 at 10:20 PM, Cantore said:

Would it be too much to ask that the Ship of the Damned NOT SPAWNS SO CLOSE TO THE EDGES OF REGIONS?!! Our leader has suffered the loss of 2 of his ships FULL of resources in the last 2 weeks, one was last night as he spawned into a group of high-level SotD.

Idk, you even yelled it. But me using "complain" is insulting TO THE COMMUITY?

I high lighted what can be done to reduce the impact, that was for the community btw, not only for you!
 

 

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This has been an issue for a long time in this game. Even more so now that SoTD travel in packs.  And it's not just a slow PC that can cause this, slow internet speed can cause long load times.

I found that releasing the wheel when zoning seems to help.  My ship doesnt seem to stall as much going across the zone border so if there is something on the other side I normally push thru. 

This IS something that needs to be addressed.  There are several great ideas to resolve this problem.

1) 30 second no agro buff to SoTDs and whales when zoning.

Or

2) some type of mini game with the spyglass, similar to the sextet, that shows you the location of all SoTDs and whales in the 8 grids around you. Then you can see the danger across the zone wall and sail accordingly.

Edited by TyGeR_STD
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It can even be worse:

 

If you directly spawn into a SOTD after changing grid your game will crash. And you won´t be able to relog for a few minutes...

Happens twice to me and there is absolutly nothing u can do.

 

It could be easily fixed if SOTDs and whales couldn´t get so close to grid borders. But we are talking about devs who needed 2 months to create the worst possible fix for the overweight exploit xD

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99% of the ship losses in PvE are due to illiteracy in regard of game mechanics, but not the game mechanics. 

The issues begin with inadequate ship building. Many players tend to overload their ships with bunch of useless elements. Then the disaster continues with inadequate sails choice. Moreover, many players don't give a dime about things as border approach angle, wind speed, wind direction, optimal load percentage etc. 

The cargo ship is the easiest design in the game. All you need thee is a bare minimum - e.g. on galleon you can place 3 decks in total without any functionality loss. But loading 52 cannons on a gally plus 12 extra ones on the ass plus balistas etc and having this ship as cargo one... A ship like this is like getting married to your sister - you can do it, but its not right...

Below I will put a list of FMPs (frequently met problems) which I have witnessed during my 3100 hours in the game.

FMP - overload. The maximum load a ship should have is 75% w/o cargo boxes or 50% with cargo boxes. The optimal config is 4 cargo boxes on Gally as you can have low load ratio, good amount of cargo (32k metal/ingots or 100k wood) and still maintain normal speed. 

FMP - bad sails choice. Currently the best choice in the game are the handling sails as especially with good ones you match speed sails speed-wise and yet - you are practically wind independent due to their effective angle. Ofc, you should place 6 of them on gally - a mix is the worst decision you can take as you gain no benefit, but accumulate the downsides - increased wind dependency due to the low effective angle of the speed sails and lower speed if you don't have top acceleration handling sails.

FMP - bad planks choice. Use the highest possible BPs you have. Even generic BP planks crafted with no extra Intel skill will give you extra durability for free. E.g. 110% generic gally BP plank will give you 1200 durability above the base of 12 000 - effectively 13200. Every dura point is useful and increases your survival chances.

FMP - incorrect ship leveling. A cargo gally should have resist to 140-148% and all the rest in weight. This allows you to have any incoming damage significantly decreased and as a result - increased survival chance without losing much cargo capacity especially now as cargo boxes decreased the importance of having maxed out load.

FMP - REPAIRS and spare parts. Unfortunately, this is widely neglected. It is not a rare occurrence to meet a ship with planks at 30% durability. Mentality "If they are not leaking - then no problem" is a highway to the bottom of the ocean. Another issue is that many players don't carry enough repair resources. I have witnessed how a ship went to the bottom due to a storm because his owner had not enough wood to repair the ship and as well - neglected the repairs in time. As an addition to this - he had no spare planks to replace the leaking ones that remained damaged due to the lack of repair resources. As a golden rule you can accept having extra 10% of the planks count as spare parts - for gally this is 8 rounded up plus a spare Ship Wheel. A spare deck and sail are not a must imho due to their higher durability. But having spares won't kill you.

FMP - Neglecting the "Captaineering" skill tree. It is one of the most important ones and mandatory for every ship driver - especially the Ship Maintenance tree. 

FMP - Border crossing approach angle and correct route planning. When you are about to cross the zone border, you should do it at angle of 25-30 degrees. This will allow you to jump back with minimum maneuvers if you meet storm, 2-3 groups of SotDs etc. That applies if you are jumping grids in the middle of the border. If you have well planned route, then you should sail your cargo ship by the border and there you can cross at 90 deg. With this angle of approach you can easily change the grid again as you will have a border very close to you. 

FMP - lack of knowledge of core sea based mechanics. Tornadoes do damage ONLY if you pass through them. Because galleons are not very agile, the best option is to stop and wait. Using this tactic, you can get lucky and miss all tornadoes or get hit by one or two - something that any timely repaired galleon can take with no issues. SotDs do not spawn by the border - usually they are there because they followed another player ship and they lost their aggro by the border. Same goes for whales. 

Now some useful information - SotDs and whales have top speed of 6 knots. If you can maintain higher speed than that, you should have no issues with escaping. This can be easily achieved with proper ship building and load ratio balance. Border crossing load times are not a problem too as your ship keeps sailing even if you don't see it. If you crash at this time - your ship keeps sailing as the game counts you ingame for about 90 seconds. So, with proper speed you will be able to loose the chasing SotDs. But if you cannot run away from a SotD or whale - you are doing it wrong. And devs are not to be blamed here.

By avoiding the aforementioned FMPs, my losses in sea are limited to a single plank on a galleon and 3 on brigs since the wipe. I lost a plank on the gally when I was literally stuck in SotD gally due to MY BAD CHOICE of ramming angle and it took me some time to split the ships so I can move on. The brig planks I have lost were again due to bad decisions on my behalf.

As a conclusion - learn the core game mechanics, apply the best practices and learn from your own mistakes. And do not blame the devs for your own mistakes, neither cry for more player protection. They sell a game, but not brain. 

P.S. Ramming a SotD at steep angle is an effective way to disrupt their barrage as you spin them around - especially if you hit them with gally and this gives you precious seconds to set a distance between you and them.

Edited by DoubleHelix
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I approve of this message, although the recommendation to max out maneuvering sails on a Gally, should be balanced with the quality of large maneuvering sail blueprints available. Anything less than 10% acceleration is going to be painfully slower than a galleon with a full rack of common Speed Sails.

I have access to fairly good maneuverings - 27% acceleration, but until I find ones that can be crafted to over 30%, I am still running 5x Speed and 1x Maneuvering.

Burrowing through a fleet of SoTD at 21 knots is significantly less hazardous than doing the same at 16 knots (or 12 knots fully laden). Their guns quite literally cannot track fast enough to even get a solution to fire, and if they can shoot, I frequently have broadsides land in my wake a full ship length behind my ship.

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