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phaylen

Rethink the Road Map

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Rethink the roadmap.

It's counter-intuitive to how the players play the game.

I know I'm spitting into the wind here and I understand the frustration of the playerbase given the lack of awareness and interest in player desires or interests, but I can't get on board with the hostility and the abuse being hurled. I know, having observed for a long time now, that the developers don't read your posts or feedback (Detrimental for a game in Early access) and that has fostered a very toxic relationship with this community which saddens me to say because I genuinely love Atlas, but I'm desperately disappointed in the direction it's taking. I wonder if you agree.

The roadmap appears to attempt to dictate how we play the game. As a community that has adapted to the game, the roadmap implies we've been playing the Atlas "Wrong." To quote the official post "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."

We're spending too much time on land.
We're relying too heavily on tames and breeding.
We're not doing enough exploring.
We're not engaging in enough combat.

I feel like Atlas has done themselves an injustice. In an open world, a player base of diverse interests develops; You have those who enjoy combat with Ships of the Damned, Those who specialize in breeding high stat tamed creatures and selling them in a burgeoning marketplace, builders who primarily focus on creating fantastical archaeological wonders, explorers who are achievement completionists, treasure hunters who enjoy the pursuit of gold, resource harvesters who collect and sell resources to travelers- in an open world where our goals are self made, it is a huge mistake to shuttle us all into one linear stream of gameplay as if Atlas were World of Warcraft. We don't a want to be doing the same thing, but that has not stopped our gaming practices from complimenting that of other players. Te roadmap attempt to intercept our self made goals and forcibly divert our play style into what the developers think it should be, rather than what each of us, individually, want it to be for us.

This is a game where it will take you as much real time to sail 5 tiles as it does to drive to your next big city.
This is a game where, to breed a tier 3 creature, requires a 4 day, real time, marathon with intense focus.

These are time investments that would typically feel cumbersome, but we do them, we've adapted to them, some of us appreciate they are not easy because we feel a sense of genuine accomplishment and real progress.

But they're taking these things away. They're doing so in a manner that makes no real sense in the context of the game except to make a difficult, time consuming, long term committment of a game even harder but with less reward.

Nerfing tames was their first step last night in sabotaging how we play the game. I had a level 11 Army of the Damned drop down from a finger rock someone had been digging up a chest on. It did significant damage to my level 73 bear. This was ONE Army of the Damned. Had it been any more of the 5-12 that spawn, I'd have died, my bear would have did- just like the treasure hunter after that 73 gold common map did. This has a direct effect on the economy. Because of this deterrent, less people will want to treasure hunt meaning less passive income for Island owners who find that 20% tax actually helps cover the cost of their upkeep.

Tames are the balance of our combat experience. For every one of us that have been killed by a level 1 bee and been eternally humbled by the lack of proper scaling in this game, tames are the difference between death and survival on land.   

But spend more time at sea, they said. It'll be fun, they said.

But imagine the time, the effort, the relentless grind of harvesting materials, speccing and respeccing due to the limited available skill points, and finally building a ship only to go out ad be destroyed by a random fleet of Ships of the Damned that spawn into the radius of our boat at close proximity, either clumsily spawning in on each other or surrounding us in 360 degree circumference.  Rarely just one. Then the rain starts, 10 cyclones spawn, picking away at your person's health, at the ship, damaging everything on it. Then the passive ship decay. You're always slowly decaying at sea, both you and your ship. Your vitamins deplete faster. Then you cross a server boarder. You hang in limbo for 10 second or more. You may emerge being pummeled by more ghost ships or directly into cyclones. This perhaps after sailing for three hours and losing literally everything you've worked days to acquire, on top of your time. The risk isn't worth the reward. Not for the 19 gold a ship may drop. Not for that common thatch door blueprint. 

At a whopping 180 gigs of space, I have yet to determine what constitutes 250 tiles. Aside from a few resources easily substituted unless for mythical quality blueprints, traveling doesn't offer new experiences except a dramatic change in climate. The islands are the same with a different skin. Most of the animals across each biome are the same with a few variations in basic colors- not even patterns vary, just skin recolors. Models are repeated exhaustively, embarrassingly noticeable.  That plant could be a half a dozen looking things because while the model is the same, the harvest may be different.

The ships look the same- we all look the same. In contrast to ARK that has a plethora of skins and cosmetics to diversify and individualize our appearance, Atlas doesn't even afford us that. The texture from building? All the same. NPC towns seem to boast more robust building materials and options than we players do.

Ultimately, Atlas has decided to push up all back in progress to compensate for their lack of content at the end game. If we are forced into their linear fashion of gameplay and they extend our road, our grind, our path to progress and end game content, that provides them more time.

I took a year off, just after the implementation of the trenches and crabs. A year later I cam back and found they'd introduced Crabs and Ulfends. Nothing else really. No dramatic gameplay improvements. The same bugs that existed just after release still persist today. No quality of life or gameplay experiences, no new end game content or achievement pursuits, no new mid game content. The ongoing joke is that Atlas is a sailing simulator, and that seems to be what they're making it. Those who love the game as a foundation for something great will soon sadly realize it's potential will not be met if we move in this direction, but instead suffer at the hands of staff who clearly doesn't listen or even play their own game to understand the experiences we speak of so passionately here, or own steam, or in other mediums. We just can't get through.

I know the handicapping of Tames was the first step in further limiting our ability to progress in Atlas, which is why I'm motivated to speak out here. Sorry for the TL/DR.


 

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"the areas we think should be the most fun"
and thats the issue. you (grapeshot) are not playing the game

 

we are.

no matter what you do the land game will not go away or diminish. no matter what you add ships will be limited and insecure.

also farming taiming, mass cooking/crafting, resource storage will be on land. big bases will be needed forever and as long as they do land battles will be more profitable.

unless we get aircraft carriers that we can build huge bases on the land game will always take priority. 

the more you nerf the land game the closer you get to the end of life for this game

 

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the tames issue is a bug they said they will fix it later. they are very busy with there cashcow ark right now. this game is on the back burner for now.

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What are you doing while out at sea?  Mostly traveling.  They are literally saying they want you to spend MORE time getting to where you're going to do stuff.

Other than traveling?  Maybe fighting SotD (but mostly avoiding them because it takes so long to get from Point A to Point B).  Maybe picking up some crates.  You might stop to loot a ship wreck.  You might on very rare occasion flight someone at sea.  You might hunt some whales.

Though there are some people who spent a lot of time at sea.  Those people who do nothing but sail around and sink parked ships.  (Really devs, you want MORE people spending MORE time doing that?)

 

Not only do the Devs not play their own game, they especially don't play off official servers.  So maybe they should find ways to solve the problems that ACTUAL PLAYERS have and STFU about their vague notion of what they think people should like.  

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On 2/7/2020 at 6:18 PM, phaylen said:

The roadmap attempt to intercept our self made goals and forcibly divert our play style into what the developers think it should be, rather than what each of us, individually, want it to be for us.

This is a game where it will take you as much real time to sail 5 tiles as it does to drive to your next big city.
This is a game where, to breed a tier 3 creature, requires a 4 day, real time, marathon with intense focus.

These are time investments that would typically feel cumbersome, but we do them, we've adapted to them, some of us appreciate they are not easy because we feel a sense of genuine accomplishment and real progress.

But they're taking these things away. They're doing so in a manner that makes no real sense in the context of the game except to make a difficult, time consuming, long term committment of a game even harder but with less reward.

 

"we do them" you mean the  6.4% remaining ATLAS population? if i wanted to play most of the time in land i would go to one of the several survivals that take place on land, if i wanted a tame simulator i would go to a tame simulator, what they are proposing makes total sense with what the game was suposed to be from the very beggining, you cannot call a plastic bottle "cup" just because you drink coffe on it.

and dont get me wrong i am not defending this scummy developers, but for once what they are trying to do makes sense, unlike the absurd "decay timers" some random idiot decided to implement.

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1 hour ago, The D Legacy said:

 

"we do them" you mean the  6.4% remaining ATLAS population? if i wanted to play most of the time in land i would go to one of the several survivals that take place on land, if i wanted a tame simulator i would go to a tame simulator, what they are proposing makes total sense with what the game was suposed to be from the very beggining, you cannot call a plastic bottle "cup" just because you drink coffe on it.

and dont get me wrong i am not defending this scummy developers, but for once what they are trying to do makes sense, unlike the absurd "decay timers" some random idiot decided to implement.

I don't know why people insist that the game has to be exclusively about ships or about tames.  It's very simple, tames for land, ships for sea.  That's why there are no sea mounts and the only flying mount is temporary.  Just because YOU don't want tames doesn't mean the majority don't.  After all, the tames are want make this game different from many land survival games and will keep the game different from most ship featured games.

Though you do hit on something, even if you don't mean to.  The devs really don't know how to make the game something more than a survival game.  (I don't want to get arid of the survival game aspect, they need to think of a larger picture).

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9 hours ago, Slash78 said:

I don't know why people insist that the game has to be exclusively about ships or about tames.  It's very simple, tames for land, ships for sea.  That's why there are no sea mounts and the only flying mount is temporary.  Just because YOU don't want tames doesn't mean the majority don't.  After all, the tames are want make this game different from many land survival games and will keep the game different from most ship featured games.

Though you do hit on something, even if you don't mean to.  The devs really don't know how to make the game something more than a survival game.  (I don't want to get arid of the survival game aspect, they need to think of a larger picture).

when did i say i dont want ANY tame in the game? what i said is that i dont want ATLAS to force you to have a tame for every activity there is, you need tames for resources, for fighting, for treasures,  even for fucking weather conditions, wich is not a problemm itself the problem is that you have no real alternatives for those who dont like this taming system, maybe i wouldnt mind that much if the game was properly designed, but the reality is that is not.

that said,  i will never play this game ever again as long as there is a decay system in it.

 

 

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The roadmap was nothing but a last low budget PR attempt to string us all along a bit longer. It reminded me a lot of those "shit, i have a PP presentation tomorrow morning" burning the midnight oil situations. 

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16 hours ago, The D Legacy said:

when did i say i dont want ANY tame in the game? what i said is that i dont want ATLAS to force you to have a tame for every activity there is, you need tames for resources, for fighting, for treasures,  even for fucking weather conditions, wich is not a problemm itself the problem is that you have no real alternatives for those who dont like this taming system, maybe i wouldnt mind that much if the game was properly designed, but the reality is that is not.

that said,  i will never play this game ever again as long as there is a decay system in it.

 

 

Usually the "more time at sea/on boats" crowd does want tames removed.  That somehow become at Sea of Thieves clone will help this game out (it won't).

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13 hours ago, Slash78 said:

Usually the "more time at sea/on boats" crowd does want tames removed.  That somehow become at Sea of Thieves clone will help this game out (it won't).

and being an ARK clone will? honestly ATLAS shouldnt be copying neither one nor the other. but hey new world is just around the corner so they can do w/e they want with this game as far as i care.

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5 hours ago, The D Legacy said:

and being an ARK clone will? honestly ATLAS shouldnt be copying neither one nor the other. but hey new world is just around the corner so they can do w/e they want with this game as far as i care.

Do they even have ships in that game?  It looks like a prettier version on Conan: Exiles.

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They don't seem to understand the concept "emergent gameplay."

Just look at the resources wasted on the Kracken and the Ice Cave. You do them once, done, no reward for doing them beyond that. They seem to think oh, who cares? Well, the problem isn't the lack of the reward, it's the lack of emergent gameplay that comes along with it.

No one is going to fight over Kracken or Ice Cave because it's just a grind to get torpedoes and subs... and we have to get back to grinding maps like it's a fing job so that hopefully somewhere in there we can go grief someone for content.

Same could be said about the hydra or dragon bosses. Killing them is pointless when mythical blueprints are in such short supply the entire Atlas economy runs on handling sail and shipyard BPs.

Edited by Bleakwise

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14 minutes ago, Bleakwise said:

They don't seem to understand the concept "emergent gameplay."

Just look at the resources wasted on the Kracken and the Ice Cave. You do them once, done, no reward for doing them beyond that. They seem to think oh, who cares? Well, the problem isn't the lack of the reward, it's the lack of emergent gameplay that comes along with it.

No one is going to fight over Kracken or Ice Cave because it's just a grind to get torpedoes and subs... and we have to get back to grinding maps like it's a fing job so that hopefully somewhere in there we can go grief someone for content.

Same could be said about the hydra or dragon bosses. Killing them is pointless when mythical blueprints are in such short supply the entire Atlas economy runs on handling sail and shipyard BPs.

Emergent Gameplay is difficult when every time you log back on your ship is sunk, tames are dead and base has been wiped.  But that's the gameplay they encourage.

They do support the RP community (both Ark and Atlas) and the game wasn't made with roleplaying in mind.  There is an irony that's totally lost on the game devs though.  That is their game can only really be "fixed" using both mods and server specific rules to deter the behavior that chase most people from the game.

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All of my bases have lasted though seasons so far, tho this season it looks like SDC may wipe us.

By emergent gameplay I mean, add a player based "mission" system, make golden age ruins farmable via groups of players/tames (who will run into eachother) etc.

So far the only "emergent gameplay" is pvp that breaks out in golden age waters while farming SOTD, and when mapping. That's it.

Make the kraken give you 10k gold divided up by boat, bunch of blueprints and shit, and people will slaughter each-other in H8 in a battle royal. I might actually even build boats for that.

Make golden age mobs drop like 100-250 gold, make them farmable via razortooth and tortuga and crab, and ballista bears or something, and people will fight over the opportunity. Would make for some interesting land battles.

 

Edited by Bleakwise

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1 minute ago, Bleakwise said:

All of my bases have lasted though seasons so far, tho this season it looks like SDC may wipe us.

By emergent gameplay I mean, add a player based "mission" system, make golden age ruins farmable via groups of players/tames (who will run into eachother) etc.

So far the only "emergent gameplay" is pvp that breaks out in golden age waters while farming SOTD, and when mapping. That's it.

Make the kraken give you 10k gold divided up by boat, bunch of blueprints and shit, and people will slaughter each-other in H8 in a battle royal. I might actually even build boats for that.

"Emergent Gameplay" would be you organizing it yourself.  The definition is players playing the game in ways Devs didn't intend or didn't expect.  If the devs add a system, then that's the opposite of "emergent gameplay".

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What you're talking about is some crazy match of D&D on a blank sheet of paper.

It's no different than having resource nodes. You can't just wipe the game down to a blank screen and call it a sandbox with "limitless emergent gameplay" cause it has a blank screen you can stare at on acid.

Edited by Bleakwise

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1 minute ago, Bleakwise said:

What you're talking about is some crazy match of D&D on a blank sheet of paper.

It's no different than having resource nodes. You can't just wipe the game down to a blank screen and call it a sandbox with "limitless emergent gameplay" cause it has a blank screen you can stare at on acid.

Emergent Gameplay

Quote

 

Emergent gameplay refers to anything discovered by game players that wasn't explicitly planned and designed by a game's creators. When someone says a game is broken, they are usually talking about glitches and bugs that game developers didn't catch but that players did. This is emergent gameplay

IF the devs come up with a mission system, then it is NOT emergent gameplay.

And about you being weird about RP, I have no idea what that's about.

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You havea  different definition of emergent gameplay than I do.

I have to disagree with GameCrate on that. Since we're using Google, the Wikipedia version is better....
 

Quote

"Emergent gameplay refers to complex situations in video games, board games, or table top role-playing games that emerge from the interaction of relatively simple game mechanics.[1]"

 

Edited by Bleakwise

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IE having the kracken drop 10k gold (not a lot) is a relatively simple mechanic, as a result you would have large naval battles instead of people just doing harbor runs and screaming "get gud" at each-other all day as opposed to H8 being a PVE zone even on PVP servers.

I would also scrap the whole golden compass idea. It's just a time sink, and time sinks are very ineffective ways to get people to want to support your game. Sure maybe it can work in a game like Skyrim or Risen, but this is not a campaign story driven game with deep lore that is going to have novels and movies written and made about it.

I have no idea why they are trying to compete with WOW and TESO on this front, both in Ark and Atlas. Hell, I would argue Ark was better before they started twisting game-play around a story.

I would guess they will probably make the game PVE at some point, there will be a small spike in sales and then a steep decline, and they are going to be left scratching their head why simply making half the zones (a very minor budget change that skiddies do on modded servers) PVE didn't line their pockets with gold, same way UOGamers has more players than the official servers for EA's other "sandbox" game.

Also, instead of all this "limited company and alliances" crap, it needs is an /lfg function, and better rank/access mechanics. A new player should be able to jump right into the big company/alliance wars. That was all it needed back in Season one as well. I actually liked that better because ships were either blue or red, now there is so much "teaming" nobody pvps because out of game alliances extend beyond what the game allows. The new player experience has gotten worse for it, and there is less eve-like drama.

Now we're talking about adding factions and shit, when the game had that already in season one, and people shouldn't have to turn to social media in order to find a group of people to play with, honestly, most people are not going to sign up for reddit or join a forum to play an MMORPG nor should they be expected to.

Edited by Bleakwise

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Why would people be fighting naval battles over the Kraken again?  And if there are people at one golden age ruin, why would people say and fight instead of just go somewhere else?  Why would people even bother?

 

Personally they shouldn't try to compete with the likes of WoW or EvE.

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20 hours ago, Slash78 said:

Do they even have ships in that game?  It looks like a prettier version on Conan: Exiles.

most likely not, wich is sad, but they also dont have a decay system, wich is great

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29 minutes ago, The D Legacy said:

most likely not, wich is sad, but they also dont have a decay system, wich is great

From what I've seen of New World in videos, the closest you get to ships is that you arrive in the game with your ship sinking and you are left on the beach to figure out what to do next. Some people compare it to Skyrim (never played that game). As far as I can see, it really doesn't compare to Atlas as far as game play goes. People here just seem bored as nothing new has dropped in Atlas in awhile and they have nothing better to talk about 😀

If they add unofficial servers to New World, I'll probably give it a try. I normally don't play PvP, but it isn't looking like it will be the typical PvP game. It is looking like it might be a bit grindy, so I doubt I would play on the official servers.

Edited by wildbill

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2 minutes ago, wildbill said:

From what I've seen of New World in videos, the closest you get to ships is that you arrive in the game with your ship sinking and you are left on the beach to figure out what to do next. Some people compare it to Skyrim (never played that game). As far as I can see, it really doesn't compare to Atlas as far as game play goes. People here just seem bored as nothing new has dropped in Atlas in awhile and they have nothing better to talk about 😀

what reason aside from the boats do i have to playing ATLAS instead tho? none. new world will have better graphics, better optimization, bigger money investment, wiser management (wich is already showing in the decisions they are taking) in other words the only ATLAS's appealing is boats, wich has not even been expanded, even after more than 1 year of early access we have the same 4 types of boats we have had from the very first day.

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3 hours ago, wildbill said:

From what I've seen of New World in videos, the closest you get to ships is that you arrive in the game with your ship sinking and you are left on the beach to figure out what to do next. Some people compare it to Skyrim (never played that game). As far as I can see, it really doesn't compare to Atlas as far as game play goes. People here just seem bored as nothing new has dropped in Atlas in awhile and they have nothing better to talk about 😀

If they add unofficial servers to New World, I'll probably give it a try. I normally don't play PvP, but it isn't looking like it will be the typical PvP game. It is looking like it might be a bit grindy, so I doubt I would play on the official servers.

I think New World is more along the lines of Elderscrolls Online if you have played that but yes SkyRim is siimilar also.

As far as I know it has crafting and buying homes, I don't think you can actually build these homes yourself although I wish/hope you can, I think you buy set properties.

You are right, it is nothing like Atlas, it is a totally different game but many players will no doubt leave to play it because of no content in Atlas anymore. The devs are backed by the richest man in the world, AKA Amazon. If I was to put money on which game will improve the most out of Atlas or New World you would have a safe bet in New World.

Some people might not like the type of game though but as far as I can see they have changed things since testing with community feedback, Atlas wouldn't know where to start and hasn't listened to a word people have said. As long as the big PVP companies are liking it though eh? That's all they are worried about. They have misjudged the community and lost out on what could have been a great game.

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58 minutes ago, DannyUK said:

I think New World is more along the lines of Elderscrolls Online if you have played that but yes SkyRim is siimilar also.

As far as I know it has crafting and buying homes, I don't think you can actually build these homes yourself although I wish/hope you can, I think you buy set properties.

You are right, it is nothing like Atlas, it is a totally different game but many players will no doubt leave to play it because of no content in Atlas anymore. The devs are backed by the richest man in the world, AKA Amazon. If I was to put money on which game will improve the most out of Atlas or New World you would have a safe bet in New World.

Some people might not like the type of game though but as far as I can see they have changed things since testing with community feedback, Atlas wouldn't know where to start and hasn't listened to a word people have said. As long as the big PVP companies are liking it though eh? That's all they are worried about. They have misjudged the community and lost out on what could have been a great game.

I watched a video about buying a home in a city. I didn't quite understand it, but they talked about the home being "offline" when you are not logged in. That multiple people could buy the same home and all use it and never see the other people that use it or their furnishings and decorations. I've never played a game that does that, so I'll have to see it to understand how it works.

New World is like Atlas in one way. They pissed off a bunch of PvP players when they let them try the game and then based on seeing them play and other feedback, removed some of the PvP features. Now they will have the trolls in the forums bad mouthing the game even if they are not playing the game, same as Atlas has 😀

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