PVE Claim Flag Still Broken - An Atlas Core Requirement Doesn't Work

[Phantomstrk 8]

So to start, I’ve played Ark for a long long time and I am a big fan of this developer.  But right now the PVE Claim system just like the rest of Atlas is broken, and that is a serious problem for anyone who is trying this game out, as Land Claim and the system is at the heart of how you get started in this game.

The first problem Is that players and Companies have an unlimited supply of claim flags, which is beyond understanding.  There should be a cap on the number of claim flags a player can place without having a previous land claim becoming unclaimed and open if they want to place it.  There are a couple of ways you can cap this, either by limiting the amount of flags a player can place per grid coordinate, or by a total cap for the world.  Right now you have solo players capping islands totally for themselves.

The biggest issue, however, is the claim flag system and the supposed “72 hour timer”.  I say supposed because it does not work or is so unreliable that you are better off assuming that it doesn’t work at all. This means if you want to keep the progress you have made, you will have to stay online 24/7 as you must be the one to refresh your claim flag, a company member’s presence won’t refresh your claim flag…we’ve tested it…. has to be the flag owner.

Here is an example.  We had flags placed since the 72-hour window came into effect.  Owners visit all their flags when they log in for the day and before we log out for the night we revisit all the flags.  However, when I woke up this morning, I found that 2 of my flags that I had placed and visited last night before I logged off (approx. 8 hours before) the land had been stolen.  How is that possible, given that the 2 flags I’m talking about here were placed after the 72-hour window came into effect. That’s how we got them in the first place.  As a result, we have lost an amazing amount of progress because we had a lot of assets in that area that are now gone.

Land Claim and the decay system are at the core of the game.  It’s a pillar of the progression system that sets you up to be able to explore the world, test the systems, see the environment, etc.  When this system is fundamentally broken / not working, then really they might as well just wipe the servers every night, because that’s the risk you run when you log out for the day now, you run the risk that your stuff can be stolen in 30 mins, even though the “72 hour system” is supposed to be in effect.

The rest of atlas has a lot of issues and while it’s early access, if the development team can’t fundamentally and properly put in place the system which makes up one of the core pillars of the game, then the game should be taken back down, and they should ensure that this get’s fixed before they have had players waste time and effort playing their game.  This isn’t an example of a bug where a ghost ship couldn’t be damaged, or they weren’t spawning, this is a massive issue where your progress in the game is wiped out and can be wiped out in 30 minutes, because they can’t implement a claim system properly.

I’ve been a huge supporter of this developer since Ark. Bought ark when it first came out, and while there were bugs with that on launch, there was nothing about the core of the game that was at issue.  In Atlas, the biggest challenge I’ve had is rolling the dice every morning and logging in to see if we still have our progress from the day before or have the players managed to steal and grief on a PVE server.

It’s amazing that the Dev’s are so quiet on this issue, you can hear a pin drop. They won’t respond because they know the system is busted, they have 0 idea how to fix it, so they would rather ignore it.  For a moment I thought they were owned by Activision Blizzard, as they do the same thing.

Claim system should be as follows:

Players get 2-3 Claim flags per zone or total overall.

Companies get a max claim flag per zone overall or a tiered system depending on how many persons in the company, but even then so many flags per zone.  Because the point of the game is exploring so you want to build outposts, and need some flags to do that.

Land Claim area should not allow another flag to be placed down if the circumference of the land claim would intersect or overlap with an existing land claim of another tribe. This might mean there would be “unclaimed” gaps between land claims but so be it.  That would be “tax free” areas in a sense.

Upkeep of land claims should require resources which can be paid to the claim and the resources required would increase based on the required upkeep depending on how many flags you have placed.  Any company member should be allowed to pay this upkeep. Reason for this, if you go on vacation for 2 weeks, you don’t want to come back and see all your stuff gone.  Unless Atlas is saying they want people sharing their account info with others in order for friends to keep their claim flags refreshed.

Claim flags should not be allowed to be placed in floating barrels in the water beyond a certain range from shore.  While deep water is required for the construction of some vessels, having land claim flags out in the middle of the ocean is silly at best.  Need to re-adjust this.

Allow Alliance members to build on land claims that can be designated as Alliance build friendly, and allow the option if you are in multiple alliances to set which alliance you want to allow to build in there.  This would promote making land available to newer players who may come in once a lot of land is taken, and players could “tax” those new players for living on their land.  Companies could create “new player” alliances that allow members to build on claims they authorize.

 

Without some immediate and serious corrections to both the Land Claim decay rate issue and Land Claims overall, the amount of negative press because of core issues like this in this game will override any hopes of positive PR they hope to get going forward.  I really hope they turn it around, but evidence has shown they aren’t really interested in getting to the heart of this issue….

Edited December 30, 2018 by Phantomstrk

[James_32 4]

You have to replace your old flag with a new for the 72hr. Or people will claim you over and over. The old flags apparently only last 30mins and did not upgrade right.

[Phantomstrk 8]

2 minutes ago, James_32 said:

You have to replace your old flag with a new for the 72hr. Or people will claim you over and over. The old flags apparently only last 30mins and did not upgrade right.

It was a new flag that was placed after the 72 hour patch came in.  As i said in my post, that's how we got the land in the first place, another flag decayed out after 72 hours, and we placed ours.  So again, the system doesn't work.

3 minutes ago, James_32 said:

You have to replace your old flag with a new for the 72hr. Or people will claim you over and over. The old flags apparently only last 30mins and did not upgrade right.

Also, where was the post from the dev's stating this had to be done ?  I've asked numerous times on twitter and gotten 0 response from them.