Designs Oversight Adjustments- Comprehensive List

[GunnyTheGrey 27]

A list of feedback on design choices (not bugs) that seem inappropriate and how some can be better adjusted. The HIGHEST PRIORITY PROBLEMS will be listed in BOLD text, beginning with an asterisk (*), otherwise all will be sorted by category:

===RESOURCES===

(*) 1- RESOURCE EXCLUSIVITY- Some resources are far too rare. Take turnips as an example. 3 players, each utilizing 1 claim flag of space, can eradicate the population of turnips for the entire world. Even if you expected us to take day-long journeys to farm these for taming rhinos, potential extinction of a given resource should never be so easy to accomplish when a game world is this large.

 

===EXPLORATION===

1- BORDER PATROL- Ghost ships have a habit of camping at borders. Crossing into a region leads to 6 ships you could not have seen being right on top of you. We've been "prepping for customs"  by entering war mode before each boundary line, and at times send scouts ahead on dinghys to confirm enemy presence, but Ghost ship presence at border after loading through is far too heavy and common. Mechanics exist for "teleportation" of off-route NPCs through Extinction release: Should consider use of these with ghost ships on boundaries/islands who have been out of combat for a period of time (50 seconds.) Applied when exiting stasis before allowed to enter combat, otherwise fleeing across border leaves same problem for next traveller.

2- Bigger ships are better in every way. Faster, stronger, larger, more weight, etc. Specific advantages should be considered for non-Galleons, as cost should not be the only concern when considering new ships. Players may struggle to build Galleons now, but as they play and learn, we'll see a monopoly of one ship everywhere. Consider Ark, and the various reasons to have multiple different species tamed: Here, everyone just aims for Galleon and all else is just because we're too cheap to make one yet.

===COMBAT (PvE)===

1- Ghost ships can be solo hatcheted to death. Defense against players not on ships in order.

===COMBAT (PvP)===

(*) 1- PLAYER SHIP SINKING- Mechanics designed to control rate of progression are too easily exploited in both PvE and PvP game modes as ways to destroy enemy ships. Enemy players can simply "overcrew" or overencumber your ships, and prevention of this is a dauntingly time consuming task, while doing it is easy even for a solo player at level 1.

2- Climbing picks being used to pass through windows, while also being unable to lock structures inside, makes the entire existance of windows problematic. Structure locking should be universal.

3- Hatchet rushing enemy Galleons is faster/cheaper than actually fighting them. Hand tool effectiveness against panels should be adjusted, to encourage actual ship battles.

===TERRITORY CONTROL===

(*)1- CLAIM FLAGS- Far too exploitable. I've taken territory by use of sleeping tribemates who I placed inside 1x1 FOBs. Same for defense. This entire system needs a rework, as no simple solutions come to mind when relying upon the existing structure. Additionally, on Official PvE, claim spam is out of control, suggesting that PvE flags should be far more limited in number per company.

2- Lawless territories seem temporarily mandatory for freeport stability due to initial launch having higher player yields than expected. But the more time that passes, the more cluttered these regions become, the more unstable the servers become. A plan of action needs to be outlined for how long these regions will remain as potential spawn zones that considers the behaviors of players to date.

 

3- Orbit camera interrupts "claim notifications." As such, any player that uses it may not be notified of a claim currently being contested. Tribe log should show contests in progress.

===TAMING===

1- Creature AI is in need of some love. Every fight becomes "Jousting" or simply continuing to hit the same thing as it pushes you backwards. No further variety exists to the creature AI that I have noticed.

2- Solo Taming certain creatures is dependant upon glitch exploiting. The shooter who downs a rhino cannot get close to it's head, and thus cannot tame it, unless they exploit existing collision issues (which a great deal of former Ark players are already familiar with, so it doesn't deny solo taming of Tier 3s, just makes them glitch reliant.) Whether this is intentional to prevent solo taming (without exploitation) or just an oversight, a discussion about the mechanics is well needed to acknowledge the reality that these exploits do exist and will be used, so perhaps solo-friendly design that isn't glitch-dependant may be in order.

===STABILITY===

1- Right Click & Numpad + opens camera on compass, which players are unable to close. Needs keybind to reset.

2- Rebinding to Left CTRL prevents melee blocking. Block needs specific keybind option.

Edited December 31, 2018 by GunnyTheGrey

[TrevorJD 117]

Hah! I wish it was like jousting. At the moment it's just me standing still and flailing wildly while the animal teleports all around me. If one of us hits the other, it's sheer dumb luck rather than "advanced tactical combat".

Something funnysad is watching my wolf trying to eat a carcass. He just keeps warping towards it, only to have momentum make him overshoot then he warps back the other way. If the idiot mongrel learned to walk to his dinner, he'd go hungry less often!

I like your points, Gunny. All of them.

[GunnyTheGrey 27]

2 minutes ago, TrevorJD said:

Hah! I wish it was like jousting. At the moment it's just me standing still and flailing wildly while the animal teleports all around me. If one of us hits the other, it's sheer dumb luck rather than "advanced tactical combat".

Walk forward during the whole fight. You teleport through the creature, then hit it behind you. Won a lot of fish fights with elephants this way. it's certainly a glitch fest atm, but if you want to be the reigning king of boxing.... Hold that W key.

*Edit: Was going to correct "fish fights" then realized this is a pirate game with drinking.. So nvm.

Edited December 31, 2018 by GunnyTheGrey