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Nari

Claiming: My Rebuttal

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Yet another thread on the matter however I'd like to point out a few reason why claiming isn't quite as broken as you might think.

Disregarding bug/exploits because this is EA and the game has only been available for just over a week (that's not an excuse it's a fact) and they don't fall under Intended By Design.

 

1: Protection. The protection system may or may not be working as intended, we don't know for sure because nothing official has been posted, but as it currently stands the PvE protection system is functional. If you successfully place or steal a claim it will be protected for 3 days (again disregarding bugs/exploits as they should get patched eventually). Before those 3 days pass you must replace your flag to reset upkeep regardless of "activity." Is this intended? Only GS knows.

2: Flag spam. This ties into #1. If you didn't have to replace flags then this issue would be far worse than it currently is. I read complaints about Small companies vs Big, Solo vs the World, and they all share one thing in common. "You should not be able to spam claims because you can claim an entire island/region." Here is the flaw with that logic - 6 flags requires a minimum of 1 hour to reset upkeep. If you want to protect your spam then that's all you will be doing solo or not. Forget actually playing the game your time will be spent watching 10min timers. Sounds Fun! Otherwise 3day protection will drop and the land is fair game. This is why I think protection is intended as just that 3 day protection.

3. Fast Travel. I also see many complaints about losing sleep or not being able to set sail because of fears that your land/base will be claimed. Well assuming the aforementioned bugs/exploits are patched than even this isn't an issue because you can simply fast travel via a bed when contested.

4. Taxes. If you can't claim or contest in PvE then why include taxes? The game seems be compared best to ARK/EVE Online. Both heavily emphasize controlling territory be it green circles or player drawn borders. Taxing is an added mechanic and BENEFIT to controlling and contesting land. But maybe I'm out of line and better off in PvP concerning taxes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Now you're probably thinking this can be fixed with a flag cap, and maybe that's true, but I could not disagree more. IMHO This would limit game play in more ways than I think most people realize. You will be limited to ONE spot on quite a large map. Fast travel becomes pointless. So does Taxation, and it wouldn't actually solve anything other than spam which is redundant. Refer back to #2. Large companies will still claim swaths of land meanwhile the little guys/solo get screwed. Again, in my opinion, this is not a solution!

 

With that said I'll digress and leave you with a few things legitimately wrong with the system and proposed solutions starting with claiming itself in PvE.

Provide the option to set 1 land claim as your company Capital that can only be contested if truly inactive (log in requirement). Overlap: Either don't allow it or mask the overlap creating a border. Water claims right against the shore. The AoE is far to large to allow this and is the main source of overlap use the Distance From Shore variable to restrict this. Upkeep isn't visible to the company who owns the claim. The claim upkeep counter displays negative seconds and counts further away from 0. GS your poor communication about Protection mislead people and only created confusion. The Bugs and Exploits allowing others to steal land when they shouldn't be able to under these restrictions only makes it worse.

Edited by Nari
typos & elaboration
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5 hours ago, Nari said:

1: Protection. The protection system may or may not be working as intended, we don't know for sure because nothing official has been posted, but as it currently stands the PvE protection system is functional. If you successfully place or steal a claim it will be protected for 3 days (again disregarding bugs/exploits as they should get patched eventually). Before those 3 days pass you must replace your flag to reset upkeep regardless of "activity." Is this intended? Only GS knows.

Sorry to say, but this looks like straight out bug. 3 days from last login i can understand. But redoing flag every 3 day? In even modestly traveled location? This is bullshit, not 10 minutes but few hours + hell lot of problems.

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And i can say the 3 day protection dosnt work refreshed my flags yesterday and in 10 hr someone already had stolen my shipyard .

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And if you think that was bad they were even claiming my building and even standing next to it wasnt stopping the claim so i warned them to remove it or il go sink the schooner they have . Lets just say they didnt listen to me and lost a schooner . I hope it was worth it for them cause i demolished my stone building to get the materials for sinking it,   so they only got 2 small flag pieces of land while losing a schooner. Not my proudest moment for having to use a broken system but if others want to play dirty i can as well. 

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1 hour ago, Elrood said:

Sorry to say, but this looks like straight out bug. 3 days from last login i can understand. But redoing flag every 3 day? In even modestly traveled location? This is bullshit, not 10 minutes but few hours + hell lot of problems.

It very well could be and if it is I fully accept that. Until an official statement is made or an alternative solution to protected spam is implemented I'm choosing to believe its not. It's paid off so far.

Edited by Nari

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1 hour ago, JackTheWack said:

And if you think that was bad they were even claiming my building and even standing next to it wasnt stopping the claim so i warned them to remove it or il go sink the schooner they have . Lets just say they didnt listen to me and lost a schooner . I hope it was worth it for them cause i demolished my stone building to get the materials for sinking it,   so they only got 2 small flag pieces of land while losing a schooner. Not my proudest moment for having to use a broken system but if others want to play dirty i can as well. 

This is a bug or exploit. I've canceled contested claims multiple times. Even had land stolen and tried to reclaim. Guess what, wouldn't let me for 3 days. The land is now reclaimed.

Edited by Nari

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7 hours ago, Nari said:

Yet another thread on the matter however I'd like to point out a few reason why claiming isn't quite as broken as you might think.

Disregarding bug/exploits because this is EA and the game has only been available for just over a week (that's not an excuse it's a fact) and they don't fall under Intended By Design.

 

1: Protection. The protection system may or may not be working as intended, we don't know for sure because nothing official has been posted, but as it currently stands the PvE protection system is functional. If you successfully place or steal a claim it will be protected for 3 days (again disregarding bugs/exploits as they should get patched eventually). Before those 3 days pass you must replace your flag to reset upkeep regardless of "activity." Is this intended? Only GS knows.

2: Flag spam. This ties into #1. If you didn't have to replace flags then this issue would be far worse than it currently is. I read complaints about Small companies vs Big, Solo vs the World, and they all share one thing in common. "You should not be able to spam claims because you can claim an entire island/region." Here is the flaw with that logic - 6 flags requires a minimum of 1 hour to reset upkeep. If you want to protect your spam then that's all you will be doing solo or not. Forget actually playing the game your time will be spent watching 10min timers. Sounds Fun! Otherwise 3day protection will drop and the land is fair game. This is why I think protection is intended as just that 3 day protection.

 

i dont believe this is intended , as once u get an overlap YOU CANNOT  replace the flag and have to hope its one that overlaps where u log out , 

THE TIMERS ARE 3 DAYS FAIR ENOUGH BUT MAKE THEM REFRESH IF YOU ARE ACTIVE IN THE AREA , this is the intended mechanic, then if no activity for 3 days then they are fair game and claimable , but as u rightly say the devs really need to post something about this , meant to be  game not thinking when i log in is my base still there

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Your fast travel claim is not accurate either. You can still build on e.g. lawless territories and place beds there.

I don't see any reason why there should be a tax system on PvE.

One solution for the flag claiming would be progressive decay timer system. You would be able to place more flags, but the time needed to steal the territory would decrease for every flag. At a certain amount of flags it would decrease drastically (to minutes), eliminating griefing. Please note that if you only have one flag, you'll be looking at 2-3 days. This idea needs polishing and testing, but as far as I can see it would make the PvE servers a lot healthier.

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45 minutes ago, Psykonalle said:

Your fast travel claim is not accurate either. You can still build on e.g. lawless territories and place beds there.

Not quite sure what you're saying. You can't claim in lawless. Also, yea you can build but you can't spawn at beds that are not in your territory only on your raft/ship.

Edited by Nari

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6 minutes ago, Nari said:

Not quite sure what you're saying. You can't claim in lawless, yea you can build but you can't spawn at beds not in your territory or on your raft/ship.

You can spawn in beds on your ship/raft.

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2 minutes ago, Psykonalle said:

You can spawn in beds on your ship/raft.

My wording was poor hence the edit. How does this have anything to do with contesting claims?

Edited by Nari

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21 minutes ago, Nari said:

My wording was poor hence the edit. How does this have anything to do with contesting claims?

My apologies! I had to read the text a few times to understand what you really meant. Seems like we agree on this point!

You say the tax system is supposed to benefit both parts. What would be the benefit for the tax payer on PvE? On PvP it's easy: You pay taxes to a megatribe that no one wishes to contest. This gives you protection. Because there is no PvPing on a PvE server, this doesn't apply here. That being said, I think the tax system should be completely removed from PvE, and as I mentioned, to eliminate griefers efficiently, the amount of claims should affect the contesting timer. What do you think about this idea? Any flaws?

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3 minutes ago, Psykonalle said:

You say the tax system is supposed to benefit both parts. What would be the benefit for the tax payer on PvE?

Benefit to the payer? None really, but it provides incentive to control and contest territory. I imagine the economy is going to end up a much bigger part of PvE than PvP down the line. Taxation and territory are assets. But I'm not really going to defend the notion that it should or must be a part of PvE. Just pointing out that it is a mechanic that is much more than a tax. Claims/BP Mats/Diplomacy are just some reasons to keep taxes.

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3 minutes ago, Nari said:

Benefit to the payer? None really, but it provides incentive to control and contest territory. I imagine the economy is going to end up a much bigger part of PvE than PvP down the line. Taxation and territory are assets. But I'm not really going to defend the notion that it should or must be a part of PvE. Just pointing out that it is a mechanic that is much more than a tax. Claims/BP Mats/Diplomacy are just some reasons to keep taxes.

If I understand this correctly, you say people will trade their territories for BPs, mats, or anything else of value?

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Just now, Psykonalle said:

If I understand this correctly, you say people will trade their territories for BPs, mats, or anything else of value?

If I control claims in a few different biomes and tax them I can essentially get free mats (or free labor depending how you see it) for BP's that require multiple base resources. 2x/3x/4x/5x. Territory can also be used as a commodity though. Watched a company trade a claim for fiber earlier today.

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to the OP: your points are valid. 

YET a claim limit should still be done and the mechanics behind it should work as intended.


you mentioned EVE online; there you have to not only physically defend your territory, you also have to pay upkeep to keep your systems. you have to invest heavily in building structures to not only claim or contest, but also improve systems. 

the combination of both upkeep and physical presence in terms of "being able to defend contestion" makes empires that spread out too far hard to defend and impossivble for small groups. 


in Atlas, all we have to do is plant a flag, set up a foundation, then build beds everywhere. fast travel EVERYWHERE. which is a lame mechanic in itself imho. but I regress

it was already proposed and could easily be implemented in my opinion:

1 claim per person. done. just a hard limit. 

claims cost upkeep. personal ones only ressources. company claims also gold. 

1 claim per company (with a much bigger radius).
so single players can form 1 man companies (like they allready do ) and claim more land, but they would still be limited. UNLESS

they spend skillpoints on a "colonization and governement" skill tree (not in game yet unfortunately). the benfits are mostly for companies. so not very efficient to invest into it as a single player.  

these skills would allow you to 

- increase claim radius (fist level cheap, the bigge radius the much more costly the skill)

- allow multiple claims (even not connected ones) 

- reduce ressource costs of upkeep 

- reduce gold costs of upkeep

maybe even set up trade posts, wharfs and repair docks... bounty offices, etc. so all the stuff we would need to have a functioning player driven economy. 

that way larger companies can still expand. smaller ones most likely will not because of costs in upkeep, gold and skillpoints. 

 

 

 

17 minutes ago, Nari said:

If I control claims in a few different biomes and tax them I can essentially get free mats (or free labor depending how you see it) for BP's that require multiple base resources. 2x/3x/4x/5x. Territory can also be used as a commodity though. Watched a company trade a claim for fiber earlier today.

withthe current drop rates that will be a thing od the past. 
i think what most people dont kow is how taxes work in atlas. they think "i have to farm, and I get less stuff" while in fact the person working gets almost hir normal harvest while the taxing company also gets free mats. we were on a 30% tax chinese claimed island and it was still very worthwhile harvesting there

 

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I think there are thousands of possible solutions to make the majority happy but the best ideas are often the simplest. Not to toot my own horn but I still think a Capital flag is a better solution for PvE. You're suggesting an entire rework of a system that will otherwise remain essentially the same on 2 of 4 official servers. Limiting the total amount of claims you can place will create more problems than it solves. Materials and/or gold for upkeep complicates things even further and people are already confused enough because all we got was a one liner in the patch notes.

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only because they re not able to communicate or document the system does not make "simpler = better"

the skilltrees need a rework anyways. as does a lot of other stuff.

what is "broken" does not need polishing. it needs repairing. or a rework. 

 

I think they put in a claim system without really thinking it through. same with the skill trees, the assignement of skills per tree and specialization etc. 

and its not major but one tiny example: why should we need hand to hand combat expertise to unlock beatsmastery ? 

what does taming of animals have to do with hand to hand combat ?

why do throwing weapons unlock firearms ?

it makes literally no sense. 

and implementing building, colonizaztion and taxation etc without a tree that dedicates in expanding and upgrading colonies and politics and goverment, it just makes no sense 

I think the game itself is complicated and compex enough to merit a good claim and protection system with upkeep, skills etc. 

and if ther skilltrees need a rework to make that possible, it should be done. 

 

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My main argument is that the concept is NOT broken, but need polishing. 😆

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30 minutes ago, Nari said:

My main argument is that the concept is NOT broken, but need polishing. 😆

it might be that the vocal minority in thsi case is indeed people complaining. 

so I also agree that themwechanic itself is sound, yet it needs polishing.

still imagine tghe current system with workingmechanics.

one small companie (3 poeple) claiming all over and putting up beds everywhere. 

they can easily fast travel everywhere to prevent contesting. 

yes they wouldnt enjoy it. but some people weight-grief as well just for thits and giggles. 

 

it needs a LOT of polishing

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13 hours ago, psykikk said:

one small companie (3 poeple) claiming all over and putting up beds everywhere. 

they can easily fast travel everywhere to prevent contesting. 

yes they wouldnt enjoy it. but some people weight-grief as well just for thits and giggles. 

 

There will always be grievers. If someone objective is to find a way to mess with you, they will find it. Want to solve that specific issue? Increase the time it takes to claim from 10m back to 30 or more and raise the cool down to place another flag far beyond 15sec. Don't reinvent the wheel when so many other components rely on it.

Edit: Increase the time it takes by X minutes per claim and keep contention timers the same. Increase cool down as well.

Edited by Nari
Poor Example

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To clarify a bit. I bought ARK pretty early in EA and although I don't expect nor want "ARK but Pirates" I'm familiar with the devs and well... people shouted reskin for a reason. These mechanics won't change much from their early implementation and before you know it 2 years will pass and they will be selling you DLC.

Edited by Nari

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6 hours ago, Nari said:

Benefit to the payer? None really, but it provides incentive to control and contest territory. I imagine the economy is going to end up a much bigger part of PvE than PvP down the line. Taxation and territory are assets. But I'm not really going to defend the notion that it should or must be a part of PvE. Just pointing out that it is a mechanic that is much more than a tax. Claims/BP Mats/Diplomacy are just some reasons to keep taxes.

According to the game description (sales literature), you're supposed to be able to build towns and cities here.  I have no clue what the commerce system is supposed to be like, but if you have to travel to shops to buy things, stands to reason you have some bigger regional spots (towns , cities) with a lot of shops in them.  I'd pay taxes to be able to have a shop in a big town, and be able to have a small permanent house nearby to work from.

That's how a good game would be designed, so god knows what we'll get here.

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4 hours ago, Nari said:

To clarify a bit. I bought ARK pretty early in EA and although I don't expect nor want "ARK but Pirates" I'm familiar with the devs and well... people shouted reskin for a reason. These mechanics won't change much from their early implementation and before you know it 2 years will pass and they will be selling you DLC.

and this is exactly what I fear for. no matte rhow pretty, no matter how cool: its still Ark under the hood and its got the ark dev team behind it. 
the stuff they are adressing right now is ok. they are fixing stuff, they are pushing patches out fairly quick. 

but some issues are older than atlas and have been in ark since it was released (most prominent example that  I know of is dinos --- err animals and mobs) - glithcing through base walls and ships. 

so no matter how you construct anything, nothing inside is ever really safe at least form AI. 

 

its an U4 engine thing of not seeting up proper physics and object collision. and this after yaers of experience with ark and dev time for atlas as well. 

how hard can proper physics actually be ? haven´t  they tested anything ? i have yet to find one single AI mob that does not glitch into walls more or less.

 

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A company just claimed two of my flags. Six of their players, one of me. First flag I got the message took a raft but was to late to contest. Second flag they dropped there flag WHILE I WAS STANDING NEXT TO MINE.  Flag stayed down as contested and we had a four hour stand off before I finally gave up. Broken system. 

 

Neither of these two flags had been down anywhere near three days.

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