two wrongs aint make a right - Various suggestion on obviously broken mechanics

[FrankyFaster 1]

- Claim restrictions

This idea is not new at all, if for atlas or any other open world game with restricted place for (almost) unrestricted player counts.
The thing is, atlas has 225 (15*15) zones which can contain a maximum of 150 players (which btw sums up to 33.750 players so the devs could have advertised 'over 30k players', which is still impressive and not lie by telling people about 40k possible players, but I don't want to bring to much of a personal note into this). So there can be 150 people in one zone, but the land in those areas, even if there would be a one player one claim policy, would only allow around 10-20 players at absolute maximum to make a claim.
--> My personal suggestions:
1. claiming is for companies, and companies only. 
Of course at the moment a person can found a company for themself and would be able to claim a patch of land then being alone in their company and it wouldn't change anything at the system as it is in its current state at all. Therefor:
2. Maximum claimcount
As i stated above an isle can be claimed completely with ~10-20 claims depending on the size of the isle, I suggest a maximum claimcount of 15 per company + either one of the following: 
- 1-3 Claims can be set to be 'primeclaims', unable to be contested to garantuee yourself a safe spot somewhere in the world
- Without declaration of 'primeclaims' the last claim of a company cannot be contested. This will lead to a company thinking twice of setting another claim and therefor exposing their mainbase to destruction.

- Noob preservance

The change in the claiming system would already benefit new players since they actually would have a chance to find a free patch of land way easier. But how to make PvP more fair, yet rewarding? Possible by:

1. Percentual damage instead of flat damage while engaging in PvP combat.
A new player is almost forced to skill non combat stats like capacity, while someone 20 or 30 levels above that player can have a decent amount of carrying capacity paired with a huge amount of life and tankiness. Of course the more advanced player still would or atleast could have better weapons and armor, but if their upgraded weapons do not deal 250 damage but instead for example 75% (minus tankiness) of player life the lower player with his 25% (or like 25 dmg in pve) weapon would atleast have a slight chance to retaliate and not just get the feeling of being completely powerless.

- More engaging NPC Factions

1. Grapeshot, you want to be like EVE, why not copy one of the best ways to prevent high frustration through loss by offering the ability to insurance your ships. Like let there be a kingdom who sent people out to discover ATLAS and insure them
2. Patroling NPC fleets, assisting players in needs on high sea if they manage 

 

- ship decay

While I get the point that in such a game deeply depending on grinding, and the realism included in a ship decaying over time I see some place for improvement

1. if you haven't claimed anything, no ship decay in freeports, this would need for the servers containing freeports to be able to get instantiated and therefor more resources for said servers, yet a new player wouldn't be forced to play atleast 6-8h in their first session to leave their noobie region, find a place to settle and secure their first claim.

2. for god sake, make it slower, decay as realism ok, but a ship rotting no nothing in under 24h or let's say 24 days, as i'm asuming an ingame minute is a reallife second,  on open sea ain't realism at all

 

feel free to join the discussion on social darwinism in survival games like ATLAS

https://www.playatlas.com/index.php?/forums/topic/21798-discuss-social-darwinism-in-games/

 

Edited January 4, 2019 by FrankyFaster

[TrevorJD 117]

I feel that some newb protection is definitely in order. Not sure about removing decay entirely for companies w/o claims as I suspect that leaves a lot of room for abuse. Certainly though, their vehicles could decay at a slower rate.

Personally, I'd scale claims proportional to company membership. E.g. Two claims for the company and then 2 more per member in your company. If someone leaves and you no longer have the numbers, you're given a week to get new recruits or release enough claims to bring your company within budget. That system could still be gamed with second accounts and by moving people in and out of company to reset the grace period, but that's either expensive or a lot of faffing about so probably wouldn't be abused too much.

That's certainly a PvE perspective though. Conquering territory is the kind of PvP we actually want so I'd be much more generous with the limits. The current FFA is silly. I'm not a PvPer but I suspect that most PvPers would have a lot more fun with challenging opponents than simply hoarding all the land. Having some limits gives opportunities for opponents to get a foothold and be able to grow to present a challenge.