The insidious slow spread of creeping gratification....

[archaegeo 192]

I wanted to collect all of the changes that have been made, in less than two weeks, that make the game easier or more instantly gratifying to point out how one change here or one change there may seem ok, but you add them all up and suddenly you have a game with no sense or risk vs reward or achievement.

The problem is that every MMO that has come along that makes it easy to play and doesnt penalize death loses the majority of their players as soon as the next new and shiney MMO surfaces. 

Players dont realize they are looking for a sense of achievement, of accomplishing something that builds memories.  Yes the PvP is exciting, but this is a MMO, not Sea of Thieves pew pew pew or world of warships, both of which have their place, but Atlas should mean something more.

There is still no death penalty.  Dying is still a mechanic that only rewards you (by resetting thirst, food, vitamins, health, injuries).  The only time its a penalty is if you have no bed nearby.

So here is a consolidated list, so far, of all changes that have made the game easier and feeding the "give it to me now" mentality. (I know some people like this)

(The ones marked with *'s are coming Monday)

"Lets make ships easier and more instantly gratifying"

• Increased the base carry Weight of all ships by +40%
• Sailing against the wind now provides 30% of with-the-wind sailforce, as opposed to 0%.
• Also increased the amount of sailforce provided by minimum windspeed conditions by 30%, and the sailforce provided by maximum windspeed conditions by 15%.
• *Some ship costs have been adjusted, and in some cases reduced by approximately about 50%
• *Sea Monsters' damage has been reduced by 66%

"Vitamins might as well be removed, the below changes are just trying to justify the system and make it easy"

• Equilibrium Buff now gives +20% XP, -20% reduced incoming damage, +30 temperature fortitude, +10% movement speed, +20% melee damage, and takes 30 minutes to achieve rather than an hour.
• Increased vitamin equilibrium range to +/- 20% rather than 10% (making it easier to achieve and stay in equilibrium)
• Decreased vitamin deficiency debuff threshold to 10% rather than 20%
• Reduced base rate of vitamin consumption by 2%
• Eliminated at-sea increased rate of vitamin/vitals consumption. Now it just causes food to spoil faster, and temperatures to drop.

"Lets make it easy to steal things from others, why have to wait or bring proper artillery?"

• Changed declaim period (stealing enemy territory) to 30 minutes from 1.5 hours (requires they have no alive crew or players in the vicinity) 
• Removed requirement to be on a boat to steal someone's boat after placing the claim flag. Adjusted base value times to claim the boats to be 1 one minute to steal a dinghy, 2hrs~ to steal a raft, a couple hours to steal sloop, and so forth (levelling a ship increases the time it takes to steal that ship).
• Grenades damaged to stone multiplied by 3x

"Lets make Army of the Damned ships not so scary.  The only problem with AotD ships were there were too many of them.  It was never an issue about agro or shooting on shore or anything else, just the number of them.  If you didnt want them to shoot you on shore you should build defenses that are manned prior to building ships in areas where they spawn"

• Army of the Damned Ships will no longer initially aggro to drydocked or anchored ships, unless fired upon by them or already targeting them.
• Ensured army of the damned ships spawn farther away from shore, and don't spawn too near player shipSea Monsters' damage has been reduced by 66% - Heaven forbid they be dangerous.
• Reduced Army of the Damned ships spawn rate by 60%
• Reduced Army of the Damned ship HP per level scaling by 20%
• Reduced Army of the Damned ship Aggro range by 10%
• Boosted Army of the Damned ship loot quality by 10%
• Further tweaks made to Ship of the Damned should no longer wander close to shore, however they may chase you.
• Reduced Ship of the Damned targeting range by 50%. We're going to look into scaling that based on the type of ship.
• Ship of the Damned targeting ranges now are reduced by the type of ship (down to 30% for rafts (which means they will now attack rafts - but you have to get pretty darn close to them!) and 0% for dinghies)
• Further reduced Ship of the Damned spawns by 20%
• Ship of the Damned now are allowed to "Wander" away from shore if they find themselves close to shore

"More Instant gratification and easy mode changes"

• Added one more Skill Point earned by all level-ups above 10
• Tripled gathering weighting of metal in all the generic rocks for both pick and hatchet damage types
• Alpha creature spawns are now disabled on Freeport and Lawless Servers. (I agree with Freeport)
• Reduced deepwater aggressive creature frequency and targetting range
• Default resource and taming speeds have been increased to 2x as the baseline
• Every Tame can now get a minimum of 30 tame level-ups put into it, plus however many base levels it had when wild. So for example, a level 5 wild wolf would get 35 tame level-ups to apply, whereas a level 40 wild wolf would get 70 tame level-ups to us
• *Loot stat scaling has been boosted (retroactively) by 60%
• *Farming rebalances to be easier; water can now pipe uphill, region requirements for growing crops are more forgiving, and crop growth & yield is much faster and highe
• *Armour effectiveness will be adjusted so that firearms are more useful in PVP
• *You can now buy a "Ramshackle Sloop" from the NPC Shipyardsman at Freeports

[Nightstrasza 137]

Well, they try to balance the game... however they balance things that not many ask for or none at all and things that are asked frequently don't get touched as SoD camping server borders, SoD in huge numbers in small area making them nothing special of an encounter but just a huge annoynace to anyone who wants to pass without having to make a circle arround entire grid, alphas being able to shred someones base for free if they can't defend self, some predators just being radiculously powerful compared to others (fight a snake and then fight a wolf, snakes are a joke compared to wolves), claim flag spam, mega tribes, ships being too squishy etc.

[Warspectre 141]

54 minutes ago, archaegeo said:

I wanted to collect all of the changes that have been made, in less than two weeks, that make the game easier or more instantly gratifying to point out how one change here or one change there may seem ok, but you add them all up and suddenly you have a game with no sense or risk vs reward or achievement.

The problem is that every MMO that has come along that makes it easy to play and doesnt penalize death loses the majority of their players as soon as the next new and shiney MMO surfaces. 

Players dont realize they are looking for a sense of achievement, of accomplishing something that builds memories.  Yes the PvP is exciting, but this is a MMO, not Sea of Thieves pew pew pew or world of warships, both of which have their place, but Atlas should mean something more.

There is still no death penalty.  Dying is still a mechanic that only rewards you (by resetting thirst, food, vitamins, health, injuries).  The only time its a penalty is if you have no bed nearby.

So here is a consolidated list, so far, of all changes that have made the game easier and feeding the "give it to me now" mentality. (I know some people like this)

(The ones marked with *'s are coming Monday)

"Lets make ships easier and more instantly gratifying"

• Increased the base carry Weight of all ships by +40%
• Sailing against the wind now provides 30% of with-the-wind sailforce, as opposed to 0%.
• Also increased the amount of sailforce provided by minimum windspeed conditions by 30%, and the sailforce provided by maximum windspeed conditions by 15%.
• *Some ship costs have been adjusted, and in some cases reduced by approximately about 50%
• *Sea Monsters' damage has been reduced by 66%

"Vitamins might as well be removed, the below changes are just trying to justify the system and make it easy"

• Equilibrium Buff now gives +20% XP, -20% reduced incoming damage, +30 temperature fortitude, +10% movement speed, +20% melee damage, and takes 30 minutes to achieve rather than an hour.
• Increased vitamin equilibrium range to +/- 20% rather than 10% (making it easier to achieve and stay in equilibrium)
• Decreased vitamin deficiency debuff threshold to 10% rather than 20%
• Reduced base rate of vitamin consumption by 2%
• Eliminated at-sea increased rate of vitamin/vitals consumption. Now it just causes food to spoil faster, and temperatures to drop.

"Lets make it easy to steal things from others, why have to wait or bring proper artillery?"

• Changed declaim period (stealing enemy territory) to 30 minutes from 1.5 hours (requires they have no alive crew or players in the vicinity) 
• Removed requirement to be on a boat to steal someone's boat after placing the claim flag. Adjusted base value times to claim the boats to be 1 one minute to steal a dinghy, 2hrs~ to steal a raft, a couple hours to steal sloop, and so forth (levelling a ship increases the time it takes to steal that ship).
• Grenades damaged to stone multiplied by 3x

"Lets make Army of the Damned ships not so scary.  The only problem with AotD ships were there were too many of them.  It was never an issue about agro or shooting on shore or anything else, just the number of them.  If you didnt want them to shoot you on shore you should build defenses that are manned prior to building ships in areas where they spawn"

• Army of the Damned Ships will no longer initially aggro to drydocked or anchored ships, unless fired upon by them or already targeting them.
• Ensured army of the damned ships spawn farther away from shore, and don't spawn too near player shipSea Monsters' damage has been reduced by 66% - Heaven forbid they be dangerous.
• Reduced Army of the Damned ships spawn rate by 60%
• Reduced Army of the Damned ship HP per level scaling by 20%
• Reduced Army of the Damned ship Aggro range by 10%
• Boosted Army of the Damned ship loot quality by 10%
• Further tweaks made to Ship of the Damned should no longer wander close to shore, however they may chase you.
• Reduced Ship of the Damned targeting range by 50%. We're going to look into scaling that based on the type of ship.
• Ship of the Damned targeting ranges now are reduced by the type of ship (down to 30% for rafts (which means they will now attack rafts - but you have to get pretty darn close to them!) and 0% for dinghies)
• Further reduced Ship of the Damned spawns by 20%
• Ship of the Damned now are allowed to "Wander" away from shore if they find themselves close to shore

"More Instant gratification and easy mode changes"

• Added one more Skill Point earned by all level-ups above 10
• Tripled gathering weighting of metal in all the generic rocks for both pick and hatchet damage types
• Alpha creature spawns are now disabled on Freeport and Lawless Servers. (I agree with Freeport)
• Reduced deepwater aggressive creature frequency and targetting range
• Default resource and taming speeds have been increased to 2x as the baseline
• Every Tame can now get a minimum of 30 tame level-ups put into it, plus however many base levels it had when wild. So for example, a level 5 wild wolf would get 35 tame level-ups to apply, whereas a level 40 wild wolf would get 70 tame level-ups to us
• *Loot stat scaling has been boosted (retroactively) by 60%
• *Farming rebalances to be easier; water can now pipe uphill, region requirements for growing crops are more forgiving, and crop growth & yield is much faster and highe
• *Armour effectiveness will be adjusted so that firearms are more useful in PVP
• *You can now buy a "Ramshackle Sloop" from the NPC Shipyardsman at Freeports

I disagree with pretty much everything you just said. It's supposed to be a game, and games are supposed to be fun as well as challenging. More grinding chores for days on end =/= challenge. Plus some of us have jobs and want to sleep sometimes. Calling this instant gratification is hyperbole. 

[archaegeo 192]

7 minutes ago, Warspectre said:

I disagree with pretty much everything you just said. It's supposed to be a game, and games are supposed to be fun as well as challenging. More grinding chores for days on end =/= challenge. Plus some of us have jobs and want to sleep sometimes. Calling this instant gratification is hyperbole. 

You can 100% play on unofficial servers with 10x rates or whatever you need.

When the game sells itself as a MMO, it needs long term progression and accomplishments.

We are 2 weeks in and everything in game is makeable already.

[Vorxius 249]

It's made the game playable during this ER.  Resources need to be higher, ships need to be farmed easier... if they want people to play the game to test features to further optimize and improve the game towards release, they should not lock out content just 'because'.  They (we) need players to experience the whole game... not get bogged down on stuck rafts, getting galleons smashed by an OP alpha snake..   Some of the bugs are outrageous, and are WIP, the least the game can offer is some condolence, and respite from itself.  I see these changes as good...  bear with it whilst WIP.  This isn't about entitlement, it's about doing the right thing whilst the game is in design.

[Winter Thorne 696]

I expect they'll move some of the sliders back after a while.  Right now, this is a game of The Haves and The Have Nots.    For the people who couldn't connect, couldn't stay connected, couldn't progress due to bugs and griefers, couldn't claim any land before it was all grabbed up, and had their raft and all possessions eaten by giant snakes every time they could make a few hours progress,  or had their claims griefed  by massive companies abusing bugs, this is probably giving them the help they need to not rage quit the game at this point.

If everything had gone just fine and dandy, I'd agree with most of your points,

[UDO 361]

32 minutes ago, Warspectre said:

I disagree with pretty much everything you just said. It's supposed to be a game, and games are supposed to be fun as well as challenging. More grinding chores for days on end =/= challenge. Plus some of us have jobs and want to sleep sometimes. Calling this instant gratification is hyperbole. 

this 1000000000000 , ITS A GAME NOT A FULL TIME JOB

[rodarin 17]

28 minutes ago, Warspectre said:

I disagree with pretty much everything you just said. It's supposed to be a game, and games are supposed to be fun as well as challenging. More grinding chores for days on end =/= challenge. Plus some of us have jobs and want to sleep sometimes. Calling this instant gratification is hyperbole. 

Thats why numbers have cratered? they didnt even have 45K on last night across all servers. thats pretty bad. When you make 'accomplishments' THIS easy it completely negates the point of the game. Galleons (in reality)  should take a group of 25-30 people a month to get. People were getting them in 2 days (duping aside).

 

If everyone has the same footing and it takes everyone the same amount of time then whats the big deal? What else is there to do in a game like this anyway but grind? It certaily isnt PvP. Because I havent seen a MAJOR PvP fight at all. If any group is even a remote threat people ally with them. Then those groups go out and take o ver solo guys or small groups 'because theyre pirates'.

 

LMAO I think ANY group that claims to be a 'pirate' group should have a very limited number of ships. I dont remember pirates having armadas? Sure a few may have occasionally and short term sailed together but you didnt have pirate fleets. If they really want to make it a decent game change the trees so you have to pick either Pirate or some nationality? captain line and have damage modifiers and defense modifiers versus each. Put a hard cap of 10-12 ships in a pirate company, and make their claims better defended by NPC and players but easier to claim once those defenses are breached. Make any alliance they have temporary and put a lock on when they can form anymore alliances. If people want to play 'pirate' make it an actual challenge. But I suppose if everyone was a pirate those things would matter anyway. The very least they should have is some sort of reputation system.

 

So many different 'better' and 'cooler' ways to steer this game. But if they gave incentives (through skill perks) in actually FIGHTING against pirates or guys pretending to be pirates it would actually give the PvP server some actual meaning. Hell I suspect just giving a 'good' side a port or ports that had NPCs and shops and stores (you know like every other MMO in history had cities) and items would be enough to maybe convince some people.

 

The irony to all this is they tried to sell it as some 'hardcore' game when it was already pretty easy (bugs not  withstanding). Now theyre making it a private server. Which is really what it already is anyway. A private server for all the streamers who have huge followings and mass invite people to their companies.

[Realist 504]

1 hour ago, archaegeo said:

I wanted to collect all of the changes that have been made, in less than two weeks, that make the game easier or more instantly gratifying to point out how one change here or one change there may seem ok, but you add them all up and suddenly you have a game with no sense or risk vs reward or achievement.

The problem is that every MMO that has come along that makes it easy to play and doesnt penalize death loses the majority of their players as soon as the next new and shiney MMO surfaces. 

Players dont realize they are looking for a sense of achievement, of accomplishing something that builds memories.  Yes the PvP is exciting, but this is a MMO, not Sea of Thieves pew pew pew or world of warships, both of which have their place, but Atlas should mean something more.

There is still no death penalty.  Dying is still a mechanic that only rewards you (by resetting thirst, food, vitamins, health, injuries).  The only time its a penalty is if you have no bed nearby.

So here is a consolidated list, so far, of all changes that have made the game easier and feeding the "give it to me now" mentality. (I know some people like this)

(The ones marked with *'s are coming Monday)

"Lets make ships easier and more instantly gratifying"

• Increased the base carry Weight of all ships by +40%
• Sailing against the wind now provides 30% of with-the-wind sailforce, as opposed to 0%.
• Also increased the amount of sailforce provided by minimum windspeed conditions by 30%, and the sailforce provided by maximum windspeed conditions by 15%.
• *Some ship costs have been adjusted, and in some cases reduced by approximately about 50%
• *Sea Monsters' damage has been reduced by 66%

"Vitamins might as well be removed, the below changes are just trying to justify the system and make it easy"

• Equilibrium Buff now gives +20% XP, -20% reduced incoming damage, +30 temperature fortitude, +10% movement speed, +20% melee damage, and takes 30 minutes to achieve rather than an hour.
• Increased vitamin equilibrium range to +/- 20% rather than 10% (making it easier to achieve and stay in equilibrium)
• Decreased vitamin deficiency debuff threshold to 10% rather than 20%
• Reduced base rate of vitamin consumption by 2%
• Eliminated at-sea increased rate of vitamin/vitals consumption. Now it just causes food to spoil faster, and temperatures to drop.

"Lets make it easy to steal things from others, why have to wait or bring proper artillery?"

• Changed declaim period (stealing enemy territory) to 30 minutes from 1.5 hours (requires they have no alive crew or players in the vicinity) 
• Removed requirement to be on a boat to steal someone's boat after placing the claim flag. Adjusted base value times to claim the boats to be 1 one minute to steal a dinghy, 2hrs~ to steal a raft, a couple hours to steal sloop, and so forth (levelling a ship increases the time it takes to steal that ship).
• Grenades damaged to stone multiplied by 3x

"Lets make Army of the Damned ships not so scary.  The only problem with AotD ships were there were too many of them.  It was never an issue about agro or shooting on shore or anything else, just the number of them.  If you didnt want them to shoot you on shore you should build defenses that are manned prior to building ships in areas where they spawn"

• Army of the Damned Ships will no longer initially aggro to drydocked or anchored ships, unless fired upon by them or already targeting them.
• Ensured army of the damned ships spawn farther away from shore, and don't spawn too near player shipSea Monsters' damage has been reduced by 66% - Heaven forbid they be dangerous.
• Reduced Army of the Damned ships spawn rate by 60%
• Reduced Army of the Damned ship HP per level scaling by 20%
• Reduced Army of the Damned ship Aggro range by 10%
• Boosted Army of the Damned ship loot quality by 10%
• Further tweaks made to Ship of the Damned should no longer wander close to shore, however they may chase you.
• Reduced Ship of the Damned targeting range by 50%. We're going to look into scaling that based on the type of ship.
• Ship of the Damned targeting ranges now are reduced by the type of ship (down to 30% for rafts (which means they will now attack rafts - but you have to get pretty darn close to them!) and 0% for dinghies)
• Further reduced Ship of the Damned spawns by 20%
• Ship of the Damned now are allowed to "Wander" away from shore if they find themselves close to shore

"More Instant gratification and easy mode changes"

• Added one more Skill Point earned by all level-ups above 10
• Tripled gathering weighting of metal in all the generic rocks for both pick and hatchet damage types
• Alpha creature spawns are now disabled on Freeport and Lawless Servers. (I agree with Freeport)
• Reduced deepwater aggressive creature frequency and targetting range
• Default resource and taming speeds have been increased to 2x as the baseline
• Every Tame can now get a minimum of 30 tame level-ups put into it, plus however many base levels it had when wild. So for example, a level 5 wild wolf would get 35 tame level-ups to apply, whereas a level 40 wild wolf would get 70 tame level-ups to us
• *Loot stat scaling has been boosted (retroactively) by 60%
• *Farming rebalances to be easier; water can now pipe uphill, region requirements for growing crops are more forgiving, and crop growth & yield is much faster and highe
• *Armour effectiveness will be adjusted so that firearms are more useful in PVP
• *You can now buy a "Ramshackle Sloop" from the NPC Shipyardsman at Freeports

Thanks for taking the time to write this up. It will be a good reference.

yes, this is no longer a pirate survival mmo. It is still a pirate mmo but it is definitely not a survival game.

wait till they get rid of the ship of the damned completely and also make alpha animals almost non existent. They will just leave the passive animals so it will be easy to get food and not have to worry about dying.

pretty soon they will also put cruise control on the ships to get from point a to point b without having to drive it because we all know people are going to get tired of sailing for a long period of time..

pretty soon the pirate part won’t even be there because the Megas will all have alliances like ark and the pvp servers will be like the pve servers. Well except for the raft users, those guys are a big threat to Megas so they need to be eradicated

pretty soon it will only be an mmo. After the numbers drop it will just be an mo

10 minutes ago, UDO said:

this 1000000000000 , ITS A GAME NOT A FULL TIME JOB

That is where you are mistaken. Wildcard needs you to test their game for them and they have no problem making it your full time job. 

You aren’t playing the game, you are testing the game 

[UDO 361]

3 minutes ago, Realist said:

Thanks for taking the time to write this up. It will be a good reference.

yes, this is no longer a pirate survival mmo. It is still a pirate mmo but it is definitely not a survival game.

wait till they get rid of the ship of the damned completely and also make alpha animals almost non existent. They will just leave the passive animals so it will be easy to get food and not have to worry about dying.

pretty soon they will also put cruise control on the ships to get from point a to point b without having to drive it because we all know people are going to get tired of sailing for a long period of time..

pretty soon the pirate part won’t even be there because the Megas will all have alliances like ark and the pvp servers will be like the pve servers. Well except for the raft users, those guys are a big threat to Megas so they need to be eradicated

pretty soon it will only be an mmo. After the numbers drop it will just be an mo

That is where you are mistaken. Wildcard needs you to test their game for them and they have no problem making it your full time job. 

You aren’t playing the game, you are testing the game 

and to test the game we need access to everything ,

 

and not mistaken it is actually a game ....

Edited January 4, 2019 by UDO

[archaegeo 192]

So go test it on a private server at 10x

Lets face it, 9 out of 10 people who bought the game are not here to help test, or if they are, its a subsidiary reason.  Most are here for Pirate Game, play now, easy mode

[Realist 504]

4 minutes ago, rodarin said:

Thats why numbers have cratered? they didnt even have 45K on last night across all servers. thats pretty bad. When you make 'accomplishments' THIS easy it completely negates the point of the game. Galleons (in reality)  should take a group of 25-30 people a month to get. People were getting them in 2 days (duping aside).

 

If everyone has the same footing and it takes everyone the same amount of time then whats the big deal? What else is there to do in a game like this anyway but grind? It certaily isnt PvP. Because I havent seen a MAJOR PvP fight at all. If any group is even a remote threat people ally with them. Then those groups go out and take o ver solo guys or small groups 'because theyre pirates'.

 

LMAO I think ANY group that claims to be a 'pirate' group should have a very limited number of ships. I dont remember pirates having armadas? Sure a few may have occasionally and short term sailed together but you didnt have pirate fleets. If they really want to make it a decent game change the trees so you have to pick either Pirate or some nationality? captain line and have damage modifiers and defense modifiers versus each. Put a hard cap of 10-12 ships in a pirate company, and make their claims better defended by NPC and players but easier to claim once those defenses are breached. Make any alliance they have temporary and put a lock on when they can form anymore alliances. If people want to play 'pirate' make it an actual challenge. But I suppose if everyone was a pirate those things would matter anyway. The very least they should have is some sort of reputation system.

 

So many different 'better' and 'cooler' ways to steer this game. But if they gave incentives (through skill perks) in actually FIGHTING against pirates or guys pretending to be pirates it would actually give the PvP server some actual meaning. Hell I suspect just giving a 'good' side a port or ports that had NPCs and shops and stores (you know like every other MMO in history had cities) and items would be enough to maybe convince some people.

 

The irony to all this is they tried to sell it as some 'hardcore' game when it was already pretty easy (bugs not  withstanding). Now theyre making it a private server. Which is really what it already is anyway. A private server for all the streamers who have huge followings and mass invite people to their companies.

Yeah I have noticed that with games like ark and atlas most players are cowards anyways. They team up to try to be strong. I say try, because as you said the minute an actual threat comes around they alliance with them. If that isn’t a coward then I don’t know what is. God forbid someone sail by you in a raft though

and not just galleons at day 2 but max level at day 1 as well. There is literally no survival aspect anymore. Like zero. If you can get to max level and be at end game in a couple days, that is a very shallow game.

“oh hey there is lots of stuff to do” oh really? For a couple days? Sure you can sail around and gank small companies for awhile but after the first 20 what else new is there really?

 

[Sketch 15]

6 minutes ago, rodarin said:

Thats why numbers have cratered? they didnt even have 45K on last night across all servers. thats pretty bad. When you make 'accomplishments' THIS easy it completely negates the point of the game. Galleons (in reality)  should take a group of 25-30 people a month to get. People were getting them in 2 days (duping aside).

 

If everyone has the same footing and it takes everyone the same amount of time then whats the big deal? What else is there to do in a game like this anyway but grind? It certaily isnt PvP. Because I havent seen a MAJOR PvP fight at all. If any group is even a remote threat people ally with them. Then those groups go out and take o ver solo guys or small groups 'because theyre pirates'.

 

LMAO I think ANY group that claims to be a 'pirate' group should have a very limited number of ships. I dont remember pirates having armadas? Sure a few may have occasionally and short term sailed together but you didnt have pirate fleets. If they really want to make it a decent game change the trees so you have to pick either Pirate or some nationality? captain line and have damage modifiers and defense modifiers versus each. Put a hard cap of 10-12 ships in a pirate company, and make their claims better defended by NPC and players but easier to claim once those defenses are breached. Make any alliance they have temporary and put a lock on when they can form anymore alliances. If people want to play 'pirate' make it an actual challenge. But I suppose if everyone was a pirate those things would matter anyway. The very least they should have is some sort of reputation system.

 

So many different 'better' and 'cooler' ways to steer this game. But if they gave incentives (through skill perks) in actually FIGHTING against pirates or guys pretending to be pirates it would actually give the PvP server some actual meaning. Hell I suspect just giving a 'good' side a port or ports that had NPCs and shops and stores (you know like every other MMO in history had cities) and items would be enough to maybe convince some people.

 

The irony to all this is they tried to sell it as some 'hardcore' game when it was already pretty easy (bugs not  withstanding). Now theyre making it a private server. Which is really what it already is anyway. A private server for all the streamers who have huge followings and mass invite people to their companies.

The reason  you haven't seen any good 'raids' is because the whole system is punishing to raiders.

Stone walls require a crazy amount of stuff to break, you need to be actualy able to claim land in order to take in land bases witch make it near impossible to really raid anything not by the ocean.

Add all that to crazy bases, all the land taken and the sheer number of ships gl raiding bases, boat battles could be good but there too fragile and the ocean is big. (pvp)

(pve There isint enough to do that makes doing stuff worth it)

[Pappy Green 71]

It's EA, Alpha, whatever you want to call it, like UDO said we need to be able to build everything quickly to test things out and tune the balance.

"We are 2 weeks in and everything in game is makeable already."

This is the point of EA. This test period is not for your benefit, it's for the devs.

If you want to grind for literal years, go play Wurm.

[Realist 504]

4 minutes ago, UDO said:

and to test the game we need access to everything ,

 

and not mistaken it is actually a game ....

You do have access to everything. People got max level in a day and galleons in 2 days.

and yes you are still mistaken because I didn’t say it wasn’t a game. I say you are testing it , not playing it.

2 minutes ago, Pappy Green said:

It's EA, Alpha, whatever you want to call it, like UDO said we need to be able to build everything quickly to test things out and tune the balance.

"We are 2 weeks in and everything in game is makeable already."

This is the point of EA. This test period is not for your benefit, it's for the devs.

If you want to grind for literal years, go play Wurm.

Might have been out for two weeks but it only took 2 days 

[xRealistic 2]

Totally agree, the game is being dumbed down way too much and is making the grind way too easy, which is one of the main progression points of the game.

So what’s left to do in a game with nothing left to do? The same thing that happened with Ark, quit playing.  Unless that was their intent of the game which I doubt since they had micro transactions planned for the future. 

[archaegeo 192]

4 minutes ago, Pappy Green said:

It's EA, Alpha, whatever you want to call it, like UDO said we need to be able to build everything quickly to test things out and tune the balance.

"We are 2 weeks in and everything in game is makeable already."

This is the point of EA. This test period is not for your benefit, it's for the devs.

If you want to grind for literal years, go play Wurm.

I did play Wurm and Wurm has this beaten in two areas

Sailing in Wurm is more realistic (aka winds and sails)

And in wurm when you complete something, you REALLY feel a sense of accomplishment and pride.

I was hoping this was going to be a new Wurm, but its not even close and they keep moving it away from a MMO and to a pew pew pew.

Edited January 4, 2019 by archaegeo

[Pappy Green 71]

The skills in Wurm also runs rings around this game. (I have a char with multiple 75+ skills, achieved with no magic or sleep powder  ) 

[xRealistic 2]

5 minutes ago, Sketch said:

The reason  you haven't seen any good 'raids' is because the whole system is punishing to raiders.

Stone walls require a crazy amount of stuff to break, you need to be actualy able to claim land in order to take in land bases witch make it near impossible to really raid anything not by the ocean.

Add all that to crazy bases, all the land taken and the sheer number of ships gl raiding bases, boat battles could be good but there too fragile and the ocean is big. (pvp)

(pve There isint enough to do that makes doing stuff worth it)

I have to disagree with you. If you know what you are doing raiding is too easy at the current state. We have been raiding the past couple of days and have had no problems whatsoever. Mortars are OP, yes there was a glitch with them but even without the glitch they are still OP. 

[Realist 504]

1 minute ago, xRealistic said:

Totally agree, the game is being dumbed down way too much and is making the grind way too easy, which is one of the main progression points of the game.

So what’s left to do in a game with nothing left to do? The same thing that happened with Ark, quit playing.  Unless that was their intent of the game which I doubt since they had micro transactions planned for the future. 

I already know that wildcard knows that increasing rates makes the game boring because you run out of stuff to do. That is why they have very rare breeding events. If all you have to do is breed there is literally no pint in taming anymore and taming was the main thing with ark.

with altas boats are supposed to be the main thing but with increasing rates they will be able to be made more easily and then people won’t care about the boats because they can just make another one in an hour.

this game will get stale really quick with increased rates. I actually hoped on to a few twitch streamers streams and asked them if they were getting bored. Mostly all said the same just in different words 

“well yeah I am starting to get bored, still having some fun but it is getting very repetitive”

[Sketch 15]

2 minutes ago, xRealistic said:

I have to disagree with you. If you know what you are doing raiding is too easy at the current state. We have been raiding the past couple of days and have had no problems whatsoever. Mortars are OP, yes there was a glitch with them but even without the glitch they are still OP. 

morters do nothing if your ship cant get to the base or you cant steal land, and land morters rekt boats.  *some well placed outposts and your raid is screwed.

1 minute ago, Realist said:

I already know that wildcard knows that increasing rates makes the game boring because you run out of stuff to do. That is why they have very rare breeding events. If all you have to do is breed there is literally no pint in taming anymore and taming was the main thing with ark.

with altas boats are supposed to be the main thing but with increasing rates they will be able to be made more easily and then people won’t care about the boats because they can just make another one in an hour.

this game will get stale really quick with increased rates. I actually hoped on to a few twitch streamers streams and asked them if they were getting bored. Mostly all said the same just in different words 

“well yeah I am starting to get bored, still having some fun but it is getting very repetitive”

ye some of the mega streamers have like 5+ galleons already

[Realist 504]

Just now, Sketch said:

morters do nothing if your ship cant get to the base or you cant steal land, and land morters rekt boats.  *some well placed outposts and your raid is screwed.

Yeah under a perfect set of circumstances it can be hard to raid. Every other scenario is very easy to raid 

[Sketch 15]

Just now, Realist said:

Yeah under a perfect set of circumstances it can be hard to raid. Every other scenario is very easy to raid 

it doesnt evem have to be perfect tbh, its too easy to make an impregnable fortress atm and that will kill land battles, sea battles is just who can pump out boats faster

[Realist 504]

4 minutes ago, Sketch said:

it doesnt evem have to be perfect tbh, its too easy to make an impregnable fortress atm and that will kill land battles, sea battles is just who can pump out boats faster

All depends on the person man. I knew a guy in ark that could solo raid buildings with a ton of auto turrets and x species.

sure atlas is different, but atlas also doesn’t have auto turrets and x species.

not necessarily arguing with you but if the hardcore guy comes passing through that building is getting raided 

[Sketch 15]

4 minutes ago, Realist said:

All depends on the person man. I knew a guy in ark that could solo raid buildings with a ton of auto turrets and x species.

sure atlas is different, but atlas also doesn’t have auto turrets and x species.

not necessarily arguing with you but if the hardcore guy comes passing through that building is getting raided 

still disagree if it was as easy as you say the mega tribes would walk all over eveyone, atm most peeps who are entrenched arent going anywhere due to the sheer difficulty of getting past multiple stone walls/doors/gates.

Edited January 4, 2019 by Sketch