Slapped in the face

[Huck Finnley 59]

So, I'm one of those guys that was on steam hitting the refresh button day of launch waiting g to purchase and download the game. Finally the moment comes I get to play fully expecting a fare share of bugs and a whole lot of lag. 3 days later I'm still waiting to play. Day 4 and day 5 I can play for 4.5 mins at a time before disconnect. Finally day 6 I can play, sure it's laggy and choppy, but hey. I'm playing. Get me raft, load up some supplies, and off I go to seek my fame and fortune. First order of business, find a little piece of land to function as my fledgling base. Unfortunately I'm still stuck on that step.

    Days of sailing my raft,  checking islands, starving to death over and over because I would get disconnected and come back and my supplies all spoiled. Hours and hours of floating on a raft, and nothing. Days and days, still nothing. Can't build in lawless because of the gates and foundations. And no land available. 

      Now you tell me your gonma let me get a ramshackle sloop as a consolation prize because I missed out on the great 2018 land grab. Even better, your gonna let me build on someone else's claim, for a price. I think you are trying to appease me, and that I should be happy. But I'm not. I was there on day one, I paid and waited like most. So why do I not get the right to own a piece of land without begging, stealing or renting it. Was there an issue with my money? Was it not green enough?

     Now say Joe Blow let's me build on his claim and at a low tax rate. What prevents Mr. Blow from maxing out said tax rate once I get established. What happens if I piss in Mr Blow's Cheerios inadvertently and he locks me out of said established base. In today's toxic online gaming environment, you are opening me up to get bent over in any number of ways. And I may or may not have fish oil handy at the time. Instead of fixing the griefing issues, you are just opening up more opportunities. So I ask Grapeshot, why the continued slap in the face. If you truly wanted to alienate so many of your potential players aka paying customers, you could have designed your network to hold much fewer players and saved yourself some money and passed that savings on to those of us whom You basically screwed out of $25.

       All most of us ask, is that you just give us some sort of feedback as to if you intend to make this right, and how. We don't need a when, because you would be fashionably late any way.

   I write, not just because I'm butt hurt, but because I care. I see the potential to truly love this game, and invest alot of time in it. Currently, it's uninstalled though because it tends to bring my blood pressure to unhealthy lvls. And I'm a healthy individual.  Thanks now bring on the fanboy responses

[MindOfMadness 98]

* passes over last of his fish oil *

You can come stay with me out in the lawless region if you want...  There's plenty of resources and room to build a house of your own you don't have to join my solo company.

I already have a shipyard up and you can have my sloop if you to join or I'll help you farm.

Edited January 9, 2019 by MindOfMadness

[Huck Finnley 59]

13 minutes ago, MindOfMadness said:

* passes over last of his fish oil *

You can come stay with me out in the lawless region if you want...  There's plenty of resources and room to build a house of your own you don't have to join my solo company.

I already have a shipyard up and you can have my sloop if you to join or I'll help you farm.

I do appreciate the offer. Unfortunately I have currently uninstalled the game. Because even overcoming the initial issue of an extremely unbalance land claiming system, they have yet to announce any plans for dealing with griefing and exploitation of game mechanics. 

[RyuujinZERO 122]

Have you actually tried contesting flags?

A tonne, maybe even the majority of flags are just plonked down by people doing random land grabs who have no intention of using or securing that land, many arn't even playing anymore. My little 3 man-company is always flipping unused claims of land and feeling out new locations in NA PvE to see how we like them (and letting other people take the land if we decide to move on).

Just a few days ago we gave up our old 5-claim plot in H10 to a friendly larger company who looked like they could make better use of it, and claimed an entire small desert biome island that nobody was using in another zone to be our new base. The island was 'claimed' when we got there, but there was no structures on it, no sleeping people to lock it down and nobody contested it when we started to flip them; nor have since come to object to our presence since then.

There is land waiting to be flipped and used everywhere. You just need to stop treating the existing claims as some sort've permanent lockdown. They're just that a claim. But if the owners aren't using that land, and locking it down with a base, then it's actually very difficult to enforce that 'claim'

Edited January 9, 2019 by RyuujinZERO

[Huck Finnley 59]

6 minutes ago, RyuujinZERO said:

Have you actually tried contesting flags?

A tonne, maybe even the majority of flags are just plonked down by people doing random land grabs who have no intention of using or securing that land, many arn't even playing anymore. My little 3 man-company is always flipping unused claims of land and feeling out new locations in NA PvE to see how we like them (and letting other people take the land if we decide to move on).

We recently just gave up our old 5-claim plot in H10 to a friendly larger company who looked like they could make better use of it, and claimed an entire small island that nobody was using in another zone to be our new base. The island was 'claimed' when we got there, but there was no structures on it, no sleeping people to lock it down and nobody contested it when we started to flip them; nor have since come to object to our presence since then.

There is land waiting to be flipped and used everywhere. You just need to stop treating the existing claims as some sort've permanent lockdown. They're just that a claim. But if the owners aren't using that land, and locking it down with a base, then it's actually very difficult to enforce that 'claim'

You bring up a good point. It can be very difficult to contest a claim. And as such, if RL gets in the way, I may have a hard time contesting a claim as well. Look, I'm not trying to be a hard case here, and I'm not the only one who has an issue with the land claim system. Most of my friends refuse to play the game because of it. We are average working stiffs with families and may only get an hour or so a day to play during the week. Usually around the same time. I'm not asking other players to like my opinion, but as a paying customer I'm going to voice it. They claim they are working on one of the most ambitious MMOs, I'm simply telling them what's is turning my friends and I off to the game and giving them a chance to respond. If this was soley a PVP game I'm fine with the system. But a very large portion of pve player play that mode for a reason. It may be time constraints, not wanting to have to look over their shoulders all the time, or maybe just want a relaxed environment to enjoy the experience. And I'm sure there are a ton more. Yes, this is a survival game. Love it, but, there needs to be a little more security. If they don't want to make concession for a somewhat casual type of gamer in pve then I'll walk away. But until they openly declare that, I will speak my opinion having already gave them my money.

[MindOfMadness 98]

1 hour ago, Huck Finnley said:

I do appreciate the offer. Unfortunately I have currently uninstalled the game. Because even overcoming the initial issue of an extremely unbalance land claiming system, they have yet to announce any plans for dealing with griefing and exploitation of game mechanics. 

Will have to double check but I was just overweight on my raft and didn't have the red symbol and no damage.

[Xilonas 5]

6 hours ago, RyuujinZERO said:

Have you actually tried contesting flags?

A tonne, maybe even the majority of flags are just plonked down by people doing random land grabs who have no intention of using or securing that land, many arn't even playing anymore. My little 3 man-company is always flipping unused claims of land and feeling out new locations in NA PvE to see how we like them (and letting other people take the land if we decide to move on).

Just a few days ago we gave up our old 5-claim plot in H10 to a friendly larger company who looked like they could make better use of it, and claimed an entire small desert biome island that nobody was using in another zone to be our new base. The island was 'claimed' when we got there, but there was no structures on it, no sleeping people to lock it down and nobody contested it when we started to flip them; nor have since come to object to our presence since then.

There is land waiting to be flipped and used everywhere. You just need to stop treating the existing claims as some sort've permanent lockdown. They're just that a claim. But if the owners aren't using that land, and locking it down with a base, then it's actually very difficult to enforce that 'claim'

I'm in the same position as OP, i play alone switched from pvp official to pve official 3 or 4 days ago and i can't find a land to claim. I spent almost all my time running on all the island i put a foot on to see if there is contestable claim.  Most of then have the upkeep timer running in negative and still unclaimable, and the few i found that where claimable i didn't work at all... one was in an open area with no building inside and no sleeping ppl neither but yet it told me the claim was contested and the timer never started ....

 

They really need to put a limit on the nomber of claim ppl can do it's getting ridiculous and ppl are too dumb to limit themself to take just what they need ....

 

So now i'm back in lawless area where i was running throught 4 or 5 island before finding just enough place to build 4 foundation ..... Lawless area are totaly garbage, foudation spamming ; shipyard all over the place; laggy as hell cause of all the foundation/shipyard and ship standing here for no reason at all.

 

Reallu hoping they will do something about this but as we saw with ark and pillar spamming i really doubt they will 

[kolonelu 22]

TRUE WORDS AND WE MUST SCREAM TO GRAPESHOT TO FIX THE GAME OR QUIT !

[Elrood 54]

1 hour ago, Xilonas said:

I'm in the same position as OP, i play alone switched from pvp official to pve official 3 or 4 days ago and i can't find a land to claim. I spent almost all my time running on all the island i put a foot on to see if there is contestable claim.  Most of then have the upkeep timer running in negative and still unclaimable, and the few i found that where claimable i didn't work at all... one was in an open area with no building inside and no sleeping ppl neither but yet it told me the claim was contested and the timer never started ....

 

Your claim timer never started? Because before your claim timer start ticking, current owner claim need to tick down which takes at least 30 minutes.
If said owner claim timer didn't start than there is yet another bug  

28 minutes ago, kolonelu said:

TRUE WORDS AND WE MUST SCREAM TO GRAPESHOT TO FIX THE GAME OR QUIT !

How this would work? You already paid for the game so they got the money. There is and will be a lot of players playing cause after you have claims its fun. Where is the threat? Beside if there was a threat it would be blackmail, would it not?

Edited January 9, 2019 by Elrood

[Chinnius 1]

I'm having the contested claims issue aswell, I understand how to steal claims I've done it before but now all land claims I try to steal are contested with nobody around to contest it.

[Maar 17]

7 hours ago, Elrood said:

How this would work? You already paid for the game so they got the money. There is and will be a lot of players playing cause after you have claims its fun. Where is the threat? Beside if there was a threat it would be blackmail, would it not?

I agree, typing in caps or shouting will not help with getting changes implemented. And of course people have the option to stop playing or quit. 

While it may be veiled, the threat is that they lose future potential income. I'm pretty sure they don't intend to take EA money only, and have ideas about other sources of revenue in the future (xpacs, micro transactions and so on). Whether they care about that or not is really their concern. But I'd suspect they do, and would like to continue future revenue streams. 

And here is some help with the word Blackmail....

Demand money or another benefit from (someone) in return for not revealing compromising or damaging information about them.

Example would be.. I'm going to give the media the pictures I have of you when you were naked with that goat, unless you pay me $500,000!

 

I think they are working hard, and doing whatever they can to get what they feel is a "fix". Balance is hard, and making everyone happy is almost impossible. 

 

 

[MindOfMadness 98]

30 minutes ago, Maar said:

I agree, typing in caps or shouting will not help with getting changes implemented. And of course people have the option to stop playing or quit. 

While it may be veiled, the threat is that they lose future potential income. I'm pretty sure they don't intend to take EA money only, and have ideas about other sources of revenue in the future (xpacs, micro transactions and so on). Whether they care about that or not is really their concern. But I'd suspect they do, and would like to continue future revenue streams. 

And here is some help with the word Blackmail....

Demand money or another benefit from (someone) in return for not revealing compromising or damaging information about them.

Example would be.. I'm going to give the media the pictures I have of you when you were naked with that goat, unless you pay me $500,000!

 

I think they are working hard, and doing whatever they can to get what they feel is a "fix". Balance is hard, and making everyone happy is impossible. 

 

 

FIFY

[smiltstomb 1]

There are real problems and your complaint is that your pc wouldnt let you play for days on end?  I played day 1 it was terrible but doable by day two it was fine except freeport, and 3 all good everywhere on NA servers.

Edited January 9, 2019 by smiltstomb

[Everett_Hayward 6]

Not going to lie, I feel I got extremely lucky getting a piece of land the day after launch. Days afterwards I had dozens of people come by asking if there was any unclaimed land nearby. Some of them more polite than others. Some people resorted to claiming "land" in the middle of the shallow bay area. I genuinely feel bad for people who didn't get to claim their own land because they were a little late to the party.

[smiltstomb 1]

In the first week tons of people quit playing so even claimed land was abandoned it didnt take much to figure that out and claim that land. So we didnt claim land for 5 days after launch and still have land.  Plus we've sold 4 claims to make it easier to protect the ones we need.  Allied to people we sold to that worked out fine.  If you are busy working the system that was intended and not crying about what you think you are owed.  But there are real problems like griefers. Thats where the player base should focus atm.

[=MGC=Ranger 77]

11 minutes ago, smiltstomb said:

There are real problems and your complaint is that your pc wouldnt let you play for days on end?  I played day 1 it was terrible but doable by day two it was fine except freeport, and 3 all good everywhere on NA servers.

In the OP defense, the first week of the game for many if not most players was completely unplayable. Not because of computer issues, but server issues. I spawned on day 1 at a free port (I or M5 I believe) and 20 min after launch the server went down and stayed down for 4 days. so day 1-4 I had a character locked in an offline server. The first hour in this game is crucial! It will be a great game once they get it balanced and fair.

 

To the OP, I too switched from PVP to PVE and sailed for the last couple of weeks trying to find land. I found not one, but two spots. Sure, you have to contest someones claim, but it only takes 1/2 to 1 hour. I have done this twice. Now I have land, but I cant survive long enough because there are way too many crocks, snakes and wolves and they are seriously Overpowered. Crocks are faster than the boats haha!

 

If you do decide to play PVE, we have a small group of clanmates who are playing this. We have a little corner of an Isle. You are welcome to join up with us and play any time. Our discord channel is under MGC .  Remember, there is strength in numbers! We are currently on NA PVE. I am generally on around 6 or 7 EST.

[smiltstomb 1]

You finished with what I was saying.  that with work you can get land.  even if its waiting for the right moment on abandoned land or contesting.

[TiiaAurora 43]

We we're able to contest a nice piece of land 2 weeks after the release. Also with the help of the people already being on the island. 

It sometimes needs a little bit of time and effort but it may work out. Yet on our island there are a few abandoned places that will be free to claim in 1-2 weeks. We had to sail 2 days to find a spot.