The messed up zonesystem

[don 12]

Freeport, Lawless and I don't know what they are called, I will call them Settlezones.

Thats what they give us and thats, what causes many problems and frustration. 

I think they intended it like this: everyone spawns in a freeport, builds a raft as fast as he can and leavs to search for a settlezone to place one flag with his mates. Laqlesszones are there for better farming, because the settlingzones have not really much ressources left because of the many buildings preventing ressourcerespawn. But its ok, because you can go and get your wood and stuff in lawless with a much faster respawn. Abandoned flags will be claimed by new settlers and existing flags are save in PVE because there is always someone of your 50ppl crew sleeping at home.

The reality sadly tolds us, that everyone spawns in the freeports 5 seconds after launch. So its unplayable. As you removed the possibility to spawn in lawless, it will get even worse the next time. From there they flee in all directions, placing flags where ever they can, blocking anyone else. Another big part of the players rush the lawless, placing foundations every few meters to "claim" hole islands. The next move of these type of players is to place endless gatewalls all over "their" islands blocking everything, even make it nearly impossible to make treassurehunts without massive climbingequipment.

Once you (entering the game not on release day) found an abandoned claim and took it your main issue is to prevent griefing. If you are on a tour with your 3 ppl crew you can bet that you have to return every hour, because someone is trying to steal your base (not a part of your land, mainly they try to claim your buildings) or they put flags right outsiche of yours, so that your buildings get unsave and declay. So one person always have to sleep at home and one on each ship, which is not in your claim.

After a few days, the freeports are nearly useless. Only some big ships come in and "steal" the ressources from the beginners, making use of the fast respawn. Once they start to build green, blue or better things this will be useless to so no one will come back except for the PVP players searching for a save harbour. So a tenth of the servers will be without a real purpose in the later ongoing game which is in my opinion a waste in the actual overpopulated world we are playing in.

So much complain, and here is my "idea" of making it a little bit better.

#1 remove freeports

instead make separate spawnservers on which new players start. once buildet a raft or slope and leaving the startserver, let them choose a region on the real map and start over. So you can scale the amount of startingservers on the actual needs. In the beginning there could be 50, after a week you perhaps need 5 or less. As a replacemnt for the traders in freeports implement a building simelar to the bank where players can buy the stuff you can only et in freeports at the moment.

#2 Increase the decay of structures in lawlesszones. 

In my opinion, the builds in lawless zones should only be temporary. And noch 4daystemporary, more like 4 hours. You come to a "wild" island, building a small camp with smithy, storage and a bed, then you gather ressources as much as you need (spawning in beds is possible). You leave by ship, you go offline or asleep your buildings on land will decay after 4 hours making space for the next player coming to farm on the island. The timer will be reset, everytime you step on a part of the foundation. Same with shipyards. So you prevent that the players spam the islands with foundations, pillars and other things to stop others from building. 

#3 Forget all about the circleclaims

There is really nothing good with theses circles around flags beaing your claimed land. you overlap, you have holes in it and the amount of flags is near by endless ehich could be planted on land and sea. I think a better way would be to split the islands in unchangeable proberties. You out your flag in your property to claim it and a contestet must place his flag in a smal radius around your flag. No more flags on water and the maximum count of flags is known and manageble. The amount of claimed properties per crew should be limited exponentional to the number of players in a crew ( 1 ppl = 1 flag, 2 = 2, 4 = 3, 8 = 4, 16 = 5, 32 = 6, etc. ). The nospawn from foundations should be newarly removed or set to 2-5 meters letting the island look green and giving a small amount of ressources. Not like some islands with parts where no tree spawns. Also the number of gates should be limmitet per property. You need 2 large gates ... ok ... but why the hell you need them all around your base? looks ugly, should not be the way. Build a wall with towes or something other nice stuff ;).

Because the freeports are gone, you can add more settlingones and the ratio from lawless to settling might be good at 1 to 4 I think. That would give significant more settlingspace as you have today.

 

[Dragonchampion 107]

4 hour timer on Lawless buildings? Are you deliberately shitting on people who have a life, or...?

If you make the Lawless zone demolishable in 4 hours then you can kiss any semblance of PvE the PvE servers have. People will come, demolish structures and buildings, steal everyone's stuff, and lure enemies to kill sleepers. If you MUST reduce the timer, it should be 2 days, slightly inferior to a claim flag.

Some people have a life, get sick, or just don't want to play ATLAS 24/7. 4 hours is absolutely ridiculously stupid.

[don 12]

no, 4 hours is fine if you do not see lawless as a settling area ... its for gathering only. The decay timer only starts when you are not standing on your foundation(s). so it can last longer than 4 hours. But if you leave by sea or go offline you'll make space for other players. 

And you can allway put your stuff on ships which should not decay that fast. Here could be a two day timer reasonable which only use would be to prevend players from "camping" lawless.