Steal Someone's Progress / Lose Yours - in 10 Minutes

[Phantomstrk 8]

So I’ve been a fan of this company going back to ARK early access.  They had a lot of issues then as well, but I stayed with them, and enjoyed ARK a great deal.  Even ran my own server for awhile for my guild.

The game right now has a some very serious flaws regarding land claim and ownership.  Currently, atleast on PVE anyway, there is no limit on how many flag claims you can place.  One person can claim most of an island themselves if not all of it, just as long as they can place claim flags and have it claim faster then the next person.

The biggest issue is that on a PVE server you can steal someone’s claim and all their progress in 10 minutes.  Our company spent several hours last night getting to an island, getting setup.  We had a small little house going, had the forge and the smithy, and just placed a dock and started a sloop building before we called it a night.  A little while later one of our company members logged back on to find he was dead and that he couldn’t re-spawn at our base location.  This was because someone else had claimed the base and in doing some testing, it was discovered that you can claim someones progress on a PVE server in 10 minutes just by placing a flag there and contesting the claim.  If no one is online from that company to come to the flag and reverse the contest, then you can take all of their land, their progress, etc and make it your own.

I have to wonder after seeing this happen to us, why the dev’s thought an Atari like experience when it came to land placement was the way to go.  In Atari, there was no save game, so once you shut off the console you were done.  This is exactly what is occurring here now, you log off and if no one is on, then you can steal their stuff if you place a claim in 10 minutes.  The game is supposed to be played by companies that never sleep ?  That never go explore, as someone always has to be standing on the claim flags to stop contesting from happening ?

They need to fix this ASAP.  This is a bad design implementation if intentional, or a serious bug if not. 

I would propose:

PVE:

·         Limit claim flags to 2-3 total.  When you try and place 4^th you get warning that your first flag will unclaim and that the land around it will be claimable or no longer yours. 

·         Land Claims should have a 7 or 14 day decay timer set on them.  Decay timers starts once the company member who placed it logs off and continues until they log on again where it would refresh at that point and not start again until they log off.  Once the decay timer completes, you can place a claim flag and after the 10 minutes, even if the owner logs back on.

 

PVP:

·         Limit claim flags to 2-3 total.  When you try and place 4^th you get warning that your first flag will unclaim and that the land around it will be claimable or no longer yours. 

·         Land Claims should have a 7 or 14 day decay timer set on them.  Decay timers starts once the company member who placed it logs off and continues until they log on again where it would refresh at that point and not start again until they log off.  Once the decay timer completes, you can place a claim flag and after the 10 minutes, even if the owner logs back on.

·         A players structures or base gains a “timeout” shield for an hour after they log off preventing structure damage.  After that structures are able to be damaged or destroyed, but the land can’t be claimed (see land decay point above).  If the player logs in during the “timeout” period the shield immediately drops.

 

I am extremely disappointed to wake up this morning and find all of our progress from yesterday wiped out, in 10 minutes.  The fact that someone can do this on a PVE server is beyond imagination.  There is in essence no way to establish or save your progress unless you have a company of hundreds who are always on and can instantly respond to every claim flag if it’s contested and get there in 10 minutes. 

It would be my hope that a dev can respond and comment on this issue and advise if it is intended design.  Do they dev’s really want players waking up each day starting back at square one ?  Do they really want us gaining progress by stealing someone elses on PVE Server.

Boats should be sunk, I think players when they die if they don’t get back to their loot (pvp or pve) then after a corpse timer that bag should be lootable by any player, not just the owner as a way to take what you have on your back, but to be allowed to completely steal someone’s progress because they have to sleep and do so in 10 minutes, is very very bad design.

[Revenant 21]

I agree that it should be limited and have some kind of decay mechanic, but a shield in PvP could be abused heavily.

It's kind of crazy now, though.  On NA PvP every island I've sailed past is fully claimed.  

[Hackjob 57]

Definitely agree this needs to be addressed ASAP. PvE server shouldn't have this and should limit the size of claim

[Phantomstrk 8]

But i do think there should be something to lay claim to a ship at sea, like a ship claim flag, that does have a good contest feature in it.  I've heard there is something down in the piracy tree and if it does that then that makes sense on PVE, unless your boat is inside your claim area "safe at your dock" then it can't be stolen, but otherwise if you are out exploring and someone sneaks up on it and tries to pirate it and take it, then yes that should be a thing...very sea of thieves like..

But as to my initial post, in no way should what is occurring with land claim contesting continue...because you will never get to a galleon now that everyone is going out contesting with unlimited land claim flags.

[Realist 504]

7 minutes ago, Phantomstrk said:

But i do think there should be something to lay claim to a ship at sea, like a ship claim flag, that does have a good contest feature in it.  I've heard there is something down in the piracy tree and if it does that then that makes sense on PVE, unless your boat is inside your claim area "safe at your dock" then it can't be stolen, but otherwise if you are out exploring and someone sneaks up on it and tries to pirate it and take it, then yes that should be a thing...very sea of thieves like..

But as to my initial post, in no way should what is occurring with land claim contesting continue...because you will never get to a galleon now that everyone is going out contesting with unlimited land claim flags.

What you want to be able to steal of players stuff In pve? Yeah very stupid 

[Phantomstrk 8]

Not at all. If the ship is out in open waters and after an applicable timer for the claim then yes it should if you have specialized I. Piracy.  But if the ship is manned or at your base or within your claim area then no, it can’t be.  

 

And again maybe not not an option for PVE but again the real issue is the land claim problem. 

[Naviss 25]

Wow is this for real? That’s worse then ark. I’m playing pve to get away from trolls. Not lose all my progress in 10 minutes because I can’t babysit a game. 

[John 4]

I know I'm starting to think if they keep this, then we are viewing the game wrong, ark is a long term base building with Dino's, but this game if they don't change the pve land claim, this game is about "quick play", since you gotta be nuts to do anything long term and to be vulnerable to a one hour window of everything lost, isn't that basically a server wipe ? 

 

The potential to lose everything every hour on the hour on a player vs environment rule set.

[Percieval 1,067]

This is ridiculous and should be handled asap. Stealing someone’s progress on pve with something as easy as this is a serious case. 

Edited December 24, 2018 by Percieval

[Realist 504]

8 minutes ago, Percieval said:

This is ridiculous and should be handled asap. Stealing someone’s progress on pve with something as easy as this is a serious case. 

Well looks like we agree on something 

[Teach 79]

I think they could borrow a few philosophies from Rust to help alleviate some of the issues with territory claim. Obviously PvP and PvE need to be handled a little differently, as in PvE there isn't supposed to be player conflict- so how do you settle land claims?

• In Rust, they use a TC (Tool-chest)- an item you fill with resources that decay over time based on the size/quality of your structure. Basically your "rent" on the land (and resource sink).
• In Atlas, perhaps a physical flag that you place/protect in your structure that needs to be burned (meaning, you'd have to know where the flag is within the structure, and have at least broken in).
•  I think in PvE you can't destroy peoples structures, so this would automagically protect PvE structures (If you had a physical flag you could put in your house, and protect, people couldn't burn it and claim your territory because they cant break in anyway).
• The flag itself could act as a "tool-chest" that tells you how much your structure will cost to maintain hourly, and have a UI popup to deposit/withdraw resources into the flag itself. This would provide the decay mechanic both PvE and PvP could seriously benefit from.

This would give players in both arctypes of the game a way to pay off the decay of their structures and protect them from theft. In PvE, structures would only cease to exist if the decay wasn't tended too. In PvP, structures would have to be physically attacked and broken into to find the territories flag, then have the flag burned over an X amount of time for the territory to be reclaimed.

Edited December 24, 2018 by Teach

[MrWombatt 1]

11 hours ago, Teach said:

I think they could borrow a few philosophies from Rust to help alleviate some of the issues with territory claim. Obviously PvP and PvE need to be handled a little differently, as in PvE there isn't supposed to be player conflict- so how do you settle land claims?

• In Rust, they use a TC (Tool-chest)- an item you fill with resources that decay over time based on the size/quality of your structure. Basically your "rent" on the land (and resource sink).
• In Atlas, perhaps a physical flag that you place/protect in your structure that needs to be burned (meaning, you'd have to know where the flag is within the structure, and have at least broken in).
•  I think in PvE you can't destroy peoples structures, so this would automagically protect PvE structures (If you had a physical flag you could put in your house, and protect, people couldn't burn it and claim your territory because they cant break in anyway).
• The flag itself could act as a "tool-chest" that tells you how much your structure will cost to maintain hourly, and have a UI popup to deposit/withdraw resources into the flag itself. This would provide the decay mechanic both PvE and PvP could seriously benefit from.

This would give players in both arctypes of the game a way to pay off the decay of their structures and protect them from theft. In PvE, structures would only cease to exist if the decay wasn't tended too. In PvP, structures would have to be physically attacked and broken into to find the territories flag, then have the flag burned over an X amount of time for the territory to be reclaimed.

Actually something like that would be awesome imo

But we would still need a limitation per player for maximum territory claimed 

Right now it's just bullshit

[Boredaholic 39]

it's pointless to play outside of freeports. best to do is go outside of freeport to a lawless, drop a ship build spot, go back to freeport, gather, go back out build, go back in, gather, go back out build, repeat

[Gabacon 9]

So, are you supposed to stay logged on 24 hours a day? That does not make sense.

[Boredaholic 39]

1 minute ago, Gabacon said:

So, are you supposed to stay logged on 24 hours a day? That does not make sense.

pretty much

[Jean Lafitte 451]

For those who read this like I did and freaked out, I decided to test this myself.

Yes, you can drop multiple claims.
Yes, you can own an entire island if you got there first.
No, you cannot grab a claim on a PVE server like described in 10 minutes, if at all.

I tested on my mostly deserted island on the PVE-NA servers and dropping a flag does say that it's contesting ownership.  However, the timer stops at 9:59 and neither flag moves.  I tested this on multiple claims.

So while I do agree the system is completely hosed, at least someone can't just move in on a PVE server and take everything you own.

It DOES however mean that if they got there first that they can place claims on all the major resources and depending on their 'dick' level, they can set up tax houses to make it almost pointless to try to get resources.  Which is the case for about 90% of my island.

[Phantomstrk 8]

13 hours ago, Jean Lafitte said:

For those who read this like I did and freaked out, I decided to test this myself.

Yes, you can drop multiple claims.
Yes, you can own an entire island if you got there first.
No, you cannot grab a claim on a PVE server like described in 10 minutes, if at all.

I tested on my mostly deserted island on the PVE-NA servers and dropping a flag does say that it's contesting ownership.  However, the timer stops at 9:59 and neither flag moves.  I tested this on multiple claims.

So while I do agree the system is completely hosed, at least someone can't just move in on a PVE server and take everything you own.

It DOES however mean that if they got there first that they can place claims on all the major resources and depending on their 'dick' level, they can set up tax houses to make it almost pointless to try to get resources.  Which is the case for about 90% of my island.

Yes it can still happen.  If the person isn't there or they don't have a body there, you plant the claim flag and it will begin contesting their claim. Sometimes it takes 10 mins, sometimes it take 1.5 hours.  As long as they don't have a body there or come back in range, you will be able to steal the land on PVE server.....because it was done to us...

Your test had you contesting i suspect when the land owner you were trying to steal was close or had logged out on the claim.  Try this, have a friend of yours log in and come to your claim and wait for you to leave and have no one else from your company on your claim, then have them place the flag, i bet you it will count down and take your land...because that's the test we did earlier, and we took land from someone who had a claim...but we gave it back because it was a test and they were kind enough to help us out.

[xRDx 19]

Iv heard the time it takes depends on the amount of flags that team has, so if they have 100 claims it may take for example 10 mins to steal one spot but the more u steal from them the less they have so that 10 min time goes up....example if u widdle them down to 1 flag at the main base that's were they have the good stuff and it's now gona take u 5 hours to claim that last flag . Now if u raid that base at the start u could potentially claim the main base in 10 mins since that would be the first flag u take out of 100. Idk if this is true so leme know if u know.

[Poot Pootington 30]

On 12/25/2018 at 9:16 PM, Phantomstrk said:

Yes it can still happen.  If the person isn't there or they don't have a body there, you plant the claim flag and it will begin contesting their claim. Sometimes it takes 10 mins, sometimes it take 1.5 hours.  As long as they don't have a body there or come back in range, you will be able to steal the land on PVE server.....because it was done to us...

Your test had you contesting i suspect when the land owner you were trying to steal was close or had logged out on the claim.  Try this, have a friend of yours log in and come to your claim and wait for you to leave and have no one else from your company on your claim, then have them place the flag, i bet you it will count down and take your land...because that's the test we did earlier, and we took land from someone who had a claim...but we gave it back because it was a test and they were kind enough to help us out.

You're doing it wrong. I've held onto my 2 claims since day 2.  If you don't want land to get stolen, log off safely within the claim.    If you're company isn't large enough to have a sleeper in every claim, then someone can and should steal them so 1 person can't claim an entire island.