Why atlas disappoints me so far - More ARK than Pirates

[MajorAvatar 28]

After nearly 200 hours in the game, Atlas is starting to disappoint me as a "pirate game". The meta shifted completely to taming creatures, instead of building and commandeering ships and cannons.
Basically, it is far easier to tame a lion (or other Tier-3) and a bear, outfit the bear with cart&cannon and raid bases with this method.

Another problem I see is that the PvP is not very skill orientated. The focus is primarily on numbers: who has the most attackers/defenders with decent gear and tames, or in the case of overwhelming numbers vs smaller amounts you could attack naked and win. 
Skill definitely takes a backseat to sheer numbers of players and tames.

Cheats are rampant, but that is to be expected from EA, they get fixed fairly rapidly. In my feelings, the animal tames should get a VERY minor role and impact, ships should be more powerful, important and viable and PvP should become more skill-based, than equipment & numbers. Animals should not be important, this is not ARK.

In the survival genre, I primarily played other games than ARK. In my opinion, that game is skill based with quick actions, reflexes and reactions (aka Skills) sufficient for a truly skilled player, to have a fighting chance and even be able to win against 3 to 5 players with less skill (not talking total noob, just less skill). This is where Atlas should go, Skilled and experienced players should have the edge on less skilled players, even if they are grouped.
I can see that well-organized groups have a fighting chance against larger, less organized and experienced players, there is, as far as I have seen so far on both official as well as non-officials, no way for solo players to overcome small groups (3-4 players) even if skilled, while there is a slight chance for smaller, organized teams (10-20 players) to overcome larger teams, it should also become more balanced in the 1 vs 3 / 2 vs 6 and 3 vs 9 scales - SKILL should rule, not the number of players or tames.

Examples

- A group of 3, can knock out a  single player that is scouting or farming, throw the bola, put the handcuffs and drag you into jail for the remainder of the week/month/year, efficiently eliminating the player from that server, as the character can be stuck in jail forever. Even if that single player is way more skilled or experienced, the knockout game mechanics give them little or no chance facing three players, not to mention any tamed animals.

-   another issue, jail time. While interesting in itself, it should really be a limited (maybe 4 hours, 6 ... 8 hours?) timeout rather than a potential 'life' sentence, allowing a larger group to hold players prisoner for as long as they like. Theoretically, a sufficiently organized group could jail a player as long as there is no wipe of the server, that is simply unacceptable.

In short, my feelings are:
- Improve PvP, allowing the skill to reign over numbers

- Reduce the impact of tames, they should have minor supporting roles, able to help a little in gathering, building but not be totally full out war machines (else the game is just ARK without actual Dinosaurs, well actually i already seen Dinosaurs.....).
- Maybe make dragging cannons behinds animals very slow. Swimming with a cannon on a cart should not be possible 

- Jail time should have a limit in maximum time, a reasonable limit. Hours, not days or weeks, or months or years... 

- Increase the impact boats have, they should be the single most important thing to have, build and maintain.  Wee supposed to be pirates, after all, not beastmasters.

Ever heard of Pirates sailing with dinosaurs, bears, lions, Elephants and such? as long as tames stay as important as they are, its basically a reskin of ARK survival with inferior boats..
Who feels the same? what should be improved?

[Back Stabbath 150]

    Agree 100 percent about the taming thing. pvp should be about boats and skill not magical fukin dinosaurs....

 

  Dont they already have a taming game?

Edited January 31, 2019 by Back Stabbath
I like to edit.

[Hodo 147]

19 minutes ago, MajorAvatar said:

After nearly 200 hours in the game, Atlas is starting to disappoint me as a "pirate game". The meta shifted completely to taming creatures, instead of building and commandeering ships and cannons.

In short, my feelings are:
- Improve PvP, allowing the skill to reign over numbers

- Reduce the impact of tames, they should have minor supporting roles, able to help a little in gathering, building but not be totally full out war machines (else the game is just ARK without actual Dinosaurs, well actually i already seen Dinosaurs.....).
- Maybe make dragging cannons behinds animals very slow. Swimming with a cannon on a cart should not be possible 

- Jail time should have a limit in maximum time, a reasonable limit. Hours, not days or weeks, or months or years... 

- Increase the impact boats have, they should be the single most important thing to have, build and maintain.  Wee supposed to be pirates, after all, not beastmasters.

Ever heard of Pirates sailing with dinosaurs, bears, lions, Elephants and such? as long as tames stay as important as they are, its basically a reskin of ARK survival with inferior boats..
Who feels the same? what should be improved?

I agree with most of this... except the part about the being captured... you can kill yourself even when handcuffed.  There is a yell option which uses stamina, you can do that until you die.  It takes about 10min at most.  

[Luxfere 90]

Its still EA balancing and all that has to go on try and fail typical this isnt a fully released game...remember that

[MajorAvatar 28]

2 minutes ago, Hodo said:

I agree with most of this... except the part about the being captured... you can kill yourself even when handcuffed.  There is a yell option which uses stamina, you can do that until you die.  It takes about 10min at most.  

I researched this for quite some time, but never found this solution. Maybe it should be a simple option: Yell until you die... in the menu instead of a skill that only ARK insiders know about. 

More guidance would have been nice, for players that were not previously played ARK. It really looks, to me, like they catered only to players that did play ARK before. How does this YELL technique go? and how realistic is it in the gameplay? reasonable multiple hours of minimum/maximum imprisonment time (unless freed) feels far more immersive, realistic and connected with the intention of jail time (stopping people raiding your place or boat / defending against raid).

Basically what you suggest: use a glitch to get yourself out, instead of fixing the gameplay mechanics... 

 

[Hodo 147]

1 minute ago, MajorAvatar said:

I researched this for quite some time, but never found this solution. Maybe it should be a simple option: Yell until you die... in the menu instead of a skill that only ARK insiders know about. 

More guidance would have been nice, for players that were not previously played ARK. It really looks, to me, like they catered only to players that did play ARK before. How does this YELL technique go? and how realistic is it in the gameplay? reasonable multiple hours of minimum/maximum imprisonment time (unless freed) feels far more immersive, realistic and connected with the intention of jail time (stopping people raiding your place or boat / defending against raid).

Basically what you suggest: use a glitch to get yourself out, instead of fixing the gameplay mechanics... 

 

The yell VOIP button uses stamina.  It also transmits your voice further.  What I have seen some people do is put on an annoying song or sound and hold down the yell button and wait until they die.   Look at your key mapping to find out which key it is, I remapped my whole keyboard day 2.

[MajorAvatar 28]

Just now, Hodo said:

The yell VOIP button uses stamina.  It also transmits your voice further.  What I have seen some people do is put on an annoying song or sound and hold down the yell button and wait until they die.   Look at your key mapping to find out which key it is, I remapped my whole keyboard day 2.

Thank you for the tip, while useful, it is just a broken game mechanic that should be fixed as soon as possible. As this is the official forum, I propose:

- remove the yell VOIP drains stamina bug to escape jail.

and

- Add maximum jail time (4 hours? 6 hours) 

This should serve the intention of jail time, to remove the player temporarily from the attacker or defender list during a PvP event.

Thoughts?

[Hodo 147]

1 minute ago, MajorAvatar said:

Thank you for the tip, while useful, it is just a broken game mechanic that should be fixed as soon as possible. As this is the official forum, I propose:

- remove the yell VOIP drains stamina bug to escape jail.

and

- Add maximum jail time (4 hours? 6 hours) 

This should serve the intention of jail time, to remove the player temporarily from the attacker or defender list during a PvP event.

Thoughts?

The yell stamina drain is not a bug.  It is actually in the description when using it.  

And we have captured people.. we have had them until they woke up, and then we usually ask them to do something stupid, like.....

-Dance

-gather xxxx amount of materials.

-listen to one of our guys poetry.. (we really didn't like that guy)

-or be publicly executed.. we will hang them.

[MajorAvatar 28]

35 minutes ago, Hodo said:

The yell stamina drain is not a bug.  It is actually in the description when using it.  

 

 

In that case, it's reasonable to gag a prisoner to prevent them from yelling. I would not want the jail experience to be limited to 10 minutes for players ' in the know how to yell their way out' that's just silly. Jail should be a timeout allowing attackers to imprison defeated defenders and the way around, defenders to do so with attackers - its actually a game mechanic that is funny, unique and practical. It should, however, be limited to an X number of game hours,  jailing people for days, weeks months or years is simply too much.

But the main issue:

Ships should be the main focus, not animals. Its pirates, not Ark survival evolved 2.0. (i hope... )

and for ... sake, make PvP a thing, the PvP in this game is for lazy people: with overwhelming numbers, of unskilled naked spearman players and a bunch of tier-3 tames,  i can beat anyone, anywhere, anytime... 

You do know that most animal, (elephant, lion, tiger ) in real life, can be one shot with pistol, gun or stab by a sword, they can definitely not survive cannon hits & explosives and I am pretty certain that in the time of pirates, Dragons and Dinosaur like beings did not exist. Make this a Pirate game... as promised. Deliver us what was promised: Focus on ships, not animals, tames and such. Do not nerf dragons, remove them. Nerf animals to be one shot killed in true pvp, Lions cannot carry 2000 kilograms of resources.

In real life, there were ships that were build to partly repel cannon balls, they were quite resilient to cannon fire, ships should be sturdy, not easily sunk...

We need a focus on ships and skill based PVP, not animal tame and zerg group based PvP.

 

 

[Shintai 117]

You mean the mandatory bear, rhino, elephant trio isn't the best idea while people riding bears, lions wolves and tigers instead of horses??

Couldn´t agree more, I hate the ARK 2.0 part including all the BS temp tames.

I fear the new giant crab is going to be the first platform enabled tame.

[LaiTash 156]

1 hour ago, Hodo said:

There is a yell option which uses stamina, you can do that until you die.  It takes about 10min at most.  

I don't think it is intended, tho.

[strawman 114]

OP is correct on all points

[Case of the Scurvy 72]

Sorta funny how there isnt anything to do on the ocean eh

[Hodo 147]

12 minutes ago, LaiTash said:

I don't think it is intended, tho.

Yelling burning stamina is intended.  As for it being an easy way out of being jailed... who knows.

[Percieval 1,067]

Hm. Until now I have not used tames in raids. Just my climbing picks and gliders. Works perfectly fine for me. 

As for the numbers, that is in real war and in other games. It’s just that with defending you always have that extra bit; your base - now not anymore since the stone nerf. 

Edited January 31, 2019 by Percieval

[kampfer91 58]

Don't nerf tame anymore , PVE already have enough problem with your PVP problem .

Tame is weak af . Bear cargo only carry small cannon , a swivel cannon is enough to 2 shots it .

NPC A.I crews is actually stronger than tame .