Less is More.

[Adfax 157]

I've realized the broader problem with Atlas.. They've lost sight of the core concept, and are instead trying to do too much, and it is dragging the game down. They need to sit down, and think about cutting certain things out of the game that weigh it down. 

When thinking of Atlas, The term "keep it simple stupid" comes to mind.  Or the term "don't overcomplicated the simple, or simplify the complex".

Let me list a few areas where the game has been damaged by overcomplication; where simplicity would make a superior overall experience.

1. Vitamins

Why oh why of all things would you make food and water a more complex system? It is almost like you needed a reason to have the cooking tree in the game. Once again, I find myself time and time again telling the devs to STOP crowbarring things in the game that it doesn't need for the sake of appearing more expansive, and/or innovative. This should be as simple as eat food, and drink water.. But no. For some reason, they had to make what was already a bothersome chore even worse. Stop it. It essentially boils down to an annoying little side minigame you have to constantly manage. It isn't fun, it is just annoying. Keep it simple; food and water is enough. If you want to keep cooking, fine, just put some interesting buffs on the food you can make.

2. Melee

If one thing has suffered more than any from overcomplication, it is undoubtedly melee. Infact, this system isn't only poor in it's over complication, but it's implementation too. The way your player's movement has been tied to the attacks simply makes it unworkable. Running is good enough to counter essentially all melee unless you get that overpowered ability that bola's people in place...

Look at ark.. Sure, maybe it was a little too simple, but it worked. You run up and you hit them, easy. Atlas..? It is a mess. I would say somewhere between Ark's melee, and Atlas's melee is the right spot... Less complex than atlas, more complex than Ark.

Also, the blackjack doesn't knock people out;  please fix.

3. Age

The game doesn't need it. I've already covered this in several threads, and I think this mechanic in particular is the one most in need of cutting. It just annoys people who want their character to look the way they want, it annoys people who want to keep playing one character, it annoys people who don't have much time to play.. All of these things and more (lest I mention the FOY) for what? A texture that makes your character uglier, and a debuff… Is it worth it? Really? You think people want to deal with that in a video game? Maybe on a hardcore server.. But on the normal servers? You're talking crazy. I think this is probably one of the biggest factors for numbers dropping in honesty. It needs to go.

4. Construction

Overly excessive crafting requirements; aka, the stone wall incident. Making finicky annoying requirements to make something you're going to craft in abundance is just going to annoy people. Am I saying all crafting should be simplified? No. I'm saying things that you're going to need to keep replacing, and you're going to need a lot of should be toned down; UNLESS they're extremely high in utility. Like say, a mythic carbine or something. Stone walls are the perfect example of this.

5. Claims

Why not just let companies build wherever they want, but implement a structure limit to counter pillar spam? This would help make servers more stable too. Save claiming for ships.

----

An example of complexity done right?.. The way instruments work. Perhaps they need to alter the buff timers a little, aside from that; the way instruments work is more complex in all the right ways. Complex where complexity is needed. I felt it important to demonstrate where it was handled correctly for referral's sake.

I could go on to list areas of detrimental overcomplication, but for now take this handful which I find to be the biggest offenders.

 

Edited February 1, 2019 by Adfax

[Notorious 67]

I swear if they keep NERFING everything I'm gonna leave. Punch a wolf it runs away, shoot an elephant it runs away, stand beside a bear it does nothing, more danger and more things to do is what the game needs.

Eat all the proper foods after a bit of time you get buffs to your character, very cool and very useful. Age isn't done yet, Taming is amazing and super fast. If I can beat everything in one day I'll go play another game. But that's me and my view of how the game should be, harder and more things to do.

[UDO 361]

22 minutes ago, Notorious said:

I swear if they keep NERFING everything I'm gonna leave. Punch a wolf it runs away, shoot an elephant it runs away, stand beside a bear it does nothing, more danger and more things to do is what the game needs.

Eat all the proper foods after a bit of time you get buffs to your character, very cool and very useful. Age isn't done yet, Taming is amazing and super fast. If I can beat everything in one day I'll go play another game. But that's me and my view of how the game should be, harder and more things to do.

the wolf nerf was worst so far . the area i set up was wolf heaven , meat galore , furs galoe,r xp galore now im lucky to see one wolf a day , all they had to do was reduce its aggro range job done  , but no now the bloody things hardly spawn

 

no danger at all now , lions one shot from bnlunderbus dead , thats if they even spawn , 

islands full of elephants and giraffes cows , bulls , ostridges , and snakes that really are not hard to kite and kill anyway, sotd nerfed into uselesness , so easy to take down, few cannons on back of ship and sail away , i feel im playing game for easy mode casual kids

Edited February 1, 2019 by UDO

[Jean Lafitte 451]

1 hour ago, Adfax said:

5. Claims

Why not just let companies build wherever they want, but implement a structure limit to counter pillar spam? This would help make servers more stable too. Save claiming for ships.

 

I agree with all your points except this one.

I see entirely too many ways to grief, even if you do limit them.

Let me give you another reason. If you are in a company in Atlas you own nothing.  The owner of the company owns it all. Sure, you could walk out with a inventory full of fiber if you wish but all structures, all tames and all ships belong to the owner.  You don't even own  the clothes on your back as any other corp member can open your inventory and take what the like. One of the things I'm doing in my company in order to give it's members a sense of ownership and privacy is to give them their own private pin-coded rooms. Only the owner, the admin and that crew member have access to a specific room.  It gives them a place to not only sleep without worrying about being naked the next morning, but also a place to store personal items, like that mythic pistol, where it won't get stolen.  All of my crew also have their 'own' personal horse if they wish which I'll gladly un-claim should they choose to leave.  People want a sense of ownership, this includes, ships, buildings, land, territory, resources, etc. You're proposing a free-for-all where anyone could build anything anywhere they choose which would take away a good chunk of that.

[Jean Lafitte 451]

 

31 minutes ago, UDO said:

the wolf nerf was worst so far . the area i set up was wolf heaven

Whereas, where I was, it was wolf hell.  Until that nerf I had not even fully explored half my claims. Reason? I couldn't get out the damned door without being killed.  Dying 20... 30... 50 times in one gaming session and getting nothing done as a result was not fun.  I was ready to quit.  Did I have more wolf tames? Yes.  But even that was hell because any time I tried to tame a wolf, I got decimated by vultures. I had to build a fully enclosed pen and trap in order to tame.  And even then, I didn't dare take any tame out of the FULLY enclosed stables for fear of it too getting eaten alive.  I cannot even count the number of tames I lost to wolves, alphas and vultures when I did take them out.  I could not go kill wolves and harvest those resource because the moment I whacked on the dead wolf, I was also whacking on half a dozen vultures which would NOT stop attacking until dead.

Now, I have finally gotten a chance to see the island where I live.  I can now get on my horse and go visit and trade with neighbors. Just a couple days ago, I ran into two groups. One was desperately trying to get off of a lawless. They had a base set up in a polar region and were looking for a small camp to gather wood, and as they called it, 'orange vitamins', which are plentiful where I live.  I just happened to be standing beside a claim I was trying to take to turn into a horse trap.  Instead, I gave it to them.  Last nite, my crew and I went to visit them in their polar home.  We had some great conversation, farmed some metal and yeti, grabbed a couple of penguins and had a great time.  And, they agreed to let us build an outpost on their polar claim.

Ya know what I've decided... You can leave the predators just as they are.  A little, 'oh shit' every now and then is nice.  But I'd MUCH rather spend my in-game time interacting with other players, setting up trades or just chatting about how lousy the weather is than to spend my entire gaming time tying to kill mobs by beating on them through the walls of my house because I can't get out of the fucking door.

Can you tell that even the recollection of those days pisses me off?

Edited February 1, 2019 by Jean Lafitte

[Bad News Bear 59]

Game becoming too easy, please make the game harder, make wolves a misery again.

Increase game complexity (unique resources giving items unique attribute concept would be cool) make islands worth exploring for other reasons than discovery points (unique rare resources, monsters, secret dungeons/treasure riddles).

Ensure new complex content isnt farmable and actually requires thinking or skill to complete (ie things that cannot just be thrown into a wiki guide to be repeated indefinitely)

[Jean Lafitte 451]

3 minutes ago, Bad News Bear said:

 make wolves a misery again.

Because misery = fun?  You a masochist?

[Bad News Bear 59]

Being

7 minutes ago, Jean Lafitte said:

Because misery = fun?  You a masochist?

Being able to 2 shot wolves is boring as fuck. Even before the nerf i could easily 1v2 wolves with a bow and no armor.

We are litterally running around overburdened on our island not worrying about wildlife because wolves are getting wiped for attempting to fight bears.

before the nerf we would have hunting expeditions before attempting to brind out resources. That’s was fun.

Yes the game was rather difficult before some of the changes (spawn rates) but when you really took the time to think about strategies it really was not that bad.

 

IMO, official servers should be hardcore, if players want easymode they should go to unofficial servers

Edited February 1, 2019 by Bad News Bear

[Bad News Bear 59]

As someone else said, if this game because a carebear fest where content is a joke I would just go play something else. Even powerstones/FOY mobspam is easy to deal with if you come prepared.

Edited February 1, 2019 by Bad News Bear

[Jean Lafitte 451]

1 minute ago, Bad News Bear said:

Being

Being able to 2 shot wolves is boring as fuck. Even before the nerf i could easily 1v2 wolves with a bow and no armor.

We are litterally running around overburdened on our island not worrying about wildlife because wolves are getting wiped for attempting to fight bears.

Good... great... excellent!

You know what your problem is. You expect Atlas to entertain you.  Atlas is like a pile of Legos and VERY rightfully should be. You can stare at those Legos all day and they'll do absolutely nothing.  HOWEVER... if you pick them up and start to discover the amazing things you can build, you will entertain yourself.

[Bad News Bear 59]

I enjoy the game.

 

You seem angry when things don’t go your way - might want to take a break and cool down.

Edited February 1, 2019 by Bad News Bear

[Jean Lafitte 451]

2 minutes ago, Bad News Bear said:

As someone else said, if this game because a carebear fest where content is a joke I would just go play something else. Even powerstones/FOY mobspam is easy to deal with if you come prepared.

And the game is barely a month old and you expect all the content of WoW?  Ok, bye.  Come back in a few years when they've had a chance to add in that content. Until that time, if you don't mind, I'd prefer to make my own content instead of being trapped in my house by your idea of 'content'?

Just now, Bad News Bear said:

I enjoy the game.

You seem angry when things don’t go your way - might want to take a break and cool down.

And you seem disappointed that you're not being constantly struck about the head and shoulders as a means of entertainment.  Might wanna go down town to some of those dark seedy places and pay someone to 'entertain' you.

[Notorious 67]

Think we a bit off track when talking about wildlife nerfs. Everyone wanted the spawns fixed and we are  all are happy they did 30 wolves at your door was a pain in the ass.Same for snakes etc.  That is now fixed , but punch a wolf and it runs away is a bit silly, same with other animals. Last night a lvl 14 bear took on 4 elephants at once and won without a scratch lol.

This is what I think needs looked at and not the spawn rates. I'm glad the person above got to ride their pony and go visit their neighbours. But at least have some type of danger, not 30 or 40 attacking you but just a bit more of a scare would be nice.

Keep getting everything nerfed might aswell change the name from Atlas to My little pony or Sailing with Miss Daisy.

[ptonfm 7]

^   

 

I don't think you lived on a Cobra Island or Wolf Island before the nerf

[Vaenix 131]

1 minute ago, ptonfm said:

^   

 

I don't think you lived on a Cobra Island or Wolf Island before the nerf

Lived on an island with cobras as the only aggressive spawn.  Hasn't been an issue in awhile(double walled exterior).  But the aspect that Notorious was talking about them running away is rather annoying.  We've even seen that same behavior in alpha lions/tigers to the point where I killed one with a spyglass the other day because it just kept running away and I was out of tools.

[Notorious 67]

2 minutes ago, ptonfm said:

^   

 

I don't think you lived on a Cobra Island or Wolf Island before the nerf

Yes I did and still do lol. It's not the SPAWN rates, why do they run from you is the question lol like serious go punch a wolf and just stand there. It will hit you twice then run away most cases lol same with elephants and why don't bears attack you? Not a chance in life would I ever walk up to a bear and pet it. But in Atlas we have carebears.  

[Adfax 157]

2 hours ago, Notorious said:

I swear if they keep NERFING everything I'm gonna leave. Punch a wolf it runs away, shoot an elephant it runs away, stand beside a bear it does nothing, more danger and more things to do is what the game needs.

Eat all the proper foods after a bit of time you get buffs to your character, very cool and very useful. Age isn't done yet, Taming is amazing and super fast. If I can beat everything in one day I'll go play another game. But that's me and my view of how the game should be, harder and more things to do.

Age is done, your character ages, therefore it is done. The only part that isn't done is death. And as I've already stated, the majority of people don't want to have to keep making new characters. It is a part of the whole cycle however, and part of the problem. 

If they want a solid playerbase, they're going to have to drop it. There have already been polls on it, and the vast majority hate it.

1 hour ago, Bad News Bear said:

As someone else said, if this game because a carebear fest where content is a joke I would just go play something else. Even powerstones/FOY mobspam is easy to deal with if you come prepared.

There is a difference between difficulty and faux difficulty. 

Real difficulty is where your loss is a fault of your own; fake difficulty is where there is nothing that can be done to prepare. 

The FOY is an example of fake difficulty. Unless you want to strongarm people into large groups, which it is commonly stated people do NOT want to have to do. 

People naively drop the word "carebear" without taking these things into consideration. 

You don't just pile on difficulty endlessly, and that makes the game good. No. Example : if every time you died in game, you had to chop off one of your fingers in real life; thus making the punishment pretty severe. Is that good design? 

Endlessly escalating difficult is idiotic, and is not the aim of what this game should be. 

Edited February 1, 2019 by Adfax

[Notorious 67]

1 minute ago, Adfax said:

Age is done, the only part that isn't done is death. And as I've already stated, the majority of people don't want to have to keep making new characters.

If u mean age is done by we get old then yes. But I thought we were getting the option to mate which isn't done. I haven't read anything anywhere that's says your going to die. As far as I know you get old and u get less stats unless you got to fountain of youth. Then you get a bonus. Later they gonna bring the other option where u make a baby then grow up again if im correct.So I don't understand why you have to make a new character.

[Bad News Bear 59]

Agreed

4 minutes ago, Adfax said:

Age is done, your character ages, therefore it is done. The only part that isn't done is death. And as I've already stated, the majority of people don't want to have to keep making new characters. It is a part of the whole cycle however, and part of the problem. 

If they want a solid playerbase, they're going to have to drop it. There have already been polls on it, and the vast majority hate it.

There is a difference between difficulty and faux difficulty. 

Real difficulty is where your loss is a fault of your own; fake difficulty is where there is nothing that can be done to prepare. 

Agreed, but they went overboard with monster nerfs, much like they went overboard with fire arrow nerfs. Feels like they were just like “fuck it” and nerfed them to shit so they wouldnt need to react to carebears crying about how “broken” the content it

[Adfax 157]

6 minutes ago, Notorious said:

If u mean age is done by we get old then yes. But I thought we were getting the option to mate which isn't done. I haven't read anything anywhere that's says your going to die. As far as I know you get old and u get less stats unless you got to fountain of youth. Then you get a bonus. Later they gonna bring the other option where u make a baby then grow up again if im correct.So I don't understand why you have to make a new character.

Right, why would I want to do that when I can just keep my character and proceed onwards?... Infact.. What is the point of the age mechanic when you look at the core of what the game is? It has none.

It is just fluff tacked on, and the game only gets more limited with it implemented.

The vitamin system is also fluff, except it is less obnoxious because it doesn't require you to travel hour for a CHANCE at doing endless naked death runs into a cave.

1 hour ago, Bad News Bear said:

As someone else said, if this game because a carebear fest where content is a joke I would just go play something else. Even powerstones/FOY mobspam is easy to deal with if you come prepared.

If you want something that isn't a carebear fest, just play pvp in a small company against big companies. 

People who say the game is carebear I can usually tell play in huge companies. People who play in huge companies don't have to work, or do anything much; they're the worst players on the game because they play the game on easymode essentially.. They feel no real loss because to make a galleon, one each member need only swing their pick a handful of times to achieve it. It is really not the way the game should be played.. But some people can't handle the challenge.

Edited February 1, 2019 by Adfax

[Bad News Bear 59]

2 minutes ago, Adfax said:

Right, why would I want to do that when I can just keep my character and proceed onwards?... Infact.. What is the point of the age mechanic when you look at the core of what the game is? It has none.

It is just fluff tacked on, and the game only gets more limited with it implemented.

The vitamin system is also fluff, except it is less obnoxious because it doesn't require you to travel hour for a CHANCE at doing endless naked death runs into a cave.

If you want something that isn't a carebear fest, just play pvp in a small company against big companies. 

I am in a small company fighting larger companies. 

What we are arguing is the base game being too easy.

[Adfax 157]

5 minutes ago, Bad News Bear said:

I am in a small company fighting larger companies. 

What we are arguing is the base game being too easy.

It has PVP, the base game is as easy as whoever you're against.

Make the mechanics harsher, and all you'll do is annoy people. It isn't really a problem because it is "difficult" it is just more chores in the way of doing what people actually want to do. 

It is hassle, not difficulty.

Like, why not keep going? Why don't we make it so our characters have to brush their teeth, and comb their hair? Take a shower? Do they make the game better, or is It just more chaff blocking the player from doing what they want?

As I've always said, the game is broken up into two parts :

1. Stuff you do to do they stuff you want to do

2. Stuff you want to do.

You have to balance the two correctly, or you'll kill the game. Too much stuff you do to do what you actually want to do, and you'll make the game feel like too much of a job. Make it so you get too much stuff you want to do, nothing feels special, and there are no consequences. 

Edited February 1, 2019 by Adfax

[Notorious 67]

2 minutes ago, Adfax said:

It has PVP, the base game is as easy as whoever you're against.

Make the mechanics harsher, and all you'll do is annoy people. It isn't really a problem because it is "difficult" it is just more chores in the way of doing what people actually want to do. 

It is hassle, not difficulty.

Just curious what are your thought on the bear not attacking? If they changed it so you did get attacked by a bear would you think that's unfair?

[Bad News Bear 59]

Bears would get nerfed if they were aggro because carebears like ADFAX would cry for it.

Edited February 1, 2019 by Bad News Bear

[Adfax 157]

7 minutes ago, Bad News Bear said:

Bears would get nerfed if they were aggro because carebears like ADFAX would cry for it.

You're just not thinking about what you're saying. You're actually opting not for difficulty, but for chores. Chores aren't difficult, they're just obstructions preventing you from doing what you want to do.

Like, imagine if you had to make pancakes whilst simultaneously playing dark souls, that was the only way you could play the game. Is that fun? Or is the game spoiled? 

The game is clearly spoiled.

I like difficulty if is is done right. What you're suggesting is the fools way of adding difficulty. aka Fake difficulty.

Or are you trying to show off by stating how "hardcore" you are, and how "carebear" everyone else is? Why not just play with a blindfold then? Think how cool you'll look then...

Think for goodness sake. You're probably more of a carebear than I am; you just don't know what actual hardcore is.

Edited February 1, 2019 by Adfax