Degression of total playerbase (Ark & Atlas)

[Jozzie McTowel 170]

haha blaming Steam while all other games work online, bloody idiots.

[Percieval 1,067]

14 minutes ago, Jozzie McTowel said:

haha blaming Steam while all other games work online, bloody idiots.

That can happen. PUBG has had it in the past and so did GTA 5 I believe.

[Mansler 5]

On 2/1/2019 at 2:18 PM, Polar Express said:

Hey my dude.

I hope the stuff that was laid out in the most recent captains log works to help get a lot of the player base back as well as adding a lot of new players. They did point out that they realise they can’t just cater to mega companies or streamer companies (by extension) and realise smaller and medium companies make up part of the player base too. Which is good imo. 

I don’t know if the devs are trying to piss people off essentially. I just think they were focussing too much on the hardcore PVP aspect of the game. The player base for atlas and ark I don’t believe are specifically the CSGO, PUBG and Rust types. Which is good sometimes.

Id really like to see the devs bring in a system that rewards large companies by turning them into what you’d essentially call a “government” with smaller groups ( civilian population)  living on their land to reward those “governments”. 

This game, the developers, and anyone who read the last captain's log, and doesn't see the gaslighting and pandering, are abject failures. They claim "

We recognize that the game has a lot of fun mechanics and gameplay that players enjoy, especially when you can live out your dreams of being a pirate. However, the feedback we often receive is that it’s too tailored to large companies, alpha groups, and hardcore players. 

A large number of you have expressed that you are unable to make enough progress to reach this stage of the game, due to our hardcore design. Our thinking going forward, with the community’s help and feedback, we plan to make the game less punishing and reduce the steep climb required for players to reach the parts of the game which make it special. This means we’re going to be changing core systems to ensure that those who do not have as much time to invest or play in small groups or as solo players are still able to experience the highs seas of ATLAS. 

For those of you in large companies, worry not, as you are still a fundamental part of our design and key to the game’s vision. We believe there are changes we can make which will make the game more immediately accessible for everyone and overall more enjoyable, without detracting from the heights that large and dedicated groups of players can achieve. All players will be able to experience the best parts of this humongous shared persistent world, whether you’re a solo player, a small group, a large company, or a multi-company alliance. "

 

but, when they make sure to conclude by saying that Mega Tribes are still a fundamental part of their design, and then go on to talk about all of the great new perks they are going to roll out specifically to large companies, they clearly haven't learned a god damn thing.

 

" Company Rankings

Large companies are very much still a major part of the vision we hold for ATLAS. We believe that being able to conquer and maintain large territories is an important part of the game and we’ll be rewarding those who are able to do so. By this weekend, we’ll have released a patch that does the following:
 

• List current top 5 companies in-game on the map (names, soon to be flags)
• Have a historic archive of companies for when they ruled the ATLAS, using both in-game days and real-life time
• Special Cosmetic Icons will be given to members of top 5 companies, which can be turned off on a per-user basis.
  
  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1639072016
  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1639071859
  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1639071423
  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1639071580
  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1639071704
   
• Unique Cosmetic Figureheads will be granted to the top 5 companies and will remain persistent as long as the company maintains their ranking within the top 5.
  
  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1638966438
  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1638966337
  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1638965975
  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1638966224
  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1638966066
   
• Resolving the bug which prevents some Company Flags from displaying on playatlas.com!

We plan on introducing more features in the future to expand on how influential large companies can be with their territories, as well as additional incentivizes to be a part of the top 5 rankings. We’re toying with the idea of a neutral Company Hall, for the strongest and most influential to hold their diplomatic meetings, whether it’s over trade, peace, love, or war, because we know much you love your large gatherings ;)!
"

 

I mean for fuck sake, their "bright" idea to deal with the problem is to take one of the anti-establishment personas that western culture recognizes, the pirate, and basically turn them into English Colonial Governors. Yet again, pirates, are you kidding?! This is more like an English colonization simulator, complete with Indentured Servitude functionality; everyone got away from where they started, established claims on land, shooed off anyone that didn't join their way of life, then, once they owned everything, allow people to settle on it, for a cut of their resources. I wish I could still get my refund, after all the time I wasted, hoping they would actually realize how badly they are fucking up the large scale pvp systems, but that's what I get for not erring on the side of cynicism.

 

Btw, if anyone wants to talk shit about me bitching, but offering no solutions, I've posted several, but the Devs aren't listening to anyone that isn't a Mega Tribe, so fuck off.

Edited February 3, 2019 by Mansler

[Skyroguen 90]

22 hours ago, Jean Lafitte said:

Show me the poll that says, "I quit playing Atlas because..."

 

I'm sorry I couldn't help myself

 

 

Edited February 3, 2019 by Skyroguen

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

15 hours ago, Realist said:

Ark had an awesome EA and stayed steady for almost 3 years. A couple of bad months here and there by nowhere near identical

as we speak the atlas numbers are 2k lower than the lowest month ark every had and that was 3 and a half years later.

ark maintained its playerbase the entire time. Ea or not ea 

This is a very legitimate point that creates a sobering comparison. Sure it's EA and there is time to right the ship, but only a fool would say that Atlas is off to a promising start.

[Herasea 59]

4 minutes ago, boomervoncannon said:

This is a very legitimate point that creates a sobering comparison. Sure it's EA and there is time to right the ship, but only a fool would say that Atlas is off to a promising start.

Agree, I don't think anyone feels it's off to a promising start tbh, even though there are those who think otherwise if you're not crap talking the game everyday.

Not sure what purpose these threads have, you see them in every game and they amount to nothing. Over the past 5 years there's been two MMO games that actually DIED and that was EQ Landmark and Wildstar. So these doom threads come to fruition, what, 1 out of 1000 or more times?

If a game like NMS can make a comeback after such a mess up on their OFFICIAL launch, lying left, right and centre before launch, hiding for a few months after the launch, which is 100x worse than this situation imho, i have no worries here. As long as they keep updating, stick to their guns and not cave too much to the needy solo players (i'm solo) I don't have much worries.

[Realist 504]

7 hours ago, boomervoncannon said:

This is a very legitimate point that creates a sobering comparison. Sure it's EA and there is time to right the ship, but only a fool would say that Atlas is off to a promising start.

Tbh, I admit, who knows if atlas will be a success or not. I won’t say anything for 100%. And I usually don’t compare ark numbers to atlas numbers until they bring it up.

i would just rather go off of the subjects standing. Right now the standing isn’t good. I predicted a drop, but even with me being pessimistic, it is dropping lower than I thought in this amount of time. So yeah it does even worry me a little bit.

i don’t necessarily want it to come crasheshing down in flames but I do want them to feel the fear of becoming a failure to ensure that their behavior is changed.

i would love it if they almost had to close down but then all of a sudden they did a 180, became different people and then saved the game. That would be a good story. But yes I do expect the need for them to go through something to see the light.

[Percieval 1,067]

2 hours ago, Realist said:

Tbh, I admit, who knows if atlas will be a success or not. I won’t say anything for 100%. And I usually don’t compare ark numbers to atlas numbers until they bring it up.

i would just rather go off of the subjects standing. Right now the standing isn’t good. I predicted a drop, but even with me being pessimistic, it is dropping lower than I thought in this amount of time. So yeah it does even worry me a little bit.

i don’t necessarily want it to come crasheshing down in flames but I do want them to feel the fear of becoming a failure to ensure that their behavior is changed.

i would love it if they almost had to close down but then all of a sudden they did a 180, became different people and then saved the game. That would be a good story. But yes I do expect the need for them to go through something to see the light.

I'm pretty sure there would be a way larger community still playing it if the access to (bigger) unofficial maps would be better. 10 euros per month for one 10 player grid.. Sure you can connect them together but find people that are into that. For me, it would be extremely fun to create an unofficial 225 grid map with some sort of community so we can all play atlas without any problems. I'm playing official for 300 hours now, best friend of mine has 180 or something like that on unofficial and he hasn't encountered maybe 25% of the bugs and glitches I did. Unofficial would've stopped (slow down) the drop but then again, it's poorly designed. I understand it, but it's a real shame. 

Edited February 3, 2019 by Percieval

[Realist 504]

37 minutes ago, Percieval said:

I'm pretty sure there would be a way larger community still playing it if the access to (bigger) unofficial maps would be better. 10 euros per month for one 10 player grid.. Sure you can connect them together but find people that are into that. For me, it would be extremely fun to create an unofficial 225 grid map with some sort of community so we can all play atlas without any problems. I'm playing official for 300 hours now, best friend of mine has 180 or something like that on unofficial and he hasn't encountered maybe 25% of the bugs and glitches I did. Unofficial would've stopped (slow down) the drop but then again, it's poorly designed. I understand it, but it's a real shame. 

That is the real sad part. You talked about a 225 grid unofficial, but that could be official. I get they had a vision., it the vision was a good one people would be on official, not the other way around.

these guys really need to start stepping up like quick.

just like ark. A really damn good idea that has been poorly executed. I might say all the shot I do but I still like the ideas they have. I just happen to hate how they execute it. A damn shame really

[Jozzie McTowel 170]

So yesterday we peaked just above 17k players and our current dip of today went as low as 7500 players while we are still trying to surpass the 10k player mark as I write this it clearly shows that the downtred I've shown earlier in this game is not just some random doomsayer but a clear sign that by next week Atlas will be lucky to even have 12k players on peak timers. Coming weekend will push peak close to 20k again but I do not expect it to go high above the 20k mark if it still reaches that by the time it's weekend.

[Percieval 1,067]

2 hours ago, Jozzie McTowel said:

So yesterday we peaked just above 17k players and our current dip of today went as low as 7500 players while we are still trying to surpass the 10k player mark as I write this it clearly shows that the downtred I've shown earlier in this game is not just some random doomsayer but a clear sign that by next week Atlas will be lucky to even have 12k players on peak timers. Coming weekend will push peak close to 20k again but I do not expect it to go high above the 20k mark if it still reaches that by the time it's weekend.

Yep. Not sure what we have to do with this. Devs are fixing stuff and giving us new content. It’s a bit weird but it is quiet on the forums. Devs are in a pretty difficult situation if it comes to the claims. To benefit all is a very hard thing to do. Hopefully we’ll go in the good direction with the february update. People have been saying there’s more land available in PvE now, so that’s good. 

[Jozzie McTowel 170]

Ark 28k players

Atlas 7k players

Go GrapeShot!

[ptonfm 7]

Eve is like Atlas, just is more confusing to start playing.  I didn't get past 1 hour played and the tutorial doesn't teach you anything.  

You spend the first 30 mins wondering how to move and attack.  You spend the next 30 mins figuring out how to navigate.  

You realize it will take days to accomplish anything, because there are no quests that are easy to find or pick up.  You don't know what any of the indicators on the screen are.  If you accidentally zoom out and have no clue how to zoom in you literally can't see your ship.

The Eve game is boring and confusing as all hell.  Not sure how anyone would enjoy it. 

[Polar Express 74]

Good points man. 

This is how many of us feel. This is why a lot of members in these forums get so annoyed when it feels like the devs are making the same unnecessary and unpopular choices over and over again. 

I feel like this is the “best worst game” of this quarter. I may be going out on a limb here but I believe this is the kind of game most people have wanted someone to make for the longest time. Buying into early access for a lot of people is a feeling like they get to beta test something that could potentially be amazing. The average gamer wants more than kill streaks and KD ratio rinse and repeat rebrands of COD. This game has that potential in my opinion. It needs clearly defined game implemented hierarchies to let people know where they sit in a map with 40000 potential players from across the globe. The devs have put so many “RP” based functions (claim system, tax system, alliances,rudimentary trading systems etc) that we as a player base need to find out how to make them work to essentially partake in a giant social experiment of sorts. The devs can’t leave everything up to the player base to figure out though, because at the base line level (with the anonymity of being behind a key board across the planet from the guy you are offlining) humans are genarally too stupid to figure out how to work together for any extended length of time. 

The devs need to look at the core ethos of the game to put in checks and balances other wise their game will fail. They need to understand what it is they are selling here. EVE from what I have heard (I have never played it) has done a lot of this right. The game is just too difficult to understand for many of us. 

Now we have a game in atlas with fairly simple concepts ( who doesn’t understand how colonies worked in the 1600s -colonists were “good guys” and pirates were the “bad guys”)  people need to understand that not everyone can be the boss of their own colony straight away, and at the same time, not everyone should be a pirate all the time. 

The devs need to learn and the players need to learn. This game could be amazing if it stopped failing so hard.

On 2/4/2019 at 7:06 AM, Realist said:

Tbh, I admit, who knows if atlas will be a success or not. I won’t say anything for 100%. And I usually don’t compare ark numbers to atlas numbers until they bring it up.

i would just rather go off of the subjects standing. Right now the standing isn’t good. I predicted a drop, but even with me being pessimistic, it is dropping lower than I thought in this amount of time. So yeah it does even worry me a little bit.

i don’t necessarily want it to come crasheshing down in flames but I do want them to feel the fear of becoming a failure to ensure that their behavior is changed.

i would love it if they almost had to close down but then all of a sudden they did a 180, became different people and then saved the game. That would be a good story. But yes I do expect the need for them to go through something to see the light.

 

[Alasson 46]

a major problem is also that currently there is no1 caring for hackers. Whole sectors (and hundred of hours of work) can be destroyed by few hackers without any action from the GM.

Most of players can live with bug but not with being overwhelmed by hackes w/o have any way to deal with them

Edited February 16, 2019 by Alasson