-------------------

[Jean Lafitte 451]

3 minutes ago, Captain Jeff said:

even though they use unreal engine they can't make it right

Ah, so you're a UE expert?  Cool! Can I have a link to one of the games you created?

[Vaenix 131]

1 minute ago, uaf said:

Ignore the past, it will never happen again - said nobody ever. That's the exact mentality that led to everybody doing 30% taxation. I wonder if you had the option to go to 99% how many would do that with your mentality.

 

Spamming pillars in ARK was protecting resources as well (remember the pillars around all the iron nodes? or huge areas around bases to keep resource spawns). Pillars also prevented people from building, just like claims are. The only difference is that you also get 30% from your "pillared" area, getting the incentive to pillar more than you need just to never need to farm again and still be able to build a galleon a day  .

 

Like I said, being over dramatic and claiming it's this huge problem that isn't is just silly.  The claim flags even come with a neutral flag option to allow building in the territory.  Taxation is not a huge problem, and you aren't building a galleon a day from 30% tax, stop trying to use hyperbole to make your point it just makes it look like you don't actually play the game.

[Nerva666 8]

i heard someone tested it and 30% was closer to 50% for some reason

[Notorious 67]

Went this weekend to winter area , all island covered in flags 13 day timer on most so I can't steal,  some at 3 days but this person had almost 600 flags and timer was still at 3 days so can't steal. Plus when o was trying to put flags down they used a spawn box and stood over me till i left.Found a few others at 16 days and all of these are at 30% tax and 3 to 8 people online. Silent clap well done devs , well done.

[Jean Lafitte 451]

23 minutes ago, uaf said:

Ignore the past, it will never happen again - said nobody ever. That's the exact mentality that led to everybody doing 30% taxation. I wonder if you had the option to go to 99% how many would do that with your mentality.

Free Market  - In economics, a free market is a system in which the prices for goods and services are determined by the open market and by consumers. In a free market the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government, or by other authority.

Atlas Free Market - My taxes are at %20. Why?  Most of our island is at 20%.  We went to a claim yesterday a couple of grids away where we farm fiber.  I've farmed on the same guy's claim for weeks now.  Last week, the taxes were at 30%.  This week, 25%. Why?  His neighbors dropped their taxes to 25%.

Hummm... Free market.  OK, that seems to be working as intended.  Don't you think?

Watch this...

Players initially needed large quantities of resources to build bases and ships. This caused land owners to increase taxes in order to profit off those demands.  As players finish construction of their initial ships and buildings, the demand for those resources is going down thus causing land owners to reduce their taxes in order to attract new customers to their claims and keep their repeat customers (like me with fiber) from going to other claims to get what they need.

At some point there is going to be a market equilibrium (Q).

Market equilibrium: A situation in a market when the price is such that the quantity demanded by consumers is correctly balanced by the quantity that firms wish to supply.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand

We have not reached that equilibrium yet.

Now, exactly what mentality are you accusing me of having?  A realistic one?

[Shintai 117]

1 hour ago, uaf said:

"Go around the map to get to a 2k treasure map > end up on an island that has 30% taxation > have 3 members in the party digging the map > all 3 are taxed ~700 gold > owner gets 2100 gold just for being in the area"

Yes.. I wonder how it diminishes the game.. 

Right now we have people claiming land regardless if they need it or not, just to set 30% and wait for others to farm with NOTHING to justify the income. They pay no upkeep for the massive flag spam on the map. This is the problem, 30% tax encourages flag spamming and griefing. (we had our neighbour sink our ships <galleon, brig and schooner> in an attempt to make us to quit the game so they can get more land).

 

If you do not see the problem with taxation, then you must have enjoyed the pillar spam in ARK. There is an issue with taxation, the huge number of posts show this. Lets not hide behind the "if you don't like it just leave" and let's actually help improve the game so it's enjoyable by everyone.

How did a 2K map become 6K?

1 hour ago, Captain Jeff said:

good for you

It´s good for everyone besides the 20-30% owners. Everyone choose our area to farm in. The 20-30% owners pretty much get's nothing. And they have started to cut taxes as their bank is empty day after day. But people remember them

[FruitBatCat 70]

The tax system in Atlas is PVE is short sighted game design. It creates additional conflict for little benefit game wise. PVE players don't want conflict or they would be playing PVP.

And for those who say anti tax people are only against it because they aren't the ones receiving the tax. That's ignorant and wrong. Most PVE gamers wouldn't want a passive income at all, let alone from other players. They want to actually play a game with rewards and achievements based on their own abilities - not someone else's.

I can't help but think tax in PVE is just lazy game design - it works well in PVP and has a purpose but never should have carried over into the PVE game.

[Vaenix 131]

1 minute ago, Shintai said:

How did a 2K map become 6K?

Because bad logic.

Side Note: More people doing a treasure map usually means more gold the number on it is the "minimum" gold you can obtain from it.

[Shintai 117]

1 minute ago, FruitBatCat said:

The tax system in Atlas is PVE is short sighted game design. It creates additional conflict for little benefit game wise. PVE players don't want conflict or they would be playing PVP.

And for those who say anti tax people are only against it because they aren't the ones receiving the tax. That's ignorant and wrong. Most PVE gamers wouldn't want a passive income at all, let alone from other players. They want to actually play a game with rewards and achievements based on their own abilities - not someone else's.

I can't help but think tax in PVE is just lazy game design - it works well in PVP and has a purpose but never should have carried over into the PVE game.

Agree, on PvE taxes is a feudal locked class system. on PvP it makes sense in the way that you can expect the land owner to protect the area and part of the income goes to that. On PvE you are just slaves. We haven´t farmed for 3-4 weeks now? And thank god for the unlimited ship resource box.

[ptonfm 7]

I do NOT farm 30% taxed land or any taxed land.  VIDEO GAME.  Part of the video game is to be selfish.  I go out of my way to walk out of taxed land to non taxed land.  The 30% taxing company is not helping me.  I shall not help them by farming on 'their' land.

(It is really first come first serve on the PvE servers, so tax is pointless, I will travel to lawless to get all the materials.)  

Why bother taxing to begin with?  Incentive to hold land.  Why hold land?  Just to tax.  It's the stupidest system in a video game. 

It's PLAYER vs ENVIRONMENT but the environment is created by PLAYERS.

This game is just a Tax Avoiding Simulator.

[uaf 47]

49 minutes ago, Jean Lafitte said:

Free Market  - In economics, a free market is a system in which the prices for goods and services are determined by the open market and by consumers. In a free market the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government, or by other authority.

Atlas Free Market - My taxes are at %20. Why?  Most of our island is at 20%.  We went to a claim yesterday a couple of grids away where we farm fiber.  I've farmed on the same guy's claim for weeks now.  Last week, the taxes were at 30%.  This week, 25%. Why?  His neighbors dropped their taxes to 25%.

Hummm... Free market.  OK, that seems to be working as intended.  Don't you think?

Watch this...

Players initially needed large quantities of resources to build bases and ships. This caused land owners to increase taxes in order to profit off those demands.  As players finish construction of their initial ships and buildings, the demand for those resources is going down thus causing land owners to reduce their taxes in order to attract new customers to their claims and keep their repeat customers (like me with fiber) from going to other claims to get what they need.

At some point there is going to be a market equilibrium (Q).

Market equilibrium: A situation in a market when the price is such that the quantity demanded by consumers is correctly balanced by the quantity that firms wish to supply.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand

We have not reached that equilibrium yet.

Now, exactly what mentality are you accusing me of having?  A realistic one?

If you think real life applies in games, you have another lesson to learn in life  In Atlas, most taxes are 30%, perhaps if you leave your region, you will find out. The mentality that "oh, players don't grief eachother given the option" type mentality. There is no "customers", everybody keeps taxes to 30% and if you want to ignore that, be my guest, it won't change the fact that taxing is badly implemented in this game. Defend it all you want with IRL counter-parts (next up you will say that "omg wood is stronger than stone IRL" because they buffed wood, so it must be true"). Don't give me the crap about market regulations and supply and demand. I doubt that everybody will reach 1% taxation to keep more "customers" coming. The taxation is bad for one simple reason, you PAY nothing for it. There is nothing keeping you from taking over the whole map if you could  

Do you want some pictures ingame to see how "free market" applies ?

12 minutes ago, Shintai said:

How did a 2K map become 6K?

It´s good for everyone besides the 20-30% owners. Everyone choose our area to farm in. The 20-30% owners pretty much get's nothing. And they have started to cut taxes as their bank is empty day after day. But people remember them

Each company member that is near the area when you dig up the map gets the amount on the map. Which is taxed individually.

This forces us to seek maps in lawless areas so we don't travel across the map in 5hrs to reach a place that has 30% tax for nothing.

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

2 hours ago, Captain Jeff said:

lmao go waste your time is this piece of shit taxing 30% to air

Bye Felicia.

[Vaenix 131]

4 minutes ago, uaf said:

If you think real life applies in games, you have another lesson to learn in life  In Atlas, most taxes are 30%, perhaps if you leave your region, you will find out. The mentality that "oh, players don't grief eachother given the option" type mentality. There is no "customers", everybody keeps taxes to 30% and if you want to ignore that, be my guest, it won't change the fact that taxing is badly implemented in this game. Defend it all you want with IRL counter-parts (next up you will say that "omg wood is stronger than stone IRL" because they buffed wood, so it must be true"). Don't give me the crap about market regulations and supply and demand. I doubt that everybody will reach 1% taxation to keep more "customers" coming. The taxation is bad for one simple reason, you PAY nothing for it. There is nothing keeping you from taking over the whole map if you could  

Do you want some pictures ingame to see how "free market" applies ?

Each company member that is near the area when you dig up the map gets the amount on the map. Which is taxed individually.

This forces us to seek maps in lawless areas so we don't travel across the map in 5hrs to reach a place that has 30% tax for nothing.

Real life mechanics can be implemented into a game as a model, this does not always mean they work but it is something game developers tend to do.  I fyou don't actually understand that you've got another lesson to learn in life.

As far as griefing, taxation is not a form of griefing no matter how much you don't like it.  I've traveled the map plenty and while yes most people do keep their taxes at 30% there are a large majority that are seeing "lower taxes = more farming = more taxes".

As an example during 2x weekends/holiday bonus events we dropped taxes on our island from 20% to 10% and ended up with nearly triple the materials from doing so because everyone was sailing to farm to our area.  

Taxation is a thing in many many games and acting like it should be stable and appease everyone in the first few months of the games release is just childish and very short sighted.  Things will stabilize soon enough.  Especially if these options open up and you can make trade negotiations with companies/allies for reduced tax rates and so on.

[Jean Lafitte 451]

1 hour ago, uaf said:

The taxation is bad for one simple reason, you PAY nothing for it.

Didn't pay for it?  I paid every single day I logged in with 40-50 deaths due to alphas, wolves, lions, snakes & vultures.  I paid over and over again dying from freezing cold because there was no paste on the island where I started and I had to ration what little I had.  I paid over and over again, working my ass off, grinding my tools down to a nub harvesting in between the naked runs to retrieve my gear from my corpse.  I paid.  For weeks I paid.  I paid in ways you obviously can't even fathom. 

And you know what.  I look up now at what I created and I am proud of that accomplishment.  I survived.  No, I prospered.  I think back to that shanty on the beach and the 1 claim I stole that started it all, and then look at the 27 claims my company now holds and realize, it was all worth it.  I look at the base I started and I am proud that others now want to join me in this adventure and expand on the foundations I created.  I paid the price to carve an existence out of a hostile frozen tundra so that those who have joined me won't have to suffer the same aggravations that I did.  And if the crew who have joined me were to ask me to pay that price again knowing that it would give them the incentive to join me again, I'd do so with even more determination.

Did I pay for all of this? You're god damned right I did.

Am I still paying for it? Willingly, every single day.

And I'll keep paying for it as long as the crew wants to call me Cap'n.

And do we charge you taxes because of the prices we've all paid to get to this point, so that you can come on our claims and build and harvest with ease? You bet your ass we do and will continue to do so for as long as this game allows it.

Edited February 4, 2019 by Jean Lafitte

[arzosah 84]

That's more than a bit hyperbolic.  The taxation system is fine

[Vaenix 131]

2 minutes ago, arzosah said:

That's more than a bit hyperbolic.  The taxation system is fine

Depending on how robust it is(haven't played with it fully for alliances/tenants) I'd say the taxation system just needs to be made more advanced so that we can designate taxes for different companies and so on so that deals can be made for lower taxes.  Such as "I'll bring you 5k iron per month for no taxes" and so on.

[ptonfm 7]

17 minutes ago, Jean Lafitte said:

so that you can come on our claims

my god dude, it's a video game.  You could have done all this in one claim on PvE. 

All tax does is drive players to lawless zones and causes more pillar spam.  The pillars protect their resource farming.....

Need proof?  GO. TO. LAWLESS. ZONE.  

[Vaenix 131]

Just now, ptonfm said:

my god dude, it's a video game.  You could have done all this in one claim on PvE. 

No you could not.  The problem with people in these games is that they will build literally wherever they can build without bothering to look at what is there.  That is why a lot of companies take more than 1 claim, to protect a resource area nearby so that they can farm without issues. 

[Chett 51]

Roses are red. Taxation is theft.

I take 5%. I think thats a fair deal. U guys who take 30% are greedy and a bit antisocial. But thats the way it is. I can deal with that.

[Case of the Scurvy 72]

Apparently everything is "killing this game"...

[Jean Lafitte 451]

2 minutes ago, ptonfm said:

my god dude, it's a video game.  You could have done all this in one claim on PvE. 

Definitely not 1.  5?  Maybe.  But that would have been a minimum.  You would have to see the location to understand.  For the longest time I think I had like 12 claims and all but like 3 of those, nobody really wanted.  Now that others have joined the company, I have felt the need to 'secure' what we do have with overlapping claims and buffers to keep other aggressive companies from trying to push us out.  I see one of my jobs as being to protect what my crew is investing in.

And had I stopped with 1 claim I never would have had the infrastructure or the resources to invite others to join me.

[Vaenix 131]

1 minute ago, Jean Lafitte said:

Definitely not 1.  5?  Maybe.  But that would have been a minimum.  You would have to see the location to understand.  For the longest time I think I had like 12 claims and all but like 3 of those, nobody really wanted.  Now that others have joined the company, I have felt the need to 'secure' what we do have with overlapping claims and buffers to keep other aggressive companies from trying to push us out.  I see one of my jobs as being to protect what my crew is investing in.

And had I stopped with 1 claim I never would have had the infrastructure or the resources to invite others to join me.

If you had stopped with 1 claim you would have lost that to overlap very shortly after the freeport issues were resolved.  The most 1 claim can offer is an open tame trap smack in the center.  Anything else and someone will overlap you and demo it quickly.

[MeatSammich 214]

Speaking as someone who has 9 claims that have a total of 20 trees, 2 metal nodes, a decent chunk of stone, and the usual fiber, berries, and veggies, the taxation system works for me. One dude can clear every resource off my land in about a half hour. A good chunk of tropical has a severe shortage of trees, and nothing sucks more than logging on and seeing all your resources gone. With a 15% tax rate, it doesnt cripple the person harvesting, but I at least get a little bit back, instead of logging on and having to either wait for resource respawn, or go to another area entirely to collect basic resources.

You say people who have the land do nothing for others. That might be true of the huge landowners, but people who own 10 or so claims around their base are keeping the predators dead, trapping and killing alphas, and making sure that no one is building on the resources so that they're there for themselves and others. Without taxes, they get nothing for any of that, just get to have their limited resources stolen.

What I'd really like to see is a variable tax rate that could be set for each company - neighbor is an ass, set their rate to 30%. Good neighbors, set it to 0% for them. As is, I basically give tax refunds to the neighbors that help me out, and toss them the resources that they get taxed.

People who want claims to go away should look at the mess that the lawless islands have become.  Add a normal respawn blockage distance to it, and the majority of the islands would be barren wastelands. It worked (to an extent) for Ark because there was a lot more land, comparatively, and multiple servers. Here, 10 foundations, or worse, shipyards,  strategically placed, can both claim, and block resource spawns for 30-50% of an island.

[wildbill 142]

1 hour ago, Vaenix said:

Real life mechanics can be implemented into a game as a model, this does not always mean they work but it is something game developers tend to do.  I fyou don't actually understand that you've got another lesson to learn in life.

As far as griefing, taxation is not a form of griefing no matter how much you don't like it.  I've traveled the map plenty and while yes most people do keep their taxes at 30% there are a large majority that are seeing "lower taxes = more farming = more taxes".

As an example during 2x weekends/holiday bonus events we dropped taxes on our island from 20% to 10% and ended up with nearly triple the materials from doing so because everyone was sailing to farm to our area.  

Taxation is a thing in many many games and acting like it should be stable and appease everyone in the first few months of the games release is just childish and very short sighted.  Things will stabilize soon enough.  Especially if these options open up and you can make trade negotiations with companies/allies for reduced tax rates and so on.

Yes, taxation is griefing. If you don't think so, then you probably have a bank and are one of the griefers.

Taxation is a game mechanic made in heaven for griefers. They can block resources from players and all they need to do is maintain a system of flags. This is way easier than pillaring all of the resources. Every griefer is laughing on the way to their bank with this system.

[Chucksteak 279]

Wait, if i go to someone elses claim, i can build there a base? Maybe a port? And they get 30% to make a galleon a day? 

So if, like another group sails by and sees a bunch of galleons they might just say fuck it and go elsewhere?

Isnt that sort of like, a trade off?

Where I save you some farm time, (cause I have to farm anyway cuase I prefer to play 3 vs 3000) and you can spend less time farming and more time being imposing with lots of galleons.

Why you people act retarded when your not?

Is there an issue with a basic tenant of society that is honestly a tried and true tool that transforms a group of survivors into a society?

Ever wonder why a policeman doesnt have to also farm food? Or a doctor?

Argue over the top rate if you like, but this is a great system. Its can level out this small vs large dynamic, even if it isnt perfect yet the idea is solid.

3 simple options to play concerning taxes;

Pay taxes, enjoy protection and staying small.

Refuse to pay taxes, enjoy no protections and being small.

Dont pay taxes, collect them, enjoy being large.