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Raine

Land Claims, Leaderboards and a change of dynamic

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Due to the scrabble to gain Leaderboard recognition, we have megacompanies forcing far smaller companies off their land and out of the game.  If the devs don't find a way to curb this, the game will end up being 7 - 10 megacompanies vying for top spot with fewer and fewer scraps of land for the majority of smaller and more independent players.  Most people don't want to play as a megacompany drone. As the devs have discovered, making room for 40,000 players who can't get a sliver of land to stay in the game is a BIG problem.  Eventually it may become a game-breaker.

What if we limited the number of land claims, and then directed the leaderboard companies who reach the claim limit to prey upon other leaderboard companies instead of on the little guys?  Make it the Battle of Giants.  The devs are fond of mini-games, so this might just fit in with their development philosophy.  

Other suggestions?

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This is a fundamental flaw in the game - and some of those mega companies are smaller than you think. 

It's why I don't play anymore but keep checking back to check if they've dumped the leaderboards in PVE and limited claims to allow new players into the game - but no sign of that yet. Very poor, lazy game design.

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Why not change the leader board system entirely?

 

Instead of land claims deciding who is top dog make it quest based.  Make it a percentage of people with x power stone.  So the company has 5% with power stone 1 and 70% with power stone 2.  Just give them a score of 5 and 70 respectively add them together for a total score and a max possible score of 900.  If you think about it small companies will have a harder time completing the tasks but getting a decent % would be easier.  Larger companies can complete the tasks easier but have more people who need the task done thus making it harder to get a good score.

 

In the end only active companies that have experienced that game as a team can be top dog.

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That sounds like a much more balanced quest.  It avoids preying on other groups and discouraging new players and instead encourages playerbase regeneration, which is what Atlas devs need to encourage.  I'd give that an UP vote, for sure.

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The best metric to measure "Top Companies" should be total Discovery Points. This goes with PvE (Powerstones, Whales, exploration) much better anyways.. and its already a measurable in-game number, easy to figure out who is on top. 

 

This might help free up land, cause as of now, no one will give up ANY land for new/lawless players because they want that leaderboard spot

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7 hours ago, Crete21 said:

The best metric to measure "Top Companies" should be total Discovery Points. This goes with PvE (Powerstones, Whales, exploration) much better anyways.. and its already a measurable in-game number, easy to figure out who is on top. 

 

This might help free up land, cause as of now, no one will give up ANY land for new/lawless players because they want that leaderboard spot

I like the idea of using discovery points, but that won't solve the land claim problem. The larger companies will still claim everything they can in order to tax it. The only way to fix the land claim problem for PVE is to limit the claims per company. Problem with a change like this is that its probably going to require a wipe of the servers.

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8 hours ago, Crete21 said:

The best metric to measure "Top Companies" should be total Discovery Points. This goes with PvE (Powerstones, Whales, exploration) much better anyways.. and its already a measurable in-game number, easy to figure out who is on top. 

 

This might help free up land, cause as of now, no one will give up ANY land for new/lawless players because they want that leaderboard spot

IMO the best way would be how much hold you have in your banks. 

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2 hours ago, TacticalNatty said:

IMO the best way would be how much hold you have in your banks. 

...which doesn't take into account the gold that you spend on crew, or cosmetics, or resource exchange, or respec soup, which for a larger company can burn through a big pile pretty quick with a couple of fully crewed and cosmetic'd galleons and brigs. It just encourages people to hoard their gold.

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6 hours ago, TacticalNatty said:

Isn't this exactly what being a pirate is about though.

If the historically and factually accurate ballads of Alestorm have taught us anything, gold ISN'T the meaning of a pirate's existance.

Rum, beer, quests and mead
These are the things that a pirate needs
Raise the flag and let's set sail
Under the sign of the Storm of Ale

Rum, the finest potion
It gives me quite the notion
To vomit over your face
Beer, so cold as ice
Its taste it will suffice
Drinking through night and through day

Quest! This is the meaning of life
A voyage into the unknown
A tankard of mead, is all that I need
To enter the partying zone

 

Note, there's nothing there about owning 1/4 of the land surface of the world, either.  I choose to believe that Atlas is less a pirate simulator, and more a simulation of expansionist era Britain on PVE, combined with a time-travelling viking simulator on PVP.

Edited by MeatSammich
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23 minutes ago, MeatSammich said:

If the historically and factually accurate ballads of Alestorm have taught us anything, gold ISN'T the meaning of a pirate's existance.

Rum, beer, quests and mead
These are the things that a pirate needs
Raise the flag and let's set sail
Under the sign of the Storm of Ale

Rum, the finest potion
It gives me quite the notion
To vomit over your face
Beer, so cold as ice
Its taste it will suffice
Drinking through night and through day

Quest! This is the meaning of life
A voyage into the unknown
A tankard of mead, is all that I need
To enter the partying zone

 

SOO what you're saying is leaderboards should be dependent on who has the most Rum? I can get down with that.

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either way, "most land claims" is a bad metric. Anything else...most gear %, most gold, most resources, most ships, most building pieces, most kills, most pets, most members, most letters in your name.... the land claims metric is just bad

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On 2/19/2019 at 8:25 AM, Raine said:

Due to the scrabble to gain Leaderboard recognition, we have megacompanies forcing far smaller companies off their land and out of the game.  If the devs don't find a way to curb this, the game will end up being 7 - 10 megacompanies vying for top spot with fewer and fewer scraps of land for the majority of smaller and more independent players.  Most people don't want to play as a megacompany drone. As the devs have discovered, making room for 40,000 players who can't get a sliver of land to stay in the game is a BIG problem.  Eventually it may become a game-breaker.

What if we limited the number of land claims, and then directed the leaderboard companies who reach the claim limit to prey upon other leaderboard companies instead of on the little guys?  Make it the Battle of Giants.  The devs are fond of mini-games, so this might just fit in with their development philosophy.  

Other suggestions?

So explain how you are getting forced off your land? Land claims are 21 days of inactivity. Period. If you login, there is NO WAY for anyone to take your land. Whether you are a solo player or a company, nothing can surpass that timer. If you have claimed land, you have nothing to worry about. The only thing they can do is grief you, which if you close your harbor in and build a decent base is a non factor.

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7 hours ago, =MGC=Ranger said:

So explain how you are getting forced off your land? Land claims are 21 days of inactivity. Period. If you login, there is NO WAY for anyone to take your land. Whether you are a solo player or a company, nothing can surpass that timer. If you have claimed land, you have nothing to worry about. The only thing they can do is grief you, which if you close your harbor in and build a decent base is a non factor.

I'm sure it's going to be some form of greifing or harassment. Personally I like the discovery point ranking for pve. That seems to be a better metric for pve companies.

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14 hours ago, =MGC=Ranger said:

So explain how you are getting forced off your land? Land claims are 21 days of inactivity. Period. If you login, there is NO WAY for anyone to take your land. Whether you are a solo player or a company, nothing can surpass that timer. If you have claimed land, you have nothing to worry about. The only thing they can do is grief you, which if you close your harbor in and build a decent base is a non factor.

I don't think anyone is getting "forced off" of land. but you just stated the problem there. If you don't have land, there is no way to get land. As you put it, there is NO WAY they can take your land. So we end up with crowded Lawless hobo players, and a system where new players get frustrated their first day playing.

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1 hour ago, Crete21 said:

I don't think anyone is getting "forced off" of land. but you just stated the problem there. If you don't have land, there is no way to get land. As you put it, there is NO WAY they can take your land. So we end up with crowded Lawless hobo players, and a system where new players get frustrated their first day playing.

This is the biggest bunch of horseSht that keeps getting regurgitated. 

There IS plenty of land available for those who are NOT lazy and expecting it to be handed to them. I consistantly find land that is either unclaimed or expired that can be claimed. I JUST found some 2 days ago when I went sailing. The game is no longer hyped and many players have left, leaving their claims (Apex Legends took a bunch). 

For those who keep complaining about not having a claim yet are unwilling to start sailing and island hopping, not having land is entirely on you. This is not little league. You will not get a participation trophy. Get off the lawless isles and start sailing. Anything less is nothing but another excuse.

 

As far as griefing..Its PVE, they cant break your stuff. Build sufficient quarters for yourself and your animals, build a protected shipyard and there is nothing anyone can do to grief you.

Edited by =MGC=Ranger

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12 minutes ago, =MGC=Ranger said:

 

This is the biggest bunch of horseSht that keeps getting regurgitated. 

There IS plenty of land available for those who are NOT lazy and expecting it to be handed to them. I consistantly find land that is either unclaimed or expired that can be claimed. I JUST found some 2 days ago when I went sailing. The game is no longer hyped and many players have left, leaving their claims (Apex Legends took a bunch). 

I do have land, and am constantly looking for more for others who don't have any. While sailing around and island hopping all the time. I have seen Polar openings, and 11-day timers, but other than that, as soon as a claim comes up for grabs, there is someone on that island that lives there and has been waiting for it to expire. 

It is possible you found a claim, but i would chalk that up to good luck.. not "There are free claims everywhere". If you know of a free claim, feel free to message me with the coords, I have players camped on my claim waiting for land, and they would very much appreciate it.

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4 hours ago, Crete21 said:

I do have land, and am constantly looking for more for others who don't have any. While sailing around and island hopping all the time. I have seen Polar openings, and 11-day timers, but other than that, as soon as a claim comes up for grabs, there is someone on that island that lives there and has been waiting for it to expire. 

It is possible you found a claim, but i would chalk that up to good luck.. not "There are free claims everywhere". If you know of a free claim, feel free to message me with the coords, I have players camped on my claim waiting for land, and they would very much appreciate it.

I have found more than 1, infact I have found MANY in my travels in several areas including desert and temperate.  I have not one, but THREE new neighbors within the last 3 weeks. One of the island inhabitants walked away from the game and 3 separate companies moved in (one which we allied with). As I said, there is claimable land out there, get on a boat and find it like everyone else. If I were to find claimable land, I wont claim it (I believe I have land and leave some for the other explorers who are to find it), but I am also not advertising it. Part of the game is the exploration of land. FYI, my new neighbors came all the way from O to H to claim their new land.

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25 minutes ago, =MGC=Ranger said:

I have found more than 1, infact I have found MANY in my travels in several areas including desert and temperate.  I have not one, but THREE new neighbors within the last 3 weeks. One of the island inhabitants walked away from the game and 3 separate companies moved in (one which we allied with). As I said, there is claimable land out there, get on a boat and find it like everyone else. If I were to find claimable land, I wont claim it (I believe I have land and leave some for the other explorers who are to find it), but I am also not advertising it. Part of the game is the exploration of land. FYI, my new neighbors came all the way from O to H to claim their new land.

I travel 8 plus blocks per evening acquiring mats for bps and mythos ect. I have not found one claimable area of value for several weeks. The claims i see avail are ocean and tiny spots land locked by other claims. 

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7 hours ago, bigfishrob said:

I travel 8 plus blocks per evening acquiring mats for bps and mythos ect. I have not found one claimable area of value for several weeks. The claims i see avail are ocean and tiny spots land locked by other claims. 

Same. I actually had my eye on a 5 day timer claim (Lowest i could find) and i showed up what i believe was an hour after it expired, and another company that lived on the island had already got it.

 

That means, 30mins to contest, plus 10 min claim, it took them 40 mins to take it, and i showed up 20 mins after that. so they were obviously waiting for it to expire... they just lived on the island so were able to get there faster.

 

I wont believe there are any free claims, or many free claims as was stated earlier in this post until i actually see one. And, i also get around quite a bit for maps and mats and such... so its not like i havent been looking. i basically run around islands with my flag out checking timers. most are 18 or 20 days.

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On 2/19/2019 at 3:37 PM, Crete21 said:

The best metric to measure "Top Companies" should be total Discovery Points. This goes with PvE (Powerstones, Whales, exploration) much better anyways.. and its already a measurable in-game number, easy to figure out who is on top. 

That's a really interesting idea.  With more than 1700 discovery points in Atlas, this mechanism would encourage a lot of sailing and a lot of interaction with fellow crewmembers whom you'd want to encourage.  The more they sail with you to Discovery Points, the more points your Company receives.  That should increase activity in the game, but I wonder how the servers will handle that.  I assume there would be a lot more Ships of the Damned kited around unintentionally.  They're always a blast.  

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First: 1 flag per player, the company limit is 100 players(do you want more territories? recruit players and have 100 flags).Want more?(earn company discoveries, 50 discoveries+flag)

Second: the first flag is not taxed. The tax for each subsequent flag, the more flags, the higher the tax (for example, 50 gold for 5 game hours+10 gold for each subsequent=60 gold  for 5 game hours (the calculation is abstract and will require adjustments). There is no gold? The area is free for capture.

Third: allow players to make a choice for the first flag(for example, on the flag choose " I choose this flag as the first (main))"

P.S sorry for my bad English 🙂

Edited by Boy

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The leaderboards are truly secondary to this problem. I didn't push lands for our company so that we would make the top 10, that was incidental. 

The land ownership of itself is of significant benefit in tax terms.

The next iteration of the system will be interesting to check but most of the "fixes" they've pushed out so far for this have made the system worse for new players. Closest we got to something fair was the 4 hour contest timers for 1-15 flags scaling down to 30 mins for the top 10. The current system looks to be 100% broken. Even the top 10 have 21 day timers (the number shown at the top of the screen) even though their flags show 3-4 days "upkeep". I camped a key position for the last 18 days, the flag itself had its timer expire over 16 days ago.

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